From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Sep 04 1999 - 07:33:20 MDT
I've been thinking about the situation in Russia, especially
- the oligarchy that has developed and their emphasis on
stealing and hiding as many assets as possible
- the fact that there seems to be so little awareness of
the ideas we discuss in Russia
- the fact that "hope" has been crushed from the people
multiple times over the last ten years
- my impression that the Russian people have an very
high standard of family values and are willing to make
significant sacrifices so their children can be better off
- the fact that Russia still has a very high number of
highly trained scientists, mathematicians, etc.
whose skills are in many cases underutilized or being
cast aside due to the simple requirements for survival
- the fact that they still are sitting on enough plutonium
for something like 10,000 nuclear weapons.
Given these things, I've been considering writing some pieces
for the Moscow Times (one of the major English language papers
in Russia) about gene-tech, extended longevity, nano-tech,
Extropian/transhumanis ideas, etc. hoping that they might spread
to the Russian papers.
The reasons to do this might include:
- give the population in general "hope" in the future
- devaluing the worth of controlling resources or assets
such as oil/gold/diamonds/metals/etc.
- devaluing the worth of power in general
- providing something for the underutilized minds to do
(nano-designs, non-self-aware AI, etc.)
- potentially provide competition to Western efforts that
could make things go faster
However, this is a very tricky thing to do and could put me
on the bad side of some very nasty people. In reviewing the
discussions by den Otter, Eliezer, et. al., it seems evident
that the things I need to make clear in any such articles,
seem to be poorly understood even in this group.
So I want to float some ideas.
We still seem to a large degree to focus discussions on
concepts that I suspect will be irrelevant. If we assume that:
(a) nanotech makes the Bill Gates lifestyle possible.
(b) Since there are many places (Australia, U.S., Canada,
oceans, etc.) that have much more land/surface area than is
required to provide power for their population, it would
seem that during the nanotech-transition that these "free"
areas could be opened to settlement from overcrowded
countries or those with oppressive governments.
(c) So we should see a migration to the places that provide
the freedom level that individuals prefer.
Now, this implies that governments now have to either:
(a) imprison their citizens; or (b) compete with each
other to provide maximal freedom. Assuming (a) doesn't occur,
I presume that this stabilizes around some "maximally" free
point where some societies allow you to do self-destructive
things (thrill seeking recreational activities) and some
discourage it. Since everyone is aware of the dangers
of nanotech, everyone actively participates in verification
and self-policing of the designs. Since everyone is virtually
wealthy, you don't need to pay any bureaucrats, run subsidized
programs, worry about retirement funds, etc. etc. Because
of the wealth & migration possibilities, war seems obsolete.
The risk-benefit tradeoff seems completely unjustifiable.
It seems the role of government gets very small.
And yet we seem to focus huge amounts of conversation
on what governments will or will not do. We don't
seem to be able to climb out of the current system
enough to see what the new system will look like.
And if I can't communicate that then the articles
are unlikely to have the impact I want.
Some people seem to have a fair amount of fear that
nanotech is a bad thing and if so, the promotion of
a U.S.-Russia nanotech race would not be good. But
if it were combined with the perspective that such
a race could not be "won" for long (as with the
nuclear race) and that winning such a race would
essentially make governments obsolete then it
would appear that governments have the most to
fear from nanotech. I'm assuming here that winning
the race does not allow you to turn the other country
into grey-goo because the other side anticipates
this and has nano-tech stopping radiation sources
available. This goes back to my extensive discussion
that SI "wars" shouldn't occur, because you have to guarantee
that you wipe out every last spec of nanotech belonging
to the opposing side.
Thoughts?
Robert
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:05:01 MST