[ExI] Fwd: Top Soil Depletion

[Keith Henson]

resend per request


---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
Date: Sun, Feb 11, 2024 at 9:10 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Top Soil Depletion
To: <spike at rainier66.com>
Cc: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>, BillK <pharos at gmail.com>


On Sun, Feb 11, 2024 at 8:27 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> ...
> >>... There might be a significant fraction of humanity that intentionally and actively resists uploading, just as a significant fraction of humanity today eschews modern technology.
>
> >...No doubt.  But even the Amish use cell phones.  Some kinds of technology have become ubiquitous...Keith
>
> Keith I have a group of (not very close) relatives who we think descended from four Hutterite families who went into Western Virginia (now West Virginia) in about the 1680s.  They live along a no-outlet road in the mountains (ja, it's a holler) they have no cell phone coverage up there, no radio or TV signals, or if so not strong enough to bother trying to receive.
>
> I wrote a paper letter yesterday.  Oh I don't like doing that, but I have no way to communicate with them otherwise.  I don't very often.
>
> Fun aside: a bunch of them did AncestryDNA, which is how we found out about their existence up there.

That's very strange.  People who don't use cell phones but did do DNA
testing.  Why?  Were they trying to figure out who they could marry?
I don't think you can get the results except on a computer.  How did
they do that?  Library?  One or more of them must have had computer
skills.

Hutterites have a high birth rate.  After that long there must be far
more of them than the land can support.

Do they have electric power?  Refrigerators?  The anti-technology
Doukhobors resisted electricity, schooling, etc for decades.
Eventually, they adapted.

I think the kids have to go to school.

> If we get uploading, there will be pockets of humanity which scarcely heard of it and want nothing to do with it.

Depending on how far and how fast it goes, and what provisions are
made for those who stay behind, it could get very lonely.

Keith

> spike
>
>
>