So many incisive perspectives in this piece. I’m reflecting a lot these days on how we might forge a more richly human path forward within an increasingly technological society. Cultivating our embodied presence as part of the local landscape and the tapestry of biomes across the continent; valuing the cultural diversity that arises from the wide range of geological and biological home-places around the world. Now is surely a time to step back and renegotiate each of our individual relationships with both the promises of the technological world and the imperatives of bodily engagement with the real. It’s not either-or; it’s finding our individual and societal ways toward both-and.
That Star Trek reference near the end needs to be tuned slightly differently: the “heroes“ of the Star Trek story did in fact mightily “resist“ the Borg (where that phrase arose from)- the machine world at its most extreme, with each individual biological body being “assimilated” as no-longer-autonomous cell into the Borg whole…. and the path of resistance was internal clarity and fortitude and insistence on freedom. And of course the “prime directive“ in that world is to not interfere in the cultural or biological unfolding of any of the planets they encountered.
Of course all that’s just a story, and for one meant to inspire, it has a couple of glaring omissions—we never really learn how earth society got from where we are now to where they are, and we also don’t get much of a sense of what life is like on earth outside the ranks of Starfleet, or beyond the futuristic San Francisco Bay area that they occasionally return to as their home world headquarters (though what glimpses we do get seem to imply a Thiel-ian post-money world, albeit one that includes rural, soil-based lives).
All this just to say that the work of the next few years, or perhaps generation or so, is to craft a healthy relationship with the tools of technology while also nourishing our embeddedness within the living landscapes where we live. Your framing around the pitfalls of the slave metaphor (in either direction), and the seemingly fundamental human quality of tool-use in expanding our capacities to relate to and be with the world that also forms us are both valuable reminders as we begin this radical rethinking of these relationships.
In the aftermath of the election, I’ve often thought of Kamala Harris’s frequent statement during her campaign, “It’s going to be hard work - but hard work is good work. We like hard work.”
It struck me then and continues to strike me as a profound truth about the ‘active soul’ - but one that sits at odds with the contemporary desire to avoid work, to eradicate resistance, especially when that work is challenging. I think of the ways in which people like SBF and Sam Altman belittle and repudiate human culture and society as just too much work, as needless and pointless hassles which technology ought to supplant.
Ultimately and alas I have to wonder if the notion of ‘good work’ has become too much of an oxymoron to resonate sufficiently with many Americans, enslaved by bad work.
The key event in this article is that people in the future can be uploaded into machines, they don't need their limiting body anymore, and they can live forever.
Is this kind of tool enlarge the world for humankind? or diminish it?
And what if we can upload our mind into a robot body that is stronger and less prone to physical damage, like we can be come superman, we can fly, dive 100 meters into the ocean with comfort, v.v....
or even we can fly into the universe without oxygen support, does those kind of tools enlarge the world for us?
thanks for sharing this, I feel that the understanding of the mind-body conception is still little for us as humans. If we have this embodied brain in a different body, it would not work. If we have a different body, our perception and mind should be different too. Do disagree and provide counterfactuals, I may be wrong here.
Nick: It’s going to take me some time to unpack all that you’ve covered here. Mr Cummings’ comments above are thoughtful and insightful as well. Yours is a stunning piece of writing. HB
So many incisive perspectives in this piece. I’m reflecting a lot these days on how we might forge a more richly human path forward within an increasingly technological society. Cultivating our embodied presence as part of the local landscape and the tapestry of biomes across the continent; valuing the cultural diversity that arises from the wide range of geological and biological home-places around the world. Now is surely a time to step back and renegotiate each of our individual relationships with both the promises of the technological world and the imperatives of bodily engagement with the real. It’s not either-or; it’s finding our individual and societal ways toward both-and.
That Star Trek reference near the end needs to be tuned slightly differently: the “heroes“ of the Star Trek story did in fact mightily “resist“ the Borg (where that phrase arose from)- the machine world at its most extreme, with each individual biological body being “assimilated” as no-longer-autonomous cell into the Borg whole…. and the path of resistance was internal clarity and fortitude and insistence on freedom. And of course the “prime directive“ in that world is to not interfere in the cultural or biological unfolding of any of the planets they encountered.
Of course all that’s just a story, and for one meant to inspire, it has a couple of glaring omissions—we never really learn how earth society got from where we are now to where they are, and we also don’t get much of a sense of what life is like on earth outside the ranks of Starfleet, or beyond the futuristic San Francisco Bay area that they occasionally return to as their home world headquarters (though what glimpses we do get seem to imply a Thiel-ian post-money world, albeit one that includes rural, soil-based lives).
All this just to say that the work of the next few years, or perhaps generation or so, is to craft a healthy relationship with the tools of technology while also nourishing our embeddedness within the living landscapes where we live. Your framing around the pitfalls of the slave metaphor (in either direction), and the seemingly fundamental human quality of tool-use in expanding our capacities to relate to and be with the world that also forms us are both valuable reminders as we begin this radical rethinking of these relationships.
In the aftermath of the election, I’ve often thought of Kamala Harris’s frequent statement during her campaign, “It’s going to be hard work - but hard work is good work. We like hard work.”
It struck me then and continues to strike me as a profound truth about the ‘active soul’ - but one that sits at odds with the contemporary desire to avoid work, to eradicate resistance, especially when that work is challenging. I think of the ways in which people like SBF and Sam Altman belittle and repudiate human culture and society as just too much work, as needless and pointless hassles which technology ought to supplant.
Ultimately and alas I have to wonder if the notion of ‘good work’ has become too much of an oxymoron to resonate sufficiently with many Americans, enslaved by bad work.
This is rich and deeply satisfying writing. So much that confirms my only slightly clarified thoughts and much more besides. Thank you.
I really want to know your thoughts on this science-fiction article "Staying behind" by Ken Liu: https://clarkesworldmagazine.com/liu_10_11/
The key event in this article is that people in the future can be uploaded into machines, they don't need their limiting body anymore, and they can live forever.
Is this kind of tool enlarge the world for humankind? or diminish it?
And what if we can upload our mind into a robot body that is stronger and less prone to physical damage, like we can be come superman, we can fly, dive 100 meters into the ocean with comfort, v.v....
or even we can fly into the universe without oxygen support, does those kind of tools enlarge the world for us?
thanks for sharing this, I feel that the understanding of the mind-body conception is still little for us as humans. If we have this embodied brain in a different body, it would not work. If we have a different body, our perception and mind should be different too. Do disagree and provide counterfactuals, I may be wrong here.
Nick: It’s going to take me some time to unpack all that you’ve covered here. Mr Cummings’ comments above are thoughtful and insightful as well. Yours is a stunning piece of writing. HB