> it increasingly appears that humanity is a biological bootloader for digital superintelligence.
Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture?
> Isn't this just a restatement of Christianity? Created by an unknowable, all powerful deity with the goal of becoming one with that deity during the rapture?
Yeah, honestly most Nerd Religion (EA, LessWrong-style 'rationality', etc), is basically just reheated Christianity. Notably, Roko's Basilisk (you should work for the furtherance of magic robots at all costs, lest a future omnipotent magic robot torture a perfect replica of you forever for not doing so) is just a restatement of Pascal's wager, with all the attendant problems.
It's just a similarity between millenarian religious movements, which christianity is and this is also. But it isn't the only, most immediate, or most similar predecessor imo.
Is this just the constant survivorship bias of the present? Only the best of the past has survived until now. Only the best of now will survive the next two centuries so that someone in that time can bemoan the state of their present day literature.
I'm sure the 23rd century will have its equivalent of roman statue avatar social media accounts citing today's best art and asking "why can't we make culture like this anymore?"
There was a ton of disposable literature in the 19th century. It's when the term "pulp" started to be used for trashy novels.
...and all the periodicals in 19-20th century magazines or newspapers, that were written by a single author for extended periods of time, but not good enough to be published as a separate worthwhile book. We don't talk about those, because we don't even have them within our frame of reference. Completely forgotten.
Yes! I was surprised when my local garden shop didn't have any. I used rock dust and bloodmeal along with compost to amend the lawn a few years ago and now have a wildly growing wildflower and perennial garden. I also use it when planting in new plants to mix in the loose soil at the bottom of the hole.
> I mean new things in a very general sense. Newton's physics was a good new thing. Indeed, the first version of this principle was to have good new ideas. But that didn't seem general enough: it didn't include making art or music, for example, except insofar as they embody new ideas.
Art should be, yes. Unfortunately a lot of visual art being produced from art schools and shown in museums / galleries are forms of criticism. The article mentions crticism as not being a good new thing. The message they seek to convey is more of a priority than the creation of a Good Thing. (In reality modern art is a mixture of varying degrees of criticism and creation)
This is partly because modern conceptual art is about concepts so it's very easy for it to be overtaken by a political or critical message as the concept.
Lazy question if anyone knows: How does one get acquainted with the field of bioinformatics? Is there a particular book or online course that gives a solid introduction?
Good memories. My brother and I spent a lot of time trying to hit the sun so that it made a face! And oh, the satisfaction of throwing into the wind perfectly so the it boomerangs back around.
