(Untitled)

[podling]

So I read yesterday that Stephen Hawking thinks we should colonize other planets if we are to survive as a race. I agree. And afterwards we should create AI slaves, uh, I mean servants... we'll call them... pylons. And hubris won't be our downfall, though the pylons might not agree.

Comments

[d2leddy]

Why create pylons? All that extra effort and money is needed for research and construction--why not just enslave people? I mean, there is historical precedent for it and we know how to enslave people. Besides, it's much less expensive than developing AI. Furthermore, we know what causes slave rebellions; we know how to implement social engineering, so we know how to emotionally hobble those who we would enslave?

The tragedy of the past though is that one group of people with some common factor, like race and ethnicity, would enslave a group of people of a different race and ethnicity. Maybe have a national lottery and determine the slave-class by random drawing? Or pick some characteristic that cuts across racial and ethnic lines, like ugliness. Establish some bench marks for attractiveness, and everyone who doesn't meet those criteria are slaves to the people that do. That way we avoid arguments against elitism: wealthy ugly people would be stripped of their wealth and enslaved. Or maybe enslave people who drive old cars--unless those old cars have reached antique status, in which case their owners are not slaves, but masters along with the people that have newer cars. People who don't won cars, less children, would also be candidates for slavery.

Anyway, I think this approach is a more fair, equitable, civilized way to gather a slave population. It's not based on wealth or race or sex or ethnicity, nor is it based on geograhical colonization or conquest (so there is no military budget with which to contend). It's equal opportunity, based on the caprice of nature and luck.

[podling]

While your ideas have merit, it also remains true that you have to feed human slaves, while pylons are really more self-sustaining.

[d2leddy]

I am so tickled with my idea, that I'm posting it in a few minutes. With credit to you of course.

[d2leddy]

And you so don't have to feed slaves.

[teapot_farm]

Or at least, you can feed them to each other, if you get the rate of enslavement vs rate of bumping off for food into the correct ratio. Swift would approve. Plus, it works for cows.

[tygerseye]

Why don't we start with you and vbseth? Better yet, I'll jump right in and enslave you both. Excellent.

(And it's really weird running into people you know through someone else in the LJ's of other people that you didn't know knew eachother. O.O)

[d2leddy]

So you're saying he and I are ugly?

[d2leddy]

What? I would never say that about vbseth!

;-)

You drive an old car and don't have kids. And the whole enslaving people was your idea, so I say start with you.

[tygerseye]

That annonymous person would be me. *face/palm*

[d2leddy]

Ha! My car is no longer old. It's a 2005 Honda Civic!

Your attempt to make me your love fails!

[podling]

I told you I knew him in real life!!! You *so* never listen to me! Or maybe it's the signal/noise ratio that's the problem...

[tygerseye]

o0?

You did?

I guess I overdid it on the crack that day.

[d2leddy]

You shouldn't do that stuff. I hear it's bad for you.

[tygerseye]

Really? Damn. I was just thinking of trying out M on it...