[ExI] Social implications of widespread extropian/positivist ideals.

[John Clark]

On Mar 5, 2010, Will Steinberg wrote:

> 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.

Economically if we ever get to the point where Mr. Joe Average expects the singularity to happen in his lifetime then we can expect a huge increase in interest rates, because regardless of whatever crushing debt he takes on, after the singularity one of 2 things is certain to happen:

1) Paying off that huge debt will be easy.
2) The singularity will kill Mr. Joe Average.

> 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)?

I can't imagine how that could make the slightest difference, free will is not an idea it's just a noise some people like to make with their mouth. Would you like to hang around with serial murderers even if they were (or were not, I'm not even sure which one is supposed to be better or which one we have now) "bound by choice"?

 John K Clark 



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