[ExI] Singularity was EP, was Margaret Mead controversy

[Keith Henson]

On Thu, Nov 11, 2010 at 5:00 AM,  Darren Greer <darren.greer3 at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> And if humanity is simply the sum total of my limitations (beginning with my
> mortality) then you can keep that definition anyway. I've never been a great
> believer in we are what we can't do. Tell that someone who can't feed their
> children, and see how it flies. At its base level, it is unethical: a
> philosophy fed by the oppressor to the oppressed to keep the status quo.
>  But, and here's the rub, where in the hell do my ethics come from?

Same place as everything else, evolution, selection of genes in the
past.  You do need to understand the gene model of evolution and
"inclusive fitness" for this to make sense.

> Not from
> my limitations but my desire to breach them, and free others from theirs if
> they are unable to do it for themselves.
>
> I am mightily confused about this, and would like to know what others think.
>  I think this may actually be transhumanism 101, but I am just now learning
> and absorbing enough to ask this question and actually have a shot at
> processing the answer. Even assistance in restating the question into
> something less confusing would be helpful.

I have been involved with this for a *long* time, clear back to the
late 70s when Eric Drexler started talking about nanotechnology.

It's so hard to understand the ramifications of what nanotech and AI
will be able to do in the context of human desires that I had to
resort to fiction to express it.

http://www.terasemjournals.org/GN0202/henson.html

Keith