[ExI] POST-SCARCITY SYMBOLS Launched (defeat despair, create utopia, share hope).

[John Grigg]

Singularity Utopia and Samantha Atkins conversing:
You also ask me to tread carefully because people will become
disillusioned with H+ if it doesn't work out how I envisage. I also
ask you to tread carefully because I have spread my dreams under your
feet. I am poor therefore I have only my dreams. Dreams are the most
important part of being human because without dreams we are nothing. I
cannot recant my dreams. I have a dream...

Is this an argument?  Dreams are wonderfully important but they will
not put beans on the table unless they are realized in reality.
Please do dream big.   Please share big dreams.  But craft them well
and in terms that give us things we can do now.

Samantha, you wrote: "There is very little power in positive thinking
without clear,
consistent, effective action. You can think positive all day long and
get nowhere. You can think positive about something that in reality is
impossible and work really hard to get it and you will still,
guaranteed, fail. The utter and complete end of all scarcity is one of
those things that are contrary to reality."

Desires, dreams, and pioneering visions allow us to achieve the impossible.

No.  They allow the achievement of what was in fact possible and was
merely thought to be impossible.  And they only do this if they are
brought down to the reality of what can be done toward their
realization.   And that is very much the realm of the finite.

Visions without works do nothing.  Ideas are commonplace and
everywhere.  Successfully acting in reality to accomplish the
implementation of an idea is scarce.

Do you understand Extropy and the Singularity?
Are you going to try to teach your grandma to suck eggs?  :)  Of
course I understand them.  I don't think you do quite but I appreciate
and understand this form of excitement.

During the Stone Age a spaceship sending men to the Moon was pie in
the sky, utter impossibility, but thankfully times change and we
progress. The human race will soon take an unimaginable leap forward
far surpassing all previous progression. I hope you are able to dream.

All of this is fluff that while true, is utterly irrelevant to the
actual question I raised.

- samantha
>>>>>


Samantha, I'm going to scream at you in my best adolescent fashion,
"you are ruining my life!!!"  I will then run to my bedroom and slam
the door as hard as I possibly can!!  Next, I will throw myself down
onto my bed and cry my eyes out!!
"Why, oh why, does she try to rip apart my fondest dreams?"  "How can
anyone be that mean??!"  "Sam, you are a big Blue Meanie!!!  ; )

I think you and Spike have brought up some good points, but I still
think Singularity Utopia's (what the hell is this guy's real name for
crying out loud??!) personal vision is a worthy one and very possibly
within reach of humanity, if we work hard for it, and if good triumphs
over the usual victors..., evil, ignorance, apathy, and fear.

S.U. is mistaken in thinking we will ever truly have unlimited
resources, as I tried to explain to him in a private email.  Energy
and matter, however seemingly infinite they may seem in such a
gigantic universe (or multiverse), still are ultimately finite.  I
suspect very powerful lifeforms of various kinds will fill all niches
and eventually eat everything up, unless we set limits.  And so even
in a super-advanced post-singularity culture, there will need to be
rules regarding growth.

But still, it will be an amazing society where the sort of poverty,
lack of medical care, lack of educational support, lack of healthy
food, and lack of housing, will be seen as inconceivable.  But
sentients will probably be much more demanding, despite their vastly
higher standard of living.  And due to somewhat limited resources and
social hierarchies, there will still be frustrated people/minds.

When mature nanotech first arrives, governments and corporations will
do everything they can to firmly control it, and carefully portion out
it's massive benefits based on social status and institutional power.
They will of course want to contain such a vast potential for
violence, which is only prudent.  But the scariest thing from their
perspective will be how this technology might liberate individuals and
small groups from even really needing their government.  You will find
that governments are all about gaining and maintaining power, not
giving it up!

But I do believe the upcoming social contract between governments and
common citizens will result in a near-utopia, as compared to how
things are now.  But the big question is, will the common citizenry be
granted reasonable freedoms and rights to benefit from the
monumentally society-changing technologies that are coming their way?

Singularity Utopia/Gregory Jones wrote:
Desires, dreams, and pioneering visions allow us to achieve the impossible.
Many years ago during the height of American slavery nobody would have
dreamed a Black man would become President of the USA because that was
contrary to reality.  Positive thinking is the precursor to clear
effective action. Before the action happens people need to believe. It
took at long time for a Black man to become a President but we are now
entering accelerating times where changes will happen quicker. Do you
understand Extropy and the Singularity? During the Stone Age a
spaceship sending men to the Moon was pie in the sky, utter
impossibility, but thankfully times change and we progress. The human
race will soon take an unimaginable leap forward far surpassing all
previous progression. I hope you are able to dream.

On 9/6/10 Gregory Jones <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

"I can imagine plenty of reasons why some parts of humanity would
intentionally create scarcity, such as reasoning that if the
proletariat have plenty of everything, they will fail to pray to
Mecca."

Dear Spike (Gregory Jones) you make a good point. There are people who
may object to post-scarcity, which is one of the reasons why I am
attempting to inspire people into believing in the possibilities the
future holds. If enough people believe in utopia, it will happen.

To conclude: I think the concept of self-fulfilling prophecy has not
been completely absorbed by some of the responders to this
Post-Scarcity thread. The collective desires of the human race can
create a dystopia or utopia. I hope you can understand this network
effect. I hope you can change your views to a positive outlook because
negative views can harm the entire world. You have the power to begin
spreading hope. You can create utopia.
>>>>>


I must admit that I really like this guy!  : )  And I think he actualy
does an excellent job defending his worldview.  If people go around
with a "realistic" and defeatist perspective that the major
powers/institutions that run this world cannot be successfully worked
with, then in many ways they have already won.  I think it has
unfortunately become fashionable for otherwise very intelligent
transhumanists to wear the robes of the cynic.  But as S.U. states,
"positive thinking is the precursor to clear effective action."  And
this is so very true...

A fullblown Singularity may not occur within our lifetimes (though I
doubt this), or governments just might be able to fully curb & control
the world-changing shockwaves of such an event, but only time will
tell.  I feel we all owe it to not just ourselves, but the children of
today and tomorrow, to stay *tough mindedly* positive and fight for
the wonderful world we envision.  A place that truly nurtures it's
citizens, instead of neglecting them, or engulfing the majority into a
tyranny.

And so the real question is, how exactly do we achieve this lofty goal?

John Grigg  : )