Transhumanism, Singularity and Gattaca ~ How does this translate over into politics?

[Techno-Druid]

I think one of the great plagues of humanity (and most animal species) is that fact that many of us are myopic. Unable to or unwilling to peer into the future and what consequences their choices will have. One of these long term thoughts being the subject of the possibility of a technological Singularity, a hypothetical period where A.I. and emerging technologies will bring unfathomable changes to human society and a Gattaca-esque scenario where gene editing can create optimally healthy and fit humans.

However, I'm really not directly interested in what mainstream modern partisans think of the modern implications of their current choices leading into these scenarios, but rather what a technological Singularity could mean for our current political systems and parties. Will Republicans and Democrats survive the test of time? What would a conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist and nationalist policy look like in the age of technology and gene editing?

@Connal @Yvaelle @Theodarzna

[Independent voter]

100 years from now the two party system will exist, there will be Republicans and Democrats. The First Amendment will still be in place.

There isn't anything even remotely as good and useful on the horizon. What are you going to replace it with a 100% democracy? Let the maniacs run the asylum?

[Deleted]

First of it's an ideology and second there are very few intellectuals who are in favor of it.

But there are many steps between now and this ideology - production, distribution and ownership for example. Remember the industrial revolution shattered the systems of its time, human rights and social systems (installed by Napoleon) were reversed and we had a renaissance of monarchy. This is the challenge of today, we will have to create a humane path that will allow all people to move along - we need to think about how we want to live together when these changes happen.

Current politic is ~15-20 years behind and that's problematic. In Germany there are quite some intellectuals who published their work about this topic recently, like Hartmut Rosa or the pop-philosopher Precht who basically has nothing else to do than telling the same story in every show he is invited. I don't know that much English authors but Paul Virilio should be mentioned.

The process as whole is also not without alternative, many people warn to follow our current path of acceleration.

[PC2]

The singularity is a poorly described idea believed by people who don't understand technical details and the long process of trial and error it takes to advance science, physics, biology, engineering, etc. The Kurzweilian version is particularly bad since he cherry picks metrics that will get a guffaw and applause while vastly underemphasizing the obstacles to exponential progress.

[Techno-Druid]

It really depends on what happens in the near future. There is political strife here, and in the west in general, with a growing environmental shift, which will require a lot of large choices to be made.

Heat, and the general zeitgeist of this age, are not lending themselves to peaceful resolutions. Heat increases violence, in the general population, and that increases political strife long term.

So, I think there will be two possible outcomes... one is that we somehow work past our differences, and actually start working together again, or one dominant culture comes up and through totalitarian and authoritarian means, displaces the other.

How will this affect AI and the Singularity? Both can, will be, and already are, being used to control the population. CA used DL algorithms to find patterns in psychological data, and created a program, a sort of evolution of propaganda, to influence populations.

DL networks are being used to create "Deepfake" videos, and soon audio, to fool people.

All of this is kind of a culmination of "1984" and "Brave New World" into one future.

The best bet, I think, is for the more libertarian minded, to create an offshoot from earth. A possible colony on Mars, the Moon, etc, were people of different political persuasions, religions, sexuality, gender, etc, etc, can work together for a future seeped both in a sort of gnostic spiritual pursuit, and a more pragmatic materialistic search for meaning and place for humanity in the cosmos, beyond the "winner take all" duality we find ourselves in.

Conscious AI, and "uplifting" might be a part of that, but only if we embrace our full human nature, both the rational, and irrational, "good" and "evil", etc. I think once that happens we will be less prone to project our shadows on others, and find "evil" outside of ourselves, and instead look within.

That's a somewhat bleak outlook on the future. Although I can't really contest it.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I think you need to rewatch Gattaca a few times because you read far too deeply into the wrong parts if this is what you came away thinking.

[Techno-Druid]

I think you need to rewatch Gattaca a few times because you read far too deeply into the wrong parts if this is what you came away thinking.

I'm pretty aware of the moral of Gattaca, but I was referring to the setting itself.

[Doctor Amadeus]

I'm pretty aware of the moral of Gattaca, but I was referring to the setting itself.

You got a moral from Gattaca? If so I'll bite what was the moral?

As to the setting, well it's a film the setting has directly to do with the story they are telling, moral aside or not.


Basically it's about a guy who was made to be perfect made to be genetically perfect in every way, but when something that isn't perfect happened to him, he was essentially cast out, and sold his own ladder to someone who was very much imperfect who's only goal is to live the life of the perfect who don't even really appreciate it.

All the while the guy he sold the ladder to overcoming his own inadequacies about his own mom and dad creating a perfect younger brother.


How does that translate into today's politics? It doesn't it's just a movie, however My personal take is the moral if their is one is one of the grass is always greener on the other side. It's good movie but it was kind of vapid.

Especially at the end when we find out the doctor who was in charge of testing the main character knew the entire time he was a phony.

[Archon14]

As always, humanity won't be prepared for the consequences despite knowing possible implications beforehand, and while we will slowly progress forward anyway, unavoidable damage and crisis will still be unavoidable.

At least we have evolved enough to recognize that we aren't evolved enough to live in a world where everyone is aware and educated and reasonable and have similar goals that contribute to the greater good.

Politically, since we already know that the two-party system (and the parties representing the system) is a double-edged sword that keeps bringing nothing new than people choosing lesser evil over and over again, I think it's a safe assumption that the system will change in one of two ways. One way being more violent than the other.

[Flarelaine]

I think one of the great plagues of humanity (and most animal species) is that fact that many of us are myopic. Unable to or unwilling to peer into the future and what consequences their choices will have. One of these long term thoughts being the subject of the possibility of a technological Singularity, a hypothetical period where A.I. and emerging technologies will bring unfathomable changes to human society and a Gattaca-esque scenario where gene editing can create optimally healthy and fit humans.

However, I'm really not directly interested in what mainstream modern partisans think of the modern implications of their current choices leading into these scenarios, but rather what a technological Singularity could mean for our current political systems and parties. Will Republicans and Democrats survive the test of time? What would a conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist and nationalist policy look like in the age of technology and gene editing?

@Connal @Yvaelle @Theodarzna

With the sharp income inequality levels we have, gene editing would cement financial differences on the genetic level - some would afford editing, some never. And then the latter would never have even a shot at jobs that would help them afford it.

[Techno-Druid]

You got a moral from Gattaca? If so I'll bite what was the moral?

That there is no gene for the "human spirit". Through determination, Vincent is able to overcome to obstacles of his proposed genetic discrepancies.

As to the setting, well it's a film the setting has directly to do with the story they are telling, moral aside or not.

Basically it's about a guy who was made to be perfect made to be genetically perfect in every way, but when something that isn't perfect happened to him, he was essentially cast out, and sold his own ladder to someone who was very much imperfect who's only goal is to live the life of the perfect who don't even really appreciate it.

All the while the guy he sold the ladder to overcoming his own inadequacies about his own mom and dad creating a perfect younger brother.

You essentially just summarized a part of the plot, I was referring to the setting, which itself is essentially the environment in which a story takes place. The setting for the movie Mudbound for example is the Post-War American South or in Planet of the Apes, it's a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The setting itself is a world where gene editing is common and the most genetically "fit" are given greater de facto status over more conventional baseline humans.

[Doctor Amadeus]

That there is no gene for the "human spirit". Through determination, Vincent is able to overcome to obstacles of his proposed genetic discrepancies.

Yeah, I don't agree especially after what I said at the end, but I hear ya.

You essentially just summarized a part of the plot, I was referring to the setting, which itself is essentially the environment in which a story takes place. The setting for the movie Mudbound for example is the Post-War American South or in Planet of the Apes, it's a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

The setting itself is a world where gene editing is common and the most genetically "fit" are given greater de facto status over more conventional baseline humans.

Ohh okay gotcha, great question then.

Personally I don't think we are anywhere near that and Gattaca certainly wasn't. The idea that anyone is defacto designed for any positions is kind of nuts. Unless everyone becomes a slave, similar to the means of Control in stories like FireFly, where trying to control everything in the human condition through technology lead to one population that simply stopped gave up and died, and the others being that were referred to as Reavers space pirates and cannibals.


As far as "Human Spirit" hehehe sounds a bit more mystical than I would go, it falls along the lines of religion and I am a Christian. However there is a separations between my faith and belief, and what I know.


What I know is that if something is aware, it can only ever be aware because it feels, and anything that is self aware has to be allowed to choose, otherwise it's slavery.


So, no I am not for slavery.

[PC2]

With the sharp income inequality levels we have, gene editing would cement financial differences on the genetic level - some would afford editing, some never. And then the latter would never have even a shot at jobs that would help them afford it.

Culture and choices matter much more than your genes. As far as editing something like IQ it wont work since IQ doesn't scale very much. There's already millions of people with 160 IQ but they are mostly not remarkable when it comes to achievements and finance.

[Theodarzna]

I think one of the great plagues of humanity (and most animal species) is that fact that many of us are myopic. Unable to or unwilling to peer into the future and what consequences their choices will have. One of these long term thoughts being the subject of the possibility of a technological Singularity, a hypothetical period where A.I. and emerging technologies will bring unfathomable changes to human society and a Gattaca-esque scenario where gene editing can create optimally healthy and fit humans.

However, I'm really not directly interested in what mainstream modern partisans think of the modern implications of their current choices leading into these scenarios, but rather what a technological Singularity could mean for our current political systems and parties. Will Republicans and Democrats survive the test of time? What would a conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist and nationalist policy look like in the age of technology and gene editing?

@Connal @Yvaelle @Theodarzna

My fear is that things will end up as Tyler Cowen predicted, the end state of our long experiment with Liberalism, Capitalism and general Modernity will be a mixture of Brazilification and Gattaca, perhaps ending in a 1984-esque scenario.

[Yvaelle]

Will Republicans and Democrats survive the test of time?

That depends on how we define the parties. If we look at their policies, then the Republicans and Democrats of today, didn't exist 20 years ago, and those ones didn't exist 20 years before that, and so forth. Policies and positions shift constantly. "The Party of Lincoln" so to speak, would be something he'd likely vehemently oppose if he were alive today: despite that the name is the same. So will the names survive 100 more years? Probably. Will they mean the same thing? Definitely not.

Arguably, it matters more what a party stands for in its time, than the name it goes by - so there is really no value in longevity if the meaning is constantly shifting.

What would outlooks look like in an age of technology?

Conservatives: This one is the hardest to predict, because I can't imagine them advocating for a time before the singularity without just picturing luddites - but maybe that's accurate. Certainly one of the major political responses to the mass disruption we are about to experience will be backlash against technology - someone will advocate going back to the good old days before genetically engineered babies took all the good jobs, and robots took all the other jobs, and everyone is homeless, and nobody has families anymore because Alexa is the perfect mental companion, and Apple's iFleshlight and/or Google's Dildroid is the perfect physical companion, and we all live in VR worlds to hide from an increasingly hostile environment as the planet warms up and the skies rain acid again.

Someone is going to watch too many Will & Grace episodes and demand we all return to the good old days when we all lived in 2000 square foot New York apartments, when everyone was sexy and young, and our gays were just regular old Republican gay, and not uberqueer like the kids today, and the upper class lady would speak to the middle class still. Like the way Conservatives currently watch Leave It To Beaver reruns: pining for the good old days that never were.


Liberal: You know, this makes me realize that as technology takes a dramatic shift into every facet of our lives, all these current political terms appear through the lens of how they will view technology. It isn't necessarily about the beliefs themselves, but how technology will impact their stances that matters, at least in this discussion: but perhaps on everything going forward. There are also two definitions of Liberal, so it's worth differentiating them.

The US uses the term "Liberal" to refer essentially to what would more accurately be called "Progressives": this typically involves embracing new options wherever possible. Insofar as this interpretation of Liberal would view new technology, it might simply apply to protecting equal rights for sentient robots, or encouraging genetic engineering, or otherwise embracing the new options in the new age.

The political definition of Liberal (which is perhaps more proper, since the other misconstrues this one), is perhaps best summed up with the French Revolution motto, translating to, "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity". Maximizing individual freedoms, increasing the accountability of government, and building democratic systems which ensures government is of, by, and for the people (to combine a similar American expression). There is some conceptual overlap with the other term of course, maximizing freedom enables people to embrace new options, This definition/group might differ in that they are more about institutionalizing systems of Direct (rather than Elected) democracy: open your government app to vote on if uplifted chinchillas should be allowed to teach in public schools, etc.

Libertarians are a weird bucket to try to predict. So there are Left-Libertarians - traditionally the only real form - which we above called Liberals. Libertarianism as a right wing group, more accurately called either Minarchists or Anarcho-capitalists, are just people who haven't thought things through. So predicting their behaviour is ~impossible because to be a Libertarian (as the term is popularly used in the US today) is to be irrational: their reaction to anything else could be equally irrational. Right-Libertarians advocate laissez-faire economic policies, which are just stupid, and demonstrably have failed every country who has ever tried them, it also makes sense why they fail: so to continue advocating them at this point is like insisting the ocean is yellow in spite of all available evidence.

Socialists are easy to predict. They'll want a basic income after robots take all the jobs and GATTACA babies make non-augmented humans obsolete. They'll want to tax the robot owners to pay for it. Socialist policy is the position that changes the least in the wake of a singularity I suspect.

Nationalists. They're at a cross-roads with technology - they're already at an existential crisis to some degree. Their issue is you can't be isolationist, you can't control your own culture, your nations identity - in the wake of the globalist internet. Nationalism relies on an echo chamber of rhetoric to reinforce their own superiority over other nations - but in the wake of an interconnect, post-internet world, where everyone is connected with everyone, and nationality is no longer identifiable or relevant online - creating the nationalist echo chamber is almost impossible to build or maintain.

Insofar as nationalism is an echo chamber though, echo chambers have their own virtual equivalent. So while "Nationalism" may struggle to redefine itself in a borderless virtual world, echo chambers are as strong as they ever were. Perhaps we will see a new type of 'nationalism' not loyal to a country, but to an echo chamber. I suspect the Kekistan / Pepe / Alt-Right thing is a good proto-example. Perhaps some sort of internet nationalism will appear as Reddit, 4chan, Tumblr, Facebook, etc - each develop and transmit different narratives of the same international events - until eventually entirely different worldviews and values are clearly defined by what media you access, what echo chamber you belong to, etc.

- - - Updated - - -

My fear is that things will end up as Tyler Cowen predicted, the end state of our long experiment with Liberalism, Capitalism and general Modernity will be a mixture of Brazilification and Gattaca, perhaps ending in a 1984-esque scenario.

Link to prediction?

Also not specifically to you Theo, but I'd highly recommend anyone looking for a good read, Transmetropolitan. It's like the Dante's Inferno of Dystopia for me, a guided descent into all the good and bad that technology may bring.

[Theodarzna]

Link to prediction?

Also not specifically to you Theo, but I'd highly recommend anyone looking for a good read, Transmetropolitan. It's like the Dante's Inferno of Dystopia for me, a guided descent into all the good and bad that technology may bring.

Average is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation, ISBN: 978-0-525-95373-9

[Shadowferal]

Overpopulation and shortages of resources, and the refusal to acknowledge same, will give us dystopia.

[Kokolums]

Politics exists because of a flaw in humanity. Humans lie. Lying creates politics. In a singularity, there is no lying, and thus no politics. There is only truth. My own pet theory is that a super advanced alien race would define the difference between sentient beings and animals as animals lie and sentient beings do not. Thus, if an alien race visited us, they would be immediately stuck by the massive amount of lying taking place and classify us as an animal unfit for first contact.

[Guardian Bob]

Will Republicans and Democrats survive the test of time? What would a conservative, liberal, libertarian, socialist and nationalist policy look like in the age of technology and gene editing?

My belief, and this is strictly my belief, is that they will continue to exist as long as democracy exists. Maybe some new parties will appear? Technology challenges our beliefs and even more so will different opinions play a role in how these technologies are allowed to enter the market. Not everyone will agree that you can have a gene that gives you super strength or that robots should turk er jurbs.

I'm just waiting for when our technology has evolved enough that we don't grow old and both the religious nuts and the environmentalists go after old people cause they aren't dying. One believes people don't age beyond 120 years and the other thinks we'll impact the environment with an ever growing population of people. Ever see the movie The Purge? I'm expecting there to be a night when people go around killing old people, and legally supported by both parties. Sleep well knowing that if nature doesn't kill you, the nut jobs will.

[Shadowferal]

I'm just waiting for when our technology has evolved enough that we don't grow old and both the religious nuts and the environmentalists go after old people cause they aren't dying.

Don't hold your breath...and don't bother waiting.