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I feel a need to add an important extra wrinkle. The front line of progress and growth in all things is driven by those who are pursuing progress and growth. If
by mordymoop 5y ago
I feel a need to add an important extra wrinkle. The front line of progress and growth in all things is driven by those who are pursuing progress and growth. If an upload cult arises in a planet, and 90% of the populace retreats into simulations, the remaining 10% are still around and we be selected to be exactly those people most invested in the material universe; within a few years (not millions of years, certainly) there’s a good chance they’ll be considering expansion. Or, consider how often new civilizations are formed by small populations of refugees from intolerably oppressive larger civilizations. Something like a war, extinction event or ecological difficult is similarly likely to prompt a desire for expansion as it is a total collapse.
Science fiction is full of sentences of the form, “The Klaatu were an alien race who colonized the galaxy a million years ago but have since moved on.” I always roll my eyes at this. Almost no matter what the Klaatu are or what they care about, there would be some group of them remaining. And the only Klaatu we would see would be the descendants of the ones who stayed. Giant galactic civilizations made of individuals are unlikely to make coherent collective decisions with no dissenters for the same reason our single planet (with much less serious communications obstacles) never makes unanimous collective decisions.
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoWhat if 90% of the populace retreats into simulations, but in such a way that the remaining 10% have no political power and no industrial base, because that all remained with the majority? Hard for the non-uploaders to expand in that case.
- varjag 5y agoIt's hard to command control over the physical reality when you are willingly absent from it.
- autosharp 5y agoIs what a chimpanzee might think of the white house.
- varjag 5y agoOr what rest of the world been thinking of the White House. Point stands.
- z3ncyberpunk 5y agoIs what a delusional megalomaniac who out themselves in a matrix might think, just like the president. You seriously have to be a delusional megalomaniac to head the runaway train that is the presidency. Any power gained inside that matrix is disconnected and invalid from any reality and will never be willfully accepted. The only means of control is through perpetual authoritarian violence
- Swenrekcah 5y agoPOTUS himself may be absent from Africa but not from physical reality, and the physically real resources under their command certainly aren’t absent from the various corners of the world.
- thaumasiotes 5y agoI don't understand your argument. How much control do you think the White House exercises over chimpanzees? Your hypothetical chimpanzee is completely correct.
- sidlls 5y agoThat's quite contrived in my opinion. How can people uploaded into a simulation maintain that level of control in the physical world for any durable period?
- Mediterraneo10 5y agoThey have to keep up all the computing infrastructure running the simulation, and deal with long-term threats like geological activity and asteroids. That requires having and maintaining considerable technology out in the real world, and if only a mere 10% refuse to enter the simulation, then that minority may not get to benefit from spacefaring technology, or have the capital or industrial base to develop their own. In fact, since spacefaring presents a threat (kinetic bombardment) to any planetary-bound species, then that majority who choose to enter the simulation may want to expressly prevent the minority from leaving the planet.
- mordymoop 5y agoThis is obviously not impossible, but we are now in the realm of adding clauses to an already rather specific scenario, each clause adding another degree of improbability. (The odds of "an upload cult arises on a planet" is by definition greater than "an upload cult arises on a planet AND actively presents anybody else on the planet from ever leaving.) I think the metaphor to look to isn't necessarily even human civilizations spreading around the globe; it's life spreading through the planet to colonize every niche out of which the slightest scrap of energy can be extracted.
- z3ncyberpunk 5y agoThat's their problem, those who did not Matrix themselves are not beholden to those who gave away their lives without force, but since they are virtual, they have none and exist where the 10% can pull their plug at any time. You out too much faith in virtual existence
- DocTomoe 5y agoWouldn't it be a lot easier for the non-uploaders to, you know, just pull the plug? Or change the input to the digital existances in a way to simulate a reality "outside"?
- throwaway316943 5y agoChange the “upload filter” to “total upload filter” smaller chance but still relevant. Also it was a silly sci-fi example, I’m sure sufficiently advanced societies can think up better forms of planetary dead ends.