Re: Who Should Live?

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky (sentience@pobox.com)
Tue, 16 Mar 1999 19:14:45 -0600

J. R. Molloy wrote:
> Furthermore, cryonics seems entropic in that it denies
> that life may create even more talented and gifted people. Scientists
> capable of reviving dead genius could create even greater genius, and
> consequently would have no reason to perform resurrections.
> After all, it makes no sense to rebuild a 1950 machine, when you can create
> a better and more powerful new one to replace and surpass the old one in
> 2050. Cryonics can only hope to revive talented and gifted people, but
> transhuman extropy seeks to surpass, exceed, augment, and transcend what has
> gone before, no matter how talented and gifted.

Dear J.R. Molloy: I'm more talented and gifted than you are. Please shoot yourself.

A sufficiently altruistic Extropian might decide that investing $100K in Cycorp and/or Zyvex takes precedence over cryonic preservation. Consoling ourselves by saying cryonics isn't important is silly. It's not all-important. It might be unnecessary or undesirable. There still exists a significant probability that it is important, necessary and desirable.

Information must never be destroyed. It's a simple precaution.

-- 
        sentience@pobox.com          Eliezer S. Yudkowsky
         http://pobox.com/~sentience/AI_design.temp.html
          http://pobox.com/~sentience/singul_arity.html
Disclaimer:  Unless otherwise specified, I'm not telling you
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