random 7:59 pm
Major history tonight. Obama has acquired enough delegates to clinch the Democratic nomation, becoming the first African-American to head the ticket of a major political party in the United States.
He said, “Tonight, I can stand before you and say that I will be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States.”
Next stop: the White House.
random 10:38 am
Robin Hanson is one of those people you just have to follow, or you aren’t cool.
Check out his Memorial Day podcast with Econtalk on the topic of signaling.
Signaling is one of those amazing concepts, that, when you start to get it, you see everywhere, and witness how it directs huge quadrants of human behavior. As Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message. That was him trying to say that signaling matters a shitload.
We automatically signal all the time without even knowing it. Below the threshold of active consciousness our subconscious is making calculations about our signaling all the time. In our active consciousness too, of course. Some people are consumed by the whole thing 24 hours a day. It’s human nature.
Back to Hanson, here’s his tenure statement (pdf). Yes, the man is clearly a genius, but as I like to say, “how genius?” It’s difficult to say, because all human “geniuses” are a lot dumber than what I can vaguely imagine as being just to the right of the Gaussian, but Hanson is definitely in the top five in the transhumanist-oriented community. I wish he would think more directly on how to deal with extinction risk.
Do you see the irony of me signaling how smart I am by listening to Hanson’s podcast? Do you see it!?
random 5:56 pm
Does anyone have a larger version of this image of Dr. Leary getting arrested? This is precious.
random 7:03 pm
Normally, I don’t give a damn about movies. The last movie I saw in theaters that I really liked was Borat, and before that, it was Episode III. But, for this one, I am totally stoked, and it isn’t even coming out for 10 months.
If you’re over the age of 25, you may have never heard of the sci-fi/action series Dragonball. But for an entire generation, it’s a household word. They may love it or hate it, but most of Generation Y knows about the franchise. It has been highly successful for two decades — at first in Japan, then in the US and Europe.
Dragonball began as a manga, a freewheeling adaptation of a Chinese legend, mainly meant for children. As its popularity grew, so did the subtlety of the storyline, until it became a full-fledged sci-fi epic with the anime Dragonball Z. This show was my primary introduction to science fiction.
Dragonball Z was one of the first shows to portray cyborgs as socially competent entities with superhuman abilities and intelligence, rather than mechanized caricatures, as in The Terminator and other American franchises of the time. It was among the first to introduce transhuman beings as realistic people with believable personalities, rather than the silly spandex-and-cape appearance of Marvel superheroes, fighting in overly simplistic evil/good plot contexts.
The Japanese lack the odd anxiety that American culture has with transhumanity, robotics, and technology in general, so it can present these topics without constantly second-guessing itself. I don’t know how far it will delve into these in the movie, but the series included plots with brain transplants, organic robotics, and much more.
Fundamentally, Dragonball is an integration of the ancient Chinese storytelling tradition of wǔxiá (武侠) with the hyper-modernity of Japanese science fiction anime. This is a really cool mix, and in the early 90s, when I first got into Dragonball, I could never have predicted the degree that both of these would catch on in the US.
random 12:53 pm
Oh hell yes! Today is the 71st anniversary of the death of H.P. Lovecraft. This genius is one of my favorite authors. He even had his own literary movement, Cosmicism:
“The philosophy of cosmicism states that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as God, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence, and perhaps are just a small species projecting their own mental idolatries onto the vast cosmos, ever susceptible to being wiped from existence at any moment. This also suggested that the majority of undiscerning humanity are creatures with the same significance as insects in a much greater struggle between greater forces which, due to humanity’s small, visionless and unimportant nature, it does not recognize.”
I don’t necessarily agree with Cosmicism, but find it fascinating. Sometimes I see it as a metaphor for human civilization playing with immensely powerful emerging technologies beyond our ability to control, like nanotech and AI. 67 Lovecraft stories are available at the Gutenberg Project. Some of my favorites are The Colour Out of Space, The Dunwich Horror, and Beyond the Wall of Sleep. I’ve read about half of these and hope to read them all.
Lovecraft was much more than just a horror writer. He was a philosopher, a poet, an occultist. His goal was not merely to scare you, like thousands of trashy horror movies, but to make you think. Some of the concepts he presents are utterly amazing, and he is never afraid to inject his own personal quirks into the characters of his stories. And now, something extremely mysterious, and rarely seen… a picture of H.P. Lovecraft… smiling!!!
random 12:14 pm
More than 1.6 billion, or roughly a quarter of the planet’s people are Christians. It is the world’s largest religion. I had some questions about Christianity I thought I would ask any Christians that read this. (Non-Christians can ignore this post if they’d like.)
1. Early Christians believe Christ would return quickly, within 1000 years or sooner. This is called millennialism. When do you believe Christ will return? Why is millennialism today associated with fundamentalism?
2. If God answers our prayers, shouldn’t it be easy to detect his presence by observing greater success in people achieving prayer-communicated desires over other desires? Can we design an experiment to confirm this?
3. Are evil people, like Hitler or other serial killers, evil solely due to their own dispositions, or is there some involvement from Satan? Are drug addictions and/or atheism due to Satan? Is there some test for determining the presence of Satan’s influence?
4. Conversely, are people good solely due to inspiration from God and/or Jesus Christ? Is it possible for an atheist, Jew, Muslim, etc. to have “holiness” even if they explicitly disavow your religion? Can they go to Heaven, even if they openly reject Jesus Christ?
5. I find the doctrine of original sin unfair. I do not feel accountable for what some ancient ancestor did. May I be absolved?
6. Can God speak to us through our prayers? How does he determine which people to speak to? When someone claims they spoke to God, how do we know they are telling the truth?
7. Do you plan to meet God when you go to Heaven? If you have ever had a mental scenario of what might happen, please describe it.
8. Will God ever kill Satan?
9. Will a large gold palace (New Jerusalem) really descend from the sky? If so, will non-Christians be allowed in?
10. Would it really be ideal for the entire planet to become Christian? Would the world be a better place?
Thank you for your answers.
