09-17-2018, 03:56 AM
Quote:What S&H say is that civic generations, such as the current Millennial Generation coming into prominence now, are well-informed and inclined toward technology, and so it's clear that this site is likely run by Millennials, and that they are not well versed in the human potential movement and its vision of the future that was being developed around 0 AT. Even most Boomers now seem to only remember the music and largely forget the visions of the 2T, but which are the real springboard for a meaningful future.
I think the site's leaders are Xers, but they might be proto-millenials since they are computer nerds rather than punkish anarchists. I remember some derogatory comments about boomers and flower power on the site, which is I suppose more typical of Xers than of millennials. Apart of the leaders, there are probably many millennial editors since OA is a collaborative project (another millennial trait).
I wouldn't say the 2T is forgotten. Mainstreaming marijuana, LGBT, support for the Palestinians, radical feminism and environmentalism all started with the boomers' countercultural movement. These trends still enjoy worldwide popularity. However, New Age has not fared well. It never matched the influence that secular humanism and Christianity have. It was present in pop culture until the early 2000s, but now it's almost gone. Words like energy, vibration or crystal are sometimes used in their New Age meanings, but few people do it in earnest.
There is religion and spirituality in OA and some faiths seem to have strong Hindu influence, which is a similarity to New Age. But these aren't mainstream in the fictional world of 10000 AT. Most popular faith in OA seems to be worship of archailects, or super-intelligent machines whose IQ is probably measured in millions.
Quote: see a statement on this OA site that technology will create a new kind of intelligent life which will surpass the human, but then it goes on to describe changes to human life. Another powerful trend, which I saw described on 60 Minutes in their report on the MIT Media Center, a center of innovation, is that humans are becoming able to replace disabilities with limbs that we can operate and feel just like organic ones. This is related to the trend called transhumanism, in which it's not so much that our machines will take over, but that humans will become machines like the bionic man and woman, and yet retain our own will and consciousness.
Yes, artificial intelligence and transhumanism are the cornerstones of OA.