I look forward to the day a majority of people realize that our biology is, to a large extent, something to be overcome. Our "natural" biological impulses are often incredibly destructive, for both ourselves (e.g. sugar cravings) and for those around us (e.g. the impulses in this article).
This is actually my theory of life -- humanity will eventually create a "perfect" version of ourselves, which with then exterminate us because we are inferior, and then the AI-human race will create a perfect society and branch off to explore the universe.
This is also how I see things going. Humans end more or less, and give birth to machine children. I don't think any part of it will be perfect though. It'll just be some starting condition playing out according to platonic principles interacting with arbitrary specifics like how far the nearest reserve of iron is in the universe, etc.
The broader conversation about the desirability of separating ourselves from our humanity is what made me think of the novel, because it's ultimately about the importance of choice (especially the UK version with the final chapter included).
> In the final chapter, Alex finds himself halfheartedly preparing for yet another night of crime with a new gang (Lenn, Rick, Bully). After a chance encounter with Pete, who has reformed and married, Alex finds himself taking less and less pleasure in acts of senseless violence. He begins contemplating giving up crime himself to become a productive member of society and start a family of his own, while reflecting on the notion that his own children will be just as destructive as he has been, if not more so.
Broadly speaking, the whole sentiment makes me uneasy, especially given how powerful a tool the internet can be for consensus building.
Yeah, copy that. I'd like to think a "perfect" version of ourselves would branch out to explore the galaxy and use part of their resource gathering capacity to compassionately provide for and nurture their Earthbound meat parents.
I also think that mankind destiny it to create by bio-engineering the specie that will replace us. Of course that view doesn't take in account civilization collapse or culture change that might turn humanity away from science.
humanity will eventually create a "perfect" version of ourselves, which with then exterminate us because we are inferior
Human cultural evolution has already created self-proclaimed "perfect" cultures that went on to attempt exactly this. The Nazis were only the most recent notable example. There are many examples in history of groups who considered it their holy duty or moral duty to take over the world. Fortunately, for most of human history, this hasn't been feasible, but technology is changing this equation.
then the AI-human race will create a perfect society and branch off to explore the universe.
Physics tells us that the "speed of light" is actually the absolute speed of causality for mass-energy.
So until consciousness can inhabit a substrate independent of mass-energy and based on space itself, and thus not subject to the light speed limit, any intelligent civilization which expands is doomed to create its own rivals. In Michael Swannick's Vacuum Flowers the Earth is taken over by a hegemonic super-intelligence, but it's forever trapped there, because when attempting to expand, the light-speed lag will cause a sub-part of it to bud off and immediately attack its greatest rival -- which is always the rest of itself.
In any case, civilizations are clearly not stable on cosmic time scales. Who in their right mind would think that billions of interacting sentients with their own agendas would produce any stable organization? It's ridiculous on the face of it.
> but it's profound to think our goal is to evolve to no longer be human.
What makes us human? We know from experience that children are often cruel towards other animals, even other children,and get drunk on power too easily. So this kind of aggression is something innate, right?
But we have learned from experience that it's not good for us as a society, so we train them( at least in most cultures) to be kind and compassionate.
Now what is more human then- brutality or compassion? Of course compassion. It doesn't matter that this trait is not innate. What matters is that we have consciously chosen to cultivate and promote this trait. Call it "conscious" evolution, if you will. But it doesn't make us any less of a human. It makes us more human- the human that has collectively evolved using transfer of experience through language.
Now what is more human then - human body or that of an android? Of course android body. It doesn't matter that it is not innate because we weren't born with it. What matters is that we have consciously chosen to build it and replace our body.
If you keep going with the theme of 'the changes we come up with are more human than what is innate', where does it end?
Certainly an android is more human - humans and only humans create those machines and make them a part of us.
We could ask, was mowgli more human than all of the suited gentlemen in New York? Of course not. Mowgli was lesser human than them.
Where does it end? Who knows? At this point, Isaac Asimov's The Last Question comes to my mind.
To me it's not at all "The Last Question", but more like The Matrix, where all human qualities are effectively inferior to those of machines.
Being human is not about being nice and living in harmony. It's about struggle and unfairness, compassion, competition, fights, power, tranquility, hate, love and war. I don't think there is anything rational or reasonable about it.
Ultimately, any sort of action increases entropy. So might as well enjoy it while it lasts instead of thinking of the greater good and how to force humans into this hegemony of cooperation and sustainability.
This is not to say that some of the more base instincts/behaviors shouldn't be squashed, but I think we should stop short of suppressing most of them.
Most people spend a great deal of time fighting their impulses in order to behave in a proper socialized manner: go to work, be nice, clean up, call your mom, don't procrastinate, etc.
Here's an article with links to other resources indicating that sociopathic/psycopathic behavior has a higher prevalence in people who we generally consider "successful" or to have "got ahead" (e.g. CEOs): http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/18/why-psychopaths-are-so-good-a...
Note: I'm not claiming the article is "proof" of the contention, just that it indicates support for the parent's assertion. Other items may counter the assertion, of course.
Economics and game theory tell us that into all systems, a bit of suckage must come. If you take a subversive look at the history of the United States, it would seem that groups of people here all lift themselves out of poverty through a combination of entrepreneurship and shameless graft/cheating/crime. I don't think the US has been free of some kind of group strife / domestic terrorism since the 2nd presidential administration. That's also when one political side accusing the other side of being horrible people who would bring about the end of the nation started.
The older I get, the more Stratfor's geographic interpretation of history and geopolitics makes sense.
Our "natural" biological impulses are often incredibly destructive
Tribalism is easily the most destructive of our impulses, especially in the way in which it can interact with ideology. Through ideology, such tribal impulses can camouflage their own effects and short circuit the "better angels of our nature" to excuse the dehumanization end even the slaughter of the out group.
I think that's the last great barrier to humans finally "waking up from history."
In particular, the way tribalism and in-group/out-group psychology interposes itself into political discussions is especially pernicious -- especially in the ways it manifests over the internet in social media. Fear isn't the mind killer. It's ideology combined with tribalism! If humankind ever destroys itself, in all likelihood, some group will have ideologically convinced itself that it should do so for some incredibly noble reasons.
>If humankind ever destroys itself, in all likelihood, some group will have ideologically convinced itself that it should do so for some incredibly noble reasons.
You mean like the people commenting here advocating replacing us with AI?
Pretty much anyone on the internet that gets traction is using outrage to spread their message. Since the emotions that cause viral spread on the internet are only outrage, lust, and awe, some huge whopping fraction of all communications on the internet through social media results in positions so extreme, someone eventually basically advocates destroying the human race or some large swathe of it.
It's like Godwin's Law. It's most certainly related to that, come to think of it.
Turn off the like/view/retweet counts or at least delay them and the outrage cycles can be slowed down and controlled. This will happen after some catastrophic event produced through uncontrolled fear mongering. As it is most country's are turning of the networks everytime a crisis happens. Its matter of time where there arises need for a global shutdown. And then the clowns in silicon valley will wake up and do it.
Indeed. Nationalism, playing the man instead of the ball, blindness to hypocrisy because "the other side does it", whataboutery, and all round aversion to principles and reasoning. It long predates social media, but social media makes it worse, and the dilution of a basic consensus source of truth into fragmented tribe-truths - I don't know where it leads but it's not a good place. Soon, whatever deluded tribe gets their hands on the rudder will drive the ship of state until it hits the rocks of reality.
I've been thinking of this as a sci-fi concept recently. On Star Trek all the other races have this singular defining trait, vulcans are logical, klingons are warriors, ferengi are greedy. The defining trait of humans is going against their natural impulses. We evolved from violent savage apes yet strive toward peace. Some choose veganism. Others choose celibacy.
Wasn't Captain Kirk the one always going with his gut instinct? The Vulcans were once an extremely emotional and violent race. Their logical traits are the result of generations of disciplined mastery over their natural impulses.
McCoy was usually the one making the emotional appeal to the captain for the audience's sake. And humans in general were the emotional ones.
However, Kirk was supposed to be the moderate one that didn't give-way to pure logic or emotion and find the best solution somewhere in between. Which was the moral of the story of the week.
That is a truly deep thought, I love it. I also think it's begging for clarity - it's right and wrong at the same time depending on what we're talking about.
Whether our "natural" impulses are destructive, they were evolutionary advantages when it comes to pure survival for long periods of history. Craving sugar was a good thing until the last century. The sexual impulses that lead to higher mating success are also evolutionary advantages despite their being destructive and socially unacceptable.
There are known parallels in humans to what this article is talking about. The book "Sperm Wars" mentions many of them https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_Wars The authors go to great lengths to denounce violent behavior, but nonetheless discuss the evolutionary advantages of some behaviors that we do not allow socially.
Look forward to the day? Religion (for whatever its faults) figured this out a long time ago. Man (by which I mean humans) is inherently sinful, though we are intelligent enough to recognize it and be responsible for it. It takes work, guidance, and discipline to live a righteous life.
> I look forward to the day a majority of people realize that our biology is, to a large extent, something to be overcome.
I look forward to the day a majority of people realize that our biology is something that cannot be overcome. You work with mother nature or you get crushed by her. Those are the only choices available to us.
Even if you override the natural instincts, you have to replace them with some other form of behavior. There is no ideal set of behaviors, unless you strip all humanity from a species.
Once you overcome the 'hurdle' of 'undesirable' behaviors, you just adopt a new set of behaviors, which could be, in the long run, just as detrimental as the ones we have now.
I think Brave New World describes this quite well. The world where everyone is happy isn't necessarily the one that wouldn't be shocking to us in its behavioral patterns.
Don't really see anything new here. Grew up on a farm. Cats beat the crap out of each other in mating season. Horses as well. The stud will typically bite the crap out of her or run her through a fence repeatedly
My long-term lover enjoys being slapped, choked, and generally degraded during sex. Doing these actions increases the amount of mating we indulge in. Through this effect, I too find myself conditioned to sexual arousal in these circumstances, noticeably increasing the extent of my tumescence.
There are plenty of other females out there who desire similar treatment. Perhaps humans are not so different to baboons in this regard?
57 comments
[ 253 ms ] story [ 409 ms ] threadPerhaps machine intelligence will be the better version of ourselves; we're just the bootstrap code.
> In the final chapter, Alex finds himself halfheartedly preparing for yet another night of crime with a new gang (Lenn, Rick, Bully). After a chance encounter with Pete, who has reformed and married, Alex finds himself taking less and less pleasure in acts of senseless violence. He begins contemplating giving up crime himself to become a productive member of society and start a family of his own, while reflecting on the notion that his own children will be just as destructive as he has been, if not more so.
Broadly speaking, the whole sentiment makes me uneasy, especially given how powerful a tool the internet can be for consensus building.
The latter makes it sound like a much worse version of ourselves.
http://www.newyorker.com/tech/elements/how-to-call-bullshit-...
Human cultural evolution has already created self-proclaimed "perfect" cultures that went on to attempt exactly this. The Nazis were only the most recent notable example. There are many examples in history of groups who considered it their holy duty or moral duty to take over the world. Fortunately, for most of human history, this hasn't been feasible, but technology is changing this equation.
then the AI-human race will create a perfect society and branch off to explore the universe.
Physics tells us that the "speed of light" is actually the absolute speed of causality for mass-energy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=msVuCEs8Ydo
So until consciousness can inhabit a substrate independent of mass-energy and based on space itself, and thus not subject to the light speed limit, any intelligent civilization which expands is doomed to create its own rivals. In Michael Swannick's Vacuum Flowers the Earth is taken over by a hegemonic super-intelligence, but it's forever trapped there, because when attempting to expand, the light-speed lag will cause a sub-part of it to bud off and immediately attack its greatest rival -- which is always the rest of itself.
In any case, civilizations are clearly not stable on cosmic time scales. Who in their right mind would think that billions of interacting sentients with their own agendas would produce any stable organization? It's ridiculous on the face of it.
What makes us human? We know from experience that children are often cruel towards other animals, even other children,and get drunk on power too easily. So this kind of aggression is something innate, right?
But we have learned from experience that it's not good for us as a society, so we train them( at least in most cultures) to be kind and compassionate.
Now what is more human then- brutality or compassion? Of course compassion. It doesn't matter that this trait is not innate. What matters is that we have consciously chosen to cultivate and promote this trait. Call it "conscious" evolution, if you will. But it doesn't make us any less of a human. It makes us more human- the human that has collectively evolved using transfer of experience through language.
If you keep going with the theme of 'the changes we come up with are more human than what is innate', where does it end?
Where does it end? Who knows? At this point, Isaac Asimov's The Last Question comes to my mind.
Being human is not about being nice and living in harmony. It's about struggle and unfairness, compassion, competition, fights, power, tranquility, hate, love and war. I don't think there is anything rational or reasonable about it.
Ultimately, any sort of action increases entropy. So might as well enjoy it while it lasts instead of thinking of the greater good and how to force humans into this hegemony of cooperation and sustainability.
This is not to say that some of the more base instincts/behaviors shouldn't be squashed, but I think we should stop short of suppressing most of them.
Note: I'm not claiming the article is "proof" of the contention, just that it indicates support for the parent's assertion. Other items may counter the assertion, of course.
1. Understand anything
2. Understand the rules
3. Follow the rules
4. Break some of the rules
5. Make new rules
The older I get, the more Stratfor's geographic interpretation of history and geopolitics makes sense.
Tribalism is easily the most destructive of our impulses, especially in the way in which it can interact with ideology. Through ideology, such tribal impulses can camouflage their own effects and short circuit the "better angels of our nature" to excuse the dehumanization end even the slaughter of the out group.
I think that's the last great barrier to humans finally "waking up from history."
In particular, the way tribalism and in-group/out-group psychology interposes itself into political discussions is especially pernicious -- especially in the ways it manifests over the internet in social media. Fear isn't the mind killer. It's ideology combined with tribalism! If humankind ever destroys itself, in all likelihood, some group will have ideologically convinced itself that it should do so for some incredibly noble reasons.
"Climate change is a natural process and we shouldn't interfere with it."
You mean like the people commenting here advocating replacing us with AI?
Pretty much anyone on the internet that gets traction is using outrage to spread their message. Since the emotions that cause viral spread on the internet are only outrage, lust, and awe, some huge whopping fraction of all communications on the internet through social media results in positions so extreme, someone eventually basically advocates destroying the human race or some large swathe of it.
It's like Godwin's Law. It's most certainly related to that, come to think of it.
Douglas Adams was a prophet! http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/6458-meanwhile-the-poor-babe...
There's a word for this happening throughout human history. It's called "government."
However, Kirk was supposed to be the moderate one that didn't give-way to pure logic or emotion and find the best solution somewhere in between. Which was the moral of the story of the week.
If you recognize it you can vaccinate yourself.
Whether our "natural" impulses are destructive, they were evolutionary advantages when it comes to pure survival for long periods of history. Craving sugar was a good thing until the last century. The sexual impulses that lead to higher mating success are also evolutionary advantages despite their being destructive and socially unacceptable.
There are known parallels in humans to what this article is talking about. The book "Sperm Wars" mentions many of them https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperm_Wars The authors go to great lengths to denounce violent behavior, but nonetheless discuss the evolutionary advantages of some behaviors that we do not allow socially.
I look forward to the day a majority of people realize that our biology is something that cannot be overcome. You work with mother nature or you get crushed by her. Those are the only choices available to us.
Once you overcome the 'hurdle' of 'undesirable' behaviors, you just adopt a new set of behaviors, which could be, in the long run, just as detrimental as the ones we have now.
I think Brave New World describes this quite well. The world where everyone is happy isn't necessarily the one that wouldn't be shocking to us in its behavioral patterns.
If not evolution, then what? Doesn't all behavior have an evolutionary basis?
Selflessness?
Sacrifice?
There are plenty of other females out there who desire similar treatment. Perhaps humans are not so different to baboons in this regard?
source:
[1]https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19085605