Re: An essay I just wrote on the Singularity.

From: Tommy McCabe (rocketjet314@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Jan 07 2004 - 19:33:12 MST


--- John Stick <johnstick@worldnet.att.net> wrote:
>
> This is surely wrong. Even the non-uploaded,
> unaugmented me can think
> of dozens of projects that would consume more than a
> solar system's
> worth of resources. For starters, I would like a
> hundred planets so I
> can test the punctuated equilibrium account of
> evolution. (You have a
> slightly different design for the experiment? Go
> get your own hundred
> planets!)

Or go get a virtual reality machine, or the crust of a
planet with a gravity generator inside, or something
else I haven't thought of in 30 seconds...

> And I would like to terraform Mars so I
> can restage the
> Trojan wars.

Ditto.

> And then there is the life size Ring
> World museum and
> amusement park--Earth's orbit will do nicely.

Since when is an amusement park thousands of miles
across?

> And I
> want a few billion
> space probes to send in various directions to search
> the universe for
> whatever strikes my fancy. Yes, I know the AI(s)
> will be sending their
> own, but I like control of my own data streams,
> thank you.

Sure. Just chew up that small asteroid over there and
convert it to a hundred reconfigurable Von Neumann
probes. Or better yet, send out a billion tiny grains
of dust with a computronium chip and
femto-manipualtor. (something that can manipulate
objects at that scale)

> Don't forget that the singularity, while greatly
> increasing the
> resources available to effective use, will also
> greatly increase the
> capabilities of consumers to use resouces. There is
> one solar system

Try the billions that are in the Milky Way without
sentient life on them, not counting other galaxies.

> but billions of us. The current me cannot make
> effective use of an
> asteroid, but given affordable nanotech and
> spacetravel, I could use it
> for data storage, or to make a large sculpture, or a
> huge number of
> other purposes. Scarcity won't be just a matter of
> food, clothing and
> shelter, as it is for many people on earth now.
> Every single person
> will have the capabilty to transform the solar
> system to match their
> dreams, except for a few billion fellow dreamers who
> will stand in the
> way.
>
> The singularity will increase competition for
> resources. What remains
> to be seen is whether that competition is economic,
> or political, or
> violent, or lobbying the sysop.

Lobbying the sysop? Not in the way we think of it: any
lobbying would be done automatically by the sysop, no
petitioning required.

> Tommy McCabe wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >Even assuming we aren't living in a virtual reality
> >where getting something is as simple as snapping
> your
> >fingers, competition for resources is unlikely when
> >you can just disassemble Jupiter and turn it into
> >stuff that people want. As a matter of fact,
> doesn't
> >that remove one of the main reasons for war, if you
> >have the technology for
> >instant-mansions-just-add-water? People don't
> usually
> >compete with each other for water during a flood.
> >
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> >
> >
>
>

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