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Well, uploading sidesteps a lot of those issues, and it seems that's the only conceivable thing that could happen "tomorrow". Optimized engineering should be ca

Well, uploading sidesteps a lot of those issues, and it seems that's the only conceivable thing that could happen "tomorrow". Optimized engineering should be capable of solving many problems (i.e. a world run by a single intelligent entity). The technology itself should have a major impact on birth rates, as, hopefully, such tech world instantly kill many memes that cause high birth rates. And in " highly developed " countries, we see people willing to postpone having children, so it stands to reason others would go along with that, given that their life expectancy just skyrocketed. But the idea that it's more acceptable to torture nearly every human on earth because "you live, you die" - that sounds like, at best, a local maxima. And even if there were insurmountable resource issues, we should still not hand wave things, but any explicitly admit our policy is to permanently destroy people, look them in the eye when we free their resources. Like a real world OOM killer.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago
>Well, uploading sidesteps a lot of those issues, and it seems that's the only conceivable thing that could happen "tomorrow". Optimized engineering should be capable of solving many problems (i.e. a world run by a single intelligent entity). You know, spouting transhumanism would be far more socially acceptable if you didn't answer the legitimate questions spawned by mild transhumanism with severe, world-dominating transhumanism. For instance, words like "world run by single intelligent entity" carry an extremely high prior chance of denoting an incredibly terrible idea. At the very least, you've taken something that was already an argument, statements that already required justification, and "fixed it" by appealing to statements that require far more justification. Basically, you've answered "Won't the elimination of aging cause a population boom?" with a combination of "Not if we do it in the way that most easily allows Malthusian population booms!" and "Not if someone I approve of is made Dictator of the World." And, of course, your next line is that your planned Dictator isn't even a human being in the first place. While I fully know where you're coming from on this point, it still requires far more justification and explanation than either of us can give in an HN comment, and should a priori be considered a bloody terrible idea.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  I answered "won't a highly improbable magical cure that appears out of nowhere cause problems" with "nope, not if other high improbable magical solutions happen at the same time". It's my guess that anti aging will happen slowly, and hopefully we can also slowly make policy changes over that time too. I just don't see the default answer of "don't worry, we have a process to go around killing people" to be acceptable. But if the point was to say that major changes in the world could have major negative consequences, yeah, sure. Maybe they aren't solvable. But just don't pretend that Natural Death is OK because it's slightly alleviating one problem.

eli_gottlieb 12y ago

>Well, uploading sidesteps a lot of those issues, and it seems that's the only conceivable thing that could happen "tomorrow". Optimized engineering should be capable of solving many problems (i.e. a world run by a single intelligent entity). You know, spouting transhumanism would be far more socially acceptable if you didn't answer the legitimate questions spawned by mild transhumanism with severe, world-dominating transhumanism. For instance, words like "world run by single intelligent entity" carry an extremely high prior chance of denoting an incredibly terrible idea. At the very least, you've taken something that was already an argument, statements that already required justification, and "fixed it" by appealing to statements that require far more justification. Basically, you've answered "Won't the elimination of aging cause a population boom?" with a combination of "Not if we do it in the way that most easily allows Malthusian population booms!" and "Not if someone I approve of is made Dictator of the World." And, of course, your next line is that your planned Dictator isn't even a human being in the first place. While I fully know where you're coming from on this point, it still requires far more justification and explanation than either of us can give in an HN comment, and should a priori be considered a bloody terrible idea.

MichaelGG 12y ago
I answered "won't a highly improbable magical cure that appears out of nowhere cause problems" with "nope, not if other high improbable magical solutions happen at the same time". It's my guess that anti aging will happen slowly, and hopefully we can also slowly make policy changes over that time too. I just don't see the default answer of "don't worry, we have a process to go around killing people" to be acceptable. But if the point was to say that major changes in the world could have major negative consequences, yeah, sure. Maybe they aren't solvable. But just don't pretend that Natural Death is OK because it's slightly alleviating one problem.