Hey, if NBC can run a show called "the Best of Chris Katan" the week before the season premier of Saturday Night Live, I can definitely get away with this.
I've been Speaking of the Future with some of the most fascinating people in the world for two months now. Here are a few highlights from those discussions.
What's your response to those who claim that finding a cure for aging is in some way irresponsible or immoral? A number of years ago, the former governor of my home state of Colorado, a fellow by the name of Dick Lamm, made a speech that was to haunt the remainder of his political career. In it, he told his audience that "We have a duty to die" in order to get out of the way, make room for the coming generations, not use more than our share of resources, and so forth. He was talking primarily about heroic lifesaving efforts such as keeping an individual who has had a massive stroke on life support, spending resources and effort on prolonging their life even when there is little or no chance of recovery. His words were widely misquoted as "You have a duty to die," and he became something of a pariah, especially among seniors who didn't take kindly to being told that they should drop dead for the benefit of the kids. But I wonder if there isn't a notion of a "duty to die" lurking in the background of various green movements or in the sustainable growth meme.
I think there probably is, yes. But the deeper question is, why do people find that sort of thinking attractive? I think the only reason is denial: people know they can't escape aging, so they find ways to convince themselves that it's okay not to escape it. When people cease to "know" that aging is inevitable, this whole way of thinking will vanish overnight. As for my response to such people, well, my favorite one is to ask exactly what age the person thinks is the optimal life expectancy for humans, and why that age is better than ten years longer. I've never heard good replies to that one. A similar question is whether the person approves or disapproves of research to delay the age at which people get heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer's etc. When they realize that therapies which do that will also, inexorably, extend lifespan, they have to propose that there's some age of onset of those diseases beyond which it ceases to be a good idea to delay them further.
So when do you think the big bang will get here?
We are living in the big bang right now. 1.3 billion mobile phone users and 660 million Internet users, vs. 750 million cars, trucks and buses. The digital big bang is the most important experience of this era in human history, though it will take a future Alvin Toffler or Edward Gibbons to point it out in manner that most educated people will understand. Only, by then, the definition of 'educated person' will have gone from millions of people to billions of people! What a fun, complex world that will be to live in.
How about permanent settlement elsewhere in the solar system? And where you think that would be?
Well, you could establish a settlement on the Moon, but it wouldn't be anywhere near as self-sufficient as one on Mars.
Because of the lack of resources there?
Yes. And then similarly in the near asteroids, and eventually the main-belt asteroids. Mars is not the final destination, but it is the direction. It's where we establish our first new branch of humanity in space as a space-faring species. And if we do it, that in itself will develop our capabilities. The first people that go to Mars are going to go in chemically propelled spacecraft. They're going to make the passage in cramped and uncomfortable quarters. The grandchildren of the first Martian immigrants will find it difficult to credit the story that their grandparents tell about how long it took. Because they'll be traveling in fusion-powered spacecraft which can do it in three weeks in great comfort.
Once there is a branch of human civilization on Mars, we have the incentive to develop more of the technologies that will allow us to make the transit routine. Columbus fared the Atlantic in ships that even a generation later no one would have attempted to the Atlantic in. Because until there was transatlantic transportation, there was no need to develop transatlantic-capable ships. But after Columbus came a trans-oceanic civilization and your three-masted sailing ships, your clipper ships, your steamers, your ocean liners, your Boeing 747’s all followed in turn. But the same technology that makes the transfer to Mars routine, will also make it possible for more daring people to take much greater steps. If you can get to Mars in three weeks, you can get to the Moons of Saturn in a few months. Perhaps even attempt interstellar voyages within a few decades.
The present is the future relative to the past. What's the best thing about living in the future?
I like chatting with people online.
What's the biggest disappointment?
I do not know what biggest disappointment is. Alright. What drugs do you take?
While Aubrey de Grey talks about adding a few centuries to his life so that he can get caught up on his reading, enjoy more time with his loved ones, and perhaps get in a few more games of Othello, Eliezer Yudkowsky is busy working out an advanced Theory of Fun that will allow us to find pleasure in a life that spans millions or possibly even billions of years. What is your take on the question of whether boredom will eventually kick in if we live indefinitely? Is there an escape clause somewhere in your organization’s repudiation of involuntary death?
Given complete control over the structure and function of our own minds, I can easily imagine a scenario where boredom gets wiped out, never to return again. The question is whether this would be the “philosophically acceptable” thing to do or not. In “Singularity Fun Theory”, Eliezer Yudkowsky argues that “Fun Space” probably increases exponentially with a linear increase in intelligence, and I’d tend to agree. So we wouldn’t have to turn ourselves into excited freaks in order to have an unlimited amount of fun. Superintelligence, nanotechnology, and uploading should produce enough interesting experiences to keep many of us enjoying ourselves forever, and there are probably millions or billions of new technologies and experiences in store for us once we acquire the intelligence to invent and implement them. It’s hard for us to say anything really specific about the nature of these technologies at the moment – that would be sort of like a fish in the Cambrian era trying to predict what human beings would do for fun. One thing is for sure; we’re eventually going to need to become more than human in order to enjoy all that reality has to offer.
If someone visited you from the future, what would you want them to say was the best thing you did to affect their lives, what was the worst thing and what would they wish you had done?
That’s a tough one. I think I would want them to say that the best thing that I’ve done is to imagine a bright future, share that vision with others, and try to make it happen. The worst thing is that I’ve waited so long before seriously trying to do it. I can’t say what they would wish I had done. One of the great tricks to life is trying to figure out what you’re doing now that later you’ll wish you hadn’t done, what you’re not doing that you’ll wish you had done, and what you’re doing that you’ll wish you had done differently. I haven’t entirely mastered this trick, but I’m working on it.
Over the next few weeks, we'll be publishing (among others) interviews with the John Smart of the Institute for Accelerating Change, filmmaker Nina Paley, and Foresight Institute president Christine Peterson. So stay tuned.
Posted by Phil at October 2, 2003 05:46 AM | TrackBack