From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Feb 14 2003 - 05:40:46 MST
On Fri, Feb 14, 2003 at 10:59:43AM +0200, Amara Graps wrote:
>
> Why is the current narrative of
> the U.S. media in Bush's back pocket, if policies are forged that
> affects everyone's (U.S. citizen's and others) lives? Who is paying
> for that narrative?
Do you think it would be very much different with another
president? There is a hidden assumption in the above that someone
has "bought" the narrative. But it doesn't have to be like that;
often leaders are just as caught up in narratives as the rest of
us (or even more, since acting in a way that does not fit the big
narrative will cost them voters and respect), and narratives come
from a variety of sources. Since we often mimick what we
experience, and much of our experience comes through the media
there is a strong feedback loop where the journalists and other
media producers also get caught in typical "working" narratives
and make them more common. That way you can get a large degree of
media homogenity without any central attempt to create it. A
leader that changes to fit a strong narrative (like "patriotic
serious leader leading us in a just war") will get implicit
support from the narratives, even without paying a single penny.
> >The same is true for other issues. Transhumanism can currently be
> >shown in the "excentric people and inventions" narrative, the "wonders
> >of science" narrative and the frankenscience narrative". The first one
> >trivializes us and our ideas - look how cute they are, believing in
> >crazy stuff like cloning and nanotech! The second deals with a gadget
> >or idea, reporting about its discovery, nifty features and glorious
> >future (for fairness a naysayer is always included). The third shows
> >how we are making a faustian pact with technology that will cost us
> >(and everybody else) our souls.
>
> The last narrative is what the media seems to pick up (and someone
> pays for) most easily. How to make the narratives be appealing? Space
> exploration was brought into the limelight again recently, but it took
> a tragedy to occur for the media to think it was a sellable story.
A negative message is often a more immediately relevant message:
there is a danger somewhere, and we feel a need to get informed
to deal with it. Hence the interest in frankenscience and space
disasters. The problem is that while it is possible to frame
transhumanism like that - we want to stop the carnage, the blood
of billions are on the hands of the luddites etc - is that it
doesn't really attract people to transhumanism and its way of
thinking, it pushes people away from other stuff.
What really got people pro-space in the tragedy was the mythical
aspects - the disaster itself just got people to sit up and
notice a myth that has been rather silent for a while (but now
also fits in with the somewhat more 40's/50's narrative elsewhere
in the media). Heroes dying on the way back to Ithaca in a great
fireball. The promethean determination to dare dangers and the
occasional punishment for hubris in order to rise up to the
stars.
Transhumanism can of course be clothed in the same mythical
narrative, but the risk is that one looks more at the heroism
than the practical results - it is a basically romantic notion
looking more to ethos and pathos than logos.
I think a better way is to get into other narratives with
transhumanist ideas. Look at where humanist and enlightenment
ideas thrive; then add a bit of transhumanism there too.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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