http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=62961422&blogID=335394961&Mytoken=2C42D1CF-78A6-4859-BCA433DBE465B0FA45216946
http://www.jonesreport.com/articles/041207_nanotech.html
My favorite is the following comment:
Here's what we can do. We can STOP thinking like the victim. We can look in our city's phonebook under M for Masonic. We can put those lodges under a rotating 24 hour surveillance. Anyone who enters those buildings must be a Freemason. Do whatever you have to do to eliminate the threat. Then WE won't have to put up with these psychos anymore and life can be GREAT for everyone on Earth. -Biff
YES! Wholesale slaughter of Freemasons EVERYWHERE! Way to go, Biff. With that leap in logic, you've just earned my first Devolution Award. I hope your thumbs grow back soon.
Here's a little tidbit I found:
http://security.itworld.com/5009/070521beastly/page_1.html
My favorite part:
"Is it any wonder that RFID is often called the mark of the beast," Klein said.
Neo-Luddites have always amazed and amused me, being some of the most prevalent nuts in the conspiracy-theory party pack (Jones included). Not that I'm accusing all Luddites of being moronically paranoid nutjobs, as Kurt Vonnegut was arguably a Luddite, but the stance does attract a strange mix to be sure. Ted Kaczynski is the first name that pops in my head when I think about Neo-Luddism, the first few lines of his 'manifesto' being:
The Industrial Revolution and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race. They have greatly increased the life-expectancy of those of us who live in "advanced" countries, but they have destabilized society, have made life unfulfilling, have subjected human beings to indignities, have led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and have inflicted severe damage on the natural world. The continued development of technology will worsen the situation.
I have more sympathy for a different argument altogether. Is not the aim of technology to improve the quality of life and the depth of knowledge for all humanity? Do we not live in an age of 100 dollar laptops, genome mapping, and bionic hearts? Is not the goal of medicine to defeat all manner of natural diseases and decay, and therefore eliminate all forms of natural causes of death? Most people's "reality tunnels" don't account for a near future where the idea of a "life expectancy" is essentially meaningless, but to that, I offer this paper written by Robert A. Freitas Jr. :
Technological progress is what we do best, people. Why not focus on our strengths? More to come, to be sure...
6 comments:
What always amazed me were the number of Neo-Luddites that take all of their modern technological conveniences for granted, as if they would still have them even without the "horror that is technological development".
Uh, sorry to disappoint but, for example, without the Space Race you wouldn't have the Tang that helps you not kill organge tree zygotes. If you want to go back to a hunter gatherer society, go for it. I'll even help get laws passed so that my high-tech world does everything in its power not to influence your low-tech paradise. But if you have anything you want your great-grandchildren to know, be sure to let me know so I can tell them in person when they reach their deathbed ...
(Life is cruel ... thats why I know I'll be around to experience a whole hell of a lot of it.)
hmm...
i agree with your technology improving thing. i think what's problematic, is that the powers that be (who ever they are, i'm sure they are the same ones public enemy wants us to fight...) choose not to all the time. and that is problematic. really.
i have this whole french fry car idea, buddy...seriously its great.
but i digress....
really what is important to our discussion here is how much i love you for the de-evolution i hope your thumbs grow back comment.
geeze. i really wish you lived closer....
Thanks... it just kind of came to me...
The idea or the thumbs? ;)
Technology has always been, and always will be, value neutral. In fact, a large part of my current work is looking at the negative effects of technology and I can safely say that RFID chips don't scare me half as much as the fact I already live in the most spied on society in the world. The flipside is technology shows me how to disable such cameras (not that I ever would harm public property), encrypt my emails and hard drive and, in short, provide me with countermeasures to whatever bad use technology has been put towards. I'd much rather than than live in an anarchoprimitvist "paradise", where I can die of a tooth abcess.
Also, Alex Jones is amusing, in a sort of "oh god he's a total whackjob" way. I have one of his books somewhere, keep meaning to read it one day.
Don't bother, unless you're looking for some comedy. I actually didn't know he even wrote a book. Living in Austin, I didn't even know the nutbag was known outside our city until very recently.
Our technology is really nothing more than an extension of ourselves, and as a result, is value neutral as you say. Saying technology is evil reminds me of blaming guns for homicides. It just doesn't make sense. It does give me something to poke at, though. In that regard, at least Luddites are good for something.
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