Posted on 05/05/2002 12:57:54 PM PDT by inquest
By the way, bb, there was a quote you posted on the last thread you bumped me to, "Liberalism's Religion Problem" (which I only lurked on, since most of the discussion was over my head). It was from Vogelin, and I think it's just as appropriate here as it was there: "Now we feel more directly what is at stake: The issue is … a matter of life and death. And even more so, the issue is the question as to whether man may exist personally or has to blend into a suprapersonal realissimum. Intrapersonal relationships are severed, nonhuman spiritual structures confront one another, and man is transformed into a machine component that runs along mechanically in the gearbox, abstractly fighting and killing toward the outside."
The gambler had not expected to be here. But on reflection, he thought he had shown some kindness in his time. And this place was even more beautiful and satisfying than he had imagined. Everywhere there were magnificent crystal chandeliers, the finest handmade carpets, the most sumptuous foods, and, yes, the most beautiful women, who seemed intrigued with their new heaven mate. He tried his hand at roulette, and amazingly his number came up time after time. He tried the gaming tables, and his luck was nothing short of remarkable: He won game after game. Indeed his winnings were causing quite a stir, attracting much excitement from the attentive staff, and from the beautiful women.
This continued day after day, week after week, with the gambler winning every game, accumulating bigger and bigger earnings. Everything was going his way. He just kept on winning. And week after week, month after month, the gambler's streak of success remained unbreakable.
After a while, this started to get tedious. The gambler was getting restless; the winning was starting to lose its meaning. Yet nothing changed. He just kept on winning every game, until one day, the now anguished gambler turned to the angel who seemed to be in charge and said that he couldn't take it anymore. Heaven was not for him after all. He had figured he was destined for the "other place" nonetheless, and indeed that is where he wanted to be.
"But this is the other place," came the reply.
(Author quoting from a Twilight Zone episode)
Pick a time, far back, I'll use 1774 just because, and imagine all the upcoming horrible technological ways of creating pain and death. Beauts.
If you lived then and knew what you know now, would you be a Luddite type then? No far picking and choosing, i.e. retaining Tesla and aborting Wilsom......sorry, retaining a genius providing incredible creature comforts and aborting a high-ranking politician?
Let me know what that puzzle triggers.....I got two phone calls about your post which is more than I can ignore now that I got the outside work done today.
That's pretty weak. For my own part, I think Kurzweil is correct wrt the inevitability of these outcomes but his dates are agressive. The problems are very hard and just throwing more cycles at it won't solve it. I also think these outcomes will be on balance positive.
I just bought a 2GHz Pentium with the Sensurround/Scratch-n-Sniff options, etc.. Most of the software I have can't take advantage of a processor that fast; there are other bottlenecks that prevent faster throughput despite the accelerated processor. Sure, that technology will advance soon, and soon new machines will not suffer those bottlenecks. But my point is, this machine is perfectly adequate. And it will be for some time to come.
Technology doesn't necessarily drive the market anymore. Just because some new gadget lets us do something, it doesn't mean we want to -- or NEED to -- do it. All the wizardry the author describes is titillating, to be sure, but not much more valuable than the technology we have today.
Therefore, it is not likely it will be developed, until or unless someone can sell it.
At least that's my knee-jerk response.
Much more troubling are the moral implications of a society whose philosophy hasn't kept pace with its technological development.
How so, if I might ask?
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