[ExI] AI harming humanity

[spike at rainier66.com]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat <extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org> On Behalf Of
BillK via extropy-chat
...

> 

>>... Maybe we'll be free to learn, think, do, travel, express ourselves,
etc., without having to devote most of our lives to meeting our basic needs.

> -Dave

> _______________________________________________

 

 

>...Maybe....  But more likely we'll google funny cat videos, send them to
friends, and chat about them...BillK

_______________________________________________

 

 

 

Well sure, BillK, because that doesn't cost anything.  Consider Dave's list:
learn, think, do, travel, express ourselves.

 

Three of those are free or nearly so.  But that "do" business is ambiguous:
depends on what (or who) we are doing.  That "travel" is going to cost a
looootta lotta money.  For most of us, it will be three of Dave's five, with
some of the fourth, but the discussion brings up a concept we were
introduced to in college psychology (Billw can comment if he wishes, being
the local expert) Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

 

I just looked it up and discovered how not hip I am.  Since Abe Maslow and I
were chumming around in high school, the hipsters added a new item up there,
transcendence.  OK then, why. was.. that. necessary?

 

Answer: a lotta modern fortunate people started right out with
self-actualization:

 

 



 

They started there.  Example: one of my actual college buddies has two
daughters who were born and lived their lives in a nice area, well fed, nice
home, safe, stable loving family, handed a great education (by the local
school system) their home is gorgeous.  OK then. what happens when they.
like. grow up?

 

That was in interesting case, because one of the two girls is very
circumspect.  She figured out that the whole self-actualization bit can wait
until she makes damn sure she doesn't need to deal head on with that messy
physiological and safety business way the hell down there at the bottom of
Maslow's pyramid.  Today she has a masters degree in hospital
administration, is married and kicking butt wherever butt is to be found.  

 

The other. never really looked back that way (downward) but rather kept
working on the whole self-actualization scene.  She is still doing that.
She has a side hustle going but not an actual. like. job.  (If one only has
a side hustle, does that make it a. central hustle?)  She is single, in her
30s and lives in the home she grew up in, with her parents, and no
reasonable plan for getting to transcendence that I can see.

 

The reason I mention it: I know her parents well.  We went to college
together, and I know both their families.  They damn well did work those
lower levels on the pyramid, as did I, and our attitudes really are very
different from our own children who never gained any familiarity with those
levels down there.

 

OK then.  What happens when major corporations are being run by people who
started out life working on self-actualization?  Do they get to the point
where the company is hemorrhaging money to the tune of millions a day, but
the leaders fail to realize they are flying in steep power dive with an
easily foreseeable near-term future?

 

spike

 

 

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