If You Have to Kill Me

ByDan May 26, 2024May 26, 2024 May 26, 2024

If you must kill me, reader, do it without malice or distain.

I’m just a man hurled into a world without any inherent meaning, born to die – like you. You read my articles or tweets about AGI or posthumanism and think I’m out to get you. As if I’m here with the express purpose to destroy or impose – with malice in my heart.

But I’m not.

We’re not so different, you and I.

Different Interpretations of Meaning

I might be on B3 on the Intelligence Trajectory Political Matrix – and maybe you’re in A1, or B2, or C3, or whatever.

Each of us for our reasons.

You

You, reader, looking squarely upon mortality, looking at the apparent indifference of nature to life or consciousness, seeing the attenuation and transformation of all forms, uncertain of what this life and experience is – maybe came to conclusions:

• Humans-as-they are the most precious thing in the universe. You look in the eyes of your spouse and children and just know that this miracle must be protected forever, or
• There is a God who created you and wants you to continue as a homo sapien, build in his image, or
• You believe the protection of earth’s environment-as-it-is (not a future environment with new – even if higher – life forms) is what deserves preserving for millennia, or
• Etc…

These are, of course, just your ways of coping with your condition. Of grabbing hold of something to stay sane and grounded, and to make this mad dance of sense experience bearable and maybe even meaningful.

You never woke up eager to extinguish the continual beautiful blooming of life. You’re just pursuing your own values, based on your own beliefs – dealing with the same existential condition as me.

Me

I, reader, looking squarely upon mortality, looking at the apparent indifference of nature to life or consciousness, seeing the attenuation and transformation of all forms, uncertain of what this life and experience is – I came to conclusions:

• Life is precious and rare, and will only be safe if it is strong (read: Potentia), and
• We are already transforming into a posthuman intelligence whether we want to or not (read: Posthuman Transition), and
• It is our moral mandate to explore the good and keep life’s torch burning by eventually creating a Worthy Successor posthuman intelligence

These are, of course, just my ways of coping with my condition. Of grabbing hold of something to stay sane and grounded, and to make this mad dance of sense experience bearable and maybe even meaningful.

I never woke up eager to extinguish humanity out of malice. I’m just pursuing my own values, based on my own beliefs – dealing with the same existential condition as you.

Avoiding Conflict

At the time of this writing (May 2024), these ideas are still ideas. 

Men with different end-goals for the future of humanity (and life itself) have not yet taken up arms. 

If the great posthuman political divides turn into war, don’t interpret my way of coping with being an affront to you. They are not – they are my way of making sense, or holding onto something – just as your ideas are. 

If we sat over coffee, and you could lay out your values, your approaches for the future, and the reasoning and belief that undergirds those approaches, I suspect I’d very much understand you. If I did the same, I suspect you’d very much understand me.

At an intergovernmental level – but also at a personal level (that’s you and me) – I think it behooves us to try to get some consensus and frank dialogue about preferable and non-preferable futures. Figuring out what the other side values, where they’re headed, and why – and if there be a way forward with minimal conflict and maximum benefit.

(Source: International Governance of AGI – We Unite or We Fight)

I suspect that Hugo de Garis is right, and such a war over AGI might wipe out all earth-life – human, posthuman, and otherwise. It seems worth trying to avoid such a war.

But if coordination fails and you must kill me, reader, do it without malice or distain.

If it comes to war lets treat each other like Antony did Brutus, and not as Achilles did Hector.

(Note: This article is mostly a response to people – mostly on Twitter and other social media – who read my work, or predictions, or values – and not only take it personally, but threaten to harm me. I hope that we get to talk – and that the world gets to talk. But if there is war may it not be personal.)

Header image credit: Duel After the Masquerade by Gérôme