From: John K Clark (johnkclark@fastmail.fm)
Date: Mon Feb 02 2009 - 14:50:40 MST
On Mon, 2 Feb 2009 "Stuart Armstrong"
<dragondreaming@googlemail.com> said:
> Much more disturbing would be if the
> economic value of standard humans
> dropped to near subsistence levels
After the Singularity the economic value of meat people would be zero,
well OK maybe they’d have a slight nostalgic value to some Jupiter
Brains of a sentimental disposition; but the point is that if you refuse
to upgrade your continuing existence will be entirely dependent on the
kindness of strangers.
> this would effectively force all humans to
> upload in order to survive. That might be
> bad enough, but it could get worse
Personally I find nothing bad about that, I’d upload in a heartbeat if I
could, but there is no disputing matters of taste. If you don’t wish to
upgrade then don’t. Oblivion awaits.
> I'm interested in looking at other alternatives,
> that do not involve effectively coerced uploading.
I’m not interested in that, but as I said before there is no disputing
matters of taste.
> If the value of an object is not only in its physical
> properties, but also in the manner in which it was
> constructed, then there may be hope for standard humans
> to continue to compete economically in an uploaded world.
But as that belief is an inherently irrational idea it seems unlikely to
last for long in the brutal meme war of survival of the fittest, which
is one of the very few things that will not change even after the
Singularity. I really don’t think a Jupiter Brain will give a damn if
something is hand made or not. I’m very far from a Jupiter Brain but
even I know that’s dumb.
John K Clark
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