[Scott Bakker]

I'm not sure I see your point, HE, or how it relates to what KatG is saying. It seems to me you're either making an argument for quietism or supporting what I'm saying.

[Dawnstorm]

As I say, I see us standing on a brink, and it seems pretty clear that we're holding a bottle of whiskey!

Interesting.

What if we're (already) in free fall. What if you're longing for the ground beneath your feet we've left behind above, and hoping there's a safety net down there. And I'm disputing that there ever was ground. Not above, and not below.

Could that conceit hold water? Is that a fair representation of the difference between our positions? (Wait, it makes me look silly... :eek: )

I'm still trying to understand, you know. ;)

EDIT: As you probably know by now, I have my silly phases. Feel free to ignore this post.

[KatG]

The point about dissappearing institutions is simply about technologically mediated social change. Vinge and Kurzweil talk about the 'singularity,' for instance. Kosselleck talks of our 'collapsing horizon of expectation.' Ignatieff, the 'ingenuity gap.' I like to call it the imminent 'material postmodern.' It amounts to the same thing: we're entering a a period of unprecedented change, so profound in its implications, we're not even sure what concepts like 'human' will mean by the end of this century.

This was part of Dawnstorm's original argument, I think. Before they treated us like animals, which is not quite the same as treating us like mechanisms - though in practical terms, it renders us equally abject. But that - training audiences - is itself a mid twentieth-century elaboration. Before that, the same will to exploitation existed, but they did treat us like people - to be convinced and to be deceived. Mostly the latter.

As I said earlier, think of this will to exploit combined with the present and potential power of neuroscientific tools. Since I think I have a good sense of the latter, this scares the hell out of me. That's my future fear.

My present fear has to do with the ignorance, complicity, and complacency required for a mainstream publication to represent marketers use of neuroscience 'to bypass the logical mind' as a positive. :eek:

As I say, I see us standing on a brink, and it seems pretty clear that we're holding a bottle of whiskey!

Oh. Okay, I've got it now. Actually, we probably pretty much agree on this. Though I also agree with HE about Orwell and such. Of course, human ingenuity is what gets us into these messes.

The problem is, we can't go back. The genie does not go back in the bottle of whiskey. And there are benefits to the genie that people find very hard to ignore. For all the dangers of our neuroscience, we can save people's lives with it. I had a relative who died of what turned out to be a genetic disorder that had big implications for his kids. A few years ago, they would not have known of it at all. I have another relative who is dying from cancer. Do I tell the genie to stay in the bottle when it may have the power to save people like her, on fears of humans becoming not human and all the sf theorems coming true? When we so often predict the future wrong? Does it matter, since I don't get to say if the genie is released or not? Do I fight that and how? We don't have easy answers for our turmoil, and that doesn't always mean we're complacent about standing on the edge of the cliff.

But I agree, the Time article should have considered the implications of it, especially the use for politicians in the current climate. A lot of the media do usually cover that sort of topic with these discoveries. And it is all very scary.

[Scott Bakker]

I think complacency is a fair way to describe our general attitude toward our technological future.

Here's a version of an argument for technological pessemism.

Given that our institutions are adapted to manage specific social relations, and given that technology is now transforming our social relations more quickly than institutions can adapt, it is inevitable that our institutions will become progressively more maladapted.

[Erfael]

I think complacency is a fair way to describe our general attitude toward our technological future.


So I follow along these arguments, tend to agree that it should be frightening and is, am pretty sure that I don't go in for advertising, at least not to buy things (I don't really buy anything but books, and a few ads have worked on me for books as far as just letting me know they're out there, but my decision still comes down to what I know about the actual book and whether I think I'll like it, not colors on the cover or anything like that), but wonder what one can do......

So what should we be doing to fight this complacency? I don't know the answer to that. March on Washington, on Wall Street, stop watching TV, don't read any advertisements, retire to a cave? I just don't know.

Suggestions, Scott?

[Hereford Eye]

Given that our institutions are adapted to manage specific social relations, and given that technology is now transforming our social relations more quickly than institutions can adapt, it is inevitable that our institutions will become progressively more maladapted.

Ah, ha! Right here in the forums of sffworld we see the first formulation of Bakker's 2nd Law of Bureaucratic Sociology. *
"The relationship of techonological advancement to bureaucratic competence is entropic." This corresponds nicely to the Peter Principle thereby providing additional support to the argument.

* It should have been his first 1st Law but he wanted it to be symmetrical with Thermodynamics. He will publish his 1st Law ex post facto. :)

[Scott Bakker]

What is the Peter Principle, HE? (something about the name makes me frightened to ask...)

So what should we be doing to fight this complacency? I don't know the answer to that. March on Washington, on Wall Street, stop watching TV, don't read any advertisements, retire to a cave? I just don't know.

Talking about it, certainly. We need Crown Commisions and Presidential Committees. Otherwise, who knows? We certainly can't have blind faith that somehow our institutions as they stand will see us through, not when their effectiveness depends on social contexts that may not exist in decades time.

We need a new kind of institutional flexibility for the roller coaster ride we've just embarked upon.

[Hereford Eye]

Laurence J. Peter, a management guru, formulated The Peter Principle in a book by the same title in 1969. The principle states "In time, every post <position, slot, block on the organization chart> becomes occupied by an individual incompetent to handle that position."
So, technology outstrips the social relationships the social relationships the bureaucracy - now managed by a person incompetent to handle the relationships in the first place - is supposed to handle. Reinforces your new 2nd Law nicely.

[Erfael]

Talking about it, certainly. We need Crown Commisions and Presidential Committees. Otherwise, who knows? We certainly can't have blind faith that somehow our institutions as they stand will see us through, not when their effectiveness depends on social contexts that may not exist in decades time.

We need a new kind of institutional flexibility for the roller coaster ride we've just embarked upon.

So given that technology is thrusting us forward faster and faster, is it a problem that most of our politicians are, erm, old, maybe not up on current technology? It seems to me that it's a huge problem. I remember watching on C-SPAN a little while back some senate hearings on internet privacy and such and watching these old guys trying very hard to understand in their terms just what the problems were, and I'm not convinced they ever did. How can these people deal with problems of this sort when they're not even equipped to understand them? I can't answer that, either.

And as far as institutional flexibility, that almost seems like a joke. I look at people around me, and they seem to be hanging on with every ounce of energy they have to "What Has Come Before." The public schools don't work. The prison systems don't work. Any number of institutions in the western world (my perspective is purely American) just don't work. But I don't see any real effort to look that in the face and deal with it. It's more like "Hunker down, get through my current term without making a mess and get someone from my party in office for the next term."

In looking around, I see very few people who are looking past the next four years. One group gets in power and they change everything to their way, regardless of whether that way can really hold up for the next twenty or fifty years. Then a few years later others are in power and they change it to something completely different. Why bother with the schools? They're only our problem for a few years..... People in 19th Century English schools didn't get lessons in how to appraise the effects of advertising; why should we do it in our schools? And if we teach people to think too much, they might just start to realize that the whole damned thing is running for a big train wreck, the old against the new, and then WE'd be out of power because we're not doing anything (or more than a token effort) to fix it.....

Now I'm getting a little ranty....so I'll stop for a bit.

[Scott Bakker]

Thanks, HE. I'm going to keep that one in the vault - though someone might say it's an argument for neuroscanners. :D

I know that rant, well, Erfael - especially when it comes to the issue of education. It's pretty sad when our only hope happens to be our most inflexible institution. As it stands, I don't know what to do aside from pissing in as much whiskey as I can.