Hugh Partley-Fogey

Grumpy old European and pith-artist

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

#StandwithUkraine

[Leigh Phillips @Leigh_Phillips]

I’ve just this week landed a deal for my third book, a radical defense of humanity as the most precious thing in the universe, contra the misanthropy of the green left (“We are the virus”) and the tech right (“We are the beta test for AI”).

The book aims to construct a secular version of the Judeo-Christian Imago Dei doctrine. In place of revealed truth, my attempt at an objective, scientific argument for human dignity and value draws on geology, evolutionary biology, comparative cognition, and the history and philosophy of our understanding of ourselves. I want to re-affirm our Promethean, pioneering, tool-making, meaning-making essence — we are indeed Homo faber, man the maker — while critiquing those practices, technologies, and political economies that are already diminishing or degrading our humanity, well in advance of artificial general intelligence.

The book is no dismissal of climate change, biodiversity loss, plastic pollution or any of the myriad other real and severe environmental problems we face, but instead argues that green-left misanthropy, founded upon an unscientific belief in a balance of nature (a species of the orthogenetic fallacy, the notion that there is a direction or purpose to evolution) ironically results in policies and politics that undermine effective ecological action and harm people.

Similarly, the book goes beyond the vulgar animus toward AI that trades in narratives of critique that are easily fathomable, familiar (perhaps even cozy in their familiarity) yet easily shown to be false or straightfowardly corrigible (eg water consumption, carbon emissions). The book leaps over these cheap, disposable, quasi-luddite arguments to discuss the far deeper threats to our humanity from AI and adjacent technologies — *threats that are already here* — that most of these quickly out-of-date critiques miss: the risk of loss of human meaning-making, the erosion of the self-domesticating gains of civilization, and the market-driven reduction of people to mere animals, to biological desire-satisfaction machines.

AI can be a great boon to humanity if we ensure it remains our tool, not our master, and we can indeed overcome all our ecological challenges, so long as we recognize that we are stewards, not vandals.

Above all, we need to rediscover what it means to be human — and fast.

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

Simpsons simple

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

There are two phenomenons sweeping the USA that chill your blood.
Only one is a matter of choice

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@spignal Recall you looking not much older than that, but already appearing much wiser

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@jasonomahony Goose bumps

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@CraigWinneker Don’t eat them all at once

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

Elon Musk is just far too young to be @elonmusk

[Elon Musk @elonmusk]

Would you like some tea?

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

Seems there’s more to #SEPs than meets the eye. Thought the EU was in the business of setting standards, not letting them slide. Don’t tell me the Commission have been listening to the wrong people (again) instead of experts like the EPO https://t.co/zJTSIhPKUu

[IP Europe @IPEuropeEU]

What is the future of SEP Regulation? OWN GOAL The European Commission's Proposal on Standard-Essential Patents would be an UNNECESSARY OWN GOAL FOR EUROPE. Let’s rethink this! #OWNGoal4EU https://t.co/Mu6XBtEb2N

[Dave Keating @DaveKeating]

Petty theft is a huge part of living in Brussels, it happens to everyone at one point or another. This visitor got revenge for all of us who have had so much stolen over the years.

But it's also depressing that this is what it takes to even get the Brussels police to respond...

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@Seanski50 Hah!

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@CraigWinneker 1,2,3,4,5,6 see you on the Astral Plane

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@visegrad24 My youngest always called staccato notes Sarkozies. Why? Because they’re so short. Never trust a man wearing high heels…

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@Seanski50 @midjourney @Runway Script, actors and budget next!

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@garethharding You could start by weaning yourself off bad spelling :)

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

X-rated not what it used to be

[Hugo Rifkind @hugorifkind]

What the fuck?

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@JohnSpringford Not necessarily in the long run - for those still alive of course

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

@Seanski50 @midjourney Art director porn. Try using a deer

[Hugh Partley-Fogey @hughbs]

TFW your youngest releases her first single and it isn’t at all embarrassing https://t.co/U1Ve4R4fXI