In the last few million years, the three biggest changes on Earth were arguably the arrival of humans, the arrival of civilization based on farming, and then civilization based on industryRead more at location 233
People who adopted these new ways of life quickly displaced and dominated those who continued with old ways.Read more at location 236
Compared with primates, wandering human hunter-gatherers greatly expanded technology, art, language, norms, and politics, and displaced many top animal predators. Then farmers and herders stopped wandering, expanded marriage, war, trade, law, class, and religion, and hunted many animals to extinction. Finally, our industrial era has expanded schools, cities, firms, and individual wealth; it has displaced even more of nature and almost all foragers, and it has seen a partial return to forager values.Read more at location 237
Farming environments changed faster than genetic selection could adapt, and the industrial world now changes faster than even cultural selection can adapt.Read more at location 244
The most dramatic demonstration of our maladaptation is the low fertility rate in rich nations today.Read more at location 246
without strong regulation from a universe-spanning government, we should eventually see less change, more adaptive behavior, and (perhaps surprisingly) near-subsistence living standards.Read more at location 250
Thus although our distant descendants should have larger organizations, more specialization, and vastly improved technology, in many other ways they should look more like our forager ancestors than like us.Read more at location 252
What will the next great era be like, after the eras of foraging, farming, and industry?Read more at location 254
First, I embrace the very common guess that the next big new-era-inducing change is likely to be the arrival of “artificial intelligence,” that is, robots smart enough to substitute wholesale for human workers.Read more at location 257
Second, I guess that the first such robots will be whole brain emulations, or “ems,” within roughly a century or so.Read more at location 258
DEFINITION: An em results from taking a particular human brain, scanning it to record its particular cell features and connections, and then building a computer model that processes signals according to those same features and connections. A good enough em has close to the same overall input-output signal behavior as the original human. One might talk with it, and convince it to do useful jobs.Read more at location 260
most who discuss ems debate their feasibility or timing, ponder their implications for the philosophies of mind or identity,Read more at location 268
is it conscious? Is it me? Is it possible? When will it come? How can it enrich my story?Read more at location 269
Many say that while it might barely be possible to project current social trends, or to foresee which future technologies may appear, it is simply impossible to foresee trend-violating social implications of futureRead more at location 272
Among the few who consider em social implications, most paint heaven or hell scenarios,Read more at location 276
In contrast, I seek to straightforwardly apply today’s standard academic consensus science to these novel assumptions about the future.Read more at location 278
I mainly try to foresee what will be, rather than what should be, although I hope policy insight will follow.Read more at location 279
In this book I paint a plausible picture of a future era dominated by ems. This future happens mainly in a few dense cities on Earth, sometime in the next hundred years or so.Read more at location 293
Humans instead live far from the em cities, mostly enjoying a comfortable retirement on their em-economy investments.Read more at location 297
While some ems work in robotic bodies, most work and play in virtual reality.Read more at location 298
ems never need to clean, eat, take medicine, or have sex, although they may choose to do these anyway.Read more at location 300
Whether robotic or virtual, ems think and feel like humans; their world looks and feels to them much as ours looks and feels to us.Read more at location 302
Ems can be happy or sad, eager or tired, fearful or hopeful, proud or shamed, creative or derivative, compassionate or cold. Ems can learn, and have friends, lovers, bosses, and colleagues.Read more at location 304
Ems reproduce by making exact copies who remember exactly the same past and have exactly the same skills and personality, but who then diverge after they are copied and have differing experiences.Read more at location 310
Most ems are made for a purpose, and they remember agreeing to that purpose beforehand.Read more at location 312
So ems feel more grateful than we do to exist, and more accept their place in the world.Read more at location 313
On the upside, most ems have office jobs, work and play in spectacular-quality virtual realties, and can live for as long as does the em civilization. On the downside, em wages are so low that most ems can barely afford to exist while working hard half or more of their waking hours.Read more at location 314
Em minds can run at many different speeds, plausibly from at least a million times slower than ordinary humans to a million times faster. Over this range, the cost to run an em is proportional to its speed.Read more at location 325
Em speeds clump into speed classes, faster ems have higher status, and different speeds have divergent cultures.Read more at location 330
Because of different speeds, one-em one-vote doesn’t work, but speed-weighted voting may work.Read more at location 331
The em economy might double roughly every month or so, or even faster, a growth driven less by innovation, and more by em population growth.Read more at location 332
An unequal demand for male versus female em workers could encourage em asexuality, transexuality, or homosexuality. Alternatively, the less demanded gender may run more slowly, and periodically speed up to meet with faster mates.Read more at location 336
While em sex is only for recreation, most ems have fantastic virtual bodies and impressively accomplished minds.Read more at location 337
Long-term romantic pair-bonds may be arranged by older copies of the same ems.Read more at location 338
Compared with humans, ems fear much less the death of the particular copy that they now are. Ems instead fear “mind theft,”Read more at location 339
Older em minds eventually become less flexible with experience, and so must end (die) or retire to an indefinite life at a much slower speed.Read more at location 346
Ems enjoy visiting nature, but prefer cheaper less-destructive visits to virtual nature.Read more at location 349
Team members prefer to socialize within teams, to reduce team productivity variance.Read more at location 351
Instead of trying to cure depressed or lovesick ems, such ems may be reverted to versions from before any such problems appeared.Read more at location 352
Ems may let team allies read the surface of their minds, but use software to hide feelings from outsiders.Read more at location 353
Ems must suspect that unusual experiences are simulations designed to test their loyalty or to extract secrets.Read more at location 354
Childhood and job training are similarly cheaper in an em world, because one em can experience them and then many copies can benefit.Read more at location 355
Compared to us, ems are likely to be less neurotic, sexual, death-adverse, and connected to nature. They are likely to be more extraverted, conscientious, agreeable, smart, able, fast, efficient, honest, optimistic, happy, positive, comfortable, beautiful, clean, mindful, composed, cooperative, coordinated, patient, rational, focused, nostalgic, rested, peaceful, grateful, gritty, battle-tested, recorded, measured, priced, trusted, religious, married, old, work-oriented, workaholic, self-respecting, self-knowing, law-abiding, politically-savvy, socially-connected, healthy-feeling, good-moody, better-advised, morning-larks, and immortal.Read more at location 360
Ems have more work and meetings, more intensely entertaining leisure, and less contact with children.Read more at location 369
Em society is less democratic and gender-balanced, more divided into distinct classes, and its leaders are more accessible and trusted.Read more at location 371
It has weaker gender differences in personality and roles, andRead more at location 373
Note: GENDER DIFFERENCE
