How dystopias can arise

[Iwannaplato]

I found myself creeped out by a pattern of attitudes. We have a visionary in our midst.
This visionary has plans to one day engineer better humans...

Having finished a course in BioChemistry, Genetics, Molecular Biology, Genomics and Rational Medicine, I am well aware of the potential we can engineer humans with higher moral intelligence and moral competence.

The GUIDE is not to be binding.
But this GUIDE is inherent and clouded by noise, so humanity will have to clear those noises and allow the GUIDE to be activated and alignment and drive the person towards the impossible ideal as justified.
It can only be done in the future when humanity will have the advance knowledge and technology to train and develop the brain and mind of the individual to be spontaneously aligns to the moral oughts which are inherent [DNA wise] in the first place. So nothing new is introduced but merely an efficient adaption to what is natural.

It is based on the above that I am very optimistic humanity will be able to identify the neural connectivity for that inherent evolving moral function within the brain/mind and using knowledge and technology to expedite the natural moral progress via fool proof methods.

He sees the majority of people as confused about morality.

As I had stated, the current majority of people are still stuck with the concepts of right and wrong as what constitute morality.

As just one example he accuses another poster here of somehow being forced by his beliefs to not being able to struggle against people he sees as being immoral and as implicit in their evil acts.

You would disagree their views, but based on your definition of 'what is morality' you have to respect what is morally right to them, thus will not do anything to correct the situation.

In this case, you are indirectly complicit to all their evil acts.

The accused poster, from his behavior and comments here, seems not only capable of calling people out on what he considers evil acts, but not at all complicit in them. I am sure our visionary would think I misunderstand the sense in which he sees this person as complicit. But it's not this one point that I find disturbing, it is the whole set of ideas our visionary has that I think are creepy.

You have to understand and recognize, the function of morality is a 'Johnny comes lately' within human evolution. This is why the majority of humans are still grappling what morally really is in alignment with human nature.

There is a need for visionaries to expedite the moral progress within humanity.

We have someone seeing most people as having primitive notions of morality and as complicit in evil acts. He sees himself as a visionary. He sees a future where we can engineer better people, with an emphasis of focusing on the brains of people.

Now do I think we have here one of the innovators who will have a big role in the ushering in of a Brave New World? (or one who understands the reference) No. But I see a potential supporter of some future dystopia. A cog in its introduction.

Further as showing a pattern of what he sees as good intentions - faith in technological solutions, sense of himself as a visionary, and sense of superiority to most other people - that could usher in some kind of technofascism if these ideas were held by someone with more charisma and guided by a good corporate PR department.

[Gary Childress]

I found myself creeped out by a pattern of attitudes. We have a visionary in our midst.
This visionary has plans to one day engineer better humans...

Having finished a course in BioChemistry, Genetics, Molecular Biology, Genomics and Rational Medicine, I am well aware of the potential we can engineer humans with higher moral intelligence and moral competence.

The GUIDE is not to be binding.
But this GUIDE is inherent and clouded by noise, so humanity will have to clear those noises and allow the GUIDE to be activated and alignment and drive the person towards the impossible ideal as justified.
It can only be done in the future when humanity will have the advance knowledge and technology to train and develop the brain and mind of the individual to be spontaneously aligns to the moral oughts which are inherent [DNA wise] in the first place. So nothing new is introduced but merely an efficient adaption to what is natural.

It is based on the above that I am very optimistic humanity will be able to identify the neural connectivity for that inherent evolving moral function within the brain/mind and using knowledge and technology to expedite the natural moral progress via fool proof methods.

He sees the majority of people as confused about morality.

As I had stated, the current majority of people are still stuck with the concepts of right and wrong as what constitute morality.

As just one example he accuses another poster here of somehow being forced by his beliefs to not being able to struggle against people he sees as being immoral and as implicit in their evil acts.

You would disagree their views, but based on your definition of 'what is morality' you have to respect what is morally right to them, thus will not do anything to correct the situation.

In this case, you are indirectly complicit to all their evil acts.

The accused poster, from his behavior and comments here, seems not only capable of calling people out on what he considers evil acts, but not at all complicit in them. I am sure our visionary would think I misunderstand the sense in which he sees this person as complicit. But it's not this one point that I find disturbing, it is the whole set of ideas our visionary has that I think are creepy.

You have to understand and recognize, the function of morality is a 'Johnny comes lately' within human evolution. This is why the majority of humans are still grappling what morally really is in alignment with human nature.

There is a need for visionaries to expedite the moral progress within humanity.

We have someone seeing most people as having primitive notions of morality and as complicit in evil acts. He sees himself as a visionary. He sees a future where we can engineer better people, with an emphasis of focusing on the brains of people.

Now do I think we have here one of the innovators who will have a big role in the ushering in of a Brave New World? (or one who understands the reference) No. But I see a potential supporter of some future dystopia. A cog in its introduction.

Further as showing a pattern of what he sees as good intentions - faith in technological solutions, sense of himself as a visionary, and sense of superiority to most other people - that could usher in some kind of technofascism if these ideas were held by someone with more charisma and guided by a good corporate PR department.

Technology seems to be moving us closer and closer to giving a few the ability to better control and manipulate all. Since the creation of states, and the pursuits of philosophy and religion to give their apologetics of them and the sciences to give them the means, we're just moving closer and closer to perfect control. Who ends up getting their hands on the control board and switches can be a sobering thing to think about.

[Gary Childress]

By the way, who posted that?

[Agent Smith]

What could be wrong with a state of affairs where everybody's happy? Perhaps that's not the right question. May be this is: who is waiting for whom?

[Gary Childress]

What could be wrong with a state of affairs where everybody's happy? Perhaps that's not the right question. May be this is: who is waiting for whom?

I don't know. If you simply want everyone to be happy you could just administer lethal doses of morphine to all of us too. But who wants to play God with people's lives? Not me. I couldn't carry that kind of burden, that I was responsible for the fate of every human on Earth.

[Iwannaplato]

What could be wrong with a state of affairs where everybody's happy?

I'd rather fit the situation to us rather than fit us to the situation and make us smile. Stepford wives and husbands.

[Iwannaplato]

Technology seems to be moving us closer and closer to giving a few the ability to better control and manipulate all. Since the creation of states, and the pursuits of philosophy and religion to give their apologetics of them and the sciences to give them the means, we're just moving closer and closer to perfect control. Who ends up getting their hands on the control board and switches can be a sobering thing to think about.

Agreed, it certainly seems to be heading in that direction, with some undercurrents in other directions.

[promethean75]

dystopias are political-fiction you guys, and the world can't go to shit becuz the ruling classes would lose their free ride if it did. see if u piss the proletariat off enough and he refuses to work and goes to wrecking shit, your wealth will be put in jeopardy, and u don't want that. so, history becomes that delicate process of shifting the balances of property enough when needed to keep the proletariat satiated. if he's getting upset, give him a raise or better medical insurance options.

[Iwannaplato]

dystopias are political-fiction you guys, and the world can't go to shit becuz the ruling classes would lose their free ride if it did. see if u piss the proletariat off enough and he refuses to work and goes to wrecking shit, your wealth will be put in jeopardy, and u don't want that. so, history becomes that delicate process of shifting the balances of property enough when needed to keep the proletariat satiated. if he's getting upset, give him a raise or better medical insurance options.

If you can alter the proletariat via technology so that they are what you want them to be, it's a different story.

[Gary Childress]

dystopias are political-fiction you guys, and the world can't go to shit becuz the ruling classes would lose their free ride if it did. see if u piss the proletariat off enough and he refuses to work and goes to wrecking shit, your wealth will be put in jeopardy, and u don't want that. so, history becomes that delicate process of shifting the balances of property enough when needed to keep the proletariat satiated. if he's getting upset, give him a raise or better medical insurance options.

If you can alter the proletariat via technology so that they are what you want them to be, it's a different story.

Yep. Right on target.

[promethean75]

no yeah i know but whatever u do, u gotta keep the proletariat happy. now think about this. wouldn't a techocratic police state where u got robot POleece coralling workers down the street to their jobs (like in Elysium) be more costly to maintain and more subject to a dangerous revolt than a relatively open and free society like one in the west?

here's a crudely simple way to demonstrate my point. instead of spending x amount of dollars designing and maintaining a draconian society, give that money to the workers, make them happy, and u won't have any need for robot POleece.

like if u got a society where the workers have to be forced to go to work, u fucked up a long time ago and didn't do something right.

a gross simplification but u see the principle point. u can make people do what u want without coercing or altering them, and often at a much lower expense.

[Iwannaplato]

no yeah i know but whatever u do, u gotta keep the proletariat happy. now think about this. wouldn't a techocratic police state where u got robot POleece coralling workers down the street to their jobs (like in Elysium) be more costly to maintain and more subject to a dangerous revolt than a relatively open and free society like one in the west?

Sure, but you're thinking crude tech. I'm talking nano-tech with genetic modificaiton or hormonal modification or brain altering modes. For example.

here's a crudely simple way to demonstrate my point. instead of spending x amount of dollars designing and maintaining a draconian society, give that money to the workers, make them happy, and u won't have any need for robot POleece.

I don't think you understand that part of feeling powerful is precisely not giving them what they want. That's one. Two is, we are now in the age where weapons and controls replicate themselves or are easily replicated. You're not building robocops. You're churning out tiny nanomachines or genetic machines the way people copy files.

like if u got a society where the workers have to be forced to go to work, u fucked up a long time ago and didn't do something right.

a gross simplification but u see the principle point. u can make people do what u want without coercing or altering them, and often at a much lower expense.

Right. 1) I don't think you're right about the costs, now or soon but also 2) if they are viewed as cockroaches using up resources other solutiosn come to the table.

[Gary Childress]

no yeah i know but whatever u do, u gotta keep the proletariat happy. now think about this. wouldn't a techocratic police state where u got robot POleece coralling workers down the street to their jobs (like in Elysium) be more costly to maintain and more subject to a dangerous revolt than a relatively open and free society like one in the west?

here's a crudely simple way to demonstrate my point. instead of spending x amount of dollars designing and maintaining a draconian society, give that money to the workers, make them happy, and u won't have any need for robot POleece.

like if u got a society where the workers have to be forced to go to work, u fucked up a long time ago and didn't do something right.

a gross simplification but u see the principle point. u can make people do what u want without coercing or altering them, and often at a much lower expense.

My problem with what you are saying is that you are trying to reduce all this to a blind faith belief that, in the end, it's too costly for the ruling class to do that, therefore they won't. What if they can? If the ruling class is ruled by money and profit. And if it were ever the case that it should become more profitable to create this "utopia" where everyone is happy to do what the ruling class want, then would they do it or would it happen?

I mean, I've been working in the business sector long enough to know that large entities like corporations are driven by the bottom line. If they can't afford to do something, they won't. Otherwise, they'll go out of business and won't be able to do anything anymore, including help others (should they ever wish to).

Example: If I'm about to become homeless and live on the street due to some serious breakdown in my so-called mental "health", then I don't know of any real estate company that will buy me a home at their expense. A church might shelter me but their mission will be to convert me to their belief system, whatever that may be, (depending upon what sort of church that, possibly random fortune, should land in front of me). I kind of lean toward Unitarianism I think. The closest Unitarian church to me is almost an hour away. Unless I want to go listen to people saddle me with guilt and shame, telling me Jesus is my savior and that all that masturbation I did while homeless on the street was sinful, then I would need to get down to that Unitarian church.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[promethean75]

"a blind faith belief that, in the end, it's too costly for the ruling class to do that, therefore they won't. What if they can?"

it is a strong faith gary based on a couple inferences. i aks first what is it that the ruling class wants to accomplish? the acquisition of property and exemption from manual labor. they're lazy monkeys, gary, not evil sadistic monolithic forces determined to rule the erf and enslave everyone. okay so i then aks what has to be done to accomplish that and i look at the western liberal pseudo-democracies and notice that that is being done relatively well there. 

so now I've got a view of a system in which there is a solid struggling but ultimately satisfied middle working class, a small class of obscenly rich people at the top so we get to have our randian overmen who live lives of profane and unspeakable luxury, and the predicted lower lumpenproletariat class that the tax payers take care of.

according to your homeboy fukuyama this style of society is the end of history, and it's proven to be sustainable over time. now with that in mind, how much more would the ruling classes have to interfere in, or restrict, the lives and liberties of the working classes to further maintain that privilege of wealth that capitalism provides?

see satisfying the people is fairly easy man. they are material beings that move around the erf doing stuff called work where they produce things they then consume. they tend to stay in one general area and display a nesting/reproductive behavior where the males and the females claim a plot of land, tend to it, and make youngins together.

note that ordinarily one wouldn't need wifi connected mind-control nanobots roaming the brains of such people to keep them happy and in line.

but if u end up at a point like that, it means the ruling class fucked everything up by all the infighting they do or by badly managing the worlds resources. I'm saying u could get as rich as u want without having to conspire to implement a draconian state, if u and your competitors thought shit out better.

Remember if you're society is so bad u need to do shit like that (think a futuristic Detroit), your local and/or federal government fucked up and your capitalists just fuckin abandoned it.

but yeah if the erf's populations don't create an overcrowding effect, i don't see why these western liberal pseudo-democracies couldn't continue for ever, more or less, without there even being anything like what the dystopian novelists imagined would be.

[Gary Childress]

according to your homeboy fukuyama this style of society is the end of history, and it's proven to be sustainable over time. now with that in mind, how much more would the ruling classes have to interfere in, or restrict, the lives and liberties of the working classes to further maintain that privilege of wealth that capitalism provides?

I'm not sure. Seeing where we are right now, with certain world leaders rattling the nuke saber, I don't know. Does it appear to you that we're reached this "end of history" that Fukuyama talked about? One type of "end of history" we're possibly flirting with right now is nuclear Armageddon. How long can we sit on the edge like this before someone makes a serious blunder? How long before the militaries of the world are forced to start relying on AI to do the dirty work? How long before weaponizing AI could potentially get out of hand? How long before people are ordering "custom" babies from doctors specializing in genetics, etc? How long before someone decides to promote the customizing of babies to be happy under all circumstances? You can be 'faith' and I can be 'vigilance' if you want but I'm not believing in tomorrow until someone in charge actually makes sure that today isn't the last one.