/sci/ - Science & Math

[Anonymous No.2672795]

Why do so many people place nature on a higher level than it deserves? Obviously, we need he environment to survive right now, but why do people put so much effort into staying "natural?" Is organic food just a fad, or is it a bigger problem, where these chemophobes will sacrifice technological progress for the sake of being natural? I don't see why something is better because it is closer to nature, especially concerning medicines. Naturalistic religions like various forms of Paganism are on the rise, and you people even personify the Earth as Gaia or Mother Nature. If we're ever going to rise above our natural bodies, we need to slow down the trend of Gaia worship. But how? Do we have to create our own religion, that worships technology in the same way environmentalists worship Gaia. Do we need some Promethean-like entity, a god of technological progress that rewards the creators of machines? Oh my Machine! People are attracted to forms of religion, and there exists no religion specifically devoted to science or technology. Must we be burdened with Gaia worshipers forever? I'd hate to make a technology-focused religion, but I can't think of any other way to promote a transhuman future. What do you guys think?

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2672818]

Why promote? Let's make history,and let the others adjust to it. Otherwise, there's no way to promote the glorious transhuman future unless you destroy it and turn it into sibbly-wibbly techno-religion.

[Anonymous No.2672828]

Why do we need technology? Because we're too lazy to lead a simple, hardworking life?

[Follower of the manifold No.2672834]

The truth of the manifold IS the sibbly-wibbly-techno religion... ALL HEIL THE MANIFOLD

[Anonymous No.2672838]

>>2672828
Simplicity is nothing to be proud of. Complexity leads to fulfillment. And technology allows you to work hard and accomplish more at the same time.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2672845]

>>2672828

Luddites and postmodern faggots are not allowed here.

For reference, here is this >> way and that << way and that ^ one and this v other one.

[Anonymous No.2672871]

What we call "organic" is a recurring fad that's been around since at least the mid-1800s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvester_Graham

As for the nature thing, it's mostly a distrust of authority figures like science experts and doctors. Incidentally, this distrust is justified, although some people take it a bit too far in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.2672878]

I don't believe in god. I don't believe in nature either, at least not with a capital N.

[Anonymous No.2672887]

>>2672871
So a few crackpots justify distrust in the entire scientific community?

[Anonymous No.2672892]

Humans have a habit of voraciously consuming whatever it takes to fulfill whatever they want.

I am a pretty big fan of technology, bioengineering, AI and what not, but I seriously doubt that such a future will be anything close to "fun" or "beneficial" for us unless we get our shit straight.

That involves learning how to take care of our planet instead of abandoning it to go look for other planets.

You could say finding other planets will give us more time to learn how to preserve out habitats, but I doubt we'll ever be concerned about that again if we develop technology that can easily bring us across galaxies.

We'll become like a virus and start messing up any other life taking place in other locations (assuming life exists elsewhere).

tl;dr transhumanism can be called a delusion because things are changing too rapidly and there are too many undiscovered variables in the future, we can't positively say it's even a good idea. Appreciating and respecting our habitat on the other hand has definite benefits and is the first step in securing a safe, beneficial high-tech future.

inb4 RKV xenophobic morons

[Anonymous No.2672903]

>>2672871
I'd say it's more a distrust of agribusiness than of science in general.

[Anonymous No.2672937]

>>2672887

You misunderstand. The scientific and medical establishments themselves are the problem. They remove themselves from the general population and then expect the laymen to treat their words as they would the words of God.
They talk at people rather than with them. No rapport is ever established.

This is actually a problem with professionals of any stripe, it's not just scientists and doctors.

[Anonymous No.2672940]

>>2672892
Would genetic engineering be outside of your realm of "respecting out habitat"? Because our future is in genetics.

[Anonymous No.2672953]

>>2672892
Why sho8ulod we care about our habitat? Because it was there first? The only consistent property of nature is death. Let it die.

Technology, in my opinion, is the highest form of spirituality. We are combining the dreams of our mind with science, effectively creating our own reality.

[Anonymous No.2672961]

>>2672940

I haven't really thought about it much. Are you talking food and aggriculture, or humans/animals?

[Anonymous No.2672985]

>>2672961
Anything and everything. Obviously basic genetic manipulation is already being done in food, but when we have advanced the technology sufficiently, we could begin creating gene augmentations for humans and/or animals.

[Anonymous No.2673009]

>>2672953

I think things like mind-uploading and full-immersion VR would actually blow the door wide open to the realm of "spirituality". I think it might actually cause people to take things like that seriously, it's like tripping on drugs or something except you have full control over your fantasies and what you're exploring.

As to your question, why should we care about our habitat, I guess it depends on your view of things. If you respect the fact that there might be life on other planets and you respect the fact that they might deserve to be left alone, then learning how to be sufficient with as few planets as possible is good. Not to mention that we can save tremendous amounts of resources that would be spent on traveling all over the fucking place.

Also, nature never dies, it can't. In my view reality equals nature. Ultimately it's going to kill us, no matter how far we go technologically, unless we can learn how to spawn new energy or create another universe to live in or something. I haven't really read too much into the Heat-Death stuff.

[Anonymous No.2673037]

>>2672985

I don't see a problem with it at the moment. I think before we get into that however, we need to work on culling the power-mongers and greed-meisters so we don't turn our civilization into some kind of shallow, BabyMaker2000 dystopic madness.

I mean think about it. Stuff like robotics can do great things but the moment that it gains any attention, one of the first questions brought to the table is "How can this help us wage war?" They are using current robotics and exoskeleton advancements to build "power suits" for soldiers... Just imagine what kind of nightmares an irresponsible humanity will bring about with sufficiently advanced genetic engineering.

[Anonymous No.2673063]

Also the more we try to preserve one planet, the better we will get at safer and more productive energy acquisition, and system efficiency. There are a lot of lessons that can be learned, even if the whole Gaia thing just doesn't fit with you.

We need to learn how to manage our population, how to coexist in a rapidly evolving global/large scale community (a rather new thing considering human communities were localized for the longest time), so on and so forth

[Anonymous No.2673074]

>>2673037
Accelerando by Charles Stross was a interesting interpretation on what could occur during and after a singularity and centers around a singularity occurring in a capitalist economic environment.

[Anonymous No.2673107]

There's no need to force people to like technology, as long as transhumanism is a choice, it's fine. Of course, if they ever tried to ban augmentation using nature as an excuse, I would fight it.

[Colonel Coffee Mug !phJ7yIcs.Q No.2673126]

>>2673074

>Charles Stross

Stopped reading there.

No just kidding.

Stopped reading at Accelerando (Obivously a paradox)

[Anonymous No.2673147]

>>2673009

If there was life on other planets, why would they deserve to be left alone?

[Anonymous No.2673159]

>>2673126
Oh boy, tripfag thinks his opinion counts for shit.

Christ, what a faggot.

[Anonymous No.2673176]

>>2672795
Well as astronauts like to say: "don't fuck with the life support."

Other than that naturopathic medicine is a profitable woo business...

[Anonymous No.2673233]

>>2673147

It may very well be that WE were left alone... either aliens exist and they decided to leave us alone, or we haven't been noticed yet and had the privilege of uninterrupted development...

If we have to spread through the galaxy and eat up other planets we may be disturbing or completely ruining other developments.

>>2673074

Is it a good book? Why?

>>2673126

Is it a bad book? Why?

[Anonymous No.2673236]

>Do we have to create our own religion, that worships technology in the same way environmentalists worship Gaia

...

no one can possibly be this stupid...

[Anonymous No.2673291]

>>2673236
Your lack of faith in the Machine God disturbs me.

[Anonymous No.2673298]

>>2673291
Human UI kicks AI UI into the future with the Shrike.

[Anonymous No.2673309]

>>2673298
Wat

[Anonymous No.2673310]

>>2672838
op what you're proposing is either born of ignorance or pure insanity

first of all the human race is so drastically far from a purely technological civilization that the mere notion of it is almost laughable. also the moral implications of doing something so drastic as essentially wiping out all life for the sake of a single goal is horrifying.

you also seem to think that environmentalism=pagan god worship. i don't know what happened to you to make you think this. environmentalism isn't just about organic food and "mother gaia", it's about remediating the damage we've done to both human and environmental health, improving energy efficiency, etc. most of this damage is the result of human industry.

you sound very young. the ideas you're proposing are grotesquely simple and misguided. as you grow older you'll realize that no one truth is the answer. the human race is too complicated to be so completely dominated by a single ideal such as technology.

[Anonymous No.2673333]

>wiping out all life for the sake of a single goal is horrifying

Heretek, do you not see the beauty of the Machine is the that it brings the will of the Gods of Man into existence within the physical plain. The supernatural may never be observed or interfer with the physical universe. Therefore we as the most power species will make the will of our Gods manifest threw the purity of steel.

There is no truth in flesh, only betrayal.
There is no strength in flesh, only weakness.
There is no constancy in flesh, only decay.
There is no certainty in flesh but death.

[Anonymous No.2673340]

>>2673310
To expand on what anon said, most environmentalists believe that the reasons to protect the environment are fundamental for human survival. We can't control the earth, thus it's folly to try.

One problem I have with conservation is that it ignores the fact that the Earth is changing. Humans, at some point, will probably be able to stop some of the less inexorable events (global warming), though things like continental drift will probably be beyond our control without restructuring the planet. We'll have to decide: is it ethical/moral for us to try to freeze earth in the image we have of it?

>>2673309
Hyperion reference.

[Anonymous No.2673486]

>>2673340
>We'll have to decide: is it ethical/moral for us to try to freeze earth in the image we have of it

Morality is the crutch of the coward.

No one is saying we want to destroy the biosphere tomorrow, but when it becomes techologically and economically viable to replace the biosphere with human artifice which serves only our interests without pandering to the wasteful interests of other species then we will allow the biosphere to die.

We really shouldn't even bother to prevent global warming. Cheaper to just use up the hydrocarbons to provide energy to jump start our creation of nuclear fission plants. The nuclear fuel in turn will be used up to jumpstart our move into space. From their we will begin creating dyson swarms around suitable stellar objects. Of course whenever we find new hydrocarbons or fissionable material we will use that as well.

The bioshphere will not die for a thousand years or more. But in the fullness of time it will die. We are replacing it with an environment in which we alone are fit to survive.