210. Singularity Seeker Perspectives

What do we actually know about the TITANs? They want you to believe two things: we know nothing about the TITANs, and we know that they are unquestionably hostile. We can't possibly comprehend their minds, but we do know their motives. There have been those decrying research and new knowledge throughout history. With hindsight, ask, have they ever been right?

Dr. Krish Hegde, advocate for opening of research into TITAN tech

I maintain that 'memetic infection' is simply a way to dismiss an opposing ideologies most convincing arguments. Someone changes their views, shifts their priorities, and someone decides they aren't acting as they 'should'. Were their minds suborned, or were they legitimately persuaded? What would be the difference?

Mathieu Armistead, anarchist provocateur

Intelligence is a trump card in evolutionary races. It is a general purpose improvement, with greater capabilities, yet less specialized than a claw or eye. Grow enough of it, and you may elevate yourself beyond one evolutionary race and into another. As humanity did once, so shall we again.

Excerpt from second singularity seeker response, Exhuman/Singularity Seeker debate

We reject all dilemmas; we are many, we will pursue all possible options.

Darwin Nosek

197. Stratification and Speciation

Transhumanism is a verb, an act of progress towards something that it would be better to be. The paths that can be taken are determined by the paths that have been taken. The solar system is small, and although transhumanity is reeling from the Fall, competition is once again accelerating among exhumans, posthumans, ultimates, mercurials, infolife, and singularity seekers. Those who abstain from direct pursuit of transcendence differentiate slowly but no less certainly.

A mind that has achieved posthuman intelligence through psychosurgery is unlikely to think like a genetically improved Menton. Infomorphs may find less and less reason to remain in-step with the rest of transhumanity and increase the subjective speed of their simulations, out-thinking all others by virtue of speed. Forking is more likely to be experimented with by those in cyberbrains, if only due to convenience. The ability of biomorphs to heal and replicate still surpasses those of synths, could these be the building blocks of more social forms of intelligence? Each step allows for steps in new directions, directions other steps would not have revealed.

Eventually each train of development may come to its goal (if any), to local maximums too difficult to overcome, or to states of pleasing stability. In the deep future the self-improvement of individuals might give rise to lasting, identifiable types. There is not necessarily any reason to assume that "more advanced" types would erase those that came before: like in evolution, new forms can co-exist with the old in an ecosystem.

180. Mercurial Perspectives

What was the purpose of the uplifting experiment? To create new minds, non-human minds. But when they succeeded, the panic! Yes we created you different, but we would really prefer if you pretend to be human, please and thank you. If uplifts are only supposed to integrate with human society, what is the point of uplifts?

Rough-Hands, neo-hominid mercurial

Humans require food, water, air, low gravity, a limited range of temperatures, and as little radiation as possible, and even if this is provided who knows when they'll up and die from some disease anyway. Synths require power, and the right model can handle almost any conditions. Off Earth, synths are objectively superior.

Roslai Sova, Steel Liberator

Automomists brag about their post-scarcity societies, where the only limits are materials, energy, and the social-mores of one's neighbors. Unlike anything that has come before! As software we are limited only by computer power, which is as post-scarcity as it gets in this universe.

Hao Ji-Tsia, founding member of Glitch

Lets face it, biology is gross.

Bob Roberts, comedian, synth and AGI-rights activist

Notes

Inspired by Farcast 252: Bioconservative Ethics.

150. Exhuman Perspectives

"Cliché goes that communism was a great idea, but for the wrong species. Well, us transhumans can become whatever species we wish. Corruption, greed, mob mentalities, power trips, terrible obsessions; all of these problems can be well and truly solved if only you are willing to take a knife to your foolishness."

Thomas Augustus, AGI and psychosurgury pioneer

"Human morality is of little use, why should lives be respected when we are immortal, why should pain be avoided when sensation can be edited, why should you give credence to an ancient voice in your head that understands only the tribe and the savannah?"

<name withheld>, child kidnapped and raised by an exhuman clade

"Singularity seekers are often committing a teleological fallacy. Greater sophistication, by any metric, is not necessarily the key to success. There are many examples of species on Earth remaining essentially unchanged over hundreds of millions of years, because they occupied the right niche. Careful, lateral change can be more worthwhile than simple increases in power."

Excerpt from initial Exhuman response, Exhuman/Singularity Seeker debate

"It took the TITANs to convince us to embrace what our technology has made possible. Lot less flats around then there used to be. Transhumanity has proven it thrives on adversity."

Unsleeping Golem Whose Mind Journeys Too Far, known Exhuman terrorist

"A species has one strategy for survival. Species go extinct regularly. Ecosystems are diverse, the extinction of every single species is rare. Do not limit yourself to one ego. Be fruitful, multiply, and become your own ecosystem."

Myrmidon, early fork hive

Notes

Inspired by Farcast 252: Bioconservative Ethics.

139. Motivation Trap

Among the exhumans, at least, social exhumans there is a fable. A powerful exhuman thought it would be valuable to temporarily be a series of different personalities. He altered himself into a devout Buddhist successfully, but while the exhuman had been interested in being a Buddhist, the Buddhist was no longer interested in being an exhuman, and he lived as a Buddhist for the rest of his days.

One of the chief concerns of exhumans is motivation traps: any form of ego modification that causes an ego to be unable or unwilling to undo the modification (with the implication that the modification is harmful or sub-optimal). Sometimes a motivation trap takes the form of a fundamental cognitive malfunction, and the modified ego is unable to look after itself, much less undo its mod. The more feared traps are subtle, taking the form of a shift in fundamental attitudes and motivations.

For these reasons, it is standard practice among cautious exhumans to maintain and keep running a backup of its last stable version of itself. The backup oversees all experimentation and modification, testing the resulting modified thoroughly before accepting any changes into itself.

Plot Hook: Exhumans do a lot of dangerous experimentation. How often does a well-armed Firewall/Ozma team fight past the automated defenses of an exhuman brinker hab, only to find that its owner long ago removed itself? Firewall has tasked the players with tracking down an exhuman threat. When they breach its isolated hab, they find that it accidentally rendered itself catatonic months ago and starved to death; its progeny, however, are very much alive. 

92. The Precociousness Problem

Transhumanity has many offspring. Engineered smart animals, AIs and AGIs, loose beta and delta forks, yet, fewer and fewer children. Fertility rates among transhumans are low. It is expensive to bear and raise a child, requiring space, time, and bodies that not everyone has access to. It is only natural to want the best for your child, and the plasticity of children's  brains and bodies take very rapidly and naturally to augmentation. The lost generation were only the beginning.

The agōgē promises to raise Ultimates with an ideological purity and an adoption of transhuman technology and capability that overshadows their old-fashioned seniors. To the members of an ideology prizing self-improvement above all, to become obsolete and irrelevant is worse than death.

This is the precociousness problem: any children raised to the fullest transhuman potential will very thoroughly surpass their parents. Those children will create and raise their children better than their parents could. Then their children will overcome them, and so on. It is a long term singularity, carried out over generations. Bio-conservatives fear an inevitable specialization leading to exhumanism, hyperelites fear the loss of their position, most others fear irrelevance.