emptyblueprints-blog

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"How should we live?" he asked. "I mean how should we eat and manage?"

"As the birds do," said the girl.

– Robert Aickman, The Stains

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"In the very end, civilizations perish because they listen to their politicians and not to their poets."

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Had I the heavens’ embroidered cloths, Enwrought with golden and silver light, The blue and the dim and the dark cloths Of night and light and the half light, I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet; Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

- W. B. Yeats (1865 –1939)

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Star Trek IV - The Voyage Home (1986)

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Watchmen, 2009, Directed by Zack Snyder

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"There must be some way out of here" Said the joker to the thief "There's too much confusion I can't get no relief Businessmen, they drink my wine Plowmen dig my earth None of them along the line Know what any of it is worth

"No reason to get excited" The thief, he kindly spoke "There are many here among us Who feel that life is but a joke But you and I, we've been through that And this is not our fate So let us not talk falsely now The hour is getting late"

All along the watchtower Princes kept the view While all the women came and went Barefoot servants too Outside, in the distance A wildcat did growl Two riders were approaching The wind began to howl

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We'll need universal basic income - AI 'godfather'

The computer scientist regarded as the “godfather of artificial intelligence” says the government will have to establish a universal basic income to deal with the impact of AI on inequality.

Professor Geoffrey Hinton told BBC Newsnight that a benefits reform giving fixed amounts of cash to every citizen would be needed because he was “very worried about AI taking lots of mundane jobs”.

“I was consulted by people in Downing Street and I advised them that universal basic income was a good idea,” he said.

He said while he felt AI would increase productivity and wealth, the money would go to the rich “and not the people whose jobs get lost and that’s going to be very bad for society”. BBC News, Original Article

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“The only way to understand the world as something other than a tale of loss is to see it as a tale of change.”

-Daniel Mason, North Woods

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"I told you that Man possessed a basically incomprehensible nature. His perceptions were organic; yours are not. As a result of His perceptions He had feelings and emotions. These often gave rise to other feelings and emotions, which in turn caused others, until the state of His awareness was far removed from the objects which originally stimulated it. These paths of awareness cannot be known by that which is not-Man. Man did not feel inches or meters, pounds or gallons. He felt fear, He felt cold; He felt heaviness and lightness. He knew hatred and love, pride and despair. You cannot measure these things. You cannot know them. You can only know the things that He did not need to know: dimensions, weights, temperatures, gravities. There is no formula for a feeling. There is no conversion factor for an emotion."

— Now For a Breath I Tarry, Roger Zelazny, 1966

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Mordel: Regard this piece of ice, mighty Frost.  You can tell me its composition, dimensions, weight, temperature.  A Man could not look at it and do that.  A Man could make tool which would tell Him these things,but He still would not know measurement as you know it.  What He would know of it, though, is a thing that you cannot know. Frost: What is that? Mordel: That it is cold. -- Now For a Breath I Tarry, Roger Zelazny, 1966

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[Professor Hobby asks Mecha, Secretary Sheila, what is love] Professor Hobby: Tell me. What is love? Secretary: Love is first widening my eyes a little bit... and quickening my breathing a little... and warming my skin and touching my... Professor Hobby: And so on. Exactly so. Thank you, Sheila.

— AI: Artificial Intelligence, 2001, Directed by Steven Spielberg

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"Humans tried to develop intelligent machines as secondary reflex systems, turning over primary decisions to mechanical servants. Gradually, though, the creators did not leave enough to do for themselves; they began to feel alienated, dehumanized, and even manipulated. Eventually humans became little more than decisionless robots themselves, left without an understanding of their natural existence."

Frank Herbert, Legends of Dune Issue #1, 1999

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In describing the modern, postwar world, Huxley acknowledges the prophetic power of George Orwell's 1984. In communist nations, Huxley points out, leaders used to control individuals with punishment, just as the representatives of Big Brother frighten and at times torture citizens into submission in Orwell's novel […]

Still, Huxley argues, the future will look more like Brave New World than 1984. In the West, pleasure and distraction, used by those in power, control people's spending, political loyalties, and even their thoughts. Control through reward poses a greater threat to human freedom because, unlike punishment, it can be introduced unconsciously and continued indefinitely, with the approval and support of the people being controlled.

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Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

Paul Hawkens (via onthegenealogyofmyblogging)

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Above: Death Valley Sunset by Srontgorrth

“In the spring of 1975, Foucault visited America […] One day he decided to accompany two friends on a drive into the desert. Their chosen destination was popular among Californians at the time: Death Valley, one of the hottest and most hostile places on Earth. They arrived in the evening and parked at Zabriskie Point overlooking the valley. They took LSD, played Stockhausen, and watched the night draw in. For at least one biographer this moment symbolizes a turning point in Foucault’s life - the point at which his interests turned from a critique of society to more contemplative philosophical themes - the meaning of life, the self, and death. He invariably reported that this was the greatest experience in his life, the most transformative, important experience in his life.”

— Michel Foucault (1926 - 1984), French philosopher, historian of ideas, social theorist, philologist and literary critic as described in the documentary Beyond Good & Evil (1993)

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I have walked that long road to freedom. I have tried not to falter; I I have made missteps along the way. But I have discovered the secret that after climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb. I have taken a moment here to rest, to steal a view of the glorious vista that surrounds me, to look back on the distance I have come. But I can rest only for a moment, for with freedom comes responsibilities, and I dare not linger, for my long walk is not yet ended.

Nelson Mandela