[ExI] It might be, was Is Transhumanism Coercive?

Keith Henson hkeithhenson at gmail.com
Thu Oct 27 15:59:56 UTC 2011


On Thu, Oct 27, 2011 at 5:00 AM,   Eugen Leitl <eugen at leitl.org> wrote:

> On Tue, Oct 25, 2011 at 12:46:08PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote:
>
>> No, but it's not hard to imagine an infectious agent that would build
>> a neural interface into every person it infects (perhaps everyone)
>> which would give them access to the totality of information available
>> to humans.
>
> Now that would be definitely coercive, and not even for a discernible
> worthwhile reason.

There are some people around who would think that everybody knowing
everything is a worthwhile reason to develop such an agent.  It would
change the nature of conversation though.

>> It's not hard to project current smart cell phones into this development path.
>
> I'm enjoying the Android ecosystem immensely. At long last I don't
> have to roll my own wearable and break the bank in the process as
> we had to live with in the 1990s, but order cheap stuff from Amazon and
> buy app glue from the market that Just Works.
>
> If anyone wants to tinker cheaply, I recommend B&N Nook color with CM7 and Huawei
> Ideos (e.g. X3) with extra battery packs and a fanny pack. GPS tethering works
> (at least via WLAN, not sure about Bluetooth), commercial battery
> packs are available, wireless video and sensorics is coming along,
> too. HMDs like http://www.sony.co.uk/hub/hmd-video-glasses are also
> again available, hopefully soon as small HUDs as well.

There has been a major change in conversations over lunch in the last
few years as smart phones came in.  Rather than arguing from their
memory or opinion, they just look stuff up.

Keith



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