orthonormal comments on Non-Malthusian Scenarios - Less Wrong

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

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Comments (88)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: orthonormal 27 September 2009 02:56:21AM *  1 point [-]

The only two that seem to have a chance of avoiding Hansonian scenarios in the very long term, IMO, are the "unlimited economic growth is possible" scenario (which requires us to be wrong about physics, AFAICT) or a very powerful and far-thinking singleton. The selection for expansion is an incredibly strong optimization process, and it could only be kept in check by a stronger optimization process with a goal of keeping it in check. But that's not a priori impossible, nor an especially unlikely subgoal for (say) a FAI.