From: Russell Blackford (rblackford@hotmail.com)
Date: Sat Jul 21 2001 - 01:59:55 MDT
Damien said
>That diversion aside, I repeat: Making provision in the old-fashioned way,
>and inculcating the personal values appropriate to the frontier or the
>1930s or 1950s, looks totally pointless in a world we expect to see
>transformed exponentially during the immediate decades ahead.
I think this is an exaggeration. I'm very pleased to have made enough
provision to lead a modest life-style in the future without having to work
at a "day job" anymore unless I want to. This frees me up for what I think
of as my real work. At the same time, I'm comforted that I'll have some
money available to spend on new medicines and so on during what I think is
going to be a long transitional period before we can reverse ageing, upload,
inload, etc.
I think that we'd all be prudent to save some serious pennies for the
immediate future. Then again, I have a much less optimistic view as to when
a technological singularity might happen than Damien (let alone Eliezer).
IIRC, Damien discusses our differences somewhere in his revised (US) edition
of _The Spike_.
Russell
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