[extropy-chat] Space: The Final Constraint

[Lee Corbin]

Robert writes

> On 6/13/06, Damien Sullivan <phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu> wrote:

> > Then you shouldn't begrudge this speck of a planet for the life already on it, should you?

> Are you proposing the indefinite pursuit of the goals of surviving and producing copies
> with minor modifications?  That that is the *best* use for the matter and energy at our
> disposal?

I agree with your gist.  In the back of our minds---far, far back there---we
keep our ideals alive, even putting them on a pedestal, but way, way back there.
It's far removed from the very slow, piecemeal time-tested evolutionarily
derived *actions* that we gingerly take and should take.

Actually, what's wrong with copies?  Space is non-biased.  It doesn't matter
whether my life is really computed locally or not, just so that it's computed.

In the present day, surviving and producing copies of /what we like/ sure
beats the current alternatives!

> Extending this thought would suggest that we should run around the galaxy
> hauling back hydrogen to keep this little game running relatively indefinitely.
> We want to bring the "far side" party *here* so everyone can see how cool our
> historic preservation efforts will have been. 

While I'm not sure *exactly* what you *are* in favor of here, yes, that is
silly. But my reaction to it is: we keep the game *here* going as long as
we can (but with major improvements that we slowly move towards), but 
no hauling is required: our copies rush out there and fashion the best
use of those far away resources as they can, OUT THERE.

> Ah, yes, what a noble thought, let us increase the aggregate amount of
> stupidity residing on this tiny speck of a planet in a tiny corner of
> space for*ever*.

:-)  Yes.  But I'm sure you remember that New York or Tokyo is to be vastly
preferred to the state of nature that existed in those places ten thousand
years ago.

> If I were God, I'd want to shoot myself.

Not at all!  :-)  Just be patient.  Life is already coming to its senses,
(in more ways than one!), and the "stupidity" you refer to should diminish
over time just as it has already done.  Over historical scales that is:
true, when we deliberately *revert* a given piece of real estate to the
way it was 10,000 years ago, yes, as you say... unfortunate.

Lee