[ExI] "Transhumanist Experts" (Was Re: Is Transhumanism Coercive?)

[Brent Allsop]

On 10/20/2011 5:20 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote:
> 2011/10/21 <natasha at natasha.cc>
>
>     I think Stefano means experts in transhumanist-related arguments,
>     not "expert transhumanists", per se.
>
>
> No, my quotation marks meant that I was just quoting Brent's language. 
> In fact, I have my own onbjections on the characterisation of "expert 
> transhumanists".
>
> Moreover, as already said, I have to meet yet a possible "naive 
> transhumanist", or anybody at all for that matter, who actually 
> proposes, say, to make life extension compulsory; so I do not not 
> really see the need to distinguish ourselves from such an entirely 
> imaginary bioluddite strawman.
>
> But perhaps those who disagree can point me to a source, any source, 
> expressing such a weird position. In that case, yes, we should have to 
> disagree with it.
>
> -- 
> Stefano Vaj
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



Folks,

Thanks for asking for clarification of what I meant by "Expert 
Transhumanists".

First, let me address the question of who are these "coercive 
transhumanists".  It is probably true, that there aren't many people 
that would value forcing people to improve themselves, and so on, 
although, I bet there are at least some out there, as Keith iterated.

I was talking more of the types that mandate taking up military power, 
overthrowing governments, and putting in place ones that are more 
progressive and transhumanst.  Ones that mandates, with military might, 
that more money be spent on life extension research, space programs, and 
so on.  I'd be surprised if you guys have never met any of these.  And I 
believe it would only take a few, for the bazillions of luddites out 
there to amplify what they are saying in to lots of repeated noise 
everywhere, lumping all of us together, way beyond anything the few of 
us could successfully counter.

Another good example of this kind of amplified lying noise, is how 
wikipedia, and the whole world, is lying about how much expert consensus 
there is for and against qualia.  The Wikipedia article (along with the 
20K peer reviewed published documents in this field) makes everyone 
think there is as much expert consensus against qualia is there is for 
it.  All the experts know this is a lie, but what can these few experts 
do against all the repeated noise of the very smart but ignorant on this 
topic masses?  Nothing, YET.  But canonizer.com is about to change that 
in a BIG way, now that we are getting ready to publish our first 
dramatic early results about just how much consensus there is, after 
all, in this field, on a great many critically important things such as 
what and where is qualia.

If we had a comprehensive definitive survey of what ALL transhumanusts 
believed and valued, on a great many such topics, including should 
people be forced, and so on, we could show that, even if they do exist, 
'coercive transhumanists' are an extreme minority, compared to what the 
rest of us want.  Such a definitive survey, which would be proof of what 
all transhumanists value, would be the only thing that can stop the 
popular masses from repeating such lies, like transhumanists are 
coercive, above our very minority voice.

Next, who are "Extropian Experts"?  This is purely a canonizer.com based 
term, so I apologize for using it out of context.

The way canonizer.com is set up, there can be multiple ways people can 
become recognized 'experts' in any of an infinite number of micro 
individual topics.  We are measuring for 'mind experts' in the 
consciousness survey project, to compare and contrast what the experts 
think, compared to what the general population things (one person, one 
vote canonizer algorithm).  These "mind experts" are determined via a 
peer ranking process.  (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/53/11 )

Another way to become an 'expert' on any give survey topic, is for 
people to 'delegate' their vote to you, in that one survey topic.  
Anyone can delegate their vote to anyone else, resulting in potentially 
huge trees of delegates, with the people at the top having huge amounts 
of influence, on that one survey topic, on any particular issue.

In the real world, this may not be a real possibility, but let's say 
there is some imaginary scenario, in some possible world, where military 
action is the best thing for transhumanists to do.  Let's say there is a 
survey topic on the issue of whether or not we should do military action 
for a particular cause (who knows what it might be).  I may delegate my 
Vote to Spike, who I might consider more of an expert on this issue than 
I, and trust he would make a better decision than myself.  On things 
like what are the best rocket mechanic issues, spike may consider 
himself an expert, and vote on things himself, directly.  While on this 
particular issue he may know of a friend that he trusts better than himself.

Let's say this delegation process repeats beyond Spikes frind, many more 
times, resulting at some super 'transhumanist expert' at the top of 
large delegated trees, on just this micro issue, of should 
transhumanists take up arms for some issue.  Let's say this 
'transhumanist expert' is of course in the non coercive camp, saying we 
should not go to war.  Let's say there are several like him at the tops 
of all these delegated expert trees, all in the same camp, on just this 
issue.  And together, there are near 100,000 transhumanists that are 
delegating their values to them on this single issue, "Should we go to war?"

But, then, some new very powerful and very convincing evidence comes to 
one of these experts.  He then consults the handful of others leading 
these 100,000 transhumanists in all these delegated trees, and they all 
are very convinced that immediate warring action is by far the best 
thing for all transhumanists to do, maybe the fate of the world is at stake.

So, when they, all together, jump camps from the no war, to the war 
camp, the 100,000 transhumanists all jump with them, because we trust 
them, and we all go to war with them -- just in the nick of time, saving 
the world, or maybe millions of people that would otherwise have died, 
or have not made it to the singularity, or whatever.

The way canonizer.com survey system is set up, it enables each 
individual to select who they want their experts to be (or what 
canonizer algorithm they prefer.)  This allows the entire crowd to 
become as intelligent as the amplified experts, in each individual topic.

I'm an expert at only one topic, philosophy of mind.  I'm an idiot at 
most everything else.  Now that all the experts are 'canonizing' what 
they think, and stating the best theories, concisely, with quantitative 
measure of consensus (by your chosen experts), you to have a reference 
to the expert wisdom of the masses on this topic and keep up with all 
that, with almost no effort.

Let's take one other single example issue where I'm completely 
clueless.  What is the best cryonics organization / method?  I can't 
spend as much time on something as critical as this, as I do on 
philosophy of mind.  So I desperately need something similar, so I can 
know the best real time theories, concisely stated, with quantitative 
measures of my selected experts.  There are so many other similar issues 
like this, where I'm now living a terrible life, because I don't know 
any better.  I desperately need to know the expert based wisdom of the 
transhumanist crowd so I can live a better life.



So, the 'transhumanists experts' would be people that have lots of both 
kind of this kind of reputation built up, on countless topics and 'mind 
expert' like surveys.  And the ones that were 'coercive transhumanists' 
would always clearly be extremists, idiots, naive people that had no 
expert reputations built up in the system, compared to the true "Expert 
transhumanists".

Does That make more sense?  It is all completely leaderless, yet able to 
make dramatic changes on a dime, in an instant.   If any experts ever 
screw up, their power structure vanishes instantly, as people delegate 
their support to someone else.  Everything is based and derived, from 
the bottom up, based on what everyone wants, and knowing such concisely 
and quantitatively.  If everyone can know, concicely and quantitatively, 
what everyone wants, you can stop all the bickering, ignorant lies of 
the masses, and easily co-operate with everyone to finally getting it 
all.  Knowing is the only hard part, getting it is the easy part once we 
can all work together at it, instead of eternal yes / no / yes bickering.

Sorry it's so long.  How many people are still with me?  As always I'd 
love to know more of your thoughts or questions!!

Brent Allsop




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