We live in the futuere.

[mc776]

Judging by Mr. Obama’s call on Keystone XL, and kindred energy calls, the great age of capitalist accomplishment in the New World appears to be coming to a close. Exhausted by political gridlock, bureaucratic regulation and progressive populism (which gives everyone a veto on everything), the U.S. seems incapable of imagining, or doing, heroic things. Big business is widely regarded as a criminal enterprise, profits as the proceeds of crime and shareholders as co-conspirators. Sic transit gloria.

Let the Empire State Building serve as an iconic reminder of the America that once was. It was 1930. The architect produced the design plans in two weeks – and 3,400 workers built the world’s highest skyscraper in 410 days. Government didn’t get involved until it cut the ribbon. It would take a decade to complete a comparable project today – as the World Trade Center site attests. Americans appear to live more and more of their lives in the Country of Can’t, in the Age of No.

Where we used to have the personal jetpacks and space station suburbs, our contemporary pop-culture futurisms overwhelmingly favour some manner of collapse of our civilization. Considering my gut reaction to this column (substantial agreement "is", polar opposite "ought"), perhaps these visions are no less utopian.


...


While reading Paleo-Future it occurs to me that there are certain things that are always gotten wrong in futuristic speculation.

There is no accounting for taste. Predicted fashions are almost universally ludicrous or a very simple extrapolation of contemporary styles. It's almost 2012 and everybody but the abjectly poor and the willingly luddite has a wireless communication device that doubles as an alarm clock, computer and camera in their pocket, and I'm wearing cotton and wool, with jacket and tie and collar that are fully recognizable as evolutions from what a junior solicitor might have worn in his office 150 years ago.

No one remembers to check their privilege at the door. Everything always seems bright and happy and full of wonderful tech to solve all your problems. Even the dystopias are like this, except that the problem happens to be part of the protagonist's identity as a person. Resources seem unlimited for all parties, except (in the dystopias) where restricted by those in power.

Exception to both above: Cyberpunk. But this may be a case of life imitating art.

Humanity has never solved itself. There are no AIs that function higher than a small baby parasitic insect (though some have the advantage of specializing in a narrow range of human interactions thereby giving the illusion of doing better than that). Most of the "solutions" we relied on in the past have been thoroughly debunked and live on only in myth and charlatanry. There are extreme social and political pressures against the application of what we do know beyond getting injured or deteriorarting brains back up to "normal". We quite rightly avoid any artificial implantations into our bodies beyond what is necessary to prevent or mitigate damage, and the tools we use to augment ourselves beyond "normal" remain visibly externalized as tools.

Flying is really hard. Nothing exists today that can be bought by as a middle-class consumer item AND can lift a human being up above the ground, supported by no more than (the surrounding) air and without the aid of prior momentum. Go watch some of the ornithopter vids on YouTube and it's obvious that the energy requirements are far too great even notwithstanding the safety issues.




So what must I keep in mind?

There's no such thing as a free lunch, but there certainly is a thing as a hot lunch. Every advance must be presumed to be to the detriment of someone or something - is the tradeoff worth it, and to whom is it worth it? If someone: How much would people take before violence? Would they be strong enough by that point to make any difference whatsoever, or are they swept aside in the dust of progress? If something: Literally, who cares? What value does it have for whom, and when do those people begin to understand that it has - or had - value to them?

Similarly: who stands to benefit from widespread adoption of a change, and how does that person acquire the power and influence to impose that change on the rest of us?

Humans are constant. East African Plains Ape instincts will creep into any system, and that system can either gum up and strain and collapse, or it can redirect those instincts to its own advantage. No system will do all of one or all of the other, though some systems will be better than others.

Similarly: no improvement will survive human vanity, but must appeal to it in some way that outweighs the insult. How does a thing's use flatter the user, what promise of power over nature or humanity?

Low-energy oblique steps beat high-energy direct ones. Killer death ray no, night sights yes. Flying cars no, fuel-efficient cars yes. Immersing yourself into a giant computer interface no (or only for very specific functions), keeping a tiny computer on you at all times for convenience yes. Moving sidewalks no, more ergonomic and mobility-friendly fashion norms yes. On that note, value nothing because it is higher tech, value it because it does something better than what was being used before.

AI has a long way before it shows a shred of common sense. Automation of anything that requires common sense should either be an experimental failure or done at a cost to the value of doing that thing at all. There may be room for both automated and non-automated versions of a thing.

As for human evolution, go hog wild or go home, because we don't know shit at this point, except that no stable society will or ever should trust a human being to administer a human eugenics program.

Never, ever give up hope.


Just a cleaned-up version of some idle notes saved to my thumb drive when I couldn't focus on work. Still no concrete ideas at the moment, though I expect an initial glimmer by Christmas...