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[mainiac]

I am on a mobile so I can't quote but 99.9% of those predicting a crisis in the early 2000s were talking out their ass. Rohbini was half coherant. The rest were lucky idiots. Plenty said there were problems but they didn't predict a crisis. That was why there was a crisis.

[smjjames]

I am on a mobile so I can't quote but 99.9% of those predicting a crisis in the early 2000s were talking out their ass. Rohbini was half coherant. The rest were lucky idiots. Plenty said there were problems but they didn't predict a crisis. That was why there was a crisis.

So the reason why there was a crisis is because people predicted one? Just asking because that's what you seem to be saying.

[Frumple]

No, m's saying they predicted problems, but more or less didn't predict them to be critical ones. Hence a crisis wasn't predicted, people didn't take the problems seriously enough, and hey presto, actual crisis instead of just notable issues.

[mainiac]

Yes. Only chicken littles said crisis. Nobody saw the actual extent of danger so it wasn't fixed. Some people say a crisis but they saw it in the wrong places.

[GreatJustice]

Plenty of people predicted the housing crisis, and several well before Roubini did to boot. Just look at Sennholz, Janszen, Karlsson, Richebacher, Polleit and Shostak.

[Darvi]

There's doomsayers predicting crises for damn near everything. Those who are wrong are just forgotten.

[SirQuiamus]

Transhumanism - fuck no.
Eliminating corporations / mass decentralization / resource economics - fuck yes. Although decentralization sounds a bit ominous, if you know what I mean.
More egalitarian forms of democracy - yes.
Basic income - yes, please.
Embrace automation (and whatever else makes labor obsolete) - possibly yes, but on the other hand we're almost there already, and things don't seem to be getting better.
More funding for science - yup.
Mad science - do-it-yourself hydrogen bombs and killer viruses? No thanks.

[Descan]

Yep. You can predict doomsday every day for a thousand years - you only need to be correct *once* and everyone left alive will hail you as an oracle.

Edit: Surq, why so vehement against transhumanism? o_o

[GreatJustice]

Several of the very same people predicted the Dot Com bubble several years previous, too. It's also a bit silly to compare "predicting doomsday" with predicting a housing bubble while simultaneously providing an explanation for why it existed.

[SirQuiamus]

Yep. You can predict doomsday every day for a thousand years - you only need to be correct *once* and everyone left alive will hail you as an oracle.

Edit: Surq, why so vehement against transhumanism? o_o

Because it silly. Me-caveman no-believe in magicks, only believe in stick and stone!

EDIT: ...but that only applies to the overzealous millenarianist brand of transhumanism. The non-crazy variety is just optimistic speculation, and I have no problem with it.

[Darvi]

I absolutely loathe the -humanism bit, personally.

[SirQuiamus]

You're saying that plain "trans" is better? That has slightly different connotations, mind.

[scriver]

Regarding crisis stuff - that whether people predicted "crisis" or "just trouble" is irrelevant to why it still happened - the people doing the forecasting were not the ones who stood to profit from continuing down the road leading to crisis/troubles.

Transhumanism - check
...
Mad science... I don't actually have a problem with, so long as everything is informed and consensual... though I could see my attitude changing case by case

You've already embraced mad science by embracing dehumanism

[SalmonGod]

Transhumanism - check
...
Mad science... I don't actually have a problem with, so long as everything is informed and consensual... though I could see my attitude changing case by case

You've already embraced mad science by embracing dehumanism

Heheh you may be right there

Though I'm not sure how I feel about trans-humanism being equated with de-humanism.  Not that I outright reject it, but it's an interesting topic that needs a lot of thought.  I still fundamentally agree with the idea of improving the human condition by physically improving the human condition.  It's just the details that get very crunchy.  The sociological details, especially.  Equality is something that needs to be addressed before transhumanism can really be allowed to take off.

[Descan]

Any transhuman device I make, my default stance would be to release the patents. Subject to change depending on circumstance though. All in the details.