15 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
Russian Transhumanism
Russia has always been considered a hotbed of utopias, both from above and from below, that is: State and intelligentsia (think of Peter the Great, Nikolai Chernyshevskii‘s socialist-utopian novel "What‘s to be Done" or Dostoevskii‘s ideal man Count Myshkin, the Idiot) – and at the same time there was a strong milleniarism among the people, a religious zeal leading to a variety of sects, peasant and folk beliefs resulting sometimes in bizarre mass movements. (Skoptsy) (This history h...Folksonomies: cosmism transhumanism
Folksonomies: cosmism transhumanism
1 16 AUG 2014 by ideonexus
Orwell Notes Hitler's Rigidity of Mind
It is a sign of the speed at which events are moving that Hurst and Blackett’s unexpurgated edition of Mein Kampf, published only a year ago, is edited from a pro-Hitler angle. The obvious intention of the translator’s preface and notes is to tone down the book’s ferocity and present Hitler in as kindly a light as possible. For at that date Hitler was still respectable. He had crushed the German labour movement, and for that the property-owning classes were willing to forgive him almost...He notes that Hitler's ideas did not change at all over 15 years and that is a mark of madness.
21 JUN 2014 by ideonexus
There is a mass exodus into the virtual world
The real world just doesn’t offer up as easily the carefully designed pleasures,
the thrilling challenges, and the powerful social bonding afforded by
virtual environments. Reality doesn’t motivate us as effectively. Reality isn’t
engineered to maximize our potential. Reality wasn’t designed from the bottom
up to make us happy.
And so, there is a growing perception in the gaming community:
Reality, compared to games, is broken.
In fact, it is more than a perception. It’s a phenom...Folksonomies: education gamification
Folksonomies: education gamification
1 
notes
notes26 FEB 2014 by ideonexus
MarsOne Response to Muslim Fatwa
And among His Signs is the creation of the heavens and the earth, and the variations in your languages and your colors: verily in that are Signs for those who know. (Quran 30: 22)
The Muslim world has a rich tradition of exploration. The verse from the Quran above encourages Muslims to go out and see the signs of God’s creation in the ‘heavens and the earth’. The most influential example of this was the Moroccan Muslim traveller, Ibn Battuta, who from 1325 to 1355 travelled 73,000 mile... 1 notes
notes...against voyaging to Mars because it constitutes "suicide."
09 AUG 2013 by ideonexus
War is an Alien Threat
More than a century ago a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America. After that visit he predicted that the two great powers of the future world would be, on one hand, the United States, which would be built, as he said, ``by the plowshare,'' and, on the other, Russia, which would go forward, again, as he said, ``by the sword.'' Yet need it be so? Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we ... 1 notes
notesRonald Reagan suggests we would put aside our differences if threatened by extraterrestrials, but then notes that war is an alien threat--alien to how we desire to live.
26 MAR 2013 by ideonexus
Mathematics is More Popular Than Music and Art
Archimedes will be remembered when Aeschylus is forgotten, because
languages die and mathematical ideas do not. 'Immortality' may be a silly
word, but probably a mathematician has the best chance of whatever it may
mean."
[* * *]
A mathematician, like a painter or a poet, is a maker of patterns.
If his patterns are more permanent than theirs, it is because they are
made with ideas.
[* * *]
The mathematician's patterns, like the painter's or the poet's,
must be b... 1 notes
notesMathematical ideas are more permanent in culture than artistic ones, and more people play in mathematical games without realizing it.
19 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Anti-Science in Communism
Suppression of knowledge weakened Russia in the Lysenko affair. which a political ideologue and former peasant named Trofim Lysenko ingratiated himself to communist leaders and was placed in charge of national agriculture because of his ideological conformity. He denounced and suppressed scientists who questioned his odd schemes as "fly lovers and people haters"^^ (because geneticists were doing fruit fly research-h—I kid you not!) and his uneducated methods decimated Soviet agriculture. So... 1 notes
notesThe USSR and China as examples of how anti-science attitudes and political loyalty over empiricism damaged both countries.
21 JUN 2012 by ideonexus
Marxism and Freudianism are Not Science
The difficulties connected with my criterion of demarcation (D) are important, but must not be exaggerated. It is vague, since it is a methodological rule, and since the demarcation between science and nonscience is vague. But it is more than sharp enough to make a distinction between many physical theories on the one hand, and metaphysical theories, such as ' psychoanalysis, or Marxism (in its present form), on the other. This is, of course, one of my main theses; and nobody who has not unde... 1 notes
notesMarxism did not allow itself to be tested, Freudianism was so flexible as to have an explanation for everything.
28 JAN 2012 by ideonexus
Deserts Follow Where Man Goes
Very old and wide-spread is the opinion that forests have an important impact on rainfall. ... If forests enhance the amount and frequency of precipitation simply by being there, deforestation as part of agricultural expansion everywhere, must necessarily result in less rainfall and more frequent droughts. This view is most poignantly expressed by the saying: Man walks the earth and desert follows his steps! ... It is not surprising that under such circumstances the issue of a link between fo...Eduard Brückner recognizes the importance of forests in maintaining a healthy climate in the late 1800s.
28 AUG 2011 by ideonexus
Evidence of Global Warming in Just the Past 12 Months
Is the climate crisis real? Yes, of course it is. Pause for a moment to consider these events of just the past 12 months:
• Heat. According to NASA, 2010 was tied with 2005 as the hottest year measured since instruments were first used systematically in the 1880s. Nineteen countries set all-time high temperature records. One city in Pakistan, Mohenjo-Daro, reached 128.3 degrees Fahrenheit, the hottest temperature ever measured in an Asian city. Nine of the 10 hottest years in history h...Al Gore summarizes extreme weather events and other natural phenomena as a result of Global Warming from just the past year.
