Тег: Science

Tyan, could I also get a review of Grad, Snail, and Picnic?

I used the search and found a review of Rainbow. I’ve never seen it from such an angle! It turned out to be an unexpectedly pleasant, intellectually stimulating stereoscopic effect

Semarg (Question accompanied by a donation of 0.1 dash)

At this rate, sooner or later I will become acquainted with practically the entire legacy of the Strugatsky brothers. To start with, I read “Roadside Picnic,” and now I will share my thoughts on it, and in time I will get to the other two commissioned novellas.

What invariably pleases me about the Strugatskys is that their world is quite psychologically authentic, and since economics largely continues psychology, it turns out to be economically consistent as well. For example, it is quite accurately noted that no matter how much you lower the iron curtain, you cannot completely isolate any Zone; it will inevitably become part of world trade, bringing prosperity to both itself and the outside world, while the paranoiacs from the secret services will have to accept it.

But, of course, the Zone is not only a metaphor for a frightening and incomprehensible foreign land, but simultaneously a metaphor, let’s say, for the sphere of scientific knowledge. In “Hard to Be a God,” the Strugatskys showed science as a box. A scientist puts his hand in and pulls out some random thing. He thinks he will use it this way, but it turns out that others start using it that way. It is similar in “Picnic.” A stalker drags some mysterious loot out of the zone, which is then adapted for use in unpredictable ways. The fact that the result will be unpredictable is no reason not to haul it, because the risk pays off.

And since we’ve started talking about science, I cannot fail to note that the only representative of the USSR in the book is engaged, conventionally speaking, in studying the influence of the philological characteristics of the word “concrete” on the drilling properties of a gaze. All the conversion of the Zone’s wonders into technological wonders is left to greedy capitalists. The stalkers act as sorts of startups that skim the cream off new markets, but gradually give way to fat corporations that rely not on courage and art, but on capital investments and methodicalness. As usual, the vast majority of startups go bust.

In conclusion, I will note that in the world of “Roadside Picnic,” humanity was terribly lucky. The most important thing about the aliens’ visit to Earth was the very fact of the visit. After this, humanity simply had no choice but to stop closing its eyes and pretending that it was alone in the universe. Our humanity also most likely encountered an alien probe in 2017, but preferred to pretend that nothing special happened, because acknowledging the very fact of contact with an extraterrestrial civilization is psychologically unbearable. I am talking about the visit to the Solar System by an object named ‘Oumuamua and its performance of non-gravitational maneuvers in the system. So we live as if nothing happened, as if there had been no Visit.

Pilman’s Radiant

Monday begins on Saturday

There was a lot of commentary about the Strugatsky brothers, especially on Facebook, so I think I’ll write about one more of their books that I’ve managed to read since my first review. I am talking about the novella “Monday Begins on Saturday,” which is cult status for junior school-age research fellows.

The book uses a simple allegory of magic as a science. This livens up the plot, allows the inclusion of various folkloric elements, and simultaneously gives the authors an opportunity to safely offer mild criticism of the Soviet system of research institutes (NII). And some things in this criticism seemed quite curious and even symptomatic to me.

Who are the negative characters in the book? Almost exclusively those wizards who try to implement the achievements of magic into the national economy. They do it clumsily because they are all untalented cynics with hairy ears, intent on riding and endlessly milking a single topic, and so on. And who are the positive characters? Those who investigate deep fundamental questions, such as the connection between the piercing properties of a gaze and the philological characteristics of the word “concrete,” but categorically refuse to defile themselves by introducing advanced concrete-drilling techniques into production. And this is the whole essence of Soviet science, which does not know the word “startup” and believes that science is a way to satisfy a scientist’s personal curiosity at the expense of the state—a phrase I have heard repeatedly from scientists, though I don’t know who the author was.

As a result, there is nothing surprising about the fact that in the world of “Monday,” magic is completely absent from the daily lives of ordinary people. It is something that sages in ivory tower research institutes engage in. They might practice it a little at home, but ordinary citizens receive nothing from magic except costs, resulting from accidents during tests and the sheer sloppiness of the wizards.

Furthermore, wizards absolutely loathe the press. And why wouldn’t they? The press tries to inform people of at least some benefit that magic brings, and as a result, deals mainly with opportunistic implementers while neglecting the philological characteristics of the word “concrete.” Naturally, such feedback cannot help but offend a true wizard.

What, under ancap, will there be only applied magic? No fundamental magic at all? Of course there will be, and plenty of it. Those wishing to satisfy their personal curiosity will receive grants for satisfying personal curiosity from funds established by admirers of others’ curiosity, or directly. That is more honest. That means less meaningless bureaucracy, which all self-respecting sorcerers dislike so much. And that way, there will be less fussing over ear depilation.

This post was conceived on Saturday and published on Monday, all according to the canon.

The positive hero flew in to steal a valuable device—a constant leitmotif for the Strugatskys, which I already mentioned in my review of Distant Rainbow

Progress, the State, and the Survival of Civilization

Vitaly Tizun, edited by Ancap-tyan

Supporters of the state often claim that scientific progress is impossible in a free society, and that only the state is capable of providing science with the resources necessary for its development. There are several objections to this thesis.

In Theory of a Free Society, I described in detail from an economic point of view how the state hinders the realization of any ideas. The state implements ideas in the least efficient way, as it can pour unlimited money into their embodiment without thinking about profit, while simultaneously restricting private initiative in the same field. Science is a typical example of such an approach.

But right now we are interested more in political rather than economic incentives, for it is on their basis that the state steers science.

Let’s take a classic example of conservative policy. Such a policy often prioritizes certain values (such as family, traditions, customs, nation, etc.). I will not say that these values mean nothing; for many people, they are very, very important. However, the state and political conservatives often justify absolutely any measures that they believe can protect these values, including measures that negatively affect other values and social spheres. Thus, we often encounter extremely absurd arguments stating that we must control progress and not allow it to be too rapid, as this could disrupt the traditional way of life of society. This not only sounds delusional but also does not work in practice, instead contributing to the destruction of the traditional way of life, which we will discuss below.

I will provide a couple of examples of how the politicization of science harms scientific development.

Nobel laureate James Watson was branded a racist and stripped of several honorary titles for asserting a link between the intelligence quotient and racial origin. Thus, a simple scientific observation was equated with calls for racial discrimination. Naturally, under such conditions, research into the influence of genetics on intelligence becomes hindered.

An even more egregious example is GMO-phobia. Hysteria, maintained at the level of political decisions, makes life extremely difficult for many potential players in this promising market, while a few corporations with serious lobbying capabilities reap superprofits thanks to politicians clearing the market.

But if this were only about transgenic plants, it would be half the battle; however, research related to the genetic modification of humans is also being slowed down. Conservatives thus attempt to protect human nature, but by obstructing small and gradual changes, they only ensure that when science advances enough to no longer be containable, the application of new technologies to change human genetics will become avalanche-like. The difference between enhanced and traditional humans will become too sharp, and this is exactly the scenario that conservatives fear so much.

Thus, the original thesis that the state, unlike a free society, is the only entity capable of ensuring scientific progress turns out to be fundamentally wrong; instead, we see that it is perfectly capable of hindering it.

If a free society proves to be insufficiently strong, and the doctrine of limiting the pace of scientific development remains influential enough, it will lead to humanity simply exhausting the resources currently at its disposal without ever gaining access to new ones, whether through an extensive path of development, such as space expansion, or an intensive one, through a radical increase in humanity’s energy capacity. This would mean the fading of civilization.

However, this is a very unlikely scenario. People usually mobilize quite well in the face of an obvious threat, and when the state itself acts as such an obvious threat, all the worse for it.

Turbulent emotions have a violent end; do not provoke turbulent emotions

Transhumanists doubt ancap

My post from the day before yesterday was reposted in a transhumanist channel, where they also posted a couple of remarks:

1. Transhumanism is closely linked to scientific and technological progress, and that requires huge financial injections; even states have problems with this, as sufficient funds for science are often not found, and under ancap, where everything will be decentralized, it could become even worse (I may be wrong, I am not as familiar with ancap ideas as the ancaps themselves), even corporations might lack funds, especially considering their drive to maximize profit. Building things like the LHC could be impossible under ancap, given the required funds and, essentially, the lack of profitability. And there wouldn’t be enough philanthropists for such scales. However, considering that under ancap, capitalists will gain access to the resources previously owned by states, this should give them more opportunities, although it’s still not a fact that it will be enough. 

Here I want, firstly, to refer to my old post about funding fundamental science under ancap, and secondly, to point out that transhumanism does not need things like the LHC: research in biotechnology, bioinformatics, and other transhumanist agendas does not require a super-concentration of resources on a single mega-project, which means that funding can be decentralized, gradual, and quickly transition from the fundamental science stage to the applied stage, with rapid implementation of results in business. As far as I know, the most expensive research in this field was the sequencing of the human genome; it was carried out worldwide for many years by numerous laboratories without disrupting current scientific activities, and this is still much simpler than building some unimaginably complex installation in one place.

2. Regarding cyberpunk, that is incorrect. Cyberpunk is not tied to the fact of the existence of states; moreover, cyberpunk often depicts states as having either disappeared or lost all power, with corporations taking their place. And it is under ancap that a cyberpunk scenario of the world being governed by corporations is more than likely. One could even say that cyberpunk often captures precisely the world of anarcho-capitalism.

I am proceeding from Oppenheimer’s definition of the state, that is, an organization that uses systematic, regular, legalized, and continuously applied “political methods” to extract wealth from the producing society. Cyberpunk corporations differ from corporations in current reality in that they are states in the Oppenheimer sense, they are simply extraterritorial. This system differs from anarcho-capitalism precisely by the legality of political methods, whereas under ancap they are marginal.

Political methods are not needed, buddy