More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
I Smell Fear
The number one humanist commandment – listen to yourself! – is no longer self-evident.
According to humanism, only human desires imbue the world with meaning. Yet if we could choose our desires, on what basis could we possibly make such choices?
When the nail on which the entire universe hangs is pegged in a problematic spot, technology will pull it out and stick it somewhere else. But where exactly? If I could peg that nail anywhere in the cosmos, where should I peg it, and why there of all places?
Humanist dramas unfold when people have uncomfortable desires.
How much pain and sorrow would have been avoided if, instead of drinking poison, Romeo and Juliet could just take a pill or wear a helmet that would have redirected their star-crossed love towards other people.
Dataism declares that the universe consists of data flows, and the value of any phenomenon or entity is determined by its contribution to data processing.
Ray Kurzweil’s book of prophecies is called The Singularity is Near,
On 11 January 2013, Dataism got its first martyr when Aaron Swartz, a twenty-six-year-old American hacker, committed suicide in his apartment. Swartz was a rare genius. At fourteen, he helped develop the crucial RSS protocol. Swartz was also a firm believer in the freedom of information. In 2008 he published the ‘Guerilla Open Access Manifesto’, which demanded a free and unlimited flow of information.
