[The Sharmat]

That's a pretty specific prediction.

[Baztek]

You sound remarkably something like a techno-Buddhist.

[The Sharmat]

I'd never heard of that concept until this thread and it still just makes me think of Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny.

[SmilerLoki]

One more time, there is no 'you' to be sent careening into the abyss of sranc-tier hedonism.  Causes within, etc.  You will be able to mix and match your personality/emotions like you do smartphone apps.

I don't really see how a hypothetical way to improve yourself consciousness-wise means there is no "you".

For example, I can change my desktop however I want, so I have a desktop that's structured exactly how I like it. I don't change it constantly just for the sake of changing it, and every time I do change it, I don't remake it completely (not even close).

[The Sharmat]

I think one thing modern neuroscience and most religions agree on is that there's a lot more to 'you' than your conscious self, yeah.

[Duskweaver]

Even assuming that we one day reach a point where we could all rewire our own brains to just be amoral hedonists, what makes anyone think that any society would actually allow such a thing? We'd regulate it like we do with drugs. Some people will do the rewiring anyway, illegally, and most of those people will be caught (they'd be a heck of a lot easier to identify and catch than drug users) and forcibly rewired back to something resembling humanity, or at least something that's not dangeous to the rest of society.

I mean, societies are perfectly capable of collectively deciding that certain things that might seem beneficial/enjoyable to an individual are so destructive to society as a whole that they must be forbidden. That's the point of society.

To me, the fate of the Progenitors of the Inchoroi isn't a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and technology gone too far, but of the Randian 'Objectivist' flavour of libertarianism gone too far. The only way they could have ended up as they did is if they had already thrown out any concept of a society being able to set rules for its members before they reached the technology level required to rewire their brains.

[TLEILAXU]

... the Mutilated told how the Tekne so transformed the  problems faced by the progenitors that all the old ways became impossible. It raised them from their traditions, struck the shackles of custom from their intellects, until only their common animality constrained them. They worshipped themselves as the measure of all significance, gave themselves over to wanton gluttony. Nothing was forbidden them, short the obstruction of others and their desires. Justice became the calculation of competing appetites. Logos became the principle of their entire civilization.

"the Tekne unfettered their desires, allowed them to plumb ever deeper perversions."

I don't think it's meant to be a cautionary tale, rather, it's just the story of what happened to this particular society when they tried attaining the Absolute. Remember that the reason why the Inchoroi are depraved rape-monsters is because it goads them to work diligently toward sealing the world from the Outside.
The Dûnyain are another possibility of such a kind of society, except they focused on the movements of their souls instead of worldly machinery and thus bred themselves toward eliminating passions. Same fate in the end, utterly damned, utterly devoted to sealing the World.
Edit: But maybe this is just my bias talking. It does look like a cautionary tale related to Bakker's Semantic Apocalypse https://rsbakker.wordpress.com/2011/06/21/what-is-the-semantic-apocalypse/

[Madness]

Anyway, about the rats thing. Later experiments showed that rats only get hopelessly addicted if they're stressed to begin with (e.g. from being kept in a tiny fucking cage with no stimuli). Rats kept in an 'enriched' environment will still give themselves cocaine hits occasionally, but they don't show the classical addiction symptoms of just sitting there dosing themselves continuously to the exclusion of all else. Humans seem to show the same dichotomy. Poor, stressed, miserable folks get addicted really easily. As do rich but tormented types (e.g. celebrity introverts). But lots of affluent and not-particularly-stressed-out people do illegal drugs without any real ill-effects. They're not as newsworthy as the celeb overdose-suicides, and they don't usually come to the attentions of law-enforcement, of course, so you seldom hear about them.

I haven't had a chance to forum for the past two days but I was coming here to clarify this point. Thanks, Duskweaver, +1.

Also, this is why I love thread tangents. What great reading. I'd like to move this discussion to its own dedicated thread but I don't even know what to call it. The Progenitors? Any suggestions?

[Baztek]

In This Moment, I am Euphoric, Not Because of Any Phony Absolute's Blessing, But Because, I Am Enlightened By My Own Tekne

[solipsisticurge]

I do believe the Progenitors will become a cautionary tale, of sorts.

But I believe, firmly, that the Progenitors are artificial intelligence.

Given Bakker's predilection for the subject and view of its inevitability and culture/species-warping potential, it seems logical, and what he would see as the inevitable end to the "death of meaning" and identification of the universe as an entirely mechanical process. Without moral meaning, we're back to Nietzsche's "good v. bad" supplanting "good v. evil," and AI is already outperforming human intellect at most tasks in our world, before we've even developed a true AI. We know them capable of it from the Ark's machine intelligence.

The question for me is, were they entirely AI prior to finding damnation is factual, or subsequently? If the former, it could be the inherent reason for their damnation; mechanistic souls utterly divorced from semantics, strictly pursuing intentional amoral goals. If the latter, one could assume the Progenitors, having already developed AI distinct from themselves, sought to copy their souls/consciousness into the superior form to forestall damnation (their homeworld being entirely anarcane ground, any solution is entirely reliant upon the Tekne). Side-stepping the issue seems to be most species' go-to move in the absence of a means to end it, or to wait out the interim until success.

Given the worries regarding our own future's technological advances in light of a meritocratic capitalist economy, one might also assume the AI-Progenitors came from wealthy supermen who rode the transhumanist wave to its logical conclusion, and the Inchoroi are the dead-end of the working poor, genetically and neurologically altered for maximum utility to the holders of wealth over the course of time. (Wire up the brain so carnal reward is the ultimate, reward them with this upon task completion.)

[TLEILAXU]

I do believe the Progenitors will become a cautionary tale, of sorts.

But I believe, firmly, that the Progenitors are artificial intelligence.

Given Bakker's predilection for the subject and view of its inevitability and culture/species-warping potential, it seems logical, and what he would see as the inevitable end to the "death of meaning" and identification of the universe as an entirely mechanical process. Without moral meaning, we're back to Nietzsche's "good v. bad" supplanting "good v. evil," and AI is already outperforming human intellect at most tasks in our world, before we've even developed a true AI. We know them capable of it from the Ark's machine intelligence.

The question for me is, were they entirely AI prior to finding damnation is factual, or subsequently? If the former, it could be the inherent reason for their damnation; mechanistic souls utterly divorced from semantics, strictly pursuing intentional amoral goals. If the latter, one could assume the Progenitors, having already developed AI distinct from themselves, sought to copy their souls/consciousness into the superior form to forestall damnation (their homeworld being entirely anarcane ground, any solution is entirely reliant upon the Tekne). Side-stepping the issue seems to be most species' go-to move in the absence of a means to end it, or to wait out the interim until success.

Given the worries regarding our own future's technological advances in light of a meritocratic capitalist economy, one might also assume the AI-Progenitors came from wealthy supermen who rode the transhumanist wave to its logical conclusion, and the Inchoroi are the dead-end of the working poor, genetically and neurologically altered for maximum utility to the holders of wealth over the course of time. (Wire up the brain so carnal reward is the ultimate, reward them with this upon task completion.)

I'm gonna give this a more thorough reply when I wake up in approximately 12 hours, but until then, isn't it funny how we all see our own views, political or whatever, reflected in this?

[solipsisticurge]

I'm gonna give this a more thorough reply when I wake up in approximately 12 hours, but until then, isn't it funny how we all see our own views, political or whatever, reflected in this?

We are all equally blind to the darkness that comes before.

[Madness]

I'm gonna give this a more thorough reply when I wake up in approximately 12 hours, but until then, isn't it funny how we all see our own views, political or whatever, reflected in this?

We are all equally blind to the darkness that comes before.

Admitting we have a problem is the first step .

[solipsisticurge]

Admitting we have a problem is the first step .

The second step is, apparently, two millennia of ascetic living and eugenics.

[SmilerLoki]

Even assuming that we one day reach a point where we could all rewire our own brains to just be amoral hedonists, what makes anyone think that any society would actually allow such a thing? We'd regulate it like we do with drugs. Some people will do the rewiring anyway, illegally, and most of those people will be caught (they'd be a heck of a lot easier to identify and catch than drug users) and forcibly rewired back to something resembling humanity, or at least something that's not dangeous to the rest of society.

I mean, societies are perfectly capable of collectively deciding that certain things that might seem beneficial/enjoyable to an individual are so destructive to society as a whole that they must be forbidden. That's the point of society.

To me, the fate of the Progenitors of the Inchoroi isn't a cautionary tale about the dangers of science and technology gone too far, but of the Randian 'Objectivist' flavour of libertarianism gone too far. The only way they could have ended up as they did is if they had already thrown out any concept of a society being able to set rules for its members before they reached the technology level required to rewire their brains.

This is most certainly true.

But I should note it's probably a step below the purely philosophical level of looking at the issue. Societal rules imposed on some forms of behavior don't describe this behavior and its ramifications. Though I completely agree, hordes of hedonistic sociopaths would ruin any kind of (highly) organized society, so it would naturally try to avoid such a turn of events.

Another question is, are hedonism and sociopathy really inevitable?