From: Gwern Branwen (gwern0@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Oct 10 2009 - 11:59:44 MDT
On Sat, Oct 10, 2009 at 12:20 PM, Joshua Fox <joshua@joshuafox.com> wrote:
> Aleksei,
>
> Thanks for bringing that up. (FastForward Radio recently mentioned this
> too.)
>
> Netanyahu, by reputation at least, is the sort of person you'd expect to
> catch on to the Kurzweilllian memes: smart, MIT-educated, in favor of modern
> economic policies, the leader of a country at the forefront of technological
> development.
>
> Another point of interest: Leaders often gather ideas from the people around
> then. I wonder which of his assistants or speechwriters brought these up?
>
> Now, if we all could carry on this thread with topics more substantive than
> putative anti-Semitism and cheap politics, we could ask what this means
> about the potential of world leaders to pick up on memes which interest us?
> Will it happen? Does it matter? Would it be a good thing?
>
> Joshua
The question, I think, is whether this is one leader being idiosyncratic - such as Lee Kuan Yew's love of eugenics - or whether this is another indication of how transhumanist ideas & viewpoints are filtering out & becoming mainstream.
In support of the latter, I offer 2 datapoints I saw in the last 2 weeks:
- Researchers in the _Lancet_ specifically dare to call aging 'modifiable': http://www.physorg.com/news173644547.html
- The London Times writes an article on outre optical modifications such as improved nightvision or eyes with different focuses, and *doesn't* condemn them in every other paragraph (and indeed, only weakly criticizes them once, indirectly, in the lede): http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6859483.ece
--
gwern
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