I wonder if there were any geniuses living in Hiroshima in 1945?
Will technology save us or fry us?
Strive for genius, but more importantly, strive for love.
Then fear will not be an issue.
PeakOil is You
12 year old schoolkid improves the design of complex 3-D
Re: Do doomers fear geniuses?
by DarkDawg » Mon 22 Sep 2008, 11:23:40
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Re: Do doomers fear geniuses?
by lorenzo » Mon 22 Sep 2008, 12:19:09
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sicophiliac', 'P')erhaps investing more in medical research might have an enormous return on investment if we manage to enhance our IQs somehow? Maybe targeted stem cell injections into certain parts of the brain might be able to jack up the average persons processing power or genetic engineering for future generations.
Interesting.
A while back, a scientist over here suggested we need to do more to create more brains.
He said we are facing a global population decline, to begin from 2075-2100 onwards, which is sad, because it implies a rapid aging of brains and then a physical decline of their numbers.
Given that brains are extremely cheap supercomputers - worth 10 to 20 Petaflops a piece - it would be fun to have more of them.
Obviously, by that time, non-human supercomputers will be much more powerful than the human brain. But they're boring and non-sentient, non-spiritual.
So the dude suggested we may want to create more human brains, which are relatively energy efficient and fun to play with ("the social function of the orgasm will never be replicated in non-human computers").
But making more than 20 or 40 billion humans would obviously put some strain on the natural resources needed to sustain them.
So he suggests we simply get rid of the ballast of the human body: dull limbs like arms and feet. Keep a brain, the five senses and a genital area for its social functions. Shrink the rest.
Medically, this is very simple with some genetic engineering.
So if you shrink people to halve their size, and keep doing that for each next generation, you ultimately end up with an infinitely small human being. Man might disappear, or simply be reduced to a genital zone attached to a brain.
This would greatly reduce pressures on the environment.
One single jumbo-jet could carry hundreds of thousands of nano-humans, who would have loads of fun flying and bumping into each other ("the social function of the orgasm").
So I agree with you, we can either shrink our bodies, or boost our brains.
We might also augment ourselves with some non-human computing and sensing-capacity, but cyborgs are rather 1990s.
Cooler would be to produce huge brains without torsos and limbs, which we can send into outer space.
All this will be done. Sooner or later. So that we can say, like always:
The Beginning is Near!
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Re: Do doomers fear geniuses?
by yippleflipple » Mon 22 Sep 2008, 14:43:51
lorenzo,
Your depiction of man being "reduced to a genital zone attached to a brain" made me laugh uncontrollably...
Im curious as to what your opinion of the future is. I'm new here on the board and have only read a few of your posts and you seem intelligent, but you don't sound much like a doomer.
Im only 20 and just getting into the peak oil stuff, so tell me more, please!
Your depiction of man being "reduced to a genital zone attached to a brain" made me laugh uncontrollably...
Im curious as to what your opinion of the future is. I'm new here on the board and have only read a few of your posts and you seem intelligent, but you don't sound much like a doomer.
Im only 20 and just getting into the peak oil stuff, so tell me more, please!
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yippleflipple - Peat
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Re: Do doomers fear geniuses?
by the48thronin » Mon 22 Sep 2008, 20:11:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('yippleflipple', 'l')orenzo,
Your depiction of man being "reduced to a genital zone attached to a brain" made me laugh uncontrollably...
Im curious as to what your opinion of the future is. I'm new here on the board and have only read a few of your posts and you seem intelligent, but you don't sound much like a doomer.
Im only 20 and just getting into the peak oil stuff, so tell me more, please!
Your depiction of man being "reduced to a genital zone attached to a brain" made me laugh uncontrollably...
Im curious as to what your opinion of the future is. I'm new here on the board and have only read a few of your posts and you seem intelligent, but you don't sound much like a doomer.
Im only 20 and just getting into the peak oil stuff, so tell me more, please!
a small note about "doomers" Or mapping the logic LOL
First you see the problem looming
Second you feel a hopelessness due to your inability to change the future because of your own perceived insignificance.
Here in lies the first split
path one you build a bunker and prepare to do your best to be unaffected
path two you join the grass hopper in eternal denial and play
path three you look for a lever and fulcrum.
one path is guarenteed to be more important to the entirety of your life, but possibly to the entirety of humanity?
Good luck learning about P O
Welcome to the discussion. Not everyone is who they pretend to be, but not everyone is pretending to be someone.
I am 60.... don't expect to be here for all of it.
edit added below
At least you don't have to practice "duck and cover"
Malthusian Riders Member!
Courtesy and Courage Sincerity and Self-control Honor and Loyalty a Code to Live By!
What do the miners do when the canary dies? EVACUATE THE MINE not argue about the color of it's feathers or buy a parrot instead.
Where is my pitchfork and torch? I need them for a visit to the castle!
Courtesy and Courage Sincerity and Self-control Honor and Loyalty a Code to Live By!
What do the miners do when the canary dies? EVACUATE THE MINE not argue about the color of it's feathers or buy a parrot instead.
Where is my pitchfork and torch? I need them for a visit to the castle!
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Re: Do doomers fear geniuses?
by the48thronin » Mon 22 Sep 2008, 20:17:28
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DarkDawg', 'I') wonder if there were any geniuses living in Hiroshima in 1945?
Will technology save us or fry us?
Strive for genius, but more importantly, strive for love.
Then fear will not be an issue.
Will technology save us or fry us?
Strive for genius, but more importantly, strive for love.
Then fear will not be an issue.
Possibly in the early months... not too likely by the end of the year!
nice post!
Malthusian Riders Member!
Courtesy and Courage Sincerity and Self-control Honor and Loyalty a Code to Live By!
What do the miners do when the canary dies? EVACUATE THE MINE not argue about the color of it's feathers or buy a parrot instead.
Where is my pitchfork and torch? I need them for a visit to the castle!
Courtesy and Courage Sincerity and Self-control Honor and Loyalty a Code to Live By!
What do the miners do when the canary dies? EVACUATE THE MINE not argue about the color of it's feathers or buy a parrot instead.
Where is my pitchfork and torch? I need them for a visit to the castle!
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the48thronin - Tar Sands
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Re: Do doomers fear geniuses?
by lorenzo » Tue 23 Sep 2008, 06:41:49
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DarkDawg', 'I') wonder if there were any geniuses living in Hiroshima in 1945?
No, they flew over it while dropping their load.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DarkDawg', 'W')ill technology save us or fry us?
Strive for genius, but more importantly, strive for love.
Then fear will not be an issue.
I think genius in itself is a-moral, just like technology (that is, not immoral, but indifferent to morality - a-moral). Genius is also not the most important emanation of human capacity. Love is indeed far more potent.
If we all behaved in a loving way, we would create collective genius and solve most problems of this world instantly.
The most fascinating genii are those who combined both: love and human innovation and creativity. Gandhi probably did more for humanity than many scientific geniuses.
The question as to whether religious inspiration - amongst such dudes like Buddha or Christ who preached love - had to do with genius or with insanity, is of course an ancient question. The border between insanity and genius is always very thin.
But in any case, in this thread I wanted to zoom in merely on scientific genius. Because in our world, it seems like this type of genius will be most readily recognized.
There are many other domains in which genius is at work, like the one you cite.
The Beginning is Near!
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