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Wildcat2030 wildcat

Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology's Impact on... - 11 views

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    "The impact of technological change on culture, learning, and morality has long been the subject of intense debate, and every technological revolution brings out a fresh crop of both pessimists and pollyannas. Indeed, a familiar cycle has repeat itself throughout history whenever new modes of production (from mechanized agriculture to assembly-line production), means of transportation (water, rail, road, or air), energy production processes (steam, electric, nuclear), medical breakthroughs (vaccination, surgery, cloning), or communications techniques (telegraph, telephone, radio, television) have appeared on the scene. The cycle goes something like this. A new technology appears. Those who fear the sweeping changes brought about by this technology see a sky that is about to fall. These "techno-pessimists" predict the death of the old order (which, ironically, is often a previous generation's hotly-debated technology that others wanted slowed or stopped). Embracing this new technology, they fear, will result in the overthrow of traditions, beliefs, values, institutions, business models, and much else they hold sacred. The pollyannas, by contrast, look out at the unfolding landscape and see mostly rainbows in the air. Theirs is a rose-colored world in which the technological revolution du jour is seen as improving the general lot of mankind and bringing about a better order. If something has to give, then the old ways be damned! For such "techno-optimists," progress means some norms and institutions must adapt-perhaps even disappear-for society to continue its march forward. Our current Information Revolution is no different. It too has its share of techno-pessimists and techno-optimists. Indeed, before most of us had even heard of the Internet, people were already fighting about it-or at least debating what the rise of the Information Age meant for our culture, society, and economy."
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    I'm definitely an optimist...
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    yes, so am I, but somehow lately I feel it is not enough..
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    I think I fall into his category of 'pragmatic optimism-- "...The sensible middle ground position is "pragmatic optimism": We should embrace the amazing technological changes at work in today's Information Age but do so with a healthy dose of humility and appreciation for the disruptive impact pace and impact of that change.'" There's enough cool new stuff out there to warrant concepting a bright future, but that has to be tempered with the knowledge that nothing is perfect, and humans have a tendency to make good things bad all the time. I always refer back to the shining happy images that were concocted back in the 40's and 50's that predicted a wondrous new future with cars, and highways, and air travel, yet failed to foresee congestion, pollution, and urban sprawl. Yin and Yang in everything, right?
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    I don't believe in dichotomies, thus I am both at the same time. I prepare for both digital nirvana and the end of civilization and collapse of techology at the same time. I am here discussing the future of work with all of you, but I have a disaster kit in the basement and a plan with friends and family where to meet at a fertile plot of land with lots of water (I call it Kurtopia). I would recommend all of you do the same. Of course you must also carry on based on the status quo (don't quit work and cash the retirement funds and buy gold coins), as well as react to any variation in between. Crystal balls are a waste of attention. Consider all scenarios, make plans, then throw them away and react to circumstances as they are presented. Understand that plans are merely insurance policies and come with a cost to attention on the present. They are robust but not optimized. Considering the spectrum from optimistic to pessimistic, if we assume a bell curve distribution of probability (with the stops across the bottom being discrete and independent), I would say these days, for me the bell is flattening, it is less and less likely that the status quo will survive. I would go so far as to say perhaps the bell is inverted. This could be interpreted as a polarization - one of the pessimists positions - except that I don't believe that the person experiencing the optimistic paradigm will necessarily be a different person than the one experiencing the negative, thus don't subscribe to the position that technology will result in a new classism.
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    nice collection of articles listed in this article, I've missed some of them so will go remedy that situation now
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    does Kurtopia need someone to mow the lawn?
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    no, but we do need someone to take our throm-dib-u-lator apart though
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

10 Shocking Facts About Society That We Absurdly Accept As Normal | Collective-Evolution - 0 views

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    "When you take a moment and look around at the world, things can appear pretty messed up. Take 5 or 10 minutes and watch the 6 o'clock news. Chances are, the entire time, all you are going to see is war, conflict, death, illness, etc. Sure, ..."
Spaceweaver Weaver

Evolution and Creativity: Why Humans Triumphed - WSJ.com - 2 views

  • Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly—bang!—culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
  • Even as it explains very old patterns in prehistory, this idea holds out hope that the human race will prosper mightily in the years ahead—because ideas are having sex with each other as never before.
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  • Once human progress started, it was no longer limited by the size of human brains. Intelligence became collective and cumulative.
  • It is precisely the same in cultural evolution. Trade is to culture as sex is to biology. Exchange makes cultural change collective and cumulative. It becomes possible to draw upon inventions made throughout society, not just in your neighborhood. The rate of cultural and economic progress depends on the rate at which ideas are having sex.
  • Dense populations don't produce innovation in other species. They only do so in human beings, because only human beings indulge in regular exchange of different items among unrelated, unmated individuals and even among strangers. So here is the answer to the puzzle of human takeoff. It was caused by the invention of a collective brain itself made possible by the invention of exchange.
  • Once human beings started swapping things and thoughts, they stumbled upon divisions of labor, in which specialization led to mutually beneficial collective knowledge. Specialization is the means by which exchange encourages innovation: In getting better at making your product or delivering your service, you come up with new tools. The story of the human race has been a gradual spread of specialization and exchange ever since: Prosperity consists of getting more and more narrow in what you make and more and more diverse in what you buy. Self-sufficiency—subsistence—is poverty.
  • And things like the search engine, the mobile phone and container shipping just made ideas a whole lot more promiscuous still.
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    Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years-the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success-tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language-seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly-bang!-culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Human Nature and the Neurobiology of Conflict | Wired Science | Wired.com - 2 views

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    [Areas of inquiry once reserved for historians and social scientists are now studied by neuroscientists, and among the most fascinating is cultural conflict. Science alone won't provide the answers, but it can offer new insights into how social behavior reflects -- and perhaps even shapes -- basic human biology. An upcoming issue of the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B features a collection of new studies on the biology of conflict. On the following pages, Wired looks at the findings. ...]
Amira .

Collective Intelligence: The Need for Synthesis by Kingsley Dennis | Between Both Worlds - 1 views

  • To upgrade our thinking patterns is a beginning step to an upgrade in human consciousness, and is necessary if we are to succeed in adapting to our rapidly and inevitably changing world. In other words, if we don’t enact a change, or learn to adapt to the incoming energies of change and transformation, our presence is likely to be no longer required, or needed. It is a sobering thought. The human species has entered a period of profound, fundamental, and unprecedented change. It needs to acquire new skills in order to co-exist with an environment that is itself undergoing profound change within the larger fabric of living systems - planetary, solar, and galactic. We need to upgrade our capacities in order to have the internal resistance to an upgrade in energies. Not to do so may result, quite literally, in us blowing a species-fuse! Whichever way we look at it, we are in need of preparation. If we are not prepared, that which manifests as truth may very well seem like science-fiction. And it needs to be stressed that our future depends to a large degree upon the ability to renew our perceptions about the world. It is a question of how our inner vision can be brought in balance with (and in support to) the impacts of a changing environment. If there is enough ‘critical mass’ of mind-change then there is a better possibility that shifting energies will be experienced less chaotically. Evolutionary biologist Elizabeth Sahtouris expresses the same sentiment when she writes
Wildcat2030 wildcat

Social Sciences and Society - TierneyLab Blog - NYTimes.com - 1 views

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    "Would you be better off paying for online newspapers like this one? Should you feel guilty about downloading free music? Is the Web's "information-wants-to-free" culture hurting writers, musicians and the rest of the "digital peasants," as Jaron Lanier calls us, now providing unpaid content to be exploited by the "lords of the clouds" like Google? In my Findings column, I discuss Mr. Lanier's new book, "You Are Not A Gadget," a manifesto decrying the Web's effect on individual creativity. (You can see excerpts of his criticism at Edge and at Cato Unbound.) Mr. Lanier mentions this newspaper as one of the victims as well as the promoters of the Web's ideology. "The New York Times," he writes, "promotes so-called open digital politics on a daily basis even though that ideal and the movement behind it are destroying the newspaper and all other newspapers. It seems to be a case of journalistic Stockholm syndrome." Mr. Lanier also faults himself: "
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

Beware: Piracy Defense Lawyers Can Be "Trolls" Too - TorrentFreak [# ! Note] - 0 views

    • Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.
       
      # ! Copyright Enforcement is, sadly, corrupting The Law... ... The Justice... The Coexistence. # ! And, as You may see, it seems that everybody is benefiting from 'Piracy' (beyond the mentioned Defense Attorneys...): From Musicians for the extra promotion; Collecting Societies and Audiovisual Producers getting Grants from Governments and Governments themselves, acquiring 'extra control' over Media... and The Culture itself, promoting Censorship with the excuse of the 'Protection of The Intellectual Property'...
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    " Ernesto on February 8, 2016 C: 37 News Every month hundreds of people are sued for sharing copyrighted media through file-sharing networks, mostly BitTorrent. This practice is big business for copyright holders and lawyers alike. Unfortunately, however, not all defense attorneys appear to have the best interests of their clients at heart."
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    " Ernesto on February 8, 2016 C: 37 News Every month hundreds of people are sued for sharing copyrighted media through file-sharing networks, mostly BitTorrent. This practice is big business for copyright holders and lawyers alike. Unfortunately, however, not all defense attorneys appear to have the best interests of their clients at heart."
Gonzalo San Gil, PhD.

You're Gonna Pay for All that Piracy, American ISPs | Digital Music News - 0 views

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    "Last month, US District Court judge Liam O'Grady dropped the bomb on Cox Communications by stripping the ISP of critical DMCA protections. This week, he's laying the groundwork for a potentially disastrous level of liability and damages, not just for Cox, but the entire class of US-based ISPs."
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    "Last month, US District Court judge Liam O'Grady dropped the bomb on Cox Communications by stripping the ISP of critical DMCA protections. This week, he's laying the groundwork for a potentially disastrous level of liability and damages, not just for Cox, but the entire class of US-based ISPs."
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