[ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field?

[Stefano Vaj]

On 27 April 2011 06:59, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the clarification. That's how I see things too. Are you
> implying that the rate of change has slowed from 1960 to present? That
> doesn't make much sense to me either.

Yes, I do. I am not sure that we can measure that in a fully rigorous
manner, but I have once or twice listed in my writings a series of
extremely dramatic turning points which have almost invariably taken
place in the hundred of years roughly from the second half of the XIX
century and the first half of the XX. Medicine, surgery, diagnostics,
physics, engineering, chemistry, genetics, engines, biology, natural
history, mathematics, lifestyle, avionics, linguistics, cosmology,
computing, prophylaxis, art, you name it.

As to the objections pointing to what has been achieved later, I
contend that much of it has to do with consequences, implementations,
refinements, fine-tunings, applications, adoptions, measurements, etc.
which may well be flabbergasting, but merely adopt or verify or embody
principles, discoveries and hypotheses which have been established in
a previous, much more "incandescent" period, while much less I suspect
we have to show of equivalent to the latter, owing a to general
realignment of the cultural, educational and civilisational values of
our societies, probably not for the best from a transhumanist POV.

This is of course a very rough generalisation, and I may exaggerate my point.

But in any event, even if I were wrong, I think that making it our
responsibility to maintain and if possible increase the pace of change
rather than sitting on our hands and wait starry-eyed for some global
Rapture or other to be delivered by automagic mechanisms would still
be a good thing for the transhumanist movement.

For instance, rather than criticising past predictions of developments
which appeared at hand and yet failed to take place, I would rather
criticise our inability to deliver.

> I'm unfamiliar with his [Hughes'] work, which of his books is most relevant? The
> family wealth one or the Citizen Cyborg one?

I am referring in general to his stances on the lists and in the
framework of IEET.

-- 
Stefano Vaj