First Turning "purge"

[Bill the Piper]

(10-27-2018, 12:49 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: 4 feet in this century, and up to 50 feet by 2300. It is a lot to worry about, because during high tides and storm surges, the sea rises much higher, and in some places like the east coast of the USA, it also is rising higher.

Today's prediction about the year 2300 are about as reliable as early 18th century predictions about the year 2000 would be. It is not only about technology, but also ideology and philosophy. Could Voltaire imagine the rise of environmentalism?

Quote:Oil will not be gone in time, if we don't "worry" (i.e. don't make changing our energy system a priority) about climate change. IN any case, there is no excuse whatever for continuing to develop energy from sources that will not last. The time to go renewable is right now.

Fine, but there is no better energy source than nuclear fusion. It requires only hydrogen, the most abundant element in the Universe.

Quote:There is NO bad science-fiction WORSE than thinking colonizing Mars will lessen the impact of human civilization on Earth. Re-wilding our home planet is a top priority and supreme value TODAY, not for the future. The Green vision of the sixties is the one to follow and implement, NOT the transhuman vision. It's a difference in values and generations, perhaps, but your civic, tech-oriented generation will soon be just as passe as you now consider hippie boomers to be. The new prophets will stop the transhuman projectory, and redouble down on the sixties hippie green vision.

Quote:And there is NO human life without other life. Destroying the life in our oceans will destroy human life too. There is no coherent or meaningful vision or value system of transhumanism in which we destroy other life and replace everything with machines. Revering Nature is uppermost; it gives us our life, and restores our life. Without it, we know nothing of life at all, human or otherwise. The new alpha-wave prophets will reject your millennial generation's transhuman virtual value system. But, thanks for sharing and clarifying. It helps to know where we all stand.

I agree that we should to preserve the genetic diversity of our ecosystems, as far as it's possible without sacrificing human well-being. But why would our descendants, living in outer space, revere the Earth? Should I revere a swamp in the Belarus which was home for some of my remote ancestors? The concept sounds suspiciously like what the traditionalists preach. "Revere the Earth/God because it gives us our life".

But I don't have a "virtual value system". I agree with the following assessment by Brian Holtz, a fellow extropian:

http://holtz.org/Thoughts/Thoughts.html#Axiology

If pleasure were one's ultimate value, then one would be agreeable to entering an illusory paradise. An illusory paradise is an artificial or virtual environment which one believes is real and which is actively and intelligently optimized for one's happiness. For example, in such a paradise one would have all (and only) the success and luck that is consistent with one's need for challenge and achievement. We who value intelligence and life more highly than pleasure would reject an illusory paradise

Finally, for extropians technology is not an end in itself, but a means to fullness of life. So it's not necessarily an ideology for civic generations only. The principles were formulated by Max Moore, who is a boomer!

Quote:Horrendous storms, fires and droughts are already destroying human life.

The better a person's standard of living, the better chances she has to survive a natural disaster. People living "in harmony with nature" are most vulnerable.

Quote:The arts, not science, are our primary link and support for our life and spirit.
I am a piper too. I am Eric the Piper

Your music is wonderful Thank for posting it!

The future perfected galactic humans certainly will create art as well, but I won't speculate about the nature of their art. I don't believe they will be obsessed with science only. I only hope that they will outdo us emotionally and artistically as well as intellectually.

(If you are curious, my name is a tribute to Billie Piper, a British actress I have a crush on, as well as to the Pipers, an Orion's Arm species)