I would point out that the scenario I was writing about was clearly one in which ems are common and em society is stable. If you think that in such a society, there won’t be em kidnapping or hacking, for interrogation, slavery, or torture, you hold very different views from mine indeed. (If you think such a society won’t exist, that’s another thing entirely.)
I think such a society won’t exist. I think that much war and conflict in general can be reduced to unmet human needs. Those needs could be physical (land, oil, money) or emotional/ideological (theism, patriotism, other forms of irrationality). However, I think that if uploads were to happen, then we would be able to solve the other problems. Wouldn’t uploading imply the end of psychological disturbance? You wouldn’t need to resort to chemical altering of the brain. You could do it digitally. There would be no physical limitations on how you alter the data in your uploaded mind, whereas there are limitations as to chemically altering your mind today. No longer would you need to go on vacation, or buy videogames. You could just go to a virtual reality.
Even if the things I predict don’t happen (I use them more as examples than as predictions), the point is that trying to imagine the specific psychology of an upload is more speculative than new age metaphysics. However, I think that as far as we’re concerned, we can make extremely vague predictions like generally good (above) , or generally bad (kidnapping, hijacks, torture). Since generally bad things are generally do to psychological disturbance or lack of resources, my bet is on generally good.
There is kidnapping for interrogation, slavery and torture today, so there is no reason to believe there won’t be such in the future. But I don’t believe it will make sense in the future to commit suicide at the mere thought, any more than it does today.
As for whether such a society will exist, I think it’s possible it may. It’s possible there may come a day when people don’t have to die. And there is a better chance of that happening if we refrain from poisoning our minds with scare stories optimized for appeal to primate brains over correspondence to external reality.
I would point out that the scenario I was writing about was clearly one in which ems are common and em society is stable. If you think that in such a society, there won’t be em kidnapping or hacking, for interrogation, slavery, or torture, you hold very different views from mine indeed. (If you think such a society won’t exist, that’s another thing entirely.)
As a human, you can only die once.
I think such a society won’t exist. I think that much war and conflict in general can be reduced to unmet human needs. Those needs could be physical (land, oil, money) or emotional/ideological (theism, patriotism, other forms of irrationality). However, I think that if uploads were to happen, then we would be able to solve the other problems. Wouldn’t uploading imply the end of psychological disturbance? You wouldn’t need to resort to chemical altering of the brain. You could do it digitally. There would be no physical limitations on how you alter the data in your uploaded mind, whereas there are limitations as to chemically altering your mind today. No longer would you need to go on vacation, or buy videogames. You could just go to a virtual reality.
Even if the things I predict don’t happen (I use them more as examples than as predictions), the point is that trying to imagine the specific psychology of an upload is more speculative than new age metaphysics. However, I think that as far as we’re concerned, we can make extremely vague predictions like generally good (above) , or generally bad (kidnapping, hijacks, torture). Since generally bad things are generally do to psychological disturbance or lack of resources, my bet is on generally good.
There is kidnapping for interrogation, slavery and torture today, so there is no reason to believe there won’t be such in the future. But I don’t believe it will make sense in the future to commit suicide at the mere thought, any more than it does today.
As for whether such a society will exist, I think it’s possible it may. It’s possible there may come a day when people don’t have to die. And there is a better chance of that happening if we refrain from poisoning our minds with scare stories optimized for appeal to primate brains over correspondence to external reality.
At least, not unless you are an upload and your suicide trigger is the equivalent of those tripwires that burn the contents of the safe.