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David Lucifer
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The alien proposition
« on: 2005-11-06 13:28:45 »
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In today's thought experiment you are abducted by aliens. Before you get your knickers in a twist, no they are not interested in probing you. They turn out to be extremely friendly and intelligent. They tell you that you have been chosen at random to make a very important decision (or at least vote on it, they hint that you may not be the only abductee though you see no signs of others).

The aliens have knowledge and technology that could transform earth into a paradise but it comes at a terrible price. They can eliminate all forms of suffering due to disease, war, accidents, crime, etc using something they call "femtotechnology" but after 1000 years the atomic-scale machines will turn into grey goo and destroy all life and other complex structures that it has contact with.

So the question for you is this: Do you accept their gift along with the deferred death sentence for everyone and everything on Earth or do you decline and let humanity forge its own future? The aliens show you enough that you have every reason to believe they are telling you nothing but the truth in this matter.

Vector: Keith Henson. I hope you are well wherever you are.
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Blunderov
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RE: virus: The alien proposition
« Reply #1 on: 2005-11-06 16:39:07 »
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[Blunderov] I don't think I would accept. There's always a chance that we
may go on to do better than the aliens. Slim, admittedly. Vanishingly small
even. But at least that theoretical possibility exists.

Also I don't think I would have the courage to make such a decision on
behalf of so many people. I think I would decide that 'first do no harm'
would be the correct principle to apply.

Tempting though.

Best Regards.
 
David Lucifer
Sent: 06 November 2005 20:29

<snip>So the question for you is this: Do you accept their gift along with
the deferred death sentence for everyone and everything on Earth or do you
decline and let humanity forge its own future? The aliens show you enough
that you have every reason to believe they are telling you nothing but the
truth in this matter. </snip>



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Salamantis
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #2 on: 2005-11-06 17:59:19 »
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #3 on: 2005-11-07 18:59:28 »
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« Last Edit: 2005-11-07 21:44:07 by Jake Sapiens » Report to moderator   Logged

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David Lucifer
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RE: virus: The alien proposition
« Reply #4 on: 2005-11-07 22:43:55 »
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[Blunderov] I don't think I would accept. There's always a chance that we
may go on to do better than the aliens. Slim, admittedly. Vanishingly small
even. But at least that theoretical possibility exists.

Also I don't think I would have the courage to make such a decision on
behalf of so many people. I think I would decide that 'first do no harm'
would be the correct principle to apply.

[Lucifer] Wouldn't the probability of doing better than the aliens be vastly improved by accepting their gift? You can opt out of providing input into the decision, but then you would just be letting others make the decision for you. If you want to "do no harm" why would you choose disease over health, war over peace, death over life?
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Salamantis
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #5 on: 2005-11-08 00:01:49 »
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Hermit
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #6 on: 2005-11-08 07:54:32 »
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Base Assumptions:
Nobody lives forever.
The dead don't care.
No dominant species we know of has had more than 10Myr as the dominant species.

Choices and Outcomes:

Accept: 1000 years of misery avoided. Proof that we can live with evolutionary challenges. Some possibility to develop a work around for the grey goo scenario. At worst, if we haven't figured out the puzzle, those alive at the time of the grey goo event potentially suffer for a short while before they die. Assuming we don't avoid the grey goo event, there are no successors and thus no need to leave anything for posterity.

Reject: Pain suffering and misery continue until we develop femto tech (which might be faster than expected because it is now known to be possible). It might also be never, because technological (and intellectual) breakthroughs are singularities. They cannot be predicted or projected with any hope of reliability.

Note that in either scenario we might still end up being zapped - or not. We may earn eradication for not being sufficiently evolutionary, or for being over evolutionary, or for not having swallowed a poison pill - or just die because we did swallow it. Then again, we might have earned our right to live quietly as might have demonstrated sufficiently that we lack all ambition to development. There is not enough information to take this into account. So if we can't find out more from the "aliens" - particularly about their motivations, then we must decide based on the above two cases if we are to b rational. We can't deny the rest of humanity the benfits on offer simply because we are overwhelmed. Guess which one seems preferable to me?

Now ask yourself, under what assumptions would you have to be operating in order for the choice not to accept the benefits seem rational?


Hermit

PS Agree re Keith.

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With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg, 1999
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #7 on: 2005-11-08 08:59:02 »
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MoEnzyme
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #8 on: 2005-11-08 10:45:19 »
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« Last Edit: 2005-11-09 00:42:57 by Jake Sapiens » Report to moderator   Logged

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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #9 on: 2005-11-08 11:11:36 »
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« Last Edit: 2005-11-08 23:50:44 by Jake Sapiens » Report to moderator   Logged

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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #10 on: 2005-11-08 21:40:20 »
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I suppose I have a little different perspective on this, since it's pretty much just what recently happened here on a smaller scale.  You do something that seems like a good idea at the time, makes life better all around.  It's true there is a Really Bad Possible Outcome, but it's been a long time since anything like that happened and it will probably be a long time before it happens again.  And we have time to formulate a better response than the demonstrably inadequate hack we start out with.

Except, we don't ever actually improve anything.  Years go by, decades, centuries in the case of femtotech, and everything is just ducky.  Starting out the Really Bad Outcome is so distant as to be a non-problem, and as it gets closer and more worrisome all those years of it not being a problem are what we tend to remember.  And is it really thinkable to abandon the advantages we have come to take for granted because the mortgage is finally due?  Or to spend craploads of money and effort on protection efforts that seem, frankly, a little silly given the long and peaceful history we've enjoyed?

Think "New Orleans" instead of "Earth," "century" instead of "millennium,"  "draining the swamp" instead of "femtotech," "category 5" instead of "gray goo," and you have what just happened to New Orleans.  Having just lived through that and seen how we got here, the only sane advice I can give is to not take the chocolate in the first place.  It's not that we couldn't find a way to avoid the Really Bad Outcome, it's that our own history and temprament suggest we won't bother until it is too late because at first it won't seem important and later it won't seem real.
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David Lucifer
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #11 on: 2005-11-09 13:11:22 »
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Quote from: localroger on 2005-11-08 21:40:20   

Think "New Orleans" instead of "Earth," "century" instead of "millennium,"  "draining the swamp" instead of "femtotech," "category 5" instead of "gray goo," and you have what just happened to New Orleans.  Having just lived through that and seen how we got here, the only sane advice I can give is to not take the chocolate in the first place.  It's not that we couldn't find a way to avoid the Really Bad Outcome, it's that our own history and temprament suggest we won't bother until it is too late because at first it won't seem important and later it won't seem real.

The analog for (the benefit in question) "femtotech" should be "building New Orleans" not "draining the swamp". When seen in this light this becomes more of an argument for taking threats seriously rather than an argument against accepting the benefit with its inherent risks. I agree we should take threats seriously, but it also is rational to discount future threats appropriately.

BTW Keith Henson showed up in #virus, He is alive and well and living in the Mortmain Mountains. He mentioned that he originally brought up this thought experiment to demonstrate the failure of discount economics. The implication is that if you employ discount economics then you will likely accept the alien gift because the big cost (grey goo scenario) in 1000 years will be discounted to almost zero at normal discount rates (around 10%/year). Since Keith thinks this is obviously the wrong choice it indicates a problem with the methodology. I however believe that the decision is correct and there is nothing wrong with this methodology. The future is discounted precisely because it is uncertain and as Jake pointed out, a lot can happen in 1000 years.
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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #12 on: 2005-11-09 17:07:52 »
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Lucifer: I must agree with you re discounts, except that the discount rate is somewhat agressive given the hypothetical thousand year time line, but in much less time - quite probably fairly soon after mid 2007, all bets are likely to be nullified by the self-extinction of Homo Sapiens anyway. So maybe 10% is pretty generous. Of course, depending on how seriously we take the potential for species-wide self-immolation (accidental or deliberate), the more attractive a "lethal quick fix" but with the potential for another 1,000 odd years to live in comfort - and in which to try and find some better end to the story than dissolving into a sea of grey goo may appear. At least in comparison to an invitation to our own pre-mortem cremation - or whatever other cocktail of horrors we might choose to use to extinguish ourselves.

I can - and have - identified some reasons and underlying assumptions as to why saying yes to the hypothesized combination mend-all suicide pill technology might be seen to be sensible. My counter challenge is for the "naysayers" to attempt to identify (and attempt to support) the assumptions that they are using to decide that saying no is a good idea...

Regards

Hermit

PS For the statistics collectors among you, when clearing an account (with a largely unpublicized address) that I had not accessed since 2003, there were under 20 real mail items; and well in excess of 12,000 spam items waiting in it.

PPS I see that "ID" is now, legally speaking, "a theory" in the USA. Hilariously, the Catholics' objections to this are getting much more publicity e.g. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17162341-13762,00.html than are those of the scientific community. * Hermit goes to fetch a glass of Kool aid...

PPPS I'll comment on rebuilding New Orleans on a separate thread.
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RE: virus: The alien proposition
« Reply #13 on: 2005-11-09 14:58:18 »
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[Lucifer] Wouldn't the probability of doing better than the aliens be vastly
improved by accepting their gift? You can opt out of providing input into
the decision, but then you would just be letting others make the decision
for you. If you want to "do no harm" why would you choose disease over
health, war over peace, death over life?

[Blunderov1] It hadn't occurred to me that a work-around would be allowed.
(I've tried weaseling you before - with complete lack of success). I took
the experiment to stipulate that after 1000 years it was over for sure; a
done deal. 

Hermit feels that the opinions of the unborn are not relevant and I agree.
But I still feel that the living have every reason to hope for yet more
brilliant minds to come into being. More Mozarts, Einsteins, Da Vincis,
Feynmans etc may yet be born if we keep trying. (I think I'm still OK with
pro-choice here BTW, hope so anyway.)

With regard to "do no harm"; if I do not change a thing, I do not think it
can be properly said that I have harmed it, so to speak, by omission.
Certainly it is possible to lie by omission, and also to cause harm
therebye, so I may be on thin ice here. But to my mind 'harm' is more
usually thought of as something done deliberately which produces a change
for the worse. So, even if it is true that the people who died after a 1000
yrs had had the benefit of a much longer life than they might have otherwise
have had, my decision would,(if I had accepted the offer)on that final day,
harm them all.

So my position is (currently) that accepting the offer would amount to
causing both actual harm to people and would also harm the potential of
humanity.

Best Regards.








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Re:The alien proposition
« Reply #14 on: 2005-11-10 05:48:28 »
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