Life is as beautiful and bountiful as we make it, we get out, what we put in…I don’t want to go into a philosophical rant, but I’m starting to understand Peter Diamandis’ passion and frustration more…because it often feels like people’s problems boil down to willpower, or lack their of, then anything actually tangible barring their way….that they’d be a whole lot happier if they only had a different perception of things.

But I’m generalizing….people must find happiness on their own terms…it pays though to always be self-conscious, be open to new things, and transcend and succeed old ways of thinking and being if they aren’t working for you anymore, or were what you once thought…. to always seek out ways to better ourselves, as to become the best that we can be…because we really owe ourselves nothing less.

To me, that’s one of my core beliefs right now on what it means to be human.

Just wonderful, I ended up ranting after all.

It’s the same with colonoscopy and other uncomfortable check-ups….thankfully, we’ll have the opportunity to render them obsolete.

“haptic” feedback and “smell-o-vision” are silly –. The true evolution is “No UI” … voice controls and 3d “screens” or glasses will be all that is needed. People poking at screens with fat fingers is not the future.

I do like the environment as I am human and subject to the same nostalgic brain as the next person.

I also realize, however, that for one, the environment is constantly changing. Species are dying out every day and new ones emerge even without human intervention. Just look at a time laps video. Natural change is very slow compared to our short lives which is why we feel the sense of loss now due to the sped up changes.

And secondly, it’s very hard to really understand that we are not just a part of this “environment” but everything that we create is also a part of the environment. Everything (even bombs) are made from the environment and fully part of this environment, they are just converted to a form that serves a different (more desired?!?) purpose.

As we are technologically approaching the “knowledge base” that our environment worked out in billions of years through evolution. We will slowly take over control and create (or recreate) any environment that we want to live in.

Behold the raw, nauseating abyss of acceleration:

http://vimeo.com/16056709

This archaic system has really polarized people. You have the really wealthy live in desirable areas close to work. On the other hand, the rest either live in the middle of nowhere or in decanted urban cores. It’s leading to many feeling rather disappointed, because despite being heavily indebted, suburbia doesn’t make them free.

Newcomers can’t even access the market and often carry large student debts. Sure, technology is accessible, but one does require shelter and even renting is costly. This property and further credit nonsense has to go for people to feel more optimistic about the future. Our society should be geared at promoting productive activities such as Arts, Science, and Technology, and producing knowledge-workers rather than drones.

The models suggest large losses, but there is no need to give up. New technologies going to play a huge role in the re-establishing communities affected by sea level rise. We’re going to see a leapfrogging process where new cities built will be more livable and sustainable than older ones.

But I’d argue that constant tribal warfare, infant mortality, and total superstition and ignorance about everything except which roots/berries to eat (or, depending on how nostalgic you are, the crude palette of experiences available to a chimp-level creature) were worse, on average, for everybody, than the historical blip that was trench warfare, as Steven Pinker and Hans Rosling show.

Was the 30 years war really that much more fun? How about running into the next village and slaughtering everybody – men, women, and children – with swords and spears?

When would you set the clock back to? When was the golden age?

Most people are already “number 2 species”: only about 10% of people run the planet, if that. Their masters just aren’t artificial (though the AIs that run the economy could be considered such), yet there’s no rebellion. The masters can hide and have built systems that can’t be attacked or have so little attack surface that is well distributed that any attacks can be easily deflected – there is no possibility of a massive all-fronts campaign that will lead to victory. Those visions of battle belong to history, to I and II WW I’m afraid.

Humans know that in any battle between those who are artificial, made of hardware (practically infinitely replicable at high speed), and those who are natural and squishy, the squishy get squished.

The flying terminator drones we have terminating everyone in sight with impunity already demonstrate this clearly for everyone. Soon they will go semi-autonomous, and eventually, inevitably, autonomous, when their responses are 99.9% similar to human combatants. And they will be everywhere. It’s a lesson we’re learning as a civilization every day, and it reaches the most underdeveloped places first. The idea of Artilects AKA Robot Overlords is rapidly becoming reality to them; they may never see a human attacking them.

By the time the Artilects arrive, which I do not doubt and don’t think there are arguments against, robotics has been so advanced – practically perfected – for a long time that only severely delusional people would try to mount any kind of resistance. For years they’ve seen people who attempt resistance detained or blown to bits by the friendly neighborhood peace enforcing bots, airborne, ultra fast and resistant to bullets, practically unreachable – and there’s always more if you happen to disable one. They know what they’re up against. If there ever was ‘no contest’, this would be it.

Hopium addiction is dangerous.

I imagine our world would appear to be utopian to someone the further and further you go back in time….. and though it undoubtedly will have it’s share of issues and concerns….from our eyes, the future will be seen as a magical place where everyone is even more ‘god-like’ then we are…..frankly, I’d rather take my chances on that world then excessively rationalizing Death to the point that I convince myself I’m headed to an even greater utopia.

The point I’m making with this post is, is this – I know you have your concerns over the possibility of malevolent AI, and indeed, it’s something that should be addressed…but you can’t gloss over at the sheer happiness and quality of life we are so fortunate to enjoy by living in the time-period that we do, and much of it has been brought to us through technology….the fact that we are communicating through this artificial medium called the “Internet” is a testament to that — try explaining THAT to someone from the gay 90′s.

I can’t feel I agree with your fears…why do you believe this war will take place and people will go all Unabomber? Oh their will be passionate disagreement, no doubts there….but, and maybe this is naivete, I’d like to believe that only an extreme minority would actually raise up firearms and believe the only solution is war….these are people who fail to see benefits of the technology we are talking about, or do and still somehow believe the only solution is violence…..again, perhaps this is naivete talking, but I don’t think the vast majority would stoop to that level, no matter how passionate they get in their disagreement. If half of humanity genuinely feels afraid, then THIS is the time to start having a public dialog to talk about various ethics and issues that are related to these technologies, so the Peril can be contained and minimized as much as possible, so we can best reap and enjoy the Promise.

All this may be over-optimistic, but that’s how I hope things turn out…

Rates of major depression isn’t really something I can answer since that is too individual, but with the exponentially growing quality of life not to mention the major shifts to come like the vast abundance of resources (and hopefully moving to a resource-based economy to finish the issue of money), it’s something sure to be alleviated.

As for species extinction….I’m not sure if you are talking about human beings or animals; for the former, that will never change and will actually get bigger (the risk) as time goes on, but so too will are defenses. When it comes to animals, preservation of animals of animals can be aided by food no longer coming from livestock alongside GMOS – the same “cloning” technology can help with preserving endangered species by preserving their cells.

All the tech above will take time to perfect, as with any tech…this goes without saying – like with GMOS, it’s controversal now, but that’s because it’s still less then perfect and the natural stuff is better…but when it’s healthier and tastes better, the tone will change and it’s really only a matter of time over anything else.

The issues you brought up, in a sense, are also sort of overblown in a sense….Climate change isn’t gonna wipe us all out next week like “the day after tomorrow”, and that goes for pollution, or really any of those issues….can we afford to waste time on solving the world’s grand challenges? Of course not, but if we’re talking technology, the good news is, is that it exponentially gets better faster….so we won’t have to wait as long as one might think.

Am I overblowing what I’ve said? Perhaps…a resource-economy change isn’t this “no big deal” thing we can do in a snap – but the thing is, it could end up being a “do or die” moment when these things reach a more mature mainstream point and decisions have to be made about what to do now and, say, the issue of money is holding everyone back. Maybe I AM a bit too optimistic but if the issue is the government, individual empowerment will only go up and when it does, It doesn’t seem like a stretch to think the government will increasingly have to pay more attention to the wishes of it’s people.

trakk, if you hopped into a time machine and went to the gay 90s (1890s) and told them about the horrors of trench warfare in WW1 they probably would not believe you. Similarly, all the technological wizardry of our current age may be bringing us closer to the Artilect War – “All (tech) roads lead to the Artilect”. From future hindsight, it might look as though the more we advance technologically, the closer we come to the crunch time of making the bitter decision whether to build the artilect or not. About half of humanity (according to preliminary surveys) is bitterly opposed to becoming the number 2 species (superseded by the artilects and cyborgs) and will go to war, assassinating the artilect builders and cyborg companies, to keep humans as the dominant species.

The next 2-3 decades will be a very volatile and most dangerous part of our evolution. Individual empowerment will grow to such an unimaginable extent that one person could have the power to put a stop to our multibillion-year “effort”. Do you trust every individual on Earth with the possibilities of nanotechnology?!? The only way to survive (in my opinion) is to sort of sneak up on ourselves with technology that directly connects to our brains and “upgrades” it. Our technology far outgrew the limited individual brains we have today. The only way we could achieve this amazing technology is having millions of brains working in “parallel” (the exact logical reason for population growth).

So in a sense (as sad as it sounds) , the environment is our fuel now to “create intelligence” the quickest way possible in order to prevent our demise. There is no turning back now. In the next few decades we will change our species either to nothing or to the next evolutionary step. If we survive, we will have the power to recreate the environment with all the biodiversity that we love so much on this planet or on some “designated” bio planets for vacationing on when we feel like a break from our grander task of “Waking Up the Universe”.