Thoughts While On Deadline
Bowler Hat Science from Matthew R Francis
Naturally in the way of things I have two major deadlines within three days of each other, while juggling a series of other crises. (None of those individually are that serious but together they’re taking up far too much of my time and energy, as these things happen.)
Meanwhile, I’m in the middle of reading Surekha Davies’ book Humans: A Monstrous History, about how people have dehumanized each other over the millennia. I might post a more thorough review when I’m finished, but I wanted to dig out three related comics I did for The Nib with Maki Naro:
“Are We Alone in the Universe?” looks at the chemical and geological assumptions we make when looking for life elsewhere in the cosmos;
“Where Are All the Aliens?” asks whether we can recognize alien life if we saw it, and particularly if so-called “Western” cultural values lead us to assume some pretty wild things about alien life and “civilization”;
“Are We Living in a Simulation?” is a flashback to a more innocent time when we could talk about Elon Musk without bringing up blatant antisemitism, Nazi salutes, and the wholesale destruction of the American federal government: we looked at what it means to believe reality is a simulation, and why it doesn’t reflect well on the believers.
As Davies’ book emphasizes, many humans historically and today have trouble recognizing other humans as persons, while devaluing contributions from cultures that have broader definitions of life and personhood. Since many of the concerns about alien life and “killer AI” are based around these dehumanizing and often violent concepts, it’s good to think about whether researchers (and maybe we too) are masking dangerous biases with science.
Bowlerhattishly thine,
Matthew
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