Originally written 2007-06-27

Today was the day.

The excitement in the Senate chamber was palpable. Alvin Rogers about to present the nation with his recommendations for solving the poverty of the entire human race, and almost everyone knew that his recommendations were sure to knock our socks off.

You see, Rogers was no ordinary pundit; he was the first subject of an experimental intelligence enhancement procedure; one whose success had been nothing less than spectacular. Rogers had become so smart, he was solving ancient math problems, solving new puzzles in moments, and inventing whole fields of knowledge singlehandedly, as fast as he could take in the requisite background material.

And now, he was applying himself to the ancient ethical mysteries of the human condition. After much discussion and deliberation, he told the world he was ready to propose what he claimed was an ideal solution. Finally, after all these years, we may have the missing piece to alleviate all human economic suffering.

But the announcement, when it came, was anything but satisfying. It was downright anticlimactic.

Rogers said, simply "According to my calculations, we have plenty for everyone. Tax the rich, and give it to the poor."

The applause was slow to come, but it did. But when it did, it was something less than the raucous cheer that everyone present had been hoping for.

It was easy to feel more than a little swindled - didn't we already know that we could do that? Wasn't the idea of having a genius tackle this problem was so that we wouldn't HAVE to tax the rich?

Over the course of the next few hours, the sour feeling of let down only grew heavier. On the news, the next day, people began to question exactly how smart this Alvin Rogers guy really was, and, even if he was as smart as they said, why people should listen to him. After all, it wouldn't make a difference how smart a guy is, if he doesn't properly represent your interests. And raising taxes was most definitely not an interest of the wealthy people of the nation.

Thus, Alvin Rogers faded from the mediasphere in a whimper of controversy and uncertainty. His fifteen minutes of fame had been spent.

The poor would simply have to wait for someone even smarter to come along and solve their problem.

Comments –Nato

For president, I voted Green.

If there's anything that can turn otherwise calm Democrats into mad lunatics, it's Ralph Nader. The idea that the swing state voter margins in the last two presidential elections were smaller than the progressive support for Nader's candidacy drives even progressive democrats up the wall, and fills many of them with the kind of hatred typically reserved for theo-cons. After 2000 and 2004, many "if only" recriminations flowed through the collective liberal consciousness. If only we'd campaigned harder here; if only we'd said this or that if only we'd finished the recount. But none drew the vitriol of "the spoiler" - not even the Republican voters that outnumbered Nader supporters by orders of magnitude.

I wonder if the reason that third parties can't get traction in this country isn't so much that the parties themselves conspire to duopolize the campaign process, so much as the public is constantly demonizing and terrorizing dissatisfied voters.

I sympathize; I really do. For those that live in battleground states, one really does need to weigh carefully the consequences of voting for someone who might not win.

I don't live and vote in a battleground state, so not only do I have no qualms about voting for a third party, neither do most of the frothing progressives who insist Nader robs them of elections, rather than contributing to the nation's political discourse. But let's set that fact aside for the sake of argument.

There's really a more important reason I'm not convinced to vote for a viable candidate that doesn't repreent me well enough. And, ironically, I learned it by listening to him.

As should be plain by now, Obama is a candidate who inspires with hope, rather than fear. The most striking contrast between the McCain and Obama campaigns is Obama's refusal to be drawn into low-road smears and innuendo against his opponent, at the same time such scaremongering has become, not just a tactic, but the hallmark of McCain's campaign. McCain's campaign has insisted that this election is "not about issues", but personality, while Obama insists exactly the opposite: that this election is "not about me." Obama often repudiates the politics of fear, and his campaign's conduct generally reflects that philosophy.

But Democrats, having been taught caution by the losses of the past decade, have been nervous about Obama's insistence on positivity. In August, the drumbeat among Democrats uncomfortable with Obama's decisive calm in the face of the growing sludge flowing from the McCain campaign grew louder, with calls to "take the gloves off" and "go negative" becoming more insistent. It would seem Obama had already decided what he was going to do, because he largely resisted this advice at that time.

But while the contrast between the conduct of the two campaigns is stark, Obama's tendency to avoid frightening is not perfect. There have been moments where he has resorted, subtly, to scare tactics.

The first time I noticed this was the FISA amendment bill , finally passed in July. After his campaign expressed clear opposition (including filibuster support) to the telco immunity provisions within the bill, Obama voted, at last resort, to pass the bill, although he did vote for unsuccessful measures to have it removed.

That by itself was disheartening, but what really broke the deal for me was in reading Obama's justification for the vote.

Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.

After all the talk of hope over fear, of bipartisanship, of common unity over divisiveness, I got a striking impression that Obama had slipped, and, unable to otherwise explain his dereliction of principle (one that even his future running mate Joe Biden and former primary oppoent Hillary Clinton had not compromised on), he simply resorted to scaring us with another Republican presidency.

So for president, I voted Green. Obama has taught me not to vote out of fear of parties or candidates - even when he is the one doing the scaring, and even when Nader is the one I'm supposed to be scared of.

Maybe if Obama had been philosophically OK with frightening us all in principle, I might have voted for him.

Comments –Nato

Despite the enormous price, it's a good thing that there are patriots in this world who swear that you will only take their civil liberties from their cold, dead fingers. Because in times like these, when even our own leaders discount the value of those liberties, it seems that kind of patriot is the only kind you can actually get them from.

Zingers

Comments –Nato

Small government means small democracy.

Zingers

shrinking –Nato

Choice is a poor substitute for freedom.

Zingers

Comments –Nato

The message of transhumanism - the hope that inheres in the enhancement of human capability seems overrated to me.

I'm not worried about what I can do. I'm not really interested in doing more. I'm happy. I'm satisfied.

Too often, it seems like the carrots of greater intelligence, memory, stamina, etc., seem to serve primarily to boost our competitiveness in the global marketplace. And when you think, as I have, that competition is silly and counterproductive, especially when compared to legitimate, existing collaborative alternative means of production and living, the shine quickly comes off the gadget. I can't get really excited about having the competitive advantage of a "transhuman" modification when I realize that, long before some joe like me can have it done, everyone else will, too. As a poorer American, My adoption of technology is not not to get ahead, but to keep up; to stay alive.

What I am more intersted in is shoring up and neutralizing human vulnerability, fragility, and precarity.

Thus, the mere existence of enhancement technologies and modifications fails to tantalize. It is a foregone conclusion that, if techniques are feasible, the status quo being what it is, the privileged will have them, and the unprivileged will lack them. This should surprise no one, and disappoint us all.

What is needed are not new techniques to configure physical gadgetry, but new ways of organizing and distributing them. We need innovation in policy and economy, as much as we need them in technology.

Enhancement must give way, for now, to deprecaritization. As we make progress with the latter, the former will be more exciting and worthwhile.

The systems and techniques that we use to insure the health and homes of the extant human race (for starters) are more important to me than the development, emergence, and germination of the next one.

Don't get me wrong. Pushing the limits is great. But it is a dull prize when the ground beneath your feet is still unstable.

When the promise of humanism is yet unkept, what attraction can transhumanism hold?

Comments –Nato

The Internet eliminates the middlemen between consumers and producers. Personal fabrication eliminates the distinction between consumers and producers.

Zingers

Comments –Nato

To be clear: Barack will support a filibuster of any bill that includes retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies.

Today, Obama caved.

And for what? Political expedience? Who's going to vote for him because he's soft on crime committed by King George and the Telecoms? To earn a reprieve from Republicans for criticizing him as soft on terrorists? They don't need an excuse, and now they're hitting him for flip-flopping.

Given the grave threats that we face, our national security agencies must have the capability to gather intelligence and track down terrorists before they strike.

Democracy cannot exist without strong differences. And going forward, some of you may decide that my FISA position is a deal breaker. That's ok. But I think it is worth pointing out that our agreement on the vast majority of issues that matter outweighs the differences we may have. After all, the choice in this election could not be clearer. Whether it is the economy, foreign policy, or the Supreme Court, my opponent has embraced the failed course of the last eight years, while I want to take this country in a new direction. Make no mistake: if John McCain is elected, the fundamental direction of this country that we love will not change. But if we come together, we have an historic opportunity to chart a new course, a better course.

So, in summary, Senator Obama is holding his progressive constituency hostage against the threat of Bush's third term, so he can take advantage of... nothing. Now THAT is negative campaigning. THAT is the politics of fear. Republicans have been trying to scare us with terrorists for years now. And it's worked so well, now Democrats are trying to scare us with Republicans.

I love you back, Senator. Not only have you allowed yourself to be victimized by fear tactics, but you have now officially proven that you are qualified to hold the office of President of the United States in the 21st century: You have mastered the art of fearmongering.

Comments –Nato

I'm not going to die because medicine will soon progress to the point where most diseases of aging are cureable.

I'm not going to die because cryonic suspension and resuscitation will be perfected in my lifetime.

I'm not going to die because mind uploading will be made to work in the next few decades.

I'm going to die because people like me won't have access these technologies when they arrive.

THAT's why I'm going to die.

And it's probably why you are going to die, too.

The solution to this problem is not investment in R&D; it's universal health care.

The solution to this problem is not technical; it's political.

Comments –Nato

We are fucked.

Just yesterday, I stopped in my neighborhood to actually feel the flowers and plants. It was a beautiful moment.

I saw a bee doing its pollination jig and wondered: does a bee know that this plant species has evolved with it, to take advantage of its behavior? And if it is ignorant, what are we, then, ignorant of, in terms of species that have adapted to us? We all know about domestication of livestock, cats and dogs, etc. But what kinds of adaptations do we not know about?

Today, I find out that beehives are going fatally haywire because of our own greenhouse gas emissions. As a result, enormous numbers of human food crops won't get properly pollinated.

That was quick.

Comments –Nato

Every so often I hear people talk about the need for a "new" kind of economics geared toward the supposedly oncoming period of superabundance; an economics geared not toward management of scarcity, but of plenty.

The problem I see with this is that economics concerns itself with scarcity as a problem. The pollyannish formulation of "superabundance" boosters continue to tout, however, doesn't seem to be a problem at all. But abundance can, indeed, be a problem.

The opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It's excess; overabundance; glut.

There are plenty of existing examples of this: too much spam email; too much carbon dioxide; too much money; too much garbage and waste.

Comments –Nato

More juicy bits from Reason's Peter Thiel interview:

reason: But you’re betting that in fact there is a Singularity in the human future?

Thiel: By definition, these are one-time, nonrepeatable events. Assigning probabilities to them is not an easy exercise. There’s something about the idea of a Singularity that is kind of unscientific, because you can’t really do an experiment. We can’t say, “What’s the probability this is going to happen?” We can’t assign numbers to this, but falsifiability I think is a bit too strong a criterion.

(Emphasis mine)

Comments –Nato

The problem with the [transhumanist] label is that it suggests that we should run away from being human.

Peter Thiel, venture capitalist and major funder of the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

Comments –Nato

Recently added to DRM in a Nutshell:

An encryption system is a way to deliver information while keeping it secret from eavesdroppers.
A DRM system is a way to deliver information while keeping it secret from the recipient.

This seems to have turned into a running gag.

Comments –Nato

Last weekend, a friend of mind asked me if I thought humankind was really more powerful than "nature". Nay, he dared me to defend that position.

I said that the entire premise that humankind and nature are separate at all is the result of human hubris. There is no need to adversarialize our mother.

More powerful than nature? We ARE nature. And yes, I do believe that we are its most powerful incarnation, at least in the universe we can see and comprehend (which is a big caveat, I admit).

Everything that we have made is the result of us. That's artifice. But we are not our own products (or at least, not completely, just yet). We are the products of nature, and thus, by extension, all that is artificial, all that is synthetic, that is made by humans, is also made by nature.

Artificial is natural.

And so, by that logic, the dichotomy that mutually excludes artificial and natural things isn't an actually operational concept. We made it up. We created it ourselves. Nature, as a category, is synthetic.

"Natural" is artificial.

Comments –Nato

Pursuant to my theory of political natural selection:

If Obama were beholden to corporate interests, why would he refuse to take their money?

If Clinton weren't beholden to corporate interests, why would they still offer her their money?

Comments –Nato

[via Jack Saturday]

Slavery is the legal fiction that a person is property and corporate personhood is the legal fiction that property is a person.
–William Blum

Zingers

Comments –Nato

Sport has turned into such a wonderful substitute for war that we've ended up making war into a substitute for sport.

I think it's notable that the marathon was inspired by an ancient Greek who supposedly ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens in order to announce the results of a battle.

Zingers

Comments –Nato

Technoprogressivism has made me realize something: I don't want to be "enhanced" or "augmented" or "transhuman" or "posthuman" that much.

"Smart drugs"? not really. What's the point of being smarter? What does being "smarter" mean, exactly, anyway? I already am happier just with the drugs I already have some access to. But even as sluggish and primitive as they are, I'm pretty satisfied with them.

Stronger? Nah. More energetic? maybe, but I have diet & exercize methods to exploit if I really wanted that.

More and more, I'm starting to see "enhancements" or "augmentations" as only things that I would really "need" in order to compete in the workplace. This is not something I consider legitimate. I object to that. More than anything, I just want out of the rat race. It simply appears, to me, that dropping out has been and will be more effective than trying to "win" it.

Hell, I don't even really want to get tattoos or piercings, although I've thought about it enough, having many friends with them.

The only thing I can think of as personally desirable modifications are pretty advanced: better access to my own mind and body. I'd love to see digital monitors for bloodstream contents, heartrate, and, eventually, my various nervous systems. But even the ability to play back recorded nerve impulses makes me nervous - so to speak. Do I really want to expose myself to a new vector of attack? See George Dvorsky's piece on "mind hacks".

Given the demonstrable risks of modern IT security, which do not seem to be easily solvable, will uploading or brain computer interfaces ever really be safe? Will human intellectual limits be the only things that insure relative safety?

Will there not always be individual existential risks to confront?

Does it really bother me that I'm going to die? I can always prefer to live longer without being afraid of dying.

Comments –Nato

[Inspired by The Speculist's Fast Forward Radio podcast, via Accelerating Future]

The value of consent - the anti-eugenic idea that people be allowed to refuse modifications as well as take them on - is somewhat obvious and agreeable, both in Humanism and Transhumanism.

But what Dale Carrico adds, and that I hope can be acknowledged further, is that this commitment, in detail, should mean more than a lack of coercion. In labor markets, what often qualifies as "consensual" is pretty weak. Take by way of example California's recent law prohibiting employers from requiring their employees to take RFID implants. If jobs are scarce, and competition among workers necessitates taking on modifications in order to compete effectively, then a form of market-driven distributed duress (Dale's term) accomplishes an effective circumvention of self-determination even where direct coercion may not.

So our commitment to morphological liberty, if it is to be authentic, demands a bit more than simply enjoining direct forms of coercion, but also the creation and maintenance of societies where relinquishment of technological interventions is not only permitted, but actually practicable; not only allowed, but accommodated.

We have to take care of tomorrow's Amish.

Comments –Nato