Steve Warner's Dark City

[GravitySucks]

Uploading as we speak. 

You can thank me later

[Faustina]

The "artistic" touch...if it's too perfect it sounds canned and over-produced.

A few little bumps and brambles makes it sound more legit to me. 

Exactly! 

[Faustina]

Uploading as we speak. 

Yay!  My Saturday night just got better.  Thanks, Steve.   

[BC]

Uploading as we speak. 

Listening now, than you!

[bateman]

Thankyeeewww both for listening.

Darkcity.fm

[trostol]

hmm..i havent listened but a little strange that i did just read an article about an operation for bionic eyes

[PrairieGhost]

Listening right now. Bateman Illuminati confirmed!




I kid....

[Lilith]

Uploading as we speak. 

Thank You as ALWAYS bateman!   On my way to listen NOW.

[PrairieGhost]

Great show but also very scary stuff.

[Lilith]

Great show but also very scary stuff.

I couldn't agree more.

[Lilith]

I think technology is great!  I think the danger has come from the fact that we have come to depend on it, and have forgotten all the skills we need to survive without it.  I think we have made ourselves more vulnerable and dependant, not by USING technology, but by DEPENDING on it for our survival.  They don't even build housing with fireplaces anymore, so that you have to get your light and heat etc from the utility companies.  Heck, I remember the beautiful square stone homes in Ireland with just a fireplace and a stone floor, with a garden in the back yard.  A few barrels for catching water, a few chickens, and whatever else you want, and you can cook, sew, weave, keep warm and read a book with no need to pay any utility companies. I think technology is GREAT, as long as people haven't forgotten how to survive without it. I wonder how many people remember how to live without electricity, gas, running water, cars, and grocery stores?
The trouble with transhumanism, one power outage, no place to recharge your batteries, and ur dead lol's.  I HOPE I'm exagerating.

[SciFiAuthor]

I really enjoyed this guest, he was right up my alley so to speak but there are two problems. The first is that if you try to tell people what the mid-term to long-term future will be you either get utter disbelief to the point that you might as well be talking about bigfoot, or you get the "futurists are always wrong, we never got the flying car" crowd which are guilty of not paying attention to tech development. Most of the things the guest mentioned are already in development, but comparatively few know about it. I don't know how to change that, but it's an uphill battle to be sure.

The second problem is that he was waaaaaaaaay too optimistic about the social effects of the beginning of the transhumanist age. It will be a complete nightmare as every human social construct gets crushed. Religion will be irrelevant overnight, no form of economy can exist when the means of production moves to the individual, the political system is short-term and reactionary, it is not good at long-term forward thinking, and so on. Futurism sounds nice, until it collapses your society.

Great guest nonetheless. Kudos to Bateman for the foresight to take the transhumanism subject on. 

[trostol]

I really enjoyed this guest, he was right up my alley so to speak but there are two problems. The first is that if you try to tell people what the mid-term to long-term future will be you either get utter disbelief to the point that you might as well be talking about bigfoot, or you get the "futurists are always wrong, we never got the flying car" crowd which are guilty of not paying attention to tech development. Most of the things the guest mentioned are already in development, but comparatively few know about it. I don't know how to change that, but it's an uphill battle to be sure.

The second problem is that he was waaaaaaaaay too optimistic about the social effects of the beginning of the transhumanist age. It will be a complete nightmare as every human social construct gets crushed. Religion will be irrelevant overnight, no form of economy can exist when the means of production moves to the individual, the political system is short-term and reactionary, it is not good at long-term forward thinking, and so on. Futurism sounds nice, until it collapses your society.

Great guest nonetheless. Kudos to Bateman for the foresight to take the transhumanism subject on. 

we never did get a flying car...but..we do get trees that stab people so...

[SciFiAuthor]

we never did get a flying car...but..we do get trees that stab people so...

I'd like to see you climb a tree and not get stabbed.

[trostol]

I'd like to see you climb a tree and not get stabbed.

not that difficult...nor getting ...nevermind

[popple]

Lord Zoltan would be a great guest to have back for a live show 

[Evil Twin Of Zen]

I think technology is great!  I think the danger has come from the fact that we have come to depend on it, and have forgotten all the skills we need to survive without it.  I think we have made ourselves more vulnerable and dependant, not by USING technology, but by DEPENDING on it for our survival.  They don't even build housing with fireplaces anymore, so that you have to get your light and heat etc from the utility companies.  Heck, I remember the beautiful square stone homes in Ireland with just a fireplace and a stone floor, with a garden in the back yard.  A few barrels for catching water, a few chickens, and whatever else you want, and you can cook, sew, weave, keep warm and read a book with no need to pay any utility companies. I think technology is GREAT, as long as people haven't forgotten how to survive without it. I wonder how many people remember how to live without electricity, gas, running water, cars, and grocery stores?
The trouble with transhumanism, one power outage, no place to recharge your batteries, and ur dead lol's.  I HOPE I'm exagerating.

low tech food supply. it could save YOUR life.

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Cook_Children

http://uncyclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/HowTo:Cook_A_Human

Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJe3nhYxwgY

[serenity]

Uploading as we speak. 

I am just adding pre-gain tags and it will be in the mix soonest. Good show, gave me the willies though lol

[popple]

When we all turn into iPhones will the NSA be spying on our thought?

[onan]

When we all turn into iPhones will the NSA be spying on our thought?

They already are.

[GravitySucks]

When we all turn into iPhones will the NSA be spying on our thought?

I knew you were going to ask that.

[albrecht]

When we all turn into iPhones will the NSA be spying on our thought?

That is already done. More troubling is that they will creating our thoughts. I think the 'connectivty' and 'social networking' is already doing this at a greater pace than the old-school tv did (there is a reason why they called the shows 'programs.'

[Faustina]

Lord Zoltan would be a great guest to have back for a live show 

Utterly agree.  Live with callers.

[Spinner]

Just finished listening. Very good show, bateman!
I think transhumanism is a topic that should have more exposure to make "the masses" aware of what's likely coming. Having said that, I do not agree with the general idea of immortality through technology. Some on here have commented that they find the whole thing scary. I find it concerning and sad.  Yes, I'm one of those people who want to remain human.

Anyway, thanks for bringing us this topic on the show. Looking forward to next week.

[TigerLily]

That is already done. More troubling is that they will creating our thoughts. I think the 'connectivty' and 'social networking' is already doing this at a greater pace than the old-school tv did (there is a reason why they called the shows 'programs.'

And tv's as idiot boxes. Pertains more to 80% of what's on the intartubes

[GuerrillaUnReal]

Hey man, just a thought. Have you ever considered interviewing Jocko Johnson from here? He's a retired NYC cop and just scratching the surface he was completely interesting tonight.

I figure you could get into all manner of things including a retired NYC police officer's experience and perspective on things like marijuana legalization, police corruption, black lives matter and all the things facing our society right now. I think you like to stray towards more name guests but he would be perfect for a gritty real world show. Especially since you're both NYC guys, your frustration with the deterioration of NYC and your recent mugging. Plus the dude has like the most bad ass voice I've heard on here.

Just a thought, not sure if it'd be up your alley but I know you like to stray into crime subjects occasionally.

[helloidistance]

Great show. I think Zoltan is a bit optimistic on the timelines though. I think I remember him saying we’d see a lot of human/machine integration in 15-25 years. Highly doubtful. I remember when they were saying we’d have flying cars by now.

[cweb]

The second problem is that he was waaaaaaaaay too optimistic about the social effects of the beginning of the transhumanist age. It will be a complete nightmare as every human social construct gets crushed. Religion will be irrelevant overnight, no form of economy can exist when the means of production moves to the individual, the political system is short-term and reactionary, it is not good at long-term forward thinking, and so on. Futurism sounds nice, until it collapses your society.

I agree, Zoltan definitely painted things in a happier light. At the same time, isn't that what political candidates do in regards to their preferred platform?

Steve, your point that "the legal system has not caught up to technology" is spot on. We have 60+ year old politicians who don't understand things like digital distribution or e-mail (Hillary...) and these clueless fucks are making laws. How can they be expected to look ahead when they can't even catch up?

Which brings me to another point- regulation of AI will not work. I'm not so quick as to think that AI will take off and go all Skynet on everyone (yet) but I do think that no matter how hard you try to stop people from doing something, someone will still end up being able to do it. What is the resource cost for regulating artificial intelligence? I'm highly skeptical of our government's ability to deal with managing such regulations.

Tech telepathy within 25 years? Things are certainly advancing. Circuitry is continuing to get smaller. Implantables are increasing. How many piddly little things have wi-fi now? I'm terribly scared about the prospect of someone hacking my thoughts. And how do you prevent involuntary transmission?

Getting away from Earth in 50 years? It's so hard to project. But what kind of hurdles do we have to overcome just to get into space? How hard is it to simply resupply someone out there? Maybe I'm pessimistic thanks to our manned space program's slowed pace over the last 40 years.

Immortality is a scary prospect to me. One of the things that gives meaning to life is death. How is time precious if you have an infinite amount?

I absolutely love technology, but I fear that our decreasing ability to use more "natural" means in daily life will lead to a massive population crash if/when the gigantic technological infrastructure collapses.

Then again, with the state our planet is in, is that such a bad thing?

[Coffeeman]

Hey man, just a thought. Have you ever considered interviewing Jocko Johnson from here? He's a retired NYC cop and just scratching the surface he was completely interesting tonight.

I figure you could get into all manner of things including a retired NYC police officer's experience and perspective on things like marijuana legalization, police corruption, black lives matter and all the things facing our society right now. I think you like to stray towards more name guests but he would be perfect for a gritty real world show. Especially since you're both NYC guys, your frustration with the deterioration of NYC and your recent mugging. Plus the dude has like the most bad ass voice I've heard on here.

Just a thought, not sure if it'd be up your alley but I know you like to stray into crime subjects occasionally.

Oh yeah, those kinds of interviews he did were great. I really liked the one he did with Bob Wittman, one of the only full-time specialists the FBI had in art theft. The guy's biography (Priceless) was amusing, too. At one point he was being indicted for manslaughter charges while at the same time recovering priceless art. "Yeah, I was sad for my friend's death and that I might be going to jail, but I could concentrate on collecting Cal Ripken baseball cards and oh yeah, I recovered a Chinese crystal sphere last week." It was fun to read.

[bateman]

Just finished listening. Very good show, bateman!
I think transhumanism is a topic that should have more exposure to make "the masses" aware of what's likely coming. Having said that, I do not agree with the general idea of immortality through technology. Some on here have commented that they find the whole thing scary. I find it concerning and sad.  Yes, I'm one of those people who want to remain human.

Anyway, thanks for bringing us this topic on the show. Looking forward to next week.

Yeah, I heard that response more than I thought I would. Personally I like the idea of being 'better than human'.