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Comment by Malcolm_Edwards on So You Want to Save the World · 2012-01-04T06:17:50.282Z · LW · GW

It seems to me that any agent unable to solve this problem would be considerably less intelligent than a human.

Comment by Malcolm_Edwards on 2011 Less Wrong Census / Survey · 2011-11-05T12:45:30.455Z · LW · GW

Took the survey, even though I've mostly only lurked.

I don't know what an "ontologically basic mental entity" is. Also, I only left the Singularity question blank because I think it's overall probability of happening is less that 50%.

Comment by Malcolm_Edwards on The RPG Thread · 2011-07-02T02:37:21.012Z · LW · GW

I have run a game of Eclipse Phase at an RPG convention in Sydney. I found it to be a very cool game, the setting in particular is very interesting and varied however the rules are a little complex for people who want to just try it.

There are a lot of bits which don't quite fit into hard sci-fi - aliens, psychics, nanotech that works like magic. However, it's pretty easy to leave these out, except it's difficult to know how realistic nanotech would work. I doubt we'll ever use it to create mundane things due to energy constraints, but I guess in the context of the game it works.

Where the game really shines is in dealing with mind uploading, "re-sleeving", virtual worlds and psychic surgery - you can copy minds and re-merge them, even edit them to some degree. It gives a lot of scope for games that work with meta-levels of reality and manipulation of minds. I would like to explore possible transhumanism using it if I ever get the time to.