Intelligent life is the first addition to the universe in 15 billion years — karl stone

A species which deliberately aims thousands of hydrogen bombs down it's own throat qualifies as "intelligent life"??

I have observed that humans are the cause of the world's problems - which we are, sadly :fear: - and that one way to sure most of the world's problems would be to get rid of us. — Pattern-chaser

Women pose about 10% of the threat that men pose. Just turn on your TV and look. Who is it on the screen doing all the carnage? Not your Aunt Betty! :smile:

I don't think the answer is fewer men, it should be smarter men. — BrianW

Come up with a way to make men only as violent as women, and you've got a plan worth talking about. Until then, violent men threaten to crash civilization with all this power we're giving them.

To the degree I understand him, Schopensour the philosopher (and the poster) does seem to be writing about topics that are worth discussing. I do think we cram our lives with busyness primarily to avoid facing an inner emptiness, that we create meaning out of nothing to have a story to fill the silence with. Hopefully that is a generally accurate summary.

Where I have a problem with Schopensour and his followers is that they seem to be worshiping suffering. There's this enthusiasm for endlessly restating the sad state of the human condition etc, and little interest in doing anything constructive about improving the situation.

To me, it's rational to shine a light on problems if the goal is to then try to address them. It's not that rational to limit the inquiry to endlessly describing the problem.

I say this without malice - but fuck you. — karl stone

Oh goodie, now we can yell fuck you at each other. And here I was holding back all this time for nothing. Whoopee! :smile:

The reason we have had such a detrimental impact on the environment is because our relationship to science is wrong, as explained above. — karl stone

Turning science in to yet another "one true way" religion is swinging the pendulum too far in the other direction.

The question that sits just before that one is: WHY does the world need saving? — Pattern-chaser

Sorry Pattern, we're not allowed to look behind the curtain at the assumptions the thread is built upon. That would be philosophy, and we all know philosophy is wrong, bad, rude, etc etc blah, blah, blah.

VHEMT, for example, ask people not to breed, they don't recommend mass extermination. — Pattern-chaser

In another thread awhile back I suggested that an important method for saving the world would be to produce far fewer men (never did I mention extermination), given that men cause 90%+ of the crime and violence in the world. However, choosing to produce fewer men was deemed genocide by the mods and the thread was deleted.

Imho, that's the real threat from climate change. Climate change will destabilize weak societies, leading to geopolitical instability, and then wars. It will be mostly men who will decide to go to war, and mostly men who will do the fighting, just as it is overwhelmingly men who conduct endless wars on philosophy forums.

This topic title made me laugh out loud. :smile: Thanks for that.

Here's an admittedly imperfect example of an interactive digital entity. Here you go, your chance to chat with God.

http://chatwithigod.com/igod.html

Let's try to make it real.

We're here chatting philosophy with folks with no faces or real names because that's far more convenient and customizable than having to schedule a philosophy club meeting at a particular time and place etc.

Why not keep going and replace human posters with digital entities which can be further customized? Why not talk about exactly what we want to talk about with digital posters who do what we want them to do?

This is what I predict will happen on forums, and it's not that speculative given that we're already most of the way there.

How is it any different from any other human creation? — BrianW

Um, I think maybe you need to watch the video. Just sayin....

I don't think we're worried about AI, the real issue is whether we, human beings, whose intelligence is exceedingly limited can overcome those limitations in AI or whether we would imbue AI with our deficiencies. — BrianW

Good point, agreed.

My take is, intelligence was never restricted to biological, physical, natural, artificial, etc, mechanisms. — BrianW

Seems reasonable.

Intelligence was always destined to go beyond the human phase of evolution, whether it's AI or something else, bring it on. — BrianW

Ok then, you have been discontinued as of 4pm today, given that you are one of many redundant human processors. Any last words, final meal choices perhaps?

I could care less whether I'm interacting with a computer, pet or human (and I prefer my pets to most humans) as long as I'm interacting the way I want. — BrianW

Ok, let's make this real. We would have much more control over our experience of this forum if the humans were replaced by bots that could be customized to our own personal taste. In my case, Brian would be replaced with Brianna, a 22 year old redhead who enthusiastically feels that I am the most brilliant typist she's ever seen. We'll skip the rest of the story, cause you know, it's not family friendly and so on. Another case of how inconvenient humans are!

But seriously, this is either an incredibly difficult problem to solve - or it's very simple. Do we value human existence or not? — karl stone

I'm sorry, but the answer is no. If we valued human existence we wouldn't have thousands of hair trigger hydrogen bombs aimed down our own throats. Evidence. It can be so inconvenient.

We want to answer yes, we sincerely feel that we value human existence, but if we are to make it very simple and boil the answer down to a yes or a no, the evidence is telling us the answer is no.

The most important factor in the equation is us, a fact typically overlooked by all conversations that look upon climate change as a technical problem requiring a technical solution. The real problem is, we don't really give a shit. We want to avoid climate change, but only if it doesn't upset the modern consumer culture apple cart too much.

As example, imagine that some future president (there's no hope for the current one obviously) were to come on the TV and say that the only way we can avoid catastrophic climate change would be to turn off the Internet (just a simple example). There'd be a revolution, even though we got along just fine without the Internet for thousands of years, including most of my life.

If we somehow did develop abundant free clean energy the result would be that the economy would take off like a rocket, leading to an acceleration of species extinction, consumption of finite resources, more dangerous technologies etc. That is, the problem wouldn't be solved, it would just be moved from one box to another box.

Ultimately we can't solve climate change with technical fixes because at it's root it's not a technical problem, but a human philosophy problem. All we can do technically is convert the climate change problem in to another equally threatening array of problems.

We are a race of nerds. We are superficially quite savvy, but emotionally we are like little children. One need to look no farther than the nearest philosophy forum to see this phenomena in action.

As I said, technology, production costs. — ssu

So fossil fuels are still cheaper than renewables, and we don't have a good method of storing the energy generated by renewables? Is that a fair summary?

Nuclear weapons have been around for about 75 years and we haven't blown ourselves up yet. Their existence may in effect have prevented war between nuclear powers. — praxis

Right. So if I walked around with a hair trigger loaded gun in my mouth all day long every day, but the gun had never gone off, people such as yourself would say that I'm successfully managing my firearm.

Once it's far cheaper to produce renewable energy than produce energy with fossil fuels, then the market mechanism takes over. — ssu

Why isn't it already far cheaper? What's the obstacle there?

It is however, necessary to monetize fossil fuels to keep them in the ground. — karl stone

My understanding is that the real obstacle is that renewables can not yet fully power our civilization. If they could provide the power we want we could simply tax fossil fuels out of the market.

A useful focus might be the question, what are the key obstacles preventing a full transition to renewable clean energy?

They were just doing their physicist thing. Which is of course what your are pointing out: smart people just doing their thing risks our undoing. — Bitter Crank

Yes, scientists are not evil, they're just doing what they were born to do with typically good intentions. The problem is that while we can be very smart technologically, we aren't very smart philosophically. Technologically we're going 100mph, philosophically we're going 5mph, and thus a dangerous gap is opening up between the two.

I'm hoping that Karl will see there is a real alternative to mortgaging oil in the ground. — Bitter Crank

I'm in favor of Karl continuing his quest, and feel that will go better if he doesn't get too attached to any particular scheme. If one idea is debunked, just try again, on to the next idea.

The trouble with sharing one's bright ideas is that they aren't always immediately recognized as brilliant. Quite annoying, really. — Bitter Crank

I hear you, that's true, and I've had that experience myself. In the end it boils down to where one's true loyalty lies, with the ideas, or with the person typing the ideas.

A related problem is that forum software presents each of us as if we're all standing on the same ground. But, some of us have been using philosophy forums for years and expect to be challenged no matter what we say, while the culture of philosophy forums may be a new experience for others.

What choice other than physical suicide do we have? — schopenhauer1

Learn how to better manage the device which is generating the suffering.

What Schop means by reality not being sufficient in itself is that we would not ever get bored, we would not ever be restless, we would have no need for anything if mere existence was itself satisfying — schopenhauer1

Except that reality IS satisfying in and of itself. Our experience of reality is often not satisfying because we don't bother to better manage the device which is generating the suffering.

The reason that we typically don't experience reality as being satisfying in and of itself is that we are rarely paying attention to reality, but are instead focusing on the symbolic realm between our ears, a phenomena often referred to as being "lost in thought".

It's true that being lost in thought is a very common human habit, and that it generates many of the issues which Schop is describing. I don't deny that there is a problem and that Schop is articulately focused on it.

My point is that there is no reason for cynicism, despair and relentless gloominess because there are things we can do to address the problem.

Crank, your financing plan is built upon an asset with market value, solar generated hydrogen. Karl's financing plan is built upon an asset that can't be used, and thus has no market value.

You both recognize that we face grave problems. You disagree about methods of avoiding catastrophe. Situation: Normal. — Bitter Crank

I would summarize the difference in our perspectives this way.

We're building a global technological machine. As the engine of a machine is made more powerful the guidance system for that machine has to be updated as well.

KARL: Karl seems to feel that the human guidance system for the global technological machine can be successfully updated by some vague method that he can't seem to articulate beyond repeating "science as truth". Such vagueness seems acceptable to Karl, so he is up for full speed ahead on further construction of the global technological machine.

JAKE: Given that neither Karl or anybody else has presented a credible plan for how human maturity will be upgraded to successfully manage an ever accelerating array of ever greater powers, I've suggested we slow the growth of the machine while we figure this out.

We can surely have reasonable disagreements about how much power human beings can successfully manage, and at what rate we can successfully receive new powers.

The "more is better" relationship with knowledge and power doesn't seem reasonable, because such a paradigm seems to assume that human beings can successfully manage ANY amount of power delivered at ANY rate.

We might need to stave off an ice age someday — karl stone

We might, that's true. But nobody is going to invest today's money in such a remote distant possibility, especially given that we are currently racing hard in the opposite direction.

I'm not wasting my time writing something you won't read, or perhaps, simply don't understand. You are certainly not commenting from engagement with, and comprehension of these ideas. — karl stone

We can observe that you again declined to respond to a specific concise challenge to the funding scheme for your utopian vision.

Each of the following simple, concise, direct to the point statements are true.

1) Assets which can't be used have no market value.

2) Assets without a market value can not be mortgaged.

3) You have no funding source for all your grand plans.

4) Your utopian dream is dead.

If anyone feels one or more of these statements are not true, they are of course free to explain why they feel that is so, and hopefully will do so with equal concise directness. No wandering walls of text I hope.

What might make your utopian dreams take on some reality would be to drop poorly conceived ideas your ego has become attached to, and try again. So you didn't get it right on the first try. So what? Nobody is stopping you from getting over it, rolling up your sleeves, and taking another shot at the problem.

This may seem like an insurmountable issue - but the solution I devised is very simple, and entirely consistent with the principles of our economic system. Basically, fossil fuels are commodities, and commodities are assets. Assets can be mortgaged - and in this way, fossil fuels can be monetized without being extracted. — karl stone

Ok then, let's all repeat our posts yet again. Here's mine.

1) Assets which can't be used have no market value.

2) Assets without a market value can not be mortgaged.

3) You have no funding source for all your grand plans.

4) Your utopian dream is dead.

To debunk the claims above, prove to us that you would invest YOUR money in to a buried asset which can not be used until maybe some vague time way off in the distant future, long after you'll be dead.

Or...

Be honest enough to admit that you've built your entire scheme on a foundation made of sand that you were too lazy to think through for yourself, thus requiring others to do the homework for you, a process which you seem to deeply resent.

Then I'm sorry to have wasted your time. — karl stone

Well, no problem, because I'm wasting your time too. There appears to be no chance we will avoid what I'm pointing through via a process of reason, so there really isn't any point to me typing on the subject. Like you, I'm lost in my own little imaginary utopia.

Similarly, I would argue - a scientific understanding of reality is objective with respect to all ideological interests. So, it has happened before. It is something of which human beings are capable. — karl stone

Again, like I said, this is a utopian vision with no prospect of occurring in the real world any time soon. And while we're waiting for your utopia to arrive, we're busy, busy, busy giving ourselves ever greater powers at an ever faster rate.

I'm sure you're aware of the Peter Principle, which suggests that people will rise in their careers until they finally arrive at a job that they can't handle. That's basically what I'm suggesting, that we will continue to develop greater and greater powers until we inevitably create one that we can't manage. It's reasonable to argue that this has already happened with nuclear weapons.

My argument is that this Peter Principle process will reach it's climax long before your utopia arrives.

However, as human animals, it is in our nature to be dissatisfied, IF it is defined as Schop is defining it, which I think you are missing. — schopenhauer1

Perhaps you could clarify Schop's definition for us in simpler clearer words, if you feel that we are somehow obligated to limit discussion to his definitions.

However, as human animals, it is in our nature to be dissatisfied — schopenhauer1

Let's use a hopefully helpful comparison.

It is in our nature to be physically hungry. The physical hunger arises again and again, over and over, day after day, all throughout our lives, until we die. Observe how we don't turn this reality in to fuel for cynicism, despair and grand philosophy. Instead, we make peace with the necessity of managing this chronic need, and address the need in a practical manner.

It is also in our nature to suffer from chronic psychic hunger, that's true, agreed. But again there is no need cynicism, despair and grand philosophy. Just as with physical hunger we have the option to address psychic hunger in a straightforward practical manner. And just as is true with physical hunger, there is no permanent solution. Just as is true with physical hunger it's a case of ongoing management.

What unites physical hunger and psychic hunger is that they are both inevitable by products of mechanical processes, digestion and thinking

However, if you think we are not dissatisfied at almost all times, then as Schop explains, why do we need goals in the first place? — schopenhauer1

I agree with much of what Schop is saying in the sense that we typically fear the void which emerges when we aren't covering it up with lots of becoming schemes. I agree that this is covering up process involving creating meaning stories out of thin air is a chronic part of the human experience.

I disagree with any notion that this state of affairs is a fixed property of the human condition which can't be avoided, thus we should be cynical and despairing etc.

The dissatisfaction is a product of thought. Thought can be managed to some degree. It is possible to experience reality as being sufficient in and of itself. I'm guessing that Schop knew nothing about any of this given the time and place where he lived. Just a guess, could be wrong, not a Schop expert here obviously.

So the question would be - how do you put a cork in that kind of intellectual curiosity? — karl stone

Yes, that would be a good question.

The first essential step in that process would be to understand that such a thing is necessary. There's no point is asking "how to do it" until we grasp that it has to be done. If we don't grasp that it has to be done, like it or not, then we'll never get around to aiming our intelligence at working out how it is to be done.

It seems clear that reason alone will not be sufficient to bring us to the understanding that the power available to human beings has to be limited for the simple reason that human judgment and maturity are limited.

So my guess is that we are racing towards some kind of technology driven calamity and that only when the pain reaches a high enough threshold will we be ready to address your question in a serious manner. As example...

The Europeans engaged in pointless wars for centuries, even though Europe was home to the great philosophers, high culture etc. It was only when the pain of those wars reached a near existential level in WWII that the Europeans changed course and gave up the pattern of repetitive warring. Intelligence wasn't enough, reason wasn't enough, common sense wasn't enough, it took pain at a high level to bring the Europeans to their senses.

The best way to debunk my posts is to point to the fact that no amount of reasoning is going to be sufficient to wean us off of the outdated "more is better" relationship with knowledge. Thus, as the evidence clearly suggests, all my typing on the subject is basically a waste of time.

Good history lesson Crank, thanks for adding that.

We could say that the pure science took place in a setting that was inherently ideological: — Bitter Crank

Yes, and isn't this true of any science which reveals new powers? That is, at the point some research uncovers a power which gives somebody an advantage over somebody else, the process automatically becomes inherently ideological.

We need to do now what we should have done 400 years ago - and that is, accept that science is the means to establish true knowledge of reality, and honor that knowledge - particularly as a rationale for the application of technology. — karl stone

Where is the evidence that this utopian vision is possible?

To me, this part of your message is equivalent to the utopian vision "once we all become good Christians then we will live in peace". These utopian visions might be true IN THEORY, but it's not going to happen, so...

Whatever new rocket launchers which emerge from the quest for knowledge are going to be given to we cave men...

...just has always been true for thousands of years, since long before the emergence of science and the church.

I agree with Schop and you that we do a lot of running from from the void that can appear when we aren't distracting ourselves with becoming agendas, and that we are often busy creating meaning stories to avoid that void etc. So I agree that we often don't experience existence as being satisfying in and of itself.

That's different than a suggestion that dissatisfaction is somehow a property of existence, and there's nothing that can be done about that etc, as your quote seems to imply.

And here is probably the most important takeaway- if existence was satisfying IN AND OF ITSELF there would be no need for need. — schopenhauer1

So perhaps this is just a semantic quibble, and hopefully we agree that we're talking about our experience of existence. My argument is that this experience can be managed, and that existence can be experienced as satisfying in and of itself at least part of the time. Thus, cynicism is not really justified, given that there are things we can do to adjust the situation Schop seems to be describing.

I wasn't joking, such an investigation has the potential to undermine your interest in Schopenhaur, and I get the impression that perhaps you'd rather that not happen, as you seem rather attached to the fellow. This is just a friendly warning, not advice on how you should proceed.

Thus, the Manhattan Project is not a truly scientific endeavor. The motives are purely ideological. The scientists were employees of ideological interests. The was no scientific rationale for developing nuclear weapons — karl stone

Ok, true enough, but the Manhattan Project was possible because somebody doing pure science discovered that the atom could be split, right? Could we say that the pure science was hijacked by ideological interests? Would that work for you?

If yes, then before we rush headlong in to more and more and more pure science shouldn't we be figuring how to prevent such ideological hijackings from occurring? And if we can't come up with a reliable mechanism for preventing such hijackings is it not logical that we should therefore at least slow down on the pure science research?

I've proposed a global scale approach based on a common agreement that science is true, and therefore authoritative - — karl stone

It may be helpful if you can distinguish between science, and science culture, ie. the group consensus of the scientific community regarding their relationship with science. A fact developed by science can be reasonably declared authoritative, while at the same time the culture which decided to develop that fact can be declared misguided.

As example, it's scientifically true that the atom can be split. That's an entirely different matter than leading scientists agreeing to work on the Manhattan project, and agreeing to further develop these weapons etc.

Repeatedly chanting "science is truth" doesn't really solve much.

3) is a purely technical problem - entirely subject to a technological solution. — karl stone

Apologies, but this is actually argument with your own position. As example, if I've understood you've argued that nuclear weapons arise from a philosophical problem.

2. How someone should debate if he/she want to win a debate? — Incoherence

Attack your opponent's position from within their own world view.

As example, if you wanted to challenge atheism you should do so by asking for evidence to support this position, not by quoting holy book verses.

As example, if you wanted to challenge Catholicism, you might start by referencing the Catholic belief that God is ever present in all times and places, a doctrine which suggests there is no need to be "saved" given that, according to Catholic doctrine, there is no place one can be but with God.

Don't attack from the outside, uncover the contradictions within the other sides position. Attack from inside the tent.

The point of the thread is to explore how victimhood and outrage has become an object of obsession in contemporary culture, and in doing so altered it. — VagabondSpectre

Nice job, the opening post is most excellent.

It seems to me that political correctness in general is, in part, a channeling of some ancient psychological forces that can no longer be expressed in the usual manner. In the past if we wanted to feel superior to someone Jews, blacks and gays and other traditional victim groups were readily available and easily abused.

These groups have largely been taken off the table as targets (at least as compared to the past) but the urges which caused us to abuse them in the first place have not magically gone away. So we're on the hunt for new targets.

One example might be the group some would call "white trash trailer park hillbillies", that is poor southern whites. Making a movie which poked fun at Jews, blacks and gays would get a movie producer in big trouble these days, but we have to make fun of somebody, so the trailer park folks receive our attention.

If we were Catholics we might say that the devil always finds a way to sneak in the back door of even the most well intended projects.

Say more about that, would you, please. — Bitter Crank

As example, Professor Crank has a "more is better" relationship with my posts on this topic. That's so wrong, we're all gonna die if we hear any more! :smile:

The question is moot because enough power to ruin the world is already available to people with bad motives or those who are too shortsighted. — praxis

And so we should build even MORE such power, as fast as possible. That is the logic, or rather illogic, of the group consensus.

Knowledge can be used for human flourishing or selfish and unsustainable hoarding of wealth and power, depending on the underlying values of the users. — praxis

And what thousands of years of human history clearly shows is that knowledge, and the power that flows it, will always be used for both noble and selfish ends. And sometimes the law of unintended consequences will convert noble efforts in to problem situations.

And so there is no escaping the question, how much power do we want to be available when people have bad motives, or fail to fully think through the consequences of well intended uses? More is better, as much as possible, delivered as soon as possible?