From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Wed Jun 27 2001 - 19:04:36 MDT
On Wed, 27 Jun 2001, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Robert Bradbury's quote needs to be reworked before it's a good soundbite
> (no offense, Robert).
None taken. I was under time pressure to condense what could
be hour long discussions into < 60 seconds.
> Frankly, the whole "blood of billions" thing is a quote that I have
> the feeling will work far better *against* us than for us.
Agreed (though various more progressive news outlets are
already throwing this bubonic-plague infected meat over
the castle walls at the luddites)... [3 Extro points
if you can identify the movie.]
It needs to be reworked into a position piece. I've been waithing
for Greg's Sat. night comments to be published, now that I have that,
it can be reworked into something more coherent.
> It's a poor blaster that doesn't point both ways, as Salvor Hardin
> once said, and right now people are still very much in the habit of
> thinking of technology as a possible benefit and a possible risk, with
> suppression being thought of as representing the status quo.
Actually suppression isn't the status quo if you look at the
history of humanity. What is missing is a very careful examination
of the costs vs. benefits of technology. I.e. the years of potential
life lost in wars (presumably hundreds to billions of person-years)
vs. how many YPL gained due to medical advances, seat belts, etc.
There are one or more good academic papers here, but I suspect I'm
not the person to do them.
> A good quote is:
> "Suppressing technologies can *kill* people."
We would have quibbles on whether the quote should be "can" or "will"
based on the relative life-deaths vs. life-savings the above studies
would generate.
[snip] the extended analysis...
The analysis is a very good paragraph synopsis of what a longer
position paper should discuss.
Robert
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