X-Message-Number: 28006
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2006 08:42:21 -0600
From: "Anthony ." <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #28005
References: <>

I've followed the talk of the Singularity (aka Rapture) with mixed
feelings. It is good that cryonicists are interested in contemplating
the future, so as to be prepared if cryonics works. What I find a
little concerning is that only the vaguest and more fanstical notions
of the future seem to be getting discussed. No-ones really mentioning
a future world inhabited by billions more people in the next 50 years,
nor the accelerate of extinctions and environmental degredation which
is sure to occur if the collective political will does not change.

What is surprising is that there is such concern over whether we'll be
tyrannised/enlightened/destroyed by a super-intelligent being in the
near future, rather than great concern over current observable (rather
than speculative) trends which are already driving our future (& the
next generations' future) into a tough position.

Aside from our rapine waste, wars, and over-consumption, we have more
immediate things to worry about, rather than a monopoly of
intelligence and power in the form of a super-AI.

According to a United Nations report issued in 1999 (as described by
London's The Guardian on July 14, 1999), the world's three richest
people are worth more than the combined resources of 36 of the world's
countries.

The richest 200 people in the world have a combined income equivalent
to 41% of the world's population. According to the UN, an annual
contribution of 1% of the wealth of these 200 people would be enough
to give free access to primary education to every child on the planet.

Americans belched one-fifth more carbon into the atmosphere than China
(with 4.5 as many citizens) in 1996; the average American uses 115
times more paper and 227 times as much gasoline as the average Indian
(Myers, 1997).

This level of consumption is beyond the carrying capacity of the
earth, and threatens the integrity of "strategic resource stocks such
as topsoil, forests, grasslands, fisheries, biodiversity, climate, and
the atmosphere." (Myers, 1997, p. 54).

Myers, N. (1997). Consumption: Challenge to Sustainable Development.
Science, 276, 53-55.

Wouldn't we do better directing our concern towards the looming
environmental catastrophies and the current social catastrophies that
are a result of economic (rather than IQ) monopoly? Shouldn't the
widening rich-poor gap, the degredation of water and topsoil, the
exhaustion of animal life... all be our primary concern? Thse problems
will most probably reach us before we're able to create anything so
monstrous or promising as the Singularity.

I hope I don't sound too impertinent, and i don't (much) want to spoil
any of the speculative fun, but I think cryonics would benefit if
cryonicists were more concerned with justice and sustainability rather
than far-out future scenarios.

Anthony

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28006