[extropy-chat] Uses to which Space Could Be Put

[Lee Corbin]

Eugen writes

> Russell Wallace wrote:
> 
> > For example, some people on this list have expressed a fairly gung-ho desire
> > to ascend rapidly to superintelligence. I personally don't have an exact or
> 
> I have inasmuch a problem with that as a very rapid ascent could
> result in mass extinction of lesser players.

Could indeed. I don't know of any reason to put the chances of
this fatal-to-us possibility at less than fifty percent.

> Because of this it would be a good idea to initially put a
> dampener on the kinetics,

Just how the devil do you propose to do that?  Sorry if I've
missed some of the discussion, but I've never heard of any
reasonable idea for slowing it down.

> until we figure out how to deal with the neo-Amish problem
> without breaking too much.

I'm not sure what you mean here, either. We "Amish" are either
going to get snuffed real quick, or will be sitting pretty.
In the latter, hoped-for case, either our uploaded selves have
a hand in taking care of us, or the beneficent AI does.

> > final answer to that, but I'm feeling inclined to stick closer to the human
> > norm (albeit with uploading if and when that becomes available).
> 
> Same thing here -- but consensus interaction rate will shift
> to the faster end, so bidirectional communication with anyone
> left behind will ultimatively cease.

Now you guys are talking about something rather different: how
you personally would like to deal with this (or, more likely,
be dealt with).

As for me, I've internalized that I can be in two places at once,
(sigh, if often appears that practically no one else has), and
so one version of me ascends as rapidly as possible, and one
even clings to the very oldest substrate (unless it's too 
expensive).

Also, of course, I'd love to have perhaps half a dozen
intermediate versions; I'd allocate whatever resources 
"we" get as follows:

Lee Plus: .9R
Lee -+++  .09R
Lee --++  .009R
Lee ---- (that's the one you're reading now) .001R or so.

> > As for what argument to give people who want to turn the Earth into a nature
> > reserve once we no longer need it as a location for farms, mines and
> > factories: what I want is to not have to argue. The response I want to be
> > able to give is: "Cool, have fun with that. I'm off to the asteroid belt to
> > get some dead matter to turn into computronium. Bye."

Yes, but Russell, there's no reason not to leave a copy behind too.
Would he just pine away in utter misery that he wasn't out there
in the asteroids!?

C'mon: he ought to be at least as happy as you are now. But,
besides! Mood control will have been feasible for a long 
time before.

Lee