I've had extended conversations/arguments with Singularity(tm) believers, and the future as they wish it to be is downright terrifying. I'm talking paperclip maximizing on purpose and weird nihilistic cruelty for its own sake (some are also "dae hate the blue hippie furries in Avatar amirite, dae atrocities against them would be top kek" types too). One even went as far as saying (CW: suicide)
spoiler
that after their fantastical intergalactic supercorporation bulldozed and melted down every reachable star system to make things that amused him that he'd eventually get bored after a few billion years and kill himself after he was sure he had "won the game," but only then. :hypersus:
where do you find these people? I can’t even find the words to describe it.
I knew some of the anti-Navi types in high school. Full on just coming up with ways to do a space genocide so the “good humans” could win. Independently arriving at 40k logic because they weren’t even nerdy usually.
I was more talking about how the concept of the frontier is a pressure valve for capitalism and space sure has a lot of frontier. It would be really bad if the current status quo could do dystopian sci-fi shit and just use space colonization to let off steam whenever the workers started getting spicy.
Without magic like very easy FTL travel space is just too big for any kind of meaningful capitalism. Your "return on investment" would be maybe getting some rocks back centuries or millenia later. Slowboating significant amounts of resources between star systems is a logistical challenge that I, at least, don't think is achievable under physics as we currently understand it. And admittedly I'm not a physicist, but I at least understand that you need exponentially more reaction mass the closer you get to C.
Like maybe you could send brains running on some kind of extremely durable machine system to other stars with all the stuff they'd need to start some kind of life there, but that'd be hundreds or thousands of years out in the deep black with no energy and no resources at all, getting bombarded with gamma radiation and hard x-rays and god knows what else. Just simple entropy would make surviving with any kind of systems intact a monumental achievement, let alone something that could wake up and still be meaningfully sentient.
Basically - There's no way you'd ever get a return on your investment. You could maybe send yourself to another star system for the promise of a few megaacres of cheap "land", but a lot of things would have to change pretty radically for a capitalist to invest resources in that.
Yeah, you’re right. I still think they’d at some point load up generation ships with serfs, a privileged security caste, and the would be nobility if they think it’s feasible.
It’s more of an existential dread “what if this never ends” “what if it just manages to shamble along until it becomes even slightly feasible”.
Like, mass deportation to a colony wouldn’t get the same blowback of mass murdering workers. If things are bad enough a lot might volunteer.
I probably need to just read less dystopian sci-fi and find something optimistic.
where do you find these people? I can’t even find the words to describe it.
I went to college with a lot of techbros that eventually went on to be lanyard wearing PMCs, which is where such talks occured.
I also now live in the Silicon Valley area. They're everywhere here if I wanted to suffer some more by talking to them.
I was more talking about how the concept of the frontier is a pressure valve for capitalism and space sure has a lot of frontier. It would be really bad if the current status quo could do dystopian sci-fi shit and just use space colonization to let off steam whenever the workers started getting spicy.
Back when I believed in that shit I dreamed of every person having radical bodily autonomy to the tune of "If you want to become your own interstellar space ship with a radically altered silicon brain capable of slow-boating between stars for the hell of it, you can!". Strong post scarcity, building stellar scale megastructures for fun, seeking out new life and new civilizations to trade media with them. The idea that people's idea of the singularity is mind controlled slaves and torturing their enemies for eternity is abhorrent in a way I don't really have words for.
I don't even understand how your idea of what would happen after creating an arbitrarily powerful boostrapping super-intelligence includes something as banal as a corporation. I just don't. The lack of imagination would be staggering even without the sadism.
I've had extended conversations/arguments with Singularity(tm) believers, and the future as they wish it to be is downright terrifying. I'm talking paperclip maximizing on purpose and weird nihilistic cruelty for its own sake (some are also "dae hate the blue hippie furries in Avatar amirite, dae atrocities against them would be top kek" types too). One even went as far as saying (CW: suicide)
spoiler
that after their fantastical intergalactic supercorporation bulldozed and melted down every reachable star system to make things that amused him that he'd eventually get bored after a few billion years and kill himself after he was sure he had "won the game," but only then. :hypersus:
where do you find these people? I can’t even find the words to describe it.
I knew some of the anti-Navi types in high school. Full on just coming up with ways to do a space genocide so the “good humans” could win. Independently arriving at 40k logic because they weren’t even nerdy usually.
I was more talking about how the concept of the frontier is a pressure valve for capitalism and space sure has a lot of frontier. It would be really bad if the current status quo could do dystopian sci-fi shit and just use space colonization to let off steam whenever the workers started getting spicy.
Without magic like very easy FTL travel space is just too big for any kind of meaningful capitalism. Your "return on investment" would be maybe getting some rocks back centuries or millenia later. Slowboating significant amounts of resources between star systems is a logistical challenge that I, at least, don't think is achievable under physics as we currently understand it. And admittedly I'm not a physicist, but I at least understand that you need exponentially more reaction mass the closer you get to C.
Like maybe you could send brains running on some kind of extremely durable machine system to other stars with all the stuff they'd need to start some kind of life there, but that'd be hundreds or thousands of years out in the deep black with no energy and no resources at all, getting bombarded with gamma radiation and hard x-rays and god knows what else. Just simple entropy would make surviving with any kind of systems intact a monumental achievement, let alone something that could wake up and still be meaningfully sentient.
Basically - There's no way you'd ever get a return on your investment. You could maybe send yourself to another star system for the promise of a few megaacres of cheap "land", but a lot of things would have to change pretty radically for a capitalist to invest resources in that.
Yeah, you’re right. I still think they’d at some point load up generation ships with serfs, a privileged security caste, and the would be nobility if they think it’s feasible.
It’s more of an existential dread “what if this never ends” “what if it just manages to shamble along until it becomes even slightly feasible”.
Like, mass deportation to a colony wouldn’t get the same blowback of mass murdering workers. If things are bad enough a lot might volunteer.
I probably need to just read less dystopian sci-fi and find something optimistic.
no that wouldn't provide a fast enough return on capital investment to justify the cost. It could happen under feuadalism but not capitalism
Good point, the tech feudalists are rich but not entirely in control.
Yeah, I feel that.
I went to college with a lot of techbros that eventually went on to be lanyard wearing PMCs, which is where such talks occured.
I also now live in the Silicon Valley area. They're everywhere here if I wanted to suffer some more by talking to them.
:lord-bezos-amused: :yea:
Back when I believed in that shit I dreamed of every person having radical bodily autonomy to the tune of "If you want to become your own interstellar space ship with a radically altered silicon brain capable of slow-boating between stars for the hell of it, you can!". Strong post scarcity, building stellar scale megastructures for fun, seeking out new life and new civilizations to trade media with them. The idea that people's idea of the singularity is mind controlled slaves and torturing their enemies for eternity is abhorrent in a way I don't really have words for.
I don't even understand how your idea of what would happen after creating an arbitrarily powerful boostrapping super-intelligence includes something as banal as a corporation. I just don't. The lack of imagination would be staggering even without the sadism.