ASpidle@aol.com writes:
> In a message dated 3/4/99 1:46:20 PM, you wrote:
>
> <<Most likely the finished scenario will be posted to the web in a few
> months, after we have played it. It does involve a lot of
> transhumanist ideas, although maybe not in the way many people
> think...>>
>
> Anders, I think any future scenarios must include intelligence augmentation
> and virtual people and hybrids a la Gary Egan's book "Diaspora".
Sure. But my scenario has deliberately softened these aspects - at least among the colonies. Not to go into a lot of detail, but while the colony ships trundled on towards their destination, quite naturally things continued to develop in the solar system. The singularity has come and gone there, the colonies are still on the human side. And one problem for them turned out to be their small size: you cannot ship over huge populations, and since the reproductive rate remains fairly low (they are almost all at least equivalent to the current western world, with two or three exceptions) the amount of brainpower, economic growth and scientific discovery was much lower than in the solar system. So while some of the colonies have indeed developed intelligence augmentation, nanotech, mental redesign, human genetic modifications and AI afterwards, they are ages behind the "solarians" now inhabiting the solar system. (And please don't ask what the solarians are up to, that is a transcendent secret :-)
> Has anyone else read Egan's works?
I love them. BTW, his name is Greg Egan.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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