From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Tue Jan 01 2002 - 01:46:11 MST
"J. R. Molloy" wrote:
>
> From: "Phil Osborn" <philosborn@altavista.com>
> > This is the short list off the top of my head. The reality of U.S. justice
> is that in spite of having the highest % of people incarcerated in the world,
> most people have little or no recourse within the justice system in dealing
> with actual criminals, such as local gang members shaking them down, trashing
> their homes and vehicles, etc. If they take matters into their own hands,
> then they risk enormous legal penalties, which have escalated beyond all
> sanity in the past few decades. And if someone in power doesn't like you,
> there are a multitude of ways to destroy you, or keep you completely defeated
> by endless hassles.
>
> The "someone in power" that you mention, has more real power than a busload of
> transhumanist technophiles. In case you haven't read it, _Magister Ludi_, by
> Herman Hesse describes a world where a "Glass Bead Game" is played to decide
> the structure of the social hierarchy. In today's America, the glass bead game
> is litigation. The legal system decides your place in society.
> I think the legal system will decide whether Bill Joy's scientific
> relinquishment will prevail or if human-competitive AI will continue to
> evolve. IOW, for AI phase transition to occur, first the singularity will have
> to successfully navigate the legal system.
>
Or it will knock it off the board as the mostly useless pile of
junk that it is.
- samantha
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