Bad memes Re: Opting out of the Sysop scenario?

From: Brian Atkins (brian@posthuman.com)
Date: Sat Aug 04 2001 - 21:07:27 MDT


Gordon Worley wrote:
>
> If you want to go somewhere, that's fine, but you are still going to
> be under Sysop control. The Sysop is not just one process, but many

Dan Clemmensen wrote:
>
> The sysop controls and allocates all available resources. To opt
> out, the sysop will have to allocate some resources to you so that you
> can maintain a separate existence. What is the equitable way to decide
> which resources should be allocated to you?

I really have to warn you guys to stay away from anything implying
control or central planning since that will get some bad reactions.
The UNIX Bastard Operator From Hell (i.e. Sysop :-) is not generally
theorized to keep active control over everyone and everything. The way I
envision it is it divides up the matter at the beginning of the BOFH's
reign, and after that it is up to each Citizen's control to do what they
want with it. So no, the atoms are not centrally controlled except at the
very beginning of the game, and later on only when they need to be stopped
from doing certain things. And even then it is unlikely there will be
any centrality to it. That just won't scale. It is going to have to
be a distributed system, probably with only a certain maximum allowed
distance between each Sysop mind and the edge of the matter it has
potential control over.

(oh by the way, you can see the UNIX meme also has some downsides :-)

-- 
Brian Atkins
Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence
http://www.intelligence.org/


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