[extropy-chat] The Extropian wars

[Alfio Puglisi]

On Mon, 10 Nov 2003 kevinfreels at hotmail.com wrote:

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>I just had a thought, but I doubt it was the first time it has been brought up here.
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>When the first "uploads" become available and people are actually able to become immortal, and when cryo-preserved people canbe brought back, the religious establishment is going to go beserk.

I don't know if you read "Permutation City" by Greg Egan. It doesn't deal
with this problem, but something can be read between the lines. In the
book, most the early uploads are rich people. Very rich, since they need
to afford powerful hardware to have their uploads run at a sufficient
speed to interact with the outside world (and, at least at the beginning
of the book, no significant "virtual" world seem to be estabilished).

It's a work of fiction, but I believe-OOOOOPS!!! I think that it is a
reasonable position: rich and powerful people are as human as the rest,
and at least a fraction of them will jump into immortality, *when* they
can see that it's real, and not some hothead delirium. Money and power
will go a long way at countering opposition. The first virtual enclaves
may and up quite closed, and quite defensive too. And the actual hardware
must be either secured and guarded, or as dispersed and backed up as
possible.

Now, if 90% of the elite goes squarely against uploads, and is willing to
dump a few 100M $ to stop it...

Ciao,
Alfio