Re: Immortality and Resources

Eric Watt Forste (arkuat@pobox.com)
Wed, 29 Jan 1997 17:05:04 -0800


Jim Legg writes:
>at least, before the next qualified volunteer died. Nanotechnology won't
>free us from money, intrinsic value systems will do it and be in place in
>expectation thereof.

What is an "intrinsic value system"?

>For example, when powerful enough we'll kick-down the media with education
>first, then by randomly declaring 'free days' where no explicit money can
>be used, but all regular exchanges are free, implicitly recorded and
>enforceable for anyone with an understanding of 'nano', which should be
>about everyone on the net

And what if I choose to use money on your 'free days', eh? What if I
have some cryptographically secure digital certificates entitling the
knower of same to retrieve some gold (or palladium, or whatever) bars
from storage somewhere, and I trade these to someone else for, say, a
backrub. What are you going to do to me then when I ignore your "random
declaration"? If you plan to do something really bad to me for my
"crimes", then I don't think much of your "anarchy".

And you'll do all this "when powerful enough", eh? This is not anarchy
you are proposing, this is tyranny.

>If I die through society's willful neglect of this issue, wouldn't that be
>a crime?

Societies don't commit crimes: individuals do. Mobs don't have enough of
a mind to be any more capable of crime than frogs are capable of crime.

--
Eric Watt Forste ++ arkuat@pobox.com ++ http://www.pobox.com/~arkuat/