[extropy-chat] Sustainability philosopy as a justification for existence

[Robert Bradbury]

On 9/4/06, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com> wrote:
>
>
> That ain't evolution, son.  It's intelligence what did the trick.  Yes,
> I know that natural selection produced intelligence to begin with; but I
> think, in this case, that it is particularly important to distinguish
> between natural selection and intelligence...


Actually I question whether fear of negative consequences has much to do
with intelligence.  If you go back to William Calvin and much of human
"intelligence" (in the form of predicting future outcomes based upon mental
rehearsal of stone/spear throwing) *evolved* so we could put food on the
table.  So one does not steal from ones neighbor because socialization
teaches you at a young age to avoid the consequences of doing so (or you
predicted in advance that doing so is likely to have negative
consequences).  Natural selection by societies long ago eliminated the
people who failed to consider the consequences of regularly stealing from
ones neighbor.

PS:  Robert Bradbury, would you *please* stop advocating murdering
> everyone you don't like?  It ain't movin' humanity forward.


Actually, I didn't advocate "murdering" anyone [1].  I considered whether or
not people were entitled to equal shares of the available resources.  This
is a significant question considering the jump in resources that individuals
will potentially have in 20-40 years and the restrictions societies may
choose to impose upon *who* can grab (control) *what* [2].  One gets into
complex questions like should we give the resources to Sadaam's relatives or
Warren Buffet's relatives?  What fraction of the resources are people
imprisoned for "life" entitled to? These are non-trivial topics and the two
primary transhumanist organizations at this point (the WTA and the WTS) seem
to have two quite different approaches to such topics.

The questions arose out of personal motivation debates.

First, I am already clear that if I choose to make personal uploaded copies
they will all understand from the start that if their use of resources is
extropicly wasteful then I would probably support a reduction of their
runtime.  That is the foundation contract that I would presumably make with
myself.  It is simply a transfer of natural selection into the virtual
realm.  So I don't have to solve the question for myself but I do need to
consider whether that solution is of any use given solutions that others may
select.

Second, as I believe that I understand the aging problem well enough now to
make a more successful attempt at solving it *and* having been down the
startup and build a company road *several* times I am asking myself whether
or not I really want to go to all that trouble to again [3].  This is
particularly true if the net result is to give the "gift of extended life"
to a bunch of people whose lives can be considered quite unextropic [4].
Years ago I used to think that lifespan extension was a great idea.  People
would have more time, they would learn more, they would be more generous,
etc.  But if reality is that the "Type A" personalities are going to grab
all of the marbles and leave most of the rest of humanity with little or
nothing then I have no interest in that reality.  Nor do I have any interest
in a reality where it is all worked out by an AI caretaker (God by any other
name).  But perhaps the worst of the three would be the reality that looks
like the one we have today (only with many more people with much longer
lives) -- where it is clear, at least to some, that we could have much much
more and have failed to develop the philosophical, economic and political
systems which are necessary to enable that.

Robert

1. Though I understand how many might make that assumption given how my
previous arguments have been misconstrued.  The hallmark of anyone who is a
good debater is their ability to take *any* position and justify it.  One
should not equate the argument with the arguer.
2. Who "owns" the moon, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the asteroids, the non-Earth
solar output of the sun, the raw materials in the Oort Cloud, etc.
3. For people who haven't done it, except for those few who enjoy building
organizations and bureaucracies, it is a real pain in the ass.
4. The "nice" part about the world as it currently exists is that faulty
genomes (and natural selection) will "murder" all the people lacking
transhumanist insights -- I don't have to lift a single finger.
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