From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Wed Mar 05 2003 - 23:47:41 MST
Russell writes
> [Lee wrote]
> >This resumes a discussion about whether it's people's
> >"lives" or people-years we wish to save. <snip>
>
> Here we are getting to the crux of the matter. The word "lives" is not
> sufficiently defined as to make these kinds of distinctions cut and dry.
> It's an abstraction of the same quality as "peace" which can obviously be
> interpreted a zillion different ways by a zillion different people.
Yes. Two home runs. Bravo!
> I suspect the word "lives" may also be buried under layer upon layer of
> unavoidable sapient racism.
I sort of doubt it---what you do next leads in the right direction,
and I don't really see any difficulties with our unconscious values.
> When I say I'm concerned with saving "lives", I am probably concerned with:
>
> -Minimizing pain and suffering (primarily sentient, but it's a clunky
> sliding scale which descends all the way down to "that whatsoever possesseth
> a nervous system")
>
> -Maximizing happiness/joy/fulfillment/wonder etc. (ditto the above)
>
> -Maximizing the spread of memes more like mine
That's exactly right. In other words, we wish to convert the universe
into living tissue that enjoys itself. It must also become more and
more and more advanced, or it will be missing out on even greater ways
of enjoying itself, e.g., happiness/joy/fulfillment/satisfaction/contentment
(and don't forget ecstasy).
> -Minimizing the spread of memes less like mine
>
> - And destroying memes (and their hosts) that pose a clear and present
> danger to the continuing survival of memes more like mine as well as memes
> less like mine.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, ;-)
> (That last one is a matter for which I ultimately rely upon my own judgment
> to determine based upon a good faith attempt at objectively examining the
> memes in question along with whatever evidence and judgments of others I see
> as credible, accessible, and pertinent at the time. - Needs work, I know, so
> I'd forgive all of you for not just handing over the keys to the matrix
> server until I get it all worked out sufficiently :-)
It certainly does need work! But just getting people to understand
the overall goals is hard enough. For most people, stamping out death,
and relentlessly converting everything to be alive, i.e., converting
all matter to life, seem like bizarre, boring, and uninteresting goals.
Now obesity, on the other hand, that's something here and now
that we can focus on!
Lee
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