m1k3y

When cars are gone it’s going to be hard to believe they ever once existed.

The cover has a Superman-esque hero on the cross, which is almost what you expect from a comic titled “Supergod” and in the hands of a lesser writer, that’s what you’d get. This, though, is much more serious and thoughtful, narrowing in on the idea that a superhuman wouldn’t think like a regular human, it wouldn’t have the same concerns, it wouldn’t focus on saving cats from tress or stopping bank robberies. It would slaughter millions to solve India’s overpopulation crisis. It would be alien to us, it would be a god in the most sincere and terrifying senses of that concept.

When comparing another entity’s sentience to ours, then, we must take into account similarities and differences. We cannot sense the Earth’s magnetic fields the way birds or cockroaches can, nor do we have any idea what the cells of our stomach are experiencing most of the time. As we develop non-human intelligence, there will be even more categories of perception that do not fall within our level of sentience. Intelligent robots will be able to perceive more of the EM spectrum, sense electrical conductivity, or detect exotic particles.

Going into a posthuman future, we should not base sentience on our anthropocentric limitations but on the concept of mutual sentience. That which we can perceive we can usually impart. Through description, song, or art we are able to transmit to others of our kind the meaning behind a particular perception. Thus if two entities have overlapping categories of perception, they may be able to communicate with each other. Without overlap, two entities may still be sentient but not mutually sentient, and as such unable to communicate.

Toward a meaningful definition of posthuman sentience | Machines Like Us

..the near-certainty that the technologies of human intelligence augmentation will continue apace. The technologies that may be dead-ends for efforts to construct a self-aware artificial mind could easily be of great value as non-conscious assistants to human minds.

The notion that creating “real” AI may turn out to be extraordinarily difficult, and the idea that human intelligence augmentation could itself turn out to be a more promising line of research..

Singularity Scenarios: The Ultimate Innovation or an AI Apocalypse?

The object of the game right now is for the players to build the “Darknet,” an alternative network through which a global resistance can operate, and people can begin to piece together why NASA scientists are being rounded up and what the hell happened over the skies in Los Angeles. (via Rushkoff on writing for a new alternate reality game – Boing Boing)

I incorporated steampunk into my apartment as well. Plus, “style” for me was also a lifestyle. My steampunk has a lot of positive, future-looking attitudes to it, and the DIY movement gets picked up there as well. I felt a lot better upcycling old tights into arm coverings, fixing battered chairs I might otherwise throw out, and even growing a garden on my apartment’s tiny deck. These things are not what people view as steampunk, but being in that style and mindset, I wanted to know more about how my world worked, and how I could do things myself. I felt more positive all over.

Living the Vita Steampunk: Whisper Merlot

COILHOUSE is a love letter to alternative culture, written in an era when alternative culture no longer exists. And because it no longer exists, we take from yesterday and tomorrow, from the mainstream and from the underground, to construct our own version. We cover art, fashion, technology, music and film to create an alternative culture that we would like to live in, as opposed to the one that’s being sold or handed down to us.

Coilhouse » Mission Statement

An artificial appropriation of different styles from different eras, the hipster represents the end of Western civilization – a culture lost in the superficiality of its past and unable to create any new meaning. Not only is it unsustainable, it is suicidal. While previous youth movements have challenged the dysfunction and decadence of their elders, today we have the “hipster” – a youth subculture that mirrors the doomed shallowness of mainstream society.

Hipster: The Dead End of Western Civilization