[ExI] Machines of Loving Grace

[Keith Henson]

On Sun, Oct 13, 2024 at 2:06 AM Ben Zaiboc via extropy-chat
<extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> On 12/10/2024 19:41, Daniel wrote:
>
> Hello Keith
>
> About human species going biologically extinct, is that something worth
> worrying over, or would it in fact be a blessing? Or neutral? Or just a
> logical continuation of our current way of life and technological
> progress?
>
> Best regards,
>
> Daniel
>
> As with a number of other transhumanist-themed ideas, I think we have to be very careful of the language we use, because it can easily be misunderstood.

The Clinic Seed has been posted on the Terrisim site for 18 years.
Long ago they had a counter on downloads and as I recall, they
mentioned 60,000.  Most people who have said anything consider the
story to be a triumph of humans and I seldom have seen a comment about
the end of the story where the leopard inherits the village.

It is, after all, fiction, science fiction, predictive SF fiction
subclass.  But that said, I think it holds up fairly well with how
things have developed over the last year or so.

> The difference between "going biologically extinct" and "going extinct" is probably not going to be appreciated by most people.
>
> Can we come up with an alternative term or phrase that won't automatically make people hostile to the idea of uploading?
>
> I'm thinking about something that includes the idea of 'migration' rather than 'extinction'. Movement rather than death.

I don't use the term in the story at all.  From the other chapters,
two on the Terrisim site and two elsewhere it is clear that humans
don't go entirely extinct, but only about 1 in a hundred resist the
more rewarding uploaded life.  The "powers that be" whoever or
whatever they are, are trying to increase the population but without
much success.  I don't know how realistic this is, but I needed
characters for the story. https://htyp.org/UpLift
https://htyp.org/Standard_gauge

Keith

> Ben
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