/sci/ - Science & Math

>>15742445
High testosterone. It makes you both more aggressive and more autistic.

>>12672318
*blocks path*

>>10408166
The university intellectuals also play an important role in carrying out the System's trick. Though they like to fancy themselves independent thinkers, the intellectuals are (allowing for individual exceptions) the most oversocialized, the most conformist, the tamest and most domesticated, the most pampered, dependent, and spineless group in America today. As a result, their impulse to rebel is particularly strong. But, because they are incapable of independent thought, real rebellion is impossible for them. Consequently they are suckers for the System's trick, which allows them to irritate people and enjoy the illusion of rebelling without ever having to challenge the System's basic values.

Because they are the teachers of young people, the university intellectuals are in a position to help the System play its trick on the young, which they do by steering young people's rebellious impulses toward the standard, stereotyped targets: racism, colonialism, women's issues, etc. Young people who are not college students learn through the media, or through personal contact, of the "social justice" issues for which students rebel, and they imitate the students. Thus a youth culture develops in which there is a stereotyped mode of rebellion that spreads through imitation of peers—just as hairstyles, clothing styles, and other fads spread through imitation.

>>10378066
*blocks path*

>>10271625
Meanwhile, fierce competition among global self-prop systems will have led to such drastic and rapid alterations in the Earth's climate, the composition of its atmosphere, the chemistry of its oceans, and so forth, that the effect on the biosphere will be devastating. In Part IV of the present chapter we will carry this line of inquiry further: We will argue that if the development of the technological world-system is allowed to proceed to its logical conclusion, then in all probability the Earth will be left a dead planet-a planet on which nothing will remain alive except, maybe, some of the simplest organisms-certain bacteria, algae, etc.-that are capable of surviving under extreme conditions.

>>10194855
Some people think it may become possible in the future to create microscopic ("nanotechnological"), non-biological self-prop systems that could reproduce themselves uncontrollably, with deadly consequences for the whole world. Others claim that (macroscopic) self-reproducing robots will probably be built, and even the rabid technophile Ray Kurzweil admits that such machines will evolve beyond the control of human beings. This writer does not have the technical expertise to judge whether such speculations are plausible or whether they should be dismissed as science fiction. Yet, today's science fiction often turns out to be tomorrow's fact.

Because of their ability to reproduce themselves by the billions in a short time, microscopic self-prop systems, biological or not, may prove to be especially dangerous to the global self-prop systems. On the other hand, human self-prop systems may turn out to be more dangerous after all, not only because they are intelligent, but also because they exist as subsystems of the global self-prop systems and therefore can potentially impair the integrity of the latter. But this line of inquiry is leading us too far into speculation, so we'll drop it here.