Zseni wrote:

But your post was about people buying into Seinfeld. Have you even seen Seinfeld? It's a little late to put this kind of "well what I meant was whatever will appease you" spin on it, tigershorts.

OTOH insects and birds both having wings does imply, by the current evolutionary line of thought, that they have in common a particular evolutionary pressure that favors the development of wings.

Neither birds nor bees are in any position to say "hey I think the other guy's wings work better...think I'll trade up." But humans increasingly ARE in that position. That's what modernization is all about: increasing our control over all the shit that isn't under our control. So if it is to our advantage to make computers that act like brains - or to modify our own brains to act like computers - then we'll probably bust out on that shizzat, to put it in the colloqial. It will be off the heezy.

The question I'd like to ask - which appears to bother nobody around here but me - is "what is man's purpose here on this retarded-ass rock." Because Ray is worried that brain-computers will fuck us up in some way.

But what do I care? On the one hand I'm perfectly capable of perpetuating the species, may whatever god you believe in have mercy on us all; on the other I have access to many religious and occultist schema which would amply fulfill my needs for a "higher calling."

In what way does a tireless progression towards "greater efficiency" apparently for its own sake equate to anything more or less than another empty ritual/intellectual orgasm? The world will change? Finally, a religion which keeps its promises. But then what?

Is Ray worried only that the status quo will change? Oh for the heady early days of the internet, when one could use the words "chaos mage" unironically and not be laughed off of usenet summarily. If this question sincerely worried anyone, what keeps him from at least researching the fuck out of it, or otherwise influencing its path of development? These empty rhetorical questions, shouted into a void whose only active agent appears to be my angry red ear, are futility itself. Why isn't anyone worried about that?

(See here we get to one of my little crosses to bear where the future is concerned: why are people becoming apathetic and anxious at the same time? It is as though modernization has weakened human will inasmuch as it has mollified the elements and provided for our every comfort. What does that mean?)