Comments on: Cryonics and Technological Inevitability

By: Taurus

Taurus — Fri, 14 Dec 2012 02:37:07 +0000

Re-reading this article; I couldn’t help but chuckle at this comment.
A 40-year limit on existing nuclear plants in Japan, and a commitment to derive no energy from nuclear power by the time the 2030′s are out (a position that enjoys popular consensus).

“There is no other option.”
When it comes to the future, there are ALWAYS other options, including (perhaps especially) those that seem unlikely *merely* because they aren’t optimal.

“Technological inevitability” …indeed.

By: Taurus Londono

Taurus Londono — Sun, 29 Jul 2012 05:32:43 +0000

“…new drug and medical device development, where progress is actually slowing (dramatically), and not just due to regulatory burden.”

You’re right, it’s not due to regulatory burden; it’s due to little more than funding (lack thereof).

By: Michael Harris

Michael Harris — Tue, 06 Sep 2011 10:22:21 +0000

I think it this should be explored fully:
The Romans would have found no need for a train. I accept this fully, whether I was slave or emperor I would not have wanted a train. There a hundreds of reasons why I would have considered it a waste of time and energy. So then whatever changed our minds is the key question, not the train or any invention, but what changed us. How, why, when; was the change none of our doing? Forget the train, that will arrived anyway, what happened us is the fundamental question. And I think all real change might come against our wishes. So maybe, when life makes no sense is when we’re nearest to a new invention. The light at the end of the tunnel is that dam train again!

By: Insaniquarium indeed! | Poison Your Mind

Insaniquarium indeed! | Poison Your Mind — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 18:06:59 +0000

[...] week I read this interesting essay by Mike Darwin that (among other things) examined some of the technological advancements that were available but undiscovered throughout history. So, it was apropos that this week I learned that Roman ships may have [...]

By: Links van 8 juni 2011 tot 9 juni 2011 — Michel Vuijlsteke's Weblog

Links van 8 juni 2011 tot 9 juni 2011 — Michel Vuijlsteke's Weblog — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 10:01:08 +0000

[...] Cryonics and Technological Inevitability | CHRONOSPHEREOne of the most fundamental insights I’ve ever had came when I was in Rome, and also reading a very good biography of Leonardo da Vinci,1 in preparation for a visit to Florence. Da Vinci spent most of his career designing war machines, and trying to reroute the Arno River for military advantage. As I looked at the remains of the awesome Ancient Roman engineering around me, and thought of da Vinci, it occurred to me that one of the most powerful and off putting military advantages that could have been deployed, in either Ancient, or Renaissance times, would have been hot air balloons. [...]

By: Thomas A.

Thomas A. — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 23:38:33 +0000

Very interesting article and very well written!

A great deal of this short-termism of the free-market.

We can see this when we compare American and German capitalism. The German model of ‘social-capitalism’, based on good-industrial relations (tending not to sack r ‘n d and keeping experienced skilled staff), and long-term industrial investment produce higher quality and more technological advanced products; whilst American capitalism is essentially a race to the bottom, and outsourcing production and cutting r ‘n d is highly profitable to please fickle shareholders – it does over the long-term create industrial collapse and technological regression, as we can see in Seattle and Flint. Competition is good, but not if it means short-termism.

By: admin

admin — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 10:57:11 +0000

Again, this is an entire article. The issue is much deeper than the “feminazi” issue, per se. It also involves the fundamental developmental and cognitive differences between males and females – in humans and other mammals. If boys are mishandled during development, they end up emotionally and cognitively impaired. Of course, this is true for girls, as well, but it is only recently that any society or culture has tried to rear and educate males in the way it is now being done in much of the West. — Mike Darwin

By: midger

midger — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 19:49:37 +0000

If if if if if if if…

Entertaining read though.

By: Mark Plus

Mark Plus — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 04:31:41 +0000

At the risk of opening the gates of hell, Mike, what do you make of the view which attributes many of our social dysfunctions to feminism and “misandry”?

References:

http://www.singularity2050.com/2010/01/the-misandry-bubble.html

http://www.parapundit.com/archives/006761.html

The transhumanist manginas on the IEET.org blog like Hank “Hyena” Pellisier who support this feminist nonsense make my skin crawl.

In the wider socialist-feminist world, cognitive linguist George Lakoff tries to make the “strict father model” sound unappealing, but his characterization of the conservative world view makes certain aspects of conservatism sound more appealing to me, not less. We do live in the dangerous world assumed by the strict father model, and for the foreseeable future men have better equipment for dealing with it than women.

By: admin

admin — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 19:06:38 +0000

I don’t expect it to last either. See my posts on “Universal Health Care” and “London at Apogee.” If the laws of thermodynamics are real, then the whole house of cards will come crashing down – and sooner, rather than later. HOWEVER, years of experience have taught me that when that will happen can be very hard to predict. One reason for this is that nation-states can steal – not just internally but externally, as well. My semi-communist Russian friends will be incensed at this remark, but the Soviet machine was powered for at least two generations in part by the confiscated labor, infrastructure, and to a lesser extent, the capital of their client states. Germany was more than bankrupt before WWII, and a significant part of its recapitalization was at the expense of the Jews and the absorption of the Balkans, and confiscation of their productive capacity. And lets not leave the British Empire out of this: the revenue stream from the various East India Company operations and their Colonial efforts was fantastic, and went for centuries. The US has been more “benign” in the human rights arena (overall) but it too, as an empire, has profited substantially, if less directly, from redistributed colonial wealth. If it chooses (along with Western Europe) to get really nasty about resource confiscation elsewhere, those folks who want that weekend getaway in Arizona on someone else’s dime, may indeed grow old and die and STILL be at it, when they go. It’s a strange, complicated world, and the longer I live in it, the more I find myself wondering if there isn’t the equivalent of a 12-year old gaming programmer giggling loudly somewhere, and living in fear of a good thrashing from from his uberminds when he gets caught. — Mike Darwin