rwallace comments on "Ray Kurzweil and Uploading: Just Say No!", Nick Agar - Less Wrong

4 Post author: gwern 02 December 2011 09:42PM

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Comment author: rwallace 03 December 2011 05:46:05PM 0 points [-]

There is kidnapping for interrogation, slavery and torture today, so there is no reason to believe there won't be such in the future. But I don't believe it will make sense in the future to commit suicide at the mere thought, any more than it does today.

As for whether such a society will exist, I think it's possible it may. It's possible there may come a day when people don't have to die. And there is a better chance of that happening if we refrain from poisoning our minds with scare stories optimized for appeal to primate brains over correspondence to external reality.

Comment author: gwern 04 December 2011 09:10:11AM 0 points [-]

But I don't believe it will make sense in the future to commit suicide at the mere thought, any more than it does today.

At least, not unless you are an upload and your suicide trigger is the equivalent of those tripwires that burn the contents of the safe.