Comments on: Palace of Darkness: Brainless Body Meets Brain in a Jar

By: $

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 18:03:27 +0000

“The United States community has a bill of rights. The Amish community individuals agree to live within the rules of that community.”

Do the Amish have their own nation then?

“We all live in a community of some form or another and choose to participate or leave it. ”
OK, I leave it. But I’m still living right here. You have no right to kick me off my property. I’ll live as I see fit. If I decide to fill my property with every new technology that comes along. As long as that technology doesn’t harm anyone else to a non-trivial degree, you have no right to stop me.

“Progress has been measured by how fast we consume things. “High standards of living” are apparently determined by how far we have to fall.”

Sounds more like that’s how you measure progress.
If you’re afraid of falling, go live in a cave with an animal skin.
I’ll take my chances with all the crazy progress in technology. I’ll even have a phone in my home…I know the fall could be great from such a device…

By: Dan Conine

Dan Conine — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 18:10:51 +0000

“You do not have a right to stop a single person in your “community” to accepting new ideas or using new technologies.”

Rights are statutorily decided by the community. The United States community has a bill of rights. The Amish community individuals agree to live within the rules of that community. The only natural ‘right’ is the right to try to live. Everything else is statutorily agreed upon by a group. People in the Amish community are free to leave and use any technology they choose. They are also free to return.
The Amish don’t just say ‘no’ to everything. There are many ideas which are adopted over time that they feel will sustainably benefit the community, and some are adopted in special ways (phone booths outside of the home, for example).
We all live in a community of some form or another and choose to participate or leave it. Technology is a culture, just like nudity. Sometimes it is a lot of fun, but most of the time it just shows us how we are wasting away. Whether we choose to look or not is an individual decision. If a group chooses to adopt nuclear power without safety precautions, then they interfere with the security of others. There are no blanket statements which cover the use of technology, except “all things in moderation, even moderation.” Progress depends on what your reference points are. So far, Progress has been measured by how fast we consume things. “High standards of living” are apparently determined by how far we have to fall.

By: $

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 16:39:23 +0000

“see the Amish about this”

I wish to see the Amish about nothing, as they obviously say no to virtually every new idea and leave the thinking part out.

“think about whether or not they really want some new technology after evaluating its impact on their community”

You do not have a right to stop a single person in your “community” to accepting new ideas or using new technologies.

By: Dan Conine

Dan Conine — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:02:39 +0000

The irony is that Frank is right. Ideas are like armpits: everyone has at least 2 and they both probably stink, so don’t get too attached to the first thing that pops into your head.
Working in the invention ‘business’, I have seen how stupid most ideas are, and how useless.
I came up with a theory to find true value in something, called “Net Creativity” or “Net Usefulness”. It means that a species survives based on its net activity of producing usefulness for the future over and above what it consumes in resources. Some creatures’ usefulness IS consumption (the dung beetle), but most create usefulness by producing dung and offspring. Humans take one of the most useful things they produce (dung) and process it with massive resource consumption into something unusable by nature. When you look at everything else we do with that in mind, you begin to see what Progress has wrought. The corporations which have taken over our thoughts (see “Life, Inc.” by Douglas Rushkoff) are bent on using consumption to alleviate our overconsumption. Just as the government (U.S. and some others) is bent on alleviating our surplus of cash(inflation, development, useless products) by printing more cash and encouraging ‘innovation’ in a closed system (earth) with nowhere else for 6 billion people to go.
The Palace of Light illustrates that the only real choice people can make is to just say “no” to new ideas first, then think about whether or not they really want some new technology after evaluating its impact on their community and future (see the Amish about this). Any choice other than “no” is simply a choice between Coke or Pepsi, Republican corporatist or Democrat corporatist.