Jim Legg responded:
<My defense is that:
1) I will to be an uploader with synthetic patterns of ongoing life.
2) I will to be both the valuer and the systems that are valued.>
And your synthesizer/computer, plus all the marvellous software
Cruikshank mentions, will cost nothing - it all runs on solar power!
(Sorry, I forgot that fusion power is immanent! And I forgot that
everyone will work for free because everyone is uploaded and
information is free and so on...) You might want to check out some
old posts in the archives on computing with dirt.
<3) I will face-off with governments as the essence of my strategy.>
That doesn't sound very smart since you're expecting government to pay
for all this!
<4) I will to proclaim old extrinsic value systems to the dustbin of
history.>
My offense is that I will only support you for any instrumental value
you have to society. If you have none, you'll have to run at a slower
clock speed, stealing cycles only when you can find an idle machine,
subject to queuing whenever a higher-priority process happens along.
<5) I am certainly not confused nor is my exoself only the parasitic
language is.>
And what is the exoself but the language of social and economic
commerce that we use to communicate with other intelligent agents.
<6) I can never be bankrupted.>
Neither can a pauper.
<7) I can only be killed by confused Scientology-like governments
denying my
reality.
8) I will to virtuality.>
My how virtuous, and how vacuous without the resources to exercise
your will.
<9) I am protected under conventions for diplomatic agents.>
Sure:
Life (but at a very slow pace if you can't pay your way),
Liberty (but equality of opportunity, not results
Pursuit of Happiness (or, pursuit of wealth, but only if you have the
resources and motivation to pursue).
Methinks you take the fantasy end of Permutation City too seriously
while forgetting the more bitter beginnings.
Mark Crosby
(at but not for the government)