[extropy-chat] Forbes Magazine on Robotics

[Keith Henson]

At 05:34 PM 8/22/2006 -0400, you wrote:
>On 8/21/06, Keith Henson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
>
> > >There are lots of reasons why people go to war besides an evolved
> > >mechanism for profiteering being triggered by a blight.
> >
> > Please name them.  I am not trying to be hard on you.  I am profoundly
> > disturbed by the EP model and hope someone can come up with a way out of
> > the dire future it predicts.
>
>You seem to be confusing a few things.
>
>1) I don't deny that the EP model of tribal warfare in the face of
>predicted hardship is erroneous.  However, even if blights are very
>likely to cause war, that doesn't mean all war is caused by blights.
>People go to war for religious and other philiosophical reasons, or to
>plunder other people's resources even if they are not facing a blight.

The argument runs this way:  All war is ultimately caused by anticipation 
of economic crisis, usually resource related.  The anticipation turns up 
the gain on xenophobic memes so religions or philosophical "reasons" for 
wars are the *outcome* of the meme amplification process tripped by 
anticipated hard times.  I.e., a step in the causal chain rather than an 
origin.

>  Some tribes during the Middle Ages made it their profession.  That's
>why I say that blights only account for a percentage of the variance.

It makes no sense for human to switch into war mode when it is not called 
for by the environment.  War is worse for your gene if the future prospects 
are bright.  Rising kids is *much* better for your genes than fighting with 
strangers where you stand a good chance of being killed.  That is unless 
the prospects for not fighting are worse.  If you look at the groups in the 
middle ages who were fighting most of the time, I think you will find that 
they were facing starvation if they just stayed home.

>2) I am calling into question the very premise of a future blight,
>which is one argument that the "dire future" you predict won't happen.

The point of the model is that the xenophobic meme gain is turned up just 
by the anticipation of hard times a-coming.  So even if the dire future is 
averted by some last minute discovery, we may get a war anyway.

Likewise, a way to replace oil being put in place, even if it was going to 
take a decade or two, would improve the future prospects enough to shut off 
the high gain mode for xenophobic memes.

> > >Switching to renewable energy,
> >
> > Satellite solar power is renewable and offers the prospect that it will be
> > *much* less expensive than current or projected sources.
>
>Satellite solar is certainly one good solution.
>
> > You might consider that I have been in this business for over 30 years
> > now.  Had we done power sats starting back then, the US would be a major
> > energy exporter and we have no reason to be concerned about oil producers.
>
> > We didn't.  We are not likely to do anything useful about the energy
> > problems unless someone can see huge profits to be made.
>
>Alas, legislation is written by money, not reason.  However, the
>cultural element can have an impact.

True.  While you could not get the government to directly invest in power 
sats, you might get them to commit to buy fuel for Moon/Mars missions at 
some rate that was a small fraction of the current lift cost to high 
orbits.  If you *had* such a contract, it might make it possible to raise 
the money to put up a space elevator.

Keith Henson