The question was answered long ago - people are just really unwilling to accept the answer. Consciousness isn't magical, there is no mystic force animating the mind. Just the brain doing its thing, no more.
The first uploads would be test subjects. The second batch would be the mega-rich, because only they would be able to afford it at first. The mega-rich have lobbyists and friends in high places - they'll sort the legal issues out. It may involve workaround like a trust fund required to act upon the orders of the upload, until such time as they can get a law passed to recognise them as effectively living humans.
There are no fundamental laws that say it cannot be done. It's just an engineering problem. Engineering problems can be solved with a combination of time and gigantic piles of money.
We don't need an artificial womb: Plenty of women would do the job for money. It's just emotionally awkward.
If you want an artificial womb, the easiest way may be through very-bio tech. Genetically modify a cow, or some other animal of suitable size, to make it biochemically compatible. Don't worry about the birth process, you can just cut the offspring out. Cows are expendable.
Contraceptive access is a requirement for controlling population growth, but not sufficient in itsself. It needs education and a cultural change too - the original goals of feminism, to give women an equal status in society where they can (and are expected to) study, work, and have a career of their own. In much of the world this still isn't an option - women are treated as property and incubators. It's no good providing access to contraception if the local culture insults the manhood of any man who uses it, and women are afraid to seek it out for fear they will be labeled as promiscuous.;
It's older than that. Twenty years ago they already had lego shafts, cogs and belts for building mechanisms. Then came the lego motors in increasingly sophisticated form, and the pneumatic parts.
He also mentioned he's managed to get SDKs and secret licensed-developers-only tools, so there's probably something like a customised version of visual studio in there - and perhaps game asset sources, the PSD files complete with layers for all the textures. Things like that could bring it up to 1.7TB.
Sources for a recent version could be used to easily subvert copy-protection, especially if he got code for a non-released server of a multiplayer game. Or used for cheating - if you can get it to compile, not hard to set wall.opacity=0.5 and commence pwning everyone. He's not just an inept boaster - he's confirmed as having broken into companies before, so it's plausible that he may not be bluffing.
I can't see the bluff working though. Not at this stage. It might have been enough to convince a game company or two to back down, but now the FBI is involved - if you try to blackmail the FBI, it just makes them all the more determined to pile on the charges.
Which stinks of an FBI trawl - that's the type of charge list you'd expect when the FBI wants to take someone down but can't actually convict them, so goes hunting for anything else illegal they may have done instead.
Everyone is a criminal in some way. Just got to dig deep enough to find how.
I'm sure a few people are holding on to them. Just in case. Assange is a true fanatical idealist - if he at any point believes he is going down, he won't hestitate to release the key and take a few percieved enemies with him. The only reason the key hasn't been released yet is his ability by luck and skill to evade all attempts to get him somewhere the US or allies could charge him.
He's still in the Ecuadorian embassy - he's shown no signs of wanting to move, Ecuador has shown no inclination to kick him out, and the UK isn't going to start a major diplomatic incident by trying to take him by force. His situation appears stable, so long as he doesn't pull of any stunt great enough to upset his current host.
2. Doesn't matter. So what? All they'd do is confirm he is not bluffing. 3. Is the flaw in the plan. It's based on the idea that the games companies he hacked are headed by executives who would ask the FBI to let him go free to protect their own trade secrets, and that the FBI is obliged to obey if such a request is made. Neither of these is true. Chances are at least one of those companies would rather crucify him to set an example, and even if they all back down the FBI can go ahead and prosecute anyway - and now this is all public they have little choice, as no prosecutor who values their career can be seen to back down to threats made by a criminal - especially now they have done their trawling and managed to find some drugs and something legally classed as child porn (I suspect he has pictures of a 17-year-old girlfriend).
Depends if his spitefulness outweighs his long-term planning - if he gets a long enough sentence to effectively ruin his life, revenge is going to look very appealing indeed. He also said that his 'inability to access a computer' would release the passphrase, suggesting he is paranoid enough to have a dead-man's-handle - either tucked away on a server no-one knows about, or a few friends with orders to release it if he goes out of contact.
The charges are so diverse they look suspiciously like the result of a trawling - someone in law enforcement decided he has to go down and did a through rummage through his home and computers to hunt of any useful dirt they could charge him for. That means his blackmail ploy isn't going to work: While it could convince game companies to back down from the path of mutual destruction, a prosecutor would have little to lose from the leak and a lot to lose politically if seen to be giving in to the demands of criminals. Espicially now the kiddie porn card has been played - even if, as is more likely than not, it's nothing but a naked selfie his girlfriend sent him. He is seventeen.
It's never that simple. One person's interaction is another's day-to-day activity. If I want to hold an up-all-night party with loud music, it'll keep the neighbours awake even though I didn't intend any interaction - and so someone needs to decide the outcome of the conflict between my right to party and their right to a tolerable environment. That's what governments are for.
"The Earth is "full" as there are no unclaimed jurisdictions"
The various Seasteading projects tried to solve that one. None of them could raise the capital to buy a big enough boat. Turns out that boats giant enough to sustain a population indefinitely are rather expensive.
I love their business model though, for the Blueseed group: Set up just off the US coast and invite companies to move some of their offices and workers there as a way to avoid taxes, legally hire low-paid immigrant labor without the hassle of work visas and dodge laws about workers' rights, mandatory leave, sick pay and minimum wage. The true libertarian dream.
You missed an option: The unfortunate victim pays by default. That's one of the costs of the libertarian ideal - if something goes wrong for you personally, you're on your own. The risk falls on the individual.
By playing the game. He wasn't just some charismatic leader who rose to power on his speech-writing skill and great oratory. He also sought out corporate sponsors, and promised them favorable economic policies if he was elected - then used their substantial donations to run a massive (for the time) political campaign. Even that wouldn't have done it, had not all the major parties collapsed following serious economic trouble, reducing politics into a free-for-all where the usual rules didn't apply.
The best hope for the US is really that one of the parties may eventually collapse - with the red-vs-blue divide broken, there would be little holding the other party in ideological unity and individual candidates might start to matter more than the letter prefixing their name.
"It's not too late to reward politicians who will back sane and reasonable sentences."
Yes, it is. Realistically you have three options: Vote republican, vote democrat, or throw away your vote. The parties have set things up between them to effectively exclude any independent or third-party participation. You see a handful at the state level, and once in a blue moon one even makes it to congress, but that's all.
Slashdot Mirror
The question was answered long ago - people are just really unwilling to accept the answer. Consciousness isn't magical, there is no mystic force animating the mind. Just the brain doing its thing, no more.
It sounds profound, but it just doesn't quite have actual profundity.
Try saying it in latin.
The first uploads would be test subjects. The second batch would be the mega-rich, because only they would be able to afford it at first. The mega-rich have lobbyists and friends in high places - they'll sort the legal issues out. It may involve workaround like a trust fund required to act upon the orders of the upload, until such time as they can get a law passed to recognise them as effectively living humans.
There are no fundamental laws that say it cannot be done. It's just an engineering problem. Engineering problems can be solved with a combination of time and gigantic piles of money.
We don't need an artificial womb: Plenty of women would do the job for money. It's just emotionally awkward.
If you want an artificial womb, the easiest way may be through very-bio tech. Genetically modify a cow, or some other animal of suitable size, to make it biochemically compatible. Don't worry about the birth process, you can just cut the offspring out. Cows are expendable.
Plus each baby comes with a free steak dinner.
Contraceptive access is a requirement for controlling population growth, but not sufficient in itsself. It needs education and a cultural change too - the original goals of feminism, to give women an equal status in society where they can (and are expected to) study, work, and have a career of their own. In much of the world this still isn't an option - women are treated as property and incubators. It's no good providing access to contraception if the local culture insults the manhood of any man who uses it, and women are afraid to seek it out for fear they will be labeled as promiscuous.;
It's older than that. Twenty years ago they already had lego shafts, cogs and belts for building mechanisms. Then came the lego motors in increasingly sophisticated form, and the pneumatic parts.
And then they will invest heavily in porcine aviation.
But is it legal for a seventeen year old to possess a photo of a naked sixteen year old? Probably not.
But they'll just take it all away in a year or two with a mandatory software update, citing fears of piracy.
Again.
With lossless compression, mathematics is unforgiving.
He also mentioned he's managed to get SDKs and secret licensed-developers-only tools, so there's probably something like a customised version of visual studio in there - and perhaps game asset sources, the PSD files complete with layers for all the textures. Things like that could bring it up to 1.7TB.
Sources for a recent version could be used to easily subvert copy-protection, especially if he got code for a non-released server of a multiplayer game. Or used for cheating - if you can get it to compile, not hard to set wall.opacity=0.5 and commence pwning everyone. He's not just an inept boaster - he's confirmed as having broken into companies before, so it's plausible that he may not be bluffing.
I can't see the bluff working though. Not at this stage. It might have been enough to convince a game company or two to back down, but now the FBI is involved - if you try to blackmail the FBI, it just makes them all the more determined to pile on the charges.
Which stinks of an FBI trawl - that's the type of charge list you'd expect when the FBI wants to take someone down but can't actually convict them, so goes hunting for anything else illegal they may have done instead.
Everyone is a criminal in some way. Just got to dig deep enough to find how.
I'm sure a few people are holding on to them. Just in case. Assange is a true fanatical idealist - if he at any point believes he is going down, he won't hestitate to release the key and take a few percieved enemies with him. The only reason the key hasn't been released yet is his ability by luck and skill to evade all attempts to get him somewhere the US or allies could charge him.
He's still in the Ecuadorian embassy - he's shown no signs of wanting to move, Ecuador has shown no inclination to kick him out, and the UK isn't going to start a major diplomatic incident by trying to take him by force. His situation appears stable, so long as he doesn't pull of any stunt great enough to upset his current host.
2. Doesn't matter. So what? All they'd do is confirm he is not bluffing.
3. Is the flaw in the plan. It's based on the idea that the games companies he hacked are headed by executives who would ask the FBI to let him go free to protect their own trade secrets, and that the FBI is obliged to obey if such a request is made. Neither of these is true. Chances are at least one of those companies would rather crucify him to set an example, and even if they all back down the FBI can go ahead and prosecute anyway - and now this is all public they have little choice, as no prosecutor who values their career can be seen to back down to threats made by a criminal - especially now they have done their trawling and managed to find some drugs and something legally classed as child porn (I suspect he has pictures of a 17-year-old girlfriend).
It doesn't seem realistic. But he is seventeen - he may well expect it to work, being still naive about the level of assholery humans are capable of.
Only one person needs to keep a copy, though.
Depends if his spitefulness outweighs his long-term planning - if he gets a long enough sentence to effectively ruin his life, revenge is going to look very appealing indeed. He also said that his 'inability to access a computer' would release the passphrase, suggesting he is paranoid enough to have a dead-man's-handle - either tucked away on a server no-one knows about, or a few friends with orders to release it if he goes out of contact.
The charges are so diverse they look suspiciously like the result of a trawling - someone in law enforcement decided he has to go down and did a through rummage through his home and computers to hunt of any useful dirt they could charge him for. That means his blackmail ploy isn't going to work: While it could convince game companies to back down from the path of mutual destruction, a prosecutor would have little to lose from the leak and a lot to lose politically if seen to be giving in to the demands of criminals. Espicially now the kiddie porn card has been played - even if, as is more likely than not, it's nothing but a naked selfie his girlfriend sent him. He is seventeen.
It's never that simple. One person's interaction is another's day-to-day activity. If I want to hold an up-all-night party with loud music, it'll keep the neighbours awake even though I didn't intend any interaction - and so someone needs to decide the outcome of the conflict between my right to party and their right to a tolerable environment. That's what governments are for.
Tech would be up to it easily in shallow water - but shallow water means coast, which means some nation will have claimed the territory.
"The Earth is "full" as there are no unclaimed jurisdictions"
The various Seasteading projects tried to solve that one. None of them could raise the capital to buy a big enough boat. Turns out that boats giant enough to sustain a population indefinitely are rather expensive.
I love their business model though, for the Blueseed group: Set up just off the US coast and invite companies to move some of their offices and workers there as a way to avoid taxes, legally hire low-paid immigrant labor without the hassle of work visas and dodge laws about workers' rights, mandatory leave, sick pay and minimum wage. The true libertarian dream.
You missed an option: The unfortunate victim pays by default. That's one of the costs of the libertarian ideal - if something goes wrong for you personally, you're on your own. The risk falls on the individual.
By playing the game. He wasn't just some charismatic leader who rose to power on his speech-writing skill and great oratory. He also sought out corporate sponsors, and promised them favorable economic policies if he was elected - then used their substantial donations to run a massive (for the time) political campaign. Even that wouldn't have done it, had not all the major parties collapsed following serious economic trouble, reducing politics into a free-for-all where the usual rules didn't apply.
The best hope for the US is really that one of the parties may eventually collapse - with the red-vs-blue divide broken, there would be little holding the other party in ideological unity and individual candidates might start to matter more than the letter prefixing their name.
"Write letters to your representatives (look what letter writing did to SOPA)."
One of the biggest grassroots campaigns in years, and all it's done is bought some time. SOPA was killed, but it will rise again.
"It's not too late to reward politicians who will back sane and reasonable sentences."
Yes, it is. Realistically you have three options: Vote republican, vote democrat, or throw away your vote. The parties have set things up between them to effectively exclude any independent or third-party participation. You see a handful at the state level, and once in a blue moon one even makes it to congress, but that's all.