And what about technotopia?
Dec. 31st, 2005 12:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
openspace4life"And that's your guiding star, isn't it? What's of use."
- Dr. Simon Tam, in Serenity
"Have you ever wondered how we will be remembered a thousand years from now, when we are as remote as Charlemagne? Many [technophiles] would be satisfied with a list that includes the following: the technoscientific revolution continued, globalized, and unstoppable; computer capacity approaching that of the human brain; robotic auxiliaries proliferating; cells rebuilt from molecules; space colonized; population growth slackening; the world democratized; international trade accelerated; people better fed and healthier than ever before; life span stretched; religion holding firm."
- E. O. Wilson, The Future of Life, Chapter 6
One libertarian technophile named Charles Stross recently published a novel, Accelerando, envisioning a near future that closely matches these predictions. It's certainly not a standard take on radical optimism, though. For one thing, early in the book, a narrative block mentions in passing that "[t]hree extinct species have been resurrected in the past month; unfortunately, [known] endangered ones are now dying off at a rate of one a day," accompanied of course by many more unknown ones.
Stross also describes the painful realities of future shock, which makes it increasingly hard for most people (as well as governments and religions) to keep their footing in the midst of the hurricane-force winds of change leading up to the so-called "technological singularity," in which the rate of human "progress" becomes quasi-infinite. One predicted consequence of this, linked to the massive increase in available computing power, is that people's brains will be scanned and converted to digital form, theoretically taking their emergent minds/souls along with them, and connected up to virtual bodies.
If we can't be completely disembodied minds (our brains being designed for a specific set of inputs and outputs provided by our bodies), does it also follow that we must take the natural environment with us into cyberspace in order to stay healthy, as Wilson would claim? Stross doesn't give a clear answer, but he does mention later on that "[t]he planetary genome and proteome have been mapped so exhaustively that the biosciences are now focusing on the challenge of the phenome--plotting the phase-space defined by the intersection of genes and biochemical structures, understanding how extended phenotypic traits are generated and contribute to evolutionary fitness."
Presumably, once this massive database is completed and used to build a virtual copy of the biosphere, humanity (or "posthumanity") can feel no guilt about converting the mass of Earth and the other major planets into computronium, so as to enlarge the available virtual reality space. After all, the solar system is here for the use of intelligent life, isn't it?
Oddly, even Wilson takes a similarly utilitarian tack. Chapter 6 is titled "For the Love of Life," and it does try to discuss general moral issues, but always tinged with the question of usefulness: "The ethical value substantiated by close examination of [any species'] biology is that the life forms around us are too old, too complex, and potentially too useful to be carelessly discarded." Even the concept of "biophilia, defined as the innate [human] tendency to focus upon life and lifelike forms, and in some instances to affiliate with the emotionally," is described in terms of the usefulness of natural environments for human psychological well-being. So even the most ardent proponent of biodiversity is forced to constantly provide new answers to the question of what's of use to humanity. Love for nonhuman beings is not enough.
By the way, the movie Serenity and the Firefly TV series that it extends are regularly characterized as libertarian, yet the denizens of their universe are survivors of an "Earth-that-was" which was destroyed by overpopulation.
- Dr. Simon Tam, in Serenity
"Have you ever wondered how we will be remembered a thousand years from now, when we are as remote as Charlemagne? Many [technophiles] would be satisfied with a list that includes the following: the technoscientific revolution continued, globalized, and unstoppable; computer capacity approaching that of the human brain; robotic auxiliaries proliferating; cells rebuilt from molecules; space colonized; population growth slackening; the world democratized; international trade accelerated; people better fed and healthier than ever before; life span stretched; religion holding firm."
- E. O. Wilson, The Future of Life, Chapter 6
One libertarian technophile named Charles Stross recently published a novel, Accelerando, envisioning a near future that closely matches these predictions. It's certainly not a standard take on radical optimism, though. For one thing, early in the book, a narrative block mentions in passing that "[t]hree extinct species have been resurrected in the past month; unfortunately, [known] endangered ones are now dying off at a rate of one a day," accompanied of course by many more unknown ones.
Stross also describes the painful realities of future shock, which makes it increasingly hard for most people (as well as governments and religions) to keep their footing in the midst of the hurricane-force winds of change leading up to the so-called "technological singularity," in which the rate of human "progress" becomes quasi-infinite. One predicted consequence of this, linked to the massive increase in available computing power, is that people's brains will be scanned and converted to digital form, theoretically taking their emergent minds/souls along with them, and connected up to virtual bodies.
If we can't be completely disembodied minds (our brains being designed for a specific set of inputs and outputs provided by our bodies), does it also follow that we must take the natural environment with us into cyberspace in order to stay healthy, as Wilson would claim? Stross doesn't give a clear answer, but he does mention later on that "[t]he planetary genome and proteome have been mapped so exhaustively that the biosciences are now focusing on the challenge of the phenome--plotting the phase-space defined by the intersection of genes and biochemical structures, understanding how extended phenotypic traits are generated and contribute to evolutionary fitness."
Presumably, once this massive database is completed and used to build a virtual copy of the biosphere, humanity (or "posthumanity") can feel no guilt about converting the mass of Earth and the other major planets into computronium, so as to enlarge the available virtual reality space. After all, the solar system is here for the use of intelligent life, isn't it?
Oddly, even Wilson takes a similarly utilitarian tack. Chapter 6 is titled "For the Love of Life," and it does try to discuss general moral issues, but always tinged with the question of usefulness: "The ethical value substantiated by close examination of [any species'] biology is that the life forms around us are too old, too complex, and potentially too useful to be carelessly discarded." Even the concept of "biophilia, defined as the innate [human] tendency to focus upon life and lifelike forms, and in some instances to affiliate with the emotionally," is described in terms of the usefulness of natural environments for human psychological well-being. So even the most ardent proponent of biodiversity is forced to constantly provide new answers to the question of what's of use to humanity. Love for nonhuman beings is not enough.
By the way, the movie Serenity and the Firefly TV series that it extends are regularly characterized as libertarian, yet the denizens of their universe are survivors of an "Earth-that-was" which was destroyed by overpopulation.
