Hell, or the media could just make stuff up as they normally do. If I were
the average work-all-week-go-to-the-pub-on-Fridays-have-a-larf English guy
then I'd be scared stiff by the *non-controversial* topics we discuss here
(e.g. uploading, changing gender, augmenting bodies, destroying the sun,
nanotech warfare, anarchy, etc, etc).
>I'll agree with that, as I stated before we are already seeing the
>beginning of this trough advances in automation, IMHO this is one of the
>great social problems of the near-future.
Exactly; and saying 'pay up or we'll beat you up' is not going to make it
any better.
>The way this is stated makes it sound asif many extropians have accepted
>this as a fact-accompli (well, that's how can be interpreted anyway). Have
>you?
Only if you ignore what I say; all I said was that there have been many
discussions about it on this list. Where did I say anything about what I
believed?
>Now, please replace 'people' by, say, 'mentally-retarded persons'. To bring
>this logic to todays society. Down-syndrome patients seem to be fairly
>useless (from an economic standpoint anyway, as humans they can be great).
Down-syndrome patients don't come round and riot outside my house; just as
I don't go out killing animals outside my house but throw them out (or, if
neccesary kill them) if they decide to pester me inside, I'm not going to
go out looking for potential rioters and kill them. But if I was living in
a more rational society and some rioters decided to break into my house
because they weren't getting enough welfare payments, then they should
expect to leave in body bags.
As someone else has mentioned in another message, I'd expect the same
kind of treatment from posthuman entities; others have suggested that
those entities would just kill humans for fun or because humans are
wasting resources.
>I think we need to have a serious discussion about the possible
>PR-consequences of statements like these. Maybe I should stay totally out
>of it, being a guest on this list, but I really think this issue should be
>adressed.
Maybe you should start an 'extropians-censored' list where people would
only talk about non-scary topics. Unfortunately, as I said before, I don't
think you're going to find many of those within transhumanism.
Mark