From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Wed Nov 15 2000 - 10:48:38 MST
On Wed, 15 Nov 2000 09:59:58 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: owner-sl4@sysopmind.com [mailto:owner-sl4@sysopmind.com]On Behalf
> > Of Brian Atkins
> > Sent: Wednesday, November 15, 2000 12:07 AM
> > To: sl4@sysopmind.com
> > Subject: Re: Ben's "Extropian Creed"
> >
> >
> > Samantha Atkins wrote:
> > >
> > > Humans will either transform or perish.
> > >
>
> Yes, this is a very odd statement.
>
> Donkeys after all have neither transformed nor perished. Ditto for
> chinchillas, dingoes,
> cassowaries, coelacanths, chimpanzees, Gila monsters, speckle-backed
> mongeese,
> and all kinds of other beasts, fish and fowl.
>
> And, there is reason to suspect that humans and animals have MORE resource
> competition than
> humans and AI's will...
>
> Having said that, I think it's pretty likely that humans WILL transform, not
> all at once, but
> gradually.... Each new generation will find one more aspect of
> transhumanism to be natural rather
> than bizarre and offputting....
>
> But most likely, the transformation will be done not to avoid perishing, but
> to avoid being uncool, or to ensure
> placing oneself in a higher income bracket....
>
> ben
>
>
> >
> > You still didn't read Diaspora did you? I don't see any reason that the
> > humans who want to can't stay on Earth and just keep living the same way
> > after the Singularity. Probably be a lot less of them around though, at
> > least for a while. The sysop can keep them from killing themselves off.
> > Might be interesting to see how far strictly human minds will be able to
> > develop technology.
> > --
> > Brian Atkins
> > Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
> > http://www.intelligence.org/
>
>
We are not donkeys and other animals. We have built a world based on our unique mental abilities. Increasingly it is a word where our natural endowment is insufficient to solve the problems we face. Therefore, it is transform or perish.
I can also of course point out that we perish now as individuals and we do not have to if we transform, at least not in a few score of years through meat-rot. And of course the entire species can easily perish now through a single bug we don't know how to fight or through being slapped by to big a meteor or by war or by any one of a dozen things. So again, transform or perish.
- samantha
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