From: Michael S. Lorrey (mike@datamann.com)
Date: Fri Mar 17 2000 - 08:04:57 MST
Sarah Marr wrote:
> Brent Allsop wrote
>
> > In this day where almost every citizen has a large and
> > rapidly growing stock portfolio, and the ability to purchase huge
> > amounts of computing power...
>
> Do you really think that is true, even in America (let alone the developing
> world)? The _minority_ of citizens have a stock portfolio, and the minority
> have the ability to purchase huge amounts of computing power. No doubt the
> demographic on this list is different, but don't extrapolate it to 'every
> citizen', without first calling in at your local benefits agency, charitable
> hospital, shelter for the homeless, etc. and asking the people there whether
> they prefer PC or Macs, or how their bonds are performing.
They own it whether they know it or not. Most all corporate, non-profit, union, and
government retirement programs are heavily vested in stocks, as are all insurance
companies (which people are vested in). Direct stock ownership occurs in about 30-35%
of the population, a higher rate than at any time in our history, but indirect occurs
with anyone who has a job that has benefits.
> > ...every individual is going to have the
> > ability to do and get almost anything they want, completely ignoring
> > any central government elite or whatever.
>
> As above: no, they're not.
>
> <snip>
>
> > But there is no logical reason why any advanced, able to
> > become anything he wanted being would even want to do such absurd and
> > irrational kinds of "bad" things...
>
> Since people of this type do not necessarily act on 'logical reason' when
> they carry out atrocities today, the lack of a 'logical reason' in the
> future will not stop them continuing to carry them out.
Since increased artificial mind augmentation will add increased logical abilities to
the average person, then the amount of illogical reasoning will by definition
decline...
> > Now that we've finally achieved the ability
> > to grow intentionally and intelligently, rather than via unintelligent
> > survival of the fittest random mutations, there is no reason to be
> > selfish, domineering, or whatever.
>
> Yes, there is. Technology is not cost-free, and resources are not (yet)
> unlimited. Nor are intention and intelligence guarantees of agreement. I'm
> not sure what the reaction to GM foods in the US has been like, but in the
> UK it serves to illustrate that technological advancement is far from
> controversy-free, and thus necessitates a degree of selfishness and
> domination on behalf of both its 'pros' and its 'antis'.
So long as productivity growth and resource availability increase faster than
population growth, then we remain on the track toward relatively unlimited resources.
> > Once we (machines included) can really feel whatever we want
> > to feel, and not what our creator hard wired us to want to feel, we'll
> > all really want to wire these feelings to do only good things.
>
> (A personified creator?)
Nature.
> Why will we want to wire feelings to do only good things? Or, perhaps, why
> will we _all_ want to do that? If someone has a rabid desire for power,
> domination and territory, and sees technology as a way to achieve those
> aims, why would that individual choose to remove those feelings, rather than
> carpe his diem? And who will decide which things are 'good' and which are
> 'bad'?
The market will decide what is good and what is bad. Individuals, as they gain more
logical, computational abilities, will understand more and more that power domination
strategies are not beneficial to one's true self interest.
> > Pure
> > cold hard logic will dictate that all of our ancestors that died
> > before making it to this future glorious immortal heaven are our real
> > creators and the ones that gave us this glorious gift for free. They
> > are the ones that really deserve it... <snip>... The only way to really do
> this,
> > according to cold hard logic, is to find some way to resurrect every
> > last one of our ancestors, to completely achieve a perfect history...
>
> And so welcome back to Stalin, Hitler, Jack the Ripper, Vlad the Impaler...
> whom cold, hard logic dictate to be a few of our glorious creators.
Or Mother Theresa, St. Francis of Assisi, Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Abraham
Lincoln, Winston Churchill (I'd love to have a drink and a cigar with that guy), Teddy
Roosevelt, etc. However much nature rather than nurture decides one's greatness.
> > If
> > I make it to that future time, I will always feel lonely without, and
> > indebted to all of my ancestors which are my real creators. To think
> > that a more intelligent being than myself will have less of such
> > desires, especially logical machines, seems to me to be completely
> > absurd, illogical, and irrational.
>
> Oh, I don't know. Perhaps 'guilt' and 'loneliness' will be considered
> negative, 'bad', emotions, and someone will have decided to wire them out,
> as you suggested.
Anyone who thinks that eliminating emotions is a good thing has some issues to work
out. Being transhuman does not mean less human, it means more human, better human. I
don't see how you can acheive this by subtraction.
> > We are about to overcome the evil of all future death and
> > suffering. That's the easy part. But, there will still be people
> > that are still dead, the only real "evil" that will remain.
>
> We are not about to overcome all future suffering, and the removal of
> death, and resurrection of the dead, will not end all evil.
If our projections of the future are reasonably accurate, most people alive today under
the age of 35 will most likely only die from accident, suicide, warfare, crime, or
stupidity, in that order. I estimate that this means about a 90% decrease in the
fatality rate.
> So, in summary. At some point in the future, the dead will be resurrected,
> and will join the living. A judgement will be passed to decide what is good
> and bad, and the bad things will be removed. Then everyone will live in
> heaven where everyone is happy and there is no suffering. I can't help but
> find this has a familiar ring to it.
Nobody who is not frozen can truly be resurrected, unless you develop time travel and
go back in time to do brain scans of every person who ever lived before they died.
Spider Robinson has written some novels based on this premise.
> > But things that are good have an obvious
> > advantage over all that is bad, namely, that which is "Good", is by
> > definition, that which everything and everyone one wants.
>
> There are very few things indeed which "everything and everyone wants".
> Therefore, almost nothing is good. As an example, in talking to people, I
> find that many are happy to die, and consider it unnatural and undesirable
> to live forever. The problem in your definition is made evident, as you
> continue:
Many, but not all people, are happy to die. Many, but not all people are not happy with
their lives... see a resemblance? However, there are things that all sane people do
agree on. Those things can be defined as 'good'. Also, due to evolutionary fitness,
there are things which are more good or more bad than others.
--
TANSTAAFL!!!
Michael S. Lorrey
Member, Extropy Institute
http://www.extropy.org
Member, National Rifle Association
http://www.nra.org
"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."
- General John Stark
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