Re: The Armageddon Rag

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From: Eugene Leitl (eugene.leitl@lrz.uni-muenchen.de)
Date: Sun Oct 15 2000 - 20:22:16 PDT


cdale@silly.techmonkeys.net writes:

> Does believing that there will be an 'end' cause it to happen? What if
> there were no "signs" or prophecies predicting the end? Some folks, like

Sure, we run into a stray collapsar, or a silent neutron binary fuses
somewhere near, or a 100 km rock sneaks up and falls on top of our
collective heads, so we're fucked, but why should we think about such
far out scenarios? Since there's going to be no warning, we will all
die in our sleep, remember?

> yourself <?> may not believe that such a thing will happen, but the
> numbers are against you. Will the belief that this will happen propel it
> to?

Please show me a kill mechanism causing humans to go extinct while
allowing any of the other higher organisms to survive. (Remember, all
it takes is a fertile couple (or a female with frozen sperm, or a
cloning kit) stashed away somewhere to get the whole monkey show
restarted).

We humans are much, much harder to kill than any other species:
because with technology assist we're powerful enough to (currently
within limits) change the fitness landscape, rather than just go with
the flow as the other critters do. Given enough technology, we will
eventually sustainably live in space, ultimatively evolving (with a
rational design twist) to natively live in deep space.

Anything powerful enough to kill us under current circumstances will
essentially sterilize the whole ball of dirt. Something that powerful
to come along and finish us all off within the short time span left
before we swarm out into space will probably have to be man-made, and
rather deliberate. Industrial accidents and "shitting where you eat"
alone won't do. It has to be malignant AI, or an ecovorous molecular
omniphage self-rep weapon.


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