Hello! I’m here because...well, I’ve read all of HPMOR, and I’m looking for people who can help me find the truth and become more powerful. I work as an engineer and read textbooks for fun, so hopefully I can offer some small insights in return.
I’m not comfortable with death. I’ve signed up for cryonics, but still perceive that option as risky. As a rough estimate, it appears that current medical research is about 3% of GDP and extends lifespans by about 2 years per decade. I guess that if medical research spending were increased to 30% of current GDP, then most of us would live forever while feeling increasingly healthy. Unfortunately, raising taxes to achieve this is not realistic—doubling taxes for an uncertain return is a hard sell, and I have been unable to find research quantifying the link between public research spending and healthcare technology improvements. Another approach is inventing a technology to increase the overall economy size by 10x, by creating a practical self-replicating robot. This is possible in principle (as demonstrated by Hod Lipson in 2006 and by FANUC robot arm factories daily) but I am currently not a good enough programmer to design and build a fully automated RepRap assembly system in a reasonable amount of time. Also, there are many smart and innovative people at Willow Garage, FANUC and other similar organizations, and it seems unlikely I could exceed the slow and incremental progress of those groups. A third option, trying to create super-level AI to make self-replicating robots for me, is even more difficult and unlikely. A fourth option, not taking heroic responsibility, would make me uncomfortable because I’m not that optimistic about the future. As it is, since dropping out of a PhD program I’m not confident in my ability to complete such a large project. Any practical help would be appreciated, as I would prefer not to rely on the untestable promises of quantum immortality, or on the faith that life is a computer game.
“Fedorov argued that the struggle against death can become the most natural cause uniting all people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, race, citizenship or wealth (he called this the Common Cause).”
Fedorov speculations about a future resurrection of all, although seen today as a joke, at least they are able to beat the “Pascal’s wager” and, if we keep in mind the possiibilities of new particle physics, it is rational hoping that an extremely altruistic future humanity could decide to ressurrect all of us, by using resources on technology that today we cannot imagiine (the same way that current technology could have never been imagined by Plato or Aristotle).
Although science and technology could maybe keep limits, the most important issue about that would have to do with motivations. Why should a future humanity would be interested in acting so?
The only thing we could do today about helping that, would be starting to build up already the moral and cultural foundation of a fully altruistic and rational society (which would be inevitably, extremely economically efficient). And that is not done yet.
Hello! I’m here because...well, I’ve read all of HPMOR, and I’m looking for people who can help me find the truth and become more powerful. I work as an engineer and read textbooks for fun, so hopefully I can offer some small insights in return.
I’m not comfortable with death. I’ve signed up for cryonics, but still perceive that option as risky. As a rough estimate, it appears that current medical research is about 3% of GDP and extends lifespans by about 2 years per decade. I guess that if medical research spending were increased to 30% of current GDP, then most of us would live forever while feeling increasingly healthy. Unfortunately, raising taxes to achieve this is not realistic—doubling taxes for an uncertain return is a hard sell, and I have been unable to find research quantifying the link between public research spending and healthcare technology improvements. Another approach is inventing a technology to increase the overall economy size by 10x, by creating a practical self-replicating robot. This is possible in principle (as demonstrated by Hod Lipson in 2006 and by FANUC robot arm factories daily) but I am currently not a good enough programmer to design and build a fully automated RepRap assembly system in a reasonable amount of time. Also, there are many smart and innovative people at Willow Garage, FANUC and other similar organizations, and it seems unlikely I could exceed the slow and incremental progress of those groups. A third option, trying to create super-level AI to make self-replicating robots for me, is even more difficult and unlikely. A fourth option, not taking heroic responsibility, would make me uncomfortable because I’m not that optimistic about the future. As it is, since dropping out of a PhD program I’m not confident in my ability to complete such a large project. Any practical help would be appreciated, as I would prefer not to rely on the untestable promises of quantum immortality, or on the faith that life is a computer game.
Hi, afterburger
I find correct that you are not comfortable with death, the opposite of that would be unnatural.
I don’t know whether you have ever heard of this person
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Fyodorovich_Fyodorov
“Fedorov argued that the struggle against death can become the most natural cause uniting all people of Earth, regardless of their nationality, race, citizenship or wealth (he called this the Common Cause).”
Fedorov speculations about a future resurrection of all, although seen today as a joke, at least they are able to beat the “Pascal’s wager” and, if we keep in mind the possiibilities of new particle physics, it is rational hoping that an extremely altruistic future humanity could decide to ressurrect all of us, by using resources on technology that today we cannot imagiine (the same way that current technology could have never been imagined by Plato or Aristotle).
Although science and technology could maybe keep limits, the most important issue about that would have to do with motivations. Why should a future humanity would be interested in acting so?
The only thing we could do today about helping that, would be starting to build up already the moral and cultural foundation of a fully altruistic and rational society (which would be inevitably, extremely economically efficient). And that is not done yet.