tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post2288592563874936868..comments2024-02-13T12:50:30.457-05:00Comments on Rants Within the Undead God: The Brawl of MasculinitiesBenjamin Cainhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-61996460804679424472019-01-24T08:03:30.251-05:002019-01-24T08:03:30.251-05:00I don't know about the intellectual courage. I...I don't know about the intellectual courage. I might be writing a companion article soon on the nature of femininity, and that might take more courage. ;) <br /><br />Russian cosmism is certainly interesting. What I take from transhumanism isn't so much any prediction or guarantee of some sci-fi scenario. But I gathered from my exchange with R. Scott Bakker that if the science and technology keep advancing, we'll likely know much more about the mind's neurochemical aspect. It will then be harder to take cultural values seriously, because we'll see how they arise from evolutionary concerns. Cynicism and nihilism will be easy, but there will also be an opportunity for a Buddhist calm in absorbing this psychological and cultural apocalypse. <br /><br />The only values that will have any chance of being objective or not overtly based on evolutionary accidents or delusions will be the aesthetic ones that follow from the coming together of scientific detachment and pantheistic appreciation of the universe's mindless self-creativity (as I try to explain in "Life as Art"). It's that absurdist, Matrix-like vision of the mere quasi-artistic value of everything that seems likely to inform an intellectually advanced mindset. No one knows what will actually transpire, but I suspect that that kind of enlightened perspective is a real danger and an opportunity for existential nobility.<br /><br />I'd certainly doubt that any utopian sci-fi prediction will come to pass in the foreseeable future. We already had those wishes throughout the last century (the Jetsons, etc), and look where we are now. 5G networks are poised to make businesses more productive through automation, and Yuval Harari points out that that will put most people out of work. That's the irony of technoscientific advances: they spell disaster when there's no accompanying progress in our ways of thinking. We'll need to reconsider our ultimate goals if we're to have any honour as the machines and algorithms continue to take over.<br /><br />Do you live in Toronto? Small world!Benjamin Cainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00661999592897690031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6320802302155582419.post-30463747658644033042019-01-23T14:27:14.642-05:002019-01-23T14:27:14.642-05:00Meticulously thought out. Requires tons of intelle...Meticulously thought out. Requires tons of intellectual courage. I have played with the posthuman angle as mentioned above since I discovered western transhumanust in the early 90 being steeped in Russian transhumanism since mid 80s. But even that angle is thoroughly bastadized these days, even the transhumanust so called "scene" in Toronto invokes only continuous wtf in me. So it seems the transhumanust angle is nothing but a dead end unfulfilled wish these days, in the context of the above piece, at least.zombiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16170901618171176202noreply@blogger.com