[ExI] The Manifesto of Italian Transhumanists

[Bryan Bishop]

On Friday 07 March 2008, John Grigg wrote:
>  Hi Bryan, I enjoyed the exchange of ideas.  I'd be curious to know
> where you will be standing on these issues in ten or twenty years,
> considering you are currently a very young man.

And am I to call you very old?

> > > The "amazing cultural phenomena" you describe, if it turns
> > > against you (stem cell research vrs. the Bush Administration, for
> > > instance), results in a definite slowing or stopping of
> > > potentially life saving medical technology.
> >
> > The only way they can do that is by jailing us in prisons.
>
> Most researchers don't want to go to that extreme to protest things.

Didn't I already reply to this only a few days ago? If you can't stand 
the heat (the risk), then get out of the kitchen and make sure people 
know that you are calling yourself what you don't want to really be.

> Instead, they simply don't do the controversial research or else move
> to a nation where it is allowed/encouraged.  And that nation then
> reaps the benefits.

The only reason nations reap benefits is because of the locality of the 
person, but in our age of travel and communication, locality is not as 
an important factor as before, but still important, yeah.

> > > And even though the research and development would continue in
> > > other nations, the U.S. would then be at a serious disadvantage
> > > to be a leader in the biotech field and reap the financial
> > > harvest.  And remember that it's just plain "un-American" to not
> > > make tons of money and dominate technological progress! lol
> >
> > Heh, well, with self-replication there might be a collapse of the
> > financial institutions, but not if they play their cards right. So
> > that's something that somebody might want to put some thought into.
>
> In the name of national security (and the unspoken desire of
> corporations to keep their stranglehold on the economy) we will see
> the possibility of nanotech "anything boxes" most likely squelched. 

You have nanotech (bacteria) all around you. And it's not squelched.

> "We can't take the chance of bad people hacking into them and doing
> who knows what!"  "Why, just go to your local Nano Mart store and
> they will set you right up..."

So you think this fear will magically stop all life (nanotech)?

> > > you continue:
> > > > No matter how much they proclaim to be against a possibility
> > > > does not determine that bottom line of feasability. Yes, they
> > > > can protest, yes, they can try to stone us, they can try to
> > > > burn us alive, but you see, we can diffuse the information over
> > > > the internet, and good luck warring against the internet. It
> > > > will route around the damage.
> > >
> > > But warring against research labs and those who fund them in
> > > another matter, entirely.  It generally takes serious money and
> > > disciplined scientific teams to tease out Mother Nature's
> > > secrets.
> >
> > Nah, it just takes discipline. That's the whole discipline of
> > science. It does not take money, but rather the raw resources. The
> > guys that build particle accelerators and energy stations? They had
> > the discipline to make it happen even when there wasn't necessarily
> > a "plutonium economy" or "electricity economy" when they started
> > off.
>
> The guys who built the particle accelerators and energy stations got
> big hunks of money from government and corporate sponsors.  They had
> the discipline to gather the grant money that got things
> accomplished.

Ability to gather money does not indicate whether or not they can do it.

> > > of global competitiveness.  And by the time we try to really turn
> > > things around we may have lost some critical advantages that
> > > might never be fully regained.
> >
> > Maybe. Can you own an advantage, even in natural-evolutionary
> > terms?
>
> What the U.S. and Western world might have are certain given
> educational and social foundations that make technological catch up
> much easier on us as compared to China or Russia.

What? My question was whether you can 'own' an advantage in the game 
theoretic sense of natural evolution. Ownership and property has 
recently been discussed more thoroughly on the list, so naturally I see 
this as a relevant extension to those thoughts. 

> > What knowledge and power? What does the military have that cannot
> > be already duplicated? Airplanes? Easily duplicated (though not
> > necessarily the money to make many tests. This is of course a
> > matter of resources, not money.) Nuclear weapons? Non-military
> > persons came up with nukes. Navy machinery? Easy enough.
>
> Knowledge IS power.  Academic and corporate research labs are spread
> across the U.S. and the backbone of much military and economic r & d.

No, people are the backbone, and what one human can think, so can 
another.

>  Yes, non-military people came up with much of this. lol  By the way,
> resources and money go hand in hand. : )

Resources and money do not go hand-in-hand.

> A "standard" and non-high performance jet fighter, tank, missle
> cruiser, civilian product for sale, etc. may be relatively easy to
> create, but designing and manufacturing a very advanced (superior to
> potential enemies/competitors) version is a great challenge.  Rival

I don't see how this is true. I have been studying how to make my own 
copy of the X-43A, the NASA Hyper-X hypersonic Mach 10 aircraft. As far 
as I can tell, the hardest part is just reading the documentation on 
the CFD simulators (heh), but then there's finding an artist to model 
the ship properly, then assembling the right metals and a cooling 
system, getting an oxyacetalone arc welder, doing the CNC metalworking, 
and most importantly the preliminary design work in coming up with the 
right PDEs and mission design parameters. The only thing *hard* is 
evolutionary progression of novelty. Anything else is not 'hard'.

> nations will have a very challenging time matching our most advanced
> tech (and as they try to catch up we would be moving forward to stay
> ahead) unless the complete designs and manufacturing methods are

Open source.

> stolen.  Espionage/stolen military and industrial secrets are a huge
> problem for the U.S. and the rest of the Western world.

Maybe they would do better to be able to exist in such a way that they 
do not entirely rely on such outdated security models? Secrets??

> > > We are in a race to develop whatever the next generation of
> > > technological innovations are that we must have to stay not just
> > > competitive, but ahead of the rest of the world.  And yes, we do
> > > have
> >
> > This is FUD.
>
> This is THE REAL WORLD. lol

You can stay competitive even with shared knowledge, see OSS.

> If the U.S. does not protect it's technology base by better security,
> improving public education, etc., you will see in your lifetime our
> steep decline.  It will be a very sad thing.

Decline in what?

> > > Nationalism is a two-edged sword.  On the one side it can cause
> >
> > It is also more fud.
>
> It can be at times.  But do you really think other powerful nations
> always have our best interests at heart? lol  Life is not just
> cooperation but also competition.  Nature teaches us that.  And it
> still holds true for humanity.

What are you talking about? I didn't even mention 'nations' having best 
interests at heart etc. Specifically, you are promoting the concept of 
nationalism even when we know that we can make things and build 
solutions to our human problems, you are just pointing to archaic 
methods of cooperation whic hcan be surpassed. 

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/