Scientific Literacy: More Necessary Today Than Ever

It is all to easy to complain, these days, about any number of things. And it seems that where politics are concerned, all anyone is based on is what they complain about the most. Pessimism is chíc these days; optimism is considered naíve. So what, then, do we make of something that is both optimistic and pessimistic?

First; the pessimism. Much ado has been made about the fact that the Northwest Passage has been freed "for the first time ever". This video is proof of it:

Now, nobody is suggesting that this isn't going to have implications on global warming & global climate change in general. But this is used, once again, as evidence of man's fault: when NASA itself says this isn't so. Their culprit? Shifting wind patterns.

And this gets let go, by the public -- because the general comprehension of the media's representation is that "well, they did the research, so I don't have to." And that, more than anything, is the greatest threat facing society. Why? Because it means that whoever does do that research, controls society's opinions on everything under the sun. Are you comfortable with this? I certainly am not.

So where does this come from?

From the National Education Association:

A historic turnover is taking place in the teaching profession. While student enrollments are rising rapidly, more than a million veteran teachers are nearing retirement. Experts predict that overall we will need more than 2 million new teachers in the next decade.

This teacher recruitment problem, which has reached crisis proportions in some areas, is most acute in urban and rural schools; for high-need subject areas such as special education, math and science, and for teachers of color.

[...]

The statistics for turnover among new teachers are startling. Some 20 percent of all new hires leave the classroom within three years. In urban districts, the numbers are worse—close to 50 percent of newcomers flee the profession during their first five years of teaching.

Why do new teachers leave? They say they feel overwhelmed by the expectations and scope of the job. Many say they feel isolated and unsupported in their classrooms, or that expectations are unclear.

Nothing is particularly new about this. In fact, it is used as the most powerful argument for increasing teacher pay, for increasing funding to the Department of Education, and in general all sorts of interesting/curious events. But let us take a somewhat deeper examination of this plight -- one that won't exactly raise us up from this pessimism, but perhaps allow us to understand it a step or two further:

It is not in the best interests of the education lobby for education to actually improve.

It's a statement that we don't often think about, but bear with me and I will explain my logic -- or at least what passes for it. It's actually fairly simple. We'll use Washington, DC as the example for this. From the Cato@Liberty blog:

Is the problem insufficient funding? As it happens, DCPS’s total gross budget for the last school year was upwards of one billion dollars according to its own website, and its enrollment was about 52,000 students. That means DCPS had total per pupil spending of nearly $20,000 last year, or half a million dollars per class of 25 students. You’d think that would cover books.

In a previous article on this blog, "It's For The Children! ... And Other Lies My Government Told Me", I documented the fact that the national average annual cost per student for public schools was $8,701; whereas the cost per student for private schools was $3,116/yr. Almost a third the cost. So, going back to Washington, DC. How could this be so bloated over both the national average for both public and private schools? Well, the answer to that question can also be found in the public record: From The Examiner, circa August 24, 2007: "D.C. Public Schools will pay nearly $5.4 million in full-time salaries to 68 teachers and staff who won’t work full-time jobs this year, schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee told The Examiner on Thursday."

From all of the above, we have learned thus far three things:

Scholastic Acheivement is sliding continuously

This isn't much of a shocker, really: search anywhere and you'll see that there are, annually, fewer and fewer American engineering & physics graduates every year. There really isn't anybody whom is impressed with NCLB -- and that's not even if you include the people who actually study the topic.

Public schools cost more per student than private

There's not much equivocating there: $8.7k for public as compared to $3.1k for private? And let us not forget here that private schools -- even the 'average' ones -- have their impression of prestige for a reason: traditionally, private schools achieve greater scholastic results than public schools.

Washington DC schools spend millions of dollars on faculty that, literally, does nothing.

That incident reported was by no means a singular incident. It has happened before, and in larger numbers. Even so, these were actual teachers being discussed: lets not forget that schools also have administrative staffing; there have been entire studies to compare the number of non-teaching faculty members to the numbers of pupils... which says that this is a problem as well; less, one can only assume, for private schools than for public ones.

Even so; is simply privatizing all the schools the solution to this problem? (If our military security is any lesson, the answer to that question is an emphatic "NO!") Still, creating competition between schools simply couldn't hurt. Perhaps, if schools themselves were held accountable for the allocation of their resources on their students, we might see some streamlining of costs and some improvement of scholastic acheivement. And time and time again, the records have shown: the only effective mechanism for accountability is to put the fiscal survival of an institution on the line. That's called "market competition." However, there's no sign that given today's political and social climates, that honest markets can be restored to so ubiquitous and socialized -- which is what our educational system is. Should things actually turn around, however, it is effectively already too late. The day of the Renaissance man has been dead and buried for centuries.

So where do we go from here? Well, our nation's resident mad military scientist organization -- DARPA -- has already begun to aid in this:

Famous for funding futuristic technology, DARPA is spending $24 million to launch the Brain-Machine Interface Program (BMI), with the five-year research monies divided among six laboratories. High on its development wish list are mind-controlled battle robots, as well as airplanes flown and weapons or equipment operated with nothing more than thought – even from a distance – all through wireless neural interfaces.

And mind you, DARPA is not alone on this. Should true data-in BMI be developed, the problem of education and scientific literacy in particular could be resolved absolutely. Howso? Because the possibility of having a microchip -- or ten -- implanted in your head, and thus allowing you a replete factual education -- with said procedure to cost in the same ballpark as a breast augmentation does today -- between $4,000 to $10,000, USD -- would allow for wholly 'humanities'-esque education; focusing on reasoning skills and the like.

Without such a development, we are likely to face a scenario where the amount of information necessary to make an informed opinion on any given subject continues to fall further and further from the grasp of even our communities of "experts" -- but thankfully, if DARPA, Cyberkinetics, and other such organizations/companies have anything to say, we won't have too much to worry about there: the money is being spent, the effort is being made. While a complicated task, so long as the funding doesn't dry up it's essentially inevitable. (I suppose that statement makes me a functionalist -- but gee, isn't that a shocker to anyone whom has read the title of this blog?)

(Yes, for you AGI enthusiasts; the same gains can be made by AGI as can be made by BMI -- if and only if we hand over control of society to our AGI's. Which, if they are "Seed" AGIs, is entirely likely. But that is too "post-singularity" a subject for this author to be fully comfortable attempting to discuss.)

Video: Over-the-Phone Lie Detectors

The technology is called Voice Stress Analysis. It is used extensively in insurance call-centers, and has been around for a few decades. Essentially, it detects what statements you make which you feel an unusual amount of stress about compared to your "baseline" -- and thus makes guesses or assumptions about your mendacity. Now here's a question: With the "Bush Wiretapping Scheme", what makes anyone think that this sort of technology isn't being used, to pick up the conversations that people feel "anxious" about? Observe:

Video: Captcha Tech Used As High-Grade OCR

Distributed computing seems to be all the rage these days; 'Hey, kids! Turn your PS3 into a part of a supercomputer while you're not using it!'. But this just seems like it's cheating. While what they're doing is pure genius, as a transhumanist, I can't help but have visions of human subprocessors a la brain-computer interfaces.

How to Spot Common Political Misconceptions

It is a sad truth that the common man has little-to-no understanding of economic theory. And of those who do, many -- especially within liberal, conservative, and libertarian 'circles' -- have badly warped perspectives. One such area is the endlessly recurring fallacy: the "Malthusian Catastrophe".

Those who believe in this beast tell us that there is a certain point at which all the resources of the world will be "used up" -- especially food -- and then we will all be left scrambling for the few resources remaining, until we literally wind up back in the stone age. Within the "green" politicalscape, this belief is rampant. One element that is ironic about this element of the liberal/green agenda, however, is that Thomas Malthus himself wouldn't have agreed with the modern perspective of his own theories:

Most readers will be surprised to learn that Malthus would agree more with Downen than he would with his so-called “supporters.” Downen’s essay, like many by free market environmentalists, starts with a familiar refrain about Malthus. Malthus, we are told, thought that the hare of population growth would outrace the tortoise of resource growth; when the race is over, starvation, disease and death awaited us. Downen goes on, of course to show that Malthus was wrong. The problem is, it isn’t Malthus that is wrong; it is his “supporters,” the neo-Malthusians. In an ironic twist of fate, those who bear his name today would in fact have been his opponents during his own lifetime. In terms of today’s debate, Malthus would be more likely to side with Downen than with the neo-Malthusians.

With that being said, however, it certainly does seem that the green agenda's manifestation in American politics is doing its damnedest to make exactly that 'future' happen. As the BBC's news-website discusses, corn prices have doubled over the last year -- which has lead to the now infamous street demonstrations in Mexico over just this issue. We have only our own US government to blame for this; the subsidization of ethanol production is exactly what has lead to this. And while it is true that this aids the poor farmers -- the increase in food costs can only make life harder on those whose income is most heavily spent on food; the poor. The absolute irony in this is that there is now, in this decade, more food available per person than there has ever been.

Now, if this topic is sounding familiar to those of you whom are regular readers of my blog, that would be because I've covered this topic a few times before. One area that's incredibly important is the set of calculations I made in the entry, "Biofuel: The Corn Ethanol Deception":

In 2004, the US used approximately 318 billion gallons of oil. At 2,000 gallons per acre, that comes out to roughly 159 million acres of arable land -- and this is assuming that the cellulosic starch problem can be overcome -- for which there are no hypothetical solutions yet available. According to the CIA's "World Factbook", the US has 9,161,923 square kilometers of land, 18.01% of which are arable. That's 1,650,62 square kilometers. 1 acre = 0.00404685642 square kilometers, so the US has 407,739,281 acres of arable land. To maintain the energy usage levels of 2004 purely from biofuels derived from this process would require ~40% of all arable land in the nation.

And that's if it is gasoline. If it were ethanol -- and we'll assume that same 2,000 gallons per acre per year, which is more than triple the amount derived from any crop yet -- we'd have to increase that by 30% to reflect the gas-to-ethanol energy variance -- and then increase to cover the 65% increase in energy cost to distill the ethanol. We'll be generous and call that a 10% increase. So overall, a 43% increase in area used -- from 40% of all land. That's ~55% (I allow for error here) of all arable land. One thing is certain -- corn ethanol is not a solution. Nor is crop-based biodiesel -- which has at best 680 gallons per acre. It'd take more than 100% of our arable land.

The "Malthusian" angle I have also covered in the article, "Malthusian Methuselahs" -- which dealth with the 'controversy' over developing life-extension technologies -- and this other item, "Farming 2.0: Food By Factory?". In that last, I discussed three major developments in agriculture technology which might throw off the entire debate altogether: One being cloned meat, a second being the fact that inkjet printers can 'print' living cells without damaging them, and a third being that so-called "skyscraper farms" -- that is, greenhouses built multiple stories into the air -- are being built, with the projection of being profitable within 15 years.

All of this together makes one trend perfectly clear: innovation and technology will over time tend to solve any major problems presented to society -- although, granted, oftentimes those developments will result in new problems, requiring more technological innovation. This of course means that the "malthusian catastrophe" scenario simply cannot happen. Which is appropriate considering the first prediction of such was made over two hundred years ago (Thomas Malthus died in the early 1800's).

Now, with but a tiny bit of digging, this same sort of debunking could be done of just about any other political/economic belief. Take the belief that illegal immigrants are a drain on the welfare system. None of this should come as any real surprise -- after all, first-year economics classes spend a great deal of time overcoming the standard biases that trained economists claim don't exist in the voting booths. When will society as a whole overcome these biases -- if ever? My answer is both pessimistic and optimistic: so long as humans remain as we are, biologically, genetically, and physically -- we never will. And please, feel free to consider that as an ethical argument for transhumanism. It certainly couldn't be any worse than the system we've got now.

You Are Not A Reasonable Person -- And Neither Am I.

There is a common misconception, that just about everyone is guilty of: we think we are reasonable people. The simple fact of the matter is, that's only true when we don't care about what it is we're thinking about. The more important it is, parodoxically, the less we use reason to come to our conclusions.

It is for this reason that we can see things like this come up -- though they are no surprise at all:

Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

[...]"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.

[...]Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning.

It's no surprise, at all, really: Cognitive Biases are now -- and have been for a small number of years -- a major field of research. Some of them are more openly discernable, and others are less so. One such is the idea that -- and no, this won't be "PC" -- black americans are especially economically burdened compared to white. And to be fair, there are reams and reams worth of statistics that'll back that idea up.

But, as they say, there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Wherever there is statistical information that goes one direction, there's always information that goes another, as well. Consider this article on the increasing purchasing power and median income of blacks post 1980:

From 1995 to 1996, the annual personal income of blacks in the United States rose from $324 billion to $371 billion. This 13 per cent economic vault continued the steady post-1980 march of black purchasing power. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the personal annual income of blacks is 50 per cent greater today than it was in 1980.

[...]Most black baby-boomers and their children are indeed now living the American Dream. Yet the material poverty and social pathology of some blacks -- as much as a fifth to a third of the total black population, heavily concentrated in the crime-is-commerce, father-free wastelands called the inner cities -- is empirically undeniable and morally unbearable.

Now, go back and notice the ending statement -- and no, it doesn't get any more charged than this: Yet the material poverty and social pathology of some blacks -- as much as a fifth to a third of the total black population, heavily concentrated in the crime-is-commerce, father-free wastelands called the inner cities -- is empirically undeniable and morally unbearable. This piece is quintessential to the real issue-at-hand: is the problem we're discussing here really economic oppression of blacks, or is it the continued economic exsanguination of the urban environment? To answer that question would require a stunningly missing set of statistics: the wealth or economic prosperity of suburban African-Americans.

When you take racial terms out of the equation, however, it becomes all the more clear what the real nature of the issue is. This piece, by the 'Progressive' blog "CommonDreams", says it all:

Before Katrina hit, about one in four residents of New Orleans was also living in poverty. Today, New Orleans’ poverty rate is much lower. But that’s not because it did anything New York or any other city should try to emulate. New Orleans lowered its poverty rate by having a flood that wiped out the homes of its poor, and then made it hard for them to ever come back.

More than half of the people who lived in New Orleans before Katrina have still not returned. The poor have no place to return to. Their former houses are in rubble. Housing projects are closed. Poor neighborhoods like the Ninth Ward are still devastated. Inexpensive housing, even rental housing, is hard to find.

It’s an old story, really. Areas of any town or city where the infrastructure is most ignored – like the Industrial Canal levee that burst on the morning of August 29 a year ago – have the lowest property values. So that’s where the poor live. When there’s a flood or a leak of toxic wastes or any other calamity, these places are the first to become uninhabitable. Which means, the poor often have to leave. Then the political and moral question is whether anyone cares enough to help them return and rebuild.

Sometimes cities actively try to get rid of their poorest citizens. Not long ago officials in Fall River, Massachusetts, tried to raze a low income housing project and not replace it with any other affordable housing. Other cities have been known to give the poor one-way bus tickets out of state.

So, what is the point being driven at here, with all of this rather charged rhetoric? It's simple enough, really: without being able to clearly discern the true conflicts-at-hand, we will not be able to derive politically viable solutions. It's an old story that just keeps on churning away. Take, for example, the idea that farming subsidies are necessary to protect the poor farming family. It is worth noting that the farming lobby is one of the most highly funded 'organizations'; and further that farming subsidies primarily benefit large corporations. It is in this same vein that the idea can be essentially made that "Affirmative Action" is not the best -- or even an effective -- means by which the poor black community can be 'lifted up' from its state. Measures designed to revitalize urban communities without evicting current residents would accomplish that -- and those are, typically speaking, color-blind.

At the same time, poverty rates historically speaking have been completely dissociated from welfare measures and the like. This despite our nation's history of progressivist legalized Robin-Hoodery as attempts to create, or at least enhance, "Social Justice" or "Equality Justice." Said "Robin-Hoodery" has always resulted in increased thresholds to upwards social mobility -- rising tax brackets make it cheaper to be in the upper-end of the lower tax bracket than to be in the lower-end of the higher tax bracket; nowhere is this so painfully true than of the threshold to enter the middle-class. This creates some rather warped logic: taxing the rich more heavily, apparently, leads to the oppression of African American poor. And yet, when worded in terms of economic thresholds and government-based welfare programs, that is exactly what winds up happening.

So where, precisely, do we stand on this? What is the way out of this quagmire? What we truly need is an increase in two things:

One: We need to increase the general public's ability to override their own biases, to levels that have never been acheived historically speaking.

Two: We need a government which opens the entirety of its process to as clear and concise examination as possible -- again something that is painfully rare in history.

Why that latter element, you might ask? Cognitive biases only help with the processing of information available; if the information itself is biased, then so too will the results be. Now, there are a number of strategies by which both of these goals can be acheived, but the one most feasible today is, initially speaking, the decentralization of government industries and processes wherever possible -- that is, the devolution of responsibility from the agency to the individual. Another would be the incorporation of artificial intelligence into government -- but that's less than likely in today's society, nor with today's "state-of-the-science". Back to the idea of social devolution: How could that help eliminate cognitive bias? Well, that one is at least direct enough. Traditionally speaking, it is easier for individuals to overcome their cognitive biases than it is for groups to do so. If -- and it is a big 'if' -- society can become aware of the fundamental dangers of said biases, then much as japanese society prides itself to this day on its 'honor', a similar such movement for 'rationality' could be willfully and intentionally injected into our society. If we're talking about pipe-dreams, might as well go for broke, yes?

Yes, authority's devolution is today a pipe-dream. But remember this argument, you who read this -- and offer it as a response to those whom complain about government corruption and abuse of power; there is an answer -- it just awaits our grasping it.

What is a Libertarian Transhumanist? One Man's Personal Perspective

The 'byline' of this blog indicates that I, the author, am a libertarian transhumanist. And while there are plenty of definitions of what this means out there, its high time that I took the time to delineate what "libertarian transhumanism" means to me.

By way of getting really started on this whole issue, please consider the following to brief sections.:

Wikipedia on Transhumanism:

Transhumanism (sometimes symbolized by >H or H+) is an international intellectual and cultural movement supporting the use of new sciences and technologies to enhance human mental and physical abilities and aptitudes, and ameliorate what it regards as undesirable and unnecessary aspects of the human condition, such as stupidity, suffering, disease, aging and involuntary death. Transhumanist thinkers study the possibilities and consequences of developing and using human enhancement techniques and other emerging technologies for these purposes. Possible dangers, as well as benefits, of powerful new technologies that might radically change the conditions of human life are also of concern to the transhumanist movement.

Wikipedia on Libertarianism:

Libertarianism is a political philosophy maintaining that all persons are the absolute owners of their own lives, and should be free to do whatever they wish with their persons or property, provided they allow others the same liberty.

In fact, these are pretty good in terms of being a synopsis of both ideologies. And, looking at them, the syncresis of the two only seems natural.

Now, of course, within both ideologies there's a great deal of room. Take for example the differences between an anarcho-capitalist, an anarcho-socialist, a minarchist, and a geolibertarian; these all qualify as "libertarian" -- though if you ask some, the other groups don't. While not quite so virulent, the transhumanist movement has similar such rifts -- though they have "niftier" names for their sub-groups: extropians, singularitarians, immortalists, technoprogressives -- such rifts include the divide between "seed AI" singularitarians and "intelligence amplification" extropians.

But those are groups, and this author is an individual. So why am I a libertarian transhumanist? In all honesty, I'm not. At least, I'm not the 'standard model' of what a "libertarian transhumanist" is. I'm a "libertarian" and I'm a "transhumanist", but I'm not a "libertarian transhumanist." They are compartmentalized, for me -- while complimentary, they are separate. And this is, in fact, something that I advocate for the public-at-large. The problems that face the political spectrum are entirely separate from the problems that face the technological. And while at times they overlap, it is never appropriate to view the one solely with the "lens" of the other. Call this a conscious attempt at preventing the onset of cognitive bias. I want nifty technologies and cybernetic implants. But does that mean it would be good or right for society? The one does not lead to the other. Could a free society survive such augmentation? Or would an inevitable "elite ruling class" develop, leaving countless people in abject tyranny? These are questions that both the libertarian and the transhumanist must answer, and at times their answers might somewhat conflict.

But, as with the comment by Edward Dunham recent news about an exoplanet that is far too large for its mass, "Problems are good, though, since we learn new things by solving them." Certainly, the bioLuddite answer to such things is just simply not acceptable. This is exemplified by the classic 1961 Vonnegut short story, which read something like this:

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General

If we listen to the voices that speak on Equality of Outcome as the standard for egalitarianism, then that bleak standard won't be too far from where we're headed. It is entirely ironic that since the advent of the "modern age", every time a 'libertarian' proposal has been enacted in public policy, things have worked out painfully well. Take, for example, the proposals of Milton Friedman. Furthermore, take the comparative "libertarianness" of the democratic west compared to the communist east -- and the results of each.

So why am I a libertarian? Two real reasons: for one, it just plain works better; for the other, the moral clarity of such a standard is appealing. Why, again, am I a transhumanist? Again, two real reasons: one the one hand, the advent of new technologies has, in general, lead to greater wealth and more comfort at less ecological cost compared to attempting to make that same level of comfort and wealth using older technologies; on the other, it is this author's plain and simple belief that the human species was, evolutionarily speaking, designed to improve upon itself. After all; what is the purpose of life if not to struggle to overcome? Stagnation -- maintaining the status quo -- that is death.

So this is what being a libertarian, transhumanist, individual means: Struggling to create a better tomorrow, where everyone is free to become whatever they wish to be -- so long as they never impede anyone else doing the same. It's so simple -- yet it is also so contested. It makes one wonder; why is this so? If you have an answer to the riddle of how this can be corrected, I'd like to hear it.

Maybe We Really Should Welcome Our New Robotic Overlords...

There is a meme going around the internet(s) which, it would seem, just hasn't quite given up the ghost yet -- "I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords." Quite obviously, this is primarily taken as a joke. So more's the joke -- it might just be true.

This blog has asked the question previously, could humanity actually be more free under 'robotic overlords' than under human government? From the article, "Future Government":

This so-called "smart mob" development could be viewed as the early onset or "birthing pangs" as it were of a 'cybernetic society': a society which is quite literally directed by machines. This is a prime example of how a "liberal representative democracy" could wind up being transformed into a culture which is directed -- openly, in this case -- by decision-making machines which are entrusted with the all-mighty knowledge of what is the "will of the people." Regardless of whether this machine actually follows that axiom, it will -- in this scenario -- be following the axiomatic goal previously described: Give everybody the most opportunity to do whatever they want, restrict only those who would prevent others from acting freely.

The trick here is, of course, that previous article only suggested that if it were possible to make an AGI, that it might in fact be a better governor of the course of humanity than we humans are. Even if, however, we never quite get that far -- and there are good reasons not to, this author must admit; even as I disagree with most of them -- there are at least a few elements which might vastly improve the human situation, as it were.

Now, just a few disclaimers for those who haven't studied the issue of robotics and artificial intelligence. First: the "robots taking over the world" a la Rossum's Universal Robots (R.U.R.) -- the story where the word "Robot" itself even comes from, just won't happen. It's a classic case of anthropomorphism; ascribing human values and logos to non-human entities. Second: Asimov's Three Laws are fine for fiction, but it is impossible to build an operating machine off of three strings of language text. Third: If you don't know what the difference is between AGI and AI -- AGI means "Artificial General Intelligence", where AI means "Artificial Intelligence" -- then whatever your idea of intelligent robots or computers may be, it isn't very likely to be accurate. It'd be like trying to predict the effects of gene engineering using only the ideas of Mendel as a guideline. (For further fun on this, take a look at the impact of Lysenkoism; it had a great deal to do with the collapse of the Soviet Republics -- Communist Russia, that is).

And from the available evidence, it would seem that the overwhelming supermajority of people -- globally -- fit into this category. Take, for example, the recent bit of news regarding the development of an ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, being developed in Korea:

An ethical code to prevent humans abusing robots, and vice versa, is being drawn up by South Korea.

The Robot Ethics Charter will cover standards for users and manufacturers and will be released later in 2007.

It is being put together by a five member team of experts that includes futurists and a science fiction writer.

The South Korean government has identified robotics as a key economic driver and is pumping millions of dollars into research.

[...]

A recent government report forecast that robots would routinely carry out surgery by 2018.

The Ministry of Information and Communication has also predicted that every South Korean household will have a robot by between 2015 and 2020.

In part, this is a response to the country's aging society and also an acknowledgement that the pace of development in robotics is accelerating.

This article mentions that the code would be "based on Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics" -- a sorry state, frankly, for the public awareness to have reached on the issue.

However, this is all somewhat of a distraction from the purpose-at-hand. We all know the major problems involved with the liberal democracies of today; this author, however, will focus primarily on America, as that is the country I know best (being a natural citizen and all). Every day, it seems, is a struggle to obtain real and valid information about what is going on in our nation's capital -- not to mention the state capitals and the city/county/boro government buildings. There is a movement, still essentially in its infancy, to reintroduce the values of "openness" to the government-at-large. A good example of this is the "State Sunshine and Open Records" blog. Another would be the WikiFOIA project, maintained in part by the same people. The basic principle behind such obstinacy and trouble-making is really very simple: how can we know what choices to make, as voting members of the public, if we don't have all the information?

Now -- and this is key -- this same tendency it seems is being exploited by the increasing ubiquitousness of information technology. The patent review office, for example, has decided to create a pilot program for open-to-the-public peer review of patent applications, via a "democratic network" -- a la Digg and Reddit or perhaps more accurately,Slashdot. This was discussed in a few places, but the Patentlyo blog took a better stab at it, apparently, than many others. From the article:

Some of you may know that the PTO is implementing a new 'community patent review' pilot project later this spring. Applications will be published on a website and the general public will have a chance to identify prior art and vote on its relevance to the pending application. The public input will then be given to the Examiner to use. (The Examiner will do his own search and will not be required to use the community-identified art).

It is very much so worth noting that the major companies such as Microsoft do not want this to take off -- it would hurt their ability to exploit government agencies to their benefit. But imagine, for a second; apparently, social-democratic "Web 2.0" websites work well enough for assisting patent-decisions and also to create what has become quite possibly the most comprehensive encyclopedia ever built (Wikipedia, anyone?), so here's the million dollar question: What other government functions could be enhanced or facilitated by public peer-review? If not the writing of new laws, then certainly, codes and regulations could be benefitted by this process; imagine what would happen if an open-to-the-public peer review process were used to increase the clarity of the IRS's tax code regulations, or the EPA's pollution standards. It is a sade state of affairs that as it stands, this may be the closest thing to a vote these things will ever reach: as it stands, agencies like the IRS and the EPA fall solely under the jurisdiction of the Executive Branch, and thus are allowed to create enforceable policies without so much as a how-do-you-do by the public at large.

It is a well-known fact that automation and the information age have "accelerated" the productivity of just about every sector they have touched. So why is it, precisely, that the "governance industry" is sacrosanct from such upgrades? Compared to the irrational bickering and dithering going on in Congress & the Bush (and Clinton) Administrations -- wouldn't a "smart machine" likely do a better job? We created the representative democracy -- the republic -- as a means of overcoming the inability to govern ourselves due to the incredible distances and slowness of communication. The distances and slowness of communication are, every day, less and less a factor. So why is it that we cannot at least have something resembling a say in the everyday governance over, well, us? I say -- let the Patent Review Office's program be a shining beacon to the "streamlining" of government.

Now, all we have to do is overcome the bureaucrats whose fiefdoms will be so endangered by this. I may be an optimist, but I'm no blind idealist -- the odds of this succeeding are somewhat slim, without public outcry and sentiment. So, with that one in mind -- if you agree with the idea of having a say in the things that control your life, and agree with this (partial) solution -- spread this one 'round, 'k?

Read More:
-- Egalitarianism At Gunpoint? A Guaranteed Abundance
-- If Human Memories Could Be Altered: An Ethical Consideration
-- The Singularity Is Here -- But Will We Notice?
-- The Noose Around The Future's Neck: Energy, Environment, Economy, and Equality
-- Articles On Information Suffrage

Singularitarianism: The True Religion?

Singularitarian. It's a fascinating word. Call them the followers of Vernor Vinge's original idea, call them the believers in Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns -- just don't call them late to dinner. But would it be rightful to call them, "religious"?

This is a tough one. There are ideas on both sides of this 'debate' -- and the transhumanists in general, let alone the ones who really follow the idea of the Singularity truly don't help much. This author tends to look at it with an optimistically skeptic eye: if this Technological Singularity (as previously discussed on this blog) is a reality, then certainly it will become self-evident at some point.

It's easy to understand why one would look at this belief -- that humanity will reach a point where our technology essentially begins to improve upon itself and our capacity to improve/invent it -- and say, "Aha! New religion!" After all -- how, precisely, does one tell the idea of an explosion of information and intelligence, with all the nifty techno-gadgets; something that has been called the "Techno-Rapture" apart from, say, the "Rapture" of Christian belief? Hell, throw in Christian Transhumanism and you might as well throw the baby out with the bathwater in trying to figure out the difference here. The language used by these individuals is somewhat curious -- it ranges from the 'loosely' theological, as seen here:

Paul Tillich calls this idea "The profound doctrine
of a transcendent humanism, a humanism which says that Christ is the fulfillment of essential man, of the Adamic nature." "And we can become fully human through participation in this full humanity which has appeared in Christ. This includes eternal life, and similitude with God with respect to participation in infinity." Then Tillich says, "I am always surprised how much better the theology of the ancient church was than the popular theology which developed in the nineteenth century, how much profounder and more adequate to the paradox of Christianity, without becoming irrationalistic, nonsensical, or absurd." So Christian Transhumanism is rational. It makes sense and it bridges the gap between the real world today and what we are to become. We got lost, but recent developments are making it clear where we are to go.

To what is essentially masturbatory intellectualism, as seen here:

This website is dedicated to an exciting prospect. Soon, a wise and loving culture will apply the full power of technology to spiritual growth and so enter a state of hyper evolution. They will enjoy continually diminishing hardship, and eternal life.

God's will in this matter is revealing itself in today’s quickening changes imposed by the forces that guide our society; science,technology, spirituality, and even economics. Humanity is about to merge with what is called the Technical Singularity and so transcend this world. The bible prophecies will come to pass. The "Antichrist" will fully manifest so be careful...

And that's just the Christians talking!

One major proponent, however, of belief in the Singularity as a form of religion all its own would be Cory Doctorow, of Boing Boing and Creative Commons licensing "fame". In his own words:

I still don’t know if the Singularity is a spiritual or a technological belief system. It has all the trappings of spirituality, to be sure. If you are pure and kosher, if you live right and if your society is just, then you will live to see a moment of Rapture when your flesh will slough away leaving nothing behind but your ka, your soul, your consciousness, to ascend to an immortal and pure state.

[...]

After all, this is a system of belief that dictates a means by which we can care for our bodies virtuously and live long enough to transcend them. It is a system of belief that concerns itself with the meddling of non-believers, who work to undermine its goals through irrational systems predicated on their disbelief. It is a system of belief that asks and answers the question of what it means to be human.

Now, there have already been some strong -- and not so strong -- responses to Doctorow's opinion here. Michael Anissimov over at Accelerating Future has one such. There are 'think tanks' -- such as the Singularity Institute, which are focused on determining the feasibility and optimization of this technological "Singularity"; and while many of these people are quite starry-eyed about the whole thing, and equal number are approaching it with a few good grains of salt, as it were.

One thing is absolutely certain, in all of this: as time progresses our human technology becomes more and more powerful. Regardless of wether Kurzweil's or Vinge's ideas are correct, this is something that a wise person would attempt to address: how do we ensure that we continue to benefit from our ever-increasing technical potence, without facing the drawbacks or negatives? Risk mitigation is a good industry -- and if there's ideology behind it, I say -- let them have it.

But in that same thread, one has to ask; certainly within the Transhumanist movement are individuals of a very serious nature, whom are approaching this entire deal with the eye of a scientist or a progressive: A person who asks, "How do I make things better? What can I improve?" In the face, however, of this 'atheists's religion' debate -- the dilemma grows: Now, not only must we improve upon what is, we must also ask, "How do I avoid false beliefs, or the appearance of them?"

For the record, this author is not a Singularitarian, nor is he an Extropian, nor an Immortalist, nor any of the other sub-'genres' of transhumanist. He is (I am) hardly a transhumanist at all, in terms of fervor for what is to come. An informed optimist, likely, would be a better term. Is Singularitarianism, specifically, a religion?

Here's a better question: Is it the right religion? This is worth contemplating: stipulate, for the moment, that Singularitarianism -- and transhumanism, writ large -- is, in fact, a religious belief. How would the world be impacted if it were the right religion? Even an atheist -- such as myself -- must admit; simply being religious in nature doesn't make any given belief in and of itself incorrect. Only the facts-at-hand can do that.

Zen Buddhism, for example, has no specific deity. There is atheistic Buddhism of other sorts -- and if the Singularity is another such of atheistic religion, is that any grounds to discount it on? That's the trick here: the apellation of "Religion!" to Singularitarianism is usually used as a means to discredit it.

But how can the label of 'religion' discredit a belief if it's "the true religion"?