The future of mankind discussion.

[fjafjan]

Taking all your fuel with you when the universe is full of fusable hydrogen is just plain stupid.

But, that fusable hydrogen is rarely in a package that is easy to open; it'd be like not taking drinking water while crossing the Antarctic, trusting that you'll be able to melt and filter the snow.

With the proper equipment that won't be a problem

As for "we can't fix everything at home before we go to the stars" No, but still there needs to be priorites

You can either spend a thousand billions on going to mars or a thousand billion solving humanitarian problems on earth, the things is one of those two is going to be ALOT more productive

Hint, it's not space.
By giving all people on earth proper education you can withing a few decades raise the productivity of the planet ALOT, meaning that going to the stars will be alot easier, ofcourse you will still have SOME problems here, but the fact is we have RAMPANT fucking problems here, billions of people in poverty, they are untapped resourses.
I don't mind us spending money on Space travel, what bothers me is the proportions at which it takes place.
Oh, and the argument that we need to go to the stars because our sun might die is retarded, we have a number of thousands of years before that will take place, the smart thing to do is not to take a smart part of the human population and have them working on a very small and distant problem, but to educate a broad part of the human population and then have them together work at the remaining problems, one of which being the fact that we are stuck here.

Space offers us an unlimited future. As soon as anyone can exist in space, we have that limited backup (sort of). As soon as we can build, garden, live and breed in space, then we have that unlimited future.

How is it unlimited? No cost/benefit analysis would recomend humanity as a race to go into space for another few centuries, we have the technology, but there is no reason to, other than entertainment.

sorry for beaking your Space conquoring dreams, Curing AIDS and Malaria is not nearly as "cool" as walking on Mars but it should still be our first priority.

[Owijad]

[EDIT] Whut he sed ^^^

It's very doubtful we'll ever fix everything on Earth. Why do we need to get everything finished here before starting elsewhere? The problem with this thinking is that it leads to the kind of contentment with the status quo that prevents progress. If this line of thinking had been held by everyone, we would never have gone anywhere at all! Sail to America? No -- there are still problems in Europe! Build the Roman aqueducts? No -- what about the plight of the Gauls...shouldn't that come first? Go over that hill beyond our thatched hut? No -- what about the rest of the hungry cavemen?

This argument, as presented, isn't really valid. It disregards the possibility that fixing everything on Earth will make space exploration and colonization much more feasible, and it also assumes that space colonization, at this point, would improve human the human race significantly.

You present "Sail to America? No -- there are still problems in Europe!", but disregard "Sail to America? No -- we need a stable food supply!" and "Sail to Antarctica? No -- There are still problems in Europe!"

[Shadowfish]

Thanks for the explanation about ignoring relativity gmalivuk and Yakk.

I know this thread is more about the future of humanity than the logistics of space travel, but we can't figure out if people will eventually "conquer space" unless we think a little bit about the physical limitations. As for what we should do, I'm with fjafjan and Owijad. As for physical limitations:

re: ramjets

A quick google tells me that the density of interstellar space is about .1 atoms per cm^3. This means your ship will encounter about 10^20 atoms (1 mg) of hydrogen per lightyear per square meter of cross sectional area of your ship. I have trouble seeing how you this could possibly give you the tons of kinetic energy a relativistic spacecraft would have.

Re: fuel

If you used fuel, you would have to keep in mind that you can't convert all of your fuel's mass to kinetic energy. You would also have to keep in mind that you need to carry enough fuel to slow down your ship, assuming you want to stop some at some point.

I once worked out to get to Lorentz factor L, and slow back down to rest, with fuel efficiency e:

Mass(fuel)/Mass(Payload)=((L-1)/e)^2

Gathering enough energy to make enough fuel for your trip is a big task.

[Gadren]

[EDIT] Whut he sed ^^^

It's very doubtful we'll ever fix everything on Earth. Why do we need to get everything finished here before starting elsewhere? The problem with this thinking is that it leads to the kind of contentment with the status quo that prevents progress. If this line of thinking had been held by everyone, we would never have gone anywhere at all! Sail to America? No -- there are still problems in Europe! Build the Roman aqueducts? No -- what about the plight of the Gauls...shouldn't that come first? Go over that hill beyond our thatched hut? No -- what about the rest of the hungry cavemen?

This argument, as presented, isn't really valid. It disregards the possibility that fixing everything on Earth will make space exploration and colonization much more feasible, and it also assumes that space colonization, at this point, would improve human the human race significantly.

You present "Sail to America? No -- there are still problems in Europe!", but disregard "Sail to America? No -- we need a stable food supply!" and "Sail to Antarctica? No -- There are still problems in Europe!"

I agree that an Earth with its problems solved would be able to turn its attention to the stars with a united effort. However, the delay in holding off space exploration/colonization to solve all Earth's problems would, IMHO, be detrimental to the effort. Also, I believe that space exploration/colonization could have great benefits for humanity; let's take a look at what the space program has already done:
- laser heart surgery based off NASA technology for sensing the ozone layer
- imaging technology used in mammograms
- MRIs and CAT scans
- artificial limbs
- satellites used for tracking crops, sending communications, GPS, etc.
- various advances in aviation
- hydroponics
- preventing landmine explosions using rocket motor flares

Possible future benefits include mining the Moon and taking advantage of low- and micro-gravity environments in manufacturing. Using solar power easily gained from orbit could help end many conflicts around the world (which are often caused by resource inequality).

(more examples available here: http://www.ethicalatheist.com/docs/bene ... ogram.html)

Oh, and in response to your other proposed questions, I do think that waiting to get a stable food supply for all of Europe or gain continental peace before going to America or Antarctica wouldn't be the best course of action; such things would have been infeasible for the technology of the era, and the consequent delays would have slowed the development of advances (scientific, political, and social) that have helped the world as a whole.

But I think that our disagreements here aren't that big. It's not an either-or issue. Is space a silver bullet? Of course not -- but it's part of the solution.

[gmalivuk]

A quick google tells me that the density of interstellar space is about .1 atoms per cm^3.

http://hypertextbook.com/facts/2000/DaWeiCai.shtml lists some sources that say it's 10 or more times that much.

This means your ship will encounter about 10^20 atoms (1 mg) of hydrogen per lightyear per square meter of cross sectional area of your ship.

Ramjet descriptions usually involve a magnetic scoop that is much bigger than the front end of the ship. Obviously there's then the question of how feasible this is, but if as in one article I read you have a truly huge (50000km diameter) magnetic scoop, your 1mg per square meter works out to the order of 2 million tonnes per lightyear. Or, when you start the jet at v=.01, about 55 tonnes of hydrogen per day. This is certainly way more than necessary, so the listed size isn't actually necessary. A 7000km diameter scoop will start you out at a metric ton of hydrogen a day.

[Yakk]

Uneducated people are not a very valueable potential resource.

Making people is dirt cheap: even the very poor can have a child.

If we had no uneducated people, and we needed more educated people, the cost of making more people is small compared to the cost of educating them.

Sad, but true.

Some parts of the world have been engaging in centuries of 3% to 10% per year growth. These centuries of growth wheren't cheap nor easy. The result of 300 years of 5% average growth is an economy 2 million times richer than when you started.

If your growth per capita is 2%, you end up with people who are 400 times richer than you started with.

400 times is the ratio between the USA (at ~40,000$ per person) and dirt poverty (100$ per year).

To produce the level of weath in western democracies amoung the dirt poor, simply engage in economic growth at a rate of 2% per capita for 300 years. By this time, odds are some of the wealthy states will be even wealthier, while others will have fallen.

And why can't you do it all at once? Because modern civilization isn't easy. You can see this experimentally: nations don't see the rich civilizations and go "ok, we just do that". Even nations with massive cash sources in the form of oil find it really hard to build up a "real" economy.

Modern civilization requires lots of infrastructure. It requires physical infrastructure: highways, water, electrical grids, communication grids, waterways, ports, railroads. It requires social infrastructure: traditions stronger than law that hold government power in check, traditions of obedience to honest law, traditions of honest law. It requires civil infrastructure: universities, colleges, organizations, fraterities that generate the knowledge and grease upon which society runs smoothly.

In the west, it is hard to notice how well everything runs. Sure, there are stupid parts: but in comparison to India (a relatively wealthy 3rd world nation), our government works, people cooperate smoothly, the infrastructure kicks ass, etc.

Now, notice that the 3rd world and the 2nd world can pull off some shortcuts: much of the up-and-coming nations are using cell towers rather than wiring the nation with telecommunications wires. It is about as effective, and much cheaper, given current technology levels: so they get a break, because modern technology makes building up a modern industrialized civilization easier now than it was then.

But it isn't easy. It will take time: generations of time for traditions to be layed down, for economies that can maintain the infrastructure that they run on to develop, and for the wealth to be generated.

If it takes 100 years for Somolia, or China, or North Korea, or Zimbabwe to reach current european standards of living, this is a victory over poverty and death that is unprecidented in human history. It isn't enough: it is never enough. But it is a goal.

Lastly, note that you cannot force social change on people: not without mass murder and bloodshed. And if you let someone choose the shape of their society, this includes the freedom to choose poorly. So not everyone will pull out of poverty. And social structures are as important as physical goods to a stable, self-maintaining society.

All you can do is offer to help, and hope your help is accepted and useful.

[Vaniver]

let's take a look at what the space program has already done

I would like to point out that, even calculating its side benefits, the manned space program is a gigantic waste of money. Unmanned space travel is the far more useful kind, assuming we're not talking about colonization. (and, no, it is a bad idea to colonize where the shuttles are going )

I do think that waiting to get a stable food supply for all of Europe or gain continental peace before going to America or Antarctica wouldn't be the best course of action

In fact, you know what's a great way to solve food problems? Reduce the number of mouths. And you know what's a great way to reduce the number of mouths? Ship them to the New World.

Ramjet descriptions usually involve a magnetic scoop that is much bigger than the front end of the ship. Obviously there's then the question of how feasible this is, but if as in one article I read you have a truly huge (50000km diameter) magnetic scoop, your 1mg per square meter works out to the order of 2 million tonnes per lightyear. Or, when you start the jet at v=.01, about 55 tonnes of hydrogen per day. This is certainly way more than necessary, so the listed size isn't actually necessary. A 7000km diameter scoop will start you out at a metric ton of hydrogen a day.

How much of this matter will be attracted by a magnetic scoop (here's a hint- hydrogen won't be)? How much energy are we expending on the magnetic scoop compared to how much it nets us? What will the negative effects be of this magnetic scoop on our ship?

[edit]Yakk, I got it, but it's clearer if you specify population growth or economic growth instead of using the same term for both.

[Xial]

How much of this matter will be attracted by a magnetic scoop (here's a hint- hydrogen won't be)? How much energy are we expending on the magnetic scoop compared to how much it nets us? What will the negative effects be of this magnetic scoop on our ship?

I agree completely with your assessment of the space program.

But couldn't the magnetic scoop consume very little energy if a coil of superconductors were used? I am assuming that in the future we will have superconductors which can operate at high temperatures.

[Vaniver]

But couldn't the magnetic scoop consume very little energy if a coil of superconductors were used? I am assuming that in the future we will have superconductors which can operate at high temperatures.

You cannot beat conservation of energy. It will take a certain amount of energy to move everything within 50,000 km to your position (keep in mind that your ship is moving at .01c- the object will have to be accelerated up to that so you can collect it, and it will have to be accelerated significantly if it will reach you before you blow past it if it's 50,000 km (1.67 light seconds) away from you), and while it *could* be possible that fusing that matter will give you more energy than it takes to collect, even given perfect efficiency, I doubt that will be the case. Taking realistic efficiency into account... Even less likely.

(Why am I talking about conservation of energy? Where does the kinetic energy of the scooped objects come from? The magnet- to maintain it, and continue to draw them in, you need to put in the energy that comes out of it.)

As well- this magnetic scoop would probably attract all the charged particles and such within that enormous region of space, making the ship an incredibly more lethal place to be, unless you waste an exorbitant amount of matter (and thus energy) on shielding.

[Yakk]

You don't send biological people, silly. You send people in a durable, compact structure. :)

...

I believe every use of growth in my previous post referred to economic growth. Every time I talked about per capita growth, I used the term per capita.

(Per capita economic growth is the growth in the wealth per person. It is the number that reasonably reflects the average rate of wealth increase of a nation.)

How much of this matter will be attracted by a magnetic scoop (here's a hint- hydrogen won't be)? How much energy are we expending on the magnetic scoop compared to how much it nets us? What will the negative effects be of this magnetic scoop on our ship?

As far as I know, you can use a magnetic ramscoop to suck up atomic hydrogen. You might have to cheat (ionize the material)

But, practically, I see magnetic fields as a better way to brake than to accellerate. :) Just reach out and touch the local matter with E-M.

That math of that would be interesting: effectively it is a reactionless brake. To slow down from a velocity v, how much energy is needed, assuming you store the energy in antimatter-level efficient storage?

If we can get enough energy and strong enough lazers with good enough focus, you would speed up to your high-fraction-of-c via a lightsail.

[Shadowfish]

I can see two problems with a lightsail.

E=Pc for light, right? So, dP/dt=(dE/dt)/c, or force=power/c. To get 1 newton of force, you need 3*10^8 watts. Ok, that's not so bad, but F=ma*(L^3). My point is, as you get your ship to relativistic speeds, you need a lot of power to accellerate it further. This causes two problems that I can think of:

-How do you power your laser?

-How do you keep your laser from melting your ship?

Still, I admit, this is probably the most feasable propulsion system proposed in this thread so far. There is still the question of how to break, though.

I have not done the math, but hydrogen atoms do have a magnetic moment. Their electons (sorta)go in a circle(they have angular momentum, if you want to be picky), so they (sorta) look like little sollenoids. This means it is possible to attract them with a magnetic field, in principle.

To figure out if you could use hydrogen to break, think of it this way:

P=Lmv.

If you bring matter from rest into the ship's refernence frame, you are effectively increasing the mass of the ship. Momentum is conserved. I've got to get to class, so I can't work out the details, but I think this is the way to approach the problem.

You don't send biological people, silly. You send people in a durable, compact structure.

What benifit does the human race get from sending smart computers into space?

[jestingrabbit]

Why not turn around and accelerate in the oposite direction? Or use a large mass to do a reverse slingshot style manouveur? Either or both would work reasonably well imo.

[cmacis]

You could send frozen embryos with some smart computers and robots to do the initial work and raising of generation 1. Or stasis/bio-freezing methods for fully grown humans. Generation-spanning ships have the problem of entropy: stuff will leak out of the ship and will eventually leave them with nothing.

Or if we can do it one day, encode genetic sequences for everything needed in computers on a ship and send them out on whatever method should work.

Third world and Second world are outdated terms as I understand them (from Geography lessons). Second world was the soviet communist states, essentially saying "Well, they're not the starving Africans, but they're definitely not as civilised as us." What are people taking to mean 2nd world these days?

[Yakk]

I can see two problems with a lightsail.

E=Pc for light, right? So, dP/dt=(dE/dt)/c, or force=power/c. To get 1 newton of force, you need 3*10^8 watts. Ok, that's not so bad, but F=ma*(L^3). My point is, as you get your ship to relativistic speeds, you need a lot of power to accellerate it further. This causes two problems that I can think of:

-How do you power your laser?

-How do you keep your laser from melting your ship?

Big solar power generators, and a really shiny mirror. :)

Once you are near lightspeed, the "real universe" travel time doesn't really change. All you get beyond that is local time dilation. You can emulate this with any kind of local time-accelleration technology, like cold sleep.

This reduces your buget alot.

Still, I admit, this is probably the most feasable propulsion system proposed in this thread so far. There is still the question of how to break, though.

I have not done the math, but hydrogen atoms do have a magnetic moment. Their electons (sorta)go in a circle(they have angular momentum, if you want to be picky), so they (sorta) look like little sollenoids. This means it is possible to attract them with a magnetic field, in principle.

To figure out if you could use hydrogen to break, think of it this way:

P=Lmv.

If you bring matter from rest into the ship's refernence frame, you are effectively increasing the mass of the ship. Momentum is conserved. I've got to get to class, so I can't work out the details, but I think this is the way to approach the problem.

One way I've seen proposed is to ionize the matter somehow to give it more "grip". This might be ineffective.

You can also try to grab at stars instead of atoms of hydrogen. :)

In the end, this might not be any more effective than using a laserbeam to stop.

You don't send biological people, silly. You send people in a durable, compact structure. :)

What benifit does the human race get from sending smart computers into space?

Because those computers are human beings.

Do you really think that the important part of you is a chain of amino acids? I expect there to always be flesh-humans, but I don't expect them to be the only kind of human.

Second, if you are a gene-first psycho, you can rebuild life on the target world. We have build, amino-acid by amino-acid, the DNA of a single organism already: getting to the point where we can build human life shouldn't be that hard.

Spend a few generations at it, and you can probably bootstrap humanity in the target system. Start with van neumann factories that build up an industrial base. Then start building a biosphere somewhere (maybe in an asteroid) starting with slime. While that is going on, start building human lifeforms. They can either be raised in VR, or they can be raised by human-shaped AIs. Or if we can braintape, we can just grow the taped people directly.

But really, that isn't required.

[Xial]

Big solar power generators, and a really shiny mirror."

But for the most part you will be far away from stars in interstellar space. Even with %99.999 efficiency, solar panels will not generate much energy. This problem was seen with sending satellites to the outer planets: they had to use nuclear power.

[cmacis]

Yes, but for carrying no fuel it gets constant acceleration while within the sun's influence. Did the voyagers carry enough fuel to work their engines for that many years or have they used them mostly for adjusting their paths?

[Yakk]

If you can get precice enough lasers... :)

You build a really big and tightly focused laser. You aim it at the solar sail ship.

The limitation on your ability to push the ship is the limitation on your ability to focus the laser energy on the light sail. This is a hard engeneering problem of a large scale, but it isn't a physics problem.

How much laser energy do you need to shoot at a 1 million tonne ship to accellerate it at 5 gravities?

If you can get the speed up to a decent fraction of c (even 0.5), you are golden.

The 1 million tonne ship carries a boatload of antimatter, or other energy-dense substances. It uses that to power magnetic brakes (for intitial decelleration), and then other technologies (for final breaking), delivering a relatively small payload into the target system. (say, 1000 tonnes)

This payload is van neumann machine, which uses solar, stored and found energy to diassemble asteroids and other loose debris, making more of itself.

Once the exponential van neumann cascade kicks off enough, it bootstraps civilization.

[Gadren]

^_^ Sounds like someone's been reading Accelerando.
(Great book, by the way -- it's free online, if anyone wants a good novel about the technological singularity)

[Owijad]

If you can get precice enough lasers...

You build a really big and tightly focused laser. You aim it at the solar sail ship.

Wouldn't it, you know... melt?

[Vaniver]

I believe every use of growth in my previous post referred to economic growth. Every time I talked about per capita growth, I used the term per capita.

And... rereading it, I agree with you. This is bizarre, since I could have sworn several of them made more sense as population growth. Maybe I was just tired?

As far as I know, you can use a magnetic ramscoop to suck up atomic hydrogen.

I haven't seen how a magnetic ramscoop will work, so it may be I'm picturing it wrong. For hydrogen nuclei, it might be possible- but this is getting back to the problem that you're bombarding yourself with a rather unpleasant number of particles. For hydrogen atoms, all I see it doing is torquing the hydrogen so they line up a certain way, instead of attracting them, but I might be looking at it the wrong way.

[Xial]

Yes, but for carrying no fuel it gets constant acceleration while within the sun's influence. Did the voyagers carry enough fuel to work their engines for that many years or have they used them mostly for adjusting their paths?

No, basically their velocity comes from their initial rocket boosters and gravity slingshots.

[Shadowfish]

How much laser energy do you need to shoot at a 1 million tonne ship to accellerate it at 5 gravities?

If you can get the speed up to a decent fraction of c (even 0.5), you are golden.

At .5c, gamma(or L) is only 1.15. This isn't that big, so for a rough estimate, it is OK to use F=ma here.
F=P/c
P=mac = 1.468*10^19 Watts. For comparison, the solar flux across the entire earth is 1.7*10^17 Watts. Building this thing may only be an engineering problem, but it is a hugely ginormously big one.

edit:

Do you really think that the important part of you is a chain of amino acids? I expect there to always be flesh-humans, but I don't expect them to be the only kind of human.

Second, if you are a gene-first psycho, you can rebuild life on the target world. We have build, amino-acid by amino-acid, the DNA of a single organism already: getting to the point where we can build human life shouldn't be that hard.

Spend a few generations at it, and you can probably bootstrap humanity in the target system. Start with van neumann factories that build up an industrial base. Then start building a biosphere somewhere (maybe in an asteroid) starting with slime. While that is going on, start building human lifeforms. They can either be raised in VR, or they can be raised by human-shaped AIs. Or if we can braintape, we can just grow the taped people directly.

But really, that isn't required.

I'm sorry, I just don't buy that a machine that thinks like a human is a human. I would love to be reincarnated in a hundred thousand years and learn that "flesh humans" had colonized the galaxy. I would not give a rat's ass if computers had.

I admit, this has more to do with my feelings than anything else, but I know that a lot of people feel the way I do, and would much rather send people to distant stars than computers.

[cmacis]

What if your death was prevented by transferring your brain into a computer? What if the pattern of your brain was later taken within the computer and your brain rotted away?

Sigh, I was born far too soon into this world.

[Shadowfish]

All of your experience of the world happens in your nervous system, in your flesh. A person is more than a though pattern. I am very much opposed to the idea that a human is a mind trapped in a body. Instead, the human is body.

Even if you think that you are only a thought pattern, your life cannot be saved by downloading your brain to a big hard disk. Here's what would happen:

You walk into a room, and then some technological magic happens, and your brain is copied over to a computer.

The computer says "This is so awesome! I used to be a person, now I am a computer!"

You say "huh, that brain scan kind a hurt. Well, I guess I'll go home now."

[cmacis]

Exactly what happened in one of the space oddesy novels.

If computer you is indistinguishable from fleshy you then what's the difference?

[Yakk]

On the other hand: you walk into a room.

You are scanned.

You wake up in a computer "wow, this is cool -- I used to be human."

Meanwhile, someone in a body looking like yours says "ouch, that scan hurt. See ya."

Different perspective. I can see why that would seem strange.

...

Now, what if you take a human and start upgrading him?

You take some damage to your ability to hear, so you get a neat little gaget implanted that replicates the part of the auditory section of your brain closest to your ear.

After it is installed, you seem to be exactly the same. You remember everything, and sound sounds just right. After all, it was only some primitive low-level sound processing grey matter you lost.

A year later they come up with an upgrade: it gives you sonar sense. This new input, tests have shown, is integrated into your senses quite nicely. After the upgrade, you can "see" in black&white in all directions, and have a much better depth perception on things in front of you.

You get used to this.

Next, they install a memory upgrade: it simply improves your ability to remember things. All of your existing memory brain matter is left untouched: but now your recall is improved.

A while later, it is upgraded with a short-term memory coprocessor: now you can remember 20 different things in your short term memory at once. This makes multiplying 5 digit numbers as easy as multiplying 2 digit numbers currently.

Over time, the upgrades continue. Occasionally, you take some damage to your flesh or your robotic parts: by this point, your robotic parts are wet nanotech based, so they really don't look all that much different.

The wet nanotech gets better: the ability to replace individual neurons with a more space-efficient and durable construct is developed. It replaces 1 neuron at a time, and one's sensations don't change when it is happening. Tests on people and animals who have had this process done show no detectable change in behaviour, and the mental continuity is perfect: it takes 2 years to replace every last neuron.

This, as a bonus, frees up more room for additional neurons and other improvements, and it lets you live longer.

One trick you can pull off is creating gesaults that can leave your brain and do tasks for you (they run on rather special hardware), then return with the memories they gathered. You use this to learn how to be a doctor, engeneer, programmer, biologist and marine at the same time. Sure, it is 5 years off of your careers, but the education is worth it. The memories are integrated back into yours seemlessly.

So, when did this person stop being a person?

[Shadowfish]

I admit the second scenario you described would be awesome, although it is still frightening to me on a gut level.

I do wonder, though. How would upgraded people live with non-updraded ones? Humans have a hard enough time getting over superficial differences, like skin color. How would they get along if some people are dramatically smarter, healthier, and genrally more able than others? Now, I have no idea how this would end up working. I don't really know anything about sociology or psychology. Still, I think it might lead to problems.

[Belial]

I imagine the same way people who can afford the newest gizmo/status symbol relate to those who can't. Disdain all around.

[blob]

I imagine the same way people who can afford the newest gizmo/status symbol relate to those who can't. Disdain all around.

The difference is that the latest gizmo/status symbol doesn't actually increase your intelligence. Start playing with the organ that created the concept of disdain in the first place, and very weird things could happen, even without a Singularity.

[Xial]

This would also bring up the moral issue of: is it right to spend huge sums of money to enhance your life far beyond normal amounts while much of the world does not have clean water or enough to eat?

[Phenriz]

The difference is that the latest gizmo/status symbol doesn't actually increase your intelligence. Start playing with the organ that created the concept of disdain in the first place, and very weird things could happen, even without a Singularity.

Disdain as we know it is still simply an augmentation of animalistic(word?) behavior, disdain will continue to exist in some fashion or another so long as human beings are still animals. Whether it be mentally or physically it makes no difference. Animals can hold disdain (could also read as caution or xenophobia) for another type of creature the classic stereotype being cats and dogs, while there are of course exceptions to the rule it still holds water.

The ways in which disdain could manifest itself could range from a thought, or condescension to genocide, all of which the human race experiences, both past and present.

As i type this something else came to mind which would have to be eliminated before disdain could be removed, Ego, and as we move toward a more intellectual/information based society Ego seems to be pretty comfortable as a staple to everyday life.

Of course a hive-type mentality(that the cookie-cutter Singularity should have) would remove all sense of Ego, but without serious deprogramming of the human brain this would be a very difficult task(not impossible because very little if anything is IMPOSSIBLE) not to go into cliches but as a species we have a pension for chaos as well as order.


Edit- and to clarify, a person stops being a person when they no longer have natural flaws (going by the seat of my pants here) either mentally and physically. When we build machines we strive for a perfection of design and function, machines built by machines (or augmented humans) will most likely follow that same rule when they begin to design and create machines.

Ultimately, the point at which we eliminate the need for communication beyond a 01 or 00(or their equivalents) will/would be the day humanity is lost.

(it's clear i have no formal education in the matter, but i do read my fair share, and think about these very things ALOT)

[space_raptor]

This would also bring up the moral issue of: is it right to spend huge sums of money to enhance your life far beyond normal amounts while much of the world does not have clean water or enough to eat?

Sure it is. I don't think there's a moral obligation to give to charity, if you earned your huge sums of money. It would be very good of you to help those less fortunate, but it's not immoral not to. You don't need to feel guilty for something that's not your fault.

[Vaniver]

How would they get along if some people are dramatically smarter, healthier, and genrally more able than others?

Note that there already are humans that are dramatically smarter, healthier, and more able than others. It'll just be artificial instead of natural, or even more dramatic.

There are currently no sufficient or widely accepted definitions of human, and so that complicates any discussion that requires a definition of human.

[Belial]

Sure it is. I don't think there's a moral obligation to give to charity, if you earned your huge sums of money. It would be very good of you to help those less fortunate, but it's not immoral not to. You don't need to feel guilty for something that's not your fault.

Yeah, I know the other day, when I was walking past a man bleeding to death on the sidewalk, I thought to myself "Wait...shouldn't I try to help? Or call someone? Or *do* something?"

And then I was like "Wait, I don't really have an *obligation*. I mean, it's not my fault he's bleeding to death. I can just leave him."

So I watched him bleed for a bit. Got some popcorn. Took the time to file the edges off my nails. Felt pretty great about myself. Then he died, and it got boring, so I went about my day.

[Vaniver]

Yeah, I know the other day, when I was walking past a man bleeding to death on the sidewalk, I thought to myself "Wait...shouldn't I try to help? Or call someone? Or *do* something?"

And then I was like "Wait, I don't really have an *obligation*. I mean, it's not my fault he's bleeding to death. I can just leave him."

So I watched him bleed for a bit. Got some popcorn. Took the time to file the edges off my nails. Felt pretty great about myself. Then he died, and it got boring, so I went about my day.

Funny story.

Do you see a difference between sadism and apathy?

[Belial]

Would the story be okay if I just hurried past?

[Vaniver]

Would the story be okay if I just hurried past?

You'll be fired if you're late for work. If you're fired, your child can't get the medicine they need, and they'll probably die.
Is it ok now?

Or, perhaps, the man doesn't need some bandages, he needs a new kidney. What's my responsibility then? I do have two of them, and could survive on one.

Or maybe there's an entire crowd of people who could help him (in psychology, they call this diffusion of responsibility).


There is some point where it's humane to help, and there's some point at which it is excusable not to help. But, I have a problem believing that not being generous is inherently wrong. It's selfish, sure, but I have a hard time blaming people for being selfish.

[Belial]

So if the fantastically rich guy doesn't give money to the starving folk.....it's because he has some extenuating circumstance that mitigates his failure to help?

Okay, I can understand that.

The rich need those cybernetic and genetic modifications to save the world from meteors, I assume.

Every single one of them.

Wow. It's rough to be rich.

[Vaniver]

Wow. It's rough to be rich.

You have no idea.

[bbctol]

Do you see a difference between sadism and apathy?

Yes. Sadists enjoy causing pain, apathists (?) enjoy doing nothing. But by doing nothing, they cause pain. In Belial's story, he's not actively enjoying watching the guy suffer. He just doesn't care.