Re: poly: The singleton hypothesis

 bostrom@ndirect.co.uk ("Nick Bostrom") writes:
>How could property rights be enforced over the immense distances in
>intergalactic space? One solution would be to preprogram respect for
>property rights into all probes. These probes would be constructed so
>as to make a mutation exceedingly improbable. Since the singleton

 With the side effect of making them more vulnerable to life that
originated elsewhere and didn't outlaw evolution.
 I suspect that outlawing memetic evolution effectively enough to
achieve this singleton would severely limit the intelligence that
could be achieved.

>would be the creator of all probes (or could easily retrieve any
>low-tech probes that had been sent out before it became the
>singleton), all probes would be preprogrammed to act in a way that
>minimizes global waste and inefficiency.
>
>Minimizing waste would be one reason for positively trying to create
>a singleton (another could be safety). The important task would then

 You think it's possible to abandon evolution without enormous
opportunity costs? I suspect I'd prefer most versions of the "burning
the cosmos" scenario.

-- 
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter McCluskey          | Critmail (http://crit.org/critmail.html):
http://www.rahul.net/pcm | Accept nothing less to archive your mailing list