Saturday, June 27, 2009

Some Conversations Pt III

... and i am totally jazzed that my build is stimulating such discussions! This was my purpose for this build - to stimulate discussion regarding technology - including virtual worlds - and the need for an examination of application and disbursement; a balance between technology and humanism.

Why? Such beautiful things, virtual worlds, ne?

Imagine a prison... with a person hooked into a virtual world... convinced that they are in fact in "outworld," talking, speaking, living... and in "reality" strapped to a chair in a 10x10 steel room.

Consider a virtual world, complete with feedback, being used to torture a prisoner.

Consider "The Matrix."

Consider other possible evil or morally-decayed uses of such technology.

There is so much dialogue going about the wonderful uses of such tech; virtual surgery, virtual therapy, virtual training, virtual collaboration... yet we have seen what technology, which has no will nor aim nor moral compass, can do in the hands of the unscrupulous, the greedy and the morally bankrupt.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *


Antimon Kupferberg: yes, I see your idea ...
Antimon Kupferberg: but its not in tech, its what human does with it ... I believe

Miso Susanowa: exactly
Miso Susanowa: but we must think on these applications

Antimon Kupferberg nods of course we have to

Miso Susanowa: or the natural course of big business is to sell indiscriminately

Miso Susanowa: but here its all go go go go
Miso Susanowa: so i wished this installation to ask these questions

Antimon Kupferberg: I am a RL biologist and just preparing an article about potential risks of nanomaterials to workers *shrugs

Miso Susanowa: very dangerous, nano
Miso Susanowa: but so is nuclear fusion and fission *shrugs* we must just take care
Miso Susanowa: what i fear is Gibson's vision; nanotech used to... form children
Miso Susanowa: to make slaves and clones
Miso Susanowa: without a moral framework

Antimon Kupferberg: there is no moral in nano than is in concrete or a piece of bread ...

Miso Susanowa: yes... only in the hand or corp that uses it, agreed
Miso Susanowa: it is a tool

Antimon Kupferberg: it's what you do ... eat or destroy? help or make people suffer ?

Antimon Kupferberg: the problem is, that the main and future technologies are mostly in the hands of few big companies ...

Miso Susanowa: yes exactly
Miso Susanowa: and companies have no morals

Antimon Kupferberg: so where are the people to control? where are WE to control and take influence?

Miso Susanowa: yes

Antimon Kupferberg: ... always the same questions ... *shrugs

Miso Susanowa: there is a struggle going on now
Miso Susanowa: we are seeing the end result of unrestrained industrialization
Miso Susanowa: concentration on the physical without moral or spiritual insight

Antimon Kupferberg: the same with genes , esp crop genes ... mostly now in a hand of Monsanto &Co
Antimon Kupferberg: it is to make the farmers to have to buy new seed again each year instead of raising their own

Miso Susanowa: ugh yes their aggressive corn
Miso Susanowa: that kills the next generation's seed [Terminator technology - see article above]
Miso Susanowa: that is a misuse of a very beautiful technology
Miso Susanowa: which could feed millions
Miso Susanowa: grrrrr

Antimon Kupferberg: this reminds me of a discussion at the radio i just come from ... about science in the movies, ... did you hear about the film "Sleep Dealer"?

Miso Susanowa: ahhh yes i have!
Miso Susanowa: an amazing film effort

Antimon Kupferberg: ok, .. to be honest, I came hear cause I saw the giant plant from above :)

Miso Susanowa: lol! good that is her purpose ^_^

Antimon Kupferberg grins

Miso Susanowa: i spend much time in nature
Miso Susanowa: i admire her forms and her strategies
Miso Susanowa: to cross nanotech with plant genes
Miso Susanowa: could be quite a thing
Miso Susanowa: but very dangerous
Miso Susanowa: nature has strategies not thought of by Man
Miso Susanowa: and we are not so smart as we think

Antimon Kupferberg: yes, we just begin learning ... see the bionics field etc ... or the circling of energy and water and ressource that came to our minds during the very last years

Miso Susanowa: well there is a saying, "nature will find a way"

Antimon Kupferberg: we are scientifically just kids ...

Miso Susanowa: evolution's strategies are so beyond us now we can barely see them

Miso Susanowa: so we must take great care

Antimon Kupferberg: whose strategy? You see a being, a god or something behind?

Miso Susanowa: no... just the strategies that have served genetic evolution for thousands of years

Miso Susanowa: how life has made organisms that can live at 5000 feet below sea level with no light...

Miso Susanowa: wondrous and strange
Miso Susanowa: all from the pressure of Life to live

Antimon Kupferberg: and in volcanoes and salt hot water ...

Miso Susanowa: yes, off sulpher

Antimon Kupferberg: yes, indeed, life is SO great

Antimon Kupferberg: and we are the part of it most dangerous to all the rest perhaps ^^

Miso Susanowa: so us meddling at the genetic level...
Miso Susanowa: yes :)
Miso Susanowa: like as you say Monsanto

Antimon Kupferberg: yes, know what you mean ...
Antimon Kupferberg: but not all what is printed in media is true ... so I know people personally from this kind of companies, and they are all but heatless monsters ... to clear that

Miso Susanowa: ah, but i know some quantum physicists that are very spiritual

Antimon Kupferberg: but they have different opinions of how to feed the world ...

Miso Susanowa: because they see the wonder of the universe
Miso Susanowa: but... they must keep quiet about such things :(

Antimon Kupferberg: I dont share all of them ...

Miso Susanowa: nor do i... but that is the wonder of humanity, ne?
Miso Susanowa: the marvelousness of life

Antimon Kupferberg: oh yes, I believe at the quantum stage spirit and matter meet .. or not? then where ever ? :)

Miso Susanowa: it's just enough that we keep asking, i think
Miso Susanowa: keep our balance

Antimon Kupferberg: good point

Miso Susanowa: we are more than Skinner boxes :)

Antimon Kupferberg: never to stop asking questions ...
Antimon Kupferberg: never think you know everything or even a bit of enough !

Miso Susanowa: companies... wish us to be things
Miso Susanowa: units,
Miso Susanowa: numbers
Miso Susanowa: thus is humanity diminished

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