In a message dated 9/9/00 8:05:22 AM Central Daylight Time,
eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de writes:
> hal@finney.org writes:
> > Suppose we don't have a libertarian or private-law world as we move
> > forward. Can the modern liberal democracy work in a transhuman world?
>
> That's a rather funny idea. To me, the predictability horizont does
> look damn opaque until actual traversal. The only things I seem to
> make out (on the truly solid basis of a few educated guesses), is
> transformation of humanity into something very strange and
> diverse. Talking about conservation of a given political system in
> this changed context makes about as much sense as discussion the
> continuing importance of the internal combustion engine in the 33rd
> century.
That may be -- but I doubt it. I think that in fact it is possible to at
least reasonably imagine that some principles of "politics" and "society"
will persist past many types of possible Singularities. Questions at the
level of generality of "how will/should intentional actors of very different
capabilities interact?" can and should be considered on this side of a period
of super-acceleration. To apply this idea to your example of the fate of the
internal combustion engine in the 33rd century, consider that some principles
of traffic analysis can be applied to any transportation system, whether it's
the Roman road system or the networks that might carry the traffic of an SI's
thoughts.
Greg Burch <GBurch1@aol.com>----<gburch@lockeliddell.com>
Attorney ::: Vice President, Extropy Institute ::: Wilderness Guide
http://users.aol.com/gburch1 -or- http://members.aol.com/gburch1
ICQ # 61112550
"We never stop investigating. We are never satisfied that we know
enough to get by. Every question we answer leads on to another
question. This has become the greatest survival trick of our species."
-- Desmond Morris
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