From: Geoff Smith (geoffs@unixg.ubc.ca)
Date: Mon Oct 13 1997 - 18:35:10 MDT
On Mon, 13 Oct 1997, Dan Clemmensen wrote:
> JD wrote:
> >
> > At 05:33 PM 10/12/97 -0400, Dan Clemmensen wrote:
> > >Geoff Smith wrote:
> > >>
> > >
> > >This is not quite what I had in mind as a starting point. I think we
> > >need
> > >to accept that the current economic/political system exists, that it
> > >works pretty well, and that it has a fairly high inertia.
> >
> > With a 5.6 trillion dollar debt, 26 trillion aggregate debt, two identical
> > "parties" pobtificating about inane nonsense like volunteerism and family
> > values, and Chinese communists buying a California naval base, "well"
> > hardly describes the situation.
> >
> I didn't say I liked everything about the current system. I believe
> that we should be using the current unprecedented prosperity to
> raise taxes and pay off the insanely high debt (two thirds of which
> was incurred during the Reagan/Bush years) to which you refer,
> but I don't think this list is the appropriate forum. By "pretty well"
> I mean by comparison to other eras. If we can just keep the system
> alive for a couple of decades at most, we can break through to
> a successor economy base on superintelligence and nearly unlimited
> material wealth.
Sounds pretty Utopian to me. How do you know that an oppressive
government in some form will not exist post-singularity? We could
probably maintain an anarchy now, but we don't. How can you be so sure
this is going to change? Are superintelligences by nature libertarian?
IMO, that would be an arrogant assumption on the part of
anarcho-capitalists/libertarians.
Here's a scenario: A huge eastern-mystic-based cult forms. They are
pantheists, and of the belief that all is one, they are one of the whole,
etc... Using the money they get from selling flowers at the airport, they
transcend and become powers. They aren't very smart compared to your average
Joe, but since they believe all is one, and there are so many of them,
they all lump together to form one big *super-power* This super-power of
neo-buddhists has more oppressive ability than all the governments in the
world combined. They have only one goal: to *make* you become part of the
whole so the whole can perform some grand-scale meditation and become one
with the universe-- something like Hari Krishna Borgs. Say goodbye to
individualism: you have no choice.
Now, I'm not claiming I can predict what post-singularity will be like
(which is obviously futile) On the contrary, I am trying to show that we
cannot rule out *any* possibility. The only preparation for an uncertain
future is in the attempt to create the future. Creating the future
involves enacting change in the present. If we don't start now, things
might get ugly. Betting the problems of politics will be solved by the
singularity is not a risk I'm willing to take.
Enough pontificating. Just my two cents,
Geoff
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