A new beginning
I am the herold of a new age.
I represent a new way of thinking that will profoundly transform society.
I am the uber-geek.
Central to this belief system is lack of conformity.
Conformity is counter-productive and wasteful. I am sure it leaves alot of tragedies in its wake also.
Conformity spawns national identity, hair and clothing styles, determines which films you see and which records you hear.
Conformity decides the colour of your car.
I believe that it is I that should make these decisions(for me, not you).
Conformity is more dangerous and sinister even; it will curtail social and scientific progress. Sometimes it will lead to a massive waste of resources on a global scale because everybody else is doing it.
Having lived my life with this(among others) ideal I thought of it as nothing special. Simply a lifestyle among others. Recent post-90s politics have led me to believe otherwise.
New political leaders require conformity. An excellent example is the Dixie Chicks event, a band from southern USA speaks their mind on a stage(outside of USA). They get lambasted for this glimmer of individuality on the basis that it is not their place to critisize the current leadership. A rather extreme expression of conformity.
Me, I've grown up in a democratic country and take my right to say what I will as a matter of course. No matter if it fits with my leaders' agenda or no.
This freedom of speech as we call it is threatened by current leaders' so-called 'war on terrorism' -whose aim it is to curtail our freedoms for reasons unknown to me(greed, lust for power, just plain old evil-ness).
I see many responses in society around me, some respond with fear(no doubt the desired effect) and draws further in towards conformity. Others with outrage, some just shrug.
I've been shrugging for awhile. My sole political action in 10 years time was to devote time to oppose George W. Bush as president of the USA, even though I'm not american.
His re-election was a victory for conformity and though it was hardly unexpected it was very bitter. His re-election was also a result of conformity, not of his PR campaign or any of his political causes.
Now I am somewhat in disarray. With feudal mindsets ruling the world individualists and non-conformists(not the same thing) have really no place to turn.
It is not all hopeless ofcourse, the spanish thru away their war-monging leaders and replaced them with something more benevolent.
And is I stated, I am the herold of a new dawn. The non-conformist mindset will eventually win though it might take hundreds of year before the conformists catches up.
Technology will help us.
In the time ahead we're facing radical new breakthroughs in virtually all major sciences.
The physicists and mathematicians will discover fundamental truths about the universe in which we are part of once their x-ray free electron laser gets fully operational in 2007 and the large hadron collider in 2011.
These will accelerate particles to near light-speed and then collide them, recording the collision with unprecedented accuracy and resolution. They might unearth the secret of gravity.
This might be the biggest thing since Einstein, it is certainly expected to be.
Virtually all sciences are large consumers of computer processing power. Computers stand infront of the biggest single breakthrough since sliced bread with the advent of massive multicore processing. New vector chips in cell configurations(essentially a supercomputer on a chip) will boost power by the tens, then you plug alot of them together(they will be dirt cheap off the shelf) to get power doublings by the thousands. Coming soon in a playstation3 near you -yes really.
This boost in processing power will usher a new era for scientists who run computer simulations. Complex algorithms about global weather systems and so on will be accelerated and improved. Ever more will be possible to simulate.
Materials sciences, already entering the nano-area of design(building materials with individual molecules -like nature does) will be able to create materials that allow plains and trains to travel faster and safer, space will be opened by materials that are stronger yet lighter. Novel new materials will allow previously unthought of applications. All within a decade or less.
Powerful mobiles with access to global networks and your home pc will re-transform communication. Automatic translation will ensure that the world does not end up with a single language or culture.
New medical treatments will be able to target single cells within the body, virtually eliminating cancer and life-style diseases. Even the potential to grow new limbs or internal organs when required.
All this and more is coming soon, very soon. It holds the potential to transform society but will not do so automatically. Why?
'cause we're holding back. Conformism does not want change, it is the antidote of change.
I'm not advocating throwing caution to the wind.
And what exactly will have a big enough impact to cause global change?
A crisis.
Crisis binds people together, forces inovation and brings out the best in us.
And what would be a global crisis?
An external threat, but not by aliens, by ourselves. Our industrialised society is transforming global weather patterns right now, in time these will worsen significantly. That time is running out fast. It will require global cooperation amongst all nations to deal with this. Our economies will be transformed as we move away from fossil fuels to newer, better ways of getting energy.
The required transformations are radical yet inevitable.
One is all, and all is one.
By amending our mistakes and creating a better new model in the process people's paradigms will change, and they'll start looking for a new lifestyle. Hopefully, many people will be drawn towards non-conformism.
The worlds wealth will be re-distributed, bringing many new thoughts and ideas to the table as previously poor nations get on their feet. Unlike the west, most poor countries have little or no infrastructure, while a disadvantage now it will be an advantage in the future. Many of the new technologies are decentralized by nature, requiring no infra-structure to work; these technologies will enable poor countries on a massive scale. As they get on their feet they will realize that they do not have an expensive infra-structure to maintain, but many cheap easliy replaceable nodes.
The west has alot of soon useless infra-structure to either maintain, upgrade or remove completely -at vast cost.
I am the herold of a new age. Though I'm not new age, giggle.
I used to believe in the future of mankind, I'm not so sure anymore. The post -90s has been a political quagmire of incompetent individualists running the world, religious wars and crusades are back in fashion. Arrogance is everywhere and the echo from the Nurnberg trials are still ringing, no not me -I was just doing my job. Innocent though it is it is also the expression of the current mentality: On David Letterman show I saw the producer of American Idol being interviewed. Mr. Letterman asked him if he thought he contributed to the popular culture or if he degraded it.
His response: I'm just doing my job.
I immediatly classify people using this statement as fascists. Though it is an over-reaction perhaps I have no patience with people who live in denial. It is the ultimate folly and a very important part of being human -and not an animal, is morality and ethics. People who are 'just doing their jobs' obviously denies their own self -and we saw in Auschwitz what such people are capable of. If you deny humanity to yourself you obviously can't accept humanity in anyone else.
my two cents for now
cheers
b
I represent a new way of thinking that will profoundly transform society.
I am the uber-geek.
Central to this belief system is lack of conformity.
Conformity is counter-productive and wasteful. I am sure it leaves alot of tragedies in its wake also.
Conformity spawns national identity, hair and clothing styles, determines which films you see and which records you hear.
Conformity decides the colour of your car.
I believe that it is I that should make these decisions(for me, not you).
Conformity is more dangerous and sinister even; it will curtail social and scientific progress. Sometimes it will lead to a massive waste of resources on a global scale because everybody else is doing it.
Having lived my life with this(among others) ideal I thought of it as nothing special. Simply a lifestyle among others. Recent post-90s politics have led me to believe otherwise.
New political leaders require conformity. An excellent example is the Dixie Chicks event, a band from southern USA speaks their mind on a stage(outside of USA). They get lambasted for this glimmer of individuality on the basis that it is not their place to critisize the current leadership. A rather extreme expression of conformity.
Me, I've grown up in a democratic country and take my right to say what I will as a matter of course. No matter if it fits with my leaders' agenda or no.
This freedom of speech as we call it is threatened by current leaders' so-called 'war on terrorism' -whose aim it is to curtail our freedoms for reasons unknown to me(greed, lust for power, just plain old evil-ness).
I see many responses in society around me, some respond with fear(no doubt the desired effect) and draws further in towards conformity. Others with outrage, some just shrug.
I've been shrugging for awhile. My sole political action in 10 years time was to devote time to oppose George W. Bush as president of the USA, even though I'm not american.
His re-election was a victory for conformity and though it was hardly unexpected it was very bitter. His re-election was also a result of conformity, not of his PR campaign or any of his political causes.
Now I am somewhat in disarray. With feudal mindsets ruling the world individualists and non-conformists(not the same thing) have really no place to turn.
It is not all hopeless ofcourse, the spanish thru away their war-monging leaders and replaced them with something more benevolent.
And is I stated, I am the herold of a new dawn. The non-conformist mindset will eventually win though it might take hundreds of year before the conformists catches up.
Technology will help us.
In the time ahead we're facing radical new breakthroughs in virtually all major sciences.
The physicists and mathematicians will discover fundamental truths about the universe in which we are part of once their x-ray free electron laser gets fully operational in 2007 and the large hadron collider in 2011.
These will accelerate particles to near light-speed and then collide them, recording the collision with unprecedented accuracy and resolution. They might unearth the secret of gravity.
This might be the biggest thing since Einstein, it is certainly expected to be.
Virtually all sciences are large consumers of computer processing power. Computers stand infront of the biggest single breakthrough since sliced bread with the advent of massive multicore processing. New vector chips in cell configurations(essentially a supercomputer on a chip) will boost power by the tens, then you plug alot of them together(they will be dirt cheap off the shelf) to get power doublings by the thousands. Coming soon in a playstation3 near you -yes really.
This boost in processing power will usher a new era for scientists who run computer simulations. Complex algorithms about global weather systems and so on will be accelerated and improved. Ever more will be possible to simulate.
Materials sciences, already entering the nano-area of design(building materials with individual molecules -like nature does) will be able to create materials that allow plains and trains to travel faster and safer, space will be opened by materials that are stronger yet lighter. Novel new materials will allow previously unthought of applications. All within a decade or less.
Powerful mobiles with access to global networks and your home pc will re-transform communication. Automatic translation will ensure that the world does not end up with a single language or culture.
New medical treatments will be able to target single cells within the body, virtually eliminating cancer and life-style diseases. Even the potential to grow new limbs or internal organs when required.
All this and more is coming soon, very soon. It holds the potential to transform society but will not do so automatically. Why?
'cause we're holding back. Conformism does not want change, it is the antidote of change.
I'm not advocating throwing caution to the wind.
And what exactly will have a big enough impact to cause global change?
A crisis.
Crisis binds people together, forces inovation and brings out the best in us.
And what would be a global crisis?
An external threat, but not by aliens, by ourselves. Our industrialised society is transforming global weather patterns right now, in time these will worsen significantly. That time is running out fast. It will require global cooperation amongst all nations to deal with this. Our economies will be transformed as we move away from fossil fuels to newer, better ways of getting energy.
The required transformations are radical yet inevitable.
One is all, and all is one.
By amending our mistakes and creating a better new model in the process people's paradigms will change, and they'll start looking for a new lifestyle. Hopefully, many people will be drawn towards non-conformism.
The worlds wealth will be re-distributed, bringing many new thoughts and ideas to the table as previously poor nations get on their feet. Unlike the west, most poor countries have little or no infrastructure, while a disadvantage now it will be an advantage in the future. Many of the new technologies are decentralized by nature, requiring no infra-structure to work; these technologies will enable poor countries on a massive scale. As they get on their feet they will realize that they do not have an expensive infra-structure to maintain, but many cheap easliy replaceable nodes.
The west has alot of soon useless infra-structure to either maintain, upgrade or remove completely -at vast cost.
I am the herold of a new age. Though I'm not new age, giggle.
I used to believe in the future of mankind, I'm not so sure anymore. The post -90s has been a political quagmire of incompetent individualists running the world, religious wars and crusades are back in fashion. Arrogance is everywhere and the echo from the Nurnberg trials are still ringing, no not me -I was just doing my job. Innocent though it is it is also the expression of the current mentality: On David Letterman show I saw the producer of American Idol being interviewed. Mr. Letterman asked him if he thought he contributed to the popular culture or if he degraded it.
His response: I'm just doing my job.
I immediatly classify people using this statement as fascists. Though it is an over-reaction perhaps I have no patience with people who live in denial. It is the ultimate folly and a very important part of being human -and not an animal, is morality and ethics. People who are 'just doing their jobs' obviously denies their own self -and we saw in Auschwitz what such people are capable of. If you deny humanity to yourself you obviously can't accept humanity in anyone else.
my two cents for now
cheers
b
posted by bangskij at 12:57
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