Tricky imperialism — magic

• the Secret
  
• SHAM: the self-help actualization movement
• The importance of skepticism / science
  

The importance of brain plasticity:

• We can enrich the stuff that makes us who we are
• Going from Brain 1.0 to 2.0 – increasing network flow
• Exercise, play, sleep – nurturing the plasticity itself

Bubble Boy:

• Housing, furniture, and ergonomics
• Enhanced / controlled ecosystems – liberation from top-down forces

Iron Man:

• Glasses, clothing, and human factors
• Enhanced / controlled abilities – enhancements of bottom-up forces

Red Bull gives you wings:

• Beyond good and evil chemicals: food and drink
• Drugs that liberate; drugs that enhance

Money as power…

Education and Healthcare….

Brain changes that correlate with the hero’s journey…

Nihilism is lonely:

• Revolutionary Road
• Disturbia
  

Game theory:

• Tit-for-tat and the prisoner’s dilemma
• The distinctions between money and love
• Memetics and game theory – how do loving memes fair?
• The world is a place for pro-social behavior

Liberating communities:

• Technologies that decrease distress, injustice, and poverty
• Aubrey de Gray’s work – liberation from aging / death threat
• Al Gore’s work – liberation from extinction threat

Enhancing families:

• Gottman’s seven principles
• Technologies that increase happiness, access, and virtues

Romeo and Juliet:

• Forbidden love and death potions
• Biochemical solutions to social problems

Madonna’s “Material Girl”

Beyond hedonism:

• King Solomon’s poem: Ecclesiastes
  • Life w/o real progress can be depressing
  • Has everything under the sun already been done?
• flow – finding a niche in the here-and-now

Humanity’s biggest challenges:

• Prolonging Life – Methuselah Project, SENS, …
  
• Preventing Extinction – Future of Humanity Institute, Union of Concerned Scientists
  
• Enriching Life
  
  • Liberation – UN, NAMI, MSF/DWB, WHO, Habitat, Oxfam,
    
  • Enhancement – WorldChanging, Socrates Cafe, CCLE, Fulbright, 826 Valencia
    

Dreams of materialists:

• Astrological stuff – SETI, X Prize
  
• Transportation stuff – easier / safer flight, going faster
• Energy stuff – better efficiency, less pollution
• Society stuff – less poverty, better urbanization, global solidarity
• Healthcare stuff – lower costs, better prevention, smarter operations
• Business stuff – better transparency, less bullying
• Gadget stuff – smarter appliances, better design
• Entertainment stuff – broader utility, better engagement
• Education stuff – T-shaped knowledge, better materialists

Openness to Experience:

• One of the “big five” domains of human personality
• Correlated highly with intelligence
• “Yes Man” – from  boring to interesting
  
• health benefits
• becoming a connoisseur of this world

Awesome sauce:

• Biophilia – the love of the living World
• appreciating beautiful stuff

The fear of worldliness:

• Imperialism: the World as a machine
  
  • “The Matrix”
  • “Monster”
• Nihilism: the World as a vacuum
  • “Into the Wild”
  • “Revolutionary Road”
• Hedonism: the World as an intoxication
  • “Devil’s Advocate”
    
  • “Confessions of a Shopaholic”

Consider the alternatives to worldliness: Three-headed Lamb

• Asceticism and bitterness
• Fanaticism and foolishness
• Conspiracism and paranoia

Separating the wheat from the chaff: Beyond false choices

• What’s in between Imperialism and Conspiracism?
• What’s better than Nihilism and Fanaticism?
• What’s missing from Hedonism and Asceticism?

Naturalism, evolution, and agnosticism…

Human nature (ala Pinker):

• Neural networks (essentialism, materialism)
• Not a blank slate (evolutionary psychology)
• Not a noble savage (empathy and pro-sociality)
• Not a ghost in the machine (emergence and consciousness)

Consilience:

• Snake eating it’s own tail
• the challenges of uniting string theory
• the high importance of science/skepticism

Signs of worldliness:

• Cherishing your loved ones while they are alive
• Demanding a change of the system
  
• Marveling at the sky and wishing you could fly
• Losing sense of time while working on a problem
• Creating something with your hands just because you can
  

Heroes of materialism:

• Warriors – T Jefferson, Elizabeth C Stanton, M Jordan
  
• Connoisseurs  – Socrates, EO Wilson, Skepchicks
  
• Artisans – Shakespeare, M Jackson, Paula Scher
  
• Explorers – C Darwin, P Diamandis
  

Taking the hero’s journey…

• From naivete to wisdom – gaining new experiences, thinking for yourself
• From fear to curiosity – touching the unclean, asking questions
• From confusion to power – taking on problems, setting goals
  

I’ll be organizing it more like a book and less like a blog.

Salut!