From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sun Nov 17 2002 - 00:49:05 MST
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Alexander Sheppard wrote:
>
>> --but why not just have a system where the people who produce
>> something care about producing it because they think producing it is
>> important? Instead of having a system which is essentially a war of
>> all against all, why not have one where people cooperate voluntarily
>> for purposes they see as important? Is nothing meaningful to anyone
>> except a threat? Are people really that stupid, and the masters
>> really that intelligent? And how is this a humanistic system?
>
>
> Why not just have a system where instead of anyone *needing* to
> produce something, *everyone* just goes off and have whatever kind of
> fun appeals to them most, whether that involves producing something or
> not, and yet nobody starves and the system doesn't collapse because,
> well, basically because the universe they're living in is a nicer place?
Actually, the small snippet above is quite possible to produce. There
is no reason for much competition over most of the essentials of life
(today) once you get MNT. There is no reason that most people need to
work to produce something unless they believe in what they are producing
in such a world. Lets assume that "essentials" includes full access to
adequate computing resources and the full knowledge base of humanity. I
think a great number of people will find meaningful things to do in such
a world without much coercion of any kind. However, the $10 million
question is how we get there from here, even with MNT.
>
> Doing that won't be easy - but it'd be a heck of a lot easier than
> constructing the kind of system you're proposing *out of humans*.
What humans? At that level of technology humans can augment and rework
so freely that the "humans" might not be so easy to predict in their
characteristics as today. Yes, I know, there are too many free variables.
>
> I know I'm being unfair to the more mature socialists on this list,
> but sometimes it still seems to me like the socialists are the ones
> saying "why not just have a system where..." and the libertarians are
> the ones saying "what's the best system we can build out of..."?
>
Extropians would have a hard time assuming that the material we build
out of is fixed.
- samantha
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