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Best possible outcome for the transhumanity?

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Mon, 2017-06-19 17:40
#1
Iarion Iarion's picture
Best possible outcome for the transhumanity?
What would be the best possible outcome for the transhumanity?
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Mon, 2017-06-19 17:56
godmoney godmoney's picture
posthuman utopia
posthuman utopia
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Semper Ubi Sub Ubi!?!
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Mon, 2017-06-19 20:23
Dilf_Pickle Dilf_Pickle's picture
To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you...
As someone who has purposely avoided EP universe spoilers, an IC perspective on the "best case" might be: Figuring out the mysteries behind the TITANs and the Exsurgent virus, then finding a way to safely bootstrap seed AIs to help transhumanity fight back.
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Mon, 2017-06-19 22:07
thepedant thepedant's picture
What is the "best" outcome
What is the "best" outcome for any civilization? Is it survival? Leaving some permanent mark on the universe? Maximizing societal happiness for as long as possible? Pick what transhumanity should most value, and you'll know the best outcome.
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Mon, 2017-06-19 22:57
NotActuallyTim NotActuallyTim's picture
Eh.
The universe has no purpose. Selecting a 'best' value is just a good way of making people angry. So, doing whatever they want, I guess.
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Wed, 2017-06-21 13:32
Dilf_Pickle Dilf_Pickle's picture
The 1st rule of tautology club is the 1st rule of tautology club
NotActuallyTim wrote:
The universe has no purpose. Selecting a 'best' value is just a good way of making people angry.
I don't see what transhuman aspirations have to do with teleology.
NotActuallyTim wrote:
So, doing whatever they want, I guess.
Well, sure, depending on who "they" is. Transhuman individuals? Societies? Transhumanity as a whole? I already gave my (slightly less vague) answer above. For the flip side of the coin, I recently re-discovered [url=http://eclipsephase.com/setting-ep-110-af]this[/url] interesting thread about AF110.
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Wed, 2017-06-21 15:26
NotActuallyTim NotActuallyTim's picture
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
Well, sure, depending on who "they" is. Transhuman individuals? Societies? Transhumanity as a whole?
Yes. The answer to your question is yes.
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Wed, 2017-06-21 16:09
thepedant thepedant's picture
"Best" depends on the endgame
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
I don't see what transhuman aspirations have to do with teleology.
The question has to be teleological. What's the future for transhumanity? What should transhumanity do given that outcome? Once you know that, you know what the "best" is. There's no reason why an EP campaign can't be a "rage against the dying of the light" or "do not go gently into that good night" for transhumanity, where there is no hope that transhumanity will survive, only that it has a "good death." Or, slightly less gloomily, the "best possible" outcome for transhumanity is like Romance of the Three Kingdoms: whatever "good guys" the players might be working for are destined by fate to fail some generations later to cruel and callous emperors; the Planetary Consortium and/or Jupiter will eventually "save" the Solar System for transhumanity, but it won't be a great future for most. If and only if there's a possibility that transhumanity can survive in a way that could be considered "best" is the best possible outcome for transhumanity to succeed in defeating the TITANs and the exsurgent threat generally.
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Wed, 2017-06-21 23:16
Dilf_Pickle Dilf_Pickle's picture
The endgame depends on "best"
NotActuallyTim wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
Well, sure, depending on who "they" is. Transhuman individuals? Societies? Transhumanity as a whole?
Yes. The answer to your question is yes.
I see you're obeying the first rule.
thepedant wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
I don't see what transhuman aspirations have to do with teleology.
The question has to be teleological.
To my mind, the word "transhumanity" demands a specificity that teleology doesn't address. Teleologically, NotActuallyTim's answer is correct, but pointless.
thepedant wrote:
What's the future for transhumanity? What should transhumanity do given that outcome? Once you know that, you know what the "best" is.
No, you know what the "deterministic" is. OP is asking about possible futures, not the actual future.
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Thu, 2017-06-22 01:31
o11o1 o11o1's picture
Exoplanet Colonies, duh
All this talk about the philosophical difficulties of deciding what "best" means. Best means Transhumanity survives. That means founding colonies in as many different places as possible, which means extra solar colonies. Pandora gates work, but the ideal case is that the Sol system builds up some big colony ships and sends them to the nearest stars. Getting the Factors to actually like us would be nice too, but we'll see how that goes.
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A slight smell of ions....
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Thu, 2017-06-22 08:10
thepedant thepedant's picture
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
No, you know what the "deterministic" is. OP is asking about possible futures, not the actual future.
This is fiction. Possible is what you make possible. There's a game that I can choose to run where the possible outcomes exclude "good guys win" scenarios. In those cases, what's the best possible outcome? I'm going at this because I think this is much more interesting as a dialogue about what you want from your game than a thread where we guess at who'd win in a Jovian/Titanian war. To me, it's a boring question. Fundamentally, whoever we want to win in a Jovian/Titanian war wins, because the other side, if materially stronger, will have some "bad luck" or "hidden flaws" that will overcome those advantages. Playing it like a board game makes it less possible for the referee and the players to explore the different avenues the game has available.
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Thu, 2017-06-22 17:02
Dilf_Pickle Dilf_Pickle's picture
Framing
thepedant wrote:
Dilf_Pickle wrote:
thepedant wrote:
What's the future for transhumanity? What should transhumanity do given that outcome? Once you know that, you know what the "best" is.
No, you know what the "deterministic" is. OP is asking about possible futures, not the actual future.
This is fiction. Possible is what you make possible.
Precisely. Why then are you trying to pin down the future before considering what "best" means?
thepedant wrote:
There's a game that I can choose to run where the possible outcomes exclude "good guys win" scenarios. In those cases, what's the best possible outcome?
The least bad, obviously. And what makes you so sure "good guys win" would be the best possible outcome anyway?
thepedant wrote:
I'm going at this because I think this is much more interesting as a dialogue about what you want from your game than a thread where we guess at who'd win in a Jovian/Titanian war.
It absolutely is interesting, but it's also a different question. OP's asking about IC outcomes, whereas you now seem to be asking about OOC (ie. player and GM) outcomes. This response from o11o1 addresses OP's question more squarely, for example:
o11o1 wrote:
All this talk about the philosophical difficulties of deciding what "best" means. Best means Transhumanity survives. That means founding colonies in as many different places as possible, which means extra solar colonies. Pandora gates work, but the ideal case is that the Sol system builds up some big colony ships and sends them to the nearest stars. Getting the Factors to actually like us would be nice too, but we'll see how that goes.
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