How the Internet's Consensus of Information Undermines Au...

Heretofore, the technological advance that most altered the course of modern history was the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, which allowed the search for empirical knowledge to supplant liturgical doctrine, and the Age of Reason to gradually supersede the Age of Religion. Individual insight and scientific knowledge replaced faith as the principal criterion of human consciousness. Information was stored and systematized in expanding libraries. The Age of Reason originated ...

 Earthseed 46-50

46. Do not worship God Do not worship God Inexorable GodNeither needs nor wantsYour worship.Instead,Acknowledge and attend God,Learn from God,With forethought and intelligence,Imagination and industry,Shape God.When you must,Yield to God.Adapt and endure.For you are Earthseed,And God is Change. ∞ = Δ 47. Unenlightened Self-Interest Beware:At warOr at peace,More people dieOf unenlightened self-interestThan of any other disease. ∞ = Δ 48. Hidden within Change God is ChangeAnd hidden with...

 Summary of "Sirius"

Fifty years ago, the philosopher Olaf Stapledon published a novel, Sirius, which explores some of the depths of loneliness and alienation to which genetic engineering might lead. Stapledon knew nothing of DNA and molecular biology, but he foresaw the possibility of genetic engineering and saw that it would give rise to severe dilemmas. His hero, Sirius, is a dog endowed with a brain of human capacity by doses of nerve-growth hormone given to him in utero. His creator raised him as a member of...

 The Myth of the Lone Genius

Today, the Romantic genius can be seen everywhere. Consider some typical dorm room posters — Freud with his cigar, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the pulpit, Picasso looking wide-eyed at the camera, Einstein sticking out his tongue. These posters often carry a poignant epigraph — “Imagination is more important than knowledge” — but the real message lies in the solitary pose. In fact, none of these men were alone in the garrets of their minds. Freud developed psychoanalysis ...

 Leo Szilard's Ten Commandments

1. Recognize the connections of things and the laws of conduct of men so that you may know what you are doing. 2. Let your acts be directed toward a worthy goal but do not ask if they will reach it; they are to be models and examples, not a means to an end. 3. Speak to all men as you do to yourself, with no concern for the effect you make, so that you do not shut them out from your world, lest in isolation the meaning of life slips out if sight and you lose the belief in the perfection of t...

 We Delude Ourselves with Metaphors About the Internet

We are beholden to countless Internet fantasies: It's quicker than the speed fo ligth; it appears and dissolves at whim; it's guarded by big strapping men friendly to our own interests and hostile to the interests of others; it's magical, evanescent, as portable as our own bodies and imaginations; it looks like a swirling hypercoller tie-dyed video game. These are, of course, also common fantasies about capitalism. But the ultimate fantasy of being online, echoed in much writing about the Int...