Re: FAQ Additions (Posthuman mind control)

Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@together.net)
Wed, 24 Feb 1999 17:06:34 -0500

den Otter wrote:

> Morals are subjective, but the most practical (=rational) course of action
> would be not to create AIs with SI potential and work on uploading instead.
> Again, our prime directive should _always_ be survival. Survival is the
> prerequisite for _all_ other actions. Any philosophy that does not value
> personal survival [in an optimal state] above everything else is by definition
> irrational. Thus follows that transhumanism (with an immortalist element)
> is the best philosophy currently available to us.

Still beating the dead horse of subjective morals I see. Survival is not as important as evolution. It is not extropic to want to live a million years, but to not learn anything or change one whit the whole time. The Prime Directive of Extropy is that all individuals should have the freedom to learn, to experience, to change as the individual sees fit. Being able to live long enough to fill that to the individuals satisfaction is a part of that freedom, but not a prerequisite.

"Live Free or Die, Death is not the Worst of Evils."

Any indivdual is free to contribute their lives to the fight for freedom. It is the selfish altruism of liberty for which any real human will die to give to others.

Mike Lorrey