From: Samantha Atkins (samantha@objectent.com)
Date: Sat Jun 12 2004 - 01:28:13 MDT
For a while now I've thought that an FAI might very likely have to
establish a variety of enclaves, "real" or "virtual" where persons and
groups could live according to their lights. Indeed it may be so they
must live in such a way if they are to have a hope of ever reaching
their full potential. It may be that the nearest approximation to
Friendliness is to upload everyone but not tell most of them and let
them live out their life or lives until they developed enough to be
ready for more. This might be a real upload and it might seem more
like some very vivid and enlightening dreams. It might be a
techo-reincarnation scheme from certain perspectives. Should a real
FAI allow people to slaughter one another or to die utterly just
because they aren't "in their right and rational minds"?
- samantha
On Jun 11, 2004, at 7:30 PM, Philip Sutton wrote:
> Hi Brent,
>
>> Having followed some of the recent volition discussions I thought it
>> might be interesting and appropriate to have codified (specified as a
>> supergoal?) into the (yet to be developed) fai's interaction with
>> sentients protocols a 'right of withdrawal'
>
> I think/feel that you have a very good idea here. I guess it's the
> principle of tolerance that exists in some well-functioning
> democracies.
> Everyone counts, communities of people add a lot of value to isolated
> individuals but if a particular community is not to your taste you are
> free
> to be part of another one - but each community must abide by the rule
> that they will not oppress the other - ie. do things to them that that
> the
> aggreived society *really* does not want.
>
> It could be that some humans (or other sentients) choose to forgo
> many/most of the 'benefits' that others see coming from the new age.
> But this response may *not* be conservatism, it might be that some
> people want to choose different evolutionary paths into the future -
> ie.
> what some see as an improvement others may not. So coercive
> 'improvement' of others is not allowed.
>
> The really tricky bit (as always) is how do you make sure that
> individuals and communities do *not* do each other harm (some
> preventive coercion is presumably requiredhere from a 'higher'
> authority - ie. the collective governance) so how do you stop people
> trying to slip coercive 'improvement' of others in under the guise of
> preventing harm or slipping in harmful actions to others under the
> guise
> of claims of self-determination?
>
> This is where wisdom is required - not only of individuals , but also
> of
> our governance systems.
>
> I guess the ultimate safeguard comes from individuals or communities
> perceiving actual or threatened harm and then challenging the
> dominanct system to notice, acknowledge and respond productively to
> their perception. In our society non-violent action is probably the
> most
> effective last-ditch defence. Have a look at Gene Sharp's ideas to get
> the sense of what I mean: http://www.aeinstein.org/
>
> Cheers, Philip
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Jul 17 2013 - 04:00:47 MDT