Ever wondered about the speed of human progress?

I've talked about the singularity before (here and here), but I guess this video explains it much better than I ever could. The most important thing I guess is learning to learn.



Via Alt1040.

What is the West?

That is somethingI have come accross with a couple of times during my time here, the definition of what comprises the Western world varies widely depending on who you ask: some people will say that it's only Anglo-Saxon North America and Western Europe, some people will include Eastern Europe, some will include Australasia, some Latin America and some all of the above.

Once, when having this discussion about East and West I asked a colleague at work regarding my belonging to said construct, and this person answered "Maybe you are, but I wouldn't say that everyone in your country is". Further expanding that thought, I started wondering what it is. If a country that follows Christendom to the extent of being the second largest Catholic country in the world, is also a heir to the Roman legal tradition and has the second largest amount of speakers of a Latin-based language in the world is not Western given that it also has a strong Native Amarican component, then I don't know what the West it is.

Frankly, I think there is a confusion between the concepts of western, northern and developed countries, but that's just me.

Medios sin fines

Hablando con un amigo un poco mayor, me decía que el problema actualmente es que estamos enfocados en los medios de comunicación sin ponernos realmente a pensar para qué fines los queremos. Uno no tiene mas que ver toda la basura que hay en la televisión, en la radio, en las revistas para darse cuenta que no sólo es cierto, si no que además muchos de nosotros la consumimos por gusto.

La próxima vez que veas un programa o leas una noticia, ponte a pensar qué es lo que te quieren decir.

Human Rights for Robots

I read this in the Financial Times some time ago and it definitely caught my attention. Given that we would be approaching the singularity supposedly soon, it doesn't sound so out of touch with reality.

Talking about this with some people I know, they were decidedly spooked by this given that, they say, "robots don't have a soul". The issue of having it or not for me is irrelevant, for as long as something is self-aware and can express it they should have rights (this applies also to animals). I wanted to give them an introduction to this, but they dismissed it as a waste of time, and truth be told, our world has more pressing concerns.

I wonder if they will still think that way later on.

The singularity

More from Wikipedia.

Are you afraid, or would you like this?