Re: poly: The singleton hypothesis

Robin Hanson writes:
> There is a vast difference between a single world government and a
> such a totalitarian power. Even when it in principle possible to read
> and modify brains, it will be at first very expensive. I find it pretty
> implausible that the first power to effectively use nanotech for military
> purposes will quickly also have the power to economically change human
> brains to be joyfully obedient without substantially sacrificing their
> productivity.

Its really hard to know, though. All this is really uninformed
speculation.

I will note this, though, as a historical parallel -- there were
periods where the U.S. possessed a near monopoly on the ability to
sterilize the earth's surface with thermonuclear weapons, and the
historical record seems to indicate that we barely avoided the attempt
on a number of occassions, and likely only because of the potential
for damage to the U.S. Would a group possessing fantastically powerful
mind control devices necessarily hold back? One wonders.

Perry
Received on Thu Apr 30 19:58:41 1998