If you could take a treatment which granted you immortality and eliminated your aversion to death, would you?
More interestingly, what would you think afterward of those who desired to do the same?
What if two classes of people resulted. What would they think of each other?
How long would you end up living?
Can we post the sequences on a thousand blogs marketed a thousand different ways (some for housewives, or for business people, or for students, or for political science, or common people of common sense, hobbyists, etcetera) to produce a more rapid dissemination of the ideas, and the unification of people (in one important way, anyway) of diverse backgrounds?
Communal Creativity. What if we organized schools, or any series of organizations, to compete against each other in the production of say, a piece of music? Suppose each student desirous to do so could see an intuitive graphical representation of each part of the music as it was played back, and could indicate by easily-learned controls how to alter whatever they desired to. Then each suggested change would be played to the student body, and be enacted according to a market system based on votes.
The piece would morph in time until each aspect of it had the approval of a majority of the participants.
Then the piece would be submitted for competition against the finished products of other schools. Fame and fun might exist as natural motivators, and money might be offered as well, and distributed according to a measurement of involvement in the creation of the piece, with varying weights on different activities, and the whole system subject to a market so as to match value to investment.
Could this provide for good music?
Or good education?
Or, dare I utter it, both?
#1 sounds like it might be an interesting question, but I’m not sure I understand it. A large part of my “aversion to death” is simply the fact that I have things I want to do in the future. Is this hypothetical treatment meant to get rid of that? (Surely not, right?) If not, what exactly is being eliminated? Just some visceral reaction of horror at the thought of death? What about aversion to other people’s deaths?
(My immediate reaction: Yes, of course I would take it; whyever wouldn’t I?)
#2 sounds rather culty, but in any case I doubt it would work. If you want a “rationality for housewives[1]” series, I think you need to write one; the LW “Sequences” are written for a particular kind of audience and I don’t think its intersection with housewives is very large.
[1] I’m not sure “housewives” is the best term, unless you really want to exclude any men who happen to be filling that role. Homemakers?
With #3, don’t you think the evolutionary process would be impractically slow?
Can we post the sequences on a thousand blogs marketed a thousand different ways (some for housewives, or for business people, or for students, or for political science, or common people of common sense, hobbyists, etcetera)
If you’d rewrite it for each audience, that would be great! Otherwise it would feel like spam.
If you could take a treatment which granted you immortality and eliminated your aversion to death, would you? More interestingly, what would you think afterward of those who desired to do the same? What if two classes of people resulted. What would they think of each other? How long would you end up living?
Can we post the sequences on a thousand blogs marketed a thousand different ways (some for housewives, or for business people, or for students, or for political science, or common people of common sense, hobbyists, etcetera) to produce a more rapid dissemination of the ideas, and the unification of people (in one important way, anyway) of diverse backgrounds?
Communal Creativity. What if we organized schools, or any series of organizations, to compete against each other in the production of say, a piece of music? Suppose each student desirous to do so could see an intuitive graphical representation of each part of the music as it was played back, and could indicate by easily-learned controls how to alter whatever they desired to. Then each suggested change would be played to the student body, and be enacted according to a market system based on votes. The piece would morph in time until each aspect of it had the approval of a majority of the participants.
Then the piece would be submitted for competition against the finished products of other schools. Fame and fun might exist as natural motivators, and money might be offered as well, and distributed according to a measurement of involvement in the creation of the piece, with varying weights on different activities, and the whole system subject to a market so as to match value to investment.
Could this provide for good music? Or good education? Or, dare I utter it, both?
#1 sounds like it might be an interesting question, but I’m not sure I understand it. A large part of my “aversion to death” is simply the fact that I have things I want to do in the future. Is this hypothetical treatment meant to get rid of that? (Surely not, right?) If not, what exactly is being eliminated? Just some visceral reaction of horror at the thought of death? What about aversion to other people’s deaths?
(My immediate reaction: Yes, of course I would take it; whyever wouldn’t I?)
#2 sounds rather culty, but in any case I doubt it would work. If you want a “rationality for housewives[1]” series, I think you need to write one; the LW “Sequences” are written for a particular kind of audience and I don’t think its intersection with housewives is very large.
[1] I’m not sure “housewives” is the best term, unless you really want to exclude any men who happen to be filling that role. Homemakers?
With #3, don’t you think the evolutionary process would be impractically slow?
If you’d rewrite it for each audience, that would be great! Otherwise it would feel like spam.