From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Tue Apr 25 2000 - 23:34:58 MDT
Zero Powers wrote:
>
> >From: "Michael S. Lorrey" <mike@datamann.com>
> >
> >Excessive health? Yes, you get over population. Excessive justice? For who?
> >Excessive happiness? Yes of course. People that are too satisfied are not
> >motivated to
> >further growth...
>
> Um, excuse me, but isn't that precisely why we're all here...to *maximize*
> such things as health, justice and happiness? If you are really afraid that
> you might become "too healthy" or "too happy", how can you possibly call
> yourself an extropian? I haven't read the ExI principles, but I'm sure
> there's nothing in there about placing any limits on things like health,
> longevity or happiness.
Tell me, if cheap and easy nuclear fusion magically became possible
today, and within a few months most everybody had a fusion plant in
their back yard, what do you think would happen to the economy? How
about if nanotech became magically possible today? I'll tell you: the
economy would go into a major depression for a good 3-10 years. You are
talking about making obsolete a whole economy almost overnight.
Like an economy and levels of technology, things like health, justice,
and happiness are achieved as meta-stable states within systems that
have limits on input and output, they are semi-closed systems. Progress
in improving or in moving to higher states of stability in these areas
can only occur at rates that can be survived. I am not saying that there
are absolute limits, but there are limits to what is possible to be
digested *today*.
If you reach a state of total happiness, what more do you have to live
for. Being for endless growth also implies a constant reapprisal and
redetermination of what will make us truly happy. Reaching such a state
before you know you want to be there will merely cause you to fail to
appreciate it.
Mike Lorrey
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