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Wild Ideas

hanson.gmu.edu

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Re: Wild Ideas

#21

Post by ricardobeat »

snitko wrote: post #11

The author is obviously some kind of crazy anarchist. Private law system? You mean that all of a sudden people would become customers of multiple legal firms instead of subjects of one big system and will be able to choose laws they like while at the same time not interfering directly with others who chose different laws? You mean that all of a sudden majority would lose its power to dictate minorities how to live th…

It's called Polycentric Law[1] and people who actually think it's a good idea seem to exist in larger than zero quantities.

See this entertaining thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5009244

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law

Re: Wild Ideas

#22

Post by wikiburner »

clamprecht wrote: post #5

I have a "science-fictiony" idea that I haven't seen anywhere else yet. The idea is this: If we can see light from planets thousands of light years away, then we can see the past. Once our telescopes are good enough to basically do a "google maps" zoom-in on other planets, we will be able to watche the past on other planets. But then, if we can ever watch our own Earth from a thousand light years away, then we can se…

Here's an even crazier version: we develop a quantum computer the size of Jupiter with seemingly infinite computational capacity, and "scan" and simulate the earth. Similar to how a sufficiently advanced AI application today could probably take an overview picture of a pool table at any point in a game, and deduce the past shots that had to be taken in order for it to result in it's current state, you might be able to develop a virtual time machine.

Re: Wild Ideas

#23

Post by derefr »

sytelus wrote: post #15

Yes, wild ideas except for the "2100" part. The scientific and engineering breakthroughs have been slowing down dramatically in past 50 years or so. Science fiction from 60s and 70s is embarrassingly filled with predictions such as we would have colonies in space, computers indistinguishable from humans, flying cars on street, humankind without poverty and end of cancer by 2020. How close are we? If we go back in tim…

The scientific institution has stopped really paying that much attention to space (or computation, in relative terms), and has started paying attention to biotech and materials science instead. Not a one of those science-fiction authors thought to suggest "get your DNA sequenced for $100" in their wildest flights of fancy.

Also,

> search is still keywords in a textbox

what else would you suggest? The "hard problem" part of search now doesn't seem to be anything to do with indexing information usefully, but rather getting people to be able to clearly communicate (and before even that, clearly decide) what they're looking for.

Re: Wild Ideas

#24

Post by sthatipamala »

sytelus wrote: post #15

Yes, wild ideas except for the "2100" part. The scientific and engineering breakthroughs have been slowing down dramatically in past 50 years or so. Science fiction from 60s and 70s is embarrassingly filled with predictions such as we would have colonies in space, computers indistinguishable from humans, flying cars on street, humankind without poverty and end of cancer by 2020. How close are we? If we go back in tim…

You're also downplaying the creation of a global communications infrastructure that is nearly ubiquitous and unprecedented in its capacity.

Other than that, no progress at all. /s

Re: Wild Ideas

#25

Post by ivanbrussik »

the scariest part of us living in a simulated environment is what happens when the players get bored and decide to turn us off (that thought might have been controlled by one of the players)

Re: Wild Ideas

#26

Post by eru »

ricardobeat wrote: post #21
snitko wrote: post #11

The author is obviously some kind of crazy anarchist. Private law system? You mean that all of a sudden people would become customers of multiple legal firms instead of subjects of one big system and will be able to choose laws they like while at the same time not interfering directly with others who chose different laws? You mean that all of a sudden majority would lose its power to dictate minorities how to live th…

It's called Polycentric Law[1] and people who actually think it's a good idea seem to exist in larger than zero quantities. See this entertaining thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5009244 [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law

snitko actually approves, I guess.

Re: Wild Ideas

#27

Post by IvyMike »

bumbledraven wrote: post #19

1. Many times each day, your mind permanently splits into different versions that live in different worlds. True. 2. If medicine were taxed so much that people only bought half as much, they would be just as healthy. False. The "extra" spending in medicine drives innovations so we have better drugs & procedures etc. than we would otherwise. 3. If we keep writing down common sense datums until 2100, we can make comput…

> False - to run simulate sentient beings with so much suffering would be cruel.

I see you've never searched youtube for "The Sims".

Re: Wild Ideas

#28

Post by derefr »

snitko wrote: post #20
wikiburner wrote: post #17

Soul Extraction - Assuming that there is a technological singularity at some point in the future, and assuming that time travel is possible[1], but that we've seen no evidence of it because it must be mostly observational in nature in order to prevent disruptions that would create time paradoxes, humanity adopts the practice of extracting the brain/nervous systems (and then replacing w/ equivalent matter) of every hu…

Extracting all info out of the brains would be impractical. A lot of the things humans do we do because we are humans. Our emotions only make sense because they are mechanisms of survival and passing our genes. They would be quite impractical in a singularity (although, some other emotions, specific to the digital world, may be employed). So in a sense, I can only see one force in a post-singularity utopia, driving p…

All of the things humans do, we do because we are humans. There is no "natural set of universal goals for sentient beings"; we simply like what evolution has made us like. Changing (and especially removing) our terminal goals is the same as creating a new species with no relation to us. Why would we want to do that?

Re: Wild Ideas

#29

Post by unimpressive »

snitko wrote: post #11

The author is obviously some kind of crazy anarchist. Private law system? You mean that all of a sudden people would become customers of multiple legal firms instead of subjects of one big system and will be able to choose laws they like while at the same time not interfering directly with others who chose different laws? You mean that all of a sudden majority would lose its power to dictate minorities how to live th…

This wasn't funny, please stop.

Re: Wild Ideas

#30

Post by tlb »

quink wrote: post #14
foxylad wrote: post #6

Migration to millions of star systems in 10,000 years? Speed of light says NO.

You don't seem to get what the speed of light is. The speed of light isn't the problem. Acceleration, time dilation and deceleration are. But barring the g-forces and enough of an engine we could travel to Alpha Centauri in less than 4 years, which may surprise you. Although that would be less than 4 spaceship years, not less than 4 Earth years.

At 1G acceleration, you can accelerate to a large fraction of the speed of light in about a year. A suitable rocket engine does not yet exist, but g-forces and human lifespans don't prevent travel to nearby stars.
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