[ExI] [tt] Identity thread again

[Robin D Hanson]

On Mar 24, 2015, at 11:45 AM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com<mailto:tara at taramayastales.com>> wrote:
Individual members of copy-clans could potentially be much more altruistic toward each other than even parents/children/brothers/sisters. Copy-clans would have not merely genetic similarity but genetic identity, so there would be an evolutionary reward for individual members who were completely self-sacrificing for the good of the clan. For the first time, there would be a society where communism could actually work.

Until there is time for genetic evolution to adapt to the existence of copy clans, the actual behaviors are those of humans who find themselves in this situation. So a lot depends on what sort of previous existing situations this new situation is framed as being most like. Competition between copy clans could induce cultural evolution that favors clans that figure out how to frame this situation to promote the most useful cooperation. But that could still leave a lot of room for conflict within a clan.

There is no REASON that multiple copy-clans should not co-exist peacefully with one another in a capitalist, democratic society, but not all humans are reasonable, and I predict that some would make one (or both) of two mistakes.
1.)  To resort to predation rather than reciprocity as the approach to relations between copy-clans or between homo sapiens and copy-clans
2.) To attempt to impose on all copy-clans or on all copy-clans and on homo sapiens the same system of absolute altruism (i.e. communism) as operates within one copy-clan ...

Therefore it is likely, though very sad and unnecessary, that the existence of copy-clans would lead to war.

Those don’t give much reason to expect more war with copy clans than we already have with humans.


Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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