From jef at jefallbright.net  Fri Feb  1 00:19:23 2008
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:19:23 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Joyce
In-Reply-To: <47A26036.9040800@lineone.net>
References: <mailman.395.1201819237.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47A26036.9040800@lineone.net>
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740801311619q5afac12eob0e6dfd73dacdb1a@mail.gmail.com>

On Jan 31, 2008 3:56 PM, ben <benboc at lineone.net> wrote:

> What the hell???
>
> Either i'm really missing something here, or somebody else is.

Y'know, them squiggles don't mean nothing, 'cept what you read into 'em.

- Jef

From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Fri Feb  1 00:47:19 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:47:19 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Joyce
References: <mailman.395.1201819237.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47A26036.9040800@lineone.net>
Message-ID: <056f01c8646c$07cb2ae0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

ben writes

> > > How do you feel about Bach's Cantata 140, "Sleepers wake"?
>
> > > Or, to take a big-selling example of fiction (shudder), L. Ron
> > > Hubbard's "The Invaders Plan"? (In that case, granted, it's
> > > anyone's guess.)
>
>
> What the hell???
>
> Either i'm really missing something here, or somebody else is.

Nah, I think everyone is on board now.

> Bach's : Belonging to, or 'of' Bach.
> Sleepers : more than one sleeper.
> ...
> Simple enough, surely?

Quite right.

> So i can only conclude that "Finnegans wake" must be about an attempt to
> rouse a number of people all called Finnegan from their slumber. And he
> missed the pling off.

Er, "pling off"?

> (or, just maybe, it should have an apostrophe!)
> So, am i wrong?

No, quite right.  Obviously to first think of "Finnegans Wake" as meaning
Finnegan's Wake is tempting, because the latter much more likely is
meant in vocal use. (And I believe JC pointed out that there was,
historically, such a use.)  So the unapostrophed version was at least
partly just more word-play.

And as for the list being quiet, I will rouse myself shortly, I hope, to
discuss extropian poetry.

Lee

> Is the classic illiterate greengrocer's sign "Plum's ?1 a pound" really
> making a bold and heroic statement about the nature of man?


From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Feb  1 01:10:08 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:10:08 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Joyce
In-Reply-To: <056f01c8646c$07cb2ae0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
References: <mailman.395.1201819237.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47A26036.9040800@lineone.net>
	<056f01c8646c$07cb2ae0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080131190754.02341ae0@satx.rr.com>

At 04:47 PM 1/31/2008 -0800, Lee wrote:

> > missed the pling off.
>
>Er, "pling off"?

I read it as what an Aussie journalist would call a shriek: !

And by Jove, here's google:

<The pling symbol (exclamation mark) is used as an operator function 
in many languages. It commonly conveys the meaning "not" >  (But in 
this case, pling.)

Damien Broderick



From nvitamore at austin.rr.com  Fri Feb  1 00:51:51 2008
From: nvitamore at austin.rr.com (nvitamore at austin.rr.com)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 19:51:51 -0500
Subject: [ExI] EXTROPIANS, WAKE
Message-ID: <380-2200825105151346@M2W015.mail2web.com>

YAWN (pause) hu?  oh - just let me know when its over - 

zzzzz

--------------------------------------------------------------------
mail2web - Check your email from the web at
http://link.mail2web.com/mail2web



From nymphomation at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 01:49:16 2008
From: nymphomation at gmail.com (*Nym*)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 01:49:16 +0000
Subject: [ExI] EXTROPIANS, WAKE
In-Reply-To: <f7bfe5740801311519k776ebc04y7703f126fab8bcc7@mail.gmail.com>
References: <47A12894.3080204@posthuman.com>
	<f7bfe5740801301859u66059945s959f4d69156b8cb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080131163833.02210418@satx.rr.com>
	<f7bfe5740801311519k776ebc04y7703f126fab8bcc7@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <7e1e56ce0801311749n607a7bbal52c7922a88a8b4cb@mail.gmail.com>

n 31/01/2008, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> On Jan 31, 2008 2:40 PM, Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> wrote:
> > Has the dreaded James Joyce debate driven everyone into hibernation?
>
> They may have capsized due the wake...

I heard they died and had to begin again..?

Heavy splashings,
Thee Nymphomation

"We're from the private sector and we're here to help you."

From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 01:43:04 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:43:04 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] EXTROPIANS, WAKE
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080131163833.02210418@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <704318.20019.qm@web50608.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


--- Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com> escreveu:

> Has the dreaded James Joyce debate driven everyone
> into hibernation? 
> (Or estivation, for those of a southerly climate.)
> 

lol.. I was about to leave the Mid-Galactic Arts
Nobbling E-Group. ;) Seriously :p

> Damien Broderick
> 

Tony.


      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
http://br.mail.yahoo.com/

From fauxever at sprynet.com  Fri Feb  1 01:54:03 2008
From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 17:54:03 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Female Sperm Male Eggs
Message-ID: <00d701c86475$53050bd0$6601a8c0@brainiac>

Female sperm breakthrough:

http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23141103-5006301,00.html

DAILY MAIL, LONDON

February 01, 2008 12:15am

BRITISH scientists are ready to turn female bone marrow into sperm, cutting 
men out of the process of creating life.

The breakthrough paves the way for lesbian couples to have children 
biologically their own. Gay men could follow suit by using the technique to 
make eggs from male bone marrow.
Researchers at Newcastle upon Tyne University say their technique will help 
lead to new treatments for infertility. Critics warn it sidelines men and 
raises the prospect of babies born through entirely artificial means.

The research centres on stem cells - the body's "mother" cells, which can be 
turned into any other type of cell.

According to New Scientist magazine, the scientists want to take stem cells 
from a female donor's bone marrow and transform them into sperm through the 
use of chemicals and vitamins.

Newcastle professor Karim Nayernia has applied for permission to carry out 
the work and is ready to start the experiments within two months.

The biologist, who pioneered the technique with mice, believes early-stage 
"female sperm" could be produced inside two years. Mature sperm capable of 
fertilising eggs might take three more years.

Early-stage sperm have already been produced from male bone marrow. Taking 
stem cells from an adult donor - possibly a cancer patient - removes the 
ethical problems associated with using embryos.e race to find a cure for 
infertility is global.

Greg Aharonian, a U.S. analyst who is trying to patent the technologies 
behind female sperm and male eggs, said he wants to undermine the argument 
that heterosexual marriage is superior because it is aimed at procreation. 
"I'm a troublemaker," he said.

Researchers at the Butantan Institute in Brazil, meanwhile, claim to have 
turned embryonic stem cells from male mice into both sperm and eggs. They 
are now working on skin cells.

If their experiments succeed, the stage would be set for a gay man to donate 
skin cells that could be used to make eggs. These could then be fertilised 
by his partner's sperm and placed into the womb of a surrogate mother.

Irina Kerkis, a researcher at the Brazilian centre, said this development 
was possible but raised ethical questions.

Laboratory-grown sperm and eggs offer hope for those left infertile by 
radiotherapy treatment when they were young. The experiments also could 
provide an invaluable insight into dealing with infertility.

Scientists warn, however, that the research is still in its infancy and any 
treatment is still many years away.

There also are fears that children born from artificial eggs and sperm will 
suffer severe health problems. Children created from sperm from women would 
be able to have girls only - because the female sperm would lack the Y 
chromosome needed for boys.

Josephine Quintavalle, of the Comment on Reproductive Ethics campaign group, 
said: "We are looking at absurd solutions to very obscure situations and not 
addressing the main issue. Nobody is interested in looking at what is 
causing infertility - social reasons such as obesity, smoking and age."

``All these things would provide solutions which wouldn't grab the 
headlines, but a lot more people would get the response they want - which is 
to be able to have their own children.'

Mike Judge, of the Christian Institute faith group, said the Newcastle 
project flies in the face of research showing that children do best when 
raised by a married mixed- sex couple.

"Children need male and female role models in their lives," he added. 'Yes, 
there are children raised by single parents through all sorts of 
circumstances, but when you are talking about deliberately creating children 
in that way, that is morally wrong.' Debra Matthews, a U.S. bioethicist, 
said: 'People want children and no one wants anyone else to tell them they 
can't have them.'

An update of Britain's ageing fertility laws is going through Parliament and 
is likely to allow the use of artificial sperm and eggs in IVF treatment - 
but only for heterosexual couples.

The Newcastle research also paves the way for a woman to grow her own sperm 
and use it to fertilise her natural eggs, creating a child to which she is 
both mother and father.

Similarly, a man could be both father and mother to a child created with his 
own sperm and a lab-grown egg. Such children would be at high risk of 
genetic abnormality.

- Daily Mail

Also:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/01/31/scisperm131.xml

And:

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/sex/mg19726414.000-are-male-eggs-and-female-sperm-on-the-horizon.html


From kanzure at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 02:52:37 2008
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 20:52:37 -0600
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
Message-ID: <200801312052.37973.kanzure@gmail.com>

http://heybryan.org/transhuman/biohack.html
Torrent: http://www.mininova.org/tor/1142741
Facebook: http://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10201960134

The open biohacking kit project contains information on important 
protocols in genetic engineering, stem cell research, microbiology and 
other fields of related interest. Additionally, the archive file -- 
ready for immediate distribution and diffusion -- contains numerous 
articles and designs for cheap DIY hardware such as incubators, 
centrifuges, oligonucleotide machines, microarray chip schematics, and 
so on. An integral part of the entire package is a cached copy of the 
BioBrick Foundation and synbio websites, such as OpenWetWare and the 
Parts Registry -- some may know about these groups from the 
International Genetically Engineered Machine competitions. Short 
introductory files are also being included regarding methods of 
artificial gene synthesis, using online bioinformatics databases, 
transfections, running ecoli farms, synthetic biology (synbio), ES cell 
harvesting procedures, quick "where to buy" guides, and one-page 
documents introducing newbies into the arts.

The project is in the spirit of 'open' in the sense of open source, as 
such I am welcoming any permutations and combinations of this 
information, any revision of the zip file, any contributions 
whatsoever. Please note that this is an **amateur** work made for other 
**amateurs** (and to some extent professionals) and therefore the 
contents of the zip file remain mostly as a creative work and have not 
yet matured into a final product; admittedly, any project at this stage 
is going to be immature and will only grow to the extent that people 
will help it on its journey.

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/

From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 03:28:52 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 00:28:52 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] The system
In-Reply-To: <642753.83319.qm@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <575028.1235.qm@web50603.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


--- Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> escreveu:

> People have made various comments about "the system"
> (in its many varieties) and whether they hope it
> will
> change, or whether the system is fact amazing. I
> apologise in advance for the length of my post -
> however, given the entire news articles and pages of
> James Joyce people have been quoting, I feel in good
> company. Because I've got a fair bit to say, I'm
> breaking what follows into three parts:
> 

hahaha :) i dont know if its apropriate, but somehow i
found that amusing.

> This has
> caused many of my generation to be a little cynical
> about politics

Thats probably everyone..

> and whether anyone without the cash
> to
> bribe - sorry, effectively lobby - politicians could
> do a thing.

.. and I think its probably on purpose, so you install
the belief that "you're impotent to change anything"
in people.


> 
> 2) The system: we all like to visualise "the system"
> as the way the world works, in ways that our society
> is familiar with. However, "the system" does change
> over time. I may be a subject of Queen Elizabeth the
> Second, but she doesn't lead our armies into battle
> like monarchs of old,

Yet, more people have died in wars lately than ever
before summed up (dont know the exact numbers, but i
would guess from 1950 against all wars from ever
before.. not counting indirect effects, like if the
resources was spent actually doing something good)

> and I get a vote in our
> elections while she doesn't.

Which seconds ago you admitted dont make a difference
anyway.. 

> The Tsars were swept
> away
> by communism, which went through Stalinism and
> finally
> faded away with perestroika, to be replaced by
> unfettered go-go capitalism for a few years, now to
> be
> replaced by autocratic Putinism. France has had
> several republics in the same period of history that
> the USA has only needed one to fill.
>  In the 1930s, FDR's "New Deal" made America more
> socialist than it had been previously, and Britain's
> "Welfare state" wasn't invented until after 1945.
> Our
> grandparent's "system" and ours are radically
> different.

but better?

>  Now, people have been posting about whether "the
> system" works in several areas. With respect to
> healthcare, many deplore how the USA has so little
> care for the poor while spending so much on
> healthcare
> overall, while Spike admires the amazing technology
> developed by the profit motive.

Which I gave up to insist that it wont solve
anything.. if you pay someone -- who consider money
all that important, let me add -- "TO solve" a
problem, they are forever going "TO solve" it.. Until
of course, you open your eyes, and pay for "THE
solution". OR use a system that dont create a conflict
of interest between survival(which most people
associate with money, but let us not get too
philosophical whether is ethical to eat brand new
cars) and righteousness. Being teaching it since
childhood or dissociating truth from any kind of
reward outside of itself(like happiness against
money).. probably many systems might work, even inside
the capitalist mindset.

>  For everyone in Europe, while it is a shame that so
> many individual Americans have to suffer, we should
> appreciate the free ride we get.

I wonder to where?

> US drug companies
> research a lot of drugs.

Which are the 3rd killer of their country, i would
actually say the 1st, but lets stick with the facts
that THEY THEMSELVES admit.. lol, let alone they ALSO
ADMIT they dont count everything in that figure.. so
how many are going to the first 2 other causes of
obit? And since most drugs dont kill immediately this
is pretty easy to do. Yes, dont forget the misery they
cause all the way until they are (NOT)counted..
hahahahaha... (which, btw, i find worse than death,
but thats me, im not THAT obsessed with life i guess
^^ specially when its surrounded by people that
actually do that on purpose)

> For a few years, American
> consumers are milked for all they're worth until

oh yes, i forgot that :)

> another company discovers a similar enough compound

which is probably a lot of time, since they must be
very careful not to bankrupt the competition AND
themselves, by curing anything.. no "friendly" motive
anymore after that. Hopefully find a dependency drug:
take-> get "fairly" well(how good is your wellness
fair to them btw?), stop taking-> back to sickness..
How many drugs you know that have already arrived at
this point? oh, they can still improve on that, cant
they? they can always make you better quicker? or,
maybe not.. let us just change the side effects,
hopefully you will want to buy another drug then! yey
\o/

> that gets around the original patent, and then
> competition brings down the price a little.
>  Meanwhile, the Canadians and europeans with their
> big
> healthcare systems negotiate a price they think is
> reasonable. The big drug companies can either agree
> a
> price, or they can face having very few customers in
> a
> given country. The cost to people outside the US is
> a
> good degree less. Our new drugs are subsidised by
> our
> US friends worrying about the huge premiums on their
> health insurance.

and they probably take stress reducing pills :)
mwahaha

>  We also get other free rides

to where again? you better start asking before you get
the wrong bus.. again.. 

> - everyone who's
> wearing
> cotton clothes, thank Uncle Sam for his generosity.
> Huge subsidies paid to US cotton farmers make the
> world price of cotton ridiculously low. Farmers in
> west africa, trying to pay people a dollar a day,
> have

that makes me want to burn my shirts.. 

> difficulty competing with American farmers who get
> bribed by US politicians hoping for a friendly vote.
> Thank you for my cheap T-shirts, American taxpayers.

hehehe, nice quote for a T-Shirt ;) .. made in Africa!
huahahaha priceless.. err pun intended :D

> Of course, sometimes this works the other way -
> subsidies for bioethanol from corn has driven US
> maize

oh.. now you're getting interesting.. there is always
the downside =/ they never seem to lose, do they? arg!
:)

> prices up, which in turn increases the costs of
> tortillas in Mexico and corn meal across the world.

BTW im making some tomorrow, everyone's invited. they
are cheap here.. i guess, could probably be much
cheaper, i agree with you..

> Still, we should be thankful that the US's
> experiments
> in unrestrained healthcare capitalism can provide us
> with useful products.
> 

indeed...

:) lol.. ok, there are plenty of good things.. but
they wont get much of a solution, unless they can
"compensate" somehow.. =/

> 3) A radical change in "the system": looking about
> transhumanist websites, you get to see many
> viewpoints
> on the world.

Yes, im giving up talking about this, it wont get us
anywhere, and there are already much talk from
immemorial times. There is too much fundamental work
to be done before anything past the basics of those
talks can actually be put to test, and most everyone
know what those(fundamentals) are.. so no point going
further before the basic is done, those talks can be
done after that (if we ever get there, so its a waste
of time anyway, even worse if we dont, and as it
seems.. we wont)

> citizens so they can all have an income from the
> state. The idea when extended to western
> civilisations
> is to give everyone a handout sufficient to cover
> their basic needs. This replaces welfare, pensions
> schemes, sickness benefits, etc.
>  The combination of the two has been advocated by
> some
> libertarians as allowing people to earn what they
> want, while also given people freedom from being
> forced to work. If someone's idea of life,liberty
> and
> the pursuit of happiness is sitting down watching
> soap
> operas all day, they can. This combination also
> works
> from a socialist view - "From each according to
> their
> earnings;to each to cover their basic needs", while
> allowing eager capitalists to earn extra cash and
> allowing the profit motive to exist.
>  Say this particular innovation gets adopted by a
> political party in a developed economy, and is
> implemented one day. What will happen?

We will see in the next chapter! Stay tuned! (got to
the bottom to answer, and look at that!)

>  People will probably do one of three things: some
> may
> want to earn as much as possible to add to their
> minimum income. In the US, people work more hours
> than
> they did in the 1970s, but the amount of stuff they
> own is much greater than their 1970s predecessors.
> In
> France, they've achieved a 35 hour working week, and
> people working longer hours each week get time off
> in
> lieu. The French equivalent of the wall street
> banker
> gets 45-50 days paid leave a year in return for
> working so hard during the week.
>  A second group of people will give up working. As
> Spike said, there's many people in the US motivated
> by
> 
=== message truncated ===

MESSAGE TRUNCATED!! F***!!! Stupid yahoo.. =/
See you next week in this same hour, and in this same
channel! yey \o/  \o> *shoots head*



      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
http://br.mail.yahoo.com/

From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 03:32:36 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 00:32:36 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 52, Issue 27
In-Reply-To: <650185.30287.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <853065.32642.qm@web50602.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


--- Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> escreveu:

> Van Gogh's
> sunflowers
> and the Mona Lisa both went for recycling though.
> 

This is an outrage!!! LOL I hope nobody reads this out
of context ^^

Tony.


      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
http://br.mail.yahoo.com/

From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 04:40:59 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 01:40:59 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] The system
In-Reply-To: <642753.83319.qm@web27007.mail.ukl.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <856528.10331.qm@web50604.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


========= Continuing =======

In the last episode...

/****************
 The first good example I saw of minimum income was in
"Visit Port Watson!", the finest piece of Utopian SF I
ever read. Set in the remotest islands of the pacific,
it's a fictional travel guide to an imaginary
republic. The ruler set up an offshore banking and
finance centre, and divides the profits up amongst the
citizens so they can all have an income from the
state. The idea when extended to western civilisations
is to give everyone a handout sufficient to cover
their basic needs. This replaces welfare, pensions
schemes, sickness benefits, etc.
 The combination of the two has been advocated by some
libertarians as allowing people to earn what they
want, while also given people freedom from being
forced to work. If someone's idea of life,liberty and
the pursuit of happiness is sitting down watching soap
operas all day, they can. This combination also works
from a socialist view - "From each according to their
earnings;to each to cover their basic needs", while
allowing eager capitalists to earn extra cash and
allowing the profit motive to exist.
 Say this particular innovation gets adopted by a
political party in a developed economy, and is
implemented one day. What will happen?

*******************/
ta na na na!
/*******************

 People will probably do one of three things: some may
want to earn as much as possible to add to their
minimum income. In the US, people work more hours than
they did in the 1970s, but the amount of stuff they
own is much greater than their 1970s predecessors. In
France, they've achieved a 35 hour working week, and
people working longer hours each week get time off in
lieu. The French equivalent of the wall street banker
gets 45-50 days paid leave a year in return for
working so hard during the week.
 A second group of people will give up working. As
Spike said, there's many people in the US motivated by
a fear of not having health insurance who would
otherwise retire early. Likewise, people who currently
claim unemployment benefits might just give up looking
for work.

**************************/

But who would then get my garbage, or cook my food?!
This trash pile up rather quickly you know? After all
if everybody in the world consumed like the average
american, we would need about 6 earth to sustain us!..
The government would do it? But who would they hire??
they are paying everyone not to work.. so, i guess
those salaries would soar! And then we would need
universities to avoid everyone from becoming a garbage
man, and make them study for years the anatomy of
garbage, memorizing useless stuff... So they can
legally think they are elite, yes, think, after all
they are still garbage man. Yes, there is a lot of
people wanting to be them, but.. ok.. let their dream
live..

hmm.. maybe not actually salaries, since we wont be
needing companies anymore, i mean, who would work for
anyone else.. rather we will get mercenaries, who
would then charge huge ammounts for 'protection'..
yeah, garbage can be very dangerous you know? they can
actually appear from nowhere, in the mid of the night,
piles and piles..

By the way, a change of mentality is out of the
question. (Watching soap opera all day are too tiring
a work (i cant stand a few seconds), and get people to
busy to actually recycle their own garbage, or send to
the proper place)

/***********************
 A third group of people might take this as their
chance to do what they really want to do with their
lives - pursue hobbies, practise arts, perform
academic research into what really interests them,
work for charities. These people would no longer be
limited by the need to pay the rent.
************************/

But they would want some of that great green stuff
type 1 has! after all, there are other groups
producing things THEY want also.. and they aint giving
it for free, after all there was a lot of work to
invent it and produce it, compared to how much work
they should actually be doing (i mean, i could be
watching soap operas), it would make them sick and
those medice researchers charge pretty damn much! I
dont blame them though, they must pay for garbage
protection.

 In this situation, I dont see much sharing of
knowledge between researchers.. there would be a lot
of competing rival factions, throwing garbage at each
other's lots.. I wonder though where do type 1 people
get all that money, exporting? Maybe they collect
garbage... maybe they export garbage! type 2 would get
rich then, just by sitting on their b**** watching as
they pile grow higher, then lower.. higher.. then
lower... oh joy..

/************************* 
 The unanswerable question is to what proportion
people will fall into these categories.
*********************/

Im not trying to say it wont work but.. :) at the very
least, a lot of would be type 2's would be forced to
work... it seems most people will be forced to do
stuff they dont want to.. and I think thats the way it
should be! if you dont have the discipline to recycle
your garbage, cook your food, dont overheat your
planet till meltdown.. well.. i guess you should be
enforced by law to do your part, to the benefit of
everyone else that does. This system might work then.

/************************
 We could try
doing surveys, but people may not answer particularly
truthfully. We can try predicting from national trends
(ie we'd guess the US would have more type 1 people
than other countries, but I couldn't tell you what
extent).
 The trick would be to have enough people in the first
category to generate the cash
**********/

generating cash from thin air? what are they selling?
what are they buying? to whom? type 3 is producing the
good stuff, are they not?
Maybe farming? please dont say garbage again.
yes.. farming.. but.. government is providing all the
needs arent they? so.. government gives tax money to
people so they can pay for food.. but.. type 2 dont
pay tax.. type 3 neither (in your original idea).. so,
essentially type 1 is paying themselves to feed the
people! \o/ this could work if a change of mentality
would take place, but then what wouldnt? Everyone
doing what they can and like and need.. we wouldnt
have to design much of a system, it would all fit
together in an obvious way.. no need to enforce
anything.. many people call that idealism, and most of
them, dont believe it. I do \o> thats why i bother to
type all this. please kill me. seriously :p

/*****************
 to keep the other two
groups going. Huge numbers of people would fall into
category two. 
If the third category was big, it could
trigger a renaissance of unimaginable proportions. 
********************/
well.. i wonder what minimum changes in mentality
would be needed for this to work.. As always, I think
the least change we make in the current system the
better (not that we wont make more later, on the
contrary the idea is gradual change).. it is easier to
predict what impact it will have, it wont be so abrupt
to cause vital dynamics (nutrient flow, waste
excretion.. yes GARBAGE!) to halt.. human mentality
tends to adapt slowly, so to get the "my grandpa
systems was drastically different than mine" effect,
we need to change slowly, otherwise the same mentality
would fall back, snap back (probably better word), to
what its used to..

/*************
 Natasha has alluded to these possibilities when
talking about her papers on "Homo Ludens". People are
starting to look at the concept of a life without the
need for work seriously. With the increasing
automation of many jobs, do we need to keep finding
new ways for people to add to the economy? Will those
old predictions of "in the future, robots will do 90%
of work" come true? Would the cutting down of human
work be the start of a golden age of civilisation, or
our first step in becoming decadent lotus eaters?
/*********************/

Hopefully so! All of those and some more.. but i
predict low jobs will last a long time yet, the elite
is too lazy to let go of their willing slaves. Unless
a change of mentality takes place, this wont happen..
and the confort zone isnt being challenged very much.
But well.. nothing that a few volcanoes, or a few
inches of water cant do, uh? lets hope.

/*******************
 I'd like to see a nation try, just to help the rest
of the world prepare for the future and consider other
ways of living.
**************/

Im not a voy..... ..eurrrrType2 but that would indeed
be fun to watch.

 "consider other ways of living."
That would be very useful!!! I hope thats not too late
though ^^

Mark.

Tom


      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
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From kevin at kevinfreels.com  Fri Feb  1 04:50:50 2008
From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (Kevin Freels)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 22:50:50 -0600
Subject: [ExI] EXTROPIANS, WAKE
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080131163833.02210418@satx.rr.com>
References: <47A12894.3080204@posthuman.com>	<f7bfe5740801301859u66059945s959f4d69156b8cb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080131163833.02210418@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <47A2A52A.6050706@kevinfreels.com>

Everything worth saying for the moment has already been said.......


Damien Broderick wrote:
> Has the dreaded James Joyce debate driven everyone into hibernation? 
> (Or estivation, for those of a southerly climate.)
>
> Damien Broderick
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
>   

From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Feb  1 05:55:03 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 23:55:03 -0600
Subject: [ExI] "Cheap Hydrogen"--this might be promising
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080131235308.02470fa0@satx.rr.com>

[what's stupidly wrong with it, Eugen? :)  ]

http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/20134/


Thursday, January 31, 2008


Cheap Hydrogen

A new process uses sunlight and a nanostructured catalyst to 
inexpensively and efficiently generate hydrogen for fuel.


From amara at amara.com  Fri Feb  1 07:12:04 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 00:12:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Earth is doomed. Mars is OK, though.
Message-ID: <p06230903c3c875d28c71@[192.168.0.66]>

http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.4031

Distant future of the Sun and Earth revisited
Authors: Klaus-Peter Schroder, Robert C. Smith
(Submitted on 25 Jan 2008)

Abstract: We revisit the distant future of the Sun and the solar system,
based on stellar models computed with a thoroughly tested evolution
code. For the solar giant stages, mass-loss by the cool (but not
dust-driven) wind is considered in detail. Using the new and
well-calibrated mass-loss formula of Schroder & Cuntz (2005, 2007), we
find that the mass lost by the Sun as an RGB giant (0.332 M_Sun, 7.59 Gy
from now) potentially gives planet Earth a significant orbital
expansion, inversely proportional to the remaining solar mass.

According to these solar evolution models, the closest encounter of
planet Earth with the solar cool giant photosphere will occur during the
tip-RGB phase. During this critical episode, for each time-step of the
evolution model, we consider the loss of orbital angular momentum
suffered by planet Earth from tidal interaction with the giant Sun, as
well as dynamical drag in the lower chromosphere. We find that planet
Earth will not be able to escape engulfment, despite the positive effect
of solar mass-loss. In order to survive the solar tip-RGB phase, any
hypothetical planet would require a present-day minimum orbital radius
of about 1.15 AU.

Furthermore, our solar evolution models with detailed mass-loss
description predict that the resulting tip-AGB giant will not reach its
tip-RGB size. The main reason is the more significant amount of mass
lost already in the RGB phase of the Sun. Hence, the tip-AGB luminosity
will come short of driving a final, dust-driven superwind, and there
will be no regular solar planetary nebula (PN). But a last thermal pulse
may produce a circumstellar (CS) shell similar to, but rather smaller
than, that of the peculiar PN IC 2149 with an estimated total CS shell
mass of just a few hundredths of a solar mass.

Comments:	MNRAS 2008, in print (accepted Jan. 23rd, 2008)
Subjects:	Astrophysics (astro-ph)
Cite as:	arXiv:0801.4031v1 [astro-ph]
Submission history
From: Klaus-Peter Schr\"oder [view email]
[v1] Fri, 25 Jan 2008 21:13:29 GMT (34kb)
-- 

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

From scerir at libero.it  Fri Feb  1 07:21:17 2008
From: scerir at libero.it (scerir)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 08:21:17 +0100
Subject: [ExI] EXTROPIANS, WAKE
References: <47A12894.3080204@posthuman.com><f7bfe5740801301859u66059945s959f4d69156b8cb1@mail.gmail.com>
	<7.0.1.0.2.20080131163833.02210418@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <003701c864a3$0a047410$2bb91f97@archimede>

"We are not yet born, we are not yet in the world,
there isn't yet a world, things have not yet been made,
the reason for being has not yet been found."
-Antonin Artaud

http://www.antoninartaud.org/home.html


From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Feb  1 09:17:08 2008
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:17:08 +0100
Subject: [ExI] "Cheap Hydrogen"--this might be promising
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080131235308.02470fa0@satx.rr.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080131235308.02470fa0@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <20080201091708.GI10128@leitl.org>

On Thu, Jan 31, 2008 at 11:55:03PM -0600, Damien Broderick wrote:
> [what's stupidly wrong with it, Eugen? :)  ]

Assuming their claims of producing hydrogen cheaper than
methane reforming are true (unconditionally, that's not
true, since you'd need direct sunlight, and plenty of it)
that's a pretty low standard to compare against. Thin-film
elements a la http://nanosolar.de are claimed to have
an energy ROI of weeks, and 0.3$/W in production, sold
for 1$/W. Their current claims is electricity cheaper than
coal plant electricity. You can expect these prices to fall 
further, while cost of natural gas will only increase. On 
the long run, we should see nanowire rectenna-based PV arrays, 
which can be up to 80% efficient, while as cheap and durable
as thin-film spin-coated or printed panels.
 
> http://www.technologyreview.com/Energy/20134/

Anything involving tracking parabolic mirrors to create
high temperatures in focus is always going to remain 
expensive. No movable elements and solid state is where it's
at.

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 14:21:21 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 11:21:21 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
In-Reply-To: <200801312052.37973.kanzure@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <718118.85916.qm@web50601.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

Amazing! Thanks!

--- Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> escreveu:

> http://heybryan.org/transhuman/biohack.html
> Torrent: http://www.mininova.org/tor/1142741
> Facebook:
> http://hs.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10201960134
> 
> The open biohacking kit project contains information
> on important 
> protocols in genetic engineering, stem cell
> research, microbiology and 
> other fields of related interest. Additionally, the
> archive file -- 
> ready for immediate distribution and diffusion --
> contains numerous 
> articles and designs for cheap DIY hardware such as
> incubators, 
> centrifuges, oligonucleotide machines, microarray
> chip schematics, and 
> so on. An integral part of the entire package is a
> cached copy of the 
> BioBrick Foundation and synbio websites, such as
> OpenWetWare and the 
> Parts Registry -- some may know about these groups
> from the 
> International Genetically Engineered Machine
> competitions. Short 
> introductory files are also being included regarding
> methods of 
> artificial gene synthesis, using online
> bioinformatics databases, 
> transfections, running ecoli farms, synthetic
> biology (synbio), ES cell 
> harvesting procedures, quick "where to buy" guides,
> and one-page 
> documents introducing newbies into the arts.
> 
> The project is in the spirit of 'open' in the sense
> of open source, as 
> such I am welcoming any permutations and
> combinations of this 
> information, any revision of the zip file, any
> contributions 
> whatsoever. Please note that this is an **amateur**
> work made for other 
> **amateurs** (and to some extent professionals) and
> therefore the 
> contents of the zip file remain mostly as a creative
> work and have not 
> yet matured into a final product; admittedly, any
> project at this stage 
> is going to be immature and will only grow to the
> extent that people 
> will help it on its journey.
> 
> - Bryan
> ________________________________________
> Bryan Bishop
> http://heybryan.org/
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> 



      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
http://br.mail.yahoo.com/

From msd001 at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 14:48:13 2008
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:48:13 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Earth is doomed. Mars is OK, though.
In-Reply-To: <p06230903c3c875d28c71@192.168.0.66>
References: <p06230903c3c875d28c71@192.168.0.66>
Message-ID: <62c14240802010648h55ab1497gf27b23276302205b@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 1, 2008 2:12 AM, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> Earth will not be able to escape engulfment, despite the positive effect
> of solar mass-loss. In order to survive the solar tip-RGB phase, any
> hypothetical planet would require a present-day minimum orbital radius
> of about 1.15 AU.

... so you're saying that mars is a better option than the moon for
those cryogenic dewars.  An even better plan might be to have migrated
to an extraterrestrial vehicle bound for a younger star by the time
Sol goes into a geriatric state.  :)

From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 14:40:29 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 11:40:29 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] Earth is doomed. Mars is OK, though.
In-Reply-To: <p06230903c3c875d28c71@[192.168.0.66]>
Message-ID: <637596.36761.qm@web50610.mail.re2.yahoo.com>

pretty much :)

--- Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> escreveu:

> http://arxiv.org/abs/0801.4031
> 
> Distant future of the Sun and Earth

Wouldnt the earth be inhabitable much earlier?

Mark.


      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
http://br.mail.yahoo.com/

From robert.bradbury at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 15:14:00 2008
From: robert.bradbury at gmail.com (Robert Bradbury)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:14:00 -0500
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
In-Reply-To: <718118.85916.qm@web50601.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
References: <200801312052.37973.kanzure@gmail.com>
	<718118.85916.qm@web50601.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <deaa866a0802010714s4dd4d469nfabd57f773b2a59c@mail.gmail.com>

It would be nice if most of the filenames didn't include spaces.  Spaces in
filenames are a real pain to work with under Linux and other Unix
derivatives.

Robert
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From rpicone at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 17:28:07 2008
From: rpicone at gmail.com (Robert Picone)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:28:07 -0800
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
In-Reply-To: <deaa866a0802010714s4dd4d469nfabd57f773b2a59c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200801312052.37973.kanzure@gmail.com>
	<718118.85916.qm@web50601.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
	<deaa866a0802010714s4dd4d469nfabd57f773b2a59c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <ffcf8fff0802010928q669e0863ra04eb921f8a6c8d8@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 1, 2008 7:14 AM, Robert Bradbury <robert.bradbury at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> It would be nice if most of the filenames didn't include spaces.  Spaces
> in filenames are a real pain to work with under Linux and other Unix
> derivatives.
>
> Robert
>

If you're on a debian-based system, I'd recommend the command "rename 's/
/_/g' *" to make them easier to deal with.  If not, or if the package isn't
installed, you can find the debian rename script here:
http://tips.webdesign10.com/files/rename.pl.txt

Anyway, to those interested in the topic, you might also want to check out
an interesting talk given at this year's chaos computer congress:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6950604815683841321&hl=en
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Feb  1 17:26:55 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:26:55 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <003101c8630f$9818a3b0$41f04d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>



> John K Clark
.
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
> 
> Rick Strongitharm Wrote:
> 
> > The Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to begin operation in a few 
> >

>...The most disappointing result would be if it 
> discovered the Higgs Boson and nothing else.   John K Clark


I disagree John.  The most disappointing result is if it created a mini
black hole, which then started eating atoms around it as it sank to the
center of the earth, growing more massive and eventually having the earth
collapse suddenly into a marble sized point of mass.  The astronauts aboard
the space station witnessing the sudden disappearance of the earth would
have new insight into Fermi's paradox but would be most disappointed in any
case.

spike


 


From stefano.vaj at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 18:40:00 2008
From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 19:40:00 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <003101c8630f$9818a3b0$41f04d0c@MyComputer>
	<200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <580930c20802011040j38d6af9and4162d23cde2fe77@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 1, 2008 6:26 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> I disagree John.  The most disappointing result is if it created a mini
> black hole, which then started eating atoms around it as it sank to the
> center of the earth, growing more massive and eventually having the earth
> collapse suddenly into a marble sized point of mass.

No, wouldn't you think this would be a very interesting phenomenon? :-)

Stefano Vaj

From spike66 at att.net  Fri Feb  1 18:18:41 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:18:41 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Joyce
In-Reply-To: <007701c86316$b12bfee0$41f04d0c@MyComputer>
Message-ID: <200802011845.m11IjPtn003203@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


> John K Clark
> ...the song is called Finnegan's Wake. Yes it had an 
> apostrophe. If I am correct about that (and believe it or not 
> I have been known to be wrong) then my third grade English 
> teacher would still give Mr. Joyce an F for a title like that.
> 
>   John K Philistine


My fifth grade English teacher assigned the victims to write about their
summer vacation.  I titled mine Greg's Trip [subtitled] Greg with a
Catastrophy S.  Mrs. Risticelli loved it, told me it was the best
intentionally funny essay she had seen to date.  That started my career in
comedy writing.

spike





From eugen at leitl.org  Fri Feb  1 18:51:43 2008
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 19:51:43 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <003101c8630f$9818a3b0$41f04d0c@MyComputer>
	<200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <20080201185142.GZ10128@leitl.org>

On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 09:26:55AM -0800, spike wrote:

> I disagree John.  The most disappointing result is if it created a mini
> black hole, which then started eating atoms around it as it sank to the
> center of the earth, growing more massive and eventually having the earth
> collapse suddenly into a marble sized point of mass.  The astronauts aboard
> the space station witnessing the sudden disappearance of the earth would
> have new insight into Fermi's paradox but would be most disappointed in any
> case.

http://www.amazon.com/Thrice-Upon-Time-James-Hogan/dp/0671319485

-- 
Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> http://leitl.org
______________________________________________________________
ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org
8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A  7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE

From spike66 at att.net  Fri Feb  1 18:25:35 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 10:25:35 -0800
Subject: [ExI] riffing on the first second. was Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <ee50357e0801300224l30558adax94afb65a48fbb017@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200802011852.m11IqJ6V029433@andromeda.ziaspace.com>



> BillK hath queried
> ...
> What was matter like within the first second of the Universe's life?

Well BillK, we didn't have all the stable-matter luxuries that you kids take
for granted these days.

spike

{8^D




From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 19:12:29 2008
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 19:12:29 +0000
Subject: [ExI] riffing on the first second. was Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <200802011852.m11IqJ6V029433@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <ee50357e0801300224l30558adax94afb65a48fbb017@mail.gmail.com>
	<200802011852.m11IqJ6V029433@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0802011112v7bd03866qc827be6d50062b56@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 1, 2008 6:25 PM, spike wrote:
> Well BillK, we didn't have all the stable-matter luxuries that you kids take
> for granted these days.
>

I bet you oldies had other fun things to do in the first second of the
Universe's life!
Crowding round the incandescent ball of fire, warming your
extremities, telling stories about the good ol' days in the previous
universe.....

But it must have been a surprise when it expanded so quickly.....
Hardly have time to say 'Oops!'


BillK

From spike66 at att.net  Fri Feb  1 20:12:01 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 12:12:01 -0800
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
In-Reply-To: <deaa866a0802010714s4dd4d469nfabd57f773b2a59c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200802012038.m11KcjWg026890@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Robert!  Where the heck have you been man?!  Welcome back.
 
spike


  _____  

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Robert Bradbury
Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 7:14 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project



It would be nice if most of the filenames didn't include spaces.  Spaces in
filenames are a real pain to work with under Linux and other Unix
derivatives.

Robert




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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Feb  1 20:51:17 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 12:51:17 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <580930c20802011040j38d6af9and4162d23cde2fe77@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200802012051.m11KpLIQ002169@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


>... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj

> 
> On Feb 1, 2008 6:26 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > I disagree John.  The most disappointing result is if it created a 
> > mini black hole...
> > the earth collapse suddenly into a marble sized point of mass.
> 
> No, wouldn't you think this would be a very interesting 
> phenomenon? :-) Stefano Vaj

It would be interesting perhaps to see the earth suddenly disappear, but
disappointing for those aboard the station.  Think of possible comments:

Awww damn.  And I bought a bunch of Intel at six and a quarter...

or

So then, I guess this means no super bowl this year...

or 

Well, at least now we don't hafta worry about global warming or
overpopulation...

or

If we cut to half rations now, we could live another three weeks...

or

This orbit will be stable until the sun goes red giant...

spike


From jcowan5 at sympatico.ca  Fri Feb  1 21:00:24 2008
From: jcowan5 at sympatico.ca (Joshua Cowan)
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 21:00:24 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <200802012051.m11KpLIQ002169@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <BLU105-F228BCA0E61E34B2A3A6C579A300@phx.gbl>


Snip:

Spike said:  Think of possible comments:

"Um Houston, you have a problem."

"I need another Diaper."

and of course, when all other words fail:

"Fuck!" (or if it's someone from Quebec: Tabernacle!)



From amara at amara.com  Fri Feb  1 21:35:48 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 14:35:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Earth is doomed. Mars is OK, though.
Message-ID: <p06230903c3c93f62e13d@[10.0.10.217]>

"Mike Dougherty" <msd001 at gmail.com>, Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:48:13 -0500

>... so you're saying that mars is a better option than the moon for
>those cryogenic dewars.  An even better plan might be to have migrated
>to an extraterrestrial vehicle bound for a younger star by the time
>Sol goes into a geriatric state.  :)

Yes and you better start planning for it, since it will happen in about
7.59 Gy. ;-)

Amara


-- 

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

From kanzure at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 22:47:51 2008
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 16:47:51 -0600
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
In-Reply-To: <ffcf8fff0802010928q669e0863ra04eb921f8a6c8d8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <200801312052.37973.kanzure@gmail.com>
	<deaa866a0802010714s4dd4d469nfabd57f773b2a59c@mail.gmail.com>
	<ffcf8fff0802010928q669e0863ra04eb921f8a6c8d8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <200802011647.51862.kanzure@gmail.com>

On Friday 01 February 2008, Robert Picone wrote:
> On Feb 1, 2008 7:14 AM, Robert Bradbury wrote:
> > It would be nice if most of the filenames didn't include spaces.
> > ?Spaces in filenames are a real pain to work with under Linux and
> > other Unix derivatives.

Yes. I apologize for this. Ironically, I do all of my work on a Debian 
installation. It is Opera who was saving the files, and I who did not 
go through and change the file names. Perhaps the next release (which I 
imagine might be in a week with the extra supplements I have been 
collecting) I will be sure to do this. :)

> If you're on a debian-based system, I'd recommend the command "rename
> 's/ /_/g' *" to make them easier to deal with. ?If not, or if the
> package isn't installed, you can find the debian rename script here:
> http://tips.webdesign10.com/files/rename.pl.txt

Thank you.

> Anyway, to those interested in the topic, you might also want to
> check out an interesting talk given at this year's chaos computer
> congress:
> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6950604815683841321&hl=en

I recommend this video as well -- saw it a week ago. :)

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/

From benboc at lineone.net  Fri Feb  1 22:36:54 2008
From: benboc at lineone.net (ben)
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:36:54 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <mailman.397.1201898328.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.397.1201898328.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <47A39F06.7080407@lineone.net>

"spike" <spike66 at att.net> exclaimed:

> > John K Clark
.
> > Subject: Re: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
> >
> > Rick Strongitharm Wrote:
> >
>> > > The Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to begin operation in a few
>> > >

> >...The most disappointing result would be if it
> > discovered the Higgs Boson and nothing else.   John K Clark


> I disagree John.  The most disappointing result is if it created a mini
> black hole, which then started eating atoms around it as it sank to the
> center of the earth, growing more massive and eventually having the earth
> collapse suddenly into a marble sized point of mass.  The astronauts 
aboard
> the space station witnessing the sudden disappearance of the earth would
> have new insight into Fermi's paradox but would be most disappointed 
in any
> case.

> spike



If it created a mini black hole, wouldn't that make a fantastic energy
generator?
And wouldn't it take thousands of years, or longer, to start making any
appreciable difference if it did fall to the centre of the earth and
start gobbling it up?

I Am Not a Physicist (by a long chalk), but i seem to remember reading
that if a very small black hole had a spin, it could be controlled with
electrical and/or magnetic fields?

So if we accidentally made spinning tiny black holes (not sure how big
they'd have to be not to disappear instantly), surely that would be a
most desirable result?

And if we lost a few along the way, that would simply act as an
incentive to make sure we could get off the planet sometime in the
future. Probably in black-hole-powered spaceships.

Ooh, here's an interesting exercise for those of you who get excited
over such things: What would the orbit of such an accidentally-created
black hole be? Or what would the range of orbits of a range of such
black holes be, from the smallest hole that would be stable enough to
complete at least one orbit, to the maximum mass hole that could be
reasonably formed from the LHC?

(When i say orbit, of course, i mean orbit inside the earth, around it's
centre of mass).

Is that an interesting problem? Or is the answer boringly obvious? I
don't have a clue.

Or am i being suckered into a silly speculation here? Surely any stable
black hole would have to mass a few tonnes at least? Just how powerful
is this LHC supposed to be?!

ben zaiboc



From xuenay at gmail.com  Fri Feb  1 22:59:19 2008
From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:59:19 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <003101c8630f$9818a3b0$41f04d0c@MyComputer>
	<200802011753.m11HrjNG001231@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0802011459y325f08a4nc7c90c7ea4bf39b1@mail.gmail.com>

On 2/1/08, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > John K Clark
> >...The most disappointing result would be if it
> > discovered the Higgs Boson and nothing else.   John K Clark
> I disagree John.  The most disappointing result is if it created a mini
> black hole, which then started eating atoms around it as it sank to the
> center of the earth, growing more massive and eventually having the earth
> collapse suddenly into a marble sized point of mass.  The astronauts aboard
> the space station witnessing the sudden disappearance of the earth would
> have new insight into Fermi's paradox but would be most disappointed in any
> case.

I'm not really sure if "disappointing" is the word I'd use to describe
this situation. ;)



-- 
http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/ | http://xuenay.livejournal.com/

Organizations worth your time:
http://www.singinst.org/ | http://www.crnano.org/ | http://lifeboat.com/

From thespike at satx.rr.com  Fri Feb  1 23:24:02 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 17:24:02 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <47A39F06.7080407@lineone.net>
References: <mailman.397.1201898328.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47A39F06.7080407@lineone.net>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>

At 10:36 PM 2/1/2008 +0000, ben wrote:

>And wouldn't it take thousands of years, or longer, to start making any
>appreciable difference if it did fall to the centre of the earth and
>start gobbling it up?

Apparently. This has been discussed a bit on rec.arts.sf.science; 
e.g. some random grabs:

<someone drops a black hole
onto Earth. It's a billion tonnes, very hot and tiny.
What happens? The cross section is tiny and material
near it will be heated up to a great degree: could it
suck up significant amounts of material at all? >

And that's asteroid mass, not LHC morsel.

<Plus there's almost no way to keep the hole charged enough to hold
onto it with the electromagnet that J.Forward uses in the story.
If it had that much charge, the immense potential near the horizon
would pull in opposite charges quickly, neutralizing the hole. >

etc.

Damien Broderick





From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br  Fri Feb  1 23:28:15 2008
From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 20:28:15 -0300 (ART)
Subject: [ExI] [Hplusroadmap] Open Biohacking Project
In-Reply-To: <200802011647.51862.kanzure@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <184005.29079.qm@web50611.mail.re2.yahoo.com>


--- Bryan Bishop <kanzure at gmail.com> escreveu:

> 
> > Anyway, to those interested in the topic, you
> might also want to
> > check out an interesting talk given at this year's
> chaos computer
> > congress:
> >
>
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6950604815683841321&hl=en
> 
> I recommend this video as well -- saw it a week ago.
> :)
> 
> - Bryan

I was having difficulty downloading from google
servers, it kept halting at 3.3%, tried 2 download
managers and the google video interface itself, to no
avail. Got it here though: 

http://events.ccc.de/congress/2007/Fahrplan/events/2329.en.html

In a better format(mp4) btw.. 
its also encoded in matroska..

There are plenty of interesting lectures there, not
just on biology! I specially liked the moto: Volldampf
voraus!

Tony.


      Abra sua conta no Yahoo! Mail, o ?nico sem limite de espa?o para armazenamento!
http://br.mail.yahoo.com/

From spike66 at att.net  Sat Feb  2 01:19:25 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 17:19:25 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org 
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of 
> Damien Broderick
> Sent: Friday, February 01, 2008 3:24 PM
> To: ExI chat list
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
> 
> At 10:36 PM 2/1/2008 +0000, ben wrote:
> 
> >And wouldn't it take thousands of years, or longer, to start 
> making any 
> >appreciable difference if it did fall to the centre of the earth and 
> >start gobbling it up?
> 
> Apparently. This has been discussed a bit on 
> rec.arts.sf.science; e.g. some random grabs:
> 
> <someone drops a black hole
> onto Earth. It's a billion tonnes, very hot and tiny.
> What happens? The cross section is tiny and material near it 
> will be heated up to a great degree: could it suck up 
> significant amounts of material at all? >
> 
> And that's asteroid mass, not LHC morsel.
> 
> <Plus there's almost no way to keep the hole charged enough 
> to hold onto it with the electromagnet that J.Forward uses in 
> the story.
> If it had that much charge, the immense potential near the 
> horizon would pull in opposite charges quickly, neutralizing 
> the hole. >
> 
> etc.
> 
> Damien Broderick


I have tried to do these calcs but have not been very successful in
convincing myself that they are true or represent reality.

I derive of the event horizon radius of a black hole as a function of its
mass, and get R=2GM/c^2.  G is about 7e-11 and c is about 3e-8, so about
1.5e-27*M.  The radius of a proton is about 1.5e-18, so a black hole would
need a mass of a billion Kg in order to be the size of a proton.  I can be
sure that no collider is going to accidentally create a particle with a mass
of a million tons.  If a black hole is accidentally created, it would be too
small to devour any particle.

Then I theorized that a tiny black hole could absorb electrons since usual
notion of dimension is not necessarily applicable to electrons (the Compton
radius is not directly analogous to what we think of as a radius, at least
not in all applications.)  In any material there are free electrons, but not
free protons.  Therefore the black hole inside a planet would take on a
negative charge and hold it.  Then it would attract surrounding matter, not
with the very weak gravitational force but by electromagnetic force.
Reasoning: it gobbles up the nearby electrons, causing the surrounding
material to become positively charged.  Then the radius of the event horizon
becomes effectively much larger than it would be if everything were neutral.

If that line of reasoning is correct, I suppose a very tiny black hole could
eventually devour a planet.  But I suspect something is very wrong with that
line of reasoning.  I hope so.

spike





From msd001 at gmail.com  Sat Feb  2 03:05:36 2008
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2008 22:05:36 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Earth is doomed. Mars is OK, though.
In-Reply-To: <p06230903c3c93f62e13d@10.0.10.217>
References: <p06230903c3c93f62e13d@10.0.10.217>
Message-ID: <62c14240802011905k50e60a98m1cc581eb56e4b939@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 1, 2008 4:35 PM, Amara Graps <amara at amara.com> wrote:
> "Mike Dougherty" <msd001 at gmail.com>, Fri, 1 Feb 2008 09:48:13 -0500
>
> >... so you're saying that mars is a better option than the moon for
> >those cryogenic dewars.  An even better plan might be to have migrated
> >to an extraterrestrial vehicle bound for a younger star by the time
> >Sol goes into a geriatric state.  :)
>
> Yes and you better start planning for it, since it will happen in about
> 7.59 Gy. ;-)

With simple compound interest, I might have enough money by then.

From hkhenson at rogers.com  Sat Feb  2 05:02:47 2008
From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson)
Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2008 22:02:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
	<200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>


A FAREWELL TO ALMS
A Brief Economic History of the World
By Dr. Gregory Clark
University of California, Davis

This is one of those books that changed my world view, in the same 
class as Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, Eric Drexler's Engines of 
Creation, William Calvin's The Cerebral Code, Robert Wright's Moral 
Animal, Robert Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation and a hand full of 
other books mostly on evolutionary psychology.  It's not that it 
replaces any of these, just fills in a big knowledge gap and is 
highly complimentary to my work on the origin of war.

Economics, particularly historical economics, never made much sense 
to me.  Dr. Clark's work does and it might be called "evolutionary economics."

It makes a case for intense genetic selection leading up to the great 
leap of the industrial revolution that allowed England and a small 
number of other countries to escape the "Malthusian Trap." and it 
makes a case for why this didn't come about in other parts of the 
world and isn't likely to.

Like nanotechnology, AI and evolutionary psychology, I think the 
material in this book is essential to informed discussion on this and 
related mailing lists.

At the least list members should read this short version:

http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf

It's hard to have any idea of where we are going without an idea of 
where we came from.

Keith Henson





From aleksei at iki.fi  Sat Feb  2 07:39:59 2008
From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 09:39:59 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
	<200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
Message-ID: <1db0b2da0802012339o5fb1da7etb5e94ffc3fceec40@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 2, 2008 7:02 AM, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> It makes a case for intense genetic selection leading up to the great
> leap of the industrial revolution that allowed England and a small
> number of other countries to escape the "Malthusian Trap." and it
> makes a case for why this didn't come about in other parts of the
> world and isn't likely to.

Would his argument being correct imply that we should find higher
average IQs in Caucasian populations than in e.g. East Asian
populations?

In actuality, East Asian populations seem to have higher average IQs...

-- 
Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei

From amara at amara.com  Sat Feb  2 07:47:08 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 00:47:08 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Science in the 21st Century, Sept 8-12, 2008, Waterloo,
	Ontario
Message-ID: <p06230901c3c9ced3f7b3@[10.0.10.217]>

Sabine Hossenfelder with Michael Nielson and the Perimeter Institute are
hosting a conference: "Science in the 21st Century", an interdisciplinary
meeting of the technological developments that influence how science is
performed today.

Details here:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2008/02/science-in-21st-century.html
and
http://www.science21stcentury.org/index.html


Amara

-- 

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

From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Feb  2 10:38:24 2008
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 10:38:24 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
	<200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
Message-ID: <ee50357e0802020238s42681558v2bc20ef9d4500ff9@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 2, 2008 5:02 AM, hkhenson wrote:
>
> A FAREWELL TO ALMS
> A Brief Economic History of the World
> By Dr. Gregory Clark
> University of California, Davis
>
> This is one of those books that changed my world view, in the same
> class as Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, Eric Drexler's Engines of
> Creation, William Calvin's The Cerebral Code, Robert Wright's Moral
> Animal, Robert Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation and a hand full of
> other books mostly on evolutionary psychology.  It's not that it
> replaces any of these, just fills in a big knowledge gap and is
> highly complimentary to my work on the origin of war.
>
> Economics, particularly historical economics, never made much sense
> to me.  Dr. Clark's work does and it might be called "evolutionary economics."
>
> It makes a case for intense genetic selection leading up to the great
> leap of the industrial revolution that allowed England and a small
> number of other countries to escape the "Malthusian Trap." and it
> makes a case for why this didn't come about in other parts of the
> world and isn't likely to.
>


I find myself uneasy with the sweeping conclusions in this book.
I don't think genetics changes the population quickly enough to be the
*sole* cause of the Industrial Revolution in the UK. He is effectively
claiming that the UK race is genetically bred to rule the world. Isn't
that what they call 'racism'?

The UK population grew slowly up to about 1800 when the IR happened.
This was due to disease and lack of food. About 1740 four-field crop
rotation was introduced and more food became available. Hygiene and
medicine improved and the population increased rapidly. With the help
of cultural and economic institutions, the first countries to get guns
and technology became world powers. ("Guns, Germs and Steel").

I think people should read the critics of this book before jumping on
board. There are holes in his argument and exceptions in other
countries.


BillK

From eugen at leitl.org  Sat Feb  2 14:26:13 2008
From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 15:26:13 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Earth is doomed. Mars is OK, though.
In-Reply-To: <62c14240802011905k50e60a98m1cc581eb56e4b939@mail.gmail.com>
References: <p06230903c3c93f62e13d@10.0.10.217>
	<62c14240802011905k50e60a98m1cc581eb56e4b939@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20080202142613.GE10128@leitl.org>

On Fri, Feb 01, 2008 at 10:05:36PM -0500, Mike Dougherty wrote:

> With simple compound interest, I might have enough money by then.

I'm sure cowry shells or deutsche reichsmarks will mean a lot 
over geological time scales.

From hkhenson at rogers.com  Sat Feb  2 16:33:52 2008
From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:33:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <ee50357e0802020238s42681558v2bc20ef9d4500ff9@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
	<200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
	<ee50357e0802020238s42681558v2bc20ef9d4500ff9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1201970071_36770@S3.cableone.net>

At 03:38 AM 2/2/2008, BillK wrote:
>On Feb 2, 2008 5:02 AM, hkhenson wrote:
> >
> > A FAREWELL TO ALMS
> > A Brief Economic History of the World
> > By Dr. Gregory Clark
> > University of California, Davis
> >
> > This is one of those books that changed my world view, in the same
> > class as Richard Dawkins' Selfish Gene, Eric Drexler's Engines of
> > Creation, William Calvin's The Cerebral Code, Robert Wright's Moral
> > Animal, Robert Axelrod's Evolution of Cooperation and a hand full of
> > other books mostly on evolutionary psychology.  It's not that it
> > replaces any of these, just fills in a big knowledge gap and is
> > highly complimentary to my work on the origin of war.
> >
> > Economics, particularly historical economics, never made much sense
> > to me.  Dr. Clark's work does and it might be 
> called "evolutionary economics."
> >
> > It makes a case for intense genetic selection leading up to the great
> > leap of the industrial revolution that allowed England and a small
> > number of other countries to escape the "Malthusian Trap." and it
> > makes a case for why this didn't come about in other parts of the
> > world and isn't likely to.
> >
>I find myself uneasy with the sweeping conclusions in this book.
>I don't think genetics changes the population quickly enough to be the
>*sole* cause of the Industrial Revolution in the UK.

I don't think you can discount the effects of 
strong selection on a population average in 24 
generations.  Lactose tolerance genes spread very 
rapidly in cultures that raised dairy 
animals.  And consider how few generations it 
took and how simple it was to breed tame foxes.

"Cause" in Dr. Clark's view is selection in favor 
of "accumulators" (the rich) in Malthusian, 
settled, stable agrarian societies.  He makes his 
case from records starting in the 1200s but makes 
it clear that the selection started earlier and 
was not confined to north western Europe, but 
didn't happen everywhere either.  Literacy, 
numeracy, and willingness to work ridiculously 
long hours by hunter-gatherer standards were 
pulled along by this selection.  Culture and 
genes fed back on each other with the cultural 
environment leading to selection for genes that 
made further cultural advances possible or even inevitable.

I have made a case elsewhere that 5000 plus years 
of cold winters were a factor in selecting people 
who were never satisfied with how much firewood 
or hay they had.  Along comes an extra cold or 
extra long winter and guess whose offspring 
repopulated the farms of those who froze or starved?

>He is effectively
>claiming that the UK race is genetically bred to rule the world. Isn't
>that what they call 'racism'?

You make it sound like there was a breeding 
program.  There wasn't.  Just generation after 
generation of the strivers who managed to become 
well off having twice as many surviving children 
as the poor.  Defining this as racism and 
slapping the stench of "politically incorrect" on 
it doesn't help us understand the underlying 
reality.  We need to understand reality if the human race is going to survive.

>The UK population grew slowly up to about 1800 when the IR happened.
>This was due to disease and lack of food. About 1740 four-field crop
>rotation was introduced and more food became available. Hygiene and
>medicine improved and the population increased rapidly. With the help
>of cultural and economic institutions, the first countries to get guns
>and technology became world powers. ("Guns, Germs and Steel").

Those "first countries" are almost entirely gone 
from Sub Saharan Africa.  The people in those 
areas are still in the Malthusian trap, in fact, 
in much worse shape than they were pre 
contact.  Why?  (More than a hand waving argument please.)

And the big question is why the industrial 
revolution didn't start sooner or in a different place?

>I think people should read the critics of this book before jumping on
>board. There are holes in his argument and exceptions in other
>countries.

I think discussing holes and exceptions would be 
of great utility.  We might even get Dr. Clark to 
join in if it got interesting enough.

But a warning.  This discussion is going to be 
politically incorrect.  I found this lately which 
bears directly on the problem.

The Evolutionary Psychology FAQ

Edward H. Hagen, Institute for Theoretical Biology, Berlin

Why couldn't humans have evolved during the last 10,000 years?

They could, but not much. Evolutionary 
psychologists downplay the possibility of 
significant cognitive evolution in the 10,000 or 
so years since the advent of agriculture (a 
period of time known as the Holocene) for reasons 
of both science and political correctness. 
Scientifically, 10,000 years (500 generations) is 
not much time for natural selection to act, and 
it certainly is not enough time to evolve new, 
complex adaptations?sophisticated mechanisms coded for by numerous genes.

It is possible, however, that humans could have 
evolved minor cognitive adaptations during the 
Holocene. Just as some populations whose 
subsistence relied on herds of domesticated 
animals evolved to digest lactose as adults, 
populations could have evolved simple cognitive 
adaptations that their hunter-gatherer ancestors 
did not possess. For this to occur, there would 
have had to have been environmental conditions 
that were (1) new, (2) constant over most of the 
Holocene, (3) relevant to reproduction, and (4) 
required novel cognitive abilities. Many of the 
changes experienced by humans over the Holocene, 
however, have been so rapid that natural 
selection just couldn't keep up. Further, we know 
that very little has changed physiologically in 
the last 10,000 years?Australian aborigines were 
more or less isolated from other populations for 
perhaps 40,000 years, yet are essentially 
identical physiologically to other human 
populations?so probably very little has changed psychologically.

Politically, EPs are understandably desperate to 
avoid any association with past racist attempts 
to essentialize population differences that are 
best explained by culture. If it were possible 
that human cognition had undergone significant 
evolution during the Holocene, then it would be 
theoretically possible to ascribe significant 
differences in behavior between different 
populations to genes, and that would be EP?s worst nightmare.

http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/projects/human/epfaq/holocene.html

Let's look at his list.

(1) new,

Settled agriculture was new--very different from 
the previous hunter gatherer existence.

(2) constant over most of the Holocene,

8,000 years is 80% of the Holocene.

(3) relevant to reproduction,

A two to one advantage is certainly that.

and (4) required novel cognitive abilities.

Literacy, numeracy, low time preference and the 
other traits Clark discusses are certainly novel 
cognitive abilities compared to what are observed 
to be the traits, particularly violence, that 
gain reproductive advantage in hunter gatherer cultures.

It's not that hunter gatherer peoples don't have 
these traits to some degree, it's just that the 
distribution center of these traits has been 
seriously shifted in some populations by 
selection.  As an informed guess, researchers 
could sort out what genes are involved.

 From the introduction:

"In this paper I argue that there is evidence that the long Malthusian
era in stable agrarian societies actually changed human
preferences, perhaps culturally but also perhaps genetically. To
show this I demonstrate first that for England the rich had a
reproductive advantage at least from 1250 onwards. I also show
that this advantage was likely inherited by their children. Finally I
show that in the same interval there are signs that preferences
were changing in the pre-industrial economy. In a time when the
rich were taking over genetically people were becoming more
middle class in their orientation: time preference rates were lower,
hours of work longer, and numeracy and literacy increasing. Thus
the long delay between the Neolithic Revolution of 6,000 BC
which established settled agriculture and the eventual Industrial
Revolution may in part be explained by the time necessary for the
formation of preference consistent with modern capitalism."

I think Dr Clark's word choices of "middle class" 
and "capitalism" in this paragraph might be less 
than ideal because of the excess baggage they 
carry but since he is an economics professor I 
can see how those terms would seem 
appropriate.  (And I am not sure what terms would be better.)

Keith Henson 


From jonkc at att.net  Sat Feb  2 17:26:58 2008
From: jonkc at att.net (John K Clark)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 12:26:58 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
References: <mailman.397.1201898328.690.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
	<47A39F06.7080407@lineone.net>
Message-ID: <003201c865c0$fe48cfd0$10ef4d0c@MyComputer>

"ben" <benboc at lineone.net>

> If it created a mini black hole, wouldn't
> that make a fantastic energy  generator?

It would make an astronomical amount of energy for its size, but by our
macro world standards it would be trivial. The only way The Large Hadron
Collider could hope to create a mini black hole is if there are small (but
not too small) additional dimensions, then gravity would become stronger
than anticipated at small (but much larger than Plank level small)
distances; then it would be easier than we think to make a Black Hole.

Any Black Hole the Large Hadron Collider could hope to produce would
only weigh a dozen times as much as a proton at most and be
inconceivably tiny; and it would only last a billionth of a billionth of a
second or so before Hawking radiation radiated it away to nothing. But 
the signature of that radiation would be unmistakable and we would
have proof that there are other dimensions and they are small but 
not super small.

The danger from such a thing is zero, and if the LHC can make them
then certainly cosmic rays can too yet we're still here.

  John K Clark







From hkhenson at rogers.com  Sat Feb  2 16:55:31 2008
From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 09:55:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <1db0b2da0802012339o5fb1da7etb5e94ffc3fceec40@mail.gmail.co
 m>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
	<200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
	<1db0b2da0802012339o5fb1da7etb5e94ffc3fceec40@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1201971370_15@S4.cableone.net>

At 12:39 AM 2/2/2008, you wrote:
>On Feb 2, 2008 7:02 AM, hkhenson <hkhenson at rogers.com> wrote:
> > It makes a case for intense genetic selection leading up to the great
> > leap of the industrial revolution that allowed England and a small
> > number of other countries to escape the "Malthusian Trap." and it
> > makes a case for why this didn't come about in other parts of the
> > world and isn't likely to.
>
>Would his argument being correct imply that we should find higher
>average IQs in Caucasian populations than in e.g. East Asian
>populations?
>
>In actuality, East Asian populations seem to have higher average IQs...

If you read the book, East Asian populations were subjected to 
similar though perhaps less intense selection.

He also says:

This is not in any sense to say that people in settled agrarian
economies on the eve of the Industrial Revolution had become
"smarter" than their counterparts in hunter gatherer society. For,
as Jared Diamond points out in the introduction to Guns, Germs
and Steel,

snip

  The argument is instead that it
rewarded with economic and hence reproductive success a certain
repertoire of skills and dispositions that were very different from
those of the pre-agrarian world: such as the ability to perform
simple repetitive tasks for hour after hour, day after day. There is
nothing natural or harmonic, for example, in having a disposition
to work even when all the basic needs of survival have been
achieved.

**********

Though, as I have argued, those who would not quit till the barn was 
totally stuffed were the ones who survived the exceptionally bad winter.

Keith 


From amara at amara.com  Sat Feb  2 20:12:17 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 13:12:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] IEEE Spectrum: Cool Article Heaven!
Message-ID: <p06230902c3ca6b7ec125@[192.168.0.66]>

IEEE Spectrum is making all of their articles available for free,
online. There used to be a part available only for paid IEEE members and
a part of other articles for free, but they appear to have changed that
policy.  (Physics Today, are you listening?)

Go here:

http://spectrum.ieee.org/

And the menu "Past Issues" gives you articles to  middle 2006. But there
are more! In this post, I give a sample (of my interests obviously :-)).

In the Archive
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/thearchive

"In The Archive
We're moving the back issues and Web-only articles to the new Spectrum
Online, but we've begun by moving reader favorites. All articles will be
moving, so if you don't see the piece you're looking for, it's just a
matter of time. Links to readers' favorite articles from April 2005 and
earlier issues are here."


They have more online than what is listed on that page, apparently not
indexed yet. If you don't see what you're looking for, type the month
and "magazineindex".

For example:
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul05/magazineindex

And if it is not there, type the magazine article's title into Google to
get the article number (to attach to the URL address), and the article
number might pop up.


Special Report: Prosthetic Arms
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/feb08/5958

Greenhouse Gas Trends
A tale of two perspectives
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan08/5826

Visualizing Electronic Health Records With "Google-Earth for the Body"
IBM researchers develop 3-D visualization tool for electronic health records
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan08/5854

Winner: Make Your Very Own Virtual World with OLIVE
Forterra's OLIVE software makes the business of virtual-world environments real
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jan08/5838

Playing Dirty
Automating computer game play takes cheating to a new-and profitable-level
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec07/5719

The R&D 100
Spectrum's Top R&D Spenders
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec07/5742

* And they have an interactive R&D Calculator here!
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec07/rndcalc

Controlled Chaos
We need to exploit the science of order and disorder to protect networks
against coming generations of superworms
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/dec07/5722

Terraforming Mars
Proposals to terraform the Red Planet abound, but are any of them feasible?
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/nov07/5676

Arthur C. Clarke Rembering Sputnik
http://spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5584

Secrets of Sputnik
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5589

All A-Twitter
But the major buzz in microblogging centers around Twitter
(http://twitter.com) a site that combines social networking and
microblogging. It periodically asks members a simple question: "What are
you doing?"
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5563

A Hoist to the Heavens  (Space Elevators)
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug05/1690

The African Hacker (about the first large software company in Africa)
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug05/1699

"This Looks Like a Job for...SUPERATOMS
(Who says quantum weirdness can't also be practical?)"
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/aug05/1701

Engineering Everquest
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul05/1561

Software Patents Don't Compute
How the U.S. patent system attempts to draw a dividing line between
patentable machines and unpatentable mathematics-and why the system is
failing.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jul05/1557

The Nanotech Patent Trap  ?
(waiting for online article, should be in issue jul05)

All the Tech in China
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun05/1224

China's Tech Revolution
How technology is driving the country's economic boom, and what that
means for the world
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun05/1231

Running Against the Wind
A double-leg amputee and his high-tech prosthetics are blazing a trail
into able-bodied sports. Will they be welcomed?
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/jun05/1217

Bubble Power
Tiny bubbles imploded by sound waves can make hydrogen nuclei fuse-and
may one day become a revolutionary new energy source
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may05/1119

How Venture Capital Thwarts Innovation (The tech bubble saw an
explosion of VC-funded start-ups-and a dearth of orignal ideas )
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr05/1300\

Writing NASA's Marching Orders  (book review)
How White House Insiders forged a new space policy
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/mar05/2048


And appealing to the writer in me:

Words in the Wind
"The tech sector is a marvelous linguistic factory that ships out
truckloads of new words and phrases every year. In this month's
column, I'll introduce you to a sampling of new terms that have
crossed my path in recent months."

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/apr05/1101

Life Bits
A grab bag of terms floating in the techno-ether.
http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/may05/1132

Have Fun!

Amara


-- 

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

From kanzure at gmail.com  Sat Feb  2 20:36:33 2008
From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 14:36:33 -0600
Subject: [ExI] IEEE Spectrum: Cool Article Heaven!
In-Reply-To: <p06230902c3ca6b7ec125@[192.168.0.66]>
References: <p06230902c3ca6b7ec125@[192.168.0.66]>
Message-ID: <200802021436.33504.kanzure@gmail.com>

On Saturday 02 February 2008, Amara Graps wrote:
> IEEE Spectrum is making all of their articles available for free,
> online. There used to be a part available only for paid IEEE members
> and a part of other articles for free, but they appear to have
> changed that policy. ?(Physics Today, are you listening?)

This is fantastic. Now I won't have to go leech off of Apple stores. 

- Bryan
________________________________________
Bryan Bishop
http://heybryan.org/

From korpios at korpios.com  Sat Feb  2 16:19:10 2008
From: korpios at korpios.com (Tom Tobin)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 10:19:10 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <ee50357e0802020238s42681558v2bc20ef9d4500ff9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com>
	<200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
	<1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net>
	<ee50357e0802020238s42681558v2bc20ef9d4500ff9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <bf0b20a90802020819r2955618fo9725837719a694b@mail.gmail.com>

On 2/2/08, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> I find myself uneasy with the sweeping conclusions in this book.
> I don't think genetics changes the population quickly enough to be the
> *sole* cause of the Industrial Revolution in the UK. He is effectively
> claiming that the UK race is genetically bred to rule the world. Isn't
> that what they call 'racism'?

Caveat: I haven't read the book (yet ? just dropped it on my to-read
list).  Assuming its conclusions are invalid (merely for sake of the
instant discussion), I'd be inclined to call it "bad science" rather
than "racism".  "Racism" is a cognitive "stop word" that tells us
"stop thinking".  Whether or not there are differences between
"races", and furthermore whether or not we can even meaningfully
describe what a "race" is ? these are *factual* questions, not moral
ones, and they should be studied with an open mind.  Neither a racial
supremacist nor an "enlightened" scientist does the world any favors
by ignoring evidence that contradicts their ideals.

I haven't read "Guns, Germs, and Steel" yet, either, but it strikes me
as a more appropriate way of approaching the issue: offering an
alternative argument that may be better supported by the data
currently available.  Of course, for all I know, any of these
arguments ? _Alms_, _Guns_, etc. ? may have been written in bad faith,
with an intended conclusion in mind before research began.  (Such is
the way with much "science", I'm afraid.)

From natasha at natasha.cc  Sat Feb  2 20:45:57 2008
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 14:45:57 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Event: Freezing Time - Central Station
Message-ID: <20080202204558.NCMB24450.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc>

A simple concept but nonetheless awesome and trippy:

http://current.com/items/88830919_time_stops_at_grand_central

Natasha


<http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More, 
BFA, MS, MPhil
University Lecturer
PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium - University of Plymouth - Faculty 
of Technology
School of Computing, Communications and Electronics
Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts

If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the 
circle, then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what 
is inside the circle and everything outside the circle, then that is 
an open system perspective. - Buckminster Fuller
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From jcowan5 at sympatico.ca  Sat Feb  2 21:40:14 2008
From: jcowan5 at sympatico.ca (Joshua Cowan)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:40:14 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Event: Freezing Time - Central Station
In-Reply-To: <20080202204558.NCMB24450.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc>
Message-ID: <BLU105-F312D9B89FE979283F3465C9A310@phx.gbl>

Natasha, thanks for posting this link. For a different take on "Improv 
Everywhere" the group that did this "Mission" people might want to check 
out:

http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=286 (specifically Act 2 at 
the 12 minute mark).


or the improv everywhere web site for more of their "missions". 
http://www.improveverywhere.com/

I've often thought this kind of "guerrilla theater" would be an interesting 
way to introduce people to unfamiliar concepts.

Josh

>From: Natasha Vita-More <natasha at natasha.cc>
>Reply-To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org, ART-tac at yahoogroups.com,        
>Wta-talk at transhumanism.org
>Subject: [ExI] Event: Freezing Time - Central Station
>Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 14:45:57 -0600
>
>A simple concept but nonetheless awesome and trippy:
>
>http://current.com/items/88830919_time_stops_at_grand_central
>
>Natasha
>
>
><http://www.natasha.cc/>Natasha <http://www.natasha.cc/>Vita-More, BFA, MS, 
>MPhil
>University Lecturer
>PhD Candidate, Planetary Collegium - University of Plymouth - Faculty of 
>Technology
>School of Computing, Communications and Electronics
>Centre for Advanced Inquiry in the Interactive Arts
>
>If you draw a circle in the sand and study only what's inside the circle, 
>then that is a closed-system perspective. If you study what is inside the 
>circle and everything outside the circle, then that is an open system 
>perspective. - Buckminster Fuller


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



From thespike at satx.rr.com  Sat Feb  2 22:35:30 2008
From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:35:30 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Event: Freezing Time - Central Station
In-Reply-To: <BLU105-F312D9B89FE979283F3465C9A310@phx.gbl>
References: <20080202204558.NCMB24450.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc>
	<BLU105-F312D9B89FE979283F3465C9A310@phx.gbl>
Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20080202163229.022fd820@satx.rr.com>

At 09:40 PM 2/2/2008 +0000, Josh wrote:

>I've often thought this kind of "guerrilla theater" would be an interesting
>way to introduce people to unfamiliar concepts.

Sounds like the sort of thing done by Spike and her artists in Samuel 
R. Delany's "ambiguously utopian" novel TRITON (1976).

Damien Broderick 


From jcowan5 at sympatico.ca  Sat Feb  2 23:03:26 2008
From: jcowan5 at sympatico.ca (Joshua Cowan)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:03:26 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Event: Freezing Time - Central Station
In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20080202163229.022fd820@satx.rr.com>
Message-ID: <BLU105-F29D55BA6D800A6ACFA77439A310@phx.gbl>

Thanks, I'll check it out.

Josh


>From: Damien Broderick <thespike at satx.rr.com>
>Reply-To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
>Subject: Re: [ExI] Event: Freezing Time - Central Station
>Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 16:35:30 -0600
>
>At 09:40 PM 2/2/2008 +0000, Josh wrote:
>
> >I've often thought this kind of "guerrilla theater" would be an 
>interesting
> >way to introduce people to unfamiliar concepts.
>
>Sounds like the sort of thing done by Spike and her artists in Samuel
>R. Delany's "ambiguously utopian" novel TRITON (1976).
>
>Damien Broderick
>
>_______________________________________________
>extropy-chat mailing list
>extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From natasha at natasha.cc  Sun Feb  3 03:20:11 2008
From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More)
Date: Sat, 02 Feb 2008 21:20:11 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Second Life: Design Wars: Humanish vs. Postbiologicals
 (Singularity)
Message-ID: <20080203032905.SKQT24450.hrndva-omta01.mail.rr.com@natasha-39y28ni.natasha.cc>

SL-Transhumanists are meeting tomorrow for the Design Wars: Humanish 
vs. Postbiologicals (Singularity)

Event in Second Life by Natasha Vita-More

SL-Transhumanists are invited to have FUN with the content and 
context of the "Design Wars" of humanish vs. postbiologicals. A key
consideration is the issue of species hierarchy and whether humanity 
ought to look biological as we merge with smarter-than-human
intelligence.

"In a perfect world, all species would learn to get along. Due to the 
Singularity, humanity learns they are not the only life form with
consciousness and aesthetic taste."

See you here on Sunday, February 3rd at NOON SLT (+8GMT)

This event is an open discussion.  All SL-transhumanist participants' 
ideas and/or humor will be included at the LABoral Industrial Design 
Institute conference in Spain, in the summer of 2008, LABoral 
Industrial Design Institute 
<http://www2.laboralcentrodearte.org/>http://www2.laboralcentrodearte.org/ 
"Homo Ludens Ludens" conference.


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From amara at amara.com  Sun Feb  3 05:49:46 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 22:49:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI]  Large Hadron Collider
Message-ID: <p06230904c3cb0641d07f@[192.168.0.66]>


Rick Strongitharm godsdice at gmail.com :
>The Large Hadron Collider is scheduled to begin operation in a few months.
>Questions:
>1.  Is it possible that we will have answers to the big questions, the
>existence of the Higgs Boson, etc., by the end of this year?

See:

"The Higgs almost excluded at 160 GeV!!"
http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2008/02/02/the-higgs-almost-excluded-at-160-gev/

and also this post:
"Lisa Randall: Black holes out of reach of LHC"
http://dorigo.wordpress.com/2007/08/29/lisa-randall-black-holes-out-of-reach-of-lhc/

Amara

-- 

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

From spike66 at att.net  Sun Feb  3 06:00:56 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2008 22:00:56 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <1201970071_36770@S3.cableone.net>
Message-ID: <200802030627.m136RcDq014861@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of hkhenson
...
> I have made a case elsewhere that 5000 plus years of cold 
> winters were a factor in selecting people who were never 
> satisfied with how much firewood or hay they had.  Along 
> comes an extra cold or extra long winter and guess whose 
> offspring repopulated the farms of those who froze or starved?

Keith, we can add to your notion by recognizing that evolutionary change
progresses relatively quickly in cases of extreme environmental pressure.
The textbook examples of environmental pressure would be the Death Valley
pupfish, which became adapted to living in extremely warm water, or perhaps
Rachel Carson's flies that quickly became tolerant of DDT.  Humans are
beasts that evolved in warm African climates.  It does not strain my
imagination that humans would evolve quickly if exposed to a climate wildly
different from the home continent, such as northern Asia or Europe.  

I always try to bring in the other Darwinian mechanism for evolution: mate
selection.  I can imagine that early Europeans and Asians recognized the
work-your-ass-off-all-summer individuals born within their societies, the
store-to-absurd-extremes individuals, and considered these desirable mates
for their children.  Families may have encouraged these to mate early and
often, thus transforming the population in a relatively few generations.

Of course the century winters that occasionally decimated the families of
the lazy would have a dramatic impact on the population.  In the most
extreme cases these century winters may well have taken out all the
population except those who stored to absurd extremes.  (I use this
mechanism to explain obsessive compulsive behavior.)  The fact that our
species has spread out all over the planet has put us in extreme
environmental pressure, which has led to our evolving much more quickly than
a typical mammalian species.

Humans have bred dogs for specific traits.  It isn't hard for me to believe
that we have also bred ourselves for specific traits, and continue to do so.

spike






From jedwebb at hotmail.com  Sun Feb  3 12:02:37 2008
From: jedwebb at hotmail.com (Jeremy Webb)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:02:37 +0000
Subject: [ExI] Why do we all have to wear these rediculous ties? was RE:
 Large Hadron Collider
In-Reply-To: <p06230904c3cb0641d07f@[192.168.0.66]>
References: <p06230904c3cb0641d07f@[192.168.0.66]>
Message-ID: <BAY129-W16F23720A9293AF8A849C8B6320@phx.gbl>


> Subject: [ExI] Large Hadron Collider
This was a good post!
 
Thanks,
 
Jeremy Webb
_________________________________________________________________
Get Hotmail on your mobile, text MSN to 63463!
http://mobile.uk.msn.com/pc/mail.aspx
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From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Sun Feb  3 14:07:10 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 06:07:10 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
References: <7.0.1.0.2.20080201171641.021b4bd0@satx.rr.com><200802020119.m121JTO2017931@andromeda.ziaspace.com><1201928605_30893@S3.cableone.net><ee50357e0802020238s42681558v2bc20ef9d4500ff9@mail.gmail.com>
	<1201970071_36770@S3.cableone.net>
Message-ID: <061001c8666e$3d16f6d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Keith wrote

> I don't think you can discount the effects of 
> strong selection on a population average in 24 
> generations.  Lactose tolerance genes spread very 
> rapidly in cultures that raised dairy 
> animals.  And consider how few generations it 
> took and how simple it was to breed tame foxes.
> 
> "Cause" in Dr. Clark's view is selection in favor 
> of "accumulators" (the rich) in Malthusian, 
> settled, stable agrarian societies.

A few decades ago I read of a study of demographics
in India where for a number of centuries the well-to-do
farmers had more offspring. It was obvious to me that
this could have eugenic effects.

> He makes his  case from records starting in
> the 1200s but makes it clear that the selection
> started earlier and was not confined to north
> western Europe, but didn't happen everywhere
> either.  Literacy, numeracy, and willingness to
> work ridiculously long hours by hunter-gatherer
> standards were pulled along by this selection.
> Culture and genes fed back on each other with
> the cultural environment leading to selection for
> genes that made further cultural advances possible
> or even inevitable.

The attendant cultural changes may be even more
interesting, I submit.

To recap, Clark argues that a whole suite of traits
that we might call "industriousness" were passed
down from the rich to the poorer classes 1250-
1800. Certainly these would include intelligence,
but that may not be the main effect. And yes,
there is no reason that eugenic effects would 
require more than a few generations. 

An extremely interesting development that Clark
relates is that in the early 19th century certain
successful entrepreneurs in England, having made
fortunes from their factories, hit upon the idea of
repeating their success in India, very close to the
biggest market for the goods. But somehow the
Indian people proved to be such poor workers
that the schemes had to be abandoned. The 
employees were tardy, talkative, lazy, and generally
non-productive, an obvious paradox.

I think that I might know what was going on.
Consider how incredibly hard many Mexicans
work in the U.S. who come from very poor
towns and villages across the border. I've heard
it said that these very same people, when returning
to Mexico, completely drop the work habits they
evinced in the north, and go back to two siestas
a day and other generally unproductive habits.

I'll bet if the same unsatisfactory Indian workers
had been sent to England instead, and paid what
they thought to be very high wages, one would
have seen the same thing. The arriving Indians
---who'd come to get rich---would have immediately
adopted the work habits of the people they found
themselves surrounded by. 

If I'm right (and it's probably not a new idea) then
this somewhat compromises the genetic effect.

> But a warning.  This discussion is going to be 
> politically incorrect.

Nothing new there!  Now almost all of us cannot
help but notice the political or ideological implications
of new theories (or even new information!) and will
silently cheer or curse. But either you have the 
fortitude to press on and try to learn, or you have
to admit that you're nothing but a partisan unwilling
to entertain ideas that might challenge the ones you
already have.

OF COURSE other traits besides intelligence are
going to be passed on when there are significant
differential birth rates. Only people born in the
twentieth centuryfind this strange (because of the
unceasing leftist propaganda we've all grown
up with).

Animal breeders have known forever that for so
very many traits, the F1 will exhibit a regression
towards the mean. So the progeny of a pair of
IQ 150 people will have an IQ mean of 125
we would expect (assuming h = .5). But surely
it's also the case that the F2 and F3 do not
converge on IQ 100.  Just what it does converge
to, I wish I knew. 

Well, the other traits will behave similarly, that's
all.

Lee


From jef at jefallbright.net  Sun Feb  3 17:10:47 2008
From: jef at jefallbright.net (Jef Allbright)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 09:10:47 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Social Graph visibility akin to pain reflex
Message-ID: <f7bfe5740802030910k6c10e0f0w158667fead598f66@mail.gmail.com>

>From O'Reilly Radar, pertinent to extropian interests.

- Jef


<http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/02/social_graph_pain_reflex.html>

> In a session at our "Social Graph Foo Camp" discussing yesterday's announcement of Google's Social Graph API, one of the debates is about the danger that the API (and the boost it gives to XFN) will definitively end "security by obscurity" regarding people and their relationships, as well as opening up the social graph to "rel=me" spammers. The counter-argument is that all this data is available anyway, and that by making it more visible, we raise people's awareness and ultimately their behavior. I'm in the latter camp. It's a lot like the evolutionary value of pain. Search creates feedback loops that allow us to learn from and modify our behavior. A false sense of security helps bad actors more than tools that make information more visible.
...

From bkdelong at pobox.com  Sun Feb  3 17:52:25 2008
From: bkdelong at pobox.com (B.K. DeLong)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:52:25 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Social Graph visibility akin to pain reflex
In-Reply-To: <f7bfe5740802030910k6c10e0f0w158667fead598f66@mail.gmail.com>
References: <f7bfe5740802030910k6c10e0f0w158667fead598f66@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <a98a91c0802030952y257a439cnd6d8f8a62202fec2@mail.gmail.com>

This is something I've been arguing for at least the last four years
is an improvements in the trust-relationships on social networks. In
order for that to happen, grouping needs to be more direct -
Livejournal does this very well with "Custom Friend Groups". So I'd
have everyone from my Futurist/Transhumanist activities under one or
two groups.

Each person would then be assigned a trust metric based on my comfort
level in sharing information with them. Then each group would be
assigned a trust metric as well. The, ideally, I'd be able to use the
trust metric to inform my privacy preferences only letting certain
people with a trust level above X to see Y information.

My trust could/would then be further informed by friends. If I trust
one friend Alice n + 4 and trust another friend Bob only n + 2 but
they were friends with each other then I'd use Alice's trust metric to
at least help inform my own. I should, in theory, be able to set the
degree to which a friend's trust metric of another friend will change
my trust in that other friend. ;)

Unfortunately I am absolutely abysmal at math so this is going to have
to be made easy by whatever system managing said social network
information.

On top of that, I believe to truly protect the privacy of each other
we should add a level of encryption to everything. So on each social
network, I'd be assigned a key and that key would be used to encrypt
each point of data that has a privacy preference with the keys of
those I've chosen to allow access to. Ideally, a project like OpenID
could eventually be used to have a single key that transverses
multiple OpenID-compatible networks.

Here's the rub - in order for this to happen, the userbase of these
social networks are going to have to push for it. This userbase is
already mostly comfortable sharing their information publicly. It's
the rest of the huge population NOT on certain social networks and NOT
sharing their information because of their lack of trust of these
networks. It is these people who would then become social network
participants if a robust trust relationship system were in place and
seamless enough for them to assign metrics to both people, groups and
privacy preferences. Alas.

On Feb 3, 2008 12:10 PM, Jef Allbright <jef at jefallbright.net> wrote:
> >From O'Reilly Radar, pertinent to extropian interests.
>
> - Jef
>
>
> <http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/02/social_graph_pain_reflex.html>
>
> > In a session at our "Social Graph Foo Camp" discussing yesterday's announcement of Google's Social Graph API, one of the debates is about the danger that the API (and the boost it gives to XFN) will definitively end "security by obscurity" regarding people and their relationships, as well as opening up the social graph to "rel=me" spammers. The counter-argument is that all this data is available anyway, and that by making it more visible, we raise people's awareness and ultimately their behavior. I'm in the latter camp. It's a lot like the evolutionary value of pain. Search creates feedback loops that allow us to learn from and modify our behavior. A false sense of security helps bad actors more than tools that make information more visible.
> ...
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



-- 
B.K. DeLong (K3GRN)
bkdelong at pobox.com
+1.617.797.8471

http://www.wkdelong.org                    Son.
http://www.ianetsec.com                    Work.
http://www.bostonredcross.org             Volunteer.
http://www.carolingia.eastkingdom.org   Service.
http://bkdelong.livejournal.com             Play.


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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Feb  3 18:23:20 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 10:23:20 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <061001c8666e$3d16f6d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
Message-ID: <200802031850.m13Io2WV016745@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


> Lee Corbin
> ...
> 
> Consider how incredibly hard many Mexicans work in the U.S. 
> who come from very poor towns and villages across the border. 
> I've heard it said that these very same people, when 
> returning to Mexico, completely drop the work habits they 
> evinced in the north, and go back to two siestas a day and 
> other generally unproductive habits... Lee


Lee I stand in awe of how hard the Mexicans work.  This is an artifact
caused by the tax structure.  Labor is taxed heavily in Mexico, whereas
illegal Mexicans in the US pay no tax at all.  Under those conditions anyone
would work their asses off abroad, then go home for a nice siesta.

spike







From brent.allsop at comcast.net  Sun Feb  3 19:04:29 2008
From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (Brent Allsop)
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:04:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Social Graph visibility akin to pain reflex
In-Reply-To: <a98a91c0802030952y257a439cnd6d8f8a62202fec2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <f7bfe5740802030910k6c10e0f0w158667fead598f66@mail.gmail.com>
	<a98a91c0802030952y257a439cnd6d8f8a62202fec2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <47A6103D.3080605@comcast.net>

B.K. DeLong wrote:
>
> Each person would then be assigned a trust metric based on my comfort
> level in sharing information with them. Then each group would be
> assigned a trust metric as well. The, ideally, I'd be able to use the
> trust metric to inform my privacy preferences only letting certain
> people with a trust level above X to see Y information.
>
> My trust could/would then be further informed by friends. If I trust
> one friend Alice n + 4 and trust another friend Bob only n + 2 but
> they were friends with each other then I'd use Alice's trust metric to
> at least help inform my own. I should, in theory, be able to set the
> degree to which a friend's trust metric of another friend will change
> my trust in that other friend. ;)
>
>   

Yes, the key to everything is reputation and trust.  And this is all 
opinion or POV.  In small viliages (or on single sites like eBay) things 
work great because everyone knows the reputation of everyone in the 
vileage or on the single site.  I.E. you know who you can lend money to, 
and expect payment, and who not to lend money to or do business with.  
But in that environment the "sinner" can just move on to the next 
village and get a new clean reputation.  So you've got to have a global 
reputation system so a trusted person in Nigeria can successfully 
solicit new business in the California on any network.

Another problem is you need to have an efficient way to collect and 
state POV reputation information from large groups of people, or the 
entire network, in efficient, concise, and quantitative ways.  Trivial 5 
star rating system, fixed surveyors, or Thousands of individual 
testimonials don't work.  You've got to group these testimonials into 
similar POV "camps" and design a system with natural pressures that 
encourage them to be concise in a collaborative / wiki kind of way, 
while having the ability to filter out the untrustworthy / poor quality 
stuff.  You can't expect everyone to write a testimonial on everything, 
but simply joining a POV camp is trivial.

Yet another problem is Transhumanists don't trust people Luddites trust, 
Christians don't trust people Atheists trust, and so on.  You've got to 
have a way to give people the ability to compensate for this.  You want 
to be able to only value trust specified by people in the network with 
attributes or reputations you choose to trust.

If everyone sending e-mail, posting a post, calling on the phone, 
expressing a moral opinion, knocking on your door as a missionary, 
soliciting business, selling a product, posting an advertisement 
(including the products, advertisements... themselves)... has a 
quantitative and concise POV reputation value, based on people with 
attributes you chose to trust, then suddenly the world takes a quantum 
leap in its morality, civility, and efficiency. 

Suddenly all the spam and scam completely and naturally disappear 
because the entire network can quantitatively communicate POV reputation 
information to each individual.  This giving each individual in the 
network the ability to simply ignore all the spam and scam.  You no 
longer need laws, lawyers, big brother type government controls / police 
states.  You just don't do business with, accept e-mail from, download a 
file from, anyone until they have a good reputation, and you do 
everything in your power to keep that reputation because if it ever 
goes, your life becomes hell, until you make a full restitution to those 
in your negative reputation camp, and win them back over to your good 
reputation camp.

And of course, all of that kind of POV about everything and everyone is 
our goal at http://canonizer.com














From aiguy at comcast.net  Sun Feb  3 19:32:22 2008
From: aiguy at comcast.net (Gary Miller)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:32:22 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <200802031850.m13Io2WV016745@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <061001c8666e$3d16f6d0$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>
	<200802031850.m13Io2WV016745@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <001d01c8669b$803a7d60$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2>

Spike said : 

>>Lee I stand in awe of how hard the Mexicans work.  This is an artifact
caused by the tax structure.  Labor is taxed heavily in Mexico, whereas
illegal Mexicans in the US pay no tax at all.  Under those conditions anyone
would work their asses off abroad, then go home for a nice siesta. >>

Spike this is a misconception.  Many illegal aliens fill out their W2
information when they start jobs using invalid or other peoples social
security numbers.  Common sense would say give employers a system to
validate that number and name prior to letting the person start work but no
such system or legal requirement exists.

This means that the illegals are paying the same Federal income tax, state
income tax and local income taxes as any other AMerican citizen, but it is
difficult or impossible for them and illegal in some states such as Kansas
and Missouri to receive tax refunds if the information that they filled out
on their W2 is not correct. 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,272061,00.html


"The Social Security Administration's (SSA) chief actuary estimates that
three quarters of undocumented immigrants pay Social Security tax, an
estimate that makes undocumented workers responsible for about 1.5% of total
wages reported to the SSA."

http://www.immigrationforum.org/DesktopDefault.aspx?tabid=724

These workers will not be qualified to ever collect from social security or
SSI under the current rules.  So they are helping to prop up the retirement
and disability programs for the rest of us.  And they may be paying more in
taxes since in most cases they do not risk applying for refunds.


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


From bkdelong at pobox.com  Sun Feb  3 19:59:42 2008
From: bkdelong at pobox.com (B.K. DeLong)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:59:42 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Social Graph visibility akin to pain reflex
In-Reply-To: <47A6103D.3080605@comcast.net>
References: <f7bfe5740802030910k6c10e0f0w158667fead598f66@mail.gmail.com>
	<a98a91c0802030952y257a439cnd6d8f8a62202fec2@mail.gmail.com>
	<47A6103D.3080605@comcast.net>
Message-ID: <a98a91c0802031159y5f759233pb1cf5c30d951afc3@mail.gmail.com>

On Feb 3, 2008 2:04 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at comcast.net> wrote:
> B.K. DeLong wrote:
> >
> > Each person would then be assigned a trust metric based on my comfort
> > level in sharing information with them. Then each group would be
> > assigned a trust metric as well. The, ideally, I'd be able to use the
> > trust metric to inform my privacy preferences only letting certain
> > people with a trust level above X to see Y information.
> >
> > My trust could/would then be further informed by friends. If I trust
> > one friend Alice n + 4 and trust another friend Bob only n + 2 but
> > they were friends with each other then I'd use Alice's trust metric to
> > at least help inform my own. I should, in theory, be able to set the
> > degree to which a friend's trust metric of another friend will change
> > my trust in that other friend. ;)

> Another problem is you need to have an efficient way to collect and
> state POV reputation information from large groups of people, or the
> entire network, in efficient, concise, and quantitative ways.  Trivial 5
> star rating system, fixed surveyors, or Thousands of individual
> testimonials don't work.  You've got to group these testimonials into
> similar POV "camps" and design a system with natural pressures that
> encourage them to be concise in a collaborative / wiki kind of way,
> while having the ability to filter out the untrustworthy / poor quality
> stuff.  You can't expect everyone to write a testimonial on everything,
> but simply joining a POV camp is trivial.
>
> Yet another problem is Transhumanists don't trust people Luddites trust,
> Christians don't trust people Atheists trust, and so on.  You've got to
> have a way to give people the ability to compensate for this.  You want
> to be able to only value trust specified by people in the network with
> attributes or reputations you choose to trust.

This is why standard schemas and metadata are so vitally important -
we need a standard set of values to define what someone may perceive
to be a personal viewpoint or position on on a particular issue. Of
course we may run into permutations like "non-believers" instead of
"atheists" but there's got to be some way to handle mapping of those.

That may also rely on self-identification of a particular viewpoint.
Facebook has done a decent job of allowing people to self-identify of
fans of a particular thing and some add-on applications the ability to
affiliate with a political party, group or set of beliefs. Ideally,
those apps would be using an underlying standard schema to define the
various political positions a person is taking so someone else could
come in and assign trust metrics to any person who identified as
Democrat or "Conservative" or voted a particular way to polling
questions. The problem you run into is the amount of time it takes to
assign trust metrics in a poll - obviously one can opt-in to do
metrics in the first place.


> If everyone sending e-mail, posting a post, calling on the phone,
> expressing a moral opinion, knocking on your door as a missionary,
> soliciting business, selling a product, posting an advertisement
> (including the products, advertisements... themselves)... has a
> quantitative and concise POV reputation value, based on people with
> attributes you chose to trust, then suddenly the world takes a quantum
> leap in its morality, civility, and efficiency.
>
> Suddenly all the spam and scam completely and naturally disappear
> because the entire network can quantitatively communicate POV reputation
> information to each individual.  This giving each individual in the
> network the ability to simply ignore all the spam and scam.  You no
> longer need laws, lawyers, big brother type government controls / police
> states.  You just don't do business with, accept e-mail from, download a
> file from, anyone until they have a good reputation, and you do
> everything in your power to keep that reputation because if it ever
> goes, your life becomes hell, until you make a full restitution to those
> in your negative reputation camp, and win them back over to your good
> reputation camp.

Sounds like a wuffie-based society to me . ;)
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wuffie]

You make an interesting point. Many corporations are starting to
tackle the issue of data classification as a means of better dealing
with information protection and protecting against "data breaches".
Currently, they don't know what they don't know or have any reasonable
means (when say a laptop of stolen) of knowing precisely what was on
that laptop. Nor do many have a means of protecting data based on its
classification (internal only, confidential, public) because none of
it is classified. If people began classifying everything they do at
work then it becomes an easier practice to implement in their social
(networking) life - especially the more time they spend online or on a
computer.


-- 
B.K. DeLong (K3GRN)
bkdelong at pobox.com
+1.617.797.8471

http://www.wkdelong.org                    Son.
http://www.ianetsec.com                    Work.
http://www.bostonredcross.org             Volunteer.
http://www.carolingia.eastkingdom.org   Service.
http://bkdelong.livejournal.com             Play.


PGP Fingerprint:
38D4 D4D4 5819 8667 DFD5  A62D AF61 15FF 297D 67FE

FOAF:
http://foaf.brain-stream.org

From lcorbin at rawbw.com  Sun Feb  3 20:00:10 2008
From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 12:00:10 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
References: <200802031823.m13INIr4063140@mail1.rawbw.com>
Message-ID: <061e01c8669f$fa8a9b00$6401a8c0@homeef7b612677>

Spike writes

>> Consider how incredibly hard many Mexicans work in the U.S. 
>> who come from very poor towns and villages across the border. 
>> I've heard it said that these very same people, when 
>> returning to Mexico, completely drop the work habits they 
>> evinced in the north, and go back to two siestas a day and 
>> other generally unproductive habits... Lee
> 
> Lee, I stand in awe of how hard the Mexicans work.

Now this is important because it applies to an important example
adduced by Clark. There *has* to be both a genetic and cultural
component to the alacrity with which the people (forced by the
enclosure acts) took to factory work in England.

Clark discusses the genetic component, which incidentally does
account for the amazing competance of many very poor Englishmen
in the 1700s, e.g. the geologic map-maker William Smith. (One
bets many of his ancestors had been the well-off rich of bygone
times.)  And since the towns of the late 1700s and early 1800s
into which the people went had little in the way of any existing
"factory culture", the genetic changes are suspect. 

But once this pattern starts, the cultural momentum waxes large.

In the example of people crossing into the U.S. to get a lot of 
money fast, there is no genetic factor. But what exactly is the
strength of the cultural factor, i.e., how much is each worker
on this side of the border now saying to himself or herself
consciously and unconsciously "Okay, this is the U.S., and
we do it differently here. You work as long and as hard as
time permits. Everyone else is. You get to earn a lot of money."

That would be the cultural component.

> This is an artifact caused by the tax structure.

Then this would be the component of motivation that has nothing
to do with culture.  This is direct incentive.

> Labor is taxed heavily in Mexico, whereas illegal Mexicans in
> the US pay no tax at all.

Do you (or anyone) have any figures here?  We are talking about
very poor people. What percentage of small village very low paid
wages does the Mexican government confiscate?  We have to
know this to assess the "personal incentive" vs. "cultural component"
of the motivation.

Lee

> Under those conditions anyone would work their asses off abroad,
> then go home for a nice siesta.
> 
> spike


From spike66 at att.net  Sun Feb  3 21:15:29 2008
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 13:15:29 -0800
Subject: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
In-Reply-To: <001d01c8669b$803a7d60$6401a8c0@ZANDRA2>
Message-ID: <200802032142.m13Lg8b9002306@andromeda.ziaspace.com>


> Subject: Re: [ExI] Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
> 
> Spike said : 
> 
> >>...Labor is taxed heavily in 
> Mexico, whereas illegal Mexicans in the US pay no tax at all. 
>  Under those conditions anyone would work their asses off 
> abroad, then go home for a nice siesta. >>
> 
> Spike this is a misconception.  Many illegal aliens fill out 
> their W2 information when they start jobs using invalid or 
> other peoples social security numbers...


I have heard this, altho I do not understand why they would do such a thing.
I can take you down to the local hardware store right now and show you half
a dozen sturdy looking amigos standing around in the parking lot.  Everyone
knows why they are there.  You can hire them to work at any labor job for 15
bucks an hour, cash only por favor.  I am told they are worth every cent,
and are a far better deal than hiring the local teenagers for not job that
does not require English skills.  I can imagine that no taxes are paid, for
it isn't clear to me why or even how they would pay.

spike



 




From amara at amara.com  Sun Feb  3 21:59:51 2008
From: amara at amara.com (Amara Graps)
Date: Sun, 3 Feb 2008 14:59:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI]  Impressive book: Farewell to Alms
Message-ID: <p06230902c3cbe9c12674@[192.168.0.66]>

(Spike)
>>  Lee, I stand in awe of how hard the Mexicans work.
(Lee)
>Now this is important because it applies to an important example
>adduced by Clark. There *has* to be both a genetic and cultural
>component to the alacrity with which the people (forced by the
>enclosure acts) took to factory work in England.

You make it sound like past tense, Lee. I worked my day job as an
Italian government employee (research scientist), and went to my
evening/night job teaching astronomy at a private university in Rome,
easily working 70 hours per week for a couple of years. I paid more
Italian taxes than my Italian colleagues (after taxes, my research salary
was 10 euros/hour, my teaching salary was 4 euros/hour) and I was an
ill