[extropy-chat] Kurzweil reviewed in Weekend Australian newspaper

[Jeff Davis]

--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:

>
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17557088%255E5001986,00.html
> 
> Singularly fanciful
> Andres Vaccari
> December 17, 2005
> 
> The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend
> Biology
> By Ray Kurzeil,
> Viking, 652pp, %59.95
> 
> OUR bodies will soon be obsolete. Genetic
> engineering, smart drugs and 
> nanotechnology will reverse the ageing process and
> make us immortal. 
> Machines will do the unpleasant work for us,
> producing all the energy we 
> need. We will download our minds into powerful
> computers and become 
> superintelligent, disembodied beings. We will be
> able to change bodies at 
> will and inhabit virtual worlds of our making.
> 
> And all of this will happen in our lifetime, for we
> are approaching the 
> Singularity: a point at which scientific advance
> will happen so fast that 
> technology will become indistinguishable from magic.
> This is the picture of 
> the future presented in Ray Kurzweil's The
> Singularity is Near. A renowned 
> inventor and entrepreneur, Kurzweil is a leading
> voice of the extropian (or 
> transhuman) movement, which preaches that we are on
> the threshold of a 
> golden age of techno-supermen.
> 
> Unsurprisingly, extropianism is largely an American
> phenomenon, combining 
> two potent traditions: Christian millenarianism

Mr. Vaccari knows what Christian Millenarianism is.  I
don't.  Maybe he's right, or maybe he's projecting his
own meme set.

> and
> the cult of technology.

"Cult" of technology?! Well, okay, maybe technophiles
have an over-the-top irrational exuberance where
technology is concerned.  And since we're talking
about the future -- the inherently unknown 
"yet-to-be" -- some of the error to be found in
predictions may take the form of "more" or "faster"
(rarely if ever the former, consistently the latter). 
But the term "cult" gives away his game: an
anti-transhumanistic smackdown. (As we shall see,
based on linking the >H vision to
conservatism/fascism, a contradiction, considering
that technology is the driving force of change, the
natural antagonist of the status quo.)
        
> This enthusiastic brand of futurism may appear
> harmless, charming even, but 
> it has an ugly side.

And guess who will, on this occasion, be the St.
George on his white horse to take a turn at slaying
the dragon, or if not slay, make harsh comments and
scornful looks. 

> 
> Kurzweil's central belief is that technological and
> scientific progress is 
> exponential. That is, science and technology do not
> only improve, but the 
> rate of progress also accelerates, tending towards
> infinity, at which point 
> we will experience "an expansion of human
> intelligence by a factor of 
> trillions through merger with its non-biological
> form". A variation on the 
> Enlightenment myth

Is science and technology really "mythical"?

> of rational progress, Kurzweil's
> model departs from a 
> restricted notion of technology (basically,
> processing power). In the final 
> analysis, it is based on a bad inference.
> 
> Kurzweil's technological determinism is equally
> myopic. 


> The political and 
> social environment that shapes the nature and
> direction of technology is 
> completely missing from his picture.

Here's the secret thesis,...and fundamental error. 
He's got it backwards.  Technology does the shaping. 
Through the ages, from the random "shaping" of
"biotechnology" by evolution which gave us perception,
consciousness, thought, and speech, from which bright
legacy we moved on to fire, tools, agriculture,
civilization, and finally the non-mythical
enlightenment innovation we refer to as science (with
a nod to the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans who set us
well down that path thousands of years earlier).

> Technology is
> neither an autonomous 
> force nor an outgrowth or continuation of biological
> evolution. 

Repeating the mistake makes it true.  Not. 

> The recent 
> debacle concerning AIDS drugs for Africa underscores
> the fact technology 
> means nothing in the face of political unwillingness
> and the profit motive.

Some "biotech" needs to be reconfigured.  Specifically
tribalism and greed.  Cleaning up that mess is clearly
on the >H agenda.  But no amount of lynch mob logic
can make technology culpable for the dark side of our
biological legacy.  
 
> Life extension can be granted now to most of the
> world's disadvantaged with 
> remarkably low-tech means, such as food and cheap
> medicines.
> 
> An entrenched political conservatism underlies the
> transhuman vision of the future. 

An old -- and ridiculously contradictory -- canard,
mayhap arising from a sense of inadequacy in the face
of math/science, envy of nerd power, and/or the long
history of fascist rantings on the Extro list by the
likes of...  

> Social change is not necessary for Kurzweil,
> since it will be 
> precipitated by the inherent acceleration of
> technological progress

Got that right.

> and driven by the free market model.

Without the connection to dark politics, Vaccari's
thesis dries up and disappears into the mist, so as he
rounds the clubhouse turn and heads for the finish
line watch for him to ring that bell repeatedly.
 
> Today's machines represent the principles of the
> neo-liberal economy, 

Clang!

> just 
> as in the 16th century the mechanical clock embodied
> the values of the 
> monarchic state.

Clang!

> Robots and computer systems
> "self-organise", just like 
> selfish individuals under the invisible hand of the
> market.

Clang!

> 
> And technology gets better and cheaper all the time,
> so that eventually it 
> will trickle down to the poorest people, just like
> capital does in right-wing economics.

Clang!

> The Singularity, Kurzweil
> tells us, is an economic 
> imperative. Like human knowledge, economic growth is
> also exponential and 
> the market will become the main engine of future
> change. We will not only 
> be immortal but filthy rich.

Clang!  Clang!  Clang!

> 
> Incredibly, Kurzweil argues that factories and farm
> jobs in the US have 
> dropped from 60per cent to 6 per cent because of
> automation; no mention of 
> Third World sweatshops or corporate outsourcing and
> downsizing. 

Clang,clang,clang,clang,clang!!!!!

> He even 
> argues that modern warfare claims fewer casualties
> thanks to more accurate 
> weapons. We should mention that Kurzweil is an
> adviser to the US military 
> and sits on the board of directors of Seegrid, a
> robotics company (founded 
> by fellow extropian Hans Moravec) that subcontracts
> to the US Army.

Clang! Bang! Clang! Bang! Ratatatatat!

> This may explain the absence of ethical concerns in
his
> discussion of the military applications of new
technology.

Kaboom!

> 
> Also central to Kurzweil's argument is the notion
> that our minds can be 
> copied into computers built in the image of the
> brain. This runs up against 
> gigantic problems and relies on several unproven
> assumptions. The 
> information sciences have sparked the mystic belief
> that everything is made 
> of ethereal data and that consciousness or identity
> can be separated from 
> the complex electro-biochemical dynamics of the
> brain. This is a curious 
> technological rewriting of the notion of the
> individual soul, transcendent 
> from embodiment. 

And they (the transhumanists) are atheistic God
haters, too! 

> It may be a reassuring story but
> there's no evidence to 
> support it. Kurzweil believes the simulation of
> intelligence (or 
> consciousness, he can't see the difference) is a
> matter of fast processing> power.
> 
> But he is not speaking to our more rational
> instincts. Though dressed in 
> the garb of science, these fantasies are addressed
> mainly to the anxieties of ageing baby boomers. 

Could this be a projection of his own
mortality-induced anxieties, or simply a pandering to
those anxieties among his readership?

> As governments of developed nations brace for an 
> imminent huge swell in the population of elderly and
> retirees, this vision 
> of a future ruled by an army of narcissistic

Narcissistic?  Another hackneyed slam.  When it's him,
it's a healthy ego, rational self-interest, and
self-esteem.  When it's the transhumanists its greedy
fascism, narcissism and self-absorption. 

> baby-boomer cyborgs sounds 
> like a bad joke. Kurzweil, however, feels naturally
> entitled to the fruits 
> of the latest biomedical knowledge. And he has some
> ideas on how to handle 
> the accompanying strain on economic and natural
> resources: nanobots will 
> produce all the energy we need, cheaply and in an
> environmentally 
> sustainable manner. And the oil giants needn't
> worry,

Clink!

> as the nanobots will 
> clean the environment too.
> 
> For most of its history, technology has remained
> inseparable from religion, 
> illusionism and magical thinking.
> Things haven't
> changed much and modern 
> science and technology continue to inspire beliefs
> as baroque as anything 
> concocted by our forebears. 

Transhumanists have no regard for the welfare of
'real' humans; they hate god; they are delusional
mystics of the dark cult of technology.

> The road to the
> uncertain future is littered 
> with the carcasses of brave new worlds that never
> were.
> 
> So far, the only reliable law of futurism was
> pronounced by J.G. Ballard: 
> "If enough people predict something, it won't
> happen."

It's all tribalism.  Vaccari offers his creative
product to his editor, who okays it for the
readership.  From ringside they watch the smackdown
with jaded attention.  Meme contests aren't nearly as
rivetting as in-the-flesh gladiators, but they pay the
rent, and that's what matters.

Time and tide waits for no man.  We shall see what we
shall see.  Be there or be square.

Best, Jeff Davis
 
         Eternity is a long time, 
              especially toward the end. 
                             Woody Allen


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