In the meantime, there are encouraging signs. As you can see from Giuseppe’s comment below, politicians read KurzweilAI, which is good! Of course, we must keep working and reaching out to the public, the voters.

What race? Just a childish pretense at space mastery by planting a national flag on the moon.

Yet another stupid phallocratic egomaniac demonstration of the real rubbish motivations driving this achievement.

It would have been time to grow up by preparing for a permanent base, but no, nothing then and nothing now.

Many politicians have nothing against vision, it is just that they love power and cash more. Unpopular causes don’t attract voters. It is _our_ fault that we have fallen out of love with space. If we loved space like in the 60s, politicians would love it too.

One has to applaud the Swiss authorities for such foresight. On the other hand one has to lament for the total lack of imagination or recognition of the expectable contribution from science and technology in solving the impending energy crisis (notwithstanding the potential occurrence of the “Singularity” before 2050).

This is so typical of the current crop of politicians so devoid of genuine vision. Yet another example of the blindness to the nonlinearity of technological progress Ray is so often denouncing.

The average public and his representing authorities still fall short of true appreciation of this phenomenon and are backing under ambitious claims for the possible achievements in 2050.

Note that there are blaring counterexamples. Considering Neil Armstrong achievement in 1969, it is such a pity that there is, 43 years ahead, nobody and no installation on the moon now.
John F. Kennedy would be ashamed!

I mentioned this past movement to give evidence to my claim/thought that technology seems to have been an important thing to the people who lived (and live, it seems) in what is modern day Italy.Even in times of dictatorship, which I think is rather remarkable. For all I know, most manifestations of dictatorship are anti-science/ change in their outlook because new technology and new insights can be destabilizing (e.g leading to change, thereby enhancing the probability of social change) and thus really have potential to get in the way of maximizing the payoff of leaders (they’d rather play it safe).This normaly leads to relative backwardness, something which, at least technological, was not the case in Italy.

Maybe this not being afraid of change, in general, was rooted in the fact that (Christianity aside) Rome/Italy was often very pluralistic.Many Gods, many non-Italian provinces, lots of different philosophy (e.g Greek influence), later many states with different allies outside Italy etc.It is also one of the younger nation states.

Of course, these are just some of my ideas after reading this Article, and I am not presumptious enough to try and “explain”/argue about Italy to an Italian.

Ps: It seems many proponents of transhumanism have an interdisciplinary background, by that I mean studied many different subjects to a deeper level.Something they have in common with past’s renaissance men.

Futurism emphasized speed and technology. It also emphasized violence, in the sense of eliminating the old to make place for the new, but we should not forget that most ideologies promoted violence at that time, and most nations were at war all the time. So, I think the emphasis on violence was an incidental concession to the zeitgeist rather than a defining feature of Futurism. Today’s Italian Futurists, who claim Marinetti’s heritage (see link in the post), are peaceful and non-violent.

Since that could be controversial on here I qoute from wiki: “Mussolini’s use of systematic propaganda to pass on simple slogans such as “believe, obey, fight” and his exploitation of the radio developed under the influence of Italian Futurism. Futurism was an intellectual movement which forcefully emphasized three main ideas: technology, speed, and violence.

@Gibson: In the moment in which you call other forms of groupbuilding than yours tribalism you yourself are engaging in it.Identifiyng as member of one group does not exclude the membership of an rather abstract “human/all group”.This tribalism charge often comes from people who grew up in “immigration countries”, who should neither take themselves to be representative for humanity as a whole nor for the pinnacle of civilization.Just look at your crime rates.

And anti-democratic does not nessecarily have to be something bad (I know, I am evil); for example pure democratic rule would often trample the rights of minorities.As for today, most people killed by foreign powers seem to be killed by self-styled democracies.

@James.Transhumanism advocates extreme intervention and changes in the human body, thus changing what’s build in god’s likeness.Back then, when christians had more might than today, even examination of dead bodies was forbidden.This hardly meshes with the pro-science,pro human point of view.