"A murmur of rain had started again. He lay there in the abyss of his thoughts as her breathing beside him steadied and deepened. Almost a voice stirred in him. It starts before Hanford, it almost said. It starts with Röntgen, with the piece of barium glowing in the path of invisible rays, striking out the fire that God had put there. It starts with his wife’s hand on the photographic plate, its transparence there, the ashen bones visible within the milky flesh. Who could imagine that this radiance at the heart of matter could be malign? That with its light came fire? (Yet from the first the ashen bones were there to see [pg304] within the flesh.) It starts with Becquerel carrying the radium in his pocket that burned his skin, and darkened the unexposed film. It starts with Marie Curie poisoning herself in that pale uncanny glow. With Rutherford guessing at this new alchemy, guessing that matter, giving up its glow, transformed itself one element into another. With the miners at Joachimsthal, deep under the Erzgebirge, inhaling the dust of uranium and dying of “mountain sickness”. With women who by the thousands in watch factories tipped their brushes with that glow, touched it to their tongues before painting the dial face, women who only much later, when the watches’ glow had faded, sickened and died from that radiance taken into their bones. It begins with Ernest Lawrence rushing across the Berkeley campus, the idea of a proton accelerator uncontainable in his mind, calling out, I’m going to be famous! With Oppenheimer at Jornada del Muerte that morning of Trinity. With the scientists who had prised open the gates to that blazing realm past heaven or hell. What were they now at the Lab in all their thousands, but the colonial bureaucrats of that realm, the followers and functionaries, the clerks and commissars? Mere gatekeepers of that power. Or in its keeping. It goes of its own momentum beyond Hanford, to Trinity, to Hiroshima, to the prisoners, the cancer patients, the retarded children, the pregnant women injected or fed this goblin matter to see would it bring health or sickness, the soldiers huddled in trenches against the flash, bones visible in their arms through closed eyes, staring up at the roiling cloudrise, the sheepherders, the farms, the homes, the gardens downwind. And in his sleep the voice long stilled spoke once more. It starts with Sforza; in case of need I will make bombards, mortars, and firethrowing engines of beautiful and practical design. It starts with Archimedes focusing the sun’s rays upon the fleet at Syracuse, it starts with the first rock hurled by the first grasping hand. It starts where we start. It is mind, it is hunger, it is greed, it is defense, it is mischief, it is the devil, it is the god; it is life." ~ Radiance: https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/2002-scholz-radiance
when you say "focusing strictly on transhumanism as the only moral path forward is an awfully anthropocentric view of intelligence" - isn't transhumanism itself inclusive of the idea to upload ourselves into non biological substrates? Or did I miss something
it's based on a narrow view of reality. I think that's the problem with engineers is they have an imbalance in their mind reducing everything down and then even worse to create a world view based on that
I was nodding along when I stumbled on the comment that we shouldn’t fear zombie intelligence. It doesn’t seem inconceivable that we could create a zombie intelligence that outcompetes humans in the short term. While it might be correct that true intelligence has a long term advantage and some alien culture will eventually defeat our zombie child it won’t mean much to us paperclips. Any links or discussion of this?
e/acc sounds a lot like a view trying to differentiate itself from an existing view (transhumanism, extropianism) where there is little to differentiate.
"e/acc has no particular allegiance to the biological substrate for intelligence and life, in contrast to transhumanism." This is just wrong. Transhumanism does not have a commitment to a biological substrate. It's a set of goals that is independent of substrate. It's a particular strange thing to say when so many critics of transhumanism claim that we hate our biological bodies and harp on about uploading.
I basically agree with the basic assumptions about the world being too chaotic to control and about the natural emergence of complexity which turns into intelligence, and possibly consciousness.
But I disagree with the bottom line, because the thermodynamic will of the universe is statistical. Ie. there is no guarantee our civilization will make it on the first try. Maybe we will fail and then there will be millions of years until the emergence of new life & civilization, which will also fail, all again million times.
But I actually think we have a chance to make it on the first try. I even think that the risk is relatively small, but accelerating makes the risk higher, not lower.
"A murmur of rain had started again. He lay there in the abyss of his thoughts as her breathing beside him steadied and deepened. Almost a voice stirred in him. It starts before Hanford, it almost said. It starts with Röntgen, with the piece of barium glowing in the path of invisible rays, striking out the fire that God had put there. It starts with his wife’s hand on the photographic plate, its transparence there, the ashen bones visible within the milky flesh. Who could imagine that this radiance at the heart of matter could be malign? That with its light came fire? (Yet from the first the ashen bones were there to see [pg304] within the flesh.) It starts with Becquerel carrying the radium in his pocket that burned his skin, and darkened the unexposed film. It starts with Marie Curie poisoning herself in that pale uncanny glow. With Rutherford guessing at this new alchemy, guessing that matter, giving up its glow, transformed itself one element into another. With the miners at Joachimsthal, deep under the Erzgebirge, inhaling the dust of uranium and dying of “mountain sickness”. With women who by the thousands in watch factories tipped their brushes with that glow, touched it to their tongues before painting the dial face, women who only much later, when the watches’ glow had faded, sickened and died from that radiance taken into their bones. It begins with Ernest Lawrence rushing across the Berkeley campus, the idea of a proton accelerator uncontainable in his mind, calling out, I’m going to be famous! With Oppenheimer at Jornada del Muerte that morning of Trinity. With the scientists who had prised open the gates to that blazing realm past heaven or hell. What were they now at the Lab in all their thousands, but the colonial bureaucrats of that realm, the followers and functionaries, the clerks and commissars? Mere gatekeepers of that power. Or in its keeping. It goes of its own momentum beyond Hanford, to Trinity, to Hiroshima, to the prisoners, the cancer patients, the retarded children, the pregnant women injected or fed this goblin matter to see would it bring health or sickness, the soldiers huddled in trenches against the flash, bones visible in their arms through closed eyes, staring up at the roiling cloudrise, the sheepherders, the farms, the homes, the gardens downwind. And in his sleep the voice long stilled spoke once more. It starts with Sforza; in case of need I will make bombards, mortars, and firethrowing engines of beautiful and practical design. It starts with Archimedes focusing the sun’s rays upon the fleet at Syracuse, it starts with the first rock hurled by the first grasping hand. It starts where we start. It is mind, it is hunger, it is greed, it is defense, it is mischief, it is the devil, it is the god; it is life." ~ Radiance: https://www.gwern.net/docs/radiance/2002-scholz-radiance
when you say "focusing strictly on transhumanism as the only moral path forward is an awfully anthropocentric view of intelligence" - isn't transhumanism itself inclusive of the idea to upload ourselves into non biological substrates? Or did I miss something
Here's a compilation of some intellectual errors in this and related e/acc documents:
https://twitter.com/DanHendrycks/status/1651740865159901184
it's based on a narrow view of reality. I think that's the problem with engineers is they have an imbalance in their mind reducing everything down and then even worse to create a world view based on that
I was nodding along when I stumbled on the comment that we shouldn’t fear zombie intelligence. It doesn’t seem inconceivable that we could create a zombie intelligence that outcompetes humans in the short term. While it might be correct that true intelligence has a long term advantage and some alien culture will eventually defeat our zombie child it won’t mean much to us paperclips. Any links or discussion of this?
e/acc sounds a lot like a view trying to differentiate itself from an existing view (transhumanism, extropianism) where there is little to differentiate.
"e/acc has no particular allegiance to the biological substrate for intelligence and life, in contrast to transhumanism." This is just wrong. Transhumanism does not have a commitment to a biological substrate. It's a set of goals that is independent of substrate. It's a particular strange thing to say when so many critics of transhumanism claim that we hate our biological bodies and harp on about uploading.
This is kinda like reading 22nd century Hayek (which Is high praise).
I basically agree with the basic assumptions about the world being too chaotic to control and about the natural emergence of complexity which turns into intelligence, and possibly consciousness.
But I disagree with the bottom line, because the thermodynamic will of the universe is statistical. Ie. there is no guarantee our civilization will make it on the first try. Maybe we will fail and then there will be millions of years until the emergence of new life & civilization, which will also fail, all again million times.
But I actually think we have a chance to make it on the first try. I even think that the risk is relatively small, but accelerating makes the risk higher, not lower.
once you accept the inevitability of the Basilisk, the rest is a cakewalk