[ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists

Sat Mar 8 15:49:07 UTC 2008

On 3/7/08, Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Friday 07 March 2008, John Grigg wrote:
> >  Hi Bryan, I enjoyed the exchange of ideas.  I'd be curious to know
> > where you will be standing on these issues in ten or twenty years,
> > considering you are currently a very young man.
>
> And am I to call you very old?

>>>

I'm not there yet! lol  I meant no disrespect in calling you a very young
man.  : )  My point was that the views of people do tend to change during
the time they go from youth to early middle age.  But perhaps yours will
not.

>
>
> > Instead, they simply don't do the controversial research or else move
> > to a nation where it is allowed/encouraged.  And that nation then
> > reaps the benefits.
>
> The only reason nations reap benefits is because of the locality of the
> person, but in our age of travel and communication, locality is not as
> an important factor as before, but still important, yeah.

>>>

And nations such as Singapore have greatly benefited from politically driven
"brain drains."

> > > > And even though the research and development would continue in
> > > > other nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage
> > > > to be a leader in the biotech field and reap the financial
> > > > harvest.  And remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not
> > > > make tons of money and dominate technological progress! lol
> > >
> > > Heh, well, with self-replication there might be a collapse of the
> > > financial institutions, but not if they play their cards right. So
> > > that's something that somebody might want to put some thought into.
> >
> > In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of
> > corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will see
> > the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely squelched

> You have nanotech (bacteria) all around you. And it's not squelched.

>>>

We humans need tools to research and utilize nanotech.  I see governments
using a "war on drugs" approach if necessary to halt "home nanotech."  But
then again, the war on drugs has in many ways been a failure.

>
> > > > you continue:
> > > > > No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility
> > > > > does not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they
> > > > > can protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to
> > > > > burn us alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over
> > > > > the internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It
> > > > > will route around the damage.
> > > >
> > > > But warring against research labs and those who fund them in
> > > > another matter, entirely.  It generally takes serious money and
> > > > disciplined scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's
> > > > secrets.
> > >
> > > Nah, it just takes discipline. That's the whole discipline of
> > > science. It does not take money, but rather the raw resources. The
> > > guys that build particle accelerators and energy stations? They had
> > > the discipline to make it happen even when there wasn't necessarily
> > > a "plutonium economy" or "electricity economy" when they started
> > > off.
> >
> > The guys who built the particle accelerators and energy stations got
> > big hunks of money from government and corporate sponsors.  They had
> > the discipline to gather the grant money that got things
> > accomplished.
>
> Ability to gather money does not indicate whether or not they can do it.

>>>

It sure does gets them off to a good start! lol  But you are right in that
money gathering talent does not guarantee success in research.

> > > > of global competitiveness.  And by the time we try to really turn
> > > > things around we may have lost some critical advantages that
> > > > might never be fully regained.
> > >
> > > Maybe. Can you own an advantage, even in natural-evolutionary
> > > terms?
> >
> > What the U.S. and Western world might have are certain given
> > educational and social foundations that make technological catch up
> > much easier on us as compared to China or Russia.
>
> What? My question was whether you can 'own' an advantage in the game
> theoretic sense of natural evolution. Ownership and property has
> recently been discussed more thoroughly on the list, so naturally I see
> this as a relevant extension to those thoughts.
> >>>

If you mean owning an advantage as a current society in the sense that
a societal competitor could not replicate what you are doing to surge
forward due to biological/evolutionary constraints, then no.  Human/AGI
accelerated evolution may be a whole other story...

> > > What knowledge and power? What does the military have that cannot
> > > be already duplicated? Airplanes? Easily duplicated (though not
> > > necessarily the money to make many tests. This is of course a
> > > matter of resources, not money.) Nuclear weapons? Non-military
> > > persons came up with nukes. Navy machinery? Easy enough.
> >
> > Knowledge IS power.  Academic and corporate research labs are spread
> > across the U.S. and the backbone of much military and economic r & d.

No, people are the backbone, and what one human can think, so can
> another.

>>>

And where does that knowledge/power come from? People, of course!  "What one
human can think, so can another," tends toward being very simplistic.  How
well the brightest folks in each society are educated, supported and
organized to maximize their talents toward successful innovation is a key
factor that differentiates various nations/societies and will limit or
enhance their efforts.

> >  Yes, non-military people came up with much of this. lol  By the way,
> > resources and money go hand in hand. : )
>
> Resources and money do not go hand-in-hand.

>>

They often do, but not always.  Some nations are very resource poor but are
technologically and industrially advanced and so they buy resources from
high resource nations that are technologically backward.  But often
resources and money DO go hand-in-hand.  The United States is among a number
of resource rich nations that have been monetarily/economically blessed in
this category.  And this definitely is a *great* advantage in terms of
global competition and national security.

> > A "standard" and non-high performance jet fighter, tank, missle
> > cruiser, civilian product for sale, etc. may be relatively easy to
> > create, but designing and manufacturing a very advanced (superior to
> > potential enemies/competitors) version is a great challenge.  Rival
>
> I don't see how this is true. I have been studying how to make my own
> copy of the X-43A, the NASA Hyper-X hypersonic Mach 10 aircraft. As far
> as I can tell, the hardest part is just reading the documentation on
> the CFD simulators (heh), but then there's finding an artist to model
> the ship properly, then assembling the right metals and a cooling
> system, getting an oxyacetalone arc welder, doing the CNC metalworking,
> and most importantly the preliminary design work in coming up with the
> right PDEs and mission design parameters. The only thing *hard* is
> evolutionary progression of novelty. Anything else is not 'hard'.

>>>

LOL!!!  Bryan, I have to say you are a cool guy and fun to have a discussion
with.  The paragraph above just floored me.  Is your real name Tom Swift,
Reed Richards, Tony Stark or Howard Hughes? : )  You certainly have an
"October Sky" or "The Astronaut Farmer" quality in the way you view your
personal possibilities.  And for all I know you may go on to be the next
Burt Rutan.  I truly hope so and are rooting for you to succeed.

> > nations will have a very challenging time matching our most advanced
> > tech (and as they try to catch up we would be moving forward to stay
> > ahead) unless the complete designs and manufacturing methods are
>
> Open source.
>
> > stolen.  Espionage/stolen military and industrial secrets are a huge
> > problem for the U.S. and the rest of the Western world.
>
> Maybe they would do better to be able to exist in such a way that they
> do not entirely rely on such outdated security models? Secrets??

>>>

I would like to think that one day humanity could overcome the overwhelming
desire for intellectual property rights and in a spirit of
global cooperation still make technological and economic progress.  Hold
on..., are you an operative for the TSA???  ; )

> > > We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of
> > > > technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just
> > > > competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world.  And yes, we do
> > > > have
> > >
> > > This is FUD.
> >
> > This is THE REAL WORLD. lol
>
> You can stay competitive even with shared knowledge, see OSS.

>>>

It definitely has it's downsides at the current time but it does give hope
for what a nanotech era may look like.

> > If the U.S. does not protect it's technology base by better security,
> > improving public education, etc., you will see in your lifetime our
> > steep decline.  It will be a very sad thing.
>
> Decline in what?

>>>

Economic power, environmental quality, standard of living, global
influence, military power, etc...

> > > > Nationalism is a two-edged sword.  On the one side it can cause
> > >
> > > It is also more fud.
> >
> > It can be at times.  But do you really think other powerful nations
> > always have our best interests at heart? lol  Life is not just
> > cooperation but also competition.  Nature teaches us that.  And it
> > still holds true for humanity.
>
> What are you talking about? I didn't even mention 'nations' having best
> interests at heart etc. Specifically, you are promoting the concept of
> nationalism even when we know that we can make things and build
> solutions to our human problems, you are just pointing to archaic
> methods of cooperation which can be surpassed.

>>>

You kept on mentioning FUD.  "Fear, uncertainty, doubt."  When/if nanotech
gets to the point where common citizens can make/or are close to
making their own personal "anything boxes," we will see governments
reflexively clamp down so hard your head will spin.  They will take the FUD
meme and whip it into overdrive as they struggle to maintain control.  The
current "war on drugs" and "war on terror" will seem extremely mild by
comparison.

I admit it would be so wonderful (right out of a really good SF story turned
real) to have our own personal nanotech anything boxes and from the raw
materials in our backyard to build a spacecraft to get into orbit so we
could join with others of likemind and construct a L5 colony or a starship
to do deep space exploration (or whatever else our hearts desired!).

I have very fond memories from the Extro 5 Conference of discussing this
very dream with a small group of Extropians as we were driving around the
area.

John  : )

> - Bryan
> ________________________________________
> Bryan Bishop
> http://heybryan.org/
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