4 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2024
    1. extropianism of the 80s and 90s,

      A techno-optimist / rationalist thing, connected to transhumanism and cryogenics.

    2. using engineering to repair a complex system like our planet.

      This sounds very problematic to me. Engineering is not meant for complex issues, it needs reductionism to complicated but highly predictable causal chains to be able to engineer it. Also wrt environment I don't see actual evidence of techno-optimism having had positive impact, let alone at geo-engineering scale. Environmental achievements wrt sulfur (acid rain), ozon (HFCs), living rivers (pesticides, discharges) etc. result from regulations limiting what engineers had previously introduced.

  2. Jul 2022
    1. Techno-optimism is the belief that technology will produce more good than bad. To defend techno-optimism, we must first establish what our values are, and then discover the facts that preserve those values. Modest techno-optimism acknowledges the problems in technology, but couples that to an optimism in human institutions and virtues.
  3. Oct 2020