[ExI] [tt] instilling ambition

Anders Sandberg anders at aleph.se
Sun Jan 20 22:28:24 UTC 2013


On 20/01/2013 16:45, Bryan Bishop wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 20, 2013 at 9:26 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
>> cosmological re-engineering of Dyson and Tipler. The key thing was the
>> realization that the universe is enormous, yet there exist actions that
>> allow you to leverage things to ever greater scales. So I just set out to
>> make myself into some kind of scientist-hero able to do that, pursuing
>> self-enhancement, learning and networking. I just wish more people did that
>> kind of attempted life -shaping.
> But didn't you ....settle? (/runs)

Hahaha! You can try running, but my robot armies will get you. 
Eventually. :-)

Seriously, there is an interesting aspect of life design that doesn't 
seem to be discussed much: how to handle slow maturation and goal 
evolution. Typically when you set out to change yourself your 
perspective might be long-term, but the actual means and practical goals 
tend to be rather short term (get an education, master self-control, get 
a fortune). They are also breaks in habit and behavior, which means they 
are easier to do when you do not have much invested in your identity. 
Over time as you start building up something worthwhile the cost/benefit 
ratio will change - you have found a useful path, and fewer radical 
changes are worth it. In addition you will also mature, both as a result 
of accumulating experience and by biological processes (personality 
often shifts in fairly predictable ways across the lifespan, like 
increasing conscientiousness and decreasing neuroticism). The experience 
may modify your goals and plans, and the personality changes will also 
shift how you express them.

This is neither a good or a bad process in itself. Whether the changes 
actually are for the better, neutral or bad needs to be evaluated by 
some yardstick. Once cannot just trust one's current estimate (biased by 
commitments, status quo bias etc.), one's youthful estimate (lack of 
experience and knowledge, different values) or outside observers (what 
do *they* know?) - it has to be weighed together in order to see what 
makes sense as a life structure.

In my case I am reasonably happy with my plan. While I am doing far less 
hands on hard research or coding than my 20-year old self would have 
expected, I am doing research that I judge useful and even influential 
in the right circles. Acting as a public intellectual seems to have 
better effect in terms of effort for pushing the transhumanist agenda 
where it is needed than a more activist style; if we want policies going 
our direction we better inject them in the right networks. (Yes, this 
involves an interesting balance between being radical and mainstream - 
you need to be radical enough to be interesting to listen to and to 
stretch the boundary of thinkable policy, yet mainstream enough to be 
listened to). Many of the self-enhancement techniques I learned early on 
have become second nature (stress management, efficient learning, 
various forms of emotional control), although time management  and bias 
reduction still remain hard. The technological enhancements I use are 
less impressive than I would have predicted, but at least the net and 
smartphones are ahead of the curve and the cognitive enhancer drugs are 
not too bad. The fact that I am OK with a slower rate of change than my 
younger self would have been OK with is an interesting combination of 
bias and experience - I actually think there are reasons not to rush too 
rapidly with certain technologies, and I understand better how tricky it 
is to get rapid technological change (doesn't mean it is not desirable, 
it is just much harder to get it). All in all, I think I could convince 
at least my 1992 self that the overall plan looks good in all domains 
except amassing a fortune.

So stay tuned for that robot army. It might just be that I have allies 
running it rather having built it myself.


-- 
Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Oxford Martin School
Faculty of Philosophy
Oxford University




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