<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div>On Oct 22, 2010, at 12:24 AM, Alan Grimes wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div>No, I don't think you are coming to upload me.<br></div></blockquote><br><div>I'm glad to hear it.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>Instead, you are creating a philosophy and culture which places<br>extremely low value on the viewpoints of people who don't agree with<br>uploading. </div></blockquote><div><br></div>Hey I'm a libertarian, if you don't want to get uploaded then I don't think you should get uploaded. Do I personally have a low opinion of the reasons offered against uploading? Yes. Am I certain that a Jupiter Brain will have the same libertarian view I do regarding meat human beings? No. <br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>If this culture is allowed to persist and develop through the<br>singularity</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>What social norms will persist and develop through the singularity is not predictable, that's why it's called a singularity.</div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>it will compound the probability that greedy visual perceptrons will focus themselves on the Earth and go ahead and upload (or simply anihilate) everyone </div></blockquote><div><br></div>But if you put a gun to my head and made me predict, I'd say that the above is likely to happen regardless of the culture that exists at the moment. <br><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>My second issue is that other non-uploaders such as a person who<br>responded to my thread on another mailing list feel repulsed by being<br>"slammed" by the uploaders for expressing more modest transhumanistic goals. </div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>So what? You don't have a constitutional right never to be offended. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>For transhumanism to become mainstream several things need to happen within the movement:<br>1. It must be accepted</div></blockquote><div><br></div>By Who?</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div> that computronium is not an end in itself.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>The computronium may not agree, indeed most living things think a continuation of existence is an end in itself; and the will to power does seem to be a real phenomena for all evolutionarily successful beings.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div>It must also be accepted that destructive brain uploading is close to the worst ways of<br>going about it.<br></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I've been hearing that statement for years, and without exception when stripped of their pseudoscientific veneer every single one of the arguments supporting that view turns into nothing but pure superstition. </div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div>Instead a litmus test is given and all non-uploaders are rejected by the community</div></blockquote><div><br></div>I like litmus tests, they made a valuable contribution to chemistry; and I can't speak for the transhuman community but whenever I hear somebody trot out tired old lame reasons to be terrified of destructive uploading I realize the person in question is not willing to push logic as far as it will go and see where you end up. </div><div><br></div><div> John K Clark<br><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>