Ray Kurzweil has recently made a significant change in his view of the future regarding the relative association between biological man and artificial intelligence. Although his views should not be capsulized — he is a very broad thinker — it is worthy of note that he has expanded beyond thinking only of a singularity in which machines overtake, and make obsolete, human consciousness.
Tag: world
Human Nature in Science
Human experience is not divided only into two epochs, the pre-Copernican and the Copernican. The change between those two epochs, while extremely critical, did not mark the end of human advancement in self-knowledge.
The Ground of Your Basic Goodness
Basically, life can feel groundless – no solid, stable ground under your feet. And the truth is, that’s almost all the time. Our lives are always groundless, even if we try to get routines and control and stability. Things constantly happen to pull the rug out from under our feet, and that kind of uncertainty can be stressful, disappointing, painful, uncomfortable. So what can we do?
Let’s Call the Farm Bill What it is: Corporate Welfare
The rawboned, overall-clad man driving a tractor 12 hours a day, calling the cows in for their evening milking, slopping the hogs, and sitting down for an evening pipe on the front porch before bed was once my grandfather. Now he’s a carefully cultivated image of the past, used by organizations like Duvall’s to propagandize for the transfer of billions dollars every year from your pockets to theirs via the political process, on top of what you spend in honest exchange for their livestock and crops.
A Life of Peacefulness
Most of us want a greater sense of peace and ease in our lives — life can be stressful, chaotic, overwhelming, full of distractions, exhausting. We want to get away from all of that, exit the madness, and get to a place of greater peace. I’m going to share how to find that life of peacefulness in one simple method.
You’re Always Speaking Up (Even When You’re Silent)
At all times, you’re taking a stand for or against something. There’s no such thing as a neutral place in ideological space. No matter what you choose to do or refuse to do, your underlying worldview will bleed through.
The Voluntaryist Ethnicity
As my family has traveled the country and met or stayed with other voluntaryists and unschoolers, I can’t help but notice certain general customs among people and families of this kind. Without putting anybody in a box or limiting how it is expressed or experienced, here is the voluntaryist ethnicity as I’ve seen it.
State Capacity is Sleight of Hand
While good social outcomes all tend to go together, the state capacity literature fails to show that government is the crucial factor that makes all the others possible. Indeed, as far as I can tell, existing empirics are quite consistent with Sutton’s Law that people rob banks because “that’s where the money is.”
Shooting Range Reflections on Guns and Firearm Skills
I grew up hunting and shooting guns often with my family, but (besides a spring skeet shoot) it’s been a while since I’ve done a lot of training with firearms. The weekend before last I visited a shooting range with friends and had the welcome privilege of getting some practice in after a hiatus.
Start Here
Everything “unimportant” that you want to study is connected to something “important” that you need to study. The stuff you’re interested in is the gateway drug for other forms of knowledge.