[ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals

Will Steinberg steinberg.will at gmail.com
Fri Mar 5 18:38:09 UTC 2010


For one second alight your computronium towers and consider our good friends
the *h.p.,* also known as regular people.  If we do expect to have something
like a singularity within the next century, or at least a turning towards
this sort of thing, good old Common Joes must be factored into the equation.
 Joe is most people.  From what I see, there are two major problems
regarding a shift to scientific ideals.  This is of course assuming that
said shift is something we want, which I am assuming for easier progress in
the future.  I'm sure we could preserve the thing we've got going where
common folk use the products of technological progress without understanding
them like we have with the internet today, but I fear this would lead
straight to a Fahrenheit 451 style 4-wall TV sort of thing.  It's the duty
of us intellectuals to enlighten the masses and provide fuel for the
Rerenaissance.  Anyway, here are the two problems.  I'm just going to ask
the questions as not to make a super-lengthy post, but these are real,
serious obstacles to any sort of singularitan future:

Problem 1 (The Thinkularity): How do we get from today, where religion is
widespread and science is often seen as "the badguy" to a world where people
embrace mindnets and space travel and good energy solutions?

Problem 2 (Post-Thinkularity):  Are there unforeseen complications with the
entire world doing away with free will and all that stuff associated with
positivism?  Might we see an increase in crimes because people see that they
are no longer bound by choice (heh, bound by choice)?  And will the
relatively "cold" mindset associated with science in comparison to religion
cause more people to lose their proverbial marbles?
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