Mindfile deletion

How do you know that your mindfile will not be deleted, either on purpose or by accident? What would you do if your mindfile is stored in memory and not allowed to run? How would you know that you are not being run? Is not running the equivalent of being dead? How will you know that you are getting the processing power and bandwidth in your contract when reality is simulated and hardware test results could be simulated too?

There are at least two levels of challenges to address, akin to current physical world needs, first, survival needs and second, needs and rights when interacting with others.

Establishing rights for mindfiles
There will need to be ways to assure basic ‘human’ rights in a potential era of uploading brains to digital software files. There could be many misuses of massive databanks of mindfiles: they could be deleted at will (digital genocide) or by mistake by careless ISPs/data center managers, sold, kidnapped, copied, bred, hiveminded or discriminated against via less bandwidth and processing power. If the reality experienced by mindfiles is simulated, how would anyone know that the virtual reality they experience is the one they want to experience? A code or key could be created so that individual mindfiles could not be copied without the owners permission, agreement or knowing; perhaps like the telomere-shortening system used by biological cells. Pervasive externally run audit software could maintain lists of mindfile citizens (a future role for the nation-state) and periodically query each mindfile to determine its status and whether it is running. As usual, the white hats would need to stay ahead of the black hats.

Reducing naked Darwinism
With less transparency and social pressure, it is possible that the behavioral smoothing that has arisen in contemporary society would dissolve. Codes of conduct for mindfiles could be developed, probably with a much heightened awareness and refinement of the respectful treatment of consciousnesses. If virtuality is 100% sousveilled, this should not be a problem. In addition, mechanisms such as barriers, permissioning tiers and firewalled gardens could arise to prevent stronger minds from terrorizing and controlling weaker minds or different minds. The real goal would be to rearchitect social pressure in ways that are continually empowering to all individuals. Some mindfiles may prefer heavily controlled virtual environments, others may wish to venture onto the interstitial wildnets.

Humanity transcends material wealth

Another chapter in the broad theme of "an idea whose time has come" is the interesting element of social coercion in behavior influencing. It is now not politically correct or even socially acceptable to smoke, drink heavily, eat fatty foods or to have poor posture in most professional and social settings. It is becoming less acceptable to just have a job and hobbies, rather than a direction and mission.

There is of course, regional seepage to this cultural phenomenon; the ideas generally begin, intentionally or not, in California and other clean living, high actualization environments and pervade other urban areas and even extend slow fingers out from cities. Witness anti-tobacco lawsuits superseded by anti-fast food and anti-trans fat lawsuits. The interesting aspect is that behaviors we have known for years to be unhealthy sat untransformed until the eye of social disapproval turned to them. While social disapproval can be seen as an invitation for anti-conformist counterbalance when it pertains to ideas, maybe it is all right when it pertains to statistically supported facts that enhance human life, especially those that hit low on the Maslow hierarchy.

It is increasingly unacceptable to show material trappings or any other sign of success. Indeed, pecuniary interests matter less and less, both directly and as a proxy for success. The brain - ideas, creativity, innovation and skill flexibility and acquisition - is the new currency of success, and it is measured intangibly. The impact is an increasingly interconnected actualizing civilization cleanly focused on true progress, ensconced in the true freedom of ideas.