Who'da Thunk It?

Happy New Year! I was looking for a file from late 2000 on my computer and stumbled across ... the outline for a book I was apparently thinking about writing, dated November 18, 1999. I had completely forgotten about this. A post-humanist manifesto!  It does look like topics that were covered in the blog. Anyway, here it is:

In Our Childhood – 

The Human Race Emerges from its Infancy

“There is nothing new under the sun”

History of Human Intelligence 
follow outline from Bicameral Theory

Bicameral Theory 

Modern Theory – the Influence of Computing 

Traces of our Infancy 

Primate Social Patterns

• male social models – hierarchy – mapped into most governments
• female social models -- networks 

Religion

• statistics on belief in a god, life-after-death
• UFOs and modern cults 

Gambling

• history of gambling???
• Similar activity in other species?
• Risk-taking behavior as a variant? 

Substance Abuse

• background and history
• other species that use mind-altering substances 

Collecting

• things people collect – include books, skills, ideas;
• other species that collect 

Cult of Personality

• suspension of disbelief for actors
• role-playing games
• fanhood 

Signs of Maturation

• are we putting “pecking order” behind us? No -- look at mating patterns in high schools -- still totally instinctive alpha/beta. Columbine -- video/role-playing games short-circuit normal alpha dominance reinforcement rituals. 

Future of Human Intelligence

• interfaces to computing
• engineered memes