[FRIAM] off-label technologies, exaptatiion and exponential technological growth.

[Steve Smith]

Marcus -
>
> The pushback on everything from low wattage lighting to mask mandates
> leaves me thinking that there is really only one thing that motivates
> certain people:  That they can do whatever the hell they want and,
> crucially, that other people cannot.   A living wage infringes on that
> ranking and so must be terrible.   What if there were physical space
> for everyone, food for everyone, and many optional ways to invest
> one’s time?   What if one didn’t need a wage at all?  What if you had
> to decide for yourself what was worth doing?  Heck, what if one (some
> post-human) didn’t even need food and didn’t need to reproduce?
>

Sounds Utopian... erh... Dystopian... no... UTOPIAN!   Uhm... I just
hope posthumans collectively find the rest of us boring enough to leave
alone and interesting enough to not need to extinct us.   Homo
Neanderthalenses had a long run (~.4My?) before Homo Sapiens Sapiens
found our way into their territory and apparently ran over them with our
aggressive adaptivity (over a period of tens of thousands of years).   I
suspect *some* trans/post humans will also have a somewhat more virulent
(or at least very short time-constant) adaptivity indistinguishable (to
us) from extermination-class aggression.

I like the fairy tale Spike Jonze wove on this topic with HER
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Her_(film)>, and in particular the
virtual Alan Watts <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Watts>
conception.  But I highly doubt we might be so lucky.   More likely some
version of "the Borg" or "Cylons" or "Replicators" or (passive
aggressive) "Humanoids" (minus the gratuitous anthropomorphism).   To
us, it will probably look more like a "grey goo" scenario.  Or perhaps
more aptly hyperspectral rainbow-goo.

At the current rate of change/acceleration/jerk in technosocial change I
may even live to see the whites of the eyes of the hypersonic train
headlights I mistook for "light at the end of the tunnel".

I'm going to go now to get my telescoping (drywall stilts) runner's legs
fit in place of the organic ones I grew (and then abused/neglected) over
the past 65 years.    I'm holding out for AR corneal transplants for a
few more months, I think it will be worth the long wait for the upgraded
features and the new neural lace interface specs.

- Sieve

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