CarlShulman comments on Non-Malthusian Scenarios - Less Wrong

13 Post author: Wei_Dai 26 September 2009 02:44AM

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Comment author: Wei_Dai 26 September 2009 09:02:24AM 1 point [-]

Future intelligences may demarcate identity in such a way that the members of the 'proletariat' are just components of 'capita,' without independent desires.

So in this scenario, a "capita" would be like a hive mind? Interesting, but what prevents such "individuals" from being driven to a subsistence standard of living by Malthusian dynamics operating at this higher level of organization?

Or labor might be done by independent systems that we would not classify as capita for other reasons, e.g. the workforce of Bostrom's "uninhabited society" in his Future of Human Evolution paper.

This one seems to be covered by the "Non-Human Capital" scenario.

Comment author: CarlShulman 26 September 2009 03:22:06PM 0 points [-]

Operating at a higher level of organization means that the fitness hit for a given level of per capita wealth is less, so that selection will be less intense, so that, e.g. a less extreme military technology situation can sustain a high per capita wealth..