Specism - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

Wandering the information superhighway, he came upon the last refuge of civilization, PoFo, the only forum on the internet ...

The solving of mankind’s problems and abolition of government via technological solutions alone.

Moderator: Kolzene

Forum rules: No one line posts please.
By Russkie
#794576
Hypothetical speaking, if people genetically grow a new species of humans in a genetic reproduction factory that is superior to the present human pieces with a bigger brain capacity and brain matter, would it legitimate to exterminate the current humans, since the inferior humans have no reason to exist.
By Korimyr the Rat
#794585
Not at all, for the same reason that we do not kill everyone who scores less than an 18 on the ACT.

If the new humans really are better, there's no need to take any action whatsoever to replace the obsolete model. They'll probably just breed into the new stock anyway.

edit: Why is this in the Technocracy forum? Shouldn't it be in H&E or Ethics?
Last edited by Korimyr the Rat on 24 Jan 2006 05:48, edited 1 time in total.
By Russkie
#794790
This might be considered genetic engineering which will be part of this politics, so there isn't any other forum that has a similar ideology other than this.

Technocracy = technology +politics
User avatar
By Sa'd al-Bari
#794957
Technocracy = technology +politics

Actually, no. The Technocracy movement (at least in North America) is very apolitical. In fact one of the only things that disqualifies someone from joining is if they’re a member of a political group. Rather, Technocracy Inc. is purely educational (I disagree with such a stance but that is how they conduct themselves).

Technocracy’s name means "rule by skill" and it has to do with control over technology to create a society of abundance based on means such as energy accounting rather than a "price system". This is an extremely brief description, but if you want to learn more about it and thus what this forum is for, search some other posts here or go to these sites:

http://www.technocracy.org

http://www.technocracy.ca

I’d say this topic belongs in one of the forums Korimyr mentioned.
By contracycle
#795307
It is describing a whole new form of society, a new paradigm, a change bigger than thought of by any contemporary "political" ideology.


Really? From what you have described above, it seems very much like Marxism. What do you see as the differences?
By Russkie
#795609
Once you read more about Technocracy, how it was developed, and how it works, you will be able to appreciate these and other differences

If you will not take politics into consideration then you will be seen nothing more than a group of computer geeks that watch Star Trek.

I won't be surprised if some other party in another country will use your agenda and swist it into their politics.
By contracycle
#795893
Fair enough, I will do some more reading. I am not much familiar with this as a developed argument. I just find it striking that, as an ardent technophile, I found myself frustrated by the lack of consideration in our current society for how we might strjucture things differently, given the power we have now. A good example being the explosion fo satellite communicatiosn in Africa and the Middle East, precisely ebcuase they are under-deveoped; an online Africa is going to be a very different Africa.

And in this regard the only analysis I found which dealt with the technical base of scoiety is Marxism.

Not being an expert on Marxism, I can only speak in the broadest of terms. However, what I can say is that Marxism is derived from largely philosophical and moral concepts, centering around ideas of "class struggle" and so forth. Technocracy, on the other hand, is entirely technical/scientific in nature (you should read the article I linked to in my last post there).


Hmm, well I'm afraid I'm going to advance the same claim in terms of Marx. Marxism is explicitly not based on morality, but on Materialism. So I'm afraid its wroing to say that Marxism is derived from philosophical concepts; it is derived from methedological observation of the fact that the FORM a society takes is depending on the technology it has available.

The iron age empires could not have existed during the bronze age; they were simply technically incapable of projecting power of those kinds of distances. So, the central thesis of Marxism is that "society is a technological epiphenomenon".

It's methods are derived from thermodynamics, not philosophy or morality. It also does not attempt to describe the "perfect society", but rather provides a scientifically-based framework--and "operating system" if you will--that allows us to operate our technology to the fullest benefit for humans. Technocracy is the technological 'solution' to the very specific problem of a technologically produced abundance, experienced in North America, and now possibly elsewhere. Marx, having lived when he did, could not have anticipated these changes, regarded as the most dramatic and significant in human history.


Ah but thats the point - he did anticipate them. Sometimes, he didn't even know he was doing so, remarking, for example, that presumed future advances in communication would make a global workers society feasible. And here we are, on the internet just as he guessed, discussing the philosophy and methods of politics, as common people. This IS Marx' insight.

And that "technically produced over-abundance" to which you refer is the central concept of the model of capitalist instability; that is, Marx recognised that with the advent of industrialism, the game had changed on a massive scale by comparison to all prior societies.

Now, having said that, I will also say that there are similarities. Some of the "ideals" in Marxism are achievable through Technocracy (i.e. a classless, moneyless society), but Marx did not have a clear, technological mechanism for producing such, only vague philosophical and sociological ideas. He did have many very forward-thinking insights into things such as how such a society would work, but nothing concrete in place.


Agreed. However, we should consider he didn;t want to make proimises he coulden't keep, as it were. P{recisely becuase we cannot predict future technology with any precision, it would be premature of us, here and now, to start laying down the law of how future generations will organise their societies. Thats why there is nothing specific - Marx is ot proposing a "model of government" but arguing that society changes in accordance with its technical base.

. Keep in mind that this was never Technocracy's goal however, only a remarkable coincidence, because people of virtually any political persuasion can find the most important of their ideals made practicable with Technocracy.


Fair enough, and I will do more reading, but I have one point to raise: the transition from Bronze age to Iron age is recorded archeologically by a layer of burned-out cities. Part of Marx thesis is that despite a change in the technical base, and thus a possibility of a new way of living, the present social elites will resist a change to their utmost. So I wonder if there is a practical concern which your thesis does not yet address, which is, how this society is to be actually brought about on the street, as it were.

But anyway, thanks for the cogent response.
By emp
#796083
You know there already is a term called "speciesism". It's used by animal rights people/ethical vegans in referral to nonvegans. Some vegans consider it a crap term though.
By contracycle
#796609
I would say then that the difference that I see then would be whereas Marx may have made some very forward-thinking and insightful observations concerning society, and perhaps even on the nature of scarcity verses technological abundance, the Technical Alliance had the advantage of having witnessed the greatest change in human history, in terms of the change of the rate of doing work (illustrated on page page 18 of the eTTCD, v. 1.1, available at www.technocracy.org). From that came their extensive analysis, using science and mathematics not available to Marx in his time. They were able to chart the thermodynamic progress of society, and from that detailed analysis, construct a specific operating system that became known as Technocracy. Is this comparison agreeable to you?


Definitely. I would certainly agree that Marx was a creature of his day, and the application of modern science and mathematics will supercede his own work. I'd also agree that he would never have conceptualised it in thermodynamic terms, which makes a lot of sense to me, although the essence is probably similar (the basic issue for Marx is "work", which is of course a thermodyanamic term too, and used in a very similar manner). I have to investigate Technocratic social ideas more thoroughly before I can comment on those though.


And whereas Marx may have focused on the problems of Capitalism in particular, Technocracy has broadened this to include any economy based on scarcity, capitalist or not. This was done due to pinpointing the problem to scarcity, and allowed Technocracy to remain rather politically neutral, if perhaps a bit anti-political. Of course, I should clarify that this is only true where abundance is possible. Technocracy recognizes that in areas of natural scarcity, Price Systems of whatever variety are the only thing possible, and thus there is nothing inherently wrong with them as a whole. From there, pick what you like, from centralist, to anarchic.


Quite so. If I were magically transported to the 15th century, I'd agitate for capitalism and democracy because the technical base simply wouldn't support communism at all.

And Technocrats have never blamed Marx for this. You can only work with what information you have. Even today, we do not blame people for not enacting Technocracy, since most have no idea about it. That is why our program is one of education, so that people can make an informed decision about their future. Of course, it may irk us that some in power deliberately suppress this knowledge, but all in all we still cannot blame them for they are themselves acting only on what they know best, which causes them to perceive Technocracy as a threat to their very way of life. It is unfortunate, but blame doesn't help anyone, and only appears petty and unprofessional.


I find it intriguing I have not come across this before, seeing as I am familiar with Extropianism, for example.

That's good to hear. As for the practical concern of yours, it has certainly been addressed, but is in actuality an issue of massive complexity. Thus we prefer to educate people on Technocracy itself first before we get into that, even more complex problem. Trying to describe our ideas on a "transition period" before that only raises questions that can only be answered by "going back to the basics" as it were.


Kinda like the difficulties our side runs into with the distinction between socialism as a transitional mode and communism as a developed mode, perhaps.

Now of late I have begun to wonder if this transitional phase is actually meaningful anymore. I'm intrigued by Kurzweil's singularity, and beginning to think that in fact the transitional period is going to be very short indeed, because everything kicks off and goes hyperbolic at the same time.

Does Technocracy have any thoughts on the Kurzweil Singularity?
User avatar
By El Gilroy
#1311713
IMHO, it would not matter. If suddenly a number of people with certain - engineered or not - genetic traits happened to qualify as experts superior to the ones active till then, then they would indeed replace them in their administrative position: But nor for the genetic trait itself, but merely for the qualification the trait assists to acquire.

Ergo, it would be remarkable as an incident, but not affect the system itself.

EU is not prepared on nuclear war, but Russia,[…]

It is implausible that the IDF could not or would[…]

Moving on to the next misuse of language that sho[…]

There is no reason to have a state at all unless w[…]