From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 1 00:06:26 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:06:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it> <49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it> <49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek> <49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49D2B002.6080108@libero.it> Il 31/03/2009 8.42, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > At least one utility is to make sure that anyone who by chance stumbled > onto this exchange would realize that your position is not an Extropian > position and is in fact extremely non-Extropian. I would not want a > reporter on a deadline to be following links or doing some google > searches and to read your posts and mistakenly think that the views you > have stated about France and Muslim expulsion are in any way > representative of Extropian thought. I don't know if it is unextropian to let a death cult to flourish inside your nation, feeding on your works, and letting it to grow stronger until is able to take the power and kill anyone that oppose it. Paraphrasing a Supreme Justice "Extropy is not a death pact". > BillK posted a brief summary of part of the background related to the > situation of Muslims in France. I suggest everyone read it. Seriously > France is not going to expel all of the Muslims for several reasons and > to even suggest that it would be a good idea shows a profound lack of > understanding of international law, international relations, military > affairs, history and other social sciences. The reason I mention > international law first is that understanding the idea of "Crimes > against Humanity" would be a good starting place. Do you think Mr. President Bashir of Sudan (and his friends and co-religionists) will support anything resembling the International Court of Justice? Or will abide to the ruling of the Court? If and when France government will face a Iraq-like Jihad, the other European States will have their muslim's cats to skin. Don't expect them to help the muslims or attack France; probably the opposite will happen. And, probably, the troops we use to stabilize the status quo in Bosnia and Kosovo will not be there. And without Europe, the ICJ is powerless, without legitimacy and without an a house to meet. And, paraphrasing someone else, the "humane way" to solve the situation will be to expel them so they are out of harm way. Like the Germans expelled from the Sudeten after WW2 or the italians expelled from Istria. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 1 00:34:37 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 01 Apr 2009 02:34:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it> <49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> Il 30/03/2009 14.51, BillK ha scritto: > On 3/30/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > And the resident French people were delighted to accept the > cheap services provided. Not the common French, not the common European. The elites are interested in importing people to lower the labour cost or full fill their political agenda (leftist import people because the new citizen usually are poor and vote for them). The privatize the gains and socialize the costs (welfare, criminality) as usual. > But the foreign workers faced massive discrimination and prejudice > ever since they arrived. The problem is that the North African have a mean 10 point lower IQ than the mean European IQ. So there find that only lower wages jobs are available. The Black African have a worse problem (20 points lower IQ). They will ever form and underclass, because they will ever be less skilled than the locals (or the East Asians). This until they melt with the locals and there will be no visible difference. But until this happen (In a couple of centuries or more) they will feel discriminated. If you add to this an ideology, ISLAM, that teach they are the master religion, they are entitled to rule, the others are enemies and evils, and you have a recipe for civil war, religious killing and more. This is not happening naturally. There is the active meddling of the Islamic nations; there are an increase of imams educated in Saudi Arabia that propagate the worst strain of Islam. Without this, the ethnic Muslims would assimilate with the locals without so many problems because the majority are MINO (Muslim In Name Only). But a little group of criminal and fanatics are able to stop this natural assimilation. Usually the problem is not with the older generation, but with the younger one that is politicized and pampered. > And now live in slum, no-hope housing estates > on the borders of the cities with no hope of ever assimilating. > Naturally they riot and protest from time to time. Then naturally, if the riots will go out of control, someone will seize the opportunity to use overwhelming force to settle the problems and be called "saviour of the country". Historically, when Europeans start to kick asses, the consequences are not pretty for the asses that are kicked. I would prefer another solution, but I don't see anything that is able to change the route to an armed confrontation between Europeans and Muslims. Mirco From moulton at moulton.com Wed Apr 1 02:52:28 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 19:52:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D2B002.6080108@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it> <49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it> <49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek> <49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> <49D2B002.6080108@libero.it> Message-ID: <1238554348.5478.503.camel@hayek> On Wed, 2009-04-01 at 02:06 +0200, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 31/03/2009 8.42, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > > > At least one utility is to make sure that anyone who by chance stumbled > > onto this exchange would realize that your position is not an Extropian > > position and is in fact extremely non-Extropian. I would not want a > > reporter on a deadline to be following links or doing some google > > searches and to read your posts and mistakenly think that the views you > > have stated about France and Muslim expulsion are in any way > > representative of Extropian thought. > > I don't know if it is unextropian to let a death cult to flourish inside > your nation, feeding on your works, and letting it to grow stronger > until is able to take the power and kill anyone that oppose it. First to state the obvious; the issue under discussion is the expulsion of all Muslims from France and to imply that the Muslims in France taken as an aggregate comprise a death cult is a false implication. Not trivially false but profoundly false. Islam is not some monolithic whole. To try to extrapolate from the actions of a few to the larger group is in this case profoundly false. It has no more validity than to say that Christians in the USA are a death cult because of the actions of some in the 1980s and 1990s. > Paraphrasing a Supreme Justice "Extropy is not a death pact". Extropy is not an excuse to post obviously false and misleading crap to the extropy-chat list. This list seems to have the misfortune of having attracted persons who do not hold Extropian values. I won't bother with a reply to the rest of your message because you totally missed the point and I am getting tired of pointing out obvious errors. What I would say to anyone who seriously advocates that France expel all Muslims is that they might want to consider consulting professional psychological help. I am not attempting to diagnose anyone, I do not know if they are seriously delusional, I do not know if they are simply making outrageous statements in order to gain attention, I do not know if they simply enjoy being a pest. Perhaps there is another explanation for them making such posts. It just might be a reason for concern for someone to be advocating an action (involuntary deportation of innocent civilians) which has commonly been considered a Crime against Humanity since the Nuremberg trials. Fred From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 03:03:18 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:03:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> For the record, I am strongly opposed to any violent actions infringing on private property, including expulsions, purges and pogroms of any kind, directed at innocent individuals (i.e. persons who did not perform any violent activities against other innocent people). I would find it odious and revolting if such innocent individuals were harmed under the pretext of being Muslim, foreign, or under any other morally irrelevant tribal label. Rafal PS. To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is being bandied about here. WTF? From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Apr 1 03:20:14 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:20:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.co m> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> At 11:03 PM 3/31/2009 -0400, Rafal wrote: >To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that >the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is >being bandied about here. WTF? Usually there's nothing more boring than posting "Me, too," but sometimes it's necessary. Me too! Damien Broderick From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 04:07:31 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:07:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The sky is falling! In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60903261735m2f8c2279wd804d08538eb96ca@mail.gmail.com> <2ae60d770903271953l79ceb2e5j2cd5962d1dd509ff@mail.gmail.com> <1238392863.5478.122.camel@hayek> <2ae60d770903292354w21c20d42md580d06938aa6018@mail.gmail.com> <8C4E86510A1E4CD1844FA851BE3AF22F@DFC68LF1> <2ae60d770903301404m3640c996xc741b70da1b93629@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20903301412j9e882bco830d774356a2696e@mail.gmail.com> <630F851B3E44427E9D4A5E321139D1C9@spike> <2ae60d770903301443o4c33a9adm2e784c1ed2ddc97@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670903312107l14de86abm2be5b9e308df5a07@mail.gmail.com> Chad Robb wrote: Mormons and Catholics tend to have pretty dry services. There is no applause after a performance because it was not intended for approval of the audience but as tribute to God. Its sort of an ordeal of attendance. They go because afterward, they can talk and be like a huge family. Drinking tea or coffee or fruit juice or whatever, eating cookies and donuts, especially things made by members for members. Its a low key party. A Temporary Autonomous Zone of heavily tempered conviviality. >>> The Mormon congregations today tend to nearly tear down the door to get home, after the Sunday services are finished. But I would not quite call it an ordeal of attendance! lol The variety of speakers and topics keeps things generally interesting. In the "old days" the services were broken into two different time periods, but they have been consolidated so people could spend more time with family. It is a three hour time bloc that includes "Sacrament Meeting" where the sacrament is administered and 2-4 members of the ward (congregation) give talks (instead of the Bishop/pastor doing it every time). "Gospel Doctrine" is the Sunday School portion, with a similar program for teens and children. Finally, there is "Priesthood" for the men and "Relief Society" for the women. I wish we had refreshments after the Sunday meetings, but we don't. But there are other gatherings and firesides where people do socialize quite a bit and eat refreshments. What I find interesting is that there is a trend in the Church where during Salt Lake broadcasts for young people they do hip and catchy musical presentations that make me think of Disney's "High School Musical." And a number of years ago an LDS Church president had an opera singer perform in General Conference (usually a pretty staid gathering that happens twice a year). I love your terminology with, "It's a low key party. *A Temporary Autonomous Zone of heavily tempered conviviality." * Do you work in the Pentagon creating project names and acronyms? LOL John * * -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 05:14:51 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:14:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The sky is falling! In-Reply-To: <2d6187670903312107l14de86abm2be5b9e308df5a07@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60903261735m2f8c2279wd804d08538eb96ca@mail.gmail.com> <1238392863.5478.122.camel@hayek> <2ae60d770903292354w21c20d42md580d06938aa6018@mail.gmail.com> <8C4E86510A1E4CD1844FA851BE3AF22F@DFC68LF1> <2ae60d770903301404m3640c996xc741b70da1b93629@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20903301412j9e882bco830d774356a2696e@mail.gmail.com> <630F851B3E44427E9D4A5E321139D1C9@spike> <2ae60d770903301443o4c33a9adm2e784c1ed2ddc97@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670903312107l14de86abm2be5b9e308df5a07@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ae60d770903312214y5fe6d592s19e6fb8efb040708@mail.gmail.com> > A Temporary Autonomous Zone of heavily tempered conviviality. > > Do you work in the Pentagon creating project names and acronyms? LOL You should look into Hakim Bey, a sufi anarchist poet/theorist. He coined the phrase Temporary Autonomous Zone. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 1 05:03:51 2009 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:03:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Maybe rephrase that? Message-ID: <741125.21433.qm@web110403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Well! Sometimes people feel really at home. Kicking people out of some leagues without just facts sucks. Sometimes naming such facts is not true. --- On Tue, 3/31/09, Damien Broderick wrote: > From: Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] To Arms! > To: "ExI chat list" > Received: Tuesday, March 31, 2009, 11:20 PM > At 11:03 PM 3/31/2009 -0400, Rafal > wrote: > > >To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed > off that > >the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being > Muslim is > >being bandied about here. WTF? > > Usually there's nothing more boring than posting "Me, too," > but > sometimes it's necessary. Me too! > > Damien Broderick > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > __________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Apr 1 05:43:03 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 01:43:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4D2D8B10AB7A475AB6BDC9CC9F1ECE59@MyComputer> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Damien Broderick" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 11:20 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] To Arms! > At 11:03 PM 3/31/2009 -0400, Rafal wrote: > >>To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that >>the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is >>being bandied about here. WTF? > > Usually there's nothing more boring than posting "Me, too," but > sometimes it's necessary. Me too! > > Damien Broderick > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Apr 1 05:54:45 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 01:54:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] That Baptist is right References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> I often badmouth religion but I must admit that a fundamentalist Baptist church has recently put something on a big billboard outside their church that I agree with 100%: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2009/03/churchsign.jpeg John K Clark From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 06:11:15 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 17:11:15 +1100 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/1 Lee Corbin : > A century and a half ago the American Medical Association > began its quest for total control over American medicine. > The first really impressive results were the government > licensing of physicians and the AMA's own control over > the number of doctors. In many jurisdictions it isn't actually illegal to practise medicine without a license, but it is illegal to claim that you are a certified doctor when you aren't. Body piercing is an example of a surgical procedure which is not intrinsically easier or safer than some minor therapeutic surgical procedures and yet is usually performed by people who aren't medically qualified. So the certifying body doesn't actually prevent people from practising medicine, but it has done a really good PR job convincing Government, insurers and patients that only those who have their special certificate are competent. The one area where regulation does prevent anyone who feels like it from practising medicine is prescription drugs. The argument is that they are too dangerous to be used without medical supervision, but in most other areas of life people are allowed to evaluate a risk and exercise their own judgement as to whether to obtain expert help. -- Stathis Papaioannou From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 06:17:06 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Tue, 31 Mar 2009 23:17:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Go home superman! Message-ID: <2ae60d770903312317l47efa79dj111f797fd0fc164b@mail.gmail.com> I think the first jobs to require enhancement will be medical jobs. Brainsurgeons with microsense eyes. That won't be so scary. I don't expect people to lynch doctors. Maybe if a computer programmer can connect his mind to a computer (wireless of course, the Brain-Jack is so Shadowrun) he could put a lot of software technicians out of work but that still wouldn't be so intimidating. Cops and soldiers who can hear your heart through a wall, can smell your skin and identify your trail, can hit a moving target from a mile away, thats the kind of problem people will hold signs outside of bionics labs for. A superior master race is probably long off, even if super enhancements are just a decade off. We'll probably cure all disease before we make the flying car. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 06:18:02 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 17:18:02 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Economy: "The Big Takeover" In-Reply-To: <49D235BB.2030908@rawbw.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <3FBA6B2EE01E45D1BEBB6B3A05A125BD@spike> <49D235BB.2030908@rawbw.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/1 Lee Corbin : > True. So many times that I can't count them, I heard > the Democratically controlled congress pronounce one > of Reagan's budgets "dead on arrival". There was no > way that they were going to cut spending. All their > power depends on it. > > Unfortunately, the Republicans are no better. *They* > had complete control of congress early in the Bill > Clinton years and then again under Bush's first term. > So what happened? Well, "There was no way that they > were going to cut spending. All their power depends > on it". But governments obviously do cut spending and/or increase taxes, despite these being unpopular measures, since otherwise they would all be bankrupt. -- Stathis Papaioannou From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Apr 1 06:22:38 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 02:22:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com><1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> Message-ID: <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> I have just seen a brilliant critique of Darwin Theory of Evolution that was so logical, so devastating, that now the only thing for me to do is become a creationist: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch John K Clark From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 06:55:46 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 01:55:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Click path length Message-ID: <55ad6af70903312355u7cd81ad2x3d253478452bbf47@mail.gmail.com> There was once a paper published that explored the probability of a group of users following a link on a page, and then the likelihood of continuing on a particular chain of links. Anyway, for a website that does not have many users, it's unlikely that you are going to be able to get the users to where you want to go. However, when you have a ridiculously high volume of traffic, it's like liquid- even the small percentage that does happen to get to where you wanted them to get to, it's still very significant. So, let's look at Google's home page today- eternally restricted to, what, 24 words? There's one particular link in a prominent location to CADIE, this year's April experiment. On the following page there are a total of six links. One leads to youtube- so we're three levels down at the moment. I examined over this page and I immediately saw this user named Tyler Emerson in the subscriptions box, but with the face of Eliezer Yudkowsky (pulled from one of the uploaded videos). Wait, what? Let's see some estimates for the number of page views that the number one site on the web is likely to get in a 24 hour period- 200 million queries per day sometime in 2007; so let's say that 1% of those 200 million queries are typed into the main Google page, and let's also say that of that 1% of the total, only 1% bothers to click on the youtube link. That's still 20,000 exposures, and that's a lower bound on the estimate. How about 10% and then 10%? Those are some pretty big numbers. Though honestly, I do more than 200 queries per day, so if this was the same across the entire population, that's really only a million different people querying (maybe), and only a small percentage is going to be looking at the links, and even less at the resulting links- heck, most people don't even look past the first or second search result (apparently) on the search pages (nobody knows how to use a search engine, as it turns out). Anyway, those are some pretty big numbers when it comes to audiences. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 07:23:17 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 00:23:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Go home superman! In-Reply-To: <2ae60d770903312317l47efa79dj111f797fd0fc164b@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ae60d770903312317l47efa79dj111f797fd0fc164b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670904010023y1571c088y9f37319b12593370@mail.gmail.com> >We'll probably cure all disease before we make the flying car. LOL I only wish! But we will cure all disease before we see a starship in every driveway. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 07:25:02 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 07:25:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 4/1/09, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:03 PM 3/31/2009 -0400, Rafal wrote: > > To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that > > the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is > > being bandied about here. WTF? > > > > Usually there's nothing more boring than posting "Me, too," but sometimes > it's necessary. Me too! > When economic depression hits, xenophobia raises its ugly head. 'These furriners taking our jobs - send them back where they came from!'. (Of course, most were born in that country). Attacking minorities and civil unrest will be one of the unexpected side effects as the depression starts to get worse. Short-term, increasing unemployment hits everybody and falling tax receipts means countries start running budget deficits. But this cannot continue for long without currency collapse. The UK pound has already fallen by about 30% against the euro and dollar. Unfortunately Europe needs immigrants, because the original Europeans have stopped having children and are aging fast. It is the demographic timebomb. Who will be the workers and pay for social security for the aged? The future for those populations who stop having children is a reducing, aging population supported by young workers from immigrant families. BillK From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 07:37:43 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 00:37:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Go home superman! And flying cars. Message-ID: <2ae60d770904010037s22658419h7fa946a28c898f9a@mail.gmail.com> Chad: We'll probably cure all disease before we make the flying car. John: LOL I only wish! But we will cure all disease before we see a starship in every driveway. I mean, we have flying cars. The Skycar is functional if unavailable to the public. In order to make flying cars viable, we'd need cheap fuel and a convenient way to park. We'll have cars that can safely pilot themselves from a to b before we make them fly. Imagine it, you get in your car and say "The Mall" and it will ask "Which one?" and you say "The closest one." and then you just close your eyes. No need to buckle up. All cars are mandatorily robotic. You can have it drop off the kids at school and come home and you can pilot it while fabulously drunk. Also, there will be no more traffic tickets. You will move according to Traffic Regulation Programs. Then, when we have personalized flightcraft, you just load up the family and say "The Mall." and it will say "Which one?" and you'll say "The nearest in Tokyo". And then you just close your eyes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 08:19:55 2009 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 10:19:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Worshiping that Divine Blowhard. In-Reply-To: <2A682415A493470482BEA0661DEEE237@MyComputer> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <101D88DF5C49447D97D5A3D07C7FB6FB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331014715.0274edd0@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331024459.0274d568@satx.rr.com> <4807651DA4BA47E89B7F8D790FAD79CF@MyComputer> <2A682415A493470482BEA0661DEEE237@MyComputer> Message-ID: > by itself how does that generate higher life forms? It doesn't, if you ask me. But the whole Bible machine is supposed to make complex life forms and to produce a substantial pain in the Hell at the same time. The Christ's walk with the cross on his shoulders was nothing, compared to that produced daily in the Hell plant. The amount of future pain inside the Bible story is infinite. The amount of the already endured pain is quite small compared to that. And to the actual pain endured during the Darwinian evolution also. - Thomas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 08:24:50 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 01:24:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Homo Drakensis" Message-ID: <2d6187670904010124u446d9901u25071594da4bb1d1@mail.gmail.com> The Draka are the fictional creations of science fiction author S.M. Stirling. In his Draka series, he made up an alternative history timeline that is among the most revered but also hotly debated. The Draka started out in what we call South Africa, and went on to create a Sparta/Nazi-like society that eventually conquered the world. Through extreme genetic engineering, the Draka recreated themselves to be the living embodiments of their own warped ideals. This is a GURPS player's roleplaying game supplement page about them. I thought this might make interesting food for thought among transhumanists. "Homo Drakensis" is most disturbing in that they control others through pheromones and have brains that have been genetically engineered to take aggression and the need for dominance to great extremes. "Homo Servus" is what is left of "Homo Sapiens Sapiens." They have been crafted to be very compliant and are especially susceptible to Homo Drakensis pheromone influence. The Draka, though very intelligent, lost some of the normal human scientific intuitiveness and creativity due to their extreme brain modifications that enhanced their capacities for combat. And so Homo Servus engineers and scientists are highly prized in keeping technological innovation going. http://members.fortunecity.com/centurion2001/draka.htm Draka timeline... http://www.geocities.com/hentaihelper/postEW.htm John Grigg ** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 08:33:29 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 10:33:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: What can rich nations do, to reduce population growth levels in third world countries. I mean intentionally, as in "we want your country to have a birth rate under 3.1" ? ...we want your population growth under 150.000 new people per year. If you do not we lock down borders and keep every of your citizens locked IN? (containment) The problem is that poor nations, nations with corrupt governments, nations with superstition industries, nations with large criminal networks ... these all work to cultivate a culture of pathetic collectivism. We know these people well - islamic fundamentalists. party fanatics in china. And even in europe some have proven susceptible to this type of behavior - we see simplistic ideologies pop up all the time in aforementioned type of countries - simple peasant world views where problems are addressed with a hoe and a shovel, and where pests are eradicated and burned and predators hunted down by a mob. You might even find expressions of those sentiments here in this thread. We need better education, more employability, people having more free time for selfdevelopment, less dictates of some crazed fanatical ideology such as communism, islamic fundamentalism, fascism, xenophobia, market corporatism, etc. These are all the result of simple, poor people applying a simplistic world view to complex problems. We cannot allow these simplistic retards to breed and overrun us all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 09:52:04 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 20:52:04 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Economy: "The Big Takeover". In-Reply-To: <2D878C03793347B3A1C4FC8F0A90CCAE@MyComputer> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <3FBA6B2EE01E45D1BEBB6B3A05A125BD@spike> <49D235BB.2030908@rawbw.com> <2D878C03793347B3A1C4FC8F0A90CCAE@MyComputer> Message-ID: 2009/4/1 John K Clark : > Anyway, at a time like now the last thing on earth you'd want to do is > balance the budget. Hoover did it and turned a garden variety recession into > a decade long worldwide depression. Yes, but the Keynesian flipside of that would have been to balance the budget or have a surplus in the boom times. If that had been done the current situation might have been averted, or at least been less dire. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 11:56:35 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 13:56:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904010456r599c9db9i39bde87d951f8ad2@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/1 Dagon Gmail : > What can rich nations do, to reduce population growth levels in third world > countries. I am confused. Were it true that Europe needs immigrants rather than children, where would we find them if we persuaded third world countries not to make children either? -- Stefano Vaj From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 15:01:51 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 09:01:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> Message-ID: Went to check it out. Apparently the video is gone from youtube. If anyone knows differently, please post to the list. Best, Jeff Davis On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 12:22 AM, John K Clark wrote: > I have just seen a brilliant critique of Darwin Theory of Evolution that was > so logical, so devastating, that now the only thing for me to do is become a > creationist: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eric at m056832107.syzygy.com Wed Apr 1 15:24:30 2009 From: eric at m056832107.syzygy.com (Eric Messick) Date: 1 Apr 2009 15:24:30 -0000 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> Message-ID: <20090401152430.5.qmail@syzygy.com> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch > >Went to check it out. Apparently the video is gone from youtube. > >If anyone knows differently, please post to the list. > >Best, Jeff Davis Just checked, and it's there for me. Scary. >From the text at the end, I'm guessing it's actors reading posts from net discussions. -eric From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 15:55:52 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 17:55:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 8:11 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > The one area where regulation does prevent anyone who feels like it > from practising medicine is prescription drugs. The argument is that > they are too dangerous to be used without medical supervision This is a legacy of a "nanny-State" mentality where I believe most transhumanists in spite of their possibly different political persuasions might converge towards an abolitionist position. Informed, consenting adults should be allowed to assume whatever substance they like for any purpose whatsoever, including, inter alia, enhancement, self-therapy, alternative-therapy (or other) experimentation, new drug trials, recreational purposes, euthanasia, etc. It would seem obvious by now that the economic and social costs arising from futile and distorsive attempts to enforce the current regime are higher than any perceived, hypothetical advantage thereof. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br Wed Apr 1 15:35:01 2009 From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 08:35:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist Message-ID: <145411.90314.qm@web110306.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Most online forums are dominated by "kids" or similar mentality, it would be dishonest, could even backfire, if you use this as an argument against creationism or pro-evolutionism / atheism. As tempting as this may sound =) It does have some entertainment value though, thanks =) Cheers, AM. --- Em qua, 1/4/09, Jeff Davis escreveu: > De: Jeff Davis > Assunto: Re: [ExI] I am now a creationist > Para: "ExI chat list" > Data: Quarta-feira, 1 de Abril de 2009, 12:01 > Went to check it out. > Apparently the video is gone from youtube. > > If anyone knows differently, please post to the list. > > Best, Jeff Davis > > On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 12:22 AM, John K Clark > wrote: > > I have just seen a brilliant critique of Darwin Theory > of Evolution that was > > so logical, so devastating, that now the only thing > for me to do is become a > > creationist: > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch > > > > John K Clark > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > Veja quais s?o os assuntos do momento no Yahoo! +Buscados http://br.maisbuscados.yahoo.com From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 16:02:39 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 18:02:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> Message-ID: <580930c20904010902n13687b3cx2dbb83525623ebd9@mail.gmail.com> April Fools' Day! :-D On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 8:22 AM, John K Clark wrote: > I have just seen a brilliant critique of Darwin Theory of Evolution that was > so logical, so devastating, that now the only thing for me to do is become a > creationist: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stefano Vaj From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Apr 1 17:42:55 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 13:42:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Economy: "The Big Takeover". References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <3FBA6B2EE01E45D1BEBB6B3A05A125BD@spike> <49D235BB.2030908@rawbw.com> <2D878C03793347B3A1C4FC8F0A90CCAE@MyComputer> Message-ID: "Stathis Papaioannou" > Yes, but the Keynesian flipside of that would have been to balance the > budget or have a surplus in the boom times. If that had been done the > current situation might have been averted That was done during the booming last 3 of the Clinton years, but then Bush took over. John K Clark From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 00:21:54 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 11:21:54 +1100 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/2 Stefano Vaj : > This is a legacy of a "nanny-State" mentality where I believe most > transhumanists in spite of their possibly different political persuasions > might converge towards an abolitionist position. > > Informed, consenting adults should be allowed to assume whatever substance > they like for any purpose whatsoever, including, inter alia, enhancement, > self-therapy, alternative-therapy (or other) experimentation, new drug > trials, recreational purposes, euthanasia, etc. > > It would seem obvious by now that the economic and social costs arising from > futile and distorsive attempts to enforce the current regime are higher than > any perceived, hypothetical advantage thereof. Yes, I would agree with that. One possible problem with free access to drugs would be the acceleration of bacterial resistance to antibiotics, which why we have the MRSA problem Lee mentioned. Here a case could be made for restriction in the interests of the public good. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 09:04:41 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 09:04:41 +0000 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/2/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Yes, I would agree with that. One possible problem with free access to > drugs would be the acceleration of bacterial resistance to > antibiotics, which why we have the MRSA problem Lee mentioned. Here a > case could be made for restriction in the interests of the public good. > Agreed. The widespread use of antibiotics means that they become useless. This is already a problem in hospitals. And it appears that new antibiotics are difficult to develop and expensive. The two generic problems with free access to drugs are the same as with free access to anything that might be dangerous in the wrong hands. Guns, explosives, poisons, drugs, acids, nuclear technology, nanotechnology, etc. Do you want the bad people to be able to just walk into Walmart and buy them? Do you want the 50% below average intelligence to buy them? Do you want the insane or temporarily depressed people to buy them? Do you want your estranged wife or furious alienated teenagers to buy them? Do you want children to have access to them? (Even if children are banned from buying them, if they are freely available to everyone, then children will get them). So you swap one group of social problems for another group. Which group will end up being overall worse for society? Restrictions causes a known set of problems and protects against another known set of problems. Freedom (or chaos) is a wild venture into the unknown. Best to try it in a small society first. Netherlands experimenting with drugs freedom is a good solution. Let's watch and see what happens. BillK From dagonweb at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 10:08:35 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 12:08:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <580930c20904010456r599c9db9i39bde87d951f8ad2@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904010456r599c9db9i39bde87d951f8ad2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > I am confused. Were it true that Europe needs immigrants rather than > children, where would we find them if we persuaded third world > countries not to make children either? I seriously do NOT want immigration of poor, undercivilized, undereducated people, most of these prone to backward and sinister superstitions and coming from authoritarian, antidemocratic, patriarchal and reactionary cultures. I personally support the goals of the club of ten million(link) which advocates peacefully reducing the population of the netherlands from 16 million down to 10 million. I do not agree with all assumptions made by this 'club', but I agree with them that "importing chattel slaves' from third world nations to address demographic transitions caused by aging populations to be deeply immoral, for both us western europeans, as well as for the countries of origin. The idea to "make more children" for whatever reason is disingenuous, confusing and deceptive. We need less people, because the world is severely overpopulated. Adding more people to address the effects of having too many people in the first place is like eating more to address the medical emergency caused by morbid obesity. Europe and Japan can be asserted to be headed "in the right direction", even if market fundamentalists see it differently. In my view we need an urgent reassessment of the value of the human being - humans are the norm of what we should regard as valuable - everything else should be secondary. If we create a world where the value of the human is deflated because of too many humans, we are seriously doing things wrong. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 11:17:26 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 13:17:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:04 AM, BillK wrote: > Agreed. The widespread use of antibiotics means that they become > useless. This is already a problem in hospitals. And it appears that > new antibiotics are difficult to develop and expensive. Yes, this might be a problem, even though it is really a small part of the entire scenario. > > The two generic problems with free access to drugs are the same as > with free access to anything that might be dangerous in the wrong > hands. Guns, explosives, poisons, drugs, acids, nuclear technology, > nanotechnology, etc. > Mmhhh, yes, this is an old issue. I am no anarco-capitalist or anarchist of any other persuasion, and have no doubt that *some* regulations may well be unavoidable. Yet, I am istinctively wary of the quick-and-easy solution of defining one's own as the "good hands", and reflexively implementing prohibitionist policies which often end up being a stop-gag measure at best and even more often produce important distorsive and unintended effects, from alcohol to recreational drugs to nuclear weapons. OTOH, my stance in this field was much more limited and qualified: "Informed, consenting adults should be allowed to assume whatever substance they like". You want a letal injection to stop your suffering, fine. You want to take it home in order to administer it to your husband while he is sleeping, well, let's discuss it first. :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 11:22:12 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 13:22:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904010456r599c9db9i39bde87d951f8ad2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904020422pe027ee1x8d68732fd625cfb8@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/2 Dagon Gmail > I am confused. Were it true that Europe needs immigrants rather than >> children, where would we find them if we persuaded third world >> countries not to make children either? > > > I seriously do NOT want immigration of poor, undercivilized, undereducated > people, most of these prone to backward and sinister superstitions and > coming > from authoritarian, antidemocratic, patriarchal and reactionary cultures. > > I personally support the goals of the club of ten million(link) which advocates > peacefully reducing the population of the netherlands from 16 million down > to > 10 million. I do not agree with all assumptions made by this 'club', but I > agree > with them that "importing chattel slaves' from third world nations to > address > demographic transitions caused by aging populations to be deeply immoral, > for both us western europeans, as well as for the countries of origin. > Ah, OK, this is perfectly consistent (and I am with you at least on the very last part). In fact, I "rhetorically" superimposed your position to that of BillK mostly to imply that they are contradictory, but I was aware they were taken by two different people... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 12:20:31 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 23:20:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/2 BillK : > The two generic problems with free access to drugs are the same as > with free access to anything that might be dangerous in the wrong > hands. ?Guns, explosives, poisons, drugs, acids, nuclear technology, > nanotechnology, etc. One difference to consider is that if you misuse drugs, you usually harm only yourself, while if you misuse nuclear weapons, you harm other people as well. In cases where you harm others as a result of drug use, such as with driving while intoxicated or indiscriminate use of antibiotics, it is easier to justify limits on freedom. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 12:37:29 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 12:37:29 +0000 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/2/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > One difference to consider is that if you misuse drugs, you usually > harm only yourself, while if you misuse nuclear weapons, you harm > other people as well. In cases where you harm others as a result of > drug use, such as with driving while intoxicated or indiscriminate use > of antibiotics, it is easier to justify limits on freedom. > Well, presumably you would not misuse nuclear weapons accidentally, so you should be talking about deliberate misuse of drugs. Like dumping them in the water system, poisoning large groups of people, murder weapons, serial killers, acid-throwing, poison gas release, etc. I'm sure you can think of many more examples. Obviously forbidding easy access to drugs doesn't stop all misuse. But it does stop an alienated teenager putting poisonous drugs in the school water tank. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 13:02:28 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 15:02:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904020602g45da55dey30c01185a80cc224@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 2:20 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > In cases where you harm others as a result of > drug use, such as with driving while intoxicated or indiscriminate use > of antibiotics, it is easier to justify limits on freedom. Korrect. But in fact you need not do that, or at least not in most conceivable scenarios. You do not restrict freedom to get intoxicated, or for that matter to assume a substance that makes you blind, you restrict freedom to drive (if and when you are). -- Stefano Vaj From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 13:06:56 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 00:06:56 +1100 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 02/04/2009, BillK wrote: > Well, presumably you would not misuse nuclear weapons accidentally, so > you should be talking about deliberate misuse of drugs. > Like dumping them in the water system, poisoning large groups of > people, murder weapons, serial killers, acid-throwing, poison gas > release, etc. I'm sure you can think of many more examples. > > Obviously forbidding easy access to drugs doesn't stop all misuse. But > it does stop an alienated teenager putting poisonous drugs in the > school water tank. That's really not a consideration at all. You can find far more dangerous chemicals than prescription drugs far more easily in a hardware store. There are exceptions, but with most drugs taking even a hundred times the usual dose won't kill you, so it would be very difficult to use them to poison someone without them noticing, let alone a whole water supply. -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Apr 2 15:35:38 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 10:35:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] free access to drugs (was Re: U.S. Medical Care) In-Reply-To: <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com > References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> > > >The two generic problems with free access to drugs ... > >Mmhhh, yes, this is an old issue. I am no anarco-capitalist Wouldn't that be narco-capitalist? :) From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 2 15:43:56 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 08:43:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Economy: "The Big Takeover". In-Reply-To: <96CC1FA5-F1CC-42BF-ADA0-1082C08F92A3@mac.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com><49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com><580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com><93632127F9A742F192C5C36DBCA36781@MyComputer> <96CC1FA5-F1CC-42BF-ADA0-1082C08F92A3@mac.com> Message-ID: > On Mar 30, 2009, at 4:15 PM, John K Clark wrote: > > > "BillK" Wrote: > > > >> Why worry about it? You are *never* going to get a free > market where > >> devious wheeler-dealer shyster smart-alec humans are involved. > > > > But you will get perfect government where devious wheeler-dealer > > shyster smart-alec humans are involved. > > > > Good shot! :) Samantha Ja. In a capitalist system, people use their best creative powers to produce wealth. When political power is the new money, people use their creative powers to create political power. Everyone loses. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 2 15:49:59 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 08:49:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] punishment In-Reply-To: <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Lee Corbin > ...Climate denial isn't a crime > here yet, but you can be ostracized by your friends... Lee > Lee, the ostracizers weren't your friends to start with. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 2 15:58:57 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 08:58:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of print news: was RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com><580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com><49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it><49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it><49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek><49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton > > ...I would not want a reporter on a deadline ... to mistakenly think... Fred Fred, your post was actually about something else but your comment caused me to recognize a big advantage to the coming death of print news. The news cycle manipulation and rush to a particular deadline that you describe both go away, being artifacts of print news cycles. Traditionally these have been one issue per day, with special arrangements on weekends. Now, news stories can go up on the site whenever the reporter is satisfied she has the facts, instead of when some arbitrary schedule demands. Rebuttals can be offered quickly on politically opposite news sites. Balanced reporting will be accomplished, and misinformation can be greatly reduced. Trees will be saved too, and the furry little animals that live in them. May we bury the print news quickly, without mourning their passing. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 2 16:13:48 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 09:13:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] humor to go along with the bad economy: was RE: Economy: "The Big Takeover" In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com><580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <3FBA6B2EE01E45D1BEBB6B3A05A125BD@spike> Message-ID: <661DA98819064A1A8F3CD23983085710@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou .... > > Reagan cut taxes but the US budget deficit has been more or > less continuously increasing ever since... > -- > Stathis Papaioannou Ja, we need to cut everywhere. What the US is doing now is sheer madness. spike Here's some humor that has been going around on the web: The economy is so bad: CEO's are now playing miniature golf. Even people who have nothing to do with the Obama administration aren't paying their taxes. Hotwheels and Matchbox stocks are trading higher than GM. Obama met with small businesses to discuss the Stimulus Package: GE, Pfeizer and Citigroup. PETA serves chicken wings at their meetings McDonalds is selling the 1/4- ouncer. People in Beverly Hills fired their nannies and learned their children's names. A truck of Americans got caught sneaking into Mexico .... The most highly-paid job is now jury duty. Dick Cheney took his stockbroker hunting. People in Africa are donating money to Americans. Mothers in Ethiopia are telling their kids, "finish your plate, do you know how many kids are starving in the US ?" Motel Six won't leave the light on. The Mafia is laying off judges. finally, Congress says they are looking into this Bernard Madoff scandal. So, the guy that made $50 billion disappear is being investigated by the people who made $750 billion disappear. From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 16:37:46 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 16:37:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] free access to drugs (was Re: U.S. Medical Care) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 4/2/09, Damien Broderick wrote: > Wouldn't that be narco-capitalist? :) > No. Capitalist is actually a better description. Or, actually more like state capitalism. OTC (Over the Counter) drugs are allowed for treatment of specific short-term illnesses that patients can easily diagnose and treat themselves. There is an ongoing movement to get more and more drugs given OTC status. So the 'freedom' supporters are in line with what is currently happening. Yeehaw!!!! Unfortunately when you look at what is happening in more detail, you find that big pharma is one of the main supporters. Their main objective is increased sales, driven by colourful advertising to as much of the general public as they can persuade to waste money on their products. It's not freedom, - it's more 'con the mugs for as much as you can'. Pharmacists also welcome more OTC drugs as producing more profit for themselves. They already now stock homeopathic remedies and 'natural' remedies on the next counter and much of the public cannot tell the difference. And, guess who the other supporters are? It's the government and health plan companies. Why? Because the more drugs you spend your own money on, the less the government has to pay for through national health schemes. They want to reduce their huge prescription drug costs. Most OTC drugs are not covered by health plans, so the cost is transferred to the general public. So, do you really want to support changes that are supported by big pharma, the government and pharmacist shop chains? Do you think they really have your best interests at heart? BillK From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 2 17:15:40 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 10:15:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com><221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer><0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Jeff Davis > Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:02 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] I am now a creationist > > Went to check it out. Apparently the video is gone from youtube. > > If anyone knows differently, please post to the list. > > Best, Jeff Davis ....that now the only > thing for me to > > do is become a > > creationist: > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch > > > > John K Clark It came up twice in a row for me. Do try again. spike From florent.berthet at gmail.com Wed Apr 1 15:18:10 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 17:18:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> Works fine here (I'm in France). Great one by the way, the ending text killed me... 2009/4/1 Jeff Davis > Went to check it out. Apparently the video is gone from youtube. > > If anyone knows differently, please post to the list. > > Best, Jeff Davis > > On Wed, Apr 1, 2009 at 12:22 AM, John K Clark wrote: > > I have just seen a brilliant critique of Darwin Theory of Evolution that > was > > so logical, so devastating, that now the only thing for me to do is > become a > > creationist: > > > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qO9IPoAdct8&feature=response_watch > > > > John K Clark > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fortean1 at mindspring.com Wed Apr 1 16:18:29 2009 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry Colvin) Date: Wed, 1 Apr 2009 12:18:29 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ExI] Fw: RE: [CommCenter-1] State Dept. history brochure on electronic surveillance Message-ID: <29340125.1238602711194.JavaMail.root@elwamui-rubis.atl.sa.earthlink.net> -----Forwarded Message----- > >Hi Terry, > >Yes, www.coldwar-c4i.net has no connection to any military service, government >agency or other organization. Its purpose is to document Cold War-era >national security infrastructure - physical facilities, systems, procedures, >etc. Most of the content so far relates to U.S. defense, but I'm eager to >include material for any other countries, including Soviet-bloc nations. As >you can see, the collection covers a wide range of topics, reflecting the >diversity of interests among the contributors who provide much of the >content. You'll also note that it's completely disorganized; the site began >as just a place to share pictures and documents among researchers, and >simply grew without much structure - new material is usually just added to >the top unless it belongs under an existing topic. > >I maintain another site, www.long-lines.net, which is devoted to the networks, >equipment and operations of AT&T's former Long Lines Department. This site, >too, has a national-security aspect since AT&T was (and still is) heavily >involved in defense communications. > >If the members wish, I'll be glad to notify this group of any additions to >my sites. In addition, there's a very active list, with over 1,000 members, >devoted to Cold War infrastructure and common-carrier networks of the era. >The URL to join the group or view the archived messages is: > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/coldwarcomms . I'm the group owner, so I can >answer questions and assist with any sign-up issues. > >Albert LaFrance > _____ > >From: CommCenter-1 at yahoogroups.com [mailto:CommCenter-1 at yahoogroups.com] On >Behalf Of Terry Colvin >Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 2:44 AM >To: CommCenter-1 at yahoogroups.com >Subject: Re: [CommCenter-1] State Dept. history brochure on electronic >surveillance > >Albert, > >Thank you for providing a link to this brochure. It is representative >of those 16 intelligence agencies within the USG. > >Can you tell me more about the "coldwar-c4i.net"? Is that a separate >list from the c4i list managed by the U.S. Navy Postgraduate School? > >Best, > >Terry Terry W. Colvin Ladphrao (Bangkok), Thailand Pran Buri (Hua Hin), Thailand From dagonweb at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 17:46:48 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 19:46:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] punishment In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> Message-ID: The jury is still out whether or not wife beating is immoral behavior, but your friends seem swayed when they ostracize you. Same with being a racist, a pedophyle, a meth dealer, a murderer, someone who dumps his waste benzene in the sewer, a spreader of viagra spam or any other new and debatable improprieties. There are numerous topics where people disagree whether or not the behavior is a crime, and equally uncountable numbers of people that shrug whatever I think. It will be unresolvable - people are stuck in their grooves and discourse is dead. Not even transhumanists have ideals left, and extropianism has the same polarized bulwark of self-interest, collapse of ideals, belligerence, political obstinacy, arrogance and contempt as any segment of society. Prove me wrong. I can only vouch that I believe the near-collapse of the worlds climate a reality, that humanity is largely responsible, that this damage can be limited, that if we do not, possibly billions are going to die as a direct result before 2100, that the damage can be limited with sound economic choices that work parallel with implementation of non-carbon energy carriers as well as sources, and that people who are now persisting in sincerely denying this process are dupes of media with a vested interest in the industrial/economic status quo. What I believe doesn't matter an inch. Some here would rather see me die from poverty than listen to whatever I have to say. ...and what do you know? I don't give a hoot. I am personally sure of all above and I don't care! I am going to die anyways, probably somewhere between 2025 and 2045, probably of poverty, violent causes, collapse of society, the result of explosively (and corrosively advancing technology) and horrid mismanagement by paranoid elites steering society as surely towards their self-interested holdings as the yawning void ahead. So I couldn't care LESS about what happens to the environment. In fact, I welcome the collapse of the environment, somewhere later this century as it will probably do great in mercifully euthanizing the remaining humans and save them a fate worse than death. I'll croak miserably long before we have a chance to immortalize or upload ourselves (and if not, nobody would go through the effort consider uploading or rejuvenating me in time!). Face it - Humanity is not worth it. I intend to be as nice as can to my fellow humans in the last years of human hegemony on this planet, but if I have some spare CO2 I will take immense joy in dumping it to save me half a euro. So - everyone: we ruined it, we fucked up, party is over, any year in some measure of comfort is a blessing, and a merciful death after is all you can hope for. > > ...On Behalf Of Lee Corbin > > > ...Climate denial isn't a crime > > here yet, but you can be ostracized by your friends... Lee > > Lee, the ostracizers weren't your friends to start with. spike But I'd love to be proven wrong, on any of this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 2 17:50:15 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 10:50:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com><221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer><0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> ________________________________ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Florent Berthet Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:18 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] I am now a creationist Works fine here (I'm in France). ... Welcome Florent. I think you may be the only ExI poster from France. We noticed some time ago the lack of French ExI-ers. Why? We have several from Italy, some from other European nations but so few from France. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 2 20:20:59 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 22:20:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] free access to drugs (was Re: U.S. Medical Care) In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904021320o6aaebf76gdae0620941c3e2a4@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 6:37 PM, BillK wrote: > So, do you really want to support changes that are supported by big > pharma, the government and pharmacist shop chains? Do you think they > really have your best interests at heart? Mmhhh, let me think of a creative, lateral-thinking, out-of-the-box solution to this angle... What about nationalising the big pharma and the pharmacist shop chains and, at the same time, abolishing the goverment?! This should solve everything for the best, right? ;-D -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 2 20:24:07 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:24:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it> <49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it> <49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49D51EE7.3070904@libero.it> Il 29/03/2009 21.53, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > On Sat, 2009-03-28 at 22:58 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> But it's either that or eventually perish. France, for example, >> needs to do what it would instantly have done in any century >> before the 20th, namely expel its Muslim population. It's >> either that or cease eventually to have a modern western >> society at all! >> > > If ever there is created a collection of ridiculous and completely > disgusting statements to have ever been posted to this list then the > above would surely be near the top of the list. > > Expelling the Muslim population would violate long standing principles > of freedom of religion and rule of law and equal protection under the > law. This is an interesting point. 1) Freedom of religion is good only with religions that advocate peace with people with a different religion. I don't believe in freedom of religion for some cannibalistic cult that slay people to eat them. 2) The laws can be changed so they are equal for all but hit their intended targets. For example, forced wedding can be sentenced with life imprisonment. Sexual mutilations can be sentenced with life imprisonment. Any accomplices of these can be sentenced with life imprisonment. Terrorism will be punished with life imprisonment and confiscation of property. All people associating with them can be sentenced for "helping and abetting" or "external association with...". This the civilized way to go. It is this or the uncivilized way we saw in Bosnia (but without the US to save the day for the Muslims). Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 2 20:28:34 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:28:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> Il 01/04/2009 5.03, Rafal Smigrodzki ha scritto: > For the record, I am strongly opposed to any violent actions > infringing on private property, including expulsions, purges and > pogroms of any kind, directed at innocent individuals (i.e. persons > who did not perform any violent activities against other innocent > people). I would find it odious and revolting if such innocent > individuals were harmed under the pretext of being Muslim, foreign, or > under any other morally irrelevant tribal label. > > Rafal > > PS. To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that > the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is > being bandied about here. WTF? Nothing prevent them from changing religion (apart the feat to be killed by their "brothers"). But, what about the innocent Nazis individuals killed by the bombardment during WW2? Would you be against this? Even for the individuals involved in building weapons, feeding the soldiers and doing whatever is needed to let the soldiers to combat? Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 2 21:58:05 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:58:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> Il 01/04/2009 9.25, BillK ha scritto: > Unfortunately Europe needs immigrants, because the original Europeans > have stopped having children and are aging fast. This is because they are taxed as there is no tomorrow by their governments. Pools show they want more children but feel their are not wealth enough to be able to afford them. > It is the demographic timebomb. > Who will be the workers and pay for social security for the > aged? If you think that the Muslims will pay for the social security of the old kafir, you are deluded. IIRC, in England economists have computed the economics of immigration and have concluded that there is no difference. The Englishmen have gained nothing from the immigration. But, I'm sure, many people have gained from the cheap Labour imported. > The future for those populations who stop having children is a > reducing, aging population supported by young workers from immigrant > families. You are deluding yourself. A large part of these Muslims immigrates is helped from the Social Security, because they are in large part unemployable for any productive job because they are uneducated, low skilled and low IQ. Then you add their religion, that teach them to loathe the different, hate him, exploit him and not help him against other Muslims. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 2 22:57:18 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 00:57:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> Il 02/04/2009 11.04, BillK ha scritto: > The two generic problems with free access to drugs are the same as > with free access to anything that might be dangerous in the wrong > hands. Guns, explosives, poisons, drugs, acids, nuclear technology, > nanotechnology, etc. > Do you want the bad people to be able to just walk into Walmart and buy them? Why not? If they can, we can also. If they do, we can do, also. Usually they are less than us. > Do you want the 50% below average intelligence to buy them? Why not? They will harm themselves more than they will harm us. For the lucky ones, we can dispose of them after. > Do you want the insane or temporarily depressed people to buy them? They can buy so many things that can harm them and others that is not a problem. No way a depressed or a insane is able to build something very dangerous. The sane are a greater danger than the insane. > Do you want your estranged wife or furious alienated teenagers to buy them? The furious alienated teenagers are for the insane asylums. The estranged wives are dangerous only when they have a lawyer better than your. > Do you want children to have access to them? (Even if children are > banned from buying them, if they are freely available to everyone, > then children will get them). Natural selection is always working. Shit happen, sometimes. > Freedom (or chaos) is a wild venture into the unknown. Best to try it > in a small society first. Netherlands experimenting with drugs freedom > is a good solution. Let's watch and see what happens. After decades we need to see other? It is boring. It didn't happened anything important. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Apr 2 23:30:20 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:30:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> At 12:57 AM 4/3/2009 +0200, Mirco wrote: >>Do you want your estranged wife or furious alienated teenagers to buy them? > >The furious alienated teenagers are for the insane asylums. This is the extropian list, not the fucking Dept. of Soviet Psychiatry & Gulags. Damien Broderick From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Apr 3 01:33:03 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:33:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Economy: "The Big Takeover". In-Reply-To: <2D878C03793347B3A1C4FC8F0A90CCAE@MyComputer> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com><49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com><580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com><3FBA6B2EE01E45D1BEBB6B3A05A125BD@spike><49D235BB.2030908@rawbw.com> <2D878C03793347B3A1C4FC8F0A90CCAE@MyComputer> Message-ID: <49D5674F.6030601@rawbw.com> John K Clark wrote: > Anyway, at a time like now the last thing on earth you'd want to do is > balance the budget. Hoover did it and turned a garden variety recession > into a decade long worldwide depression. Hoover (and FDR) did turn a garden variety recession into a depression, but they didn't do it by balancing the budget. They did it instead as follows. First, Hoover intimidated companies into not lowering wages and prices. This had never been done before in America, but then America never had anyone so intelligent as Herbert Hoover before. No kidding---high intelligence and its concomitant "can do" attitude is extremely harmful in government officials. This ingeniously precluded a short but very sharp recession such as the country had survived in 1920-21. In fact, during the latter Hoover swore that if he ever became president, no recession of that type would ever be allowed. It is one of the gravest misfortunes of the 20th century that this was one promise that was kept. http://books.google.com/books?id=jA9UAZ2fKeoC&pg=PA272&lpg=PA272&dq=%22it+was+clear+that+the+absurd+policy+of+moral+suasion%22&source=bl&ots=oxv4CqsGId&sig=8gWGD3wIpN9lrXS8BEDWCIrZvMo&hl=en&ei=K2bVSau-Eo68tgPXibifCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1 > And by the way, I wouldn't take anything you read on that website you > recommended very seriously, it's full of crackpot conspiracy theories; > the man who runs it knows how to type and that's about all I can say. That doesn't surprise me much. In analyzing what happened to the budget deficit between 1980 and 2000---attempting to blame Reagan/BushI for the huge deficits and praise Bill Clinton (solely) for the greatly reduced deficits, it is criminal to ignore the costs of the S&L bailouts. (Which, everyone should know, was caused by two things: (1) the meddling by the Federal government in ridiculously guaranteeing $100,000 safety for every depositor no matter how wily his or her bank/savings&loan got (2) deregulating most of the restraints on those wily and opportunistic wheeler-dealers. Lee P.S. By the way, that quote above from Murray Rothbard is typical of the wonderful eye-opening accounts given in that book "A History of Money and Banking in the United States". From lcorbin at rawbw.com Fri Apr 3 01:41:58 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 18:41:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> Alas, so many emails, and so little time, but I did have to read Rafal's: > For the record, I am strongly opposed to any violent actions > infringing on private property, including expulsions, purges and > pogroms of any kind, directed at innocent individuals (i.e. persons > who did not perform any violent activities against other innocent > people). I would find it odious and revolting if such innocent > individuals were harmed under the pretext of being Muslim, foreign, or > under any other morally irrelevant tribal label. Ah, I regret it too. But not so strongly as you. (I also regret root canal surgery---but consider the alternative to be worse, and far less acceptable.) > Rafal > > PS. To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that > the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is > being bandied about here. WTF? WTF? Very simple. Were you living in France, how would the prospect of you and your children living under Sharia strike you? We in the U.S. are lucky. We're only going to be replaced by the Spanish-speaking, who very cooperatively appear to have no problem with how things are done here north of the border. (Oh, of course, we'll have our Cesar Chavez eventually--- but that will be a long time from now, and besides, what happens to the rich white people at that point will only be what they deserve for having allowed it to happen.) Meanwhile, no Frenchman who values the past or future of his country ought to accede to what is going on. It's simply a question of survival of western institutions *at all* in France, though I agree that the cost (of sacrificing temporarily some principles) is very high. Lee From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 04:15:04 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 14:45:04 +1030 Subject: [ExI] free access to drugs (was Re: U.S. Medical Care) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904022115s46192187ib1598b23dc82d4d1@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/3 Damien Broderick : > >> >> >The two generic problems with free access to drugs ... >> >> Mmhhh, yes, this is an old issue. I am no anarco-capitalist > > Wouldn't that be narco-capitalist? ?:) You're a funny bastard :-) -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 04:18:59 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 00:18:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: I wrote: >> PS. To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that >> the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is >> being bandied about here. WTF? > > WTF? Very simple. Were you living in France, how would > the prospect of you and your children living under Sharia > strike you? ### To repeat "WTF?" - what are you talking about? What is the chain of reasoning that leads you from "I live in France" to "Muslims need to be destroyed"? Do you think that all Muslims are immoral? You are not making any sense, Lee. Spell out in detail how being an innocent, law-abiding Muslim in France justifies being persecuted. And for the sake of completeness, tell me why being Muslim in the US does not justify persecution. Or does it? -------------------------- > Meanwhile, no Frenchman who values the past or future of > his country ought to accede to what is going on. It's > simply a question of survival of western institutions > *at all* in France, though I agree that the cost (of > sacrificing temporarily some principles) is very high. ### Ah, yeah, lets kill or otherwise destroy a million innocent people, since they believe in some mumbo-jumbo. Reminds me of Robert Bradbury's idea of nuking random cities in Afghanistan. You feel some vague sense of discomfort with a group, so let's just kill them all. Brilliant. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 04:25:11 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 00:25:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 4:28 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > > Nothing prevent them from changing religion (apart the feat to be killed by > their "brothers"). ### What is that supposed to mean? ---------------- > > But, what about the innocent Nazis individuals killed by the bombardment > during WW2? Would you be against this? Even for the individuals involved in > building weapons, feeding the soldiers and doing whatever is needed to let > the soldiers to combat? > ### What does being Muslim have to do with being Nazi? It's completely surreal - guys claiming to be libertarian want to indiscriminately destroy millions of people, and coming up with some bullshit analogies to Nazis. Actually, why do I bother - you mentioned Nazis first, so I invoke Godwin's Law. You lost the discussion. Rafal From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 04:28:57 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 14:58:57 +1030 Subject: [ExI] For Spike: Ant slaves' murderous rebellions Message-ID: <710b78fc0904022128r5296f7c2kbeb37548b34f547f@mail.gmail.com> http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/01/ant-slaves-murderous.html Ant slaves' murderous rebellions Cory Doctorow >From last month's journal Evolution, a fascinating tale of slave rebellion among ants kidnapped by other ant species and forced to work for the rival colony. When these youngsters mature, they take on the odour of their abductors and become the servants of the enslaving queen. They take over the jobs of maintaining the colony and caring for its larvae even though they are from another species; they even take part in raids themselves. But like all slave-traders, P.americanus faces rebellions. Some of its victims (ants from the genus Temnothorax) strike back with murderous larvae. Alexandra Achenbach and Susanne Foitzik from Ludwig Maximillians Universty in Munich found that some of the kidnapped workers don't bow to the whims of their new queen. Once they have matured, they start killing the pupae of their captors, destroying as many as two-thirds of the colony's brood... Two-thirds of pupae died before they hatched. The mortality rate was even higher (83%) for pupae containing queens, but very low (3%) for those containing males. The duo saw that the captives were deliberately killing the healthy pupae. In about 30% of cases, as in the photo, the workers would gang up to literally pull the developing ants apart. Another 53% of the pupae were killed by neglect, by workers who moved them out of the nest chamber. These murders were solely the acts of the slaves. No P.americanus worker ever lifted a mandible against its own pupae. Nor are the deaths a reflection of a generally poor standard of care on the part of Temnothorax. In their own colonies, the majority of pupae hatched, with just 3-10% dying before that happened. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 04:43:16 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 15:13:16 +1030 Subject: [ExI] death of print news: was RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek> <49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904022143t1ba7ab6dv9bcfb0028e027b78@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/3 spike : > > >> ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton >> >> ...I would not want a reporter on a deadline ... to mistakenly think... > Fred > > > Fred, your post was actually about something else but your comment caused me > to recognize a big advantage to the coming death of print news. ?The news > cycle manipulation and rush to a particular deadline that you describe both > go away, being artifacts of print news cycles. ?Traditionally these have > been one issue per day, with special arrangements on weekends. ?Now, news > stories can go up on the site whenever the reporter is satisfied she has the > facts, instead of when some arbitrary schedule demands. ?Rebuttals can be > offered quickly on politically opposite news sites. ?Balanced reporting will > be accomplished, and misinformation can be greatly reduced. > > Trees will be saved too, and the furry little animals that live in them. > > May we bury the print news quickly, without mourning their passing. > > spike Amen brother! Related: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating piracy of Dave Barry?s popular column, which was published by the Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a 2000-person strong mailing list also reading pirated versions; and a teenager in the Midwest who was doing some of the copying himself, because he loved Barry?s work so much he wanted everybody to be able to read it. One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of ?When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.? I think about that conversation a lot these days. The problem newspapers face isn?t that they didn?t see the internet coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with not just one plan but several. One was to partner with companies like America Online, a fast-growing subscription service that was less chaotic than the open internet. Another plan was to educate the public about the behaviors required of them by copyright law. New payment models such as micropayments were proposed. Alternatively, they could pursue the profit margins enjoyed by radio and TV, if they became purely ad-supported. Still another plan was to convince tech firms to make their hardware and software less capable of sharing, or to partner with the businesses running data networks to achieve the same goal. Then there was the nuclear option: sue copyright infringers directly, making an example of them. As these ideas were articulated, there was intense debate about the merits of various scenarios. Would DRM or walled gardens work better? Shouldn?t we try a carrot-and-stick approach, with education and prosecution? And so on. In all this conversation, there was one scenario that was widely regarded as unthinkable, a scenario that didn?t get much discussion in the nation?s newsrooms, for the obvious reason. The unthinkable scenario unfolded something like this: The ability to share content wouldn?t shrink, it would grow. Walled gardens would prove unpopular. Digital advertising would reduce inefficiencies, and therefore profits. Dislike of micropayments would prevent widespread use. People would resist being educated to act against their own desires. Old habits of advertisers and readers would not transfer online. Even ferocious litigation would be inadequate to constrain massive, sustained law-breaking. (Prohibition redux.) Hardware and software vendors would not regard copyright holders as allies, nor would they regard customers as enemies. DRM?s requirement that the attacker be allowed to decode the content would be an insuperable flaw. And, per Thompson, suing people who love something so much they want to share it would piss them off. Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven?t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors. When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away. * * * The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ?90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: ?Here?s how we?re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!? The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes (save the unthinkable one) was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift. As a result, the conversation has degenerated into the enthusiastic grasping at straws, pursued by skeptical responses. ?The Wall Street Journal has a paywall, so we can too!? (Financial information is one of the few kinds of information whose recipients don?t want to share.) ?Micropayments work for iTunes, so they will work for us!? (Micropayments work only where the provider can avoid competitive business models.) ?The New York Times should charge for content!? (They?ve tried, with QPass and later TimesSelect.) ?Cook?s Illustrated and Consumer Reports are doing fine on subscriptions!? (Those publications forgo ad revenues; users are paying not just for content but for unimpeachability.) ?We?ll form a cartel!? (?and hand a competitive advantage to every ad-supported media firm in the world.) Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know ?If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?? To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke. With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves ? the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public ? has stopped being a problem. * * * Elizabeth Eisenstein?s magisterial treatment of Gutenberg?s invention, The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, opens with a recounting of her research into the early history of the printing press. She was able to find many descriptions of life in the early 1400s, the era before movable type. Literacy was limited, the Catholic Church was the pan-European political force, Mass was in Latin, and the average book was the Bible. She was also able to find endless descriptions of life in the late 1500s, after Gutenberg?s invention had started to spread. Literacy was on the rise, as were books written in contemporary languages, Copernicus had published his epochal work on astronomy, and Martin Luther?s use of the press to reform the Church was upending both religious and political stability. What Eisenstein focused on, though, was how many historians ignored the transition from one era to the other. To describe the world before or after the spread of print was child?s play; those dates were safely distanced from upheaval. But what was happening in 1500? The hard question Eisenstein?s book asks is ?How did we get from the world before the printing press to the world after it? What was the revolution itself like?? Chaotic, as it turns out. The Bible was translated into local languages; was this an educational boon or the work of the devil? Erotic novels appeared, prompting the same set of questions. Copies of Aristotle and Galen circulated widely, but direct encounter with the relevant texts revealed that the two sources clashed, tarnishing faith in the Ancients. As novelty spread, old institutions seemed exhausted while new ones seemed untrustworthy; as a result, people almost literally didn?t know what to think. If you can?t trust Aristotle, who can you trust? During the wrenching transition to print, experiments were only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type. What seemed like a minor change ? take a book and shrink it ? was in retrospect a key innovation in the democratization of the printed word. As books became cheaper, more portable, and therefore more desirable, they expanded the market for all publishers, heightening the value of literacy still further. That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn?t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can?t predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify. And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won?t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren?t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to. There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie. * * * If you want to know why newspapers are in such trouble, the most salient fact is this: Printing presses are terrifically expensive to set up and to run. This bit of economics, normal since Gutenberg, limits competition while creating positive returns to scale for the press owner, a happy pair of economic effects that feed on each other. In a notional town with two perfectly balanced newspapers, one paper would eventually generate some small advantage ? a breaking story, a key interview ? at which point both advertisers and readers would come to prefer it, however slightly. That paper would in turn find it easier to capture the next dollar of advertising, at lower expense, than the competition. This would increase its dominance, which would further deepen those preferences, repeat chorus. The end result is either geographic or demographic segmentation among papers, or one paper holding a monopoly on the local mainstream audience. For a long time, longer than anyone in the newspaper business has been alive in fact, print journalism has been intertwined with these economics. The expense of printing created an environment where Wal-Mart was willing to subsidize the Baghdad bureau. This wasn?t because of any deep link between advertising and reporting, nor was it about any real desire on the part of Wal-Mart to have their marketing budget go to international correspondents. It was just an accident. Advertisers had little choice other than to have their money used that way, since they didn?t really have any other vehicle for display ads. The old difficulties and costs of printing forced everyone doing it into a similar set of organizational models; it was this similarity that made us regard Daily Racing Form and L?Osservatore Romano as being in the same business. That the relationship between advertisers, publishers, and journalists has been ratified by a century of cultural practice doesn?t make it any less accidental. The competition-deflecting effects of printing cost got destroyed by the internet, where everyone pays for the infrastructure, and then everyone gets to use it. And when Wal-Mart, and the local Maytag dealer, and the law firm hiring a secretary, and that kid down the block selling his bike, were all able to use that infrastructure to get out of their old relationship with the publisher, they did. They?d never really signed up to fund the Baghdad bureau anyway. * * * Print media does much of society?s heavy journalistic lifting, from flooding the zone ? covering every angle of a huge story ? to the daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case. This coverage creates benefits even for people who aren?t newspaper readers, because the work of print journalists is used by everyone from politicians to district attorneys to talk radio hosts to bloggers. The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; ?You?re gonna miss us when we?re gone!? has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs? I don?t know. Nobody knows. We?re collectively living through 1500, when it?s easier to see what?s broken than what will replace it. The internet turns 40 this fall. Access by the general public is less than half that age. Web use, as a normal part of life for a majority of the developed world, is less than half that age. We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can?t predict what will happen. Imagine, in 1996, asking some net-savvy soul to expound on the potential of craigslist, then a year old and not yet incorporated. The answer you?d almost certainly have gotten would be extrapolation: ?Mailing lists can be powerful tools?, ?Social effects are intertwining with digital networks?, blah blah blah. What no one would have told you, could have told you, was what actually happened: craiglist became a critical piece of infrastructure. Not the idea of craigslist, or the business model, or even the software driving it. Craigslist itself spread to cover hundreds of cities and has become a part of public consciousness about what is now possible. Experiments are only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. In craigslist?s gradual shift from ?interesting if minor? to ?essential and transformative?, there is one possible answer to the question ?If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?? The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did, as octavo volumes did. Journalism has always been subsidized. Sometimes it?s been Wal-Mart and the kid with the bike. Sometimes it?s been Richard Mellon Scaife. Increasingly, it?s you and me, donating our time. The list of models that are obviously working today, like Consumer Reports and NPR, like ProPublica and WikiLeaks, can?t be expanded to cover any general case, but then nothing is going to cover the general case. Society doesn?t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That?s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we?re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead. When we shift our attention from ?save newspapers? to ?save society?, the imperative changes from ?preserve the current institutions? to ?do whatever works.? And what works today isn?t the same as what used to work. We don?t know who the Aldus Manutius of the current age is. It could be Craig Newmark, or Caterina Fake. It could be Martin Nisenholtz, or Emily Bell. It could be some 19 year old kid few of us have heard of, working on something we won?t recognize as vital until a decade hence. Any experiment, though, designed to provide new models for journalism is going to be an improvement over hiding from the real, especially in a year when, for many papers, the unthinkable future is already in the past. For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as researchers and writers. Many of these models will rely on sponsorship or grants or endowments instead of revenues. Many of these models will rely on excitable 14 year olds distributing the results. Many of these models will fail. No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From moulton at moulton.com Fri Apr 3 04:43:27 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 21:43:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1238733807.5478.788.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-02 at 18:41 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote: > (Oh, of course, we'll have our Cesar Chavez eventually--- We already had Cesar Chavez; he was born in 1927 and died in 1993. I am not going to bother replying in detail to the rest of your message because it not worth my time at the moment to correct all of your errors. Fred From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 3 04:55:17 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 21:55:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] For Spike: Ant slaves' murderous rebellions In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904022128r5296f7c2kbeb37548b34f547f@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0904022128r5296f7c2kbeb37548b34f547f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Emlyn > Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:29 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] For Spike: Ant slaves' murderous rebellions > > http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/01/ant-slaves-murderous.html > > Ant slaves' murderous rebellions > Cory Doctorow > > >From last month's journal Evolution, a fascinating tale of slave > rebellion among ants kidnapped by other ant species and > forced to work for the rival colony. ... > Emlyn Coool! Thanks Emlyn. The following paragraphs are taken from the stunning seventh chapter of Darwin's Origin of Species. I am in awe of Darwin and his contemporaries in their thoroughness of observation of ants: http://www.literature.org/authors/darwin-charles/the-origin-of-species/chapt er-07.html Slave-making instinct. This remarkable instinct was first discovered in the Formica (Polyerges) rufescens by Pierre Huber, a better observer even than his celebrated father. This ant is absolutely dependent on its slaves; without their aid, the species would certainly become extinct in a single year. The males and fertile females do no work. The workers or sterile females, though most energetic and courageous in capturing slaves, do no other work. They are incapable of making their own nests, or of feeding their own larvae. When the old nest is found inconvenient, and they have to migrate, it is the slaves which determine the migration, and actually carry their masters in their jaws. So utterly helpless are the masters, that when Huber shut up thirty of them without a slave, but with plenty of the food which they like best, and with their larvae and pupae to stimulate them to work, they did nothing; they could not even feed themselves, and many perished of hunger. Huber then introduced a single slave (F. fusca), and she instantly set to work, fed and saved the survivors; made some cells and tended the larvae, and put all to rights. What can be more extraordinary than these well-ascertained facts? If we had not known of any other slave-making ant, it would have been hopeless to have speculated how so wonderful an instinct could have been perfected. Formica sanguinea was likewise first discovered by P. Huber to be a slave-making ant. This species is found in the southern parts of England, and its habits have been attended to by Mr. F. Smith, of the British Museum, to whom I am much indebted for information on this and other subjects. Although fully trusting to the statements of Huber and Mr. Smith, I tried to approach the subject in a sceptical frame of mind, as any one may well be excused for doubting the truth of so extraordinary and odious an instinct as that of making slaves. Hence I will give the observations which I have made myself made, in some little detail. I opened fourteen nests of F. sanguinea, and found a few slaves in all. Males and fertile females of the slave-species are found only in their own proper communities, and have never been observed in the nests of F. sanguinea. The slaves are black and not above half the size of their red masters, so that the contrast in their appearance is very great. When the nest is slightly disturbed, the slaves occasionally come out, and like their masters are much agitated and defend their nest: when the nest is much disturbed and the larvae and pupae are exposed, the slaves work energetically with their masters in carrying them away to a place of safety. Hence, it is clear, that the slaves feel quite at home. During the months of June and July, on three successive years, I have watched for many hours several nests in Surrey and Sussex, and never saw a slave either leave or enter a nest. As, during these months, the slaves are very few in number, I thought that they might behave differently when more numerous; but Mr. Smith informs me that he has watched the nests at various hours during May, June and August, both in Surrey and Hampshire, and has never seen the slaves, though present in large numbers in August, either leave or enter the nest. Hence he considers them as strictly household slaves. The masters, on the other hand, may be constantly seen bringing in materials for the nest, and food of all kinds. During the present year, however, in the month of July, I came across a community with an unusually large stock of slaves, and I observed a few slaves mingled with their masters leaving the nest, and marching along the same road to a tall Scotch-fir-tree, twenty-five yards distant, which they ascended together, probably in search of aphides or cocci. According to Huber, who had ample opportunities for observation, in Switzerland the slaves habitually work with their masters in making the nest, and they alone open and close the doors in the morning and evening; and, as Huber expressly states, their principal office is to search for aphides. This difference in the usual habits of the masters and slaves in the two countries, probably depends merely on the slaves being captured in greater numbers in Switzerland than in England. One day I fortunately chanced to witness a migration from one nest to another, and it was a most interesting spectacle to behold the masters carefully carrying, as Huber has described, their slaves in their jaws. Another day my attention was struck by about a score of the slave-makers haunting the same spot, and evidently not in search of food; they approached and were vigorously repulsed by an independent community of the slave species (F. fusca); sometimes as many as three of these ants clinging to the legs of the slave-making F. sanguinea. The latter ruthlessly killed their small opponents, and carried their dead bodies as food to their nest, twenty-nine yards distant; but they were prevented from getting any pupae to rear as slaves. I then dug up a small parcel of the pupae of F. fusca from another nest, and put them down on a bare spot near the place of combat; they were eagerly seized, and carried off by the tyrants, who perhaps fancied that, after all, they had been victorious in their late combat. At the same time I laid on the same place a small parcel of the pupae of another species, F. flava, with a few of these little yellow ants still clinging to the fragments of the nest. This species is sometimes, though rarely, made into slaves, as has been described by Mr Smith. Although so small a species, it is very courageous, and I have seen it ferociously attack other ants. In one instance I found to my surprise an independent community of F. flava under a stone beneath a nest of the slave-making F. sanguinea; and when I had accidentally disturbed both nests, the little ants attacked their big neighbours with surprising courage. Now I was curious to ascertain whether F. sanguinea could distinguish the pupae of F. fusca, which they habitually make into slaves, from those of the little and furious F. flava, which they rarely capture, and it was evident that they did at once distinguish them: for we have seen that they eagerly and instantly seized the pupae of F. fusca, whereas they were much terrified when they came across the pupae, or even the earth from the nest of F. flava, and quickly ran away; but in about a quarter of an hour, shortly after all the little yellow ants had crawled away, they took heart and carried off the pupae. One evening I visited another community of F. sanguinea, and found a number of these ants entering their nest, carrying the dead bodies of F. fusca (showing that it was not a migration) and numerous pupae. I traced the returning file burthened with booty, for about forty yards, to a very thick clump of heath. whence I saw the last individual of F. sanguinea emerge, carrying a pupa; but I was not able to find the desolated nest in the thick heath. The nest, however, must have been close at hand, for two or three individuals of F. fusca were rushing about in the greatest agitation, and one was perched motionless with its own pupa in its mouth on the top of a spray of heath over its ravaged home... From moulton at moulton.com Fri Apr 3 05:00:06 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:00:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 00:25 -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > It's completely surreal - guys claiming to be libertarian want to > indiscriminately destroy millions of people, and coming up with some > bullshit analogies to Nazis. Neither Lee nor painlord2k are libertarians. There seems to be an ongoing problem with persons calling themselves libertarian or free-market or some similar term when in actuality they are usually uninformed, confused or dishonest. And further what they have posting recently in this thread is not even remotely Extropian. Fred From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 3 05:23:14 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 22:23:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] For Spike: Ant slaves' murderous rebellions In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904022128r5296f7c2kbeb37548b34f547f@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0904022128r5296f7c2kbeb37548b34f547f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7FF32804B65C4BB393F9B0F018A65574@spike> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Emlyn > Sent: Thursday, April 02, 2009 9:29 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] For Spike: Ant slaves' murderous rebellions > > http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/01/ant-slaves-murderous.html > > Ant slaves' murderous rebellions > Cory Doctorow > > >From last month's journal Evolution, a fascinating tale of slave > rebellion among ants kidnapped by other ant species and > forced to work for the rival colony. ... > Emlyn > Emlyn, since I listened to Dawkins reading Darwin about a month ago, I have returned to an idea I worked on about 10 yrs ago, the creation of a special microscope for doing ant observations in the wild. Since I first started looking at CCD array cameras for astronomy about 20 yrs ago, the field has enjoyed a dazzling advancement. Perhaps many of you have seen digital cameras improve greatly over the past couple decades. Likewise, advances in digital CCD arrays have enabled the amateur astronomer to view the heavens in the comfort and warmth of her own home in front of her computer. Here's the idea: create a microscope that will allow me to observe ants under about a 20x magnification with a field of view of perhaps two cm diameter. That part is easy and even commercially available, but what I really want to do is try to fix up some image recognition software so that the computer could count the number and speed of ants passing in each direction. I also want to see if I could observe that phenom that Darwin mentions in chapter 7 of OoS, that of ants masturbating aphids to get their nectar. Well, loosely speaking. Recall last spring I was doing some experiments with goo rings, trying to determine if ants cut off from the ground were falling out of the trees or intentionally leaping. That series of experiments turned out to be inconclusive, as my mate kept interfering by taking away my bridge over the goo every time I went on a business trip. Shamelessly unrepentant is she with whom I celebrated our 25th anniversary last week. I intend to try again in a few weeks when ant season starts up again, and this time I hope to keep my good wife's grubby paws off of my ant experiments. I have another series of experiments I want to do with double straws. The ants are cut off from the ground with a goo ring around the trunk. They are then presented with two soda straws, side by side, leading from the fence to the tree. The outside of the straws are gooed so the ants must go inside the straws. The soda straws are too small for two ants to pass each other inside. So now they can't do much aphid masturbation unless they figure out how to make one straw the in door and the other the out door. If they are smart enough to figure out a short one-way split, then I will have a bunch of new experiments, but actually I doubt they will figure it out. I have seen ant trails hundreds of times, yea thousands, but I don't recall ever seeing the southbound ants split from the northbounders. I have seen ant trails split and rejoin, but all the sub-branches contain both directioners. Anyone seen southbounders split from northbounders? spike From moulton at moulton.com Fri Apr 3 05:30:40 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 02 Apr 2009 22:30:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of print news: was RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904022143t1ba7ab6dv9bcfb0028e027b78@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek> <49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> <710b78fc0904022143t1ba7ab6dv9bcfb0028e027b78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1238736640.5478.824.camel@hayek> Emyln Thanks for forwarding the article. Lots of interesting morsels to consider. Fred On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 15:13 +1030, Emlyn wrote: > 2009/4/3 spike : > > > > > >> ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton > >> > >> ...I would not want a reporter on a deadline ... to mistakenly think... > > Fred > > > > > > Fred, your post was actually about something else but your comment caused me > > to recognize a big advantage to the coming death of print news. The news > > cycle manipulation and rush to a particular deadline that you describe both > > go away, being artifacts of print news cycles. Traditionally these have > > been one issue per day, with special arrangements on weekends. Now, news > > stories can go up on the site whenever the reporter is satisfied she has the > > facts, instead of when some arbitrary schedule demands. Rebuttals can be > > offered quickly on politically opposite news sites. Balanced reporting will > > be accomplished, and misinformation can be greatly reduced. > > > > Trees will be saved too, and the furry little animals that live in them. > > > > May we bury the print news quickly, without mourning their passing. > > > > spike > > Amen brother! > > Related: > http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/ > > Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable > > Back in 1993, the Knight-Ridder newspaper chain began investigating > piracy of Dave Barry?s popular column, which was published by the > Miami Herald and syndicated widely. In the course of tracking down the > sources of unlicensed distribution, they found many things, including > the copying of his column to alt.fan.dave_barry on usenet; a > 2000-person strong mailing list also reading pirated versions; and a > teenager in the Midwest who was doing some of the copying himself, > because he loved Barry?s work so much he wanted everybody to be able > to read it. > > One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy > Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I > remember Thompson saying something to the effect of ?When a 14 year > old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he > hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.? I think > about that conversation a lot these days. > > The problem newspapers face isn?t that they didn?t see the internet > coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that > they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came > up with not just one plan but several. One was to partner with > companies like America Online, a fast-growing subscription service > that was less chaotic than the open internet. Another plan was to > educate the public about the behaviors required of them by copyright > law. New payment models such as micropayments were proposed. > Alternatively, they could pursue the profit margins enjoyed by radio > and TV, if they became purely ad-supported. Still another plan was to > convince tech firms to make their hardware and software less capable > of sharing, or to partner with the businesses running data networks to > achieve the same goal. Then there was the nuclear option: sue > copyright infringers directly, making an example of them. > > As these ideas were articulated, there was intense debate about the > merits of various scenarios. Would DRM or walled gardens work better? > Shouldn?t we try a carrot-and-stick approach, with education and > prosecution? And so on. In all this conversation, there was one > scenario that was widely regarded as unthinkable, a scenario that > didn?t get much discussion in the nation?s newsrooms, for the obvious > reason. > > The unthinkable scenario unfolded something like this: The ability to > share content wouldn?t shrink, it would grow. Walled gardens would > prove unpopular. Digital advertising would reduce inefficiencies, and > therefore profits. Dislike of micropayments would prevent widespread > use. People would resist being educated to act against their own > desires. Old habits of advertisers and readers would not transfer > online. Even ferocious litigation would be inadequate to constrain > massive, sustained law-breaking. (Prohibition redux.) Hardware and > software vendors would not regard copyright holders as allies, nor > would they regard customers as enemies. DRM?s requirement that the > attacker be allowed to decode the content would be an insuperable > flaw. And, per Thompson, suing people who love something so much they > want to share it would piss them off. > > Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary > times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are > seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative > futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven?t > been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the > ones simply looking out the window and noticing that the real world > was increasingly resembling the unthinkable scenario. These people > were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people > spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic > micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded > not as charlatans but saviors. > > When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in > an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have > the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact > happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be > ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the > fabulists has different effects on different industries at different > times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of their most > passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in > which the industry they knew is visibly going away. > > * * * > > The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ?90s is that > they were, at base, all the same plan: ?Here?s how we?re going to > preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect > copies!? The details differed, but the core assumption behind all > imagined outcomes (save the unthinkable one) was that the > organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for > publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and > only needed a digital facelift. As a result, the conversation has > degenerated into the enthusiastic grasping at straws, pursued by > skeptical responses. > > ?The Wall Street Journal has a paywall, so we can too!? (Financial > information is one of the few kinds of information whose recipients > don?t want to share.) ?Micropayments work for iTunes, so they will > work for us!? (Micropayments work only where the provider can avoid > competitive business models.) ?The New York Times should charge for > content!? (They?ve tried, with QPass and later TimesSelect.) ?Cook?s > Illustrated and Consumer Reports are doing fine on subscriptions!? > (Those publications forgo ad revenues; users are paying not just for > content but for unimpeachability.) ?We?ll form a cartel!? (?and hand a > competitive advantage to every ad-supported media firm in the world.) > > Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving > newspapers demanding to know ?If the old model is broken, what will > work in its place?? To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will > work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the > internet just broke. > > With the old economics destroyed, organizational forms perfected for > industrial production have to be replaced with structures optimized > for digital data. It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about > a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves ? > the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something > available to the public ? has stopped being a problem. > > * * * > > Elizabeth Eisenstein?s magisterial treatment of Gutenberg?s invention, > The Printing Press as an Agent of Change, opens with a recounting of > her research into the early history of the printing press. She was > able to find many descriptions of life in the early 1400s, the era > before movable type. Literacy was limited, the Catholic Church was the > pan-European political force, Mass was in Latin, and the average book > was the Bible. She was also able to find endless descriptions of life > in the late 1500s, after Gutenberg?s invention had started to spread. > Literacy was on the rise, as were books written in contemporary > languages, Copernicus had published his epochal work on astronomy, and > Martin Luther?s use of the press to reform the Church was upending > both religious and political stability. > > What Eisenstein focused on, though, was how many historians ignored > the transition from one era to the other. To describe the world before > or after the spread of print was child?s play; those dates were safely > distanced from upheaval. But what was happening in 1500? The hard > question Eisenstein?s book asks is ?How did we get from the world > before the printing press to the world after it? What was the > revolution itself like?? > > Chaotic, as it turns out. The Bible was translated into local > languages; was this an educational boon or the work of the devil? > Erotic novels appeared, prompting the same set of questions. Copies of > Aristotle and Galen circulated widely, but direct encounter with the > relevant texts revealed that the two sources clashed, tarnishing faith > in the Ancients. As novelty spread, old institutions seemed exhausted > while new ones seemed untrustworthy; as a result, people almost > literally didn?t know what to think. If you can?t trust Aristotle, who > can you trust? > > During the wrenching transition to print, experiments were only > revealed in retrospect to be turning points. Aldus Manutius, the > Venetian printer and publisher, invented the smaller octavo volume > along with italic type. What seemed like a minor change ? take a book > and shrink it ? was in retrospect a key innovation in the > democratization of the printed word. As books became cheaper, more > portable, and therefore more desirable, they expanded the market for > all publishers, heightening the value of literacy still further. > > That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken > faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any > given experiment isn?t apparent at the moment it appears; big changes > stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can?t predict > what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must > be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the > agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that > whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient > social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly > replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify. > > And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to > replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are > not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that > old systems won?t break before new systems are in place. They are > demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren?t in peril, > that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading > information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. > They are demanding to be lied to. > > There are fewer and fewer people who can convincingly tell such a lie. > > * * * > > If you want to know why newspapers are in such trouble, the most > salient fact is this: Printing presses are terrifically expensive to > set up and to run. This bit of economics, normal since Gutenberg, > limits competition while creating positive returns to scale for the > press owner, a happy pair of economic effects that feed on each other. > In a notional town with two perfectly balanced newspapers, one paper > would eventually generate some small advantage ? a breaking story, a > key interview ? at which point both advertisers and readers would come > to prefer it, however slightly. That paper would in turn find it > easier to capture the next dollar of advertising, at lower expense, > than the competition. This would increase its dominance, which would > further deepen those preferences, repeat chorus. The end result is > either geographic or demographic segmentation among papers, or one > paper holding a monopoly on the local mainstream audience. > > For a long time, longer than anyone in the newspaper business has been > alive in fact, print journalism has been intertwined with these > economics. The expense of printing created an environment where > Wal-Mart was willing to subsidize the Baghdad bureau. This wasn?t > because of any deep link between advertising and reporting, nor was it > about any real desire on the part of Wal-Mart to have their marketing > budget go to international correspondents. It was just an accident. > Advertisers had little choice other than to have their money used that > way, since they didn?t really have any other vehicle for display ads. > > The old difficulties and costs of printing forced everyone doing it > into a similar set of organizational models; it was this similarity > that made us regard Daily Racing Form and L?Osservatore Romano as > being in the same business. That the relationship between advertisers, > publishers, and journalists has been ratified by a century of cultural > practice doesn?t make it any less accidental. > > The competition-deflecting effects of printing cost got destroyed by > the internet, where everyone pays for the infrastructure, and then > everyone gets to use it. And when Wal-Mart, and the local Maytag > dealer, and the law firm hiring a secretary, and that kid down the > block selling his bike, were all able to use that infrastructure to > get out of their old relationship with the publisher, they did. They?d > never really signed up to fund the Baghdad bureau anyway. > > * * * > > Print media does much of society?s heavy journalistic lifting, from > flooding the zone ? covering every angle of a huge story ? to the > daily grind of attending the City Council meeting, just in case. This > coverage creates benefits even for people who aren?t newspaper > readers, because the work of print journalists is used by everyone > from politicians to district attorneys to talk radio hosts to > bloggers. The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit > society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at > hand; ?You?re gonna miss us when we?re gone!? has never been much of a > business model. So who covers all that news if some significant > fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs? > > I don?t know. Nobody knows. We?re collectively living through 1500, > when it?s easier to see what?s broken than what will replace it. The > internet turns 40 this fall. Access by the general public is less than > half that age. Web use, as a normal part of life for a majority of the > developed world, is less than half that age. We just got here. Even > the revolutionaries can?t predict what will happen. > > Imagine, in 1996, asking some net-savvy soul to expound on the > potential of craigslist, then a year old and not yet incorporated. The > answer you?d almost certainly have gotten would be extrapolation: > ?Mailing lists can be powerful tools?, ?Social effects are > intertwining with digital networks?, blah blah blah. What no one would > have told you, could have told you, was what actually happened: > craiglist became a critical piece of infrastructure. Not the idea of > craigslist, or the business model, or even the software driving it. > Craigslist itself spread to cover hundreds of cities and has become a > part of public consciousness about what is now possible. Experiments > are only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. > > In craigslist?s gradual shift from ?interesting if minor? to > ?essential and transformative?, there is one possible answer to the > question ?If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?? > The answer is: Nothing will work, but everything might. Now is the > time for experiments, lots and lots of experiments, each of which will > seem as minor at launch as craigslist did, as Wikipedia did, as octavo > volumes did. > > Journalism has always been subsidized. Sometimes it?s been Wal-Mart > and the kid with the bike. Sometimes it?s been Richard Mellon Scaife. > Increasingly, it?s you and me, donating our time. The list of models > that are obviously working today, like Consumer Reports and NPR, like > ProPublica and WikiLeaks, can?t be expanded to cover any general case, > but then nothing is going to cover the general case. > > Society doesn?t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a > century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen > newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. > That?s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as > it is stopping before our eyes, we?re going to need lots of other ways > to strengthen journalism instead. > > When we shift our attention from ?save newspapers? to ?save society?, > the imperative changes from ?preserve the current institutions? to ?do > whatever works.? And what works today isn?t the same as what used to > work. > > We don?t know who the Aldus Manutius of the current age is. It could > be Craig Newmark, or Caterina Fake. It could be Martin Nisenholtz, or > Emily Bell. It could be some 19 year old kid few of us have heard of, > working on something we won?t recognize as vital until a decade hence. > Any experiment, though, designed to provide new models for journalism > is going to be an improvement over hiding from the real, especially in > a year when, for many papers, the unthinkable future is already in the > past. > > For the next few decades, journalism will be made up of overlapping > special cases. Many of these models will rely on amateurs as > researchers and writers. Many of these models will rely on sponsorship > or grants or endowments instead of revenues. Many of these models will > rely on excitable 14 year olds distributing the results. Many of these > models will fail. No one experiment is going to replace what we are > now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the > collection of new experiments that do work might give us the > journalism we need. > > From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 3 06:01:09 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 23:01:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of print news: was RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: <1238736640.5478.824.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek><49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek><5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike><710b78fc0904022143t1ba7ab6dv9bcfb0028e027b78@mail.gmail.com> <1238736640.5478.824.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <7BC97C96C9D74CBFB53B4C97840CB9B5@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton ... > > Emyln > > Thanks for forwarding the article. > > Lots of interesting morsels to consider. > > Fred > > On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 15:13 +1030, Emlyn wrote: > > 2009/4/3 spike : > > > > > > > > >> ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton > > >> > > >> ...I would not want a reporter on a deadline ... to > mistakenly think... > > > Fred Ja, the article mentions specifically Knight Ridder, which once published our local paper the San Jose Merky News. Knight Ridder was bought by McClatchy in March 2006, in a stunning example of bad corporate decision making. Four years ago today, McClatchy stock was worth 74 dollars a share. Today it closed at 69 cents. A share of newspaper stock is now worth less than a single daily issue of the newspaper. CraigsList provides free sales ads. Community online bulletin boards have obviated much of the local content. CNN and Fox cover the national and world headlines. We can even get comics, sudoku and daily crosswords online, and I don't have a birdcage, so I really don't know why we still need to spill all that messy ink and slay perfectly healthy trees in which countless ants are otherwise cheerfully masturbating aphids. spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 06:32:41 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 17:02:41 +1030 Subject: [ExI] death of print news: was RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7BC97C96C9D74CBFB53B4C97840CB9B5@spike> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek> <49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> <710b78fc0904022143t1ba7ab6dv9bcfb0028e027b78@mail.gmail.com> <1238736640.5478.824.camel@hayek> <7BC97C96C9D74CBFB53B4C97840CB9B5@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904022332r1f61d23bqe400a88ddc06a16a@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/3 spike : > > >> ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton > ... >> >> Emyln >> >> Thanks for forwarding the article. >> >> Lots of interesting morsels to consider. >> >> Fred >> >> On Fri, 2009-04-03 at 15:13 +1030, Emlyn wrote: >> > 2009/4/3 spike : >> > > >> > > >> > >> ...On Behalf Of Fred C. Moulton >> > >> >> > >> ...I would not want a reporter on a deadline ... to >> mistakenly think... >> > > Fred > > > Ja, the article mentions specifically Knight Ridder, which once published > our local paper the San Jose Merky News. ?Knight Ridder was bought by > McClatchy in March 2006, in a stunning example of bad corporate decision > making. ?Four years ago today, McClatchy stock was worth 74 dollars a share. > Today it closed at 69 cents. ?A share of newspaper stock is now worth less > than a single daily issue of the newspaper. > > CraigsList provides free sales ads. ?Community online bulletin boards have > obviated much of the local content. ?CNN and Fox cover the national and > world headlines. ?We can even get comics, sudoku and daily crosswords > online, and I don't have a birdcage, so I really don't know why we still > need to spill all that messy ink and slay perfectly healthy trees in which > countless ants are otherwise cheerfully masturbating aphids. > > spike In my latest book package from Amazon (arrived last night, excellent!), was Clay Shirky's "Here Comes Everybody". Really a very good book so far, my only quibble being that he moves quite slowly (but then if you haven't been keeping up with this stuff, that's probably an asset). Most salient point so far: Transaction costs for forming groups are dropping / have dropped to zero, thus the raison d'etre for forming hierarchical organizations is undermined. On a masturbation related tangent: I have an annual singing engagement doing the easter services for a local Anglican church (read C of E or maybe Episcopalians in the US??). At a rehearsal last night the regular choristers were discussing a recent sermon that the priest delivered for lent, something about the "pleasure principle" (???), and that they are allowed to enjoy orgasms and to masturbate. Now you have to realize that this is no young hipster set, more the hip replacement set, so apparently this was quite embarrassing for the congregation, and is regarded as somewhat scandalous. It certainly made an impact; the story goes that at tea after the service, an elderly woman told people that her husband was away because he was being masturbated under anaesthetic (rather than "manipulated" under anaesthetic, which means something else I think). I think this says it all: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifgHHhw_6g8 -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 07:54:10 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 09:54:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > > WTF? Very simple. Were you living in France, how would >> > the prospect of you and your children living under Sharia > strike you? > Under no circumstances, nowhere in Europe (except in a few places in ghettoes) does the Sharia gained a toehold in Europe. The idea is ludicrous and it can not be interpreted in any way other than being yet another construct in the flame war between american imperial hegemonists on the right end of the spectrum, and multiculturalist pluriformists on the other end. I favor neither side, and the only way anyone can win in this insane struggle is to look very cautiously at what both sides say and completely sterilize yourself of all talking points bannered along by either side. Give it a try - See this as a straightforward roleplaying exploration ... inventory what (mostly american) anti-islam xenophobes, pro-globalist, pro-corporatists have to say. Then chart what the greens, equally progress xenophobe, anticorporatists have to say. Then square off arguments and escape the Divide And Rule mechanic being leveraged into your brain. This is a stalemate. Neither side, engineered lunatic left or engineered lunatic right, can win this culture war. You as an individual can only win by stepping away from this false dichotomy and select in precise detail what is relevant for you, as an individual, and persistently mocking what is not. Do not make the system shoehorn you into the red or blue mold. And I assert a BIG feature of the shoe horn is xenophobic hysteria of islam. I mean, come on, islam. I see these people scurry about every day, and they are pathetic superstitionalist. They can as much wage a revolt and take over the legal system as manage a network of dairy factories in their homeland. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 10:03:13 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 12:03:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 11:58 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 01/04/2009 9.25, BillK ha scritto: > >> Unfortunately Europe needs immigrants, because the original Europeans >> have stopped having children and are aging fast. >> > > This is because they are taxed as there is no tomorrow by their > governments. Pools show they want more children but feel their are not > wealth enough to be able to afford them. That is an interesting angle, on which I personally know very little. In the seventies, European countries with very high level of taxation, namely social democratic Scandinavia, used to have the lowest demographic pressure, even in comparison with much poorer areas, such as southern Italy or Greece, but this was usually attributed to cultural reasons. OTOH, apparently the trend was substantially reversed around the end of the last century, to the point that girls in their early twenties were around with babies in a cart and a couple of further children by hand. This may or may not have corresponded to some political or tax changes in that time. But it is also true that substantial pro-birth welfare policies were enacted... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 12:00:56 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 12:00:56 +0000 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/3/09, Stefano Vaj wrote: > In the seventies, European countries with very high level of taxation, > namely social democratic Scandinavia, used to have the lowest demographic > pressure, even in comparison with much poorer areas, such as southern Italy > or Greece, but this was usually attributed to cultural reasons. > > OTOH, apparently the trend was substantially reversed around the end of the > last century, to the point that girls in their early twenties were around > with babies in a cart and a couple of further children by hand. This may or > may not have corresponded to some political or tax changes in that time. But > it is also true that substantial pro-birth welfare policies were enacted... > It is generally true of all first world countries that they have birth rates below replacement level. This seems to follow the empowerment of women, who choose to have careers rather than have children. You can see the effect happening in second and third world countries statistics as they develop. The latest stats are here: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2127rank.html Norway, Denmark and Sweden are still below the replacement level of 2.1. Namely, 1.78, 1.74, 1.67. Note that these are overall statistics. The USA has a higher figure (than Europe) of 2.05. But hidden inside this figure is young immigrant families having more children than the older US residents. There are very many Hispanics in the US southern states. This same distortion is hidden within European figures. The UK has a birth rate of 1.66. But the young immigrant families are increasing at a faster rate than the original residents. This characteristic of immigrant families having larger families is expected to reduce within a few generations as they become more adjusted to their new country, adopt a similar lifestyle and their female children start to expect the same rights as other women in the country. BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 12:44:37 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 23:44:37 +1100 Subject: [ExI] free access to drugs (was Re: U.S. Medical Care) In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904020417o8072de9v11eb29b28346365f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402103408.026f9510@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/3 BillK : > OTC (Over the Counter) drugs are allowed for treatment of specific > short-term illnesses that patients can easily diagnose and treat > themselves. There is an ongoing movement to get more and more drugs > given OTC status. So the 'freedom' supporters are in line with what is > currently happening. ?Yeehaw!!!! > > Unfortunately when you look at what is happening in more detail, you > find that big pharma is one of the main supporters. Their main > objective is increased sales, driven by colourful advertising to as > much of the general public as they can persuade to waste money on > their products. It's not freedom, - it's more 'con the mugs for as > much as you can'. > > Pharmacists also welcome more OTC drugs as producing more profit for > themselves. They already now stock homeopathic remedies and 'natural' > remedies on the next counter and much of the public cannot tell the > difference. > > And, guess who the other supporters are? It's the government and > health plan companies. Why? Because the more drugs you spend your own > money on, the less the government has to pay for through national > health schemes. They want to reduce their huge prescription drug > costs. Most OTC drugs are not covered by health plans, so the cost is > transferred to the general public. > > So, do you really want to support changes that are supported by big > pharma, the government and pharmacist shop chains? Do you think they > really have your best interests at heart? You could make a similar argument about the food industry pushing their wares without regard for consumers' welfare. We would probably be a lot healthier if food could only be dispensed if prescribed by a dietitian, but people won't stand for this because it infringes on their freedom. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 14:14:34 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:14:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904030714r79bb129do8fa19bebc597c544@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 2:00 PM, BillK wrote: > Norway, Denmark and Sweden are still below the replacement level of 2.1. > Namely, 1.78, 1.74, 1.67. Yes. But I was speaking just of comparative trends, and even though I cannot point to some source from the top of my head, I believe to remember that such rates are both improved in comparison with the past, and better in comparison with other areas. Or at least their acceleration. > > Note that these are overall statistic > This characteristic of immigrant families having larger families is > expected to reduce within a few generations as they become more > adjusted to their new country, adopt a similar lifestyle and their > female children start to expect the same rights as other women in the > country. > ... which, according to the idea of immigration as a necessary resource to fight demographic decline, would require additional imports of human cattle, making in the process permanent the lack of "integration" thereof and the externalisation of the involved social costs by the businesses possibly employing them. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florent.berthet at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 10:15:21 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 12:15:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> Well, the main reason I can think of why there are so few french Exl-ers is because french people suck at english. It's actually pretty impressive how much shitty a mentality we can have here. About the english language, I had already noticed the following in junior high school : if you try to talk english with a good accent, most of the time you will be laughed at, even in english class (yes, really.). In the other and, one reason why there definitely SHOULD be a lot of french Exl-ers is because France is one of the least religious countries in the World (at the 8th position). But in the same time, the culture here is more oriented toward litterature than science. And by litterature, I mean french litterature, of course. We can still feel some kind of pride in our philosophers and authors of the past centuries (which weren't that good in average, but well...). For example, during all my schooling, I've always been given boring classic french books to read. Nothing recent, nothing coming from other countries, nothing even remotely related to science. No wonder then that so few frenchies are : ? open to other cultures and movements (e.g. the transhumanist one) ? interested in science and the future of our kind ("Isaac Asi-what?!") And indeed, the only french group related to those topics I could find on Facebook, called "La singularit? technologique Fr", has only 42 members... This is a real pain, and since this is mostly due to the formal education, I don't think this is going to change by itself unless the education policy is modified. Unfortunately, this probably won't happen tomorrow. Laurent Lafforgue, a french mathematician who received the Fields Medal was, during some time, a member of the "Education High Council". He has quickly been forced to resign from it because he was highly critical about what they were doing to our educational system. He wrote a book on this issue in which he explains that these folks really seem to be willing to destroy the logic and curiosity of the children. For example, some private (and more independant) schools do WAY better than the public schools just by using a different pedagogy. But the gov. douches just do the exact opposite of what is widely known as the best methods. So, this may explain that. 2009/4/2 spike > > > > ________________________________ > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Florent > Berthet > Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:18 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] I am now a creationist > > > Works fine here (I'm in France). > > ... > > > Welcome Florent. I think you may be the only ExI poster from France. We > noticed some time ago the lack of French ExI-ers. Why? We have several > from Italy, some from other European nations but so few from France. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 3 18:37:39 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 20:37:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49C8B19B.8090002@rawbw.com> <580930c20903240353i1853640ake3d9a6294d2baff6@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49D65773.20705@libero.it> Il 03/04/2009 1.30, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 12:57 AM 4/3/2009 +0200, Mirco wrote: > >>> Do you want your estranged wife or furious alienated teenagers to buy >>> them? >> The furious alienated teenagers are for the insane asylums. > This is the extropian list, not the fucking Dept. of Soviet Psychiatry & > Gulags. Where and what you do with furious alienated students? or any furious alienated humans? I found these as possible significant of the "alienated" word. > alienate - estrange: arouse hostility or indifference in where there had formerly been love, affection, or friendliness; "She alienated her friends when she ... > alienation - separation resulting from hostility > alienate - make withdrawn or isolated or emotionally dissociated; "the boring work alienated his employees" I remember that an "alienist" is another way to call a Psychiatrist. And usually "an alienate" is intended as "a mentally disturbed person". Maybe you think I advocated to put him/her inside an asylum forever, but I'm not doing this. I only advocate to do it for the limited time needed to make him/her calm and not dangerous for him/herself and others and, maybe, help him/her to not feel alienated. What is wrong with this? Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 18:58:04 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 20:58:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 1:30 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > This is the extropian list, not the fucking Dept. of Soviet Psychiatry & > Gulags. Tut, tut, let's not bad-mouth or discriminate the peculiar, albeit unhortodox, orientations of sovietic psychiatric researchers... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 20:07:52 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 22:07:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904031307r6a22cee2h9fcfe28b9c92714b@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/3 Florent Berthet : > Well, the main reason I can think of why there are so few french Exl-ers is > because french people suck at english. This may well be a reason. Another one that has probably played a role is that France has a somewhat "independent" transhumanist or posthumanist tradition which was not a direct offspring of the US movement and is only vaguely connected to the same, mostly by third-party commentators. See, e.g, http://www.lesmutants.com, Charles Campetier (Avec les robots, par d?l? le bien et le mal, full-text Web version), Yves Christen (*Les ann?es Faust, ou La science face au vieillissement*), R?mi Sussan (*Les utopies posthumaines : Contre-culture, cyberculture, culture du chaos *), and Guillaume Faye (above all *Pour en finir avec le nihilisme. Heidegger et la question de la technique*, full-text Web version). -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 3 20:15:12 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 13:15:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com><49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com><580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com><49D542CE.6090501@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> > > On Fri, Apr 3, 2009 at 1:30 AM, Damien Broderick > wrote: > > This is the extropian list, not the fucking Dept. of Soviet Psychiatry & Gulags. I never knew the commie psych reseachers had a special fucking department. How does one get signed up for that? {8^D Point well taken however. All posters, please read your stuff twice before posting. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Apr 3 21:40:32 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 16:40:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> At 01:15 PM 4/3/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: > > > This is the extropian list, not the fucking Dept. of Soviet Psychiatry & >Gulags. > >Point well taken however. All posters, please read your stuff twice before >posting. Mirco's statement wasn't an accidental slip of the keyboard; he later repeated his sentiment. But perhaps it's a language problem, since "alienated" in English usage means disaffected with one's situation or culture, not "requiring treatment by an alienist". Still, this is pretty damned creepy: "Maybe you think I advocated to put him/her inside an asylum forever, but I'm not doing this. I only advocate to do it for the limited time needed to make him/her calm and not dangerous for him/herself and others and, maybe, help him/her to not feel alienated." For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, I gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to Nurse Ratched.# Damien Broderick #ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073486/ From florent.berthet at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 22:10:09 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 00:10:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <580930c20904031307r6a22cee2h9fcfe28b9c92714b@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904031307r6a22cee2h9fcfe28b9c92714b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904031510h719fa848i149fc81582bfab33@mail.gmail.com> Agreed. Though, even if we managed to get together all the french transhumanists regardless of their kinds or traditions, we would hardly get close to the proportion of transhumanists there are in the US. But anyway, these ideas deserve to get much more attention, in all the countries. That's why I'm pretty sure now that what we really need is a great transhuman utopian movie, where things actually GO well, and about which people would think "Wow, if only we could have that!". Then, it could only be a matter of time before some rich folks start to fund things like the Singularity Institute and other AGI related projects. Because now, obviously, they are not moved by these ideas. It seems like we can't convince rich guys to give money using clever arguments. And since they don't think that funding an AGI project will make them earn money, the only way to make them give anyway is to use feelings. Indeed, they may see the act of giving money as charity. But you don't manage charity with arguments, you manage it with tears, whether they are tears of sadness, or tears of hope. You don't make people give money to the starving children by saying "thousands of them die each day". You make them give money by showing them a picture of ONE starving little girl. That's the way it is. We have to use the power of pictures. This would be the most effective way to expand this movement around the world. Florent Berthet 2009/4/3 Stefano Vaj > 2009/4/3 Florent Berthet : > > Well, the main reason I can think of why there are so few french Exl-ers > is > > because french people suck at english. > > This may well be a reason. Another one that has probably played a role is > that France has a somewhat "independent" transhumanist or posthumanist > tradition which was not a direct offspring of the US movement and is only > vaguely connected to the same, mostly by third-party commentators. > > See, e.g, http://www.lesmutants.com, Charles Campetier (Avec les robots, > par d?l? le bien et le mal, > full-text Web version), Yves Christen (*Les ann?es Faust, ou La science > face au vieillissement*), > R?mi Sussan (*Les utopies posthumaines : Contre-culture, cyberculture, > culture du chaos > *), and Guillaume Faye (above all *Pour en finir avec le nihilisme. > Heidegger et la question de la technique*, > full-text Web version). > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 3 22:42:51 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 00:42:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904031510h719fa848i149fc81582bfab33@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904031307r6a22cee2h9fcfe28b9c92714b@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904031510h719fa848i149fc81582bfab33@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904031542l336d2e6bie4b34c9e24f27452@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/4 Florent Berthet > Though, even if we managed to get together all the french transhumanists > regardless of their kinds or traditions, we would hardly get close to the > proportion of transhumanists there are in the US. > Yes. Or perhaps we should say California... :-) Speaking of France, I wonder whether some tighter connections could be established with the anti-neoluddite areas of posthumanist academia, say, ? la Lyotard... See, e.g., Posthumanism (Readers in Cultural Criticism) by Neil Badmington. In the meantime, I took the courage to subscribe, at least as an observer - it is really uncomfortable to type in French with an Italian keyboard -, to the French transhumanist mailing list. Are you there? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Fri Apr 3 23:34:19 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 03 Apr 2009 18:34:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Interview with William Haseltine Message-ID: <200904040001.n34018Ns011715@andromeda.ziaspace.com> The Thought Leader Interview: William Haseltine By Ann Graham strategy+business, Spring 2009 http://www.strategy-business.com/press/article/09109?gko=de4db-1876-27600497 My review: When you hear the terms ?biotechnology? and ?genomics?, you probably think first of medical applications. In fact, investment money will flow more strongly toward other uses?-such as energy, agriculture, and materials science?-according to entrepreneur-scientist William Haseltine. Haseltine knows whereof he speakers, his claims to fame including the founding of Human Genome Sciences Inc. (HGSI), one of the first biopharmaceutical companies to patent human genomic sequences for medical use. He was also a part of the team that led the way in uncovering the mechanisms by which HIV attacks the human immune system; and he coined the term regenerative medicine to describe the use of natural human substances, such as genes, proteins, and stem cells, to regenerate diseased or damaged human tissue. In this fascinating interview, Haseltine talks about carbon-neutral energy farms, microbial manufacturing, regenerative medicine, pharmaceutical productivity, and benefits of biotech for the world?s poor. Synthetic (or constructive) biology can accelerate the natural processes by which new molecules are constructed, allow us to essentially farm energy. By combining several biotechnologies, ?we could remove carbon from the air, turn it into a fuel, use that fuel, and return the carbon to the atmosphere so the whole process is carbon-neutral with respect to the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.? Recognizing some of the possibilities, some oil companies are now calling themselves energy companies. Constructive biology will also have major implications for the materials sector. New manufacturing processes will be microbial rather than using standard chemical vats. Haseltine also explains the connection between nanotechnology and biotechnology and the implications for food production. Haseltine is surprisingly reserved on the potential for genetics in predictive medicine. He sees genetic inheritance as being ?a very minor aspect of genomics.? Far more promising is what he calls ?the ultimate personalization of medicine?-using your cells to build new, healthier organs.? Regenerative medicine combined with material science is also beginning to develop and replace organs and tissues. Turning to the past performance of the pharmaceutical industry, Haseltine says ?R&D expenses in the pharmaceutical industry have gone up 20-fold in the last 20 years? even as ?productivity has decreased by about a factor of 10.? This makes it ?probably the biggest productivity collapse the world has ever seen.? The problem lies less in the science, which is advancing remarkably fast, and more in structural problems?-especially the excessive size of the companies involved. The marketing people who often lead these companies fall prey to what he calls the reverse Cinderella syndrome?-taking a small foot and putting it into a big shoe. Rather than trying to do everything on a huge scale, he suggests creating ?virtual? pharmaceutical company structures, where numerous small companies have access to capital and scientists who understand the medical needs?a model more like cosmetics. Links to related articles and topics: http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.aspx?coid=CO41091121136 Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 00:09:44 2009 From: ilsa.bartlett at gmail.com (ilsa) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 16:09:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9b9887c80904031709n6b462445jf0fb9773c54d27d1@mail.gmail.com> the solar minimum is a religious event here in berkeley on the north marina yet it is science! smile, ilsa The Science at NASA site works best with JavaScript enabled in your browser. For instructions, click here [image: NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration Science at NASA Web Site] [image: Follow this link to skip to the main content] + NASA Home + Search NASA Web + Pagina en Espa?ol + Contact NASA [image: Search Site via Google] [image: Go] [image: HOME] [image: SATELLITE TRACKING] [image: ABOUT] [image: MAILING LISTS] [image: STORY ARCHIVES] [image: OTHER LANGUAGES] [image: FEATURE] Deep Solar Minimum 04.01.2009 * * + Play Audio| + Download Audio| + Email to a friend | + Join mailing list *April 1, 2009:* The sunspot cycle is behaving a little like the stock market. Just when you think it has hit bottom, it goes even lower. 2008 was a bear. There were no sunspots observed on 266 of the year's 366 days (73%). To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go all the way back to 1913, which had 311 spotless days: plot. Prompted by these numbers, some observers suggested that the solar cycle had hit bottom in 2008. Maybe not. Sunspot counts for 2009 have dropped even lower. As of March 31st, there were no sunspots on 78 of the year's 90 days (87%). It adds up to one inescapable conclusion: "We're experiencing a very deep solar minimum," says solar physicist Dean Pesnell of the Goddard Space Flight Center. "This is the quietest sun we've seen in almost a century," agrees sunspot expert David Hathaway of the Marshall Space Flight Center. [image: see caption] *Above:* The sunspot cycle from 1995 to the present. The jagged curve traces actual sunspot counts. Smooth curves are fits to the data and one forecaster's predictions of future activity. Credit: David Hathaway, NASA/MSFC. [more ] Quiet suns come along every 11 years or so. It's a natural part of the sunspot cycle, discovered by German astronomer Heinrich Schwabe in the mid-1800s. Sunspots are planet-sized islands of magnetism on the surface of the sun; they are sources of solar flares, coronal mass ejections and intense UV radiation. Plotting sunspot counts, Schwabe saw that peaks of solar activity were always followed by valleys of relative calm?a clockwork pattern that has held true for more than 200 years: plot . The current solar minimum is part of that pattern. In fact, it's right on time. "We're due for a bit of quiet?and here it is," says Pesnell. Sign up for EXPRESS SCIENCE NEWS delivery But is it supposed to be *this* quiet? In 2008, the sun set the following records: *A 50-year low in solar wind pressure:* Measurements by the Ulysses spacecraft reveal a 20% drop in solar wind pressure since the mid-1990s?the lowest point since such measurements began in the 1960s. The solar wind helps keep galactic cosmic rays out of the inner solar system. With the solar wind flagging, more cosmic rays are permitted to enter, resulting in increased health hazards for astronauts. Weaker solar wind also means fewer geomagnetic storms and auroras on Earth. *A 12-year low in solar "irradiance": *Careful measurements by several NASA spacecraft show that the sun's brightness has dropped by 0.02% at visible wavelengths and 6% at extreme UV wavelengths since the solar minimum of 1996. The changes so far are not enough to reverse the course of global warming, but there are some other significant side-effects: Earth's upper atmosphere is heated less by the sun and it is therefore less "puffed up." Satellites in low Earth orbit experience less atmospheric drag, extending their operational lifetimes. Unfortunately, space junk also remains longer in Earth orbit, increasing hazards to spacecraft and satellites. [image: see caption] *Above:* Space-age measurements of the total solar irradiance (brightness summed across all wavelengths). This plot, which comes from researcher C. Fr?hlich, was shown by Dean Pesnell at the Fall 2008 AGU meeting during a lecture entitled "What is Solar Minimum and Why Should We Care?" *A 55-year low in solar radio emissions:* After World War II, astronomers began keeping records of the sun's brightness at radio wavelengths. Records of 10.7 cm flux extend back all the way to the early 1950s. Radio telescopes are now recording the dimmest "radio sun" since 1955: plot. Some researchers believe that the lessening of radio emissions is an indication of weakness in the sun's global magnetic field. No one is certain, however, because the source of these long-monitored radio emissions is not fully understood. All these lows have sparked a debate about whether the ongoing minimum is "weird", "extreme" or just an overdue "market correction" following a string of unusually intense solar maxima. "Since the Space Age began in the 1950s, solar activity has been generally high," notes Hathaway. "Five of the ten most intense solar cycles on record have occurred in the last 50 years. We're just not used to this kind of deep calm." Deep calm was fairly common a hundred years ago. The solar minima of 1901 and 1913, for instance, were even longer than the one we're experiencing now. To match those minima in terms of depth and longevity, the current minimum will have to last at least another year. [image: see caption]In a way, the calm is exciting, says Pesnell. "For the first time in history, we're getting to see what a deep solar minimum is really like." A fleet of spacecraft including the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), the twin STEREO probes, the five THEMIS probes, Hinode, ACE, Wind, TRACE, AIM, TIMED, Geotail and others are studying the sun and its effects on Earth 24/7 using technology that didn't exist 100 years ago. Their measurements of solar wind, cosmic rays, irradiance and magnetic fields show that solar minimum is much more interesting and profound than anyone expected. *Above:* An artist's concept of NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. Bristling with advanced sensors, "SDO" is slated to launch later this year--perfect timing to study the ongoing solar minimum. [more ] Modern technology cannot, however, predict what comes next. Competing models by dozens of top solar physicists disagree, sometimes sharply, on when this solar minimum will end and how big the next solar maximum will be. Pesnell has surveyed the scientific literature and prepared a "piano plot" showing the range of predictions. The great uncertainty stems from one simple fact: No one fully understands the underlying physics of the sunspot cycle. Pesnell believes sunspot counts will pick up again soon, "possibly by the end of the year," to be followed by a solar maximum of below-average intensity in 2012 or 2013. But like other forecasters, he knows he could be wrong. Bull or bear? Stay tuned for updates. SEND THIS STORY TO A FRIEND Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science at NASA *more information* Solar Wind Loses Power, Hits 50-year Low-- (Science at NASA ) Spotless Sun: Blankest Year of the Space Age-- (Science at NASA ) NASA Heliophysics Science Mission Directorate Explore the Entire Region of the Sun's Influence with NASA's Heliophysics Virtual Observatories Space weather resources: NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center, Solar and Heliospheric Observatory , Spaceweather.com *NASA's Future:* US Space Exploration Policy [image: USAGov] + Freedom of Information Act + Budgets, Strategic Plans and Accountability Reports + The President?s Management Agenda + Privacy Policy and Important Notices + Inspector General Hotline + Equal Employment Opportunity Data Posted Pursuant to the No Fear Act + Information-Dissemination Priorities and Inventories + USA.gov - Your First Click to the US Government + ExpectMore - A Program Which Determines Whether Government Programs Are Effective [image: NASA] Curator: Bryan Walls Last Updated: June 9, 2005 + Contact NASA Ilsa Bartlett Institute for Rewiring the System 2951 Derby Street #139 Berkeley, CA 94705 www.hotlux.com/angel.htm www.grassroutestravel.com "Don't ever get so big or important that you can not hear and listen to every other person." -John Coltrane 2009/4/3 Florent Berthet > Well, the main reason I can think of why there are so few french Exl-ers is > because french people suck at english. It's actually pretty impressive how > much shitty a mentality we can have here. About the english language, I had > already noticed the following in junior high school : if you try to talk > english with a good accent, most of the time you will be laughed at, even in > english class (yes, really.). > > In the other and, one reason why there definitely SHOULD be a lot of french > Exl-ers is because France is one of the least religious countries in the > World (at the 8th position). > > But in the same time, the culture here is more oriented toward litterature > than science. And by litterature, I mean french litterature, of course. We > can still feel some kind of pride in our philosophers and authors of the > past centuries (which weren't that good in average, but well...). For > example, during all my schooling, I've always been given boring classic > french books to read. Nothing recent, nothing coming from other countries, > nothing even remotely related to science. No wonder then that so few > frenchies are : > > ? open to other cultures and movements (e.g. the transhumanist one) > ? interested in science and the future of our kind ("Isaac Asi-what?!") > > And indeed, the only french group related to those topics I could find on > Facebook, called "La singularit? technologique Fr", has only 42 members... > > This is a real pain, and since this is mostly due to the formal education, > I don't think this is going to change by itself unless the education policy > is modified. Unfortunately, this probably won't happen tomorrow. Laurent > Lafforgue, a french mathematician who received the Fields Medal was, during > some time, a member of the "Education High Council". He has quickly been > forced to resign from it because he was highly critical about what they were > doing to our educational system. He wrote a book on this issue in which he > explains that these folks really seem to be willing to destroy the logic and > curiosity of the children. For example, some private (and more independant) > schools do WAY better than the public schools just by using a different > pedagogy. But the gov. douches just do the exact opposite of what is widely > known as the best methods. > > So, this may explain that. > > > > > 2009/4/2 spike > > >> >> >> ________________________________ >> >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Florent >> Berthet >> Sent: Wednesday, April 01, 2009 8:18 AM >> To: ExI chat list >> Subject: Re: [ExI] I am now a creationist >> >> >> Works fine here (I'm in France). >> >> ... >> >> >> Welcome Florent. I think you may be the only ExI poster from France. We >> noticed some time ago the lack of French ExI-ers. Why? We have several >> from Italy, some from other European nations but so few from France. >> >> spike >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanogirl at halcyon.com Sat Apr 4 00:47:56 2009 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 17:47:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Edgar Allan Poe animation etc. In-Reply-To: <580930c20904031542l336d2e6bie4b34c9e24f27452@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com><221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer><0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer><6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com><4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike><6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com><580930c20904031307r6a22cee2h9fcfe28b9c92714b@mail.gmail.com><6d342ad70904031510h719fa848i149fc81582bfab33@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904031542l336d2e6bie4b34c9e24f27452@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <113B79DB3D5D44ABAE46EEAE5A442B99@GinaSony> Dear friends, I have a new update at our health blog, including a link to my new Edgar Allan Poe animation and photographs of us. Click here to read it: http://ginamiller.blogspot.com/2009/04/refrigeration-and-edgar-allan-poe.html I also have a fabric creation up on my craft blog if you are interested in the crafty: Click here to see it: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/2009/04/fabric-edgar-allan-poe-and-alan-alda.html Best wishes to all, Gina "Nanogirl" Miller www.nanogirl.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 03:37:27 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 14:37:27 +1100 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <49D65773.20705@libero.it> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <49D65773.20705@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/4/4 painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Maybe you think I advocated to put him/her inside an asylum forever, but I'm > not doing this. > I only advocate to do it for the limited time needed to make him/her calm > and not dangerous for him/herself and others and, maybe, help him/her to not > feel alienated. > > What is wrong with this? In most jurisdictions only people with treatable mental illnesses are allowed to be involuntarily admitted to involuntarily admitted to psychiatric institutions. Treatable mental illnesses include major depression and psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia: you give them drugs or ECT, they get better. This is still a controversial area in psychiatry but people with personality traits that the rest of society might consider deviant are not classified in the same way. Biological treatments make no difference to them, and if they break the law they are held responsible for their actions and dealt with in the criminal justice system. This distinction will be thrown into disarray when we have a better understanding of the brain and how to manipulate it, but it's the situation as it stands at present. -- Stathis Papaioannou From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 04:46:49 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 21:46:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Spirituality of Sex Message-ID: <2d6187670904032146g140b2075va9ba154d2deaff60@mail.gmail.com> I thought this might be interesting food for thought around here... http://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-spirituality-of-sex.html John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 05:23:34 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Fri, 3 Apr 2009 22:23:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gratitude Message-ID: <2ae60d770904032223x5a39e6bas4af1d5eb3a065b76@mail.gmail.com> I wanted to thank the posters of the Sex-spirituality article, the creationist rants, and the On a Boat song featuring T Pain. Positive reinforcement. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 08:12:09 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:12:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> Rafal writes > On Thu, Apr 2, 2009 at 9:41 PM, Lee Corbin wrote: > > I [Rafal] wrote: >>> PS. To make myself more clear, I am actually fucking pissed off that >>> the idea of kicking people out of their homes for being Muslim is >>> being bandied about here. WTF? >> >> WTF? Very simple. Were you living in France, how would >> the prospect of you and your children living under Sharia >> strike you? > > ### To repeat "WTF?" - what are you talking about? That hardly merits a response. So I'll skip it and get to the substance: > What is the chain of reasoning that leads you from > "I live in France" to "Muslims need to be destroyed"? Exaggerating what someone has said is really beneath you. Even Painlord was at pains, I saw, to point out that no people need be destroyed, that, indeed, in high likelihood (in his view) taking this action now would ultimately save people from being destroyed. But that's his argument, and so let's not defocus on that back to this: > Do you think that all Muslims are immoral? Certainly not! What a crazy idea. This is a very bad indication that you feel compelled to go so far. They're no different from anyone else. It's very difficult to find examples of large groups of people that are systematically better or more moral than other groups, especially when disparities in wealth and tech progress are controlled for. > You are not making any sense, Lee. Spell out in detail how being an > innocent, law-abiding Muslim in France justifies being persecuted. I myself took pains to *explain* that this did *not* justified persecuting anyone. "What justified Americans persecuting Englishmen by going to war against them in 1812" is just as misguided a question as yours. Since when do all actions need to be justified? Why don't your word choices clash with your knowledge of PCR? Rounding up and deporting some enormous class of people because they look at the world entirely differently than you do---and ultimately destroy institutions that took hundreds of years to develop---is not unreasonable at all. Need I repeat the obvious? At thankfully rare times either individually or collectively it becomes necessary to act in violation of a lesser principle in order to save a greater. Now I do realize that anyone could say that about anything---yet I shouldn't need to go into detail about how different France will be under Sharia. Unfortunately, we evidently *do* need to go into detail (and so I apologize a bit for the previous paragraph). Under the Caliphate of Paris a lot *worse* things will happen than mere deportation of a recently immigrated foreign group that for over a thousand years France has been at odds with. (Think of perpetual enslavement of women, just for starters.) Charles Martel, though turning in his grave, might on reflection be not too disappointed: he could say, "Hey, well, what I did and my descendants did lasted almost twelve-hundred years! Not bad. Could have been a lot worse. Still, it's sad to see that finally France succumbs to the Muslim threat." (Yes, for you pedants out there, I know that France is really only eight hundred or so years old.) > And for the sake of completeness, tell me why being > Muslim in the US does not justify persecution. Or does it? America? You want to compare America to a real country like the France, or, to be more precise, like the France that used to be? Ha! The U.S. is a very recent "country" which indeed was a real nation for a while, but it was always a land of immigrants, and always rather diverse to boot. (Not that this last did not cause an inordinate amount of bloodshed and to this day imposes enormous costs in lack of trust and so on.) Which group would someone start with if you tried to reduce the U.S. to a "loyal only" portion? The whole onion (which is a union only in the loosest sense) would just disappear, layer by layer. Of course, if tomorrow 200 of Osama Bin Laden's henchmen showed up in shopping malls with Uzis and killed ten thousand people, the Americans would very likely intern everyone from the middle east. That's what they do, e.g. fly off the handle, go ballistic. It's an American specialty. Naturally oh! the hand-wringing! oh! the remorse! oh the wailing and gnashing of teeth. And I would just say what Frederick the Great said when he heard about how upset Maria Teresa of Austria was about the partitioning of Poland: "She wept, but she took". >> Meanwhile, no Frenchman who values the past or future of >> his country ought to accede to what is going on. It's >> simply a question of survival of western institutions >> *at all* in France, though I agree that the cost (of >> sacrificing temporarily some principles) is very high. > > ### Ah, yeah, lets kill or otherwise destroy a million innocent > people, since they believe in some mumbo-jumbo. Reminds me of Robert > Bradbury's idea of nuking random cities in Afghanistan. You feel some > vague sense of discomfort with a group, so let's just kill them all. > Brilliant. Me? I *never* said kill 'em all. You must have me confused with the great Robert B. (I must post something about that, I'm really sad I was off the list when that happened.) No, the worst I've done along those lines is to claim that France could have a 4-million man army ("lev?e en masse"--- they're actually quite used to the idea), and threaten to use it, and hint that atomic weaponry lay even behind *that* threat. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 08:40:37 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:40:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] punishment In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49D71D05.2070708@rawbw.com> spike wrote: >> ...On Behalf Of Lee Corbin >> >> ...Climate denial isn't a crime >> here yet, but you can be ostracized by your friends... Lee > > Lee, the ostracizers weren't your friends to start with. spike Right. But the people who matter do have many such friends. Example: those who work in climate science have to watch what they say. And if ostracism weren't bad enough, try getting government funding to prove that climate change *isn't* happening. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 08:47:48 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 01:47:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of print news In-Reply-To: <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com><580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com><49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it><49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it><49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek><49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> Message-ID: <49D71EB4.6050603@rawbw.com> spike wrote: > ...caused me > to recognize a big advantage to the coming death of print news. The news > cycle manipulation and rush to a particular deadline that you describe both > go away, being artifacts of print news cycles. Traditionally these have > been one issue per day, with special arrangements on weekends. Now, news > stories can go up on the site whenever the reporter is satisfied she has the > facts, instead of when some arbitrary schedule demands. Rebuttals can be > offered quickly on politically opposite news sites. Balanced reporting will > be accomplished, and misinformation can be greatly reduced. Yes, but I think that there is a cost you're not taking into account. > Trees will be saved too, and the furry little animals that live in them. Literal Lee replies: "No, more trees will grow to replace those cut down, and in the bargain there'll be fewer forest fires." > May we bury the print news quickly, without mourning their passing. Here is the problem. Let me take you back to ancient Rome, where, if you wanted to see Cicero, you had to go downtown and to his office, where you could schedule an appointment with his secretary. Rome, where Latin-speaking parrots were all the rage... Rome, a country fully yin so many striking ways as civilized as our own society. Mr Julius Caesar was in the habit (necessary, it turns out for any successful politician then) of simply bribing *everyone* in sight to get what he wanted, and to threaten and intimidate everyone else. And there was no way to raise a public outcry. But by 1700, one had to begin to worry about the newspapers. For everyone, you see, (or rather everyone who mattered) read the same papers. Wrongdoing could easily and often did come to public notice. Oh, sure, your Federalist papers and my Republican papers would lie and defame like crazy, but the discriminating reader really could find out that Hamilton, say, was a bastard, (back in the days when that was a bad thing). We may end up losing public accountability once people are glued only into their own information channels in an infinite sea of information. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 09:04:59 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:04:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] punishment In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49D722BB.6030709@rawbw.com> Dagon Gmail wrote: > The jury is still out whether or not wife beating is immoral behavior, Well, *we* should vociferously agree that it is. (I.e., that we disapprove so strongly that arrest warrants will be issued against the perpetrators and they'll be tried and probably found guilty. > and equally uncountable numbers of people that shrug [off] > whatever I think. Well, that's life, when you're not a celebrity. > It will be unresolvable - people are stuck in their grooves > and discourse is dead. Not even transhumanists have ideals left, Don't give up so soon on that one! I sense that plenty of people here still have ideals, or at least deeply divided about what principles to embrace. You and I simply need to help them and each other find the best ones. > and extropianism has the same polarized bulwark of > self-interest, collapse of ideals, belligerence, political > obstinacy, arrogance and contempt as any segment of society. > > Prove me wrong. Consider the gang segment of society, whose members regularly exert violence upon each other, and (this year? or just preceding years?) have recently set a new record in the California city of Oakland for homicide. > I can only vouch that I believe the near-collapse of > the worlds climate a reality, that humanity > is largely responsible, Yes, but you don't *know* this for a fact. Take me, for instance. I think that there is a 50% chance that the singularity will go very bad for humanity and that we'll be snuffed out. But I don't know it. I worry every day about The Big One (that's California- speak for the Mother of All EarthQuakes). I used to worry every day about Osama or his friends firing off a nuke in some big U.S. city and the economic consequences, but I'm busy, and now only worry about that every other day. Your worries about "possibly billions > going to die as a direct result before 2100, you see, merely parallel my own worries---and my new found daily worry (since October) about the economy. But I don't *know* any of those things are really going to happen, or to be so bad if they do. Cheer up! Things could be worse. In fact, they always have been. > What I believe doesn't matter an inch. Some here would rather see me die > from poverty than listen to whatever I have to say. Sniff. Well, count me among those who would rather listen to what you have to say than see you die from poverty. > ...and what do you know? I don't give a hoot. I am personally sure of > all above and I don't care! That's funny. It really didn't sound like it. Are you sure you aren't just trying to make the best of a bad situation and confabulating to yourself? That's like the venture capitalist talking to all his friend around a conference table and snorting, "Well, I don't care what *any* of you think! Me and my money, we're out of here!", when the truth is that he does care very much what they think. (Often I hear my left hemisphere muttering, "Oh, well, it doesn't really matter", and I know that it's lying.) > I am going to die anyways, probably somewhere between 2025 and 2045, > probably of poverty, True, *if* the economy collapses, if a gamma ray burst hits us, if the singularity doesn't go right, if the climate change people have actually understated the problem, then we're doomed. But that's then and this is now. You should sign up for cryonics, and keep your chin up. Who knows? It might indeed all work out! > So I couldn't care LESS about what > happens to the environment. > > In fact, I welcome the collapse of the environment, > somewhere later this century... I don't believe you, and neither should you. > Face it - Humanity is not worth it. Oh, come now. As compared to what? Is *all* joy from your life vanished? Are there no songs? Are there no amusing stories? Isn't it at least interesting to watch the train wreck of the economy? Ha! I'll bet you have some secret pleasures you look forward to and want to keep looking forward to. Lee > So - everyone: we ruined it, we fucked up, > party is over, any year in > some measure of comfort is a blessing, and a merciful death after is all > you can hope for. > > > > ...On Behalf Of Lee Corbin > > > ...Climate denial isn't a crime > > here yet, but you can be ostracized by your friends... Lee > > Lee, the ostracizers weren't your friends to start with. spike > > But I'd love to be proven wrong, on any of this. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 09:07:49 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:07:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D51EE7.3070904@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it> <49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it> <49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D51EE7.3070904@libero.it> Message-ID: <49D72365.6050008@rawbw.com> painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > 1) Freedom of religion is good only with religions that advocate peace > with people with a different religion. I don't believe in freedom of > religion for some cannibalistic cult that slay people to eat them. That's not *typical* Muslim behavior, is it? Make sure not to weaken your case by exaggeration. Let's let our adversaries continue to make that error! > 2) The laws can be changed so they are equal for all but hit their > intended targets. For example, forced wedding can be sentenced with life > imprisonment. Sexual mutilations can be sentenced with life > imprisonment. Any accomplices of these can be sentenced with life > imprisonment. Terrorism will be punished with life imprisonment and > confiscation of property. All people associating with them can be > sentenced for "helping and abetting" or "external association with...". > > This the civilized way to go. Absolutely. What exceeds the silliness and cowardliness of the sniveling European governments who are now afraid to penalize Muslims for crimes that anyone else would be sentenced for? Lee > It is this or the uncivilized way we saw in Bosnia (but without the US > to save the day for the Muslims). > > Mirco From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 09:10:48 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:10:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> Message-ID: <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 01/04/2009 9.25, BillK ha scritto: > >> Unfortunately Europe needs immigrants, because the original Europeans >> have stopped having children and are aging fast. > > This is because they are taxed as there is no tomorrow by their > governments. Pools show they want more children but feel their are not > wealth enough to be able to afford them. Hmm. You could be right. Thanks for pointing it out. I did hear that the Russians actually did greatly improve their birth rate for a while by promising economic incentives. But after a lot of children were conceived, the government let slip that these incentives actually weren't *quite* as promised. A huge lot of abortions immediately took place. Yes, it would be just like the west to tax itself to death. Lee >> It is the demographic timebomb. > >> Who will be the workers and pay for social security for the >> aged? > > If you think that the Muslims will pay for the social security of the > old kafir, you are deluded. > IIRC, in England economists have computed the economics of immigration > and have concluded that there is no difference. The Englishmen have > gained nothing from the immigration. But, I'm sure, many people have > gained from the cheap Labour imported. > >> The future for those populations who stop having children is a >> reducing, aging population supported by young workers from immigrant >> families. > > You are deluding yourself. A large part of these Muslims immigrates is > helped from the Social Security, because they are in large part > unemployable for any productive job because they are uneducated, low > skilled and low IQ. Then you add their religion, that teach them to > loathe the different, hate him, exploit him and not help him against > other Muslims. > > Mirco From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 09:16:38 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:16:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <1238733807.5478.788.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <1238733807.5478.788.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49D72576.5020608@rawbw.com> Fred writes > On Thu, 2009-04-02 at 18:41 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> (Oh, of course, we'll have our Cesar Chavez eventually--- > > We already had Cesar Chavez; he was born in 1927 and died in 1993. Oops, I meant Hugo of course. Thanks for the correction. > I am not going to bother replying in detail to the rest of your message > because it not worth my time at the moment to correct all of your errors. You're very welcome. Thanks for the kind thoughts. Lee From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 09:24:45 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 09:24:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Spirituality of Sex In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904032146g140b2075va9ba154d2deaff60@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904032146g140b2075va9ba154d2deaff60@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/4/09, John Grigg wrote: > I thought this might be interesting food for thought around here... > http://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-spirituality-of-sex.html > That's a new one! "Sorry, not tonight dear. I don't feel spiritual enough". ;) BillK From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sat Apr 4 09:26:31 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 02:26:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Reward Offered. In-Reply-To: <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> Fred C. Moulton wrote: > Neither Lee nor painlord2k are libertarians. The arbiter of definitions has spoken. All are to remain silent. > There seems to be an ongoing problem with persons calling themselves > libertarian or free-market or some similar term when in actuality they > are usually uninformed, confused or dishonest. Especially we who are uninformed, confused or dishonest. > And further what they have posting recently in this thread is not even > remotely Extropian. Again, you *know* what these terms mean, and it is for the rest of us just to accept, I suppose. Whatever happened to *reasoned* discourse? Well, I guess, apart from some posters it is alive and well, so I shouldn't complain. But I will. I'm serious about this. $100 to the person who finds the *most* egregious example of any posting I've ever made on this list (from 1996 to today) where I called someone uninformed or dishonest. Fifty dollars to second place! Since clearly I've *implied* that people are often less than honest with others (and even with themselves, as I did with Dagon tonight), this is not an idle offer. Someone has to win, someone will win. My point will only be that *whatever* you find, it won't be anything like what Fred has unleashed above. Lee From eschatoon at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 09:31:19 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 11:31:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904040231w51209d31g1cc4158b84c7bfcd@mail.gmail.com> I think the mini saga started with proposed deletion of the mind uploading article on Wikipedia (now saved thanks to all those who took the time to defend it) and the article on the Wired blog are doing a lot of good for spreading transhumanist ideas. I am sure many thousands (at least) of people, who had never heard of mind uploading before, have some familiarity with the mind uploading concept now -- and some of them probably like it. Thanks to all bioluddite losers and idiots for advertising our ideas! Let's not be scared of making them angry at us -- they produce the best PR for us when they are angry. Appeasing them is useless and boring, while provoking them is productive and fun. -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From florent.berthet at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 09:37:48 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 11:37:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <9b9887c80904031709n6b462445jf0fb9773c54d27d1@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> <9b9887c80904031709n6b462445jf0fb9773c54d27d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904040237tb294627v9e5a2919ecacc9cf@mail.gmail.com> "In the meantime, I took the courage to subscribe, at least as an observer - it is really uncomfortable to type in French with an Italian keyboard -, to the French transhumanist mailing list. Are you there?" I've read it sometimes, but there wasn't anything really interesting by the time, and it's a little silent (less than 50 people). However that could change, so I've just subscribed. How is it in Italy? (or in other countries, if other non-americans are reading this ?) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 10:18:14 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 12:18:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > > Unfortunately Europe needs immigrants, because the original Europeans >>> have stopped having children and are aging fast. >>> >> >> This is because they are taxed as there is no tomorrow by their >> governments. > > Polls show they want more children but feel their are not wealth enough to >> be able to afford them. >> > > Hmm. You could be right. Thanks for pointing it out. I did > hear that the Russians actually did greatly improve their > birth rate for a while by promising economic incentives. > But after a lot of children were conceived, the government > let slip that these incentives actually weren't *quite* as > promised. A huge lot of abortions immediately took place. > > Yes, it would be just like the west to tax itself to death. 1. All of those "anti big gov/pro big market" people, do you have the nerve to face the difference between the amount of tax citizens will have to pay for (a) all the welfare and development aid and subsidies and left wing pet projects and (b) the recent bailout? - and don't backpeddle or dance populist river chorus lines by claiming the current governments in the US is left-wing or socialist. It is not. My guess is the ratio of 20 years of left-oriented programs and right-oriented bailouts of the last two years is 1:10 or more. 2. I want the population of Europe to be stabilized at the current levels, but I'd prefer it to go down by about a third. And I realize this is only possible by keeping the value of having an income squared against work high - in fact I think incomes can go up if we get rid of forms of slavery. If things go right this will be bloody necessary - my expectation is populations in EU, Japan, Australia and maybe even US (after all, it'll be a third world nation like brasil soon)* will start going up fast again*, somewhere early 20s, as firm treatments against aging start trickling down to consumers. Only a small amount of functional aging treatment or rejuvenation or increase in functional health will kick population growths up by percentage points. Those will be old people, and hopefully they will have old minds and ripe investment portfolios BUT suddenly younger bodies. If that trend holds, we will also see women in their 80s and 90s having babies again, because they have bodies of women in their 20s to 30s, around, ohh, say 2050. Personally I prefer population growth by people not dying that by adding non-educated young kids. (The latter is very worrysome, because a very small percentage of people in the middle eastis causing an endemic population growth rate, by holding a wife (or several wives) home as breeding slave. GIve those people access to the same treatments and the population rate in places will go dramatically, since the men will grow older, stay fertile longer, have bigger swarms of offspring, and have the opportunity to replace a "wife attrition" by getting fresh breeding slaves. Watch for countries with a median age under 30- those are the ones where people will be dying and trying to emigrate from in a few years.) ...And no I do NOT want immigration, not even from americans feeling the collapse of the union and the civil war. I do not trust big american populations anymore - some might be under the influence of sinister religions or "militant foxists". (*I want those people registered, known by Interpol and marked for being unable to enter Europe, for anything. They might be up to something*) 3. Russian population growth, even after the "nashi" lebensborn-light project, is still flat out negative. Only full dictatorial force or big loads of money can reduce or increase population growth rates. I am virulently against dishing out communal money for parents having babies. 4. I think people have babies, not because its a conscious, rational decission, but because of instincts and culture. I am blankly for doing whatever it takes to make sure that as few possible human being at the age of 18 can function productively, adaopted, as rational as possible and independently in society. I am for "FREE" variants of market-based eugenetics to make that possible. I would have gladly been the subject of a number of key genetic treatments before my birth - it would have saved society a lot of money and me a lot of misery. Society should demand parents pay for these necessary treatments or selection process for their offspring. Parents shoud be held accountable if they intentionally breed to have a child that will need societal care, extra medical care and money to live. I am not against not giving invalids disability, but I am against people with disabilities being born in the first place. 5. The west taxes itself to death? Surely you jest. If you want higher birth rates (and this goes for the US and for Europe, and especially for Japan) make sure people have at most 8 hour workdays, any overtime is paid 200 or more percent, and everyone gets, by default, a 3 day weekend. Right now people dont have children because they don't have the time to emotionally bond with them and care for them. Worse, people in the turd world dont have children because they are scared shitless to grow old and die uncared for, or they have children as men appear to be losers without at least several sons. I bet that an extra day a week of freedom is good for an additional .5% population growth rate in all modern societies. Those that can't sit still that day, start a company. Better - add a basic income for everyone. No questions asked, ever citizen gets a basic income. This will refugee immigration damn hard if you are unschooled - you can never hope to compete with an average citizen in such a society and only if you are a highly trained professional you can. The freedom to work minimal hours will also make parenting - and study - easier. A fair basic income would be good to get those with disabilities to do at least some work, which mostly doesn't make any sense now, especially where I live. It would save FORTUNES on social programs which you dont have to pay because there is that basic income - the latter would also be good for another .5% population growth. As in - "I dont need to work overtime, I'd rather stay home in bed with the wife and socialize". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 11:04:30 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 13:04:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] punishment In-Reply-To: <49D722BB.6030709@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> <49D722BB.6030709@rawbw.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/4 Lee Corbin Did you notice that there are in fact people who debate issues *seriously* asserting these things? A whole school of largely conservatives or libertarians would literally risk the danger of climatic collapse, mostly because they do not want governmental restrictions. It gives me the same feeling as the pope preaching against use of condoms. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 11:08:05 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 22:08:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/4/3 painlord2k at libero.it : > You are deluding yourself. A large part of these Muslims immigrates is > helped from the Social Security, because they are in large part unemployable > for any productive job because they are uneducated, low skilled and low IQ. > Then you add their religion, that teach them to loathe the different, hate > him, exploit him and not help him against other Muslims. Do you actually know any Muslims? -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 11:10:46 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 11:10:46 +0000 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Reward Offered. In-Reply-To: <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 4/4/09, Lee Corbin wrote: > I'm serious about this. $100 to the person who finds the > *most* egregious example of any posting I've ever made > on this list (from 1996 to today) where I called someone > uninformed or dishonest. Fifty dollars to second place! > > Since clearly I've *implied* that people are often less > than honest with others (and even with themselves, as I > did with Dagon tonight), this is not an idle offer. > Someone has to win, someone will win. > > My point will only be that *whatever* you find, it won't > be anything like what Fred has unleashed above. > ?If you give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest of men, I will find something in them which will hang him? Cardinal Richelieu (French Minister and Cardinal. 1585-1642) ------------ Now, if we only had archives going back to 1996 with a good search facility that could pick out individual messages............................. BillK ;) From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 11:20:19 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 13:20:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Gratitude In-Reply-To: <2ae60d770904032223x5a39e6bas4af1d5eb3a065b76@mail.gmail.com> References: <2ae60d770904032223x5a39e6bas4af1d5eb3a065b76@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > I wanted to thank the posters of the Sex-spirituality article, the > creationist rants, and the On a Boat song featuring T Pain. I am taking a liking for youtube mashups. Some cause me immense amusement. - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfadLhw14l8 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwJQy2BkJ-o - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYrSDXqwV1g - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBDuSa-4EN4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UKbdFKnHO0 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9JO2gNPoIMA - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMhnFoq0TpE&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viuGhdeLXHo&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRHfd9Yto0A - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNWCclOqUHw&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nQhBHtop-E&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA9lYAo3bak&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHL0k-p5HCc&feature=related - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhE85pyIRhU - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQunWXkeVKU&feature=related I am not a fan of much of this music, but hey, I like forms of sacrilege. Remarkably enough some sound better then both original source tracks, even when those were historic. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 4 16:01:38 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 09:01:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of print news In-Reply-To: <49D71EB4.6050603@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com><580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com><49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it><49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it><49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek><49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek><5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> <49D71EB4.6050603@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <9378CFD598514174B5DFD3DCB081CCD6@spike> > Subject: Re: [ExI] death of print news > > spike wrote: > > > ...caused me to recognize a big advantage to the coming death of print > news...Balanced reporting will > be accomplished, and misinformation can be greatly reduced. > > Yes, but I think that there is a cost you're not taking into account. .... > > We may end up losing public accountability once people are > glued only into their own information channels in an infinite > sea of information... Lee Interesting take, Lee. It looks to me as tho it would create exactly the opposite effect. The coming age of exploding news channels, we get a plethora of amateur reporters. An example is the YouTube phenom; a specific example is the reporting of a 17 yr old girl from Afghanistan being flogged for refusing to marry the local warlord. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Crfs8YsZPGE Stuff like this has been going on since forever, but suddenly in the past five years, it is all as close as your keyboard. Cell phone cameras catch it all, anywhere on the globe it occurs. Another example: instead of reading about former Illinois governor Blago in the papers, accepting whatever they choose to tell us, anyone can google the actual conversation transcript or even the audio if one is sufficiently curious. http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/blagojevich/1321610,blagojevich-calls-oba ma-expletive-120908.article It looks to me as tho we are truly entering a time which we talked about a lot here about 10 years ago: the dramatically increase in the transparency of government and society. We have the potential of weeding out government corruption. Granted the recent trend has been for society to become appallingly more tolerant of government corruption. We have a long string of federal government appointees who are tax cheaters for instance, including the head of the treasury. They somehow manage to be affirmed anyway. spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 16:58:46 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 10:58:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with this picture Message-ID: I'm subscribed to Drexler's "Next Big Future". http://nextbigfuture.com/ Today it had a series of articles re ice on Mars. Interesting. Exciting. The photo of the impact crater with the ice dispersed around it was taken in Nov 2008. Five months ago. Annoying, that delay in getting the news out. But anyway,... So I read the bullets and the blurbs and then I clicked the "update" link: University researchers discovers liquid saltwater on Mars http://www.michigandaily.com/content/2009-04-02/u-professor-discovers-liquid-salt-water-mars and began reading. Everything was good for a while, but then... Best, Jeff Davis "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?" Groucho Marx From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 4 17:18:09 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 13:18:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia Message-ID: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> I want to thank Giulio Prisco, I did not know Wikipedia had an article on mind uploading. The article is actually quite good, and it says two things that I've been saying for well over a decade. First it says: [Mind Uploading] "denies the vitalist view of human life and consciousness." But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the vitalist view. It then says: "The prospect of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many philosophical questions involving identity, individuality and the soul." But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the soul. John K Clark From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 4 17:45:49 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 10:45:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of John K Clark > Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia ... > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list > believe in the vitalist view. ... > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list > believe in the soul. > > John K Clark Evidence please John? You may be right, but how did you reach that conclusion? I recently wrote a paper for the theology educators in which I argue that transhumanism is a logical deductive conclusion for those who reject the vitalist view and those who do not accept the notion of a separately animate soul. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 18:26:04 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 18:26:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with this picture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 4/4/09, Jeff Davis wrote: > I'm subscribed to Drexler's "Next Big Future". > http://nextbigfuture.com/ > So am I. It's a great resource. But I don't think Drexler has anything to do with it. It is mostly written by Brian Wang. Quote: Nextbigfuture is the Lifeboat Foundation Technology Research News Website. I couldn't find Drexler on the Lifeboat Foundation either. BillK From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 19:38:30 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 21:38:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: 2009/4/4 John K Clark > I want to thank Giulio Prisco, I did not know Wikipedia had an article on > mind uploading. The article is actually quite good, and it says two things > that I've been saying for well over a decade. First it says: > > [Mind Uploading] "denies the vitalist view of human life and > consciousness." > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the > vitalist view. > > It then says: > > "The prospect of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many > philosophical questions involving identity, individuality and the soul." > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the > soul. Whereas on rationalist moments (and I say rationalist, not rational) i know there is no sensible, sustainable alternative to a world without vitalist or spiritual energies, and matter being a mechanical process. But it is so hard to sustain this insight in moments of emotion and unease. When faced with the dark of night, the hour of the wolf, when sleeplessness overwhelms me, when I note down important ideas in my book at 3 AM, the other reality is very compelling and I cannot ignore the slide show on the inside of my mind. That's why I agree - most people and many transhumanists will be vulnerable to this compulsive urge - the urge to protect simple, linear puppeteers when things move or happen of their own accord. We are not yet accustomed to inner workings, mechanical causes and programs. It's been only a few decades, give it time to trickle down. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Apr 4 20:17:37 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:17:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> At 09:38 PM 4/4/2009 +0200, Dagon wrote: >on rationalist moments (and I say rationalist, not rational) i know >there is no sensible, >sustainable alternative to a world without vitalist or spiritual >energies, and matter being a >mechanical process. I recall John Clark's claim that "free will" is an illusion based on the fact that we are blind to our own workings until we see the result, which seems correct to me. I'm not sure if the following is a good analogy (I don't mean homology), but even a totally deterministic, matter&energy computer can deliver the next largest prime number (an abstraction) without *anyone* having in advance any detailed idea what it will be. Brains in bodies do something similar all the time, although other people can sometimes make shrewd guesses at what each of us will do in a situation where a given choice remains far more uncertain to the actor. As I wrote many years ago in THEORY AND ITS DISCONTENTS: "Our scientific worldview places us, at bottom, in a universe of non-local quantum fields, whose gravitational ensembles are constrained by the highly counter-intuitive principles of relativity theory. Is this a `materialistic' account? Clearly it is; or if it isn't, then no materialistic account can any longer stand." Damien Broderick From ismirth at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 20:44:31 2009 From: ismirth at gmail.com (Isabelle Hakala) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 16:44:31 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> One of the things that occurs to me about mind uploading is this... I would want to upload my mind, and let that 'simulation' run for, oh... say a decade, without any outside influences, and me still living in the outside world, and then compare notes with my uploaded self. What had each of us learned different? Did we still agree on things? What had changed? Etc. For me that would be an important step in feeling like it would be worth-while to do it again at the 'end' of my life so as to preserve myself, and then live on from there. It would answer a lot of questions for me. I believe in something one might consider to be a 'soul', and it doesn't bother me to think that a simulacrum of myself might be running around someplace that may or may not have my 'soul' attached to it as well. Either it would have a part of my soul attached to it, which would be fine, or it wouldn't and then it wouldn't make any difference at all. If this experiment were run, one would be able to see if the simulacrum finds life on the 'inside' as satisfying as the person on the outside does. Just a thought:) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Isabelle Hakala "Any person who says 'it can't be done' shouldn't be interrupting the people getting it done." "Do every single thing in life with love in your heart." On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 1:18 PM, John K Clark wrote: > I want to thank Giulio Prisco, I did not know Wikipedia had an article on > mind uploading. The article is actually quite good, and it says two things > that I've been saying for well over a decade. First it says: > > [Mind Uploading] "denies the vitalist view of human life and > consciousness." > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the > vitalist view. > > It then says: > > "The prospect of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many > philosophical questions involving identity, individuality and the soul." > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the > soul. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 4 21:08:28 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:08:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49D7CC4C.1070601@libero.it> Il 03/04/2009 23.40, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 01:15 PM 4/3/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: > Mirco's statement wasn't an accidental slip of the keyboard; Are you from the Dep. of Mind Reading of the ACLU? > he later repeated his sentiment. But perhaps it's a language problem, since > "alienated" in English usage means disaffected with one's situation or > culture, not "requiring treatment by an alienist". Still, this is pretty > damned creepy: Well, we were writing about "furious alienated teenagers" [F.A.T.] putting their hands on dangerous stuff with the intent to damage others they feel alienated from. Note that the teenagers is furious AND alienated not only alienated. Also, for me, "teenagers" is usually an under age under the authority of his parents. If we assume the intentions are true and we know the intentions, what do we do? Do we prohibit the selling of the "dangerous stuff" ? Do we let the FAT obtain the stuff and using it and land in jail it after? Do we let the FAT obtain the stuff and using it and hand him a "we understand your feeling" card and let him walk away? Do we help him before he damage others and himself forever? If he have not a mental condition I agree an asylum is not for him. A jail could be better. Or a foster family. Some people have the need of psychiatric help only one time in their lives. > "Maybe you think I advocated to put him/her inside an asylum forever, > but I'm not doing this. > I only advocate to do it for the limited time needed to make him/her > calm and not dangerous for him/herself and others and, maybe, help > him/her to not feel alienated." > For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, I > gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to > Nurse Ratched.# I had to do a search for understanding what you intended. I never watched the show from start to end, but is interesting how people base their feeling on fiction and not on reality. And then, they twist also the fiction to signify what they want. The protagonist is admitted in the asylum because he want to be there and he gamed the system to be sent there so he avoided the jail. So he went there against the will of the system. Then, instead to play the good patient he started to behave like a real lunatic with poor self control (remember that the nurses and the doctors in story don't see what you see, only what they see). But it is more dangerous to trick a surgeon that you need a heart transplant than trick a psychiatrist that you need a few droplets of aloperidol. I'm sure they were tricked in believing him a psychiatric patient only because he was played by Jack Nicholson and the director tell them to do so. I'm the first to complain when people unfit is brought to my ward instead of a jail or instead to their home or a shelter for homeless or a hospice for elder or a correctional institute for young offenders. I'm there for caring for the real psychotics not for the rejected of the society. I know my limits, I know I have not the resources, the tools and the skills needed to help them all. And taking care of so different people would be impossible because too often they need contrasting things. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 4 21:27:36 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:27:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904040237tb294627v9e5a2919ecacc9cf@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> <9b9887c80904031709n6b462445jf0fb9773c54d27d1@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904040237tb294627v9e5a2919ecacc9cf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49D7D0C8.8030003@libero.it> Il 04/04/2009 11.37, Florent Berthet ha scritto: > "In the meantime, I took the courage to subscribe, at least as an > observer - it is really uncomfortable to type in French with an Italian > keyboard -, to the French transhumanist mailing list. Are you there?" > > I've read it sometimes, but there wasn't anything really interesting by > the time, and it's a little silent (less than 50 people). However that > could change, so I've just subscribed. > > How is it in Italy? (or in other countries, if other non-americans are > reading this ?) We have two mailing list (the AIT and the NTI) after the scission. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Apr 4 21:27:46 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:27:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <49D7CC4C.1070601@libero.it> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D7CC4C.1070601@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090404162327.0239a340@satx.rr.com> At 11:08 PM 4/4/2009 +0200, painlord2k wrote: >Are you from the Dep. of Mind Reading of the ACLU? No, but one of my friends ran the Dept. of Mind Reading for the CIA and US military. (Detailed in my book OUTSIDE THE GATES OF SCIENCE.) >>For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, I >>gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to >>Nurse Ratched.# > >I had to do a search for understanding what you intended. What a stroke of luck, then, that I provided a direct url to the movie (although Ken Kesey's famous novel was more interesting).# Damien Broderick # http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Kesey From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 4 21:39:07 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 23:39:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> Il 03/04/2009 12.03, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > This is because they are taxed as there is no tomorrow by their > governments. Pools show they want more children but feel their are > not wealth enough to be able to afford them. > That is an interesting angle, on which I personally know very little. > In the seventies, European countries with very high level of taxation, > namely social democratic Scandinavia, used to have the lowest > demographic pressure, even in comparison with much poorer areas, such as > southern Italy or Greece, but this was usually attributed to cultural > reasons. The interesting part is that Italy and Spain have lower fertilities than the North Europe, when they were used to have hogher. Another more interesting point is that Morocco had a sudden fall of its fertility in the '70, when they needed to finance the war in the West Sahara and raised the taxes to the current levels. Iran have the same level of fertility as Italy, and the women are not so much empowered as in Italy or the US. This is, probably, also a function of the urbanization of large part of the population. More people live in city house, less space they have to raise their children. I could be wrong, but if the law mandated the construction of four bedrooms only apartments we would have much higher fertility. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 4 22:00:25 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 15:00:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ants again Message-ID: Earlier I had described an ant experiment, the double straw, which I am now pretty sure will fail even before I try it. Ants and humans are two species that have externalized a great deal of knowledge, humans with our libraries and internet, ants with their mysterious chemical repertoire of instincts so eloquently described by Darwin in chapter 7 of OoS. As a preliminary step to the double straw, we could set up the double hole experiment in which the ants are allowed to set up their aphid farms in the tree using a paper bridge over the goo. The bridge has goo barriers with two adjacent holes large enough for one ant to pass easily but not large enough for two to squeeze by each other. The holes would be about two mm diameter and about four mm center to center. The experiment is to see if the ants can figure out a way to make one hole the in and the other one the out. The holes are circumscribed by a goo ring so the ants cannot go around the holes. It's thru the holes or no access to the aphids. Anyone wish to speculate on whether the ants will split their lines and form two one-way holes, thereby reaching their aphids relatively impeded, or whether they will get in each other's way in both holes. Do state your reasoning. Humanity is in so many ways analogous to the ants, where a little more profound insight could make the whole process work better. I hope the ants figure out how to make one in-door and one out-door, but I fear they will not do it. See sketch below: spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Outlook.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 57687 bytes Desc: not available URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 4 22:20:35 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:20:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49D7DD33.8000701@libero.it> Il 04/04/2009 12.18, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > Yes, it would be just like the west to tax itself to death. It is like self canibalization. > 1. All of those "anti big gov/pro big market" people, do you have the > nerve to face the difference between the > amount of tax citizens will have to pay for (a) all the welfare and > development aid and subsidies and left wing > pet projects and (b) the recent bailout? - and don't backpeddle or > dance populist river chorus lines by claiming > the current governments in the US is left-wing or socialist. It is not. > My guess is the ratio of 20 years of left-oriented programs and > right-oriented bailouts of the last two years is 1:10 > or more. Left wing it is, socialist (in the Misesian sense) it is. Under Bush it was a bit less socialist and not so left wing. But the "No Child left behind" is and was a socialist plan. Pro market people (there is no "big market" or "small market" only "market") are and were against the bailout, the FED (and other central banks) meddling with interest rates and the money. What you see now is the left (and a part of the right big spender) to do corporate welfare as they were used to do people welfare. > 2. I want the population of Europe to be stabilized at the current > levels, but I'd prefer it to go down by about a > third. I agree, if you are in the third that go down and I'm in the third that stay up. > Personally I prefer population growth by people not dying that by adding > non-educated young kids. > (The latter is very worrysome, because a very small percentage of people > in the middle east > is > causing an > endemic population growth rate, by holding a wife (or several wives) > home as breeding slave. GIve those people > access to the same treatments and the population rate in places will go > dramatically, since the men will > grow older, stay fertile longer, have bigger swarms of offspring, and > have the opportunity to replace a > "wife attrition" by getting fresh breeding slaves. Watch for countries > with a median age under 30 > > - those are > the ones where people will be dying and trying to emigrate from in a few > years.) This is because the welfare state need to be scrapped off. You take out the welfare state and parasites will not be able to afford children and only productive people will be able to afford them and will them. But, also many of these countries (like Saudi Arabia) have a falling fertility, because too much breeding have doubled the population, where the oil revenues are the same. So income was halved. For example, in the '70, the personal income in Saudi Arabia where a bit less than Italy and now it is about half of Italy. When the oil revenues will start to fall, their fertility will fall again under replacement as the land will not be able to sustain the current number of inhabitants. Money and free time will not work alone and if they are given as a gift from the government (Saudi Arabia show this). Mirco From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 22:22:59 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:22:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> Message-ID: > > The interesting part is that Italy and Spain have lower fertilities than > the North Europe, when they were used to have hogher. > > Another more interesting point is that Morocco had a sudden fall of its > fertility in the '70, when they needed to finance the war in the West Sahara > and raised the taxes to the current levels. > > Iran have the same level of fertility as Italy, and the women are not so > much empowered as in Italy or the US. > > This is, probably, also a function of the urbanization of large part of the > population. More people live in city house, less space they have to raise > their children. I could be wrong, but if the law mandated the construction > of four bedrooms only apartments we would have much higher fertility. Whereas a high fertility rates are bad, right? I thought that had been established .... ..unless you regard human beings as a means to an end'. (links) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 22:26:13 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:26:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/4 Isabelle Hakala > One of the things that occurs to me about mind uploading is this... I would > want to upload my mind, and let that 'simulation' run for, oh... say a > decade, without any outside influences, and me still living in the outside > world, and then compare notes with my uploaded self. What had each of us > learned different? Did we still agree on things? What had changed? Etc. For > me that would be an important step in feeling like it would be worth-while > to do it again at the 'end' of my life so as to preserve myself, and then > live on from there. It would answer a lot of questions for me. I believe in > something one might consider to be a 'soul', and it doesn't bother me to > think that a simulacrum of myself might be running around someplace that may > or may not have my 'soul' attached to it as well. Either it would have a > part of my soul attached to it, which would be fine, or it wouldn't and then > it wouldn't make any difference at all. > > If this experiment were run, one would be able to see if the simulacrum > finds life on the 'inside' as satisfying as the person on the outside does. > > Just a thought:) It would be more prudent (and productive? not sure..) to link the two minds, one organic substrate, the other processor substrate, and let them work on problems within the confines of a single consciousness or ego. Would go well, until one would file for divorce I suppose. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 4 22:39:16 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 15:39:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2d6187670904041539t5e01b371u583c839f57c43896@mail.gmail.com> I would think the ants would rise to the challenge by using chemical messengers. John P.S. I love the illustrations! We need more Extropian list posters to provide artwork to demonstrate their points. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 4 22:54:43 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:54:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> Message-ID: <49D7E533.9070605@libero.it> Il 04/04/2009 13.08, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/4/3 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> You are deluding yourself. A large part of these Muslims immigrates is >> helped from the Social Security, because they are in large part unemployable >> for any productive job because they are uneducated, low skilled and low IQ. >> Then you add their religion, that teach them to loathe the different, hate >> him, exploit him and not help him against other Muslims. > > Do you actually know any Muslims? A few directly and I know someone married with a Copt from Egypt. And, for sure, their opinion is worse than mine. I also understood that many of the immigrants are from the higher strata of the original population, so there are much more smart people than in their country. I also know that many Muslims are normal people, unable or unwilling to take any stand against the violent Muslims. Dante's Inferno describe them (and many others like them) out of the real Inferno, with the angel that taken no stand for or against God when Satan rebelled. They are the one that follow only the self interest and never, ever, take any stand for anything because they lack any moral courage to act. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy/Inferno/Canto_III > And he to me: "This miserable mode > Maintain the melancholy souls of those > Who lived withouten infamy or praise. ...... > No fame of them the world permits to be; > Misericord and Justice both disdain them. > Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass." Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 4 23:00:01 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:00:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> Message-ID: <49D7E671.6070807@libero.it> Il 05/04/2009 0.22, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > The interesting part is that Italy and Spain have lower fertilities > than the North Europe, when they were used to have hogher. > > Another more interesting point is that Morocco had a sudden fall of > its fertility in the '70, when they needed to finance the war in the > West Sahara and raised the taxes to the current levels. > > Iran have the same level of fertility as Italy, and the women are > not so much empowered as in Italy or the US. > > This is, probably, also a function of the urbanization of large part > of the population. More people live in city house, less space they > have to raise their children. I could be wrong, but if the law > mandated the construction of four bedrooms only apartments we would > have much higher fertility. > > > Whereas a high fertility rates are bad, right? Not always. High fertility rates for the more productive people is good. Lower fertility rates for the less productive people is good. If the resources are plenty, more people is better for all. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 4 23:26:09 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 16:26:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904041539t5e01b371u583c839f57c43896@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904041539t5e01b371u583c839f57c43896@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3E5D14CE7BB944D4AA35BA2827102649@spike> ________________________________ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Grigg ... Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again I would think the ants would rise to the challenge by using chemical messengers. John John part of the exercise is to explain your reasoning, and if so, I might get some insights regarding how to improve or sharpen the experiment. I can give you a line of reasoning that counterindicates your speculation however. The ants have only a few chemical signals, and only a few but very well developed instincts. Like their cousins the sphex wasp, they have very little or no actual reasoning capacity, only the ability to follow ancient instinctal procedures that arose by happenstance as described in chapter 7 of Darwin's OoS. We can learn from the ants, but they cannot or do not learn from us. P.S. I love the illustrations! We need more Extropian list posters to provide artwork to demonstrate their points. You are too kind Johnny. If you want to post sketches, you can make the sketch on microsloth powerpoint, then select-all on that slide, then select group, then control c to copy, then go to your message, click inside and hit control v to paste. If the sketch is really busy it might be too big for the server, in which case the filter will send it directly to moderator in-box and I will approve it on thru, assuming it is nothing pornographic. Here's a kick. Consider the above paragraph. If we thawed someone who was frozen 25 yrs ago, she would have not the foggiest clue what the heck I was blathering about, yet I suspect no one here is puzzled by that paragraph. If it is pornographic I will save it for review. Daily, for the foreseeable future. More often if necessary. spike From Travis.Porco at ucsf.edu Sat Apr 4 23:02:13 2009 From: Travis.Porco at ucsf.edu (Travis Porco) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 16:02:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D7E533.9070605@libero.it> Message-ID: Copts are Christian, not Muslim. --tcp From: "painlord2k at libero.it" Reply-To: ExI chat list Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:54:43 +0200 To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] To Arms! Il 04/04/2009 13.08, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/4/3 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> You are deluding yourself. A large part of these Muslims immigrates is >> helped from the Social Security, because they are in large part unemployable >> for any productive job because they are uneducated, low skilled and low IQ. >> Then you add their religion, that teach them to loathe the different, hate >> him, exploit him and not help him against other Muslims. > > Do you actually know any Muslims? A few directly and I know someone married with a Copt from Egypt. And, for sure, their opinion is worse than mine. I also understood that many of the immigrants are from the higher strata of the original population, so there are much more smart people than in their country. I also know that many Muslims are normal people, unable or unwilling to take any stand against the violent Muslims. Dante's Inferno describe them (and many others like them) out of the real Inferno, with the angel that taken no stand for or against God when Satan rebelled. They are the one that follow only the self interest and never, ever, take any stand for anything because they lack any moral courage to act. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Divine_Comedy/Inferno/Canto_III > And he to me: "This miserable mode > Maintain the melancholy souls of those > Who lived withouten infamy or praise. ...... > No fame of them the world permits to be; > Misericord and Justice both disdain them. > Let us not speak of them, but look, and pass." Mirco _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 00:20:55 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 17:20:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2ae60d770904041720k2b349831l63ea88a9a81a689b@mail.gmail.com> The Mind or Soul is a byproduct of senses interacting with a body. This triggers a memory, that sends you spiraling into a train of free associations, that tickles, that turns you on and so on. You could give a machine a camera, a kinetic sensor, microphones... The medium would be pretty alien. I guess someone could get used to it but sensing through a camera would be as different from seeing as recording infromation through a microphone is from hearing. I mean, part of perception is filtration of extraneous data. It seems a lot to wrap my mind around. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 00:37:18 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 17:37:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] I am now a creationist In-Reply-To: <49D7D0C8.8030003@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <221FEA71916F40CB9068B9E7C5F4131B@MyComputer> <0C1224A0C3AE4937B8D1B952AD790756@MyComputer> <6d342ad70904010818l457e24a1o3895ce3b7b860d28@mail.gmail.com> <4650F1196DF441B1B54DB4C6A1A29734@spike> <6d342ad70904030315hbc0efbv4890b53e59a2af96@mail.gmail.com> <9b9887c80904031709n6b462445jf0fb9773c54d27d1@mail.gmail.com><6d342ad70904040237tb294627v9e5a2919ecacc9cf@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D0C8.8030003@libero.it> Message-ID: <1B6575D4769B42F5882F9C4E8E3733AF@spike> Here's an excellent ten minute presentation of the basics of evolution for your creationist friends: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php spike From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 5 01:35:40 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:35:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Libertarianism isn't the problem---Libertarians are Message-ID: <49D80AEC.9030804@rawbw.com> I'm as much a conservative as a libertarian. Here is why: Few libertarians fully appreciate how difficult it is for a civilization to rise to the point that freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the legal right to peacefully assemble, and the legal right to say anything that one pleases are at all possible. Yes, I mean *possible*---capable of being instituted at all. It tooks many hundreds of years, chiefly in England and the American colonies, but throughout much of western Europe for the necessary preconditions to evolve. Even the finest libertarians that I know, e.g. Rafal S., seem to think that the exalted liberties we so celebrate on this list and thousands like it can operate in a vacuum. Put these people down in Tokagawa Japan, Hammerabi's Babylon, or Cicero's Rome, and they'd instantly try to persuade the ruler or rules of the incomparable virtues of libertarianism. Of course, any ruler foolish enough to listen to them would be instantly deposed. (This actually was Cicero's mistake: he didn't realize that the ancient Rome he loved was already dead, and that the Republican values he cherished were not any longer feasible. He should have supported Caesar, a good dictator, rather than oppose him.) Even today we have many areas, e.g. most parts of Africa, all of Russia, inner cities in America, and so on, which have not yet risen culturally to the level where real liberty is possible. Yes, I mean *possible*. To people living in inner cities, for example, it feels like there is a power vacuum, and only the advent of the local gangs fills that vacuum and restores some kind of order. In those locales, the American constitutional order feels weak and hardly present at all. Other countries, like Iraq and Turkey, are clearly borderline cases that could go either way with regards as to whether they're ready. We don't know if Iraqis can survive as a democracy---and the smart, cynical money is doubtful. The flaw is not in libertarianism, but in naive libertarians who believe that the principles of liberty can unthinkingly be applied in all its glorious abstract terms regardless of context. So in many cases, they end up reflexively supporting policies that in the long run simply cut their own throats. And my throat too, unfortunately. Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 02:24:30 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 12:24:30 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/5 Isabelle Hakala : > One of the things that occurs to me about mind uploading is this... I would > want to upload my mind, and let that 'simulation' run for, oh... say a > decade, without any outside influences, and me still living in the outside > world, and then compare notes with my uploaded self. What had each of us > learned different? Did we still agree on things? What had changed? Etc. For > me that would be an important step in feeling like it would be worth-while > to do it again at the 'end' of my life so as to preserve myself, and then > live on from there. It would answer a lot of questions for me. I believe in > something one might consider to be a 'soul', and it doesn't bother me to > think that a simulacrum of myself might be running around someplace that may > or may not have my 'soul' attached to it as well. Either it would have a > part of my soul attached to it, which would be fine, or it wouldn't and then > it wouldn't make any difference at all. > > If this experiment were run, one would be able to see if the simulacrum > finds life on the 'inside' as satisfying as the person on the outside does. It wouldn't be a fair comparison unless the upload were crippled so that it was as limited as the biological. One of the main advantages of an upload is that it would be easier change and improve it. At the very least, you would want to ensure that it wasn't unhappy. -- Stathis Papaioannou From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 04:34:04 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 22:34:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with this picture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 12:26 PM, BillK wrote: > But I don't think Drexler has anything to do with it. > > It is mostly written by Brian Wang. Whoops! My bad. Best, Jeff Davis From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Apr 5 05:05:29 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:05:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4B5452B8502140A2A7619341DC0EEEF0@DFC68LF1> Thanks for this refreshing and post Spike. Good to read something other than the arms, punishment and creationist posts! Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More _____ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 5:00 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: [ExI] ants again Earlier I had described an ant experiment, the double straw, which I am now pretty sure will fail even before I try it. Ants and humans are two species that have externalized a great deal of knowledge, humans with our libraries and internet, ants with their mysterious chemical repertoire of instincts so eloquently described by Darwin in chapter 7 of OoS. As a preliminary step to the double straw, we could set up the double hole experiment in which the ants are allowed to set up their aphid farms in the tree using a paper bridge over the goo. The bridge has goo barriers with two adjacent holes large enough for one ant to pass easily but not large enough for two to squeeze by each other. The holes would be about two mm diameter and about four mm center to center. The experiment is to see if the ants can figure out a way to make one hole the in and the other one the out. The holes are circumscribed by a goo ring so the ants cannot go around the holes. It's thru the holes or no access to the aphids. Anyone wish to speculate on whether the ants will split their lines and form two one-way holes, thereby reaching their aphids relatively impeded, or whether they will get in each other's way in both holes. Do state your reasoning. Humanity is in so many ways analogous to the ants, where a little more profound insight could make the whole process work better. I hope the ants figure out how to make one in-door and one out-door, but I fear they will not do it. See sketch below: spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Outlook.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 57687 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Apr 5 05:01:24 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 00:01:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com><1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com><7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <29B7FF6FF1204A47B481B6EC8523FE99@DFC68LF1> Lee, could you please cut down on the high volume of posts to the list. Thank you, Natasha Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 05:36:23 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 4 Apr 2009 23:36:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with this picture In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: But my misattribution of "The Next Big Future" to Drexler was just a garden-variety "Whoops!" on my part, and not what I was aiming at when I asked, "what is wrong with this picture?". jeff davis On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 10:34 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 12:26 PM, BillK wrote: >> But I don't think Drexler has anything to do with it. >> >> It is mostly written by Brian Wang. > > Whoops! ? My bad. > > Best, Jeff Davis > From moulton at moulton.com Sun Apr 5 05:59:56 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 04 Apr 2009 22:59:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Reward Offered. In-Reply-To: <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> On Sat, 2009-04-04 at 02:26 -0700, Lee Corbin wrote: > Fred C. Moulton wrote: > > > Neither Lee nor painlord2k are libertarians. > > The arbiter of definitions has spoken. All are to remain > silent. Well I never said "All are to remain silent" and I never implied it. Thus it appears to be yet another piece of failed rhetoric. ... > > > And further what they have posting recently in this thread is not even > > remotely Extropian. > > Again, you *know* what these terms mean, and it is for > the rest of us just to accept, I suppose. I suggest that each individual on this list who uses the term "Extropian" to think long and hard about this. Do you really want to be associated with the term "Extropian" if the term "Extropian" can be be seen as compatible with advocating that innocent Muslims should be expelled from France? I am not. I do not want the term "Extropian" twisted until it includes something like expelling the innocent Muslims from France. And remember that deportation of innocent civilians has been considered a Crime Against Humanity since the Nuremberg Trials. So Extropians; do you embrace the idea that advocating a Crime against Humanity is compatible with the Extropian principles or do you reject it or do you just not care? Fred From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 06:54:33 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 08:54:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Reward Offered. In-Reply-To: <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> Message-ID: > > I suggest that each individual on this list who uses the term > "Extropian" to think long and hard about this. Do you really want to be > associated with the term "Extropian" if the term "Extropian" can be be > seen as compatible with advocating that innocent Muslims should be > expelled from France? I am not. I do not want the term "Extropian" > twisted until it includes something like expelling the innocent Muslims > from France. And remember that deportation of innocent civilians has > been considered a Crime Against Humanity since the Nuremberg Trials. So > Extropians; do you embrace the idea that advocating a Crime against > Humanity is compatible with the Extropian principles or do you reject it > or do you just not care? There is a war going on, and not even Extropianism, which should have been the new enlightenment, has succeeded in not getting infected by the most loathsome human tendencies. But whats worse is - yes, I can envision mass forced deportations of muslims from Europe. Yes I can see populist regimes emerging (and there is a remote but real chance one of these gains a majority vote in dutch parliament by 2011) that can step away from existing treaties and deport "non-integrated" foreigners, forcing them out. I don't like Wilders, largely because his other views are intolerable, but I can see where his views on islam come from. I have more 'faith' in humanity than Geert does, but I am no enthusiast of islam either. But I despise judeo-christianity just as much, and I can't consistently want to banish that segment of society either. So I guess we are stuck with complexity and uncertainty in this world, and the question is how to deal with these - with confidence or with fear. And I see things being contemplated that have been unthinkable for several decades. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 07:10:01 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 09:10:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <2ae60d770904041720k2b349831l63ea88a9a81a689b@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> <2ae60d770904041720k2b349831l63ea88a9a81a689b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > The Mind or Soul is a byproduct of senses interacting with a body. > This triggers a memory, that sends you spiraling into a train of free associations, that tickles, that turns you on and so on. > You could give a machine a camera, a kinetic sensor, microphones... > The medium would be pretty alien. I guess someone could get used to it but sensing through a camera would be as different from seeing as recording infromation through a microphone is from hearing. I mean, part of perception is filtration of extraneous data. > There are three potential different entities at play here - 1 - tools. A hammer. A camera. Binoculars. 2 - cognitive tools. A calculator. An automated personal secretary. 3 - cognition. (??) The third category of entities is integrated in the human mind. Is a brain pacemaker (for instance an iplant ) a 2nd or 3rd category entity? I'd say 2nd. Not even augmented reality is a third category. Imagine a mind inside your mind that interprets your desires and needs, and makes wise, fast, prudent, proactive and intelligent choices based on them. For instance, you were hungry but had exceeded your daily calorie intake (damn you B&J!!), and the device would put out an order for a dish of tomato slices, celery stalks and carrots. In that case I can postulate a fourth and a fifth type - 3 - cognition augmenters (cybernanny, thinkingspeedboost, synthmem) 4- cognition boosters (???) 5 - superintelligence Of five I can also say one thing, and I would like people to respond to that asserting "*superintelligence in the above hierarchy is often seen as a single linear curve upward. What if variants of making a mind superintelligent instead were the slow and arduous result of many hundreds of type 4 and 5 enhancements accumulating*?" -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 5 08:24:48 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 01:24:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury Message-ID: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> L'Affaire Bradbury, or how the Extropians Drove Out One of their most Insightful, Technically Sophisticated, and Bold Thinkers. Alas, I was not on the list when it happened, and so have only second hand knowledge. These are just impressions that I've gathered. Corrections welcomed. Some time, surely between 2001 and 2005, the at-the-time well-known Extropian pundit Robert Bradbury offered a modest proposal concerning American and Western difficulties in Afghanistan, only, unlike Swift whose own modest proposal was entirely satirical, this was made quite seriously. It was to carpet bomb all of Afghanistan (or perhaps just the mountainous parts inaccssible to conventional conquest), and to do so with nuclear weapons, in order to destroy all resistance past the point of merely driving them into the stone age, but to crush Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and all their allies. The U.S. was still recovering from the 9-11 shock, and the anger of a wronged nation was still in the saddle (as evolution is so wont to equip survival-oriented entities). If you feel a profound revulsion towards that wanton slaughter of tribal people, and your every instinct warns against the taking of such extreme steps, what is the proper reaction? What should people have said? Sadly, most reading this know the answers to those questions, but they cannot admit it to themselves. The answer are *not* to engage in personal attack, vilification, statements of outrage, heartfelt depictions of how "disgusted", how "revolted", and even, tellingly, how sublimely embarrassed to even be on the same list one is. While one may not be able to *help* feeling this way or that, and most probably has utterly no desire to cease feeling that way, surely I don't need to remind you that these do not constitute arguments. This is *not* the stuff of rational discourse. And since when has the Extropian list ceased having rational, polite, and temperate logical discussion? Well, perhaps since Robert Bradbury felt compelled to depart, never to return except for a very occasional post here and there. It's sad that I have to say this, but *please* don't imagine for a moment that I embrace in any way his extreme suggestion. Yet I *must* say that, for Voltaire's principle that "I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it", while familiar, is hardly practiced a whole lot here. Really sad. It baffles me that this simple idea is so beyond so many people's behavioral repertoire. The worst part is that when people resort to name-calling, personal defamation, obloquy, and emotional brow-beating, it's most often in part out of FEAR. They fear that rational argument may not go their way. They value, in decreasing order, 1. prevailing in an argument, especially anything touching on values 2. prevailing with reason 3. finding and speaking the truth Now none of us can claim that he or she always puts number three first, but if we find that we are engaging in sheer calumny, or merely expressing our feelings and loathings, then for sure you know we are elevating our desire to prevail over everything else, including both rationality and a desire to get at the truth. For it's also true that the real reason to engage in such remarks is censure! To publicly proclaim one's own infinite disgust or revulsion at something that has been said, or to chime in with meaningless "me too" posts when most people are already on your side, is to in effect express a wish for censure. It's the mob psychology at work: "We don't like that, and you should shut the fuck up!", with a barely concealed "or else". The shunning instinct, alas, is as old as man. Well, it sure worked for (or rather against) Robert Bradbury. You shut him up but good. Happy? Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 5 09:03:21 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:03:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? Message-ID: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> If I write about actions that France could and should take to survive, I'll definitely leave gaping a class of people I perhaps should refer to as extreme individualists. These, or at least the subset of them of immediate concern, are people who may hold dear any number of high principles long revered in western civilization; yet who do not and perhaps cannot identify with the institutions and peoples who gave rise to those principles---and, see below, cannot perceive ambient threats to those principles of an existential nature. The capacity for patriotism is the most salient example. To a Roman, it was inconceivable that Rome per se was not reified or should not be reified. Their patriotism was instinctive and unquestioned to a degree extremely hard for a modern westerner to appreciate. Some 19th century American Indians would do better, especially all those tribes whose very definition of "human being" amounted exactly to inclusion in their own tribe. To an extreme individualist, or even what I'll call an abstract libertarian, groups such as "Romans", the "French people" and "France" are pointless and rather dangerous ideals (or themselves abstractions) and need to be comprehensively replaced by non-historically and non-developmentally based transitory groupings, (i.e. today's "us group") if any groupings at all are admissible. The statement "France should expel its Muslim residents" provokes not merely emotional disgust (and often uncontrolled vituperation), and not only judgments that violates enshrined principles of citizens' legal rights, but harks back to a misunderstood (or rather never understood or appreciated) tribalism. It even borders, it seems, on being incomprehensible, when one focuses on the (false) idea that only individuals really exist and only what happens to them as individuals really matters. So here is an imaginary dialog between a Right hemisphere and a Left hemisphere wherein the judgmental and form apparent to the first clash with the iterative and rational proceedings of the second. If you would like to personify the exchange, remembering that it is entirely imaginary, recall R for Rafal and L for Lee, and contrast the skepticism, repudiation, and revulsion of the right hemisphere R with the orderly, confabulatory (in the sense of creation), rigid, progressive, logical step-by-step relentless proceedings of L, the left hemisphere: L: In order to itself to survive, but perhaps equally importantly for its western traditions and the bulk of its egalitarian and freedom loving traditions and institutions to survive, France must expel its Muslim inhabitants. R: WTF? WTF! Have you entirely driven from your mind the social costs inflicted on individuals, the deep violations of individual freedoms, and (least of all) the sheer cost of such a step? L: "What the France?" What the France! Calm down, and I'll tell you what the France. When a body is diseased, those portions of the body fostering and providing shelter for the disease must be excised, regardless of the integrity of the body as a whole. R: "France", a body? Clearly your logical confabulations (in the creative sense) have gone off the deep end. The analogy fills me with the greatest disgust and brings uppermost to mind the question of what has happened to your skeptical powers of good judgment. L: Enough of impressions, mine and yours. Let's be logical. According to the demographers, in thirty years or so France's Muslim infection will have made them a majority of the nation's people, and they have never in modern history become a majority without doing immense violence to nearly all traditions held dear in the west. So if you proceed to just stand by and idly watch this happen, then in one *great* fell swoop you'll have all those liberties you so loudly defend, all those freedoms you take for granted, and all those principles held dear by France for over two hundred years cast into the wind. R: That is mere logical extrapolation. We don't know that any of that will take place. When we weigh those remote (in time, at least) possibilities with what happens to real people in the hear and now, then the judgment must come down on the side of doing no harm (or the lesser harm) in the here and now. L: Do you dismiss out of hand the developments of which I warn? Do you think that these have zero probability? R: It doesn't matter. What is important is a principled adherence to our cherished principles at all times, regardless of risk. The end never justifies the means, and history shows that all of the "actions en masse" from the Northern invasion of the seceding and freedom loving South, to Lincoln's suspension of habeas corpus, to the internment of the west coast Japanese, and many more in all lands and among all peoples are sooner or later regretted. L: They are regretted, it is true, but only by those who enjoy the luxury of being the products of those actions and who would not be here in a lot of the cases were not those stark actions taken! What you propose is *not* an ESS, and it flies in the face of your antecedents who made your policies and probably your very existence possible. You are a free-loader. You rid free on the hard decisions made hundreds of years ago by your cultural or literal ancestors, who revolted against a thorough tyranny, even though it meant expediently killing people and breaking things, who could find within themselves a strong unified civic group consciousness, who could rise as a until and repel foreign invasion, or even the invasions of neighboring tribes, as well as, when it was absolutely necessary, engaging in vigilante justice. You sit quite self-satisfied on top of long standing western traditions of tolerance (well, at least up to people making heretical suggestions!), personal liberty, and operation of institutions such as the free market without ever bothering yourself as to their provisionality and contingency. You act if these can only falter from within, by lack of scruple in particular cases, and are never at risk from global, environmental, ambient cultural change. By your stance, oblivious to fundamental and creeping cultural change, you in effect fail to defend the very conditions that make possible these principles to which you are (and I am) so wedded. Reply to that, if you will, and---if somehow you can--- please try to keep the dialog focused on the analytic and non-emotional, as understandably hard as that may be for your right hemisphere in this kind of discussion. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 5 09:11:13 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:11:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D22C32.3010401@rawbw.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:15 PM 4/3/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: > > [Damien wrote] >> >> This is the extropian list, not the fucking >> >> Dept. of Soviet Psychiatry & Gulags. >> >> Point well taken however. All posters, please read your stuff twice >> before posting. That wasn't the problem here. > Mirco's statement wasn't an accidental slip of the keyboard; he later > repeated his sentiment. But perhaps it's a language problem, Ya think? You give and gave absolutely *no* indication that you were trying to read the *meaning* behind his words. > since "alienated" in English usage means disaffected with > one's situation or culture, not "requiring treatment by > an alienist". Still, this is pretty damned creepy: Ah, I perhaps too charitably try to read the best meaning into others' statements. (Well---I do confess that I have occasionally jumped on a word---the temptation for all of us is obvious---but please, when it's someone else's second language, let's go an extra distance with the principle of charity. > "Maybe you think I advocated to put him/her inside an asylum forever, > but I'm not doing this. > I only advocate to do it for the limited time needed to make him/her > calm and not dangerous for him/herself and others and, maybe, help > him/her to not feel alienated." Note the word "calm". We all know that the violent or dangerous are institutionalized, and perhaps necessarily so (in want of sending them to jail). Clearly there is *some* set of conditions that you and Mirco would agree called for action to be taken. Wouldn't it be more productive to investigate what that common set of conditions is, or at least ask for clarification before blasting away? Lee > For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, I > gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to > Nurse Ratched.# > > Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 09:16:02 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 09:16:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> Message-ID: On 4/5/09, Lee Corbin wrote: > They fear that rational argument may not go their way. They > value, in decreasing order, > > 1. prevailing in an argument, especially anything > touching on values > 2. prevailing with reason > 3. finding and speaking the truth > > Now none of us can claim that he or she always puts number three > first, but if we find that we are engaging in sheer calumny, > or merely expressing our feelings and loathings, then for > sure you know we are elevating our desire to prevail over > everything else, including both rationality and a desire to > get at the truth. > The error in your modest proposal is that rationality isn't the whole picture. There are more important things than being rational. (Don't tell the Bayesians) ;) If you are discussing whether 2 + 2 = 4, then fine, be as rational as you like. But if you are discussing religion or politics (the big no-nos), then you have to bring real practical considerations in the discussions. Crimes against humanity invalidate the most logical of reasoning. Sorry, but it doesn't matter if you are rational and logically correct, you still lose the discussion. One can think of situations where logical analysis might recommend the enslavement of women, or the forced labor of children, or slavery of the unemployed, etc. etc. might produce better results in some areas. But these arguments lose because they are trumped by 'That's no way to treat human beings!'. Rationality is pretty much useless in matters of human relationships, on the small and large scale. BillK From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 5 09:23:11 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:23:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Underpopulation, not Overpopulation (was Re: To Arms!) In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> Dagon Gmail wrote: > [Lee wrote] > > Hmm. You could be right. Thanks for pointing it out. I did > > hear that the Russians actually did greatly improve their > > birth rate for a while by promising economic incentives. > > But after a lot of children were conceived, the government > > let slip that these incentives actually weren't *quite* as > > promised. A huge lot of abortions immediately took place. > > > > Yes, it would be just like the west to tax itself to death. > > 1. All of those "anti big gov/pro big market" people, Yes? Present. > do you have the nerve to face the difference between the > amount of tax citizens will have to pay for (a) all the > welfare and development aid and subsidies and left wing > pet projects Hideously wasteful, incentive weakening, and wealth destroying. > and (b) the recent bailout? Hideously wasteful, incentive weakening, and wealth destroying. What difference? Many, many of us "anti big gov" people are pro-market, but that *hardly* means we favor bailouts! > - and don't backpeddle or dance populist river chorus lines by claiming > the current governments in the US is left-wing or socialist. It is not. Well, as numerous posters have pointed out, it's definitely *not* a model of low-regulated free market! > My guess is the ratio of 20 years of left-oriented programs and > right-oriented bailouts of the last two years is 1:10 or more. What do you mean? I, for one, believe that if you took all the money wasted on the War on Poverty, all the billions and billions paid each year to unmarried women for having children, and all the enormous incentive-destroying welfare and superfluous unemployment payments, it might very well match the incredible agricultural subsidies and other corporate/government colluding corruption for sheer outlay. > 2. I want the population of Europe to be stabilized at the current > levels, but I'd prefer it to go down by about a third. Nah. The entire problem is that all you people have been fed a line about the world being over populated. I would suggest consulting the work of the late Julian Simon, who argued so effectively that we are notoriously *underpopulated*, except in certain poor countries like India or China. The decline demographic numbers is a prime cause of the economic malaise affecting the west. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 5 09:35:50 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 02:35:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of print news In-Reply-To: <9378CFD598514174B5DFD3DCB081CCD6@spike> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com><580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com><49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49C8CD5D.1080004@libero.it><49C9C2BD.9010907@rawbw.com> <49CAB1C7.5020601@libero.it><49CB0E1C.3060201@rawbw.com><49CC6DB5.1010501@rawbw.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek><49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek><5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> <49D71EB4.6050603@rawbw.com> <9378CFD598514174B5DFD3DCB081CCD6@spike> Message-ID: <49D87B76.3080705@rawbw.com> spike wrote: >> We may end up losing public accountability once people are >> glued only into their own information channels in an infinite >> sea of information... Lee > > Interesting take, Lee. It looks to me as tho it would create exactly the > opposite effect. The coming age of exploding news channels, we get a > plethora of amateur reporters. An example is the YouTube phenom; a specific > example is the reporting of a 17 yr old girl from Afghanistan being flogged > for refusing to marry the local warlord... > > Another example: instead of reading about former Illinois governor Blago in > the papers, accepting whatever they choose to tell us, anyone can google the > actual conversation transcript or even the audio if one is sufficiently > curious. > > It looks to me as tho we are truly entering a time which we talked about a > lot here about 10 years ago: the dramatically increase in the transparency > of government and society... I hope you're right. It's just hard for me to visualize how ---when people are no longer watching the same few accounts--- any sort of constructive public consensus will form. YouTube---like television---caters to the non-reasoning and non-logical parts of our brain. We're overwhelmed by the tragedy afflicting a single dramatic incident visually related, and become more immune to the more abstract stats. The best example, of course, is the common person's belief that the world is becoming more violent. Well, for most, *seeing* is believing, whereas belief ought to be formed from ratiocination at least as much, if not more. Pinker is great on this: Notice he's not one of those apes who thinks he's the greatest standup comic since Jack Benny, and who actually speaks from, yes, gasp!, a podium! Now how uncool is that?? But just *listen* to those fast, marvelous facts and analyses reel off his tongue! http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/steven_pinker_on_the_myth_of_violence.html Contrast it---if you can tolerate it after Pinker---this lame, slow-thinking, slow-talking, showy, phony, Robert Wright talk: http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/robert_wright_on_optimism.html Lee > We have the potential of weeding out government > corruption. Granted the recent trend has been for society to become > appallingly more tolerant of government corruption. We have a long string > of federal government appointees who are tax cheaters for instance, > including the head of the treasury. They somehow manage to be affirmed > anyway. > > spike From eschatoon at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 09:50:04 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:50:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] death of print news In-Reply-To: <49D87B76.3080705@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <1238403273.5478.194.camel@hayek> <49D19D24.8040908@rawbw.com> <1238481751.5478.363.camel@hayek> <5FDD658A194945048670AC13E5009B09@spike> <49D71EB4.6050603@rawbw.com> <9378CFD598514174B5DFD3DCB081CCD6@spike> <49D87B76.3080705@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904050250y289248a4kfde3c58458028b40@mail.gmail.com> I don't think so. Even with millions of online news sources, the vast majority will have a very limited audience and only a few will become _very_ popular. Our own blogs are not and will probably never be influential, but BoingBoing and DailyKos are. They are the new printing press. On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:35 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > spike wrote: > >>> We may end up losing public accountability once people are glued only >>> into their own information channels in an infinite sea of information... -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From eschatoon at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 09:57:41 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:57:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> Many Muslim residents of France are citizens -- on which legal basis could, or should, be expelled? There is no defendable legal basis of course. There is only one precedent in the modern history of Europe for expelling and abusing citizens based on their religion and ethnic origin, and I hope we have learned the lesson and don't wish to repeat it. Might is usually right -- but it creates very dangerous precedents. If Muslim citizens of France become a majority in the next decades, _they_ may decide to expel non-Muslims on the basis of might is right. G. On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:03 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > The statement "France should expel its Muslim residents" > provokes not merely emotional disgust (and often > uncontrolled vituperation), and not only judgments > that violates enshrined principles of citizens' legal > rights, but harks back to a misunderstood (or rather > never understood or appreciated) tribalism. It even > borders, it seems, on being incomprehensib -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From alito at organicrobot.com Sun Apr 5 10:20:16 2009 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:20:16 +1000 Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1238926816.32175.23.camel@localhost> On Sat, 2009-04-04 at 15:00 -0700, spike wrote: > > As a preliminary step to the double straw, we could set up the double > hole experiment in which the ants are allowed to set up their aphid > farms in the tree using a paper bridge over the goo. The bridge > has goo barriers with two adjacent holes large enough for one ant to > pass easily but not large enough for two to squeeze by each other. > The holes would be about two mm diameter and about four mm center to > center. The experiment is to see if the ants can figure out a way to > make one hole the in and the other one the out. The holes are > circumscribed by a goo ring so the ants cannot go around the holes. > It's thru the holes or no access to the aphids. > > Anyone wish to speculate on whether the ants will split their lines > and form two one-way holes, thereby reaching their aphids relatively > impeded, or whether they will get in each other's way in both holes. > Do state your reasoning. I know little of the organic variety of ants, but if I was to set up a run of ant colony optimisation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_colony_optimization) with those parameters, I'd be quite dissapointed if the virtual version of the dumb beasts didn't find the optimised path. Are the stochastic parameters in the organic variety really that low that you wouldn't get enough of them going through the second straw often enough to cause the stabilisation of the second path? What about the chemical signals they use, don't they diffuse even those measly 2mm? If neither, how long would it take you to evolve those organic robots to have the creative capabilities of their virtual brethren? From aleksei at iki.fi Sun Apr 5 10:49:45 2009 From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:49:45 +0300 Subject: [ExI] rationality Message-ID: <1db0b2da0904050349t3c2ad362h1b633cbf9b8552c0@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 12:16 PM, BillK wrote: > On 4/5/09, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> ?They fear that rational argument may not go their way. They >> ?value, in decreasing order, >> >> ? ? ?1. prevailing in an argument, especially anything >> ? ? ? ? touching on values >> ? ? ?2. prevailing with reason >> ? ? ?3. finding and speaking the truth >> >> ?Now none of us can claim that he or she always puts number three >> ?first, but if we find that we are engaging in sheer calumny, >> ?or merely expressing our feelings and loathings, then for >> ?sure you know we are elevating our desire to prevail over >> ?everything else, including both rationality and a desire to >> ?get at the truth. > > The error in your modest proposal is that rationality isn't the whole picture. > There are more important things than being rational. > (Don't tell the Bayesians) ?;) > > If you are discussing whether 2 + 2 = 4, then fine, be as rational as you like. > > But if you are discussing religion or politics (the big no-nos), then > you have to bring real practical considerations in the discussions. > Crimes against humanity invalidate the most logical of reasoning. > Sorry, but it doesn't matter if you are rational and logically > correct, you still lose the discussion. > > One can think of situations where logical analysis might recommend the > enslavement of women, or the forced labor of children, or slavery of > the unemployed, etc. etc. might produce better results in some areas. > But these arguments lose because they are trumped by 'That's no way to > treat human beings!'. > > Rationality is pretty much useless in matters of human relationships, > on the small and large scale. Strange that you speak of rationality as if it required one to always speak the truth. If speaking the truth leads to getting burned at the stake, the smart person shuts up, and I for one don't consider that choice to be irrational. According to Wikipedia, "a rational agent is specifically defined as an agent which always chooses the action which maximises its expected performance, given all of the knowledge it currently possesses." For most goal systems, getting burned at the stake doesn't maximize one's performance. -- Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 11:03:12 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:03:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Underpopulation, not Overpopulation (was Re: To Arms!) In-Reply-To: <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > > The decline demographic numbers is a prime cause of the > economic malaise affecting the west. > Lee > And I call that counter-productive if not completely dangerous bunk. I say that if one person uses x material resources, energy at a certain standard of living, 100 persons will use far more than 100x in resources. My assertion is that overpopulation is a MAJOR drain on efficiency, resources, energy, not even considering the cheapening of human value, the stress caused by increased societal pressure, exploitation, collapse of individual meaning and worth, bastards playing members of society against each other and insurmountable congestion in nearly every bit of infrastructure you can imagine at peak use and the same gathering dust when they are not used. I say that overpopulation is the single most biggest tragedy humanity suffers right now, and the only people benefiting from this are the remorseless bastards who exploit their fellow humans, by gaming this tragedy like sharks. Unfortunately, all this cant be solved. - A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay, John F. Rohe; Rhodes & Easton, Traverse City, MI 49684, ISBN 1-890394-00-9, (192p, $19). Also available from Amazon.com. Malthus suggested there might be an inverse relationship between the quantity and the quality of human life. Approximately one billion people now go to bed hungry every night. Rohe revisits principles found controversial in 1798 in identifying a root cause of our unrest. - A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations , Clive Pointing; St. Martins Press, ISBN 0-312-06987-1 (432p, $24), Penguin USA (Paper) ISBN: 0-140-17660-8 ($15), (EGJ review). - An Essay on Principle of Population, Thomas Robert Malthus; Prometheus, ISBN 1573922552 (paperback), ($9). The original 1798 essay on population. - [image: Excellent] Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population Challenge , Lester R. Brown, Gary Gardner, and Brian Halweil; W.W. Norton, 1999, Worldwatch Institute , ISBN 0393319067, ($13). Also available from Amazon.com. Examines the stakes involved in potentially adding another 3.3 billion people to the world population over the next fifty years. - Beyond Malthus: Population and Power, Neil W. Chamberlain; (out of print), (1970). - Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem, 1998, Worldwatch Institute ($5). An excellent and easily-read introductory paperback. - [image: Excellent] Beyond the Limits, Confronting Global Collapse, Envisioning a Sustainable Future, Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers; 1992, Chelsea Green, ISBN 0-930031-55-5 (hard cover) (300p, $19.95), ISBN 0930031628(paperback) ($15), (EGJ review ). The authors contend that the global industrial system has already overshot some of the earth's vital ecological limits, and could collapse by the mid-21st century unless we commit to sweeping changes now. The first two chapters present an excellent discussion on *exponential growth*. - Cheerfully Childless - The Humor Book for Those Who Hesitate to Procreate, Eller Metter & Loretta Gomez; Baker & Taylor and Quality Books, 2002, ISBN 0-9711627-0-0 - Curbing Population Growth, An Insider's Perspective on the Population Movement , Oscar Harkavy; Plenum Press, 1995, ISBN 0-306-45050-X, (249p). An excellent reference book, describing the history of population-oriented organizations and their funders. - Dynamics of Values in Fertility Change, Richard Leete (Ed.); Oxford Univ Press, 1999, ISBN 0198294395, (360p, $85). - Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship, Isaac Asimov, (out of print). - [image: Excellent] Ending the Explosion: Population Policies and Ethics for a Humane Future, W. Hollingsworth; 1996, Seven Locks Press, 800.354.5348, ISBN 0-929-765-42-7, ($17.95), (review). Also available from Amazon.com. Unlike most books, it rightly sees overpopulation as a threat to the human spirit as well as to our physical well-being. - *Extinction or Survival*, M.J. Turner; 1996, Ardmore Publishing, 875 Ardmore Dr., RR2, Sidney BC, Canada, V8L 5G2, ISBN 0-9680850-0-8, ($24.95). Carefully researched, this book deals with the real problems of overpopulation and the resulting excessive environmental exploitation, showing how the carrying capacity of Planet Earth is being seriously eroded. - *How Does Congress Approach Population and Family Planning Issues: Results of Qualitative Interviews with Legislative Directors*, Sally Patterson, David M. Adamson; Rand Corporation , 1999, ISBN 0833027042, (49p, $8). Congressional opinions on population issues are highly polarized. About 90% of Congress consistently votes either for or against population-related legislation. Thus the remaining 10 percent is likely to determine the fate of such issues. Researchers interviewed a sample of legislative directors in this category. Most felt that the U.S. should continue to play a leading role internationally, but several noted that their bosses favor more multilateral approaches. A majority felt that world population growth is a problem but is not urgent. Nearly unanimous support was expressed for U.S. support of voluntary family planning if it excludes abortion. Congress would benefit from more factual information on population issues. - Intended Consequences : Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal Government in Modern America, Donald T. Critchlow; Oxford Univ Press, 1999, ISBN 0195046579, (320p, $9). Contains 13 essays by well-known feminist scholars and activists on the major global issues relevant to the environment, development, and population. The authors discuss issues of racism, paternalism, and scapegoating. Also discussed are reproductive technology, the impact of population growth on the environment, effects of militarism and consumption, and social justice movements. - [image: Excellent] How Many People Can the World Support?, Joel E. Cohen; Norton, New York, 1995, ISBN 0393314952, ($13). A well-documented and referenced book on the history of human population growth, and past and current attempt to project human carrying capacity of the planet. A definitive work on the population problem. - [image: Excellent] Juggernaut, Growth on a Finite Planet, Lindsey Grant; 1996, Seven Locks Press, ISBN 0-929765-51-6 (paperback) (363p). An informative and fascinating book which compellingly presents the social, political, and economic implications of continued population growth. One of the best synopsis of the population problem. - [image: Excellent] Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population Taboos, Garrett Hardin. Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-507811-X. (339p, $25), (EGJ review). Wonderfully rich in clear logic, original ideas and insights. - Malthusian Worlds: Us Leadership and the Governing of the Population Crisis , Ronald Walter Greene; Harpercollins, 1999, ISBN 0813390737, ($65). - Maybe One : A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single-Child Families , Bill McKibben; Simon & Schuster, 1998, ISBN 0684852810, (256p, $17). The growing population of the U.S. is a significant threat to world sustainability because of high U.S. consumption levels. McKibben discusses the concept of having only one child, on a personal level and from the perspective of impact on the ecosphere. - Our Crowded Planet, Fairfield Osborn; Greenwood Publishing Group, 1983, ISBN 0313226393, (240p, $60). A splendid document of contemporary civilization not because it solves the problem of overpopulation but because it brings into focus the immediacy of the problem as an individual, national, and international concern. This book includes essays by major figures in the arts and sciences, including Marston Bates, Henry Steele Commager, F. Fraser Darling, Charles G. Darwin (grandson of *The Origin of Species* Darwin), Julian Huxley, Joseph Wood Krutch, Arnold Toynbee, Solly Zuckerman, and Paul B. Sears. - Our Plundered Planet, Fairfield Osborn; Little Brown, 1948, (out of print). The author calculates Earth's carrying capacity at less than 2 billion (p. 37). An early warning on the population/resource/environment crisis. This book focused on renewable resources but added overpopulation to the equation. Osborn saw the nation's forests, grasslands, and water resources as threatened. "The tide of the earth's population is rising, the reservoir of the earth's living resources is falling," the author wrote. "There is only one solution: Man must recognize the necessity of cooperating with nature." Fairfield Osborn was a distinguished author, naturalist, and conservationist. He was president of the New York Zoological Society and chairman of the Conservation Foundation. - [image: Excellent] Overshoot, The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change , William R. Catton, Jr.; University of Illinois Press, 1980, ISBN 0-252-00818-9 (hard cover), (270p, $30), ISBN 0-252-00988-6 (paperback). An important book - well written with a rich bibliography. - Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of the Human Species , A. McMichael; Cambridge Univ. Press,1993, ISBN 0521558719 ($12). This eloquent and alarming book examines the likely impact on human health of the ongoing degradation of the planet's ecosystems. - Population and Politics Since 1750, William H. McNeill, University Press of Virginia, 1990, ISBN 0-8139-1257-1, (71p). In this brief discussion, the author ponders the question: is demography the engine that drives history? - Population, Environment and Development: Proceedings of the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on Population, Environment and Development, U.N., United Nations Publications, 1994, ISBN 9211512654, ($30). Reports on the Expert Group meeting in 1992, recommending integrating environmental and population issues into planning and policy making. - Population, Evolution, and Birth Control, A Collage of Controversial Ideas , Ed. Garret Hardin; W.H. Freeman, 1964, ISBN 0716706709, (381p). An engrossing collection of articles, reviews, and criticisms reflecting all shades of opinion on what is perhaps the most important social problem facing mankind. - Population Fallacies, Jack Parsons; Elek/Pemberton, London, 1977, ISBN 0301740313 (286p, out of print), (review ). Under the three basic categories of Common Sense, Scientific, and Economic Fallacies, the discussion ranges over such topics as the use of statistics, foretelling the future, military power, migration, manpower, economic development, space travel, the myth of the large happy family and the limits to growth. Each fallacy is clearly stated, solidly documented, thoroughly analyzed and finally dismissed. - Population Geography: Problems, Concepts, and Prospects, Gary L. Peters, Robert P. Larkin; Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1999, ISBN 0787256722, ($47). This textbook is an introduction to population geography, and covers theories of population growth, demographic data and processes, population distribution and composition, and the environment and food supply. Tables, maps, and data are provided. - Population Growth, Resource Consumption, and the Environment: Seeking a Common Vision for a Troubled World, D. Richard Searle, Rick Searle; Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1995, ISBN 1550580647, ($14). - Population Handbook - A Quick Guide for Journalists, Teachers, etc., 70-page booklet, ISBN 0-917136-09-8. It contains definitions and features "Calculating the TFR", "How Life TablesWork", etc. - Population, A Lively Introduction, McFalls; Population Reference Bureau , 1991, ISBN 9992437618, ($9). - [image: Excellent] Population: an Introduction to Concepts and Issues, John R. Weeks; Wadsworth, 1992, ISBN 0534553052 (hardcover) ISBN 0-534-17346-2. (579p, $88.00), (EGJ review). A college textbook and a good introduction to population issues, including terms and definitions. - *Population and Environment: a Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies*, Human Sciences Press, 212.620.8000. This journal deals with both issues in a comprehensive and integrated manner. - Population and the World Bank: Adapting to Change, World Bank, 1999, ISBN 0821344404, ($22), (abstract). The global demographic situation has changed dramatically since the World Bank started population work three decades ago. This publication discusses how to apply the Bank's Health, Nutrition, and Population (HNP) Sector Strategy of 1997 to the Bank's work on population and reproductive health. - Population Politics: the Choices that Shape our Future, Virginia Abernethy; 1993, Plenum Publishing, ISBN 0-306-44461-5, (350p, $27). Also available from Amazon.com. (Review, titled Why Do Women Have Babies , Robert A. McConnell). A provocative book that raises disturbing questions about demographic and immigration policies and their implications for the future of the world. A splendid critique of how U.S. foreign aid and liberal immigration policy result in population growth in the U.S. and abroad. - *Population, Resources and the Environment: The Critical Challenges*, United Nations Population Fund, 1991, ISBN 0-89714-101-6. (154p, $25), (EGJ review ). - *Road to Survival*, William Vogt; Sloane, 1948, (review). Another of the classic "early warnings," like Osborn's book, but much starker - in Vogt's view, the United States in 1948 at 147 million was already overpopulated, and its self-indulgent materialism doomed it to eventual extinction. - The American Dream: Can It Survive the 21st Century? , Joseph L. Daleiden; Prometheus Books, 1999, ISBN 157392265X. (550 p., $25). An ambitious and comprehensive book, offering well though-out solutions to complex problems. Ed Levy states in a review that: "Daleiden's basic message, then, is that today's acts are destroying tomorrow, and that we are stealing, not just borrowing, from the future and that we must accept the possibility of disasters if we are to prevent them. ...An additional value of the book is the validity of its arguments: e.g., the deft debunking of the 'demographic transition' theory (with the addition that even if it were true, it would be too late, because of doubling time, to matter when it kicked in)." - The Challenge of Man's Future, Harrison Scott Brown; Viking, 1953, ISBN 0813300339. A classic early warning on impending population and resource problems. - The Fear of Population Decline, Micheal S. Teitelbaum; ISBN 0126851905, (out of print). - The Future of Population: Predictions, John I. Clarke; Orion, 1999, ISBN 0297819232, ($4). - The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia, Garrett Hardin; Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-512274-7, (153p, $16). (excerpts and review). With clear logic and imaginative insight, Garret Hardin has again given us a strong helping hand in the unending task of overcoming denial of the tough issues in population, economics, and ethics. - The Population Bomb, Paul Ehrlich; ISBN 0891908617, ($22). (PBS review), (excerpts ). This book looks at the ideas of one scientist whose theories link overpopulation to a broad range of global problems (somewhat outdated - instead see *The Population Explosion* below). - [image: Excellent] The Population Explosion, Paul R. and Anne H. Ehrlich; Simon and Schuster, 1990, ISBN 0-671-68984-3. (320p, $19), (EGJ reviewadditional review ), and (excerpts). A classic work, this superb, closely reasoned, and fact-filled book should do much to clear the way for badly needed political action. - The Stork and the Plow, Paul and Anne Ehrlich; Putnam, 1995, ISBN 0-399-14074-3, (384p, $15), ( excerpts ). Humanity and agricultural fertility are on a collision course; the stork is threatening to overtake the plow. Yet the very existence of this dilemma is largely unappreciated by the general public as well as politically- and ecologically-oriented pundits. - The Third Revolution: Environment, Population and a Sustainable World, Paul Harrison, I.B. Tauris; in association with the World Wide Fund for Nature, Penguin, 1993, ISBN 0140146598. (359 p, $12.00). An excellent introduction; (EGJ review). - [image: Excellent] World Population, Leon F. Bouvier, Jane T. Bertrand; Seven Locks Press, 1999, ISBN: 0929765664, (203 p, $13). "Readable, insightful, scholarly, and objective. Whatever your view on population growth, few disagree that it presents the future with some major challenges. An important book about a fast developing, worldwide problem." -- Richard D. Lamm. "Bouvier and Bertrand's new book offers a measured and informed appraisal - for those who would prefer to actually understand." -- Michael S. Teitelbaum. - [image: Excellent] World Population Growth, George E. Immerwahr; Peanut Butter Publishing, 226 2nd Ave. West, Seattle, WA 98119, 206.281.5965, ISBN 0-89716-552-7 (184p, $12). This excellent book explains population growth in clear, concise terms and contains an excellent demographic appendix. The author, a demographer with extensive overseas exposure to the population issue, states that population problems are colossal but not hopeless and is chiefly concerned for the world's children. *If you have trouble finding this book, contact Suggestions and EcoFuture .* Books on Overpopulation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 11:08:33 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:08:33 +1000 Subject: [ExI] rationality In-Reply-To: <1db0b2da0904050349t3c2ad362h1b633cbf9b8552c0@mail.gmail.com> References: <1db0b2da0904050349t3c2ad362h1b633cbf9b8552c0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/5 Aleksei Riikonen : > Strange that you speak of rationality as if it required one to always > speak the truth. > > If speaking the truth leads to getting burned at the stake, the smart > person shuts up, and I for one don't consider that choice to be > irrational. > > According to Wikipedia, "a rational agent is specifically defined as > an agent which always chooses the action which maximises its expected > performance, given all of the knowledge it currently possesses." For > most goal systems, getting burned at the stake doesn't maximize one's > performance. By that definition, a rational agent could be amoral or outright evil. I think that was the point BillK was making. You could keep the definition and make moral behaviour a part of the goal system, in which case being burned at the stake might be the way to go if you really believe that honesty is the best policy. But then someone will turn around and say that such a belief is "irrational", which is just another way of saying that he doesn't agree with it. -- Stathis Papaioannou From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 11:09:49 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:09:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, I gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to Nurse Ratched.# > Damien Broderick Well, for his sake, I hope someone doesn't collect his opinions, articles and views, prints them, binds them in a convenient folder, and sends copies of this folder to several such institutions in his region of italy, as well as to several newspapers, offices of Italian socialists and communists, and other media organizations, with his name, address and photograph. Such an act would likely could him his job, and worse. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: bad nurse.gif Type: image/gif Size: 49484 bytes Desc: not available URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 11:10:30 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:10:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Spirituality of Sex In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904032146g140b2075va9ba154d2deaff60@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904032146g140b2075va9ba154d2deaff60@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904050410o7f312d10u69147c96a3a105db@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/4 John Grigg > I thought this might be interesting food for thought around here... > > http://www.care2.com/greenliving/the-spirituality-of-sex.html > > Can't say that I like much the ideology therein... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 11:20:54 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:20:54 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Underpopulation, not Overpopulation (was Re: To Arms!) In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/5 Dagon Gmail : > And I call that counter-productive if not completely dangerous bunk. I say > that > if one person uses x material resources, energy at a certain standard of > living, > 100 persons will use far more than 100x in resources. My assertion is that > overpopulation is a MAJOR drain on efficiency, resources, energy, not even > considering the cheapening of human value, the stress caused by increased > societal pressure, exploitation, collapse of individual meaning and worth, > bastards playing members of society against each other and insurmountable > congestion in nearly every bit of infrastructure you can imagine at peak use > and the same gathering dust when they are not used. > > I say that overpopulation is the single most biggest tragedy humanity > suffers > right now, and the only people benefiting from this are the remorseless > bastards > who exploit their fellow humans, by gaming this tragedy like sharks. As well as considering the number of people, we should also consider their size: "To illustrate the impact of larger human size, assume that we have a world population of 6 billion people with an average weight for men and women of 140 pounds. The amount of living substance or biomass of these billions of people is 840 billion pounds. Let's keep this population fixed over the next 25 years, but allow people to increase their weight to 175 pounds. The resulting biomass increases from 840 billion pounds to more than 1 trillion pounds--an increase equivalent to a 25% growth in the population with its attendant increased energy and resource needs. In summary, bigger people require: * More food and water, fertilizers and pesticides. * More land for farms, homes, factories, and shopping malls, thus encroaching on habitats of endangered species. * More medicines, which are prescribed on the basis of weight. * More energy for heating and cooling of buildings, transportation, home appliances, manufacturing, food production and delivery, and waste disposal. * More resources for materials to make almost everything, from jewelry and clothing to cars and houses. Airplanes, theaters, and sports stadiums may have a slightly different problem: Bigger patrons mean fewer seats can be built, bringing in less revenue from tickets." http://www.allbusiness.com/professional-scientific/scientific-research/485099-1.html -- Stathis Papaioannou From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 12:18:54 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 05:18:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Message-ID: <2d6187670904050518k33c08408g771968692c9e8044@mail.gmail.com> Lee Corbin wrote: I totally agree with you! Conditions in the big cities should *never* have been allowed to get out of hand. The corruption should never have been tolerated, (e.g. Chicago 1850-present). As soon as recognizable underclasses begin to form, they ought to have been either massively deported, or subjected to resettlement on reservations, where they'd be compelled to go back to agriculture or any kind of honest toil in order to survive. >> Lee, is this really you? Or do you have a teenager in your home who is impersonating you??? you continue: But it's either that or eventually perish. France, for example, needs to do what it would instantly have done in any century before the 20th, namely expel its Muslim population. It's either that or cease eventually to have a modern western society at all! >> I will agree that France and other European nations have a major challenge on their hands in dealing with their Muslim populations, who have religious and political views that may at times be a real threat to Western culture and government. But I think the answer is in governments strictly enforcing the laws of the land, and if they have a problem with this due to a lack of backbone than that is their problem. But doing a mass deportation of everyone who is Muslim, just for being Muslim, goes totally against Western laws and ideals. Your line of thinking might eventually begin to coincide with a certain WWI corporal from Austria who in time became quite the spellbinding orator... Dagon Gmail wrote: ...And no I do NOT want immigration, not even from americans feeling the collapse of the union and the civil war. I do not trust big american populations anymore - some might be under the influence of sinister religions or "militant foxists". (*I want those people registered, known by Interpol and marked for being unable to enter Europe, for anything. They might be up to something*) >> Dagon, what has gotten into you?? First Lee, and now you with the extremist ideas! "Muslims, Americans and _________ (whoever else you don't like), Oh, My!!!" Lee, I can envision you starting up a "transhumanist" organization to save the world from whatever evil hordes you see as the next big threat, no matter the ethical cost. But perhaps you should consult with Pat Buchanan or even David Duke first... John : ( -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jnh at vt11.net Sun Apr 5 12:52:55 2009 From: jnh at vt11.net (Jordan Hazen) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 08:52:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090405125255.GG35780@vt11.net> On Sat, Apr 04, 2009 at 04:44:31PM -0400, Isabelle Hakala wrote: > One of the things that occurs to me about mind uploading is this... > I would want to upload my mind, and let that 'simulation' run for, > oh... say a decade, without any outside influences, and me still > living in the outside world, and then compare notes with my uploaded > self. Could you elaborate on "without any outside influences?" Hopefully this doesn't mean keeping the upload isolated from the world? I'd think that such an extended period of sensory deprivation would be extremely unhealthy, perhaps even a recipe for insanity-- at the least, very stunted development-- especially considering how much longer a decade might seem to a mind running on faster hardware. After perhaps a few {minutes|hours|days} of introspection and reliving memories, I'd be poking about desperately for a "hibernation mode" toggle... If you mean only to avoid all contact between your biological and uploaded selves, that may not be realistic either. If nothing else, the upload would be tempted by curiosity to follow you around on the 'net. -- Jordan. From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Apr 5 13:38:45 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 08:38:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] META: (RE: To Arms! Reward Offered.) In-Reply-To: <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek><49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it><7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com><1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> Message-ID: Friends, Please take this discussion and thread off list now. Thank you, Natasha Natasha Vita-More From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 13:57:28 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 15:57:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904050518k33c08408g771968692c9e8044@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904050518k33c08408g771968692c9e8044@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > > *Dagon, what has gotten into you?? First Lee, and now you with the > extremist ideas! "Muslims, Americans and _________ (whoever else you don't > like), Oh, My!!!" * Listen, I am a European, and were I ever to want to go to the US, I have to fill in questionnaires, airline companies give credit card information, email and background history to US authorities. My sexual history is checked and if I lie about being a pervert I can be arrested. But being a pervert, I cant get in to the US. Plus, I have an arrest record for being involved with far left political activism - yet another reason to be ever disallowed access into the US. This is the result of a certain political establishment I won't repeat. I am very sorry, I have very cautious ideas towards far right extremists that dwell like a parasytical population in the gut of the US. I consider these people a serious terrorism hazard and would vote for not allowing them into Europe, not for a vacation, not for business and not as refugees. I am sure that would not include anyone on this list. However - I repeat that I do see an increasing likelyhood that the US will enter a state of severe instability. I pity the people having to live through that, and it will surely cause spinoff in the rest of the world. I do think Europe may need to look at what is happening in terms of radicalization. The lunatic climate debate is already spreading here. ProLife activism is spreading here. Westboro tried staging a protest here. Anti-Muslim propagandists are seperating reason from debate and polarizing both sides - not for the benefits of enlightenment, but largely because of petrochemical interests. The signs on the wall is clear - if shit starts happening in the US, I propose a big fat firewall and a diplomatic thank you very much against getting involved on any level. *** As for Muslims - i see muslims every day. I know arabic words. I eat islamic food on a regular basis. I. I have read the Quran. I am not favoring apartheid at all. I favor a solution that will make everyone happiest possible, as rich as possible, as free as possible. But - years ago I also walked into a moskh, talked to the people there. I posted on forums. And the end conclusion was that orthodox religious Islam, as an entity, is extremely closed to everything I stand for, and would outlaw or persecute more than half the things I hold dear. The bearded men I spoke to - .... *shudders*. These are not human beings anymore. In essence - I DO NOT vote anti-Islam. I will NOT vote pro-wilders. But I will seriously vote pro-freedom, pro-diversity, pro-hedonism and pro-progress. And that means that I inhabit a political spectrum not represented by any political party here in the netherlands (maybe d66 a bit) and out of dread for losing what little I have I vote SP . You want a full list of other groups that terrify the shit out of me? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 14:38:34 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 07:38:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ants again In-Reply-To: <4B5452B8502140A2A7619341DC0EEEF0@DFC68LF1> References: <4B5452B8502140A2A7619341DC0EEEF0@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <153504C8D75E477EB7FC0EF274FE01F8@spike> ....On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More .... Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again Thanks for this refreshing and post Spike. Good to read something other than the arms, punishment and creationist posts! Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More Thanks Natasha. The ant experiment is kinda sorta about arms, punishment and creationism, in a very indirect way. What the experiment asks is if ants can go deep within and come up with just a little more collective insight to solve an intractible problem with an elegant alternative method, taking the nontraditional and anti-instinctive path. If the ants can do it, humans can do it. spike From xuenay at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 14:59:34 2009 From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 17:59:34 +0300 Subject: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> Originally posted at http://xuenay.livejournal.com/318060.html : A colleague's posting on the Finnish Transhumanist Association's mailing list made me think about a phenomenon I've observed both in myself and several others, but never thought about so explicitly. I call it the Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism. The excitement phase is when you first stumble across concepts such as transhumanism, radical life extension, and superintelligent AI. This is when you subscribe to transhumanist mailing lists, join your local WTA/H+ chapter, and start trying to spread the word to everybody you know. You'll probably spend hundreds of hours reading different kinds of transhumanist materials. This phase typically lasts for several years. In the disillusionment phase, you start to realize that while you still agree with the fundamental transhumanist philosophy, most of what you are doing is rather pointless. You can have all the discussions you want, but by themselves, those discussions aren't going to bring all those amazing technologies here. You learn to ignore the "but an upload of you is just a copy" debate when it shows up the twentieth time, with the same names rehearsing the same arguments and thought experiments for the fifteenth time. Having gotten over your initial future shock, you may start to wonder why having a specific name like transhumanism is necessary in the first place - people have been taking advantage of new technologies for several thousands of years. After all, you don't have a specific "cellphonist" label for people using cell phones, either. You'll slowly start losing interest in activities that are specifically termed as transhumanist. In the reorientation cycle you have two alternatives. Some people renounce transhumanism entirely, finding the label pointless and mostly a magnet for people with a tendency towards future hype and techno-optimism. Others (like me) simply realize that bringing forth the movement's goals requires a very different kind of effort than debating other transhumanists on closed mailing lists. An effort like engaging with the large audience in a more effective manner, or getting an education in a technology-related field and becoming involved in the actual research yourself. In either case, you're likely to unsubscribe the mailing lists or at least start paying them much less attention than before. If you still identify as a transhumanist, your interest in the online communities wanes because you're too busy actually working for the cause. (Alternatively, you've realized how much work this would be and have stopped even trying.) This shouldn't be taken to mean that I'm saying the online h+ community is unnecessary, and that people ought to just skip to the last phase. The first step of the cycle is a very useful ingredient for giving one a strong motivation to keep working for the cause in one's later life, even when they're no longer following the lists. One might think that this cycle isn't really specific to transhumanism, and that a more general form of it ought to apply to all communities. While I have no doubt that it probably does apply to other communities as well, I find that the transhumanist cause is somewhat rare in that it is so technology-dependant. Hobby communities are built around a certain interest, and for those you don't need much more than the community - having gathered a bunch of RPG or BDSM enthusiasts, you can then go enjoy the activity in question together with them. For purely political movements, you can make progress with a mainly online presence, debating the pros and cons of your cause and recruiting more people under its banner. But while transhumanism is certainly a political cause as well, the vast majority of people aren't really going to care about the social implications of a technology before they can be convinced that the technology in question is actually going to become real soon. And even if everybody did agree that radical life extension, say, is a good thing, that wouldn't really matter for as long as you didn't have life extension available. You'd need to actually get involved with things that actually brought life extension forward, instead of just twiddling your thumbs in the general transhumanist community. This makes the transhumanist community very different from most other kinds of communities. From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 5 15:15:07 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:15:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: Me: >> But of course nearly everyone, even most people >> on this list believe in the vitalist view. [.] But of course >> nearly everyone, even most people on this list >> believe in the soul. "spike" > Evidence please John? The evidence can be found in the Extropian archives going back to the mid 90's, and probably earlier. > You may be right, but how did you reach that conclusion? I come to that conclusion after debating the matter of uploading for well over 15 years; in all that time almost nobody agrees with me. I maintain that there is simply no way I could be wrong about it UNLESS the basic premise I build everything on is wrong, UNLESS it turns out that there really is some truth to vitalism and the soul after all. People wail "but that upload just wouldn't be me" but when asked exactly why it wouldn't be you the response I get is always the same; I receive paragraphs and paragraphs of verbiage, but every single one of the grand sounding pseudo-scientific phrases in them turn out to be nothing but euphemisms for the soul or plaintive cries that silicon could never hope to equal meat, it just couldn't. I don't want to insult people by saying that they are too cowardly to follow an idea as far as it will go regardless of whatever strange destination it leads to, so I can only conclude that most on this list disagree with my basic premise and believe in the ideas behind vitalism and the soul, even if they don't like the particular words very much. And it's not just Extropians, my premise is too shocking for Shock Level Four also. Sorry if I sound a bit cranky, but that's the way I see it. John K Clark From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 5 15:30:51 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:30:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: Isabelle Hakala To: ExI chat list Sent: Saturday, April 04, 2009 4:44 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia One of the things that occurs to me about mind uploading is this... I would want to upload my mind, and let that 'simulation' run for, oh... say a decade, without any outside influences, and me still living in the outside world, and then compare notes with my uploaded self. What had each of us learned different? Did we still agree on things? What had changed? Etc. For me that would be an important step in feeling like it would be worth-while to do it again at the 'end' of my life so as to preserve myself, and then live on from there. It would answer a lot of questions for me. I believe in something one might consider to be a 'soul', and it doesn't bother me to think that a simulacrum of myself might be running around someplace that may or may not have my 'soul' attached to it as well. Either it would have a part of my soul attached to it, which would be fine, or it wouldn't and then it wouldn't make any difference at all. If this experiment were run, one would be able to see if the simulacrum finds life on the 'inside' as satisfying as the person on the outside does. Just a thought:) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Isabelle Hakala "Any person who says 'it can't be done' shouldn't be interrupting the people getting it done." "Do every single thing in life with love in your heart." On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 1:18 PM, John K Clark wrote: I want to thank Giulio Prisco, I did not know Wikipedia had an article on mind uploading. The article is actually quite good, and it says two things that I've been saying for well over a decade. First it says: [Mind Uploading] "denies the vitalist view of human life and consciousness." But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the vitalist view. It then says: "The prospect of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many philosophical questions involving identity, individuality and the soul." But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the soul. John K Clark _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 5 15:33:52 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:33:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5EDB6CB08EAE4E2BA4284DCD6C987090@MyComputer> Isabelle Hakala > I would want to upload my mind, and let that > 'simulation' run for, oh... say a decade, > without any outside influences NO outside influences? How hideously evil! Your poor upload can't see, hear, feel, taste or smell. I imagine it would take far less than a decade for it to become suicidal, perhaps homicidal as well. John K Clark From florent.berthet at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 15:42:55 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 17:42:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism In-Reply-To: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904050842x51d69232w825c0c6005a44088@mail.gmail.com> Very true. We have to be effective. Maybe we should focus on discussions about what we can do and how we can do it? So I'm asking everybody : according to you, what are the most important things you want to see achieved, and what are your plans to get them done ? My idea, as I spoke about in the "I am now a creationist" thread, is to make "a great transhuman utopian movie, where things actually GO well, and about which people would think "Wow, if only we could have that!". Then, it could only be a matter of time before some rich folks start to fund things like the Singularity Institute and other AGI related projects. Because now, obviously, they are not moved by these ideas. It seems like we can't convince rich guys to give money using clever arguments. And since they don't think that funding an AGI project will make them earn money, the only way to make them give anyway is to use feelings. Indeed, they may see the act of giving money as charity. But you don't manage charity with arguments, you manage it with tears, whether they are tears of sadness, or tears of hope. You don't make people give money to the starving children by saying "thousands of them die each day". You make them give money by showing them a picture of ONE starving little girl. That's the way it is. We have to use the power of pictures. This would be the most effective way to expand this movement around the world." It will take several years and a massive amount of work and money, but I'm currently on it. Anyway that's my project. What's yours ? - Florent Berthet 2009/4/5 Kaj Sotala > Originally posted at http://xuenay.livejournal.com/318060.html : > > A colleague's posting on the Finnish Transhumanist Association's > mailing list made me think about a phenomenon I've observed both in > myself and several others, but never thought about so explicitly. I > call it the Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online > transhumanism. > > The excitement phase is when you first stumble across concepts such as > transhumanism, radical life extension, and superintelligent AI. This > is when you subscribe to transhumanist mailing lists, join your local > WTA/H+ chapter, and start trying to spread the word to everybody you > know. You'll probably spend hundreds of hours reading different kinds > of transhumanist materials. This phase typically lasts for several > years. > > In the disillusionment phase, you start to realize that while you > still agree with the fundamental transhumanist philosophy, most of > what you are doing is rather pointless. You can have all the > discussions you want, but by themselves, those discussions aren't > going to bring all those amazing technologies here. You learn to > ignore the "but an upload of you is just a copy" debate when it shows > up the twentieth time, with the same names rehearsing the same > arguments and thought experiments for the fifteenth time. Having > gotten over your initial future shock, you may start to wonder why > having a specific name like transhumanism is necessary in the first > place - people have been taking advantage of new technologies for > several thousands of years. After all, you don't have a specific > "cellphonist" label for people using cell phones, either. You'll > slowly start losing interest in activities that are specifically > termed as transhumanist. > > In the reorientation cycle you have two alternatives. Some people > renounce transhumanism entirely, finding the label pointless and > mostly a magnet for people with a tendency towards future hype and > techno-optimism. Others (like me) simply realize that bringing forth > the movement's goals requires a very different kind of effort than > debating other transhumanists on closed mailing lists. An effort like > engaging with the large audience in a more effective manner, or > getting an education in a technology-related field and becoming > involved in the actual research yourself. In either case, you're > likely to unsubscribe the mailing lists or at least start paying them > much less attention than before. If you still identify as a > transhumanist, your interest in the online communities wanes because > you're too busy actually working for the cause. (Alternatively, you've > realized how much work this would be and have stopped even trying.) > > This shouldn't be taken to mean that I'm saying the online h+ > community is unnecessary, and that people ought to just skip to the > last phase. The first step of the cycle is a very useful ingredient > for giving one a strong motivation to keep working for the cause in > one's later life, even when they're no longer following the lists. > > One might think that this cycle isn't really specific to > transhumanism, and that a more general form of it ought to apply to > all communities. While I have no doubt that it probably does apply to > other communities as well, I find that the transhumanist cause is > somewhat rare in that it is so technology-dependant. Hobby communities > are built around a certain interest, and for those you don't need much > more than the community - having gathered a bunch of RPG or BDSM > enthusiasts, you can then go enjoy the activity in question together > with them. For purely political movements, you can make progress with > a mainly online presence, debating the pros and cons of your cause and > recruiting more people under its banner. But while transhumanism is > certainly a political cause as well, the vast majority of people > aren't really going to care about the social implications of a > technology before they can be convinced that the technology in > question is actually going to become real soon. And even if everybody > did agree that radical life extension, say, is a good thing, that > wouldn't really matter for as long as you didn't have life extension > available. You'd need to actually get involved with things that > actually brought life extension forward, instead of just twiddling > your thumbs in the general transhumanist community. This makes the > transhumanist community very different from most other kinds of > communities. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 15:59:54 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 08:59:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kill thread: RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904050518k33c08408g771968692c9e8044@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <57FF76E87E2D4D3793DEA82CFD57CB31@spike> ________________________________ ...Dagon Gmail: ...My sexual history is checked and if I lie about being a pervert I can be arrested... G, if I claim to be a pervert but I am lying and really I am not, how could they ever prove it? My friends, do read over all the nonsense that we have posted recently regarding real and fundamental problems facing humanity, and notice there are no particularly insightful solutions, nothing, in all those wasted bits. We are like the ants running up and down the tree with two clogged holes being the only passage. The north bounders concerning themselves only with how to give the south bounders a mandible sandwich, and vice versa, neither of which actually solves the overall problem. Humanity is currently faced with some overwhelming structural problems. We have a fundamental divide in values: one portion of our species considers men and women as equals, the other not. One segment of humanity feels free to criticize anyone's religion, another segment considers blammisphy as equal to (or worse than) murder. With our current level of human insight, these are intractible problems, but note that everything that has been presented here so far will not solve the problem at all. Deport-em-all doesn't actually solve the problem, in fact it might make it worse. Forming a single world government doesn't solve the problem either, for the fundamental difference in basic values still exists and a unified government might make it far worse. These kinds of solutions, which I am seeing presented here (of all places), are no better than solutions we might see posted at Mensa, or the Daily Koz. Let us not lower ourselves to their level please. I ask that everyone step back and think for at least one week before posting anything else on these topics, and when that week is over, look at the problem globally and think like an ant colony presented with two small passages to your aphids, but several orders of magnitude smarter. Find better ways than have been ever presented before. Go deep within, way deep, and think about the fundamental problem before proposing something that has been suggested a million times elsewhere but won't work. In the mean time, do let us consider the To Arms thread as killed. I expect a few more posts to filter thru today before this one is read, but do let's let it go for now, think harder and better, and then be real extropians, shall we? spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 16:26:47 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 09:26:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Underpopulation, not Overpopulation (was Re: To Arms!) In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> Message-ID: > 2009/4/5 Dagon Gmail : >... > > > > I say that overpopulation is the single most biggest tragedy humanity suffers right now... Sure but take a step back and look at it this way. Whenever people utter this meme, what they really mean is something more like "It's not so much that there are too many people like me, too many extropians, too many Mensans, too many rich people, it's that there are way too many [fill in the blank] and they are breeding like alley cats." The fundamental problem is that [blank] is saying the same thing about you. Both want to limit or preferably eliminate the other guy, like the northbound ants vs the southbound ants fighting over access holes. Allow me to propose a new and different way to view the problem, a way we discussed in the forum about twelve years ago. Imagine a bar graph with number of people on the vertical and value of their skill set on the horizontal, a log-log scale. With technological increase, we can build machines capable of building machines, so factory workers become less valuable. With computers, some knowledge workers become more valuble, but most become less valuable. Over time we see that an ever greater portion of humankind have ever smaller value to society. As the rich get richer, the poor breed faster. We see these trends accelerating today. Extrapolations welcome, answer like a real extropian please. When in doubt visit the extropian principles site: http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm In fact, do read over that document in any case. We should all review it occasionally just to make sure we are in the right internet neighborhood. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 16:51:39 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 09:51:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of John K Clark > ... > > People wail "but that upload just wouldn't be me" but when > asked exactly why it wouldn't be you the response I get is > always the same; I receive paragraphs and paragraphs of > verbiage, but every single one of the grand sounding > pseudo-scientific phrases in them turn out to be nothing but > euphemisms for the soul or plaintive cries that silicon could > never hope to equal meat, it just couldn't. > ... > > And it's not just Extropians, my premise is too shocking for > Shock Level Four also. Sorry if I sound a bit cranky, but > that's the way I see it. > > John K Clark OK but your contention surprises me. Guess I never really do follow the endless identity threads very carefully. I have always assumed that if we know enough about a carbon atom, we can write a computer simulation of one, and if we know enough about neurons, axons and dendrites we can simulate a brain cell in software, and if we can simulate a brain cell using the carbon atom sims, and we can sim 100 billion of them working together using the brain cell sims, and if so, 100 billion brains working together and if so, that meta-sim is not only us but better than we are, a superset of us. This superset is desperately needed, for humanity seems to be at a critical historical choke point, presented with two small holes over which we fight for access, like the ants, instead of finding a meta-solution. spike From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 5 17:19:11 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:19:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: "spike" >I have always assumed that if we know enough about a carbon atom, we can >write a computer simulation of one, and if we know enough about neurons, >axons and dendrites we can simulate a brain cell in software, and if we can >simulate a brain cell using the carbon atom sims, and we can sim >100 billion of them working together using the brain cell sims, and if so, >100 billion brains working together and if so, that meta-sim is not only us >but better than we are, a superset of us. If you could find no reason not to walk into a chamber that will make a copy of your body and then instantly destroy the original then you are one of the very very few that agree with me. Perhaps there are more, but they sure haven't spoken up much in the last 15 years. John K Clark From brent.allsop at comcast.net Sun Apr 5 17:22:03 2009 From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 11:22:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <5EDB6CB08EAE4E2BA4284DCD6C987090@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> <5EDB6CB08EAE4E2BA4284DCD6C987090@MyComputer> Message-ID: <49D8E8BB.2000801@comcast.net> Isabelle, I'm in John's camp on this one also. I see Isolation / loneliness is an absolute logically necessary truth. Any sufficiently intelligent being must recognize this and become 'sad' in some way if there is any kind of isolation, and hope to, or work to eliminate such evil that is isolation with faith that such should and can be eliminated for all. Brent John K Clark wrote: > Isabelle Hakala > >> I would want to upload my mind, and let that >> 'simulation' run for, oh... say a decade, >> without any outside influences > > NO outside influences? How hideously evil! Your poor upload can't see, > hear, > feel, taste or smell. I imagine it would take far less than a decade > for it > to become suicidal, perhaps homicidal as well. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 5 17:31:15 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 13:31:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: <959F667BF8BD40C28C62E2C3E25C9B00@MyComputer> Dagon Gmail > i know there is no sensible, sustainable alternative to a world without > vitalist or spiritual energies, and matter being a mechanical process. But > it is so hard to sustain this insight in moments of emotion and unease. > When faced with the dark of night, the hour of the wolf, when > sleeplessness overwhelms me But I'm not talking about the creepy irrational feeling any of us could have when we hear a strange sound in the middle of the night; I'm talking about a sober rational debate with somebody in bright daylight. It is my experience that even with atheists who swear up and down that they are strict materialists it is absurdly easy to peel back a few layers in their arguments to expose the vitalism lurking below. John K Clark From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 17:38:09 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 19:38:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] punishment In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49C6C825.7030507@rawbw.com> <580930c20903230521r7e2bb5d4nd31ae09946b21ff0@mail.gmail.com> <49C895CC.3000102@rawbw.com> <49D1BD47.3070106@rawbw.com> <49D722BB.6030709@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904051038t7386f749uc86dc0b45b2672e3@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/4 Dagon Gmail >A whole school of largely conservatives or libertarians would literally risk the danger > of climatic collapse, mostly because they do not want governmental restrictions. I for one would be inclined to accept some restrictions on my carbon emissions if the alternative is having four chances out of five of being killed in the next ten years out of their climatic and climactic consequences, but don't we all believe that compromises that make life not worth living should not be accepted? :-) -- Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Apr 5 17:43:31 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:43:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090405123207.024c0a18@satx.rr.com> JKC wrote: and later: >If you could find no reason not to walk into a chamber that will make a copy >of your body and then instantly destroy the original then you are one of the >very very few that agree with me. And for all that time I've remained dumbfounded that you can't see that these are two entirely independent and different propositions, John. Almost nobody here, I expect, will claim that minds can run only inside live flesh. There is no demonstrable reason for thinking that a suitable silicon (or platinum-iridium positronium) substrate couldn't emulate a mind. Going from that near-truism to your suicidal proposition is a complete non-sequitur that ignores *point of view*. But as Kaj said just now, `[Long-time transhumanists] learn to ignore the "but an upload of you is just a copy" debate when it shows up the twentieth time, with the same names rehearsing the same arguments and thought experiments for the fifteenth time.' Damien Broderick From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Apr 5 18:05:08 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 20:05:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49D8F2D4.6030403@libero.it> Il 05/04/2009 1.02, Travis Porco ha scritto: > Copts are Christian, not Muslim. --tcp This is because they have an opinion worse than mine about Muslims. Maybe living in a Muslim dominated society as a Christian or a Jews or a Hindu or anyone else help to form this type of opinion. Mirco From brent.allsop at comcast.net Sun Apr 5 18:21:48 2009 From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 12:21:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: <49D8F6BC.1010207@comcast.net> John and Spike, There is no longer any need to digest over 15 years of extropy archives to know concisely and quantitatively what we all believe at this very moment (and if any of us have converted from one camp or another, and for what reasons). John, your thinking that 'almost everyone on this list' believes in 'vitalism and the soul' is obviously completely wrong. What lots of transhumanists do believe, or at least those willing and able to declare such, is now concisely and quantitatively specified in this topic on theories of the Mind: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88 You can see precisely what theories are well accepted, and how well accepted. You can see this for the general population with the default canonizer, or you can select the Transhumanists canonizer to see what Transhumanists believe and how this compares. You can do the same for Mormons, PhDs, and so on. From the POV of the most well accepted scientific theory camp which I am in along with many leading theoreticians like Johm Smythies and Steven Lehar, and many more (many are transhumanists): http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 As is stated therein, you and Spike are simply missing the important difference between the phenomenal and the behavioral. When you say: "if we know enough about a carbon atom, we can write a computer simulation of one," this is all true, but you are missing the most important point that just because something is 'behaving' like something else, it is in no way fundamentally and phenomenally like it. Sure, a one and a zero can behave like, or abstractly represent red vs green. But, from a consciousness perspective, this is to completely miss what is phenomenally important about red vs green and the difference between them, and all this has to do with the well accepted idea around the so called 'hard problem' which you seem to completely, dismiss, ignore, and are ignorant of. And to jump to the assumption that just because someone believes that matter has both behavioral and (soon to be effable) phenomenal properties, as concisely described in this camp: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/23/2 is just plain ignorant and mistaken. Saying such clearly reveals your complete ignorance of any of what these world leading theoreticians are talking about in their now concisely stated and quantitatively represented camps. Upward, Brent Allsop spike wrote: > > > >> ...On Behalf Of John K Clark >> ... >> >> People wail "but that upload just wouldn't be me" but when >> asked exactly why it wouldn't be you the response I get is >> always the same; I receive paragraphs and paragraphs of >> verbiage, but every single one of the grand sounding >> pseudo-scientific phrases in them turn out to be nothing but >> euphemisms for the soul or plaintive cries that silicon could >> never hope to equal meat, it just couldn't. >> ... >> >> And it's not just Extropians, my premise is too shocking for >> Shock Level Four also. Sorry if I sound a bit cranky, but >> that's the way I see it. >> >> John K Clark >> > > > OK but your contention surprises me. Guess I never really do follow the > endless identity threads very carefully. I have always assumed that if we > know enough about a carbon atom, we can write a computer simulation of one, > and if we know enough about neurons, axons and dendrites we can simulate a > brain cell in software, and if we can simulate a brain cell using the carbon > atom sims, and we can sim 100 billion of them working together using the > brain cell sims, and if so, 100 billion brains working together and if so, > that meta-sim is not only us but better than we are, a superset of us. This > superset is desperately needed, for humanity seems to be at a critical > historical choke point, presented with two small holes over which we fight > for access, like the ants, instead of finding a meta-solution. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 18:31:52 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 20:31:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! Reward Offered. In-Reply-To: <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904051131p73f008afp92c43b4e94261f7c@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Fred C. Moulton wrote: > >> Neither Lee nor painlord2k are libertarians. > > The arbiter of definitions has spoken. All are to remain > silent. Definitions are in fact elusive. In Europe, many of those who consider themselves "conservative-libertarians" hate my guts - and the feeling is often reciprocal. This is way less the case with the US variety. Even when I do not agree with them, I respect their willingness to defy and demystify the dominant "political correctness". Something which any true-and-trusted, so-called "conservative-libertarian" would rarely do in my country, conformity with the mainstream and intolerance of deviation therefrom being major values in the same camp. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 18:41:00 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 20:41:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] [Cosmic Engineers] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904040231w51209d31g1cc4158b84c7bfcd@mail.gmail.com> References: <1fa8c3b90904040231w51209d31g1cc4158b84c7bfcd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904051141x1fcd11d7oc3e255b9ec26d125@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Stefano Vaj Date: Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 8:37 PM Subject: Re: [Cosmic Engineers] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia To: cosmic-engineers at googlegroups.com On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 11:31 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Thanks to all bioluddite losers and idiots for advertising our ideas! > Let's not be scared of making them angry at us -- they produce the > best PR for us when they are angry. Appeasing them is useless and > boring, while provoking them is productive and fun. As you know only too well, I need no persuading in this respect. Definitely nothing wrong IMHO in engaging in battles to defend frankly our own ideas in their unadulterated form . The important thing is to win as many as possible of them. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 18:22:23 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 11:22:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D8F2D4.6030403@libero.it> References: <49D8F2D4.6030403@libero.it> Message-ID: > ... painlord2k at libero.it > Subject: Re: [ExI] To Arms! ... > > Copts are Christian, not Muslim. --tcp > > This is because they have an opinion worse than mine about Muslims. ... Thanks, pain. To Arms! is a slain thread for now. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 19:02:44 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 12:02:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <49D8F6BC.1010207@comcast.net> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <49D8F6BC.1010207@comcast.net> Message-ID: <62D38A83B8B846609BE11FBAC8127807@spike> > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop ... >...When you say: "if we know enough about a carbon > atom, we can write a computer simulation of one," this is all > true, but you are missing the most important point that just > because something is 'behaving' like something else, it is in > no way fundamentally and phenomenally like it... Brent Allsop Perhaps so. I have little interest in it for I have no cognitive dissonance in regards to that particular question. I argue only that there is a finite amount of information in an atom, consequently it is theoretically possible to simulate it, and if so, to simulate them in arbitrary quantities. At that time, if the sim is sufficiently high fidelity, the sim will be indistinguishable from the person, qualia and all. I have seen your qualia posts over the years Brent, and I am thankful you are with us. You and I first met at Extro 5 if you recall. You have particular insights on the topic of qualia that I confess I haven't followed closely, but this is OK, for eventually we will have a test that will answer fundamental questions. May we both live to see that, in the flesh, so I can compare me to me directly. You and I have no fundamental disagreement really. I am saying only that theory has taken us as far as theory can. We need an actual experiment to advance further at this point. Code jockeys among us, do your magic! spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 19:06:17 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:06:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism In-Reply-To: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904051206y11817c6cnc6ccf1e9f98f46b7@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 4:59 PM, Kaj Sotala wrote: > Originally posted at http://xuenay.livejournal.com/318060.html : Very interesting point. > For purely political movements, you can make progress with > a mainly online presence, debating the pros and cons of your cause and > recruiting more people under its banner. But while transhumanism is > certainly a political cause as well, the vast majority of people > aren't really going to care about the social implications of a > technology before they can be convinced that the technology in > question is actually going to become real soon. In fact, my view is that organised transhumanism is emphatically *not* about transhumanism-relevant technologies - which OTOH may well be brought forward in practical terms by people who are not transhumanist in the least, more or less how the opinion of physicists on nuclear weapons was not so crucial in their development. It is about transhumanist *worldview* and *politics*, which concern the cultural and societal requirements for such technologies and/or any posthuman change to be discussed, researched, developed, allowed and applied in the first place and what kind of effort should be deployed to those ends. In fact, from such a point of view, a promethean societal orientation is desirable per se, irrespective of what and when it can deliver in any specific area. This is why we should engage less in starry-eyed prophesising, or in debating how to manage post-singularity worlds, and much more in the fight to change legislation, public invesment policies, existing value systems/priorities/mentalities, etc. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 19:13:54 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:13:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904051213l2fb91cd2se59fec9d9e513b98@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 11:39 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > This is, probably, also a function of the urbanization of large part of the > population. More people live in city house, less space they have to raise > their children. I could be wrong, but if the law mandated the construction > of four bedrooms only apartments we would have much higher fertility. In fact, there might actually be an ethological/territorial angle. This would also justify why Russians, who are in the progress of facing a dramatic urbanisation, are not performing so well. -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 5 19:33:57 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 12:33:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] urbanization, was: RE: To Arms! In-Reply-To: <580930c20904051213l2fb91cd2se59fec9d9e513b98@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com><49D534ED.7010609@libero.it><580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com><49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> <580930c20904051213l2fb91cd2se59fec9d9e513b98@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj > Subject: Re: [ExI] To Arms! > ... > > In fact, there might actually be an ethological/territorial angle. > This would also justify why Russians, who are in the progress > of facing a dramatic urbanisation, are not performing so well. > > -- > Stefano Vaj Hi Stefano, the To Arms! thread is slain, but I changed your subject line. Do feel free to continue posting on urbanization under this thread, and let's all keep it smart. spike From jadams.neuro at yahoo.com Sun Apr 5 19:30:52 2009 From: jadams.neuro at yahoo.com (Jimmy Adams) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 12:30:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism Message-ID: <588208.56578.qm@web57404.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Hi This is my first post here, it has been interesting to read the emails. A couple of years ago I wrote a screenplay'>http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/21stcenturykids.html">screenplay based on Shannon Vyff's book "21st Century Kids" It is a story that has transhumanic themes written for children. There was no interest for it in Hollywood. I found a director who had a degree from UCLA Film School and owns a Production company in Estonia, but he wants cash to make the film. Nobody wants to buy the script or put it on "option". It is a fun story that has aliens, cryonics, uploaded dolphins, uploaded humans and a space adventure. Natasha's PRIMO Posthuman is also a character in the script. Read it and see what you think. If you know anybody who won the lottery or has a few extra 100 million dollars (special effects aren't cheap, and this screenplay has a lot of them!) let us know. Shannon's kids are the right age to star in the movie now. :) 21st Century Kids screenplay: WGAE Registration code #VQEA1BD9428; July 2007 Please tell us more about your project. Do you have a screenplay? Take Care Jimmy ________________________________ From: Florent Berthet To: ExI chat list Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2009 10:42:55 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism Very true. We have to be effective. Maybe we should focus on discussions about what we can do and how we can do it? So I'm asking everybody : according to you, what are the most important things you want to see achieved, and what are your plans to get them done ? My idea, as I spoke about in the "I am now a creationist" thread, is to make "a great transhuman utopian movie, where things actually GO well, and about which people would think "Wow, if only we could have that!". Then, it could only be a matter of time before some rich folks start to fund things like the Singularity Institute and other AGI related projects. Because now, obviously, they are not moved by these ideas. It seems like we can't convince rich guys to give money using clever arguments. And since they don't think that funding an AGI project will make them earn money, the only way to make them give anyway is to use feelings. Indeed, they may see the act of giving money as charity. But you don't manage charity with arguments, you manage it with tears, whether they are tears of sadness, or tears of hope. You don't make people give money to the starving children by saying "thousands of them die each day". You make them give money by showing them a picture of ONE starving little girl. That's the way it is. We have to use the power of pictures. This would be the most effective way to expand this movement around the world." It will take several years and a massive amount of work and money, but I'm currently on it. Anyway that's my project. What's yours ? - Florent Berthet -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 22:54:22 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 18:54:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904051554j4521b7f0td4afae6e98079b55@mail.gmail.com> Lee, the notion that the world can be improved by carpet bombing Afghanistan is so stupid it can be rejected without spending the 30 minutes or so needed to properly write up an analytical post. You don't need any emotions to be involved. It's a pity that Robert, who is a nice guy, suffered from some logical malfunction that produced this idiocy. Rafal From florent.berthet at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 23:30:30 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 01:30:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism In-Reply-To: <588208.56578.qm@web57404.mail.re1.yahoo.com> References: <588208.56578.qm@web57404.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904051630o7335931cv11a2e63d4185134e@mail.gmail.com> Hi Jimmy, I've just read your amazon review of Shannon's book, and I'll soon check the script, it seems interesting. About the movie, when you say there was no interest for it in Hollywood, what were the reasons exactly ? What kind of audience are you looking at ? Those issues are important because I think we need something that can be seen as the next Matrix in terms of success. By the way, I find it pretty impressive and encouraging how big was that success given the topics involved. I don't think I would have bet on it at first (sure, there was the Keanu Reeves card, but still...). As for my personal screenplay, I have the overall picture and I'm now getting into the details. The story takes place in the near future (around fifty years from now, definitely less than a hundred years), in a recently created virtual world where the humans can upload themselves and live ? la Egan's Permutation City, but with real mind-blowing epic fun. I will try to make it clear that it's actually a trully possible future by making people understand during the beginning that some years in the past, a team of scientists succeeded in making an AGI, which quickly managed to get the interest and sympathy of the people by being really smart, funny, and by being a great advisor on every subject. Then this AGI gained more political influence, and eventually, since she was so popular, some governments were forced to apply what she was proposing. Year after year, people could see the great improvements taking place all over the world, and finally, one day she introduced the virtual world with a speech along those lines: "During the past years, you have been giving me your trust. You allowed me to help you by all the necessary means, and together we have been able to get rid of most of the major world issues. But this is nothing compared to what I can offer you today. Let's try something : just imagine the best thing that could happen in your life. Go on, try it, even the craziest thing you can think of. Done ? Good. Well I can assure you that whatever that is, I have *way* better for you. Welcome to your new home." So that is basically the starting point and it shouldn't take more than a tenth of the movie's duration. For the rest, it's pretty tricky do make a fiction where nothing is going wrong or where there isn't any real threat involved, but it's not at all unsolvable. Indeed, for once we can use an environment where there aren't any limits. We can literally make the best action scenes ever because, well, screw the laws of physics! Same thing with the mystery or weirdness of the events, the beauty of the sets, or anything that can shape the story. The only limit is the imagination, and it will also be a key point within the movie itself. The guideline is about a young guy that will wake up in that world (for a very valid reason...), not knowing where he is, and discovering the life in there. In particular, he will discover the Games (yes, with a capital G.), and how pretty much everything will be about them from now on. The games, like I said, will take place in a context of infinite possibilities, which will permit some never saw before kinds of stuff. The kinds there were in Tron but a lot more complex and fun, and not only based on techno-creepy environments. Every part of them must be highly attractive. After all, the aim is to make people really really want that future. After having finished the screenplay (it's far from being done), and given the nature of most of the scenes, a finely detailed storyboard will be the least I can do to hope making a big director go woo-hoo. That's why the time and efforts needed are huge, but so could be the potential results. Florent Berthet 2009/4/5 Jimmy Adams > Hi > This is my first post here, it has been interesting to read the emails. A > couple of years ago I wrote a > screenplay'>http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/21stcenturykids.html">screenplaybased on Shannon Vyff's book "21st Century Kids" It is a story that has > transhumanic themes written for children. There was no interest for it in > Hollywood. I found a director who had a degree from UCLA Film School and > owns a Production company in Estonia, but he wants cash to make the film. > Nobody wants to buy the script or put it on "option". It is a fun story that > has aliens, cryonics, uploaded dolphins, uploaded humans and a space > adventure. Natasha's PRIMO Posthuman is also a character in the script. Read > it and see what you think. If you know anybody who won the lottery or has a > few extra 100 million dollars (special effects aren't cheap, and this > screenplay has a lot of them!) let us know. Shannon's kids are the right age > to star in the movie now. :) > > 21st Century Kids screenplay: WGAE Registration code #VQEA1BD9428; July > 2007 > > Please tell us more about your project. Do you have a screenplay? > > Take Care > Jimmy > ------------------------------ > *From:* Florent Berthet > *To:* ExI chat list > *Sent:* Sunday, April 5, 2009 10:42:55 AM > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of > online transhumanism > > Very true. We have to be effective. Maybe we should focus on discussions > about what we can do and how we can do it? > So I'm asking everybody : according to you, what are the most important > things you want to see achieved, and what are your plans to get them done ? > > My idea, as I spoke about in the "I am now a creationist" thread, is to > make "a great transhuman utopian movie, where things actually GO well, and > about which people would think "Wow, if only we could have that!". Then, it > could only be a matter of time before some rich folks start to fund things > like the Singularity Institute and other AGI related projects. Because now, > obviously, they are not moved by these ideas. It seems like we can't > convince rich guys to give money using clever arguments. And since they > don't think that funding an AGI project will make them earn money, the only > way to make them give anyway is to use feelings. Indeed, they may see the > act of giving money as charity. But you don't manage charity with arguments, > you manage it with tears, whether they are tears of sadness, or tears of > hope. You don't make people give money to the starving children by saying > "thousands of them die each day". You make them give money by showing them a > picture of ONE starving little girl. That's the way it is. We have to use > the power of pictures. This would be the most effective way to expand this > movement around the world." > > It will take several years and a massive amount of work and money, but I'm > currently on it. > > Anyway that's my project. What's yours ? > > > - Florent Berthet > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Apr 5 23:56:24 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 19:56:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904051656o17b1bd14s3ae291305751de3e@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 5:03 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: recall R for Rafal and L for Lee, and contrast > the skepticism, repudiation, and revulsion of the right > hemisphere R with the orderly, confabulatory (in the > sense of creation), rigid, progressive, logical step-by-step > relentless proceedings of L, the left hemisphere: ### Me the right hemisphere? Jeez. It's not moral indignation that makes me oppose your notions (although that I feel too), it's the conclusion that your recipe is abominably, how should I say it, errr... mistaken on factual grounds. -------------------- > > R: ? "France", a body? Clearly your logical confabulations > ? ? (in the creative sense) have gone off the deep end. > ? ? The analogy fills me with the greatest disgust and > ? ? brings uppermost to mind the question of what has > ? ? happened to your skeptical powers of good judgment. ### Not disgust, Lee, and not logical. If you were logical, you wouldn't be generating this stuff. ---------------- > > R: ? That is mere logical extrapolation. We don't know > ? ? that any of that will take place. When we weigh those > ? ? remote (in time, at least) possibilities with what > ? ? happens to real people in the hear and now, then the > ? ? judgment must come down on the side of doing no harm > ? ? (or the lesser harm) in the here and now. ### Ah, yeah, you remembered I am a physician. And yes, of course you need to discount future events and predictions, especially based on highly uncertain models, compared to the present. ----------------------------- > > L: ? Do you dismiss out of hand the developments of which > ? ? I warn? Do you think that these have zero probability? ### You mean Muslims reaching majority status in France in 30 years? According to http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/our-man-in-paris-france-will-never-be-a-muslim-state-568594.html, this is indeed zero probability, given that Muslims are about 6-8 % of the group below 25 year old, and would have to breed much much more than they do now to generate the majority. Give me reliable data saying otherwise. Then convince me that the vast majority of French Muslims wish to institute Sharia. Then show that the only way of preventing this is by indiscriminate destruction of Muslims, rather than e.g. by declaring limits on the number of children a citizen may have, and ruthlessly taxing or sterilizing all overbreeders irrespective of faith (still a stupid idea, IMO, but it would prevent rapid changes in the demographic makeup of the country). Finally, you would need to convince me somehow that the French culture is so freaking valuable that killing a million or two of innocent (i.e. non-violent) people is a good price to keep it around. That's all you need to have me join your camp. ------------------- > > R: ? It doesn't matter. What is important is a principled > ? ? adherence to our cherished principles at all times, > ? ? regardless of risk. ### The whole point of my cherished principles is that they are the least risky (AFAIK), compared to the stupid flailing about that constitutes the life politic. ------------------ > > ? ? What you propose is *not* an ESS, and it flies in > ? ? the face of your antecedents who made your policies > ? ? and probably your very existence possible. ### You mean, my modest proposal to be nice to nice people, including nice Muslims, is *not* an ESS? -------------------- > > ? ? You are a free-loader. ### Yeah, sure. ------------------- > > ? ? Reply to that, if you will, and---if somehow you can--- > ? ? please try to keep the dialog focused on the analytic > ? ? and non-emotional, as understandably hard as that may be > ? ? for your right hemisphere in this kind of discussion. > ### Lee, you base your thinking on factual errors, believe preposterous predictions, you show a lazy unwillingness to consider non-violent or less violent solutions, and you have some funny values, too. Fine. Just don't make the mistake of thinking that I am emotional. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 00:06:29 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 20:06:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 4:12 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > > Rounding up and deporting some enormous class of people > because they look at the world entirely differently > than you do---and ultimately destroy institutions that > took hundreds of years to develop---is not unreasonable > at all. ### On the contrary, it's unreasonable to the point of being stupid. The only justification for a deportation is when a very large fraction of the population in question is violent, and there are no means of reliably separating the violent ones from the peaceful ones. Rafal From aleksei at iki.fi Mon Apr 6 00:25:16 2009 From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 03:25:16 +0300 Subject: [ExI] plans for a transhuman utopian movie Message-ID: <1db0b2da0904051725w1ac04c24wd21aac3c72cd82aa@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/5 Florent Berthet : > [...] to make "a great transhuman utopian movie, where > things actually GO well, and about which people would > think "Wow, if only we could have that!". I think there's a good chance to get a good transhuman utopian movie done at some point. Kurzweil is already making a movie or two with pretty much this idea, though I fear they will suck (just an unfounded prejudice of mine). And this I actually see as the most probable failure scenario for getting a good transhuman utopian Matrix-level-blockbuster done: too many impatiently done sucky movies trying to be that successful movie, making everybody (especially Hollywood big shots) laugh at the idea for a long time. So I hope that people proceed with their movie plans with a rather perfectionist frame of mind, are patient (and don't invest too much of their ego in the project), and don't jump at the first probably low-quality opportunity to get their big idea out to theaters. Getting someone like Iain M. Banks involved in writing the movie would be a dream, btw. > Then, it could only be a matter of time before some rich folks start > to fund things like the Singularity Institute and other AGI related > projects. Because now, obviously, they are not moved by these > ideas. It seems like we can't convince rich guys to give money > using clever arguments. Some smart rich guys have been rather successfully convinced. See e.g. Peter Thiel < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Thiel >. I don't see the SIAI as being seriously strapped for cash, and am not sure what they'd actually do if they got substantially more. Instead of money, the limiting resource seems to be finding more sufficiently smart, rational and motivated people. (Or perhaps I just don't understand SIAI's situation very well.) -- Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 01:01:09 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 20:01:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism In-Reply-To: <49D90861.60304@boone.net> References: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> <49D90861.60304@boone.net> Message-ID: <55ad6af70904051801i40504fb7y10615e37030aa5a6@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 2:37 PM, Ralph wrote: > Kaj, > ? A big part of the problem in this dichotomy between the Useless > Enthusiasts and the Serious(ly Remote) Professionals is that Transhumanism > as it is frequently conceived often relies on the final completion of a > single, radical technology that Changes Everything. The implications of > having this or that particular, fully realized technology are (rightly) > perceived as so dramatic that to some degree almost everything else becomes > irrelevant once the Ultimate Technology arrives on the scene. > > Unfortunately, this leads to professionals intensely (and perhaps rightly) > focused on completely the technology they perceive as the tipping point, and > enthusiasts talking incessantly about changes they feel powerless to > achieve, but which more than a few find reasons to believe they will somehow > dominate despite their complete disassociation from the actual research and > the institutions doing it (because they will be "first adopters" or what > have you). > > So most of us are, whether professionals or non-professionals, left waiting > breathlessly on the closing of the Final Circuit in an AI godling, or the > First Upload, or the True Assembler. And in the meantime, the True Believers > can seem like a particularly odd, post-modern cult (if a well-educated one), > whose more extreme members seem to be rocking back and forth repeating the > technobabble equivalent of "The /Paingod/! He /Rises/! /He *Rises*/!" I don't know to what extent that is true. At its core, transhumanism is about personal self-improvement re: overcoming limitations and such. When I started out reading about transhumanism, I found that many of the ideas and search queries brought back material that I found useful. But, essentially I was a useless enthusiast. Arguably, I (and many others) are still completely useless, but on the other hand there does seem to be a difference between those who believe/act in the self-improvement aspects-- even with questionable biases in objective evaluation functions- and those who aren't willing to start off on those particular journies. How much of an ethusiast can you be when when it comes to transhumanism when you ignore the self-improvement aspects? - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 6 02:34:24 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 19:34:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] To Arms! In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com><7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com><49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki ... > > On Sat, Apr 4, 2009 at 4:12 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > > > > > Rounding up and deporting some enormous class of people > because they > > look at the world entirely differently than you do... > > ### On the contrary, it's unreasonable to the point of being stupid. ... > > Rafal Gentlemen please, we have slain this thread. Do let us leave it in the grave, shall we? spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 04:20:56 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:20:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Israel/Germany/Japan, as compared to France Message-ID: <2d6187670904052120x71971281yd5950d576ac3c0d0@mail.gmail.com> I think to gain perspective we need to see how various nations deal with their challenges... France- They have a large Muslim population that has not assimilated well (many of these people are the children of immigrants and were born in France, they have embraced Islamic fundamentalism to find meaning in sometimes very unpleasant lives) and are at least perceived as a possible long-term threat to the culture and body politic. Foreign immigrants make up about 9% of the population. Germany- They allowed in many Turks who are seen generally as model guest workers but who have faced poverty and mistreatment. They are now offering language and citizenship classes, and recently reversed a law that barred the children of foreigners born in Germany from becoming German citizens. The idea behind these efforts is to cause a melting pot effect to kick in. Many non-Muslim Germans are very concerned about Muslims and the building of Mosques. Foreign immigrants make up about 8% of the population. Japan- They are known for being somewhat xenophobic and look to improved automation and robotics to deal with a low birthrate, rather than allowing in large numbers of immigrants. Even a program trying to repatriate Japanese born and raised in nations like Peru and Brazil did not work too well. A long-standing challenge for them has been dealing with their Korean minority. Israel- They have a problem with their Muslim population that puts the problems of France to shame. Jewish Israeli politicians and intelligentsia fear that Muslim citizens over time will accomplish with big families & voting power what no amount of fighting and killing on their part could accomplish; the takeover of Israel. Arabs make up roughly 20% of Israel's population. If there is any nation that may seriously consider taking extreme measures to head off the founding group losing their grip on power, it will probably be Israel. They are a very small (though powerful) nation that is surrounded by potential enemies. My question is, why has France been having a much harder time dealing with their immigrants as compared to Germany? Or am I mistaken regarding this assumption? What can we learn from Japan's attempt at using technology to find solutions? And should the Jewish Israeli majority really be concerned about their growing Arab population? John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 04:33:03 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 00:33:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> Damien Broderick: >all that time I've remained dumbfounded > that you can't see that these are two entirely > independent and different propositions, John. I know you disagree with me and you are hardly alone. It's been going on far too long for me to be dumbfounded anymore, but I am saddened by the persistence of superstition. > There is no demonstrable reason for thinking > that a suitable silicon (or platinum-iridium positronium) > substrate couldn't emulate a mind. That is obviously true. > Going from that near-truism to your suicidal > proposition is a complete > non-sequitur that ignores *point of view*. That is obviously false, UNLESS my basic premise is untrue. Talking as if there were two different points of view among beings with identical memories, constructed with identical instructions and using atoms the scientific method cannot distinguish between might make some sense; provided the soul existed. It's complete gibberish otherwise. As I said vitalism is always there just under the surface. John K Clark From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 04:55:28 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 00:55:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com><5EDB6CB08EAE4E2BA4284DCD6C987090@MyComputer> <49D8E8BB.2000801@comcast.net> Message-ID: <0CC73485B8EC4235930C6E8E3411D1C5@MyComputer> Brent Allsop: > John, your thinking that 'almost everyone on this list' believes in > 'vitalism and the soul' is obviously completely wrong. I am quite certain I am not wrong; your very post confirms it. > you are missing the most important point that just because something is > 'behaving' like something else, it is in no way fundamentally and > phenomenally like it. I'll tell you one thing, I certainly won't have to look very far to find an example of a profoundly anti-scientific statement made by someone who claims not to believe in the soul or vitalism. It behaves like bread and wine but really it's the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Yep vitalism just under the surface. > all this has to do with the well accepted idea around the so called 'hard > problem' which you seem to completely, dismiss It's so hard that not only don't we know the answer we don't even know the question. John K Clark From moulton at moulton.com Mon Apr 6 05:50:25 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:50:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A small suggestion [was Re: To Arms!] In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> On Sun, 2009-04-05 at 19:34 -0700, spike wrote: > > Gentlemen please, we have slain this thread. Do let us leave it in the > grave, shall we? Spike Can I suggest instead of saying "Gentlemen" that you may want to use "Gentlepersons" since persons is gender inclusive or perhaps "Gentlebeings" or "Gentleentities". Also let me observe that just saying that you want to slay the thread might not get the results you want. As we have seen the same issues have a tendency keep coming back often with a different Subject line. Fred From jadams.neuro at yahoo.com Mon Apr 6 04:36:28 2009 From: jadams.neuro at yahoo.com (Jimmy Adams) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 21:36:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Transhuman screenplays In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904051630o7335931cv11a2e63d4185134e@mail.gmail.com> References: <588208.56578.qm@web57404.mail.re1.yahoo.com> <6d342ad70904051630o7335931cv11a2e63d4185134e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <528276.59731.qm@web57415.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Hi I'd changed the subject title. The Link didn't work right in my last email. I tried the 21st Century Kids Screen Play If that doesn't work, then cut and paste: http://www.simplyscripts.com/scripts/21stcenturykids.html Yahoo doesn't let me preview the email before sending it, so I can't correct any mistakes; primitive software, so last century! ;) I'll try to answer the questions below... ________________________________ From: Florent Berthet To: ExI chat list Sent: Sunday, April 5, 2009 6:30:30 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism Florent: Hi Jimmy, I've just read your amazon review of Shannon's book, and I'll soon check the script, it seems interesting. About the movie, when you say there was no interest for it in Hollywood, what were the reasons exactly ? What kind of audience are you looking at ? Jimmy: The type of audience is for children to open their minds about new ways of thinking, and understanding the future. It is to be fun and educational, it will be cool to live in the future! Why Hollywood doesn't like it? It's educational. Hollywood is for entertainment, they don't care about teaching new ideas or new points of view. They want something to make a fast buck. They are not in the education business, they are in the entertainment business. They want fast action scenes, blow something up, the more violence the better. They want people to buy tickets, not educate them. Florent: Those issues are important because I think we need something that can be seen as the next Matrix in terms of success. By the way, I find it pretty impressive and encouraging how big was that success given the topics involved. I don't think I would have bet on it at first (sure, there was the Keanu Reeves card, but still...). Jimmy: The Matrix movies were about violence first, lots of guns, action, and destoying things. It wasn't about transhumanism in the sense of living forever, or making the world better, or living in peace. It was about violence for the fun of it, and that sold tickets. (and teach children that it is O.K. to be violent) Florent: As for my personal screenplay, I have the overall picture and I'm now getting into the details. The story takes place in the near future (around fifty years from now, definitely less than a hundred years), in a recently created virtual world where the humans can upload themselves and live ? la Egan's Permutation City, but with real mind-blowing epic fun. I will try to make it clear that it's actually a trully possible future by making people understand during the beginning that some years in the past, a team of scientists succeeded in making an AGI, which quickly managed to get the interest and sympathy of the people by being really smart, funny, and by being a great advisor on every subject. Then this AGI gained more political influence, and eventually, since she was so popular, some governments were forced to apply what she was proposing. Year after year, people could see the great improvements taking place all over the world, and finally, one day she introduced the virtual world with a speech along those lines: "During the past years, you have been giving me your trust. You allowed me to help you by all the necessary means, and together we have been able to get rid of most of the major world issues. But this is nothing compared to what I can offer you today. Let's try something : just imagine the best thing that could happen in your life. Go on, try it, even the craziest thing you can think of. Done ? Good. Well I can assure you that whatever that is, I have *way* better for you. Welcome to your new home." Jimmy: This sounds like the central computer in the movie "I Robot" Victoria (?) "We will help you humans (by force, since humans can't help themselves) Florent: So that is basically the starting point and it shouldn't take more than a tenth of the movie's duration. For the rest, it's pretty tricky do make a fiction where nothing is going wrong or where there isn't any real threat involved, but it's not at all unsolvable. Indeed, for once we can use an environment where there aren't any limits. We can literally make the best action scenes ever because, well, screw the laws of physics! Same thing with the mystery or weirdness of the events, the beauty of the sets, or anything that can shape the story. The only limit is the imagination, and it will also be a key point within the movie itself. Jimmy: "screw the laws of physics!" is part of the problem with movies, spaceships that make a sound in space (no sounds in space), Time travel, (there is no past nor future to go to, only the now), Parallel Dimensions (No rich me, no dead me, no heaven, no hell,..there is only one me and there is only one you, lets just deal with that and maybe people will stop killing each other, since there is no other copies of themselves.). Science Fiction uses these tools but wouldn't it be better to write science fiction on the hard realities.(even 21st Century Kids uses time travel). But if I were to write something I would use only hard science, to teach that a lot can be done with this universe. Lots of people seem to believe what they see, and if they are shown only science mysticism, they can't understand realism. But realism doesn't sell movie tickets. (or can it?) Florent: The guideline is about a young guy that will wake up in that world (for a very valid reason...), not knowing where he is, and discovering the life in there. In particular, he will discover the Games (yes, with a capital G.), and how pretty much everything will be about them from now on. The games, like I said, will take place in a context of infinite possibilities, which will permit some never saw before kinds of stuff. The kinds there were in Tron but a lot more complex and fun, and not only based on techno-creepy environments. Every part of them must be highly attractive. After all, the aim is to make people really really want that future. Jimmy: "Make people really want that future" of Games? I don't like or care for computer games, or most games in real life. OK, I like sailing and chess, but that is about it. You want to force people to like baseball, football, fotbal (soccer) and other sports? What about freedom of choice? There are 16 different types of personalities, not every one is an alpha male, or a hunter. A simulation would have to have something to match all the different types of personalities. Personally I don't want to come back (after cryonics) in a simulation. I want a biological ageless body in the real world. But that is my choice, and if you want to come back in a simulation that is your choice; the red pill, or the blue pill, but everyone should have the right to chose. Maybe the guy in your movie choose the simulation world but notices that the real world is trying to unplug the simulation world and becomes the hero in the simulation world by making a friend in the real world to help them out? Just an idea. Florent: After having finished the screenplay (it's far from being done), and given the nature of most of the scenes, a finely detailed storyboard will be the least I can do to hope making a big director go woo-hoo. That's why the time and efforts needed are huge, but so could be the potential results. Jimmy: Good luck, Larry and Andy Wachowski, used very detailed storyboards to sell their story. They also had a "name" in the comic book world. Florent Berthet -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 06:07:04 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 23:07:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A small suggestion [was Re: To Arms!] In-Reply-To: <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> Message-ID: http://fora.tv/2009/03/24/Ask_a_Scientist_Sex_and_War#chapter_03 From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 6 06:14:46 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:14:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A small suggestion [was Re: To Arms!] In-Reply-To: <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090406011318.022dc4d8@satx.rr.com> At 10:50 PM 4/5/2009 -0700, Fred wrote: >On Sun, 2009-04-05 at 19:34 -0700, spike wrote: > > > > Gentlemen please, we have slain this thread. Do let us leave it in the > > grave, shall we? > >Can I suggest instead of saying "Gentlemen" that you may want to use >"Gentlepersons" Yes, as a general rule, but note that Spike was specifically addressing (and mildly chiding) Lee and Rafal, who are indeed gentlecritters but also gentlemen. Damien From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 6 06:16:24 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Apr 2009 23:16:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A small suggestion [was Re: To Arms!] In-Reply-To: <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com><49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it><7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com><49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com><7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com><49D71659.80201@rawbw.com><7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> Message-ID: >...On Behalf Of > Fred C. Moulton > Subject: [ExI] A small suggestion [was Re: To Arms!] > > > On Sun, 2009-04-05 at 19:34 -0700, spike wrote: > > > > Gentlemen please, we have slain this thread. Do let us leave it in > > the grave, shall we? > > Spike > > Can I suggest instead of saying "Gentlemen" that you may want > to use "Gentlepersons" since persons is gender inclusive or > perhaps "Gentlebeings" or "Gentleentities"... True. I would go for the really inclusive term gentlelifeforms, but since we may be simulated beings at this moment, even this could be considered presumptuous. The prefix "gentle" owes its etymology not to a particular behavior, but rather towards the tradition of land ownership, and the inherent defacto ownership of the human that worked that land, from which we derive the term "genteel." The term is more about socio-economic class than nonvoilence. In modern times we have an ever growing awareness of any reference to slavery, so we must strike the gentle from gentle lifeforms. > Also let me observe that just saying that you want to slay > the thread might not get the results you want. As we have > seen the same issues have a tendency keep coming back often > with a different Subject line. Fred This I have noticed too Fred. We are forced to recognize there is a delicate topic here that plenty of posters to this forum are eager to discuss. Very well. I do ask everyone here to think carefully, consider the feelings of the readers, be conscious of the fact that your words can be seen by anyone forever. Be like the ants with the two-hole problem: step back, recognize there may be a better way so that everyone wins. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 07:15:39 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:15:39 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> Message-ID: 2009/4/6 John K Clark : >> Going from that near-truism to your suicidal proposition is a complete >> non-sequitur that ignores *point of view*. > > That is obviously false, UNLESS my basic premise is untrue. Talking as if > there were two different points of view among beings with identical > memories, constructed with identical instructions and using atoms the > scientific method cannot distinguish between might make some sense; > provided the soul existed. It's complete gibberish otherwise. Most on this list agree with your premises but the conclusion that one's consciousness will necessarily transfer into the copy isn't obvious. And belief in a soul does not make a difference to the basic argument, since it could be argued that even if God miraculously duplicated your soul in the copy this *still* wouldn't result in consciousness being transferred. -- Stathis Papaioannou From moulton at moulton.com Mon Apr 6 08:41:08 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 01:41:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Israel/Germany/Japan, as compared to France In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904052120x71971281yd5950d576ac3c0d0@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904052120x71971281yd5950d576ac3c0d0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239007268.5478.1334.camel@hayek> On Sun, 2009-04-05 at 21:20 -0700, John Grigg wrote: > I think to gain perspective we need to see how various nations deal > with their challenges... The questions you raise are likely not going to get answered here. The questions are best answered in multiple book length discussions and not in an email list. Be very careful of everything you read on this list or anywhere else. It is important to remember that persons in any country or any religion are not a monolithic whole so we need to be careful to avoid over generalization. About France: For those really interested in France a good place to start is with the French invasion of the Algerian region of Africa and French colonialism in general. Then look at the social situation in France particularly in the suburbs with largely non-European populations. Looking at this will lead to an examination of economic considerations particularly the role of Unions, employment laws and customs, the lack of mobility in job market and similar factors. The extent to which racism plays a role has been mentioned in the news and should also be something to be investigated. Now at this point there likely some fool with fingers poised over their keyboard ready to make some implication about "how some people blame everything on racism" so I will state that "I do not blame everything on racism". I should not even have to add this disclaimer but considering some of the rhetorical crap that has recently appeared I am just being safe. About Japan: Japan is very complex issue. However I was pleased to see the progress in Japan in robotics. In 2006 I saw a live demonstration of the Asimo and was impressed, not overwhelmed but impressed. Now the news of the HRP-4C robot shows that progress is being made: http://www.engadget.com/2009/03/16/japans-hrp-4c-fashion-model-robot-unveiled-already-harassed/ Take a look. 1. About Israel I doubt you will get any good discussion of this topic here. So if you are really interested I suggest looking at variety of sources both historical and contemporary. And do not just rely on sources from the USA. For example look at http://english.aljazeera.net/ and compare it to other news outlets such as news outlets in Europe. And part of the answer depends on what you mean by Israel since Israel is occupying areas where it controls the border and thus there are reports of supplies having cost and availability problems due to the border controls. In many respects Israel and the occupied territories are in a similar situation as South Africa under apartheid. > And should the Jewish Israeli majority really be concerned about > their growing Arab population? I suggest you look at all of the people in Israel and all of the territory occupied and all of the people exiled in refuge camps and then consider that if you treat a bunch of people as if they were second class for year after year they might become resentful. The conduct of some of the IDF in Gaza recently is an example. You may want to look at a variety of sites on some of this background for example Amnesty International if you read Hebrew you can go here: http://www.amnesty.org.il/ Can not read Hebrew (neither can I) so try: http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/israel-and-occupied-territories And then compare what you read there with other sources. Fred > John > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From florent.berthet at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 09:01:21 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:01:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman screenplays In-Reply-To: <528276.59731.qm@web57415.mail.re1.yahoo.com> References: <588208.56578.qm@web57404.mail.re1.yahoo.com> <6d342ad70904051630o7335931cv11a2e63d4185134e@mail.gmail.com> <528276.59731.qm@web57415.mail.re1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904060201x175f7969m7344c910f9cc4088@mail.gmail.com> I'll answer to Aleksei Riikonen here and then to Jimmy in order to keep only one movie thread. Aleksei : I agree with you. From what I have read I'm not really sure about Kurzweil's movie, but I hope I'm wrong. It's true also that a bad transhumanist movie would be not only useless but also harmful, and I won't do anything unless I'm sure that it will be great (for example, I won't choose a mid-level director just because no big one accepted the project). I'll use all the necessary time. About rich guys giving money, you said "Some smart rich guys have been rather successfully convinced. See e.g. Peter Thiel. I don't see the SIAI as being seriously strapped for cash, and am not sure whatthey'd actually do if they got substantially more" Peter Thiel is actually the only one who made a substantial donation with $ 250 000, all the others gave $ 100 000 and less. In total, I'm not even sure they reached the million. This is far from sufficient if you want to hire the top computer and cognitive scientists in the world for several years - and unfortunately that's what it takes when you're aiming at creating an AGI. Thiel is a smart guy but it's kinda odd he doesn't give more given his wealth. Same observation for Kurzweil and Martine Rothblatt (who is also making a movie I'm not sure about...). I guess they are reasoning too much as mere entrepreneurs on these issues. Jimmy: "This sounds like the central computer in the movie "I Robot" Victoria (?) "We will help you humans (by force, since humans can't help themselves)" I will do everything I can to make the AGI really seem reliable and trustworthy, like there's no way it's going to raise an army of robots or destroy the planet... I know that's what happens 99% of the time in the movies with AIs but we must get this idea out of people's head. Often, when you talk about mind uploading to non-totally geek guys, they are like "wow hold on! imagine if the computer takes control of your mind or something!". I'm really not sure they would have such an automatic defensive reaction if there weren't all those spooky movies such as Terminator, AI, 2001, Matrix, and so on. We have to break this meme. ""screw the laws of physics!" is part of the problem with movies" Agreed. I meant that it would be the case but only in the virtual world, in which you would be able to go on the moon directly by JUMPING on it, if you want to... But the real world of the movie wouldn't break any law of any kind. Like I said, it must seem to be a totally possible future. So there will not even be any time travel. ""Make people really want that future" of Games? I don't like or care for computer games, or most games in real life. OK, I like sailing and chess, but that is about it. " Yes. Actually there won't be only games. I've not talked about that but it will be shown that you can do whatever you want, sailing and chess included. Some parts of the movie take place in paradisiac lands where you can just chill out. I'm very aware that not everybody is a total computer geek, and we have to make the biggest impact among the biggest number of people. "Personally I don't want to come back (after cryonics) in a simulation. I want a biological ageless body in the real world. But that is my choice, and if you want to come back in a simulation that is your choice; the red pill, or the blue pill, but everyone should have the right to chose." People will have the right to choose. The most important thing being to make them NOT freak out, everything must be as reassuring as possible. About your unplugging idea, I think this would actually happen if uploading was real. Religious or bioluddites radical groups may very well want to shut down everything. That's something that I've already thought about but I'm not sure I will use that, though that will definitely be talked about in the explanation scenes of the beginning. Do not hesitate to share ideas if you have some others. Florent Berthet -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From scerir at libero.it Mon Apr 6 10:04:21 2009 From: scerir at libero.it (scerir) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:04:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> Lee: > It was to carpet bomb all of Afghanistan (or perhaps just > the mountainous parts inaccssible to conventional conquest), > and to do so with nuclear weapons, in order to destroy all > resistance past the point of merely driving them into the > stone age, but to crush Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and > all their allies. Was it? As far as I remember it was to nuke Mecca, or the black stone, or something like that. So something different. Not sure to remember well though. s. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 10:55:44 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:55:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The polticial spectrum about French immigration [was: What the France!?] Message-ID: <580930c20904060355l5f01164cm6439b4c7066c80ae@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Apr 5, 2009 at 11:57 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Many Muslim residents of France are citizens -- on which legal basis > could, or should, be expelled? > > There is no defendable legal basis of course. There is only one > precedent in the modern history of Europe for expelling and abusing > citizens based on their religion and ethnic origin, and I hope we have > learned the lesson and don't wish to repeat it. Actually, what a some Frenchmen, including a few Jews, have in mind is more similar to the expulsion of Algerians of French ethnicity (including third-generation residents) when the country achieved independence, that of German-speaking... majorities from East Prussia (namely from Gdansk/Danzig and Kaliningrad/Koenigsberg) after the end of WWII, of, going backward in time, the Spanish Reconquista. For instance, Guillaume Faye thinks, or used to think, along lines very similar to those of Mirco and Lee on this subject, as it is made clear in * Arch?ofuturisme* and in *La colonisation de l'Europe. Discours vrai sur l'immigration et l'Islam*, the full text of the latter being online here(however, in a text , "La solution de Prom?th?e", which in its Italian version become the afterword to one of my books, he asks rhetorically whether such scenario would really have still sense in a post-singularity, or even a merely transhumanist, society). The official ideology of the French government, however, can better be defined as "authoritarian integrationism", that is "Integrate! Or else". Muslim immigrants are in principle forced to conform entirely to a social, political and legal system that is theoretically and allegedly "abstract" and "impartial", but in fact accomodates the christian and jewish beliefs, ethics, worship, language, mentalities, customs and habits (including their secularised forms) and not so well their Islamic equivalents. This on the line of a tradition of a very high centralisation of power, coming down through Louis XIV the Sun King, Robespierre and De Gaulle, which was employed first to crush without pity any temptation by French provinces to protect a modicum of cultural identity and self-government, then as the French colonialistic policy. Where the English colonists and administrators were inclined to keep in place a kind of social and cultural apartheid in Africa and Asia, the Frenchmen did their best to assimilate natives, imposing in full French law and customs even in affairs of no relevance to the colonial administration or to the the interest of metropolitan France, as was the case for the school system (a common joke still exists in France about the Senegal primary-school children forced by their schoolmasters' whip to chant all together by heart "Ils ?taient grands, ils ?taient blonds, nos ancetres, les Gaulois": they were big, they were blond, our ancestors, the Gauls). Thus, Mr. Sarkozy as a minister had no qualms whatsoever in dealing with the ethnical unrest in the Paris outer ring as if the latter were a war zone in a foreign country, probably sealing its future presidency in the process. Needless to say, this form of "forced assimilation" may well involve a suspension, or at least an open domestication, of the democratic process in all instances where muslims become a majority or would otherwise obtain a political clout. Lastly, a third position is that of much of the French Left and of the French so-called Nouvelle Droite, which can be called "multiculturalism". The general idea here is that muslims should be allowed to regulate their affairs as they see it best, even when such regulations would collide with French laws and traditions (say, chadors, poligamy, school system and programmes, sexual mutilations, sha'riah tribunals, Islamic banking, multilinguism, etc.), but at the same time they should be barred from imposing their views and ways of life on the citizens of a "French ethnicity". This would restore the early-middle ages system where the law governing the life of an individual did not depend on the territory the individual concerned lived in, but on the community he belonged to (the former Roman citizens', a given barbaric tribe, etc.). Many immigrants "officially" support the third solution. In fact, many of them may instead see it just as a temporary solution in view of a future fondamentalist takeover on the basis of sheer numbers; or at the opposite cherish the relative anarchy where they are escape to an extent from ordinary French rules and at the same time are not really subject to the possibly harsher rules that would be imposed on them were a "multicultural" system really implemented. All in all, none of those "solutions" has any chance of working at all unless the flow of new immigrants is first slowed down. To say the least, because latent or not-so-latent conflicts already exist that are not between muslims and "ethnical French", but amongst the immigrant communities themselves (which are far from being religiously or ethnically or linguistically homogenous), and because a growing mass of illegal immigrants is obviously not very prone to expulsion, assimilation or even self-government on the French territory, as it effectively escapes the controls that all such policies would require in the first place. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 11:47:49 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 13:47:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] A small suggestion [was Re: To Arms!] In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> <7641ddc60904051706n494913cexb4b8ed72331a5d2b@mail.gmail.com> <1238997025.5478.1232.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <580930c20904060447l2249209fnfc1ee99457166d11@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 8:16 AM, spike wrote: >so we must strike the gentle from gentle lifeforms. Indeed. We should perhaps conclude that "Hey, whatever you are" might be the most polite and politically correct way to address the subscribers to this list as a whole. A small step for this list, a big step for the final success of a truly transhumanist netiquette. Even though our impact on the public opinion is not what we could hope for, things are really growing by leaps and bounds on other fronts. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 12:02:16 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 14:02:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> Message-ID: <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > And belief in a soul does not make a difference to the basic > argument, since it could be argued that even if God miraculously > duplicated your soul in the copy this *still* wouldn't result in > consciousness being transferred. I do not want to beat a dead horse, but what is really the point of going on debating for the umpteenth time whether "consciousness" is "transferred" or not by a given process when the very *existence* of such a thing remains to be defined and demonstrated in the first place? As mentioned another time, it is highly probable that any such process will be considered as providing "continuity" to the identity of the individual concerned whenever this will end up being the dominant social perception. In such circumstances, while it will remains impossible to persuade those who choose to think otherwise, the opposite view will quickly become a marginal, somewhat lunatic belief, adversely affecting the everyday life of those who will actually act in accord with their ideas on the subject. -- Stefano Vaj From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Apr 6 13:16:30 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 08:16:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Extropy List and Rules Message-ID: Shall we return this list to the mind-blowing, insightful, outrageous, critical, humous, amazing and high-minded discussions about the state of the world and the future? This list sets the reputation of its members, Extropy, and transhumanism in general. Here is the rules as stated by Extropy Institute. We no longer have the team of moderators (LATTE) but we do have moderators and who mind the rules: "EXTROPY-CHAT" LIST AGREEMENT: We have a few rules about how you interact with the list. 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Name: atte2dfb.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 13:19:32 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 23:19:32 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/6 Stefano Vaj : > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> And belief in a soul does not make a difference to the basic >> argument, since it could be argued that even if God miraculously >> duplicated your soul in the copy this *still* wouldn't result in >> consciousness being transferred. > > I do not want to beat a dead horse, but what is really the point of > going on debating for the umpteenth time whether "consciousness" is > "transferred" or not by a given process when the very *existence* of > such a thing remains to be defined and demonstrated in the first > place? > > As mentioned another time, it is highly probable that any such process > will be considered as providing "continuity" to the identity of the > individual concerned whenever this will end up being the dominant > social perception. > > In such circumstances, while it will remains impossible to persuade > those who choose to think otherwise, the opposite view will quickly > become a marginal, somewhat lunatic belief, adversely affecting the > everyday life of those who will actually act in accord with their > ideas on the subject. I should have gone further to say that not only will some claim "it won't really be me" if the soul is magically duplicated, they will claim the same thing even if the consciousness (whatever that may or may not be) is magically duplicated. The point I am making is that it isn't a belief in vitalism, souls or even consciousness that leads to this position. There are people on this list who are 100% materialist and still say "it won't really be me". -- Stathis Papaioannou From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 13:56:08 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 23:26:08 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/5 John K Clark : > I want to thank Giulio Prisco, I did not know Wikipedia had an article on > mind uploading. The article is actually quite good, and it says two things > that I've been saying for well over a decade. First it says: > > [Mind Uploading] "denies the vitalist view of human life and consciousness." > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the > vitalist view. > > It then says: > > "The prospect of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many > philosophical questions involving identity, individuality and the soul." > > But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the > soul. > > John K Clark > I will just say quietly at the bottom of this thread that I do in fact agree with you, although it has taken me many years to get to this point, and I don't quite know what to make of it. For me, the inescapable answer to the "but it's not me" objection is "well then, show us this me". It's just not possible; whatever you point at that might be you leads to absurdity. We're not dual beings, natural and supernatural, because consciousness affects the mind; we talk about it. It's all natural. It either bleeds in or it is entirely disconnected and thus sliced away with Occam's razor. No middle ground. We're not "the process", because there just isn't any process; what is it to be a process? Is it still a process if it is run on a time sharing machine? How about if you get one tick of run time per century? Where is your consciousness in between ticks? What about if you are moved around in memory from tick to tick, or to a different machine, or duplicated? We're not "the pattern", because how can you be data? With the right transform, the right decoding, every piece of data is every other piece. Are we some platonic object, more akin to a triangle than anything else? How does that even make sense? Or, does a lookup table that acts exactly like me qualify as me, and if not, why not? The trouble this leads "me" to, is that there is no interpretation of what "I" am that leaves "me" with any definition of "me". Just a lot of processing and data and meat with delusions of grandeur. And so, in the uploading/teleporting/what-have-you debate, "I" find that "I" wouldn't be scared of walking into that uploading machine. Rather, "I" wonder why? What on earth am "I" working so hard to preserve in the first place? So many meaningless eddies in the flow? -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 15:44:13 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:44:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> Message-ID: <09F334BD2F7842E09EB9FD34DFCECD91@MyComputer> "Stathis Papaioannou" > Most on this list agree with your premises Oh they say they do, they even believe they do. But the thing is that vitalism is like the air; it's so ubiquitous that most people never notice it, especially in themselves. > but the conclusion that one's consciousness will necessarily transfer into > the copy isn't obvious. Few things could be more obvious, provided you take seriously the idea that vitalism and the soul are total crap and follow that premise to its logical conclusion. John K Clark From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 16:09:10 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:09:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> "Stefano Vaj" > the very *existence* of such a thing [consciousness] remains to be defined > and demonstrated in the first place? I wish I understood why people feel compelled to say silly things like that. There is not one person on planet Earth who thinks he does not think. Yes it's true that a good definition of consciousness is probably imposable, but that is a small loss. And as for another demonstration of consciousness to prove its existence, well obviously that is completely redundant. > what is really the point of going on debating for the umpteenth time The point is that the thing you want more to happen than anything else in the whole wide world is for your consciousness to continue, even though you believe it doesn't exist. John K Clark From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 16:11:42 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:11:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ----- Original Message ----- From: "Stathis Papaioannou" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Monday, April 06, 2009 9:19 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia > 2009/4/6 Stefano Vaj : >> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Stathis Papaioannou >> wrote: >>> And belief in a soul does not make a difference to the basic >>> argument, since it could be argued that even if God miraculously >>> duplicated your soul in the copy this *still* wouldn't result in >>> consciousness being transferred. >> >> I do not want to beat a dead horse, but what is really the point of >> going on debating for the umpteenth time whether "consciousness" is >> "transferred" or not by a given process when the very *existence* of >> such a thing remains to be defined and demonstrated in the first >> place? >> >> As mentioned another time, it is highly probable that any such process >> will be considered as providing "continuity" to the identity of the >> individual concerned whenever this will end up being the dominant >> social perception. >> >> In such circumstances, while it will remains impossible to persuade >> those who choose to think otherwise, the opposite view will quickly >> become a marginal, somewhat lunatic belief, adversely affecting the >> everyday life of those who will actually act in accord with their >> ideas on the subject. > > I should have gone further to say that not only will some claim "it > won't really be me" if the soul is magically duplicated, they will > claim the same thing even if the consciousness (whatever that may or > may not be) is magically duplicated. The point I am making is that it > isn't a belief in vitalism, souls or even consciousness that leads to > this position. There are people on this list who are 100% materialist > and still say "it won't really be me". > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 16:19:55 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 12:19:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Stathis Papaioannou" > not only will some claim "it won't really be me" if the soul is magically > duplicated, they will claim the same thing even if the consciousness > (whatever that may or may not be) is magically duplicated. Then I am not me, whatever the hell that means. Some people on this list have some silly ideas, but not THAT silly. > The point I am making is that it isn't a belief in vitalism, souls or even > consciousness that leads to this position. There are people on this list > who are 100% materialist and still say "it won't really be me". If they are 100% materialist and believe that then they are also 100% illogical. John K Clark From ain_ani at yahoo.com Mon Apr 6 16:12:28 2009 From: ain_ani at yahoo.com (Michael Miller) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 09:12:28 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <192601.80084.qm@web31501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Emlyn said: For me, the inescapable answer to the "but it's not me" objection is "well then, show us this me". It's just not possible; whatever you point at that might be you leads to absurdity. -- Emlyn - the reason people will not accept this is because what we mean by the word 'me' can never refer to something outside of oneself. The word necessarily encompasses a sense of interiority. Anything which one can point to and say "that" cannot, logically, be "me". This is the only reason, and it's not because of a belief in some metaphysical self, it's because our conventions about the word don't allow us to use it in reference to something oneself does not inhabit. The self can be referred to in the third person is not the self, our grammar of thought doesn't work in that way. Of course, the flipside to this is that we do not have the same conventions regarding 'you', 'she' or 'he'. Therefore, it is perfectly permissible (and comprehensible) to say, "that (simulation) is her in exactly the same way that this (body) is her". But a "that" can never be "me"...it will only ever be a that, he or she. (Or you). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 17:04:08 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 17:04:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> Message-ID: On 4/6/09, John K Clark wrote: > I wish I understood why people feel compelled to say silly things like > that. There is not one person on planet Earth who thinks he does not think. > Yes it's true that a good definition of consciousness is probably > imposable, but that is a small loss. And as for another demonstration of > consciousness to prove its existence, well obviously that is completely redundant. > John I know it is one of your favorite words, but, imposable means - Capable of being imposed or laid on. Perhaps you mean impossible? (As Google asks, if you search on 'imposable'). Unlike 'consciousness' which has a plethora of definitions. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 17:15:29 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 19:15:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> Message-ID: <580930c20904061015y60d4a255md0addb8d6ae0b6fa@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 6:09 PM, John K Clark wrote: > I wish I understood why people feel compelled to say silly things like that. Why, obviously you have to study evolutionary psychology or NLP more in depth to deal with this difficult issue. :-) More seriously, I obviously do not deny the operational usefulness of concepts such as consciousness or personality - which we are relatively ready to recognise even to things such as legal entities . Simply, we should realise that they are *constructs*, not "essences" which can be investigated or discussed per se. > There is not one person on planet Earth who thinks he does not think. How would you know? Exceptions keep popping in my head... :-) > The point is that the thing you want more to happen than anything else in > the whole wide world is for your consciousness to continue, Yes. And you know the reason is of that? Ask yourself a few question, before rushing to "obvious" answers... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 18:25:00 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 11:25:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Extropy List and Rules In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2009/4/6 Natasha Vita-More : > Shall we return this list to the mind-blowing,?insightful, outrageous, > critical, humous, amazing and high-minded discussions about the state of the > world and the future?? This list sets the reputation of its members, > Extropy, and transhumanism in general. I find there to be so little response to my posts, especially the technical ones, that I am considering searching for another list. Anyone interested in a space anchor? (A variant use of gravity gradient.) Keith From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 18:31:27 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 13:31:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Extropy List and Rules In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55ad6af70904061131p359a7379y32e28bc68a0ad3da@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 1:25 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > 2009/4/6 Natasha Vita-More : >> Shall we return this list to the mind-blowing,?insightful, outrageous, >> critical, humous, amazing and high-minded discussions about the state of the >> world and the future?? This list sets the reputation of its members, >> Extropy, and transhumanism in general. > > I find there to be so little response to my posts, especially the > technical ones, that I am considering searching for another list. I've previously recommended the open manufacturing list for engineering and manufacturing. http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing There's also a list for the colonization of Mars that Google helped deploy last year around April: http://groups.google.com/group/openvirgle Other lists: http://heybryan.org/mailing_lists.html I would also consider posting to the arocket list on the exrocketry server if you want to talk with the NewSpace guys- Armadillo Aerospace, Masten, XCOR, the works. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 6 18:53:59 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 13:53:59 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.co m> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> At 11:26 PM 4/6/2009 +0930, Emlyn wrote: >"I" find that "I" >wouldn't be scared of walking into that uploading machine. Rather, "I" >wonder why? What on earth am "I" working so hard to preserve in the >first place? So many meaningless eddies in the flow? "Meaningless" is a clue. Meaning implies a purpose chosen (or recognized) by an entity using what Dennett and others call "the Intentional Stance." If that entity *comprises* eddies in a flow, then the eddies are not meaningless; they are the very basis of meaning. Why am "I" working hard to preserve it? Because "I" am a device built with that powerful drive, to preserve the ensemble of matter that in principle passes along a bundle of its own gadgets with how-2-build-and-operate-a-me-like-thing instructions or hardware . And some of those gadgets are memetic rather than genetic. And so on. Natural selection builds devices like us to have conscious awareness (as John Clark keeps insisting, whether he'd put it this way or not, and I don't hear anyone disagreeing)--that is, to function from an Intentional Stance. This is not an accident or a drill. The rest of the argument is just filling in the dots. Damien Broderick From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 19:36:50 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 21:36:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904061236w6d08a34cn4c0e33acf2ae8eeb@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 8:53 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Why am "I" working hard to preserve it? Because "I" am a device built with > that powerful drive, to preserve the ensemble of matter that in principle > passes along a bundle of its own gadgets with > how-2-build-and-operate-a-me-like-thing instructions or hardware . And some > of those gadgets are memetic rather than genetic. And so on. Natural > selection builds devices like us to have conscious awareness (as John Clark > keeps insisting, whether he'd put it this way or not, and I don't hear > anyone disagreeing)--that is, to function from an Intentional Stance. This > is not an accident or a drill. > > The rest of the argument is just filling in the dots. Oh, wow, has somebody started speaking in Italian suddenly, that I am not feeling such an Alien anymore in such discussion? :-))) -- Stefano Vaj From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 19:45:51 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 14:45:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> Message-ID: <55ad6af70904061245i4a4df0e5pdb1e35627e3d2caf@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:09 AM, John K Clark wrote: > "Stefano Vaj" >> the very *existence* of such a thing [consciousness] remains to be defined >> and demonstrated in the first place? > > I wish I understood why people feel compelled to say silly things like that. > There is not one person on planet Earth who thinks he does not think. > Yes it's true that a good definition of consciousness is probably imposable, > but that is a small loss. And as for another demonstration of consciousness > to prove its existence, well obviously that is completely redundant. There is a difference between "thinking", the thing that brains do, and the folksonomy references to this thingy called 'consciousness'. Originally you started this thread asking about why people still cling to souls, spirits, consciousness, etc. I submit that it's entirely possible that everyone is very deeply confused about these terms. ;-) I (think I) like thinking, but I don't think it's the same thing as consciousness. (Hah! Throw that into your zen kettle and cook it.) >> what is really the point of going on debating for the umpteenth time > > The point is that the thing you want more to happen than anything else in > the whole wide world is for your consciousness to continue, even though > you believe it doesn't exist. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From jonkc at bellsouth.net Mon Apr 6 19:50:36 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 15:50:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer><580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com><1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> <580930c20904061015y60d4a255md0addb8d6ae0b6fa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Stefano Vaj" > I obviously do not deny the operational usefulness of concepts such as > consciousness or personality - which we are relatively ready to recognise > even to things such as legal entities . Simply, we should realise that > they are *constructs*, not "essences" which can be investigated or > discussed per se. Part of that you got right, intelligence is certainly a construct, and although I can't prove it with mathematical precision I am absolutely certain consciousness is too. In fact, not only am I absolutely certain I'm probably correct too. However the other part you got exactly backwards. An essence is the point where you stop asking "what is this made of?" so there is little that can be said about an essence. The soul is an essence, that's one reason the soul is crap. A construct on the other hand is made of parts so there is lots you can say about it and lots of investigations into it that actually lead somewhere. ME: >> There is not one person on planet Earth who thinks he does not think. You: > How would you know? Exceptions keep popping in my head I should have said not one person this side of a Looney Bin. John K Clark From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 6 21:24:44 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 14:24:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer><580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <1B5B227DD1664928BDB3E80A943F57BA@MyComputer> Message-ID: <928CF5FDFA1C4279ABCD3749449D8CF8@spike> > ...On Behalf Of > John K Clark .... > There is not one person on planet Earth who thinks he does not think. .... > John K Clark Hey, I don't think I think. I think I don't think. I could be wrong of course, but I don't think I think. {8^D I can easily imagine a simulated process with a better soul than mine. I already see software doing some really cool stuff, appearing to make decisions, such as one's oppoenent in a battle sim. I know it is all programmed in, but it sure creates the appearance the opponent is scared, angry, panicked, aggressive, all the stuff that we misguided humans think we are doing when we think we think. spike From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Apr 6 21:38:51 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:38:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Key Issues of Life Extension In-Reply-To: <580930c20904061236w6d08a34cn4c0e33acf2ae8eeb@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904061236w6d08a34cn4c0e33acf2ae8eeb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090406173851.jc8x94mc5c0ss48o@webmail.natasha.cc> In your view, what do you think are the current 5 (or more) key issues concerning living indefinitely? These issues can be located in any field and relate to biology, engineering, technology, science, business, economics, environment, politics, etc. Thanks, Natasha From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 22:53:53 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 16:53:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Is this an April Fool's hoax? was What's wrong with this picture? Message-ID: I offered this up sans substantive clues so you could have some fun with it. But no one seemed interested. So here it is again, with spoilers below. Go to the website and check it out, or read the spoilers and then check it out. Your call. http://www.michigandaily.com/content/2009-04-02/u-professor-discovers-liquid-salt-water-mars * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ************************************* In the middle of the piece, we find the comment: "When Phoenix returned to Earth Nov. 10, 2008, researchers analyzed the soil collected from the lander." But I'm sure no Mars mission has returned any samples to Earth. I then went to the top of the Michigan Daily web page and saw that the article was dated April 1st. I have not even checked the Phoenix mission website to confirm. Maybe I should do that before I embarrass myself (again). Naaaaaah. Best, Jeff Davis From sparge at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 23:31:39 2009 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 19:31:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Is this an April Fool's hoax? was What's wrong with this picture? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: http://www.universetoday.com/2009/03/10/phoenix-team-divided-are-the-mars-liquid-water-observations-a-matter-of-belief/ -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 6 23:55:56 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:55:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Is this an April Fool's hoax? was What's wrong with this picture? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090406184846.02473588@satx.rr.com> At 04:53 PM 4/6/2009 -0600, Jeff D wrote: >In the middle of the piece, we find the comment: > >"When Phoenix returned to Earth Nov. 10, 2008, researchers analyzed >the soil collected from the lander." > >But I'm sure no Mars mission has returned any samples to Earth. I >then went to the top of the Michigan Daily web page and saw that the >article was dated April 1st. I assumed this was a journalistic error or confusion (of which the world has more than it has journalistic facts). And the Michigan Daily is run by kids. Even supposedly groan-up papers make the most astounding blunders on every page. In the Philadelphia Inquirer recently, an interview with the science fiction genius Samuel R. Delany was replete with clangers, and one I liked especially was: <"His range of characters was unprecedented," said Philadelphia sci-fi and fantasy writer Michael Swankier, author of The Dragons of Babel. > Swankier. Dogawmighty. I wonder what Michael Swanwick thought of that. Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 6 23:58:20 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:58:20 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/7 John K Clark : > "Stathis Papaioannou" > >> not only will some claim "it won't really be me" if the soul is magically >> duplicated, they will claim the same thing even if the consciousness >> (whatever that may or may not be) is magically duplicated. > > Then I am not me, whatever the hell that means. Some people on this list > have some silly ideas, but not THAT silly. Perhaps we could ask the list: is there anyone who would ordinarily refuse destructive teleportation but would accept if guaranteed that their soul/ consciousness/ precious bodily fluids would be duplicated? -- Stathis Papaioannou From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 01:41:11 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 11:11:11 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904061841m4e61d2e8qb224147febd667b1@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/7 Damien Broderick : > At 11:26 PM 4/6/2009 +0930, Emlyn wrote: > >> "I" find that "I" >> wouldn't be scared of walking into that uploading machine. Rather, "I" >> wonder why? What on earth am "I" working so hard to preserve in the >> first place? So many meaningless eddies in the flow? > > "Meaningless" is a clue. Meaning implies a purpose chosen (or recognized) by > an entity using what Dennett and others call "the Intentional Stance." If > that entity *comprises* eddies in a flow, then the eddies are not > meaningless; they are the very basis of meaning. Well, that little bit of poetry was sloppy, and I knew it was when I wrote it, so apologies. I had just a few paragraphs earlier discounted the idea that we are the eddies; it is the same concept as us being the process. That we are the "live" sequence of computation doesn't make sense to me because, fundamentally, computation is in the eye of the beholder. One man's computation is another's jostling of atoms, the grinding out of the great state machine of the universe for ever increasing values of t. > > Why am "I" working hard to preserve it? Because "I" am a device built with > that powerful drive, to preserve the ensemble of matter that in principle > passes along a bundle of its own gadgets with > how-2-build-and-operate-a-me-like-thing instructions or hardware . And some > of those gadgets are memetic rather than genetic. And so on. Natural > selection builds devices like us to have conscious awareness (as John Clark > keeps insisting, whether he'd put it this way or not, and I don't hear > anyone disagreeing)--that is, to function from an Intentional Stance. This > is not an accident or a drill. > > The rest of the argument is just filling in the dots. > > Damien Broderick I don't buy the argument from natural selection completely. I can't help seeing it as an instance of the naturalistic fallacy. The intentional stance, a component of ourselves, is no more sacred than any other part. In a transhumanist forum, it should be as highly suspect as all the other accidents of evolution that we happen to find ourselves blessed/saddled with. The more I read of modern neuroscience (which isn't much, but some), the more of an impression I get that we, mentally, are made of a whole lot of fairly distinct and in many cases autonomous modules, with some kind of process sitting over the top of (or in fact to the side of) this unruly mob, whose job is to take the decisions made by the other pieces and concoct a plausible intentional stream to explain these actions (to "me", whatever that is). It's more like a sophisticated PR department than a control mechanism; rationalization after the fact rather rational process. I think of this like the government department in "Yes, Minister"; "I" am the minister, the modules and so on doing the real work (or lack thereof) are the department, going on with how they do things mostly regardless of any sense of control I might have, and in between us is Sir Humphrey, managing the flow of communication, convincing me that the ongoing actions of the department were my ideas in the first place, and congratulating me on my wisdom. So from what seems like a more external, objective point of view, we're just complex machines with ideas above our station. Our much cherished first person consciousness looks a lot like so much bullshit, really. The problem we have with uploading and so forth is not one of function (clearly the upload/copy will be identically as functional), it's a problem with maintaining the illusion of identity. So we tend to be happy with suggestions like "let's just upload one neuron at a time". It's just a destructive upload performed in an overly complex way, not to actually preserve our identity (because, let's face it, we don't even know what that is; are you the same person every morning when you wake from sleep?), but to preserve the illusion of identity (if I'm awake the whole time, and there's no logical discontinuity of consciousness, then that seems ok). The very intractability of the consciousness debate says one thing to me; that we are asking the wrong questions. That our premises are so off target that they are not even wrong, just orthogonal across multiple dimensions to anything real. Evolution produced a species that continues, in a very particular environment. We already know that our built-in intuitions about how the physical world works are spectacularly wrong (see Richard Dawkins' discussions of Middle World). I suspect that extends to consciousness and identity. I don't think we get to go much further in our understanding of and interaction with the physical world, without losing our intuitive sense of what it is to be ourselves. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 02:36:52 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 22:36:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <09F334BD2F7842E09EB9FD34DFCECD91@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <09F334BD2F7842E09EB9FD34DFCECD91@MyComputer> Message-ID: <62c14240904061936y71d61398j176e56cc9c35fbd7@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:44 AM, John K Clark wrote: > "Stathis Papaioannou" >> Most on this list agree with your premises > > Oh they say they do, they even believe they do. But the thing is that > vitalism is like the air; it's so ubiquitous that most people never notice > it, especially in themselves. Most John K Clark emails make sweeping generalities about "most people" and have a tone suggesting that this same majority is certainly comprised of fools and idiots. The interesting thing is that I am really never sure if the majority is or should be inclusive of the author with whom I agree. :) 'Just an observation. I'm confident this will in no way upset your consistent style. From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 02:49:45 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 6 Apr 2009 22:49:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Perhaps we could ask the list: is there anyone who would ordinarily > refuse destructive teleportation but would accept if guaranteed that > their soul/ consciousness/ precious bodily fluids would be duplicated? > Well, I don't really have anywhere useful to teleport "to" at the moment, but if there is some kind of compensation backing that guarantee... Then I might be tempted to teleport to anywhere, then try to collect the compensation when I later claim that my "qualia feels all wrong" because I know for sure there's no way to disprove my claim. But on the grounds of honesty, I have to admit that I'm ambivalent regarding teleportation. By the time we have the technology so it would matter, we'll also have either ReallyGood drugs / effective mind reprogramming so any nagging guilt I might feel can also be simply excised. From brent.allsop at comcast.net Tue Apr 7 03:57:35 2009 From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 21:57:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> Ask everyone what they think. Great idea Stathis. That is precisely the purpose of this topic at canonizer.com: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/48 (Also, joining the yes camp (or any supporting sub camp) gets you one vote with the Transhumanist canonizer. I trust the moral judgment of such people much more than no people.) And nobody has to guess when merging all the similar responses e-mailed, and nobody has to tally them all up. And when anyone converts to another camp, everyone will see it instantly. And we won't have to keep asking such questions, and re answering the question for everyone over and over again add infinitum. Wouldn't it be great to know concisely, quantitatively, what all transhumanists think, and also what everyone else thinks, and why? I think such knowledge would have a profound effect on the world for good, and would allow us to much more powerfully propagate such good memes. As you can see, so far there are 5 people unanimously in the Yes camp. And two of these people are in a supporting sub camp that recognize that there is more to 'uploading' than just a disconected, abstracted system that only abstractly behaves like the original, and is not phenomenally like the original. Mike, when you say you'd just employ drugs to erase some bad memory or whatever, to me such is just as bad as the response I get from people that believe some of their loved ones will go to hell. I ask them if they will be happy in heaven knowing their brother is in hell. Often times they reply with something like: 'God will just make us forget them'. Yea right. In other words, such imaginings are logically impossible for any sufficiently advanced / intelligent being. The theories described in the consciousness is representational and real camp (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6) predict that there will be effing uploading / transporting techniques that will completely eliminate any and all of these problems, easily, obviously, scientifically with no worries at all for anyone. A short fictionalized account / falsifiable prediction of how this will be done and what it can be phenomenally like is contained in two short chapters of a story starting here: http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742 As always, I'd love to know, concisely and quantitatively what everyone thinks, especially if such a story converts anyone to a different camp. Upward, Brent Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> Perhaps we could ask the list: is there anyone who would ordinarily >> refuse destructive teleportation but would accept if guaranteed that >> their soul/ consciousness/ precious bodily fluids would be duplicated? >> >> > > Well, I don't really have anywhere useful to teleport "to" at the > moment, but if there is some kind of compensation backing that > guarantee... Then I might be tempted to teleport to anywhere, then > try to collect the compensation when I later claim that my "qualia > feels all wrong" because I know for sure there's no way to disprove my > claim. > > But on the grounds of honesty, I have to admit that I'm ambivalent > regarding teleportation. By the time we have the technology so it > would matter, we'll also have either ReallyGood drugs / effective mind > reprogramming so any nagging guilt I might feel can also be simply > excised. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 7 04:31:51 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 00:31:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer><7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer><09F334BD2F7842E09EB9FD34DFCECD91@MyComputer> <62c14240904061936y71d61398j176e56cc9c35fbd7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7FEEAA1FF8514B8FB8E986E0D897F38E@MyComputer> "Mike Dougherty" > Most John K Clark emails make sweeping generalities And everybody knows that all sweeping generalities are false, every single one of them! John K Clark From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 04:39:39 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:09:39 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904062139x59cb6da1qe2c9d8c6766d3507@mail.gmail.com> This "consciousness is real" thing isn't logically consistent. It seems like you think that you can upload someone into "abstract" software and they'll be just like you but not conscious. Call that intelligence Brent* . If I ask Brent* "Are you conscious?", what does he reply? Does he say "Yes", "No", "Not Sure", something else? A faithful upload would say "Yes" (and I believe Brent* would because I think you are a truthful person). So what on earth goes through his software mind, that he answers yes to this question? Does he think he's conscious but he's not? If this is the case, how can you tell that you are not right now actually Brent* ? 2009/4/7 Brent Allsop : > > Ask everyone what they think. ?Great idea Stathis. ?That is precisely the > purpose of this topic at canonizer.com: > > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/48 > > (Also, joining the yes camp (or any supporting sub camp) gets you one vote > with the Transhumanist canonizer. ?I trust the moral judgment of such people > ?much more than no people.) ?And nobody ?has to guess when merging all the > similar responses e-mailed, and nobody has to tally them all up. ?And when > anyone converts to another camp, everyone will ?see it instantly. ?And we > won't have to keep asking such questions, and re answering the question for > everyone over and over again add infinitum. ?Wouldn't it be great to know > concisely, quantitatively, what all transhumanists think, and also what > everyone else thinks, and why? ?I think such knowledge would have a profound > effect on the world for good, and would allow us to much more powerfully > propagate such good memes. > > As you can see, so far there are 5 people unanimously in the Yes camp. ?And > two of these people are in a supporting sub camp that recognize that there > is more to 'uploading' than just a disconected, abstracted system that only > abstractly behaves like the original, and is not phenomenally like the > original. > > > Mike, when you say you'd just employ drugs to ?erase some bad memory or > whatever, to me such is just as bad as the response I get from people that > believe some of their loved ones will go to hell. ?I ask them if they will > be happy in heaven knowing their brother is in hell. ?Often times they reply > with something like: 'God will just make us forget them'. ?Yea right. ?In > other words, such imaginings are logically impossible for any sufficiently > advanced / intelligent being. > > The theories described in the consciousness is representational and real > camp (http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6) predict that there will be effing > uploading / transporting techniques that will completely eliminate any and > all of these problems, easily, obviously, scientifically with no worries at > all for anyone. ?A short fictionalized account / falsifiable prediction of > how this will be done and what it can be phenomenally like is contained in > two short chapters of a story starting here: > > http://home.comcast.net/~brent.allsop/1229.htm#_Toc22030742 > > As always, I'd love to know, concisely and quantitatively what everyone > thinks, especially if such a story converts anyone to a different camp. > > Upward, > > Brent > > > > Mike Dougherty wrote: >> >> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 7:58 PM, Stathis Papaioannou >> wrote: >> >>> >>> Perhaps we could ask the list: is there anyone who would ordinarily >>> refuse destructive teleportation but would accept if guaranteed that >>> their soul/ consciousness/ precious bodily fluids would be duplicated? >>> >>> >> >> Well, I don't really have anywhere useful to teleport "to" at the >> moment, but if there is some kind of compensation backing that >> guarantee... ?Then I might be tempted to teleport to anywhere, then >> try to collect the compensation when I later claim that my "qualia >> feels all wrong" because I know for sure there's no way to disprove my >> claim. >> >> But on the grounds of honesty, I have to admit that I'm ambivalent >> regarding teleportation. ?By the time we have the technology so it >> would matter, we'll also have either ReallyGood drugs / effective mind >> reprogramming so any nagging guilt I might feel can also be simply >> excised. >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 7 05:02:03 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 01:02:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> Message-ID: <067C1A943CEF487FBD1B5EE82567E91B@MyComputer> "Brent Allsop" > Wouldn't it be great to know concisely, quantitatively, what all > transhumanists think, and also what everyone else thinks, and why? That is what's so pathetic about your canonizer, the idea that what they write on it definitely settles the matter of what someone thinks about a matter. Everybody on this list will say they don't believe in vitalism and I am sure they will say the same on your canonizer. I don't think they're lying, I think they sincerely believe vitalism is wrong; but when you start to examine their ideas in detail and debate with them it very soon becomes apparent that they are wrong about what they think. The fact of the matter is that although they don't know it they passionately believe in vitalism; they must if there is any hope for their arguments to make the slightest bit of sense. John K Clark From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 05:22:54 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:22:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] WWRD? (What will Russia do?) In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> Message-ID: <49DAE32E.7010005@rawbw.com> Dagon Gmail wrote: > I thought that had been established... > > ..unless you regard human beings as a means to an end > '. Very interesting. It proves that Russia is still a strong nation (on the assumption that Nashi is representative). Perhaps some of you have seen the very nice documentary "The Singing Revolution", which showed how Estonians managed to preserve some of their nationalism and patriotism in spite of Soviet domination all the way from 1940 or so through 1990 or so. It interests me that the Soviets felt too weak (or too reluctant for some other reason) to really crack down and deport the leading million or so Estonians into the vastness of central Russia. (They'd moved millions of people around near the end of World War II to suit themselves.) See the documentary, one question came over and over to me: Will the Russians return? Already Estonia is 40% Russian or something like that. My answer was (arrived at an hour or so after seeing the documentary) that we live in a new age, and that the Russian people themselves could no longer feel proud about subduing a weak little neighbor like Estonia. After all, they'd had plenty of excuses in the days of Stalin: "We're doing them a favor, we're spreading international communism". But what now? Now it would be raw power. Yet a friend later told me that I was being naive. "The Russian people will actually be proud of such a move, and will once again exult in Russia's strength." I would love to hear opinions. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 05:25:29 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:25:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] excess posting In-Reply-To: <29B7FF6FF1204A47B481B6EC8523FE99@DFC68LF1> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com><1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D56966.1000601@rawbw.com><7641ddc60904022118p27730463o3b5645c255b461e1@mail.gmail.com> <49D71659.80201@rawbw.com> <29B7FF6FF1204A47B481B6EC8523FE99@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <49DAE3C9.2050208@rawbw.com> Hi Natasha, *One* day or so I did post a lot. Please rate me on posts per week! Lee Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Lee, could you please cut down on the high volume of posts to the list. > > Thank you, > > Natasha > > Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 05:42:11 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:42:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49CF0DFF.8070602@rawbw.com> <1238356432.8163.2557.camel@hayek> <49D04B6D.2080809@rawbw.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> Fred wrote: >>> And further what they have posting recently in this thread is not even >>> remotely Extropian. >> >> Again, you *know* what these terms mean, and it is for >> the rest of us just to accept, I suppose. > > I suggest that each individual on this list who uses the term > "Extropian" to think long and hard about this. Do you really want to be > associated with the term "Extropian" if the term "Extropian" can be be > seen as compatible with advocating that innocent Muslims should be > expelled from France? I am not. To be associated with (i.e. on the same list as) someone who advocates a certain position. Oh, the horror! Oh, the shame. Indeed, how do you live with yourself? It must be hell. I've never in my life seen anyone so concerned and so scared of what other people *might* think about things that he himself not only didn't say, but argued (sort of, loosely speaking), er, even denounced! How damned weird. The instinct to suppress unwelcome opinions has rarely ever shown itself here in such strength. Okay, out of total sympathy for your predicament and all the others who are *so* sensitive about how guilt by association may work against them, and so as to save you such utter and complete anguish, embarrassment, and shame, I will shut up about what France will do. Hmm. No, never mind. I won't. > I do not want the term "Extropian" twisted until it > includes something like expelling the innocent Muslims > from France. Oh, good God. Of all the silly worries. Your "concern" seems most likely only a cover for the deep discomfort that these heretical ideas are causing you, and more than anything, you seem to just want to shut your eyes and shut your mind to these disagreeable thoughts. I'll bet that your ancestors reacted extremely harshly and in *precisely* the same manner to all the heretic Darwin's extraordinarily disagreeable and upsetting ideas. And I will also bet that they (or, if your particular ones do not happen to be guilty of this charge) or others living at the time reacted in exactly the same non-intellectual and emotional terms, failing to engage in a rational exchange of ideas and failing totally to produce any *argument*. > And remember that deportation of innocent civilians has > been considered a Crime Against Humanity since the Nuremberg > Trials. So Extropians; do you embrace the idea that > advocating a Crime against Humanity is compatible with > the Extropian principles or do you reject it > or do you just not care? What? You want more to join you into a deafening chorus to GET LEE TO SHUT THE HELL UP? Why is that SO incredibly important to you? I have my own ideas (e.g. perhaps it is out of a very deep fear that you might actually *lose* an idea-based exchange), but I shouldn't speculate. Well---I've just now got to this email, and there are plenty more to read (you wrote the above a few days ago). So it will be very interesting if you own "Call to Arms" raises other angry voices of denunciation (all, naturally, quite free from *rational* argument as to why my suggestion to France doesn't lead in the long run to the best solution). Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 05:58:17 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:58:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DAEB79.1040404@rawbw.com> Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Many Muslim residents of France are citizens -- on which legal basis > could, or should, be expelled? > > There is no defensible legal basis of course. There is only one > precedent in the modern history of Europe for expelling and abusing > citizens based on their religion and ethnic origin, and I hope we have > learned the lesson and don't wish to repeat it. Ah! What a welcome relief! An actual *argument*, composed of rational sentences, one right after the other. Thanks, Giulio! I totally concede that there is no legal basis in any established *western* nation for mass deportations. (The U.S. did manage to deport numerous criminals in the old days, and I assume that the new laws that were passed to make this possible didn't conflict very much with existing ones.) > Might is usually right -- but it creates very dangerous > precedents. I also had previously conceded the risks involved in such a move. To me, it's a balancing of risks, that's all. > If Muslim citizens of France become a majority in the next > decades,_they_ may decide to expel non-Muslims on the > basis of might is right. You seem to have joined my side of the debate! Look at the logic here: I am advocating a move that would completely *nullify* the possibility that you bring up, namely that a Muslim majority may act in an unprecedented way against the non-Muslims. Unprecedented, that is, in a western nation! So you seem to be arguing that if the French were to come *close* to expelling them, or if they were to talk about it too much, then this would only increase the chances of them being on the receiving end in the future. What's a *logical* analogy? It's like, say, for a small tribe of American Indians to fail to go kill a murderer among them because (1) murder is wrong (2) if we do kill the murderer, then that will only encourage him to do more killing. Well. Okay, I admitted an improvement. Let me try again: It's like arguing (1) for us to go kill someone is wrong (2) if we debate whether or not to go kill Long Knife then that will only make him angry, and so (3) more people---namely us---will die when Long Knife and his growing sons get capable of taking us all out. Of course, no American Indian tribe who reasoned like that would have survived long, having been replaced by vigorous homicidal maniacs long ago. At one point or another, many tribal members strove towards, or stumbled onto an ESS (Evolutionarily Stable Strategy). And in such a circumstance, Long Knife would know that his days were numbered. Lee From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 06:00:12 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 16:00:12 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <067C1A943CEF487FBD1B5EE82567E91B@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> <067C1A943CEF487FBD1B5EE82567E91B@MyComputer> Message-ID: 2009/4/7 John K Clark : > "Brent Allsop" > >> Wouldn't it be great to know concisely, quantitatively, what all >> transhumanists think, and also what everyone else thinks, and why? > > That is what's so pathetic about your canonizer, the idea that what they > write on it definitely settles the matter of what someone thinks about a > matter. Everybody on this list will say they don't believe in vitalism and I > am sure they will say the same on your canonizer. I don't think they're > lying, I think they sincerely believe vitalism is wrong; but when you start > to examine their ideas in detail and debate with them it very soon becomes > apparent that they are wrong about what they think. The fact of the matter > is that although they don't know it they passionately believe in vitalism; > they must if there is any hope for their arguments to make the slightest bit > of sense. You haven't explained how vitalism or dualism would add anything new to the claim that "it's not really me" when one already agrees that the copy will be *exactly* like me, from materialist considerations alone. -- Stathis Papaioannou From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 06:08:11 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 00:08:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> Message-ID: Here, from the archives, is the post that starts it all. http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2004-June/007050.html Best, jeff davis On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 4:04 AM, scerir wrote: > Lee: >> It was to carpet bomb all of Afghanistan (or perhaps just >> the mountainous parts inaccssible to conventional conquest), >> and to do so with nuclear weapons, in order to destroy all >> resistance past the point of merely driving them into the >> stone age, but to crush Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, and >> all their allies. > > Was it? As far as I remember it was to nuke Mecca, or the > black stone, or something like that. So something different. > Not sure to remember well though. > s. From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 06:11:09 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 23:11:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Underpopulation, not Overpopulation In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49DAEE7D.8020702@rawbw.com> Dagon Gmail wrote: > > The decline demographic numbers is a prime cause of the > > economic malaise affecting the west. > > ---Lee > > And I call that counter-productive if not completely dangerous > bunk. I say that if one person uses x material resources, > energy at a certain standard of living, 100 persons will use > far more than 100x in resources. You would have a *chance* to be right (though I would still suspect not) if technology were not constantly improving. Mass numbers assist technological breakthroughs because of the higher numbers of geniuses and others who contribute mightily to the advances. An American farmer today can grow five or six times the amount of food that he could in the 1950s on a single acre of land (or something like that). If you read about it, you'll be utterly impressed with the results of the green revolution. So your statement above just seems quite wrong, in principle as well as in particular. > My assertion is that overpopulation is a MAJOR drain on efficiency, > resources, energy, not even considering the cheapening of > human value, the stress caused by increased societal pressure, > exploitation, collapse of individual meaning and worth, Haven't quite got to the upcoming verb in that sentence, but I think that all that is poppycock (my own contribution to the standard of list argument here lately). What you write only describes the backward countries, who, usually because of corruption and the unequal distribution of capitalism, have yet to embrace sufficient technology to raise their standards of living---which has the exact *opposite* effect of what you state. Namely, increased standards of living *increase* efficiencies, decrease stresses in living, *decrease* exploitation, loss of human values, collapse of inidividual meaning and so on. That's easy to see, because it is precisely in the most technologically advanced nations that the social trends are the best. Unless you want to resort to the old discredited Comintern line that the west is only achieving these unprecedented levels of prosperity by exploiting all the third world basket cases, which is palpably untrue. I do thank you for your impressive list of references. I'm pretty sure that it would be almost impossible for me to find an equally long list supporting my views, because your view is a la mode, so to speak. For every book pointing out the errors of the left/green coalition, there are five repeating the same claims. In that regard, it's just like global warming. Reciting *more* references to your cause doesn't cause you to win rational debates. Lee > bastards playing members of society against each other and insurmountable > congestion in nearly every bit of infrastructure you can imagine at peak use > and the same gathering dust when they are not used. > > I say that overpopulation is the single most biggest tragedy humanity > suffers > right now, and the only people benefiting from this are the remorseless > bastards > who exploit their fellow humans, by gaming this tragedy like sharks. > > Unfortunately, all this cant be solved. > > * A Bicentennial Malthusian Essay > , John F. Rohe; > Rhodes & Easton, Traverse City, MI 49684, ISBN 1-890394-00-9, > (192p, $19). Also available from Amazon.com > . > Malthus suggested there might be an inverse relationship between > the quantity and the quality of human life. Approximately one > billion people now go to bed hungry every night. Rohe revisits > principles found controversial in 1798 in identifying a root cause > of our unrest. > > * A Green History of the World: The Environment and the Collapse of > Great Civilizations > , Clive > Pointing; St. Martins Press, ISBN 0-312-06987-1 (432p, $24), > Penguin USA (Paper) ISBN: 0-140-17660-8 ($15), (EGJ review > ). > > * An Essay on Principle of Population > , Thomas > Robert Malthus; Prometheus, ISBN 1573922552 (paperback), ($9). The > original 1798 essay on population. > > * Excellent Beyond Malthus: Nineteen Dimensions of the Population > Challenge , Lester R. > Brown, Gary Gardner, and Brian Halweil; W.W. Norton, 1999, > Worldwatch Institute , ISBN > 0393319067, ($13). Also available from Amazon.com > . > Examines the stakes involved in potentially adding another 3.3 > billion people to the world population over the next fifty years. > > * Beyond Malthus: Population and Power > , Neil > W. Chamberlain; (out of print), (1970). > > * Beyond Malthus: Sixteen Dimensions of the Population Problem > , 1998, Worldwatch > Institute ($5). An excellent and > easily-read introductory paperback. > > * Excellent Beyond the Limits, Confronting Global Collapse, > Envisioning a Sustainable Future > , > Donella Meadows, Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers; 1992, Chelsea > Green, ISBN 0-930031-55-5 (hard cover) (300p, $19.95), ISBN > 0930031628(paperback) ($15), (EGJ review > ). The > authors contend that the global industrial system has already > overshot some of the earth's vital ecological limits, and could > collapse by the mid-21st century unless we commit to sweeping > changes now. The first two chapters present an excellent > discussion on /exponential growth/. > > * Cheerfully Childless - The > Humor Book for Those Who Hesitate to Procreate, Eller Metter & > Loretta Gomez; Baker & Taylor and Quality Books, 2002, ISBN > 0-9711627-0-0 > > * Curbing Population Growth, An Insider's Perspective on the > Population Movement > , Oscar > Harkavy; Plenum Press, 1995, ISBN 0-306-45050-X, (249p). An > excellent reference book, describing the history of > population-oriented organizations and their funders. > > * Dynamics of Values in Fertility Change > , > Richard Leete (Ed.); Oxford Univ Press, 1999, ISBN 0198294395, > (360p, $85). > > * Earth: Our Crowded Spaceship > , Isaac > Asimov, (out of print). > > * Excellent Ending the Explosion: Population Policies and Ethics for > a Humane Future > , > W. Hollingsworth; 1996, Seven Locks Press, 800.354.5348, ISBN > 0-929-765-42-7, ($17.95), (review > ). Also > available from Amazon.com > . Unlike > most books, it rightly sees overpopulation as a threat to the > human spirit as well as to our physical well-being. > > * _Extinction or Survival_, M.J. Turner; 1996, Ardmore Publishing, > 875 Ardmore Dr., RR2, Sidney BC, Canada, V8L 5G2, ISBN > 0-9680850-0-8, ($24.95). Carefully researched, this book deals > with the real problems of overpopulation and the resulting > excessive environmental exploitation, showing how the carrying > capacity of Planet Earth is being seriously eroded. > > * _How Does Congress Approach Population and Family Planning Issues: > Results of Qualitative Interviews with Legislative Directors_, > Sally Patterson, David M. Adamson; Rand Corporation > , 1999, ISBN 0833027042, (49p, $8). > Congressional opinions on population issues are highly polarized. > About 90% of Congress consistently votes either for or against > population-related legislation. Thus the remaining 10 percent is > likely to determine the fate of such issues. Researchers > interviewed a sample of legislative directors in this category. > Most felt that the U.S. should continue to play a leading role > internationally, but several noted that their bosses favor more > multilateral approaches. A majority felt that world population > growth is a problem but is not urgent. Nearly unanimous support > was expressed for U.S. support of voluntary family planning if it > excludes abortion. Congress would benefit from more factual > information on population issues. > > * Intended Consequences : Birth Control, Abortion, and the Federal > Government in Modern America > , Donald > T. Critchlow; Oxford Univ Press, 1999, ISBN 0195046579, (320p, > $9). Contains 13 essays by well-known feminist scholars and > activists on the major global issues relevant to the environment, > development, and population. The authors discuss issues of racism, > paternalism, and scapegoating. Also discussed are reproductive > technology, the impact of population growth on the environment, > effects of militarism and consumption, and social justice movements. > > * Excellent How Many People Can the World Support? > , Joel > E. Cohen; Norton, New York, 1995, ISBN 0393314952, ($13). A > well-documented and referenced book on the history of human > population growth, and past and current attempt to project human > carrying capacity of the planet. A definitive work on the > population problem. > > * Excellent Juggernaut, Growth on a Finite Planet > , > Lindsey Grant; 1996, Seven Locks Press, ISBN 0-929765-51-6 > (paperback) (363p). An informative and fascinating book which > compellingly presents the social, political, and economic > implications of continued population growth. One of the best > synopsis of the population problem. > > * Excellent Living Within Limits: Ecology, Economics, and Population > Taboos , > Garrett Hardin. Oxford University Press, 1993, ISBN 0-19-507811-X. > (339p, $25), (EGJ review > ). > Wonderfully rich in clear logic, original ideas and insights. > > * Malthusian Worlds: Us Leadership and the Governing of the > Population Crisis > , Ronald > Walter Greene; Harpercollins, 1999, ISBN 0813390737, ($65). > > * Maybe One : A Personal and Environmental Argument for Single-Child > Families > , Bill > McKibben; Simon & Schuster, 1998, ISBN 0684852810, (256p, $17). > The growing population of the U.S. is a significant threat to > world sustainability because of high U.S. consumption levels. > McKibben discusses the concept of having only one child, on a > personal level and from the perspective of impact on the ecosphere. > > * Our Crowded Planet > , > Fairfield Osborn; Greenwood Publishing Group, 1983, ISBN > 0313226393, (240p, $60). A splendid document of contemporary > civilization not because it solves the problem of overpopulation > but because it brings into focus the immediacy of the problem as > an individual, national, and international concern. This book > includes essays by major figures in the arts and sciences, > including Marston Bates, Henry Steele Commager, F. Fraser Darling, > Charles G. Darwin (grandson of _The Origin of Species_ Darwin), > Julian Huxley, Joseph Wood Krutch, Arnold Toynbee, Solly > Zuckerman, and Paul B. Sears. > > * Our Plundered Planet > , > Fairfield Osborn; Little Brown, 1948, (out of print). The author > calculates Earth's carrying capacity at less than 2 billion (p. > 37). An early warning on the population/resource/environment > crisis. This book focused on renewable resources but added > overpopulation to the equation. Osborn saw the nation's forests, > grasslands, and water resources as threatened. "The tide of the > earth's population is rising, the reservoir of the earth's living > resources is falling," the author wrote. "There is only one > solution: Man must recognize the necessity of cooperating with > nature." Fairfield Osborn was a distinguished author, naturalist, > and conservationist. He was president of the New York Zoological > Society and chairman of the Conservation Foundation. > > * Excellent Overshoot, The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change > , > William R. Catton, Jr.; University of Illinois Press, 1980, ISBN > 0-252-00818-9 (hard cover), (270p, $30), ISBN 0-252-00988-6 > (paperback). An important book - well written with a rich > bibliography. > > * Planetary Overload: Global Environmental Change and the Health of > the Human Species > , A. > McMichael; Cambridge Univ. Press,1993, ISBN 0521558719 ($12). This > eloquent and alarming book examines the likely impact on human > health of the ongoing degradation of the planet's ecosystems. > > * Population and Politics Since 1750 > , > William H. McNeill, University Press of Virginia, 1990, ISBN > 0-8139-1257-1, (71p). In this brief discussion, the author ponders > the question: is demography the engine that drives history? > > * Population, Environment and Development > : > Proceedings of the United Nations Expert Group Meeting on > Population, Environment and Development, U.N., United Nations > Publications, 1994, ISBN 9211512654, ($30). Reports on the Expert > Group meeting in 1992, recommending integrating environmental and > population issues into planning and policy making. > > * Population, Evolution, and Birth Control, A Collage of > Controversial Ideas > , Ed. > Garret Hardin; W.H. Freeman, 1964, ISBN 0716706709, (381p). An > engrossing collection of articles, reviews, and criticisms > reflecting all shades of opinion on what is perhaps the most > important social problem facing mankind. > > * Population Fallacies > , Jack > Parsons; Elek/Pemberton, London, 1977, ISBN 0301740313 (286p, out > of print), (review > ). Under > the three basic categories of Common Sense, Scientific, and > Economic Fallacies, the discussion ranges over such topics as the > use of statistics, foretelling the future, military power, > migration, manpower, economic development, space travel, the myth > of the large happy family and the limits to growth. Each fallacy > is clearly stated, solidly documented, thoroughly analyzed and > finally dismissed. > > * Population Geography: Problems, Concepts, and Prospects > , Gary > L. Peters, Robert P. Larkin; Kendall/Hunt Publishing, 1999, ISBN > 0787256722, ($47). This textbook is an introduction to population > geography, and covers theories of population growth, demographic > data and processes, population distribution and composition, and > the environment and food supply. Tables, maps, and data are provided. > > * Population Growth, Resource Consumption, and the Environment > : > Seeking a Common Vision for a Troubled World, D. Richard Searle, > Rick Searle; Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1995, ISBN > 1550580647, ($14). > > * Population Handbook - A Quick Guide for Journalists, Teachers, etc > ., 70-page booklet, > ISBN 0-917136-09-8. It contains definitions and features > "Calculating the TFR", "How Life TablesWork", etc. > > * Population, A Lively Introduction > , > McFalls; Population Reference Bureau , > 1991, ISBN 9992437618, ($9). > > * Excellent Population: an Introduction to Concepts and Issues > , John > R. Weeks; Wadsworth, 1992, ISBN 0534553052 (hardcover) ISBN > 0-534-17346-2. (579p, $88.00), (EGJ review > ). A > college textbook and a good introduction to population issues, > including terms and definitions. > > * _Population and Environment: a Journal of Interdisciplinary > Studies_, Human Sciences Press, 212.620.8000. This journal deals > with both issues in a comprehensive and integrated manner. > > * Population and the World Bank: Adapting to Change > , World > Bank, 1999, ISBN 0821344404, ($22), (abstract > ). The > global demographic situation has changed dramatically since the > World Bank started population work three decades ago. This > publication discusses how to apply the Bank's Health, Nutrition, > and Population (HNP) Sector Strategy of 1997 to the Bank's work on > population and reproductive health. > > * Population Politics: the Choices that Shape our Future > , > Virginia Abernethy; 1993, Plenum Publishing, ISBN 0-306-44461-5, > (350p, $27). Also available from Amazon.com > . > (Review, titled Why Do Women Have Babies > , Robert A. McConnell). A > provocative book that raises disturbing questions about > demographic and immigration policies and their implications for > the future of the world. A splendid critique of how U.S. foreign > aid and liberal immigration policy result in population growth in > the U.S. and abroad. > > * _Population, Resources and the Environment: The Critical > Challenges_, United Nations Population Fund, 1991, ISBN > 0-89714-101-6. (154p, $25), (EGJ review > ). > > * _Road to Survival_, William Vogt; Sloane, 1948, (review > ). Another > of the classic "early warnings," like Osborn's book, but much > starker - in Vogt's view, the United States in 1948 at 147 million > was already overpopulated, and its self-indulgent materialism > doomed it to eventual extinction. > > > > * The American Dream: Can It Survive the 21st Century? > , Joseph > L. Daleiden; Prometheus Books, 1999, ISBN 157392265X. (550 p., > $25). An ambitious and comprehensive book, offering well > though-out solutions to complex problems. Ed Levy states in a > review that: "Daleiden's basic message, then, is that today's acts > are destroying tomorrow, and that we are stealing, not just > borrowing, from the future and that we must accept the possibility > of disasters if we are to prevent them. ...An additional value of > the book is the validity of its arguments: e.g., the deft > debunking of the 'demographic transition' theory (with the > addition that even if it were true, it would be too late, because > of doubling time, to matter when it kicked in)." > > * The Challenge of Man's Future > , > Harrison Scott Brown; Viking, 1953, ISBN 0813300339. A classic > early warning on impending population and resource problems. > > * The Fear of Population Decline > , > Micheal S. Teitelbaum; ISBN 0126851905, (out of print). > > * The Future of Population: Predictions > , John > I. Clarke; Orion, 1999, ISBN 0297819232, ($4). > > * The Ostrich Factor: Our Population Myopia > , > Garrett Hardin; Oxford University Press, 1998, ISBN 0-19-512274-7, > (153p, $16). (excerpts and review > ). With > clear logic and imaginative insight, Garret Hardin has again given > us a strong helping hand in the unending task of overcoming denial > of the tough issues in population, economics, and ethics. > > * The Population Bomb > , Paul > Ehrlich; ISBN 0891908617, ($22). (PBS review > ), (excerpts > ). This book > looks at the ideas of one scientist whose theories link > overpopulation to a broad range of global problems (somewhat > outdated - instead see _The Population Explosion_ below). > > * Excellent The Population Explosion > , Paul > R. and Anne H. Ehrlich; Simon and Schuster, 1990, ISBN > 0-671-68984-3. (320p, $19), (EGJ review > > additional review ), and (excerpts > ). A classic > work, this superb, closely reasoned, and fact-filled book should > do much to clear the way for badly needed political action. > > * The Stork and the Plow > , Paul > and Anne Ehrlich; Putnam, 1995, ISBN 0-399-14074-3, (384p, $15), > (excerpts ). > Humanity and agricultural fertility are on a collision course; the > stork is threatening to overtake the plow. Yet the very existence > of this dilemma is largely unappreciated by the general public as > well as politically- and ecologically-oriented pundits. > > * The Third Revolution: Environment, Population and a Sustainable > World , > Paul Harrison, I.B. Tauris; in association with the World Wide > Fund for Nature, Penguin, 1993, ISBN 0140146598. (359 p, $12.00). > An excellent introduction; (EGJ review > ). > > * Excellent World Population > , > Leon F. Bouvier, Jane T. Bertrand; Seven Locks Press, 1999, ISBN: > 0929765664, (203 p, $13). > "Readable, insightful, scholarly, and objective. Whatever your > view on population growth, few disagree that it presents the > future with some major challenges. An important book about a fast > developing, worldwide problem." -- Richard D. Lamm. > "Bouvier and Bertrand's new book offers a measured and informed > appraisal - for those who would prefer to actually understand." -- > Michael S. Teitelbaum. > > * Excellent World Population Growth > , George > E. Immerwahr; Peanut Butter Publishing, 226 2nd Ave. West, > Seattle, WA 98119, 206.281.5965, ISBN 0-89716-552-7 (184p, $12). > This excellent book explains population growth in clear, concise > terms and contains an excellent demographic appendix. The author, > a demographer with extensive overseas exposure to the population > issue, states that population problems are colossal but not > hopeless and is chiefly concerned for the world's children. /If > you have trouble finding this book, contact Suggestions and > EcoFuture ./ > > > Books on Overpopulation From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 7 06:23:53 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 02:23:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer><02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net><067C1A943CEF487FBD1B5EE82567E91B@MyComputer> Message-ID: <6749F63FA7D746D2A0F28D53D78661AF@MyComputer> "Stathis Papaioannou" > You haven't explained how vitalism or dualism would > add anything new to the claim that "it's not really me" > when one already agrees that the copy will be *exactly* > like me, from materialist considerations alone. For 15 years I've heard people bellow "But that just wouldn't be me!". In those 15 years without exception the arguments proffered to support that claim were completely idiotic; I haven't heard one that wasn't embarrassingly stupid. The only way it could possibly be true is that the copy isn't me because it doesn't have my soul. I don't believe in souls, but I admit I'm a weirdo. John K Clark From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 07:15:30 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:15:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49DAEB79.1040404@rawbw.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> <49DAEB79.1040404@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904070015l60eedc2fv833f1efd011656fb@mail.gmail.com> Not really, because I think multiculturalism is good -- I would find it extremely boring living in a place where everyone thinks and acts the same. The place where I live would be more boring of a cemetery on a sunday afternoon if not for its multiethnic, multicultural dimension. Of course, provided everyone respects the others, as long as there is no forced assimilation, etc. etc. But what dod Jesus say about throwing the first stone? On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 7:58 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > You seem to have joined my side of the debate! -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 07:19:43 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:19:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904070019y277001e2ua5f9d1bd946f64c7@mail.gmail.com> I think this was not formulated as an actual proposal meant to be taken seriously, but as an intellectual exercise. On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 8:08 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Here, from the archives, is the post that starts it all. > > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2004-June/007050.html > > Best, jeff davis -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 07:30:56 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:30:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> I like free speech and don't like censorship, so I kind of agree with Lee on this. And there should be no sacred cows that cannot even be mentioned: sacred cows are as good for hamburgers as other cows. But as I said in another thread, if France were to expel its Muslim citizens, it would also be expelling the Western legal system that, flawed as it may be, is not half bad. Our legal system gives a definition of citizenship with associated rights. As I said, nazi Germany is the only recent precedent I can think of in Western Europe where an ethnic group and the legal system have been kicked away. Also, I am often in France, speak fluent French and know Paris and other cities well. I can tell you that the most alive, interesting and fun parts of the city are those where many ethnic and cultural groups coexist. On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 7:42 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Fred wrote: > >>>> And further what they have posting recently in this thread is not even >>>> remotely Extropian. > >>> >>> >>> Again, you *know* what these terms mean, and it is for >>> the rest of us just to accept, I suppose. >> >> I suggest that each individual on this list who uses the term >> "Extropian" to think long and hard about this. ?Do you really want to be >> associated with the term "Extropian" if the term "Extropian" can be be >> seen as compatible with advocating that innocent Muslims should be >> expelled from France? ?I am not. > > To be associated with (i.e. on the same list as) someone > who advocates a certain position. > > Oh, the horror! Oh, the shame. Indeed, how do you live > with yourself? It must be hell. > > I've never in my life seen anyone so concerned and so > scared of what other people *might* think about things > that he himself not only didn't say, but argued (sort of, > loosely speaking), er, even denounced! > > How damned weird. The instinct to suppress unwelcome opinions > has rarely ever shown itself here in such strength. > > Okay, out of total sympathy for your predicament and all > the others who are *so* sensitive about how guilt by > association may work against them, and so as to save you > such utter and complete anguish, embarrassment, and shame, > I will shut up about what France will do. > > Hmm. No, never mind. I won't. > >> I do not want the term "Extropian" twisted until it > >> includes something like expelling the innocent Muslims >> >> from France. > > Oh, good God. Of all the silly worries. Your "concern" seems > most likely only a cover for the deep discomfort that these > heretical ideas are causing you, and more than anything, you > seem to just want to shut your eyes and shut your mind to these > disagreeable thoughts. I'll bet that your ancestors reacted > extremely harshly and in *precisely* the same manner to all > the heretic Darwin's extraordinarily disagreeable and upsetting > ideas. > > And I will also bet that they (or, if your particular ones > do not happen to be guilty of this charge) or others living > at the time reacted in exactly the same non-intellectual > and emotional terms, failing to engage in a rational exchange > of ideas and failing totally to produce any *argument*. > >> And remember that deportation of innocent civilians has >> been considered a Crime Against Humanity since the Nuremberg > >> Trials. ?So Extropians; do you embrace the idea that >> >> advocating a Crime against Humanity is compatible with > >> the Extropian principles or do you reject it >> >> or do you just not care? > > What? You want more to join you into a deafening chorus to > GET LEE TO SHUT THE HELL UP? > > Why is that SO incredibly important to you? I have my own > ideas (e.g. perhaps it is out of a very deep fear that you > might actually *lose* an idea-based exchange), but I shouldn't > speculate. > > Well---I've just now got to this email, and there are plenty > more to read (you wrote the above a few days ago). So it > will be very interesting if you own "Call to Arms" raises > other angry voices of denunciation (all, naturally, quite > free from *rational* argument as to why my suggestion to > France doesn't lead in the long run to the best solution). > > Lee > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 08:01:36 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 01:01:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> Message-ID: <2d6187670904070101x3e455034i304cfa918ef8a865@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:08 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Here, from the archives, is the post that starts it all. > > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2004-June/007050.html > > WATCHMEN SPOILER..... The ideas Robert put forward remind me of how in the film Watchmen, Ozymandias had a somewhat similar scheme that would kill millions of people to in theory later save billions. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 08:30:09 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:30:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49DB0F11.8000106@rawbw.com> BillK wrote: > On 4/5/09, Lee Corbin wrote: > >> They fear that rational argument may not go their way. They >> value, in decreasing order, >> >> 1. prevailing in an argument, especially anything >> touching on values >> 2. prevailing with reason >> 3. finding and speaking the truth >> >> Now none of us can claim that he or she always puts number three >> first, but if we find that we are engaging in sheer calumny, >> or merely expressing our feelings and loathings, then for >> sure you know we are elevating our desire to prevail over >> everything else, including both rationality and a desire to >> get at the truth. > > The error in your modest proposal is that rationality isn't the whole picture. !!! Wow! > There are more important things than being rational. > (Don't tell the Bayesians) ;) You are saying---if I read you right---than in a discussion there are more important things than being rational. This I have to hear. > If you are discussing whether 2 + 2 = 4, then fine, be as rational as you like. > > But if you are discussing religion or politics (the big no-nos), then > you have to bring real practical considerations in the discussions. > Crimes against humanity invalidate the most logical of reasoning. That's hilarious. Even before deciding what is and what is not a "crime against humanity", we are encouraged to dismiss out of hand any arguments that our instincts or intuition deem "dangerous". You would have been far more at home, my friend, back 150 years ago denouncing Darwin. "It's perfectly clear," you might have written, "that such ideas and dialog as to be found in that book could undermine our belief in God. This would be a crime against not only all of Christianity, but the entire Christian nation here in Britain. This consideration trumps any sort of logical reasoning. We have to cut short such discussion because of real, practical considerations." What's the real difference between what you are saying now and what so many said in 1859 and the years following? Indeed, I am only suggesting a certain action taken by one small nation, constituting less than 1% of the world's people, by physically *moving* a segment of their population somewhere else, hardly to be ranked with the Holocaust. (This point I stole from painlord.) Whereas what Darwin's thought and ideas were leading to was a REVOLT AGAINST GOD HIMSELF! > Sorry, but it doesn't matter if you are rational and logically > correct, you still lose the discussion. Never in my life have I seen such a prima facie collapse of the opposition to one of my arguments. I could have scarcely imagined before reading your email here that someone would have the nerve to admit that logically and rationally they were all wet, and that they had to concede the discussion on rational and logical grounds, but that nonetheless their side "had to prevail" because of... because of... because [in essense] because they were right. > One can think of situations where logical analysis might recommend the > enslavement of women, or the forced labor of children, or slavery of > the unemployed, etc. etc. might produce better results in some areas. > But these arguments lose because they are trumped by 'That's no way to > treat human beings!'. No! Those arguments have to be attacked on firmer grounds than merely (almost mindlessly) repeating some mantra, such as "that would be a crime against humanity" (echos of "That would be against God Himself!") or "Humans cannot be treated that way" (why?). I can give you many, many logical reasons why woman ought not to be enslaved in any society that I can imagine right now. (Okay, I'm sure that if I put five minutes' thought into it, I could come up with an SF scenario that would be quite alien---and this scenario itself would illustrate exactly what are the present *effective* *reasons* why women should not be enslaved. Don't you agree?) > Rationality is pretty much useless in matters of human relationships, > on the small and large scale. Oh great. If I cannot come to the Extropian list to receive rational criticism of some doctrine that has occurred to me, then just where am I to go? Have standards on this list fallen so low, or were they even in the legendary days of this list in the early 90s this absurd, this literally irrational? Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Tue Apr 7 08:40:09 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:40:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49DB1169.4060204@rawbw.com> Dagon Gmail wrote: > > For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse... > > to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to > > Nurse Ratched.# > > Damien Broderick > > Well, for his sake, I hope someone doesn't collect his opinions, > articles and views, prints them, binds them in a convenient folder, > and sends copies of this folder to several such institutions > in his region of italy, as well as to several newspapers, > offices of Italian socialists and communists, and other media > organizations, with his name, address and photograph. Just what the hell are you trying to pull? Of all the cowardly intimidating threats I've ever heard on this list, this takes the cake. (Well, at least since B.P. no longer posts here.) You spoke some kinds of vague threats before, about how names could be taken of those of us who held certain positions, and how we would get our just desserts later. Knock it off. It may not be true anymore that everyone's views are welcome here, but it surely still has to be true that the good people of this list will not tolerate extortion, and threats to freedom of expression like that. Lee P.S. Natasha! Wouldn't *this* be a better place at which to target your wrath? I see some "kill threads" coming up, and some other messages from you that I haven't got to yet, but I'll bet anything that they have to do with people like me and that psychiatric male nurse shutting up more than they have to do with blatant threats being made on the list. (You'll receive very gracious and humble apologies if I'm wrong.) > Such an act would likely could him his job, and worse. Oh, yes, worse. It can't be said you didn't warn him... From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 7 08:38:56 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 04:38:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com><002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> <2d6187670904070101x3e455034i304cfa918ef8a865@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <794D8537A25B43389C72A65A660F0236@MyComputer> John Grigg Wrote: > The ideas Robert put forward remind me of how in the film Watchmen, > Ozymandias had a somewhat similar scheme that would kill millions > of people to in theory later save billions. I've only read one graphic novel in my life, Watchmen, and I must say I thought it was pretty damn good. Does anybody know of another of equal quality? By the way Bradbury seemed perfectly sane most of the time, insightful even; but occasionally he went way way off the deep end. Drop a H bomb on Mecca and that will solve all our problems; but like I say that was rare, most of the time he was as sane as you or me. John K Clark From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 08:41:24 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 08:41:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Is this an April Fool's hoax? was What's wrong with this picture? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 4/6/09, Jeff Davis wrote: > In the middle of the piece, we find the comment: > > "When Phoenix returned to Earth Nov. 10, 2008, researchers analyzed > the soil collected from the lander." > > But I'm sure no Mars mission has returned any samples to Earth. I > then went to the top of the Michigan Daily web page and saw that the > article was dated April 1st. I have not even checked the Phoenix > mission website to confirm. > Phoenix analyzed the soil and sent the results back to Earth. >From the BBC (not run by kids) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7958471.stm Quote: But Nasa's Phoenix lander has shown the presence in Martian soil of perchlorate salts, which can keep water liquid at temperatures of minus 70C. Pockets of brine might form when soil interacted with ice. Researchers have been discussing the idea at the 40th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), here in The Woodlands, Texas. BillK From florent.berthet at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 10:44:24 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 12:44:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> Could we stop the madness please? I'm French, both of my girlfriend's parents come from Algeria (though only his father is religious), and I have some very religious muslims friends, including a family in which the parents worked hard in "low" jobs and the children all have a degree in science, from the bachelor to the Ph.D. Again, all of them are 100% muslim while being very respectable and very nice, and I don't see ANY valid reason how anybody could give himself the right to get them out. Lee, using your kind of arguments, somebody could lock you in a cave because MAYBE, by saying such stuff against muslims, you could be the cause of a future civil war (maybe.). I mean, come on, this is just obviously wrong... Anyway I think you've made your point, and it doesn't seem like anybody is going to change his mind anyway, so we'd better stop here. - Florent Berthet -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 6 20:50:32 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:50:32 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904010855l673baef8m97346c8ef2b9881e@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49DA6B18.3060708@libero.it> Il 05/04/2009 13.09, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > > For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, > I gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to > Nurse Ratched.# > > Damien Broderick > > Well, for his sake, I hope someone doesn't collect his opinions, > articles and views, > prints them, binds them in a convenient folder, and sends copies of this > folder to > several such institutions in his region of Italy, as well as to several > newspapers, > offices of Italian socialists and communists, and other media > organizations, with > his name, address and photograph. Such an act would likely could him his > job, and worse. I love when people try to intimidate me. It is not the first time you write this nonsense to me or to others. It is interesting none react to this. I suppose this tell how much people here regard you and your words. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 11:12:47 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:12:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904070015l60eedc2fv833f1efd011656fb@mail.gmail.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> <49DAEB79.1040404@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070015l60eedc2fv833f1efd011656fb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904070412r6db9e059t9343e36a0e1fb82b@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 9:15 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Not really, because I think multiculturalism is good. So do I. However, it can also be argued that globalisation (uncontrolled, speculative mass import/export of human cattle being one of its byproduct) tends to *reduce* diversity, not to increase it, unless locally and in the very short term. In fact, I would find it extremely boring living in a *world* where everyone thinks and acts the same - not to mention the fact that one would remain with no place where to seek asylum... :-) Something which is not such a far-fetched scenario, given that as transhumanists we would never relinquish technologies pertaining to communication and transportation which have abolished for good any kind of impact geography may have had in the past. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 7 12:15:10 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:15:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DB43CE.20203@libero.it> Il 05/04/2009 11.57, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > Many Muslim residents of France are citizens -- on which legal basis > could, or should, be expelled? > > There is no defensible legal basis of course. There is only one > precedent in the modern history of Europe for expelling and abusing > citizens based on their religion and ethnic origin, and I hope we > have learned the lesson and don't wish to repeat it. One? Are you kidding me? Are you ignorant or what? Are you thinking modern history started yesterday? Why do we must look only to Europe? Why don't look at the recent past in the Muslim world? The Italians were expelled from Istria by the Jugoslavian communists of Tito in the 1945. The Sudetenland Germans where expelled from their region in Czechoslovakia after the WW2 and the German at large living in the est Europe were forced to move away http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Germans_after_World_War_II > Past research provided estimates ranging from 13.5 to 16.5 million > people who fled or were either evacuated, directly expelled or > killed. Recent research places the number at more than 12 million, > including all those who fled during or directly after the war to > both the Western and Eastern zones of Germany and to Austria.[12] At > least two million people perished due to flight and expulsion, > 400,000 to 600,000 of whom by physical force. We could look at the relocation of the Finnish from Karelia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evacuation_of_Finnish_Karelia Expulsion of Cham Albanians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Cham_Albanians Expulsion of Poles by Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsion_of_Poles_by_Germany Then we could look at the expulsion of Serbian from Kosovo. > Might is usually right -- but it creates very dangerous precedents. This is sure. Like the Rebellion against the King of England did. > If Muslim citizens of France become a majority in the next decades, > _they_ may decide to expel non-Muslims on the basis of might is > right. They already did it in the past, in the recent history. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus#Contemporary_persecution http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_exodus_from_Arab_lands http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_exchange_between_Greece_and_Turkey They are doing it now in Sudan, Christians in the M.E. are leaving in droves and in fear. Not because a government ordered their expulsion, but because the government don't protect them against the Islamic attacks. A riot here, a riot there, a riot everywhere and the not muslim will die, leave or convert. I expect they will do it again here if they become the majority. Then we will not have mass expulsions, only civil wars, mass exodus and mass killing (from both sides); I would like to avoid the latter, until we are able to avoid them, because I'm sure the ethnic Europeans would win, but I'm totally unsure what they would do after they win in Europe. After a war the fertility usually sky-rocket; if the war is prolonged, the fertility will continue to be high for long time. A billion of ethnic Europeans would not able to live only in Europe, and a youth bulge push for wars abroad. Or, maybe, we will go to the way of the whites in South Africa and Zimbabwe. We will give up power and we will become a persecuted minority (and the society will collapse without a market oriented dominant minority). Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 12:59:08 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 22:59:08 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <6749F63FA7D746D2A0F28D53D78661AF@MyComputer> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> <067C1A943CEF487FBD1B5EE82567E91B@MyComputer> <6749F63FA7D746D2A0F28D53D78661AF@MyComputer> Message-ID: 2009/4/7 John K Clark : >> You haven't explained how vitalism or dualism would >> add anything new to the claim that "it's not really me" >> when one already agrees that the copy will be *exactly* >> like me, from materialist considerations alone. > > For 15 years I've heard people bellow "But that just wouldn't be me!". ?In > those 15 years without exception the arguments proffered to support that > claim were completely idiotic; I haven't heard one that wasn't > embarrassingly stupid. The only way it could possibly be true is that the > copy isn't me because it doesn't have my soul. I don't believe in souls, but > I admit I'm a weirdo. I agree with you and I would like to hear a consistent explanation for why the copy in the teleporter won't really be me but the copy that walks across the room will be me. No-one says, My soul is transferred when I walk but not when I teleport. You're suggesting that this is what they mean whether they say it or not, but I don't think that this is what they mean. I think the confusion lies elsewhere. -- Stathis Papaioannou From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Apr 7 13:22:51 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 08:22:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism In-Reply-To: <49D90861.60304@boone.net> References: <6a13bb8f0904050759x321e648bh1a6a0bee77b255dc@mail.gmail.com> <49D90861.60304@boone.net> Message-ID: <8C13A55B9B294B86AA0DC5F4D0F0F505@DFC68LF1> Ralp wrote: "So most of us are, whether professionals or non-professionals, left waiting breathlessly on the closing of the Final Circuit in an AI godling, or the First Upload, or the True Assembler. And in the meantime, the True Believers can seem like a particularly odd, post-modern cult (if a well-educated one), whose more extreme members seem to be rocking back and forth repeating the technobabble equivalent of "The /Paingod/! He /Rises/! /He *Rises*/!" I think you are serioulsy mistaken." You are seiously mistaken. While it is fictional to compare h+ with Good Friday and Palm Sunday, it is not critical and critical thinking is a essential element of h+. And here is the rub: We can get all dramatic and Hamlet about it, but the poison of death as stirred in our drink from mother nature is a romantic way of accepting the foibles of human nature and nature itself. I would say that most professional, and non-professinal (whatever that menas, but I'm assuming those who are professionals in some sort of business or have credentials in a field) are being proactive about our own lifes, i.e., advancing our knowledge awareness about our current condition and future possibilities for eradicating our postion, adapting to changes as they come about, forcasting our own personal existence - what emotional, physciolgical, eudcational skills we need to employ in order to live a full life, preparing for the possibilities of disease as they could arise from our genetic makeup and our enviironmental circumstances, and investigating and questioning the emerging and convernign sciences and technologies which could offer an altenrative to a limited lifespan and offer continued personal existence in platforms other than biological. This is all pragmatic. You also say, "Enthusiasts, on the other hand, could potentially serve the goals of human enhancement and longevity simply by adopting disciplines and technologies that promote greater human capacities and greater youth and vitality in themselves, and thus perform direct research on a subject the individual has ready access to (themselves) and using relatively low-cost technologies and resources ranging from good diet and exercise to nootropic nutrients and drugs, sensory deprivation (floatation) tanks, hypnosis and extreme disciplines such as the martial arts." Of course this has been going on. For goodness sakes, please read all the press on extropy and all the attetion (and fun made of us) for being healthy, fit, meditating, exerciseing, etc! Nonetheless, transhumanism has been based in very, very large part on living a healthy life. Just because it is not promoted in certain transhumanist circles does not mean that it is not a core value of transhumanism. Now, the rest of what you say seems to be accurate, but what is new about this? Isn't this what has been written, spoken, and suggested for quite some time now? I'm wondering if it is because of the issues concerning the proposed technological singularity and uploads that causes you to think that there are many who just want to be put on a nanoassembler and fly off into space? Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -----Original Message----- From: wta-talk-bounces at transhumanism.org [mailto:wta-talk-bounces at transhumanism.org] On Behalf Of Ralph Sent: Sunday, April 05, 2009 2:37 PM To: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List Cc: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [wta-talk] The Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online transhumanism Kaj, A big part of the problem in this dichotomy between the Useless Enthusiasts and the Serious(ly Remote) Professionals is that Transhumanism as it is frequently conceived often relies on the final completion of a single, radical technology that Changes Everything. The implications of having this or that particular, fully realized technology are (rightly) perceived as so dramatic that to some degree almost everything else becomes irrelevant once the Ultimate Technology arrives on the scene. Unfortunately, this leads to professionals intensely (and perhaps rightly) focused on completely the technology they perceive as the tipping point, and enthusiasts talking incessantly about changes they feel powerless to achieve, but which more than a few find reasons to believe they will somehow dominate despite their complete disassociation from the actual research and the institutions doing it (because they will be "first adopters" or what have you). So most of us are, whether professionals or non-professionals, left waiting breathlessly on the closing of the Final Circuit in an AI godling, or the First Upload, or the True Assembler. And in the meantime, the True Believers can seem like a particularly odd, post-modern cult (if a well-educated one), whose more extreme members seem to be rocking back and forth repeating the technobabble equivalent of "The /Paingod/! He /Rises/! /He *Rises*/!" I have personally found the above mantra to be ineffective in bringing people on board the radical-evolution bandwagon. What might be more effective is a more broad-based yet practical strategy for achieving the common goals of Transhumanists and their various associated visionaries and futurists, combined with professional strategies more apt to yield benefits resulting from incremental progress rather than depending on a single, world-altering discovery that may or may not ever come. (Despite the egos involved here, remember... even if a particular breakthrough is entirely possible and eventually occurs, does not guarantee it will happen at /your/ lab.) Some AI researchers appear to have already gone in this direction, with Biomind developing applications that could assist in biotech-oriented human-enhancement technologies while also creating a plausible candidate for outside investment and/or funding. Enthusiasts, on the other hand, could potentially serve the goals of human enhancement and longevity simply by adopting disciplines and technologies that promote greater human capacities and greater youth and vitality in themselves, and thus perform direct research on a subject the individual has ready access to (themselves) and using relatively low-cost technologies and resources ranging from good diet and exercise to nootropic nutrients and drugs, sensory deprivation (floatation) tanks, hypnosis and extreme disciplines such as the martial arts. The above may seem like an eclectic mix, but there are plenty of simple "enhancements" that are well-documented and cheap (such as cutting out fast food/junk food and aerobic exercise) and to the extent that these skills permeate the larger culture, they will not only aid researchers in "Transhumanist fields" directly (for those adopting resources that augment their overall ability to do the work) but indirectly, by assisting other scientists, programmers and inventors, and also leading to a more effectively run society with more wealth and opportunity to engage in seemingly blue-sky or implausible research. Or, that's how I see it, anyway. Kaj Sotala wrote: > Originally posted at http://xuenay.livejournal.com/318060.html : > > A colleague's posting on the Finnish Transhumanist Association's > mailing list made me think about a phenomenon I've observed both in > myself and several others, but never thought about so explicitly. I > call it the Excitement-Disillusionment-Reorientation cycle of online > transhumanism. > > The excitement phase is when you first stumble across concepts such as > transhumanism, radical life extension, and superintelligent AI. This > is when you subscribe to transhumanist mailing lists, join your local > WTA/H+ chapter, and start trying to spread the word to everybody you > know. You'll probably spend hundreds of hours reading different kinds > of transhumanist materials. This phase typically lasts for several > years. > > In the disillusionment phase, you start to realize that while you > still agree with the fundamental transhumanist philosophy, most of > what you are doing is rather pointless. You can have all the > discussions you want, but by themselves, those discussions aren't > going to bring all those amazing technologies here. You learn to > ignore the "but an upload of you is just a copy" debate when it shows > up the twentieth time, with the same names rehearsing the same > arguments and thought experiments for the fifteenth time. Having > gotten over your initial future shock, you may start to wonder why > having a specific name like transhumanism is necessary in the first > place - people have been taking advantage of new technologies for > several thousands of years. After all, you don't have a specific > "cellphonist" label for people using cell phones, either. You'll > slowly start losing interest in activities that are specifically > termed as transhumanist. > > In the reorientation cycle you have two alternatives. Some people > renounce transhumanism entirely, finding the label pointless and > mostly a magnet for people with a tendency towards future hype and > techno-optimism. Others (like me) simply realize that bringing forth > the movement's goals requires a very different kind of effort than > debating other transhumanists on closed mailing lists. An effort like > engaging with the large audience in a more effective manner, or > getting an education in a technology-related field and becoming > involved in the actual research yourself. In either case, you're > likely to unsubscribe the mailing lists or at least start paying them > much less attention than before. If you still identify as a > transhumanist, your interest in the online communities wanes because > you're too busy actually working for the cause. (Alternatively, you've > realized how much work this would be and have stopped even trying.) > > This shouldn't be taken to mean that I'm saying the online h+ > community is unnecessary, and that people ought to just skip to the > last phase. The first step of the cycle is a very useful ingredient > for giving one a strong motivation to keep working for the cause in > one's later life, even when they're no longer following the lists. > > One might think that this cycle isn't really specific to > transhumanism, and that a more general form of it ought to apply to > all communities. While I have no doubt that it probably does apply to > other communities as well, I find that the transhumanist cause is > somewhat rare in that it is so technology-dependant. Hobby communities > are built around a certain interest, and for those you don't need much > more than the community - having gathered a bunch of RPG or BDSM > enthusiasts, you can then go enjoy the activity in question together > with them. For purely political movements, you can make progress with > a mainly online presence, debating the pros and cons of your cause and > recruiting more people under its banner. But while transhumanism is > certainly a political cause as well, the vast majority of people > aren't really going to care about the social implications of a > technology before they can be convinced that the technology in > question is actually going to become real soon. And even if everybody > did agree that radical life extension, say, is a good thing, that > wouldn't really matter for as long as you didn't have life extension > available. You'd need to actually get involved with things that > actually brought life extension forward, instead of just twiddling > your thumbs in the general transhumanist community. This makes the > transhumanist community very different from most other kinds of > communities. > _______________________________________________ wta-talk mailing list wta-talk at transhumanism.org http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/wta-talk From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 14:31:41 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 16:31:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904070101x3e455034i304cfa918ef8a865@mail.gmail.com> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <002601c9b69f$11d09f30$19074797@archimede> <2d6187670904070101x3e455034i304cfa918ef8a865@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904070731y576ab14djc7f157327fb9e9e2@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/7 John Grigg : > Ozymandias had a somewhat similar scheme that would kill millions of people > to in theory later save billions. Why, I must say that I was no fan of Ozymandias' ideas when I read the book, and much of the beauty of the novel is its open end, which is more evident than in the movie... -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 15:14:01 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 17:14:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <49DA6B18.3060708@libero.it> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> <49DA6B18.3060708@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904070814w776204f1r83f9671f935bd566@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 10:50 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > I love when people try to intimidate me. I for one am not inclined to accept any compromise as to the freedom of speech, in its most unconditional form. Having been myself repeatedly the victim of such initiatives by the couple of lunatics we both know, I am even less inclined to condone attempts to limit such freedom through direct or indirect threats to "expose" one to the "public reprobation" and to its possible personal consequences. On the other hand, I sincerely trust (and hope) that Dagon's message did not imply anything like that, but was simply intended to stress how in his view certain ideas might not be too popular in our own very country, or rather some enviroments thereof. Perhaps he might wish to confirm for our peace of mind that this is in fact the case. -- Stefano Vaj From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 7 15:47:14 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 10:47:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) Message-ID: <200904071614.n37GE8FE002522@andromeda.ziaspace.com> John Clark wrote: >I've only read one graphic novel in my life, Watchmen, and I must >say I thought it was pretty damn good. Does anybody know of another >of equal quality? You poor man! Yes, I know of many, though the number is cut down if you really want only novel-length collections rather than individual issues. For instance, Alan Moore's Miracleman run was brilliant, but you'll pay hugely to buy those in collected form. Here are some recommendations: Red Son (what if Superman as a baby landed in the Soviet Union rather than Kansas -- Greg Burch loved this) Any Punisher collection by Garth Ennis (assuming you enjoy hilarious-but-violent), e.g. Welcome Back Frank Garth Ennis' Preacher series (9 volumes; deeply offensive to traditional religions) Lots of stuff by Warren Ellis, including the Planetary series (superb illustration by John Cassaday), Ministry of Space, Ocean, Orbiter, Stormwatch, The Authority, Ultimate Human Sandman (Neil Gaiman, books 1 to 10) Ultimates 1 and 2 (for a thoroughly modern take on super-powered teams) Alias (great characters, written by Brian Michael Bendis) Daredevil (about ten volumes written by Bendis) Powers volumes by Bendis and Oeming (super-powered detective Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller -- most people like this more than I do, but it's a classic) Fell (Warren Ellis; the first issues just came out in trade paperback) John Constantine: Hellblazer (lots of volumes, many by good writers; esp. Garth Ennis issues) Ultimate Iron Man (written by Orson Scott Card; the Ultimate line is Marvel's more recent line, unencumbered by decades of continuity) Alan Moore's Promethea & his V for Vendetta Animal Man (by Grant Morrison--several volumes; lot's of metaphysical fun) We3 (Grant Morrison; fantastic illustration by Frank Quitely) Starman (issues/collections by James Robinson, currently being put out in Omnibus editions) All Star Superman (Morrison/Quitely) Fantastic Four: World's Greatest (Millar/Hitch) Cerebus, volumes 2 through, um, 9, probably not after that (Dave Sim) Doom Patrol (Morrison) Ex Machina and The Last Man (both Brian K. Vaughn) Fables From Hell (brilliant story of Jack the Ripper by Moore) Squadron Supreme (Mark Gruenwald) Joker (Brian Azzarello & Lee Bermejo) League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (Moore) Lucifer (volumes 1 to 11 by Mike Carey) Transhuman (not great, but worth reading as a very recent work) Transmetropolitan (Warren Ellis) You can't go far wrong with graphic novels by Alan Moore, Warren Elllis, Garth Ennis, and perhaps Grant Morrison -- depending on your tastes. For your further comics edification: Understanding Comics, by Scott McCloud I could narrow it down, depending on whether you enjoy SF, superheroes, humor, detective fiction, metaphysical fun, etc. Max Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 16:50:24 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 09:50:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <49DB0F11.8000106@rawbw.com> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <49DB0F11.8000106@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <2ae60d770904070950j5812e81eq2029f4c96c445b69@mail.gmail.com> Lee: Indeed, I am only suggesting a certain action taken by one small nation,constituting less than 1% of the world's people, by physically *moving* a segment of their population somewhere else. Its a bit like keeping all dogs out of a library. You can say 'Oh but mine's a good dog and would never wet the carpet or maul someone.", but the sign stays up. This is elitist and xenophobic but I does keep things simple. The answer is simply 'no". But now you've got them in and there's no way to remove them without looking like a pseudo-hitler. They have to riot or act in a unified hostility before people will take them seriously as a threat. They are trained to be open minded, to be tolerant of other folks, and have made friends. I'm all for making friends. All you can do is leave when it gets tense. It's easier to don slippers than carpet the world. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 17:20:38 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 19:20:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) In-Reply-To: <200904071614.n37GE8FE002522@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904071614.n37GE8FE002522@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904071020i347b8a8eu5044cb021eab3911@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 5:47 PM, Max More wrote: ... > Daredevil (about ten volumes written by Bendis) > Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (Frank Miller -- most people like this more than I do, but it's a classic) > Ultimate Iron Man (written by Orson Scott Card; the Ultimate line is Marvel's more recent line, unencumbered by decades of continuity) ... Am I alone in picking a few transhumanist hints at least in works above (to which I would only add Ronin by Frank Miller)? Il y a aussi a French tradition of comic novels, well represented by Lauzier, e.g., but there the themes are more traditional, with the exception of the old stories of M?tal Hurlant. -- Stefano Vaj From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 18:14:39 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 11:14:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) In-Reply-To: <200904071614.n37GE8FE002522@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904071614.n37GE8FE002522@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670904071114q22d3adb7if493d5d8017358ac@mail.gmail.com> I would add "Black Hole" by Charles Burns. This is a fantastic graphic novel about teens, the challenges of growing up, human sexuality & the fear of disease. http://www.amazon.com/Black-Hole-Charles-Burns/dp/0375714723/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239127183&sr=8-1 Max, that was quite a list of graphic novels! You know your stuff! Now I know why you still have not yet come out with your book on transhumanism... ; ) Kidding! hee Hey, here's an idea, team up with a talented artist and put forth your transhumanist thoughts in comic book/graphic novel form. It could reach people who otherwise would never ever read your work. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Apr 7 18:51:05 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 13:51:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <49DB0F11.8000106@rawbw.com> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <49DB0F11.8000106@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090407134847.023520c8@satx.rr.com> At 01:30 AM 4/7/2009 -0700, Lee wrote: >>Sorry, but it doesn't matter if you are rational and logically >>correct, you still lose the discussion. > >Never in my life have I seen such a prima facie collapse of >the opposition to one of my arguments. I could have scarcely >imagined before reading your email here that someone would >have the nerve to admit that logically and rationally they >were all wet, and that they had to concede the discussion >on rational and logical grounds, but that nonetheless their >side "had to prevail" because of... because of... because >[in essense] because they were right. Hmm, there's much in what you say, Lee. Let us reason together, as Richard Nixon once memorably said. Meanwhile, take a look at this (from the NYT's tame conservative columnist): Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 7 19:09:24 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:09:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) Message-ID: <200904071909.n37J9eZT029016@andromeda.ziaspace.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 7 19:14:21 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:14:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) Message-ID: <200904071914.n37JEWCS004055@andromeda.ziaspace.com> John Grigg wrote: >Max, that was quite a list of graphic novels! You know your >stuff! Now I know why you still have not yet come out with your >book on transhumanism... ; ) Kidding! hee Damn, totally busted! Actually, The Proactionary Principle isn't about transhumanism as such... >Hey, here's an idea, team up with a talented artist and put forth >your transhumanist thoughts in comic book/graphic novel form. It >could reach people who otherwise would never ever read your work. Perhaps, once my book is actually finished, I will seriously think about this. I do love the medium. BTW, thanks for the pointer to The Black Hole. Never come across it. Sounds naughty. Max From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 7 19:40:46 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 15:40:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) References: <200904071614.n37GE8FE002522@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: Thanks for the recommendations Max! John From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 20:25:21 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 13:25:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) In-Reply-To: <200904071914.n37JEWCS004055@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904071914.n37JEWCS004055@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670904071325kc9019d6pc335236d68558772@mail.gmail.com> Max More wrote: >Actually, The Proactionary Principle isn't about transhumanism as such... There have already been a number of good books about various facets of transhumanism (I just always wanted to see one written by you), and so you are showing your wisdom and timeliness by focusing on The Proactionary Principle, which sprang from your gifted mind. By taking on the Precautionary Principle you will find a much larger audience/better chance to influence for good, than you would with any book on transhumanism (at least at this point). The Precautionary Principle has the potential to really influence and trip up human society, and so I'm grateful you have taken an oppositional stance with your own counter principle. I hope the upcoming book is a major success for you and gets the media attention it deserves. When I went to an ASU conference on transhumanism, they mentioned Nick Bostrom and James Hughes over and over again. The next time around I want them to be obsessing over you! lol I feel you do not always get the credit you deserve. >Perhaps, once my book is actually finished, I will seriously think about this. I do love the >medium. Good news. I hope a publisher would find the idea intriguing. >BTW, thanks for the pointer to The Black Hole. Never come across it. Sounds naughty. Dang! I'm amazed you never came across this book, considering it's legendary status. And so I am very glad I pointed it out. The graphic novel shows romance, relationships and sexuality in a sometimes fantastic and yet painfully true way. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 7 21:14:02 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 14:14:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49DB43CE.20203@libero.it> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> <49DB43CE.20203@libero.it> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 5:15 AM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: snip (re Muslims) > I expect they will do it again here if they become the majority. Then we > will not have mass expulsions, only civil wars, mass exodus and mass killing > (from both sides); I would like to avoid the latter, until we are able to > avoid them, because I'm sure the ethnic Europeans would win, but I'm totally > unsure what they would do after they win in Europe. snip Mirco is politically incorrect but I suspect mostly correct otherwise. If you have two identifiable human groups in contact with each other, especially if they are intermixed, then if one group has a higher population growth rate than the other, the high growth group will, over time, replace the slower growing one. This is what happened in Kosovo. "Traditional analyses of the conflict in Kosovo tend to focus on nationalistic politics while scarcity issues are given short shrift or ignored completely. The ethnic divide in Kosovo between Kosovar Serb and Kosovar Muslim was typically the most prominent feature of media reports and little if any attention was paid to the underlying causes of the inter-communal conflict that culminated in the March 1999 US led NATO air bombardment of Yugoslavia. The argument of this paper is that in Kosovo, large demographic changes, the degradation of natural resources, conflict over land-rights and unemployment caused by industrial decline played significant roles in creating the poverty and discontent that eventually led to the outbreak of hostilities. The Background In 1976 the Kosovo province of Yugoslavia had a per capita personal income of 86 percent of the Yugoslav average and was steadily increasing. By 1978 electricity and running water had reached all but the remotest villages. Life expectancy had risen to 68 years and 95 percent of children were receiving elementary schooling. There was 1 doctor per 2009 people compared to 1 per 8527 in 1952. This caused a rapid increase in the province's population growth rate and combined with an over-dependence on heavy industry and increasing land shortage/ degradation, Kosovo's unemployment rate went from 18.6 % in 1971 to 27.5% in 1981, 56% in 1989 and to 70% in 1995. The Serb/Montenegrin proportion of Kosovo dropped from 50% in 1950, to 27.4 percent in 1961 to 10 percent in 1991. By 1999 there were two million people living in Kosovo, a doubling since 1960. At an annual growth rate of 2.1%, population growth exceeded economic growth and was higher than that of many developing countries. The burden of added population put a strain on the province's ability to maintain full employment and to provide sufficient funds for such vital infrastructure as schools and hospitals, etc. snip Political and Social Consequences >From 1981 onwards, discontent and anger resulting from unemployment amongst the Kosovar population and perceived or real mistreatment of increasingly marginalized Serbs led to virulent nationalist forces in both ethnic groups. Discontent led to a rise in demonstrations and riots and finally broke out into armed violence in 1995/6 and all-out war beginning in 1998. snip By 1980, at the time of Titos death, the population of Yugoslavia had grown to 23 million from just over 15 million in 1950 without a corresponding growth in GDP. It took almost a decade for the contending forces in the country to find an outlet in violent conflict." snip Commentary Seeing the conflict as purely political or ethnic is to see only the symptom. There is a reluctance to see such conflicts as a result of demographic expansion and natural resource limitations and overuse. One advantage of pointing to the resulting scarcity as the key factor is that a straightforward remedy is also implied. The simple (yet practically impossible to achieve) remedy is to find a way to reduce demands on resources to a sustainable level. Such an approach also suggests an investigation into how population growth leading to ever rising consumption seems a permanent feature of our political and cultural landscape. The implications of such an analysis are stark. The Balkans are only one of many areas where underlying conditions of scarcity make for an actual or potentially explosive situation. Not only is misery and political tension increasing in many areas, but in an age of rapidly expanding weapons of mass destruction, the international ramifications of local conflicts seem to be spreading wider and wider." http://desip.igc.org/StressInKosovo.html The Kosovo experience may be Europe in miniature. Given that example, we could probably calculate the number of years before say France has similar problems. The gradual population replacement of one group with another could happen without violence provided the average population growth of an area is lower than the area's economic growth. The reason is because perception of a bleak future was (and is) the signal for the evolved behavioral switch leading to war in the environment of evolutionary adaptedness (EEA, Google the term). In the stone age "bleak future" was based on game and berry availability. Now it is based on income per capita, more particularly on trends in income per capita. > After a war the fertility usually sky-rocket; if the war is prolonged, the > fertility will continue to be high for long time. A billion of ethnic > Europeans would not able to live only in Europe, and a youth bulge push for > wars abroad. I kind of doubt it. I think western cultures along with Japan and China have probably made a transition to low population growth that's unlikely to be reversed. > Or, maybe, we will go to the way of the whites in South Africa and Zimbabwe. > We will give up power and we will become a persecuted minority (and the > society will collapse without a market oriented dominant minority). You might be interested in this: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf where Dr. Gregory Clark argues that Europeans, particularly the English, underwent a long period of intense genetic selection for the traits a "market oriented dominant minority" is noted for. It's not that other races lack the traits, but that they are much more common in the Europeans and other peoples who spent tens of generations in settled stable agricultural societies. Those societies were both Malthusian and Darwinian with very different selection pressures than the selection pressures than humans had experienced previously. Keith From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Tue Apr 7 22:25:12 2009 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 22:25:12 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up Message-ID: <465073.92311.qm@web27008.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Lee, I will address your (im)modest proposal in my next post, but first let me address the points of the moderators politely asking you to reduce your number of posts and for all involved in certain discussions to think carefully before posting. We may not live in a fully reputational-based economy such as Cory Doctorow's "Whuffie", but on email lists like this, what you post and how you post it makes a big difference to how seriously people take you. If you make many posts in a short space of time, people are more likely to glaze over and start skipping your posts, hence the "please don't post more than 8 times in one day" rule. Also, strong opinions you voice will be held against you at the moments you least expect: to quote St Paul "for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." or to quote that other source of wisdom Our Lady Madonna of Ciccone, "Every little thing that you say or do gets hung up on you". For example, should someone voice a strong opinion in favour of mass expulsion of a certain group of people, at some future point when he has something to say on the subject of liberty, someone is bound to think "this is coming from a guy who last year was advocating mass expulsions? He's got a nerve!" Finally, as our moderators like to remind us, this is the Extropian List. We should aim to reflect the principles of extropy where possible - "practical optimism" is preferred to pessimism or destructive solutions. Hoping for a more optimistic future, Tom From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Tue Apr 7 22:46:20 2009 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 22:46:20 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] What the France!? Message-ID: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Now, to address the matter of "why shouldn't France expel the Muslims before they become a majority and destroy French institutions?" I do not believe mass expulsion would work. I can also argue it would harm France for three main reasons: It undermines the foundations of the French state ; it would encourage mass disobedience to the French state ; it would damage international relations. To expel a large percentage of a nation's population takes a lot of work, a lot of time and requires collaboration from a lot of people. To relocate the Apaches and other native American groups took many years and a lot of hard work by the US military. Stalin required absolute totalitarian control to do what he did. When you consider how long it takes western states to deport failed asylum seekers, you can imagine how difficult it would be to perform a mass expulsion. In the planning stages, word would get out - many Jews fled Nazi Germany well before the concentration camps were set up, and the steady exodus of Christians from Palestine comes as people hear the rhetoric of the Israeli state and the rhetoric of Hamas and come to the conclusion it's too dangerous for them. During this time, I'm sure some people would go underground and change their identities successfully, some muslims would be driven into the arms of extremists and commit terrorist acts, and others would try to inform the world at large what has happening. It is unlikely to achieve 100% expulsion of the Muslims from France. The damage France would sustain would be huge. The French Republic is based on liberte, egalite, fraternite - mass expulsions deprive people of liberty, deny equality on the basis of religion, and shit on ideas of fraternity. This destroys the philosophical basis of the French State. Many people in Europe have heard tales of the heroes who sheltered Jews in World War II, and helped smuggle people to safety. A mass ethnic cleansing in their own backyard would cause many otherwise law-abiding French people to become wannabe Oskar Schindlers and find ways to subvert the mass expulsion. It only takes a few sympathisers in the government departments controlling records to create a whole load of fake IDs or to shred the records of who's a Muslim. France likes to position itself as a player on the world stage of diplomacy. It likes to maintain influence in Africa and to negotiate with Middle Eastern countries away from the Anglo-American way of doing things. Any displays of massive prejudice against Islam would destroy France's hard-won influence in many countries, and destroy what generations of politicians had fought to achieve. So, enough of the negativity - what more optimistic way can I think of? Well, it's the one we're trying in Britain. Try and get more moderate muslims into politics and give ordinary muslims a stake in how things are. By getting moderate muslims into government, you give voice to all the ordinary people who just want to live their lives and avoid what the extremists say. You will build a solid base for muslims willing to live in a secular society. Also, when people have something to lose from the extremists, they are less likely to give them the time of day. If a muslim immigrant sees his daughters get educated and gain careers, when the next group of Islamists come to suggest jihad in the west and the setting up of a Taleban-style state, he's more likely to think "but they'll take away my own daughter's jobs, and cause my family hardship." So, for the French I would recommend a healthy dose of Segolene Royal trying to get muslim candidates for her Socialist party, and when Nicholas Sarkozy sees a potential voting bloc favouring the opposition he will suddenly start taking the plight of muslim immigrants more seriously. Tom From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 00:24:03 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 20:24:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <7.0.1.0.2.20090404150404.0271dbb8@satx.rr.com> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> Message-ID: <62c14240904071724iaad54ddue7543fb83570a39d@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 11:57 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > Mike, when you say you'd just employ drugs to erase some bad memory or > whatever, to me such is just as bad as the response I get from people that > believe some of their loved ones will go to hell. I ask them if they will > be happy in heaven knowing their brother is in hell. Often times they reply > with something like: 'God will just make us forget them'. Yea right. In > other words, such imaginings are logically impossible for any sufficiently > advanced / intelligent being. Do you suffer with a headache? For how long? Do you take an NSAID to reduce the pain? Would you take a stronger medication if it was prescribed by your doctor for a serious injury? If you are willing to employ drugs to mitigate your sensation of physical pain, then why the double-standard for drugs to mitigate unpleasant mental health maladies? I don't know what to say about your conversation with people regarding heaven/hell/God/etc. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 01:05:46 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 18:05:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904062139x59cb6da1qe2c9d8c6766d3507@mail.gmail.com> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <02654D72212348A48724AB1796788EA2@MyComputer> <580930c20904060502g65e64494lf72a79c9fe08be4b@mail.gmail.com> <62c14240904061949x18edf8ccp2377b4b504fca847@mail.gmail.com> <49DACF2F.6040404@comcast.net> <710b78fc0904062139x59cb6da1qe2c9d8c6766d3507@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 9:39 PM, Emlyn wrote: > This "consciousness is real" thing isn't logically consistent. It > seems like you think that you can upload someone into "abstract" > software and they'll be just like you but not conscious. In between case: ******* Suskulan's first serious patient after the upgrade was Zaba, a 12 year old who had been shot through her spine while working in a garden. She was near death, and far beyond help by pre clinic standards, when she was placed in Suskulan's "hands." As the nanotech mist enveloped her still body, Suskulan quickly evaluated her than told her parents: "I can heal Zaba but it will take at least a week, perhaps as many as ten days. She will not be able to move or speak at first, but you can talk to her spirit at noon tomorrow." After they left Suskulan moved Zaba's body underground for better cooling and shorter connections to the mass of repair devices. With a small amount of his attention he constructed an image of the repair table and Zaba out of utility fog including the ghastly wounds. This time the nanomachines didn't infiltrate her brain just to shut it down, though they did that and reversed the mild damage from shock and low blood flow. The nanomachines mapped out all her neural circuits and cell connections. Shortly before her parents entered the clinic the next day they tentatively restored consciousness, partly in her brain--which was far below the temperature needed to run on its own--and partly in the haze of nanomachines that were also simulating input in place of her eyes and ears. "What happened to me? Where am I? Where is my body?" Zaba asked as she became conscious. She was calm because the nanomachines were acting as tranquilizers. Suskulan was listening to an interface to her mostly simulated motor cortex. To give Zaba orientation Suskulan imposed on her visual cortex a wire frame image of the human form he usually presented then explained: "You were shot, you are in the clinic Suskulan at the tata, and your body is under the clinic being repaired. The clinic recently gained new powers to speak to spirits while their bodies are being healed. The healing will take some time, even I do not know exactly how many days," he added, "You were badly injured." **** http://www.terasemjournals.org/GN0202/henson.html Keith From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 01:30:33 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 21:30:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Key Issues of Life Extension In-Reply-To: <20090406173851.jc8x94mc5c0ss48o@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <710b78fc0904060656m4e51ee33k450d384603bd597f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090406133959.0229ee00@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904061236w6d08a34cn4c0e33acf2ae8eeb@mail.gmail.com> <20090406173851.jc8x94mc5c0ss48o@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <62c14240904071830t1eb878gcd1fc76e3115114e@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 5:38 PM, wrote: > > In your view, what do you think are the current 5 (or more) key issues > concerning living indefinitely? These issues can be located in any field > and relate to biology, engineering, technology, science, business, > economics, environment, politics, etc. > I think many of the mechanical problems will be solved at some point. The more difficult long term problem may be inherent to the design itself. Without an effective method of revitalizing the mind, the thinking tends to get old and crusty*. A hundred years seems well tuned to the current architecture. What happens when the hardware is maintained to keep peak performance of the software, but the software slows to an ineffectual trickle of usefulness? I know my computer's bloated OS needs a do-over every year or two... Is there a similar issue with human wetware? * Sure, we can try to learn new things - but only a conscious act of volition can make that happen. If being stuck in your ways precludes that act, how does one become "unstuck"? If a persona is represented by an algorithmic attractor, even with unlimited complexity and refinement of nuance - is there a point at which it has "all been done before?" How long can you watch a plot of a Lorenz attractor[1] before you see the butterfly and are simply no longer interested? [1] http://images.google.com/images?q=lorenz+attractor From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Wed Apr 8 06:36:29 2009 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Tue, 7 Apr 2009 23:36:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) Message-ID: <255128.47394.qm@web110405.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I don't know Robert Bradbury in person but I do know that he spent much time with me throughout e-mails trying to educate me with an opinion, as he has actual experiences to back up his opinions I would rather listen to him as opposed to someone that just has a mathematical conclusion. I understand that opinion is sometimes wrong but I do believe that a mathematical equation should always be specific. (Exact) If you want the difference between aboslutely correct and undivided...welcome to Extropy:) Anna:) --- On Tue, 4/7/09, Max More wrote: > From: Max More > Subject: Re: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) > To: "Extropy-Chat" > Received: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 3:14 PM > > John Grigg wrote: > > Max, that was quite a list of graphic novels!? > You know your stuff!? Now I know why you still have not > yet come out with your book on transhumanism...? ; > )? Kidding! hee > > Damn, totally busted! > > Actually, The Proactionary Principle isn't about > transhumanism as such... > > > Hey, here's an idea, team up with a talented artist > and put forth your transhumanist thoughts in comic > book/graphic novel form.? It could reach people who > otherwise would never ever read your work. > > Perhaps, once my book is actually finished, I will > seriously think about this. I do love the medium. > > BTW, thanks for the pointer to The Black Hole. Never come > across it. Sounds naughty. > > Max > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > __________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. From nanogirl at halcyon.com Wed Apr 8 08:09:55 2009 From: nanogirl at halcyon.com (Gina Miller) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 01:09:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) References: <255128.47394.qm@web110405.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006d01c9b821$69ac9780$47be684c@BOXX> That's what I'm working on right now, a pro nanotech graphic novel story that I wrote, I am creating the images for it now ~ in hopes that it might perhaps generate some extra funds for me to continue on with my animated science movie. Gina "Nanogirl" Miller www.nanogirl.com > --- On Tue, 4/7/09, Max More wrote: > >> From: Max More >> Subject: Re: [ExI] Watchmen (was L'Affaire Bradbury) >> To: "Extropy-Chat" >> Received: Tuesday, April 7, 2009, 3:14 PM >> >> John Grigg wrote: >> > Max, that was quite a list of graphic novels! >> You know your stuff! Now I know why you still have not >> yet come out with your book on transhumanism... ; >> ) Kidding! hee >> >> Damn, totally busted! >> >> Actually, The Proactionary Principle isn't about >> transhumanism as such... >> >> > Hey, here's an idea, team up with a talented artist >> and put forth your transhumanist thoughts in comic >> book/graphic novel form. It could reach people who >> otherwise would never ever read your work. >> >> Perhaps, once my book is actually finished, I will >> seriously think about this. I do love the medium. >> >> BTW, thanks for the pointer to The Black Hole. Never come >> across it. Sounds naughty. >> >> Max >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > __________________________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your > favourite sites. Download it now > http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 08:34:48 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 08:34:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 4/7/09, Tom Nowell wrote: > > Now, to address the matter of "why shouldn't France expel the Muslims before they > become a majority and destroy French institutions?" > > I do not believe mass expulsion would work. I can also argue it would harm France > for three main reasons: It undermines the foundations of the French state; it would > encourage mass disobedience to the French state ; it would damage international > relations. > Do we really need to go back to the basics and write articles in favor of Human Rights? Remind me again why liberty and human rights are a good idea - it seems to have slipped my mind. Ah, perhaps Muslims should be regarded as less than human, then normal human rights would not apply to them? Is that the way to progress? (If so, we can start a list of other groups to be added to the list for later attention). http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/nelson/rohde/glossary.html Human Rights Definitions Crimes against humanity: The definition of crimes against humanity overlaps with genocide and war crimes. Crimes against humanity include murder, extermination, enslavement, and deportation. Attacks must be widespread (directed against multiple victims), and systematic (carried out as part of a plan or policy), rather than isolated instances of criminal conduct. Ethnic cleansing: The use of force or intimidation to remove people of a certain ethnic group from an area is a violation of international law. Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids "individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the occupying power or that of any other country." BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 09:07:48 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 11:07:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904050257u15597e3ar7f04f0dcc41b3f29@mail.gmail.com> <49DB43CE.20203@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904080207t14e0ecb4nf3d3165abd1da3b0@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Apr 7, 2009 at 11:14 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Mirco is politically incorrect but I suspect mostly correct otherwise. > > If you have two identifiable human groups in contact with each other, > especially if they are intermixed, then if one group has a higher > population growth rate than the other, the high growth group will, > over time, replace the slower growing one. ?This is what happened in > Kosovo. Possibly. But I reported - apparently without raising much interest - the three political options being currently debated in France (a fourth not being considered consisting of course in supporting the establishment of an Islamic republic in the country), and indicated what IMHO make all of them totally unfeasible in the present conditions. If this is true, whatever your final goals may be, in the short term the conclusions of everybody as to the measures to be taken should be similar. Any opinion about that? -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 09:17:18 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 11:17:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904080217t18670bbfv29f8a595ee08895@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 12:46 AM, Tom Nowell wrote: > So, enough of the negativity - what more optimistic way can I think of? Well, it's the one we're trying in Britain. Try and get more moderate muslims into politics and give ordinary muslims a stake in how things are. Wouldn't that be a rather blatant domestication of the democratic process? A muslim, or for that matter a non-muslim, is of course free to vote a "moderate muslim", if he so likes, but if such outcome is deliberately pursued by the political regime in place through discriminatory measures and favoritisms and the establishment of fifth columns in the relevant communities this smacks of colonialistic or occupation regimes where the occupying country was "piloting" the appointment of the colonised country's representatives. I believe to remember that the UK has a tradition in this respect, when parliamentary majorities were guaranteed, e.g., through the "equal representation" of almost empy electoral districts which could be easily controlled, but I wonder if muslims in such a scenario would not be right in crying foul. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 10:02:16 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 12:02:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904080302i1ac981fdo7a6e6603ca53f597@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/7 Florent Berthet > Could we stop the madness please? > I'm French, both of my girlfriend's parents come from Algeria (though only > his father is religious) > Were they expelled when Algeria became independent or they came to France of their own will? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florent.berthet at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 11:12:31 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 13:12:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <580930c20904080302i1ac981fdo7a6e6603ca53f597@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904080302i1ac981fdo7a6e6603ca53f597@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6d342ad70904080412t39b7e4e8wec49ef119013cec2@mail.gmail.com> Of their own will for better life conditions. 2009/4/8 Stefano Vaj > 2009/4/7 Florent Berthet > >> Could we stop the madness please? >> I'm French, both of my girlfriend's parents come from Algeria (though only >> his father is religious) >> > > > Were they expelled when Algeria became independent or they came to France > of their own will? > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 11:30:59 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 13:30:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904080412t39b7e4e8wec49ef119013cec2@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904080302i1ac981fdo7a6e6603ca53f597@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904080412t39b7e4e8wec49ef119013cec2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904080430i51ed83a8o17bb929be3da7e68@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/8 Florent Berthet : > Of their own will for better life conditions. Ah, OK, sorry, I thought they were Pieds Noirs. If they are "native" Algerians of course no analogy would be applicable. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 8 15:40:51 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 17:40:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> Il 08/04/2009 10.34, BillK ha scritto: > On 4/7/09, Tom Nowell wrote: >> Now, to address the matter of "why shouldn't France expel the Muslims before they >> become a majority and destroy French institutions?" >> >> I do not believe mass expulsion would work. I can also argue it would harm France >> for three main reasons: It undermines the foundations of the French state; it would >> encourage mass disobedience to the French state ; it would damage international >> relations. >> > > > Do we really need to go back to the basics and write articles in favor > of Human Rights? Remind me again why liberty and human rights are a > good idea - it seems to have slipped my mind. > > Ah, perhaps Muslims should be regarded as less than human, then normal > human rights would not apply to them? Is that the way to progress? > (If so, we can start a list of other groups to be added to the list > for later attention). > > http://www.columbia.edu/itc/journalism/nelson/rohde/glossary.html > > Human Rights Definitions > > Crimes against humanity: > The definition of crimes against humanity overlaps with genocide and > war crimes. Crimes against humanity include murder, extermination, > enslavement, and deportation. Attacks must be widespread (directed > against multiple victims), and systematic (carried out as part of a > plan or policy), rather than isolated instances of criminal conduct. > > Ethnic cleansing: > The use of force or intimidation to remove people of a certain ethnic > group from an area is a violation of international law. Article 49 of > the Fourth Geneva Convention forbids "individual or mass forcible > transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied > territory to the territory of the occupying power or that of any other > country." Who want use force and intimidation to remove people unwanted? There are many lawful ways to make life harder for people you don't want. 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. Five years of jail for anyone doing it. 2) Illegal immigrants captured can be jailed until they remember where they cam from. They will be repatriated immediately, no exception. 3) Preaching in mosques must be done in French (or the local language). Five year for anyone preaching in a different language. 4) Anyone jailed for terrorism or helping and abetting or advocating violence will have his citizenship revoked and will be expelled after completing his term. 5) Anyone committing serious crimes (murder, aggravated battery, thief, honour killings, forced marriages, threats, rapes, bigamy, threats, etc.) will have his citizenship revoked if it is a naturalized citizen plus the jail terms. 6) Any asylum seeker will lose all protections if guilt of any crimes, they will be jailed and expelled after their terms. 7) Mandatory swimming lessons in mixed classes for all students. 8) No prayer time during the work schedule. 9) No Halal slaughter. 10) No import of wives and husbands if the any of them is younger than 25 years. They must ask it five years before. 11) People willing to receive organs must become donors before their condition is diagnosed (Muslims don't like becoming donors, but like to receive). 12) All jail sentences for violent crimes will be doubled (immigrants are more crime prone, Muslims much more crime prone). 13) No welfare state to the people guilt of serious crimes. I'm sure a lawyer could come with much more ways to make life harder for bad people. Do you think anything of this will constitute a "Crime against humanity" or "ethic cleansing"? Mirco From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 21:21:22 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 23:21:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Underpopulation, not Overpopulation In-Reply-To: <49DAEE7D.8020702@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <49D72418.4030202@rawbw.com> <49D8787F.5030703@rawbw.com> <49DAEE7D.8020702@rawbw.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/7 Lee Corbin > Dagon Gmail wrote: > > > The decline demographic numbers is a prime cause of the >> > economic malaise affecting the west. >> > ---Lee >> >> And I call that counter-productive if not completely dangerous >> > > bunk. I say that if one person uses x material resources, > >> energy at a certain standard of living, 100 persons will use >> > > far more than 100x in resources. > > You would have a *chance* to be right (though I would still > suspect not) if technology were not constantly improving. > Mass numbers assist technological breakthroughs because > of the higher numbers of geniuses and others who contribute > mightily to the advances. I agree. But damn, I can make this ideal of progress look a little shaky by waving the Microsoft example around. I will give that a euphemism of your choice, but rest assured I don't like the given that despite technological leaps and bounds (we are both healthier, more longlived, better educated, richer, more affluent, than kings a few centuries ago. It can even be argued we have more servants, with automation and petrol-based industry) the world has these glaring blobs of suckage and tar pit. And that is in the rich places. I am angry about the ghettoficaion of the third world. Very angry. I see precious little improvement there and I hope I am wrong in seeing the first signs of (what I cynically would term) the auschwitzization of the third world. (Points at the gaza strip "model" that was so effectively marketed to Bagdad) An American farmer today can grow five or six times the amount > of food that he could in the 1950s on a single acre of land > (or something like that). If you read about it, you'll be utterly > impressed with the results of the green revolution. > > So your statement above just seems quite wrong, in principle > as well as in particular. > I agree that there has been some cosmetic improvement (much of it the result of civil awereness and unions), and you will no dount agree that at some time very big numbers of people, voting or nonvoting, may get very very very upset by what they perceive a worsening of conditions (the deluded idiots..) And since I have always that at some time poverty and despair will be directly linked to terrorism blooms, you better hope I am completely wrong in my world view, for if enough people get upset, and I am right, you would very soon see the glamorization of suicide-memes and the industrialization if terror. Current events keep vindicating me in that world view. > My assertion is that overpopulation is a MAJOR drain on efficiency, >> > > resources, energy, not even considering the cheapening of > > human value, the stress caused by increased societal pressure, > > exploitation, collapse of individual meaning and worth, "I assert that overpopulation is the primary drain on over-all efficiency, over-all resources, access to [affordable] energy. I add that it also cheapens human labor and causes undue stress. Plus this devaluation of the human worth (which we can see most acutely in the third world) creates a palatable climate if "a sense of haunting and scarcity" where humans adopt an urge to get what you can, before anyone else does. Haven't quite got to the upcoming verb in that sentence, but > I think that all that is poppycock (my own contribution to > the standard of list argument here lately). > What you write only describes the backward countries, who, > usually because of corruption and the unequal distribution > of capitalism, have yet to embrace sufficient technology > to raise their standards of living---which has the exact > *opposite* effect of what you state. Namely, increased > standards of living *increase* efficiencies, decrease > stresses in living, *decrease* exploitation, loss of human > values, collapse of inidividual meaning and so on. > Yes, I wholeheartedly agree - if not for "certain distribution inefficiencies" (to get an idea what I might refer to, look this, then comment) - (Yes I agree with that Vid) the west would be becoming better at management. That is however irrelevant, since the west is decreasing in populations and all the damn places (who can be asserted to be also/as well subject to "these distribution inefficiencies") that are poor are essentially spiraling down. Oh right you sidestepped the give that most human beings live in the third wold. So what do I agree with ? - let me specific to avoid falling in semantic traps (I am dutch, and my English is reasonable, it is not my native tongue) I agree that the western society has potential and opportunity to improve itself, fundamentally. I state that to my best perceptions most of the world does most does have potential and opportunity, and in many cases not even vision or incentive to improve conditions. In many parts of Africa there are even solid incentives to reduce conditions. Big portions of the world may have memes and cultures that make them predisposed to largescale "shooting themselves in the food". Wildly fascinating term: big parts of the middle east are "talibanizing". Thats not shooting yourself in the foot. Its more like dangling both feet in a woodchipper. So why so these bearded simpletons do that? Maybe its some kind of zany LARP that got out of hand? You tell me. > That's easy to see, because it is precisely in the most > technologically advanced nations that the social trends > are the best. Unless you want to resort to the old > discredited Comintern line that the west is only achieving > these unprecedented levels of prosperity by exploiting all > the third world basket cases, which is palpably untrue. > There are arguments for that (or were) but I won't press these as a dogma, as my suspicions cannot be proven and its a castrated discourse. But I urge caution to even the most hysterical rightwingers, if that did any good. I believe terms like "wholesale continental sodomy with coke bottles" applies. But who am I other than some unlikeble eurotrash? > I do thank you for your impressive list of references. I'm > pretty sure that it would be almost impossible for me to > find an equally long list supporting my views, because your > view is a la mode, so to speak. For every book pointing out > the errors of the left/green coalition, there are five > repeating the same claims. In that regard, it's just like > global warming. > I feel you are muttering angrily with a hint of frustration but I am absolutely certain you will mock this perception. > Reciting *more* references to your cause doesn't cause you > to win rational debates. No, my chances to bring you towards the baby child Jesus are as slim as pushing back volcanic matter back into the lava tubes with a garden hose. But I have some hope I reach doubters - and I think the stakes are high. Unfortunately I am in a lose/lose situation. 1- I think the compound consequences of population growth in the whole world as well as in the mostly densely populated regions of earth are WORSE than any potential climatic effects. Worse whereas there is still wiggle room in some aspects of the climate debate I cannot suppress my moral outrage when people actually do deny that rampant population growth is "manageable". 2- voters cannot be swayed to not breed. You cannot win elections by advocating democratic reforms in breeding restrictions. It makes you unelectable. Neither is a tyranny sustainable that enforces breeding restrictions. Hence - we are stuck with this situation - but that's why I am a H+ian (or robot woo woo yestron cultist) because I believe that if fundamental solutions do not emerge in society economical systems, politics, industry, management, etc etc) we are headed for the flusher. We are not in a world where "ideal solutions: exist, but if I were harry stalin potter, I would cast might spells that create fountains of immortality (making the imbiber healthy, smart, beautiful, easily upgraded and augmented - *and completely unable to procreate*). I think this is precisely where the solition lies. I will then generously allow you to create competing fountains of your choice, with the caveat this marvel is hidden for the time being in a deserted but very stable biodome a mile under the surface on one of the hundred biggest asteroids. It'll probably grow shark fins on anyone who drinks from it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 22:03:54 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 15:03:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] atheist superheroes and villains Message-ID: <2d6187670904081503q6c28ad47i81dd108196276361@mail.gmail.com> I just came across a rather unique website that profiles the religious/philosophical backgrounds of various comic book superheroes and villains. http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Atheist http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Evangelical http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Wiccan http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Jewish http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Muslim http://www.comicbookreligion.com/?Religion=Latter-day_Saint_/_Mormon John From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 22:53:23 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 00:53:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: <580930c20904070814w776204f1r83f9671f935bd566@mail.gmail.com> References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> <49DA6B18.3060708@libero.it> <580930c20904070814w776204f1r83f9671f935bd566@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: If the individual discussed here would have lived in the netherlands, *I would have*, om ground that as much as a predatory child molestor shouldn't be a physician in a children's hospital, the above individual shouldn't be in a position of medical care for other human beings. Since he works in Italy, I suspend judgement , I am less than interested about what happens in Italy, since the ideals espoused by this person have been categorized as being part of the Italian political spectrum. I "could" likewise reserve to make complex judgement on the Rwanda massacre. It is a domestic issue, even if lacking in grace and charm. However. I abhor certain things in this world, and when I say I abhor them, I have no other recourse than to object and (when the situation escalates) retaliate. I will retaliate to insult, and not necessarily by insult. I will retaliate against being threatened, and not necessarily by threats. I will retaliate against violence and rarely with outright violence. And if someone describes as his preferred a world where I would most likely die miserable and very soon, I will do whatever I can, whatever it takes such a world does not come into being. I used to have an crude idea about what Extropy was. I thought there was an overlap between Extropy and WTA and transhumanism and all that. I am now slowly coming to the conclusion that these overlaps are still there technological growth issues - but this is not the case on terms of politics. I would appreciate it a LOT if the management of Exi chat, preferably the Extropy movement in general, on what areas it differs from other transhumanist movements. I urge this movement to do so fast, because what will happen, whether or not I do that, is that many the above posts and discussions will leak into the media. It is unavoidable that what is weighed here will in time end up discussed by outsiders and it concerns me gravely that if these discussions are not contextualized in some way, "the outside" would have the ammunution to easily demonize and eradicate the extropian ideal. From what I have read here I would estimate this would be remarkably an easy kill. If the position of "Extropy" (and I do not know who 'represents' Extropy) is to condone what has been said here, I clearly have nothing in common with Extropy. I will wait until I have clarity on that burning question. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 23:14:16 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 01:14:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] WWRD? (What will Russia do?) In-Reply-To: <49DAE32E.7010005@rawbw.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> <49DAE32E.7010005@rawbw.com> Message-ID: If anyone were concerned (or worried. or terrified. or hysterical) about the spread of fundamentalist islamthink again. I think its gay . Let me hasten to add that I consider Wahabism a variant of Saudi Nashi, for good or for bad :) I think of you looked at it purely rationally similar arguments this kind of movements (in Russia, China, the US, Brazil) have a sinister quality that is of concern with the likelyhood that it produces fall-out outside respective countries. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFHYNSKydqU 2009/4/7 Lee Corbin > Dagon Gmail wrote: > > I thought that had been established... >> ..unless you regard human beings as a means to an end < >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeA6y2vFXgU>'. >> > > Very interesting. It proves that Russia is still a > strong nation (on the assumption that Nashi is > representative). > > Perhaps some of you have seen the very nice documentary > "The Singing Revolution", which showed how Estonians > managed to preserve some of their nationalism and patriotism > in spite of Soviet domination all the way from 1940 or so > through 1990 or so. > > It interests me that the Soviets felt too weak (or too > reluctant for some other reason) to really crack down > and deport the leading million or so Estonians into the > vastness of central Russia. (They'd moved millions of > people around near the end of World War II to suit themselves.) > > See the documentary, one question came over and over to > me: Will the Russians return? > > Already Estonia is 40% Russian or something like that. > > My answer was (arrived at an hour or so after seeing > the documentary) that we live in a new age, and that > the Russian people themselves could no longer feel > proud about subduing a weak little neighbor like Estonia. > > After all, they'd had plenty of excuses in the days of > Stalin: "We're doing them a favor, we're spreading > international communism". > > But what now? Now it would be raw power. > > Yet a friend later told me that I was being naive. "The Russian > people will actually be proud of such a move, and will once > again exult in Russia's strength." > > I would love to hear opinions. > > Lee > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- I said NO SIGNATURE !!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 8 23:28:42 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:28:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <49DD332A.50608@libero.it> Il 08/04/2009 0.46, Tom Nowell ha scritto: > So, enough of the negativity - what more optimistic way can I think > of? Well, it's the one we're trying in Britain. Try and get more > moderate Muslims into politics and give ordinary Muslims a stake in What is a "moderate Muslim"? Mr. President Erdo?an did speak the truth when saying ?The Term ?Moderate Islam? Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam.? In 2004 61% of Muslims in Britain said they wanted Sharia law. Following the 7/7/2005 London bombs this figure fell to 40%. Is this 40% "moderate"? Or have you half million of "extremists" Muslims in UK. Is this healthy? > how things are. By getting moderate Muslims into government, you give > voice to all the ordinary people who just want to live their lives > and avoid what the extremists say. You will build a solid base for > Muslims willing to live in a secular society. Unfortunately it is a policy that work for a colonial power, in the colonies, but don't work in the homeland. Mainly, you did so without understanding what Islam is and how Muslims think. You gave a stage and power to self proclaimed "representatives" of Muslims, where the Muslims don't recognize representatives and don't feel compelled to follow what their deliberate. > Also, when people have something to lose from the extremists, they > are less likely to give them the time of day. If a Muslim immigrant > sees his daughters get educated and gain careers, > when the next group > of Islamists come to suggest jihad in the west and the setting up of > a Taleban-style state, he's more likely to think "but they'll take > away my own daughter's jobs, and cause my family hardship." This Muslim, like many other Muslims, will help the "extremists" because the government is unable to protect him from them. So, between a nice dog and a feral dog, he will choose to appease the feral one. Why not? The government let the feral one to become the "spokesperson" of the community. If it is so good, why did this lady need to go in hide from her father and his friends? Are they fit for expulsion or not? http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1062375/Revealed-Radical-cleric-Bakris-pole-dancer-daughter.html http://news.bostonherald.com/news/international/europe/view.bg?articleid=1122134&srvc=next_article And, please, what about this other lady? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article3006561.ece >> The young woman, aged 32, whose father is a Muslim imam in the >> north of England, has moved house 45 times to escape detection by >> her family since she became a Christian 15 years ago. >> >> Hannah, who uses a pseudonym to hide her identity, told The Times >> how she became a Christian after she ran away from home at 16 to >> escape an arranged marriage. >> >> The threats against her became more serious a month ago, prompting >> police to offer her protection in case of an attempt on her life. And this man and other 200.000 people http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article510589.ece >> Muslim apostates cast out and at risk from faith and family While >> Christians who turn to Islam are feted, the 200,000 Muslims who >> turn away are faced with abuse, violence and even murder >> Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, is one of a >> growing number of former Muslims in Britain who face not just being >> shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in >> some cases killed. There is even a secret underground network to >> support and protect those who leave Islam. One estimate suggests >> that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have >> lost their faith, which would mean that in Britain there are about >> 200,000 apostates. Mr. Novell you have an underground network in UK that help ex-muslims because the government is unable and unwilling to act and protect them. The "taliban" are able to terrorize large parts of the population in England, not only in Afghanistan. This is because the BNP is gaining so much votes and the Labour is losing so much. They are forced to choose the only party that hear their cry and their pain. > So, for the French I would recommend a healthy dose of Segolene Royal The French, with all of their problems, will go under after the Great Britain, because they have much more self respect for themselves and their country than you (OK, they have a hypertrophic ego). > trying to get Muslim candidates for her Socialist party, and when > Nicholas Sarkozy sees a potential voting bloc favouring the > opposition he will suddenly start taking the plight of Muslim > immigrants more seriously. They already vote in majority for the Socialists. Like they vote in majority for the Labour in UK. Maybe it is the reason the Labour continue to let enter in the UK unemployable, illiterate, intolerant Muslims and give out citizenship after five years. Mr. Sarkozy proposed himself as a law & order man. After the election he did nothing for what I know. His electorate is very discontent of him. Maybe next time they will vote for someone else. Mirco From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 23:37:07 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 01:37:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] [SPACE] People in space, not machine - what gives? Message-ID: Assuming at some time in the future there will be colonies of humans in space (of which many people estimate that window of opportunity has come and gone - i.e. only machines will make it in space) IF humans were to actually settle the solar system in big drums, what would people here think... 1- the dynamic of power/empire formation be? Which planet/region would be most "profitrable" 2- what political systems would fare best 3- what new political systems would emerge 4- what kind of "power projection" would work ? (stealth settlements to avoid kinetic bombardments?) 5- aggressive interdependency? Market slavery? 6- can such a solar system be mostly peaceful? Or will it be a mess? 7- does trade make sense (slow tanker vessels?) Assume AI would be limited (which is very unlikely, but speculating about AI civilizations in the solar system, remains a bit pointless) . Likewise, assume nanofabrication is limited too. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Apr 8 23:41:33 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 01:41:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49DD332A.50608@libero.it> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DD332A.50608@libero.it> Message-ID: I advocate that critics of Islam create the infrastructure to wipe it from the face of the earth. Since extreme violence didn't quite do the trick so far, I propose that the people most worried create a sinister kartel that exports hard core porn to the most fundamentalist of Islamic countries. It will collapse the system from within within a decade. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Apr 8 23:59:52 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 01:59:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] WWRD? (What will Russia do?) In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D2B69D.1090503@libero.it> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090331221722.026c0d80@satx.rr.com> <49D534ED.7010609@libero.it> <580930c20904030303y6eacc8f8i148c790619a37459@mail.gmail.com> <49D7D37B.1050109@libero.it> <49DAE32E.7010005@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49DD3A78.6030407@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 1.14, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > If anyone were concerned (or worried. or terrified. or hysterical) about > the spread of > fundamentalist islam > think > again. I think its gay > . Let me > hasten to add that I consider > Wahabism a variant of Saudi Nashi, for good or for bad :) The first video is from Iran, not from Saudi Arabia. The title fooled you. I know perfectly that many Muslims extremists are homosexual tendencies. They will fuck what they like and when the time come they will be discovered, they will die during the Jihad. Their sins will be washed and they will go in their paradise where they will have eternal erections and 72 virgins females and 18 young boys. Many women are raped by the same jihadists and forced to become suicide bombers to cancel the shame on their family. What could be interesting is to know what happened to these girls in the video after it was posted. Nothing good I suppose. Like the destiny of the girls of the scandal of Agadir. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 00:16:45 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 17:16:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [SPACE] People in space, not machine - what gives? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2d6187670904081716p2cc5e590u94bf5ec32b368df9@mail.gmail.com> And what do the European French and Muslim immigrants to France have to do with any of this? John ; ) On 4/8/09, Dagon Gmail wrote: > Assuming at some time in the future there will be colonies of humans in > space (of > which many people estimate that window of opportunity has come and gone - > i.e. > only machines will make it in space) IF humans were to actually settle the > solar > system in big drums, what would people here think... > > 1- the dynamic of power/empire formation be? Which planet/region would be > most "profitrable" > 2- what political systems would fare best > 3- what new political systems would emerge > 4- what kind of "power projection" would work ? > (stealth settlements to avoid kinetic bombardments?) > 5- aggressive interdependency? Market slavery? > 6- can such a solar system be mostly peaceful? Or will it be a mess? > 7- does trade make sense (slow tanker vessels?) > > Assume AI would be limited (which is very unlikely, but speculating about AI > civilizations in > the solar system, remains a bit pointless) . Likewise, assume > nanofabrication is limited too. > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 01:09:29 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 18:09:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [SPACE] People in space, not machine - what gives? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: In case you didn't notice, I have been talking about this for over a year. Elements are: Pop up with a rocket and push to GEO with a laser for under $100/kg at upwards of half a million tons per year Construction of power sats at a high rate, at least 125 GW/year and rapidly increasing. 1000 or more construction workers at GEO (and their families) but this is not a colony, just a construction job like a dam. In a few years (because of the need for nickel) a mining camp of several hundred to a thousand at an asteroid. But this is also not a space colony. Shame there are not more mathematically inclined people on this list. I could use someone to check my work, most recently on a space anchor and a possible way to offset radiation pressure. Keith 2009/4/8 Dagon Gmail : > Assuming at some time in the future there will be colonies of humans in > space (of > which many people estimate that window of opportunity has come and gone - > i.e. > only machines will make it in space)? IF humans were to actually settle the > solar > system in big drums, what would people here think... > > 1- the dynamic of power/empire formation be? Which planet/region would be > most "profitrable" > 2- what political systems would fare best > 3- what new political systems would emerge > 4- what kind of "power projection" would work ? > ?(stealth settlements to avoid kinetic bombardments?) > 5- aggressive interdependency? Market slavery? > 6- can such a solar system be mostly peaceful? Or will it be a mess? > 7- does trade make sense (slow tanker vessels?) > > Assume AI would be limited (which is very unlikely, but speculating about AI > civilizations in > the solar system, remains a bit pointless) . Likewise, assume > nanofabrication is limited too. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 02:11:51 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 11:41:51 +0930 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Where=92s_my_body=92s_Control_Panel=3F?= Message-ID: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> I just wrote this in my blog, and it struck me that it might play well here :-) ---- http://point7.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/wheres-my-bodys-control-panel/ Where?s my body?s Control Panel? It occurs to me that if I were to design a robot to do all the things a human does, it?d have a control panel, or administration interface. This is the equivalent of the Settings menu or Properties page in various software. That control panel would likely be internal, operated by the robot?s mind, but it would be there. I would do this because a general intelligence, being able to think about and plan for the future, can know in advance what capabilities it needs. For example, sometimes it?s good to store fat (because there could be food shortages ahead), so a ?Store Fat Mode? would be nice. On the other hand, in modern western society, calories are abundant, and it would be better to stay at a particular desired weight / body shape / etc, so ?Maintain Weight Mode? would be more appropriate. Or ?Add Muscle mode?, or ?Overclocked Metabolism mode?, etc etc. The possibilities are endless. But humans don?t work that way. Watching ?The Biggest Loser? a bit recently (yes that makes me the loser), it strikes me that we have made weight loss into a moral endeavour. ?No pain no gain?. We invoke purity/sanctity, the message is ?you have sinned, now you must do penance, and only then shall you be rewarded with weight loss?. It?s easy to just accept that, because it plays to our fundamental moral systems, but if you think about it rationally, it?s nuts. What?s really happening with weight gain is that we have a system (our bodies) with a regulatory mechanism adapted to calorie shortage, and no administrative override, no calibration features. Separately, there?s this idea that we need to ?burn off? those calories. It assumes this dumb system where calories go in, get used or stored, and the only way to remove stored calories is to use more than you consume, like we have all the systemic complexity of a bucket. If that were true, then seriously fat people could just not eat for a few weeks, and lose big weight, but it doesn?t work like that. I think what?s really going on is a little of this, but more important is that extreme exercise is communicating to the body ?The new normal is massive amounts of physical work, so go into a mode where we can do this?. So the body drops the kilos, adds muscle, etc etc, to adapt to what it is being made to do. And I guess it follows that the purity/sanctity morality is invoked as motivation to keep up the otherwise very unlikely behaviour of high level exercise. The corollary of this is, I expect, that if you stop the penitential flagelation of the flesh, the body will change back into its ?store fat? mode and you?ll be back to weight gain again. That?s all by way of example. The point I want to make is that it shouldn?t be this hard. Exercise for weight loss is a hack, it?s tricking the body into doing what you want in an indirect way. If you were designing a human from scratch, it wouldn?t be necessary, you?d just go into Settings, and change metabolic modes. However, if you were designing (or, heaven forbid, evolving) a body to be inhabited by a non-generally intelligent mind, one that can?t plan forward and can?t do meta analysis on its own goal system, you?d build something exactly like what we humans current are. There would be no possibility of intelligent control, so instead you?d have the body have a range of possible behaviours, and move between them in response to its activity and cues from the environment. Also, you?d have the same thing with the brain itself; emotions/moods/cognitive states would all change, not at the behest of the mind, but according to a pre-programmed regime based on physical and environmental cues. For all the amazing abilities of our bodies, they are a fundamental mismatch for our minds. Even our mental architecture is a fundamental mismatch for the task of being a general intelligence; most of what we are is targetted at coping with a control system totally unlike what we actually possess. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 02:52:35 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 21:52:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Where=92s_my_body=92s_Control_Panel=3F?= In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af70904081952g68d19ed0u40a4bdb7cb43b10@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Emlyn wrote: > Where?s my body?s Control Panel? I wrote something about this on my website, but I can't remember the exact link at the moment, so it will have to wait. Abstractly, you could say that any given sequence of actions has some finite number of steps with a termination step "back at the beginning"- i.e., back at the actor. This is what I was calling 'recursion'. Through recursion path minimization, you minimize the number of steps that it takes for some action to have some sort of impact on you- there's some "gap" (measured in terms of the number of steps) between program, programmer and that which is programmed (Ishq Allah maboud 'lillah). One of the things that matters in transhuman tech issues is the toolchain length from "programmer" and "that which is programmed"- and in the case of transhumanism, that's supposed to be the self. But in reality, in our day to day lives, we find that we have to go through a lot of crap just to get back to something that might be moderately useful in rapid prototyping of augmentations, or in acquiring tools to deal with the small nanoscopic world internal to ourselves with these big, bulky primate hands bestowed upon us. Path length is one measurement that can matter greatly: some paths take too many steps to go from one state to another state, while other paths, such as those provided by pharmaceuticals in the water supply (admittedly, not a really big influence) are somewhat involuntary, when in truth we would all jump on the chance to be able to moderate that to our own self-guided design. So to some extent, perhaps recursion involves changing the external world, the set of tools that you have available and the set of tools that are accessible, how these tools are made and from what materials and resources they can be designed? > It occurs to me that if I were to design a robot to do all the things > a human does, it?d have a control panel, or administration interface. > This is the equivalent of the Settings menu or Properties page in > various software. That control panel would likely be internal, > operated by the robot?s mind, but it would be there. DNA. But, you might say that this doesn't necessarily effect the self. There are two possible scenarios here. (1) You make some modifications to DNA, and infect yourself with an adenovirus or something, and the changes take place and something happens. Somewhat dangerous, maybe unlikely, maybe likely. (2) You make some modifications to DNA and spawn a child process. At this point, #2 looks very reasonable in the sense that it is something that could have already be happening or have happened multiple times in the past. I think that it is a natural extension of the nuclear family to understand that #2 is part of the typical concept of 'family'- who wouldn't want to reinstantiate their long-lost great grandfather, or husband, or child? In terms of the control panel, contributions from each individual being reincarnated and their own personal modifications to the "family DNA" will make for an interesting way to go about things, but it's no where near anything like rapid prototyping. Oops. > ?Add Muscle mode?, or ?Overclocked Metabolism mode?, etc etc. The > possibilities are endless. Wasn't there an individual who had six times the normal molarity of insulin in his blood, and so he doesn't gain weight because of that? Would you like an insulin drip, or maybe some buggers in your gut to overproduce insulin? I have a genetic circuit I've designed for ecoli to produce oxytocin, and I actually have some notes and people here on campus working towards the expression of insulin in some algae, maybe something could be fixed up. I could even tell you the protocols and procedures you would need to implement the DNA from a synthesis house over the net and grow a good yogurt culture (or something) to consume and then have sitting at the bottom of your stomach. Legal issues aside, that is. > made weight loss into a moral endeavour. ?No pain no gain?. We invoke "No pain no gain". Sounds puritanical. > Separately, there?s this idea that we need to ?burn off? those > calories. It assumes this dumb system where calories go in, get used > or stored, and the only way to remove stored calories is to use more > than you consume, like we have all the systemic complexity of a > bucket. If that were true, then seriously fat people could just not Isn't that a Douglas Adams? > The corollary of this is, I expect, that if you stop the penitential > flagelation of the flesh, the body will change back into its ?store > fat? mode and you?ll be back to weight gain again. Anyway, I find it very weird that government websites actually talk very little about exercise physiology. Health, being such a huge and important issue, has very little science behind it when presented to the public over television or in textbooks (at least the ones I remember from high school). I have thrown together some notes on how to automatically test muscles for what factors will enhance their growth- like different stress/strain vectors, forces, myostatin, etc. etc., but I'm surprised I haven't found any studies that have already implemented it- it seems like something fairly obvious to do for some hardcore studies of muscle physiology. > That?s all by way of example. The point I want to make is that it > shouldn?t be this hard. Exercise for weight loss is a hack, it?s > tricking the body into doing what you want in an indirect way. If you > were designing a human from scratch, it wouldn?t be necessary, you?d > just go into Settings, and change metabolic modes. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 02:54:08 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 12:24:08 +0930 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DD332A.50608@libero.it> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904081954s790ff23x942d56a7f72d87d6@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/9 Dagon Gmail : > I advocate that critics of Islam create the infrastructure to wipe it > from the face of the earth. Since extreme violence didn't quite do the > trick so far, I propose that the people most worried create a > sinister kartel that exports hard core porn to the most fundamentalist > of Islamic countries.? It will collapse the system from within within > a decade. Um, the interned has been around now for about 40 years. Is that what you mean? -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 02:54:36 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 12:24:36 +0930 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904081954s790ff23x942d56a7f72d87d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DD332A.50608@libero.it> <710b78fc0904081954s790ff23x942d56a7f72d87d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904081954u22a57d5fndf011120d239306@mail.gmail.com> I mean the internet. Totally spoiled it! 2009/4/9 Emlyn : > 2009/4/9 Dagon Gmail : >> I advocate that critics of Islam create the infrastructure to wipe it >> from the face of the earth. Since extreme violence didn't quite do the >> trick so far, I propose that the people most worried create a >> sinister kartel that exports hard core porn to the most fundamentalist >> of Islamic countries.? It will collapse the system from within within >> a decade. > > Um, the interned has been around now for about 40 years. Is that what you mean? > > -- > Emlyn > > http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related > http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting > http://emlynoregan.com - main site > -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From brentn at freeshell.org Thu Apr 9 02:47:27 2009 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Wed, 8 Apr 2009 22:47:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Where=92s_my_body=92s_Control_Panel=3F?= In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <5E30B328-BD9E-4B08-A066-43E8AEE44D74@freeshell.org> On 8 Apr, 2009, at 22:11, Emlyn wrote: > I just wrote this in my blog, and it struck me that it might play > well here :-) > You make some really good points in the article. A couple of things to consider: 1) Some of us don't consider exercise to be flagellation. Its an enjoyable activity! Well - at least for me, some things are. Lifting weights I find to be tedious and abhorrent. Things like the rowing machines and the elliptical machines are like a moving meditation for me. Kind of like Yoga - Hatha, Bikram, or Ashtanga. But hiking is by and far my favorite exercise. 2) More interestingly, let's assume that we learn how to install the functional equivalent of your control panel and that a large fraction of the population both have access to and choose to install it. Wouldn't a logical outcome of that be that the world's total caloric intake would skyrocket as people chose to overclock their metabolisms to self-enhance? (muscles, brains, looks, whatever would float their individual boats.) Right now, we produce more food than the world needs, then waste a good deal of it through systemic inefficiencies, causing there to be both massive obesity and hunger - often within a single square mile. I'd assume that with that "control panel," there would be a lot more hunger and almost no obesity. And a good number of people consuming vat grown yeast- and algae- derived proteins and fats. :) B -- Brent Neal, Ph.D. http://brentn.freeshell.org From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 03:06:42 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Wed, 08 Apr 2009 20:06:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> Message-ID: <1239246402.5478.1914.camel@hayek> Well I was going to take a break from posting for a few days; I was not even going to reply to the little rant someone aimed at me since it was so full of false implications and errors of reasoning that it did not even have enough substance to qualify as an ad-hominem attack. However I decided to write a few lines to show some of the flaws in the proposals sent by painload2k at libero.it. I do not plan to cover them all or be exhaustive in my remarks but I will cover some of the more bizarre items. On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 17:40 +0200, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > > Who want use force and intimidation to remove people unwanted? > There are many lawful ways to make life harder for people you don't want. Well first we need to remember that the values that I think most on this list want people to hold such as "equal protection under the law" and "freedom of expression" would be weakened by the proposals. It would be difficult to urge Saudi Arabia to liberalize their society when doing the opposite elsewhere. > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. > Five years of jail for anyone doing it. Well there goes the Masquerade Ball. And Halloween. So you advocate anyone going to a Masquerade Ball gets 5 years in jail. So much for individualism and freedom of expression. > 3) Preaching in mosques must be done in French (or the local language). > Five year for anyone preaching in a different language. Interesting that "local language" is not defined. Would it be the predominate language in a country, state/province, county/parish, city/town, neighborhood or what? Where I live the closest supermarket uses Spanish for announcements over the public address system and the signs are in Spanish usually with English below in a smaller font. And just a few miles a way is a market where Vietnamese is predominate and in the other direction is a market with a lot of Chinese language signs. So this idea of local language is poorly defined. And let us not forget Latin, would the use of Latin be outlawed? I seem to recall the Catholic Church uses it. Thus we see that the proposal is poorly defined and essentially nonsensical. > 4) Anyone jailed for terrorism or helping and abetting or advocating > violence will have his citizenship revoked and will be expelled after > completing his term. Do you really mean "advocating violence" as a general category? What about someone promoting the War in Iraq? Personally I think the War in Iraq is a bad idea but throwing someone in jail for advocating the war violates the principle of free expression. Now maybe this is not what you meant but that is exactly what you wrote. > 7) Mandatory swimming lessons in mixed classes for all students. And what do you do if the students show up for class and do not do anything; they just stand there in their street clothes? What do you do; give them a failing grade? How totally ridiculous. > 8) No prayer time during the work schedule. This is a matter between an employer and and employee. If an employer wants to let an employee off for an hour on Ash Wednesday to say a prayer and get some ashes on their forehead what possible concern is it of the government. > 9) No Halal slaughter. Are you going to outlaw Kosher also? Do you have any idea how difficult this would be to monitor? > I'm sure a lawyer could come with much more ways to make life harder for > bad people. Your list of laws would make life harder for good people as well and would most probably lead to an undesirable outcome. > Do you think anything of this will constitute a "Crime against humanity" > or "ethic cleansing"? Probably not "crime against humanity". As for "ethic cleansing" well what you suggest is certainly lacking it ethics. Fred From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 06:09:56 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 15:39:56 +0930 Subject: [ExI] U.S. Medical Care In-Reply-To: References: <1db0b2da0903230247u518583ffw4893794a2e776543@mail.gmail.com> <49D542CE.6090501@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090402182810.02549870@satx.rr.com> <580930c20904031158j46ace009vcac3c81658bd2a54@mail.gmail.com> <14541BA50ED04079965CE4D12458FCA6@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090403163253.023b6eb0@satx.rr.com> <49D875B1.1010004@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904082309g53a3fa8x596e42d266c05412@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/5 Dagon Gmail : >> For someone who actually works as a psychiatric nurse (as Mirco does, I >> gather) to say this is disturbing. Maybe he could change his name to Nurse >> Ratched.# >> Damien Broderick > > Well, for his sake, I hope someone doesn't collect his opinions, articles > and views, > prints them, binds them in a convenient folder, and sends copies of this > folder to > several such institutions in his region of italy, as well as to several > newspapers, > offices of Italian socialists and communists, and other media organizations, > with > his name, address and photograph. Such an act would likely could him his > job, and > worse. That's clearly a threat, and really out of line in my opinion. I don't agree with Mirco on pretty much anything he says (in fact I have him kill-filed, sorry I know it's rude to admit it). But, what he says, he says on the open internet, granting all and sundry the ability to read it and form opinions on it as they may, including his employers, and so on, as above. So the first thing to note is that he is not trying to hide his opinion from "the light of truth" or something like that. Secondly, we are all in the same position. The views of the transhumanist community are marginal in the context of society at large, and many of our more banal ideas about, say, morphological freedom, would horrify many members of our respective communities. By publicly posting on the internet you give up any claim to privacy for those posts, but on the other hand many of us likely depend, perhaps without having thought about it too much, on the fact that while those posts are public, they are also not being broadcast on the evening news, and/or snail mailed to our employers, to "enemy" organisations, etc. It's a pseudo-anonymity, but it's a modern kind of decorum. It is socially true that there is a difference between posting about unusual and contentious ideas in a quiet internet forum down a sidestreet of the internet, and taking those ideas and shoving them in the face of every single person you know, regardless of the social niceties and subtleties required of each such relationship. Now if any of us tries to run for public office in the future, or has an affair with Britney, then it's a different story, of course :-) -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 06:29:09 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 08:29:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about burkas? Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your own business? Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer to refer to this attitude by another name. On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. Five > years of jail for anyone doing it. -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 06:59:26 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 16:29:26 +0930 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Where=92s_my_body=92s_Control_Panel=3F?= In-Reply-To: <5E30B328-BD9E-4B08-A066-43E8AEE44D74@freeshell.org> References: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> <5E30B328-BD9E-4B08-A066-43E8AEE44D74@freeshell.org> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904082359l563e3bd9k1e6510e36c1e591@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/9 Brent Neal : > > On 8 Apr, 2009, at 22:11, Emlyn wrote: > >> I just wrote this in my blog, and it struck me that it might play well >> here :-) >> > > You make some really good points in the article. A couple of things to > consider: > > 1) Some of us don't consider exercise to be flagellation. Its an enjoyable > activity! Well - at least for me, some things are. Lifting weights I find to > be tedious and abhorrent. Things like the rowing machines and the elliptical > machines are like a moving meditation for me. Kind of like Yoga - Hatha, > Bikram, or Ashtanga. But hiking is by and far my favorite exercise. Yep, point taken. I walk about an hour and a half most days of the week (that's how I commute), I love to walk. But, there's exercise and exercise. The flagellation is body-modification oriented exercise. Nothing wrong with body modification, but the purity/sanctity memes surrounding it, no thanks. Something obvious, but interesting in context I think, is that we don't take our cars out for a drive to get them some exercise, or run our appliances to keep them fit. It'd be stupid, because in general running a machine wears it out. However, we actually need to exercise in order to stay in good condition ourselves. This really only seems to be the case because we need to signal to our bodies "We are using all these muscles and other body bits, keep them in good condition", again it's a hack. We must also be wearing out parts when we do this, but we have self-repair mechanisms that are good enough that the signalling hack is more valuable than the losses due to wear, at least until we are old. If you were going to design a replacement body, you'd allow those signals to be sent directly, and skip the otherwise useless behaviour of exercise. > 2) More interestingly, let's assume that we learn how to install the > functional equivalent of your control panel and that a large fraction of the > population both have access to and choose to install it. Wouldn't a logical > outcome of that be that the world's total caloric intake would skyrocket as > people chose to overclock their metabolisms to self-enhance? (muscles, > brains, looks, whatever would float their individual boats.) Right now, we > produce more food than the world needs, then waste a good deal of it through > systemic inefficiencies, causing there to be both massive obesity and hunger > - often within a single square mile. ?I'd assume that with that "control > panel," ?there would be a lot more hunger and almost no obesity. Well, if you have a control panel, you turn off or turn down hunger. Hunger is a hardwired signal to you to eat, part of a feedback loop with the weight gaining stuff. But over-eating as enjoyed in the west involves quantity over quality, a lot of time, and a lot of moral negatives (especially shame). I bet people would just turn down that signal. If you want to bulk up, well, we already consume way too much; it'd probably turn out not to require any more than we currently eat, and maybe less. OTOH, a lot of people will want to be thin, and will consume little as a result. I think if we could control hunger and metabolism separately, we'd eat very little. A problem that might arise is people not eating enough (and turning off the signals to tell them they need to). > And a good number of people consuming vat grown yeast- and algae-derived > proteins and fats. :) I'd eat that if it was tasty. Is it tasty? > > B > > -- > Brent Neal, Ph.D. > http://brentn.freeshell.org > -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 07:01:33 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 16:31:33 +0930 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Where=92s_my_body=92s_Control_Panel=3F?= In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904090001w2d972256o7e9636acc1cd3922@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/9 Emlyn : > I just wrote this in my blog, and it struck me that it might play well here :-) > > ---- > http://point7.wordpress.com/2009/04/09/wheres-my-bodys-control-panel/ > > Where?s my body?s Control Panel? > By the way, what I was actually thinking about when I wrote this was, how would a "human" look who was designed by an intelligent creator? I think the answer is "little or nothing like us at all". -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From dagonweb at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 07:27:05 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 09:27:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Even the best of libertarians intents are easily corrupted by Xenophobia and Racism. 2009/4/9 Eschatoon Magic > I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about burkas? > > Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business > of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your > own business? > > Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you > care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer > to refer to this attitude by another name. > > > On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: > > > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. > Five > > years of jail for anyone doing it. > -- > Eschatoon Magic > http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon > aka Giulio Prisco > http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- I said NO SIGNATURE !!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 08:04:34 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 10:04:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> That is one of the reasons why I never called myself a libertarian, though I am one deep inside. There are two souls in modern libertarianism. One is a healthy live-and-let-live soul, which believes in self-ownership and personal freedom of everyone, and hates _all_ limits to liberty. It is not "liberty, but..."., it is "liberty, period". The other is a fascist soul which believes in the freedom of some to oppress and murder others. I promise that I will call myself a libertarian when the second soul will go. 2009/4/9 Dagon Gmail : > Even the best of libertarians intents are easily corrupted by Xenophobia and > Racism. > > 2009/4/9 Eschatoon Magic >> >> I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about >> burkas? >> >> Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business >> of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your >> own business? >> >> Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you >> care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer >> to refer to this attitude by another name. >> >> >> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it >> wrote: >> >> > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. >> > Five >> > years of jail for anyone doing it. >> -- >> Eschatoon Magic >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon >> aka Giulio Prisco >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > -- > I said NO SIGNATURE !!! > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 12:01:29 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 14:01:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> References: <49D873D9.6000208@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <49DDE399.4030008@libero.it> Il 05/04/2009 11.03, Lee Corbin ha scritto: > If I write about actions that France could and should take to > survive, I'll definitely leave gaping a class of people I perhaps > should refer to as extreme individualists. These, or at least the > subset of them of immediate concern, are people who may hold dear any > number of high principles long revered in western civilization; yet > who do not and perhaps cannot identify with the institutions and > peoples who gave rise to those principles---and, see below, cannot > perceive ambient threats to those principles of an existential > nature. Interesting post. Brussel Journal have an article about some differences between the western and the Islamic society. http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3826 Islam and the West: Lines of Demarcation > the citizens of Western states ...... > have lost confidence in their way of life. Indeed, they are > no longer sure what that way of life requires of them. I think this is one of the problems with some people. They don't understand that some institutions and relations need to be maintained and protected or they will disappear. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 13:34:43 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:34:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1239246402.5478.1914.camel@hayek> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1239246402.5478.1914.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49DDF973.2030701@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 5.06, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 17:40 +0200, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: >> Who want use force and intimidation to remove people unwanted? >> There are many lawful ways to make life harder for people you don't >> want. > Well first we need to remember that the values that I think most on > this list want people to hold such as "equal protection under the > law" and "freedom of expression" would be weakened by the proposals. > It would be difficult to urge Saudi Arabia to liberalize their > society when doing the opposite elsewhere. Just now, we are saudizing our society, but you don't note it. >> 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your >> face. Five years of jail for anyone doing it. > > Well there goes the Masquerade Ball. And Halloween. So you > advocate anyone going to a Masquerade Ball gets 5 years in jail. So > much for individualism and freedom of expression. Well, until the law force me to go unmasked (here, in Italy), I want the Muslims do the same. It exactly about "Equal protection under the law". And we have wonderful Carnivals here. >> 3) Preaching in mosques must be done in French (or the local >> language). Five year for anyone preaching in a different language. > > Interesting that "local language" is not defined. Would it be the > predominate language in a country, state/province, county/parish, > city/town, neighborhood or what? Where I live the closest > supermarket uses Spanish for announcements over the public address > system and the signs are in Spanish usually with English below in a > smaller font. And just a few miles a way is a market where > Vietnamese is predominate and in the other direction is a market with > a lot of Chinese language signs. So this idea of local language is > poorly defined. And let us not forget Latin, would the use of Latin > be outlawed? I seem to recall the Catholic Church uses it. Thus we > see that the proposal is poorly defined and essentially nonsensical. This is so only because you think he USoA are the world and your way is the way. In other countries, the "local language" is the language used in the official documents. Italian in Italy, French in France, English in UK, Russian in Russia and so on. Only the USA I suppose there is no defined standard about what language it is the standard one. >> 4) Anyone jailed for terrorism or helping and abetting or >> advocating violence will have his citizenship revoked and will be >> expelled after completing his term. > Do you really mean "advocating violence" as a general category? Not. In specific terms. Do you want a discussion in legalese? When a preacher exhort people to hit girls that don't wear a hijab he is advocating violence. This simple act put him (as I suppose, by default, he believe what he preach) in a "state of war" with any girl not wearing a hijab. When they say that they will not submit to the rule of kaffirs, they say that they are not bind to any rule in our regard apart Shaaria. When they advocate that they must rule themselves and must rule the others, they are telling that they must become the masters and we must become the slaves. This put them in a state of war with all free men in the world. They preach against democracy. What about when they teach to the parents to hit their children if they don't pray? When a preacher tell his audience that "the time is fast approaching where the table are going to turn and Muslims will be in position of being uppermost in strength and, when this happen, people will not get killed unjustly" what I must think? > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undercover_Mosque This is about a mosque that the government of Mr. Blair said was "moderate". > Abu Usamah saying of apostates: ?If the imam wants to crucify him he > should crucify him. The person is put up on the wood and he's left > there to bleed to death for three days.? > Abu Usamah speaking on the deficiency of women's minds: ?Allah has > created the woman, even if she gets a PhD, deficient. Her intellect > is incomplete, deficient. She may be suffering from hormones that > will make her emotional. It takes two witnesses of a woman to equal > the one witness of the man.?[4] > Abdullah el-Faisal: ?You have to bomb the Indian businesses, and as > for the Jews you kill them physically. > Dr Bilal Philips on marriage with girls before puberty: ?The prophet > Muhammad practically outlined the rules regarding marriage prior to > puberty. With his practice, he clarified what is permissible, and > that is why we shouldn't have any issues about an older man marrying > a younger woman, which is looked down upon by this society today, > but we know that Prophet Mohammed practised it, it wasn?t abuse or > exploitation, it was marriage. > Abu Usamah saying that homosexuals should be killed by throwing them > off a cliff, stating ?throw [the homosexual] off the mountain.?[6] My position is well explained in these essays about Islam citing Locke: http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2008/04/the-right-of-th.html http://wintersoldier2008.typepad.com/summer_patriot_winter_sol/2008/04/john-locke-on-t.html By worlds and deeds these Muslims are at war with all free humans, that the free humans understand it or not. And telling to be Muslims put people in a state of war against all free humans, that they understand it or not. Like to declare themselves Nazis put in a state of war with the Jews. Or, given the precedents and the words the Jews must wait and see what will happen really? A lamb that don't know or don't understand a lion is a walking snack. But, usually, the lamb will fear and loathe most the guarding dog that warn her and protect her than the lion that will eat her. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 13:36:13 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:36:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DD332A.50608@libero.it> Message-ID: <49DDF9CD.6040206@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 1.41, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > I advocate that critics of Islam create the infrastructure to wipe it > from the face of the earth. Since extreme violence didn't quite do the > trick so far, I propose that the people most worried create a > sinister kartel that exports hard core porn to the most fundamentalist > of Islamic countries. It will collapse the system from within within > a decade. This show how much you don't understand the human nature. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 14:06:41 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:06:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DE00F1.8020606@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 8.29, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about burkas? > > Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business > of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your > own business? In a libertarian world, I would not forced to deal with Muslims, not to pay their welfare by socialists politicians. So they could mask as much as they like. In a libertarian world, I and many other kafirs, would prevent any masked person in our properties, either Muslims or ninjas. As the public places are properties of the government (now), it can decide that people must be unmasked. Or must unmask at request of the police, or other. What is unacceptable is that I can not mask myself and they can mask themselves and the government close its eyes when this happen to avoid troubles (riots, violence, etc.). The same is true for many other laws. > Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you > care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer > to refer to this attitude by another name. I care the freedom to be able to prevent others to remove my freedom now and in the future. You think about freedom like a series of tenets and taboos; do this, don't do that and all be good; never mind the effects of your actions or inactions in the future. I think freedom like a tree that must be cared ad protected and preserved. And sometimes you need to strip away the ivy. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 14:11:54 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:11:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DE022A.205@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 10.04, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > That is one of the reasons why I never called myself a libertarian, > though I am one deep inside. > > There are two souls in modern libertarianism. One is a healthy > live-and-let-live soul, which believes in self-ownership and personal > freedom of everyone, and hates _all_ limits to liberty. It is not > "liberty, but..."., it is "liberty, period". The other is a fascist > soul which believes in the freedom of some to oppress and murder > others. I promise that I will call myself a libertarian when the > second soul will go. In between there is the people understanding that liberty must be equal for all and it is not some suicidal pact where we let an enemy to grow until it is powerful enough to destroy us. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 14:15:59 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:15:59 +1000 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/9 Eschatoon Magic : > I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about burkas? > > Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business > of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your > own business? > > Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you > care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer > to refer to this attitude by another name. It's freedom in the sense of the most authoritarian regime, which allows everyone to say and do anything they want, with the only restriction being that they don't say or do anything the regime doesn't like. -- Stathis Papaioannou From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Apr 9 14:32:28 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 09:32:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] APA - "Human Kinds" - Vancouver, April 2009 Message-ID: <14FDDBE162BB4333A02CD0FB283D3532@DFC68LF1> I will be speaking at the American Philosophical Association's "Human Kinds" symposium in Vancouver this weekend. Is anyone in Vancouver and available to have dinner or drinks with me? http://whatsortsofpeople.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/human-kinds-symposium-vanc ouver-april-11th/ http://www.apaonline.org/resources/CFP%27s/SIPR%20SESSION.aspx Please respond off list. Cheers - Natasha Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 14:57:18 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 16:57:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <49DE022A.205@libero.it> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> <49DE022A.205@libero.it> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904090757j459d34daxb10556a2333d3682@mail.gmail.com> In other words, you are saying that you want to be free to try to acquire power that you could use to damage others, but others should not be free to try to acquire power that they could use to damage you. Sounds easy, doesn't it? And it also sounds familiar. Call this attitude whatever you like it -- I call it fascism. On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 4:11 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 09/04/2009 10.04, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: >> >> That is one of the reasons why I never called myself a libertarian, >> though I am one deep inside. >> >> There are two souls in modern libertarianism. One is a healthy >> live-and-let-live soul, which believes in self-ownership and personal >> freedom of everyone, and hates _all_ limits to liberty. It is not >> "liberty, but..."., it is "liberty, period". The other is a fascist >> soul which believes in the freedom of some to oppress and murder >> others. I promise that I will call myself a libertarian when the >> second soul will go. > > In between there is the people understanding that liberty must be equal for > all and it is not some suicidal pact where we let an enemy to grow until it > is powerful enough to destroy us. > > Mirco > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 15:16:20 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:16:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239290180.5478.2034.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 09:27 +0200, Dagon Gmail wrote: > Even the best of libertarians intents are easily corrupted by > Xenophobia and Racism. If this is the case then we should be clear then whatever remains is not called libertarian. > 2009/4/9 Eschatoon Magic > I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap > about burkas? > > Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What > business > of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you > mind your > own business? > > Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense > that you > care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I > prefer > to refer to this attitude by another name. > > > On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: > > > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal > your face. Five > > years of jail for anyone doing it. > > -- > Eschatoon Magic > http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon > aka Giulio Prisco > http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco > _______________________________________________ > > > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > -- > I said NO SIGNATURE !!! > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 15:14:22 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:14:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239290062.5478.2031.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 08:29 +0200, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about burkas? > > Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business > of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your > own business? As I have pointed out previously painlord2k at libero.it is not a libertarian. Once everyone realizes that then some of the confusion will be removed. > Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you > care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer > to refer to this attitude by another name. > > > On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: > > > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. Five > > years of jail for anyone doing it. From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 15:26:18 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 08:26:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 10:04 +0200, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > That is one of the reasons why I never called myself a libertarian, > though I am one deep inside. > > There are two souls in modern libertarianism. One is a healthy > live-and-let-live soul, which believes in self-ownership and personal > freedom of everyone, and hates _all_ limits to liberty. It is not > "liberty, but..."., it is "liberty, period". The other is a fascist > soul which believes in the freedom of some to oppress and murder > others. I promise that I will call myself a libertarian when the > second soul will go. While I think I understand your concern I do disagree with your description. This "second soul" of which you speak has ever been, is not now and will never be libertarian. So the problem is not with libertarians it is with the impostors who use the term. What we have seen is an example of what I spend some effort to work against terms like "libertarian", "free-market", "Extropian" or "trans-humanist" being wrongly defined as including ideas which are not part of them and which are exactly the opposite of them. Thus I think it is worth some effort to make sure that the term "Extropian" is not associated with racism. Fred > 2009/4/9 Dagon Gmail : > > Even the best of libertarians intents are easily corrupted by Xenophobia and > > Racism. > > > > 2009/4/9 Eschatoon Magic > >> > >> I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about > >> burkas? > >> > >> Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business > >> of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your > >> own business? > >> > >> Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you > >> care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer > >> to refer to this attitude by another name. > >> > >> > >> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > >> wrote: > >> > >> > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. > >> > Five > >> > years of jail for anyone doing it. > >> -- > >> Eschatoon Magic > >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon > >> aka Giulio Prisco > >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco > >> _______________________________________________ > >> extropy-chat mailing list > >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > > -- > > I said NO SIGNATURE !!! > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > > > From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 15:32:45 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 17:32:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904090832u75575e38j758c980fc92084e0@mail.gmail.com> Fred - of course I agree that the "second soul" of which I speak has never been, is not now and will never be libertarian. Not to mention their unholy alliance with religious fundamentalists in the Bush era. But many of them call themselves libertarians, and real libertarians are not always ready to denounce them. On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 5:26 PM, Fred C. Moulton wrote: > > On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 10:04 +0200, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> That is one of the reasons why I never called myself a libertarian, >> though I am one deep inside. >> >> There are two souls in modern libertarianism. One is a healthy >> live-and-let-live soul, which believes in self-ownership and personal >> freedom of everyone, and hates _all_ limits to liberty. It is not >> "liberty, but..."., it is "liberty, period". The other is a fascist >> soul which believes in the freedom of some to oppress and murder >> others. I promise that I will call myself a libertarian when the >> second soul will go. > > While I think I understand your concern I do disagree with your > description. ?This "second soul" of which you speak has ever been, is > not now and will never be libertarian. ?So the problem is not with > libertarians it is with the impostors who use the term. > > What we have seen is an example of what I spend some effort to work > against terms like "libertarian", "free-market", "Extropian" or > "trans-humanist" being wrongly defined as including ideas which are not > part of them and which are exactly the opposite of them. ?Thus I think > it is worth some effort to make sure that the term "Extropian" is not > associated with racism. > > Fred > > >> 2009/4/9 Dagon Gmail : >> > Even the best of libertarians intents are easily corrupted by Xenophobia and >> > Racism. >> > >> > 2009/4/9 Eschatoon Magic >> >> >> >> I thought you were a libertarian, what is this stalinist crap about >> >> burkas? >> >> >> >> Aren't libertarian supposed to like individual freedom? What business >> >> of yours is if someone likes to wear a burka? Why don't you mind your >> >> own business? >> >> >> >> Ah yes, I see -- you call yourself a libertarian in the sense that you >> >> care about _your_ freedom to _remove_ the freedom of others. I prefer >> >> to refer to this attitude by another name. >> >> >> >> >> >> On Wed, Apr 8, 2009 at 5:40 PM, painlord2k at libero.it >> >> wrote: >> >> >> >> > 1) Complete ban on burkas, niqab and other ways to conceal your face. >> >> > Five >> >> > years of jail for anyone doing it. >> >> -- >> >> Eschatoon Magic >> >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon >> >> aka Giulio Prisco >> >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >> extropy-chat mailing list >> >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > >> > >> > >> > -- >> > I said NO SIGNATURE !!! >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > extropy-chat mailing list >> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > >> > >> >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From jonkc at bellsouth.net Thu Apr 9 16:07:53 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 12:07:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Where=92s_my_body=92s_Control_Panel=3F?= References: <710b78fc0904081911o3d381019y3028e1a6e01e218a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: "Emlyn" > Where?s my body?s Control Panel? Evolution didn?t deem to give us a control panel, probably because positive feedback loops have little survival value. However in the future there is no reason we couldn?t develop one. I image most of us would push the happiness slide switch on the control panel as far right as it will go, so too the ?pride in successfully accomplishing a difficult task? slide. I?m pretty sure those will be the most popular settings. It could also be the reason we don?t see ET. John K Clark From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 9 18:52:13 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:52:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? Message-ID: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some things that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review confirmed those doubts: http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ Any comments from those who have watched it? Max From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 18:46:27 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 11:46:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904090832u75575e38j758c980fc92084e0@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> <1fa8c3b90904090832u75575e38j758c980fc92084e0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239302787.5478.2111.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 17:32 +0200, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Fred - of course I agree that the "second soul" of which I speak has > never been, is not now and will never be libertarian. Not to mention > their unholy alliance with religious fundamentalists in the Bush era. > But many of them call themselves libertarians, and real libertarians > are not always ready to denounce them. Well I do what I can but there are a finite number of hours in a day. And thanks for noticing and correcting my typo. As for an "unholy alliance" with religious fundamentalists do you have names of groups or individuals? I am interested if you have the name of a group or individual with which I am not familiar. I just did not have the time to track them all. I suspect that it is due in part to living in the Silicon Valley that of the libertarians I know the overwhelming majority are non-believers. I can think of two (or maybe three) who identify as Christian and one who I think might identify as Jewish (but might be more of a Deist). I suspect my experience would be different if I lived elsewhere. I recently attended a book discussion group compromised of libertarians and the books under discussion where some recent books by authors such as Dawkins, Hitchens, etc. Of the regular attendees only one was a believer and that person had brought along a couple of friends who were also believers. You comments do raise a point worth mentioning. Not all Christian fundamentalists have a goal of political power. It was not too many decades ago that Christian fundamentalists tended to stay out of politics. Their involvement in politics started to increase in the 1970s. It is interesting to note that there are now some Christian fundamentalists who are bemoaning the involvement with politics since they think it stirred up a backlash against them. Fred From lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Apr 9 19:00:29 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 12:00:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: <20090405125255.GG35780@vt11.net> References: <5188B5384C5545D084A5514F42B050AB@MyComputer> <398dca510904041344v38c0703fi92b11c5ef18b431@mail.gmail.com> <20090405125255.GG35780@vt11.net> Message-ID: <49DE45CD.5030503@rawbw.com> Jordan Hazen wrote (4/5/2009 5:52 AM) > On Sat, Apr 04, 2009 at 04:44:31PM -0400, Isabelle Hakala wrote: >> One of the things that occurs to me about mind uploading is this... >> I would want to upload my mind, and let that 'simulation' run for, >> oh... say a decade, without any outside influences, and me still >> living in the outside world, and then compare notes with my uploaded >> self. > > Could you elaborate on "without any outside influences?" Hopefully > this doesn't mean keeping the upload isolated from the world? > > I'd think that such an extended period of sensory deprivation would be > extremely unhealthy, perhaps even a recipe for insanity-- at the > least, very stunted development-- Surely it would depend on what mood you were in while this was ongoing, e.g., moods can in theory be completely determined by drugs. Often after *some* kinds of extremely hectic days, *some* people would really like total sensory deprivation. In fact, sometimes when I'm trying to think clearly about some pure math problem, that would be great. So I conclude that the upload would have a variety of simulated dials appearing to overlay his apparent sensory input, and the one that says "volume" might be turned down clear to zero with utterly no harm---again, if mood control is provided by, say, some other knobs. Lee especially considering how much > longer a decade might seem to a mind running on faster hardware. > > After perhaps a few {minutes|hours|days} of introspection and reliving > memories, I'd be poking about desperately for a "hibernation mode" > toggle... > > If you mean only to avoid all contact between your biological and > uploaded selves, that may not be realistic either. If nothing else, > the upload would be tempted by curiosity to follow you around on the > 'net. > From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 19:26:56 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 12:26:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2ae60d770904091226g3272f039m1101320a6578e4ee@mail.gmail.com> I read the article and agree that is a road trip style documentary where he visits people in east coast America, central America, Amsterdam, Vatican city, Utah, Israel... He meets and talks about Mormons, Catholics, Scientologists, Fundies and Moderates. The impression I got was that he wanted people to be more reasonable. He encounters people who seem Zealous and crazy. I thought the movie was funny and not just in a 'ha ha, Christians are dumb! Look at the funny monkey!" but also because Bill is a comedian. He just puts his thoughts in funny sentences. Don't rent it though. You can see it for free online. -Chad -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefan.pernar at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 19:38:17 2009 From: stefan.pernar at gmail.com (Stefan Pernar) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 21:38:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <944947f20904091238i68412f5ck3b9a86769e3f1d8@mail.gmail.com> I watched most of it and it was typical religion bashing and thus highly unenlightening. I find the new atheists generally uninspiring and for the most part as irrational and dogmatic in their views as religious fundamentalists. Since I had a couple of ugly exchanges on this topic I will not engage in further debate. For anyone interested in my perspective you can find it at http://rationalmorality.info/?p=54 Stefan On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 8:52 PM, Max More wrote: > I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some things > that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review confirmed those > doubts: > http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ > > Any comments from those who have watched it? > > Max > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stefan Pernar Skype: Stefan.Pernar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 20:11:06 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 13:11:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1239307866.5478.2143.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 13:52 -0500, Max More wrote: > I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some > things that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review > confirmed those doubts: > http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ > > Any comments from those who have watched it? I saw the movie in a theater. There are parts of the movie that are very funny and some that are not. Some of the funniest parts are not when Bill Maher is making a joke but rather when Bill Maher lets people just be themselves. The scene in the office of the member of the US Congress is very funny and that scene alone was worth the price of admission to the theater. My recommendation is rent the movie and enjoy the funny parts; ignore the other parts. Just adjust expectations according; it is not a great movie, it is just an occasionally funny movie. By the way the movie "Letting Go of God" by Julia Sweeney is much, much funnier and much more insightful. Bill Maher is doing one thing and Julia Sweeney is doing a different thing. I enjoyed the Julia Sweeney movie more. As for the review by Brendan O'Neill. I was rather disappointed. It is not much of a review rather it is an article in which the O'Neill goes on about what he terms "new Atheists" and there are a few remarks thrown in about the movie. And the remarks about the movie seems to have missed the point. O'Neill seems to be at best only vaguely aware of what Bill Maher was trying to do. O'Neill goes on about the "new Atheists" (usually considered as Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and sometimes Stenger) yet only quotes Hitchens. And O'Neill goes on about how the humancentricity of religion and claims that this is what Dawkins, Dennett et al really hate about religion. Well to put it bluntly O'Neill does not know what he is talking about when it comes to religion. As for "new Atheists" one wonders if he has ever read Dawkins or Harris since he clearly does not understand them. My suggestion: Skip the review and see "Letting Go of God" and if that is not available see "Religulous". Just have the correct expectations. Fred > Max > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 21:30:16 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 14:30:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <1239307866.5478.2143.camel@hayek> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1239307866.5478.2143.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <2d6187670904091430r432c0130k56d868b784f3d39@mail.gmail.com> I have not yet seen Religulous (I definitely plan to...) but some critics have said Maher definitely "stacked the deck" in editing to generally only show religious people in his film who were not articulate and came across badly/comically. The focus was on humor and "sticking it to the religious believer," rather than having an even moderately intelligent/enlightened (which could still be funny) discussion. John On 4/9/09, Fred C. Moulton wrote: > > On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 13:52 -0500, Max More wrote: >> I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some >> things that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review >> confirmed those doubts: >> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ >> >> Any comments from those who have watched it? > > I saw the movie in a theater. There are parts of the movie that are > very funny and some that are not. Some of the funniest parts are not > when Bill Maher is making a joke but rather when Bill Maher lets people > just be themselves. The scene in the office of the member of the US > Congress is very funny and that scene alone was worth the price of > admission to the theater. > > My recommendation is rent the movie and enjoy the funny parts; ignore > the other parts. Just adjust expectations according; it is not a great > movie, it is just an occasionally funny movie. By the way the movie > "Letting Go of God" by Julia Sweeney is much, much funnier and much more > insightful. Bill Maher is doing one thing and Julia Sweeney is doing a > different thing. I enjoyed the Julia Sweeney movie more. > > As for the review by Brendan O'Neill. I was rather disappointed. It is > not much of a review rather it is an article in which the O'Neill goes > on about what he terms "new Atheists" and there are a few remarks thrown > in about the movie. And the remarks about the movie seems to have > missed the point. O'Neill seems to be at best only vaguely aware of > what Bill Maher was trying to do. O'Neill goes on about the "new > Atheists" (usually considered as Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and > sometimes Stenger) yet only quotes Hitchens. And O'Neill goes on about > how the humancentricity of religion and claims that this is what > Dawkins, Dennett et al really hate about religion. Well to put it > bluntly O'Neill does not know what he is talking about when it comes to > religion. As for "new Atheists" one wonders if he has ever read Dawkins > or Harris since he clearly does not understand them. > > My suggestion: Skip the review and see "Letting Go of God" and if that > is not available see "Religulous". Just have the correct expectations. > > Fred > >> Max >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 22:02:42 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:02:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904091430r432c0130k56d868b784f3d39@mail.gmail.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1239307866.5478.2143.camel@hayek> <2d6187670904091430r432c0130k56d868b784f3d39@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239314562.5478.2180.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 14:30 -0700, John Grigg wrote: > I have not yet seen Religulous (I definitely plan to...) but some > critics have said Maher definitely "stacked the deck" in editing to > generally only show religious people in his film who were not > articulate and came across badly/comically. As I have said previously these critics are missing the point about what the movie is about. It was never intended to be a rigorous intellectual exposition. Consider if you saw an advertisement of a movie called Mechaniculous. You see that the movie is done by Bill Maher and that it is about auto mechanics. You would likely expect that it would be filming some of the goofiest mechanics saying and doing silly things. Maher would probably make jokes about the auto mechanics. That is the kind of movie I would expect; I would not go to a Bill Maher movie about auto mechanics expecting a documentary analysis of the latest types of fuel injectors, the new types of training in these devices for auto mechanics and the special methods that auto mechanics use when dealing with them. Now it is possible to not enjoy the overall genre of the type of movie that Bill Maher makes; that is a personal aesthetic matter. But to criticize a Bill Maher comedy spoof by the standards of serious documentary makes the critic look like a clueless twit. Look at the difference between the movie "Religulous" which is a comedy spoof and the movie "Letting Go of God" which is an autobiographical comedy. Each deals with religion but are doing it is different ways and neither of them is intended as a documentary on comparative religion. So to criticize either one for not being a proper comparative religion documentary is either silly or stupid. Fred > The focus was on humor > and "sticking it to the religious believer," rather than having an > even moderately intelligent/enlightened (which could still be funny) > discussion. > > John > > On 4/9/09, Fred C. Moulton wrote: > > > > On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 13:52 -0500, Max More wrote: > >> I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some > >> things that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review > >> confirmed those doubts: > >> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ > >> > >> Any comments from those who have watched it? > > > > I saw the movie in a theater. There are parts of the movie that are > > very funny and some that are not. Some of the funniest parts are not > > when Bill Maher is making a joke but rather when Bill Maher lets people > > just be themselves. The scene in the office of the member of the US > > Congress is very funny and that scene alone was worth the price of > > admission to the theater. > > > > My recommendation is rent the movie and enjoy the funny parts; ignore > > the other parts. Just adjust expectations according; it is not a great > > movie, it is just an occasionally funny movie. By the way the movie > > "Letting Go of God" by Julia Sweeney is much, much funnier and much more > > insightful. Bill Maher is doing one thing and Julia Sweeney is doing a > > different thing. I enjoyed the Julia Sweeney movie more. > > > > As for the review by Brendan O'Neill. I was rather disappointed. It is > > not much of a review rather it is an article in which the O'Neill goes > > on about what he terms "new Atheists" and there are a few remarks thrown > > in about the movie. And the remarks about the movie seems to have > > missed the point. O'Neill seems to be at best only vaguely aware of > > what Bill Maher was trying to do. O'Neill goes on about the "new > > Atheists" (usually considered as Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens and > > sometimes Stenger) yet only quotes Hitchens. And O'Neill goes on about > > how the humancentricity of religion and claims that this is what > > Dawkins, Dennett et al really hate about religion. Well to put it > > bluntly O'Neill does not know what he is talking about when it comes to > > religion. As for "new Atheists" one wonders if he has ever read Dawkins > > or Harris since he clearly does not understand them. > > > > My suggestion: Skip the review and see "Letting Go of God" and if that > > is not available see "Religulous". Just have the correct expectations. > > > > Fred > > > >> Max > >> > >> _______________________________________________ > >> extropy-chat mailing list > >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From dagonweb at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 22:10:51 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:10:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: http://www.movies-on-demand.tv/movie/2385-Religulous_2008.html Its halfway between documentary and comedy act. Yet another piece of evidence movies have become too 'light' to go through all the effort of renting or going into town to see it. Its funny, but not half as funny as cartman laying down the law. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 22:43:29 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 15:43:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670904091543w7ff83aa3la6af46f85fe752ab@mail.gmail.com> Fred Moulton wrote: >So to criticize either one for not being a proper comparative religion >documentary is either silly or stupid. Maher presents himself enough in the "documentary mode" that he is deserving of criticism. He doesn't have to present things at the academic or going for the Oscar level to try to be at least somewhat balanced/fair. Dagon Gmail wrote: Its halfway between documentary and comedy act. Yet another piece of evidence movies have become too 'light' to go through all the effort of renting or going into town to see it. >> Thank you. John On 4/9/09, Dagon Gmail wrote: > http://www.movies-on-demand.tv/movie/2385-Religulous_2008.html > > Its halfway between documentary and comedy act. Yet another piece of > evidence movies have become too > 'light' to go through all the effort of renting or going into town to see > it. Its funny, but not half as funny as > cartman laying down the law. > From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 22:54:59 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:54:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904090757j459d34daxb10556a2333d3682@mail.gmail.com> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> <49DE022A.205@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904090757j459d34daxb10556a2333d3682@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DE7CC3.1050202@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 16.57, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > In other words, you are saying that you want to be free to try to > acquire power that you could use to damage others, but others should > not be free to try to acquire power that they could use to damage you. > Sounds easy, doesn't it? And it also sounds familiar. Call this > attitude whatever you like it -- I call it fascism. I'm not interested in dominating others. Believe it or not. Their religion, instead, is founded on the belief that they must convert, dominate or kill who that don't believe like them. The founder of Islam gave unequivocal example of this; his successors continued in the same path every time they had the power to do so. In the West and in the East. The faith is the same, their scholars believe in the same fundamental now as in the past. My suggestion is, as my arguments will fall on deaf ears, to go to web pages like: http://www.faithfreedom.org/ http://www.apostatesofislam.com http://www.answering-islam.org http://www.memri.org read about Islam and Muslims (mainly from ex-muslims - they know what they are writing about), then go to the forums and websites of mainstream Islam and look with your eyes what are the questions and what are the answers. Mirco From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 9 22:54:51 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 15:54:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904091543w7ff83aa3la6af46f85fe752ab@mail.gmail.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2d6187670904091543w7ff83aa3la6af46f85fe752ab@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1239317691.5478.2196.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-04-09 at 15:43 -0700, John Grigg wrote: > Fred Moulton wrote: > >So to criticize either one for not being a proper comparative religion > >documentary is either silly or stupid. > > Maher presents himself enough in the "documentary mode" that he is > deserving of criticism. He doesn't have to present things at the > academic or going for the Oscar level to try to be at least somewhat > balanced/fair. I interpreted all of what Maher was doing in the movie as part of the joke but if someone else wants to interpret differently I guess they can. But to me that is missing part of the joke in the movie. Fred > Dagon Gmail wrote: > Its halfway between documentary and comedy act. Yet another piece of > evidence movies have become too 'light' to go through all the effort > of renting or going into town to see it. > >> > > Thank you. > > John > > > On 4/9/09, Dagon Gmail wrote: > > http://www.movies-on-demand.tv/movie/2385-Religulous_2008.html > > > > Its halfway between documentary and comedy act. Yet another piece of > > evidence movies have become too > > 'light' to go through all the effort of renting or going into town to see > > it. Its funny, but not half as funny as > > cartman laying down the law. > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 9 23:18:48 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:18:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49DE8258.8020402@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 17.26, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > What we have seen is an example of what I spend some effort to work > against terms like "libertarian", "free-market", "Extropian" or > "trans-humanist" being wrongly defined as including ideas which are not > part of them and which are exactly the opposite of them. Thus I think > it is worth some effort to make sure that the term "Extropian" is not > associated with racism. Could you explain me why being anti-Islamic is racist and anti-Christians is not? Could you explain me what are the racial traits of Muslims? When Islam become a race? Is it Islam biological? Is it inherited with the nuclear DNA or with the mitochondrial DNA? For me a blond Muslim is the same as a black Muslim, a yellow Muslim or a Martian one. That you cry "racism" is a demonstration that your position is ideological. You have no real criticism to raise, so you fall back and use a straw man. Racist, fascist, child-molester, what else? Knee-jerk reactions. No one asked "why do you believe this?" That you are afraid to ask or didn't think to ask is telling, for sure. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Apr 9 23:37:29 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 16:37:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype Message-ID: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> I thought this would be timely considering all the arguments lately about this subject... http://www.buzzle.com/articles/muslim-threat-to-europe-dont-buy-all-the-hype.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 00:12:05 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 02:12:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What the France!? In-Reply-To: <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> References: <562660.43191.qm@web27003.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> <49DCC583.5090300@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904082329o23a7467eyf8d3ba4cb636b96f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904090104r3ded652dob3c92c7742a33ce5@mail.gmail.com> <1239290778.5478.2045.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <580930c20904091712v7dfa378al8284dc92a23f8051@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 5:26 PM, Fred C. Moulton wrote: > Thus I think > it is worth some effort to make sure that the term "Extropian" is not > associated with racism. While I am far from sharing anti-islamic fundamentalism, I find the implication that it is "racist" and that Islam is thus a race... pretty racist itself. In fact, Islam today involves a broader diversity of racial types than the "American way of life". A pinch of perspective going beyond the Great Split between who is a true WASP and the rest of the world would perhaps be in order. -- Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Apr 10 02:37:47 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 09 Apr 2009 21:37:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <1239317691.5478.2196.camel@hayek> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2d6187670904091543w7ff83aa3la6af46f85fe752ab@mail.gmail.com> <1239317691.5478.2196.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090409212619.022eefa0@satx.rr.com> At 03:54 PM 4/9/2009 -0700, Fred wrote: >I interpreted all of what Maher was doing in the movie as part of the >joke but if someone else wants to interpret differently I guess they >can. But to me that is missing part of the joke in the movie. I just watched it at http://megavideo.com/?v=7viu43yz and it's a joke only in the blackest, grimmest way, a joke with a very serious uncompromising message embedded in it (which is presented too apocalyptically, maybe, but I agree with almost everything he says). The humor is all of the form, "Adults *said* that? They *did* that? Wtf??!!" So yes, he's emphasizing what's egregiously ridiculous and dangerous in "faith" rather than what's sweet and consoling and kindly, and some of his more bizarre spokescritters for faith are extremists not typical of the average churchgoer--but what I think he shows very effectively is how *entangled and complicit* the "nice" people are in the crazy, ludicrous, brain-stopping, dangerous bullshit. Of course, given some of the crazy, dangerous bullshit we've seen on the ExI chat list recently, this human failing is not restricted to those deluded by religions. But I'd guess the proportion of loons is lower here. I hope. Damien Broderick From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 06:42:52 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 16:12:52 +0930 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090409212619.022eefa0@satx.rr.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2d6187670904091543w7ff83aa3la6af46f85fe752ab@mail.gmail.com> <1239317691.5478.2196.camel@hayek> <7.0.1.0.2.20090409212619.022eefa0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0904092342o496b2947oaf9871edf66d3d1c@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/10 Damien Broderick : > At 03:54 PM 4/9/2009 -0700, Fred wrote: > >> I interpreted all of what Maher was doing in the movie as part of the >> joke but if someone else wants to interpret differently I guess they >> can. ?But to me that is missing part of the joke in the movie. > > I just watched it at http://megavideo.com/?v=7viu43yz and it's a joke only > in the blackest, grimmest way, a joke with a very serious uncompromising > message embedded in it (which is presented too apocalyptically, maybe, but I > agree with almost everything he says). The humor is all of the form, "Adults > *said* that? They *did* that? Wtf??!!" So yes, he's emphasizing what's > egregiously ridiculous and dangerous in "faith" rather than what's sweet and > consoling and kindly, and some of his more bizarre spokescritters for faith > are extremists not typical of the average churchgoer--but what I think he > shows very effectively is how *entangled and complicit* the "nice" people > are in the crazy, ludicrous, brain-stopping, dangerous bullshit. > > Of course, given some of the crazy, dangerous bullshit we've seen on the ExI > chat list recently, this human failing is not restricted to those deluded by > religions. But I'd guess the proportion of loons is lower here. I hope. > > Damien Broderick I just watched it online too. It's funny, well worth watching. It feels unbalanced, but I think that might be because we are accustomed to giving religion a "fair go". In fact, religion is ridiculous on its face, and it's very hard to criticize it without going nuclear, and without sounding like you are being mean. It reminds me of the kinds of annoying people you can find in your life, who give the impression of being incredibly emotionally fragile so you feel obligated to not ruffle their feathers, and who proceed to egregiously miss social hints and cues; you know, the energy vampires. They are subtle defectors in the iterated prisoner's dilemma of social life. Religion seems to me to make use of the same tactic; put up something so wacky, that people who want in have to give up their rational tools to successfully join, and people who don't want in can't criticize without appearing extremely rude. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From stefan.pernar at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 06:51:38 2009 From: stefan.pernar at gmail.com (Stefan Pernar) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:51:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <944947f20904091238i68412f5ck3b9a86769e3f1d8@mail.gmail.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <944947f20904091238i68412f5ck3b9a86769e3f1d8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <944947f20904092351p62638eb2qeb9cdad086f3bfd7@mail.gmail.com> Hey again, This is something that I would call enlightening when it comes to religion: http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/03132009/watch.html Fairly recent too :-) Highly recommend to check it out. Cheers, Stefan On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 9:38 PM, Stefan Pernar wrote: > I watched most of it and it was typical religion bashing and thus highly > unenlightening. I find the new atheists generally uninspiring and for the > most part as irrational and dogmatic in their views as religious > fundamentalists. Since I had a couple of ugly exchanges on this topic I will > not engage in further debate. For anyone interested in my perspective you > can find it at http://rationalmorality.info/?p=54 > > Stefan > > On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 8:52 PM, Max More wrote: > >> I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some things >> that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review confirmed those >> doubts: >> http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ >> >> Any comments from those who have watched it? >> >> Max >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > > -- > Stefan Pernar > Skype: Stefan.Pernar > -- Stefan Pernar Skype: Stefan.Pernar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 08:47:22 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 10:47:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Careful there, before you know it you will be branded a coward, a sell-out, a denier, a hippie, a traitor, ahmenidaddinadinajad fan, an appeaser, "most likely to be gay", raglover, dhimmi, a liberal or a communist. This is a contentious issue - the fanaticism of the small 1% of schizo-muslims is only matched in zeal and numbers by the xenophobia of their detractors. 2009/4/10 John Grigg > I thought this would be timely considering all the arguments lately about > this subject... > > > http://www.buzzle.com/articles/muslim-threat-to-europe-dont-buy-all-the-hype.html > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 09:01:20 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:01:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> And let's not forget that we Xians have done the same atrocities, and worse, than every other culture. Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in warfare? Yeah, right. 2009/4/10 Dagon Gmail : > Careful there, before you know it you will be branded a coward, a sell-out, > a denier, a > hippie, a traitor, ahmenidaddinadinajad fan, an appeaser, "most likely to be > gay", raglover, > dhimmi, a liberal or a communist. > > This is a contentious issue - the fanaticism of the small 1% of > schizo-muslims is only > matched in zeal and numbers by the xenophobia of their detractors. > > 2009/4/10 John Grigg >> >> I thought this would be timely considering all the arguments lately about >> this subject... >> >> >> http://www.buzzle.com/articles/muslim-threat-to-europe-dont-buy-all-the-hype.html >> > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 09:09:54 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 11:09:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Dutch TV show exonerates Osama bin Laden 'Devil's Advocate' jury finds no proof he was behind Sept. 11 By Scott Roxborough April 9, 2009, 12:37 PM ET BERLIN -- A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of the Sept. 11 attacks. In the conclusion Wednesday night to the show "Devil's Advocate" on Dutch public broadcaster Nederland 2, the jury of two men and three women, along with the studio audience, ruled there was no proof bin Laden was the mastermind behind the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in 2001. The Netherlands, home to "Big Brother" creator Endemol, is known for being on the cutting edge of format-based television. But even for Dutch standards, "Devil's Advocate," from Amsterdam production house AVRO, pushes the envelope. The show features star defense attorney Gerard Spong standing up for some of the world's worst criminals. * In the latest show, Spong was able to convince the jury that bin Laden's connection to Sept. 11 was a product of "Western propaganda."* The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network al-Qaida. However, the jury did rule that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has misused Islam." The show is certain to provide further ammunition in the already heated Dutch debate over immigration and the country's large Muslim minority. The Netherlands saw a sharp rise in anti-immigration and anti-Islamic sentiment after the 2004 murder of Dutch director Theo Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist. Spong has been at the center of the debate, supporting legal action against anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 10:38:29 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:38:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in warfare? > > Yeah, right. As in throwing carcasses and other biological stuff which were infected by plague beyond castle walls and in the wells of the enemy during the crusades for the greater glory of God? :-) -- Stefano Vaj From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 10:42:43 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:42:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZ7mn4q56FU On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Eschatoon Magic > wrote: > > Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in > warfare? > > > > Yeah, right. > > As in throwing carcasses and other biological stuff which were > infected by plague beyond castle walls and in the wells of the enemy > during the crusades for the greater glory of God? :-) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 10:50:28 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:50:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904100350m2780ec8ak415129b5daa99ce7@mail.gmail.com> Yes, like that. Another illuminating example of the compassionate nature of the Western civilization is provided by heroic pioneers giving free blankets to protect poor native americans from the harsh winter. The same blankets that had covered smallpox victims... On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in warfare? >> >> Yeah, right. > > As in throwing carcasses and other biological stuff which were > infected by plague beyond castle walls and in the wells of the enemy > during the crusades for the greater glory of God? :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 10:58:21 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:58:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904100358s72568051tb922ac32f21a43c3@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/10 Dagon Gmail : > Careful there, before you know it you will be branded a coward, a sell-out, > a denier, a > hippie, a traitor, ahmenidaddinadinajad fan, an appeaser, "most likely to be > gay", raglover, > dhimmi, a liberal or a communist. This may be a position distinctly unpopular with both sides of this debate, but what about desisting from the idea that somebody has a claim to Objective Superiority, Eternal Truth and the Really Good Values, and let everybody regulated oneself as they like best - including by defining borders to the concept of "people" in the words "popular sovereignty"? It must be stressed that immigration was to a large extent generated by the forced westernisation of the originating countries, at a legal, social, economic and cultural level. On the other hand, those obsessed with the "human, universal rights" of the members of other cultures, countries and communities should consider that were one-worldism really to take over, and should, say, radical Muslims become a majority in western countries, this would inevitably reduce or eliminate the ability of individuals really at odd with their own cultural norms to seek refuge abroad and... to emigrate there. :-) In addition, as mentioned a number of times, a plural world - which involves a certain degree of continued international diversity - gives transhumanism its best chance, owing to its preventing the establishment of worldwide prohibitionist policies, and the pressure that competition amongst different models and ways of life may exert against neoluddite and other unpleasant options. Thus, I think "multiculturalism" means refusing both crusades aimed at aligning other places to our own values and preferences and legal systems (when not simply to our... interests), *and* the practical imposition of those of somebody else on ourselves owing to the sheer force of number. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 11:10:31 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:10:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF2927.9080900@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 12.38, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Eschatoon > Magic wrote: >> Question: do you know which culture started using biological >> weapons in warfare? >> >> Yeah, right. > > As in throwing carcasses and other biological stuff which were > infected by plague beyond castle walls and in the wells of the enemy > during the crusades for the greater glory of God? :-) Romans did it first. And this is only the first recorded. > The first recorded use of biological agents was by the Romans, using > dead animals to foul the water supply of their enemies. This had the > dual effects of decreasing enemy numbers and lowering morale. The > idea behind this kind of attack is that a weakened enemy is an easily > defeated enemy. The Tartars had the idea of infecting the enemy by > catapulting bodies infected with bubonic plague over the walls of the > city of Kaffa. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 11:18:38 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:18:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 11.01, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > And let's not forget that we Xians have done the same atrocities, and > worse, than every other culture. > Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in warfare? The obvious reflex to badmouth Christianity or the Europeans when having no arguments to defend Islam. Knee-jerk reaction? But, say, what do you want prove? Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 12:11:48 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:11:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 11.09, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > BERLIN -- A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of > the Sept. 11 attacks. Next time they could do a show with a TV jury and find that the showers, at Auschwitz, were simply showers and no one died there apart for old age. I would call it "An inconvenient truth", that bin Laden take responsibility in 2004 of the attacks: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html http://www.metacafe.com/watch/393559/osama_bin_laden_broadcast_on_al_jazeera_on_october_29_2004/ That you, like many other, need to prove the reality using a fiction is telling so much. The funny part is that Islamists think people like you are from the western conspiracies that want hide the facts to discredit them in front of the other Muslims. > In the latest show, Spong was able to convince the jury that bin > Laden's connection to Sept. 11 was a product of "Western > propaganda."* The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to > prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network al-Qaida. > However, the jury did rule that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has > misused Islam." I'm sure Spong could convince a jury that Snow-white and the Seven Dwarves did it, it all depend on the composition of the jury (and how much it was paid). But for sure, bin Laden "misused" Islam, but don't "misunderstood" Islam. > The show is certain to provide further ammunition in the already > heated Dutch debate over immigration and the country's large Muslim > minority. The Netherlands saw a sharp rise in anti-immigration and > anti-Islamic sentiment after the 2004 murder of Dutch director Theo > Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist. And Pym Fortuin by a Green activist, for his political stance against Islam and immigration. And the fact that Ayan Irsi Ali need to be always protected from the Police, like Geert Wilders and many others. How many Muslims are protected by the police in fear of violent retaliations by white westerns? > Spong has been at the center of the debate, supporting legal action > against anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders. I'm sure he never supported legal actions against the Muslim preachers advocating shaaria. Not so glamorous and too dangerous. At scum like him I prefer people like Souad Sbai (a Moroccan female Muslim elected by the party of Berlusconi) http://www.souadsbai.com/ She said: > Italians are racists? No, but be careful not to step on their toes. > The Italian left has destroyed the country > "If a Pakistani intends to impose on another nation his legal system, > not only can never be the integration but the interpersonal > relationship takes so much negative connotations, that will destroy > the local system" > "Arranged for buses to reach the places of the demonstrations have > not been filled, even partially, by men or women of the left, thus > demonstrating that the liberality of thought does not belong to that > part of politics that opens the borders indiscriminately." If all Muslims were like her I would have not a problem with Islam. Unfortunately it is not so. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 12:42:39 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:42:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904100542q1d1ac8eeud10ef1e5b514dfb8@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 2:11 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > I would call it "An inconvenient truth", that bin Laden take > responsibility in 2004 of the attacks: > http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html Sure. And he may heartily approve the attack, even though it is uncertain whether it actually contributed to any extent to the success of the "Islamist" cause - that is, besides the fact that its attribution to Al-Qaeda was a major PR coup for said organisation in that camp. But in, say, a criminal trial, it is not enough that somebody who has an interest in taking responsibility for a fact - e.g., a serial killer craving media attention - "confesses". He or she must also offer evidence that they knew beforehand, or that they are aware of details which have never been made public and which they would have had no other way to learn. Now, it is at least very unclear to me whether such circumstances have been proved or not with regard to the 11/9 attack. And when both parties are quite happy with the official version, one wonders whether its actual "inaccurateness" would really change a thing as to what the public is led to believe... -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 12:45:17 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:45:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF3F5D.7020903@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 1.37, John Grigg ha scritto: > I thought this would be timely considering all the arguments lately > about this subject... > > http://www.buzzle.com/articles/muslim-threat-to-europe-dont-buy-all-the-hype.html I > > agree with the second part of this statement: > While I don't think the solution lies in evoking the reactionary > forces of 'Christendom', I do think that secular values need to > become more militant when it comes to addressing the nefarious > aspects of extremist religious ideology. Unfortunately it is not so. > Tolerance though needs to co-exist with tough law and order measures > in an effort to combat domestic terrorism. For now I only see tolerance of crime and evil and ineffectual law and order measures. This only give the extremist space and time to growth larger and more dangerous. > This task is made a lot easier when there is a level of trust, and > that can only be engendered by exercising tolerance. Unfortunately > multiculturalism has tended to emphasis the separateness of > communities, and has made mutual understanding more difficult to > achieve. So sad so true. > Terror threats are very real. European multiculturalism in its > present form I believe facilitates these threats because of the above > mentioned gulf it has created between communities. Yes, these dangers > exist, but alarmist talk that Europe is about to fall under the > thrall of Islam is badly overblown and frankly I'm surprised that > professor Lewis has climbed onto that particular bandwagon. A simple > look at current demographics tells you that it's not imminent. > Moreover, if cultural and religious wars break out down the road, > they will be fought at the ballot box and on the media. In the case > of terrorist acts by the few, European nations aren?t exactly sitting > ducks waiting to keel over. They have robust legal systems and well > managed police services. Talk of impending doom and a Muslim > ?takeover? grossly underestimates the resourcefulness and character > of peoples that survived the Nazi era and before that WW1. They > aren?t exactly pushovers. And this is what I fear will happen if nothing is done before and not after the confrontations will start. And, just now, nothing serious is done. The police and the secret services are good at stopping terror plots, but before or after someone of the Islamic terrorist will be lucky, or they will be too much to control and stop all of them before they act. But this reduce the awareness of the problem in the general population, so the politicians are more interested in solving some shorter term problems than to prevent the bigger problems down the road. As one of them tell (in private) at an earthquake prevention meeting "I have problems to pay for the drugs used, the salary of the workers, I have no money or time for fixing the hospitals of my regions so they will be earthquakes resistant". Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 13:12:07 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:12:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904100612p7893e1daxf79d6e908d013769@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 1:18 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > The obvious reflex to badmouth Christianity or the Europeans when having no > arguments to defend Islam. Knee-jerk reaction? I openly deplore Islamic colonisation and "repopulaton" of European countries - as, btw, I would deplore such a colonisation by Chinese, Martians or Australian Aboriginal people -; I do not think in the least that for expressing your willingness to oppose it you should be banned from the society of civilised people; and I believe that existing European citizens should have a say about those with whom they are going to share their future and how they want to live, rather than seeing PC choices imposed on them in contempt of any democratic and self-determination process. On the other hand, I am treated by a Web site you cooperate with as a "no-global fascist" because I defend, inter alia, muslims' freedom to protect their identity and sovereignty (and, btw, access to technology!) face to the imposition of western interests, views, customs and legal systems - and sometimes military occupation. Most of current political regimes of the middle east would be wiped from the map in a matter of months were the continued western support be withdrawn. How can we expect their subjects, be they muslim or not, to react to their current situation? Somebody is scandalised by your idea of deporting French Muslims. Shouldn't we say that "deportation" is a word that describes well the predicament of middle east youth without a future as well as oppressed and exploited by those neocolonialistic, medieval (see the Emirates), and corrupted regimes, thus forced to relocate themselves in western countries where they are at least told, by immigrationist propaganda, to stand a chance of a better standard of living according to the values we proposed them to be "universal and exclusive"? Thus, I think that anybody concerned with the protection of what one may cherish of our own political and other traditions should in the first place stop promoting any idea of globalist jihads against anybody who may wish to do the same with their own. -- Stefano Vaj From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 16:27:06 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 18:27:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> Message-ID: Great. So Mirco is not ony "post"-democratic, "post"-judicial, he now makes a spectacle of being "post"-evidence. Charming. There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a medicable condition. 2009/4/10 painlord2k at libero.it > Il 10/04/2009 11.09, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > > BERLIN -- A Dutch TV jury has found Osama bin Laden not guilty of >> the Sept. 11 attacks. >> > > Next time they could do a show with a TV jury and find that the showers, > at Auschwitz, were simply showers and no one died there apart for old age. > > I would call it "An inconvenient truth", that bin Laden take > responsibility in 2004 of the attacks: > http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html > > > http://www.metacafe.com/watch/393559/osama_bin_laden_broadcast_on_al_jazeera_on_october_29_2004/ > > That you, like many other, need to prove the reality using a fiction is > telling so much. > > The funny part is that Islamists think people like you are from the > western conspiracies that want hide the facts to discredit them in front > of the other Muslims. > > In the latest show, Spong was able to convince the jury that bin >> Laden's connection to Sept. 11 was a product of "Western >> propaganda."* The jury also ruled there was insufficient evidence to >> prove bin Laden was the real head of terrorist network al-Qaida. >> However, the jury did rule that bin Laden is a "terrorist who has >> misused Islam." >> > > I'm sure Spong could convince a jury that Snow-white and the Seven > Dwarves did it, it all depend on the composition of the jury (and how > much it was paid). > > But for sure, bin Laden "misused" Islam, but don't "misunderstood" Islam. > > The show is certain to provide further ammunition in the already >> heated Dutch debate over immigration and the country's large Muslim >> minority. The Netherlands saw a sharp rise in anti-immigration and >> anti-Islamic sentiment after the 2004 murder of Dutch director Theo >> Van Gogh by a Muslim extremist. >> > > And Pym Fortuin by a Green activist, for his political stance against > Islam and immigration. And the fact that Ayan Irsi Ali need to be always > protected from the Police, like Geert Wilders and many others. > How many Muslims are protected by the police in fear of violent > retaliations by white westerns? > > Spong has been at the center of the debate, supporting legal action >> against anti-immigrant politician Geert Wilders. >> > > I'm sure he never supported legal actions against the Muslim preachers > advocating shaaria. Not so glamorous and too dangerous. > > At scum like him I prefer people like Souad Sbai (a Moroccan female Muslim > elected by the party of Berlusconi) > http://www.souadsbai.com/ > She said: > > Italians are racists? No, but be careful not to step on their toes. >> The Italian left has destroyed the country >> > > "If a Pakistani intends to impose on another nation his legal system, >> not only can never be the integration but the interpersonal >> relationship takes so much negative connotations, that will destroy >> the local system" >> > > "Arranged for buses to reach the places of the demonstrations have >> not been filled, even partially, by men or women of the left, thus >> demonstrating that the liberality of thought does not belong to that >> part of politics that opens the borders indiscriminately." >> > > If all Muslims were like her I would have not a problem with Islam. > Unfortunately it is not so. > > Mirco > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- I said NO SIGNATURE !!! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From benboc at lineone.net Fri Apr 10 16:21:28 2009 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:21:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Mind Uploading article in Wikipedia In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49DF7208.1020302@lineone.net> I want to thank John K Clark for the belly-laugh provoked by this post: >I want to thank Giulio Prisco, I did not know Wikipedia had an article on >mind uploading. The article is actually quite good, and it says two things >that I've been saying for well over a decade. First it says: > >[Mind Uploading] "denies the vitalist view of human life and consciousness." > >But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the >vitalist view. > >It then says: > >"The prospect of uploading human consciousness in this manner raises many >philosophical questions involving identity, individuality and the soul." > >But of course nearly everyone, even most people on this list believe in the >soul. > > John K Clark but when he says: >I don't want to insult people by saying that they are too cowardly to follow >an idea as far as it will go regardless of whatever strange destination it >leads to, so I can only conclude that most on this list disagree with my >basic premise and believe in the ideas behind vitalism and the soul, even if >they don't like the particular words very much. > >And it's not just Extropians, my premise is too shocking for Shock Level >Four also. Sorry if I sound a bit cranky, but that's the way I see it. and >If you could find no reason not to walk into a chamber that will make a copy >of your body and then instantly destroy the original then you are one of the >very very few that agree with me. Perhaps there are more, but they sure >haven't spoken up much in the last 15 years. I feel impelled to say: Don't be downhearted John! There are at least some other people here who definitely /don't/ believe in a supernatural (or crypto-supernatural) soul. I even know of at least one person entirely outside of the usual transhumanist circles who naturally assumes that they are 'just information', and see no philosphical problems in uploading. I think that, although we seem to be evolved to be predisposed to believe in supernatural explanations, there's a quietly growing minority of people who could be called 'real' materialists. Like American Atheists, there may be a lot more of them than anybody suspects. Ben Zaiboc From jonkc at bellsouth.net Fri Apr 10 17:11:15 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:11:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous?. References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: "Max More" >I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some things >that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review confirmed those >doubts: > http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ I highly recommend the documentary Religulous, I saw it in a theater and then bought the DVD. You're unlikely to learn anything new from it but it's one of the funniest movies I've seen in a long time. And it managed to do it while maintaining a fair and balanced approach; it treated religion with all the respect it deserves. None of the criticisms of the movie in that link you supplied made much sense to me. Rent it Max, you will laugh! John K Clark From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 17:14:39 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:14:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <580930c20904100542q1d1ac8eeud10ef1e5b514dfb8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <580930c20904100542q1d1ac8eeud10ef1e5b514dfb8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF7E7F.4010009@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 14.42, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 2:11 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> I would call it "An inconvenient truth", that bin Laden take >> responsibility in 2004 of the attacks: >> http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2004/10/29/binladen_message041029.html > > Sure. And he may heartily approve the attack, even though it is > uncertain whether it actually contributed to any extent to the success > of the "Islamist" cause - that is, besides the fact that its > attribution to Al-Qaeda was a major PR coup for said organisation in > that camp. He taken responsibility for the attacks at Dar el Salaam and Nairobi in Africa against the USA embassy and the attacks at the U.S. Cole; I remember that President Clinton launched attacks against Sudan and Afghanistan to retaliate. > But in, say, a criminal trial, it is not enough that somebody who has > an interest in taking responsibility for a fact - e.g., a serial > killer craving media attention - "confesses". He or she must also > offer evidence that they knew beforehand, or that they are aware of > details which have never been made public and which they would have > had no other way to learn. He gave orders, someone followed the orders. This is enough to give and take responsibility for the attacks. And as the military commander of al-Qaeda is his right and duty to take responsibility for what his men did. The problem is that it is out of fashion to declare a war against someone for a war act. Government like to act with an UN mandate, for "international police actions", "peacekeeping", "peace-enforcing". So they use the courts of criminal justice to try people that don't belong there. They are warrior; soldier of an unjust cause, not criminals. They belong to a war concentration camp for prisoners of war (as illegal combatants), not to a jail. > Now, it is at least very unclear to me whether such circumstances have > been proved or not with regard to the 11/9 attack. Well, with this standard I suppose that Hitler and Stalin would be acquitted and Pol Pot too. International affairs are a messy thing, more when terrorism and secret services are involved. So we do with the few informations we have and not with the many we have not. > And when both parties are quite happy with the official version, one > wonders whether its actual "inaccurateness" would really change a > thing as to what the public is led to believe... Given the number of jihadi killed in the last years (al Qaeda only) I wonder what they would had done if not urged to combat the US in Afghanistan and Iraq. What do you do with training camps for guerilla and terrorism for 1.000's of men in Afghanistan and 20.000 trained men? Harvest daisies? Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 17:16:32 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:16:32 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> Message-ID: <49DF7EF0.2060404@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 18.27, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > Great. So Mirco is not ony "post"-democratic, "post"-judicial, he > now makes a spectacle of being "post"-evidence. Charming. > There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a > medicable condition. You diagnosed yourself correctly, so I urge you to follow the advice of your psychiatrist and take the pills. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 17:44:25 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:44:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904101044o60bf5089xa4cd80fcd6f36b07@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Apr 9, 2009 at 8:52 PM, Max More wrote: > I had been wondering whether to rent Religulous, having read some things > that made me doubt it would be worthwhile. This review confirmed those > doubts: > http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/earticle/6447/ I have not seen this film yet, but the review gave me pause regarding some ideological details of the New Atheism, a current for which I have a soft spot myself. In particular, I could not care less about the concerns of Brendan O?Neill on whether new atheists are really "humanists" or not - in fact, anthropocentrism is something that must overcome even more quickly than man itself -; but I found somewhat disquieting the author's allusions to a profoundly "anti-sublime", anti-promethean, not to mention "millenialist", spirit which would pervade at least in part New Atheism's mentality, a few echos of which I easily find in authors such as Hitchens. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 17:56:24 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:56:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <49DF7E7F.4010009@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <580930c20904100542q1d1ac8eeud10ef1e5b514dfb8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF7E7F.4010009@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904101056i411b83f4pe7db314072a52292@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 7:14 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > He gave orders, someone followed the orders. This is enough to give and take > responsibility for the attacks. Let us say that you are the head of Al-Qaeda, mounting a kind of crusade against the US and trying to get at head of it. You learn from TV that you are credited to an attack on the metropolitan territory of the same US of A, and of having achieved what neither Mexican, nor German nor Japanese nor Soviet armies could ever achieve. Wouldn't you rush telling the world and its dog "Yes, sure, it's me, I am in fact the greatest terrorist (that is, jihadist) mastermind of history", even if you had not the foggiest idea of how it happened? >> And when both parties are quite happy with the official version, one >> wonders whether its actual "inaccurateness" would really change a >> thing as to what the public is led to believe... > > Given the number of jihadi killed in the last years (al Qaeda only) I wonder > what they would had done if not urged to combat the US in Afghanistan and > Iraq. What do you do with training camps for guerilla and terrorism for > 1.000's of men in Afghanistan and 20.000 trained men? > Harvest daisies? No, you misunderstand me. What I am saying is that sometimes you have converging interests with your "worst enemies": e.g., bin Laden for sure appreciated the opportunity to become a kind of mythical figure and a world-class political and military figure, as much as the Bush administration the opportunity to have somebody specifically to point to with regard to what happened. This may well have galvanised the combatants on *both* side. Please note that I am not moralising on that one. For instance, I am a staunch supporter of the idea that transhumanists and the most rabid bioluddites have at least in common a short-term shared interest in seeing a higher attention by the public opinion on the issue of a possible posthuman change... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 17:56:29 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 19:56:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <580930c20904100612p7893e1daxf79d6e908d013769@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <580930c20904100612p7893e1daxf79d6e908d013769@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF884D.6080304@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 15.12, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 1:18 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> The obvious reflex to badmouth Christianity or the Europeans when having no >> arguments to defend Islam. Knee-jerk reaction? > > I openly deplore Islamic colonisation and "repopulaton" of European > countries - as, btw, I would deplore such a colonisation by Chinese, > Martians or Australian Aboriginal people -; I do not think in the > least that for expressing your willingness to oppose it you should be > banned from the society of civilised people; and I believe that > existing European citizens should have a say about those with whom > they are going to share their future and how they want to live, rather > than seeing PC choices imposed on them in contempt of any democratic > and self-determination process. The current EU architecture is a bureaucracy feast. They have powers that are not delegated to them by the people in a clear and reasonable manner. They take it slice by slice, the EU population be damned if oppose to them. > On the other hand, I am treated by a Web site you cooperate with as a > "no-global fascist" because I defend, inter alia, muslims' freedom to > protect their identity and sovereignty (and, btw, access to > technology!) face to the imposition of western interests, views, > customs and legal systems - and sometimes military occupation. Well, I'm not out of AIT because of you, albeit I don't agree with you on a few political points. I'm out because I (like others) am unwilling to cooperate to the international socialist agenda of Campa and his unending string of "synthesis". > Most of current political regimes of the middle east would be wiped > from the map in a matter of months were the continued western support > be withdrawn. How can we expect their subjects, be they muslim or not, > to react to their current situation? I don't know, but I don't know how we could withdraw or support if we continue to buy oil. International politics is messy and dirty, for sure. And the isolationists are simply putting their head under the sand. > Somebody is scandalised by your idea of deporting French Muslims. > Shouldn't we say that "deportation" is a word that describes well the > predicament of middle east youth without a future as well as oppressed > and exploited by those neocolonialistic, medieval (see the Emirates), > and corrupted regimes, thus forced to relocate themselves in western > countries where they are at least told, by immigrationist propaganda, > to stand a chance of a better standard of living according to the > values we proposed them to be "universal and exclusive"? The problem is the "immigrationists" don't propose any value to the immigrants as precondition. This is the main problem. The problem with these feudal places is that they reproduce the causes that lead people to leave and immigrate in the west. I red about African immigrants in China and Chinese in Russia, so the problem is really global. Until these governments stay there and let emigration (so the pressure of the population to overthrow them is eased) there is no solution. So, or we support government that trap their populations or we help them to change their government is something that make them willing to stay in their homes. What is not widely acknowledge is that after the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, large part of the displaced populations are returned to their home countries. If we don't interfere with M.E. countries, can they interfere with us? What we do if someone else interfere with them? If the population of Morocco immigrate in large number in Netherlands (against the will of the Dutch), the Netherlands have the right to interfere with Morocco? As a fan of Star Trek, I understand that the First Directive is there only to be broken from any and all Starfleet captains. > Thus, I think that anybody concerned with the protection of what one > may cherish of our own political and other traditions should in the > first place stop promoting any idea of globalist jihads against > anybody who may wish to do the same with their own. Good. But what we do with the global jihad supporters? And the unwanted, illegal, immigrants? Wait until they knock at the door? Wait until they are inside the door? Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Apr 10 18:07:42 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:07:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <580930c20904101044o60bf5089xa4cd80fcd6f36b07@mail.gmail.co m> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c20904101044o60bf5089xa4cd80fcd6f36b07@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410125702.02682200@satx.rr.com> At 07:44 PM 4/10/2009 +0200, Stefano wrote: >I could not care less about the concerns of >Brendan O?Neill >on whether new atheists are really "humanists" or not >- in fact, anthropocentrism is something that must overcome even more >quickly than man itself -; but I found somewhat disquieting the >author's allusions to a profoundly "anti-sublime", anti-promethean, >not to mention "millenialist", spirit which would pervade at least in >part New Atheism's mentality, a few echos of which I easily find in >authors such as Hitchens. And interestingly O'Neill's criticism (to the extent that it's justified, and Dawkins always seems vulnerable) fails to touch most transhumanism: Certainly I have argued for years, sometimes in this forum, that one element of religion is Ernst Bloch's and Fredric Jameson's `unexpected emergence, as it were, beyond "the nightmare of History" and from out of the most archaic longings of the human race, of the impossible and inexpressible Utopian impulse here none the less briefly glimpsed: "Happiness for everybody!...."' And maybe it's *not* impossible--but not because we'll be saved in a Rapture by our invisible jealous god. Damien Broderick From eschatoon at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 18:13:14 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:13:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> I just want to prove that we are not better than them. History proves it. Of course, if I am attacked, I will have to protect myself. If they shoot at us, we will have to shoot at them. But don't give me crap about us being better than them, because we are not. We are al humans. Humans are nasty to each other and fight. Let's acknowledge this basic darwinian fact and hope to become able to do something about it, but without any "ethical" crap about the alleged superiority of our culture. On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 1:18 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 10/04/2009 11.01, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: >> >> And let's not forget that we Xians have done the same atrocities, and >> worse, than every other culture. > >> Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in >> warfare? > > The obvious reflex to badmouth Christianity or the Europeans when having no > arguments to defend Islam. Knee-jerk reaction? > > But, say, what do you want prove? > > Mirco > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 10 18:25:03 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:25:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <580930c20904101056i411b83f4pe7db314072a52292@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <580930c20904100542q1d1ac8eeud10ef1e5b514dfb8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF7E7F.4010009@libero.it> <580930c20904101056i411b83f4pe7db314072a52292@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49DF8EFF.2060508@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 19.56, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 7:14 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> He gave orders, someone followed the orders. This is enough to give and take >> responsibility for the attacks. > > Let us say that you are the head of Al-Qaeda, mounting a kind of > crusade against the US and trying to get at head of it. Please, call it Jihad. They call it so. A crusade is different in purpose than Jihad. > You learn from TV that you are credited to an attack on the > metropolitan territory of the same US of A, and of having achieved > what neither Mexican, nor German nor Japanese nor Soviet armies could > ever achieve. > Wouldn't you rush telling the world and its dog "Yes, sure, it's me, I > am in fact the greatest terrorist (that is, jihadist) mastermind of > history", even if you had not the foggiest idea of how it happened? He denied, sort of, initially. Then he admitted. Then many more people admitted to be involved in the attacks, like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Then we have videos with their voices and words. Osama bin Laden - November 9th, 2001 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0FVeqCX6z8 If he is not guilty, he deserve whatever he receive for the simply fact to have lied about it. But, if someone come up with proof he is innocent or someone else is guilty, I'm ready to hear. > No, you misunderstand me. What I am saying is that sometimes you have > converging interests with your "worst enemies": e.g., bin Laden for > sure appreciated the opportunity to become a kind of mythical figure > and a world-class political and military figure, as much as the Bush > administration the opportunity to have somebody specifically to point > to with regard to what happened. This may well have galvanised the > combatants on *both* side. Well, if they "converge" and the true culprits don't come up, what else Are we expected to do? Bin Laden: "It's me" Bush: "I don't believe you" bin Laden: "It's me" Bush: "I don't believe you" .... Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Apr 10 18:34:11 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:34:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> At 06:27 PM 4/10/2009 +0200, Dagon wrote of Mirco: >There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a >medicable condition. So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks "alienated youth" should be medicated and incarcerated until they become sweet and gentle. Hmmm. Damien Broderick From ninjawaffles at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 19:10:05 2009 From: ninjawaffles at gmail.com (Chad Robb) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 12:10:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2ae60d770904101210y75f0e2c5va0a86e835a8b51f8@mail.gmail.com> > Damien: So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks "alienated > youth" should be medicated and incarcerated until they become sweet and > gentle. Hmmm. > At what point are we medicating the human condition? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 19:45:05 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 13:45:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60903312003h222bd939i488d0d719a033248@mail.gmail.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/7/09, Florent Berthet wrote: > ...I have some very religious muslims friends, > including a family in which the parents worked hard in "low" jobs and the > children all have a degree in science, from the bachelor to the Ph.D. Again, > all of them are 100% muslim while being very respectable and very nice, ... Florent, I have a favor to ask. Substantial numbers of Americans(in particular) are currently in a state of anti-muslim hysteria. This is a bad state to be in, a dangerous state. Particularly when accompanied by severe economic stress. Your message is the antidote. Muslims are people just like everybody else. Moms, dads, kid, jobs; love, hate, joy, grief, and irony, lots of irony. Same as always. And of course you know this and can report this FROM PERSONAL EXPERIENCE, so you have real credibility. So please, here on this list, and wherever else you have an opportunity, remind people of the truth. At this moment there is a desperate need. Perhaps we can avoid the worst of the looming consequences. My thanks, Jeff Davis "Enjoying being insulting is a youthful corruption of power. You lose your taste for it when you realize how hard people try, how much they mind, and how long they remember." Martin Amis From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 20:12:17 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 20:12:17 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/10/09, Jeff Davis wrote: > So please, here on this list, and wherever else you have an > opportunity, remind people of the truth. At this moment there is a > desperate need. Perhaps we can avoid the worst of the looming > consequences. > The stats I saw last week said that US unemployment was still getting worse and now 10% of Americans are getting food stamps. The millionaire leaders have been claiming to see green shoots of recovery in an attempt to keep the lid on things. I shall be surprised if Americans don't start to lash out in anger as the economy continues to worsen this year. Protests are already increasing in Europe and the UK. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 20:20:40 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 22:20:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] What's wrong with Maher's Religulous? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410125702.02682200@satx.rr.com> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c20904101044o60bf5089xa4cd80fcd6f36b07@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410125702.02682200@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904101320x4f77ddf5y9127c0eaab199386@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 8:07 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > And interestingly O'Neill's criticism (to the extent that it's justified, > and Dawkins always seems vulnerable) fails to touch most transhumanism: Indeed, but it begs the question of differences between transhumanism and new atheism that I am perhaps too tempted to ignore, out of my heartfelt support for the second... > Certainly I have argued for years, sometimes in this forum, that one element > of religion is Ernst Bloch's and Fredric Jameson's `unexpected emergence, as > it were, beyond "the nightmare of History" and from out of the most archaic > longings of the human race, of the impossible and inexpressible Utopian > impulse here none the less briefly glimpsed: "Happiness for everybody!...."' Why, for me, owing to my personal Nietzschean-Darwinian persuasion, it sounds more like "eternal restlessess, struggle, self-overcoming, challenges and emancipation from the old-world chains for everybody interested, in view of a neverending dream of human and posthuman greatness", but I see your point... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Apr 10 20:57:48 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 15:57:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410155518.022cba60@satx.rr.com> At 08:12 PM 4/10/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: >The stats I saw last week said that US unemployment was still getting >worse and now 10% of Americans are getting food stamps. > >The millionaire leaders have been claiming to see green shoots of >recovery in an attempt to keep the lid on things. I shall be >surprised if Americans don't start to lash out in anger as the economy >continues to worsen this year. To my astonishment (but one can never trust phone polls--who answers these things? and the parameters are undefined), I read: Just 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism Rasmussen Reports Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than socialism. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) are not sure which is better. Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism is better. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Apr 9 14:37:12 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 07:37:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] The enemy?/was Re: What the France!? Message-ID: <737276.13322.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 4/9/09, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 09/04/2009 10.04, Eschatoon Magic > ha scritto: > > That is one of the reasons why I never called myself a > libertarian, > > though I am one deep inside. > > > > There are two souls in modern libertarianism. One is a > healthy > > live-and-let-live soul, which believes in > self-ownership and personal > > freedom of everyone, and hates _all_ limits to > liberty. It is not > > "liberty, but..."., it is "liberty, period". The other > is a fascist > > soul which believes in the freedom of some to oppress > and murder > > others. I promise that I will call myself a > libertarian when the > > second soul will go. > > In between there is the people understanding that liberty > must be equal for all and it is not some suicidal pact where > we let an enemy to grow until it is powerful enough to > destroy us. I think that a true libertarian would be afraid of the enemy known as the state. I find it funny that someone who calls himself or herself a libertarian is afraid of some women in burkas, but quite willing to allow the state all sorts of privileges with regard to these same women. As for Eschatoon Magic's talk of the two soul in libertarians, I totally disagree. There are simply libertarians -- ones who accept the libertarian principle (of non-initiation of force) -- and non-libertarians. The latter group often includes people who fancy themselves libertarians but who, for various reasons, set aside the libertarian principle. For the record, one can be a staunch racist and still be a libertarian -- just as long as one still adheres to the libertarian principle. This would mean, for the staunch racist, that she or he couldn't advocate initiating force against even the members of racial group she or he happened to despise or look down on. Likewise, one can be the worst form of anti-libertarian -- say, someone who believes in using deadly force all the time -- and not be a racist. It's a category error to confuse the two. Of course, we could discuss thick vs. thin libertarianism -- in which case, an argument might be made that libertarianism as such, in its thick form, must be anti-racist. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Apr 9 14:24:42 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 07:24:42 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Public spaces/was Re: What the France!? Message-ID: <797882.3810.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 4/9/09, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > As the public places are properties of the government > (now), it can decide that people must be unmasked. Or must > unmask at request of the police, or other. I think that would be a point of debate: whether public spaces are truly property of the government. Further, the issue is who should control public spaces. The strict libertarian view is, IMHO, that public spaces either have legitimate NON-governmental owners (and governments have merely stolen the property and dubbed it "public" to keep the fiction that everyone (the public owns it) and that governments are actually doing the will of everyone* when they control such spaces) or are unowned (in which case, they can be homesteaded). In my view, a strict libertarian would and should contest any government's control of public spaces -- well, within the limits of practical action. (I.e., one should at least ideologically and morally challenge the state -- but not necessarily risk being shot or spending time in the big house over this.:) Regards, Dan * Certainly, this view is, whether you accept libertarian property theory, wrong. If the public includes everyone, then public spaces bakes in fundamental antagonisms in any real world community. After all, different members of the public are going to feel this or that public space should be used in mutually incompatible ways, creating conflicts. The government, at best, can only enforce the views of some members of the public. (This is, of course, assuming an all inclusive defintion of "public." Naturally, I expect members of the public who get control of the government to feel they are more public than their adversaries -- and they'll dub the latter "special interests" or "petty interests" or "selfish.") From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Apr 9 14:39:45 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 07:39:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] How to Build a Dinosaur Message-ID: <131298.19179.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> See http://www.amazon.com/How-Build-Dinosaur-Extinction-Forever/dp/0525951040 Have any of you read this? Has it been discussed here yet? Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Apr 9 16:23:21 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Apr 2009 09:23:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?b?V2hlcmXigJlzIG15IGJvZHnigJlzIENvbnRyb2wgUGFuZWw/?= Message-ID: <618400.64253.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 4/9/09, John K Clark wrote: >> Where?s my body?s Control Panel? > > Evolution didn?t deem to give us a control panel, > probably because positive > feedback loops have little survival value. However in the > future there is no > reason we couldn?t develop one. I image most of us would > push the > happiness slide switch on the control panel as far right as > it will go, > so too the ?pride in successfully accomplishing a > difficult task? slide. > I?m pretty sure those will be the most popular settings. > It could also be the reason we don?t see ET. That would depend on the rate at which ETIs are produced and when they develop a "body control panel" and [ab]use it. It's conceivable, e.g., that humans could've started settling space or other planets decades ago -- in other words, long before they could seriously attempt something like a body control panel. Once off world, my guess is they would've rapidly expanded into the solar system and, with something like Orion, even started on interstellar travel and colonization by now. (Granted, another alternative path would be where the body control panel is developed a lot earlier too. With only one datum to look at, it's hard to say which is more likely.) Then we'd have to think about if humans had started a fairly ambitious expansion program -- along with creating lots of noise -- how quickly a body control panel would spread and be [ab]used through all the colonies. Regards, Dan From asyluman at gmail.com Fri Apr 10 18:43:07 2009 From: asyluman at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 14:43:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: As an alienated youth, I disagree. On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 2:34 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 06:27 PM 4/10/2009 +0200, Dagon wrote of Mirco: > > There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a >> medicable condition. >> > > So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks "alienated youth" > should be medicated and incarcerated until they become sweet and gentle. > Hmmm. > > Damien Broderick > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 11 04:37:40 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 10 Apr 2009 21:37:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410155518.022cba60@satx.rr.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com><49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it><7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com><1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com><1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com><1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com><6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410155518.022cba60@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <819A0D68470140FBBCF8B024F1A2B62C@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... > > To my astonishment (but one can never trust phone polls--who > answers these things? and the parameters are undefined), I read: > > al_politics/just_53_say_capitalism_better_than_socialism>Just > 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism Rasmussen Reports ... Never trust phone polls or any polls in which the news agency insists on interpreting the results for us. Notice an absolutely universal characteristic of news agencies: they do not simply list the poll questions, with bar graphs showing how many answered with each category. Why don't they report it that way? Give us the exact wording of the questions, the choices, and who chose what. If they feel the savage urge to explain it to us, append a word file, elsewhere preferrably, for their rattling speculations and interpretations have little value to me. spike From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 07:26:05 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:26:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > > medicable condition. >> > There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a > > So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks "alienated youth" > should be medicated and incarcerated until they become sweet and gentle. > Hmmm. Of course not ! I am sure I would be apprehended for medication much earlier. But I am very interested when this kind of people may want to start self-medicating when they find they have been consistently counterproductive for years and years. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 07:36:53 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:36:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] - [deepsea farming] Message-ID: In the next decades we need additional sources of nourishment. As it is right now we only use a thin layer of surface. What if we used the deep sea better? The one reason the deep sea sucks is because it is dark. What if - someone went to a stretch of deep sea a mile deep, dangled a strong cable down a mile long, with strong pressure-resistant lights along the length, and whatever infrastructure to attract growing plants and animals. You can also do the same with a singing mesh that is raised from the seabed every so often for maintenance or harvesting. The basic idea is to introduce large amounts of bright light into the deep seabed and cultivate some sort of photosynthesis there, and then harvest plants (or fish) that subsist on that flora. This is already done on dry land, in greenhouses. All it takes there is heating, water and energy. In the sea you would have to deal with the effects of salt, but that seems to be managable since we happily eat fish. We will probably have depleted the top sea levels from fishable edibles in a couple of decades. When that happens near 10 billion people will need food. If we can grow that food by hydroponics, assuming we figured out the energy question, we can do so both in deserts but equally well in the rich environment of deposited silt on the seabed. If we can grow the plants that thrive in that rich medium, and we make sure those plants are lit, we can grow fertile jungles of crop down there. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 11:21:39 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:21:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E07D43.2030307@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 20.13, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > I just want to prove that we are not better than them. To clarify for me, please. Are we a cult that preach to conquer the world and destroy anyone and anything that resist to us? Willing to delete any and all proof and records of whatever happened before us? Do we preach submission or death to anyone with different believes? > History proves it. History prove anything and the opposite. > Of course, if I am attacked, I will have to protect myself. If they > shoot at us, we will have to shoot at them. Do you wait until the projectile in in the air to act and the blade is cutting your neck? Do you wait until the blade is drawn out? The guns pointed at you? Do you wait until they have the weapons? Do you wait until they have deliberated to attack you and you know of it? > But don't give me crap about us being better than them, because we are > not. When in a war, it is unimportant who is right, only who is left. And only people with scarce self-esteem need to prove to others they are better then someone else. It can be useful to check, sometimes, to not be wrong. > We are al humans. Humans are nasty to each other and fight. Sometimes, sometimes not. We must be prepared to both the possibilities. > Let's > acknowledge this basic Darwinian fact and hope to become able to do > something about it, but without any "ethical" crap about the alleged > superiority of our culture. Our culture have a few features that are better (for me and I suppose you) than the Islamic. The ethics are a construct, like mathematics. Different axioms lead to different conclusion. Like many types of mathematics, many types of ethics are useful to obtain nothing or are self-contradictory. But, usually, ethics are developed for utilitarian goals: the ethics of a group is needed to keep regulate the in-group and out-group relations so the trust is maximized and the group obtain an advantage in the long run. We can judge the "superiority" of an ethics system in this way. But it is relative to other groups, not absolute. And the changing of conditions can change the fitness of the groups and what ethics are successful. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 11:37:50 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:37:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410155518.022cba60@satx.rr.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410155518.022cba60@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49E0810E.60803@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 22.57, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 08:12 PM 4/10/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: > To my astonishment (but one can never trust phone polls--who answers > these things? and the parameters are undefined), I read: > Just > 53% Say Capitalism Better Than Socialism Rasmussen Reports > Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is better than > socialism. Given the answers after, I think this show that the American adults don't know that "capitalism" and "free-market" are practically synonymous. Interesting the difference between Republicans and Democrats. Note also the changing from younger adults to mature ones. Maybe, older you get less you believe in pipe dreams. > Investors by a 5-to-1 margin choose capitalism. As for those who do > not invest, 40% say capitalism is better while 25% prefer socialism. Who risk want be free from predatory control, where who than don't like risking want someone else provide for them. > The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that > 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent (27%) > are not sure which is better. It would be interesting to know what are the jobs of these people. > Adults under 30 are essentially evenly divided: 37% prefer > capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. Thirty-somethings > are a bit more supportive of the free-enterprise approach with 49% > for capitalism and 26% for socialism. Adults over 40 strongly favor > capitalism, and just 13% of those older Americans believe socialism > is better. Well, whatever they like or not, with Obama and Pelosi they will know what is socialism and how much it work. Not that in the recent years the US would be an example of capitalism or free market. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 11:42:15 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:42:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <2ae60d770904101210y75f0e2c5va0a86e835a8b51f8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <2ae60d770904101210y75f0e2c5va0a86e835a8b51f8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E08217.3020805@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 21.10, Chad Robb ha scritto: > > Damien: So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks > "alienated youth" should be medicated and incarcerated until they > become sweet and gentle. Hmmm. > At what point are we medicating the human condition? Strangely we started to medicate the human condition long ago, but without much successes. Lately the success is increasing. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 11:47:30 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:47:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49E08352.4040306@libero.it> Il 10/04/2009 20.34, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 06:27 PM 4/10/2009 +0200, Dagon wrote of Mirco: > >> There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a >> medicable condition. > > So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks "alienated youth" > should be medicated and incarcerated until they become sweet and gentle. > Hmmm. Wrong, only until they are no more "furious". They can be medicated at home when they are "alienated and calm" to care for the "alienated" part of the problem. It cost less and it is better for them. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 11:58:12 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:58:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> Il 11/04/2009 9.26, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > medicable condition. > > There comes a point where being staunchly partisan becomes a > > So you think Mirco should be medicated, and he thinks "alienated > youth" should be medicated and incarcerated until they become sweet > and gentle. Hmmm. > Of course not ! I am sure I would be apprehended for medication much > earlier. Well, I know sometimes people are medicated from the childhood. But it is done by the appropriate services and, usually, with the consent of the parents. Unfortunately we are unable to early detect people with psychiatric problems before the onset of the pathology and, usually, the detection happen only after the first or second psychotic episode start. Lesser are the number of crisis untreated and longer the crisis last, worst is the prognosis. Every crisis destroy a little part of the brain. > But I am very interested when this kind of people may want to start > self-medicating when > they find they have been consistently counterproductive for years and > years. Usually they start self medicating in some way or another. Alcohol, coffee or drugs (recreational or not) they try to self medicate. The problem is that self medication is problematic when you are confused and self discipline is difficult to impose to themselves. This is because help from other is useful. Mirco From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 12:03:40 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:03:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] - [deepsea farming] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Human eat around 2500 calories per day or around 10,000 kj--which over 24 hours is about 120 watts. If you take light in to human food out at1% (which is probably optimistic) then you need about 12kW per person. So to feed a billion people on artificial light would take 12 TW, or about the same as current total energy consumption. Keith 2009/4/11 Dagon Gmail : > In the next decades we need additional sources of nourishment. As it is > right now we only > use a thin layer of surface. What if we used the deep sea better? > > The one reason the deep sea sucks is because it is dark. What if - > > someone went to a stretch of deep sea a mile deep, dangled a strong cable > down a mile > long, with strong pressure-resistant lights along the length, and whatever > infrastructure to > attract growing plants and animals. You can also do the same with a singing > mesh that > is raised from the seabed every so often for maintenance or harvesting. The > basic idea is > to introduce large amounts of bright light into the deep seabed and > cultivate some sort of > photosynthesis there, and then harvest plants (or fish) that subsist on that > flora. > > This is already done on dry land, in greenhouses. All it takes there is > heating, water and > energy. In the sea you would have to deal with the effects of salt, but that > seems to be > managable since we happily eat fish. > > We will probably have depleted the top sea levels from fishable edibles in a > couple of > decades. When that happens near 10 billion people will need food. If we can > grow that food > by hydroponics, assuming we figured out the energy question, we can do so > both in > deserts but equally well in the rich environment of deposited silt on the > seabed. If we can > grow the plants that thrive in that rich medium, and we make sure those > plants are lit, > we can grow fertile jungles of crop down there. > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 12:31:56 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 14:31:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] - [deepsea farming] In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yes - The point being that growing food on the surface might account for what we have now (6+ billion) and we will lose surface for agriculture due to climatic issues. So we need extra biomass to grow food. Hence - seafloors, artificial illumination, automated farming, etc. Note that your arguments ( we dont have to the energy resources!!) also holds as soon as we run out of oil. Right now growing animal food required a LOT more than 12kW per person. 2009/4/11 Keith Henson > Human eat around 2500 calories per day or around 10,000 kj--which over > 24 hours is about 120 watts. If you take light in to human food out > at1% (which is probably optimistic) then you need about 12kW per > person. So to feed a billion people on artificial light would take 12 > TW, or about the same as current total energy consumption. > > Keith > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 13:12:50 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:12:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Public spaces/was Re: What the France!? In-Reply-To: <797882.3810.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <797882.3810.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <49E09752.9060208@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 16.24, Dan ha scritto: > --- On Thu, 4/9/09, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> As the public places are properties of the government (now), it can >> decide that people must be unmasked. Or must unmask at request of >> the police, or other. > > I think that would be a point of debate: whether public spaces are > truly property of the government. Further, the issue is who should > control public spaces. The definition is a bit lousy, I admit. We could say that all public spaces (what is not incorporated is some specific property) are owned by "the people". And we could define "the people" like the group of persons that form a compact governing and controlling the place (the citizens). The (people forming the) government control the public spaces only as agents of the compact. Obviously this bring a few problems on how to administrate the shared places, the public ones. But it is nothing different from administrating a condominium or a shared enterprises. > The strict libertarian view is, IMHO, that > public spaces either have legitimate NON-governmental owners (and > governments have merely stolen the property and dubbed it "public" to > keep the fiction that everyone (the public owns it) and that > governments are actually doing the will of everyone* when they > control such spaces) or are unowned (in which case, they can be > homesteaded). In my view, a strict libertarian would and should > contest any government's control of public spaces -- well, within the > limits of practical action. (I.e., one should at least ideologically > and morally challenge the state -- but not necessarily risk being > shot or spending time in the big house over this.:) The third possibility is that, the people agree between themselves to reserve a part of the spaces to public use and confer the administration to a body of government. The hall of a condominium is a shared properties of the condominium owners, it is administered for them by the staff of the condominium and I don't think there is a right to homestead there. I suppose that the condominium owners have the right to deliberate that masked people can not enter in the condo shared parts or must unmask / identify themselves is asked by the security staff. Some owners could have different ideas, but this is matter of what they agreed when they became owners of a part of the condo. If the don't like the rules, they can change condo or convince the other owners to change the rules. The problem happens when people are born inside the condo and start to have not defined understanding of the rules or the rules are lousy and imprecise or wrong. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 13:42:58 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 15:42:58 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20904110642l615d0e79oadd11b4a1b65df3e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: >?Substantial numbers of ?Americans(in > particular) are currently in a state of anti-muslim hysteria. ?This is > a bad state to be in, a dangerous state. ?Particularly when > accompanied by severe economic stress. > > Your message is the antidote. ?Muslims are people just like everybody > else. ?Moms, dads, kid, jobs; love, hate, joy, grief, and irony, lots > of irony. ?Same as always. This again is to many Europeas "typically American". Whenever the Others are not the Devil, they must be Just the Same. Something which leads to the surprise of Col Kurtz in Apocalypse Now that the Viet-cong could do such "terrible things" while being "nice, decent folks, fathers, workers and neighbours" in their everyday life (I am quoting from memory). Now, the muslims are *not* the same. And even the "muslim" concept is misleading: it would be more accurate to speak of Arabs in France, Turks in Germany, etc., since important differences exist also in that camp. But perhaps Islam is too emotional a subject for many people. Have you ever tried to live a few years in Japan? So, all in all, I think that an "ethnical" French may well be concerned of living in the future in an islamic republic - and in the present in areas where he risks to become quickly an alien. On the other hand, the only three conceivable alternatives being currently debated are those I already mentioned in another long post - which apparently nobody read... :-) - are just three: forced assimilation, deportation, multiculturalism (in the sense of multiple communities semi-independently regulating their own affairs on the same territory). All of them, however, requires as a first step at least a relative "suspension" of immigration flows. That is, exactly the opposite of the view of those who would like to replace slaves as soon as they emancipate and integrate with freshly-imported ones. -- Stefano Vaj From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Apr 11 13:55:57 2009 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:55:57 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <580930c20904110642l615d0e79oadd11b4a1b65df3e@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <49D51FF2.3030100@libero.it> <7641ddc60904022125j3d423f9dof00e9d0954ef58ad@mail.gmail.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904110642l615d0e79oadd11b4a1b65df3e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44529.12.77.169.45.1239458157.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Stefano Vaj wrote: > > On the other hand, the only three conceivable alternatives being > currently debated are those I already mentioned in another long post - > which apparently nobody read... :-) - are just three: forced > assimilation, deportation, multiculturalism (in the sense of multiple > communities semi-independently regulating their own affairs on the > same territory). > I read your post and I found it worth reading twice. :) Americans perhaps see the way immigration worked *in the past* in the USA - ghettos of immigrants who were eager to partake of The American Dream, therefore trying to assimilate (with older folks' reservations about language/culture/religion being "lost"). IIUC the immigration into Europe at present is of people who do not particularly wish to assimilate, just to have the advantage of living in A Better Place than their homelands. Regards, MB From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 14:07:30 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:07:30 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: <49E07D43.2030307@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <49E07D43.2030307@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/4/11 painlord2k at libero.it : > Il 10/04/2009 20.13, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > >> I just want to prove that we are not better than them. > > To clarify for me, please. > Are we a cult that preach to conquer the world and destroy anyone and > anything that resist to us? Willing to delete any and all proof and records > of whatever happened before us? Do we preach submission or death to anyone > with different believes? I regard all religion with contempt, but your characterisation of all Muslims as murderous fanatics is, well, beneath contempt. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 14:09:59 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:09:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The enemy?/was Re: What the France!? In-Reply-To: <737276.13322.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <737276.13322.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <49E0A4B7.1010503@libero.it> Il 09/04/2009 16.37, Dan ha scritto: > I think that a true libertarian would be afraid of the enemy known as > the state. I am, but there are many enemies and anyone have different priorities. > I find it funny that someone who calls himself or herself > a libertarian is afraid of some women in burkas, but quite willing to > allow the state all sorts of privileges with regard to these same > women. I'm not in fear of the women in burkas. I'm in fear of their men. I fear the fact that they are able to force them in burkas, in arranged weddings, beating them in submission. I'm in fear that we allow them to preach hate and teach hate, organize and grow stronger inside our societies. There are many enemies of freedom, someone play by some rules and someone play with different rules; someone play with no rules. It is not only the state that is a danger to freedom, but also cults that use violence to spread or to keep people captives of the group and criminals that use violence to prey upon others. So, we need to choose our priorities. > For the record, one can be a staunch racist and still be a > libertarian -- just as long as one still adheres to the libertarian > principle. The problem is that we all limit the "libertarian principle" in scope in some way. Usually this is on the line of "it is worth of human or human-like respect". I think libertarians have no problem to eat meat from slaughtered cows (vegetarians apart). So we don't apply the "not egress first" to the cows. Many tribes consider deserving human respect only the people of their tribe, not the others. So, they could be libertarians in principle in their internal relations, but not in their external ones. What would do a libertarian or a group of libertarians when they live near a tribe that don't consider them to deserve "human-like respect", the same respect they give to the member of their tribe? Say the tribe have a few youngster that like to form a party and go out to pillage, rape and kill. What they do when some individual of the "libertarian group" are raped, killed, robbed, maimed, etc.? What they would do if the chief of the tribe (or the elders) are unwilling or unable to punish or inhibit the few youngsters? Say this will continue, but it is not a real problem, initially, for the majority of the libertarians, because the victims are mainly on the borders areas and not where the main libertarian population live. But the tribe have an higher fecundity, so their population grow and the war parties grow stronger every years. Then, some libertarians in the border zone pack and leave the place, that is colonized by the tribe. Then always more libertarians leave the borders and these are settled by the tribes. Then sometimes, rarely, some war parties enter in the deep of the libertarians territory. What do you do? Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 14:18:31 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 00:18:31 +1000 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/4/11 painlord2k at libero.it : > Unfortunately we are unable to early detect people with psychiatric problems > before the onset of the pathology and, usually, the detection happen only > after the first or second psychotic episode start. > > Lesser are the number of crisis untreated and longer the crisis last, worst > is the prognosis. Every crisis destroy a little part of the brain. Mostly true if you are referring to psychotic illness, but this how does this relate to your original statement about alienated youth?. An untreated psychotic person is usually dysfunctional in any environment. He doesn't make a good rebel or criminal. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 14:44:29 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:44:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <44529.12.77.169.45.1239458157.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904110642l615d0e79oadd11b4a1b65df3e@mail.gmail.com> <44529.12.77.169.45.1239458157.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <580930c20904110744v1f3747d1s174d67fa08d115d@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 3:55 PM, MB wrote: > Americans perhaps see the way immigration worked *in the past* in the USA - ghettos > of immigrants who were eager to partake of The American Dream, therefore trying to > assimilate (with older folks' reservations about language/culture/religion being > "lost"). > > IIUC the immigration into Europe at present is of people who do not particularly > wish to assimilate, just to have the advantage of living in A Better Place than > their homelands. In fact, it should be remembered that the US knew at least *two* radically different models of immigration, the first being that of original settlers and subsequent newcomers arriving only a little later, whose ideas, language and ethnicity was pretty close to theirs. While immigration in Europe from the Middle East and North Africa certainly belongs to a third kind, it should perhaps be pointed out that the "first immigration" did not try in the least to assimilate and integrate in the Native American societies, values and culture, let alone respect its legal systems! It destroyed if for good. And yet probably some of those immigrants were decent, ordinary folks like you and me... "People just like everybody else. Moms, dads, kid, jobs; love, hate, joy, grief, and irony, lots of irony. Same as always." :-) -- Stefano Vaj From fauxever at sprynet.com Sat Apr 11 14:32:15 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 07:32:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> Message-ID: From: To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 4:58 AM > Usually they start self medicating in some way or another. > Alcohol, coffee or drugs (recreational or not) they try to self medicate. Coffee? COFFEE? Oh, dear, I live in the nucleus of El Loony Bin on this planet - Seattle (and I am one of its permanent residents; however, just to be on the safe side, please lock me up and throw away the key!) Olga Olga From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 15:02:25 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:02:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <49E07D43.2030307@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20904110802x359fd24au66c8fdb97d0ceb33@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 4:07 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/4/11 painlord2k at libero.it : > I regard all religion with contempt, but your characterisation of all > Muslims as murderous fanatics is, well, beneath contempt. Why, I think that this is just describing them as being, at least in part, people who believe in what they say. Where I am not so sure is whether other cultures, in spite of the invariably "humanitarian" veneer of their propaganda, are so different in their crusades for a Better World, or rather a Brave New World. :-) Even though the latter crusades, admittedly, may be ultimately more commanded by economic and Realpolitik interest than by religious, or other, ideals. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 15:43:48 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 17:43:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> Message-ID: <49E0BAB4.6010607@libero.it> Il 11/04/2009 16.32, Olga Bourlin ha scritto: > From: > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 4:58 AM > >> Usually they start self medicating in some way or another. >> Alcohol, coffee or drugs (recreational or not) they try to self medicate. > > Coffee? COFFEE? Oh, dear, I live in the nucleus of El Loony Bin on this > planet - Seattle (and I am one of its permanent residents; however, just > to be on the safe side, please lock me up and throw away the key!) I know patients that drank 50 cup of coffee in a day (Italian Espresso Coffe). Obviously they were a bit shaky. Usually they don't know, but caffeine is the antidote of aloperidol (Haldol), so usually more Haldol we give them more they want to drink coffee (of Coke). I think half of the western civilization rest on the use of alcohol and the other rest on the use of coffee. We tried other stuff in past, but not with the same success. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 11 16:11:13 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 18:11:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> Message-ID: <49E0C121.1070109@libero.it> Il 11/04/2009 16.18, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/4/11 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> Unfortunately we are unable to early detect people with psychiatric problems >> before the onset of the pathology and, usually, the detection happen only >> after the first or second psychotic episode start. >> >> Lesser are the number of crisis untreated and longer the crisis last, worst >> is the prognosis. Every crisis destroy a little part of the brain. > > Mostly true if you are referring to psychotic illness, but this how > does this relate to your original statement about alienated youth?. An > untreated psychotic person is usually dysfunctional in any > environment. He doesn't make a good rebel or criminal. Alienated youth are often suffering of a form or another of psychiatric problems. They could be sub-clinical. Usually don't needing forced treatments. Usually don't are detected until much later, when the problems show clearly, they start abuse drugs and so on. Many alienated youth are simply alienated because they have poor behaviours, poor impulse control and poor tolerance to frustrations. They are more on the "borderline personality disorder" side. Good rebels and criminals are from a different recipe than the normal out of the mill rebels and criminals (they are able to plan long term and execute, they are able to relate with others). They are there to climb the ladder of power and success with a different style and they don't give a damn to what someone else think or feel about them. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 11 16:15:00 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:15:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com><49E085D4.60108@libero.it> Message-ID: <27ECE8E745BB457893B79C714A8255EA@spike> > > Usually they start self medicating in some way or another. > > Alcohol, coffee or drugs (recreational or not) they try to > self medicate. > > Coffee? COFFEE? Oh, dear, I live in the nucleus of El Loony > Bin on this planet - Seattle ... Olga > > Olga! Where have you been? {8-] We haven't seen your comments in several weeks at least. Welcome back. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 11 16:32:23 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 09:32:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com><49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic ... > I just want to prove that we are not better than them... ... > But don't give me crap about us being better than them, > because we are not. We are al humans. Humans are nasty to > each other and fight. Let's acknowledge this basic darwinian > fact and hope to become able to do something about it, but > without any "ethical" crap about the alleged superiority of > our culture... Esch, this one caught my attention because it points out a fundamental schism in human thought. It divides humanity in a way that is not racial or even cultural. There exists among some humans a bedrock belief that all cultures are, at some fundamental level, equivalent. Among others, an equally strong fundamental notion that some cultures are better than others. Which are you and why? Step back from the original religion based question, and look at it from an amoral top level point of view. Think carefully about your answer. Your first comment is you want to prove we are not better. Why do you want to prove that yours is not better? Wouldn't you want to create a better society? What if the others agree with you that you are not better? They argue that they are better than you. Do you then want to prove they are not better than you? What if they are murderously outraged by that notion, and wish to violently demonstrate otherwise? What I am asking is about the conflict of two memesets, a full step back from the religion notion, and one we discussed here a few years ago. If the entire world is divided into two equal sized groups, one with the memeset that all cultures are equivalent, and the other with memeset that their own culture is superior to the those who say cultures are equivalent. In the long run, it appears to me the ones who consider their own culture superior have a memetic advantage. spike From fauxever at sprynet.com Sat Apr 11 17:11:20 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:11:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com><49E085D4.60108@libero.it> <27ECE8E745BB457893B79C714A8255EA@spike> Message-ID: <0E17EA1AB40C4FA88B4900117884165A@patrick4ezsk6z> From: "spike" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Saturday, April 11, 2009 9:15 AM > Olga! Where have you been? {8-] We haven't seen your comments in > several > weeks at least. Welcome back. You know me, I'm mostly a lurker here. (These days, between sips of coffee ;), I've been hanging out on Facebook :)) ... The comments on this list lately have been, as usual, for me - somewhere between "bracing" (a good thing) and "chilling" (to the bone). However, I cannot go without a day without getting my daily grey-matter workout here! Olga From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Apr 11 17:17:02 2009 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 13:17:02 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ExI] Getting People who Speak Heresies to Shut Up In-Reply-To: <580930c20904110744v1f3747d1s174d67fa08d115d@mail.gmail.com> References: <365161.35727.qm@web36506.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1238734806.5478.805.camel@hayek> <49D727C7.2000204@rawbw.com> <1238911196.5478.1012.camel@hayek> <49DAE7B3.1060606@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904070030v10f8c5b6te31094fd7b5017af@mail.gmail.com> <6d342ad70904070344k42abe8fjb6deb7f9661ec6f9@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904110642l615d0e79oadd11b4a1b65df3e@mail.gmail.com> <44529.12.77.169.45.1239458157.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <580930c20904110744v1f3747d1s174d67fa08d115d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <44849.12.77.169.5.1239470222.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Stefano wrote: > In fact, it should be remembered that the US knew at least *two* > radically different models of immigration, the first being that of > original settlers and subsequent newcomers arriving only a little > later, whose ideas, language and ethnicity was pretty close to theirs. > > While immigration in Europe from the Middle East and North Africa > certainly belongs to a third kind, it should perhaps be pointed out > that the "first immigration" did not try in the least to assimilate > and integrate in the Native American societies, values and culture, > let alone respect its legal systems! It destroyed if for good. > Can one see similarities between the current Muslim immigration to Europe and the 1st immigration of Europeans to North America? Being of European background, I am glad the 1st immigration turned out as it did. Regards, MB From mfj.eav at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 17:56:32 2009 From: mfj.eav at gmail.com (Morris Johnson) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 10:56:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] for god and country-army sniper stories Message-ID: <61c8738e0904111056h4a19efa1q515298efa34c4a04@mail.gmail.com> -- LIFESPAN PHARMA Inc. Extropian Agroforestry Ventures Inc. SW34-01-16-w2nd meridian 306-447-4944 701-240-9411 Mission: To Preserve, Protect and Enhance Lifespan Plant-based Natural-health Bio-product Bio-pharmaceuticals @ hempforhorses.com http://www.angelfire.com/on4/extropian-lifespan http://www.4XtraLifespans.bravehost.com megao at sasktel.net,mfj.eav at gmail.com extropian.pharmer at gmail.com To ask to be my facebook friend: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?ref=home#/profile.php?id=1276717946 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sat Apr 11 20:49:39 2009 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 20:49:39 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] [SPACE] People in space, not machine - what gives? Message-ID: <73282.48806.qm@web27005.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Dagon wrote: "IF humans were to actually settle the solar system in big drums, what would people here think... 1- the dynamic of power/empire formation be? Which planet/region would be most "profitrable" 2- what political systems would fare best 3- what new political systems would emerge 4- what kind of "power projection" would work ? (stealth settlements to avoid kinetic bombardments?) 5- aggressive interdependency? Market slavery? 6- can such a solar system be mostly peaceful? Or will it be a mess? 7- does trade make sense (slow tanker vessels?) Assume AI would be limited (which is very unlikely, but speculating about AI civilizations in the solar system, remains a bit pointless) . Likewise, assume nanofabrication is limited too." 1) Well, I think first you'd get mining colonies of NEOs. After ther most juicy targets have been taken, the most successful area would be cislunar space - from GEO to your 2:1 resonant orbits proposed in "Man and the Planets" to your classic L4/L5 colonies, all these would be within short communication distance of earth with minimal lag due to lightspeed, and close to a handy source of humans who may want to emigrate. After that, wherever there's minerals and not a huge gravity well and a decent amount of sunlight makes for good colonising - so the main belt is a good choice, mercury has all the solar energy you can handle if you can build a colony capable of survival, but the further out you get the less tempting it is. Ultimately the giant planets offer a chance of big materials and whatever you can mine from their atmospheres all within a few light minutes of each other, but the moving things against a gravity well and dealing with radiation can make things tricky. 2) What political system would fare best? No-one knows, and that's the joy of it. Theoretically any *could* work, and quite a few may work out. I know you're probably expecting me to talk about my favourite form of socialism here, but my only thought is that the systems which successfully gather the power of collective human action will spread quicker and more successfully than those which don't, as this is likely to be a team effort. 3) What new political systems would emerge? I suspect that having self-sufficient colonies separated by distance would allow room for any political system that's theorised to be given a chance. If every colony is its own city-state, there's room for anything. After all, the city states of ancient Greece gave rise to several forms of rulership and philosophy, while the cities of medieval Italy gave rise to interesting experiments in finance, commerce and the concept of a "middle class" between the serfs and nobility outside of the feudal order. 4) What kind of "power projection" would work? Once you get out of Earth-moon space, the distances are too great to make most military action worth it. You'd want to project power through propaganda, monetary ties, political persuasion, having "your kind of people" demographically take over compatible places, etc. If it came to war, the fragility of artificial biospheres and destructive power of hard objects moving very fast means people will die quickly and you're unlikely to capture rival colonies unless you launch a coup from within. So, warfare is only likely where one party is willing to eliminate another. 5) Given the need for many different products to sustain civilisation and the difficulty of shipping things from far away, colonies that can't manufacture all they need will be locked in interdependency or market slavery. Once a colony doesn't, it can do without. So, good fabbing technology is a must. If nanofabrication doesn't exist, someone in the space colonies will invent it as it massively simplifies their life. 6) Can such a solar system be peaceful? Well, on the one hand humans are humans, and will find excuses for conflict until all become posthuman, at which point it depends on whether the posthumans conflict over resources or not. I'm hoping the distance between some colonies will allow room for differences to exist and to discourage warfare. 7) Is trade possible? Well, mostly it would be information via communication links. As for shipping objects slowly - this may work in orbit around a major body (earth, Jupiter, etc.) but once there's a moderate distance this falls down. Given a time of weeks to years to ship anything, people will only want to import "vitamin components" they have difficulty making themselves. Given a decent pace of technological change, there's a real risk your stack of cutting-edge tech would be obsolete by the time it got there - if a Moore's law type scenario is in effect, anything with a shipping time over one doubling cycle is likely to be poorly marketable. Interestingly, if we're assuming that AI isn't that powerful at this point, and no mind uploading exists, then getting enough skilled people to live in your colony and work it is a problem. One of the main things you'd want shipping in would be people with skills the AIs of the time aren't good at. So, shipping people around could be a major industry - hopefully this will be controlled migration around the solar system and not some cunningly disguised form of slavery eg "emigrate to us! Only $2gazillion, but with our low-interest loans you'll have the debt paid off in no time!" Tom From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 11 23:41:38 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 16:41:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How to Build a Dinosaur In-Reply-To: <131298.19179.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <131298.19179.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670904111641m14866fb1j1d7229aaa3328161@mail.gmail.com> I remember a discussion started here by Robert Bradbury about building a fire-breathing dragon. Spike, do you remember that? Those were the days... John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 03:26:20 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:26:20 +1000 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <49E0C121.1070109@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> <49E0C121.1070109@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/4/12 painlord2k at libero.it : > Alienated youth are often suffering of a form or another of psychiatric > problems. They could be sub-clinical. Usually don't needing forced > treatments. Usually don't are detected until much later, when the problems > show clearly, they start abuse drugs and so on. Many alienated youth are > simply alienated because they have poor behaviours, poor impulse control and > poor tolerance to frustrations. They are more on the "borderline personality > disorder" side. Psychiatry distinguishes between (in the DSM-IV) "Axis I" disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and "Axis II" or personality disorders. There are fundamental differences between the two. For example, personality disorders are stable throughout life and do not respond to the biological treatments we currently have, while Axis I disorders afflict people who were previously well, tend to lead to either progressive disability or severe episodic disability, and often do respond to biological treatments. Better understanding of the brain may allow us to change peoples' personalities in future but we have to be very careful with how we use such technologies, since there would be a temptation for government or business to require everyone to be a docile, law-abiding citizen. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 12 05:28:26 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Apr 2009 22:28:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How to Build a Dinosaur In-Reply-To: <2d6187670904111641m14866fb1j1d7229aaa3328161@mail.gmail.com> References: <131298.19179.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670904111641m14866fb1j1d7229aaa3328161@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Behalf Of John Grigg Subject: Re: [ExI] How to Build a Dinosaur I remember a discussion started here by Robert Bradbury about building a fire-breathing dragon. Spike, do you remember that? Those were the days... John : ) Ja we used to discuss a lot of wacky cool stuff like that. Now it is mundane politics much of the time, and the worst part is that most of our commentary is reprehensibly mainstream. What happened to us? Do let us remember our roots and think harder. These are the days. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Apr 12 13:15:08 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:15:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> <49E0C121.1070109@libero.it> Message-ID: <49E1E95C.1010303@libero.it> Il 12/04/2009 5.26, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > Psychiatry distinguishes between (in the DSM-IV) "Axis I" disorders > such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, and "Axis II" or > personality disorders. There are fundamental differences between the > two. Sure, but we don't know the causes of the two type of conditions. Neither we know if they are linked to positive genetics traits (probably) in different habitats. We know that ADD is positively linked with better outcomes in pastoral societies, where it is linked to worse outcomes in urban societies. What we see are probably old adaptations that in the modern settings don't work very well. > For example, personality disorders are stable throughout life and > do not respond to the biological treatments we currently have, while > Axis I disorders afflict people who were previously well, tend to lead > to either progressive disability or severe episodic disability, and > often do respond to biological treatments. We can not treat people with over Axis II for their condition, but we can treat the symptoms so they don't handicap too much the life of the person affected. > Better understanding of the > brain may allow us to change peoples' personalities in future but we > have to be very careful with how we use such technologies, since there > would be a temptation for government or business to require everyone > to be a docile, law-abiding citizen. Docile, law abiding zombies. This technology would be more disruptive than the nuclear weapons. We could cure many people and screw many others and the society. This remember me the movie with Sylvester Stallone (Demolition Man) where they can "fix" the psyche of people making them totally spineless, helpless but not good. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 13:22:37 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:22:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> Message-ID: <580930c20904120622l2e77bfeaw5a58b0cb17c502c9@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 6:32 PM, spike wrote: > What I am asking is about the conflict of two memesets, a full step back > from the religion notion, and one we discussed here a few years ago. ?If the > entire world is divided into two equal sized groups, one with the memeset > that all cultures are equivalent, and the other with memeset that their own > culture is superior to the those who say cultures are equivalent. ?In the > long run, it appears to me the ones who consider their own culture superior > have a memetic advantage. Why, this issue is really central in my own reflection. In fact, I think that the idea that values and cultural norms and POVs would exist which are "objectively superior" is really too discredited in genealogical, philosophical and consequentialist terms to deserve much further discussion. "God is dead", at least in the West, and we know by now well enough the details of its birth and of its not-too-edifying biography. Its "universal" claims are automatically disproved by the identification of specific roots of that very idea, which are not, btw, European, but biblical - which explains why "my truth is the Truth" is a meme equally shared by the christian, jewish and muslim legacy. Moreover, the same goes with its replacement with secular avatars: "As the archeology of thought easily shows, Man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end... like a face drawn in sand at the edge of the sea" (Michel Foucault). On the other hand, the concept of an "equivalence" of different cultures is IMHO still not "relativistic" enough, as it still posits the existence of a common measure by which a value judgment (in that case, a judgment of equivalence) can be based. And it is not really compatible with the empirical fact of most people's preference for their own... What should be said is instead that "every culture is superior - from its own point of view". In other words, if there is no absolute terms of reference, we cannot avoid founding our own value judgments on a relative value system - our own. Recognising the relativity of the same does not imply in the least that we would be "weaker" in defending it. In fact, in historical terms, most cultures and communities were born, flourished, resisted aggression, fought, and died without ever any idea of incarnating any "universal truth", "objective justice" or a "superior exemple for humankind". One may wonder in this respect whether abolishing the conceit of "superiority" would change anything, since those who do not know or care about it can adopt exactly the same behaviours, by taking the relative as absolute. Well, I should say that a big difference nevertheless exists. In fact, while cultural relativism does not guarantee any kind of mythical "golden age" peace, and Darwinian mechanisms amongst cultures and peoples obviously remain in place, a "relativistic" cultural attitude, which I maintain to be the "normal" state of things, at least does not necessarily imply that different cultural norms are morally intolerable, that those who do not share my own point of view must be at all cost shown "the error of their ways", and that an ethical duty exists to save the Others from themselves, possibly killing them in the process, unless and until they recognise my own "superiority". Even from a "humanistic" angle, this dividend should not be neglected. In addition, this seems the only attitude ultimately compatible with the opinion that sees diversity as the fundamental wealth of our species, and its futher, "extropic" and plural, increase and evolution as a goal per se. -- Stefano Vaj From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 13:35:56 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:35:56 +1000 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <49E1E95C.1010303@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> <49E0C121.1070109@libero.it> <49E1E95C.1010303@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/4/12 painlord2k at libero.it : >> For example, personality disorders are stable throughout life and >> do not respond to the biological treatments we currently have, while >> Axis I disorders afflict people who were previously well, tend to lead >> to either progressive disability or severe episodic disability, and >> often do respond to biological treatments. > > We can not treat people with over Axis II for their condition, but we can > treat the symptoms so they don't handicap too much the life of the person > affected. We can treat them if they become depressed or psychotic as we treat anyone else, but we can't treat the personality disorder itself. It happens not infrequently in my work as a doctor in public mental health that a mood or psychotic disorder is misdiagnosed as a personality disorder, especially early in its course. The two things that give it away is that that the family say the patient "changed" in personality at some point, rather than having been that way their whole life, and a response to medication. In fact, a therapeutic trial of medication is the only hard biological test we have for these mental illnesses, with a very high specificity (i.e. low false positive response rate). -- Stathis Papaioannou From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 13:48:18 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 15:48:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Take a stress pill, Dave" In-Reply-To: <49E1E95C.1010303@libero.it> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <49DF3784.20103@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410133001.0228f050@satx.rr.com> <49E085D4.60108@libero.it> <49E0C121.1070109@libero.it> <49E1E95C.1010303@libero.it> Message-ID: > > Docile, law abiding zombies. >> > This technology would be more disruptive than the nuclear weapons. > We could cure many people and screw many others and the society. > This remember me the movie with Sylvester Stallone (Demolition Man) where they can "fix" the psyche of people making them totally spineless, helpless > but not good. > *as long as people have the freedom to move between places* I will take your pepsi test anytime. We cannot right now, and I sure as hell can't ever, but if it were possible to create colonies, independent of the main state - and if a colony were to be run as a collective, where people would be allowed entry if they consented to these technologies (and I am thinking specifically of the iPlant device) the resulting society would be far more effective in straight head-on economic competition with other states. Plus I think in very short order people would want to migrate to such a polity (and the old state systems would go insane propagandizing against it). The potential for abuse is immense, but that is true in any alternative you'd care to come up with, including capitalism, communism, fascism, monarchy or variants of dictatorship. I think this is a terrible vision to some people, but unavoidable and I am all for it - assuming the modifications to NOT reduce free will. I want competitiveness out, I want pathological exludism out, I want a society where people feel united, even if it were engineered by neurological techniques, preferably when enhanced by plastic surgery and rejuvenation. Create a diffuse hack/game proof dopamine/seratonin rewards system, tweak it against chaotic selfreinforcing cycles, and then link it to societal approval. Do good, and society likes you. Do bad and you get a very strong urge to do better. Then make all resources part of the collective. Let this baby compete with free markets and I am sure it'll outcompete them nearly every other system. The key is to rip out the human instinct to predate on other humans, and implement a mechanic to finetune that and fix any errors that result of evolutionary imperatives. Then make everyone conscious actors in collective benefit and prosperity and make people happier the more succesful the collective is. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 16:40:20 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:40:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> As it is probably evident, I am more in the relativist camp. I think you are probably right on "it appears to me the ones who consider their own culture superior have a memetic advantage". But it can, I hope, be compensated by other memetic advantages. On Sat, Apr 11, 2009 at 6:32 PM, spike wrote: > > >> ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic > ... >> I just want to prove that we are not better than them... > ... >> But don't give me crap about us being better than them, >> because we are not. We are al humans. Humans are nasty to >> each other and fight. Let's acknowledge this basic darwinian >> fact and hope to become able to do something about it, but >> without any "ethical" crap about the alleged superiority of >> our culture... > > > Esch, this one caught my attention because it points out a fundamental > schism in human thought. ?It divides humanity in a way that is not racial or > even cultural. ?There exists among some humans a bedrock belief that all > cultures are, at some fundamental level, equivalent. ?Among others, an > equally strong fundamental notion that some cultures are better than others. > > Which are you and why? > > Step back from the original religion based question, and look at it from an > amoral top level point of view. ?Think carefully about your answer. ?Your > first comment is you want to prove we are not better. ?Why do you want to > prove that yours is not better? ?Wouldn't you want to create a better > society? ?What if the others agree with you that you are not better? ?They > argue that they are better than you. ?Do you then want to prove they are not > better than you? ?What if they are murderously outraged by that notion, and > wish to violently demonstrate otherwise? > > What I am asking is about the conflict of two memesets, a full step back > from the religion notion, and one we discussed here a few years ago. ?If the > entire world is divided into two equal sized groups, one with the memeset > that all cultures are equivalent, and the other with memeset that their own > culture is superior to the those who say cultures are equivalent. ?In the > long run, it appears to me the ones who consider their own culture superior > have a memetic advantage. > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 12 17:39:57 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:39:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com><49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it><1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> Message-ID: "spike" > There exists among some humans a bedrock belief that all > cultures are, at some fundamental level, equivalent. > Among others, an equally strong fundamental notion that > some cultures are better than others. Which are you and why? I don't want to get into the question of which culture is best as there is no arguing over matters of taste. However a logical man cannot deny that there are real differences among cultures; they are NOT equivalent. John K Clark From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 17:52:33 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:52:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: There is a universe of which we know nothing. We inhabit a thin shell of reality, on a world of no special importance and we only number a scarce few billion with brains as pathetic as dead leaves. This collective consciousness of a few billion humans, all with a very precarious understanding and ability to appreciate reality. We know nothing, or next to nothing. What technology we have, what science we have, it is less than a baby in its crib reaching towards the edge of the cradle towards a blur it can barely make out. I only know my heart screams out, for something better than this. Be cautious in anything, any judgment, any pronunciation, about even the most (apparently) ludicrous of subjects, for we know nothing. For now all we can be sure of is to not treat others as we ourselves do not wish to be treated, and even that in the most cautious of manners. We inhabit a very precarious age in human history where single humans still die, and we collectively stand years away from all of us dying, and many who read this may experience the total extinction of humanity personally. Or not. This is an era not to be underestimated or trivialized in any way. We truly live in the turning point between despicable animal consciousness and the eternal atrocity we call nature. We now can formulate an alternative to void and the horror of evolutionary imprisonment. We stand on the brink of real meaning. And last we should do is be smug or cavalier about it. So think wisely, and a long time, about what direction we all go. I really believe the words are spoken right here, right now, that define which direction we are headed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 18:18:20 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:18:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904121118l6f42ff50t9bac3108c2c530c@mail.gmail.com> Of course there are differences -- some cultures have been better that many others at doing some things at some times, and other cultures have been better than many others at doing other things at other times. But this does not mean that one culture is better than all others at doing all things at all times. On Sun, Apr 12, 2009 at 7:39 PM, John K Clark wrote: > "spike" > >> There exists among some humans a bedrock belief that all >> cultures are, at some fundamental level, equivalent. >> Among others, an ?equally strong fundamental notion that >> some cultures are better than others. Which are you and why? > > I don't want to get into the question of which culture is best as there is > no arguing over matters of taste. However a logical man cannot deny that > there are real differences among cultures; they are NOT equivalent. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 12 20:51:55 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 13:51:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com><49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it><1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com><577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic > Subject: Re: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? > > As it is probably evident, I am more in the relativist camp.... > > >> ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic > > ... > >> I just want to prove that we are not better than them... > > ... > > Esch, ... Why do you want to prove that yours is not better? ...? > > > > spike This discussion reminds me of a kind of a subtheme found in the old testament. Several of the writers are puzzled by the fact that the surrounding nations, which are pure evil by the standards of the bible writers, seem to be doing just fine. Another subtheme is that the Israelis drifted in and out of strict obedience to their religion over the centuries. When they were obedient, things went fine. When they drifted, stuff went way wrong. They lost battles specifically. So how could they explain the surrounding nations? These reprehensible heatherns don't do ANYTHING right, they do NONE of the commandments of god, but look at them, they prosper! How can this be? Major cognitive dissonance, ja? Here's a few examples I could think of, but there are plenty more in there: Jeremiah 12:1 Righteous art thou, O LORD, when I plead with thee: yet let me talk with thee of thy judgments: Wherefore doth the way of the wicked prosper? wherefore are all they happy that deal very treacherously? Job 21:7 Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power? Psalms 37:1,2 Fret not thyself because of evildoers, neither be thou envious against the workers of iniquity. For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, and wither as the green herb. Psalms 73:3 For I was envious at the foolish, when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. Malachi 3:15 But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly the evildoers prosper, and even those who challenge God escape. So the silly boneheads never realize the obvious, that their neighbors are capitalists, while the Israelis are socialist at best, bordering on communist. So of course the evildoers are richer. Chaim Potok wrote an excellent book called I Am the Clay, derived from his own life experiences. Potok was an army chaplain during the Korean war. In IAtC, Potok writes about a chaplain who grows up in the New York yeshivas for a traditional jewish education, then is sent to Korea. He is constantly puzzled by the inconguous fact that here is a society that knows nothing of his god, yet they are ethical. They know nothing of the scriptures that say that joy comes from being an obedient jew, and yet they seem so happy. Loving, kind, good, upstanding citizens are they. The chaplain has no explanation for these things, any more than the guys that wrote Jeremiah, Job, Psalms and Malachi. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 12 21:39:00 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 21:39:00 +0000 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/12/09, spike wrote: > So the silly boneheads never realize the obvious, that their neighbors are > capitalists, while the Israelis are socialist at best, bordering on > communist. So of course the evildoers are richer. > > (Grin) You've got exactly the same mindset, Spike. If the neighbors are doing better, then by default they must be capitalist. Sorry, nut the neighboring tribes of Israel were anything *but* capitalist. Different societies are on top at different times. Nothing much to do with whether their system is better. Some are just bigger, some develop a neat trick first, (like gunpowder), some have a dictator who is really good at organizing the army, (Alexander), some are on top only because the others are even worse. I've never had much interest in politics, as they never represented my interests. I see my role as more like a flea on an elephant, trying to make the best of whatever comes my way and trying not to get trodden on. BillK From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 12 23:50:49 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:50:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Making Rationalizations is Superior to the Alternative Message-ID: <49E27E59.3000805@rawbw.com> Far more interesting than a mere societal question of whether or not one certain class of Frenchmen ought in some sense to expel some other class (i.e., should the Catholics have expelled the Huguenots to Canada) are the amazing and very striking implications made by the posts, in their cumulation, on the process of thinking, and on rational thinking in general. There indeed was exhibited a great deal of what should be called "solely right hemispheric thinking". For example, some assertions (made by me and others) were and are dismissed out of hand without argument (!) in many posts. It ought to be called "solely right hemispheric" because that is that organ that generates immediate and timeless aesthetic judgments. Many posters were not at all shy in emphasizing their *revulsion*, their *disgust*, and other all-at-once immediate judgments, the province of the right hemisphere, and evinced utterly no embarrassment that these were unaccompanied by any explanations or argument. Now at the best of times these kinds of right-hemispheric judgments (as opposed to conclusions) are absolutely necessary for coherent thought. But normally, in the cases of interest, the process works like this: you see something, or you hear something, and you form a highly positive or negative judgment. Next, you search for a rationalization, literally a sequence (thereby involving the left hemisphere) of chronologically ordered statements or steps (even images) that backs up the conclusion you want. Now as bad as that may sound on first reading, it's actually good---or at least as good as we're going to get. For we seldom have any reason to suppose that we are often capable of anything better. Far long gone and dead, for example, is the ideal of a scientist who dispassionately goes about collecting data (completely innocent of any hypotheses), then analyzes that data, and arrives at some conclusion. That's a badly distorted view of what the so-called "scientific method" really does, and everybody now knows that. No, we are rationalizers, and that's just the way it is. And it could be worse. We could be like animals, who only react to the present circumstance, their minds unequipped to recall past experience in detail and unable to rationally extrapolate future experience. But the reader can easily recall examples where he or she has engaged in this *rationalizing*, and found, probably disappointingly, that the hoped for judgment could not be supported. In fact, the reader recalls that the more one thought and rethought a judgment he or she had made initially, the less justified it seemed to be, and the more that some sudden, new competing hypotheses seemed to be viewed sympathetically by the right hemisphere. Gradually in the best cases, a revised judgment is (perhaps unhappily) finally accepted by the right hemisphere under the protest that "well, I really have no choice but to conclude X, as ugly as it is". But what so surprised me about the exchanges in question was the *paucity* of rationalization. Many people were *completely* unembarrassed to put forth very strong judgments unaccompanied by any reasoning whatsoever, no matter how evidently after the fact. How could this be? How could it be especially in an on-line forum where no immediacy of reflection and no immediate rebuttal is called for? That is, this kind of behavior could be expected far more in face-to-face encounters where no time is permitted for a thoroughly worked-out left-brain-assisted rationalization. It's scary. If the Extropian "masses" :-) are so disinclined to attempt rationalizations of their aesthetic conclusions, what chance do our democracies have? How is any instant judgment (say "pro-Obama" or "anti-Obama") possibly going to be dethroned? A second question: is this striking absence of non- rational behavior better, worse, or the same as at other historical times? As we all become more and more ADHD, it seems to me that this will just get worse. Lee From lcorbin at rawbw.com Sun Apr 12 23:35:58 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:35:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] L'Affaire Bradbury In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090407134847.023520c8@satx.rr.com> References: <49D86AD0.3000706@rawbw.com> <49DB0F11.8000106@rawbw.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090407134847.023520c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49E27ADE.20804@rawbw.com> Damien Broderick wrote: >> have the nerve to admit that logically and rationally they >> were all wet, and that they had to concede the discussion >> on rational and logical grounds, but that nonetheless their >> side "had to prevail" because of... because of... because >> [in essence] because they were right. > > > > Hmm, there's much in what you say, Lee. Let us reason together, as > Richard Nixon once memorably said. Meanwhile, take a look at this (from > the NYT's tame conservative columnist): > > Interesting. In particular (to sum up a bit) > Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers > embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is > more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly > evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate > processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous. and > Moral judgments are like that. They are rapid intuitive decisions and > involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain. Most of us make > snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good > or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have > language. And even as adults, we often can?t explain to ourselves why > something feels wrong. > > In other words, reasoning comes later and is often guided by the > emotions that preceded it. Or as Jonathan Haidt of the University of > Virginia memorably wrote, ?The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the > temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant > masquerading as a high priest.? What seems to be missing from the article (and perhaps from the entire point of view) is that these "basically simultaneous" and instant "rapid intuitive" decisions involving "the emotion-processing parts of the brain", is an *emphasis* that these are single-value judgments. What I mean to say is that it fails to notice that one must normally think of *many* such single instant episodes in order to avoid whimsy. Let me give an example. Let's suppose that FDR and his advisers operated by single-impression methods. Then he would have taken one image of, say, some Japanese civilian being roughly pushed by soldiers into a truck. The danger of this---which is exactly why televised or YouTube news is so dangerous---is that it is only *one* image. To be rational is not to discard the emotional impact of single images. Far from it. It is, instead, to conflate many, many such images and take a measured weighted average of the feelings that they generate according to one's value system. The importance of that last sentence can hardly be over-stressed. So in pondering the mass internments of the Japanese, Roosevelt would also have had to entertain the emotional impact of many, many such images. Here is a very small subset of those that surely entered his thinking: 1. Japanese civilian Y (instead of X) undergoing the same rough treatment. 2. Japanese child Z being yanked from his or her school... 3. Mobs of hysterical anti-Japanese whites, blacks, and other asians surrounding a Japanese/American house and throwing rocks, and maybe preparing to burn it down. 4. a scene in which a Japanese landing army is receiving help from a Japanese/American racialist who admires his own race and wishes it victory 5. subsequent (to 4) scenes involving "the Rape of Los Angeles" 6. a Japanese/American having to sell his car for an outrageously low price and a grinning Anglo writing out a small check and so on and so on. What is a "rational" response? It is to bring to mind as many such images as possible, and, *most importantly*, to let them affect any conclusion by weight of their statistical number. Brooks fails to mention the catastrophic result of being blinded by *one* of those instant moral judgments, blinded to thousands of others that must also be considered. And it takes time, and a lot of what we call "thought" to properly weigh many thousands of equally valid images, and to inform (or to reject) many of them by rational predicates. Lee From fauxever at sprynet.com Mon Apr 13 01:29:27 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 18:29:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Amazon is Beginning to Delist Some Books References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com><580930c20904101044o60bf5089xa4cd80fcd6f36b07@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410125702.02682200@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2C16C4CED2FD48528610DA015C48B1A0@patrick4ezsk6z> Being a great fan of the First Amendment, I am sorry to see this trend. http://therumpus.net/2009/04/amazon-delisting-books/ Olga From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 13 02:05:35 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 19:05:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com><49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it><1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com><577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike><1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> > ...On Behalf Of BillK > > On 4/12/09, spike wrote: > > > So the silly boneheads never realize the obvious, that their > > neighbors are capitalists, while the Israelis are > socialist at best, > > bordering on communist. So of course the evildoers are richer. > > > (Grin) You've got exactly the same mindset, Spike. If the neighbors > are doing better, then by default they must be capitalist... Hey, that works for me. {8-] > Sorry, nut the neighboring tribes of Israel were anything > *but* capitalist. > > Different societies are on top at different times. Nothing > much to do with whether their system is better. Some are just > bigger, some develop a neat trick first... BillK Ja, so goes the argument in Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. An indirectly related version of a similar argument runs throughout Steven Jay Gould's essays. OK BillK granted, I have strained the analogy from modern times. Upon further consideration, I would call the ancient Israeli culture as theocratic totalitarianism. The analogy to socialism breaks down in that pretty much all cultures in those days were crippled by superstition and lack of technology. My view on the wealth of nations is of course influenced by our recent experience with the Berlin Wall, and the results revealed upon it's destruction in 1989. That was a good semi-controlled experiment which demonstrates the relative success of the two systems. Do allow me offer a comment from a controls engineer's point of view. Compared to communism, capitalism shortens the feedback loop from personal investment to personal enrichment, where the term personal investment includes one's own labor, intellect and risk of personal assets. Holding to the classic controls theory analogy, we would say: by shortening that feedback loop, the gain of the system is increased. Of course there are winners and losers, but the higher gain feedback loop of capitalism performs better overall. Economic freedom creates wealth. spike From frankmac at ripco.com Mon Apr 13 03:18:26 2009 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frankie) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 23:18:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] all Cultures are equivalent Message-ID: <42E3ECD3BB8B42F1BE4F09DB807A4A67@FRANKPC> Have you ever been to Cyprus, Half of the island is Greek other half Turk, Have you ever been to Bosnia or it's neighbor Croatia hate each other. Now with Ireland almost broke the Catholics(Irish) are starting to kill the English again, then there are the French, Invaded Algeria and now (it is written) the Algerians pay back is happening, The Germans have the Turk's cheap labor last century, and here the Mexicans have reclaimed California. On this Easter day I think the world would be better off if those guys or girls who drew those lines in Peru would come back and tell mankind to lay off this junk and start living in peace Frank -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 04:38:14 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:38:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Making Rationalizations is Superior to the Alternative In-Reply-To: <49E27E59.3000805@rawbw.com> References: <49E27E59.3000805@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904122138m76e92071p2727aeecfd2d9caf@mail.gmail.com> Lee, I am disappointed with your argumentation. When I challenged you to provide me with the exact chain of reasoning leading you from "I live in France" to "let's destroy all Muslims in France", you didn't. When I challenged you to run the numbers and to explain how a 6% minority with marginally higher procreation levels could become a majority in 25 years, you didn't. Yet you persist in dismissing me and others as dumb ("right hemisphere", "rationalizations"). This hurts, since you are a guy I have a lot of respect for and I know you have a good grasp of rational, economist-like thinking, at least when you feel like it. On top of that, you have been whining about people trying to shut you down like a heretic. No, you are not a heretic. You walk in any bar in the US and you will find dozens of regular dudes who think like you do. In fact, the idea of wasting an outgroup simply because they are an outgroup is the default notion since time immemorial. "Kick'em all out, and shoot if they get uppity" is not a heresy, it's regular dude stuff. So, as to uphold the high standards of the list, let me ask you again - Run the numbers. Give me a quantitative analysis of current situation, trends, likely quantitative outcomes of various interventions in support of your plan. To channel Eliezer, shut up and multiply. And did I mention, run the numbers? If you don't do that, what's the use arguing? Rafal From lcorbin at rawbw.com Mon Apr 13 05:12:56 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Sun, 12 Apr 2009 22:12:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Evils of the West (was Re: Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype) In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904100350m2780ec8ak415129b5daa99ce7@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100350m2780ec8ak415129b5daa99ce7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E2C9D8.1080108@rawbw.com> Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Yes, like that. Another illuminating example of the compassionate > nature of the Western civilization is provided by heroic pioneers > giving free blankets to protect poor native Americans from the harsh > winter. The same blankets that had covered smallpox victims... Anyone who supposed that Western civilization is necessarily nicer than other civilization doesn't understand that *niceness is a luxury*, and if some people in some Western nations today (or the nations themselves) are kind, it is only because they can afford to be. Why did the British in World War II begin the unrestricted bombing of German cities? Mainly because they felt they had to; they were losing otherwise. Not that this explains the American non-nuclear attacks on Japanese cities! (You see, unfortunately the converse doesn't work: groups and nations, as well as individuals, are often meaner than they need to be. E.g. the egregiously cruel behavior of the Japanese in WWII.) Western nations have been the first to use almost everything, from Greek Fire to nuclear weapons. Do you want to (please) tell me about some culture that wouldn't have used these weapons themselves? Someone nicer, kinder, nobler? The Indians were the first to use war-Elephants, the Chinese gunpowder powered rockets, and the Mongolians various superior tactics (though they practiced total genocide, they didn't invent it). Here we have yet another example of the basic drive throughout Western civilization towards destructive self-criticism, a self-criticism that goes far beyond the facts. Lee > On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 12:38 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 10, 2009 at 11:01 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >>> Question: do you know which culture started using biological weapons in warfare? >>> >>> Yeah, right. >> As in throwing carcasses and other biological stuff which were >> infected by plague beyond castle walls and in the wells of the enemy >> during the crusades for the greater glory of God? :-) >> >> -- >> Stefano Vaj >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 05:19:13 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:19:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Ketman Message-ID: <7641ddc60904122219n387e9e1dl878b6f42f3aab5a7@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 6, 2009 at 12:45 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > How do I differentiate from a "moderate" Muslim from a "extremist" Muslim? > Many purported "moderate" Muslims are so only when they are speaking in > a western language to westerns, but they are "extremists" when they > speak in Arabic to Muslims. This is know like al-Taqiyya/Dissimulation > or Ketman (also spelled Kitman) > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketman > >> Ketman (Arabic kitm?n ????? "secrecy, concealment") is the act of >> paying lip service to authority while holding personal opposition. >> It is a sort of political or religious camouflage, for the purpose >> of survival, because, if you said publicly that you are against those >> in power, the consequences for you and your family would be >> immediate and catastrophic. So you can teach your children, in deep >> secrecy, to practice ketman exactly the same as you, but never to >> forget the real truth, as you see it. This can go on through many >> generations, and erupt one distant day in the form of revolutions, >> uprisings, etc. >> >> Though the term was originally used exclusively in regards to >> Islamic authority, the term is most frequently encountered in >> reference to Communist authoritarianism. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taqiyya > >> Within the Shia theological framework,[1] the concept of Taqiyya >> (???? - 'fear, guard against', also taghiyeh)[2] refers to a >> dispensation allowing believers to conceal their faith when under >> threat, persecution or compulsion.[3] >> >> The word "al-Taqiyya" literally means: "Concealing or disguising >> one's beliefs, convictions, ideas, feelings, opinions, and/or >> strategies at a time of imminent danger, whether now or later in >> time, to save oneself from physical and/or mental injury." A one-word >> translation would be "dissimulation." [4] > > http://www.al-islam.org/encyclopedia/chapter6b/1.html > > MEMRI is there with so many translations showing only this. Many > "undercover" reporters recorded hateful sermons inside mainstream > Mosques in Europe and in the USA. And when confronted, the leaders of > the Mosques talk about "He was let preaching without supervision because > he take out the trash from the Mosque; not our fault." or other nonsense. > ### Do you realize that your post is literally incoherent? You start out by arguing that in principle you cannot tell the difference between nice Muslims and asshole Muslims (which, if true, could be a reason to treat them all alike) but then you justify this claim by quoting persons who actually were able to tell the difference ("many undercover reporters"). So which is it? This reminds me of the Jewish question. I mean, all reasonable people know that Jews use Christian baby blood to make matzoh, and especially Jewesses eat a lot of it when they lay their eggs. Sure, there could be a non-blood-sucking Jew or two, but how do we tell the difference? They all stick together, so we really have to gas them. Or else Christian babies will continue to get snatched away and eaten! Do you want Christian babies to be eaten? (Just to avoid misunderstandings, the previous paragraph was just vituperative satire a la Borat, not an expression of my beliefs). Painlord, I know you can think clearly, you are a smart dude, your posts about economics show it but it looks like that tribal stuff is messing you up. Rafal From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 05:38:44 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 00:38:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: [DIYbio-SF] DIYbio SF update In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55ad6af70904122238t54d52d28q621f74ce6c55d610@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tito Jankowski Date: Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 12:36 AM Subject: [DIYbio-SF] DIYbio SF update To: DIYbio-SF at googlegroups.com Cc: NoiseBridge Discuss Hi everyone, What do you think of this idea: The DIYbio Salon -- a meeting to learn and teach about biotech and biohacking. If you're into exploring your genome, making plants that communicate with twitter, synthetic biology, or even hacking a beetle to fly like a remote control plane -- we dig it. Every meeting is for amateurs and experts ?-- you can share or listen in! Each Salon session will combine 5 minute "lightning talks" about cool topics and longer workshops such as "An Intro to Synthetic Biology" or "Arduino + Biology". We're thinking this would be a cool way to learn and give back to the community -- and take the focus off bio-labs and bio-equipment. We'd probably be meeting on 1 Saturday a month to start off. Would you be interested? Also, on Saturday Marnia, Josh, Praveen, Tim, and I got on skype for a meeting about DIYbio. Here's a quick summary to keep you updated: 1. Marnia moved the fridge from Noisebridge to her garage 2. Whenever you send a DIYbio email concerning Noisebridge, such as scheduling, etc, please cc NoiseBridge Discuss 3. The GFP experiment is on hold until further notice Tito --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ DIYbio.org San Francisco For access to academic articles, email the name and title to: getarticles at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to DIYbio-SF+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 05:46:23 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:46:23 +1000 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> Message-ID: 2009/4/13 spike : > My view on the wealth of nations is of course influenced by our recent > experience with the Berlin Wall, and the results revealed upon it's > destruction in 1989. ?That was a good semi-controlled experiment which > demonstrates the relative success of the two systems. > > Do allow me offer a comment from a controls engineer's point of view. > Compared to communism, capitalism shortens the feedback loop from personal > investment to personal enrichment, where the term personal investment > includes one's own labor, intellect and risk of personal assets. ?Holding to > the classic controls theory analogy, we would say: by shortening that > feedback loop, the gain of the system is increased. ?Of course there are > winners and losers, but the higher gain feedback loop of capitalism performs > better overall. ?Economic freedom creates wealth. And, in the final analysis, the efficient and productive systems shall prevail over the less efficient, less productive. So what would you say if in a few decades the wealthiest, most powerful nations are not following a pure free market economic program? -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 13 06:32:32 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 01:32:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090413012233.024a5ac0@satx.rr.com> At 03:46 PM 4/13/2009 +1000, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >Economic freedom creates wealth. >And, in the final analysis, the efficient and productive systems >shall prevail over the less efficient, less productive. So what >would you say if in a few decades the wealthiest, most powerful >nations are not following a pure free market economic program? Why, surely that *no* nation in these terrible decades has followed such a program. Also, it couldn't happen. It just couldn't. Actually, I'm more concerned about an orthogonal issue. Let's assume that unconstrained market freedom does indeed maximize wealth especially if it doesn't pay any attention to externalities, as was the case (I gather) in its heyday. But does that tide of wealth really lift all boats, or is the extra wealth channeled into few and fewer hands (as has happened, I gather, in the last decade or more in the US)? Is an aristocracy of immense wealth really the US ideal? Used not to be, I hear. Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 08:13:35 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:13:35 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Ketman In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904122219n387e9e1dl878b6f42f3aab5a7@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60904122219n387e9e1dl878b6f42f3aab5a7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 4/13/09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Painlord, I know you can think clearly, you are a smart dude, your > posts about economics show it but it looks like that tribal stuff is > messing you up. > No, his posts about economics are equally as incoherent. There's a difference between 'smart' and 'sensible'. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 08:50:40 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:50:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904130150i6364fff4rc6100f0c7a26f77f@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 1:46 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/4/13 spike : > >> My view on the wealth of nations is of course influenced by our recent >> experience with the Berlin Wall, and the results revealed upon it's >> destruction in 1989. ?That was a good semi-controlled experiment which >> demonstrates the relative success of the two systems. >> >> Do allow me offer a comment from a controls engineer's point of view. >> Compared to communism, capitalism shortens the feedback loop from personal >> investment to personal enrichment, where the term personal investment >> includes one's own labor, intellect and risk of personal assets. ?Holding to >> the classic controls theory analogy, we would say: by shortening that >> feedback loop, the gain of the system is increased. ?Of course there are >> winners and losers, but the higher gain feedback loop of capitalism performs >> better overall. ?Economic freedom creates wealth. > > And, in the final analysis, the efficient and productive systems shall > prevail over the less efficient, less productive. So what would you > say if in a few decades the wealthiest, most powerful nations are not > following a pure free market economic program? ### There has not been a case in history where a nation would become wealthy and powerful during peacetime by following anything else but the freest market economic path possible under the circumstances. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 08:54:39 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 04:54:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090413012233.024a5ac0@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090413012233.024a5ac0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60904130154h7f2518f1y40927f208376cf4f@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 2:32 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > doesn't pay any attention to externalities, as was the case (I gather) in ### "Externalities" is just the kind of baloney that economists invented when their own research started going too far against their own prejudices. The anti-market bias afflicts most economists, too, they just learned how to clothe their antipathy in jargon. Rafal From eschatoon at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 09:10:22 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 11:10:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Evils of the West (was Re: Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype) In-Reply-To: <49E2C9D8.1080108@rawbw.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100350m2780ec8ak415129b5daa99ce7@mail.gmail.com> <49E2C9D8.1080108@rawbw.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90904130210u340ecb49gefb5220a06092dc6@mail.gmail.com> Thanks Lee for this very smart observation. It is kind of obvious, but obvious things often need being spelled out so that they are not forgotten. Many of "us" are nice people... because we can afford it. In the past, when we could not afford it, we were not nice. Many fellow human beings born in other cultures still cannot afford being nice, and they are not nice. Many fellow human beings born in _our_ culture still cannot afford being nice, and they are not nice. Simple as that. It follows that we should do our very best to give everyone the possibility to be a nice person. On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 7:12 AM, Lee Corbin wrote: > Eschatoon Magic wrote: > >> Yes, like that. Another illuminating example of the compassionate >> nature of the Western civilization is provided by heroic pioneers >> giving free blankets to protect poor native Americans from the harsh >> winter. The same blankets that had covered smallpox victims... > > Anyone who supposed that Western civilization is necessarily > nicer than other civilization doesn't understand that *niceness > is a luxury*, and if some people in some Western nations today > (or the nations themselves) are kind, it is only because they > can afford to be. -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 09:33:44 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 19:33:44 +1000 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904130150i6364fff4rc6100f0c7a26f77f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> <7641ddc60904130150i6364fff4rc6100f0c7a26f77f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/4/13 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### There has not been a case in history where a nation would become > wealthy and powerful during peacetime by following anything else but > the freest market economic path possible under the circumstances. I don't understand what "freest possible under the circumstances" means here. Surely the successful countries, even if mostly capitalist, could have been a little *more* free, and hence be even more successful. For example, Belgium could stop public health spending and substantially lower taxes, giving it an advantage over the Netherlands; then the Dutch, seeing their neighbours prosper, would do likewise and even more, by shutting down loss-making public transport systems; whereupon the Belgians would, in a wave of public euphoria at their ever-increasing prosperity, eliminate all public spending on schools, saving themselves even more money and also ridding themselves of a possible source of statist propaganda in the guise of "education". Of course, people are stupid and gullible and would resist this at first, but once they saw their neighbours prospering they would have no choice but to follow or be left behind. Why isn't it happening? After all, communism fell in Eastern Europe ultimately because the population could see they were being left behind, and the barriers to change there were far greater than those in the West. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 13 11:44:13 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 13:44:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Evils of the West (was Re: Muslim Threat to Europe- Don't Buy All the Hype) In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904130210u340ecb49gefb5220a06092dc6@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100350m2780ec8ak415129b5daa99ce7@mail.gmail.com> <49E2C9D8.1080108@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904130210u340ecb49gefb5220a06092dc6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E3258D.9070908@libero.it> Il 13/04/2009 11.10, Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > Thanks Lee for this very smart observation. It is kind of obvious, > but obvious things often need being spelled out so that they are not > forgotten. > > Many of "us" are nice people... because we can afford it. In the > past, when we could not afford it, we were not nice. Many fellow > human beings born in other cultures still cannot afford being nice, > and they are not nice. Many fellow human beings born in _our_ > culture still cannot afford being nice, and they are not nice. Simple > as that. > It follows that we should do our very best to give everyone the > possibility to be a nice person. "Be nice" is a possibility we give to people when we are not causing harm to them or are not interested to harm them. Then they can choose to "be nice" or "be indifferent" (that is much better than "be violent"). But, in many cultures "be nice" is synonymous of "be weak" or "be dead" or "be damned". And many will regard nice people like present or future preys. Or will act under the conviction that it is their duty to do something "not nice" or that they must be "not nice" as a way to protect themselves from their peers. > [002:216] Warfare is ordained for you, though it is hateful unto > you; but it may happen that ye hate a thing which is good for you, > and it may happen that ye love a thing which is bad for you. Allah > knoweth, ye know not. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 13:19:06 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:19:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Amazon is Beginning to Delist Some Books In-Reply-To: <2C16C4CED2FD48528610DA015C48B1A0@patrick4ezsk6z> References: <200904091852.n39IqSLn009773@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <580930c20904101044o60bf5089xa4cd80fcd6f36b07@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090410125702.02682200@satx.rr.com> <2C16C4CED2FD48528610DA015C48B1A0@patrick4ezsk6z> Message-ID: <580930c20904130619p75404008m3941dcb0a7b25e11@mail.gmail.com> This is indeed deplorable... Sign of the times? On Mon, Apr 13, 2009 at 3:29 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > Being a great fan of the First Amendment, I am sorry to see this trend. > > http://therumpus.net/2009/04/amazon-delisting-books/ > > Olga > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 13 13:28:54 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 15:28:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] all Cultures are equivalent In-Reply-To: <42E3ECD3BB8B42F1BE4F09DB807A4A67@FRANKPC> References: <42E3ECD3BB8B42F1BE4F09DB807A4A67@FRANKPC> Message-ID: <580930c20904130628t24894effl3ab42d946cd1561a@mail.gmail.com> 2009/4/13 frankie : > On this Easter day I think the world would be better off if those guys or > girls who drew those lines in Peru would come back and tell mankind to lay > off this junk and start living in peace Or perhaps we should all learn to "agree to disagree", renounce entropic and genocidal one-worldisms, support your "team" and of course protect it, but at the same accept the continued existence of other teams equally supported by their respective fans without the delusion that they are simply stupid or misinformed or "brainwashed". -- Stefano Vaj From brentn at freeshell.org Mon Apr 13 13:51:02 2009 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 09:51:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] External costs (was Re: are all cultures equivalent?) In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904130154h7f2518f1y40927f208376cf4f@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike> <1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090413012233.024a5ac0@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60904130154h7f2518f1y40927f208376cf4f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 13 Apr, 2009, at 4:54, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### "Externalities" is just the kind of baloney that economists > invented when their own research started going too far against their > own prejudices. The anti-market bias afflicts most economists, too, > they just learned how to clothe their antipathy in jargon. > > Rafal Externalities, or externalized costs, are very real, not made-up jargon. Let me give you an example: Let's say I own a bit of land upstream from you. I can poop in the river and for me, waste disposal is free. Much cheaper than digging a latrine or building some hippie composting system. The water just carries it downstream. Of course, by doing so, I've imposed some costs on you. You now have to install a catch system to remove my waste from your drinking water, and boil everything to kill the coliform bacteria. Of course, it doesn't matter to ME, since I've externalized that cost. :) Economically, it makes a lot of sense for me to push that cost onto you. What can compete with free, after all? But it doesn't mean that its the right thing to do, so you are well within your rights to make sure there is a Clean Water Act preventing me from pooping in the river and thus making sure that I'm paying for my own waste disposal, rather than using the fortunate happenstance of the river to force you to pay for it. There's a very good reason economists care about externalities, one that seems obvious to me: precision. If you don't account for external costs, then there is no consistency in your measurement system. It's like using a balance without taring it each time. You have no idea how one thing compares to anything in terms of its real cost, because you're not measuring the same thing each time. Which, contrary to your assertion, means that understanding externalities is vital to market economics - how can an agent in the market make the best choice if there is no precise or accurate counting of the cost? B -- Brent Neal, Ph.D. http://brentn.freeshell.org From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 13 13:55:29 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:55:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com> <49DF2B0E.9070901@libero.it><1fa8c3b90904101113v632fa29ah4ab4914d945ced78@mail.gmail.com> <577B7EAF859541929AC0C81648AB04E0@spike><1fa8c3b90904120940y482d09can106d2be7ee27ca3@mail.gmail.com> <49BAAD84FA1540F58672753FA37E2482@spike> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou > Subject: Re: [ExI] are all cultures equivalent? > > 2009/4/13 spike : > > > My view on the wealth of nations is of course influenced by > our recent > > experience with the Berlin Wall... > > assets. ?Holding to the classic controls theory analogy, we > would say: > > by shortening that feedback loop, the gain of the system is > increased... > > And, in the final analysis, the efficient and productive > systems shall prevail over the less efficient, less > productive. So what would you say if in a few decades the > wealthiest, most powerful nations are not following a pure > free market economic program?... Stathis Papaioannou Then of course the feedback control system analogy fails, and the theory would be discarded. The current success of China works perfectly with that analogy, for in a control system in which the feedback loop is not as direct, the output shows large amplitude fluctuations at lower frequencies. We would expect communist nations to have a generation or two of relatively good times, followed by a long and deep bust. There would be an alternative explanation in this case: the Chinese government mandates for small families (one child, left behind) caused enormous savings for a while, lasting until all those ageing parents need support from their vastly overwhelmed younger generation. Secondly, China is functionally transitioning from communism to capitalism, since 1989. Good for them, but it still doesn't solve a huge problem of what to do with the starving hordes of AARPs, or rather in their case CARPs. spike From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 13 14:01:32 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 07:01:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Evils of the West (was Re: Muslim Threat to Europe-Don't Buy All the Hype) In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90904130210u340ecb49gefb5220a06092dc6@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670904091637k32a468b2s1a642a0da36894f@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90904100201j8e203f4g77452c3a329d09e8@mail.gmail.com><580930c20904100338o73a1eb28nef26579722c860f0@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90904100350m2780ec8ak415129b5daa99ce7@mail.gmail.com><49E2C9D8.1080108@rawbw.com> <1fa8c3b90904130210u340ecb49gefb5220a06092dc6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <0FD994E584EE401599FDA9AB45B9C4A0@spike> > ...In the past, when we could not afford it, we were not nice... Eschatoon Magic No way, Jose! In my misspent youth I was too poor to pay attention, but I was nicer then than I am now, in my far more financially comfortable misspent middle age. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 13 14:33:55 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:33:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Ketman In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60904122219n387e9e1dl878b6f42f3aab5a7@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60904122219n387e9e1dl878b6f42f3aab5a7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49E34D53.30000@libero.it> Il 13/04/2009 7.19, Rafal Smigrodzki ha scritto: > ### Do you realize that your post is literally incoherent? You start > out by arguing that in principle you cannot tell the difference > between nice Muslims and asshole Muslims (which, if true, could be a > reason to treat them all alike) but then you justify this claim by > quoting persons who actually were able to tell the difference ("many > undercover reporters"). So which is it? It is that "first hand" it is impossible or very difficult to differ the nice and the asshole. You need to look at them one by one, research what they did, what they say in English (or Italian or any other languages of kafir) and what they tell in Arabic to their "brothers". It is like to know that a cargo full of lemons have 0.01% of them poisoned with a LD50 of arsenic (lethal dose 50% of the times). What do you do? Check all the oranges, one by one? Trash them all? Make lemonade with all of them so the poison is diluted? I can think Suad Sbai is trustable, like was Magdi Allam (before becoming Christian) because their life is know and what they stand for is know to all by their words and deeds (practically their deeds are so against mainstream Islam that we could regard them as wine bottles with a "vinegar" label) . But the Muslim down the street I don't know what he think, what he would do given the chance to avoid retaliation or if he "rediscover" his faith, because I ha