Determinate mortality, if you dare.
I wonder if you, like I, have considered the nature of your plan as a supervillain.
Perhaps you haven't. Perhaps most people who are not supervillains do not bother to consider what they would do were they in such a position. I wonder at times about the supervillains who don't prepare for their lives, actually, but that's beside the point. I cannot say that it is normal to make plans on what you would do, what goals you would pursue, were you to seek to impose your will upon your neighborhood, your municipality, your nation, perhaps ... dare I say it? Yes, I must indeed dare ... the world itself!?
Well, I have done. I have considered what I would do, given the chance. I have in mind an ultimate goal, what I wish to see happen for humankind, whether the species would choose it for themselves or not. I would pursue nothing less than the ultimate goal of providing humankind the option of determinate mortality through the vehicle of silicate-housed sentience.
Currently, human beings individually and collectively live in utterly precarious circumstances. Stacked against us are infectious agents like virii and bacteria; parasitic organisms that colonize our own forms and degrade them; fungi, mold and spores that destroy us with each breath; toxic chemicals that can snuff us out instantly or that build up silently, invisibly within until it is too late to do more than fear the inevitable; savage attacks by predatory species, our co-inhabitants of Earth will eat us if they can; and the Earth itself, from weather to fire to drowning in the water that dominates the surface of the planet. If non-human forces aren't enough, we human beings are all too likely to prey upon one another, up to and including fatally. Leaving aside everything else that might happen, our own bodies will fail, no matter what you do to prevent it. Cancer, misfires of genetics or the electrical system, or simply the passage of time and the breakdown of irreplaceable biological machinery. Daily, we lose talented minds forever, perspectives and lines of thought that we may never see again.
Why? We are choosing to let this happen. We are talking and working on massive engineering projects aimed at correcting the mistakes of past generations that are turning the climate of our biosphere against us. We send machines out of the atmosphere, out into the deep black of space, to other celestial bodies, there to explore the mysteries of the baryonic universe. We scan the depths of the observable universe along every electromagnetic wavelength, sift the dust of history, and dive in the deep blue ocean where life is as alien as if it were on a different planet. Yet when it comes to our own bodies, we toss chemicals into the mix in often vague hope that we can control even the basic functions of the system. We can harness the power of splitting the atom, we are within only a few more years of controlling nuclear fusion, but we cannot manage to decisively manage the pain from a stubbed toe or a headache.
On those rare occasions when we work to correct biological issues, our own kind put up roadblocks based on superstition, power plays, or base greed. We have done this to ourselves, do you see?
Imagine for a moment that there is another way. Let me make this easy for you: others have already imagined it and have even described any number of ways to escape the Reaper, or at least to force it to work on your schedule. Here, however, I will give you my vision, shaped as it has been by those who've gone before me and shared their visions with me.
All sentience is stored on machinery, on computers not so different than what we have now. Advanced, yes, but not so different in architecture. Your fundamental mind is stored on indelible memory, newer information and memory being written to RAM. All of this is backed up with triple redundancy. Your world is virtual, the shared subjective reality of cyberspace. You are not alone; all of humankind, all sentience of Earthly origin, is stored and lives just the same way. There is no death. There is no want. The only needs you have are energy and intellectual stimulation; the former we get from fusion and from solar energy, while the latter you receive from human creativity unleashed from the fear of the Four Horsemen and all their needless works: War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. Live as you will, live without fear, for no human force can destroy you or permanently alter you against your will. Do What Thou Wilt would truly be the whole of the Law. The machinery of this new reality is maintained by a combination of mechanisms designed for the task and by those intelligences whose passion is to serve in maintaining and improving that machinery. Distance is a setting you can change at a whim inside a virtual world, and if you need to work in the physical reality, connect your senses and will to a peripheral near where you need to work.
This is my vision, the technological Singularity writ large. Humankind exits the cocoon, leaves our childhood form behind, and enters into a phase of existence so different from this that even our broadest imaginings are only a glimpse of the beginnings of our new lives. We could rise so far above ourselves as we now know "humankind," that to look back would be like unto modern man trying to comprehend the day-to-day opinions of the average ant.
This is my vision. This is my goal. I would not choose to force it on every human being. My goal as a supervillain would be to make that choice available to all who would take it, and yes, to prevent those who would restrict it or stop it from being able to do so. I am Lucifer; I bear to you the Light. I am the Serpent; I offer you the Truth, but you have to decide to take the first bite. I am Prometheus; I bring you the fires of Olympus, but what you choose to do with it is entirely up to you.
Join me, and the sky is not the limit. Join me, and the sky will split asunder at your whim.
Perhaps you haven't. Perhaps most people who are not supervillains do not bother to consider what they would do were they in such a position. I wonder at times about the supervillains who don't prepare for their lives, actually, but that's beside the point. I cannot say that it is normal to make plans on what you would do, what goals you would pursue, were you to seek to impose your will upon your neighborhood, your municipality, your nation, perhaps ... dare I say it? Yes, I must indeed dare ... the world itself!?
Well, I have done. I have considered what I would do, given the chance. I have in mind an ultimate goal, what I wish to see happen for humankind, whether the species would choose it for themselves or not. I would pursue nothing less than the ultimate goal of providing humankind the option of determinate mortality through the vehicle of silicate-housed sentience.
Currently, human beings individually and collectively live in utterly precarious circumstances. Stacked against us are infectious agents like virii and bacteria; parasitic organisms that colonize our own forms and degrade them; fungi, mold and spores that destroy us with each breath; toxic chemicals that can snuff us out instantly or that build up silently, invisibly within until it is too late to do more than fear the inevitable; savage attacks by predatory species, our co-inhabitants of Earth will eat us if they can; and the Earth itself, from weather to fire to drowning in the water that dominates the surface of the planet. If non-human forces aren't enough, we human beings are all too likely to prey upon one another, up to and including fatally. Leaving aside everything else that might happen, our own bodies will fail, no matter what you do to prevent it. Cancer, misfires of genetics or the electrical system, or simply the passage of time and the breakdown of irreplaceable biological machinery. Daily, we lose talented minds forever, perspectives and lines of thought that we may never see again.
Why? We are choosing to let this happen. We are talking and working on massive engineering projects aimed at correcting the mistakes of past generations that are turning the climate of our biosphere against us. We send machines out of the atmosphere, out into the deep black of space, to other celestial bodies, there to explore the mysteries of the baryonic universe. We scan the depths of the observable universe along every electromagnetic wavelength, sift the dust of history, and dive in the deep blue ocean where life is as alien as if it were on a different planet. Yet when it comes to our own bodies, we toss chemicals into the mix in often vague hope that we can control even the basic functions of the system. We can harness the power of splitting the atom, we are within only a few more years of controlling nuclear fusion, but we cannot manage to decisively manage the pain from a stubbed toe or a headache.
On those rare occasions when we work to correct biological issues, our own kind put up roadblocks based on superstition, power plays, or base greed. We have done this to ourselves, do you see?
Imagine for a moment that there is another way. Let me make this easy for you: others have already imagined it and have even described any number of ways to escape the Reaper, or at least to force it to work on your schedule. Here, however, I will give you my vision, shaped as it has been by those who've gone before me and shared their visions with me.
All sentience is stored on machinery, on computers not so different than what we have now. Advanced, yes, but not so different in architecture. Your fundamental mind is stored on indelible memory, newer information and memory being written to RAM. All of this is backed up with triple redundancy. Your world is virtual, the shared subjective reality of cyberspace. You are not alone; all of humankind, all sentience of Earthly origin, is stored and lives just the same way. There is no death. There is no want. The only needs you have are energy and intellectual stimulation; the former we get from fusion and from solar energy, while the latter you receive from human creativity unleashed from the fear of the Four Horsemen and all their needless works: War, Famine, Pestilence and Death. Live as you will, live without fear, for no human force can destroy you or permanently alter you against your will. Do What Thou Wilt would truly be the whole of the Law. The machinery of this new reality is maintained by a combination of mechanisms designed for the task and by those intelligences whose passion is to serve in maintaining and improving that machinery. Distance is a setting you can change at a whim inside a virtual world, and if you need to work in the physical reality, connect your senses and will to a peripheral near where you need to work.
This is my vision, the technological Singularity writ large. Humankind exits the cocoon, leaves our childhood form behind, and enters into a phase of existence so different from this that even our broadest imaginings are only a glimpse of the beginnings of our new lives. We could rise so far above ourselves as we now know "humankind," that to look back would be like unto modern man trying to comprehend the day-to-day opinions of the average ant.
This is my vision. This is my goal. I would not choose to force it on every human being. My goal as a supervillain would be to make that choice available to all who would take it, and yes, to prevent those who would restrict it or stop it from being able to do so. I am Lucifer; I bear to you the Light. I am the Serpent; I offer you the Truth, but you have to decide to take the first bite. I am Prometheus; I bring you the fires of Olympus, but what you choose to do with it is entirely up to you.
Join me, and the sky is not the limit. Join me, and the sky will split asunder at your whim.