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it is something i have thought about occasionally. i don’t have a fully formed opinion, so am open to others challenging my logic here… i have come to accept t

it is something i have thought about occasionally. i don’t have a fully formed opinion, so am open to others challenging my logic here… i have come to accept that a strong military power can serve as a deterrent to others, and ultimately lead to a more peaceful existence (in the aggregate). i don’t believe that human beings can co-exist peacefully, so this deterrent is necessary (until we have some other means to achieve peace). i would use a similar thought process to morally justify work on a general AI. given enough time i believe that humanity will destroy ourselves and this planet. in lieu of another solution, we may need an AI to assert control to prevent this from happening (or backfire and bring us fully into a hollywood dystopian future). at the risk of going on a rant now, i have often found it hard to morally justify working on space travel, as i don’t believe that humanity has demonstrated that it deserves to colonize beyond Earth. that would only enable us to consume and destroy more of the universe.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago
Why doesn't the universe have the right to "destroy" itself through its most sophisticated subset of matter-energy known to date? I put "destroy" in quotes since I think that's ridiculously loaded. The biosphere itself is naturally unsustainable at its current complexity for more than 1 billion years from now[0], the Sun is going to go red giant past the next 5 billion years, and, as far as we know, the universe will end in heat death. Entropy and transformation is inevitable. Humans contribute to that, but doing it in the service of higher cognitive functions by which the universe can know itself should be the noblest reason for it to happen (from a human perspective), no? Another counterpoint: what if humanity only becomes worthy of spreading itself in civilizations that can only form post-Earth (too far into the future to still be living on Earth)? Should those be condemned to non-existence because humanity's original nucleus didn't bootstrap itself impressively enough to earn a chance at outliving its planet? 0: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future and Ctrl+f "c4 photosynthesis"
- null_shift 4y ago
  thank you for the thoughtful reply. gives me something to think about.

shrimp_emoji 4y ago

Why doesn't the universe have the right to "destroy" itself through its most sophisticated subset of matter-energy known to date? I put "destroy" in quotes since I think that's ridiculously loaded. The biosphere itself is naturally unsustainable at its current complexity for more than 1 billion years from now[0], the Sun is going to go red giant past the next 5 billion years, and, as far as we know, the universe will end in heat death. Entropy and transformation is inevitable. Humans contribute to that, but doing it in the service of higher cognitive functions by which the universe can know itself should be the noblest reason for it to happen (from a human perspective), no? Another counterpoint: what if humanity only becomes worthy of spreading itself in civilizations that can only form post-Earth (too far into the future to still be living on Earth)? Should those be condemned to non-existence because humanity's original nucleus didn't bootstrap itself impressively enough to earn a chance at outliving its planet? 0: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_far_future and Ctrl+f "c4 photosynthesis"

null_shift 4y ago
thank you for the thoughtful reply. gives me something to think about.