The blog is bringing-in some more taglines. Basically, the route stays the same – various techno-alternatives to what has been described as ‘synthetic evolution’ – but is getting more into specifics.
Glamtek is roughly the idea that humans don’t change with technology – they stay the same. The tek is only ‘enabling’ much like the net is today. Before anyone howls ‘social nets!’ let me elaborate. Humans are maybe healthier & longer living but you could equally ask, say, are our teeth better than Cro-Magnon & do we have fewer diseases? No. What I’m talking about is biology – see website for the big picture – which transients reckon can ‘merge’ & be improved with technology ( Michael Anissimov of the Singularity Institute sent me an email reply with strong evidence of flakiness).
Staying with the net, we respond to its abilities & in that sense change our behaviour. That said, some of where it’s heading seems not useful (the tagline for that discussion’s netek). Comics have quite a nice way of making advanced techno entertaining. When Starstruck came-out (Elaine Lee/Michael Wm Kaluta, Marvel 1985) there was no net but it introd something very similar in roaming holo-cams (see pic) which broadcast newstories to all & sundry via long-range holo-casts (as opposed to broadband). Small difference, & Transmetropolitan (Vertigo from the 90s) introd Warren Ellis’ numerous takes on netek from sunglasses that store images to news-portals on pavements!
This is technology as entertainment (our transient buddies are ‘serious’ about these matters – see ‘S&S & transhumanism takeover’) So at one extreme you’ve transients who only see change coming, which could be their Achilles’ heel. Whatever their politics they’re for doggone not conservatives. There’s various issues there – how to tell ok change from disaster? Well, let’s be optimistic!
Tags: AI, glamtek, netek, transients
February 7, 2010 at 12:22 pm |
[...] but with a futuristic vista (the Mad Max syndrome). On the comic-art angle, you’ve had glamtek - ‘Sky Captain’ sorta stuff. Basically it’s spiffing stuff (see [...]