Horsedoctoring, EastTimor and Eat My Cells

Avatar Polymorph (way@warehouse.net)
Sat, 15 Aug 1998 17:16:22 +1100

I have noticed in conversations with about half of the more educated people I talk to about nanotech that they themselves raise the issues of
'upload' and physical space. Our local lad Peter Singer (animal
liberationist) has already suggested 'measures' be taken for population control in our paper, The Age, in regards to longevity extension.

I myself have a fundamentally different point of view. I believe we should debate matters for three decades and allow everyone to have access to hitech.

Some forthcoming posters (it's my hobby currently - I put up 200 or 300 of the cover of Damien Broderick's book, for example - and 100 or 200 of Tipler's cover)(out of c.7,000, mainly at the 3 large universities).

BAN THE KILLING OF ANIMALS

VOTE FOR THE UNITED NATIONS [ONE PERSON ONE VOTE]

NATIONAL SELF-DETERMINATION FOR THE FRINGE LAND EMPIRES OF CHINA, INDIA AND INDONESIA

GOVERNMENT ELECTRONIC CASH FACILITIES [TO BE PROVIDED IN ADDITION TO PRIVATE BANK ELECTRONIC CASH FACILITIES]

UNIFORMS TO BE OPTIONAL, BY LAW

These may not appear to be so transhumanist, unlike most of my earlier posters, on celebrating the forthcoming Techno-Rapture and boosting, and celebrating telomere therapy and arguing for the provision of lifespan extension techniques to all sentient beings, but heck, the Escalation/Spike/Singularity requires different flexible strategies to apply to a more flexible situation. This is the period in which Toffler's Future Shock begins to operate. Non-transhumanists are going to be confused and uncertain about strategy in the light of increased ability. For example, I have asked various people what degree of medical care they would provide were the best possible care available without cost for any injured creature. I.e. the principle. I myself would say, if there were a horse with a broken leg, I would have it fixed. More than that, in principle I would seek its consent, were that possible, prior to fixing it. Irrelevent? Certainly not after twenty-two years time, maximum. That first five years after nano-year is going to seem massive, to us. All that orbital engineering. The politics. The explosion in spiritual movements. Wait and see. The nanovirus is complexity itself. We are the viruses. The process can no more be contained than Ceaucescu could monitor all the telephone calls in Rumania. The logic is, were this universe monostructured, conceptual diversity would have been suppressed from the worlds of the Techno-Rapture already. Has anyone else done a rough calculation of how many of these there are in a Tipler-version finite universe assuming carbon-based life began 6.5 billion years after the Big Bang? I did, a few years ago. It was a lot. Also, average distances between them seemed fairly low, after the first five million years of
'graduation'. But my figures are probably way off.

I believe any non-violent action against either:

  1. killing of sentient beings
  2. enslavement of sentient beings, including 'artificial intelligences'
  3. restriction of hi-tech (of the non-violent variety)

is legitimate in the next 30 years.

I also believe that local government and other land areas or social networks should be free to democratically choose their systems mix, however that may be expressed in prenano political terms.

Lastly, I believe it is vital that conservatives be permitted to remain conservative, even for billenia: with the provisos that meat-eaters can consume created cells or consensually-donated cloned cells (I am happy to donate cloned meat cells from my body for others to eat, if that makes them happy - I am sure that some other beings originally - or still - from other species will in future be willing to say the same) and that victims of force can be offered protective shielding if they request it.

Avatar Polymorph (first names, no surname) 15 August 29 after Armstrong