Steven: They’re being nice. That’s sort of the whole premise of the Superhappies—they’re as nice as an alien species can possibly get and still be utterly alien and irrevocably opposed to human values. So nice, in fact, that some of my readers find themselves agreeing with their arguments. I do wonder how that’s going to turn out in real life.
Russell: It’s stated that most colony worlds are one step away from Earth (to minimize the total size of the human network). This means there’s going to be a hell of a lot of ships passing through Earth space (fortunately, space tends to be pretty large).
If you can get anyone at all from Huygens to the starline in 3.6 hours, then from the starline to Huygens and back is at most 7.2 hours. We assume that transit through Earth space is so dense that there are already many ships in close proximity to the Huygens starline. These speeds imply some kind of drive that doesn’t use inertial reaction mass, so it’s also safe to assume that many ships can enter atmosphere.
If they could call in ships from Earth, they could blanket the planet. So, yes, eight hours to evacuate. Eight days would make it practically certain the Superhappies would show up.
Well, it’s not like it’s hard to see reason in Superhappies’ values.
1) I, personally, don’t have a terminal value of non-cannibalism. Actual reason I don’t eat babies now is a result of multiple other values:
I value human life, so I consider killing a human to get some food a huge utility loss.
Any diseases initial owner of meat had contracted are almost 100% transferable to me. Any poisons that accumulated in initial meat owner’s body will also accumulate in mine. Also, humans eat a lot of junk food. Eating humans is bad for one’s health.
So, I don’t have any problem with eating safe-to-eat human meat that is not produced by killing conscious human beings. I would be actually curious to taste, for example, vat-grown clone meat grown from my own cells sample. This position may not be held by an average human, but I don’t think it’s particularly disturbing from transhumanist point of view.
2) I consider humans’ desire to keep their identity and humanity at least in part being status-quo bias. Also, humans don’t really stay themselves for long. For example, 5 year old human is quite different from that same human at 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. Change is gradual, but it’s real and quite big. (Sorry, I have no idea how to measure this quantitatively, but, for example, my 5-year-old-self is an entirely different person from my current self) That said, I personally don’t value status quo all that much.
3) Now if we were to somehow describe set of humanity’s core values we could try to reason against Superhappies. But I fail to see ability to feel pain as necessary part of this set.
All that considered, I don’t see Superhappies’ proposal as horrifying. At least, I don’t think decision to kill 15 billion people to delay Superhappies’ modifying humanity is better than decision to enter species-melting-pot with losing (some of) humanity and getting neat bonuses in form of interstellar peace, and better survival rate for combined 3-component species.
Steven: They’re being nice. That’s sort of the whole premise of the Superhappies—they’re as nice as an alien species can possibly get and still be utterly alien and irrevocably opposed to human values. So nice, in fact, that some of my readers find themselves agreeing with their arguments. I do wonder how that’s going to turn out in real life.
Russell: It’s stated that most colony worlds are one step away from Earth (to minimize the total size of the human network). This means there’s going to be a hell of a lot of ships passing through Earth space (fortunately, space tends to be pretty large).
If you can get anyone at all from Huygens to the starline in 3.6 hours, then from the starline to Huygens and back is at most 7.2 hours. We assume that transit through Earth space is so dense that there are already many ships in close proximity to the Huygens starline. These speeds imply some kind of drive that doesn’t use inertial reaction mass, so it’s also safe to assume that many ships can enter atmosphere.
If they could call in ships from Earth, they could blanket the planet. So, yes, eight hours to evacuate. Eight days would make it practically certain the Superhappies would show up.
Well, it’s not like it’s hard to see reason in Superhappies’ values.
1) I, personally, don’t have a terminal value of non-cannibalism. Actual reason I don’t eat babies now is a result of multiple other values:
I value human life, so I consider killing a human to get some food a huge utility loss.
Any diseases initial owner of meat had contracted are almost 100% transferable to me. Any poisons that accumulated in initial meat owner’s body will also accumulate in mine. Also, humans eat a lot of junk food. Eating humans is bad for one’s health.
So, I don’t have any problem with eating safe-to-eat human meat that is not produced by killing conscious human beings. I would be actually curious to taste, for example, vat-grown clone meat grown from my own cells sample. This position may not be held by an average human, but I don’t think it’s particularly disturbing from transhumanist point of view.
2) I consider humans’ desire to keep their identity and humanity at least in part being status-quo bias. Also, humans don’t really stay themselves for long. For example, 5 year old human is quite different from that same human at 10, 15, 20, 25, etc. Change is gradual, but it’s real and quite big. (Sorry, I have no idea how to measure this quantitatively, but, for example, my 5-year-old-self is an entirely different person from my current self) That said, I personally don’t value status quo all that much.
3) Now if we were to somehow describe set of humanity’s core values we could try to reason against Superhappies. But I fail to see ability to feel pain as necessary part of this set.
All that considered, I don’t see Superhappies’ proposal as horrifying. At least, I don’t think decision to kill 15 billion people to delay Superhappies’ modifying humanity is better than decision to enter species-melting-pot with losing (some of) humanity and getting neat bonuses in form of interstellar peace, and better survival rate for combined 3-component species.