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RE: Are You Drinking the Transhumanist Kool-Aid?
What prevents the neural lace from becoming a two-way communications node?
Controlling populations with simple propaganda is a demonstrated effective tool. Imagine the leverage of a neural net with a command and control node that isn't even controlled by a human.
That's the pinnacle of dystopia, in my mind. Give me free will with all of its ugliness over the sterile world of """""free will and moneys"""""
It's certainly a very important and very real concern. I think the anime Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex tackled a lot of these challenges in interesting ways (cyber brain firewalls, backups, etc). Every new technology, every new change in the status quo, has been met with fear and hope. We can either cower back or we can move forward.
The Internet is also a very scary place. The breeding ground for memeatic warfare. Even now, people are being "brainwashed" by precisely controlled inputs given known worldviews which produce probabilistic outcomes. And yet, it's also the birthplace of freedom, autonomy, cryptographic security, wealth not manipulated by central bankers, open communication and so much more. To me, it's like famous scene in Empire Stries Back where what Luke finds in the cave is what he brings with him.
We have very real and important challenges to face. We also have to see the world as it really is and not live in fear. By almost every metric we can come up, death by war, famine, and disease is declining, humans are living longer, infant mortality is down, standards of living or going up. These are the facts of the world we live in and now more than ever people are moving up Maslow's Hierarchy of needs and reaching self actualization, realizing the benefits of cooperation over competition and domination.
In answer to your question: What prevents it? We do. All of us staying informed and not relying on someone else to invent or understand then next wave of technology. It's our responsibility.
(I'll leave the discussion about if free will is actually a thing to another time).
Thanks Blake. I always appreciate your perspective.
Same to you, brother.
I think we're on the same page, even same paragraph.
My instincts tell me that the temptation will be for the power to be abused UNLESS the current group of technocrats and unelected bureaucrats can be stripped wholly of ACCESS to that power.
Things like the blockchain indicate that there are technological solutions moving forward, but I feel like the tempting slipstream into the abyss has been outpacing the virtuous, cooperative constructions for thousands of years, by at least a few paces. Right now, it feels like we're on the edge of a huge battle between the cooperation and domination as you aptly point out.
If there are legit brain firewalls that I can program simply, I'd be on-board :)
I need to find the Ghost In The Shells without english language tracks and just the subtitles. I hate anime without the japanese language for some reason hah.
Great talk indeed! You always seem to come at me from a solid angle that challenges my thoughts without an ego. We should do a podcast or something sometime :D