[extropy-chat] Survival

[Robert Bradbury]

On 4/11/07, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:

> Let's suppose for the sake of argument that John Clark's philosophy is
> correct, what would be the result? You instantly agree to upgrade at every
> opportunity, and you still probably won't survive the Singularity meat
> grinder, but at least you have a chance.


I think the assumption that there will be a Singularity "meat grinder" needs
serious reexamination.  We don't run around eliminating all of the nematodes
or bacteria on the planet just because they are consuming some small
fraction of energy and/or matter that we at some point may want.

You have to realize that while there is a vector that some may follow for
climbing the singularity slope once it goes nearly vertical, there is no
reason once it tops out that those who selected to not make that choice will
be turned into hamburger.  The difference between a sub-KT-I and a KT-II
civilization is at least 13 orders of magnitude in terms of power
consumption.  We generally don't interest ourselves in something that is
going to involve dealing with 0.00000000001% of our resources.  Hell we
rarely pay much attention to anything in the 0.1% to 0.01% range.  It could
well be the case that the solar system as a whole evolves up the slope while
Earth, Mars and Venus remain meat havens until we get so bored with
multi-thousand year lifespans that we go off on some dangerous adventure in
a world ship to a distant "dark" galaxy.

Robert
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