(no subject)

[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

[rnb.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure humans surviving as a race is really that good of a thing.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Hm. Pylons. Like Cylons... only... with a "P". And we don't know where that leads or anything.

You would think someone who relies as heavily as he does on technology would have more respect for it. Just sayin'.

[podling]

We're like locusts! We deserve the chance to go destroy other planets!

[podling]

I think he was more trying to work against a catastrophic event like asteroid collision or something. Or extinction level plague. One would think that we should clean up our mess as well. But likely neither will actually happen.

[podling]

Cylons designed by podling would be Pylons. Hee.

Anyway, I doubt he thinks we should build robot slaves, but then again, I don't know if anyone's ever asked him...

[podling]

And incidentally, my favorite type of sf is usually one's in which humanity is close to being wiped out. I wonder what that says about me...

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

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.

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

Like in Independence Day?

[podling]

Exactly! Except we're not as quick about it. Or as exoskeleton-y.

[podling]

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

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Whoa... way to totally misread that post and miss the joke.

*face/palm*

God. I need coffee, clearly.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

So you're saying he and I are ugly?

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

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

[(Anonymous)]

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.livejournal.com]

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

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Maybe you're one of those cylons that doesn't know they're a cylon.

*runs*

[podling]

It would explain so much!!!

[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.livejournal.com]

o0?

You did?

I guess I overdid it on the crack that day.

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

And you so don't have to feed slaves.

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

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

Your attempt to make me your love fails!

[d2leddy.livejournal.com]

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

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

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.livejournal.com]

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