Immortality and anarchism

[Pacal_II]

Stef and many people on this forum claim that peacefull parenting is the best way to achieve a stateless society, and that this would be a multi-generational process. So what effect would biological immortality have on this. I won't be going in to all the reasons why biological immortality is possible because that's not the point. Just write in michio kaku, ray kurzweil or aubrey de grey + immortality in google and youtube. So according to some of these predictions we might achieve biological immortality available to most people in 30 years. What does would mean is that we're stuck theoretically forever with people who were beaten, abused and propagandised by the state. Even though new children would be born the old generations would not pass, and also we see a tendency in developed countries of less children being born. Which would mean that the older generation could possible stay the majority for a pretty long time. So I ask, what effect would this have on our society? Would it mean that our progression towards anarchy would be slowed down.

In my opinion it won't, but that's because peacefull parenting and improving relations isn't in my opinion the main way to achieve anarchy. Or rather it is, but rather as an effect of something else which is more in our control, which is technology. In my opinion it's thanks technology, which leads and has lead us towards improvements in our societies. Basically it as a means which effeciently helps us fulfill our needs and thanks to that people don't feel the nead to use agression in your lives. So in a society with cheap food, medicine, housing and a society where most labour is automatic parents will be less stressed out and will have more time and patience for their children and in effect it will help them raise them peacefully and philosophically. On the other hand brain augmentation might help grown up people with reflection and self-knowledge practically avoiding the pain and huge amounts of time consumed involved with therapy and self-reflection. In the end the passing of generations won't be required for the progress of society because we'll find ways to improve our lives here and now, rendering governement and possibly violence and psychopathy absolete.

[JamesP]

It's not the victims of violence that I'm concerned about as much as the perpetrators of violence.

Any technology that can be used for good can also be used for evil.  And, at the moment, the good are outnumbered by those who enable evil.

My only other thought on this is that if you have the choice to invest in self-knowledge or life extension, it is better to invest in self-knowledge.  That way, if life extension does not come along, you won't have wasted your effort, and if life extension does come along, you will be way ahead of anyone else who decided to wait.

[Metric]

 

Stef and many people on this forum claim that peacefull parenting is the best way to achieve a stateless society, and that this would be a multi-generational process. So what effect would biological immortality have on this. I won't be going in to all the reasons why biological immortality is possible because that's not the point. Just write in michio kaku, ray kurzweil or aubrey de grey + immortality in google and youtube. So according to some of these predictions we might achieve biological immortality available to most people in 30 years. What does would mean is that we're stuck theoretically forever with people who were beaten, abused and propagandised by the state. Even though new children would be born the old generations would not pass, and also we see a tendency in developed countries of less children being born. Which would mean that the older generation could possible stay the majority for a pretty long time. So I ask, what effect would this have on our society? Would it mean that our progression towards anarchy would be slowed down.

In my opinion it won't, but that's because peacefull parenting and improving relations isn't in my opinion the main way to achieve anarchy. Or rather it is, but rather as an effect of something else which is more in our control, which is technology. In my opinion it's thanks technology, which leads and has lead us towards improvements in our societies. Basically it as a means which effeciently helps us fulfill our needs and thanks to that people don't feel the nead to use agression in your lives. So in a society with cheap food, medicine, housing and a society where most labour is automatic parents will be less stressed out and will have more time and patience for their children and in effect it will help them raise them peacefully and philosophically. On the other hand brain augmentation might help grown up people with reflection and self-knowledge practically avoiding the pain and huge amounts of time consumed involved with therapy and self-reflection. In the end the passing of generations won't be required for the progress of society because we'll find ways to improve our lives here and now, rendering governement and possibly violence and psychopathy absolete.

 

Yes, this definitely needs to be explored.  If we remain on the current technological track, arguments for slow, multi-generational change have to be modified in light of the fact that our present ideas of what constitutes "a human" are likely to be completely outdated and irrelevant in only a few decades.

IMO, the field that will have "staying power" throughout all of this is the field of "machine ethics."  It is only when ethics is 1) as precise, reliable, and free of cheap rhetorical loopholes as mathematics and 2) generally applicable enough to apply to machines with almost godlike intelligence and power that it will really be taken seriously.  Because at some point, having this form of ethics sorted out will be an absolute requirement for the survival of the planet, when people get ready to switch on recursively self-improving AI's. 

The issue for now is just that the field is very new, and most people have never heard of it, and in any case don't realize the potential importance for the future.  That situation will change very suddenly, though, at some point.

[Pacal_II]

But won't intelligent machines learn like us? That means they won't have built in ethics, they'll just have to learn like us, although the process might be easier then us. Who knows, maybe AIs will manage to completally out-perform us in philosophy.

[Brandon Buck _BB_]

In my opinion it won't, but that's because peacefull parenting and improving relations isn't in my opinion the main way to achieve anarchy. Or rather it is, but rather as an effect of something else which is more in our control, which is technology. In my opinion it's thanks technology, which leads and has lead us towards improvements in our societies.

 

Technology doesn't cause peaceful parenting. Peaceful parenting causes technology. To wit: Major advancements in technology have come on the heels of major improvements in parenting practices. The Renaissance and the Enlightenment were preceeded by major improvements in western child rearing practices, while most of the east enjoyed neither. The current explosion in technology was also preceeded by the peaceful parenting movement, which started somewhere around fifty years ago... and again, we don't see the tech boom or the child rearing improvements in the middle east but we do see both to some degree in Asia.

 

I think it's safe to presume a snowball effect from these improved parenting practices, couple with the technology they foster, but one would be hard pressed to argue against them as the genesis of technological advancements... including that of anarchy.

[tasmlab]

 

 

In my opinion it won't, but that's because peacefull parenting and improving relations isn't in my opinion the main way to achieve anarchy. Or rather it is, but rather as an effect of something else which is more in our control, which is technology. In my opinion it's thanks technology, which leads and has lead us towards improvements in our societies. Basically it as a means which effeciently helps us fulfill our needs and thanks to that people don't feel the nead to use agression in your lives. So in a society with cheap food, medicine, housing and a society where most labour is automatic parents will be less stressed out and will have more time and patience for their children and in effect it will help them raise them peacefully and philosophically. On the other hand brain augmentation might help grown up people with reflection and self-knowledge practically avoiding the pain and huge amounts of time consumed involved with therapy and self-reflection. In the end the passing of generations won't be required for the progress of society because we'll find ways to improve our lives here and now, rendering governement and possibly violence and psychopathy absolete.

 

 

Great post!  Neat thing to think about.

If scarcity lessens or disappears via technology the government will have a tough time justifying itself.  The question might be how TPTB actually quells technology.  Like purposefully create a dark age, sort of like what happened after the Roman Empire collapsed instead of cruising right into the industrial revolution.

I guess my other thought is when will people think they have enough?  An average poor person in the US has a house, a cell phone, a computer, several televisions, and so many calories that our poor suffer more from obesity than hunger.   Could the poor become 10X wealthier due to technology and still everybody is all crapped out with social justice type thoughts?

[Rob_Ilir]

 

But won't intelligent machines learn like us? 

 

As much as dogs learn to sit bark and hi v,  from other dogs imo.

Humans are creators, everything else barely tries to survive and I cant see any inputs to a software higher than conscience that we got no real idea how deep it really goes.  

[Metric]

 

But won't intelligent machines learn like us? That means they won't have built in ethics, they'll just have to learn like us, although the process might be easier then us. Who knows, maybe AIs will manage to completally out-perform us in philosophy.

 

The current thinking that I've seen is that the first recursively self-improving AI's will be build for a purpose -- they will have a so-called "utility function" that they will go into the world and try to maximize.  However, when the utility function involves solving hard problems, and machines can make themselves more intelligent, then it becomes very useful for the machine to make itself very, very smart as one of the "first steps" towards maximizing its utility function.  Certain simple utility functions would be extremely dangerous -- such as "maximize performance," since they have no regard for externalities -- the machine may wipe out all of humanity as part of achieving its goal.  In fact, it is quite hard to design open-ended utility functions that aren't dangerous in this way.  So the trick is to design a machine ethics that will ensure that the machine doesn't do "very bad things" as it becomes arbitrarily powerful and intelligent as it seeks to maximize its utility function -- this could be interpreted as a constraint on the utility function.

Here's an interesting intro to the subject: 

[tasmlab]

 

 

 

Certain simple utility functions would be extremely dangerous -- such as "maximize performance," since they have no regard for externalities -- the machine may wipe out all of humanity as part of achieving its goal.  

 

 

I'm pretty sure that's when Will Smith, Bruce Willis, Keneu Reeves, et al throw a flux capacitor into it's brain to save the world.