[ExI] riots, was: RE: Is a copy of you really you?

Keith Henson hkeithhenson at gmail.com
Tue Jun 2 04:51:21 UTC 2020


<spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

Keith Henson via extropy-chat < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>> ...  I find it terrifying that human behavior can switch into modes that
give rise to the many violent episodes in historical times and ongoing ones
like the current rash of destructive riots...Keith
_______________________________________________

> Ja.  I have friends posting me in despair, certain that civilization is
coming to an end.  But consider this first.

> Imagine a streaming video camera hard mounted on every street intersection,
looking both ways.

I live in Van Nuys (northern Los Angeles) now.  Being a high tech
person I look at things on poles.  There are already cameras on every
intersection for many miles around here.  This has not inhibited
protests or looting, which is going on within a mile of where I am
writing this.

Of course, the activated psychological mode in the stone age had
warriors going off to a 50% chance of being killed.  I doubt cameras
are going to make much of a change in behavior.

snip

> The cop who murdered that man on camera sparked it, but something like this
was going to happen: you can't just shut down civilization because of a bad
flu virus.

Depending on age and other factors, getting COVID-19 has a high
probability of a particularly nasty death on a ventilator.  There is
no vaccine (yet) so the only available solution for people of my age
is to stay away from other people.

But you are right,

" It stresses society to the breaking point."

I don't have the analytical tools to determine how much of the current
social unrest is due to the shutdown, but when the tools are
developed, my guess is it will be determined to be considerable.

We are a long way from seeing the end of this.  There have been well
over 100,000 deaths in the US so far.  Around 4% of the LA and Santa
Clara populations has antibodies.  Assuming 70% for herd immunity, we
are around 1/17th of the way through this pandemic.  If that's
accurate and nothing like a vaccine comes along, the US death toll
will not be much short of 2 million.

The lockdown has been protective of overloading the hospitals, but the
cost to the economy has been extreme.  And we are a *long* way from
seeing the ripple through effects on food prices.  Meat may become
unaffordable for a substantial part of the population.

> However... this lockdown was very educational.  We learned how effective our
online meeting tools can be, and many of us learned to use them effectively.

I have been using Skype and hangouts for a long time.  I really don't
know how many learned to use the tools, but it's obvious that whole
segments of the population have no access to the tools.  A substantial
fraction of the school-age population has no wifi even if the schools
can loan them a laptop.

> We learned that much retail is an obsolete holdover from the olden days: we
can replace it with something else which is more efficient.

I have been living on delivered food since March 13.  If things ever
go back to where I can go to a store, I will not bitch about the time
and effort of shopping because ordering/delivery is more of a pain in
the ass and considerably more expensive.  I used to shop over a few
weeks at half a dozen places.  The delivery cost has reduced that to
one.  (I tip enough for the delivery people to at least make minimum
wage.)

> Civilization is not coming to an end.

The center of civilization is moving through.  The US has done a
miserable job compared to the Chinese.

> Civilization is coming to start.

How much do you think the pandemic has delayed AI and nanotech work?

Perhaps we should be thankful because either could destroy humanity
entirely (while not necessarily ending something like civilization).
Consider the ending of "the clinic seed" where humans are biologically
extinct or Stross's two novels where lonely sex robots are all that's
maintaining civilization.

My, I am in a bad mood tonight.  Too much drifting smoke from the
looting to the west.

Keith


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