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Alex's avatar

It's even more fundamental than the family: The divide between the First Things wing and the SV libertarians on tech questions amounts to a dispute over embodiment as such, and whether the body is something to be embraced anew or actually transcended. The First Things authors open their manifesto with a defense of not only the family but also the "human person," which they say is threatened by technological advacement. That idea is anathema to tech partisans for whom transhumanism is progress.

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Geoff Shullenberger's avatar

Yes, agreed. Elon Musk's quasi-transhumanist family as well as his various schemes for humanity's future are about as far from this as one can imagine.

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Annie Gottlieb's avatar

SPOT ON!

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David Comdico's avatar

AI is theft but also a product of the “everything is a remix” ethos. That was wrong and so is the subjunctive assumption that AI will magically transform into AGI.

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Oscar Brigstocke's avatar

This article's arguments dovetailed nicely with those of the First Things authors:

https://www.aporiamagazine.com/p/yes-youre-going-to-be-replaced

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Dain Fitzgerald's avatar

Curiously, Askonas is a big booster of AI. (Just not, say, some AI tool in an addictive social media app.)

https://youtu.be/RHWhC2af4kc

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Michael's avatar

“Conservatives should push for policies that support economic dynamism and innovation, but we must recognize that the market has failed to produce a technological order that uplifts the family. Rather, that order too often attacks it at the root.”

"Conservatives" are thus hoist on their own petard. When they say "economic dynamism and innovation" they mean capitalism tout court. But as "conservatives" they really cannot afford to be seen opposing capitalism. This is the "you can't get there from here" scenario at the end of time.

Once they realize they have to put down their Hayek and pick up their Marx, they, like any "left" in America and the Americanized "west" will be pushed so far out to the margins that they will all retreat into the pseudo-spiritual quietism being promoted by the likes of Rod Dreher and Paul Kingsnorth.

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