[ExI] Gazzumping the Dead

[Damien Broderick]

At 10:41 PM 11/12/2008 +0000, BillK wrote:

>At present the baptism for the dead procedure is pretty labour intensive.
>Strikes me as an ideal application for some automation.

Of course my plan for converting the world optimally will use a 
supercomputer, along the lines of Clarke's "The Nine Billion Names of 
God". The consequence will be a faith arms race, where each mighty 
machine Mooreslaws itself ahead of its predecessor, re-saving 
everyone alive, dead and forthcoming according to its creedal 
program. Luckily, the chances are that this will be supernaturally 
ineffective until the arrival of the first true consciousness-grade 
AI, but thereafter the race to Save Everyone will shakes the walls of 
heaven--and earth, too, for we can expect a frightful devastation 
when it's learned that Mohammed and the Ayatollahs have been baptised 
by Mormons (rendering their fatwahs ineffective and indeed 
retrospectively damning them as apostates in the eyes the Faithful), 
then by Catholics, then cleared by Scientologists, and so on. But 
hey--we have to baptise the village in order to save them.

Damien Broderick