[ExI] simulation as an improvement over reality

[Ben Zaiboc]

Alan Grimes <agrimes at speakeasy.net> wrote:
> 
> > You're sharing the same physical layer. If it doesn't
> sound ominous,
> > it should.
> 
> 
> =|
> 
> That is precisely why I'm so energetic about being
> ant-total conversion.
> 
> I want nothing that uploading offers.
> 
> That's why I say that if you want to upload FINE, You can
> have that
> planet/moon/star-cluster over there, just permit me the
> chance to evolve
> in a different direction.
> 
> To which the answer from the community booms down "NO".
> 
> To which I respond "Why?"
> 
> To which the community has repeatedly responded "but it
> will be a
> **PERFECT** _copy_ of you, isn't that just as good as
> you?"
> 
> To which I respond "You entirely missed my point. I do not
> want
> **ANYTHING** uploading offers, let me evolve in a different
> direction."
> 
> To which the community responds "But your _copy_ will run a
> thousand
> times faster and live forever".
> 
> To which I respond: "Please someone give me a new
> transhumanist community".



You have already been told that nobody is proposing to force anyone to upload. Your quotes above are misrepresentations, at least.

The point is (and has been all along) that if a superintelligent being comes into power (something that some of us think is inevitable), we will all be at its mercy.  Individual preferences re. uploading (or just about anything else) will be moot.

The only defence against this, as far as I can see, will be to keep pace with it, to ensure no single entity dominates.  Even then there is no guarantee.

A 'new transhumanist community' can't change this.

You're not up against other people's preferences, nobody wants to force you to do anything.

What you're up against is logic. Rather than berate the people who are trying to point this out, it might be a better use of your time to try and think of ways to maximise the chances of people's preferences being relevant.

Personally, I'd like to see the earth preserved as a kind of nature reserve, where people with luddite tendencies (or other anti-uploading attitudes) can live their short lives out as they wish, I just don't think it's very likely to happen.

Ben Zaiboc