"The Techno-Humanist Manifesto: A new philosophy of progress for the 21st century" by Jason Crawford.
"We live in an age of wonders. To our ancient ancestors, our mundane routines would seem like wizardry: soaring through the air at hundreds of miles an hour; making night bright as day with the flick of a finger; commanding giant metal servants to weave our clothes or forge our tools; mixing chemicals in vast cauldrons to make a fertilizing elixir that grants vigor to crops; viewing events or even holding conversations from thousands of miles away; warding off the diseases that once sent half of children to an early grave. We build our homes in towers that rise above the hills; we build our ships larger and stronger than the ocean waves; we build our bridges with skeletons of steel, to withstand wind and storm. Our sages gaze deep into the universe, viewing colors the eye cannot see, and they have discovered other worlds circling other Suns."
And yet, we live in a time of greater depression and anxiety disorders than ever before in human history. Which he doesn't mention but he does say...
"But not everyone agrees that the advancement of science, technology, and industry has been such a good thing. 'Is 'Progress' Good for Humanity?' asks a 2014 Atlantic article, saying that 'the Industrial Revolution has jeopardized humankind's ability to live happily and sustainably upon the Earth.' In Guns, Germs, and Steel, a grand narrative of civilizational advancement, author Jared Diamond disclaims the assumption 'that the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle for iron-based statehood represents 'progress,' or that it has led to an increase in human happiness.' Diamond also called agriculture 'the worst mistake in the history of the human race' and 'a catastrophe from which we have never recovered,' adding that this perspective demolishes a 'sacred belief: that human history over the past million years has been a long tale of progress.' Historian Christopher Lasch is even less charitable, asking: 'How does it happen that serious people continue to believe in progress, in the face of massive evidence that might have been expected to refute the idea of progress once and for all?' Economic growth is called an 'addiction,' a 'fetish,' a 'Ponzi scheme,' a 'fairy tale.' There is even a 'degrowth' movement advocating economic regress as an ideal."
"With so little awareness of progress, and so much despair for the future, our society is unable to imagine what to build or to dream of where to go. As late as the 1960s, Americans envisioned flying cars, Moon bases, and making the desert bloom using cheap, abundant energy from nuclear power." "Today we hope, at best, to avoid disaster: to stop climate change, to prevent pandemics, to stave off the collapse of democracy."
"This is not merely academic. If society believes that scientific, technological and industrial progress is harmful or dangerous, people will work to slow it down or stop it."
"Even where the technical challenges have long been solved, we seem unable to build or to operate. The costs of healthcare, education, and housing continue to rise.30 Energy projects, even 'clean' ones, are held up for years by permitting delays and lack of grid connections.31 California's high-speed rail, now decades in the making, has already cost billions of dollars and is still years away from completing even an initial operating segment, which will not provide service to either LA or San Francisco."
This is an interesting point. Technological advancement should make everything cheaper and faster while still being just as good or better in terms of quality. But since that's not happening, at least in certain sectors, it would appear the weight of human bureaucracy can slow or prevent technological progress.
"On the horizon, powerful new technologies are emerging, intensifying the debate over technology and progress. Robotaxis are doing business on city streets; mRNA can create vaccines and maybe soon cure cancers; there's a renaissance in both supersonic flight and nuclear energy.34 SpaceX is landing reusable rockets, promising to enable the space economy, and testing an enormous Starship, promising to colonize Mars. A new generation of founders have ambitions in atoms, not just bits: manufacturing facilities in space, net-zero hydrocarbons synthesized with solar or nuclear power, robots that carve sculptures in marble.35 Most significantly, LLMs have created a general kind of artificial intelligence -- which, depending on who you ask, is either the next big thing in the software industry, the next general-purpose technology to rival the steam engine or the electric generator, the next age of humanity after agriculture and industrialization, or the next dominant species that will replace humanity altogether."
"The world needs a moral defense of progress based in humanism and agency -- that is, one that holds human life as its standard of value, and emphasizes our ability to shape the future. This is what I am calling 'techno-humanism': the idea that science, technology and industry are good -- because they promote human life, well-being, and agency."
Ok, so, if I understand this guy's premise correctly, the fact that depression and anxiety are at an all-time high, and this appears to be a reaction to previous generations of technology, is not something we should worry about because, while technology always creates new problems, yet more technology always solves them. So it is just a matter of time before solutions to the current depression and anxiety problems will be found, and maybe they will involve new technologies like AI.
Those of you who have been following me for a while know a lot of what I predict is based on my experience of disillusionment brought about by the internet. In the mid-to-late 90s, I was one of those people who thought the internet would be a "democratizing" force, empowering the little people, and bringing mutual understanding between people from different walks of life. Instead, it has proven to be a "centralizing" force, with a small handful of giant tech companies dominating the landscape, with economic power concentrated in those same tech companies, and the "little people" being worse off as inequality becomes vaster and vaster, and the vast increase in communications bandwidth hasn't brought people from different walks of life to any mutual understanding -- people are getting along worse, not better, and our society is more polarized than it ever was. As the old saying goes, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. So I always feel distrustful of any utopian claims for future technology. The rule I tend to follow is: If we're talking about technological capabilities, I'm an extreme "optimist" -- I think technological capabilities will continue, even past the point where technology is capable of everything humans are capable of -- but if we're talking about social outcomes, I'm an extreme "pessimist" -- I think technology never solves problems rooted in human nature. Give humans infinite communication bandwidth, and you don't get mutual understanding and harmony. If people don't get along, people don't get along, and that's all there is to it. People have to solve "people" problems. Technology doesn't solve "people" problems.
The first 5 installments have been written and they're all pretty interesting. I'm just responding here to "The Present Crisis" introduction. I may or may not comment on later installments (not promising anything). I encourage you all to read it for yourself.
Announcing The Techno-Humanist Manifesto | The Roots of Progress
#solidstatelife #ai #environment #sociology #philosophy #futurology
