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Product Longevity in a World Driven by Consumption

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https://www.osvehicle.com/ It should be obvious that Product Longevity is incompatible with capitalism as we know it. Our system relies on continuous consumption to perpetuate the workforce, grow enterprise, and maintain profits. While there may be a capitalist incentive to produce long lasting products in some industries, the fact remains that breaking down just outside of the warranty period is the most profitable circumstance. Constant technological advancements seem to be a licence for excessive consumption, ongoing changes justifying the buy-and-throw-away culture. Things, in general, are not designed to be upgraded, they are designed to be superseded and replaced. How do we address this from a sustainability perspective? It’s becoming increasingly apparent that the decoupling of monetary gain from production is imperative. Would it be possible (profitable) for a company to start up, complete a production run of one very long lasting product, and then move onto another, different

How Designer Babies Highlight Society's Immaturity

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The question of designer babies is usually met with disdain. You don't even have to be religious to object to the idea of customising a human before it's born. Indeed, this concept doesn't just "go against nature", it makes us question what it means to be human. The possibility of customising an embryo with the view to having an "enhanced" child opens up a veritable test tube of questions. What are the implications of being able to set a child's intelligence, their strengths, their abilities? Then there is the questions that really hit a nerve: "Would people chose not to have a black baby when they know it will be subject to persecution and prejudice?" The whole issue is surrounded by frightening dilemmas. The problem is, it's already here. We currently screen embryos for birth defects such as spina bifida, and many would argue that prevention or removal or deficiencies is a form of enhancement. Of course, we can try to sep

Could Artificial Intelligence Development Hit a Dead End?

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Kurzweil and his proponents seem to be unshakable in their belief that at some point, Advanced Artificial General Intelligence, Machine Sentience, or Human Built Consciousness, whatever you would like to call it,  will happen. Much of this belief comes from the opinion that consciousness is an engineering problem, and that it will, at some point, regardless of its complexity, be developed. In this post, I don't really want to discuss whether or not consciousness can be understood, this is something for another time. What we need to be aware of is the possibility of our endeavours to create Artificial Intelligence stalling. Whatever happened to...Unified Field Theory? It seems sometimes, the more we learn about something, the more cans of worms we open, and the harder the subject becomes. Sometimes factors present themselves that we would not have expected to be relevant to our understanding. Despite nearly a century of research and theorizing, UFT remains an open line of

Can We Restrain AI?

One of the main challenges in creating a greater-than-human Artificial Intelligence is ensuring that it's not evil. When we "turn it on", we don't want it to wipe out us out or enslave us. Ideally, we want it to be nice. The problem is how we can guarantee this. Trap it Some have suggested limiting the Artificial Intelligence by "trapping it" in a virtual world, where it could do no damage outside the confines of this environment. While this might be a safe solution it could limit the AI to only function within the limits and reality of the virtual world. Ok, so we might be able to program a perfectly realistic and isolated virtual world, but would this happen? Is there a parallel project to create such a "virtual prison" alongside AI research? And what if AI was to evolve or emerge from existing systems (such as the internet or a selection of systems within it) before we could develop such a prison? Then of course there is the possibility o

No Going Back

"I've lost everything, my business, my property and to top it all off my lass of six years has gone off with someone else." Raoul-Thomas-Moat-shoots-policeman-gunning-ex-lover-boyfriend The concept of perpetual association, the "permanent record", causes despair in people's lives every day, although we don't hear about it unless they decide to make sure we hear about it. How can we blame people for going psycho when a criminal record stands in the way of their entire future, giving them nothing left to live for? It's time to acknowledge and address the implications of Actuarial Escape Velocity in respect to crime and punishment. For, with infinite lifespans, ruining people's lives will not only have much greater significance, but it will not be in the interests of society. Who wants their infinite lifespan cut short by a crazy gunman? There seems to be this incredibly misguided notion that all criminals are evil, they're born evil,