Stephen Hawking is losing it
Yes I like money, what do you need? Seth, if you need me to bid on anything, just email with the details.
Speaking of Stephen Hawking, he recently spoke about intelligent alien life (for some reason) and essentially gave humanity the advice of 'don't talk to strangers, kiddies,' which I suppose is a good common sense tip, but is this really what he focuses his energy on these days? He is sort of using human nature as a model for making that statement, but by that approach I personally don't think we need to worry about any alien gypsies or marauders showing up at our doorstep, because they're probably too busy back home playing World of Warcraft.
Which reminds me of a fun sciency article I read, which talks about how species evolve with a certain set of attributes that help them propogate and flourish. The brain of advanced species (heck even simple ones) evolves an analogous chemical reward system to encourage individuals to strive for those attributes.
As the species becomes more technologically advanced, some things pertaining to survival that were once difficult to get a hold of, suddenly are plentiful and can be obtained with very little physical effort- energy rich foods for example. This shift happens much quicker than evolution can keep up with, so the reward system in the brain goes on rewarding certain attributes and activities disproportionate to their need. Of course as it advances further, the species then begins to discover easier and more effecient methods of activating the reward center of their brain, and next thing you know-
Quote:
They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good.
And that is funny until you realize, wait he's serious, and after it sinks in, you think-- OMG he might be right!
So, perhaps the Sci-Fi movie with the most accurate vision of a dystopian future landscape may turn out to be Idiocracy, lol.
Quote:
They don’t need Sentinels to enslave them in a Matrix; they do it to themselves, just as we are doing today. Once they turn inwards to chase their shiny pennies of pleasure, they lose the cosmic plot. They become like a self-stimulating rat, pressing a bar to deliver electricity to its brain’s ventral tegmental area, which stimulates its nucleus accumbens to release dopamine, which feels…ever so good.
So, perhaps the Sci-Fi movie with the most accurate vision of a dystopian future landscape may turn out to be Idiocracy, lol.