# Teleportation would destroy the world. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 27, 2013, 8:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285 "2013-08-27T08:53:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/41 "2013-08-27T18:56:25Z")
Wouldn’t versions of most of the OP’s objections apply to any advance in transportation tech? What a silly sort of objection! As if truckers so desperately _need_ to be truckers that we have to not have transmat tech. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/42 "2013-08-27T18:58:50Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > First, the Luddite economist issue. It’s like saying we’d be better off if the printing press was never invented and the only books were slowly written out by hand, or that curing all disease would be bad because it would put too many doctors out of business. It’s a good thing, not bad, if teleportation renders the transport industry a luxury, not least of which because of its positive effect on the environment. It’s like a weird relative of the broken windows fallacy: The, “don’t buy a lock because the guy I hired to watch the door needs a job,” fallacy? ---
**Author:** ![pancakes3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ba9def/32.png) [@pancakes3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pancakes3)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/43 "2013-08-27T19:43:01Z")
> [@foolsguinea](#): > > Wouldn’t versions of most of the OP’s objections apply to any advance in transportation tech? What a silly sort of objection! As if truckers so desperately _need_ to be truckers that we have to not have transmat tech. :rolleyes: Like with the soon-to-be-ubiquitous automated cars/trucks ---
**Author:** ![AnthonyElite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b487fb/32.png) [@AnthonyElite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AnthonyElite)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/44 "2013-08-27T20:06:06Z")
\< **Hijack** \> > [@Grumman](#): > > Unless your philosophical perspective says that murder is A-OK because the victim isn’t around to complain, you are wrong. > It _is_ cut and dried. Unless you have performed the necessary experiment to establish absolute proof that it maintains continuity of existence (and in Star Trek they have absolute proof that they _don’t_), using a slurry-based teleporter is an act of suicide. I don’t know you well, Grumman, could you do me a favor and remind me when you built a slurry-based teleporter? I just can’t figure out how you KNOW all this and pose it as not open for debate. If all your particles are disassmbled, then assembled at another location, and you retain your thoughts, memories, etc, how is it not you? How is that suicide? Are you opposed because what comes out suddenly lacks a soul? I’m honestly asking how you base this. Also, it would be suicide, not murder. \ **Addressing OP** What makes you think that industries failing is a bad thing? When something is no longer necessary you remove it. There will be other industries that crop up to take the place of the ones obsolete. I don’t think overcrowding would be a problem either. You’d still have the same amount of people wanting to live in the 'burbs, city and country. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/45 "2013-08-27T20:45:27Z")
If the kind of teleportation imagined in the OP does not use teleport booths, but can be achieved by any human at will, like Nightcrawler, we have some problems to sort out. Anyone can jump over, steal a random person’s good, and jump back again. A society of teleporting mutants would have little hope of achieving a stable, law-abiding society. Murder someone, then face a firing squad or the electric chair, then escape at the last minute. Steal the food from other people’s tables. Disarm, or activate, a nation state’s atomic weapons. Oh dear, the possibilities are endless, but the scope for a stable society is minute. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/46 "2013-08-27T20:45:30Z")
> [@TimeWinder](#): > > This comes up in every teleportation thread, and it always amazes me how many otherwise rational, non-religious folks are willing to argue for the existence of a soul in this one case. > > The arrangements of atoms in my body, coupled with the pattern of electrical activity in my nervous system is _me._ Duplicate it exactly, and the result is also _me._ You can play labeling games about what to call each of them, but as far as the me’s are concerned, we have equal claim. Agreed. Worse, if the transporter is also a duplicator, and both keeps the original and transports a double – they are both “really you!” They both have the same memories, the same feelings, the same emotional attachments, the same continuity of self-awareness! The very word “identity” needs to be re-defined in a world with duplicating transporters. As for the economic and social effects – we’ll cope. The stock market will whipsaw. Some people will lose everything. Others will be overnight billionaires. The same would have happened if Fleischmann and Pons had actually discovered cold fusion. There would have been a huge market tumult (hell, there almost was just on the basis of their announcement!) which would have eventually settled out. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/47 "2013-08-27T21:11:04Z")
> [@AnthonyElite](#): > > If all your particles are disassmbled, then assembled at another location, and you retain your thoughts, memories, etc, how is it not you? How is that suicide? Are you opposed because what comes out suddenly lacks a soul? I’m honestly asking how you base this. Also, it would be suicide, not murder. Here’s a real-world analogy of sorts. Say you took a digital photo of something, and that photo is stored on some kind of flash memory card or other. If you move that picture to somewhere else, the bits are somewhere else, but the actual initial record of the light falling on the sensor is gone. The picture looks the same, and in terms of bits and bytes, it is, but in the most absolutely literal sense, you have a copy, not the original, which has been destroyed. It’s not much of a big deal with photographs, but with people, the question remains of whether _you_ die, and some copy without _your_ consciousness lives on the other end of the teleporter. Similar issues are brought up with making copies of people using this technology. Of course, I’ve heard the same thing said about sleeping; that each morning, we’re just remembering what some other version of _me_ did in the past, so if that’s the case, then maybe this sort of teleportation would be much the same idea. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/48 "2013-08-27T22:09:55Z")
> [@AnthonyElite](#): > > If all your particles are disassmbled… …you _die_. Do not pass Go, do not collect $200. If you step into the unmake-Anthony-at-the-atomic-level machine, you are dead. > [@Trinopus](#): > > Agreed. Worse, if the transporter is also a duplicator, and both keeps the original and transports a double – they are both “really you!” They both have the same memories, the same feelings, the same emotional attachments, the same continuity of self-awareness! The very word “identity” needs to be re-defined in a world with duplicating transporters. They are _not_ both really you in the way that matters most to pre-teleport you. Only zero or one of them can be you in the sense that pre-teleport you can still see through its eyes and control its limbs - the other is no more you than your will is. Just because there’s someone carrying out your wishes as set at the time of teleportation doesn’t mean you’re around to enjoy it. ---
**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/49 "2013-08-27T22:35:14Z")
> [@Crackrat](#): > > If you have a machine that can duplicate the joint quantum configuration of the particles in your brain and replicate them, then “you” wouldn’t experience any loss of continuation in your consciousness when you teleport. That is a big if, but given such a machine I’m certain that you are correct. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/50 "2013-08-27T23:14:19Z")
We pretty much only have the concept of personal identity because nature has not furnished us with any possible way of undergoing personal fission. The problem is a philosophical one only. Plenty of non-sentient, or not-very-sentient things in nature _do_ have the capability of reproduction by fission, and we don’t feel obliged to insist that only one of the resulting individuals is the ‘original’. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/51 "2013-08-27T23:25:08Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > . . . They are _not_ both really you in the way that matters most to pre-teleport you. Only zero or one of them can be you in the sense that pre-teleport you can still see through its eyes and control its limbs - the other is no more you than your will is. Just because there’s someone carrying out your wishes as set at the time of teleportation doesn’t mean you’re around to enjoy it. That’s what you say, and I’m sure you believe it, but you aren’t showing any evidence. Meanwhile, using the evidence (ha!) from Star Trek, then, yes, Captain Kirk is still Captain Kirk. He has the same memories, the same self-awareness, the same emotions. None of his friends can tell the difference. He passes every possible objective test for selfhood. It’s up to you to support your claim. You’re asserting a lot, but you aren’t backing it up with anything, not even out of fictional examples. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/52 "2013-08-27T23:28:09Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > They are _not_ both really you in the way that matters most to pre-teleport you. Only zero or one of them can be you in the sense that pre-teleport you can still see through its eyes and control its limbs - the other is no more you than your will is. Just because there’s someone carrying out your wishes as set at the time of teleportation doesn’t mean you’re around to enjoy it. Nonsense. I am the pattern of information stored in my brain. So long as that pattern continues to exist, I continue to exist. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/53 "2013-08-28T00:01:47Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Nonsense. I am the pattern of information stored in my brain. So long as that pattern continues to exist, I continue to exist. This whole argument boils down to whether one believes in the concept of a “soul.” The argument has some merit. Imagine your spouse, a parent, or a loved family member or friend. You are offered a respectable sum of money to have them replaced with an exact replica (made of flesh and blood) who has the same memories and acts, feels, and does everything in the same manner as the person before. Do you take that deal? I think we all, for better or worse, would feel that something was missing from that “new” person. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/54 "2013-08-28T00:07:26Z")
But only really because we have no background experience of such a thing to enable us to comprehend it. By the same token, if an all-powerful deity appeared and offered to resurrect a lost loved one, many of the same people would accept. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/55 "2013-08-28T00:31:00Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > This whole argument boils down to whether one believes in the concept of a “soul.” > > The argument has some merit. Imagine your spouse, a parent, or a loved family member or friend. You are offered a respectable sum of money to have them replaced with an exact replica (made of flesh and blood) who has the same memories and acts, feels, and does everything in the same manner as the person before. Do you take that deal? > > I think we all, for better or worse, would feel that something was missing from that “new” person. Um… Why? If I can’t tell the difference, why are you saying that I would be able to “feel” the difference? You’re positing some kind of extra-sensory perception. Few of us, here, buy into that. ---
**Author:** ![TimeWinder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bcef8e/32.png) [@TimeWinder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TimeWinder)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/56 "2013-08-28T01:26:15Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > I think we all, for better or worse, would feel that something was missing from that “new” person. If that’s the case, you use a very different definition of “exact” than I do. I _would_ be concerned about what happened to the other copy, but that’s true whenever any number of loved ones go missing, as we’re asserting happened here. ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/57 "2013-08-28T03:02:46Z")
I really do want to respond to some of the point here, but it’s a hijack and on a topic that has been done many times on the Dope. If **pkbites** is game for his thread to go in this direction, then fine, but otherwise I will leave it here. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/58 "2013-08-28T03:16:08Z")
It’s a good highjack, but, yeah, it isn’t to the point. But…isn’t there near unanimity on the main point? Teleportation wouldn’t destroy the world, nor the economy. We’d adapt. We always adapt. If somebody manages to invent the infinite-capacity c-cell battery – powers your flashlight for a year, if you put that much energy into it – it would change things tremendously, but it wouldn’t destroy us. If somebody invents anti-gravity, it will change things. Now, if we develop vastly-smarter-than-human AI… That might be different. The change might be so catastrophic as to be indistinguishable from destructive. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/59 "2013-08-28T08:18:54Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > It _is_ cut and dried. Unless you have performed the necessary experiment to establish absolute proof that it maintains continuity of existence (and in Star Trek they have absolute proof that they _don’t_), using a slurry-based teleporter is an act of suicide. I disagree - I’m assuming what’s transported then is a perfect copy of your mind-state, your gestalt. I would argue that that is, as far as anyone should be concerned, the only _real_ you. The body is just a support system for it (and yes, the body environment makes up part of that gestalt, in as far as hormones etc form part of your mindstate - but you’re duplicating all that on the other side) There’s nothing in my definition of “me” that includes perfect temporal continuity. Or I’d have self-suicided every time I settle down for a night of dreamless sleep…:dubious: As to the OP - yes, a lot of industries would be fucked by easy, cheap teleportation. Worse than buggy whip manufacturers, even!😉 ---
**Author:** ![antechinus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@antechinus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antechinus)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2013, 9:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285/60 "2013-08-28T09:49:33Z")
Teleportation is possible and will be realised. We will have remote controlled robots accessible via the internet. The technologies are on right trajectory - massive broadband providing an immersive sensory experience for the controller of a drone anywhere on the planet. Drone might be digging a hole, fighting a war, cutting down trees, … drinking a beer. Every action will leave an audit trail. Any freely available drone can be occupied anywhere at any time (subject to battery charge and pricing limitations). Is there any difference between this and teleportation? Economic pressures will be changed and will adapt. If the model facilitates resource consumption and is technologically feasible, it will happen. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/teleportation-would-destroy-the-world/667285.md?page=4)