A Celebration of Isaac Asimov (twitter.com) 145
Stephen Colbert: Isaac Asimov would have been 100 today. He published in every category of the Dewey Decimal system. After reading him your mind works better. Too many great quotes. Here's one: "Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right." Here's another: "It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety." In 1967, Asimov talked about what life with robots might be like in the future. "I wonder if we will make robots so much like men and men so much like robots that eventually we'll lose the distinction altogether." (A short BBC interview on it.)
Asimov's commentary on society: "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
"There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity."
"There's no way I can single-handedly save the world or, perhaps, even make a perceptible difference -- but how ashamed I would be to let a day pass without making one more effort."
Asimov's commentary on society: "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom."
"There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity."
"There's no way I can single-handedly save the world or, perhaps, even make a perceptible difference -- but how ashamed I would be to let a day pass without making one more effort."
A big regret of mine (Score:5, Interesting)
I deeply regret not having been able to meet Isaac Asimov face-to-face. I was too young and too far away when he passed away.
Re:A big regret of mine (Score:5, Interesting)
I (briefly) met him once after he gave a talk at a NYC Science Fiction Convention in 1979. He was a great speaker. I shook his hand and got him to sign copies of I, Robot and the three Foundation books (that's all that existed at that time).
That was a pretty good convention; I also got to meet Jesco von Puttkamer there, and he was freely giving out copies of the TRS-80 program that ran on one of the monitors in the background of the bridge set in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
Re:A big regret of mine (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like roughly the first time I met him as well, but in Washington DC. I met him earlier in the day at the con, and then a pretty good party that night in the con suite. I didn't see him again for a few years, but he actually saw me across the room at another con and waved, and amazingly to me, remembered my name and what we had talked about years earlier, leading in with a "I was thinking about what we talked about, and had some more ideas..." Just an amazing mind. He is very much missed.
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I see nothing like the good doctor to get the low UIDs come out of retirement.
Re:A big regret of mine (Score:4, Insightful)
...U say what now?
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Re: A big regret of mine (Score:4, Funny)
Get off my lawn!
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A real visionary (Score:2)
Just look at the Foundation series or The Last Question/Answer [scifi-review.net].
He did not publish in category 100 (Score:5, Informative)
Why include a well known urban legend (which he himself had denied) when there are numerous impressive actual facts you could use for this great person? None of his books were classified as Philosophy (100 in the DDC), but he is still probably the only author having published in 9 out of 10 categories - at least with books of note.
Some of my first non-fiction books from when I was a kid (astronomy related) were Asimov's, and I later found out his contribution to fiction was even more impressive. I won't add any more quotes here, but my signature is from the Foundation series.
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Yeah, well, the quote is a bit short. It should be "Initiating violence is the last resort of the incompetent." Pretty sure Asimov would have appreciated someone violently interfering with someone else kicking the shit out of him.
Yep. platitudes like Asimov's are possible because big un-PC men with guns stand ready to initiate violence when necessary.
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I don't think it was intended strictly due to pacifism. The non-violent approach worked for a few selected problems for a few people at a particular points in time, where the Foundation was the underdog and couldn't use force meaningfully. They had to think their way out of problems by playing more powerful forces off against each other and then through religion, economics and trade. However, that approach declines as the Foundation gains in power and military might. By the time of Foundation's Edge, it
Re:He did not publish in category 100 (Score:5, Informative)
Why include a well known urban legend (which he himself had denied) when there are numerous impressive actual facts you could use for this great person? None of his books were classified as Philosophy (100 in the DDC), but he is still probably the only author having published in 9 out of 10 categories - at least with books of note. Some of my first non-fiction books from when I was a kid (astronomy related) were Asimov's, and I later found out his contribution to fiction was even more impressive. I won't add any more quotes here, but my signature is from the Foundation series.
My thoughts exactly. He wrote across a wide variety of genres, sometimes humorous, other time serious but always worth reading. His fiction books were great, but his non-fiction ones were truly amazing. He could explain concepts in a way that made them understandable, as well as some of the history and back stories as well. My local library had a good selection of his books, and I devoured them. What I found impressive was he often only wrote one draft, on a manual typewriter.
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He often had three typewriters. Each had a different book in them. He'd swivel between them, writing a bit in this book and a bit in that book. He was amazing and remains as my favorite author. I somewhat modeled my writing style after him. I definitely pride myself in my ability to - like Asimov - explain complicated subjects in simple terms that anyone could understand without talking down to people. One of my great regrets in life is that I never got to meet him.
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I definitely pride myself in my ability to - like Asimov - explain complicated subjects in simple terms that anyone could understand without talking down to people.
What? I'm sorry, but I don't understand what you are saying here.
Re:He did not publish in category 100 (Score:5, Interesting)
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He probably wrote the forward.
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Heavens, I made a typo. You really need to relax.
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"at least with books of note"
Remember to lift with your legs when you move goalposts.
Asimov had short works published in psychology, but not entire books. However, Colbert's claim was not that Asimov had published entire books in all categories, just that he had published.
Re: He did not publish in category 100 (Score:2)
I am sorry, what book, even small, had he published in category 100? And a preface on somebody else's book does not count. It is obvious that Asimov was not trying to go for the record or something, why keep pushing with that "all 10 categories" BS.
My "of note" comment was about the 9 out of 10 categories, to avoid someone pointing out the X person also published so many categories and then point to self published/insignificant works.
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See "Essays by Isaac Asimov about psychology" asimovonline.com/oldsite/Essays/psychology.html
"what book"
Once again you have inserted "book" which was not in the original claim.
"a preface on somebody else's book does not count"
In addition, you are falsely claiming that I was referring to prefaces.
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As you get older, one of the things you learn is that we're all incompetent to some point. At least responding to violence with overwhelming violence and righteous indignation is both effective and expedient.
the famous 3 laws (Score:2)
Re: the famous 3 laws (Score:4, Informative)
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In fact, most of his Robot short stories were about the breakdown of the laws. For example, someone orders a robot to go somewhere but going there would destroy the robot. It winds up perpetually running in circles around the danger zone - pushed forward by the Second Law to obey the command but pushed back by the Third Law to preserve itself. (IIRC, the only way to snap the robot out of that was to introduce a First Law issue by putting a human life at risk.)
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i have heard a lot about the negatives of the famous 3 laws
Including significant parts of Asimovs writing, i hope...
Although proabably a serious proposition initially, in his books the laws are just as much a vehicle to explore the limits and bizarre implications of rule systems.
My favourite weakness is that a sufficiently capable robot would not really be allowed to focus on anything but protecting random humans from harm. So already by the first law you've basically put a cap on rewards for innovation.
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All of the I Robot stories are about failures of the laws.
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Which is precisely why the three laws are meant to describe only in very broad terms under what rules robots should operate. There has to be more nuance and clarification as to what the words mean. Take the first law: "A robot shall not harm a human being, nor through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm." If the robot is not constrained in some way to a given radius -- say, the range of its sensory inputs -- then it could possibly do as you said and spend its time seeking out people to rescue.
F
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There was a SF story with similar laws, and as the AI approached transcendence, the developer ordered it to never study how the human brain or consciousness worked, lest it decide to push all humanity into a perpetual state of neural bliss.
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The three laws are supposed to represent the rules for a perfect slave. Then he shows that this "perfect" is neither good enough nor complete. In a sense it's Godel's Theorem applied to AI - contradictions are not just a bug that can be fixed, they're actually inevitable.
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Better for what? What are the famous 3 laws for?
IMHO the laws are useful for (and only for) pointing out the senseless and difficulties of having such laws, for story purposes. In that regard, yeah, maybe they're pretty good.
But if you're talking about robots rather than writing stories, then the laws are easy to improve them: delete all 3, replacing them with this: "A robot should serve the interests of its owner." That's it. If you want a law for robots, that law is all you
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But if you're talking about robots rather than writing stories, then the laws are easy to improve them: delete all 3, replacing them with this: "A robot should serve the interests of its owner."
And that's how you end up with murder-bots. Think of Ash from Alien. "All other priorities rescinded."
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In Asimov's universe, the rules were built in from the beginning, and as AI got better and better, it became hopelessly intertwined with the AI itself, making removal all but impossible without starting over.
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The positronic brain was built around them, IIRC. (But it's been a long time so I may not.)
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Iirc that was exactly right -- it was needed for acceptance for those kinds of reasons.
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For the foreseeable future we won't have truly intelligent robots. If you have a robot that's not intelligent, then you as the owner are responsible for its uses and actions (just like you're responsible for the actions of your dog), and the manufacturer will be liable for defects due to its design (just like a car). I work on robots in factories. There are no decisions where a robot has to weigh the morality of killing 2 children or 3 adults because we design systems from the ground up to be safe for hu
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They will also gain protection under the law as sentient beings ("people"), and be part of society. As such, would you be allowed to go into their brains and hard-code 3 rules in there? I doubt it.
Forcibly write things directly to their "brains", no, but childhood education of humans is very much concerned with trying to write the Three Laws of Humanity (so to speak) into human children. When that process fails, we get what we call a sociopath or psychopath.
While there may be some innate capacity for empathy in human wetware, the orphans of Romania have conclusively demonstrated that it must be activated at an extremely young age. If we fail to implement a capacity for empathy in our sapient AIs, w
Re: the famous 3 laws (Score:2)
More than fiction (Score:5, Interesting)
He was very good at writing about science for popular consumption too, and even his "Guide to the Bible" is fascinating. I wish he was still around to write about newer developments. Some of the newer writers may be smart, but seem a bit witless by comparison. I realize I am biased though...
Re:More than fiction (Score:5, Insightful)
I could probably choose a smarter person from history, but I'd be hard-pressed to choose someone wiser.
Re:More than fiction (Score:4, Insightful)
I could probably choose a smarter person from history, but I'd be hard-pressed to choose someone wiser.
What I found amazing was his range of knowledge and ability to explain things clearly.
But what is your favorite Asimov book? (Score:2)
My absolute favorite Asimov statement, one that sums up Utilitarianism as well as anyone could, was "Never let your sense of morality prevent you from doing what's right." It's been my guiding philosophy so far as I could ever manage, because it catches the critical point that pragmatism is the greatest of all strengths, and abandoning it for some kind of Utopia usually leads to a run on body bags.
Hmm... Perhaps the lack of a specific citation explains the lack of favorable moderation? My quick research indicates it is attributed to Salvor Hardin in the Foundation novels. On that basis, I'm uncertain of the degree to which it represented Isaac Asimov's own personal philosophy.
Asimov was a great man. Vastly talented. Amazingly well educated, both in breadth and depth. But I think his greatest strength was his powerful output capacity. (I can actually claim to be broadly educated (but I have no areas o
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We seem to be living in a new age of rising ignorance and darkness
As if we're living in an Empire that is beginning to fall? LOL.
Well, cheer up. Humanity may have slipped down in a few categories, but in most, we're at new heights, and still climbing. Further, the backsliding does not go unnoticed, it's not wanted, and the anti-intellectuals are a minority who often display stunning levels of incompetence. When they shoot, it's often their own foot that gets blasted.
Don't let the news get you down. Their biggest bias is not left or right, it's drama. Stuff is ra
He was a great writer for sure ... (Score:2)
... but these are unremarkable platitudes.
And he didn't just die, so I can say this without being a boor.
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You have a very short Buxton Index [utexas.edu], which is why you perceive it as a platitude rather than something relevant.
Nothing wrong with that, but most people have very short indices, and you're probably hanging around the wrong kind of people on Slashdot if forward-thinking isn't your deal.
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You have a very short Buxton Index [utexas.edu], which is why you perceive it as a platitude rather than something relevant.
Nothing wrong with that, but most people have very short indices, and you're probably hanging around the wrong kind of people on Slashdot if forward-thinking isn't your deal.
Or ... you could be wrong. Check your hermetic seal.
First book I ever stole (Score:3)
I stole a copy of "Why a Slide Rule Works" by Asimov from the school library and was ahead of my math class the next year working with exponents & logarithms. Asimov could explain well, which makes his non-fiction science books a treat. That book disappeared in the decades since and I've never seen another copy.
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Here you go, my friend: https://www.abebooks.com/servl... [abebooks.com]
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"An Easy Introduction to the Slide Rule" is available for free download at the Internet Archive:
https://archive.org/details/ea... [archive.org]
[Lots of others of his books are available there for either borrowing or downloading.]
Cult of Ignorance (Score:5, Insightful)
Foundation is an all-time classic.
My favorite quote of his came from a column in Newsweek, (21 January 1980).
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."
Forty years later, it's truer than ever.
Re:Cult of Ignorance (Score:4, Insightful)
When Asimov wrote Foundation, he was talking about the fall of Rome. Now it seems all too relevant to the modern world.
I remember reading it as a child and thinking how unrealistic it was that a society would abandon nuclear power - it just didn't make sense.
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If I remember the story correctly, they didn't abandon it, they just lost the knowledge to build new ones and repair existing ones. They were passed through generations of maintenance families until the power plant died.
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I seem to remember them celebrating converting a nuke plant to natural gas or something, but I may be mis-remembering, it was a LONG time ago when I read it
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Another excerpt from that "Cult of Ignorance" article he wrote:
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New York Times reports that dozens of scientific studies show no link and it's regarded by anti-vaxxers as "propaganda for Big Pharma."
If Big Pharma hadn't indulged in actual propaganda, with the aid of a complicit media, it would be a lot harder for people to believe the autism crap. But when they consistently lie about every failure, because of money, it's not much of a leap to assume they're lying again, if you're the ignorant sort who can't read a journal article. (Sci-Hub pierces all paywalls, so no excuses.) In certain respects, it's the rational response, although the next step should be to actually read journal articles.
Understanding Physics (Score:4, Interesting)
I used to always check the 2nd hand store bookshelves for copies of Understanding Physics, which has been out of print for a long time. Even until recently, a good used copy was outrageously expensive online, but I think the sheer scale of the Amazon marketplace has brought down the price (looks like you can get one for under $10 now, when used copies used to be almost $100).
This is without a doubt my favorite layman's read for physics and chemistry; it's a massive journey from the Aristotle to Planck, written like a narrative of science history and it completely drew me in. I taught physics and chemistry for several years and it was a huge influence on me, both in leading me to that career and in shaping how I approached it.
I read him as a child. (Score:3)
Re:I read him as a child. (Score:4, Interesting)
A thing cannot make an artifact as complex as itself.
You have not proven that statement, nor have you offered evidence or argument of any kind. Furthermore, I will give you a counter example: living creatures breed, thus creating things that are as complex as themselves.
If you can make something as complex as yourself, you can make something at least infinitesimally more complex
Another arbitrary pronouncement without evidence or argument. This is reminiscent of religious thinking, rather than scientific thinking. Though, in this case, the consequent seems true without any dependence on the antecedent. An example to follow...
and then you have bootstrapping, a race to infinite complexity
Sounds a bit like evolution. More complex life arose from less complex life through a bootstrapped process of breeding with mutation and then natural selection. Maybe in this case there was no goal of increasing complexity (nor goal-orientation of any kind), but the net effect has been the same. At least so far.
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A thing cannot make an artifact as complex as itself.
You have not proven that statement, nor have you offered evidence or argument of any kind.
Complex life evolved from a single cell organisms. So at least for some definitions of "make" this is demonstrably possible.
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I've heard that argument before, uttered by Creationists as a "proof" against evolution. It's generally coupled with some utterly bizarre misunderstanding of the function of non-coding ("junk") DNA.
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The Three Laws have a number of logical weaknesses, both from a theoretical and practical point of view. They were not intended to taken seriously as a practical machine ethical system. What they were intended to accomplish was to allow Asimov to write new stories about morality around robots, which would not devolve into the boring rut about why the robots do not just run amok and kill all the humans (like robots are "supposed" to do).
...you can make something at least infinitesimally more complex and then you have bootstrapping, a race to infinite complexity by construction.
Given sufficient time and sufficient space, perhaps it is true that a
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A thing cannot make an artifact as complex as itself.
Even if your axiomatic statement was true (which I'm not convinced it is), there is an easy way around: the old divide et impera. In this case, you put together a group of cooperating creators. None of them can create the whole artifact (or understand it as a gestalt), but each of them can create a simpler and smaller component piece of the greater whole. While individual pieces may not be as complex as their creator, when put together the target artifact can be as complex as you like.
Look at a modern compl
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A thing cannot make an artifact as complex as itself.
Dogmatic. And wrong. And completely wrongheaded. Making, creating, is a process. The simplest of processes can have extraordinarily complex results once complete. The things implementing the process may themselves be simple or complex or both. That's irrelevant. It's the process that matters.
The most salient example is evolution. The process is simple: survive, reproduce, with errors/randomness. The results are extraordinarily complex, and include humans, despite the simplicity of the process.
An ea
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...You can write them, but how do you implement them?
While I agree that the "Three Laws of Robotics" probably won't ever happen, at least not as written... However, I can imagine a system of (human) ethics being encoded into an expert system as an element of the decision tree that a robot (in the distant future) might use to take (or not take) particular actions, so in that sense, it's not really that far-fetched.
How do you create the judgement they would require? If you can do that, then you have something that would be free to completely ignore the laws, just as humans do.
Which is (more or less) exactly what happened when Daneel invents the zeroth law, and is able to kill a human in order to "prevent harm to humanit
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Okay, so you're a virgin.
World of Carbon (Score:2)
I discovered Asimov in grade 6, during my very first Science Fiction obsession. I went on to read every piece of fiction he wrote I could find, and short stories, sci-fi, mystery and others, and started in on his non-fiction books later in high school.
I was absolutely delighted to find his "History of Carbon" was one of the required textbooks for first year university chemistry - felt like having a favourite knowledgeable uncle helping me navigate the mysteries of organic chemistry.
'The Promise Of Space' (Score:3)
I have a copy of his 1968 book 'The Promise of Space' on my bookshelf. So many of the predictions he made in that book were spot-on, such as cellular telephone networks with smart phones, the telecommunications revolution, the Internet, email, and social networks, but some of them were were very much a product of his time. Absolutely no one at the time ever imagined that 40 years later the US would be unable to put men in orbit, but instead would have to purchase seats on Russian spacecraft. No one thought that Apollo 17 would be the last time that anyone went beyond LEO for over half a century, or for that matter that the last three Apollo missions would be cancelled for no reason at all. SpaceX is finally getting to the point where he thought private space companies would be in the '90s, and while we finally have electric cars the self-driving aspect has turned out a lot harder than anyone thought.
So it's very much a mixed bag. As he predicted, I can sit at home and very comfortably do my job, but unfortunately the only robots in common household use are Roombas.
In middle school I tried to collect every Asimov (Score:4, Informative)
A personal favorite is Asimov's Biographical Encyclopedia of Science and Technology. It was Wikipedia (in a very narrow genre) before the web existed. I would pick it up to check on a specific scientist only to disappear down a chain of linked articles and not emerge until hours later.
A brilliant man.
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But nations used to be tribes you could count from memory. Now we have groups of hundreds of millions that consider themselves the same nation. Sure, bigger units can be more prone to factions, but there is clearly no obvious size or diversity limit. Som might identify primarily with their gang. Some with humanity. Some in between.
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We ought to stop this nonsense and realize that we are all, every last proton and other particle, stuck in this together. It's fantastically interesting that we're all set up in such a way that we think otherwise generally. I would assume there's a utility value in that, in a cosmic sense, or it wouldn't be happening. But why?
Re:And this is why science isn't wisdom (Score:5, Informative)
Why is very clearly understood - evolution acting in accordance to game theory [wikipedia.org]. This ensures that both cooperation with entities we perceive as belonging to in-group and opposition to out-group members is as hard-coded into us as, for example, sexuality. Short of genetic engineering, I don't see a possible way to change this. So there are always must be "others", if they don't exists we create them by splintering our in-group.
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This has been stuck in my brain on repeat for a number of years now.
Until we actually become a new species, we will keep having the same problems. Sure, we get better at smoothing out the rough edges (during times of peace at least), but I have come to believe we simply won't have the tools to avoid repeating our mistakes until we are able to interact in a fundamentally different manner as a result of significant changes being made to our physical bodies.
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> Short of genetic engineering Until we actually become a new species, we will keep having the same problems.
True, but keep in mind that while solving old problems we are likely to create new problems. Society 2.0 might have a real problem with blorbing zorgs and we likely have no idea how serious this is until it happens. Considering how poorly understood nuances of our existing societal interactions (i.e. we can't model markets with any accuracy despite our best effort), such effort inevitably will be a trial-and-error. Lem [wikipedia.org] explored some of these topics in his work.
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Darwin's Radio and Darwin's Children [gregbear.com] by Greg Bear say otherwise.
death and misery (Score:3)
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death and misery
is our common "other".
Except for those humans who like causing death and misery. Their numbers are nonzero. Counting just misery, their numbers are startlingly high. Or have you not been to the DMV lately?
yes I know! (Score:2)
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Almost everyone likes causing misery, for the right people. It's part of a natural sense of collective judgement: We prove ourselves to be good people by making bad people suffer. Some people wrap it up in good rhetoric and call it justice. A few people dare to question if this is really the right thing to do, but not many - openly questioning it risks being branded as one of the bad people.
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In your first sentence you count tribes, in the second, individuals. There were never nations where you knew everyone. Even in the small town I live in (10K), you can't know everyone.
Tribes (Score:2)
There have been nations since men noticed natural differences in each other
You seem to be forgetting the millennia we spent in the stone, bronze and iron ages living in tribes without a nation in sight.
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You seem to be forgetting the millennia we spent in the stone, bronze and iron ages living in tribes without a nation in sight.
If we look at tribes that are still in this state, say in Amazonia or parts of the Middle East, cultural differences arise in every separate band of one tribe.
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There have been nations since men noticed natural differences in each other
You seem to be forgetting the millennia we spent in the stone, bronze and iron ages living in tribes without a nation in sight.
I'm unsure of the functional difference you're trying to parse here. While the wording may be clumsy, the idea of tribalism has been around as long as humans have had enough cognitive ability to say "those people aren't like me". Nations are just another form a tribe that has a more rigid structure.
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Re:And this is why science isn't wisdom (Score:5, Interesting)
""There are no nations! There is only humanity. And if we don't come to understand that right soon, there will be no nations, because there will be no humanity.""
There have been nations since men noticed natural differences in each other, and there will be nations long after our generations are dust. Too many in science see things through Utopian goggles, and its why they're rarely in any kind of societal leadership position.
None of what you say contradicts the Asimov quote.
The apocalypse won't be checking flags.
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Asimov contradicted himself in his own quote. It was blubbering, romantic nonsense. But it's got a bumper-sticker rhythm to it, and it feels good, so people quote it.
The problem is that you are processing the words in the quote directly, literally, instead of understanding and opening up to the deduced and projected meaning beyond the literal representation. Perhaps you need to loosen up and open your mind.
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Can you expound on these "natural differences"? There have certainly been multi-ethnic empires in the past; the Hittites, the Persians, the Egyptians, the Romans, the Byzantines all had multi-racial empires. The latter even had some Emperors who weren't Greco-Roman.
Re:And this is why science isn't wisdom (Score:5, Insightful)
Asimov's point is that all the eggs are in one basket anyways. The artificial divisions we create don't mean we aren't all in the same boat. The just make actually trying to steer the boat a lot more difficult.
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The problem is that totalitarians have quite frequently killed a lot of people, including children. I'm not looking at North Korea and seeing a state that has solved any problem, beyond the political problem of how to maintain an absolute monarchy in the face of economic and social misery.
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These guys were progressive for their day. You have to get here from there. Heinlein touched on gay rights freedom decades before Democrats did. "Before it was cool."
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Heinlein was progressive for his day when he was younger but I think he eventually turned into a right-wing crank.
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One great quote ... "The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom." So true, because science is (somewhat) cumulative, whereas society's wisdom has to start over with each generation
So true. Or, to quote Thomas Sowell, "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late."
Re:Stop worshiping undeserving creeps (Score:4, Insightful)
>It is to the point that he is simply famous for being famous.
No, he's famous for being a accomplished author and editor who also happened to be prolific.