> Considering that the people most likely to transcend to posthuman states
> are those most far to the right of the intellectual bell curve, and that
> such people also tend to endure a large amount of persecution from
> mundanes during childhood and adolescence, I think it highly likely that
> at least one, if not many, of the first post humans will have highly
> negative viewpoints towards mundanes, and extremely negative viewpoints
> towards anti-tech and anti-intellectual idiots
I have a small confession to make: as you might guess, my childhood
peers were not particularly fond of people who wanted to read or think
about "weird" things. As a result, I decided in a classical cartoon
mad scientist style to get my revenge upon them in the future, in some
creative way (preferably involving large amounts of thermonuclear
power or something similar). But a while later I realized that any
normal kind of revenge would be rather pointless; what would I really
accomplish with it? Instead I came up with a truly devious plan: I
wanted to remake the world so that the likes of me would be on top,
and all the idiots would know that in order to become successful they
would have to become like me. That would be a most fitting revenge,
and quite constructive too.
Unfortunately Bill Gates seems to have beaten me to my revenge, but it
still seems to work. :-)
Seriously, I think it is more rational and efficient to find ways to
circumvent or ignore the anti-tech/anti-intellectuals. Direct
confrontations are so silly.
> Reactionaries will of course be on the opposite side, forming
> terrorist insurgencies to oppose the transition. Anyone who thinks the
> transcendant period will not be violently dynamic is living in a fools
> paradise.
We discussed this at the Aleph dinner yesterday. One idea we came up
with in order to avoid strong reactionary forces is to make sure we
listen to dissidents, and make them an acknowledged part of our way of
planning. Despite their views, they sometimes have true things to say,
and letting them argue their case makes some of the steam blow off,
which otherwise would have increased the pressure.
-- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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