Imagine the entire contents of the planetary datalinks, the sum total of human knowledge, blasted into the Planetmind’s fragile neural network with the full force of every reactor on the planet. That is our last-ditch attempt to win humanity a reprieve from extinction at the hands of an awakened alien god.
~Academician Prokhor Zakharov, “Planet Speaks”, fictional character from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.
Seems like a bad strategy of trying to make the planetmind not wipe out humans. It might however preserve some human value in future universe states in those particular circumstances (where the planet mind was awakening and it was going to grow to goodhood and wipe out humans no matter what), since planet mind will probably be infected by some human memes.
Then the Xenopsychologist made a muffled noise that could have been a bark of incredulity, or just a sad laugh. “Stars beyond,” said the Xenopsychologist, “they’re trying to persuade us to eat our own children.”
“Using,” said the Lord Programmer, “what they assert to be arguments from universal principles, rather than appeals to mere instincts that might differ from star to star.”
...
Akon was resting his head in his hands. “You know,” Akon said, “I thought about composing a message like this to the Babyeaters. It was a stupid thought, but I kept turning it over in my mind. Trying to think about how I might persuade them that eating babies was… not a good thing.”
~Academician Prokhor Zakharov, “Planet Speaks”, fictional character from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri.
Seems like a bad strategy of trying to make the planetmind not wipe out humans. It might however preserve some human value in future universe states in those particular circumstances (where the planet mind was awakening and it was going to grow to goodhood and wipe out humans no matter what), since planet mind will probably be infected by some human memes.
I thought you were going somewhere else with that.
I thought any argument or transmittable piece of information that could convince someone to change their values was a meme.