Friday, 27 December 2013

Max Keiser Flawed Doom Future Collapse

Let's consider the predictions of Max Kesier regarding what the near future could entail. In November 2013 I politely questioned Max Keiser regarding his and Gerald Celente's predictions of economic collapse that never come. I stated all governments worldwide by now, if we listened to their predictions, should have collapsed; we should in late 2013 be daily fighting Mad Max type battles in the streets, total anarchy, if we believed the predictions of Max, Gerald, or Alex Jones.


The response from Max, when I challenged his predictions, was to block me on Twitter. I think his blocking response is because he doesn't want to engage in rational debate regarding his hype, he doesn't want the truth exposed.

Here is perhaps the best refutation of Keiser's predictions. The following video, Total Collapse in 2013, was published 2nd August 2012 regarding, according to one blogger, a "99.9% probability of total and utter collapse before April 2013."



Let's consider another doom forecaster, similar to Max. Note how Gerald Celente claimed collapse was imminent in June 2013. Celente has subsequently stated there would be total economic collapse in the first quarter of 2014 but I am sure the total collapse forecast for the first quarter of 2014 will be identical to the total collapse of 2012, which never happened.

It's similar to when Russia invaded Georgia in 2008, which caused Alex Jones suggest it was a pretext for WW3; or when during mid to late 2013 Alex stated the pending invasion of Syria was again a pretext for WW3. Oh yeah? So where is WW3? Note also the frequent WW3 predictions about the Iran invasion which has not happened yet despite Alex repeatedly predicting it will. Perhaps Alex will claim he continually stops the World Wars he predicts approximately three times per year.

So is collapse imminent? Max seems very convinced thus we have another video from around the same time period as the previous video. The following video, featuring Max, published via the Alex Jones channel on 17th August 2012, states economic collapse is imminent:



Already at the end of 2013 we can see the above "imminent" prediction is wrong, but if we give the prediction more time, perhaps one year or two to see what happens, I guarantee a big nothing will have happened. Yes stocks and shares may drop but I assure you they will rebound. Don't believe the hype by Max and others. The description for the above 2012 video stated: "On the Friday, August 17 edition of the Alex Jones Show, Alex welcomes economist, journalist and American broadcaster Max Keiser to discuss the warning signs of an impending economic collapse, the effect this will have globally and solutions that would bring us back from certain financial doom."

Below is another video, published 5th June 2012, regarding the flawed predictive ability of Max Keiser. This time, amongst other things, he's predicting collapse of money and other societal breakdowns, which didn't really happen. The YouTube description, for the video titled "Keiser Report: Paper Money Collapse (E297)," stated: "In this episode, Max Keiser and co-host, Stacy Herbert, discuss all hell breaking loose as an electronics chain store stockpiles security shutters, capital flees Greece (and Spain) and Max proposes a love market. In the second half of the show Max talks to Detlev Schlichter, author of Paper Money Collapse, about the euro, the drachma, the dollar and gold."



Instead of predicting the future I think Max is actually trying to create the future as he sees it. I think he is manipulating the economy according to his viewpoint, which can easily be done by instilling fear, but despite his attempts to collapse things, via instilling fear, any crashes have not been anyway near as dramatic as they predicted (they tried to create) thus we can see the economy is actually extremely resilient because it surrvives the relentless negativity via Max and others.

 Max doesn't predict doom he tries to create it. I think he's using the media to manipulate markets but the funniest thing is, the markets are too resilient.

The following quote from The Guardian corroborates my assertion Max doesn't predict disaster he tries to create it:

"On my show, Keiser Report, I recently invited Michael Krieger, a regular contributor of Zero Hedge (the WikiLeaks of finance). We posited that if 5% of the world's population each bought a one-ounce coin of silver, JP Morgan would be forced to cover their shorts – an estimated $1.5tn liability – against their market capital of $150bn, and the company would therefore go bankrupt. A few days later, I suggested on the Alex Jones show that he launch a "Google bomb" with the key phrase "crash jp morgan buy silver"."

If the flawed predictions of Max and others are actually attempts to influence the market and society according to their viewpoint, then their incorrect predictions perhaps make more sense instead of being merely nonsense. Their incorrect predictions are thus merely failures regarding social engineering.

In sociology a positive feedback, a network effect, can be induced contrary to facts, reality. A bank run thus can occur dependent on imagined disaster instead of actual disaster. A self-fulfilling prophecy can alter reality contrary to reality, thus a loving marriage can be destroyed if one partner constantly expects destruction because the constant expectation of doom creates an unhappy marriage. Ironically when, or if, doom does arise the forecaster of doom will ignorantly state they were right to have their fears, they will be totally oblivious or unwilling to acknowledge how their expectations, their fears, actually created the destruction.

Here is another video of Max predicting doom from a similar time period to the other videos. The following video, published on 17th September 2012, is titled "Max Keiser: Global Collapse by April!" Yet at the end of December 2013 there is no global collapse, where is the global collapse? The video description states: "Max discuss collateral transformation desk feeding the multitude of banksters with five quadrillion in infinitely leveraged toxic derivatives and two Treasury bills of a bankrupt nation."



I realise the world of 2013, 2014, and for a few years more (at least) is far from being utopia. There are many bad aspects of our world regarding financial corruption, inequality. Total collapse can therefore be appealing for people who feel oppressed by our system, thus they want it to be true but engineering the collapse might not be the best option, although probably their desire to create a collapse would be thwarted because the system is very resilient.

Big changes will happen to our civilization sometime between 2014 and 2045, probably much close to 2045 than 2014. I am sure money will become obsolete due to everything being free regarding Post-Scarcity, thus at some point I think we should switch from an inflationary economic model to a deflationary economic model, which means prices would deflate to zero whereupon everything is free. The transition to everything being frees does not need to involve chaotic collapse, riots, anarchy, insurrection. The implementation of basic income is a good step towards everything being free. Switzerland has demonstrated basic income can be discussed in a civilized manner without chaos, doom, or collapse:



Initially when Max blocked me on Twitter I intended to ignore it but then I was invited to a hangout Max held on 6th December 2013, so I decided to create this blog-post based on a comment I made on the hangout page. These issues are trivial, petty, and depressing but perhaps they are worthwhile to document because countering irrational predictions of doom could accelerate the arrival of utopia. For completeness below is a video of the hangout in question, which I haven't watched so I have no idea if additional wrong predictions made in it but it's good to include it. If you have any comments, mention me on Twitter or G+.



After finishing this blog-post I discovered the following Tweet, which mentions the "GLOBAL ECONOMIC COLLAPSE." The tweet directs people to a recent (28 Dec 2013) video by Max Keiser (Keiser Report Episode 542), which I have embedded below the Tweet.

My major point regarding all the "collapse" nonsense is that people could spend their energy more profitably, they could focus on helping to accelerate technology, which is the only true solution to all the problems in the world.


Blog-post by published

Monday, 23 December 2013

Sledgehammer Smashing Coincidence History

I Tweeted, On 6th December 2013, regarding how I would prefer to smash things up with a sledgehammer, in a legal way, utterly lawful, instead of Tweeting things. Perhaps I was influenced by the Security Services smashing up computers at The Guardian offices:


Coincidentally a couple of days later, on 8th December 2013, various pictures appeared via the media regarding Ukraine protesters (Kyiv) smashing a toppled Lenin statue. I don't know if the Lenin-statue-smashing was legal, probably it wasn't, but it's nevertheless an interesting coincidence.


Here is one final Tweet, which is not related to the smashing, but the Kyiv protests are a good addition to the following historically rich times we are experiencing:

Blog-post by published

Sunday, 22 December 2013

Assume Makes Ass Out of U Me

In November 2013 I became involved in an Twitter discussion regarding how the Elites supposedly deemed magic to be a threat. If magic is supposedly so powerful why are all the wizards or witches not billionaires?


I stated magic isn't a threat, there is nothing specifically threatening about magic, the Elites merely seek to enforce conformity for all aspects of living to ensure the lower classes don't think or act regarding unequal wealth.

The goal of Elite authoritarianism is merely to create masses of unquestioning minds, a social structure of mental regimentation where people are unlikely to think outside the box thus they are unlikely to question wealth inequality. There is no particular power or ideology the Elites fear.

Magic will not give anyone super-powers but it could be a stepping-stone to people thinking oppositionally regarding massively unequal wealth. Magic could be the beginning of a person refusing to do what they are told, magic could be the start of people developing rigorous intellectual ability, but most certainly your "spells" will be utterly ineffective.

Magic is similar to homosexuality or Catharism regarding how these traits have historically be suppressed, the only threat-value against the Elites is the non-conformity threat. We are not living in the Matrix, reality is not a simulation by post-Singularity beings, you will never be able to fly or bend reality in the modality of Neo, but people often do engage in magical thinking.

Sadly many supposed nonconformists grasp nonconformity but then they channel their nonconformity into another mode of conformity, they merely leap from one box into another box. Their nonconformity, instead of becoming a stepping-stone to genuine intellectualism, merely becomes escapism, a way to delude themselves regarding reality, which is actually perfectly acceptable to the Elites, it fits perfectly into the social structure of maintaining wealth inequality, it's a great safety value whereby nonconformists can be channelled into ineffectual escapism.

I therefore attempted to explain the nonsense of magic during the aforementioned Twitter discussion, but I was rebuked when I used the word "assume" thus I've written this blog-post primarily to explain the nonsense of dismissing a viewpoint merely because someone used the word assume.

When people smugly state "assume makes and ass out of you and me" they perhaps think they have ingeniously revealed a powerful truth regarding logic, a secret hidden meaning of a word, but in reality we are merely considering a silly phrase. The dictionary definition of assume isn't "assume makes and ass out of you and me." Assumptions can be right or wrong. Yes it would asinine to base an entire theory on assumptions but it is equally asinine to trumpet the assume makes and ass our of you and me slogan whenever someone uses the word assume.   
 

Here are my responses:


I am not sure if "assertivenesses" is actually a valid word but it fits well with people who assertively assume "assume" makes an ass out of anyone, their assertivenesses are asinine, they are making an ass out of veriest sense, which means the whole situation is very nonsensical thus we can ignore sense. Or we could say people who assertively assume silly magical definitions for "assume" are making their ass-status viler yet (assertively). Perhaps it is simply best explain how you are a rude ass if you are assured about the word "assume" making an ass out of you and me. Maybe the new definition or assured should be rude ass?
Blog-post by published

Saturday, 16 November 2013

Simulated Matrix Alien Reality Nonsense

People never seem to stop flaunting their irrationality. Discover magazine is asking if we live in the Matrix.

My mind staggers comprehending the sheer idiocy of this retarded "intelligent design" claptrap, it is total BS. The "science" regarding the idea of reality being simulated is ludicrous nonsense, pure childish absurdity. Yes the world sucks thus it can be appealing to believe in God, or to believe you are actually in Lost thus if you jump off a cliff you will wake-up, but the sad fact is you are all alone the universe. There is no God, no Architect, no Morpheus, no escape. You can't fly like Neo, you can't hack the Matrix, magic spells do not work, pixies and faeries are not real. The tooth fairy and Santa Claus are pure fiction.

Intelligent beings able to create universe simulations would never torture fellow intelligent minds, via for example the pain and suffering humans undergo daily, but if in some deranged super-intelligent future it is deemed ethical to torture people via putting them in a primitive simulation then surely there would be at least one version of super-human Anonymous liberating the humans for the torture machine? Where are the human rights activists (super-humans) liberating the humans for the virtual cage, where is the futuristic version of PETA regarding the ethical treatment of humans? If humans can have animal rights groups surely super-humans or super-beings could have a least one human-rights group? Bit there is total silence.

As humans have evolved culturally we have increased our ethical standards, we are developing organs and even entire bodies on chips so that animals do not need to be experimented on, we are also developing 3D-printing of meat thus in the not too distant future all farming will be obsolete, but in the meantime despite our primitive tech we try to avoid causing unnecessary suffering to animals. Surely this ethicalness would continue to increase as civilization becomes more intelligent? Sadly we are led to believe super-intelligent beings would torture humans for "entertainment."

Sadly mystical, magical, fantasy thinking is common. In a recent Twitter discussion regarding "magic" I was informed we "conjure" or own realities, but oddly the conjurers fail to conjure world peace, immortality of personal fortunes totalling billions.


In other news I discovered humans are probably violent alien criminals imprisoned on Earth to protect the other occupants of the universe, and reality is created purely via our minds.

Blog-post by published

Monday, 11 November 2013

LOL Amazing #Atheism YouTube Comments

Since the G+ comments integration with YouTube, which some people are not happy about, some of my old G+ posts have experienced a new lease of life but religious people are not happy with my G+ post embedded below. You can read my views on the You Tube and G+ integration in the comments here (I will copy and paste a modified version below the embedded atheism G+ post).


Virus links can be anywhere on the Internet but we can use our brains to avoid clicking bad links. Will Stuart Ashen be blocking all links on the Internet? If a link is shortened there are various URL X-ray sites to see where the link goes without clicking it, but usually you can guess whether or not the link is likely bad. The new YouTube comment system is brilliant, yes some people will abuse it but we should NOT limit communication due to the people who abuse the system.

LOL regarding v3.co.uk who wrote: "YouTube co-founder Jared Karim returned from eight years of silence on the site to post his first ever comment..."

Well, it seems the new YouTube comments are good for promoting debate, 8 years of silence broken!

G+ is great and the comment integration with YouTube is brilliant. I think anonymity on the net is a good thing. Initially I thought a G+ account wasn't essential for commenting on YouTube but its seems a G+ account is needed. You can however set-up your YouTube account to allow commenting via a business or other non-personal name, which means you have a G+ Page in any name instead of a personal profile. Anonymity on G+ being a bit of grey area. After nymwars G+ started allowing some people to be anonymous. I have been suspended twice on G+ due to my name but I successfully appealed each time.

My support of the G+ and Tube integration is only regarding the longer posts, the ability to include links, and the mixing of + and Tube comments, my support is independent of the anonymity issues. I already had a G+ account so I can't really comment on whether or not forcing people to get a G+ account is a bad thing.

On the issue of spam I don't think blocking links is the answer, it's like taking way our freedoms to prevent terrorism, I'd rather have freedom with a greater threat of terrorism. Twitter has a spam and malicious link problem too but they don't block links.

Internet novices or kids may not know how to use the Internet safely, but we shouldn't create a padded cell type Internet to cater for uneducated types. ISPs or shcools or parents or websites should tell newbies how to use the net in one simple page, it wouldn't take more than a handful of sentences: Use good up-to-date anti-virus software. Some links could be malicious, they could damage your computer via malware. Be careful what you download/install. Use this URL x-ray if you want to see where a short link goes. Be careful talking to strangers.

I like the idea of long YouTube comments, which are displayed in contracted form. You can expand the long comment to see more, or not if you don't want to read more. The idea of posts made on G+ being displayed in the comments of YouTube is great IMO, I don't think it is bizarre, it's a great way to unify the different aspects of Google, it is a great way to increase the debate, it's great networking.

I think Google could actually go a step further by having a tab regarding Tweets or Facebook posts which mention/discuss the video, but due the the walled-gardens mentality I doubt that will happen soon.

It's a shame some big YouTube users have turned off comments. Perhaps they will come back when YouTube or Google fine-tunes the new commenting system. If they actually gave it a chance their input could help refine things, maybe. The G+ and YouTube integration could be great for content creators because they can now follow a part of the conversation they were previously unaware of. Hopefully Google's attempts to create AI will weed-out spam.
Blog-post by published

Tuesday, 5 November 2013

The Singularity Not Happening Year 2013

It is tiresome explaining to people to how the Singularity is not happening yet. Every few months I encounter someone who thinks the Singularity has happened or is about to happen. You will know when the Singularity happens because everyone will be biologically immortal, which means all diseases will be cured, people will not die due to old age, regenerative medicine will allow anyone to rewind their physical age to give them the appearance of being any age.


Importantly you should note immortality alone is not the Singularity, it is only one aspect, it is only one marker but it is an good marker at present because people are not immortal. Immortality is a step closer towards the Singularity. We could have immortality shortly before the Singularity, which means people could be immortal but the Singularity will not be happening despite being very close.

Another way to describe the Singularity is Post-Scarcity. Post-Scarcity means everything is free because resources have become limitless due to advanced technology. Technology is a scarcity liberating process. Things only have prices due to scarcity thus if things have a price the Singularity has not happened. The Singularity is all about limitlessness, it is about overcoming limits, it is beyond the limitations of scarcity, it is Post-Scarcity, which means limitless intelligence creates an intelligence explosion. All resources depend on intelligence for their existence thus the intelligence explosion is a resource explosion because the greatest resource is intelligence, which means intelligence is the engine behind all technology.

We're considering truly colossal explosive intelligence, it isn't a mere leap of intelligence similar to various historical examples of progressive intelligence. The Singularity is very different to previous advances because it entails eradicated scarcity, a limitless bypassing of constraints. The ability to leave Earth, our solar system, our galaxy, to live forever totally independently in Space for free, in total limitless self-sufficiency, with total control of matter and our genome, this is what makes the Singularity very different to historical pre-Singularity progress.

If people age then die, if people suffer from diseases, and if things have prices, if things are not free, and if intelligence is limited, then the Singularity is not happening.

The reason I am clarifying again why the Singularity is not happening is because I noticed, highlighted via B.J. Murphy, a blog-post published 7th May 2013 titled: "Human Intelligence has been replicated. The singularity is here." The blog-post in question is by someone who is into "SEO in a big way," thus perhaps our investigations should stop at this point. My personal opinion is SEO people are mainly interested in gaming search engines; SEO is all marketing with no substance, although I am sure they will disagree.

The company responsible for the alleged creation of human level AI, regarding the 7th May blog-post, is called ScIAM. B.J. Murphy has unfortunately decided to give ScIAM the opportunity to explain their assertions. Have they really created human level AI, a Human Intelligence Emulation? Via various posts on his blog and an IEET article B. J. Murphy explores their assertions.


After the dust has almost settled let's analyse the situation. Here we are 6 months since it was first revealed human level AI had been created (according to the Lime Tree Online blog 7th May 2013), but no breakthroughs attributable to ScIAM have occurred in 3D-printing, nanotech, medicine, or computing. Surely you would expect the ScIAM HIE (Human Intelligence Emulation) to at least win Jeopardy!? I think their claims are  BS. Look at Robot Adam, a narrow-AI (bioinformatics); Adam was able to quickly make a discovery humans could not make. Via IEET August 14th 2013 we were informed, regarding the ScIAM HIE: "This intelligent software isn’t yet available to the general populace it would seem, but will in the next few months, along with an actual demonstration by the company itself. When exactly is not yet known."

So here we are almost a few months since the IEET article mentioning an unveiling, but there is a big silence. To be fair let's give them until the end of November or even mid December but despite that being 7 months since the initial announcement and 4 months since the "few months" announcement via IEET I doubt their HIE will prove to be anything remotely resembling human-level AI.

It seems ScIAM has created at best narrow-AI, or maybe they have not attained a minor level of narrow intelligence. Certainly, if you ask me, they have not attained human level intelligence. Their website describes a mundane type of software: "Set-it is the world’s first enterprise social strategy software."

Did you think human-level AI would be so slow, unproductive, and uneventful?
Blog-post by published

Saturday, 2 November 2013

Scarcity Explained



Michael Fortenberry (above video) wanted someone to explain our way of life (3:50). He thinks our sociology, economics, or motivations are not scientific or based on any type of logic he can understand. Well the explanation is simple, technology is not yet sufficiently advanced thus people are heavily influenced by scarcity. Our current system of greed and exploitation is a very logical reaction to scarcity, it's a logical reaction to limited technology.

There is no conspiracy we can overcome, the problems of the world are merely the problems of scarcity. Yes we could make the world significantly better in theory, but many problems simply cannot be over yet due to limited technology.  

In practice our current (2013) level of socioeconomic progress is essentially correct based upon the interrelationship between technological proficiency and fear of scarcity. The ideal of making the world better is logically thwarted by scarcity, scarcity causes the majority of people to understandably put profits before progress.

Eventually nobody will need to work because everything will be free, but we need better technology before this happens. Progress towards the abolition of work won't stop when we reach a stage where you only need to work a few hours a week. The erosion of prices, the erosion of the need to work, it will culminate with everything being free, the end of all jobs is coming.

It is naive to think our current level 2013 level of technology is sufficient to almost or completely erode scarcity. Technology could be better implemented but scarcity prevents the ideal implementation of current technology. We need more proficient technology, we need greater technological efficiency, but the requisite technology hasn't been invented yet. I wonder what the NYC Zeitgeist Chapter will think of this explanation?


Blog-post by published

Tuesday, 15 October 2013

IT IS NOT ABOUT MIND-UPLOADING

A Marxist condemned the Singularity. H+ Magazine responded. Below is my comment responding to H+.

The Singularity is NOT mind-uploading, but people could be forgiven for thinking it is. A big problem with Singularity debate is the domination of these issues by millionaire entrepreneurs, for example Ray Kurzweil, Jaan Tallinn, Peter Thiel, and Keith Kleiner.

Immortality will be available for everyone via stem cell regenerative medicine. Already average people have underdone regeneration and transplantation of their own body parts created via their own stem cells. I am very sure mind-uploading will prove to be nonsensical, it is a misunderstanding of "biology" and "machines."

Despite the Singularity dominance by rich aristocratic types, who frankly don't really grasp the meaning of technology, the Singularity is not about their one-sided narrow viewpoint.

Oppression is based wholly on scarcity. Technology liberates us from scarcity. The way technology increases freedom or democracy is not an "accidental outcome simply from creating ever more efficient and smaller machines." It is no accident for liberty to increase in synchronization with decreasing scarcity, a decrease created via machine progress. Increased liberty is a logical and inevitable outcome of decreased scarcity (technological advancement).

Oppression (lack of liberty) is only needed to ensure compliance with low wages and high prices, thus via decreased scarcity due to technology we see how the need to enforce austerity to benefit the rich is less pronounced (we've come a long way since the extremely austere days of serfdom), which dovetails perfectly with the abundance of technological tools for liberation. The interrelationship, regarding technology to erode scarcity and technology for liberation, is actually closer than a dovetail join, we are in essence considering the same thing.

Leaders may try to repress increased liberty, liberty which has been created via erosion of scarcity, but their attempts will ultimately be ineffectual because the erosion of scarcity will reach a point where resistance is futile.

In the future there will be no governments, no money, no work, total freedom.
Blog-post by published

Wednesday, 2 October 2013

#RBE Errors - Scarcity Post-Scarcity Viewpoints

As you may know, or not, I disagree with the term RBE because I think the way the system is currently set-up is a reasonably correct representation based on scarcity. The point is, despite greater abundance, scarcity does persist, although there is the fallacy, committed by some people, which states we are now living in a Post-Scarcity age.

The world is incredibly horrific if you are poor, which I am. This horror of poverty means people in positions of power are unwilling to sacrifice their position where they control the largest amount of sacrce resources. It's a realization that 99% percent of people, if they were in the position of the 1%, would behave in the exact same manner as the current 1%.

The solution is therefore to end scarcity instead of idealistically appealing to the better nature of leaders. Appeals to leaders are delusional, or at best misguided, it is contrary to the reality of scarcity. The leaders are merely victims of scarcity, fighting to survive they are controlled by the fear, the fear of suffering greater scarcity, although they don't suffer in the way poor people do. To end scarcity technology needs to significantly improve thus massive investment in sci-tech is needed, which is doable because leaders can usually see how science and technology are profitable.

There is a possibility #BasicIncome could be implemented now, but there is a lot of fear regarding scarcity within the minds of leaders thus they are unlikely to implement basic income for a few years at least; they are afraid of scarcity thus they cling to wealth. Awareness of how technology is progressing, of how it will progress, this could help people accept Basic Income is doable now as a valid Post-Scarcity precursor, but the confusion of stating Post-Scarcity already exists, when it clearly doesn't, this means people fear any sociological progress towards a Post-Scarcity society is a scam by anarchistic usurpers of power.

There is an event on G+ to discuss RBE on 31st October 2013. Outreach: Strategies to share R.B.E. concepts.
Blog-post by published

Monday, 30 September 2013

Tab Mix Plus Superiority

Tab Mix Plus  is a great addon for Firefox. There is nothing like TMP regarding the Chrome browser as far as I am aware. A new feature for the Firefox 24 release is the ability to close all tabs to the right, which is good, Firefox is great browser, but the new feature already exists in superior form.

Jared Wein, Senior Software Engineer at Mozilla, wrote on his blog praising the new Firefox tab closing feature:

"Why “close tabs to the right” and not “close tabs to the left”? When we open new tabs they appear on the end, and so naturally tabs that have a longer lifetime end up being promoted to the start-side of the bar. This leads us towards the situation where closing tabs “to the right” is a simple way of closing the ephemeral tabs."

Let me tell you the close tabs to the right feature already exists, it’s call Tab Mix Plus, don't use the inferior Firefox version. Amongst many other useful things via TMP you can close tabs to right OR the left. Perhaps the most useful TMP tool is being able to avoid clicking tabs to switch to the tab. Via mouse gestures you simply point to the tab, hover over it and it switches to the tab without any pesky clicking (I have the time to switch set to zero ms, instantaneous, but you can set a longer interval to hover-point switch if you want). Another good TMP thing is a list of recently closed tabs. The new FF option is a pale imitation of TMP.
Blog-post by published

Thursday, 26 September 2013

WHAT WILL WE DO!

I read a H+ article by @TechnoOptimist, which amongst other things stated: "Technology has paved a way for us to all become artists."

I think art is mindless. Anti-art (Dada) is the only true art. Dada seeks to expose the sham of art thus the true art (Dada) must always highlight how art is a phenomenon wholly dependent upon stupidity. Instead of creating art maybe people will go trout fishing in the future? Trout fishing was a common thing for one character in a recent sci-fi book I read.

Personally I think I will largely do nothing, I will merely relax. The need to do things, to prove creativity, it is so primitive.

I think my priorities in the future will be to sleep, eat, dream, dive into tranquil lakes, play with puppies and kittens, go hiking, spend a few years sleeping in a snybio-womb-being.

The need to create art is an unwanted burden. It is odd when people say: "What will we do when there are no jobs." The oddity is the deficient intellect revealed. I think people are horrified by the emptiness of their own minds, thus if they don't have mindless-jobs (I'm referring to all jobs) to occupy their attention, or trivial entertainment and creativity to pass the time, they perhaps fear they will go mad because they will be confronted by the gibbering oblivion of their brains. Pre-Singularity humans often need "distractions" to avoid introspection, people need to avoid the feeling of existing, they need to distract themselves from existence.

In the future I will simply exist, which could entail eating marmalade smeared croissants for breakfast then strolling through idyllic woodland, and at the end of the day I will sleep in a meadow betwixt lush tussocks of grass while playful nocturnal synbio creatures inquisitively inspect the existential being sleeping in their meadow.

When your mind is very powerful you don't need a job or art to stimulate yourself. Great wonder could be gleaned from merely observing the the sky at night or listening to the sound of the wind. Sadly there are people who funnily think "fun" could be limited, LOL, they could NOT be more wrong.

Maybe the first thing to do is print a super-intelligent femtotech spaceship then leave Earth far behind, thereby giving plenty of space to the humans and transhumans so they can worry about what they will do.
Blog-post by published

Monday, 23 September 2013

Censorship Or Not Censorship?

I'm in two minds about censorship. For example by allowing religious educational establishments to exist, note the schools able to indoctrinate children into religion, this could make religion more common. Consider the burqa or the religious head scarf. If people have a constant reminder of religion via the burqa or hijab, perhaps vulnerable people will be more inclined to think religion and burqas or hijabs are good things, which is perhaps similar to a hypothetical situation where people walk around with pictures of child-abuse on their heads, in such a scenario child-abuse would be normalised, it would become acceptable thus more people (vulnerable-impressionable types) could become abusers.


Consider the issue of self-harming (cutting). Videos of someone self-harming will have no impact upon people not likely to self-harm, but regarding the people who are inclined to self-harm, self-harming videos can be a trigger, a reinforcing mechanism similar to an alcoholic being surrounded by alcohol. A recovering alcoholic needs to avoid bars because bars or parties could trigger a relapse. A recovering heroin addict needs to acquire a new set of friends. People who cut themselves need to avoid being reminded of cutting. Anorexics need to avoid pro-anorexia sites. Religion is a form of intellectual self-harm, religion stunts intellectualism, thus the burqa or hijab can be a trigger for religious self-harm, harm to intellectual capacity.

There are lots of vulnerable people in the world who are unable to think independently. Yes people should be capable of independent thought thus the blame should always reside with the individual but the fact is many humans are week-willed, shallow, empty, waiting for their minds be totally shaped by external factors.

Taking the censorious initiative could be a problematic slippery slope. The replacement of independent thought with external censorship-control means you make people less self-reliant thus more censorship is needed, which could likely be a vicious circle of excessive control. The problem with a dictatorship is who the dictator is. The problem is regarding deciding what to ban or suppress. Should religion be suppressed, or burqas, or crucifixes, or sexually provocative women in the media, or short skirts, or alcohol, or LSD, or videos of people cutting themselves? I think sexually provocative women in "Lads Mags" is more akin to women's liberation than sexism because there is an openness, openness is empowering. In the 1960s women began wearing miniskirts but many commentators opposed the trend, they strongly criticised the trend by stating it was turning women into sex-objects or targets for rape. It seems women being openly free regarding their sexuality is about freedom, which is evident by the fact an Islamic state would never allow "Lads Mags" to be sold in supermarkets.

I think selective censorship (dictatorship) could help civilization because too many humans have become too incapable of independent thought. It is perhaps ironic to consider how guiding people to think in a certain way could make them more intelligent, more capable of independent thought, but it is not really contradictory if you consider how children do need to be taught about the world, or how someone with severe mental illness can benefit from the guidance of psychologist who channels their thinking along healthy pathways. Perhaps the problem with the world is that we have never had the correct type of dictator.

I think the solution could be to ban all aspects of religion from education, medicine, and the media. We also need to legalise all drugs but access to all drugs including alcohol and nicotine should be restricted to shops only open between the hours or midnight and two am, furthermore all advertising of drugs should be banned. Newspapers should be banned from reporting on violence, they should instead publish articles about thinking, they should publish thoughtful articles where people think about the way civilization should be. Wage inequality and the hoarding of vast wealth should also be banned.

Perhaps no dictatorship will work, maybe my dictatorship would be equally bad compared to the current Obama-Putin-Merkel-Cameron dictatorship. This is the problem with dictating, there is always someone who has a different idea regarding what rules should be enforced.
Blog-post by published

Monday, 9 September 2013

Posts From G+ Singularity 2045

Google+ have made embedable posts available, which I've been asking for since February 2013. Here are some Singularity 2045 posts for you:





Blog-post by published

Thursday, 29 August 2013

Artificial #Scarcity An Illusory Fiction

I think "artificial scarcity" is pure fiction. Currently there is only scarcity, there is nothing artificial about any aspect of it. All distortions regarding abundance, repressed abundance, are due to scarcity. Abundance is not the absence of scarcity despite scarcity being less pronounced when things are abundant, abundance is not superabundance. Superabundance while close to Post-Scarcity is not actually Post-Scarcity, which means abundance is an aspect of scarcity. If something is truly not scarce (if something is post-scarce) it cannot be suppressed thus "artificial scarcity" is a illusion, it does not exist, it implies Post-Scarcity is being suppressed when it is actually impossible to suppress Post-Scarcity. "Artificial scarcity" is a misunderstanding of scarcity and Post-Scarcity.

Distortions of abundance, restrictions to emphasize scarcity, do not constitute artificial scarcity. Abundance is being distorted because abundance while more fruitful than severe scarcity is nevertheless scarcity. If Post-Scarcity actual existed it would be impossible to suppress it thus when people talk about "artificial scarcity" they are merely talking about scarcity. Scarcity exists in the year 2013, it will exist until at least 2033. Scarcity cannot be created when scarcity already exists.

Artificial scarcity is similar to thinking a person swimming in the ocean can become wet due to precipitation. Yes being rained on is an additional source of wetness but the person swimming in the ocean was already utterly sodden thus they could not become wetter. If someone in a boat throws a bucket of water over the person in the ocean, the type of people who believe in artificial scarcity would say a bucket of water, thrown onto the swimmer, has created artificial wetness, but you cannot really become wetter in those circumstances.

I am writing this blog-post while people are debating the possibility of US and perhaps UK launching missiles against Syria, in response to Syrians being gassed. The missile attacks could happen in a few days. People ask if the justification for war is right. I state war is not about right, war is about might. The mighty do what they want to do. War is a natural consequence of scarcity, it sadly cannot be avoided. The question is, are we sufficiently close to Post-Scarcity for war to be deemed unnecessary? I think we are too far away, or leaders don't have sufficient insight into the future.

Scarcity leads to war thus war is inevitable during times of greater scarcity. Reason cannot stop war because reason is scarce. The liberal illusion of peaceful resolution merely delays the inevitable war. Sadly I think war is the only answer. Humans simply don't listen to reason, scarcity prohibits rational responses, which is why many people believe in God and magic. I think human stupidity has possibly reached a level where only world war will suffice. In theory world war could be avoided if people could use their reasoning ability but not enough people can or are willing to use their reasoning ability. Suppression of opponents with violent force is something humans commonly need to do in situations of scarcity. It is all about fighting over limited resources. People fight when resources are tight.



Alex Jones from infowars.com has published various articles via his site about pending World War III or rebels carrying out gas attacks. I actually fear Alex Jones more than our corrupt governments. Alex Jones from time to time talks about God, he believes in God. I am wary of anyone who believes in imaginary beings. Presidents or Prime Ministers often believe is God but at least they don't object to genetic engineering, synthetic biology, or stem cell research with the vigor which Alex Jones opposes science. I suspect the rule of Alex Jones would be very harsh for science and technology because he and others would be happy, I suspect, if civilization forever stayed at the farming stage of sophistication.



I think the world would be much more oppressive if Jones or other alleged freedom fighters were running affairs. Artificial scarcity is similar to the illusion of civilization, civilization is not civilized, scarcity is very real not artificial, thus people do fight. Wars do need to happen because intelligence is scarce but is it right to attack the Bashar al-Assad Syrian Government? Alex Jones does make some good points about the increasing powers of governments but on the whole I think he is more dangerous than current governments, although I am certainly no lover of governments. So, despite my distaste for governments, it could be right to launch the suggested attacks.

Are we really on the brink of WW3? I do see how WW3 could happen because people are stupid, but I think people also enjoy working themselves up into a fevered state of hysteria. People enjoy scaremongering, the expectation of the worst. I think Bashar al-Assad is a cruel man thus attacking his regime could be the right answer, perhaps it could help accelerate science, technological, and cultural progress. What do the Syrian people think? At least one Syrian is suuportive:

"Since we heard about the international community's will to do these strikes, all the people in our town are feeling for the first time that someone out there is caring about them."

Certainly there are more intelligent ways to accelerate progress but people are stupid, they don't listen to reason, thus wars happen. It can be appealing to think diplomacy is the answer but diplomacy is illusory similar to artificial scarcity. What I am certain of is the illusion of being able to live in a world free from hostility while scarcity persists. Hostility cannot be avoided while scarcity persists therefore the only question is who fights who, which reminds me of the story by Will Self, The Quantity Theory of Insanity.



Shortly after composing these thoughts the UK Parliament blocked Syrian intervention, which may also deter USA intervention. It will be interesting to see how long civil conflict lasts in Syria now. We can wonder what would have happened if military intervention had occurred. Will Syria now become stronger? Perhaps Syria will form a strong alliance with Iran to stop any future Western interventions? If war does occur in the future will it be more protracted because things were not nipped in the bud?

Anyway, moving back into focus regarding artificial scarcity, here is a previous occasion where I criticised the concept in H+ Magazine (archive):

"The enhancement of scarcity, the emphasis of scarcity, the intensification regarding aspects of scarcity, it will never constitute “artificial scarcity” similar to how one ice-cube added to the Antarctic Ice Sheet is not artificial coldness. Creating artificial scarcity is tantamount to thinking you can create artificial coldness via adding one ice-cube to the Sun."

Finally, here is one more analogy. Artificial scarcity is akin to squirting a person with a water pistol during the middle of a extremely heavy downpour, then believing you have made the person wet due, it is the belief you have created artificial wetness despite the person already being utterly drenched due to the rain.
Blog-post by published

Wednesday, 28 August 2013

War Is Peace and Entertainment: Life Is Stupid

It doesn't matter what people say or do, politicians will go to war regardless of opinion. I seem to remember some of the protests against going to war with Iraq (2nd war) were the largest in history but it made no difference. If leaders want to do something they will do it regardless of what people want.


Looking on the dark nihilistic-misanthropic side of things, war can be entertaining if it is not happening to yourself, which is proven by the increase of news consumption when horror is rife, hence the phrase: if it bleeds it leads. Sometimes I think world-nuclear-war would be good fun because it would break the hellish mediocrity of a brain-dead slave-tyranny (the true state of civilization for the majority of people despite their unawareness of it).

War is like self-harming where a person cuts themselves to bloodily reveal the horror of previously hidden torment. People are largely unaware therefore crude expressions of pain can be appealing because it blatantly reveals the true depths of our abysmally stupid world. War is the actualization of typical human stupidity, it is a realization of, a culmination of, substandard human sensibilities, thus it should perhaps not be shunned.

There is utopian hope for the future but in the meantime people must suffer. Maybe blatant suffering is better due to the clarity of it, the unavoidable honesty of it, but sadly people will not make the appropriate logical connections thus it is mere entertainment.

Despite hope for the future I do not fear world-nuclear-war or any war, it would be a release from the struggle of trying to survive. I wrote these thoughts in response to this post about how "millitary should only ever be used after a referendum."
Blog-post by published

Monday, 26 August 2013

#PostScarcity #BasicIncome Political Fools

Jon Evans has written a few Post-Scarcity articles for TechCrunch. His latest article explains how failing to adjust to coming freedom could entail us plummeting "...headlong into class warfare." Below is a quote from the article, with my response afterwards.

"The trouble is, we can’t get there from here, not without wholesale changes. Machines will reduce labor, yes, great: but equally, across all of society? You must be joking. If technology cuts the demand for labor by 25%, then laborers will earn 25% less, or 25% of them will become unemployed, while all the benefits go to those who own and/or built/wrote that technology. That’s capitalism."

The fact is jobs will eventually be obsolete, which means everything will be free. Unfortunately only a minority of people believe this will actually happen. The disbelief occurs because everything being free goes completely against everything we have ever known. Scarcity is a deeply engrained aspect of life contrary to this technological epoch we are entering.

Traditionally survival depended on seizing wealth from your fellow humans. This means despite jobs in the year 2013 disappearing the political and business leaders of the world cling irrationally to their immense wealth; old habits are hard to break.

So, circa 2045 everything will be free thus nobody will need to work, but due to current ignorance of the future there could be immense turmoil during the transition. Capitalism is dying, or it is dead, but like a headless chicken the system doesn't realise it has no hope of being sustained.

The ideal pathway into utopia (everything free, no jobs) is the implementation of a Basic Income no later than 2015, which would facilitate a smooth transition to Post-Scarcity (everything being free), but the unawareness of world leaders means it's unlikely Basic Income will be implemented until 2025 at the earliest, perhaps 2035 would be more realistic considering general political stupidity.

Between now and bleated Basic Income I wouldn't be surprised if a world war occurred. The global financial crisis has been concealed but not eradicated, I suspect the problems will resurge perhaps sometime around 2015-2018, and maybe then people in power will start thinking seriously about Basic Income but by then it might be too late to avoid disaster.
Blog-post by published

Saturday, 24 August 2013

Singularity 2045 on Google Plus

The Singularity 2045 Google Plus page is growing well, although I think there should be at least two million followers by now, or perhaps I am merely being too optimistic. Currently 20,100 people have the page in the circles but that figure is slowly dropping because for a while it appears Google was plugging the page to people who are not avid Singularity followers thus they are removing the page from their circles.

Anyway I am looking forward to when G+ makes embeddable posts possible, which will allow me to post a round-up of the best Singularity 2045 posts. In the meantime here is an embedded Facebook post of a G+ post, convoluted yes? I will also include the video mentioned in this post regarding whether or not Google is knowledge, and here is some more info, a slightly different angle, regarding the Facebook IBM post below.


Post by Singularity 2045.


Blog-post by published

Saturday, 27 July 2013

Idiotic Searching For Smartness Genes

On 16th July 2013 Wired published an article about the genetics of IQ regarding the possible creation of "superbabies." Zhao Bowen, a so-called child prodigy, is leading a "multimillion-dollar research effort to solve a genetic mystery" regarding what makes people smart, but is Zhao really qualified for such a task. Is he really smart? Is his research smart or dumb?

According the article Zhao smokes: "He makes small talk with a girl, bums a cigarette off her." It is a minor superficial detail but I feel strongly smoking is very far from being smart. This flawed approach to the health of his body could be the tip of the iceberg regarding deeper intellectual flaws pertaining to what constitutes smart thinking. If Zhao thinks smoking is smart I wonder what other harmful traits he deems acceptable or compatible with smartness.

I'll publish the remainder of my views on this subject via H+ magazine. Coming soon.
Blog-post by published

Monday, 15 July 2013

Snowden-Assange Pre-Singularity Futility

The efforts of Assange and Snowden are admirable but I'm not convinced "enormous repercussions" (see comments) have occurred or will occur. People are too apathetic, too unaware, too oblivious, this is the problem, therefore hypothetically you could explain to voters how the USA-NSA-CIA are pumping mind-control drugs into the air and water supply, a revelation which would lead to a pretence of outrage and action to stop it, but in reality nothing would really change because people have become happy slaves, contented cattle, or maybe people were always this way.

Analogously, consider the end of the Truman Show where two security guards are cheering for Truman's rebellion. They don't really understand the rebellion, thus when Truman escapes, their sentiments are approximately: "Right, OK, what's on the other channel." They have no real awareness of what is happening, Truman does not profoundly change them, the horror of it, the decadence of society, it does not penetrate their unaware minds even if they show a pretence of support for Truman, thus they might grab another slice pizza or get a another cup of coffee but they will not wake up.

So considering the general state of typical human minds, the actions of Snowden and Assange are largely futile but due to the principle of brave action, which is undertaken regardless of success or failure, I applaud their actions. When Winston Smith begins writing his diary, he realises the futility of his actions because - he muses - if people understood his actions they wouldn't need his diary and those who don't understand the horror of 1984 will not understand his diary or any revolutionary diary no matter how it is written:

"How could you communicate with the future? It was impossible. Either the future would resemble the present in which case it would not listen to him, or it would be different from it, and his predicament would be meaningless."

Orwell, Winston Smith - 1984

Human stupidity is very deeply entrenched therefore anything less than a colossal intelligence explosion will be futile, which means the Singularity is the only hope for shaking people out of their intellectual malaise. If you want to comment, do so via the KurzweilAI Forum or via this G+ post.
Blog-post by published

Saturday, 13 July 2013

Power Over People Isn't Truly A Resource

Someone recently suggested utopia is impossible because people will always want power over other people. They claimed power over people is a resource which people will always want. If "power over people" is a resource then scarcity or stupidity is a resource, thus you might say Post-Scarcity is impossible because people will suffer from a scarcity of scarcity if everything ceases to be scarce.

Now let's consider what this means. I do recognise it is difficult to grasp Post-Scarcity, it took me a while to grasp the ramifications, so first try what imagine what power over people actually means. Domination of other people is a power somewhat synonymous with the power to kill people, this domination is only a resource when intelligence is very limited. Looking into the future we can see how the ability to kill people doesn't constitute a resource, a profit, killing people is a symptom of limited resources, or to express it another way consider how rape is relatively scarce but rape is generally not considered a resource in need of amplification.

We are addressing an issue of control, oppression, where freedom is limited, the domination of people via force, threat, or fear. When power is scarce people can become resources in varying degrees, but when power in limitless there is no profit in having power over people, the oppression becomes redundant, deflation to zero, null value, no market, thus power over people is not really a resource, if we look to the future, it is actually a symptom of insufficient resources, it is a symptom of scarcity similar how currently (circa 2013) the war-machine arms industry is profitable but not really a resource.

The bad aspects of humans are not actually resources, if we look into the future we see how they are symptoms of insufficient resources, thus people only need to be dominated when there is insufficient material wealth, people need to be dominated because dominance of others allows the dominator to acquire a greater portion of limited wealth, but there are more efficient ways to obtain greater wealth with zero harm. Dominance is also a symptom of insufficient personal intelligence, or insufficient emotional intelligence. Emotional sensitivity (empathy, morality, virtue, sympathy, humanity) and intellectual capacity within humans are valuable resources because they enrich our existence thus dominance is obsolete when our minds have sufficiently expanded in combination with our scarcity of material wealth being sufficiently transcended.

Limited technological proficiency (scarce machine intelligence) and limited personal intelligence means currently humans are resources (wage slavery), similar to how war is a resource, or the arms trade is a profitable resource, but when machines can be vastly more efficient than farmers there will be absolutely no profit, no incentive, to dominate farmers, there will be no profit in war or the arms trade when the endless resources of Space can easily be acquired without conflict instead of fighting over minuscule Earth resources. In the future there will be no profit in pollution-producing or otherwise harmful tools or harmful modes of existence.

Toxic aspects of existence are only deemed resources in situations of limited resources, thus vegetables grown in toxic soil, heavily coated in harmful pesticides, can have value in scarcity situations but when technology progresses sufficiently our primitive ways of life will be discarded, thus toxic cures for cancer via chemotherapy will will cease to be resources when utter harmless nanobots can painlessly and instantly cure any disease. The progress of technology therefore means a heart transplant is only a valuable resource in a situation of limited resources similar how in bygone years the amputation of a limb regarding bacterial infection could have been deemed an utterly essential resource but now we often have sufficient technological intelligence to apply a better antibiotic resource thus the value of amputation is diminishing to the inevitable point, in the not too distant future, where amputation will be a wholly worthless medical resource, amputation will not actually be a resources, it will be utterly obsolete and barbaric, similar to how costly population-producing cars will be replaced by totally Green and inexpensive solar-powered transportation.

Power over people is comparable to wasting a large amount of food to feed slaves who farm the land. It is vastly more profitable for machines to do the work of humans, human resources are ceasing to be valuable, power over people is becoming obsolete because non-sentient machines consume less energy. Domination of machines is more profitable than domination of humans because non-sentient machines don't need meal or sleep breaks, they have no desires. Via sophisticated automation, machines can even work in the dark or cold without any complaint thus lighting an heating costs can be bypassed and wages don't need to be paid.

I understand why people fear technology can entail tyranny because it is difficult, due to only ever having known scarcity of resources, to see how all conflict-oppression arises due to resource scarcity, it is difficult to envisage a world without scarcity. A world without scarcity runs counter to the entire history of evolution, so we encounter difficulty imagining how all resources will essentially be limitless, which means all hostility will be utterly obsolete, which is perhaps a key reason why the Singularity is singular, it is very strange, mind-blowing, indeed.

Humans will cease to be valuable in the commodity sense, but we will be priceless, of immense value. The smile of a loved one costs nothing financially whereas emotionally the smile of someone you love is perhaps the most precious thing in the world. Merely because something is free this does not mean it is worthless or dispensable. Post-Scarcity means money will be obsolete because everything will be free therefore nobody will need to work. Resources only cost money due to scarcity, money is a method of restricting access to limited resources whereas limitless resources require no restrictions.

This is not communism, if anything it is anarchy but in actuality is it beyond all politics because all forms of politics are products of scarcity. All governments will be obsolete because governments only exist to regulate scarcity. We are considering a total decentralization of power, total empowerment of each individual, power will cease to be scarce, thus each person can 3D-print anything they want, for example a super-intelligence-spaceship enabling them to travel anywhere in the universe.

So in the future, by 2045 at the latest, AI will be smarter than humans, but prior to 2045, sometimes around the late 20s, we should start seeing notable improvements in our civilization. In the year 2045 and beyond humans will become very diverse, there will be radical self-directed evolution. By 2045 the majority of beings will live in Space beyond Earth. Due to Space colonisation, which will open up access to essentially limitless resources, all war-conflict will cease because war-conflict depends wholly on scarcity, thus there will be no hostile competitiveness where one group of people must be defeated for the other to survive.

There could be a sight increase in tyranny before the efficiency of advanced technology really starts to kick-in but those temporary aspects of tyranny, occurring due to heavy technological investment before the profits are reaped, will soon be reverted, in fact with insightful awareness any possible temporary increases in tyranny can be avoided, if we can increase awareness so that it is very abundant, if we can decrease the scarcity of awareness.

Thankfully a growing number of people are starting to think about how artificial intelligence will change the world, which the following video demonstrates, we need to refine this growing awareness so that people can appreciate how utopia is inevitable.



If you have any comments please express your views via the G+ post which inspired me to write this blog-post, or you can comment via the Kurzweil AI forum, or send me a Tweet.
Blog-post by published

Thursday, 11 July 2013

George Dvorsky Fears Too Much Intelligence

Only in an age of deeply entrenched stupidity could colossal intelligence be feared, doubted, questioned as good. To set limits on how much intelligence can expand is anti-evolutionary. Truly, despite the deep level of societal stupidity, I am astounded anyone could suggest too much intelligence might be bad.

Incidentally, morality pills (empathy amplification) do not constitute intelligence, in fact morality pills are very immoral.

George asked "Is human super-intelligence a bad idea?" The problem is people generally don't understand intelligence.
Blog-post by published

Wednesday, 10 July 2013

Animal Consciousness SingularitryHub

I noticed an article on Singularity Hub, which stated non-human conciousness exists. The article then asked: "Now what?"

The answer is simple. All the "animals" can start using their "consciousness" to build ultra-advanced AGIs, quantum computers, nanobots, stem cell regenerative cures, and photonics processors. I'll ask the pigeons outside my window what they think about current graphene research, perhaps they will have some good ideas regarding novel research lines.

All animals have a level of intelligence, they are not rocks, even plants have been shown to do sums. A short while ago PhysOrg wrote: "New research shows that to prevent starvation at night, plants perform accurate arithmetic division. The calculation allows them to use up their starch reserves at a constant rate so that they run out almost precisely at dawn."

BUT, the intelligence, consciousness, self-awareness of a mouse or rabbit is very dim. The consciousness of lesser animals is essentially insignificant. In dolphins or apes their intelligence or consciousness is becoming more significant, perhaps to a point which cannot be ignored.

I am sure lesser animals have always been considered conscious, unless they have been knocked-out into unconsciousness, but animals typically don't exhibit human-level consciousness, which is what people mean when they say lesser animals don't exhibit consciousness. If robots have only a minimal amount if consciousness they will have little rights similar to how dogs do not have very many rights, but with increasing consciousness rights will increase.
Blog-post by published

Friday, 5 July 2013

Are Humans Too Stupid to Change?

I recently read a G+ post by Max Huijgen regarding Edward Snowden, which prompted me to post a comment about civilization, human intelligence. My sociological observations are worth repeating and embellishing here, via this blog-post, because they give an insight into why I'm interested in AI.

Max was making the point that Snowden had failed to present the PRISM spying issues successfully. I, however, feel Snowden's presentation is not at fault because regardless of how Snowden presented the issues people would soon stop thinking about the issues. The reason why the issues are hidden, or were hidden, and why the security services do what they do, is precisely because people are the way they are. The issue is not that the security services act maliciously, with impunity, contrary to the better natures of people, the security services are merely a symptom of flawed natures regarding typical people, so no matter how the issues are presented people would soon move from serious issues to trivialities because they simply don't want to know about serious issues. This means the mass desire for ignorance both creates and perpetuates the problems. The security services, the state of civilization, this situation exists because people are morons, people crave oblivion, ignorance, which is a 1984-strength similar to how people typically unwittingly think freedom is slavery.

Yes there is significant social-engineering to emphasize stupidity but this social-engineering is only successful because it has been unconsciously sanctioned by the general world population. Social-engineering of stupidity happens via mass consent, although many people are too stupid to recognise or remember how they gave and continue to give consent to stupidity-engineering. I do recognise how there is lots of intelligence in the world and I also recognise how every human possesses innate intelligence but innate human intelligence is latent in the majority of people. The large amount of intelligence we see via sci-tech does not mitigate he greater amount of stupidity. Despite the typical state of latent human intelligence I think people within their unawareness are nevertheless partially aware, but they cannot express their awareness intelligently thus they become deranged, which is why religions continue to be popular, it is why serious issues are trivialised. It is a messy situation perhaps best described as mass psychosis.

Human idiocy is severely pronounced in the year 2013, therefore governments, or people opposing governments, could reveal the most shocking abuses of rights and freedoms, for example torture, indefinite detention without trial, force-feeding prisoners, or other issues, but this news would soon fade into triviality. A combination of effective government propaganda, which plays upon a misguided sense of patriotism, the overbearing need to fight to the enemy, the need to focus on any enemy despite East Asia never actually being at war with Eurasia, the need for scapegoats, the blind need protect security-freedom at all costs, and the human desire for ignorance; this combination inevitably leads need to serious issues being trivialised or misunderstood.

This is the prime reason I focus on human level AI because I know humans are generally too dumb to change regardless of ANY information presented to them in ANY manner.

I'm sure Snowden was fully aware of the consequences, all the outcomes of his actions, in the manner of Winston Smith. I'm positive he was aware his actions would very likely be futile, but being a man of high principals he decided to act despite the likely outcome of futility. Thought crime does not entail death, thought crime is death, which means the conclusion is inevitable but via this analogy I am not stating Snowden will be killed, my point is merely regarding inevitable futility. He certainly realized his life would become a living nightmare, he is after all fully aware of what the security services do, he also realized people would soon trivialize the issues.

The only slight point where Snowden was perhaps misguided, is regarding the theoretical awareness of a potential nightmarish situation. My point is that despite the best imagination in the world the theoretical conceptualization of a nightmarish situation will fall short of the tangible real-life horror of it, thus a couple of years from now Snowden might start regretting his actions due to a prolonged nightmarish situation. Theoretical awareness of pain is nothing compared to actual pain.

I think Snowden's leaks were always going to go wrong no matter how the leaks happened, but considering the futility of raising awareness I think events regarding PRISM are the best we could have hoped for, so relatively I deem the presentation to be righter than right. Considering the general circumstances of our largely futile civilization, the impossibility of changing a world full of morons, Snowden's leaking is a great success. Snowden's leaking must be deemed to have gone wholly right despite to total wrongness of everything in the world.

This is why I pin my hopes on artificial intelligence, but I am aware AI could merely exhibit a level of stupidity common to humans, which means the intelligence of AI could be wholly quantity based instead of quality based, thus one super-intelligent AI brain could embody the equivalent of 20 billion human brains but 20 billion fools don't really constitute smartness in the slightest. Perhaps, however, the sheer force of numbers, brute processing power, will allow for at least a small amount of genuine smartness, or at least with 20 or 100 billion fools we will progress somewhat quicker. The best situation would be if each Strong-AI brain possessed brainpower comparable to 20 billion truly smart humans instead of 20 billion typical morons. We shall see what happens. Currently in our world many people who think they are smart are actually idiots. Allegedly smart humans often fail to demonstrate any significant reasoning ability.

If you want to comment, do so via the KurzweilAI Forum or via this G+ post. Note also this subsequent post on the theme of Snowden stupidity. 
Blog-post by published
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)

# Blog visitors since 2010:



Archive History ▼

Notes from the pre-Singularity era:


S. 2045 | plus@singularity-2045.org