Monday 25 March 2013

Freedom Utopia Guns Power 3D-Printing

Today I watched an interesting documentary (watch it below) about the 3D-printing of guns, featuring Cody Wilson from Defense Distributed. Sadly there appears to be an apparent misunderstanding regarding freedom. At various points in the video it is stated the freedom to print guns is not utopian. In the documentary gun-freedom is deemed a bad, menacing, threatening. The idea of freedom being dangerous or dystopian is very wrong, this misunderstanding needs to be corrected.

Freedom is utopia. The source of all violence is a lack of power thus the freedom to empower yourself via access to guns, or any other aspect of human knowledge, it is a great step towards utopia. It's not negative in the slightest that one day people will be able to print nuclear bombs; such freedom is the way to end all violence but our civilization is based upon repression, oppression, restrictiveness, therefore civilization wrongly deems freedom to be a threat. Civilization wrongly thinks freedom is a source of violence, when in fact the opposite is true. Oppressiveness and authoritarianism is the true source of violence.

Free and easy access to all knowledge is utopia. Freedom is utopia, which means access to guns is utopian. Dsytopia is a lack of freedom, dsytopia is repression, dystopia is restrictiveness.

Watch the documentary here:



I do not think killing people is utopia, I think freedom is utopia. Repression is not utopia thus for example soon we will be able to re-engineer the human brain thus it will be physically impossible to kill people but that loss of freedom, entailing an absence of killing, is definitely not utopia. The answer to actions based upon poor thinking, mindless violence for example, is not to suppress knowledge and power via banning guns (the knowledge and power to create guns), the answer is greater knowledge, greater openness, greater freedom because freedom is vital to stop mindlessness whether the mindlessness is violent or non-violent. Free-thinking is essential for intelligence but all types of thinking are hindered in a world where freedom is constrained.

Leave comments via a post about this documentary on the Post-Scarcity Warriors page. Interact with me on Twitter:

For more info about printing guns see: defcad.org.
 

Thursday 21 March 2013

Thinking About Brainy Intelligence


This idea of being able to genetically determine, and possibly create, greater intelligence based on genes regarding certain humans, it is very interesting. I do however lean towards the Gattaca (1997) idea of there being no gene for the human spirit (will).

I think anyone can be very intelligent merely by thinking about it, if you think about thinking enough, because thinking or intelligence is simply a matter of thinking. Intelligence is simply a matter of will, providing you are not suffering severest brain damage.

Almost all genetic combinations regarding human brains allow people to think, although it could be argued certain genes make people less behaviourally inclined to think about things. It is an odd situation where we all have brains but some people choose, for whatever reason, to not utilise their brains. Can a person's genetic make-up really prevent thinking or can all humans think despite genetic nuances?


Singularity 2045
The search for a genetic cause of greater intelligence in humans.

"Consider the challenge of choosing a meaningful population. Once your units are settled, everyone agrees how to measure height. But how does one objectively measure intelligence? How does one even define intelligence? BGI readily admits there isn’t a rock solid method. Nothing like a good old wooden yardstick, running straight and true."

#Smartgenes#intelligence

China’s BGI to Sequence 2,200 Geniuses In Search For “Smart” Genes
In the world of genomics, Chinese biotech giant BGI is big and getting bigger. The firm agreed to purchase Bay Area juggernaut Complete Genomics for a bargain basement $117 million in 2012. BGI owns 1...

Thursday 14 March 2013

Truth About Scarcity

Scarcity is no more imaginary than reality. Even air, which we can continually touch all around us, is scarce, but the scarcity of air is not severe thus there is abundance but certainly not superabundance or Post-Scarcity.

The vastness of Space for example has very little air and underwater on Earth air is very scarce. When you can access any amount of minerals with a click of your fingers via ultra-efficient molecular-assemblers (nano-printing-bots) then you can truly say scarcity is utterly obsolete but in the meantime scarcity is very real, there is nothing artificial about our requirements regarding the supply of resources; we need a lot of resources but we simply don't have enough resources in the year 2013. When resources are excessively surplus to requirements then scarcity has ended. It is an illusion-delusion to think scarcity can be created artificially.

There are three levels of resource availability regarding a burgeoning technological civilization with sufficient intelligence to appreciate truly how resources are relevant:

1. Abundance.
2. Superabundance.
2. Post-Scarcity.

Scarcity only ends a civilization reaches the third stage of resource availability. During the abundance stage people can suffer immensely due to scarcity because while abundance can be good it does not have the resilience, ubiquitousness, or dependability of superabundance or the utter certitude of Post-Scarcity. The superabundance period of civilization happens very shortly before the Singularity (Post-Scarcity), it lasts perhaps only five or ten years, it is a very brief transition period into Post-Scarcity. Scarcity persists in varying degrees during both the abundance and superabundance periods. 

Prior to abundance I would tentatively define this period as Crude Survival. Circa 2013 we can clearly see, by looking at our civilization based on abundance, how Crude Survival is not too distant, we can see the legacy of Crude Survival within our civilization or within any civilization based on abundance. The legacy of Crude Survival only disappears completely when we enter the Post-Scarcity stage. 

Saturday 9 March 2013

#Transhumanism IS NOT A RELIGION

#Transhumanism is not a religion (new or otherwise) similar to how a weeping statue of the Virgin Mary or Jesus is not really a miracle, it is bad plumbing or some other type of non-miraculous cause. Religious people interpret reality incorrectly according to their flawed view of reality. All the diverse notions of God constitute a flaw of the mind, which we do not need, it is a flawed type of thinking which intelligent people should discourage. We need more people such as Sanal Edamaruku to burst the myths, or perhaps repair the pipes, regarding the leaky logic of religious people.

The above thoughts of mine were inspired by a post Andrew Carpenter made on G+, he stated:

"What kind of "God" should an Atheist Humanist, even mystic create to maximize the internal psychosocial development, maintenance, and ability manifestations?"

We shouldn't create and Gods because all Gods constitute a harmful type of thinking. If you accept illogic into your fundamental world-view you degrade your capacity for logic. My response to Andrew is to state logic is vital for progress thus we should always reject God in any form.

Two wrongs do not make a right. God-apologists-justifiers are comparable to thinking the best way to defeat a serial killer is to become a serial killer, thus you can kill all the people, which means your killer would be defeated, but this thinking fails to see how via killing the killer you've become the killer you wanted to eradicate.

Transhumanism and religion can coexist but this does not mean it is a good or logical coexistence, similar to an abused-battered wife enduring years of abuse with a violent husband, she can, and many women do, coexist with violent partners, they tolerate the violence but this does not mean such coexistence is good, logical, or should be encouraged.

I love #atheists but what am I? I think "atheism" is too weak a term to describe my logical certitude that God does not exist or that God-orientation is a harmful type of thinking. If you have comments please mention me +Singularity Utopia anywhere on Google+.

Note the video below, which Andrew included in his post:



Below is another video regarding religion, this time portraying a weeping statue of Mary. In the video one person asks why the tears on are the eyes, with the implication it is too coincidental to be non-miraculous. Well the answer is simple, statues that cry elsewhere are ignored, people simply think "oh there's a damp stain on that statue" or very likely they don't notice the damp patch if it isn't near the eyes, therefore they forget about damp in places not related to the eyes; they certainly don't phone a TV station thus you don't hear about all the statues with damp spots in places far away from the eyes. Religious people see what they want to see, they distort reality to fit their flawed perceptions.

Saturday 2 March 2013

Utopian Positive Action My Possible Influence

When I first began linking the Singularity to “utopia” it was from my viewpoint unheard of, almost shameful, to make such a link.

Transhumanists/Singularitarians typically wanted to debate and raise awareness regarding “existential threats” such as bio-terrorists according to Kurzweil.

Formerly the topic of dangerous AI, according to Anissimov and others at the Singularity Institute or elsewhere, was the overriding focus for serious futurists. No groups were actively predicting utopia, thus yours truly, Singularity Utopia, was born.

Kurzweil has actually stated, very prominently, he does not think utopia is possible, but perhaps he is now slowly seeing the error of his anti-utopian views.

I’ve now been causing mayhem in cyberspace, regarding raising awareness of utopia, for approximately three years, since 2010. From my viewpoint the focus on dangerous AI now appears less intense, or least it is diluted by positive views of the future. It could be coincidental but there now seems to be at least a begrudging acknowledgement of utopia being possible, and some people are almost as enthusiastic as I am. Hopefully I have made a difference but whatever the cause it is good to see awareness of utopia increasing. I think it is more productive to focus on the positives instead of negatives.

Note the positivity of Future Day, which "was first publicly discussed at the Humanity+ Leadership: MINDS conference on September 15 2011."

Note also a recent presentation titled "A Singularitarian Utopia Or A New Dark Age?" by Ian Pearson, which was commented upon via transhumanity.net and elsewhere. Admittedly the article via transhumanity.net focused on the "controversies" but at least debate is a step forward.

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