[ExI] People are the same?

[Eugen Leitl]

On Fri, Jul 29, 2011 at 07:35:29PM -0400, David Lubkin wrote:

> You're assuming options not in evidence. We don't know that it is
> possible to upload minds, even theoretically. And we don't know
> how to create the kind of substrate you're talking about.

While we might be not uploading minds yet, we have plenty of
need for communication, processing and storage. Electronics
is a very dirty industry, and it takes a fair fraction of our
total energy to run, so why not move the cloud where it belongs:
into the sky. 

Average ping would be less than 60 ms, and you have zero issues
with energy and cooling.

> We are far closer from a technological point of view to creating
> off-Earth habitations.

We're even closer to create teleoperated and automated fabrication
capacities. If you have these, habitats for meat people are cheap.

> At the end of The West Wing, CJ Craig is offered ten billion dollars
> for one important project of her choose. She chooses roads in
> Africa. Ten billion dollars would not take us to what you describe.
> I think that, wisely spent, it would take us space-based industrialization
> and settlement.

It depends on how you stage it. Ten 2011 gigabucks might do it for Luna,
if spent right. ISS over lifetime is estimated to be between 35 and 160 GUSD 
(ESA: 100 GEUR). Iraq/Afghanistan is 4 TUSD total, so far. Fed spent
some 16 TUSD in secret bailouts in less than 3 years. A trillion here,
a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

> I want the technology pursued that could achieve what you describe
> but I think it's foolhardy to delay moving to space a day longer than
> we have to. There are too many sentience-killing possibilities,
> including mistakes along the nano path.

If I had to choose dumping 10 gigabucks into space or machine-phase,
and given ability to micromanage spending I'd put it hands down on
machine-phase.


-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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