[FoRK] Where Obama should be raked over the coals...

[Eugen Leitl]

On Tue, Sep 21, 2010 at 05:55:16PM -0400, Jebadiah Moore wrote:

> Perhaps you're right, but I wouldn't leap to that judgement too quickly.  I
> definitely know of a number of women who seemed to be interested when I talk
> about the idea of uploading (I would say that the rate of acceptance is, in

Uploading is not just an idea. I personally know a few mainstream neuroscience
people working on it. It's not anything like Allen's Brain Institute, but just
wait.

> my experience, roughly equal between men and women).
> 
> One thing you're forgetting is that, given that you've got enough magic
> (sufficiently advanced technology) that you can simulate a human mind and an
> environment, you can probably simulate touch (and reproduction)
> realistically as well.  Perhaps more women than men would balk when you *

If you can't do that, you haven't succeeded.

> told* them about the idea, but I think that if they were actually uploaded
> they'd get used to it, and quickly come to perceive it as "real".

People always seem to imply autistic boxes in the landscape for some
reason, and not SkyNet++. I wonder why.

>  (Remember, we're assuming that the simulations are quite realistic, and if
> the senses are the same there's not really much essential difference--after
> all, we could very well be in a simulation right now.)
> 
> Or, to relate it to something besides talk and hypotheticals, consider women
> playing video games.  Although for a number of reasons there is some stigma
> among many women about playing video games, the women that do try them
> become at least as immersed in those virtual worlds as men do; in fact, in
> my experience, the average woman seems rather more capable of immersion than
> the average man.  (This seems particularly true in social games; I remember
> some studies a while back showing that women who play MMOs tend to play more
> than men, and also some articles saying the same thing with regard to MUDs.)
> 
> Also, even many women who are usually reluctant to try video games seem
> willing to play motion-controlled Wii games; if they're willing to go for
> that pale shadow of direct control over their avatars, surely they would be
> accepting when it comes to a level of immersion which is (at least nearly)
> indistinguishable from the "reality" they're used to, especially with all
> the potential perks?
> 
> Perhaps I've just been talking to the right women with regards to this kind
> of stuff.  Maybe I'll do an informal poll.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
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