Moral Technologies: is it all talk?

By Vaike Neeme ‘A whole lot of sitting in circles and talking, and nothing comes of it.’ This is the kind of complaint that can be levelled at the Youth Section, or ‘The Section for the Spiritual Striving of Youth’ to give it its official name in The School of Spiritual Science. And I’m sure sometimes it’s true, and this could indeed be a description of the shadow of this kind of work. Brazenly though, it is also what the latest offshoot of the Youth Section in Australia is offering at Seed Australia’s second of three Moral Technologies conferences. WhatContinue reading

Orland Bishop and Moral Technology

By Inga Muribo It was late July 2010 in a summery Stuttgart in Germany, and for the second time in my life I was deeply moved by the presence and wisdom of Orland Bishop. I was participating in a weeklong workshop with many other young people from all over the world who had come together to dive deeply into the theme of courage with Nicanor Perlas and Orland Bishop. One morning Orland asked us to walk around the big room in a circle. He spoke about time, pulse and rhythm. I suddenly noticed how the rhythm of my walk seemedContinue reading

Moral Technologies reflection – Stefan Nekvapil

I sit on the couch with my cat beside me while Pink Floyd guitars howl from the record player. It’s a Sunday afternoon, and in many ways it could be 1977. On the other hand, I’m reading an article on my phone about Google’s new patent for a smart lens that can be injected directly into the eye and replaces the natural lens to correct vision impairment. Sony is developing a contact lens, with a battery that will recharge via an ‘energy-harvesting antenna’ of some kind, that has storage, sensors and the ability to communicate with other devices. In someContinue reading

Moral Technologies 2016 – Some Reflections from Participants

My name is Agnieszka and I had the privilege of participating in the Moral Technologies Conference in April 2016. For me this was not only a a place to learn about new technology; we also enquired into what human beings can do consciously to prepare ourselves to meet Artificial Intelligence in a way that will be moral for the whole of humanity. It was a place to explore and discuss ideas with teenagers and beautifully matured people, who were teenagers many decades ago. It was very enriching to share this conference with people of such varied ages. We also hadContinue reading

Being human in the age of technological development

By Rose Nekvapil

Is there a difference between shoes and immortality?

In September this year a group of 9 young people (26-43) from around Australia met in Melbourne to work with the theme Moral Technologies – being human in the age of technological development. This is an initiative of Seed Australia who seek to foster an alive platform of young adults inspired by world and spiritual issues. Many of our generation feel the encroaching changes that the technological age is bringing to our physical bodies, our consciousness, and our view to the future and what it might hold far beyond our imaginations.

Moral Technologies: Now and in the future

By Stefan Nekvapil

Today I woke up, connected with friends and strangers from around the world, and then I got out of bed. We live in an extraordinary time; our maps use satellites to tell us where we are, our wars are waged with remotely operated drones, our surgeons use 3D printed body parts to repair us and we live and love through digital social spaces. The future is now!

Building Bridges

By Vaike Neeme

Some years ago the women in my family went on retreat together. I facilitated a process whereby we wrote a list of the five most precious things in our lives. The youngest attendee, a dear cousin in her then early teens, had ‘technology’ as one of her items. At the time, we mature women found this amusing: surely she only included it as she was too young to have a serious fifth item?