Samantha,
What you wrote here is great and exactly my thoughts as well. May I please
post your letter to the news & commentary section of my web site at
http://www.freethoughtradio.com?
Clint O'Dell
clint@freethoughtradio.com
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-extropians@extropy.org
[mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.org]On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins
Sent: Sunday, December 02, 2001 1:08 AM
To: extropians@extropy.org
Subject: what I envision
It occurs to me that perhaps I could better express what
I see as a viable future and how to get there and my
view on current events by being
more proactice than reactive. It is at least less
likely that my opihions will be seen as a battling
with the words and thoughts of
others, or worse yet, with they themselves.
When speaking of the future I could speak of many levels
of future to greater or lesser effect. But I wish to
first speak of that future I want to see for and among
human beings on this earth. Extending it to include other
beings, especially ones that we create (or at least seed),
and beyond earth can come later.
So what is it that I wish to see come to pass? I want
a world that goes beyond the premises of STNG - a world
where the wealth of each and everyone one of us is seen
as truly maximal only to the extent that the potentials
of each of us to contribute our own genius and gifts, no
matter how large or small, are maximized. I believe that
world is best which is truly best for all. So what is
"best"?
Best is first of all an abundance of all physical
necessities of life. Once we have MNT this should not
present any insurmountable technical hurdle. There are
considerable sociological and psychological hurdles. We
have become conditioned to physical scarcity and base much
of our thinking and institutions upon it. There is
considerable difference from what we are used to in a world
where there is no question of oneself or anyone else ever
lacking adequate food, shelter, clothing, medicines and tools.
How will we cope when we have come to believe that we must
do a great variety of things to insure we have these things
or have them "better" than others and that if we do not
work really hard then perhaps we will not have these things
at all? How are we to go beyond the notion that if we have
it it is because we "deserved" it and if someone else does
not have it then it is because they were "undeserving" and
even "evil"?
I dream of a world where every single person can study,
access, learn from and contribute to any information and
knowledge ever acquired. We can make a world of universal
information access with no cost barriers or restrictions
whatsoever. The use of some knowledge that is deemed
dangerous might be monitored but there is no reason that
access has to be. As the world moves into utter physical
abundance there is simply less and less reason for
"competition" and therefore keeping information restricted
to give "a competitive advantage". It is much more to the
advantage of all of us if all people can access and use the
information to advance the state of knowledge and technology
maximally.
To get to this type of world a huge hurdle is the hurdle
of violence in all of its many forms. Between nations the
enmity and the endless jockeying for power over one another
must end just as it must end between individuals. In a world
of near endless abundance where our wealth increases directly
in proportion to the well-being of each one, why should we
be busy seeking power over one another or seeking our good at
another's detriment? Again, doing so is based on the
fundamental deep axiom of scarcity - an axiom which it is
increasingly in our power to overturn.
Nonviolence goes still deeper. We need to learn ways of
resolving our conflicts and disagreements without violence
of "fist, tongue or thought". It needs to sink in deeply
that each and every person is an extension of our own
being - a part of our own success or failure, our own
happiness or sadness, health or disease. In short we need
what many spiritual leaders have taught.
Nonviolence is built upon assuming that each and every person is
as valuable, even if temporarily in a very bad and even
dangerous state, as you yourself or anyone that you respect.
The criminal is another sibling who is temporarily in what
amounts to an unsane state of consciousness and actions.
Surely, people like ourselves who claim to believe in the
possibility of immortality, cannot easily condemn a person for
all "eternity" (i.e. kill them or accept killing them) on the
basis of whatever ill state they are temporarily subject to.
Surely, we of all people must look beyond the moment's
presentation of individuals and see also their potential
and wish for its full flowering. Of all people we should
not be able to lightly speak of the death of anyone much less
millions due to their seeming attitudes of the moment and their
current anger and animosity toward ourselves or that which
we hold dear.
I envision a world where every person will do only that
work/play/quest that ve most believes is ver own, that
which most "sings" ver - that ve actually cares about. I
believe that with automation and adequate tools and knowledge,
all tasks needed to keep everything running smmothly and well
can be taken care of without forcing anyone directly or
indirectly into work they do not choose for themselves. I don't
believe that there is any advantage in the world soon upon us
in exploiting anyone's labor or consumption.
Many will say that I have concocted nonsense. They will say
that the "reality" is that nature is "red of tooth and claw" and
that we have no choice but to be vicious until some of us
"victors"
create perhaps the "Friendly Sysop" to straighten the mess out
more gracefully than we were able to or we all check and balance
each other as we become Jupiter Braisns and beyond armed
to the teeth lest any other should encroach upon what is
"mine" as it is only "natural" to expect them to do. But
how can this be? We have the power or soon will have to
engineer our own genome. We claim to have a deeper and
deeper understanding of how our minds work. If this is so
then surely we are not simply at the mercy of our evolutionary
programming.
Just how likely is it that we can survive to Singularity or
even get there if we continue to see ourselves
in a scarcity model, to see ourselves as at war (or in that
"peace" which is only a temporary suspension of open conflict)
with one another and especially with those others who do not
think our dreams of our ascendancy and immortality should
ever come to pass? How likely is it that we will succeed and
transcend if we simply destroy any and all who threaten us
with violence until we can somehow go beyond where they,
any "they", can possibly be a threat?
What if instead we could convert they to "us"? What if we
took our power and intelligence and set out to improve
without ceasing the lot of every single person on this
planet? We could do that if we wished.
It is not beyond our means to feed, clothe, shelter and
educate everyone on earth even before MNT arrives. There
are difficulties but they are not insurmountable,
especially once it sinks in that there is no secret agenda,
that we mean exactly what we say.
Do this and every honest benevolent person and benevolent
system of thought or belief will be with you. Do this and
those that are not benevolent will lose adherents quickly
as their followers see that there is a clearly superior and
joyous alternative. Do this and the world stands a very good
chance of suriving the ramp up to Singularity and thriving
throughout it.
But to do this you have to leave your ego - your assumptions
that you and your gang/culture know everything and have
all the best answers and others are all wet, at the door.
You have to honestly see and admit your individual
and collective faults and weaknesses in order to correct
them and go beyond them. Healing the world and making it sane
begins with your own wounds and insanity.
It is because of my fundamental vision of what it is that I
truly want to help bring into being that I cannot and do
not support a "War on Terrorism". Mounting terror
and hatred on top of all the anger and hatred that gives
birth to terrorism solves nothing and takes us ever further
from what I believe is our best future and perhaps only hope.
It is because of this vision that I cannot see the disowning
of any of my brothers and sisters anywhere on this earth as
anything but a tragedy of lessening and a deep wound within our
being. These wounds require an attempt to heal them.
There are many areas where this vision is not yet worked out
and not clear enough. There may be places where it needs
amending. But it is a vision, a set of working goals. I
will work to make them actual and will not give up on or
amend them until ample ingenuity and effort has been
fully deployed to solve any problems that arise within
the context of and in congruence with the vision. In other
words, amendments will come only in those aspects and
details that prove truly impossible rather than simply at
first seeming so.
- samantha
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