Thanks for responding, Anders.
On 08 Jun 1999 13:39:17 +0200 Anders Sandberg <asa@nada.kth.se> writes:
>"Raymond G. Van De Walker" <rgvandewalker@juno.com> writes:
>>>> . . . Do any of you have specific ideas for preventing an
interspecific war of
>>>> extermination . . . [?]
>Suppose tomorrow a transhuman species with a green skin (but no other
>differences) appeared. Would this cause a war of extermination . . . [?]
Green skin probably isn't enough of a difference. However, let's say transhumans all have the IQs of Marilyn Vos Savant, and see what happens . . .
Practical tests used this math to predict geographic borders between species in geography with an environmental gradient that favored one species over the other.
>The problem here is that the assumption of humans adapt ecological
>niches for their own use wrecks the Malthusian and ecological
>assumptions, they no longer apply.
I know I'm repeating myself, but the limit is the ecology itself. That is, the sum of all resources, is the limiting resource. WIth nanotech, it is the absolute amount of atoms and extractable energy available within the speed-of-light cone, which is large, but finite. Additionally, it's very likely that there will be early outbreaks of violence to control the more convenient resources.
> There is no
>economical reason for them to try to remove all individuals of the
>other species. In fact, there might be strong economical incentives
>for specialization instead (such as the law of comparative
>advantage).
Gosh, it sounds so plausible. We are so used to intra-specific responses, so conditioned to think that anything that talks is the same species, that we forget how different inter-specific responses are.
The science is against it. Most species completely ignore other species' systems of territory and resource-allocation. I believe that transhumans eventually will ignore human systems, too, when they become able to brush them aside, in the same way that humans ignore the territories of dogs and cats.
>The main reason for the different behavior is that humans
>are not just trying to maximize the number of offspring they have, but
>rather have many other memetic goals.
I'm not sure I believe this. It looks _to me_ like these are secondary, lower-priority goals that have floated to the top because species-survival is a solved problem at this time. Here's why: memes necessarily evolve to maintain their growth-media. Thus growth-media survival will have priority over other memtic goals.
>. . . it looks more like increased diversity . . . makes a win-win
situation . . .
But the scientific predictions do not depend upon, nor should we expect them to be changed by, divergent abilities. The science depends on speciation combined with convergent resource use, and asymmetric competition. These preconditions are the _hypothesis_ of transmumanity.
Persuade me..