The Contrarian

Russell Blackford on the Fermi Paradox.

Regular Contrarian readers may have noticed the healthy number of links to Sentient Developments over the years. The reason is simple: SD manages to explain complex subjects in plain terms, but never at the expense of the ethical implications of evolutionary technologies. This is great for a layman like myself, who can grasp Big Concepts, [...]

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Near-Future Shock: Surviving the Collision With a Perilous Tomorrow.

George Dvorsky, that Titan of future-forward analysis, has a chilling, must read post at Sentient Developments about how democracies will fare in an increasingly dangerous 21st Century. Dvorsky suggests that just-around-the-corner weapons of mass destruction (he identifies bioweapons, dirty bombs, weaponized nanotechnology, robotics and misused artificial intelligence as singular dangers), coupled with impending environmental disruption [...]

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More Buddhism and Transhumanism.

Brian Appleyard wrote a book I didn’t read called How To Live Forever Or Die Trying. In it, he talks to Transhumanists who believe death is a condition we can transcend through science and technology. According to current definitions, Transhumanism is an “intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies [...]

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Tuesday Trifles.

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Buddhism vs. Transhumanism.

After yesterday’s long-ass post about the Dalai Lama, I figured we might as well stay on the Buddhist tip. Found an interesting article at thinkBuddha.org about Transhumanism — another abiding interest of mine. The blogger at thinkBuddha was forthright in admitting his relative ignorance of Transhumanism; the reason he was writing about it at all was because [...]

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