tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post6460873563844532339..comments2024-03-28T00:25:53.266-07:00Comments on A Cosmist Manifesto: How Should Society Be Structured?Ben Goertzelhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01289041122724284772noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post-28822189712848302172010-03-09T20:51:06.425-08:002010-03-09T20:51:06.425-08:00The FDA forced William Dobelle to move his lab to ...The FDA forced William Dobelle to move his lab to Portugal. THE MAN HAD PARTIALLY CURED BLINDNESS WITH VIDEO INPUTS INTO THE BRAIN. The FDA cost him millions of dollars and several years of lost productivity. He worked to his death in 2004, from diabetes, (ironically, the FDA also caused that disease's persistence, when Donald Rumsfeld, acting as CEO of Nutrasweet Co., lobbied the FDA in 1984 to disallow the use of Stevia as a natural sweetener with the "Generally Recognized As Safe" designation. This meant that it could not be used as an ingredient by food companies).<br /><br />So the FDA violated William Dobelle's rights, and his patients' rights, and ultimately physically slowed him down and murdered him. They did this with stolen money, acting in the name of cosmists and their other serfs. Is there a cosmist in the audience who sees a problem with the "cosmists = serfs" equation? How is it that the thugs in government get to have a say about who performs research, and how much money they get?<br /><br />Are the AI researchers of today that dependent on government for their funding that they are easily purchased? Are we living in a technocracy run by those smart enough to innovate, yet servile enough to beg the government to steal on their behalf?<br /><br />I see no reason why an artilect would be similarly bound by the rule of primates. Hopefully, if that artilect is a cyborg with a human past, it quickly learns what Harry Browne knew, and John Ross knows.<br /><br />I say this as one of the serfs, forced at gunpoint to use FRNs for every transaction I engage in, thereby forced to legitimize the fleecing of my fellow man with every transaction, forced to add value to the massive theft of money stolen from legitimate voluntary pursuits, forced to subsidize the un-American police state. Without government, I am confident that a benevolent singularity would already have happened (if it has not already).Jake Witmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09770905367613837798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post-23976589365263081452010-03-09T20:50:47.955-08:002010-03-09T20:50:47.955-08:00"The ancient Greeks achieved democracy's ..."The ancient Greeks achieved democracy's practical preconditions via slavery."<br />You might want to take a look at:<br />http://www.democracydefined.org<br />and then note that the first appearance of the jury (the primary meaningful check on government power that is 'built into the system') was in the Greek polis, 760 AD.<br /><br />Basically, the system that allows for the most change is the right system, because the past won't look like the future. (Soviet Russia and China didn't allow change, they operated on a hide-bound view that society is static. Innovation was de facto outlawed. The same is true for all statist societies.) No system that disallows innovators control over the molecules they need to innovate allows change/choice. No system that disallows innovators control over the financial/bargaining resources they need to innovate allows change/choice. No system that disallows the freedom to communicate to the open source market of ideas simultaneously allows innovators the exchange and modification of ideas they need to innovate and change society. No system that disallows experimentation on volunteering humans allows for transhumanism, extropianism, and cosmism. (Our current governments retard the option of cyborg advancement out of stupid religious fear. Ironically, that retardation of advancement simply makes us less competitive in that realm, making it more likely that another nation will advance more quickly, and initiate military attack on us, when the advantages of cyborg modification become quickly and fully realized. Keep in mind that cyborgs would have functional sex organs, sex drives, and therefore the drive to compete over limited resources of their own choosing. Possibly, these cyborg artilects would not be able to be purchased by their governments. Possibly, they would not be willing to engage in conflict. Possibly, they would understand and agree with everything I've written here. Possibly not.)<br /><br />With that in mind, do we have a moral obligation --to ourselves and others-- to remove the chains from ourselves? I think so.Jake Witmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09770905367613837798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post-87318528226556902432010-03-09T04:46:08.384-08:002010-03-09T04:46:08.384-08:00In case you're more at ease on the phone, than...In case you're more at ease on the phone, than in writing, my cell is 907.250.5503Jake Witmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09770905367613837798noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7518333375761044512.post-78672786224492928802010-03-09T04:43:15.537-08:002010-03-09T04:43:15.537-08:00http://www.voluntaryist.com
http://www.hawaii.edu/...http://www.voluntaryist.com<br />http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills<br /><br />Both of the prior links are libertarian, but the first one is anarchist, whereas the second one makes use of a government held in check by strong decentralization of power (free + open + verifiable elections, jury trials, private gun + weapons system ownership). In an email with the author of the second site (Prof. Rudy J Rummel) he confirmed that he supported jury nullification of law. http://www.fija.org and http://www.jurorsforjustice.com and http://www.isil.org/resources/lit/history-jury-null.html<br /><br />Going deeper, we find that a legal structure limiting government power is very important, as in voluntaryist innovator Marc Stevens' "Adventures in Legal Land". I also recommend pop philosopher Stefan Molyneux, especially for his accurate video/view objectively regarding governments as "central-bank owned farms" and voters as "human livestock".<br /><br />Not sure if you're familiar with http://www.freedom-force.org , but I view that site as a good "umbrella" organization that tries to get freedom movements to work together. Also good for this purpose is http://www.isil.org<br /><br />In short, society must outlaw theft (the initiation of force), and allow natural distributions of wealth, in order for rebellion or "revolutions in thinking" to be peaceful. Cosmism need not toy with human extinction, if our system has changed from the extreme hypocrisy and universal lying as a cover for the coercion it now exhibits. To be a nazi and say you're a freedom lover invites destruction or cautious noninvolvement, even for the most tolerant worldview. Either would be very bad for humanity.<br /><br />My views are close to Peter Voss's views, but more pessimistic in some regards, and possible more optimistic in others.<br />http://www.optimal.org<br /><br />At first I had the same second-guessing of cosmism that it appears you did. Extropian also seems to encompass much of cosmism. I imagine that the breakdown is much the same. (Cosmists/extropians/transhumanists...)<br /><br />Only voluntaryism really allows emerging artilects to avoid conflict of some kind with humans. (Voluntaryism recognizes the full rights of AGIs, and does not attempt to steal from them or their parents)<br /><br />I expect that you will find that scarcity is a non-issue, next to the human problems of near omnipresent jealousy and theft. I invite you to sit in on a court battle with me sometime, or perhaps visit me in prison, if the government responds to me the way they did to Frank Turney (who was jailed in Alaska for speaking about "jury nullification of law" in public).<br /><br />Peace.Jake Witmerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09770905367613837798noreply@blogger.com