What’s Next? – A Tribute To Stanislaw Lem

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It’s not easy to describe Lem, to summarise his heritage to the world. But one thing is sure: he was a visionary strategist and a scholar spanning over multiple fields of science. And he was genuine in all his life. I put aside John v. Neumann in all aspects. And there is an interesting quote about Neumann, according to Ede Teller father of the atomic bomb: “Scientists are able to prove inside their field of expertise, Neumann can prove anything“.

Based on Lem’s works describing the future, in the following posts I’ll talk about those future trends which will become reality for sure.

Basics

• The world is changing faster than we can imagine.
• The moral canon has completely disappeared, there are no more “taboos” and moral considerations about what we should do, and how we should do. We live in the era of total freedom, whatever this means.

The following ideas might sound very critical due to these basics, especially due to the inexistence of morals. However the new Generation Y will construct also positive values from the following aspects.

Politics

• The world is over hyped due to cold war. From this grandiosity we should step back to earth.
• Asymmetry is the new world order: small is taking over the huge, and in the same time huge is getting bigger by taking over smaller. (terror vs. globalisation)
• Masses are taking control over their lives of consummation (polls and rating rules media & politics) and politics takes over masses through control of freedom (tight security, no more human rights).

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Culture

• This is the end of the high culture. Only pop culture matters.
• There is full freedom, there are no more moral obstacles and considerations. Sensational is the basic value without any morals.
• The overall presence of information overflow, the logorrhea of information introduces anarchy.
• Creative people are crazy, schizophrenic, absurd, and shocking without having enough lived experiences to serve as background for really valuable creations.
• In arts the next paradigm is reincarnational postmodernims: I’ll reborn to destroy more.

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Civil Society

• Emotional over rational.
• Earth is overpopulated and resources are running out.
• It is very common the Bad wins and the Good is always a looser. No more Tom & Jerry …
• Is driven completely by the media (old school media: TV, radio, newspapers, … and new school media: internet, mobile).

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Science & Technology

• Energy: Oil and uranium is running out; we might have luck with the revisited cold fusion.
• Nature: Despite any technological advancement we are always vulnerable by supreme forces.
• Speed: Using the words of Paul Virilio, due to this era of high speed we are living the “aesthetics of disappearance“. According to Lem, we are the latest reliqvium of the uncivilised nature.
• Universe: is just an illusion: an illegal loan with no cover. The Cosmos exists on an unlimited credit.
• Evolution: is non-linear but random.
• Scientists: There are lots of magicians and charlatans masked scientists; there are no more polyhistors and polymaths; the space of inventions is limited for a person, we are repeating themselves independently from others — everything will become a pseudo-plagiarism.
• God and Illumination: we have a system (the limbic system in the human brain) relating ourselves to the Everything; Illumination is based on admiration and respect, it is Dostoevsky’s “touch of God”, reachable during meditating yourself into deep silence, or using hallucinogenic drugs. However all these can be bought using Prof. Persinger’s Transcanial Simulator.
• Genesis: procreation and extinction are strongly related. Any cosmic holocaust is followed by biological innovation/evolution of life.
• Artificial Intelligence: the border between natural and artificial will disappear. There will be an electronic brain and soul not distinguishable from the original.

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Information and Communication Technology

• The Information Market is crucial for the biggest capitalists and corporations.
• Information becomes genital, fully sexualised: “everything that would serve humanity turned to be a strangehold of restrictions“.
• Ubiquity is exponential power.
• It is more difficult to distinct truth from fake. Information leads to paranoia.
• Internet has a Marxist/communist aspect: information & knowledge as individual property goes to service providers, corporations.
• The American Dream is replaced by Virtual Reality.

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Biotechnology, Genetics

• The strapline is “You can do better than nature” (James Young of MedImmune) which leads to autoevolution.
• Genetics is a pure market product.
• In 10 years no one can recognise a genetically pimped sportsman.
• Patenting human genes reintroduces slavery.
• Molecular and quantum biology is to watch.
• Humans are nothing without culture (a child born outside culture cannot talk) — and nobody takes into consideration the cultural aspect of cloning humans.
• Homo sapiens is the latest specie of the natural evolution.

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