[extropy-chat] Who would you save?

[Robert Bradbury]

I woke up today asking myself whether I should spend the 4th with my
family.  This got intermixed in with my recent viewing of "Deep Impact" [1]
and questions I am nearly always running through my mind about hazard
functions, paths forward, costs vs. benefits, etc.  What popped out was:

"Who would I save?"

(This is of course interacts with the subplot in the movie involving not
saving anyone over 50, saving the "essential" people, and then distributing
the remaining survivor slots by lottery).

I'm probably somewhat more "disconnected" than the average Extropian
(remember I seem to have a high Asperger's quotient) but I was fairly
surprised that immediate family members didn't rate a slot near the top of
my list.  There are those family members who are merely "waiting to die" and
those whose priorities and perspective is doing little to benefit humanity
now and for whom the various futures discussed among extropians would
require a *major* mental shifts (perhaps shifts they would not like to or
could not make) [2].

There are subtle and not-so-subtle filters that one might apply to answering
this question, e.g.
a) Are you selecting for past brilliance?
b) Are you selecting for demonstrated commitment to moving us forward?
c) Are you selecting for probable future potential?
d) Are you selecting for "throw weight" (with the possible complication that
"throw weight" may not survive the singularity)?
e) Are you selecting for genetic ties, emotional ties, shared experiences,
etc.?

It was interesting that for me I found myself placing Robert Freitas, Ralph
Merkle, Eric Drexler and Josh Hall in the top ten.  Folowing them were a
couple of close personal friends and several list members.

These questions relate to work I am considering doing with Dave Kekich and
the Maximum Life Foundation which involves getting people to shift classical
perspectives of "need more money now" to some which might be more contrarian
(& extropic), e.g. "need to save my own ass in the long term", "need to save
the asses of those who are really important", "need to save the asses of
those I care the most about", etc.  This is based on the observation that
the *reality* that people generally operate in is that their asses cannot be
saved.  I.e. "make more money now" is only "real" choice since robust
lifespan extension, or robust MNT [3], are fantasies.

So, the question I would pose, is "Who would you save?", and if you care to
elaborate, "Why?".
I'm probably more interested in the Why than the Who as that would help me
refine the filter set.
Note that the criteria/filters bear on a related question (that we don't
need to answer for a few decades), "When the MBrain hits the resource
limits, who (or what) gets the greatest share of the run time?"

I wish everyone a happy 4th of July.  Please remember there are people who
gave their lives so we can enjoy the fireworks.
Robert

1. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120647/

2. I view the mental shift problem as one of the major problems facing
Extropians/Transhumanists -- billions of people are not waiting in long
lines for an opportunity to completely rewrite their meme set.

3. I'd probably put robust lifespan extension & robust MNT as #1 and #2 on
the realities I would most like to see manifested in the world.  Your
mileage may vary.
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