14.9.10

fightan good

(title stolen from the SCP Foundation's guidelines of things they don't want any more of, which is appropriately enough also what i don't want any more of.)

this, gentlehumans, is a rant. it is not directed at anyone in particular; rather, this thing that pisses me off is a whole fucked-up paradigm that colours all of our thinking and seems to come from society itself. that thing is fightan good.

it seems like every time you go looking for information or discussion on a particular technology, some fucker is looking to use it to fight good. usually, i expect this as a matter of course: TV and cinema, for one, seem to be saturated with the idea of combat, gaming even more so. everything's about fighting. every protagonist in anything i play has to fight something. i wish this weren't the case, because it bleeds over into science; nice tech, now how will we weaponise that? transhumanism suffers from it every bit as much as biotech and physics do. everyone wants embedded weapons, or enhanced reflexes, or super-speed, all for fucking fightan good. cyborgs as portrayed in common culture are almost all soldiers or mercenaries or bounty hunters. you can't get away from it.

this annoys me to no end. technology is so beautiful, knowledge even more so - and hurting other humans is not its intended use, nor is merely defending oneself from other equally violent motherfuckers who can't think of any other way to enhance the human body. what about your brains, people? what about longevity, or quality of life for the elderly? what about improving our capabilities to learn, to enjoy, to experience?

i'm not saying the species doesn't need defence capabilities: i hope one day it won't, but right now that's not the case. i'm just very sick of seeing people prioritise harming others over anything and everything. that's not what transhumanism is about. i won't help anyone weaponise themselves no matter how many times you ask me.

omnis moria, especially me, and i want to leave this planet a tiny bit better than i found it. you can't do that by making the world into a game of System Shock.

L

14 comments:

Max said...

I know what you mean. Only yesterday I had a heated debate over 'Eye Are Sea' about how the only way that leads to longlasting peace was demilitarization, and not (what my conversational opponent defended) an arms race and a fear-based stasis. He was exactly the kind of person you're talking about. Dear me, I should watch my blood levels.

Also, how can we use this rant as a weapon?

melladh said...

Since I can only agree with almost everything you say here, I'll just comment this bit: There are lots of games without fighting, it's just so much more difficult to create a game with the same sense of both accomplishment and adrenaline if you don't kill anything. And no-killing-games usually require you to use your brain, which is, you know... frowned upon in the western world for some reason. ("who do you think you are acting all clever like?")

Anonymous said...

Thanks for sharing this link, but unfortunately it seems to be down... Does anybody have a mirror or another source? Please reply to my post if you do!

I would appreciate if a staff member here at sapiensanonym.blogspot.com could post it.

Thanks,
Charlie

Max said...

That anonymous gentleman above me reeks of oil and clockwork, if you know what I mean.

Also, I'll have to agree with what melladh said. It's hard to craft a game that gives you a sense of accomplishment while still retaining its thrill when you take every kind of fight, physical and metaphorical, out of it.
Yes, there are puzzle games, brain teasers, self-improvement 'games' (seriously, wii fit is not a game, it's workout.), but they have the reputation of being boring because our society doesn't like activities that don't provide you with instant gratification, which is as much of a problem as the general dislike of intellect melladh has already pointed out.

ianmathwiz7 said...

@Max,

The sad thing is, Wii Fit is my main source of exercise (as well as cardio work out, Wii active, etc.).

~Ian

Max said...

@Ian:
Wii Fit would be my main source of workout if I ever used it. Instead, my main source of workout is probably 'the stairs'.

A very interesting idea for powering the device that might even be feasible if this project takes a few more years is this:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/09/100914-fuel-cell-biofuels-medical-implants-human-health/

If we could get that to work, we could wave bye-bye to charging at all, and could write not only one research paper, but two, and enjoy street Pimm's wearing two top hats each.

Kuro said...

I agree. It'd be an exaggeration to call me a pacifist, but I'm sick of people constantly placing weapons at the top of every prioritized list. Most of what I usually have to say about this subject, however, was mentioned in your post.

Director X said...

God bless you hippies. Every one.

Hey, is there a separate site for the northpaw procedure? I seem to remember someone working on one.

melladh said...

@Max my favorite quote regarding that game: "The best way to exercise is on the wii fit, cupcake in hand"

spoon said...

@Director X

I said I'd create a wiki for these projects, but I've reneged on my word because I've been bloody busy - it's the end of my academic year. Sorry!

I did ficker with a wiki engine called wagn, but it was basically shite. Overcomplex, buggy.

However, if anyone could set up a site, I'd be happy to host it. I'm also (mostly) free after the 29th, so I could get cracking by then.

Lepht said...

i don't think i will ever get used to actually seeing comments on this fucking blog.

melladh - i know, i know. i just wish it weren't the case that you get stuffed into lockers in school if you aren't pretty and dumb (i was neither.)

Charlie - it went down for mass editing, but it ought to be back by now. there's no staff here except me, and i'm really more of a vomiter of thoughts than a staff member.

Max - i have been notified of the cells, but shelved the idea owing to the sheer amount of resources it would need. i am, after all, just one human in a house, not a lab scientist with funding to develop this shit.

X - haven't seen you in a while. i am most certainly what you could call a hippie. i shall pursue the site idea in meatspace; i am no web designer, so i may well simply carry on putting things up here as i go...

L

Unqualifed to speak said...

Argos do a nice cheap electric toothbrush; soon as I find a branch that fucking has it in stock, I shall see what we can see, coil-wise.

Actually on topic; researchers talk up the weapon potential of this kinda thing for the simple reason that DARPA or local equivalent are generally their only hope for funding. Everyone else? No such excuse.

Lepht said...

let me know what goes down, Unq. i've got access to an Argos here, so can always mirror any experiments you end up doing. also yeah, i know about the need to get funding from the .mil, i just wish that wasn't the case - it's part of the whole paradigm... ugh.

L

Something or another said...

As someone from /v/ that's interested in transhumanism, the idea of cybernetics was interestingly portrayed in "Deus Ex: Human Revolution"

At the time of writing it, the thread's actually got some girth and has been debating the practical uses of whether or not the idea of cybernetics for good would be perverted because philosophy and junk.

It was an interesting game and it seems to be the only way I can sort of segway something with a modicum of relevance to anything you've been saying that I like.

Greetings from the geographical heart of 'Murrika and all that jazz.

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