X-Message-Number: 28061 Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2006 11:41:10 +0200 From: Eugen Leitl <> Subject: focus is essential References: <> On Tue, Jun 20, 2006 at 01:11:50AM -0400, wrote: > I only discussed the Singularity threat, since Rudi Hoffman (whom we have Well, there's wta-talk, extropy-chat, existential-threats, sl4, kurzweilai and other places which have been discussing these things for years, and with some more depth than here. > not heard from on it since) brought it up. Others think these other issues > are important. I tend to agree most are; however, I disagree with those > who think they are a greater threat to the future of humanity than a > Singularity AI, and that we should pay attention to them and be in > psychological denial of that greater threat. What's the point discussing an existential threat of unknown probability which you can't influence? > >Cryonics has always been a gamble. No one can plausibly claim to > know the future. > > Either you think that cryonics is not important enough to try to prevent > external influences from defeating it, or "the future" is somehow governed Let's say a 500 km impactor hits tomorrow. How do you propose to prevent it? Changing the future trajectory of an entire civilisation is about as hard. > by some mystic fate that cannot be defeated, or um, rather than me going on > and on as I easily could in speculation about your personal view, how about > telling us exactly why you think we should not try to make a future more > conducive to the survival of cryopreserved individuals? If you're really interested in that, there are many things with a far greater ROI. Such as: validate cryonics, introduce quality control, organize politically, build a global provider network. > >How about discussing bootstrapping a transport technician team in Germany. > Or would that be off-topic for CryoNet? > > If that subject is of substantial concern to you, then please do discuss > it. Don't expect me to bring it up, as most things in Germany are of > little concern to me. If you do bring it up, however, I will not tell you It is interesting that you think an undeflectable black swan is worth more bandwidth than discussing a provider elsewhere. I do sense some cognitive dissonance here. > that you should not do so. I might even make some reply-type post saying > something useful and positive about it, if any such thing occurs to > me. Now would you kindly stop telling the rest of us what *we* cannot > discuss here? Is this a majority view here? Do you all think that discussing everything and the kitchensink is a good idea in a once-focused, channel which used to be dedicated to cryonics? Please speak up, preferrably offlist (to me personally, I'll make a tally). -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=28061