[extropy-chat] Wait a minute. What's our contingency plan?

[alexboko]

The luddites have disgusted me since I was a child. Their idea of utopia
would be hell for me. What worries me is that at least they have a
contingency plan, should civilization collapse-- live close to the land,
farm for a living, cleave tight to your community, and do not rely on
any tool or institution that you cannot recreate yourself should the
need arise.

A low-tech agrarian society will not be maintaining (let alone reviving)
any cryonicists, curing aging, creating AI, inventing nanotech, or
performing uploads. So, we need to have a better contingency plan in
place than the rather depressing one the opposition has. A contingency
plan that will safeguard not only our immediate survival but also the
technologies needed for the long-term survival of humanity. We're
smarter than them, and I'm confident that we will come up with one.

Best think tank in the world (and the couple of people who choose to
remain outside it but whose opinion I value and am therefore bcc-ing), I
ask you this:

*** What should we do to keep technological progress humming along
should the world collapse into another dark age? ***

Not the government, not some hypothetical investor, not "the public"
suddenly getting a clue, but we, us. Not just technically feasible, but
here and now, with the resources we have at our disposal. Please don't
bring politics/ideology into this. They'll be cold comfort when you're
dead. Let's be pragmatic.

--Happy New Year, Alex