From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Fri Sep 06 2002 - 15:58:26 MDT
On Fri, Sep 06, 2002 at 09:23:42PM +0100, Alex Ramonsky wrote:
>
> Many would disagree with you, saying that politics as we know it will be
> unrecognisable after the singularity. I don't yet know enough to make a
> judgement myself.
Even if the singularity is the end of politics as we know it, politics
will shape the road to the singularity. While Bill Joy's talk about
relinquishing risky technology was little more than talk, his ideas are
being refined and suggested in more implementable and seductive ways all
the time (c.f. Fukuyama) and have a very real chance of being inserted
into actual policy if they are not counteracted.
> I had thought to approach this in the way we are doing already...if a
> woman cannot get an abortion in a catholic country, she goes to another
> coutry to get one. If Britain bans something I need, I'll go elsewhere
> for it. It's the twenty-first century. We have jumbo jets and mobiles.
> What do I care about traffic congestion on the motorway; I've got a
> b****y helicopter...you see what I mean?
While this is a very strong argument against the stability of local bans
it does not make them irrelevant. They would be more cumbersome for less
well-off people, strengthening social differences in access to
technology. They also inhibit research and development - if the US bans
a technology a sizeable fraction of all the world's researchers will be
within the ban, and even if many will move, it will slow development
much.
There is also a trend among the pro-ban people (whatever they seek to
ban) to seek more and more global bans. They understand the problem of
people going abroad, and try to find ways of limiting that effect. They
might not succeed in stopping everything, but in the process they can do
a lot of legal damage.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Anders Sandberg Towards Ascension! asa@nada.kth.se http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/ GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ r+ !y
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