How pro-technology are you?

How pro-technology are you? - Are you a transhumanist, bioluddite or primitivist?

1.How does the idea of a work free society sound to you?

A:Impossible/undesirable, just not going to happen.

B:Good, it can be achieved though the use of technology by automating the production to the point where no sapient being has to do it

C:The way to achieve a work free society is to go back to the wild. Then nothing we do to survive will be "work."

2.What is your stance on food?

A:Organic agriculture all the way.

B:Pass the genetically modified crops and vat grown meat please.

C:Agriculture is bad. We should go back to hunter gatherer.

D:In the long term we should augment ourselves so we do not need food.

3.Does technology de-humanize people?

A:Yes. Anything that goes against our natural place does so.

B:Sometimes. If you upload your mind to a computer or augment your body enough then you are no longer human.

C:No. Even if you're just a disembodied mind floating around the internet you're still human.

D:Possibly but why should we cling to being human anyway?

4.If it was found that ALL technology above basic tools hurt the environment what would you do?

A:Give up all technology. It's worth saving the environment.

B:Stop any more progress from happening. It's ok to be able to eat but not have a pet robot.

C:Get to the asteroid belt as fast as possible. We won't be hurt by an environmental collapse there.

5.How can we build a paradise on earth?

A:We really can't. We can improve in small ways such as ending war but large changes are just not going to happen.

B:Do back to nature. It's what we're built for so it is what we will enjoy most.

C:Technology. Virtual reality and robotic servants anybody?

(2 and 3 are check boxes)

[1]

Obviously there's no need to take this very seriously, but I thought it was kind of interesting. Weirdly enough i find myself simultaneously agreeing with all of it.

edited 16th Mar '11 12:30:11 PM by LoveHappiness

1. B

2. B, but only because D breaks thermodynamics.

3. D

4. D: Fix the environment!

5. C

edited 16th Mar '11 12:38:51 PM by Yej

transhumanist apparently.

1. B

2. A

3. B

4. A

5. A

The result I got was "Bioluddite".

I would guess that «don't need food» means «don't need products of a specific carbon-based ecology», not «don't need energy intake».

Don't think that survey's going to turn up many primitivists. Seems a bit of a silly quiz anyway, the questions are far too broad.

What kind of self-respecting internet quiz isn't?

1. A
2. A (GE crops have... negative traits)
3. D
4. C
5. A

Wow, that description is inaccurate.

"A (GE crops have... negative traits)"

Yeah, I've heard that. I'm undecided (though Food, Inc. was pretty interesting). But I'm very excited about the possibility of vat meat.

"...within a few decades, the advent of genetically-engineered vatfood means that we can enjoy eating "meat" tastier than anything available today - without any killing and cruelty. As a foretaste of what's in store, the In Vitro Meat Consortium was initiated at a workshop held at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences in June 2007. Critically, growing meat from genetically-engineered single cells is likely to be scalable indefinitely: its global mass consumption is potentially cheaper than using intact non-human animals. Therefore - assuming that for the foreseeable future we retain the cash nexus and market economics - cheap, delicious vatfood is likely to displace the factory-farming and mass-killing of our fellow creatures.

One might wonder sceptically: are most people really going to eat gourmet vatfood, even if it's cheaper and more palatable than flesh from butchered non-human animals? If we may assume that vatfood is marketed properly, yes. For if we discover that we prefer the taste of vat-grown meat to carcasses of dead animals, then the moral arguments for a cruelty-free diet will probably seem much more compelling than they do at present."

edited 16th Mar '11 1:35:35 PM by LoveHappiness

1.B Have you been looking at my plans for a my utopia?

2.B On the atomic level, all elements are the same, and thus while the food ingested to achieve a state of full nutrition would be achieved through what some dub "artificial" methods.... All things operate under the same principals. That the method I choose is not organic (I.E.: does not possess carbon atoms in its molecular formula) is of no concern to me

3.D I've thought about this for at least thirty hours on road trips. Why should we limit ourselves indeed?

4.C I care not for how Humanity endures. Only that it does

5.C Should such things become possible, my utopia shall be insight :D

edited 16th Mar '11 1:37:54 PM by badgertaco

Vat food will probably be a success... if they do what GE foods did.

GE foods are everywhere, and for one reason - they aren't marked. Vat foods will be pushed, but nobody will ever hear about it, taking away anybody's freedom to choose. Those that created the GE foods actually pulled some dirty tricks to ensure that their food would never be labeled. They knew that people would flee from it. And with good reason, as while GE foods can be easier to grow (actually they aren't, they require special pesticides and crap), and while they can be interesting (such as purple potatoes), they ultimately have yet to actually be made healthier than organic food.

Carcinogens, less nutrition, and so on.

They are in more than 90% of our food supply too, so good luck avoiding it. Especially since it is completely unmarked. Even with the seeds you buy in spring for your garden, it is almost impossible to find veggies that aren't GE.

Genetic engineering has its place. It can be a blessing.

But not in this way, no.

-is bored-

1. A: Undesirable

2. A/B

3. C/D

4. C

5. A

Transhumanist. Ok. Next quiz?

You simply are not thinking this through. Taken to the maximum, GE foods would be able to sustain all of humanity without fear of famine. GE foods include new types of wheat that can survive being submerged up to three months due to flooding

GE is the future of all things, not just food

(transition to open assimilation beginning.. now)

JOIN US JOIN US

ONE OF US ONE OF US

What a surprise, I'm pro-technology!

Answers were A, B (Organic is very ineffcient, could never support humanity's current philosophy of infinite expansion.), D, I didn't answer question 4 because it was so hard to imagine the situation and A(The problem of the idea of a paradise is that it's subjective)

I like these types of questions, I mentioned the impossible to sustain infinite expansion philosphy that humans posess, I find it funny because Machines and humanlike A.I.s would be able to expand better and further than we could but could also be more sustainable than we are.

I'm gonna go with "very".

Same

Those are indeed very good reasons.

If only those were the only reasons it was being used for. In other cases, they are hurting productivity and health, far more so than aiding it.

I'm not doing a silly survey. But I will say that I am pro-technology; I understand the urges of people who wish that there wasn't any technology and for a simpler existence, but I also find their attitude irritating.

There seems to be an attitude amongst some types that the fairly socially-liberal society we currently have has reached this state independently of the technology level. That, without all the stuff which makes our current life-style possible, people will still manage to have the same attitudes. This, I believe, is incorrect.

@eth zee

Ditto

@Anonym

Ah, well thats hardly good news... but in what ways is GE being used to negative effects?

Some GE crops have "terminator" genes that prevent the crops from breeding in order to ensure that there are customers for the company next year.

Well, yeah, that sucks. Technology is great, abuse of technology sucks ass.

1. B

2. B if done safely, otherwise A

3. Somewhere between C and D for given values of "human"

4. This question is silly. Continue progress, fix the environment. If I have to answer I'll have to say C - but I really don't want to.

5. C for the best chance of "paradise on earth".

Pro-technology transhumanist, obviously - because I don't think all seven billion of us can go back to being hunter gatherers.

edited 16th Mar '11 3:29:01 PM by TrapperZoid

So... if we're not what you define as pro-technology, then we obviously must be luddites or primitivists?

I think technology has the potential to make our lives better, it's just not always applied properly. On the quiz, I was considered a transhumanist, but I don't think I could join that movement in real life, because I expect it to turn out less like a utopia and more like Gattaca.

EI: Their Personal Dictionary version of luddites was a middle ground that some technology is okay but should be used cautiously.