Quote from: Lo on October 22, 2013, 06:07:57 PM
Basically... We download our minds into incorporeal supercomputers  nd cease to physically exist.

I rather like that idea. Although I think my mind could be stored on a floppy disc, lol.

Quote from: Lo on October 22, 2013, 06:07:57 PM
Ah see I'm talking about technological transhumanism, the Singularity, when humans transcend biology by synthetic means, which is what all the "great" futurists speculate is inevitable given the speed at which technology and computing becomes ever-more sophisticated.

Basically... We download our minds into incorporeal supercomputers  nd cease to physically exist.

I stepped into the middle of this and should have read your previous posts, still I prefer the concept that I put forth as it's more compelling and if you believe in intelligent design it is completely possible and I expect it may happen eventually.

Quote from: Shantel on October 22, 2013, 06:24:16 PM
I stepped into the middle of this and should have read your previous posts, still I prefer the concept that I put forth as it's more compelling and if you believe in intelligent design it is completely possible and I expect it may happen eventually.

I definitely like your scenario better, though my system of belief has it that the gods would have absolutely no reason to do it. If it happens, the onus is on us to make it happen... and even then, the powers-that-be might not like it, lol. They're weird and we can barely make even the most infinitesimal amount of sense of their ways, so no point in even trying to bother to guess. We'll see what happens when it happens! ;P

technological transhumanism is too sad. read the manga "hotel" by boichi to get what i mean. it's definitely worth the read despite being drawn more than written. i don't see that road leading to a future, no matter how well technology does.

i'd rather try zen, to become one with the universe itself. not that i am not already, but it's a little difficult to see all that much at once. it's kind of fascinating to be so limited by having a human mind.

Eh, it's like I said... I believe in transhumanism, but I believe it happens at the moment of death. I'm not too worried about it.

I find it interesting that so many think that somehow humankind including the singular individual has the audacity and hubris to think that they have any control over their destiny. Then as I watched the series "Walking Dead" I'm reminded of how quickly a virus can spread over this ever shrinking world where we have trans-oceanic flights in the thousands daily and multi-culturalism has become the norm in most countries. The only reason the Ebola virus hasn't become a pandemic is because it has occurred so far in isolated African villages and has been contained by the efforts of the World Health Organization, who may have originally initiated it there purposefully in the first place.

There, I gave you all the elements of an interesting and entertaining scenario to ponder complete with a conspiracy theory. Suppose I'm guilty of moving off topic, my warped mind works in mysterious ways.

Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on October 23, 2013, 02:06:23 PM
Hell, we don't even have big wars anymore. Look at how fewer and fewer casualties there are with each major one.
Think the casualties of the current wars are bad? Syrian casualties are not a pretty sight.
We wholesale fire bombed entire cities in WWII.
Not to mention we nuked a couple cities right off the map.
Carpet bombed the crap out of the Vietnamese and Laotians during the police action in Vietnam.
We killed more civilians there than in Iraq and Afghanistan, so far... That could be debatable in the near future.

I don't know about other countries, but the US military likes casualties. I read something a while back saying that the casualties caused by American troops has gone from something like 10% to something much closer to 90% since WWI. Politically, the fat cats benefit from them.

USians have an intense, and frankly eerie, fascination with the concept of all-out war. Such a thing can't logistically happen again, assuming the political climate stays like this, so we have an endless stream of skirmishes "elsewhere", none of which are approved by voters, none of which have been given the go-ahead by congress. It's just background noise to us now, and we're craving more. We're a population of people who don't even know where their steak comes from, so we watch the 10pm news in hopes of seeing some body parts in a car crash. A shooting in the "ghetto. Close enough to be real, far enough away to be safe. Adrenaline addiction is a disease of the safe and the affluent.

But we're getting bored of stuff like this. We're starting to grasp that all-out war is little more than a fantasy for this generation. So we fancy that we can have all the gore, tragedy, thrills, and "coolness" without it. The means is the apocalyptic virus outbreak. Dammit, if Iran or China isn't going to bomb us, then we'll just have to imagine that we did it to ourselves.

Quote from: Lo on October 23, 2013, 04:30:00 PM
I don't know about other countries, but the US military likes casualties. I read something a while back saying that the casualties caused by American troops has gone from something like 10% to something much closer to 90% since WWI. Politically, the fat cats benefit from them.

USians have an intense, and frankly eerie, fascination with the concept of all-out war. Such a thing can't logistically happen again, assuming the political climate stays like this, so we have an endless stream of skirmishes "elsewhere", none of which are approved by voters, none of which have been given the go-ahead by congress.

The Military Industrial Complex who has bought and paid for the hearts and souls of most of Congress and the Wall Street moguls get wealthy on these proxy wars from the Korean Conflict onward while generation after generation of the nation's finest young men and women's lives and bodies are destroyed in the process. It is indeed sick!

Quote from: Lo on October 23, 2013, 04:30:00 PM
It's just background noise to us now, and we're craving more. We're a population of people who don't even know where their steak comes from, so we watch the 10pm news in hopes of seeing some body parts in a car crash. A shooting in the "ghetto. Close enough to be real, far enough away to be safe. Adrenaline addiction is a disease of the safe and the affluent.

But we're getting bored of stuff like this. We're starting to grasp that all-out war is little more than a fantasy for this generation. So we fancy that we can have all the gore, tragedy, thrills, and "coolness" without it. The means is the apocalyptic virus outbreak. Dammit, if Iran or China isn't going to bomb us, then we'll just have to imagine that we did it to ourselves.

Good job Lo!
        Yes, when the national benefits programs outweigh the nation's real financial assets and the Fed continues to print money deflating the dollar prices on goods and services will inflate astronomically and multimillions of disenfranchised citizens will run amok and we will see and experience just that!

Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on October 23, 2013, 05:00:32 PM

The US is a major supplier of weapons and weapon systems. Go look at the DARPA website and you'll get a glimpse of what our military would like.
And that's just the stuff they are looking for someone to build.  Imagine what they have already found that someone can build for them.
The other two main sources for weapons and systems is Russia and China.
We spend more money on our military budget than all the major players combined.
Think our economy is tied to that?
But just think of all the really good stuff, real useable stuff we could come up with if we just applied all that money to good.
Our self designation and pandering to the worlds needs as the cops on the block is beyond me.

There was a time when the U.S. was capable of being the bread basket for the entire world which would have been a peaceful endeavor, but machinations were plied against farmers who came from generations of farmers and they lost their land to the big money farming industry which gets paid for raising nothing on fallow ground.

Meanwhile industrialists have changed the national focus and created an industry producing the newest, greatest weaponry capable of a greater kill ratio than that of any perceived enemy, and armies and their associated civilian support systems are kept gainfully employed ridding the world of an excess of "useless eaters". (A quote by Dr. Pesche from the Builderburgers)

I was living in NYC when Occupy started. I remember getting dressed one day and deciding that I would go march with them, but my husband forbade it (and yes, I do mean to use such a strong word). If I got arrested, he reminded me, there was no way I would be allowed to get my visa to live with him in Canada, end of story. Well, as it turns out, there were lots of people arrested at that march. I still wish I could have been there, but it would have thrown such a monkey wrench into our plans that I'm not sure our relationship would have survived the upheaval.

My political identity is fluid-- sometimes I'm a mere liberal, sometimes a communist, sometimes an anarcho-socialist. There are days when I wish I could go out and scream at lines of police, throw molotov cocktails at government buildings, or just make a sign and march. Sometimes I'm not one bit scared at the idea of being bashed by cops, so long as I was wearing my knee-brace, and had depression and anxiety meds to take that morning. And then I remember that I'd need a knee brace and meds to begin with and think maybe that's not where I need to be. So instead I give money to nonprofits, sign petitions and write representatives, and curate information for my 470 tumblr followers of things I think are important and philosophies that get too little attention. Unfortunately, a lot of them have anxiety and depression far worse than me, so I don't think that I can inspire any of them to take up a sign and march either.

One of my dream jobs is to open up a self-serve print shop and screenprint studio so I could at least provide activists with a means to disseminate their information, a place to host workshops and the like. I suppose that's as good as any average person could hope to do.

(Yeah wow, talk about a tangent!)

Quote from: Lo on October 24, 2013, 11:35:00 AM
I was living in NYC when Occupy started. I remember getting dressed one day and deciding that I would go march with them, but my husband forbade it (and yes, I do mean to use such a strong word). If I got arrested, he reminded me, there was no way I would be allowed to get my visa to live with him in Canada, end of story. Well, as it turns out, there were lots of people arrested at that march. I still wish I could have been there, but it would have thrown such a monkey wrench into our plans that I'm not sure our relationship would have survived the upheaval.

Good for him, thankfully for you both he's not driven by emotions Lo!

Quote from: Ativan Prescribed on October 24, 2013, 10:34:53 AM
I used to regularly go to the DARPA website to look for projects to work on.
Some of it, when you put them together, made me shudder in the capabilities.
They very often split up projects, to break them down into simpler tasks.
Some have multiple uses, others when I look at them have incredibly destructive capabilities.
We should be using our capabilities for a better world, in much the same way as DARPA looks to destruction.
If the Gov't sponsored such a website, my imagination gets going again.
It's been a decade since I thought about actually working on a DARPA project, although I do wander over there to see what's up.
It's a shame how our country has turned out. Corporate greed before the needs of the people.
It is indeed time to turn our swords into plows. Greed is so common, we just take it for granted that it's normal.
We could be doing so much better if the needs of the people and our world were put ahead of any military interaction around the world.
It feels like it could go either way at this point, but It does seem like not only the US, but the rest of the world is tired of it all.
We should have stopped when the Soviet Union collapsed and took a lesson from it. Maybe we finally are.
The next couple years seem like they could be the point at which things change. But this isn't the only time it's seemed that way.
The Internet and the capabilities of anyone in the world talking to anyone else has changed the landscape.
People are tired of war and destruction for the sake of a profit. Now they just need to get pissed enough to organize to stop it.
I look at that more than DARPA. It stands a better chance. I have my hopes that it will.
Ativan

So much bitching about DARPA... in reality the spin-offs and innovations from DARPA-funded technology developments has increased the welfare of the world by leaps and bounds...

My dear Ativan Prescribed, we would not been able to spew so much gibberish with out the INTERNET which was created and developed by ARPA NET...the predecessor of DARPA, my dear friend


and pretty soon coming to a computer near you...exaflop computing...

BTW if you are lost but you have GPS to save you hinny, thank DARPA !


http://www.ccjm.org/content/71/6/511.full.pdf
http://www.computerhope.com/jargon/d/darpa.htm

lots of our more advanced technology originates in warfare and the race to gain superiority.
not like it matters too much to me. if they ever figure out how to grow penises in labs, that too will be because some government thought they're better off having happy soldiers than madmen who resent their government for having sent them to useless wars where they lost their most precious parts.

now i'm just waiting for some independent military organization like mithril in full metal panic to emerge. that would make the world interesting.

i still wish something more unscientific like magic to play a bigger role in this all. it would make for interesting battles. what countries will be destroyed today...? science would fear magic so much.

my history teacher in high school used to say that we can thank the nuclear bombs that were dropped in japan, for not having experienced any all out nuclear war. yet.. i hope human memory will last for a while. despite learning from our mistakes, we forget what we learned too easily.

Quote from: Taka on October 25, 2013, 09:20:52 AM
lots of our more advanced technology originates in warfare and the race to gain superiority.
not like it matters too much to me. if they ever figure out how to grow penises in labs, that too will be because some government thought they're better off having happy soldiers than madmen who resent their government for having sent them to useless wars where they lost their most precious parts.

Saw that happen in Asia, young newlywed caught a round in the keister and it exited out his crotch leaving him an insta-eunuch, unfortunately he placed too much importance on that part of his anatomy and later killed himself.

Quote from: Taka on October 25, 2013, 09:20:52 AM
my history teacher in high school used to say that we can thank the nuclear bombs that were dropped in japan, for not having experienced any all out nuclear war. yet.. i hope human memory will last for a while. despite learning from our mistakes, we forget what we learned too easily.

So typical of American military history as continually played out like "Groundhog Day" by the feckless political machine.