Re: continuity of self [ was META: Sept. 11 and Singularity]

From: Cliff Stabbert (cps46@earthlink.net)
Date: Tue Sep 17 2002 - 01:16:42 MDT


Monday, September 16, 2002, 10:01:57 AM, Ben Goertzel wrote:

<snip>

BG> I love AI research, but if it were clear to me I could do much
BG> more good by evangelizing about the future -- trying to convince
BG> people to take abundance into account into their thinking -- then
BG> I would do that. Kurzweil has apparently made that decision -- to
BG> evangelize & leave the research to others, because he feels there
BG> are plenty of other smart researchers out there, but few as well
BG> positioned as he is to effectively evangelize....

In the context of scarcity-and-power thinking, I think Buckminster
Fuller's work, and educating people on the Prisoner's Dilemma, are
more relevant (or perhaps prerequisites). (I'd include Korzybski's
_Science and Sanity_ and Reich's _Mass Psychology of Fascism_ (don't
hurt me mike99!) in that memetic stream, even though they don't
directly address the scarcity/abundance issue).

But as I've mentioned before, I don't think the main risks to the
achieving the singularity are from the public at large, but rather
from those people and organizations currently in a position of
privilege, because they have (perceived) motive and they have (some)
means to foul up progress.

--
Cliff






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