Chapter Twelve: Tomorrow People So, first you couldn't spank kids because it might scar them, and now you can't scold them because it's just as harmful? It's not enough that children are ignorant and unprincipled, they need to be undisciplined as well? If I see a parent remain completely inert and unresponsive while their scowling, self-centered offspring run around in Level Five Brat Mode, I should be able to charge them with child abuse. Letting a kid run wild for fear of denting their self esteem is as traumatically damaging in the long run as beating, skin-branding or a clitorectomy. You deprive them of vital qualities required by life, like the ability to develop any admirable character traits or behave in a civilized society. You also greatly increase the odds that they will end up down a dark alley on their knees taking two in the back of the head by an early age. Bratty adolescents have this tendacy of ticking off the wrong people. And now a moment of silence for The Warren Ellis Forum as it closes its doors over at Delphi this weekend. Mr. Ellis will still have a sizable web presence with his own site, Art Bomb, Die Puny Humans, and Ordering Comics, but my fond memories of the WEF will stay with me for a long time. It was the first "web community" I ever partook of, and I got turned on to many great comics, artists, websites, bands, and cultural phenomena through its members. On top of that the forum had an impact on the real world, helping to launch several books and promote a number of under-the-radar sites (this one included). Many smaller forums are sprouting up in typical postmodern viral/meme fashion to take its place, and they will no doubt do an excellent job of it, but the WEF will always be remembered as the first one that "got it right." It wasn't about super-heroes or continuity, it didn't support the assumed primacy of fandom or cater to the geek-snobs, and it was brutally honest about the guerilla tactics needed to shore up the comics industry and helped carry them out. It will be missed. Sometime in the last couple of months I saw an exchange of letters in a magazine that interested me. It was in Free Inquiry, Skeptic, or Skeptical Inquirer, I honestly can't remember. The writer who started the discussion put forth the premise that Christianity, especially Catholicism, was squarely to blame for the fact that he and his entire family would die in the next 100 years. His arguement was based on the fact that the Dark Ages between 300 AD and 1300 AD were the fault of the church, and if they had never happened medical advancement would be 1000 years more advanced than it is now. You get the point. The argument is an old "what if?" scenario. The premise is straightforward enough, but to be fair it doesn't take into account the European finacial tentpole that the church provided, or what direction western philosophy might have taken had it not been required to rebel against something, or a number of other mitigating factors. In any case it is an interesting mind game, made more compelling by the debate now brewing over the next 1000 years. Wesley J. Smith has written a piece for the National Review condemning the branches of Futurism referred to as Transhumanism and Extropy, calling them "the next great threat to human dignity." There have been other articles on the subject recently, but to my knowledge this is the first open attack on principle against the idea of a post-human future and harnessing human evolutionary potential to appear in a mainstream forum. (Fans of Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy will recognize that this is the beginning of the schism between Edenists and Adamists.) God forbid (quite literally in this case) we strive to eliminate disease, lengthen lifespans and otherwise improve medical science. No, Smith calls for a sweeping international ban on all such studies involving genetics, human and otherwise. Smith's editorial led to a spirited response from Trinity College's James Hughes, and the fight was on. This little skermish has been a long time coming. Those who ask nothing more than an exploration of potential advancement are up against critics who are fighting tooth-and-nail to make things worse for everyone. The choice to be ignorant that I discussed a couple weeks ago is taken one step farther as ignorance is made to default path for mankind. I'm not just talking about religious conservative policy-makers here, either. Most collectivist intelligencia decry the possibilities of genetics because they invalidate the social norms and ideals they depend on. They also like to throw around the word "eugenics" in creepy tones like it's the boogie man while ignoring the fact that 9 out of 10 high school grads in the standardized emotion-based public education system they constructed couldn't define "eugenics" if you asked them. But even as the opponents come in different flavors, so do the most verbal champions. There are the individualistic and downright Libertarian Futurists, the slighty creepier social engineers, those who hang their hopes on technology, those who want to change our concept of time, and those who take a pragmatic look at the applications of imminent advances, as well as many others. These distinctions are not made by the critics in order to keep the saber-rattling simple, no doubt. The philosophical premise of the current debate rests on the following questions: Is it an inalienable aspect of "human dignity" that we be succeptable to disease just because of our geography? Or that our genetic code be full of leftover evolutionary junk? Or that we die for want of a stray enzyme? Or that the radiant memories of our life experiences, with all the wisdom they hold, evaporate from our brains as they age? Perhaps dignity would be better served if we focused on improving what we are, living longer, tapping into all that unused brain tissue, and generally thinking about the future and what it will bring. In short, are we responsible for our own tomorrows? The religious critics of any cognitive human advancement say that it it defiles human nature, yet they claim that same nature is corrupt and must be shackled. The collectivist critics rage against the dangerous sociological impact of manipulating evolution, but continue to mock society as an unjust establishment that needs dismantling. They won't admit what frightens them is than Futurism, Transhumanism and Extropy redefine the human image, rewrite what constitutes human needs, and proposes intelligence, instead of traditions and rituals, as a standard of value. It commits the sin of envisioning a world that doesn't need them anymore (as if it ever did). Just because something is ritualistic or traditional does not mean it requires preserving. That which allows ignorance to cling to the sides of intelligence like bloated remoras should be sliced away. This is not by any means a radical viewpoint. I'm not telling you something you don't already know. This is about the future and our race being a part of it. If not, there's always the Voluntary Human Extinction movement. New Stuff: Speaking of genetics, they grew pig's teeth inside a rat's intestine this week. How cool is that? Y'know, I'm 40 years old and I've never known all the lyrics to Immigrant Song. Thankfully there's the Viking Kitties to educate me. I could give in to temptation and write a line-by-line critigue of the RIAA's hilarious new anti-piracy propaganda site, but John Scalzi of IndieCrit has posted a pretty complete story about it on BlogCritics. Just in time to save my primal reptile brain from the wholesale onslaught of really shitty rock bands like The Hives and The White Stripes being touted as the next icons of rebellion, here come two back-to-basics punk outfits making glorious noise. First is Bloodhag, a quartet of geeks who pound out songs exclusively about science fiction writers. Second is Bad Astronaut who are about to release their debut disc "Houston, We have a Drinking Problem." Christopher Hitchens has elected to quit writing for The Nation because of the magazine's rather silly stance on the war on terrorism. I salute anyone who chucks a paying gig on principle. Here's one sentence I thought I'd never get to write: Scientists have discovered the world's funniest joke. They also observed the life cycle of a black hole. Science Rules! Bruce Sterling posted a link to an extremely neat NASA realtime animated satellite tracker. Hours of fun. Mark Vadnais sent me a link to the Libertarian Babes Calendar. He has also given his Inpoint site a spiffy new design. Go gaze upon its magnificence. Free Comic Book Day for 2003 was announced. With any luck Slave Labor Graphics will do a special giveaway issue of Halo and Sprocket which has become one of my favorite books. Alasdair Watson has written a commendable piece on the communicative potential of comics over at Ninth Art. The Jesus Museum had some fun and disturbing christian websites this week, including the Christian wrestler, the Spanking Ministry, and the site dedicated to having far too many children. Finally, the new Walter Jon Williams novel that's been dangling over there in the Eager Anticipatons column for months has been released in the UK but won't come out here for another year! Yes, I know I can order it from Amazon.UK but what the fuck? The guy's written Star Wars books and an episode of Andromeda, so he's not marketable? Next Week: The Damned, the Legendary Pink Dots, and new King Crimson! Ciao for now. JP |
Eager Anticipations: Dita Von Teese in Playboy The Moebius online series Arzak Rhapsody. (Has anyone heard any more news on this?) The Leonid Meteors Egyptian Exhibit at Boston Science Warren Ellis' Global Frequency A new Nancy Kress novel Tadao Ando Exhibit at Clark Art A new Jonathan Carroll novel. New Discs and/or Tours by The Terrastock Music Festival The Super Mega Fest in Boston Alan Moore's Magic Words A new Walter Jon Williams novel. Another Line of Todd McFarlane/Clive Barker Tortured Souls figures. The SFX Expo in Boston DaVinci Drawings at The MET Conventions 2003: The 2004 World Science Fiction Convention returns to Boston. Currently in My Various Stereos: Finnforest Finnforest/Lahto Matkalle Theatre of Tragedy Assembly Peter Hammill Out of Water Space Needle Voyager Subarachnoid Space Endless Renovation Project Lo Dabbling in Darkness Hawkwind Psychedelic Warlords XTC Wasp Star Placebo Black Market Music Star People Genius Dead Can Dance Into the Labyrinth Gryphon The Collection Pallas The Sentinel Shellyan Orphan Humroot L7 Bricks are Heavy Blue Oyster Cult Fire of Unknown Origin Laurie Anderson Life on a String Enchant Wounded Frank Zappa Thing Fish Djam Karet The Ritual Continues |
Eager Anticipations: Dita Von Teese in Playboy The Moebius online series Arzak Rhapsody. (Has anyone heard any more news on this?) The Leonid Meteors Egyptian Exhibit at Boston Science Warren Ellis' Global Frequency A new Nancy Kress novel Tadao Ando Exhibit at Clark Art A new Jonathan Carroll novel. New Discs and/or Tours by The Terrastock Music Festival The Super Mega Fest in Boston Alan Moore's Magic Words A new Walter Jon Williams novel. Another Line of Todd McFarlane/Clive Barker Tortured Souls figures. The SFX Expo in Boston DaVinci Drawings at The MET Conventions 2003: The 2004 World Science Fiction Convention returns to Boston. Currently in My Various Stereos: Finnforest Finnforest/Lahto Matkalle Theatre of Tragedy Assembly Peter Hammill Out of Water Space Needle Voyager Subarachnoid Space Endless Renovation Project Lo Dabbling in Darkness Hawkwind Psychedelic Warlords XTC Wasp Star Placebo Black Market Music Star People Genius Dead Can Dance Into the Labyrinth Gryphon The Collection Pallas The Sentinel Shellyan Orphan Humroot L7 Bricks are Heavy Blue Oyster Cult Fire of Unknown Origin Laurie Anderson Life on a String Enchant Wounded Frank Zappa Thing Fish Djam Karet The Ritual Continues |
Chapter Twelve: Tomorrow People So, first you couldn't spank kids because it might scar them, and now you can't scold them because it's just as harmful? It's not enough that children are ignorant and unprincipled, they need to be undisciplined as well? If I see a parent remain completely inert and unresponsive while their scowling, self-centered offspring run around in Level Five Brat Mode, I should be able to charge them with child abuse. Letting a kid run wild for fear of denting their self esteem is as traumatically damaging in the long run as beating, skin-branding or a clitorectomy. You deprive them of vital qualities required by life, like the ability to develop any admirable character traits or behave in a civilized society. You also greatly increase the odds that they will end up down a dark alley on their knees taking two in the back of the head by an early age. Bratty adolescents have this tendacy of ticking off the wrong people. And now a moment of silence for The Warren Ellis Forum as it closes its doors over at Delphi this weekend. Mr. Ellis will still have a sizable web presence with his own site, Art Bomb, Die Puny Humans, and Ordering Comics, but my fond memories of the WEF will stay with me for a long time. It was the first "web community" I ever partook of, and I got turned on to many great comics, artists, websites, bands, and cultural phenomena through its members. On top of that the forum had an impact on the real world, helping to launch several books and promote a number of under-the-radar sites (this one included). Many smaller forums are sprouting up in typical postmodern viral/meme fashion to take its place, and they will no doubt do an excellent job of it, but the WEF will always be remembered as the first one that "got it right." It wasn't about super-heroes or continuity, it didn't support the assumed primacy of fandom or cater to the geek-snobs, and it was brutally honest about the guerilla tactics needed to shore up the comics industry and helped carry them out. It will be missed. Sometime in the last couple of months I saw an exchange of letters in a magazine that interested me. It was in Free Inquiry, Skeptic, or Skeptical Inquirer, I honestly can't remember. The writer who started the discussion put forth the premise that Christianity, especially Catholicism, was squarely to blame for the fact that he and his entire family would die in the next 100 years. His arguement was based on the fact that the Dark Ages between 300 AD and 1300 AD were the fault of the church, and if they had never happened medical advancement would be 1000 years more advanced than it is now. You get the point. The argument is an old "what if?" scenario. The premise is straightforward enough, but to be fair it doesn't take into account the European finacial tentpole that the church provided, or what direction western philosophy might have taken had it not been required to rebel against something, or a number of other mitigating factors. In any case it is an interesting mind game, made more compelling by the debate now brewing over the next 1000 years. Wesley J. Smith has written a piece for the National Review condemning the branches of Futurism referred to as Transhumanism and Extropy, calling them "the next great threat to human dignity." There have been other articles on the subject recently, but to my knowledge this is the first open attack on principle against the idea of a post-human future and harnessing human evolutionary potential to appear in a mainstream forum. (Fans of Peter Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy will recognize that this is the beginning of the schism between Edenists and Adamists.) God forbid (quite literally in this case) we strive to eliminate disease, lengthen lifespans and otherwise improve medical science. No, Smith calls for a sweeping international ban on all such studies involving genetics, human and otherwise. Smith's editorial led to a spirited response from Trinity College's James Hughes, and the fight was on. This little skermish has been a long time coming. Those who ask nothing more than an exploration of potential advancement are up against critics who are fighting tooth-and-nail to make things worse for everyone. The choice to be ignorant that I discussed a couple weeks ago is taken one step farther as ignorance is made to default path for mankind. I'm not just talking about religious conservative policy-makers here, either. Most collectivist intelligencia decry the possibilities of genetics because they invalidate the social norms and ideals they depend on. They also like to throw around the word "eugenics" in creepy tones like it's the boogie man while ignoring the fact that 9 out of 10 high school grads in the standardized emotion-based public education system they constructed couldn't define "eugenics" if you asked them. But even as the opponents come in different flavors, so do the most verbal champions. There are the individualistic and downright Libertarian Futurists, the slighty creepier social engineers, those who hang their hopes on technology, those who want to change our concept of time, and those who take a pragmatic look at the applications of imminent advances, as well as many others. These distinctions are not made by the critics in order to keep the saber-rattling simple, no doubt. The philosophical premise of the current debate rests on the following questions: Is it an inalienable aspect of "human dignity" that we be succeptable to disease just because of our geography? Or that our genetic code be full of leftover evolutionary junk? Or that we die for want of a stray enzyme? Or that the radiant memories of our life experiences, with all the wisdom they hold, evaporate from our brains as they age? Perhaps dignity would be better served if we focused on improving what we are, living longer, tapping into all that unused brain tissue, and generally thinking about the future and what it will bring. In short, are we responsible for our own tomorrows? The religious critics of any cognitive human advancement say that it it defiles human nature, yet they claim that same nature is corrupt and must be shackled. The collectivist critics rage against the dangerous sociological impact of manipulating evolution, but continue to mock society as an unjust establishment that needs dismantling. They won't admit what frightens them is than Futurism, Transhumanism and Extropy redefine the human image, rewrite what constitutes human needs, and proposes intelligence, instead of traditions and rituals, as a standard of value. It commits the sin of envisioning a world that doesn't need them anymore (as if it ever did). Just because something is ritualistic or traditional does not mean it requires preserving. That which allows ignorance to cling to the sides of intelligence like bloated remoras should be sliced away. This is not by any means a radical viewpoint. I'm not telling you something you don't already know. This is about the future and our race being a part of it. If not, there's always the Voluntary Human Extinction movement. New Stuff: Speaking of genetics, they grew pig's teeth inside a rat's intestine this week. How cool is that? Y'know, I'm 40 years old and I've never known all the lyrics to Immigrant Song. Thankfully there's the Viking Kitties to educate me. I could give in to temptation and write a line-by-line critigue of the RIAA's hilarious new anti-piracy propaganda site, but John Scalzi of IndieCrit has posted a pretty complete story about it on BlogCritics. Just in time to save my primal reptile brain from the wholesale onslaught of really shitty rock bands like The Hives and The White Stripes being touted as the next icons of rebellion, here come two back-to-basics punk outfits making glorious noise. First is Bloodhag, a quartet of geeks who pound out songs exclusively about science fiction writers. Second is Bad Astronaut who are about to release their debut disc "Houston, We have a Drinking Problem." Christopher Hitchens has elected to quit writing for The Nation because of the magazine's rather silly stance on the war on terrorism. I salute anyone who chucks a paying gig on principle. Here's one sentence I thought I'd never get to write: Scientists have discovered the world's funniest joke. They also observed the life cycle of a black hole. Science Rules! Bruce Sterling posted a link to an extremely neat NASA realtime animated satellite tracker. Hours of fun. Mark Vadnais sent me a link to the Libertarian Babes Calendar. He has also given his Inpoint site a spiffy new design. Go gaze upon its magnificence. Free Comic Book Day for 2003 was announced. With any luck Slave Labor Graphics will do a special giveaway issue of Halo and Sprocket which has become one of my favorite books. Alasdair Watson has written a commendable piece on the communicative potential of comics over at Ninth Art. The Jesus Museum had some fun and disturbing christian websites this week, including the Christian wrestler, the Spanking Ministry, and the site dedicated to having far too many children. Finally, the new Walter Jon Williams novel that's been dangling over there in the Eager Anticipatons column for months has been released in the UK but won't come out here for another year! Yes, I know I can order it from Amazon.UK but what the fuck? The guy's written Star Wars books and an episode of Andromeda, so he's not marketable? Next Week: The Damned, the Legendary Pink Dots, and new King Crimson! Ciao for now. JP |
