Re: Truth Maintenance

Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
18 Sep 1997 20:25:47 +0200


(not related to Rick Knights original question, of which
I unfortunately know very little)

Just a brief note. I have just returned from a conference
about the military uses of virtual and enhanced reality
(yes, I have a lot to tell). One of the subjects I got
really interested in was information warfare. I had great
fun talking with John Osterholz from the Pentagon about
this, and the general impression I got at the conference
is that truth will be a very scarce commodity in the future.
After all, why crash your opponent's computer when you can
feed him desinformation? And information warfare isn't just
for the Pentagon - everybody can do it.

The original post gave me a vague idea, inspired by some
other discussions, like memetic civil defenses ("How do
we protect our culture from destructive memes?" - essentially
what a senior officer asked me) and the ideas for a
transhumanist facilitator service. Could it be possible
to form, on a volunteer basis, some kind of "truth maintenance
service" that can in one way or another ensure that at least
some essential facts cannot be distorted?

The military-industrial complex is more fun than most think. :-)

-- 
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Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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