From: Jeff Davis (jdavis@socketscience.com)
Date: Sun Nov 08 1998 - 16:06:41 MST
In response to my post, Technology evolves, etc. Eugene Leitl wrote:
>> [market economics don't apply to self-replicators]
I didn't say that, though I take responsibility
for the confusion. Market economics apply, but the situation is so extreme--cost goes to ~zero and demand is saturated--that the dominant characteristics of an economics of scarcity are replaced by those of an economics of abundance. Rather than "market economics don't apply" it would be better to say "market economics evolve" or "market economics are transformed".
>Uh, wrong. <snip>... macroscopic autoreplicators are bottlenecked
>by energy, land, and neighbour good will. You can purchase and
>autoreplicator-tile a major test site in 3rd world country, but
>don't try this at home (do we have any extropians from 3rd world
>countries???) . In a pinch, you'd get nuked. <snip>>
Back at you wrong. Plenty of energy ie., sunlight. Plenty of land, not to mention water. And as to good will, the horn-of-plenty takes care of that.
As to getting nuked,...well. Aside from the general surreality of the idea of folks casually nuking each other--which seems either paranoia or an all-purpose end to a line of reasoning that has no place to go--there is the idea of nuking the horn-of-plenty. Stealing it first, and then nuking, though still silly, makes more sense. But then again, there's no need to steal it in the first place, when you can have one of your own, for free.
> > [ubiquitous autoreplicators]
>
>A factory churning out PV panels and copies of itself in the flat
>desert is one matter, an autoreplicator running amok in Silicon Valley...
Huh? Running amok? Where did that come from? It's machine system. It does what it's told. It has an on/off switch. It stays inside the fence. It is NOT a Stephen King novel.
>Otoh, we certainly need R&D investment into
>autorep, specifically into space-capable autorep. (I think NASA has
>really goofed that one up).
I agree, in spades.
>> [component size is irrelevant. you will be assimilated]
I want to be assimilated, but assimilation is irrelevant; cf. above, viz. NOT a Stephen King novel.
>I think the problem relates more to processivity/autorep grain size. Notice
>that from a certain speed growth mechanism start do dominate: unless
>capable of spawning remote nuclei (requiring a yet another feature:
>efficient transport), the best you get is a circular/spherical growth
>propagation wave (due to volume/surface ratio material transport
>thru-cell near surface will peak high enough to bottleneck).
Don't make me hurt you. Aside from short range transport capabilities which are an obvious part of basic functionality, you just blow this little whistle that comes in the box, and all the little robot boys and girls get on the truck/boat/starship and you take them to the next location/galaxy. Hiyo, VonNeuman, awaaaaay!
-------------------------------------------------------
>'NEAR CERTAINTY'? What makes you think that?
Thanks for asking. It's a question I have dedicated my life to answering. Cryonet post #10333 is my first generation answer, though I'm working on fleshing it out a bit. You can find it at:
http://www.clark.net/pub/kfl/les/cryonet/c.html
Check it out and get back to me.
>Oh, sorry. 'NEAR CERTAINTY' appearing the second time in caps, now I am
>absolutely convinced. What a killer argument. Ash on my head, what a
>Doubting Thomas have I been.
Already convinced? Obviously your transcendent incisive brilliance combined with my genius for analysis and expositon have just ripped and shredded right through that old Veil of Maya. Say Hi! to Buddha for me.
But seriously, I get a little tweaked at the dynamic pessimism of so many supposed "proponents" of cryonics. As the saying goes, "With friends like that, who needs enemies?" So I'm countering their frumpy pessimism with my extropian dynamic optimism. (So it wasn't actually argumentation that convinced you, but rather advanced applied memetics.) At each and every mention of cryonics I hammer away pro-actively with my positive/optomistic meme: SUCCESS IS A NEAR CERTAINTY. Repeat it to yourself over and over again, kind of mantra-like. (Other good extropian memes are I AM GOING TO LIVE FOREVER, and I WILL TRAVEL TO THE STARS. These last two are most effective when repeated, standing with arms spread wide beneath a starlit sky.)
Best, Jeff Davis
"Everything's hard till you know how to do it."
Ray Charles
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