[Hplusroadmap] Fwd: Re: [wta-talk] Upgrading so as to not be killed by Big Heat

[Bryan Bishop]

----------  Forwarded Message  ----------

Subject: Re: [wta-talk] Global Warming Petition Project.
Date: Sunday 01 June 2008
From: Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com>
To: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List 
<wta-talk at transhumanism.org>

On Sunday 01 June 2008, Premise Checker wrote:
> Amara wrote in to say that it is climate change, not just climate
> warming that's the issue. This may very well be, but again it is odd
> that a TRANSHUMANIST would not state instead that transhumans and
> posthumans will be a lot more able to adapt to change than more
> humans are.

Big Heat sounds like a pretty good incentive to upgrade yourself.

> So let's take the trillions Big Heat is demanding and put it into
> upgrading ourselves.

It's tricky to say that -- I think we need to make it clear that we're 
talking about implementing the technology necessary for everyone to 
use, not just ourselves; I'm sure that the transhumans who care would 
willingly donate as much as they can to help out others if the planet 
hits what you call Big Heat.

> flexible. I may have to buy a bigger air conditioner. (The chief
> reason for the disproportionate growth of the American South in the
> past several decades has been air conditioning.) If it gets really,

Yes, without AC we would not be living down here. I'm in Texas, and I am 
still surprised each time somebody mentions to me that they just bought 
an air conditioner up north. It wasn't until a few years ago that I 
realized that there might be parts of the world where AC hasn't been 
needed. Surprising.

> Yes, these are uncomfortable facts. Are there any absolutes here,
> whence I should remove the quotation marks around "wrong" in the
> previous paragraph? Or just cultural differences. If the latter,
> should the adaptable get worried about the consequences of
> reproductive strategies that may well lead to a billion deaths among
> young unadaptables?
>
> The answer for transhumanists is, yes, certainly to increase efforts
> to foster the development of technologies to increase adaptability.

Sorry, the dynamic optimism strain of transhumanism strongly screams 
that there are no 'unadaptables' -- only those that you neglect to 
offer (trans)humanitarian assistance to.

> One major side effect of technological change so far has been to ramp
> up competition. This is because computerization has made accounting
> cheaper, which means that better estimates of just where profits and
> losses are occurring in firms. And this leads to product development
> and creative destruction. Jobs have been moving away from unskilled
> and semi-skilled labor to marketing and product development, both of
> which pay more. And generally, work requires more and more an ability
> to use high tech tools. These two factors are the main forces driving
> greater income inequality within nations.

I doubt that keeping 'nations' when talking about technological change 
is a good idea. I was just watching a TED talk yesterday by Yachai, 
where he talks about open source economics. He has this slide at one 
point where he shows that there's another fourth form of competition 
where it's non-market and non-profit, and nations and governments can 
be left out of it. This is where transhuman tech is; it /could/ appear 
in another 'market' (money / industrial, etc.), but personally I'm more 
interested in making this accessible and replicable for everyone. 
(Technically, it's mostly to make it easier on myself, but it happily 
coincidentially works out like that, so. :-)

TED | Talks | Yochai Benkler: Open-source economics (video)
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/247

> Outsourcing and the removal of trade barriers generally adds to this
> but amounts to only about a fifth of the explanation of rising
> inequality within nations. However, equality between nations is going
> down, with a net decrease in *world* inequality. You can only
> globalize once, so in the longer term, world inequality will
> increase, and in some regions this will become serious. Global
> warming is an added factor, but I think it is rather minor in
> comparison, assuming certain contested estimates are correct.

'Equality' needs to be redefined in light of open source economics. It's 
an issue of availability, I think. Can they get this, can they get 
that? Can they do this, can they do that? (Lots of sources talk about 
money in relation to 'equality' between nations -- so money doesn't 
matter much, as long as they are getting stuff done.)

> Efforts to stop the warming will be far more costly than transhuman
> technologies to increase adaptability. This fact will not stop Big
> Heat rent-seekers.

Btw, one of the aspects of adaptability is the adaptation away from 
fossil fuel burning vehicles, for example. That's an adaption, I would 
think; although it's currently framed in many contexts as "the only 
step that everyone would have to make!" and it's just not all that 
dynamic.

> That's my conclusion, along with a general outlook that ethical
> systems, in a world of imperfect information, need to be implemented

Why not improve that world of information? Internet, internet internet.

> with political constitutions that not merely recognize self-seeking
> behavior but encourge its expression. Otherwise, they are at the
> mercy of whoever controls what is regarded as "moral,"

Yes, we definitely need to encourage that sort of self-seeking 
expression, but don't be down in the dumps if it can't be encoded into 
pesky political documents. It's still important to promote regardless, 
right?

- Bryan
________________________________________
http://heybryan.org/

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