Kingsnorth and Yudkowski seem to me remarkably ignorant of the imprtant work of people like Postman, Innis, Greer, L:anier and others who debunk the notion of technological progress as endlessly growing into more and more powerful machines that will 'take over'. Take over what? Love? Pleasure? Joy? Meaning? If these machines manage to kill us off - pressing the red button in a nuclear silo, etc. so what? We are going to get killed off as a planet when the sun dies at least then if not before. Kali Yuga, etc.
Yudkowsky is a rationalist cult-leader, so has invested his life's work in the religion of Progress. Kingsnorth is... well, he's just Kingsnorth. An interesting writer, but over-dramatizes things sometimes.
I don't know if you have been exposed to this, but I have read that some think he was an MK-Ultra experiment gone wrong, which would explain his irrational attraction to violence. I haven't made a study of it, so am not sure if it's true or not, but it did add another dimension to think about when considering him.
Kingsnorth and Yudkowski seem to me remarkably ignorant of the imprtant work of people like Postman, Innis, Greer, L:anier and others who debunk the notion of technological progress as endlessly growing into more and more powerful machines that will 'take over'. Take over what? Love? Pleasure? Joy? Meaning? If these machines manage to kill us off - pressing the red button in a nuclear silo, etc. so what? We are going to get killed off as a planet when the sun dies at least then if not before. Kali Yuga, etc.
Yudkowsky is a rationalist cult-leader, so has invested his life's work in the religion of Progress. Kingsnorth is... well, he's just Kingsnorth. An interesting writer, but over-dramatizes things sometimes.
I don't know if you have been exposed to this, but I have read that some think he was an MK-Ultra experiment gone wrong, which would explain his irrational attraction to violence. I haven't made a study of it, so am not sure if it's true or not, but it did add another dimension to think about when considering him.