X-Message-Number: 18602
Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 02:29:27 -0800
From: "John Grigg" <>
Subject: http://lifeboat.com/


There is a new organization out which wants to build a space colony to avoid 
what they see as the significant possibility of humanity destroying itself.  
Tell me what you think! : )  I really enjoyed the response Anders Sandberg made!
His idea of which business to get into is very prescient.

best wishes,

John

Date:  Mon, 18 Feb 2002 12:48:30 -0500 

From:  "Dickey, Michael F" <> [add to address 
book] [add to spam block list] 
Subject:  http://lifeboat.com/ 
To:  "''" <> 
Reply To:   
 
  
Just curious what other extropians think of this - Mike

http://lifeboat.com/

Welcome to The Lifeboat Foundation! Our goal is to save the human race from
extinction. Why do we think the human race will become
extinct later this century? Because advanced technologies available by about
2020 will enable one evil or simply clumsy person to
destroy all life on earth. 

_Why do we think the human race will become extinct later this century? _

Because advanced technologies available by around 2020 will enable one evil
or simply clumsy person to destroy all life on earth. 
 
One such advancement is nanotechnology. A nanotechnology based weapon known
as gray goo could easily exterminate every living thing, including viruses,
in about two days.
 
Engineered viruses and other biological weapons could also lead to our
extinction. Then there's antimatter bombs, uncontrollable AI, and finally
high energy particle accelerator mishaps which could destroy our local
space-time continuum. As you can see, there are various means by which all
life could be extinguished in the near future. And we've probably left out a
few. 
 
We predict a 25% possibility of destruction due to a lab accident and a 25%
possibility of destruction due to anti-terrorism systems malfunctioning such
as a software glitch in the active nanotechnological shield proposed by Eric
Drexler in his book Engines of Creation. And last, but not least, there is a
50% possibility of annihilation by terrorism. 
 
And we're not the only ones making that prediction. Arthur C. Clarke, the
visionary author who, in 1945, predicted a world linked by geostationary
satellites, was recently quoted as saying, "This terrorism is a frightful
danger and it is hard to see how we can get complete protection from it". 
 
The sad fact is that it will take very little resources to launch a
nanotechnology attack, basically resources equivalent to the cost of the
2001 anthrax attack in the U.S. And the FBI believes that particular attack
was the work of a lone crazy. With this in mind, it's not hard to imagine
the disastrous result of nanotechnological weapons falling into the wrong
hands. 

Date:  Tue, 19 Feb 2002 16:17:10 +0100 

From:  Anders Sandberg <> [add to address book] [add to spam 
block list] 
Subject:  Re: http://lifeboat.com/ 
To:   
Reply To:   
 
   
On Mon, Feb 18, 2002 at 11:08:24PM -0800, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Your proposal is not a "solution" as all the possibilities of 
> disaster go with you.  Solve the problem here or elsewhere, it 
> is still the same problem.  Running off to build space colonies 
> will simply distract from actually facing the problem.

Actually, it is a good complement. Not having all the eggs in the same
basket is always a good strategy against threats. And the effort to
build a space colony does not compete strongly with developing better
nano, biotech or AI - in fact, it would likely be a great deal of
synergy between the areas. If I run away to build space colonies and
you build nanodefenses, in the end we have two qualitatively different
ways of avoiding total wipeout - far more likely to protect than a
single, slightly more elaborate solution. 

The problem is of course how to get such a project (literally) off the
ground. Space industry has so far not proven particularly competitive,
space tourism *might* be slightly profitable and a possible bootstrap
method. But right now you cannot readily sell places on a disaster
refuge, the demand simply isn't there. From my own scenario planning /
roleplaying experiments it seems that once you get enough people
worried about imminent disaster (even a highly predictable one), it is
nearly too late to set up a decent space habitat. 

I think I will be in the nanodefense business myself. 

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!

                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
GCS/M/S/O d++ -p+ c++++ !l u+ e++ m++ s+/+ n--- h+/* f+ g+ w++ t+ 
r+ !y

 
 



Check out Cupid School where you will learn from Matchmaker's
best and brightest. Good Luck!

http://ecard.matchmaker.com/cupid0202/cupid0202.html

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=18602