Psychoengineering was Re: [extropy-chat] The existential threat ofinternational law

[BillK]

On 12/24/05, Hughes, James J. wrote:
>
> I'm very impressed with your description of the borganismic evolutionary
> possibility, and agree with you. I've talked about the erosion of
> discrete, autonomous, continuous individuality as the coming "political
> Singularity" since it would be an end of the consensual illusions that
> undergird liberal individualism.  Our values - such as "one person, one
> vote" or "free, fully informed choices" - would become meaningless. Nick
> Bostrom has gestured at Borganisms as a "whimper" version of an
> existential threat.
>
<snip>

Anders Sandberg has also speculated about future Borg societies:
<http://www.aleph.se/Trans/Global/Posthumanity/WeBorg.html>

I've been moving to the view that Star Trek gave them rather a bad press.  :)
As we gradually become one with our machines and join into wireless
always-on networks as agents of Google, are we not marching towards
Borgdom?

Anders finished his paper with:
"What are the biggest advantages of borganisms? They provide an "easy"
way to create superhuman entities (it might even be argued that we
have created simple low-bandwidth borganisms based on metasystems
today: organisations and states), and there does not appear to exist
any obvious barrier to their creation (although plenty of
experimentation in group-interaction and -integration is clearly
needed). Borganisms would be able to solve some large classes of
problems and implement the solutions much more efficiently than
collections of individuals, giving them a practical and economical
advantage. There is also the long-standing human dream of total
community which may make borganisms desirable to some for purely
aesthetic or emotional reasons.

Regardless of one's view of borganisms it is clear that they provide a
possible posthuman state, and that they are advantageous in some
situations. This is usually enough to ensure that at least some
borganisms will eventually be implemented by some group for some
reason. Resistance is futile".


BillK