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/artificial intelligence /the anthropic principle /futurism |
F A R S C I E N C E
Futurism |
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The next (still very remote) step in the evolution of civilization will be to find better ways (or less bad ones) to understand, access, and manipulate the human mind. This will make it possible to control human purpose, driving emotions, and perception itself. It could even be equivalent to reality control. This will of course require a much better interface method between human minds and computers. Direct brain/software linkups remain unthinkably far off. By the time they become possible, humans will themselves be obsolete. The next best thing is the poorly defined but much-hyped future science known as virtual reality, which will come to dominate the final and greatest epoch of human history. Once true VR becomes practical, people will choose to spend increasing fractions of their lives inside highly realistic computer simulations, instead of inadequate reality. In that lucky future, everyone will create and control their own universe, simple at first but rapidly improving. They will have the experience of vast wealth and ample choices, true freedom without the associated costs. Virtual Reality could solve most economic and social problems. A VR-based lifestyle would require only a fraction of current energy use, and take up much less space. Virtual offices and telecommuting will reduce the need for infrastructure. Man's oldest dream has always been to defeat (or at least short-circuit) the implacable pressures of evolution. Once the required technology has been imagined, invented, and mass-produced, anyone will be able to engage in highly realistic sexual activities with extremely attractive sexual partners (the user will of course also need some form of consent from their governmental and religious authorities). This will have many social effects, such as a decline in unplanned pregnancies, rapes, and sexually transmitted diseases. The main problem is that as of late 2011, no one knows how to simulate a sexual experience even in principle. Virtual reality simulations will be created by rapidly generating, modifying, and combining many overlapping elements, under the control of an advanced AI system. Any object can be described as a set of points, lines, layers, or volumes. VR objects could be interacting sets of warped sheets, representing shape, color, pressure, temperature, and solidity gradients. The easiest way to simulate reality would be to play back and combine recorded elements like in videogames, instead of generating them from scratch. Only relatively simple operations would be performed upon the elements: they might be rotated, distorted, or shaded. Ignorance is a growing problem. It's often impossible for outsiders to grasp many subjects, from the rules of sports to physics. There are no simple or understandable explanations. The only way to learn about them is a complex, restricted and increasingly expensive process of cultural osmosis, for example going to Harvard. The Sokal Hoax proved that scientists sometimes prefer to lie about their own fields rather than explain them in understandable terms. It's not because they can't; they won't. Although no one else has mentioned it, this is also the cause of the 2007-201x great economic depression. The world has become too complicated for unaugmented humans to navigate. Human motivation has been killed off. A short list of subjects that can not be explained in words, but need to be gleaned indirectly: The number e, relativity theory, quantum physics, why DNA is a spiral, most 'hard sciences' as currently taught, bureaucracy, the rules of American Football and the practice of some other sports, how to use any software product, taboos, social codes and hierarchies, and much more. Surprisingly, the 'soft' sciences and arts do a better job of communicating their rules. In an increasingly complex world, humanity needs an Explanation Project. It would describe any subject in the simplest possible terms, depending on the user's knowledge level. Such a project would require the combined brainpower of all mankind. ME software will keep track of its user's daily schedule, interests, and finances. Once installed, it will never shut down, but constantly adapt to improve itself and its user. It will provide location-specific information, interfaces, occasional effective suggestions, and training programs stored in a vast shared memory bank. Eventually, it will become part of the user's awareness. The first step on the road to immortality. Users of this software would be encouraged to record as much information about their lives as possible in great detail. After they die, once the science of Artificial Intelligence has evolved, the recorded data would be used to recreate the original users as software persons. All human legal systems are unjust to a large degree. The Resistance would be an emergent, spontaneous, and anonymous alliance dedicated to non-violent resistance against any authority figure wielding any form of power. It would be the most radical extension of human freedom since the notion of democracy, and even more disruptive. The first step would be an illegal open source information project intended to defeat all intellectual property laws. Society needs better tests to predict how people will react in any situation. Then it would no longer be necessary to modify the subject's personality, only their location. The most important prediction would be how a subject would interact with certain other persons. Extremely effective and stable groups could then be formed, temporary or permanent. Most people could belong to several such groups at once. FAM (Forced Affinity Matrix) members could be quite different from each other, but each member would have one or more essential skills. To function, each member would need to feel smarter than the others in at least one way. The initial purpose of most such groups would be to achieve a well-defined goal, to sell or build a product, or finish a difficult task. Later, FAMs would come to define entire lifestyles. World solutions: The world is much too complicated. This planet needs more of less: less rules, less bureaucracy, less restrictions, and less waste. Often, the simplest solution is to simply do nothing, or to prevent people from acting at all. This extends to all areas of life, including the most controversial ones. Perhaps only 60% of the population should have offspring instead of 97%. The best way to reduce poverty would be to invent the smallest and simplest possible types of housing, utilities, vehicles, etc. The most important production methods would involve miniaturization and standardization. Governments that are (in any way whatsoever) expected to make a 'profit', or at least break even, would need a much longer time horizon than any current business to remain politically viable. Even then, many voters would try to shut it down so they could reimpose their will upon the rest. There is not the slightest chance such a change could happen without a violent revolution. Every citizen would be a limited shareholder as part of their 'birthright'. Profit-minded authorities would pay many people to stay childless, and there would be cheap birth control and abortion on demand. Instead of all owners being forced to pay property taxes, students would take out multi-decade education loans. Roads would bill all their users, and even pedestrians might have to pay small automated fees to cross a no-longer-public street. Neighborhoods would hire their own police forces and fire protection. There would be many more contracts to sign. Even in our primitive times, there's no reason to have a housing shortage. A small apartment could be constructed for under $10,000. The fact that this option does not exist is deliberate. The threat of homelessness is a social control tool intended to make everyone work harder, and raise the total economic output level. Humanity as a whole may need only two universal rights to survive indefinitely. These would apply to all countries and individuals. --Freedom of Location Anyone would be free to move out of whatever area they find themselves in, but other areas wouldn't be required to admit them. --Freedom of Inspection UN inspectors could visit and inspect any location on Earth, and report any threats to humanity or to other countries they find there. Politics: Freedom starts by rejecting the demands and expectations of others. In practice, most people allow society to define their obligations, as if they were born in debt. Instead of passive-aggressive behavior and self-repression, more people need to learn to not give a damn. The most radical political right is the right to ignore politics altogether. According to this theory, no one should be forced to pay for a government program from which they don't wish to receive any benefits. The only exception would be various types of public safety/defense spending, and even those are debatable. Society would of course have to be rearranged radically for this to ever become possible. It would be hard to prevent those who haven't paid for a program from benefiting from it in any way. Instead of waiting for permission that will never ever come, those who want to opt out will just have to find (preferably legal) ways to avoid paying taxes (see Simplification Principle). Strangely enough, fewer laws can lead to more order. An elaborate, highly complex legal system is usually a sign of legalized corruption by special interest groups. When the cost of compliance becomes too great, almost everyone automatically becomes a lawbreaker who can be exploited by the authorities. The most profitable sector of the economy is the ever-expanding field of medicine. Instead of relatively cheap, cost-effective healthcare, the system prefers to promote the most expensive and profitable therapies. It vehemently opposes free competition. The number of doctors and nurses is deliberately kept too low to meet demand. The only force that could make an expensive product cheaper for most consumers is the free market. The only way to achieve this hypothetical change would be to deregulate the healthcare industry. Patients could then choose their own doctors, risky procedures, and medications. In return for lower costs, they could choose to give up the right to sue for malpractice, provided they were fully informed about the risks and benefits. At the moment, such an option would be extremely illegal. The current trend is of course the exact opposite: new mandates and monopolies will further increase the already astronomical cost of healthcare beyond all calculable limits. Not a single politician or established commentator dares whisper it should be otherwise. The best-known way to create the largest possible amount of wealth is free competition within a culture of law. This has only been allowed in a small minority of human societies, but these have come to dominate all others. Most governments exist to enrich their rulers and their associates through monopolies and even more violent forms of theft. The historical reason for most human misery has been the universal threat of theft and related violence. Knowing that property can easily be seized (and the wealth creators will often be tortured in unimaginably horrific ways) has tended to discourage investment. There is a direct correlation between the right to own property and the amount of local wealth. When societies are ranked by property rights, Arab and African countries are at the bottom of the list, with relatively peaceful countries like Switzerland near the top. Some countries are 'better' than others. The 'best' countries don't have more natural resources or a more fertile climate, but something far more important: the rule of law instead of the rule of thugs. A culture of law takes a long time to establish. It's hard to impose by any higher authority, unless they have at least half a human lifetime to work with. It requires a vast network of independent but interconnected groups, regulations, boards, rights, corporations, precedents, societies, and traditions linking most levels of society. Often it's best to just give up. This applies to many areas in life, and also to its end. For religious reasons, billions of people suffer unspeakable agonies before passing away. The authorities also prevent the use of effective painkillers. In a world filled with legal murder, suicide is the greatest crime. According to some of those with libertarian tendencies, the right to die should be the most basic freedom. A compromise would be to allow people at the end of their lifespans to use any mind-altering drug they want, but even this is a serious felony in most areas. Social control groups demand a high birth rate in order to expand faster than competing groups. A steady supply of expendable soldiers, with polygamous rewards for the survivors, has helped many groups seize surrounding territories. Those at the top of these groups benefit even if their society degrades beneath them. In this sense, the religious objection to family planning may have a deeper biological reason, the result of age-old evolutionary imperatives - but it's not inevitable. There is evidence that when women are permitted to use birth control, per capita income tends to rise, favoring quality over quantity to spread their genes. All intellectual property laws (copyright and patents) should be abolished, at least to the extent that they apply to natural persons. The previous statement is so extreme that even most libertarians reject it absolutely. Who should control the individual? The Collective or the individual him/herself? It's about sovereignty; anyone's right to do what they want on their own property. As an author, I would love to get paid. The core question: if someone decides to copy my work on their own property for their own reasons, and shares it with others, should I have the right to break down their door and attack them? My controversial answer is no, and nor should anyone else. This principle can be extended to patent rights. It would change the nature of drug research by slowing the development of profitable luxury 'cures'. If all drugs were generic, medical research would have to be funded by charitable programs, and progress would slow at first. This would however reduce inequality. Most socialists say they want to remove the profit motive from medicine. Abolishing intellectual property would be one way to accomplish this goal, while also increasing personal freedom. However, most socialists would object in the strongest possible way to such a proposed change. There is no reason to eat billions of factory-farmed animals each year when there exist vegetarian alternatives that taste almost as good. The only reason to eat meat is survival, which admittedly is still often the case. The legal system has become a giant parasite. It needs to be disempowered. Ideally, it should be possible for most defendants to represent themselves in court. One possible solution would be to replace punitive damages with actual damages plus criminal penalties. According to the tiny minority of voters who are also libertarians, if an action doesn't really harm anyone, or only the person performing the action, it should be decriminalized. This goal is a core problem of politics, and remains as intractably remote as ever. However, in an increasingly diverse world, it may be the key to allowing radically different groups to live side by side. |