Элиезер Юдковски - Three Worlds Collide

"And the Superhappies?" Akon said. "The race with superior technology that may decide to exterminate us, or keep us in prison, or take our children away? Is there any silver lining to that? "

"The Superhappies aren't so far from us," the Confessor said. "We could have gone down the Super Happy path. We nearly did - you might have trouble imagining just how attractive the absence of pain can sound, under certain circumstances. In a sense, you could say that I tried to go down that path -

though I wasn't a very competent neuroengineer. If human nature had been only slightly different, we could easily have been within that attractor. And the Super Happy civilization is not hateful to us , whatever we are to them. That's good news at least, for how the rest of the universe might look." The Confessor paused. "And..."

"And?"

The Confessor's voice became harder. "And the Superhappies will rescue the Babyeater children no matter what, I think, even if humanity should fail in the task. Considering how many Babyeater

children are dying, and in what pain - that could outweigh even our own extermination. Shut up and multiply, as the saying goes."

"Oh, come on! " Akon said, too surprised to be shocked. "If the Superhappies hadn't shown up, we would have - well, we would have done something about the Babyeaters, once we decided what. We wouldn't have just let the, the -"

"Holocaust," the Confessor offered.

"Good word for it. We wouldn't have just let the Holocaust go on."

"You would be astounded, my lord, at what human beings will just let go on . Do you realize the expenditure of capital, labor, maybe even human lives required to invade every part of the Babyeater civilization? To trace out every part of their starline network, push our technological advantage to its limit to build faster ships that can hunt down every Babyeater ship that tries to flee? Do you realize -"

"I'm sorry. You are simply mistaken as a question of fact." Boy, thought Akon, you don't often get to say that to a Confessor. "This is not your birth era, honorable ancestor. We are the humanity that has its shit together. If the Superhappies had never come along, humanity would have done whatever it took to rescue the Babyeater children. You saw the Lord Pilot, the Lady Sensory; they were ready to secede from civilization if that's what it took to get the job done. And that, honorable ancestor, is how most people would react."

"For a moment," said the Confessor. "In the moment of first hearing the news. When talk was cheap.

When they hadn't yet visualized the costs. But once they did , there would be an uneasy pause, while everyone waited to see if someone else might act first. And faster than you imagine possible, people would adjust to that state of affairs. It would no longer sound quite so shocking as it did at first.

Babyeater children are dying horrible, agonizing deaths in their parents' stomachs? Deplorable, of course, but things have always been that way. It would no longer be news. It would all be part of the plan. "

"Are you high on something?" Akon said. It wasn't the most polite way he could have phrased it, but he couldn't help himself.

The Confessor's voice was as cold and hard as an iron sun, after the universe had burned down to

embers. "Innocent youth, when you have watched your older brother beaten almost to death before your eyes, and seen how little the police investigate - when you have watched all four of your

grandparents wither away like rotten fruit and cease to exist, while you spoke not one word of protest because you thought it was normal - then you may speak to me of what human beings will tolerate."

"I don't believe we would do that," Akon said as mildly as possible.

"Then you fail as a rationalist," the Confessor said. His unhooded head turned toward the false walls, to look out at the accurately represented stars. "But I - I will not fail again. "

"Well, you're damn right about one thing," Akon said. He was too exhausted to be tactful. "You can't ever be allowed to make decisions for the human species."

"I know. Believe me, I know. Only youth can Administrate. That is the pact of immortality."

Akon stood up from the bed. "Thank you, Confessor. You have helped me."

With an easy, practiced motion, the Confessor slid the hood of his robe over his head, and the stark features vanished into shadow. "I have?" the Confessor said, and his recloaked voice sounded strangely mild, after that earlier masculine power. "How?"

Akon shrugged. He didn't think he could put it into words. It had something to do with the terrible vast sweep of Time across the centuries, and so much true change that had already happened, deeper by far than anything he had witnessed in his own lifetime; the requirement of courage to face the future, and the sacrifices that had been made for it; and that not everyone had been saved, once upon a time.

"I guess you reminded me," Akon said, "that you can't always get everything you want."

(5/8) Three Worlds Decide

Akon strode into the main Conference Room; and though he walked like a physically exhausted man,

at least his face was determined. Behind him, the shadowy Confessor followed.

The Command Conference looked up at him, and exchanged glances.

"You look better," the Ship's Master of Fandom ventured.

Akon put a hand on the back of his seat, and paused. Someone was absent. "The Ship's Engineer?"

The Lord Programmer frowned. "He said he had an experiment to run, my lord. He refused to clarify further, but I suppose it must have something to do with the Babyeaters' data -"

"You're joking," Akon said. "Our Ship's Engineer is off Nobel-hunting? Now? With the fate of the human species at stake? "

The Lord Programmer shrugged. "He seemed to think it was important, my lord."

Akon sighed. He pulled his chair back and half-slid, half-fell into it. "I don't suppose that the ship's markets have settled down?"

The Lord Pilot grinned sardonically. "Read for yourself."

Akon twitched, calling up a screen. "Ah, I see. The ship's Interpreter of the Market's Will reports, and I quote, 'Every single one of the underlying assets in my market is going up and down like a fucking yo-yo while the ship's hedgers try to adjust to a Black Swan that's going to wipe out ninety-eight percent of their planetside risk capital. Even the spot prices on this ship are going crazy; either we've got bubble traders coming out of the woodwork, or someone seriously believes that sex is overvalued relative to orange juice. One derivatives trader says she's working on a contract that will have a clearly defined value in the event that aliens wipe out the entire human species, but she says it's going to take a few hours and I say she's on crack. Indeed I believe an actual majority of the people still trying to trade in this environment are higher than the heliopause. Bid-ask spreads are so wide you could kick a

fucking football stadium through them, nothing is clearing, and I have unisolated conditional dependencies coming out of my ass. I have no fucking clue what the market believes. Someone get

me a drink.' Unquote." Akon looked at the Master of Fandom. "Any suggestions get reddited up from the rest of the crew?"

The Master cleared his throat. "My lord, we took the liberty of filtering out everything that was physically impossible, based on pure wishful thinking, or displayed a clear misunderstanding of

naturalistic metaethics. I can show you the raw list, if you'd like."