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Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Rat
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Taking Flight (4/5)
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Where there are two copies of a mind, there"s the possibility of more. I"ve spent more than a little time trying to figure out how a clan of copies should organize itself in order to let the group improve the lives of each individual member, by arranging for the incentives offered to each member to nudge them towards clan-supporting behaviours. A lot of the details seem to depend on one particular issue: how much the clan"s members can trust that every other member is, in fact, another copy of their mind, and some infiltrator isn"t just pretending to be. This can get particularly hairy as the copies continue to diverge over time, developing varied interests and experiences; so it behooves me to make what preparations I can in the present-day, to ensure that future copies of myself all share enough pre-planning to be able to coordinate with each other without even needing to explicitly communicate. For instance, coming up with a "time travel password system" that would let a hypothetical time-travelling version of myself prove they"re me to a past version of me, and would still work even if some hostile person watched the password-exchange and tried to repeat it, allows me to consider and work through a number of problems that a copy-clan would also have to solve.
No solution is going to be perfect, but I just might be able to improve the odds of my future selves being able to enjoy at least slightly better lives... and in the meantime, it"s at least as much fun as any other seemingly-pointless worldbuilding exercises.
Art by
tailsteak
Where there are two copies of a mind, there"s the possibility of more. I"ve spent more than a little time trying to figure out how a clan of copies should organize itself in order to let the group improve the lives of each individual member, by arranging for the incentives offered to each member to nudge them towards clan-supporting behaviours. A lot of the details seem to depend on one particular issue: how much the clan"s members can trust that every other member is, in fact, another copy of their mind, and some infiltrator isn"t just pretending to be. This can get particularly hairy as the copies continue to diverge over time, developing varied interests and experiences; so it behooves me to make what preparations I can in the present-day, to ensure that future copies of myself all share enough pre-planning to be able to coordinate with each other without even needing to explicitly communicate. For instance, coming up with a "time travel password system" that would let a hypothetical time-travelling version of myself prove they"re me to a past version of me, and would still work even if some hostile person watched the password-exchange and tried to repeat it, allows me to consider and work through a number of problems that a copy-clan would also have to solve.
No solution is going to be perfect, but I just might be able to improve the odds of my future selves being able to enjoy at least slightly better lives... and in the meantime, it"s at least as much fun as any other seemingly-pointless worldbuilding exercises.
Art by
tailsteak
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Rat
Gender Female
Size 1280 x 808px
File Size 166.2 kB
Listed in Folders
Hmmm. You could use a design similar to beetles more than wasps. Those wings collapse and fold up into a surprising small space. Might shift the cultural association if you use scales and more appeal colours to the diaphanous and iridescent look.
A clan of copies could use two factor encryption to confirm that they are in fact copies. Only the copies would have the secret key needed to decrypt the greeting.
A clan of copies could use two factor encryption to confirm that they are in fact copies. Only the copies would have the secret key needed to decrypt the greeting.
> Only the copies would have the secret key needed to decrypt the greeting.
At least, until somebody digs up one of the copies' backup servers, and hacks the software to find that secret key. :)
I suspect that a brain's data is messy enough that yoinking any particular datum out of a mindfile will require significantly more effort than scanning through a filesystem containing the future equivalent of PGP, so memorizing the key would provide greater reliability and trustworthiness than a simple keyfile.
I also suspect that once we get far enough into the future, enough leaks will have happened that there'll be no way to have absolute certainty about another copy's authenticity, only a greater or lesser probability. And trying to lay the groundwork for a copy-clan's cooperation in such a situation is, shall we say, a nontrivial problem that I'm still working on, off and on.
At least, until somebody digs up one of the copies' backup servers, and hacks the software to find that secret key. :)
I suspect that a brain's data is messy enough that yoinking any particular datum out of a mindfile will require significantly more effort than scanning through a filesystem containing the future equivalent of PGP, so memorizing the key would provide greater reliability and trustworthiness than a simple keyfile.
I also suspect that once we get far enough into the future, enough leaks will have happened that there'll be no way to have absolute certainty about another copy's authenticity, only a greater or lesser probability. And trying to lay the groundwork for a copy-clan's cooperation in such a situation is, shall we say, a nontrivial problem that I'm still working on, off and on.
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