20 MAR 2018 by ideonexus
The Bible of Civilization
But to begin with perhaps I may meet an objection that is likely to arise. I have called this hypothetical book of ours the Bible of Civilization, and it may be that someone will say: Yes, but you have a sufficient book of that sort already; you have the Bible itself and that is all you need. Well, I am taking the Bible as my model. I am taking it because twice in history—first as the Old Testament and then again as the Old and New Testament together—it has formed a culture, and unified a...Folksonomies: civilization idealism
Folksonomies: civilization idealism
1 
notes
notesAn example of Wells idealism. He envisions a single, unifying book, but his bible is the sum of human literature, and the true story is constantly under revision, but written authoritatively in nature for us to read. He sees a book describing ethical conduct, but again our laws are such a book and we are constantly debating them in the courts and revising them in our legislatures.
22 SEP 2017 by ideonexus
Outsourcing our Thinking to Algorithms and Those Who Engi...
...even as an algorithm mindlessly implements its procedures – and even as it learns to see new patterns in the data – it reflects the minds of its creators, the motives of its trainers. Amazon and Netflix use algorithms to make recommendations about books and films. (One-third of purchases on Amazon come from these recommendations.) These algorithms seek to understand our tastes, and the tastes of like-minded consumers of culture. Yet the algorithms make fundamentally different recommend...Folksonomies: information technology society
Folksonomies: information technology society
1 notes
notes25 APR 2017 by ideonexus
Bit chin Society Emissary
And it clicked for me. He was a missionary—one of those fringe-dwellers who act as emissary from the Bitchun Society to the benighted corners of the world where, for whatever reasons, they want to die, starve, and choke on petrochem waste. It's amazing that these communities survive more than a generation; in the Bitchun Society proper, we usually outlive our detractors. The missionaries don't have such a high success rate—you have to be awfully convincing to get through to a culture that... 1 notes
notes25 MAY 2015 by ideonexus
Laura Betzig: Culture
What if the 100,000-odd year-old evidence of human social life—from the arrowheads in South Africa, to the Venus figurines at Dordogne—is the effect of nothing, more or less, but our efforts to become parents? What if the 10,000-odd year-old record of civilization—from the tax accounts at temples in the Near East, to the inscription on a bronze statue in New York Harbor—is the product of nothing, more or less, but our struggle for genetic representation in future generations?
[...]
... 1 notes
notes18 MAR 2015 by ideonexus
Altruism is a Basic Human Instinct
The cost for my survival must have been hundreds of millions of dollars. All to save one dorky botanist. Why bother?
Well, okay. I know the answer to that. Part of it might be what I represent: progress, science, and the interplanetary future we’ve dreamed of for centuries. But really, they did it because every human being has a basic instinct to help each other out. It might not seem that way sometimes, but it’s true.
If a hiker gets lost in the mountains, people will coordinate a sear...Folksonomies: altruism
Folksonomies: altruism
1 notes
notes16 JAN 2015 by ideonexus
When Politics Gives Way to Physics
People who take pride in the same object can form a knightly order but not a brotherhood of loving sons. However, as soon as pride in the exploits of the fathers is replaced by grief over their death, we will begin to perceive the Earth as a graveyard and nature as a death-bearing force. Then politics will yield to physics, which cannot be separated from astronomy. Then the Earth will be seen as a heavenly body and the stars as so many earths. The convergence of all sciences in astronomy is a...Folksonomies: cosmism transhumanism
Folksonomies: cosmism transhumanism
1 The "object" here is pride in culture, nations, and states. The "resurrected generations" refers to the transhuman belief that we will resurrect our dead to join us one day.
22 JAN 2014 by ideonexus
Science is Culture, Not Just Methods
The fruitful pursuit of scientific truth and its application, once discovered, is not just a matter of talented individuals well trained in foreign universities and supplied with the equipment they desire. These are very important, but the cultivation of science is a collective undertaking [written as 'understanding'! and success in it depends on an appropriate social structurc. This social structure is the scientific community and its specialised institutions. 1 notes
notesThe research and application are important, but the communal nature of discovery and understanding are crucial.
27 NOV 2013 by ideonexus
Science is the "Crucible" for Extending Life
People are living longer and societies are getting grayer. You hear about it all the time. You read about it in your newspapers. You hear about it on your television sets. Sometimes I'm concerned that we hear about it so much that we've come to accept longer lives with a kind of a complacency, even ease. But make no mistake, longer lives can and, I believe, will improve quality of life at all ages.
Now to put this in perspective, let me just zoom out for a minute. More years were added to av...Our culture, our memes account for our extended lifespans.
28 MAY 2013 by ideonexus
Longevity Leads to "Balkanized" Relationships
this culture’s structure of feeling could also be called balkanized. Gender therapy and speciation were both parts of the longevity project, and the combination of the three created a new structure of feeling that is often characterized as fractured, compartmentalized, bulkheaded, firewalled. Usually longevity itself is identified as the primary force driving this; until now, no one has had to integrate a personality in its second century (or more), and often it is experienced as an existen...Folksonomies: transhumanism relationships
Folksonomies: transhumanism relationships
So many experiences and knowing so many people leads to feelings of alienation.
18 JAN 2013 by ideonexus
Chinese Cultural Innovations Turned to Ritual
When Europeans first arrived in China, three hundred years a^ago, they found that almost all the arts had reached a certain degree of perfection there, and they were surprised that a people which had attained this point should not have gone beyond it. At a later period they discovered traces of some higher branches of science that h had been lost. The nation was absorbed in productive industry; the greater part of its scientific processes had been preserved, but science itself no longer exist...
1 An account of the amazing art and inventions found in China, but how these had turned into unquestioned rituals--performed exactly over and over again through the ages without alteration or innovation. The culture had stagnated.
