Reply to Joys Cats

 
"Futurists" always have the problem that their visions are superseded by a progressive reality. As technology hits a development curve, this is increasingly happening within their own lifetimes. What is restricting the advance of technology based social reform is two factors: economics of industries curtailed by (which is arguably a factor is developing the direction of technology) and human inability to cope with actual real machines now already existing. The general transition is toward putting the power into peoples hands; first with global telecom systems becoming portable and then with 3D printers meaning we no longer have to rely on corporate dominance and rental of devices. The futurists talk of transhumanism where species (not exclusively human) and machines symbiotically merge on several levels.

Roleplaying, the dominion of imagination, and specifically science fiction roleplaying games, meets these problems. Shadowrun is undoubtably a major pioneer of cyberculture, yet is very 1980s and remains so even thirty years later. Steampunk emerging as offshoot sub-genre of cyberpunk is merely a retrospective Victorian nostalgia trip based on the precepts of technology meets streets. Todays post-apocalyptic, dystopic, utopian, idealistic, eco-centric, takes on the model will meet the same 'dating' as reality and all its unexpected surprises twists beyond the futurist products we generate for the now.

For this end, Sandboxing to use the phrase of the day, becomes necessary where we can take an existing model and tweak it beyond the perimeters of its innovators and copyright holders, without having to start over from scratch. What would Shadowrun be like without Tolkien and the Mayans? It would be the hard-sci of Cyberpunk 2020. What would Second Life's In Silico be like if its GMs permitted nano-tech and Neko? Probably a lot more realistic than its Lore enables. What would reality be like if we removed usury based corporate steered legislation from the equation? No banks, no governments and ethical corporations emerging within an ecocentric and sky-tech (even higher than high-tech) unified global community?

Here is the original google+ post by my mate Joy which my blog is a response to:

"Cats breed toxiplasmosis bacteria in their guts, germ warfare, it makes rats who are infected by it actively seek out cats; bringing their food source willingly to them. It affects humans in a similar way by making us go cutesy about them, see neko culture. Not only this, cats can speak human languages and name individual humans they know, however their vocal chords compress it to a yowl that unobservant humans cannot discern from an animal noise. As soon as nanotech gets to a certain level of advancement, cat-lovers (victims of germ warfare used as slaves) also called 'feeders' will help them to take over the world. It is a more serious threat than people imagine, you find this warning as a comedy. Look at where cats are in their evolution; manx cats a result of in-breeding, have no tails. When this happened to monkeys they fell from the trees and eventually became bipedal, encountering sacred mushrooms that turned them into cro-magnons, which is what we are, by enabling abstract and multidimensional creative thinking, which we used to harness fire, make tools and weapons, and grow food crops. Cats wont need to do that because humans are doing it for them. Their size makes it easier for them to inhavit this world. If you think no human is stupid enough to give cats intelligence boosting nano drugs in a hundred years from now, you need to consider what sort of things people do for their pets and what sort of world we are heading into. Google Ernest Hemmingway cats; theres a colony of them in the usa with opposable thumbs already. Transhumanism is a reality and animal-machine mind hybrids are going to surprise you to the extent that you will be grateful so many species are becoming extinct, we humans at least on behalf of all the other types, wont be able to cope with being invaded otherwise. Crazy talk or just plain sense?"

And remember; all of those fighting against the ALL IS ONE nano-mind-slave cult, fighting to preserve individuality who do not believe abstract artwork to be proof of insanity; will be the first to be forceably made into agents advertising the wonders of Unification Cyber Augmented Synapses or whatever crappy acronym they call it at the time. Unif = Unit. Unicef = Unitification. This is their mad code.