Yup, and medieval peasants were well adapted to their world.
If you think medieval peasants would agree they where better off never existing at all you are probably mistaken. I would argue that if medieval peasant’s lives aren’t worth living, the odds are very poor that our own current lives are worth living.
You aren’t getting it. Well adapted as in alien, inhuman. Why would anything like a human mind be economical? And during the transition to inhuman minds we still get lots and lots and lots of utility from human-like minds living lives worth living.
I don’t know wire-heading just doesn’t feel nicer to me than a few millennia of fun followed by alien creatures inhabiting the universe. And if one is at all altruistic, the opinions of the alien creatures surely count for something.
Again, notice the “us”. Of course I didn’t mean that the hypothetical Malthusian ems would experience emotions such as misery or describe their existence as not worth it.
I was simply implying that, say, you or me might survive that long and… see things we think we should sympathize with but can’t.
I was simply implying that, say, you or me might survive that long and… see things we think we should sympathize with but can’t.
You are right on that. I guess I’m not too bothered by that because I don’t expect to survive that long. Feeling glad or not bothered by someone getting to live a life he finds worthy but one I don’t appreciate is a much easier gesture in far mode. Actually living to see the em world would mean near mode would get a say too… and it may not be very pleased by what it sees.
It is easy to put up a sign “altruism” and declare you are more than pleased by minds existing and having fulfilling existences. It is much harder to live next door to a necrophiliac.
If you think medieval peasants would agree they where better off never existing at all you are probably mistaken. I would argue that if medieval peasant’s lives aren’t worth living, the odds are very poor that our own current lives are worth living.
You aren’t getting it. Well adapted as in alien, inhuman. Why would anything like a human mind be economical? And during the transition to inhuman minds we still get lots and lots and lots of utility from human-like minds living lives worth living.
I don’t know wire-heading just doesn’t feel nicer to me than a few millennia of fun followed by alien creatures inhabiting the universe. And if one is at all altruistic, the opinions of the alien creatures surely count for something.
Again, notice the “us”. Of course I didn’t mean that the hypothetical Malthusian ems would experience emotions such as misery or describe their existence as not worth it.
I was simply implying that, say, you or me might survive that long and… see things we think we should sympathize with but can’t.
You are right on that. I guess I’m not too bothered by that because I don’t expect to survive that long. Feeling glad or not bothered by someone getting to live a life he finds worthy but one I don’t appreciate is a much easier gesture in far mode. Actually living to see the em world would mean near mode would get a say too… and it may not be very pleased by what it sees.
It is easy to put up a sign “altruism” and declare you are more than pleased by minds existing and having fulfilling existences. It is much harder to live next door to a necrophiliac.