Re: Uploading - It's not all about you

Peter C. McCluskey (pcm@rahul.net)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 14:58:45 -0700

hanson@econ.berkeley.edu (Robin Hanson) writes:
>I think the whole premise of most of these endless uploading discussions
>is ill conceived. They focus on the scenario where you have been ripped
>from your current world and thrust into a future uploading sales room,
>where the slick-talking salesperson is pitching their upload copying
>service, and all you have to go on is some abstract philosophical
>analysis of dozens of strange transformation scenarios, where in each
>case you need to answer "but is it me?" It's Socrates in the Twilight Zone.

>This seems like the interesting question to me: assuming many people
>choose to make uploads and upload copies, what will life be like for such
>uploads, and for those that don't choose to make copies? The answer to

I am confident that someday objections to uploading will seem as silly as the fear that cameras steal people's souls, but I'm worried that prejudice against the first uploads will cause serious problems, and I suspect people like Harvey are worried about whether they will miss out on some important advantages to being one of the early uploads. Predictions about maturing upload societies seem less urgent than debates that may affect the rights of the first uploads. 

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