From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Mon Sep 09 2002 - 13:29:55 MDT
On Mon, Sep 09, 2002 at 09:40:32AM -0700, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
> In the second place, saying "hi" has risks. For civilizations with more
> than 10^50 bits at their disposal, saying "hi" in any meaningful way requires
> getting very very close (you need highly parallel communication systems).
> So an interesting question arises as to how one knows one is dealing with
> a "moral" civilization?
First order corollary: if you find a communications interface belonging
to a superintelligent civilization conveniently close to home when you
transcend, beware: it might be an angler fish lure dangled by a !moral
civilization. ("Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly ...")
> So, in my mind, the question becomes whether compassion for individuals
> provides a justification for interfering in the extropic potential
> of an entire civilization?
>
> Do the needs of the one outweigh the needs of the many?
Ahem: there's a fairly widely mined field of SF. (Most of Iain Banks'
Culture books explore different answers to this question, for example.)
> It is interesting that in light of the Extropic principles this
> requires rational discussion of when to intervene and when not
> to intervene. Compassion would dictate that you save people who
> would die non-informative deaths. But you must allow natural
> evolution for those who have managed to thrust themselves into
> unexplored swampland.
Okay, here's another issue to consider: non-detectable salvation versus
detectable salvation. (Can you observe an individual's state vector and
save them when they die without being obvious about it?) And here's
another: look at the prevalence of life-after-death beliefs in human
societies. Isn't this likely to be fairly widespread among all intelligent
organisms that comprehend death? If so, how does your *actual* saving
of organisms affect their civilization, even if it's visible to the
recipients?
-- Charlie
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