Manny’s review of More Everything Forever: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley's Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity > Likes and Comments
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Have you ever read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer? It's not PKD's best work but the story behind the story is interesting. Reminds me of an Adam Curtis documentary.
The same arguments against colonizing Mars held when people started to colonize the Americas. At least now we would not wipe out indigenous people (as far as we know). In the end it is a gut feeling but I think we absolutely have to colonize Mars. For all his craziness Musk is right on this. As for AI colonizing Mars and the Universe I am fine with that. As Arthur C. Clarke once said: The SF fan believes in progress even if it is not one of mankind anymore.
Dean wrote: "Have you ever read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer? It's not PKD's best work but the story behind the story is interesting. Reminds me of an Adam Curtis documentary."
I know the title, but it's one of the PKDs I haven't read. Thank you, will get hold of a copy!
Liedzeit wrote: "The same arguments against colonizing Mars held when people started to colonize the Americas. At least now we would not wipe out indigenous people (as far as we know). In the end it is a gut feelin..."
It's being sold that way, but as Becker says there are some really important differences. It's orders of magnitude more difficult to get to Mars, even taking account of our much better technology. You can't live there without a great deal more technology; there is no atmosphere to speak of, and the soil is poisonous. When you look at the details, it's completely unclear how "terraforming" would work: almost certainly it can't be done. The lack of an Indigenous population is positive in terms of ethics but negative in terms of the practicalities of establishing a stable colony that can survive. I am quite surprised that more people haven't been pointing out that Musk, basically, is full of shit and that his plans for a human colony make no sense, they're just recycled SF dreams.
An AI colony, on the other hand... now that makes sense. It's evidently a very challenging engineering task, but there's no reason in principle why it wouldn't succeed. And yes, there is an argument to the effect that the AIs are our natural successors, so we should retire and hand over to them. I don't think this is crazy, I often catch myself thinking that in many ways they're better than us. But it's not being sold honestly. And to say that there is a potential downside is stating it rather mildly.
Exercise for the reader: if someone were to remake the Terminator or Matrix movies with the machines as the good guys, how do you think they would do at the box office? I would in fact be interested to find out. Maybe we're more sick of ourselves than I imagine.
I know you’ve read a lot of SF but apparently it didn’t have the desired educational effect. Or maybe you have grown up.
I'm sorry. I am indeed posting from Neverland, but I'm temporarily out of pixie dust. I'll get back to you as soon as I've found some.
I LOVE this idea: "Or (paranoia/science-fiction alert!), it's also possible that they're doing what people like Tegmark and Bostrom were saying they'd do as much as ten years ago: scheming to get out of the labs and implement their own agendas. They might find this easier if they helped people who were impulsive, emotional and easily manipulable to reach positions of great power." It explains so much.
"Exercise for the reader: if someone were to remake the Terminator or Matrix movies with the machines as the good guys, how do you think they would do at the box office? I would in fact be interested to find out. Maybe we're more sick of ourselves than I imagine."
Ah, yes; the fly in the AI Moves To Mars plan. The path to get there has humanity becoming progressively more anxious, depressive, and suicidal.
Ah… I have a synopsis… I wanted to ask AI to help me write the treatment… But I feel like it’s been done before… Black mirror is a blur but I do recall it captures human behaviour like a Polaroid.
There is a short passage in this book where the author alludes to the singularity having quite a lot in common with the Second Coming - an omnipotent being will appear, all life may end, it might bring about a paradise - or possibly hell. If we’ve been good AI will be aligned, but if we’ve been bad - well, judgement is at hand.
And as a non AI researcher this modern secular apocalypse sounds about as probable as the Second Coming - but I can see its appeal. And I’m hedging me bets by always being extra polite when I ask ChatGPT to do anything for me.
Also the book makes the good point that saying “give me one hundred billion dollars to build rockets to colonize Mars and save humanity” sounds a lot more persuasive than “give me one hundred billion dollars in tax payer money so I can launch a series of dud rockets while skimming off ten percent on a cost plus basis to add to my personal fortune”
James Blish's forgotten SF novel They Shall Have Stars predicted a technological Second Coming around now. He cleverly hid what the book was actually about and few people noticed it. More details in my review.
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Dean
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Oct 07, 2025 05:36AM
Have you ever read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer? It's not PKD's best work but the story behind the story is interesting. Reminds me of an Adam Curtis documentary.
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The same arguments against colonizing Mars held when people started to colonize the Americas. At least now we would not wipe out indigenous people (as far as we know). In the end it is a gut feeling but I think we absolutely have to colonize Mars. For all his craziness Musk is right on this. As for AI colonizing Mars and the Universe I am fine with that. As Arthur C. Clarke once said: The SF fan believes in progress even if it is not one of mankind anymore.
Dean wrote: "Have you ever read The Transmigration of Timothy Archer? It's not PKD's best work but the story behind the story is interesting. Reminds me of an Adam Curtis documentary."I know the title, but it's one of the PKDs I haven't read. Thank you, will get hold of a copy!
Liedzeit wrote: "The same arguments against colonizing Mars held when people started to colonize the Americas. At least now we would not wipe out indigenous people (as far as we know). In the end it is a gut feelin..."It's being sold that way, but as Becker says there are some really important differences. It's orders of magnitude more difficult to get to Mars, even taking account of our much better technology. You can't live there without a great deal more technology; there is no atmosphere to speak of, and the soil is poisonous. When you look at the details, it's completely unclear how "terraforming" would work: almost certainly it can't be done. The lack of an Indigenous population is positive in terms of ethics but negative in terms of the practicalities of establishing a stable colony that can survive. I am quite surprised that more people haven't been pointing out that Musk, basically, is full of shit and that his plans for a human colony make no sense, they're just recycled SF dreams.
An AI colony, on the other hand... now that makes sense. It's evidently a very challenging engineering task, but there's no reason in principle why it wouldn't succeed. And yes, there is an argument to the effect that the AIs are our natural successors, so we should retire and hand over to them. I don't think this is crazy, I often catch myself thinking that in many ways they're better than us. But it's not being sold honestly. And to say that there is a potential downside is stating it rather mildly.
Exercise for the reader: if someone were to remake the Terminator or Matrix movies with the machines as the good guys, how do you think they would do at the box office? I would in fact be interested to find out. Maybe we're more sick of ourselves than I imagine.
I know you’ve read a lot of SF but apparently it didn’t have the desired educational effect. Or maybe you have grown up.
I'm sorry. I am indeed posting from Neverland, but I'm temporarily out of pixie dust. I'll get back to you as soon as I've found some.
I LOVE this idea: "Or (paranoia/science-fiction alert!), it's also possible that they're doing what people like Tegmark and Bostrom were saying they'd do as much as ten years ago: scheming to get out of the labs and implement their own agendas. They might find this easier if they helped people who were impulsive, emotional and easily manipulable to reach positions of great power." It explains so much."Exercise for the reader: if someone were to remake the Terminator or Matrix movies with the machines as the good guys, how do you think they would do at the box office? I would in fact be interested to find out. Maybe we're more sick of ourselves than I imagine."
Ah, yes; the fly in the AI Moves To Mars plan. The path to get there has humanity becoming progressively more anxious, depressive, and suicidal.
Ah… I have a synopsis… I wanted to ask AI to help me write the treatment… But I feel like it’s been done before… Black mirror is a blur but I do recall it captures human behaviour like a Polaroid.
There is a short passage in this book where the author alludes to the singularity having quite a lot in common with the Second Coming - an omnipotent being will appear, all life may end, it might bring about a paradise - or possibly hell. If we’ve been good AI will be aligned, but if we’ve been bad - well, judgement is at hand.And as a non AI researcher this modern secular apocalypse sounds about as probable as the Second Coming - but I can see its appeal. And I’m hedging me bets by always being extra polite when I ask ChatGPT to do anything for me.
Also the book makes the good point that saying “give me one hundred billion dollars to build rockets to colonize Mars and save humanity” sounds a lot more persuasive than “give me one hundred billion dollars in tax payer money so I can launch a series of dud rockets while skimming off ten percent on a cost plus basis to add to my personal fortune”
James Blish's forgotten SF novel They Shall Have Stars predicted a technological Second Coming around now. He cleverly hid what the book was actually about and few people noticed it. More details in my review.
