Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

That sounds insanely dystopian to me, for the fact that any member of that society is viscerally dependent on others -- anyone who claims to value freedom needs to think again.

Being needed is crucially instrumental toward controlling one's own experience in the current environment. But why would it ever be a terminal value?



If it's only an instrumental value, how do you work around it? Put people in holodecks and give them illusions of loving friends? Or modify people's minds to make them content with not having any loving friends, because they already have guaranteed food/shelter/entertainment? I think many people wouldn't agree to either of those alternatives. They want to "actually" have someone who cares about them, whatever that means.


They might be given that kind of control without their will.

Sorry to get all Jed-McKenna-Theory-Of-Everything here, but no being has proof that they are not in such a situation. In fact it is arguably the only consistent possibility.

Expect that pure power would eventually (partially) allow itself to experience a situation without the ability to recall its own construction of that situation. (Imagining temporal bounds for that situation can be a helpful way of thinking about it from the human perspective, but of course temporality is a construction within the limited frame rather than something inherent.)


Why should freedom be a terminal value? Freedom is an instrument to attain your goals, not a goal in itself. A rock has freedom.


That is the right question.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: