[FRIAM] Political tangents

[glen ☣]

The obvious answer is that the Thiels know they need fresh _minds_ as well as fresh blood, at least for now.  And this is more than simply growing disrupter-smart cows who will ascend to full humanity in their ranks.  They need a delicate balance of suggestibility and intelligence ... cows who will, when they ascend, adopt the appropriate ideology that will help them seastead, colonize mars, extend lives (of their ranks, not the herd, of course), build and populate cyberspace, etc.  They don't want just any old intellectuals, artists, or artisans, brilliant as they may be.  Scott Aaronson is a good candidate, for example.  Although he (publicly) rejects Thiel's endorsement of Trump and kinda-sorta talks like a liberal, he's enough of a linear thinker to separate political-Thiel from tech-disrupter-Thiel and defend that linearity.  And Scott's willingness to (publicly) express good will toward things like feminism, yet adopt a soft fighting style when SJWs attack him for implicit misogyny.   Sam Harris is another good candidate.

The Thiels want to grow more Aaronsons and Harris'.  And you can't (yet) do that with herds of robots.

On 01/03/2017 09:35 AM, Marcus Daniels wrote:
> As a technologist, I object to the crudeness of the strategy.  If the blood thing really works, figure out why and engineer an resource efficient alternative treatment.   All these cows unnecessarily adding methane to the atmosphere can't be good; it certainly isn't an elegant solution.   At least send them to Mars to help form a temporary atmosphere.   And why have a patina of "self-governance" when robotics are an option?   Overall, what do the they hope to accomplish here?   It all seems poorly motivated!  Boring, even.   Why can't they self-regulate and fall into a normal sort of depression like the rest of us?   


-- 
☣ glen