I have mixed feelings about some parts of the post, but I’m very much in favor of not dismantling the Sun.
There are many people who want to live biological lives on the surface of Earth. Let them (us?) live, and don’t dismantle the Sun! Dismantle all the other stars, but leave the Sun alone! Maybe you can harvest some things from the Sun if it’s important for the initial bootstrapping, but do it on a small enough scale that it’s not visible from Earth. I think that leaving the Sun alone is actually the majority opinion in the community, but then I don’t think we should sing about dismantling the Sun in the Solstice. Sing about dismantling Alpha Centauri instead! It’s the same amount of computronium, it’s also a good symbol of “humanity achieving its full potential”, but doesn’t imply killing all biological life on the surface of Earth.
I also find it worrying that the same song that wants to dismantle the Sun (The Great Transhumanist Future), wants to do it within twenty years with the help of a “big old computer”. Having hope for the great transhumanist future is great, but tying this hope to building aligned AI within our lifetime is the kind of thing that can promote recklessness, and I don’t think we should incorporate this into our songs.
For what it’s worth, I think all the other songs and almost all the other speeches were great, and loved the Solstice in general.
I have mixed feelings about some parts of the post, but I’m very much in favor of not dismantling the Sun.
There are many people who want to live biological lives on the surface of Earth. Let them (us?) live, and don’t dismantle the Sun! Dismantle all the other stars, but leave the Sun alone! Maybe you can harvest some things from the Sun if it’s important for the initial bootstrapping, but do it on a small enough scale that it’s not visible from Earth. I think that leaving the Sun alone is actually the majority opinion in the community, but then I don’t think we should sing about dismantling the Sun in the Solstice. Sing about dismantling Alpha Centauri instead! It’s the same amount of computronium, it’s also a good symbol of “humanity achieving its full potential”, but doesn’t imply killing all biological life on the surface of Earth.
I also find it worrying that the same song that wants to dismantle the Sun (The Great Transhumanist Future), wants to do it within twenty years with the help of a “big old computer”. Having hope for the great transhumanist future is great, but tying this hope to building aligned AI within our lifetime is the kind of thing that can promote recklessness, and I don’t think we should incorporate this into our songs.
For what it’s worth, I think all the other songs and almost all the other speeches were great, and loved the Solstice in general.