Essentially the whole book/show asks: what if you had the ability to transfer human consciousness? One of the big knock on effects it suggests is the creation of an ultra-wealthy caste of decadent, hedonistic, morally bankrupt immortals ruling at the top of a capitalist, cyberpunk dystopia. They're called Meths, short for Methusela, the oldest person in the Bible. Really good work that is definitely informed by transhumanism and the points you bring up.
Full-time web dev; JS lover since 2002; CSS fanatic. #CSSIsAwesome
I try to stay up with new web platform features. Web feature you don't understand? Tell me! I'll write an article!
He/him
That sounds like an interesting watch(/read). I've definitely heard good things about it, and it's on my list to get to eventually.
This is a tangent, and like, whatever, it's sci-fi, it doesn't have to be super realistic, but IMO there's a problem with the premise of transferring human consciousness. My best guess based on the research I've done on the philosophy and science of mind and consciousness (amateur here, so grains of salt all round, but it's been an area of personal interest for like a decade) is that the "transferring" of consciousness to another body would probably be an illusion, and we'd more likely end up duplicating a consciousness into a new body and destroying the old one. The difference being that the stream of consciousness would not connect; the source person would die from their perspective, and a new person would be created with their memories and such. Same thing that people argue about with Star Trek's transporters.
On post-scarcity: Basically what we do now - we manufacture "work" in the form of tax and insurance corporations, among many many other industries that could be sorted by automation.
Full-time web dev; JS lover since 2002; CSS fanatic. #CSSIsAwesome
I try to stay up with new web platform features. Web feature you don't understand? Tell me! I'll write an article!
He/him
Essentially the whole book/show asks: what if you had the ability to transfer human consciousness? One of the big knock on effects it suggests is the creation of an ultra-wealthy caste of decadent, hedonistic, morally bankrupt immortals ruling at the top of a capitalist, cyberpunk dystopia. They're called Meths, short for Methusela, the oldest person in the Bible. Really good work that is definitely informed by transhumanism and the points you bring up.
That sounds like an interesting watch(/read). I've definitely heard good things about it, and it's on my list to get to eventually.
This is a tangent, and like, whatever, it's sci-fi, it doesn't have to be super realistic, but IMO there's a problem with the premise of transferring human consciousness. My best guess based on the research I've done on the philosophy and science of mind and consciousness (amateur here, so grains of salt all round, but it's been an area of personal interest for like a decade) is that the "transferring" of consciousness to another body would probably be an illusion, and we'd more likely end up duplicating a consciousness into a new body and destroying the old one. The difference being that the stream of consciousness would not connect; the source person would die from their perspective, and a new person would be created with their memories and such. Same thing that people argue about with Star Trek's transporters.
On post-scarcity: Basically what we do now - we manufacture "work" in the form of tax and insurance corporations, among many many other industries that could be sorted by automation.
Maybe. I'd hope that the answer would be "Capitalism won't survive."