An anonymous commenter has informed me that humanist thinker and writer H. J. Blackham has died this past week at the age of 105.
His book Humanism has had quite a profound effect on my life.
Beyond that I'm not really sure what to say.
Showing posts with label humanism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label humanism. Show all posts
Monday, January 26, 2009
Saturday, December 06, 2008
Discussion of ethics, capitalism, the environment, and what I should do with my life
I have been reading The Business by Iain Banks. It is an engaging read, despite the treacle-slow plot, and has plenty of the kind of feats of imagination that I like about Banks’ writing.
The main protagonist is a mid-to-high-level manager in “the business” – a generation-spanning organisation that supposedly bought the Roman Empire (but only for 66 days), owns several sets of crown jewels, and is as ubiquitous as it is unnoticed.
The internal set-up of the business is explored in some detail; it is vehemently rationalist, secular, meritocratic, and organised to avoid corruption, nepotism, and dynasty-building as these things are seen to get in the way of effective money-making.
As ever Banks’ imagination and prose add a great deal to the story, and his politics shines through as clearly as usual. Several pages are given over to debates about inequality, opportunity, capitalism, and the pros and cons of free markets and the state.
I am currently at 312/392 pages. I don’t know if there will be a twist at the end or not, but the book has already given me food for thought on a subject that has been worrying me for some time now.
I am currently 19 years old and in the very fortunate position of being able to choose how, where, and in what manner I wish to live my life. This is not a choice most people are offered. As such, I have been vacillating over the appropriate direction to take. Do I want to dedicate my life to the service of some greater good, or do I want to pursue my own aims and personal ambitions?
Reading A.C. Grayling’s The Choice of Hercules: Pleasure, Duty, and the Good Life in the 21st Century has helped a little. In the book Grayling argues that the idea that we have to choose whether to devote our lives to vice or virtue is a false one. At the same time H.J. Blackham’s Humanism suggests that I have a responsibility to myself, and a responsibility to everyone else by virtue of our common experience of humanity. Balancing the two is addressed by Grayling quite well in his book.
In any case the real cause of my concern over what path to take stems from the ideas explored in The Business. Is acquisitiveness good? Is greed good? Is it better to seek to grow and expand your wealth or persue other interests entirely?
Quite often this argument is subsumed by other arguments about capitalism vs. socialism; of free markets vs. state control; traditional morality vs. human nature; and arguments over the best way to raise people out of poverty and end tyranny and bloodshed.
These kind of political, economic and social arguments devolve to deciding whether or not our current system of liberal democratic capitalism (as typified by the USA, Japan, and the EU) is the best resource/scarcity-allocating system.
The definition of “best” is open for debate as well. Anyone asking for my beliefs on what is best should read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then read up on utilitarian philosophy and the golden rule. For the purposes of the rest of this essay I will assume “best” means that all resources are allocated in a manner which leads to an ending of human poverty ASAP, an ending to war, and provision for ensuring sustainable use of finite resources (read: avoiding anthropogenic climate change, preserving and enhancing biodiversity, repairing some of the damage we have already done to the environment and ensuring that in the long run human activity has a neutral effect on the environment).
This is a tall order for any prospective resource-allocation system, but I am confident it can be accomplished. The best book I’ve read on the subject of ensuring continuing and growing prosperity for all whilst maintaining the environment is The Meaning of the 21st Century: A Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future by James Martin. In the book Martin argues for something called “eco-affluence.” Martin believes that with a combination of freer markets, more education (especially for women), and advanced technologies (most notably extensive use of genetic engineering, nuclear power, and hydroponics) we will be able to simultaneously solve our environmental and humanitarian problems. He makes an excellent case for the fact that they are one and the same problem, and that attempting to solve one whilst disregarding the other will end up exacerbating both.
From an objective perspective it is clear that if a better resource/scarcity-allocating system than liberal democratic capitalism ever emerged then we should immediately adopt it. Some might point to China’s model of state capitalism as an alternative solution, but they miss the point that what matters is quality of life. Most evidence suggests dictatorships are simply institutionally incapable of behaving in a benign manner.
Can you do good simply by aiming to become rich? You create jobs, you increase public tax revenues and hence the amount of money spent on welfare, hospitals, schools, etc. If you do it properly you create an environmentally sustainable business that provides people with a good service. You will probably have a lot of fun once you acquire wealth and then you can give it all away before you die.
There are a couple of ways of looking at problems in the world. One argument would be to say that the problem is corporatism. Whenever the needs and desires of an abstract collective are put above the needs and desires of individuals you get problems. An example that springs to mind is that of environmentalism. Environmentalists have an unfortunate habit of treating people as “the problem” rather than the only reason it is worth solving the problem.
In The Business “the Business” is a mechanism for allowing the flourishing of individuals – or is it a controlling corporate regime?
John Marnard Keynes, the economist whose theories of fiscal stimulus are currently being implemented by our politicians saw capitalism as a means to an end, a multi-generational project for creating wealth, growth, and technological innovation. His concept of capitalism was that it is a necessary evil; a mechanism for creating a greater good.
In his essay The Economic Possibilities of Our Grandchildren Keynes writes that:
To return to Iain Banks – A Few Notes on the Culture is well worth reading on the subject of what (I hope) a post-scarcity civilisation looks like.
And also (via Ken MacLeod) this libertarian commentary on the idea of "success" from Brian Micklethwait.
And finally, because this is a blog after all, what about me? What should I do? Start a business? Go study bioinformatics? Go study economics? Go study systems engineering? Write novels?
The main protagonist is a mid-to-high-level manager in “the business” – a generation-spanning organisation that supposedly bought the Roman Empire (but only for 66 days), owns several sets of crown jewels, and is as ubiquitous as it is unnoticed.
The internal set-up of the business is explored in some detail; it is vehemently rationalist, secular, meritocratic, and organised to avoid corruption, nepotism, and dynasty-building as these things are seen to get in the way of effective money-making.
As ever Banks’ imagination and prose add a great deal to the story, and his politics shines through as clearly as usual. Several pages are given over to debates about inequality, opportunity, capitalism, and the pros and cons of free markets and the state.
I am currently at 312/392 pages. I don’t know if there will be a twist at the end or not, but the book has already given me food for thought on a subject that has been worrying me for some time now.
I am currently 19 years old and in the very fortunate position of being able to choose how, where, and in what manner I wish to live my life. This is not a choice most people are offered. As such, I have been vacillating over the appropriate direction to take. Do I want to dedicate my life to the service of some greater good, or do I want to pursue my own aims and personal ambitions?
Reading A.C. Grayling’s The Choice of Hercules: Pleasure, Duty, and the Good Life in the 21st Century has helped a little. In the book Grayling argues that the idea that we have to choose whether to devote our lives to vice or virtue is a false one. At the same time H.J. Blackham’s Humanism suggests that I have a responsibility to myself, and a responsibility to everyone else by virtue of our common experience of humanity. Balancing the two is addressed by Grayling quite well in his book.
In any case the real cause of my concern over what path to take stems from the ideas explored in The Business. Is acquisitiveness good? Is greed good? Is it better to seek to grow and expand your wealth or persue other interests entirely?
Quite often this argument is subsumed by other arguments about capitalism vs. socialism; of free markets vs. state control; traditional morality vs. human nature; and arguments over the best way to raise people out of poverty and end tyranny and bloodshed.
These kind of political, economic and social arguments devolve to deciding whether or not our current system of liberal democratic capitalism (as typified by the USA, Japan, and the EU) is the best resource/scarcity-allocating system.
The definition of “best” is open for debate as well. Anyone asking for my beliefs on what is best should read the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, then read up on utilitarian philosophy and the golden rule. For the purposes of the rest of this essay I will assume “best” means that all resources are allocated in a manner which leads to an ending of human poverty ASAP, an ending to war, and provision for ensuring sustainable use of finite resources (read: avoiding anthropogenic climate change, preserving and enhancing biodiversity, repairing some of the damage we have already done to the environment and ensuring that in the long run human activity has a neutral effect on the environment).
This is a tall order for any prospective resource-allocation system, but I am confident it can be accomplished. The best book I’ve read on the subject of ensuring continuing and growing prosperity for all whilst maintaining the environment is The Meaning of the 21st Century: A Vital Blueprint for Ensuring Our Future by James Martin. In the book Martin argues for something called “eco-affluence.” Martin believes that with a combination of freer markets, more education (especially for women), and advanced technologies (most notably extensive use of genetic engineering, nuclear power, and hydroponics) we will be able to simultaneously solve our environmental and humanitarian problems. He makes an excellent case for the fact that they are one and the same problem, and that attempting to solve one whilst disregarding the other will end up exacerbating both.
From an objective perspective it is clear that if a better resource/scarcity-allocating system than liberal democratic capitalism ever emerged then we should immediately adopt it. Some might point to China’s model of state capitalism as an alternative solution, but they miss the point that what matters is quality of life. Most evidence suggests dictatorships are simply institutionally incapable of behaving in a benign manner.
Can you do good simply by aiming to become rich? You create jobs, you increase public tax revenues and hence the amount of money spent on welfare, hospitals, schools, etc. If you do it properly you create an environmentally sustainable business that provides people with a good service. You will probably have a lot of fun once you acquire wealth and then you can give it all away before you die.
There are a couple of ways of looking at problems in the world. One argument would be to say that the problem is corporatism. Whenever the needs and desires of an abstract collective are put above the needs and desires of individuals you get problems. An example that springs to mind is that of environmentalism. Environmentalists have an unfortunate habit of treating people as “the problem” rather than the only reason it is worth solving the problem.
In The Business “the Business” is a mechanism for allowing the flourishing of individuals – or is it a controlling corporate regime?
John Marnard Keynes, the economist whose theories of fiscal stimulus are currently being implemented by our politicians saw capitalism as a means to an end, a multi-generational project for creating wealth, growth, and technological innovation. His concept of capitalism was that it is a necessary evil; a mechanism for creating a greater good.
In his essay The Economic Possibilities of Our Grandchildren Keynes writes that:
The strenuous purposeful money-makers may carry all of us along with them into the lap of economic abundance. But it will be those peoples, who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes.It could be said that Keynes is too utopian – and that he doesn’t realise that humanity is inherently acquisitive and irrational. Maybe markets emerge naturally in all human societies?
To return to Iain Banks – A Few Notes on the Culture is well worth reading on the subject of what (I hope) a post-scarcity civilisation looks like.
And also (via Ken MacLeod) this libertarian commentary on the idea of "success" from Brian Micklethwait.
And finally, because this is a blog after all, what about me? What should I do? Start a business? Go study bioinformatics? Go study economics? Go study systems engineering? Write novels?
Friday, November 07, 2008
William James on Atheism
Probably one of the best and most nuanced articles on faith and atheism ever to appear of CiF from Andrew Brown:
(((FWIW: I think humanism, in the sense of H. J. Blackham's Humanism is the only philosophical system of ethics that is based as much as possible on what we can actually sense (we are alone and this life is all) and what we can reasonably assume (we are responsible for ourselves and for each other, by virtue of our common shared experience of humanity) )))
(((And here is the core of the problem. I, personally, don't have any particular need to believe. I do know a few people for whom faith and belief in religion are extremely important. I have no place denying them their happiness or security, as long as they do me the same courtesey and don't attempt to force their viewpoint on me.)))
Quoting William James:
Now Andrew Brown quotes Conrad:
(((Yes.)))
(((This is the basic problem. I have absolutely no objection to people holding religious beliefs as long as they don't inflict them or their conclusions on everyone else.
The question of "inflicting" religious faith on a child is a contentious one.
My belief is that as long as parents expose their children to dissenting opinions [allow them access to the local library/secular state school/non-religious neighbours and family members] then it doesn't count as abuse to teach them the existence of God etc.)))
(((Anyway it is fairly clear that religions emerge, and superstitions emerge, and are a natural part of being human. Rationality is always the aspiration, rather than the reality.)))
The future may very well be more secular, but it won't be any more rational without a tremendous moral effort – and any collective moral effort will have much of the characteristics of a religion, including a tendency to objectify and later to personify the abstractions by which we orient ourselves in world.
(((FWIW: I think humanism, in the sense of H. J. Blackham's Humanism is the only philosophical system of ethics that is based as much as possible on what we can actually sense (we are alone and this life is all) and what we can reasonably assume (we are responsible for ourselves and for each other, by virtue of our common shared experience of humanity) )))
I still don't for a moment believe in petitionary prayer or an intervening God; as I have said earlier; I don't even think that the existence of God is a very interesting question. What has changed is what I believe about belief.
(((I concur. The issue isn't the belief in God, but rather our attitude to belief itself.)))
The trigger was two-fold. One was reading William James with real attention, but what had provoked that was rereading the Selfish Gene after a prolonged absence while I had been writing about religion. What that book said about biology seemed to me luminous and profound. What it said (in passing) about Christianity was palpable nonsense. I don't mean here the opinion of God. I mean the description of faith, and of the psychology of belief.
(((This is a genuinely interesting point. Society really needs to move away from tribalistic and unhelpful "atheism vs. religion" debates. )))
No matter how often is it repeated that religious faith is uniquely and by definition a matter of assent to propositions for which there is no evidence, this simply won't do as a description. Quite probably some or all forms of religion do involve assent to untrue propositions but so does any programme to change the world. So, for that matter, does belief in memes, or supposing that we, uniquely as a species, can overcome the tyranny of our selfish genes.
(((Not sure what he means here. Certainly there is no reason to suppose all people are inherently equal. We have decided to let it be the case in the eyes of the law for pragmatic and compassionate reasons. I certainly agree that the definition of religion promulgated by Dawkins et al needs some work...)))
The subtle melancholy of Williams James, drifting like a fog into the bright certainties of his Victorian audience and quietly rusting them with doubt, was – and remains – much more realistic. James, in his Varieties of Religious Experience addressed head-on the paradox apparent even 120 years ago, that some people need to have faith to live at all even while everything they know about science suggests it is misplaced or wrong.
(((And here is the core of the problem. I, personally, don't have any particular need to believe. I do know a few people for whom faith and belief in religion are extremely important. I have no place denying them their happiness or security, as long as they do me the same courtesey and don't attempt to force their viewpoint on me.)))
Quoting William James:
(((Mmm. The thing is that people generally get on with things, even if they do feel shitty. It's part of the human condition.)))
The sanest and best of us are of one clay with lunatics and prison inmates, and death finally runs the robustest of us down. And whenever we feel this, such a sense of the vanity and provisionality of our voluntary career comes over us that all our morality appears but as a plaster hiding a sore it can never cure, and all our well-doing as the hollowest substitute for that well being that our lives ought to be grounded in, but, alas! are not.
Now Andrew Brown quotes Conrad:
What makes mankind tragic is not that they are the victim of nature, it is that they are conscious of it. To be part of the animal kingdom under the conditions of this earth is very well – but as soon as you know of your slavery, the pain, the anger, the strife – the tragedy begins. We can't return to nature since we can't change our place in it. Our refuge is in stupidity, in drunkenness of all kinds, in lies, in beliefs, in murder, thieving, reforming – in negation, in contempt – each man according to the promptings of his particular devil. There is no morality, no knowledge, and no hope; there is only the consciousness of ourselves which drives us about a world that whether seen in a convex or a concave mirror, is always but a vain and fleeing appearance.
Both these grim visions are better and more cheerful than the religious prospect of eternal damnation. (I really do not think that anyone sane can contemplate steadily the Calvinist doctrine of eternal conscious torment.) But they are hardly cheerful ones, and they certainly don't make one optimistic about a future of sunlit rationality.
(((Yes.)))
I don't doubt that it is possible to extinguish any particular theology and almost any religious community. But when they are gone, what stands in their place are different mythologies. William James was probably the father of the naturalistic study of religion: the psychology of religious experience is studiedly neutral as to the reality of whatever provoked these psychological experiences.
But when the study of religion has been entirely naturalised, one of the things we can no longer do is to demonise believers. It may be that psychology tells us that we will continue to demonise our enemies whether or not we decently can: the trick has just proved too useful in the past. But in that case we will hardly have moved into a bright new world of rationality.
(((This is the basic problem. I have absolutely no objection to people holding religious beliefs as long as they don't inflict them or their conclusions on everyone else.
The question of "inflicting" religious faith on a child is a contentious one.
My belief is that as long as parents expose their children to dissenting opinions [allow them access to the local library/secular state school/non-religious neighbours and family members] then it doesn't count as abuse to teach them the existence of God etc.)))
(((Anyway it is fairly clear that religions emerge, and superstitions emerge, and are a natural part of being human. Rationality is always the aspiration, rather than the reality.)))
Monday, October 20, 2008
A-Holy smokes! H. J. Blackham is STILL ALIVE!
I've been re-reading Humanism by H.J. Blackham. A brilliant book - and much easier going the second time round (I think in the meantime some of the ideas have sunk in).
Anyway I searched the author and Harold John Blackham is still alive:
105 years old!
It makes sense, after all. If you genuinely believe this life is everything that ever will be then you damn well make sure you get your fair share.
Bertrand Russell got a good innings as well [imagine being an adult in the Victorian era and living to see Nixon in the Whitehouse - what an epic journey!] at 97.
Anyway kudos to Blackham.
Anyway I searched the author and Harold John Blackham is still alive:
H. J. Blackham, born on 31 March 1903, has been a leading and widely respected British humanist for most of his life.
...H. J. Blackham was a key organiser of the World Union of Freethinker's conference in London in 1938. When he tried to refound it after the war he decided a new organisation was needed and together with the Dutch philosopher Jaap van Prag started the International Humanist and Ethical Union, of which Julian Huxley was the first President. Blackham worked closely with Julian Huxley in many ways including helping him to revise Religion without Revelation.
...
He has enjoyed many years retirement in the Wye valley, reading, writing and growing vegetables. He lives the exemplary humanist life that of thought and action welded together.
105 years old!
It makes sense, after all. If you genuinely believe this life is everything that ever will be then you damn well make sure you get your fair share.
Bertrand Russell got a good innings as well [imagine being an adult in the Victorian era and living to see Nixon in the Whitehouse - what an epic journey!] at 97.
Anyway kudos to Blackham.
Monday, November 05, 2007
A Bit of Fry and Hari
Today my topic is one of problems. Problems are often defined as particular questions or sets of options. In the case of immigration the problem is usually phrased:
"How can we reduce or control immigration so that it becomes a positive force within our society rather than a negative force?"
And, as always, the way the problem is phrased begs the question: "Is immigration a negative force right now?"
Blurgh.
I don't really care about immigration. It's a Daily Mail issue and has been parsed entirely in terms of being something negative, despite the obvious fact that with an aging population it is entirely necessary that we import cheap, youthful labour to care for our elderly.
Many of the great debates in life, the universe and everything devolve to questions that are misapplied. When I say I don't care about debating about God or poetry or global warming or the the ethics of scientific research (empiricism and the scientific method in the real sense of the concept is/should be gloriously free of these considerations, that it clearly isn't is regrettable) I don't mean I don't care. I mean I don't care about the issue as it is usually expressed because I feel it has been misrepresented.
Take transhumanism and the closely related issue of AI. Putting aside the vast technical and scientific barriers to both, the debate is often put in terms of "should we pursue this line of research?" This is a ridiculously stupid question to ask. The appropriate response is:
We are already pursuing this research in a form you don't yet recognise as transhumanist research and AI research.
Even more succinctly, and with regard to transhumanism you could say:
We are already transhumans and could well be considered posthumans.
Consider: prior to the industrial revolution humans were essentially bright apes and they (or other organisms) provided the majority of the energy required to run civilization. We are approaching a period in human development where manual labour might well become obsolete. The key lies in the control mechanisms.
It is still massively cheaper to employ Chinese humans to make most things than to develop and manufacture a robot capable of doing the same job.
Similarly with construction: the problem here requires a robot capable of navigating a building site, following vague instructions, applying "common sense" to problems, drinking tea and reading The Sun: all of which are as yet beyond the capabilities of even the most complex (or simple-minded, in the latter case) non-biological machines.
The point is that I wear glasses and wear clothes and take drugs and read books and use a pocket calculator and function much better, and am much happier, than I would be if I did not do these things.
Scientists of many different disciplines have made it their business to model parts of the human brain and the neural structures of other animals and have been doing so for decades.
Meanwhile genetic engineering continues apace. If you're smart enough to identify the red lines that mark any particular area of research as being dangerous then you're probably smart enough to cope with the outcomes. If you can't identify the red lines then we're probably fucked anyway.
Fukyama's argument boils down to the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is flawed for all the reasons discussed by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near, so I won't bother going into it.
Johann Hari's recent article touches on a subject dear to my heart: transhumanism. As a devoted absorber of the teachings of More, Kurzweil, et al, I am always happy to see reference to this interesting ideology in the national press.
(...as an aside, and due to the purchase of T-shirts and prints by myself and many others the sublime Dresden Codak is to be published weekly!)
Apart from a reference in New Scientist a few years ago and a few "eccentric American" stories in The Guardian and other newspapers this is the first serious reference to transhumanism I've seen in the Dead Tree Press. Doubtless more will emerge over time and it will begin to gain credence (or at least name-recognition, which is all you seem to need these days c.f. Boris Johnson) amongst the general populace.
Hari also makes an excellent point regarding the criticism of transhumanism by Francis Fukyama. The debate has been warped to fit the extremes. Either we ban all research that might lead to the creation of a separate posthuman species or we actively pursue such research to the end of creating such a species.
As Hari points out, bickering over creating new species of human is pointless and stupid. Evolution only seems static to us because it works on such a long timescale (but not unthinkably long - only about 40 000 years separate us from prehuman hominids).
I think, like Hari, it is much more sensible to concentrate on the possibilities to create smarter, faster, stronger, healthier, more long-lived people.
The Gattaca issue, that maybe one day humanity might be divided between haves and have-nots, between the rich and the poor, between the upgraded and the legacy, between the Eloi and the Morlocks is also silly.
Human beings have always suffered inequality of health and ability due to inequality of wealth. The key to liberal democracy lies in all individuals being equal under the law (the problem of defining individals, particularly with regard to posthumans, is an issue for another day).
The issue for transhumanism is how to provide people with better lives and greater powers of self-expression and more opportunity for happiness. The issue is not the creation of a new species, although this might be a means to the end of creating more opportunity for happiness.
As always the problem is not as it is phrased, it is something altogether different. In the case of Stephen Fry's recent blog posting (which The Guardian has taken on as a series of articles) the issue as it is often phrased is "do you prefer looks/form to functionality?" in the context of consumer electronics.
Of course, as Fry points out, when it comes to a device you use every day form is very much tied up with functionality. For me beauty in consumer electronics stems from design, and design is also a key component of usability and hence functionality.
If a house is a "machine for living in" then that house should look aesthetically pleasing or it is not fulfilling it's function.
Anyone who claims that those who reject the existence of God are "close minded" is treading on thin ice. The debate should be not be: "does God exist?" The debate should be: "how did the universe begin?"
There are, I assert, ways of finding out if God exists. If God exists then presumably those who pray to God for help will achieve statistically higher in their endeavours than those who don't pray.
If there was a correlation between frequency of prayer ("faith" is difficult to measure) and say, salary, then you could begin to build a hypothesis for the existence of something that could be called God.
I'd be interested to see if any such research has been done and what the result was. I suspect as I am not aware of any such research then the results (if any) did not suggest God exists, as I'm certain the various Churches would be trumpeting it to the heavens.
Of course prayer is there as a comforter. I, as a secular humanist, choose to reject it as a piece of mental transhumanism that is not self-contained enough to be safe.
Faith in God or manifest destiny is too powerful and dangerous. Singularitarianism and transhumanism is as open to corruption as any ideology but, like liberalism, the fundamental precepts of the transhumanist meme are overwhelmingly positive.
Any corruption of liberalism would cease to be usefully described as such. So with transhumanism. Then it devolves to word games and Orwellian propaganda.
I feel it is much better to form a core of easily expressible beliefs and live by them. In the case of humanism this is all there is and I am alone.
This sucks. I'd like to do something to make this last longer and something to make me less lonely.
So transhumanism is the next logical step after humanism.
"How can we reduce or control immigration so that it becomes a positive force within our society rather than a negative force?"
And, as always, the way the problem is phrased begs the question: "Is immigration a negative force right now?"
Blurgh.
I don't really care about immigration. It's a Daily Mail issue and has been parsed entirely in terms of being something negative, despite the obvious fact that with an aging population it is entirely necessary that we import cheap, youthful labour to care for our elderly.
Many of the great debates in life, the universe and everything devolve to questions that are misapplied. When I say I don't care about debating about God or poetry or global warming or the the ethics of scientific research (empiricism and the scientific method in the real sense of the concept is/should be gloriously free of these considerations, that it clearly isn't is regrettable) I don't mean I don't care. I mean I don't care about the issue as it is usually expressed because I feel it has been misrepresented.
Take transhumanism and the closely related issue of AI. Putting aside the vast technical and scientific barriers to both, the debate is often put in terms of "should we pursue this line of research?" This is a ridiculously stupid question to ask. The appropriate response is:
We are already pursuing this research in a form you don't yet recognise as transhumanist research and AI research.
Even more succinctly, and with regard to transhumanism you could say:
We are already transhumans and could well be considered posthumans.
Consider: prior to the industrial revolution humans were essentially bright apes and they (or other organisms) provided the majority of the energy required to run civilization. We are approaching a period in human development where manual labour might well become obsolete. The key lies in the control mechanisms.
It is still massively cheaper to employ Chinese humans to make most things than to develop and manufacture a robot capable of doing the same job.
Similarly with construction: the problem here requires a robot capable of navigating a building site, following vague instructions, applying "common sense" to problems, drinking tea and reading The Sun: all of which are as yet beyond the capabilities of even the most complex (or simple-minded, in the latter case) non-biological machines.
The point is that I wear glasses and wear clothes and take drugs and read books and use a pocket calculator and function much better, and am much happier, than I would be if I did not do these things.
Scientists of many different disciplines have made it their business to model parts of the human brain and the neural structures of other animals and have been doing so for decades.
Meanwhile genetic engineering continues apace. If you're smart enough to identify the red lines that mark any particular area of research as being dangerous then you're probably smart enough to cope with the outcomes. If you can't identify the red lines then we're probably fucked anyway.
Fukyama's argument boils down to the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is flawed for all the reasons discussed by Ray Kurzweil in The Singularity is Near, so I won't bother going into it.
Johann Hari's recent article touches on a subject dear to my heart: transhumanism. As a devoted absorber of the teachings of More, Kurzweil, et al, I am always happy to see reference to this interesting ideology in the national press.
(...as an aside, and due to the purchase of T-shirts and prints by myself and many others the sublime Dresden Codak is to be published weekly!)
Apart from a reference in New Scientist a few years ago and a few "eccentric American" stories in The Guardian and other newspapers this is the first serious reference to transhumanism I've seen in the Dead Tree Press. Doubtless more will emerge over time and it will begin to gain credence (or at least name-recognition, which is all you seem to need these days c.f. Boris Johnson) amongst the general populace.
Hari also makes an excellent point regarding the criticism of transhumanism by Francis Fukyama. The debate has been warped to fit the extremes. Either we ban all research that might lead to the creation of a separate posthuman species or we actively pursue such research to the end of creating such a species.
As Hari points out, bickering over creating new species of human is pointless and stupid. Evolution only seems static to us because it works on such a long timescale (but not unthinkably long - only about 40 000 years separate us from prehuman hominids).
I think, like Hari, it is much more sensible to concentrate on the possibilities to create smarter, faster, stronger, healthier, more long-lived people.
The Gattaca issue, that maybe one day humanity might be divided between haves and have-nots, between the rich and the poor, between the upgraded and the legacy, between the Eloi and the Morlocks is also silly.
Human beings have always suffered inequality of health and ability due to inequality of wealth. The key to liberal democracy lies in all individuals being equal under the law (the problem of defining individals, particularly with regard to posthumans, is an issue for another day).
The issue for transhumanism is how to provide people with better lives and greater powers of self-expression and more opportunity for happiness. The issue is not the creation of a new species, although this might be a means to the end of creating more opportunity for happiness.
As always the problem is not as it is phrased, it is something altogether different. In the case of Stephen Fry's recent blog posting (which The Guardian has taken on as a series of articles) the issue as it is often phrased is "do you prefer looks/form to functionality?" in the context of consumer electronics.
Of course, as Fry points out, when it comes to a device you use every day form is very much tied up with functionality. For me beauty in consumer electronics stems from design, and design is also a key component of usability and hence functionality.
If a house is a "machine for living in" then that house should look aesthetically pleasing or it is not fulfilling it's function.
Anyone who claims that those who reject the existence of God are "close minded" is treading on thin ice. The debate should be not be: "does God exist?" The debate should be: "how did the universe begin?"
There are, I assert, ways of finding out if God exists. If God exists then presumably those who pray to God for help will achieve statistically higher in their endeavours than those who don't pray.
If there was a correlation between frequency of prayer ("faith" is difficult to measure) and say, salary, then you could begin to build a hypothesis for the existence of something that could be called God.
I'd be interested to see if any such research has been done and what the result was. I suspect as I am not aware of any such research then the results (if any) did not suggest God exists, as I'm certain the various Churches would be trumpeting it to the heavens.
Of course prayer is there as a comforter. I, as a secular humanist, choose to reject it as a piece of mental transhumanism that is not self-contained enough to be safe.
Faith in God or manifest destiny is too powerful and dangerous. Singularitarianism and transhumanism is as open to corruption as any ideology but, like liberalism, the fundamental precepts of the transhumanist meme are overwhelmingly positive.
Any corruption of liberalism would cease to be usefully described as such. So with transhumanism. Then it devolves to word games and Orwellian propaganda.
I feel it is much better to form a core of easily expressible beliefs and live by them. In the case of humanism this is all there is and I am alone.
This sucks. I'd like to do something to make this last longer and something to make me less lonely.
So transhumanism is the next logical step after humanism.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Culture
I watched Garden State today. I agree with this guy, Zach Braff is completely underrated. It is an extremely good movie: very good indeed. Armed with only my AS-level in English language, I would say the essential theme is that of alienation, and of finding where you can be happy (“alienation” is a good word when dealing with arty subjects, another good word is “juxtaposition”). Analysis of the meaning of the film aside, the soundtrack was excellent, the acting was low-key (and excellent), and it was generally very good.
I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was OK. It occurred to me that HP is the seminal cultural event of our generation. That and The Simpsons, the movie of which I have yet to see. In 30 years time comedians as-yet-unknown will pontificate on their experience of “growing up with Harry Potter” on a nostalgia-based programme-equivalent on an as-yet-uncreated media – probably hosted by Jimmy Carr.
I’ve been exploring the world of online webcomics. There are many, and many are surprisingly good. I may have already mentioned Questionable Content. There is also the superlative xkcd, Shortpacked, and a recent find: Dresden Codak.
The artwork and content of Dresden Codak is sublime. The creator occupies a similar headspace to myself: a strong regard for philosophy, singularitarianism, secular humanism, transhumanism, the epistemology of technology, technology in and of itself, and a mild interest in Jungian psychology, especially the Myers-Briggs personality test (I may have mentioned I persistently score INTJ, not that I think it's not a load of rubbish...). The artwork is whimsical and the draughtsmanship is excellent. The storylines are engaging and the characters are great. I look forward to the next instalment.
It is seeing things like this that make me want to forget about university, buy a tablet, Photoshop software, and just make cartoons for the rest of my life. But that's what mid-life crises are for...
Thursday, May 17, 2007
What is means to be a Humanist
I’ve been reading Humanism by H.J. Blackham. It is a “Pelican Original” published in 1968. I suppose it is the equivalent to the X for Dummies genre today – a short, casual read to give you a basic understanding of a subject.
The basic precepts of humanism, according to this book, are that “man is on his own and this life is all” and that “there is an assumption of responsibility for one’s own life and for the life of all mankind.” I strongly advise that anyone reading this acquire the book (unfortunately published in the era before ISBNs) and read it. The ideas the whole concept of humanism raises are fascinating, even if you have no interest in coming to consider yourself a humanist.
As I drop in and out of the book, reading a few pages here, then coming back to reread them, it occurs to me how profoundly our society would change if the fundamental precepts of humanism were more generally accepted.
Every so often the implications of humanism hit me. Iain M. Banks refers to this experience as “swim”, in his book The Algebraist. Ken MacLeod mentions the experience on a number of occasions, most notably in Learning the World and his most recent work Execution Channel. For me the feeling often, but not always, begins with a sudden rush of blood to the head, usually after standing up too suddenly after having been sat down for some time.
The experience lacks any of the notable features of a divine experience. There is sometimes a feeling of intoxication, even of euphoria. The key insight that is granted by this experience, this “swim”, is not new knowledge, but rather a casting aside of the assumptions we make so much a part of our lives that we would find it very difficult to live without them.
As far as I know, it is impossible to induce this state. It will generally only arise when you do not suspect that it will. I don’t know if expectation precludes it, because I’ve never been expecting it when it happens.
The insight? You realise that you are who you are. I realise (like Popeye) I am what I am. The little homunculus I carry in my mind, my self-image, is an utter fiction. I am Tom James, I live in a small town, and I go to school. I’ve never been to any of the places I see on the news regularly. I have never met the vast majority of people in the world. I exist.
It sounds profound, but it isn’t. It is the opposite of profound. It isn’t about being at one with the Universe. It is the brief, momentary understanding that, despite all your fantasies and abstract, unsubstantial problems you exist within the Universe. And you are alone.
The Christian dictum: “do unto others as you would have done unto yourself” is a fair basis for morality. But when you truly reject the existence of God, gods, a supreme, all-powerful force controlling everything a lot of rather unpleasant thoughts emerge.
The moral of the nice story about the poor woman who anonymously gives a small but, to her, significant amount of money to the charity and the rich man who boastfully gives a much larger but, to him, less significant quantity of money falls flat. As boorish as the man is, once you reject the idea of heavenly pixie-points, he becomes the person who has accomplished more, has alleviated more suffering in his act of charity.
“Do unto others…” becomes the basis of all morality, once you reject the whole idea of there being some kind of “natural morality” that emerges from the way things are.
Indulging in a humanist mindset has made me more apolitical. I know that people should be afforded life, liberty, and the happiness of pursuit. I know that equality, freedom and society are important. I know that the strong should help the weak. But I’ve also come to realise that all these ideologies, important though they are, are very much secondary to the basic rule of ensuring everyone is as happy as they can be.
From this angle the daily grind of politics in
Being humanist, for me, means removing all the words and ideologies and concentrating on action and what people are actually doing. It means actually trying to imagine how the people who suffer so that I don’t have to actually feel. It means very little as far as politics is concerned, but it means a lot to how I see the world. We’re all alone, and we’re all aware, on some level (even that of flat denial), that this is it. We’ll maintain state-integrity for a couple of gigaseconds if we’re lucky and then whatever construct believes itself to be Tom James will have gone.
Still, this is the only life I'll ever have. So now, after dispensing this vague but heartfelt essay to the howling wastes of the consumer-content revolution, I will take my leave and go and find some other worthwhile activity with which to fill my day.
Monday, May 14, 2007
Providence and Black Swans
This article from The Guardian mentions Felix Dennis’ book How to Get Rich. At some point in HtGR Dennis quotes Goethe (according to some website I looked at, this quote may not be attributable to Goethe):
Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then
This is similar to the “Black Swan Theory” explored by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who also contributes to Edge.org here. Taleb argues that random and utterly unexpected and unexpectable events like 9/11 are occurring with greater frequency because their frequency, number, and effect are amplified by the networked and highly technological world we now live in. From Edge:
Against what one might expect, this makes me extremely optimistic about the future in several selective research-oriented domains, those in which there is an asymmetry in outcomes favouring the positive over the negative — like evolution. These domains thrive on randomness. The higher the uncertainty in such environments, the rosier the future — since we only select what works and discard the rest. With unplanned discoveries, you pick what's best; as with a financial option, you do not have any obligation to take what you do not like. Rigorous reasoning applies less to the planning than to the selection of what works. I also call these discoveries positive "Black Swans": you can't predict them but you know where they can come from and you know how they will affect you. My optimism in these domains comes from both the continuous increase in the rate of trial and error and the increase in uncertainty and general unpredictability.
I am convinced that the future of
It fosters entrepreneurs and creators, not exam takers, bureaucrats or, worse, deluded economists. So the perceived weakness of the American pupil in conventional and theoretical studies is where it very strength lies — it produces "doers", Black Swan hunting, dream-chasing entrepreneurs, or others with a tolerance for risk-taking which attracts aggressive tinkering foreigners. And globalization allowed the U.S. to specialize in the creative aspect of things, the risk-taking production of concepts and ideas, that is, the scalable and fat-tailed part of the products, and, increasingly, by exporting jobs, separate the less scalable and more linear components and assign them to someone in more mathematical and "cultural" states happy to be paid by the hour and work on other people's ideas. (I hold, against the current Adam Smith-style discourse in economics, that the American undirected free-enterprise works because it aggressively allows to capture the randomness of the environment — "cheap options"— not much because of competition and certainly less because of material incentives. Neither the followers of Adam Smith, nor to some extent, those of Karl Marx, seem to be conscious about the role of wild randomness. They are too bathed in enlightenment-style causation and cannot separate skills and payoffs.)
I like this point of view. I have great plans for the future, but I they aren’t currently too specific. Obviously I’ll need to write up a sober business plan, but as long as I keep my wits about me I should be able to spot potential Black Swans when they occur. Felix Dennis mentions “the search” in his book. This corresponds, I suppose, to the time when you try to sensitise yourself to BSE (lol) and leap in when you find something useful. This must also be the reason that large corporations and governments engage in “blue sky research”, and Google employees dedicate 1/5 of their time to personal projects.
All the while institutional science is largely driven by causal certainties, or the illusion of the ability to grasp these certainties; stochastic tinkering does not have easy acceptance. Yet we are increasingly learning to practice it without knowing — thanks to overconfident entrepreneurs, naive investors, greedy investment bankers, and aggressive venture capitalists brought together by the free-market system. I am also optimistic that the academy is losing its power and ability to put knowledge in straightjackets and more out-of-the-box knowledge will be generated Wiki-style. But what I am saying is not totally new. Accepting that technological improvement is an undirected (and unpredictable) stochastic process was the agenda of an almost unknown branch of Hellenic medicine in the second century Mediterranean Near East called the "empirics". Its best known practitioners were Menodotus of Nicomedia and my hero of heroes Sextus Empiricus. They advocated theory-free opinion-free trial-and-error, literally stochastic medicine. Their voices were drowned by the theoretically driven Galenic, and later Arab-Aristotelian medicine that prevailed until recently.
This idea applies to so many other technological domains. The only bad news is that we can't really tell where the good news is going to be about, except that we can locate it in specific locations, those with a high number of trials. More tinkering equals more Black Swans. Go look for the tinkerers.
I like the idea of opinion-free science. It also strikes me that from an investment point of view, I wonder if taking a million dollars and investing in a thousand companies would be better than simply investing in one company. If you had even one Microsoft to start off with, and a few 3663’s and other success-stories, would you achieve greater growth in wealth than if you invested in an ISA account?
Humanism
I’ve been reading Humanism by H.J. Blackham. It is fairly good. The book claims that the basic message of humanism is that “this life is all we’ll ever have, and that we are alone as individuals”. There’s an interesting, if somewhat rambling article on humanism in The Times today. There was also an article on smart drugs or “nootropics”. It is interesting to see discussion of humanism juxtaposed with a discussion of what might be the early glimmerings of advancement in transhumanism.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Edge Prospect
Listening to Andrew Marr's Start the Week on Radio 4 this morning I heard discussion of Prospect Magazine's recent "Big Question" survey of intellectuals and thinkers. From Prospect's website:
"Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? The pessimism of their responses is striking: almost nobody expects the world to get better in the coming decades, and many think it will get worse."
Aside from the fact that I don't really understand the cause of pessimism amongst intellectuals, this is an interesting question, so I'll have a hash at it myself.
I would say that the 20th century was defined in terms of a continuing transition from barbarism to civilization. The corrections being made to our behaviour as individuals and as a larger social group can be characterised in two ways:
As to Muslim extremism and other forms of religious extremism I have a couple of things to say:
Liberalism and the free market were not universally good things though. The laissez-faire attitudes prevalent in Britain between about 1830 and 1860 were shocking in the mistreatment of workers. In the same ways that new concepts were invented during the Age of Enlightenment to correct for the problems of the Dark Ages, things like socialism were invented during the 19th century and developed into the 20th century. These ideas include that of state education, state-funded welfare, the NHS, and communism. These developments were a correction against things like mistreatment of workers by factory-owners, people living in poor conditions, poverty, epidemics due to poor drainage and water supply etc.
The sine-wave of Confucius' "pendulum of history" swings back and forth as ever. However in decreasing amplitudes. The 20th century was characterised by the sudden and shocking discovery that it is not quite as fun to go out and attack your enemies if you're both armed with machine guns.
Communism was pretty unpleasant. American-style free market capitalism is alright as long as you're on top of the pile (the same is true of Communism though). The best place to live in the world today (at least as defined bywishy -washy European pinko liberals) is Scandinavia. There there is a mix of capitalist systems coupled with massive government spending.
I believe that if there is ever to be a great, global system of governance it will follow the Scandinavian model. There will be those who have a predilection for competition and seek to succeed. That is well and good and healthy. There will be those who would rather live off their government-paid-for birthrights, and that is alright too.
As manufacturing costs decrease, and as more and more of industry becomes automated, we will have surplus wealthy in abundance.
At this point an environmentalist will say: "but hang on, our industry is what has caused global warming! We can't continue consuming as we are, because the planet can't support us without environmental collapse, either through global warming or one or two of any number of factors that limit the extent to which we can live."
Richard Branson was recently criticised on Alternet for his presumption in assuming that there can be a technological "quick fix" to global warming. The argument that his x-prize-style contest will lull the public into a false sense of security is laughable. Liberals orcontrarians will never be taken seriously if they insist on treating the vast bulk of the public like complete idiots. Branson is doing his own thing, and instead of being a disgusting capitalist, he is doing something constructive and helpful.
I believe that we can streamline and improve our manufacturing, transport, communication, housing, and power-generating infrastructure to the extent that we can all live as environmentally-neutral individuals. As much as I'd love to slap a command-economy oneveryone via my new global government I know this is impractical and probably not even that effective a solution to out current problem.
Emergent order theories, and the invisible hand of the market, are powerful tools in effective resource allocation. However a tool is useless without someone to use it. We need a powerful external body to correct for problems in the free market, like a state.
Everything needs to be aware of individual people, so there need to be checks and balances. In the case of states, these are in the form of democratic votes, in the case of companies, these are in the form of consumer's cash.
Public-limited-companies and limited-companies generally need to stop thinking of state-imposed controls on pollution as state-imposed controls and more as facts of life. Like gravity. You can't be allowed to make money by flying people on planes without wings (even though it would reduce the cost of manufacture) and you can't be allowed to make money by dumping tonnes of dangerous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (even though it is very profitable). In the first case because the laws of gravity won't allow it, and in the second case because of the guidelines of respect towards others, if these need to be enforced by a state, then so be it.
Wow. Anyway. What I meant to do was bring in a contrast between the Prospect survey and Edge.org's Big Question, which was most recently "what am I optimistic about?" I advise everyone to read and contrast the two texts.
I am optimistic that we will be able to live in a responsible, respectful, way. The best way of accomplishing my desired liberal-quasi-capitalist-anarcho-socialist-secular-humanist-techno-progressive-global society is to carry on as we are. Pushing harder to reduce waste, increase efficiency of transport and industry and invent new technologies to solve the problems.
Transhumanism offers an opportunity to solve these sorts of problems from the bottom (individual humans) up. However I see no reason why we can't accomplish what we need to accomplish on our own.
As was commented on Start the Week. All the indices of deaths due to conflicts, poverty, malnutrition, are looking good. People tend to be pessimistic when things are uncertain. I look forward to the future.
"Left and right defined the 20th century. What's next? The pessimism of their responses is striking: almost nobody expects the world to get better in the coming decades, and many think it will get worse."
Aside from the fact that I don't really understand the cause of pessimism amongst intellectuals, this is an interesting question, so I'll have a hash at it myself.
I would say that the 20th century was defined in terms of a continuing transition from barbarism to civilization. The corrections being made to our behaviour as individuals and as a larger social group can be characterised in two ways:
- The extent to which objects can be considered private property, with anarcho-capitalists at one end (in such a society everything and anyone could be owned), and anarcho-socialists at the other (in such a society everything would be held as commons).
- The extent to which the state controls the affairs of individuals, including the level of taxes and laws.
As to Muslim extremism and other forms of religious extremism I have a couple of things to say:
- It remains doubtful if, in the grand scheme of things, the current movement towards fundamentalism will arrive at much. It would be wonderful if a great wave of fundamentalist Muslim intellectuals could create a democratic-faith-government in the Middle East, but this probably won't happen with ourselves and the USA stirring the melting pot.
- It is worth remembering the anarchist movement of a century ago. They terrified the establishment, however their greatest mark on history was initiating the First World War through the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. This was huge, of course, but all anyone really remembers about the anarchists who assassinated him are vague bits of unrealistic dogma. So, these small, sad, groups of people who were attacking what they saw as an unfair global hegemony, who were not afraid of sacrificing themselves in the process, but nevertheless (completely unintentionally) started a global conflict between far greater powers. Sound familiar?
Liberalism and the free market were not universally good things though. The laissez-faire attitudes prevalent in Britain between about 1830 and 1860 were shocking in the mistreatment of workers. In the same ways that new concepts were invented during the Age of Enlightenment to correct for the problems of the Dark Ages, things like socialism were invented during the 19th century and developed into the 20th century. These ideas include that of state education, state-funded welfare, the NHS, and communism. These developments were a correction against things like mistreatment of workers by factory-owners, people living in poor conditions, poverty, epidemics due to poor drainage and water supply etc.
The sine-wave of Confucius' "pendulum of history" swings back and forth as ever. However in decreasing amplitudes. The 20th century was characterised by the sudden and shocking discovery that it is not quite as fun to go out and attack your enemies if you're both armed with machine guns.
Communism was pretty unpleasant. American-style free market capitalism is alright as long as you're on top of the pile (the same is true of Communism though). The best place to live in the world today (at least as defined bywishy -washy European pinko liberals) is Scandinavia. There there is a mix of capitalist systems coupled with massive government spending.
I believe that if there is ever to be a great, global system of governance it will follow the Scandinavian model. There will be those who have a predilection for competition and seek to succeed. That is well and good and healthy. There will be those who would rather live off their government-paid-for birthrights, and that is alright too.
As manufacturing costs decrease, and as more and more of industry becomes automated, we will have surplus wealthy in abundance.
At this point an environmentalist will say: "but hang on, our industry is what has caused global warming! We can't continue consuming as we are, because the planet can't support us without environmental collapse, either through global warming or one or two of any number of factors that limit the extent to which we can live."
Richard Branson was recently criticised on Alternet for his presumption in assuming that there can be a technological "quick fix" to global warming. The argument that his x-prize-style contest will lull the public into a false sense of security is laughable. Liberals orcontrarians will never be taken seriously if they insist on treating the vast bulk of the public like complete idiots. Branson is doing his own thing, and instead of being a disgusting capitalist, he is doing something constructive and helpful.
I believe that we can streamline and improve our manufacturing, transport, communication, housing, and power-generating infrastructure to the extent that we can all live as environmentally-neutral individuals. As much as I'd love to slap a command-economy oneveryone via my new global government I know this is impractical and probably not even that effective a solution to out current problem.
Emergent order theories, and the invisible hand of the market, are powerful tools in effective resource allocation. However a tool is useless without someone to use it. We need a powerful external body to correct for problems in the free market, like a state.
Everything needs to be aware of individual people, so there need to be checks and balances. In the case of states, these are in the form of democratic votes, in the case of companies, these are in the form of consumer's cash.
Public-limited-companies and limited-companies generally need to stop thinking of state-imposed controls on pollution as state-imposed controls and more as facts of life. Like gravity. You can't be allowed to make money by flying people on planes without wings (even though it would reduce the cost of manufacture) and you can't be allowed to make money by dumping tonnes of dangerous carbon dioxide into the atmosphere (even though it is very profitable). In the first case because the laws of gravity won't allow it, and in the second case because of the guidelines of respect towards others, if these need to be enforced by a state, then so be it.
Wow. Anyway. What I meant to do was bring in a contrast between the Prospect survey and Edge.org's Big Question, which was most recently "what am I optimistic about?" I advise everyone to read and contrast the two texts.
I am optimistic that we will be able to live in a responsible, respectful, way. The best way of accomplishing my desired liberal-quasi-capitalist-anarcho-socialist-secular-humanist-techno-progressive-global society is to carry on as we are. Pushing harder to reduce waste, increase efficiency of transport and industry and invent new technologies to solve the problems.
Transhumanism offers an opportunity to solve these sorts of problems from the bottom (individual humans) up. However I see no reason why we can't accomplish what we need to accomplish on our own.
As was commented on Start the Week. All the indices of deaths due to conflicts, poverty, malnutrition, are looking good. People tend to be pessimistic when things are uncertain. I look forward to the future.
Monday, June 26, 2006
Nuclear Power and Techno-Progressive Ideology
I think I ought to clarify my position regarding “ideologies”. As I’ve said many times before I personally subscribe to a liberal philosophy, with progressive, democratic, semi-libertarian (in that I’m for civil liberties but not entirely against the existence of the state), transhumanist, humanist, secular, techno-progressive, enlightened, and utilitarian ideology with simple-man’s karma (a la My Name is Earl), common-sense, good humour, and the meme of enlightened self-interest thrown in for good measure. However. I do not believe that ideology should get in the way of politics. The best sort of politician in my opinion is one who will judge all cases on their particular merits (in the context of legislation) and make a decision based on their personal feelings and rational conclusions.
The problem (at least in the past) was that politicians and statesmen would make decisions on purely ideological grounds regardless of the fact that ideology had no place in the debate. But that’s the problem with ideology; it seeps insidiously into every corner of life until it utterly consumes you in every conceivable way.
Let’s take the example of nuclear power. There is currently a debate (well no, actually, TB has decided [somewhat pre-emptively] that new nuclear reactors Are A Good Thing) as to whether a new generation of nuclear reactors should be built in this country to help us reach our climate-change-stopping targets.
As I mentioned before, as a techno-progressive, you’d expect me to be enthusiastic over a renewal of interest in nuclear fission generation, but from a purely economic viewpoint, the numbers just don’t make sense: you build a nuclear reactor, plus infrastructure, and you have to spend in the region of two billion pounds. To build a hi-tech, high temperature, coal-fired energy-generator would require only about 200 million pounds. So what about the greenhouse gases? Well, if we just pump the CO2 underground (carbon sequestration) then we won’t have to worry about the carbon emissions. And in the case of nuclear we’ll still end up with waste (although there are methods to speed up the half life of by-products, rendering them safer much sooner than before, and the possibility of using thorium as a fuel, these still have the drawback of having to store and process waste and the infrastructure being more expensive) and nuclear remains an order of magnitude more expensive.
My point about ideology is that I shouldn’t let my techno-progressive ideology blind me to the fact that in our particular case, on the British Isles, we have huge reserves of coal remaining and the space (for example in the former gas and oil deposits under the North Sea) for carbon sequestration, and as such it would be foolish to go blundering into a nuclear quagmire. Another point worth mentioning is that nuclear is not renewable. We’ll run out of uranium some day, just as we’re running out of fossil fuels, and all our energy-plans will be stop-gap solutions until we develop miraculous solar power or fusion reactors. Another point worth concentrating on is saving energy, and generally being more efficient in our use of energy.
Being techno-progressive doesn’t mean advocating generation after generation of fuel-hungry, juice-guzzling gadgets, it means finding a subtler and more practical solution to a problem and not simply denying “technology” and declaring “technology” to be the cause of all our problems.]
The problem (at least in the past) was that politicians and statesmen would make decisions on purely ideological grounds regardless of the fact that ideology had no place in the debate. But that’s the problem with ideology; it seeps insidiously into every corner of life until it utterly consumes you in every conceivable way.
Let’s take the example of nuclear power. There is currently a debate (well no, actually, TB has decided [somewhat pre-emptively] that new nuclear reactors Are A Good Thing) as to whether a new generation of nuclear reactors should be built in this country to help us reach our climate-change-stopping targets.
As I mentioned before, as a techno-progressive, you’d expect me to be enthusiastic over a renewal of interest in nuclear fission generation, but from a purely economic viewpoint, the numbers just don’t make sense: you build a nuclear reactor, plus infrastructure, and you have to spend in the region of two billion pounds. To build a hi-tech, high temperature, coal-fired energy-generator would require only about 200 million pounds. So what about the greenhouse gases? Well, if we just pump the CO2 underground (carbon sequestration) then we won’t have to worry about the carbon emissions. And in the case of nuclear we’ll still end up with waste (although there are methods to speed up the half life of by-products, rendering them safer much sooner than before, and the possibility of using thorium as a fuel, these still have the drawback of having to store and process waste and the infrastructure being more expensive) and nuclear remains an order of magnitude more expensive.
My point about ideology is that I shouldn’t let my techno-progressive ideology blind me to the fact that in our particular case, on the British Isles, we have huge reserves of coal remaining and the space (for example in the former gas and oil deposits under the North Sea) for carbon sequestration, and as such it would be foolish to go blundering into a nuclear quagmire. Another point worth mentioning is that nuclear is not renewable. We’ll run out of uranium some day, just as we’re running out of fossil fuels, and all our energy-plans will be stop-gap solutions until we develop miraculous solar power or fusion reactors. Another point worth concentrating on is saving energy, and generally being more efficient in our use of energy.
Being techno-progressive doesn’t mean advocating generation after generation of fuel-hungry, juice-guzzling gadgets, it means finding a subtler and more practical solution to a problem and not simply denying “technology” and declaring “technology” to be the cause of all our problems.]
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