An appalling place, lacking insight

Ray Kurzweil Still Says He Will Merge With A.I.

Now 76, the inventor and futurist hopes to reach "the Singularity" and live indefinitely. His margin of error is shrinking.

...He recalled a conversation with his aunt, a psychotherapist, when she was 98 years old. He explained his theory of life longevity escape velocity — that people will eventually reach a point where they can live indefinitely. She replied: "Can you please hurry up with that?" Two weeks later, she died.

Though Dr. Hinton is impressed with Mr. Kurzweil's prediction that machines will become smarter than humans by the end of the decade, he is less taken with the idea that the inventor and futurist will live forever.

"I think a world run by 200-year-old white men would be an appalling place," Dr. Hinton said. nyt

Well, unless we eliminate the threat of dementia (and patriarchy) first, maybe...

Racing to Retake a Beloved Trip, Before Dementia Takes Everything

My dad always remembered his childhood journey through Europe. Now, with Alzheimer's claiming his memories, we tried to recreate it.
by Francesca Mari

Your father has no insight,” a neurologist at the Memory and Aging Center at U.C.S.F. told me last year, after meeting him for the first time. Insight was defined by the psychiatrist Aubrey Lewis in 1934 as “the correct attitude to a morbid change in oneself.”

That sure sounds applicable to current political events.

“Insight” is something we’d like to think we can get from philosophy and expansive reading and reflection, but so much finally depends on neuro-physiology. And genes. And luck.