From sentience at pobox.com  Tue Apr  1 01:29:12 2008
From: sentience at pobox.com (Eliezer S. Yudkowsky)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 18:29:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net><62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com><ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>
	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>
	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>

Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear power 
as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling in 
government.

As a result, the world also has 40 years of excess carbon emissions 
from coal plants that should never have been built.

It is not necessarily possible for the "free market" to swoop in and 
fix these problems after they have had 40 years to get worse.

Right now, we *should* have an upper bound of $5 on gas because 
everyone knows it's possible to just build more nuclear power plants 
and synthesize fuel from atmospheric carbon.  But, in fact, we don't 
live in that world.

China should be building one nuclear power plant per day using their 
foreign exchange surplus - after the rich West paid to do the design 
work, and standardized the plant manufacturing.  Instead, China is 
building one coal plant every 4 days.

The "free market" has *already* been stomped on, and the lead time to 
fix things is not instantaneous.

If I put it that way, do you see how much trouble we may be in?

-- 
Eliezer S. Yudkowsky                          http://singinst.org/
Research Fellow, Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence

From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Apr  1 01:31:20 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:31:20 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood
In-Reply-To: <47F16644.7070100@lineone.net>
References: <mailman.873.1206798163.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47F16644.7070100@lineone.net>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080331202743.05da6598@satx.rr.com>

At 11:31 PM 3/31/2008 +0100, ben zaiboc wrote:

>Why would being convinced that the "mapping over there" is you, lead to
>being relaxed about the other you, over here,  being obliterated? This
>makes no sense (to me. See below).
>...
>Why on earth would anyone think this?

You'll have to take this up with John Clark, who says so quite often. 
(As long as there's only a second or so's post-duplication lag, 
although some are apparently more lax about discrepancies.)

Damien Broderick 


From jef at jefallbright.net  Tue Apr  1 00:25:26 2008
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:25:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood
In-Reply-To: <019801c8937a$fe826230$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <552780.81939.qm@web31506.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
	<f7bfe5740803281001l7ee92bbbsf5bc57f1c4da531a@mail.gmail.com>
	<f7bfe5740803281009h5b4b80e4td181d61e971b7700@mail.gmail.com>
	<00d301c892d7$57db8f90$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f7bfe5740803310741i2e4dff17k80f395646e3eed49@mail.gmail.com>
	<019801c8937a$fe826230$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740803311725t7bee74d5n45d7c36053f22ed3@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 3:02 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

>  That still leaves a lot of unanswered questions. Oh, and by the way,
>  I do plead guilty to being focused upon personal *survival*. But,
>  you see, what I really want to understand are the necessary and
>  sufficient conditions that you endorse for the continued existence
>  of a *person*----that is what the question of personal identity
>  amounts to. Your slightly modified definition or characterization
>  I have offset above fails to explain just when a "personal identity"
>  ceases to be, even by degree.
>
>  We were closer back in the days when you'd agree that a 6 year
>  old Alice was not the same person as the 86 year old Alice. But
>  it seems to me that you are becoming increasingly vague and
>  obscure.

On the contrary, I posted that little story about Aging Alice,
<http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2006-November/030182.html>,
to show that the diachronic self entails /no/ difference of identity
for the person or their society -- to the extent that agency is
maintained.

I showed how Alice as a young girl, Alice as a young adult, Alice as a
mature adult, and even Alice in old age could have substantial, even
conflicting, differences in their memories, values, functions and
morphology, yet be easily, naturally, and effectively considered the
same person by herself and those around her.  I showed also how the
entity Alice of future technology could have simultaneous "variants
and doubles" in addition to the aging meat body, all considered the
same self to the extent they act on behalf of the same entity.

In contrast, your view becomes increasingly incoherent as it departs
from the special case of exact duplicates at T=0.

You've said many times that as duplicates diverge in form and function
they become less the same person.  In acknowledging this you recognize
that it raises a fundamental question but you're unable to quantify or
fit a function.  And you can't because it's only a special case,
operating according to principles outside your model, that you've
chosen to ignore -- apparently because to do so would undermine the
Key to Personal Survival you've been so tightly grasping and carefully
polishing all these years.  You can't possibly come up with even an
approximate function for relating physical/functional/pattern
divergence to personal identity divergence -- because personal
identity is not a function of physical/functional/pattern similarity.
Physical/functional/pattern similarity is merely *correlated in our
experience* with identity because it's the simplest, most probable
example of personal agency, with that probability approaching absolute
certainty as all differences approach indiscernibility.

Personal identity is not a function of physical/functional/pattern
similarity -- that's only a special case.
Personal identity is a function of the extent to which an agent is
perceived to act on behalf of a (personal) entity.

Regardless of changes in physical form; function lost or enhanced;
memories lost, gained, modified or even "made up"; values cherished
and then left behind, emotional response changing over minutes, hours,
weeks, years; spatial change, temporal change, spatio-temporal
replicas... None of this matters to personal identity, except to the
extent it impacts agency.

...

As I thought about how to lay out the rest of a proper response, I
realized I've said it all before.

When will I learn?

Have fun, Lee.  This particular sandbox is all yours.

- Jef


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aging Alice

Alice at the age of six loved playing with dolls but boys were icky.
She wasn't sure whether she believed in Santa Claus, and her memories
were like those of most little girls, revolving around events in her
home and with the neighbor kids, and she especially remembered her
fourth birthday party (birthdays are great!) when grandma came to
visit all the way from... someplace far away.

When Alice turned sixteen, playing with dolls was long since pass? and
boys were the most important focus of her life.  She didn't believe in
Santa Claus, but she believed very strongly that anyone should be
allowed to do whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt anyone
else, and she really really really wished people would leave her
alone!  Her memories were mostly of friends and social events over the
last several years, but she didn't remember a lot about her early
childhood years.

When Alice was twenty-six, she was very active in her local chapter of
United World, and it frustrated her to no end how people were so blind
to the importance, rather the necessity, of being involved and working
together for a common cause. Her memories were full of momentous world
events and she could hardly remember being the sixteen year old who so
often said "leave me alone" when people offered to help.

At thirty-six, Alice couldn't understand how people could find time
for idealistic dreams like "saving the world" when she and her husband
had their hands more than full with two jobs, two mortgages and two
kids.  She believed strongly that family (especially the children)
comes first, and that free time was among the most valuable things in
the universe.  She had fond memories of being sixteen, when life was
so simple and free.

<Skip ahead fifty years>

At eighty-six, Alice and her partner stayed almost entirely at home
due to the ongoing bioterrorist threats. It wasn't so bad though, and
in fact she was more active and involved than ever before using the
latest telepresence technology. It allowed her to be in more than one
place at the same time, and while her multiple projects were very
important to her, even with mental augmentation she sometimes felt she
might explode from all the in-rushing information. Being so plugged
into the net it was often hard to discern where "Alice" ended and the
rest of the world began, and she could "remember" almost anything
instantly.

<Skip ahead fifty years>

On their one hundred thirty-sixth birthday Alice's variants and
doubles noted their anniversary in passing but were much too engaged
with multiples of projects to choose to allocate an attentional
resource branch for a dedicated celebration. AlicePrime would have
wanted it that way, and it's not like anyone's going to forget
anything these days.

From aiguy at comcast.net  Tue Apr  1 02:19:29 2008
From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:19:29 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net><62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com><ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com><62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com><015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <008701c8939e$d136e250$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2>

Eliezer said: >>
 
Right now, we *should* have an upper bound of $5 on gas because everyone
knows it's possible to just build more nuclear power plants and synthesize
fuel from atmospheric carbon.  But, in fact, we don't live in that world.

China should be building one nuclear power plant per day using their foreign
exchange surplus - after the rich West paid to do the design work, and
standardized the plant manufacturing.  Instead, China is building one coal
plant every 4 days.

>>

My Response:

China is slated to build 15 Nuclear plants over the next 15 years with
Westinghouse,

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06351/746789-28.stm

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_40/b3953066.htm


That's certainly not the 1 every 4 days like the coal fire plants but my
guess is the nuclear plants will outproduce them by a wide margin.

And from what China learns from the construction of the first 4 that
Westinghouse is building now, I bet they start building their own as quickly
as they can copy the blueprints and set up a supply chain.


From kevinfreels at insightbb.com  Tue Apr  1 02:24:04 2008
From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:24:04 -0500
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>
	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>
	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <fc5ce48b121b1.47f15674@insightbb.com>



----- Original Message -----
From: "Eliezer S. Yudkowsky" <sentience at pobox.com>
Date: Monday, March 31, 2008 20:33
Subject: Re: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>

> Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear 
> power 
> as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling 
> in 
> government.
> 
> As a result, the world also has 40 years of excess carbon 
> emissions 
> from coal plants that should never have been built.

So in other words - environmentalism causes global warming..... :-P
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From kevinfreels at insightbb.com  Tue Apr  1 02:28:31 2008
From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:28:31 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080331202743.05da6598@satx.rr.com>
References: <mailman.873.1206798163.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47F16644.7070100@lineone.net>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331202743.05da6598@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <fc67f50311cd7.47f1577f@insightbb.com>


I've seen a few of you mention the declining bee population lately. I just thought I would pass this on.

http://www.physorg.com/news126203432.html

Ore. Farmers Press for More Bee Research
Sponsored Links 

(AP) -- Oregon farmers are hoping that the state's premier academics will help them figure out what is causing a sudden decline in the bee population that's hitting home in the Pacific Northwest.
Bees are critical for the pollination of signature Oregon crops, from Hood River Valley pears to coastal cranberries. 
But commercial bee colonies that travel around the country to pollinate crops have been decimated in the past few years by a mysterious malady loosely known as colony collapse disorder. 
In many cases, beekeepers have found their hives suddenly empty, the bees gone and presumed dead. 
The disorder has been linked to a virus that can be transmitted by a tiny mite that infests bees. 
But little is known about the cause of the disorder. And Oregon State University, the state's land-grant university that supports agricultural research, no longer has a full-time professor focused on bees. 
Growers, beekeepers and others around the state are holding a meeting next week in Corvallis to make the case for increased research into honey bee health and pollinators in Oregon. 
Oregon State cut back faculty positions as state funding decreased early in this decade, said Stella Coakley, associate dean in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences. 
But she said college officials recognize the rising concern about the health of bees. 
Coakley told The Oregonian that Oregon State has located some funding so its extension service could expand the services of its insect identification laboratory. 
In the past, the main way Oregon State has been able to expand its research positions is through endowments created with the help of private donors and supportive industries. 
For example, the hazelnut industry in Oregon created an endowed professorship focused on hazelnut research. 
Robert Whannell, who cultivates 25 acres of cranberries south of Astoria, said the beekeeper from Washington who usually brings bees to pollinate his crop lost 4,000 hives' worth of bees this winter out of 13,000 total hives. 
Without the extra bees to pollinate his cranberries, Whannell said his production would probably drop 70 percent to 80 percent. 
"We're hoping this is going to be a wake-up call that we need to be focused on this issue that affects the whole food chain," Whannell said. 
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From aiguy at comcast.net  Tue Apr  1 03:07:02 2008
From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:07:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
In-Reply-To: <021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <008801c893a5$76086e10$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2>

John K. Clarke Said:

>> Maybe solar energy could someday make a dent in the problem, but the
technology just isn't there yet. Right now it would take a solar panel the
size New Jersey to replace the energy dispensed by just 100 gas stations.
There are about 20,000 gas stations in the USA alone. >>


My Response:

I think solar is making breakthroughs much faster now than most of us
realize.

The solar market grew 62% in 2007 and it remained capacity constrained due
to a shortage of polysilicon.

But over 21 new entrants started manufacturing polysilicon during the year.

So this constraint will be lifted in 2008 going forward.

http://www.eetimes.eu/206904401

High cost is being tackled on many fronts.

And MIT has just announced a solar startup that aims to match coal in price.

http://www.eetimes.com/news/semi/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=207000381

"The cell architecture, developed at MIT, improves surface texture and
metallization to improve silicon solar cell efficiency from about 15 percent
to 19 percent, while lowering costs. 

1366 Technologies said it plans licensing its technology to solar companies
and government agencies and thus accelerate a transition from fossil fuel
based energy to solar. In addition, the company plans to build industrial,
100 megawatt plants around the world. 

"The science is understood, the raw materials are abundant and the products
work. All that is left to do is innovate in manufacturing and scale up
volume production, and thats just what we intend to do," said Sachs, in a
statement. 
"

It looks like the Free Market may be arriving just in time!

By making this technology available to other companies to continue to
innovate and improve upon using other efficiency increasing and cost
lowering technology, this technolgy and competition to improve upon it
should spread quickly.

As for the real estate taken up by solar farms, once the technology becomes
cheap enough to put on our roofs with a reasonable payback period, look for
new houses to start being energy self sufficient and perhaps even selling
their excess back to the power companies.

The company Nanosolar that offers low priced thin film solar cells is
already sold out of product until 2009.

"Their new $100,000,000 plant will produce Nanosolar SolarPly, its flagship
building-integrated product that acts as a solar-electric "carpet" for
integration with commercial roofing membranes; and Nanosolar Utiliscale, a
product specifically designed for large-scale, ground-mounted plant
installations."

http://www.nanosolar.com/cache/edn.htm



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Apr  1 03:10:54 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 20:10:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <fc67f50311cd7.47f1577f@insightbb.com>
Message-ID: <200804010312.m313CXqu022032@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

On Behalf Of Kevin Freels

	Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
	
	

	I've seen a few of you mention the declining bee population lately.
I just thought I would pass this on.
	 
	http://www.physorg.com/news126203432.html
	 
	Ore. Farmers Press for More Bee Research
	Sponsored Links 
	 
	(AP) -- Oregon farmers are hoping that the state's premier academics
will help them figure out what is causing a sudden decline in the bee
population that's hitting home in the Pacific Northwest.
	Bees are critical for the pollination of signature Oregon crops...




Ja, thanks Kevin.  I am one of these Oregon farmers.  Well, sorta.  I still
make my actual living at rocket science, and just dump money into the farm.
I feel sorry for the few that are dependent upon their farms for actual
income.  Seems that in our country in our times, anyone who farms must have
a paying job elsewhere in order to support their farming habit.

I did some more thinking about the bugwatcher website.  We could gather data
from volunteers in a skerjillion different places, then estimate the amount
of reduction from normal bee populations.  This year my reduction is two
orders of magnitude here: the bee population is about 1% of what I expect.
We could get bug population estimates, perhaps via instruments (buzzmeters?)
and then map populations with respect to location.  Then connect similar
population levels like a contour map, the lines being isobees.  That could
help determine how localized are the colony collapses.

Are there other bugwatchers out there?

spike





spike




From ablainey at aol.com  Tue Apr  1 04:55:14 2008
From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:55:14 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood
In-Reply-To: <f7bfe5740803311725t7bee74d5n45d7c36053f22ed3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <552780.81939.qm@web31506.mail.mud.yahoo.com>	<f7bfe5740803281001l7ee92bbbsf5bc57f1c4da531a@mail.gmail.com>	<f7bfe5740803281009h5b4b80e4td181d61e971b7700@mail.gmail.com>	<00d301c892d7$57db8f90$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>	<f7bfe5740803310741i2e4dff17k80f395646e3eed49@mail.gmail.com>	<019801c8937a$fe826230$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f7bfe5740803311725t7bee74d5n45d7c36053f22ed3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8CA61CBB507F00E-1518-34C3@webmail-dd18.sysops.aol.com>



 





 



As things seem to have become a bit fuzzy and I can't work out who is arguing what at the moment. And Just so I can understand where everyone is coming from. I was wondering how much everyone differs in answering the following. (My answers are at the bottom for reference)



1) Are single egg, Identical twins the same 'self'? If not, at what point did they diverge? cell division, birth etc



2) If through some boredom induced, drunken shenanigans you sew a donor hand to the top of your head, Is it part of the 'Self'? Does this depend on its functionality?

?

3) When neural spell checks and dictionary chips become available (hopefully soon)and if you get one fitted, Is it part of the 'self'?. What if it is unplug able?



4) Can a external viewer quantify 'self'? or can it only be truly known by the individual?



5) Are the language constraints of the notion 'Self' to flexible, rigid or indeterminate to be useful in this context? Do we need new terminology or subclasses of 'self' to get to the bottom of the Upload arguments?











My Answers

1) Twins are not the same self, although they were at conception. However the term self at that point is not really applicable as it somehow implies sentience, which clearly is not the case. I would say that the twins develop 'self' somewhere around the point where they would be classed as viable. And at the point of birth they would most definitely be different 'selves' despite being genetically identical, virtually physically identical and presumably comparable in memories.



2) The hand would be part of the 'self' from the moment of attachment, but for some It might not be considered so unless it is in some way functional. such as receiving sensory input from it, or being able to exert control of it.



3)I would consider any internal device such as these part of the self. But It wouldn't be so clear for an external or removable device. I wouldn't consider Fyborg devices like glasses to be in the self, but a prosthetic arm may well be. A bit contradicting when applied to the human state, but in the case of an upload, these devices it would not be absolutely necessary to include them for the self to be successfully included in the upload.



4) No, an external viewer can't quantify self as they have no access to it. Self is an observation made by the internal viewer only. An external viewer can only quantify 'You' or 'them', as such all equivalent versions of 'you' are acceptable but each individual can only quantify 'self' for themselves.



5)It would seem so, judging from the arguments. Self would be a singular concept, where only one could ever exist at a time. That self being the internal viewpoint of the individual. If another entity is spawned from the first, They both have separate self's from the point of separation. They would each be valid? versions of 'you' as per answer 4.
I am me, I am 'self', but to you, I is you, and me is you and you are 'self'. Its just a language trick.
So continuity of the 'self' can only be judged from the internal view and 'self' only relates to the continuity argument. When we start talking in terms of an identical copy, self no longer applies except to each individuals internal view of themselves, not their view of each other. So any perfect copy could be validly called 'Alex Blainey' but 'self' would be individual to each instance, each having a right to exist. The self could be transferred, but never copied.



Alex




________________________________________________________________________
AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now.
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From ablainey at aol.com  Tue Apr  1 04:56:58 2008
From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 00:56:58 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <fc67f50311cd7.47f1577f@insightbb.com>
References: <mailman.873.1206798163.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>	<47F16644.7070100@lineone.net>	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331202743.05da6598@satx.rr.com>
	<fc67f50311cd7.47f1577f@insightbb.com>
Message-ID: <8CA61CBF31B0B65-1518-34C8@webmail-dd18.sysops.aol.com>


 Are we just talking honey bee's here? or are all bee types in decline?


 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at insightbb.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 3:28
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem











I've seen a few of you mention the declining bee population lately. I just thought I would pass this on.


?


http://www.physorg.com/news126203432.html


?


Ore. Farmers Press for More Bee Research
Sponsored Links 


?


(AP) -- Oregon farmers are hoping that the state's premier academics will help them figure out what is causing a sudden decline in the bee population that's hitting home in the Pacific Northwest.


Bees are critical for the pollination of signature Oregon crops, from Hood River Valley pears to coastal cranberries. 


But commercial bee colonies that travel around the country to pollinate crops have been decimated in the past few years by a mysterious malady loosely known as colony collapse disorder. 


In many cases, beekeepers have found their hives suddenly empty, the bees gone and presumed dead. 


The disorder has been linked to a virus that can be transmitted by a tiny mite that infests bees. 


But little is known about the cause of the disorder. And Oregon State University, the state's land-grant university that supports agricultural research, no longer has a full-time professor focused on bees. 


Growers, beekeepers and others around the state are holding a meeting next week in Corvallis to make the case for increased research into honey bee health and pollinators in Oregon. 


Oregon State cut back faculty positions as state funding decreased early in this decade, said Stella Coakley, associate dean in OSU's College of Agricultural Sciences. 


But she said college officials recognize the rising concern about the health of bees. 


Coakley told The Oregonian that Oregon State has located some funding so its extension service could expand the services of its insect identification laboratory. 


In the past, the main way Oregon State has been able to expand its research positions is through endowments created with the help of private donors and supportive industries. 


For example, the hazelnut industry in Oregon created an endowed professorship focused on hazelnut research. 


Robert Whannell, who cultivates 25 acres of cranberries south of Astoria, said the beekeeper from Washington who usually brings bees to pollinate his crop lost 4,000 hives' worth of bees this winter out of 13,000 total hives. 


Without the extra bees to pollinate his cranberries, Whannell said his production would probably drop 70 percent to 80 percent. 


"We're hoping this is going to be a wake-up call that we need to be focused on this issue that affects the whole food chain," Whannell said. 



 





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http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



 


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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Apr  1 05:19:09 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 22:19:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <8CA61CBF31B0B65-1518-34C8@webmail-dd18.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <200804010520.m315KcXk002652@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Are we just talking honey bee's here? or are all bee types in decline?

 
Excellent question, Al.  I don't know.  I haven't seen any dying bumblebees
or any other types of bugs perishing, which counter-indicates a pesticide.
The leading theory I understand is CCD is caused by a virus carried by mites
other than varroa mites.  Damn.  We are going to miss eating fruit and nuts.
 
We are starting an offlist group, analogous to the M-Brain group we had a
few years ago.  A couple of hipsters have contacted me who know from
internet protocols better than I.  Hell, the bees know more from internet
protocols than I.  Understatement!  The POLLEN knows more from...
 
Al, do you want to be part of the spinoff bee discussion offlist?  Anyone
else?  Or would the rest of you want to just have us post highlights here?
I am looking for advice or help designing a website that is a little like
the earthquake site the USGS set up.  In that one, any time you feel a
tremor, you log on and tell them where you live and how much shaking you
felt.  They can estimate a magnitude and location within minutes.
 
http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/
 
http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/
 
Wicked cool, ja?  Ain't it fun being alive and internet hip in 2008?  {8-]  
 
I want a bee version of these sites, where I can map epicenters of colony
collapse.  I am told I need a domain name?
 
spike   
 
 


  _____  

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of
ablainey at aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 9:57 PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Bee Problem


Are we just talking honey bee's here? or are all bee types in decline?



-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Freels <kevinfreels at insightbb.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 3:28
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem



I've seen a few of you mention the declining bee population lately. I just
thought I would pass this on.
 
http://www.physorg.com/news126203432.html
 
Ore. Farmers Press for More Bee Research
Sponsored Links 
 
(AP) -- Oregon farmers are hoping that the state's premier academics will
help them figure out what is causing a sudden decline in the bee population
that's hitting home in the Pacific Northwest.
Bees are critical for the pollination of signature Oregon crops, from Hood
River Valley pears to coastal cranberries. 
But commercial bee colonies that travel around the country to pollinate
crops have been decimated in the past few years by a mysterious malady
loosely known as colony collapse disorder. 
In many cases, beekeepers have found their hives suddenly empty, the bees
gone and presumed dead. 
The disorder has been linked to a virus that can be transmitted by a tiny
mite that infests bees. 
But little is known about the cause of the disorder. And Oregon State
University, the state's land-grant university that supports agricultural
research, no longer has a full-time professor focused on bees. 
Growers, beekeepers and others around the state are holding a meeting next
week in Corvallis to make the case for increased research into honey bee
health and pollinators in Oregon. 
Oregon State cut back faculty positions as state funding decreased early in
this decade, said Stella Coakley, associate dean in OSU's College of
Agricultural Sciences. 
But she said college officials recognize the rising concern about the health
of bees. 
Coakley told The Oregonian that Oregon State has located some funding so its
extension service could expand the services of its insect identification
laboratory. 
In the past, the main way Oregon State has been able to expand its research
positions is through endowments created with the help of private donors and
supportive industries. 
For example, the hazelnut industry in Oregon created an endowed
professorship focused on hazelnut research. 
Robert Whannell, who cultivates 25 acres of cranberries south of Astoria,
said the beekeeper from Washington who usually brings bees to pollinate his
crop lost 4,000 hives' worth of bees this winter out of 13,000 total hives. 
Without the extra bees to pollinate his cranberries, Whannell said his
production would probably drop 70 percent to 80 percent. 
"We're hoping this is going to be a wake-up call that we need to be focused
on this issue that affects the whole food chain," Whannell said. 
_______________________________________________


extropy-chat mailing list


extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org


http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


  _____  

AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour
<http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/>  now. 

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From jonkc at att.net  Tue Apr  1 06:07:49 2008
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 02:07:49 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <005201c893be$e5482900$b0f04d0c@MyComputer>

"Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>

> The free market in the USA? How free is that free market?

Freer than most, not nearly as free as it should be.

spike wrote:

>Halliburton is up to no good?  What did they do?  Why are they in the
> same class with Enron the criminal gang?

You responded with:

<http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Civilians_testify_to_Halliburton_fraud%2C_coercion>

Damien, I read your link but frankly I am not impressed. It's a fact that
there are not many organizations that can provide the services that
Halliburton can and do so in a war zone, and so they charge accordingly. I
can't see where they did anything Enron level bad much less committed a
government grade horror. I'm not saying Halliburton is incapable of being
a little naughty from time to time, but compared with routine government
grade evil it's a little like a prison guard at Auschwitz raging about the
injustice of it all because somebody put a whoopee cushion on his chair.

  John K Clark





From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Apr  1 06:22:04 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:22:04 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <200804010520.m315KcXk002652@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <8CA61CBF31B0B65-1518-34C8@webmail-dd18.sysops.aol.com>
	<200804010520.m315KcXk002652@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080401011907.0241df00@satx.rr.com>

At 10:19 PM 3/31/2008 -0700, Spike wrote:

>I want a bee version of these sites, where I can map epicenters of 
>colony collapse.  I am told I need a domain name?

The following name would be ideal for an Aussie site but probably 
nowhere else on the planet, alas:

bee-buggered.com

Damien Broderick
(jes messin witch uh, doncha no]



From amara at amara.com  Tue Apr  1 05:56:57 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:56:57 -0600
Subject: [ExI]  The Bee Problem
Message-ID: <p06230901c4177eff2cc5@[192.168.0.66]>


Dear Spike,

A friend of mine returned from Arizona carrying a large jar of local honey;
she told me that there was no decline in the bees in Arizona.

spike spike66 at att.net :

>I am looking for advice or help designing a website that is a little like
>the earthquake site the USGS set up.

Google Maps might help:

http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2000/02/astronomical-observatories-on-google.html
(look at the comments too)

Amara
-- 

Amara Graps, PhD      www.amara.com
Research Scientist, Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), Boulder, Colorado

From ablainey at aol.com  Tue Apr  1 06:32:37 2008
From: ablainey at aol.com (ablainey at aol.com)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 02:32:37 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <200804010520.m315KcXk002652@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <8CA61D94FCDCAA0-EDC-2A20@WEBMAIL-MB01.sysops.aol.com>


 Interesting, I'd also like to know if this is worldwide or America's specific.You said 'We 
are going to miss eating fruit and nuts.'  I can see this being a definite problem if all bee types are declining. but what if other species like solitary bee's, bumble etc are not effected? These and other pollinators might increase in number to fill the gap?
I don't think I currently have time for the offlist group, but I would be interested in the highlights and I like the website idea.
loosely related to the subject there is a movie coming out soon where some unknown natural disaster starts to kill off everyone, the first indicators of something going on is the dramatic decline in bee numbers (or so it would seem from the trailer). It's called 'The Happening'. I'm not sure how much of a part the bees play. probably minimal, probably just the usual science to fiction link to make the story more credible.

Alex


 


 

-----Original Message-----
From: spike <spike66 at att.net>
To: 'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 6:19
Subject: Re: [ExI] The Bee Problem














Are we just talking honey bee's 
here? or are all bee types in decline?



?


Excellent question, Al.? I don't know.? I haven't 
seen any dying bumblebees or any other types of bugs perishing, which 
counter-indicates a pesticide.? The leading theory I understand is CCD is 
caused by a virus carried by mites other than varroa mites.? Damn.? We 
are going to miss eating fruit and nuts.


?


We are starting an offlist group, analogous to the M-Brain 
group we had a few years ago.? A couple of?hipsters have contacted me 
who know from?internet protocols better than I.? Hell, the bees know 
more from internet protocols than I.? Understatement!? The POLLEN 
knows more from...


?


Al, do you want to be part of the spinoff bee discussion 
offlist?? Anyone else?? Or would the rest of you want to just have us 
post highlights here?? I am looking for advice or help designing a 
website?that is a little?like the earthquake site the USGS set 
up.? In that one, any time you feel a tremor, you log on and?tell them 
where you live and how much shaking you felt.? They can estimate a 
magnitude and location within minutes.


?


http://pasadena.wr.usgs.gov/shake/ca/


?


http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsus/


?


Wicked cool, ja?? Ain't it fun being alive and 
internet hip in 2008?? {8-]? 


?


I want a bee version of these sites, where I can map 
epicenters of?colony collapse.? I am told I need 
a domain name?


?


spike???


?


?




  

  


  From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
  [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of 
  ablainey at aol.com
Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 9:57 
  PM
To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
Subject: Re: [ExI] 
  The Bee Problem



  


  
Are we just talking honey bee's 
  here? or are all bee types in decline?


  



  


-----Original Message-----
From: Kevin Freels 
  <kevinfreels at insightbb.com>
To: ExI chat list 
  <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 
  3:28
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem


  

  

I've seen a few of you mention the declining bee population lately. I 
  just thought I would pass this on.

  
?

  
http://www.physorg.com/news126203432.html

  
?

  
Ore. Farmers Press for More Bee Research
Sponsored Links 

  
?

  
(AP) -- Oregon farmers are hoping that the state's premier academics will 
  help them figure out what is causing a sudden decline in the bee population 
  that's hitting home in the Pacific Northwest.

  
Bees are critical for the pollination of signature Oregon crops, from 
  Hood River Valley pears to coastal cranberries. 

  
But commercial bee colonies that travel around the country to pollinate 
  crops have been decimated in the past few years by a mysterious malady loosely 
  known as colony collapse disorder. 

  
In many cases, beekeepers have found their hives suddenly empty, the bees 
  gone and presumed dead. 

  
The disorder has been linked to a virus that can be transmitted by a tiny 
  mite that infests bees. 

  
But little is known about the cause of the disorder. And Oregon State 
  University, the state's land-grant university that supports agricultural 
  research, no longer has a full-time professor focused on bees. 

  
Growers, beekeepers and others around the state are holding a meeting 
  next week in Corvallis to make the case for increased research into honey bee 
  health and pollinators in Oregon. 

  
Oregon State cut back faculty positions as state funding decreased early 
  in this decade, said Stella Coakley, associate dean in OSU's College of 
  Agricultural Sciences. 

  
But she said college officials recognize the rising concern about the 
  health of bees. 

  
Coakley told The Oregonian that Oregon State has located some funding so 
  its extension service could expand the services of its insect identification 
  laboratory. 

  
In the past, the main way Oregon State has been able to expand its 
  research positions is through endowments created with the help of private 
  donors and supportive industries. 

  
For example, the hazelnut industry in Oregon created an endowed 
  professorship focused on hazelnut research. 

  
Robert Whannell, who cultivates 25 acres of cranberries south of Astoria, 
  said the beekeeper from Washington who usually brings bees to pollinate his 
  crop lost 4,000 hives' worth of bees this winter out of 13,000 total hives. 
  

  
Without the extra bees to pollinate his cranberries, Whannell said his 
  production would probably drop 70 percent to 80 percent. 

  
"We're hoping this is going to be a wake-up call that we need to be 
  focused on this issue that affects the whole food chain," Whannell said. 
  


  

_______________________________________________

extropy-chat mailing list

extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org

http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



  

  


  AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour now. 



 





_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



 


________________________________________________________________________
AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour at http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/ now.
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From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Apr  1 06:34:11 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:34:11 -0500
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <005201c893be$e5482900$b0f04d0c@MyComputer>
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com>
	<005201c893be$e5482900$b0f04d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080401012257.024bdec0@satx.rr.com>

At 02:07 AM 4/1/2008 -0400, JKC wrote:

>You responded with:
>
><http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Civilians_testify_to_Halliburton_fraud%2C_coercion>

No I didn't. I responded with:

e.g.:
<http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Civilians_testify_to_Halliburton_fraud%2C_coercion>

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/

>Damien, I read your link

The link which you mysteriously deleted (for which I make no 
warranty## ) is replete with further links.

Damien Broderick

##They might be lying fiends from hell for all I know. Here's their 
self-description:

< Oil Change is being founded in order to network together, 
encourage, and compliment a diversity of strategies and tactics 
around the oil industry. We are a research and advocacy organization 
that exists to force progress in the energy industry towards an 
environmentally and socially sustainable energy future. We achieve 
this by: being a consistent and credible source of information on the 
industry; using our knowledge of the industry to craft strategic, 
incisive campaigns; and by working with people around the world who 
are committed to shifting power.

Oil Change International organizes to unite allies, campaigns to 
divide opponents, and conducts research to expose hidden truths and 
trends towards overcoming each of these barriers.

Oil Change International is a 501 c 3 organization. Donations are 
fully tax deductible. We encourage you to donate via our online 
server, however if you prefer, you can send a check to: Oil Change 
International, 2228 12th Pl., NW, Washington DC, 20009.>

Here's their staff:

<http://priceofoil.org/about/staff/>

Oh no! Several Greenpeace veterans! A member of Rotary!




From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com  Tue Apr  1 08:02:50 2008
From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 01:02:50 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
In-Reply-To: <021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <647399.86023.qm@web65407.mail.ac4.yahoo.com>


--- John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:

> Not me, I agree with the quote. Whatever is going to replace oil it
> will
> need to be HUGE, absolutely ENORMOUS! Wind farms and tidal energy
> just don't make the grade. Maybe solar energy could someday make a
> dent in the problem, but the technology just isn't there yet. Right
> now
> it would take a solar panel the size New Jersey to replace the energy
> dispensed by just 100 gas stations. There are about 20,000 gas
> stations
> in the USA alone. And yes, I've heard of solar power satellites, but
> are
> you so confident that the idea will be economically and ecologically
> feasible that you would be willing to invest your entire life savings
> into
> the idea and be prepared to live on the streets if it failed? I'm
> not.

Why not? If you go down with the oil and internal combustion industry
ship, you will be on the streets any way. Some chance of avoiding
famine and the horrors of starvation is better than no chance. We are
stuck in a Malthusian trap plain and simple. We have gotten out of
these before and we can do it again, as long as we have the collective
will, freedom of action, and investment capital. But the solution won't
be a single technology or fit into a single sound bite. It will be a
lot of little things. Things like generating electricity from methane
bioreactors at sewage treatment plants and land fills, solar-steam 
farms, lots of nuclear power, and stirling-engine automobiles.   
  

> And I'm all for making things more efficient, but that's not going to
> solve
> the problem either, efficiency just makes energy cheaper, thus people
> will
> use more of it.

Yes this is the over-arching long-term problem. Going from hunter
gatherer to agrarian gave us some ecological slack that we subsequently
lost by overbreeding. Same thing happened when we made the agrarian to
industrial transition. If we escape from this one trap there is another
one on the horizon. So we best make best use of whatever time we buy to
find another habitable world. If we just breed to capacity again, we
really are screwed.

> You can fantasize about nuclear fusion (hot or cold) or vacuum zero
> point
> energy all you want but the cold hard reality is that right now only
> 5
> technologies have the potential to replace oil. All of them would
> give Green
> Party tree huggers a tizzy fit (but then everything gives them a
> tizzy fit);
> and none of them are exactly cheap, except perhaps the last if we did
> it
> just right. They are:
> 
> 1) Coal
> 2) Tar Sands
> 3) Oil Shale
> 4) Methane clathrate, (the least developed technology)
> 5) Nuclear Fission

Well if this is the case, we should be cajoling and bribing the
automotive industry to shrug off the death-grip of the oil industry and
start building stirling-electric hybrid automobiles. These things would
run off of batteries until the stirling engine got hot enough to start
recharching them with a generator. They could be set up to work with
ANY heat source. Burning coal, wood chips, cow-dung, even uranium fuel
rods. Either that or get ready to drag the steam engines back out.


Stuart LaForge
alt email: stuart"AT"ucla.edu

"Life is the sum of all your choices."  
Albert Camus


      ____________________________________________________________________________________
You rock. That's why Blockbuster's offering you one month of Blockbuster Total Access, No Cost.  
http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com

From stathisp at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 10:57:28 2008
From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 20:57:28 +1000
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood
In-Reply-To: <47F16644.7070100@lineone.net>
References: <mailman.873.1206798163.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47F16644.7070100@lineone.net>
Message-ID: <f21c22e30804010357y3693269ibda59a10333c455b@mail.gmail.com>

On 01/04/2008, ben <benboc at lineone.net> wrote:

>  I don't see why people who make statements like this think they are
>  saying something reasonable. "If you get copied EXACTLY, then one of the
>  copies won't mind being killed" !?!?!
>
>  Why on earth would anyone think this?
>
>  I do think that an identical copy of my mind would be me, ('a me', if
>  you like), and i'm sure that none of the me's would be happy (or
>  relaxed, or indifferent) to be killed.
>
>  I remember reading a short story in which people start committing
>  suicide after the discovery that the multiple-worlds interpretation is
>  in fact true, and everyone has an infinite number of versions of them in
>  an infinite number of universes. I also remember thinking that this
>  story _makes no sense_. Would YOU commit suicide just because you knew
>  for a fact that there was another you somewhere? It's just a daft idea.

Well, I'll put my hand up to join the daft. If there were two copies
of me, A and B, *running in perfect lockstep*, let's say in
deterministic parallel computations, then I don't see what possible
difference it could make to me (that is, either one of the me's) if
one of the copies suddenly stopped.

Suppose I am copy A. At time T, the machine running A is turned off
while the machine running copy B continues. If you think that I, copy
A, don't survive the procedure consider this alternative scenario.
There is only one copy of me running on a particular machine. At time
T, the computation is saved to disk and the machine turned off. The
saved data is then loaded into another machine running the same
program, which therefore starts off at the point where the first
machine was stopped. Will I survive this procedure or will I die where
the computation is stopped and saved? Because this situation is
exactly equivalent to copy A stopping while copy B continues.





-- 
Stathis Papaioannou

From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 11:37:20 2008
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:37:20 +0200
Subject: [ExI] the really important urgent issues
In-Reply-To: <8CA61A16380C40E-FC8-271A@webmail-mf02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080330013149.02370398@satx.rr.com>
	<1206902792.19732.1879.camel@hayek> <47EFE957.70200@pobox.com>
	<8CA60DA2569207D-FA4-21C1@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<a6a17bd40803311310y4ae55c7h728d60b98f56f562@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CA61A16380C40E-FC8-271A@webmail-mf02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <580930c20804010437u7de5855fyc0d6216b996a6b11@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:52 AM, <ablainey at aol.com> wrote:

>  That occurred to to afterward, but it makes you wonder what if anything
> the parents would do about it? After all, they are the ones that have been
> responsible for the moral education of these young un's. Haven't they done
> well so far !.Likewise I think the law is flaccid when it comes to this kind
> of behaviour in kids this age. Teachers are no longer allowed to deal out
> discipline and even parents are limited and watched like hawks under the
> guise of 'protecting kids from abuse'.
> I am truly worried for the next generation of '*I want it now, you cant do
> nuffin, I am the centre of the universe' *kids. They clearly have their
> heads up their owns arses and have no respect for anyone or anything. At
> least we had respect and a healthy dose of fear.
> Very troubling indeed.
>

The truth is that "I am the center of the universe, you can't do nothing"
attitude may well work with parents or teachers, legally and psychologically
inhibited from doing anything about it. It does not work at all, however,
with *peers* who may find themselves below the age for criminal liability,
and that in any event even without major breach of the law can and will do
indeed much when faced with the attitude, and are bound to dispell any such
delusion very soon.

Stefano
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From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 12:02:21 2008
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:02:21 -0300
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <003701c893f0$3f10f850$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm>

John Clark> You can fantasize about nuclear fusion (hot or cold) or vacuum 
zero point
> energy all you want but the cold hard reality is that right now only 5
> technologies have the potential to replace oil. All of them would give 
> Green
> Party tree huggers a tizzy fit (but then everything gives them a tizzy 
> fit);
> and none of them are exactly cheap, except perhaps the last if we did it
> just right. They are:
> 1) Coal
> 2) Tar Sands
> 3) Oil Shale
> 4) Methane clathrate, (the least developed technology)
> 5) Nuclear Fission

What about geothermal? The hot bed geothermal seems simple enough and very 
feasible. I simply can't understand the fact that we are sitting on a 
fireball the size of the Earth and yet we don't try a bit harder to use it's 
power. 


From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 12:21:20 2008
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:21:20 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Calorie restriction assists chemotherapy
Message-ID: <ee50357e0804010521j31f85ef7tb39d3a2ebae4c411@mail.gmail.com>

Good news for Spike!

<http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218393082>

Doctors who treat patients with cancer have a balancing act. They give
too little chemotherapy and tumors survive, but too much can be life
threatening. Now researchers have found that in a series of lab tests,
not eating for 48 hours gave healthy cells an edge. University of
Southern California Associate Professor of Gerontology and Biological
Science Valter Longo says, "The cancer cells have this oncogene, have
these mutations that keep them always on. So, they basically are
unable to obey the starvation dependent order. Starvation tells
[healthy cells] to go into protective mode. The cancer cells, because
of their characteristics of not being able to respond to that, just
continue on their normal pro-growth track."
etc..........


PNAS Abstract
<http://www.pnas.org/cgi/gca?allch=&SEARCHID=1&AUTHOR1=longo&FULLTEXT=chemotherapy&gca=pnas%3B0708100105v1>

Strategies to treat cancer have focused primarily on the killing of
tumor cells. Here, we describe a differential stress resistance (DSR)
method that focuses instead on protecting the organism but not cancer
cells against chemotherapy. Short-term starved S. cerevisiae or cells
lacking proto-oncogene homologs were up to 1,000 times better
protected against oxidative stress or chemotherapy drugs than cells
expressing the oncogene homolog Ras2val19. Low-glucose or low-serum
media also protected primary glial cells but not six different rat and
human glioma and neuroblastoma cancer cell lines against hydrogen
peroxide or the chemotherapy drug/pro-oxidant cyclophosphamide.
Finally, short-term starvation provided complete protection to mice
but not to injected neuroblastoma cells against a high dose of the
chemotherapy drug/pro-oxidant etoposide. These studies describe a
starvation-based DSR strategy to enhance the efficacy of chemotherapy
and suggest that specific agents among those that promote oxidative
stress and DNA damage have the potential to maximize the differential
toxicity to normal and cancer cells.
--------------------------------


Further research required (of course), but it looks like 48 hours
starvation before chemotherapy helps the chemo to attack the cancer
cells more than normal cells.


BillK

From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 12:39:25 2008
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 14:39:25 +0200
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>
	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>
	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <580930c20804010539q6f9229bcsa612d0f17e5874c4@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 3:29 AM, Eliezer S. Yudkowsky <sentience at pobox.com>
wrote:

> Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear power
> as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling in
> government.
>

Not to mention simple inertia and short-sightedness. It gives one pause to
consider that eventually to establish the ITER project, for a total cost of
less than *one fiftieth* - if I am not mistaken - of the last Iraq party, it
has taken a decade and a joint-venture amongst ten different major
government.

Things have changed a lot, and not always for the best, since the era of
Project Manhattan, Project Apollo, Project Human Genome, and so forth. And
sponsorship of fundamental research in Europe is becoming a joke, a footnote
in governmental budgets, while researchers are being starved,as Amara knows
only too well, to the advantage of bankers, brokers, managers and their
fashion stylists. :-(

Stefano Vaj
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From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 12:47:31 2008
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 14:47:31 +0200
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
In-Reply-To: <021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <580930c20804010547l7135618cpfe94e81d7f1d8990@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 10:37 PM, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:

> Maybe solar energy could someday make a
> dent in the problem, but the technology just isn't there yet. Right now
> it would take a solar panel the size New Jersey to replace the energy
> dispensed by just 100 gas stations.


I am not sure this is a technological issue. All in all, as real estate
agents are fond of saying, square meters are the only thing that is
impossible to manufacture.

Thus, solar energy is by definition not sustainable, even without taking
into account different kinds of pollution and environmental damage related
to its extensive development. At the limit, they jury may rather still be
out for solar energy collected in space. But I still believe that if fusion
is the way most of energy is produced in the universe, it only makes sense
to engineer the process directly, and on the scale required, for our own
necessities.

Stefano Vaj
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From kevinfreels at insightbb.com  Tue Apr  1 15:09:51 2008
From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 09:09:51 -0600
Subject: [ExI] the really important urgent issues
In-Reply-To: <8CA61A16380C40E-FC8-271A@webmail-mf02.sysops.aol.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080330013149.02370398@satx.rr.com>
	<1206902792.19732.1879.camel@hayek> <47EFE957.70200@pobox.com>
	<8CA60DA2569207D-FA4-21C1@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com>
	<a6a17bd40803311310y4ae55c7h728d60b98f56f562@mail.gmail.com>
	<8CA61A16380C40E-FC8-271A@webmail-mf02.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <47F2503F.2050508@insightbb.com>

The problem children you describe are not representative of the entire 
generation. I assure you that there are many good kids out there and 
they far outnumber the evil little devils described here. However, you 
are right that this is changing. Educated people are not having children 
at the same rate as the grown-up versions of these problem children. 
These kids are going out, getting pregnant at 14-19 years old, having 
several children. They are unable to guide them and nurture them into 
responsible lives so they repeat the cycle. Meanwhile, those who are 
well educated go on to college, get a career started and then MAY have 1 
or 2 children when they are over 25.

There is some good here though. Fortunately I happen to believe that 
much of "natural" behavior is genetic and that children will only 
unlearn those traits through conditioning. The underlying genetic 
behavior then would remain to be passed on. So there are still good kids 
that come out of bad homes and vice versa. In the end, I'm not sure it's 
enough to stop this trend completely, but it at least can slow it. What 
we educated folks need to do now is have more babies.(This should save 
many economies from disaster as well but that's another topic)



ablainey at aol.com wrote:
> That occurred to to afterward, but it makes you wonder what if 
> anything the parents would do about it? After all, they are the ones 
> that have been responsible for the moral education of these young 
> un's. Haven't they done well so far !.Likewise I think the law is 
> flaccid when it comes to this kind of behaviour in kids this age. 
> Teachers are no longer allowed to deal out discipline and even parents 
> are limited and watched like hawks under the guise of 'protecting kids 
> from abuse'.
> I am truly worried for the next generation of '/I want it now, you 
> cant do nuffin, I am the centre of the universe' /kids. They clearly 
> have their heads up their owns arses and have no respect for anyone or 
> anything. At least we had respect and a healthy dose of fear.
> Very troubling indeed.
>
> Alex
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Sent: Mon, 31 Mar 2008 21:10
> Subject: Re: [ExI] the really important urgent issues
>
> On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 6:06 PM,  <ablainey at aol.com <mailto:ablainey at aol.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
> >  ...I caught a 10 year old kid scrumping apples from one of my trees.
>
>
>
> > He shouted 'Yeah F at ck @ff, You can't do
>
> > anything you F at cking C at nt!!!' The whole group then started shouting words
>
> > they shouldn't know and started throwing stones at my windows!
>
>
>
>
>
> Interesting.
>
>
>
> I wonder if you could make a video of their behavior and then post it
>
> to you tube and my space/facebook.
>
>
>
> And then send a heads up to their parents, though you might not have to.
>
>
>
> Best, Jeff Davis
>
> _______________________________________________
>
> extropy-chat mailing list
>
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> AOL's new homepage has launched. Take a tour 
> <http://info.aol.co.uk/homepage/> now.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>   
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 14:56:38 2008
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 15:56:38 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Calorie restriction assists chemotherapy
In-Reply-To: <ee50357e0804010521j31f85ef7tb39d3a2ebae4c411@mail.gmail.com>
References: <ee50357e0804010521j31f85ef7tb39d3a2ebae4c411@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0804010756g181cb5bke7d9b6078f83f612@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:21 PM, BillK wrote:
> Good news for Spike!
>
>  <http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_id=218393082>
>


I've just realised that my comment could be misinterpreted.

I didn't mean to imply that Spike is getting chemotherapy!   Never!

I just meant that because Spike already does calorie restriction, in
the unlikely event that he ever does need chemo, then he has a head
start over everyone else.


BillK

From rpwl at lightlink.com  Tue Apr  1 14:50:08 2008
From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:50:08 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net><62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com><ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <47F24BA0.1030109@lightlink.com>

Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
> Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear power 
> as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling in 
> government.

The fact that you would be so factually ignorant and irrational as to 
talk about "anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling" is a bad sign 
indeed.

Someone who is irrational is a problem.

Someone who is irrational and claims "rationalism" as the justification 
for their dogmatic beliefs is sinister.

What is even more ridiculous, for me, is that your conclusions about 
nuclear power are not, by themselves, inaccurate.  But linking that 
analysis to a statement about "anti-rationalist environmentalist 
meddling" betrays an inability to understand the system as a whole.

For example, one side effect of the nuclear resurgence now taking place 
is that the proliferation problem is quietly diversifying into new and 
terrifying directions:

http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13459-disposable-nuclear-reactors-raise-security-fears.html

It is news such as this that makes it seem that those "anti-rationalist 
environmentalists" may have been correct in saying that nuclear power is 
managed so irresponsibly that, in practice, it has world-threatening 
side effects.

The issue, then, is whether nuclear power and renewable sources can be 
developed in such a tightly controlled and secure manner that the 
considerable dangers of nuclear power can be kept under control.



Richard Loosemore

From jonkc at att.net  Tue Apr  1 15:42:29 2008
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:42:29 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net><021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
	<003701c893f0$3f10f850$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm>
Message-ID: <008701c8940f$07626b90$b8f14d0c@MyComputer>

 "Henrique Moraes Machado" <cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com>

> What about geothermal? 

It might be interesting if you live in Iceland, but most of us don't.

  John K Clark





From kevinfreels at insightbb.com  Tue Apr  1 17:03:09 2008
From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:03:09 -0600
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F24BA0.1030109@lightlink.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>
	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>
	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com> <47F24BA0.1030109@lightlink.com>
Message-ID: <47F26ACD.2010301@insightbb.com>



Richard Loosemore wrote:
> Eliezer S. Yudkowsky wrote:
>   
>> Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear power 
>> as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling in 
>> government.
>>     
>
> The fact that you would be so factually ignorant and irrational as to 
> talk about "anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling" is a bad sign 
> indeed.
>
> Someone who is irrational is a problem.
>
> Someone who is irrational and claims "rationalism" as the justification 
> for their dogmatic beliefs is sinister.
>
> What is even more ridiculous, for me, is that your conclusions about 
> nuclear power are not, by themselves, inaccurate.  But linking that 
> analysis to a statement about "anti-rationalist environmentalist 
> meddling" betrays an inability to understand the system as a whole.
>
> For example, one side effect of the nuclear resurgence now taking place 
> is that the proliferation problem is quietly diversifying into new and 
> terrifying directions:
>
> http://technology.newscientist.com/channel/tech/dn13459-disposable-nuclear-reactors-raise-security-fears.html
>
> It is news such as this that makes it seem that those "anti-rationalist 
> environmentalists" may have been correct in saying that nuclear power is 
> managed so irresponsibly that, in practice, it has world-threatening 
> side effects.
>
> The issue, then, is whether nuclear power and renewable sources can be 
> developed in such a tightly controlled and secure manner that the 
> considerable dangers of nuclear power can be kept under control.
>
>
>   
It appears this has already been addressed. Here's a great article on 
Pebble Bed Modular Reactors which eliminate many of the concerns you have.
http://www.physorg.com/news8956.html

The only thing I can't seem to find info on is the energy cost and 
processes used to make the pebbles in the first place.
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From pjmanney at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 16:10:23 2008
From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:10:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080331173019.05df3198@satx.rr.com>
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com>
	<29666bf30803310913t6896a539n4c79f1d5d5a37a8b@mail.gmail.com>
	<01a501c8937c$67574720$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331173019.05df3198@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <29666bf30804010910n26139dc1kee677dff3eefcbb4@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 3:31 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> This looks to me like another ideological kneejerk. PJ's point (I
> believe) is that what people seem to refer to as the US free market
> is generally--I might prefer "frequently" and "importantly" NOT A
> FREE MARKET but (read her lips) "government/corporate collusion."

There are some on this list who could use a little femoral nerve
deadening right around their patella.  Stop looking for commies under
my bed, Lee.  All you'll find there are dust bunnies.

Thank you, Damien, for responding while I was out: yes, my point is
not advocating a specific replacement.  I'm not sure that a
hierarchical system of human governance is capable of truly free
markets, since corruption seems to be the flip side of humanity's
managerial coin.  There were kickbacks, secret deals, war profiteering
and manipulation of the populace in Mesopotamia.  Today is just more
of the same on a grander scale.

My original statement is a recognition that in my particular political
culture, there's no free market and most likely won't be any time
soon, since 1) the military-industrial-congressional complex
(Eisenhower's original phrase before Congress twisted his arm to drop
'congressional' before his famously observant farewell broadcast) is
alive and well and the basis of the US economy; 2) the only people in
corporate or governmental America I see loudly touting free markets
with their blowhorns are those who take advantage of the fact of its
absence -- meaning what they call the creation of such are anything
but; 3) the revolving door from industry to government and back again
ensures that corporate agendas are the government's priority until
citizens yell loudly enough and sometimes, not even then; and 4) the
people who make the laws are the people who benefit from them and visa
versa.  And that ain't you 'n me, buster.

The bigger problem is that the populace doesn't care enough to look.
If you want to spend some time dumpster diving, the Transactional
Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University tracks federal
expenditures.  You'll see where your money really goes, if you can
read between the lines:
http://trac.syr.edu/
Here's a sample summary report on the Dept. of Homeland Security:
http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/178/
Sadly the Pentagon's expenditures (the lion's share of tax money) are
not a part of the project.  What a report that would be.

Finally, the populace doesn't like to feel like a schmuck.  So it's
human nature to bury our heads in the sand or cling to the sinking
mast of outdated political ideologies promoted by our leaders.

None of this is news.  It's simply reality.  As Deep Throat said,
"Follow the money."  Unfortunately, it's never been truer.  And
there's no magic wand to make that pesky aspect of human governance
irrelevant any time soon.  As long as money changes hands under the
proverbial table (or even over it, in the form of campaign
contributions), determining who sells what to whom and for how much,
your beloved free market is doomed.  As it always was.  Or perhaps a
better statement is that it never could exist; it was a mirage, a
figment in Homo economicus' idealized, ever-rational,
never-found-on-this-planet mind.

Wait a second... maybe that's why Lee and others like him are on a
transhumanist list... he wants us all to have a free market neural
transplant, so the dream of Homo economicus could become a reality!
Now if we could only find the part of the brain that governs free
markets...  ;-)

PJ

From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 16:11:21 2008
From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 13:11:21 -0300
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net><021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer><003701c893f0$3f10f850$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm>
	<008701c8940f$07626b90$b8f14d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <011a01c89413$07d04bc0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm>



> "Henrique Moraes Machado" <cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com>
>
>> What about geothermal?
>
John Clark> It might be interesting if you live in Iceland, but most of us 
don't.

As I said, dry-hot-rock bed geothermal seems straightforward enough. You dig 
3 to 4 km till you reach a really hot rock. Pour water down and collect the 
vapour. No volcanoes or geisers needed (you build your own geiser). I've 
even posted a link some days ago. 


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Apr  1 16:10:36 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:10:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com><29666bf30803310913t6896a539n4c79f1d5d5a37a8b@mail.gmail.com><01a501c8937c$67574720$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331173019.05df3198@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <01d701c89413$7bf4f640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Damien writes

> At 03:11 PM 3/31/2008 -0700, Lee wrote:
>>[PJ:]
>> > BTW, Lee, in my research on government/corporate collusion, this
>> > behavior is the rule, not the exception.  So much for free markets.
>>
>>"So much for free markets"?  Perhaps you can point out a few cases
>>from history where some other system worked better to "distribute
>>scarce resources which have alternate uses".  [...]
>>So, PJ, given a free hand, just how would or should a replacement
>>for the market be devised?
> 
> This looks to me like another ideological kneejerk. PJ's point (I 
> believe) is that what people seem to refer to as the US free market 
> is generally--I might prefer "frequently" and "importantly" NOT A 
> FREE MARKET but (read her lips) "government/corporate collusion."

Well, if that's the true emphasis here, then thanks for pointing it
out. It follows that you all should announce yourselves as
"free market enthusiasts" and "free market proponents". You
should phrase your condemnation of the above as "government
interference and intrusion" in the workings of the free market,
or of free market capitalism.

But you never, never put it that way, do you?  Why is that?

No, it's *always* phrased by those with a history of left-leaning
politics as though something is wrong with the free-market itself,
as if somehow if we just perhaps elect people with the "right
stuff" they can take control and make everything right. Won't
happen, of course.

Okay---assuming for just a nanosecond that there is no problem
with language, and that you're not still all reeling consciously or
unconsciously from the demise of Communism and the proven
poverty-creating socialisms of one kind or another---just what
are your concrete proposals?

What about this one:  we must make an effort to REMOVE
as many laws as possible that interfere with truly free market
activity. Lobbyists fighting for government largess must be
countered, and the government power and wealth over which
they're fighting must not be taken from the people in the first
place.

I do realize, as you know from my last post, that such
a process must be gingerly applied, and that only gradually
can many government "oversight" functions be replaced by
voluntary ones. 

Just make it clear how you'd like things to move, instead of
just complaining.

Thanks,
Lee


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Apr  1 16:19:16 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:19:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood
References: <277310.58630.qm@web31502.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <01dd01c89414$30322ab0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Michael writes

> Lee said
> 
>> [Concerning the following simple inquiry under the hypothesis
>> that a following a devastating plague, a certain "lunatic" now 
>> living in a mental institution in the U.S. who believes himself
>> to be the same person as Napoleon I of France, is the sole
>> survivor on Earth]
>>
>>      The Emperor Napoleon (1769- ), formerly of France, but
>>      now living in a certain city in the U.S., turned out to be the
>>      last living human on Earth?
>> 
>> Well, is that true or false? 
> 
> Sometimes matters don't divide up neatly into those two words.

Why, naturally, of course.  Haven't you heard that there are "shades
of gray"?  Or rather, perhaps you suppose that some of us have
never heard the phrase, or mastered the notion of a continuum.

But seriously, does this mean that you *also* do not lean one way
or another towards accepting or rejecting the above statement? 

> In fact, probably most of the time [matters don't divide up
> neatly into those two words].

Oh?  An assertion by you?  May I infer that you believe your assertion
to be true, or would that also fall into the category of things that cannot
be so simply characterized as "true" or "false"?

But then, there I go again.  Asking for yes or no....  :-)

Lee


From pjmanney at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 16:30:15 2008
From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:30:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil.
In-Reply-To: <008701c8940f$07626b90$b8f14d0c@MyComputer>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<021701c8936f$1a6838f0$2dee4d0c@MyComputer>
	<003701c893f0$3f10f850$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm>
	<008701c8940f$07626b90$b8f14d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <29666bf30804010930k54d35128n2ad925c79869eef3@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 8:42 AM, John K Clark <jonkc at att.net> wrote:
>  "Henrique Moraes Machado" <cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com>
>
> > What about geothermal?
>
> It might be interesting if you live in Iceland, but most of us don't.

They already do it there and did before 1972, when I was there with my
family watching Fisher beat Spassky.  To a seven year old girl from
NY, it was fascinating to be in buildings completely warmed by the
Earth back then.

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

However, there is a big movement in green construction to tap into
geothermal power anywhere.  Granted, this building was built by an
architect for himself as an example of what was possible (he died
unexpectedly a year after its completion and it's been sold since):

http://matrix.millersamuel.com/?p=376

I studied his plans and was astounded by the depth of the geothermal
tap, especially knowing what I do about the tunnel systems under
Manhattan.  It's amazing he was able to pull this off in this location
and that the City of NY supported him.

PJ

From rpwl at lightlink.com  Tue Apr  1 16:34:32 2008
From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:34:32 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F26ACD.2010301@insightbb.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
	<47F24BA0.1030109@lightlink.com> <47F26ACD.2010301@insightbb.com>
Message-ID: <47F26418.7090708@lightlink.com>

Kevin Freels wrote:
> 
> 
> Richard Loosemore wrote:

>> The issue, then, is whether nuclear power and renewable sources can be 
>> developed in such a tightly controlled and secure manner that the 
>> considerable dangers of nuclear power can be kept under control.
>>
> It appears this has already been addressed. Here's a great article on 
> Pebble Bed Modular Reactors which eliminate many of the concerns you have.
> http://www.physorg.com/news8956.html
> 
> The only thing I can't seem to find info on is the energy cost and 
> processes used to make the pebbles in the first place.

I very much agree:  this looks like a promising way to go.

However, my concern is mostly with the procedures and management 
infrastructure surrounding such plants.  The technology is improving, 
but people (especially malicious people) find ways to do stupid, 
dangerous or malevolent things with the technology, so what matters most 
of all is researching the management around the reactors, to find the 
best way to stop problems from coming out of left field.

For example, the original scientists and engineers devised safety 
measures to ensure nothing bad could happen in places like Chernobyl and 
Bhopal, but after a while the management on the ground lost interest or 
tried to cut costs, with the result that (e.g.) workers in Chernobyl 
were routinely doing such things as carrying open buckets of radioactive 
waste around by hand.

Even with the pebble-bed reactors, what matters is the unexpected 
gotchas lying hidden away in the system as a whole (people plus technology).

Overall I am optimistic that this can be done, but not if people are 
locked into a mindset in which the main problem with the nuclear 
industry is that idiot environmentalists have been bollixing the work of 
the captains of industry.


Richard Loosemore

From pjmanney at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 16:39:05 2008
From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:39:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080401011907.0241df00@satx.rr.com>
References: <8CA61CBF31B0B65-1518-34C8@webmail-dd18.sysops.aol.com>
	<200804010520.m315KcXk002652@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080401011907.0241df00@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <29666bf30804010939o64d32dafn91d21844d4374ce5@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 11:22 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> The following name would be ideal for an Aussie site but probably
> nowhere else on the planet, alas:
> bee-buggered.com

Oh, Damien, I needed a laugh today.  And I got a big one.  Thanks so much!!!

PJ

From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Apr  1 16:46:15 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:46:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood
References: <552780.81939.qm@web31506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><f7bfe5740803281001l7ee92bbbsf5bc57f1c4da531a@mail.gmail.com><f7bfe5740803281009h5b4b80e4td181d61e971b7700@mail.gmail.com><00d301c892d7$57db8f90$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><f7bfe5740803310741i2e4dff17k80f395646e3eed49@mail.gmail.com><019801c8937a$fe826230$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<f7bfe5740803311725t7bee74d5n45d7c36053f22ed3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01fd01c89418$693a8d30$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Jef writes

>>  We were closer back in the days when you'd agree that a 6 year
>>  old Alice was not the same person as the 86 year old Alice. But
>>  it seems to me that you are becoming increasingly vague and
>>  obscure.
> 
> On the contrary, I posted that little story about Aging Alice,
> <http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2006-November/030182.html>,
> to show that the diachronic self entails /no/ difference of identity
> for the person or their society -- to the extent that agency is
> maintained.

Your Alice example is very much a step in the right direction. You
describe below the changes that occur to someone who we know
as Alice in your story.

To summarize what you've written below, let me excerpt

> Personal identity is a function of the extent to which an agent is
> perceived to act on behalf of a (personal) entity.
> 
> Regardless of changes in physical form; function lost or enhanced;
> memories lost, gained, modified or even "made up"; values cherished
> and then left behind, emotional response changing over minutes, hours,
> weeks, years; spatial change, temporal change, spatio-temporal
> replicas... None of this matters to personal identity, except to the
> extent it impacts agency.

Okay:  "None of this matters to personal identity, except to the
extent that it impacts agency."  Your continued emphasis and
apparent reliance on certain particular words like "agency" 
does create the suspicion that you lack other ways of describing
what you believe. 

So we are to conclude that this Alice is the same person---or,
perhaps shares the same personal identity---or, perhaps "the
original Alice still survives"---or, perhaps.... please do supply
other descriptions that don't use the word "agency".  Okay,
so I'll assume that the answer is "yes" to my suggested rephrasing
right there in this paragraph.

Here is another example:  Joe Glenn is a typical American Midwestern
boy who is very much into video games and sports, and doing his
best conscientiously on his school work.  Upon graduation from
high school, he enlists in the Marine Corps, gains weight, and
eventually becomes a drill instructor. He's not that interested 
anymore in visiting his little home town, and he seldom even
sees his family more than once in five years.  Without using the
word "agency", can you guess as to whether  (a) the original
Joe is still alive? (b) Joe has become a different person?  (c)
Joe has changed, but is still has the same personal identity?
and, if possible, other descriptions that would help us understand
your notion of "personal identity".

Now does the answer to that change if Joe adopts a different
name, now becoming "Mack Sullivan"?  Is the answer affected
if it's revealed that he has continued keeping the same journal
that he started in high school, and that he enjoys reading his
old journal entries, that he's still very much into the same video
games as before, and keeps in touch with the same gangs of
on-line game enthusiasts that he did before?

I'm not trying to expose any shortcomings in your views here;
just trying to understand how you'd phrase the evolution of
this human being.

Oh---and one more thing---unlike your posts, I'll spare the
insulting condescension of implying how hopeless it seems 
that your meandering intellect.... oops!  :-)  Well, I'm not
going to waste bandwidth with assaults on your ways of
thinking, or at least I'll keep it to a bare minimum. You 
should consider doing the same.

Lee

> I showed how Alice as a young girl, Alice as a young adult, Alice as a
> mature adult, and even Alice in old age could have substantial, even
> conflicting, differences in their memories, values, functions and
> ...
> operating according to principles outside your model, that you've
> chosen to ignore -- apparently because to do so would undermine the
> Key to Personal Survival you've been so tightly grasping and carefully
> polishing all these years.  You can't possibly come up with even an
> approximate function for relating physical/functional/pattern
> divergence....
> ...
> Physical/functional/pattern similarity is merely *correlated in our
> experience* with identity because it's the simplest, most probable
> example of personal agency, with that probability approaching absolute
> certainty as all differences approach indiscernibility.
> 
> Personal identity is not a function of physical/functional/pattern
> similarity -- that's only a special case.
> Personal identity is a function of the extent to which an agent is
> perceived to act on behalf of a (personal) entity.
> 
> Regardless of changes in physical form; function lost or enhanced;
> memories lost, gained, modified or even "made up"; values cherished
> and then left behind, emotional response changing over minutes, hours,
> weeks, years; spatial change, temporal change, spatio-temporal
> replicas... None of this matters to personal identity, except to the
> extent it impacts agency.
> ....
> realized I've said it all before.
> 
> When will I learn?



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Apr  1 16:32:18 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:32:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
In-Reply-To: <p06230901c4177eff2cc5@[192.168.0.66]>
Message-ID: <200804011700.m31H0MdT023343@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

>...On Behalf Of Amara Graps
> Subject: [ExI] The Bee Problem
> 
> Dear Spike,
> 
> A friend of mine returned from Arizona carrying a large jar 
> of local honey; she told me that there was no decline in the 
> bees in Arizona...

Thanks Amara!  Good.  A Texan friend contacted me recently and said the bees
are healthy there too.  The locals here in Taxifornia have been hit hard, as
have the Oregonians.  I have a beekeeper friend in Washington state, but
haven't heard back from him...

> Google Maps might help:
> 
> http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2000/02/astronomical-observat
> ories-on-google.html
> ... Amara

Thanks, cool.  Amara, do you want to be in the offlist bee group?  You can
be our queen.  {8-]  No forget that, we would be overwhelmed by yahoos
applying to be drones.  {8^D

There are two things I am studying with this exercise.  One is the bees, the
other is how information flows in the internet age.  That is *fundamentally
different* now than it was in our misspent youth, ja?  The internet provides
a tool that changes everything.  I see it as something that will play a
major role over the next two to five decades in the coming transition in
energy sources.

spike



From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Apr  1 17:04:23 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:04:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] the really important urgent issues
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080330013149.02370398@satx.rr.com><1206902792.19732.1879.camel@hayek>
	<47EFE957.70200@pobox.com><8CA60DA2569207D-FA4-21C1@MBLK-M05.sysops.aol.com><a6a17bd40803311310y4ae55c7h728d60b98f56f562@mail.gmail.com><8CA61A16380C40E-FC8-271A@webmail-mf02.sysops.aol.com>
	<580930c20804010437u7de5855fyc0d6216b996a6b11@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <022b01c8941b$07ee1350$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Alex wrote

> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:52 AM, <ablainey at aol.com> wrote:

> That occurred to to afterward, but it makes you wonder what if
> anything the parents would do about it?

Alex is referring to his description of the discouraging, offensive,
and uncivilized conduct of some local boys who'd been stealing
apples from his apple tree somewhere in England, and who
generated the most profane insults they knew when he yelled
at them to stop.

> After all, they are the ones that have been responsible for the
> moral education of these young un's. Haven't they done well
> so far !

But the truth is that boys have been doing this to their elders
for thousands of years. In the opening pages of Mark Twain's
"A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court", he describes
himself, transported somehow back in time, riding into town
on a horse or donkey or something, and being jeered and
pummeled by rocks by the local (9th century) boys. Says he,
"So I had to get down and deal with them just as in my day,
(the 19th century) )", presumably trying to chase or scare
them or something, or to throw rocks back at them.

By and large, I believe that children are *better* behaved today
than when I was a child in the 50s, and that was a lot better than
the stories I heard my father tell of childhood in the tens and
twenties. Take "Trick or Treat", for example.  In the bad old
days, there really was a rather mean Trick that would get played
on anyone who didn't provide the candy-loot that was demanded.
Little kids today scarcely know what the phrase even means.

But I'm speaking of a Californian who can actually remember
at age 7 noticing that the kids were nicer in southern California 
than they had been in small town Nebraska. I think that the
newer the communities, the less corruption overall, and the
better behavior of children. 

(Still, I totally agree with you that such behavior is not acceptable,
and that whatever improvements---including getting their parents
or even the police involved---that might be effective should probably
be undertaken. No reason we can't keep on improving our societies.)

Lee

> Likewise I think the law is flaccid when it comes to this kind of
> behaviour in kids this age. Teachers are no longer allowed to
> deal out discipline and even parents are limited and watched like
> hawks under the guise of 'protecting kids from abuse'....
 

From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Apr  1 17:25:06 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:25:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Why do we get personal?  (Was EP and Peak Oil)
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com><7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com><29666bf30803310913t6896a539n4c79f1d5d5a37a8b@mail.gmail.com><01a501c8937c$67574720$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677><7.0.1.0.2.20080331173019.05df3198@satx.rr.com>
	<29666bf30804010910n26139dc1kee677dff3eefcbb4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <023801c8941d$d9c778b0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

PJ writes

> There are some on this list who could use a little femoral nerve
> deadening right around their patella.  Stop looking for commies
> under my bed, Lee.  All you'll find there are dust bunnies.

and then

> Wait a second... maybe that's why Lee and others like him are on a
> transhumanist list... he wants us all to have a free market neural
> transplant, so the dream of Homo economicus could become a reality!
> Now if we could only find the part of the brain that governs free
> markets...  ;-)

(I admit readily that my complaint here is about something that is
nothing compared to the *really* ad hominem attacks that frequent
most mailing lists.)

But I'm reminded of what Margaret Thatcher said

     "I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly 
     wounding because I think, well, if they attack one
     personally, it means they have not a single political
     argument left."

By contrast, I do not generally characterize my interlocutors
in negative ways, certainly not by name. True, I have sometimes
referred to "those of previously leftist dispositions who...", etc.,
but it's not quite the same thing, of course.

Is it a form of insecurity, or just bad manners?  The condescension
from several people on this list who I'm currently talking to looks a
little pathetic and desperate to me, honestly. It's also as though
they're perhaps just not very good at keeping their disgust at certain
*ideas* from translating into disdain for certain *persons*.

I request that we try harder to keep the focus on ideas, to try
to avoid making these issues personal, and to avoid general
negative characterizations of others.

Lee


From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Tue Apr  1 17:36:56 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 10:36:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net><62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com><ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com><62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com><015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
Message-ID: <023901c8941f$f6375ea0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Eliezer writes

> Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear power 
> as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling in 
> government.

You're preaching to the choir!  Yes, indeed, I couldn't agree more.

> As a result, the world also has 40 years of excess carbon emissions 
> from coal plants that should never have been built.
> 
> It is not necessarily possible for the "free market" to swoop in and 
> fix these problems after they have had 40 years to get worse.

Oh, absolutely correct again.  No amount of allegiance to capitalism
or the ideals of a truly free market can address the manifold problems
of excess government interference in economic matters. Only a 
concerted understanding by the populace of democratic countries
of the basics of sound economics, and a willingness to abandon
"government" as the solution to every purported problem or "crisis"
can effectively address the problem.

> The "free market" has *already* been stomped on, and the lead time to 
> fix things is not instantaneous.
> 
> If I put it that way, do you see how much trouble we may be in?

The "trouble we're in" is only relative, in my opinion. Yes, it's very sad
to see the foolish and ignorant ways that we have been economically held
back from where we should have been. First move: stop all government
subsidies of ethanol, solar power, wind power, and every other kind of
development; honestly gained profit is the driver of the creation of wealth.

Second move, stop huge government "investments" of  massive funds that
create the political corruption, the "military-industrial complex", the "education
complex", the "agriculture-industrial complex", and create so many, many
hungry and avaricious lobbyists, and so on and on.  Perhaps not overnight,
but just as soon as can be reasonably managed.

Lee


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Tue Apr  1 18:20:33 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:20:33 -0500
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <01d701c89413$7bf4f640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com>
	<29666bf30803310913t6896a539n4c79f1d5d5a37a8b@mail.gmail.com>
	<01a501c8937c$67574720$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331173019.05df3198@satx.rr.com>
	<01d701c89413$7bf4f640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080401130529.0571bb40@satx.rr.com>

At 09:10 AM 4/1/2008 -0700, Lee wrote:

>assuming for just a nanosecond that... you're not still all reeling 
>consciously or
>unconsciously from the demise of Communism

I thought PJ was stretching a bit with her counter-gibe about people 
looking for Commies under her bed; nope, there it is. Amazing.

>and the proven poverty-creating socialisms of one kind or another

What I'm reeling from consciously at the moment is the proven 
my-poverty-creating absence in the USA of the sort of medical health 
system, funded from taxation together with private insurance, that 
would support me in Australia.##

"Socialism" is an absurd would-be "red-baiting" description, but it's 
presumably the sort of scare label that frightens many working USians 
away from demanding such a health system. (But not US medicos, it 
seems: the latest study showed "More than half of U.S. doctors now 
favor switching to a national health care plan and fewer than a third 
oppose the idea, according to a survey published on Monday." ( 
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN3143203520080331 )

Damien Broderick
##I await the inevitable reply (although not from Lee): "Why doncha 
go back there, then, ya Commie stooge?"




From ain_ani at yahoo.com  Tue Apr  1 18:01:37 2008
From: ain_ani at yahoo.com (Michael Miller)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:01:37 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Fw:  Uploading and selfhood
Message-ID: <148975.42577.qm@web31508.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Yes, very good. The point is that true and false are abstract human categories (just like selfhood...and Napolean). Reality has no truck with such things. We can only speak subjectively, and in doing that we have to admit that our own context in asserting true or false may be denied as valid by another. There is no "true" or "false" out there. There is no Napolean out there. It's a mental construct which people define in different ways to suit different purposes. It's entirely irrelevant how we answer the question, it changes nothing. A clear cut answer will serve only to obfuscate matters further by confusing people into thinking that there is such black and whiteness.

Hope this makes things less muddy ;)


and apologies for sending this straight to your own address initially Lee - Yahoo's being inconsistent with this list for some reason.

----- Original Message ----
From: Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Tuesday, April 1, 2008 5:19:16 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Uploading and selfhood

Michael writes

> Lee said
> 
>> [Concerning the following simple inquiry under the hypothesis
>> that a following a devastating plague, a certain "lunatic" now 
>> living in a mental institution in the U.S. who believes himself
>> to be the same person as Napoleon I of France, is the sole
>> survivor on Earth]
>>
>>      The Emperor Napoleon (1769- ), formerly of France, but
>>      now living in a certain city in the U.S., turned out to be the
>>      last living human on Earth?
>> 
>> Well, is that true or false? 
> 
> Sometimes matters don't divide up neatly into those two words.

Why, naturally, of course.  Haven't you heard that there are "shades
of gray"?  Or rather, perhaps you suppose that some of us have
never heard the phrase, or mastered the notion of a continuum.

But seriously, does this mean that you *also* do not lean one way
or another towards accepting or rejecting the above statement? 

> In fact, probably most of the time [matters don't divide up
> neatly into those two words].

Oh?  An assertion by you?  May I infer that you believe your assertion
to be true, or would that also fall into the category of things that cannot
be so simply characterized as "true" or "false"?

But then, there I go again.  Asking for yes or no....  :-)

Lee

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      ____________________________________________________________________________________
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http://tc.deals.yahoo.com/tc/blockbuster/text5.com
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Apr  1 18:11:04 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:11:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Calorie restriction assists chemotherapy
In-Reply-To: <ee50357e0804010756g181cb5bke7d9b6078f83f612@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200804011839.m31IdHq6024593@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

 

> ... On Behalf Of BillK
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Calorie restriction assists chemotherapy
> 
> On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 1:21 PM, BillK wrote:
> > Good news for Spike!
 
> > 
> <http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?type=article&article_i
> > d=218393082>
> >
> 
> 
> I've just realised that my comment could be misinterpreted.
> 
> I didn't mean to imply that Spike is getting chemotherapy!

Cool, I didn't even think of that interpretation.  {8^]  Thanks Billk.  I
currently have two (extended) family members undergoing cancer treatments
including radiation and chemo, but neither have ever done CR, and I am
pretty sure neither would be open to the idea unfortunately.

It makes sense to me that chemotherapy would work better for CRers: the dose
must be very carefully controlled.  My colleague's wife perished because
they gave her a little too much of the toxin when they thought she may have
actually been recovering from the breast cancer.  {8-[  

> I just meant that because Spike already does calorie 
> restriction, in the unlikely event that he ever does need 
> chemo, then he has a head start over everyone else... BillK

It seems to me that different types of tissue would react differently to a
particular level of toxin, so the medics would need to estimate the ratio of
muscle, bone, flab and other to get the dose right.  If the flab level is
way low, that job would be easier?

spike







From spike66 at att.net  Tue Apr  1 18:11:04 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 11:11:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] the bee problem and a possible solution
In-Reply-To: <8CA61D94FCDCAA0-EDC-2A20@WEBMAIL-MB01.sysops.aol.com>
Message-ID: <200804011839.m31IdJPp018701@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

 


________________________________

	From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of
ablainey at aol.com
	Sent: Monday, March 31, 2008 11:33 PM
	To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
	Subject: Re: [ExI] The Bee Problem
	
	
	...Interesting, I'd also like to know if this is worldwide or
America's specific...

This first round of the bee site effort will be US-specific, but Europeans
if you wish to participate, make notes of the bee population and where you
live.  The resolution I planned for the US would be at the county level.  A
county in the states is typically about 50 to 100 km on a side.  Is there
something analogous to a county in Europe and Australia?  If not, a city
will do for location, or GPS coordinates.  



	...You said 'We are going to miss eating fruit and nuts.' I can see
this being a definite problem if all bee types are declining. but what if
other species like solitary bee's, bumble etc are not effected? These and
other pollinators might increase in number to fill the gap?	Alex
	


Alex, the bumblebee is a pollinator, but not an adequate substitute for
honeybees.  If you are in a position to do it, watch a bumblebee, and
estimate how much work she gets done per unit time, by counting the number
of blossoms visited per minute, number of minutes before she leaves, how
many total bumblebees are on a particular bush at a time, etc.  It's about a
tenth as effective as a honeybee, and there are far fewer of them usually.
You will see that bumblebees are lazy bugs.  Well, everything is lazy
compared to a honeybee.  Honeybees will swarm onto a blossoming orange tree
by the skerjillions, and really make tracks from one blossom to another.
They seem to go in fast forward compared to all other pollinators, such as
flies and humming birds.  Honeybees do more pollinating than all other bugs
combined.

Your comment gave me an interesting idea however.  We could look at the
possibility of breeding alternate pollinators, possibly non-flyers, such as
some hardy type of roach for instance.  They stay nearby, they breed like
mormons, and for all their undeserved reputation as diseased carriers, I
have never seen a sick roach.  If we develop crawling pollinators we might
have less of a problem with their being smashed on car windows and might be
easier to keep them healthy.  

What would really be cool is if we could somehow process the roaches into
food at the end of the pollination season, or perhaps feed them to the hogs.
Of course it does have some psychological factors (...fruit trees black with
creepy roaches, ewww...) but we will overcome that hangup once we get
sufficiently hungry.

spike


  


From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk  Tue Apr  1 18:47:46 2008
From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 19:47:46 +0100 (BST)
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 55, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <mailman.12.1207058937.637.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <790654.8385.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>

John K Clark wrote
>Damien, I read your link but frankly I am not
>impressed. It's a fact that
>there are not many organizations that can provide the
>services that Halliburton can and do so in a war
>zone, and so they charge accordingly. I
>can't see where they did anything Enron level bad
>much less committed a government grade horror. I'm
>not saying Halliburton is incapable of being
>a little naughty from time to time, but compared with
>routine governmentgrade evil it's a little like a
>prison guard at Auschwitz raging about the
>injustice of it all because somebody put a whoopee
>cushion on his chair.

>  John K Clark

Halliburton is hired to help do two things - rebuild
Iraq's oil industry and perform logistical support to
the US military. Rebuilding Iraq's oil industry could
be done by a great many oil companies if they were
given decent security backup. As for logistical
support - true, not many commercial organisations can
do what Halliburton can. However, there's are two
radical alternatives to hiring contractors at fat
rates:
1)reinstate the draft and have young men truck the
stuff through Iraq much like their dads did for
Vietnam - not an electorally popular move, but making
strong use of America's resources.
2)Having allies. This may come as a radical view, but
if the Bush administration had spent a little more
time building an international coalition, he might
have been able to have more areas of Iraq being
handled by non-US forces.
 Afghanistan has a great many NATO countries involved
- OK, the coalition creaks a little as the
US,UK,Canada and Belgium take all the danger zones
(and the UK gets to take on the world heroin
production capital) while other countries take on the
more stable parts, but it works. Many countries are
persuaded that it's worth putting in effort for a
stable Afghanistan. 
 If this had been done for Iraq, there'd be less need
for Halliburton and the cost of the war would be
partially born by other nations and the overall total
might be lower, as it would avoid some of the
"contractor corruption" widely reported in the media.
 Of course, to do that would have required
negotiation, taking time and actually having credible
intelligence to go to war on. Perhaps someone a few
years back should have thought "You know, this
intelligence isn't that strong and most nations aren't
buying it. Why are we buying it? Are we that sure it's
worth losing thousands of our troops over?"

Meanwhile...$500 billion on...everyone's got a pet
project that they think would help the world, advance
human civilisation, do something amazing - and many of
them have far, far smaller pricetags. Sometimes you've
got to wonder at the waste of it all.

Tom


      __________________________________________________________
Sent from Yahoo! Mail.
A Smarter Inbox http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

From kevinfreels at insightbb.com  Tue Apr  1 20:21:05 2008
From: kevinfreels at insightbb.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:21:05 -0600
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F26418.7090708@lightlink.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>
	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>
	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com> <47F24BA0.1030109@lightlink.com>
	<47F26ACD.2010301@insightbb.com> <47F26418.7090708@lightlink.com>
Message-ID: <47F29931.3030208@insightbb.com>


> I very much agree:  this looks like a promising way to go.
>
> However, my concern is mostly with the procedures and management 
> infrastructure surrounding such plants.  The technology is improving, 
> but people (especially malicious people) find ways to do stupid, 
> dangerous or malevolent things with the technology, so what matters most 
> of all is researching the management around the reactors, to find the 
> best way to stop problems from coming out of left field.
>   
True. But stupid and malicious people are no reason to remain 
stationary. If they were, we would still be in the stone age. I'm afraid 
we're stuck with those people. So far there have been plenty of them who 
have found ways to do dangerous and malevolent things with fertilizer 
and gun powder. We just need to do the best we can and move forward.
> For example, the original scientists and engineers devised safety 
> measures to ensure nothing bad could happen in places like Chernobyl and 
> Bhopal, but after a while the management on the ground lost interest or 
> tried to cut costs, with the result that (e.g.) workers in Chernobyl 
> were routinely doing such things as carrying open buckets of radioactive 
> waste around by hand.
>
> Even with the pebble-bed reactors, what matters is the unexpected 
> gotchas lying hidden away in the system as a whole (people plus technology).
>   
True again. But remember, that plant was devised in a communist country, 
not a free market with a free flow of information. Such a thing would be 
tough to pull off these days. Of course, new and exciting things to pull 
off are always just around the corner, but again, it shouldn't be a 
barrier, only a place to stop, ponder, and do our best. Hindsight is 
always going to be 20/20, but the only other possible way to go is to 
remain stagnant and I fear that option more.
> Overall I am optimistic that this can be done, but not if people are 
> locked into a mindset in which the main problem with the nuclear 
> industry is that idiot environmentalists have been bollixing the work of 
> the captains of industry.
>
>
>   
There is however some subtle truth to this. I wouldn't say many are 
locked into a "mindset" about this. I think Eli was just acknowledging 
that the modern day environmentalist movement is indeed the main reason 
nuclear power has been much ignored while we continue to burn off our 
fossil fuels. There is some good debate here as to whether or not global 
warming is caused by these emissions or even whether or not global 
warming itself is bad. But for the most part everyone here knows that an 
alternative needs to be found long before the oil runs out so this issue 
trumps global warming. I personally like the green people - until they 
stand in the way of progress. But many get their priorities out of whack 
so while Eli's statement may not apply to everyone that is "green, it 
certainly applies to many.


From pjmanney at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 19:45:59 2008
From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:45:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 55, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <790654.8385.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.12.1207058937.637.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<790654.8385.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <29666bf30804011245k53ad379ahb50411cf84a81bde@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 11:47 AM, Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> Meanwhile...$500 billion on...everyone's got a pet
> project that they think would help the world, advance
> human civilisation, do something amazing - and many of
> them have far, far smaller pricetags. Sometimes you've
> got to wonder at the waste of it all.

Actually, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E.
Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes, that number is $3
Trillion so far -- and that's supposedly an "excessively conservative"
estimate.  And it's rising.

http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-bk-roane30mar30,0,3004376.story

PJ

From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 20:00:13 2008
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 21:00:13 +0100
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 55, Issue 2
In-Reply-To: <29666bf30804011245k53ad379ahb50411cf84a81bde@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.12.1207058937.637.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<790654.8385.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
	<29666bf30804011245k53ad379ahb50411cf84a81bde@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0804011300icfe04a7gdba9bf4be4d9b40e@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Apr 1, 2008 at 8:45 PM, PJ Manney wrote:
>  Actually, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E.
>  Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes, that number is $3
>  Trillion so far -- and that's supposedly an "excessively conservative"
>  estimate.  And it's rising.
>
>  http://www.latimes.com/features/books/la-bk-roane30mar30,0,3004376.story
>


Well, it's not actually wasted, is it?
It's making more friends of the government into billionaires.


BillK

From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Apr  1 21:48:12 2008
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2008 17:48:12 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <01a601c8937d$cf0bc7f0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <01a601c8937d$cf0bc7f0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <7641ddc60804011448q1818a10k61dc3a6fea81c4e4@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Mar 31, 2008 at 6:18 PM, Lee Corbin <lcorbin at rawbw.com> wrote:

>
>
> For example, the most efficient means of capital formation in
> western civilization appears to be the development of the limited
> liability corporation.  Unfortunately, without supervision from
> some sovereign state (you see, I hate to the use the "g---" word),
> company managers take advantage of stock holders to such an
> extent that sooner or later funds dry up, thus retarding economic
> growth.  Institutions such as the SEC are therefore necessary,
> so far as I have been able to determine.


### Apostasy!

There is good evidence that private stock exchanges are superior to
government organizations at enforcing proper accounting to alleviate the
agent-principal problem in limited liability corporations. Stock exchanges
rely on long term persistence to attract customers, and that means both
companies and shareholders. As long as there is sufficient transparency and
alternative conduits for information (e.g. press, blogs, whistleblowers), as
well as competition between exchanges, the owners of stock exchanges stand
to gain by discouraging dishonest companies from listing. If the misbehavior
of one company on their list becomes public, all other companies suffer,
since potential shareholders will look for another exchange that is not
tainted by scandal, and their volume of trade as well as income, will go
down. Companies also want to have high liquidity of their stock, which means
they prefer exchanges with lots of potential investors, and so there is a
strong incentive to maximize volume of trade over long periods of time.
Self-regulation of industries to minimize transaction costs (which entails
combating fraud) is a natural development in any situation with competition,
transparency and long-term persistence. Laugh at me if you want but the
Chinese stock exchanges are an example of emerging self-regulation.

The biggest problem with the government here is that it frequently pre-empts
the development of such self-regulatory mechanisms, and imposes complex,
costly, one-size-fits-all rules with poor feedback and frequently is subject
to "regulatory capture" - the gaining of control over regulators by some of
the regulated entities. A prime example is Sarbanes-Oxley, which imposed
huge costs that disproportionately afflict smaller businesses, and thus
serve to limit the competition against entrenched large companies - exactly
the companies that lobby the government and hire former SEC employees (the
"revolving door" phenomenon).

So whenever a government official tells you to be afraid of freedom and to
give him more control of your life, be afraid of him. He is not your friend.

Rafal
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From rpwl at lightlink.com  Wed Apr  2 00:15:48 2008
From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:15:48 -0400
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <47F29931.3030208@insightbb.com>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
	<47F24BA0.1030109@lightlink.com>	<47F26ACD.2010301@insightbb.com>
	<47F26418.7090708@lightlink.com> <47F29931.3030208@insightbb.com>
Message-ID: <47F2D034.2060906@lightlink.com>

Kevin Freels wrote:

>> Overall I am optimistic that this can be done, but not if people are 
>> locked into a mindset in which the main problem with the nuclear 
>> industry is that idiot environmentalists have been bollixing the work of 
>> the captains of industry.
>>
> There is however some subtle truth to this. I wouldn't say many are 
> locked into a "mindset" about this. I think Eli was just acknowledging 
> that the modern day environmentalist movement is indeed the main reason 
> nuclear power has been much ignored while we continue to burn off our 
> fossil fuels. There is some good debate here as to whether or not global 
> warming is caused by these emissions or even whether or not global 
> warming itself is bad. But for the most part everyone here knows that an 
> alternative needs to be found long before the oil runs out so this issue 
> trumps global warming. I personally like the green people - until they 
> stand in the way of progress. But many get their priorities out of whack 
> so while Eli's statement may not apply to everyone that is "green, it 
> certainly applies to many.

Sorry, but I just don't accept the analysis.

In the 1960s and 70s the greens lobbied hard for less nuclear power and 
massive funding of sustainable energy.  Result:  nothing happened.

Then Three Mile Island and Chernobyl happened, and nuclear was suddenly 
scary as hell.  Overnight, no new plants.

Then the greens continued to lobby hard for massive funding of 
sustainable energy.  Result:  nothing happened.

Then 9/11 and Iraq happened and oil started increasing in price at a 
rate that was actually noticeable, and now suddenly nuclear is back on 
the agenda.

If you see, in this pattern, the pernicious influence of the green 
lobby, then what you are seeing, I suggest, is only the blood-stained 
back of a whipping boy.




Richard Loosemore




From max at maxmore.com  Wed Apr  2 01:00:45 2008
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:00:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <023901c8941f$f6375ea0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <1206895587_26925@S3.cableone.net>
	<62f900cb0803301245h3db78eebj27cdb6af5701675e@mail.gmail.com>
	<ee50357e0803301319h60329acdh13289f7efac10f4e@mail.gmail.com>
	<62f900cb0803301920m3029131aj3de9a35f41db023b@mail.gmail.com>
	<015201c892e2$3aeeeca0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<47F18FE8.8070502@pobox.com>
	<023901c8941f$f6375ea0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <20080402010047.NPQG29946.hrndva-omta04.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com>

I apologize for what is, essentially, a "me too" post. However, since 
I've rejected the "libertarian" label as too restrictive, I'm a 
little worried that some might think me a soft, pinko, small-brained, 
statist thug.

So, I just want to say, in response to the comments by Lee and Eli:

I AGREE! (i.e., ME TOO)

Or, to drive the point home, with a blatant disregard for political 
correctness:

MORE NUCLEAR POWER!

MORE FREE MARKETS!

MORE RATIONALITY!

Before anyone's knees jerk, sending them flying into my face... of 
course the above three don't *necessarily* go together. But they *do* 
go together right now, as it happens. My view on that reality 
apparently agrees with my views as a 15-year old in England, when I 
was (as far as I can tell) the only member of CND (Campaign for 
Nuclear Disarmament) who enthusiastically supported the expansion of 
nuclear power.

Max


At 12:36 PM 4/1/2008, Lee Corbin wrote:
>Eliezer writes
>
> > Lee, the world is 40 years behind where it should be on nuclear power
> > as a direct result of anti-rationalist environmentalist meddling in
> > government.
>
>You're preaching to the choir!  Yes, indeed, I couldn't agree more.
>
> > As a result, the world also has 40 years of excess carbon emissions
> > from coal plants that should never have been built.
> >
> > It is not necessarily possible for the "free market" to swoop in and
> > fix these problems after they have had 40 years to get worse.
>
>Oh, absolutely correct again.  No amount of allegiance to capitalism
>or the ideals of a truly free market can address the manifold problems
>of excess government interference in economic matters. Only a
>concerted understanding by the populace of democratic countries
>of the basics of sound economics, and a willingness to abandon
>"government" as the solution to every purported problem or "crisis"
>can effectively address the problem.
>
> > The "free market" has *already* been stomped on, and the lead time to
> > fix things is not instantaneous.
> >
> > If I put it that way, do you see how much trouble we may be in?
>
>The "trouble we're in" is only relative, in my opinion. Yes, it's very sad
>to see the foolish and ignorant ways that we have been economically held
>back from where we should have been. First move: stop all government
>subsidies of ethanol, solar power, wind power, and every other kind of
>development; honestly gained profit is the driver of the creation of wealth.
>
>Second move, stop huge government "investments" of  massive funds that
>create the political corruption, the "military-industrial complex", 
>the "education
>complex", the "agriculture-industrial complex", and create so many, many
>hungry and avaricious lobbyists, and so on and on.  Perhaps not overnight,
>but just as soon as can be reasonably managed.
>
>Lee
>
>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

Max More, Ph.D.
Strategic Philosopher
www.maxmore.com
max at maxmore.com 


From max at maxmore.com  Wed Apr  2 01:07:15 2008
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Tue, 01 Apr 2008 20:07:15 -0500
Subject: [ExI] EP and Peak oil
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080401130529.0571bb40@satx.rr.com>
References: <017d01c892f3$9cabeb80$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<200803311514.m2VFDxqg014566@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331105247.0270c148@satx.rr.com>
	<29666bf30803310913t6896a539n4c79f1d5d5a37a8b@mail.gmail.com>
	<01a501c8937c$67574720$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080331173019.05df3198@satx.rr.com>
	<01d701c89413$7bf4f640$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080401130529.0571bb40@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <20080402010717.UAMN90.hrndva-omta05.mail.rr.com@D840DTB1.maxmore.com>

At 01:20 PM 4/1/2008, Damien wrote:
>At 09:10 AM 4/1/2008 -0700, Lee wrote:
>
> >and the proven poverty-creating socialisms of one kind or another
>
>What I'm reeling from consciously at the moment is the proven
>my-poverty-creating absence in the USA of the sort of medical health
>system, funded from taxation together with private insurance, that
>would support me in Australia.##

Damien, you Communist stooge, you. (Joking. You live in Texas. How 
red can you be?) You're right. The US medical care system is 
seriously messed up. But why do you reflexively assume more 
government is the answer? I expect you'd be willing to grant that the 
US system is very very far from a free market. Are you sure that a 
true free market in medical care wouldn't be a major improvement.

Answer me with a "yes, of course, you market-lovin' bozo", and it 
might spur me to fi