[extropy-chat] How are we going to do this?

[Michael Howell]

----- Original Message -----
From: Adrian Tymes
Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 6:01 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] How are we going to do this?

--- Michael Howell <vanmojo at msn.com> wrote:
>      I've got a question, I've seen numerous
> scenarios about amazing possibilities the future
> holds for expanding human potential: Intelligence
> Amplification, Uploading, Immortality, etc... But
> how are we actually going to DO this.

Good question, and exploring that is one of the main
reasons I joined this list.

> It seems to me
> that there are two main obstacles:
>  
>           1) Financial: The above technologies are
> going to be expensive. Unless you volunteer to be a
> lab rat, you're going to have to consider how to
> acquire the money.

One way I've found is through developing the
technology itself.  Baby steps, anyway, short enough
to get funding through traditional mechanisms (grants,
business financing, et al) but with enough serious
substance to advance whichever field you're working
in.

There are a few speculative jackpot scenarios I've
heard of, the nearest to practicality involving the
private, cheap access to space that's now being
developed.

   I wasn't talking about the difficulty of developing the technology, merely of buying it.

>           2) Social: If you haven't noticed, society
> is pretty hostile to transhumanism. We're going to
> have a problem if the Luddite/Theocratic trend get's
> worse.

As I posted recently, a large part of this actually
relates back to an aspect of the financial - only
instead of you (or us) getting the money, it's these
other people not experiencing the benefits.  Once you
can give, for free or little $, a drug that defeats
aging, very few people will refuse to take it on moral
principles.  When only the rich can get it, people may
see that as unfair, and believe (falsely) that their
only path to remedying that unfairness is to deprive
the rich of the drug (or, equivalently, of their
lives).  When no one can get it, people may think
(again, falsely) that the people developing it are
sucking up resources that could be better spent
elsewhere, or think that the research is likely to
produce things that would materially detriment
society.
    The problem I see is not that they see it as unfair but that the hole idea of pushing back boundaries on human potential; be they intellectual, physical, or in the realm of human lifespan, is wrong. For centuries, as Max More pointed out, humans have had to accept certain limitations to the point of glorifying them( you shouldn't play God, don't tamper with nature, do you really want to live forever?).   

It seems the solution here largely involved cluing
people in as to how they can participate in, and
benefit from, these technological advances without
having to already be a hyperintelligent billionaire.
This is a process commonly referred to as "education",
although it is not the only thing people mean by that
word.
     Robert Anton Wilson said that the only real way to change human behavior on a large scale is to introduce a new technology. My BEST hope currently is that the Singularity will introduce such a technology, probably in the realm of intelligence amplificaition.
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