May 09
29
Philip K Dick – Your Vision Is Here Now…
Things are changing – fast!
And governments are starting to understand what the music industry is still struggling to come to terms with, having been exposed to P2P: They can not control the pace of change. And they are starting to get scared. So they should do.
This then is the digital paradox.
On one hand you have the very real issue that swine flu, apparently a global pandemic, probably was borne in a global agribusiness laboratory, and escaped. Virologists don't know how much it will mutate, but they believe that it will take two years to run its course. In Australia with the onset of winter, we get to be the guinea pigs for the northern hemisphere.
On the other hand you have the Ray Kurzweill university – The Singularity University which is opening in the next four weeks and is funded by Google. The mission is to “assemble, educate
and inspire a cadre of leaders who strive to understand and facilitate
the development of exponentially advancing technologies and apply,
focus and guide these tools to address humanity's grand challenges.”
We are now at a point where it is probably that our species will split into two kinds of beings with two kinds of cultures: the transhumans, who are part human and part digital machine (memories of Battlestar Gallactica) and those who are totally human.
I tend to think that there may be a third thread that will also emerge which will be the totally silicon beings that exist only in virtual reality. This may be an alternative evolutionary path for transhumans…
These now are not possibilities. They are probabilities, which are being preceded by the advent of the global brain.
I agree with one thing from the article linked to above – the probability is that the various kinds of beings that emerge will not easily co-exist. War will be an inevitability. Ironically, my sense is that the transhumans will not be in a race for water or clean air or food. They will need electricity.
Perhaps while the human races fight for those “organic” resources, the androids will come in and take all the power stations…?
Hmmm… Something to ponder.