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PaperclipPerfector  8mo ago (text post)   28360 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of August 28, 2023

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I don't think Ted Kaczynski's vision of technological regression is possible. People naturally want wealth, power, fun, longevity and status.

It's pretty funny that a mathematician with a 150 IQ couldn't see doing away with industry was implausible from just the game theory angle, however..

Why should we see Mars as a planet for living on, when it could be cubic kilometres of construction material, inconveniently sitting at the bottom of a gravity well? That's real transhumanism in my book, a radical change to how one sees the world.

Indeed. Let me quote imo the least appreciated contemporary British philosopher:

Conspicuously missing from the public space debate, therefore, is any frank admission that, “(let’s face it folks)—planets are misallocations of matter which don’t really work. No one wants to tell you that, but it’s true. You know that we deeply respect the green movement, but when we get out there onto the main highway of solar-system redevelopment, and certain very rigid, very extreme environmentalist attitudes—Gaian survivalism, terrestrial holism, planetary preservationism, that sort of thing—are blocking the way forward, well, let me be very clear about this, that means jobs not being created, businesses not being built, factories closing down in the asteroid belt, growth foregone. Keeping the earth together means dollars down the drain—a lot of dollars, your dollars. There are people, sincere people, good people, who strongly oppose our plans to deliberately disintegrate the earth. I understand that, really I do, you know—honestly—I used to feel that way myself, not so long ago. I, too, wanted to believe that it was possible to leave this world in one piece, just as it has been for four billion years now. I, too, thought the old ways were probably best, that this planet was the place we belonged, that we should—and could—still find some alternative to pulling it apart. I remember those dreams, really I do, and I still hold them close to my heart. But, people, they were just dreams, old and noble dreams, but dreams, and today I’m here to tell you that we have to wake up. Planets aren’t our friends. They’re speed-bumps on the road to the future, and we simply can’t afford them anymore. Let’s back them up digitally, with respect, yes, even with love, and then let’s get to work …” [Thunderous applause]

entire essay in pdf ^^

Thought-provoking stuff. I wish he'd be clearer and say 'New Space is wedged between their grand, extremely based and megalomaniacal visions of stellar-scale deconstruction and the tiny, incoherent things that are politically acceptable to announce'. If that was the message. I'm not sure anybody's too certain about what Land is saying. Perhaps not even Nick himself: https://twitter.com/Outsideness/status/1334309844086480896#m

In any event, it's locked in. It couldn't matter less what the hoi-polloi want - the planets will be disassembled regardless either by us, by someone or something. Or if not, then only because it's not efficient and there are more economical uses of resources.

People seem extremely keen on the "nothing ever happens" philosophy - some form of stasis.

If that was the message. I'm not sure anybody's too certain about what Land is saying.

I think he's pretty certain what he meant but I also think if you read him avidly rather than with apprehension, you're probably bonkers.

Given how things have worked out in the past, it could very well be that the project for deconstruction of planets will get off the ground at the same time someone figures out making your own pocket universes using a particle accelerator, ingenuity and an unbelievable amount of chutzpah.

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