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If you find this interesting then I can recommend Greg Egan's novel Permutation City:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permutation_City




The "rate limited" option in the video reminds me of slow clubs from that book.

For people who haven't read it, in the novel there are virtual parties called slow clubs where poor consciousnesses go to meet. Everyone agrees to limit themselves to the processing speed of the slowest (poorest) person there, so that people who can only afford the occasional spare clock cycle can have meaningful human contact.


One idea that I found quite haunting from Permutation City is that idea that you could set up a higher level controller for your running Copy mind that would periodically chose a new obsessive interest and then provide you with a rich environment to support your obsession.

As someone who is prone to rather obsessive interests (as I suspect many are on HN) I'm increasingly conscious of that fact that I can't directly control what I find interesting.


I know!

People get so attached to the idea of free will. What free will? You do what you want, but you have no control over what you want.




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