ata comments on How to Seem (and Be) Deep - Less Wrong

46 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 14 October 2007 06:13PM

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Comment author: player_03 04 August 2011 10:06:56PM *  0 points [-]

I agree with your interpretation of the song, and to back it up, here's the chorus of "The Farthest Star" (another song by the same band).

We possess the power, if this should start to fall apart, To mend divides, to change the world, to reach the farthest star. If we should stay silent, if fear should win our hearts, Our light will have long diminished before it reaches the farthest star.

This time, the message is pretty clear: we should aspire to overcome both our differences and our limitations, to avoid extinction and to expand throughout the universe. I suppose it doesn't say anything about immortality, but otherwise it seems to match transhumanist philosophy.

Comment author: ata 22 October 2011 09:08:23PM *  0 points [-]

Streamline, from their newest album, also seems fairly transhumanist, and in a more hopeful way than most of their songs.

Also, by the unholy power of confirmation bias, I hereby declare that Testament is about humanity's recklessness and apathy in the face of existential risks, and Tomorrow Never Comes is about our final desperate and ultimately futile efforts to stave off doomsday after having waited too long to act.