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Those of us trying to understand capitalism in the age of billionaires need to pay attention to what besides profit itself is inspiring accumulation and shaping investments. Fantasies and imagined futures are shaping billion-dollar flows of money.On twitter.com
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The constellation of beliefs @timnitGebru has named #TESCREAL is one kind of future visioning that influences the wealthy to imagine their transcendance of mortality and the human species itself. truthdig.com/articles/the-acronym-behind-our-wildest-ai-dreams-and-nightmares/Permalink On twitter.com
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Within that circle, the sci-fi notion of human evolution "migrating" or "continuing" into a "noosphere" of data and online AI is actually taken very seriously.Permalink On twitter.com
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What does it mean for a search engine corporation or a AI start-up to be led by people who see their product as the next step in human evolution, or the first step in building a (much desired) superbeing to replace us?Permalink On twitter.com
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We need to devote as much attention to these aspects of contemporary technology giants as we do to their monopolistic and surveillance practices.Permalink On twitter.com
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A kind of techno-utopian faith in progress overcoming all limitations is another critical current. The otherwise balanced Jaron Lanier illustrates this tendency in Who Owns the Future, and also provides a typology of perspectives on technology.Permalink On twitter.com
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And the Atomic Age imagination of what I call The Future™, laid down in the mid-20th century, animates a thousand Hollywood depictions of the next century. carwilb.github.io/twitter/1414423161127411716/Permalink On twitter.com
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Boyhood dreams about flying cars, nuclear fusion, designer babies, and space colonization are inspiring billionaire vanity projects and significant corporations alike.Permalink On twitter.com
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An anthropology of contemporary capitalism must address these kinds of daydreams and delusions. They don't only cloud the minds of isolated billionaires. They shape real institutions in ways unpredictable by studying markets and profit alone.Permalink On twitter.com
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What's more, these fantasies are repackaged into pitches about profits inside imagined futures that appeal to a Venture Capitalist class that largely lives within the same imagined future reality, amplifying their effects.Permalink On twitter.com
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Fellow anthropologists, time to do our work of taking imagined worlds seriously.Permalink On twitter.com