Support For Obama: Bad For USA

[johnnycakes]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R_C</div><div class="ubbcode-body">jc, your belief in the innate goodness of humanity is admirable but at this point in my life I must say that I have learned more about why the world is the way it is and it is likely to be long after I’m gone by studying human history not by speculating about a alleged golden age to come. For at the end of the day, the best predictor of how human beings will behave tomorrow, either collectively or as individuals, is how they behaved yesterday. I have yet to be disappointed in that regard.

I would venture to say that we don’t have to wait on <span style="font-style: italic">“The advent of Kurzweil's Singularity, the exponential leap in technology”</span> to see how <span style="font-style: italic">“many things possible that would be considered miraculous or magic even now”</span> affects human behavior. The technology available to us today would already appear “magical” as you say to civilizations that existed a mere century ago. And what have we done with it? How has it changed us? Well, apart from creating physical comfort and industrial efficiencies that have touched the lives of a tiny fraction of the planet’s population, it has been put to use by the world’s armies to kill in larger numbers and with greater ease than ever thought possible before.

Again, your faith in the ability of technology to change how humans behave towards each other is admirable. I just don’t see, beyond mere speculation, what basis exists for us to think that this is possible in any significant way.



</div></div>


R-C,

Again I understand your reluctance to accept what I believe.
And again, history is just that: history. If you told Abraham Lincoln that man would fly in 35 years back in 1865 , he'd be totally disbelieving as well.

What you do not take into consideration is what so many question Kurzweil on and that is the intuitive linear thinking on progress does not apply to the exponential growth we are soon to experience.
What we are approaching in about twenty years is what is called by Singulatarians &quot;the knee&quot; of the exponential growth curve at which point technology begins an incredibly (to us now) accelerated growth rate which will change a great deal of what we consider normal life at present.

I recently heard a radio program in which someone not a Singulatarian but very knowledgeable in film and television said that by the early 2020's we will have large flat screen TVs that will show incredibly realistic 3-D images and for relatively little money such that every room in the house you'd want one will have one.

This just to point out that we will be seeing some incredible things coming at us at an ever faster rate than ever before in human history.

Nothing we have experienced in the past can either compare with or limit the coming exponential developments in technology and (IMO) societal evolution resulting in large part from the technological developments of things like cheaply available power sources.

What is most difficult to overcome in Kurzweil's experience is that stubborn and intuitive human adherence to the thought that technological advances will be linear in form rather than the exponential growth he has largely proven to be happening now.

He actively searches out critic for debate and the videos I see of some of those debates and questions do not create any doubt in my mind of the overall validity of his past and present predictions.

Frauds and invalid theories are usually dispatched rather quickly these days but no one has done in Kurzweil and quite to the contrary, the record shows him to be very accurate.

If you or anyone comes across anything that does disprove him, do please present it here for me anytime.

[R_C]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

Fine, but you have missed my point (or just sidestepped it entirely). I am not disputing the fact that there are many technological wonders yet to come that we cannot conceive of at this time...nor am I against them....I am no Luddite.

My question is...how will that lead to us treating each other any differently than we have done ever since the advent of recorded history ?

Technological revolution has yet to change man's inhumanity to man, and in certain instances, may have increased it. So again I ask, how, exactly, will having a flat screen 3-D tv make me care any more about the welfare of my neigbour ?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R_C</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Fine, but you have missed my point (or just sidestepped it entirely). I am not disputing the fact that there are many technological wonders yet to come that we cannot not conceive of at this time...nor am I against them....I am no Luddite.

My question is...how will that lead to us treating each other any differently than we have done ever since the advent of recorded history ?

Technological revolution has yet to change man's inhumanity to man, and in certain instances, may have increased it. So again I ask, how, exactly, will having a flat screen 3-D tv make me care any more about the welfare of my neigbour ? </div></div>



R-C,

Okay I got it.

Right now in the world there is much deprivation, death and misery due to the uneven distribution of the goods and services on the planet . Eight million die per year from starvation alone.

Kurzweil foresees the ability to grow food technologically including the cloning of beef which will eliminate fed lots, slaughterhouses, degraded environments. The technology is already there for this sort of thing.
I would expect that the smarter-than-human intelligences that will evolve will be able to solve the technological problems in containing the plasma in fusion power plants and present us with that cheap, clean inexhaustible power source that will bring electrification to every person on Earth wanting it.
These are but two problems out of many but they are key ones so this is what I presented.

Technology will solve most of the problems of manufacturing, food supplies, energy and preventable and curable disease that plague the planet.

When everyone has enough to live decently they will invariably turn to higher things, education, art, science, sports, SOCIETAL congruity etc.

IMO With greater intelligence will come logic and the end of illogical practices like greed, wars, racism and a great many other societal ills that feed on, depend on continued widespread ignorance which I feel will be eliminated by the also exponential growth in technological learning tools.

TV with Smell-o-Vision and Feelarama are just advanced toys I used to exemplify the sorts of advances we can expect shortly but which will not have any effect on our societal development.

In the end, it all boils down to whether you thinks humans are intrinsically good and that the coming advances will free us from the mental slavery and backward selfishness that is a for-money society or as most people and especially religious people believe that humanity is flawed from the get-go and (for the religious) its only salvation is in the Rapture or the Second Coming.

Still some Creationists feel that we are the work of an intelligent designer and any sort of being who could create a universe, sun, planet and people could not possibly have created a product as basically flawed as we SEEM to be.

I go along with that thinking as far as thinking that we, as a race, are innately good but have become corrupted by centuries of enslavement under the selfishness of capitalism and the ludicrous thought that we can live as individuals free of societal obligations,.


The Golden Rule has been valid for the milennia. It just could not be put into practice because capitalism is totalitarian: we had no choice but to live in a selfish way to just survive .

When we as a race see that sort of life is both morally wrong AND unnecessary, that life could be approach Utopian quality given equitable sharing of the soon-to-be plenty made possible by the technology that is rapidly unfolding , the societal change will come practically overnight.

For the first time in our 100,000 years on the planet, we will live the Golden Rule rather than be ruled by those with the gold.

(Even if super intelligent machines have to manipulate us to get us thinking straight.)

[R_C]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: jc</div><div class="ubbcode-body">When everyone has enough to live decently they will invariably turn to higher things, education, art, science, sports, SOCIETAL congruity etc.</div></div>

This, jc, is the crux of the matter and where we differ. I maintain that this is pure speculation on your part. My position is based on human history (not religion), and history I might add, that predates all forms by which humans have organized their means of production..not just <span style="font-style: italic">&quot;centuries of enslavement under the selfishness of capitalism&quot;</span>.

[MarieK]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: R_C</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">If it weren't taught or rather, enforced by capitalism, humans would be kinder to one another.</div></div>

jc, I'm not sure if the broad sweep of human history supports that.

Anyway, interesting discussion nonetheless.
</div></div>

Hi R_C,

I understand your doubts on the innate goodness of humans given the history of the race but I feel that as a race we are progressing/evolving as regards becoming civilized.

Just as we couldn't fly until about 100 years ago or perform organ transplants or have telephones on the technical side of life, we/many are unable to think of anything different because all we know IS history.

IMO IMO IMO

The advent of Kurzweil's Singularity, the exponential leap in technology will make many things possible that would be considered miraculous or magic even now. Those leaps in things like cheap power and the elimination of most manual labor will also bring along social changes the like of which are unimaginable.

This will also mean the end of the capitalist economies and the the selfishness and lack of social cohesiveness we, as a race have known for our entire existence on the planet.

This thought fits whether you are a communist (as I am) or a believer in God.
Those who have a dim view of man's intrinsic morality or lack thereof will have a different view of this future and a very difficult time trying to grasp these changes and what will drive them.

I am basing my predictions largely upon things that Kurzweil has predicted but perhaps extrapolating a bit on the social effects of the exponential changes in technology.

I am guessing/feeling that the technological advances will bring enhanced learning techniques, perhaps direct links to the brain's learning centers but certainly some advance means of absorbing information that will make education very effective cheap, and in a future socialist society universally available.

and...an educated world will be be a kinder gentler world IMO since a Golden Rule society will a be direct outfall of a society based on logic.

Again, I can fully understand why there is now a great reticence in believing this is possible and even more difficult for disbelievers to think that it will all happen in about 40 years given that all we know ands all we can base our judgements on is our societally primitive history and that includes the present.

</div></div>

RC i cd post my thoughts but I have learned a long time ago that when a horse is dead there's no need to beat it cuz it wont move change direction or act any differently other than how a dead horse acts. Now, rest assured, I am in no way calling you a horse, I am referring to anyone and everyone who seems to think that America has some how fabricated 9/11 and has fabricated OBL's accepting responsibility - for some - their reality is scary so they spend their time living their own life in their heads - there's nothing I can do to change that so like I said = this entire statement wd be more valuable if it was on a used piece of toilet paper.

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Right now in the world there is much deprivation, death and misery due to the uneven distribution of the goods and services on the planet . Eight million die per year from starvation alone.

Technology will solve most of the problems of manufacturing, food supplies, energy and preventable and curable disease that plague the planet.

When everyone has enough to live decently they will invariably turn to higher things, education, art, science, sports, SOCIETAL congruity etc.</div></div>
You seem to believe that much of mankind's problems come from scarcity, and that if there is plenty to go around that all of the world's problems will be solved. Remember the story of the Garden of Eden? The Prince? The Art of War? The Tao?

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">IMO With greater intelligence will come logic and the end of illogical practices like greed, wars, racism and a great many other societal ills that feed on, depend on continued widespread ignorance which I feel will be eliminated by the also exponential growth in technological learning tools.</div></div>
Can you imagine these computer enhanced people telling their bellicose neighbors that they aren't smart enough? They aren't being logical!

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">For the first time in our 100,000 years on the planet, we will live the Golden Rule rather than be ruled by those with the gold. (Even if super intelligent machines have to manipulate us to get us thinking straight.)</div></div>
Talk about drinking the Kool-Aid! A Brave New World where &quot;intelligent machines have to manipulate us ti get us thinking straight&quot; sounds absolutely HORRIBLE to me. This is what all fascist dictators believe... that is, once everyone is on board, thinking alike, or looking alike, or worshiping the right god, then everything will fall into place. You are saying once everyone has their needs met, and get logical (even if they have to be &quot;treated&quot, then the Golden Rule will kick in. Scary.

(Later)
It just came to me that the Singularity is... in it's way, another Doomsday, an Armageddon, an End Time. And you yourself jc are saying that for the first time in 100,000 years the Golden Rule will reign. I have to think that all of this kind of thinking is imo The True Believer thinking.

[johnnycakes]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

40,

You're somewhat handicapped in this discussion of the future in that you haven't read &quot;The Singularity Is Near&quot; in its entirety nor listened to a great deal of what Kurzweil and others who follow his line of thinking have to say on the matter.
I am far from the expert here but more knowledgeable than most having read the book and done some research into what doubters are saying.

You also come from a society that is predominantly religious and which believes in the basic sin/evil of humanity which we communists think is rubbish.

Much of what you and many others have to say about advance AI and robotics seems amazingly akin the sort of action packed science fiction the public prefers in which the machines we create become our nemeses.

&quot;I, Robot' is a classic example and it in no way resembles the advanced and benevolent robots of Azimov's stories. The movie people made changes to make it sell at the box office because no one would care to watch robots just helping the human race.

Why should the thought of a super intelligence guiding humans into a far better society bother anyone?

After all, do we fear what many consider the ultimate super intelligence: God will do to us.?

On second thought the Rapture, Armageddon and all the rest of the horror stories and atrocities attributed to that super -intelligence also creates an atmosphere of fear around any super intelligence.


The mistake you should not make is assuming that a super intelligence would be anything as depraved as humanity is in its present primitive state and what it has been up to this point. That a super intelligence would be malevolent flies in the face of logic.

Man may have created God in his image but I seriously doubt that any genuine super intelligence we create and which then passes beyond our intellectual capacity would be bloodthirsty and immoral as the God we have depicted.

Thankfully I needn't convince you or anyone else about what I (Kurzweil and a great many others) think is coming because it is already happening.

The pace of technological advance has already entered the earlier part of that exponential growth with things like the little cell phones we all carry having thousands of times the capacity of computers some 20 years ago, a thousand times smaller and a million times cheaper (all Kurzweil's absolutely factual examples).

The next twenty years will produce more technological advances than the whole of the last century (again Kurzweil who has been dead on about the technological advances for about 25 years.)
Let's chat about this in 20 years at which time things will really be moving or not if you're correct.

[f0rTyLeGz]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

I was thinking today about the prediction that people will be into sports, and art, and learning, after the Kurtzweil Singularity. Sports is about dominating, winning, taking home the GOLD. Being better than. It is like conversation... this conversation even. That is, <span style="font-style: italic">being right</span>.

I played a little golf in my day, and I have enjoyed watching it on TV since they started broadcasting on TV. It has been a beautiful thing imo that the game caught on big time, and millions of folk have played the game. and thousands of golf courses have been built around the world. Today K J Choi won the Player's. He won $1.7 million. Will there gold for the victors after the Singularity, or will it be like kid's soccer, where every participant is a winner all the time?

<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/G-dPjDYVKUY&amp;feature=player_embedded"></param> <param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param> <embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/G-dPjDYVKUY&amp;feature=player_embedded" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>

[johnnycakes]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

40,

Sports is also the desire to excel at what one does.
Often this is reflected in self-improvement within a competition such as in tennis, golf, weightlifting, boxing almost any sport.
There is nothing innately wrong with competition within sports.
No one lose their lives as happens when the competition is economic as it is with killer capitalism where the winners live in luxury and the losers die in misery.

Debating as you pointed out also involves intellectual competition and that is all to the good. The losers have to go out and find better debating points to improve their game.

If things go as Kurzweil and others like me believe we all will have the leisure time to engage in the things we truly love to do and can eliminate the rat race for the money needed to just survive day to day.

What an enormous relief for humanity. We can only imagine what works of art, what sports achievements and even just down to brilliant intellectual exchanges as we evolve to that higher state.

And no I don't believe that there will be that necessity we feel now to make everyone a winner. The stigma of losing now often is tied to one's financial success or lack thereof.
I can foresee the possibility of a society where doing what one does for the society and and doing it very well will be the measure of ones worth and not how much money one has

As for the money in professional sports, it is only there because athletes have to make a living. In Cuba no one plays sports for a living and all the athletes have regular jobs although they do get all the time off they need to train and play in their respective sports. In that brighter future even those people will not have to work as technology and automation take over the production of most of what we need and the services society requires.
Intelligent robot workers (the word robot itself is from robotnik or something like that which translates from the Czech as slave) are a certainty in that future.

As I said we can barely even imagine what is coming with the stupendous technological advances in the first half of this century alone.

As also said, what happens after AI surpasses the total of human intelligence: Kurzweil's Singularity is the big mystery for which no one, even Kurzweil, has the answer.

And as Monk has already said you'd better &quot;hang on to your hat&quot; because that ride will take us way out into the universe.

Anyone for mountain climbing or golf on Alpha Centauri ?

[johnnycakes]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

HEY!!!

This thread used to be about Obama wasn't it?
Lets see......

Come the Singularity we will all be able to know that he and all the snakes are lying because the technology for lie detecting that is already here and will vastly improve in a short time.

Of course non-technological means of detecting Obama's lies is already here.

You know he's lying if his lips are moving.

Even before the Singularity, the changes will mean the end of politics as we know it.

We will then experience true universal democracy for the first time because we will all be as knowledgeable as need be to actively participate in that global democracy..

Bad news for all political parties and the privileged lives they lead. Great news for all of us including the politicians who will then want to find useful and good things to do FOR humanity in their new lives rather than doing things TO people as they do now.

Yes I know I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday.........

[MsPeaches]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> After all, do we fear what many consider the ultimate super intelligence: God will do to us.?
</div></div>

johnnycakes, yu an mi agree on just about everything else, but IMHO anybody who doesn't fear God/Allah is a pure fool, pardon mi for saying so. Atheists can't see who made the ground they're standing on or who grows food for them to eat. You need to move to Ghana for 6 months and you might acquire a healthy respeck for your Creator. Ghanaians never take Him for granted because they know very well who helps them to survive from day to day. And I have personally seen far too many miracles happen after I have prayed for ppl to ever think otherwise. The New Age is within us, not in some machine or mechanical creation. If we don't manage to find it there, we will never find it anywhere, TRUST ME!

And furthermore, not only do Ghanaians know there is a God, but if you come here, you will also discover that there is a thing called WITCHCRAFT that really exists and can do serious harm to ppl who are less than righteous. If not for Allah's protection it would have killed me years ago.

So many things exist in this world that North Americans in their soft chairs know next to nothing about. But come to the Centre of the Earth and you will discover them for yourself. A little humility can do us enormous good.

[R_C]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

'theos ek mechanes'

so to speak....

[RichD]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body">HEY!!!

This thread used to be about Obama wasn't it?
Lets see......

Come the Singularity we will all be able to know that he and all the snakes are lying because the technology for lie detecting that is already here and will vastly improve in a short time.

Of course non-technological means of detecting Obama's lies is already here.

You know he's lying if his lips are moving.

Even before the Singularity, the changes will mean the end of politics as we know it.

We will then experience true universal democracy for the first time because we will all be as knowledgeable as need be to actively participate in that global democracy..

Bad news for all political parties and the privileged lives they lead. Great news for all of us including the politicians who will then want to find useful and good things to do FOR humanity in their new lives rather than doing things TO people as they do now.

Yes I know I'm a dreamer but I'm not the only one.

I hope someday.........


</div></div>

and in the mean time anybody but &quot;that guy&quot;

[lonewolf]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: johnnycakes</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Anyone agree with the statements below?


<span style="font-weight: bold">If you hit someone and kill their family, they will hate you and probably hit you back in the future. That’s what blowback is all about. It seems like such a simple concept</span>.

They professed that what our military does abroad has no effect on how the citizens of the world feel towards us. Rudy Giuliani in particular believed that the 9/11 terrorists hated our wealth and freedom so intensely that they sacrificed their lives to prove it. <span style="font-weight: bold">(Of course, our government bombing their countries, propping up their dictators and supplying their enemies with money and weapons had nothing to do with it.)</span>
Instead of securing our borders, we’ve been planning, initiating and waging wars of aggression. Within a few short years, we turned Iraq into the world’s leading breeding ground for terrorists. Our military is spread thin all across the planet, yet we remain involved in dangerous power plays that unnecessarily put the lives of our soldiers at risk. And we brazenly squandered the wealth of our nation as if there were no tomorrow.

<span style="font-weight: bold">It doesn’t make any sense unless you consider increasing the profits of the military-industrial complex to be in the “national interest”, no matter what the cost to the rest of us may be</span>.



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<span style="font-weight: bold">Wolfie,
The only people whom you could get to agree with those sentiments would be those who have a basic understanding of U.S foreign policy</span>.
That does exempt Rudy Guiliani and most of the readers of these fora. </div></div>



Oh, by the way, that statement is from Republican Ron Paul. The Democrats dislike him and so do his fellow Republicans. If both corrupt parties dislike him, he must be doing something right......and he is the guy that FOX NEWS tried to keep out of the Republican presidential debates. FOX refused to provide him a spot until they received so much backlash from the public that they finally gave in to public demand.

What are they all afraid of?

[RichD]

Re: Support For Obama: Bad For USA

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">
What are they all afraid of?

</div></div> they are afraid that he could win the nomination but is unelectable.