[ExI] imaginable wealth

[Keith Henson]

On Fri, Mar 6, 2026 at 5:11 PM <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

> From: Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
> Sent: Friday, 6 March, 2026 3:29 PM
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Cc: spike at rainier66.com
> Subject: Re: [ExI] imaginable wealth
>
> On Fri, Mar 6, 2026 at 1:14 PM spike jones via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
> >…You bring up a point I had not considered before.  What evolutionary selection has led to the feeling of awe for big spaces like cathedrals?
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> >…I can see that the sensation of being in the open would be selected to heighten awareness of predators.  This needs thinking.
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> Keith
>
> OK, so Keith appears to reject the whole indoor autonomous airplane contest notion.

No, I was thinking of the hotel that held the WorldCon in Atlanta.  As
I recall it has a 48 story hollow space.  There was at that time a
long looping fabric decoration hanging in the middle of it and half a
dozen paper air planes had landed on it.  They were cleaned off by a
crew that repelled from the top while the Con was going on.

  Skeptic!  Just keep in mind Gandhi’s comment about the progression
of theories: first they ignore it, then they laugh, then the scorn it,
then they accept it.  Take for example the Bohr model of the atom, or
continental drift, or evolution.  Won’t he be surprised if they
announce the first annual international autonomous rubber-band powered
airplane competition will be held inside Westminster Abby?  I too
would be in shock and awe if that ever happened.  That would be so
cool.  Currently the theory has just past the fight it stage, then it
turned pi radians and is back to the laugh at it phase.
>
> I don’t know Keith, but my best guess is that the huge cavernous cathedrals somehow makes one feel small and insignificant,

Ok, how does that get selected?  Why?

> and causes one to contemplate eternity and how clever were the engineers who figured out how to do all this church building crap.  I was in that place a year ago last summer, and found myself standing at the graves of Charles Darwin and Isaac Newton.

I would be standing there thinking about the nanomachines to drill
into those graves and pull out DNA.  Would you need to pay women to
birth a clone of either of them or would there be volunteers?

>  It was an amazing feeling just thinking about it: alls I need is to invent the flux capacitor and find a still-operational Delorean, I would go back and scoop the hell outta the both of these fellers.
>
> Sure I know it is a completely absurd notion: there are no remaining operational Deloreans.

No problem, in a few years you can have a copy of one for pocket
change.  Or a B58.
>
> In any case Keith, I am glad you posted in response, because you used to live near the place where I was today and might know the area.  From your former rez, get on Embarcadero northbound and go up over on the bay side of the freeway.  You recall how scary that area used to be.  It isn’t that way now.  Right on the site of that old scrap metal shop is a nice new modern medical building.  Across the street where drug gangs once engaged in constant warfare is now a Mercedes freaking Benz dealership, and right next to that an Audi dealership.  I don’t even know how to insert the word ‘freaking’ into the word Audi, so it isn’t clear how to emphasize how amazed I am at the complete transformation.
>
I can't locate and don't think I was ever at such a place.

Keith
>
> In any case, Winchester Abby was wicked cool.  When I was in it, I was astonished at how they managed to build the thing without computers and stuff.  There were indoor balconies so high it caused me to ponder the vastness of eternity, for if I went crazy and jumped, that’s how long I would be dead, along with the other tourists I landed on down there.
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> spike
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> We are told that AI will either kill us all or create unimaginable wealth.
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> In the cathedrals, I thought: AWE man!  WONDER if they would let us have autonomous rubber-band powered airplane contests in here?
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>  …
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> spike
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