From: Michael Wiik (mwiik@netcom.com)
Date: Sat Sep 07 1996 - 17:01:52 MDT
> >I agree with Eugene. If the >H are nice enough to let us live, it will
> >probably be in VR...
>
> <snip>
>
> Does this mean that you are convinced that _we_ will not be the >H? Why so?
> Dynamic pessimism?
>
> Sarah
I asked a friend the other day why there are no groupminds in existence
now - why specifically some group of people has not gotten together and
formed some sort of synthetic being, that would exist on the Internet.
Perhaps they would choose a particulary charismatic personality to
represent them in real life - such person being linked to the others
in the group via hip PC's, eyepiece monitors, etc, (the Borg look).
His response - that people have families, their own concerns, their will
to be independent, etc, all makes sense, yet I think it is a barrier to
becomming >H.
Perhaps such groups do exist, yet choose to remain secret. Or maybe I
just haven't heard of any.
If you're an advanced AI or some sort of transcendent being, who could
choose to take the current human race with you or not, how long would
you give them to get it together - to end war, suffering, murder, etc.
Civilization has had about 10K years, I'm not sure I would wait that
long. Putting the question as an ultimatum - "get it together in a week
or be destroyed", *might* provide sufficient incentive, but I doubt it.
I see extropianism as a current necessity, but not necessarily the
philosophy that will allow us to become transhumans.
-Mike
>
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Sarah Kathryn Marr
> sarah.marr@dial.pipex.com http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/sarah.marr/
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
--
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Michael Wiik Messagenet Communications Research
mwiik@netcom.com http://messagenet.com
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