Re: Wired Article (was: META: Ideas link broken!)

From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@www.aeiveos.com)
Date: Sat Dec 18 1999 - 11:13:07 MST


On Fri, 17 Dec 1999, Max More wrote:

>
> <warning mode>
> I have faced the fact that I may really and finally die. I suspect some of
> you are already utterly convinced of your immortality. That's where
> extropian thinking ends and dogma begins.
> </warning mode>
>

I'll go one step further -- you *will* eventually die, unless:
  (a) Earth has been setup by the Pupetteers as a breeding ground
      for unusually lucky people (as discussed in L. Niven's novels).
      ... I consider that unlikely, but I like to look at *all* of the
          possibilities!; or
  (b) At some point (before your luck runs out), you turn yourself into
      a distributed intelligence with the foresight and resources to minimize
      your galactic environmental hazard function to *virtually* zero.

(These comments assume we aren't currently running in a simulation.)

If you can do (b), I'll make an argument you may get a trillion years
or more. However, I wouldn't make the odds really high that a lot
of people will be able to or even want to go there.

But then, if we are being extropic about it, we shouldn't be focused
on the goal so much as enjoying the journey.

Robert



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:06:07 MST