A Non-Half-Assed Response to “One Half a Manifesto” culture

Thu, 01 May 2008 15:29:41 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: Interesting read for those interested in transhumanist and singularity issues

Clip Source: www.acceleratingfuture.com

Well, it has been seven and a half years since Jaron Lanier’s “One Half of a Manifesto”, but I thought, why not respond to it right this very second? Better late than never. This response is for Mr. Lanier and anyone else who is interested. Below is an image of Mr. Lanier getting jiggy with a VR interface.

Jaron Lanier, a pioneer in virtual reality, musician, and currently the lead scientist for the National Tele-Immersion Initiative, worries about the future of human culture more than the gadgets. In his “Half a Manifesto” he takes on those he terms the “cybernetic totalists” who do not seem “to not have been educated in the tradition of scientific skepticism.

I label myself a “so-called cybernetic totalist” in some of the responses that follow because I meet the criteria for the term as used by Mr. Lanier, although I object to its rhetorical implications.

n my response below I will argue that scientific skepticism has been duly applied to our claims.

Tags: transhumanism, singularity, future

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A Non-Half-Assed Response to “One Half a Manifesto” culture