Posts by Danyl Mclauchlan
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NZH should be ashamed of themselves for peddling such blatant distortions.
I still think the Dom-Post( 'Napalm Blasts!') are ahead on the blatant distortions.
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__ Speaking of dodges, nobody has addressed my point that other species (primates, beavers) use technology extensively yet have no artistic expression.__
Doesn't that rather undermine your whole argument?
No.
Or - to make an effort to be less 'snide and willingly obtuse' - how so?
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He chose to introduce the idea through his art as a writer.
Clarke's original technical paper on satellite communication is available online - it's rather short on plot, character and prose poetry but long on . . . er math and physics.
Nice dodge on Asmiov, but then, really...
Your point about Asimov just seemed too silly to address - do you really think that nobody would be thinking about the ethics of robotics if the 'I, Robot' stories weren't written? You might as well argue that Shelley's Frankenstein informs the debate around artificial intelligence.
Speaking of dodges, nobody has addressed my point that other species (primates, beavers) use technology extensively yet have no artistic expression.
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The invention of art was what drove the development of the cognitive and physical skill base on which all subsequent technological progress is based.
Heh - its nice to see one of the most complicated mysteries in human evolution cleared up so effortlessly on an internet chat thread.
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it's pretty clear any time one looks at people working in VR that many of them are working from Gibson as a holy grail, last I checked.
What were they writing their code on? Commodore 64's?
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If you're going to set the bar at the height that artists must invent new technologies before they can be considered to influence science, I recommend you look into Arthur C Clarke's role in satellite technology.
I suspect Clark's first class degree in physics and mathematics played slightly more of a role in his work on satellites than his intuitions as an artist.
If all the art in the world vanished, there wouldn't be much in the way of technology. Imagine not even being able to sketch a design to show someone else.
And if all the technology in the world vanished . . . just what would you be sketching those designs with?
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You might want to think about the effect William Gibson had on people who write software.
I like William Gibson, but I think his influence on people who write software is mostly talked about by people who don't write software. The internet and hacking subcultures had been around for several decades by the time Neuromancer was published in 1984; I'd argue that Tim Berners-Lee would still have invented the web if Neuromancer was never written, but Gibson could not have written his book if networked computers didn't exist.
We wouldn't have science and technology etc without art.
Why not? Plenty of other species use technology and they don't have any art.
Art history is the physical record of the communication of ideas between people.
Wow - does that mean this thread is . . . art?
Even a cursory look should tell you how powerful it is. Art has formed our world.
Here's a useful thought experiment - which would have a bigger impact on your life: all the art in the world vanishing, or all the technology?
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This is true of classical art. Oil painting, bronze sculpture, stage theater and as is said poetry. But what about Photography, industrial design, cinematography and graphic design.
I'd that art and technology have long been a collaborative effort.
Sure, art responds to science and technology - but so do commerce, warfare, politics ect ect.
I' simply disagreeing with David Cauchis' charmingly naive claim that:
What matters is ideas. And art is the medium for ideas that affect society for now and evermore.
Ideas certainly matter but if you look at ideas like, say, low cost (<$5000) genetic sequencing - which will probably be a reality within the next five years - well that's an idea that's going to have an unimaginably vast impact on our society and it will do so whether anyone writes a poem about it or not. Art is nice but mostly incidental.
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You could have said the same thing about road engineers. And Paris Hilton.
Who's had more impact? Paris or the guys who wrote the code behind youtube?
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What matters is ideas. And art is the medium for ideas that affect society for now and evermore.
Seems to me the last hundred years (at least) have consisted of technology affecting society and art struggling (and often failing) to keep up. People who write software now have far more impact than people who write poetry.