Robotic Nation Evidence

(This is about Chapter 4 - The power of beauty.)

I've read research showing how incredibly important beauty is. When I get home, I can pull it out, perhaps post the references here.

Things like:

Psychologists fabricated a written report about a kid throwing rocks at a cat. Then they select a picture to go along with the report- beautiful girl, ugly girl, handsome boy, ugly boy.

Then they show people these reports, along with one of the pictures, and ask people to explain what's going on.

In the case of the ugly, the people explain that these are bad, horrible, cruel children, who should be punished, and that they basically have no future.

In the case of the beautiful kids, the people explain that these are good, otherwise friendly, harmless kids, with bright futures, and that they should be treated with respect and kindness. The cats were probably attacking the kid, or the kids saving someone else from the mean old cats.

Other studies have shown how much better grades beautiful people get in school, how much more money they make, etc., etc.,.

Physical beauty obviously doesn't affect intelligence, but the way we think about ourselves does. Beautiful people actually perform better on objectively measured tests than non-beautiful people. (Let me check my reference, but this is what I remember from my book.)

I am a somewhat handsome person, and it bugs me to know that other people are at a disadvantage over this sort of thing. I totally look forward to the demise of these unfair advantages and disadvantages.

-- Lion
 

(This is about Chapter 6 - Immorality.)

I just wanted to note two quotes:

"We've been working on this, and it's very important to me because I'm a fanatic about this issue. I want unlimited scientific discovery, and I want unlimited applications. But I think we don't want people to lose their sense of self and the fragility of their personhood here in some sort of assault..."

"...We want to live forever, and we're getting there."

Who spoke them? Bill Clinton.

-- Lion
 

I've read the entire thing, Marshall.

It's one of many possibilities to make the transition from real life to VE.

I personally think Vertebrane is going to come in the form of nanobots that take up residence in our brains, stopping our senses-input and feeding us a VE.

Maybe it couldn't harm to explain how exactly we might get to a future like this. There are no answers as to what enabling technologies are going to make this happen.

You need an introductory chapter in there which basically describes the same as Kurzweil's Law of Accelerating Returns.

http://www.google.nl/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1&url=http%3A//www.kurzweilai.net/articles/art0134.html%3Fprintable%3D1&ei=L0wKQ5_REcWgQc2HlIEO
 

Looks like we'll have to put up with our physical bodies for a long time yet. Mr. Brain thinks that Peak Oil will be a non-event.

It's almost guaranteed that "Vertebrane" will be shelved indefinitely if Peak Oil comes to pass during the next decade. All evidence says YES.
 

As for virtual worlds, readers may also be interested in: A World of Warcraft World.

Particularly interesting is that a deal was made to unify virtual worlds.

-- Lion
 

Here's another one- the ideal world movie web page.

-- Lion