I want La Belle Epoque back, too!Originally Posted by SaintStephen74
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I want La Belle Epoque back, too!
Check out my Jan. 15 post. Could the West change course with expanded and reconstituted patterns?
We'll see in the 2040s.
Just in time for the Technological Singularity.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
Which is....?
Which is....?
The technological singularity arrives when computers are more intelligent than people -- when they can solve problems that we cannot solve, when they are able to create as effectively as we can, when they can organize their own propagation, and when they develop the potential as a ruling class -- in short, when they supplant us humans as the best-and-brightest land creatures (even if I make some allowance for the elephant).
The hazards of creating a rival life form (self-replication itself implies life) more intelligent than the creatures that created it are implicit in intelligence. Consider that the most dangerous animal to humans is -- humans themselves. We are the definitive superpredators because we are, so far, the most cunning, resourceful, and aggressive creature on Earth. We can dictate what animals survive and which ones dies even without intending to create extinctions.
Artificial intelligent smarter than us has the potential to establish life forms even more dissimilar to us than "Alf" or "E.T."... but a certain level of machine intelligence implies the definition of life because of its ability to command resources and to perform self-replication, the latter through manufacturing instead of through gestation, and, likely self-repair . Unlike all life forms that we know it would be silicon-based life that has been imagined in science-fiction novels. Such life could manipulate people to do its bidding, and it might not be so sentimental about something that brings us delight as we are. Should such New Life achieve power and demand more electrical power for its self-propagation, then it might succeed at forcing Yosemite Valley to be dammed (esthetic obscenity that such might be!) to supply its respiratory needs -- electricity. Such life, even if denied the ballot, could manipulate voters and voting machines to become the political power.
So far we have had tales like Forbidden Planet with "Robbie the Robot" and the Star Wars series with R2D2 and C3PO -- android robots who prove useful and intelligent servants, loyal as dogs at their best, intelligent as us but less vulnerable, and even on the brink of -- if not possessing -- human-like emotions. Sure, dogs can go very bad (they are arguably the closest animals to being our predatory peers), and we can put them down easily if they go unduly wayward. A gunshot might put down a rabid dog, but such might not be so effective to a wayward robot.
There's more. Such artificial technology as might come into existence might serve us as entertainers and as creators. So far, practically all material subject to copyright -- books, musical scores and recordings, screenplays, films, paintings, photographs, newspaper articles, computer programs -- are human creations. After the Singularity, artificial intelligence could create high-quality prose, poetry, visual images, computer programs, and music. Note well that the control of intellectual property is one of the hottest zones of legal contention -- and then add the material that artificial intelligence -- indeed, life -- creates. Who would have control over such creation? Would it be the owner of the machine that created a piano concerto in the manner of W.A. Mozart, the firm that created and marketed the intelligent machine, or... the machine itself? Or would the material be public domain because it is the result of a mechanical process?
Don't be so swift to rule out the latter, which implies that if some human refinement through editing is necessary that the artificial intelligence which has legal powers might dictate that it owns the original, and that the editing is a copyright violation.
It obviously takes a high level of intellectual power to create Hamlet's soliloquy... but should such become possible through a mechanical process that allows its creation, we might be in for a world potentially more enriched -- but also with new hazards.
Somehow I doubt there's going to be a technological Singularity of any sort. We're not that dumb. Are we?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularityWhich is....?
The technological singularity is a hypothesized point in the future at which the rate of technological growth approaches infinity. Moore's Law is often cited to assist in the prediction of the date of the singularity. Theorists are increasingly of the opinion that the singularity will occur via the creation of artificial intelligence (AI) or brain-computer interfaces, of smarter-than-human entities who rapidly accelerate technological progress beyond the capability of human beings to participate meaningfully in said progress. Futurists have varying opinions regarding the timing and consequences of such an event and "The Singularity" has featured prominently in work by a variety of science fiction authors.
Vernor Vinge originally coined the term "singularity" in observing that, just as our model of physics breaks down when it tries to model the singularity at the center of a black hole, our model of the world breaks down when it tries to model a future that contains entities smarter than human.
Statistician I. J. Good first explored the idea of an "intelligence explosion", arguing that machines surpassing human intellect should be capable of recursively augmenting their own mental abilities until they vastly exceed those of their creators. Later, in the 1980s, Vinge popularized the concept in lectures, essays, and science fiction. More recently, some AI researchers have voiced concern over the singularity's potential dangers.
Some futurists, such as Ray Kurzweil, consider it part of a long-term pattern of accelerating change that generalizes Moore's Law to technologies predating the integrated circuit. Critics of this interpretation consider it an example of static analysis.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
I don't think we're capable of designing a machine more intelligent than ourselves. To do so would be like imagining a new color on the visible spectrum that we cannot now see.
Remember, a computer is only as good as its programmer.
Last edited by Roadbldr '59; 12-29-2007 at 03:28 PM.
"Better hurry. There's a storm coming. His storm!!!" :-O -Abigail Freemantle, "The Stand" by Stephen King
God help us if Dubya becomes a computer programmer.
That statement makes as much sense as saying we can't make machines that can do other things better then humans. You are giving sapience some special, "magical" aspect that doesn't exist.
self-adaptive self-evolving programs are a an important part of AI research ya know.
Last edited by Odin; 12-29-2007 at 06:48 PM.
To recommend thrift to the poor is both grotesque and insulting. It is like advising a man who is starving to eat less.
-Oscar Wilde, The Soul of Man under Socialism
What if someone gets desperate -- or greedy?
What happens if in the case that some country in a win-or-be-obliterated situation decides that it must risk the rest of humanity to prevent a defeat that leads to its extermination or enslavement?
Human vanity has also caused catastrophes. Anyone who can solve certain questions of physics has a Nobel Prize awaiting him. Perhaps the Grand Unified Theory is just beyond human intelligence... but the solution requires giving control of the world economy to the supercomputer that solves the question. Likewise cures for AIDS and cancer.
Human wisdom has not grown as quickly as technology.
Staring Into Chaos
Staring Into Chaos Explorations in the Decline of Western Civilization by B. G. Brander
3. Visions of Decline
The West and Russia I: Nikolai Danilevsky
Danilevsky was a 19th century Russian who forumlated 5 laws of civilization.
There is a preparatory time during which a culture's creative force and organiation are accumulated...
"...But its time of blossoming and fruit bearing in fully realized form is brief. Further, this time exhausts the culture once and for all and never can be repeated.
"...In the later time of fulfillment, which averages between four and six hundred years, this accumulation is rapidly and magnificently spent. An age of spending has marked European culture all through the post-medieval, or modern, period. Only then did the civilization realize fairly fully all its creative possibilities and ideals of freedom, justice, and social and individual well-being. The spending time depletes a culture and exhausts its peoples. Then, with their cultural heritage and human creative powers gone, the civilization declines and disintegrates. Some cultures at that stage slip into dull stagnation as, for example, China did, idealizing the past in senile apathy and self-satisfaction. Others, like ancient Rome, slide into an anguished apathy of despair."
Staring Into Chaos
"The decline of any civilization is inevitable, in Danilevsky's view. One of the principal reasons for this is the limited nature of a culture's creativity. No civilization has pushed its creative efforts into every possible field. Rather, each has followed distinctive inclinations of its own. The ancient Greeks raised the ideal of earthly beauty to unsurpassed heights. Rome specialized in political organization and law. China excelled in developing the practical and useful aspects of life. India inclined toward imagination, fantasy, and, to some degree, mysticism. The Semitic civilizations lifted religious creativity to lofty levels. The main achievement of European civilization is unparalleled development of the physical sciences. Each of these fields, however, has limits to its possibilities. when the ceiling is reached, the civilization has finished its task. It has nothing open to it then but decline and ultimate death."
The Ancient Greeks by Don Nardo
Scholars have pointed out that the MilSaec resembles the Hellenistic Age.
In referece to this era:
"...its first century or so was a vigorous, prosperous period for the Greeks. And even as Greece's political decline proceeded, its artist and scientist continued to experiment and reach for new horizons; so that the age, as Michael Grant says, must not be viewed meerly 'as a sort of appendix of classical Greece. For [it] was rich and fertile in versatile creation which, despite all debts to the past, were very much its own'"
Powerful Times by Eamonn Kelly
Has considered the rise of Asian powers. If no one civilization dominates the new era international politics may resemble a Patchwork.
If the world is still more or less in one piece after this Crisis....if...if...if....
In my opinion a Patchwork may see the rise of China and India, a resurgent Japan, and a resurgent Russia. Large areas may be ruled by warlords. (With a few pirates thrown in for local color).
Will the West adapt, or try to hold on to power?
Oh, I think we'll try to dominate.
Me thinks we have a really good chance of entering this fourth turning as citizens of the United States and coming out this fourth turning as citizens of the North American Union with the US being as we know it to exist today as a thing of the past - part of the old order.
Bria
City-states organized into shifting regional alliances are more likely. They're more defensible, require less extensive infrastructure, and are more energy-efficient than nation-states -- and certainly more so than superstates.
You cannot step twice into the same river, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you. -- Heraclitus
It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. -- Jiddu Krishnamurti
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself. I am large; I contain multitudes." -- Walt Whitman
Arkham's Asylum
Not likely. First, it's not an empire. There's too little to turn against. Differences within it are entirely linguistic, and nobody is trying to ram some unified culture or religion down other people's throats.
Universal Empires fail because they require people to become members of fifth columns to have any chance at freedom from exploitation, repression, poverty, and homogenization. The Roman Empire fell because it had little to offer but peonage; the common people in fact welcomed the barbarians. The Aztec Empire may never have seen the Spanish coming... but its restive subjects often saw the Spanish conquistadores as liberators more than as oppressors. In more recent times, the Soviet Union would not have fallen apart so precipitously had it not offered so little for what it demanded of people. The nastiest of all Universal Empires, the Third Reich, rose fast as a conqueror due to the resources at the disposal of a ruthless tyrant, only to fall just as quickly to its gross violations of human decency and dignity.
I have read one condensed version of Alfred Toynbee's A Study of History; Toynbee offers the Universal State as the last gasp of a dying civilization for many of the reasons shown above. Freudian slip or not, "United States" sounds much like "Universal State", and one can see imperial scope, if not practice, in the USA from the inception of the United States. At least until recently the United States had a model to imitate. Should the rot that set in when Dubya became President intensify or even fail to abate, then centrifugal politics will ensue with some of the States seceding. Just as Lithuanians preferred being part of a free and independent (if tiny) Latvia instead of enjoying the dubious "protection" of the Soviet Union, I can imagine Californians preferring to be a part of a Republic of California than of the United States -- should the United States go bad.
"Universal States" need huge standing armies and navies to prevent revolts and secessions as well as to protect distant outposts. They also need huge bureaucracies to manage the logistical needs of the standing armies and navies. They impose high taxes with poor returns to taxpayers. The advantages that a Universal State provides, including free trade within the Empire, become trivial once the benefits disappear due to mass pauperization. Consider the Roman Empire at its inception; it gave benefits to numerous nations within the Empire by wiping out pirates and ensuring that navigation of the Mediterranean was easy. People could fish and even trade with ease, contributing to economic bounties then unknown in the ancient world. But in the end, the taxes got too high -- and people got taxation without representation -- or even service. The State came to enforce raw deals between big landlords and exploited tenant farmers. When the barbarians overthrew the Roman Empire in the West, they were welcome. Dissolution of the Empire was liberation from burdens that people gladly shed.
Most historians seem to associate the demise of empires with the rise of pathological rulers -- thieves, madmen, imperialists, backstabbers, religious and racial bigots, and sell-outs. At the extreme one finds Adolf Hitler, a man who fit five of the six pathologies; all that keeps him from being considered a sell-out is that he stabbed the backs of those who expected him to give them their expected quid pro quo... and his would-be Universal State collapsed faster than any in history.
What of America? It all depends upon whether Dubya becomes a portent of the American future or an anomaly to a longer heritage of governance. Humanity will know within a century-- long after we who dedicate our miniscule talents here are gone. Consider that Russia had Ivan the Terrible and Britain had Henry VIII... and still had greater glories ahead. Bad as Dubya is, he's not as evil as either of those two monsters.
Last edited by pbrower2a; 03-08-2008 at 04:13 PM. Reason: addition
It will take courage to listen to this ......
The day the dollar falls. Yikes!!!
http://isell.wordpress.com/2008/03/0...mists-predict/
"The only Good America is a Just America." .... pbrower2a
Singing, "Bye, bye, cheap American pie, drove my Chevy to the levy but my Chevy ran dry....the old ol' boys were drinking whiskey and rye and singing 'this'll be the day that I die, this'll be the day that I die'..."
"How I love the sound of falling stockbrokers in the morning."
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."
"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.
The dollar falls because American plutocrats have outsourced manufacturing. No nation has ever gotten rich by importing luxury goods, but some people have gotten very rich by inflicting poverty (including debt intended to bleed the assets of what has been the middle class) upon others for their own gain.
More income is made in America off lending to Americans than from manufacturing by Americans for Americans. That can't lead anywhere other than ruin if it isn't reversed.
This is where starve the beast must ultimately lead to. It may already be too late.
Reagan sold us a Faustian economy based on deficets that supposidly didn't matter, well, it turns out that they do.
Last edited by herbal tee; 03-08-2008 at 05:47 PM.
But at the same time they have committed America to an expensive war... but because military spending is the most profitable possible government spending (at least for profiteers) it is somehow noble.This is where starve the beast must ultimately lead to. It may already be too late.
Reagan sold us a Faustian economy based on deficets that supposidly didn't matter, well, it turns out that they do.
I think there's even more, like getting the opportunity to sell public works cheaply to private "investors" who use them to collect rent income.
Almost everything about the Bush administration is pathology.
Ah, right. Thanks.
How to spot a shill, by John Michael Greer: "What you watch for is (a) a brand new commenter who (b) has nothing to say about the topic under discussion but (c) trots out a smoothly written opinion piece that (d) hits all the standard talking points currently being used by a specific political or corporate interest, while (e) avoiding any other points anyone else has made on that subject."
"If the shoe fits..." The Grey Badger.
