From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 00:03:27 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:03:27 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131180051.0230b0f0@satx.rr.com> At 01:03 PM 1/31/2009 -0700, Keith wrote: >>True free markets assume every person equal and free. > >Equal rights under law is one thing And that one thing is an ideological fairytale, alas, as an earlier post of mine demonstrated, citing the comparative cases of Madoff and Brown (as if anyone over the age of 12 doubted it). Damien Broderick From spike66 at att.net Sun Feb 1 00:26:57 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:26:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: > > > Subject: Re: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency ... > > > > At 03:16 PM 1/30/2009 -0700, Thomas wrote contra regulation: > > > > > > > >>Free market traders with education, enlightenment and refinement > > > >>(civilized) have the advantage over savages. Last week we heard a talk about cryonics by Ralph Merkle. Under communism having that procedure is out of the question. The proles would argue that their immediate needs far outrank my desire to be cryopreserved. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 00:29:06 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:29:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131180051.0230b0f0@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131180051.0230b0f0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131182127.022d0c90@satx.rr.com> At 06:03 PM 1/31/2009 -0600, I wrote: >>Equal rights under law is one thing > >And that one thing is an ideological fairytale and I should have added: As Keith Henson, to his outrageous misfortune, is probably the one among us who knows this best and most cruelly. That wasn't the market, of course, except in the sense that his persecutors presumably did not go unrewarded in some currency or other (perhaps, one speculates, of some deluded metaphysical kind). Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 00:47:07 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:47:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> At 04:26 PM 1/31/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: >cryonics... Under communism >having that procedure is out of the question. The proles would argue that >their immediate needs far outrank my desire to be cryopreserved. I doubt that anyone here is arguing in favor of communism. Besides, under communism as actually practised, the proles didn't have a say one way or the other. Given the loony devotion to the stuffed corpse of Lenin, I suspect the boss-classes might have been inclined to support cryonics for themselves and their families if the idea had occurred to them. Or is "communists" or "commies" here a sardonic shorthand for "bread& circus voters" in the allegedly socialist USA? Damien Broderick From fauxever at sprynet.com Sun Feb 1 00:55:56 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 16:55:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: From: "hkhenson" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 12:03 PM > Equal rights under law is one thing, but if there is one thing we do know > it is that people are *not* equal in other directions. "Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, government will of itself decay." - Percy Bysshe Shelley Olga From spike66 at att.net Sun Feb 1 01:55:36 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 17:55:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131182127.022d0c90@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z><1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net><7.0.1.0.2.20090131180051.0230b0f0@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131182127.022d0c90@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <982B722E3AA84A0F8E3BE0DED94D6DD0@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency > > At 06:03 PM 1/31/2009 -0600, I wrote: > > >>Equal rights under law is one thing > > > >And that one thing is an ideological fairytale > > and I should have added: As Keith Henson, to his outrageous > misfortune, is probably the one among us who knows this best > and most cruelly... Damien Broderick This notion brings up a host of interesting questions. What if Keith had been Mr. Brown? Imagine a kind of down and out hungry minority guy picketing in front of the Co$ compound and generally causing them discomfort. What would our legal system have done then? Mr. Brown's case made it sound like he was a street person, homeless, hungry, basically a decent sort as evidenced by his submitting to the authorities. I don't know what else they could do other than send him to prison, for if free he would soon get hungry again. I object to Mr. Madoff being under wimpy house arrest in the penthouse. He should be in with the general population at the federal pen. They should send letters to all his relatives and friends, letting them know that any gifts they received from Uncle Bernie must be turned over forthwith, or face charges of receiving stolen property. This would be more than an idle threat, with the knowledge that Uncle Bernie was down at Club Fed making lists of those to whom the money and jewels were sent. Here's another thought in this scattershot post: the same conditions that allowed Madoff to do his thing surely resulted in dozens of similar cases that haven't collapsed yet. I can imagine funds in which the organizers stole only a little, so their funds have 80 or 90 percent of the funds they are supposed to have, with no practical way to make up the difference. Madoff's may be the biggest pyramid scheme, but I suspect there are scores if not hundreds yet to be revealed. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Feb 1 02:01:58 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 18:01:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z><1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick >... > > >cryonics... Under communism > >having that procedure is out of the question. The proles > would argue > >that their immediate needs far outrank my desire to be cryopreserved. > > I doubt that anyone here is arguing in favor of communism. > Besides, under communism as actually practised, the proles > didn't have a say one way or the other... Oy vey. I would suppose a cryonicist in a communist nation would need to attempt an escape by some means. > Or is "communists" or "commies" here a sardonic shorthand for > "bread& circus voters" in the allegedly socialist USA? > > Damien Broderick Ja, I was actually referring to Chinese commies, but the USA seems to be charging in the direction of European socialism as such and alarming rate, I stand as a deer in the headlights. I should ask instead of assuming: are there any Chinese citizens signed up for cryonics? Are there any cryonics companies in China? What about the European transhumanists? Do you guys have any interest in, and some means of having cyronic preservation? Where is it? Do the local authorities oppose? spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 02:28:44 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:28:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <982B722E3AA84A0F8E3BE0DED94D6DD0@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131180051.0230b0f0@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131182127.022d0c90@satx.rr.com> <982B722E3AA84A0F8E3BE0DED94D6DD0@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131202745.023a3380@satx.rr.com> At 05:55 PM 1/31/2009 -0800, spike wrote: >Mr. Brown's case made it sound like he was a street person, homeless, >hungry, basically a decent sort as evidenced by his submitting to the >authorities. I don't know what else they could do other than send him to >prison, for if free he would soon get hungry again. And lucky fellow, he won't be hungry again for another 15 years. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 03:12:03 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:12:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> At 06:01 PM 1/31/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: >the USA seems to be >charging in the direction of European socialism at such an alarming rate In order to try desperately to fix the mindboggling clusterfucks caused by ruinous American non-socialism, right? No, sorry, that was all caused by US socialism, I keep forgetting. Is European socialism anything like Canadian or British or Australian "socialism"? Having lived most of my life in one of those very largely market-oriented nations, I find that label curiously misplaced. Damien Broderick From hkhenson at rogers.com Sun Feb 1 03:20:12 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:20:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> At 05:55 PM 1/31/2009, Olga wrote: >From: "hkhenson" >To: "ExI chat list" >Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 12:03 PM > >>Equal rights under law is one thing, but if there is one thing we >>do know it is that people are *not* equal in other directions. > >"Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of >men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, >government will of itself decay." - Percy Bysshe Shelley That's not likely to happen. My best guess is that government will "decay" when human are no longer the smartest entities around. I think the best we can hope for is the status of cats relative to those in charge. That's assuming we don't transfer our vices as well as our virtues to our successors. I don't know if my view of the singularity is optimistic or pessimistic. Keith From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 04:04:51 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:04:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> Message-ID: <2d6187670901312004k2a11ad19ldee9b88618eb447a@mail.gmail.com> Keith Henson wrote: That's not likely to happen. My best guess is that government will "decay" when human are no longer the smartest entities around. I think the best we can hope for is the status of cats relative to those in charge. That's assuming we don't transfer our vices as well as our virtues to our successors. >> Humans as docile house cats and the A.I. we create as the tigers that keep us in line? A sad thought... But I suppose a society like the one Iain M. Banks envisioned is really not so bad. In fact, it very much appeals to me. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Culture John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Sun Feb 1 04:05:27 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 20:05:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <49851F87.30303@mac.com> Olga Bourlin wrote: > From: "hkhenson" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 12:03 PM > >> Equal rights under law is one thing, but if there is one thing we do >> know it is that people are *not* equal in other directions. > > "Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of men > that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, > government will of itself decay." - Percy Bysshe Shelley > Or perhaps it is the vices of human beings that make governments much too dangerous. A government is a honeypot of power and wealth drawing every scoundrel around and often corrupting even the honest. Can we become good and wise by making it so easy to be evil on a large scale? - samantha From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 04:31:56 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:31:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <2d6187670901312004k2a11ad19ldee9b88618eb447a@mail.gmail.co m> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> <2d6187670901312004k2a11ad19ldee9b88618eb447a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131222837.02381158@satx.rr.com> At 09:04 PM 1/31/2009 -0700, JG wrote: >Humans as docile house cats and the A.I. we create as the tigers >that keep us in line? A sad thought... But I suppose a society >like the one Iain M. Banks envisioned is really not so bad. > >In fact, it very much appeals to me. The Culture's humanoids, docile as house cats?--Bwahahahaha. As docile as tigers that humans keep in line, maybe. Try (re?)reading USE OF WEAPONS or MATTER and see how that equation holds up... Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 05:08:51 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:08:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bad, New Scientist, Bad! Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131230127.0239ed98@satx.rr.com> <...most people absorb the cultural messages around them. The only message most people will take in is from seeing the front cover of New Scientist as they walk past the newsstand; millions of people will brush past and take on board the message that one of the most respected science magazines has announced that Darwin was wrong. Very few will buy the magazine to read the article, which is the only way they will learn that the story is only about a metaphor that Darwin used and not a critique of the theory of evolution. There is no defence for New Scientist on this one.> From thomas at thomasoliver.net Sun Feb 1 05:13:19 2009 From: thomas at thomasoliver.net (Thomas) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 22:13:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency Message-ID: > The question is, where does the legitimacy of the capitalist's > ownership of potentially productive resources come from? Note that the > moral question is separate from the practical question: to show that > it is useful to allow some people to acquire large fortunes is not > necessarily the same as saying that it is fair. [...] > -- > Stathis Papaioannou Defensibility of claim to title has served (by default) to legitimize of ownership. Tied to citzenship this could mean various things in various cities. I'd like to see this idea refined to exclude reliance on naked power (violence). I would include priority of claim, establishment of boundaries and evidence of competence to hold and make productive use of the resource (even just conserving its "natural" state) as legitimizing claim to title. As civilized humans, any use of violence to establish claim voids legitimacy! I have the idea (apparently totally original) that collective title represents a primitive archaic uncivilized method of claiming title. I think many instances of collective title have the taint of violence at their root. Collective title linked with "limited liability" creates injustice and inequality. An across the board ban on collective title would solve many, many social problems by placing responsibility for the use of resources on the head of legally accessible sole owners. Community property disputes would become a thing of the past. Courts could focus on protecting individual rights since the corporate loopholes would disappear. Majority rule would no longer mean enslavement of the minority. -- Thomas From thomas at thomasoliver.net Sun Feb 1 04:15:56 2009 From: thomas at thomasoliver.net (Thomas) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 21:15:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency Message-ID: > Regardless of how one feels about regulation it is obvious that > slavery > can not be part of a free market system. By definition. [...] > > Fred Thanks, Fred, for answering Damien for me. By freedom we do not mean license. We mean freedom from violence. So "Free" market efficiency differs from the type of "efficiency" that characterized bloodthirsty dictators like Stalin. > spike wrote: > >> True free markets assume every person equal and free. > The curious thing is that communist soteriology, for example, or > so I gather, makes the very same assumption. > > Damien Broderick Equality for all and eternal life have always made good sales pitches. I prefer to trust someone who offers to treat me well (with courtesy, honesty and respect) NOW, rather than after a 5 year plan or New Deal. I liked Ron Paul because he advocated abolishing the IRS and the Federal Reserve Bank rather than a "stimulus package/ deferred enormous enforced debt." > Someone want to tell me again about how blind the justice system is? > > Damien Broderick The motto on the front of the U.S. Supreme Court (and front page of U.S. law books) reads "Equal Justice Under Law." However, if you look past that first page you discover the "corporate veil." These laws once deprived me of impartial justice since I could not afford to file a new case naming the statutory agent for corporation instead of the individuals who failed to pay me as agreed. The concept of collective ownership trumping individual rights needs reform! Rich white people in corporate gangs do not a free market make! > An exception might be made on compassionate grounds for > transferring some wealth to those who are poor and unable to work, but > certainly not for transferring wealth from the workers to the rich and > powerful. > -- > Stathis Papaioannou In a free market we "transfer" wealth only by our own free choice, not by threat of violence. -- Thomas Thomas at ThomasOliver.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thomas at thomasoliver.net Sun Feb 1 06:01:33 2009 From: thomas at thomasoliver.net (Thomas) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:01:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency Message-ID: <9531C9A7-DE10-4D8C-9539-6800FBF9292B@thomasoliver.net> > On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 2:17 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> The article cited is talking about something quite different: the >> idea >> that if markets are left free from government interference that will >> always be for the better. This has come to be accepted as >> indisputable >> fact by neocons since the early 1980's, with Reagan and Thatcher its >> most influential proponents. The result has been a 25 year debt >> bubble, so that the US economy came to consist largely of retail and >> financial services. The bubble has now well and truly burst and it >> looks like there is no escaping years of relative poverty for both >> debtor and creditor nations ahead. > > Agreed. My interest is in understanding the world as it actually > exists and trying to make the best of what is available. > > The intellectual constructs of 'free market' enthusiasts seem mostly > irrelevant as they can never exist where humans interact. One human > will always have some advantage over another, so their interaction can > never be truly 'free'. Just because you *can* buy Manhattan from the > natives very cheaply (in a 'free market') doesn't make it right. > > BillK The neocons were hypocrites who touted "free market" ideology to get votes and then proceeded to interfere deeper into the economy that ever before in history. The "world as it actually exists" includes many escape routes for those willing to think outside the "relative poverty" box. I think our founding fathers showed that humans can interact and trade on a free and equal basis. Our present "mixed" economy could not exist without some free market elements to mix with the fascism and socialism. The equality in this context refers to impartial justice, not individual differences. Advantaged people trade on an equal basis in a free market so that anyone with anything to offer gets to benefit from what the advantaged ones trade! As long as we don't mix political advantage with economic advantage everyone benefits in this win-win game. If you really want "to make the best of what is available" then I challenge you: to think about what can exist where TRANShumans interact, to perpetuate progress by seeking the removal of political constraints, to transform yourself through critical and creative thinking, to practice optimism in place of stagnant pessimism, to apply technology to transcend the limits of our culture, to support an open society preferring exchange over compulsion, to direct your self (rather than long for regulation), to think rationally (rather than cynically reject every new idea). http://www.maxmore.com/extprn3.htm -- Thomas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 06:23:23 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:23:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201002251.0239af88@satx.rr.com> At 09:15 PM 1/31/2009 -0700, Thomas wrote: >Rich white people in corporate gangs do not a free market make! I thought that's what I was saying. Damien Broderick From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 06:30:21 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:30:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131222837.02381158@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> <2d6187670901312004k2a11ad19ldee9b88618eb447a@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131222837.02381158@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670901312230n6426918qe8d0eb758c7c9870@mail.gmail.com> > > I wrote: > >> Humans as docile house cats and the A.I. we create as the tigers that keep >> us in line? A sad thought... But I suppose a society like the one Iain M. >> Banks envisioned is really not so bad. >> >> In fact, it very much appeals to me. >> > >> Damien wrote: > The Culture's humanoids, docile as house cats?--Bwahahahaha. As docile as > tigers that humans keep in line, maybe. > > Try (re?)reading USE OF WEAPONS or MATTER and see how that equation holds > up... > >> Damien, do you own cats? As I write this my felines are hunting each other and playing their little war games... People seem to forget that the "domesticated" house cat is still a cute furry little killer full of instincts and built-in weapons to help him/her survive. Have you ever had "presents" left for you? lol I think the house cat metaphor works well for us as a way of showing the relationship between "civilized" humans and A.I. in The Culture. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 06:40:04 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 00:40:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Cats In-Reply-To: <2d6187670901312230n6426918qe8d0eb758c7c9870@mail.gmail.com > References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> <2d6187670901312004k2a11ad19ldee9b88618eb447a@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131222837.02381158@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670901312230n6426918qe8d0eb758c7c9870@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201003628.0236ca38@satx.rr.com> At 11:30 PM 1/31/2009 -0700, JG wrote: >Damien, do you own cats? Nobody *owns* cats. We do share the house with two fierce young cats, currently, and always have had several. >As I write this my felines are hunting each other and playing their >little war games... People seem to forget that the "domesticated" >house cat is still a cute furry little killer full of instincts and >built-in weapons to help him/her survive. Okay, seems I misread the irony in your use of "docile" to mean "ferocious." DB From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 07:16:03 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 00:16:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Cats In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201003628.0236ca38@satx.rr.com> References: <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <1233458785_21170@s8.cableone.net> <2d6187670901312004k2a11ad19ldee9b88618eb447a@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131222837.02381158@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670901312230n6426918qe8d0eb758c7c9870@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201003628.0236ca38@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670901312316m47e5e4c0v2275be2a65b68ef0@mail.gmail.com> You actually changed the subject line when the subject changed! Wow. I didn't know that was done around here. hee I meant "relatively docile" or at least "contained" as house cats generally are compared to their much more powerful human owners. And I compared A.I. to tigers in terms of the potential physical power they wield. >Nobody *owns* cats. We do share the house with two fierce young cats, currently, and always >have had several. Ahh, and this could be yet another metaphor to show the relationship between humans and A.I. in The Culture. Nobody *owns* humans. I imagine you writing at your computer as the cats decide to sit in your lap, take a nap on your keyboard or help you type. I think of cats as a source of good mini-breaks for someone in your profession. >Okay, seems I misread the irony in your use of "docile" to mean "ferocious." Not really. But I did do my best to weasel out of things... John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 07:55:29 2009 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 00:55:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <49840141.5020801@mac.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> Message-ID: On 1/31/09, samantha wrote: > > The communist >> would therefore agree with you that a person should keep the fruits of >> his labour. An exception might be made on compassionate grounds for >> transferring some wealth to those who are poor and unable to work, but >> certainly not for transferring wealth from the workers to the rich and >> powerful. >> >> > Either I keep what is my own to dispose of it as I wish or I do not. Why is > it up to someone else what part of my wealthy goes to those some may judge > to be poor and needy? So the only sin is for your work to be voluntarily > judge to be of more value by those who wish to acquire it than the work of > your neighbor? I propose to you what I would call a deep wealth theory, and I'll contrast it with your statement here, which I will describe as a shallow wealth theory. The shallow wealth theory, I offer, is the idea that the wealth springs no further than from the individual him or herself. The individual builds a car or whatever else, and therefore the value of that car comes from that individual alone. The deep wealth theory differs in that the value of the car doesn't come from that individual, but it's value is only the peak of an ice berg, so to speak; that is, the product of thousands of years of development. The automobile, obviously, is a piece of technology, and technology, foremost, is knowledge. So in order to determine the real value of that car, we'd have to go far back into the indefinite past. We have the development of mathematics to thank, as well as logic, science; additionally, we must thank the industrial revolution, and the development of engineering. We must thank the steam engine, and the science of thermodynamics that emerged as a result. And on and on, of course. The idea is that a product like an automobile isn't just a "thing" produced by knowing hands, but the embodiment of a great deal of development, of which we and *our hands* are just the surface of. So, when you make a statement like "my wealth", I just get this funny feeling. It's not just your choice of words, but everything behind them. But this idea of deep wealth, just a term that I've not been able to describe fully before, is what prevents me from taking these principles of libertarianism serious. That and it's ideology. *Kevin* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Sun Feb 1 07:36:20 2009 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 23:36:20 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Not sure if it's Extropic but what the hell:) In-Reply-To: <2d6187670901312316m47e5e4c0v2275be2a65b68ef0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <164185.97010.qm@web110404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE I think as a meme set it's not so bad, apple and all:) Anna __________________________________________________________________ Connect with friends from any web browser - no download required. Try the new Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA at http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 08:10:19 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 01:10:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] potentially "immortal" jellyfish species Message-ID: <2d6187670902010010w63845ef7w5c799dd70765619c@mail.gmail.com> This small jellyfish is extremely talented... "...when starvation, physical damage, or other crises arise, "instead of sure death, *[Turritopsis]* transforms all of its existing cells into a younger state," said study author Maria Pia Miglietta, a researcher at Pennsylvania State University..., The jellyfish's cells are often completely transformed in the process. Muscle cells can become nerve cells or even sperm or eggs." http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090130-immortal-jellyfish-swarm.html John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 08:12:12 2009 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 01:12:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 1/31/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > 2009/2/1 Stefano Vaj : > > > This seems to me a too traditional and theoretical way to iterate such > > an old debate. > > > > The very preliminary issues, IMHO, are: > > - is it useful to allow some people to acquire, or maintain, fortunes > > which vastly exceed what might still have an impact on their > > lifestyle? > > - is it useful to allow some people to dispose of large fortunes which > > they did not "acquire" in any socially, or even Darwinistically, > > meaningful sense? > > You could argue that yes, it's useful, since without the lure of such > fortunes certain types of investment with potentially useful > consequences would not be made. But while utilitarianism may save > capitalism, it won't save libertarianism. For the libertarians would > argue that even if a socialist program could be shown to further the > common good, it would still be wrong. Good catch. This is something that a lot of people miss. One of the main characteristics of libertarianism is it's deontological character. It is more concerned about the *process* by which wealth is created, and only that process can produce *true* wealth. Taxation is theft, even if through taxation *more* wealth would be created. So all of this discussion concerning economics is rather besides the point. It's not about which system produces the more wealth or even happiness, but about which produces the most "freedom" or "equality". These emphatic words sound good until you realize that each ideology uses them quite differently, to the point where you wonder if the terms themselves are but a rhetorical ploy. I used to think this, but apparently it's not the case. Ideologues are just wholly unable to read each other's language. That's as good of a definition of the ideologue as any: the monolingual in evaluation. *Kevin* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 08:27:19 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 09:27:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Yesterday's Special Event in Second Life: Max' surprise birthday party Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902010027s30dd563fu890a55888c504838@mail.gmail.com> http://transumanar.com/index.php/site/max_mores_surprise_birthday_party_in_second_life/ So the "special event" in Second Life that had been announced was Max More's surprise birthday party, which Natasha and I had been organizing in secret. Max had been asked to come to SL to say a few words of introduction for a undisclosed "European thinker, rather well known in the transhumanist community." Even if this description does fit Max, he was indeed surprised. I said a few words about finding his writings online in the mid 90s and how his ideas put my and so many other person's minds on permanent fire, and thanked him. I had asked for volunteers to sing a birthday song but nobody dared, so I sang myself "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and wish to apologize to all those whose hearing was permanently damaged. About 55 people came to the party, I am sure many more would have come if we had announced what the event was. Well, I had written "What I can say is this: you should attend! Don't tell me later that I did not warn you!", hadn't I. See Stephen's Flickr page for many other pictures and the cosmeng.org wiki for the full chat log. This was a surprise social event so don't expect a lecture, but the chat log has many interesting bits on the relationship between Extropy and Transhumanism, the Principles of Extropy (BEST DO IT SO!), the early history of the Extropy Institute, the Bean Dip Catastrophe, religion, Max' forthcoming book and, of course, the future. Bill summarized everyone's feelings: "We want more Max! More Max!" On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Thanks for reposting Natasha - we cannot say much more at this moment, > but you (yes, you) want to come. > > G. > > On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 6:47 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: >> "There will be a very special event in Second Life on Saturday January 31, >> 10am PST (1pm EST, 6pm UK, 7pm continental Europe). >> >> Don't tell me that I did not warn you. Click here for location and teleport >> link." >> >> >> http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Cosmic_Engineers_SL_Group >> >> > rg/images/1/1c/Cosmengsl1s.jpg&title=Cosmic%20Engineers%20@%20Extropia%20Cor >> e&msg=Cosmic%20Engineers%20@%20Extropia%20Core> >> >> > rg/images/1/1c/Cosmengsl1s.jpg&title=Cosmic%20Engineers%20@%20Extropia%20Cor >> e&msg=Cosmic%20Engineers%20@%20Extropia%20Core> >> >> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] >> >> __._,_.___ >> Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic >> Messages | Database >> MARKETPLACE >> ________________________________ >> From kitchen basics to easy recipes - join the Group from Kraft Foods >> Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! ID required) >> Change settings via email: Switch delivery to Daily Digest | Switch format >> to Traditional >> Visit Your Group | Yahoo! Groups Terms of Use | Unsubscribe >> Recent Activity >> >> 1 >> New Members >> >> Visit Your Group >> New web site? >> >> Drive traffic now. >> >> Get your business >> >> on Yahoo! search. >> >> Yahoo! Groups >> >> Cat Owners Group >> >> Connect and share with >> >> others who love their cats >> >> 10 Day Club >> >> on Yahoo! Groups >> >> Share the benefits >> >> of a high fiber diet. >> >> . >> __,_._,___ > > > > -- > Eschatoon Magic > http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon > aka Giulio Prisco > http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco > -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 08:43:43 2009 From: kevin.l.holmes at gmail.com (Kevin H) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 01:43:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Not sure if it's Extropic but what the hell:) In-Reply-To: <164185.97010.qm@web110404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <2d6187670901312316m47e5e4c0v2275be2a65b68ef0@mail.gmail.com> <164185.97010.qm@web110404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Those are some great people. But what does Apple have to do with it? A rather indulgent appropriation, don't you think? :) If you want to know who is really changing things, look at the free software movement. IMHO. *Kevin* On 2/1/09, Anna Taylor wrote: > > http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=4oAB83Z1ydE > > I think as a meme set it's not so bad, apple and all:) > Anna > > > > > > > __________________________________________________________________ > Connect with friends from any web browser - no download required. Try the > new Yahoo! Canada Messenger for the Web BETA at > http://ca.messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php > _______________________________________________ > 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 pharos at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 10:20:05 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:20:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <9531C9A7-DE10-4D8C-9539-6800FBF9292B@thomasoliver.net> References: <9531C9A7-DE10-4D8C-9539-6800FBF9292B@thomasoliver.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 6:01 AM, Thomas wrote: > The neocons were hypocrites who touted "free market" ideology to get votes > and then proceeded to interfere deeper into the economy that ever before in history. But their interference was to give the financial crooks (their friends) more freedom from regulation than they had ever had before. And this freedom enabled them to steal from more people on a larger scale than the world has ever seen. > > The "world as it actually exists" includes many escape routes for those > willing to think outside the "relative poverty" box. > I think our founding fathers showed that humans can interact and trade on a > free and equal basis. The founding fathers were all comparatively rich and many owned slaves, of course. "The other founders resisted emancipation, not because it was a mad scheme but because they did not want to relinquish the wealth which slave sales poured into their coffers," says Wiencek. > Our present "mixed" economy could not exist without some free market > elements to mix with the fascism and socialism. The equality in this context refers to > impartial justice, not individual differences. I agree with this. Although it is surprising to hear this coming from a wild-eyed liber. ;) > Advantaged people trade on an equal basis in a free market so that anyone > with anything to offer gets to benefit from what the advantaged ones trade! > As long as we don't mix political advantage with economic advantage > everyone benefits in this win-win game. That is the fundamental difference that libs just don't comprehend. People are not equal in knowledge, intelligence, wealth, ability, desire, etc. (Unequal in everything except equality under the law). The market might be 'free' but it is certainly not 'fair or equitable' to take advantage of those weaker than yourself. A 'free' trade is possible, but a 'fair' trade isn't. > If you really want "to make the best of what is available" then I challenge > you: > to think about what can exist where TRANShumans interact, > to perpetuate progress by seeking the removal of political constraints, > to transform yourself through critical and creative thinking, > to practice optimism in place of stagnant pessimism, > to apply technology to transcend the limits of our culture, > to support an open society preferring exchange over compulsion, > to direct your self (rather than long for regulation), > to think rationally (rather than cynically reject every new idea). > Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Hoorah! for the mixed economy! :) BillK From benboc at lineone.net Sun Feb 1 11:22:31 2009 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:22:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Bad, New Scientist, Bad! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <498585F7.6010100@lineone.net> Damien Declaimed: > > > > > <...most people absorb the cultural messages around them. The only > message most people will take in is from seeing the front cover of > New Scientist as they walk past the newsstand; millions of people > will brush past and take on board the message that one of the most > respected science magazines has announced that Darwin was wrong. Very > few will buy the magazine to read the article, which is the only way > they will learn that the story is only about a metaphor that Darwin > used and not a critique of the theory of evolution. > > There is no defence for New Scientist on this one.> If the purpose of New Scientist was to educate, there would be absolutely no defence. Unfortunately, its purpose is to make money, so this strategy of getting more people to buy it (including the kind of luddites who wouldn't normally do so) is quite clever. Execrable, i agree, but clever. How many times have people written in, saying "Why do you have adverts for 4x4s next to articles on pollution and sustainability?". Because it's all about money. Ben Zaiboc From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sun Feb 1 11:30:05 2009 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 11:30:05 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 65, Issue 1 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <326834.8636.qm@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Damien Broderick wrote: <...most people absorb the cultural messages around them. The only message most people will take in is from seeing the front cover of New Scientist as they walk past the newsstand; millions of people will brush past and take on board the message that one of the most respected science magazines has announced that Darwin was wrong. Very few will buy the magazine to read the article, which is the only way they will learn that the story is only about a metaphor that Darwin used and not a critique of the theory of evolution. There is no defence for New Scientist on this one.> Honestly, living in Britain I've come to ignore the shock tactics every magazine uses to sell. Going to buy New Scientist, you go in and see it on the rack next to the publications with pretty astronomy pictures trying to make you believe that with a small amateur telescope you too will see the wonders of the universe. Nearby, the political magazines will have headlines proclaiming the end of capitalism/birth of a new world order/ shocking scandal of a minister taking the last crumpet in an attempt to make you pick it up. In turn, these are dwarfed by the "Lad's mags" with their pictures of scantily-clad young ladies, women's magazines with airbrushed female celebrities on the front, and TV & film magazines plastered with pictures of actors. Cut-throat competition means everyone has to use the biggest, most eye-catching titles they can (and indeed, the British tabloids have become notorious for using the most lurid, pun-filled headlines in the known universe). "DARWIN WAS WRONG" in inch-high letters catches the eye slightly better than "discoveries of gene transfer and hybridisation dramatically alter concepts of species and evolution". The article itself summarises how single-celled life forms swap genes a great deal, plant species hybridise a lot and many species were formed this way, and there's evidence that his has happened in animals too. Trying to trace a molecular "tree of life" has proved very difficult as the "tree" metaphor breaks down into a blurry mess. The article ends by saying Darwin was as wrong as Isaac Newton - both made colossal intellectual leaps that revolutionised their field, but studies made using their ideas have since revealed deeper levels of complexity underlying things. From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 12:55:14 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 23:55:14 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <9531C9A7-DE10-4D8C-9539-6800FBF9292B@thomasoliver.net> References: <9531C9A7-DE10-4D8C-9539-6800FBF9292B@thomasoliver.net> Message-ID: 2009/2/1 Thomas : > The neocons were hypocrites who touted "free market" ideology to get votes > and then > proceeded to interfere deeper into the economy that ever before in history. The charge of hypocrisy is also used by many Marxists against the communist states. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 14:09:44 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 15:09:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <580930c20902010609l16432c04x33c13f02e4a446b@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:26 AM, spike wrote: > > Last week we heard a talk about cryonics by Ralph Merkle. Under communism > having that procedure is out of the question. The proles would argue that > their immediate needs far outrank my desire to be cryopreserved. > Mmhhh. Really? In fact, the Party in its wisdom might even decide that, in the event that current therapies of a given pathology, or social assistance required by its disabling symptoms, are too expensive, cryo suspension of the individuals affected be rendered mandatory. :-) Suspension may well be societally cheaper than the alternatives. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 1 16:19:26 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:19:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in Market Efficiency = Disaster In-Reply-To: <580930c20901301359k134e3350ia65acb4ab842f8f2@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20901290906l13a30fao47e8c1f6c6345c3d@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090129112808.022c6868@satx.rr.com> <580930c20901291010u6c1ba1afs65846ba18b1dea16@mail.gmail.com> <498233F1.4080107@libero.it> <49832D21.9040504@libero.it> <7641ddc60901301249o7133105ai57ac0b78a5a0d3c0@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901301359k134e3350ia65acb4ab842f8f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4985CB8E.301@libero.it> Il 30/01/2009 22.59, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 9:49 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > > wrote: > > Just to chime in after a long silence - bravo, there are still > > libertarians on the ExI list! > > I have some degree of intellectual respect for libertarians, > objectivists and hard-core anarcho-capitalists. > > But what Adam Smith or Ayn Rand would have thought of the system > described in, e.g., > > - Money as Debt, > http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279 > - Zeitgeist Addendum, > http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912 Probably in the same ways they would consider money backed by nothing apart for the goodwill of a government. Or banks saved at the taxpayer expense. Or laws requiring bank to respect quotas of loans to minorities. Or government in the business of housing the poor. This system is very far from a free market, because the interference of the governments with the markets is growing larger and larger. The free market is a way were people have the chance to succeed and to fail; if the government don't let any people to fail alone, they force all to fail with them later. The feature the market is lacking is its inability to be driven where the high-ups (the intelligentsia) want it to go for their sake. More it is forced away from its path and less well it work. Mirco P.S. Adam Smith was a good economists, but he didn't were always right. He believed that a good's value is linked with the inputs to produce it, where the libertarians know it is linked with the evaluation of the people buying it. He was good in the case of freedom of commerce. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 16:47:56 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 17:47:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902010847v68cefc50yc8a1974b345af39d@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 9:12 AM, Kevin H wrote: > Good catch. This is something that a lot of people miss. One of the main > characteristics of libertarianism is it's deontological character. It is > more concerned about the *process* by which wealth is created, and only > that process can produce *true* wealth. Taxation is theft, even if > through taxation *more* wealth would be created. > A lot remains however to be said, even *within* a traditional libertarian prospective, with regard to the supposedly "market-driven" distribution of wealth, or more importantly power, in contemporary societies. Does it really have anything to do with, say, entrepreneurial spirit or creative efforts or hard work in any Randian sense, or more often than not with the crushing thereof? I sincerely doubt it. Take Microsoft or Enron, for instance. Luck, unscrupolousness, conformism, cheating, legal tricks, inertia, inheritance, connections, snake-oil salesmanship are the name of the games, and Howard Roark or John Gald would have hardly performed very well at it. Yet I understand that a few objectivists came up in arm in defence of Bill Gates during the hottest period of the US antitrust case against the company. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 1 16:40:02 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:40:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in MarketEfficiency =Disaster In-Reply-To: <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it> <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Message-ID: <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> Il 30/01/2009 18.27, Henrique Moraes Machado (CI) ha scritto: > Painlord> Germany, USA, France, Italy all they want help/bail out their > car sector >> so it will survive the crisis. The problem is overproduction but if >> they all do the same, the overproduction will continue. >> So, herd mentality is not only in the market, as BillK said, but also >> in the government. > The problem with the auto industry is not overproduction but > underselling. The production volume was ok until people stopped buying. The problem is people have not and had no enough money to buy the same number of cars and home and all other stuff. The housing bubble gave them the impression (an illusion) to be able to buy homes, gain money from them and be able to afford the new cars (and other stuff). > Apart from that, this should be taken by the auto industry as an > opportunity to do things differently. For example, abandon the Taylorian model of industry where the worker is dependent from the industry for health care and pension security. The Health Care and the Pension Plan are personal business of the employee. The employer must give the money for it and then be obligation free. > Why do cars have to be huge > expensive hunks of steel with engines capable of towing a house? Because buyers like them and want them? > Why a four or five seat car to mostly transport a single person? Because this is how the buyers want it. And, sometimes, the law prop them to buy bigger cars (like my insurer that lament his accountant push her to buy a bigger car and not a city-car for the tax deductions available - she go for the city-car for the easy parking). I wrote about government interfering with the markets? Mirco From hkhenson at rogers.com Sun Feb 1 17:29:11 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 10:29:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New Scientist and Darwin. In-Reply-To: <326834.8636.qm@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> References: <326834.8636.qm@web27006.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1233509725_21655@s6.cableone.net> At 04:30 AM 2/1/2009, Tom Nowell wrote: snip >The article ends by saying Darwin was as wrong as Isaac Newton - >both made colossal intellectual leaps that revolutionised their >field, but studies made using their ideas have since revealed deeper >levels of complexity underlying things. Darwin was aware that his theory had problems, particularly those of "altruistic" behavior such as you see in social insects. It was over a hundred years before Hamilton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._D._Hamilton solved the problem. If you are not already up on this topic, it is the basis for most modern thinking about evolution. Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 17:52:15 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 18:52:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Free Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <9531C9A7-DE10-4D8C-9539-6800FBF9292B@thomasoliver.net> Message-ID: <580930c20902010952h1ec6f4e2jb4b48e6557bfee8b@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:55 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/1 Thomas : > > > The neocons were hypocrites who touted "free market" ideology to get votes > > and then > > proceeded to interfere deeper into the economy that ever before in history. > > The charge of hypocrisy is also used by many Marxists against the > communist states. And a grain of truth could be there in both cases, couldn't it? Nevertheless, critisms of applications should not obscure possible criticism of the ideas as such. -- Stefano Vaj From fauxever at sprynet.com Sun Feb 1 17:43:54 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 09:43:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bad, New Scientist, Bad! References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131230127.0239ed98@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2B119FF29488417E86BDC700C4FF410F@patrick4ezsk6z> From: "Damien Broderick" To: "'ExI chat list'" Sent: Saturday, January 31, 2009 9:08 PM Subject: [ExI] Bad, New Scientist, Bad! > > > > > <...most people absorb the cultural messages around them. The only message > most people will take in is from seeing the front cover of New Scientist > as they walk past the newsstand ... There is no defence for New Scientist > on this one.> Agree. I imagine the New Scientist magazine folk are aware of the problem; however, they not only didn't offer a solution, but their cover may have contributed to even more confusion to that "walking by" public. The "grab-'em-at-the-checkstand" tactics are used by those National Enquirer-type tabloids ... and, now, New Scientist. The "problem": http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/feb/01/evolution-darwin-survey-creationism Olga This is the public From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 1 18:51:32 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 19:51:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in Market Efficiency = Disaster In-Reply-To: <580930c20901310540u6b2000bi7562f76164288d79@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20901310540u6b2000bi7562f76164288d79@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4985EF34.5010005@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 14.40, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 3:17 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/1/30 BillK: >> Please note that there are two possible meanings for "efficient market >> theory". The more common one in economics is the idea that the market >> prices a security to reflect all the information available, so that it >> is in general not possible for a speculator to beat the market unless >> he has special information: > Yes. In this sense, markets remain "efficient", in market terms, even > in the worst possible economic downturn. The fact is that efficiency > in this sense has nothing to do with wealth in any practical sense. > Markets are perfectly compatible, e.g., with free trade generating > poverty or famine, rather than wealth, in a given country. In fact, > "marketwide", this may be an efficient development. Free market are efficient because they give the goods or the services at the highest bidder first and to the lower bidder after and the reverse is true as the bidder buy from the lower seller first and from the highest after. But, also, let people don't sell or don't buy when the prices are too low or too high. This maximize the gain for the seller and for the buyer. The buyer paying more is, by default, the most in need where the seller selling low is the most in need. In a free market, where there are multiple actors, the prices of the goods and services of all vendors and buyers converge rapidly inside a small range. "Man, Economy and State, with Power and Market" by Rothbard explain this very well. >> The article cited is talking about something quite different: the idea >> that if markets are left free from government interference that will >> always be for the better. This has come to be accepted as indisputable >> fact by neocons since the early 1980's, with Reagan and Thatcher its >> most influential proponents. The result has been a 25 year debt >> bubble, so that the US economy came to consist largely of retail and >> financial services. The bubble has now well and truly burst and it >> looks like there is no escaping years of relative poverty for both >> debtor and creditor nations ahead. This would be true if the government would refrain from: 1) interfering with the money (no Fed, no Central banks) 2) interfering on how people do business (no quotas, no restriction to open or close branch of a bank, and so on- and it is long) > One wonders however *why* this should be the case, when this is a > purely financial outcome having nothing to do with available labour, > natural resources and industrial capacity. Here, a modicum of bold, > lateral re-thinking might be in order. But it is not true that it have "nothing to do with available labour". The prices in a free market, as I wrote before, coordinate the production. When you interfere with the prices (lowering the rate of interest of the Central bank, for examples - or in many other ways it is too long to write them all) you change the share of resources invested in any and all fields. So you are bound to produce more that is not really needed and less that is really needed. As lowering the Central Bank rate is done with a stroke of a pen, without someone shelling real resources to do it, this is a way to alter the market and the investment of real resources in the long run. And when you have used the resources, the real resource (labour, concrete, energy, etc.) you have them no more. But you have homes, unneeded, empty homes that will not be paid back. > As Ezra Pound used to say, "the idea that a government cannot build > highways because there is not enough money is akin to the idea that it > cannot build them because there are not enough kilometers". Ezra Pound the famous economist? People that think that "money" is a piece of paper that governments can print on demand and without limits could write good poems but will not teach good economics. Governments can, for sure, print paper money as much as they like; they have the power to do so. But they have not the power to force people to believe the money have any worth or represent any wealth. As Rothbard (and many others) teach, money is a commodity that is useful mainly for use in exchange for good and services, not for consumption (try to eat paper money or coins, if you don't believe me). And more the quantity of this commodity is available, less it is valued. At the end, its real value is the value of use of the paper itself or the value of the metal of coin. For examples, I suggest "Republic of Weimar" and "Zimbabwe". Or, if you remember your childhood in Italy, when the coins disappeared from the market (value of the metal was more of the value of the coins) and the banks introduced the "miniassegni". > Even > though I am far from persuades by their messianic trust in impersonal > mechanisms, at least radical libertarians try to think > "out-of-the-box" - something which cannot really be said, also thank > to their being conditioned by conservative vested interests, of most > governments. It is not that the market work miracles, but the other way simply don't work. Ask Mr. Putin; these days he gave a speech in Davos warning that government interferences in the economy is damaging for all and good for no one. And we know that the Soviets tried it in any and all ways and were full of smart, tenacious and learned people; but they failed. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sun Feb 1 18:38:56 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 10:38:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Beliefin MarketEfficiency =Disaster In-Reply-To: <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it><003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> Message-ID: <26080CCA02CE44D6AEC1E2A9CFD9D5B3@spike> ... > > > Why a four or five seat car to mostly transport a single person? > > Because this is how the buyers want it... Ja, and because states require each car to be licensed separately, as opposed to having a universal license for each driver. This puts market pressure on drivers to have only one car, or to minimize the number of cars, which then causes pressure to buy a single car that can: - carry carry several people - tow a boat or trailer - tolerate the rough roads * result of the state government neglecting to repair potholes * in order to encourage the proletariat to pass tax increases * to repair the potholes * which the government then robs for something else * allowing road repair bills to be added to the next election cycle * rinse and repeat > I wrote about government interfering with the markets?... Mirco The tax structure (in every one of the fifty damn states!) discourages the proletariat from having at least two cars: one do-it-all very inefficient, seldom used car, and one single-seat super small super light, slow but extremely efficient ape hauler. A person can drive only one car at a time. I propose a license fee on drivers, not on individual cars. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 1 19:13:39 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:13:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 2.49, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 03:16 PM 1/30/2009 -0700, Thomas wrote contra regulation: > >> Free market traders with education, enlightenment and refinement >> (civilized) have the advantage over savages. > > And, until 150 years ago, often owned them as chattels. (Or were > those not free market traders?) Not exactly true. From Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mauritania > Slavery in Mauritania is an entrenched phenomenon the national > government has repeatedly tried to abolish, banning the practice in > 1905, 1981, and August 2007.[1][2] The descendants of black Africans > abducted into slavery now live in Mauritania as "black Moors" or > haratin and partially still serve the "white Moors", or bidhan, as > slaves. > > The number of slaves in the country was not known exactly, but is was > estimated to be up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the > population [3][4]. Kevin Bales believes that the percentage of slaves > was the highest in the world. > > Mauritanian organizations like El Hor (translated as "free man") and > SOS Esclaves (meaning "SOS Slaves" in French) work against slavery. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Sudan > Since 1995, international rights organizations such as Human Rights > Watch and CASMAS have reported that slavery in Sudan is a common > fate of captives in the Second Sudanese Civil War. Pro-government > militias have been known to raid non-Muslim southern villages > (particularly those of the Dinka) and loot them both for property and > for slaves.[1][2] According to the Rift Valley Institute's Sudan > Abductee Database > > , over 11,000 people were abducted in 20 years of slave-raiding in > southern Sudan.[3] SudanActivism.com mentions that hundreds of > thousands have been abducted into slavery, fled, or are otherwise > unaccounted for in a second genocide in southern Sudan.[4] According > to the American Anti-Slavery Group, black Africans in southern Sudan > have been abducted for centuries in the Arab slave trade, but the > slave raids by militia armed by the federal government of Sudan > increased significantly after the 1989 military coup led by Field > Marshal Omar Hassan Ahmad al-Bashir, who is the current president of > Sudan.[5] So, apparently not only the "civilized", "free market traders" used the slavery, but also the uncivilized. Like many native americans http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_indians > Slavery existed among Native Americans before it was introduced by > the Europeans, although it was unlike chattel slavery. In oral > tradition, for instance, Cherokees saw slavery as the result of > failure in warfare, and as a temporary status pending adoption or > release.[16] As the US Constitution and the laws of several states > permitted slavery, Native Americans were legally allowed to continue > owning slaves, including those brought from Africa by Europeans. The > Cherokee tribe had the most members who held black slaves, more than > any Native American tribe.[17] And I suppose I don't need to remember that africans were sold by other africans to Europeans (for working in North and South America as slaves) and to the Arabs (for the same reasons only to the other side of Africa). And I don't need to remember you that many Europeans were captured and sold as slaves by the Arabs (probably a few millions in a couple of centuries) until the 1700. We can say that also savages were able (and probably are able) to buy civilized people as slaves. Mirco From hkhenson at rogers.com Sun Feb 1 18:45:14 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 11:45:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it> <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> Message-ID: <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> At 09:40 AM 2/1/2009, Mirco wrote: >Il 30/01/2009 18.27, Henrique Moraes Machado (CI) ha scritto: >>Painlord> Germany, USA, France, Italy all they want help/bail out their >>car sector >>>so it will survive the crisis. The problem is overproduction but if >>>they all do the same, the overproduction will continue. >>>So, herd mentality is not only in the market, as BillK said, but also >>>in the government. > >>The problem with the auto industry is not overproduction but >>underselling. The production volume was ok until people stopped buying. > >The problem is people have not and had no enough money to buy the >same number of cars and home and all other stuff. >The housing bubble gave them the impression (an illusion) to be able >to buy homes, gain money from them and be able to afford the new >cars (and other stuff). snip The oil bubble (to a large extent based on the reality of peak oil production) is a major reason things came apart. I know how to fix that, but it's a hard sell. You can make liquid fuels out of water and air at a cost of about 100 MW/1000 bbls/day. (Conversion capture is about 56% of energy in to liquid fuel out.) So an installed 100 GW would make a million bbls of synthetic oil a day. Since the US uses about 20 Mbbls a day 2000 Gw or 2 TW would do the job. The US is roughly 20% of the world demand, so 10 TW would replace it all--make that 20 TW for energy growth in China and India. (World energy in all forms now is about 15 TW.) The only source that scales to this level is space based solar power. Installed at a TW or two per year, it doesn't take long. I have been talking about the engineering details here and other places for a year but there isn't much interest. People up to working or even checking chemistry/physics/math problems are hard to find. The "Cosmic Engineers" have been disapointing. Keith From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 1 19:40:41 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 20:40:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4985FAB9.5010400@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 5.46, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 08:34 PM 1/30/2009 -0800, spike wrote: > >> True free markets assume every person equal and free. > > The curious thing is that communist soteriology, for example, or so I > gather, makes the very same assumption. The divergence is that for a communist "freedom" is freedom from needs (and the needs are infinite as the wants), where freedom for a libertarian is freedom from other human initiation of force. Mirco From robert.bradbury at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 20:32:18 2009 From: robert.bradbury at gmail.com (Robert Bradbury) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 15:32:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it> <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: > > The oil bubble (to a large extent based on the reality of peak oil > production) is a major reason things came apart. Keith, you provide no evidence for this. The low current oil prices show that oil & gas prices are either market (demand) or speculation (futures) driven. The reason things "came apart" is that Wall St. and hedge fund managers bet the future on derivatives that nobody understood, esp. with respect to the risks of valuation when demand evaporates. There was some of that in the oil market, but the oil market unwound gracefully. The same claim cannot be made with respect to the real estate market. > I know how to fix that, but it's a hard sell. It is a particularly hard sell against other (cheaper) solutions. I worked out the numbers circa 2001. You do not need SPS. You need solar ponds, potentially salt water solar ponds, growing cyanobacteria or algae producing biodiesel or equivalent feedstocks. Produces many more jobs here on Earth and is sustainable. The agricultural land available in the SW US could support the entire U.S. energy requirements without the need to launch SPS. And obviously, such technology once developed could be exported to the Middle East where they have ample supplies of sea water and ample solar energy without the need for launching god knows how many rockets. You have to ask yourself (when you've got a great high-tech solution) Is there a low-tech solution? Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 20:36:06 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:36:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> At 08:13 PM 2/1/2009 +0100, Mirco the second painlord wrote: >>>Free market traders with education, enlightenment and refinement >>>(civilized) have the advantage over savages. >> >>And, until 150 years ago, often owned them as chattels. (Or were >>those not free market traders?) > >Not exactly true. >We can say that also savages were able (and probably are able) to >buy civilized people as slaves. So? Leaving aside the grotesque and loaded original implication that *anyone* who enslaves and buys or sells other humans can be considered "civilized", the fact that other people also acted wickedly does not somehow magically sanitize those "free traders" who owned humans as chattels. Unless you thought I was saying that *only* "Free market traders with education, enlightenment and refinement" owned slaves, and even I'm not that stupid. Damien Broderick From moulton at moulton.com Sun Feb 1 20:53:04 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 12:53:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> Message-ID: <1233521584.2019.2109.camel@hayek> On Sun, 2009-02-01 at 20:13 +0100, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > > So, apparently not only the "civilized", "free market traders" used the > slavery, but also the uncivilized. As has already been pointed out if there is slavery then there is not a free market. Slavery is a serious problem and still exists in several places in the world. The last slavery prosecution in the USA was during the 1950s. So I think that using slavery as a club to attack the concept of free markets is both intellectually indefensible and frankly sickening. And on the flip side to imply that anyone suggesting any sort of market regulation is one step from Stalinist labor camps is just as wrong. This is the Extropian list where I would expect a higher level of discourse to prevail. But recently I have seen messages which would embarrass even a bunch of drunken college sophomores. I urge everyone to do better; it is already February so maybe we can make the rest of 2009 a better year for this list. Fred P.S. My apologies to drunken college sophomores everywhere if I impugned your character in this message. From robert.bradbury at gmail.com Sun Feb 1 20:55:02 2009 From: robert.bradbury at gmail.com (Robert Bradbury) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 15:55:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] potentially "immortal" jellyfish species In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902010010w63845ef7w5c799dd70765619c@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902010010w63845ef7w5c799dd70765619c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 3:10 AM, John Grigg wrote: > This small jellyfish is extremely talented... > > "...when starvation, physical damage, or other crises arise, "instead of > sure death, *[Turritopsis]* transforms all of its existing cells into a > younger state," said study author Maria Pia Miglietta, a researcher at > Pennsylvania State University..., The jellyfish's cells are often completely > transformed in the process. Muscle cells can become nerve cells or even > sperm or eggs." > > > http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/01/090130-immortal-jellyfish-swarm.html > John, as I have discussed on the GRG list this is a situation where the term "immortal" should not be used. This is a case where the cells of an organism may "dedifferentiate" (i.e. return to an embryonic or quasi-embryonic state). As it turns out scientists at NYU have determined that plant cells may either dedifferentiate or transdifferentiate to create cells which rejuvinate the plant without the requirement for stem cells. Certain reptiles and amphibians may have similar capabilities (as evidenced by their ability to regrow limbs). For the term "immortal" to be used you need to verify that 100% of the cells are capable of performing this dedifferentiation and redifferentiation activity. That *HAS NOT BEEN DONE*. Thus only the cells which happen to have maintained relatively perfect genomes (which is a fraction of the total cells) can be capable of pulling off this hat trick. So the question I ask (given that you are citing this) is "Would you want a brain with only 30% of its original cells? (Assuming an arbitrary number that survive the dedifferentiation and redifferentiation process.). I have lines I draw in the sand with respect to saying "that is me" and "that is not me". You may or may not feel the same. Robert -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Feb 1 20:53:20 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 12:53:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike><49833182.1010000@libero.it><003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><4985D062.9090202@libero.it> <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of hkhenson > ... > > I have been talking about the engineering details here and > other places for a year but there isn't much interest. > People up to working or even checking chemistry/physics/math > problems are hard to find. > > The "Cosmic Engineers" have been disapointing. > > Keith Ja, Keith, I don't think the engineering is the primary problem. Everything you have proposed from an engineering perspective is workable. A massive shift to space based power generation is primarily a political problem, the kind of problem at which I suck. I don't even have any insight into how to solve it or who to consult on political problems of this magnitude. spike From brian at posthuman.com Sun Feb 1 22:07:46 2009 From: brian at posthuman.com (Brian Atkins) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 16:07:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it> <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: <49861D32.5040704@posthuman.com> (from transhumantech) http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/12/petroalgae-rais.html PetroAlgae Inc., a Florida-based developer of systems to derive biodiesel fuels from algae, closed a $10 million capital raise through the sale of approximately 3.2 million of newly-issued shares of common stock to two existing investors. Proceeds from the offering will help finance the commercialization of the company?s first biodiesel product derived from algae. PetroAlgae licensed a library of 12 strains of high oil-yield algae from Arizona State University developed in conjunction with the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Aquatic Species Program, which concluded in 1996. The algae have been further developed through process of directed selection for high oil content (>50%) and rapid growth (doubling in 24 hours). PetroAlgae estimates that its algae can yield up to 14,000 gallons of oil acre-1 year-1. Such a yield would exceed calculated practical maximum yields as presented at the recent Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle (earlier post). There, Dr. Kristina Weyer of Solix presented a calculated a theoretical maximum algal oil production of 53,000 gal acre-1 year-1. In the practical cases, the yield ranged from a low of 4,900 gallons in Kuala Lumpur to a high of 6,500 gallons in Phoenix. In the concluding presentation of the Summit, Dr. John Benemann calculated maximum production with current technology at around ~2,000 gallons acre-1 year-1, with a potential upside of 2-3x with genetically improved algae. -- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/ From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 1 22:14:36 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:14:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> References: <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 16.50, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 3:47 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> You could argue that yes, it's useful, since without the lure of such >> fortunes certain types of investment with potentially useful >> consequences would not be made. > > ... an argument which immediately opens the door to the question of > whether this is actually true or not, and whether there would not be > more effective ways to achieve the same results. > > Parasitic, hereditary wealth in particular is recognised even by > free-marketeers to have hindered the economic progress during the > Ancien R?gime, e.g. Usually, parasitic hereditary wealth were aristocratic wealth. And the aristocracy had their privileges supported by the government. In a free market, wealth not used or not invested wisely will, with the time reduce. The owner will need to continue to consume to sustain himself/herself. So he need to exchange (a part of) his wealth for foods, cloths, various services, etc. It need to upkeep his capital, as capital consume itself when used (and also when not used). Even stone palaces will crumble if not maintained, that need work, that need people, that need to be paid more than what is paid elsewhere for the same or equivalent jobs. Large fortunes will need time to dissipate, but they will dissipate nonetheless. But, I know, and you too I suppose, that there are other ways to keep power and wealth without earning it and pass it to sons, daughters and mistress. An example is the Kennedy family that appear to be able to pass to his member the ability to hold an elected position. Or the Clinton family? The Bush family? Our US reader could add more I suppose. For examples in Italy we could cite the Berlinguer/Cossiga family (they were cousins), the Veltroni family (father Democratic Christian, son Communist leader), the Letta family, and so on. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 1 23:04:26 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 17:04:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] I can't help it, sorry In-Reply-To: <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> References: <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201170253.02446d60@satx.rr.com> At 11:14 PM 2/1/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >An example is the Kennedy family that appear to be able to pass to >his member the ability to hold an elected position. That's very true except for one letter. From Frankmac at ripco.com Sun Feb 1 23:20:31 2009 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 18:20:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] belief is free markets Message-ID: <84208B7AD5F34B1799EA9B70B90CD07C@FrankMcElligPC> Called three bookies checking the line for todays Super bowl, one was at 6 second at 6.5 third at 7.5 In football 7 is a big number and in the pros it is,,,Bigtime, It helps to watch and wonder where the spread will fall, for in the super bowl that's all that matters Root for the Cardinals, as Stormy Bidwell has made wrong move after wrong move in his business dealings, Left Chicago for St Louis, Left St louis for Phoenix, and lost money every until this year. Own a race track(horses) converted it is Automobiles, and torn it down last week,, He a bad luck guy who can have it all go away if his team wins today, and he is a very very nice man Frank -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thomas at thomasoliver.net Sun Feb 1 21:14:48 2009 From: thomas at thomasoliver.net (Thomas) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 14:14:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Corrosion of Coercion Message-ID: <801C849B-BCFD-49AE-9D01-072402A703F5@thomasoliver.net> > Thomas wrote: > >> Our present "mixed" economy could not exist without some free market >> elements to mix with the fascism and socialism. The equality in >> this context refers to >> impartial justice, not individual differences. > > I agree with this. Although it is surprising to hear this coming from > a wild-eyed liber. ;) > > BillK I confess I do have a wild left eye, but my right one sees straight. I've individuated from the libertarian camp in a couple ways: 1. Violent revolution doesn't suit me. 2. The gold standard, scarcity based, monetary standard looks too much like a win-lose game to me. Jacque Fresco's rehash of technocracy (the Zeitgeist movie, Venus Project, etc.) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf1gZxmIDKw caught my attention for a while. But I wouldn't want to live under the dictatorship of the computer program without a practical means for opting out. In a radically free economy we would have the freedom to plan the economy and regulate it, but only by choice, not force. I guess it matters little to me whether we have an unregulated or planned economy as long as the threat of violence gets left out of the equation. I can either lead the band, take direction as a side man or go solo -- as long as no one physically forces me. The inflexibility of our present economy came entirely from the corrosion of coercion. -- Thomas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 2 00:44:35 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 16:44:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] I can't help it, sorry In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201170253.02446d60@satx.rr.com> References: <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z><7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com><0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike><49840141.5020801@mac.com><580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com><580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com><49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201170253.02446d60@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > Damien Broderick > Subject: [ExI] I can't help it, sorry > > ...Mirco wrote: > > >An example is the Kennedy family that appear to be able to > >pass to his member the ability to hold an elected position. > > That's very true except for one letter. Waaaaaaahahahahahahahhaaaaaaaa! {8^D From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 00:45:59 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 01:45:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131013245.023188f0@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131013245.023188f0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49864247.306@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 8.46, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 06:19 PM 1/31/2009 +1100, Stathis wrote: > In a thumbnail, yes. And the famous error of that analysis is the claim > that the capitalist makes no remunerative contribution to the increase > of wealth. Acknowledging this error doesn't, however, necessitate > agreeing that every capitalist who can get away with it deserves nearly > all the cream off the top, nor that other ways of handling investment > cannot be as effective (see, as usual, some of the experience reported* > of the Mondragon anarchistic cooperative approach in Basque Spain--which > inevitably also has its detractors). I would say that if their approach work well with them no one must interfere with them. If it really work, it will scale well to the hundreds of thousand. If it don't scale, good for the happy few. For the capitalists, I will argue that, if they are able to obtain their wealth without force, it is not someone else right to argue about what they deserve or not. Do you remember what Gandalf told to the hobbit when they saw Gollum following them? Mirco From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 2 00:46:56 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 16:46:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] belief is free markets In-Reply-To: <84208B7AD5F34B1799EA9B70B90CD07C@FrankMcElligPC> References: <84208B7AD5F34B1799EA9B70B90CD07C@FrankMcElligPC> Message-ID: <9BC1F73DE573441BB105FA9039CED4F0@spike> ...Frank McElligott Subject: [ExI] belief is free markets Called three bookies checking the line for todays Super bowl, one was at 6 second at 6.5 third at 7.5 In football 7 is a big number and in the pros it is,,,Bigtime, ... Frank Frank I fear that there are many in addition to me on this list who have not the foggiest clue about any of this stuff, and even less interest. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 01:01:59 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:01:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> Message-ID: <49864607.2080401@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 7.52, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/1/31 Fred C. Moulton wrote: >> The slavers were not free market traders, for there was the threat of force >> of government to discourage the chattel from rising up and slaying their >> "owners." True free markets assume every person equal and free. > So if the workers are prevented from rising up and taking over the > results of their labours, is that government interference with the > free market? Only if the workers are/were forced to work. They would be slave, so they have the right to free themselves of their masters. If they are free to stay or go, to work or not for an agreed pay, they have no right to rise against anyone. If they don't like the jobs, they can always start a new job. A capitalist is who that own the capital goods. So any artisan that own his tools is a capitalist. Or if he own his shop. And if he produce goods to sell them later he is also a speculator. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 01:33:58 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:33:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233373822.2019.1557.camel@hayek> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <1233373822.2019.1557.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49864D86.8030802@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 4.50, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > On Fri, 2009-01-30 at 19:49 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: >> At 03:16 PM 1/30/2009 -0700, Thomas wrote contra regulation: >> >>> Free market traders with education, enlightenment and refinement >>> (civilized) have the advantage over savages. >> And, until 150 years ago, often owned them as chattels. (Or were >> those not free market traders?) > > Regardless of how one feels about regulation it is obvious that slavery > can not be part of a free market system. By definition. Since the > slaves do not have ownership of the results of their labor and more to > the point slaves do not have ownership of themselves in being able to > determine what kind of work to do; where to live; etc. I have read that > for this reason the term "man stealer" was used as a derogatory term for > a slaver owner and/or trader. Free market work within a society where people is considered equal in freedom and rights/responsibilities. This don't rule out an institution like slavery, because the slave is out of the society. It is chattel or thrall. It is an object for his/her master that can be used like an animal or a car. He has no right recognized by the others. What is ruled out is arbitrary enslavement of a member of the society, that have right recognized by other peers. For example, Islam allow slaves (not a surprise, I suppose). But the slaves must be not muslim (kafir), it is not allowed to enslave a muslim (he is already the slave of Allah). Rights are recognized only to individuals or groups we want to collaborate/cooperate with in peace. Chickens or worms have no rights, because we don't recognize them like individuals we want cooperate with. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 01:38:59 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 02:38:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Markets and slaves In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130195054.02387090@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130195054.02387090@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49864EB3.6070403@libero.it> Il 31/01/2009 2.52, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > saw a tax roll for a Florida county, I was shocked at the value placed > on slaves. Five hundred dollars each was about minimum, and it was not > uncommon to value some slaves at $1,000 or more. This was a time when > land could be purchased from the Federal government for $1.25 per acre, > and in some cases for as little as 12.5 cents per acre. One slave was > worth as much as hundreds and even thousands of acres of land. > In Mauritania the "slave" population is probably around 20% now. In Niger is probably around 8%. I suppose you can understand because is so difficult to abolish the slavery. Mirco From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 03:59:40 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 20:59:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] more room at the bottom Message-ID: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/su-swi012909.php Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 2 04:20:04 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 20:20:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] more room at the bottom In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4F09B43A993148719B6854AA12E2E65D@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Jeff Davis > Subject: [ExI] more room at the bottom > > http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/su-swi012909.php > > Best, Jeff Davis Woohooo! Thanks Jeff. I always like to see the Stanford students come thru, not only because Stanford is the local U, the hometown boys, but also because Stanford is one of the few ivy league colleges that didn't start out as a monastery. Yale, Harvard and I think Princeton are examples of universities that began by combining a number of schools of theology, but Stanford was started by an unapologetic capitalist, a guy who made a ton of money by building something of value upon which others created value and made money. There is a church on the quad, but Stanford was never part of any religion or denomination, and I don't think they ever had a school of divinity there. Carnegie Mellon would be another example of the kind of U that I like to see, and there may be others, but let us be unapologetic about worshiping the almighty dollar as opposed to some imaginary deity. spike From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 04:49:07 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2009 22:49:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: [Open Manufacturing] Launch of Abundance: The Journal of Post-Scarcity Studies, preliminary plans In-Reply-To: <1cd79450-d82f-431e-b3a7-19e78fa7dae8@v19g2000yqn.googlegroups.com> References: <1cd79450-d82f-431e-b3a7-19e78fa7dae8@v19g2000yqn.googlegroups.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af70902012049r36b34a5cld494741ba7fa2e2d@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Joseph Jackson Date: Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 10:43 PM Subject: [Open Manufacturing] Launch of Abundance: The Journal of Post-Scarcity Studies, preliminary plans To: Open Manufacturing http://groups.google.com/group/post-scarcity-agalmics-journal-launch Dear all, you are receiving this because of the important thinking and writing you are already doing on the critical challenge of our time, the transition from scarcity based economics to a new Abundance paradigm. As the pace of technological change continues to accelerate and old institutions crumble seemingly over night, I think we all share the conviction that a radically better world is not only possible, but necessary (although it is hardly inevitable). The idea of "post-scarcity," "resource-based," or "thermoeconomics," has been around since at least the 1960s (with some references in the 1920s). Additionally, heterodox economics such as the views of Henry George, GK Chesterton, or the anarchist/mutualist/decentralist tradition ( Proudhon, Kropotkin, Benjamin Tucker, Schumacher, Illich) has an even longer history and is very relevant to the challenges facing us in the early 21st century. The most significant development of recent times has been the rise of Free and Open Source Software, followed by infant attempts to extend this model into other realms beyond IT. Michel Bauwens, the most prolific observer of these trends, has dubbed the phenomenon P2P, and argues convincingly that P2P organization constitutes the next phase of human evolution. My friends, it is time to establish Abundance as a field of study. I had been thinking along these lines for quite some time before the 2008 collapse and as it has unfolded, I've monitored a surge of activity on the web, including this call to action by Roberto Verzola: http://rverzola.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/studying-abundance-1.pdf Our task is dauntingly difficult, as most of humanity has slumbered in a scarcity stupor for so long they cannot be easily awakened. The goal is ambitious: From 2009-2010 to lay out the central concepts and theoretical foundations of Abundance Studies. Establishing a journal is a way to focus our intellectual efforts, build a "brand" and create a home for this new field. So many of you are already writing on this topic, wouldn't it be nice to have to have an outlet for your "finished" product? To explain, this will not be a typical journal, which imposes artificial scarcity through editorial decisions. If you want to be published?you will get published (eventually). The journal is intended to function in conjunction with a community site/portal/carnival blog/clearinghouse for Post Scarcity Theory. There will be 3 components; a wiki founded by Charles Collis in 2005 and which he has graciously volunteered. 2) the Community Site (details to be decided) 3) The actual journal. During the first year, the main site is intended to host discussion around the specific topics covered in the forthcoming issue of the journal. We will announce the topic along with a deadline for submission. As a participant, you will hone your ideas with your peers and when you feel you have a complete article (8-30 pages); submit it before the deadline and look forward to it being published in the issue. If you don't finish in time (maybe you procrastinate like me)?it is no big deal. The journal functions mainly as a pacing device. You can always submit later for another issue (storage space is basically infinite)! The idea is that we create an "event" for ourselves; boosting motivation by giving ourselves something to look forward to. It also keeps us moving toward the goal of laying out at least a first draft overview of the Post-Scarcity field during this first year. There will be less structure imposed after the year is up, and ideally, the journal and site will acquire momentum and issues can proceed on perhaps a quarterly basis. For those who are interested, I think a next step might be a Post Scarcity Text Book, building on the content generated in the Journal's first year. Another offshoot might be an intensive RoadMap to Post Scarcity. Various Roadmaps (for Nanotech, Open Manufacturing) have already been done, so this might serve as a meta-map. Other projects are bound to be generated. For example, I've been thinking about a board game based on Anti-Monopoly (look up this fantastic story) to teach the concepts of the Commons, Peer Production, and Abundance. http://freedomofscience.org/?page_id=21 Marc Fawzi, who is working on an energy-backed currency model, also wants to make a game to simulate his concept. I've contacted some folks with game design experience in this email and hopefully we will attract more. To clarify: there are lots of groups already working peripherally on Post Scarcity. The topic is kicking around the P2P Ning group, the DIY biology google group and the Open Manufacturing google group. I am not trying to poach everyone from these groups (though there will be overlap). Nor is the site/journal intended to duplicate the work that is already being done. I am trying to focus "meta-level" discussion to construct the theoretical framework within which these more applied and (often highly technical) efforts will proceed. Although I am inviting you all to a google group, it is temporary and only for discussion of the launch of the main site. I'm already on too many mailing lists and we need a site where everything is publicly visible so you don't have to join or for that matter go searching through tons of threads. Email updates from a list soon become annoying also. Many details are to be decided about what will work best. During the first year, your core, founding team is Bryan Bishop, coder at large, builder/maintainer of community portal Charles Collis (wiki) Joseph Jackson (lead coordinator of journal topics/troubleshooting) Edward Miller, helping Bryan with miscellaneous maintenance of community site, etc You are all expected to self-select and participate as much or as little as you like. I hope that a sufficient number of you will register with the main site as contributing bloggers and post or even just cross post on a semi-regular basis. I already have in mind article contributions from a number of you for particular issues of the journal. Usually, I'm all for Democracy, but we can't debate everything. So, as a dictatorial decision, I considered Agalmics: the Journal of Post- Scarcity Economics, but the Agalmics term is a bit tricky for the tongue. Thus, the title is Abundance: The Journal of Post-Scarcity Studies The domain name for the main site is abundanceorannihilation.org I think this encapsulates the options nicely and besides I'm already working a book by that title so if for some reason you all object, I'll use it anyway. Post-Scarcity.org redirects to Charle's Wiki. http://www.adciv.org/Main_Page Here is a list of initial interested parties I have identified. Undoubtedly, I've left out many so pass this on to anyone else you know of. I've spoken to most of you about this project but I've indicated where I lack contact info. Shay David, founder Kaltura Roberto Verzola http://rverzola.files.wordpress.com/2008/11/studying-abundance-1.pdf Matt Pearson zenbullets.com Matt Arnold, organizer, Penguicon, Michel Bauwens P2P foundation Bryan Burns Michael H. Goldhaber Attention Economy Douglas Rushkoff Paul Hartzog contact via P2P foundation James Hughes Eric Hunting contact via Michel Bauwens Paul Fernhout Michael Silverton http://michael.silverton.palo-alto.ca.us/packets/?paged=2 RU Sirius contact needed Bruce Sterling Vernor Vinge Not sure of current contact, use FOO camp Christopher J. Fearnley Buckminster Fuller FAQ Charles Eisenstein Ascent of Humanity, Reality Sandwich. Chris Anderson Melanie Swan Kevin Kelley James Albus People's Capitalism Wade Frazier no contact but maintains the interesting site http://www.ahealedplanet.net/abund.htm Marc Fawzi Phil Bowermaster the Speculist Marshall Brain Kevin Carson Mutualist.org Neil Gershenfeld Robert Grudin Pat Kane Play Ethic Steve Burgess, Center for Responsible Nanotechnology Bob Black, Abolition of Work, no contact details Paul Pilzer, no direct contact info, interesting perspective although not sure if he is a good fit. Christopher Travis cktravis at sentientarchitecture.... Umair Haque Unsure of updated email contact Eric Hunting Contact via Michel Corey Doctorow Charles Stross Neal Stephenson don't have direct contact, using FOO camp mailing list Iain M Banks no direct contact Nathan Cravens Jonathan Walther, Reactor-Core.org Rodney Shakespeare BinaryEconomics.net no direct contact Robert Ashford Peter Barnes Capitalism 3.0 contact needed Adam Ardverson Ethical Economy contact via Michel Bauwens Mike Masnik Tech Dirt http://techliberation.com/2007/01/19/masnick-on-post-scarcity-economics/ contact needed Fleming Funch contact needed http://www.newciv.org/ Bart klein Ikink NaturalMoney.org contact needed Steve Omohundra Alvin Toffler contact via Kurzweil about contribution to special issue. Hans Moravec Patrick Anderson Chris Cook contact needed, use P2P foundation/group Ron Long Below is a speculative list of topics. Also some rambling half baked thoughts Abundance Vol I, Issue 1 Historical overview of post scarcity thought and notable initiatives. Thoughts on why the early 21st century offers a realistic shot because of cheap, networked technology. Personal stories and testimonial from our contributors on how they became interested in Post Scarcity. Vol I Issue 2 The Theory of Value Economics has no coherent Theory of Value and we must solve this problem if we are to establish the field of Abundance. The Labor Theory of Value has advantages in that it is objective and normative? it states that price should tend toward the cost of production; it also allows us to determine what constitutes equitable exchange. Unfortunately, the LTV does not acknowledge that the amount of labor embodied in products is constantly diminishing with the advance of automation and improvements in capital. Marginal Utility Theory was held to be the replacement for the Labor Theory of Value but this type of utilitarianism is ultimately subjective and can't provide a sane basis for economics. In this approach, all that matters is satisfying an agent's subjective preference. But people might prefer anything at all ( in the case of preference adaptation a person who is used to being abused or deprived?starving?actually adjusts to this condition). Preference satisfaction alone can't serve as the basis for well-being?an agent can easily prefer things that are objectively bad for him. See Amartya Sen-the Capabilities approach to measure agent's welfare in terms of the intrinsically valuable doings/beings he has the capability to achieve. Binary Economics (Kelso/Adler) put forth after the great depression, advocated a new concept of "productiveness" in which Capital was conceptualized as autonomously doing work. I propose a theory tentatively dubbed the Automation/Technological Theory of Value. All economic value starts with a Gift, the sun, thus there really is such a thing as a free lunch, provided we intelligently use technology to satisfy needs. Man simply uses his mind to harness energy to do work. Rather than a labor theory of value, a "play" theory is more appropriate, as all advances in standard of living come from using technology to always do more with less. Vol I Issue 3 Property Since the theory of value is such a mess, it is no wonder the notion of property is confused as well. Proudhon famously declared that property is theft, distinguishing the concept of possession (occupancy and use of land/means of production but no absentee ownership). Following this line, I think the phrase Property is Use gets at the core idea behind property rights?these rights to use a resource come with a responsibility to act as a steward and to use the resource in actual production. Seen in this light, the idea of Intellectual Property (a term that collapses distinct legal regimes of copyright, trademark, and patent, and should never have been adopted) is revealed to be rubbish. So called, "IP" is not property at all, but merely a negative right to exclude. At least with copyright, the author nominally owns his own words/expression, but even here artists have been sued for copying themselves!! See the case of John Fogerty?being sued by his record company for being too similar to himself in the song Run Through the Jungle! Even more harmful than copyright, today's patent system is a total failure as a property system?it benefits neither the public, nor inventors?serving only lawyers and corporations who can amass the largest portfolio. A patent is not a right to do anything?2 parties may find themselves at a standoff with neither able to practice an invention because of overlapping blocking claims. Boundaries are impossible to determine, leading to endless, costly litigation. Worst of all, independent invention is no defense, so I might happen upon my own solution to a problem only to be blocked by an existing patent owner or a troll who never had any intention of practicing the invention. Even if my approach is different, the doctrine of equivalents still allows the existing patent to block me. A unified theory of property for both physical and intellectual resources is possible if we return to the central idea of use. Patrick Anderson's User-Owner Theory is ideal for this issue. Also see Chris Cook's Open Capitalist Project, which promotes the idea of trusts (see Islamic finance) as a solution to a debt-based system of mortgage-slavery. The Commons is also a critical idea. Space as Commons is a theme worth exploring, perhaps in its own issue. Space is the ultimate Commons, and following the frontier gold rush model by staking claims on the moon, etc, might not be in humanity's best interests, no matter how rich it makes the lucky first mover entrepreneurs. Today, the baby field of private space entrepreneurship is an exclusive billionaire's club. Leading advocates espouse a sort of hyper- capitalist rhetoric that seems grossly out of touch with the most recent events. Our property system on earth can hardly be said to have been a success; transposing it to the heavens will surely have a hellish result. It might be time to rethink that Asteroid Mining business plan you just submitted at the last invite only Space Cadet Summit. Vol II Issue 1 Money Money is a tool, a technology, nothing less, nothing more. Today, it is a very poorly designed and implemented technology. The Social Currency or "Open Source Currency" movement is slowly gathering steam as groups worldwide implement LETS and other local or complementary currency systems. This topic is enormous so the issue will feature summaries of the history of money as it has been implemented and an introduction to notable emerging alternatives. Vol II Issue 2 Attention/Reputation The field of Attention and Reputation Economics is likely to become its own sub-discipline within Post Scarcity. This issue will consider the key difference between attention/reputation and other forms of currency. Is attention truly scarce? Today's crude reputation metrics and attention filters (Digg, Amazon, Ebay) are primitive and there are many very technical aspects to consider. We urgently need to get started if we are to have any hope of coping with the information overload that will accompany LifeLogging and ubiquitous embedded computing. LifeLogging is potentially the most socially disruptive technology imaginable, and unlike Drexlerian Nanotech?all the enabling technologies are already here. Once lifelogging begins, I anticipate a hard takeoff to a "Sociological Singularity" within a decade as "omniveillance" is the only stable endpoint. A Bill of LifeLogger User Rights and a new Social Compact are required if we are to use lifelogging's potential to enhance sociability rather than degenerate further into a "reality TV" based society. See Doctorow's, Whuffie, DotMK. Vol II Issue 3 Robotics/Basic Income Revisiting the theme of Automation from our issue on the theory of value, this issue anticipates the robotics revolution. James Albus' People's Capitalism, Marshall Brain's various scenarios, Moravec? let's check in on these ideas that have been floating around for several decades and see where we stand. The Basic Income may fit here also. Vol III Issue 1 Nanotechnology/FAB manufacturing/Open Manufacturing/Energy Lot of overlapping themes here and we can splice these into separate issues. The overall theme here is the transition to radically decentralized production. See Carson's new book, Mutualist Theory of Organization. Rather than technical considerations (though obviously the tech details matter) the focus is on the structural aspects?how to avoid a Microsoft of Molecular Manufacturing, discussion of relevant fiction, eg, The Diamond Age. Vol III Issue 2 Ethics and Economics of AI If we don't implement Post Scarcity Values before the birth of GAI, we may be in big trouble. Vol III Issue 3 Economics of Virtual Worlds Science Fiction: we might do a "best of" issue summarizing post scarcity fiction. Obviously, Sci Fi is a vast source of post-scarcity speculation and any of the above issues could feature one or more "lit reviews" of sci fi relevant to the topic of that issue. VR is obviously poised to become an ever greater part of the economy. Are we doomed to repeat past mistakes in this new setting or can we avoid imposing artificial scarcity? Discussion of contemporary examples, business models, and property regimes. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Open Manufacturing" group. To post to this group, send email to openmanufacturing at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to openmanufacturing+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/openmanufacturing?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 05:06:49 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 15:36:49 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902012106p223fc8f2i280b6824e9b09ccd@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/1 Kevin H : > On 1/31/09, samantha wrote: >>> >>> The communist >>> would therefore agree with you that a person should keep the fruits of >>> his labour. An exception might be made on compassionate grounds for >>> transferring some wealth to those who are poor and unable to work, but >>> certainly not for transferring wealth from the workers to the rich and >>> powerful. >>> >> >> Either I keep what is my own to dispose of it as I wish or I do not. Why >> is it up to someone else what part of my wealthy goes to those some may >> judge to be poor and needy? So the only sin is for your work to be >> voluntarily judge to be of more value by those who wish to acquire it than >> the work of your neighbor? > > > I propose to you what I would call a deep wealth theory, and I'll contrast > it with your statement here, which I will describe as a shallow wealth > theory. The shallow wealth theory, I offer, is the idea that the wealth > springs no further than from the individual him or herself. The individual > builds a car or whatever else, and therefore the value of that car comes > from that individual alone. > > The deep wealth theory differs in that the value of the car doesn't come > from that individual, but it's value is only the peak of an ice berg, so to > speak; that is, the product of thousands of years of development. The > automobile, obviously, is a piece of technology, and technology, foremost, > is knowledge. So in order to determine the real value of that car, we'd > have to go far back into the indefinite past. We have the development of > mathematics to thank, as well as logic, science; additionally, we must thank > the industrial revolution, and the development of engineering. We must > thank the steam engine, and the science of thermodynamics that emerged as a > result. And on and on, of course. The idea is that a product like an > automobile isn't just a "thing" produced by knowing hands, but the > embodiment of a great deal of development, of which we and our hands are > just the surface of. > > So, when you make a statement like "my wealth", I just get this funny > feeling. It's not just your choice of words, but everything behind them. > But this idea of deep wealth, just a term that I've not been able to > describe fully before, is what prevents me from taking these principles of > libertarianism serious. That and it's ideology. > > Kevin > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Deep wealth / shallow wealth, I like it. btw, why are we arguing socialism vs capitalism on exi-chat? On the gripping hand(*), post scarcity is the thing. These scarcity based philosophies are all rationing, deciding who can't have something. Crappy and boring. Technically minded people can do better. Ask yourself "how can I make something free forever for everyone?". You can assume volunteers and donations to help bridge the gap between "now" and "success", and you can assume that free just means so very cheap that you can disregard the price. If enough of us can do that, rationing is moot. (*) apologies to Damien for inducing Nivencringe -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Feb 2 06:01:55 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:01:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it> <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1233554890_24782@s6.cableone.net> At 01:32 PM 2/1/2009, Robert wrote: snip >It is a particularly hard sell against other (cheaper) solutions. I >worked out the numbers circa 2001. You do not need SPS. You need >solar ponds, potentially salt water solar ponds, growing >cyanobacteria or algae producing biodiesel or equivalent >feedstocks. Produces many more jobs here on Earth and is >sustainable. The agricultural land available in the SW US could >support the entire U.S. energy requirements without the need to launch SPS. > >And obviously, such technology once developed could be exported to >the Middle East where they have ample supplies of sea water and >ample solar energy without the need for launching god knows how many >rockets. You have to ask yourself (when you've got a great >high-tech solution) Is there a low-tech solution? I want to see the energy problem solved, I don't care how it is done. I just got back from a conference on military fuels where they were talking in great detail about algae oil and how oversold it has been. The fixation of sunlight energy in algae oil is around 3-4 percent. You can do almost twice that with 15% ground solar, using the energy to make hydrogen and reducing CO2. If you don't think this is right, show me the numbers. Keith Henson From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Feb 2 06:04:49 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sun, 01 Feb 2009 23:04:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike> <49833182.1010000@libero.it> <003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> <4985D062.9090202@libero.it> <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1233555064_25269@s1.cableone.net> At 01:53 PM 2/1/2009, spike wrote: > > > > ...On Behalf Of hkhenson > > ... > > > > I have been talking about the engineering details here and > > other places for a year but there isn't much interest. > > People up to working or even checking chemistry/physics/math > > problems are hard to find. > > > > The "Cosmic Engineers" have been disapointing. > > > > Keith > >Ja, Keith, I don't think the engineering is the primary problem. Everything >you have proposed from an engineering perspective is workable. A massive >shift to space based power generation is primarily a political problem, the >kind of problem at which I suck. I don't even have any insight into how to >solve it or who to consult on political problems of this magnitude. I agree with you, but the first step is to be sure you have the numbers right. Keith From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 12:22:30 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 23:22:30 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/2 Damien Broderick : > Unless you thought I was saying that *only* "Free market traders with > education, enlightenment and refinement" owned slaves, and even I'm not that > stupid. No, but I don't see how a free market could by itself ever eliminate slavery once it was established, perhaps as a carryover from more savage times. Proclamations about personal freedom would be something tacked on by do-gooders and world-improvers, who as we know are always doomed to make things worse. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 12:32:50 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 23:32:50 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233521584.2019.2109.camel@hayek> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <1233521584.2019.2109.camel@hayek> Message-ID: 2009/2/2 Fred C. Moulton : > Slavery is a serious problem and still exists in several places in the > world. The last slavery prosecution in the USA was during the 1950s. > So I think that using slavery as a club to attack the concept of free > markets is both intellectually indefensible and frankly sickening. > > And on the flip side to imply that anyone suggesting any sort of market > regulation is one step from Stalinist labor camps is just as wrong. > > This is the Extropian list where I would expect a higher level of > discourse to prevail. But recently I have seen messages which would > embarrass even a bunch of drunken college sophomores. Not at all: it is a very important philosophical question. I don't doubt that the pro-free market people on this list would oppose slavery, but I see this as a compromise compromise of pure free market principles. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 14:13:21 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:13:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> Il 01/02/2009 4.12, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 06:01 PM 1/31/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: > >> the USA seems to be >> charging in the direction of European socialism at such an alarming rate > > In order to try desperately to fix the mindboggling clusterfucks caused > by ruinous American non-socialism, right? No, sorry, that was all caused > by US socialism, I keep forgetting. > > Is European socialism anything like Canadian or British or Australian > "socialism"? Having lived most of my life in one of those very largely > market-oriented nations, I find that label curiously misplaced. Damien I live in one of these "largely market-oriented nations". Sure, they are more market oriented in many ways in respect of other nations, but they were much more marked oriented in the past than they are now. For example, Italy (where I live) were much more marked oriented in the from the 50 to the 70, when large part of the economic growth happened. When the governments started to add reforms after reforms to enlarge the welfare, enlarge the health services, bailout of industry after industry and services after services, put limits and rules on how people can work, and so on, the consequences were a continuous reduction of the GDP growth, enlarged public debit, higher taxes and unemployment for the younger, the women and the disadvantaged ones. Do you want argue how much smarter, better, more intelligent, more honest are the politicos in charge today in the US? Do you are sure they will do it right, this time? Do you don't like the label "communist" or "socialist"? Mises used another label for what you support and is "statism". Statists will come in many fashions like communists, socialists, social-democrats, fascists, islamists, and so on. What don't change is that they can not compute the value of the goods, services and life of people. They destroy the social cooperation and the fabric of the society. The politics you advocate are statism. Pure, simple statism. You are free to put any label you like on it. The wine will be the same, whatever the bottle or the label is. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 14:27:21 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:27:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902010609l16432c04x33c13f02e4a446b@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <580930c20902010609l16432c04x33c13f02e4a446b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <498702C9.5000708@libero.it> Il 01/02/2009 15.09, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 1:26 AM, spike > wrote: > > Last week we heard a talk about cryonics by Ralph Merkle. Under > communism > having that procedure is out of the question. The proles would argue > that > their immediate needs far outrank my desire to be cryopreserved. > > > Mmhhh. Really? In fact, the Party in its wisdom might even decide that, Jews must go in the ovens, kulaks in Siberia to be re-educated, city-dwellers must go in the country to work the fields. The party, mainly, will decide whatever is the best (or it consider the best) for their leaderships. The people will be the last of their interests (as history showed many times). When "the Party" is unable to give to the people it lead enough food anything else will be considered superfluous, bourgeois, unpatriotic or a lunatic's idea. Just now, national health services are unable to meet the need of living and screaming people, so do you think they will give a damn about the need of unscreaming cryopreserved people? Also the leadership of "The Party" will not be able to be cryopreserved. Do you really think people like Stalin would be cryopreserved by their successors? I doubt people will be happy to pay taxes (or not spend them) all their life to keep well freezed someonelse they didn't know. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 14:43:06 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 15:43:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902020643w53dcd735ia450cf46b52b58cd@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:14 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > In a free market, wealth not used or not invested wisely will, with the > time reduce. The owner will need to continue to consume to sustain > himself/herself. Yes, this used to be the case even in aristocratic times, and it still would, were it not for the paradoxical nature of monetary wealth, not to mention of "money as debt". :-) In fact, however, Social Darwinism itself started as a *leftist* movement in the sense that it felt that there were classes effectively protected and shielded, by the legal and economic system in place, from social competition. The fact that contemporary left is instead mainly positively preoccupied with the protection of lower classes should not obscure the fact that such phenomenon is still very present at the top of the social ladder. The fact that to do for an indefinite period of time might well be impossible does not tell us anything against the idea that society as a whole would be more efficient - and individual "justice" would be enhanced - by *accelerating* their demise. Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 14:55:53 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:55:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <49851F87.30303@mac.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <49851F87.30303@mac.com> Message-ID: <49870979.1090902@libero.it> Il 01/02/2009 5.05, samantha ha scritto: > Olga Bourlin wrote: >> From: "hkhenson" >> "Government is an evil; it is only the thoughtlessness and vices of >> men that make it a necessary evil. When all men are good and wise, >> government will of itself decay." - Percy Bysshe Shelley > Or perhaps it is the vices of human beings that make governments much > too dangerous. A government is a honeypot of power and wealth drawing > every scoundrel around and often corrupting even the honest. Can we > become good and wise by making it so easy to be evil on a large scale? I suppose that people living longer lives will be force to keep better records of themselves. A Blagogevich with a 1.000 years life span will need to reconsider how much is wise to be dishonest to advance his career. And if it is caught can be keep away from the offices for much more time. Also, I suppose that an AI helper or an Aug-Reality extension could be used to visualize the trustfulness of people we see or hear, based on their past history. Many of them return when people forget their sins or forget them. A way to enhance our ability to remember them and what they did (good or not) would help to avoid these pitfalls. This is not so much different from how people manage their characters in a few online games. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 16:24:47 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:24:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233521584.2019.2109.camel@hayek> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <1233521584.2019.2109.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <49871E4F.1040103@libero.it> Il 01/02/2009 21.53, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > On Sun, 2009-02-01 at 20:13 +0100, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > >> So, apparently not only the "civilized", "free market traders" used the >> slavery, but also the uncivilized. > As has already been pointed out if there is slavery then there is not a > free market. Slavery is only applicable to persons. If you redefine the meaning of "person" you can enlarge or restrict the pool that beings that you don't consider persons. There are people that would consider an ape a person and people that disagree. And one of the best (as efficient) tools of any fanatics is to dehumanize (make them not persons) the enemy or the different from them so become persimmisible to kill them or enslave them or do other bad things to them. E.G. If you don't consider a cow being a person, there is nothing that prevent you to force it to pull a plough. And nothing prevent you from have a free market with the people that you consider "persons". An AI is/will be a person? If we consider it not, it will be permissible to force them to work for us. If we consider them as person like as (but a bit different), will not be permissible to force them to work for us. But to put it clearly, I consider this mainly a theoretical point. More the difference from person to not person is small or not obvious, more this is exploitable from people with power. And the exploiting will cause the free market to don't work really free as it is based, mainly, on a minimum of trust. > Slavery is a serious problem and still exists in several places in the > world. The last slavery prosecution in the USA was during the 1950s. Optimist. A few recent cases are very recent and involve Arabs (in the USA) that import their chattel to do menial works. They often have problem with considering bad what they do. It is a normal things to them. > So I think that using slavery as a club to attack the concept of free > markets is both intellectually indefensible and frankly sickening. The two concepts are mainly orthogonal. It is like arguing that war and free trade are incompatible, so if war is possible free trade will not be possible. Until a state of war exist between two parties, it is not possible to have free trade between them (Axes and Allies didn't were able or willing to trade) but this don't prevent them from keeping a free market with other nations or inside their nations. E.G. The fact that many Germans were POW in England prevented Englishmen to keep a free market between themselves? > And on the flip side to imply that anyone suggesting any sort of market > regulation is one step from Stalinist labor camps is just as wrong. Any forced regulation from a third party is interference. They are not "one step from" Stalinist labour camps, but they are on the way. It could be long or short and could be traveled fast or slowly. But the end is there if they travel all this descending road. Usually people travel this road without understanding what they are doing and where they are going. This is because they say that the way to Hell is paved with good intentions. But, the main problem is that any step they take hurt many others. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 2 16:58:48 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 08:58:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Automotive problems In-Reply-To: <1233554890_24782@s6.cableone.net> References: <3A0CB8B0BE39431AAB0B8DC2A251314A@spike><49833182.1010000@libero.it><003001c982ff$fb44c7f0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm><4985D062.9090202@libero.it> <1233514288_21155@s7.cableone.net> <1233554890_24782@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of hkhenson > Subject: Re: [ExI] Automotive problems > > At 01:32 PM 2/1/2009, Robert wrote: > > >...You > >have to ask yourself (when you've got a great high-tech solution) Is > >there a low-tech solution? > > ...The fixation of sunlight energy in > algae oil is around 3-4 percent. You can do almost twice > that with 15% ground solar, using the energy to make hydrogen > and reducing CO2. If you don't think this is right, show me > the numbers... Keith Henson Keith your numbers are right. Usually the algae ponds are suggested only where they can be implemented very cheaply. Their advantage is not in overall energy efficiency but rather in that they can be put in place for lower cost than other energy producing installations. For instance, consider the place where I misspent my later youth, ages 15 to 19: The body of "water" was named Silver Lake is a kind of a joke, for it isn't really a lake but rather a swampy wetland. Notice that it is a different color than the surrounding lakes. Using the numbers advertised by the algae ponds crowd, that "lake" could be converted to an algae pond of an investment of about two million dollars, and would produce somewhere between 40 and 200 barrels of oil equivalent per day, depending on weather etc. That "lake" wouldn't be enough energy to light the homes along Carpenter Road, but it points out that algae ponds notion isn't really in competition with solar cells, rather we would use land that is already no good for anything, and doesn't require huge piles of capital. Zoom out from that google map link, to see pleeeenty of land that fits that description. But we could never power life as we know it from algae ponds alone. There is a constant influx of wild beasts coming into that wetland: turtles, snakes, raccoons, alligators, mosquitoes and such, so these could be filtered and ground up into feed for hogs, which can be ground up and used as feed for humans. Of course, the environmental people do not like the whole notion of grinding up wild beasts and feeding them to domestic beasts, which are subsequently devoured by a third mixture of wild and domestic beast (us). The point of all this is that there are ideas like algae ponds that do not compete with space based solar or nuclear, but that develop in parallel, never intending to be a huge contributor to the overall energy picture. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 17:13:51 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:13:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> Il 02/02/2009 13.22, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/2 Damien Broderick: > >> Unless you thought I was saying that *only* "Free market traders with >> education, enlightenment and refinement" owned slaves, and even I'm not that >> stupid. > No, but I don't see how a free market could by itself ever eliminate > slavery once it was established, perhaps as a carryover from more > savage times. Proclamations about personal freedom would be something > tacked on by do-gooders and world-improvers, who as we know are always > doomed to make things worse. History could show how free market is a mortal enemy of slavery. The South seceded because the North didn't allow the slavery to be established in the West. The presence of states without slavery at the borders of states with slavery (and slaves) put economic pressure on the slave holders in these states because the slaves (that had a very high value) were able to escape the bondages and find shelter over the borders. Nearer the border, easier was for the slaves to escape the bondages. At the end, there more loss than gain in owing slaves. So people gave up to have and use slaves. And become hostile to the slave holders as they were competitors with cheaper workforce than them. So, the slave holder were forced to recede as the territories where slavery were economically sustainable. Then the balance of power in a state changed and abolitionists become able to pass law banning slavery and a new state banning slavery border states where slavery exist. Rinse and repeat. So they needed to secede to keep the bordering states as a buffer where slavery was legal but not economical and stop the domino effect. This is not so much different from how slavery and serfdom were destroyed in Europe. People were able to take shelter from their master in cities and after a period be legally free from bondages with the old masters. Thank to the hammering of the Christian church for a few centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Indeed, the slavery returned mainly where the power of the Roman Church was lower (like North and South America) compared with the states and the holders of lands. Mirco From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Feb 2 17:49:15 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:49:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> Message-ID: <4987321B.2020604@mac.com> painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 02/02/2009 13.22, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> 2009/2/2 Damien Broderick: >> >>> Unless you thought I was saying that *only* "Free market traders with >>> education, enlightenment and refinement" owned slaves, and even I'm >>> not that >>> stupid. > >> No, but I don't see how a free market could by itself ever eliminate >> slavery once it was established, perhaps as a carryover from more >> savage times. Proclamations about personal freedom would be something >> tacked on by do-gooders and world-improvers, who as we know are always >> doomed to make things worse. > > History could show how free market is a mortal enemy of slavery. > > The South seceded because the North didn't allow the slavery to be > established in the West. The South seceded because of economic exploitation by the North. The rest are side issues. It was also about the freedom, supposedly guaranteed to secede and go your own way. Slavery was becoming increasing uneconomical and was not at all the core issue to most Confederates or to many Yankees for that manner. Of course once it got really rolling most *reasons* disappeared into the immediacy of bloody civil war. - samantha From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 17:51:08 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 18:51:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902020951p69371350lb7f2145482c38fda@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:13 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > History could show how free market is a mortal enemy of slavery. This may be true at least in the sense that societies based on slavery have historically performed very poorly, even though their conquerors and defeaters only too often ended by maintaining the system in place with some minor changes once installed in the place of the previous rulers... > Thank to the hammering of the Christian church for a few centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. Mmhhh, here as you know I have more than a few doubts. The diffusion of slavery in the Latin and European economic and cultural space increased proportionally with religious, cultural, and social influences coming from the middle east. In other continents, such as North America or Sub-saharian Africa, organised large-scale slavery arrived together with monotheism. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 2 17:50:54 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 18:50:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902020643w53dcd735ia450cf46b52b58cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130224416.02340008@satx.rr.com> <0C97D8F32229491085C65EF2A17144ED@spike> <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> <580930c20902020643w53dcd735ia450cf46b52b58cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4987327E.2070203@libero.it> Il 02/02/2009 15.43, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Sun, Feb 1, 2009 at 11:14 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > Yes, this used to be the case even in aristocratic times, and it still > would, were it not for the paradoxical nature of monetary wealth, not to > mention of "money as debt". :-) I don't like the idea of "money as debt", I prefer the idea of "money as a commodity", in particular "money as gold". > In fact, however, Social Darwinism itself started as a *leftist* > movement in the sense that it felt that there were classes effectively > protected and shielded, by the legal and economic system in place, from > social competition. The fact that contemporary left is instead mainly > positively preoccupied with the protection of lower classes should not > obscure the fact that such phenomenon is still very present at the top > of the social ladder. And, in fact, leftist statism and rightist statism all argue about "helping the poor", "the workers" and others groups. They only change how these groups are identified. What don't change is that in the (not so) long run any and all rules that will be enacted will be hijacked by the ruling class to their own benefits. Like, for example, funding the public education with the taxes of the poor so the rich will be able to use the public schools without pay, but keeping other barriers up so the poor will not be able to use the same schools where the riches send their offspring. And combating any reform (using the unions of the teachers) so the status quo is not modified. > The fact that to do for an indefinite period of time might well be > impossible does not tell us anything against the idea that society as a > whole would be more efficient - and individual "justice" would be > enhanced - by *accelerating* their demise. The market is the way to accelerate their demise if they are unable to serve the need of the public. The other ways simply substitute a ruling class with another, if it is not the same with different feathers. The market work always, any day, any hours. Like water it dig the hardest rock like the softest one. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Feb 2 18:09:18 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 19:09:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4987327E.2070203@libero.it> References: <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> <580930c20902020643w53dcd735ia450cf46b52b58cd@mail.gmail.com> <4987327E.2070203@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902021009n4e063d13i89fa1d86f8085339@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:50 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > I don't like the idea of "money as debt", I prefer the idea of "money as a > commodity", in particular "money as gold". Sure. Nobody is implying that you believe yourself to be living in the best possible world, or that the system in place is by any means aligned with your ideas... :-) > And, in fact, leftist statism and rightist statism all argue about "helping > the poor", "the workers" and others groups. They only change how these > groups are identified. It is however undeniable that a rightist statism exists that argue in favour of "helping the rich" (under some other rhetorical definition, of course), including when the latter find themselves in such a position not because they are the winners of some "no-barrels hold" social competition, but because they are *shielded* therefrom. What I am trying to say here is that there are at least a few occurrences where in fact criticisms of dubious accumulation of wealth and privileges are justifiable also from a libertarian point of view, and defences thereof are not. The fact, for instance, that social mobility is currently *decreasing* in contemporary societies in comparison with other, theoretically less "market-oriented", eras, should give us food for thought. -- Stefano Vaj From moulton at moulton.com Mon Feb 2 22:20:27 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 14:20:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> Message-ID: <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 15:13 +0100, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > > Do you don't like the label "communist" or "socialist"? > Mises used another label for what you support and is "statism". I know that Mises used the term but is it really useful in this context? > Statists will come in many fashions like communists, socialists, > social-democrats, fascists, islamists, and so on. The reason I ask is that a term which lumps so many disparate classifications together may not provide the distinctions we want. Although it may be a good rhetorical label to pound someone with... however I thought we were going to ease up on the pounding on people. > What don't change is > that they can not compute the value of the goods, services and life of > people. The "economic calculation problem" is worth considering. > They destroy the social cooperation and the fabric of the society. I think the word destroy is a bit strong. I think we all can agree that there is a big difference between a generally social-democratic country and an authoritarian or totalitarian country. You might argue that some aspects are weakened or that some feed back loops are distorted but I think "destroy" is perhaps a bit overboard. Fred > > The politics you advocate are statism. Pure, simple statism. > You are free to put any label you like on it. The wine will be the same, > whatever the bottle or the label is. > > Mirco > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From moulton at moulton.com Mon Feb 2 23:08:41 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 15:08:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4987321B.2020604@mac.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4987321B.2020604@mac.com> Message-ID: <1233616121.2019.2317.camel@hayek> On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 09:49 -0800, samantha wrote: > > The South seceded because of economic exploitation by the North. The > rest are side issues. I think this statement is not born out the historical record. It seems to me that the Confederate States seceded for a variety of reasons: - Allowing or not allowing slavery in territories and new states - The possibility of abolition of slavery - Tariff and other economic issues My friend Jeff Hummel wrote a book titled "Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men" that covers the history of the lead up to secession and the war which followed. He discusses some of the reasons and feeling of those who advocated succession and the general history of what happened in pages 129 to 148 of the book. Fred > It was also about the freedom, supposedly > guaranteed to secede and go your own way. > > Slavery was becoming increasing uneconomical and was not at all the core > issue to most Confederates or to many Yankees for that manner. Of > course once it got really rolling most *reasons* disappeared into the > immediacy of bloody civil war. > > - samantha > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 00:23:38 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:23:38 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/3 painlord2k at libero.it : > Damien I live in one of these "largely market-oriented nations". > Sure, they are more market oriented in many ways in respect of other > nations, but they were much more marked oriented in the past than they are > now. > > For example, Italy (where I live) were much more marked oriented in the from > the 50 to the 70, when large part of the economic growth happened. > When the governments started to add reforms after reforms to enlarge the > welfare, enlarge the health services, bailout of industry after industry and > services after services, put limits and rules on how people can work, and so > on, the consequences were a continuous reduction of the GDP growth, enlarged > public debit, higher taxes and unemployment for the younger, the women and > the disadvantaged ones. Why didn't the social democratic government of, say, Germany lead to economic ruin? Why did the pro-free market policies of Iceland and Ireland lead to boom then bust? Why didn't the rabidly anti-socialist policies of numerous US-supported Latin American states lift their citizens out of poverty? -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Feb 3 00:49:07 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:49:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902021009n4e063d13i89fa1d86f8085339@mail.gmail.com> References: <49840141.5020801@mac.com> <580930c20901310551h1043fa75uddb3bcfb942edcf8@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20901310750g4de2c0fj2ba4d0fa4c78122f@mail.gmail.com> <49861ECC.5050606@libero.it> <580930c20902020643w53dcd735ia450cf46b52b58cd@mail.gmail.com> <4987327E.2070203@libero.it> <580930c20902021009n4e063d13i89fa1d86f8085339@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49879483.3090604@libero.it> Il 02/02/2009 19.09, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:50 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> I don't like the idea of "money as debt", I prefer the idea of "money as a >> commodity", in particular "money as gold". > > Sure. Nobody is implying that you believe yourself to be living in the > best possible world, or that the system in place is by any means > aligned with your ideas... :-) > >> And, in fact, leftist statism and rightist statism all argue about "helping >> the poor", "the workers" and others groups. They only change how these >> groups are identified. > > It is however undeniable that a rightist statism exists that argue in > favour of "helping the rich" (under some other rhetorical definition, > of course), including when the latter find themselves in such a > position not because they are the winners of some "no-barrels hold" > social competition, but because they are *shielded* therefrom. For example, the Bush administration helped the bankers. The Obama administration helped the bankers and the automakers. And the buyers of McMansion that did "the step longer than their leg" as we say in Italy. Or, to give example of Italy, they will help the poor Alitalia workers and the Fiat workers (with their managements and theirs shareholders). And usually no one help the little businessman or the workers in a little business. This is not a rightist or leftist policy, this is the policy of all parties, because they are all full of statists in a way or another. > What I am trying to say here is that there are at least a few > occurrences where in fact criticisms of dubious accumulation of wealth > and privileges are justifiable also from a libertarian point of view, > and defences thereof are not. On this we agree for sure. We know many instances where people become rich and powerful because they have friends in the right positions and are able to use the state coffins to buy their ways to the power. > The fact, for instance, that social mobility is currently *decreasing* > in contemporary societies in comparison with other, theoretically less > "market-oriented", eras, should give us food for thought. This is, really, the measure that someone is keeping power that don't deserve. In any really marked oriented, free society, the social mobility would be stable or increasing. When the son of doctors become doctors and the son of politicos become politicos (etc.) this is because their parents are able to pass their profession of them shielding them from the competition. IMHO, the race quotas that many University (usually the humanities) in the USA try to impose are useful to keep the current, mainly white leftists, leadership in place. They reduce the better candidate of other races (East asian and white) and let in less fit candidates (usually blacks and latinos). Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 04:39:37 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2009 21:39:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] for all those people who say they were born too late... Message-ID: <2d6187670902022039i791296c0xbffe00b950fb0b50@mail.gmail.com> A chilling article that gives actual excerpts from a medical handbook from nearly 300 years ago. Reading things like this make me shake my head at people who claim they dearly wish to have been born centuries ago. 22nd century doctors that still have human minds and emotions will recoil in horror at the crude techniques shown in our current medical tomes. I consider myself to have been born too early. Anyone else? John Grigg http://www.livescience.com/history/090128-medical-history.html Book Tells Horror of 18th Century Surgery By Robert Roy Britt, Editorial Director posted: 28 January 2009 11:18 am ET [image: first surgery with anesthesia] This widely circulated photograph is of a re-enactment of the first operation under anesthesia on Oct. 16, 1846 in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Credit: Library of Congress Full Size [image: Previous Image] [image: Next Image] 1 of 2 [image: first surgery with anesthesia]This widely circulated photograph is of a re-enactment of the first operation under anesthesia on Oct. 16, 1846 in the operating room of the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston. Credit: Library of Congress[image: rbritt-headshot-01.jpg]In The Water Cooler, Robert Roy Britt takes a daily look at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond. [Water Cooler Archive ] We all know medicine has come a long way in the past century. Now a 300-year-old guidebook, recently found on a dusty shelf, reveals how horrible things were way back then. The book, written in 1712 and titled "Treatise of the Operations of Surgery," gives advice on such horrific procedures as amputations ? before anesthesia was invented. The publication's discovery was reported todayby the *Daily Mail*. Here are some of the gory details within, according to the British newspaper: *On amputating a leg: *"Cut quick with a crooked knife before covering the stump with the remaining skin," French medical author Joseph Charriere recommended. *On treating wounds:* "If the wound be only in the flesh you may bathe it with brandy and cover the part with a compressed dip in a warm wine quickened with spir vini," Charriere wrote. "If the wound is to the nervous parts you can dissolve sugar candy, camphire and myrrh in it." (Charriere was kind of onto something: A study in 2007 found wine kills germsin the mouth and throat.) *On the best time for surgery:* "Either Spring or Autumn," Charriere advised. "In the Spring, the blood is revived with greater heat whilst in the Autumn blood is calm." Surgery was a last resort in the 18th century that often resulted in infection and death anyway. "Having a limb sawn off without anestheticis just unimaginable," Howard Ellis, professor of surgery at the Westminster Medical School and author of "A History of Surgery," told the newspaper. Things changed in 1846 with the use of general anesthesia and again in 1867 when antiseptics to control infection came into widespread use. (Interestingly, even today scientists do not fully understand how anesthesia works .) Meanwhile, the harnessing of morphineas a painkiller in the mid-1800s was a big relief, too. "The book would have proved invaluable to surgeons in its day ? it would have been like a bible for them to use and refer to when operating," said Charles Hanson of Hansons Auctioneers. The book will be auctioned next month. - Maggots and Leeches: Old Medicine is New - Yeeowww! Prehistoric Dentists Used Stone Drills - Music During Surgery Reduces Sedation Needs *Robert Roy Britt is the Editorial Director of Imaginova. In this column, The Water Cooler, he takes a daily look at what people are talking about in the world of science and beyond.* -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 05:54:11 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:24:11 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Elusive word... In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0812112029q4726329bl1717f4601bf86500@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0812112029q4726329bl1717f4601bf86500@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902022154m12e5b1dch716adf792bd70f48@mail.gmail.com> 2008/12/12 Emlyn : > A colleague of mine had an excellent idea the other day, that it'd be > cool to have a handheld gadget (think a pen or mouse form factor) that > is like a printing "brush", which you would wipe over a paper surface > and it'd print on it; it'd track movement precisely, modelling its own > movement in 2d, so you could be really sloppy with it and the print > out would be great. > > Long story short, it already exists of course and here it is: > http://www.rnpalm.com/printdreams.htm > > Now this has happened to all of us before; for some of us it's a daily > occurrence. When you think of an idea, not only does it not turn out > to be novel, but there are at least 10 instances of other people with > the idea, and usually one or more fully realised commercial > implementations (where that is appropriate). > > It occurred to me that there ought to be a word for it. And of course > that there will already be a word for it (probably multiple). Anyone > know what the word or words is/are? > No one came up with any suggestions for this word. It is the height of irony if that word has not actually been coined. Just to be clear, this is to name the act or moment of discovering via google that your idea is completely non novel. What I can think of off the top of my head: - unlightenment - noreka ! - conceptus interruptus (for a dog latin entry) - ideagnorance - dismusia - gCrushed -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From Frankmac at ripco.com Tue Feb 3 06:02:20 2009 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 01:02:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency Message-ID: <4E502E8FAFF7444CB6EA0AA1F7B1083E@FrankMcElligPC> For those who were interested in it, The Super Bowl was won by the Pittsburgh Steelers with a last second touchdown. For those who bet the Steelers even though they won the game they still lost because they did not win by enough points as the Cards cover the evil spread with its 6 point add on. Over 1.2 billion dollars changed hands based upon their (the bettors) view of RISK and UNCERTAINY. A perfect zero sum game with equal winners and losers, almost like the stock market but with smaller bets. And what has this to do with this list, first it is my annual post which all of you ignore, except spike thank you spike, and of course you are right to ignore it as you are discussing the American civil war and the social implications of slavery in America back in the 1860's. But if you did not know it and by now you should if you are a viewer of the marketplace and have opinions concerning that marketplace , you would see that the Super bowl is a small window of America's mood not in the 1860's but right now. . Tickets are 1000 dollars for the game, and in good years they inflate to 1200 at the door, this year deflation occurred and they were bought for 700 at the door. The ads are more important than the game as they reflect the state of business in this country, but then again here you fight the civil war, and Rome burns. Corp parties were cancelled Stock brokers and manufacturing companies both were absence, normal ad's like FED EX and such were no where to be found, and the most telling was of the ad's was the one for you to send them "cash4gold.com" your gold earrings which they then would meltdown and send you the cash for gold that was present in those earrings. Their spokesperson's were Ed McMahon and MC Hammer both who filed for bankruptcy. Unemployment almost double digits and cars being sold at the employee price, no money down, zero financing, cash back and 1 basket of apples which you can sell on the corner in your spare time. But then of course I learned than the civil war was fought because the slaves were needed to pick cotton, and state rights was just a side issue. At this moment in time the world is de-leveraging 53 trillion dollars of debt caused by unemployed PhD's who could not find tenured teaching positions that went to Wall Street and explained quantum mechanics to Hedge fund managers at Bear Stearns. Now if you want to discuss football, or risk or uncertainty or black swan events, with the last one in 2008 that caused Madoff to blow up, I am all eyes. But the causes of the civil war, hey the French are rioting now in Paris in an effort to keep their jobs, the Irish government just bought bad debt of 24 billion Euros for it's banks and had to add another 7 billion Euros to stop them from closing the front doors and could this be the first crack in the EU when nationalism becomes a issue AGAIN in Europe. Then there is always DAVOS where Russia PM Putin wants five reserve currencies instead of the dollar, Maybe a discussion that all that is needed is for the China to invade Taiwan that will take the heat off America's job market, but worst maybe they will not buy the debt we are issuing to finance the second new deal. There is an answer to these times, but a discussion of the civil war and its causes, my oh my, are you people out of your league Frank -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 3 06:07:20 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:07:20 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Elusive word... In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0902022154m12e5b1dch716adf792bd70f48@mail.gmail.co m> References: <710b78fc0812112029q4726329bl1717f4601bf86500@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0902022154m12e5b1dch716adf792bd70f48@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090203000159.023c7d70@satx.rr.com> At 04:24 PM 2/3/2009 +1030, Emmers wrote: >Just to be clear, this is to name the act or moment of discovering via >google that your idea is completely non novel. How about "googed"? This is the equivalent of being egged, although not egged-on. (For non-Aussies: a goog is a hen's egg, and making a goog of yourself is acting like a nitwit. Pity nobody outside Oz would have a chance of understanding it.) Oh, and it doesn't rhyme with "google" or "goo" but with "good". Damien Broderick From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 06:23:46 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 16:53:46 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Elusive word... In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090203000159.023c7d70@satx.rr.com> References: <710b78fc0812112029q4726329bl1717f4601bf86500@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0902022154m12e5b1dch716adf792bd70f48@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090203000159.023c7d70@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902022223h47091386i47ff7cc01ef3aea6@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/3 Damien Broderick : > At 04:24 PM 2/3/2009 +1030, Emmers wrote: > >> Just to be clear, this is to name the act or moment of discovering via >> google that your idea is completely non novel. > > How about "googed"? This is the equivalent of being egged, although not > egged-on. (For non-Aussies: a goog is a hen's egg, and making a goog of > yourself is acting like a nitwit. Pity nobody outside Oz would have a chance > of understanding it.) > > Oh, and it doesn't rhyme with "google" or "goo" but with "good". > > Damien Broderick googlevexed? -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 06:59:47 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:59:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090124223119.02467168@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090124223119.02467168@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4987EB63.8010502@mac.com> Damien Broderick wrote: > Look at the chart at the site: > > > > The author comments: > > <...I can't believe what is happening in narrow money. M0, the narrowest > measure, is usually called the monetary base. It is simply currency > (coins and paper dollars) in circulation and in bank vaults plus > reserves commercial banks have on deposit with the Fed. These reserves > are critical because they are the base from which all other forms of > money such as checking accounts are created. The monetary base directly > controls the ultimate size of fractional-reserve banking. > > Until late 2008, I hadn't looked at M0 for years. Why? Even the Fed > isn't foolish enough to change it too much. For decades it has traveled > in a tight range between about 2% and 10% annual growth, with a > pre-panic average since 1960 of 6.0%. M0 growth less real economic > growth is one of the most basic measures of inflation. If M0 grows at 6% > and the underlying economy at 3%, then there is relatively 3% more money > available to spend on goods and services. This is inflation. > > I was reading a book last month that discussed the monetary base's > direct impact on inflation. So I decided to take a look at M0 again. I > could not believe what the data showed, I almost fell out of my chair it > was so mind-blowing. Per the Fed's own data, we have just witnessed the > most inflationary event in modern history. This crazy monetary base > chart will make even the most rabid deflationist very uneasy. > > [chart] > > M0 has gone parabolic! Year-over-year in December 2008, it was up 98.9%! > This is so shocking it defies belief. In late September as the stock > panic started, it had grown by 9.9% over the past year. By October, this > rate ballooned to an all-time high of 36.7%. In November, it rocketed > again to 73.0%. And in December, it surged up to the staggering 98.9% > you can see above. Ben Bernanke's Fed has doubled the monetary base in a > single year! Holy cow. > Yep. If you have any savings I would strongly recommend: 33% in gold and/or silver; 33% in durable goods (they will be more expensive later) and securing your housing as best you can; keep the rest fairly liquid and easy to get at. Play some of the market chaos if you feel comfortable but always cut losses short and take profits when you can. It is not likely to be a pleasant ride. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:12:31 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:12:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090124223119.02467168@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4987EE5F.7080502@mac.com> BillK wrote: > On Sun, Jan 25, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: >> Look at the chart at the site: >> >> >> The author comments: >> ...I can't believe what is happening in narrow money. M0, the narrowest >> measure, is usually called the monetary base. It is simply currency (coins >> and paper dollars) in circulation and in bank vaults plus reserves >> commercial banks have on deposit with the Fed. These reserves are critical >> because they are the base from which all other forms of money such as >> checking accounts are created. The monetary base directly controls the >> ultimate size of fractional-reserve banking. >> > > > Don't look for easy, 'one indicator explains everything' solutions. It is way more than one indicator. In the last four or five months alone a whopping total of $8 trillion in various loans, guarantees, buyouts and so on to purportedly address the economic mess we are in hase been approved. That is effectively a near doubly of overall federal indebtedness. The economic carnage is far from over. It is likely just clearing its throat. Ignore it at your own peril. > The Safe Haven writers tend generally to be gold bulls. They see the > solution to every financial problem as 'Buy gold!'. Historically this > has not always been the best option. In times of high inflation it is historically a great option. When the normal currency becomes less trusted gold and silver are excellent to have. Yes gold and silver prices go up and down. But not as wildly as a currency can lose value when as overextended as ours has become. After the tide finishes going out in this deflationary period be prepared for an inflationary tsunami greater than anything this country has ever seen. (Though if you are a gold bullion > dealer, you do like people to buy and sell gold at all times). > As with all investments, you have to try to buy cheap and sell dear. > > Yes, M0 has hugely increased. But the current problem is global > insolvency. Debt, in plain-speak. Which the government is racking up in record amounts to supposedly cure the problem. The pile of debt dwarfs the money > supply increase. New money causes inflation when people spend it, buy > stuff and drive the price up. New money in our present system literally is new debt. But that is another story. For years to come, people will be using > any extra money to pay debt off and clear the decks for a fresh start. > After that has happened, you can start worrying about inflation. > What will pay the government's debt? It is sure not the tax base in these troubled times of rising unemployment and pending boomer retirement. The total US federal debt is now greater than the combined net worth of all the citizens. There is no way there will not eventually be a massive default. Before that the currency will be inflated tremendously. - samantha From stefan.pernar at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 07:16:47 2009 From: stefan.pernar at gmail.com (Stefan Pernar) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 15:16:47 +0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <4987EB63.8010502@mac.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090124223119.02467168@satx.rr.com> <4987EB63.8010502@mac.com> Message-ID: <944947f20902022316t3462edeawa693e49e4bb3daef@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 2:59 PM, samantha wrote: > Yep. If you have any savings I would strongly recommend: > > 33% in gold and/or silver; > 33% in durable goods (they will be more expensive later) and securing your > housing as best you can; > keep the rest fairly liquid and easy to get at. Play some of the market > chaos if you feel comfortable but always cut losses short and take profits > when you can. > > It is not likely to be a pleasant ride. > This might only be tangentially interesting to most on this list but I have an analysis of the Silver as well as the Gold price supported by eBay auction data on one of my blogs at http://blog.cyrrion.com Cheers, Stefan -- Stefan Pernar Skype: Stefan.Pernar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:22:41 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:22:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <457392.19424.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <457392.19424.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4987F0C1.7050502@mac.com> Gordon Swobe wrote: >> Ben Bernanke's Fed has doubled the monetary base in a single year! >> Holy cow. > > Normally the Fed responds to tough economic times by reducing short term interest rates. But short term rates have reached their lower bound. We're in a zero interest rate economy. The Fed has run out of bullets, or at least it has run out of bullets of the conventional kind. > > To stimulate the economy in this zero interest rate economy, the Fed can try to expand the money supply directly. The code phrase for this is "quantitative easing". > The patient is succumbing to years of extremely dangerous economic fever. But the "doctors" would be out of business unless the fever increases. They would of course also be out of business if the patient dies. What a conundrum. > The Bank of Japan tried something like it in the 90s. It didn't work very well. Banks held onto the money instead of lending it. The Japanese economy languished for years. It seems we face the same scenario in the US. > Of course they did since they were leveraged to the gills. If they lend it then the people are on the hook for 10 times the amount (fractional reserves) plus interest. Quite a racket. Makes you wonder how they managed to screw such a fat scam up. > This chart below shows the M1 Multiplier. Normally the multiplier is well above 1, meaning that for every dollar added to the banking system, more than one dollar is added to the money supply. It can easily be 10 to 1. The Multiplier is normally well above 1 because banks lend the money, which gets spent and saved and re-lent. As the chart shows, the M1 Multiplier has fallen off a cliff. As far as I know, this is the first time in modern history that the M1 Multiplier has fallen below 1. > > http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/MULT?cid=25 > > As for inflation concerns, in response to the financial crisis the spread between the yields on ten year treasury bonds and TIPS (ten year treasury inflation protected securities) dropped radically from more than 2% to near 0%. This means investors in treasury bonds have stopped demanding compensation for inflation risk. If this market is efficient (and it might not be, but that's another discussion) then the TIPS spread is telling us to expect virtually no inflation for the next ten years. But a little inflation is a good thing; this indicator is as worrisome as the others, and suggests that deflation/depression is the greater risk going forward. > > These disturbing developments argue for fiscal stimulus: tax cuts and government spending. > I think the TIPS business is telling us that China and other countries who bought Treasuries heavily no longer believe they are worth much because they no longer have hardly any faith in the US economy or US long term solvency. The message is not low estimate of inflation I am afraid. The government has bled this richest economy on earth dry. They have put us into the poor house turning the US into the largest debtor nation on earth. How would more of the same possibly help us? Bring on the leeches! Let us hurry to build mutant super leeches! - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:25:40 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:25:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <809F6686D9C547918887546EE7023D40@spike> References: <35199.12.77.168.223.1232891509.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <457392.19424.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <809F6686D9C547918887546EE7023D40@spike> Message-ID: <4987F174.9020103@mac.com> spike wrote: > > >> ...On Behalf Of Gordon Swobe >> Subject: Re: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it >> >>> Ben Bernanke's Fed has doubled the monetary base in a single year! >>> Holy cow. >> Normally the Fed responds to tough economic times by reducing >> short term interest rates. But short term rates have reached ... >> -gts > > > Thanks Gordon, your post is an excellent and calm explanation, the best I > have seen in a frenzy of panicky news articles. I have been a deer in the > headlights the past few months, wondering where to move my savings. > > While we debate about inflation/deflation, do take a trip down to the local > hardware store. The loss leader tools are selling for about a quarter of > what they were two years ago. I suspect a number of Chinese factories are > dumping in a wild panic to liquidate stock. Actually many stores are selling at and often below cost to attempt to maybe survive a while longer. For instance, last month I > bought a drill, 11 bucks, a grinder, 12 bucks, a jigsaw, 11 bucks, yesterday > a set of wood clamps, 14 bucks for a set of 15. A year ago those were more > like 5 to 7 bucks for each clamp, with the set about 100. They are > surprisingly solid tools. > > The Chinese could scarcely ship those tools over the sea for the price they > are getting. Explanations welcome. The warehouses are emptying. China itself is closing factories. As much of our manufacturing is off-shore look out. Buy those hard goods now while you can at a good price. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:34:24 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:34:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <497CA640.4000100@comcast.net> References: <35199.12.77.168.223.1232891509.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> <457392.19424.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <809F6686D9C547918887546EE7023D40@spike> <497CA640.4000100@comcast.net> Message-ID: <4987F380.6030400@mac.com> Brent Allsop wrote: > > > Yes, Gordan, thanks for this very educational info. > > The Adam Hamilton article did seeme very biased towards gold freaks. > > His first MZM Money and CPI chart compared the CPI growth rate with the > MZM money supply growth rate. > > Durring the year 2006 it proclaimed that the money supply growth rate > was : "stable, matches CPI", but this doesn't take into account that > there was also a simple significant growth in the number of people, > companies, immigrants during 2006. Where? Numbers please. What do these things have to do with CPI anyway? > So if they 'match' like this there > is some significant deflationary pressure really going on right? Such > numbers aren't "stable" at all? > > So, Gordan, help me better understand this "M1 Multiplier". So if it is > negative, that means that the fed is injecting 'new' (or printed money) > by purchasing bonds and such (M0), but people simply aren't spending > this money and keeping it in cache? What would they spend it on when they see such economic chaos descending? Loan it to people who may have no customers next year or be unable to find suppliers still in business or be hit with a rapid price spike? Not likely. The bankers also know that the jumbo loans and even the grade A loans are not safe. They know that commercial real estate is going to crash just as hard. They are aware that massive car and credit card debt defaults are in the wings. Why wouldn't they rig for stormy weather? > > And if so, this is exactly what I was thinking of as I read the Adam > Hamilton article. I figured the money must occasionally do things like > double during a single year to help get us out of panics like this where > people hoard cache. A negative "M1 Multiplier" is evidence that this is > happening or that cache is being horded? > No, it does not help at all. It means ultimately that every dollar you hold is worth approximately half of what it was before. The dollar to day is worth 5 cents compared to a 1920 dollar. What do you think that does to long term investment? What does it do to retirees? > How would this differ if people were hoarding money in real cache in > places like mattresses verses their cache savings accounts? Would that > change this M1 Multiplier? > > Either way, it is very exciting to see this kind of long term geometric > growth in the amount of money we all have. We really are soaking in the > singularity. We are soaking in the death of an empire. It may well set technological singularity back for a decade, perhaps a generation. And that is if we can avoid throwing a jolly war as a cure-all to the downward economic spiral. Cheers. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:42:11 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:42:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <185624.14918.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <185624.14918.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4987F553.6000806@mac.com> Gordon Swobe wrote: >> So, Gordon, help me better understand this "M1 Multiplier". > > The M1 Multiplier has plummeted to < 1 because banks have decided to keep reserves far in excess of that required by regulations, i.e., instead of lending money, they're hoarding it. That hoarded money might help keep banks solvent, but it does little to stimulate the general economy. > They are actually being paid interest by the Fed to keep these reserves. Now why is that if it is simply *hoarding*? Of course the Fed is at heart a private consortium of bankers. > The main point I want to make is that this is a sick economy in which monetary policy has become somewhat impotent. As I mentioned, much the same thing happened in Japan some years ago. The Japanese central bank could not cut its short term interest rate below zero, nor could it force banks to lend the proceeds of its open market purchases of government securities. > A sick economy is one the government witch doctors have practiced on for far too long. The witch doctors are now in an utter frenzy that might be fascinating from far enough away but is almost certainly fatal for the poor patient. > Japan's quantitative easing may have averted a full-blown depression in Japan, and it no doubt helped to keep a few Japanese banks in business, but it did not cause much growth or price inflation. > One thing Japan had is what we most lack. The people had massive savings. > Then again, who knows what may happen here? We live in precarious times. This is uncharted territory for the United States, and for the world in general. > I know that I would rather not have this particular flavor of "interesting" times be part of my "middle years". But here we are. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:51:24 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:51:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in Market Efficiency = Disaster In-Reply-To: <580930c20901290906l13a30fao47e8c1f6c6345c3d@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20901290906l13a30fao47e8c1f6c6345c3d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4987F77C.8090700@mac.com> Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 4:33 PM, BillK wrote: >> GMO's quarterly update, by Jeremy Grantham has an enjoyable rant >> blaming believers in the efficient market theory for the economy >> crashing. >> > > The prob is that within classic economic theory the market player > cannot really be "incompetent" as a whole, since they are the ultimate > judges of where their preference lie at any given moment, and since > their "efficience" is supposedly assured by the market mechanisms > themselves. Even in classic theory the mechanisms must not be forced and gummed up as they invariably are in modern mixed economies if the machine is to function well. What is really annoying is that the more the machinery is utterly interfered with and even destroyed wholesale the more "market mechanisms" are devalued and laughed at. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:53:27 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:53:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in Market Efficiency = Disaster In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20901290906l13a30fao47e8c1f6c6345c3d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4987F7F7.1060802@mac.com> BillK wrote: > On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 5:06 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> The prob is that within classic economic theory the market player >> cannot really be "incompetent" as a whole, since they are the ultimate >> judges of where their preference lie at any given moment, and since >> their "efficience" is supposedly assured by the market mechanisms >> themselves. >> >> So, I suppose that such article is not going to change much in the >> views of those adhering to such theory. >> > > > He is pointing out (loudly!) that humans acting as market players are > just as irrational as humans in daily life. Bubbles - irrational > exuberance, crashes - irrational fears, panic buying, crooked deals, > greed, beggar take the hindmost, etc. etc. All human life is there in > the market. > > Markets need civilizing and laws, just like property and human behaviour. > Ah, but the rub is that the ones doing the civilizing are just as brutish as irrational as the rest of the human herd. Worse, since they are in the seat of maximal power to civilize the rest they attract maximal greed and corruption. Hmm. Back to the whiteboard again. - s From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Feb 3 07:58:57 2009 From: sjatkins at mac.com (samantha) Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2009 23:58:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Greed + Incompetence + A Belief in Market Efficiency = Disaster In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20901290906l13a30fao47e8c1f6c6345c3d@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090129112808.022c6868@satx.rr.com> <580930c20901291010u6c1ba1afs65846ba18b1dea16@mail.gmail.com> <498233F1.4080107@libero.it> Message-ID: <4987F941.6020906@mac.com> BillK wrote: > On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 10:55 PM, painlord2k wrote: >> Market are not perfect because they are run by human beings. >> Like governments. >> But market are adaptable and the loop is very short, so the negative >> feedback is able to function better. People doing bad choices pay for them >> so they learn to don't do them again. The same is for good choices. >> > > > That's a restatement of the 'efficient' market theory and it just > isn't what happens in real life. Nice and neat in theory but nothing > to do with what actually happens. Actually happens with government involved or without it? > > Booms and busts happen because of the human 'herd' mentality. And commonly correct quickly. The > recent boom had everybody piling on because they didn't want to miss > out on the profits everyone else appeared to be making. Like a ponzi > scheme, it was great for those who got in early and got out before the > boom collapsed. (Also great for the facilitators who just sat there > raking in commissions on every trade). > > The point is they were all making good choices on the way up and the > feedback encouraged more of the same behavior. Then the house of cards > fell in. This one was helped by the government pouring in massively more money, lowering interest rates, encouraging high leverage, nearly mandating risky loans to name a few. It was not just the poor irrational non-government monkeys getting carried away and the great wise government apes being asleep at the wheel. - samantha From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 3 08:14:36 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 03:14:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Joe the Rat References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090124223119.02467168@satx.rr.com> <4987EE5F.7080502@mac.com> Message-ID: Joseph Ratzinger, also known as Pope Benedict XVI but "Joe The Rat" among his friends, has just appointed Gerhard Maria Wagner as bishop. Wagner has denounced the Harry Potter books for "spreading Satanism". He also thinks Hurricane Katrina was an act of "divine retribution" for the sins of a sexually permissive society. He is on record for saying it was a result of God's punishment for homosexuality in New Orleans . To quote Mr. Wagner: "It is surely not an accident that all five of New Orleans' abortion clinics, as well as nightclubs were destroyed. It's not just any old city that has gone under, but the people's dream city with the 'best brothels and the most beautiful whores'." He also said that it was no coincidence that the 2004 Tsunami disaster had occurred at Christmas time, he thought it happened not because of plate tectonics but because of "rich western tourists" who had "fled to poor Thailand" in search of sex. I applaud Mr. Ratzinger for his employment ideas and think he is doing a fine job of doing what needs to be done, driving the Catholic Church into the ground. He just need to appoint a few more pedophile priests, we don't have quite enough now. John K Clark From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 3 08:48:27 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 03:48:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><4985F463.6070804@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com><498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4987321B.2020604@mac.com> Message-ID: <8D31C8CFCE8C4B499A87E18E60FEC688@MyComputer> "samantha" > The South seceded because of economic > exploitation by the North. The rest are > side issues. It was also about the freedom, > supposedly guaranteed to secede and go > your own way. Slavery was becoming >increasing uneconomical and was not > at all the core issue to most Confederates A bigger load of shit I have seldom seen. John K Clark From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 09:47:51 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 09:47:51 +0000 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <4987F0C1.7050502@mac.com> References: <457392.19424.qm@web36501.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4987F0C1.7050502@mac.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:22 AM, samantha wrote: > The government has bled this richest economy on earth dry. They have put us > into the poor house turning the US into the largest debtor nation on earth. > How would more of the same possibly help us? Bring on the leeches! Let us > hurry to build mutant super leeches! > We know that you believe that the government (any government!) is the root of all evil, but they didn't create this mess all by themselves. (And their current activities are probably making a bad situation worse). You know this yourself, really, because you talk about the bankers being leveraged up to 30 times in liar loans, CDPs, etc. etc. The government just threw all the regulations in the bin and said, 'Let the free market rip!' and provided the necessary environment. The bankers then proceeded to lend out up to 30 times their assets on wildly inflated valuations, everybody joining in and taking their commissions, fees and interest payments and paying themselves multi million dollar bonuses. Individuals and companies also joined in the bonanza, by taking second mortgages on their over-valued real estate, and spending their winnings on the good life. Of course, it has all collapsed now. Everybody has huge debts that have to be paid off. The biggest banks are bankrupt, but cannot be allowed to fail, so the government prints money and gives it to them. (Sweden got out of the same problem in the 90s by nationalizing all the bankrupt banks for a few years, the privatizing them again when things improved). At present the US is only letting small banks fail or be taken over by the bigger (supported) banks. I agree that printing money is very likely to lead to inflation and a collapsing currency. I just feel that that problem could be a few years away yet. Any money printed has got to go to pay off the huge debt mountain first. How long that will take is the big question. It could be a ten-year depression before inflation picks up. Who knows? There will be a *lot* of families depending on government handouts before this mess improves. So don't agitate for destroying government just yet! ;) BillK From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 3 11:38:30 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 06:38:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A deep question References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><4985F463.6070804@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com><498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4987321B.2020604@mac.com> <8D31C8CFCE8C4B499A87E18E60FEC688@MyComputer> Message-ID: Why is the alphabet in the particular order that we know of, with A first and Z last? Is there some grand historical document that decrees that order that I am unaware of? Or is it all the result of that stupid song? John K Clark From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 11:45:13 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:45:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <4987F553.6000806@mac.com> References: <185624.14918.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4987F553.6000806@mac.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 7:42 AM, samantha wrote: > A sick economy is one the government witch doctors have practiced on for > far too long. The witch doctors are now in an utter frenzy that might be > fascinating from far enough away but is almost certainly fatal for the poor > patient. > > If you want to *really* depress yourself by considering the worst view of the economy, try reading this long article: (with pretty graphs as well) :) U.S. Heading for Japan Style Two Decade Economic Depression Economics / Economic Depression Jan 28, 2009 - 12:58 PM By: James_Quinn Every day seems worse than the previous day. Five hundred thousand people are getting laid off every month. Our banking system is on life support. Retailers are going bankrupt in record numbers. The stock market keeps descending. Home prices continue to plummet. Home foreclosures keep mounting. Consumer confidence is at record lows. You would like to close your eyes and make it go away. Not only is the news not going away, it is going to get worse and last longer than most people can comprehend. The Great Depression lasted 11 years, but the more pertinent comparison is Japan from 1990 until today. A two decade long downturn has a high likelihood of occurring in the United States. There are many similarities between the U.S. and Japan, but in many areas the U.S. has a much more dire situation. If the next decade resembles the Japanese experience, there will be significant angst and social unrest. ------ You think this sounds bad? This is his *best* option! His worse alternative is depression followed by currency collapse and hyper-inflation. He's definitely one of the best doom-mongers around. (But, what if he's correct?) :( BillK From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 11:58:08 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 11:58:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] A deep question In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4987321B.2020604@mac.com> <8D31C8CFCE8C4B499A87E18E60FEC688@MyComputer> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 3, 2009 at 11:38 AM, John K Clark wrote: > Why is the alphabet in the particular order that we know of, with A first > and Z last? Is there some grand historical document that decrees that order > that I am unaware of? Or is it all the result of that stupid song? > That's an easy one. (very interesting article) It's a memory aid. Alphabets originally had no fixed order, but that led to unnecessary problems with teaching the alphabet. And some alphabets read from right to left anyway. :) Quote: ------------------------- It is unknown whether the earliest alphabets had a defined sequence. Some alphabets today, such as Hanunoo, are learned one letter at a time, in no particular order, and are not used for collation where a definite order is required. However, a dozen Ugaritic tablets from the fourteenth century BC preserve the alphabet in two sequences. One, the ABGDE order later used in Phoenician, has continued with minor changes in Hebrew, Greek, Armenian, Gothic, Cyrillic, and Latin; the other, HM?LQ, was used in southern Arabia and is preserved today in Ethiopic. Both orders have therefore been stable for at least 3000 years. The historical order was abandoned in Runic and Arabic, although Arabic retains the traditional "abjadi order" for numbering. The Brahmic family of alphabets used in India use a unique order based on phonology: The letters are arranged according to how and where they are produced in the mouth. This organization is used in Southeast Asia, Tibet, Korean hangul, and even Japanese kana, which is not an alphabet. The Phoenician letter names, in which each letter is associated with a word that begins with that sound, continue to be used in Samaritan, Aramaic, Syriac, Hebrew, and Greek. However, they were abandoned in Arabic, Cyrillic and Latin. ------------------- BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 12:34:08 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:34:08 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/3 painlord2k at libero.it : > History could show how free market is a mortal enemy of slavery. > > The South seceded because the North didn't allow the slavery to be > established in the West. > The presence of states without slavery at the borders of states with slavery > (and slaves) put economic pressure on the slave holders in these states > because the slaves (that had a very high value) were able to escape the > bondages and find shelter over the borders. > > Nearer the border, easier was for the slaves to escape the bondages. > At the end, there more loss than gain in owing slaves. So people gave up to > have and use slaves. And become hostile to the slave holders as they were > competitors with cheaper workforce than them. > > So, the slave holder were forced to recede as the territories where slavery > were economically sustainable. Then the balance of power in a state changed > and abolitionists become able to pass law banning slavery and a new state > banning slavery border states where slavery exist. But the states that abolished slavery did something very un-free market by making a law prohibiting a certain type of previously accepted property, and un-neighbourly by letting fugitives escape justice because what they had done in another jurisdiction was not illegal in their jurisdiction. It is like declaring, for example, that it is illegal and morally wrong for a state to allow its citizens to starve, and then giving asylum to any impoverished thieves from states that failed to look after them. And this is not an unfair comparison: in the ancient world, people used to sell themselves into slavery in order to overcome poverty. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Feb 3 12:54:42 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 23:54:42 +1100 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: References: <185624.14918.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4987F553.6000806@mac.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/3 BillK : > > > U.S. Heading for Japan Style Two Decade Economic Depression > Economics / Economic Depression Jan 28, 2009 - 12:58 PM > By: James_Quinn > > Every day seems worse than the previous day. Five hundred thousand > people are getting laid off every month. Our banking system is on life > support. Retailers are going bankrupt in record numbers. The stock > market keeps descending. Home prices continue to plummet. Home > foreclosures keep mounting. Consumer confidence is at record lows. You > would like to close your eyes and make it go away. Not only is the > news not going away, it is going to get worse and last longer than > most people can comprehend. The Great Depression lasted 11 years, but > the more pertinent comparison is Japan from 1990 until today. A two > decade long downturn has a high likelihood of occurring in the United > States. There are many similarities between the U.S. and Japan, but in > many areas the U.S. has a much more dire situation. If the next decade > resembles the Japanese experience, there will be significant angst and > social unrest. It's pertinent that in Japan, massive monetary and fiscal stimulus could not prevent deflation for the best part of twenty years. The property and share market bubble was just too big for the extra money to do anything other than slow its deflation. And this was despite the fact that, unlike the American shopping-and-finance economy, the Japanese actually produced things the rest of the world wanted, and the rest of the world was still buying. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Feb 3 19:53:34 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:53:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> Il 02/02/2009 23.20, Fred C. Moulton ha scritto: > On Mon, 2009-02-02 at 15:13 +0100, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: >> Do you don't like the label "communist" or "socialist"? >> Mises used another label for what you support and is "statism". > > I know that Mises used the term but is it really useful in this context? I think so, because it help group together groups that may be antagonists each others or with conflicting policy in other fields, but have the common belief that the state can do better than the private ones. They believe in bureaucracy more than in markets. They can talk against the current governments, bur they simple want substitute the current one with their. And, usually, in the process, they want enlarge the power of the government itself, making the same problems bigger. >> Statists will come in many fashions like communists, socialists, >> social-democrats, fascists, islamists, and so on. > The reason I ask is that a term which lumps so many disparate > classifications together may not provide the distinctions we want. If you look at cars, motorbikes, ships, trains, power stations (some) you could say that they are disparate and lump together them not provide the useful distinctions we want. But they have in common that they use hydrocarbons. In the same way, if we are interested in looking what enhance the personal freedom of the people, we look at systems making this distinction. All the groups notes believe that a supreme body (elected, co-opted, etc.) must lead the masses and rule how they must live. And they believe that the not conforming ones under their power must be forced to behave as ruled. What change is only the set of rules and the level of violence that they are willing to use. What don't change is that they use more violence against the weaker and less against the stronger, and all of these system are open to take-over by people with little scruples. Look at Gorbaciov, he is surely a good pal, but when he was the Secretary of the Party he had not problem to force people in long marches in the middle of the (Russian) night because they drank. http://mises.org/story/3105 > Although it may be a good rhetorical label to pound someone with... > however I thought we were going to ease up on the pounding on people. There is no intention of pounding, only the intention to point to the facts. The truth could be harsh, but it is not "pounding" someone telling the truth. If I point to a fact, for example that all people in charge of concentration and killing camps in Nazi Germany were lacking human empaty, is this pounding or a fact? >> What don't change is >> that they can not compute the value of the goods, services and life of >> people. > The "economic calculation problem" is worth considering. It is not only worth considering, it is the fundamental problem of any and all societies. It is how you put bread and meat on the table, how you build homes and finance healthcare, how you have scientific and technological research. It will not solve all problems, for sure; but without all the problem become unsolvable. >> They destroy the social cooperation and the fabric of the society. > I think the word destroy is a bit strong. Yes, usually the social cooperation resurface after in its worst forms. Tribalism and banditry. > I think we all can agree that > there is a big difference between a generally social-democratic country > and an authoritarian or totalitarian country. The difference is in quantity not in quality. A social-democratic country simply will try to don't use the violence directly, but the damage caused will not be small compared with the means used. Look at Sweden, it went from an income of 130% in respect of the mean (100%) income of the more developed countries in 1950 to the current 80%. They lost 1/3 of their wealth in the process of enacting their welfare state and it is dubious they will be able to keep their current status. This is happening in all Europe (and in the USA, Canada) in a way or in another. > You might argue that some > aspects are weakened or that some feed back loops are distorted but I > think "destroy" is perhaps a bit overboard. When you damage the economy you are killing people in many subtle ways and making other live worse. When you force the costs of a hip replacement 3 times higher, you are killing people whatever is your real intention. And you can drive the price increase changing a law or two not apparently related with healthcare or surgery. If the life expectancy grow 2% or 2,5% a year could not make big differences in a years or two, but in the long term will do very big differences. It is like killing someone with 1000000 stroke of a tiny razor and not with a sword. It will need more time, but the effect is the same. E.G. In Italy the public administrations are always late in their payments to private business. Now a bit less, because they are forced to pay interests on them (Euribor + 7%) by the European Court of Justice. Do you think that businessmen will not add to the prices the cost to wait for the payment? So, all these inefficiencies are paid by the taxpayers in heavier taxes and lower services. Then, instead to have a treatment done in less than a week you have the same treatment done after a waiting of one year. Mirco Ludwig von Mises: "It is justifiable if ethics and religion tell people that they ought to make better use of the well-being that capitalism brings them. . . . But it is irresponsible to condemn one social system and to recommend its replacement by another system without having fully investigated the economic consequences of each." - Theory and History From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 3 21:12:16 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 03 Feb 2009 15:12:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090203150354.02333678@satx.rr.com> At 08:53 PM 2/3/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >Look at Sweden, it went from an income of 130% in respect of the >mean (100%) income of the more developed countries in 1950 to the >current 80%. They lost 1/3 of their wealth in the process of >enacting their welfare state and it is dubious they will be able to >keep their current status. I don't know about the quality of life in most of these places, but I do wonder if this fall in comparative wealth ranking (measured by what metric? are externalities included?) matters to most citizens if the welfare system actually works. For example, would it really be such a wonderful thing if Madoff had moved to Sweden or Nigeria, pocketed three trillion dollars from global scams, and thereby lifted the nation's mean income by many % points even as everyone else was ruined? Just a thought experiment. Damien Broderick From thomas at thomasoliver.net Tue Feb 3 21:33:46 2009 From: thomas at thomasoliver.net (Thomas) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 14:33:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Post-Scarcity Message-ID: <8E50F3E5-C65C-4F30-83C0-3100EA6F3995@thomasoliver.net> > [. . .] post scarcity is the thing. > > These scarcity based philosophies are all rationing, deciding who > can't have something. Crappy and boring. > > Technically minded people can do better. Ask yourself "how can I make > something free forever for everyone?". You can assume volunteers and > donations to help bridge the gap between "now" and "success", and you > can assume that free just means so very cheap that you can disregard > the price. > > If enough of us can do that, rationing is moot. [...] > -- > Emlyn The post scarcity thing seems a lot like the technocracy movement. http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/5072/1/b13876442.pdf The predictions fizzled, but Howard Scott managed to keep collecting dues for decades. Do you think the internet and the open source movement, together with the Venus Project, etc. can carry these ideas past futile utopianism into some kind of practical reality? Do we need alternative (local) currencies to "bridge the gap?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency How do we prevent a violent backlash from the collective unconscious? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_jung We still have stone age brains. http://www.oculture.com/2007/10/ our_ancestral_mind_in_the_modern_world_an_interview_with_satoshi_kanazaw a.html -- Thomas -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 01:01:24 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 11:31:24 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Post-Scarcity In-Reply-To: <8E50F3E5-C65C-4F30-83C0-3100EA6F3995@thomasoliver.net> References: <8E50F3E5-C65C-4F30-83C0-3100EA6F3995@thomasoliver.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902031701t43ffcaaaw5631eab1c7a4b676@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/4 Thomas : > [. . .] post scarcity is the thing. > These scarcity based philosophies are all rationing, deciding who > can't have something. Crappy and boring. > Technically minded people can do better. Ask yourself "how can I make > something free forever for everyone?". You can assume volunteers and > donations to help bridge the gap between "now" and "success", and you > can assume that free just means so very cheap that you can disregard > the price. > If enough of us can do that, rationing is moot. [...] > -- > Emlyn > > The post scarcity thing seems a lot like the technocracy movement. > http://ir.lib.sfu.ca/bitstream/1892/5072/1/b13876442.pdf No. It's probably a lot more like anarchy with a very particular set of values. I've come across this idea of energy based currency elsewhere, it seems stupid beyond belief. > The predictions fizzled, but Howard Scott managed to keep collecting dues > for decades. > Do you think the internet and the open source movement, together with the > Venus Project, etc. > can carry these ideas past futile utopianism into some kind of practical > reality? Yes I do. Note that the open source movement is anything but futile utopianism. These days much of it is looking encouragingly like an example of how big enterprise can be part of the post-scarcity movement, and enjoy the ride. My thinking is that, in big groups (eg: nations) we decide, one way or another, what to treat as scarce and what to treat as non-scarce. This bears little or no relation to any intrinsic cost of things. eg: in the West, we treat information as scarce (and so IP laws, yada yada), even though the costs are negligible, whereas we treat roads as non-scarce, and in many countries we treat healthcare as non-scarce, even though the costs are actually huge. We make up for the gap with taxation. I think with a bit of imagination, we can change our values, to be "everything should be able to be treated as non-scarce". Now clearly everything can't be at the moment. We should see this as a failure though, as something in need of fixing. How you get from here to there, then, is about groups of like-minded individuals banding together to solve what scarcity problems they can. Because existing information is now non-scarce (you can replicate at practically zero cost), intelligent people can create designs, recipes, and everyone can use them. So you use that ability. And of course they can discover and innovate and invent, so you use that, everything only needs doing once. Add volunteerism and donations to the mix and you can get things, piece by piece, over the non-scarce line. What's the non-scarce line? It's where something is cheap enough that you can treat it as free. You may need to impose some limits to how much of a "free" resource a person can take at any time, but only at a level way above what anyone would ever want anyway (eg: my free bean shop might impose a limit on beans of 10kg/day/person unless otherwise negotiated) (note: a free bean shop is probably wrong on many levels, it's just an example). I think we can do this with little or no government involvement up front; we don't need it. Just get out there and start something that'll free something, or join in with someone else doing the same. Mainstream society will take a while to catch on, and government tracks with them, so they'll be mostly useless for a while; doesn't matter. When they start to get it, they can help by changing R&D funding away from helping people to make money (it's often vital in these grants that you will gain closed IP, ridulous), toward helping people make a thing be free / more free. Also, small subsidies to help things get across the post-scarce line would be a good move (remember we subsidize much more ludicrous things now). > Do we need alternative (local) currencies to "bridge the gap?" > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_currency We have a perfectly good system of scarcity management, called capitalism. I'm thinking of change from within here, after all. While we are still living with a mix of scarce and non-scarce things, using money to control the trade of the non-scarce things seems like a fine idea. The one thing I will say about alternative currencies is that it provides a way for money to not flow from one domain to another. My intuition is that the ability for money to work in all domains is its greatest strength and its greatest liability. If you look at a reputation economy (the kind of thing that turns up in post-scarce spaces), reputation does not flow from one domain to another. Just because you are a lead developer on an operating system kernel does not get you credit as a musician, and vice versa. Now this is good, because it means if you want to play in the main game in some social space, you need to earn your stripes. Money, on the other hand, lets you succeed in, say, real-estate, then take that bundle and use it to impose your will on, say, a bunch of engineers, and that cash makes you the boss, even though you are entirely ignorant. At the macro level, we've had the finance guys calling the shots for everyone else, even though they only know finance. That makes no sense if you think about it a bit. > How do we prevent a violent backlash from > the collective unconscious? > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_jung That's imaginary, so I am not super worried about it. > We still have stone age brains. > http://www.oculture.com/2007/10/our_ancestral_mind_in_the_modern_world_an_interview_with_satoshi_kanazawa.html > -- Thomas Yep, it's a drama alright. In the realm of "reciprocal altruism", money pushes our "reciprocal" buttons. We need to start pushing the altruism buttons a bit more. But not in a la la fairy land way. In a scarcity bounded space, altruism is a loss for the giver. In a post-scarce environment, altruism floats all the boats, and the altruist is also in a boat. Think of it as enlightened-selfish-altruism. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 03:33:50 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 20:33:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "The High Crusade" Message-ID: <2d6187670902031933n1c390dd7s8298d57a23b46b24@mail.gmail.com> I recently read the great Poul Anderson SF novel, The High Crusade, and just found a wikipedia entry for a 1994 *film* that was based on the book! My first thought was, "I bet someone is hoaxing me about this movie and they only wish a film had actually been made (you can't believe everything you read in wikipedia)." But I found the motion picture listed on IMDB and for sale on Amazon, which totally shocked me because I consider myself at least somewhat of a cinemaphile, but I had never heard of this flick. Sadly, it turns out this was one of Roland Emmerich's early pre-coming to America German films and it was supposedly done (according to many user reviews) on a tiny budget and with a very dumbed down script. I would hope someone down the road will do this novel justice. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 05:43:10 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 16:43:10 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> References: <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/4 painlord2k at libero.it : > Look at Sweden, it went from an income of 130% in respect of the mean (100%) > income of the more developed countries in 1950 to the current 80%. They lost > 1/3 of their wealth in the process of enacting their welfare state and it is > dubious they will be able to keep their current status. > This is happening in all Europe (and in the USA, Canada) in a way or in > another. This is a terrible example to use in support of your case. The Swedish Social Democratic Party, based on a non-revolutionary revision of Marxism, has been almost continuously in power for most of the twentieth century, and has overseen Sweden's elevation in that time from one of the poorest nations in Europe to one of the richest. In fact, in the post-war period other countries saw how successful the Swedish model was and tried to copy it, as a result experiencing a relative increase in living standards so that they were closer to Sweden's. It is true that there was a financial crisis in the early nineties characterised by an asset price bubble, which led to bank nationalisation, devaluation of the currency, and a moderate decrease in spending and taxation - mostly at the hands of the aforementioned Social Democratic party. Since then, economic growth in Sweden has consistently been among the highest in Europe, and per capita GDP is in the top ten in the world, higher than in the US (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita). There is no rule in socialism that says the government must continuously ramp up spending every year, the path that it seems the US has taken since Reagan's presidency. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 11:55:23 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 22:55:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] magic shop Message-ID: >From http://www.randi.org/site/: "Hey, just for fun ? for which we have to make room, from time to time ? courtesy of reader Steve Ilett in Australia, we'll send you to www.whitepages.com.au, which gives you a search facility to find businesses in that country. Some wag ? an eminently sensible person, as I see it ? has been at work. Go there, and enter "magic shop" in the "Business Name" slot, and "Queensland" in the "State" box, then click on "Search." -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 4 15:54:17 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:54:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090203150354.02333678@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <9FA9E8AE22014E9983BABB9320826058@patrick4ezsk6z> <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090203150354.02333678@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4989BA29.7060703@libero.it> Il 03/02/2009 22.12, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 08:53 PM 2/3/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >> Look at Sweden, it went from an income of 130% in respect of the mean >> (100%) income of the more developed countries in 1950 to the current >> 80%. They lost 1/3 of their wealth in the process of enacting their >> welfare state and it is dubious they will be able to keep their >> current status. > I don't know about the quality of life in most of these places, but I do > wonder if this fall in comparative wealth ranking (measured by what > metric? Mean income compared with the mean incomes of the most developed nations. > are externalities included?) When leftist/statist people advocate mass / uncontrollable / uncontrolled immigration do they compute the externalities imposed on others? When you advocate something do you compute the externalities? > matters to most citizens if the welfare system actually works. Big "IF". If the welfare state actually work, it usually work well only for a short time period. The Swedes needed to start reforming their welfare state already in the '80 because it proved unsustainable. > For example, would it really be such a > wonderful thing if Madoff had moved to Sweden or Nigeria, pocketed three > trillion dollars from global scams, and thereby lifted the nation's mean > income by many % points even as everyone else was ruined? Just a thought > experiment. It would had raised the median income for a year, not forever. And no more than a 1 or 2 % (in Nigeria). Madoff pocketed a few hundreds of millions, not billion or trillions. It is Obama that is pocketing a trillion of $ in the pockets of his friends with a bigger scam and it is not asking for the money. He is taking it willy/nilly. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 4 16:46:47 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:46:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> Message-ID: <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> Il 04/02/2009 6.43, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/4 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> Look at Sweden, it went from an income of 130% in respect of the >> mean (100%) income of the more developed countries in 1950 to the >> current 80%. They lost 1/3 of their wealth in the process of >> enacting their welfare state and it is dubious they will be able to >> keep their current status. This is happening in all Europe (and in >> the USA, Canada) in a way or in another. > > This is a terrible example to use in support of your case. The > Swedish Social Democratic Party, based on a non-revolutionary > revision of Marxism, has been almost continuously in power for most > of the twentieth century, and has overseen Sweden's elevation in that > time from one of the poorest nations in Europe to one of the > richest. The same party that enacted and maintained the forced sterilization of "unfits" until the '70? from Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenetics http://www.wsws.org/articles/1999/mar1999/euge-19m.shtml > the second largest known [forced] eugenics program, created by social > democrats in Sweden, continued until 1975 What you miss is the number of economic crisis the Sweden have experienced. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Sweden > In the 1980s, a real estate and financial bubble formed, driven by a > rapid increase in lending. A restructuring of the tax system, in > order to emphasize low inflation combined with an international > economic slowdown in the early 1990s, caused the bubble to burst. This remember me something? Do you? > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita). > There is no rule in socialism that says the government must > continuously ramp up spending every year, the path that it seems the > US has taken since Reagan's presidency. It is not that they must rump up spending. It is that they spend in a not rational way, because they lack the ability to calculate the monetary value of things. Bigger the state proportionally to the wealth created, less is the ability to calculate. Not only for the state bureaucrats, but also for the people that use or receive the services / goods. They can be illuminated and well meaning, but they are blinded (more or less) when they use the state and a bureaucracy to do things. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 16:52:04 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 17:52:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902040852q794b8cbvd88b3349996a4d75@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 6:43 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/4 painlord2k at libero.it : > The Swedish > Social Democratic Party, based on a non-revolutionary revision of > Marxism, ... the revolution being OTOH the only real fun in overall Marxism. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 4 17:13:10 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 18:13:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902020951p69371350lb7f2145482c38fda@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <580930c20902020951p69371350lb7f2145482c38fda@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4989CCA6.4020605@libero.it> Il 02/02/2009 18.51, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Mon, Feb 2, 2009 at 6:13 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> Thank to the hammering of the Christian church for a few centuries after the fall of the Roman Empire in the West. > Mmhhh, here as you know I have more than a few doubts. The diffusion > of slavery in the Latin and European economic and cultural space > increased proportionally with religious, cultural, and social > influences coming from the middle east. The Romans had slaves before conquering the Empire. And slavery in Greek was as much diffuse as in Rome. They enslaved with ease people: 1) unwanted babies 2) prisoners of war 3) people failing to pay their debts and bought people from any market available. And, usually, they were forced to work so much that their number needed constant replacement. > In other continents, such as > North America or Sub-saharian Africa, organised large-scale slavery > arrived together with monotheism. "organised large-scale slavery" need large empires, commercial connections. And, mainly, the monotheism that arrived and dominated was Islam. In America the things are a bit different, because the power of the Church were only nominal. And the states were unable or unwilling to enforce the prohibition of enslavement there. We must remember that the armies of the Catholic Spain entered Rome after defeating the Pontiff Army and for long the King of Spain and France controlled much of the politics of the Catholic Church. For example they had the power to select who could and who could not become Bishop in their kingdoms. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 18:00:31 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 19:00:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4989CCA6.4020605@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <580930c20902020951p69371350lb7f2145482c38fda@mail.gmail.com> <4989CCA6.4020605@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902041000m3826d34akaf3e71af30d5c3b0@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 6:13 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > The Romans had slaves before conquering the Empire. > And slavery in Greek was as much diffuse as in Rome. Mmhhh. Slavery was learned by Indoeuropean peoples from the populations they conquered and developed gradually through "oriental" influences. Still in the Homeric period or when Rome was founded slavery was socially and economically irrelevant. Labour, war, culture, domestic chores, you name it, were essentially the business of free men and women. On the contrary, slavery has always been one of the foundation of the societies where monotheism developed, and practically all modern slave traders and employers are and were monotheists - Christians more often than not. In fact, it is arguable that "slavery" has ever been abolished until the end of Christian egemony, feodalism simply replacing the status of "serf of a master" with that of "serf of a glebe", so that slaves could cease to be independently traded and - reflecting the changed and worsened social conditions - be chained instead to the field they were attached to. > In other continents, such as >> North America or Sub-saharian Africa, organised large-scale slavery >> arrived together with monotheism. >> > > "organised large-scale slavery" need large empires, commercial connections. Actually, I suspect that the diffusion of slavery ends up *killing* empires... :-) > And, mainly, the monotheism that arrived and dominated was Islam. Any statistics at hand? :-) > In America the things are a bit different, because the power of the Church > were only nominal. Besides the fact that this is not true, the cultural or even political power of christianism being even larger than what it was in Europe, the real question is why the Church would and should have ever done otherwise anyway, and why a Christian should have something, in purely religious terms, against an economic system which is described, blessed and regulated in detail in his or her Holy Scriptures. In fact, what ended slavery in Western Europe was not in the least the Christian churches, let alone the Catholic church, but in the stricter sense the coming of feodalism, and in the broader sense the fall thereof, two phenomena where the Catholics played not role at all, or which even actively resisted. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 4 20:21:22 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 21:21:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> Message-ID: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> Il 03/02/2009 13.34, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/3 painlord2k at libero.it: > But the states that abolished slavery did something very un-free > market by making a law prohibiting a certain type of previously > accepted property, This is true, if we think the status before was really pro-market or pro-liberty (that is really the same). As human are imperfect creatures (someone would say "sinners") they often have wrong beliefs about right and wrong. It is not strange that they change their behaviours when they think (rightly or wrongly) that they are doing something wrong. Then, there is the fact that a community exist only when all people in it agree (explicitly or implicitly) on a default set of common rules. When people started to consider slavery wrong, > and un-neighbourly by letting fugitives escape > justice because what they had done in another jurisdiction was not > illegal in their jurisdiction. This is simply wrong. Or multy-culty. The laws of a sovereign community are not the laws or a different sovereign community. Sometimes they overlap, but a community is not bound to follow the laws of another community. This could be un-neighbourly? Probably so, sometimes. But why they don't follow our rules? > It is like declaring, for example, that > it is illegal and morally wrong for a state to allow its citizens to > starve, and then giving asylum to any impoverished thieves from states > that failed to look after them. And this is not an unfair comparison: > in the ancient world, people used to sell themselves into slavery in > order to overcome poverty. Well, I'm all for stopping giving asylum to these people and for overthrowing the leaderships of states that make their lives miserable. It is not that they fail to look after them (it is not their duty or in their power), it is that they made their lives suck with stupid laws and arbitrary violence. I consider the overthrowing of these leaderships and stopping giving shelter to the fugitive self-defence, because they are polluting my home with unwanted people that we can not sustain indefinitely. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 4 21:26:37 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:26:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> At 09:21 PM 2/4/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >polluting my home with unwanted people I realize English is not your native language, but I'm not sure "polluting with people" is a sentiment entirely in line with the extropian or transhumanist viewpoints. But maybe I'm wrong. Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 22:05:38 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 22:05:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 9:26 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 09:21 PM 2/4/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: > >>polluting my home with unwanted people > > I realize English is not your native language, but I'm not sure "polluting > with people" is a sentiment entirely in line with the extropian or > transhumanist viewpoints. But maybe I'm wrong. > I think he was talking about one of the problems that those of his ilk will always face. You have to set up enclaves of 'true believers' who live in a state of permanent stand-off with other enclaves of 'not-quite-true-believers'. The systems he supports only work if everyone in his enclave is pretty much identical to him. All the exceptions and special cases lead to horrific complications such that it is much easier to just expel them from your enclave and make them someone else's problem. BillK (whose ilk is quite peaceable unless poked with a stick). From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 4 22:18:35 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 16:18:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204161502.0250f0b0@satx.rr.com> At 10:05 PM 2/4/2009 +0000, BillK wrote on behalf of his ilk: >(whose ilk is quite peaceable unless poked with a stick). Similar to my ilk, the Ilk of Human Kindness. Not to be confused with the dreaded Ik of Human Unkindness: Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Feb 4 22:38:22 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 09:38:22 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/5 painlord2k at libero.it : >> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita). > >> There is no rule in socialism that says the government must >> >> continuously ramp up spending every year, the path that it seems the >> US has taken since Reagan's presidency. > > It is not that they must rump up spending. > It is that they spend in a not rational way, because they lack the ability > to calculate the monetary value of things. > Bigger the state proportionally to the wealth created, less is the ability > to calculate. Not only for the state bureaucrats, but also for the people > that use or receive the services / goods. > > They can be illuminated and well meaning, but they are blinded (more or > less) when they use the state and a bureaucracy to do things. You've ignored my original point, which is that Sweden has one of the highest per capita GDP's in the world, higher than that of the US in 2007 according to the Wikipedia article above, despite a century of mostly socialist government. How do you explain this? -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 4 23:01:36 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:01:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Ik In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204161502.0250f0b0@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204161502.0250f0b0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204165142.025db068@satx.rr.com> At 04:18 PM 2/4/2009 -0600, I (but not Ik) wrote: >At 10:05 PM 2/4/2009 +0000, BillK wrote on behalf of his ilk: Too late, I noticed that I'd been bilked. Maybe that wasn't BillK but Bill IK and his Ik ilk, something I only grasped after reading about the Ik in wIkipedia. Ack! (painlord, you'll notice, isn't painlordIk but painlord2k...) (It all fits! It's a terrible, terrible conspiracy.) From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Feb 5 04:42:51 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2009 21:42:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204161502.0250f0b0@satx.rr.com> References: <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204161502.0250f0b0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902042042h6a5c736bsf2a6c36ebc31769b@mail.gmail.com> > > > BillK wrote: > >> (whose ilk is quite peaceable unless poked with a stick). >> > > Damien wrote: > Similar to my ilk, the Ilk of Human Kindness. Not to be confused with the > dreaded Ik of Human Unkindness: > Damien, you need to be among your own ilk at the 2009 North American Discworld Convention, to be held in Tempe, Arizona (my backyard). I bet the con organizers would jump at the chance to have you as a guest of honor. And as an added bonus I would get to meet you in person. http://www.nadwcon.org/ John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Feb 5 14:22:31 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 08:22:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: monitor honeybee health parameters in a hive, interesting project video In-Reply-To: <72e6fb17-e18e-4577-ad86-e93d5d0dfe83@p37g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> References: <72e6fb17-e18e-4577-ad86-e93d5d0dfe83@p37g2000yqd.googlegroups.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af70902050622o3809bc1h4be25291550e8b8@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: JonathanCline Date: Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 12:41 AM Subject: monitor honeybee health parameters in a hive, interesting project video To: DIYbio Ran across this in-progress project. Uses a microcontroller with ethernet & web interface to monitor honeybees. The link has 2 videos describing the hardware and software. Biohacking (biology + garage hacking, not GMO). Prior to recent news regarding 'something' happening to worldwide bee ecology, I didn't realize how interesting (and necessary) such tracking is. http://www.mypic32.com/web/guest/contestantsprofiles?profileID=40796 I don't know if this is the permalink - it could disappear since it's a design contest, so watch it ASAP if you want. QUOTE: Functional areas monitored by the PIC32 are: ? Outside the hive ambient conditions ? Inside the hive environmental conditions ? Health of the hive (brood size and bee traffic) ? Bee behavior for swarm management, detection / prevention ? Honey production ? Security of the hive ? Self diagnostics (temperature and voltage levels of the system controller, and functionality of sensors throughout the beehive) There are some hive environmental conditions that can be controlled such as: ? Ventilation ? Temperature (heat or cool) ? Entrance opening for hive protection against predators ? Rain simulation (to keep bees inside hive) ? Induce vibration, smoke and sound in the hive to measure bee behavior patterns Additional PIC32 tasks: A good researcher keeps accurate records of their work. The PIC32 can optionally have a voice input to record observations to a removable USB memory stick for later playback Additionally this memory stick will contain a data log of all measured parameters. All data recorded will be time stamped. The PIC32 will recognize key words or phrases so that specific data log items can then be written to the memory stick in a format to load directly into a spreadsheet. The USB memory may then be downloaded via the embedded web server or removed for transfer directly to a PC by the researcher. Other possible monitored functions: ? Pollen collection (amount and type) ? Track and map the queen bee location in the hive o This can be done by gluing a micro LC resonance circuit to the queen's thorax. Circuitry around the hive can then track its location. ? Veroa mite count o A detector can be placed under the beehive to qualify droppings as mites and not bits of debris. ? Automatic feeder (syrup and patty) with consumption data logging ... Security of the beehive is done by monitoring motion around the hive with IR detectors. Tampering of the beehive is determined by a 'lid open' switch. Movement of the beehive is monitored by a motion or tilt switch to trigger a GPS location of the hive. Any security breach will trigger a cell phone that is preprogrammed to call the beekeeper, researcher or SWAT team and give a voice status of the problem. Software functions of the PIC32 include the following to either set, alert, or track and graph the minimum, maximum, and average values to the embedded web server: ? Set the RTC / TOD clock ? Hive temperatures and alarms (too high or too low) ? Tamper alarm limits exceeded ? Sound level limits exceeded ? Hive weight ? Bee weight ? Maintenance schedule o Feeding o Drone control o Mite control ## Jonathan Cline ## jcline at ieee.org ## Mobile: +1-805-617-0223 ######################## --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "DIYbio" group. To post to this group, send email to diybio at googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to diybio+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/diybio?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~--- From spike66 at att.net Thu Feb 5 15:57:04 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 07:57:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] A deep question In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><4985F463.6070804@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com><498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4987321B.2020604@mac.com><8D31C8CFCE8C4B499A87E18E60FEC688@MyComputer> Message-ID: <34D80ADDF40341088227A5BE8899DBE4@spike> ... > Subject: [ExI] A deep question > > Why is the alphabet in the particular order that we know of, > with A first and Z last? Is there some grand historical > document that decrees that order that I am unaware of? Or is > it all the result of that stupid song? John K Clark It wasn't the song, it was the phone book. Someone came up with a grand scheme to order the alphabet to agree with the order of the names. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 5 17:25:33 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:25:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> Message-ID: <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> Il 04/02/2009 23.38, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/5 painlord2k at libero.it: > You've ignored my original point, which is that Sweden has one of > the highest per capita GDP's in the world, higher than that of the US > in 2007 according to the Wikipedia article above, I got different numbers for the PPP GDP per capita United States 6 45,725 4 45,790 8 45,800 2007 Sweden 16 36,578 10 36,365 15 37,500 2007 Nominal GDP per capita Sweden 8 49,603 7 48,584 9 50,415 United States 12 45,725 10 45,790 12 45,959 Are the number before or after the taxes? I don't know but it is important to know not only what you earn nominally, but how much you keep for yourself. Then I know many nurses travel from Sweden to the UK to work (and many go in the US) so I suppose many of them prefer the US to Sweden so much they decide to leave family and homeland to go there. This don't speak well to the Sweden model, if people leave. They also leave for Denmark. > despite a century > of mostly socialist government. How do you explain this? This is like comparing apple and steaks. First Sweden didn't have many immigrants until the '70. Now they are importing immigrant like crazy. If you import immigrants, usually this lower your per capita GDP (but why the GDP is now a good indicator of success?). Keep in mind that any service or products produced by the government is imputed to the GDP at the price it was sold, whatever could be his price in a free market. So, when the government run so much of the economy, the GDP is not a very precise measurement. Without immigrants (and with a heavy eugenic program) the criminality was lower than in the US. Also, Sweden was very ethnically homogeneous (this help much with trust and for maintaining social norms) intelligent (101 -104) against a US of (98 very inhomogeneous) (this help with income), so the deviation from the standard were very limited and needed much more time to manifest than in the USA (or in Italy). Many politics that would fail in a few years in the US and in Italy (also very inhomogeneous place for population and ethics) or that would never be enacted appeared viable in Sweden (in the short term). What was not considered was the consequences in the long terms. Today, a few economist argue that the true unemployment in Sweden is as far high as 25% if you add people in disability list that are not really disabled (for a bureaucrats is easier to put people in a list of disabled than to help them to find a job or a good job). But, the greater error is considering the US an example of free markets. The wikipedia have an interesting page about Sweden and > Following the war, Sweden took advantage of an intact industrial > base, social stability and its natural resources to expand its > industry to supply the rebuilding of Europe.[28] Sweden was part of > the Marshall Plan and participated in the Organisation of Economic > Co-operation and Development (OECD). During most of the post-war era, > the country was governed by the Swedish Social Democratic Party (in > Swedish: Socialdemokraterna). Social democrats imposed corporatist > policies: favoring big capitalist corporations and big unions, > especially Swedish Trade Union Confederation, affiliated with Social > Democrats.[29] The amount of bureaucrats rose from normal levels in > the 1960s to very high levels by the 1980s.[29] Sweden was open to > trade and pursued internationally competitive manufacturing sector. > Growth was good until 1970s. Note that socialists in Sweden favoured big corporation and big unions. And enlarged the bureaucracy a lot. They also made something right, like being open to trade. > Between 1970 and 1990 the overall tax burden rose by over ten > percentage points and the growth was very low compared to most other > countries in Western Europe. The marginal income tax for workers > reached over 80%. Eventually government spent over half of the > country's gross domestic product. Sweden steadily declined from its > perennial top five GDP per capita ranking. Since the late 1970s, > Sweden's economic policies were increasingly questioned by economists > and Ministry of Finance officials.[29] Note this. 25 years after the war people and politicians change behaviour (the people didn't experience the war and the problem and have not learned something useful). > A bursting real estate bubble caused by inadequate controls on > lending combined with an international recession and a policy switch > from anti-unemployment policies to anti-inflationary policies and was > resulted in a fiscal crisis in the early 1990s. If they force an anti-inflationary politics this imply that they were inflating their money mass. So the previous growth was apparent and guided by malinvestment. > [32] Sweden's GDP declined by around 5%. Say "crisis". GDP -%5 is a very big crisis. Like the current one. Only the social-democrats did it. > In 1992, there was a run on the currency, the > central bank briefly jacking up interest to 500% in an unsuccessful > effort to defend the currency's fixed exchange rate.[citation needed] > Total employment fell by almost 10% during the crisis.[citation > needed] > The response of the government was to cut spending and > institute a multitude of reforms to improve Sweden's competitiveness, Call it "market reforms"? Or "common sense reform"? > among them reducing the welfare state and privatizing public services > and goods. Whoever did these (social democrats or conservatives), he did marked reforms not socialist reforms. > Much of the political establishment promoted EU > membership, and the Swedish referendum passed by 52?48% in favour of > joining the EU on 13 November 1994. Sweden joined the European Union > on 1 January 1995. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 5 17:28:24 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 18:28:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902040852q794b8cbvd88b3349996a4d75@mail.gmail.com> References: <1233444336_19823@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131183207.0230fb88@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <580930c20902040852q794b8cbvd88b3349996a4d75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <498B21B8.3040501@libero.it> Il 04/02/2009 17.52, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 6:43 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/2/4 painlord2k at libero.it: >> The Swedish >> Social Democratic Party, based on a non-revolutionary revision of >> Marxism, > > ... the revolution being OTOH the only real fun in overall Marxism. :-) Sweden travel to Estonia (or was it Lituania) to have booze, because the government taxes. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Feb 5 19:56:23 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 20:56:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902051156q2b10c921v4fd09d39a7784101@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 6:25 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 04/02/2009 23.38, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> >> 2009/2/5 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> You've ignored my original point, which is that Sweden has one of >> the highest per capita GDP's in the world, higher than that of the US >> in 2007 according to the Wikipedia article above, > > I got different numbers for the > PPP GDP per capita I must say that I agree with Mirco on that. One cannot really compare Sweden (in the heart of Europe, not having known a war for centuries, more rich in natural resources than in population, etc.) with the United States - or for that matter, Russia or China. It would be like comparing Sweden with Montecarlo. Does have Montecarlo the best political system in the world because he has the highest pro-capite income? One might oppose that Fifth Avenue in Manhattan has probably a higher average income than Sweden, in the same spirit. Still, all in all, I would rather be Obama or Putin than the Prime Minister of Sweden. *Absolute* power and wealth also counts, after all, not just "pro capite". :-) -- Stefano Vaj From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Feb 5 22:04:00 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 09:04:00 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902051156q2b10c921v4fd09d39a7784101@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <580930c20902051156q2b10c921v4fd09d39a7784101@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/6 Stefano Vaj : > I must say that I agree with Mirco on that. One cannot really compare > Sweden (in the heart of Europe, not having known a war for centuries, > more rich in natural resources than in population, etc.) with the > United States - or for that matter, Russia or China. > > It would be like comparing Sweden with Montecarlo. Does have > Montecarlo the best political system in the world because he has the > highest pro-capite income? One might oppose that Fifth Avenue in > Manhattan has probably a higher average income than Sweden, in the > same spirit. Mirco started off this discussion to make the point that socialism inevitably leads to ruin, then picked as an example of this process one of the wealthiest nations in the world which has had socialist governments for the best part of a century. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Feb 5 22:27:42 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 23:27:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <580930c20902051156q2b10c921v4fd09d39a7784101@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902051427l6d68fe65u6e2954bfa235f72b@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 11:04 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Mirco started off this discussion to make the point that socialism > inevitably leads to ruin, then picked as an example of this process > one of the wealthiest nations in the world which has had socialist > governments for the best part of a century. Yes, but the reason such discussions lead to little is that this immediately begs the question "how much richer would be country X if they adopted my favourite system"? -- Stefano Vaj From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Feb 6 02:32:35 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 13:32:35 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/6 painlord2k at libero.it : >> The response of the government was to cut spending and >> institute a multitude of reforms to improve Sweden's competitiveness, > > Call it "market reforms"? Or "common sense reform"? > >> among them reducing the welfare state and privatizing public services >> and goods. > > Whoever did these (social democrats or conservatives), he did marked reforms > not socialist reforms. There is such a thing as good economic management and an optimal public/private mix. A political system that does not provide for public health and education is bad; but a political system that socialises bakeries and shoe shops is also bad. Democracies allow the population to try out various things and choose the one they like best, depending on results. -- Stathis Papaioannou From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Fri Feb 6 03:11:37 2009 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:11:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A deep question In-Reply-To: <34D80ADDF40341088227A5BE8899DBE4@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><4985F463.6070804@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com><498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4987321B.2020604@mac.com><8D31C8CFCE8C4B499A87E18E60FEC688@MyComputer> <34D80ADDF40341088227A5BE8899DBE4@spike> Message-ID: <3749CF671D3741D48E373C934C558146@Catbert> "spike" wrote, >> Why is the alphabet in the particular order that we know of, >> with A first and Z last? Is there some grand historical >> document that decrees that order that I am unaware of? Or is >> it all the result of that stupid song? John K Clark > > It wasn't the song, it was the phone book. Someone came up with a grand > scheme to order the alphabet to agree with the order of the names. The earliest proto-semetic alphabets used the characters for numbers and letters. My guess is that the numbers evolved for counting before letters evolved for recording speech. If that is true, the numerical order would have determined the sequence. -- Harvey Newstrom From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Feb 6 04:27:17 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 05 Feb 2009 22:27:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] ZPE energy claims Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090205222440.023c95f0@satx.rr.com> This is not instantly dismissible. < One proposed device would generate up to 21.5 kilowatts of heat from sugar cube sized device. The heat would need to be captured and converted to electricity. Micro-gap thermal photovoltaics could match up well for this application to convert 50% or more of the heat to electricity. The patent is based primarily on the published works of Hal Puthoff over the past two decades. Bernard Haisch, who is a co-inventor and President of the company, is quick to point out that this is all purely speculative at this point and that they have not yet been able to prove anything in the laboratory. The sporadic signals they have seen can't be ruled out as experimental error. That said, the model is still "well worth pursuing". It is a "high risk / high gain" venture, he said, wanting to avoid the common mistake of overselling and underdelivering. They are presently (as of Feb. 4, 2009) looking for major funding of around $10 million to carry out more sophisticated testing. > From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 6 04:54:35 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2009 20:54:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] A deep question In-Reply-To: <3749CF671D3741D48E373C934C558146@Catbert> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com><4985F463.6070804@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com><498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4987321B.2020604@mac.com><8D31C8CFCE8C4B499A87E18E60FEC688@MyComputer><34D80ADDF40341088227A5BE8899DBE4@spike> <3749CF671D3741D48E373C934C558146@Catbert> Message-ID: On Behalf Of > Harvey Newstrom > Subject: Re: [ExI] A deep question ...Is there some grand historical document that decrees that order that I am unaware of? ... > > The earliest proto-semetic alphabets used the characters for > numbers and letters. My guess is that the numbers evolved > for counting before letters evolved for recording speech. If > that is true, the numerical order would have determined the sequence. > -- > Harvey Newstrom Harvey how-the-heck-are-ya Newstrom! Welcome back bud. You were missed. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Feb 6 10:18:07 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 21:18:07 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/5 painlord2k at libero.it : >> But the states that abolished slavery did something very un-free >> market by making a law prohibiting a certain type of previously >> accepted property, > > This is true, if we think the status before was really pro-market or > pro-liberty (that is really the same). > As human are imperfect creatures (someone would say "sinners") they often > have wrong beliefs about right and wrong. > It is not strange that they change their behaviours when they think (rightly > or wrongly) that they are doing something wrong. > > Then, there is the fact that a community exist only when all people in it > agree (explicitly or implicitly) on a default set of common rules. Yes, but they might also agree on something like "the right to public education", which a libertarian might disagree with. Thus we come up against opposing, irreducible ethical positions, and the best we can do is agree to disagree. -- Stathis Papaioannou From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Fri Feb 6 13:34:21 2009 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 05:34:21 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <4987F0C1.7050502@mac.com> Message-ID: <378305.15246.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 2/3/09, samantha wrote: >> As for inflation concerns, in response to the >> financial crisis the spread between the yields on ten year >> treasury bonds and TIPS (ten year treasury inflation >> protected securities) dropped radically from more than 2% to >> near 0%. This means investors in treasury bonds have stopped >> demanding compensation for inflation risk. > > > I think the TIPS business is telling us that China and > other countries who bought Treasuries heavily no longer > believe they are worth much because they no longer have > hardly any faith in the US economy or US long term solvency. > The message is not low estimate of inflation I am afraid. You imply that treasuries have lost market value. Actually they have gained value. A quick primer: Bond investors bear three kinds of risk: 1) Credit risk: When bond issuers default on interest or principal payments, investors lose money. Credit risk represents an important consideration when investing in corporate bonds, especially those issued by companies in poor financial condition. 2) Market risk: When interest rates go up, all bond values go down. Investors in high quality bonds including treasury bonds can feel confident about receiving their principal back at maturity, but they must nevertheless bear market risk until the maturity date. If interest rates have risen and if they must sell on the market before maturity, they'll likely incur a capital loss. 3) Inflation risk: After adjusting for inflation, bond investors can lose money in real terms even in high quality bonds held to maturity. This happens when the rate of inflation during the life of the investment exceeds the bond's nominal yield. For example if one invests in a bond yielding 3%, and inflation goes to 4%, one's real rate of return will equal minus 1%. One can minimize credit risk by investing in US Treasury bonds, which have the backing of the full faith and credit (and taxing authority) of the US government. No investment on earth has less credit risk than US Treasuries. One can simultaneously minimize both credit and inflation risk by investing in super-safe inflation-protected treasuries (TIPS). These US treasury-based securities not only have almost zero credit risk, and very little market risk, but they're also indexed to inflation. These investments don't pay much interest, but investors in these securities have little to worry about. The difference between the yields on ordinary treasuries and TIPS represents the TIPS spread: the extra yield that investors in ordinary treasuries demand for bearing inflation risk. That extra yield represents a reasonable measure of the market's estimate of future inflation. Last July the TIPS spread equaled about 2.5% for ten year bonds, corresponding to the Fed's target inflation rate. Healthy. After the credit crisis unfolded last October, the ten year TIPS spread dropped to near 0%. Currently it hovers around .5%. Sick. How do we explain this? I can think of two explanations: Explanation A) The market expects negligible inflation and possible deflation for the next ten years. Explanation B) Something else is also at work in the market for ordinary treasuries and TIPS. The inflated values of ordinary treasuries (and their freakishly low yields relative to TIPS) reflect not only reduced inflation expectations, but also increased expectations of corporate defaults and increased demand for the safety associated with the large and highly liquid market for ordinary treasuries. As I suggested in an earlier message, both explanations represent bad economic news. Both explanations point to a long-term economic slump. Both argue against long term inflation and for long term disinflation/deflation. Explanation B) looks even worse than A). And the more I think about B), the more reasonable it seems. If the market is efficient then we should look to the market to help us forecast the economy. And this market indicator is flashing a warning signal about something much worse than a garden-variety recession. -gts From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 6 16:04:59 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 08:04:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it In-Reply-To: <378305.15246.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4987F0C1.7050502@mac.com> <378305.15246.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <366BA6C8C1AE4570913F1D446E0B71B3@spike> Gordon, your posts raise the average economic IQ of ExI-chat by about 30 points. I want to have you cloned a hundred times, and thousand more now that we have the copy machine warmed up and doing something useful. Thanks for this. ExI-chatters, please read gts and do ye likewise. spike > ... On Behalf Of Gordon Swobe > Sent: Friday, February 06, 2009 5:34 AM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] M0 singularity... you're soaking in it > > --- On Tue, 2/3/09, samantha wrote: > > >> As for inflation concerns, in response to the financial crisis the... > > ...The message is not low estimate of inflation I am afraid. > > You imply that treasuries have lost market value. Actually > they have gained value. > > A quick primer: > > Bond investors bear three kinds of risk: > > 1) Credit risk: > ... > If the market is efficient then we should look to the market > to help us forecast the economy. And this market indicator is > flashing a warning signal about something much worse than a > garden-variety recession. > > -gts From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 6 17:59:06 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:59:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> Il 04/02/2009 22.26, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 09:21 PM 2/4/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: > > >polluting my home with unwanted people > > I realize English is not your native language, but I'm not sure > "polluting with people" is a sentiment entirely in line with the > extropian or transhumanist viewpoints. But maybe I'm wrong. Helping a few could be good and right, let yourself to be flooded by people over your ability to help them and making only your and others life miserable it is not good or right. Sometimes it is a need to be able to draw a limit. Because there is a limit to the power someone can use without destroying himself. And I don't think that letting themselves being destroyed is very extropic or transhumanist. A group of italian mothers in Rome published a letter in a newspaper today to announce they will move their children from the publicly funded school they were used to send them to others, because the school is flooded with alien children that have problem speaking Italian and their behaviour is not acceptable by civilized people. They don't want that their children pay for this situation. It is easy for politicos and political activist play with someone else lives, forcing the poors to pay the bills of their good actions. But as these mother wrote, the politics's children are not the children that go to these schools. They go to schools in affluent places or to private schools. No politics will send his six years old children in a classroom where his child is the only native speaker. Look Obama, touting more spending in public schools, but sending his dear daughter to a private, elitistic and competitive school. Mirco From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Feb 6 17:56:57 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 11:56:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] NEWS: Transhumanism Answers Critics - Feb 6 2009 Issue Message-ID: <47B856B70FD441F0A593C232FBE022A7@DFC68LF1> The Global Spiral Special Issue: "Transhumanism Answers Critics" http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/Default.aspx "In The Global Spiral's 2008 "Special Issue on Transhumanism", Guest Editor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and five other authors, Ted Peters, Katherine Hayles, Don Ihde, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, and Andrew Pickering, provocatively relay their concerns about transhumanism to expectant ears. This responsive second Special Issue on Transhumanism is an opportunity for ten transhumanist authors to evaluate the criticisms and address concerns. This reflection is beneficial in helping us more precisely clarify interpretations of transhumanism and identify where our own words may have been mistaken. "The philosophical worldview and social movement of transhumanism has the benefit of existing while many of its pioneers are still living. This makes it more accommodating for those unfamiliar with transhumanism to investigate and argue its tenets with the most recent writings at hand. Rather than searching endless databases for bibliographical references and out-of-print books in gathering evidence of who did what, when, and where, researchers can easily locate people though Google and send an email or make a call. Why the authors of the "Special Issue on Transhumanism" in The Global Spiral did not do this is a curiosity. Nonetheless, their six essays present a much appreciated opportunity for developing discourse on transhumanism." Natasha Vita-More Guest Editor The Global Spiral http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/Default.aspx Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: att98556.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 6 18:28:43 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:28:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> Message-ID: <498C815B.10004@libero.it> Il 06/02/2009 11.18, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/5 painlord2k at libero.it: > >>> But the states that abolished slavery did something very un-free >>> market by making a law prohibiting a certain type of previously >>> accepted property, >> This is true, if we think the status before was really pro-market or >> pro-liberty (that is really the same). >> As human are imperfect creatures (someone would say "sinners") they often >> have wrong beliefs about right and wrong. >> It is not strange that they change their behaviours when they think (rightly >> or wrongly) that they are doing something wrong. >> >> Then, there is the fact that a community exist only when all people in it >> agree (explicitly or implicitly) on a default set of common rules. > > Yes, but they might also agree on something like "the right to public > education", which a libertarian might disagree with. Thus we come up > against opposing, irreducible ethical positions, and the best we can > do is agree to disagree. You are free to do "public education" for your community in a libertarian world, if your community is willing to foot the bill. I always say that, if and when will be possible to have new communities out of the reach of governments, will be possible to explore and try these approaches and many others. Then, we will see what communities will be able to prosper and who will not. And what system really work and what not. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 6 18:32:37 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:32:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090131210349.0237a648@satx.rr.com> <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> Message-ID: <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> Il 06/02/2009 3.32, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/6 painlord2k at libero.it: > There is such a thing as good economic management and an optimal > public/private mix. A political system that does not provide for > public health and education is bad; but a political system that > socialises bakeries and shoe shops is also bad. Democracies allow the > population to try out various things and choose the one they like > best, depending on results. Problem is in democracies it is not people that decide, but the majority. And the majority have only the possibility to choose between two packets the two competing electoral block / parties will offer them. And usually will vote always for the same, whatever they did (apart for major screw ups). Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Feb 6 18:45:19 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:45:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <498C815B.10004@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> At 07:28 PM 2/6/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >I always say that, if and when will be possible to have new >communities out of the reach of governments, will be possible to >explore and try these approaches and many others. Then, we will see >what communities will be able to prosper and who will not. And what >system really work and what not. I always say that people of this opinion should read Greg Egan's fictional but very convincing picture of what will probably happen, in his novel DISTRESS. The artificial island Stateless is not *permitted* to remain "out of the reach of governments". Damien Broderick From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Feb 6 19:10:54 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 11:10:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Forrest Ackerman auction Message-ID: <29666bf30902061110v5779548fm3cc05c1f1265c69c@mail.gmail.com> For those of us who knew him or knew of him, the inevitable is happening. Forry Ackerman's collection is going on the auction block. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_J_Ackerman My father will twist in agony that he can't bid on Ackerman's signed first editions of Frankenstein and Dracula. [That is when he remembers that the auction is being held... :-( I won't be reminding him.] Even though he once had his own 1st ed. copies of both, he still had biblio-envy for years over Forry's Dracula. It was enough that Forry owned it. But to have his childhood horror heroes also to have signed it? Priceless. I was desperate for Robby the Robot. But I'm sure I won't be able to afford it, if it's even being sold. PJ http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ackerman5-2009feb05,0,4533587.story >From the Los Angeles Times Ackerman trove to be auctioned Associated Press February 5, 2009 He always vowed that he wouldn't die unless he could take it with him. But now that Forrest J Ackerman really is gone, the grand old man of science fiction's memorabilia collection is on the auction block. Thousands of items, including the Count Dracula ring worn by Bela Lugosi in the 1931 horror classic "Dracula," the vampire cape Lugosi wore for decades -- even the actor's outfit from the "worst film ever made," Ed Wood's cheesy "Plan 9 From Outer Space" -- are going up for bid. So are such notable pieces as a signed, first-edition copy of Mary Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" and a first-edition copy of Bram Stoker's "Dracula" that was signed not only by Stoker but also by Lugosi, Boris Karloff and numerous other horror film notables. The auction, tentatively scheduled for the last week of April, is expected to raise $500,000, said Joe Maddalena, president of Profiles in History, which is handling the sale. Ackerman, the science- fiction writer, editor and literary agent widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi," spent a lifetime collecting tens of thousands of pieces, ranging from the junky to the very rare. He died in December at age 92 at his home in Los Angeles. Maddalena said that Ackerman's will stipulated that his estate's share of the profits be divided among his friends. From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Feb 6 19:24:29 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 12:24:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ZPE energy claims In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090205222440.023c95f0@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090205222440.023c95f0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <1233948654_2128@S3.cableone.net> At 09:27 PM 2/5/2009, you wrote: snip >The patent is based primarily on the published works of Hal Puthoff >over the past two decades. For reasons I should probably not discuss, the name "Hal Puthoff" screams "scam." Keith From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Feb 6 20:08:21 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:08:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Forrest Ackerman auction In-Reply-To: <29666bf30902061110v5779548fm3cc05c1f1265c69c@mail.gmail.co m> References: <29666bf30902061110v5779548fm3cc05c1f1265c69c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090206140544.025ba148@satx.rr.com> At 11:10 AM 2/6/2009 -0800, PJ quoth: >Ackerman, the science- fiction writer, editor and literary agent >widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi," Or, as most sf writers would put it, Ackerman, the science- fiction writer, editor and literary agent widely reviled in the sf community for coining the hated term "sci-fi," From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Feb 6 20:18:52 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 14:18:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] ZPE energy claims In-Reply-To: <1233948654_2128@S3.cableone.net> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090205222440.023c95f0@satx.rr.com> <1233948654_2128@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090206140906.025f56a8@satx.rr.com> At 12:24 PM 2/6/2009 -0700, Keith wrote: >>The patent is based primarily on the published works of Hal Puthoff >>over the past two decades. > >For reasons I should probably not discuss, the name "Hal Puthoff" >screams "scam." I have it on good authority that Puthoff has not been a Scientologist for decades, and is on their Enemies' List. His scientific parapsychology work for Star Gate was by no means either a scam or a failure.* (In fact, I was frustrated at missing the chance to join Dr. Puthoff and a former military remote viewer last month prior to a meeting hosted by the intel and security folks at Lackland AFB for a briefing on remote viewing.) Stochastic electromagnetic theory might not be valid, but it does not seem to be a scam either. Damien Broderick [* doubt it? read OUTSIDE THE GATES OF SCIENCE] From mlatorra at gmail.com Fri Feb 6 20:22:33 2009 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 13:22:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Forrest Ackerman auction In-Reply-To: <29666bf30902061110v5779548fm3cc05c1f1265c69c@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30902061110v5779548fm3cc05c1f1265c69c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9ff585550902061222l48d40034ia9f394aebfda4f5b@mail.gmail.com> 4SJ was the ultimate fan! Although I did not know him personally, he is legend. Somewhere in space-time, he may live again. Regards, Mike LaTorra On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 12:10 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > For those of us who knew him or knew of him, the inevitable is > happening. Forry Ackerman's collection is going on the auction block. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_J_Ackerman > > My father will twist in agony that he can't bid on Ackerman's signed > first editions of Frankenstein and Dracula. [That is when he > remembers that the auction is being held... :-( I won't be reminding > him.] Even though he once had his own 1st ed. copies of both, he > still had biblio-envy for years over Forry's Dracula. It was enough > that Forry owned it. But to have his childhood horror heroes also to > have signed it? Priceless. > > I was desperate for Robby the Robot. But I'm sure I won't be able to > afford it, if it's even being sold. > > PJ > > > > http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-ackerman5-2009feb05,0,4533587.story > > >From the Los Angeles Times > Ackerman trove to be auctioned > Associated Press > > February 5, 2009 > > He always vowed that he wouldn't die unless he could take it with him. > > But now that Forrest J Ackerman really is gone, the grand old man of > science fiction's memorabilia collection is on the auction block. > > Thousands of items, including the Count Dracula ring worn by Bela > Lugosi in the 1931 horror classic "Dracula," the vampire cape Lugosi > wore for decades -- even the actor's outfit from the "worst film ever > made," Ed Wood's cheesy "Plan 9 From Outer Space" -- are going up for > bid. > > So are such notable pieces as a signed, first-edition copy of Mary > Shelley's novel "Frankenstein" and a first-edition copy of Bram > Stoker's "Dracula" that was signed not only by Stoker but also by > Lugosi, Boris Karloff and numerous other horror film notables. > > The auction, tentatively scheduled for the last week of April, is > expected to raise $500,000, said Joe Maddalena, president of Profiles > in History, which is handling the sale. > > Ackerman, the science- fiction writer, editor and literary agent > widely credited with coining the term "sci-fi," spent a lifetime > collecting tens of thousands of pieces, ranging from the junky to the > very rare. He died in December at age 92 at his home in Los Angeles. > > Maddalena said that Ackerman's will stipulated that his estate's share > of the profits be divided among his friends. > _______________________________________________ > 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Feb 6 23:40:33 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2009 16:40:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] NEWS: Transhumanism Answers Critics - Feb 6 2009 Issue In-Reply-To: <47B856B70FD441F0A593C232FBE022A7@DFC68LF1> References: <47B856B70FD441F0A593C232FBE022A7@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <2d6187670902061540p12e51570v13b2bcb31124df49@mail.gmail.com> I am very pleased to see they allowed transhumanist intellectuals to defend their beliefs on the Global Spiral website. But I would also like to see at least several of these same transhumanist writers at the next ASU held "Facing the Challenges of Transhumanism: Religion, Science and Technology" Conference/Workshop. A previous one I attended did not have proper transhumanist representation. http://transhumanism.asu.edu/index.php John Grigg On Fri, Feb 6, 2009 at 10:56 AM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > *The Global Spiral *Special Issue: "Transhumanism Answers Critics" > http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/Default.aspx > > "In *The Global Spiral's* 2008 "Special Issue on Transhumanism", Guest > Editor Hava Tirosh-Samuelson and five other authors, Ted Peters, Katherine > Hayles, Don Ihde, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, and Andrew Pickering, provocatively > relay their concerns about transhumanism to expectant ears. This responsive > second Special Issue on Transhumanism is an opportunity for ten > transhumanist authors to evaluate the criticisms and address concerns. This > reflection is beneficial in helping us more precisely clarify > interpretations of transhumanism and identify where our own words may have > been mistaken. > > "The philosophical worldview and social movement of transhumanism has the > benefit of existing while many of its pioneers are still living. This makes > it more accommodating for those unfamiliar with transhumanism to investigate > and argue its tenets with the most recent writings at hand. Rather than > searching endless databases for bibliographical references and out-of-print > books in gathering evidence of who did what, when, and where, researchers > can easily locate people though Google and send an email or make a call. > Why the authors of the "Special Issue on Transhumanism" in *The Global > Spiral* did not do this is a curiosity. Nonetheless, their six essays > present a much appreciated opportunity for developing discourse on > transhumanism." > > Natasha Vita-More > Guest Editor *The Global Spiral > *http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/Default.aspx > ** > [image: Nlogo1.tif] Natasha Vita-More > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: att98556.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 00:26:36 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:26:36 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498C815B.10004@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/7 painlord2k at libero.it : > You are free to do "public education" for your community in a libertarian > world, if your community is willing to foot the bill. That's what taxation is. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 00:37:37 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:37:37 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> References: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/7 painlord2k at libero.it : > Problem is in democracies it is not people that decide, but the majority. > And the majority have only the possibility to choose between two packets the > two competing electoral block / parties will offer them. > And usually will vote always for the same, whatever they did (apart for > major screw ups). It would seem a simple enough matter to stand for election on a populist platform of reducing or eliminating taxation, or even better doing so while maintaining or increasing public spending. Why don't the idiotic proles fall for this? -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Feb 7 00:52:34 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 18:52:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> At 11:37 AM 2/7/2009 +1100, Stathis wrote: >It would seem a simple enough matter to stand for election on a >populist platform of reducing or eliminating taxation, or even better >doing so while maintaining or increasing public spending. Why don't >the idiotic proles fall for this? Uh, perhaps this is bitter sarcasm? They usually do, here in the Homeland, anyway. Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 03:07:06 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 14:07:06 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> References: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/7 Damien Broderick : > At 11:37 AM 2/7/2009 +1100, Stathis wrote: > >> It would seem a simple enough matter to stand for election on a >> populist platform of reducing or eliminating taxation, or even better >> doing so while maintaining or increasing public spending. Why don't >> the idiotic proles fall for this? > > Uh, perhaps this is bitter sarcasm? They usually do, here in the Homeland, > anyway. True, Reagan was elected on the promise that by reducing taxation, everyone would become richer and therefore taxation revenue will stay constant or even increase. This idea was in fact stolen from the Australian artist, writer and economist Norman Lindsay: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Pudding -- Stathis Papaioannou From moulton at moulton.com Sat Feb 7 06:49:45 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Fri, 06 Feb 2009 22:49:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 14:07 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > . This idea was in fact stolen from the > Australian artist, writer and economist Norman Lindsay: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Pudding > > Citation needed. Please provide evidence about this alleged theft. I am not a big fan of Reagan however to allege that an idea was stolen is a serious charge. So please supply the evidence for this alleged theft. Fred From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Feb 7 07:26:53 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:26:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> References: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090207012142.023430c0@satx.rr.com> At 10:49 PM 2/6/2009 -0800, Fred wrote: >On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 14:07 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > This idea was in fact stolen from the > > Australian artist, writer and economist Norman Lindsay: > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Pudding > >Citation needed. Please provide evidence about this alleged theft. I >am not a big fan of Reagan however to allege that an idea was stolen is >a serious charge. So please supply the evidence for this alleged theft. Omg. This is either the driest jab of wit ever on the extropes list, or definitive proof that he who laughs last never got the joke. From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 10:07:48 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 21:07:48 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> References: <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> Message-ID: 2009/2/7 Fred C. Moulton : > > On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 14:07 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> . This idea was in fact stolen from the >> Australian artist, writer and economist Norman Lindsay: >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Pudding >> >> > Citation needed. Please provide evidence about this alleged theft. I > am not a big fan of Reagan however to allege that an idea was stolen is > a serious charge. So please supply the evidence for this alleged theft. The proof is in the pudding. -- Stathis Papaioannou From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 10:07:50 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:07:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> Message-ID: This is significant example of stupidity in action. You pose a problem here that deceitfully suggests a clear and simple answer. There is immigration from poor countries. This causes significant stress to demographics and institutions in modern, civilized countries because the immigrants are poor, undereducated and from rather savage and backward places. Your complaint covers poor people who resent having their children be educated in schools that have deteriorated because of immigration. So my questions to you are: - is there any humane AND affordable way to stop immigration, including people smuggling or desperate rafting? - can immigration of undesirable poor people be reversed, again - humanely and affordably? - can italy do anything affordably and humanely to make sure emigrants do not have an incentive to come and bother poor struggling italians, or cause immigrants in italy to return or go elsewhere? - is there any affordable and humane tool politicians can use to make sure backward and savage immigrants integrate and become civilized faster, preferably somewhere later this year? My accusation is there is no answer to any of these questions, except "stretching up what is regarded as humane and affordable". No politician is able to deliver on any promise of closed borders, not without ruining your economic infrastructure. No politician is able to deliver on a promise of sending back immigrants humanely and affordably. Immigrants cannot be integrated in anything less than two, three generations. Yes I am aware of these demographic disasters. We have problems with backward and savage maroccans here in the Netherlands, and many of them have gone retrograde in terms of assimilation and integration - and yes they behave precisely in a way as to be as contrary and unlikable as possible. The new proverb is no longer "as stubborn as a mule" but now has become "as stubborn as a maroccan". However the nightmare we are in is that we are not able to offer quick solutions. If you demand any, or claim there are, you are effectively lying, or trying to crowbar into place "sinister or intransparant solutions" using the savage immigrant issue as leverage. In the mid 20th century we could wait it out - one or two generations of assimilations weren't all that bad an expectation. But as even the NY times is starting to notice that sociological and technological trends are subject to a puzzling accelerating trend, we don't have that time anymore. The onlyshort-ter, solution we have is a bit roundabout - it is removing the influence Islam has over this people. Islam as a force in the world is currently kept on IV drip by Wahabi sociopaths in Saudi arabia. That means - you and everyone else who use the damn oil, is keeping islamic evangelism alive with a hefty subsidy via state sponsored mullahs over there. But I agree Islam is only a fraction of the problem - we need to make societies all over the world about twice as rich as they are now to start solving these problems. Right now by exporting whole plainloads of economic power abroad we are slowly strangling ourselves with our own hand. This needs to stop, but I am not entirely sure how we can do that. The current situation is imminently unstable. 2009/2/6 painlord2k at libero.it > Il 04/02/2009 22.26, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > >> At 09:21 PM 2/4/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >> >> >polluting my home with unwanted people >> >> I realize English is not your native language, but I'm not sure >> "polluting with people" is a sentiment entirely in line with the >> extropian or transhumanist viewpoints. But maybe I'm wrong. >> > > Helping a few could be good and right, let yourself to be flooded by people > over your ability to help them and making only your and others life > miserable it is not good or right. > > Sometimes it is a need to be able to draw a limit. > Because there is a limit to the power someone can use without destroying > himself. And I don't think that letting themselves being destroyed is very > extropic or transhumanist. > > A group of italian mothers in Rome published a letter in a newspaper today > to announce they will move their children from the publicly funded school > they were used to send them to others, because the school is flooded with > alien children that have problem speaking Italian and their behaviour is not > acceptable by civilized people. They don't want that their children pay for > this situation. > > It is easy for politicos and political activist play with someone else > lives, forcing the poors to pay the bills of their good actions. But as > these mother wrote, the politics's children are not the children that go to > these schools. They go to schools in affluent places or to private schools. > No politics will send his six years old children in a classroom where his > child is the only native speaker. > > Look Obama, touting more spending in public schools, but sending his dear > daughter to a private, elitistic and competitive school. > > 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 pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 10:29:33 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 10:29:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090207012142.023430c0@satx.rr.com> References: <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> <7.0.1.0.2.20090207012142.023430c0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 7:26 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Omg. This is either the driest jab of wit ever on the extropes list, or > definitive proof that he who laughs last never got the joke. > _______________________________________________ Now, now. You know USians don't do dry wit. But I'm UK and I didn't get the joke either until I Googled. The Magic Pudding hasn't been in my reading list. But Google says it is very well-known in Australia. It even gets used in Parliamentary debates. Quote: Mr SPEAKER: Order! I uphold the point of order. The Minister will address members by their proper titles. Mr JOHN WATKINS: The Leader of the Opposition came into this Chamber this morning with butter on his fingers and egg on his face because he had been up all night cooking up the magic pudding of a budget response. I am amazed that he had time to take off his apron before he came in here at 10 o'clock this morning. The introduction of Norman Lindsay's classic work, The Magic Pudding, reads: The Magic Pudding is a pie, except when it's something else, like a steak, or a jam donut? ?or the Leader of the Opposition's budget response. The introduction continues: or whatever its owner wants it to be. And it never runs out. No matter how many slices you cut, there's always something left over. It's magic. But Norman Lindsay's story is far more believable than the budget response from the Leader of the Opposition this morning. --------------- BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 7 10:46:51 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:46:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <498D669B.50507@libero.it> Il 06/02/2009 19.45, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 07:28 PM 2/6/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: > >> I always say that, if and when will be possible to have new >> communities out of the reach of governments, will be possible to >> explore and try these approaches and many others. Then, we will see >> what communities will be able to prosper and who will not. And what >> system really work and what not. > > I always say that people of this opinion should read Greg Egan's > fictional but very convincing picture of what will probably happen, in > his novel DISTRESS. The artificial island Stateless is not *permitted* > to remain "out of the reach of governments". This is because I'm a strong supporter of "Space Islands". A community can become and remain free if it is strong enough to dissuade others from interfering with them and don't give them reasons strong enough to combat a war against them. Then, there is nothing that prevent a community of free people to win a war against a government. It is matter only of resources, will and intelligence. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 7 10:51:19 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 11:51:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> Message-ID: <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> Il 07/02/2009 1.26, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/7 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> You are free to do "public education" for your community in a libertarian >> world, if your community is willing to foot the bill. > > That's what taxation is. Taxes and willing don't go together well. In the Italian languages a synonymous of "taxes" is "imposte" (the same of "imposed[s]" only a noun and not a verb). There is a reason because they are called so and not "Voluntary donations" or something else. Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 11:14:12 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 11:14:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <498D669B.50507@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:46 AM, painlord2k wrote: > This is because I'm a strong supporter of "Space Islands". > > A community can become and remain free if it is strong enough to dissuade > others from interfering with them and don't give them reasons strong enough > to combat a war against them. > Then, there is nothing that prevent a community of free people to win a war > against a government. It is matter only of resources, will and intelligence. > Now you really are in total fantasy land. The problems of setting up *any* small community make it almost impossible. Look at how few manage to struggle along, barely surviving. But you want to set up a community big enough and strong enough to fight off governments! How many volunteers do you expect to get? And 'Space Islands' must be in the distant future when nano-Santa gives everybody everything they can possibly wish for. Try and bring a bit of real-world practicality back into your dreams. BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 12:35:52 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 23:35:52 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/7 painlord2k at libero.it : >>> You are free to do "public education" for your community in a >>> libertarian >>> world, if your community is willing to foot the bill. >> >> That's what taxation is. > > Taxes and willing don't go together well. > > In the Italian languages a synonymous of "taxes" is "imposte" (the same of > "imposed[s]" only a noun and not a verb). There is a reason because they are > called so and not "Voluntary donations" or something else. People willingly vote to be taxed. Consider these options: (a) everyone gets taxed except me; (b) everyone gets taxed; (b) no-one gets taxed. Most people might be inclined to choose choose (a), but obviously (a) isn't going to work. As second best, most people choose (b). You might say that's unfair, because (b) then covers the minority which would have chosen (c). But you can't choose taxes and make them voluntary, since that would be the same as (a). So we're stuck with (b), until some country tries out (c) and dazzles the rest of the world with its success, leading to widespread copying. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 15:32:48 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 16:32:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: References: <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > This is significant example of stupidity in action. You pose a problem here > that deceitfully suggests a clear and simple answer. Frankly, the idea that overpopulated, overexploited, polluted, and industrialised countries may welcome an unlimited flow of foreigners moving there on an individual basis out of the propaganda of western way of life and a view of human resources as mere commodities to be traded and imported in a global market depending on short-terms needs, sounds intolerably naive and simplist itself. There is nothing humane or affordable in mass immigration in Europe, both for the countries of origin and for the countries of destination, but a massive destruction of resources, sovereignties and diversity. Japan or Israel are in this respect good, very different examples that there is no inevitable "historical force" that would require a country to surrender the control of its borders to phenomena that have really little to do with some kind of "natural law", in particular having little equivalents in recent times where conditions in the originating countries were even worse, or from other countries that are even poorer. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Feb 7 16:17:09 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 17:17:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > People willingly vote to be taxed. ... which does not say anything on whether they are right to do so, or whether they actually have any other option in our current political regimes, where the ruling classes have a vested interest in protecting a system on which their job and power depend. I am *very* far from Mirco's positions, but sometimes they are liquidated just a little too easily. -- Stefano Vaj From jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Feb 7 18:19:07 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 13:19:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ZPE energy claims. References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090205222440.023c95f0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: "Damien Broderick" > The patent is based primarily on the published works of Hal Puthoff At one time you needed to present a working model of your invention before you could get a patent in the USA; but no more. Ah for the good old days. John K Clark From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 7 21:20:12 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 07 Feb 2009 22:20:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4986FF81.6040709@libero.it> <1233613227.2019.2299.camel@hayek> <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> Message-ID: <498DFB0C.9000506@libero.it> Il 07/02/2009 1.37, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/7 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> Problem is in democracies it is not people that decide, but the majority. >> And the majority have only the possibility to choose between two packets the >> two competing electoral block / parties will offer them. >> And usually will vote always for the same, whatever they did (apart for >> major screw ups). > > It would seem a simple enough matter to stand for election on a > populist platform of reducing or eliminating taxation, or even better > doing so while maintaining or increasing public spending. Why don't > the idiotic proles fall for this? They usually fall for the politicians that offer "stimulus packages", "social wages" and other gifts from the public treasury. They never think that the governments is not Jusus Christ and is not able to multiply Bread and Fishes with its will only. It is easier fall for someone that promise an immediate monetary help or imaginary "social security" that be convinced to do hard work for themselves and their families. But we need to say that public schools are good to teach this ethos on young minds. Probably the only thing they are really good. Panen et Circensem (if I remember the latin phrase correctly) work better in the short term that hard work for you and your family. In the long term the politicos will find a scapegoat or will be already out of power. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 7 23:31:44 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 15:31:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it><498C815B.10004@libero.it><498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8E5DD27FC43445C08C7DC880A936E84D@spike> > Subject: Re: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency > > On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > > People willingly vote to be taxed. In the USA we are now very close to the point where the majority pays no taxes. So voters willingly vote higher taxes on other people. The actual tax payer is in the minority. This phenomenon is the reason the ancient Greeks thought democracy was unstable. Here is how we may see democracy slip away to totalitarianism: if we elect a series of leaders, each promising to take more people out of the tax paying column and make up the difference by increasing taxes of the rich. spike From eric at m056832107.syzygy.com Sun Feb 8 00:35:38 2009 From: eric at m056832107.syzygy.com (Eric Messick) Date: 8 Feb 2009 00:35:38 -0000 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <8E5DD27FC43445C08C7DC880A936E84D@spike> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it><498C815B.10004@libero.it><498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <8E5DD27FC43445C08C7DC880A936E84D@spike> Message-ID: <20090208003538.5.qmail@syzygy.com> spike wrote: >In the USA we are now very close to the point where the majority pays no >taxes. Woah, there! I have a very hard time believing that statement. It may be that the majority owe no money on their 1040 forms by being in a low enough bracket, but even that seems unlikely. Even someone who pays no income tax directly is still paying it indirectly, though. Every product or service that they buy has the producer's taxes factored in to the price. The actual amount that someone pays in taxes can be very hard to determine. Even the overall aggregate tax rate is hard to figure out. It is total government spending at all levels as a fraction of GDP. I've never seen a total government spending figure, although someone may attempt to calculate it. GDP is probably not the best measure here either, as it has weird distortions in it (if I destroy something that you have to replace, GDP goes up as a result). So, I can see a statement like: The majority think they pay little or no taxes. Which is actually good enough to get you where you're going: >So voters willingly vote higher taxes on other people. The actual >tax payer is in the minority. This phenomenon is the reason the ancient >Greeks thought democracy was unstable. Here is how we may see democracy >slip away to totalitarianism: if we elect a series of leaders, each >promising to take more people out of the tax paying column and make up the >difference by increasing taxes of the rich. > >spike I think you're right here. The problem is that benefits are concentrated (pork projects) while costs are distributed (slight rise in both seen and unseen taxes for everyone). It's not worth arguing against pork that goes to someone else, as the cost to you is relatively small. Curiously, we've gotten to the point where some of this pork is big enough that people should be willing to invest the time to fight it. A 1 trillion dollar spending bill is $3333 for each of the 300 million people in the U.S. The only reason not to invest a sizable fraction of that $3k in effort to try to stop one of these is that they seem so inevitable. Sigh. -eric From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 8 04:37:15 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 7 Feb 2009 21:37:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902072037h14fe7c6fg313ce92d220a623@mail.gmail.com> Stefano Vaj wrote: There is nothing humane or affordable in mass immigration in Europe, both for the countries of origin and for the countries of destination, but a massive destruction of resources, sovereignties and diversity. >> I thought these European nations (at least the political and business/corporate power bloc) wanted poor immigrants to come in and take jobs for low wages that the local citizenry would only work for much higher wages. I realize this can cause higher costs/taxpayer strain when bi-lingual teachers are necessary, crime rates go up, or when some/many of the immigrants decide to go on welfare. he continued: Japan or Israel are in this respect good, very different examples that there is no inevitable "historical force" that would require a country to surrender the control of its borders to phenomena that have really little to do with some kind of "natural law", in particular having little equivalents in recent times where conditions in the originating countries were even worse, or from other countries that are even poorer. >> I found it interesting that you brought up these two nations as examples. Israel has welcomed many immigrants (Russian Jews, African Jews, etc.,), but they are generally of a similar cultural and religious background and so this greatly speeds up the melting pot process. Israel is very unique in this way. And many of the Russian immigrants were highly educated, which was of additional benefit. Japan is a nation known for being at least moderately xenophobic. They have a Korean minority (Japanese colonialism and exploitation fueled the need for Koreans to relocate to Japan in search of work) and they have a mixed track record in terms of how they have treated them. The Japanese thought they were onto something by encouraging the immigration of South American Japanese but to their unpleasant surprise they found these people tended to have gone "Latin American" and were often by Japanese standards of public conduct, too loud and boisterous. The Japanese are in a fix because they have a rapidly aging population and at the same time their young women are not having near enough children to maintain current population levels. And so they are taking on the challenge by pouring lots of resources into robotic research and development. A large mobile robot that can pick up and move elderly patients from bed to bed is just one example. China is going to be needing lots of immigrants, in the form of single young females to marry the many young men who would have to otherwise go without a wife. And this because many parents felt if they were only going to have one child, it would be a boy. Legitimate global matchmaking services will thrive as they connect women from the Philipines, Thailand, etc., with lonely Chinese men. And I strongly suspect the Triads will find the smuggling of nubile young "brides to be" a booming business. I wonder how Italy will change over the next fifty years or so due to the high level of immigration they have allowed and the fact that many of the young women there generally do not find childbearing appealing and so with such a low birthrate & little investment in technology, Italy seems to face a rough future. I was surprised to learn that Germany has an even lower birthrate than Italy. And France is having a mini baby boom! John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Sun Feb 8 08:35:10 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:35:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206185120.02319058@satx.rr.com> <1233989385.28874.832.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <1234082110.28874.985.camel@hayek> On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 21:07 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/7 Fred C. Moulton : > > > > On Sat, 2009-02-07 at 14:07 +1100, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > >> . This idea was in fact stolen from the > >> Australian artist, writer and economist Norman Lindsay: > >> > >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Pudding > >> > >> > > Citation needed. Please provide evidence about this alleged theft. I > > am not a big fan of Reagan however to allege that an idea was stolen is > > a serious charge. So please supply the evidence for this alleged theft. > > The proof is in the pudding. > Thanks for the citation; that is just what I was looking for. Always glad to see that scholarly standards are being maintained. Fred From dagonweb at gmail.com Sun Feb 8 10:28:39 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 11:28:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Yes, I agree - I am envious of the Japanese model, including the drop in population Japan will experience. the resulting headstart they will have in robotics and maybe even sensescence reversal. But again you skip the deeper questions of poverty in the world and appear to answer to an article you think I wrote than the one I did actually write. I do not want immigration based on low pay jobs of poor, undereducated people to richer countries. Its a demographic disaster. Its an integration disaster. It breeds crime. It is equivalent to chattel slavery and worst of all it wrecks the country of origin, draining all the most motivated workers who might in fact be building up a real economy instead of one based on a steady flow of cheques. If temporary workers come to a country working, I love them doing so under temporary contract and getting the hell out when they are done. I say there are very few solutions in this area, and whats been done in Europe and the US is not acceptable. The problem is we are stuck with this situation and some people only make it WORSE by waving around a brick of handwavium, suggesting that more cops, internment caps, barbed wire, more prisons, stricter laws, more traditional values, prayer in schools, laws against P0rN, sundayschool will make it all get better. If you do reply, please take into account in your answer that, for all I care the old dichotomy between left (liberal, pro-immigration, gay) and right (conservative, pro-law, anal retentive) is DEAD DEAD DEAD for all I care. I am not a part of either, do not wish to be shoehorned in with either and loathe most solutions offered by either. I am WAY north of this false, treacherous dichotomy. 2009/2/7 Stefano Vaj > On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 11:07 AM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > > This is significant example of stupidity in action. You pose a problem > here > > that deceitfully suggests a clear and simple answer. > > Frankly, the idea that overpopulated, overexploited, polluted, and > industrialised countries may welcome an unlimited flow of foreigners > moving there on an individual basis out of the propaganda of western > way of life and a view of human resources as mere commodities to be > traded and imported in a global market depending on short-terms needs, > sounds intolerably naive and simplist itself. > > There is nothing humane or affordable in mass immigration in Europe, > both for the countries of origin and for the countries of destination, > but a massive destruction of resources, sovereignties and diversity. > > Japan or Israel are in this respect good, very different examples that > there is no inevitable "historical force" that would require a country > to surrender the control of its borders to phenomena that have really > little to do with some kind of "natural law", in particular having > little equivalents in recent times where conditions in the originating > countries were even worse, or from other countries that are even > poorer. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > 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 estropico at gmail.com Sun Feb 8 10:39:40 2009 From: estropico at gmail.com (estropico) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 10:39:40 +0000 Subject: [ExI] ExtroBritannia: The role of diet and supplements in longevity - the science behind the hype. Message-ID: <4eaaa0d90902080239u40ace391ra6c2e4ca2a61272a@mail.gmail.com> The role of diet and supplements in longevity - the science behind the hype. The next ExtroBritannia event is scheduled for Saturday the 28th of February 2009; 2:00pm - 4:00pm. Venue: Room 153, 1st floor (via lift B), Main Building, Birkbeck College, Torrington Square, London WC1E 7HX. The event is free and everyone's welcome. Alistair Tweed of Aging-management.com will highlight the results of the latest scientific research into a series of diets and dietary supplements that have been held up as capable of extending our healthy lifespan. The talk will include: -The role of diet and supplements in longevity. -A primer on how to choose and use supplements to optimise your health for longevity. -Advanced supplement strategies. -Which supplements and nutraceuticals to look out for in the coming year - and the science behind them -How people can meaningfully contribute to the progress of of anti-aging science and medicine. About the speaker: A long time health and fitness enthusiast, Alistair Tweed developed a keen interest in longevity and anti-aging about 10 years ago and has continued to learn about and live by these principles ever since. He set up Aging Management Ltd in July of 2007 and is webmaster, company director, primary business developer and general dog's body for the company. In March 2008, he was invited to become "Methuselah Foundation Outreach Coordinator - UK", official volunteer lead for the Methuselah Foundation for business and outreach activities in the UK, working closely with the Methuselah Foundation Board and especially Aubrey de Grey, as he promotes the Foundation's mission and donors in the UK. Alistair lives in Essex with his family. Pre-meeting and post-meeting activities: Why not join some of the UKTA regulars for drinks and/or a light lunch beforehand, any time after 12.30pm, in The Marlborough Arms, 36 Torrington Place, London WC1E 7HJ? To find us, look out for a table displaying a copy of Aubrey de Grey's book "Ending Aging". For those able to stay after the meeting, discussion is likely to continue in one of the pubs near Birkbeck College. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/extrobritannia/ http://www.transhumanist.org.uk/ http://extrobritannia.blogspot.com/ From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 8 11:39:39 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 22:39:39 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/8 Stefano Vaj : > On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 1:35 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> People willingly vote to be taxed. > > ... which does not say anything on whether they are right to do so, or > whether they actually have any other option in our current political > regimes, where the ruling classes have a vested interest in protecting > a system on which their job and power depend. > > I am *very* far from Mirco's positions, but sometimes they are > liquidated just a little too easily. Obviously it's facile to maintain that everything in a (nominal) democracy has been put to the vote, therefore it must be OK. But I was pointing out that there is this possible arrangement whereby I might vote to have myself forcibly taxed, on the condition that everyone else is also forcibly taxed. This is a voluntary contract despite the fact that I may be coerced, since I am agreeing to be coerced. On the other hand, if we allow anyone who doesn't agree to the contract to opt out of it then it would never work: even if all the voters were willing to be taxed if everyone else was also taxed, all might decline to be taxed if by so doing they could opt out of the tax. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 8 13:20:11 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 00:20:11 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498DFB0C.9000506@libero.it> References: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <498DFB0C.9000506@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/8 painlord2k at libero.it : > They usually fall for the politicians that offer "stimulus packages", > "social wages" and other gifts from the public treasury. They never think > that the governments is not Jusus Christ and is not able to multiply Bread > and Fishes with its will only. > > It is easier fall for someone that promise an immediate monetary help or > imaginary "social security" that be convinced to do hard work for themselves > and their families. But we need to say that public schools are good to teach > this ethos on young minds. Probably the only thing they are really good. > > Panen et Circensem (if I remember the latin phrase correctly) work better in > the short term that hard work for you and your family. In the long term the > politicos will find a scapegoat or will be already out of power. But the simplest and most attractive thing to offer the population, assuming they are greedy and economically ignorant, is increased government spending and handouts (to the rich and middle class as well as the poor: why limit your scope?) with reduced or nil taxation. This recipe is rarely offered, as politicians feel the voters will see through it, implying that the voters are not assumed to be completely selfish and short-sighted idiots. Thus, the argument that people only vote in favour of continuing taxation because they are selfish and short-sighted idiots is shown to be flawed. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Feb 8 14:26:52 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 15:26:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902072037h14fe7c6fg313ce92d220a623@mail.gmail.com> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670902072037h14fe7c6fg313ce92d220a623@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902080626t347ef158g6fcb10d6cec3ec26@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 5:37 AM, John Grigg wrote: > Stefano Vaj wrote: >> There is nothing humane or affordable in mass immigration in Europe, >> both for the countries of origin and for the countries of destination, >> but a massive destruction of resources, sovereignties and diversity. > > I thought these European nations (at least the political and > business/corporate power bloc) wanted poor immigrants to come in and take > jobs for low wages that the local citizenry would only work for much higher > wages. I realize this can cause higher costs/taxpayer strain when > bi-lingual teachers are necessary, crime rates go up, or when some/many of > the immigrants decide to go on welfare. Yes, this is a fair description of the scenario we are faced with, but I would remove the qualification "at least". A political and business/corporate block exists in those countries which favours a new slave trade on the basis of both short-term private interests and ideological "humanitarian" alibis. > The Japanese are in a fix because they have a rapidly aging population and > at the same time their young women are not having near enough children to > maintain current population levels. And so they are taking on the challenge > by pouring lots of resources into robotic research and development. A large > mobile robot that can pick up and move elderly patients from bed to bed is > just one example. I believe that demographic declines is per se not a very good sign, but it is true that one reasons why slavist and immigrationist societies historically end up as losers may have to do with the fact that the wide availability of cheap labour unavoidably slows down technological innovation and leads to economic stagnation. The increased pressure on Japanese and German industries owing to the relatively high cost of manpower actually contributed to compensate in the post-war era the destruction of local economies by making them internationally more competitive in the long run. -- Stefano Vaj From Frankmac at ripco.com Sun Feb 8 18:51:23 2009 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 13:51:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency Message-ID: <60062C76C5B644128C792DC96C998519@FrankMcElligPC> Gross Nation Product is calculated as money supply (m1) times a mupltier which shows the number of times the money changes hands(being spent). If you print money and this government, check that, all of the world governments are, you will risk inflation, but if you do not spend the money being printed you risk deflation. Presently americans have stopped spending money and if the do not start spending soon, the deflation spiral will send us into a worldwide depression, and if history is correct a only a war will end it's hold. If the world begins to spend like they have before with all this money(m1) in the system you will get hype inflation and with the lost of money as an exchange it also will also cause a great depression. If you live in a country where hype inflation takes place you will expercience hardships most peoples can not endure. Check Russia in late 1998 as an example where bartering was a way of life. On this list it has been expressed to save yourself 'buying gold' was the safe thing to do, but the government will pass laws like they did in the 30's and they will take you gold away. Maybe gold coins would help, but have you considered buying a cartoon of milk will a maple leaf, and how do they make change for that tranaction. At present there are two views fighting in Washington, Keynes says have the government throw money at problem and the people will spend it, and then free capitalism which says let the marketplace(the strong survive) and we will have touch times but be stronger in the end. All I know is what my guy tells me, he's in jail now, but he said all of this will be over in 2011, and I am taking his advice and buying a shot gun. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Frankmac at ripco.com Sun Feb 8 19:24:53 2009 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 14:24:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency Message-ID: forgot the link for the previous post coming west to country you live in:) http://www.csmonito r.com/2009/ 0206/p07s03- woeu.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 8 20:34:42 2009 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 12:34:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <60062C76C5B644128C792DC96C998519@FrankMcElligPC> Message-ID: <662590.40247.qm@web36508.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 2/8/09, Frank McElligott wrote: > At present there are two views fighting in Washington, > Keynes says have the government throw money at problem and > the people will spend it, and then free capitalism which > says let the marketplace(the strong survive) and we will > have touch times but be stronger in the end. It seems to me that both sides want some Keynesian deficit-spending. They differ mainly on how much to spend, and how to spend it. Former presidential candidate and conservative Mitt Romney appeared on television a few weeks ago. He argued that because both businesses and consumers have sharply cut spending, reducing aggregate demand, there exists an urgent need for the government to step in immediately as the demander of last resort. Sounded like a passage right out of Keynes. (As others have pointed out, this thread has a misleading subject line. Better would be "Belief in Laissez Faire Capitalism".) -gts From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 9 01:11:45 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:11:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> Message-ID: <498F82D1.7080202@libero.it> Il 07/02/2009 13.35, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/7 painlord2k at libero.it: > >>>> You are free to do "public education" for your community in a >>>> libertarian >>>> world, if your community is willing to foot the bill. >>> That's what taxation is. >> Taxes and willing don't go together well. >> >> In the Italian languages a synonymous of "taxes" is "imposte" (the same of >> "imposed[s]" only a noun and not a verb). There is a reason because they are >> called so and not "Voluntary donations" or something else. > > People willingly vote to be taxed. Consider these options: People, in Italy, is not allowed to vote in referenda against taxes and international treaties. I don't know if, in the USA, is allowed to have referenda against federal taxes. I suppose not. Giving the need of the states for financial support from the Federal governments I would say that the Federal government has an easy way to control the local governments. And the people can not vote about this. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 9 01:34:17 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 02:34:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> Il 08/02/2009 12.39, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > Obviously it's facile to maintain that everything in a (nominal) > democracy has been put to the vote, therefore it must be OK. But I was > pointing out that there is this possible arrangement whereby I might > vote to have myself forcibly taxed, on the condition that everyone > else is also forcibly taxed. This is a voluntary contract despite the > fact that I may be coerced, since I am agreeing to be coerced. On the > other hand, if we allow anyone who doesn't agree to the contract to > opt out of it then it would never work: even if all the voters were > willing to be taxed if everyone else was also taxed, all might decline > to be taxed if by so doing they could opt out of the tax. If they pay not taxes, but pay for services offered, they will be able to opt out and not receive the service. Taxes are not a contract, because I can not sue the government for not providing a service. The government will not let me do it and don't accept to be tried by an impartial judge under impartial laws. Try to sue the government because the police don't protect you (even in clear and present danger) if you don't believe me. Mirco From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Mon Feb 9 03:00:51 2009 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:00:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <8E5DD27FC43445C08C7DC880A936E84D@spike> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it><4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it><498C815B.10004@libero.it><498D67A7.6000302@libero.it><580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <8E5DD27FC43445C08C7DC880A936E84D@spike> Message-ID: <5450A123820D4184B6ECF5F3F3FB006C@Catbert> "spike" wrote, > In the USA we are now very close to the point where the majority pays no > taxes. So voters willingly vote higher taxes on other people. The actual > tax payer is in the minority. Really? That's hard to believe. Do you have an statistics for this? I think I'm doing it wrong. :-) Seriously, the statistics at don't seem to agree with your statement. -- Harvey Newstrom From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Feb 9 04:44:51 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 22:44:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> interesting piece by old Brit sf writer/tech journo long in US: From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 9 05:15:39 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 21:15:39 -0800 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> > On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart > > interesting piece by old Brit sf writer/tech journo long in US: > > ts/fly_on_the_wal_154007.htm?page=0> Remind me, what is it about Walmart? I don't see why they are so picked on, although I find it hard to avoid ending that sentence with a preposition. They seem like good folks to me, good prices, big, what's not to like? Granted, the shoppers that trade there may be as sleazy as, well... me, but other than that, what? So why is Walmart so often onwardly picked? spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Feb 9 05:57:49 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:57:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208235617.02487ce8@satx.rr.com> At 09:15 PM 2/8/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: >Remind me, what is it about Walmart? I don't see why they are so picked on, Some of the comments after that story suggest a few reasons. Damien Broderick From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Feb 9 06:34:06 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2009 23:34:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208235617.02487ce8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090208235617.02487ce8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902082234g1e515466v88756dd156ebd745@mail.gmail.com> Charles Platt!! It's so good to see what he's been up to, lately. I got to know him well due to his work for Alcor and consider him a good friend. He patiently answered my questions about cryonics when I called up Cryocare many years ago. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 9 12:34:21 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 23:34:21 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> References: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/9 painlord2k at libero.it : > Il 08/02/2009 12.39, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > >> Obviously it's facile to maintain that everything in a (nominal) >> democracy has been put to the vote, therefore it must be OK. But I was >> pointing out that there is this possible arrangement whereby I might >> vote to have myself forcibly taxed, on the condition that everyone >> else is also forcibly taxed. This is a voluntary contract despite the >> fact that I may be coerced, since I am agreeing to be coerced. On the >> other hand, if we allow anyone who doesn't agree to the contract to >> opt out of it then it would never work: even if all the voters were >> willing to be taxed if everyone else was also taxed, all might decline >> to be taxed if by so doing they could opt out of the tax. > > If they pay not taxes, but pay for services offered, they will be able to > opt out and not receive the service. But if they want a service provided by universal taxation, that can't be obtained as well or at all any other way, that presents a problem. Police, defense, education and health are examples of such services which most people in most countries are willing to be taxed for. > Taxes are not a contract, because I can not sue the government for not > providing a service. The government will not let me do it and don't accept > to be tried by an impartial judge under impartial laws. > Try to sue the government because the police don't protect you (even in > clear and present danger) if you don't believe me. What you're talking about here is corrupt government systems. But if you eliminate elected officials and their proxies, what is to prevent a capitalist oligarchy like the Mafia from becoming the prevailing power? This is my main misgiving about anarchism: I don't like being controlled by government, but I would like being controlled by unfettered corporations even less. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 9 15:19:00 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:19:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> Message-ID: <49904964.40503@libero.it> Il 07/02/2009 12.14, BillK ha scritto: > On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 10:46 AM, painlord2k wrote: > But you want to set up a community big enough and strong enough to > fight off governments! How many volunteers do you expect to get? There is no need for many people, only for motivated and able people and a bit of money. The Minerva Republic fell mainly because the people there were not willing to fight. Tonga has 100 K inhabitants, so if you take away the old, the children and the female (not used to conquer, but useful to defend) and the people not willing or able to combat, you have only a little force that you need to stand off. Around 1-2k people. It is not need to destroy it, only to dissuade it from attack. And if the target is hardened, they will back off after tasting a bit of blood. Obviously, resisting an attack from US or Russia or China would be a bit more difficult. But they are too big to mess themselves in little troubles. UK Navy don't arrest pirates because they fear not being able to free themselves of them after for "Humanitarian reasons". Mirco From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Feb 9 16:01:54 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 10:01:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! Message-ID: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> Help us get the discussion going! Comment on the papers and help us get this human futures' discussion/debate going! http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ The Global Spiral's current issue is up and awaiting comments from readers http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ For those of you who are not aware of The Global Spiral, I'll briefly explain: Last June, 6 well-known thinkers wrote about issues of human enhancement technologies, uploads, the Singularity, posthumans, etc. through the lends of t ranshumanism. Global Spiral, June 2008 (Volume 9, Issue 3) - Special Issue on Transhumanism . It is the first of its kind. The authors were Hava Tirosh-Samuelson, Ted Peters, Katherine Hayles, Don Ihde, Jean-Pierre Dupuy, and Andrew Pickering (see below). The problem was that most of the papers were negative about human futures, and all made assumptive claims that were far from accurate. In response to the claims, 10 papers were submitted to counter their poorly researched claims. The papers in this Responsive are: " True Transhumanism" by Max More, Ph.D. " Trite Truths About Technology: A Reply to Ted Peters" by Russell Blackford, Ph.D. " In Defense of Posthuman Dignity" by Nick Bostrom, Ph.D. " Aubrey de Grey's Declaration, Endorsed by 15 Prestigious Biomedical Experts" by Aubrey de Grey, PhD. " Reproductive Choices: The Glorious Landscape of Assisted Reproductive Technology" by Amara Graps, Ph.D. " Bringing Arts/Sciences and Design Into the Discussion of Transhumanism" by Natasha Vita-More, PhD. candidate " Transhumanism: Threat or Menace? A Response to Andrew Pickering" by Michael LaTorra " From Mind Loading to Mind Cloning - Gene to Meme to Beme: A Perspective on the Nature of Humanity" by Martine Rothblatt, Ph.D. " Conceptualizing Future Identities" by Sky Marsen, Ph.D. " Ship of Fools: Why Transhumanism is the Best Bet to Prevent the Extinction of Civilization" by Mark Walker, Ph.D. The original papers we responded to are: Engaging Transhumanism: The Meaning of Being Human by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson - "If one accepts that transhumanism is more than an ideology, indeed a philosophy, one must look carefully at its understanding of the human, of biology, and of the relationship between technology and culture." more Of Which Human Are We Post? by Don Ihde - "...[O]nly if humans are stupid enough to end up worshiping the very idols they create, could the fantasized replacement of humans by machines take place." more Cybernetics Is An Antihumanism by Jean-Pierre Dupuy - "For there is no science that does not rest on a metaphysics, though typically it remains concealed. It is the responsibility of the philosopher to uncover this metaphysics, and then to subject it to criticism." more Wrestling with Transhumanism by Katherine Hayles - "One need not agree with Francis Fukuyama that transhumanism is 'the world's most dangerous idea' to appreciate the critiques of transhumanism enacted in science fiction." more Brains, Selves and Spirituality in the History of Cybernetics by Andrew Pickering - "All of the practices and states that I talk about in my paper are already marginalized in contemporary society-it feels vaguely embarrassing to talk about them in public. But at least the margins exist, and one can go there if one likes. The transhumanists would like to engineer them out of existence entirely and forever. Yes, I'm starting not to like transhumanism." more Transhumanism and the Posthuman Future by Ted Peters - "[T]ranshumanist assumptions regarding progress are naive, because they fail to operate with an anthropology that is realistic regarding the human proclivity to turn good into evil...[R]esearchers ...in genetics and nanotechnology should...maintain constant watchfulness for ways in which these technologies can become bent toward destructive purposes." more Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: att1b43b.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 9 15:56:17 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:56:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4988A0BE.2050209@libero.it> <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <498DFB0C.9000506@libero.it> Message-ID: <49905221.2020901@libero.it> Il 08/02/2009 14.20, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/8 painlord2k at libero.it: > But the simplest and most attractive thing to offer the population, > assuming they are greedy and economically ignorant, is increased > government spending and handouts (to the rich and middle class as well > as the poor: why limit your scope?) with reduced or nil taxation. This > recipe is rarely offered, as politicians feel the voters will see > through it, implying that the voters are not assumed to be completely > selfish and short-sighted idiots. Thus, the argument that people only > vote in favour of continuing taxation because they are selfish and > short-sighted idiots is shown to be flawed. This don't happen because the voters are not so stupid. As Bastiat stated, "The government is the big scam where all people think to live on the shoulder of the others". The trick is to make believe the single persons that they will receive more from the public treasury than it is collected from them. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Feb 9 19:04:40 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 12:04:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <49904964.40503@libero.it> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> <49904964.40503@libero.it> Message-ID: <2d6187670902091104m4caa61cdn4510654f72182550@mail.gmail.com> mirco wrote: Tonga has 100 K inhabitants, so if you take away the old, the children and the female (not used to conquer, but useful to defend) and the people not willing or able to combat, you have only a little force that you need to stand off. Around 1-2k people. It is not need to destroy it, only to dissuade it from attack. And if the target is hardened, they will back off after tasting a bit of blood. >>> Hey, I grew up in Alaska, and it has a large immigrant Tongan population. An average Tongan is about twice the size of your standard non-Tongan/non-Samoan American (or at least it seems like it...)! lol I found them to be a friendly people and have a fond memory of eating dinner at a Tongan friend's house as his wife stuffed me full, almost to the bursting point, with their native delicacies. She felt I desperately needed some fattening up. The royal family of Tonga has had many shrewd chiefs and kings who knew how to work with and play off the major powers of their day. And Tonga even has a "space program" of sorts due to some spaceways they licensed for satellite use (for other nations and corporations to rent). I would say not bad for such a small nation! lol If a hostile foreign power invaded Tonga (they don't have oil reserves so this would be highly unlikely), it would be likely that England and/or the United States (the U.S. would quickly get involved due to the Mormon Church leadership strongly lobbying for military involvement, due to so many Tongans being Mormon, both in the U.S. itself and Tonga) would come to their aid. And so my contribution to this post thread is that a tiny nation, whether centuries old or a very recent construct, needs large and powerful friends to help ward off trouble from even getting started. And so a micro-power would need very capable diplomats to maintain their alliances. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 9 19:09:18 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:09:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: <580930c20902080626t347ef158g6fcb10d6cec3ec26@mail.gmail.com> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> <2d6187670902072037h14fe7c6fg313ce92d220a623@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20902080626t347ef158g6fcb10d6cec3ec26@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49907F5E.2060804@libero.it> Il 08/02/2009 15.26, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > Yes, this is a fair description of the scenario we are faced with, but > I would remove the qualification "at least". A political and > business/corporate block exists in those countries which favours a new > slave trade on the basis of both short-term private interests and > ideological "humanitarian" alibis. Add a few parties hope to "import" voters, so they make immigration easy and requirements for acquiring citizenship easier. This in Italy is a bit more difficult than in other places of Europe, like the UK, where aliens could obtain the citizenship in 5 years against the 10 years of Italy. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Feb 9 19:40:38 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 12:40:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <2d6187670902091140h7aa55ff7j4433b52045ca80e6@mail.gmail.com> *C'mon people, fall in behind Natasha and do as she asked in posting to the Global Spiral website!!* * The articles in defense of transhumanism are excellent, but we need to take the next step by showing there is a vibrant and thoughtful community of like-minded individuals out there, who support their intellectual vanguard.* * http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/* John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Feb 9 21:20:37 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 16:20:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902091140h7aa55ff7j4433b52045ca80e6@mail.gmail.com> References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> <2d6187670902091140h7aa55ff7j4433b52045ca80e6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090209162037.mp4jawcuww84ww0g@webmail.natasha.cc> Thank you John. I am surprised that the original post went fairly unnoticed on this list. Can we please change this quietness and turn it around to a proactive approach? Many thanks, Natasha Quoting John Grigg : > *C'mon people, fall in behind Natasha and do as she asked in posting to the > Global Spiral website!!* > * > The articles in defense of transhumanism are excellent, but we need to take > the next step by showing there is a vibrant and thoughtful community of > like-minded individuals out there, who support their intellectual vanguard.* > > > * http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/* > > John : ) > From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 9 23:54:31 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:54:31 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <49905221.2020901@libero.it> References: <4989C677.1000808@libero.it> <498B210D.4050308@libero.it> <498C8245.8080909@libero.it> <498DFB0C.9000506@libero.it> <49905221.2020901@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/10 painlord2k at libero.it : > The trick is to make believe the single persons that they will receive more > from the public treasury than it is collected from them. Peoples' bias is to underestimate their potential need for government services and to prefer to look after their own money, so that for example they can decide to opt out of paying for public health insurance or public education if they so wish. I don't have any references but I strongly suspect that a survey in most countries would indicate that a majority of voters expect they will directly receive less from the government in services than they pay in taxes. But they support continuing taxation because in addition to direct benefits they believe they will obtain the indirect benefits of living in a well-functioning society. For example, a childless person might support public education. -- Stathis Papaioannou From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Mon Feb 9 23:22:40 2009 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 18:22:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> Message-ID: "spike" wrote, > Remind me, what is it about Walmart? Try Googling "What is wrong with Walmart." Also try: Google "Walmart is good" - 667 references Google "Walmart is bad" - 5290 references Google "Walmart is evil" - 9660 references -- Harvey Newstrom From spike66 at att.net Tue Feb 10 02:01:58 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 18:01:58 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: ________________________________ ...On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More ... "In Defense of Posthuman Dignity " by Nick Bostrom, Ph.D. ... Thanks Natasha. I haven't seen it discussed here, but I expect many here saw the treatment of one of our own former posters, Nick Bostrom, on page 73 of the January 2009 evolution issue of Scientific American. I didn't like the commentary on transhumanism, but I think highly of Peter Ward, so I have said nothing. Perhaps someone could ask Nick to post his take on the article? Anders? spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 02:44:37 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:44:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> Message-ID: <2d6187670902091844s47682d98j41307160be0f7d7@mail.gmail.com> Harvey wrote: > Try Googling "What is wrong with Walmart." > > Also try: > Google "Walmart is good" - 667 references > Google "Walmart is bad" - 5290 references > Google "Walmart is evil" - 9660 references > Or try googling "Walmart and the Mark of the Beast" http://sausyblue.blogspot.com/2006/03/mark-of-beast.html http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread359513/pg1 http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_implants06.htm http://www.soundanalarm.net/TheMarkoftheBeast.html >From the Sound an Alarm website: Consider the human body as well. Applied Digital Solutions has designed an RFID tag - called the VeriChip - for people. Only 11 mm long, it is designed to go under the skin, where it can be read from four feet away. They sell it as a great way to keep track of children, Alzheimer's patients in danger of wandering, and anyone else with a medical disability, but it gives me the creeps. The possibilities are scary. In May, delegates to the Chinese Communist Party Congress were required to wear an RFID-equipped badge at all times so their movements could be tracked and recorded. Is there any doubt that, in a few years, those badges will be replaced by VeriChip-like devices? >>> John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Feb 10 03:04:29 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 19:04:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com><9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> Message-ID: <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom > Subject: Re: [ExI] undercover at Walmart > > "spike" wrote, > > Remind me, what is it about Walmart? > > Try Googling "What is wrong with Walmart." > > Also try: > Google "Walmart is good" - 667 references Google "Walmart is > bad" - 5290 references Google "Walmart is evil" - 9660 references > > -- > Harvey Newstrom Thanks Harvey. I see a possible problem with this google approach however. Only those who actually shop at Walmart should be consulted, ja? Perhaps the typical satisfied Walmart customer has no computer? Or cannot write? Perhaps many who wrote "Walmart is evil" are retail competitors? It is easy to estimate a typical Walmart flow rate of 5 customers per minute, so about 300 per hour or perhaps 2000 per day per Walmart, taking into account slow shopping hours. If we assume 1000 Walmarts in the US, which I expect is low, that's about a couple million shoppers go to Walmart per day. One can assume those who patronize Walmart are in the "Walmart is good" column, otherwise they would take their trade elsewhere. This is against 10 thousand people who posted that Walmart is evil. Walmart wins, 200 to 1. Their website claims Walmart has saved American families over 31 billion dollars this year. http://www.savemoneylivebetter.com/ That stunning figure is nearly four percent (!) of the amount the government is proposing to spend on a stimulus package. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 03:54:02 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 20:54:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> Message-ID: <2d6187670902091954l38ea59e4gb3f320066a31f73a@mail.gmail.com> spike wrote: >That stunning figure is nearly four percent (!) of the amount the >government is proposing to spend on a stimulus package. Only four percent? Damn. Walmart still has a long long way to go... I wonder what the U.S. government would be like if it *merged* with Wally-world. "Gov-Mart" What a concept! John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 04:12:05 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 23:12:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902092012m18c1e16fudae45dacc591d389@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:04 PM, spike wrote: > > >> ...On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom >> Subject: Re: [ExI] undercover at Walmart >> >> "spike" wrote, >> > Remind me, what is it about Walmart? >> >> Try Googling "What is wrong with Walmart." >> >> Also try: >> Google "Walmart is good" - 667 references Google "Walmart is >> bad" - 5290 references Google "Walmart is evil" - 9660 references >> >> -- >> Harvey Newstrom > > > Thanks Harvey. I see a possible problem with this google approach however. > Only those who actually shop at Walmart should be consulted, ja? Perhaps > the typical satisfied Walmart customer has no computer? Or cannot write? > Perhaps many who wrote "Walmart is evil" are retail competitors? ### Spike, as a former Walmart-hater I suggest that it comes from a combination of whiterpeople disdain for the proles and simple arrogant ignorance about the issue (I no longer exhibit either of these weaknesses). Visit Carpe Diem for more truth about Walmart, e.g. http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/02/wal-mart-is-not-enemy-its-poster-child.html I am happy to see that the ExI list still has some ppl fighting for freedom, truth, and everything that's good and proper. Keep it up Spike! Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 04:17:09 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 23:17:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902092012m18c1e16fudae45dacc591d389@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <7641ddc60902092012m18c1e16fudae45dacc591d389@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902092017x1a377a5cge7cec63e289d112d@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 11:12 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> Thanks Harvey. I see a possible problem with this google approach however. >> Only those who actually shop at Walmart should be consulted, ja? Perhaps >> the typical satisfied Walmart customer has no computer? Or cannot write? >> Perhaps many who wrote "Walmart is evil" are retail competitors? > > ### Spike, as a former Walmart-hater I suggest that it comes from a > combination of whiterpeople disdain for the proles and simple arrogant > ignorance about the issue (I no longer exhibit either of these > weaknesses). Visit Carpe Diem for more truth about Walmart, e.g. > http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2009/02/wal-mart-is-not-enemy-its-poster-child.html ### Oops, I just noticed I am linking to the story that started the thread in the first place.... Well, Carpe Diem has lots of other good stuff about Walmart, like: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/07/wal-mart-no-effect-on-small-businesses.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/12/wal-mart-gives-consumers-400-million.html http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2007/03/invisible-hand-of-wal-mart.html Rafa; From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Tue Feb 10 04:01:45 2009 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 09 Feb 2009 23:01:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com><9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> Message-ID: <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> "spike" wrote, > Thanks Harvey. I see a possible problem with this google approach > however. > Only those who actually shop at Walmart should be consulted, ja? Perhaps > the typical satisfied Walmart customer has no computer? Or cannot write? > Perhaps many who wrote "Walmart is evil" are retail competitors? You dare question the Wisdom of Google? (Shhhh! It will hear you... It never sleeps... It knows all....) I, for one, welcome our index-oid overlords... Besides, they probably have a different good/evil rating as it relates to their customers, their communities, their employees, and their competitors. Although I agree that competitors not be considered, I see no reason to exclude communities or employees from describing the Good/Bad/Evil that is Walmart. > One can assume those who patronize Walmart are in the "Walmart is > good" column, otherwise they would take their trade elsewhere. This is > against 10 thousand people who posted that Walmart is evil. Walmart wins, > 200 to 1. True, but only for people who can afford to choose. How many people shop at Walmart because they can't afford not to? How many rich people prefer Walmart even though they could shop somewhere else? And are there really choices in that price range, or is Walmart close to a monopoly in certain neighborhoods and income brackets? -- Harvey Newstrom From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 05:12:11 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 16:12:11 +1100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> Message-ID: 2009/2/10 spike : > Thanks Harvey. I see a possible problem with this google approach however. > Only those who actually shop at Walmart should be consulted, ja? Perhaps > the typical satisfied Walmart customer has no computer? Or cannot write? > Perhaps many who wrote "Walmart is evil" are retail competitors? Add to that the fact that unhappy customers are much more likely to take the trouble of giving a bad review. The eBay rating system to a large extent avoids this problem, reflecting more accurately the views of the buyers and sellers. -- Stathis Papaioannou From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Feb 10 05:26:10 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2009 23:26:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Hi Spike, I have no idea what you are referring to, but I my post was about the current issue of The Global Spiral academic journal of which I am the guest editor, which features 10 authors we know very well whose papers cover transhumanist issues concerning human futures. http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 07:03:21 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 08:03:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <498D669B.50507@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902092303r2f1079aeta9b4b7ed1a6b0965@mail.gmail.com> It is probably fantasyland, and yes Egan's Distress shows what happens to independent communities, but I am very fond of the idea of small, independent communities. I know it won't happen anytime soon, but I look forward to the fragmentation of today's nation states in small independent communities. The would would become a better place. G. On Sat, Feb 7, 2009 at 11:46 AM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 06/02/2009 19.45, Damien Broderick ha scritto: >> >> At 07:28 PM 2/6/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >> >>> I always say that, if and when will be possible to have new >>> communities out of the reach of governments, will be possible to >>> explore and try these approaches and many others. Then, we will see >>> what communities will be able to prosper and who will not. And what >>> system really work and what not. >> >> I always say that people of this opinion should read Greg Egan's >> fictional but very convincing picture of what will probably happen, in >> his novel DISTRESS. The artificial island Stateless is not *permitted* >> to remain "out of the reach of governments". > > This is because I'm a strong supporter of "Space Islands". > > A community can become and remain free if it is strong enough to dissuade > others from interfering with them and don't give them reasons strong enough > to combat a war against them. > Then, there is nothing that prevent a community of free people to win a war > against a government. It is matter only of resources, will and intelligence. > > 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 07:18:30 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 00:18:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <2d6187670902092318we74e9a7iefa316cc404f35f6@mail.gmail.com> Spike wrote: > Thanks Natasha. > > I haven't seen it discussed here, but I expect many here saw the treatment > of one of our own former posters, Nick Bostrom, on page 73 of the January > 2009 evolution issue of Scientific American. I didn't like the commentary > on transhumanism, but I think highly of Peter Ward, so I have said nothing. > > > Perhaps someone could ask Nick to post his take on the article? Anders? > >> I read the article you mentioned and the way the writer presented Nick Bostrom's ideas about the future of humanity was both frightening and depressing. He quoted Bostrom at the end of the piece, regarding a probable scenario where humans would need to be more and more upgraded & merged with machines (to stay competitive) and as a result would become less and less human in the ways we now treasure, in terms of love, family, children, dance, literature, the arts, etc.,. We would all become sucked into a horrible cyber-darwinian reality. *Nick Bostrom, "transhumanist bogeyman*" John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 11:35:34 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 11:35:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 4:01 AM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > True, but only for people who can afford to choose. How many people shop at > Walmart because they can't afford not to? How many rich people prefer > Walmart even though they could shop somewhere else? And are there really > choices in that price range, or is Walmart close to a monopoly in certain > neighborhoods and income brackets? > Nit-picking about Google stats is avoiding the Walmart problem. Walmart is only the peak of the mountain. >From the 1970s onward, western society changed from making things to buying things. So, 'borrow and spend' spread like wildfire. Credit cards were invented, second mortgages, 'leveraging', and all the financial wizardry. We shut our factories down and moved them to the third world. We saw no need to make stuff anymore. We became a consumer society, relying on borrowed money and working in service industries. Why spend time making something when you can buy it cheaper from China? Well, now we know why. And the millions unemployed and homeless know as well. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 14:45:42 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:45:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A long, surprisingly H+, article on energy, politics and economics... Message-ID: <580930c20902100645n6fd12049y600b2489fe27db96@mail.gmail.com> <? Get more from this author Posted in Science , 9th February 2009 11:21 GMT *Energise!* [ This week, *El Reg* brings you extracts this week from * Energise!* - a fresh look at energy policy and innovation - eds] Mary Shelley's novel *Frankenstein, or the modern Prometheus* (1818) suggested that human power over nature could lead to tragedy. Then, a century after Shelley's lone doctor foolishly experimented with human body parts and electricity, Karel Capek's play *Rossum's Universal Robots* ? performed in London in 1923 ? mixed biology with large-scale industrial processes, and had the resulting worker androids turn against their manufacturer. Movies soon developed the same theme. Man became subordinate to machine in Fritz Lang's *Metropolis* (1927), Stanley Kubrick's *2001* (1968), and James Cameron's *The Terminator* (1984). Still later, even software engineers had become nervous. As the 21st century began, Sun Microsystems co-founder Bill Joy argued that genetics, nanotechnology and robotics could conspire together to rid the planet of mankind. Today, environmentalism fears that continued industrialisation could warm the planet enough to annihilate it. Yet the world should resist such dystopias. Cheap energy is good for us all Unwittingly, a growing but chaotic civilisation on Earth has changed the planet's climate. Now, with a more conscious approach, people can gain still more civilisation by adopting a less chaotic energy regime. We believe that if the world could be more thoughtful about energy supply, individuals could be thoughtless about their energy use. This isn't irresponsible. What *has* proved irresponsible is the West's 30-year neglect of investment and innovation in energy supply. [image: Energise! Book Cover] Thoughtful ingenuity, not changes in consumer awareness or behaviour, is the way to exit today's energy crisis ? and the way to deal with a warming planet. The problem is that both energy firms and the state have abdicated responsibility for technological advance, preferring displacement activities in finance and elsewhere. Indeed, this abdication isn't peculiar to the energy sector, but general to capitalism today. An economic and technological programme for universal energy supply would have a broad political effect, too. It would energise humanity, by organising enough cheap energy for people to lead richer and freer lives. We must put energy in perspective, however. Just as questions of energy cannot be reduced to climate change, neither can the fate of the world be reduced to energy. Innovations in energy supply need to accompany innovations in other sectors, if the root causes of backwardness around the world ? and of genuine environmental degradation ? are to be tackled. Alongside other investments, though, energy can help humanise the planet and make it a delight to live on. Human beings are multi-talented. By integrating energy innovations with other innovations, human beings can do more than just survive. They can make the environment a place where they can better realise their potential. Mitigating or adapting to climate change isn't as desirable as developing a 30-50 year gale of new-generation technologies, in energy and elsewhere, aimed at transforming the planet in a human direction. But to meet the world's needs to recover a sense of human capabilities in innovation, both in and beyond the energy sector. Some of our science is missing It's vital that people get serious about basic scientific research conducted entirely for its own sake. In March 2008, Britain's Science and Technology Facilities Council announced that it could no longer finance Cheshire-based Jodrell Bank, one of the world's leading centres of radio astronomy. As the *Times* noted, the proposed saving of ?2.5m a year was equivalent to the grants and subsidies paid out to the Prince of Wales in 2007. In 2008, the heir to the British throne gets more funding than research into fundamental aspects of the universe. There's no predictable or measurable 'pay-off' for basic physics, so it's left to languish. In 2004, the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) showed just how much nuclear fusion is valued in Britain. In its largest ever grant allocation, the EPSRC lavished ?48m on the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) at its Culham site in Oxfordshire. Over four years, this amounted to just ?12m a year. How unambitious! People need to know how contemptuous Western elites can be toward scientific research. Sir David King, previously the government's chief scientist, used the opening of the CERN Large Hadron Collider experiment in Geneva in 2008 to suggest that it was 'all very well' to search for fundamental particles, but that 'we need to pull people towards perhaps the bigger challenges where the outcome for our civilisation is really crucial' ? in other words, toward climate change. Again, this reveals distinctly low horizons. Research, investment and the Enron paradigm In 1969, Robert Rathbun Wilson, the US physicist who built Fermilab, the world's highest-energy particle accelerator laboratory, addressed the Congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy. Rhode Island Senator John Pastore asked Wilson to spell out what research into high-energy particle physics would do to improve the defence of the United States. Wilson gave a reply that went down in scientific history. Fermilab, he said, had "nothing to do directly with defending our country, except to make it worth defending". Civilisation needs to recreate the pride in human curiosity that Wilson evoked. Research into the secrets of the nucleus, like earthbound or space-bound technology that improves mankind's grasp of the cosmos, is worth defending in its own right ? even if it brings no benefits to energy supply. That said, we've no doubt that such research will, over the course of the 21st century, help the world put together some impressive advances in the generation and transmission of energy. "Financial engineering takes precedence over physical engineering" The financialisation of the firm substitutes for genuine innovation The West has a slothful record on innovation, especially in energy. As the IPCC's Working Group III puts it, a technology and R&D response to the challenge of climate 'has not occurred'. In the US, weak investment by general business is the context for dismal investments in energy R&D, whether public or private. Between 1959 and 2007, the ratio of gross private investment to America's GNP hovered around 15 per cent. By way of comparison, in continental Europe in the 1950s, the ratio of gross fixed investment to GDP mostly exceeded 25 per cent. In China in 2004, the ratio of total fixed capital formation to GDP was an astonishing 41 per cent. Worse, from 1999 to 2005, US outlays on non-residential equipment and software dropped from 55 to 45 per cent of gross private fixed investment, while those on housing rose from little more than 25 per cent to nearly 40 per cent. US investment has tilted toward housing and, since 2005, toward commercial property. The main innovations have been in finance, not engineering or energy. In the US but also beyond, 'new product development' often has had little to do with technological innovation, and everything to do with new forms of finance. And nowhere has the broad financialisation of the firm and of industry been clearer than in energy. The practices of Enron ? once the world's largest firm trading energy and America's seventh biggest corporation ? have proved more exemplary than exceptional. Just as Enron started out mainly in gas pipelines and ended up mainly in financial instruments known as derivatives, so the 'business models' favoured by energy firms today tend to focus on streams of revenue, not streams of fuel. Derivatives are ways of betting on the price movements of a thing rather than buying the thing itself. During the post-war boom, one could bet on the future price only of basic commodities such as wheat. But in 1972, the collapse of fixed rates of exchange for currencies led the Chicago Mercantile Exchange to offer international businesses the chance to speculate and especially insure themselves through bets on currency futures. Then, in 1974 and 1978 respectively, gold and energy futures began to be traded. Today's market for derivatives, however, only emerged in the 1980s, when the discipline of risk management expanded out from corporate finance departments into every aspect of business practice. It was in the 1980s that the desire to hedge against the future price of everything ? currencies, interest rates, raw materials, the stock market ? established burgeoning derivatives markets not just on exchanges, but also among private parties. In the late 1990s, Enron began to offer derivatives related to energy prices and future weather conditions over the Web. In this way it was able to capitalise on investors' fears. Meanwhile, the relative weakness of US business investment, again born of risk aversion, meant that there was plenty of cash around for Enron to borrow ? at low rates of interest. Since the 1980s, the energy sector has helped deepen capitalism's general preference for corporate acquisitions over innovation. Whingeing and preaching In his book *The Culture of Complaint* (1993), the Australian critic Robert Hughes brilliantly attacked a divisive trend: approaching politics as a plaintiff or a supplicant victim. Consumer complaints about energy utilities were not among Hughes' chosen targets. Nevertheless, he implicitly anticipated how in 1998 complaining about utilities became institutionalised. In New South Wales, Australia, six electricity suppliers and one transmission company set up an Ombudsman to handle complaints. The following year, Britain's Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (OFGEM) was formed. Today, it declares the protection of consumers its 'first priority'. In 2000, too, the British government also established Energywatch, a watchdog whose mission was 'to get the best deal we can for energy consumers'. Posturing politicians like to present the consumer as vulnerable to rapacious energy utilities, always out to rip people off on prices and skimp on customer service. The truth about energy today, however, is a little more complicated. Take the fashionable concept of 'energy services'. Here, the supply of power and heat to a home or organisation is nothing compared to the multi-faceted service relationships that electricity and gas utilities now want with their customers. Forget kilowatts and kilojoules; think billing, call centres, web sites and IT systems for customer relationship management. Utilities now believe that their task is to increase customer loyalty, stop customers defecting to other suppliers ('churn'), flaunt Green credentials, and build trust ? not just with consumers, but also with state regulators. Energy innovation has now been largely reduced to... discounts for use at weekends. In energy services, the ghost of Enron lives on. It's possible to be in the virtual, financial energy business more than in real energy supply. Meanwhile, governments preach the red herring of conservation. "Only in today's dumbed-down society can metaphors successfully pass as theories" In the summer of 2008, the UK householder's bill for energy topped around ?1300 ? high not just for the poor, but for middle-class homeowners too. In the autumn of the same year, Gordon Brown announced a ?1bn initiative for conservation measures, including insulation. But the problem is that going Green in home energy means more than just adding insulation. To maximise energy efficiency means redesigning complete building envelopes to incorporate heat recovery through mechanical ventilation systems. In practice, that would require making houses with integral air-conditioning, or 'active houses'. People are right to suspect that insulation - like the microgeneration of electricity from people's homes - may turn out to be a fool's errand. No wonder the government finds them 'reluctant' to change their behaviour, even when it insists that efficiency measures are 'demonstrably cost effective'. Schumpeter's 'gale of creative destruction' vs business models When in 1942 the economist Joseph Schumpeter famously described capitalism as being in a 'perennial gale of creative destruction', he wasn't just reflecting on technological advance during the war. Competition with and the destruction of commercial rivals was also his focus. These things now occurred, Schumpeter argued, not just by changes in price, product quality or sales volume, but also by a new, 'powerful lever' behind long-term improvements in output and cheapness: new consumer goods, technologies and methods of production or transport, as well as new markets, sources of supply and forms of organisation. Thus technology formed only a part of Schumpeter's approach to economic development. While Schumpeter's comprehensive approach had merits, today's experts in innovation go too far. They give a nod to R&D; but they add and implicitly prefer just about any other stratagem to it. Business models have the last word, and innovation can mean whatever you want. What these models have in common is a limited amount of genuine technological innovation; a stress on expensive, high-margin consumables and software; an attempt to drive up switching costs on the part of users ('lock-in' to proprietary systems); a reliance on advertising, branding, retailing, franchising, and more or less regular 'hits' on users' finances. Mobile phone companies, digital TV broadcasters and Internet Service Providers have scores of formulae for their subscriptions and call rates. In energy, utilities do something similar. The net result, however, has been consumer annoyance that, for all the babble about payment regimes, basic service can often go wildly wrong. Dumbing us down with User-centeredness and Open Innovation Today we see an emphasis on user-centeredness and open innovation, while R&D is stagnant in the West. Management consultants Booz Allen propose that 'just throwing money' at R&D 'isn't the answer'. In fact, throwing money at energy R&D would make a change. What the world confronts today is not a knowledge economy, but rather a relative scarcity of knowledge. People no more live in a knowledge or network economy than they live in a consumer society. Knowledge is the basis for innovation, but the fact is that the world doesn't have enough of that either. People never lived in the atomic age or the space age. They are not engaged in life after the oil crash; nor are they about to move into a hydrogen economy. In the same superficial vein, open, networked ecosystems of innovation represent a disingenuous reading of the field through the spectacles of IT and of biology. There's no reason why technological and other kinds of innovation should resemble the flow of electrons around a physical grid, and no reason why the conscious, human activity of innovation should emulate the unconscious, Darwinian world of random mutation and natural selection. Analogies and metaphors are all very well. But only in today's dumbed-down society can they successfully pass as theories. To present innovation in ecological terms is to make a new twist on an old myth. Indeed, the illusion that the Earth's ecosystem, rather than human activity, is the key source of wealth is now deeply embedded in mainstream economics. Yet genuinely innovative physical grids - in electricity, broadband, hydrocarbons and water - are more important to a humanised planet than rhetoric about networked innovation. We have no doubts about the potential, in new technologies, for innovation on a grand scale. But as we have shown there are significant barriers to that kind of innovation. So long as precaution and environmentalism dominate the thinking of society, today's boom in wind turbines is unlikely to assume the dimensions of Schumpeter's gale.(R) (c) Adapted with kind permission of the authors. You can buy *Energise!* at Amazon here.>> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/09/woudhuysen_energise_1/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Feb 10 15:18:15 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 09:18:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902092318we74e9a7iefa316cc404f35f6@mail.gmail.com> References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> <2d6187670902092318we74e9a7iefa316cc404f35f6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <36241B7F425D40718BC444F470A6D701@DFC68LF1> This is an entirely differnt subject that the Global Spiral's Responsive Issue on Transthumanism. http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ As interesting as your topic may be, right please stay on topic in congratulating the authors of this issue whose papers are outstanding. (I'll resend it to the list) :-) Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More _____ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Grigg Sent: Tuesday, February 10, 2009 1:19 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! Spike wrote: Thanks Natasha. I haven't seen it discussed here, but I expect many here saw the treatment of one of our own former posters, Nick Bostrom, on page 73 of the January 2009 evolution issue of Scientific American. I didn't like the commentary on transhumanism, but I think highly of Peter Ward, so I have said nothing. Perhaps someone could ask Nick to post his take on the article? Anders? >> I read the article you mentioned and the way the writer presented Nick Bostrom's ideas about the future of humanity was both frightening and depressing. He quoted Bostrom at the end of the piece, regarding a probable scenario where humans would need to be more and more upgraded & merged with machines (to stay competitive) and as a result would become less and less human in the ways we now treasure, in terms of love, family, children, dance, literature, the arts, etc.,. We would all become sucked into a horrible cyber-darwinian reality. Nick Bostrom, "transhumanist bogeyman" John -------------- 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 possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 21:42:02 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:42:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "How not to look old" Yahoo news Message-ID: <2d6187670902101342x4715ffeeq599c64202e8be4be@mail.gmail.com> http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090210/hl_time/08599187771700 It's a question surely as old as vanity itself: How can you look young forever? A forthcoming studyin the journal *Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery* offers one surprising idea: as you age, don't be afraid to put on a few pounds. Fat, it turns out, can significantly smooth out wrinkles and give you a younger-looking face. (Read "Beth Teitell: On Not Looking Old." ) The authors of the new study, a team led by Dr. Bahman Guyuronof Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, are plastic surgeons who study faces for a living. They analyzed photographs of the faces of 186 pairs of identical twins taken at the Twins Days Festival, a sort of twin-pride event held every summer in (naturally) Twinsburg, Ohio. Because the pairs had identical genetic material, differences in how old they looked could be attributed entirely to their behavioral choices and environment. Guyuron's team had the twins fill out extensive questionnaires about their lives - everything from how many times they had married to whether they regularly used sunscreen. Then a panel of four judges independently estimated the twins' ages by looking at photos taken in Twinsburg. (See pictures from the Annual Twins Days Festival. ) The Guyuron team's most interesting findings had to do with weight. Many of the twin pairs were of similar weight, but differences in how old they looked began to appear when one had a body mass index (BMI)at least four points higher than the twin sibling. For twin pairs under 40, the heavier one looked significantly older. But surprisingly, after 40, that same four-point difference in BMI made the heavier twin look significantly * younger*. (Read "Aging Gracefully.") The study's authors theorize that "volume replacement" - that is, fat filling in wrinkles - accounts for the rejuvenated appearance of the over-40 twins. This theory was supported even more dramatically among twins older than 55. For them, having as much as an eight-point-higher BMI than their twin was associated with a younger appearance in the face. (Read "A Brief History of Multiple Births." ) Guyuron doesn't recommend that people gain weight just to look younger, and one limitation of his study is that the Twinsburg photos included only faces. If they had shown the whole body, the judges may have knocked a couple of years off the age estimates of those who had kept a youthful figure - and added a couple of years for those who were well fed in the middle. The paper also makes clear that, weight aside, healthy living is crucial for keeping a youthful face. The siblings who smoked and didn't wear sunscreen looked significantly older than those who avoided cigarettes and tanning. Those twins who had been divorced also looked older (by about 1.7 years) than the twins who had not. (They also looked older than those who had stayed single, which reinforces a point I made in this article: you are better off staying single than getting into a bad relationship.) Finally - and this was the cruelest finding - those who had taken antidepressants also looked older than their twins who hadn't. In other words, if the misery of your divorce doesn't age you, your attempt to treat it with Prozac might. Guyuron and his colleagues believe this unjust fact has something to do with the drooping relaxation of facial muscles that antidepressants can cause. The bottom line is that if you care mostly about a young-looking face, don't smoke, don't spend time in the sun without protection, and try not to get into a bad relationship that will make you depressed. Instead, this summer at the beach, stay inside and have an ice cream. Make it a double scoop. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 21:49:51 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 13:49:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] "How not to look old" Yahoo news In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902101342x4715ffeeq599c64202e8be4be@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902101342x4715ffeeq599c64202e8be4be@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30902101349w7fc490bcxfe0590be875daff4@mail.gmail.com> The old fashionista saw: "Choose between your face or your ass" proves to be true. PJ On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 1:42 PM, John Grigg wrote: > http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/20090210/hl_time/08599187771700 > > It's a question surely as old as vanity itself: How can you look young > forever? A forthcoming study in the journal Plastic and Reconstructive > Surgery offers one surprising idea: as you age, don't be afraid to put on a > few pounds. Fat, it turns out, can significantly smooth out wrinkles and > give you a younger-looking face. (Read "Beth Teitell: On Not Looking Old.") > > The authors of the new study, a team led by Dr. Bahman Guyuron of Case > Western Reserve University in Cleveland, are plastic surgeons who study > faces for a living. They analyzed photographs of the faces of 186 pairs of > identical twins taken at the Twins Days Festival, a sort of twin-pride event > held every summer in (naturally) Twinsburg, Ohio. Because the pairs had > identical genetic material, differences in how old they looked could be > attributed entirely to their behavioral choices and environment. Guyuron's > team had the twins fill out extensive questionnaires about their lives - > everything from how many times they had married to whether they regularly > used sunscreen. Then a panel of four judges independently estimated the > twins' ages by looking at photos taken in Twinsburg. (See pictures from the > Annual Twins Days Festival.) > > The Guyuron team's most interesting findings had to do with weight. Many of > the twin pairs were of similar weight, but differences in how old they > looked began to appear when one had a body mass index (BMI) at least four > points higher than the twin sibling. For twin pairs under 40, the heavier > one looked significantly older. But surprisingly, after 40, that same > four-point difference in BMI made the heavier twin look significantly > younger. (Read "Aging Gracefully.") > > The study's authors theorize that "volume replacement" - that is, fat > filling in wrinkles - accounts for the rejuvenated appearance of the over-40 > twins. This theory was supported even more dramatically among twins older > than 55. For them, having as much as an eight-point-higher BMI than their > twin was associated with a younger appearance in the face. (Read "A Brief > History of Multiple Births.") > > Guyuron doesn't recommend that people gain weight just to look younger, and > one limitation of his study is that the Twinsburg photos included only > faces. If they had shown the whole body, the judges may have knocked a > couple of years off the age estimates of those who had kept a youthful > figure - and added a couple of years for those who were well fed in the > middle. > > The paper also makes clear that, weight aside, healthy living is crucial for > keeping a youthful face. The siblings who smoked and didn't wear sunscreen > looked significantly older than those who avoided cigarettes and tanning. > Those twins who had been divorced also looked older (by about 1.7 years) > than the twins who had not. (They also looked older than those who had > stayed single, which reinforces a point I made in this article: you are > better off staying single than getting into a bad relationship.) > > Finally - and this was the cruelest finding - those who had taken > antidepressants also looked older than their twins who hadn't. In other > words, if the misery of your divorce doesn't age you, your attempt to treat > it with Prozac might. Guyuron and his colleagues believe this unjust fact > has something to do with the drooping relaxation of facial muscles that > antidepressants can cause. > > The bottom line is that if you care mostly about a young-looking face, don't > smoke, don't spend time in the sun without protection, and try not to get > into a bad relationship that will make you depressed. Instead, this summer > at the beach, stay inside and have an ice cream. Make it a double scoop. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 21:55:18 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 14:55:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new book about body image Message-ID: <2d6187670902101355o765c9c82m883eaa8133564a96@mail.gmail.com> A psychotherapist writes about the obsession with perfection... http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126947.300-why-do-we-need-bras-for-babies.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 10 22:17:16 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 15:17:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: <36241B7F425D40718BC444F470A6D701@DFC68LF1> References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> <2d6187670902092318we74e9a7iefa316cc404f35f6@mail.gmail.com> <36241B7F425D40718BC444F470A6D701@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <2d6187670902101417m453cdf7o2923c8c07d65b024@mail.gmail.com> Natasha Vita-More wrote: This is an entirely differnt subject that the Global Spiral's Responsive Issue on Transthumanism. http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ As interesting as your topic may be, right please stay on topic in congratulating the authors of this issue whose papers are outstanding. (I'll resend it to the list) >>> I apologize for not staying on-topic. The transhumanist essays at Global Spiral are very important (I should know) and deserve our full focus. John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brian at posthuman.com Tue Feb 10 23:15:37 2009 From: brian at posthuman.com (Brian Atkins) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 17:15:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> Message-ID: <49920A99.6080301@posthuman.com> Bill, there is nothing magical and wonderful about "making stuff" any more than there was about being a farm worker in the 19th century. "Making stuff" is well on its way to being highly automated and/or shifted to other means of cheaper and more efficient production (China, etc.) just as farming did previously. For anyone affected by this, it's time to find other kinds of jobs, not pine wistfully for a reversion back to the "golden old days". -- Brian Atkins Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence http://www.singinst.org/ From pharos at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 00:07:57 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:07:57 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <49920A99.6080301@posthuman.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <49920A99.6080301@posthuman.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 11:15 PM, Brian Atkins wrote: > Bill, there is nothing magical and wonderful about "making stuff" any more > than there was about being a farm worker in the 19th century. > > "Making stuff" is well on its way to being highly automated and/or shifted > to other means of cheaper and more efficient production (China, etc.) just > as farming did previously. > > For anyone affected by this, it's time to find other kinds of jobs, not pine > wistfully for a reversion back to the "golden old days". > -- I agree that manufacturing has been shifted to China, etc. That's what I was pointing out. Here is quite a long article discussing the destruction of the US manufacturing base. Quote: The U.S. economy long ago collapsed around domestic manufacturers. Now it's collapsing around the financial wizards who either forget or didn't know that their livelihoods depended on a robust industry and workers making livable wages. ---------- Fewer manufacturing jobs, fewer financial jobs, fewer general services jobs as the unemployed stop spending. So what do you suggest the western world should do? It's easy to say that all the unemployed should just find other jobs. Like, where??? Everyone can't work for the government. (Though it's starting to look like that in the UK). BillK From spike66 at att.net Wed Feb 11 02:32:37 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:32:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] reference to transhumanism in scientific american Was: Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! In-Reply-To: References: <15E26F11D98545019F5D65EAF95E9902@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <832AA7FE425743838E6C0F7B5B5F9283@spike> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Natasha Vita-More > Sent: Monday, February 09, 2009 9:26 PM > To: 'ExI chat list' > Cc: 'Anders Sandberg' > Subject: Re: [ExI] Human Futures: Comment to the Global Spiral! > > Hi Spike, I have no idea what you are referring to, but I my > post was about the current issue of The Global Spiral > academic journal of which I am the guest editor, which > features 10 authors we know very well whose papers cover > transhumanist issues concerning human futures. > > http://www.metanexus.net/magazine/ > Ja, I was citing Nick Bostrom's contribution and giving a reference to a commentary on Nick's work on transhumanism in Scientific American. I need to be more careful about changing the subject line methinks. {8-] spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Feb 11 02:51:09 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 18:51:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com><9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike><08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike><4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> Message-ID: <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... > Walmart is only the peak of the mountain. > > >From the 1970s onward, western society changed from making things to > buying things. ... > Why spend time making something when you can buy it cheaper > from China? > > Well, now we know why. And the millions unemployed and > homeless know as well. > > BillK BillK I see that problem but remind me, why this is Walmart's fault? We westerners have environmental standards, labor unions and high prices for workers in our country which would make it nearly impossible to produce goods as cheaply as China can churn them out and ship them over. The difference isn't small. Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, two jigsaws, three grinders. Each one cost me 11 bucks. Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! Their quality wasn't stellar, but acceptable. The only possible way western manufacturing can compete with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, a lights out factory, employing approximately one person. This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not building the robofactories when capital was still available. spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 05:02:37 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:32:37 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Personal Rapid Transit at Heathrow Message-ID: <710b78fc0902102102i32ffdfb9me18c4ecef8ff25bb@mail.gmail.com> Very sci-fi: Heathrow Airport in the UK is getting a PRT system. http://www.ultraprt.com/heathrow.htm There are great animations here, and some real footage of the system on a test track. Also, the construction is underway, and you can see some of that. They clearly have plans to expand it. I can't find where I read this, but somewhere it says that they are intending to expand the system eventually to go to the rental car facilities and to nearby hotels. See also this clip for Masdar City, in Abu Dhabi: http://www.technologyreview.com/video/?vid=241 -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 07:13:50 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:13:50 +1100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> Message-ID: 2009/2/11 spike : > Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, two jigsaws, three > grinders. Each one cost me 11 bucks. Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new > tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! Their quality wasn't stellar, > but acceptable. The only possible way western manufacturing can compete > with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, a lights out > factory, employing approximately one person. > > This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not building the robofactories > when capital was still available. It seems to me there is no good reason why the labour of a Chinese worker should be so much cheaper than that of an American or European worker. A massive rebalancing of exchange rates is needed. -- Stathis Papaioannou From sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com Wed Feb 11 04:12:47 2009 From: sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com (Belva Plain) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2009 21:12:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <49920A99.6080301@posthuman.com> Message-ID: > > It's easy to say that all the unemployed should just find other jobs. > Like, where??? Everyone can't work for the government. > (Though it's starting to look like that in the UK). What? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Tom D _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live?: E-mail. Chat. Share. Get more ways to connect. http://windowslive.com/explore?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_t2_allup_explore_022009 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pratt.cd at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 13:09:48 2009 From: pratt.cd at gmail.com (chris pratt) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:09:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902091954l38ea59e4gb3f320066a31f73a@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <2d6187670902091954l38ea59e4gb3f320066a31f73a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2b72fd410902110509r73344d9aibd5ca79f3592fa8d@mail.gmail.com> Go rent the movie Wall-E. See Gov-Mart in action :) later Chris On Mon, Feb 9, 2009 at 10:54 PM, John Grigg wrote: > spike wrote: > >That stunning figure is nearly four percent (!) of the amount the > >government is proposing to spend on a stimulus package. > > Only four percent? Damn. Walmart still has a long long way to go... I > wonder what the U.S. government would be like if it *merged* with > Wally-world. > > "Gov-Mart" What a concept! > > John > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Christopher Pratt http://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdpratt -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 13:27:53 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:57:53 +1030 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902110527k2e04646w5137882c555fa617@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/11 spike : > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org >> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK > ... >> Walmart is only the peak of the mountain. >> >> >From the 1970s onward, western society changed from making things to >> buying things. > ... >> Why spend time making something when you can buy it cheaper >> from China? >> >> Well, now we know why. And the millions unemployed and >> homeless know as well. >> >> BillK > > BillK I see that problem but remind me, why this is Walmart's fault? We > westerners have environmental standards, labor unions and high prices for > workers in our country which would make it nearly impossible to produce > goods as cheaply as China can churn them out and ship them over. The > difference isn't small. > > Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, two jigsaws, three > grinders. Each one cost me 11 bucks. Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new > tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! Their quality wasn't stellar, > but acceptable. The only possible way western manufacturing can compete > with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, a lights out > factory, employing approximately one person. > > This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not building the robofactories > when capital was still available. > > spike Hell yes, I totally agree with this Spike. Where are the robofactories? I don't think you get them when you have artificially cheap labour (in the past due to slaves, in the present due to exchange rates and sometimes actual slaves). A system built on slavery or almost-slavery is just not going to bother innovating. Fix that, and some interesting stuff might finally start happening again. In the meantime however, we just have artificially cheap gadgets and dumb tv. http://www.theonion.com/content/node/93143?utm_source=embedded_video -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 11 13:27:45 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:27:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090130194540.02335e18@satx.rr.com> <4985F463.6070804@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090201142736.0235e9e8@satx.rr.com> <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> Message-ID: <4992D251.3000406@libero.it> Il 07/02/2009 11.07, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > This is significant example of stupidity in action. You pose a problem > here that deceitfully suggests a clear and simple answer. > > There is immigration from poor countries. This causes significant stress > to demographics and institutions in modern, > civilized countries because the immigrants are poor, undereducated and > from rather savage and backward places. > Your complaint covers poor people who resent having their children be > educated in schools that have deteriorated > because of immigration. So my questions to you are: > > - is there any humane AND affordable way to stop immigration, including > people smuggling or desperate rafting? It is humane and affordable to not stop immigrations in these conditions? Including primarily the people smuggled (there is not "desperate rafting" in the Mediterranean). > - can immigration of undesirable poor people be reversed, again - > humanely and affordably? Can we let undesirable people inside and will it be humane and affordable for the desirable people inside and outside? > - can Italy do anything affordably and humanely to make sure emigrants > do not have an incentive to come and bother Is is humane and affordable for the immigrants enter and bother the local people? > poor struggling Italians, or cause immigrants in Italy to return or go > elsewhere? Is it humane and affordable force native Italians and legal immigrants to be forced to move from where they live to other places because of the other illegal immigrants? > - is there any affordable and humane tool politicians can use to make > sure backward and savage immigrants > integrate and become civilized faster, preferably somewhere later this year? They are politicians, not Gods or wizards. At best they are Wizards of Oz, nothing more. The best way to force people to integrate is to kick out the people that don't want integrate and is not able to integrate and the criminals (that usually are from both the two categories before). > My accusation is there is no answer to any of these questions, except > "stretching up what is regarded as humane > and affordable". When being "humane" lead to misery and extinction, maybe "humane" is not so humane. And it is not affordable to go in misery and be extinct. > No politician is able to deliver on any promise of > closed borders, not without ruining your economic > infrastructure. When did closed border become synonymous of no commerce with the outside? It is the flux of people that need to be controlled, not the flux of goods. Because people are not goods. > No politician is able to deliver on a promise of sending > back immigrants humanely and affordably. I will (and many other will do the same, at the end) settle with the "inhumane", if any "humane" way is not discovered. I prefer life to death, mainly my life to someone else death. Are you, or other, different? > Immigrants cannot be integrated in anything less than two, three > generations. This is a function of their ability and will to integrate and the willing of the original population to integrate them. I will say that in Europe and America, the natives are willing to integrate the immigrants as the opposition is very little. But many large groups of immigrants are not interested in integrating inside the native society. I never heard this complain about Philippines, for example. The complain are mainly about the M.E. people and Africans of Islamic faith. They have low IQ, so they have problems finding successful jobs and integrating and their faith support a racist, illiberal and violent behaviour. > Yes I am aware of these demographic disasters. We have problems with > backward and savage maroccans here in > the Netherlands, and many of them have gone retrograde in terms of > assimilation and integration - and yes they > behave precisely in a way as to be as contrary and unlikable as > possible. The new proverb is no longer "as stubborn > as a mule" but now has become "as stubborn as a maroccan". What would you expect by a group of people that have a IQ 20 points lower than the natives and is indoctrinated with a nazi-like ideology? > However the nightmare we are in is that we are not able to offer quick > solutions. If you demand any, or claim there > are, you are effectively lying, or trying to crowbar into place > "sinister or intransparant solutions" using the savage > immigrant issue as leverage. In the mid 20th century we could wait it > out - one or two generations of assimilations > weren't all that bad an expectation. But as even the NY times is > starting to notice that sociological and technological > trends are subject to a puzzling accelerating trend, we don't have that > time anymore. So, we are not able to wait and we have no time. So, the "sinister and dark solutions" could find a way, whatever we like or not. What is dangerous is that "one or two generations" are needed, but the present generation is taking a step backward and increasing in numbers. So we are, now, nearer an armed confrontation than before. I'm relatively sure that natives would, at the end, win the confrontations with the Muslims, but they and the others would pay a price much greater than any price we could pay now with any stark and strict policy. > The onlyshort-ter, solution we have is a bit roundabout - it is removing > the influence Islam has over this people. This could be done, but the leftist need to understand this. Until they are friends of the "poor and oppressed muslims" they will contrast any actions like this. Also, you could don't like it, but this can be done better and faster by the Christian churches (or Hindus or Buddhists) than by atheists and faithless people. > Islam as a force in the world is currently kept on IV drip by Wahabi > sociopaths in Saudi Arabia. That means - you and > everyone else who use the damn oil, is keeping Islamic evangelism alive > with a hefty subsidy via state sponsored mullahs > over there. I agree with this. The current oil bust is doing / will so more damage to the Wahabi and the IRI (don't discount them) than anything other short than a outright invasion (Genghis Khan style). > But I agree Islam is only a fraction of the problem - we > need to make societies all over the world about twice > as rich as they are now to start solving these problems. Wealth help solve problems only if you have the intelligence and will to use it correctly. Otherwise it is an amplificator of bad choices. > Right now by > exporting whole plainloads of economic power > abroad we are slowly strangling ourselves with our own hand. This needs > to stop, but I am not entirely sure how we > can do that. The current situation is imminently unstable. The current situation is inherently directed to an armed confrontation. The fronts are forming just now in Europe, if you look at the right hints you will note it. And surely many groups are planning ahead for this. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 14:31:35 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:31:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "polluting my home with unwanted people" In-Reply-To: References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090204152224.023520c8@satx.rr.com> <498C7A6A.2020207@libero.it> <580930c20902070732r2f6ae5d7u2f8de7c255dabbd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902110631n14ac4cb7h3362b4db4c097775@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 8, 2009 at 11:28 AM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > I say there are very few solutions in this area, and whats been done in > Europe and the US is not acceptable. The problem is we are stuck with this > situation and some people only make it WORSE by waving around a brick > of handwavium, suggesting that more cops, internment caps, barbed wire, > more prisons, stricter laws, more traditional values, prayer in schools, > laws against P0rN, sundayschool will make it all get better. Of course it would not, but we know for sure what is counterproductive, e.g., - destabilising governments in other countries which may be less than friendly to human cattle free-tradism and the egemony of western cultural norms in their societies; - reducing other countries, in the name of globalisation, to monocultural economies and supporting the power of local slavist ?lites in exchange for their international "political correctness"; - giving away full access for everybody to local welfare systems which are on the verge of breaking down anyway; - encouraging businesses to import low-cost human resources, supporting propaganda alleging that by doing so they would do well by doing good, and allowing them to externalise the related costs; etc. As to the "integration" of immigrants, I wonder whether Native Americans consider the arrival of the Europeans and the other ethnic groups which came with them as an example of successul "integration" in their own pre-existent society. It is not unusual that mass immigration does not leave anything behind to be integrated in... But to get back on-topic, one of my main concern is that such processes reduce and compress diversity and sovereignties, dope the economy in a way adverse to innovation, and makes for stagnant societies which I expect to be even less conducive to transhumanist ideas. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 11 14:36:50 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:36:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> Message-ID: <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> Il 09/02/2009 13.34, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > What you're talking about here is corrupt government systems. But if > you eliminate elected officials and their proxies, what is to prevent > a capitalist oligarchy like the Mafia from becoming the prevailing > power? This is my main misgiving about anarchism: I don't like being > controlled by government, but I would like being controlled by > unfettered corporations even less. Example of how Mafia like thugs and politically motivated extremists can become the prevailing power in a democracy (so it is not better than anarchy in this regard I suppose). I spare you the number of times the city councils of Italy were disbanded by authority of Home Minister for Mafia connections. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mp-who-pursued-racist-killers-to-quit-commons-after-death-threats-454319.html Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 15:43:14 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 08:43:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Kurzweil accused of being a first-rate bullshit artist Message-ID: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> "One thing I will say for Kurzweil , though, is that he seems to be a first-rate bullshit artist." http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/singularly_silly_singularity.php Last week I gave a copy of The Singularity is Near as a birthday gift to a friend working on a PhD in computer science. I look forward to hearing his opinion of the book when he's finished with it. 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URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 16:11:07 2009 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:11:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Kurzweil accused of being a first-rate bullshit artist In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:43 AM, John Grigg wrote: > "One thing I will say for Kurzweil, though, is that he seems to be a > first-rate bullshit artist." > > http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/singularly_silly_singularity.php I haven't read the book, but based on what I saw on that blog I'd have to disagree...that graph is second-rate bullshit, at best. -Dave From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 16:54:45 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:54:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> References: <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> Message-ID: That's not a fair comparison - maffia like organisations tend to thrive in third-world like countries, with a low capacity for democracy, like most muslim countries, (or Italy). I am personally convinced democracy is the only thing keeping the maffia in Italy from marching off nonpaying citizens to the ovens, as is the case in most of Iraq. In fact any Italian or Iraqi advocating some sort of sinister system of suspended laws (which these people euphemize as anarcocapitalism) is in my eyes being suspect of being a covert mob-enabler. It is like a poppy growing warlord in Afghanistan advocating "anarchocapitalism" because its good for free markets and globalization. Let me restate - any suggestion that democracy would be little use against the deeply embedded cultural heritage called "maffia" is immoral, self-serving, sinister, deeply corrupt and should be investigated for the full force of the law. It is the delerious blather of someone who has no historical consciousness, no human empathy, is spoiled rotten by modernity and modern luxuries. I'd even call it the nonsense spouted by a fool. 2009/2/11 painlord2k at libero.it > Il 09/02/2009 13.34, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > > What you're talking about here is corrupt government systems. But if >> you eliminate elected officials and their proxies, what is to prevent >> a capitalist oligarchy like the Mafia from becoming the prevailing >> power? This is my main misgiving about anarchism: I don't like being >> controlled by government, but I would like being controlled by >> unfettered corporations even less. >> > > Example of how Mafia like thugs and politically motivated extremists can > become the prevailing power in a democracy (so it is not better than anarchy > in this regard I suppose). I spare you the number of times the city councils > of Italy were disbanded by authority of Home Minister for Mafia connections. > > > http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/mp-who-pursued-racist-killers-to-quit-commons-after-death-threats-454319.html > > 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 stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 17:25:27 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:25:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902110925o4bd0416cp39e3f63e2cbef582@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 5:54 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > That's not a fair comparison - maffia like organisations tend to thrive in > third-world > like countries, with a low capacity for democracy, like most muslim > countries, (or > Italy). Thank you. :-) What about Al Capone-dominated Chicago? Was it in an aristocratic or teocratic or monarchist country? :-) -- Stefano Vaj From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 17:32:04 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:32:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902110925o4bd0416cp39e3f63e2cbef582@mail.gmail.com> References: <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> <580930c20902110925o4bd0416cp39e3f63e2cbef582@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: It was a pseudo-democratic oligarchy in deep constitutional crisis, overrun by Italian immigrants with a strong authoritarian, catholic and semi-feudal culture. A historical period where the US almost slipped into brasilification. We are in a comparable era in many places of the world, and if Italy were to be admitted to the EU today it would be next in line behind Kazachstan or Turkey. 2009/2/11 Stefano Vaj > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 5:54 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > > That's not a fair comparison - maffia like organisations tend to thrive > in > > third-world > > like countries, with a low capacity for democracy, like most muslim > > countries, (or > > Italy). > > Thank you. :-) > > What about Al Capone-dominated Chicago? Was it in an aristocratic or > teocratic or monarchist country? :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > 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 jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Feb 11 17:44:56 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:44:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Kurzweil accused by a fool of being a first-rate bullshit artist References: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <3AFBEF029F464B128AB65FF03DCAA13E@MyComputer> > The most obvious flaw is the way he lumps multiple events together as one > to keep the distribution linear. For example, one "event" is "Genus Homo, > Homo erectus, specialized stone tools", and another is "Printing, > experimental method" and "Writing, wheel". That is not Kurzweil's fault, it is in the nature of logarithmic plots. If you wanted those events treated separately you'd need a chart the size of a football field for the human eye to distinguish such closely spaced points. > why isn't each species back to the Cambrian awarded equivalent > significance? Because he's only interested in the most powerful information processing machine that existed in various eras and how their capacity has increased over time. He wasn't interested in a new species of nematodes and neither am I. John K Clark From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 18:04:27 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 19:04:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> <580930c20902110925o4bd0416cp39e3f63e2cbef582@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902111004h59af98a5nfe0140bedb0b386e@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > We are in a comparable era in many places of the world, and if Italy were > to be admitted to the EU today it would be next in line behind Kazachstan > or Turkey. Possibly... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From pjmanney at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 19:03:00 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 11:03:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Colbert and LA Times Book Review on The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton Message-ID: <29666bf30902111103o7eedc724u61fef8687f0fb9c2@mail.gmail.com> >From what I can see, the core of what he says is not exactly heresy -- in fact, it should seem pretty obvious -- but academic approaches to art suffer from extreme cultural correctness, cults of personality or doctrine and over-intellectualization and therefore, inaccuracy (or just plain ridiculousness), and he's swimming against this school of self-satisfied fish. Bless his little cotton socks for doing so. Once again, it comes back to generating empathy for biological fitness. Funny, that. PJ http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/217078/january-28-2009/denis-dutton http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-denis-dutton8-2009feb08,0,4082973.story >From the Los Angeles Times BOOK REVIEW 'The Art Instinct' by Denis Dutton Where do humanity's expressions of art come from? The author contends that they are biological--not only cultural. By Michael S. Roth February 8, 2009 The Art Instinct Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution Denis Dutton Bloomsbury Press: 280 pp., $25 Denis Dutton seems to have great ambitions in "The Art Instinct" as well as a willingness to court controversy. He wants to explain how art arises out of biological impulses that are universal. He also wants to develop a theory of art that shows that our practice of and judgments about the arts ought to be informed by an understanding of their innate, instinctual base. This seems so ambitious because many of us tend to think of art as a matter of personal or cultural preference. To discover the universal human biological underpinnings for this preference appears to be a staggering task. Dutton, a philosopher who curates the popular, useful website Arts & Letters Daily, tackles his assignment with wit, clarity and a basic reasonableness. He winds up overstating his case, but in doing so he raises important issues concerning biology and culture. Dutton describes how efforts to ensure that we are not imposing our own aesthetic categories on non-Western peoples have resulted in blindness to human commonality. There is an enormous intellectual and economic investment in the differences of art practices. In academic discussions of art, scholars have often been so enamored of difference that they have missed anything that might be shared or universal. What does Dutton mean by saying that art is grounded in universal biological impulses? It turns out that he's not saying anything very controversial because, viewed from a great distance, all human practices are ultimately grounded in biology. (Where else would they be grounded?) You like Britney Spears, and Dutton loves Beethoven. It turns out that both musical choices stem from the preferences that evolved in the Pleistocene environment. Dutton would say the same thing if you preferred Lil Wayne, Wagner, Javanese gamelan or Scottish bagpipe music. Biology really makes no difference to our judgments about music, except in the sense that we can always appeal to it as the ultimate ground of our pleasures and dislikes. Dutton knows this, of course, and he admits that cheesecake and Wagner speak to the same innate pleasures. So what's the point of appealing to the innate? The point is to underscore that art is universal and that all cultures have developed artistic practices. This is a controversial point, and Dutton argues for it convincingly. He shows that the aesthetic, like the erotic, arises spontaneously across the globe. It is not simply a biological adaptation but has developed because of the capacities that have played an adaptive function for our species. Biological adaptation is only half of the Darwinian toolbox from which Dutton draws. The other half is the concept of "sexual selection," which, he says, gives hope for a "complete theory of the origin of the arts." Darwin developed the idea of sexual selection to explain the apparently gratuitous or nonfunctional design of some animals. The classic example is the peacock's tail, which Darwin understood to be a sign of fitness that would attract mates. Dutton takes this idea and runs with it, and so he categorizes every display of skill -- from ornate language to technical drawing ability -- as a display of fitness. Anything that this philosopher thinks is important in the arts -- from readymades to storytelling -- he weaves into a story of fitness and sexual selection. Anything he doesn't think important (atonal music, for instance, or a desire to shock) is excluded from his narrative of attraction. Once Dutton asserts that "fitness displays" are no longer about sex but about human achievement, he feels free to ground his own preferences in a just-so story with biological metaphors. Claiming natural underpinnings for one's own tastes is an old-fashioned move to display the "fitness" of one's preferences, but calling this story Darwinian doesn't make it less circular. Despite these shortcomings, "The Art Instinct" is an important book that raises questions often avoided in contemporary aesthetics and art criticism. Dutton's familiarity with art practices and objects from New Guinea complement his enthusiastic embrace of a variety of canonical European art forms and artists. His arguments against major figures in the philosophy and anthropology of the arts are often devastating -- and amusing. Although I don't think he has quite made the case for the important biological grounds of our attraction to authenticity, he has woven a powerful plea for the notion that art expresses a longing to see through the performance or object to another human personality. Dutton thinks much recent art has "gone down the wrong track," and he has turned to biology to tell us why. Although he admits that innate preferences "need not control our tastes in landscape painting or even our choice of a calendar," he hopes that "Darwinian aesthetics can set us straight." This is called having your cake and eating it too -- no doubt a human desire that was formed in the Pleistocene period. Roth is the president of Wesleyan University and the author of several books, including "The Ironist's Cage." From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Wed Feb 11 20:08:43 2009 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 12:08:43 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart Message-ID: <135376.63295.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 2/10/09, spike wrote: > > Walmart is only the peak of the mountain. > > > > >From the 1970s onward, western society changed > from making things to > > buying things. > ... > > Why spend time making something when you can buy it > cheaper > > from China? Because the oppressive and totalitarian pseudocommunist government of China gets a very large portion of the proceeds of buying those cheap goods. Your purchases have made the Chinese government the *wealthiest* in the world. If you consider a positive net worth wealth that is. > > > > Well, now we know why. And the millions unemployed and > > > homeless know as well. > > > > BillK > > BillK I see that problem but remind me, why this is > Walmart's fault? Because Walmart seems to prefer paying taxes to a country that machine guns its college students for protesting, rather than to the U.S. Furthermore they censor their Internet traffic, sell poisoned food including baby formula abroad, and let North Korea's nuclear program run wild. What's there not to like about China? And if some our capitalistic virtues are rubbing off on China, then I would beware of the Chinese totalitarian vices being rubbed off on us. > westerners have environmental standards, labor unions and > high prices for > workers in our country which would make it nearly > impossible to produce > goods as cheaply as China can churn them out and ship them > over. The > difference isn't small. It's cheaper to just dump our garbage over the fence into our neighbor's yard rather than paying for garbage pickup too. That doesn't really make a case for the practice however. Similarly, it is not a good idea if you take any stock in moral values, to take ones wife on vacation to a foreign country just so you could beat her legally. > Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, > two jigsaws, three > grinders. Each one cost me 11 bucks. Seventy seven bucks, > for a box of new > tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! Their quality > wasn't stellar, > but acceptable. The only possible way western > manufacturing can compete > with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, > a lights out > factory, employing approximately one person. I agree this would be preferable. > This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not > building the robofactories > when capital was still available. Ours? Walmart had more capital to build those robot factories than I did. If you had the capital then shame on you. ;-) "There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come." - Victor Hugo From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 11 21:28:23 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:28:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <580930c20902111004h59af98a5nfe0140bedb0b386e@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> <580930c20902110925o4bd0416cp39e3f63e2cbef582@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20902111004h59af98a5nfe0140bedb0b386e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <499342F7.4080900@libero.it> Il 11/02/2009 19.04, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: >> We are in a comparable era in many places of the world, and if Italy were >> to be admitted to the EU today it would be next in line behind Kazachstan >> or Turkey. > > Possibly... :-) I love when people show their true colours. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 21:41:12 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:41:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: <499342F7.4080900@libero.it> References: <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> <580930c20902110925o4bd0416cp39e3f63e2cbef582@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20902111004h59af98a5nfe0140bedb0b386e@mail.gmail.com> <499342F7.4080900@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902111341i77e50890xfcd135dfeb6fad2d@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:28 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 11/02/2009 19.04, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: >> Possibly... :-) > > I love when people show their true colours. Remark the emoticon... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 21:48:39 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 14:48:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] human evolution kicks into high gear Message-ID: <2d6187670902111348m513ba463yc70306b29128e7bf@mail.gmail.com> "They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species' history." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29123062/ Where is Professor Xavier when you need him? ; ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 11 21:58:19 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 22:58:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Belief in Market Efficiency In-Reply-To: References: <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <498D67A7.6000302@libero.it> <580930c20902070817g62a5a0e5n4a5b3953ee1c2cf1@mail.gmail.com> <498F8819.7040403@libero.it> <4992E282.2060604@libero.it> Message-ID: <499349FB.2010808@libero.it> Il 11/02/2009 17.54, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > That's not a fair comparison - maffia like organisations tend to thrive > in third-world > like countries, with a low capacity for democracy, like most muslim > countries, (or Italy). This is because they go to Amsterdam to hide? http://badnewsfromthenetherlands.blogspot.com/2008/11/member-of-italian-mafia-arrested-in.html > I am personally convinced democracy is the only thing keeping > the maffia > in Italy from marching off nonpaying citizens to the ovens, as is the > case in most of Iraq. This is because you was against Operation Iraqi Freedom? To keep the Saddam on top of his "family"? > In fact any Italian or Iraqi advocating some sort of sinister > system of suspended laws (which these people euphemize as > anarcocapitalism) is in my eyes being > suspect of being a covert mob-enabler. Unsubstantiated suspects tell more about the suspecter than the suspected. > It is like a poppy growing warlord in Afghanistan > advocating "anarchocapitalism" because its good for free markets and > globalization. Problem is that, with anarchocapitalism his trade would be severely damaged. Then I suspected that he don't believe in "not initiation of force". > Let me restate - any suggestion that democracy would be little use > against the deeply embedded cultural heritage called "maffia" is immoral, > self-serving, sinister, deeply corrupt and should be investigated > for the full force of the law. You didn't say say "false". > It is the delerious Is "delerious" for "deluded" or for "deleterious"? > blather of someone who has no historical consciousness, I surely have not this leftist stuff. I prefer historical understanding > no human empathy, This is because I so strongly like Marv of Sin City. I prefer inhuman empathy or it is post-human empathy. I prefer the empathy of the surgeon that is able to cut to heal to the empathy of the weak of heart that is unable to cut and heal. > is spoiled rotten by modernity and modern luxuries. Not as much I would like, I suppose. Stuff make no one weak. Ideas make you weak. Stupid ideas. > I'd even call it the nonsense spouted by a fool. You speak like many of my unwilling clients. Now, please, remember to take your medications. Mirco From mlatorra at gmail.com Wed Feb 11 22:25:53 2009 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 15:25:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Colbert and LA Times Book Review on The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton In-Reply-To: <29666bf30902111103o7eedc724u61fef8687f0fb9c2@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30902111103o7eedc724u61fef8687f0fb9c2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9ff585550902111425j113eb4b2x85d822bf40f65c59@mail.gmail.com> Making similar or overlapping points to Dutton's are "Human Universals" by Donald Brown, which is a comprehensive survey of the anthropological study of human universals, human nature, culture vs. biology, and "The Mating Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature" by Geoffrey Miller where the subtitle says it all. Regards, Mike LaTorra On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:03 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > >From what I can see, the core of what he says is not exactly heresy -- > in fact, it should seem pretty obvious -- but academic approaches to > art suffer from extreme cultural correctness, cults of personality or > doctrine and over-intellectualization and therefore, inaccuracy (or > just plain ridiculousness), and he's swimming against this school of > self-satisfied fish. Bless his little cotton socks for doing so. > > Once again, it comes back to generating empathy for biological > fitness. Funny, that. > > PJ > > > http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/217078/january-28-2009/denis-dutton > > > http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-denis-dutton8-2009feb08,0,4082973.story > > >From the Los Angeles Times > BOOK REVIEW > 'The Art Instinct' by Denis Dutton > Where do humanity's expressions of art come from? The author contends > that they are biological--not only cultural. > By Michael S. Roth > > February 8, 2009 > > The Art Instinct > > Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution > > Denis Dutton > > Bloomsbury Press: 280 pp., $25 > > Denis Dutton seems to have great ambitions in "The Art Instinct" as > well as a willingness to court controversy. He wants to explain how > art arises out of biological impulses that are universal. He also > wants to develop a theory of art that shows that our practice of and > judgments about the arts ought to be informed by an understanding of > their innate, instinctual base. > > This seems so ambitious because many of us tend to think of art as a > matter of personal or cultural preference. To discover the universal > human biological underpinnings for this preference appears to be a > staggering task. Dutton, a philosopher who curates the popular, useful > website Arts & Letters Daily, tackles his assignment with wit, clarity > and a basic reasonableness. He winds up overstating his case, but in > doing so he raises important issues concerning biology and culture. > > Dutton describes how efforts to ensure that we are not imposing our > own aesthetic categories on non-Western peoples have resulted in > blindness to human commonality. There is an enormous intellectual and > economic investment in the differences of art practices. In academic > discussions of art, scholars have often been so enamored of difference > that they have missed anything that might be shared or universal. > > What does Dutton mean by saying that art is grounded in universal > biological impulses? It turns out that he's not saying anything very > controversial because, viewed from a great distance, all human > practices are ultimately grounded in biology. (Where else would they > be grounded?) You like Britney Spears, and Dutton loves Beethoven. It > turns out that both musical choices stem from the preferences that > evolved in the Pleistocene environment. Dutton would say the same > thing if you preferred Lil Wayne, Wagner, Javanese gamelan or Scottish > bagpipe music. Biology really makes no difference to our judgments > about music, except in the sense that we can always appeal to it as > the ultimate ground of our pleasures and dislikes. > > Dutton knows this, of course, and he admits that cheesecake and Wagner > speak to the same innate pleasures. So what's the point of appealing > to the innate? The point is to underscore that art is universal and > that all cultures have developed artistic practices. This is a > controversial point, and Dutton argues for it convincingly. He shows > that the aesthetic, like the erotic, arises spontaneously across the > globe. It is not simply a biological adaptation but has developed > because of the capacities that have played an adaptive function for > our species. > > Biological adaptation is only half of the Darwinian toolbox from which > Dutton draws. The other half is the concept of "sexual selection," > which, he says, gives hope for a "complete theory of the origin of the > arts." Darwin developed the idea of sexual selection to explain the > apparently gratuitous or nonfunctional design of some animals. The > classic example is the peacock's tail, which Darwin understood to be a > sign of fitness that would attract mates. Dutton takes this idea and > runs with it, and so he categorizes every display of skill -- from > ornate language to technical drawing ability -- as a display of > fitness. Anything that this philosopher thinks is important in the > arts -- from readymades to storytelling -- he weaves into a story of > fitness and sexual selection. Anything he doesn't think important > (atonal music, for instance, or a desire to shock) is excluded from > his narrative of attraction. Once Dutton asserts that "fitness > displays" are no longer about sex but about human achievement, he > feels free to ground his own preferences in a just-so story with > biological metaphors. Claiming natural underpinnings for one's own > tastes is an old-fashioned move to display the "fitness" of one's > preferences, but calling this story Darwinian doesn't make it less > circular. > > Despite these shortcomings, "The Art Instinct" is an important book > that raises questions often avoided in contemporary aesthetics and art > criticism. Dutton's familiarity with art practices and objects from > New Guinea complement his enthusiastic embrace of a variety of > canonical European art forms and artists. His arguments against major > figures in the philosophy and anthropology of the arts are often > devastating -- and amusing. Although I don't think he has quite made > the case for the important biological grounds of our attraction to > authenticity, he has woven a powerful plea for the notion that art > expresses a longing to see through the performance or object to > another human personality. > > Dutton thinks much recent art has "gone down the wrong track," and he > has turned to biology to tell us why. Although he admits that innate > preferences "need not control our tastes in landscape painting or even > our choice of a calendar," he hopes that "Darwinian aesthetics can set > us straight." This is called having your cake and eating it too -- no > doubt a human desire that was formed in the Pleistocene period. > > Roth is the president of Wesleyan University and the author of several > books, including "The Ironist's Cage." > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Feb 11 22:16:13 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 23:16:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902091104m4caa61cdn4510654f72182550@mail.gmail.com> References: <498729CF.2070201@libero.it> <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> <49904964.40503@libero.it> <2d6187670902091104m4caa61cdn4510654f72182550@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49934E2D.8060306@libero.it> Il 09/02/2009 20.04, John Grigg ha scritto: > If a hostile foreign power invaded Tonga I would not advice to invade Tonga. Only biting it so hard they will remember and have not desire to repeat the experience. > And so my contribution to this post thread is that a tiny nation, > whether centuries old or a very recent construct, needs large and > powerful friends to help ward off trouble from even getting started. And > so a micro-power would need very capable diplomats to maintain their > alliances. I totally agree. This is because I think laying down and don't make noise is fundamental for the success of the enterprise in the first period. And having many big friends as soon as the nation become too big to avoid to attract unwanted attentions. This is the motive I think surrogate maternity from eggs and sperm of the future parents is a good service to sell. It make grateful clients and durable friends. Mirco From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Feb 11 22:45:50 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:45:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Colbert and LA Times Book Review on The Art Instinct by Denis Dutton In-Reply-To: <9ff585550902111425j113eb4b2x85d822bf40f65c59@mail.gmail.com> References: <29666bf30902111103o7eedc724u61fef8687f0fb9c2@mail.gmail.com> <9ff585550902111425j113eb4b2x85d822bf40f65c59@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090211174550.3g22kxl3k8cwkgkw@webmail.natasha.cc> It is interesting that Dutton explores artistic instinct while other thinkers located in the arts have no idea what art is or is not. While philosophy has been trying to identify free will, art has been hunting for that element which makes something art, or not. Why shouldn?t the creative impulse be located within the membranes of an organism?s biology?! Any psychologist will leads us to the watering hole of vibrant inspiration by tracking the brain and all the neurological stuff that sends charges here and there and which get all gooey with the nervous and wet messengers. The thing that I found intriguing in the synopsis, because I have not read the book, is that the Dutton seems to pre-define art as something tangible, an object, a product, a thing ? what we artists call formalist works. The other thing I enjoyed is his take on an over-emphasis on Non-Westernizing art, which I tend to agree with. Academic political correctness has caused many of us to preface claims with "In the Western world ...". Does anyone who has read the book know what Dutton means when he says that art has ?gone down the wrong track?? Could he be referring to Duchamp?s influence? Now that is where my ears prick up. Natasha Quoting Michael LaTorra : > Making similar or overlapping points to Dutton's are "Human Universals" by > Donald Brown, which is a comprehensive survey of the anthropological study > of human universals, human nature, culture vs. biology, and "The Mating > Mind: How Sexual Choice Shaped the Evolution of Human Nature" by Geoffrey > Miller where the subtitle says it all. > > Regards, > Mike LaTorra > > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 12:03 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > >> >From what I can see, the core of what he says is not exactly heresy -- >> in fact, it should seem pretty obvious -- but academic approaches to >> art suffer from extreme cultural correctness, cults of personality or >> doctrine and over-intellectualization and therefore, inaccuracy (or >> just plain ridiculousness), and he's swimming against this school of >> self-satisfied fish. Bless his little cotton socks for doing so. >> >> Once again, it comes back to generating empathy for biological >> fitness. Funny, that. >> >> PJ >> >> >> http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/217078/january-28-2009/denis-dutton >> >> >> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-ca-denis-dutton8-2009feb08,0,4082973.story >> >> >From the Los Angeles Times >> BOOK REVIEW >> 'The Art Instinct' by Denis Dutton >> Where do humanity's expressions of art come from? The author contends >> that they are biological--not only cultural. >> By Michael S. Roth >> >> February 8, 2009 >> >> The Art Instinct >> >> Beauty, Pleasure, and Human Evolution >> >> Denis Dutton >> >> Bloomsbury Press: 280 pp., $25 >> >> Denis Dutton seems to have great ambitions in "The Art Instinct" as >> well as a willingness to court controversy. He wants to explain how >> art arises out of biological impulses that are universal. He also >> wants to develop a theory of art that shows that our practice of and >> judgments about the arts ought to be informed by an understanding of >> their innate, instinctual base. >> >> This seems so ambitious because many of us tend to think of art as a >> matter of personal or cultural preference. To discover the universal >> human biological underpinnings for this preference appears to be a >> staggering task. Dutton, a philosopher who curates the popular, useful >> website Arts & Letters Daily, tackles his assignment with wit, clarity >> and a basic reasonableness. He winds up overstating his case, but in >> doing so he raises important issues concerning biology and culture. >> >> Dutton describes how efforts to ensure that we are not imposing our >> own aesthetic categories on non-Western peoples have resulted in >> blindness to human commonality. There is an enormous intellectual and >> economic investment in the differences of art practices. In academic >> discussions of art, scholars have often been so enamored of difference >> that they have missed anything that might be shared or universal. >> >> What does Dutton mean by saying that art is grounded in universal >> biological impulses? It turns out that he's not saying anything very >> controversial because, viewed from a great distance, all human >> practices are ultimately grounded in biology. (Where else would they >> be grounded?) You like Britney Spears, and Dutton loves Beethoven. It >> turns out that both musical choices stem from the preferences that >> evolved in the Pleistocene environment. Dutton would say the same >> thing if you preferred Lil Wayne, Wagner, Javanese gamelan or Scottish >> bagpipe music. Biology really makes no difference to our judgments >> about music, except in the sense that we can always appeal to it as >> the ultimate ground of our pleasures and dislikes. >> >> Dutton knows this, of course, and he admits that cheesecake and Wagner >> speak to the same innate pleasures. So what's the point of appealing >> to the innate? The point is to underscore that art is universal and >> that all cultures have developed artistic practices. This is a >> controversial point, and Dutton argues for it convincingly. He shows >> that the aesthetic, like the erotic, arises spontaneously across the >> globe. It is not simply a biological adaptation but has developed >> because of the capacities that have played an adaptive function for >> our species. >> >> Biological adaptation is only half of the Darwinian toolbox from which >> Dutton draws. The other half is the concept of "sexual selection," >> which, he says, gives hope for a "complete theory of the origin of the >> arts." Darwin developed the idea of sexual selection to explain the >> apparently gratuitous or nonfunctional design of some animals. The >> classic example is the peacock's tail, which Darwin understood to be a >> sign of fitness that would attract mates. Dutton takes this idea and >> runs with it, and so he categorizes every display of skill -- from >> ornate language to technical drawing ability -- as a display of >> fitness. Anything that this philosopher thinks is important in the >> arts -- from readymades to storytelling -- he weaves into a story of >> fitness and sexual selection. Anything he doesn't think important >> (atonal music, for instance, or a desire to shock) is excluded from >> his narrative of attraction. Once Dutton asserts that "fitness >> displays" are no longer about sex but about human achievement, he >> feels free to ground his own preferences in a just-so story with >> biological metaphors. Claiming natural underpinnings for one's own >> tastes is an old-fashioned move to display the "fitness" of one's >> preferences, but calling this story Darwinian doesn't make it less >> circular. >> >> Despite these shortcomings, "The Art Instinct" is an important book >> that raises questions often avoided in contemporary aesthetics and art >> criticism. Dutton's familiarity with art practices and objects from >> New Guinea complement his enthusiastic embrace of a variety of >> canonical European art forms and artists. His arguments against major >> figures in the philosophy and anthropology of the arts are often >> devastating -- and amusing. Although I don't think he has quite made >> the case for the important biological grounds of our attraction to >> authenticity, he has woven a powerful plea for the notion that art >> expresses a longing to see through the performance or object to >> another human personality. >> >> Dutton thinks much recent art has "gone down the wrong track," and he >> has turned to biology to tell us why. Although he admits that innate >> preferences "need not control our tastes in landscape painting or even >> our choice of a calendar," he hopes that "Darwinian aesthetics can set >> us straight." This is called having your cake and eating it too -- no >> doubt a human desire that was formed in the Pleistocene period. >> >> Roth is the president of Wesleyan University and the author of several >> books, including "The Ironist's Cage." >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > From spike66 at att.net Thu Feb 12 02:56:57 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2009 18:56:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <135376.63295.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <135376.63295.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1D2927741AA34D2FB94DFDAD89B144BB@spike> > ...On Behalf Of The Avantguardian ... > > > This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not > > building the robofactories when capital was still available. > > Ours? Walmart had more capital to build those robot factories > than I did. If you had the capital then shame on you. ;-) Avant, I figured out today why guys shop at Walmart. It is our way of extracting brutal revenge on the retail industry for inventing Valentine's Day. spike From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Thu Feb 12 11:56:33 2009 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 11:56:33 +0000 (GMT) Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <584862.63718.qm@web27001.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> Brian Atkins wrote: "Bill, there is nothing magical and wonderful about "making stuff" any more than there was about being a farm worker in the 19th century. "Making stuff" is well on its way to being highly automated and/or shifted to other means of cheaper and more efficient production (China, etc.) just as farming did previously. For anyone affected by this, it's time to find other kinds of jobs, not pine wistfully for a reversion back to the "golden old days"." Well, there is something magical and wonderful about being a 19th century farmworker or somebody who makes stuff. It is obvious exactly where you are adding value. Farmworker - plants or animals plus land plus weather conditions plus your labour equals food. You can see the value. Likewise making stuff you can see the materials and the finished product and marvel at the labour which produced it. It is easy to put a value on this labour and see where value has been added. Now, determining how much value has been added in the service industries is a tricky business which vexes accountants. Politicians favouring tax cuts like to point to taxpayer-funded jobs whose value is very hard to determine, and say they are in favour of cutting these jobs. If all physical labour (farm or factory) can be highly automated, then the main sources of employment are offering knowledge-based services and offering services which are better delivered with a human touch than impersonally. However, if AI technology can start replacing some of the knowledge-based jobs and robots get better delivering personal services, then what's left for people to work in? In the long run, it will come down to how we want society to function - do we want everybody working furiously in an orgy of overproduction, terrified that if their productivity drops they will be out of work and hungry, or do we want to share around the huge productivity we can attain? You see in those old "visions of the future" books the idea of everyone only working a 20 hour week because robots have taken away half the working day. These days, we work as many hours as we can and consume twice as much stuff as was predicted. Now, there are people on this list who will argue that one day we will all be uploaded and considerations of the physical substrate will seem silly, or that one day with a 3D printer in every home and a personal AI for everyone, all questions of scarcity will be gone. There are still decades of transition in between those end-states, and we have to think about how to minimise the suffering during these coming decades. Tom From sparge at gmail.com Thu Feb 12 13:55:26 2009 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 08:55:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security" Message-ID: This paper, by Mark Z. Jacobson of Stanford, doesn't even consider powersats... http://www.rsc.org/delivery/_ArticleLinking/DisplayHTMLArticleforfree.cfm?JournalCode=EE&Year=2009&ManuscriptID=b809990c http://preview.tinyurl.com/72769h -Dave From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Feb 12 20:30:10 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 15:30:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 2:13 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/11 spike : > >> Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, two jigsaws, three >> grinders. Each one cost me 11 bucks. Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new >> tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! Their quality wasn't stellar, >> but acceptable. The only possible way western manufacturing can compete >> with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, a lights out >> factory, employing approximately one person. >> >> This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not building the robofactories >> when capital was still available. > > It seems to me there is no good reason why the labour of a Chinese > worker should be so much cheaper than that of an American or European > worker. ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they cannot demand much. ---------------- A massive rebalancing of exchange rates is needed. ### Exchange rates are always in the long term defined primarily by average labor efficiency. The only way the Chinese can become as rich as us is by working as efficiently as we do. Rafal From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Feb 12 20:50:58 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:50:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.co m> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> At 03:30 PM 2/12/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: >### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, >than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or >American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the >low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they >cannot demand much. Ah, I see--and this is why these inefficient slobs can turn out tools that Spike can buy for >> ...Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new >> tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! even after cost of shipping 1/3 of the way around the planet. Imagine how much more expensive they'd have been if those inefficient slobs were as slick as their US equivalents. Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Thu Feb 12 21:46:14 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:46:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 8:30 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Exchange rates are always in the long term defined primarily by > average labor efficiency. The only way the Chinese can become as rich > as us is by working as efficiently as we do. GM - efficient? More like bankrupt. Or the Chinese could spend 30 years borrowing money from America and spending it to give the impression of great wealth. You wouldn't catch Americans doing that! Oh, wait a minute........ BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 12 22:15:13 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:15:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] human evolution kicks into high gear In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902111348m513ba463yc70306b29128e7bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902111348m513ba463yc70306b29128e7bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49949F71.4020401@libero.it> Il 11/02/2009 22.48, John Grigg ha scritto: > "They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human > genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster > and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their > data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly > than in any other period in our species' history." > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29123062/ > > Where is Professor Xavier when you need him? ; ) Last time I red he was death (killed). But I suppose it will be resurrected in one or two years. When they will resurrect Steve Rogers is another matter. Probably after they kill Bucky another time. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 12 22:28:03 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:28:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] human evolution kicks into high gear In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902111348m513ba463yc70306b29128e7bf@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902111348m513ba463yc70306b29128e7bf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4994A273.1000505@libero.it> Il 11/02/2009 22.48, John Grigg ha scritto: > "They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human > genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster > and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their > data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly > than in any other period in our species' history." The problem is, "What we do when two strain of the human race evolve in divergent ways that are mutually exclusive?". What we see as "Clash of Civilizations" could be the natural selection and the reactions of different strains of the human species to the radically changing habitats? What is the survival fitness of people living in cities if they are unable or less able to learn to read, write, compute, etc.? Or with too much violence prone? Or not enough violence prone? Or without the ability to stay focused for long times? For example, I remember that US army instructors wrote that is very difficult, if not impossible, to train an Arab to be a skilled sniper (not only able to shoot right, but also to wait, wait and wait). The recent study about urbanized and country dwellers of the same African tribe, where the urbanized have much less success of the pastors because they both have the same gene coding for hyperactivity. With the majority of the world population living now in cities, the natural selection will favour people more able to live in high density settings and with all the skills and ability needed to be successful in a city and not in the bush or in the desert or in the ice. Mirco From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Feb 12 23:14:59 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 09:44:59 +1030 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/13 Rafal Smigrodzki : > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 2:13 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/2/11 spike : >> >>> Last month I bought some Chinese power tools, two drills, two jigsaws, three >>> grinders. Each one cost me 11 bucks. Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new >>> tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! Their quality wasn't stellar, >>> but acceptable. The only possible way western manufacturing can compete >>> with that is to have a completely automated assembly line, a lights out >>> factory, employing approximately one person. >>> >>> This isn't Walmart's fault, it is ours, for not building the robofactories >>> when capital was still available. >> >> It seems to me there is no good reason why the labour of a Chinese >> worker should be so much cheaper than that of an American or European >> worker. > > ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, > than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or > American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the > low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they > cannot demand much. I call bullshit. Chinese workers get paid little because they don't have any other options; it's not like they can go down the street to where the workers get paid more. The jobs are there because the companies look for the cheapest usable source of labour. If they demanded more money, the jobs would go away. This situation exists because capital can flow effortlessly around the world, but labour cannot. > ---------------- > > A massive rebalancing of exchange rates is needed. > > ### Exchange rates are always in the long term defined primarily by > average labor efficiency. The only way the Chinese can become as rich > as us is by working as efficiently as we do. > > Rafal Long term is the key mistake here. Everything so far is short term. The differences between the US economy and the Chinese economy take time to even out. But perhaps we are now seeing some serious shifts. You would expect to see China moving up the food chain from low cost manufacturing to high end stuff & design. http://www.supplychain.cn/en/art/?800 And of course you'd expect to see rising wages. http://www.ventureoutsource.com/contract-manufacturing/industry-pulse/2008/china-s-manufacturing-wages-the-olympic-hangover -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 13 03:46:45 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 19:46:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] happy birthday In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com><9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike><08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike><4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert><40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike><7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1A2F7812957B499D907B772F8D80ADDA@spike> Happy 200th birthday Charles Darwin and Abe Lincoln. spike From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br Fri Feb 13 05:04:02 2009 From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 21:04:02 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] happy birthday In-Reply-To: <1A2F7812957B499D907B772F8D80ADDA@spike> Message-ID: <439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> And about 1/10 of that to me! \o/ Mwahaha! Cheers, AM. --- Em fri, 13/2/09, spike escreveu: > De: spike > Assunto: [ExI] happy birthday > Para: "'ExI chat list'" > Data: Sexta-feira, 13 de Fevereiro de 2009, 1:46 > Happy 200th birthday Charles Darwin and Abe Lincoln. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 mlatorra at gmail.com Fri Feb 13 06:27:52 2009 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:27:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Economics of Bussard fusion power system (4 min. video excerpt link) Message-ID: <9ff585550902122227s29f53f13pfee0378701d33774@mail.gmail.com> This 4 minute video excerpt (set of clips) from Dr. Bussard's talk at Google summarizes the economic case for fusion power using his Polywell fusor system (currently being further developed and tested since his death). http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8301617273665558256 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Feb 13 06:30:06 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 12 Feb 2009 23:30:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] happy birthday In-Reply-To: <439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1A2F7812957B499D907B772F8D80ADDA@spike> <439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902122230u5da6d219yd2425054aa5817d5@mail.gmail.com> I didn't realize Honest Abe and Charlie Darwin shared the same birthday. A book comparing the two men's lives could make for a bestseller. John On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 10:04 PM, Antonio Marcos wrote: > And about 1/10 of that to me! \o/ Mwahaha! > > Cheers, > AM. > > > --- Em fri, 13/2/09, spike escreveu: > > > De: spike > > Assunto: [ExI] happy birthday > > Para: "'ExI chat list'" > > Data: Sexta-feira, 13 de Fevereiro de 2009, 1:46 > > Happy 200th birthday Charles Darwin and Abe Lincoln. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > 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 > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Feb 13 15:14:54 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:14:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] happy birthday In-Reply-To: <439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1A2F7812957B499D907B772F8D80ADDA@spike> <439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Antonio Marcos > Subject: Re: [ExI] happy birthday > > And about 1/10 of that to me! \o/ Mwahaha! > > Cheers, > AM. > >... Happy 200th birthday > > Charles Darwin and Abe Lincoln. > > > > spike Antonio, congrats on the milestone in your life. May you go on to achieve greatness as did our revered 200 year old predecessor. And the other one too of course, what was his name, Abe something. spike From amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br Fri Feb 13 15:43:26 2009 From: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br (Antonio Marcos) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 07:43:26 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] happy birthday Message-ID: <202593.59964.qm@web110302.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> > Antonio, congrats on the milestone in your life. May > you go on to achieve > greatness as did our revered 200 year old predecessor. > And the other one > too of course, what was his name, Abe something. > > spike hahahaha Thanks Spike! :) AM. > --- Em fri, 13/2/09, spike > escreveu: > > > De: spike > > Assunto: RE: [ExI] happy birthday > > Para: amcmr2003 at yahoo.com.br, "'ExI chat > list'" > > Data: Sexta-feira, 13 de Fevereiro de 2009, 13:14 > > > ...On Behalf Of Antonio Marcos > > > Subject: Re: [ExI] happy birthday > > > > > > And about 1/10 of that to me! \o/ Mwahaha! > > > > > > Cheers, > > > AM. > > > >... Happy 200th birthday > > > > Charles Darwin and Abe Lincoln. > > > > > > > > spike > > > > > > Antonio, congrats on the milestone in your life. May > you > > go on to achieve > > greatness as did our revered 200 year old predecessor. > And > > the other one > > too of course, what was his name, Abe something. > > > > spike > > > Veja quais s?o os assuntos do momento no Yahoo! > +Buscados > http://br.maisbuscados.yahoo.com Veja quais s?o os assuntos do momento no Yahoo! +Buscados http://br.maisbuscados.yahoo.com From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 13 19:42:18 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 20:42:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> Il 12/02/2009 21.50, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 03:30 PM 2/12/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: > >> ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, >> than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or >> American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the >> low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they >> cannot demand much. > > Ah, I see--and this is why these inefficient slobs can turn out tools > that Spike can buy for Given that a western (Japan included) workers produce 100 an cost 100, a Chinese workers produced 20 and did cost 16. So it was efficient and rewarding to use them to manifacture also given the cost of transport. Also, the expert / specialized work force (say the best 50%) was underutilized and under paid, so they could be hired for a better premium over the same workforce in Europe or the USA. With the time this change, as more specialized /expert workforce is used, less is available, more the factories must compete with pay and benefits to attract them. In the last few years, the chinese workforce was near all used and the prices of specialized workers soared. So much that they started to de localize in Viet-Nam, and other places with lower costs and cheaper workforce. > >> ...Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new > >> tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! > > even after cost of shipping 1/3 of the way around the planet. Imagine > how much more expensive they'd have been if those inefficient slobs were > as slick as their US equivalents. I have this feeling that rational economy is not your strong point. There is also the law of comparative advantages. US and Europe and Japan workforce is better used with the tasks it is more productive. Maybe they could have produced the power tools and T-shirt at lower costs, but they were mainly concerned in building what other can not do, like Airbus and Boeing planes. Do you know how many T-shirt and power tools the Chinese must sell to be able to buy an Airbus? Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Feb 13 20:21:06 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 14:21:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> At 08:42 PM 2/13/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >>even after cost of shipping 1/3 of the way around the planet. Imagine >>how much more expensive they'd have been if those inefficient slobs were >>as slick as their US equivalents. > >I have this feeling that rational economy is not your strong point. I have this feeling that irony is not yours. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Feb 13 21:39:48 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:39:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902131339r38b4a6c1ua3dc8dac767cdf7f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 3:50 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 03:30 PM 2/12/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: > >> ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, >> than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or >> American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the >> low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they >> cannot demand much. > > Ah, I see--and this is why these inefficient slobs can turn out tools that > Spike can buy for > >>> ...Seventy seven bucks, for a box of new >>> tools durn near too heavy for me to hoist! > > even after cost of shipping 1/3 of the way around the planet. Imagine how > much more expensive they'd have been if those inefficient slobs were as > slick as their US equivalents. ### Labor productivity is usually not measured in the weight of products that are made, but as average output per worker or per worker-hour measured in price terms. Especially in international comparisons it may also be approximated by the GDP per capita, which in 2007 was 46,100 in the US (see http://www.bls.gov/fls/flsgdp.pdf), and 5,325 in China (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita). As you can see, workers in the US are 8.7 times more productive than workers in China. This explains fully why Chinese products are cheap in the US, in relation to the prevailing US wages. Obviously, if the Chinese were as productive as Americans, then ceteris paribus the same box of tools made in China may be even cheaper (since the amount of time and effort expended by highly productive Chinese would be less than it is now). Isn't it funny that I am claiming the exact opposite of what you write, eh? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Feb 13 22:57:44 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 17:57:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902131457o6e28402eof9b4554f371fb783@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 12, 2009 at 6:14 PM, Emlyn wrote: >> ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, >> than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or >> American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the >> low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they >> cannot demand much. > > I call bullshit. > > Chinese workers get paid little because they don't have any other > options; it's not like they can go down the street to where the > workers get paid more. ### I am not sure what is the connection between what I wrote and what you did. Of course, Chinese workers have a much harder time finding an employer where they would be as productive as a worker who can choose from American, highly efficient employers, therefore they cannot produce efficiently, therefore they get paid less. The proper operator between my statement and your statement is "AND" (or "therefore"), not "bullshit". ---------------------------------------------- > > The jobs are there because the companies look for the cheapest usable > source of labour. If they demanded more money, the jobs would go away. > ### Obviously, yes. Does that in some way invalidate the labor productivity comparative values? ----------------------------------- > This situation exists because capital can flow effortlessly around the > world, but labour cannot. ### Yes ... and? ----------------------------------- >> >> ### Exchange rates are always in the long term defined primarily by >> average labor efficiency. The only way the Chinese can become as rich >> as us is by working as efficiently as we do. >> >> Rafal > > Long term is the key mistake here. ### The only time that looking at the long term is a mistake is right before the Singularity. --------------------------------------------- Everything so far is short term. > The differences between the US economy and the Chinese economy take > time to even out. But perhaps we are now seeing some serious shifts. > > You would expect to see China moving up the food chain from low cost > manufacturing to high end stuff & design. > http://www.supplychain.cn/en/art/?800 > > And of course you'd expect to see rising wages. > http://www.ventureoutsource.com/contract-manufacturing/industry-pulse/2008/china-s-manufacturing-wages-the-olympic-hangover > ### Sure. I would be very happy for the Chinese getting efficient and rich. This is what I have been saying here before. Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 00:03:50 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:03:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I have this feeling that irony is not yours. > More deep economic theory for your consideration. ;) Stimulus Package Explained (Q&A) By Barry Ritholtz - February 13th, 2009, 4:00PM Sometime this year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format: Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment? A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers. Q. Where will the government get this money? A. From taxpayers. Q. So the government is giving me back my own money? A. No, they are borrowing it from China. Your children are expected to repay the Chinese. Q. What is the purpose of this payment? A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy. Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ? A. Shut up. Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by spending your stimulus check wisely: If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China. If you spend it on gasoline it will go to Hugo Chavez, the Arabs and Al Queda If you purchase a computer it will go to Taiwan. If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala (unless you buy organic). If you buy a car it will go to Japan and Korea. If you purchase prescription drugs it will go to India If you purchase heroin it will go to the Taliban in Afghanistan If you give it to a charitable cause, it will go to Nigeria. And none of it will help the American economy. We need to keep that money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the only businesses still in the US. ------------------------------------ BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 00:30:43 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 19:30:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902131630r6abf4e4aq526e8261306c658d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 7:03 PM, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: >> I have this feeling that irony is not yours. >> > > > More deep economic theory for your consideration. ;) > > > > > Stimulus Package Explained (Q&A) > By Barry Ritholtz - February 13th, 2009, 4:00PM > > Sometime this year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus > Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using > the Q and A format: > > Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment? > A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers. > > Q. Where will the government get this money? > A. From taxpayers. > > Q. So the government is giving me back my own money? > A. No, they are borrowing it from China. Your children are expected to > repay the Chinese. > > Q. What is the purpose of this payment? > A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a > high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy. > > Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China ? > A. Shut up. > > > Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by > spending your stimulus check wisely: > > If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China. > If you spend it on gasoline it will go to Hugo Chavez, the Arabs and Al Queda > If you purchase a computer it will go to Taiwan. > If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, > and Guatemala (unless you buy organic). > If you buy a car it will go to Japan and Korea. > If you purchase prescription drugs it will go to India > If you purchase heroin it will go to the Taliban in Afghanistan > If you give it to a charitable cause, it will go to Nigeria. > > And none of it will help the American economy. We need to keep that > money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending > it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on > prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the > only businesses still in the US. ### It would have been funny, except that there are enough morons ready to treat it as serious advice, which stops it from being a joke. Rafal From moulton at moulton.com Sat Feb 14 00:53:06 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 16:53:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <1234572786.903.27.camel@hayek> On Sat, 2009-02-14 at 00:03 +0000, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > I have this feeling that irony is not yours. > > > More deep economic theory for your consideration. ;) I have deleted the silly stuff in the interest of space but what I find sad is that there are people (but not on this list) who think that the deleted stuff really is economic understanding. Sad. So very sad. > And none of it will help the American economy. We need to keep that > money here in America. You can keep the money in America by spending > it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on > prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the > only businesses still in the US. This of course reminds us of the quote from Snow Crash: "There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery" Well it is not very accurate but it usually gets a smile from me. Fred From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 04:17:59 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:17:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <1234572786.903.27.camel@hayek> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> <1234572786.903.27.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <2d6187670902132017x1a2296a6u95ca0f7ebc2fa464@mail.gmail.com> Fred wrote: "There's only four things we do better than anyone else: music movies microcode (software) high-speed pizza delivery" >>> I would add: military hardware modern warfare book publishing academic scientific research package delivery/shipping porn? drug use? John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 04:33:14 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:33:14 +1100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/13 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, > than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or > American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the > low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they > cannot demand much. If that's true then manufactured items from China would not be any cheaper than American produced items. It would take, say, twice as many Chinese workers each earning half as much as their American counterparts to produce items at the same final cost. Or, it would take several Indians in a call centre to solve your mobile phone problem when one American could have done it all by himself. -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 08:35:52 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 03:35:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 11:33 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/13 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### The labor of a worker in China is much less efficient, on average, >> than the labor of a worker in America (whether it is a Chinese or >> American worker is almost irrelevant here). This is the reason for the >> low cost of workers in China - they offer little, therefore they >> cannot demand much. > > If that's true then manufactured items from China would not be any > cheaper than American produced items. It would take, say, twice as > many Chinese workers each earning half as much as their American > counterparts to produce items at the same final cost. ### This is indeed the case - or more precisely it takes 1.33 billion Chinese to make 3.251 trillion worth of goods and services per year, while it takes only 303 million Americans to make 13.84 trillion of stuff (statistics by Google). It is absolutely true that on average Chinese products and services are not any cheaper in terms of labor per unit of value than American-made ones, in fact, they are much more time-consuming to make, very roughly approximated by a factor of (13.84 x 1.33)/(3.251/0.303), you do the math. Since they take so much time to make stuff, they can't make as much stuff as Americans, and therefore they earn less. Or, it would > take several Indians in a call centre to solve your mobile phone > problem when one American could have done it all by himself. > ### Sometimes it does. Rafal From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 09:31:28 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:31:28 +1100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/14 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### This is indeed the case - or more precisely it takes 1.33 billion > Chinese to make 3.251 trillion worth of goods and services per year, > while it takes only 303 million Americans to make 13.84 trillion of > stuff (statistics by Google). It is absolutely true that on average > Chinese products and services are not any cheaper in terms of labor > per unit of value than American-made ones, in fact, they are much more > time-consuming to make, very roughly approximated by a factor of > (13.84 x 1.33)/(3.251/0.303), you do the math. Since they take so much > time to make stuff, they can't make as much stuff as Americans, and > therefore they earn less. In that case there would be no advantage in American companies manufacturing things in China, since they would be able to so more cheaply using the more efficient workforce in the US and saving on shipping and other costs. The GDP calculation assumes that the exchange rate is a fair measure of the worth of one country's output relative to another. In the case of the US dollar there are clearly other factors propping it up, such as the fact that it is the world's reserve currency and the fact that the Chinese would precipitate a disastrous drop in the value of their substantial US dollar investments if they decided to pull out. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 09:40:53 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 09:40:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902131630r6abf4e4aq526e8261306c658d@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902131630r6abf4e4aq526e8261306c658d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 12:30 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### It would have been funny, except that there are enough morons > ready to treat it as serious advice, which stops it from being a joke. > See Damien's reference above: Irony: All senses of irony revolve around the perceived notion of an incongruity between what is said and what is meant; or between an understanding of reality, or an expectation of a reality, and what actually happens. Or even: Hyperbole: is a figure of speech in which statements are exaggerated. It may be used to evoke strong feelings or to create a strong impression, but is rarely meant to be taken literally. BillK From eschatoon at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 11:32:23 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 12:32:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Kurzweil accused of being a first-rate bullshit artist In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902140332v5f9655a1p648ed844fa1e4354@mail.gmail.com> The book is over-optimistic, but this is a refreshing change from today's usually defeatist writings. Let's say loud and clear that we want to do all the things RK writes about, even if it may take longer than he hopes. Leonardo wrote about aircraft and other developments that it has taken centuries to actually develop, but I wouldn't call him a bullshit artist. These days Kurzweil-bashing is a favored past-time of many idiots who will never do the tiniest fraction of what he has done. The man deserves respect, if only for opening our eyes to possible futures. On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 5:11 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 10:43 AM, John Grigg > wrote: >> "One thing I will say for Kurzweil, though, is that he seems to be a >> first-rate bullshit artist." >> >> http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/02/singularly_silly_singularity.php > > I haven't read the book, but based on what I saw on that blog I'd have > to disagree...that graph is second-rate bullshit, at best. > > -Dave > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Feb 14 12:53:18 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 13:53:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Kurzweil accused of being a first-rate bullshit artist In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902140332v5f9655a1p648ed844fa1e4354@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90902140332v5f9655a1p648ed844fa1e4354@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902140453r34d90719ned7f1ad793d68be9@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 12:32 PM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > These days Kurzweil-bashing is a favored past-time of many idiots who > will never do the tiniest fraction of what he has done. The man > deserves respect, if only for opening our eyes to possible futures. Personally, I find RK's scenarios quite compelling, and he is at least bold enough to suggest that "it can be done, we have already be doing it for a long time". Picking on details, when, say, "curves" are certainly just mathematical metaphors of a plausible worldview, does not really detract from their charm. Where I personally part ways is where he shows a find of millenarian faith in the fact that, say, the Singularity is going to happen no matter what, out of some intrinsic, guaranteed mechanism, while the opposite is true, that even our past achievements took place against all odds, and overcoming incredibly difficult paradigm shifts and technical difficulties by a mix of sheer will and vision. This in turn led him to concentrate his current concerns on "steering", on "risks, etc. Now, to reverse Carrico's approach, the first thing for superlativity thinking is to get there in the first place, not to take it for granted. If those who were considering human flights had spent 95% of their time and energies pondering on jet-originated greenhouse gases, we would still be traveling on horseback. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 14 14:28:20 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 15:28:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090212144554.023a58e8@satx.rr.com> <4995CD1A.5060900@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090213142035.023f3338@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4996D504.40200@libero.it> Il 14/02/2009 1.03, BillK ha scritto: > On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 8:21 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Below is some helpful advice on how to best help the US economy by > spending your stimulus check wisely: > If you spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China. Apart the money that go in taxes, to the staff, to the shareholders, the money donated, etc. Also, dollars are useful only to buy stuff in the USA, not in China. You need to sell dollars to be able to buy yuans and buy stuff in China. It is not like the Chinese will find very useful pieces of paper printed by the Fed. If they are not able to exchange them for something they want they will not find them so desiderable and useful. It is not that they are gold backed or something like this. > If you spend it on gasoline it will go to Hugo Chavez, the Arabs and Al Queda A part will go to other places like Alaska. It could go in California or Florida, if they [were] allowed to dril off coast. > If you purchase a computer it will go to Taiwan. Apart for the royalties and the profit shares give to US investors. > If you purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, > and Guatemala (unless you buy organic). I don't understand. In Italy I'm able to buy fruit from California. It is no more inside the Union? The seceded for Aztlan? I, also, buy stuff from Amazon (mainly book). Do you say that > If you buy a car it will go to Japan and Korea. Apart for the money that go to the workers in the US plants that build the car themselves. > If you purchase prescription drugs it will go to India Really? I suppose the Pfizef went out of business yesterday and that Viagra is not more a blockbuster drugs. > If you purchase heroin it will go to the Taliban in Afghanistan And the Mafia, either in New York and Palermo. > If you give it to a charitable cause, it will go to Nigeria. You can choose your charitable. > And none of it will help the American economy. This way of thinking is simplistic. > We need to keep that money here in America. Do you eat T-bill? Good for the fibers, I suppose, but poor on protein and vitamins. > You can keep the money in America by spending > it at yard sales, going to a baseball game, or spend it on > prostitutes, beer (domestic only), or tattoos, since those are the > only businesses still in the US. Last time I checked, the US was big sellers of stuff like planes (how many beers do you buy with a Boing 757?) But, to solve this is not needed to only buy domestic. What is needed is to re-create a business-friendly habitat. Do you know why business go away from California and move to Arizona? For the sea? For the sand? For the lower taxes? California have a gargantuan debit and deficit. But they don't want nuclear power, don't want oil drilling,... they want all paying nothing. Until this spoiled child's way to think is not corrected, there is no way "buy american" will solve the problems. And when will be corrected, "buy american" will be irrelevant. But focusing on "Buy American" show only that some people, think they deserve money they have no right to. They think to be special, important, superior. They are not. Mirco P.S. I advice you to read Hazlitt "Economy in One Lesson". It is easy to read, simple and not full of strange ideas. From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 14 15:27:31 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 16:27:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4996E2E3.8040402@libero.it> Il 14/02/2009 10.31, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > In that case there would be no advantage in American companies > manufacturing things in China, since they would be able to so more > cheaply using the more efficient workforce in the US and saving on > shipping and other costs. The workforce is used to do the most productive jobs; the jobs that let earn more. So, there is no workforce available for producing low profit stuff. You could use the same workforce to produce air planes or power tools, but air planes will let you (and your workforce) to earn more money. Then, with the money difference you import the power tools from the Chinese. It is the same thing that cause Bill Gates or Warren Buffet to don't clean they home but pay someone else to do the chores. Their times is better spent on other tasks or resting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage > In economics, comparative advantage refers to the ability of a person > or a country to produce a particular good at a lower opportunity cost > than another person or country. It is the ability to produce a > product most efficiently given all the other products that could be > produced. [1] It can be contrasted with absolute advantage which > refers to the ability of a person or a country to produce a > particular good at a lower absolute cost than another. > > Comparative advantage explains how trade can create value for both > parties even when one can produce all goods with fewer resources than > the other. The net benefits of such an outcome are called gains from > trade. > The GDP calculation assumes that the exchange rate is a fair measure > of the worth of one country's output relative to another. The GDP is always a fiction, sometime it is near the reality, often it is not. The exchange rate is very variable with money that is not commodity backed. It depend on how much a country export compared on how much it import. Not how much any one of them produce. > In the case of the US dollar there are clearly other factors propping > it up, such as the fact that it is the world's reserve currency and > the fact that the Chinese would precipitate a disastrous drop in the > value of their substantial US dollar investments if they decided to > pull out. This is true. They could simply buy American stuff, if they are permitted to do so. Like industries, land, oil wells, etc. Mirco From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 16:15:57 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:15:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike> <4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/14 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### This is indeed the case - or more precisely it takes 1.33 billion >> Chinese to make 3.251 trillion worth of goods and services per year, >> while it takes only 303 million Americans to make 13.84 trillion of >> stuff (statistics by Google). It is absolutely true that on average >> Chinese products and services are not any cheaper in terms of labor >> per unit of value than American-made ones, in fact, they are much more >> time-consuming to make, very roughly approximated by a factor of >> (13.84 x 1.33)/(3.251/0.303), you do the math. Since they take so much >> time to make stuff, they can't make as much stuff as Americans, and >> therefore they earn less. > > In that case there would be no advantage in American companies > manufacturing things in China, since they would be able to so more > cheaply using the more efficient workforce in the US and saving on > shipping and other costs. ### The workforce is not inherently that much more efficient in the US, but the companies are (you understand that this is not a paradox, right?). American companies are very efficient at producing whatever it is that combines into the 13.8 trillion GDP figure and as per Ricardo's law they can make more money on what they do (airplanes, corn, movies, capital management, pharmaceuticals, software, etc.) than on other products, such as low-end tools. I remember first reading about Ricardo's law of comparative advantage, and feeling this thrill of understanding, an orgasmic intellectual experience. Brilliant! Why the fuck didn't I think about it! - is what I thought at that moment. This really changed my way of thinking about the world, and I was an adult already. It is very useful to try to gain an intuitive feeling for Ricardo's law, to be able to cleanse your mind of the common-sense but completely wrong thinking that one may have. BTW, I mis-wrote the ratio in my previous post ... can you find the error :) ------------------------ > > The GDP calculation assumes that the exchange rate is a fair measure > of the worth of one country's output relative to another. In the case > of the US dollar there are clearly other factors propping it up, such > as the fact that it is the world's reserve currency and the fact that > the Chinese would precipitate a disastrous drop in the value of their > substantial US dollar investments if they decided to pull out. ### The calculations can be made using PPP, or purchasing power parity, yielding similar results. It is true that a massive run on US financial assets could lower the value of the US dollar but it doesn't directly impact the ratios that are calculated using PPP, since the unit used there is the so-called international dollar (see Geary-Khamis dollar). Rafal From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 14 18:08:26 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:08:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] happy valentines day In-Reply-To: <580930c20902140453r34d90719ned7f1ad793d68be9@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com><1fa8c3b90902140332v5f9655a1p648ed844fa1e4354@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20902140453r34d90719ned7f1ad793d68be9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <8679375544EC4C87A8AF505710BA661C@spike> May you and your sweetheart enjoy a most happy VD. Hmm, that particular occasion doesn't lend it self well to abbreviation. If we dealt with Valentines Day the same way as the Saudis, just imagine the total savings. It could amount to several microstimuli: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-0213-day03_kf0rxinc.jpg,0,5 032744.photo spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Feb 14 18:56:48 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:56:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: <49934E2D.8060306@libero.it> References: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> <49904964.40503@libero.it> <2d6187670902091104m4caa61cdn4510654f72182550@mail.gmail.com> <49934E2D.8060306@libero.it> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 3:16 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Il 09/02/2009 20.04, John Grigg ha scritto: > >> If a hostile foreign power invaded Tonga > > I would not advice to invade Tonga. Only biting it so hard they will > remember and have not desire to repeat the experience. > >> And so my contribution to this post thread is that a tiny nation, >> whether centuries old or a very recent construct, needs large and >> powerful friends to help ward off trouble from even getting started. And >> so a micro-power would need very capable diplomats to maintain their >> alliances. > > I totally agree. I totally disagree. Well, okay...not totally, maybe. But I have a problem with the default assumption that if you start a new and independent community somebody is gonna come after you. The current tone of American involvement in the world is colored by paranoia on the one hand and an unrestrained enthusiasm for "applied" militarism (driven first and foremost by the profit motive) on the other. This alone would explain the instant uncritical credibility of the "They're gonna get ya!" reflex. On the other side of the question of course is the long history of human violence: greed, murder, and justifications borne of tribal exceptionalism. So what I'm asking for here is for you to make your case. We have a modern world: enlightenment values(Dorian Grey?) in a media fishbowl. The world sees all, and may choose to get involved (on which side?). Modern techno-states whose people enjoy (and insist upon) high levels of wealth and FREEDOM have immensely complex, interconnected, and interdependent infrastructures profoundly vulnerable to asymmetric attack (ie "terrorism" without the hysteria and prejudice). These are only some of the factors which, to my way of thinking, make up the context for the question. Others are motivation, and capability: what factors would provoke and attack or make it profitable, and what factors might make an attack difficult to carry out? A little note here: I always have in mind a floating ocean community, which largely eliminates issues of territorial encroachment. Largely. Anyway, there it is. Make your case. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 14 19:02:08 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:02:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Freedom of Opinions is UK Message-ID: <49971530.5060402@libero.it> Geert Wilders prevented to enter in the [no more so] Great Britain so to not stir Muslims anger. When will be the turn of the transhumanists? http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3796 Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 14 19:17:09 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:17:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "new communities out of the reach of governments" In-Reply-To: References: <4989F8C2.7070107@libero.it> <498C815B.10004@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090206124026.0245b590@satx.rr.com> <498D669B.50507@libero.it> <49904964.40503@libero.it> <2d6187670902091104m4caa61cdn4510654f72182550@mail.gmail.com> <49934E2D.8060306@libero.it> Message-ID: <499718B5.2090603@libero.it> Il 14/02/2009 19.56, Jeff Davis ha scritto: > On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 3:16 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: > I totally disagree. Well, okay...not totally, maybe. But I have a > problem with the default assumption that if you start a new and > independent community somebody is gonna come after you. The current > tone of American involvement in the world is colored by paranoia on > the one hand and an unrestrained enthusiasm for "applied" militarism > (driven first and foremost by the profit motive) on the other. This > alone would explain the instant uncritical credibility of the "They're > gonna get ya!" reflex. I don't think that anyone will try to take over the micronation immediately after it start. The bigger problems will be criminals and criminal activity. I don't think that the US Navy will want to be involved in such mess. It is like shooting to a fly with a cannon. But flies have enemies. Little enemies. So, micronations need to be strong enough to survive against microenemies (say criminals, organized crime, pirates). Then, if and when they have some degree of success, they will grow (this is the measure of success). But when they will grow, they will start to show on the radar of big players. Then the need of big friends, allies and big sticks will show. > The world sees all, and may choose to get involved (on which side?). > Modern techno-states whose people enjoy (and insist upon) high levels > of wealth and FREEDOM have immensely complex, interconnected, and > interdependent infrastructures profoundly vulnerable to asymmetric > attack (ie "terrorism" without the hysteria and prejudice). Say you are the host of people fleeing from persecution in Islamic countries, the muslims could came after you following their enemies. Then you need to choose if bow and throw the persecuted in the water or resist the persecutors (and maybe teach them a bit of respect about you). Maybe the Muslims would take over the place for their purposes (someone tried to take over Sealand, for example). Or maybe they will not like an infidel free around, or maybe you appear an easy target. > These are only some of the factors which, to my way of thinking, make > up the context for the question. Others are motivation, and > capability: what factors would provoke and attack or make it > profitable, and what factors might make an attack difficult to carry > out? I suggest to not think only to the USoA as a source of agression. There are many other lower powers, but much more willing to use their powers without scruples. > A little note here: I always have in mind a floating ocean community, > which largely eliminates issues of territorial encroachment. Largely. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 14 19:05:32 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 14 Feb 2009 11:05:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] revolutionary new drug approved by FDA Message-ID: <216EFAA0640D4398B9644BAA406D4521@spike> New depressant approved, giving hope for those chronically afflicted with this mood disorder and their families: http://www.theonion.com/content/video/fda_approves_depressant_drug_for?utm_s ource=a-section spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 15 02:16:46 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 13:16:46 +1100 Subject: [ExI] happy valentines day In-Reply-To: <8679375544EC4C87A8AF505710BA661C@spike> References: <2d6187670902110743wacba15fo49c8fc7dd4a35cbc@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90902140332v5f9655a1p648ed844fa1e4354@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20902140453r34d90719ned7f1ad793d68be9@mail.gmail.com> <8679375544EC4C87A8AF505710BA661C@spike> Message-ID: 2009/2/15 spike : > > May you and your sweetheart enjoy a most happy VD. > > Hmm, that particular occasion doesn't lend it self well to abbreviation. If > we dealt with Valentines Day the same way as the Saudis, or the Indians: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5729126.ece > just imagine the > total savings. It could amount to several microstimuli: > > http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-0213-day03_kf0rxinc.jpg,0,5 > 032744.photo -- Stathis Papaioannou From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 15 08:23:06 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 01:23:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future Message-ID: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> The octuplets mother, Nadya Suleman, has an official website up where she asks for donations and even allows comments to be made. I took the time to ask her to give the octuplets up for adoption. lol I have to say I am rather sadly impressed at how she has fairly effectively manipulated the media and public for her own ends. Nadya is not the ordinary welfare mom by any means. http://thenadyasulemanfamily.com/ Pictures of her painfully huge "baby bump" http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1142566/The-mother-baby-bumps-Octuplets-mum-bares-ENORMOUS-stomach-just-days-giving-birth.html In the Transhuman Space roleplaying game it told the story of a scientifically brilliant billionaire (he could certainly afford his many offspring) who built a space colony for the thousands of clones he had made of himself (the children were decanted as babies and did not have his personality downloaded into them)! They were one massive laissez-faire think tank and people would make pilgrimages to the facility to seek their aid in research projects. I wonder what the "Nadya Suleman's" of the future will be like. I would think the laws controlling reproduction (whether the old fashioned way, in vitro, xoxing, uploads, etc.) will be much stricter (and far more effectively enforced) than they are now. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fauxever at sprynet.com Sun Feb 15 08:37:55 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 00:37:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <58EB2A6B711546A9AAD82EAF2F382B1A@patrick4ezsk6z> From: John Grigg To: ExI chat list ; World Transhumanist Association Discussion List ; Sent: Sunday, February 15, 2009 12:23 AM > The octuplets mother, Nadya Suleman, has an official website up where she > asks for donations and even allows comments to be made. I took the time > to ask her to give the octuplets up for adoption. lol I have to say I am > rather sadly impressed at how she has fairly effectively manipulated the > media and public for her own ends. Nadya is not the ordinary welfare mom > by any means. That voice. The things she said. After seeing Nadya speak on television a few days ago, it seemed to me she is seriously not wrapped very well. Olga From benboc at lineone.net Sun Feb 15 10:10:31 2009 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 10:10:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] happy valentines day In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4997EA17.9010206@lineone.net> "spike" pointed out: > May you and your sweetheart enjoy a most happy VD. > > Hmm, that particular occasion doesn't lend it self well to > abbreviation. Spike, most young 'uns these days wouldn't know what VD means (or used to mean). If it was called Supercharged Testosterone Day, however... (According to the catholics, St. Valentine is the wrong saint, anyway, so the name might as well be changed. Being the cynic that i am, i think we should just merge xmas, St. VD and Easter into one long consumer-fest, and call it the Recession Denial Season). Ben Zaiboc From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 15 22:35:54 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 16:35:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] weird life? Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090215163440.022c4e10@satx.rr.com> Does Earth harbour a 'shadow biosphere' of alien life? Monday, 16 February 2009 by Holly Hight Cosmos Online CHICAGO: A 'shadow biosphere' of 'weird life' unrelated to life as we know it might exist on Earth, giving new insight into how common life might be elsewhere in the universe, astrobiologists say. Finding life that doesn't fit with the types we already know would be a strong indication that life developed more than one time even on Earth, increasing the chances of finding it elsewhere, said Paul Davies, an astrophysicist at Arizona State University in Tempe. But nobody has ever seriously searched for microorganisms - or any form of life - different from the carbon-based, DNA-centred type of life about which we have long known. If we do look, Davies said, "It's entirely feasible that we'll find a shadow biosphere," he told reporters at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. "Our search for life [has been] based on our assumptions of life as we know it. Weird life and normal life could be intermingled, and filtering out the things we understand about life as we know it from the things we don't understand is tricky." The tools and experiments researchers use to look for new forms of life - such as those on missions to Mars - would not detect biochemistries different from our own, making it easy for scientists to miss alien life, even if was under their noses. "When you don't know what you're looking for or what it'll look like, you have to come up with a whole scientific method for how to go about [looking for] it," added Steven Benner, a Fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution and The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology in Gainesville, Florida. Scientists are looking in places where life isn't expected - for example, in areas of extreme heat, cold, salt, radiation, dryness, or contaminated streams and rivers. Davies is particularly interested in places that are heavily contaminated with arsenic, which, he suggests, might support forms of life that use arsenic the way life as we know it uses phosphorus. If we do discover exotic life unrelated to ours, it might not have developed here, Davies said. Instead, it might have originated elsewhere, then hitchhiked to Earth by piggybacking on a meteorite. But it doesn't matter where it originated, Davies argued, because it's still an indication that life has cropped up from scratch in more than one place. "If it's happened more than once in the Solar System, then the Universe will be teeming with life," said Davies. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Feb 15 22:41:58 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:41:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] weird life? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090215163440.022c4e10@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090215163440.022c4e10@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902151441j48f2611ftfcef58595c884983@mail.gmail.com> I always thought the life found at the very deepest ocean depths sort of fit into this category. John On Sun, Feb 15, 2009 at 3:35 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > > Does Earth harbour a 'shadow biosphere' of alien life? > > Monday, 16 February 2009 > > by Holly Hight > Cosmos Online > > CHICAGO: A 'shadow biosphere' of 'weird life' unrelated to life as we know > it might exist on Earth, giving new insight into how common life might be > elsewhere in the universe, astrobiologists say. > > Finding life that doesn't fit with the types we already know would be a > strong indication that life developed more than one time even on Earth, > increasing the chances of finding it elsewhere, said Paul Davies, an > astrophysicist at Arizona State University in Tempe. > > But nobody has ever seriously searched for microorganisms - or any form of > life - different from the carbon-based, DNA-centred type of life about which > we have long known. > > If we do look, Davies said, "It's entirely feasible that we'll find a > shadow biosphere," he told reporters at the annual meeting of the American > Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago. > > "Our search for life [has been] based on our assumptions of life as we know > it. Weird life and normal life could be intermingled, and filtering out the > things we understand about life as we know it from the things we don't > understand is tricky." > > The tools and experiments researchers use to look for new forms of life - > such as those on missions to Mars - would not detect biochemistries > different from our own, making it easy for scientists to miss alien life, > even if was under their noses. > > "When you don't know what you're looking for or what it'll look like, you > have to come up with a whole scientific method for how to go about [looking > for] it," added Steven Benner, a Fellow at the Foundation for Applied > Molecular Evolution and The Westheimer Institute for Science and Technology > in Gainesville, Florida. > > Scientists are looking in places where life isn't expected - for example, > in areas of extreme heat, cold, salt, radiation, dryness, or contaminated > streams and rivers. Davies is particularly interested in places that are > heavily contaminated with arsenic, which, he suggests, might support forms > of life that use arsenic the way life as we know it uses phosphorus. > > If we do discover exotic life unrelated to ours, it might not have > developed here, Davies said. Instead, it might have originated elsewhere, > then hitchhiked to Earth by piggybacking on a meteorite. > > But it doesn't matter where it originated, Davies argued, because it's > still an indication that life has cropped up from scratch in more than one > place. > > "If it's happened more than once in the Solar System, then the Universe > will be teeming with life," said Davies. > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Mon Feb 16 01:47:56 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 02:47:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Il 15/02/2009 9.23, John Grigg ha scritto: > The octuplets mother, Nadya Suleman, I have this feeling... The name suggest me something... > In the Transhuman Space roleplaying game it told the story of a > scientifically brilliant billionaire (he could certainly afford his many > offspring) who built a space colony for the thousands of clones he had > made of himself (the children were decanted as babies and did not have > his personality downloaded into them)! They were one massive laissez-faire > think tank and people would make pilgrimages to the facility to seek > their aid in research projects. I like the idea. > I wonder what the "Nadya Suleman's" of the future will be like. I would > think the laws controlling reproduction (whether the old fashioned way, > in vitro, xoxing, uploads, etc.) will be much stricter (and far more > effectively enforced) than they are now. I'm against enforced birth controls. Scrap the welfare state, so people like her will think twice before doing this stupid things. I don't understand! Why must I give up my freedoms because a stupid woman do stupid things? Why I am supposed to pay a part of her children schools, foods, healthcare with my taxes? California is going under with gargantuan deficit and debts. And they want people pay for the follies of others? I understand because so many people on the net say that California is beautiful but it is no more for sane working people. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Feb 16 02:14:30 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 20:14:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090215200939.02485d48@satx.rr.com> >>The octuplets mother, Nadya Suleman, > >I have this feeling... >The name suggest me something... You're right, first name sounds Russian. Oh wait, no, she's a Xian with an Iraqi father. From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 16 02:14:12 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 15 Feb 2009 18:14:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com><9E1367378CBC47278423B43271D61544@spike><08D79F33FF58411F990FE5989AB4BC2F@spike><4F9869446D3844BB9455F196BA944694@Catbert><40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike><7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0902121514x722b400aybb14dfca47643b25@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: If this place is so good that the customers endure rattlesnake bites and *still* shop there, why then I cannot accept the notion that Walmart is evil: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,493248,00.html spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 07:37:31 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 07:37:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 1:47 AM, painlord2k wrote: > I'm against enforced birth controls. > Scrap the welfare state, so people like her will think twice before doing > this stupid things. > I don't understand! Why must I give up my freedoms because a stupid woman do > stupid things? Why I am supposed to pay a part of her children schools, > foods, healthcare with my taxes? > > California is going under with gargantuan deficit and debts. And they want > people pay for the follies of others? I understand because so many people > on the net say that California is beautiful but it is no more for sane > working people. > Mirco, Please try and bring your economic theories back in touch with the real world. Welfare payments are a small part of the problem. California and other states are going bankrupt because the collapse of the stock market has left their pension schemes grossly underfunded. The collapse in real estate has made property tax income disappear and unemployment has greatly reduced income tax revenue and the recession has reduced sales tax revenue. So states are only getting a fraction of the tax revenue that they got in the boom years. Their only alternatives, (like the government) are either to borrow even more money than they borrowed during the artificial boom years or make unbelievable cuts in spending and pensions. The phrase 'between a rock and a hard place' comes to mind. BillK From dagonweb at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 09:13:30 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:13:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: > > > I'm against enforced birth controls. > > Scrap the welfare state, so people like her will think twice before doing > > this stupid things. > > I don't understand! Why must I give up my freedoms because a stupid woman > do > > stupid things? Why I am supposed to pay a part of her children schools, > > foods, healthcare with my taxes? > > > > California is going under with gargantuan deficit and debts. And they > want > > people pay for the follies of others? I understand because so many > people > > on the net say that California is beautiful but it is no more for sane > > working people. > The diversity of genes we have implies that a percentage of people will be unable to compete in the global marketplace. This is a constant figure - 5% of the potential job market are not classified as formally disabled (or after a while do gain that label in most modern democracies, if only by default) and simply cannot be fit in to the current employability system. If wellfares are low, these people end up in prison. This is so consistent a pattern that we can conclude the genetic component transcend free will (no amount of threat will dissuade this percentage, not even executions) and the state will have to find a solution to deal with this. In current market conform context, a prison inmate costs between 150 (near-third world conditions, alabama) to 400 (fully developed, denmark, scandinavia) per day. A wellfare mom costs under 100 a day, probably closer to 50. Plus, a wellfare recipient is kept dependent on the system, is fed and housed and tends to not spread disease. The damage someone inflicts on society if cut of from necessities (addicts come to mind) range from 100K tot half a million a year in the netherlands. Junkies steal several objects a day, which amounts of debilitating economic damage. A group of junkies predating in an area can close stores in under a year, wrecking regional business. The same junky in prison requires medical care far in excess of the mentioned 400. A person cut of from an equitable income, or society itself by virtue of being stigmatized in this manner, tends to become pathological, consumes increasing care, often already has problems. So giving these people wellfare can make sense, from a cost-cutting perspective. I agree this is highly unsatisfactory for the critical tax payer. It is a no-win situation, and I consider it up the critical tax payer to come up with alternative means of reducing cost. I assume considerations like "humane" or "just" or "with longterm implications in mind" have no value to you in this discussion,so let me kick off with some suggestions * when a pesonis clearly unable to contribute more economic value than he or she consumes, that person is marked for euthanasia * when a person clear consumes more than he or she produces in eonomic value, that person is marked for euthanasia * when a person consistently uses criminal means to aquire goods, euthanasia * As above, low cost internment in a caged environment, slave labour, tent camps etc. I think you cannot reduce cost much below 50 unless you can marketize these people as a resource. Organ harvesting? * I suggest you look at a slow escalation if you implement harsher methods, i.e. what other cost cutting measures can you apply? Smokers cost ten to fifty times as much as they cough up in taxes - hence maybe start making some tough decissions regarding smokers (drinkers? Child abusing parents?) * Parents routinely give inherited ailments to parents. I think parents who can afford genetic screening should be held accountable for the societal impact. At the very least they should be made to pay. * Sociopathy costs society dearly in human misery. A full 5% of people can be diagnosed as being psychopaths, and they can and do have high-paying jobs. Nevertheless their actions have perpetuated a culture of exploitation, dumping, theft, corruption and signifiant human tragedy. I am for testing people for sociopathic lack of empathy, and forcing these people on lifelong psychiatric councelling and making sure they don't enter jobs where they can damage society or impact other people's lives. Pleae let me know what you think on these treatments to address the scum that damages and exploits society - and make sure you pay less taxes. Because that is a cause to fight for, at any cost, to make sure you pay less taxes. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 16 12:08:13 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:08:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: <4999572D.7050405@libero.it> Il 16/02/2009 8.37, BillK ha scritto: > Mirco, > Please try and bring your economic theories back in touch with the real world. > Welfare payments are a small part of the problem. Where did I write they are all of the problem? http://nextbigfuture.com/2009/02/california-oil-and-nuclear-power-could.html California deserve to be on its knees, as the people continue to elect irresponsible politicians and believe in irresponsible policies. The have an huge debts and huge deficit and the refuse to allow drilling or building of nuclear plants or to cut spending. This behaviour is immoral, because the spending will be a burden for the people living in the future (or in other states if the Feds bail out California) that have no way to oppose this spending. It is always the "no taxation without representation"; old stuff but always good stuff. > California and other states are going bankrupt because the collapse of > the stock market has left their pension schemes grossly underfunded. How do you call this if not "welfare state"? The states and the Fed governments regulate and force the way people save for their pension plans. This is the consequence of the Taylorist model that the US government imposed to his citizens. This is a paternalistic model, not so different from a feudal system. Tie the workers to their big business employers like peasants to the land and their lords. This help the big business to receive governments help, but it is only a damage for the workers, that are, willy nilly, tied forever to the fortunes of their employer. > The collapse in real estate has made property tax income disappear and > unemployment has greatly reduced income tax revenue and the recession > has reduced sales tax revenue. And who did force, with the menace of law warfare the banks to give loans to the wrong people? What was the rationale to do this? Anyone must be able to buy a home? Is it this not welfare state? It is disguised welfare state. And the housing boom and bust is the consequence of this attempt to do a stupid thing. > So states are only getting a fraction of the tax revenue that they got > in the boom years. They received, probably, more than they deserved before. Now the things are returning to the normality. > Their only alternatives, (like the government) are either to borrow > even more money than they borrowed during the artificial boom years or > make unbelievable cuts in spending and pensions. They could be unbelievable because a lack of will do do them, not because they are impossible. They are so possible that they can become inevitable if the policies continue unchanged. > The phrase 'between a rock and a hard place' comes to mind. Between delusion and lack of will would be more correct. You tell me that my economic theories are away from the reality, then tell me that the current economic situation is unsustainable. I could understand that you complain about the political feasibility, not the economic viability on the long run. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 12:37:06 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 05:37:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Dagon wrote: The diversity of genes we have implies that a percentage of people will be unable to compete in the global marketplace. This is a constant figure - 5% of the potential job market are not classified as formally disabled (or after a while do gain that label in most modern democracies, if only by default) and simply cannot be fit in to the current employability system. If wellfares are low, these people end up in prison. This is so consistent a pattern that we can conclude the genetic component transcend free will (no amount of threat will dissuade this percentage, not even executions) and the state will have to find a solution to deal with this. >>> A fascinating concept, but I wonder to what extent it is truly genetic as compared to family environment (the classic argument)? I hope you don't upset the politically correct among us too much with this theory. lol I have my fingers crossed that Damien did not read this... hee I tend to think this element of humanity in previous eras was much better adapted to living and even thriving. But our high-tech era of complex employment skill sets and highly monitored societies with abundant law enforcement is more than many of these people can bear. I see these individuals in my local community and think of them as "people born in the wrong time" who feel like refugees from the past. I admit many of them would have ended up in the stocks, a dungeon, a salt mine or the chopping block had they lived in another less civilized age and gotten caught for their misbehaviour. you continue: A person cut of from an equitable income, or society itself by virtue of being stigmatized in this manner, tends to become pathological, consumes increasing care, often already has problems. So giving these people wellfare can make sense, from a cost-cutting perspective. >>> Very true. you continued: * when a person is clearly unable to contribute more economic value than he or she consumes, that person is marked for euthanasia * when a person clear consumes more than he or she produces in economic value, that person is marked for euthanasia * when a person consistently uses criminal means to acquire goods, euthanasia * As above, low cost internment in a caged environment, slave labour, tent camps etc. I think you cannot reduce cost much below 50 unless you can marketize these people as a resource. Organ harvesting? * I suggest you look at a slow escalation if you implement harsher methods, i.e. what other cost cutting measures can you apply? Smokers cost ten to fifty times as much as they cough up in taxes - hence maybe start making some tough decisions regarding smokers (drinkers? Child abusing parents?) * Parents routinely give inherited ailments to parents. I think parents who can afford genetic screening should be held accountable for the societal impact. At the very least they should be made to pay. >>> I suspect the "enlightened" Stalins and Hitlers of the 21st century will find all such suggestions to be very practical and necessary. you continue: * Sociopathy costs society dearly in human misery. A full 5% of people can be diagnosed as being psychopaths, and they can and do have high-paying jobs. Nevertheless their actions have perpetuated a culture of exploitation, dumping, theft, corruption and significant human tragedy. I am for testing people for sociopathic lack of empathy, and forcing these people on lifelong psychiatric counseling and making sure they don't enter jobs where they can damage society or impact other people's lives. >>> A genetic test for sociopathy and laws to enforce the identifying of them at birth (or before) would be in my eyes a very good thing. Special treatment programs (and hopefully applied genetic engineering) could minimize the damage they do to society. They are the evil mutants among us... you continue: Please let me know what you think on these treatments to address the scum that damages and exploits society - and make sure you pay less taxes. Because that is a cause to fight for, at any cost, to make sure you pay less taxes. >>> Ohh....., these people just need a big hug and some compassion. We must raise taxes to help give them a further helping hand! Dagon, I thought this was one of the better posts I have read in awhile. : ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 14:07:24 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 14:07:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <4999572D.7050405@libero.it> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <4999572D.7050405@libero.it> Message-ID: On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:08 PM, painlord2k wrote: > Where did I write they are all of the problem? > You gave us a tirade against the welfare state and your taxes being paid to support poor people and gave California as an example of a welfare state going broke. I replied that providing basic life support to poor people was a very small part of the causes of the financial problems in California. And Dagon pointed out that providing life support to poor people is cheaper for society than paying for them to be kept in prison or suffering the damage that they cause through crime and theft to help themselves survive. All states and western nations are suffering severe financial problems, regardless of the size of their welfare state. Even individuals who have carefully invested for their own pension have lost a large part of their retirement savings. The welfare state is not relevant to the problem. > > You tell me that my economic theories are away from the reality, then tell > me that the current economic situation is unsustainable. > Nobody has ever tried to claim that the present system is wonderful or perfect. And there are certainly going to be severe readjustment problems after the financial misbehavior of recent years. But your cry of 'scrap everything and be like me!' has absolutely no chance of ever swaying popular opinion to follow your theories. Because most people aren't like you and they won't agree to do it your way. You cannot expel everyone who disagrees with you or provide the death penalty for every crime. In any society you have to compromise. If you can't compromise then you have to leave and find a more compatible society. When political and economical changes are being considered then only slight changes (improvements?) have any chance of survival. (As Obama is now finding out). A country is like a huge tanker ship. To change course takes a long effort before you notice much effect. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 16 16:28:41 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:28:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: <49999439.3030809@libero.it> Il 16/02/2009 10.13, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > The diversity of genes we have implies that a percentage of people > will be unable to compete in the global marketplace. They can compete on the local marketplace. Waiters, janitors and so on don't compete in the global marketplace, only in the local ones. > This is a constant figure - 5% of the potential job market are not > classified as formally disabled (or after a while do gain that label > in most modern democracies, if only by default) and simply cannot be > fit in to the current employability system. So? We have to pay for the welfare of the disabled, then the unfitted but not formally disabled, then of the people that find some jobs under their status (from your old posts). Are we cow that you want milk us? And without giving us shelter and food and the care the cow deserve and need. > If welfares are low, these people end up in prison. Is this a bad thing? If they are prone to go in prison without welfare, they are more prone to go in prison with welfare, as they have more time in their hand to break the laws. Their basic need can be met by philanthropists (food, shelter, cloths). > This is so consistent a pattern that we can conclude the genetic > component transcend free will (no amount of threat will dissuade this > percentage, not even executions) and the state will have to find a > solution to deal with this. Executions are a permanent solution, if they are not able to respect the lives of others. Long jail times is also a good solution when they don't respect the other's properties. If the component is mainly genetic, so you thing they don't deserve the jail reserved for criminals, the Italian way could be appealing: if they are "socially dangerous" there is the criminal asylum for them. They are sentence a minimum term for their crimes, then they are keep inside if they are considered "socially dangerous" by the psychiatrists that care them there. We don't let lions or tigers to roam freely around only because their genetic make-up is different and let them feed on humans. Where is the difference? Prison are not for "evil" people, only for the people that don't behave in a civilized way. > In current market conform context, a prison inmate costs between 150 > (near-third world conditions, alabama) to 400 (fully developed, > denmark, scandinavia) per day. We could delocalize all of this in Brazil or Myanmar, I would bet it would cost much less than 100$ for inmate/day. and would do a better deterrent. > A welfare mom costs under 100 a day, probably closer to 50. Plus, a > welfare recipient is kept dependent on the system, is fed and housed > and tends to not spread disease. I don't like the idea of "dependent on the system" as I don't like the idea of "feed him forever". > The damage someone inflicts on society if cut of from necessities > (addicts come to mind) It is not. People prefer to be on welfare and have time to do what they like (Jihad? Crime? Babies someone else must feed?) To work is not a pleasure for them and make you tired. > range from 100K tot half a million a year in the netherlands. Junkies > steal several objects a day, which amounts of debilitating economic > damage. A group of junkies predating in an area can close stores in > under a year wrecking regional business. The same junky in prison > requires medical care far in excess of the mentioned 400. You write about this like it is as inevitable as death and taxes. Predators must be deal with and neutralized, not appeased. You can not and must not depend on their goodness. If they are able and willing to break the basic laws, they will have no problems do it with or without welfare. Usually they will not consider the consequences of their actions when they break the laws, so being on welfare will not change their behaviours. If, like you write, no amount of threat will dissuade them, how could they behaviour change only because they are on welfare? Many of them do what they do because they like to do it, and other simply are not able to control their instincts. > A person cut of from an equitable income, or society itself by virtue > of being stigmatized in this manner, tends to become pathological, > consumes increasing care, often already has problems. So giving these > people welfare can make sense, from a cost-cutting perspective. It is insensate, because they will not respect any laws with welfare they would not respect without. And you are only teaching them (and the sane one) that bad behaviours will reward them more than good behaviours (in the near term). > I agree this is highly unsatisfactory for the critical tax payer. It is not only unsatisfactory, it is a waste of time and resources. > It is a no-win situation, and I consider it up the critical tax > payer to come up with alternative means of reducing cost. I know a few way to reduce costs, but I'm sure they would not appeal to you and to other people willing to spend my resources. > I assume considerations like "humane" or "just" or "with longterm > implications in mind" have no value to you in this discussion,so let > me kick off with some suggestions It is humane to burden good people with the costs of keep fed and happy a bunch of criminals? > * when a person clearly unable to contribute more economic value than > he or she consumes, that person is marked for euthanasia This is what a socialist would do, national or international it is the same. I'm not. I'm only concerned with people that use violence against peaceful men and women. > * when a person clear consumes more than he or she produces in > economic value, that person is marked for euthanasia Why? He/She can be supported by bleeding hearts like you. I remember something... you are on welfare. So you are talking about a course of action that only help you and that cost you nothing. Read the citation at the end of this message. > * when a person consistently uses criminal means to acquire goods, > euthanasia This depend. If it is an hateful crime, like homicide or rape, I would dispense with the "eu" prefix. I would support "tachitanasia". If he only rob people, I could accept to keep it in a jail and force him to work to feed himself until he have repaid the people damaged; if not he can starve. Either ways the problem will be solved. > * As above, low cost internment in a caged environment, slave labour, > tent camps etc. I think you cannot reduce cost much below 50 unless > you can marketize these people as a resource. Organ harvesting? We could outsource the keeping, I wrote before, to other countries if they are not willing or able to feed themselves. Say China. Or Somalia. > * I suggest you look at a slow escalation if you implement harsher > methods, i.e. what other cost cutting measures can you apply? Smokers > cost ten to fifty times as much as they cough up in taxes - hence > maybe start making some tough decisions regarding smokers (drinkers? > Child abusing parents?) I talked about scrapping welfare. People want smoke? They can, as much as I must not foot their healthcare bills. Where is my problem? > * Parents routinely give inherited ailments to parents. I think > parents who can afford genetic screening should be held accountable > for the societal impact. At the very least they should be made to > pay. So you are harsh with good people and weak/sweet with criminals. Your idea of welfare is that productive people must pay when they do something wrong, but unproductive people must not pay for the wrongs they do and be paid for do nothing. It is "interesting". > * Sociopathy costs society dearly in human misery. A full 5% of > people can be diagnosed as being psychopaths, and they can and do > have high-paying jobs. Nevertheless their actions have perpetuated a > culture of exploitation, dumping, theft, corruption and significant > human tragedy. I am for testing people for sociopathic lack of > empathy, and forcing these people on lifelong psychiatric councelling > and making sure they don't enter jobs where they can damage society > or impact other people's lives. If you are for testing people for sociopathic lack of empathy, I am for testing people for sociophatic excess of empathy. People like you are full of empathy for themselves and their likes and void for empathy for others. What are you able to do and to give? Nothing I suppose. So you are like the old/ugly women that, unable to give bad examples, are only good to give good advices other must follow. In Italy there is a proverb that apply to you, it say: "Let arm ourselves so you can go to combat" "Armiamoci e partite". > Please let me know what you think on these treatments to address the > scum that damages and exploits society - and make sure you pay less > taxes. Because that is a cause to fight for, at any cost, to make > sure you pay less taxes. I'm against treating the sociopaths forcefully. If they want be treated, we could do. If they don't want to be treated we can not do anything to change them. If they behave in the wrong ways, jail them. I leave you to meditate to a passage of C.S. Lewis from the The Screwtape Letters http://www.mylibrarybook.com/books/676/C.S-Lewis/The-Screwtape-Letters-1.html > There is here a cruel dilemma before us. If we promoted justice and > charity among men, we should be playing directly into the Enemy's > hands; but if we guide them to the opposite behaviour, this sooner or > later produces (for He permits it to produce) a war or a revolution, > and the undisguisable issue of cowardice or courage awakes > thousands of men from moral stupor. This, indeed, is probably one of > the Enemy's motives for creating a dangerous world's a world in which > moral issues really come to the point. He sees as well as you do that > courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every > virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest > reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will > be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was > merciful till it became risky. Mirco From dagonweb at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 16:33:53 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:33:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: So - how sure are you that you don't fail the sociopath, lack of empathy test? 2009/2/16 John Grigg > Dagon wrote: > The diversity of genes we have implies that a percentage of people will be > unable > to compete in the global marketplace. This is a constant figure - 5% of the > potential > job market are not classified as formally disabled (or after a while do > gain that label > in most modern democracies, if only by default) and simply cannot be fit in > to the > current employability system. > > If wellfares are low, these people end up in prison. This is so consistent > a pattern that > we can conclude the genetic component transcend free will (no amount of > threat > will dissuade this percentage, not even executions) and the state will have > to find a > solution to deal with this. > >>> > > A fascinating concept, but I wonder to what extent it is truly genetic as > compared to family environment (the classic argument)? I hope you don't > upset the politically correct among us too much with this theory. lol I > have my fingers crossed that Damien did not read this... hee > > I tend to think this element of humanity in previous eras was much better > adapted to living and even thriving. But our high-tech era of complex > employment skill sets and highly monitored societies with abundant law > enforcement is more than many of these people can bear. I see these > individuals in my local community and think of them as "people born in the > wrong time" who feel like refugees from the past. I admit many of them > would have ended up in the stocks, a dungeon, a salt mine or the chopping > block had they lived in another less civilized age and gotten caught for > their misbehaviour. > > you continue: > A person cut of from an equitable income, or society itself by virtue of > being stigmatized > in this manner, tends to become pathological, consumes increasing care, > often already > has problems. So giving these people wellfare can make sense, from a > cost-cutting > perspective. > >>> > > Very true. > > you continued: > * when a person is clearly unable to contribute more economic value than he > or she consumes, > that person is marked for euthanasia > > * when a person clear consumes more than he or she produces in economic > value, that > person is marked for euthanasia > > * when a person consistently uses criminal means to acquire goods, > euthanasia > > * As above, low cost internment in a caged environment, slave labour, tent > camps etc. I > think you cannot reduce cost much below 50 unless you can marketize these > people as > a resource. Organ harvesting? > > * I suggest you look at a slow escalation if you implement harsher methods, > i.e. what > other cost cutting measures can you apply? Smokers cost ten to fifty times > as much as > they cough up in taxes - hence maybe start making some tough decisions > regarding > smokers (drinkers? Child abusing parents?) > > * Parents routinely give inherited ailments to parents. I think parents who > can afford > genetic screening should be held accountable for the societal impact. At > the very least > they should be made to pay. > >>> > > I suspect the "enlightened" Stalins and Hitlers of the 21st century will > find all such suggestions to be very practical and necessary. > > you continue: > * Sociopathy costs society dearly in human misery. A full 5% of people can > be diagnosed > as being psychopaths, and they can and do have high-paying jobs. > Nevertheless their actions > have perpetuated a culture of exploitation, dumping, theft, corruption and > significant human > tragedy. I am for testing people for sociopathic lack of empathy, and > forcing these people > on lifelong psychiatric counseling and making sure they don't enter jobs > where they can damage > society or impact other people's lives. > >>> > > A genetic test for sociopathy and laws to enforce the identifying of them > at birth (or before) would be in my eyes a very good thing. Special > treatment programs (and hopefully applied genetic engineering) could > minimize the damage they do to society. They are the evil mutants among > us... > > you continue: > Please let me know what you think on these treatments to address the scum > that damages > and exploits society - and make sure you pay less taxes. Because that is a > cause to fight > for, at any cost, to make sure you pay less taxes. > >>> > > Ohh....., these people just need a big hug and some compassion. We must > raise taxes to help give them a further helping hand! > > Dagon, I thought this was one of the better posts I have read in awhile. : > ) > > John > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 16:45:22 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:45:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <40F2E4C5D0FC4E0FA0F6DAB50A6F9031@spike> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 9:09 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/15 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> On Sat, Feb 14, 2009 at 4:31 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> 2009/2/14 Rafal Smigrodzki : >>> >>>> ### This is indeed the case - or more precisely it takes 1.33 billion >>>> Chinese to make 3.251 trillion worth of goods and services per year, >>>> while it takes only 303 million Americans to make 13.84 trillion of >>>> stuff (statistics by Google). It is absolutely true that on average >>>> Chinese products and services are not any cheaper in terms of labor >>>> per unit of value than American-made ones, in fact, they are much more >>>> time-consuming to make, very roughly approximated by a factor of >>>> (13.84 x 1.33)/(3.251/0.303), you do the math. Since they take so much >>>> time to make stuff, they can't make as much stuff as Americans, and >>>> therefore they earn less. >>> >>> In that case there would be no advantage in American companies >>> manufacturing things in China, since they would be able to so more >>> cheaply using the more efficient workforce in the US and saving on >>> shipping and other costs. >> >> ### The workforce is not inherently that much more efficient in the >> US, but the companies are (you understand that this is not a paradox, >> right?). American companies are very efficient at producing whatever >> it is that combines into the 13.8 trillion GDP figure and as per >> Ricardo's law they can make more money on what they do (airplanes, >> corn, movies, capital management, pharmaceuticals, software, etc.) >> than on other products, such as low-end tools. > > The problem is that the implied value of what the US does still > produce has gone up relative to the value of manufactured goods, which > in the past few decades have come increasingly from overseas. For > example, the cost of haircuts has increased relative to the cost of > televisions. You might say that that's fine, televisions have become > intrinsically cheaper to manufacture. ### Calculations using PPP do take this into account. The US manufacturing sector is actually bigger in absolute terms than ever before, the services sector is incredibly large (which is why in relative terms manufacturing is smaller), the farm sector is bigger than ever. Yes, US economic output is more valuable than ever, even though the fraction contributed to it by the manufacturing sector is lower than 50 years ago. So what? All this is accounted for (indirectly) in the PPP GDP figures. -------------------------- But the increasing US trade > deficit suggests that a correction is coming. ### Preoccupation with the trade deficit baffles me. Why do you think it matters, and what kind of a "correction" are you talking about? ----------------------------------- >> >> BTW, I mis-wrote the ratio in my previous post ... can you find the error :) > > Should be (13.84*1.33)/(3.251*0.3303) = 17.14. But everyone except the > Chinese government agrees the Yuan is undervalued. ### The PPP values do not rely on the yuan. Rafal From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 16 16:55:45 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 17:55:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <4999572D.7050405@libero.it> Message-ID: <49999A91.7070304@libero.it> Il 16/02/2009 15.07, BillK ha scritto: > When political and economical changes are being considered then only > slight changes (improvements?) have any chance of survival. (As Obama > is now finding out). A country is like a huge tanker ship. To change > course takes a long effort before you notice much effect. Only if you don't hit something much more bigger than you, like an island or an iceberg. If California is not bailed out by the Federal Government (that could have its own problems) and is unable to pay wages and retirements all the political resistance of the world will not be able to fix anything. Do you raise taxes? People go in another state so the taxes are lower. Do Washington pay California with the printing presses? Inflation will destroy the value of the money the workers are paid with. There is a breaking point, there is a straw that broke the back of the camel. Before, all appear "as usual". After it is not more the same, whatever people wishful think. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 17:19:44 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 18:19:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902160919x717150f8t1c25788168ee1b59@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 5:33 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > So - how sure are you that you don't fail the sociopath, lack of empathy > test? > I am not sure that empathy statistical distribution reflects political ideologies. Often, ideological "humanitarianism" is a way to overcompensate the lack thereof in practical circumstances. In any even, even rabid libertarian-objectivists usually have nothing against philanthropy - as long as it is not "legally mandated", that is... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fauxever at sprynet.com Mon Feb 16 16:54:44 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 08:54:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <49999439.3030809@libero.it> Message-ID: <6CA85356BFF344CA93C054ECDBF96768@patrick4ezsk6z> From: To: "ExI chat list" > > Prison are not for "evil" people, only for the people that don't behave > in a civilized way. Ah! Well, thank you. That explains it! Now I understand ... why Bernard Madoff is still kicking around in his luxurious Manhattan penthouse. Even as he vacuumed up people's savings for decades, he behaved in a civilized way - i.e., his manners were probably impeccable. Olga From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 16 18:25:23 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:25:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4999AF93.6000807@libero.it> Il 16/02/2009 17.33, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > So - how sure are you that you don't fail the sociopath, lack of empathy > test? What's the problem? It is only counselling. If it is a government program it will be easy to dodge it and game it. If they have high pay jobs, they will be able to pay their way out of the system. Are you sure you will be able to pay your way out the system? Because, if people will be able to pay his way out, it will be able to pay your way in, if they are enough motivated. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 16 18:42:01 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 10:42:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com><4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: ________________________________ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Grigg .... Dagon continues: Please let me know what you think on these treatments to address the scum that damages and exploits society - and make sure you pay less taxes. Because that is a cause to fight for, at any cost, to make sure you pay less taxes. >>> Ohh....., these people just need a big hug and some compassion. We must raise taxes to help give them a further helping hand! Dagon, I thought this was one of the better posts I have read in awhile. : ) John Mr. Gmail has written A Modest Proposal. I am interested in how many will miss the satirical nature of the essay, as did many in Swift's time. spike From xuenay at gmail.com Mon Feb 16 19:11:02 2009 From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 21:11:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Individualistic upload societies realistic? Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0902161111sc6ceffej42ce47ac9622dbf2@mail.gmail.com> Most discussion and fiction concerning societies of uploads that I've seen seems to be based on the premise that they're basically societies of individuals. Since all current-day societies are societies of individuals, that's an obvious starting point, but is it realistic in the long term? In a draft version of my upcoming book, I argue (translated from Finnish): ---- Hanson's analysis [1] assumes that digital minds can be freely copied, but that they remain basically human otherwise. Members of "upload families" created by copying a single individual may be very similar, but in the end every upload is an independent individual. However, information processing doesn't only happen inside brains and computers. The paradigm of distributed cognition studies human societies as information-processing systems, with individuals being parts of the larger system. For instance, the operation of an airliner cockpit's crew has been studied from this perpective [2]. For a flight to proceed without trouble, the different crew members need to be aware of information relating to their areas of responsibility at any given moment. If the crew is experienced and well trained, they'll constantly stay up to date by e.g. simply listening to other crew members converse with flight control. As flight control informs the captain of a new flight altitude, the rest of the pilots begin to adjust the altitude even while the captain is still finishing up the communication. The cockpit functions as a unified system, and relevant information is propagated to wherever needed. Several crew members hearing the same information also allows for error correction. If the message is unclear and the captain can't make out flight control's words, he can ask the others for clarification. The co-pilot answers the captain's query: even though one part of the system has failed to absorb the information received from outside the system, the same information has been stored in another part, which may then attempt to re-send it where needed. Several other fields have been studied in the same manner, ranging from a child's language learning [3] to creativity [4]. A child doesn't learn language by itself and in a vacuum, but via interaction with adults and older children. Creativity, on the other hand, requires common, shared "idea resources" which individuals may use to come up with their own inventions and then give them back for others to refine further. Another theory of innovation considers inventions to be responses to problems encountered by the community. Things such as bad laws or ineffective ways of doing things show up in community, and are considered problems by its members. This leads the community - the system - into a need state, mobilizing its members to seek solutions until they're found. One central idea is that social communities are cognitive architectures the same way that individual minds are [5]. The argument is as follows. Cognitive processes involve trajectories of information (transmission and transformation), so the patterns of these information trajectories, if stable, reflect some underlying cognitive architecture. Since social organization - plus the structure added by the context of activity - largely determines the way information flows through a group, social organization may itself be viewed as a form of cognitive architecture. If societies are information-processing systems, then the most effective and competitive societies are the ones in which information is processed in the most efficient and fast manner. One reason for why brains are so effective at processing information is that parts of them have evolved to closely co-operate and share information between each other, at high bandwidths. From this it follows that it is in the interest of uploads to share information as fast and effectively as possible, in order to compete. Existing in a digital format, they can do this in a way that would be impossible for traditional biological minds. They can develop connections between each other that permit instant, brain-to-brain sharing of knowledge, in the same fashion that different parts of a single brain share knowledge. If these connections are of a sufficiently high bandwidth, it is likely that minds participating in such information-sharing will lose some of their own individuality, melding into hive minds. Also, nothing requires the melding to only happen between humans: computer programs may also meld into deeply integrated parts of individuals. Naturally, this kind of development won't happen overnight. It will take time to discover the most efficient and safe ways to join minds together. It is possible, that the exact way of joining a mind to the rest of the community must be custom-tailored to each specific mind. Joining together also requires trust: as computer viruses have shown, deeply inter-linked systems may also cause each other considerable damage. In this, upload families formed by copies have an advantage. Copies are very similar to each other, "standardized". When somebody comes up for two copies to share knowledge, it can very rapidly be generalized to the rest of the family. Members of upload families can also literally trust each other as much as they trust themselves. As before, if this allows for more efficient work, it will cause the joined-together upload minds to dominate the economy and outcompete any who choose to remain as individuals. References: [1] Hanson, R. (1994) If uploads come first: The crack of a future dawn. Extropy, 6(2), p. 10-15. http://hanson.gmu.edu/uploads.html [2] Hutchins, E. & Klausen, T. (1995) Distributed Cognition in an Airline Cockpit. [3] Spurrett, D. & Cowley, S.J. (2004) How to do things without words: infants, utterance-activity and distributed cognition. Language Sciences, 6, 443-466. [4] Miettinen, R. (2006) The Sources of Novelty: A Cultural and Systemic View of Distributed Creativity. Creativity and Innovation Management. Vol. 15, no. 2. [5] Hollan, J. & Hutchins, E. & Kirsh, D. (2000) Distributed Cognition: Toward a New Foundation for Human-Computer Interaction Research. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction. Vol 7, no. 2. ---- Comments? From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Feb 16 19:27:23 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 13:27:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090216132637.025823e8@satx.rr.com> At 10:42 AM 2/16/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: >Mr. Gmail has written A Modest Proposal. I am interested in how many will >miss the satirical nature of the essay, as did many in Swift's time. Half the list? (Let's hope not.) From fauxever at sprynet.com Mon Feb 16 19:08:12 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2009 11:08:12 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com><4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: From: Dagon Gmail To: ExI chat list > Please let me know what you think on these treatments to address the scum > that damages and exploits society ... I don't know. What do you think of people who call other people "scum?" Olga _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Feb 17 00:58:52 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 01:58:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <6CA85356BFF344CA93C054ECDBF96768@patrick4ezsk6z> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <49999439.3030809@libero.it> <6CA85356BFF344CA93C054ECDBF96768@patrick4ezsk6z> Message-ID: <499A0BCC.6030208@libero.it> Il 16/02/2009 17.54, Olga Bourlin ha scritto: > From: > To: "ExI chat list" >> >> Prison are not for "evil" people, only for the people that don't behave >> in a civilized way. > > Ah! Well, thank you. That explains it! Now I understand ... why Bernard > Madoff is still kicking around in his luxurious Manhattan penthouse. Poor Bernard Madoff, he only specialized in "Hope and Change" for selected few (rich people). People believed him like they believe Obama and the Democrats about the "Stimulus". My prediction is that the USA are descending the path that Italy followed 30 years ago. For a time, we are not 20 year later than the US, but 30 years early. > Even as he vacuumed up people's savings for decades, he behaved in a > civilized way - i.e., his manners were probably impeccable. Well, you elected Obama. He is very civilized and will vacuum much more money than Madoff would be able to dream. And will not land in jail for this. I think Madoff will land in jail as soon as his trial will end. Please, don't follow the Italian way, where the people go in jail before the sentence and exit from the jail immediately after. Mirco From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Feb 17 06:45:58 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:15:58 +1030 Subject: [ExI] happy birthday In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902122230u5da6d219yd2425054aa5817d5@mail.gmail.com> References: <1A2F7812957B499D907B772F8D80ADDA@spike> <439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2d6187670902122230u5da6d219yd2425054aa5817d5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902162245q6a21daa2lb043b81f587721e0@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/13 John Grigg : > I didn't realize Honest Abe and Charlie Darwin shared the same birthday. A > book comparing the two men's lives could make for a bestseller. > > John It seems like a stretch to me. http://www.monstersandcritics.com/books/archive/bookarchive.php/Rebel_Giants:_The_Revolutionary_Lives_of_Abraham_Lincoln_&_Charles_Darwin/14189 -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Feb 17 07:06:24 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 02:06:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] happy birthday References: <1A2F7812957B499D907B772F8D80ADDA@spike><439715.74048.qm@web110303.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2d6187670902122230u5da6d219yd2425054aa5817d5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: John Grigg > I didn't realize Honest Abe and Charlie Darwin shared the same birthday. > A book comparing the two men's lives could make for a bestseller. See Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life by Adam Gopnik John K Clark From dagonweb at gmail.com Tue Feb 17 10:30:42 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 11:30:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: > > Please let me know what you think on these treatments to address the scum > that damages and exploits society ... > > I don't know. What do you think of people who call other people "scum?" I think people who do, sincerely, are hideous, revolting human beings that should be watched. But thats nothing compared to what I think of people who dabble in practices such as sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling - those filthy bastards should be taken out back and shot. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at comcast.net Tue Feb 17 14:45:16 2009 From: brent.allsop at comcast.net (brent.allsop at comcast.net) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 14:45:16 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] Louis CK "Everything's amazing, nobody's happy" In-Reply-To: <149385613.879581234881903496.JavaMail.root@sz0038a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> Message-ID: <117600781.879661234881916886.JavaMail.root@sz0038a.emeryville.ca.mail.comcast.net> So true... http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fauxever at sprynet.com Tue Feb 17 15:04:07 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 07:04:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com><4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: <3DC4674BB1B843DD9CDC9BFAB18917F4@patrick4ezsk6z> From: Dagon Gmail To: ExI chat list Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 2:30 AM > But thats nothing compared to what I think of people who dabble in practices such as sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling - those filthy bastards should be taken out back and shot. :(( _______________________________________________ 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 Tue Feb 17 17:55:10 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:55:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902170955x13de41a1ic4ea7806b1ad6087@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > I think people who do, sincerely, are hideous, revolting human beings that > should > be watched. "Scum", in other words... :-) Nice how those views immediately tend to become fractal in nature... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 17 18:11:05 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 12:11:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling In-Reply-To: <3DC4674BB1B843DD9CDC9BFAB18917F4@patrick4ezsk6z> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <3DC4674BB1B843DD9CDC9BFAB18917F4@patrick4ezsk6z> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217120516.024e9af8@satx.rr.com> >From: Dagon Gmail > >>But thats nothing compared to what I think of people who dabble >in practices such as sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling >- those filthy >bastards should be taken out back and shot. > >:(( Omg! Spike's "Modest Proposal" clarification has gone unheeded. Mr. D. Gmail is and has been using *sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling*! His comments are precisely ironic, at his own expense (or even more, at the expense of anyone who read too quickly to notice his sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling). C'mon, people--put on a *happy* face! :))) Or at least a watchful, thoughtful one. : || From dagonweb at gmail.com Tue Feb 17 19:54:16 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 20:54:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <580930c20902170955x13de41a1ic4ea7806b1ad6087@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <580930c20902170955x13de41a1ic4ea7806b1ad6087@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: What? What?? You accuse me of dabbling in fractals? Never! 2009/2/17 Stefano Vaj > On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > > I think people who do, sincerely, are hideous, revolting human beings > that > > should > > be watched. > > "Scum", in other words... :-) > > Nice how those views immediately tend to become fractal in nature... :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 17 22:23:31 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:23:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] wormholes vs. nonlocal correlation Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217162124.02353d60@satx.rr.com> It is known that wormholes could in principle be used as time machines; by moving one end of the hole at relativistic speeds and then returning it to its place of departure, the mouths would be in much the same place at two different times. I wonder if quantum nonlocality also implies interesting contortions with time? If one entangled particle is idled (inside a cold sodium or silicon trap that slows it to near immobility)# while the other moves off in vacuum at c, could this lead to any peculiar time-twisting possibilities? Damien Broderick # e.g. etc From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 17 23:18:49 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:18:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] wormholes vs. nonlocal correlation Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217171658.023b9df8@satx.rr.com> John Cramer published a paper in 1991 on quantum time travel: http://www.npl.washington.edu/AV/altvw45.html He notes: "The point of departure of the AAPV calculation from standard quantum mechanics is that it applies the principle of superposition to the time evolutions of a group of similar quantum states. This is not normally done in quantum mechanics, but it should be OK. It seems to be consistent with both the formalism of the theory and its usual interpretation, **provided the states are isolated from measurement and outside interaction while evolving.**" I suspected that my notion falls down immediately for much the same reason; presumably you can't slow or trap one part of the entangled system without (in effect) clobbering it with other particles or fields, breaking the entanglement. Yes? Or might new entanglements just be added without decohering the initial state? Damien Broderick From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 17 23:30:38 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:30:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Darwin and Buddhism Message-ID: <2d6187670902171530r4926b2a4laf297610df2ae829@mail.gmail.com> I think Darwin was actually Mormon. ; ) John http://scitech.blogs.cnn.com/2009/02/16/was-darwin-a-buddhist/ Just days after the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, the father of evolutionary theory, journalists and scientists from all over the world converged to confront a fascinating connection: Some of Darwin's views have a lot in common with Buddhist teachings. Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, psychologist Paul Ekman, known for his research showing the universality of facial expressions across cultures, told us that Darwin's descriptions of compassion, as well as his view of morality as it relates to compassion, closely mirror Buddhist ideas. "There's always the possibility that two wise people looking at the same species will come up with the same conclusions," said Ekman, who co-wrote a book with the Dalai Lama on compassion called "Emotional Awareness: Overcoming the Obstacles to Psychological Balance and Compassion." It turns out that Darwin's friend Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker, a botanist and explorer, visited Tibet in 1847. He became familiar with Buddhist views there. He also wrote letters to Darwin. This is just one of many ways that Darwin could have been influenced by Buddhist teachings, Ekman said. For Darwin and Buddhists, the seed for compassion is in the mother-infant relationship ? this is "simple compassion," Ekman said. Then there's global compassion ? for example, sending money and clothes to victims of a natural disaster. Finally, heroic compassion means risking your own life to save another ? and you probably don't know if you have heroic compassion unless you've been in a situation like that, Ekman said. The fundamental idea in both Darwin's writings and Buddhist views of compassion is that "when I see you suffer, it makes me suffer, and that motivates me to reduce your suffering so I can reduce my suffering," Ekman said. The curious coincidence of views serves as a backdrop for understanding the nature of compassion, he said. "I'm not by any means accusing Darwin of plagiarism," he explained. What do you think? Does this link between Darwin and Buddhism have greater implications? Read more about Darwin on CNN.com Posted by: Elizabeth Landau -- CNN.com Writer/Producer S Callahan February 16th, 2009 6:49 pm ET My understanding is he was a Christian theologian?.I'll have to research this again..but I'm almost sure I have read this in the past. He was a man of faith, this is true. S Callahan February 16th, 2009 6:53 pm ET There is a vd on utube called the Darwinian Gospel-Part 1 (under LUMEL) that shares some of his views. He questioned if life was designed , by God, to evolve and felt that Science closed it's mind to the Spiritual Rhealm. Though, we know today, Intelligent Design is in fact acknowledged by somein science. Franko February 16th, 2009 11:36 pm ET "motivates me to reduce your suffering " I feel your pain is the modern, short version Thought, emotion, contagious from one physical entity to another Witch Doctor, with his rattlers, points at you, and commands you to die Several days later, undiagnosed stomach ailment, dead you are Basis of advertising, conform for acceptance (or die) Mass marketing, manufacturing of consent, by the controllers FastEddie February 17th, 2009 9:34 am ET Darwin went to seminary in his 20s, but he left to go on the Beagle's voyage. Although he was religious early in his life, Darwin's faith faded away as he aged. The death of his 10 year-old daughter Annie was the nail in his faith's coffin. derek February 17th, 2009 9:47 am ET Darwin studied theology and was on a path to priesthood in the Anglican church. However he was became disillusioned at the passing of his daughter and was unable to reconcile the 'problem of evil' with a loving God ( http://www.reasons.org/resources/fff/2000issue04/index.shtml#problem_of_evil_part_two .) As to Buddhism I don't know all what Darwin said about compassion/emotion but the idea that 'I help you out to reduce my suffering' is clearly a Darwinist thought bereft of any moral obligation (which would IMHO contradict Buddhist teaching.) The Buddha taught his son Rahula "Compassion has the capacity to remove the suffering of others without expecting anything in return." This thought of sacrificial love is what delineates naturalism from most religious thought. McTim February 17th, 2009 10:14 am ET Darwin, like many scientists and philosophers of his time and since, have not wanted to submit to a moral authority. Since THE moral authority in Europe was the Christian church, anything but was a way out. Dawkins is very clear that true Darwinism leads only to aethisim in belief. Any compassion would have to be for our own self genetic expression - that is even if you think it is compassion, it isnt, it is natural selection acting upon you. Darwin was ultimately an aethisit, not a Buddhist and definitely not a Christian. Influenced by either perhaps, practicing faithful definitely not. Dan Seidman February 17th, 2009 10:54 am ET I've been a big fan of Paul Ekman's work for many years. He however is a big fan of the Dalai Lama and Darwin, so it's no surprise he attempts to make that connection. Mark February 17th, 2009 11:00 am ET I'm not sure the following would be considered Buddist: "The Origin of the Species." ? the books subtitle: "The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life." It seems that evolution as a worldview is an inherently racist theory that opens the moral door for eugenics, euthanasia, and other crimes against humanity. Darwin writes in The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex: "With savages, the weak in body or mind are eliminated; and those that survive commonly exhibit a vigorous state of health. We civilised men, on the other hand, do our utmost to check the process of elimination; we build asylums for the imbecile, the maimed, and the sick; we institute poor-laws; and our medical men exert their utmost skill to save the life of every one to the last moment. There is reason to believe that vaccination has preserved thousands, who from a weak constitution would formerly have succumbed to small-pox. Thus the weak members of civilised societies propagate their kind. No one who has attended to the breeding of domestic animals will doubt that this must be highly injurious to the race of man. It is surprising how soon a want of care, or care wrongly directed, leads to the degeneration of a domestic race; but excepting in the case of man himself, hardly any one is so ignorant as to allow his worst animals to breed." Has this all been considered in the psychoanalysis of Darwin? Stegermeister February 17th, 2009 11:05 am ET Putting a label like "Buddhist" or "Christian" confuses the matter some. A truth is a truth no matter what belief system one may or may not follow. Darwin was a brilliant motivated man and his beliefs were his beliefs. Ask several Christians or Buddhists what they believe and you will likely get different individual answers even if they belong to the same Church or Sangha. Sathanuman S. Khalsa February 17th, 2009 11:18 am ET Charles Darwin was a Christian. To say he was a Buddhist is remarkable. The Buddhist would never disown him because he was 'outside the box' but he shallow following of the Christ seem to disown their own if the have unorthodox views. Jefferson created his own bible from the King James version. His views on religion were unorthodox and he was painted by John Adams during the presidential race of 1800 as an atheist. What remarkable Americans we are. We are the most diverse nation on earth, but our scientists, our clergy, our political leaders seemed to have to follow a linear belief system or they are treated like someone unacceptable to the norm. Charles Darwin, like his soul-mate Abraham Lincoln were unique and a blessing from the Divine to humanity's evolution as human beings. God bless him. Jake February 17th, 2009 12:05 pm ET To S. Callahan: Here are the facts, in the interest of having an intellectually honest dicsussion: (1) Evolution is a scientific theory concerning how and why we have the diversity of life that we have today. Here, I use the terms "Scientific" and "theory" in their proper and technical senses. "Scientific" is hard to define quickly, and others are better qualified to do so. But, generally, scientific propositions must be falsifiable and have some relationship to the facts in the world. This is not arbitrary. Science advances knowlege by testing hypotheses against the evidence in the world. We get to scientific truth when our popositions or collections of propositions repeatedly pass such tests. Without a falsifiability requirement, Science would be able to just make stuff up as it goes along (e.g., "God did it"), and we would learn nothing. A "theory" - roughly speaking - is a set of complex, interrelated, highly-verified, scientific propositions with explanatory value (that is, they help explain the way the world is). ID proponent often suggest that the scientific use of the term "theory" accords with our common-sense understaning of the term - for example, when we say "I have a theory about x" and we really mean "I conjecture the following about x, based on what little I know, etc." This suggestion is incorrect. (2) ID proponents use the terms "scientific" and "theory" incorrectly all the time. Some get this wrong because they don't understand. These poeple surely are NOT scientists. Folks who do understand the details, but still mususe these terms, are playing anit-intellectual dirty pool - the precise OPPOSITE of science. They have a non-scientific agenda to push, science and knowledge be damned. (3) In this regard, your claim that ID "is in fact acknowledged by some in science" is simply incorret. ID is neither scientific nor a theory. First, scientists agree that there is, to date, only one scientific theory of the origins/diversity of life - and that theory is Evolution. Evolution is one of the most tested and verified scientific theories that has ever been developed by science. Scientists are willing to look at contervailing evidence - many would welcome it. Or even countervailing theories to better fit the facts. But, to date, none of these have been produced (no - not even by ID proponents. They just think (or pretend) that they have done so). Second, ID is NOT "scientific," because the statment "GOD did it" is neither falsifiable nor related - in any way - to the evidence in the world. It cannot be tested or verified. It is just "made up." Also, ID is not a "theory," because, it contains not one proposition - let alone a set of interrlated propositions - that explains anything about the world. ID proponents have no research plan or agenda. They merely try to punch holes in evolutionary - succesfully. Upshot, to suggest that the scientific community is actively wondering whether evolution is true - or, more strongly, wondering if ID might be an alternate scientific theory to evolution, is incorrect on many distinct levels. Can we please have an intellectually honest discussion? Jake February 17th, 2009 12:20 pm ET McTim ? I don't think you are being quite fair to Dawkins or athiests. Dawkins is an athiest. He even has a chapter in his book about why there "almost certainly is no God." But, if you read that chapter, you will see that much of what he says doesn't relate to evolution at all. He speack more generally about the "scientific facts on the ground" - which include, but are not limited to, evolution. (As an aside - please stop using the term "Darwinism." That is a term made up by ID proponents and creationsitsts - those are synonyms, actually, but that is another discussion - in an attempt to make people think that we are just talking about some loosey-goosey philosophicl viewpoint, not the most higly tested and verified theory in the biological sciences). Second, I think folks like Dawkins, Hitchens, and their ilk are more rigorous and defensible on ethics than you give them credit for. People do, in fact, display all sorts of ethical impulses and behaviors - routinely. Generally, we don't injure, kill, steal from each other, etc. And, we generally teach our children and others to do the same. These are just empirical facts. And, despite what religious leaders will generally tell you, these facts generally hold true across a wide range of belief and non-belief. On the other hand, the most powerful tool for suppressing natural human moral behaviors and implusles is religion. As Steven Weinberg famously said, "With or without [religion], you'd have good people doing good things and evil people doing bad things, but for good people to do bad things, it takes religion." John Dilmun February 17th, 2009 12:22 pm ET Gimme a break. Nobody really cares if Darwin was a Buddhist, an Anglican, or Bozo the Clown. Additionally, nobody really cares if his theories hold water or not. Modern interpretations have left his initial work in the dust and I doubt if he would understand what some of his adherents now hold to be true. The bottom line for the academic community is "publish or perish" and if everybody suddenly rejected his theories and decided that there was no method, pattern or reason at all for the development of life on this planet there would be no reason to spend a ridiculous amount of money on the text books that are nothing more than regurgitated rubbish in the first place. If the reader wants to study evolution they need to study the evolution of the growth of academic bank accounts instead of trying to figure out whether the chicken or the egg came first. Franko February 17th, 2009 1:48 pm ET Darwin was not an ist Buddha got high by staring at his navel -achieved "the unconditioned" Then heard the one hand clapping Torske February 17th, 2009 2:32 pm ET It could be just Universal Consciousness. From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 17 23:41:54 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:41:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Darwin and Buddhism In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902171530r4926b2a4laf297610df2ae829@mail.gmail.co m> References: <2d6187670902171530r4926b2a4laf297610df2ae829@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217173958.022aa708@satx.rr.com> At 04:30 PM 2/17/2009 -0700, John Grigg wrote: >I think Darwin was actually Mormon. ; ) Except that he didn't base his life on transparently ridiculous bullshit. (How's that for political correctness?) Damien Broderick From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 00:28:39 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:28:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902171628y4c6126c5g6189613ab1f16df5@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > So - how sure are you that you don't fail the sociopath, lack of empathy > test? I have a "big heart" and help out where I can. I generally feel emotionally compelled to aid others in need, even when there is no possible down the road pay-off for myself. And I usually hurt when someone else is hurting. My emotions are linked with my desire to help others or at least feel for them, and that demonstration of empathy indicates to me that I'm not a sociopath. Sociopaths often do the right thing but for a very self-serving ulterior motive. And the emotional connection/empathy is just not there, period. But hey, at least they have an excuse... Anyone here watch the terrific cable series _Dexter_? He's a "socialized" sociopath. John From fauxever at sprynet.com Wed Feb 18 00:57:56 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 16:57:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com><4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it><3DC4674BB1B843DD9CDC9BFAB18917F4@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090217120516.024e9af8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: From: "Damien Broderick" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Tuesday, February 17, 2009 10:11 AM Subject: [ExI] sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling >>From: Dagon Gmail >> >>>But thats nothing compared to what I think of people who dabble >>in practices such as sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling >>- those filthy >>bastards should be taken out back and shot. >> >>:(( > > Omg! Spike's "Modest Proposal" clarification has gone unheeded. Mr. > D. Gmail is and has been using *sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or > heckling*! His comments are precisely ironic, at his own expense (or > even more, at the expense of anyone who read too quickly to notice > his sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling). > > C'mon, people--put on a *happy* face! :))) > > Or at least a watchful, thoughtful one. : || My :(( was supposed to be funny. Ha ha. Olga From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 00:59:31 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:59:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Darwin and Buddhism In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217173958.022aa708@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670902171530r4926b2a4laf297610df2ae829@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090217173958.022aa708@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902171659u60539504l7418f0f870c0454a@mail.gmail.com> I wrote: >> I think Darwin was actually Mormon. ; ) Damien Broderick replied: > Except that he didn't base his life on transparently ridiculous bullshit. > (How's that for political correctness?) Ouch!! I have always admired the Mormon scientist Henry Eyring, as a man who tried to bridge the gap between religion and science. >From his Wikipedia entry: Eyring was a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints throughout his life. His views of science and religion were captured in this quote: "Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men."[3] Sterling McMurrin believed he should have received the Nobel Prize but was not awarded it because of his religion.[4] >> It is extremely sad should the final statement be true. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Eyring "The Reconciliation of Faith and Science: Henry Eyring's Achievement" http://content.lib.utah.edu/cdm4/document.php?CISOROOT=/dialogue&CISOPTR=17639&CISOSHOW=17595 Biography from the National Academy of Sciences... http://www.nap.edu/html/biomems/heyring.html Best wishes, John Grigg From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 01:24:14 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:24:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] sarcasm, irony, persiflage, satire or heckling In-Reply-To: References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <3DC4674BB1B843DD9CDC9BFAB18917F4@patrick4ezsk6z> <7.0.1.0.2.20090217120516.024e9af8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217192126.0234b798@satx.rr.com> At 04:57 PM 2/17/2009 -0800, Olga wrote: >My :(( was supposed to be funny. > >Ha ha. Uh oh. : <> Wheels within wheel, layers upon layers, many a slip twixt the laugh and the lip. Or something. From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 01:35:29 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 19:35:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] theory of elementary waves Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217193203.02426c70@satx.rr.com> This is a *lovely* heretical idea! "The theory of elementary waves" by Dr. Louis Little gets rid of quantum weirdness, nonlocality, entanglement, etc, using a really startling idea. He published a paper on this in Physics Essays in 1996, and has a book coming out shortly. http://www.yankee.us.com/TEW/ Worth downloading his JPL talk. Damien Broderick From santostasigio at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 02:16:23 2009 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:16:23 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] theory of elementary waves In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217193203.02426c70@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <754887.51805.qm@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Did you read this Damien? http://ariwatch.com/VS/WhatsWrongWithTEW.htm --- On Tue, 2/17/09, Damien Broderick wrote: From: Damien Broderick Subject: [ExI] theory of elementary waves To: "'ExI chat list'" Date: Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 7:35 PM This is a *lovely* heretical idea! "The theory of elementary waves" by Dr. Louis Little gets rid of quantum weirdness, nonlocality, entanglement, etc, using a really startling idea. He published a paper on this in Physics Essays in 1996, and has a book coming out shortly. http://www.yankee.us.com/TEW/ Worth downloading his JPL talk. 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 msd001 at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 03:03:19 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 22:03:19 -0500 Subject: [ExI] theory of elementary waves In-Reply-To: <754887.51805.qm@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217193203.02426c70@satx.rr.com> <754887.51805.qm@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <62c14240902171903q3590d9bdt709326f545997d69@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 9:16 PM, giovanni santost wrote: > Did you read this Damien? > http://ariwatch.com/VS/WhatsWrongWithTEW.htm > > Wouldn't it have been easier to quote JK Clark's "Bullshit" ? (ok, so maybe Mr.Clark is not the originator of the term, but he has certainly popularized it in this context. :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 03:17:15 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 21:17:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] theory of elementary waves In-Reply-To: <754887.51805.qm@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217193203.02426c70@satx.rr.com> <754887.51805.qm@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217211612.02410478@satx.rr.com> At 06:16 PM 2/17/2009 -0800, giovanni santost wrote: >Did you read this Damien? >http://ariwatch.com/VS/WhatsWrongWithTEW.htm Not yet, but thanks. What fun! From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 07:56:37 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 01:56:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] theory of elementary waves In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217211612.02410478@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090217193203.02426c70@satx.rr.com> <754887.51805.qm@web31308.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090217211612.02410478@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218015351.02492770@satx.rr.com> Now I've seen most of the very long JPL video, I tend to agree that it's almost certainly handwavy bullshit--all that stuff about particles jumping on magic "fluxes". Ah well. Damien Broderick From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 09:24:36 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 10:24:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism Message-ID: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> According to a report published not by some fringe Trozkist group, but by the Bank of Italy, it would appear that social mobility in Italy has by now been reduced to a practical *zero*, even amongst contiguous classes, irrespective of the succession of governments. In other words, super-rich are bound to stay super-rich, middle-class people middle-class, blue-collar blue-collar and dropouts dropouts. This vastly exceeds whatever hypothetical role genetic traits may play in the achievement and maintaining of social positions in western societies and illustrates how routine, "humanitarian" attacks from the "left" against presumed Social Darwinist penchants in the conservative discourse deal in fact with a strayman, since no matter how weak, stupid, misfit and handicapped you are, your chances are today the best ever of your remaining nevertheless in the position you were born, and to have your children just do the same; while conversely being strong, clever, driven, etc. does not seem to change much in your lot, except perhaps in giving you more chances to become the war chief of a youth gang. Today, Howard Roark and John Galt would have clearly been employees in a post office, if this had been their parents' work. The fact that most people, including those relatively underprivileged, seem also to believe, owing perhaps also to an aging population, that they have more to lose than to gain from any change to such scenario may also explain why bioconservatism remains so popular. "Avoid rocking the boat" sounds as a the primary slogan in an increasingly Brave-New-Worldish scenario... :-( -- Stefano Vaj From dagonweb at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 10:31:19 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:31:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: As the arguments mount that the social contract are collapsing, even the italians, always in the last guard of acknowledging demographic disasters, are confiming, as declared by papal bull from the Bank of Italy, that western societies are clenched shut in place. Losers and underachievers and the geneticaly despicale can no longer be meted out punishment and banished to the dantes inferno of Underclass, whereas those "good people" that by virtue of manifest destiny, good intentions, sound morals, good genes and a halo - are no longer able to ascend into the plush heavens up spoiled upper classism. The sociopaths on the right, as well as the xenophobic impotents on the left maintain the disgusting trench warfare, shooting the same arguments back and forth. People are waking up their have little to win on ths mutually excludist clusterfuck and looking for alternatives, Pretty soon the stalemate will be broken and he old infantile dichotomy of left and right, good and evil, blue versus red, cowboys versus indians will end. ...but not without a fight. As leftist idiots seek to take vengeance on the corporate caste, by gathering up votes and burning the amassed treasures of thebankers in the streets to roast livestock they nationalized from the grounds of Mister Burns, the rightwing political elite are still working hard to erode the state itself, throw society back into a damage control state and laugh laugh LAUGH at the ghettoes and favellas, as the righteous and virtuous laugh laugh LAUGH at the damned in hell. This is evolutionary push for a third way - something that can protect the interest of humans faced with being faced with third world attrition - and something that can stimulate people to achieve as must as they can. My expectation is it will involve basic incomes. 2009/2/18 Stefano Vaj > According to a report published not by some fringe Trozkist group, but > by the Bank of Italy, it would appear that social mobility in Italy > has by now been reduced to a practical *zero*, even amongst contiguous > classes, irrespective of the succession of governments. > > In other words, super-rich are bound to stay super-rich, middle-class > people middle-class, blue-collar blue-collar and dropouts dropouts. > > This vastly exceeds whatever hypothetical role genetic traits may play > in the achievement and maintaining of social positions in western > societies and illustrates how routine, "humanitarian" attacks from the > "left" against presumed Social Darwinist penchants in the conservative > discourse deal in fact with a strayman, since no matter how weak, > stupid, misfit and handicapped you are, your chances are today the > best ever of your remaining nevertheless in the position you were > born, and to have your children just do the same; while conversely > being strong, clever, driven, etc. does not seem to change much in > your lot, except perhaps in giving you more chances to become the war > chief of a youth gang. Today, Howard Roark and John Galt would have > clearly been employees in a post office, if this had been their > parents' work. > > The fact that most people, including those relatively underprivileged, > seem also to believe, owing perhaps also to an aging population, that > they have more to lose than to gain from any change to such scenario > may also explain why bioconservatism remains so popular. "Avoid > rocking the boat" sounds as a the primary slogan in an increasingly > Brave-New-Worldish scenario... :-( > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > 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 stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 13:20:10 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:20:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Recall in News della manifestazione di Ferrara Message-ID: <580930c20902180520k4f2323d7n93dd09b507eee251@mail.gmail.com> 18/02/2009 - L'AIT a Ferrara il 20 Febbraio 2009 Nel quadro delle manifestazioni a Ferrara per il centenario del primo Manifesto futurista, l'Associazione Italiana Transumanisti si trova nella sua seconda manifestazione pubblica alle 18.00 alla Sala Estense in Piazza Municipale 2, insieme con FTM Azione Futurista e con numerosi intellettuali, artisti e movimenti a discutere di futurismo e postumanismo nel XXI secolo, ad incontrare i propri membri e simpatizzanti ed a diffondere stampa e libri transumanisti. Saranno presenti tra gli altri il presidente Riccardo Campa e il segretario nazionale Stefano Vaj. -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 13:47:37 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 13:47:37 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Recall in News della manifestazione di Ferrara In-Reply-To: <580930c20902180520k4f2323d7n93dd09b507eee251@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180520k4f2323d7n93dd09b507eee251@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/18 Stefano Vaj: > 18/02/2009 - L'AIT a Ferrara il 20 Febbraio 2009 > > Nel quadro delle manifestazioni a Ferrara per il centenario del primo > Manifesto futurista, l'Associazione Italiana Transumanisti si trova > nella sua seconda manifestazione pubblica alle 18.00 alla Sala Estense > in Piazza Municipale 2, insieme con FTM Azione Futurista e con > numerosi intellettuali, artisti e movimenti a discutere di futurismo e > postumanismo nel XXI secolo, ad incontrare i propri membri e > simpatizzanti ed a diffondere stampa e libri transumanisti. Saranno > presenti tra gli altri il presidente Riccardo Campa e il segretario > nazionale Stefano Vaj. > > -- 18/02/2009 - The AIT in Ferrara on 20 February 2009 As part of events in Ferrara for the centenary of the first Futurist Manifesto, the Italian Transhumanist Association is holding its second public event at 18:00 at Sala Estense Piazza Municipale 2, together with FTM Futurist Action and many intellectuals, artists and movements to discuss futurism and posthumanism in the twenty-first century, to meet with their members and sympathizers and to print and distribute transhumanist books. Among others present will be the president Riccardo Campa and national secretary Stefano Vaj. ------------------------- Did you mean to just send this to the Italian list? BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 14:16:36 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:16:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Recall in News della manifestazione di Ferrara In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180520k4f2323d7n93dd09b507eee251@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902180616k22df2529ld3b731be4f88f928@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/18 BillK : > 2009/2/18 Stefano Vaj: > >> 18/02/2009 - L'AIT a Ferrara il 20 Febbraio 2009 > > Did you mean to just send this to the Italian list? Once a discussion took place where somebody accused those amongst us who are not English mother tongue to be liable for the English monoglottism in H+ international lists, and so I did not think that I should translate this communiqu? - also taking into account that those interested in and in a position to attend an event held in Italian are anyway very likely to have at least a passive command of the language... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Feb 18 17:18:41 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 11:18:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers Message-ID: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> Friends, I am forwarding Calvin Mercer's email. (I did not inlcude the WTA list because it was already sent there.) Please see below: Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More _____ 2009 Call for Papers (open to non-American Academy of Religion members)-Deadline March 2, 2009 Transhumanism and Religion Consultation--American Academy of Religion--November 7-10, 2009 annual meeting in Montreal This Consultation welcomes papers on any aspect of transhumanism and religion. We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and assumptions. For example, what are the operative notions of anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity? We welcome more overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse, especially in respect to the employment of and reliance placed in technology. We encourage proposals about all religious traditions. Also, rather than depending on biotechnology, some transhumanists place greater confidence in nanotechnology, robotics, and information technology to achieve virtual immortality and create a superior posthuman species. We welcome critical and constructive assessments of this envisioned future. For more information, contact Calvin Mercer ( mercerc at ecu.edu). TO SUBMIT PROPOSAL ONLINE AS A NON-MEMBER --go to www.aarweb.org --on the right side, click on "online paper and panel proposal (OP3) system now open" --scroll down and click on "Submit a Proposal as a Non-Member" and follow instructions --the proposal is for the "Religion and Transhumanism" consultation If your proposal is accepted, then you will need to become an AAR member and be registered for the annual meeting in (Montreal November 7-10) before June 15 to remain on the program. Deadline for submission of a proposal is March 2, 2009. DESCRIPTION OF TRANSHUMANISM "Transhumanism" or "human enhancement" refers to an intellectual and cultural movement that advocates the use of a variety of emerging technologies. The convergence of these technologies may make it possible to take control of human evolution, providing for the enhancement of human mental and physical abilities and the amelioration of aspects of the human condition regarded as undesirable. If these enhancements become widely available, it would arguably have a more radical impact than any other development in human history-one need only reflect briefly on the economic, political, and social implications of some of the extreme enhancement possibilities. The implications for religion and the religious dimensions of human enhancement technologies are enormous and are addressed in our consultation. -------------- 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 18:10:42 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:10:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [tt] Computronium life on Rudy Rucker's blog In-Reply-To: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> Rudy and others cited Charlie Stross as coiner of "computronium". Is that correct? I know the term was used a lot on the extropian list in the mid to late '90s, as was "bogosity" and other entertaining neologisms. Charlie was there briefly, then, of course. But I suspect the term is probably older than that. Any suggestions? Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 18:18:52 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:18:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> >2009 Call for Papers (open to non-American >Academy of Religion members)?Deadline March 2, 2009 > >Transhumanism and Religion >Consultation--American Academy of >Religion--November 7-10, 2009 annual meeting in Montreal > >This Consultation welcomes papers on any aspect >of transhumanism and religion. We particularly >welcome papers that identify and critically >evaluate the implicit religious beliefs >underlying key transhumanist claims and >assumptions. For example, what are the operative >notions of anthropology, soteriology, and >eschatology that are at play in the >transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity? But why stop there? For example, what are the operative notions of angelology, demonology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the 19th century quest for "airplanes" that could fly in the sky, lift humans into the air at great speed, and sometimes carry them to their doom? And don't get me started on teapots. Damien Broderick From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 19:38:34 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:38:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the octuplets mother and what it bodes for the future In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090216132637.025823e8@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670902150023l41c910aco6b8a53bf3f31f3cb@mail.gmail.com> <4998C5CC.7080200@libero.it> <2d6187670902160437y41263debvdf95d02a8c833e32@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090216132637.025823e8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: Satire!? There's satire going on here!? I'm shocked. Shocked I say. And confused. And I protest -- vigorously protest, I say -- any implication that I should be scorned or laughed at for not noticing said alleged satire. I mean, jeez, you've got guys like Limbaugh and O'Reilly, and New York Times columnists, most of the political class, Sarah Palin and Larry "Wide Stance" Craig pumping out satire without even intending or noticing. Then we have Mirco, with his funky English (no offense) from which we are expected to extract the subtle (or not) nuance of satire. We live in a world where satire and not-satire intermingle indistinguishably. Hell, it's gotten to the point that simple vanilla forthrightness -- so rare and unexpected -- automatically qualifies as satire, or could, or should. I mean I was not born a wise-ass, I had to work at it.. Now everyone is doing this shit, and they think they're good at it. Granted, you've have your "naturals" like Sarah P and Larry "Wide Stance", but those of us who have labored our entire lives in the trenches of wiseassery, perfecting our smarminess and disdain, our insensitivity and pompous self-absorption, must now suffer the cheapening of our ouvre, by poseurs and other low types flooding the market with inferior goods. "Between Iraq and a hard place", "General Betray-us". Puleeeese. Too easy, minimally clever, not original. Cheap. Real satire starts with reality, and then puts lipstick on the pig. Shortcuts, like learning your memetics in a colonic echo chamber (usually your own), no matter how effective, produce only the blathering of unschooled ignorance, ie accidental satire. Monkeys at the typewriters. Our salvation lies in a return to strict standards, beginning with the basics: a total commitment to cynicism. Humanity is a plague. Those that aren't stupid are ugly. Transhumanism is the only solution. The rest must be scheduled for euthanisia. Best, Jeff Davis "We call someone insane who does not believe as we do to an outrageous extent." Charles McCabe On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 12:27 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 10:42 AM 2/16/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: > >> Mr. Gmail has written A Modest Proposal. I am interested in how many will >> miss the satirical nature of the essay, as did many in Swift's time. > > Half the list? (Let's hope not.) > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Feb 18 19:52:44 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:52:44 +0000 Subject: [ExI] [tt] Computronium life on Rudy Rucker's blog In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Rudy and others cited Charlie Stross as coiner of "computronium". Is that > correct? I know the term was used a lot on the extropian list in the mid to > late '90s, as was "bogosity" and other entertaining neologisms. Charlie was > there briefly, then, of course. But I suspect the term is probably older > than that. Any suggestions? > Wheeee! It's a search challenge! Fire up Google! The Science Fiction Dictionary credits Eugene Leitl. Anders Sandberg also credits Eugene There was also much discussion of Jupiter brains and Robert Bradbury's Matrioshka brains. Drexler also discussed nanotechnology and molecular computing. There is a paper published in 'Science' 1991 Link to paper: "Computronium" is a hypothetical substance in which each processing cell of a CA is reduced to atomic scale and arranged in a crystal lattice. See: Ivan Amato. Speculating in precious computronium: a new computer embodies an architecture that - to its creators - mimics the structure and dynamics of physical reality. (Norman Margolus' and Tommaso Toffoli's Cellular Automaton Machine 8, or CAM-8). Science, August 23 1991, v253, n5022, p856-7. ----------------------- I'd ask Eugene if he was the culprit. BillK From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 19:58:51 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 12:58:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost Message-ID: http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/64651/14734665/http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=9280.php Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 20:03:42 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 14:03:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Computronium life on Rudy Rucker's blog In-Reply-To: References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218140154.0261f520@satx.rr.com> At 07:52 PM 2/18/2009 +0000, BillK: >There is a paper published in 'Science' 1991 >Link to paper: >See: >Ivan Amato. Speculating in precious computronium: a new computer >embodies an architecture that - to its creators - mimics the structure >and dynamics of physical reality. (Norman Margolus' and Tommaso >Toffoli's Cellular Automaton Machine 8, or CAM-8). Science, August 23 >1991, v253, n5022, p856-7. > >----------------------- > >I'd ask Eugene if he was the culprit. Yeah, I should have noticed Amato, but google is untrustworthy with stuff like this. Eugen introduced it to exi. From pharos at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 20:55:26 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:55:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Computronium life on Rudy Rucker's blog In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218140154.0261f520@satx.rr.com> References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218140154.0261f520@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 8:03 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Yeah, I should have noticed Amato, but google is untrustworthy with stuff > like this. Eugen introduced it to exi. > Google untrustworthy!!! Wash yo' mouth out!!! (But, yes, Google manipulates search results a lot more than people appreciate). Further research indicates that Margolus is credited with the 'concept' of computronium. But he called it programmable matter. Toffoli, Tommaso; Margolus, Norman (1991), "Programmable matter: concepts and realization", Physica D 47: 263?272 BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 18 21:04:09 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:04:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Computronium In-Reply-To: References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218140154.0261f520@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218150306.022de780@satx.rr.com> At 08:55 PM 2/18/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: >Further research indicates that Margolus is credited with the >'concept' of computronium. >But he called it programmable matter. >Toffoli, Tommaso; Margolus, Norman (1991), "Programmable matter: >concepts and realization", Physica D 47: 263?272 a term reinvented/repurposed by Wil McCarthy for something very different. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 22:10:14 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 17:10:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <62c14240902181410x7ae2cf6eqd31a402c99a9524c@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 2:58 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > > http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/64651/14734665/http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=9280.php > > this should be big news. It's depressing that so few people appreciate this that it will go largely unnoticed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 18 23:59:20 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:29:20 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Computronium In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218150306.022de780@satx.rr.com> References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218140154.0261f520@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218150306.022de780@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902181559n3fe0266dk1414f32065b39db8@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/19 Damien Broderick : > At 08:55 PM 2/18/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: > >> Further research indicates that Margolus is credited with the >> 'concept' of computronium. >> But he called it programmable matter. >> Toffoli, Tommaso; Margolus, Norman (1991), "Programmable matter: >> concepts and realization", Physica D 47: 263?272 > > a term reinvented/repurposed by Wil McCarthy for something very different. http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/david_merrill_demos_siftables_the_smart_blocks.html -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 05:55:41 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2009 22:55:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> Damien wrote: But why stop there? For example, what are the operative notions of angelology, demonology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the 19th century quest for "airplanes" that could fly in the sky, lift humans into the air at great speed, and sometimes carry them to their doom? And don't get me started on teapots. >> Ouch!!! Really Damien, are there no strong connections/comparisons between religion and transhumanism? And do you feel trying to develop a positive dialogue between religionists and transhumanists is bad or at least totally unproductive? John : ) On Wed, Feb 18, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > >> 2009 Call for Papers (open to non-American Academy of Religion >> members)?Deadline March 2, 2009 >> >> Transhumanism and Religion Consultation--American Academy of >> Religion--November 7-10, 2009 annual meeting in Montreal >> >> This Consultation welcomes papers on any aspect of transhumanism and >> religion. We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically >> evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims >> and assumptions. For example, what are the operative notions of >> anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the >> transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity? > > But why stop there? For example, what are the operative notions of > angelology, demonology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the > 19th century quest for "airplanes" that could fly in the sky, lift humans > into the air at great speed, and sometimes carry them to their doom? And > don't get me started on teapots. > > Damien Broderick > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Feb 19 06:17:16 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:17:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.co m> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> At 10:55 PM 2/18/2009 -0700, John Grigg wrote: >are there no strong connections/comparisons between >religion and transhumanism? And do you feel trying to develop a >positive dialogue between religionists and transhumanists is bad or at >least totally unproductive? About as useful as a "dialogue" between transhumanists and astrologers, creation "scientists" or Scientologists. The point I was making was much more focused than that, though, which is that the analyses and aspirations of >H-ism don't spring from religion but from the human condition, from human hope and intelligence, just as the determination to learn how to fly didn't come from hubristically copying angels or demons but from looking at birds (also the source of angels, to the extent that these mythic beings are supposed to fly--which is really popular sentimental mythology rather than theology, but hey). Similarly, the reason planes are cruciform has nothing to do with Jesus on the cross and everything to do with (a) bird wings, (b) lifting surfaces, and (c) in any case they don't if they're helicopters. But I can imagine these theoreductionists blathering on as if that's a major and meaningful source of inspiration. Damien Broderick From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 06:59:10 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:29:10 +1030 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902182259p2ef3321cr63d717043955de87@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/19 Damien Broderick : > At 10:55 PM 2/18/2009 -0700, John Grigg wrote: > >> are there no strong connections/comparisons between >> religion and transhumanism? And do you feel trying to develop a >> positive dialogue between religionists and transhumanists is bad or at >> least totally unproductive? > > About as useful as a "dialogue" between transhumanists and astrologers, > creation "scientists" or Scientologists. > > The point I was making was much more focused than that, though, which is > that the analyses and aspirations of >H-ism don't spring from religion but > from the human condition, from human hope and intelligence, just as the > determination to learn how to fly didn't come from hubristically copying > angels or demons but from looking at birds (also the source of angels, to > the extent that these mythic beings are supposed to fly--which is really > popular sentimental mythology rather than theology, but hey). Similarly, the > reason planes are cruciform has nothing to do with Jesus on the cross and > everything to do with (a) bird wings, (b) lifting surfaces, and (c) in any > case they don't if they're helicopters. But I can imagine these > theoreductionists blathering on as if that's a major and meaningful source > of inspiration. > > Damien Broderick Hear hear. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From moulton at moulton.com Thu Feb 19 08:29:51 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 00:29:51 -0800 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <1235032191.903.1104.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 00:17 -0600, Damien Broderick wrote: > About as useful as a "dialogue" between transhumanists and > astrologers, creation "scientists" or Scientologists. > > The point I was making was much more focused than that, though, which > is that the analyses and aspirations of >H-ism don't spring from > religion but from the human condition, from human hope and > intelligence, just as the determination to learn how to fly didn't > come from hubristically copying angels or demons but from looking at > birds (also the source of angels, to the extent that these mythic > beings are supposed to fly--which is really popular sentimental > mythology rather than theology, but hey). Similarly, the reason > planes are cruciform has nothing to do with Jesus on the cross and > everything to do with (a) bird wings, (b) lifting surfaces, and (c) > in any case they don't if they're helicopters. But I can imagine > these theoreductionists blathering on as if that's a major and > meaningful source of inspiration. > Eloquently expressed, Damien, eloquently expressed. However I would like to add a few words which may help clarify the issue. I am sure that everyone is already aware of the distinction I am about to make but I hope that by making it explicit it will facilitate the dialog. As I look at the original post and the comments by John and Damien I noticed a shifting and sometimes blurry of two different ideas: - religion as a human activity which can be the subject of scholarly study - religion (at least traditional religions) as a set of beliefs which stand at the same level as transhumanism in terms of knowledge, credibility and similar factors; i.e. that the claims of religion are valid I bring this up since it is possible to perform a dispassionate and scholarly examination of the human activity known as religion in a psychological/sociological/anthropological mode and at the same time be a non-believer in the religion being studied or any religion for that matter. But a problem arises when the scholarly endeavor is subverted to become a way to inject and bolster religious views. I do not know the people putting on this conference so I am not accusing them of anything; I am just being cautious. It is in this context that I had a bit of a funny feeling when I saw the following in the original post: "We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and assumptions. For example, what are the operative notions of anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity?" I would be a little bit less nervous if they had instead said that they were interested in the "psychological/sociological/anthropological" aspects of transhumanism rather than the "religious" aspects. Then it would have been clear and unambiguous. A big difference between traditional religions and transhumanism is that traditional religions typically are based on faith and transhumanism is not. The transhumanist can take a critical scientific rational stance where a person following faith can not. That is a fundamental difference. Science, reason and an open inquiry into all questions are some of the banners of transhumanism. By its very nature faith is different. Anyone who does not understand this distinction might want to read The Retreat to Commitment by W. W. Bartley; or read the very fine summary about Pan Critical Rationalism that Max wrote several years ago. Note: Some may have noticed that I used some terms such as "typically" and "traditional religions". The reason is that there is not uniform agreement on the exact definition of the term religion. For example some meditation practices get classified as religion by some and not by others. It should be noted that Sam Harris ran into this buzz saw when he discussed meditation practices in his book The End Of Faith. Fred From alito at organicrobot.com Thu Feb 19 09:47:52 2009 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:47:52 +1100 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1235036872.11243.20.camel@localhost> On Wed, 2009-02-18 at 12:58 -0700, Jeff Davis wrote: > http://www.feedblitz.com/t.asp?/64651/14734665/http://www.nanowerk.com/news/newsid=9280.php > > Best, Jeff Davis > >From the article, it seems impossible to tell what it is. Do you have access to the real source? From pharos at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 14:38:48 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:38:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost In-Reply-To: <1235036872.11243.20.camel@localhost> References: <1235036872.11243.20.camel@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: >From the article, it seems impossible to tell what it is. Do you have > access to the real source? > The device is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature Nanotechnology. So you need to have a 'Nature' subscription to read it. Somebody with a subscription might send you a copy privately. Or Google will tell you a lot about his earlier research, leading up to this. For example, last year's one-armed nanorobot. BillK From max at maxmore.com Thu Feb 19 14:23:44 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 08:23:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Pancritical rationalism Message-ID: <200902191451.n1JEpvf4022104@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I am actually considering submitting a paper for that conference, but very much agree with the reservations (to put it mildly) expressed by Damien and Fred. Fred mentioned my paper on pancritical rationalism (PCR), which was a talk I gave (at excessive length) at EXTRO-1 in 1994. The still-current Principles of Extropy include "Rational Thinking" as the relevant principle, and I think that PCR is the most consistent full perspective on what that means. Those unfamiliar with PCR can find the text of that ancient talk here: http://www.maxmore.com/pcr.htm Max Fred Moulton wrote: >The transhumanist can take a critical scientific rational stance >where a person following faith can not. That is a fundamental >difference. Science, reason and an open inquiry into all questions are >some of the banners of transhumanism. By its very nature faith is >different. Anyone who does not understand this distinction might want >to read The Retreat to Commitment by W. W. Bartley; or read the very >fine summary about Pan Critical Rationalism that Max wrote several years >ago. Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Feb 19 15:42:14 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:42:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "The Mediated Technological Singularity" - Vita-More Message-ID: <8B600449230E4095B826DE88EC56DD7A@DFC68LF1> My paper "The Mediated Technological Singularity: Human Use as a Passport to Technological Innovation" is now available in the collection New Realities: Being Syncretic, Pub. Springer: New York. Also, included with the book is a DVD of my talk in Vienna 2008. 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 stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 18:36:37 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:36:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 7:17 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > About as useful as a "dialogue" between transhumanists and astrologers, > creation "scientists" or Scientologists. > Why, don't we make sometimes an exception for parapsychologists? :-))) Just a cheap joke, I fully appreciate the difference. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 19:00:25 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 12:00:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost In-Reply-To: References: <1235036872.11243.20.camel@localhost> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 7:38 AM, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > >From the article, it seems impossible to tell what it is. Do you have >> access to the real source? If someone has access to the original article, could you email me a copy? Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Feb 19 19:16:02 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 13:16:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.co m> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219131423.02901540@satx.rr.com> At 07:36 PM 2/19/2009 +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: >About as useful as a "dialogue" between transhumanists and >astrologers, creation "scientists" or Scientologists. > >Why, don't we make sometimes an exception for parapsychologists? :-))) Oh no! Didn't you see the sign: THIS SPACE RESERVED FOR JOHN K CLARK--KEEP CLEAR AT ALL TIMES From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 19 19:22:55 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:22:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <499DB18F.4050803@libero.it> Il 18/02/2009 11.31, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > As the arguments mount that the social contract are collapsing, even the > italians, always in the last guard of acknowledging demographic disasters, > are confiming, as declared by papal bull from the Bank of Italy, that > western I suppose this is satirical, too. But I don't know if the author know it. Mirco From dagonweb at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 19:26:49 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:26:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <499DB18F.4050803@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB18F.4050803@libero.it> Message-ID: Nope this is sarcasm. 2009/2/19 painlord2k at libero.it > Il 18/02/2009 11.31, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > >> As the arguments mount that the social contract are collapsing, even the >> italians, always in the last guard of acknowledging demographic disasters, >> are confiming, as declared by papal bull from the Bank of Italy, that >> western >> > > I suppose this is satirical, too. > But I don't know if the author know it. > > Mirco > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 19 19:20:24 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:20:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> Il 18/02/2009 10.24, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > According to a report published not by some fringe Trozkist group, but > by the Bank of Italy, it would appear that social mobility in Italy > has by now been reduced to a practical *zero*, even amongst contiguous > classes, irrespective of the succession of governments. This is not unsurprising. I remember reading this prediction somewhere in the writings of Mises or Rothbard. As the government enlarge is power, and in Italy the government in all its branch run a big chunk of the economy and of the job market, the people working in his branch will start to carve a niche of power and secure it. Why a university professor or a doctor in a government hospital would not help their friends or relatives or allies to obtain a secure job? > In other words, super-rich are bound to stay super-rich, middle-class > people middle-class, blue-collar blue-collar and dropouts dropouts. The super rich in Italy are often bound to obtain subsides from the government to continue to operate their factory and give a job to many people. The rich people, with the public (government paid) schools, have no need to pay for university education, as it is "universal". But poor people will have not the ability to pay for their children education, as the other costs are not covered. So the taxes of the poor go to pay for the education of the rich, in a very statalist and socialist country. > This vastly exceeds whatever hypothetical role genetic traits may play > in the achievement and maintaining of social positions in western > societies and illustrates how routine, "humanitarian" attacks from the > "left" against presumed Social Darwinist penchants in the conservative > discourse deal in fact with a strayman, since no matter how weak, > stupid, misfit and handicapped you are, your chances are today the > best ever of your remaining nevertheless in the position you were > born, and to have your children just do the same; while conversely > being strong, clever, driven, etc. does not seem to change much in > your lot, except perhaps in giving you more chances to become the war > chief of a youth gang. Today, Howard Roark and John Galt would have > clearly been employees in a post office, if this had been their > parents' work. Exactly. In a market, whoever would give a job to an unqualified or less qualified person would had paid with his money, not with the taxpayer's money. This would control the nepotism, and let able people to climb the social ladder. > The fact that most people, including those relatively underprivileged, > seem also to believe, owing perhaps also to an aging population, that > they have more to lose than to gain from any change to such scenario > may also explain why bioconservatism remains so popular. "Avoid > rocking the boat" sounds as a the primary slogan in an increasingly > Brave-New-Worldish scenario... :-( The problem is that this scenario is inherently unstable and not sustainable. The market become inefficient and the coordination of the production forces start crumbling. This could happen slowly or fast, depend on the grade of statalization of the economy. Any group isolating itself from the consequences of its behaviours in its society become always less useful for the rest of the society. And will come the time the rest of the society will get rid of it as it will only act like a parasite. As C.S. Lewis noted in his "Screwtape's Files" : "This, indeed, is probably one of the Enemy's motives for creating a dangerous world?a world in which moral issues really come to the point. He sees as well as you do that courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means, at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty, or mercy, which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky." Mirco From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Feb 19 19:48:28 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:48:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> Some of us find this challenging. If you don't, so what? Don't get your knickers all twisted about it. Natasha From spike66 at att.net Thu Feb 19 19:39:37 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 11:39:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] they'll be baaaahhhhk In-Reply-To: References: <20090218120849.GV12028@leitl.org><7.0.1.0.2.20090218120624.024af6a8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: Miltary experts warn of military robot mutiny: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,496309,00.html From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Feb 19 20:56:32 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 14:56:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost In-Reply-To: References: <1235036872.11243.20.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <55ad6af70902191256k6d3bcacbi41013cc6daf9df13@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 1:00 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 7:38 AM, BillK wrote: >> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: >> >From the article, it seems impossible to tell what it is. Do you have >>> access to the real source? > > If someone has access to the original article, could you email me a copy? Dynamic patterning programmed by DNA tiles captured on a DNA origami substrate Hongzhou Gu, Jie Chao, Shou-Jun Xiao, Nadrian C. Seeman SUMMARY: The aim of nanotechnology is to put specific atomic and molecular species where we want them, when we want them there. Achieving such dynamic and functional control could lead to programmable chemical synthesis and nanoscale systems that are responsive to their environments. Structural DNA nanotechnology offers a powerful route to this goal by combining stable branched DNA motifs1 with cohesive ends to produce programmed nanomechanical devices2 and fixed3, 4, 5 or modified6, 7 patterned lattices. Here, we demonstrate a dynamic form of patterning8 in which a pattern component is captured between two independently programmed DNA devices. A simple and robust error-correction protocol has been developed that yields programmed targets in all cases. This capture system can lead to dynamic control either on patterns or on programmed elements; this capability enables computation or a change of structural state as a function of information in the surroundings of the system. Nature Nanotechnology (15 Feb 2009), doi: 10.1038/nnano.2009.5, Letters http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/Dynamic%20patterning%20programmed%20by%20DNA%20tiles%20captured%20on%20a%20DNA%20origami%20substrate.pdf - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From hkhenson at rogers.com Thu Feb 19 23:15:35 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 16:15:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> At 12:48 PM 2/19/2009, you wrote: >Some of us find this challenging. If you don't, so what? Don't get >your knickers all twisted about it. I went looking on their web site to see if the meeting was funded by the John Templeton foundation, which for some reason seems to have it in for transhumanism. At least they don't show up on a fast search. I wonder how a proposed paper, "Does successful transhumanism mean the end of religions?" would go over. I could definitely make such a case. Presumably successors who were at least "weakly godlike" (to invoke Charles Stross) would have little use for religion. Such a paper could get into the EP case (cases) why religion is a species typical trait and why we might design it out if its root is in stone age population control via war. I would be arrested if I went to Canada, so if there is anyone going who would like to co author or give the paper, let me know. Keith From pharos at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 00:45:04 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 00:45:04 +0000 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 11:15 PM, hkhenson wrote: > I wonder how a proposed paper, "Does successful transhumanism mean the end > of religions?" would go over. > > I could definitely make such a case. Presumably successors who were at > least "weakly godlike" (to invoke Charles Stross) would have little use for > religion. > > Such a paper could get into the EP case (cases) why religion is a species > typical trait and why we might design it out if its root is in stone age > population control via war. > I doubt if they would accept a paper like that. They are the American Academy of Religion and are unlikely to support a paper that would mean the disbanding of their organisation. They say what they would really like in the Call. Quote: We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and assumptions. For example, what are the operative notions of anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity? We welcome more overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse. ------------------ They want criticism of transhumanism, not criticism of religion. Also, you can submit the proposal as a non-member, but you have to become a member in order to present the proposal or attend the meeting. So check the membership qualifications. The AAR is for teachers, scholars, and other professionals in the field of religion. (not anti-religion!). BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Feb 20 01:07:42 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 19:07:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219185552.027068c0@satx.rr.com> At 12:45 AM 2/20/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: >Quote: >We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically evaluate >the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and >assumptions. For example, what are the operative notions of >anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the >transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity? We >welcome more overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse. >------------------ > >They want criticism of transhumanism, not criticism of religion. Well, "critique" means something other and broader than "criticism" (understood to mean "attempts to demolish"), just as "deconstruct" doesn't mean "destroy". However, like you, I sense that these guys want to show that >H is a sort of debased and bogus variety of True Religious Truth, a kind of cheap and nasty and misled naturalistic appropriation of God and Heaven and Redemption. Which is what my own earlier comment tried to address. In reality, Western >H probably does contingently derive part of its impulse from remnants of childhood and cultural Xianity, but as I've quote before, the Marxist theorist and critic Fred Jameson identifies a different and more persistent principle of utopian hope (which he cites from Ernst Bloch): `the 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!...."'[1] [1].Fredric Jameson, `Progress Versus Utopia; or, Can We Imagine the Future?', Science Fiction Studies, No. 27, 1982, p. 157. He draws here upon the Soviet brothers Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic. Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 01:39:33 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 01:39:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090219185552.027068c0@satx.rr.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219185552.027068c0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 1:07 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Well, "critique" means something other and broader than "criticism" > (understood to mean "attempts to demolish"), just as "deconstruct" doesn't > mean "destroy". Hmmm. I thought 'critique' was just a pretentious way of saying 'criticize', normally used by poseurs and academics. Some dictionaries seem to think that way also. But I agree that the verb criticize, once neutral between praise and censure, is now mainly used in a negative sense. So maybe using critique is intended to be not quite so negative. Or maybe it is just pretentious. ;) BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 01:49:10 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 17:49:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com><580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com><20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc><1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> ....On Behalf Of BillK .... > I doubt if they would accept a paper like that... > > Quote: > We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically > evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key > transhumanist claims and assumptions. For example, what are > the operative notions of anthropology, soteriology, and > eschatology that are at play in the transhumanist quest for > enhancement, including extreme longevity? We welcome more > overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse. > ------------------ > > They want criticism of transhumanism, not criticism of religion... BillK BillK speaks with great insight. The terms they use are ones ordinarily used exclusively by religionists. The term soteriology is the study of salvation. Eschatology is the study of the future as it relates to prophecy and the end of human history at the apocalypse, i.e. when that guy whats-his-name comes a whoopin ass and scooping up saints. These terms are familiar to all in the religious studies, but to few outside that insulated world. spike From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Feb 20 03:41:05 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:41:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> At 05:45 PM 2/19/2009, you wrote: >On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 11:15 PM, hkhenson wrote: > > I wonder how a proposed paper, "Does successful transhumanism mean the end > > of religions?" would go over. > > > > I could definitely make such a case. Presumably successors who were at > > least "weakly godlike" (to invoke Charles Stross) would have little use for > > religion. > > > > Such a paper could get into the EP case (cases) why religion is a species > > typical trait and why we might design it out if its root is in stone age > > population control via war. > > > > >I doubt if they would accept a paper like that. >They are the American Academy of Religion and are unlikely to support >a paper that would mean the disbanding of their organisation. They say >what they would really like in the Call. The human race successfully navigating through the singularity doesn't mean study of religions would necessarily come to an end. It could be an important hobby for post humans. In any case, it's not immanent. >Quote: >We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically evaluate >the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and >assumptions. For example, what are the operative notions of >anthropology, soteriology, and eschatology that are at play in the >transhumanist quest for enhancement, including extreme longevity? We >welcome more overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse. >------------------ > >They want criticism of transhumanism, not criticism of religion. I think I see the spin they want to put on transhumanism. They want transhumanists to own up to being just another new religion, like (name deleted). This would make them comfortable. I think we could (perhaps tongue in cheek) fly with that. "How does Transhumanism (Capital T indicating it is a religion) differ from conventional religions?" Like other religions it has beliefs, particularly in "the rapture of the nerds," and saints such as Drexler, Merkle and Freitas, devils such as Smalley. How it differs is that the technology to actually *do* things may be available in the not so distant future. Hardly anyone in a conventional religion expect to be able to obtain elixir of wisdom, strength, beauty and long life at a drugstore. Of course if it doesn't we could expect disillusionment such as the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Disappointment Then we could go into what conventional religions expect from their gods ending with a long quote from the episode in _Circus of Dr. Lao_ where the Great God Yottle takes a hand in the ceremony with lamentable results for some and salvation for others. >Also, you can submit the proposal as a non-member, but you have to >become a member in order to present the proposal or attend the >meeting. >So check the membership qualifications. >The AAR is for teachers, scholars, and other professionals in the >field of religion. >(not anti-religion!). Hmm. It would seem to me that accepting a proposal means you could become a member, but what do I know? Keith PS. I once suggested to the Templeton foundation that they resolve the question of Gods by setting up a serious of prizes like the X-prizes for teams who could demonstrate increasing god-like powerz. It could either result in creating a god, or attract the attention of God himself (I am a jealous God). Needless to say, they didn't take my advice. From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Feb 20 04:04:37 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:04:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> Message-ID: <1235103080_2136@s1.cableone.net> At 06:49 PM 2/19/2009, spike wrote: >....On Behalf Of BillK >.... > > I doubt if they would accept a paper like that... > > > > Quote: > > We particularly welcome papers that identify and critically > > evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key > > transhumanist claims and assumptions. For example, what are > > the operative notions of anthropology, soteriology, and > > eschatology that are at play in the transhumanist quest for > > enhancement, including extreme longevity? We welcome more > > overtly philosophical critiques of posthuman discourse. > > ------------------ > > > > They want criticism of transhumanism, not criticism of religion... BillK > > >BillK speaks with great insight. The terms they use are ones ordinarily >used exclusively by religionists. The term soteriology is the study of >salvation. Eschatology is the study of the future as it relates to prophecy >and the end of human history at the apocalypse, i.e. when that guy >whats-his-name comes a whoopin ass and scooping up saints. These terms are >familiar to all in the religious studies, but to few outside that insulated >world. Sacerdotal is another good word to use. Sacerdotalism: religious belief emphasizing the powers of priests as essential mediators between God and humankind. We could make a case they might accept that Transhumanism is Sacerdotal machine religion, that is a religion based on the belief that machines are the way for humans to experience God. Keith From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 04:44:54 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 20:44:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com><580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com><20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc><1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> On Behalf Of hkhenson .... > > Hmm. It would seem to me that accepting a proposal means you > could become a member, but what do I know? > > Keith > > PS. I once suggested to the Templeton foundation that they > resolve the question of Gods by setting up a serious of > prizes like the X-prizes for teams who could demonstrate > increasing god-like powerz. It could either result in > creating a god, or attract the attention of God himself (I am > a jealous God). Needless to say, they didn't take my advice. Keith, I know why I am friends with you. This is a hoot! {8^D I can imagine you suggesting something like this to the Templeton Foundation. Regarding becoming a member of this organization, I might actually consider it, assuming it costs very little and doesn't devour much time. It might be interesting to be kind of a quiet infiltrator, to see if one formally trained in theology at the college level might be able to smuggle in some transhumanist memes. I know their vocabulary. They are not nearly as dangerous as [name deleted]. Actually the more I think about it, the less I like the sneaky-ness of being an infiltrator, but I just don't know how they would take a former christian fundamentalist who converted to atheism. Suggestions welcome. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 05:07:25 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:07:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1235103080_2136@s1.cableone.net> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com><580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com><20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc><1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net><373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> <1235103080_2136@s1.cableone.net> Message-ID: >...On Behalf Of hkhenson ... > > We could make a case they might accept that Transhumanism is > Sacerdotal machine religion, that is a religion based on the > belief that machines are the way for humans to experience God. > > Keith I commend you Keith. The notion itself is sheer brilliance. Really I think what this organization is looking for is a way to map transhumanism onto religious thought-space. They want to determine if there is any essential contribution that can shed light on their own religious notions. Before this makes any sense, first consider that religion professors are extremely sophisticated in their analysis, all based on an assumption which cannot be proven but which must be accepted by faith: that the bible is the revealed word of god (if christian or jew). When pressed, they will freely admit that if this assumption is incorrect, then all the notions built thereupon are mere tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. If presented with transhumanism for instance, they would map the memeset onto religious thought space as taking an extreme form of reductionism of the human, whereas most religious thought views humans in a holistic way. Religion incorporated thinks of humans as more than the sum of the parts, transhumanism thinks of humans as exactly equal to the sum of the parts. If equal to the sum of the parts, then new parts can be substituted, making the sum greater than before. Cryonicists also must view humans as reductionist, a machine that can be preserved and later simulated, or theoretically possible to create an exact copy given sufficient technology. Otherwise cryonics makes no sense, for the religionist would argue there is a separate soul that has fled during the freezing process. Parting shot: the transhumanist memeset when mapped onto religious thought space would have a puzzling next-door neighbor: Seventh Day Adventists. These also see the human from the point of view of a reductionist. The human is a machine with no separate parts, no ethereal spirit or soul, rather a machine that can be completely destroyed by fire or by time, then later rebuilt as an exact copy, with all the same ideas, memories, attitudes, etc. This was a remarkable insight for the 1850s, ja? spike From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Feb 20 06:36:00 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:36:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> <1235103080_2136@s1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <1235112164_2554@s5.cableone.net> At 10:07 PM 2/19/2009, spike wrote: > >...On Behalf Of hkhenson >... > > We could make a case they might accept that Transhumanism is > > Sacerdotal machine religion, that is a religion based on the > > belief that machines are the way for humans to experience God. > > > > Keith > >I commend you Keith. The notion itself is sheer brilliance. I came up with it in the context of the novel I worked on while in jail. The leader of a southern California cult was using trans cranial magnetic stimulation (over the temporal lobe) so he and his follower really did experience god through a machine. They were driven quite mad by frequent applications. In the course of the story they are motivated to recover depleted U238, from he mid east and suborn nuclear reactor staff to turn the DU into pure Pu 239. The character Dr. Formoq (only slightly less mad than the cult leader) designs and builds implosion weapons based on a shell of explosive detonated by a light flash in an elliptical reflector. They nuke a zoning board meeting and other places to make it look like a terrorist attack. The story (with an admixture of real terrorism and much interaction between a president and a California governor) goes downhill from there. >Really I think what this organization is looking for is a way to map >transhumanism onto religious thought-space. They want to determine if there >is any essential contribution that can shed light on their own religious >notions. I think this is a correct analysis. Of course to do so they have wedge transhumanism into being a religion. It's easy to see how we (speaking broadly) came to their attention. The old line extropians stayed below their radar, but the folks in the WTA make a point of stepping on their corns. >Before this makes any sense, first consider that religion professors are >extremely sophisticated in their analysis, all based on an assumption which >cannot be proven but which must be accepted by faith: that the bible is the >revealed word of god (if christian or jew). When pressed, they will freely >admit that if this assumption is incorrect, then all the notions built >thereupon are mere tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying >nothing. They are not alone. Most of sociology is in the same boat with their assumption of "the blank slate." >If presented with transhumanism for instance, they would map the memeset >onto religious thought space as taking an extreme form of reductionism of >the human, whereas most religious thought views humans in a holistic way. >Religion incorporated thinks of humans as more than the sum of the parts, >transhumanism thinks of humans as exactly equal to the sum of the parts. If >equal to the sum of the parts, then new parts can be substituted, making the >sum greater than before. Hmm. Personally I consider emergent culture as more than the sum of the parts. >Cryonicists also must view humans as reductionist, a machine that can be >preserved and later simulated, or theoretically possible to create an exact >copy given sufficient technology. Otherwise cryonics makes no sense, for >the religionist would argue there is a separate soul that has fled during >the freezing process. Oddly there are some deeply religious people signed up for cryonics. The ability of people to compartmentalize their mental processes has no known bounds. >Parting shot: the transhumanist memeset when mapped onto religious thought >space would have a puzzling next-door neighbor: Seventh Day Adventists. >These also see the human from the point of view of a reductionist. The >human is a machine with no separate parts, no ethereal spirit or soul, >rather a machine that can be completely destroyed by fire or by time, then >later rebuilt as an exact copy, with all the same ideas, memories, >attitudes, etc. This was a remarkable insight for the 1850s, ja? That's most interesting because the Seventh Day Adventists.*and* the JWs are both are historically derived from brain injuries. (Perhaps the Quakers too, but the historical evidence is not as strong.) Keith >spike From eschatoon at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 07:32:51 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:32:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> I think those who jump at the first mention of religion are persons who had to make a big effort to free themselves from religious superstition, and are afraid of falling back into it anytime. Like those ex-alcoholics who avoid all parties because they know they would not be able to resist the temptation. Me, I was not raised in a religious family (nobody went to church in my family) and never really gave a damn about religion. So I am not afraid to discuss with religious persons. There are many bad things in religion, and there are also many good things. We all know the bad things: irrationality, superstition, dogmatism, hatred for the infidels, holy wars, and burning people. The good things have in common an aspiration to transcendence and greatness, something more and better, which is very transhumanist. My dream is repackaging religion with the good things and without the bad things, and compatibly with scientific knowledge and method, and spreading the new memetic package very wide. On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 5:44 AM, spike wrote: > > On Behalf Of hkhenson > .... >> >> Hmm. It would seem to me that accepting a proposal means you >> could become a member, but what do I know? >> >> Keith >> >> PS. I once suggested to the Templeton foundation that they >> resolve the question of Gods by setting up a serious of >> prizes like the X-prizes for teams who could demonstrate >> increasing god-like powerz. It could either result in >> creating a god, or attract the attention of God himself (I am >> a jealous God). Needless to say, they didn't take my advice. > > > Keith, I know why I am friends with you. This is a hoot! {8^D I can > imagine you suggesting something like this to the Templeton Foundation. > > Regarding becoming a member of this organization, I might actually consider > it, assuming it costs very little and doesn't devour much time. It might be > interesting to be kind of a quiet infiltrator, to see if one formally > trained in theology at the college level might be able to smuggle in some > transhumanist memes. I know their vocabulary. They are not nearly as > dangerous as [name deleted]. > > Actually the more I think about it, the less I like the sneaky-ness of being > an infiltrator, but I just don't know how they would take a former christian > fundamentalist who converted to atheism. Suggestions welcome. > > 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 alito at organicrobot.com Fri Feb 20 09:50:05 2009 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:50:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] almost a drexlerian assembler...almost In-Reply-To: References: <1235036872.11243.20.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <1235123405.25957.12.camel@localhost> On Thu, 2009-02-19 at 14:38 +0000, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 9:47 AM, Alejandro Dubrovsky wrote: > >From the article, it seems impossible to tell what it is. Do you have > > access to the real source? > > > > > The device is described in the latest issue of the journal Nature > Nanotechnology. So you need to have a 'Nature' subscription to read > it. > Somebody with a subscription might send you a copy privately. > > Or Google will tell you a lot about his earlier research, leading up > to this. For example, last year's one-armed nanorobot. > Yes, I know a fair bit about Seeman's previous work. I wouldn't call anything he's done previously a drexlerian assembler, or anything remotely near. No need to hype perfectly good work. From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 10:38:04 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 21:38:04 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/20 painlord2k at libero.it : > This is not unsurprising. > I remember reading this prediction somewhere in the writings of Mises or > Rothbard. > As the government enlarge is power, and in Italy the government in all its > branch run a big chunk of the economy and of the job market, the people > working in his branch will start to carve a niche of power and secure it. > > Why a university professor or a doctor in a government hospital would not > help their friends or relatives or allies to obtain a secure job? You're talking about corruption. The Corruption Perception Index (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index) ranks the top ten (i.e. least corrupt) countries: Denmark New Zealand Sweden Singapore Finland Switzerland Iceland Netherlands Australia Canada Italy is indeed quite low among the OECD countries at no. 55. Do you see a correlation between level of government involvement in the economy and corruption in these rankings? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 11:11:11 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:11:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902200311j54d24e29x7bbd5cbc13320bc4@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:20 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Exactly. > In a market, whoever would give a job to an unqualified or less qualified > person would ?had paid with his money, not with the taxpayer's money. This > would control the nepotism, and let able people to climb the social ladder. We both know well that I do not share your expectations from "pure-market", radically libertarian/individualistic solutions, but what is of interest is that in the conservative/progressive debate the general idea shared to some extent by both opponent that the first party would represent and defend the "wild capitalist, social darwinist, competitive" side is a pure mythe, at least in Europe. In fact, in most circumstances, they represent and defend the attempt of vested interests and parasitic classes to be *protected* from all that (only, in that case they are more often rich or middle class than poor). Additionally, when this is the case as it often is, conservatives happen to be as well rabid neoluddite, the two things being connected for a number of reasons. This, IMHO, is a possible point of convergence in our camp. -- Stefano Vaj From ain_ani at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 10:59:42 2009 From: ain_ani at yahoo.com (Michael Miller) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 02:59:42 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com><580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com><20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc><1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net><373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> <1235103080_2136@s1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <449669.1077.qm@web31505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Spike said: consider that religion professors are extremely sophisticated in their analysis, all based on an assumption which cannot be proven but which must be accepted by faith: that the bible is the revealed word of god (if christian or jew). When pressed, they will freely admit that if this assumption is incorrect, then all the notions built thereupon are mere tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. -- I'd like to just point out the difference between the fields of religious studies and theology: while Spike's claim would be true of Theology as a discipline, Religious Studies is a non-doctrinaire academic investigation, many of whose professors and scholars are atheist or agnostic (or at the least would reject such a grand claim as that of the bible being "the revealed word of god"...of course many committed christians and jews would also feel the need to add much qualification to this assertion). They simply find religion a fascinating thing to study, and something which says a lot about the human endeavour. And probably they find H+ interesting now for similar reasons, that it expresses much of the same longings for purpose, growth, assured future and longevity common to our species. 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URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 13:10:14 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 13:10:14 +0000 Subject: [ExI] call for soteriology and eschatology papers that mention h+, was : CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <449669.1077.qm@web31505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <373CEC5A584341D4BC8C2FA1B8F57FF7@spike> <1235103080_2136@s1.cableone.net> <449669.1077.qm@web31505.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 10:59 AM, Michael Miller wrote: > I'd like to just point out the difference between the fields of religious > studies and theology: while Spike's claim would be true of Theology as a > discipline, Religious Studies is a non-doctrinaire academic investigation, > many of whose professors and scholars are atheist or agnostic (or at the > least would reject such a grand claim as that of the bible being "the > revealed word of god"...of course many committed christians and jews would > also feel the need to add much qualification to this assertion). They simply > find religion a fascinating thing to study, and something which says a lot > about the human endeavour. And probably they find H+ interesting now for > similar reasons, that it expresses much of the same longings for purpose, > growth, assured future and longevity common to our species. > The AAS does indeed appear to be an 'anything goes' type of religious grouping. The Center for the Study of Atheism is even trying to get allowed in to the AAS. The Apologetics research resources on religious cults, sects, etcetera has a quite funny entry about the AAS. Quote: This is what the top theologians and religion scholars in the country do for fun every year the weekend before Thanksgiving. The annual gathering of the American Academy of Religion and the Society of Biblical Literature is to this crowd what the Sundance Film Festival is to independent filmmakers. In short, everybody who's anybody comes, and then some. Up-and-coming scholars cut their theological teeth presenting papers critiqued by the best of the Ivory Tower. Professors from Podunk U. banter theologically with those from Harvard, Princeton and Yale universities. Job candidates circulate polished resumes and schmooze with department heads. This year, nearly 8,000 scholars were on hand for more than 400 presentations on so-called weighty academic issues such as ''Problems in Categorization of Hebrew Particles.'' (One participant described that talk as more mentally taxing than an episode of Survivor, but every bit the thriller.) Newcomers quickly learn there's an etiquette at play in this crowd. Pure scholars of religion don't want to be confused with theologians, whom they see as muddying academics with faith. The theologians, on the other hand, aren't of one mind as to the purpose of their scholarship, or even their audience. Jews, Muslims and Buddhists debate about whether "theologian" is strictly a Christian term. The Christians haggle over whether the academic study of theology is an end unto itself, or whether it should be grounded in a faith community. While almost all the Christian theologians identify with a denomination, many gulp and swallow hard when asked whether they regularly attend a church. ''Not for a long time,'' said Dr. Petri Luomanen, a Lutheran pastor who's a biblical studies scholar from the University of Helsinki, Finland. ''I have nothing against it; I've just been too busy.'' Other theologians echoed that response, though none wanted his or her name in print. A few said they consider church nothing more than folk religion. The Jesus in churches cannot be reconciled with the Jesus of theological scholarship, they added. --------------------- There is a report here from the Communist Party of the USA who attended to publicize an atheist book 'Away With All Gods!'. They weren't thrown out - they seem to have had quite a fun time at the conference. ----------------------- I also found articles written by a previous president of the AAS discussing the types of atheism and how atheists are really just a different type of religious experience. So, really, 'anything goes!' You can describe just about any human experience as religious, so the AAS could easily see Transhumanism as one of the New Age 'seekers after truth'. BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 15:54:57 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:54:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com><580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com><20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc><1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net><1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net><39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic .... > Subject: Re: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers > > I think those who jump at the first mention of religion are > persons who had to make a big effort to free themselves from > religious superstition, and are afraid of falling back into > it anytime. Like those ex-alcoholics who avoid all parties > because they know they would not be able to resist the temptation... This is entirely possible, Esch. My own case is a double opposite of your postulate, so I suppose that constitutes a proof of sorts. I am entirely comfortable with all discussion of religion, and I have no fear of falling back into it. Reason: I was happy in religion, tried for years to fall back into it. But after I knew it was wrong, the spell was irreparably broken. I would be like an alcoholic who loved being a drunk, but for whom the alcohol suddenly stopped producing a high. > There are many bad things in religion, and there are also > many good things. ...My dream is repackaging > religion with the good things and without the bad things, and > compatibly with scientific knowledge and method, and > spreading the new memetic package very wide... If you can figure out a way to do that in a way that embraces skepticism instead of faith, reason instead of dogma, evidence instead of testimony, you will have accomplished a great thing indeed. spike From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Feb 20 15:25:36 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:25:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com > References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1235143940_3161@S3.cableone.net> At 12:32 AM 2/20/2009, Eschatoon Magic wrote: snip >There are many bad things in religion, and there are also many good >things. We all know the bad things: irrationality, superstition, >dogmatism, hatred for the infidels, holy wars, and burning people. The >good things have in common an aspiration to transcendence and >greatness, something more and better, which is very transhumanist. My >dream is repackaging religion with the good things and without the bad >things, and compatibly with scientific knowledge and method, and >spreading the new memetic package very wide. The problem is not the memes or the good things that may happen to come out of religion. The problem is the evolved psychological mechanisms in humans. Comes bad times a looming, and some religious meme (or a meme of the larger class that included religions) will acquire a xenophobic nature and sooner or later the warriors will march off to war. We don't need a "new memetic package," plain technology (most important, birth control) will do just fine. But the situation as it is shaping up now forecasts wars, lots of them, in places where population growth has exceeded economic growth. That will extend to places with low to zero population growth if the economic situation looks bleak enough. Horrible model, but it does tell us where the problems will occur. Keith From femmechakra at yahoo.ca Fri Feb 20 15:49:49 2009 From: femmechakra at yahoo.ca (Anna Taylor) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 07:49:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <860242.56880.qm@web110403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 2/20/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > There are many bad things in religion, and there are also > many good things. We all know the bad things: irrationality, > superstition, dogmatism, hatred for the infidels, holy wars, and burning > people. The good things have in common an aspiration to transcendence > and greatness, something more and better, which is very > transhumanist. My dream is repackaging religion with the good things and > without the bad things, and compatibly with scientific knowledge and > method, and spreading the new memetic package very wide. I too dream of that same scenario. I wrote a paper a while back (which I didn't publish anywhere) that distinguishes the differences between Transhumanism and Religion. For me, Transhumanism is the wave of the future as it is impossible to ignore how science and technology play a intricate role in our lives. As for religion, I agree that the bad things you mention are the reasons why religion as a whole needs to be re-worked and challenged at all costs. Irrational as it may seem I still believe in a "cosmic greater good force with a plan", not God(s) and that religion with all it's faults will hopefully become an institute of learning. I don't see why religion and philosophy can't combine itself as the greatest teachers are not God(s) but mere men and woman that have experienced the lessons of life and that can share their morals and values hopefully to teach those that are in need of guidance. It's wishful thinking, I know:) Anna __________________________________________________________________ Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now at http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 16:37:18 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 08:37:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com><499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> Message-ID: <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou .... > You're talking about corruption. The Corruption Perception Index > (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index) > ranks the top ten (i.e. least corrupt) countries: > > Denmark > New Zealand > Sweden .... > Italy is indeed quite low among the OECD countries at no. 55. .... > Stathis Papaioannou Thanks for the link Stathis. I predict that the USA will drop dramatically in the 2009 rankings, from 18th to somewhere in high 20s to mid 30s. It sure appears to me we have ushered in a government culture of corruption on an unprecedented scale. Any other predictions? spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 17:00:34 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:00:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] birth control, was: CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1235143940_3161@S3.cableone.net> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com><580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com><20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc><1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net><1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net><39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike><1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> <1235143940_3161@S3.cableone.net> Message-ID: <780336AEA4BF48DEBEFB1B9B13A85C18@spike> > ...On Behalf Of hkhenson ... > We don't need a "new memetic package," plain technology (most > important, birth control) will do just fine... Keith this notion is true but carries a cruel irony. There are religious and sociological memesets active in humanity which actively resist the notion of birth control. Indeed we may be seeing the embrace of technological birth enhancement, such as the much publicized octo-mom. If a subset of humanity embrace birth control, the anti-birth-control memes will soon inherit the earth. If this isn't clear in our modern world, it very soon will be. > But the situation as it is shaping up now forecasts wars, > lots of them... Keith Oy vey, agreed. {8-[ Humanity will not embrace birth control. Some will, but it doesn't matter, for our genes are doomed. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 20 17:02:54 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 09:02:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <860242.56880.qm@web110403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> <860242.56880.qm@web110403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Anna Taylor ... > > I too dream of that same scenario. I wrote a paper a while > back (which I didn't publish anywhere) that distinguishes the > differences between Transhumanism and Religion. For me, > Transhumanism is the wave of the future as it is impossible > to ignore how science and technology play a intricate role in > our lives. As for religion, I agree that the bad things you > mention are the reasons why religion as a whole needs to be > re-worked and challenged at all costs. Irrational as it may > seem I still believe in a "cosmic greater good force with a > plan", not God(s) and that religion with all it's faults will > hopefully become an institute of learning. I don't see why > religion and philosophy can't combine itself as the greatest > teachers are not God(s) but mere men and woman that have > experienced the lessons of life and that can share their > morals and values hopefully to teach those that are in need > of guidance. It's wishful thinking, I know:) > > Anna Anna! Great post, thanks! Post your paper here? spike From pharos at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 17:40:24 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 17:40:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> Message-ID: On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 4:37 PM, spike wrote: > Thanks for the link Stathis. I predict that the USA will drop dramatically > in the 2009 rankings, from 18th to somewhere in high 20s to mid 30s. It > sure appears to me we have ushered in a government culture of corruption on > an unprecedented scale. Any other predictions? > Don't forget the US entrepreneurial business ethic, Spike. The US has some of the biggest corporations in the world, so it is already well ahead in the corporate corruption index. This is an Excel spreadsheet of corporate corruption by country. Now the question is: If the government nationalizes lots of these corporations will the corruption shift from corporate to government? Does the total overall corruption level in a country stay about the same, regardless of how the balance between corporate and government moves? BillK From micheals at msu.edu Fri Feb 20 17:15:46 2009 From: micheals at msu.edu (sam micheal) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 12:15:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess Message-ID: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> http://www.msu.edu/~micheal/ Okay, now you know the game.. Let's tell a story. Imagine three players: 1. a *cybernetically enhanced human* 2. a *genetically enhanced human* 3. a fully conscious *android* Assign them colors: Blue, Red, and Pink respectively. As you can see from the gameboard and rules, two may gang up on one, but.. If they do that, there's a price - they must fight it out at the end and.. The one who actually captures the other's king gets control of his pieces. So, is there really a motivation for gang-warfare? This essay is deep in many respects. Consider it fully. There are many lessons to be learned from it. Who will win? My prediction is #1: the cyborg because only he has 'the best of both worlds' (he's the only true hybrid). True, the psychic could use PK or ESP to win the game, but that's cheating. If they play fair, I believe the cyborg would win. Again, there are many lessons in this scenario. The first being: why the hell do we have to play adversarial roles in our world??? (This is very common between 'craft and management' in large corporations.) The world is our chessboard. Politicians are the gamepieces. But they posture and threat for resources. For what? An ideology??? Because they have 'the guns'??? It is wrong. tbc off-forum, sam -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhenson at rogers.com Fri Feb 20 18:03:34 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:03:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] resource wars was birth control, was: CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <780336AEA4BF48DEBEFB1B9B13A85C18@spike> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090218121228.0240e010@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> <1235143940_3161@S3.cableone.net> <780336AEA4BF48DEBEFB1B9B13A85C18@spike> Message-ID: <1235153418_4120@s1.cableone.net> At 10:00 AM 2/20/2009, spike wrote: > > > ...On Behalf Of hkhenson >... > > We don't need a "new memetic package," plain technology (most > > important, birth control) will do just fine... > >Keith this notion is true but carries a cruel irony. There are religious >and sociological memesets active in humanity which actively resist the >notion of birth control. It's interesting that Italy has one of the lowest birth rates in the world. >Indeed we may be seeing the embrace of >technological birth enhancement, such as the much publicized octo-mom. If a >subset of humanity embrace birth control, the anti-birth-control memes will >soon inherit the earth. If this isn't clear in our modern world, it very >soon will be. > > > But the situation as it is shaping up now forecasts wars, > > lots of them... Keith > >Oy vey, agreed. {8-[ Humanity will not embrace birth control. Some will, >but it doesn't matter, for our genes are doomed. Genes are doomed in any case. I can't imagine our successors using them. Re resource wars, this (www.odac-info.org) just came to my attention "Amid the deepening economic gloom, two important remarks about oil almost slipped under the radar this week. First, the government's former Chief Scientific Advisor, Sir David King, admitted Iraq was all about oil, and went on to say it would probably be the first in a series of resource wars. snip "In Britain the Department of Energy and Climate Change is still struggling to develop a coherent strategy around replacement of electricity generating capacity. The current policy fails to promote renewables effectively or penalise the high environmental cost of coal. At the same time lack of planning around the country's transition from net gas exporter to net importer status is putting supplies at risk. "As the government and the Bank of England consider increasingly drastic measures to revive the economy it looks ever more obvious that the political imperatives have moved on. But basing policy on an economic growth agenda with sustainability measures bolted on is not a credible plan for a resource constrained future. What we need is a completely new paradigm. As Sir David King said during his lecture this week, "Consumerism has been a wonderful model for growing up economies in the 20th century. Is that model fit for purpose in the 21st century, when resource shortage is our biggest challenge?" *********** Keith From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 20 18:09:50 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:09:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com><499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> Message-ID: <499EF1EE.6080603@libero.it> Il 20/02/2009 17.37, spike ha scritto: > Thanks for the link Stathis. I predict that the USA will drop dramatically > in the 2009 rankings, from 18th to somewhere in high 20s to mid 30s. It > sure appears to me we have ushered in a government culture of corruption on > an unprecedented scale. Any other predictions? The stimulus package will not stimulate anything, apart corruption. The deficit will grow first, taxes will grow after. Obama not re-elected. There will be inflation in a year or two, probably two digit one. Unemployment will stay high. Less immigrants will come in the US and more will go back home. Mirco From eschatoon at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 18:39:59 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:39:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902201039y14fbc6dahd0c7c4d19ec62a45@mail.gmail.com> Wow your example is even more interesting. If alcohol has suddenly stopped producing a high, this may be a good thing (liver problems, high pressure etc.)... but then let's grow some weed or design some new drug to get high anyway, and perhaps a lot higher, without the undesired side effects! G. On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 4:54 PM, spike wrote: > > >> ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic > .... >> Subject: Re: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers >> >> I think those who jump at the first mention of religion are >> persons who had to make a big effort to free themselves from >> religious superstition, and are afraid of falling back into >> it anytime. Like those ex-alcoholics who avoid all parties >> because they know they would not be able to resist the temptation... > > This is entirely possible, Esch. My own case is a double opposite of your > postulate, so I suppose that constitutes a proof of sorts. I am entirely > comfortable with all discussion of religion, and I have no fear of falling > back into it. Reason: I was happy in religion, tried for years to fall back > into it. But after I knew it was wrong, the spell was irreparably broken. > I would be like an alcoholic who loved being a drunk, but for whom the > alcohol suddenly stopped producing a high. > >> There are many bad things in religion, and there are also >> many good things. ...My dream is repackaging >> religion with the good things and without the bad things, and >> compatibly with scientific knowledge and method, and >> spreading the new memetic package very wide... > > If you can figure out a way to do that in a way that embraces skepticism > instead of faith, reason instead of dogma, evidence instead of testimony, > you will have accomplished a great thing indeed. > > 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 eschatoon at gmail.com Fri Feb 20 18:43:02 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:43:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <860242.56880.qm@web110403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> <860242.56880.qm@web110403.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902201043m6a741cc5xc868ab0ed75e1678@mail.gmail.com> Thanks Anna, these are beautiful words, and remember that most good things in life begin with some wishful thinking. Any chance to read your paper? I am comfortable with the idea of a "cosmic greater good force with a plan", but I want to _become_ that entity. Or my grandchildrens, or theirs. G. On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 4:49 PM, Anna Taylor wrote: > --- On Fri, 2/20/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > >> There are many bad things in religion, and there are also >> many good things. We all know the bad things: irrationality, >> superstition, dogmatism, hatred for the infidels, holy wars, and burning >> people. The good things have in common an aspiration to transcendence >> and greatness, something more and better, which is very >> transhumanist. My dream is repackaging religion with the good things and >> without the bad things, and compatibly with scientific knowledge and >> method, and spreading the new memetic package very wide. > > I too dream of that same scenario. I wrote a paper a while back (which I didn't publish anywhere) that distinguishes the differences between Transhumanism and Religion. For me, Transhumanism is the wave of the future as it is impossible to ignore how science and technology play a intricate role in our lives. As for religion, I agree that the bad things you mention are the reasons why religion as a whole needs to be re-worked and challenged at all costs. Irrational as it may seem I still believe in a "cosmic greater good force with a plan", not God(s) and that religion with all it's faults will hopefully become an institute of learning. I don't see why religion and philosophy can't combine itself as the greatest teachers are not God(s) but mere men and woman that have experienced the lessons of life and that can share their morals and values hopefully to teach those that are in need of guidance. It's wishful thinking, I know:) > > Anna > > > > __________________________________________________________________ > Yahoo! Canada Toolbar: Search from anywhere on the web, and bookmark your favourite sites. Download it now at > http://ca.toolbar.yahoo.com. > _______________________________________________ > 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 mail at harveynewstrom.com Fri Feb 20 16:43:03 2009 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 11:43:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200902201143.03961.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Friday 20 February 2009 2:32:51 am Eschatoon Magic wrote: > I think those who jump at the first mention of religion are persons > who had to make a big effort to free themselves from religious > superstition, and are afraid of falling back into it anytime. Like > those ex-alcoholics who avoid all parties because they know they would > not be able to resist the temptation. Wow. This set off a lot of my warning bells. There are at least four logical fallacies being made here, and maybe more. FIrst, this is a stereotype. You are ascribing the motives for some people who jump on religion to all people who jump on religion. This is a known logical fallacy which is known to lead to unproven assumptions where you are right and erroneous assumptions where you are wrong. None of the cases are logically good. Second, this is a strawman. This "conclusion" of yours will literally lead you into arguing against your own imagined position for the other person instead of what they actually profess. Think about it. Nothing they can influence your response since your response is based on your statements, not theirs. There literally would be no talking to you. Third, you are applying the motives of a subset of people (for which this may be true) and are applying it as a universal for the entire set of people. You really don't know that everyone does this or that no one has a legitimate reason to jump on religion. Fourth, you are poisoning the well. You are literally ascribing bad stuff to anybody who would "jump on religion". This pre-emptively states that religion is good and anybody who disagrees is bad. Anybody who objects will be labeled in the way you are doing now. Anybody who respond negatively (such as myself) will be assumed to be anti-religion (even though I have said nothing about religion). Not to be too harsh here, but such "rules" or "assumptions" do not encourage debate. They hinder rational debate. -- Harvey Newstrom From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 20 19:51:03 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 20:51:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <580930c20902200311j54d24e29x7bbd5cbc13320bc4@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <580930c20902200311j54d24e29x7bbd5cbc13320bc4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <499F09A7.6050008@libero.it> Il 20/02/2009 12.11, Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 8:20 PM, painlord2k at libero.it > wrote: >> Exactly. >> In a market, whoever would give a job to an unqualified or less qualified >> person would had paid with his money, not with the taxpayer's money. This >> would control the nepotism, and let able people to climb the social ladder. > > We both know well that I do not share your expectations from > "pure-market", radically libertarian/individualistic solutions, but > what is of interest is that in the conservative/progressive debate the > general idea shared to some extent by both opponent that the first > party would represent and defend the "wild capitalist, social > darwinist, competitive" side is a pure mythe, at least in Europe. Given what the Republicans and Bush did in the US, I would suggest the myth is not only Italian or european but "western". The myth can only be disproved in front of the masses only with the big failure of the governments on economic matters. > In fact, in most circumstances, they represent and defend the attempt > of vested interests and parasitic classes to be *protected* from all > that (only, in that case they are more often rich or middle class than > poor). I agree. > Additionally, when this is the case as it often is, > conservatives happen to be as well rabid neoluddite, the two things > being connected for a number of reasons. I would suggest that conservative "neoluddite" is another myth. The progressives are able to be as much, if not more, Luddite as the conservatives and are sure more efficient Luddite than the conservatives. For example, the position of the Catholic Church about the use of the Genetically Modified Organism is more progressive than the position of many leftists. > This, IMHO, is a possible point of convergence in our camp. Probably. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 21 03:16:16 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:16:16 -0800 Subject: [ExI] biggest gamma ray burst ever In-Reply-To: <200902201143.03961.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1><39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike><1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> <200902201143.03961.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <5EE40357D0794FFB95518C695DD22339@spike> Kewall! http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090219/sc_afp/sciencespaceastronomy Huge gamma-ray blast spotted 12.2 bln light-years from earth ... Thu Feb 19, 3:58 pm ET AFP/NASA - The US space agency's Fermi telescope has detected a massive explosion in space which scientists say is the biggest gamma-ray burst ever detected, a report published Thursday in Science Express said. The spectacular blast, which occurred in September in the Carina constellation, produced energies ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said. "Visible light has an energy range of between two and three electron volts and these were in the millions to billions of electron volts," astrophysicist Frank Reddy of US space agency NASA told AFP. "If you think about it in terms of energy, X-rays are more energetic because they penetrate matter. These things don't stop for anything -- they just bore through and that's why we can see them from enormous distances," Reddy said. A team led by Jochen Greiner of Germany's Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics determined that the huge gamma-ray burst occurred 12.2 billion light years away. The sun is eight light minutes from Earth, and Pluto is 12 light hours away. Taking into account the huge distance from earth of the burst, scientists worked out that the blast was stronger than 9,000 supernovae -- powerful explosions that occur at the end of a star's lifetime -- and that the gas jets emitting the initial gamma rays moved at nearly the speed of light. "This burst's tremendous power and speed make it the most extreme recorded to date," a statement issued by the US Department of Energy said. Gamma-ray bursts are the universe's most luminous explosions, which astronomers believe occur when massive stars run out of nuclear fuel and collapse. Long bursts, which last more than two seconds, occur in massive stars that are undergoing collapse, while short bursts lasting less than two seconds occur in smaller stars. In short gamma-ray bursts, stars simply explode and form supernovae, but in long bursts, the enormous bulk of the star leads its core to collapse and form a blackhole, into which the rest of the star falls. As the star's core collapses into the black hole, jets of material blast outward, boring through the collapsing star and continuing into space where they interact with gas previously shed by the star, generating bright afterglows that fade with time. "It's thought that something involved in spinning up and collapsing into that blackhole in the center is what drives these jets. No one really has figured that out. The jets rip through the star and the supernova follows after the jets," Reddy said. Studying gamma-ray bursts allows scientists to "sample an individual star at a distance where we can't even see galaxies clearly," Reddy said. Observing the massive explosions could also lift the veil on more of space's enigmas, including those raised by the burst spotted by Fermi, such as a "curious time delay" between its highest and lowest energy emissions. Such a time lag has been seen in only one earlier burst, and "may mean that the highest-energy emissions are coming from different parts of the jet or created through a different mechanism," said Stanford University physicist Peter Michelson, the chief investigator on Fermi's large area telescope. "Burst emissions at these energies are still poorly understood, and Fermi is giving us the tools to understand them. In a few years, we'll have a fairly good sample of bursts and may have some answers," Michelson said. The Fermi telescope and NASA's Swift satellite detect "in the order of 1,000 gamma-ray bursts a year, or a burst every 100,000 years in a given galaxy," said Reddy. Astrophysicists estimate there are hundreds of billions of galaxies. The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope was developed by NASA in collaboration with the US Department of Energy and partners including academic institutions in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States. From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 21 03:19:26 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 19:19:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] change we can believe in Message-ID: <5457317F2F8C4D7AA26E1A14D6646D77@spike> This goes on my office wall: -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: att8f0f.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 18558 bytes Desc: not available URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Feb 21 04:23:54 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2009 22:23:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] change we can believe in In-Reply-To: <5457317F2F8C4D7AA26E1A14D6646D77@spike> References: <5457317F2F8C4D7AA26E1A14D6646D77@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090220221907.023db198@satx.rr.com> At 07:19 PM 2/20/2009 -0800, Spike wrote: >This goes on my office wall: Viz, Darwin pic labeled "Very gradual CHANGE we can believe in." Clearly Darwin was a Fabian, a member of a venerable British activist group whose socialist policy I've heard amusingly condensed as a demonstration or rally chant: "WADDA WE WANT?" "Gradual change!" "WENNA WE WANT IT?" "In due course." Damien Broderick From neptune at superlink.net Sat Feb 21 05:11:25 2009 From: neptune at superlink.net (Techno) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 00:11:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Origin of Life Bio Chemistry Message-ID: <741D485C791E47A1886F503C2562D18D@technotr9881e5> http://www.innido.com/ From eschatoon at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 08:02:08 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 09:02:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <200902201143.03961.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> <200902201143.03961.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902210002p66484a04q89d311ebce282ea4@mail.gmail.com> I should of course have written "_some of_ those who jump..." or "_many of_ those who jump...". Also, this is not referred to those who oppose bad things done by or in the name of religions. I am the first to condemn priests raping children or fundamentalists murdering people. I refer to the attitude of condemning _a priori_ everything related to religion, which I do not consider a constructive position. On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 5:43 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > On Friday 20 February 2009 2:32:51 am Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> I think those who jump at the first mention of religion are persons >> who had to make a big effort to free themselves from religious >> superstition, and are afraid of falling back into it anytime. Like >> those ex-alcoholics who avoid all parties because they know they would >> not be able to resist the temptation. > > Wow. This set off a lot of my warning bells. There are at least four logical > fallacies being made here, and maybe more. > > FIrst, this is a stereotype. You are ascribing the motives for some people > who jump on religion to all people who jump on religion. This is a known > logical fallacy which is known to lead to unproven assumptions where you are > right and erroneous assumptions where you are wrong. None of the cases are > logically good. > > Second, this is a strawman. This "conclusion" of yours will literally lead > you into arguing against your own imagined position for the other person > instead of what they actually profess. Think about it. Nothing they can > influence your response since your response is based on your statements, not > theirs. There literally would be no talking to you. > > Third, you are applying the motives of a subset of people (for which this may > be true) and are applying it as a universal for the entire set of people. You > really don't know that everyone does this or that no one has a legitimate > reason to jump on religion. > > Fourth, you are poisoning the well. You are literally ascribing bad stuff to > anybody who would "jump on religion". This pre-emptively states that religion > is good and anybody who disagrees is bad. Anybody who objects will be labeled > in the way you are doing now. Anybody who respond negatively (such as myself) > will be assumed to be anti-religion (even though I have said nothing about > religion). > > Not to be too harsh here, but such "rules" or "assumptions" do not encourage > debate. They hinder rational debate. > > -- > Harvey Newstrom > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Feb 21 16:43:15 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:43:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> Message-ID: <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> Il 20/02/2009 18.40, BillK ha scritto: > On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 4:37 PM, spike wrote: > Don't forget the US entrepreneurial business ethic, Spike. > The US has some of the biggest corporations in the world, so it is > already well ahead in the corporate corruption index. I would think that bigger corporations deal much morw with governments than little corporations. So it is all governments corporations. You need corrupted people to deal with corrupted people on their terms. First, the bigger corporation deal with the governments to be left alone to do business; then, as they continue to pay for be left alone by the governments, they start to ask a little "help", like keep competitors at bay, or subsides (paid with the taxpayer's money not the politician's or bureaucrat's money). Nothing new here. Without a corruptible government, big or small corporations and individuals would have nothing to corrupt. And without a government worth to be corrupted, no one would try to do it. Biggest the government, biggest the reward for the corrupter and the corrupted and bigger the corruption of the government. Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 17:14:12 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 17:14:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 4:43 PM, painlord2k wrote: > I would think that bigger corporations deal much morw with governments than > little corporations. So it is all governments corporations. I don't understand. Are you saying that business is equally as corrupt as government, therefore destroy both? This is obviously impossible. 2) Or that corrupt business only deals with corrupt government and never defrauds the general public? This is obviously wrong. BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Feb 21 17:52:16 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 11:52:16 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221114943.0233dec0@satx.rr.com> At 05:14 PM 2/21/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: >On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 4:43 PM, painlord2k wrote: > > I would think that bigger corporations deal much morw with governments than > > little corporations. So it is all governments corporations. > >I don't understand. > >Are you saying that business is equally as corrupt as government, therefore >destroy both? > >This is obviously impossible. Oh, Bill, it's self-evident. Corporations are intrinsically fine and decent, but the moment they encounter a government, which is intrinsically foul, self-serving, dishonest and corrupt, they become hopelessly tainted. Get rid of government, and corporations large and small will never be tempted away from the path of righteousness. Damien Broderick From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 19:48:48 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:48:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess In-Reply-To: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> References: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> Message-ID: <580930c20902211148mb276580gf7962fb890ca871e@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 6:15 PM, sam micheal wrote: > Again, there are many lessons in this scenario. The first being: why the > hell do we have to play adversarial roles in our world??? Because it is often more fun than otherwise? :-) -- Stefano Vaj From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 20:00:57 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 13:00:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess In-Reply-To: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> References: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> Message-ID: <2d6187670902211200k212d550erfca196d698c19969@mail.gmail.com> Imagine *SEVEN* players: 1. a cybernetically enhanced human 2. a genetically enhanced human 3. a fully conscious android 4. The Jedi master, Yoda 5. a Mentat from Dune 6. Mike Ditka! 7. Mr. Spock Who would win??? John ; ) On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 10:15 AM, sam micheal wrote: > http://www.msu.edu/~micheal/ > > Okay, now you know the game.. Let's tell a story. > > Imagine three players: > 1. a cybernetically enhanced human > 2. a genetically enhanced human > 3. a fully conscious android > > Assign them colors: Blue, Red, and Pink respectively. > > As you can see from the gameboard and rules, two may gang up on one, but.. > If they do that, there's a price - they must fight it out at the end and.. > The one who actually captures the other's king gets control of his pieces. > So, is there really a motivation for gang-warfare? > > This essay is deep in many respects. Consider it fully. There are many > lessons to be learned from it. > > Who will win? My prediction is #1: the cyborg because only he has 'the best > of both worlds' (he's the only true hybrid). True, the psychic could use PK > or ESP to win the game, but that's cheating. If they play fair, I believe > the cyborg would win. > > Again, there are many lessons in this scenario. The first being: why the > hell do we have to play adversarial roles in our world??? (This is very > common between 'craft and management' in large corporations.) > > The world is our chessboard. Politicians are the gamepieces. But they > posture and threat for resources. For what? An ideology??? Because they have > 'the guns'??? > > It is wrong. > > tbc off-forum, sam > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Feb 21 20:06:31 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 14:06:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess In-Reply-To: <580930c20902211148mb276580gf7962fb890ca871e@mail.gmail.com > References: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> <580930c20902211148mb276580gf7962fb890ca871e@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221140134.026f3650@satx.rr.com> At 08:48 PM 2/21/2009 +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > Again, there are many lessons in this scenario. The first being: why the > > hell do we have to play adversarial roles in our world??? > >Because it is often more fun than otherwise? :-) Which is because we're wired for it, we find conflict and striving for advancement over others and taking their toys away from them *reinforcing* (as the behaviorists used to put it). Granted, some of us most of the time and others some of the time also find it unpleasantly stressful, and wasteful, and less profitable than cooperation. But the edgy sense of drive and reward is there for enough powerful, influential players that the game will never be abandoned, only contained to one degree or another. Damien Broderick From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 20:10:11 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 21:10:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221140134.026f3650@satx.rr.com> References: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> <580930c20902211148mb276580gf7962fb890ca871e@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221140134.026f3650@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: So some on one side "are just having a little fun" whereas others on theother side might be fighting in pure terror for their lives having little or no alternative. Be careful what demons you call up this way. Some people might decide to give up and to hell with it. 2009/2/21 Damien Broderick > At 08:48 PM 2/21/2009 +0100, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > > Again, there are many lessons in this scenario. The first being: why the >> > hell do we have to play adversarial roles in our world??? >> >> Because it is often more fun than otherwise? :-) >> > > Which is because we're wired for it, we find conflict and striving for > advancement over others and taking their toys away from them *reinforcing* > (as the behaviorists used to put it). Granted, some of us most of the time > and others some of the time also find it unpleasantly stressful, and > wasteful, and less profitable than cooperation. But the edgy sense of drive > and reward is there for enough powerful, influential players that the game > will never be abandoned, only contained to one degree or another. > > Damien Broderick > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 21:11:20 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:11:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] CALL: H+ call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> References: <350A2CC9CF5F4486A3A4093BC95007D8@DFC68LF1> <2d6187670902182155y75d486dev9d8d2b9e22b95f44@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090219000741.023584c8@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902191036h7850c78bl74bde242933a8c21@mail.gmail.com> <20090219144828.o87l4ke52cgkkkg4@webmail.natasha.cc> <1235085754_1062@s6.cableone.net> <1235101669_2004@s7.cableone.net> <39D89FC62375456EBBAD0EE687F1F18A@spike> <1fa8c3b90902192332j6a0b4e4rfa9d451d45780b85@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902211311s758d3d50p7d7bde4915510940@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Feb 20, 2009 at 8:32 AM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > I think those who jump at the first mention of religion are persons > who had to make a big effort to free themselves from religious > superstition, and are afraid of falling back into it anytime. Like > those ex-alcoholics who avoid all parties because they know they would > not be able to resist the temptation. "Religion" used to mean simply "the worldview that tie together a given community, and the related mythes and rites", as such being a rather neutral and unavoidable feature of human societies. *Then*, with the unfortunate success of monotheism in Europe, it became tainted with metaphysics, to the point that very different phenomena of the first kind across history and geography were understood in such light, or even influenced in that direction whenever they were not simply replaced by Biblical beliefs. This is deplorable, but what exactly would, say, Zen involve that would be incompatible with h+ or with a promethean worldview? Or European paganism? A lot of purely secular philosophies betray a much stronger eschatological and universalist flavour and judeochristian influence than many "religions" who do not demand any kind of anti-scientific "faith". -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 21:16:51 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:16:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess In-Reply-To: References: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> <580930c20902211148mb276580gf7962fb890ca871e@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221140134.026f3650@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902211316l6857cb38nce58f7a2d39b2f40@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 9:10 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > So some on one side "are just having a little fun" whereas others on the > other side might be fighting in pure terror for their lives having little or > no > alternative. Yes. Or perhaps the generalisation of this example is tired, christianoid rhetorics, and many people will go on enjoying a good play of chess, or believing that the adversarial system is the best way to approach justice in a legal system, even though both counsel play only to win within a given set of rules. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Feb 21 22:03:31 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:03:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Three Way Chess In-Reply-To: <580930c20902211316l6857cb38nce58f7a2d39b2f40@mail.gmail.com> References: <499EE542.3070707@msu.edu> <580930c20902211148mb276580gf7962fb890ca871e@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221140134.026f3650@satx.rr.com> <580930c20902211316l6857cb38nce58f7a2d39b2f40@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: This is a system or paradigm I will glady see die, when the disenfrenchisedhave access over nanotechnological replicators, biotechnological means to engineer superviruses and other tools to inflict gigadeath. We either have a society that pays these people off, compromizes, or we all die in a blaze of armageddon. Right now this world deserves the second. 2009/2/21 Stefano Vaj > On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 9:10 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > > So some on one side "are just having a little fun" whereas others on the > > other side might be fighting in pure terror for their lives having little > or > > no > > alternative. > > Yes. > > Or perhaps the generalisation of this example is tired, christianoid > rhetorics, and many people will go on enjoying a good play of chess, > or believing that the adversarial system is the best way to approach > justice in a legal system, even though both counsel play only to win > within a given set of rules. :-) > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sun Feb 22 00:10:25 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:10:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> Il 21/02/2009 18.14, BillK ha scritto: > On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 4:43 PM, painlord2k wrote: >> I would think that bigger corporations deal much more with governments than >> little corporations. So it is all governments corporations. > I don't understand. English is not my mother language, so let reformulate. Corporations are run by human beings as governments, so both are prone to corruptions as are the humans beings. Corporations are more honest than government because they need to keep their customers always satisfied, or risk to lose them and their money. Governments are not under the same pressure to keep their customers happy. Someone wrote that people vote with the ballots one time every four years and with their money many times every day. Corporations are greed but they will be only interested in corrupting governments officials only if there is something to gain and if this gain justify the risks taken and the efforts spent. Bigger is the role of the governments in the economy, bigger will be the money that will be possible to gain with the corruption of the people running the government. The difficult to verify what the governments agents (bureaucrats and politicos) will grow with the size of the government. > Are you saying that business is equally as corrupt as government, therefore > destroy both? No. But if you reduce the size of the government and the power and money it is able to control directly or indirectly, the corporations will have not the same interest in corrupting the government. The act of corrupting someone is dangerous and costly as is the act of accepting a bribery. People do so only if it is rewarding. Smaller is the government more dangerous and costly it become and lower is the reward. > 2) Or that corrupt business only deals with corrupt government and > never defrauds the general public? > This is obviously wrong. Business and government will defraud the public if there is a reward to do it. But given the incentives existing in a market, business will not be so prone to defraud the public as much as the governments. Why? Business can not force the people to pay for something the people don't want. If prices are too high, quality is too low or something is to of liking of the buyers, the business will end or will reduce in a short amount of time. Governments can force the people to pay for something they don' want. To change this state people need to change the government and this is a slow and complex thing. Another point is that people pay business for a single service or good every time. So the business know what is demand and what is not. The government, mainly the big governments, do many things and when people vote they buy a bundle of goods and services (if the government fulfil its promises). It become more difficult to understand the real value of the bundle than to evaluate any and all transactions. The presence of a big government allow the business to exploit the power of the government to the business advantage. Any organized group can be a "business": from the illegal ones to the religious ones, to the corporations, to the unions or the advocacy groups for whatever. They all go and try to convince the governments (or one branch) to help them in some way; in turn they will help the government (or one branch) in some other way. If the government can not give nothing or can give not much of interest the business will not be interested in corrupting it and the government officials will not be able to sell anything someone want or ask. So people willing to enter the government to sell favours will not enter in a small government and the government will not be prone to corruption. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 22 00:18:58 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 01:18:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221114943.0233dec0@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221114943.0233dec0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49A099F2.5050708@libero.it> Il 21/02/2009 18.52, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 05:14 PM 2/21/2009 +0000, BillK wrote: > Oh, Bill, it's self-evident. Corporations are intrinsically fine and > decent, but the moment they encounter a government, which is > intrinsically foul, self-serving, dishonest and corrupt, they become > hopelessly tainted. Get rid of government, and corporations large and > small will never be tempted away from the path of righteousness. Corporations are formed of human beings, so are prone to corruption as much as the governments. But they pay the government officials to obtain a service (for example to buy some stuff at higher prices; or to make laws that prevent new competitors to enter in a market). Biggest the government, biggest the services the "business" (any organized group) is able to obtain if it pay the right people in the right positions. And more difficult for the general public to understand what the government do, where it is screwing up and to change it. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 22 00:41:51 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:41:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> At 01:10 AM 2/22/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >Business can not force the people to pay for something the people >don't want. If prices are too high, quality is too low or something >is to of liking of the buyers, the business will end or will reduce >in a short amount of time. What incredible nonsense. So I take it you've never had a credit card or a bank loan, for example. Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 02:11:57 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:11:57 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it : > Corporations are more honest than government because they need to keep their > customers always satisfied, or risk to lose them and their money. > Governments are not under the same pressure to keep their customers happy. > Someone wrote that people vote with the ballots one time every four years > and with their money many times every day. Corporations want to screw their customers, employees, competitors and the environment for every cent they can. That isn't corruption, it's just business. Add to that, management want to do the same to the shareholders, awarding themselves higher salaries and increasing the size and scope of their individual departments. The ultimate sanction against this is that the shareholders can vote to replace the board of directors, who can then replace the management team. This is what happens with governments in a democracy also. In fact the Latvian and Icelandic governments have recently collapsed as a result of the financial crisis, while the directors and management of most of the implicated financial institutions stay on, in many cases arguing that they still need to pay themselves millions because that is the only way to retain the "talent" to get themselves out of the mess the "talent" got them into! -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 04:23:17 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:23:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 17, 2009 at 6:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/17 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Calculations using PPP do take this into account. The US >> manufacturing sector is actually bigger in absolute terms than ever >> before, the services sector is incredibly large (which is why in >> relative terms manufacturing is smaller), the farm sector is bigger >> than ever. Yes, US economic output is more valuable than ever, even >> though the fraction contributed to it by the manufacturing sector is >> lower than 50 years ago. So what? All this is accounted for >> (indirectly) in the PPP GDP figures. > > But PPP would go up if the exchange rate went up, since imported goods > and commodities would be cheaper, even if it didn't go up quite as > much as the exchange rate because services were cheaper. This would be > the case even if the exchange rate changed without anything in the > real economy changing. You could then say that GDP or PPP GDP had > increased even though the goods and services produced in the country > stayed the same. ### Obviously, yes. If somebody in California makes a discovery allowing him to make good cars costing a dollar each, the PPP GDP of people in Arizona would change (for the better), even if no such cars were manufactured in Arizona. Same with international improvements or changes in productivity - our PPP GDP is in part determined by the trading opportunities available in China, or in Chad. How does that impact the initial issue we addressed, namely that differences in labor productivity between the US and China are the principal reasons for lower incomes in China? ------------------------------------------ > >> But the increasing US trade >>> deficit suggests that a correction is coming. >> >> ### Preoccupation with the trade deficit baffles me. Why do you think >> it matters, and what kind of a "correction" are you talking about? > > The extreme case is where a country produces nothing and imports > everything. Its citizens could work for a few hours a week in service > industries paying themselves high salaries and have a very high > standard of living. This would work fine until the rest of the world > lost faith in the worth of the IOU's they were receiving, > precipitating a crash in the currency or, if it happened in a more > orderly way, buying up all the real assets. Either way, the original > inhabitants or their descendants would have to start doing real work. ### "Real work"? Say, the service work that you mention includes managing foreigner's money better than possible in their own countries. The Swiss have been doing that for centuries. They didn't get rich off making watches. Certainly, if the world reverted to the stone age, and no longer had any demand for such services, the Swiss would have to retool to meet the demand for stone tools. I hope you are not implying that making stone tools (or steel tools) is in some way more "real" than writing code or managing money? But back to the deficit. US "deficit" is denominated in US dollars, meaning that the government can and as we have seen recently, will print enough of them to satisfy foreign demand. I have no idea why this should be a problem. The "deficit" is a monetary artefact, not a feature of differential productivity, therefore it does not affect the standard of living in the long term (at least not directly). ------------------------------------- > >> ### The PPP values do not rely on the yuan. > > They do, since you could buy a given basket of goods (including > imported items) for fewer yuan if the yuan is higher relative to other > currencies. If the Yuan were allowed to rise, the trade imbalance > would tend to resolve, since the Chinese would import more and export > less. ### I don't quite follow your argumentation. If the yuan was to rise without underlying changes in productivity, then yes, the Chinese initially would not be able to export as much since the prices of their goods would go up, and they would be able to import more, until they would deplete their foreign currency reserves but still they would not be able to buy a bigger basket of goods with their money, so their GDP would remain unchanged (unless there were secondary effects impacting labor productivity). Really, the PPP GDP has almost nothing directly to do with currency balances, trade balances and whatnot, it almost solely predicated in the long term (more than 2 - 3 years) on labor productivity. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 04:26:42 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:26:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 01:10 AM 2/22/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: > >> Business can not force the people to pay for something the people don't >> want. If prices are too high, quality is too low or something is to of >> liking of the buyers, the business will end or will reduce in a short amount >> of time. > > What incredible nonsense. So I take it you've never had a credit card or a > bank loan, for example. ### Wow, Damien, are had a credit card that just jumped out of your wallet and started buying stuff you didn't want?! Looks like my wife was not the only victim. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 04:29:35 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:29:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902212029y57328627p390fcab4cf2fac2@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 12:14 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 4:43 PM, painlord2k wrote: >> I would think that bigger corporations deal much morw with governments than >> little corporations. So it is all governments corporations. > > > > I don't understand. > > Are you saying that business is equally as corrupt as government, therefore > destroy both? > > This is obviously impossible. > > 2) Or that corrupt business only deals with corrupt government and > never defrauds the general public? > > This is obviously wrong. ### He says that many big corporations are like governments, dependent mainly on their connections to the government rather than customers for their survival (see GM, AIG). And I agree with him - both the government and its lackey corporations should be ground into the dust. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 04:36:36 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:36:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902212036q46d8fad1jea02d345a3e4ada4@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 21, 2009 at 9:11 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it : > >> Corporations are more honest than government because they need to keep their >> customers always satisfied, or risk to lose them and their money. >> Governments are not under the same pressure to keep their customers happy. >> Someone wrote that people vote with the ballots one time every four years >> and with their money many times every day. > > Corporations want to screw their customers, employees, competitors and > the environment for every cent they can. That isn't corruption, it's > just business. Add to that, management want to do the same to the > shareholders, awarding themselves higher salaries and increasing the > size and scope of their individual departments. ### Of course not. Corporations don't "want" anything, they have no minds to desire with. If every employee of a corporation happens to be a crook, the corporation will "want" to screw its customers but most people and therefore most corporations are not crooks. --------------------------- The ultimate sanction > against this is that the shareholders can vote to replace the board of > directors, who can then replace the management team. This is what > happens with governments in a democracy also. ### Democracy is evil depraved shit. They took 70% of my money to kill random losers in Iraq, to reward incompetent bankers and to pay off the parasites who vote for them. ---------------- In fact the Latvian and > Icelandic governments have recently collapsed as a result of the > financial crisis, while the directors and management of most of the > implicated financial institutions stay on, in many cases arguing that > they still need to pay themselves millions because that is the only > way to retain the "talent" to get themselves out of the mess the > "talent" got them into! ### They stay in because the "democracy" and Mr Obama the Lightworker are giving them another 800 billion dollars. Rafal From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 22 05:01:54 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:01:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] If you give your car a drink you'll risk going to Muslim hell Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221225923.022ce810@satx.rr.com> A prominent Muslim scholar in Saudi Arabia has warned that those using alcohol-based biofuels in their cars could be committing a sin. The warning was issued by Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi, a member of the Islamic Fiqh Academy, [[not the Fiqh U., I trust]] an institute that studies Islamic jurisprudence for the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, an international group with a permanent delegation to the United Nations. According to the Al Arabiya News Channel, an international news outlet is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, Mr. Najim directed his warning to Saudi youths studying abroad. Al Arabiya notes that Najimi stressed that this warning was not an official fatwa, or religious edict, just his personal opinion. Najimi added that the issue ?needs to be studied by the relevant religious bodies.? Ethanol, a common type of biofuel, is made of the same type of alcohol found in alcoholic beverages, and its production is similar to that of hard liquor. Plant matter is fermented using yeast, and the result is distilled to increase the concentration of alcohol. Fuels with high concentrations of ethanol ? the most common being E85, a gasoline blend with 85 percent ethanol ? can be used in flex-fuel vehicles, which make up more than seven million of the roughly 250 million passenger cars and trucks on America?s roads. Most gasoline sold in the United States contains about 10 percent ethanol. The fuel is more common in many Latin American countries, particularly Brazil. In addition to beverages and biofuels, ethanol is a widely used in industry for its properties as a solvent and an antiseptic. It?s a common component of perfumes and paints. The chemical is also necessary in the production of vinegar ? one of the Prophet Muhammad?s favorite seasonings. The Koran prohibits consumption of alcohol in three separate verses that were written over a period of several years. The first mention occurs in 4:43, in which Muslims are told that they must not pray while intoxicated. A verse written later ? 2:219 ? says that in wine and gambling ?is great sin, and some profit, for men; but the sin is greater than the profit.? Finally, in 5:90-91, intoxicants and gambling are called ?an abomination? and ?Satan?s handiwork?: Satan?s plan is (but) to excite enmity and hatred between you, with intoxicants and gambling, and hinder you from the remembrance of Allah, and from prayer: will ye not then abstain? This admonition is waived in the hereafter, apparently: Many passages in the Islamic holy book describe heaven as having rivers of wine. Ironically, it was Muslim chemists who introduced distillation to the West. The process of distilling pure ethanol from wine was perfected by 8th- and 9th-century Persian chemists, who used it to create perfumes and eyeliner. Their writings were translated by European scholars in the 12th century, and the process was used to make potable spirits. The word ?alcohol? is itself of Arabic origin. From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 22 05:21:50 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 23:21:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.co m> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> At 11:26 PM 2/21/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: > > What incredible nonsense. So I take it you've never had a credit card or a > > bank loan, for example. > >### Wow, Damien, are had a credit card that just jumped out of your >wallet and started buying stuff you didn't want?! Apparently--to my continuing astonishment--fucking up their records of one's dealings with them, as they do repeatedly, either carelessly or guilefully, so one is baselessly listed in credit reports as a defaulter, and then they take forever to fix it, after one spends hours on the phone to useless "staff", or they never do. In addition, as my financial advisor noted: >Are you referring to the way credit card companies advertise >interest rates of, say, 5% and then raise them to 29% because the >fine print in the contract says they can raise the rates whenever >they feel like it? That sort of thing. Or could I be thinking of some other kind of company, or just about every other kind of company if it's big enough? My financial advisor again: < Large banks are an especially bad kind of large company. Federal law is incredibly biased in favor of large banks. IMO, it's quite accurate to characterize large banks as quasi-states, rather than private firms. Or perhaps integral parts of the federal government. The fact that certain banks have been characterized as "too large" to allow to fail is a clear illustration of the difference between large banks and private firms. > Is this all due to the omnipresence, omnipotence and firepower of governments? Maybe so, but it might also be a function of *massive size in any enterprise* overwhelming all the processes hunter gatherers are evolved to employ in close-knit groups of 100 or so--unless an extraordinary and insightful and ceaselessly scrutiny is brought to bear. Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 10:34:27 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 10:34:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902121230j499ebc88h632b17f61310020c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > But back to the deficit. US "deficit" is denominated in US dollars, > meaning that the government can and as we have seen recently, will > print enough of them to satisfy foreign demand. I have no idea why > this should be a problem. The "deficit" is a monetary artefact, not a > feature of differential productivity, therefore it does not affect the > standard of living in the long term (at least not directly). > ------------------------------------- > This is an incredible claim. The current financial disaster is due to the US deficit creating funny money in previous years and artificially inflating the value of everything all around the world. You are correct that as long as people around the world keep accepting the false money, then the US can keep printing it. But that time is coming to an end. The 'deficit' has already affected the standard of living. First by creating a ten year boom, now by creating (at least) a ten year depression. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 22 11:18:27 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:18:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> Il 22/02/2009 6.21, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 11:26 PM 2/21/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: > Apparently--to my continuing astonishment--fucking up their records of > one's dealings with them, as they do repeatedly, either carelessly or > guilefully, so one is baselessly listed in credit reports as a > defaulter, and then they take forever to fix it, after one spends hours > on the phone to useless "staff", or they never do. In addition, as my > financial advisor noted: Do you note that large banks are very friendly with the government and the government is very friendly with the large banks? Do you know why? This is where business <--> Government corruption happen. Instead to protect citizen from fraudulent act, the government pass laws shielding the bank (and other business like them) from the claims of their clients. The other side of the question is "Why did you not change Credit Card provider"? >> Are you referring to the way credit card companies advertise interest >> rates of, say, 5% and then raise them to 29% because the fine print in >> the contract says they can raise the rates whenever they feel like it? > That sort of thing. Or could I be thinking of some other kind of > company, or just about every other kind of company if it's big enough? > My financial advisor again: > < Large banks are an especially bad kind of large company. Federal law > is incredibly biased in favor of large banks. IMO, it's quite accurate > to characterize large banks as quasi-states, rather than private firms. My point. They are no more in a free market, as the government over regulate the market in a way intended to protect and help the existing banks (that shell bug money for the politicos). Also, the existence of a Central bank, controlled by the government, that can inflate the money supply at will, is only possible with the government support. Private that create their own money supply are called "forgers" and severely punished when apprehended. > Or perhaps integral parts of the federal government. The fact that > certain banks have been characterized as "too large" to allow to fail is > a clear illustration of the difference between large banks and private > firms. > So, this is my point, 100%. When anything is "too large to fail" it is by default part of the government. Because governments are "too large to fail". > Is this all due to the omnipresence, omnipotence and firepower of > governments? Maybe so, but it might also be a function of *massive size > in any enterprise* overwhelming all the processes hunter gatherers are > evolved to employ in close-knit groups of 100 or so--unless an > extraordinary and insightful and ceaselessly scrutiny is brought to bear. This is an interesting question. Rothbard wrote about this: bigger business become inefficient as governments when they growth too large, if the relations between different branches are not market driven (if any branch don't pay for what it receive from another branch and have no way to buy the same service or good from external sources). It is not that people in a government is or become evil and people in a private business is or become good. It is, mainly, that where there is not a market, misallocation and inefficiency happen. And the government, for how they are organized, are usually bigger than private business and not market driven. The size of the group, to be most efficient, must be smaller than 100. 140 is the number of Dumbar and is a maximum, not the most efficient number. Smaller is better. Much smaller. Like 30. Transhumans could have a brain enhancement / modification that let them manage bigger groups. So the size of a group of transhumans working together efficiently could growth. This could be a feature of any "singularity" scenario. We keep our individuality, but are able to work in large groups and keep at bay defectors and parasites. This would be very useful in a libertarian group of transhumans. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 11:28:35 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 22:28:35 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902212036q46d8fad1jea02d345a3e4ada4@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7641ddc60902212036q46d8fad1jea02d345a3e4ada4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/22 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> Corporations want to screw their customers, employees, competitors and >> the environment for every cent they can. That isn't corruption, it's >> just business. Add to that, management want to do the same to the >> shareholders, awarding themselves higher salaries and increasing the >> size and scope of their individual departments. > > ### Of course not. Corporations don't "want" anything, they have no > minds to desire with. If every employee of a corporation happens to be > a crook, the corporation will "want" to screw its customers but most > people and therefore most corporations are not crooks. There is nothing crooked about it, it's the way free enterprise works. A drug company does not sell a drug because it works, they sell it because they can make a profit. If they could get away with selling placebo at a much higher profit margin, they would be foolish not to do so. > The ultimate sanction >> against this is that the shareholders can vote to replace the board of >> directors, who can then replace the management team. This is what >> happens with governments in a democracy also. > > ### Democracy is evil depraved shit. They took 70% of my money to kill > random losers in Iraq, to reward incompetent bankers and to pay off > the parasites who vote for them. Indeed: the private sector could have funded the whole thing through loot and pillage. > In fact the Latvian and >> Icelandic governments have recently collapsed as a result of the >> financial crisis, while the directors and management of most of the >> implicated financial institutions stay on, in many cases arguing that >> they still need to pay themselves millions because that is the only >> way to retain the "talent" to get themselves out of the mess the >> "talent" got them into! > > ### They stay in because the "democracy" and Mr Obama the Lightworker > are giving them another 800 billion dollars. If it is felt that in order to prevent a catastrophe the banks must not be allowed to fail then they should be nationalised. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 11:36:51 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:36:51 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) Message-ID: CANBERRA, Australia: - The new Labor Government is not wasting any time with its Industrial Relations Policy. Already, it is considering sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for over ? of a million Australians. The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions of Australians who lack any real skills or ambition. "Roughly 50 percent of Australians do not possess the competence and drive necessary to carve out a meaningful role for themselves in society," said New Prime Minister Kevin Rudd. "We can no longer stand by and allow People of Inability to be ridiculed and passed over. With this legislation, employers will no longer be able to grant special favors to a small group of workers, simply because they hey have some idea of what they are doing." In a Parliamentary press conference, Deputy Prime Minister Julia Guillard pointed to the success of the Australian Public Service, which has a long-standing policy of providing opportunity without regard to performance. Approximately 84 percent of it's employees lack any job skills, making this agency the single largest Australian employer of Persons of Inability. Private-sector industries with good records of nondiscrimination against the Inept include retail sales (72%), the airline industry (68%), and home improvement "warehouse" stores (65%). At the state government level, the Department of Motor Vehicles also has a great record of hiring Persons of Inability (63%). Under the Australians With No Abilities Act, more than ? of a million "middle man" positions will be created, with important-sounding titles but little real responsibility, thus providing an illusory sense of purpose and performance. Mandatory non-performance-based raises and promotions will be given, to guarantee upward mobility for even the most unremarkable employees. The legislation provides substantial tax breaks to corporations that promote a significant number of Persons of Inability into middle-management positions, and gives a tax credit to small and medium-sized businesses that agree to hire one clueless worker for every two talented hires. Finally, the AWNA Act contains tough new measures to make it more difficult to discriminate against the Non-abled, banning, for example, discriminatory interview questions such as "Do you have any skills or experience which relate to this job?" "As a Non-abled person, I can't be expected to keep up with people who have something going for them," said Mary Gertzog, who lost her position as a wheel-nut installer at the GM plant in Elizabeth, South Australia, due to her lack of any discernible job skills. "This new law should really help people like me." With the passage of this bill, Gertzog and hundreds of thousands of other untalented citizens will finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. Said Martin Ferguson: "As a Politician With No Abilities, I believe the same privileges that elected officials enjoy, ought to be extended to every Australian with no abilities. It is our duty as lawmakers to provide each and every Australian citizen, regardless of his or her adequacy, with some sort of space to take up in this great nation." ------------------------------------ This is an edited version of the American article from the Onion. --------------------------------------------- But as a serious point, this is the problem that individualistic societies (like libertarianism) have to deal with. What to do with the half of the population that are not go-getters, human dynamos always striving towards greater and greater efforts? Just throw them out of your creme-de-la-creme society? BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 12:05:24 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:05:24 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it : > The size of the group, to be most efficient, must be smaller than 100. 140 > is the number of Dumbar and is a maximum, not the most efficient number. > Smaller is better. Much smaller. Like 30. But there are many things that such small groups can't do at all, let alone do efficiently. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 13:16:54 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:16:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20902220516l1ee2a216y1842be89de7e74cf@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:36 PM, BillK wrote: > CANBERRA, Australia: - The new Labor Government is not wasting any > time with its Industrial Relations Policy. Already, it is considering > sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for over ? of a > million Australians. The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is > being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions > of Australians who lack any real skills or ambition. It took me a whole 30 seconds to realise that this was a hoax. I think this is not only eloquent on the level of my Alzheimer, but also on the status of our societies... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From pjmanney at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 16:17:25 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 08:17:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <29666bf30902220817v59f508f0j1589c5e2b8fd0e7d@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 3:36 AM, BillK wrote: > CANBERRA, Australia: - The new Labor Government is not wasting any > time with its Industrial Relations Policy. Already, it is considering > sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for over ? of a > million Australians. The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is > being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions > of Australians who lack any real skills or ambition. I rarely type the acronym ROTFLMAO, but since I am, I will! My whole family is laughing so hard right now, we're crying... PJ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 16:44:54 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 11:44:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902220844id7357eaja07b92925d122b50@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 5:34 AM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:23 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > >> But back to the deficit. US "deficit" is denominated in US dollars, >> meaning that the government can and as we have seen recently, will >> print enough of them to satisfy foreign demand. I have no idea why >> this should be a problem. The "deficit" is a monetary artefact, not a >> feature of differential productivity, therefore it does not affect the >> standard of living in the long term (at least not directly). >> ------------------------------------- >> > > > This is an incredible claim. > The current financial disaster is due to the US deficit creating funny > money in previous years and artificially inflating the value of > everything all around the world. ### You are mixing up a lot of things. The financial difficulties are caused by misallocation of resources, not by "artificially inflating the value of everything" (Did you think it through to what you really mean there? Can you spell out the meaning of this statement?). The CRA, and other government regulations pushed banks into lowering underwriting standards (moving resources, manpower, materials into too much home construction, away from useful activities and artificially increasing home prices) which caused increased risk to be injected in to the system and induced regulatory arbitrage (trying to circumvent capitalization requirements ) that led to massive use of credit default swaps which in turn introduced valuation uncertainty (the increased risk was not properly accounted for since nobody knew how to calculate risk on default swaps and few people knew of the incredible amount of fraud committed by homebuyers) and then many institutions got poisoned by counterparty risk. Add to it moral hazard ("we are too big to fail, the gov't won't let us die" - which turned out to be true) and you get a mildly impaired banking system. Add to it further massive gov't intervention, massive increases in future taxes which poison the investment climate by increasing uncertainty ("will they take 70% of what I can earn or only 50%") and yes, everything eventually could go to shit. --------------------- > > You are correct that as long as people around the world keep accepting > the false money, then the US can keep printing it. ### You are coming around to the gold currency camp? Kudos! ------------------ But that time is > coming to an end. ### Don't bet much on that. Fiat money is too cheap and too useful to go away. ------------------ > > The 'deficit' has already affected the standard of living. First by > creating a ten year boom, now by creating (at least) a ten year > depression. > ### Read "The Myth of the Rational Voter", read "Carpe Diem", "Marginal Revolution", stay off Lou Dobbs, CNN and other infotainment, that's the only advice I can offer. Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 17:10:12 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:10:12 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902220844id7357eaja07b92925d122b50@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902220844id7357eaja07b92925d122b50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 4:44 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### You are mixing up a lot of things. The financial difficulties are > caused by misallocation of resources, not by "artificially inflating > the value of everything" (Did you think it through to what you really > mean there? Can you spell out the meaning of this statement?). The > CRA, and other government regulations pushed banks into lowering > underwriting standards (moving resources, manpower, materials into too > much home construction, away from useful activities and artificially > increasing home prices) which caused increased risk to be injected in > to the system and induced regulatory arbitrage (trying to circumvent > capitalization requirements ) that led to massive use of credit > default swaps which in turn introduced valuation uncertainty (the > increased risk was not properly accounted for since nobody knew how to > calculate risk on default swaps and few people knew of the incredible > amount of fraud committed by homebuyers) and then many institutions > got poisoned by counterparty risk. Add to it moral hazard ("we are too > big to fail, the gov't won't let us die" - which turned out to be > true) and you get a mildly impaired banking system. Add to it further > massive gov't intervention, massive increases in future taxes which > poison the investment climate by increasing uncertainty ("will they > take 70% of what I can earn or only 50%") and yes, everything > eventually could go to shit. > Yup. I agree with all that. That's the long version of what I said. The US deficit created inflated values all round the world, (via completed methods such as you described). BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 18:20:29 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:20:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902140035r37c381b7o1d1f9dc4d198120d@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221020l38e94e2ek7a3c9874e8d0652a@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:04 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Of course there is value in such industries as finance and retail, but > the problem is that the nominal value of these industries has been > increasing relative to manufacturing and primary production.This is > allowed to happen because the Chinese agree with the valuation, and > expect that at some future date they will get something valuable for > their dollars. ### OK, so tell me how this Chinese irrationality inflated the value of the Swiss PPP GDP (42,4k international dollars per capita in 2008). Are you telling me the Chinese are responsible for the Swiss wealth? That the Chinese are wrong, and the Swiss are not really doing real work, and one day the Chinese will just wake up and decide that the Swiss are just slackers who don't do anything useful? That the Swiss are not really 10 times or so more productive in their labor than the Chinese? Once you explain the Swiss conundrum you can go on and explain how Chinese irrationality increased US PPP GDP as well. And one more thing, stop reading Krugman, he is no longer an economist, he is a columnist. --------------------------- But if this perception changes, there will be a > revaluation and more dollars will have to be paid for a Chinese TV. > The point is that there is no objective way of determining the value > of different industries in different countries. ### Yes, there are many ways of determining the value of different industries in different countries, just as you can compare the value of a car plant in Alabama and a dairy farm in North Dakota. Valuation can made by stock exchange, by revenue, by added value, ask an international investor for more details. ------------------------- In theory a nation of > complete slackers could have a high per capita PPP GDP and hence a > high implied productivity, as long as the exporters are happy to take > the money they print. ### In whose theory? Most people, including the Chinese, are not sufficiently stupid to take worthless paper from slackers, therefore in theory and in practice if somebody takes somebody else's money it's because both have something useful for each other to trade. ------------------------- > >>>> ### The PPP values do not rely on the yuan. >>> >>> They do, since you could buy a given basket of goods (including >>> imported items) for fewer yuan if the yuan is higher relative to other >>> currencies. If the Yuan were allowed to rise, the trade imbalance >>> would tend to resolve, since the Chinese would import more and export >>> less. >> >> ### I don't quite follow your argumentation. If the yuan was to rise >> without underlying changes in productivity, then yes, the Chinese >> initially would not be able to export as much since the prices of >> their goods would go up, and they would be able to import more, until >> they would deplete their foreign currency reserves but still they >> would not be able to buy a bigger basket of goods with their money, so >> their GDP would remain unchanged (unless there were secondary effects >> impacting labor productivity). Really, the PPP GDP has almost nothing >> directly to do with currency balances, trade balances and whatnot, it >> almost solely predicated in the long term (more than 2 - 3 years) on >> labor productivity. > > If the Yuan rose in value then the immediate effect would be an > increase in GDP denominated in dollars, and an increase in PPP GDP, > since local products and services would cost the same but imported > products would be cheaper. ### Yeah, that's exactly what I wrote above. ----------------------- In the long run it is more complicated, due > to the negative effects on GPD as export industries falter and > unemployment increases, which is why the Chinese government wants a > weak Yuan. Eventually, however, the economy would switch productive > capacity from exports to domestic consumption. ### In the absence of trade barriers the mix of export and domestic industries is dictated by Ricardo's law, and the exchange rate tends to follow the supply of the respective currency and the differential labor productivity. If you control the economy you can mildly suppress domestic consumption, make exports cheaper and imports more expensive while building foreign currency reserves but you of course need more than just control of the money press - you need to control trade by tariffs and quotas, you need to control the banking system to steer resources towards exports, you need differential taxation to punish local spending, etc. ----------------------- The result would be, > without any change in productivity, that the standard of living in > China increases because they are not giving as much stuff away to > America for overvalued dollars. ### But in this scenario there *would* be a change in productivity! If the Chinese stop doing useless stuff (making TVs that get given away for nothing in return) and start doing something useful for them (cooking nicer food) this would be change in labor productivity measured in PPP. BTW, do you know that in terms of manufacturing, the US manufacturing sector is 2.5 times larger in absolute terms than the Chinese manufacturing sector? That the US farm sector is the largest in the world in terms of production? That China is responsible for only 13.8% of US imports which equals 196 billion dollars which equals 1.2% of the US PPP GDP? Therefore even if they were literally delivering their goods here for free, it could explain only at most about 1.2% (!!!) of US GDP - but of course the Chinese actually are getting something in return for the 196 billion dollar worth of stuff they trade with the US, so the artificial suppression of yuan exchange rate has an infinitesimal impact on US real incomes, and only a minor one on Chinese incomes. Really, if you run the numbers, many common beliefs just don't make sense. Krugman is insane (obviously he is much too smart to simply stumble into a silliness that even I can debunk with Wiki numbers) To return to the start of our conversation, I firmly stand by the orthodox economic opinion that the primary long term determinant of real income in all countries is labor productivity (modified to some extent by the availability of natural resources in some cases). Find me well-established handbooks of economics stating it's wrong and we can discuss it some more. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 18:29:52 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:29:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902220844id7357eaja07b92925d122b50@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221029i5f155d9ekadd3e73d275c04f3@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:10 PM, BillK wrote: > Yup. I agree with all that. > That's the long version of what I said. > The US deficit created inflated values all round the world, > (via completed methods such as you described). ### This is a nice rhetoric trick - say "yes you are right", then say something completely unrelated or even meaningless, and then say "your statement confirms mine". I'll keep this trick in mind for future use. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 18:33:25 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:33:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221033u72b32929o29fc7cf9b5236ae@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it : > >> The size of the group, to be most efficient, must be smaller than 100. 140 >> is the number of Dumbar and is a maximum, not the most efficient number. >> Smaller is better. Much smaller. Like 30. > > But there are many things that such small groups can't do at all, let > alone do efficiently. ### For large scale efficiency, we have the markets. Pity that most people hate them. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 18:41:23 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:41:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221041g49562318w6c6a7c67ec4daf63@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:21 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > < Large banks are an especially bad kind of large company. Federal law is > incredibly biased in favor of large banks. IMO, it's quite accurate to > characterize large banks as quasi-states, rather than private firms. Or > perhaps integral parts of the federal government. The fact that certain > banks have been characterized as "too large" to allow to fail is a clear > illustration of the difference between large banks and private firms. > > > Is this all due to the omnipresence, omnipotence and firepower of > governments? ### Yes! :) Maybe so, but it might also be a function of *massive size in > any enterprise* overwhelming all the processes hunter gatherers are evolved > to employ in close-knit groups of 100 or so--unless an extraordinary and > insightful and ceaselessly scrutiny is brought to bear. ### The scrutiny of the market is all you need. If you had a good PPP (private protection provider) you could just tell the evil bank to go screw themselves but since your protection provider and the bank are a part of the same extortion racket (most recently to the tune of 700 billion dollars from your and my pockets), the free market is not as free as it should be, and you are screwed, proving the general point that non-segmented networks like governments are bad. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 18:59:42 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 13:59:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7641ddc60902212036q46d8fad1jea02d345a3e4ada4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221059i2c62d2bq53f5a63276468e19@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:28 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/22 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >>> Corporations want to screw their customers, employees, competitors and >>> the environment for every cent they can. That isn't corruption, it's >>> just business. Add to that, management want to do the same to the >>> shareholders, awarding themselves higher salaries and increasing the >>> size and scope of their individual departments. >> >> ### Of course not. Corporations don't "want" anything, they have no >> minds to desire with. If every employee of a corporation happens to be >> a crook, the corporation will "want" to screw its customers but most >> people and therefore most corporations are not crooks. > > There is nothing crooked about it, it's the way free enterprise works. > A drug company does not sell a drug because it works, they sell it > because they can make a profit. If they could get away with selling > placebo at a much higher profit margin, they would be foolish not to > do so. ### So you agree that companies want to make money (which is best achieved by being honest and productive), not screw customers. Good, that's progress. Now you just need to realize that governments don't want your money, they want power, and that means you get screwed eventually. ----------------------- >> ### Democracy is evil depraved shit. They took 70% of my money to kill >> random losers in Iraq, to reward incompetent bankers and to pay off >> the parasites who vote for them. > > Indeed: the private sector could have funded the whole thing through > loot and pillage. ### No, they couldn't, since loot and pillage are wasteful, you can make more money by honest trade, and reasonable entrepreneurs want to maximize the return on their investment - so they can buy their women locally, rather than stealing them in foreign lands. --------------------------- >> >> ### They stay in because the "democracy" and Mr Obama the Lightworker >> are giving them another 800 billion dollars. > > If it is felt that in order to prevent a catastrophe the banks must > not be allowed to fail then they should be nationalised. ### Once you destroy banks using government regulation, the Obama and Co power grab to gain control of an ever bigger slice of everything is so much easier to sell. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 19:13:56 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:13:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221113s5ae62863p9b215646a68692e7@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:36 AM, BillK wrote: > > > But as a serious point, this is the problem that individualistic > societies (like libertarianism) have to deal with. > What to do with the half of the population that are not go-getters, > human dynamos always striving towards greater and greater efforts? > Just throw them out of your creme-de-la-creme society? ### Easy. Give them charity. Depending on how charitable you are, they could have a nice life too. Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 20:25:18 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 20:25:18 +0000 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902221029i5f155d9ekadd3e73d275c04f3@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902220844id7357eaja07b92925d122b50@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902221029i5f155d9ekadd3e73d275c04f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:29 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 12:10 PM, BillK wrote: >> Yup. I agree with all that. >> That's the long version of what I said. >> The US deficit created inflated values all round the world, >> (via complicated methods such as you described). > > ### This is a nice rhetoric trick - say "yes you are right", then say > something completely unrelated or even meaningless, and then say "your > statement confirms mine". > If you see no connection between the huge US trade deficit and the current US debt mountain / financial collapse, then this might be an area that you would be advised to investigate further. The US debt mountain has been financed by foreign nations. Way back in 2003, Warren Buffet warned about the problems that this would cause. Quote: America's Growing Trade Deficit Is Selling The Nation Out From Under Us. Simply put, after World War II and up until the early 1970s we operated in the industrious Thriftville style, regularly selling more abroad than we purchased. We concurrently invested our surplus abroad, with the result that our net investment--that is, our holdings of foreign assets less foreign holdings of U.S. assets--increased (under methodology, since revised, that the government was then using) from $37 billion in 1950 to $68 billion in 1970. In those days, to sum up, our country's "net worth," viewed in totality, consisted of all the wealth within our borders plus a modest portion of the wealth in the rest of the world. In the late 1970s the trade situation reversed, producing deficits that initially ran about 1% of GDP. That was hardly serious, particularly because net investment income remained positive. Indeed, with the power of compound interest working for us, our net ownership balance hit its high in 1980 at $360 billion. Since then, however, it's been all downhill, with the pace of decline rapidly accelerating in the past five years. Our annual trade deficit now exceeds 4% of GDP. Equally ominous, the rest of the world owns a staggering $2.5 trillion more of the U.S. than we own of other countries. Some of this $2.5 trillion is invested in claim checks--U.S. bonds, both governmental and private--and some in such assets as property and equity securities. In effect, our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4% more than we produce--that's the trade deficit--we have, day by day, been both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we still own. ---------------------- The whole article is well worth reading. He's a good writer. BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Feb 22 22:39:40 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 09:39:40 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902221033u72b32929o29fc7cf9b5236ae@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> <7641ddc60902221033u72b32929o29fc7cf9b5236ae@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/23 Rafal Smigrodzki : > On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it : >> >>> The size of the group, to be most efficient, must be smaller than 100. 140 >>> is the number of Dumbar and is a maximum, not the most efficient number. >>> Smaller is better. Much smaller. Like 30. >> >> But there are many things that such small groups can't do at all, let >> alone do efficiently. > > ### For large scale efficiency, we have the markets. Pity that most > people hate them. It's not that most people hate the markets, it's that most people don't see the sense in completely unfettered markets. It's the flip side of hardline communism, which allowed *no* free market activity. -- Stathis Papaioannou From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Feb 22 23:10:06 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 17:10:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090222170254.023e7b48@satx.rr.com> At 12:18 PM 2/22/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >The other side of the question is "Why did you not change Credit >Card provider"? Hahahahahaha. Do I really have to spell this out? "Because what one can get away with, to their profit, all will immediately adopt." You've never noticed this? The market you keep talking about exists nowhere outside your dreams, and in small dedicated enclaves. "Tell me, Dr. Broderick, what do you think of the Western free market?" "I think it would be a good idea." [apologies to Gandhi] Damien Broderick From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Feb 22 22:56:25 2009 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 14:56:25 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Global Economic Crisis In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <863968.67609.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Paul Volcker seems to think we may have entered something even worse than the Great Depression. "I don't remember any time, maybe even in the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast, quite so uniformly around the world.." -Paul Volcker Crisis may be worse than Depression: Volcker http://www.reuters.com/article/ousiv/idUSTRE51J5JM20090220 -gts From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Feb 22 23:51:29 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:51:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A1E501.6080404@libero.it> Il 22/02/2009 13.05, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> The size of the group, to be most efficient, must be smaller than 100. 140 >> is the number of Dunbar and is a maximum, not the most efficient number. >> Smaller is better. Much smaller. Like 30. > > But there are many things that such small groups can't do at all, let > alone do efficiently. These small groups are able to function without using a free market. This because any member can monitor and be monitored by all other members. With an augmented brain people could be able to work in bigger groups that don't need to use free markets to coordinate themselves. With a augmented neocortex x4 the current one we could be able to participate in groups two times larger. In a transhuman or posthuman society, the ability to coordinate bigger groups could enhance the productivity many times and keep under control defectors in larger groups. We could extend our network of trust two or three times with ease. This would change the resistance and resilience of the social structure in a way it is very difficult to understand. This is a feature of a transhuman society that I think it is not well researched and speculated. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Feb 23 00:02:59 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 01:02:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> Il 22/02/2009 3.11, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > Corporations want to screw their customers, employees, competitors and > the environment for every cent they can. The want maximize their profits. If they want maximize their profits in the shot time, the best way is to give nothing for something. If they want maximize their profits in the long time, the best way is to have satisfied and returning buyers. Sometimes, for your astonishment, the sellers are willing to sell at lower prices to maximize the volume and the total revenues instead of selling at higher prices at a lower volume and total revenues. For example, Saudis sell their oil on long term contracts at a lower prices than the spot market prices and the contracts prohibit the buyers to sell the oil on the spot markets. They are interested in selling a continuous stream of oil and receiving a continuous stream of $$$. They are in the business for the next decades, not for the next days. Mirco From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Mon Feb 23 00:12:57 2009 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon Swobe) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 16:12:57 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Global Economic Crisis In-Reply-To: <863968.67609.qm@web36504.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <795449.32784.qm@web36507.mail.mud.yahoo.com> In the conservative National Review: "Last Labor Day, the thought of nationalizing banks was alien, if not seditious. Today, some argue for bank expropriation. Bafflingly, this advice comes not from Communists, but from Republicans." Included among the prominent Republicans considering nationalization: Senator Lindsey Graham Former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain But of course we're already half-way there anyway; the nationalization of our banks started under GW Bush and his appointees Bernanke and Paulson. Just Say ?No? to Bank Nationalization http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NjVmMzljM2NiZDQ5YzNjYWZmY2YwNDI2MTU1ZDBlM2U= -gts -gts From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 00:46:33 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:46:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902220844id7357eaja07b92925d122b50@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902221029i5f155d9ekadd3e73d275c04f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221646u540ec268k4fdb6203c35cb38f@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 3:25 PM, BillK wrote: > > If you see no connection between the huge US trade deficit and the > current US debt mountain / financial collapse, then this might be an > area that you would be advised to investigate further. ### The US doesn't have a debt mountain, only the US government (created after the original United States of America died in the so-called Civil War) does. There is no direct connection between the US trade deficit and USG debt. Foreign investment in the US has remained high, the demand for USG dollars was and still is high, that is the reason for the trade "deficit". The US debt is another thing caused by the greed of politicians and general stupidity of the voters. Current financial problems are yet another issue, caused by government interference in free trade within the US. ------------------- > > Since then, however, it's been all downhill, with the pace of decline > rapidly accelerating in the past five years. Our annual trade deficit > now exceeds 4% of GDP. Equally ominous, the rest of the world owns a > staggering $2.5 trillion more of the U.S. than we own of other > countries. ### So what? Investors from New York own more in North Dakota than investors from North Dakota own in New York, creating an imbalance of investment. Is this a big deal, and if not, why should the imbalance of e.g. Swiss investments in the US be somehow different? ------------------ > > In effect, our country has been behaving like an extraordinarily rich > family that possesses an immense farm. In order to consume 4% more > than we produce--that's the trade deficit--we have, day by day, been > both selling pieces of the farm and increasing the mortgage on what we > still own. ### A farm that writes IOUs in the currency printed in its own barn, and underwriting its own mortgage. What is the problem? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 00:51:11 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:51:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> <7641ddc60902221033u72b32929o29fc7cf9b5236ae@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221651t697854e8hd2d3763a69699c32@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/23 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 7:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> 2009/2/22 painlord2k at libero.it : >>> >>>> The size of the group, to be most efficient, must be smaller than 100. 140 >>>> is the number of Dumbar and is a maximum, not the most efficient number. >>>> Smaller is better. Much smaller. Like 30. >>> >>> But there are many things that such small groups can't do at all, let >>> alone do efficiently. >> >> ### For large scale efficiency, we have the markets. Pity that most >> people hate them. > > It's not that most people hate the markets, it's that most people > don't see the sense in completely unfettered markets. It's the flip > side of hardline communism, which allowed *no* free market activity. > ### The flip side of evil is good. Most people have an anti-market bias (well-documented by Bryan Caplan), that's why they insist on fettering i.e. destroying it. They always imagine that some bureaucrats and politicos will be better than people who have no power to compel obedience. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 00:56:22 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:56:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090222170254.023e7b48@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090221230811.022cf170@satx.rr.com> <49A13483.4050208@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090222170254.023e7b48@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902221656t6ec283f5hb0c920ec962ffb28@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:10 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > "Tell me, Dr. Broderick, what do you think of the Western free market?" > > "I think it would be a good idea." [apologies to Gandhi] > ### Damien, you are on the right track. Free markets do not exist, since governments control the world. Almost all markets consist of honest businessmen, exploited by parasites, thieves and ultimately controlled by these violent monopolists. Now you just need to start blaming the thieves instead of the businessmen for all that is gone fubar, and you will be one of us, wingnut libertarians. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Mon Feb 23 03:30:46 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 19:30:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com><499DB0F8.30700@libero.it><0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike><49A02F23.7060006@libero.it><49A097F1.7080801@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090221183935.0251e140@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212026x26ab830ei6c20f6257802aca9@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki ... > ### ...jumped out of your wallet and started buying stuff you didn't want?! > > Looks like my wife was not the only victim. > > Rafal Ja I recently had a credit card do that. Speaking of wives, Rafal, where is your bride these days? We have heard far too little from her. Do have her drop us a note and a howdy please. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 04:26:42 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:26:42 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/23 painlord2k at libero.it : > Il 22/02/2009 3.11, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > >> Corporations want to screw their customers, employees, competitors and >> the environment for every cent they can. > > The want maximize their profits. > If they want maximize their profits in the shot time, the best way is to > give nothing for something. > If they want maximize their profits in the long time, the best way is to > have satisfied and returning buyers. > Sometimes, for your astonishment, the sellers are willing to sell at lower > prices to maximize the volume and the total revenues instead of selling at > higher prices at a lower volume and total revenues. Yes, but the point is corporations aim to maximise profits and bring about beneficial effects only incidentally, while government and other non-profit organisations have the beneficial effect as their primary aim and incidentally may fail due to corruption or inefficiency. In the final analysis, we should have the system that does the most good, not the system that best fits a favoured ideology. That was the problem with communism: they refused to change even when it became obvious that the population was unhappy and the economy was falling further and further behind. I can see the same thing happening with a radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of the effect it has on the people or the economy. -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 05:26:29 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 00:26:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Yes, but the point is corporations aim to maximise profits and bring > about beneficial effects only incidentally, while government and other > non-profit organisations have the beneficial effect as their primary > aim ### Bwahahahah! Man, this is the crux of our disagreement - attribution of noble motives to politicians, ngo activists and all kinds of bureaucrats, which you proclaim unselfconsciously while I find it preposterous. And no matter how many times you see the opposite, it will always be "incidental". You need to consider that almost all humans are nice only to a limited degree, subject to incentives present in their environment - they can be pushed either to good or to evil quite far from their starting positions. This is why businessmen in lawful countries tend to get more honest with time, since contract law and the gain from return customers reward honesty. And this is why politicians get more evil the higher they claw their way up, since in a dirty fight (aka. election, putsch, cabal) power goes to the ruthless, narcissistic liars like Bush or Obama. -------------------- and incidentally may fail due to corruption or inefficiency. In > the final analysis, we should have the system that does the most good, > not the system that best fits a favoured ideology. ### So you proclaim yourself a consequentialist, right after excusing government failures with "good intentions". --------------- That was the > problem with communism: they refused to change even when it became > obvious that the population was unhappy and the economy was falling > further and further behind. ### They refused to change since for the most part they actually liked shitting on everybody else, and only after a power struggle did they go. -------------------------- I can see the same thing happening with a > radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of > the effect it has on the people or the economy. ### It is impossible, since a "regime" is not free-market. A free-market society by definition systematically eschews violence which means that as soon as they lose their attachment to freedom and non-violence (i.e. as soon as they go insane), their "free-market regime" is gone and replaced by politics as usual. Rafal > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Chief Clinical Officer, Gencia Corporation 706 B Forest St. Charlottesville, VA 22903 tel: (434) 295-4800 fax: (434) 295-4951 This electronic message transmission contains information from the biotechnology firm of Gencia Corporation which may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify us by telephone (434-295-4800) or by electronic mail (fportell at genciabiotech.com) immediately. From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Feb 23 05:57:54 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:57:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com > References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090222235412.02525100@satx.rr.com> At 12:26 AM 2/23/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: > > I can see the same thing happening with a > > radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of > > the effect it has on the people or the economy. > >### It is impossible, since a "regime" is not free-market. A >free-market society by definition systematically eschews violence >which means that as soon as they lose their attachment to freedom and >non-violence (i.e. as soon as they go insane), their "free-market >regime" is gone and replaced by politics as usual. Ah, it's like god's grace. Rafal, can you point to some examples of this blessed condition in the world now or in history? Preferably examples without slavery, inherited aristocracy or other obvious social pathologies. Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 11:53:48 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:53:48 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/23 Rafal Smigrodzki : > and incidentally may fail due to corruption or inefficiency. In >> the final analysis, we should have the system that does the most good, >> not the system that best fits a favoured ideology. > > ### So you proclaim yourself a consequentialist, right after excusing > government failures with "good intentions". I am a consequentialist. I just thought I'd point out the obvious difference in motivation between business and government or non-profit organisation, FWIW. Sometimes business will provide the best service and sometimes government will, and we should choose accordingly. The problem with you is that you take it as a given that business will always do better. So if someone points out that, for example, a particular public health system is cheaper and results in better outcomes than a mostly private health system, you react as if you've been presented with plans for a perpetual motion machine: you *know* there must be a flaw, clever though the design may be, and it is just a matter of finding it. It is this ideological commitment, rather than the case by case arguments, that I find problematic. -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 18:54:57 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 13:54:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902140815k70340e53ue366efe5107e360@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902221020l38e94e2ek7a3c9874e8d0652a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902231054l31c7af9emfd24f2804707982@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 6:36 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/23 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >>> In theory a nation of >>> complete slackers could have a high per capita PPP GDP and hence a >>> high implied productivity, as long as the exporters are happy to take >>> the money they print. >> >> ### In whose theory? Most people, including the Chinese, are not >> sufficiently stupid to take worthless paper from slackers, therefore >> in theory and in practice if somebody takes somebody else's money it's >> because both have something useful for each other to trade. > > That's right, but all the trading partners have to do is believe that > they will ultimately get something useful for their IOU's. If they > believe that then the slackers can claim to be very productive. They > would say that they do idleness (or substitute something else, like > belly-button fluff removal) better than everyone else, and therefore > there would be an opportunity cost if they engaged in more pedestrian > work like their neighbours. This would be fine until the trading > partners got nervous about their accumulating reserves of the > slackers' currency and decided to demand real assets, such as property > or gold, for the IOU's. In that case it becomes clear that although > the slackers thought they were buying stuff with income, they were in > fact spending their capital. ### Stat, do you really believe what you wrote? That the 4 billion people who are involved in global trade would willingly subsidize the equivalent of belly-button fluff removal over the period of many decades in the hope of getting back some gold? Rafal > > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Chief Clinical Officer, Gencia Corporation 706 B Forest St. Charlottesville, VA 22903 tel: (434) 295-4800 fax: (434) 295-4951 This electronic message transmission contains information from the biotechnology firm of Gencia Corporation which may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify us by telephone (434-295-4800) or by electronic mail (fportell at genciabiotech.com) immediately. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Feb 23 19:06:11 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 14:06:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090222235412.02525100@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090222235412.02525100@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902231106l4c6b1297p7e878c249b737b38@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 12:57 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 12:26 AM 2/23/2009 -0500, Rafal wrote: > >> > I can see the same thing happening with a >> > radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of >> > the effect it has on the people or the economy. >> >> ### It is impossible, since a "regime" is not free-market. A >> free-market society by definition systematically eschews violence >> which means that as soon as they lose their attachment to freedom and >> non-violence (i.e. as soon as they go insane), their "free-market >> regime" is gone and replaced by politics as usual. > > Ah, it's like god's grace. Rafal, can you point to some examples of this > blessed condition in the world now or in history? Preferably examples > without slavery, inherited aristocracy or other obvious social pathologies. > ### Well, no. Humans are not designed by evolution to appreciate the benefits of social network segmentation - we are programmed to fall in line within an unsegmented hierarchy built by intimidation and violence. It takes a slight impairment of this inborn programming (such as I seem to exhibit) and many years of exposure to memetic influences from other similarly impaired people like Rothbard or David Friedman, plus thinking about things like the regulation of heartbeat frequency (surprisingly, it does have implications for our society), to finally come to the reasoned conclusion that a segmented social network should be the best (i.e. most efficient and stable) form of social organization. Just as with brushing your teeth or not farting in public it goes a bit against natural human tendencies to have such beliefs but in the long term that should not preclude their practical realization. Rafal From jims at eos.arc.nasa.gov Tue Feb 24 01:00:56 2009 From: jims at eos.arc.nasa.gov (Jim Stevenson) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:00:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 64, Issue 2 Message-ID: <200902240100.n1O10uBR016545@eos.arc.nasa.gov> What was the original subject of this post? Do you know of any way to filter email by subject when the usual subject line contains only a digest number? This is why it helps those of us who need to sort email at work, to use the original subject line, as long as it remains relevant, instead of the digest number, which tells little. Using digest as a subject kills my ability to sort and read by subject! -- If you must quote me, please put your comments first. I have already listened to mine. I read email with speech. So it is not possible to scroll past the quotes without listening to them again, to quickly get to the new information. Thanks much again as always. >From extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org Sun Jan 4 00:57:45 2009 Return-Path: Received: from pagent1.arc.nasa.gov (pagent1.arc.nasa.gov [128.102.31.161]) by eos.arc.nasa.gov (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id n048vir1021392 for ; Sun, 4 Jan 2009 00:57:45 -0800 Received: from andromeda.ziaspace.com (andromeda.ziaspace.com [192.80.49.10]) by pagent1.arc.nasa.gov (8.12.11.20060308/8.12.11) with ESMTP id n048vdjc002605 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=FAIL) for ; Sun, 4 Jan 2009 00:57:40 -0800 Received: from andromeda.ziaspace.com. (IDENT:mailman at localhost [IPv6:::1]) by andromeda.ziaspace.com (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n048uqwC023916; Sun, 4 Jan 2009 08:57:08 GMT Received: from vsmtp2.tin.it (vsmtp2.tin.it [212.216.176.222]) by andromeda.ziaspace.com (8.14.3/8.14.3) with ESMTP id n048ul0Z025264 for ; Sun, 4 Jan 2009 08:56:48 GMT Received: from [192.168.1.2] (87.6.226.57) by vsmtp2.tin.it (8.0.022) id 49443D3F013873E2 for extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org; Sun, 4 Jan 2009 09:44:53 +0100 Message-Id: <68575C26-75C2-4FF4-A388-FCC5E468A9EC at agora.it> From: Gv To: "extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org" In-Reply-To: Mime-Version: 1.0 (iPhone Mail 5G77) Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 23:29:32 +0100 References: X-Mailer: iPhone Mail (5G77) X-Greylist: Sender is SPF-compliant, not delayed by milter-greylist-4.0.1 (andromeda.ziaspace.com [IPv6:::1]); Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:57:16 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: Delayed for 00:11:44 by milter-greylist-4.0.1 (andromeda.ziaspace.com [192.80.49.10]); Sun, 04 Jan 2009 08:56:48 +0000 (UTC) Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 64, Issue 2 X-BeenThere: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.10 Precedence: list Reply-To: ExI chat list List-Id: ExI chat list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; Format="flowed"; DelSp="yes" Sender: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org Errors-To: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=1.12.7400:2.4.4,1.2.40,4.0.166 definitions=2009-01-03_02:2008-12-22,2009-01-03,2009-01-02 signatures=0 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=5.0.0-0811170000 definitions=main-0901040005 X-Proofpoint-Bar: Status: RO Amara has a baby!Maybe it's possible call him Silvio...greetings from Italy...gv ;) Inviato da iPhone Il giorno 03/gen/09, alle ore 22:51, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org ha scritto: > Send extropy-chat mailing list submissions to > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to > extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org > > You can reach the person managing the list at > extropy-chat-owner at lists.extropy.org > > When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific > than "Re: Contents of extropy-chat digest..." > > > Today's Topics: > > 1. Re: Happy New Year! (Emlyn) > 2. Amara is giving birth! (samantha) > 3. Re: Amara is giving birth! (Gina Miller) > 4. Re: Amara is giving birth! (MB) > 5. Re: Amara is giving birth! (Eschatoon Magic) > 6. Re: broadband in Oz (Stathis Papaioannou) > 7. Re: recent Doctor Who (Tom Nowell) > 8. Re: Amara is giving birth! (John Grigg) > 9. Re: Amara is giving birth! (giovanni santost) > 10. Re: Amara is giving birth! (samantha) > 11. Re: battery breakthru (Jeff Davis) > 12. Re: Amara is giving birth! (samantha) > 13. Re: Amara is giving birth! (Jeff Davis) > 14. Re: Amara is giving birth! (Emlyn) > 15. I don't understand students: help ! (Anna Taylor) > 16. Soon Nano will be the way out of the coming Depression > (Frank McElligott) > 17. The new Doctor (Jeremy Webb ) > 18. Re: Soon Nano will be the way out of the coming Depression > (Bryan Bishop) > 19. Re: I don't understand students: help ! (Kevin H) > 20. Re: I don't understand students: help ! (Damien Broderick) > 21. Folding at Home (Stefano Vaj) > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > > Message: 1 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 17:02:33 +1030 > From: Emlyn > Subject: Re: [ExI] Happy New Year! > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <710b78fc0901012232o3d7d0bf6q718ec862770bc32e at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > 2009/1/2 BillK : >> On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:43 AM, Emlyn wrote: >>>> On the BBC2 TV New year musical entertainment programme 'Jules >>>> Hootenanny', after her performance the singer Annie Lennox had a >>>> brief >>>> chat with the host. >>>> Jules said 'And what is your recommendation for 2009?' >>>> After a brief pause, Annie said, 'Well, 2009 is going to be a >>>> catastrophic year. I recommend staying in bed'. Unsettled, trying >>>> to >>>> make a joke of it, Jules said, 'So your recommendation for 2009 >>>> is to >>>> stay in bed!', then laughed and swiftly moved on to another guest. >>>> >>>> Unexpected serious comment on a light entertainment show. >>> >>> I like Annie Lennox, but that's super lame. I stand by my previous >>> exhortation. >>> >> >> >> Well, of course Annie Lennox is not a noted financial analyst. >> >> I understood her to be saying that you might as well go to sleep and >> wake up in 2010, missing all the bad stuff in 2009. What I thought >> remarkable was that the realization of just how bad 2009 is going to >> be is spreading through the general public, in spite of all the >> government attempts to soothe their fears. >> >> Some analysts do agree with her opinion. >> See: >> > > >> Five Themes You Need to Know for 2009 >> Kevin Depew Dec 31, 2008 >> >> Final paragraph: >> So there you have it. Only 366 days until 2010. That's the good news. >> When all is said and done, perhaps the best thing that will be said >> of >> 2009 is that it only lasted a year. >> ------------ >> >> BillK > > Perhaps I should have been more cautious in my phrasing. Try this: > > --- > Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit my best wishes > for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible , low stress, > non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the summer solstice > holiday, practised within the most enjoyable traditions of the > religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your > choice , with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and /or > traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or > secular traditions at all.................... > > And a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling,and medically > uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted > calendar year 2009, but not without due respect for the calendars of > choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped > make our Nation great, (not to imply that our Nation is necessarily > greater than any other country), and without regard to the race, > creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of > computer platform, tool brand, automobile brand, favoured type of > fermented alcohol-enhanced beverage or sexual preference of the > wishee. > > (EULA: By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms. This > greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal, it is freely > transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies > no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for > herself / himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and > is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. Where required by > law, this wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual > application of good tidings for a period of one year, or until the > issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and > warranty is limited to replacement of these wishes or issuance of a > new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.) > --- > > (not mine I'm afraid) > > -- > Emlyn > > http://emlynoregan.com - my home > http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related > http://point7.wordpress.com - downshifting and ranting > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 2 > Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 01:01:24 -0800 > From: samantha > Subject: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: ExI chat list > Message-ID: <495DD7E4.8010003 at mac.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Some of you may have seen this already but I just saw a status update > from her on Facebook. WOW!!!! > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 01:39:23 -0800 > From: "Gina Miller" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: <8B23298D396E4D869891E89D6AA1108D at GinaSony> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > We are all thinking of you Amara. Congratulations! Yours, > > > Gina "Nanogirl" Miller > Nanotechnology Industries > http://www.nanoindustries.com > Personal: http://www.nanogirl.com > Animation Blog: http://maxanimation.blogspot.com/ > Craft blog: http://nanogirlblog.blogspot.com/ > Foresight Senior Associate http://www.foresight.org > Nanotechnology Advisor Extropy Institute http://www.extropy.org > Email: nanogirl at halcyon.com > "Nanotechnology: Solutions for the future." > ----- Original Message ----- > From: samantha > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 1:01 AM > Subject: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > > > Some of you may have seen this already but I just saw a status update > from her on Facebook. WOW!!!! > _______________________________________________ > 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: > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 4 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 06:32:54 -0500 (EST) > From: "MB" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: <1362.12.77.169.8.1230895974.squirrel at www.main.nc.us> > Content-Type: text/plain;charset=utf-8 > > Go Amara! Go Myrtle! :) > > Happy New Year! > > MB > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 5 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:45:56 +0100 > From: "Eschatoon Magic" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <1fa8c3b90901020345s3e2a1fd1v51f9ec01947b4c13 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Go Amara! According to recent intelligence our new friend will not be > called Myrtle -- Amara has chosen a name and will announce it at due > time. > > On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:32 PM, MB wrote: >> Go Amara! Go Myrtle! :) >> >> Happy New Year! >> >> MB >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 6 > Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 00:10:26 +1100 > From: "Stathis Papaioannou" > Subject: Re: [ExI] broadband in Oz > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 > > 2009/1/2 Damien Broderick : >> fwiw: >> >> > > >> >> ...broadband penetration is proceeding at high speed in Australia. By >> mid-2007 there were close to 4.5 million subscribers [pop. circa 20 >> million]. In the residential market this means a broadband >> penetration of >> close to 64% in Internet households (46% of total households). In the >> business market, this figure is over 80%. >> >> While the penetration of broadband in Australia is catching up with >> its >> trading partners it is still lagging behind in the quality of >> broadband >> provided by the operators, and in the price customers have to pay. >> The >> majority of customers are still on services that provide only 256Kb/ >> s or >> 512Kb/s. Telstra, however, does make an 8Mb/s available, but this >> is not a >> guaranteed speed, only a best-effort service. > > Even worse than the slow and expensive and the almost-bungled new > broadband network government initiative is the proposal for mandatory > censorship of the Internet, as in China: > > http://www.zdnet.com.au/news/communications/soa/ISPs-Govt-porn-filters-could-cripple-internet-/0,130061791,339289857,00.htm > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 7 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 18:28:15 +0000 (GMT) > From: Tom Nowell > Subject: Re: [ExI] recent Doctor Who > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Message-ID: <317272.38659.qm at web27002.mail.ukl.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 > > Max wrote: "The Firefly series and the Serenity movie are the > creation of the > marvelous Joss Whedon. Since he hasn't been mentioned in the thread, > I'm assuming you don't know. He created Buffy: The Vampire Slayer -- > one of the most consistently entertaining and well written TV shows > ever, and has recently been writing comics, including the excellent > Astonishing X-Men, a Buffy Season 8 comic, Fray, and Runaways. > > If there were to a be a genuinely transhumanist TV series, Whedon is > the fellow I'd like to write it." > > Well, Dollhouse (Joss Whedon's new show, due to air in the US soon) > has some transhumanist themes - the show's plot is built around > people (or "dolls") who work for an agency that changes their > personalities and memories. Each episode, agents go undercover > totally believing in the cover identity that's been put into them. > Seeing as characters in Buffy and Angel regularly philosophised > about the work they do, and Firefly had frequent discussions about > how they got paid and with Shepherd Book about their work, I imagine > there will be discussions about the implications of the > neurotechnologies used on them. > > I reckon when some future neurotechnology starts serisouly touching > on questions of memory and personality, lazy journalists will pepper > their articles with quotes from Dollhouse, seeing as every newspaper > column I read these days seems to have at least two mass media > references per article. > > Now, if only we can get him to do a show with nano- and info- > technology in overdrive, we might get a quote for every area of > transhumanism.... > > Tom > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 8 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:47:49 -0700 > From: "John Grigg" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: "ExI chat list" > Message-ID: > <2d6187670901021147u265c0af9qa3e948abdf768a02 at mail.gmail.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Great news!! Greetings to the brand new little human being!! You > will > witness such wonders during your hopefully very very long lifetime. > > John Grigg : ) > > On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 4:45 AM, Eschatoon Magic > wrote: > >> Go Amara! According to recent intelligence our new friend will not be >> called Myrtle -- Amara has chosen a name and will announce it at due >> time. >> >> On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:32 PM, MB wrote: >>> Go Amara! Go Myrtle! :) >>> >>> Happy New Year! >>> >>> MB >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 >> _______________________________________________ >> 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: > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 9 > Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2009 12:23:14 -0800 (PST) > From: giovanni santost > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: ExI chat list > Message-ID: <923751.72052.qm at web31306.mail.mud.yahoo.com> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > Best wishes to Amara and her little daughter. > Giovanni > > --- On Fri, 1/2/09, John Grigg wrote: > > From: John Grigg > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: "ExI chat list" > Date: Friday, January 2, 2009, 1:47 PM > > > Great news!!? Greetings to the brand new little human being!!? You > will witness such wonders during your hopefully very very long > lifetime. > > John Grigg : ) > > > On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 4:45 AM, Eschatoon Magic > wrote: > > Go Amara! According to recent intelligence our new friend will not be > called Myrtle -- Amara has chosen a name and will announce it at due > time. > > > > > On Fri, Jan 2, 2009 at 12:32 PM, MB wrote: >> Go Amara! Go Myrtle! ?:) >> >> Happy New Year! >> >> MB >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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: > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 10 > Date: Fri, 02 Jan 2009 15:40:25 -0800 > From: samantha > Subject: Re: [ExI] Amara is giving birth! > To: santostasigio at yahoo.com, ExI chat list > > Message-ID: _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 01:34:14 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:34:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 64, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: <200902240100.n1O10uBR016545@eos.arc.nasa.gov> References: <200902240100.n1O10uBR016545@eos.arc.nasa.gov> Message-ID: <62c14240902231734r34e4dffajb6e9c3d501e9d798@mail.gmail.com> If you are not going to bottom post, can you trim the unrelated content from your own posts? On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 8:00 PM, Jim Stevenson wrote: > What was the original subject of this post? > > Do you know of any way to filter email by subject when the usual subject > line > contains only a digest number? > > This is why it helps those of us who need to sort email at work, > to use the original subject line, > as long as it remains relevant, > instead of the digest number, which tells little. > Using digest as a subject kills my ability to sort and read by subject! > > -- > > If you must quote me, please put your comments first. > I have already listened to mine. > > I read email with speech. > So it is not possible to scroll past the quotes without listening to them > again, > to quickly get to the new information. > > > Thanks much again as always. > > [~560 lines of redundant message history trimmed] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From MERCERC at ecu.edu Mon Feb 23 17:45:10 2009 From: MERCERC at ecu.edu (Mercer, Calvin) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 12:45:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers Message-ID: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABA6B6@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> Broderick copied one of his messages to me and so I checked out these postings. I am the professor who sent the American Academy of Religion (AAR) call for papers out beyond AAR and am the chair of the session in question. Mike and BillK on your list had it about right, though I wouldn't say "anything" goes. We are a scholarly society and use critical method (e.g. historical, literary) to ply our trade, so the society promotes rational analysis of religious phenomenon. As noted in the postings, there are plenty of atheists and agnostics in the AAR group, as well as plenty of scholars of religions other than Christianity. As for the session in question, as a steering committee we have no agenda for or against H+, and varying views are held by individual members of the steering committee. Our committee goal is to foster a thoughtful discussion about transhumanism and religion. The "Transhumanism and Religion" session is one year old and emerged out of two years of wildcard sessions that focused on radical life extension and religion. I brought in Aubrey de Grey those first two years to summarize a scientific perspective for the audience before we moved into the papers on religion and radical life extension. I am co-editing a book of original papers on the topic to be published in the fall by Palgrave Macmillan. The book will contain papers from different religions and Aubrey writes one of the scientific introductory chapters. Some of the authors are for and some against extreme longevity programs. There was no litmus test in choosing the authors. My goal in the AAR session, the book, and other projects is to forward the conversation about these issues among scholars of religion, and ultimately, among the faith communities and have it done without the antiscience biases that I agree comes with fundamentalist orientation. Oh yes, Spike, as for being a "quiet infliltrator," no need for that strategy in this group. As a former Christian fundamentalist now converted to atheism, you'd be most welcome and you'd be hard pressed to find a fundamentalist around anywhere if you attend the AAR meetings. And Keith's paper on "would H+ mean the end of religion" would be evaluated in a blind review process like all proposals, and if it is well-argued would be as well-received as any other I think. Calvin Mercer, Ph.D. Co-Director, Religious Studies Program East Carolina University Greenville, NC 27858 USA 252 328 4310 (off & vm) 252 328 6301 (fax) mercerc at ecu.edu www.ecu.edu/religionprogram -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 02:50:04 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:50:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABA6B6@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> References: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABA6B6@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> Message-ID: <2d6187670902231850i1542d069ka9434522bb7cd389@mail.gmail.com> Calvin Mercer wrote: We are a scholarly society and use critical method (e.g. historical, literary) to ply our trade, so the society promotes rational analysis of religious phenomenon. As noted in the postings, there are plenty of atheists and agnostics in the AAR group, as well as plenty of scholars of religions other than Christianity. As for the session in question, as a steering committee we have no agenda for or against H+, and varying views are held by individual members of the steering committee. Our committee goal is to foster a thoughtful discussion about transhumanism and religion. >>> I must say, what an agreeable fellow! Why, I bet even the curmudgeonly proto-transhumanist Damien Broderick could enjoy the company of such a man and his peers. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Feb 24 04:00:25 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 20:00:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902231850i1542d069ka9434522bb7cd389@mail.gmail.com> References: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABA6B6@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> <2d6187670902231850i1542d069ka9434522bb7cd389@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <632A3FD8FE844FFCB3A1DC6360495FED@spike> On Behalf Of John Grigg Calvin Mercer wrote: We are a scholarly society and use critical method (e.g. historical, literary) to ply our trade, so the society promotes rational analysis of religious phenomenon... >>> I must say, what an agreeable fellow! Why, I bet even the curmudgeonly proto-transhumanist Damien Broderick could enjoy the company of such a man and his peers. John : ) Agreed, he does make it sound like something that would be bearable. The use of critical methods assumes no particular belief system. To correctly utilize historical criticism, one must almost be a non-believer. So it seemed to me at the time I learned about it, so very many years ago. spike From max at maxmore.com Tue Feb 24 04:57:31 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:57:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers Message-ID: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I wrote (before Damien can get to it...): >However, I think it's a mistake to >reflexively attach everything that might be labeled as religion. I meant "attack", of course. It would *definitely* be a mistake to "attach everything that might be labeled as religion." The typo is kind of appropriate though, given that "religion" can be translated as "to bind again". Max Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From max at maxmore.com Tue Feb 24 04:35:49 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:35:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers Message-ID: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Many of the subscribers to this email list have a strongly aversive reaction to the irrationalism, fideism, and ultimate authoritarianism aspects of "religion". As a pancritical rationalist, I understand and share in those reactions. However, I think it's a mistake to reflexively attach everything that might be labeled as religion. For the record, I met Calvin Mercer in April of last year. Don't let his first name put you off. He seemed to me to be a remarkably pleasant and reasonable fellow. The fact that he is chairing the session at issue is a good sign. I'm even considering submitting a paper for this event myself. (Don't burn me at the stake...) Max >Broderick copied one of his messages to me and so I checked out >these postings. I am the professor who sent the American Academy of >Religion (AAR) call for papers out beyond AAR and am the chair of >the session in question. Mike and BillK on your list had it about >right, though I wouldn't say "anything" goes. We are a scholarly >society and use critical method (e.g. historical, literary) to ply >our trade, so the society promotes rational analysis of religious >phenomenon. As noted in the postings, there are plenty of atheists >and agnostics in the AAR group, as well as plenty of scholars of >religions other than Christianity. As for the session in question, >as a steering committee we have no agenda for or against H+, and >varying views are held by individual members of the steering >committee. Our committee goal is to foster a thoughtful discussion >about transhumanism and religion. The "Transhumanism and Religion" >session is one year old and emerged out of two years of wildcard >sessions that focused on radical life extension and religion. I >brought in Aubrey de Grey those first two years to summarize a >scientific perspective for the audience before we moved into the >papers on religion and radical life extension. I am co-editing a >book of original papers on the topic to be published in the fall by >Palgrave Macmillan. The book will contain papers from different >religions and Aubrey writes one of the scientific introductory >chapters. Some of the authors are for and some against extreme >longevity programs. There was no litmus test in choosing the >authors. My goal in the AAR session, the book, and other projects >is to forward the conversation about these issues among scholars of >religion, and ultimately, among the faith communities and have it >done without the antiscience biases that I agree comes with >fundamentalist orientation. Oh yes, Spike, as for being a "quiet >infliltrator," no need for that strategy in this group. As a former >Christian fundamentalist now converted to atheism, you'd be most >welcome and you'd be hard pressed to find a fundamentalist around >anywhere if you attend the AAR meetings. And Keith's paper on >"would H+ mean the end of religion" would be evaluated in a blind >review process like all proposals, and if it is well-argued would be >as well-received as any other I think. > >Calvin Mercer, Ph.D. >Co-Director, Religious Studies Program >East Carolina University >Greenville, NC 27858 USA >252 328 4310 (off & vm) >252 328 6301 (fax) >mercerc at ecu.edu >www.ecu.edu/religionprogram Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 24 05:29:47 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:29:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090223232704.02305cc8@satx.rr.com> At 10:57 PM 2/23/2009 -0600, Max wrote: >I wrote (before Damien can get to it...): > >>However, I think it's a mistake to >>reflexively attach everything that might be labeled as religion. I only do that, curmudgeon or not, when I can see a funny pun involved. It's a reflexive thing, but I'm not really attached to it. From spike66 at att.net Tue Feb 24 05:33:20 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:33:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> Hey cool, check this, the Kindle 2.0: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI?ie=UTF8&tag=thrshoguideaa-20&lin kCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00154JDAI There is an outside chance I may dust off my wallet and buy one of these. Anyone here who has the Kindle, do you have for us a review or comment? spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Feb 24 05:39:08 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:39:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090223232704.02305cc8@satx.rr.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090223232704.02305cc8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <19B0CBB83E66472EA08C1A786F9F3C31@spike> > Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers > > At 10:57 PM 2/23/2009 -0600, Max wrote: > > >I wrote (before Damien can get to it...): > > > >>However, I think it's a mistake to > >>reflexively attach everything that might be labeled as religion. > > I only do that, curmudgeon or not, when I can see a funny pun > involved. It's a reflexive thing, but I'm not really attached to it. Ja me too. It makes me recall fondly the old days when there were a couple hundred people participating here, the wild fights, the deep analysis, the pun wars, the gravitas and the hilarity, all right here. Now all of that stuff is still found on the internet, but nowhere is it all collected into one place, as it was about ten years ago, right here. spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 06:15:57 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:45:57 +1030 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/24 spike : > > Hey cool, check this, the Kindle 2.0: > > http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00154JDAI?ie=UTF8&tag=thrshoguideaa-20&lin > kCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B00154JDAI > > There is an outside chance I may dust off my wallet and buy one of these. > > Anyone here who has the Kindle, do you have for us a review or comment? > > spike > I cannot buy one in Australia or indeed make the cool 3g wireless stuff work if I did have one, therefore Jeff Bezos is satan. Satan! -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 24 06:37:41 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:37:41 -0600 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com > References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> At 04:45 PM 2/24/2009 +1030, Emlyn wrote: >I cannot buy one in Australia or indeed make the cool 3g wireless >stuff work if I did have one, therefore Jeff Bezos is satan. That's right, blame the businessman! You blind fool, it's the government's fault!## Damien Broderick [##You know, I doubt it, but the Aussie govt is notoriously fucked up, whatever brand is in power] From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 06:57:48 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:27:48 +1030 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902232257q1fd49f21gf0aa46c50ed897d9@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/24 Damien Broderick : > At 04:45 PM 2/24/2009 +1030, Emlyn wrote: > >> I cannot buy one in Australia or indeed make the cool 3g wireless >> stuff work if I did have one, therefore Jeff Bezos is satan. > > That's right, blame the businessman! You blind fool, it's the government's > fault!## > > Damien Broderick > > [##You know, I doubt it, but the Aussie govt is notoriously fucked up, > whatever brand is in power] > They seem to be doing ok atm. Hard job I think. Amazon are more US-centric than most of the big websites (hulu et al notwithstanding). There's often great stuff on there that you just can't order from other countries (leading to a little industry in US based mail-forwarding, google "US mail forward"). Even Apple has gotten around to releasing the iPhone in other countries, even though it was initially hampered by being locked to a US provider. But the Kindle? Just a fool's dream for antipodean readers, ghastly damned creatures that we are. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 07:00:20 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:00:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902232300u61e6cb42t44ce0bb1c7f06dfa@mail.gmail.com> > > > Damien Broderick > > [##You know, I doubt it, but the Aussie govt is notoriously fucked up, > whatever brand is in power] > More than the United States? Wow. I was nearly raised in Australia. My parents wanted to immigrate from the U.S. (NYC), but the Aussie Consulate felt a travel agent and a secretary were not a good addition to the Australian work force. I wonder what my Aussie life would have been like? Hmmm..... John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 07:25:46 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:25:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902232325i78e25934g8bcc06b8751fed26@mail.gmail.com> I agree with Max (note that it is "attack" and not "attach" as he has explained in another message): "it's a mistake to reflexively attack everything that might be labeled as religion" I have often said that a "transhumanist approach" to religion, which is shared by many religious people and has been shared by many well known philosophers, should be fostered in order to memetically infect religions by showing that the only heaven is that we will build ourselves. Max, I wish to encourage you to submit a paper. G. On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 5:35 AM, Max More wrote: > Many of the subscribers to this email list have a strongly aversive reaction > to the irrationalism, fideism, and ultimate authoritarianism aspects of > "religion". As a pancritical rationalist, I understand and share in those > reactions. However, I think it's a mistake to reflexively attach everything > that might be labeled as religion. > > For the record, I met Calvin Mercer in April of last year. Don't let his > first name put you off. He seemed to me to be a remarkably pleasant and > reasonable fellow. The fact that he is chairing the session at issue is a > good sign. > > I'm even considering submitting a paper for this event myself. (Don't burn > me at the stake...) > > Max > > >> Broderick copied one of his messages to me and so I checked out these >> postings. ?I am the professor who sent the American Academy of Religion >> (AAR) call for papers out beyond AAR and am the chair of the session in >> question. ?Mike and BillK on your list had it about right, though I wouldn't >> say "anything" goes. ?We are a scholarly society and use critical method >> (e.g. historical, literary) to ply our trade, so the society promotes >> rational analysis of religious phenomenon. ?As noted in the postings, there >> are plenty of atheists and agnostics in the AAR group, as well as plenty of >> scholars of religions other than Christianity. ?As for the session in >> question, as a steering committee we have no agenda for or against H+, and >> varying views are held by individual members of the steering committee. ?Our >> committee goal is to foster a thoughtful discussion about transhumanism and >> religion. ?The "Transhumanism and Religion" session is one year old and >> emerged out of two years of wildcard sessions that focused on radical life >> extension and religion. ?I brought in Aubrey de Grey those first two years >> to summarize a scientific perspective for the audience before we moved into >> the papers on religion and radical life extension. ?I am co-editing a book >> of original papers on the topic to be published in the fall by Palgrave >> Macmillan. ?The book will contain papers from different religions and Aubrey >> writes one of the scientific introductory chapters. ?Some of the authors are >> for and some against extreme longevity programs. ?There was no litmus test >> in choosing the authors. ?My goal in the AAR session, the book, and other >> projects is to forward the conversation about these issues among scholars of >> religion, and ultimately, among the faith communities and have it done >> without the antiscience biases that I agree comes with fundamentalist >> orientation. ?Oh yes, Spike, as for being a "quiet infliltrator," no need >> for that strategy in this group. ?As a former Christian fundamentalist now >> converted to atheism, you'd be most welcome and you'd be hard pressed to >> find a fundamentalist around anywhere if you attend the AAR meetings. ?And >> Keith's paper on "would H+ mean the end of religion" would be evaluated in a >> blind review process like all proposals, and if it is well-argued would be >> as well-received as any other I think. >> >> Calvin Mercer, Ph.D. >> Co-Director, Religious Studies Program >> East Carolina University >> Greenville, NC ?27858 ?USA >> 252 328 4310 (off & vm) >> 252 328 6301 (fax) >> mercerc at ecu.edu >> www.ecu.edu/religionprogram > > > Max More, Ph.D. > Strategic Philosopher > www.maxmore.com > max at maxmore.com > _______________________________________________ > 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 24 08:07:15 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:07:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902232325i78e25934g8bcc06b8751fed26@mail.gmail.co m> References: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1fa8c3b90902232325i78e25934g8bcc06b8751fed26@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224015153.024323f8@satx.rr.com> At 08:25 AM 2/24/2009 +0100, G. wrote: >I agree with Max ...: "it's a mistake to reflexively attack >everything that might be labeled as religion" It might be a pragmatic mistake, like speaking up for serious gun control in Texas or on this list. As I recall, my own immune reaction kicked in when I saw the (perhaps unconsciously) weighted words used, with their implication that >H functions in the same way as religions--"identify and critically evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and assumptions"-- and that >H should be analyzed as if it were a sect offering salvation and Divine Judgment after death ("soteriology, and eschatology"). Professor Mercer now tells us that this isn't so, but I'll be very surprised if the center of gravity of the discourse isn't off in that direction. Damien Broderick From hkhenson at rogers.com Tue Feb 24 07:36:19 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:36:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABA6B6@ecumb2.intra.ec u.edu> References: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABA6B6@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> Message-ID: <1235461387_16563@S4.cableone.net> At 10:45 AM 2/23/2009, Mercer, Calvin wrote: >Broderick copied one of his messages to me and so I checked out >these postings. I am the professor who sent the American Academy of >Religion (AAR) call for papers out beyond AAR and am the chair of >the session in question. snip >My goal in the AAR session, the book, and other projects is to >forward the conversation about these issues among scholars of >religion, and ultimately, among the faith communities and have it >done without the antiscience biases that I agree comes with >fundamentalist orientation. I sometimes think that the bias against applying evolutionary biology to social sciences is as bad as fundamentalist orientation. >Oh yes, Spike, as for being a "quiet infliltrator," no need for that >strategy in this group. As a former Christian fundamentalist now >converted to atheism, you'd be most welcome and you'd be hard >pressed to find a fundamentalist around anywhere if you attend the >AAR meetings. And Keith's paper on "would H+ mean the end of >religion" would be evaluated in a blind review process like all >proposals, and if it is well-argued would be as well-received as any >other I think. Well, there is still the need for someone to present such a paper. I am not kidding when I say I would be arrested at the border. They are still pissed that they didn't collect the bounty. Keith PS. The reviewed version of "evolutionary psychology, memes, and the origin of war" is in the Summer 2006 issue of Mankind Quarterly. There is a slightly longer and non reviewed version of it on the web. From neptune at superlink.net Tue Feb 24 09:23:05 2009 From: neptune at superlink.net (Techno) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 04:23:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com><16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike><710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <47AC27ED249342F59A4F6950A15B4E22@technotr9881e5> On Tuesday, February 24, 2009 1:37 AM Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com wrote: > At 04:45 PM 2/24/2009 +1030, Emlyn wrote: > >>I cannot buy one in Australia or indeed make the cool 3g wireless >>stuff work if I did have one, therefore Jeff Bezos is satan. > > That's right, blame the businessman! You blind fool, it's the government's > fault!## > > Damien Broderick > > [##You know, I doubt it, but the Aussie govt is notoriously fucked up, > whatever brand is in power] I think there's enough blame to go around for businessmen, government, and others. (On a more serious note, businessmen and businesswomen often use government to get what they want. Free markets are usually the last thing they want.) Oh, and, by the way, I've used both the Kindle and the Kindle 2. :) Regards, Dan From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 09:36:29 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:36:29 +0000 Subject: [ExI] So that's why they want life extension! Message-ID: BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 14:09:35 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 09:09:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption Message-ID: <7641ddc60902240609l7c2b4803m933801b1b0df34ba@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:02 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/24 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### In economics it's all a matter of marginal analysis - West Germany >> was less socialist than East Germany, especially in the beginning when >> they were most successful. Therefore, making a society marginally less >> socialist (over the beastly howling of the SDP) makes it more >> successful, and from the example of Singapore we know that going much >> further towards freedom is even better. Therefore, as a practical >> observation, the more capitalist the world is, the better the lives of >> all, at least within the range defined by the currently most >> capitalist countries such as Hong Kong and Singapore. > > West Germany wasn't just a little bit socialist, even under the most > conservative governments it was more socialist than the most radical > U.S. politician would dare to discuss in public if he wanted a chance > at being elected. ### No, this is not true. The levels of taxation and regulation in West Germany were actually lower than in the US especially under Erhardt and right thereafter. For a long time Germans used to welcome immigration, did not punish innovation and entrepreneurship. ------------------------- > Similarly with a country like Sweden, which during an almost > continuous century of socialist government went from being one of the > poorest states in Europe to one of the wealthiest. ### Sweden never was in a war, doesn't have a minority population problem and *still* reached only the personal income level of Alabama. If this is a socialist success story, just let me run away faster. Also, Swedes were forced to institute pro-market reforms in the last 15 years, with significant improvements in economic performance. ------------------------------------- On the other hand, > there is the example of Spain, Greece and all those States in Central > and South America which, with generous U.S. help, did their utmost to > prevent the socialists from gaining any influence by jailing them, > shooting them and eliminating corruptible democratic processes; but > unfortunately never achieved results as good as those of Singapore, or > even East Germany. ### Of course, simply shooting idiots and replacing them with thugs doesn't work out well. You need capitalists. Rafal From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 15:00:15 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:00:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224015153.024323f8@satx.rr.com> References: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1fa8c3b90902232325i78e25934g8bcc06b8751fed26@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224015153.024323f8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902240700l30b4552codf6c164d548d6d57@mail.gmail.com> I would reverse this - I prefer to think of the implicit transhumanist beliefs underlying key religious claims and assumptions. On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims > and assumptions -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Feb 24 19:21:00 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:21:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> Il 23/02/2009 12.53, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/23 Rafal Smigrodzki: > I am a consequentialist. I just thought I'd point out the obvious > difference in motivation between business and government or > non-profit organisation, FWIW. Declared motivations of organizations. This never tell anything useful about the real motivation and intentions of the people running them and their future actions. Business give better social results because do a social service as a consequence of looking for personal selfish interests. You can count on people doing their personal interests and being selfish. Governments talk about social goods, but they are run by people that don't know really what a the social good is, because they are not able to know what are the aims and goals of all single persons and how they rank any single goals in their personal value ladder. > Sometimes business will provide the best service and sometimes > government will, and we should choose accordingly. The problem with > you is that you take it as a given that business will always do > better. Generally this is true. But most important, when they don't, people are able to change them faster than governments. > So if someone points out that, for example, a particular public > health system is cheaper and results in better outcomes than a > mostly private health system, you react as if you've been presented > with plans for a perpetual motion machine: you *know* there must be > a flaw, clever though the design may be, and it is just a matter of > finding it. Because we are not interested in the short term effects in a particular group of people, but in all effects for all people. This is "the lesson" of Henry Hazlitt <> From the other side, I could say that, if a public policy is really cheaper and without negative consequences, it can be offered freely and don't need to be forced inside the throats of the people. Any and all systems that need to be imposed to not consenting people to properly work, really don't work as publicized and intended. > It is this ideological commitment, rather than the case by case > arguments, that I find problematic. One problem is that "pragmatists" in economics rule now, and we are in the mess we are because they followed "pragmatic" solutions. When pragmatic solutions always put you in a mess, maybe they are not "pragmatic" as publicized. The problem in real life economics is that you have too many variables to be able to build an experimental version of it. And many of the fundamental variables are not easy to record, if it is possible to know them. So, judging what is happening ex-post is very difficult and probably always something wrong. Currently, for example, there is a MMORG calle EVE Online that have a real economist surveying the inner economy of the game. In a recent interview, he tell the journalist that in the game, outside the many interferences of the real world, the laws of classic economics (austrian economics) work exactly as stated in the textbooks. The position of commercial hubs are decided by the players and are consistent with the expected positions an economist would I suppose that, from a theoretic and experimental point of view, the MMORG like Eve Online will give very interesting informations about how economy work in a "real" environment, where tens of thousands of people act, because we will able to record any and all of their actions and study them. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 24 19:41:13 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:41:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> At 08:21 PM 2/24/2009 +0100, Mirco commented on Stathis: >>So if someone points out that, for example, a particular public >>health system is cheaper and results in better outcomes than a >>mostly private health system, you react as if you've been presented >>with plans for a perpetual motion machine: you *know* there must be >>a flaw, clever though the design may be, and it is just a matter of >>finding it. > >Because we are not interested in the short term effects in a particular >group of people, but in all effects for all people. Oddly enough, that's exactly what supporters of a public health system say. "Short-term effects"--the system Stathis and I are used to (which has its shortcomings, but not nearly as many as the US robber-baron-oligopoloy system) has been doing a good job for, oh, 25 years. Those are *long-term effects*. See e.g. Note also from that description: Damien Broderick From pharos at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 20:00:48 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:00:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:41 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Oddly enough, that's exactly what supporters of a public health system say. > > "Short-term effects"--the system Stathis and I are used to (which has its > shortcomings, but not nearly as many as the US robber-baron-oligopoloy > system) has been doing a good job for, oh, 25 years. Those are *long-term > effects*. See e.g. > > Quoting real live examples doesn't work for this type of theoretical argument. Rafal admitted yesterday that the centuries of human evolution as a social, combative species makes humanity unsuited for the anti-social 'loner' types of system supported by Rafal and Mirco. They are discussing 'theory' not 'practice'. Making many assumptions that don't exist at the moment, they design a theoretical system that appears to be wonderful to them. Nit-picking about messy human problems just spoils their fun. A bit like Basil Fawlty - this hotel would run perfectly if it wasn't for all these bloody annoying customers! BillK From pjmanney at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 20:18:42 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 12:18:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30902241218k39494c64j68d24867623d2800@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Oddly enough, that's exactly what supporters of a public health system say. > > "Short-term effects"--the system Stathis and I are used to (which has its > shortcomings, but not nearly as many as the US robber-baron-oligopoloy > system) has been doing a good job for, oh, ?25 years. Those are *long-term > effects*. See e.g. According to Forbes and Foreign Policy, regardless of their varying criteria, the top five countries all have relatively successful public health systems: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4025 http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/07/health-world-countries-forbeslife-cx_avd_0408health_slide.html Note how Forbes tries their damnedest to lay the success purely at the feet of "cultural lifestyle" -- it's part of the story, but that doesn't explain things like Iceland's lowest infant mortality rates, etc. Men's Health only gave two health systems A's: Australia and the Netherlands: http://www.menshealth.com/cda/article.do?site=MensHealth&channel=health&category=other.diseases.ailments&conitem=6cf08f17a7074110VgnVCM20000012281eac____ Stathis and Damien speak from experience. Australia is consistently at the top of these lists. Maybe Forbes is right. It has to be the beer... ;-) {As a sidenote, in New Zealand's public system, where I birthed my kids, they recommend breastfeeding mothers have an afternoon snack of a pint of Guinness and a nut butter sandwich. Apparently, the combo supplies needed nutrients and takes the edge off the 5 - 7 pm's (baby parents know what I mean). Any health system that recommends Guinness is tops in my books!} PJ From hkhenson at rogers.com Tue Feb 24 21:54:13 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 14:54:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel synthesis, power sats and low cost transport to GEO. Message-ID: <1235512862_20528@S4.cableone.net> I know there are not too many technical people on the list, but if you are up on chemical engineering, power sats, crude economics, rocket science, laser propulsion, orbital mechanics,geometry, geography, physics and/or math, I would appreciate comments on this: www.operatingthetan.com/SpaceBasedSolarPower/March18Talk.ppt The notes were left off the orbital mechanics slides. The problem is geometry and time. The minimum energy transfer orbit in the first slide is about 5 hours. That puts the laser focusing bounce mirrors in the wrong place to circularize at GEO. So the solution (suggested by Jordin Kare) was to put it in a considerably larger orbit, 70,000 km apogee, which takes 12 hrs. Then the mirror is in a place where it can take perigee up to GEO. The resulting transfer time back to GEO (perigee) is about 22 hrs so the when it come around the bounce mirrors are in the right place to drop apogee to GEO. It takes 3 burns instead of two, but the total delta v should close. (One set of mirrors reduces cost and military threat.) There is also a big Exel spreadsheet that models the rocket and laser performance you can ask for. I am not sure constant acceleration with the laser is the most efficient use of laser and laser stage mass but I have not had time to explore making the exhaust velocity equal to the stage velocity to see if it makes a difference. (In theory this is most energy efficient.) Keith From santostasigio at yahoo.com Tue Feb 24 21:35:49 2009 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:35:49 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90902240700l30b4552codf6c164d548d6d57@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <668623.21864.qm@web31305.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Exactly, Great point. Almost all the?religions have transhumanists aspirations (wanting humans to improve and perfect themselves, desire of immortality of the core identity of the human being, transformation to a higher self, fundamental connection between different minds, merger of the self with a higher form of?being without loosing?completely one own identity?and so on...) but the means?that religions envision to achieve these sacrosanct aspirations are imaginary...and do not work. Transhumanism wants to achieve all this (and more) but with reasonable and reliable scientific and technological means. As Asimov said: the only difference between science and religion is that science works.... Giovanni PS I read some H+ detractors' joke about the singularity, it was defined as "salvation for Mensa type people". I think this is a compliment, sure we want to be "saved" and we (the Mensa type people) are using our intelligence (and not our ignorant fears and lack of imagination like the religious people, yes religions lack creative imagination) to make "salvation" real. ? ? ? ? --- On Tue, 2/24/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: From: Eschatoon Magic Subject: Re: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers To: "ExI chat list" Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 9:00 AM I would reverse this - I prefer to think of the implicit transhumanist beliefs underlying key religious claims and assumptions. On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 9:07 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims > and assumptions -- 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 24 22:13:26 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 16:13:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fuel synthesis, power sats and low cost transport to GEO. In-Reply-To: <1235512862_20528@S4.cableone.net> References: <1235512862_20528@S4.cableone.net> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224161214.02346990@satx.rr.com> Congrats on these great efforts, Keith! Let's hope someone's listening once all this is worked out--private or govt, national or inter-. From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 22:25:16 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:25:16 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/25 painlord2k at libero.it : >> Sometimes business will provide the best service and sometimes >> government will, and we should choose accordingly. The problem with >> you is that you take it as a given that business will always do >> better. > > Generally this is true. > But most important, when they don't, people are able to change them > faster than governments. If business provides a better service then business should provide the service. Why do most socialist governments around the world and the people who elect them decide to run health and education but not supermarkets and restaurants? -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 23:21:35 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:21:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902160845m6df8569q413c0c86d9533c2b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902221020l38e94e2ek7a3c9874e8d0652a@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902231054l31c7af9emfd24f2804707982@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902241521l74cc392ciaf7f2a9b4f47b5fc@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 8:25 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/24 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Stat, do you really believe what you wrote? That the 4 billion >> people who are involved in global trade would willingly subsidize the >> equivalent of belly-button fluff removal over the period of many >> decades in the hope of getting back some gold? > > No, they believe that the currency is valuable, for whatever reason; > maybe the slackers used to be great and powerful and productive in the > past. ### Again, you think that a lot of people are even more stupid than I think they are. ------------------------ The trading partners don't actually plan to buy up their assets, > but end up doing so in desperation when the real situation becomes > clear, which as you suggest has to happen sooner or later. This silly > example illustrates two points: > > 1. If you stick to your guns about PPP GDP being a true reflection of > productivity, then you would have to say that the slackers are very > productive, and then suddenly become less productive when market > perceptions change, even though there may be no change in their > activity. ### Yes, of course! Imagine that all that the slackers do is use machines to make polyethersulfone. They are the best at this job, nobody else can get the quality and amount of polyethersulfone they can, and as a result they are rich - they sell their PES abroad and the whole world is clamoring for more, since PES is needed to make protein filters. Although the slackers hardly ever do anything but twiddle some dials on machines making a single physical product, they can afford everything, and their GDP PPP is high. But one day somebody invents a new depth filter made of unobtainium, except much cheaper and better than PES. Although absolutely nothing changes about the abilities of the slackers, suddenly they find their GDP go to zero, or even below (if they insist on making PES). Obviously, PPP of an individual's or a nation's work will change when customers change their mind, even if the work and products in question are exactly the same. It boggles my mind how this point even needs to be addressed. ----------------------------------- > > 2. Sustained and increasing trade deficits will ultimately be resolved > by transfer of real capital from the deficit state to the surplus > state, once the latter gets nervous and calls in the IOU's. This will > also be associated with a crash in the exchange rate as no-one will > want to hold any more of the deficit state's currency, or as the > deficit state attempts to inflate away the debt by printing money. ### Let the chairman of economics dept at GMU (a hotbed of anarchocapitalism) answer this objection: http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/02/everyone-has-a-favorite-horse-to-beat-mine-is-not-dead.html Rafal From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Feb 24 23:38:55 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 17:38:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <47AC27ED249342F59A4F6950A15B4E22@technotr9881e5> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> <47AC27ED249342F59A4F6950A15B4E22@technotr9881e5> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> At 04:23 AM 2/24/2009 -0500, Dan wrote: >by the way, I've used both the Kindle and the Kindle 2. :) What's the text-to-voice like? Does it sound like S. Hawking or a Dalek? Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the dictation ware I use when I can be bothered fixing all the speakos, reads in an American woman's voice (not a dragon's, oddly enough) that tries to modulate, but leaves no gaps between pars or sentences. True, we tend not to stop in rapid conversation, but written forms aren't oral and they should *sound* right. That's what I say, or write. Damien Broderick From MERCERC at ecu.edu Tue Feb 24 23:03:37 2009 From: MERCERC at ecu.edu (Mercer, Calvin) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:03:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABABDC@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> Thanks Max for your kind words about our meeting in Austin. I hope that you and others will submit proposals for the AAR session; that is specifically why I pushed the call out to other groups beyond the religious studies academy. I also think it is in the interest of H+ proponents to have the H+ agenda understood by various professional groups and the general public, where, for better or worse, religion plays an important role. I think this is why Alcor asked me to speak at their conference in 2007 (the talk is summarized in their publication here http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics0801.pdf ), where I understood my task to be helping conference attendees reflect on how their message can be effectively communicated to religious folk. I think this can be increasingly beneficial to H+ agenda and is also going to make for very interesting coalitions and conversations. I'll borrow from the last paragraph of the Alcor article to make my point. "You think being a cryonics member is interesting now. Just wait until the Alcor Conference where you are sitting at the banquet table with a half dozen atheists or agnostics. But now there is a Hindu pantheist, a Zen Buddhist mediator, a Mormon transhumanist (they now have an organization and a website), a fundamentalist Christian, and a liberal Christian. And the discussion between the last two, if they are even talking to one another (and they usually don't), is more heated than even the debate between the theist and atheist at the table." Calvin Mercer, Ph.D. Co-Director, Religious Studies Program East Carolina University Greenville, NC? 27858? USA 252 328 4310 (off & vm) 252 328 6301 (fax) mercerc at ecu.edu www.ecu.edu/religionprogram -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 11:36 PM To: Extropy-Chat Subject: Re: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers Many of the subscribers to this email list have a strongly aversive reaction to the irrationalism, fideism, and ultimate authoritarianism aspects of "religion". As a pancritical rationalist, I understand and share in those reactions. However, I think it's a mistake to reflexively attach everything that might be labeled as religion. For the record, I met Calvin Mercer in April of last year. Don't let his first name put you off. He seemed to me to be a remarkably pleasant and reasonable fellow. The fact that he is chairing the session at issue is a good sign. I'm even considering submitting a paper for this event myself. (Don't burn me at the stake...) Max From mstriz at gmail.com Tue Feb 24 18:25:41 2009 From: mstriz at gmail.com (Martin Striz) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 13:25:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902232300u61e6cb42t44ce0bb1c7f06dfa@mail.gmail.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902232300u61e6cb42t44ce0bb1c7f06dfa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 2:00 AM, John Grigg wrote: > I was nearly raised in Australia.? My parents wanted to immigrate from the U.S. (NYC), but the Aussie Consulate felt a travel agent and a secretary were not a good addition to the Australian work force. > > I wonder what my Aussie life would have been like?? Hmmm..... Faced the same situation when I emigrated with my parents from Slovakia. We waited for (I guess what you could call) political asylum in Austria for a year. Canada and Australia turned us down. The US and South Africa accepted us. At the time, the Communist papers were filled with horror stories about the crime rate in the US, but even with that bad information, South Africa seemed like a worse place to settle in 1983. So I'm here rather than on some other side of the planet. Small decisions changed everything about my life. Chaos theory in action. BTW, hi folks. --Martin From MERCERC at ecu.edu Tue Feb 24 23:06:02 2009 From: MERCERC at ecu.edu (Mercer, Calvin) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:06:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224015153.024323f8@satx.rr.com> References: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1fa8c3b90902232325i78e25934g8bcc06b8751fed26@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224015153.024323f8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABABDE@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> Damien has me think that the way we worded the call does imply that H+ functions in certain ways like religion. I'll have a discussion with the steering committee about cleaning up some of that language so that it is more reflective of what I think is the committee's intention, or certainly my intention, which does not presume this. Calvin Mercer, Ph.D. Co-Director, Religious Studies Program East Carolina University Greenville, NC? 27858? USA 252 328 4310 (off & vm) 252 328 6301 (fax) mercerc at ecu.edu www.ecu.edu/religionprogram -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien Broderick Sent: Tuesday, February 24, 2009 3:07 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers At 08:25 AM 2/24/2009 +0100, G. wrote: >I agree with Max ...: "it's a mistake to reflexively attack >everything that might be labeled as religion" It might be a pragmatic mistake, like speaking up for serious gun control in Texas or on this list. As I recall, my own immune reaction kicked in when I saw the (perhaps unconsciously) weighted words used, with their implication that >H functions in the same way as religions--"identify and critically evaluate the implicit religious beliefs underlying key transhumanist claims and assumptions"-- and that >H should be analyzed as if it were a sect offering salvation and Divine Judgment after death ("soteriology, and eschatology"). Professor Mercer now tells us that this isn't so, but I'll be very surprised if the center of gravity of the discourse isn't off in that direction. Damien Broderick _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From santostasigio at yahoo.com Wed Feb 25 02:19:13 2009 From: santostasigio at yahoo.com (giovanni santost) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 18:19:13 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Beautiful In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <534789.80288.qm@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Gustaf Mahler, Second Symphony, The Resurection: ? ?God in all His glory comes into sight. A wondrous light strikes us to the heart. All is quiet and blissful. Behold: there is no judgement, no sinners, no just men, no great and no small; there is no punishment and no reward. A feeling of overwhelming love fills us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our existence. (90 % of this is Transhumanism in its most ideal form, change die with trascend my biological form, change God with the Laws of the Universe) ? ? Rise again, yes, you shall rise again, my dust, after brief rest! Immortal life will be given by Him who called you! You are sown to bloom again. The Lord of the harvest goes and gathers sheaves of us, who have died. O believe, my heart, believe: Nothing is lost to you! All you have desired is yours, yes, yours! Yours, what you have loved and fought for! O believe, you were not born in vain! You have not lived or suffered in vain! All that is created must perish. All that has perished rises again. Cease trembling! Prepare to live! O Pain, all-pervading, I have escaped from you! O Death, all-conquering, now you are conquered! With wings which I have won In love?s ardent striving, I shall soar upwards to the light which no eye has penetrated! I shall die in order to live! Rise again, yes, you shall rise again, my heart, in an instant! Your beating shall lead you to God! --- On Tue, 2/24/09, Damien Broderick wrote: From: Damien Broderick Subject: Re: [ExI] kindle 2 To: "ExI chat list" Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 5:38 PM At 04:23 AM 2/24/2009 -0500, Dan wrote: > by the way, I've used both the Kindle and the Kindle 2. :) What's the text-to-voice like? Does it sound like S. Hawking or a Dalek? Dragon NaturallySpeaking, the dictation ware I use when I can be bothered fixing all the speakos, reads in an American woman's voice (not a dragon's, oddly enough) that tries to modulate, but leaves no gaps between pars or sentences. True, we tend not to stop in rapid conversation, but written forms aren't oral and they should *sound* right. That's what I say, or write. 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 25 03:20:12 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 21:20:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Beautiful In-Reply-To: <534789.80288.qm@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> <534789.80288.qm@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224211902.02586438@satx.rr.com> >Gustaf Mahler, Second Symphony, The Resurection: > > God in all His glory comes into sight. A wondrous light strikes us > to the heart. All is quiet and blissful. Behold: there is no > judgement, no sinners, no just men, no great and no small; there is > no punishment and no reward. A feeling of overwhelming love fills > us with blissful knowledge and illuminates our existence. >(90 % of this is Transhumanism in its most ideal form, change die >with trascend my biological form, change God with the Laws of the Universe) > > >Rise again, yes, you shall rise again, >my dust, after brief rest! >Immortal life >will be given by Him who called you! >You are sown to bloom again. >The Lord of the harvest goes >and gathers sheaves of us, >who have died. >O believe, my heart, believe: >Nothing is lost to you! >All you have desired is yours, yes, yours! >Yours, what you have loved and fought for! >O believe, you were not born in vain! >You have not lived or suffered in vain! >All that is created must perish. >All that has perished rises again. >Cease trembling! >Prepare to live! >O Pain, all-pervading, >I have escaped from you! >O Death, all-conquering, >now you are conquered! >With wings which I have won >In love's ardent striving, >I shall soar upwards >to the light which no eye has penetrated! >I shall die in order to live! >Rise again, yes, you shall rise again, >my heart, in an instant! >Your beating >shall lead you to God! >--- On Tue, 2/24/09, Damien Broderick wrote: >From: Damien Broderick >Subject: Re: [ExI] kindle 2 >To: "ExI chat list" >Date: Tuesday, February 24, 2009, 5:38 PM > > >At 04:23 AM 2/24/2009 -0500, Dan wrote: > > > > by the way, I've used both the Kindle and the Kindle 2. :) > > >What's the text-to-voice like? Wow. And a Kindle 2 can do this from text? Who'da thunk it. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 03:28:40 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:28:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire the world, but what should it be? Message-ID: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> A question for all list members... I feel like it's time for a _2001: A Space Odyssey_ type film for the current generation. If James Cameron or Steven Spielberg were to adapt a transhumanist themed SF novel or short fiction to film, what narrative or at least plot line (you made up yourself) would you choose? I'm really looking forward to Cameron's upcoming film _Avatar_, that some say will be his magnum opus. But from what I've heard it will be sort of a futuristic Rambo in space, rather than truly visionary speculative fiction that could inspire people to fight for a better world. Ray Kurzweil's _The Singularity is Near_ motion picture is coming out in late 2009 but I am not sure if it will have the impact we desire. But only time will tell. John Grigg -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 03:31:49 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:31:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Beautiful In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224211902.02586438@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> <534789.80288.qm@web31307.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224211902.02586438@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902241931u395beb21m90f6c847dcbff11@mail.gmail.com> Hi Giovanni, Could you post a sound sample of the Kindle 2 actually reading text? And if you have the time, please give a wide range of examples. Thank you, John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From fortean1 at mindspring.com Tue Feb 17 06:21:43 2009 From: fortean1 at mindspring.com (Terry Colvin) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:21:43 +0700 (GMT+07:00) Subject: [ExI] Fw: U.S. Interests Face Challenges in Europe, Intelligence Chief Says Message-ID: <22421233.1234851704241.JavaMail.root@elwamui-rubis.atl.sa.earthlink.net> -----Forwarded Message----- > >U.S. Interests Face Challenges in Europe, Intelligence Chief Says [ http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53104 ] >"Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:24:00 -0600" > >American Forces Press Service > >U.S. Interests Face Challenges in Europe, Intelligence Chief Says >By Jim Garamone >American Forces Press Service > >WASHINGTON, Feb. 16, 2009 - "(This is the second in a three-part series on the intelligence community's annual threat assessment.)" > >Russia's perceived strengths and its policies, tensions in Eurasia, Caucasus and Central Asia, and instability in the Balkans all pose challenges to U.S. interests in Europe, the director of national intelligence said Feb. 12. > >Dennis C. Blair, a retired Navy admiral, told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Russia continues to rebuild its military and, as events in Georgia last year show, use those forces to impress on the world that the nation is still relevant. > >"Russian challenges to US interests now spring more from Moscow's perceived strengths than from the state weaknesses characteristic of the 1990s," Blair said in prepared testimony. > >"U.S. involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and general anti-Americanism have created openings for Russia to build alternative arrangements to the US-led international political and economic institutional order," he said. > >Russia is attempting to increase its ability to influence events, he said, by "actively cultivating relations with regional powers, including China, Iran, and Venezuela." > >Blair said Russia's energy policy is aimed at increasing the country's importance on the European continent. > >"Moscow also is trying to maintain control over energy supply and transportation networks to Europe to East Asia, and protect and further enhance its market share in Europe through new bilateral energy partnerships and organizing a gas cartel with other major exporters," he said. > >"Russia appears to believe the continued heavy dependence of European countries and former Soviet states on Russia's state gas monopoly, Gazprom, provides Moscow with political and economic leverage," he said. > >The United States and Russia can continue to work some issues together, Blair said, but some issues ? such as NATO enlargement, European Missile Defense and the breakaway Georgian provinces of Abkhasia and South Ossetia ? will pose difficulties. > >Russia's relations with its neighbors ? and once vassals ? will always be strained to one extent or another. Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Georgia, Belarus all have complicated relationships with Moscow, he said. > >Ukraine will have a presidential election next winter, and pressure applied by Russia pressure and by the global financial crisis will work on the country, he said. > >"Ukraine has moved toward democracy and Western integration despite numerous political tests since independence," he said. Progress will be difficult because of weak political institutions and on-going conflicts with Russia over gas-pricing and contracts, he said, noting that the Ukrainian economy is weak, and this may affect stability in the nation. > >The former Central Asia soviet socialist republics ? Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan ? are ill-equipped to deal with growing Muslim extremism, he said. > >"Energy helped make Kazakhstan a regional economic force, but any sustained decline in oil prices would affect revenues, could lead to societal discontent and will derail to momentum for domestic reforms," he said. > >The global financial crisis will affect Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan the most, since over 40 percent of the gross domestic product of both countries comes from remittances, but all of the Central Asian countries ? with their weak governments ? will be affected, Blair said. > >The Balkans are the greatest threat to stability within Europe, Blair said. Kosovo could be a flashpoint. The new country is effectively divided into a Serbian ethnic majority north and a Kosovar-Albanian south. Even as Serbia's government in Belgrade seeks to align itself more closely with the European Union and NATO, it will not compromise on Kosovo. > >There is also continued shakiness in Bosnia-Herzigovina and the future of the nation as a multi-ethnic state remains in doubt, Blair said, noting that inter-ethnic tensions may have increased in that country to "perhaps the highest level in years." > >*Biographies:* >Dennis C. Blair [ http://www.dni.gov/blair_bio.htm ] > >*Related Sites:* >Testimony: Annual Threat Assessment of the Intelligence Community [ http://www.dni.gov/testimonies/20090212_testimony.pdf ] > >*Related Articles:* >Intelligence Community Sees Asia Rising [ http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53103 ] >Economic Crisis Overlays all Threats Facing U.S., Intel Chief Says [ http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53100 ] > >Have another inquiry? Visit the online FAQ at www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.aspx [ http://www.defenselink.mil/faq/comment.aspx ] for up-to-date information. > >Get the help you, your family, and fellow servicemembers need, when you need it. Visit www.WarriorCare.mil [ http://www.WarriorCare.mil ] to learn more. > >Check out the National Resource Directory at www.nationalresourcedirectory.org [ http://www.nationalresourcedirectory.org ], a new web-based resource for wounded, ill and injured service members, veterans, their families, families of the fallen and those who support them from the Departments of Defense, Labor, and Veterans Affairs. > >This service is provided to you at no charge by U.S. Department of Defense. Visit us on the web at http://www.defenselink.mil/. Terry W. Colvin Ladphrao (Bangkok), Thailand Pran Buri (Hua Hin), Thailand From mlatorra at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 03:49:40 2009 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:49:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Death watch for Second Life Message-ID: <9ff585550902241949v5f962d84l2978f3eea8691fe4@mail.gmail.com> This article says it all: http://valleywag.gawker.com/5158190/the-end-of-second-life -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Feb 25 03:30:26 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 19:30:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com><16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike><710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902232300u61e6cb42t44ce0bb1c7f06dfa@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <6DCF24D3AD954872BF0526BFE85EEA58@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Martin Striz ... > > Faced the same situation when I emigrated with my parents > from Slovakia... > > Small decisions changed everything about my life. Chaos > theory in action. > > BTW, hi folks. > > --Martin The commies' loss is our gain. Welcome Martin! spike From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 04:04:35 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:04:35 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <29666bf30902241218k39494c64j68d24867623d2800@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <29666bf30902241218k39494c64j68d24867623d2800@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/2/25 PJ Manney : > On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 11:41 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > According to Forbes and Foreign Policy, regardless of their varying > criteria, the top five countries all have relatively successful public > health systems: > http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4025 > http://www.forbes.com/2008/04/07/health-world-countries-forbeslife-cx_avd_0408health_slide.html > Note how Forbes tries their damnedest to lay the success purely at the > feet of "cultural lifestyle" -- it's part of the story, but that > doesn't explain things like Iceland's lowest infant mortality rates, > etc. The Fat Defence is sometimes raised: Americans have a lower life expectancy despite a better health care system due to lifestyle factors. But see this article: http://www.theage.com.au/news/health/australia-worlds-fattest-nation/2008/06/19/1213770886872.html -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Wed Feb 25 04:06:45 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:06:45 -0800 Subject: [ExI] psychiatry causes terrorism In-Reply-To: <6DCF24D3AD954872BF0526BFE85EEA58@spike> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com><16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike><710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com><2d6187670902232300u61e6cb42t44ce0bb1c7f06dfa@mail.gmail.com> <6DCF24D3AD954872BF0526BFE85EEA58@spike> Message-ID: All this time we were blaming the Quran. http://counterknowledge.com/2009/02/scientology-psychiatry-causes-terrorism/ From spike66 at att.net Wed Feb 25 04:14:40 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 20:14:40 -0800 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire theworld, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> ...time for a _2001: A Space Odyssey_ type film for the current generation... John Grigg It would be difficult indeed for any movie to have the lightning bolt impact of 2001. I fondly recall those days, shortly before the first moon launch as I recall. The local theatre ran it night after night for months on end. This was of course in the town populated by space nomads. It might still be showing there to this day, had it not been for the rumors that there were certain beings known as "hippies" who were "dropping" "acid" in order to get "stoned" during the colorful helicopter ride over the everglades at the end of that picture. The local authorities were horrified of course. spike From girindra at isac.gov.in Wed Feb 25 03:58:18 2009 From: girindra at isac.gov.in (G P SINGH) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:28:18 +0530 Subject: [ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism Message-ID: <20090225034820.ED39B10D9@dnserns.isac.gov.in> This is in response to the corruption debate. What exactly now we are discussing in this post ? Original issue was about italians and then the topic moved toward trasparency international's CPI's ranks... I want to assert it in light of transhumanism. The measurement of corruption is theoretically not possible by statistics because it is a crime. And crime is by definition secret. So corruption is not measurable. In this context role of transhumanist philosophy would be twofold (you can suggest three or four or ....) 1. How can we measure corruption by means of science and technology ? 2. How can we reduce so called corruption by means of S&T? I think that before measuring one need to define corruption operationally. So a monetary corruption would be right where value of transaction is monitorable. So issues arise here of access. Can we access swiss bank ? Can we access other persons private data? It would be a big issue in USA i feel. So corruption has to be followed precisely. So technologies like eTranscation or eBanking or electronic tracking of fund can be used. Answering to second question brings me to rafal, can there be a genetic cause of corruption ? If yes then genetic therapy can solve this problem. Or can we find innovative use of punishment for exaple assigning a social anticorruption rank to each node in social network. And then reward the least corrupt node. Here i am using the existing hierarchy conscious approach of cultures to reduce corruption. Can we have precise views of other members instead of rhetorics ? GP --- Girindra Pratap Singh Scientist-SD, Indian Space Research Organization ISRO Satellite Centre Department of Space, Government of India Bangalore-560017, INDIA From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 25 04:47:43 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:47:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire theworld, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> >...time for a _2001: A Space Odyssey_ type film for the current >generation... John Grigg Hey, the film rights to TRANSCENSION are available, hop to, old son! (And look, you can get it on Kindle!) The closing post-Singularity passages even repurpose some wonderful stanzas by Dante and Milton--there's the crypto-religious element for all to see! And if that doesn't appeal, why, there's THE HUNGER OF TIME just crying out for some great CGI. (On Kindle too, amazing!) [ this has been a public service announcement, and certainly not a crassly self-indulgent advertisement ] Damien Broderick From girindra at isac.gov.in Wed Feb 25 03:58:13 2009 From: girindra at isac.gov.in (G P SINGH) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 09:28:13 +0530 Subject: [ExI] Posthumanist Games ... Structure of Chess (2D to 3D , 4D , 5D or 'N' Dimension) Message-ID: <20090225034816.7D6CD10CA@dnserns.isac.gov.in> When we have adversarial system of game like 2D Chess where only two players compete for checkmate. So if there is rise of players to 8 or 32 then what changes would be there in the structure of game so that each player play game independent of each other. Is there any possibility to change dimensions of game of chess. Can it be done to 3D, 4D , 5D or 'n'D . I have never seen any kind of discussion on futurist game which changes the rule of the game. Chess is basically individualistic game where single person compete against another. In contrast football is a team game where aim of the team is to cooperatively perform so that opponent team's cooperative performance will be lesser. Here i am not making chess as a form of football or social game. Main problem here is that How cognitive intensive games can be played by many players. Can it be done by changing their structure like my idea of changing the dimension and change game rules accordingly. GP --- Girindra Pratap Singh Scientist-SD, Indian Space Research Organization ISRO Satellite Centre Department of Space, Government of India Bangalore-560017, INDIA From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 25 05:06:39 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 23:06:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Posthumanist Games ... Structure of Chess (2D to 3D , 4D , 5D or 'N' Dimension) In-Reply-To: <20090225034816.7D6CD10CA@dnserns.isac.gov.in> References: <20090225034816.7D6CD10CA@dnserns.isac.gov.in> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224230311.022ed4d0@satx.rr.com> At 09:28 AM 2/25/2009 +0530, Girindra Pratap Singh wrote: >Is there any >possibility to change dimensions of game of chess. Can it be done to >3D, 4D , 5D or 'n'D . 3D chess was a favorite topic of science fiction in the 1940s and '50s, and played by the cognoscenti (and the poseurs, I expect). Hard to manage on a tesseract, but Rudy Rucker wrote some nice 4D hypercube programs that might be adaptable by the terminally reckless. Damien Broderick From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 05:30:14 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:00:14 +1030 Subject: [ExI] Posthumanist Games ... Structure of Chess (2D to 3D , 4D , 5D or 'N' Dimension) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224230311.022ed4d0@satx.rr.com> References: <20090225034816.7D6CD10CA@dnserns.isac.gov.in> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224230311.022ed4d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902242130r32f2f502o4b71797286f6055e@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/25 Damien Broderick : > At 09:28 AM 2/25/2009 +0530, Girindra Pratap Singh wrote: > >> Is there any >> possibility to change dimensions of game of chess. Can it be done to >> 3D, 4D , 5D or 'n'D . > > 3D chess was a favorite topic of science fiction in the 1940s and '50s, and > played by the cognoscenti (and the poseurs, I expect). > > Hard to manage on a tesseract, but Rudy Rucker wrote some nice 4D hypercube > programs that might be adaptable by the terminally reckless. > > Damien Broderick Fairy Chess http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy_chess -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 05:34:20 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:04:20 +1030 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire theworld, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902242134t6ef4c184r60a448d4309140fd@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/25 Damien Broderick : > >> ...time for a _2001: A Space Odyssey_ type film for the current >> generation... John Grigg > > Hey, the film rights to TRANSCENSION > > > > are available, hop to, old son! (And look, you can get it on Kindle!) The No, no I can't. > closing post-Singularity passages even repurpose some wonderful stanzas by > Dante and Milton--there's the crypto-religious element for all to see! > > And if that doesn't appeal, why, there's THE HUNGER OF TIME > > > > just crying out for some great CGI. (On Kindle too, amazing!) Kindle, no. No kindle for me. > > [ this has been a public service announcement, and certainly not a crassly > self-indulgent advertisement ] > > Damien Broderick Beeeezzoooos!!!! (but I liked Transcension btw) -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site You no take kindle! From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 05:39:29 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:39:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire theworld, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902242139l543b192eiba105bde81a2c203@mail.gmail.com> Damien wrote: >"hop to, old son!" I went to several Aussie slang websites but had no success trying to find what this expression meant. Damien, please enlighten me. hee Greg Bear, Charles Stross, Greg Egan, Linda Nagata, Paul J. McAuley, Neal Stephenson, Walter Jon Williams, Bruce Sterling, Gregory Benford and Damien Broderick are among my favorite 500 lb. gorillas in the science fiction field. On second thought, Benford at this point may be an 800 lb. gorilla! I say this not only because he has written many bestselling SF tomes, but he has now branched out into biotechnology start-ups. At the Convergence Conference he spoke at length about the goals of his company and how they have some cool things in the works. John Grigg : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 25 06:19:04 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:19:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire theworld, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902242139l543b192eiba105bde81a2c203@mail.gmail.co m> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902242139l543b192eiba105bde81a2c203@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090225001353.060fd950@satx.rr.com> At 10:39 PM 2/24/2009 -0700, JG wrote: > >"hop to, old son!" > >I went to several Aussie slang websites but had no success trying to >find what this expression meant. You have to be an 500lb kangaroo to understand it, or at least the elderly offspring of one ("offspring" is, of course, a species-specific term in this context). Emlyn will know, even without a Kindle to light his way, poor deprived book-bound fellow ("book-bound" is, of course... oh, never mind) . From keitht at pobox.com Wed Feb 25 06:53:30 2009 From: keitht at pobox.com (Keith T) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:53:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) Message-ID: <4ae65d6b0902242253g14fa6d54p88b77f21eb71c736@mail.gmail.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From keitht at pobox.com Wed Feb 25 06:54:36 2009 From: keitht at pobox.com (Keith T) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:54:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <4ae65d6b0902242254x528ee8dcld8656d09d4302041@mail.gmail.com> References: <4ae65d6b0902242254x528ee8dcld8656d09d4302041@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ae65d6b0902242254g4cc7696wff6ba7a76773349@mail.gmail.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From keitht at pobox.com Wed Feb 25 06:54:37 2009 From: keitht at pobox.com (Keith T) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:54:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) Message-ID: <4ae65d6b0902242254y1902eaaeq7e2f600171f2b6c4@mail.gmail.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From keitht at pobox.com Wed Feb 25 06:54:43 2009 From: keitht at pobox.com (Keith T) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:54:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) In-Reply-To: <4ae65d6b0902242254v1a90e49bw6b584792e18f6ad@mail.gmail.com> References: <4ae65d6b0902242254v1a90e49bw6b584792e18f6ad@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4ae65d6b0902242254o500022c0w84b046a10232c046@mail.gmail.com> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 06:56:02 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:26:02 +1030 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire theworld, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090225001353.060fd950@satx.rr.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> <137308256B264CF1B58BE32450588861@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224223906.0233fa40@satx.rr.com> <2d6187670902242139l543b192eiba105bde81a2c203@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090225001353.060fd950@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902242256p660fe46bi1fdfd3ecc7c4dce6@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/25 Damien Broderick : > At 10:39 PM 2/24/2009 -0700, JG wrote: > >> >"hop to, old son!" >> >> I went to several Aussie slang websites but had no success trying to find >> what this expression meant. > > You have to be an 500lb kangaroo to understand it, or at least the elderly > offspring of one ("offspring" is, of course, a species-specific term in this > context). Emlyn will know, even without a Kindle to light his way, poor > deprived book-bound fellow ("book-bound" is, of course... oh, never mind) . It means "do it". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoqDYcCDOTg&feature=related -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From eschatoon at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 07:14:00 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 08:14:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire the world, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90902242314t6d98f940naa8afcc7271cd18b@mail.gmail.com> Yes, a new _good_ SF movie with positive images of a transhumanist future is long overdue, and I also cannot remember one after 2001. Saying that Kubrick's and Clarke's 2001 changed the life of a generation can be too much, but it surely changed mine, and that of many other people here. These days movies impact the zeitgeist much more than literature. Some ideas for movie conversions: Transcension, yes. Richard Morgan's work, in the noir genre (Tarantino comes to mind as director). The First Immortal. Stephen Baxter's Space and Time... Of course a problem is that Hollywood thinks people are stupid, so the most interesting concepts are watered down and changed to make them more appealing to us idiots. Perhaps instead of complaining that there have been no great SF movies after 2001, some people here should roll their sleeves up and MAKE one. There are great movies done with very reasonable budgets affordable by one or few angel investors. On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 4:28 AM, John Grigg wrote: > A question for all list members...? I feel like it's time for a _2001: A > Space Odyssey_ type film for the current generation.? If James Cameron or > Steven Spielberg were to adapt a transhumanist themed SF novel or short > fiction to film, what narrative or at least plot line (you made up yourself) > would you choose? > > I'm really looking forward to Cameron's upcoming film _Avatar_, that some > say will be his magnum opus.? But from what I've heard it will be sort of a > futuristic Rambo in space, rather than truly visionary speculative fiction > that could inspire people to fight for a better world. > > Ray Kurzweil's _The Singularity is Near_ motion picture is coming out in > late 2009 but I am not sure if it will have the impact we desire.? But only > time will tell. > > John Grigg > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 25 08:49:59 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 02:49:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike> <710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com> <47AC27ED249342F59A4F6950A15B4E22@technotr9881e5> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090225024905.025c83f8@satx.rr.com> At 05:38 PM 2/24/2009 -0600, I wrote: >What's the text-to-voice like? And look: an answer in the NYT: From rpicone at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 08:52:52 2009 From: rpicone at gmail.com (Robert Picone) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 00:52:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire the world, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: I'm rather skeptical about the prospects here, as-is serious science fiction movies (that is, movies where science fiction is more than a gimmick) are rare enough, those few serious sci-fi movies that exist tend to be exclusively distopian, tending to meet concepts related to transhumanism with fear. I'm not sure it's really possible to acclimate most viewers to transhumanist ideas in a short enough timespan that the plot actually matters to them. Viewers are pretty used to themes of anyone who wants to be more than human/pursue some sort of immortality being monstrous. Used to it enough that they just seem to accept the idea without any sort of question at this point... I remember seeing "The 6th Day" when it was reasonably recently released and being a bit horrified (if you're unfamiliar, basically there is pseudo-uploading in the form of mind backups that can be transfered to clones, Schwarzenegger's character accidentally gets a clone made in an attempt by the only cloning company around to save his best friend, and becomes hunted because the existence of a copy is evidence the technology exists despite being illegal to develop. Long story short, he manages to blow up a building and destroy what is implied to be thousands of backups, the ability to produce copies, and by all appearances a couple hundred innocent people who work there... It is of course presented as a happy ending). The thing is nobody else seemed to think anything of it (other than that it was a bit vapid as a thriller). It is even one of the highest grossing Sci-fi movies of all time... I could very well be wrong on all this though, if such a film is made though, I'd prefer to see something that uses concepts that people are familiar with seeing in a positive light, even concepts that seems somewhat archaic now would be cool. A modernized version of True Names might work well enough... As for movies already in the pipeline, apparently Dreamworks bought the rights to make a live-action Ghost in the Shell film which could have potential. On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 7:28 PM, John Grigg wrote: > A question for all list members... I feel like it's time for a _2001: A > Space Odyssey_ type film for the current generation. If James Cameron or > Steven Spielberg were to adapt a transhumanist themed SF novel or short > fiction to film, what narrative or at least plot line (you made up yourself) > would you choose? > > I'm really looking forward to Cameron's upcoming film _Avatar_, that some > say will be his magnum opus. But from what I've heard it will be sort of a > futuristic Rambo in space, rather than truly visionary speculative fiction > that could inspire people to fight for a better world. > > Ray Kurzweil's _The Singularity is Near_ motion picture is coming out in > late 2009 but I am not sure if it will have the impact we desire. But only > time will tell. > > John Grigg > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Feb 25 15:36:36 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 16:36:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <499DB0F8.30700@libero.it> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A56584.8040107@libero.it> Il 23/02/2009 5.26, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > Yes, but the point is corporations aim to maximise profits and bring > about beneficial effects only incidentally, I can depend on people doing something selfish. This is how people act in the 99% of their time. They don't need to force themselves to act selfishly. This imply that the secondary beneficial effects are available 99% of the time. They gain directly any time they do their selfish acts (like selling me food) and I gain indirectly any time they do it. I can not depend on people doing something selfless, not for the majority of their time, not for nothing. And I can suspect that the main goals of the people serving in the governments is not less selfish than the goals serving in corporations (usually is have a job, earn enough to have a family, etc.). > while government and other > non-profit organisations have the beneficial effect as their primary > aim and incidentally may fail due to corruption or inefficiency. The reality is that corruption (from the tiniest things to the biggest one) is an always present threat, because people is wired to do what is best for them and not for others. Do you think government's employees are always motivated to do the best for the taxpayers? Or for their bosses? Or for themselves? How is a government's employee different from a corporation's employee? How is the government's bosses are different from a corporation's boss? > In > the final analysis, we should have the system that does the most good, > not the system that best fits a favoured ideology. The problem is that you suppose that the system that can do the most good is the system that _declare_ to have it as its first aim and not the system that have is as a secondary effect. The statists / socialists / liberals have this insane interests in the "declared" goals and totally disregard the "demonstrated" goals, in the "declared" effects and not in the "demonstrated" effects. > That was the > problem with communism: they refused to change even when it became > obvious that the population was unhappy and the economy was falling > further and further behind. This is because the government / the party know better than private people what is good, what is the right way to do things. You are for freedom or for socialism, there is not in-between; there is only socialists with weak stomach that are unable / unwilling to do what they believe, but will not stop someone doing it for them. > I can see the same thing happening with a > radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of > the effect it has on the people or the economy. Radical pro free-markets will never ever contest your freedom to freely associate with others and live in a communist / socialist / fascist / islamic way if violence is banned. But, if your way of life don't work and make a pauper of you and your friends, it is only your problem. It is up to you to change how you live and we have no obligation to prevent you to harm yourself. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 25 16:43:21 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 17:43:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> Message-ID: <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> Il 20/02/2009 19.31, dagonweb at gmail.com ha scritto: > I do not claim I understand it, but I see the signs of an irreconcilable > split in international > politics between left-oriented politics and right-oriented politics. The > two positions have > drifted into a trench warfare position and discount the other with no > desire for compromize. This is good, because too often compromise is a code word for joined plunder of the public coffers. They are elected to realize a program, not to compromise, not to please the other side. > Criticism is levelled at each other side with no interest in the > interests or fears of the other block. The problem of the left is they didn't interested of the problems of their voters, let they were interested in the problems of the other side. The leftists are interested mainly in the powers so they take it, but were unable to use it to make things prosper in the long run > The rhetoric is filled with complete hatred, as if the other side > has become a monster and is completely wrong. > Either side does not just want to win, but considers the other > side incapable of winning, and MUST lose, by any means. The leftists believe that they are better and know better, so they are the title and the duty to lead the low life forms. > I predict this schism will escalate into first terrorism, from both > sides against the other, and if given half a chance, > into open warfare, within decades. Open warfare is possible only if the leftists are able to raise an army of people, but they are always more marginalized in the fringe. I would predict that, in case of a war, the fall of the welfare state would force many of them to have a real job. And after work they would be too tired to do something. The last Brigate Rosse were formed by government's employees, not corporation's employees or people without a job. > The mentality and total lack > of respect on both sides is nothing short of bloodthirsty. > This is demonization at work. > Mirco (spike?), do you agree that the side you represent would want > nothing short of a full war on the people that represent the > "other side"? I don't agree with your delusion. You can look at the protests of the left and the protest of the right: who is that, consistently use violence and intimidations against the others? What they scream loud? Do you know that the Tae-Kwon-Do Team of Israel was prevented to go in Sweden because of the threats of Arabs living there? Do you know that in Norway pro-Israel protesters were attacked by the pro-Hamas thugs with firecrackers and stones? Do you know what the pro-Hamas people shouted in the streets of Hollands? > Would you rather see them dead, and out of the land/world > you inhabit? I'm uninterested in their live or death, until they are not able or willing to use violence against me. But I will defend myself against them if I'm attacked or threatened. If this cause their extinction, it is not my problem. I suppose the doctor don't ordered them to attack me. If he did, they would be wise and change doctor. > Can you tell me how far you would considering > coming to a dialogue and meaningful compromises? We compromised for years, probably decades, it did nothing better to us. You, probably, would have supported compromise with Hitler, in the '30. Or would have compromised with slavery in the 1860. What do they / you are willing to compromise with us? Why have we always to compromise and not the others? Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Feb 25 17:22:39 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 11:22:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] government [and other kinds of] corruption In-Reply-To: <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090225112038.02567470@satx.rr.com> At 05:43 PM 2/25/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: >Open warfare is possible only if the leftists are able to raise an >army of people, but they are always more marginalized in the fringe. It's barely possible that indignation might rouse some activity in the streets: NYT: From rtomek at ceti.pl Wed Feb 25 18:35:03 2009 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:35:03 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Posthumanist Games ... Structure of Chess (2D to 3D , 4D , 5D or 'N' Dimension) Message-ID: On Wed, 25 Feb 2009, G P SINGH wrote: > When we have adversarial system of game like 2D Chess where only two players > compete for checkmate. So if there is rise of players to 8 or 32 then what > changes would be there in the structure of game so that each player play game > independent of each other. Is there any possibility to change dimensions of > game of chess. Can it be done to 3D, 4D , 5D or 'n'D . Since the other poster have already given a link to fairies, I can only encourage you to study http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_variants , that is on the bottom of this page. Lots, lots of variants for you :-). > I have never seen any kind of discussion on futurist game which changes the > rule of the game. Chess is basically individualistic game where single person > compete against another. In contrast football is a team game where aim of the > team is to cooperatively perform so that opponent team's cooperative > performance will be lesser. I am rather too new in the field of game theory to even call myself a newbie, but I guess every game has some sets of rules R and goals G (and, I would say, an "expectation" - like "I will not be bored" or "I will learn"). The rest is just a matter of convention - due to misc limitations, games of the past were fixed (R and G sets well defined, not changing during a game). This was good, because it is easier to transfer a game concept to another person if it has well defined, easy to grasp rules. Nowadays, it is already possible to define some other, non-fixed (or maybe they should be called "flexible") games. I expect +humans (I don't really like this "posthumans" word - as I understand it, it implies my possible (ex)termination) to challenge themselves with some kind of generalised chess. Along the line marked by Gess: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gess . Extending Gess to n-dimensional cube with 3^n pieces already gives 2^(3^n) - 1 possible pieces (some may be created during game, at one's will, as described by rules), which makes it quite complicated and flexible. Generalising further, this can be described as {X}^N-chess, where X are either names or lists of possible (allowed) values of some game parameters. Those can be, in case of board description, either its sizes (as a n-dimensional cuboid) or (even better, perhaps) in the form of a graph. So, each time one "unfixes" a game parameter, one creates a wholly new dimension in the "chess variants space". A number of players and their sets of figures are another possible parameters. A list of goals, too. I suspect there are some very interesting variants of "solo chess", one of which is the queen placement problem. Other funny thing to look at would be defining chess with variable board (either by strict rules or by players actions). Anyway, any aspiring +human is invited to explore the chess-space in their free time. :-) For description of different variants, one should probably choose predicate-based language, to give it some consistency and to make easy comparison of different games possible. It could be real fun, if a computer could play such game after being given its description (sure, sure, I know this is still somewhat difficult in 2009, we have to be patient). Frankly, I don't know if what I have written is creative in any way or if I am just reinventing the wheel. I have decided to jump inside the problem as I was reading email starting the subject. But after short time spent on thinking about it, it seems to be very nice looking and interesting area (highly probable that someone else has already explored and described it better :-), but still, this doesn't make it less attractive). > Here i am not making chess as a form of football or social game. Main problem > here is that How cognitive intensive games can be played by many players. Can > it be done by changing their structure like my idea of changing the dimension > and change game rules accordingly. With n>2 players, a reasonable thing for them to do would be forming coalitions, until only two stay still standing for a final butchery. Coalitions are possible, even if rules disallow them and players do not know each other and cannot communicate. They just don't have to be explicit. During first half, players will probably be dancing around each other, trying to preserve their status quo and weakening anybody else. As soon as there is a weakling nearby, he will be either "divided" between his neighbors or finished by the strongest one. Or maybe they will do something totally different. There is a number of theoretical possibilities. If you really want to research this, maybe analysis of group formation in a kindergarten can help. Of course, +humans should be able to analyse and judge other players considering more factors than we do (in a kindergarten or somewhere). This analysis of anonymous others, judging by their gameplay, is a challenge by itself and adds complication to the game. I mean, no looking at or making a "poker face" - just their actions on the board. BTW, hello to all. I have been reading this list for a natural number of years but not until today decided to get out of hiding :-). I would describe my interests as rather broad, changing over time but somewhat oscilating around various humanity/anthropology related subjects and technology. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 18:46:05 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado (CI)) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 15:46:05 -0300 Subject: [ExI] If you give your car a drink you'll risk going to Muslim hell References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090221225923.022ce810@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <013e01c99779$51bb82d0$fd00a8c0@cpdhemm> Damien>A prominent Muslim scholar in Saudi Arabia has >warned that those using alcohol-based biofuels in >their cars could be committing a sin. The sin here being off course not buying oil from them. From spike66 at att.net Wed Feb 25 18:22:33 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 10:22:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> Message-ID: <7BC1C8F608104D2F82F5B974E103CE1A@spike> > ...On Behalf Of painlord2k at libero.it ... > > Mirco (spike?), do you agree that the side you represent would want > > nothing short of a full war on the people that represent the > > "other side"? > > I don't agree with your delusion... Mirco I do not agree that any side I represent (whatever that is) advocates a full scale war on anything. In spite of taking a terrible drubbing in the last elections, I still believe in western style democracy. That last election was a huge loss. The press seldom even mentioned my side. Everything was those other clowns, that's all we heard, Obama this, McCain that, Biden, Palin, repeat ad nauseum, Obama, McCain, Biden, Palin, until I wanted to barf. Of course with that kind of media coverage, ninety some percent of the proles voted for them. Our national news media are corrupt, the new pigs. Root and Barr were seldom even mentioned. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 25 19:01:50 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:01:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> Il 24/02/2009 20.41, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 08:21 PM 2/24/2009 +0100, Mirco commented on Stathis: > >>> So if someone points out that, for example, a particular public >>> health system is cheaper and results in better outcomes than a >>> mostly private health system, you react as if you've been >>> presented with plans for a perpetual motion machine: you *know* >>> there must be a flaw, clever though the design may be, and it is >>> just a matter of finding it. >> >> Because we are not interested in the short term effects in a >> particular group of people, but in all effects for all people. > > Oddly enough, that's exactly what supporters of a public health > system say. The difference is that we know what is not to do, because it cause damage in the long or not so long term. They say they know what to do and whatever are the consequences in the long terms. > "Short-term effects"--the system Stathis and I are used to (which > has its shortcomings, but not nearly as many as the US > robber-baron-oligopoloy system) has been doing a good job for, oh, > 25 years. Those are *long-term effects*. See e.g. 25 years are not "long terms effects". Soviet Unions fell after 70 years, but Mises wrote about the causes 65 years before the fall. > > > Damien please read this: http://socglory.blogspot.com/2009/02/australia-public-hospital-meltdown.html AUSTRALIA: THE PUBLIC HOSPITAL MELTDOWN CONTINUES > CLERKS with no medical training were allegedly made to bandage > wounds and assess patients at Bundaberg Hospital's emergency > department. The clerks were also asked to perform other nursing > duties such as putting ice on patients suffering strains, the Crime > and Misconduct Commission has been told. > A baby at a Queensland hospital was assaulted by a doctor who lost > his temper when the child wouldn't stop wriggling, and an elderly > patient was left to die in a hallway after being denied proper > treatment, according to allegations made to the Crime and Misconduct > Commission. Three hospital staff have sought whistleblower protection > after detailing allegations of gross medical neglect and > incompetence, overcrowding, bullying, intimidation and cover-ups at > the Bundaberg Hospital. > > A highly qualified nurse who spoke to The Courier-Mail told how she > was repeatedly made to falsify records to hide lengthy waiting times > in the emergency department. She said triage cases were improperly > and dangerously downgraded because of understaffing. She said a > troubled teenager who waited five hours without seeing a doctor ran > away and slashed her wrists. And a doctor said he was too busy to see > a boy who had been stabbed in the leg in a suspected child abuse > case. The cases are among 100 serious and minor procedural errors on > the hospital's prime reporting database. So, I can only say they support private health insurance because they are miserably fail to provide for public insurance after they have collected the money. How it is a good system if first collect the money of the people, then support the people to pay again (but with a tax reduction) for the same treatment but with the right to choose their own doctors? Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 25 19:41:49 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:41:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A59EFD.2010704@libero.it> Il 24/02/2009 23.25, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/25 painlord2k at libero.it: > >>> Sometimes business will provide the best service and sometimes >>> government will, and we should choose accordingly. The problem with >>> you is that you take it as a given that business will always do >>> better. >> Generally this is true. >> But most important, when they don't, people are able to change them >> faster than governments. > If business provides a better service then business should provide the > service. Why do most socialist governments around the world and the > people who elect them decide to run health and education but not > supermarkets and restaurants? Because people need to eat many times every day where they need healthcare only a few times in their lives. So it is much easier to disguise their incompetence and they shortcoming. Then is also much easier disguise how the politicians receive a much better healthcare than the common people (they have not waiting list but this never do the first page of a newspaper) where the simple fact that they are fully nourished when the mass is undernourished would much more visible. With education is even easier to pretend it is good, until people exist schools and are astonished about how much inept they are in the workplace. But, mainly, because hungry people is know to never listen to excuses and socialists know that they are really incompetents. A few don't know this, and do a very big mess, like Mughabe and Chavez. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 19:45:46 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:45:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire the world, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <580930c20902251145n6d866661jc1efdc99dcfd99a4@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 4:28 AM, John Grigg wrote: > A question for all list members...? I feel like it's time for a _2001: A > Space Odyssey_ type film for the current generation.? If James Cameron or > Steven Spielberg were to adapt a transhumanist themed SF novel or short > fiction to film, what narrative or at least plot line (you made up yourself) > would you choose? Personally, I sincerely hope that Cameron or Spielberg will never have anything to do with transhumanism... -- Stefano Vaj From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 19:52:31 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:52:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902212023g4a381df9t5a981a2b73a74dbf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902221020l38e94e2ek7a3c9874e8d0652a@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902231054l31c7af9emfd24f2804707982@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902241521l74cc392ciaf7f2a9b4f47b5fc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902251152o7f8f1f5aw8ee6e9fbc97a4a39@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 1:17 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/25 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >>> 2. Sustained and increasing trade deficits will ultimately be resolved >>> by transfer of real capital from the deficit state to the surplus >>> state, once the latter gets nervous and calls in the IOU's. This will >>> also be associated with a crash in the exchange rate as no-one will >>> want to hold any more of the deficit state's currency, or as the >>> deficit state attempts to inflate away the debt by printing money. >> >> ### Let the chairman of economics dept at GMU (a hotbed of >> anarchocapitalism) answer this objection: >> >> http://www.cafehayek.com/hayek/2009/02/everyone-has-a-favorite-horse-to-beat-mine-is-not-dead.html > > That article simply repeats what I said. The trade deficit results in > transfer of capital from the deficit nation to the surplus nation, and > whether you think this is OK or not is a matter of opinion. ### Not capital. Fiat money. -------------------------------------------- Perhaps > "debt" is not the term we commonly use, but cash is debt in the final > analysis: if I buy an apple from you and give you an IOU for one > apples' worth of goods, in the end I have to cough up the goods if you > demand it of me. ### Jeesus H Christ. An American dollar is *not* an IOU. It is not a promissory note, it is not backed by any physical object. The holder of an American dollar does not have a legal claim to anything except the dollar itself. It is only legal tender which must be accepted by vendors inside the US. Accumulation of legal tender outside of this country does not represent accumulation of debt. --------------------------------- On the other hand if you give me an apple and I give > you two oranges, assuming apples and oranges are of equivalent value, > then I get an IOU from you for an orange's worth of goods. So there is > an implicit net debt if there is a trade imbalance. It is further > complicated in international trade in that the exchange rate between > IOU's and goods and one state's IOU's and another state's IOU's is > determined by market mechanisms, depending on such factors as > perceived risk of default and the quantity of circulating IOU's. ### I despair. Paper cash is not debt of any kind. Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 20:02:03 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:02:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] government [and other kinds of] corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090225112038.02567470@satx.rr.com> References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090225112038.02567470@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 5:22 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > It's barely possible that indignation might rouse some activity in the > streets: > > NYT: > The entertainment Web site TMZ broke the story Tuesday that Northern Trust > of Chicago, which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then laid off 450 > workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los Angeles last week and > treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, salmon and filet mignon > dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club > with Mercedes shuttle rides and Tiffany swag bags. > The millionaire and billionaire banking leaders that led the economy into this disastrous depression live in a different world. They have been almost unaffected by the crisis. They kept their mansions, their millions of bonuses and salaries. They still have their jobs, now 'helping clean the mess up'. If Obama tries to limit their salary ceiling, they will steal money in other ways, avoiding calling the payments 'salary'. Bernanke is handing his friends in the financial industry more money than their total share capitalization. Many commentators (even some politicians) are saying the banks should be temporarily nationalized, thoroughly cleaned out then re-privatised. Just pouring more and more money into the banking black hole of the bankrupt banks achieves nothing, except extending the depression by years. It will have to be cleaned up eventually. The country (US and UK) will just be billions worse off by postponing the evil day. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 25 20:08:19 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:08:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government [and other kinds of] corruption In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090225112038.02567470@satx.rr.com> References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090225112038.02567470@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49A5A533.2040203@libero.it> Il 25/02/2009 18.22, Damien Broderick ha scritto: > At 05:43 PM 2/25/2009 +0100, Mirco wrote: > >> Open warfare is possible only if the leftists are able to raise an >> army of people, but they are always more marginalized in the >> fringe. > > It's barely possible that indignation might rouse some activity in > the streets: Indignations about sexual immorality when living in a whorehouse is self serving and change nothing. > Trust of Chicago, which got $1.5 billion in bailout money and then > laid off 450 workers, flew hundreds of clients and employees to Los > Angeles last week and treated them to four days of posh hotel rooms, > salmon and filet mignon dinners, music concerts, a PGA golf > tournament at the Riviera Country Club with Mercedes shuttle rides > and Tiffany swag bags. This is how the bail out money will be used. How Ram Emanuel said "never leave a crisis unused". Do you think the bail out money would be used for something other? This is the same that happen in Teheran with the oil money and the sycophants of the mullahs. http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/KB24Ak02.html Statists anywhere are the same. Their cloths, their religion, their race can change, but they act in the same way, at the end. So, government take from the poor and gave to its rich friends. So Gattopardesco! > gattopard?sco pl m -chi a of or relative to a conservative policy > according to which any reform must not change the root of existing > privileges. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 25 20:14:22 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:14:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49A5A69E.9080709@libero.it> Il 24/02/2009 21.00, BillK ha scritto: > Quoting real live examples doesn't work for this type of theoretical > argument. http://socglory.blogspot.com http://socglory.blogspot.com/2009/02/australia-public-hospital-meltdown.html http://socglory.blogspot.com/2009/02/another-day-of-australian-medi-meltdown.html > The Queensland Children's Hospital will deliver just 23 extra > overnight beds at a cost of $1.1 billion. That's $47.8 million a bed. > Of course I haven't factored in the new building that goes with the > beds. And the hospital plan includes 100 or so recliner chairs or > "same day" and "short stay" beds not counted in my calculation. > Nevertheless, the revelation the new hospital will get 23 extra > overnight beds for such an extraordinary pool of money will come as a > shock to clinicians and patients - if not Health Minister Stephen > Robertson himself. Any more real life examples? The site is full of real life examples. > Rafal admitted yesterday that the centuries of human evolution as a > social, combative species makes humanity unsuited for the > anti-social 'loner' types of system supported by Rafal and Mirco. It make humans unsuited for groups bigger than one hundred people. > They are discussing 'theory' not 'practice'. My theory work in practice where your practice work only in theory. Mirco From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 21:43:28 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 14:43:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we need a transhumanist themed film to truly inspire the world, but what should it be? In-Reply-To: <580930c20902251145n6d866661jc1efdc99dcfd99a4@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902241928m7f634d64tf6ab95fcc2ca01e5@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20902251145n6d866661jc1efdc99dcfd99a4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670902251343p73f7397fyad105bf281ff834d@mail.gmail.com> Stefano Vaj wrote: Personally, I sincerely hope that Cameron or Spielberg will never have anything to do with transhumanism... >>> I think Cameron is definitely up to the challenge, if it became his muse. As for Spielberg, after the disappointing _A.I._ I would say no. But I will say I did love the final scene in that film that gave us a glimpse of a posthuman society. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 23:03:14 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:03:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902251503r75ec11cftbf577b4438186c5b@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 3:00 PM, BillK wrote: > Quoting real live examples doesn't work for this type of theoretical argument. ### Aha, so when somebody like me quotes the correlation between the degree of economic freedom and human well-being (which is very high), it isn't the kind of real live example that works for you. It figures. ----------------- > > Rafal admitted yesterday that the centuries of human evolution as a > social, combative species makes humanity unsuited for the anti-social > 'loner' types of system supported by Rafal and Mirco. ### When I say that non-violence and pluralism are not easy for most humans to embrace, you say it makes me "anti-social"! What the fuck? ------------------------------- They are > discussing 'theory' not 'practice'. ### No, discussing future, instead of clinging to the past. ----------------------------- > > Making many assumptions that don't exist at the moment, they design a > theoretical system that appears to be wonderful to them. ### Yeah, I understand that you wouldn't like to be in a world where you couldn't use violence against others as easily as you can now. --------------------------- > > A bit like Basil Fawlty - this hotel would run perfectly if it wasn't > for all these bloody annoying customers! ### No, it's like a political prison - we'd be better out of it. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 23:09:51 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:09:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A59EFD.2010704@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <49A59EFD.2010704@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902251509y78522a5evc9b3b035f8571213@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 2:41 PM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > > With education is even easier to pretend it is good, until people exist > schools and are astonished about how much inept they are in the workplace. ### There is another reason: if you can pour socialist/statist/religious/fascist garbage into a child's mind, there is a good chance he will never be able to free himself. This is why every dictator, mullah and president wants to control the educational system. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Feb 25 23:17:20 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 18:17:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government [and other kinds of] corruption In-Reply-To: References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090225112038.02567470@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902251517m515bf963x44f5ac7ffa1eee8c@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 3:02 PM, BillK wrote: > If Obama tries to limit their salary ceiling, they will steal money in > other ways, avoiding calling the payments 'salary'. ### Obama is their man, just as every asshole in his place before. ------------------------------ > Just pouring more and more money into the banking black hole of the > bankrupt banks achieves nothing, except extending the depression by > years. It will have to be cleaned up eventually. The country (US and > UK) will just be billions worse off by postponing the evil day. > ### Amazingly, we agree here. But I don't keep my fingers crossed that the Lightworker will step in and help. Rafal From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Feb 25 23:36:28 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:36:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902251503r75ec11cftbf577b4438186c5b@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902251503r75ec11cftbf577b4438186c5b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49A5D5FC.4010105@libero.it> Il 26/02/2009 0.03, Rafal Smigrodzki ha scritto: > On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 3:00 PM, BillK wrote: ----------------- >> Rafal admitted yesterday that the centuries of human evolution as a >> social, combative species makes humanity unsuited for the anti-social >> 'loner' types of system supported by Rafal and Mirco. > ### When I say that non-violence and pluralism are not easy for most > humans to embrace, you say it makes me "anti-social"! What the fuck? It is because he can not call you "anti-[national]socialist" and keep the facade up. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 26 00:19:45 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 01:19:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <0015174989f6ce5c6704635ddaac@google.com> <49A57529.8060705@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A5E021.6000903@libero.it> Il 25/02/2009 18.03, Dagon Gmail ha scritto: > Mirco I know you are incapable of giving a damn, but I need to share > I completely loathe you, not because I am left, or any of us is right, > but mostly because I cannot see you as anything but completely wrong. > On that note I ban you from my universe. You are dead to me. May > all your victories taste like ashes, may all your works turn to sand, > may you live long in total helplesness and incapacity, dependent on > the goodwill of the few. I love you too. Mirco p.s. You continue to reply to me personally, I suppose you have some wrong setting in your mail reader. From neptune at superlink.net Thu Feb 26 01:10:12 2009 From: neptune at superlink.net (Techno) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:10:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kindle 2 References: <200902240457.n1O4vf9p025281@andromeda.ziaspace.com><16B941E2A31E4B909C413C266DC22268@spike><710b78fc0902232215we2169d7m8c607294865a7ed6@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090224003511.0245fe48@satx.rr.com><47AC27ED249342F59A4F6950A15B4E22@technotr9881e5> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224173652.02518bc8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Tuesday, February 24, 2009 6:38 PM Damien Broderick thespike at satx.rr.com wrote: > At 04:23 AM 2/24/2009 -0500, Dan wrote: >>by the way, I've used both the Kindle and the Kindle 2. :) > > What's the text-to-voice like? Does it sound like S. Hawking or a Dalek? Neither. It's actually not so bad. Of course, I still prefer audiobooks over this text-to-speech mode -- and the device does support Audible.com's formats. Regards, Dan From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 26 01:13:01 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:13:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism In-Reply-To: <20090225034820.ED39B10D9@dnserns.isac.gov.in> References: <20090225034820.ED39B10D9@dnserns.isac.gov.in> Message-ID: <49A5EC9D.3000901@libero.it> Il 25/02/2009 4.58, G P SINGH ha scritto: > I want to assert it in light of transhumanism. The measurement of > corruption is theoretically not possible by statistics because it is a > crime. And crime is by definition secret. Not exactly. Only a perfect crime is secret and there is no secret crime. > So corruption is not measurable. Not directly. Not easily. > In this context role of transhumanist philosophy would be > twofold (you can suggest three or four or ....) > 1. How can we measure corruption by means of science and technology ? > 2. How can we reduce so called corruption by means of S&T? This is a very complex question. For one, we need to understand that corruption (when a private offer a benefit to obtain something he has no right to have or the public official offer to do something it is against his duty) are difficult to monitor because people try to hide them and the victims are not the corrupter or the corrupter but a third party. > Answering to second question brings me to rafal, can there be a genetic > cause of corruption ? If yes then genetic therapy can solve this > problem. Or can we find innovative use of punishment for example > assigning a social anti-corruption rank to each node in social network. > And then reward the least corrupt node. Here i am using the existing > hierarchy conscious approach of cultures to reduce corruption. Corruption can be defined as obtaining a benefit from a public official that is against his/her duty in exchange of some utilities. Utilities is not only money, but also help in some other matters. What could help to reduce / prevent corruption? Surely a way to reduce corruption is to reduce the power the public officials have. If they have no power or not enough power it will reduce the instances where other people will try to corrupt them or they will try to sell themselves. From another point of view, with less power, the public officials will not have the power to get away with their crime when discovered with ease. When power reduction is not wanted or possible, true transparency is needed. For example, public officials could be required to wear tamper proof recorders of what they say, hear and see, all the time, and the records would be publicly available for all to see. And when I say all the time, I intend 24h/7d, not a second lost, no privacy, no intimacy. Another way to reduce corruption is to let recording equipment become so small and unobtrusive that people can wear it all the time and record continually. It would make dangerous to propose a bribe, or accept one, if whatever you say or do can be recorded against your will. Another way to reduce corruption is to select people so the most corruptible are selected against. This is how, in many cases, not all, work the Catholics Church. Priests must accept early votes of celibacy (no spouse, no sons or daughters) so they have no reasons to accumulate wealth for their offspring nor they can leave wealth to illicit offsprings. The prospect to become rich and powerful are very, very small. So, many people are deterred to become priests or monks. Then from these it is possible to start a selection and give them more power. Eunuchs in China and in other places (India, Turkey) were used in the same way. Without children and the ability to reproduce, they were less prone to betray their duties). The problem in genetically selecting people that is incorruptible is that they need a very strong determination to respect rules they could think are wrong or stupid and to be impervious to personal gains (even indirect ones) or the damage they could do following them. What happen when incorruptible people are leaded by someone with an agenda, like Hitler or Mother Theresa? You would need people with a lower degree of empathy, lower degree of selfishness, higher motivation to follow rules imposed from an higher authority even if the motives or consequences of the rules are unknown or disliked. I would say that they would be perfect SS soldiers so it would be very dangerous to select for these traits only without understanding how they will behave in real life and hand them real power. Mirco From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 04:31:20 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:31:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] H+ & religion call for papers In-Reply-To: <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABABDE@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> References: <200902240504.n1O544Li002508@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <1fa8c3b90902232325i78e25934g8bcc06b8751fed26@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224015153.024323f8@satx.rr.com> <8B64F13AC76B24408CDE98820A058C8C11D5ABABDE@ecumb2.intra.ecu.edu> Message-ID: <62c14240902252031h1d4a3badj1fa9bcf4a6f99c47@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Feb 24, 2009 at 6:06 PM, Mercer, Calvin wrote: > Damien has me think that the way we worded the call does imply that H+ > functions in certain ways like religion. I'll have a discussion with the > steering committee about cleaning up some of that language so that it is > more reflective of what I think is the committee's intention, or certainly > my intention, which does not presume this. > Is there a primitive usefulness of the principles underlying "religion"? Have we (humans) outgrown that primitive usefulness? I hear the H+ anti-religion message and wonder what is left for the majority if/when their neurochemical dependence on supernatural hope is broken? Does H+ offer a methadone analog for the recently disbelieved, or is it cold turkey and uncaring DIY reality? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 04:45:39 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 23:45:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Posthumanist Games ... Structure of Chess (2D to 3D , 4D , 5D or 'N' Dimension) In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090224230311.022ed4d0@satx.rr.com> References: <20090225034816.7D6CD10CA@dnserns.isac.gov.in> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224230311.022ed4d0@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <62c14240902252045y653e9275y3375c32b15bbb390@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 12:06 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > > Hard to manage on a tesseract, but Rudy Rucker wrote some nice 4D hypercube > programs that might be adaptable by the terminally reckless. > > Did you mean to do that, or does such wordplay come naturally unbidden? "programs that might be adaptable by the terminally reckless." - indeed :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 04:49:21 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:49:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" Message-ID: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> I had been looking forward to watching this film that highlights fandom, but the reviews have been very mixed. Roger Ebert, the 800 pound gorilla of American film critics, seemed to have a real axe to grind against this sometimes maligned subculture. John : ( http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090204/REVIEWS/902049987 Fanboys The fandom menace: People, get a life! Release Date: 2009 Ebert Rating: *? / / / Feb 4, 2009 by Roger Ebert A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad-lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to. But enough about my opinions; what about "Fanboys"? Its primary flaw is that it's not critical. It is a celebration of an idiotic lifestyle, and I don't think it knows it. If you want to get in a car and drive to California, fine. So do I. So did Jack Kerouac. But if your first stop involves a rumble at a "Star Trek" convention in Iowa, dude, beam your ass down to Route 66. The movie, set in 1999, involves four "Star Wars" fanatics and, eventually, their gal pal, who have the notion of driving to Marin County, breaking into the Skywalker Ranch, and stealing a copy of a print of "Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace" so they can see it before anyone else. This is about as plausible as breaking into the U.S. Mint and stealing some money so you can spend it before anyone else. "Fanboys" follows in the footsteps of "Sex Drive" by allowing one of its heroes to plan a rendezvous with an Internet sex goddess. To avoid revealing any plot secrets in this film, I will recycle my earlier warning: In a chat room, don't be too hasty to believe Ms. Tasty. This plot is given gravitas because one of the friends, Linus (Christopher Marquette), is dying of cancer. His buddy Eric (Sam Huntington) is in favor of the trip because, I dunno, it will give Linus something to live for, I guess. The other fanboys are Hutch (Dan Fogler), who lives in his mother's garage coach house, and Windows (Jay Baruchel), who changed his name from MacOS. Just kidding. Windows, Hutch and Linus work in a comic bookstore, where their favorite customer is Zoe (Kristen Bell). She's sexy and a "Star Wars" fan. How cool is that? She's almost better than the date who turns into a pizza and a six-pack when the deed is done. The question of Linus' cancer became the subject of a celebrated Internet flame war last summer, with supporters of "Fanboys" director Kyle Newman running Anti-Harvey Web sites opposing Harvey Weinstein's alleged scheme to cut the subplot out of the movie. The subplot survived, but it's one of those movie diseases that is mentioned occasionally so everyone can look solemn and then dropped when the ailing Linus dons a matching black camouflage outfit and scales the Skywalker Ranch walls with a grappling hook. "Fanboys" is an amiable but disjointed movie that identifies too closely with its heroes. Poking a little more fun at them would have been a great idea. They are tragically hurtling into a cultural dead end, mastering knowledge which has no purpose other than being mastered, and too smart to be wasting their time. When a movie's opening day finally comes, and fanboys leave their sidewalk tents for a mad dash into the theater, I wonder who retrieves their tents, sleeping bags, portable heaters and iPod speakers. Warning: Mom isn't always going to be there to clean up after you. Cast & Credits Eric Sam Huntington Hutch Dan Fogler Windows Jay Baruchel Zoe Kristen Bell Linus Christopher Marquette The Weinstein Company presents a film directed by Kyle Newman. Written by Ernest Cline and Adam F. Goldberg. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for pervasive crude and sexual material, language and drug content). From spike66 at att.net Thu Feb 26 05:19:33 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2009 21:19:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Posthumanist Games ... Structure of Chess (2D to 3D , 4D , 5D or 'N' Dimension) In-Reply-To: <62c14240902252045y653e9275y3375c32b15bbb390@mail.gmail.com> References: <20090225034816.7D6CD10CA@dnserns.isac.gov.in><7.0.1.0.2.20090224230311.022ed4d0@satx.rr.com> <62c14240902252045y653e9275y3375c32b15bbb390@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <80804FFC5C6D4CFCB2AD5518ACD1D08B@spike> ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Hard to manage on a tesseract, but Rudy Rucker wrote some nice 4D hypercube programs that might be adaptable by the terminally reckless... Damien "programs that might be adaptable by the terminally reckless." - indeed :) Mike this man is one of a very envied few who manage to make a good living selling his words. It should come as no surprise that he is damn good at it. {8^D What I wondered is how many here are too young to know that a monitor was once referred to as a "computer terminal." When some of us learned how to program, so tragically many years ago, the actual computer was in another building, often in another city. The information was sent thru telephone lines and ended up at a cathode ray tube which was the end of the line, hence the name terminal. Is it not astounding and thrilling to note how much development we have seen? spike From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 11:11:56 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:11:56 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/26 painlord2k at libero.it : > http://socglory.blogspot.com/2009/02/australia-public-hospital-meltdown.html > AUSTRALIA: THE PUBLIC HOSPITAL MELTDOWN CONTINUES > >> CLERKS with no medical training were allegedly made to bandage >> wounds and assess patients at Bundaberg Hospital's emergency >> department. The clerks were also asked to perform other nursing >> duties such as putting ice on patients suffering strains, the Crime >> and Misconduct Commission has been told. > >> A baby at a Queensland hospital was assaulted by a doctor who lost >> his temper when the child wouldn't stop wriggling, and an elderly >> patient was left to die in a hallway after being denied proper >> treatment, according to allegations made to the Crime and Misconduct >> Commission. Three hospital staff have sought whistleblower protection >> after detailing allegations of gross medical neglect and >> incompetence, overcrowding, bullying, intimidation and cover-ups at >> the Bundaberg Hospital. >> >> A highly qualified nurse who spoke to The Courier-Mail told how she >> was repeatedly made to falsify records to hide lengthy waiting times >> in the emergency department. She said triage cases were improperly >> and dangerously downgraded because of understaffing. She said a >> troubled teenager who waited five hours without seeing a doctor ran >> away and slashed her wrists. And a doctor said he was too busy to see >> a boy who had been stabbed in the leg in a suspected child abuse >> case. The cases are among 100 serious and minor procedural errors on >> the hospital's prime reporting database. Yes, the case of this particular hospital is well-known in Australia. There are problems in isolated rural areas of Australia attracting medical and nursing staff, either private or public, and more of the burden falls on the public system since that at least the government has some control over: they recruit staff from overseas to fill vacancies. I have worked extensively in the public hospital system in Melbourne for the best part of two decades and although I at work I whine about the way things are run (overworked, underpaid, understaffed, forced to document everything in excruciating detail in for purposes of accountability and in case the hospital is sued) I can honestly say that I have never been exposed to a part of the system which would make me hesitant about being a patient there myself. Many of my colleagues either don't have private health insurance or, like me, only have the cheapest (almost useless) private health insurance for the tax benefits, expecting to go into a public hospital if they really needed to. The private hospitals tend to be smaller and concentrate on simpler higher margin procedures on relatively well people: if someone is very sick, has a condition which requires highly specialised care, or if it looks like they will have a long admission which their insurance won't cover, they put them in an ambulance and send them to the nearest public hospital. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 11:44:30 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:44:30 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: <49A56584.8040107@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <0C860C687E7B49A6B984DED25691A120@spike> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <49A56584.8040107@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/26 painlord2k at libero.it : > Il 23/02/2009 5.26, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > >> Yes, but the point is corporations aim to maximise profits and bring >> about beneficial effects only incidentally, > > I can depend on people doing something selfish. This is how people act in > the 99% of their time. They don't need to force themselves to act selfishly. > This imply that the secondary beneficial effects are available 99% of the > time. They gain directly any time they do their selfish acts (like selling > me food) and I gain indirectly any time they do it. In general, yes. It is possible for both parties to be satisfied even though both parties act selfishly. > I can not depend on people doing something selfless, not for the majority of > their time, not for nothing. And I can suspect that the main goals of the > people serving in the governments is not less selfish than the goals serving > in corporations (usually is have a job, earn enough to have a family, etc.). A communally funded enterprise is there for the benefit of its members. This is how people feel about a public hospital, for example: it's ours, we paid for it, and it had better give us good value for money and good service. >> while government and other >> non-profit organisations have the beneficial effect as their primary >> aim and incidentally may fail due to corruption or inefficiency. > > The reality is that corruption (from the tiniest things to the biggest one) > is an always present threat, because people is wired to do what is best for > them and not for others. Do you think government's employees are always > motivated to do the best for the taxpayers? Or for their bosses? Or for > themselves? > > How is a government's employee different from a corporation's employee? > How is the government's bosses are different from a corporation's boss? Employees and management are always trying to do the best for themselves, whether in public or private. The difference between the two is that the ultimate directive from the shareholders of a corporation is to make as much money as possible, while the ultimate directive from the voters is to provide as good a service as possible for as little outlay as possible. Simplistically, the public service should be better and more efficient. In practice, the question is whether the essential laziness and selfishness of employees and management can be better tamed in the private enterprise than the public one. Sometimes the answer is "yes", and sometimes the answer is "no". It depends on the particular service and government we are talking about. >> the final analysis, we should have the system that does the most good, >> not the system that best fits a favoured ideology. > > The problem is that you suppose that the system that can do the most good is > the system that _declare_ to have it as its first aim and not the system > that have is as a secondary effect. > > The statists / socialists / liberals have this insane interests in the > "declared" goals and totally disregard the "demonstrated" goals, in the > "declared" effects and not in the "demonstrated" effects. No, I have stated repeatedly that I am a pragmatist in these matters. The best system is the system that works the best. >> That was the >> problem with communism: they refused to change even when it became >> obvious that the population was unhappy and the economy was falling >> further and further behind. > > This is because the government / the party know better than private people > what is good, what is the right way to do things. > You are for freedom or for socialism, there is not in-between; there is only > socialists with weak stomach that are unable / unwilling to do what they > believe, but will not stop someone doing it for them. > >> I can see the same thing happening with a >> radical pro-free market regime holding on to ideology regardless of >> the effect it has on the people or the economy. > > Radical pro free-markets will never ever contest your freedom to freely > associate with others and live in a communist / socialist / fascist / > islamic way if violence is banned. But this is what the free marketeers have done in many countries with right wing dictatorships. Their argument goes, people can't be trusted with democracy because they band together into unions or vote for socialist policies, perverting the workings of the free market. So the only way to ensure continuing economic freedom is to do away with political freedom. -- Stathis Papaioannou From seculartranshumanist at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 13:34:42 2009 From: seculartranshumanist at gmail.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:34:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] New Book on Biotech Apparently Slams Transhumanism Message-ID: <918a899d0902260534x63dd16b5tff38e4815bea9e4d@mail.gmail.com> I ran across this review today of "Aging, Biotechnology, and the Future": http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=4722&cn=135 Specifically, this passage caught my eye: "In addition, other chapters (notably 3 and 4) seek to highlight the limitations and flaws of the 'transhumanist' (or 'posthumanist') movement, and to distinguish legitimate antiaging and medical concerns from the more outlandish (and possibly dubious) visions of genetic 'futurists'. Thus, having criticised such perspectives, George J. Annas concludes that "We can, in short, pursue regenerative medicine without simultaneously pursuing replicative medicine, seeking immortality, or producing the Posthuman. (p.34, 'Immortality through Cloning?')" George Annas isn't a friend of Transhumanist ideas as a rule, of course. Has anyone gotten a copy of this yet? A rebuttal might be in order. Joseph From sparge at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 14:14:30 2009 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:14:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Yeah, fanboys should get real lives. Like being professional movie watchers. -Dave From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 14:34:00 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:34:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: undercover at Walmart In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60902260632o4144fed6ke503fa5ca53e2ef6@mail.gmail.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090208224408.023d9008@satx.rr.com> <7641ddc60902221020l38e94e2ek7a3c9874e8d0652a@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902231054l31c7af9emfd24f2804707982@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902241521l74cc392ciaf7f2a9b4f47b5fc@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902251152j6cd94cf9pa5802f453eab354b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902260632o4144fed6ke503fa5ca53e2ef6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902260634q34100ac9wd60fe31ec7253bc0@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 5:35 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/2/26 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Jeesus H Christ. An American dollar is *not* an IOU. It is not a >> promissory note, it is not backed by any physical object. The holder >> of an American dollar does not have a legal claim to anything except >> the dollar itself. It is only legal tender which must be accepted by >> vendors inside the US. Accumulation of legal tender outside of this >> country does not represent accumulation of debt. > > Dollars are not legally backed by real assets but people only want > them because they believe they can exchange them for real assets. They > function like an IOU with a variable exchange rate between face value > and real assets, the exchange rate being set by market mechanisms. ### No, they don't. An IOU is a legal document specifying a claim against property. Fiat currency does not, and I repeat, does not provide a claim against property. -------------------------------- > Foreigners who accumulate dollars as a result of a trade imbalance > will use them to buy US assets or interest-bearing debt, public or > private. ### In other words, they will make US interest rates lower, making it easier to invest in new technologies and more growth. Of course, if the debt is squandered rather than used wisely (a foregone conclusion in the case of public debt), it can cause mild difficulties in the future, but this possibility is independent of where the debt-holders live, in Florida or in China. ------------------------------------ ?So if there is a sustained trade imbalance, foreigners will > come to own an increasingly large proportion of US assets and US debt. > That's perhaps OK if you're not xenophobic, ### Indeed, Bayesian libertarians have difficulty being xenophobic. ------------------------------- ?but probably long before > the foreigners own everything they will start to become nervous about > the value of dollars they hold and start demanding more of them for > the goods provided in trade, i.e. the dollar will be devalued. ### Yeah, so what? Devalued dollar means easier exports from and dearer imports to America, automatically correcting the "imbalance". Stat, you are a smart guy but you are suffering from the anti-market bias (and perhaps a mild form of the anti-foreign bias, see "Myth of the rational voter"). This is a very common affliction, only treatable by a conscious effort of will. Whenever you feel a market mechanism doesn't work, think again, and there is a good chance that once the initial emotional reaction subsides, you will be able to find that the mechanism either works in the larger context, or else, nothing would work in the given case anyway. -------------------- ?The > other route to devaluation is what the US government is trying to do > now, and which can't be done with normal IOU's or commodity-backed > currency: inflate away the debt by printing more dollars. ### Either way, problem solved. ---------------- ?The > possibility that this might happen worries foreigners with dollars who > then put pressure on the US government to protect their investment. ### Like "stop this bullshit, institute some market reforms"? Wish they would. Rafal From pjmanney at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 15:17:00 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 07:17:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Mermaid dream comes true thanks to Weta Message-ID: <29666bf30902260717u5c0453bdvb6fac1c8e72c47b7@mail.gmail.com> And who said movie magic stayed up on the screen? [Weta is a special effects house run by Richard Taylor (with partners Peter Jackson and Jamie Selkirk). Full disclosure: Richard was a former business partner of mine.] PJ http://www.stuff.co.nz/4858855a11.html By MATT CALMAN - The Dominion Post | Wednesday, 25 February 2009 Mermaid dream comes true thanks to Weta Nadya Vessey lost her legs as a child but now she swims like a mermaid. Ms Vessey's mermaid tail was created by Wellington-based film industry wizards Weta Workshop after the Auckland woman wrote to them two years ago asking if they could make her a prosthetic tail. She was astounded when they agreed. She lost both legs below the knee from a medical condition when she was a child and told Close Up last night her long-held dream had come true. "A prosthetic is a prosthetic, and your body has to be comfortable with it and you have to mentally make it part of yourself," she said. Ms Vessey told a little boy: "I'm a little mermaid" when he asked what happened to her legs and the idea stuck. Weta Workshop director Richard Taylor, more used to winning Oscars for visual effects from movies such as Lord of the Rings, was delighted to make it happen. "She was very patient. We haven't always been able to fulfil some requests. We were engaged in it pretty quickly because it was a challenge." Weta costumer Lee Williams, who worked on the suit between film projects with seven other staff, told Close Up she "wanted [Nadya] to be beautiful and sexy". After seeing Ms Vessey test the tail in Kilbirnie pool then frolic in the harbour, Ms Williams was stoked. "It was absolutely amazing. It's beautiful to watch Nadya swim and to see that dream come true and to be a part of that. I feel quite blessed." The suit was made mostly of wetsuit fabric and plastic moulds, and was covered in a digitally printed sock. Mermaid-like scales were painted by hand. Mr Taylor said not only did the tail have to be functional, it was important it looked realistic. "What became apparent was that she actually physically wanted to look like a mermaid." From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Feb 26 16:14:20 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 17:14:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> Il 26/02/2009 12.11, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/26 painlord2k at libero.it: > Yes, the case of this particular hospital is well-known in Australia. It is obviously a public hospital, and it continue to be open and working. The administrators tell how difficult is to find qualified workers and how hard is their job. This reinforce my point; a private hospital could never do the same thing and continue do be open. Or they could do the same things at much lower costs. I'm sure that, when the hospital is sued and lose, the money used to pay the damages is taken from the budget of the hospital and not from the salaries of the management. So taxpayers pay for the errors of the management. > There are problems in isolated rural areas of Australia attracting > medical and nursing staff, either private or public, and more of the > burden falls on the public system since that at least the government > has some control over: they recruit staff from overseas to fill > vacancies. I have this idea about the fact that health professionals are not paid enough. > I have worked extensively in the public hospital system in > Melbourne for the best part of two decades and although I at work I > whine about the way things are run (overworked, underpaid, > understaffed, forced to document everything in excruciating detail in > for purposes of accountability and in case the hospital is sued) I can > honestly say that I have never been exposed to a part of the system > which would make me hesitant about being a patient there myself. Would you put yourself in the hand of this particular hospital in the news? The problem is not the best, but the minimum standard. > Many > of my colleagues either don't have private health insurance or, like > me, only have the cheapest (almost useless) private health insurance > for the tax benefits, expecting to go into a public hospital if they > really needed to. You and them have, probably, no other choice. You have not enough money left, after paying for the compulsive health system. > The private hospitals tend to be smaller and > concentrate on simpler higher margin procedures on relatively well > people: if someone is very sick, has a condition which requires highly > specialised care, or if it looks like they will have a long admission > which their insurance won't cover, they put them in an ambulance and > send them to the nearest public hospital. The existence of a public health system make impossible for a private health system to expand and cover also the most costly procedures. The system is good only for the poor that are unable to pay for healthcare (they receive more than they pay), but as the system tax the middle class (the rich are too few to pay a significant part of it and have way to avoid to pay) it leave the same middle class without the money to pay for a complete private coverage. Then the private have to compete with a "free" service. It is "free" only because the people have already paid for it (forcefully), so they can choose to accept the public service or pay again for a private service. Obviously, apart for the richer, the middle class have not the money for pay again. The private must offer a service that must be so much better than the public one to justify to repay the service completely and it much be enough cheap that middle class are able to pay for it with their disposable income and this expenditure must can first than other expenditures for other want and needs. It is incredible that the private can compete for anything. And they are able to compete only because the government is doing a shitty job. The public health system work like a insurer, in the implicit assumption that not all people will be sick or in need in the same time and the majority will not consume as much as it pay. That the public is unable to satisfy the simpler and most common needs of the people it is a admission that it is inefficient and bloated. Mirco From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Feb 26 16:03:04 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:03:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Stand-Up for Human Rights - Vita-More in Poland Message-ID: STAND-UP is the collaborative effort of One World Association and Poznan Academy of Fine Arts which focuses on human rights issue by using film, narrative, interactive media, and digital arts as a medium. This project responds to the growing needs for acceptance and respect to diversity, dialog and social reflection. http://hrart.wordpress.com/ http://hrart.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/natasha-vita-more-us-%E2%80%9Cmorpholo gical-freedom%E2%80%9D-4-photographs-2008-wwwnatashacc/#comments 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 sparkle_robot at yahoo.com Thu Feb 26 16:28:14 2009 From: sparkle_robot at yahoo.com (Anne Corwin) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:28:14 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <644889.53021.qm@web56502.mail.re3.yahoo.com> John Grigg wrote: > I had been looking forward to watching this film that > highlights > fandom, but the reviews have been very mixed. Roger Ebert, > the 800 > pound gorilla of American film critics, seemed to have a > real axe to > grind against this sometimes maligned subculture. > > John : ( Gah, wow, you're right about the axe-grinding. I can see moving toward the snark side when it comes to people who go around insisting that they are REALLY the "quantum reincarnation" of some anime character, but I've been puzzled my whole life as to why the mere fact of being a nerdy fanperson is looked down upon so much. I agree that breaking into Skywalker Ranch and feeling like you have to be the FIRST person to see "The Phantom Menace" is pretty silly, but Ebert seems to be going beyond pointing that out and getting annoyed at the movie for not criticizing fandom in general (even in the much milder incarnations which comprise the vast majority). I spent a significant portion of my childhood memorizing Star Wars trivia. This was fun. I still have a collection of Star Wars toys. I play video games, including Star Wars ones. None of this has prevented me from properly learning geometry or physics or becoming an electrical engineer or being nice to kittens. Furthermore, I've never gotten why some fandoms get free reign while others don't. I blogged about this a bit here: www.existenceiswonderful.com/2008/08/playground-anthropology-101.html Apparently it was OK to like "boy bands" such as "New Kids on the Block" with great fervor. But not Star Wars. I am still WTFing about this to this day. (Mind you, I don't spend a lot of time dwelling on this, but when it comes up I am happy to stand up and wave my nerdflag. :)) - Anne "Like and equal are not the same thing at all!" - Meg Murry, "A Wrinkle In Time" From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 19:04:21 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:04:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] _Avatar_ camera technology Message-ID: <2d6187670902261104q5eee3ecej5a5ef800f5ce6acd@mail.gmail.com> Besides the already talked about super next gen photo-realistic CGI that Cameron has been hyping, the revolutionary camera technology employed for Avatar uses an astonishing 197 cameras simultaneously, so that close-ups, medium shots and wide shots are constantly being done and in editing it's decided how to use them. It's easy to see that Cameron's educational background is in engineering. lol John http://www.scificool.com/more-crazy-filmmaking-stuff-from-camerons-avatar/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mlatorra at gmail.com Thu Feb 26 23:34:59 2009 From: mlatorra at gmail.com (Michael LaTorra) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 16:34:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <9ff585550902261534s4856d6bfxaceac5235cd51da8@mail.gmail.com> I suspect that Ebert's real problem here (aside from the possibility that this film, which I have not yet seen, is just no damn good) is the fact that he himself WAS a major science fiction fan. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert which says: *As a teenager, Ebert was involved in **science fiction fandom* *,[8] writing articles for **fanzines* *, including **Richard A. Lupoff* *'s ** Xero* *.* As for myself, I'm a totally unrepentant, middle-aged fan of science fiction and I don't care who knows it. My kids laugh, my wife rolls her eyes, but "Here I stand; I can do no other" (with appropriate apologies to Martin Luther for stealing his immortal line). Regards, Mike LaTorra On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 9:49 PM, John Grigg wrote: > I had been looking forward to watching this film that highlights > fandom, but the reviews have been very mixed. Roger Ebert, the 800 > pound gorilla of American film critics, seemed to have a real axe to > grind against this sometimes maligned subculture. > > John : ( > > > http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090204/REVIEWS/902049987 > > Fanboys > The fandom menace: > People, get a life! > > Release Date: 2009 > > Ebert Rating: *? > > / / / Feb 4, 2009 > > by Roger Ebert > > A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about > them. They have mastered the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" universes or > whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a > backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on > the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is > more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. > > Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, > who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If > you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what > to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad-lib it. > Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the > trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having > to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly > boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions > they know the answer to. > > But enough about my opinions; what about "Fanboys"? Its primary flaw > is that it's not critical. It is a celebration of an idiotic > lifestyle, and I don't think it knows it. If you want to get in a car > and drive to California, fine. So do I. So did Jack Kerouac. But if > your first stop involves a rumble at a "Star Trek" convention in Iowa, > dude, beam your ass down to Route 66. > > The movie, set in 1999, involves four "Star Wars" fanatics and, > eventually, their gal pal, who have the notion of driving to Marin > County, breaking into the Skywalker Ranch, and stealing a copy of a > print of "Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace" so they can see > it before anyone else. This is about as plausible as breaking into the > U.S. Mint and stealing some money so you can spend it before anyone > else. > > "Fanboys" follows in the footsteps of "Sex Drive" by allowing one of > its heroes to plan a rendezvous with an Internet sex goddess. To avoid > revealing any plot secrets in this film, I will recycle my earlier > warning: In a chat room, don't be too hasty to believe Ms. Tasty. > > This plot is given gravitas because one of the friends, Linus > (Christopher Marquette), is dying of cancer. His buddy Eric (Sam > Huntington) is in favor of the trip because, I dunno, it will give > Linus something to live for, I guess. The other fanboys are Hutch (Dan > Fogler), who lives in his mother's garage coach house, and Windows > (Jay Baruchel), who changed his name from MacOS. Just kidding. > Windows, Hutch and Linus work in a comic bookstore, where their > favorite customer is Zoe (Kristen Bell). She's sexy and a "Star Wars" > fan. How cool is that? She's almost better than the date who turns > into a pizza and a six-pack when the deed is done. > > The question of Linus' cancer became the subject of a celebrated > Internet flame war last summer, with supporters of "Fanboys" director > Kyle Newman running Anti-Harvey Web sites opposing Harvey Weinstein's > alleged scheme to cut the subplot out of the movie. The subplot > survived, but it's one of those movie diseases that is mentioned > occasionally so everyone can look solemn and then dropped when the > ailing Linus dons a matching black camouflage outfit and scales the > Skywalker Ranch walls with a grappling hook. > > "Fanboys" is an amiable but disjointed movie that identifies too > closely with its heroes. Poking a little more fun at them would have > been a great idea. They are tragically hurtling into a cultural dead > end, mastering knowledge which has no purpose other than being > mastered, and too smart to be wasting their time. When a movie's > opening day finally comes, and fanboys leave their sidewalk tents for > a mad dash into the theater, I wonder who retrieves their tents, > sleeping bags, portable heaters and iPod speakers. Warning: Mom isn't > always going to be there to clean up after you. > > Cast & Credits > > Eric Sam Huntington > Hutch Dan Fogler > Windows Jay Baruchel > Zoe Kristen Bell > Linus Christopher Marquette > > The Weinstein Company presents a film directed by Kyle Newman. Written > by Ernest Cline and Adam F. Goldberg. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated > PG-13 (for pervasive crude and sexual material, language and drug > content). > _______________________________________________ > wta-talk mailing list > wta-talk at transhumanism.org > http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/wta-talk > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 27 02:06:50 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:06:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49A74ABA.6080608@libero.it> Il 22/02/2009 12.36, BillK ha scritto: > But as a serious point, this is the problem that individualistic > societies (like libertarianism) have to deal with. > What to do with the half of the population that are not go-getters, > human dynamos always striving towards greater and greater efforts? > Just throw them out of your creme-de-la-creme society? If the half of the population is not go-getter, we have a very big problem. Solution 1: the go getter become slaves of the no-go getter. Solution 2: the go getter secede / emigrate as fast as possible Solution 3: the go getter stay, defend themselves and let the no-go getter starve. The no-go getter starve until they become go-getter. Three days without food and people start become very motivated. Solution 4: the go getter put the no-go getter in asylum and other places used to keep people unable to feed themselves. They keep them well feed, loved and entertained, but divided by sex, so they don't reproduce. Solution 5: the go getter let the no-go getter feed on them until they are all dead, then the no-go getter die off having no one able to feed them. Some other solutions? Mirco From pjmanney at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 02:21:14 2009 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:21:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" In-Reply-To: <9ff585550902261534s4856d6bfxaceac5235cd51da8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> <9ff585550902261534s4856d6bfxaceac5235cd51da8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <29666bf30902261821qdb02b85r3492b364c056ff9b@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 3:34 PM, Michael LaTorra wrote: > I suspect that Ebert's real problem here (aside from the possibility that > this film, which I have not yet seen, is just no damn good) http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/fanboys/ PJ From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 27 02:21:30 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:21:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] check this, milton friedman 30 years ago sees the future Message-ID: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> Talk about foretelling the future... This will take less than 3 minutes, but should make us all stop and think. http://www.nmatv.com/video/1115/Milton-Friedman-and-Phil-Donahue--1979 From seculartranshumanist at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 02:36:20 2009 From: seculartranshumanist at gmail.com (Joseph Bloch) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:36:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <918a899d0902261836l734907d8vdc49bf0a6f3462d5@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Feb 22, 2009 at 6:36 AM, BillK wrote: > CANBERRA, Australia: - The new Labor Government is not wasting any > time with its Industrial Relations Policy. Already, it is considering > sweeping legislation which will provide new benefits for over ? of a > million Australians. The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) is > being hailed as a major legislative goal by advocates of the millions > of Australians who lack any real skills or ambition. > > Good lord, don't let Obama see this. He'll be signing it into law in a week. ;-) Joseph -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 04:28:52 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:58:52 +1030 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: <49A74ABA.6080608@libero.it> References: <49A74ABA.6080608@libero.it> Message-ID: <710b78fc0902262028s55badd0at3d8c34cca6c77bef@mail.gmail.com> 2009/2/27 painlord2k at libero.it : > Il 22/02/2009 12.36, BillK ha scritto: > >> But as a serious point, this is the problem that individualistic >> societies (like libertarianism) have to deal with. >> What to do with the half of the population that are not go-getters, >> human dynamos always striving towards greater and greater efforts? >> Just throw them out of your creme-de-la-creme society? > > If the half of the population is not go-getter, we have a very big problem. > Solution 1: the go getter become slaves of the no-go getter. > Solution 2: the go getter secede / emigrate as fast as possible > Solution 3: the go getter stay, defend themselves and let the no-go getter > starve. The no-go getter starve until they become go-getter. Three days > without food and people start become very motivated. > Solution 4: the go getter put the no-go getter in asylum and other places > used to keep people unable to feed themselves. They keep them well feed, > loved and entertained, but divided by sex, so they don't reproduce. > Solution 5: the go getter let the no-go getter feed on them until they are > all dead, then the no-go getter die off having no one able to feed them. > > Some other solutions? > > Mirco 6. We acknowledge that the states of go-getter and no-getter are transient, and that everyone spends some time in each camp; thus, severe sanctions of no-getterness will punish everyone eventually. Also, consider that deciding who is useful and who is not can be quite subjective. eg: Think of how bankers are judged now vs, say, three years ago. In the general case, it is very unsafe to assume that arbitrary others would consider your contribution positive. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 06:21:52 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:21:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] check this, milton friedman 30 years ago sees the future In-Reply-To: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> References: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> Message-ID: http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=milton+friedman+naomi&emb=0&aq=f# -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Fri Feb 27 06:19:34 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 22:19:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] check this, milton friedman 30 years ago sees the future In-Reply-To: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> References: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> Message-ID: <1235715574.6793.447.camel@hayek> On Thu, 2009-02-26 at 18:21 -0800, spike wrote: > Talk about foretelling the future... > This will take less than 3 minutes, but should make us all stop and > think. > > http://www.nmatv.com/video/1115/Milton-Friedman-and-Phil-Donahue--1979 Well it is an interesting piece however I can think of possibly one place to quibble. Friedman said "The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus" and this might be a bit ambiguous since it depends on what counts as a great achievement. If you think that the work that Walter Reed did in demonstrating the accuracy of the suggestion made years previously by Dr. Carlos Finlay about insect transmission of yellow fever by testing mosquito exposure in Cuba was a great achievement and since Dr. Reed was working for the U.S. Army then it was a great achievement from a government bureau. Of course some people might not think that Reed's work counts as a great achievement. I am still not sure how I classify it. Which is why is it generally a good idea to include weasel words such as "generally" and "typically" and "commonly". Usually this is the case. Fred From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 07:03:09 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:03:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] government corruption, was: RE: Social Mobility and Bioconservatism In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A02F23.7060006@libero.it> <49A097F1.7080801@libero.it> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <49A56584.8040107@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60902262303x21dfbc70xb8ab9a1444077f7e@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 6:44 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > A communally funded enterprise is there for the benefit of its > members. This is how people feel about a public hospital, for example: > it's ours, we paid for it, and it had better give us good value for > money and good service. ### They took your money already, so you have no recourse except to hope that they would spend it well - but if they don't, whatcha gonna do? The problem with communal funding is the lack of correctly weighted fast feedback loops. On one hand they don't have to listen to you (weak feedback - bureaucrats are not appointed by you but by other bureaucrats, so they first of all work to satisfy bureaucrats), on the other hand the input of anybody with political power, like a politician, ngo activist, or other scum, is weighted very high - inappropriately high weighting. Plus almost all the feedbacks work very slowly. This is radically different from an individually funded enterprise, where you can choose a competitor, providing immediate and appropriately weighted feedback, exactly in proportion to your importance. This, and not "greed" vs. "virtue", is the difference between individual and communal activities. It really helps to be able to apply dispassionate analysis, like looking at the workings of an anthill, never letting social emotions interfere. -------------------------- the ultimate > directive from the voters is to provide as good a service as possible > for as little outlay as possible. ### Stat, "The Myth of the Rational Voter" by Bryan Caplan is directly relevant to this remark (it rips it to shreds, in a very detailed and well-researched line of reasoning). Even aside from the poor quality of the voting feedback (very slow, intermittent, aggregating everything into a single signal) compared to individual economic feedback (fast, almost continuous, finely graded and provided in multiple highly directed channels), the voting system is corrupted by biases that can be detected and quantified. This book is smart and useful. ------------------- > > No, I have stated repeatedly that I am a pragmatist in these matters. > The best system is the system that works the best. ### Mhm. ---------------------- > > But this is what the free marketeers have done in many countries with > right wing dictatorships. Their argument goes, people can't be trusted > with democracy because they band together into unions or vote for > socialist policies, perverting the workings of the free market. So the > only way to ensure continuing economic freedom is to do away with > political freedom. ### Just for the record, right wing dictatorships (Pinochet, Franco ... who else qualifies as a right-wing dictator?) killed only an infinitesimally small number of people compared to left wing ones (Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Castro, Chavez .... the list could go on). But your paragraph deserves a whole new thread and a longish analytic response which may get written sometime later. Rafal From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 08:34:23 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 19:34:23 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/27 painlord2k at libero.it : > It is obviously a public hospital, and it continue to be open and working. > The administrators tell how difficult is to find qualified workers and how > hard is their job. > > This reinforce my point; a private hospital could never do the same thing > and continue do be open. Or they could do the same things at much lower > costs. Actually there are many examples of private hospitals and nursing homes which have major problems and try to cover them up, until something terrible happens and there is an investigation. Sometimes they close down, sometimes they sack the offending parties and carry on. It is quite common for nursing homes in particular to be closed down because they don't meet standards on random (government) inspections. Interestingly, this regulation of private operators by the government is demanded by the paying public, who don't derive a lot of comfort from the idea that if their operation is screwed up they can always go somewhere else. As for efficiency, medical care in the US costs about twice as much as in any comparable country, with outcomes such as infant mortality and life expectancy near the bottom of the OECD list. This infuriates supporters of private health care, who advance various arguments to explain what they see as an anomaly, eg. that Americans are less healthy to begin with, or that the problem is that the system is only partially privatised. This is because they believe it is physically or perhaps even logically *necessary* that a private system is better and more efficient than a public one, so that any empirical evidence to the contrary *must* mean that there is something wrong with the empirical evidence or its interpretation. -- Stathis Papaioannou From girindra at isac.gov.in Fri Feb 27 13:13:26 2009 From: girindra at isac.gov.in (G P SINGH) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:43:26 +0530 Subject: [ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20090227130323.4E5EB10BF@dnserns.isac.gov.in> What i strongly believe is that word of corruption is a highly misused word in english vocabulary. The negative connotation arising out of this word blind the rational cognitive system. What i request members to see corruption by going beyond negativism or positivism through prism of rational technoloism or values of transhumanist society. Suppose if we reach to posthumanity level after 1000 years by assuming our life extension through machine preservation or cryonics of our body then will there be corruption that day ? Corruption is basically a problem of valuation and costing. There is a difference in pricing so two people get into consensus mode and then mutually satisfying relationship begin which happens to be illegal. In this context let me take case of president obama what he must be going through daily morning in this RECCESSION ? His thoughts while brushing... "how to get more money ? , what if public money gets abused , what if people starve out of job loss ? What if people get into illegal acts ? , and there will be so many what ifs. So what i mean to say that he is also aware of negative fall out of his administration & corruption but simply he can not do anything to solve problem of corruption. As a technologist and scientist our job is to think out the problem and help government to make the citizens quality of life as best possible through technological values. MIRCO'S point of using recording technology is great but it is intrusive which violate basic human right. Will you accept that if you are administrator of Newyork City ? So there may be other ways of solving it without creating 'creative destruction' of existing working system of values. In such structure of innovation, i was thinking of more efficient systems for valuation of asset. Can machines do evaluation ? For example suppose there is one person of the age of 29 years has got 12 infections of cold then can a machine calculate his life insurance premium by calculating his expected life ? So the corruption is basically problem of creating a machine which can do cognitive evaluation of value ? Am i right ? GP Other personalised constructive comments on MIRCO's answer is between the lines as following. I request to provide feedback. > Message: 17 > Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 02:13:01 +0100 > From: "painlord2k at libero.it" > Subject: Re: [ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism > To: ExI chat list > Message-ID: <49A5EC9D.3000901 at libero.it> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > Il 25/02/2009 4.58, G P SINGH ha scritto: > >> I want to assert it in light of transhumanism. The measurement of >> corruption is theoretically not possible by statistics because it is a >> crime. And crime is by definition secret. > > Not exactly. Only a perfect crime is secret and there is no secret crime. agreed. > >> So corruption is not measurable. > > Not directly. Not easily. agreed. > > > In this context role of transhumanist philosophy would be >> twofold (you can suggest three or four or ....) >> 1. How can we measure corruption by means of science and technology ? >> 2. How can we reduce so called corruption by means of S&T? > > This is a very complex question. > For one, we need to understand that corruption (when a private offer a > benefit to obtain something he has no right to have or the public > official offer to do something it is against his duty) are difficult to > monitor because people try to hide them and the victims are not the > corrupter or the corrupter but a third party. > Is it not repeating the crime is secret question ? What about the idea of corrutpion as valuation problem as above ? >> Answering to second question brings me to rafal, can there be a genetic >> cause of corruption ? If yes then genetic therapy can solve this >> problem. Or can we find innovative use of punishment for example >> assigning a social anti-corruption rank to each node in social network. >> And then reward the least corrupt node. Here i am using the existing >> hierarchy conscious approach of cultures to reduce corruption. > > Corruption can be defined as obtaining a benefit from a public official > that is against his/her duty in exchange of some utilities. > Utilities is not only money, but also help in some other matters. Corruption is a global unifier. Every person, public, private or virtual suffers from it so calling corruption as only through government is insult of grand word like corruption. > > What could help to reduce / prevent corruption? > Surely a way to reduce corruption is to reduce the power the public > officials have. If they have no power or not enough power it will reduce > the instances where other people will try to corrupt them or they will > try to sell themselves. From another point of view, with less power, the > public officials will not have the power to get away with their crime > when discovered with ease. > > When power reduction is not wanted or possible, true transparency is > needed. For example, public officials could be required to wear tamper > proof recorders of what they say, hear and see, all the time, and the > records would be publicly available for all to see. And when I say all > the time, I intend 24h/7d, not a second lost, no privacy, no intimacy. > > Another way to reduce corruption is to let recording equipment become so > small and unobtrusive that people can wear it all the time and record > continually. It would make dangerous to propose a bribe, or accept one, > if whatever you say or do can be recorded against your will. > > Another way to reduce corruption is to select people so the most > corruptible are selected against. > This is how, in many cases, not all, work the Catholics Church. > Priests must accept early votes of celibacy (no spouse, no sons or > daughters) so they have no reasons to accumulate wealth for their > offspring nor they can leave wealth to illicit offsprings. The prospect > to become rich and powerful are very, very small. So, many people are > deterred to become priests or monks. Then from these it is possible to > start a selection and give them more power. > Eunuchs in China and in other places (India, Turkey) were used in the > same way. Without children and the ability to reproduce, they were less > prone to betray their duties). > > The problem in genetically selecting people that is incorruptible is > that they need a very strong determination to respect rules they could > think are wrong or stupid and to be impervious to personal gains (even > indirect ones) or the damage they could do following them. What happen > when incorruptible people are leaded by someone with an agenda, like > Hitler or Mother Theresa? > > You would need people with a lower degree of empathy, lower degree of > selfishness, higher motivation to follow rules imposed from an higher > authority even if the motives or consequences of the rules are unknown > or disliked. I would say that they would be perfect SS soldiers so it > would be very dangerous to select for these traits only without > understanding how they will behave in real life and hand them real power. > > Mirco > You have given three solutions 1. Reduce discretionary authority 2. Use recording technology 3. Select genetically incorruptibles Agreed to all three. First one is obvious operational solution. Second is good one but issue of intrusion into privacy counts substantially. Third one require identification of gene of corruption. And it also divides people into two categories . Corruptibles and Incorruptibles ... What about different degrees of corruption ? GP From girindra at isac.gov.in Fri Feb 27 13:29:10 2009 From: girindra at isac.gov.in (G P SINGH) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 18:59:10 +0530 Subject: [ExI] Financial crisis in USA - Prediction of Creative Pollution Message-ID: <20090227131906.5B02D10C4@dnserns.isac.gov.in> Reccession is fundamental cause of now a days troubles. First there was three "concurrant" crises, food prize crisis, Oil prize crisis and energy crisis. So now is it converged crisis or those crises are just got eclipsed by this financial crisis termed as reccession. Even today it is a mystery that how great depression happened ? And it is also a mystery that how it got over ? So if we want to call ourselves as futurists then we need to find out exact cause and mechanism of reccession... How and Why? Is it because of unscrupulous lending by banks who has some of the best brains of B-Schools ? if yes then what about technologists like us were doing when they were messing up. Did we contributed anything in finding out the faint signs of disaster by observing the readings on wall. If we want to be in the future state then we must have a 'scientific' mechanism to predict the financial earthquake like this. We also should have detection capability to identify the "creative pollution" of few who are creating financial instruments like CDOs etc. Is there anything like prism which seperate vision into its components and we can see the impact. I am not becoming skinnerian here by bringing in deterministic view of future. Just an INDEPENDENT early warning system. Any bricks ? GP From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 27 14:11:09 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 15:11:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> Message-ID: <49A7F47D.1040104@libero.it> Il 27/02/2009 9.34, Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/2/27 painlord2k at libero.it: > >> It is obviously a public hospital, and it continue to be open and >> working. The administrators tell how difficult is to find >> qualified workers and how hard is their job. >> >> This reinforce my point; a private hospital could never do the >> same thing and continue do be open. Or they could do the same >> things at much lower costs. > > Actually there are many examples of private hospitals and nursing > homes which have major problems and try to cover them up, until > something terrible happens and there is an investigation. In this, I can assure, there is no difference from a public hospital. If you screw up, you try to cover it wherever you work. Usually, your life is not threatened by your errors, only by the public discovering your errors. > Sometimes they close down, sometimes they sack the offending parties > and carry on. It is quite common for nursing homes in particular to > be closed down because they don't meet standards on random > (government) inspections. There are other parties involved that have the motives and power to inspect a nursing home, apart from the government? Was any government's Nursing Home or Hospital closed, their employees all dismissed, because they failed to comply with standard regulations? > Interestingly, this regulation of private operators by the > government is demanded by the paying public, who don't derive a lot > of comfort from the idea that if their operation is screwed up they > can always go somewhere else. Again, the "paying public" demand the same regulation only for "private operators" or for "all operators"? The fact that there are only "private operators" or the controllers of the public operators are other public operators disinclined to rock the boat is not prove of anything against the private. I worked in an hospital in the past, so they trained us to fire security (what to do, what don't). To teach us there actual, public official, fire-fighters. When the lesson ended, they tell us clear and plain that would be useless to tell them that the Hospital was not in comply with the security rules. They knew it; they had the hospital clean up the bigger problems, but to fix them all would be impossible and they could not cause a major public hospital to close. > As for efficiency, medical care in the US costs about twice as much > as in any comparable country, with outcomes such as infant mortality > and life expectancy near the bottom of the OECD list. In many countries the infant born and died would not be born, so they would not count on. So, if people abort a child with a severe pathology it don't count as infant mortality, where if they don't and it die after a few weeks it count. Also, the US population is very diverse, so it is to expect to have very diverse life expectancies. People with very different IQ is to be expect to have different life expectancies. EU or Japan were, until a few years ago, very homogeneous. You can not compare one with the other without looking at the differences. > This infuriates supporters of private health care, who advance > various arguments to explain what they see as an anomaly, eg. that > Americans are less healthy to begin with, or that the problem is > that the system is only partially privatised. The fact they could be infuriated don't prove that the explanations are wrong. Usually they are not. Statistics can be read in many ways, usually wrong ways, if you don't understand how they are computed. Like the linking of pirate activity and global warmings. Follow an short article I suppose is interesting for the discussion. http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2009/02/our-incomplete-healthcare-wish.html > Our incomplete healthcare wish > > Healthcare Just a quick observation about the healthcare debate that > will soon heat up in the wake of President Obama's speech to > Congress... > > The politicians getting all the attention are missing three-fourths > of the healthcare issue. (Might that be intentional?) Healthcare is a > four-legged stool, but they're only talking about one of those four > legs: "Health care costs too much; we must make it affordable for all > Americans." > > > Remember six months ago, when almost all of us were wishing for the > price of gasoline to drop? Well, it dropped ? but I haven't seen any > dancing in the streets as a result. Reason: A global depression is > what made it drop. > > Lesson: Let's be careful what we wish for. > > Now we get a do-over regarding what we're wishing for. This time it's > health care. And, based on the lesson we learned the hard way on > gasoline prices, I'd like to submit a "clarification" of our wish > regarding healthcare. Why? Because, as I said, the current mantra is > about cost, cost, cost -- and in my judgment, cost is one-fourth of > the issue. The other three legs of the four-legged healthcare stool > are quality, availability, and innovation. > > So, here's a comparison: First is our current wish, as the > politicians have constrained it. Second is how I'd amend our wish. > > 1. Our healthcare wish, as it stands: "Healthcare should be > affordable for all Americans." > > > 2. How I would amend our healthcare wish: "Healthcare should be: (a) > affordable for all Americans, with... (b) no increase in waiting > lines, and... (c) no decrease in the quality of care, and... (d) no > decrease in the pace of innovation." > > > We got burned on our gasoline wish. Fool me once, shame on you; fool > me twice, shame on me. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 27 15:12:08 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:12:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Australians With No Abilities Act (AWNAA) In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0902262028s55badd0at3d8c34cca6c77bef@mail.gmail.com> References: <49A74ABA.6080608@libero.it> <710b78fc0902262028s55badd0at3d8c34cca6c77bef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <49A802C8.7090602@libero.it> Il 27/02/2009 5.28, Emlyn ha scritto: > 2009/2/27 painlord2k at libero.it: > 6. We acknowledge that the states of go-getter and no-getter are > transient, and that everyone spends some time in each camp; thus, > severe sanctions of no-getterness will punish everyone eventually. This is because I prefer a solution that respect liberty for all. > Also, consider that deciding who is useful and who is not can be quite > subjective. The free market judge the usefulness of people. More you gain, more you are useful. > eg: Think of how bankers are judged now vs, say, three > years ago. In the general case, it is very unsafe to assume that > arbitrary others would consider your contribution positive. I agree on this. Dagon would not consider my contribution positive. This is because I favour a libertarian solution. I keep my stuff, they keep theirs, and no one use the force against other first. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Fri Feb 27 15:09:17 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 07:09:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com><49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it><7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com><49A4489C.2000209@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com><49A5959E.7050703@libero.it><49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> Message-ID: <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > Stathis Papaioannou ... > > As for efficiency, medical care in the US costs about twice > as much as in any comparable country, with outcomes such as > infant mortality and life expectancy near the bottom of the > OECD list... > Stathis Papaioannou I am surprised it is only twice as much. Anything American made is three times as much as anything made in China. Those life expectancy lists should be broken down by cause of death. Most of it likely has little or nothing to do with the quality of medical care. People who are murdered should not be in there, nor those who slay themselves abusing drugs. Neither of these are the medics' fault. Somewhere there probably exists data on this. Then too, we should eventually recognize the fact that different human genotypes have inherently different life spans. Polynesians for instance, seldom live into their 80s. Shorter lived genotypes have higher birth rates currently, pushing the life expectancy lower. spike From dagonweb at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 15:50:14 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:50:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> Message-ID: I for one don't get a few things - we have globalism, so import duties are not sound business sense. Its always going to bite. But what if ... - when importing goods the US determines the effective difference in price the same goods goods are, whether or not they manufactured by american workers in americam or chinese workers in china. In other words, an identical salad spinner costs 20$ to make in the US and 5$ to make in china, and another 3 to import. The difference is in part calculated to be worth no more than 7$ due to low wages in China (the rest being lax industry standards or efficiency or ruthlessness) - Now the US determines that this 7$ is unfair worker benefit and levies a tax. Now the great thing is - *the US doesn't get to keep it*. They send it back, at minimal (<3%) overhead in administrative costs, and give it NOT to the chinese government but only, and exclusively, to the chinese workers that made the salad spinners. Everybody wins - the rackets are still cheaper, american workers get a better competition position, chinese people get extra money and chinese economy becomes stronger. In fact - I see actions like these are nothing but extensions of fair free market practices. People in spot A suffer in competitiveness because they have succeeded in not living like slaves. People in spot B get more money and become, hopefully, somewhat less like slaves. Call it a unfair human exploitation tariff. If the Chinese object, dump rthe money in the coffers of independent chinese worker unions. Best part is rich countries can implement this measure and benefit themselves AS WELL as producing countries. Worst case, spoiled obese idiots get slightly more expensive salad spinners. 2009/2/27 spike > > > > -----Original Message----- > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of > > Stathis Papaioannou > ... > > As for efficiency, medical care in the US costs about twice > > as much as in any comparable country, with outcomes such as > > infant mortality and life expectancy near the bottom of the > > OECD list... > > Stathis Papaioannou > > I am surprised it is only twice as much. Anything American made is three > times as much as anything made in China. Those life expectancy lists > should > be broken down by cause of death. Most of it likely has little or nothing > to do with the quality of medical care. People who are murdered should not > be in there, nor those who slay themselves abusing drugs. Neither of these > are the medics' fault. Somewhere there probably exists data on this. > > Then too, we should eventually recognize the fact that different human > genotypes have inherently different life spans. Polynesians for instance, > seldom live into their 80s. Shorter lived genotypes have higher birth > rates > currently, pushing the life expectancy lower. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Fri Feb 27 16:13:56 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:13:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar Message-ID: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Obama's appointment of Sunstein as head of the Office of Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is a surprisingly good choice, I think: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_10/b4122058003732.htm?link_position=link4 Now, if I can just get Sunstein to widen his view from cost-benefit analysis to the Proactionary Principle... (He has previously written critically about the precautionary principle.) Max From natasha at natasha.cc Fri Feb 27 16:53:09 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:53:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [wta-talk] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" In-Reply-To: <9ff585550902261534s4856d6bfxaceac5235cd51da8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670902252049q7f547d76n3e1af2e7df729892@mail.gmail.com> <9ff585550902261534s4856d6bfxaceac5235cd51da8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <63EF29A58C38419BA56703ACB6E1A721@DFC68LF1> I remember some years ago at a film festival, we we were all on a mountain top at a reception. An electrical thunderstorm came upon us quickly. There was one truck to get down quickly. Some us piled in the truck, but Ebert was left behind chasing us as we drove off in a truck down the mountain slop in the mudslide. In the truck were Hannah Schygulla, a famous french author, Paul Kohner, Poncho Kohner, me and several others. But someone in the truck did not want to give Ebert a ride becuase Ebert had writen a scathing review of his film. ... Maybe Ebert is still has too many bees in his bonnet. Hint: It was not a German or French film (excludes Hanna and French author) Hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10_to_Midnight - "zero stars from Roger Ebert" Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More _____ From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Michael LaTorra Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 5:35 PM To: World Transhumanist Association Discussion List Cc: ExI chat list; transhuman_space at yahoogroups.com; SciFi_Discussion at yahoogroups.com Subject: Re: [ExI] [wta-talk] Roger Ebert reviews "Fanboys" I suspect that Ebert's real problem here (aside from the possibility that this film, which I have not yet seen, is just no damn good) is the fact that he himself WAS a major science fiction fan. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Ebert which says: As a teenager, Ebert was involved in science fiction fandom, [8] writing articles for fanzines, including Richard A. Lupoff's Xero. As for myself, I'm a totally unrepentant, middle-aged fan of science fiction and I don't care who knows it. My kids laugh, my wife rolls her eyes, but "Here I stand; I can do no other" (with appropriate apologies to Martin Luther for stealing his immortal line). Regards, Mike LaTorra On Wed, Feb 25, 2009 at 9:49 PM, John Grigg wrote: I had been looking forward to watching this film that highlights fandom, but the reviews have been very mixed. Roger Ebert, the 800 pound gorilla of American film critics, seemed to have a real axe to grind against this sometimes maligned subculture. John : ( http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090204/REVIEWS/9 02049987 Fanboys The fandom menace: People, get a life! Release Date: 2009 Ebert Rating: *? / / / Feb 4, 2009 by Roger Ebert A lot of fans are basically fans of fandom itself. It's all about them. They have mastered the "Star Wars" or "Star Trek" universes or whatever, but their objects of veneration are useful mainly as a backdrop to their own devotion. Anyone who would camp out in a tent on the sidewalk for weeks in order to be first in line for a movie is more into camping on the sidewalk than movies. Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad-lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That's why it's excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They're always asking you questions they know the answer to. But enough about my opinions; what about "Fanboys"? Its primary flaw is that it's not critical. It is a celebration of an idiotic lifestyle, and I don't think it knows it. If you want to get in a car and drive to California, fine. So do I. So did Jack Kerouac. But if your first stop involves a rumble at a "Star Trek" convention in Iowa, dude, beam your ass down to Route 66. The movie, set in 1999, involves four "Star Wars" fanatics and, eventually, their gal pal, who have the notion of driving to Marin County, breaking into the Skywalker Ranch, and stealing a copy of a print of "Star Wars: Episode 1 -- The Phantom Menace" so they can see it before anyone else. This is about as plausible as breaking into the U.S. Mint and stealing some money so you can spend it before anyone else. "Fanboys" follows in the footsteps of "Sex Drive" by allowing one of its heroes to plan a rendezvous with an Internet sex goddess. To avoid revealing any plot secrets in this film, I will recycle my earlier warning: In a chat room, don't be too hasty to believe Ms. Tasty. This plot is given gravitas because one of the friends, Linus (Christopher Marquette), is dying of cancer. His buddy Eric (Sam Huntington) is in favor of the trip because, I dunno, it will give Linus something to live for, I guess. The other fanboys are Hutch (Dan Fogler), who lives in his mother's garage coach house, and Windows (Jay Baruchel), who changed his name from MacOS. Just kidding. Windows, Hutch and Linus work in a comic bookstore, where their favorite customer is Zoe (Kristen Bell). She's sexy and a "Star Wars" fan. How cool is that? She's almost better than the date who turns into a pizza and a six-pack when the deed is done. The question of Linus' cancer became the subject of a celebrated Internet flame war last summer, with supporters of "Fanboys" director Kyle Newman running Anti-Harvey Web sites opposing Harvey Weinstein's alleged scheme to cut the subplot out of the movie. The subplot survived, but it's one of those movie diseases that is mentioned occasionally so everyone can look solemn and then dropped when the ailing Linus dons a matching black camouflage outfit and scales the Skywalker Ranch walls with a grappling hook. "Fanboys" is an amiable but disjointed movie that identifies too closely with its heroes. Poking a little more fun at them would have been a great idea. They are tragically hurtling into a cultural dead end, mastering knowledge which has no purpose other than being mastered, and too smart to be wasting their time. When a movie's opening day finally comes, and fanboys leave their sidewalk tents for a mad dash into the theater, I wonder who retrieves their tents, sleeping bags, portable heaters and iPod speakers. Warning: Mom isn't always going to be there to clean up after you. Cast & Credits Eric Sam Huntington Hutch Dan Fogler Windows Jay Baruchel Zoe Kristen Bell Linus Christopher Marquette The Weinstein Company presents a film directed by Kyle Newman. Written by Ernest Cline and Adam F. Goldberg. Running time: 90 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for pervasive crude and sexual material, language and drug content). _______________________________________________ wta-talk mailing list wta-talk at transhumanism.org http://www.transhumanism.org/mailman/listinfo/wta-talk -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: att757ef.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 731 bytes Desc: not available URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 18:18:01 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 11:18:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] putting things in perspective... Message-ID: <2d6187670902271018o432615acvba5aaf914bf29f8f@mail.gmail.com> I think people tend to not count their blessings. This video clip is great stuff... John Grigg John T from the ScifiDiscussionList wrote: Check out the video clip at this site: http://barefootmeg.multiply.com/video/item/56 The guy really puts things in perspective :) A quote: "We live in an amazing, amazing world, and it's wasted on the crappiest generation of spoiled idiots" He compares today's tech with tech from 40 years ago... very funny and very true. I guess this ties in with the thread earlier... about predictions for the coming year? This is more of a comparison of past tech to give appreciation for current and future tech... Some people just aren't satisfied with the advances in technology, right? Things don't happen fast enough... wasn't that part of the discussion about Moore's Law? I wonder what this guy would say upon reading that article I posted a little while ago ... about the 250 DVDs on a quarter :) What comes next? Amazing stuff :) John T >>> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Fri Feb 27 18:14:01 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 10:14:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> Message-ID: <1235758441.6793.550.camel@hayek> On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 07:09 -0800, spike wrote: > I am surprised it is only twice as much. Anything American made is three > times as much as anything made in China. Those life expectancy lists should > be broken down by cause of death. Most of it likely has little or nothing > to do with the quality of medical care. People who are murdered should not > be in there, nor those who slay themselves abusing drugs. Neither of these > are the medics' fault. Somewhere there probably exists data on this. > > Then too, we should eventually recognize the fact that different human > genotypes have inherently different life spans. Polynesians for instance, > seldom live into their 80s. Shorter lived genotypes have higher birth rates > currently, pushing the life expectancy lower. > Spike A while back I lamented about the low quality of discussion on certain topics and health care is one of those topics. You are correct that a serious analysis of health care needs to look at factors such as genotypes, lifestyle issues such as smoking and much more. Also it is critically important is to be explicit about the goal of a health care system. For example is the goal: A. Make sure that everyone as exactly the same level of care and same level of outcomes? B. Make sure that no-one has significantly better care and outcomes than anyone else? C. Make sure that individual choice is paramount? D. E. F. G.... the list could go on. The point is that the goals need to be made explicit and also all of the constraints and parameters. For example if one person thinks that government should control everyone aspect of a persons life and a second person thinks there should be no government control over their life then it is not likely that they will agree on health care. But for them arguing about health care itself is a waste of time; they first need to deal with other more basic disagreements. I doubt we will see a more nuanced and sophisticated discussion of basic philosophical issues such as the issue of relationship of the individual and government on this list. There are a couple of reasons for this; first lists of this type do not lend themselves to that type of discussion; second is that I suspect that many people really are not interested. Fred From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Feb 27 19:36:49 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 20:36:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption & Transhumanism In-Reply-To: <20090227130323.4E5EB10BF@dnserns.isac.gov.in> References: <20090227130323.4E5EB10BF@dnserns.isac.gov.in> Message-ID: <49A840D1.6000801@libero.it> Il 27/02/2009 14.13, G P SINGH ha scritto: > there be corruption that day ? It is not "if" but "how much". If you think that becoming posthuman will solve the problem of human fallibility, you are deceiving yourself. The post-humans could be less fallible than the current humans, but it will be fallible. Given the new problems he/she/whatever will find it could, at the end, be as fallible as us. > Corruption is basically a problem of valuation and costing. Corruption is a problem of power and control. Two people in a free market are not corrupting each other, because they are freely exchanging their property. Corruption happen when one of the two or both exchange what is not theirs and do what is not his/their duty to do. > There is a > difference in pricing so two people get into consensus mode and then > mutually satisfying relationship begin which happens to be illegal. It is not simply illegal, it must be about betraying the duty of one of the two. > In > this context let me take case of president Obama what he must be going > through daily morning in this RECESSION ? His thoughts while > brushing... "how to get more money ? , what if public money gets abused > , what if people starve out of job loss ? What if people get into > illegal acts ? , and there will be so many what ifs. So what i mean to > say that he is also aware of negative fall out of his administration & > corruption but simply he can not do anything to solve problem of > corruption. What about "Hope and Change"? It is becoming "I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further." (cit.) The problem of corruption, if not solved, will eat anything good. Corruption imply not only thief but also inefficiency. The corrupted will destroy or misuse 1 M of $ to appropriate 10 K $. So the damage produced will be extended. Larger the government, greater the corruption. > As a technologist and scientist our job is to think out the problem and > help government to make the citizens quality of life as best possible > through technological values. Do you think this is the duty of the government? What about ice creams free for all? Who decide what will do the quality of life better? The government or the single citizens. And when different citizens or citizens groups have conflicting priorities? > MIRCO'S point of using recording > technology is great but it is intrusive which violate basic human right. Be part of the government is voluntary only. There must be a price to be paid to wield a power so large and must be proportionate to the power wielded. > Will you accept that if you are administrator of New York City? So there > may be other ways of solving it without creating 'creative destruction' > of existing working system of values. This is not a "creative destruction" of existing system of values (that they work is debatable). This is "great power, great responsibilities and great accountability". > In such structure of innovation, i was thinking of more efficient > systems for valuation of asset. Can machines do evaluation ? For example > suppose there is one person of the age of 29 years has got 12 infections > of cold then can a machine calculate his life insurance premium by > calculating his expected life? > So the corruption is basically problem of creating a machine which can > do cognitive evaluation of value ? Am i right ? Absolutely NO. Evaluation of value is subjective. And it is not really computable. Evaluation depend on wants and needs, so when people have different wants and needs there must be different evaluations. Then thing always change, so past evaluations must be always checked and rechecked and can change without notice. > Is it not repeating the crime is secret question ? What about the idea > of corrutpion as valuation problem as above ? The problem is that you don't defined corruption as I do. It would be useful you define explicitly what you consider "corruption" in theory and try to do a few examples. > Corruption is a global unifier. Every person, public, private or virtual > suffers from it so calling corruption as only through government is > insult of grand word like corruption. I suppose the word will have no feeling. Without power there can not be corruption; it can be stupidity, hubris, naivety, evilness or other. But corruption is about power, not about mistakes. > You have given three solutions > 1. Reduce discretionary authority > 2. Use recording technology > 3. Select genetically incorruptibles > Agreed to all three. First one is obvious operational solution. Second > is good one but issue of intrusion into privacy counts substantially. > Third one require identification of gene of corruption. And it also > divides people into two categories . Corruptibles and Incorruptibles ... > What about different degrees of corruption ? If he/she/it can think and have goals different from respecting the rules it can be corrupted. Free will is the cause of corruption. Anyone have its price and sometimes it is not money but something else. It could be a child, a dark secret to be keep secret, a need, a want. People difficult to corrupt are people that internalize rules so strongly that they will don't broke them whatever the price is. I think that really incorruptibles would classified as mental patients, obsessive compulsive for sure. They would be so, because they can not control their urge to follow the rules, whatever they are. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 00:17:59 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:17:59 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A7F47D.1040104@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <49A7F47D.1040104@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/2/28 painlord2k at libero.it : > Was any government's Nursing Home or Hospital closed, their employees > all dismissed, because they failed to comply with standard regulations? Yes, although there are more small privately run nursing homes so statistically they are more likely to have problems. If there is a scandal with a private institution often as not the public outcry is against the government, for not regulating the industry properly. If there is a scandal with a government institution the outcry is even greater. >> Interestingly, this regulation of private operators by the >> government is demanded by the paying public, who don't derive a lot >> of comfort from the idea that if their operation is screwed up they >> can always go somewhere else. > > Again, the "paying public" demand the same regulation only for "private > operators" or for "all operators"? The fact that there are only "private > operators" or the controllers of the public operators are other public > operators disinclined to rock the boat is not prove of anything against > the private. Why would the standards and regulations for private be stricter than for public? It's as if you think the regulators are selectively trying to make the government's customers suffer, just for the fun of it. > I worked in an hospital in the past, so they trained us to fire security > (what to do, what don't). To teach us there actual, public official, > fire-fighters. When the lesson ended, they tell us clear and plain that > would be useless to tell them that the Hospital was not in comply with > the security rules. They knew it; they had the hospital clean up the > bigger problems, but to fix them all would be impossible and they could > not cause a major public hospital to close. And of course, such a thing would never happen in a private hospital. >> As for efficiency, medical care in the US costs about twice as much >> as in any comparable country, with outcomes such as infant mortality >> and life expectancy near the bottom of the OECD list. > > In many countries the infant born and died would not be born, so they > would not count on. So, if people abort a child with a severe pathology > it don't count as infant mortality, where if they don't and it die after > a few weeks it count. ?Also, the US population is very diverse, so it is > to expect to have very diverse life expectancies. People with very > different IQ is to be expect to have different life expectancies. EU or > Japan were, until a few years ago, very homogeneous. You can not compare one > with the other without looking at the differences. So the US is full of retarded unhealthy immigrants who won't abort their deformed foetuses. >> This infuriates supporters of private health care, who advance >> various arguments to explain what they see as an anomaly, eg. that >> Americans are less healthy to begin with, or that the problem is >> that the system is only partially privatised. > > The fact they could be infuriated don't prove that the explanations are > wrong. Usually they are not. > Statistics can be read in many ways, usually wrong ways, if you don't > understand how they are computed. > Like the linking of pirate activity and global warmings. This is my point: you *know* there must be something wrong with the evidence. It's like a religious conviction. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 01:10:51 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:10:51 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> Message-ID: 2009/2/28 spike : >> As for efficiency, medical care in the US costs about twice >> as much as in any comparable country, with outcomes such as >> infant mortality and life expectancy near the bottom of the >> OECD list... >> Stathis Papaioannou > > > I am surprised it is only twice as much. ?Anything American made is three > times as much as anything made in China. The comparison is with countries with a similar overall standard of living. If I want to go on an overseas holiday from Australia, hotels, meals, internal airfares are generally the same price or a bit cheaper in the US than in Europe. Travel insurance, on the other hand, is on average about 50% more expensive for the US, largely due to the cost of health care there. http://www.travelinsurance.com.au/select-travel-insurance.aspx -- Stathis Papaioannou From crwbot at gmail.com Fri Feb 27 17:34:31 2009 From: crwbot at gmail.com (Christopher Whipple) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 09:34:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Hello, again! Message-ID: <123db6100902270934o2da0e4b3lb55f7b23071c607b@mail.gmail.com> After an absence of several years, I've re-subscribed and I'm very pleased to find some of the same familiar faces. To celebrate, I bring you today's Garfield Minus Garfield: http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/day/2009/02/27/ -c. From alito at organicrobot.com Sat Feb 28 03:05:33 2009 From: alito at organicrobot.com (Alejandro Dubrovsky) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:05:33 +1100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> Message-ID: <1235790333.26187.52.camel@localhost> On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 07:09 -0800, spike wrote: > I am surprised it is only twice as much. Anything American made is three > times as much as anything made in China. Those life expectancy lists should > be broken down by cause of death. Most of it likely has little or nothing > to do with the quality of medical care. People who are murdered should not > be in there, nor those who slay themselves abusing drugs. Neither of these > are the medics' fault. Somewhere there probably exists data on this. > Murders and deaths from drug abuse make up an almost insignificant number of deaths in any of the OECD countries, including the US. I think that the major difference in the death rate between the US and other OECD countries is heart disease (eg see fiordiliji.sourceoecd.org/pdf/health2007/812007051-2-4.pdf ) Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of the view that the medical establishment of other OECD countries is better than the USA's or that government supported medicine is better than private. From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 28 05:42:29 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2009 21:42:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar In-Reply-To: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike> > On Behalf Of Max More > Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar > > Obama's appointment of Sunstein as head of the Office of > Information & Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) is a surprisingly > good choice, I think: > > http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09_10/b4122058003 > 732.htm?link_position=link4 .... > Max Ja! But that business of having all those czars, oy. Czar this, czar that, I don't see why these government types don't get why that particular term is most objectionable. It completely creeps me in an outward direction. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 08:49:14 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 01:49:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar In-Reply-To: <2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike> References: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike> Message-ID: <2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Spike wrote: Ja! But that business of having all those czars, oy. Czar this, czar that, I don't see why these government types don't get why that particular term is most objectionable. It completely creeps me in an outward direction. >> I know what you mean. The name "Homeland Security" creeps me out. I think of goosestepping Nazi SS troopers marching to invade their neighbors for the "fatherland" or patriotic Communist Russians talking about needing a huge nuclear arsenal to protect their "motherland." But then President (why not El Presidente, Caeser or Premier) Bush did not have much respect for the principles and laws this nation was built on. John : ( -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 09:07:36 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 09:07:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> References: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike> <2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 8:49 AM, John Grigg wrote: > I know what you mean. The name "Homeland Security" creeps me out. I think > of goosestepping Nazi SS troopers marching to invade their neighbors for the > "fatherland" or patriotic Communist Russians talking about needing a huge > nuclear arsenal to protect their "motherland." But then President (why not > El Presidente, Caeser or Premier) Bush did not have much respect for the > principles and laws this nation was built on. > Well El Presidente Bush did set the financial markets almost completely free of regulation. It was just a bit of bad luck that he also set corruption free and ended up with the biggest financial fraud ever. Still, you can't win them all! BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 28 14:31:36 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:31:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar In-Reply-To: References: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com><2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike><2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <110DDC5CF0FE4CB2B73EBE7476935E63@spike> >...On Behalf Of BillK > Subject: Re: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar .... > It was just a bit of bad luck that he also set corruption > free and ended up with the biggest financial fraud ever. > Still, you can't win them all! BillK BillK that financial fraud held the record only for a short few months. That one has already fallen to second place. Forcing senators to vote on spending a trillion dollars of our money on a bill they were not even given a chance to debate, not even given a chance to *read* under the pretenses of a dire emergency is by far the bigger financial fraud. Every congressman and senator that voted in favor under those circumstances should be thrown out of office. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Feb 28 14:22:57 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 06:22:57 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar In-Reply-To: <2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> References: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com><2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike> <2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <128D156EA70342CAAB98DB265F7C7438@spike> ________________________________ ...On Behalf Of John Grigg ...But then President (why not El Presidente, Caeser or Premier) Bush did not have much respect for the principles and laws this nation was built on...John : ( Compared to whom? spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 18:13:30 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 11:13:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch Message-ID: Sometime back I was chatting with spike about various nerd-boy (or girl) topics, when I touched on the ancient(Verne/Wells?) idea of space launch by cannon. Spike, (in a manner far too conventional and dismissive for one of his imagination and flagrant sense of humor) naysayed the notion, mentioning some problem (hypersonic acoustic shock, or some such techno-jargonaut obscurantism). I was not impressed. I figured if the nose cone was pointy enough, then the acceleration of the surrounding air molecules could be kept low enough to get around those difficulties to which spike and his overqualified "sources" were referring. Fast forward, oh, eight or nine years, to the latest reprise of the space launch topic, and Paul Fernhout mentions "sky hooks" and a "space pier". I asked Paul offlist about the "space pier", thinking he was joking, but no, he wasn't, and he provided me with a link(which I have since lost). On that website, I found a crude drawing depicting a horizontal launch/acceleration platform several tens of miles in length held aloft some tens of miles up by legs/struts. Could have been fifty miles up, I don't remember exactly, but what I do remember is that there was no mention of no mention of "hypersonic acoustic shock" or whatever and it wasn't 100, 110, or 150 miles up, you know, up there in viable-orbit-land, which is to say thoroughly "out of the atmosphere". There was, however, mention of post-"launch" rocket-mediated orbit "widening" to get it out of the upper reaches of the atmosphere. Which got me to thinking again about the gun launch idea. And so my question. Let's get specific. What are the limitations -- boundaries if you will -- of the gun launch -- or similar "emerges-from-launch-tube-at-orbital-or-greater velocity" launch schemes? And what features -- such as the pointy nose cone -- can help? In particular, what's the altitude lower bound? Yeah, that's what I want to know: lowest possible altitude? Thoughts? Best, Jeff Davis "When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." - Buckminster Fuller From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 18:18:58 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 19:18:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <580930c20902281018i2d31ec47hde1a90c17430c41b@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 7:13 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Sometime back I was chatting with spike about various nerd-boy (or > girl) topics, when I touched on the ancient(Verne/Wells?) idea of > space launch by cannon. ?Spike, (in a manner far too conventional and > dismissive for one of his imagination and flagrant sense of humor) > naysayed the notion, mentioning some problem (hypersonic acoustic > shock, or some such techno-jargonaut obscurantism). Balistically, any orbit purely originated from earth-based thrust intersect the earth body in one or two points, if I am not mistaken. -- Stefano Vaj From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 19:02:32 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:02:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Cass Sunstein: Regulation Czar In-Reply-To: <128D156EA70342CAAB98DB265F7C7438@spike> References: <200902271642.n1RGg835019443@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2B60DAF89D0D4224BCDF56F6597ECB9D@spike> <2d6187670902280049r7d1b374cwb409eb3c6d71e8f3@mail.gmail.com> <128D156EA70342CAAB98DB265F7C7438@spike> Message-ID: <2d6187670902281102u4dd7aa49g7a9f8154cbdf543b@mail.gmail.com> > > > > ...On Behalf Of John Grigg > > ...But then President (why not El Presidente, Caeser or Premier) Bush did > not have much respect for the principles and laws this nation was built > on...John : ( > > > > Compared to whom? > > spike > Spike, are you saying Bush was just doing American politics as usual, just perhaps much worse at it than many previous presidents? John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Feb 28 19:25:52 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 13:25:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090228132115.027308f0@satx.rr.com> At 11:13 AM 2/28/2009 -0700, Jeff wrote: >Fast forward, oh, eight or nine years, to the latest reprise of the >space launch topic, and Paul Fernhout mentions "sky hooks" and a >"space pier". I asked Paul offlist about the "space pier", thinking >he was joking, but no, he wasn't, and he provided me with a link(which >I have since lost). > >On that website, I found a crude drawing depicting a horizontal >launch/acceleration platform several tens of miles in length held >aloft some tens of miles up by legs/struts. Could have been fifty >miles up, I don't remember exactly, but what I do remember is that >there was no mention of no mention of "hypersonic acoustic shock" or >whatever and it wasn't 100, 110, or 150 miles up, you know, up there >in viable-orbit-land, which is to say thoroughly "out of the >atmosphere". If it's the classic space pier, it *was* 100 km up. Here's what I wrote in a Mars science museum installation some years ago: ====== NASA scientists Drs. Landis and Cafarelli have done the sums [on a hybrid skyhook-tower device]. It seems that an immensely tall tower could indeed be built. The stresses in a diamond tower with its mighty footings deep in rock would be compressive, squeezing downward, the contrary of that outward tension tearing at a space thread. Small shifts in the crust would put it at risk of toppling or buckling, so active computerized management would be necessary to ensure stability. Further calculations show that a blend of skyhook satellite and very tall tower might be the optimal mix, using less materials and cheaper to build. But these same technologies have suggested a quite different audacious scheme to Dr J. Storrs Hall, one of the few people to have devoted a lot of disciplined effort to exploring the prospects of nanotechnology. His notion is strange, but remarkably simple and perhaps elegant in the way of the Eiffel Tower. He proposes a Launch Pier a hundred kilometers tall, extending above all but the last of the atmosphere, and three hundred long. It would resemble the world's largest trestle, built from slender diamond-like towers marching beyond the horizon like impossibly tall spidery radio transmitters. At their top, a colossal rail structure would lead to an edge I can imagine base-jumpers lining up for months to jump off. The rails would carry magnetically levitated spacecraft, accelerating them smoothly for 80 seconds at a crushing but acceptable 10 gravities. Released at the end of their 300 km run, spared the burden of carrying most of their own propellent, spacecraft would head for orbit along computer-specified trajectories, correcting their paths with exquisite changes of velocity from their conventional rockets. From the ground, you wouldn't be able to see the immense launch platform lost in the haze of air far beneath it. Perhaps you would only see a few of the great struts plunging upward into the blue. Sunlight, effectively undiminished, would shine through the lacy thing upon crops. There'd be no noise, except where great gantries and elevators carried their loads into the skies, powered not by expensive rocket fuel but by cheap electricity (which might well be generated from solar energy at the top of the trestle). How much would such a marvel cost to build? Hall claims it could be built today, using available technology and materials, although at exorbitant expense. With moderately early nanotechnology to spin the half million tonnes of struts, plus magnetic coils and electronics, that impossible price might plunge to $500,000,000, or more conservatively $10 billion. By comparison, 300 kilometres of superhighway today costs at least a billion dollars; building the Hubble Space Telescope, hoisting it into orbit and then repairing it took $3.2 billion; the International Space Station's bill will be more than $20 billion. The Apollo mission to the Moon cost $24 billion in 1960 dollars.. but today its mighty Saturn launch vehicles have been dismantled and even their engineering plans were destroyed. Hall notes: `If an Apollo-style (and -cost) project could do for diamond what the original one did for electronics, we could build the tower in the next decade or so.= Operating costs could fall to $1 per kilogram lifted into orbit. Today=s costs using rockets are 10,000 times higher. In short, a major push in developing molecular nanotechnology could pay off by reducing the cost of this dramatic launch platform into space--and provide us with all the other benefits of matter compilers almost as an incidental. Those benefits will probably include inexpensive consumer goods, perhaps including foods, clothing, safe terrestrial transport, shelter and computation. That implies a complete and perhaps catastrophic shake-up in the global economy, as we shift from a world of scarcity to one of plenty within a brief period of time. During such an upheaval, will anyone be thinking seriously about exploring the Solar System and beyond? Yes--because even with the new opportunities for intelligent recycling that nanotechnology affords us, we'll want all the extra resources we can find. And space, in the form of asteroids, but also moons and planets, will be an abundant source of raw materials for a very long time, without the disturbing moral costs that should have troubled our colonizing ancestors. ============== Damien Broderick From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 19:38:31 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:38:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch In-Reply-To: <580930c20902281018i2d31ec47hde1a90c17430c41b@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20902281018i2d31ec47hde1a90c17430c41b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 11:18 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Balistically, any orbit purely originated from earth-based thrust > intersect the earth body in one or two points, if I am not mistaken. Indeed so.. Thus the need for the circularizing of the orbit. Jeff D. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 19:57:09 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 12:57:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Jeff, there is an immense literature on this topic. Many people have spent decades of time looking into ballistic launch using cannons, high acceleration magnetic levitation or rail guns. It a very well explored area. They have led to some very strange devices such as a cannon that accelerated a huge block of concrete which in turn compressed hydrogen and used that as the propellant gas. (There are sound engineering reasons to do this.) But the problem is in reaching orbital or escape velocity in some reasonable distance. It's hard enough to try to do it on the moon. Peak power is a problem as well. v = at s = 1/2 at^2 For 10,000 m/sec and one G the time required to get up to that speed is ~1000 seconds, the distance is ~ 5,000km. 10 g, 100 sec, distance 50 km. 20 g 50 seconds distance 12.5 km. Then you start looking into the power required. The Ke in joules or watt-seconds is 1/2mv^2. If the projectile is 50 t, then the energy is 2500,000,000,000J and the average power poured poured into the launch over 50 seconds is 50 GW. That's 50 large nuclear plants or about 10 percent of US generation. It turns out that going faster than sound causes drag problems as well. Spike is an expert on that subject and pointy end may not be the best. How much velocity you lose going through the atmosphere depends on where you put the ejection end and the angle you can get. Vertical and high up on a mountain is best. On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 11:13 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Sometime back I was chatting with spike about various nerd-boy (or > girl) topics, when I touched on the ancient(Verne/Wells?) idea of > space launch by cannon. ?Spike, (in a manner far too conventional and > dismissive for one of his imagination and flagrant sense of humor) > naysayed the notion, mentioning some problem (hypersonic acoustic > shock, or some such techno-jargonaut obscurantism). ?I was not > impressed. ?I figured if the nose cone was pointy enough, then the > acceleration of the surrounding air molecules could be kept low enough > to get around those difficulties to which spike and his overqualified > "sources" were referring. > > Fast forward, oh, eight or nine years, to the latest reprise of the > space launch topic, and Paul Fernhout mentions "sky hooks" and a > "space pier". ?I asked Paul offlist about the "space pier", thinking > he was joking, but no, he wasn't, and he provided me with a link(which > I have since lost). > > On that website, I found a crude drawing depicting a horizontal > launch/acceleration platform several tens of miles in length held > aloft some tens of miles up by legs/struts. ? Could have been fifty > miles up, I don't remember exactly, but what I do remember is that > there was no mention of no mention of "hypersonic acoustic shock" or > whatever and it wasn't 100, 110, or 150 miles up, you know, up there > in viable-orbit-land, which is to say thoroughly "out of the > atmosphere". ? There was, however, mention of post-"launch" > rocket-mediated orbit "widening" to get it out of the upper reaches of > the atmosphere. > > Which got me to thinking again about the gun launch idea. ?And so my question. > > Let's get specific. ?What are the limitations -- boundaries if you > will -- of the gun launch -- or similar > "emerges-from-launch-tube-at-orbital-or-greater velocity" launch > schemes? ?And what features -- such as the pointy nose cone -- ?can > help? ? In particular, what's the altitude lower bound? ?Yeah, that's > what I want to know: lowest possible altitude? I don't understand what you are asking here. Lowest orbit? Keith > Thoughts? > > Best, Jeff Davis > > "When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only > think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the > solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong." > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?- Buckminster Fuller > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 21:04:15 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:04:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] check this, milton friedman 30 years ago sees the future In-Reply-To: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> References: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> Message-ID: On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:21 PM, spike wrote: > Talk about foretelling the future... > > > This will take less than 3 minutes, but should make us all stop and > think. > > http://www.nmatv.com/video/1115/Milton-Friedman-and-Phil-Donahue--1979 Pulleeese!!! Standard, Kool-aid induced, echo-chamber amplified capitalist boosterism. Stop the worshipful groveling, re-enable your skepticism, and reclaim your intellectual independence and integrity. Challenge the politically-vetted and self-justifying ideological cant-in-truth's-clothing with: let's see the facts, both sides, and then "LET ME(meaning you, the re-enabled skeptic) BE THE JUDGE". Enough of this, "Oh, the great god Friedman hath spoken, so it must be true." Make me puke. "We have always been at war with Eastasia." Riiiiight! What's made people prosperous is not capitalism but increased productivity technologically mediated. Hey!, I'm not anti-capitalism -- Capitalism is but one economic program drawing from the well of technology -- just anti-brain-locked, true-believer-ism. My boy Noam can help the sleeper awaken. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFxYyXGMfZM&feature=related You don't have to agree with him -- in fact, point your skepticism in his direction with an even-handed diligence -- but be thoughtful, analytical, fact-based, and fact-verifying. Best, Jeff Davis "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it--no matter if I have said it--unless it agrees with your own reason and your common sense." Buddha From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 21:20:40 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:20:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Let me get lateral (and possibly a bit over the top) here but ideas emerge not from being cautious. High altitude balloons can lift payload. The ratio between balloon and payload is clearly very small. Even then, linking two balloons next to another, somewhere on a high mountain with consistently related weather conditions, would allow some level of cabling or even structure to be held aloft. WW2 zeppelins allowed hotels with accomodations, chefs and cargo to be held aloft at altitudes not far above sea level. I am sure with carbon nanotubes we can do better. So lets assume a continuous uninterrupted structure of helium balloon compartments, leading up from kilomanjaro, like a monstrous big sausage. The hindenburg cost 2.500.000. There are arguments it would be more expensive today, but also arguments it would cost less. The hindenburg was about 250 meters long. Would it fair to say that at todays cost, with massproduction included, 100 meter of "hindenbergium" tether would cost about "a few" million, sans launch rail. If that's the case, elevating one up from a high mountain at a 45 degree angle would mean a strand of celestial confetti of between 45 and 75 kilometer. That would equate a total cost of under a billion, or the cost of launching 2 white elephants. Now I wouldn't want to speculate what weight could be hoisted up on a rail, and what weights to what altitude. Leakage-proof fullerene fillament might make a heck of a difference in longterm price sustainability. Maybe elevating payload up to launch altitude not just by elevating, but fast, with a finged elevator cage would work as well. Plus maybe the balloons could be made to catch prevailing winds at a certain altitude and be shaped to be pushed upwards by high altitude winds. And you can scale this system. Just make the tubes fatter, so the lift capacity is bigger. I don't see this thing hoist up a multiton sat launcher into an appreciable altitude. Someone else than me should do a calculation of how much weight can be lifted, just how high, what would that safe on launch cost of a rocket ploughing through atmosphere, what the angle of the baloon should be, and what maximum launch mass would be feasible. If I knew the parameters I would love making a concept art of this thing, according to educated guesses of someone who calculated a sound architecture. Imagine the sight, such a thing trailing half 'across the sky, from horizon to horizon like a fat black line through the heavens. The top altitude of the celestial serpent would be no more than 30 kilometers. Thats above most atmosphere. So would the contrivance of such a bulky elerctrical elevator system, available 24/7, make a difference in tackling up rockets, then dropping them, for autolaunch into LEO? I think this rig would even be profitable if it were just used for space tourism. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dagonweb at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 21:23:02 2009 From: dagonweb at gmail.com (Dagon Gmail) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 22:23:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] check this, milton friedman 30 years ago sees the future In-Reply-To: References: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> Message-ID: Be cautious jeff, there are sith here. 2009/2/28 Jeff Davis > On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:21 PM, spike wrote: > > > Talk about foretelling the future... > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 23:18:53 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:18:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] question re "honkin' big cannon" space launch In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 12:57 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I don't understand what you are asking here. ?Lowest orbit? Thanks for the numbers, Keith. And my apologies for not being clear. Hall's "space pier" suggests that ballistic launch is feasible at an altitude of 100km, implying that feasibility is "limited" by atmospheric density, (as well as, intuitively, vehicle strength, and shape). So, if the launch vehicle exits the end of a tubular launch mechanism, and in so doing abruptly encounters a non-zero atmospheric density, what is the greatest density/lowest altitude at which this launch scheme is feasible. That's the question: lowest altitude for the end of the launch tube. No doubt other factors come into play. A discussion of vehicle strength and shape(pointy, etc) is reasonable, but of only modest interest to me at this point. Similarly the launch velocity (the velocity at which the vehicle exits the launch "tube"), since that directly determines the force of "impact" with what remains of the atmosphere at altitude. This relates to the issue that Stefano brought up regarding circularizing the orbit to avoid reentering the atmosphere after the first half orbit. The vehicle's on board thrusters have only half an orbital period to accomplish this, which is out to apogee and back again -- a function of launch velocity. It's only fair to mention why I want to know this minimum altitude. I have an alternate design notion for a structure to elevate the end of the launch tube, and the size of that structure is dependent on the altitude it needs to reach. Again, Keith, thanks for your help. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Feb 28 23:35:58 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (painlord2k at libero.it) Date: Sun, 01 Mar 2009 00:35:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <1235790333.26187.52.camel@localhost> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A1E7B3.7050007@libero.it> <7641ddc60902222126ifbd83c1t8e86bd3ba8ed326f@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it><7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> <1235790333.26187.52.camel@localhost> Message-ID: <49A9CA5E.60600@libero.it> Il 28/02/2009 4.05, Alejandro Dubrovsky ha scritto: > On Fri, 2009-02-27 at 07:09 -0800, spike wrote: > >> I am surprised it is only twice as much. Anything American made is three >> times as much as anything made in China. Those life expectancy lists should >> be broken down by cause of death. Most of it likely has little or nothing >> to do with the quality of medical care. People who are murdered should not >> be in there, nor those who slay themselves abusing drugs. Neither of these >> are the medics' fault. Somewhere there probably exists data on this. >> > Murders and deaths from drug abuse make up an almost insignificant > number of deaths in any of the OECD countries, including the US. I > think that the major difference in the death rate between the US and > other OECD countries is heart disease (eg see > fiordiliji.sourceoecd.org/pdf/health2007/812007051-2-4.pdf ) > > Disclaimer: This is not an endorsement of the view that the medical > establishment of other OECD countries is better than the USA's or that > government supported medicine is better than private. The difference in health, for various reasons, from different racial groups, is very underestimate. I just stumbled in this: http://sjp.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/36/2/205 Health behaviour among non-Western immigrants with Danish citizenship From my empirical knowledge, immigrants have a worse health than not migrant in the same place. In England (and Israel) it is know that Arabs and Pakistani have a large number of hereditary diseases, something like x10 the means. Blacks in the USA but not in Africa have an higher probability to develop hypertension (probably a selective factor in surviving the Atlantic travel). Lower IQ people have, usually, a worse health than higher IQ people. Migrants have, usually, a lower IQ than the Europeans and the East Asians (mainly migrants from Africa and south Asia and south America). Mirco From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Feb 28 23:40:32 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 28 Feb 2009 16:40:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] check this, milton friedman 30 years ago sees the future In-Reply-To: References: <21726F331A644BC1B653CCDF591E4DE0@spike> Message-ID: On Sat, Feb 28, 2009 at 2:23 PM, Dagon Gmail wrote: > Be cautious jeff, there are sith here. I'll show you my light saber if you'll show me yours. Dirka dirka. jeff > 2009/2/28 Jeff Davis >> >> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 7:21 PM, spike wrote: >> >> > Talk about foretelling the future... >> > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Feb 28 23:53:54 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 1 Mar 2009 00:53:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] government corruption In-Reply-To: <49A9CA5E.60600@libero.it> References: <580930c20902180124k2b848aafg644d15d52383af10@mail.gmail.com> <49A4489C.2000209@libero.it> <7.0.1.0.2.20090224133424.02578e98@satx.rr.com> <49A5959E.7050703@libero.it> <49A6BFDC.10609@libero.it> <74720CC03C104BD6BBA865FCAE4BC500@spike> <1235790333.26187.52.camel@localhost> <49A9CA5E.60600@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20902281553m2a4bf57fk229da4b5e6019145@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Mar 1, 2009 at 12:35 AM, painlord2k at libero.it wrote: > Migrants have, usually, a lower IQ than the Europeans and the East Asians > (mainly migrants from Africa and south Asia and south America). I suspect it depends to a large on the migration concerned and the origin, reasons and nature thereof. I suspect for instance that the offspring of the Europeans emigrated in North America do not score much below the average Native American... :-) -- Stefano Vaj