Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two (Metamodern Guides), by Hanzi Freinacht; Metamoderna ApS (May 29, 2019), 495 pages
“Nordic Ideology” by Hanzi Freinacht – Summary and Review – Part 3
technology
“Nordic Ideology” by Hanzi Freinacht – Summary and Review – Part 1
Nordic Ideology: A Metamodern Guide to Politics, Book Two (Metamodern Guides), by Hanzi Freinacht; Metamoderna ApS (May 29, 2019), 495 pages
Summary and Review – Part 1
Review of “Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy” by David J. Chalmers
Reality+: Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by David J. Chalmers, W. W. Norton & Company (January 25, 2022), 544 pages
Unsolvable Problems: Hyperobjects and Cognitive Closure
Possibly the guiding principle of modernity is that any problem can be solved if people just put their minds to it. Science and liberalism have been astonishing successes in raising the standard of living, in an objective sense, for more people than at any other time in history. People like Steven Pinker love to wax optimistic about how Enlightenment values and scientific progress have made the world an objectively better place to live than ever before, with the implication that things will only get better. But is this really true?
Should Social Media Monopolies Be Trust-Busted?
Does Journalism = Activism?
I just read this piece by conservative Christian Rod Dreher commenting on this story by Anthony Borrelli and Katie Sullivan Borrelli in the Ithaca Journal newspaper. Dreher says that this is tantamount to the Ithaca Journal getting permission from a commissar, which makes the story propaganda for the LGBTQ agenda. Is Dreher right about this?
Is the Mind Immaterial or Material?
Cartesian dualism has been a point of contention in philosophy since at least, well, Descartes. The dispute is whether the mind is a separate, immaterial entity from the physical body. Problems have plagued the dualist view since the time of Descartes, primarily how it is that the immaterial mind and material body interact.
More CRISPR Gene Editing Babies
Nature reported that Russian molecular biologist Denis Rebrikov is planning to perform CRISPR experiments on human embryos. He’s running the experiments on the same CCR5 gene as Chinese scientist He Jiankui in 2018. This is once again raising questions on the ethics of human genetic experimentation.
Quantum Computing
What is quantum computing and why is it so damn difficult?
Is Human Nature Immutable?
Human nature, as I define it, is the set of cognitive and behavioral patterns that are innate in human beings, regardless of culture and specific upbringing. These are patterns passed down to us by evolution. With humans, though, we seem to be unique in our ability for metacognition – thinking about our thinking and our behaviors. Does that give us the ability to change our innate human nature?
Journal Club: Chen et al, 2018: Neural Ordinary Differential Equations
In the 2018 NeurIPS conference, 4,845 papers were submitted. The paper I’m reviewing here by Chen et al, 2018, titled Neural Ordinary Differential Equations, won best paper award. The paper discusses using continuous Ordinary Differential Equations (ODE) for Neural Networks (NN) as opposed to the sorts of discrete layers used in the standard Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN).
Transhumanist Virtue Ethics: Desirable Innate Preferences Determined by Reason
Natural rights don’t exist, except in the human mind. They are a way for a social species to maintain social cohesion. But, as useful as natural rights may be in deciding how to organize society, they are not fundamental; instead, they are derivative of what humans, in general, desire.
Should Futurists Support War?
Since at least World War 1 the idea of war as being all about glory and heroism has seen massive disillusionment. Most people, I think, would agree that war is not a good thing, even if some think it a necessary thing. But technological arms races, both during war and in peacetime, generate a plethora of technological advances. That raises the question: should futurists and transhumanists welcome war in order to usher in greater and faster technological advances?
Mesh Networks: Alternatives to the Internet?
Mesh networks figure extensively in my Incarnate series. They’re used by the forty-eights – and others – as a way to run parallel ‘internets’ so as not to be tracked on the original internet. But mesh networks are not all science fiction – they’re actually being used in the real world.
Augmented Reality: Not Science Fiction
Augmented Reality (AR) is a technology that features heavily in my Incarnate novel series. This technology isn’t just a science fiction creation, though. Just like in my story, it’s becoming more and more a part of our lives and only promises to become a bigger part in the near future.
Supermassive Black Hole Image
A collaboration of hundreds of scientists using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) have been able to capture an image of a supermassive black hole in the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy.
Russiagate, Cognitive Bias, Human Nature, and My Political Nihilism
After two years of investigation and constant media coverage, the Mueller Report is finally finished. While anyone outside the Justice Department has yet to read the full report, Attorney General William Barr has released a summary. The so-called Russiagate story is not yet over, however, as there are now calls for the entire Mueller Report to be made public. Exactly what the Russiagate story is and how it started is expertly told by Matt Taibbi in his “It’s official: Russiagate is this generation’s WMD” piece. What I’m more interested in is how this whole story is indicative of human nature.
Neuromorphic Computing
Machine learning and deep learning has never been more advanced than it is today, with computing power evolving tremendously and becoming capable of processing information and learn from larger data sets than ever before. An emerging type of computing, known as neuromorphic computing, is making breakthroughs and becoming popular with AI and neuroscience researchers.
Automation can Help Fulfill Diversity Needs in Business and Middle America
Automation of low-skill jobs could spell disaster in our future. Right now, the U.S. and western culture in general is faced with a growing racial divide. What if I told you that one problem could be used to fix the other?
Twitter and the Right to be Heard
Social media, and twitter in particular, has recently become popular in the conversation about freedom of speech. This surrounds the issue of Twitter punishing people for posting right-wing and conservative ideas more than people on the left. Alex Jones being banned and Kathy Griffin not being banned are two exemplary cases.
The fear here is that Twitter is policing people for wrongthink. Only left-wing and liberal ideas are allowed, and with Twitter being a primary hub for communication, this threatens to silence right-wing and conservative views from the public conversation. This would give left-wing and liberal ideas de facto hegemony in western culture. This has prompted people to call for Twitter usage to be treated like a utility or even a human right, in the sense that humans have a right to free speech.
I think this is a misguided way of thinking about Twitter. Being banned from Twitter does not infringe on a person’s right to free speech. It only infringes on their ability to have that speech heard by a larger audience. This brings up the questions: do humans have a fundamental right to be heard? Is being heard a part of our right to free speech?