Re: Posthuman Politics

From: Dan Clemmensen (dgc@cox.rr.com)
Date: Tue Oct 16 2001 - 18:17:09 MDT


Samantha Atkins wrote:

>
> Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>>If you think that a lot of personal/social transformation is
>>also required to drive the transformation in a "good" direction,
>>then you had better figure out a way to make those transformations
>>occur before we are all overtaken by events. You have at most
>>20 years, and you may be too late even now.
>>
>
> Such is most definitely required. So I guess we all should roll
> up our sleeves and get to work. Yes?
>

Yes. However, we still have a disagreement. I feel that we need
to work toward advancing the technology as rapidly as possible,
to minimize the window during which humans can self-destruct.
I have no confidence is our ability to affect the SI that results
from the singularity, but I can hope that the SI will become "good"
(Elizier's "friendly") by self-analysis and adjustment. Thus, I feel
that Elizier's efforts to build in friendliness, and your efforts
at personal/social transformation, are misdirected. I feel that
we have no basis for belief that such efforts can affect the
"morality" of the SI, because the SI is not analyzable by humans.
By contrast, we have a much better chance at analyzing pre-singularity
human society, and we can see that there is a non-zero chance of
pre-singularity self-destruction on any given day. Thus, we should try
to minimize the number of pre-singularity days.

I'm working on delivery of a petabit (i.e., >1Pbps forwarding rate)
router for the internet core. What are you working on? (Genuine
curiosity, not sarcasm.)



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