[ExI] Mono or Poly?

[Adrian Tymes]

On Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 3:15 AM Rafal Smigrodzki via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> People who are wrong often say "It's different this time!" so it's with
> some unease that I say "It really *is* different this time!".
>

Oh really?  Why did they say it was different that time, how did their
reasons prove to be irrelevant, and how is literally anything you claim
substantially different than their reasons?

You focus on why it is different this time.  Look instead at the difference
of the difference.


> The flame of life ignited in alkaline seeps over fields of serpentine
>

Irrelevant.


> Let that sink in - for the first time since the creation of the biosphere
> we are faced with the possibility of *ending evolution*.
>

This claim has been made before, such as by eugenics proponents, and proved
incorrect.  Consider why this claim was made before.  Your first impulse is
probably to assert that every previous claim was fundamentally different
from this, because it was based on different reasons and factors - and that
impulse is wrong.  The previous efforts likewise claimed to control and
direct, and thereby effectively end, evolution.  The oversight proved to be
claiming that merely having controlled short-term changes would obviate the
overall mechanism of evolution.

Even AI-directed improvements would still evolve.  And indeed, some
projections of the Technological Singularity were for before 2025; those
appear to have not come true.

The poly vs. mono choice is a choice between the status quo of competitive
> evolution and a new, unprecedented organization of matter.
>

A choice implies that someone is choosing.  Who gets to make that
decision?  Mono inherently implies that only one person or group (or AI)
makes that choice based on everyone, but how would they enforce that on the
vast majority of humanity who has never heard of them or know that there is
this choice to be made?  Not "how do they conquer the world", but "how do
they become relevant to most of the world".


> Every detail of our biochemistry, physiology and psychology is built of
> accidents of history
>

Irrelevant.


> The next few years on Earth may be pivotal to the organization of matter
> in this galaxy.
>

That's what was said a few years ago.  And a few years before that.  Yet
we're still here and making significant decisions.  Why is now any
different than those past claims?  What will preclude us from - in, say, 5
or 10 years or whatever finite time horizon you care to consider - making
decisions that are just as significant as the ones we make today?


> The time of cosmic significance is upon us.
>

No, the time of now is upon us.  This has always been the case, and
confusing the immediate significance of now for a significance that will
still matter tomorrow underlies many such proclamations.  Why is today more
relevant to us, than last year was to us while we were experiencing last
year?  Why is today more relevant to us, than next year will be to us while
we are experiencing next year?
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