Re: SOC: Immortality and Historiography

Damien R. Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Tue, 30 Dec 1997 12:50:40 -0800 (PST)


On Dec 30, 8:22am, GBurch1 wrote:

> Because these factors will be significantly impacted by effective immortality,
> such a development seems bound to impoverish the future historical record. An
> offsetting factor may be that posthuman beings will change so much across a

Criticize me if I'm missing a key element here, but the 'solution' seems
inherent in the problem. They're immortal. They don't need to study
history so much, because they're the ones who lived it. I think this
continuity of memory, presumably with high fidelity of public and one's
own private recrods, could well offset the loss of other people's
private information. I think private decision information is much less
important than people not knowing public information.

And an economist might say other people could be offered money for their
perspectives. First-hand historical consultants.

-xx- GSV Polypedant X-)

There's something in my garden, it's been there for a week.
I tried to feed it crackers, but that only made it squeak.
I tried to wash its scaly head, but all it did was cry,
So I think I'll put it back to bed, and sing it a lullaby:
A monster's lullaby: