From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Mon Aug 11 2003 - 08:04:49 MDT
General comments:
For me being an extropian is simple:
"More information (or complexity) is better than less".
This is because in part of my process of becoming "enlightened"
20 or more years ago, I was taught that there are only 3 things
one can do:
"More, different or better".
So the extropic process (acting to defeat entropy) acts in each
of those 3 directions.
Why is this useful? Because each of us has a greater or lesser
desire for self-preservation -- it has to be a built in "axiom"
for any species existing today. (If you can't survive, you can't
reproduce and the evolutionary process fails.) Ultimately according
to current science we are facing a dead end. All of the stars
burn out, perhaps the protons decay, the universe may be spread
apart by the dark energy, etc. E.g. entropic processes. The
only thing that gets us out of the dead-end path is complexity,
particularly intelligence. That may allow us to implement
Dyson's "Time Without End" scenario, or prevent the proton decay
or tunnel into some alternate part of the multiverse or even
create a universe with different laws of physics that we
transport ourselves into.
Being extropic is a fundamental duty to oneself from the simple
perspective of self-preservation. I consider the Extropian
Principles to be a reasonable set of guidelines as to how we
might get there.
Now, one can choose "more", because it increases our rate
of information production (e.g. more scientists).
One can choose "different" paths, perhaps exploring the
phase space of alternate art forms, because one may not
believe we can "beat the clock" or it simply makes living life
more interesting or fun (this gets into Eliezer's "Fun Theory").
If one doesn't have fun then one may not get either "more"
or "better" (because people see no point to life). Finally one
can choose "better" because we need to get a better handle
on theories of physics, how to engineer things, how to predict
the future, etc. if we are going to ever "beat the clock".
I think Rafal's recent statement about drones is about the question
of whether there people are supporting "more, different, or better".
If they are not, then they are probably a drag on the path to the
singularity and indirectly a threat to "beating the clock". That
in turn is a threat to my personal survival. The connections are
tenuous -- but they *are* there. My statement, which some objected
to, was an attempt to explore "possible paths to the future".
Now, depending on what day one talks to me I may question whether
*any* human being has a fundamental right to exist. If that
existance threatens any of the "universe survival" scenarios
that I have outlined above then I would want to see a cost benefit
analysis. If the universe doesn't survive and we don't find a
way out of it, then I'm a dead person. *So*, individuals *not*
contributing to an extropic set of vectors (whether or not they
view themselves as an extropian) I would probably view as
threats to my survival. My impression of some of the comments
that have been made is that genocide is an "undesirable" solution.
But that doesn't make it unconsiderable if the universe (or my
life) is at stake. To argue otherwise is to invoke the moral
dilemma that an individual is obligated to sacrifice themselves
for others (and *yes* I'm aware of the time scale problems).
The primary problem is that it seems unlikely that genocide can
be used as a tool to predict the best possible paths to a
future that enables our collective survival [1].
Individuals who do not envision (or are not fond of) things like
lifespan extension, uploading, MBrains, making copies of oneself, etc.
as "reasonable" possibilities may disagree with my perspective.
Robert
1. "There is one possible perfect future, I just haven't seen it yet."
-- Trance Gemini, Andromeda
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Aug 11 2003 - 08:13:57 MDT