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MaxChaplin t1_j3mnikf wrote

Reply to comment by Excellent_Fig3662 in The intersubjectivity collapse: a collapse of the network of unspoken rules that hold civilization together based on the subjectivity of minds that have created it, due to introduction of vastly new minds that lead to unpredictability of agents amongst each other. by Gmroo

"Disregard dangers from technologies that do not yet exist" is a heuristic with a rather poor track record, when you consider the costs and benefits. In particular, anyone who followed it in 1930 would have told you that bombs strong enough to pose an existential risk to humanity are impossible. And indeed, at that time it wasn't obvious they aren't.

You can't be confident that the technologies of the following century won't redefine the meaning of being a person, and a century is not much by historical timescales. Even if there's only a 5% chance, it's something worth preparing for.

(The army of clones comes from Robin Hanson's Age of Em, by the way)

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Excellent_Fig3662 t1_j3mr0xv wrote

Sure, but you’re still engaged in science fiction as an escapism from the real world. The more important question you should be asking yourself is why your psychology is drawn to this? That’s all I have to say.

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MaxChaplin t1_j3mwux3 wrote

Why? Because I'm a progressive. I want to stay on the pulse of social progress, which means not waiting for society to force me to adapt. New society-shaping technologies will almost certainly appear and will force us to reexamine our values. Those who refuse to do so are doomed to become conservatives.

Science fiction (and fiction in general) has always been a useful tool for social progress. The hypothetical scenarios allow readers to stress-test their beliefs and moral instincts, and to resolve internal contradictions that familiar real world scenarios couldn't.

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