54 KiB
Exploit the rules of my technologies. Object fabrication, time dilation, alternate earths, respawning, consensual telepathy
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Author: u/forrestib Project Freelancer*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/8aq36b/exploit_the_rules_of_my_technologies_object/
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Score: 7
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Created: 2018-04-08T14:00:19
Post:
Someone invents a technology, and uses it to reshape the world in a single moment into Utopia as they see it.
I and a group of other people are writing an anthology about how the world reacts in the wake of someone unilaterally introducing new technologies worldwide that fundamentally break the way society has functioned so far, but result in a much higher standard of living for almost everyone.
In-story, populations of millions will doubtless be trying to exploit and subvert the new world and its toys. So I thought you guys might have fun identifying a few of those exploits. And then I can either patch them or put them in the story.
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There are a few fundamental technologies in play. Spatial distortion, brain interface, a functionally indestructible material, and arbitrarily powerful computing. But the first, spatial distortion, is used by the technologies in widely varied ways.
It can create portals. It can create isolated spatial pockets of indefinite size, that can be accessed with portals. When those pockets are isolated, they can be time-dilated to operate on a faster or slower timescale. Isolated regions of space can also be duplicated, including any objects within.
Even the brain interface is actually just a very fine-tuned application of the same principle, using tiny distortions to observe and, when so desired, interact with, every individual cell in the brain and nervous system simultaneously.
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Noon GMT on Christmas Day, a little over twelve thousand objects appear in an isometric grid covering the entire land area of the earth. Each is around 123 kilometers from its six neighbors, at whatever altitude is most easily and publicly accessible. They are hexagonal pillars with each of the six sides measuring 3 meters wide by six meters tall.
They come to be known as "workshops", and the unknown entity that created them as Santa Claus. The workshops read intent, and any of the six sides will open for people to a room "inside" that is much bigger, with all six walls 48x48 meters, with five gateways per wall. When not open to the outside world, 144 times as much time will pass on the inside as on earth.
The four interior gateways will connect to any other workshop anywhere, so they can be used as a transit hub. No gateway will let through, however, anyone who currently intends to harm another person or their body in any way. In the middle of the workshop are 32 hexagonal booths, 32 table-like surfaces, and 3 large platforms.
The tables are fabricators. These will create for you almost any object you want, with a few exceptions. Nothing still alive, no manufactured currencies, and anything radioactive or explosive will be excessively contained. It also won't make anything at all that the person intends to use to harm another person, even hypothetically or in self-defense. Things placed on the fabricator instead can also be disposed of and retrieved later. Although again, nothing alive and no currency can be stowed this way.
The booths are respawn chambers. Whenever anyone's body dies, A copy of their mind from just before their brain was irrevocably injured is transferred into a fabricated clone body that is in optimal health conditions. People can also enter respawn chambers with intent to modify their biology, be it structure, sex, age, or even species. But again, no modification can be made with the intent to harm another person.
The three platforms are telepathy arrays. If a group of people all stand on it and all mentally consent to it, it will form a telepathic link that gives all of them full, unhindered access to all the other's thoughts, opinions, memories, and feelings. Afterward, if any member of the group ever has intent to sever the link, they are immediately unbonded from the group. The telepathy array will not bond anyone with someone they intend to harm, and if ill-intent emerges within a group the person is immediately unbonded.
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The interior gateways can also open to personal rooms. These can be up to as big as the workshop interior, and by default have one respawn chamber, one fabricator, and a telepathy array. If someone has opened a personal room, they will respawn there instead of in the public workshop. The gateway in a personal room can connect to any workshop. When the gateway isn't open, the room owner can time-dilate it in factors of 144 anywhere from earth standard timescale to almost 3 million times faster.
Other people can only enter a personal room with the consent of the room owner, and can be forcibly respawned out at any time if the room owner so decides. People can open more than one room. Room gateways can connect directly to each other if both room owners are allowed in each other's rooms.
Finally, from their personal room people can open gateways to workshops in new duplicate earths. These earths come in several templates modeled off the state the original earth was in at various times in its history. No new earths contain humans, and the state of things have been modified just enough to ensure no disasters will result from their absence. No reactors will go critical. No driverless moving vehicles. Alternate earths can operate on any of the same timescales as personal rooms.
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All workshops and their amenities are made of a functionally indestructible material, and are effectively not modifiable by anyone except Santa Claus. The assumption of the story will also be that no-one else can or will figure out how to create similar technologies of their own, so everyone is operating equally within the rules of the system.
Now please proceed to find the loopholes, wreak mayhem, etc. I'll respond to everyone and say if their exploit would work in the rules as they stand, and if it will remain allowed in the story itself.
Comments:
u/ArgentStonecutter [+8] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (20 minutes later)
Governments limiting access to these portals is the first plot token I can think of. You ought to read at least the first Riverworld novel for some toxic societies that can form around cornucopia devices.
There's already places where internal borders or even external borders will limit access to that loose a grid.
u/forrestib [+2] Project Freelancer (24 minutes later)
But if people are willing they can just die and respawn inside the workshop, bypassing whatever walls the governments might put up.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+8] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (50 minutes later)
At first, nobody will know that. And you have to be willing to accept that the copy is you, and not:
- just a copy who remembers being you.
- some kind of soulless monstrosity.
- a malicious agent (demon, alien, robot, whatever) pretending to be you.
- #3, plus you actually get reborn as a bodiless oracle for the demon, aware all the time and helpless to actually communicate.
And even if you've worked through your own existential dilemma, you have to have the faith and courage to pull the trigger.
Centuries later there will still be people (whole societies of people) who refuse to accept "respawning" as anything but a terrible trick.
u/forrestib [+5] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
Centuries later, everyone who was around before will have respawned themselves. Even if grandpa raises you telling you how evil respawning is, when grandpa dies and respawns himself, you're probably going to question how evil it is. Especially if you and grandpa have a telepathy link so you can actually directly feel that he's the same ol' grandpa with the same ol' thoughts after. And eventually the skeptics will become so vastly outnumbered that it's just not practical to believe everyone else is evil zombies anymore.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Centuries later, everyone who was around before will have respawned themselves.
Who are you going to believe, a demon pretending to be your grandfather or your real live human father?
Especially if you and grandpa have a telepathy link
We know that telepathy link thing is part of the masquerade.
And eventually the skeptics will become so vastly outnumbered
What, off in their private True Christian worlds?
And none of that applies during the period you say you're going to write about.
u/forrestib [+6] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
History makes it pretty clear that convenience eventually wins. If a rule forces people to act in a way that they can recognize is unnecessarily difficult, most people will either just break the rule, or move to change the rule.
So with that in mind, how long are societies going to last that tell people to forgo the easily accessible thing that can provide them endless food, shelter, video games, heal any sickness, mental illness, or injury instantly, cure body dysphoria, reverse the aging process, travel to see the sights of the world, etc.?
In traditionalist cultures, teenagers rebel by holding seances or having unprotected sex or watching violent movies. They do these things often no matter how much their parents tell them they'll burn in Hell for it. In the culture you're talking about, teenagers rebel by opening personal rooms where they can form telepathy bonds and kill themselves.
You're right that a lot of people would be highly skeptical of one or another of the toys during the early time the story takes place. I'll bring up the idea with the rest of the writers.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
So with that in mind, how long are societies going to last that tell people to forgo the easily accessible thing that can provide them endless food, shelter, video games, heal any sickness, mental illness, or injury instantly, cure body dysphoria, reverse the aging process, travel to see the sights of the world, etc.?
When they can set up in a New Earth where nobody who doesn't think differently is allowed? Hundreds of years doesn't seem unlikely to me.
u/forrestib [+3] Project Freelancer (3 hours later)
It seems highly unlikely to me that people who are that suspicious of the workshops are going to trust these "alternate earths" that can only be accessed through the workshops. The same people who believe people lose their souls when they respawn will probably believe parallel earths are literal Hell itself just waiting to swallow anyone who can be tempted.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+5] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (3 hours later)
It's amazing the contradictions people and religions can hold within them.
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (38 minutes later)
But if people are willing they can just die
And how can they find this out if the governments are the first one to reach the workshop and limit the information outbreak/access as much as possible? From what you are saying, people need to be in the room at least once before any of the abilities are accessible.
u/forrestib [+2] Project Freelancer (44 minutes later)
Well unless every government worldwide manages 100% containment, some dead people are going to leak out and be able to tell the news and internet. So they delay people gaining the information by a matter of days, maybe weeks at most. More propaganda-heavy states that regulate internet access like China maybe a little longer, but people in those places may also be more desperate and less skeptical when they hear the news.
u/Blubberfish819 [+4] (47 minutes later)
So let’s say person A really hates personal B. They hire Person C to commission parts fabrication for a taser (or even the taser themselves). Person A then tases the shit out of person B and then abducts them for a week of bonding time (aka torture) before sending them back to the respawn chamber with a fractured psyche.
Also time diliation and viruses make a dozen new super bugs that spread through the population.
New earths are used by cult leaders to brainwash and control their flock in isolation without consequences. As a symbol of their faith they have to go alter their biology to be more trusting.
Also there doesn’t seem to be any challenges left in this society, everything is provided for them, and it’s rxplicity stated that they will never be able to compete in technology with this othe race. I think people would los anything resembling humanity without significant brain modifications to the motivation centers.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (58 minutes later)
At least one and probably several of those New Earths are going to be populated by people who are afraid of exactly those consequences. They're going to select people who don't alter their biology.
And people are going to dismiss them as cults.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
Your first paragraph is possible, if Person B doesn't have any warning that they can use to pop into a workshop that won't let Person A follow. As soon as they're in a workshop, they can escape anywhere in the world, and Person A won't be able to deliberately follow through the workshops. They're also immortal, so they can spend however long it takes to recover from their experience.
Viruses in general stop being a major threat pretty quickly, because after people respawn their next body will have full immunities to anything they were exposed to.
I imagine it would be hard for cult leaders to control their flock when someone can walk a hundred kilometers (or kill themselves) and just gateway back to their own personal room, or regular society. Also I find it unlikely very many cult leaders would be able to use any of the workshop amenities for their cult, because they probably know what they're doing is going to harm the cult members in some way or another.
I don't know of any way to alter biology to make someone more trusting or compliant that wouldn't qualify as brain damage and/or chemical imbalance, and the respawn chambers wouldn't let people harm themselves in that way.
Once everyone acclimates to and accepts the workshops, things might get a little boring. You're right. That's why the story is about the early years, when people are still adjusting and learning. There's a huge amount of chaos in the shifting tides from one world to the next, and that's what the story's about.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Also I find it unlikely very many cult leaders would be able to use any of the workshop amenities for their cult, because they probably know what they're doing is going to harm the cult members in some way or another.
They don't know any such thing. They believe that it's for their own good. Fake cult leaders won't be able to do that, but there's plenty of leaders who genuinely believe in their religion.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
Those also tend to be the self-destructive kind, who eventually drive their followers away or show their hand as delusional. Also if their zeal is the result of any brain imbalance or disorder, that will be fixed the first time they respawn, making them much more willing to question their beliefs when they see them hurting people.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Those also tend to be the self-destructive kind, who eventually drive their followers away or show their hand as delusional.
Religions have managed to last thousands of years without doing that, so I find this argument less than convincing.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
You've jumped from cult to religion. The faiths that last that long usually aren't as actively harmful to their follower's lives as to be qualified by most people as a "cult".
u/ArgentStonecutter [+7] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
You've jumped from cult to religion.
There's a difference?
The faiths that last that long usually aren't as actively harmful to their follower's lives as to be qualified by most people as a "cult".
Even today mainstream religions can be amazingly harmful to their followers lives. And they don't have to be actively harmful to go settle a New Earth with people who have voluntarily chose to have their faith hardcoded.
u/Flashbunny [+3] (an hour later)
The only real difference between a religion and a cult is size and acceptance.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
And I would argue that size and acceptance can only happen to the ones that are in the general lives of their followers, for the most part, mostly harmless.
u/Flashbunny [+3] (3 hours later)
The only real requirements for growth are that they don't actively encourage suicide or murder - so the population grows - and that they spread, preferably via evangelism. I certainly don't think that any of the mainstream religions lack harm to their followers - they just don't do enough damage to counteract this growth.
u/neondragonfire [+3] (12 hours later)
Use the fabricator to create a fabricator that does the same things as the original just without the limitations. If that isn't possible, create a seed that grows into a fabricator. If that isn't possible, create a document that details the steps needed to create a fabricator. If that isn't possible, modify yourself to have a fabricator built into your body. If that isn't possible, modify yourself to have knowledge of the theory behind this technology, and develop fabricators from there. If that isn't possible, just create tools that let you analyse technology and study the workshop. There are probably many more ways, point is to use the technology provided to be able to create more of it. In a location more convenient for you and without the pesky limitations.
Then create versions of the respawn-platform and the telepathy without limitations, and from there move on to more advanced technologies. You'll want to make yourself basically immortal more so than the technology does. See below for some of the things to guard yourself against. You'll also want to make yourself a lot smarter, which is tricky because it can change what you want on a very basic level. You'll need to be careful. Ask the machine for documents with a proper theory of Friendliness (the AI safety version, not human social friendliness) and then make sure you adhere to that while modifying yourself. Also make sure your modified machines adhere to that - it's a much more sensible restriction than the original ones. Heck, it might be a good idea to hack all the workshops and change the restrictions there too. And while you're at it, modify all humans to adhere to basic Friendliness as well (though it is possible that your theory of Friendliness won't let you do that, depending on the details. In that case, you can do this first, before changing yourself. It does modify everybody against their will, but it makes the world safe. And with quite dangerous technology suddenly introduced that is essential).
But first, how can you get something that allows you to harm somebody (such as a fabricator without limitations) without wanting to harm somebody? Simple, you don't think through what you'll want to use that thing for. It's just intent based, not whether the item is dangerous (because everything is technically dangerous with enough creativity).
And finally, what threats are there to you? (aka how to take out somebody protected by the technology mentioned above with the technology mentioned above) The first thing to note is that killing them is counter productive. The machine will just fix that. So you need to stop just short of killing them. As long as they don't die, they won't respawn. You'll need some technology to keep people alive - which the fabricators in the workshops should be happy to provide, since it helps people and you intend to heal people with them. If fact, you don't even need to hurt people - just keep them in stasis or constantly knocked out. Anything where they are still alive but unable to act will do. This would also allow governments or other large organisations to control the workshops. Keep people out, and drag away anybody who just respawned to suspend them like this.
Other than this physical attack, there are mental and social options. If you manage to give somebody trauma, they will respawn with it. Make sure to create a self-sustaining network of mental problems, so that they don't want to fix these problems but rather want to retain or even expand them. How to do this? Well, let the fabricator give you detailed information about your target, detailed papers about trauma and its treatment, how to change somebody's mind, how to influence people... and then change your body to help with all that, emitting pheromones to be more convincing or something. I don't really know what would be useful, none of this is really my area of expertise. Which means that you could probably do a lot more than I've described here. For instance, I don't know how practically useful memetics can be, but in the extreme case you can just show them a specially prepared picture which implants whatever you want in this mind. Getting all of this could be a problem since you do intend to harm somebody - but there are ways around that. From the description, it seems to work on current intent. So just convince yourself to not want to harm them while you get the stuff. If that isn't enough, get the pod to change you into a version of yourself that doesn't want to harm them - having previously left notes to yourself about what you want to do and why. You may need a couple more layers of self-deception, but at some point you should be able to fool the workshop.
Alright, so how to defend against all of this? Well, have a version of yourself as a backup, and let the backup check your state of mind every hour or so. If the backup is okay with your state of mind, keep going. Otherwise reset. This works against somebody changing your mind, through memetics or otherwise. Give your mind an option to transport yourself to a safe location. The extreme version being to kill yourself and respawn, if you can't figure something else out. Then you should have a deadmind switch - if your mind does not respond for a certain period of time, trigger the transport to a safe location. That covers people keeping you unconscious. Oh, and basics like making sure your body is stronger, faster, regenerates, more resilient, and can change at will.
That should cover the basics for how to exploit things, I think?
u/Gurkenglas [+3] (14 hours later)
People living in personal rooms at maximum dilation and reproducing with each other could replicate beyond the number of particles in our observable universe in an objective day, which could for example clog up Earth Prime with tourists who don't exactly have space to turn back around once they step through the portal as the influx doubles every 3-4 minutes.
u/sparr [+3] (a day later)
I don't think you can cover a globe with points in a hexagonal lattice. At least some of the points will have fewer than six neighbors; between 3 and 5 depending on the basic shape of the meta-cells of your network.
Maybe the 20 pentagonal workshops are special in some way?
Sorry for lack of munchkinry, just trying to contribute a detail to the story.
u/Ozimandius [+2] (4 hours later)
Well, obviously there should be some abuse in regards to self-modification. People will explore the limits of modifying their bodies and you will end up with quite a few 48 cubic meter monsters of various types with various abilities.
The amount of shenanigans that can be achieved by a 48 cubic meter sized brain working at 3millionX speed that has total control and access to each and every brain cell is pretty extreme.
There will be no unsolveable scientific problem, and anything that can be invented will be invented. Cabals working with these room sized brains as masterminds can advance technology at a rate completely inconceivable to us, allowing them to create the technology and software to quickly bring us past the singularity and expand the thinking power beyond the capacities of even a bunch of 48 cubic meter brains.
Edit: initial understanding of size of rooms were off. redid math.
u/forrestib [+2] Project Freelancer (4 hours later)
The respawn chambers are only maybe double human-size, so you couldn't really make yourself into anything bigger than that. There are also a ton of safeties to ensure you're going to come out a functional creature with mobility, a digestive system, the whole shebang. And the brain can really only be deliberately changed to the extent that it'll let you control whatever body it's giving you. And it's all biological, there's no magic powers or anything.
u/Ozimandius [+1] (5 hours later)
Well, even at 2x human body size there are some serious alterations you can make to improve brain performance and parameters. Obviously mobility isn't too important, so whatever the lower limits the system will allow is what will prevail, and then increasing the density of folds, increasing myelination, increasing overall brain size, etc.
Not sure what you mean about 'brain can only be deliberately changed to the extent that it'll let you control whatever body its giving you' means, but that caveat would definitely be a problem. You would have to experiment, but there must be some wiggle room in there as our current brains do far more than just control our bodies. In whatever case, people will seek to find the limits here so they will have to be specified. Things I would try: Extra brains, larger brain, extra myelination, brains to alternate between in order to allow sleep cycles while still staying awake, brains to control things like bodily functions, walking and eating so I can autopilot completely while doing complex thinking with main brain, etc.
In addition, no reason that the size of the respawn chamber would be the absolute limit of my final biological size. As long as I can grow afterwards, the theoretical limit if I have full access to biological modification is ... very large.
u/forrestib [+3] Project Freelancer (5 hours later)
Let me be clearer. The brain is always kept as close to optimal-health human standard as possible while still being compatible with the body. The parts that interact heavily with the body are the only parts that will be allowed to significantly change from the norm. If your only purpose is making your brain bigger/more powerful/whatever, the chamber probably wouldn't even open for you, because that's not within the parameters of what it's supposed to do for people.
u/BuryBone [+1] (7 hours later)
The problem won’t be the chamber, but the fact that people will be able to forcibly discover how to upgrade themselves through destructive testing, and on top of that they’ll be able to engineer genetically or otherwise, non human intelligences that Santa now has to deal with. What happens when someone uplifts a blue whale? Those don’t fit in the respawn chamber, and they’re aquatic.
Edit: Oh yeah, the scenario I originally thought of. What happens when someone finally gets uplifted into a nonhuman intelligence? Are they “dead?” What happens if the nonhuman intelligence dies? What if the substrate of the intelligence doesn’t fit in the respawn chamber? (Superficially similar to the whale, but a whale could theoretically get trimmed down without changing what it is, though that would be against it’s will. When the brain of something wouldn’t fit in the chamber, you’re actively crippling the mind of whatever it is)
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (8 hours later)
I suppose at that point the new kind of lifeform gets a pat on the back from Santa and a custom-built workshop and respawn chamber somewhere. But I think it would take a while for people to internalize immortality enough to start injecting themselves with strange chemicals just to see what happens before they respawn.
u/BuryBone [+2] (a day later)
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u/Ozimandius [+1] (23 hours later)
Okay, so the parameters of what it is supposed to do with regards to self modification are.. what? Let's say I wanted another appendage with extremely fine motor control. Or extra sensory organs that could see into other spectrums of light or focus on microscopic structures? There are many types of modifications I can imagine that would also require some commensurate brain modifications to deal with those structures. Presuming that I should be able to at LEAST change my brain to the very upper limits of human cognition, and then I can add additional body structures that will require additional brain power. Such brain structures while intended to help control these new body parts should also theoretically be usable to aid cognition (as being able to process the input from an infrared eye and an ultraviolet eye would aid in all kinds of scientific thinking, just as we engage our visual cortex in order to understand certain phenomenon.)
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (6 hours later)
There are also a ton of safeties to ensure you're going to come out a functional creature with mobility, a digestive system, the whole shebang.
Biological? What if you want to come out as a functional space probe?
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Space travel is going to become easier and more pointless. Sure, you can use perfect tooling to create flawless rockets made from impossible materials. You can probably even fabricate a skyhook. But why bother, with a million million New Earths one step away?
u/forrestib [+3] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
Most people who get into the space business don't do it for the mining or colonization itself. They do it for the scientific discoveries that await from finding and observing new things that don't even exist on earth. And those million million new earths are all very similar, duplicates off a few mundane templates. There's nothing to explore, there. No discoveries to be made.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+1] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
Space science, yes. And you can do things like A/B testing with alternate Marses and not worry about contamination. But that's not going to involve putting people into space (space travel). It's going to involve increasingly perfect robots.
Unless modifying ones biology in the workshops extends to turning oneself into a space probe, actual humans won't be going anywhere but sideways.
And those million million new earths are all very similar, duplicates off a few mundane templates.
If those templates don't extend very far back in time that'll be annoying to no end of scientists.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
I think if you asked any astronaut if they'd rather let a robot do their job, they'll probably tell you in polite words to fuck off. There's a reason astronaut is one of those stock dream jobs for little kids. There's an appeal to personally going to space and being there. And if anything the dissolution of the threat of death I would think would make far more people show an interest in boarding a rocket, just for the experience.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+2] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (an hour later)
I think if you asked any astronaut if they'd rather let a robot do their job, they'll probably tell you in polite words to fuck off.
Yeh, but what about the ten thousand people behind them they need to actually get up there? Even with improved technology, humans are horribly inefficient robots. For anything beyond the moon, you can send thousands of robots for the price of one meatbag and the life support needed.
Low Earth orbit, yeh, there will be space tourism there (in an alternate Earth where failed launches won't hurt anyone). MAYBE eventually the moon. I don't see the kind of life support you need to keep a meatbag alive all the way to mars being fundable without the colonization argument driving it.
Again, if you can alter people's biology enough they're not anything we'd really call biological any more, that'd make long distance missions with actual human minds plausible, but otherwise... no.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (an hour later)
I think people usually get involved in space missions, at least in part, because they want to go to space. "Price" and "fundable" cease to be as much of an issue when you can fabricate all the rocket parts and fuel you need. So yes, I think many more people would go to space than before, because the risk is negated and anyone willing to put the time in and follow some blueprints already has the means and opportunity to do so.
u/ArgentStonecutter [+3] Emergency Mustelid Hologram (2 hours later)
I think people usually get involved in space missions, at least in part, because they want to go to space.
And getting turned into a machine that can survive in space is the easiest way to do this.
"Price" and "fundable" cease to be as much of an issue when you can fabricate all the rocket parts and fuel you need.
You're really underestimating the people cost, and since you don't let people replicate themselves, that's no less a cost (and probably more, since you're now competing with all the new frontiers you've opened up).
You still need thousands of people to put them together and support and manage the launch, and that's just for near Earth orbit. Lunar orbit, lunar landing, and going beyond cislunar space are even more expensive.
u/BuryBone [+2] (7 hours later)
I think that the fact that death and expenses don’t matter vastly reduces the personnel cost. If a normal mission fails, you’re out several billion dollars and the lives of the crew, and you have to institute cost capturing methods at every single point of the process.
In this world you point a giant bomb upwards and try again if it fails. Autonomous assembly will advance at an incredible rate, and all it takes is a large enough group of rocket geeks to come up with a solution.
u/None [+3] (4 minutes later)
[removed]
u/forrestib [+3] Project Freelancer (21 minutes later)
This isn't about "Blindsight", and it isn't a comedy. It's a discussion of an in-progress rational fiction. I'm within the rules of the subreddit.
u/None [+4] (25 minutes later)
[removed]
u/forrestib [+9] Project Freelancer (33 minutes later)
It's not stickied. In my experience, a complex premise like this gets almost no response as a comment in another thread.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (7 hours later)
Well while people have mentioned cults on other worlds and viruses, neither of those seems like it would be remotely world breaking. Instead I think the biggest issues probably lie in the accelerated time and crafting powers kicking off a singularity.
First off the respawn booths seem extremely exploitable, since the booth itself presumably protects inhabitants that presumably makes things even easier since experimentation is totally safe. Given you can change species it should be a simple matter to change yourself to a species whose body is mostly brain (but still also necessary for the creature as a whole to survive) while also making the neurons all myelinated and much more densely packed (like birds brains). This alone should be enough to get a superintelligence which will then break your setting by developing self replicating nanotech.
Hell all of that is probably superfluous anyway given the extreme time dilation in the personal rooms. With the extreme available time dilation you should expect a group of people who brought themselves to peak human intelligence (so who didn't spend too much time experimenting with the respawn chamber) to kick off a singularity literally within a day.
Honestly you probably need to massively alter the time dilation because as is there's no way of preventing the inevitability that some groups of people working in these rooms in isolation will be able to develop enough AI/nano technology to rapidly rapidly render their creators the most powerful people in existence. Plus that's assuming the first group of people to develop AGI in these rooms doesn't accidently get UFAI.
Fundamentally when you have some groups spending centuries or even millennia in these time chambers it's going to look from an outside perspective like the pillars arrived and then pretty much immediately they were rendered irrelevant by absurdly advanced tech that just seemed to come out of nowhere.
arbitrarily powerful computing
Sidenote I couldn't figure out where you were using this in your setting (or at least it's not obviously available to the humans) but this is also probably demands explanation since it raises questions of why combined with the other available tech the people developing this tech didn't just make FAI.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (7 hours later)
I already addressed brain alteration elsewhere. The respawn chamber wouldn't let you make alterations for the sole purpose of making you superhumanly smart. It will only modify the brain to the extent of removing imbalances, damage, and disabilities, or making it compatible with whatever body you choose.
As far as the AI issue, I tend to write stories under the assumption that true AI is literally impossible. It makes things easier, prevents it from consuming the story. So Santa Claus either didn't build true AI for ethical reasons, or couldn't no matter how many millions of years he put into trying.
The computing bit is just covering my bases. It means I don't have to explain how the system can be calculating the exact spatial position of and passively recording the state of every single cell of every human's entire nervous system 24 hours a day wherever they are.
u/vakusdrake [+1] (8 hours later)
As far as the AI issue, I tend to write stories under the assumption that true AI is literally impossible. It makes things easier, prevents it from consuming the story. So Santa Claus either didn't build true AI for ethical reasons, or couldn't no matter how many millions of years he put into trying.
It still seems like even ignoring AI doesn't actually solve the issue here. Since people could use the crafting devices to get themselves the equipment they would need to massively alter their biology until they can eventually switch to being entirely composed of self replicating nanobots and can start making even more serious alteration to their mind.
Fundamentally it seems like it should be obvious that your setting is going to look incomprehensibly wierd very quickly if groups are able to get millenia of technological advancements done in a day.
Hell the problem gets more extreme given that the whole tech this setting is predicated on is presumably possible, and thus people in time chambers can probably do way better than just making the nanobot swarms which would be possible given known physics.I already addressed brain alteration elsewhere. The respawn chamber wouldn't let you make alterations for the sole purpose of making you superhumanly smart. It will only modify the brain to the extent of removing imbalances, damage, and disabilities, or making it compatible with whatever body you choose.
This would seem to contradict what you actually said in your main post given it lets you change species. Plus what constitutes a imbalance or disability only makes sense as a standard relative to some extremely specific level of intelligence. After all if the world were composed nearly entirely of geniuses then being merely somewhat clever might make you effectively too mentally disabled to function in normal society.
Though of course given the time dilation you don't really need the respawn chamber to do these kinds of things really quickly from the perspective of an outside observer. Of course it would help though, since if you made an alteration to your mind which made you smarter but came with massive side effects you could use the respawn chamber to make alterations to your brain/body which negated those side effects since the change being made is making the person healthier and not itself increasing intelligence.
u/forrestib [+1] Project Freelancer (9 hours later)
It will change your brain only enough to make it play nice with whatever species you decide to be. At the point that you're capable of living in your body, it'll then focus on getting you as close to a healthy human brain as it can. There is no option in the respawn chamber to just give you a giant superfast brain. If that's your goal, the chamber won't even open for you, because that's not what it's designed to do. It's designed to fix people when they break and reshape their body. It will only change the brain towards one of those ends, with preference to the first.
u/vakusdrake [+2] (10 hours later)
It will change your brain only enough to make it play nice with whatever species you decide to be.
That doesn't work as a limitation because it would allow any alterations to your biology including your brain, provided you changed your genetics enough that you qualified as a different species from human.
After all if the changes to neurology also correspond to the genetics of your new species then giving you the neurological upgrades would be necessary to change you to that species.Plus of course as I said before even if you can't use the respawn chamber itself to make you smarter, you can still get it to do half of the work by making whatever changes are necessary to counteract the dangerous side effects of your experimental neurological enhancements.
Though really all the above is still mostly pointless since none of that would change the significant problem posed by the massive time dilation people can get access to.
u/None [+1] (15 hours later)
If I go into one of those cubes, I can make my own bubble dimension with another progression of time?
Since I'm lazy, I save some money into different banks worldwide. Maybe take some loans I will not repay. I will buy some materials, like gold, or rare earth, platinum.
Then I will create a dimensional pocket with a slower time (As slow as possible/practical) with one portal to enter and one to leave. I will calculate how long I have to be in the pocket dimension, so I will be 20 years gone. (If the factor is 144, 50 days.Factor 3*10^6 would be 3,5 minutes.)
I will take the stuff I want for that time, go through the portal. And leave than.
After I leave, I will sort the legal stuff out. (Probably many banks will have closed my accounts. I will be declared dead. And I need to declare bankruptcy, so I don't have to pay back the loans) And if my money is still worth something, I will buy new stuff like other rare earth elements, collectibles or I don't know consoles and iPads, designer stuff. And do it again. (Without the loans)
In the end, I will have traveled some hundred years into the future. There the technology will be better and peaceful, and hopefully, I am rich now. And if not I have rare stuff from some century ago and can sell it as retro. I will adapt to the world around me. And visit old friends, who should be immortal?
Honestly, you should probably limit your time dilation and the ability to produce stuff more. How about an energy limit? But since we are here in r/rational I suppose they all live in a simulation and so energy and materials and space can be simulated.
Alternate Earths: So if I were not so lazy and evil, I would duplicate the houses of rich/famous people in a faster pocket dimension. Search stuff like photos and computers. And blackmail them. I guess spybots would be prohibited.
Also, alternate earths shouldn't have animals on it (and plants). Or I could make a device that makes apes follow my command or make them loyal to me. And then have an instant army. Or I could have a dragon. It would circumvent the no living stuff rule of the replicators.
Also, the possible danger of a killer virus of an alternate earth, that other worlds hadn't been adapted to.
Telepathy: I would try to get to learn stuff matrix style. Just uploading it into the brain. Of course, I wouldn't test it on me. If I were evil, I would try to brainwash people. Or maybe I am a vegan who wants everyone to not be an asshole. Or a christian, who wants everyone to be safe from hell and the devil. So brainwashing would be in those cases morally acceptable for the washer. And yeah, brainwashing is probably to mean of a word. Just think instead "to convince others of my viewpoint". Telepathy is just secret messages, would be nice to have, but nothing world breaking. Maybe sex would be better, but not really world breaking. On the other hand, if Telepathy is undetectable, small soldier troops could use it for missions. Not really usable for secret missions. Also, judges and jury could make sure the right person comes into jail. The problem would be ideologies, brainwashing and making sure, those in a link aren't lying.
Respawning: I would jump from high places. I would try to make duplicates by reanimating bodies after they respawn. (Not mine, someone else's.) Oh and Snuff films.
The no harm another rule will be hard to enforce. Unless it only stops people with intent to harm (in self-defense or otherwise) to make stuff. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to make a car, or a kitchen knife, or tools, or anything solid, or anything that you can't breathe through. Can I trick people into making stuff, that could be used to hurt? Like a device to give people food. And I use it to poison people.
u/CCC_037 [+1] (17 hours later)
Anyone can, with great rapidity, move from anywhere to anywhere else. Countries that are already facing a refugee crisis are going to end up facing a worse one as more and more people pour in.
Borders no longer meaningfully exist. It may be impossible to travel through the Workshops with intent to harm, but it's not impossible to travel through the Workshops with intent to avoid jail time. (However, it seems like it will be impossible for the police to follow).
If you want weapons and have intent to harm, you can't make them yourself. However, you can get Idiot Jim (who hit his head as a baby and is thus eternally naive and believes everything he's told) to go and get them for you. All major criminal gangs or terrorist groups suddenly have an Idiot Jim.
Death is no longer permanent. If you want someone out of the way, you need to put them in a coma; if you want revenge, imprisonment and/or torture. These become things that people who would previously have committed murder do instead.
People who attempt to commit suicide are (often, not always) less than happy about waking up back in one of the Workshops again.
Some people see immortality as keeping them away from their well-deserved afterlife. These people are going to get more and more crabby as they get older.
New Earths may start off empty of humans. This state of affairs will not be maintained for long; with death rates at zero and people still having children, the new Earths will be very quickly colonised.
Some people will change their appearance to match their favourite film actor or TV character. There will be thousands of clones of Famous Actor walking about; the real Famous Actor will probably take a dim view of this. Especially given that they're all willing to act for a tenth of what he charges. Different Famous Actors will handle this differently.
Some people will try to use the gene-editing booths to develop superpowers. Full-on Kryptonian powers are no doubt impossible, but super-sensitive hearing, bat-like echolocation or the ability to see ultraviolet will probably work. (Then you have to get used to it.)
Instead of creating currency, what's stopping me from just creating whatever I would otherwise buy with it?
u/chuzz [+1] (a day later)
Noon GMT on Christmas Day, a little over twelve thousand objects appear in an isometric grid covering the entire land area of the earth. Each is around 123 kilometers from its six neighbors, at whatever altitude is most easily and publicly accessible. They are hexagonal pillars with each of the six sides measuring 3 meters wide by six meters tall.
So, the first thing I expect to happen is government getting scared by the weird pillars, with militaries setting up curfew cordoning of as many workshop as possible, and a small group of people getting in before that.
In the worst scenario, i can imagine that everybody coming out of a workshop, can be considered aliens/fake humans, and the people inside would have to find an unguarded workshop to come out of not to get shot on sight. Workshops are a lot but are regularly spaced, so idk how hard would it be to set up guards around them, and people inside would have little time to learn the capabilities of the workshop.
No gateway will let through, however, anyone who currently intends to harm another person or their body in any way.
Would a soldier, that is not currently tasked to kill anybody, be able to pass? What if he spooked of the creepy alien structure, and ready to shoot at any monster jumping to him? Can a murderer stun/drug himself and be carried through? Can a person willing to do anything but not specifically thinking of murder pass with a closed letter with "murder mr.X" written inside? Furthermore, could a tyrant force people to pass through a workshop to avoid assassins?
Now that i think of it, would murder even be a deal with respawns? I'd imagine that both law enforcement and crooks would switch to detainment/painful, non lethal punishment.
The booths are respawn chambers. Whenever anyone's body dies, A copy of their mind from just before their brain was irrevocably injured is transferred into a fabricated clone body that is in optimal health conditions.
The interior gateways can also open to personal rooms. These can be up to as big as the workshop interior, and by default have one respawn chamber, one fabricator, and a telepathy array.
Wait, so how many respawn chambers are there in total? and how many personal rooms? Can a tyrant cause a denial of service on the chambers by killing a lot of people continuously? can he reserve all personal rooms to people loyal to him?
Is 3 million times time-dilation the maximum? Quite good to crack current cryptography but still limited in power. Can a personal room owner bind another person, attach him to a life support unit and force him to spend a few million years there?
The three platforms are telepathy arrays. If a group of people all stand on it and all mentally consent to it, it will form a telepathic link that gives all of them full, unhindered access to all the other's thoughts, opinions, memories, and feelings.
Can a tyrant force a prisoner to link with the city's priest in order to confess all his "sins"? The prisoner knows that if he doesn't, he will die. He already confessed after torture, but the tyrant wants to be sure that he did not omit anything or lied.
Finally, from their personal room people can open gateways to workshops in new duplicate earths. These earths come in several templates modeled off the state the original earth was in at various times in its history. No new earths contain humans, and the state of things have been modified just enough to ensure no disasters will result from their absence. No reactors will go critical. No driverless moving vehicles.
Welp, this makes tyrants less problematic. If you don't like your government, just take your family in a duplicate earth and live there. Suppose my family/clan controls a duplicate earth, can I bar people from entering through the workshop? Can somebody else occupy my world's gateways?
u/sparr [+1] (a day later)
What qualifies as "harm"? Just physical damage? What if the other person wants it? What if you THINK the other person wants it, but they don't? What if you think they don't, but they do?
If it filters out desired harm, that's gonna make people avoid a lot of lines of work.
If it filters out harm you think is desired but is actually not, or harm you think is not desired but actually is, then this becomes a way to read others' minds about their priorities/preferences regarding harm vs reward.