On the Internet in our time, you can almost never criticize an ideology or behaviour as "fascist" or "communist" without someone invoking Godwin's law and/or McArthyism. One of the reasons that totalitarian ideologies run so rampant and so viral on the Internet is that people attempting to make a moral judgement on them are instantly accused of bias or an attempt to suppress free speech, essentially accused of the same thing they've identified.
Of course, such notions are self-discrediting because free speech is free speech -- it's ok to denounce another ideology as violating free speech; criticism itself doesn't mean you are calling for a suppression speech (many forums jackals slathering for a chance to play gotcha are too stupid to realize that basic point). In fact, calling for a boycott of a speech doesn't mean "suppression of free speech," but is a moral protest against an ideology that would suppress everybody's free speech if it could. Ray Kurzweil apparently doesn't think it's so terrible that the human race as we know it will be wiped out, and artificially intelligent beings will take our place. If that isn't fascism, I don't know what you're calling it -- but technocommunism would work fine, too : )
I don't have to look far for this type of behaviour from this gang -- my articles on spimes critical of Joi Ito got suppressed from the site he invests in (technorati) for a time; when I criticized Cory Doctorow, one of the boosters of the "singularity," he urged that I be banned from Twitter and tried to get his tech thug at the socialist Guardian, Charles Arthur, to try to put up a fake case of "stalking" because...I had an old album with a picture of Doctorow speaking at a public meeting in SL. The nastyness and viciousness of the hard tekkie left is never far from us -- look at the lengths to which the haters of conservatives go to hack their email and publicize it, although they're the first to scream bloody murder about the evil U.S. government eavesdropping on their own privacy.
So that brings us to parse what is fascist about the singularity and Ray Kurzweil. When you have a theory of a superior race like Ray Kurzweil does, it doesn't have to be a race with white skin, with the lesser beings having brown skin -- although it will, of course, be fascinating to see how many black people find a way to pay $25,000 to go to Singularity University lol.
No, the new superior race, the Ubermensch, is Ray *already*. Because he's *already*, through pumping himself up with nutritional supplements and who the hell knows what else, reportedly overcame his Type II diabetes and prolonged his life and isn't aging. Sigh.
Kurzweil posits the creation of a new, superior race that will enhance itself with nanobots, tiny, programmed artificially-intelligent robots that will be small enough to get into your bloodstream, where they will prolong, extend, enhance your thought processes and presumbly your organic life. To get a taste of the wild scientific manner in which he talks, see this acceptance letter for Singularity University (if authentic, and since it comes from Twitter, who the hell knows).
Kurzweil loves the idea of Second Life, virtual worlds, social media, Twitter, Youtube, etc. because it gives him a way to extend all these ideas, and his already very hypertrophied and arrogant personality, to all kinds of clueless gits who think first and foremost that this ideology will help *themselves* to be superior and have power over other people (think of those old bubblegum wrappers with the puny guy who gets sand kicked in his face). He doesn't think about what this means when someone gets this power over him (because he wants this power so badly) or other people.
I think C.S. Lewis was very prescient in talking about these issues in Abolition of Man and That Hideous Strength, a novel about a brain kept alive by scientists who believed they were going to perfect mankind and take power over others who grew out of the ideology of secular scientific progress and logical positivism but who were ultimately defeated by an unlikely crew of Christians -- and Merlin.
I come back to this book over and over and read it now and then because while written long before the Internet in the 1950s, it did grapple with the hubris and arrogance of scientists bent on taking over mankind for the sake of improving it, a desire that features prominently in fascism as well as communism and finds an echo in many descendents or parallel constructions of these basic evils of the 20th Century, such as extropianism, transhumanism, etc.
It was interesting to find a blogger thinking along these lines examinging C.S. Lewis and finding this useful passage to contemplate vis-a-vis the singularity:
For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means, as we have seen, the power of some men to make other men what they please. In all ages, no doubt, nurture and instruction have, in some sense, attempted to exercise this power. But the situation to which we must look forward will be novel in two respects. In the first place, the power will be enormously increased. Hitherto the plans of educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted and indeed, when we read them — how Plato would have every infant ‘a bastard nursed in a bureau’, and Elyot would have the boy see no men before the age of seven and, after that, no women, and how Locke wants children to have leaky shoes and no turn for poetry — we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses, and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as it still possesses. But the man-moulders of the new age will be armed with the powers of an omnicompetent state and an irresistible scientific technique: we shall get at last a race of conditioners who really can cut out all posterity in what shape they please. (pp. 59-60)
And that's just it. The person who begins by saying "I wish to live forever, be as god, and perfect myself," and says "I'll find likeminded comrades and together we will perfect ourselves and become a superior race" are *already* problems, and *already* proto-fascists because they have already discarded common sense, field data, and criticism, in favour of what some say is an eschatological technology -- a technology that is really more like a religion. Who would be able to talk sense to them once they are ecstatic? It really is rather like the Rapture, in which they imagine that some will be swept up because they are righteous, their brains uploaded handily, and others Left Behind, presumably due to their being covered with FUD.
The singularity shtick posits several ideas:
o that technology is accelerating change so fast that we can't keep up and it will surpass our ability to understand it -- it will have "emergent behaviour" beyond our understanding
o this accelerated technological change is "inevitable"
o this transformation, however incremental, will "all of a sudden" or "at once" or "inevitably" cause irreversible reform, that will not be able to be undone
o this irreversible and inevitably change is made up of all sorts of incremental changes that people welcome, like, oh, helping people with cystic fibrosis or making machines for the blind to hear books or palliatives for AIDS or virtual worlds that help people -- so to try to say you are against singularity or its irreversibly and inevitable changes will mean that you inevitably are against all those little tiny incremental changes like the making of Tang that were on the way
o that even though this supposedly fast-paced accelerating change is beyond understanding, some special people already realize *that* -- that it will surpass existing understanding, and that already puts them in a special, more intelligent group
o that the people who make technology and cause it to be so "fast," could presumably stop it, or they will have enough understanding to perhaps curb -- or harvest, or steer, or mitigate -- it's "acceleration".
o that the singularity will be a good thing because it will be "progress" -- and again, those who see that early and "embrace the inevitably" instead of resisting it will be just that more better off than those who try to fight it
Well, you get the idea. Concepts that inevitably create a superior race, that does the following:
o sees around the curve of history, into the future, enough to know that change is coming and it is inevitable
o creates uniform ideologies of change with certain patterns to be observed in change (certain landmarks in history, stages of evolution, key events, etc.)
o embraces said change instead of fighting it, because it is more intelligent
o harnesses changes as they come and uses it to extend intelligence, life, etc.
o adapts quickly to change because it sees it coming and doesn't fight it
So these Enlightened ones, who have a substance a lot like the Vril described in this science fiction story (say, did Vryl Valkerie name herself after these mythological figures related to Nazi cults?!), are a superior race.
Inevitably, such an enlightened race will adopt the following positions:
o those who can't see change is coming -- and INEVITABLE change are stupid, fearful, etc.
o those that can't fathom uniform ideologies and see patterns recognized by smarter people are stupid
o those who don't embrace change and criticize the "change agents" are backward, fearful, stupid
o those that can't adapt and harness change are trampled by it
Critics are quickly put into ths bin of those who "can't see" what is "inevitable" or grasp that they must "adapt". Of course, fascists and communists always talk in the language of inevitability, forces more powerful than man, necessary change, sweeping transformation, etc. and inevitabily characterize those who don't see the patterns marked out for them by their betters as "vestiges" or "revanchists".
But, you say, where does it say in Ray Kurzweil's writings that he will FORCE this on you?
Well, that's just it. He doesn't have to point to a page in Mein Kampf or the Communist Manifesto and say "I endorse these ideas by these totalitarian authors".
No. All he has to do is adopt an assured, matter-of-fact, arrogant posture that says "The singularity is already coming -- it's here. Change is already happening. This is inevitable. And...when WE get up into the nervous system, why, we'll..."
He doesn't say "I could be wrong, but" or "It seems as if we're seeing this pattern but what do you think" or "getting up into the nervous system might have some real downsides, especially if those bots break and kill you".
No. Instead, with absolute crazy and sinister confidence he says "The Singulary it coming, and pay $25,000 and I will tell you its secrets, and you can join a select and secret society that can see the future, adapt more quickly than the inferior people, and harness these events to your profit."
That's how superior races and their ideologies are born. If you can't see it, perhaps you aspire to be part of this superior race yourself *shrugs*.
Critics of this identification of the contours of fascism say things like "but you think you're right, too, Prokofy" or "But you think something is not true until it is proven as such to you," and so on.
Right. But...here's a pro tip. I don't say anything is inevitable -- except death, and that's not my idea, but the documented fact of the ages.
Here's another marker: I don't charge $25,000 to a seminar where I promise to reveal you certain truths of the universe. My God, this is a lot like Scientology, or the many circles of those old EST-like cults like Mindspring, endlessly sucking money out of people. Pretty bold, eh?
As the blogger "And Still I Persist" notes, with another passage from C.S. Lewis, you don't have to be a self-identified Nazi to think like one at root:
But many a mild-eyed scientist in pince-nez, many a popular dramatist, many an amateur philosopher in our midst, means in the long run just the same as the Nazi rules of Germany. Traditional values are to be ‘debunked’ and mankind to be cut out into some fresh shape at the will (which must, by hypothesis, be an arbitrary will) of some few lucky people in one lucky generation which has learned how to do it.
Read your friend Wikipedia to see how these ideas find their way all over, including in Steven Levy's Hackers, where Vril is mentioned, and where his ideas, even aged from the 1980s, might be said to form the core of the Linden ethos:
- Access to computers—and anything which might teach you something about the way the world works—should be unlimited and total.
- Always yield to the Hands-on Imperative!
- All information should be free.
- Mistrust authority—promote decentralization.
- Hackers should be judged by their hacking, not bogus criteria such as degrees, age, race or position.
- You can create art and beauty on a computer.
- Computers can change your life for the better.
I'm hoping to get Thomas Malaby's book soon on the ethnography of Linden Lab, where among his central theses are the idea that these Lindens didn't think they were in a hierarchy, thought they were fighting the power, thought they were resisting authority -- but in fact, were themselves creating and participating in a rigid hierarchy of their own (as all cults do).
I've noted in the past in discussing the spimes and transhumanism just how fascistic the ideas are and just how much they really do involve controlling people.
Remember this piece I did on Philips Electronics (are they going to be the makers of nanobots?) in which people genuinely discussed, as the transcript shows, with the reprehensible Csven Concord, a concept whereby people's nervous systems would be wired up to the Internet so that you could tell if they were telling the truth by seeing if certain changes happened -- but even worse -- as we are all to be collectivized in the singularity, naturally -- people could rate you, and you would show a colour depending on how people rated you -- on your RL skin.
Look, this was very weird fascistic nutty stuff 2 years ago. And today, it's a wee bit closer to its goal by having Kurzweil speak as the keynoter. And 2 years after that, it will be closer still. And that's how fascism succeeds, by desensitizing, legitimizing, insinuating itself, making it seem "inevitable" and making it seem that people who criticize it -- hijacking temporarily their liberal values to use against them, only to drop them in a minute again -- are somehow "suppressing dissent".
BTW, does anyone know the story of why Sophrysyne Sventaag, who exists only as a digital persona, like the late lamented Rheta Sham, decided to leave SL? Too much drama on Extropia? Well, at least she didn't get pregnant and then hit by a van.
For extra credit note that Shirley Marquez, the same person talking in the salon chat I exposed as fascistic later appeared on Metanomics to trash me by implying that I was one of these people who used an avatar to do bad things that they would never do as their real selves -- one of those persistent memes about me that has no basis in reality, as I'm exactly the same in RL or SL - I simply wish to have an avatar, a channel, and a pen name, which is my right. Shirley Marquez seems to be on a bit of a jihad on this subject, I'm not sure why, perhaps from a guilty conscience? I had quite the fandango, bTW, over this private Metanomics chat on the subject of Avatar Psychology which led to yet another skirmish with Joel Savard, whom I originally pegged upon meeting him in RL was abrupt and irritable and worth giving a wide berth to, who I came to find more interactive and tolerant in SL, but about whom I had to change my opinion again recently.
Two people IM'd me seeming as if there was a drama emergency lol. One I didn't recognize and couldn't find again. the other is someone who comes to the Sutherland dam. "They're obsessing about you again," she said. Why do they do that? I asked to see the transcript -- but it didn't exist. It was never posted. They never are on these sort of smaller, private, although group meetings of Metanomics (not the events with speakers). So it creates a sort of little superior set that has knowing little convos that no one dare post because that would be a violation of the TOS. Sigh. Another participant in this talk then said it didn't seem to be that much of a big deal, but I couldn't tell. I couldn't tell what caused this one person to feel so sure that it was a dis that she contacted me. I don't care if I'm dissed -- my God, that happens 10 times a day. But I do like to fight back -- and when there's no transcript, I can't. Basically, finally extracting the names of these invokers of the Prokofy Phenom, I could see one was a hater, with a track record and obsession on the topic, and the other was even a friend, or at least a positive correspondent who comes to the dam. So it seemed like a minor tempest in a teapot, but here's the thing: I couldn't get Joel, a great believer in server truths and transcripts, to accept that community *perception* even in the face of server records (chat transcript that seems, upon analysis of its flat face, to be "about nothing") is valid, and while subjective, worth dealing with.
I wonder whether Extropia, like all utopias, failed. Anyone?
Meanwhile, there's the real Ray Kurzweil, with all his "credentials" to comfort the disappointed masses, and the forlorn Extropia renters and attenders of Extropia's salon...
The awful thing about Kurzweil is that a seemingly intelligent and humane person like Raph Koster could fall for him to the point of legitimizing him on his blog. Very disturbing.
And obviously Philip, with his interest in neural networks, loves this stuff. It's good to read other smart people who show up on places like amazon with the obvious critique of this physicalism, this reduction of all aspects of the human being to a series of chemical/physical processes that supposedly you can mimic and master using machines.
Er -- the obvious critique is that it has limitations, things break down, and there is more to the human being than his neural networks!
Couldn't be bothered to read your massive post but the problem with calling something fascist is adequately explained in this George Orwell quote:
The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.
Posted by: Elanthius Flagstaff | July 03, 2009 at 09:02 AM
Is Ray very nationalistic (does he wave the stars and stripes flag at any given chance)? Does Ray oppose pacifism and call for an imperialistic foreign policy that will expand his own beliefs? Does Ray dislike internationalism? Does Ray really oppose individualism and the values of capitalistic productivity? Does Ray also oppose the concept of class struggle? Does Ray dislike the intelligencia? Does Ray favor social Darwinism?
The thing is, I think you can link any go-getting country that takes war to other nations with the view of expanding a political ideal as fascist. Any nation that opposes communism and also tries to limit the actions of an individual, by the use of corporate thinking is likely to be called fascist by someone.
Frankly Prokofy, I think you do talk a lot of meadow muffin. A person cannot be a techno-commie and a fascist, that is absurd. Next thing you will be saying America is a form of neo-fascism.
Posted by: Micha Sass | July 03, 2009 at 10:15 AM
It's true. To the public, words like fascism and communism have lost their meaning. People have become trained to assume the words are being used inappropriately. They warn: "wild hyperbole follows."
If you want to ask yourself what kind of person has done that damage, look at your own blog. Look how frequently you invoke things like Pravda and breadlines over minor issues. You've sold the souls of the Soviets for a bit of cheap rhetoric.
Anyone who wanted to open the back door for totalitarianism would have to invent you if you didn't already exist.
McCarthy was right. When Venona was declassified in 95, he was finally vindicated among thinking men. But his name, and "McCarthyism" will forever be smeared. Real warnings of treason have been turned on their head, become synonymous with treason themselves, because the press accused McCarthy of acting exactly as you DO act.
Posted by: Brigitte Belgar | July 03, 2009 at 11:12 AM
Extropia...
You might think, what with it being the home of the digital people and all, that my theories about 'mind children' (digital people with software minds of their own, or at least not dependent on one and only one particular human) would be welcome. But actually I got more negative reaction there than anywhere else in SL.
Although a lot of my ideas were clearly distastful to the community, I was never banned. I think it was a shame that Prok was barred from entering. While I may not share his points of view, he is good at expressing himself and he does raise issues that are worth hearing, at least. I think the salons would have benefitted if Prok had been allowed to attend, although he would probably not have wanted to, knowing I would be there spouting my 'crazy stuff';)
Posted by: Extropia DaSilva | July 03, 2009 at 11:26 AM
As the word "fascist" has been barred from entering polite and/or intelligent conversation, I gather we don't have to worry about fascism any longer - it simply cannot exist if nobody is able to talk about it. That's a relief. If only the same magic would work on the word "banal".
Posted by: ichabod Antfarm | July 03, 2009 at 11:54 AM
I will be honest and say that i find the concept of trans-humanism creepy. Brain uploading and immortality are not things I digg. But if you think there is a parallel between Fascism and singularity you really need to read this :
http://www.gregburch.net/writing/lexextropium.html
It is a discussion of extropian views on law. Importantly I will make a few quotes from the above article :
'Individual liberty and reciprocity are the highest values in an extropian approach to law and legal issues.'
'Extropians strongly question the presumption underlying the current almost universal paradigm of law that assumes that law is inextricably intertwined with the power of the state.'
'Tolerance and personal privacy are naturally very high values in extropian legal thinking. Thus extropians believe that strong encryption and a completely free Internet are basic foundations of the world they seek to build.'
These guys and gals (extropians) may seem a bit kooky, but they are not fascists.
Posted by: Micha Sass | July 03, 2009 at 11:58 AM
Oh good grief Ichabod..Fascism is very much alive and well in the USA..
Please visit http://www.stormfront.org and you will get a very first hand experience of the worlds fascists.
These guys are well worth worrying about, especially as David Duke goes to Iran to preach about holocaust denial.
Posted by: Micha Sass | July 03, 2009 at 12:05 PM
lol Micha, I gather satire isn't your strong suit. You see, my little post was satirizing the idea that you are never ever allowed to use the word fascist, as Prok did, or suffer yet another tiresome invocation of Godwin's Law. I use the word unapologetically when I feel it is justified and, um, before you go after the States for being fascist I would take a closer look at the UK.
Posted by: ichabod Antfarm | July 03, 2009 at 12:36 PM
Extropians are definitely corporativists -- and fascists -- as well.
That's because they believe in smarter, privileged classes of people who should run things if other, backwards FUDed people can't get it together.
I'm not sure that stripping the concept of the rule of law away from the state is a good idea if you have a more or less liberal democratic responsive state. Civil society means a liberal democratic state, too, which maintains it. What is to maintain the rule of law if not the state?
I believe law is higher than the state and comes from higher values than the temporaral state, universal principles, if you will.
Someone might say that's a mere "social construct" or deconstruct it endlessly as nihilists do nowadays, but that doesn't trouble me. It's not mysticism to reference a constitution, with well thought-out principles, subjecting the state itself to the rule of law, and building up law by precedent. That's all good, and it doesn't get better than that on this earth.
Extropians also believe that they are progressive and positive and putting the future into effect (they are even more aggressive and nutty than most transhumanists), and therefore anyone who criticizes, or who is negative, etc. is a lesser being.
Extropians believe that humans should live forever and if science gets better, will live forever. And that contains within it an inherent fascism, as I've explained about the singularity (which is just the science end, or "science-ology" if you will) of Extropianism.
That's because if you believe you yourself and your special friends are perfectable and perhaps already perfect (who's to know), then by extension, everybody else is shit, everyone else is in fact even subject to elimination.
Extropians make a fetish of saying they are apart from or beyond all ideologies. But they contain within their own thoughts and behaviour the exact same utopianist totalitarian impulses of any other of these cults involving the perfecting of man.
The entire aggregate of all the brain-uploaders, singularists, etc. is a network of people who think they are better, smarter, perfectable, and perfecting, and other people therefore are lesser, in the way -- and then, become something that soon or later, must be eliminated -- the way having been paved by dehumanizing or making seem "less than human" those who weren't perfectible.
Because...man is not perfectable, and that's why the fascism is inherent -- it is built on a lie.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | July 03, 2009 at 01:01 PM
Ichabod..I was not invoking Godwins Law. If people choose to ignore this post due to the use of the term Fascism then they are following Godwins law. I merely wanted to say, 'BE WORRIED ABOUT FASCISM'..it is a worrying cult. I do not think USA is fascist, but the fascist sects (KKK, stormfront etc.) do operate from the USA due to freedom of speech laws. Anyone can make parallels to fascism, and then use those similarities to imply the thing being discussed is as evil as the Nazi's. USA, UK and others have many similarities to the Nazi's, but this does not make them fascists. Fascism is a specific ideology and IS supported by mainly white supremacists..lets not water that down by linking it to every single thing that 'kinda creeps you out'.
Posted by: Micha Sass | July 03, 2009 at 01:31 PM
Ok, Micha, point taken. Thanks for the pointers on how to identify fascists. That would have saved me twenty years of reading Adorno.
Posted by: ichabod Antfarm | July 03, 2009 at 03:30 PM
Lest someone think Prokofy's strawman actually corresponds to what extropians think, you might wish to read http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/jpbonsen/extropianism.html.
Posted by: Melissa Yeuxdoux | July 03, 2009 at 04:00 PM
I would suggest that these ideologies are more akin to cults and religions in their affect in a pluralistic society today. I do not beleive they yet hold the power of a political cross - group affect such as fascism or communism or even the old church.
that aaid, Ive followed the going ons the extrapolarians;) and the techtransformists for almost 20 years, like he scientologists of before, they dont seem to be growing in real numbers or true influence, only they magnify their importance via the their involvment in the new medias of their times, but as scientoligists found out, you can bring a horse to Tom Cruise movie,but you can make them drink Xenu.
BTW a little Virtual Worlds History from the days of paper clips...
In about 1996 or so one of the FIRST VRML sites/service consultant groups to offer metaverse work was all coming from a small house in southern LA.
This metaverse dreamy vision soon came to a quick end, as a comet passed over earth. At that natural event, the consultants all dressed in new sneakers and jumpsuits, then killed themsleves in order to be transported to the mother ship hidden in the comet. The name of these virtual world consultants, was Heavens Gate. So much for any political affect--for them or vr worlds circa 1996;)
I still think these folks are much more about "self" than the "other" so that the need to fire off political concerns is premature... religious/cult like concerns for the individual though are possibly of more concern. 20k fees for enlightenment and what that does to the unfed kids left at home..;)
Fascist uses of VR media technology i dont think will come from these folks, they like the early nuclear dabblers and technologists, became only cheap entertainemnt fodder to eventually be used by much more irresponsable types.
Anyhow back to the show.
Posted by: cube3 | July 03, 2009 at 04:41 PM
cube, I remember the Heaven's Gate thing vaguely, I went and watched it on YouTube and read Wikipedia, but I didn't see anything about them working VWs. It says they worked on building websites and CMC, so perhaps it's possible.
I'm curious why they each had 5 dollars and 75 cents in their pockets when they committed suicide, and why they put the purple shrouds on (seems like a sort of Catholic symbol). The shrouds make sense, but what was their plan with the $5.75 in the next life? Or was that their tip to the crime scene clean-up people?
I disagree that you have to dismiss cults as insignificant and not worry about denouncing their fascistic or totalitarian thinking in advance of them growing. If you don't do that, then they do grow. I think it's very useful to study and condemn totalitarian thinking and models, which these groups all share coming out of the California cult scene (and the Lindens are no different in some of their basic cult planks).
Kurzweil and his followers are now at the point where they are way, way beyond a UFO cult like Heaven's Gate, and are increasingly being mainstreamed when people like Raph Koster can remain uncritical of him, and when Mitch Kapor doesn't do anything to stop this sillyness.
You're right that the more entrepreneurial fascists have yet to come -- but why wait for them to come?! Why not confront totalitarian thinking now, before it grows.
I prefer to say "totalitarians" because if you say "fascist," someone will say there is no pointer to Nazis or proof of Hitlerism, or that they make machines for the blind; if you say "communist," they say "You're a red baiter." If you say "totalitarian," they say "what about their thinking is totalitarian?" and there you can show that they believe in the inferiority of some people, and the superiority of others, and collective action to put the superior ones in power over the inferior.
I don't think you wait to "prove" that they are using force/violence/coercion when you have people very, very sure of their ideology, who are resourced and influential, and already have a lot of voluntary followers who are absolutely cult-like in devotion and *already* have a concept of others as inferior, in the way, blocking them, etc.
Go on slash.dot or any of these big cites and see the fanboyz in indignation about people "not respecting this great man Mr. Kurzeweil" etc.
I guess only in the cultic surrounding of Second Life could someone like me, pointing out that we all die, that this is a condition of our race, should be accused of "wishing for people to die". Imagine! That is, my refusal to believe in this cult of Kurzweil, that we might be able to extend our lives with nanobots, is therefore tantamount to inciting murder, because I refuse to believe -- therefore, I'm a murderer causing people to die and wishing for their deaths (!). Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up.
Micha is like all foolishly ignorant British American haters who rabidly screech about cults like the KKK, which are battled by law and education everywhere, and turning a blind eye to the totalitarian Islamo-fascist cults right in her own country, not to mention the neo-Nazi old-style fascists in her own country. The old "Blame America First" game -- how tiresome!
Europe has twice been the scene on its continent of mass murder -- crimes against humanity rightly called genocide in the case of the Nazis, and rightly called crimes against humanity not amounting to genocide in the case of the Communists -- in part because the Genocide Convention, due to Soviet participation, didn't define "political belief" or "class" as a category under which mass murder could be a motivation for genocide.
Regardless of the legal definition, Europe is the scene of millions and millions of deaths due to totalitarian cults. America is scene of many people who fled those cults and built a freer society. So I always turn Europeans back to their own continent to study, which they are often half-blind to, when they begin ranting about evil Amerika.
Melissa,
Are you just a gullible follower of this cult, or an organized operative?
Did you realize that the Extropia Institute is now closed? They claim they completed their mission. But some of the organizations associated with them have been engulfed in scandal:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcor_Life_Extension_Foundation
I haven't made a "straw man" of Extropianism, I've called it precisely as a cult -- which it bears all the signs and symptoms of -- and I've called it properly as a cult with totalitarian thinking.
"Max More" sounds like an adopted name that signifies the ideology at hand - and that has been noted by some critics. And indeed it is said to be an adopted name if you read his bio on Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_More
He ties right up to Kurzweil -- this is all the same circuit of "singularity circuit" -- so that to cite Extropians in defense of Singularity is merely to be in a vicious circle of back-patters.
http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=/articles/art0408.html
"Despite disagreeing with much (and not having read all) of Nietzsche's work, I do have a fondness for certain of his views and the way he expressed them. Most centrally, as a transhumanist, I resonate to Nietzsche's declaration that "Man is a rope, fastened between animal and overman--a rope over an abyss... What is great in man is that he is a bridge and not a goal."
etc.
I don't believe that man is capable of becoming a superman or "overman"; I don't think he is a bridge to anything. I think he is flawed and mortal, that he has a capacity for apprehending the supernatural and spiritual which draws him, but of which he is not made in this lifetime. As for life after death, we are taught that we may claim immortal life through this or that religion. I happen to believe in one of these religions. I could well be wrong. Nothing may happen after death. I do characterize my belief in the afterlife and the eternal as *a religious belief*.
"Max More" has a similar *religious* belief in *another religion* that claims while we are alive, people can become supernatural, immortal, a bridge to immortality, etc.
*I don't believe in that religion, I believe in my own religion*.
Someone else may not be religious in nature; they may not believe my religion or "Dr. Max More's" religion -- and think all religion is suspect and people go nowhere while they are alive or dead. That's fine. I very much believe that not only church and state should be separate, but that Congress shall make no law such as to respect any one religion over another -- and frankly, that means even the religion of global warming.
Religion is a great thing for people; they need religion and are made for religions. Religion isn't science, however, and science has its place in temporal life.
Here's a talk by "Max More"
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5883182560901699665
This is a very clever fake-out that first purports to be critical of the idea of super intelligence as flawed like humans, deliberately play-acts through a bunch of bungles even in the talk presentation, and then handily doubles around in a twist and tells us we can pursue this super wisdom,if only we essentially sign on as a follower of "Max More" and maximalize ourselves into more, too.
I marvel that talks like this are held at universities. But, the university is in California, so I guess that's how it works.
What's your interest in this cult, Melissa, are you a member of it? Or just an admirer?
Just because someone can claim an email with edu on it doesn't mean they have access to "the truth". Just because some talk goes up somewhere on the vast servers of MIT doesn't mean this is some "science". It's not.
Each one of the classic cult-like lures of this racket contain within them the springs of fascistic thinking, that a superior race is possible; that there are inferiors who don't understand this truth; that if you follow certain people, you, too, can access this truth, etc.
Take a slogan like this one from "Max More":
""No more gods, no more faith, no more timid holding back. Let us blast out of our old forms, our ignorance, our weakness, and our mortality. The future belongs to posthumanity." — Max More, On becoming posthuman."
Er, what's the plan to do this blasting? How. What happens to those people who won't blast? What if they cling to old forms and ignorance? What will be done with them? That always needs to be probed in confronting cults like this.
Here is "Max More's" list of cult recruitment questions:
Do you want to make the future immeasurably better than the past?
Do you want to live beyond the normal human limit?
Are you attracted to innovative, market-oriented solutions to social problems?
Do you want to upgrade your intellectual power?
Do you want to dispel the clouded thinking of the eco-doomsayers and pessimists?
Do you want to throw off ingrained barriers to effective thinking and action?
Do you want to continuously improve yourself - physically, intellectually, morally?
Do you think that technology can and should help us overcome biological, genetic, and neurological limits to our abilities and goals?
***
It's helpful not just to read the sites where the Extropians have infomercials, but some of the cult awarenes sites where people try to subject this sort of thing to more scrutiny and more questioning.
In these forums, it's always hard to tell the cultists from the anti-cultists and the disinformers, still, it helps to raise questions:
http://forum.rickross.com/read.php?12,64749,64984,quote=1
I think the biggest deception coming from the Extropians is their claim that they have no set of beliefs -- and yet, prescribing a set of very strenous and faith-based beliefs that underlie those questions just raised.
I don't believe in any of those precepts, and you cannot force me to.
I also want to know what happened to Sophrosyne.
It seems that your friend "Max More" has left behind the organizations he once formed, and now works as an independent consultant, and seems to have no shortage of takers for his no-doubt high-priced talks on "transhumanism":
http://www.maxmore.com/
He still enjoys endorsement from Kurzweil, they are all part of the same network:
http://www.kurzweilai.net/bios/frame.html?main=/bios/bio0006.html?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | July 03, 2009 at 06:13 PM
Again:
http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/jpbonsen/extropianism.html
A page made in 1996.
About an institute that has since closed (be sure not to send those checks in, kids!)
Associated with other groups mired in scandal.
And so on.
Why are you citing a page like this, Melissa?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | July 03, 2009 at 06:38 PM
"because I refuse to believe -- therefore, I'm a murderer causing people to die and wishing for their deaths (!). Honestly, you couldn't make this stuff up"
You didn't merely claim "I don't think that's possible", you said you do not want anyone, especially kurzweil, to live forever. Saying you do not want anyone to live forever is a different claim from saying "I do not think it is possible for people to live forever".
For the record, I do want to live forever - though I realise that it is most likely impossible - that does not mean that I will therefore give up. Instead I hope to obtain the longest possible lifespan I can. A lifespan of at least 1000 years is not that unrealistic if you can cure aging, and curing aging does not even require all this fancy nanotech stuff.
I also like how you point to Alcor as an organisation with many scandals - pretty much all scandals there have come about from external factors - Ted Williams for example had uncooperative family. This is hardly the fault of Alcor themselves who are simply practicing an experimental medical procedure.
Disclaimer: I have all the signup paperwork for Alcor myself and have rough plans in place, so I have a slight bias.
Posted by: Gareth Nelson | July 03, 2009 at 06:41 PM
Prok,
1. I wish you could see the vr worlds stuff of heavens gate...maybe wayback machine?. but yes, they were one of the first to embrace and offer vrml as a cool new media..etc. its Twue!
2. you may find it interesting that the early vr worlds folk- who the later SL class of 2003 were certainly influenced by-though the press agents wont admit it- were a mass of extropians or born again christians or mormons all in SF -SV area---- so take that as you will---
Tim leary was a fav at early vr worlds to-dos etc... but they die.
and thats my point...
i dont think that koster or philip is much known outside of this blog twitter cult that goes on here..... we're the CULT...too. Amercian Idol is still the mass, metaplace is still a ghosttown, and even facebook may not live long enough-AOL- to be more than a "CB radio"
i do offer concern on cults and the individuals they affect, but even scientology cant really get much "political" importance even after helping half of hollywood make billions the last 20 years....:) the big corporations and hollywoods producer class- offer words of relatavism but other than the wrecked lives of those who get sucked into the cults, the net affect on social democracy-civic life in the US is minimal.
So im not really sure they GROW-- i agree they deserve the push back.. but kosters will have to adapt to the mainstream with metaplaces much more than the mainstream will ever adapt to any meta-extropian views that leak into metaplace. if not metaplace will go the way of cybertown.
maybe Sl is the best example of this... its a mess of extropian, philip better kuswielizm.. but its still iunder 100,000 users, and when go it got its TOM CRUISE moment-in 2006, it failed misrabely under the pressure to become mainstream.
the media of 3dvr will become mainstream, but t only will when seperated from the myths and extropian type dreamies that SL/LL keeps exporting and exploiting....
Zindra will also show this...it will become the mainland, no real diffrence- only its sucks MORE money to the cult from its same members.. for a better- seat closer to god, as woody allen used to say about pay synagogue.
I fear more for the political structures well soon get if we continue to favor "gamer" zero sum memes of competition and numbers/ more than values. or beliefs that more equals better...binary thinking... the adoration of the machine and its being given more rights that humans is what concerns me...
those that use this concept to control other humans will be the true fascists.... those that believe in a personal salvation via technology are just so more faith driven dieists... i just dont see them reaching any political clout in western plurality cultures.
after 20 years of VR ninks... I just find them basically feeding mainly on themselves... SLCC with Ray getting 20k or whatever just more of the same...
i think the emergence of little brother methods, not any politically controling big brother is the real danger from the tech religious believers that ray attracts...
youll aslo find many EX new age-crystal, UFO, types all now in the VR and SL arena. dissolutioned with the "endgame" of UFO landings by the millenium, they now search for another "tranformation" that goes beyond the one "old time religion" offers....
tribalism, and the broken mass, is the result of the singular networked device that replaces the radio or television.
maybe that the problem i have with the usage of the words/ideas like FAcism or communism, they are of the mass media age, tv and radio MADE and GAVE them the power to destroy the indivisual human....
the power to destroy the individual via his own "reflection" of interests/importance. seem to be the real issue of the internet/ vr age were entering.... one that has its own brand of preachers and potion sellers, of which Kurzweil, kelly and others are examples of. Maybe NEW names for calling are needed.?
sorry for the rambling nature of this post...buti think it does have some gems hidden in it.;)
Posted by: cube inada | July 03, 2009 at 07:15 PM
Prokofy I notice a number of reoccurring themes in your blogs and your responses to comments.
One is the labeling of persons and/or ideas as "fascist" and consistently using the word "fascist" in a derogatory manner.
As a paid up and proud member of the Communist Party I find your linking of Communism and Fascism insulting.
I am not sure if you are aware of the differences between Communism and Fascism, and if you are perhaps all of your readers are not.
For the benefit of all I providethe following from Wikipedia, not the world's most authoritative source I agree but one I am sure all readers will familiar with
Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak. Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept. Fascism is much defined by what it opposes, what scholars call the fascist negations - its opposition to individualism, rationalism, liberalism, conservatism and communism.
Communism (from Latin: communis = "common") is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. In political science, the term "communism" is sometimes used to refer to communist states, a form of government in which the state operates under a one-party system and declares allegiance to Marxism-Leninism or a derivative thereof, even if the party does not actually claim that it has already reached communism.
Clearly you are a Capitalist, as your blog predominately displays advertising for blatant consumer items such as games etc. While at the same time you ask your readers to your "Tip Jar" to help you "pay Tier".
I have read you ramble at length about your Second Life real estate holdings and your Second Life tenants.
Does the fact you ask readers to help you paid your Tier mean you are
* a failure as a Second Life business person and need others to keep your business efforts viable;
OR
* using "help pay Tier" as an additional revenue stream to line your greedy Capitalist pockets
Finally you end "July 03, 2009 Why Singularism is Fascism" with the following and I quote "sorry for the rambling nature of this post...buti (sic) think it does have some gems hidden in it.;)"
Prokofy, if you really want readers, if you really want to get your point across to as many people as possible, if you are serious about a topic or topics then stick to the "gems" and forget "the rambling nature"
Posted by: Piers Renfew (Communist) | July 03, 2009 at 08:32 PM
interesting timing:
http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html
notice how, yes the web based-talk backers- DO find all sorts of kurzwel "facts" evident in the story, which actually dosent suggest anything about "brain uploading"...so yes. little brothers do pass on the meme..:) even if they argue over its being disproved..lol.
but then again, we may as the mass have been taught to equate " HAWKINGS" with GENIUS, and on some things he may be right.... but Newton, not only played with apples to define gravity, he also beleived in alchemy and making gold from lead....
the article and perhaps the entire speech given by hawkings just goes to illustrate the further breakdown of the differnce between science as rational method and technology religion and now science faith, the later two which are accelerating by our media extentions, that cannot seem to help us analyse information, but only distribute it.
Human evolution? -maybe only our HANDS are getting bigger, cause it certainly dont seem to be our brains....over masterbation....lol
btw-- google "heavens gate vrml"
for all your weird tales of vr a decade ago....different names, same faiths in extropias and aliens and mushrooms.
Posted by: cube inada | July 03, 2009 at 08:45 PM
Now why am I *not* surprised that you are a paid-up member of the CP, Piers ROFL?
Of *course* communism and fascism have ALWAYS been linked and continue to find common themes and causes, and that's why in Russia, they always talk about "the red-browns".
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, anyone?!
Wikipedia is always interesting to check to see what the fanboyz of these very same cults are writing, but it's not the only source.
Both communism and fascism are totalitarian ideologies which employed many of the same methods of dehumanization, superior classes of people, labour camps, extermination, scientific experiments on people, poison labs, etc.
I don't see anything wrong with "being a capitalist," which, in my case in Second Life running a mainland rentals business is pretty hard scrabble.
One of the things that communists HATE MOST are people who don't fit their cliches of "capitalism" and aren't greedy rich money bags but people merely with small businesses, non-profit projects, and social consciences that they believe can be used to benefit business, too -- and visa versa.
My ideas of democracy, business, social justice are all pretty much liberal, mainstream thinking in the U.S., Latin America and Europe and even Asia and Asia these days, quite frankly, and anyone announcing themselves as a paid-up member of the CP is in fact the sectarian and the weirdo who has some explaining to do for their reprehensible ideology -- not me ROFL.
I'm happy to ask people to help pay tier because I support 100,000 meters of the SL Public Land Preserve -- land people can enjoy for free in SL -- and we have lots of supporters, and it's enabled us to stay in business for years.
The little tip jar thing on the blog doesn't have space to write long messages, but I think it's perfectly find to ask people to help tier on land open to the public. That isn't some function of a "failing business" although I'm not a big success like Desmond Shang -- whom you don't take aim against, even though he is a technocommunist as communist as you are, and as capitalist as the day is long, too. Interesting, that (technocommunism, like state capitalism, makes use of capitalism to promote its goals -- selectively).
I'm not required to make my blog serve as a readers' digest for attention-challenged adults and ADHD suffering youths and others who need a quick media snack.
Write your own blog if mine doesn't work for you.
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | July 03, 2009 at 08:59 PM
>>
you actually couldn't tell that was satire? (and very funny too).
Posted by: RU Sirius | July 03, 2009 at 09:13 PM
for some reason, copying and pasting didn't work. I refered above to the "Letter of acceptance" that Ray Kurzweil "sent"... in the fifth paragraph. How dull do you have to be to not realize that's satire?
Posted by: RU Sirius | July 03, 2009 at 09:16 PM
Um, I realized it was satire. But it still reveals a lot about what someone thinks is funny. And what they chose to poke fun at. Duh?
Posted by: Prokofy Neva | July 03, 2009 at 09:26 PM
'Micha is like all foolishly ignorant British American haters who rabidly screech about cults like the KKK, which are battled by law and education everywhere, and turning a blind eye to the totalitarian Islamo-fascist cults right in her own country, not to mention the neo-Nazi old-style fascists in her own country. The old "Blame America First" game -- how tiresome!'
I am not an America hater, and I already said it worries me why David Duke (KKK/Stormfront grand wizard) goes to spread holocaust denial to the Iranians.
http://www.davidduke.com/general/1530_1530.html#more-1530
So..yes I am aware of the spread of fascist concepts in the Arab world..To be honest this Fascism scares me a lot more than any science fiction fantasist.
Oh yeah..we in Europe are suffering a resurgence of Fascist style sentiment a la the BNP, Jobbik and this crazy Dutch catholic guy (remember our Eurabia discussion, a word you liked to banter for a giggle). No doubt about it Fascism is coming back, and it will be in our faces way before droids, nanobots and Virtual Reality become commonplace. I fear ID cards and RFID too Prokofy. Oh yes.
Posted by: Micha Sass | July 03, 2009 at 09:47 PM
I never knew what this Singularity business was until now. Of course, I've seen the books for sale but it never made me curious to actually read. It looks akin to that diet that states if you semi-starve yourself, it will give you longer life. Oh My. What the fear of the inevitable will make people do.
You've become larger than life in the minds of some. That is why they keep coming back whether for good or ill. It is what happens when a person takes uncompromising stands on big issues.
Posted by: melponeme_k | July 03, 2009 at 11:37 PM