From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Fri Apr 06 2001 - 00:56:51 MDT
James Higgins wrote:
>
> >It is probably a 100% probability that this will lead to billions of Citizens
> >leading rather "boring" humdrum lives, but is that a bad thing? It's already
> >like that today no matter how much you want to glamorize it. What matters is
> >each person has the full ability and freedom to pursue whatever level of
> >"interesting life" they want to. It's ultra-libertarianism in a world where
> >you are born with riches beyond dream, and the Universe responds to your
> >desires.
>
> Ouch, maybe that is the thorn that keeps pricking me. I thought this stuff
> sounded funny, it must be that ultra-liberal slant.
>
I don't get it, ultra-liberal is something completely different.
> >Anyway I don't think having people run around scared of death (since they
> >forget about the backup stuff) is a fun Universe. It may produce more
> >serious, responsible people but I think having to be serious and
> >responsible should go the way of the pre-Singularity era, to the dustbin
> >of history. Not to say you can't walk around being serious and responsible
> >all the time if you want, but being /required/ to do it is not the ideal
> >situation IMO.
>
> Oh, please, people who forget about the backups? About as likely as people
> forgetting that they have parents.
Are you paying attention? Samantha's whole proposal was that the technology
would cause the person to forget about the backups.
>
> So creating billions of non-serious, irresponsible sentients is your
> goal? I think anything that makes people, on average, more serious and
> especially responsible is a great thing. Under no circumstances should
> these two traits go "to the dustbin of history". Not to say people
> shouldn't have fun and enjoy themselves.
You clipped off what I said below, that the responsibilities would simply
be on a different level in the post-Singularity future. Anyway, I don't
see why being responsible in a post-Singularity future is such a great
thing that we should strive for. What we should strive for in general is
removing constraints on the freedom of Citizens. If many of them choose
to use their newfound freedom from responsibility in a non-serious fashion
so be it.
>
> >There will still be some risks in the post-Singularity era, they just
> >won't be quite as extreme (unless you want them to be). You will still have
> >to do some basic management of your resources, or you could lose it all and
> >end up with just a very minimal existence. There will likely be some sort
> >of economic trade since this will not be a centrally planned economy. If
> >people want to build a huge interstellar ship they will have to raise the
> >material either from trading/amassing it or getting people to donate it.
>
> There is more than enough matter in the system to create several huge
> interstellar ships per person.
Depends on your idea of huge... do you know what a M-brain is (ok, so an
M-brain is not a ship, but still)?
-- Brian Atkins Director, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.intelligence.org/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:36 MDT