You don’t seem to provide a USP (unique selling point) that would give a random interested individual much reason to join it over the 100s of other larger blogs, forums, etc., discussing such topics.
Creating some sort of portal that allowed access to a wide range of topics related to futorology, rationality, solutions toward a better future, strong AI, philosophy, etc., would be a huge boon and if you could put that together, I believe it would be a massive step forward.
Incidentally, I am a web developer and if anyone is interested in helping out with the project (it’s just a concept at this stage, although very practical), I’d love to hear from you :)
A lot of the discussion in both the original post and the comments seems to be stuck in ’21st century’ (present day social) mindsets.
Firstly, the idea of there being only one or two societies for people to participate in seems highly unlikely in a simulation environment. Computation of the mind is much more complex than computation of the environment, meaning it’s difficult to foresee a reason why engineers in charge of the ‘sim’ would limit the number of environments to anything less than whatever the individuals decide to dream up.
Of course it’s likely that over time certain environments (IE ‘planets’ or ‘spaceships’ or whatever scenery/location/laws of physics) will be appealing to a large number of people, leading them to become much more popular and almost like a ‘real life’ for members who spend much of their life there.
Assuming that two of the most popular of these environments were ‘telepath’ and ‘non-telepath’ mirrored versions of reality, then it’s true that many members would spend time deciding which of these societies to spend time with.
This decision is much less finalistic than earth decisions, however. If a person get’s sick of one of these, they could, presumably switch into the other environment with very little effort.
I believe you would see a bit of a split between those who enjoy the more ‘primitive’ enjoyments in life, who would choose to go with non-telepath, and those with a more spiritual/philosophical interest who would be more likely to start on the telepath route.
Sports, competition, games, sex, many other recreational activities are, one would imagine, more fun in a non-telepath environment. However, I couldn’t imagine the incredible rush of knowledge, wisdom and compassion that would come with being able to hear everyone’s thoughts.
To a degree, one could assume a telepath society to be calm, happy, esoteric, and relatively laid back. Since everyone has dark secrets and nasty character flaws, only those with enough courage to lay bare their darkest secrets, and enough wisdom not to judge others would be able to enjoy a true uncensored mental link with someone else.
There is a middle ground, however, that I believe is most likely.
In a simulation environment:
instant travel is trivial
there is virtually unlimited resources
any idea or concept, whether social or political, etc., will ultimately stand or fall on the merits of how many fellow players want to experience a reality where your idea is implemented in some way. I’m sure some Neo-Nazi player might try to create a fourth reich, and no doubt it would be a beautiful imitation of 1930s Germany, but it’s hard to imagine that many players excited to join him in his new Nazi Germany locale, as free as he is to create and promote it.
One could easily imagine a scenario where the most popular ‘reality’ would be something like:
Clone of real earth except:
positive thoughts are broadcast, negative or embarrassing ones are not. (presumably trivial to a computer that can simulate a planet and billions of minds)
there are numerous large land masses where people can build their own cities and businesses instantly accessible by anyone.
due to unlimited resources, lots of different venues exist, each with different ‘rules’ (ie program state) in regards to telepathy.