After it hits the billions, there's no way I'd give them the money.
Why?
Because billions are conspicuous. People would notice, the media would
report it; I'd be able to find out who it was. And I'd want to contact that
person, because there's a fair chance they'd throw me a few scraps for
having been such a damned nice guy.
Unfortunately, the rules stipulate that the person can never find out about
me. So, I can only assume that whoever is running the competition is going
to do something rather frightful to me, to enforce that rule, because they
know I'm going to try to violate it (I've posted it in a public forum after
all). These people have the ability to grant billions of dollars to random
humans. That's scary.
So I'd say no, then go hide under the bed.
Emlyn
----- Original Message -----
From: "Robin Hanson" <rhanson@gmu.edu>
To: <extropians@extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, September 23, 2000 11:38 AM
Subject: Fear of Letting People Get Things They Want
> We want to change ourselves, to make ourselves richer, smarter, and more
> able.
> And others don't seem terribly excited by this. Why? One simple theory
is
> that
> they are afraid of what we would do with such powers.
>
> If you need a vivid demonstration, try the following question on people
you
> know:
>
> "A random person in the world will be chosen, and you get this choice:
> a) Let them have $X more worth of real resources (such as by telling them
> where
> to find an oil reserve that would otherwise remain unfound.)
> b) Nothing happens.
> Which do you choose?
>
> Caveats: You don't get to learn who it is before you choose. They never
> learn
> that it was you that allowed them this benefit."
>
> If you let X be a million or more dollars worth, most people will choose
> nothing.
> They will explain that it could be another Hitler, and they wouldn't want
> to be
> responsible for that. Which I find pretty amazing.
>
> Interesting variations:
> 1) How large would X be before you switch to picking nothing?
> 2) Let the choice be about whether to give one "wish" (where the standard
> restrictions apply, e.g., no wishing for more wishes).
> 3) Instead of choosing to increase their wealth, let the choice be about
> whether to increase their looks, charisma, intelligence, or lifespan.
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Oct 02 2000 - 17:38:43 MDT