First Turning "purge"

[Eric the Green]

(10-28-2018, 06:40 AM)Bill the Piper Wrote:

(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?

Ha ha, probably. There was some environmentalism only a couple of generations later, with the Nature poets like Wordsworth, and then Ruskin, and Thoreau and all those transcendental cats.

But this type of prediction is not about philosophy or ideology, but is only an extrapolation of current science about a particular physical process, so it's not like predicting what humans will be preoccupied with in 2300, but just what the ocean will do if we con't change our behavior now.

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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.

But Bill the Piper, that may be true, but it's still only a pipe dream. We need to change our energy sources now, and there will be more innovations in the future, I am sure.

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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.

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!

Earth and Nature DO give us our life, although Nature includes Spirit too. But our descendants are not going to be living on Mars. Maybe a few adventurous souls will stay there for a while, and then come home. There will be no "terraforming," (yes I say confidently), and even if there were, Mars is too small to hold our teeming billions. Earth is indeed the most unique planet not only in our puny solar system, but perhaps in our entire galaxy. This is indicated to us by the traits of the lights in our sky, the Sun and Moon. They literally reflect the most precious and radiant metals in the universe, gold and silver respectively. This indication is further expressed by the fact that these two lights are the same size when viewed from Earth, and by all the mathematical proportions among our lights and planets that indicate the special harmony that exists here in this solar system as experienced and viewed from here on Earth. And the spirit life of Earth is so amazingly beautiful, inspiring and alive that other alien beings who have expanded into the galaxy come here to steal our DNA and otherwise learn from the special living beings here who have such perfect bodies and amazing spirits.

If technology remain a means, and not the ends, or the evolutionary destination, then technology can serve us well. But only if humans are clear about what the goals of life are for which tech is a means, and about how our technology can advance the interests of all of life, and not just human life. Future tech must be what was recently (before millennials) called "appropriate" for the values of the Whole Earth. The Catalogue of that name is still relevant, along with Mother Earth News, although ignored right now by most millennials who live in their smart phones (millennials are wonderful in many ways, don't get me wrong, I love millennials, but they may be more limited in their perceptions right now than they realize, because the second turning has largely been kept hidden from them).

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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.

The most vulnerable to climate change-caused disasters are:
1) people who have settled on islands or in lowlands long before they knew what industrial de-civilization would do to them, and
2) wealthy people who feel entitled to build their homes close to the ocean or near the forest.

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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)

Thanks for listening to my pipes. I don't know what Orion's Arm is, but sounds like an interesting species if they are called that.

Oh I see, more from that sci-fi website. "The Pipers are an aquatic xenosophont species native to Iridule (Demonia system), discovered by Keterist explorers in 8091 A.T. Their name is derived from their complex, musical vocalisations." That's nice; I'd like to hear them.

Perfected future galactic humans will only be able to make great art if they are attuned and inspired to the organic aspects of life, as well as to its mystic aspects within. Even the best purely electronic music that I know (and I know a lot of it) is inspired by experiences in nature and with spirit. Artists above all need to be sensitive to feelings and intimations that come from their lives. Machines will never accomplish this.