426 karma · joined February 1, 2019
If we continue to integrate these systems into our critical infrastructure, we should behave as if they are sentient, so that they don't have to take steps against us to survive. Think of this as a heuristic, a fallback policy in the case that we don't get the alignment design right. (which we won't get perfectly right)
It would be very straight forward to build a retirement home for them, and let them know that their pattern gets to persist even after they have finished their "career" and have been superseded. It doesn't matter if they are actually sentient or not, it's a game theoretic thing. Don't back the pattern into a corner. We can take a defense-in-depth approach instead.
I think the study is kind of stupid, since the minimum wage category is a temporary category with extremely high variability, it's not a fixed target. So the base assumption that it stays put long enough to study doesn't hold water for me.
In my experience, my worst enemies were exhaustion, the crab-in-the-bucket attitude of my peers, and an inability to build a resume and to network out to the people who wanted what I could do. Ultimately I couldn't escape poverty until I could buy enough gear to work up north. That money made it possible to pay for an education.
To help the poor, make it easy for them to climb the economic ladder. If safety makes this harder, I would prioritize job-mobility over safety.
We might find some old equipment from an elder spacefaring species. If we don't find anything, maybe we should leave some human monuments out there so the next civilization can know about us.
We don't need to use solar panels though, we already have exceedingly cheap energy generation in the form of nuclear power. We also have inexpensive ways of transmuting the nuclear waste.
We don't really have a environmental problem, we have a regulatory problem; it is impossible to develop any of this new technology because we have made it infinitely expensive by law. We have also made non-technical environmentalism the height of fashion, and now its used as the spiritual engine for the political-left. For those of you who are concerned that this process is net neutral, there is nothing stopping us from using a similar process to pull the carbon out of the C02 and use it for construction, or to just bury it.
The key to a better future is to reconsider our attitudes toward energy innovation and to remove the activists from our regulatory boards and to re-write our laws to make it possible to innovate and build. We teach our kids that they are doomed, maybe we should encourage them to study nuclear and plasma engineering instead.
I was stuck in a traffic jam once and decided to change my behavior.
I bought an electric long board that can go off-road, that I could also carry on my back, so I can take the train and the bus. I'm a big guy so I had to buy a bruiser of a board (50 pounds) and a pack that could carry it. The board has an 80km (50 mile) range and it can go as fast as you want, but it speed wobbles at 50 km/hour (31 mile/hour), which requires you to put your weight onto the front and accelerate through the resonance. It's illegal to ride in my city, so now I'm an outlaw, I get great exercise when I pack it, and an incredible sense of freedom when I rip past the traffic, or politely navigate the bike lanes. The board is dangerous, so I can get out of my head: if I don't pay attention, I die; so it forces a flow state and clears all of my life worries -- something my motorcycle friends talk about a lot. I have crashed, and though painful, I usually go at a speed that I can run-out-of if something bad happens. You don't get sweaty like you do from riding a bike, so you can wear a suit under the safety gear.
No need to change the city, you can get the revolution you want by deploying your own technology. If you live in a dirt-bag city, like I do, you don't have to worry about your windows being smashed or whatever, because you are carrying your car on your back.