Human Evolution: Speeding? Splitting? Borging?... and a dozen Olympics?

A number of recent web-notables all seem to revolve (eccentrically) around the question of human evolution.  Whether it continues…

These are some very interesting articles/sci-fi works.  I found the articles about autism very encouraging being that I’m autistic myself.  The short film you gave a link to was very interesting (and a little chilling as well) like you said and in some was probable (hopefully not the mind control part at the end, otherwise there would be a whole bunch of ethical issues).  Though I personally would want to have pop-ups in my vision all the time (I have a hard enough time getting catchy songs out of my head).  Sense this article involves human evolution and short films, I think you would really enjoy this new short film “Love Like Aliens” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWoudbndXbw). Here’s the synopsis:
In a future not too far from now, humanity has advanced to a point where the line between Homo Sapiens and Androids have blurred completely. This has occurred so that the species could survive. Technology has allowed humans to travel into deep space to colonize other planets and galaxies deep in the universe because Earth has become uninhabitable. One of the many unfortunate results of this robotic Darwinism is that human behavior and consciousness has also changed over the years. Much of what makes one human—love, family, intimacy etc., have all become things of the past. Almost legend…

It may be something worth posting on this site.

“One of the many unfortunate results of this robotic Darwinism is that human behavior and consciousness has also changed over the years. Much of what makes one human—One of the many unfortunate results of this robotic Darwinism is that human behavior and consciousness has also changed over the years. Much of what makes one human—love, family, intimacy etc., have all become things of the past., have all become things of the past.”

You wrote of this before and are right to bring it up again. In the years since 9-11, it gradually dawned on me we have less to lose than previously thought; incidentally, what is war?: A part of the intense dislocation of modern change. In the ‘50s one might have wanted to hold on tight to love, family, intimacy etc—however today they are not what they once were. Chris, I’m deep down so backward-looking I’d like to freeze time but even I know time and tide wait for no man and no family.
Utopianism fails because we all move on in one way or another. And, frankly, people don’t give up their power- they just shift to a different mode.. so IMO such indicates we have less to lose than ever before.

Chris,
sorry to botch your quote; at any rate here is a quote from Extropy-Chat, one that has had me thinking all week. Will include the entire msg. So as not to quote out of context the entire msg. is included below, with that which is IMO the most intriguing:

“I completely agree with you, that we need more energy, and more believers, or converts, if you will.  We can’t do anything, alone.  The bottom line is, many people have mistaken working hypothosis, so are pushing in the wrong direction, or failing to push in the right direction.  It’s simply a matter of they lack proper moral knowledge, and are thereby not choosing what they really want. Most cryonicists think the arguments that converted them, will convert everyone else, and spout mostly just that.  I think that is another big problem, as everyone is very different.  You’ve got to fully understand and work within the current beliefs of others, before you can hope to help them see something better. Also, in my opinion, I think you are grossly mistaken, and wasting significant amounts on any efforts towards “reversal of aging”, which will basically get us nothing.  (i.e. we’ll still have accidents that will kill us, and all the other problems that go along with having a primitive dumb minimalistic brain, even if it doesn’t age.)
We simply need to discover what consciousness is, and then duplicate it, and copy it trillians of times - solving ALL of our problems, not just curing some trivial aging problem of some soon to be very outdated and primitive platform we’re all about to completely abandon.  Any work spent on that is a complete immoral waist of time, in my opinion. Again, in my opinion, your mistaken beliefs are killing us, and many others, because it causes you to waste time on the wrong thing. The bottom line is, we’ve got to amplify the moral intelligence and wisdom of everyone (maybe I’m morally mistaken also?), so everyone can
intelligently make the right choices. And the best way to do that is first, find out what everyone currently
does believe, and value, and why. Then you need to giveeveryone the ability to survey their chosen experts, to see what they say we should do (experts, no matter who, will always be more intelligent than lay populations.)  And we need to measure for what people believe, and know why, so we can better convert them, from within their reference, or set
of values. In other words, we need to provide a way for all the experts to measure for how well their arguments are working, or not, and find out what it would take to convert people to better behavior, using their current values, not ours, sooner, and focus on getting that. In other words, everything we’re trying to do at canonizer.com. By the way, check out the new “Amplifying the Wisdom of the Crowd: Building, and Measuring for Expert and Moral Consensus” paper by James Carol, linked to on the front page of Canaonizer.com. It’s all about knowing, concisely and quantitatively, what everyone else wants.  And measuring that, so it can improve. If the experts can measure all that, concisely and quantitatively, for everyone,  then improving it and eventually getting it all, for and with everyone will
be trivial. As long as people believe they want to die, or never age in some primitive platform, that’s where we’ll continue to be heading.  I know what it will take to convince me, I’m already converted.  The question is, what do you currently believe, and what will it take to convert you, and everyone else, or visa versa?
Brent Allsop”

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