Comments on: Ask Ray | Will future people lose sight of their humanity?

By: codesimian

codesimian — Wed, 30 May 2012 09:55:07 +0000

In “A Nice Place to Visit?” which can be watched for 2 dollars here http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0734544/ at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Movie_Database … and assuming Heaven and Hell exist as described in that story, where Hell is a place you get anything you want without limit and therefore lack the challenge of getting those things and get bored to death… The man who went to Hell lacks imagination because all he has to do is ask for an exact duplicate of the whole universe (defined as “everything that exists”, so in this story it would also include a duplicate of Heaven and Hell and all souls) and instantly he has escaped Hell for all practical purposes.

I probably wouldn’t do anything that wasteful. I’d start by building various life forms, starting with artificial intelligence and progressing to quantum equations as I learned more math. Isolated from his friends, his only choice is to build the life forms he would interact with.

By: greg

greg — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 23:23:03 +0000

me three

By: Guillermo

Guillermo — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 14:13:37 +0000

I want to know as well!!

By: luke

luke — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 01:53:18 +0000

What happened to “Ask Ray”? Why hasn’t it been updated? Anyone know?

By: volejma

volejma — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 13:30:11 +0000

The point of this episode is to show the downsides of being able to achieve anything one wants. And I think the filmmakers brought it out quite skillfully. But in doing so they were forced to present only the activities in which you either win or lose. You have money or not, the girl likes you or not, you win the roulette or not. But I think that these are not the only things that gives a person fulfillment.

I would say that most things you do (and like to do) are not win/lose feats. Even in this “hell” of abundance you could read a book, learn something new, play music. Even the musician that mastered his instrument perfectly still gets kicks from playing it.

The most hellish part of the hell in this episode I guess is (and that’s probably the thing @Heyoka doesn’t like either) that Mr. Valentine was not able to bring his friends into this realm. He was there alone with nobody to share his abundance except for the props.

By: Renzo Canepari

Renzo Canepari — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 17:10:45 +0000

There was also a Twilight Zone episode with a name lime, ” The Old Man in the Cave.” I was only six or seven years old when I saw it, so I’m a little vague about things.
The star of the episode was a Moses type who would go to the cave to consult with a superior being.
Mankind had created an atomic war, and the Old Man in the cave would tell them what an where in the radiation saturated soil they could plant, how they should live, etc.
This was an unpleasant bland existence, so one day the citizens rose up and forced “Moses” to take them to see the Old Man in the Cave.
The old man turned out to be a computer. At least, it was a show business “prop” of one. It was probably something built by Seymour Cray in 1959, when he was still working at Control Data–(joke.)
The point of the show was that mankind poisoned the earth, and without the discipline of the computer, said mankind would not have survived.

By: Heyoka

Heyoka — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:13:32 +0000

I’d also like to point out that given the ability to meet ones needs perfectly, at least in a human being, results in that human being meeting his needs perfectly. A solipsist black hole, err, singularity.

By: Heyoka

Heyoka — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 09:07:45 +0000

As an example….Coordinated Communal Dancing. Square dancing and a million other variants is what I’m talking about. This activity was a fun athletic social activity that diffused social anxiety through silliness and fumbling. The coordination, attention etc etc make these things deeply fullfilling. It is bonding play for a community that depends on each other.
Doesn’t happen anymore. Kids don’t play in neighborhoods.

All this polymer and silicone shit these corporations bait people with can’t hold a candle to a group of friends doing some kind of coordinated play like square dancing.

Ray, if you really think you got the future right, you are so far off you’re stupid.

By: Heyoka

Heyoka — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 08:58:20 +0000

Yes. They will loose their humanity. Commonality of experience is a requirement for human connection. I can’t even discuss a movie with someone anymore because we both watched different versions. I communicate more with computer screens than living people.

The qualities we know as human evolved in a tribal setting. Collaborative survival within a tribe or clan. The qualities of compassion and altruism are born in the struggle to survive together. These qualities were born within tribes. An evolutionary adaptation born in biology and nurtured within culture. Culture contains the social constructs for defining the ways of interacting. These qualities were born in groups who struggled together through all stages of there lives.

The RULE of evolution is change. Adaptation to pressure. Humans will be modified into appropriate parts for increasingly intelligent , ever more cohesive corporate ultraintelligences.

If there is no need for human characteristics to facilitate perpetuation, there will be no human characteristics.perpetuated. The dominant life form on this planet is the corporation.

I thought computers were the interesting bit and they are but they are so much the interesting part it’s easy to forget the metaverse they’re perpetuating in.

Being a corporate guy he might not have seen the forest for the trees. Court Astrologers were careful not to upset their kings.

By: proximan

proximan — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 21:18:04 +0000

Dear Ray,
I’ve contacted both the NIH and Ron Fouchier’s associates in Holland about his tampering with the Bird Flu Virus. This subject was also covered on NBC on Dec. 15 by Robert Bazell. Have you or anyone in your organization been active in trying to suppress this information from being published?