From max at maxmore.com Wed Jul 1 00:13:39 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:13:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Appalling joke Message-ID: <200907010013.n610Dubs025180@andromeda.ziaspace.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Wed Jul 1 00:19:55 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 30 Jun 2009 19:19:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Appalling joke Message-ID: <200907010020.n610KAtj016583@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Tom's mention of the Dennett-derived joke reminds me of another. I'm rotten at remembering jokes, so I'll take advantage of this while I can, though it will earn me no PC points: Do you know the difference between a woman in a church and a woman in a bathtub ? The woman in a church has a soul full of hope. The woman in a bathtub has... (Okay, you could make this joke work for a guy, but it would be a bit of a *stretch*...) Max From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 1 00:23:16 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 02:23:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> References: <7641ddc60906280312u77e08e04kd8857c4cd746d0e@mail.gmail.com><580930c20906280920t5774e824q4aee0a7978c6cb3c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906292146r21738cfbk4683b19b85377a4@mail.gmail.com> <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <4A4AAC74.1000600@libero.it> Henrique Moraes Machado ha scritto: > Rafal> ### From my point of view, democracy is a crappy tool, to be used > only >> until enough people grow up and are capable of making a better >> society. > > The very concept of state comes IMHO from the necessity to cope with > scarcity of resources. To get rid of democracy, and every other form of > government, it's necessary first to reach a post-scarcity society type. > This all in theory, because I really don't know if us apes can exist > without some kind of politics. And there's also the possibility that > once we attain this post-scarcity society (if...) we won't have anything > to do other than politics... Well, a near libertarian society existed in Iceland for centuries. I don't believe they were a post-scarcity society. The libertarianism worked because there was a small population in the island and the population density was small. Any group / government trying to impose its will would had destroyed the economy (causing a large die-off of the population) and would cause it own destruction for lack of subjects to exploit. Where the land allowed larger populations and greater densities of population, the controlling of the population by a small group become easier. An army could be formed only by the 1% of the population and it could be able to enforce its domination over all the population, if the population lack weapons and organization to resist. One of the reason of Europe success in the past was the fragmentation in small states. Being too small forced the kings and princes to keep taxes low, be liberal enough to prevent their people from voting with their feet and move to another kingdom with a better ruler. A transhumanist society with an advantage for the individual against the state would result in a freer society, where an advantage for the state to control the individuals would produce a less free society. Mirco From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 04:15:03 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:15:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 7:20 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/6/30 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 8:52 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >>> >>> What you're listing here is engineering achievements, not basic or >>> pure science. Pure science is by its nature something private industry >>> won't fund: a particular project is very unlikely to produce >>> commercial returns, and if it does it may be decades down the track >>> and the initial discovery probably won't be patentable. No company is >>> going to invest in high energy physics in the hope that it may lead to >>> wormhole technology. >> >> ### This completely incorrect. Universities, private trusts and large >> private companies are funding basic research all the time. AT&T has >> supported a lot of pie-in-the-sky research. So does Google, and even >> Microsoft. You gain goodwill, advertising revenue, in-house >> competence, a lead over competition in commercialization, this all >> adds up to real money. > > It's true that there are some notable examples of privately sponsored > pure research, especially in the US, but in many cases this is a > feel-good measure, like giving to charity, rather than an attempt to > gain a return on investment. That's OK, but the world's scientific > output would greatly diminish if it's all we had to rely on. ### So you think that government investment in pure basic science (like astronomy or cosmology) is *not* purely a feel-good measure? What makes you feel that free people would want to feel less good? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 04:21:33 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:21:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > We potentially have this situation: 100% of the population is be > willing to be taxed for a particular project on the understanding that > everyone else will also be taxed, but 0% of the population is willing > to contribute to the project voluntarily if they know that no-one else > need contribute. Therefore, a project that everyone supports and is > happy to pay for is never undertaken. ### No, this is not something that everyone supports - it's something everyone wants to pretend they support, and shifting 99.999% of its cost on others (especially the rich) is just the way to have your hypocritical cake and eat it too. If people really want something, like building a cathedral, they *will* pay on their own. Don't confuse your desire to pretend you are good with actually being good. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 04:32:07 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:32:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: <580930c20906300132y2a3d172fm99143e9614e857a1@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60906280312u77e08e04kd8857c4cd746d0e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20906280920t5774e824q4aee0a7978c6cb3c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906292146r21738cfbk4683b19b85377a4@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20906300132y2a3d172fm99143e9614e857a1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60906302132s54b9ebeeo96e861db1c3ff142@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 4:32 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 6:46 AM, Rafal > Smigrodzki wrote: >> ### Well, I really dislike the idea of random jerks usurping the right >> to control my life as they collectively see fit. > > So do I, nor I have any temptation to run for president of the US of A > any time soon. ### But you would vote for one, if you lived here, right? I could have voted, but I didn't, and that was not entirely out of laziness. At least whatever evil bullshit is committed by Obama, I can truthfully say I didn't help him do it. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 04:44:18 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:44:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> References: <7641ddc60906280312u77e08e04kd8857c4cd746d0e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20906280920t5774e824q4aee0a7978c6cb3c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906292146r21738cfbk4683b19b85377a4@mail.gmail.com> <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <7641ddc60906302144n56306b19n8748c22cc9962bcb@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 8:43 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Rafal> ### From my point of view, democracy is a crappy tool, to be used > only >> >> until enough people grow up and are capable of making a better >> society. > > The very concept of state comes IMHO from the necessity to cope with > scarcity of resources. To get rid of democracy, and every other form of > government, it's necessary first to reach a post-scarcity society type. This > all in theory, because I really don't know if us apes can exist without some > kind of politics. And there's also the possibility that once we attain this > post-scarcity society (if...) we won't have anything to do other than > politics... > ### As I keep insisting, overcoming our evil ways is not something that happens simply as a function of having more moolah to play with (although it helps a bit) but rather a question of moral development, whether "natural" or through technological means. Once we have the ability to shape our minds freely (autopsychoengineering), and to prove our moral qualities to others directly through a demonstration of our neural circuitry, some of us will no doubt elect to change themselves to completely and provably renounce violence. This will have significant consequences for the society, since such people will be able to form an in-group of unique capabilities - such as cooperating with each other without the need to maintain coercive safeguards against in-group violence. If some of us survive the singularity I do hope we will be able to grow in numbers, fend off the attacks of those who refuse to relinquish violence, and form the first truly ethical society. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 04:49:25 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:49:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60906280312u77e08e04kd8857c4cd746d0e@mail.gmail.com> <580930c20906280920t5774e824q4aee0a7978c6cb3c@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906292146r21738cfbk4683b19b85377a4@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60906302149r321e82e0me76dff9cbcfdb574@mail.gmail.com> Woohoo! I get to live forever on the internets as a sig-file pundit!! :) I need to mention that the correct spelling of my name has an un-Polish "dz" instead of "ski". Anyway, you made my day! Rafal On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:46 PM, Rafal > Smigrodzki wrote: > >> ..., I really dislike the idea of random jerks usurping the right >> to control my life as they collectively see fit. ... > > Indeed, this seems the problem. ?Everybody gets to vote, and the > losers have to suck it up. > > I agree with Rafal here. > > If a culture is nearly homogeneous, and the choices are only slightly > differing shades of "the" dominant cultural theme, it's far easier for > the losers to deal with the result, because their "loss" is likely > quite small, and so, tolerable ?In a diverse culture, however, > particularly one where value differences are stark/polar, the > "minority" group, ie the losers, are more likely to feel like enslaved > victims. ?This is a bad deal. ?Unjust, unstable, and dangerous. ?The > world over we see post-imperial nation states with highly distinct > sub-groups literally at war with one another. ?Nation states generally > "control" this by the time-tested application of an even greater level > of violence. ?This is neither right nor rational (is that redundant?). > > As if that weren't bad enough, political elites use cultural diversity > as a political resource. ?They cynically pit one group against another > in order to achieve their own personal political advancement, with > little real concern for the voters. > > With cultural diversity, democracy gets corrupted by the elite, > becoming, for the voting masses, a form of self-betrayal. ?I have at > long last taken "democracy" down from its pedestal, and out of its > shrine (I store the lawn mower there now) and put it over by the > corner of the garage next to the rest of the junk waiting to be taken > to the dump. ?Occasionally I look at it and wonder if I should throw > it out, fix it, or turn it in for a new model. ?As I now live 6 mo in > Canada and 6 mo in Baja, I guess you could say I've chosen the last. > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? < slight snippage> > >>...I am a ?free man, and I do not despoil my dignity by having >> ?designs on the liberty of others. > > Here, here! ?Added to my sig file. ?A bit pissy, but ain't that the point! > > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > >> From my point of view, democracy is a crappy tool, to be used only >> until enough people grow up and are capable of making a better >> society. > > Another one for the sig file. > > Best, Jeff Davis > > ? ? ? ? ?"I am a ?free man, and I do not despoil my dignity > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? by having designs on the liberty of others." > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?Rafal Smigrodski > -- 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 Wed Jul 1 04:54:30 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 00:54:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Non-commie Aussies In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60906292249h1c1c16beldf5564afb3db7442@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906271608.n5RG8VTQ025996@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906280143u197970d6hba421e3e559fbe3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906280217u62be1d82qb1279bd8ca27e0fd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906280316p24ebd1d9pff4d718affc67444@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906280902w514b966ch26b3eeec8f6d83fc@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906292249h1c1c16beldf5564afb3db7442@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60906302154m49f5b0b7t3f859fd465c287fd@mail.gmail.com> This got accidentally off-listed. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rafal Smigrodzki Date: Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 1:49 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Non-commie Aussies To: Stathis Papaioannou On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 6:18 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/6/29 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> I wonder, why are you asking these questions? I have a vague idea that >> you may be working up to present an argument in favor of democracy, or >> against private ownership, but how? > > My problem is that although I may be unhappy being subject to a > democratic government, I would be terrified to be at the mercy of > unfettered wealthy corporations or individuals, who could kill me if > they found it expedient. If they had inhibitions about straight out > murder, they could kill me by polluting the environment, enslave me by > means of indentured labour, buy up all the land and push me into the > sea if I couldn't pay the rent; all with "freely" negotiated > contracts. Through government, people decide that they don't want to > allow this sort of behaviour so they set up rules and taxes to prevent > it, costing the capitalists money in the process. ### I understand your worries, and if you dig deep in the archives here you will find me articulating similar points is discussions with Dan, before I became an anarchist like him. But now I think that was putting the cart before the horse: Democracy does not prevent your enemies from killing you, does not prevent pollution, or slavery. All these ills are due to immorality of the people, and a democracy made of immoral people will endorse slavery, mass torture, genocide. Just look at the history of Rome, Greece, Poland, the US. A democracy is mostly a way of pretending that the masses have much to say (look at Eliezer's analysis of the actual public input in presidential elections - the public is responsible for two bits in a 20-something bit string). As long as it's made up of reasonably honest people, a democracy will produce reasonably honest policies most of the time. If the people, both the elites and the masses, are immoral, no amount of democratic procedure will stop them from screwing you over. Conversely, capitalism is inherently moral because it makes the respect for property into the moral bedrock of the society, and it harnesses human self-interest to protect property (of which your life and liberty are a form), thus making it more resilient in the face of evil. The proper way of looking at it is to pay attention to the moral development of the populace, rather than the details of the political system. These of course exist in a two-way feedback with each other but the primary driver of change is always moral and intellectual growth. If enough people could outgrow the desire to forcefully control others, we'd have a very nice capitalist society and a paradise on Earth, and probably nary an election in sight. Rafal -- 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 stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 10:55:20 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 20:55:20 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### So you think that government investment in pure basic science > (like astronomy or cosmology) is *not* purely a feel-good measure? > What makes you feel that free people would want to feel less good? Well, almost everything the government spends money on is for "feel-good" purposes rather than profit, while for business the reverse is the case. (Of course, this does not mean that some of the feel-good projects won't turn out to be cynical, corrupt or outright evil.) People only agree to be taxed because the money will be spent differently to the way they themselves would spend it or private enterprise would spend it, otherwise what's the point? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 11:23:06 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 21:23:06 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <30279.68738.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <30279.68738.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/6/30 Dan : > Again, you're back to the myth of a social contract. ?A government is fundamentally unlike owning stock in IBM. ?You usually have no exit option -- or the exit option is set along the lines that makes exiting extremely impractical, such as you have to leave the country. ?(Leaving the country to escape a state, of course, happens, but from the rights point of view, the state does not own the country -- any more than a criminal gang owns your neighborhood and you must leave if you don't like it simply because the gange moved in and claims the neighborhood.) The state owns the communal property and therefore this communal property is owned by the people. When state-owned assets are sold, the proceeds are used to retire debt or reinvested, same as when a company sells assets. States set rules for their employees and citizens and levy taxes. Companies set rules for their employees and sometimes raise money from shareholders by selling new shares, causing existing shareholders to lose out unless they participate. If a majority of the shareholders agree to make a particular change to the way the company functions, the change is made, no matter how stupid it is or how much it is opposed by existing management. Similarly if the majority of the citizens want to make a change to the way the state is run, no matter how radical the change, and no matter how much incumbent politicians argue against it. Of course existing management or politicians will have a lot of sway, but only because people allow themselves to be manipulated. Ultimately, dissatisfied shareholders or employees can leave a company, and ultimately dissatisfied citizens can leave a state or eg. refuse to work if they don't want to pay the fees (tax), but it is admittedly harder in the case of the citizens. >> If you limit >> yourself to decisions that can be made only on an >> individual basis or >> with 100% agreement of all affected individuals, that >> places a severe >> limitation indeed on what can be achieved. > > This puts a false dichotomy: either we have majoritarian democracy or we have some form of individual veto democracy. ?Again, the choice is a voluntary society or some form of coercion (which includes all forms of democracy). ?In the voluntary society, you don't need 100% agreement on things. ?You can spend your money your way and I mine. ?We might, as it stands, come to a voluntary relationship where you and I both agree to spend some of our money on something together -- as in a business agreement. ?That's the kind of collective pooling of resources that can and does happen voluntarily. ?But your and my agreement does not bind anyone else. ?You and I can't say, "Well, we agreed to fund the nanotech project. ?Now, since we two constitute a majority, any third person we grab now must spend her or his money the way we want." But if three of us voluntarily form a company, the third person has to go with the decision of the other two, or else leave. This is also what happens when someone migrates to a particular country, and is aware of the rules at the point of entry. It's a bit different for the person born in the country, since no-one decides where he will be born. But this is an insurmountable problem, unless we say that the native-born are not bound by any of the rules that immigrants are. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 11:55:41 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 21:55:41 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <223281.75803.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <223281.75803.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Dan : >> I would vote for my taxes to be higher so that I and >> everyone else >> could contribute to useful government projects, such as >> science, >> health and education, but if my taxes were lower I >> wouldn't >> voluntarily contribute to these projects myself. > > In other words, you would prefer to force everyone else to do what you would not voluntarily do yourself? No, I would voluntarily agree for myself and everyone else to be forced. To give an example, if a very expensive project were required to divert an asteroid that was going to destroy the Earth, I would vote to be forced to contribute to this project, rather than vote to be allowed to contribute voluntarily. For if I and everyone else were allowed to contribute voluntarily, not only would the cooperators be carrying an extra burden compared to the defectors, but there might not be enough cooperators to make a difference, so I may as well spend my money in an enjoyable way in the time I have left. > As a side note, this seems to mesh with some ideas I have on the fear of freedom. ?I'm not saying I'm original here, but I think people fear freedom in two ways: > > 1. ?What others might do with freedom. > 2. ?What they themselves might do with freedom. > > The first way is the kind I see often with conservatives who fear that once people are free to, say, be gay, watch porn, smoke pot, or grow their hair long, society will collapse. ?No amount of teeth-pulling seems to change their minds. These conservatives can go to hell. > The second way is the kind I find among so called progressives who fear that if they are free to choose, then they are free to lose -- i.e., if they can choose, they might make mistakes. ?E.g., if the government doesn't provide me with a pension, I might spend my whole life blowing my money on partying (probably being gay, watching porn, smoking pot, and washing my long hair with expensive rinses) and then end up old and decrepid without any safety net. ?And, again, no amount of teeth-pulling seems to change their minds. Actually, few people fear that they will lose due to future bad choices. If they thought this way they would avoid the bad choices in the first place or, if they knew they couldn't help themselves, take measures like voluntarily apply for an independent financial administrator. Instead, people make the bad choices *then* ask to be bailed out. >> We potentially have this situation: 100% of the population >> is be >> willing to be taxed for a particular project on the >> understanding that >> everyone else will also be taxed, but 0% of the population >> is willing >> to contribute to the project voluntarily if they know that >> no-one else >> need contribute. Therefore, a project that everyone >> supports and is >> happy to pay for is never undertaken. > > Potentially where? ?Right now, that doesn't seem to be the situation at all. ?The situation is some people would prefer to live in a free society. ?Others would not. ?Most, however, seem not to care enough either way. ?My guess is if more people were allowed to choose, they would NOT all choose not to fund R&D. > > And, yes, perhaps funding levels would be lower in purely nomimal terms. ?I can't say for sure, though lower nominal funding may not mean less important R&D gets done, but that it gets done more efficiently and effectively. ?Recall the differences in the levels of funding between the Wrights and Langley? ?The latter had roughly 350 times the funding, yet the Wrights not only succeeded, they used a wind tunnel to deal with this, paving the way for the near ubiquitous use of this device in air flow design today. That is a spurious argument. What about all the millions spent unsuccessfully on heavier than air flight by all the other private researchers throughout the ages? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 12:05:04 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 22:05:04 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Rafal Smigrodzki : > On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 10:09 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> >> We potentially have this situation: 100% of the population is be >> willing to be taxed for a particular project on the understanding that >> everyone else will also be taxed, but 0% of the population is willing >> to contribute to the project voluntarily if they know that no-one else >> need contribute. Therefore, a project that everyone supports and is >> happy to pay for is never undertaken. > > ### No, this is not something that everyone supports - it's something > everyone wants to pretend they support, and shifting 99.999% of its > cost on others (especially the rich) is just the way to have your > hypocritical cake and eat it too. If people really want something, > like building a cathedral, they *will* pay on their own. > > Don't confuse your desire to pretend you are good with actually being good. I'm not good, I admit that I'm bad. I don't give to charity, but I agree to be taxed, and demand that the *government* use the tax money eliminate the need for charity. Actually I don't even quite agree to be taxed, since I try to minimise my tax whenever I can. I would actually prefer it if everyone else were taxed, but an exception is made just for me. That isn't going to happen, so second best is that I get taxed along with everyone else. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 1 12:06:47 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:06:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/1 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### So you think that government investment in pure basic science >> (like astronomy or cosmology) is *not* purely a feel-good measure? >> What makes you feel that free people would want to feel less good? > > Well, almost everything the government spends money on is for > "feel-good" purposes rather than profit, while for business the > reverse is the case. There is a difference from feel good and being good. Until now, you supported that public spending and taxes are for good purposes; now you support that it is all for "feel good" purposes. But good and "feel good" are very different concepts. The difference is "feel good" people are inherently egoistical, as they act to feel good about themselves; that their action cause actual damages is not important and it is better to hide, as it could reduce the good feeling. A doctor, like you IIRC, could greatly harm a person if he act on a "feel good" basis and not on an ethical basis. How many people would be killed by "feel good" doctors that don't want them to suffer for no reasons? Or how many resources would be consumed to save a patient with Futile medical care and subtracted to the resources needed by other patients that could actually benefit from them? The same is for publicly financed research and health care: feel good trample being good. > (Of course, this does not mean that some of the > feel-good projects won't turn out to be cynical, corrupt or outright > evil.) Or that "evil" people would be unmasked by the abolition of public health care or public research. People, like you, that would never give freely to people in need or to finance no-profit research. And they would not give because they are interested in "feel good" without actually pay the price of being good. > People only agree to be taxed because the money will be spent > differently to the way they themselves would spend it or private > enterprise would spend it, otherwise what's the point? That people agree to taxes mainly because they have not a better option in mind and the costs of opposing to them is too big. I never found anyone that claimed to had paid more taxes on purpose to give more money to the government. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 12:29:40 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 22:29:40 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/6/30 Dan : > I disagree. ?I don't think there will ever be such a thing as a post-scarcity society. ?As long as there are unmet wants, there will be scarcity. ?And I also disagree that statism -- whether in its democratic form or something else -- is necessary or inevitable either. ?I think de-legitimizing the state can happen and this can happen in variety of ways -- not necessarily in a purely ideological change where everyone wakes up and sees that statism really is worse than the alternatives. The post-scarcity society will not come by addressing supply, but by addressing demand. A radical way to do this would be to have direct control of your brain so that you can modify your desires and second order desires. If I have $1000 I want $2000; but if instead of going to the trouble getting the extra thousand I could modify my mind so that I could be in every way *just as satisfied* with the thousand I already have, why wouldn't I? The end result would be that I adjust my mind so that I am motivated to do only those things which I consider of intrinsic worth, or those things which I think I *ought* to consider of intrinsic worth. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 1 12:29:39 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:29:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> Rafal Smigrodzki ha scritto: > ### No, this is not something that everyone supports - it's something > everyone wants to pretend they support, and shifting 99.999% of its > cost on others (especially the rich) is just the way to have your > hypocritical cake and eat it too. If people really want something, > like building a cathedral, they *will* pay on their own. For example, the "Sagrada Fam?lia, is a massive, privately-funded Roman Catholic church that has been under construction in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain since 1882 and is not expected to be complete until at least 2026." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sagrada_Fam%C3%ADlia Stathis could tell us how privately funded project are always short term minded. Not only, he could tell us how many public funded project become self-supporting like the Sagrada Familia (they fund the building with the tickets of the visitors). > Don't confuse your desire to pretend you are good with actually being good. I think he confuse his desire to feel good about himself with actually being good. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 1 12:54:17 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:54:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4B5C79.10907@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/1 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> Don't confuse your desire to pretend you are good with actually being good. > I'm not good, I admit that I'm bad. I don't give to charity, but I > agree to be taxed, and demand that the *government* use the tax money > eliminate the need for charity. Actually I don't even quite agree to > be taxed, since I try to minimise my tax whenever I can. I would > actually prefer it if everyone else were taxed, but an exception is > made just for me. That isn't going to happen, so second best is that I > get taxed along with everyone else. So, in the future, could you avoid to trolling with false pretences of morality? What you have is a bad case of envy. You want destroy what you can not be able to have for yourself: charity. As you are unwilling to give freely, so others must be forced to give so they can not give freely. If they would be able to give freely, you would know other are better than you. It is, at the bottom, a status symbol. Who that give freely a gift to others in need show his power for other to see (reason for the Christians don't like ostentation of generosity and advice to give anonymously when possible). You, and people like you (usually socialist of various stripes), hate that someone could show better than you. Openly attacking them would be dangerous, so the next best thing is to use others to attack them. Claiming an entitlement is a status seeking. An entitlement raise the status of the people receiving it, where receiving the charity of someone lower their status. Mirco From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 13:03:01 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 10:03:01 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325><542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Stathis Papaioannou> The post-scarcity society will not come by addressing supply, but by > addressing demand. A radical way to do this would be to have direct > control of your brain so that you can modify your desires and second > order desires. If I have $1000 I want $2000; but if instead of going > to the trouble getting the extra thousand I could modify my mind so > that I could be in every way *just as satisfied* with the thousand I > already have, why wouldn't I? The end result would be that I adjust my > mind so that I am motivated to do only those things which I consider > of intrinsic worth, or those things which I think I *ought* to > consider of intrinsic worth. So... the post-humanism will make us buddhists? :-) From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 13:33:27 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 23:33:27 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Mirco Romanato : >> Well, almost everything the government spends money on is for >> "feel-good" purposes rather than profit, while for business the >> reverse is the case. > > There is a difference from feel good and being good. > Until now, you supported that public spending and taxes are for good > purposes; now you support that it is all for "feel good" purposes. > But good and "feel good" are very different concepts. > The difference is "feel good" people are inherently egoistical, as they > act to feel good about themselves; that their action cause actual > damages is not important and it is better to hide, as it could reduce > the good feeling. > > A doctor, like you IIRC, could greatly harm a person if he act on a > "feel good" basis and not on an ethical basis. > How many people would be killed by "feel good" doctors that don't want > them to suffer for no reasons? Or how many resources would be consumed > to save a patient with Futile medical care and subtracted to the > resources needed by other patients that could actually benefit from them? > > The same is for publicly financed research and health care: > feel good trample being good. I didn't intend that there be such a distinction between "good" and "feel-good". What I meant was that private businesses generally only do anything in order to make a profit, and only occasionally donate to charity etc. because they think it's the right thing to do. >> (Of course, this does not mean that some of the >> feel-good projects won't turn out to be cynical, corrupt or outright >> evil.) > > Or that "evil" people would be unmasked by the abolition of public > health care or public research. > People, like you, that would never give freely to people in need or to > finance no-profit research. > And they would not give because they are interested in "feel good" > without actually pay the price of being good. But I strongly support being taxed for these positive purposes, because I see this as fairer and more efficient. Charity is fickle, demeaning for the recipient, and ineffective. I see people who want to abolish all public services as selfish and evil, since you started the name-calling. >> People only agree to be taxed because the money will be spent >> differently to the way they themselves would spend it or private >> enterprise would spend it, otherwise what's the point? > > That people agree to taxes mainly because they have not a better option > in mind and the costs of opposing to them is too big. > > I never found anyone that claimed to had paid more taxes on purpose to > give more money to the government. No, and I try to minimise the taxes I pay even though I support taxation in principle. The choices are: (a) everyone pays tax; (b) everyone pays tax except me; (c) no-one pays tax My selfish preferred option is (b), but obviously that isn't going to happen. Second best is (a). I would probably be financially better off under (c), but I see that as morally wrong and would not support it. (I would feel guilty about (b) as well, but at least it would do little harm to the rest of the population, unlike (c)). -- Stathis Papaioannou From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 13:48:40 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 06:48:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Statism caused by scarcity/was Re: Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias Message-ID: <723946.75729.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 6/30/09, Henrique Moraes Machado cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com> wrote: >> I disagree.? I don't >> think there will ever be such a thing as a post-scarcity >> society. >> As long as there are unmet wants, there will be >> scarcity. >> And I also disagree that statism -- whether in its >> democratic form or something else -- is necessary or >> inevitable either. >> I think de-legitimizing the state can happen and this >> can happen in variety >> of ways -- not necessarily in a purely ideological >> change where everyone wakes >> up and sees that statism really is worse than the >> alternatives. > > Post-scarcity, in my POV at least, is not about "wants", > but about "needs". Yes, I know, but the problem is, from an economic standpoint, is "needs" are really purely subjective -- in the sense that there's no objective defintion for "needs."? On the other hand, "wants" can be objective defined -- whatever the person acts to gain or keep, whatever she pursues...? And economics studies these as drivers to action.? I.e., someone wants something, so she acts to obtain it.? (Note how this view does not judge whether the particular something is a need, is rational, is moral, is not frivolous.? Thus it allows the widest possible role for economics without saddling it with controversial and historically limited notions such as this particular want is petty, while this one is truly essential.? After all, the same economic laws apply in all cases -- whether a person is economizing on food on a desert island or a teenager is pestering her parents to get the new iPhone.) > There will allways be some degree of > scarcity of something. But let?s assume for a moment that > we succeed to solve the most basic problems which are to > provide energy, food, health and education for just > everyone. Would you agree that this is not anymore a > scarcity society? Because all wants are not satisfied. Thus, economic laws will still apply to action. The only way to avoid this is to have a literal Nirvana -- where there are no more wants. As long as there are wants, there will be action -- meaning action in the sense of purposive behavior, acting to achieve some end which implies that the actor is not satisfied, i.e., still has unmet wants. > I know that the above scenario doesn?t seem to be > attainable anytime soon, but if (and it?s a big if) this > comes to pass, wouldn?t it eliminate at least one of the > reasons for the existence of government and even states per > se? See above. Yes, I agree, you and I can pursue a world where what we consider "needs" can be met for all, BUT this would still not be a post-scarcity world. And if your theory about what we have governments -- because of scarcity -- were true -- and I think it's false -- there would still be wants unmet that would mean there were more desires than resources, hence the necessity to choose between ends and the need for government. Now, I disagree about your theory -- scarcity necessitates statism (is this a good way of putting it?) -- because people living under the condition of scarcity -- in fact, the only condition people have ever lived under and are likely to ever live under -- do NOT require statism to resolve disputes or to divvy up scarce means for their manifold ends. Moreover, sound theory and historical research shows that, while statism is dominant and clearly present now, it's not the only way to deal with these problems. In fact, one could argue, states are parasitic and actually make things worse, since the ruling class must absorb more wealth and is a net consumer of social wealth. Thus, wherever there is a state, society is, all else being equal, worse off and scarcity -- in terms of relative means -- is much worse. (In other words, absent a state, all else being the same, there would be more means to achieve more ends. The state acts, both figuratively and literally, as a tax on social wealth.*) It can also be argued that having more wealth -- more means to pursue ends -- does not have a simple relationship to statism. Yes, it's true that overbearing states reduce wealth, so there does seem to be a correlation with the level of statism and the level of wealth: higher levels of statism tend to consume more wealth. But the relationship seems a lot more complex than simply increasing overall wealth will lead to less statism. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, among others, has examined this relationship and come to the conclusion that wealthier societies might start out with less statism and this difference can help their states to win out in military competition -- as wealth is often turned into military power.** But after winning the competition, there's a tendency for the state to grow. Thus, a wealthier society with a smaller state grows a large state eventually. Returning to "scarcity necessitates statism," even if one is to accept the view that certain needs could be objectively defined (which I don't accept), does it seem the case that only societies with little wealth -- obviously, all else being the same, have more powerful states? One would expect, under such circumstances, for the hinterlands of empires to have powerful states, while the imperial metropoles -- where all the wealth is -- to be relatively state-free. Yet the opposite seems to be the case. Why is this? Regards, Dan * All examples, too, of states providing benefits appear to fall under the rubric of the broken window fallacy as discussed here before. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window for a brief presentation of this fallacy. ** Cf., his "Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis" which is in PDF at: http://www.mises.org/journals/jls/9_2/9_2_5.pdf From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 13:51:21 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 23:51:21 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Mirco Romanato : > Stathis could tell us how privately funded project are always short term > minded. Not only, he could tell us how many public funded project become > self-supporting like the Sagrada Familia (they fund the building with > the tickets of the visitors). Does the Sagrada Familia make a profit and is it as great as the profit that could be obtained by putting the money in a low risk interest-bearing deposit? An investor in general would not invest in a company that won't make a profit for decades, or ever. This isn't a controversial statement, it's just the way business works. Sometimes there are enthusiasts and private (as opposed to listed) companies who aren't answerable to shareholders and don't care about maximising profit, but that goes against the central principle of capitalist enterprise. >> Don't confuse your desire to pretend you are good with actually being good. > > I think he confuse his desire to feel good about himself with actually > being good. I'm a consequentialist: I only care about ultimate good effects, and when peoples' desire to "be good" doesn't lead to good effects, it's at best irrelevant and at worst dangerous. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 14:01:46 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 00:01:46 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A4B5C79.10907@libero.it> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5C79.10907@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Mirco Romanato : >> I'm not good, I admit that I'm bad. I don't give to charity, but I >> agree to be taxed, and demand that the *government* use the tax money >> eliminate the need for charity. Actually I don't even quite agree to >> be taxed, since I try to minimise my tax whenever I can. I would >> actually prefer it if everyone else were taxed, but an exception is >> made just for me. That isn't going to happen, so second best is that I >> get taxed along with everyone else. > > So, in the future, could you avoid to trolling with false pretences of > morality? As per my previous post, I don't care about deontological morality (which I guess is what you are referring to), only ultimate good effects. I have never claimed to be "better" than anyone else. > What you have is a bad case of envy. > You want destroy what you can not be able to have for yourself: charity. > > As you are unwilling to give freely, so others must be forced to give so > they can not give freely. If they would be able to give freely, you > would know other are better than you. > > It is, at the bottom, a status symbol. Who that give freely a gift to > others in need show his power for other to see (reason for the > Christians don't like ostentation of generosity and advice to give > anonymously when possible). You, and people like you (usually socialist > of various stripes), hate that someone could show better than you. > Openly attacking them would be dangerous, so the next best thing is to > use others to attack them. > > Claiming an entitlement is a status seeking. An entitlement raise the > status of the people receiving it, where receiving the charity of > someone lower their status. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'm just evil, and hadn't realised it. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 14:19:34 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 00:19:34 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Message-ID: 2009/7/1 Henrique Moraes Machado : > Stathis Papaioannou> The post-scarcity society will not come by addressing > supply, but by >> >> addressing demand. A radical way to do this would be to have direct >> control of your brain so that you can modify your desires and second >> order desires. If I have $1000 I want $2000; but if instead of going >> to the trouble getting the extra thousand I could modify my mind so >> that I could be in every way *just as satisfied* with the thousand I >> already have, why wouldn't I? The end result would be that I adjust my >> mind so that I am motivated to do only those things which I consider >> of intrinsic worth, or those things which I think I *ought* to >> consider of intrinsic worth. > > So... the post-humanism will make us buddhists? :-) It has parallels with Buddhism; this hadn't occurred to me, thank-you. I suppose a difference is that Buddhism sees desire as bad in itself and something to be relinquished, whereas the posthumanist would deal with the problem by adjusting desire so that it is consistent with what is felt to be intrinsically good and achievable. Also, the posthuman will be able to achieve nirvana by flicking a switch in his head rather than donning saffron robes and living as an ascetic, which I think the Buddhists might regard that as cheating. -- Stathis Papaioannou From aware at awareresearch.com Wed Jul 1 15:09:07 2009 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 08:09:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 7:19 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/1 Henrique Moraes Machado : >> So... the post-humanism will make us buddhists? :-) > > It has parallels with Buddhism; this hadn't occurred to me, thank-you. > I suppose a difference is that Buddhism sees desire as bad in itself > and something to be relinquished, whereas the posthumanist would deal > with the problem by adjusting desire so that it is consistent with > what is felt to be intrinsically good and achievable. Also, the > posthuman will be able to achieve nirvana by flicking a switch in his > head rather than donning saffron robes and living as an ascetic, which > I think the Buddhists might regard that as cheating. Stathis, this description of Buddhism reflects fundamental misconceptions, popular as they might be. Desire is not bad in itself; it just is. But *attachment* to desires leads to suffering. Desires are not to be relinquished, but to be acted upon, effectively and *coherently*. But attachment to any particular desire(s) just gets in the way. "Adjusting desire" and the notion of "intrinsic good" are examples of appealing but incoherent (paradoxical, self-referential, unmodelable) notions popular at the Science Fiction level of philosophical thought. They are indeed at a level of sophistication above that of the popular masses, but sadly, too many of us remain at that level as if enamored of the (relatively) superior view. "Flicking a switch to achieve Nirvana" is similarly naive, and additionally an example of category error. Enlightenment is not bliss, but rather, an effective understanding of the relationship of the observer to the observed. Thus the saying that pain is inevitable; suffering is optional. As for asceticism, it can be useful as a technique and practice for attaining an effective realization of the nature of attachment, but (in Buddhism) it isn't seen as an end in itself. The essence of Buddhist thought--its coherent conception of the "self" and its pragmatic "getting out of one's own way"--offer much of value to "tranhumanist" thought: the application of increasing instrumental effectiveness within an environment of increasing uncertainty (and possibility.) For what it's worth. Please carry on... - Jef From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 15:55:21 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 12:55:21 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325><542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <5CB548AF177542F0B117CC20414D399B@pcnx6325> Stathis Papaioannou>>> addressing demand. A radical way to do this would be to have direct >>> control of your brain so that you can modify your desires and second >>> order desires. If I have $1000 I want $2000; but if instead of going >>> to the trouble getting the extra thousand I could modify my mind so >>> that I could be in every way *just as satisfied* with the thousand I >>> already have, why wouldn't I? The end result would be that I adjust my >>> mind so that I am motivated to do only those things which I consider >>> of intrinsic worth, or those things which I think I *ought* to >>> consider of intrinsic worth. Me>> So... the post-humanism will make us buddhists? :-) Stathis Papaioannou> It has parallels with Buddhism; this hadn't occurred to me, thank-you. > I suppose a difference is that Buddhism sees desire as bad in itself > and something to be relinquished, whereas the posthumanist would deal > with the problem by adjusting desire so that it is consistent with > what is felt to be intrinsically good and achievable. Also, the > posthuman will be able to achieve nirvana by flicking a switch in his > head rather than donning saffron robes and living as an ascetic, which > I think the Buddhists might regard that as cheating. I also don't like this desire adjustment. If we tame our desires to only what's achievable or perceived as good (who decides what?s good, by the way?), to me it's the perfect recipe for stagnation. From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 1 16:33:21 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 18:33:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/1 Mirco Romanato : >> Stathis could tell us how privately funded project are always short >> term minded. Not only, he could tell us how many public funded >> project become self-supporting like the Sagrada Familia (they fund >> the building with the tickets of the visitors). > Does the Sagrada Familia make a profit and is it as great as the > profit that could be obtained by putting the money in a low risk > interest-bearing deposit? I suppose not, as they use the money to fund the build of the Cathedral itself. When the Cathedral will be completed, maybe. But I don't think they will share the profit with the investors. As a Roman Catholic Church I suppose they will use the funds for the Church and for charities. No investor will recoup his money in this. http://www.sagradafamilia.cat/sf-eng/docs_instit/fundacio.htm >> THE FOUNDATION >> >> Since it was built as an expiatory church, the financing of La >> Sagrada Fam?lia is totally private. >> >> The disinterested donations and the revenue from the donative >> admission charge paid by two and a half million visitors every year >> are what make the building possible. >> >> The expiatory church of La Sagrada Fam?lia is managed by an >> ecclesiastical foundation, whose purpose is to administer the >> budgets and carry out the building project for a church dedicated >> to the Holy Family, faithfully following the initial guidelines of >> Antoni Gaud?. >> >> The Construction Board of La Sagrada Fam?lia Foundation was created >> as an independent private canonical foundation on 20 July 1895 by >> the bishop of Barcelona at the time, Jaume Catal?. >> >> From its beginnings as a foundation, and in accordance with the >> wishes of the descendants of the founder Josep M. Bocabella, the ex >> officio chairman is the archbishop of Barcelona. >> >> The direction and coordination of the church building plan, the >> management of the funds and the actions of the Foundation are >> delegated to a person from outside the ecclesiastical sphere who >> works with the members of the Construction Board. >> >> The delegate chairman and the members of the board all work >> disinterestedly. >> >> >> WHAT IT MANAGES The Construction Board of La Sagrada Fam?lia >> Foundation is in charge of managing the funds and setting the pace >> and planning the building of the church. Since 1992 it has also >> managed the Gaud? House-Museum in Parc G?ell, the house where he >> lived from 1906 to 1926. > An investor in general would not invest in a company that won't make > a profit for decades, or ever. Investors, for definition, finance only thing that will produce a profit for them (or they hope so). But talking about investors when we are talking about private funding/financing of research is to dismiss with a wave of the hand all private financiers that act for a not for profit motive. You simply wish them don't exist. But they exist, are plenty and are skilled. > This isn't a controversial statement, It is only convenient and unrelated with the question at hand. It is useful to you as you re-frame constantly the terms of the discussion. > it's just the way business works. Sometimes there are enthusiasts and > private (as opposed to listed) companies who aren't answerable to > shareholders and don't care about maximising profit, but that goes > against the central principle of capitalist enterprise. You could believe it , but it is not so. The root of capitalistic enterprise was born inside the monks communities. They elected their leaders and they mange the capitals (terrains, building, wealth) for their communities. Having no heirs let them to concentrate on the rational management and preserve the capital from dissipation from unfit heirs. Monasteries grow larger and employed large parts of the population. They started to produce in excess of their consumption and sold the product to other monasteries and in public markets. >>> Don't confuse your desire to pretend you are good with actually >>> being good. >> I think he confuse his desire to feel good about himself with >> actually being good. > I'm a consequentialist: I only care about ultimate good effects, and > when peoples' desire to "be good" doesn't lead to good effects, it's > at best irrelevant and at worst dangerous. Unfortunately, there is not "ultimate good effects". There is not end after they live always happy and well. The means you use to obtain your ends will follow you. Whatever you do or are willing to condone will be used against you in the future. People caring only for the "ultimate good effect" have killed, maimed, destroyed and enslaved multitudes. At the end of the day, the only "ultimate good effect" they minded was they own good. It is a weak excuse used by many weak persons to justify their weak actions. People caring for the "ultimate good effect" destroy trust, deter collaboration in the long run (and usually in the short run also). They destroy the fabric of the society. They believe they are the ultimate judge of others and their own actions. And, not strangely, they are lenient with themselves and harsh with other. Bin Laden, Pol Pot and others surely believed or believe that the ultimate good effect is more important that the means used to obtain it. Mirco From eschatoon at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 16:36:41 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 18:36:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> Instead of making a religion war of this, how about simply acknowledging that both private and public R&D funding have their roles? --- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 1 16:19:18 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 11:19:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Interview with Natasha @ hpluscafe.com Wed July 8th 7-8pm PST on hplus community Message-ID: <54A47923D68049ECADAFF76DE32A7A02@DFC68LF1> Subject: Come join me at LIVE Chat Interview with Natasha Vita-More @ hpluscafe.com Wed July 8th 7-8pm PST on hplus community hplus community Chris Willi... Chris Williamson Chris Williamson has invited you to the event 'LIVE Chat Interview with Natasha Vita-More @ hpluscafe.com Wed July 8th 7-8pm PST' on hplus community! Natasha Vita-More will be joining us in the H+ Cafe Chatroom for a live interview with Chris Williamson after which we will open the floor for a few questions and discussion. LIVE Chat Interview with Natasha Vita-More @ hpluscafe.com Wed July 8th 7-8pm PST Time: June 29, 2009 from 7pm to 8pm Location: http://www.hpluscafe.com/chat Organized By: The Members of H+ Cafe Event Description: LIVE Chat Interview with Natasha Vita-More @ hpluscafe.com Wed July 8th 7-8pm PST Natasha Vita-More will be joining us in the H+ Cafe Chatroom for a live interview with Chris Williamson after which we will open the floor for a few questions and discussion. See more details and RSVP on hplus community: http://www.hpluscommunity.com/events/event/show?id=2899471%3AEvent%3A6083 &xgi=d1KZU49 About hplus community h+ covers technological, scientific, and cultural trends that are changing - and will change - human beings in fundamental ways. hplus community 304 members 287 photos 37 videos 37 discussions 6 Events 71 blog posts To control which emails you receive on hplus community, click here -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 18:28:27 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 11:28:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Instead of making a religion war of > this, how about simply > acknowledging that both private and public R&D funding > have their roles? While that sounds like the wise course, the point under debate was whether one is better at delivering the goods as well as whether each has certain path dependencies. (I didn't use the term "path dependencies," but this was what I meant by pointing out that a voluntary system would likely have R&D funding, but not in exactly the same way as the current coercive system.) There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects. Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. Regards, Dan From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 1 20:11:05 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 22:11:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4BC2D9.2020204@libero.it> Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > Instead of making a religion war of this, how about simply > acknowledging that both private and public R&D funding have their > roles? Rothbard supported that the public funds are better used to purchase of research done by private actors, not to organize the research done by public employees. So, if a government want the research done, the best way to obtain it is to pay for the results of the research, not to hire scientists, technicians, clerks and so on and organize them as ministerial clerks in a hierarchical way. Better again, I would support, is to reduce the taxes paid by an entity if it expend them for scientific and technological R&D. If IBM spend 10 Billons in research this year, IBM will pay 10 Billion less in taxes next year. Research would bloom as much as it would be minimally profitable. The problem with public funding is that the governments have different priorities than the governed. They will fund what is useful for the politicians to keep their power and will refuse to fund (if they don't prohibit them) the researches that could damage them. Private entities have not this problem, they don't owe nothing to the majority of the voters; they try to satisfy their clients because their life is linked to their client's welfare. The Prohibitionism (both alcohol and drugs) show exactly this. The politicians continue to support damaging politics because they must stick to the politics they supported in the past. There is not "We did a mistake, let change course". The find, near always, a way to shift the costs and the blame of their mistakes. Mirco From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 20:18:38 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 13:18:38 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Monopolies in banking Message-ID: <160895.93486.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 6/30/09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Wed, Jun 24, 2009 at 9:17 AM, wrote: >> How long is that?? Even now, with fiat currencies -- >> that, theoretically, have no upper limit on the amount of >> inflating -- people accept them.? I'm sure, e.g., Bernanke >> and his predecessors are paid in dollars. > > ### Let's say, 10 years. You get paid a 1/1000000th share > of GNP ten > years after you start running the Non-Fed. Or maybe 1/100 > 000th share > of the difference between today's GNP and the GNP of 2019. > That takes > care of the temporal aspect of inflation, and directs your > attention to long-term growth. I reckon you and I could keep fiddling with the numbers here.? There is one other problem, however, what if this monetary czar fails?? What happens then?? With competing free market banks, if they fail, they lose money -- in the extreme case, the bank goes under possibly tarnishing the reputation of the bank's management for good.? If the monetary czar under your scheme faces no serious penalties, then you can see she would have an incentive to gamble -- on the off chance that she wins big during his ten years. Also, think about cental bankers now.? If Greenspan had been given ten years to run things, that would've set him in 1997 (he started in 1987, no?) for 1/1000000th share of GNP.? During that time it's arguable that he did lots of things that were bad for the economy.? Also, GNP might not be the best measure of wealth.? I'd be deeply suspcious of any measure that counts government spending as a net positive addition (this is why, e.g., the US's GNP went up severely during WW2 and fell in 1946, making it look like the economy had collapsed when, in fact, 1946 was a great year -- though government spending went over a waterfall) to wealth, but GNP not only does that, it also is, like GDP, insensitive to capital consumption. This might seem a nitpick, but if your central banker merely has to hit a certain target to make her numbers, then she has an incentive to merely hit that target and only do so when required.? Granted, I doubt she (or real world central bankers) are looking to tank the economy a day after she's paid, but the incentive is there to merely grow that number -- and not necessarily to have a healthy, prosperous economy.*? Also, this comes down to how to measure economic health and prosperity.? These are not easy matters.? In a free market in this area, no doubt, the problem would not go away, though people in free markets tend to be able to do these things better because there's a strong incentive to come up with meaningful measures and change measures when they don't work AND a lot of the calculational (Mises) and informational (Hayek) problems are resolved or at least ameliorated. >> I agree about 'knee-jerk support of "democracy",' but >> the problem with modern central banks is NOT democratic >> control -- as in the voters selecting the head of central >> banks or the legislators selecting ditto.? The problem is >> they are a monopoly -- no matter if they were controlled by >> the voters (whatever that means; at best, it would mean a >> majority of the voters, which would likely still be a >> minority of the people in any real world country today), by >> the legislature, by the executive, or were actually >> independent. > > ### Yes, I agree, being a monopoly is the biggest problem, > but a > monopolist rewarded for long-term growth is less bad than a > monopolist > controlled by an elected official looking for short term > political > advantage. > > Please do remember that I am not advocating this solution > as the best > one you can have but rather as something less bad than what > we have today. In this context, a big problem with the US central bank is it is secretive, so there's no check on its power.? Were it forced to report to the Congress and to be audited by an independent auditor, things might be marginally better. However, the chief problem is monopoly; the solution is to get rid of the monopoly.? Until that happens, other changes seem, to me, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. Regards, Dan * I can just hear the refrain now from some here: but private banks would face the same problem. Yes, they would, but as long as the market was open to entry, anyone who adopted a live fast, die young strategy would invite competition from those saw this as a problem. Also, without legal tender laws, it'd be relatively easy to switch to different monies rather than be faced with hoping agaisnt hope that the central banker always makes the best decisions. From kanzure at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 20:21:57 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 15:21:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: [neuro] Connectionists: OpenViBE software for BCI and realtime neuroscience : official release In-Reply-To: <20090701164858.GW23524@leitl.org> References: <20090701164858.GW23524@leitl.org> Message-ID: <55ad6af70907011321s562b6c01lef517cf9a95536dd@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Eugen Leitl Date: Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 11:48 AM Subject: [neuro] Connectionists: OpenViBE software for BCI and realtime neuroscience : official release To: info at postbiota.org, neuro at postbiota.org, tt at postbiota.org ----- Forwarded message from Yann Renard ----- From: Yann Renard Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:05:22 +0200 To: undisclosed-recipients: ; Subject: Connectionists: OpenViBE software for BCI and realtime neuroscience ? ? ? ?: official release Organization: IRISA User-Agent: Thunderbird 2.0.0.22 (X11/20090608) Reply-To: yann.renard at irisa.fr We are proud to announce the release of *OpenViBE* , an opensource platform that enables to design, test and use Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI). Broadly speaking, OpenViBE can be used in many real-time Neuroscience applications. The OpenViBE platform stands out for its high modularity. It addresses the needs of different types of users (programmers and non-programmers) and proposes a user-friendly graphical language which allows non-programmers to design a BCI without writing a single line of code. OpenViBE is portable, independent of hardware or software targets, can run under Windows and Linux and is entirely based on free and open-source software. OpenViBE is compatible with MATLAB programming. OpenViBE comes with preconfigured scenarios and runs already existing applications such as : ? ?* BCI based on motor imagery ? ?* P300 speller ? ?* Neurofeedback ? ?* Real-time visualization of brain activity in 2D or 3D OpenViBE is available under the terms of the LGPL-v2+. The whole software is developed in C++. It consists of a set of software modules that can be integrated easily and efficiently to design BCI applications such as for Virtual Reality interaction. Key features of the platform are: ? ?* *Modularity and reusability* Our platform is a set of software ? ? ?modules dedicated to the acquisition, pre-processing, processing ? ? ?and visualization of cerebral data, as well as to the interaction ? ? ?with VR displays. OpenViBE is a general purpose software, which ? ? ?implies users should be able to easily add new software modules in ? ? ?order to fit their particular needs. ? ?* *Different tools for various users* OpenViBE is designed for ? ? ?different types of user: clinicians, signal processing ? ? ?researchers, computer/human interaction developers etc. Their ? ? ?various needs are addressed and different tools are proposed for ? ? ?each of them, depending on their programming skills and their ? ? ?knowledge in brain processes. ? ?* *Portable software* The platform operates independently from the ? ? ?different software and hardware targets. It includes an ? ? ?abstraction allowing to run with various acquisition machines, ? ? ?such as EEG or MEG. It can run on Windows and Linux and also ? ? ?includes different data visualisation techniques. ? ?* *Connection with virtual reality* Our software can be integrated ? ? ?with high-end VR applications. OpenViBE can serve as an external ? ? ?peripheral to connect a BCI system to any kind of VR application. ? ? ?It also takes advantage of VR displays , allowing to visualize ? ? ?cerebral activity more efficiently or to provide incentive ? ? ?training environments (e.g., for neurofeedback). If you want more details, check these links : *Website* *Quick introduction video* : *Software download* : *One-hour training session video* : *Screenshots and videos* : We will demonstrate OpenViBE in Berlin, Germany, july 8th-10th at the BBCI workshop . For latest news, check our website at . Looking forward to your feedback, we hope you'll enjoy working with OpenViBE as we do. Feel free to join us and to spread the word... Many people did this already ! Best regards, The OpenViBE consortium *Contact* : Project Leader : Anatole L?cuyer, INRIA (anatole.lecuyer at irisa.fr) Lead Software Engineer : Yann Renard, INRIA (yann.renard at irisa.fr) ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A ?7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE _______________________________________________ neuro mailing list neuro at postbiota.org http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/neuro -- - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 19:58:45 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 12:58:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Post-scarcity from the demand side/was Re: Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <886784.12657.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Date: Wednesday, July 1, 2009, 8:29 AM > 2009/6/30 Dan : >> I disagree. ?I don't think there will ever be such a >> thing as a post-scarcity society. ?As long as there are >> unmet wants, there will be scarcity. ?And I also disagree >> that statism -- whether in its democratic form or something >> else -- is necessary or inevitable either. ?I think >> de-legitimizing the state can happen and this can happen in >> variety of ways -- not necessarily in a purely ideological >> change where everyone wakes up and sees that statism really >> is worse than the alternatives. > > The post-scarcity society will not come by addressing > supply, but by > addressing demand. A radical way to do this would be to > have direct > control of your brain so that you can modify your desires > and second > order desires. If I have $1000 I want $2000; but if instead > of going > to the trouble getting the extra thousand I could modify my > mind so > that I could be in every way *just as satisfied* with the > thousand I > already have, why wouldn't I? The end result would be that > I adjust my > mind so that I am motivated to do only those things which I > consider > of intrinsic worth, or those things which I think I *ought* > to > consider of intrinsic worth. I don't disagree with that -- getting rid of demands would put one in a post-scarcity condition -- and this was implied by my remark, "As long as there are unmet wants, there will be scarcity." So, I agree one can approach scarcity from the supply side, the demand side, or both sides.* To remain continuously in a situation where all wants are met, however, seems unlikely short of rewiring one's mind -- whether literally or figuratively (as in convincing oneself to never have any wants one can't immediately meet) -- to eliminate these. However, I don't think that a person pursuing only supposed "instrinsic worth" goals** is in a post-scarcity state. Yes, she or he might have a very short list of goals, but these goals will still likely require scarce resources to achieve and will force her or him to economize. For instance, even the monk has scarce time for contemplation and might have to choose between spending more time meditating over doing something else -- e.g., mending his sandals, going on pilgrimage, or planting barley. Just having a shorter list of demands, doesn't make one demand-free and one is still forced to choose how to use one's means -- even if one only acts for what one believes are worthy ends. Regards, Dan * Of course, for people who lack many of what are considered basic necessities, they might tell you they'd prefer to attack the supply side -- for them at least. Certainly, there's nothing morally wrong, IMO, with pursuing ever more wealth. That said, there's always been a certain romantic appeal, for me, of people who can live with only, say, the clothes on their back. ** Which is not to mock the notion. I think many people pursue things that won't make them happy or that are contradictory to their other goals. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 21:20:43 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 14:20:43 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A4BC2D9.2020204@libero.it> Message-ID: <768739.24454.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: >> Instead of making a religion war of this, how about >> simply >> acknowledging that both private and public R&D >> funding have their roles? > > Rothbard supported that the public funds are better used to > purchase of > research done by private actors, not to organize the > research done by > public employees. > > So, if a government want the research done, the best way to > obtain it is > to pay for the results of the research, not to hire > scientists, > technicians, clerks and so on and organize them as > ministerial clerks in a hierarchical way. But isn't this the model, mostly, in the US and many other countries? Yes, they do have public agencies carrying out research, but a lot of research is carried out by public funds being doled out to private firms that actually do the research. > Better again, I would support, is to reduce the taxes paid > by an entity > if it expend them for scientific and technological > R&D. > If IBM spend 10 Billons in research this year, IBM will pay > 10 Billion > less in taxes next year. > Research would bloom as much as it would be minimally > profitable. While that would be good, I think such tax savings should be increased until there are no taxes. Why should anyone be penalized because she or he doesn't do research? > The problem with public funding is that the governments > have different > priorities than the governed. They will fund what is useful > for the > politicians to keep their power and will refuse to fund (if > they don't > prohibit them) the researches that could damage them. It's not just that they have different agendas. That's the public choice problem -- viz., government officials are no better than anyone else and tend to act out of self-interest too. But that's only part of the problem. The other part is there is no clear way for people in government, even were they blessed with pure hearts and only acted from the noblest motives, to know the priorities of the governed. There is no clear way for them to assess just what the governed want or what's good for society or in the public interest. (The one way to find out what these are is to allow the governed to actually make the choices themselves. But even on this list, there are people who don't want this; they, apparently, believe they know better and have no qualms about using force to get what they believe is the correct outcome.) > Private entities have not this problem, they don't owe > nothing to the > majority of the voters; they try to satisfy their clients > because their > life is linked to their client's welfare. > > The Prohibitionism (both alcohol and drugs) show exactly > this. > The politicians continue to support damaging politics > because they must > stick to the politics they supported in the past. There is > not "We did a > mistake, let change course". The find, near always, a way > to shift the > costs and the blame of their mistakes. I don't think it's that politicians are constituted so as never ever to admit a mistake. The problem is rather than the cost of mistakes in public policy are not visited on those who make the decisions or reap the benefits. Thus, the incentive mechanism decouples costs from benefits, so that mistakes are only noticed long after they're made and usually only when they caused lots of damage -- not to mention that the beneficiaries of a bad policy often have a vested interest in the policy continuing. (Often what happens is benefits are concentrated to a small, organized, and highly vocal group while costs are distributed over the rest of society -- who are large but disorganized. You know, if I give you $1,000 but only tax the rest of the population of, say, 100,000 at a rate of $0.02 -- viz., I keep $1,000 for myself and give $1,000 to you -- then you have a much stronger incentive to fight to keep your $1,000 than any of the 100,000 have to keep their $0.01.) There are also the Mises calculation problem and the Hayekian knowledge problem over and above the incentive issue. Without a market price system for factor prices, government officials, even if they could overcome the incentive problem, would be hard pressed to guess whether their policies were working and working efficiently. (Of course, governments can play market and contract out some services, but even these would be distorted prices -- meaning more distorted than if the consumers of the services actually voluntarily paid for the services.) Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 21:32:32 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 14:32:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Coercion in context/was Re: Private and government R&D Message-ID: <377258.81971.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 6/30/09, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Tue, Jun 30, 2009 at 3:02 PM, Dan wrote: >> I'm not sure what you mean by "prohibition." ?The >> first thing that comes to mind is, of course, things made >> illegal, such as alcohol during Probition in the 1920s in >> the US or many recreational drugs now in most of the world. >> These prohibitions are state coercion -- since they are >> enforced by using the violence, real or implied, of the >> state. > > OK. But we were discussing "coerced" vs "voluntary" tech > development. > My point was exactly that "coercion" may also have a > negative content. > Sometimes arising from legal, sometimes from "cultural" > norms. I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Coercion would have to, to be objective, imply a context where rights (rights not to be interfered with, that is) are defined. That the state is not the only source of coercion, I freely admit and have underscored before. The state, however, tends to be the largest and most routine source of coercion in any statist society. (In fact, when this is not the case, it's either that we have a nominal state which is ineffective and another de facto state that actually is the largest source of coercion or the rare case of stateless societies.) That cultural norms can be coercive is true. For example, in a stateless society with slavery, one can argue that the cultural norms enforce slavery. And slavery is coercive -- some people who presumably have a right to not be enslaved are enslaved. (In general, too, in stateless societies, it's much harder to keep coercive norms going for long because it's harder to enforce them. Think of the slave example in the US pre-1865 context. Slavery seemed both a cultural norm in the US's South and was legally enforced in the whole US. Legal enforcement made it cheaper for slaveowners to hold slaves because the cost of enforcing slavery was redistributed to the rest of society. Were this not so, then slaves would merely have to leave the plantation and head to another part of the US -- a place where either people didn't agree with slavery or one where regardless of agreeing with it they weren't going to waste their resources returning someone else's slaves -- without fear of being returned.) But the case we are discussing -- public funding of R&D -- seems clearly coercive and not a social or cultural norms issue. That taxation and other government funding methods require force to continue seems uncontroversial: people who don't pay taxes, if they are caught, go to jail or face stiff fines and property seizures; people who try to set up rival currencies, likewise, are punished. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 21:39:52 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 14:39:52 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias Message-ID: <943808.56068.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 6/30/09, Jeff Davis wrote: > Date: Tuesday, June 30, 2009, 7:51 PM > On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 9:46 PM, > Rafal > Smigrodzki > wrote: > > > ..., I really dislike the idea of random jerks > usurping the right > > to control my life as they collectively see fit. ... > > Indeed, this seems the problem.? Everybody gets to > vote, and the > losers have to suck it up. > > I agree with Rafal here. > > If a culture is nearly homogeneous, and the choices are > only slightly > differing shades of "the" dominant cultural theme, it's far > easier for > the losers to deal with the result, because their "loss" is > likely > quite small, and so, tolerable? In a diverse culture, > however, > particularly one where value differences are stark/polar, > the > "minority" group, ie the losers, are more likely to feel > like enslaved > victims.? This is a bad deal.? Unjust, unstable, > and dangerous.? The > world over we see post-imperial nation states with highly > distinct > sub-groups literally at war with one another.? Nation > states generally > "control" this by the time-tested application of an even > greater level > of violence.? This is neither right nor rational (is > that redundant?). > > As if that weren't bad enough, political elites use > cultural diversity > as a political resource.? They cynically pit one group > against another > in order to achieve their own personal political > advancement, with > little real concern for the voters. > > With cultural diversity, democracy gets corrupted by the > elite, > becoming, for the voting masses, a form of > self-betrayal.? I have at > long last taken "democracy" down from its pedestal, and out > of its > shrine (I store the lawn mower there now) and put it over > by the > corner of the garage next to the rest of the junk waiting > to be taken > to the dump.? Occasionally I look at it and wonder if > I should throw > it out, fix it, or turn it in for a new model.? As I > now live 6 mo in > Canada and 6 mo in Baja, I guess you could say I've chosen > the last. Just one small point: I find the comments ironic. Democracy works best when people basically think alike. Well, yes, but that probably goes for any group. If we all think alike, then there might be less disagreements.* But will we all be better off? I doubt it. Regards, Dan * Of course, there's some evidence that the more closely people are in ideology, the more they will fight against each other. See, for instance, _The Origins of Alliances_ by Stephen M. Walt. Walt details how states that are closer together in ideology often are in the fiercest opposition. One need only think of the rift between the Soviets and the Red Chinese, though Walt's case data are from the Middle East. From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 23:38:07 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 09:38:07 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/2 Dan : > There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects. ?Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. That will always be the case unless the funding is sourced from an individual or a unanimous group of individuals. There will be shareholders in a company who prefer that some of the R&D money be spent on other things, but don't feel strongly about this to sell their shares. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 00:07:44 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:07:44 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/2 Mirco Romanato : > Unfortunately, there is not "ultimate good effects". > There is not end after they live always happy and well. > The means you use to obtain your ends will follow you. > Whatever you do or are willing to condone will be used against you in > the future. > > People caring only for the "ultimate good effect" have killed, maimed, > destroyed and enslaved multitudes. At the end of the day, the only > "ultimate good effect" they minded was they own good. It is a weak > excuse used by many weak persons to justify their weak actions. > > People caring for the "ultimate good effect" destroy trust, deter > collaboration in the long run (and usually in the short run also). They > destroy the fabric of the society. They believe they are the ultimate > judge of others and their own actions. And, not strangely, they are > lenient with themselves and harsh with other. It's not an ultimate good effect if it leads to harm. And the only useful thing about "being good" is that it makes it more likely that good things will happen as a result. Would you stick to a principle if you were convinced that this would make the world a worse place? > Bin Laden, Pol Pot and others surely believed or believe that the > ultimate good effect is more important that the means used to obtain it. Actually I believe those two are a good counterexample to what you are attempting to say: people who believed in a religious or political principle, and didn't care how much suffering they caused as a result since the principle was more important. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 00:25:42 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 10:25:42 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Message-ID: 2009/7/2 Aware : > "Adjusting desire" and the notion of "intrinsic good" are examples of > appealing but incoherent (paradoxical, self-referential, unmodelable) > notions popular at the Science Fiction level of philosophical thought. > ?They are indeed at a level of sophistication above that of the > popular masses, but sadly, too many of us remain at that level as if > enamored of the (relatively) superior view. But *something* would happen if people could adjust their desires to be more in keeping with their notion of what was intrinsically worthwhile. For example, someone with a weight problem might decrease his propensity to overeat and increase his motivation to exercise. This is what people try to do already, but often with little success for great effort. The ability to directly modify your mind to achieve this would change everything. -- Stathis Papaioannou From p0stfuturist at yahoo.com Wed Jul 1 19:20:01 2009 From: p0stfuturist at yahoo.com (p0stfuturist at yahoo.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 12:20:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Sure. But let's have?it clear:?you'll have to redesign the CNS (at least the male CNS) so that people aren't?so destructively predatory?before you'll?know voluntary economic 'systems'.? At any rate, quite a wait. ?It might even be worth it for someone to arrange?assisted suicide for themselves and then immediately they are cryopreserved, so as to conceivably live in a voluntarist world much later. ? ? >There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects.? Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. Regards, Dan ? ? ? _______________________________________________ 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 emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 02:05:51 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 11:35:51 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world Message-ID: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Can the rats and mice push us to enhance them far enough soon enough, to stave off the insectoid menace? http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From aware at awareresearch.com Thu Jul 2 02:06:33 2009 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 19:06:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > But *something* would happen if people could adjust their desires to > be more in keeping with their notion of what was intrinsically > worthwhile. For example, someone with a weight problem might decrease > his propensity to overeat and increase his motivation to exercise. > This is what people try to do already, but often with little success > for great effort. The ability to directly modify your mind to achieve > this would change everything. It's important to distinguish between technologically modifying (improving) our instrumental effectiveness in relation to the promotion of our present values, versus technologically modifying (improving? Relative to what?) our values themselves. The former is quite coherent; we do it all the time, whether it's practicing a skill, (un)learning a behavior, or developing and using tools. The latter is incoherent in its recursively regressive application of agency. My point is that we already modify our minds--but there is no mind-object, thus no "directly"--and all the while our instrumental effectiveness tends to improve. - Jef From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 02:49:10 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 19:49:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn > Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world > > Can the rats and mice push us to enhance them far enough soon > enough, to stave off the insectoid menace? > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm > > -- > Emlyn I was thinking the opposite. If we could learn to fully control the ants, there would be no better rat detroyer, or locust, fly, possibly mosquito abatement device, or perhaps an alternate cross pollinator. Or machines for assembling tiny robots. Or garbage recycling preprocessors, or something to that effect, or terrain denial weapons, less lethal than land mines, but perfectly effective, or a means of sequestering carbon, or mining materials such as bat shit or phosphorus, or for cutting up leaves in order to help it break down, or as garbage grinders, or something. For tiny bio-robots, ants are a good choice, hard to beat: they reproduce quickly, and they are already preadapted for doing some curious behavior when the appropriate chemical signal is present. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 03:53:47 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 20:53:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > On Behalf Of spike > ... > > For tiny bio-robots, ants are a good choice, hard to beat: > they reproduce quickly, and they are already preadapted for > doing some curious behavior when the appropriate chemical > signal is present. > > spike Or think of this: imagine ants could be trained to take threads of aramid fiber, and walk along an ordinary thin wire of some sort, or even a string, place the aramid fiber somewhere along the string, tack down one end with some kind of epoxy material, then stick it down along the length of the string every few cm. Jillions of the little bastards keep adding more and more aramid fibers and tacking them in place until they evolve a structural element of astoundng tensile strength. They grow a kevlar rope. Or how about having them carry radio frequency identifier tags, then wander about inside the walls of a house known to have termites. If they encounter the termite nest, the termite soldiers slay the ant, which then makes the RFID tag stop wandering. If a number of the tags seem to be stopping in one place, we know that is a suspected termite area, so we get a magnetron tube, perhaps scrounged from an old microwave oven, and cook the damn termites in the wall without poisons or other expenses. Or perhaps we could figure out how to program the mandibled beasts to go out and remove shell weed from the rye fields. If so, what would we call them? Shell weed ants? (No thanks, I think I will sit this one out.) {8^D Darwin would be so impressed. (With the ants, not the wordplay.) spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 05:07:07 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 14:37:07 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/2 spike : > >> On Behalf Of spike >> ... >> >> For tiny bio-robots, ants are a good choice, hard to beat: >> they reproduce quickly, and they are already preadapted for >> doing some curious behavior when the appropriate chemical >> signal is present. >> >> spike > > Or think of this: imagine ants could be trained to take threads of aramid > fiber, and walk along an ordinary thin wire of some sort, or even a string, > place the aramid fiber somewhere along the string, tack down one end with > some kind of epoxy material, then stick it down along the length of the > string every few cm. ?Jillions of the little bastards keep adding more and > more aramid fibers and tacking them in place until they evolve a structural > element of astoundng tensile strength. ?They grow a kevlar rope. > > Or how about having them carry radio frequency identifier tags, then wander > about inside the walls of a house known to have termites. ?If they encounter > the termite nest, the termite soldiers slay the ant, which then makes the > RFID tag stop wandering. ?If a number of the tags seem to be stopping in one > place, we know that is a suspected termite area, so we get a magnetron tube, > perhaps scrounged from an old microwave oven, and cook the damn termites in > the wall without poisons or other expenses. > > Or perhaps we could figure out how to program the mandibled beasts to go out > and remove shell weed from the rye fields. ?If so, what would we call them? > Shell weed ants? ?(No thanks, I think I will sit this one out.) > > {8^D > > Darwin would be so impressed. ?(With the ants, not the wordplay.) > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > Do you think you could build a 2 dimensional surface, some kind of sheet, divided in pixels which could each emit various ant pheromones? I guess those would be phixels. >From a computer's point of view, that surface would be like a big display, a Smellovision. Then, you could control ant behaviour by control the pheromone release at each phixel. Maybe that would help in your plans? -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From p0stfuturist at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 04:26:31 2009 From: p0stfuturist at yahoo.com (p0stfuturist at yahoo.com) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 21:26:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <376337.63560.qm@web59914.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> "voluntary system"? coercive systems are systems, yes. But wouldn't a voluntary entity be too anarchic to be called a system? The Soviet Union was a system, albeit a violent one; however the Russian Federation is called a federation but is more anarchic in actuality. ? >There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects.? Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. Regards, Dan -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 05:04:19 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 22:04:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <70FAAE6B504B403B8D510ACD6A4F222A@spike> > ...On Behalf Of spike > Subject: Re: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world > > > > On Behalf Of spike > > ... > > For tiny bio-robots, ants are a good choice, hard to beat: > > ... > > Or perhaps we could figure out how to program the mandibled > beasts to go out and remove shell weed from the rye fields. > If so, what would we call them? Shell weed ants? (No thanks, I think I will sit this one out.) ... {8^D spike Or how about this: we use them to transport explosives, in granular form, into the most vulnerable areas in the engine compartment of enemy tanks or trucks. It wouldn't take all that much, a couple grams of granular cordite, stack it in the fuel injector control module, and POP the thing doesn't run in the morning, and the bad guys don't even know why. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 05:34:10 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2009 22:34:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn .... > > Shell weed ants? ?(No thanks, I think I will sit this one out.) .... > Do you think you could build a 2 dimensional surface, some > kind of sheet, divided in pixels which could each emit > various ant pheromones? > I guess those would be phixels... Oh my, excellent thinking. No need to stop at 2 dimensions. If we could make some sort of three dimensional open-cell foam matrix, where the ants could create pockets of... anty matter, no that's not the term I want. Pockets of ants with raw materials to be carried to any arbitrary construction site, where it could be carried to where it is needed. Perhaps you have seen those dough-like two part epoxy materials, such as plumber's epoxy. I can imagine two ants each carrying a small spherule of epoxy which they combine at the site. That stuff forms a most hardy solid when it sets. > >From a computer's point of view, that surface would be like a big > display, a Smellovision. > > Then, you could control ant behaviour by control the > pheromone release at each phixel. > > Maybe that would help in your plans? > > -- > Emlyn Emlyn your ideas cause my brain to go into overdrive. Imagine a big two dimensional array, ants would be ordered via pheromones to do some very simple task, such as block the cell with an epoxy material or not block the cell. A pattern is formed. Then a second layer is stacked on top of the first, and a new pattern is formed in that layer, continuing thus adding layers until a three dimensional structure is formed that physically cannot be manufactured by standard techniques. One example of such would be a solid mass interspersed with a series of interlocking tunnels, for the purpose of heat exchange between counterflowing liquids, for instance. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jul 2 06:12:35 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:12:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011006.027954a8@satx.rr.com> At 10:34 PM 7/1/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: >Pockets of ants with raw materials to be carried to any arbitrary >construction site, where it could be carried to where it is needed. Perhaps >you have seen those dough-like two part epoxy materials, such as plumber's >epoxy. I can imagine two ants each carrying a small spherule of epoxy which >they combine at the site. You could build an antire antomological arcology! E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12730 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jul 2 06:18:51 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:18:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011006.027954a8@satx.rr.com> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011006.027954a8@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011510.02788e78@satx.rr.com> Completely antegrated, of course. You know, this could explain the very antology of the universe. I will dub this the... Antropic Principle! E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12730 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 06:40:51 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:40:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A4BC2D9.2020204@libero.it> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <4A4BC2D9.2020204@libero.it> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907012340g1c885287t652507395936a53f@mail.gmail.com> Why so many inflexible rules and regulations? What is wrong with making the best decision on a case by case basis? In some case, the best course of action can be purchasing research done in the private sector. In others, organizing research done by public employees. In others, leaving everything to the dynamics of the marketplace. In others, something else. There is no one-size.fits-all magic bullet, one just has to roll his sleeves up and make things work. On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: >> Instead of making a religion war of this, how about simply >> acknowledging that both private and public R&D funding have their >> roles? > > Rothbard supported that the public funds are better used to purchase of > research done by private actors, not to organize the research done by > public employees. -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 06:45:29 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:45:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907012345g407e5f5bq347e99685c1a5425@mail.gmail.com> What are "the goods"? To whom, when, how, and at what price, they are "delivered"? And first of all, what is "better"? I think wine is better than beer, you may think beer is better than wine. There is one sane solution: I drink wine and you drink beer. There are many types of cohercive systems. I can force you to do what I say by pointing a gun, or by withdrawing a loan. On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Dan wrote: > > --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> Instead of making a religion war of >> this, how about simply >> acknowledging that both private and public R&D funding >> have their roles? > > While that sounds like the wise course, the point under debate was whether one is better at delivering the goods as well as whether each has certain path dependencies. ?(I didn't use the term "path dependencies," but this was what I meant by pointing out that a voluntary system would likely have R&D funding, but not in exactly the same way as the current coercive system.) > > There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects. ?Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. > > Regards, > > Dan > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 lcorbin at rawbw.com Thu Jul 2 06:25:59 2009 From: lcorbin at rawbw.com (Lee Corbin) Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 23:25:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4C52F7.5080306@rawbw.com> Ants from the same mega-colony don't fight, even if they're from different continents! The same thing seems to have happened to people. One group descended about 80,000 years ago, perhaps fought with---but anyway replaced---the "other colony" neaderthals. And then, yes, it did take thousands of years, don't fight anymore. I have myself witnessed people from Europe and Africa getting along quite well in the city where I live. Even few nations go to war anymore. Unbiased neanderthal observers probably saw homo sapiens as a different meta-tribe. Lee Emlyn wrote: > Can the rats and mice push us to enhance them far enough soon enough, > to stave off the insectoid menace? > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm > From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 07:20:43 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 03:20:43 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Monopolies in banking In-Reply-To: <160895.93486.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <160895.93486.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907020020y124ccf47r9a36803e65556cb2@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 4:18 PM, Dan wrote: > > I reckon you and I could keep fiddling with the numbers here.? There is one other problem, however, what if this monetary czar fails?? What happens then?? With competing free market banks, if they fail, they lose money -- in the extreme case, the bank goes under possibly tarnishing the reputation of the bank's management for good.? If the monetary czar under your scheme faces no serious penalties, then you can see she would have an incentive to gamble -- on the off chance that she wins big during his ten years. ### Well, we could make her post a bond before assuming the job and forfeit part of it if there is negative growth of the economy. -------------------- > > Also, think about cental bankers now.? If Greenspan had been given ten years to run things, that would've set him in 1997 (he started in 1987, no?) for 1/1000000th share of GNP.? During that time it's arguable that he did lots of things that were bad for the economy. ### Sure, but if you want to maximize the value of your 1/1000000th share of the economy in 1997, you'd better make sure it keeps growing smoothly as soon as you are on the job. It is the cumulative growth, like compound interest, that really makes a big difference over time. ----------------------- > Also, GNP might not be the best measure of wealth.? I'd be deeply suspcious of any measure that counts government spending as a net positive addition (this is why, e.g., the US's GNP went up severely during WW2 and fell in 1946, making it look like the economy had collapsed when, in fact, 1946 was a great year -- though government spending went over a waterfall) to wealth, but GNP not only does that, it also is, like GDP, insensitive to capital consumption. ### Agreed. One could use other measures. ----------------------- > > This might seem a nitpick, but if your central banker merely has to hit a certain target to make her numbers, then she has an incentive to merely hit that target and only do so when required.? Granted, I doubt she (or real world central bankers) are looking to tank the economy a day after she's paid, but the incentive is there to merely grow that number -- and not necessarily to have a healthy, prosperous economy.* ### If you want to get paid every year, you will try to assure continuous smooth growth. I am not talking about just giving the banker a windfall every ten years, but rather a continuously variable source of income directly yoked to the long-term growth of the economy. ------------------------ > > However, the chief problem is monopoly; the solution is to get rid of the monopoly.? Until that happens, other changes seem, to me, like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic after it hit the iceberg. ### Amen, my brother. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 07:34:43 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 03:34:43 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > No, and I try to minimise the taxes I pay even though I support > taxation in principle. > > The choices are: > (a) everyone pays tax; > (b) everyone pays tax except me; > (c) no-one pays tax > > My selfish preferred option is (b), but obviously that isn't going to > happen. Second best is (a). I would probably be financially better off > under (c), but I see that as morally wrong and would not support it. > (I would feel guilty about (b) as well, but at least it would do > little harm to the rest of the population, unlike (c)). > ### Hey, how can not paying taxes harm us? You say it's morally wrong!? And all this while agreeing that you and of course everybody else would be financially better off under option (c). What's wrong with being financially better off? Man, to me it sounds like saying that burning little puppies alive is a nice thing to do. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 07:57:38 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 03:57:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907020057r5df64b64w1b0a9e48d3a00793@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 8:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > I'm not good, I admit that I'm bad. I don't give to charity, but I > agree to be taxed, and demand that the *government* use the tax money > eliminate the need for charity. Actually I don't even quite agree to > be taxed, since I try to minimise my tax whenever I can. I would > actually prefer it if everyone else were taxed, but an exception is > made just for me. That isn't going to happen, so second best is that I > get taxed along with everyone else. > ### Stathis, the first step to being good is to admit to yourself you are bad. You don't care about the poor, as indicated by the facts that you don't give to charity, the taxes you insist on imposing on others actually are more frequently used to slaughter poor people rather than help them, and you know it. Insistence on redistributive taxation as a means to help the poor is pure hypocrisy (see an excellent post by Robin at http://www.overcomingbias.com/2009/06/redistribution-isnt-about-sympathy.html ). Once you get this off your chest, you may be selfish like almost everyone out there but you are no longer a hypocrite. That is actually a huge moral advantage. In fact, this means you are a good person! Now you just need to cogitate on envy and coexistence while eschewing initiation of violence, and you will become bodhisattva, even if you never ever give a penny to a beggar. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 08:17:56 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 04:17:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <768739.24454.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A4BC2D9.2020204@libero.it> <768739.24454.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907020117h27801197x3b9189acfa730606@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 5:20 PM, Dan wrote: > > But isn't this the model, mostly, in the US and many other countries? ?Yes, they do have public agencies carrying out research, but a lot of research is carried out by public funds being doled out to private firms that actually do the research. ### You mean the SBIR program? This is a drop in the bucket, 2% of total NIH budget and Obama has essentially cut it off from funding increases. There are of course massive multi-deca-billion dollar government contracts to develop new killing machines at the Raytheons or Lockheeds but way too little in support of useful stuff. The big problem with government funding is that it amplifies the herd instincts of scientists: once a theory gains sufficient popularity at the single-source funding agency (e.g. the amyloid hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease), only applications in support of this theory are funded, and research that fails to disprove it is produced in huge volumes, drowning out voices of skepticism. As a result, even such manifest bullshit as the amyloid hypothesis can survive for decades despite decisive evidence against it being available in peer-reviewed journals. With a polycentric system of funding this herding behavior would be less pronounced. There would be more completely idiotic pseudoresearch (like the Intelligent Design, or homeopathy stuff) but at least there would be also fewer massive all-encompassing failures that can lock up a field (like AD research) for decades. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 08:23:20 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 04:23:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907020123jabbef00n396bd5ccb297a3ee@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/2 Dan : > >> There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects. ?Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. > > That will always be the case unless the funding is sourced from an > individual or a unanimous group of individuals. There will be > shareholders in a company who prefer that some of the R&D money be > spent on other things, but don't feel strongly about this to sell > their shares. ### But you do notice that there would be no massive, hateful revulsion generated under a non-coercive system? Nobody would be forced at the proverbial gunpoint to pay for abortion research or for Intelligent Design research, while internally seething with hatred and experiencing significant disutility? This should appeal to a self-described consequentialist like you, no? Rafal From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 11:08:45 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 21:08:45 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Effectiveness of democracy as a result of selection bias In-Reply-To: References: <7AF6269C16BF4B929B73F053FBBE8F35@pcnx6325> <542151.57492.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <44D991EBB319460DA0700B03B9171D85@pcnx6325> Message-ID: 2009/7/2 Aware : > It's important to distinguish between technologically modifying > (improving) our instrumental effectiveness in relation to the > promotion of our present values, versus technologically modifying > (improving? Relative to what?) our values themselves. ?The former is > quite coherent; we do it all the time, whether it's practicing a > skill, (un)learning a behavior, or developing and using tools. ?The > latter is incoherent in its recursively regressive application of > agency. In that case how would you describe my example of an overweight person who wants to lose weight, but can't, and then modifies his brain in order to eat less and exercise more? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 11:21:11 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 21:21:11 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/2 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> The choices are: >> (a) everyone pays tax; >> (b) everyone pays tax except me; >> (c) no-one pays tax >> >> My selfish preferred option is (b), but obviously that isn't going to >> happen. Second best is (a). I would probably be financially better off >> under (c), but I see that as morally wrong and would not support it. >> (I would feel guilty about (b) as well, but at least it would do >> little harm to the rest of the population, unlike (c)). >> > ### Hey, how can not paying taxes harm us? You say it's morally > wrong!? And all this while agreeing that you and of course everybody > else would be financially better off under option (c). What's wrong > with being financially better off? I might be financially better off without taxation since I am in a relatively high tax bracket, but the people who currently can't work for one reason or another would definitely be worse off, and the country as a whole might be worse off, given a few years of no public services such as education or health. You don't believe this, obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree to be taxed when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant thing. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 11:56:58 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 21:56:58 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907020123jabbef00n396bd5ccb297a3ee@mail.gmail.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907020123jabbef00n396bd5ccb297a3ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/2 Rafal Smigrodzki : > On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/7/2 Dan : >> >>> There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects. ?Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. >> >> That will always be the case unless the funding is sourced from an >> individual or a unanimous group of individuals. There will be >> shareholders in a company who prefer that some of the R&D money be >> spent on other things, but don't feel strongly about this to sell >> their shares. > > ### But you do notice that there would be no massive, hateful > revulsion generated under a non-coercive system? Nobody would be > forced at the proverbial gunpoint to pay for abortion research or for > Intelligent Design research, while internally seething with hatred and > experiencing significant disutility? A shareholder might indeed feel revulsion at what his company was doing, either due to moral considerations or due to a fear that it will lead to loss of profitability. The company can also "tax" the shareholder by selling new shares, diluting his holding unless he buys the shares. The shareholder can always sell, but this might be reluctantly, or at a loss. This is analogous to the situation of the citizen, who can leave, or not work if he doesn't want to pay tax. Admittedly it is generally harder for the citizen to take this action, but that's what happens when you live in a large country. And if enough citizens really hate the system they live under, they can change it or change the management, just as the shareholders can. -- Stathis Papaioannou From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 12:51:41 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 05:51:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, p0stfuturist at yahoo.com wrote: >> There is also the problem that under the coercive >> system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet >> projects. Some might find no problem with this, but I >> think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion >> introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under >> a voluntary system. > > Sure. But let's have?it > clear:?you'll have to redesign the CNS (at least > the male CNS) so that people aren't?so > destructively predatory?before you'll?know > voluntary economic 'systems'.? > At any rate, quite a wait. > ?It might even be worth it for someone to > arrange?assisted suicide for themselves and then > immediately they are cryopreserved, so as to conceivably > live in a voluntarist world much later. I disagree. I don't think any major change in human nature is necessary for a voluntary society. Granted, any voluntary society is bound to have some unwarranted coercion. E.g., under a libertarian system, I don't expect crime to disappear. But that's not what I meant: I didn't mean a society where there is no crime or where everything is perfect. Rather I meant one where institutionalized coercion is absent -- i.e., where there is no state and no contender to being a state. That seems achievable now though perhaps unlikely. One reason to be believe it's possible is humans have approached this in the past and even now in statist societies most human interactions are voluntary NOT coercive. For example, the interactions on this list. As far as I know, no one here literally beats up any of her or his interlocutors. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 13:43:31 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 06:43:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <333960.87616.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/2 Dan : >> There is also the problem that under the coercive >> system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet >> projects. ?Some might find no problem with this, but I >> think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion >> introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a >> voluntary system. > > That will always be the case unless the funding is sourced > from an > individual or a unanimous group of individuals. There will > be > shareholders in a company who prefer that some of the > R&D money be > spent on other things, but don't feel strongly about this > to sell their shares. In that case -- where they don't feel strongly enough to leave -- the option is still there. In any voluntary group, assuming a normal group where people don't all agree but don't all disagree, there will decisions made that won't be so bad that anyone will leave -- even though they don't like the decision. However, with voluntary groups -- as opposed to coercive ones -- that there's always an exit option, IMO, makes this more bearable. And such undesirable decisions, in any dynamic market (i.e., in any market:), are opportunities from entrepreneurship. If, say, there's only one grocery store in town and you like collards (let's leave aside why anyone would like them for the moment: this is a purely fantastic example:) and that store doesn't and won't carry them, but you are unwilling to go to another town or order them shipped in, you might seem stuck with not having collards. However, that won't stop another store from opening up in town that carries collards. (Granted, this can happen with coercive systems too. Political entrepreneurs do exist. Thus voice systems*, while they foreclose the exit option, aren't completely rigid. Yet, empirically, what we see with voice systems -- like democracies -- is that in order to change anything, a coalition has to be created and power seized. This is why exit systems tend to change incrementally while voice systems tend to change episodically. In the former, changes can happen rapidly as people leave relationships they no longer find fulfilling; in the latter, pressure must be built and enough people or enough people in the elite must be sold on the change.) I'm also not sure why this is a big deal. Almost all R&D projects do not require all of society's wealth to pursue. Where all projects of the "We need $100 trillion to do this in the next year," then there'd be a big problem of having any R&D at all -- as I presume most people would prefer not to live in abject poverty for the sake of some R&D gamble coming through. Most research seems of a much smaller scale -- of the kind not requiring huge budgets and lots of support. If, e.g., a particular project costs $1 million to fund over the next year, you don't need to get 300 million Americans or 400 million Europeans or 6 billion humans to agree to it. In a free society, assuming that it's as wealthy as any modern Western society**, you nearly need to get $1 million and that could be had from one person or a small group of people. Regards, Dan * I originally read of this distinction between voice and exit systems many years ago in _Privatization and Educational Choice_ by Myron Lieberman. Not sure if anyone here would care to read it, but just wanted to give credit where credit is due. Not sure if Lieberman originated the idea... ** The lesson of history seems to be that the more free a society is, the more wealth it tends to have. Of course, this is contextual. From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jul 2 13:56:17 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:56:17 -0500 Subject: [ExI] META: RE: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907020123jabbef00n396bd5ccb297a3ee@mail.gmail.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com><333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907020123jabbef00n396bd5ccb297a3ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Let's keep this discussion civil. No name calling. If you need to get pissed, take it off list and argue amongst yourselves. Natasha Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jul 2 13:56:54 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:56:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011510.02788e78@satx.rr.com> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com><710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com><1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike><7.0.1.0.2.20090702011006.027954a8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011510.02788e78@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <49B722CF3C424A43896B54B9C3911CE6@DFC68LF1> LOL!! Ha-ha! Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien Broderick Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 1:19 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world Completely antegrated, of course. You know, this could explain the very antology of the universe. I will dub this the... Antropic Principle! E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12730 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jul 2 14:01:42 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 09:01:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com><710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> Message-ID: <0FD1AA14273A412192AFCB47C295FA3C@DFC68LF1> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQERRbU23bU The middle part shows excavation of the inside of the colony. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2009 12:34 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn .... > > Shell weed ants? ?(No thanks, I think I will sit this one out.) .... > Do you think you could build a 2 dimensional surface, some kind of > sheet, divided in pixels which could each emit various ant pheromones? > I guess those would be phixels... Oh my, excellent thinking. No need to stop at 2 dimensions. If we could make some sort of three dimensional open-cell foam matrix, where the ants could create pockets of... anty matter, no that's not the term I want. Pockets of ants with raw materials to be carried to any arbitrary construction site, where it could be carried to where it is needed. Perhaps you have seen those dough-like two part epoxy materials, such as plumber's epoxy. I can imagine two ants each carrying a small spherule of epoxy which they combine at the site. That stuff forms a most hardy solid when it sets. > >From a computer's point of view, that surface would be like a big > display, a Smellovision. > > Then, you could control ant behaviour by control the pheromone release > at each phixel. > > Maybe that would help in your plans? > > -- > Emlyn Emlyn your ideas cause my brain to go into overdrive. Imagine a big two dimensional array, ants would be ordered via pheromones to do some very simple task, such as block the cell with an epoxy material or not block the cell. A pattern is formed. Then a second layer is stacked on top of the first, and a new pattern is formed in that layer, continuing thus adding layers until a three dimensional structure is formed that physically cannot be manufactured by standard techniques. One example of such would be a solid mass interspersed with a series of interlocking tunnels, for the purpose of heat exchange between counterflowing liquids, for instance. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 14:12:16 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 07:12:16 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <87404.32028.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Emlyn wrote: > Can the rats and mice push us to > enhance them far enough soon enough, > to stave off the insectoid menace? > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8127000/8127519.stm I'd heard of the European super-colony, but I wasn't aware it was transcontinental. I wonder if this is one outcome of globalization: that not only do humans better integrate, but so do other species, especially colony-organisms. Of course, this might not happen for all. Why, for instance, do we not see bee super- or mega-colonies? Regards, Dan From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 14:29:23 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 07:29:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011510.02788e78@satx.rr.com> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com><710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com><1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike><7.0.1.0.2.20090702011006.027954a8@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090702011510.02788e78@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <65356F2168BD4794958328F0DC6F18DC@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world > > Completely antegrated, of course. You know, this could > explain the very antology of the universe. I will dub this > the... Antropic Principle! I have no one to blame but myself. I got him started. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 14:40:11 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 07:40:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: <0FD1AA14273A412192AFCB47C295FA3C@DFC68LF1> References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com><710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com><1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> <0FD1AA14273A412192AFCB47C295FA3C@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More > Subject: Re: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQERRbU23bU The middle part > shows excavation of the inside of the colony. > > > Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More > ... > > Cool! Thanks Natasha. Bert Holldobler (from the video) with E.O. Wilson, recently published a bodacious new book calle "The Super-Organism: The Beauty, Elegance, and Strangeness of Insect Societies" Excellent! spike From max at maxmore.com Thu Jul 2 14:52:33 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 09:52:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <200907021452.n62EqreK005183@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Eschatoon Magic wrote: >What are "the goods"? To whom, when, how, and at what price, they >are "delivered"? And first of all, what is "better"? I think wine is >better than beer, you may think beer is better than wine. There is >one sane solution: I drink wine and you drink beer. But when a good is provided by the government, you are forced to pay for Joe's beer, and Joe is forced to pay for your wine. >There are many types of cohercive systems. I can force you to do >what I say by pointing a gun, or by withdrawing a loan. This is the same frustrating discussion as on the WTA list... No, withdrawing a loan (under previously-agreed conditions) is *not* coercion. It may be damned inconvenient, but you had no right to the loan in the first place. It was something you agree to. Withdrawing it under agreed upon conditions (like failure to make payments) is not coercion. Surely you can see the difference? Of course, it's possible that the system making the loans is one that you're being forced into (for instance, it may be a government monopoly, or one where your private choices are restricted through legislation), but that's a separate issue. Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 15:11:09 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 17:11:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <200907021452.n62EqreK005183@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907021452.n62EqreK005183@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907020811i50eea837u6dbc33bf4c471bfc@mail.gmail.com> No, Max, it is not a separate issue. Perhaps not "forced into" loans, but certainly "scammed into" loans. Take the recent real estate bubble: real estate prices have been artificially driven to unrealistic values while at the same time citizens have been encouraged to spend virtual money without having real money, by a _joint_ action of governments and private financial institutions. Then when the bubble has exploded, citizens have not been able to afford their mortgages anymore, banks have repossessed their homes and sold them at bargain prices to their own people, who will now restart the loop. It is a big shakeout that happens periodically in our economies, to rob citizens of their money and give the money back to their "real owners": government officers and financial institutions acting in _complicity_. This is not free market, but organized thievery masquerading as free market. Give me a healthy free market anytime, but not this farce. On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 4:52 PM, Max More wrote: > Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> >> What are "the goods"? To whom, when, how, and at what price, they are >> "delivered"? And first of all, what is "better"? I think wine is better than >> beer, you may think beer is better than wine. There is one sane solution: I >> drink wine and you drink beer. > > But when a good is provided by the government, you are forced to pay for > Joe's beer, and Joe is forced to pay for your wine. > >> There are many types of cohercive systems. I can force you to do what I >> say by pointing a gun, or by withdrawing a loan. > > This is the same frustrating discussion as on the WTA list... No, > withdrawing a loan (under previously-agreed conditions) is *not* coercion. > It may be damned inconvenient, but you had no right to the loan in the first > place. It was something you agree to. Withdrawing it under agreed upon > conditions (like failure to make payments) is not coercion. Surely you can > see the difference? > > Of course, it's possible that the system making the loans is one that you're > being forced into (for instance, it may be a government monopoly, or one > where your private choices are restricted through legislation), but that's a > separate issue. > > Max > > > > ------------------------------------- > Max More, Ph.D. > Strategic Philosopher > Extropy Institute Founder > 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 scerir at tiscali.it Thu Jul 2 15:24:39 2009 From: scerir at tiscali.it (scerir at tiscali.it) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 17:24:39 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] quantum effects in biological systems Message-ID: <7063047.1246548279179.JavaMail.root@ps2> There is a non-technical review article here, by Paul Davies: http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/39669 A very, very remote possibility, from the cryonicist p.o.v., could be the following. A clock is a dynamical system which passes through a succession of states, at constant time intervals. Clocks measure times, and - coupled with other systems - can also 'measure' the duration of a process. But clocks can also be used to 'control' the duration of a process, that is to say the evolution of a (i.e. biological) system. In this case if a clock has a good time resolution, there is some energy exchange between the clock and the 'controlled' process, that is the evolution of the physical system under control. Both the evolution of the physical system and the clock are then perturbed, because when you include the clock mechanism (in the Hamiltonian describing the quantum system to be observed or to be controlled) you get this perturbation. If then a clock is too precise, a strange effect (actually a sort of 'quantum-Zeno' effect) may occur: the evolution of the (biological) system under 'control' may be even 'halted'. [The discussion of point above is rather technical, but there is some literature, i.e. a paper by Asher Peres about a quantum clock used to 'control' a process.] Arriva Tiscali Mobile! Acquista la tua SIM Tiscali a soli ?5 e scopri la semplicit? e la convenienza del nuovo servizio per il tuo cellulare. Passa a Tiscali Mobile http://abbonati.tiscali.it/promo/tiscalimobile/ From max at maxmore.com Thu Jul 2 15:25:37 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 10:25:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <200907021525.n62FPq2J028870@andromeda.ziaspace.com> An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 15:33:27 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:33:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <710882.99884.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 8:28 PM, Dan > wrote: > > --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Eschatoon Magic > wrote: >>> Instead of making a religion war of >>> this, how about simply >>> acknowledging that both private and public R&D >>> funding >>> have their roles? >> >> While that sounds like the wise course, the point >> under debate was whether one is better at delivering the >> goods as well as whether each has certain path dependencies. >> (I didn't use the term "path dependencies," but this was >> what I meant by pointing out that a voluntary system would >> likely have R&D funding, but not in exactly the same way >> as the current coercive system.) >> >> There is also the problem that under the coercive >> system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet >> projects.? Some might find no problem with this, but I >> think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion >> introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a >> voluntary system. > > What are "the goods"? To whom, when, > how, and at what price, they are > "delivered"? And first of all, what is "better"? I think > wine is > better than beer, you may think beer is better than wine. > There is one > sane solution: I drink wine and you drink beer. Yes, and that's the voluntary solution, no?? The coercive solution would be for you or I (or some third party) to come in and tell us what to drink regardless of our individual preferences. > There are many types of cohercive systems. I can force you > to do what I say by pointing a gun, or by withdrawing a loan. To me, that's reasoning that would justify rape by saying she was forcing me to rape her because she withheld sex. To wit, there's a big difference between someone not funding your pet project -- presuming it's her or his money we're talking about and it doesn't violate any voluntarily arrived at agreements or contracts -- and someone stopping you by threatening you with a gun. Notably, with the not funding, you can always seek other sources of funding. Regards, Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 15:34:18 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 17:34:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <200907021525.n62FPq2J028870@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907021525.n62FPq2J028870@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com> Of course in a really free market, withdrawing a loan is not coercion. But when the powers collaborate behind the scenes to protect their power, the market is not free. Our economy is more like the typical situation portrayed in mafia movies: greedy government officers AND organized crime collaborate to create and mantain a money machine for themselves. 2009/7/2 Max More : > Okay, fine, but then you are talking about the kind of situation that I > specifically mentioned: > >> Of course, it's possible that the system making the loans is one that >> you're being forced into (for instance, it may be a government >> monopoly, or one where your private choices are restricted through >> legislation), but that's a separate issue. > > You didn't specify such a background in your original comment. So, I have to > ask: Would you *still* say that it's coercion to withdraw a loan when these > kinds of problematic conditions do *not* exist? If so, we continue to > disagree. If not, I think we are mostly in agreement. > > Max > > > No, Max, it is not a separate issue. Perhaps not "forced into" loans, but > certainly "scammed into" loans. > > Take the recent real estate bubble: real estate prices have been > artificially driven to unrealistic values while at the same time citizens > have been encouraged to spend virtual money without having real money, by a > _joint_ action of governments and private financial institutions. Then when > the bubble has exploded, citizens have not been able to afford their > mortgages anymore, banks have repossessed their homes and sold them at > bargain prices to their own people, who will now restart the loop. It is a > big shakeout that happens periodically in our economies, to rob citizens of > their money and give the money back to their "real owners": government > officers and financial institutions acting in _complicity_. This is not free > market, but organized thievery masquerading as free market. Give me a > healthy free market anytime, but not this farce. > > ------------------------------------- > Max More, Ph.D. > Strategic Philosopher > Extropy Institute Founder > 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 dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 15:37:18 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:37:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <313383.90079.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Mirco Romanato > wrote: >> Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: >>> Instead of making a religion war of this, how >>> about simply >>> acknowledging that both private and public R&D >>> funding have their >>> roles? >> >> Rothbard supported that the public funds are better >> used to purchase of >> research done by private actors, not to organize the >> research done by >> public employees. > > Why so many inflexible rules and > regulations? What is wrong with > making the best decision on a case by case basis? In some > case, the > best course of action can be purchasing research done in > the private > sector. In others, organizing research done by public > employees. In > others, leaving everything to the dynamics of the > marketplace. In > others, something else. There is no one-size.fits-all magic > bullet, > one just has to roll his sleeves up and make things work. I think the idea is not so much to shackle people with arbitrary rules as to rule out coercion. I'm not sure about Mirco on Rothbard, but my view is there should be no coerced funding period. It's not a matter of trusting the marketplace, but of allowing individuals to make their own decisions on how to use their resources. This means, if you have a particular project that needs someone else's cooperation -- e.g., for funds or for anything else -- you have to persuade them peacefully to help you -- not just get someone stronger -- e.g., that biggest of all organized criminals in any society, the state -- to force them to help you. Don't you think that this sort of persuasion, in the long run, would go further toward developing the kind of future we want as opposed to the quick, "let's break as many eggs (or heads) as possible to make an omelete" approach? Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 15:53:40 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 08:53:40 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Of course in a really free market, > withdrawing a loan is not coercion. > But when the powers collaborate behind the scenes to > protect their > power, the market is not free. > > Our economy is more like the typical situation portrayed in > mafia > movies: greedy government officers AND organized crime > collaborate to > create and mantain a money machine for themselves. But the solution to this is what? To increase the level of coercion by also stealing from others to fund projects you or I like? Instead, shouldn't the solution be to lower the level of coercion -- in this case, by removing government power to control loans and the money supply? Regards, Dan From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 16:26:12 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 18:26:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com> <988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> Of course we should lower the level of coercion, and _reducing_ government power to control loans and the money supply is a good start. But, _removing_? I am afraid it would quickly result in agreements between all other powers (financial entities and organized criminality) to enforce even more coercion and victimize the rest of us. Come on, don't be naive. Put 1000 persons on an island, and 10-20 bullies will get organized, grab the power and keep it. You know that. We don't live in a fairy tale. G. On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Dan wrote: > > --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> Of course in a really free market, >> withdrawing a loan is not coercion. >> But when the powers collaborate behind the scenes to >> protect their >> power, the market is not free. >> >> Our economy is more like the typical situation portrayed in >> mafia >> movies: greedy government officers AND organized crime >> collaborate to >> create and mantain a money machine for themselves. > > But the solution to this is what? ?To increase the level of coercion by also stealing from others to fund projects you or I like? ?Instead, shouldn't the solution be to lower the level of coercion -- in this case, by removing government power to control loans and the money supply? > > Regards, > > Dan -- Eschatoon Magic http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Eschatoon aka Giulio Prisco http://cosmeng.org/index.php/Giulio_Prisco From eschatoon at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 18:17:40 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 20:17:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com> <988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907021117w3b5ec18bt9d86bb9dd6b79e73@mail.gmail.com> Some provocative statements to continue this interesting discussion. I don't see a real, basic difference between government and mafia. But I also don't see how a real, basic difference between free market and mafia can be sustained for a long time. Sooner or later the main players will agree to unfree the market to make more money. So if government = mafia and free market = mafia, then government = (or at least similar to) free market. And indeed I think this is the case. In the real world, in all our real economies, there is collusion between the government and some privileged players in the "free" market. They collaborate to stay in power and prevent outsiders from accessing power and wealth. Gloomy view, please tell me that I am wrong and why. On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:26 PM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > Of course we should lower the level of coercion, and _reducing_ > government power to control loans and the money supply is a good > start. But, _removing_? I am afraid it would quickly result in > agreements between all other powers (financial entities and organized > criminality) to enforce even more coercion and victimize the rest of > us. > > Come on, don't be naive. Put 1000 persons on an island, and 10-20 > bullies will get organized, grab the power and keep it. You know that. > We don't live in a fairy tale. > > G. > > On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Dan wrote: >> >> --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >>> Of course in a really free market, >>> withdrawing a loan is not coercion. >>> But when the powers collaborate behind the scenes to >>> protect their >>> power, the market is not free. >>> >>> Our economy is more like the typical situation portrayed in >>> mafia >>> movies: greedy government officers AND organized crime >>> collaborate to >>> create and mantain a money machine for themselves. >> >> But the solution to this is what? ?To increase the level of coercion by also stealing from others to fund projects you or I like? ?Instead, shouldn't the solution be to lower the level of coercion -- in this case, by removing government power to control loans and the money supply? >> >> Regards, >> >> Dan > -- > 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 dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 18:18:19 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 11:18:19 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] On a supposedly spurious argument/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <396687.72154.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/1/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/1 Dan : [big snip] [me] >> And, yes, perhaps funding levels would be lower in >> purely nomimal terms. ?I can't say for sure, though lower >> nominal funding may not mean less important R&D gets >> done, but that it gets done more efficiently and >> effectively. ?Recall the differences in the levels of >> funding between the Wrights and Langley? ?The latter had >> roughly 350 times the funding, yet the Wrights not only >> succeeded, they used a wind tunnel to deal with this, paving >> the way for the near ubiquitous use of this device in air >> flow design today. > > That is a spurious argument. What about all the millions > spent > unsuccessfully on heavier than air flight by all the other > private researchers throughout the ages? That would only work as an argument against private investment here if the government effort happened in a vacuum -- that is, if the government effort likewise didn't depend on past work on "heavier than air flight by all the other private researchers throughout the ages." Do you really believe that to be the case? Do you believe Langley and the government effort into this area was completely isolated and ignored all previous effort? (That said, I grant that the comparison between the Wrights and Langley is but one example and I wouldn't hinge any theory on this one case. However, there are plenty of other cases where private and public investment can be compared that seem to show a similar outcome -- though usually with such a higher difference in inputs and results.*) Regards, Dan * For those here only interested in results, it's hard to see how they wouldn't be for private efforts as typically there are better results (in some cases, results like the Wrights actually flying and Langley's work being mostly a deadend) with less effort. If one is a pure consequentialist -- even if it is hard to tell what that means and I doubt any who fancy themselves one really are thus -- wouldn't the lesson of history be the voluntary interaction yields the higher overall pay-off -- if you want wealth, technological goodies, and social peace? (If, on the other hand, you value, say, oppressing people, then, of course, voluntary interaction is anathema.) From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 2 18:50:13 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 11:50:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Price changes and regulation/was Re: Psychology of markets explanations Message-ID: <29906.219.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 6/20/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: [big snip] [me] >> Also, EMH assumes instantaneous or at least very rapid >> changes in prices and the economy.? Actual information is >> not only imperfect, but takes time to flow through an >> economy.? This is so for government interventions, whose >> immediate impact might be indiscernible.? Were this not so, >> there would no such thing as unintended consequences and no >> government intervention would backfire: markets would >> instantly and perfectly adjust.? (The same goes for >> inflation.? Inflation doesn't instantly impact an economy >> causing all prices to rise.? If it did, as I mentioned in >> earlier posts, there would be little or no problem with >> inflaton -- and NO incentive to inflate in the first place >> because all possible benefits would be neutralized.? And >> yet it moves!? Yet there is inflation and specific groups >> not only lobby for it, they benefit from it.? So, the >> theory (EMH, New Classical Economics, and the like) must be >> wrong, no?) > > House prices move sluggishly, partly because it takes a > long time to > buy or sell a house. But that doesn't mean you can exploit > this > "inefficiency" to make a profit. You still don't know what > the market is going to do until it does it. Actually, I wasn't specifically talking about housing prices, but about prices in general. It does NOT necessarily take a "long time to buy or sell a house." Yes, in general, houses don't turn around as quickly as, say, blue chip stocks. My point was merely was information on real markets is imperfect and that information and price changes take time. Some such changes are, naturally, more rapid than others -- there is no fixed rate of change. That said, your point might still apply, but some individuals do have better information, pay closer attention, know what to look for, or are just better at predicting market outcomes. EMH presumes all actors pretty much have the same information, do the same things with it, have the same motives, and aim for the same outcomes. Were this so, one wonders why there would be any trading at all, especially in assets. After all, if everyone held the same views and had the same information about asset prices -- even if this information were imperfect -- wouldn't one expect them to have exactly the same behavior? Why would there be, e.g., both short and long positions on a given asset? Would would someone sell call or put options and another person buy those? Why would anyone sell or buy futures? And, as a final escape, you might admit people have different visions of the future (e.g., whether IBM will trade higher or lower today) and different information, that this still wouldn't lead to anyone making a profit. Yet it seems, empirically (and is not ruled out by correct theory), that some people do not just hold different predictions but actually hold better ones. (Yes, there are also lucky people, but luck would, all else being equal, evaporate over the long haul, no?) [another big snip] > The chosen fiscal policy may not have the intended effect, > simply > because economies are very complicated and difficult to > predict. > However, it will have an effect, and the effect will not > necessarily be a negative one. Oh, there's actually an objective means to predict a negative outcome: Pareto optimality. In a nutshell, a solution is Pareto optimal if it makes no one worse off. (Running a regression on this -- viz., backward in time -- allows one to uncover past instances of departing from Pareto optimality.) And this can be further made objective by coupling with demonstrated preferences and the impossibility of comparing values. When one forces anyone to deviate from her or his preferences -- the ones that would be demonstrated by her or his actions absent the force -- one necessarily deviates from Pareto optimality. Thus, fiscal interferences (and all other coercive interferences) force someone to be worse off -- even if they make someone else better off. (In fact, the typical coercive policy benefits specific individuals or groups at someone else's expense -- resulting in, often, a wealth transfer.) The impossibility of comparing values means that, objectively, one can't tell whether the harm or benefit one does to one person is equal to, less than, or greater than the harm or benefit done to another. This means Pareto optimality can't result in a measure of the specific magnitudes of costs (or harms) and benefits -- but instead leads to comparisons of the sort that this policy causes someone to be harmed or not. (And the regression analysis is necessary to uncover people benefiting from past harms. After all, if someone steals your wallet, but we only look at the the Pareto optimality now, then having the thief return you wallet looks like a deviation from Pareto optimality -- it makes you better off while make the thief worse off. But looking at the history here, we see that the thief made the first deviation in this context.) If one accepts Pareto optimality as illustrated above, then fiscal attempts to stimulate demand -- which are otherwise flawed even without this consideration* -- one sees they can only work by making some worse off. Regards, Dan * How would the would be stimulators know where to send the stimulus? Look at the ridiculous and failing US stimulus packages. These have tended to shore up political insiders and big players as well as prevented prices from falling in housing and stocks (and in oil). The long term outcome -- recall somone pointing out here that governments think long-term (which is hard to see when the stimulus plans and other rescue plans were slapped together and voted on with little debate, discussion, and, it seems, forethought) -- will be slower adjustments away from the unsustainable boom. (In fact, in 1933, Hayek pointed out the same flaw in central bank policies aimed at stabilizing the price level -- that is, at that time, not allowing prices to fall or fall fast enough through further credit expansion and other interferences to keep prices stable. See his "Monetary Theory and the Trade Cycle" which is now, happily, online at: http://mises.org/story/3121 This is a bit long, so you might want to read the intro and just skim the rest.) From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jul 2 19:11:55 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:11:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907021117w3b5ec18bt9d86bb9dd6b79e73@mail.gmail.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com> <988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> <1fa8c3b90907021117w3b5ec18bt9d86bb9dd6b79e73@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090702151155.n8i308ky1wwo0000@webmail.natasha.cc> Have human values in the Western world and elsewhere ever been any different? Have they always been based on someone screwing with someone else to get more or what they want? We read history and make icons of our political and business leaders and then discover they the were greedy too, or disonest, or had a conflicting morality - preaching family values and doing the slave (Jefferson) or mistress (too many to name) in the meantime. Natasha Quoting Eschatoon Magic : > Some provocative statements to continue this interesting discussion. > > I don't see a real, basic difference between government and mafia. > > But I also don't see how a real, basic difference between free market > and mafia can be sustained for a long time. Sooner or later the main > players will agree to unfree the market to make more money. > > So if government = mafia and free market = mafia, then government = > (or at least similar to) free market. And indeed I think this is the > case. In the real world, in all our real economies, there is collusion > between the government and some privileged players in the "free" > market. They collaborate to stay in power and prevent outsiders from > accessing power and wealth. > > Gloomy view, please tell me that I am wrong and why. > > On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 6:26 PM, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >> Of course we should lower the level of coercion, and _reducing_ >> government power to control loans and the money supply is a good >> start. But, _removing_? I am afraid it would quickly result in >> agreements between all other powers (financial entities and organized >> criminality) to enforce even more coercion and victimize the rest of >> us. >> >> Come on, don't be naive. Put 1000 persons on an island, and 10-20 >> bullies will get organized, grab the power and keep it. You know that. >> We don't live in a fairy tale. >> >> G. >> >> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 5:53 PM, Dan wrote: >>> >>> --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: >>>> Of course in a really free market, >>>> withdrawing a loan is not coercion. >>>> But when the powers collaborate behind the scenes to >>>> protect their >>>> power, the market is not free. >>>> >>>> Our economy is more like the typical situation portrayed in >>>> mafia >>>> movies: greedy government officers AND organized crime >>>> collaborate to >>>> create and mantain a money machine for themselves. >>> >>> But the solution to this is what? ?To increase the level of >>> coercion by also stealing from others to fund projects you or I >>> like? ?Instead, shouldn't the solution be to lower the level of >>> coercion -- in this case, by removing government power to control >>> loans and the money supply? >>> >>> Regards, >>> >>> Dan >> -- >> 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Jul 2 23:13:52 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:13:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907012340g1c885287t652507395936a53f@mail.gmail.com> References: <17526.36787.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60906302121l7be6cb04ud7b596862f97ad08@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B56B3.2060100@libero.it> <4A4B8FD1.9020407@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <4A4BC2D9.2020204@libero.it> <1fa8c3b90907012340g1c885287t652507395936a53f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4D3F30.6070802@libero.it> Eschatoon Magic ha scritto: > Why so many inflexible rules and regulations? Because people are weak and tend to bend the rules. They are able to bend the most inflexible rules, so giving them a flexible rule is like giving them no rule. > What is wrong with making the best decision on a case by case basis? You can not know what is the best decision before taking and following it. You will know after, maybe, if it was the best decision. It is like deciding how much trust give to unknown men. You can not decide case by case, because you have not enough infos to decide about the case at hand. You will have the infos after you start to interact. What you can do is to decide, before, how much trust give to unknown men. Then, based on the outcomes of these encounters, you could decide to change the level of trust you want give. But you can not decide for the single encounter. So, the best decision is to stick with the rules and regulation that statistically give the best outcomes. This is to let the market self-regulate the level of research and funding requested and done. > In some case, the best course of action can be purchasing research > done in the private sector. In others, organizing research done by > public employees. In others, leaving everything to the dynamics of > the marketplace. In others, something else. There is no > one-size.fits-all magic bullet, one just has to roll his sleeves up > and make things work. Do you ever think that certain things can not be made work as we wish? And the best way to obtain the most from them is not to interfere with them? Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Jul 2 23:44:21 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 01:44:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A4D4655.6020105@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > I might be financially better off without taxation since I am in a > relatively high tax bracket, but the people who currently can't work > for one reason or another would definitely be worse off, and the > country as a whole might be worse off, given a few years of no public > services such as education or health. You don't believe this, > obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree to be taxed > when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant thing. Well, many wives believe that without their husband they would be worse off. So they accept to be beaten by their husband. I suppose that until they believe so, there is no way to help them. The problems arise when the beaten wives advocate for forcing wives that don't want be beaten by their husbands to accept to be beaten, because they believe that these women would be worse without their husbands or that the beaten wives would be worse off if other women don't accept to be beaten. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Jul 3 00:31:27 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:31:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A4D515F.1030104@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/1 Mirco Romanato : > I didn't intend that there be such a distinction between "good" and > "feel-good". What I meant was that private businesses generally only > do anything in order to make a profit, and only occasionally donate to > charity etc. because they think it's the right thing to do. Well, governments how much often than private entities do something selflessly and how often do something selfishly? I would support that the large majority of what government do is to last more and become more powerful. >> And they would not give because they are interested in "feel good" >> without actually pay the price of being good. > > But I strongly support being taxed for these positive purposes, > because I see this as fairer and more efficient. Charity is fickle, > demeaning for the recipient, and ineffective. I see people who want to > abolish all public services as selfish and evil, since you started the > name-calling. Well, you started to wonder if you are evil in another post. I only want support your insight. One try to be supportive and no one appreciate it. Usually people doing evil thing think they are doing right things. So, yes, maybe I'm evil and I don't understand it. >> I never found anyone that claimed to had paid more taxes on purpose to >> give more money to the government. > No, and I try to minimise the taxes I pay even though I support > taxation in principle. The sentence could be better wrote as: I try to minimize the taxes I pay even though I support taxation of others in principle. The caveat being that if they try to minimize the taxes they pay they are bad people and if you do, you are not. There is not something like "minimize" the taxes one pay. Or one pay all the taxes he owe to the government or he is a tax-evader. > The choices are: > (a) everyone pays tax; > (b) everyone pays tax except me; > (c) no-one pays tax > > My selfish preferred option is (b), but obviously that isn't going to > happen. Second best is (a). I would probably be financially better off > under (c), but I see that as morally wrong and would not support it. > (I would feel guilty about (b) as well, but at least it would do > little harm to the rest of the population, unlike (c)). So without your taxes you believe multitudes would starve, be illiterate and die of easily curable diseases? But you would refuse to donate if no one forced you to pay taxes. Where is the difference from being forced to finance a war you don't want finance? Or, maybe, finance a program on ID, prayer services or gladiatorial games. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Jul 3 01:23:47 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:23:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <313383.90079.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <313383.90079.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A4D5DA3.9040505@libero.it> Dan ha scritto: > --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Eschatoon Magic wrote: > I think the idea is not so much to shackle people with arbitrary > rules as to rule out coercion. I'm not sure about Mirco on Rothbard, > but my view is there should be no coerced funding period. his is the same position of Rothbard. He only wrote in his article that, back in the 1950, the best solution between research done by government employees and research bough by the government from privates the last is better. In the same article he supported that the best way is to let the market decide how much research and what research is most needed. Because the resources used for research could be better used in different enterprises (like producing paper sheets, pencils and erasers that were/are fundamental for the research projects). > It's not a > matter of trusting the marketplace, but of allowing individuals to > make their own decisions on how to use their resources. This means, > if you have a particular project that needs someone else's > cooperation -- e.g., for funds or for anything else -- you have to > persuade them peacefully to help you -- not just get someone stronger > -- e.g., that biggest of all organized criminals in any society, the > state -- to force them to help you. > Don't you think that this sort of persuasion, in the long run, would > go further toward developing the kind of future we want as opposed to > the quick, "let's break as many eggs (or heads) as possible to make > an omelette" approach? IIRC, Hans Moravec wrote that research is like to buy a ticket at the lottery (*) and he make the example of two scenarios: 1) They devote to the research of AI 100 millions of $ today for a team of the best scientists with the best hardware available. Then they work ten years. 2) They wait 9 years, hire 10 teams with good scientists (not the best ones) and give them the best hardware they can buy with 100 M/10 (this is HW 9 year more modern than the HW used in the first scenario). Then, in a year they obtain the same result doing the same work of the first team. In the meantime, the 100 million could be used to turn out a profit in some other enterprise or to finance some other short term, more urgent, R&D. The problem with research is that is difficult to organize to find something we don't know exactly where it it, what it is, and if really it exist. Mirco (*) "If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?" - Albert Einstein From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 01:01:10 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 18:01:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> References: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com><988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <25094EBE90E14D89B935D0ADD686B8F6@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Eschatoon Magic > ... > > Come on, don't be naive. Put 1000 persons on an island, and > 10-20 bullies will get organized, grab the power and keep it. > You know that. We don't live in a fairy tale. G. Esch, that is why evolution has given us guns, to solve that problem. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jul 3 02:08:30 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:08:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us guns In-Reply-To: <25094EBE90E14D89B935D0ADD686B8F6@spike> References: <1fa8c3b90907020834q3bd7bec1nf8b53b77565fdef0@mail.gmail.com> <988510.78661.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1fa8c3b90907020926w2e8fe2abn756e9adcc4146f02@mail.gmail.com> <25094EBE90E14D89B935D0ADD686B8F6@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090702210052.0273a9a0@satx.rr.com> At 06:01 PM 7/2/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: > > Come on, don't be naive. Put 1000 persons on an island, and > > 10-20 bullies will get organized, grab the power and keep it. > > You know that. We don't live in a fairy tale. G. > >Esch, that is why evolution has given us guns, to solve that problem. And look how well that's worked out around the world. Vide Mogadishu,** Iraq, Sri Lanka, Waco, South Los Angeles... Damien Broderick **http://www.eastandard.net/columnists/InsidePage.php?id=1144017839&cid=483& "The blast of bombs, mortar shells and machine-gun fire was as 'normal' as the odd blare of car horns in Nairobi. Many had fled, including MPs and dead bodies lay uncollected. Bullets ricochet off the walls of people's homes." E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12740 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 03:51:02 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2009 23:51:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906292224k33b3f314s66c6410f4999aaf@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907022051k72793e89s8d80e39f8deeae5@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:21 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> >> ### Hey, how can not paying taxes harm us? You say it's morally >> wrong!? And all this while agreeing that you and of course everybody >> else would be financially better off under option (c). What's wrong >> with being financially better off? > > I might be financially better off without taxation since I am in a > relatively high tax bracket, but the people who currently can't work > for one reason or another would definitely be worse off, ### Why would they be worse off? Can't they use charity, insurance? What about the inevitable fact that without violence economic growth would be much higher, making the median citizen much wealthier? (look at the difference between South and North Korea caused by 50 years of a mild reduction in violence achieved in the south) --------------------------- and the > country as a whole might be worse off, given a few years of no public > services such as education or health. ### Definitely not worse off. Privately funded education and health care are definitely better than government funded ones. There is most definitely no coherent consequentialist argument in favor of allowing initiation of violence among the ingroup, however you slice it. Yeah, definitely, baby! ---------------- You don't believe this, > obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree to be taxed > when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant thing. ### Oh, they have been bamboozled by years of schooling in government controlled schools, where the fox teaches the chickens to appreciate what he does to the integrity of their coop. But, you are not "most" people, you are a smart dude, you can see that there are two main reasons for the acceptance of this form of violence: envy of the rich and a callous disregard for the well-being of others (because if you care, you don't threaten them with violence except in defense). No? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 04:02:02 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 00:02:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <1fa8c3b90907010936n4e5577a4t624e96eac89d3d6@mail.gmail.com> <333439.37368.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907020123jabbef00n396bd5ccb297a3ee@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907022102y2a97d1d1x9d419e7f77186057@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 7:56 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/2 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> On Wed, Jul 1, 2009 at 7:38 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> 2009/7/2 Dan : >>> >>>> There is also the problem that under the coercive system, some people are forced to pay for others' pet projects. ?Some might find no problem with this, but I think that's relevant to the discussion because coercion introduces certain features that wouldn't be found under a voluntary system. >>> >>> That will always be the case unless the funding is sourced from an >>> individual or a unanimous group of individuals. There will be >>> shareholders in a company who prefer that some of the R&D money be >>> spent on other things, but don't feel strongly about this to sell >>> their shares. >> >> ### But you do notice that there would be no massive, hateful >> revulsion generated under a non-coercive system? Nobody would be >> forced at the proverbial gunpoint to pay for abortion research or for >> Intelligent Design research, while internally seething with hatred and >> experiencing significant disutility? > > A shareholder might indeed feel revulsion at what his company was > doing, either due to moral considerations or due to a fear that it > will lead to loss of profitability. The company can also "tax" the > shareholder by selling new shares, diluting his holding unless he buys > the shares. The shareholder can always sell, but this might be > reluctantly, or at a loss. This is analogous to the situation of the > citizen, who can leave, or not work if he doesn't want to pay tax. > Admittedly it is generally harder for the citizen to take this action, > but that's what happens when you live in a large country. And if > enough citizens really hate the system they live under, they can > change it or change the management, just as the shareholders can. ### "Harder for the citizen to take action" - this is the understatement of the year, Stathis. Selling a stock takes literally two-three mouse clicks, and you can immediately use the proceeds to buy a stock not tainted by anything repulsive, and still make similar or even better profit. If a shareholder does not have enough revulsion to sell his stock, he really doesn't feel *any* revulsion at all. Comparing that the effort, danger and expense one of us would have to undertake to escape from being taxed for what could be seen as immoral uses (war in Iraq, abortion, faith-based public education, stoning of adulterous wives), is just silly. Silly. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 04:24:02 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 00:24:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 8:51 AM, Dan wrote: > > I disagree. ?I don't think any major change in human nature is necessary for a voluntary society. ?Granted, any voluntary society is bound to have some unwarranted coercion. ?E.g., under a libertarian system, I don't expect crime to disappear. ?But that's not what I meant: I didn't mean a society where there is no crime or where everything is perfect. ?Rather I meant one where institutionalized coercion is absent -- i.e., where there is no state and no contender to being a state. > > That seems achievable now though perhaps unlikely. ?One reason to be believe it's possible is humans have approached this in the past and even now in statist societies most human interactions are voluntary NOT coercive. ?For example, the interactions on this list. ?As far as I know, no one here literally beats up any of her or his interlocutors. ### I wish I could share your optimism. The way I see it, at least 60% of all activity today happens under duress (since the government directly or indirectly controls about 60% of the society), plus there is a minor amount of private violence. This is an improvement over the savages in the jungles of South America or Africa, where most men die by homicide. It may be better than life in Mexican villages, where social customs impose an implicit marginal tax rate of 85%. But there is no doubt that the vast majority of US citizens happily endorse mass slaughter of random brown people, destruction of lives of millions of workers here and abroad (through protectionist trade measures), and even the daily senseless mayhem on our roads. Today I saw five cops on three miles of highway, brazenly, in broad daylight attacking honest workers, just swaggering over with their guns and squeezing them for cash under the pretext of committing what they call "crimes", and what I call driving home. I think that a stably non-violent society will emerge only after enough people boost themselves to the equivalent of IQ140 or higher (so they won't have false consequentialist ideas about the need for initiation of violence), and erase whatever neural networks make them envious and domineering (to remove the real emotional drivers of violence). Let's hope you are right. Rafal From max at maxmore.com Fri Jul 3 04:48:56 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 23:48:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us guns Message-ID: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> No no no no no no As moderator, I say: DO NOT START THIS DISCUSSION AGAIN! Thank you, ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jul 3 05:09:58 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:09:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us g**s In-Reply-To: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703000722.028d3c88@satx.rr.com> At 11:48 PM 7/2/2009 -0500, Max wrote: >No no no no no no Quite right. Spike and I completely covered the available positions in our two posts, so anything additional would be not only tedious and disruptive but redundant. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12740 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 06:59:52 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 16:59:52 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/3 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### I wish I could share your optimism. The way I see it, at least 60% > of all activity today happens under duress (since the government > directly or indirectly controls about 60% of the society), plus there > is a minor amount of private violence. This is an improvement over the > savages in the jungles of South America or Africa, where most men die > by homicide. Really? > It may be better than life in Mexican villages, where > social customs impose an implicit marginal tax rate of 85%. But there > is no doubt that the vast majority of US citizens happily endorse mass > slaughter of random brown people, destruction of lives of millions of > workers here and abroad (through protectionist trade measures), and > even the daily senseless mayhem on our roads. Today I saw five cops on > three miles of highway, brazenly, in broad daylight attacking honest > workers, just swaggering over with their guns and squeezing them for > cash under the pretext of committing what they call "crimes", and what > I call driving home. You mean they were putting cash into their own pockets, or issuing speeding tickets? The question of traffic laws is an interesting one, since even an anarchist society might decide that they are worth having. > I think that a stably non-violent society will emerge only after > enough people boost themselves to the equivalent of IQ140 or higher > (so they won't have false consequentialist ideas about the need for > initiation of violence), and erase whatever neural networks make them > envious and domineering (to remove the real emotional drivers of > violence). Is there any evidence that more intelligent people are less likely to be violent or dishonest? I think the main difference would be that they will be more sophisticated in the crimes they commit. Intelligence, alas, is not even a good predictor of religiosity. It's a bit arrogant to assume that if people were smarter, they would think like you, even if you are in fact smarter than most people. As for changing their brains to make themselves less aggressive, I am hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more people would in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more aggressive. -- Stathis Papaioannou From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 07:25:47 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 00:25:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us guns In-Reply-To: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670907030025u7bc397d3p86dfe2e5b4ac1d5@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 2, 2009 at 9:48 PM, Max More wrote: > No no no no no no > > As moderator, I say: > > DO NOT START THIS DISCUSSION AGAIN! > > Thank you, > > C'mon Max, this will be nothing like the past googolplex length arguments of Joe Dees and Mike Lorrey! And anyway, Damien and Spike make for far better debaters... ; ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 07:41:11 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 00:41:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ant mega-colony takes over world In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc0907011905j4b7ca676kaefaf62cf831d6f2@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0907012207q3d07fa4fm13ad602bd2dfc82a@mail.gmail.com> <1A4D4A24C253409ABDF2B5488B86E1AE@spike> <0FD1AA14273A412192AFCB47C295FA3C@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <2d6187670907030041r7b13812dn59f367c2267bdff5@mail.gmail.com> I realize ants are good at what they do, but still, they failed to develop human level intelligence. But then if they had, I don't think we would have had a chance against them! lol John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jul 3 07:44:26 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 02:44:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us gnus In-Reply-To: <2d6187670907030025u7bc397d3p86dfe2e5b4ac1d5@mail.gmail.com > References: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2d6187670907030025u7bc397d3p86dfe2e5b4ac1d5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703023819.02854d08@satx.rr.com> At 12:25 AM 7/3/2009 -0700, John Grigg wrote: >C'mon Max, this will be nothing like the past googolplex length >arguments of Joe Dees and Mike Lorrey! And anyway, Damien and Spike >make for far better debaters... ; ) Pipe down, John, or the moderator will be forced to shoo-- To shoo you away. With his shoe. As one would shoo a gnu. (Shooly no one would be crool enough to *shoe* a gnu.) Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12740 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 08:38:08 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 04:38:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us g**s In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703000722.028d3c88@satx.rr.com> References: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090703000722.028d3c88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907030138n5fbbfd8an1e2a6264b8df804d@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 1:09 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 11:48 PM 7/2/2009 -0500, Max wrote: > >> No no no no no no > > Quite right. Spike and I completely covered the available positions in our > two posts, so anything additional would be not only tedious and disruptive > but redundant. ### The following is disruptive and exhilarating: http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo/CPBmTELAKTeoI52uxTmiPw?authkey=Gv1sRgCIj9perkzfXYlwE&feat=directlink Rafal PS. Some time ago I saw three bears around my house in one day. My gun is a Glock 27, always loaded with JHP ammo, chambered and ready. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 08:43:25 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 04:43:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 2:59 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/3 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### I wish I could share your optimism. The way I see it, at least 60% >> of all activity today happens under duress (since the government >> directly or indirectly controls about 60% of the society), plus there >> is a minor amount of private violence. This is an improvement over the >> savages in the jungles of South America or Africa, where most men die >> by homicide. > > Really? ### In some tribes, yes, although the average is only something like 30%. ----------------------- > >> ?It may be better than life in Mexican villages, where >> social customs impose an implicit marginal tax rate of 85%. But there >> is no doubt that the vast majority of US citizens happily endorse mass >> slaughter of random brown people, destruction of lives of millions of >> workers here and abroad (through protectionist trade measures), and >> even the daily senseless mayhem on our roads. Today I saw five cops on >> three miles of highway, brazenly, in broad daylight attacking honest >> workers, just swaggering over with their guns and squeezing them for >> cash under the pretext of committing what they call "crimes", and what >> I call driving home. > > You mean they were putting cash into their own pockets, or issuing > speeding tickets? ### Does it matter? ---------------- The question of traffic laws is an interesting one, > since even an anarchist society might decide that they are worth > having. ### Only if enacted by legitimate (i.e. private) owners of roads. ---------------- > > Is there any evidence that more intelligent people are less likely to > be violent or dishonest? I think the main difference would be that > they will be more sophisticated in the crimes they commit. > Intelligence, alas, is not even a good predictor of religiosity. It's > a bit arrogant to assume that if people were smarter, they would think > like you, even if you are in fact smarter than most people. ### Yes, there is extensive evidence of a negative correlation between intelligence and criminality. You can find a large bibliography in "The Bell Curve". --------------------- > > As for changing their brains to make themselves less aggressive, I am > hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more people would > in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more aggressive. > ### If they choose to become more aggressive and act on it, we'll kill them. Rafal From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 09:12:24 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 04:12:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: [tt] H+ RPG on x-risk management: Eclipse Phase In-Reply-To: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD280390C4E08A7@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> References: <8CF6A92CB628444FB3C757618CD280390C4E08A7@exbe1.cmpcntr.tc.trincoll.edu> Message-ID: <55ad6af70907030212j67da9513h10bb7900515f4bbb@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Hughes, James J. Date: Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 1:00 AM Subject: [tt] H+ RPG on x-risk management: Eclipse Phase To: ieet-news at ieet.org, tt at postbiota.org http://eclipsephase.com/ Eclipse Phase is a pen & paper roleplaying game of post-apocalyptic transhuman conspiracy and horror. An "eclipse phase" is the period between when a cell is infected by a virus and when the virus appears within the cell and transforms it. During this period, the cell does not appear to be infected, but it is. Players take part in a cross-faction secret network dubbed Firewall that is dedicated to counteracting "existential risks" - threats to the existence of transhumanity, whether they be biowar plagues, self-replicating nanoswarms, nuclear proliferation, terrorists with WMDs, net-breaking computer attacks, rogue AIs, alien encounters, or anything else that could drive an already decimated transhumanity to extinction. http://catalystgamelabs.com/page/2/ http://catalystgamelabs.com/eclipse-phase/ Your body is a shell. Change it. Death is a disease. Cure it. Extinction is approaching. Fight it. With exponentially accelerating technologies we reached out into the solar system. We re-forged our bodies and minds. We achieved immortality through the digitization of our minds, resleeving from one biological or synthetic body to the next at will. Yet our race towards extinction was not slowed. Billions died as our technologies rapidly bloomed into something beyond control ... further transforming humanity into something else, scattering us throughout the solar system, and reigniting vicious conflicts. Nuclear strikes, biowarfare plagues, nanoswarms, mass uploads ... a thousand horrors nearly wiped humanity from existence. We still survive ... divided into a patchwork of restrictive inner collectivist habitats, tribal networks, and new experimental societal models. We have spread to the outer reaches of the solar system and even gained foot holds in the galaxy beyond. But we are no longer solely "human" ... we have evolved into something simultaneously more and different-something transhuman. Eclipse Phase: The Game Eclipse Phase uses a variant d100/percentile system with some twists. The game is fast and simple, streamlined so players can dive into the world and action without being burdened down by complex rules. The text of Eclipse Phase-the rules and the setting-is available under the Creative Commons Attribution- Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. This gives fans the ability to create and share free Eclipse Phase material-whether it's homebrew adventures or hacks and remixes of the Eclipse Phase rules-go for it! Eclipse Phase: More Than A Game Eclipse Phase is a post-apocalyptic game of conspiracy and horror. Humanity is enhanced and improved, but also battered and bitterly divided. Technology allows the re-shaping of bodies and minds, but they also create opportunities for oppression and put the capabilities for mass destruction in the hands of everyone. And other threats lurk in the devastated habitats of the Fall, dangers both familiar and alien. In this harsh setting, the players participate in a cross-faction conspiracy that seeks to protect transhumanity from threats both internal and external. Along the way, they may find themselves hunting for prized technology in a gutted habitat falling from orbit, risking the hellish landscapes of a ruined Earth, or following the trail of a terrorist through militarized stations and isolationist habitats. Or they may find themselves stepping through a Pandora Gate, a wormhole to distant stars and the alien secrets beyond .... For More Information More information about Eclipse Phase is available at EclipsePhase.com. For retailers and new fans, our list of Introductory Products should give you an idea of products that are suitable for players and GMs new to the game. _______________________________________________ tt mailing list tt at postbiota.org http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt -- - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 14:02:42 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 11:02:42 -0300 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re:Private and government R&D References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> Stathis Papaioannou> As for changing their brains to make themselves less aggressive, I am > hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more people would > in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more aggressive. Our western culture rewards the aggressive. Doesn?t it? Once we have this ability to change our brain more directly, wouldn't we choose to become more aggressive to become more successful? Or will our society change before we have that ability? Sincerely I don't see it happening.. From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 14:17:48 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 10:17:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us gnus In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703023819.02854d08@satx.rr.com> References: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <2d6187670907030025u7bc397d3p86dfe2e5b4ac1d5@mail.gmail.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090703023819.02854d08@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <62c14240907030717l35b1eef0n8223c49ecb8384b@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 3:44 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > At 12:25 AM 7/3/2009 -0700, John Grigg wrote: > >> C'mon Max, this will be nothing like the past googolplex length arguments >> of Joe Dees and Mike Lorrey! ?And anyway, Damien and Spike make for far >> better debaters... ?; ) > > Pipe down, John, or the moderator will be forced to shoo-- To shoo you away. > With his shoe. As one would shoo a gnu. (Shooly no one would be crool enough > to *shoe* a gnu.) People shoe horses, why not a gnu? Well, not "knot a gnu" that would be mean. ("Mean" meaning 'cruel'; not 'average') From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 15:16:27 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 08:16:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] evolution has given us gnus In-Reply-To: <62c14240907030717l35b1eef0n8223c49ecb8384b@mail.gmail.com> References: <200907030449.n634nHbk011108@andromeda.ziaspace.com><2d6187670907030025u7bc397d3p86dfe2e5b4ac1d5@mail.gmail.com><7.0.1.0.2.20090703023819.02854d08@satx.rr.com> <62c14240907030717l35b1eef0n8223c49ecb8384b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty > ...And anyway, Damien and Spike > >> make for far better debaters... ?; ) > > > > Pipe down, John, or the moderator will be forced to shoo-- > To shoo you away. > > With his shoe. As one would shoo a gnu. (Shooly no one > would be crool > > enough to *shoe* a gnu.) > > People shoe horses, why not a gnu? Well, not "knot a gnu" > that would be mean. ("Mean" meaning 'cruel'; not 'average') Oh, so that's where that old saying came from: Know gnus is good, gnus. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 15:36:24 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 08:36:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants Message-ID: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> An earlier comment about 1000 humans on an island caused me to recognize that we, like the ants, carry most of our knowledge externally. Thought experiment: Q decides to see if modern humanity can be placed on an earthlike planet devoid of technology to see if we can bootstrap ourselves back to modernity, or if we would fall back to the prehistoric mean existence in which we spent so much of our history. He takes an unlikely subset, those who read ExI-chat and poofs them to a pristine earth-like planet, along with their mates and children, but none of their books or technology. He realizes the odds are against us, so he puts them in a friendly temperate environment, with lush vegetation, optimal rainfall, tasty beastage and so forth. Q is a cruel bastard, but he wants to give them a fighting chance, so he poofs them with the clothing they are wearing right now, and if you read ExI-chat nude, well your first few days are likely to be unpleasant. Assume a few hundred of us proles and our mates and children, with only the knowledge we currently carry in our heads. (If you are single, assume the mate of your choice, not a fantasy woman, but rather someone you already know, with their knowledge.) We already have one technological advantage you perhaps hadn't even considered, for we stand on the shoulders of very tall giants: we share a common language. We share a roughly congruous ethics system, so we don't immediately begin devouring each other. We share a common goal: to bootstrap humanity back to where we were before the bastard Q showed up with his experiments. OK fine, we can teach each other what we know. I am a rocket scientists, specializing in control systems. But most of my knowledge is in the form of books in my office. I can't build a control system from that which is in my head. But it doesn't matter because I can't build a satellite anyways, nor a rocket to lift it. But I do know how to slay a beast and prepare it to be devoured. But can I catch it with no tools? And if I do, can I dress it? No. A lot of us here are code jockeys. We want to record what we know, but do you know how to build a computer? Do you know how an integrated circuit works? Could you write down for the next generation the basics? How would you write it? On what, with what? Assume a lake or sea. Can you catch a fish without any hooks or string? If you catch one, then what? Do you have any guess how the first humans melted iron? Don't google on it, think, how would YOU do it? We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we don't even realize it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 16:14:30 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 11:14:30 -0500 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> Message-ID: <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/3 spike : > An earlier comment about 1000 humans on an island caused me to recognize > that we, like the ants, carry most of our knowledge externally. Spike, I enjoyed your thought experiment thoroughly. I wonder whether or not you are aware of the main project that I have been throwing myself at for the past few months. In the software realm, there's an exactly analogous problem as "being thrown on to an island". Every computer, when you buy it, is an island. Without an internet connection, there is usually little to no software on it. In the free software world, there are CDs and DVD sets these days that you can use to bootstrap all the way back up to modern civilization. Gentoo enthusiasts like to be able to recompile everything "from source", meaning that nothing is "given", except the source code, and their machines rebuild everything since the dawn of the open source (ok ok, not really, there are some cheats, but that's the general feel). Other linux distributions (unlike gentoo) do not recompile everything-under-the-god-damned-sun and instead just install binaries compiled for particular computer architectures (i386 and amd64 comes to mind). Truly, if you like these types of thought experiments, I suggest downloading an ubuntu live CD one of these days and rebooting your computer with it- there are many videos on youtube that will explain how to do this, or many text documents on the web if you prefer the written word. The project that I mentioned earlier is 'skdb', or 'social knowledge database'. It's meant to be analogous to the "apt" and "yum" and "yast" and "portage" systems of the linux distributions. Instead of being just for software, however, it's for hardware, and for those nuggets of knowledge in civilization that we "depend on", in the same sense that we are "standing on the shoulders of giants" (or, rather, very large ant hills). There has been some minor progress recently. The hard part is explaining what the hell I am doing to others, and why I am bothering. > Thought experiment: Q decides to see if modern humanity can be placed on an > earthlike planet devoid of technology to see if we can bootstrap ourselves > back to modernity, or if we would fall back to the prehistoric mean > existence in which we spent so much of our history.? He takes an unlikely > subset, those who read ExI-chat and poofs them to a pristine earth-like > planet, along with their mates and children, but none of their books or > technology.? He realizes the odds are against us, so he puts them in a > friendly temperate environment, with lush vegetation, optimal rainfall, > tasty beastage and so forth.? Q is a cruel bastard, but he wants to give > them a fighting chance, so he poofs them with the clothing they are wearing > right now, and if you read ExI-chat nude, well your first few days are > likely to be unpleasant. > > Assume a few hundred of us proles and our mates and children, with only the > knowledge we currently carry in our heads.? (If you are single, assume the > mate of your choice, not a fantasy woman, but rather someone you already > know, with their knowledge.)? We already have one technological advantage > you perhaps hadn't even considered, for we stand on the shoulders of very > tall giants: we share a common language.? We share a?roughly congruous > ethics system, so we don't immediately?begin?devouring each other.? We?share > a common?goal: to bootstrap humanity back to where we were before the > bastard Q showed up with his experiments. > > OK fine,?we can teach each other what we know.? I am a rocket scientists, > specializing in control systems.? But most of my knowledge is in the form of > books in my office.? I can't build a control system from?that which is in my > head.??But it doesn't matter because I can't build a satellite anyways, nor > a rocket to lift it.? But I?do know how to?slay a beast and prepare it?to > be?devoured.? But can I catch it with no tools?? And if I do, can I dress > it?? No. Surely you can build tools to help you build more tools. But which tools do you want to build first? > A lot of us here are code?jockeys.? We want to record what we know, but do > you know how to build a computer?? Do you know how an integrated circuit > works?? Could you write down for the next generation the basics?? How?would > you write it???On what, with what? These are exactly the right questions. But to what extent do you want to do "pure bootstrapping" from the chemicals and elements in the air, versus using the trash and muck that our modern civilization has left to the dumpsters? > Assume a lake or sea.? Can you catch a fish without any hooks or string?? If > you catch one, then what? > > Do you have any guess how the first?humans melted iron?? Don't google on it, > think, how?would YOU do it? How did they find iron? > We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we don't even > realize it. How could you make it more obvious? - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 17:05:17 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 03:05:17 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Price changes and regulation/was Re: Psychology of markets explanations In-Reply-To: <29906.219.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <29906.219.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/3 Dan : > That said, your point might still apply, but some individuals do have better information, pay closer attention, know what to look for, or are just better at predicting market outcomes. ?EMH presumes all actors pretty much have the same information, do the same things with it, have the same motives, and aim for the same outcomes. ?Were this so, one wonders why there would be any trading at all, especially in assets. ?After all, if everyone held the same views and had the same information about asset prices -- even if this information were imperfect -- wouldn't one expect them to have exactly the same behavior? ?Why would there be, e.g., both short and long positions on a given asset? ?Would would someone sell call or put options and another person buy those? ?Why would anyone sell or buy futures? I don't think the EMH assumes everyone thinks the same. Given a piece of information, the degree to which different traders regard it as positive or negative will determine the share price. This is what is meant by the claim that the market takes into account all the information: it takes the information and weights it for credibility and impact, according to what the market participants believe. There is in general no better way to make this assessment unless you are privy to special information that the market lacks. > And, as a final escape, you might admit people have different visions of the future (e.g., whether IBM will trade higher or lower today) and different information, that this still wouldn't lead to anyone making a profit. ?Yet it seems, empirically (and is not ruled out by correct theory), that some people do not just hold different predictions but actually hold better ones. ?(Yes, there are also lucky people, but luck would, all else being equal, evaporate over the long haul, no?) Studies of fund managers and stock pickers do in fact show that it is just luck which evaporates in the long run. There will always be those who appear to beat the index average time after time, but you would get that if you had a large number of people trying to predict the outcome of any series of random events. Given a thousand people trying to predict coin tosses, there will likely be one who predicts ten in a row correctly; but this person still has only a 1/2 chance of getting the 11th one right. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 16:41:48 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 09:41:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> > ...On Behalf Of > Bryan Bishop ... > > 2009/7/3 spike : > > An earlier comment about 1000 humans on an island caused me to > > recognize that we, like the ants, carry most of our > knowledge externally. > > Spike, I enjoyed your thought experiment thoroughly. I wonder > whether or not you are aware of the main project that I have > been throwing myself at for the past few months... This is cool Bryan! Good luck man. > > > Thought experiment: Q decides to see if modern humanity can > be placed > > on an earthlike planet devoid of technology to see if we > can bootstrap > > ourselves back to modernity... > > Assume a few hundred of us proles and our mates and children... > > Surely you can build tools to help you build more tools. But > which tools do you want to build first?... Ja, which, and how? ... > > These are exactly the right questions. But to what extent do > you want to do "pure bootstrapping" from the chemicals and > elements in the air, versus using the trash and muck that our > modern civilization has left to the dumpsters?... No trash, no dumpsters, different planet, completely pristine and earthlike, optimal climate, with all the familiar species of plants and beastage, gnus and so forth. Q's final comment: Good luck, GO! ... > > > > Do you have any guess how the first?humans melted iron?? > Don't google > > on it, think, how?would YOU do it? > > How did they find iron? ... - Bryan We don't know how (great)^n grandma did it, but I would look for some orange soil, assuming that is iron oxide or some kind of metallic ore. OK found it. Now what? We would all specialize in something. I would immediately recognize that we are never going to get far without iron, in order to hew wood, slay beastage, create machines and so forth. So I would form the iron group. We might also form a knapped flint group for the interrim and as a backup path, in case we fail ignominiously to ever figure out how our own (great)^n grandparents took some kind of soil and somehow derived iron from that, and once they did, somehow formed that into tools. How did they do it? All of us here can drive a car, most of us can buy one with a few weeks of our wages, some of us can fix one. But not one here could build a car. All of us together could not build a car from raw materials, not even one that sucks. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jul 3 17:53:33 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:53:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703124858.02a7aa88@satx.rr.com> At 09:41 AM 7/3/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: >All of us here can drive a car, most of us can buy one with a few weeks of >our wages, some of us can fix one. But not one here could build a car. All >of us together could not build a car from raw materials, not even one that >sucks. Versions of this thought experiment are not unknown in science fiction. Perhaps the most famous is Phil Farmer's RIVERWORLD series. He cheats by making the planet (populated by all the humans who have ever lived) a construct with "grails" scattered all along a vast global river, and these provide a quantity of food, narcotics and clothing (?) each day, but to build a riverboat, the reincarnated Sam Clemens has to start from scratch. IIRC they get their iron from a large meteorite. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From listsb at infinitefaculty.org Fri Jul 3 17:47:38 2009 From: listsb at infinitefaculty.org (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 19:47:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> Message-ID: <4A4E443A.1000908@infinitefaculty.org> Very cool thought experiment! I used to daydream about this as a lad. spike skrev: > > >> ...On Behalf Of >> Bryan Bishop > ... >>> Do you have any guess how the first humans melted iron? >>> Don't google >>> on it, think, how would YOU do it? >> How did they find iron? ... - Bryan > > We don't know how (great)^n grandma did it, but I would look for some orange > soil, assuming that is iron oxide or some kind of metallic ore. OK found > it. Now what? I think a huge part of our early progress came from a basic "let's increase it!!" attitude, where "it" is, say, the size of a fire, or the force with which a rock is struck, or the distance one ventures out away from home. "Cool! Fire! Let's make it bigger, REALLY big!" -- I think that might be how metals were discovered (qua substances that could be melted, would harden, and retain their new shape). (It might also have been the result of an inspection of the results of an accidental fire.) Some rocks, or parts of rocks, near the huge, hot fire melted more easily than others. (And eventually someone built a fire in a large indent in a cliff wall, the wind blew hard, the fire roared, and someone said "Let's figure out how to blow on the fire -- even harder than the wind!") People who had ventured far from home might then say "Hey, I saw rocks in a cave in the valley across the way that look like that one that melted quickly," etc. On the new planet, if I were in charge of metal, I'd look around for rocks that seemed to have metallic strips in them (all this is pre-Google guessing), and put them in a some kind of fireplace with a bellows, and some way to catch the melting metal. But mostly I'd be trying to slow the aging process so that we would live long enough to reach the level of, say, the ancient Greeks (easily doable, I think). -Brian From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 18:54:48 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 11:54:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703124858.02a7aa88@satx.rr.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com><06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090703124858.02a7aa88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick > Subject: Re: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants > > At 09:41 AM 7/3/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: > > >All of us here can drive a car, most of us can buy one with > a few weeks > >of our wages, some of us can fix one. But not one here > could build a > >car. All of us together could not build a car from raw > materials, not > >even one that sucks. > > Versions of this thought experiment are not unknown in > science fiction. Perhaps the most famous is Phil Farmer's > RIVERWORLD series... Ja, and Golding's excellent Lord of the Flies is a little like that, with the gift remnant technology being Piggy's glasses. Many of us here use some kind of corrective lens, but how in the hell would we go about making a lens? Any ideas? We know glass is made from melting really pure sand, but that leads to a still more fundamental question, how do we start a fire? Golding cheated a bit by having the boys use with Piggy's glasses, but eyeglasses cannot focus sunlight sufficiently to start a fire, regardless of the prescription. So how would you do it? If you said rub two sticks together, have you ever tried that? So did I. What happened? Same here, nothing. Did you say clack two pieces of flint? Did you ever try it? What happened? Same here. Recently a Silicon Valley computer tech writer went to Oregon on a family vacation, became lost on some back roads, eventually died of exposure because he didn't know how to start a signal fire. His wife and two children were rescued because they stayed with the car. This is not to criticize, for I know how hard it is to start a fire. In my misspent youth I was a member of the Boy Scouts. One of our campout games was to divide into patrols (four guys each), then lose our lighters, matches, magnifying glasses, etc, and start a fire using only what we could find. Of the five patrols, only one managed to actually start a fire, and it was damn hard, and the technique we used required a pocket knife, which we don't have in the given thought experiment. It happened to be a dry period, and it took all four of us to do it, and we all ended up with blisters on our hands. Had I been lost in the back country as was the tech writer, even with my current knowledge, I probably would have failed to start a fire. Given fire, some of our most immediate food problems are at least partially solved. Many plant foods can be softened enough to digest, if heated long enough. The most likely game would be rodents, and these are filled with internal parasites, which would be eventually fatal if raw meat is assumed, but manageable given fire. After long enough in the coals, any kind of flesh is sterile and pretty much equivalent to any other. Would it not be shameful if Q's experiment with modern humans came to a quick and ignominious end because we died of exposure and disease, because couldn't manage to start a goddam fire? > ...IIRC they get their iron from a large meteorite... Damien Broderick OK then, I'll play along. Assume we start the fire somehow. Here's your meteorite, a large one. Now what? spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 19:42:28 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 12:42:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <4A4E443A.1000908@infinitefaculty.org> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com><06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> <4A4E443A.1000908@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Brian Manning Delaney > ... > > On the new planet, if I were in charge of metal, I'd look > around for rocks that seemed to have metallic strips in them > (all this is pre-Google guessing), and put them in a some > kind of fireplace with a bellows, and some way to catch the > melting metal... A bellows? How would you make one? We have trees, we have animal skins, we have flat rocks, we have vague knowledge of how blacksmiths from a few centuries ago might have made a bellows, but Q's people aren't there yet. >... But mostly I'd be trying to slow the aging > process so that we would live long enough to reach the level > of, say, the ancient Greeks (easily doable, I think)... -Brian By this I assume you mean slow the aging process by surviving the first few months or years, until we develop some very basic survival skills, long since forgotten, the knowledge distantly externalized. Recall that metal is a secondary technology, once we are successful at starting a fire, of which we have no guarantee. Metal is needed to shape wood to create bellows. The comment in itself is evidence that you are tacitly assuming basic survival, which of course we all do. We moderns depend on far more ancient technology than we realize. As a fun side note, consider an enabling companion species, a species that perhaps allowed humankind to advance in some way. If you were thinking cows, pigs and chickens, recall that these are all modern technological inventions, the product of centuries of selective breeding. These will eventually be a great help, but that will take a long time to breed up the beasts we now have. A much more important companion species would be wolves. Reasoning: wolves hunt, bring down game, eat some of it, then they can be driven off using fire, and we have meat. As with early humans, the best chance of survival of Q's pre-iron human colony would be to take on a scavenger role. When you hear the name Donald Johanson, perhaps you immediately think of the discovery of the human fossil Lucy, but Johanson did some even more important work later for which he is less well known. Using a scanning electron microscope to examine ancient bones, he showed that ancient people ate meat that was apparently initally slain by lions. That is a really cools story in itself. The lion tooth marks on the ancient bones can be shown to have been made before the knapped flint butchery marks. The early humans waited for the lions to slay and devour part of the game, then subsequently drove them away apparently using burning branches. A friend who grew up in a missionary family in Africa commented that in some places they still do that to this day. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Jul 3 20:09:12 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 15:09:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the eyeballs of myopic giants In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090703124858.02a7aa88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703145942.0269ecd0@satx.rr.com> At 11:54 AM 7/3/2009 -0700, spike wrote: >Lord of the Flies is a little like that, with >the gift remnant technology being Piggy's glasses. ... >Golding cheated a bit by having the boys use with Piggy's glasses, but >eyeglasses cannot focus sunlight sufficiently to start a fire, regardless of >the prescription. But especially since myopic Piggy's specs were double concave (negative number) rather than convex, so they'd disperse the light instead of focusing it. > > ...IIRC they get their iron from a large meteorite... >OK then, I'll play along. Assume we start the fire somehow. Here's your >meteorite, a large one. Now what? Can't remember, sorry. Farmer comes up with great images but lots of handwavium to glue them together. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 23:56:22 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:56:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> <4A4E443A.1000908@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: <62c14240907031656s5f73081aobf53be6d498dfec6@mail.gmail.com> While everyone is working on making and sustaining fire to smelt various available rocks, I suggest we have a team working on harnessing water. Whether using waterwheels to power pulley-driven tools (dawn of industrial age machine shops) or pre-Edsel steam-powered locomotion would help in the hauling of those special rocks. Oh yeah, it's also quite useful for drinking. From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Sat Jul 4 01:09:51 2009 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (deimtee) Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2009 11:09:51 +1000 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> Message-ID: <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> >snip > >We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we don't even >realize it. > >spike > > > Jumping straight to iron would be tough. Assuming you can get a fire going, you would re-create the same steps as prehistoric humans. Stone first ("bang the rocks together guys"), copper, tin and bronze before iron. I think you would also throw in much more in the way of ceramics, if you can find some clay. However, first thing is going to be investigating what resources you have. Some important things to look for/investigate: Glue-like sap Fine clay Fibrous plants (for rope - very important) Flexible sticks (basket weaving) Types of wood (hard/tough/springy/lightweight) Does anybody know anything about tanning leather using natural resources? -David From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 4 02:11:54 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 19:11:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> Message-ID: <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> > ...On Behalf Of deimtee > ... > > > >We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we > don't even realize it...spike > Jumping straight to iron would be tough... > Does anybody know anything about tanning leather using > natural resources?... -David Everything that has been posted on this topic goes towards my point, which is a that huge amount of the human knowledge base is externalized. This is true to such an extent that if our access to our external knowledge base were to be disrupted or removed, basic survival itself is far from assured. For most of human history, we externalized our knowledge base through stories: the elders recited history. In that loose sense, our language was the means of externalizing memes. With the advent of writing, the process of storing memes became a quantum leap more efficient. Now we are seeing the results of the third great leap forward with electronic storage and retrieval. The internet provides a means of external storage of memes so vastly more efficient than books that it's invention is perhaps a greater enabler than writing or printing. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 02:58:49 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 22:58:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> Message-ID: <62c14240907031958m63e9bdb0sd4b69af09568ac63@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/3 spike : > tasty beastage and so forth.? Q is a cruel bastard, but he wants to give > them a fighting chance, so he poofs them with the clothing they are wearing > right now, and if you read ExI-chat nude, well your first few days are > likely to be unpleasant. Perhaps given the rules of a Star Trek universe the worst clothing choice would be a red shirt? From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Jul 4 03:38:11 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2009 22:38:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Audio fiction games Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> Extropes: See, I sold this here science fiction story to the online site Tor.com, and they want me to provide them with an audio version as well as the text they'll have up in a few weeks. So I downloaded a much-recommended gadget called Audacity that worked okay. But I had to break the reading into chunks, because my throat kept giving out. In places I've also had to pause and restart after goofs. I have no idea how to edit these files (although editing is said to be easy in Audacity), so I re-saved them as .wav files. About 350,000+K in total, in 7 files. I'm hoping some canny extrope not only knows how to do such editing, but would be kind enough to do it for me. I can send the files and a copy of the original story. I'm such a cyberklutz. Anyone care to help out? Undying gratitude is the reward, or at least until I die, whichever comes first. Probably best to reply offlist, unless this launches a discussion. Thanks, people. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 4 04:19:00 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 21:19:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Audio fiction games In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <0AFCA24713D7495AAA07D485B387FE30@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... > ...Tor.com, and they want me to provide them with an audio > version as well... > Anyone care to help out? Undying gratitude is the reward, or > at least until I die, whichever comes first... Damien Broderick It is said that opportunity knocks but once and then only lightly. This is a case where opportunity throws off it's clothing and jumps into one's bed. A chance to help an actual published and big selling SciFi author, damn! How often does that happen? And it doesn't even cost you anything! Oh your mother will be so proud. Wish I could Damien, but family obligations up to my eyeballs for at least the next several, and more lined up after that. ExI-ers, this is your big chance. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 04:53:15 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 14:53:15 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re:Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> Message-ID: 2009/7/4 Henrique Moraes Machado : > Stathis Papaioannou> As for changing their brains to make themselves less > aggressive, I am >> >> hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more people would >> in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more aggressive. > > Our western culture rewards the aggressive. Doesn?t it? > Once we have this ability to change our brain more directly, wouldn't we > choose to become more aggressive to become more successful? Or will our > society change before we have that ability? Sincerely I don't see it > happening.. Actually aggression is almost universally condemned. Even the aggressive try to justify their behaviour so as to make out that they were provoked, that any rational peace-loving person would have acted similarly under the circumstances. If you are not inclined to assault and rob people because you think it's wrong you are not likely to modify your brain so that you become so inclined. On the other hand, if you are inclined to such behaviour can modify your brain so that you get at least as much pleasure and satisfaction from a socially acceptable activity, such as working, you might decide to make the change, even if only to avoid getting into trouble. -- Stathis Papaioannou From max at maxmore.com Sat Jul 4 05:10:29 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2009 00:10:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Trailer for Surrogates Message-ID: <200907040510.n645AprB022513@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Has anyone else seen the trailer for the upcoming movie, Surrogates, starring Bruce Willis? http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0986263/ In the near future, humans live in isolation and only interact through robotic bodies that serve as surrogates. When several humans are murdered when their surrogates are destroyed, a cop (Bruce Willis) investigates the crimes through his own surrogate. After a near fatal encounter, the cop's surrogate is destroyed and forces him to bring his human form out of isolation and unravel a conspiracy behind the crimes. Apparently it's based on a graphic novel that, to my surprise, I haven't yet read: http://www.amazon.com/Surrogates-Graphic-Novels/dp/1891830872/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1246683976&sr=1-1 The preview Natasha and I saw today looks promising. Should be interesting from a transhumanist POV. Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Jul 4 06:08:10 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2009 01:08:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Matt Taibbi takes on Goldman Sachs Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090704010647.0246b950@satx.rr.com> [my financial advisor comments: "I'm glad to see someone talking about this publicly."] The Great American Bubble Machine: How Goldman Sachs Has Engineered Every Major Market Manipulation Jul 02, 2009 8:38 AM - Rolling Stone In Rolling Stone Issue 1082-83, Matt Taibbi takes on "the Wall Street Bubble Mafia" - investment bank Goldman Sachs. The piece has generated controversy, with Goldman Sachs firing back that Taibbi's piece is "an hysterical compilation of conspiracy theories" and a spokesman adding, "We reject the assertion that we are inflators of bubbles and profiteers in busts, and we are painfully conscious of the importance in being a force for good." Taibbi shot back: "Goldman has its alumni pushing its views from the pulpit of the U.S. Treasury, the NYSE, the World Bank, and numerous other important posts; it also has former players fronting major TV shows. They have the ear of the president if they want it." Here, now, are excerpts The first thing you need to know about Goldman Sachs is that it's everywhere. The world's most powerful investment bank is a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity, relentlessly jamming its blood funnel into anything that smells like money. Any attempt to construct a narrative around all the former Goldmanites in influential positions quickly becomes an absurd and pointless exercise, like trying to make a list of everything. What you need to know is the big picture: If America is circling the drain, Goldman Sachs has found a way to be that drain - an extremely unfortunate loophole in the system of Western democratic capitalism, which never foresaw that in a society governed passively by free markets and free elections, organized greed always defeats disorganized democracy. They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They've been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s - and now they're preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet. Goldman Sachs' Role in the Housing and Internet Busts The basic scam in the Internet Age is pretty easy even for the financially illiterate to grasp. Companies that weren't much more than pot-fueled ideas scrawled on napkins by up-too-late bong-smokers were taken public via IPOs, hyped in the media and sold to the public for megamillions. It was as if banks like Goldman were wrapping ribbons around watermelons, tossing them out 50-story windows and opening the phones for bids. In this game you were a winner only if you took your money out before the melon hit the pavement. It sounds obvious now, but what the average investor didn't know at the time was that the banks had changed the rules of the game, making the deals look better than they actually were. They did this by setting up what was, in reality, a two-tiered investment system - one for the insiders who knew the real numbers, and another for the lay investor who was invited to chase soaring prices the banks themselves knew were irrational. While Goldman's later pattern would be to capitalize on changes in the regulatory environment, its key innovation in the Internet years was to abandon its own industry's standards of quality control. Goldman's role in the sweeping global disaster that was the housing bubble is not hard to trace. Here again, the basic trick was a decline in underwriting standards, although in this case the standards weren't in IPOs but in mortgages. By now almost everyone knows that for decades mortgage dealers insisted that home buyers be able to produce a down payment of 10 percent or more, show a steady income and good credit rating, and possess a real first and last name. Then, at the dawn of the new millennium, they suddenly threw all that shit out the window and started writing mortgages on the backs of napkins to cocktail waitresses and ex-cons carrying five bucks and a Snickers bar. And what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help - there were other players in the physical-commodities market - but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures - agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed. Goldman Sachs Graduates in the Government The history of the recent financial crisis, which doubles as a history of the rapid decline and fall of the suddenly swindled-dry American empire, reads like a Who's Who of Goldman Sachs graduates. By now, most of us know the major players. As George Bush's last Treasury secretary, former Goldman CEO Henry Paulson was the architect of the bailout, a suspiciously self-serving plan to funnel trillions of Your Dollars to a handful of his old friends on Wall Street. Robert Rubin, Bill Clinton's former Treasury secretary, spent 26 years at Goldman before becoming chairman of Citigroup - which in turn got a $300 billion taxpayer bailout from Paulson. There's John Thain, the asshole chief of Merrill Lynch who bought an $87,000 area rug for his office as his company was imploding; a former Goldman banker, Thain enjoyed a multibillion-dollar handout from Paulson, who used billions in taxpayer funds to help Bank of America rescue Thain's sorry company. And Robert Steel, the former Goldmanite head of Wachovia, scored himself and his fellow executives $225 million in golden-parachute payments as his bank was self-destructing. There's Joshua Bolten, Bush's chief of staff during the bailout, and Mark Patterson, the current Treasury chief of staff, who was a Goldman lobbyist just a year ago, and Ed Liddy, the former Goldman director whom Paulson put in charge of bailed-out insurance giant AIG, which forked over $13 billion to Goldman after Liddy came on board. The heads of the Canadian and Italian national banks are Goldman alums, as is the head of the World Bank, the head of the New York Stock Exchange, the last two heads of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - which, incidentally, is now in charge of overseeing Goldman. But then, something happened. It's hard to say what it was exactly; it might have been the fact that Goldman's co-chairman in the early Nineties, Robert Rubin, followed Bill Clinton to the White House, where he directed the National Economic Council and eventually became Treasury secretary. While the American media fell in love with the story line of a pair of baby-boomer, Sixties-child, Fleetwood Mac yuppies nesting in the White House, it also nursed an undisguised crush on Rubin, who was hyped as without a doubt the smartest person ever to walk the face of the Earth, with Newton, Einstein, Mozart and Kant running far behind. Rubin was the prototypical Goldman banker. He was probably born in a $4,000 suit, he had a face that seemed permanently frozen just short of an apology for being so much smarter than you, and he exuded a Spock-like, emotion-neutral exterior; the only human feeling you could imagine him experiencing was a nightmare about being forced to fly coach. It became almost a national clich?? that whatever Rubin thought was best for the economy - a phenomenon that reached its apex in 1999, when Rubin appeared on the cover of Time with his Treasury deputy, Larry Summers, and Fed chief Alan Greenspan under the headline the committee to save the world. And "what Rubin thought," mostly, was that the American economy, and in particular the financial markets, were over-regulated and needed to be set free. During his tenure at Treasury, the Clinton White House made a series of moves that would have drastic consequences for the global economy - beginning with Rubin's complete and total failure to regulate his old firm during its first mad dash for obscene short-term profits. Goldman Sachs' Powerful Influence After the oil bubble collapsed last fall, there was no new bubble to keep things humming - this time, the money seems to be really gone, like worldwide-depression gone. So the financial safari has moved elsewhere, and the big game in the hunt has become the only remaining pool of dumb, unguarded capital left to feed upon: taxpayer money. Here, in the biggest bailout in history, is where Goldman Sachs really started to flex its muscle. It began in September of last year, when then-Treasury secretary Paulson made a momentous series of decisions. Although he had already engineered a rescue of Bear Stearns a few months before and helped bail out quasi-private lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Paulson elected to let Lehman Brothers - one of Goldman's last real competitors - collapse without intervention. ("Goldman's superhero status was left intact," says market analyst Eric Salzman, "and an investment-banking competitor, Lehman, goes away.") The very next day, Paulson greenlighted a massive, $85 billion bailout of AIG, which promptly turned around and repaid $13 billion it owed to Goldman. Thanks to the rescue effort, the bank ended up getting paid in full for its bad bets: By contrast, retired auto workers awaiting the Chrysler bailout will be lucky to receive 50 cents for every dollar they are owed. Immediately after the AIG bailout, Paulson announced his federal bailout for the financial industry, a $700 billion plan called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, and put a heretofore unknown 35-year-old Goldman banker named Neel Kashkari in charge of administering the funds. In order to qualify for bailout monies, Goldman announced that it would convert from an investment bank to a bank-holding company, a move that allows it access not only to $10 billion in TARP funds, but to a whole galaxy of less conspicuous, publicly backed funding - most notably, lending from the discount window of the Federal Reserve. By the end of March, the Fed will have lent or guaranteed at least $8.7 trillion under a series of new bailout programs - and thanks to an obscure law allowing the Fed to block most congressional audits, both the amounts and the recipients of the monies remain almost entirely secret. Converting to a bank-holding company has other benefits as well: Goldman's primary supervisor is now the New York Fed, whose chairman at the time of its announcement was Stephen Friedman, a former co-chairman of Goldman Sachs. Friedman was technically in violation of Federal Reserve policy by remaining on the board of Goldman even as he was supposedly regulating the bank; in order to rectify the problem, he applied for, and got, a conflict-of-interest waiver from the government. Friedman was also supposed to divest himself of his Goldman stock after Goldman became a bank-holding company, but thanks to the waiver, he was allowed to go out and buy 52,000 additional shares in his old bank, leaving him $3 million richer. Friedman stepped down in May, but the man now in charge of supervising Goldman - New York Fed president William Dudley - is yet another former Goldmanite. The collective message of all of this - the AIG bailout, the swift approval for its bank-holding conversion, the TARP funds - is that when it comes to Goldman Sachs, there isn't a free market at all. The government might let other players on the market die, but it simply will not allow Goldman to fail under any circumstances. Its edge in the market has suddenly become an open declaration of supreme privilege. "In the past it was an implicit advantage," says Simon Johnson, an economics professor at MIT and former official at the International Monetary Fund, who compares the bailout to the crony capitalism he has seen in Third World countries. "Now it's more of an explicit advantage." Fast-forward to today. It's early June in Washington, D.C. Barack Obama, a popular young politician whose leading private campaign donor was an investment bank called Goldman Sachs - its employees paid some $981,000 to his campaign - sits in the White House. Having seamlessly navigated the political minefield of the bailout era, Goldman is once again back to its old business, scouting out loopholes in a new government-created market with the aid of a new set of alumni occupying key government jobs. Gone are Hank Paulson and Neel Kashkari; in their place are Treasury chief of staff Mark Patterson and CFTC chief Gary Gensler, both former Goldmanites. (Gensler was the firm's co-head of finance.) And instead of credit derivatives or oil futures or mortgage-backed CDOs, the new game in town, the next bubble, is in carbon credits - a booming trillion- dollar market that barely even exists yet, but will if the Democratic Party that it gave $4,452,585 to in the last election manages to push into existence a groundbreaking new commodities bubble, disguised as an "environmental plan," called cap-and-trade. The new carbon-credit market is a virtual repeat of the commodities-market casino that's been kind to Goldman, except it has one delicious new wrinkle: If the plan goes forward as expected, the rise in prices will be government-mandated. Goldman won't even have to rig the game. It will be rigged in advance. E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 07:13:48 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 03:13:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907040013g235d3260ld4971b99b6fa2a4d@mail.gmail.com> Offlisted by accident ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rafal Smigrodzki Date: Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 3:13 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D To: Stathis Papaioannou On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > So if the government sold the roads to a private owner you'd be happy > to be fined? ### I would humbly accept it, if I broke a clearly stated rule enacted by the owner. I accept the dominion of my neighbor over his land, I humbly abide by his wishes as long as he respects mine. We are equals under the law, and we each have a choice whether to enter each other's sphere of influence. Since private owners would not be able to achieve monopoly control of all roads without becoming a state, and at the same time, would rely on my return custom for their revenue, they would assiduously strive to enact rules most satisfactory to me, the customer. So, there would be no speed limits on most roads, except as to limit extreme amounts of danger to other customers (which could scare some of them away and thus reduce revenue). ----------------------- >> >> ### Yes, there is extensive evidence of a negative correlation between >> intelligence and criminality. You can find a large bibliography in >> "The Bell Curve". > > Clever psychopaths are less likely to directly involve themselves in > violent crime, get caught, and get convicted if caught. ### You articulated a hypothesis challenging a body of peer-reviewed research. What arguments and data do you have in favor of your hypothesis? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 07:16:57 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 03:16:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re:Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907040016o275e079dm6de2a8ddda4af0b1@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 10:02 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou> As for changing their brains to make themselves less > aggressive, I am >> >> hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more people would >> in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more aggressive. > > Our western culture rewards the aggressive. Doesn?t it? ### The western culture is one of the most peaceful, non-violent cultures ever. ---------------------- > Once we have this ability to change our brain more directly, wouldn't we > choose to become more aggressive to become more successful? ### Most highly aggressive humans are currently being kept in prisons already. Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 08:37:27 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 08:37:27 +0000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re:Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907040016o275e079dm6de2a8ddda4af0b1@mail.gmail.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> <7641ddc60907040016o275e079dm6de2a8ddda4af0b1@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 7/4/09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Most highly aggressive humans are currently being kept in prisons already. > Either that or they work for Goldman Sachs. (But that's OK, isn't it? Raping the whole economic system and stealing everyone's saving and investments is just being a very efficient entrepreneur, so that must be good - no?). BillK From sjv2006 at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 06:56:38 2009 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2009 23:56:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> Message-ID: <767d90740907032356t3f02d67dq5d6c8e4aa57c50f1@mail.gmail.com> *Assume a few hundred of us proles and our mates and children, with only the knowledge we currently carry in our heads. *Something similar to this was discussed several years ago on Usenet under the title "Earth Abides - What Would You Do?". Spikes scenario does away with the scraps of civilization assumed in the earlier thread, but much of the discussion focused for the need for actual skills, rather than book learning or salvage, at least for the long term. To help, I determined the range of skills for a cross section of the US consisting of 3000 people randomly chosen. Of course, Q being a cruel god, he selects the Extropians list where the breakdown of skills is likely considerably less spread out than below. And, of course, they are skilled at a somewhat higher level than "starting from scratch". My guess, you might be able to get to a bronze or early iron age level after a while, but that is about it. >From old Usenet post: According to the Statistical Abstract of the United States, a 1 in 100,000 cross-section (10% of the survivors in the US in our scenario...a town of slightly less than 3000) would include: 1 architect 15 engineers 1 chemical (maybe) 2 civil 4 electrical & electronic 2 industrial 2 or 3 mechanical 3 or 4 natural scientists 1 chemist 1 (maybe) biologist 4 or 5 mathematical or computer scientists 5 physicians 1 dentist 14 registered nurses 4 or 5 licensed practical nurses 11 health technologists or technicians 1 or 2 pharmacists 2 or 3 therapists (physical, resp, etc) maybe 1 physician's assistant 17 health service workers (dental assistants, nurses aides, etc) 6 college and university teachers 34 elementary and secondary teachers 2 librarians 1 economist 1 psychologist 3 members of clergy 6 or 7 lawyers 8 engineering technologists or technicians 2 science technicians 9 other technicians (not medical, engineering, or science) 4 or 5 computer programmers 2 firefighers 6 or 7 police and detectives 6 private security guards 17 vehicle and mobile equipment mechanics 8 automobile mechanics 7 electrical and electronic equipment repairers 42 construction trades 11 or 12 carpenters 2 extractive occupations 27 precision production occupations 14 textile, apparel and furnishings machine operators 17 assemblers, fabricators and handworking occupations 22 truck drivers 10 material moving equipment operators 37 farming, forestry and fishing 14 or 15 farm operators and managers 11 or 12 farm workers 14 active duty military personnel 13 military reservists 247 veterans of military service 2 or 3 commercial pilots In addition to this are hobbiest activities: 24% of US households involved in vegetable gardening 10% of US households involved in fruit tree gardening 15% of population over 18, pottery work at least once in last 12 months (includes ceramics, jewelry, leatherwork, and metalwork) 28% of population over 18, weaving at least once in last 12 months (this seems high to me...maybe include knitting, needlework, etc.?) 47 Boy Scouts 16 Boy Scout leaders 32 Girl Scouts 7 Girls Scout leaders 147 backpackers 465 campers 397 sport fishermen 140 hunters (56 bow hunters) 28 regular woodworkers (2 or 3 days/week) 45 martial artists 257 boaters (36 sail) 2 or 3 private pilots -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From listsb at infinitefaculty.org Sat Jul 4 16:10:27 2009 From: listsb at infinitefaculty.org (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Sat, 04 Jul 2009 18:10:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> Message-ID: <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> spike skrev: > Everything that has been posted on this topic goes towards my point, which > is a that huge amount of the human knowledge base is externalized. This is > true to such an extent that if our access to our external knowledge base > were to be disrupted or removed, basic survival itself is far from assured. Quite right! I was assuming that friendly climate, lush vegetation and tasty beastage would make basic survival relatively easy. But even that is questionable. And even with the easy availability of the right kind of food, there are the numerous social problems that could lead to threats to survival. But I agree completely with your main point. And one practical conclusion might be: we need good backups! (In radically different media/forms.) -- There have been dark ages before, without humanity's having been transported to a diff. planet. Brian P.S. But I still think I could make a rudimentary, bellows, if highly leaky, with tree branches and animal skin!! But it would take a while, and my first attempts would suck. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 17:41:31 2009 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 10:41:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 70, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 11:08 PM, spike wrote: snip > But I do know how to slay a beast and prepare it to be devoured. But can I catch it with no tools? And if I do, can I dress it? No. Hmm. I have killed and dressed out something like a 1000 animals, mostly rabbits and chickens, a few goats. My brother has killed elk and/or deer and dressed them out every year for the last 50 years. http://www.nss.org/settlement/L5news/L5news/L5news7903.pdf The lead article discusses impromptu butchering a hog on the side of a road on a bitterly cold night. I should write it up sometime, there is more to the story including why we were there (installing a computer) and the reaction of the desk clerk. >A lot of us here are code jockeys. We want to record what we know, but do you know how to build a computer? Do you know how an integrated circuit works? Could you write down for the next generation the basics? Yes to all of these. Could we skip the vacuum tube stage of technology? Maybe, would take considerable thinking about it. >How would you write it? On what, with what? On animal skin, with iron based ink, quill pen or similar. >Assume a lake or sea. Can you catch a fish without any hooks or string? If you catch one, then what? Have done this. Chase fish into shallows, grab. Grill over fire. It was delicious. >Do you have any guess how the first humans melted iron? Don't google on it, think, how would YOU do it? Melting iron gives you the substance for pots. Making iron into other useful items is more complicated. I could go on for hours about this. >We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we don't even realize it. Certainly a mountain of memes, many of which, such as the horse collar, we don't even know who thought them up. Keith From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 17:44:03 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:44:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Think fast: mutual introductions In-Reply-To: <17C684CA-92D3-4B36-A6C4-266989509137@gmail.com> References: <55ad6af70907030855t4bf997d2hdd441b9fcab23652@mail.gmail.com> <17C684CA-92D3-4B36-A6C4-266989509137@gmail.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af70907041044j189d4ebfy16144d98f7e25ef7@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Eric Hunting Date: Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 11:54 AM Subject: Re: Think fast: mutual introductions To: Bryan Bishop Joeseph's comment was excellent. I would like to mention, though, some of the currently most well-known models of a post-scarcity -also sometimes paired to the term Post-Industrial- society that are often bantered about in the Maker community and often appear in some variation in recent Diamond Age/Transhumanist science fiction; anonymous Swiss activist author P.M.'s Bolo community model which leans toward a more soft-tech model of sustainability relying largely on the dividend in human time recaptured through the elimination of profit on labor, the leveraging of individual capability though community based on open reciprocal production (making things on demand free -within reason- for your neighbors on the assumption everyone else does the same for you), Buckminster Fuller's World Game model rooted in the notion of rational resource-based economics based on open reciprocity and cooperation, and Jacque Fresco's Cybernation, which was the inspiration behind the recent Zeitgeist viral video craze and leans on a more mid-century Modernist notion of Total Automation combined to a rational (because it's automated...) World-Game-like global resource-based economics. (I often refer to this as the Star Trek model of post-scarcity as that represents the definitive example, though the concept appears in far older science fiction) As for ToolBook, this is a notion I've been proposing for dealing with the problem of incoherence in the development of open source industrial tools and technology in the current Maker movement. As an open, global, and highly inclusive movement of largely independent and individual enthusiasts, the current community of open technology developers have a very incoherent base of interdisciplinary knowledge. This incoherence hampers the evolution of that technology and tends to limit its potential sophistication and social/cultural/economic impact by creating large learning curves for newcomers and compelling people to frequently re-invent the wheel through trial and error. Key to this problem is a lack of a structured way of documenting and communicating this knowledge -particularly knowledge about tools and base technologies- in the context of the new emerging literary form that the Maker culture is inventing ad hoc; the 'recipe' form commonly seen on sites like the Make and Instructibles blogs which combines text, illustration, photography, sometimes video, and sometimes software into a hybrid instructional presentation for how to make or use a tool or artifact. The initial objective of ToolBook is to pair a community of open technology developers to a companion community of freelance media developers (writers, artist, videographers) with the intent of cultivating open industrial technology while simultaneously cultivating and disseminating a structured library of open source knowledge for it. It would be focused primarily on tools -on systems for production and their underlying techniques and technology- rather than artifacts but would include standard-of-living-defining products and systems. (this derives from an earlier proposal, the Open Source Everything project, which was intended to cultivate a library of open source designs and production systems for all the things that a contemporary western standard of living is based on -enabling an entrepreneurial localization of their production) Near term objectives focus primarily on standardizing and structuring the recipe document and various forms of courseware media as a better medium for disseminating 'industrial literacy'. Long-term, the goal would be to develop document architectures that are simultaneously human and machine readable so they can ultimately be 'compiled' to production programs for fab shops (a fab shop is a higher order of fabber where a series of modular production systems specialized in materials spectrum and production technique -like the different machines in a fab lab- are integrated into a whole automated production system linked by digital network and product handling/transport devices such as simple pick-and-place robots and conveyors) The initial model is of a freelance publishing and production cooperative that employs for-profit media publishing and kit manufacture (with a Lulu.com type of model) to pay for open source development (and a modest living for those developers), third world and relief technology outreach, public access on-line knowledge repositories, and the creation of a collection of shared resources such as fab labs, media studios, on-line resources, work spaces, materials/supplies banks, and job-shop production facilities. The initial products would simply be books, videos, software, ad space on public access web sites, and building kits. Relating to this is the Vajra proposal. A possible joint venture of the ToolBook co-op, Vajra would be a Maker incubator eco-community; a small village centered on a shared fab lab which is used not only to develop open source tech but also to produce the collections of modular components the village itself is made with using adaptive plug-in architecture. The basic model for this is something I generically call Utilihab in its proposed open source form but which currently represents a collection of building systems based on industrial T-slot framing such as Jeriko House, Tomahouse, KitHaus, and It House. Though rooted in the ToolBook project as a founding source of support and with the incubation of open technology in a cooperative community setting its primary focus, Vajra would seek to cultivate sustainable industrial independence in a Bolo-like system of open reciprocal production -though with the very nascent current open industrial technology this is a very long-term goal. I'm pragmatic about the concept of totally independent self-sufficiency and consider this a commonly underestimated and even heroic challenge with at-hand technology. Vajra isn't intended to be a model for this even if it pursues it as an idealized long-term goal. It's intended to be an incubator of Post-Industrial culture -most likely in an urban or semi-urban setting. It's more about cultivating and awareness of industrial literacy, disseminating the means to that literacy, and suggesting the social and economic potential that has rather than being a pocket working model of Post-Industrial life to replicate en masse. Though a popular concept in a culture fed-up with 'the system' and its emergent failures. in reality, we, as a species, have never actually lived with such a hermetic biosphere-on-orbit degree of self-sufficiency as is so often proposed and assumed easy. So I see this much as Bolo author P.M. has -contingent on a broad skill and production spectrum within a pretty large community and social network of which a community like Vajra would be just one -albeit founding- node. Networks matter more to survival and subsistence than how much food you can grow on an acre. Eric Hunting erichunting at gmail.com From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 4 18:32:19 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 11:32:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au><57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Brian Manning Delaney > Subject: Re: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants > > spike skrev: > > > ...if our access to > > our external knowledge base were to be disrupted or > removed, basic survival itself is far from assured. ... > > But I agree completely with your main point. And one > practical conclusion might be: we need good backups! (In > radically different > media/forms.) -- Brian > That's only part of it. As I mentioned we entered a third wave, a phase change, with electronic media. If we made backups in the form of hard copy on paper, it would likely be useless. I can show you an archive of paper reports, done by my own company, stretching back eight decades, stored in an enormous warehouse. They are useless, for no one has time to go thru the inadequate indexes to try to find anything specific. I tried once, looking for a report that I knew existed, and I am pretty sure is in there somewhere, but cannot be found. That report is 404. We must scan that archive, or failing that, we might as well torch it. We need to somehow make our backup searchable in some kind of electronic format, in a form that is likely to survive a huge electromagnetic pulse. Keep this in mind: if we are attacked by nuclear weapons, they are unlikely to be in the form of the traditional mushroom cloud, but rather an EMP weapon, for these are easier to deliver (because they are lighter) and cover more area in which they don't actually slay the proles but rather they wreck the electronics, which will result in large numbers of the proles expiring. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 19:02:02 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 19:02:02 +0000 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: On 7/4/09, spike wrote: > We need to somehow make our backup searchable in some kind of electronic > format, in a form that is likely to survive a huge electromagnetic pulse. > Keep this in mind: if we are attacked by nuclear weapons, they are unlikely > to be in the form of the traditional mushroom cloud, but rather an EMP > weapon, for these are easier to deliver (because they are lighter) and cover > more area in which they don't actually slay the proles but rather they wreck > the electronics, which will result in large numbers of the proles expiring. > I have a vision of millions of teenagers wailing piteously and shaking their dead iPhones, milling around aimlessly, unable to cope with not knowing where their mates are and what they are doing. ;) BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 4 18:44:13 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 11:44:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au><57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: While North Korea fires intercontinental missiles and tests nukes, the news majors are filled with Michael Jackson stories, all the latest on a guy who is dead. Is this not a sad commentary? What if... Michael Jackson was paying attention during the 70s when the Fleetwood Mac = Witchcraft meme demonstrated a curious fact: the notion that bad publicity is better than no publicity is an understatement. More accurate would be: bad publicity is better than good publicity. So, what if Jackson recognized this, and did all his odd behaviors, all strictly for publicity, as did Fleetwood Mac (the witchcraft thing was phony.) What if Jackson was really perfectly normal? Perhaps all the wierd stuff was just an act, to stay in the news and sell records. When the microphones were all turned off and the photographers were gone, perhaps he closed the curtains, retired to his private den, and was a perfectly normal guy. He turned off the infantile lispy whisper, resumed his gravelly baritone, said things like "That aughta keep the little bastards for a while," plopped in his easy chair, cracked open a brewsky, turned on the TV and watched three football games, NASCAR and golf tournament simultaneously by zapping thru channels as fast as he could. Just a thought. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 4 19:22:50 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 12:22:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 70, Issue 8 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Keith Henson > ... > > Melting iron gives you the substance for pots. Making iron > into other useful items is more complicated. > > I could go on for hours about this... Keith Keith, should Q decide to play such a scenario, you would likely be the local MVP. spike From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sat Jul 4 20:52:10 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2009 13:52:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature In-Reply-To: <2688FA409B6E4CD19E89F00793691A35@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <5591.96213.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/3/09, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou> As for > changing their brains to make themselves less aggressive, I > am > > hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, > more people would > > in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves > more aggressive. > > Our western culture rewards the aggressive. Doesn?t it? > Once we have this ability to change our brain more > directly, wouldn't we choose to become more aggressive to > become more successful? Or will our society change before we > have that ability? Sincerely I don't see it happening.. Only in certain limited contexts. What usually happens with people who openly use violence in most Western societies is they tend to lose support and face retaliation. This is even so with legitimate users of violence, such as the police. Yes, brutal cops often get off, but they don't seem to get promotions and there's a social stigma attached to it, no? Also, I don't think there's a West/East distinction here -- or it doesn't go the way you think. But how would one determine this? Regards, Dan From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 05:44:09 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 01:44:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: <62c14240907042244x4d1cf53nbda607938ca3eef@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Brian Manning Delaney wrote: > P.S. But I still think I could make a rudimentary, bellows, if highly leaky, > with tree branches and animal skin!! But it would take a while, and my first > attempts would suck. Bellows that suck? I think you should check the design specs, we need one that blows. :) From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sun Jul 5 12:40:25 2009 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 08:40:25 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <62c14240907042244x4d1cf53nbda607938ca3eef@mail.gmail.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> <62c14240907042244x4d1cf53nbda607938ca3eef@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35491.12.77.169.2.1246797625.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > On Sat, Jul 4, 2009 at 12:10 PM, Brian Manning > Delaney wrote: >> P.S. But I still think I could make a rudimentary, bellows, if highly leaky, >> with tree branches and animal skin!! But it would take a while, and my first >> attempts would suck. > > Bellows that suck? I think you should check the design specs, we need > one that blows. :) > Actually, they work both ways, suck *and* blow. So he may have the right specs. If they suck, surely they should also blow? Regards, MB From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 5 17:33:27 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 19:33:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <4A4E443A.1000908@infinitefaculty.org> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> <4A4E443A.1000908@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: <4A50E3E7.8070903@libero.it> Brian Manning Delaney ha scritto: > > Very cool thought experiment! I used to daydream about this as a lad. Not the only one. >> We don't know how (great)^n grandma did it, but I would look for some >> orange soil, assuming that is iron oxide or some kind of metallic ore. >> OK found it. Now what? > > I think a huge part of our early progress came from a basic "let's > increase it!!" attitude, where "it" is, say, the size of a fire, or the > force with which a rock is struck, or the distance one ventures out away > from home. > > "Cool! Fire! Let's make it bigger, REALLY big!" -- I think that might be > how metals were discovered (qua substances that could be melted, would > harden, and retain their new shape). This is probably true, but not for iron. Tin, lead, copper must come before iron. To smelt iron you need higher temperatures than any wood is able to burn. So you need to produce coal. Vegetable coal is produced with wood cooked without oxygen. Usually this is done amassing large pieces of wood and covering them with earth, so there will be no air available. Then , using small holes inside the mass, you start a fire. The heat produced will mainly stay inside and will cook the wood making coal, burning only a little part of the wood used. Assuming plenty resources available (Q put them all there, near, no need to travel 3 months to find them) and free time enough to R&D, I think we would run out of available workforce before we start to find major technological roadblock. For example, to work (make holes in) hard rocks like granite we need quartz. With a head of quartz we would be able to build rock crucible to cook and smelt metals. The advanced technology need enough workforce and capital base to start building up. So, the most important (long terms) things to do would to concentrate on grow the population and stay alive and healthy and keep a unifying goal (develop technology and leave the planet). This concept was explored in a SF book I red many years ago: The Survivors of Ragnarok, where a spaceship of human is captured by an hostile race and the crew and passengers (4.000 individuals) are leaved to die on a planet called Ragnarok (not a nice place: 1.5 G gravity, few metals, harsh climates, feral animals). The descendants, more than a century after, would be able to rebuild enough technology to send a distress subspatial message and trick an hostile ship to land. Then, the human descendants accustomed to Ragnarok would crush easily the aliens and take over the ship. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Survivors_(novel) > (It might also have been the result > of an inspection of the results of an accidental fire.) More probable, they used tin rich rocks to build a fireplace, then they observed that a part of the rock smelt and return solid. Then, they started to use tin (and copper), and sometimes they mixed them together with weird results (bronze). After this, it is probable someone started to experiment with other types of rock like pyrite. > Some rocks, or > parts of rocks, near the huge, hot fire melted more easily than others. > (And eventually someone built a fire in a large indent in a cliff wall, > the wind blew hard, the fire roared, and someone said "Let's figure out > how to blow on the fire -- even harder than the wind!") People who had > ventured far from home might then say "Hey, I saw rocks in a cave in the > valley across the way that look like that one that melted quickly," etc. As I told, it is improbable, wood rarely burn at very high temperature. > On the new planet, if I were in charge of metal, I'd look around for > rocks that seemed to have metallic strips in them (all this is > pre-Google guessing), and put them in a some kind of fireplace with a > bellows, and some way to catch the melting metal. But mostly I'd be > trying to slow the aging process so that we would live long enough to > reach the level of, say, the ancient Greeks (easily doable, I think). Indeed, no one talked about storing foods and other stuff for preservation. A more difficult technology to master would be the cold. Without mastering cold, the humans there would be severely limited. For example, building a road to a near mountain (for the ores) would came handy to move ice down and use it in underground cellars to preserve food and drinks. Salt would came handy for lowering the temperature of the ice and preserving stuff. Then, we need to move to producing paper and parchment (last more than paper). Parchment is more easy to produce (it is a by-product of hunting large animals) if you are able to tan the skins. Tab can be produced from oaks seeds fermented (like inks). Again, the bigger problem remain the man-hours this 1.000 (or 4.000) humans can put on R&D and production and only large productions are cost-effective. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 5 18:01:19 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 20:01:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Matt Taibbi takes on Goldman Sachs In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090704010647.0246b950@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090704010647.0246b950@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4A50EA6F.7050707@libero.it> Damien Broderick ha scritto: > [my financial advisor comments: "I'm glad to see someone talking about > this publicly."] > > The > Great American Bubble Machine: How Goldman Sachs Has Engineered Every > Major Market Manipulation > Jul 02, 2009 8:38 AM - Rolling Stone At the end of the day, anyway, Goldman Sachs could had done nothing of this without a government helping and backing it. The system is exploitable and manipulable, so there always be someone that will try to manipulate it to extract wealth. And, at the end, the first and the best able to manipulate the system will emerge. Anyone willing to write in the constitution an amendment about "no bailout" of private entities with public money? Not Community Reinvestment Acts, No Federal Reserve, No Fiat Money and so on? Until these are possible, someone will try to manipulate the system to make them possible (with good intentions or to profit from them). Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Sun Jul 5 19:30:20 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 14:30:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of meteorites In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <55ad6af70907030914x756c5d07t927fa2756d960f75@mail.gmail.com> <06A7E3731AE44E9DB28D0D9CB054D172@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090703124858.02a7aa88@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090705142858.026fd418@satx.rr.com> At 11:54 AM 7/3/2009 -0700, spike wrote: > > > > ...IIRC they get their iron from a large meteorite... > >OK then, I'll play along. Assume we start the fire somehow. Here's your >meteorite, a large one. Now what? In case you haven't seen this Paul Fernhout response on Eugen's list: Historically, meteorites or other rare sources were where early humans got a lot of their metals. It is only when those things become scarce that we humans had to get clever at getting metals in other ways. From: "The Prehistoric Use of Meteorites in North America" http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~afs/may96_2.html "... A dagger of meteoritic iron was found in King Tutankhamun's burial chamber. ... Meteorites found on archaeological sites are composed primarily of iron and nickel and are believed to have formed in the cores of asteroids during the early stages of the solar system. Despite comprising the minority of meteorites falling to earth, iron meteorites usually arrive on earth as larger chunks than their stony meteorite cousins. This larger size and their unusual appearance compared to terrestrial rocks would make iron meteorites easier for Native Americans to locate. The creation of tools from iron meteorites probably involved only cold hammering of the metal, since temperatures required for hot-working cannot typically be reached by open fires. ... When news of John Ross' discovery became widely known, numerous American and European expeditions went in search of what the Polar Eskimo described as the "Iron Mountain". It was 76 years later before the Eskimos Tellikotinah and Kessoo led Admiral Robert Peary to three iron masses. ... The fall was almost certainly not observed since archaeological evidence shows meteoritic iron being used on Greenland sites nearly 1000 years earlier, and may have been one of the factors that lured people to the eastern Arctic. ... Meteoritic iron has been discovered on several sites in the central and eastern arctic. Although the meteorite now known as Cape York fell in Greenland, trade among the Eskimo resulted in pieces of the meteorite being transported to locations up to 2200 km away. Use of the iron was primarily limited to the creation of knife blades and harpoon points, but may have served as engraving tools as well. The small number of sites on which meteoritic artifacts have been found may not adequately represent the abundance or distribution of this important resource. The harsh arctic climate and the capability of reusing and reworking iron into smaller and smaller pieces leaves little for later archaeologists to unearth. The use of meteoritic iron among the Eskimo was probably more widespread than we now realize. Much like meteorite hunters of today, the Hope-wellian culture was actively engaged in meteorite collecting. Although, there has been some speculation concerning whether or not a witnessed meteorite fall may have set them on their search, there is little doubt concerning their desire in obtaining this unusual iron resource. Chemical analyses have shown that meteorite fragments found on two sites in Ohio are identical to the large Brenham fall in Kansas. It appears that the Hopewell were using their extensive trading networks to redistribute the iron fragments further east. Of the 20 sites in which meteoritic iron has been found, at least three different meteorites are represented. ... It seems as if the extent to which each culture used meteoritic iron was based upon their technological knowledge in working metal and in their need for a vital resource. The Hopewellians use of copper reduced their need for iron. Instead they treated the iron resource with esteem because of its unusual properties and its limited availability. The Polar Eskimo, on the other hand, spent most of their time on survival tasks due to the harsh environment. When presented with a supply of metallic iron, the Eskimo made use of the advantages the material offered for daily survival. By creating iron knives and projectile points their efficiency in the hunting and skinning of animals was greatly improved. In the Southwest, the lack of knowledge concerning metal-working prevented experimentation with strange stones found on the surface of the ground. " E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 01:54:27 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 11:24:27 +0930 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/4 spike : > > We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we don't even > realize it. > > spike There's the argument for rolling back IP laws in a nutshell. Nice. But on topic, come with me on a walk into magical nanosanta land. Imagine a future where we have nanobots running around in us doing continuous monitoring and repair, and I guess where they can reproduce and contruct external stuff and so forth, general assemblers. An excellent thing to do in that case is to embed a lot of information into the nanotech system; probably the sum of human knowledge, plus tools for bootstrapping from scratch in a scenario such as Spike describes (or, you know, post-holocaust, or whatever). DNA carries the instructions to build us from scratch, massively redundantly throughout the body; this would be the equivalent for all our exogenous knowledge (which I guess by definition would no longer be exogenous). It'd lend us an interesting peace of mind to know that any one of us could rebuild the human enterprise from scratch if necessary! I think Bryan's endeavour is a bit more realistic, btw. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jul 6 04:00:44 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 23:00:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Audio fiction games In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090705225519.06b97868@satx.rr.com> At 10:38 PM 7/3/2009 -0500, I petitioned pathetically, but with really quite touching humility: >I'm hoping some canny extrope not only knows how to do such editing, >but would be kind enough to do it for me. Stand down, extropes. Belay any eager impulses to help out, the problem now seems to be resolved. Thanks to BillK for advice and Emlyn for kindly editing offer. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 04:26:07 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 13:56:07 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution" Message-ID: <710b78fc0907052126r2301a928g5727a5cb7550cf06@mail.gmail.com> Stephen Hawking: "Humans Have Entered a New Stage of Evolution" http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2009/07/stephen-hawking-the-planet-has-entered-a-new-phase-of-evolution.html -- Although It has taken homo sapiens several million years to evolve from the apes, the useful information in our DNA, has probably changed by only a few million bits. So the rate of biological evolution in humans, Stephen Hawking points out in his Life in the Universe lecture, is about a bit a year. "By contrast," Hawking says, "there are about 50,000 new books published in the English language each year, containing of the order of a hundred billion bits of information. Of course, the great majority of this information is garbage, and no use to any form of life. But, even so, the rate at which useful information can be added is millions, if not billions, higher than with DNA." This means Hawking says that we have entered a new phase of evolution. "At first, evolution proceeded by natural selection, from random mutations. This Darwinian phase, lasted about three and a half billion years, and produced us, beings who developed language, to exchange information." But what distinguishes us from our cave man ancestors is the knowledge that we have accumulated over the last ten thousand years, and particularly, Hawking points out, over the last three hundred. I think it is legitimate to take a broader view, and include externally transmitted information, as well as DNA, in the evolution of the human race," Hawking said. In the last ten thousand years the human species has been in what Hawking calls, "an external transmission phase," where the internal record of information, handed down to succeeding generations in DNA, has not changed significantly. "But the external record, in books, and other long lasting forms of storage," Hawking says, "has grown enormously. Some people would use the term, evolution, only for the internally transmitted genetic material, and would object to it being applied to information handed down externally. But I think that is too narrow a view. We are more than just our genes." The time scale for evolution, in the external transmission period, has collapsed to about 50 years, or less. Meanwhile, Hawking observes, our human brains "with which we process this information have evolved only on the Darwinian time scale, of hundreds of thousands of years. This is beginning to cause problems. In the 18th century, there was said to be a man who had read every book written. But nowadays, if you read one book a day, it would take you about 15,000 years to read through the books in a national Library. By which time, many more books would have been written." But we are now entering a new phase, of what Hawking calls "self designed evolution," in which we will be able to change and improve our DNA. "At first," he continues "these changes will be confined to the repair of genetic defects, like cystic fibrosis, and muscular dystrophy. These are controlled by single genes, and so are fairly easy to identify, and correct. Other qualities, such as intelligence, are probably controlled by a large number of genes. It will be much more difficult to find them, and work out the relations between them. Nevertheless, I am sure that during the next century, people will discover how to modify both intelligence, and instincts like aggression." If the human race manages to redesign itself, to reduce or eliminate the risk of self-destruction, we will probably reach out to the stars and colonize other planets. But this will be done, Hawking believes, with intelligent machines based on mechanical and electronic components, rather than macromolecules, which could eventually replace DNA based life, just as DNA may have replaced an earlier form of life." -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From spike66 at att.net Mon Jul 6 04:11:25 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 21:11:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Emlyn ... > 2009/7/4 spike : > > > > We stand on the shoulders of giants, and most of the time we don't > > even realize it. spike > > ... > It'd lend us an interesting peace of mind to know that any > one of us could rebuild the human enterprise from scratch if > necessary! > > I think Bryan's endeavour is a bit more realistic, btw. Emlyn Ja, and the thought space diverges here in a way. One worthwhile pursuit is to try to archive the human enterprise, but I was kinda going off in a different direction. If all technology were to suddenly fail on this planet (or be intentionally destroyed in a hostile action), most of us would be in very poor condition quickly. We really depend on our machines. But an Amish family would have not such a tough go of it, and a sub Saharan tribe would scarcely notice that anything changed. We have introduced a new way to kill us: the electromagnetic pulse. Over time, there are fewer Amish and remote tribes, so we can imagine our species actually becoming ever more dependent upon technologies that fewer and fewer understand, or can reproduce. While Bryan is thinking about archiving, I am thinking about how to make ourselves less vulnerable to the failure of our own gadgetry. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 06:10:20 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 23:10:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Humor: a map of the new online geography Message-ID: <2d6187670907052310o29d65d63xf45ac2f6c1c1c126@mail.gmail.com> I came across this and thought it would give people a chuckle... http://xkcd.com/256/ John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 06:33:49 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 06:33:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Audio fiction games In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090705225519.06b97868@satx.rr.com> References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090705225519.06b97868@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 7/6/09, Damien Broderick wrote: > Stand down, extropes. Belay any eager impulses to help out, the problem now > seems to be resolved. Thanks to BillK for advice and Emlyn for kindly > editing offer. > Give 'im the full works, Emlyn! Lots of reverb and bass, dramatic music at appropriate points, sound effects (the old two coconut shells clacking together), and ending with a five minute wild applause section. And, no, it's not funny to do a version with Damien sounding like one of the Chipmunks. Best wishes, BillK From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 06:50:34 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 16:20:34 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Audio fiction games In-Reply-To: References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090705225519.06b97868@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907052350n447fab2la78e4ed66e5b3bcf@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/6 BillK : > On 7/6/09, Damien Broderick wrote: >> ?Stand down, extropes. Belay any eager impulses to help out, the problem now >> seems to be resolved. Thanks to BillK for advice and Emlyn for kindly >> editing offer. >> > > > Give 'im the full works, Emlyn! > Lots of reverb and bass, dramatic music at appropriate points, sound > effects (the old two coconut shells clacking together), and ending > with a five minute wild applause section. Play him off, Keyboard Cat. > > And, no, it's not funny to do a version with Damien sounding like one > of the Chipmunks. Really? There goes the "just release it dry" option. Maybe we propose to his publisher that a youtube version would go down well? -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Jul 6 07:46:20 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 02:46:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Audio fiction games In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907052350n447fab2la78e4ed66e5b3bcf@mail.gmail.com > References: <7.0.1.0.2.20090703223206.02895c48@satx.rr.com> <7.0.1.0.2.20090705225519.06b97868@satx.rr.com> <710b78fc0907052350n447fab2la78e4ed66e5b3bcf@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090706024325.026d0dd8@satx.rr.com> At 04:20 PM 7/6/2009 +0930, Emmers replied to WilliamK: > > And, no, it's not funny to do a version with Damien sounding like one > > of the Chipmunks. > >Really? There goes the "just release it dry" option. I'm afraid so. Boyish tenor. My tragedy. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12750 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From kanzure at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 11:22:57 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 06:22:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <55ad6af70907060422r3920292evb4f4c42f5533c1@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 11:11 PM, spike wrote: > We have introduced a new way to kill us: the electromagnetic pulse. ?Over > time, there are fewer Amish and remote tribes, so we can imagine our species > actually becoming ever more dependent upon technologies that fewer and fewer > understand, or can reproduce. ?While Bryan is thinking about archiving, I am > thinking about how to make ourselves less vulnerable to the failure of our > own gadgetry. Sorry spike, we're actually working on the same thing. http://groups.google.com/group/diybio/msg/806a061ed6a0fa3a Reliability engineering is an attempt to root out all causes of failures. Sometimes this involves simplifying all of those "complex technologies that nobody can understand or reproduce", etc. etc. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 6 14:04:17 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 07:04:17 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature Message-ID: <132591.61900.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/3/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/3 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> ### I wish I could share your optimism. The way I see >> it, at least 60% >> of all activity today happens under duress (since the >> government >> directly or indirectly controls about 60% of the >> society), plus there >> is a minor amount of private violence. This is an >> improvement over the >> savages in the jungles of South America or Africa, >> where most men die by homicide. > > Really? I think Rafal might be overstating the case, but, from my readngs, murder rates are much higher in "primitive" societies. Cf. _War before Civilization: The Myth of the Peaceful Savage_ by Lawrence Keeley. IIRC, the murder rate is something like 30% for adult males. Adult males tend to die in fueds and other low intensity conflicts. Keeley's contention, IIRC, is these conflicts are basically wars. He also presents a lot of evidence that prehistoric societies were doing the same thing with the same high death rates. (I've also heard the view that dogs bark in ways very unlike wolves because they were selected for barking and this specifically helped humans by warning them of other humans attacking.) >> It may be better than life in Mexican villages, >> where >> social customs impose an implicit marginal tax rate of >> 85%. But there >> is no doubt that the vast majority of US citizens >> happily endorse mass >> slaughter of random brown people, destruction of lives >> of millions of >> workers here and abroad (through protectionist trade >> measures), and >> even the daily senseless mayhem on our roads. Today I >> saw five cops on >> three miles of highway, brazenly, in broad daylight >> attacking honest >> workers, just swaggering over with their guns and >> squeezing them for >> cash under the pretext of committing what they call >> "crimes", and what I call driving home. > > You mean they were putting cash into their own pockets, or > issuing speeding tickets? The question of traffic laws is an > interesting one, > since even an anarchist society might decide that they are > worth having. Well, in an free market anarchist society, the way the issue would be decided would be by allowing road owners to decide the rules to be followed on their property.* My guess is that there'd be some differences in rules and enforcement -- that is, not all owners would have the same rules and enforcement techniques. This is no different than how various eateries have different dress codes. In some, you need a jacket and tie, in others not; in some, you pay first, in others you pay afterward. Etc. (And even public roads vary today. Think of how speed limits vary. And anyone who does a decent amount of driving knows speed limit and other enforcement varies.) >> I think that a stably non-violent society will emerge >> only after >> enough people boost themselves to the equivalent of >> IQ140 or higher >> (so they won't have false consequentialist ideas about >> the need for >> initiation of violence), and erase whatever neural >> networks make them >> envious and domineering (to remove the real emotional >> drivers of violence). > > Is there any evidence that more intelligent people are less > likely to be violent or dishonest? I don't know about honesty, though I believe there's some evidence that intelligence correlates with lower levels of aggression and criminality. I've read some explanations of this along the lines of the more intelligent someone is, the more she'll think long range and even be able to empathize with others -- and hence be less likely to act for the short-term pay offs from violent and criminal behavior and more likely to look for long range gains by voluntary interaction. There does seem to be some truth to this, don't you think? > I think the main difference would be that > they will be more sophisticated in the crimes they commit. > Intelligence, alas, is not even a good predictor of > religiosity. It's > a bit arrogant to assume that if people were smarter, they > would think > like you, even if you are in fact smarter than most > people. I think it's a common mistake to think, "She's smart, so she must agree with my politics." However, there does seem to be some evidence that intelligence correlates with lower levels of criminal and violent behavior. This doesn't mean, however, that intelligent people won't still participte in this like statism -- where the violence and criminality are mediated via an institutional arrangement. And, in this case, there is usually a complicated ideology to justify violence. Moreover, the fact that an ideology must be used to persuade people seems to support the correlation of intelligence with lower levels of violence: intelligent people must persuade themselves in ways less intelligent people wouldn't. They need a mechanism to short circuit their bias against violence. > As for changing their brains to make themselves less > aggressive, I am > hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more > people would > in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more > aggressive. If such a fix is possible and doesn't have other deleterious effects, I concur. Regards, Dan * Walter Block and Daniel Klein, among others, have done a lot of research in this area. Block's whole book on this is online at: http://mises.org/books/roads_web.pdf Some of Klein's various papers on private roads are available at: http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economics/klein/papers.html From max at maxmore.com Mon Jul 6 15:06:40 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 10:06:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Column by Warren Ellis Message-ID: <200907061507.n66F7ER2002520@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Nothing new, but I liked the message this leads to: http://www.wired.co.uk/wired-magazine/archive/2009/08/start/column-warren-ellis.aspx From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 6 15:22:23 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 08:22:23 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D Message-ID: <228072.80267.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/2/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> I might be financially better off without taxation >> since I am in a >> relatively high tax bracket, but the people who >> currently can't work >> for one reason or another would definitely be worse >> off, and the >> country as a whole might be worse off, given a few >> years of no public >> services such as education or health. You don't >> believe this, >> obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree >> to be taxed >> when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant >> thing. > > Well, many wives believe that without their husband they > would be worse > off. So they accept to be beaten by their husband. > > I suppose that until they believe so, there is no way to > help them. > > The problems arise when the beaten wives advocate for > forcing wives that > don't want be beaten by their husbands to accept to be > beaten, because > they believe that these women would be worse without their > husbands or > that the beaten wives would be worse off if other women > don't accept to > be beaten. I tend to agree that a big part of the problem with public finance is that people can't imagine alternatives* -- despite that fact that almost anything that's publicly funded in one place is often privately and voluntarilty funded somewhere else or was at some other time. The usual refrain -- and, sadly, this list is NOT unusual in this respect -- is that if it's not publicly funded there'll be free riders, lower quality, and some will do without. (Of course, overlooking the fact that public funding of anything has free riders, lower quality, and some doing without. The case of roads is as good as any. The free riders are those who don't pay for roads but do take advantage of them, the low quality of public roads should be well known (though I bet someone will argue this is not so), and access if actually not available for all (e.g., if you don't have a license, you're not permitted to drive on public roads).) Regards, Dan * Or they can only imagine the worst possible things happening. If the government doesn't provide iPods, for example, no one will ever listen to music ever or be forced to listen to Gilbert and Sullivan only. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 6 15:15:41 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 08:15:41 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <787798.77964.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sat, 7/4/09, BillK wrote: > On 7/4/09, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> ### Most highly aggressive humans are currently being >> kept in prisons already. > > Either that or they work for Goldman Sachs. > > (But that's OK, isn't it? Raping the whole economic system > and > stealing everyone's saving and investments is just being a > very > efficient entrepreneur, so that must be good - no?). To be sure, Goldman Sachs workers do not directly use violence against others. I don't think you'd have to be afraid of, say, one of their employees kicking your teeth in. (Of course, this not to endorse Goldman Sachs, which is merely one of several politically connected large firms that benefits from monetary policies (particular inflation) you seem not to question and fiscal policies you do question.) And being a successful entrepreneur, in general, means merely being good at anticipating the future in a given area -- usually, in business, being good at anticipating the future demand for certain goods and services. this does NOT involve "Raping the whole economic system and stealing everyone's saving and investments." In fact, a successful entrepreneur should actually be helping the whole economic system by making sure various activities are far more coordinated and investments are going into more productive lines than otherwise. Regards, Dan From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jul 6 17:01:07 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 06 Jul 2009 19:01:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature In-Reply-To: <132591.61900.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <132591.61900.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A522DD3.1020900@libero.it> Dan ha scritto: > --- On Fri, 7/3/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> I think that a stably non-violent society will emerge only after >>> enough people boost themselves to the equivalent of IQ140 or >>> higher (so they won't have false consequentialist ideas about the >>> need for initiation of violence), and erase whatever neural >>> networks make them envious and domineering (to remove the real >>> emotional drivers of violence). >> Is there any evidence that more intelligent people are less likely >> to be violent or dishonest? > I don't know about honesty, though I believe there's some evidence > that intelligence correlates with lower levels of aggression and > criminality. > I've read some explanations of this along the lines of > the more intelligent someone is, the more she'll think long range and > even be able to empathize with others -- and hence be less likely to > act for the short-term pay offs from violent and criminal behavior > and more likely to look for long range gains by voluntary > interaction. There does seem to be some truth to this, don't you > think? More intelligent persons have more to gain from collaborating with other people than they have using violence (that stifle future collaboration). Intelligent people is able to specialize in some particular task or skill or profession, from where they would be able to extract more wealth than using aggression. The specialization itself, force them to value collaboration with other people doing other things. Aggression prevent a complex and efficient society from developing, and a complex and efficient society is where the most intelligent people is able to flourish. In a more violent society too much success, even for intelligent people, cause the wealthy to become a target. For example, in Papuasian tribes, the people with a many pigs usually slaughter them for their tribes so other can eat them. Then they show how much they are higher and reduce their value as targets of aggression. > I think it's a common mistake to think, "She's smart, so she must > agree with my politics." However, there does seem to be some > evidence that intelligence correlates with lower levels of criminal > and violent behavior. They have more skills to obtain the same without breaking the rules. > This doesn't mean, however, that intelligent > people won't still participte in this like statism -- where the > violence and criminality are mediated via an institutional > arrangement. Or bending them in their favour. > And, in this case, there is usually a complicated > ideology to justify violence. Moreover, the fact that an ideology > must be used to persuade people seems to support the correlation of > intelligence with lower levels of violence: intelligent people must > persuade themselves in ways less intelligent people wouldn't. They > need a mechanism to short circuit their bias against violence. Or simply to reduce the risks. They persuade others to do their biddings. >> As for changing their brains to make themselves less aggressive, I >> am hopeful that given the ability to make such changes, more people >> would in fact choose to do this rather than make themselves more >> aggressive. > If such a fix is possible and doesn't have other deleterious effects, > I concur. Exactly, we must differ from people unable to be violent and people able to be violent but willing to refrain from this apart from self-defence and self-preservation. Mirco From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 6 16:49:21 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:49:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Matt Taibbi takes on Goldman Sachs In-Reply-To: <4A50EA6F.7050707@libero.it> Message-ID: <180697.68559.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 7/5/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Damien Broderick ha scritto: > > [my financial advisor comments: "I'm glad to see > someone talking about > > this publicly."] > > > > The > > Great American Bubble Machine: How Goldman Sachs Has > Engineered Every > > Major Market Manipulation > > Jul 02, 2009 8:38 AM - Rolling Stone > > At the end of the day, anyway, Goldman Sachs could had done > nothing of > this without a government helping and backing it. > The system is exploitable and manipulable, so there always > be someone > that will try to manipulate it to extract wealth. And, at > the end, the > first and the best able to manipulate the system will > emerge. > > Anyone willing to write in the constitution an amendment > about "no > bailout" of private entities with public money? > Not Community Reinvestment Acts, No Federal Reserve, No > Fiat Money and > so on? > > Until these are possible, someone will try to manipulate > the system to > make them possible (with good intentions or to profit from > them). A constitutional change is a nice idea as far as it goes. The problem is, though, that it wouldn't have much teeth. After all, the culture of jurisprudence and the overall political climate here now are such that any sort of limitation like this would be ignored or interpreted to be flexible. Also, even were this not the case, it's hard to set limits now, while leaving the same statist institutions in place, that will somehow bind a future administration. One can just imagine someone twenty or fifty years hence saying, "That was from the age when computers were as big as notebooks. We shouldn't be beholden to the constraints of the iPhone Age." So what's my solution? I'm not sure I have one -- save for getting rid of government completely (peacefully overthrowing it wherever it may be) and trying to make sure it never grows back. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 6 20:54:56 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 13:54:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Price changes and regulation In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <481268.50370.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/3/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/3 Dan : >> That said, your point might still apply, but some >> individuals do have better information, pay closer >> attention, know what to look for, or are just better at >> predicting market outcomes. ?EMH presumes all actors pretty >> much have the same information, do the same things with it, >> have the same motives, and aim for the same outcomes. ?Were >> this so, one wonders why there would be any trading at all, >> especially in assets. ?After all, if everyone held the same >> views and had the same information about asset prices -- >> even if this information were imperfect -- wouldn't one >> expect them to have exactly the same behavior? ?Why would >> there be, e.g., both short and long positions on a given >> asset? ?Would would someone sell call or put options and >> another person buy those? ?Why would anyone sell or buy .> futures? > > I don't think the EMH assumes everyone thinks the same. > Given a piece > of information, the degree to which different traders > regard it as > positive or negative will determine the share price. This > is what is > meant by the claim that the market takes into account all > the > information: it takes the information and weights it for > credibility > and impact, according to what the market participants > believe. There > is in general no better way to make this assessment unless > you are > privy to special information that the market lacks. Aren't you just arguing around my point? Not everyone on a real market has the same information. Not only are there differences in highly available information people are aware of, but some people have specialized information -- some of it, of course, they might be forbidden to use under current law -- that others lack. (There's a vast literature on informational assymetry too.) If you're just going to reduce EMH down to markets are efficient because they deal well within the constraints of imperfect information, information assymetries, market actors who are not pure homo ecnomicus types, time lags, etc., then I think you've watered it down enough so that it's impervious to criticism. Don't you agree? At that point, too, it says nothing important that wasn't already noted by people like Mises decades before EMH was formalated. Surely, that's not what the people who came up with EMH were after?! >> And, as a final escape, you might admit people have >> different visions of the future (e.g., whether IBM will >> trade higher or lower today) and different information, that >> this still wouldn't lead to anyone making a profit. ?Yet it >> seems, empirically (and is not ruled out by correct theory), >> that some people do not just hold different predictions but >> actually hold better ones. ?(Yes, there are also lucky >> people, but luck would, all else being equal, evaporate over >> the long haul, no?) > > Studies of fund managers and stock pickers do in fact show > that it is > just luck which evaporates in the long run. There will > always be those > who appear to beat the index average time after time, but > you would > get that if you had a large number of people trying to > predict the > outcome of any series of random events. Given a thousand > people trying > to predict coin tosses, there will likely be one who > predicts ten in a > row correctly; but this person still has only a 1/2 chance > of getting the 11th one right. Yes, I've heard, but yet there are people like Buffet or people who run firms who do stick around for the long haul. Now, it's possible that these people are just the really lucky types. But this seems very unlikely given the knowable odds here. Don't you think it's much more likely that, within limited scopes, there are some big differences in ability to forecast? (And I'm not talking about people who are merely doing technical analysis. I agree that technical analysis is probably all baloney -- just crunching past prices to get future prices, in the long run, is a losing bet.) Regards, Dan __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com From spike66 at att.net Tue Jul 7 05:16:59 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 22:16:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: The world was electrified by the YouTube images of Neda Soltani, the young Iranian woman who was killed after the "election." Furious riots ensued, as she became the symbol of the inhumanity and brutality of the theocratic militia. I will mercifully spare you the horrifying video of Neda's final moments. The Germans are now reporting Neda was a Christian: http://www.pi-news.net/2009/06/neda-symbolfigur-der-revolution-war-christin/ The Iranians mourned her death assuming she was Muslim. Now what will they do? spike From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Jul 7 10:03:57 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 12:03:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A531D8D.4020301@libero.it> spike ha scritto: > The world was electrified by the YouTube images of Neda Soltani, the young > Iranian woman who was killed after the "election." Furious riots ensued, as > she became the symbol of the inhumanity and brutality of the theocratic > militia. I will mercifully spare you the horrifying video of Neda's final > moments. > > The Germans are now reporting Neda was a Christian: > > http://www.pi-news.net/2009/06/neda-symbolfigur-der-revolution-war-christin/ > > The Iranians mourned her death assuming she was Muslim. Now what will they > do? I think they mourned her only because she was an innocent victim of the violent thugs that rule Iran. By the way, an Italian news site pointed out that VP Joe Biden told that the US will not interfere with an Israeli first strike against Iran military/nuclear targets. And the Saudis agree to close their eyes in case the Israeli need to fly their planes over Saudi Arabia. Welcome to Hope and Change. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 10:33:38 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 20:33:38 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature In-Reply-To: <132591.61900.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <132591.61900.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/7 Dan : > Well, in an free market anarchist society, the way the issue would be decided would be by allowing road owners to decide the rules to be followed on their property.* ?My guess is that there'd be some differences in rules and enforcement -- that is, not all owners would have the same rules and enforcement techniques. ?This is no different than how various eateries have different dress codes. ?In some, you need a jacket and tie, in others not; in some, you pay first, in others you pay afterward. ?Etc. ?(And even public roads vary today. ?Think of how speed limits vary. ?And anyone who does a decent amount of driving knows speed limit and other enforcement varies.) How does this consideration change if the roads are publicly owned, which is the way it would go in a communitarian anarchist society? > I don't know about honesty, though I believe there's some evidence that intelligence correlates with lower levels of aggression and criminality. ?I've read some explanations of this along the lines of the more intelligent someone is, the more she'll think long range and even be able to empathize with others -- and hence be less likely to act for the short-term pay offs from violent and criminal behavior and more likely to look for long range gains by voluntary interaction. ?There does seem to be some truth to this, don't you think? The more intelligent person may be less likely to personally carry out violent crime but more likely to be in charge of organised crime or brutal dictatorial regimes, perhaps ultimately responsible for far more suffering than common criminals are. I don't know if you've spent much time around intellectually disabled people, but some go about assaulting anyone they don't like the look of, others are pathologically nice to the point where they would eg. give away all their possessions to a stranger, while most are somewhere in between. Also, it is commonly accepted that people with antisocial personality disorder have normal IQ. Intelligent people may behave better under *certain* circumstances than less intelligent people, but I don't think this is evidence that intelligent people are constitutionally less inclined to be nasty. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 12:10:58 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 22:10:58 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Price changes and regulation In-Reply-To: <481268.50370.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <481268.50370.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/7 Dan : > Aren't you just arguing around my point? ?Not everyone on a real market has the same information. ?Not only are there differences in highly available information people are aware of, but some people have specialized information -- some of it, of course, they might be forbidden to use under current law -- that others lack. ?(There's a vast literature on informational assymetry too.) Sure, you can make money if you have special information - that's called insider trading, and is usually illegal. You can possibly make money if you are quick with the mouse when the publicly available information becomes known. For example, if there is takeover offer for a company announced at $10 the share price will immediately move to around that level, but there may be a few sell orders already in the system at $7, and you may be lucky and pick these up before the sellers change them. However, you can't rely on this as a winning strategy. > If you're just going to reduce EMH down to markets are efficient because they deal well within the constraints of imperfect information, information assymetries, market actors who are not pure homo ecnomicus types, time lags, etc., then I think you've watered it down enough so that it's impervious to criticism. ?Don't you agree? ?At that point, too, it says nothing important that wasn't already noted by people like Mises decades before EMH was formalated. ?Surely, that's not what the people who came up with EMH were after?! The EMH stands in contrast to the stock pickers who think that, based on various fundamentals, they can beat the market. For example, the Benjamin Graham / Warren Buffet inspired value investors think they can pick stocks that the market has irrationally knocked down in price. But it is the very presence of such investors that is the undoing of this strategy, since they will limit how low a stock will fall. And there is also the possibility that a stock has fallen to low P/E ratios for good reason, and future earnings will suffer; or conversely, that an apparently overpriced "growth" stock really does have good prospects. > Yes, I've heard, but yet there are people like Buffet or people who run firms who do stick around for the long haul. ?Now, it's possible that these people are just the really lucky types. ?But this seems very unlikely given the knowable odds here. ?Don't you think it's much more likely that, within limited scopes, there are some big differences in ability to forecast? If there is something in ability to forecast markets, then you would expect that across the board people in the know will do markedly better than total novices. After all this applies to any other field of expertise: even an incompetent mechanic will have more of an idea on how to fix a car than someone who has never seen an engine before. But this doesn't seem to apply with investing. Very knowledgeable, very experienced, very highly paid analysts and fund managers on average do no better than blind luck in picking winners. In this respect, they are more like astrologers than mechanics. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 12:54:55 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 22:54:55 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/7 spike : > The Iranians mourned her death assuming she was Muslim. ?Now what will they > do? I guess the same as the Americans would do if they found out that a dead and presumed Christian person turned out to be Muslim. As far as I can tell, the only evidence presented for her being a Christian is a picture with what looks like an obscured crucifix around her neck. There's no suggestion that she was a Christian in any of the other biographical material available on the net, nor that she was particularly into Islam either. Most probably she was a modern, secular woman of the sort that will eventually take over in Iran, as history shows is happening everywhere in the world. The religious crazies are mainly propped up by playing on hatred of the West, and would be as disappointed if the US and Israel stopped attacking them as Al Gore would be if climate change turned out to be wrong. -- Stathis Papaioannou From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Jul 7 13:10:53 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 06:10:53 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <434160.24265.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 7/7/09, spike wrote: > The world was electrified by the YouTube images of Neda > Soltani, the young > Iranian woman who was killed after the "election."? > Furious riots ensued, as > she became the symbol of the inhumanity and brutality of > the theocratic > militia.? I will mercifully spare you the horrifying > video of Neda's final > moments.? > > The Germans are now reporting? Neda was a > Christian:? > > http://www.pi-news.net/2009/06/neda-symbolfigur-der-revolution-war-christin/ > > The Iranians mourned her death assuming she was > Muslim.? Now what will they do? As one long suffering from paranoia, isn't it also possible that the Iranian government put this out in hopes of discrediting her? Regards, Dan From spike66 at att.net Tue Jul 7 14:02:45 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 07:02:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <389DC88CCE5545FC87BFFFC8718502F4@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou ... > > ...Most probably she was a modern, secular woman > of the sort that will eventually take over in Iran, as > history shows is happening everywhere in the world... > Stathis Papaioannou Hope you are right. So far I have been disappointed in our species. We seem to be incapable of giving up religious memes. Regarding Neda, the photo that showed the cross was circulated in the news in the days after her murder. The cross was photoshopped out in all those early cases. Or it was photoshopped in the German report. Have we any photoshop gurus who can tell? Another piece of info: Neda's family have been forced out of their apartment and have disappeared. spike From kanzure at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 19:31:02 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 14:31:02 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: [luf-team] The International Open Space Initiative In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Eric Hunting Date: Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 2:26 PM Subject: [luf-team] The International Open Space Initiative To: luf-team at yahoogroups.com Mike's post on cliff dwellings and the discussion on excavated habitats brings up an important topic and concept I've been wanting to introduce here for consideration. As I've been finishing the section on Avalon in TMP2, I've come to realize there is great and overlooked potential in the concept of telerobotic pre-settlement as a means to cultivate public interest, support, and participation. In fact, I think there is great potential in this concept as the basis of an Open Source space program that can stand independently of the rest of TMP while also providing a venue for disseminating the TMP vision. Discussing this topic in the open manufacturing and Maker circles, I've noticed much interest in the idea of space telerobotics because of its participatory accessibility -it potential for many people to actively participate instead of simply being an audience for the exploits of the elite. Recently, we saw a brief wave of global public interest emerge around the X-Prize competitions. This was driven largely by the impression of accessibility for the common man. The X-Prize was the realization of the fantasy of the Astronaut Farmer, creating the impression that space could, at last, be something many people could participate in. But then reality set in as the celebrities and zillionaires stepped forward to steal the spotlight. This was not about the Astronaut Farmer. This was about Astronaut Oligarchs. Rich people's follies. Since then the public attention for the X-Prize has waned - particularly with concerns about the failing global economy and the resentment toward the upper-classes engendered by their continued blatant excesses in the midst of it. X-Prize organizers -and the new space entrepreneurs in general- seem to be retreating into an increasingly elite and exclusive community that the mainstream public simply cannot relate to with competitions and events they have no hope of participating in. And so, once again, we're all outside the fence looking in. That's what made NASA culturally irrelevant and it's making the new space industry the same. But with the concept of telerobotic settlement we have something very different. The hard reality is that most of us are not astronaut material, most of us have no chance of becoming employees of the old or new space companies and participating in building and launching 'real' orbital rockets, and most of us will never be able to afford space tourism. But a very large number of people -all over the world and across all demographics- can and do build robots as a hobby. This makes the development of systems for telerobotic pre-settlement more immediately accessible than any other area or aspect of space development. It's the ultimate model train layout -the kind you might some day move into! And even if you ultimately don't, there's pride in knowing your electric progeny did. This really is something where some garage-shop tinkerer from Nowhere can come up with ideas that turn into hardware on Mars. This is also extremely relevant to education where, from grade school to university, robots are not a common educational tool. This would be one of the major sources of participation. Sure, one still ultimately needs the rockets and such to deliver this hardware. But, for robots, the needs there are far more modest than manned space flight (we could theoretically get to the Moon using Zenit class launch capability -and Zenits are close to being garage-shop hardware today) and we don't have to worry about that right away. There's a lot of interesting and creative work to do ahead of time in the development of the settlement systems -work that doesn't actually require NASA-like budgets and facilities to do, doesn't need the elites, yet produces tangible results and very practical spin-offs. This is something that lends itself to open competition through public/social events needing no special facilities and whose results are as useful on Earth as in space. Consider, in order for telerobotic pre-settlement to realize the capability for human habitation it must reduce the technologies of a comprehensive industrial infrastructure -the means to go from dirt and rocks to microchips- to systems on the scale of home appliances with near-total automation. Consider the implications of that for how the existing industrial infrastructure on Earth works. The ability to make anything one needs freely located anywhere and in a progressively smaller, cheaper, and more automated package. That more revolutionary than human space flight. Then there are the manned excavated habitats themselves, as I've described previously. Here's something that can be demonstrated in very plausible mock-ups in many locations, has an even lower bar of sophistication for participation, and direct re- application to relief architecture, low-cost housing, mainstream housing, and so on. A telerobotic space program has more direct terrestrial spin-offs than all past space activity combined. It's not just more accessible, it's vastly more relevant to our everyday life because it all has impact on how me make things -practical things like our own homes- right here on Earth. So I've arrived at a proposal for an International Open Space Initiative; a global public space program based on open source technology and the objective of telerobotic/automated pre-settlement of the Moon and Mars with the goal of realizing an infrastructure to support sustainable human colonization. This program would be based on several elements; an evolving committee-managed 'settlement systems architecture' that defines the basic collection of systems of the settlement and the individual capabilities they require, a public event program intended to host competitions and exposition around the world for individual system designs, several remote (Iceland, desert southwest, etc.) -and remotely operated- test settlements for the latest deployable robotic systems with continuous live web access, and several manned habitat mock-up settlements which are used to test and showcase architectural and interior design elements and can be built most anywhere or even made portable. Much like the administration of Linux development, an architectural committee would establish a working definition of the settlement, its individual systems, and their functions, necessary capabilities, standards for ruggedness, modular interface standards, etc. A public forum on this would allow open community input into this evolving settlement architecture. From this proposals for specific systems are used as the basis of open design and engineering competitions -the products of which are all considered Open Source content. At regional events across the globe and across each year, individual designs are showcased and built systems placed in tests and competition against the architectural standards and against each other. The ultimate winners of these competitions then have their systems 'deployed' - using working lander systems deployed from aircraft- for testing at one or more field test sites where an actual working model of a telerobotic settlement is built to put these machines through their paces. The field test settlements would be functionally identical to the real space settlements, having to accomplish the same tasks, build the same structures and capabilities, and using natural materials and shipped-in equivalents of known lunar and Martian natural raw materials. Just like the real thing, they would be teleoperated from one or more distant control centers linked purely by telecommunications. Human activity on the site would be limited to dealing with major failures, assisting in the removal of failed hardware, and deployment of systems prior to the availability of test lander systems -usually using special dump and drop sites some distance from the main settlement site. The sites would be chosen to supply analogous geology/geography and in some cases may be divided between open surface complex sites and excavated complex sites where analogs for both cannot be found in close enough proximity. A similar approach would be employed for the development of manned habitat systems and components, divided into several phases based on the several phases of manned habitat development. These have much more flexible options for their showcase test sites but underground facilities might still be used for the sake of added realism. These would also include their own compliment of robots as adaptations of the pre-settlement robots would likely be employed in maintenance of these habitats when the number of human residents is small. It's much more difficult to truly replicate an analogous environment for the human habitats beyond the topology of spaces because we can't provide different gravity and low-pressure atmosphere environments, But the employ of CELSS technology and systems of indoor farming/gardening, domestic industry, and so on are still likely to be featured in this. Eventually launch and transorbital systems would become part of this - something which would overlap MUOL development- but this would be a much later area of development pursued when the IOSI has a much larger degree of gravitas. Generally, there's nothing new needed in rocketry for this program. There's nothing for this sort of development to prove. What we have at-hand in this respect would actually be quite sufficient. Where new challenges in rocketry are an issue is in 'rough' and 'soft' lander technology and fabrication, on-orbit construction of transorbital spacecraft supported by small scale launch capability, and so on and that would still be largely within the realm of the same level of sophistication and participation as the telerobotics. Philanthropic support for the IOSI would be sought to sponsor events, test sites and their control centers, grants for development of more promising systems or school programs, scholarships for outstanding student participants, regional fab labs for public access, media and web sites, and program marketing. Because there's so much practical commercial spin-off potential from this, we can anticipate that, at a certain critical mass of attention, corporate sponsorship is likely even given the open source nature of all the technology developed and employed. It's taken a while, but a lot of companies are starting to grasp the potential in open source and when they realize what can come out of this they will see the product potential there for them to exploit. Unlike the X-Prize support network, we can anticipate the communications and computing industries to have most interest. This could be the sort of thing people like Steve Wozniac have been waiting for. National space agency support would also be likely, though most likely in a bottom-up manner. The IOSI will offer engineers in these agencies a venue to independently explore concepts that they cannot get 'official' support for from administrations with less rational space agendas. Eventual awareness of the cultural gravitas of the program will lead to more official participation as agencies realize the public awareness and goodwill benefits offered. This being an international effort, there could be some competitiveness here as support from smaller, more nascent, and more imaginative space agencies in smaller countries draws in the agencies of the larger nations by making them appear less progressive. This international approach is a key element to this concept. IOSI would be something that has never existed before; a space program that truly belongs to the people of the world and not just governments of superpower nations. Citizens of every country can have a part to play in this. I think this concept represents something we can actually do now, in the present, with at-hand resources. It wouldn't take a million dollars or some sugar daddy. The only resource the LUF is really missing for getting this off the ground is Makers. There just doesn't seem to be too many people among us with an active interest in making things even for fun and the key to getting this started is getting a crude mock-up settlement made from scratch to illustrate this concept and draw a little attention from the media and the Maker and Hacker factions of the blogosphere. We're talking RC hobby stuff here. It shouldn't be that hard. But can we actually do even that? Is there the will? Eric Hunting erichunting at gmail.com __._,_.___ Messages in this topic (1) Reply (via web post) | Start a new topic Messages | Files | Photos | Links | Database | Polls | Calendar ______________________________________________________________________ Don't forget to visit these LUF Sites! LUF Team???? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-team/ LUF Home???? http://www.luf.org/ LUF Website? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/luf-website/ Other sites: OTEC News??? http://www.otecnews.org/ Change settings via the Web (Yahoo! 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Connect with others. . __,_._,___ -- - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Jul 7 19:44:23 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:44:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <389DC88CCE5545FC87BFFFC8718502F4@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <389DC88CCE5545FC87BFFFC8718502F4@spike> Message-ID: <4A53A597.3080107@libero.it> spike ha scritto: > > >> ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou > ... >> ...Most probably she was a modern, secular woman >> of the sort that will eventually take over in Iran, as >> history shows is happening everywhere in the world... >> Stathis Papaioannou > > > Hope you are right. So far I have been disappointed in our species. We > seem to be incapable of giving up religious memes. Well, not all religious meme are damaging. Someone is useful. > Regarding Neda, the photo that showed the cross was circulated in the news > in the days after her murder. The cross was photoshopped out in all those > early cases. Or it was photoshopped in the German report. Have we any > photoshop gurus who can tell? Another piece of info: Neda's family have > been forced out of their apartment and have disappeared. >From what I red, simply the photos published cut out the part with the cross and leaved only the face. >From other comments I red in a blog, it appear that a cross is a common symbol used in jewellery in Iran, so the possibility that Neda was a Christian are small. But the IRI fear enough the religious conversion out of Islam in its population to propose a law to kill apostates (I don't know if the law was approved or not). Anyway, already many converted to Christianity (but probably to Zoroastrianism too) were imprisoned, tortured and killed in Iran in the past. People usually convert in secret and keep their conversion secret. So, maybe the cross could be revealing. Anyway, Neda religion is unimportant. But a sniper could had choose anyone else around her to shoot, male or female. Maybe a cross could be the reason he decided to shoot her and not others. Mirco From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jul 7 19:57:57 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:57:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] radio daze In-Reply-To: <389DC88CCE5545FC87BFFFC8718502F4@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <389DC88CCE5545FC87BFFFC8718502F4@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090707145636.02732b80@satx.rr.com> a newsy update: I'll be on Coast-to-Coast with George Noory on Friday very-early morning this coming Friday, 1am-4am Texas time (if my voice holds out that long, and my phone retains enough juice). Will be talking about all kinds of things--science fiction, parapsychology research, transhumanism, the singularity, maybe literary theory and criticism but probably not. The main emphasis will be on my recentish book about psi, OUTSIDE THE GATES OF SCIENCE: Why It's Time for the Paranormal to Come In from the Cold. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12770 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jul 7 20:14:16 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 15:14:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] radio daze In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090707145636.02732b80@satx.rr.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <389DC88CCE5545FC87BFFFC8718502F4@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090707145636.02732b80@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090707151316.02849770@satx.rr.com> Oh, and thanks to John Grigg, my freelance publicity agent, for encouraging C2C to do this. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12770 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 8 01:55:14 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 18:55:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: [luf-team] The International Open Space Initiative In-Reply-To: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Bryan Bishop > Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 12:31 PM > ... > > ...I've come > to realize there is great and overlooked potential in the > concept of telerobotic pre-settlement as a means to...Eric Hunting Interesting post Bryan. I have done the weight calculations a hundred times and concluded that robotic pre-settlement is the only way a Mars colony is ever going to happen. I disagree with Eric Hunting's notion of celebrities and zillionaires stealing the spotlight, astronauth oligarchies and so forth. Space enthusiasts must recognize that rich people are our friends. They are the ones with the money to make things happen. Consider what Amelia Earhart and Howard Hughes did for aviation, for instance. Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast, dumping millions into civilian space tech instead of fantasy lands to lure children for dubious purposes, imagine what might have been accomplished. Rich people are an opportunity, a fertile field waiting to be voluntarily exploited. May they prosper, and wish to develop technology. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 8 02:47:25 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 21:47:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast" In-Reply-To: <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> At 06:55 PM 7/7/2009 -0700, Spike wrote: >Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast, dumping millions into >civilian space tech instead of fantasy lands to lure children for dubious >purposes, imagine what might have been accomplished. Had he been a genuine cryonics enthusiast, things might have been helped along there, too, although I'm pretty sure the vultures would have insisted on a Lovely Powerfully Spiritual (and Profitable) Public Leavetaking, and he'd be rotting away even as he is now. Damioen Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12770 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 03:29:24 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 23:29:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers Message-ID: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 6:33 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > How does this consideration change if the roads are publicly owned, > which is the way it would go in a communitarian anarchist society? ### If there is only one owner, the "public", then individual choice is pre-empted by whichever brainless bureaucrats run the "public" affairs. I may be unusual in having this experience but, to my significant distress, I really hate traffic lights. I see a traffic light, and I see red: What kind of a fucking idiot could have had the idea of placing traffic lights at intersections, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties, burning billions of dollars in other people's gas money, slowing traffic, and destroying literally millions of quality-adjusted life years among the public? Anybody with enough imagination, or maybe just experience driving in let's say Britain would see immediately that traffic lights are dumb, inferior to traffic circles. Science confirms that - traffic circles are almost always superior to traffic lights as measured by throughput, cost, speed, safety, you name it. Yet, if there is one owner of roads, Mr John D Public (the D stands for dumb), there is no real incentive for technological progress, for increased efficiency, because Mr Public can always take some more of your money or time to cover any of his stupidities. A competitive private owner would have to attract you with speed, comfort, safety and low prices - he wouldn't put idiotic, blinking red obstacles in your path. Which brings me to the title of the thread - Americans are lousy drivers. Bumblingly slow, carelessly lounging in the passing lane at snail speeds, opening a quarter of a mile distance to the next car while driving in tunnels, taking their sweet time in responding to traffic lights. A good private owner would certainly find a way of teaching them the value of other people's time, make them give way to faster, more competent drivers, stop them from carelessly causing backups upstream. At least, this is what I dream about while stuck in traffic that is purely the effect of lack of efficiency, lack of technological innovation and lack of drive on the part of Mr Public. Rafal From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 04:16:15 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 00:16:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <62c14240907072116x783d55b3h27b3a7960ab501cb@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 10:47 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Had he been a genuine cryonics enthusiast, things might have been helped > along there, too, although I'm pretty sure the vultures would have insisted > on a Lovely Powerfully Spiritual (and Profitable) Public Leavetaking, and > he'd be rotting away even as he is now. I think he will only be rotting away for a short while: http://www.hainsworth.com/2009/06/michael-jackson-to-be-plastinated-report/ (for example) From jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Jul 8 05:20:40 2009 From: jonkc at bellsouth.net (John K Clark) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 01:20:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast" References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com><192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: "Damien Broderick" > Had he been a genuine cryonics enthusiast, things might have been helped > along I don't think so, the man was already known for being just a tad eccentric so people would just chalk it up as yet another odd thing about Michael Jackson; but if the Pope turned out to be a cryonics enthusiast, well that would cause some waves. John K Clark From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 8 05:45:04 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 22:45:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au><57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike><4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> Message-ID: <1B1742E610214CC5ABDB6CA44457C611@spike> > Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time Those who like to make snidely comments about FoxNews, keep in mind that they are the only one of the news majors that are reporting this: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530560,00.html ...on the same day when CNN's top two stories under TECH are both Michael Jackson stories. Yes friends, do think about that. They found some reason to consider MJ stories the most relevant technology stories on the same day when only Fox seems to recognize the importance of the fact that hackers have managed to overpower the security systems of some of the most senstive US government websites. How the hell did we get here? spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 8 05:29:42 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 22:29:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> Message-ID: <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> I don't think I have ever seen anything like the news coverage Michael Jackson has achieved. CNN is the new king of tabloid news. For most of the day, its top 8 headlines had to do with Jackson. Now its the top nine. If president whats-his-name were to be assassinated, it would take about three days for any of the news majors to notice. The usually tabloid-ish Fox is the only place running actual news this evening. Pardon me, please someone explain, what in the hell is up with that? spike From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 06:25:04 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 07:25:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast" In-Reply-To: <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On 7/8/09, Damien Broderick wrote: > Had he been a genuine cryonics enthusiast, things might have been helped > along there, too, although I'm pretty sure the vultures would have insisted > on a Lovely Powerfully Spiritual (and Profitable) Public Leavetaking, and > he'd be rotting away even as he is now. > Quote: Michael Jackson will be buried without his brain today after doctors retained it following an autopsy to help determine the cause of death. Jackson died from an apparent cardiac arrest on 25 June. Though his body was released the next day to relatives, his brain was not. The pop star's inert brain must "harden" for at least two weeks before doctors can conduct their neuropathology tests. ---------- So a cryonics signup would have been a waste of money in this case (or any case where a detailed autopsy was required). BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 06:28:36 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 16:28:36 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/8 Rafal Smigrodzki : > Yet, if there is one owner of roads, Mr John D Public (the D stands > for dumb), there is no real incentive for technological progress, for > increased efficiency, because Mr Public can always take some more of > your money or time to cover any of his stupidities. A competitive > private owner would have to attract you with speed, comfort, safety > and low prices - he wouldn't put idiotic, blinking red obstacles in > your path. So what would you do if you were a shareholder in a company which owned the roads? Assume these are a special class of shares which cannot be traded, but which give you voting rights and the rights to any dividends generated or costs incurred. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 06:38:11 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 07:38:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> Message-ID: On 7/8/09, spike wrote: > I don't think I have ever seen anything like the news coverage Michael > Jackson has achieved. CNN is the new king of tabloid news. For most of the > day, its top 8 headlines had to do with Jackson. Now its the top nine. If > president whats-his-name were to be assassinated, it would take about three > days for any of the news majors to notice. The usually tabloid-ish Fox is > the only place running actual news this evening. > > Pardon me, please someone explain, what in the hell is up with that? > It's news as a branch of the entertainment industry. Designed for the generation with the attention span of 140 characters. (Or news items with a flashy video attached. No video = no mention on tv news). If an invader leaves the entertainment channels undamaged, most people won't bother about who is running the country, Look what's happened already. 20% (and rising) have lost their jobs, pension funds have been stolen, houses repossessed, all the government funds handed to a few finance companies, etc. etc. When are the people going to look up from their screens and say 'WTF is going on?'. BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Jul 8 06:45:40 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 01:45:40 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Had Michael Jackson been a hard core space enthusiast" In-Reply-To: References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <7.0.1.0.2.20090707214448.0267d048@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <7.0.1.0.2.20090708014243.026b19d8@satx.rr.com> At 07:25 AM 7/8/2009 +0100, BillK wrote: >On 7/8/09, Damien Broderick wrote: > > Had he been a genuine cryonics enthusiast, things might have been helped > > along there, too >...a cryonics signup would have been a waste of money in this case (or >any case where a detailed autopsy was required). NOT my point. Spike wished he'd been a space enthusiast and spent his millions that way. Spent it while he was alive. Dot dot dot. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12770 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From kevin at kevinfreels.com Wed Jul 8 06:22:45 2009 From: kevin at kevinfreels.com (Kevin Freels) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 23:22:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake Message-ID: <965629.60244.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Hope you are right. So far I have been disappointed in our species. We > seem to be incapable of giving up religious memes. I'm always annoyed when I read such things. we are a young species. most of everything we know has been learned in the last 200 years. there are people alive who were born before powered flight. religious memes take advantage of religious genes that can't be just left vacant. instead I think they need to be replaced with rational memes that fulfill the same needs as religious memes. this type of replacement takes many generations and you just need to do your part to help those memes spread and have FAITH that they will. christianity has taken 2000 years to get to where it is now. it's not going to be replaced after a hundred or so years of real scientific progress. the human species is fine. it just needs some tweaking just like any other species. From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 07:18:35 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 16:48:35 +0930 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907080018t3cdaff9wb5eb92b4ca284cc@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/8 BillK : > On 7/8/09, spike wrote: >> ?I don't think I have ever seen anything like the news coverage Michael >> ?Jackson has achieved. ?CNN is the new king of tabloid news. ?For most of the >> ?day, its top 8 headlines had to do with Jackson. ?Now its the top nine. ?If >> ?president whats-his-name were to be assassinated, it would take about three >> ?days for any of the news majors to notice. ?The usually tabloid-ish Fox is >> ?the only place running actual news this evening. >> >> ?Pardon me, please someone explain, what in the hell is up with that? >> > > > It's news as a branch of the entertainment industry. Designed for the > generation with the attention span of 140 characters. > (Or news items with a flashy video attached. No video = no mention on tv news). > > If an invader leaves the entertainment channels undamaged, most people > won't bother about who is running the country, > Look what's happened already. 20% (and rising) have lost their jobs, > pension funds have been stolen, houses repossessed, all the government > funds handed to a few finance companies, etc. etc. When are the people > going to look up from their screens and say 'WTF is going on?'. > > BillK For those of you with school age kids, do your kids actually watch TV? Mine barely do if ever. It's all youtube, other online video, and games. The TV seems to mostly annoy them. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 07:41:31 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 17:41:31 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <965629.60244.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <965629.60244.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/8 Kevin Freels : > I'm always annoyed when I read such things. we are a young species. most of everything we know has been learned in the last 200 years. there are people alive who were born before powered flight. religious memes take advantage of religious genes that can't be just left vacant. instead I think they need to be replaced with rational memes that fulfill the same needs as religious memes. this type of replacement takes many generations and you just need to do your part to help those memes spread and have FAITH that they will. christianity has taken 2000 years to get to where it is now. it's not going to be replaced after a hundred or so years of real scientific progress. the human species is fine. it just needs some tweaking just like any other species. Religion has, indeed, slowly been dying due to lack of interest everywhere in the world for centuries. The two exceptions in the last century are Christian fundamentalism in the US and Islamic fundamentalism. But these are aberrations, fighting against the tide. The relative liberalisation and secularisation in Iran compared to immediate post-revolutionary period is evidence of this. -- Stathis Papaioannou From mbb386 at main.nc.us Wed Jul 8 10:24:26 2009 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 06:24:26 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <34002.12.77.168.205.1247048666.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > > Americans are lousy > drivers. Bumblingly slow, carelessly lounging in the passing lane at > snail speeds, opening a quarter of a mile distance to the next car > while driving in tunnels, taking their sweet time in responding to > traffic lights. That's because the first priority is their phone conversation... not the driving. :/ I've not enough experience with traffic circles to say, except the ones I've driven have been confusing. Regards, MB From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 10:31:14 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 12:31:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <434160.24265.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <434160.24265.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <580930c20907080331l566b59edh5735a8aba711b82d@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Dan wrote: > As one long suffering from paranoia, isn't it also possible that the Iranian government put this out in hopes of discrediting her? Why, the *real* discredit would come, not for her but for her mourners, from persuasive evidence that her death was owed to "anything" different from excessive police reaction... -- Stefano Vaj From lists at lumen.nu Wed Jul 8 11:10:21 2009 From: lists at lumen.nu (Joost Rekveld) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 13:10:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A531D8D.4020301@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A531D8D.4020301@libero.it> Message-ID: <8710D761-E352-4448-9C22-81D527C652E9@lumen.nu> On 7 Jul, 2009, at 12:03 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> The Iranians mourned her death assuming she was Muslim. Now what >> will they >> do? > > I think they mourned her only because she was an innocent victim of > the > violent thugs that rule Iran. that was the first reaction to your question and it is exactly to the point. It is also one of the few reactions that is anywhere near some point at all. I'm signing off from this list: I once joined expecting a list more upwing than rightwing, a list that was forward looking rather than marred in prejudice. a good day to you all, Joost. ------------------------------------------- Joost Rekveld ----------- http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld ------------------------------------------- "A is better off if B is better off.? (Heinz von Foerster) ------------------------------------------- From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 8 13:40:04 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 06:40:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <582186.53540.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/8/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/8 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> Yet, if there is one owner of roads, Mr John D Public >> (the D stands >> for dumb), there is no real incentive for >> technological progress, for >> increased efficiency, because Mr Public can always >> take some more of >> your money or time to cover any of his stupidities. A >> competitive >> private owner would have to attract you with speed, >> comfort, safety >> and low prices - he wouldn't put idiotic, blinking red >> obstacles in your path. > > So what would you do if you were a shareholder in a company > which > owned the roads? Assume these are a special class of shares > which > cannot be traded, but which give you voting rights and the > rights to > any dividends generated or costs incurred. How does this [your road company where you have only voting rights, but no other rights -- including no right to exit] differ from a government? It seems you believe that the difference between a free market road system and a government one is merely the labels applied. Regards, Dan From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 14:39:20 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:39:20 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <32757B142684465A9DE2A2196A821B52@pcnx6325> Rafal> I may be unusual in having this experience but, to my significant > distress, I really hate traffic lights. I see a traffic light, and I > see red: What kind of a fucking idiot could have had the idea of > placing traffic lights at intersections, causing hundreds of thousands > of casualties, burning billions of dollars in other people's gas > money, slowing traffic, and destroying literally millions of > quality-adjusted life years among the public? Anybody with enough > imagination, or maybe just experience driving in let's say Britain > would see immediately that traffic lights are dumb, inferior to > traffic circles. Science confirms that - traffic circles are almost > always superior to traffic lights as measured by throughput, cost, > speed, safety, you name it. The problem is not only in the drivers or the streets. I also happen to think that cars are wrong in so many ways. Using a two ton steel three meter long brick moved by an engine capable of tugging a small house to transport (most of the time) a single ape and his mobile phone is really really insane. And every time I see one of those Discovery channel shows about the future of cars I only see more of the same (rare exceptions noted) only with more electronics and better aerodynamics. But they still take the same space. From sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com Wed Jul 8 09:30:21 2009 From: sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com (Sockpuppet99@hotmail.com) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 03:30:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907080018t3cdaff9wb5eb92b4ca284cc@mail.gmail.com> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> <710b78fc0907080018t3cdaff9wb5eb92b4ca284cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Mine watches Family Guy on TiVo, obsessively, and a few other programs on TiVo like Dirty Jobs and Time Warp. He also likes a few of the cartoons on the cartoon channel, follows the work of Fred and Nigahiga and Rocketboom on YouTube, and invests swaths of time on the Xbox 360 and the DS. He's got multiple screen-based interests. Tom D Sent from my iPod On Jul 8, 2009, at 1:18 AM, Emlyn wrote: > 2009/7/8 BillK : >> On 7/8/09, spike wrote: >>> I don't think I have ever seen anything like the news coverage >>> Michael >>> Jackson has achieved. CNN is the new king of tabloid news. For >>> most of the >>> day, its top 8 headlines had to do with Jackson. Now its the top >>> nine. If >>> president whats-his-name were to be assassinated, it would take >>> about three >>> days for any of the news majors to notice. The usually tabloid- >>> ish Fox is >>> the only place running actual news this evening. >>> >>> Pardon me, please someone explain, what in the hell is up with >>> that? >>> >> >> >> It's news as a branch of the entertainment industry. Designed for the >> generation with the attention span of 140 characters. >> (Or news items with a flashy video attached. No video = no mention >> on tv news). >> >> If an invader leaves the entertainment channels undamaged, most >> people >> won't bother about who is running the country, >> Look what's happened already. 20% (and rising) have lost their jobs, >> pension funds have been stolen, houses repossessed, all the >> government >> funds handed to a few finance companies, etc. etc. When are the >> people >> going to look up from their screens and say 'WTF is going on?'. >> >> BillK > > For those of you with school age kids, do your kids actually watch TV? > Mine barely do if ever. It's all youtube, other online video, and > games. The TV seems to mostly annoy them. > > -- > Emlyn > > http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related > http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting > http://emlynoregan.com - main site > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 15:14:17 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 01:14:17 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <582186.53540.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <582186.53540.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/8 Dan : >> So what would you do if you were a shareholder in a company >> which >> owned the roads? Assume these are a special class of shares >> which >> cannot be traded, but which give you voting rights and the >> rights to >> any dividends generated or costs incurred. > > How does this [your road company where you have only voting rights, but no other rights -- including no right to exit] differ from a government? ?It seems you believe that the difference between a free market road system and a government one is merely the labels applied. There are all sorts of legal instruments like this in the free market capitalist world: preference shares, convertible bonds, non-voting shares, options, trusts which stipulate whether and how the beneficiaries can dispose of the assets, and so on. In the example I gave, if you have voting rights you can vote to convert the shares to a different type, so that you can dispose of them or accumulate more, for example. But suppose you start off with the situation as stated. What will you do? -- Stathis Papaioannou From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 8 15:52:34 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 08:52:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/8/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/8 Dan : > >> So what would you do if you were a shareholder in > a company > >> which > >> owned the roads? Assume these are a special class > of shares > >> which > >> cannot be traded, but which give you voting rights > and the > >> rights to > >> any dividends generated or costs incurred. > > > > How does this [your road company where you have only > voting rights, but no other rights -- including no right to > exit] differ from a government? ?It seems you believe that > the difference between a free market road system and a > government one is merely the labels applied. > > There are all sorts of legal instruments like this in the > free market > capitalist world: preference shares, convertible bonds, > non-voting > shares, options, trusts which stipulate whether and how > the > beneficiaries can dispose of the assets, and so on. In the > example I > gave, if you have voting rights you can vote to convert the > shares to > a different type, so that you can dispose of them or > accumulate more, for example. Yes, while true, my point was that there are options and no one is forced into those things. Yes, I can agree to some contract that's extremely restrictive. But I can also NOT agree to that -- e.g., not form or come into agreement with your very state-like road company. My guess is in a world of free market roads, we'd see very little like the scenario you depict. > But suppose you start off with the situation > as stated. What will you do? Go on a killing spree? Regards, Dan From max at maxmore.com Wed Jul 8 16:02:48 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:02:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Near-lightspeed nano spacecraft might be close Message-ID: <200907081602.n68G2vAP025788@andromeda.ziaspace.com> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31665236/ns/technology_and_science-innovation/ From max at maxmore.com Wed Jul 8 16:30:22 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 11:30:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?iso-8859-1?q?Ron_Paul=92s_bipartisan_attack_on_the_Fed?= Message-ID: <200907081630.n68GUVMn000040@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Given the recent discussion about central banks here, I thought this would be of interest: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31784137/ns/business-us_business/ From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 8 16:04:23 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:04:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com><192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> Message-ID: <5005D367737F4A73A1CCDD963ABC060F@DFC68LF1> Some people simply love Michael's genius of music and movement. Some people love talking about murder. I prefer the former. Granted, reports of Michael's talent and death have been on the news a lot - and not just CNN for goodness sakes. It is everywhere - both liberal and conservative news, talk shows, etc. It will die out soon enough and everyone can get back to the news of murder, the stock dropping, war, unemployment, and all the other negative stuff which usually dominates the news. Best, Natasha Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 12:30 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time I don't think I have ever seen anything like the news coverage Michael Jackson has achieved. CNN is the new king of tabloid news. For most of the day, its top 8 headlines had to do with Jackson. Now its the top nine. If president whats-his-name were to be assassinated, it would take about three days for any of the news majors to notice. The usually tabloid-ish Fox is the only place running actual news this evening. Pardon me, please someone explain, what in the hell is up with that? spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 16:55:18 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 18:55:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Ron_Paul=92s_bipartisan_attack_on_the_Fed?= In-Reply-To: <200907081630.n68GUVMn000040@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907081630.n68GUVMn000040@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <580930c20907080955ga62250cmfdf9253a8226e3b7@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 6:30 PM, Max More wrote: > Given the recent discussion about central banks here, I thought this would > be of interest: > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31784137/ns/business-us_business/ That sounds as quite a bomb! -- Stefano Vaj From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Jul 8 13:22:25 2009 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 09:22:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <1B1742E610214CC5ABDB6CA44457C611@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <1B1742E610214CC5ABDB6CA44457C611@spike> Message-ID: <200907080922.26238.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Wednesday 08 July 2009 1:45:04 am spike wrote: > > Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time > > Those who like to make snidely comments about FoxNews, keep in mind that > they are the only one of the news majors that are reporting this: > > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530560,00.html You already have the answer when you note that Fox News is the only one doing this. > How the hell did we get here? You mean how did they get there? And why aren't any of the "liberal" news sources there with them? -- Harvey Newstrom From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 8 16:57:57 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 09:57:57 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Ron_Paul=E2=80=99s_bipartisan_attack_on_the_Fed?= In-Reply-To: <200907081630.n68GUVMn000040@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <374877.68893.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/8/09, Max More wrote: > Given the recent discussion about > central banks here, I thought this would be of interest: > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31784137/ns/business-us_business/ IIRC, Rothbard called for such an audit in the 1970s (in print; wasn't around to know this at the time:). Not trying to trample on Paul's call for one -- just adding some history here. The Fed mostly reports whatever it feels like reporting, so, IMO, it'd be good to have an independent audit. Good to see it's gaining some support. Regards, Dan From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 21:53:41 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 14:53:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907080018t3cdaff9wb5eb92b4ca284cc@mail.gmail.com> References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> <710b78fc0907080018t3cdaff9wb5eb92b4ca284cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 12:18 AM, Emlyn wrote: > For those of you with school age kids, do your kids actually watch TV? > Mine barely do if ever. It's all youtube, other online video, and > games. The TV seems to mostly annoy them. Blessed be the children who need never suffer violation at the hands of the vile parasites of corporate "entertainment", aaarggghh! I thank whatever gods may be for the internet, youtube, and bittorrent p2p. My wife insists that we pay ~ $60/mo for "99% crap 99% of the time" satellite tv. I hate it with every fiber of my being. When we got tv by cable, I could at least tape the shows I wanted to see and then fast forward through the commercials. With satellite tv, the recording protocol was different and I was too pissed to learn how to do it. Plus, I bought a DVR which had the horrible design defect of losing its program-recording schedule every time the power went out (which happens quite frequently -- if briefly -- here on the coast of BC where I now reside). Now it's youtube for highly focused, full-spectrum-biased newsy bits. And bittorrent p2p for crystal clear hd entertainment hermetically free of even a hint of corporate mind rape. Aaaaaaaahhhh! Re spike's original question: You know the answer spike, we all do. Profits. MIchael Jackson, pop icon, ?ber-freak, financially incompetent self-pauperized super rich poor -- now dead -- guy = tv eyeballs = corporate profits. (Now if president what's-his-name as you call him should suffer some misadventure, I have no doubt he would supplant the late Jacko as the next number one eyeball draw. For exactly the same reason.) Best, Jeff Davis "We call someone insane who does not believe as we do to an outrageous extent." Charles McCabe From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Jul 8 22:24:11 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 00:24:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <965629.60244.qm@web81606.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A551C8B.6050506@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/8 Kevin Freels : > >> I'm always annoyed when I read such things. we are a young species. most of everything we know has been learned in the last 200 years. there are people alive who were born before powered flight. religious memes take advantage of religious genes that can't be just left vacant. instead I think they need to be replaced with rational memes that fulfill the same needs as religious memes. this type of replacement takes many generations and you just need to do your part to help those memes spread and have FAITH that they will. christianity has taken 2000 years to get to where it is now. it's not going to be replaced after a hundred or so years of real scientific progress. the human species is fine. it just needs some tweaking just like any other species. > > Religion has, indeed, slowly been dying due to lack of interest > everywhere in the world for centuries. The two exceptions in the last > century are Christian fundamentalism in the US and Islamic > fundamentalism. But these are aberrations, fighting against the tide. > The relative liberalisation and secularisation in Iran compared to > immediate post-revolutionary period is evidence of this. The problem for religions is that many obtained too much success and wiped out their competition or obtained a monopoly from the government. This cause them to become lazy and uninterested in retaining their customers (like all monopolists). The exceptions are in US, because the competition lasted anyway from the different number of denominations and religions, in South America (because many evangelical from the US went there and started proselytizing igniting a fire under the ass of the Catholic hierarchies there. In the same way, Islam was put in danger from the long string of defeats occurred in the XIX and XX century, so they started to work harder to keep their audience. Iran is not difference, as the government support the religion (the government is the religion), people don't matter any more and people have started to look around for someone interested in them. So, there are reports of a conspicuous number of conversions to Christianity and Zoroastrianism (kept secret as possible). Other, simply become atheists or believe in nothing. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Jul 8 23:26:37 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:26:37 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/9 Dan : > Yes, while true, my point was that there are options and no one is forced into those things. ?Yes, I can agree to some contract that's extremely restrictive. ?But I can also NOT agree to that -- e.g., not form or come into agreement with your very state-like road company. ?My guess is in a world of free market roads, we'd see very little like the scenario you depict. It may be just the sort of thing you would see given the current arrangement in most places if the government dissolved or decided to divest itself of direct investment in roads. Ownership would then naturally go to the citizens, who may choose to maintain it as a public resource in the way described. After all, this is why publicly owned resources and companies exist, although from time to time they are privatised. -- Stathis Papaioannou From listsb at infinitefaculty.org Wed Jul 8 23:47:12 2009 From: listsb at infinitefaculty.org (Brian Manning Delaney) Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 01:47:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: <35491.12.77.169.2.1246797625.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A4EABDF.6@optusnet.com.au> <57C6635B35B5478490D35B9BAF64332C@spike> <4A4F7EF3.2080708@infinitefaculty.org> <62c14240907042244x4d1cf53nbda607938ca3eef@mail.gmail.com> <35491.12.77.169.2.1246797625.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> Message-ID: <4A553000.5050109@infinitefaculty.org> MB skrev: > Actually, they work both ways, suck *and* blow. So he may have the right specs. If > they suck, surely they should also blow? :) Exactly! Actually, my bellows would at first, in one sense, both blow and suck to a high degree, in another sense, not much at all. In time, though, I'm pretty sure it would blow and suck in the first sense less, and in the other sense, more. :) But, as Micro points out, it won't get us to iron. About backups: spike, I agree completely, although I think some paper copies of some critical information wouldn't be a bad idea. The amount of information needed to get us to the stage of the Greek Renaissance (~2.4 millennia ago) could be written up in an only somewhat fat book, I'd guess. But we'd want to be able to get from there to here (and beyond) quickly, of course.... But having many "How to Get to the Greeks" books distributed around the world in very safe places would be a good idea. There was actually a good deal of discussion about that and similar ideas after Cahill's "How the Irish Saved Civilization" came out. Brian From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 02:24:54 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 19:24:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670907081924j77472b1ej3e0030fe6ba4b054@mail.gmail.com> How do traffic circles work? I remember seeing them shown as an object of humor and comic consternation in various American films I've seen. Henrique wrote: The problem is not only in the drivers or the streets. I also happen to think that cars are wrong in so many ways. Using a two ton steel three meter long brick moved by an engine capable of tugging a small house to transport (most of the time) a single ape and his mobile phone is really really insane. >>> I totally agree. I find it so depressing that so many Americans would feel totally lost without their own car(s). I dearly wish every U.S. city had extremely thorough 24/7 bus and light rail systems (running every 15 minutes 24/7 to make the driving public convinced it was worth their time to use and support it) that made owning a car largely unnecessary. I'm severely dyslexic and don't drive. This has caused me immeasurable trouble and when I shared this with a wonderful woman I recently started dating, she looked at me as if I had told her I had recently been released from prison after serving time for some terrible crime. I live in Phoenix/Mesa Arizona, which has decent but not great public transportation. I find it appalling that this part of the public sector agenda does not get the financial support that it deserves. But ironically the lip service/hot air for such matters does seem never-ending... I'd like to think that long before I am brought back from "the hopeful ice" of cryonics, that I will live to see my vision of excellent public transportation coming into being. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 03:02:55 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 12:32:55 +0930 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: References: <55ad6af70907071231m71d980eemd7b88f91d1fcc2ea@mail.gmail.com> <192874AA6F7641ACA3585EC20136E1CE@spike> <21D6D5C230FD40D3A7FBAB496FF535A3@spike> <710b78fc0907080018t3cdaff9wb5eb92b4ca284cc@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907082002p2342153dwf87fa9df980af808@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/8 Sockpuppet99 at hotmail.com : > Mine watches Family Guy on TiVo, obsessively, and a few other programs on > TiVo like Dirty Jobs and Time Warp. He also likes a few of the cartoons on > the cartoon channel, follows the work of Fred and Nigahiga and Rocketboom on > YouTube, and invests swaths of time on the Xbox 360 and the DS. He's got > multiple screen-based interests. > > Tom D My son watches The Simpsons and Futurama obsessively, but almost exclusively online. He likes being able to choose what to watch and when, and also likes the "random show" button that a lot of those sites have. So, he's not even interested in using locally downloaded versions, even though they are better quality (to the detriment of our broadband usage cap) (We don't have any kind of cable tv; we've opted for the best internet access we can get, and house full of PCs.) -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jul 9 03:21:18 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:21:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <2d6187670907081924j77472b1ej3e0030fe6ba4b054@mail.gmail.co m> References: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670907081924j77472b1ej3e0030fe6ba4b054@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090709032114895.HRRE19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> At 07:24 PM 7/8/2009 -0700, JG wrote: >How do traffic circles work? I remember seeing them shown as an >object of humor and comic consternation in various American films I've seen. Here's an example from I'M DYING HERE, the new "screwball noir" crime novel by me and Rory Barnes: ============= I turned smartly through the great wide gates of Fawkner Crematorium & Memorial Park and round the fountain, patiently following Share's instructions. The road was candy striped with parallel paint lines in many merry hues, like a hospital floor, the better to guide the dead to their destinations, some peeling off to the right, some to the left, some forging straight on. 'Not only is the end nigh,' I said, 'it's conveniently color coded.' A stifled snort implied that I was forgiven. 'Seventh Avenue,' she told me. We had to wait as a funereal cavalcade passed, headlights burning sullenly in afternoon daylight. In the long dark gray limo behind the hearse, a wife or mistress wailed behind smoky glass. Several vehicles back, four hearty real estate agents or used car salesmen howled as the driver, beefy red face creased with hilarity, reached the punch line of his joke. We crossed Merlynston Creek. Never flush with water at the best of times in these greenhouse El Nino days, it looked parched and cracked. I parked on asphalt outside a blandly tasteful interfaith chapel. Share put on a broad-brimmed hat with a handy obscuring veil. 'Who's being buried? Or is it roasted?' 'Walk with me,' Share said, taking my arm. 'Let us reason together.' [certain hijinks ensue, including the hijacking of a hearse and a Bad Man who gets locked inside a reeking coffin] 'I'm sure you have ways and means,' she said. 'A career criminal like yourself.' 'These things get blown out of proportion,' I said. I got out and caught Mauricio and the boys as they backed on to the narrow cemetery road. Dago grumbled, followed me back to the hearse, took something out of his pocket protector and had the machine hotwired and purring in less than 30 seconds. 'I know how,' I told Sharon, who was laughing quietly. 'I do. But why exert oneself when there's specialist help at hand?' Culpepper, awakened in darkness and stench and enjoying it no more than we had, began banging. Given the lavish upholstery of his casket's lining, I was surprised we could hear anything even with the airholes Culpepper's cronies had thoughtfully punched to spare Cookie from suffocation 'Get some music on the radio,' I said. Share found something liturgical on a CD. I drove toward the gate to the Hume. The banging grew louder. A gardener glanced our way. 'Something noisy,' I said, 'Here, Gold FM should do the trick.' I punched the radio through to the Boss howling out the news that he was Born in the USA and feeling a bit betrayed about it, all things considered. That seemed apt enough to me so I turned the stereo up full bore. They had a very nice sound system, full surround boom boxes in the back. Burials by day, shaggin wagon by night? I found myself hemmed in at the roundabout. A cortege was headed for the crematorium, headlights burning. Faces turned, eyes swiveling, at the racket. I didn't care, I'd lost all sense, the madness of the last days had frizzled my reality principle. 'Fuck this,' I said after the third car, and cut into the stream of mourners. The vehicle ahead picked up speed, following its colored code line, or perhaps the arse of the car ahead. Culpepper made noises. I turned, reached with a long left arm, banged on the top of the coffin. Beyond the gates, the Hume Highway looked chockablock. Sharon punched off the rock station and accidentally hit a race call instead. '--Bandersnatch neck and neck at the turn,' the high, frantic, nasal voice was calling, 'it's sensational, Loose Lips has stumbled, the gelding's taken a tumble, and here comes Brute Force, the long shot is stretching out now, by a nose, Brute Force at fifty to one has--' 'You little bloody beauty!' I said. 'Free lunches at Ivy's for the rest of the year. Shut the fuck up back there!' A discreet toot from the car behind. Distracted, I surged too far, missed the exit, found the hearse carried in a large curve once more around the memorial fountain that ran with water like a pair of flying saucers lifting from the ocean's bowl. All it needed was Cathy Freeman in her pristine white 'We come to your planet in peace' starship suit and it would have been a re-run of the rising Mother Ship from the close of the Sydney Olympics, that time it got stuck. Flicking my own headlights on, I turned right in time, went out the gate, turned left. Sharon doubled up in laughter. She hit the radio button again, went back to Gold. Roy Orbison informed us at the top of his resonant, mournful voice that love hurts, burns you like a stove. Burns you like a crematorium, I thought. 'What are you braying about?' I said, eyes on the traffic. 'Check the mirror,' she said. We had a tail, like a comet. Headlights burning, drivers teary with sorrow, the cortege had followed us back into the highway. I saw my chance, accelerated into the passing lane. In the back, the coffin bumped. I thought I heard a throttled scream. =================== Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12780 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 03:33:45 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 23:33:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 2:28 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/8 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> Yet, if there is one owner of roads, Mr John D Public (the D stands >> for dumb), there is no real incentive for technological progress, for >> increased efficiency, because Mr Public can always take some more of >> your money or time to cover any of his stupidities. A competitive >> private owner would have to attract you with speed, comfort, safety >> and low prices - he wouldn't put idiotic, blinking red obstacles in >> your path. > > So what would you do if you were a shareholder in a company which > owned the roads? Assume these are a special class of shares which > cannot be traded, but which give you voting rights and the rights to > any dividends generated or costs incurred. ### Is it a a monopoly sustained by the threat of force against new entrants (people who try to build and sell their own roads)? If yes, I wouldn't care, since this "company" would be just a new name for a state. If no (i.e. this is competitive company, one among many), I would look at the competitors and rather buy their shares. Obviously, being unable to trade shares greatly limits my options - I cannot salvage my capital if the company starts losing money, I cannot capitalize on an increase in value of shares if the company starts making more money, I cannot shift my capital to other uses should I change my preferences (for example when I grow old and want to use it up for some retirement fun and to strengthen my cryonic trust), I am basically stuck with whatever happens. Not to be disrespectful but your question sounds like you have never made an investment in your life - obviously, non-vested stock is inferior to fully vested, tradable stock, this is a no-brainer. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 03:39:51 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 23:39:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <32757B142684465A9DE2A2196A821B52@pcnx6325> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <32757B142684465A9DE2A2196A821B52@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907082039g78a85587sbdd5da79cfe6003e@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 10:39 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: . I also happen to > think that cars are wrong in so many ways. Using a two ton steel three meter > long brick moved by an engine capable of tugging a small house to transport > (most of the time) a single ape and his mobile phone is really really > insane. ### You have an idea on how to move me around as quickly, comfortably, safely, and cheaply as in a car, but without the "wrongness" you allude to, don't hesitate to patent it, and soon you will be rich beyond imagination, and you will have conferred the greatest boon on humanity since the invention of the wheel. Otherwise, stay away from my Mustang. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 9 04:36:18 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 21:36:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: <200907080922.26238.mail@harveynewstrom.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><1B1742E610214CC5ABDB6CA44457C611@spike> <200907080922.26238.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom ... > On Wednesday 08 July 2009 1:45:04 am spike wrote: > > > Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time > > > > Those who like to make snidely comments about FoxNews, keep in mind > > that they are the only one of the news majors that are > reporting this: > > > > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530560,00.html > > You already have the answer when you note that Fox News is > the only one doing this... Do clarify Harvey. You are our local subject matter expert in the area of all things having to do with cyber security. Fox is claiming there were major denial of service attacks and that the likely culprits were from North Korea or possibly China. Is the story false? If true, is it unimportant? If important, why are the news majors ignoring it? spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 05:56:21 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 01:56:21 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 12:07 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Is it a a monopoly sustained by the threat of force against new >> entrants (people who try to build and sell their own roads)? If yes, I >> wouldn't care, since this "company" would be just a new name for a >> state. If no (i.e. this is competitive company, one among many), I >> would look at the competitors and rather buy their shares. > > The roads are in a large, established city. There isn't much > opportunity for new entrants. However, new entrants are welcome to buy > the existing roads, if the company shareholders restructure so as to > allow it. ### You mean, there is a monopoly, and no way of challenging it, except if the monopolist deigns to divest itself of his holdings? ------------------- > >> Obviously, >> being unable to trade shares greatly limits my options - I cannot >> salvage my capital if the company starts losing money, I cannot >> capitalize on an increase in value of shares if the company starts >> making more money, I cannot shift my capital to other uses should I >> change my preferences (for example when I grow old and want to use it >> up for some retirement fun and to strengthen my cryonic trust), I am >> basically stuck with whatever happens. > > So you would vote to change the shares so that they could be traded; > but the rest of the shareholders might prefer to leave things as they > are, on the grounds that roads are better as a public resource and > selling them might result in the few profiting at the expense of the > many, or some other perverse and infuriating reason. ### Are you asking if I would buy these shares in an initial public offering? Probably yes, and I would immediately vote to impose very high, revenue-maximizing prices for road use, and of course I would demand to have almost all profits disbursed to owners. Since I know that a large fraction of the population would not buy the shares but would still use roads, having very high prices for road use would produce a net gain for me - I would get more in dividends than I pay in road fees. I would also vote never to sell roads to other entities, and I would vote to prevent dilution of shares, and to allow trading of shares. Trust me, these value- and revenue-maximizing decisions would be made by almost all share owners, nobody sane would leave things as they are - there is just too much money to be made by co-owning a monopoly and being able to squeeze it for all its worth. Just ask politicians and their backers, the majority owners of the state violence monopolies. That's why politicians almost always try to screw you up once they get elected, and that's why share owners would vote to screw up everybody else too. If the stock was somehow distributed among all the population for free, without the options of changing the game outlined above, I wouldn't care either way. The reason why most companies are better at everything they do than governments is pluralism, choice and responsibility. When you produce an accounting fiction like non-tradable stocks in a road monopolist, you will decouple decisions about roads from other political issues, which is good, but the improvement will be minimal, precisely because there is still no pluralism, no individual responsibility, and no consumer choice. To summarize, all you need to do is to substitute the word(s) "greedy or stupid monopolist asshole" for every time you see the word "public", and the reasoning becomes crystal clear. ---------------------- > >> Not to be disrespectful but ?your question sounds like you have never >> made an investment in your life - obviously, non-vested stock is >> inferior to fully vested, tradable stock, this is a no-brainer. > > Nevertheless, there is a place for multiple types of stock in modern > finance: preference shares, options, non-voting shares, partly-paid > shares, convertible notes, and so on. They are all perfectly > legitimate legal instruments, and if no-one wanted them they wouldn't > exist. ### Non-tradable stock is always less valuable than than tradable stock, and that was the question you asked. Rafal From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 06:37:43 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 16:37:43 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### Are you asking if I would buy these shares in an initial public > offering? No, that would be a quite different situation. The shares are issued to everyone for free, with the option of voting to change the structure so that they can be sold and accumulated. You assume that the shareholders would vote to do this, and maybe they would. But they might also choose to leave things as they are, just as voters choose to leave some assets and organisations in public control and to privatise others. Now I understand that you think privatising everything is for the best, and perhaps you also think that left to their own devices people will decide to do just that. But what should be done if, foolishly, they choose to keep some things communally owned? -- Stathis Papaioannou From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 09:17:32 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 02:17:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Do men really want to get married? Message-ID: <2d6187670907090217k4f47c116r24b06148c589dfd8@mail.gmail.com> I thought this was an interesting slice of life article about what motivates men to marry. Human courtship behavior has always fascinated me... http://www.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/personal/07/08/men.want.to.get.married/index.html?iref=mpstoryview John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 09:24:46 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 05:24:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> On Wed, Jul 8, 2009 at 3:26 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/8 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Let's back up a bit: Are you saying that high IQ does not >> correlate with lower criminality? Are you saying that the >> lower-than-average intelligence of criminals is purely an artifact of >> differential susceptibility to being apprehended? >> >> If so, what are the data you are basing your opinion on? What are the >> predictions you can make based on your ideas, and do they find >> corroboration in available peer-reviewed literature? > > The evidence is that people in prison tend to have lower IQ scores. > This means that less intelligent people are more likely to engage in > crimes that get them incarcerated, i.e. they are more likely to be > directly involved in violent crimes (since these are more likely to > get them incarcerated) and/or they are more likely to get caught and > get a longer sentence. But it does not necessarily mean that IQ has > any bearing on a person's regard for "good" and "bad" behaviour. > Antisocial personality disorder is associated with normal IQ, there is > no evidence that I could find that white collar crime is associated > with lower IQ, and it would be surprising if those who head criminal > organisations, armies or dictatorial regimes were not of at least > average intelligence. So I don't think the evidence, such as it is, > warrants the conclusion that the world would be a less violent place > if the average IQ increased to 140. > ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html and other pages there, especially http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 10:49:34 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:49:34 +0100 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <1B1742E610214CC5ABDB6CA44457C611@spike> <200907080922.26238.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: On 7/9/09, spike wrote: > Do clarify Harvey. You are our local subject matter expert in the area of > all things having to do with cyber security. Fox is claiming there were > major denial of service attacks and that the likely culprits were from North > Korea or possibly China. Is the story false? If true, is it unimportant? > If important, why are the news majors ignoring it? > For general news, I watch Google news and BBC news, both of whom have covered the computer attacks on US sites. In Google Reader I also take the topnews RSS feed from Reuters, who also reported the computer attacks. It is difficult, even for experts, to say where botnet attacks are controlled from as the infected computers are not the original source. So far it is only South Korea that has jumped to blame North Korea (surprise, surprise!). See: Quote: Cybersecurity analysts raised doubts on Wednesday that the North Korean state launched recent attacks on U.S. government and South Korean websites, saying industrial spies or pranksters could be the villains. --------- BillK From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 11:48:32 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:48:32 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: > > http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html and other > pages there, especially > > http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html The cited papers claim a "moderate correlation". That is not equivalent to claiming that if people were smarter there would be less violent crime. There are far, far greater differences in crime rates between different countries and different regions within a country, not accounted for by IQ variation. And even if it is accepted that IQ is a predictor of crime all else being equal, it is still possible that, for example, it is not IQ per se but IQ *inequality* that is the cause of the problem, so that if the average IQ were raised but the IQ spread remained the same the violent crime rate would remain unchanged. Also, you still haven't addressed the possibility that the really terrible crimes that often go unpunished and don't show up in statistics - demagogues inciting war and other violence - are due to high IQ individuals. I'm all in favour of making people smarter, but I have little confidence that it will make them nicer. -- Stathis Papaioannou From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 12:07:06 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 13:07:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] META: Webmail backup freeware Message-ID: Now that many people are using web email accounts, backing up these webmails is becoming more important. Cnet has just reviewed a freeware program that seems pretty good. July 8, 2009 5:15 PM PDT Archive your e-mail from almost any account MailStore Home can archive a pretty impressive list of mail servers, including Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft Exchange, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Gmail, Windows Live Mail, IMAP, POP3, and .EML files. You can easily back up your email to CD as well. Note that the free version restricts you to backing up three different accounts. For Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista Download from here: BillK From emlynoregan at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 13:10:44 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 22:40:44 +0930 Subject: [ExI] META: Webmail backup freeware In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <710b78fc0907090610y6d0a3962mf21d4a7023b82812@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/9 BillK : > Now that many people are using web email accounts, backing up these > webmails is becoming more important. > > Cnet has just reviewed a freeware program that seems pretty good. > > > July 8, 2009 5:15 PM PDT > Archive your e-mail from almost any account > > MailStore Home can archive a pretty impressive list of mail servers, > including Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express, Microsoft Exchange, > Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Gmail, Windows Live Mail, IMAP, POP3, and .EML > files. > You can easily back up your email to CD as well. > Note that the free version restricts you to backing up three different accounts. > > For Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista > > Download from here: > > > > BillK But will people do it? It'd be nice if there was an online alternative; somewhere you could sign up, point it at your gmail etc, and it'd periodically backup to some different online space. Ideally the whole thing would work without you doing anything else from that point forth (it'd just be online services talking to each other), and it would be as close as possible to free :-) Making money on it'd be hard. Maybe if you serviced a lot of different web mails, you could also provide a "Move my email from service X to service Y" function, and charge the webmail vendors for the privelege of being listed as a choice for Y. Also if any supported services actually fell over, you have some great short term leverage, in that you can recommend new services preferentially to your users; that ought to be worth something :-) -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 13:18:49 2009 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 08:18:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Basic perfusion inventory list Message-ID: <55ad6af70907090618i72e8edcfjcf8539fc30dbff95@mail.gmail.com> Hey all, I was wondering if someone could help me work out the bugs in this YAML inventory listing. http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/perfusion-equipment.txt I haven't added it to skdb yet because I'm not sure that it's everything that you need to do basic perfusion (a procedure involved in cryonics). For instance, serious cryonics usually involves liquid nitrogen tanks and lots of fancy curve riding mathematics and feedback circuits. I think this is the equipment to cool the body temperatures down to dry ice levels. Anyway, it's not complete, so I'm asking for some help- maybe someone can see something that I am missing from the list of required tools, chemicals, materials, items, equipment, etc. Thank you, - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 9 13:19:50 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 06:19:50 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership"/was Re: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <562164.45591.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/8/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/9 Dan : >> Yes, while true, my point was that there are options >> and no one is forced into those things. ?Yes, I can agree >> to some contract that's extremely restrictive. ?But I can >> also NOT agree to that -- e.g., not form or come into >> agreement with your very state-like road company. ?My guess >> is in a world of free market roads, we'd see very little >> like the scenario you depict. > > It may be just the sort of thing you would see given the > current > arrangement in most places if the government dissolved or > decided to divest itself of direct investment in roads. > Ownership would then naturally go to the citizens, who > may choose to maintain it as a public resource in the > way described. While it can happen that way, there is nothing "natural" about it. A better path to privatizing a government owned resource -- since "public ownership" really means government ownership and is, for the most part, merely rhetorical cover for taking stuff away from the original owners -- would be to find from whom the resource was first taken. In some cases, this might be a group, but then ownership is no different from any other form of private group ownership. And there's no reason in that sort of case to believe or support the view that individual members of such a group would have no ability to sell their shares. Also, in the case of roads, where former private owners can't be found -- as in the case where they and their heirs are dead or untraceable -- then the proper thing to do is to put them back into the state of unclaimed properties and allow them to be homesteaded. (And not everyone would have an equal right to homestead here -- unlike with purely unowned items. Why? Some -- specifically, those in government and those, more or less directly connected to government, cannot have an equal claim to homestead as their actions or the actions of their criminal organizations served to place or maintain such properties in a state where their original owners lost them or could not get them back. Thus, in former socialist nations, the party members should NOT have any claims on factories or other stolen property.) Add to this, members of the government should NOT be allowed to have ownership. They must be excluded just as a thief would be excluded. This would also go for non-tax-paying members of the populace who had nothing to do with the original ownership. For instance, were I to move to, say, Nova Scotia, where I've never paid taxes (viz., never had the Nova Scotian government steal from me) and never had any just claim over property there, I could not claim that, since I'm now a member of the public there, I have a just claim over any privatized roads or similar properties. (Granted, if people who justly owned these decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's another story. But this requires them to do so -- not my merely moving there and making the claim as a new member of the Nova Scotia public; it is NOT the default state of things.) > After all, this is why publicly > owned resources and companies exist, although from time to > time they are privatised. I think the matter is more complicated than this and doesn't fit your view -- at least, not outside of rhetoric used to legitamize such claims. In most cases of public companies and resources, these were stolen from their original owners or, in the cases of unowned things, were not justly homesteaded. In the former case, the just choice, where it's possible, is to return the property to its original owners. E.g., a factory nationalized must be returned to its original owners. (There might be some dispute over whether any betterments or improvements were made, but the grounding principle is to return the property to its original owners. In some cases, this might involve removing changes or having some form of division. E.g., the factory is returned to its original owners but the new machine installed at taxpayers' expense is given back to the specific taxpayers who paid for it.) In the latter case, merely having the government decree that some such hectares belong to it or the public is not homesteading. In fact, it merely prevents others from justly homesteading the hectares. This can be applied to large sections of the United States -- where the land was not formerly owned by the aboriginal peoples. I.e., that land -- the unowned land that the US or state governments took -- would be open for homesteading. Regards, Dan From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 13:23:09 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 23:23:09 +1000 Subject: [ExI] META: Webmail backup freeware In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907090610y6d0a3962mf21d4a7023b82812@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0907090610y6d0a3962mf21d4a7023b82812@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/9 Emlyn : > It'd be nice if there was an online alternative; somewhere you could > sign up, point it at your gmail etc, and it'd periodically backup to > some different online space. Ideally the whole thing would work > without you doing anything else from that point forth (it'd just be > online services talking to each other), and it would be as close as > possible to free :-) Am I naive in assuming that Google manages their computer system so that I don't need to worry about additional backup? -- Stathis Papaioannou From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 9 13:31:55 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 06:31:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Basic perfusion inventory list In-Reply-To: <55ad6af70907090618i72e8edcfjcf8539fc30dbff95@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <492971.50640.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/9/09, Bryan Bishop wrote: > Hey all, > > I was wondering if someone could help me work out the bugs > in this > YAML inventory listing. > > http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/perfusion-equipment.txt > > I haven't added it to skdb yet because I'm not sure that > it's > everything that you need to do basic perfusion (a procedure > involved > in cryonics). For instance, serious cryonics usually > involves liquid > nitrogen tanks and lots of fancy curve riding mathematics > and feedback > circuits. I think this is the equipment to cool the body > temperatures > down to dry ice levels. > > Anyway, it's not complete, so I'm asking for some help- > maybe someone > can see something that I am missing from the list of > required tools, > chemicals, materials, items, equipment, etc. Is the overall container to put the body in covered in the list? What about the transport? By the way, in Stanislaw Lem's novel _Fiasco_, one of the main characters is cryopreserved quickly in a portable unit. It's a sort of last ditch effort when you know you're about to die, you can either die or put yourself in the unit. Has anyone worked along those lines? Regards, Dan From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 14:07:20 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:07:20 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership"/was Re: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <562164.45591.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <562164.45591.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/9 Dan : > While it can happen that way, there is nothing "natural" about it. ?A better path to privatizing a government owned resource -- since "public ownership" really means government ownership and is, for the most part, merely rhetorical cover for taking stuff away from the original owners -- would be to find from whom the resource was first taken. ?In some cases, this might be a group, but then ownership is no different from any other form of private group ownership. ?And there's no reason in that sort of case to believe or support the view that individual members of such a group would have no ability to sell their shares. You could make an argument for giving public land back to the aboriginal inhabitants, but then there would still be the issue of what to do with the improvements to the land, paid for by taxpayers over centuries. As for what type the shares will be, that should ultimately be up to the shareholders. You seem to hold as a basic moral principle, "free trade is always right". But this is just something that you have taken a fancy to; it isn't like a scientific law or a mathematical theorem. For example, most people would not support the idea that you should be able to sell yourself into slavery, or that you should be able to sell the atmosphere and cut of the oxygen supply to anyone who can't pay. Moral or economic principles should not be established a priori and followed to ridiculous ends, no matter what. That was the mistake of the Soviets. > Also, in the case of roads, where former private owners can't be found -- as in the case where they and their heirs are dead or untraceable -- then the proper thing to do is to put them back into the state of unclaimed properties and allow them to be homesteaded. ?(And not everyone would have an equal right to homestead here -- unlike with purely unowned items. ?Why? ?Some -- specifically, those in government and those, more or less directly connected to government, cannot have an equal claim to homestead as their actions or the actions of their criminal organizations served to place or maintain such properties in a state where their original owners lost them or could not get them back. ?Thus, in former socialist nations, the party members should NOT have any claims on factories or other stolen property.) Homesteading is one way of distributing public land. Perhaps there are other ways. Who should decide what is the best and fairest thing to do? > Add to this, members of the government should NOT be allowed to have ownership. ?They must be excluded just as a thief would be excluded. ?This would also go for non-tax-paying members of the populace who had nothing to do with the original ownership. ?For instance, were I to move to, say, Nova Scotia, where I've never paid taxes (viz., never had the Nova Scotian government steal from me) and never had any just claim over property there, I could not claim that, since I'm now a member of the public there, I have a just claim over any privatized roads or similar properties. ?(Granted, if people who justly owned these decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's another story. ?But this requires them to do so -- not my merely moving there and making the claim as a new member of the Nova Scotia public; it is NOT the default state of things.) The people of Nova Scotia would decide what to do. They may decide to charge outsiders, but not citizens, a fee for using the roads, or they may decide to charge all citizens a flat fee, or they may decide to charge only drivers a fee per kilometre driven. >> After all, this is why publicly >> owned resources and companies exist, although from time to >> time they are privatised. > > I think the matter is more complicated than this and doesn't fit your view -- at least, not outside of rhetoric used to legitamize such claims. ?In most cases of public companies and resources, these were stolen from their original owners or, in the cases of unowned things, were not justly homesteaded. ?In the former case, the just choice, where it's possible, is to return the property to its original owners. ?E.g., a factory nationalized must be returned to its original owners. ?(There might be some dispute over whether any betterments or improvements were made, but the grounding principle is to return the property to its original owners. ?In some cases, this might involve removing changes or having some form of division. ?E.g., the factory is returned to its original owners but the new machine installed at taxpayers' expense is given back to the specific taxpayers who paid for it.) > > In the latter case, merely having the government decree that some such > hectares belong to it or the public is not homesteading. ?In fact, it merely prevents others from justly homesteading the hectares. ?This can be applied to large sections of the United States -- where the land was not formerly owned by the aboriginal peoples. ?I.e., that land -- the unowned land that the US or state governments took -- would be open for homesteading. Why insist that homesteading is the only just way to do things? Why not say, for example, that land belongs to the collective, and anyone who uses land must lease it from the collective, as per Henry George? -- Stathis Papaioannou From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 14:11:22 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:11:22 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers References: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670907081924j77472b1ej3e0030fe6ba4b054@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <35198DEBC1EC4ADA8BAFF29770B65CA6@pcnx6325> ----- Original Message ----- From: John Grigg To: ExI chat list Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:24 PM Subject: Re: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers How do traffic circles work? I remember seeing them shown as an object of humor and comic consternation in various American films I've seen. Henrique wrote: The problem is not only in the drivers or the streets. I also happen to think that cars are wrong in so many ways. Using a two ton steel three meter long brick moved by an engine capable of tugging a small house to transport (most of the time) a single ape and his mobile phone is really really insane. >>> John Grigg>>I totally agree. I find it so depressing that so many Americans would feel totally lost without their own car(s). >I dearly wish every U.S. city had extremely thorough 24/7 bus and light >rail systems >(running every 15 minutes 24/7 to make the driving public convinced it was >worth their time to use and support it) that made owning a car largely >unnecessary. I'm not advocating that everyone stop using cars altogether and turn to public transportation. Good public transportation is necessary indeed, but it's not all. What I'm saying is that the object that we know as car is wrong and should be remade. For instance, motorcycles are way more rational as individual transport than cars, but they are not very safe (my broken leg has something to say about this). There are some projects like this tricicle hybrid (http://www.hybridcars.com/plug-in-hybrids/ventureone-plugin-hybrid-commuter.html), that carry two apes and take half the space of a conventional car. They even lean on curves which also makes them fun to drive. John Grigg>I'm severely dyslexic and don't drive. This has caused me immeasurable trouble and when >I shared this with a wonderful woman I recently started dating, she looked >at me as if I had told her >I had recently been released from prison after serving time for some >terrible crime. >I live in Phoenix/Mesa Arizona, which has decent but not great public >transportation. >I find it appalling that this part of the public sector agenda does not get >the financial support that it deserves. >But ironically the lip service/hot air for such matters does seem >never-ending... Sorry to hear that. Women can be quite cruel. Down here in Rio every mayor elected promisses to fix the public transportation, but nothing ever happens. Buses look like packed meat packages and the rail/subway network is negligible. The hot air can melt Antarctica. John Grigg>I'd like to think that long before I am brought back from "the hopeful ice" of cryonics, >that I will live to see my vision of excellent public transportation coming >into being. Me too. But I also hope to see better means of individual transportation either. Where's my frakking flying car? From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 14:17:12 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 15:17:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Basic perfusion inventory list In-Reply-To: <55ad6af70907090618i72e8edcfjcf8539fc30dbff95@mail.gmail.com> References: <55ad6af70907090618i72e8edcfjcf8539fc30dbff95@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: On 7/9/09, Bryan Bishop wrote: > I was wondering if someone could help me work out the bugs in this > YAML inventory listing. > > http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/perfusion-equipment.txt > Keith Henson (on the Exi list) used to do this for real for a cryonics company, so he should be able to help. Though I don't know what his opinion of 'amateurs' having a go will be. ;) BillK From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 14:22:52 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 15:22:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <35198DEBC1EC4ADA8BAFF29770B65CA6@pcnx6325> References: <924724.13402.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <2d6187670907081924j77472b1ej3e0030fe6ba4b054@mail.gmail.com> <35198DEBC1EC4ADA8BAFF29770B65CA6@pcnx6325> Message-ID: On 7/9/09, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > I'm not advocating that everyone stop using cars altogether and turn to > public transportation. Good public transportation is necessary indeed, but > it's not all. > What I'm saying is that the object that we know as car is wrong and should > be remade. For instance, motorcycles are way more rational as individual > transport than cars, but they are not very safe (my broken leg has something > to say about this). There are some projects like this tricicle hybrid > (http://www.hybridcars.com/plug-in-hybrids/ventureone-plugin-hybrid-commuter.html), > that carry two apes and take half the space of a conventional car. They even > lean on curves which also makes them fun to drive. > I want to see Rafal on a turbo-charged Segway, with fins and a cape! ;) BillK From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 14:31:05 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:31:05 -0300 Subject: [ExI] First Drug Shown to Extend Life Span in Mammals References: <492971.50640.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <421A5789389D4775BF69C7E2262A2A1E@pcnx6325> Don't know if it's old news for you people, but there you go... First Drug Shown to Extend Life Span in Mammals A drug derived from bacteria in the soil on Easter Island can substantially extend the life span of mice, according to a study published online today in Nature. The drug, called rapamycin, is the first pharmacological agent shown to enhance longevity in a mammal, and it works when administered beginning late in life. Prior to this research, the only ways to increase rodents' life span were via genetic engineering or caloric restriction--a nutritionally complete but very low-calorie diet.(...) http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22974/?nlid=2164 From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 9 14:51:51 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 07:51:51 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] First Drug Shown to Extend Life Span in Mammals In-Reply-To: <421A5789389D4775BF69C7E2262A2A1E@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <856617.26593.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/9/09, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > Don't know if it's old news for you > people, but there you go... Not for me. Then again, I haven't heard this month's TR yet. > First Drug Shown to Extend Life Span in Mammals > > A drug derived from bacteria in the soil on Easter Island > can substantially extend the life span of mice, according to > a study published online today in Nature. The drug, called > rapamycin, is the first pharmacological agent shown to > enhance longevity in a mammal, and it works when > administered beginning late in life. Prior to this research, > the only ways to increase rodents' life span were via > genetic engineering or caloric restriction--a nutritionally > complete but very low-calorie diet.(...) > > http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/22974/?nlid=2164 I wonder what impact it'll have on younger mice and on other mammals, including, of course, humans. I reckon some will start taking it now regardless... Regards, Dan From mail at harveynewstrom.com Thu Jul 9 13:34:18 2009 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:34:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <200907080922.26238.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <200907090934.19723.mail@harveynewstrom.com> On Thursday 09 July 2009 12:36:18 am spike wrote: > Do clarify Harvey. You are our local subject matter expert in the area of > all things having to do with cyber security. Fox is claiming there were > major denial of service attacks and that the likely culprits were from > North Korea or possibly China. Is the story false? If true, is it > unimportant? If important, why are the news majors ignoring it? This was practically a non-attack. It was so wimpy and so trivial, that it was barely noticable above the constant noise of other automated scans and bots that search all IP ranges all the time to get in. The story isn't how anybody attacked, because nothing changed. The real story is how wimpy our government security is if these minor attacks caused any problems at all. (Which they did!) -- Harvey Newstrom From mail at harveynewstrom.com Thu Jul 9 13:35:50 2009 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 09:35:50 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Do men really want to get married? In-Reply-To: <2d6187670907090217k4f47c116r24b06148c589dfd8@mail.gmail.com> References: <2d6187670907090217k4f47c116r24b06148c589dfd8@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <200907090935.53865.mail@harveynewstrom.com> When I saw the title, I thought this was going to be another thread about gay marriage. Lots of men want to get married... to each other. -- Harvey Newstrom From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jul 9 16:36:37 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 11:36:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><1B1742E610214CC5ABDB6CA44457C611@spike><200907080922.26238.mail@harveynewstrom.com> Message-ID: <8C97F83F71DC429BB18FB13B8B25E0A7@DFC68LF1> Change the subject line please. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 11:36 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] all michael all the time > ...On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom ... > On Wednesday 08 July 2009 1:45:04 am spike wrote: > > > Subject: [ExI] all michael all the time > > > > Those who like to make snidely comments about FoxNews, keep in mind > > that they are the only one of the news majors that are > reporting this: > > > > http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,530560,00.html > > You already have the answer when you note that Fox News is the only > one doing this... Do clarify Harvey. You are our local subject matter expert in the area of all things having to do with cyber security. Fox is claiming there were major denial of service attacks and that the likely culprits were from North Korea or possibly China. Is the story false? If true, is it unimportant? If important, why are the news majors ignoring it? spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 9 21:19:34 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 14:19:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership" Message-ID: <888725.12218.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/9/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/9 Dan : >> While it can happen that way, there is nothing >> "natural" about it.? A better path to privatizing a >> government owned resource -- since "public ownership" really >> means government ownership and is, for the most part, merely >> rhetorical cover for taking stuff away from the original >> owners -- would be to find from whom the resource was first >> taken.? In some cases, this might be a group, but then >> ownership is no different from any other form of private >> group ownership.? And there's no reason in that sort of >> case to believe or support the view that individual members >> of such a group would have no ability to sell their shares. > > You could make an argument for giving public land back to > the > aboriginal inhabitants, but then there would still be the > issue of > what to do with the improvements to the land, paid for by > taxpayers over centuries. I mentioned just this later in my post: "There might be some dispute over whether any betterments or improvements were made, but the grounding principle is to return the property to its original owners.? In some cases, this might involve removing changes or having some form of division.? E.g., the factory is returned to its original owners but the new machine installed at taxpayers' expense is given back to the specific taxpayers who paid for it."? I don't have an armchair solution to this issue.? Also, I'm not sure about the centuries long spans here.? In most cases, it'd be extremely hard to trace ownership over such spans.? In the US and more recent colonial cases (e.g., New Zealand), it might be a little easier because it's easy to trace some claim back a century or maybe a bit longer.? But I wouldn't say this is easy or even possible in many cases.? But, again, the general bent should be on returning, as far as possible anything to its original owner.? Where's that's not possible, then the thing should be opened for homesteading.? Where improvements have been made, I think a case can be made for those forced to make the improvements being paid back or getting ownership over the improvement.? (And, in this case, the goal should not be to create a mess so that statists and their seconds can pretend some sort of public ownership.) A case could be made, too, I think for occupants, when no other party with a just claim exists having the first right to homestead, but, again, these occupants can't be people who would be justly excluded.? For instance, a government employee can't have that right, since she or he would be receiving stolen goods or goods not justly homesteaded.? (There is no right of conquest.) > As for what type the shares will be, that > should ultimately be up to the shareholders. And you seem to have definite ideas on just what shareholders would decide and how they should decide it.? I think, instead, the common law property approach would be best.? Yes, in some cases, it might mean an ownership arrangement that's entangled, but I doubt that'd be so in every case.? And I think it would almost never be the case that people wouldn't be allowed to sell shares.? In fact, I would think any case where a publicly stolen property were returned or turned over to a group -- say, a group of taxpayers who were forced, over the years to pay for that property -- with the stipulation that each shareholder (and I'd expect shares to be held by the level of taxation -- not equally unless all suffered equal taxation) could not sell her or his shares that this was not actually turning property back to its original owners was illegitimate.? If, afterward, all such owners -- not the majority, but all -- decided no one could sell her or his shares or could only do so with majority consent is another matter. > You seem to hold as a basic > moral principle, "free trade is always right". I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "free trade" in this context.? I've not made any secrete here of my core principle for social interaction: noninitiation of force.? This, of course, requires some fleshing out for context -- viz., to understand just what is meant by initiating force here. > But this is just > something that you have taken a fancy to; How would you know that?? I presume, e.g., that whatever principles you have that you earnestly hold are ones you believe to be correct and not ones you've merely taken a fancy to.? (That said, when I think your principles make no sense or are otherwise wrong in a sort of obvious (to me) way, I mgiht think you've not thought about them closely enough.? But I'm not sure I'd believe you merely woke up one day and said, "Well, my views don't have much grounding, but I feel like it'd be fun to hold the view that the public should own things and I fancy I'll pretend it makes sense.? It'll be such fun to mess with Dan!":) > it isn't like a scientific law or a mathematical theorem. I would argue that the core libertarian principle is something akin to a mathematical theorem. > For example, most people would not > support the idea that you should be able to sell yourself > into > slavery, or that you should be able to sell the atmosphere > and cut of the oxygen supply to anyone who can't pay. I'm not sure how this applies to either free trade or to noninitiation of force. To wit, the usual libertarian take on slavery is that it's forbidden tout court. To wit, the usual libertarian take on selling air is that, under most circumstances, it's a free good and people just have a right to it as is. (That said, there are special circumstances where it becomes an economic good -- i.e., a good one would economize and so possibly buy and sell -- such as at high altitudes, in space, and underwater.) This means, it's just a ground condition no one can take away from someone else. Yes, someone might be able to someday buy the sky, but they wouldn't likely have the ability to say, "I own the air around you, so you must pay me if you plan on having any." One way to examine this issue is perhaps to look at the case of water rights on a river. Imagine a bunch of people homestead property on a river. Let's say they use the river as a source of water -- say, for drinking, washing, and farming. Someone upstream from them can't decide she owns the river up there and dam it without their approval and then charge them for water. That would cut off their water supply. In a sense, and this lines up with common law notions of property, those people don't just have a right to the land along the river, but also to the water supply from it. One could make a similar argument for air. Someone couldn't homestead all the air and then cut these people off and charge them for air. > Moral or economic principles should not be established > a priori and followed to ridiculous ends, no matter what. > That was the mistake of the Soviets. The Soviets had a completely different stand in regards to both moral and economic principles.? They did not hold any a priori principles in this regard -- and took a firm stand against apriorism.? IIRC, their actual view was the Party itself decides which principles are to hold at any time -- kind of negating the notion of principles or of any principle other than obedience to the Party.? Also, purely in terms of economics, Marxism -- and Soviet ideology followed it in this respect -- does not hold any a priori economic principles.? IIRC, Marx and Engels sided with the German Historicist school -- a school famous for believing that there are no economic laws aside from particular regularities for specific historical settings.? In other words, economic laws are not eternal or immutable, but determined purely by historical context.? (This view of economic laws was used by socialists and nationalists (later on, fascists) to argue against things like the Law of Supply and Demand or any critique of their specific economic policies.) Also, with Marxists in general, and the Soviets in particular, wasn't the belief here that economic regularities were, at best, merely manifestations of a given stage of social development?? I.e., primitive communism had its economics laws, ancient slave societies theirs, feudalism its, various stages of capitalism its various laws, and later stages -- socialism and eventual communism -- its newer laws that would not fit the earlier stages? I would also distinguish between moral and economic principles.? The former are normative -- telling one what should be done; the latter are descriptive -- telling one what happens under such and such conditions.? For instance, there might be a moral principle to not to coerce, but there is no such economic one.? Instead, as an economist, one might ask what happens when there is coercion.? In fact, many economic analyses of old were examinations of just what happened under different forms of coercion.? For instance, how rent control causes housing shortages.? Now, from a purely economic standpoint, one can recognize that rent control causes housing shortages, but economics as economics does not tell one that one should be for, against, or indifferent to rent control.? (Of course, one could make an argument against coercion based on it having undesireable unintended consequences.*? But this requires the person actually disvalue the undesireable unintended consequences more than she or he values other aspects of coercion.? For instance, I've heard many statists argue that, yes, public schooling really does suck, but they still value it because they value things like molding people to the national ideology or having most or all have a common experience of that institution.) I bring up this distinction because whatever our disagreements on moral principles, I think there are valid economic laws and a valid economic science regardless. >> Also, in the case of roads, where former private >> owners can't be found -- as in the case where they and their >> heirs are dead or untraceable -- then the proper thing to do >> is to put them back into the state of unclaimed properties >> and allow them to be homesteaded.? (And not everyone would >> have an equal right to homestead here -- unlike with purely >> unowned items.? Why?? Some -- specifically, those in >> government and those, more or less directly connected to >> government, cannot have an equal claim to homestead as their >> actions or the actions of their criminal organizations >> served to place or maintain such properties in a state where >> their original owners lost them or could not get them back. >> Thus, in former socialist nations, the party members >> should NOT have any claims on factories or other stolen >> property.) > > Homesteading is one way of distributing public land. No.? It's the way unowned land becomes owned.? A state may claim to own land and then use something like homesteading to parcel it out, but it doesn't really have a just claim and thus can't really have a just claim to parceling it out. > Perhaps there are other ways. Who should decide what is the > best and fairest thing to do? Becuase other principles of turning unowned land into owned land suffer problems that homesteading (also known as first appropriation) does not.? Also, homesteading grounds self-ownership.? So, while not perfect, it does have a certain seamlessness that other principles do not have. > > Add to this, members of the government should NOT be > allowed to have ownership.? They must be excluded just as a > thief would be excluded.? This would also go for > non-tax-paying members of the populace who had nothing to do > with the original ownership.? For instance, were I to move > to, say, Nova Scotia, where I've never paid taxes (viz., > never had the Nova Scotian government steal from me) and > never had any just claim over property there, I could not > claim that, since I'm now a member of the public there, I > have a just claim over any privatized roads or similar > properties.? (Granted, if people who justly owned these > decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's > another story.? But this requires them to do so -- not my > merely moving there and making the claim as a new member of > the Nova Scotia public; it is NOT the default state of > things.) > > The people of Nova Scotia would decide what to do. They may > decide to > charge outsiders, but not citizens, a fee for using the > roads, or they > may decide to charge all citizens a flat fee, or they may > decide to charge only drivers a fee per kilometre driven. As I said, "Granted, if people who justly owned these decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's another story."? If the people who actually justly own Nova Scotia -- who actually own it and NOT who merely are members of the public or citizens or whatever entity (or alternate classification) you prefer to repair to -- decide on a particular process (one that doesn't, of course, violate rights), that's their call. >>> After all, this is why publicly >>> owned resources and companies exist, although from >>> time to time they are privatised. >> >> I think the matter is more complicated than this and >> doesn't fit your view -- at least, not outside of rhetoric >> used to legitamize such claims.? In most cases of public >> companies and resources, these were stolen from their >> original owners or, in the cases of unowned things, were not >> justly homesteaded.? In the former case, the just choice, >> where it's possible, is to return the property to its >> original owners.? E.g., a factory nationalized must be >> returned to its original owners.? (There might be some >> dispute over whether any betterments or improvements were >> made, but the grounding principle is to return the property >> to its original owners.? In some cases, this might involve >> removing changes or having some form of division.? E.g., >> the factory is returned to its original owners but the new >> machine installed at taxpayers' expense is given back to the >> specific taxpayers who paid for it.) >> >> In the latter case, merely having the government >> decree that some such >> hectares belong to it or the public is not >> homesteading.? In fact, it merely prevents others from >> justly homesteading the hectares.? This can be applied to >> large sections of the United States -- where the land was >> not formerly owned by the aboriginal peoples.? I.e., that >> land -- the unowned land that the US or state governments >> took -- would be open for homesteading. > > Why insist that homesteading is the only just way to do > things? Why > not say, for example, that land belongs to the collective, > and anyone > who uses land must lease it from the collective, as per > Henry George? Any collective is only composed of individuals.? Collectives do not have any special rights apart from their individuals.? Yes, a particular collective could come to own property -- just like individuals.? But it has claim over and above individual claims.? And a collective would still have to obtain property via just means -- viz., via either homesteading, trade, or gift. Georgism's problems in this respect are manifold, but can, I believe, be divided into two sets: moral ones and economic ones.? A major economic one is how to figure out rent on land and who gets it.? Elsewhere, others and I have shown, I believe, this to be an insoluble problem. The main moral one, from a libertarian standpoint, is the view that all land is held in common or collectively.? This claim seems to not follow from anything -- save for maybe underlying egalitarian sentiments -- and is just laid out there.? Also, if one agrees with an egalitarian underpinning, it's hard to see why this would and should be limited to land.? Why not to labor and even to people?? Georgists tend to hold views that land is special in this case, but often this goes back to economic arguments or ad hoc moral ones.? (Of course, I'm speaking as a critic of Georgism (and its supposed libertarian variant geoism).) Regards, Dan *? Note that not all unintended consequences are bad. From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Jul 9 23:32:08 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 09 Jul 2009 18:32:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.co m> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> At 05:24 AM 7/9/2009 -0400, Rafal wrote: [Stathis:] > > I don't think the evidence, such as it is, > > warrants the conclusion that the world would be a less violent place > > if the average IQ increased to 140. > >### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: > >http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html "Hypothetically, then, randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent" Yes. And since stupid people are perhaps more likely to depend on brute force rather than cunning (except among themselves), one might expect less violence and certainly less crime if IQs were universally boosted--unless newly high-IQ pests became even more bored, frustrated and intrusive, like script kiddies with their fun viruses. Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12790 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 10 01:07:27 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 18:07:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] taxifornia state budget Message-ID: <097AED7CF95340F392E1C9259EB08858@spike> We have been hearing how the four horsehumans of the apocalypse will be unleashed, should we fail to enact certain tax increases in the recent Taxifornia election. All failed, which is the voters way of saying, Show us this apocalypse. Check this budget tool. You get to play Taxifornia legislature. In order to close the yawning chasm without raising taxes (which are already far too high) you really need to take some draconian measures. This online game should be required before anyone gets a ballot: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-statebudget-fl-2,0,6957202.htmlstory As goes Taxifornia, so goes the nation. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From emlynoregan at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 01:43:35 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:13:35 +0930 Subject: [ExI] META: Webmail backup freeware In-Reply-To: References: <710b78fc0907090610y6d0a3962mf21d4a7023b82812@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907091843x5679d5c7o2c1df58bb0d3ec0c@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/9 Stathis Papaioannou : > 2009/7/9 Emlyn : > >> It'd be nice if there was an online alternative; somewhere you could >> sign up, point it at your gmail etc, and it'd periodically backup to >> some different online space. Ideally the whole thing would work >> without you doing anything else from that point forth (it'd just be >> online services talking to each other), and it would be as close as >> possible to free :-) > > Am I naive in assuming that Google manages their computer system so > that I don't need to worry about additional backup? > > > -- > Stathis Papaioannou I think people's concern with backup here is that google might fall over or discontinue gmail without warning. It seems unlikely now, but these things do happen. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 04:22:55 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:22:55 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership" In-Reply-To: <888725.12218.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <888725.12218.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/10 Dan : >> As for what type the shares will be, that >> should ultimately be up to the shareholders. > > And you seem to have definite ideas on just what shareholders would decide and how they should decide it.? I think, instead, the common law property approach would be best.? Yes, in some cases, it might mean an ownership arrangement that's entangled, but I doubt that'd be so in every case.? And I think it would almost never be the case that people wouldn't be allowed to sell shares.? In fact, I would think any case where a publicly stolen property were returned or turned over to a group -- say, a group of taxpayers who were forced, over the years to pay for that property -- with the stipulation that each shareholder (and I'd expect shares to be held by the level of taxation -- not equally unless all suffered equal taxation) could not sell her or his shares that this was not actually turning property back to its original owners was illegitimate.? If, afterward, all such owners -- not the majority, but all -- decided no one could sell her or his > ?shares or could only do so with majority consent is another matter. I gave this as one example of what might be done if people are quite happy to continue managing a public resource as a public resource. They might decide that roads should be treated differently to a telecommunication company or airline that is being privatised, for example, with a different share structure. If these really were "stolen" from an individual or corporation then there may be a case for returning them to the previous owner, but if they were built up on public land with public funds, then they should be returned to the public, or if privatised the money thus obtained returned to the public. >> You seem to hold as a basic >> moral principle, "free trade is always right". > > I'm not sure what exactly you mean by "free trade" in this context.? I've not made any secrete here of my core principle for social interaction: noninitiation of force.? This, of course, requires some fleshing out for context -- viz., to understand just what is meant by initiating force here. > >> But this is just >> something that you have taken a fancy to; > > How would you know that?? I presume, e.g., that whatever principles you have that you earnestly hold are ones you believe to be correct and not ones you've merely taken a fancy to.? (That said, when I think your principles make no sense or are otherwise wrong in a sort of obvious (to me) way, I mgiht think you've not thought about them closely enough.? But I'm not sure I'd believe you merely woke up one day and said, "Well, my views don't have much grounding, but I feel like it'd be fun to hold the view that the public should own things and I fancy I'll pretend it makes sense.? It'll be such fun to mess with Dan!":) > >> it isn't like a scientific law or a mathematical theorem. > > I would argue that the core libertarian principle is something akin to a mathematical theorem. That's the part that worries me. An a priori truth is not changed if people suffer. >> For example, most people would not >> support the idea that you should be able to sell yourself >> into >> slavery, or that you should be able to sell the atmosphere >> and cut of the oxygen supply to anyone who can't pay. > > I'm not sure how this applies to either free trade or to noninitiation of force. ?To wit, the usual libertarian take on slavery is that it's forbidden tout court. ?To wit, the usual libertarian take on selling air is that, under most circumstances, it's a free good and people just have a right to it as is. ?(That said, there are special circumstances where it becomes an economic good -- i.e., a good one would economize and so possibly buy and sell -- such as at high altitudes, in space, and underwater.) ?This means, it's just a ground condition no one can take away from someone else. ?Yes, someone might be able to someday buy the sky, but they wouldn't likely have the ability to say, "I own the air around you, so you must pay me if you plan on having any." I can freely sell you the atmosphere above my house, and lease it back from you. If the lease expires you can freely increase the air rent to whatever you want, and I can freely agree to the price or else stop breathing. If I continue to breathe then I am stealing your property, and you are within your rights to prevent me from doing so, using violent means if necessary. If I can't pay and wish to continue breathing you might agree to let me be your slave for life, and I can freely accept or reject your offer. Is there anything wrong with any of this? > One way to examine this issue is perhaps to look at the case of water rights on a river. ?Imagine a bunch of people homestead property on a river. ?Let's say they use the river as a source of water -- say, for drinking, washing, and farming. ?Someone upstream from them can't decide she owns the river up there and dam it without their approval and then charge them for water. ?That would cut off their water supply. ?In a sense, and this lines up with common law notions of property, those people don't just have a right to the land along the river, but also to the water supply from it. ?One could make a similar argument for air. ?Someone couldn't homestead all the air and then cut these people off and charge them for air. But if I sell or give you my part of the river, I lose my right to it. >> Moral or economic principles should not be established >> a priori and followed to ridiculous ends, no matter what. >> That was the mistake of the Soviets. > > The Soviets had a completely different stand in regards to both moral and economic principles.? They did not hold any a priori principles in this regard -- and took a firm stand against apriorism.? IIRC, their actual view was the Party itself decides which principles are to hold at any time -- kind of negating the notion of principles or of any principle other than obedience to the Party.? Also, purely in terms of economics, Marxism -- and Soviet ideology followed it in this respect -- does not hold any a priori economic principles.? IIRC, Marx and Engels sided with the German Historicist school -- a school famous for believing that there are no economic laws aside from particular regularities for specific historical settings.? In other words, economic laws are not eternal or immutable, but determined purely by historical context.? (This view of economic laws was used by socialists and nationalists (later on, fascists) to argue against things like > ?the > ?Law of Supply and Demand or any critique of their specific economic policies.) > > Also, with Marxists in general, and the Soviets in particular, wasn't the belief here that economic regularities were, at best, merely manifestations of a given stage of social development?? I.e., primitive communism had its economics laws, ancient slave societies theirs, feudalism its, various stages of capitalism its various laws, and later stages -- socialism and eventual communism -- its newer laws that would not fit the earlier stages? Marx believed in historical progress towards communism as a scientific law, which I suppose does make it a posteriori rather than a priori. But the point I was making is that the Soviets believed this so completely that they ignored any evidence to the contrary; for example, they ignored any evidence suggesting that the working class in their capitalist neighbours were better off and their lot materially improving, because, well, you can't argue with a scientific law! I see something similar happening with those who worship the free market. Faced with evidence that people are happier and better off with (for example) public health or public education, they *know* that this can't be right, and their challenge is to find the flaw, like finding the flaw in a design for a perpetual motion machine. > I would also distinguish between moral and economic principles.? The former are normative -- telling one what should be done; the latter are descriptive -- telling one what happens under such and such conditions.? For instance, there might be a moral principle to not to coerce, but there is no such economic one.? Instead, as an economist, one might ask what happens when there is coercion.? In fact, many economic analyses of old were examinations of just what happened under different forms of coercion.? For instance, how rent control causes housing shortages.? Now, from a purely economic standpoint, one can recognize that rent control causes housing shortages, but economics as economics does not tell one that one should be for, against, or indifferent to rent control.? (Of course, one could make an argument against coercion based on it having undesireable unintended consequences.*? But this requires the person actually disvalue the undesireable > ?unintended consequences more than she or he values other aspects of coercion.? For instance, I've heard many statists argue that, yes, public schooling really does suck, but they still value it because they value things like molding people to the national ideology or having most or all have a common experience of that institution.) > > I bring up this distinction because whatever our disagreements on moral principles, I think there are valid economic laws and a valid economic science regardless. Yes, although in practice economists tend to be prescriptive in a way that scientists generally are. I also have an issue with your definition of "coercion". If an economic or political system leads to an impoverished underclass at the mercy of the wealthy capitalists, then you might think that's OK because they weren't "coerced" into this state, but I would disagree. A gross maldistribution of the world's resources is evidence that the haves have stolen from the have-nots, even if they have done so by cleverly adhering to the laws relating to voluntary exchange. My example of selling the atmosphere and debt slavery is a case in point. > As I said, "Granted, if people who justly owned these decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's another story."? If the people who actually justly own Nova Scotia -- who actually own it and NOT who merely are members of the public or citizens or whatever entity (or alternate classification) you prefer to repair to -- decide on a particular process (one that doesn't, of course, violate rights), that's their call. You're fixated on the idea that someone must own everything. What's wrong with the idea that some land might be held in common by the people who live there? > Any collective is only composed of individuals.? Collectives do not have any special rights apart from their individuals.? Yes, a particular collective could come to own property -- just like individuals.? But it has claim over and above individual claims.? And a collective would still have to obtain property via just means -- viz., via either homesteading, trade, or gift. If you push the definition of homesteading then you can say that public land is owned by the public by means of homesteading. For example, you can apply this to a town hall erected on previously unowned land using public money. > Georgism's problems in this respect are manifold, but can, I believe, be divided into two sets: moral ones and economic ones.? A major economic one is how to figure out rent on land and who gets it.? Elsewhere, others and I have shown, I believe, this to be an insoluble problem. > > The main moral one, from a libertarian standpoint, is the view that all land is held in common or collectively.? This claim seems to not follow from anything -- save for maybe underlying egalitarian sentiments -- and is just laid out there.? Also, if one agrees with an egalitarian underpinning, it's hard to see why this would and should be limited to land.? Why not to labor and even to people?? Georgists tend to hold views that land is special in this case, but often this goes back to economic arguments or ad hoc moral ones.? (Of course, I'm speaking as a critic of Georgism (and its supposed libertarian variant geoism).) There may be practical arguments against Georgism, but the position that all land is the common property of humanity is no less ad hoc than your contention that everything has to be owned by someone. In fact, in Australian and North American aboriginal cultures the idea that land could be owned by an individual was considered bizarre. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 04:36:55 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 14:36:55 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/10 Damien Broderick : >> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html > > "Hypothetically, then, randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals > would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent" > > Yes. And since stupid people are perhaps more likely to depend on brute > force rather than cunning (except among themselves), one might expect less > violence and certainly less crime if IQs were universally boosted--unless > newly high-IQ pests became even more bored, frustrated and intrusive, like > script kiddies with their fun viruses. But perhaps it is the IQ differential rather than absolute IQ which leads to the difference in violent behaviour; i.e., you use brute force when you can't outsmart someone. The conclusion that boosting IQ would decrease crime is not supported by the evidence given even if the evidence is accepted at face value. -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 05:04:55 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:04:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907092204t6a566f70n18e40db2255e1f09@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:48 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: >> >> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html and other >> pages there, especially >> >> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html > > The cited papers claim a "moderate correlation". That is not > equivalent to claiming that if people were smarter there would be less > violent crime. ### Read again. "randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent (i.e., from 60 percent to 40 percent)?certainly a meaningful change." ------------------ There are far, far greater differences in crime rates > between different countries and different regions within a country, > not accounted for by IQ variation. And even if it is accepted that IQ > is a predictor of crime all else being equal, it is still possible > that, for example, it is not IQ per se but IQ *inequality* that is the > cause of the problem, so that if the average IQ were raised but the IQ > spread remained the same the violent crime rate would remain > unchanged. ### Read http://law.jrank.org/pages/1365/Intelligence-Crime-Explaining-IQ-crime-correlation.html ------------------------ Also, you still haven't addressed the possibility that the > really terrible crimes that often go unpunished and don't show up in > statistics - demagogues inciting war and other violence - are due to > high IQ individuals. I'm all in favour of making people smarter, but I > have little confidence that it will make them nicer. ### OK, are you going to withdraw your assertion that low IQ does not predict increased criminality? You seem to be veering off into other issues now. Rafal From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 05:56:07 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 15:56:07 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907092204t6a566f70n18e40db2255e1f09@mail.gmail.com> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907092204t6a566f70n18e40db2255e1f09@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/10 Rafal Smigrodzki : > On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:48 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> >>> ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: >>> >>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html and other >>> pages there, especially >>> >>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html >> >> The cited papers claim a "moderate correlation". That is not >> equivalent to claiming that if people were smarter there would be less >> violent crime. > > ### Read again. "randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals > would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent (i.e., from > 60 percent to 40 percent)?certainly a meaningful change." And that's a completely unwarranted assumption based on the evidence of correlation. It's like discovering that people in prison are of below average height, and concluding that increasing the average height of the population will decrease crime. > There are far, far greater differences in crime rates >> between different countries and different regions within a country, >> not accounted for by IQ variation. And even if it is accepted that IQ >> is a predictor of crime all else being equal, it is still possible >> that, for example, it is not IQ per se but IQ *inequality* that is the >> cause of the problem, so that if the average IQ were raised but the IQ >> spread remained the same the violent crime rate would remain >> unchanged. > > ### Read http://law.jrank.org/pages/1365/Intelligence-Crime-Explaining-IQ-crime-correlation.html That article includes various speculations as to whether and how there may be a causal link between low IQ and crime, given the evidence showing that there is some association. > Also, you still haven't addressed the possibility that the >> really terrible crimes that often go unpunished and don't show up in >> statistics - demagogues inciting war and other violence - are due to >> high IQ individuals. I'm all in favour of making people smarter, but I >> have little confidence that it will make them nicer. > > ### OK, are you going to withdraw your assertion that low IQ does not > predict increased criminality? You seem to be veering off into other > issues now. It's a variation of the idea that brighter people not only are less likely to get caught if they commit a crime, but even better if they are really bright, do terrible things to others without having it recognised as a crime; for example, war. I would have thought that you would be sympathetic to this idea, given that you believe that government is by its nature violent. If I remember correctly, that was the original point from which this discussion took off. --Stathis Papaioannou From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 06:18:22 2009 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 02:18:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] META: Webmail backup freeware In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907091843x5679d5c7o2c1df58bb0d3ec0c@mail.gmail.com> References: <710b78fc0907090610y6d0a3962mf21d4a7023b82812@mail.gmail.com> <710b78fc0907091843x5679d5c7o2c1df58bb0d3ec0c@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <62c14240907092318o6aebb8e8q13f8fc7ffdd3075a@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 9:43 PM, Emlyn wrote: >> Am I naive in assuming that Google manages their computer system so >> that I don't need to worry about additional backup? >> Stathis Papaioannou > > I think people's concern with backup here is that google might fall > over or discontinue gmail without warning. It seems unlikely now, but > these things do happen. Also it is possible that your gmail account can be hijacked - leaving you suddenly without 8Gb of message history. From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 14:06:40 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 11:06:40 -0300 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com><7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <76BE3B73D74340D6B9AE928A7AFB124D@pcnx6325> Damien Broderick> Yes. And since stupid people are perhaps more likely to depend on > brute force rather than cunning (except among themselves), one might > expect less violence and certainly less crime if IQs were universally > boosted--unless newly high-IQ pests became even more bored, frustrated and > intrusive, like script kiddies with their fun viruses. Do the terms criminal mastermind and evil genius ring a bell? What if the reason why smart criminals are not in prisons is just because they are smart enough to succesfully avoid being caught? I'm exaggerating, off course. Once upon a time (mid nineties) there was a very (in)famous criminal here called Leonardo Pareja who was raised in a middle class family and had a high IQ. In prison he become the leader of the inmates and succesfully lead a prison break (43 inmates evaded!). He eventually was recaptured and ended up being murdered in the cell (http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/10/world/notorious-brazilian-convict-slain-in-prison.html). From fauxever at sprynet.com Fri Jul 10 14:40:37 2009 From: fauxever at sprynet.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:40:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re:Private and government R&D References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com><866389.9690.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com><7641ddc60907022124h438cbbedt5e600a88da1e4ab2@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com><7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com><20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> <76BE3B73D74340D6B9AE928A7AFB124D@pcnx6325> Message-ID: From: "Henrique Moraes Machado" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 7:06 AM > Do the terms criminal mastermind and evil genius ring a bell? Yeah. Who can forget Ted Kaczynski? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Olga From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 10 15:28:22 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:28:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Evil genius/was Re: No need for radical changes in human nature In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <23432.10000.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/10/09, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> Do the terms criminal mastermind and evil genius ring >> a bell? > > Yeah.? Who can forget Ted Kaczynski? > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unabomber Yeah, but how many of his type are there? Are they more or less prevalent as intelligence rises? I, too, wouldn't make a strong case for intelligence increase leading to lower crime overall. But I do think there's some correlation -- even if only because intelligent people tend to, overall, think longer term. Does this mean their criminal schemes might simply be longer term ones? Perhaps, but my guess is, on average, the longer term the think, the less inclined it will be toward harming others. Needn't be so, as one can imagine someone, say, with the long term plan of exterminating all life. He might think long and hard and know this will require cooperation with many others and at least some level of social harmony to carry out -- though, presuming almost everyone else would be against such a plan, it'd require massive deception which, too, would seem to require thinking ahead and a higher level of intelligence. Regards, Dan From aware at awareresearch.com Fri Jul 10 15:32:29 2009 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:32:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re:Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> <76BE3B73D74340D6B9AE928A7AFB124D@pcnx6325> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 7:40 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > From: "Henrique Moraes Machado" > To: "ExI chat list" > Sent: Friday, July 10, 2009 7:06 AM > >> Do the terms criminal mastermind and evil genius ring a bell? > > Yeah. ?Who can forget Ted Kaczynski? In my opinion, this simple and "obvious" line of reasoning neglects the increasingly significant reality that the dominant drivers of intelligence are increasingly external to the individual human agent. I had hoped that Spike's recent "isolated on an island, recreating civilization" scenario might have driven this home, but it went almost nowhere. Enthusiasm for nootropic supplements, celebration of individual genius, endless discussion of a singleton godlike AI: all of these neglect the systems-theoretic essential importance of environment to the expression of the the traits of any adapted (evolved) system and more pointedly, it's ongoing adaptation and effectiveness within a complex and changing environment. Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. - Jef From aware at awareresearch.com Fri Jul 10 16:15:00 2009 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:15:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Evil genius/was Re: No need for radical changes in human nature In-Reply-To: <23432.10000.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <23432.10000.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Dan wrote: > I, too, wouldn't make a strong case for intelligence increase leading to lower crime overall. ?But I do think there's some correlation -- even if only because intelligent people tend to, overall, think longer term. ?Does this mean their criminal schemes might simply be longer term ones? ?Perhaps, but my guess is, on average, the longer term the think, the less inclined it will be toward harming others. ?Needn't be so, as one can imagine someone, say, with the long term plan of exterminating all life. ?He might think long and hard and know this will require cooperation with many others and at least some level of social harmony to carry out -- though, presuming almost everyone else would be against such a plan, it'd require massive deception which, too, would seem to require thinking ahead and a higher level of intelligence. Dan, although I agree with the thrust of your thinking, I would suggest you consider, rather than "thinking longer term", "thinking within a greater context." Thinking longer term is good, and supports your line of argument, but being essentially sequential, it's like constructing a cantilever, weaker the further it is extended. Thinking within a greater context exploits a wider, multidimensional base, like the more robust construction of a pyramid. Either way you aim to integrate the maximum volume of relevant considerations. The former seems simpler, in a 20th Century way of thinking about prediction that assumed increasing instrumentality implied increasing certainty. The latter is more robust and more appropriate to maximizing instrumental effectiveness within an increasingly uncertain future. - Jef From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 10 16:24:54 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:24:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Evil genius In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <85536.66905.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/10/09, Aware wrote: > On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 8:28 AM, Dan wrote: > > > I, too, wouldn't make a strong case for intelligence > increase leading to lower crime overall. ?But I do think > there's some correlation -- even if only because intelligent > people tend to, overall, think longer term. ?Does this mean > their criminal schemes might simply be longer term ones? > ?Perhaps, but my guess is, on average, the longer term the > think, the less inclined it will be toward harming others. > ?Needn't be so, as one can imagine someone, say, with the > long term plan of exterminating all life. ?He might think > long and hard and know this will require cooperation with > many others and at least some level of social harmony to > carry out -- though, presuming almost everyone else would be > against such a plan, it'd require massive deception which, > too, would seem to require thinking ahead and a higher level > of intelligence. > > Dan, although I agree with the thrust of your thinking, I > would > suggest you consider, rather than "thinking longer term", > "thinking > within a greater context." > > Thinking longer term is good, and supports your line of > argument, but > being essentially sequential, it's like constructing a > cantilever, > weaker the further it is extended. > > Thinking within a greater context exploits a wider, > multidimensional > base, like the more robust construction of a pyramid. > > Either way you aim to integrate the maximum volume of > relevant > considerations.? The former seems simpler, in a 20th > Century way of > thinking about prediction that assumed increasing > instrumentality > implied increasing certainty. The latter is more robust and > more > appropriate to maximizing instrumental effectiveness within > an increasingly uncertain future. This is a good point. I think the two are related and I'm perhaps unconsciously wedded to longer term thinking simply because there's some data on it. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 10 16:32:56 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 09:32:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Evil genius, further thoughts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <924405.96198.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Given the comments by Damien and others, I also wonder if what's going on here is not so much evil people leveraging their increased intelligence to do more bad things, but simply better technology and other improvements allowing evil people to do more damage. Damien's example of "script kiddies with their fun viruses." I don't think it's so much that these kiddies wouldn't be daft in earlier times, but that their antics would've been a lot less global. Maybe they'd burn down the barn a few hundred years ago, but they'd be less likely of doing much more than that -- save in rare cases. (John Law and the Mississippi Bubble comes to mind as an example of how intelligence might go wrong in such a way that it harms lots of people in earlier times. In Law's case, however, it's debatable whether he was an evil genius, but he definitely appears to have been very intelligent.) Regards, Dan From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Jul 10 18:53:55 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:53:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907030143m53159385pdbf64493b13d12d6@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <4A578E43.7010101@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/10 Damien Broderick : > >>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html >> "Hypothetically, then, randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals >> would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent" >> >> Yes. And since stupid people are perhaps more likely to depend on brute >> force rather than cunning (except among themselves), one might expect less >> violence and certainly less crime if IQs were universally boosted--unless >> newly high-IQ pests became even more bored, frustrated and intrusive, like >> script kiddies with their fun viruses. > > But perhaps it is the IQ differential rather than absolute IQ which > leads to the difference in violent behaviour; i.e., you use brute > force when you can't outsmart someone. The conclusion that boosting IQ > would decrease crime is not supported by the evidence given even if > the evidence is accepted at face value. High IQ people could resort to violence and crime when they can not outsmart their opponent in not-violent, not-criminal ways. But they would have more to lose resorting to violence than lower IQ people. The problem with crime, in this case, is how much costly and dangerous is to resort to crime and violence. High IQ people could base their behaviour on a more rational choice and planning, where lower IQ people would act more irrational and emotional and usually they will plan poorly or not plan. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 00:37:22 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 10:37:22 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A578E43.7010101@libero.it> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> <4A578E43.7010101@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/11 Mirco Romanato : >> But perhaps it is the IQ differential rather than absolute IQ which >> leads to the difference in violent behaviour; i.e., you use brute >> force when you can't outsmart someone. The conclusion that boosting IQ >> would decrease crime is not supported by the evidence given even if >> the evidence is accepted at face value. > > High IQ people could resort to violence and crime when they can not > outsmart their opponent in not-violent, not-criminal ways. But they > would have more to lose resorting to violence than lower IQ people. > > The problem with crime, in this case, is how much costly and dangerous > is to resort to crime and violence. High IQ people could base their > behaviour on a more rational choice and planning, where lower IQ people > would act more irrational and emotional and usually they will plan > poorly or not plan. A very intelligent person might *rationally plan* violence: for example, he might figure out a way to have himself appointed king, build up an army, and invade his weaker or duller neighbours. This kind of thing has led to more violence and suffering in the world than the impulse to hit someone and steal their wallet. -- Stathis Papaioannou From max at maxmore.com Sat Jul 11 01:03:49 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 20:03:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Daily dose of humor Message-ID: <200907110103.n6B13xmM003112@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Sorry, completely irrelevant to the List, except that a regular dose of humor is good for your life span: Hitler Reacts to the Half Blood Prince Movie Delay http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXnt8_okeRA ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 01:55:10 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:55:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Daily dose of humor In-Reply-To: <200907110103.n6B13xmM003112@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907110103.n6B13xmM003112@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670907101855g2d2116f1p10d7516af4714e02@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 6:03 PM, Max More wrote: > Sorry, completely irrelevant to the List, except that a regular dose of > humor is good for your life span: > > Hitler Reacts to the Half Blood Prince Movie Delay > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXnt8_okeRA > Ironically, he reacted just the same way when BYU was defeated! lol My favorite of these is the one where Hitler is enraged about being banned from Runescape Online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RX-JHz7NToE&feature=related Adolph Hitler was one of the biggest evil scumbags in history and so I say may he burn in Hell forever. I feel these comedic youtube videos help to crush the remaining shards of his cult of personality by poking fun at him. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkhenson at rogers.com Sat Jul 11 05:01:17 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 22:01:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Rapamycin Extends Lifespan Of Old Mice: 28 To 38 Percent Message-ID: <1247289005_53031@s1.cableone.net> This is impressive. Keith >Resent-From: cryonet-list at cryonet.org > >CryoNet - Fri 10 Jul 2009 > >[Note: A special more bioavailable microencapsulated form of >rapamycin was used.] > >http://www.uthscsa.edu/hscnews/singleformat.asp?newID=3138 > >Easter Island compound extends lifespan of old mice, scientists >report in Nature > >Posted: Wednesday, July 08, 2009 >Contact: Will Sansom, (210) 567-2579 > >UT Health Science Center, other centers reach same result: 28%-38% longer life > >SAN ANTONIO (July 8, 2009)-The giant monoliths of Easter Island are >worn, but they have endured for centuries. New research suggests >that a compound first discovered in the soil of the South Pacific >island might help us stand the test of time, too. > >Today in the journal Nature, The University of Texas Health Science >Center at San Antonio and two collaborating centers reported that >the Easter Island compound - called "rapamycin" after the island's >Polynesian name, Rapa Nui - extended the expected lifespan of >middle-aged mice by 28 percent to 38 percent. In human terms, this >would be greater than the predicted increase in extra years of life >if cancer and heart disease were both cured and prevented. > >The rapamycin was given to the mice at an age equivalent to 60 years >old in humans. > >The studies are part of the National Institute on Aging (NIA) >Interventions Testing Program, which seeks compounds that might help >people remain active and disease-free throughout their lives. The >other two centers involved are the University of Michigan at Ann >Arbor and Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine. > >The Texas study was led by scientists at two institutes at the UT >Health Science Center: the Institute of Biotechnology (IBT) and the >Barshop Institute for Longevity and Aging Studies. > >"I've been in aging research for 35 years and there have been many >so-called 'anti-aging' interventions over those years that were >never successful," said Arlan G. Richardson, Ph.D., director of the >Barshop Institute. "I never thought we would find an anti-aging pill >for people in my lifetime; however, rapamycin shows a great deal of >promise to do just that." > >Versatile compound > >Discovered in the 1970s, rapamycin was first noted for its >anti-fungal properties and later was used to prevent organ rejection >in transplant patients. It also is used in stents, which are >implanted in patients during angioplasty to keep coronary arteries >open. It is in clinical trials for the treatment of cancer. > >The new aging experiments found that adding rapamycin to the diet of >older mice increased their lifespan. The results were the same in >Texas, Michigan and Maine. > >"We believe this is the first convincing evidence that the aging >process can be slowed and lifespan can be extended by a drug therapy >starting at an advanced age," said Randy Strong, Ph.D., who directs >the NIA-funded Aging Interventions Testing Center in San Antonio. He >is a professor of pharmacology at the UT Health Science Center and a >senior research career scientist with the South Texas Veterans >Health Care System. > >The findings have "interesting implications for our understanding of >the aging process," said Z. Dave Sharp, Ph.D., director of the >Institute of Biotechnology and professor and chairman of the Health >Science Center's Department of Molecular Medicine. > >"In addition," Dr. Sharp said, "the findings have immediate >implications for preventive medicine and human health, in that >rapamycin is already in clinical usage." > >Molecular pathway > >Aging researchers currently acknowledge only two life-extending >interventions in mammals: calorie restriction and genetic >manipulation. Rapamycin appears to partially shut down the same >molecular pathway as restricting food intake or reducing growth factors. > >It does so through a cellular protein called mTOR (mammalian target >of rapamycin), which controls many processes in cell metabolism and >responses to stress. > >A decade ago, Dr. Sharp proposed to his colleagues that mTOR might >be involved in calorie restriction. "It seemed like an off-the-wall >idea at that time," Dr. Richardson said. > >In 2004, a year after the launch of the NIA Interventions Testing >Program, Dr. Sharp submitted a proposal that rapamycin be studied >for anti-aging effects. The proposal was approved, and testing >centers in San Antonio and elsewhere began to include rapamycin in >the diets of mice. > >The male and female mice were cross-bred from four different strains >of mice to more closely mimic the genetic diversity and disease >susceptibility of the human population. > >Dr. Strong soon recognized a problem: Rapamycin was not stable >enough in food or in the digestive tract to register in the animals' >blood level. He worked with the Southwest Research Institute in San >Antonio to improve the bioavailability of the compound through a >process called microencapsulation. The reformulated drug was stable >in the diet fed to the mice and bypassed the stomach to release in >the intestine, where it could more reliably enter the bloodstream. > >Older mice > >The original goal was to begin feeding the mice at 4 months of age, >but because of the delay caused by developing the new formulation, >the mice were not started until they were 20 months old - the >equivalent of 60 years of age in humans. > >The teams decided to try the rapamycin intervention anyway. > >"I did not think that it would work because the mice were too old >when the treatment was started," Dr. Richardson said. "Most reports >indicate that calorie restriction doesn't work when implemented in >old animals. The fact that rapamycin increases lifespan in >relatively old mice was totally unexpected." > >Added Dr. Strong: "This study has clearly identified a potential >therapeutic target for the development of drugs aimed at preventing >age-related diseases and extending healthy lifespan. If rapamycin, >or drugs like rapamycin, works as envisioned, the potential >reduction in overall health cost for the U.S. and the world will be enormous." > >Leaders of the other interventions testing centers are Richard >Miller, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Michigan and David >Harrison, Ph.D., at the Jackson Laboratories. From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Jul 11 11:08:48 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:08:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> <4A578E43.7010101@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A5872C0.8000109@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/11 Mirco Romanato : >> The problem with crime, in this case, is how much costly and dangerous >> is to resort to crime and violence. High IQ people could base their >> behaviour on a more rational choice and planning, where lower IQ people >> would act more irrational and emotional and usually they will plan >> poorly or not plan. > A very intelligent person might *rationally plan* violence: for > example, he might figure out a way to have himself appointed king, > build up an army, and invade his weaker or duller neighbours. This > kind of thing has led to more violence and suffering in the world than > the impulse to hit someone and steal their wallet. The high IQ would-be king need to be supported by low IQ people that will follow him, do what he say and are easy to fool around. If the population have their IQ raised 10 point, it would be much more difficult for him to make the case for a war, if there is no reason to go in war and reasons to live in peace with the neighbours. Anyway, higher IQ is only a part of the equation, not all of it. A greater ability to manage emotions is also useful. Ability to delay gratification is synergistic with high IQ in obtaining goals and not doing something stupid. People could have an higher IQ and be emotionally weak and succumb to emotions or be manipulable by people with lower IQ but a better management of emotion. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Jul 11 11:22:53 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:22:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: Rapamycin Extends Lifespan Of Old Mice: 28 To 38 Percent In-Reply-To: <1247289005_53031@s1.cableone.net> References: <1247289005_53031@s1.cableone.net> Message-ID: <4A58760D.1060807@libero.it> hkhenson ha scritto: > This is impressive. I'm the only to remember a SF book about a scientist discovering a drug in a Mongolian lichen that initially they believe to be antibiotic and then they discover be anti-aging? The news, also, highlight how scientific discoveries often are unexpected. They went out to test the drugs on young rats and they ended testing the drug on older ones. They believed to find nothing but found something interesting. Probably the drugs could not be stored enough time to be used with a new rat cohort or another rat cohort would cost too much or the time allotted for the research was running out. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 11:31:45 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:31:45 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <4A5872C0.8000109@libero.it> References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <20090709233204886.KKBJ19322@cdptpa-omta02.mail.rr.com> <4A578E43.7010101@libero.it> <4A5872C0.8000109@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/11 Mirco Romanato : > The high IQ would-be king need to be supported by low IQ people that > will follow him, do what he say and are easy to fool around. > If the population have their IQ raised 10 point, it would be much more > difficult for him to make the case for a war, if there is no reason to > go in war and reasons to live in peace with the neighbours. Perhaps if everyone's IQ was raised by an equal amount, including the would-be king's, he would still have a relative intellectual advantage and be able to work his mischief. I think there is a natural tendency for each person to consider himself at least clever enough to be immune from manipulation, even by someone much cleverer than he is, but I don't know that that's true. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Jul 11 14:41:49 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:41:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership"/was Re: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <562164.45591.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A58A4AD.8040507@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> Also, in the case of roads, where former private owners can't be found -- as in the case where they and their heirs are dead or untraceable -- then the proper thing to do is to put them back into the state of unclaimed properties and allow them to be homesteaded. (And not everyone would have an equal right to homestead here -- unlike with purely unowned items. Why? Some -- specifically, those in government and those, more or less directly connected to government, cannot have an equal claim to homestead as their actions or the actions of their criminal organizations served to place or maintain such properties in a state where their original owners lost them or could not get them back. Thus, in former socialist nations, the party members should NOT have any claims on factories or other stolen property.) > Homesteading is one way of distributing public land. Perhaps there are > other ways. Who should decide what is the best and fairest thing to > do? The problem on returning stolen goods to their original owners is that often they don't exist any more. Homesteading is, IMHO, the best way to let people take land not owned by anyone. But land owned by the government that must free itself of it, it is better sold at the higher bidder (in small lots) and the money used to repay the debts of the government. If any money are left, divide it between the citizens. It could not be the perfect solution, but it would be, at least, equally unjust with all. > Why insist that homesteading is the only just way to do things? Why > not say, for example, that land belongs to the collective, and anyone > who uses land must lease it from the collective, as per Henry George? Collectives don't exist. They are fictions between individuals. Take away the individuals and the collective disappear. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Jul 11 15:09:26 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 17:09:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Are you asking if I would buy these shares in an initial public >> offering? > > No, that would be a quite different situation. The shares are issued > to everyone for free, with the option of voting to change the > structure so that they can be sold and accumulated. You assume that > the shareholders would vote to do this, and maybe they would. But they > might also choose to leave things as they are, just as voters choose > to leave some assets and organisations in public control and to > privatise others. Now I understand that you think privatising > everything is for the best, and perhaps you also think that left to > their own devices people will decide to do just that. But what should > be done if, foolishly, they choose to keep some things communally > owned? Obviously nothing, if they really want this. The problems arises when they have no option about it. In the example of city street privately owned, there are limits to how much the owners of the street could charge to use the street. First, people could choose to limit as much as possible the use of street owned by the greedy capitalist. This would imply that the greedy capitalist would have the same costs but less revenues. Second, people could leave the city and go doing their business in another place, where there are less greedy capitalists owning streets. This would leave the greedy capitalist owner of the streets without clients and with fixed costs. Third, the people could retaliate against the greedy capitalist and prevent him and his minions from using any and all building facing to his streets. No shopping, not eating, no hospital, etc. In between they could build a second network of streets underground or overground. Then we could discuss how much the ownership of a road give right over the underground and the overground. Mirco From benboc at lineone.net Sat Jul 11 20:44:06 2009 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:44:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> Jef bemoaned: >Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children >alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. If one wanted to give oneself an education in systems-thinking, what would you recommend? And is it necessary or desirable to be maths-educated, or even particularly numerate, for this? Ben Zaiboc From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Jul 11 21:17:58 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 16:17:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> References: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> Message-ID: <20090711211801023.CHCX21390@cdptpa-omta03.mail.rr.com> >Jef bemoaned: > > >Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children > >alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. But declined to provide any handy clues on how this would address the question which other methods had so pathetically failed (whatever that question was, I've forgotten). Any hints, Jef? Damien Broderick E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.1.445) Database version: 6.12800 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ From benboc at lineone.net Sat Jul 11 20:58:39 2009 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:58:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A58FCFF.80307@lineone.net> This is a fun exercise, and probably many of us have idly speculated on something similar. I know I have. In fact, it's musing on this kind of thing that made me realise that in a very real way, we are defined by our technology, and without it, we are dead. Even tens of thousands of years ago, we were dependent on technology for survival, so I reckon you wouldn't need so much high-tech knowledge to survive in a sudden transplant to a new planet scenario. The low-tech would be much more important. So Iron would definitely not be a first priority. To make iron you need charcoal, coal, coke, or something similar (basically, carbon) that will burn very hot with enough oxygen. Making charcoal isn't that difficult, but it's not easy either, and would likely need a few tries before you got it right (and you'd need a LOT). In addition to the mighty bellows (which in turn would need leather - another thing that's not too hard if you know how -, a means to stitch the leather into suitable shapes, a wooden frame, maybe something like pitch or resin, and a damned good design), there's also the issue of what are you going to use as a smelting vessel. So you'd probably need pottery knowledge, to the level where you can make strong thick fireproof containers, or firebricks, and the means to assemble them into a container, and ways to control the flow of molten iron assuming you get that far. This is dredged up from vague memories of reading about such things, so there's bound to be things i've forgotten or never knew about the processes needed. Of course, you also need to find and extract suitable ore, which I know next to nothing about. Iron is something that a colony like this won't be making for quite a while, I reckon, even if there are enough people who remember enough bits of knowledge to make it all work. OTOH, glass, bronze (if you can find copper and tin), simple pottery, and of course primitive woodwork are relatively easy. Fire is the key, naturally, and fire isn't as hard to make from scratch as some people seem to think. While rubbing two sticks together will only result in swearing, a fire drill works quite well. You need a springy stick, a bit of string (some tree barks can be turned into string, or grass/reeds can work. Animal sinew or strips of leather would probably be best though), a straight stick with a pointy end, a flat bit of wood with a small hollow, a stone with a concave face, and some tinder (dried bracket fungus makes excellent tinder, but dry grass and leaves should do). With a bit of practice, this is quite a reliable way of making fire. Freshly broken glass is the sharpest thing we know of (even now), so if you can make lumps of glass and smash them up, you can make sharp knives for flensing meat and cutting up leather. Glass isn't just melted quartz though. In the spirit of the exercise, i'm not looking stuff up on t'internet, so i'm now struggling to remember how to make glass. Sand, Soda (potash might do, but i may be getting mixed up with how to make gunpowder here!), and possibly something else. I'd experiment with seashells and sand in a hot fire, see what happens. For some reason, the making of glass, concrete and gunpowder are all muddled together in my head. Um, apart from the Sulphur and Carbon bit of gunpowder, anyway. Making leather the low-tech way involves unpleasant and smelly procedures, and is best left to the strong-stomached (put your tannery next to the latrines, know what i'm sayin?). I think you need to ensure all the fat is scraped off the hides first, as well. Quite hard work. Although i seem to remember that Inuit women used to make seal-hide clothes by chewing the seal skin. A lot. Wouldn't like to try that with a pig though. So I think you could bootstrap an industrial base by starting with bark, sticks and stones, inventing fire, boiling sap to make glue (more experiments to find the right sap), making glass, then spears and bows, catching animals, making leather, digging up clay, making pots, then start the chemistry experiments to re-invent stuff like soap, cement, better glue, and making textiles, rope and string, by which time you should be able to make simple lathes which can be used to make better lathes, etc., and wooden machines. Gunpowder if you can find sulphur, and bronze if you can find copper and tin. It would be a wierd kind of hopping from one point in history to the next, because you already know the uses of certain things if you can just make them, and things like the germ theory wouldn't have to be developed, you'd already be aware of the need for good hygiene and the benefits of running water, various medical facts, etc. Steampunk! With the right natural resouces, and enough people who remember stuff like the above, and a bit of good luck, you could have a fairly decent early-industrial society going within a few months or maybe a year or two, provided people survive the first few weeks. Once the Iron problem was cracked, the world is your shellfish. You'd be Romans with guns and antibiotics. I.T. would still be some way off, and if you have people like Keith who actually do know how to build an IC, then a computer, they'd better have good genes, because it'd be decades before you'd be ready to start tinkering with such things. In the end, I reckon the major limiting factor would be the low population. Imagine an internet in a world with only a few thousand people. Ben Zaiboc From max at maxmore.com Sat Jul 11 23:11:44 2009 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:11:44 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A Better Workforce Message-ID: <200907112311.n6BNBq95009075@andromeda.ziaspace.com> MIT's Michael Schrage's articles and papers are usually quite stimulating. His latest examines issues of cognitive enhancement in the workplace. My review (and link to the full paper) is here: "A Better Workforce" by Michael Schrage http://www.manyworlds.com/exploreCO.aspx?coid=CO76091023539 Max ------------------------------------- Max More, Ph.D. Strategic Philosopher Extropy Institute Founder www.maxmore.com max at maxmore.com ------------------------------------- From emlynoregan at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 00:05:29 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 09:35:29 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Logo on Steroids: The new video game Kodu will teach you (or your kid) about programming. It's also actually fun. Message-ID: <710b78fc0907111705y6b25dc55la213ebfaff47b654@mail.gmail.com> I'm always on the lookout for programming environments that might capture my kids' imaginations. My son really got into MIT's Scratch for a while, but unfortunately it has two major problems. Firstly, you hit the walls of what you can do very quickly (or what you can do without serious programming evil). Secondly, and more importantly, it's trapped in MIT Scratch land. Your stuff goes online on their site, but you can't embed it into your own site (a huge mistake on their part). That second thing is what really doomed it for my 9 year old son. He hates a walled garden. Kodo looks interesting, but I can't help thinking the walled garden thing again applies to anything on a console. Still, it could be fun. Hmm, actually, isn't this exactly the same concept as Little Big Planet? -- Logo on Steroids The new video game Kodu will teach you (or your kid) about programming. It's also actually fun. http://www.slate.com/id/2222546/ The first computer program I ever wrote, in the second grade, was composed in pencil and ran on the platform known as my friend Nicholas. We were about to start learning Logo, the program that teaches kids how to draw things on the screen by writing out commands for a turtle. Before we got some face time with an Apple II, we had to act out the simple commands?Forward 10 steps, Left 90 degrees?in real life. I eventually succeeded in programming Nicholas to walk in a square. Logo is the most memorable in a lineage of games that have tried to make programming fun and intuitive. I was reminded of it recently when I saw a demonstration of Kodu, a newly released video game from Microsoft aimed at the 9-and-over crowd. Kodu is light years beyond Logo, with modern 3-D graphics, a world players can landscape to their liking, and a cast of characters that isn't limited to the Terrapene genus. But the mission is pretty much the same: to place kids in an open-ended environment and arm them with a simple language that lets them build things. At the risk of blaspheming my youth, I dare say that Kodu is more fun than Logo. It's also a reminder that the mission of games like these is not actually to teach kids how to write code. It's to teach them how to think like programmers. The first thing you should do in Kodu, before any of the programming stuff, is build a little world. To start with, you pave out a bit of earth and do some decorating, building mountains, digging holes, maybe filling a lake or two. Then you populate that world with trees, rocks, buildings, and other inanimate objects. Next come the characters. Among your options here are the eponymous Kodus, which look like porcine, floating submarines. Once the props and characters are in place, you start composing rules for your denizens. This is where the learning begins. First, you choose what object or character (an apple, a Kodu, a rock) your new rule will affect. Next, you choose the situation that will prompt the rule to execute (a collision or a press of a button). Last, you dictate what the object in question should do when this situation occurs (run away, fire a missile, change color). All of this is done using on-screen, graphical menus?no writing required. The end result: a command like When something bumps into this tree, make the tree glow orange or When the Kodu sees a green apple, run away. (You can watch a video demo that shows all of this in action.) Kodu offers enough different commands and characters that can be used to make games within the game. UFOs can be programmed to shoot missiles and dodge enemy combatants at the press of a button, accumulating points toward a "win condition" that ends the game when you reach a certain total. If you want to make a side-scrolling game like Super Mario Bros., you can alter the camera perspective. Equally satisfying, I found, was to build peaceful worlds that change and evolve according to my rules?a digital terrarium in which trees launch glowing fruit and little creatures mingle peacefully and multiply. As you build your world, it becomes increasingly likely you will get strange and unexpected results when all of your rules interact. In my first game, I unwittingly created a never-ending cascade of exploding apples as two of my trees perpetually provoked one another?a fantastic demonstration of the dangers of coding an infinite loop. The marriage of games and coding has often felt forced. Most attempts err on the side of being educational, which is probably why they're more often associated with school than home. The graphics in these programs have gotten progressively better since Logo's heyday, but most of them?Alice and Scratch, for example?still involve writing code. (Lego, which used to collaborate with Logo, now offers a sophisticated robotics line with a more graphical programming interface.) I loved playing Logo, but I was always aware that I was learning. Super Mario Bros. had come out three years earlier, and not too many of us would have chosen turtles over their mutant cousins the Koopa Troopas. Kodu's pedagogical mission, in contrast to its predecessors, doesn't feel contrived because it doesn't require any of that pesky writing and it has the same production quality as any other video game for kids. What are kids who play with Kodu actually learning? While Logo puts code in the foreground, Kodu deliberately keeps out any mention of variables, functions, recursion, or any other programming argot. In fact, the interface is so friendly that players can be forgiven if they don't realize that they're learning anything at all. There is not currently any obvious bridge between the game and traditional coding?you aren't taught how to write out commands, and there's no way to look under the hood to see your rules translated into traditional code. What you are learning is how to build an environment. >From a programming perspective, this is an advanced concept. Most software is still written sequentially, like Logo, with one command running after another, the same way you read a book line by line. Kodu is more like a piece of orchestral music, with lots of individual parts all playing at once. The characters you create do not patiently wait their turn to act?all of the UFOs react to all of the other UFOs, all at the same time?which is why delightful complexity is almost unavoidable after you've written a few lines of Kodu legislation. Without making any bold predictions about the future of computer science, this feels like a useful way to think about how to write a program, particularly as we move to a computing environment in which lots of parallel processors are running in tandem. That being said, Kodu's built-in language probably won't escape the bounds of the game anytime soon. Matt MacLaurin, the game's creator, says he's thought about expanding Kodu to allow players to write their own rules in code when they want to do something that's not included in the game's considerable library of tools. (By way of analogy, think of blogging platforms that let you write posts in a word-processor window but give you the option of messing with the HTML directly if you're trying to do something fancy.) While this is a sensible thing to offer down the line, it's not an essential part of Kodu's mission. Even without tinkering with code, kids will develop reasoning skills by simply messing around. That's why I recommend the game even for those of us who are over the age of 9. There is something innately appealing about dabbling in a mechanical world of your own making. Building a game forces you to think of complicated situations as the sum of simple rules. It also makes you realize that, even when you write the rules yourself, understanding the whole system isn't as easy as understanding each individual part. Predicting how lots of pieces will or won't work together is a central question in any number of fields, and Kodu is a surprisingly good microcosm of this problem. Give it a shot, even if Logo lost you at Forward 10. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From jameschoate at austin.rr.com Sun Jul 12 01:57:28 2009 From: jameschoate at austin.rr.com (jameschoate at austin.rr.com) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:57:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Logo on Steroids: The new video game Kodu will teach you (or your kid) about programming. It's also actually fun. In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907111705y6b25dc55la213ebfaff47b654@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <20090712015728.5741T.335524.root@hrndva-web03-z01> You should spend some effort in looking into the current state of Logo, it's thriving and many of the current implementations support parallel processing, multiple turtles, etc. http://www.thefreecountry.com/compilers/logo.shtml I like and intermittently use, http://www.softronix.com/logo.html http://ccl.sesp.northwestern.edu/netlogo/ You should also introduce yourself to Squeak. http://www.squeak.org/ GWBASIC is also still around... http://www.geocities.com/KindlyRat/GWBASIC.html ---- Emlyn wrote: > I'm always on the lookout for programming environments that might > capture my kids' imaginations. My son really got into MIT's Scratch > for a while, but unfortunately it has two major problems. Firstly, you > hit the walls of what you can do very quickly (or what you can do > without serious programming evil). Secondly, and more importantly, > it's trapped in MIT Scratch land. Your stuff goes online on their > site, but you can't embed it into your own site (a huge mistake on > their part). That second thing is what really doomed it for my 9 year > old son. He hates a walled garden. > > Kodo looks interesting, but I can't help thinking the walled garden > thing again applies to anything on a console. Still, it could be fun. > Hmm, actually, isn't this exactly the same concept as Little Big > Planet? > > -- > Logo on Steroids > The new video game Kodu will teach you (or your kid) about > programming. It's also actually fun. > http://www.slate.com/id/2222546/ > > The first computer program I ever wrote, in the second grade, was > composed in pencil and ran on the platform known as my friend > Nicholas. We were about to start learning Logo, the program that > teaches kids how to draw things on the screen by writing out commands > for a turtle. Before we got some face time with an Apple II, we had to > act out the simple commands?Forward 10 steps, Left 90 degrees?in real > life. I eventually succeeded in programming Nicholas to walk in a > square. > > Logo is the most memorable in a lineage of games that have tried to > make programming fun and intuitive. I was reminded of it recently when > I saw a demonstration of Kodu, a newly released video game from > Microsoft aimed at the 9-and-over crowd. Kodu is light years beyond > Logo, with modern 3-D graphics, a world players can landscape to their > liking, and a cast of characters that isn't limited to the Terrapene > genus. But the mission is pretty much the same: to place kids in an > open-ended environment and arm them with a simple language that lets > them build things. At the risk of blaspheming my youth, I dare say > that Kodu is more fun than Logo. It's also a reminder that the mission > of games like these is not actually to teach kids how to write code. > It's to teach them how to think like programmers. > > The first thing you should do in Kodu, before any of the programming > stuff, is build a little world. To start with, you pave out a bit of > earth and do some decorating, building mountains, digging holes, maybe > filling a lake or two. Then you populate that world with trees, rocks, > buildings, and other inanimate objects. Next come the characters. > Among your options here are the eponymous Kodus, which look like > porcine, floating submarines. > > Once the props and characters are in place, you start composing rules > for your denizens. This is where the learning begins. First, you > choose what object or character (an apple, a Kodu, a rock) your new > rule will affect. Next, you choose the situation that will prompt the > rule to execute (a collision or a press of a button). Last, you > dictate what the object in question should do when this situation > occurs (run away, fire a missile, change color). All of this is done > using on-screen, graphical menus?no writing required. The end result: > a command like When something bumps into this tree, make the tree glow > orange or When the Kodu sees a green apple, run away. (You can watch a > video demo that shows all of this in action.) > > Kodu offers enough different commands and characters that can be used > to make games within the game. UFOs can be programmed to shoot > missiles and dodge enemy combatants at the press of a button, > accumulating points toward a "win condition" that ends the game when > you reach a certain total. If you want to make a side-scrolling game > like Super Mario Bros., you can alter the camera perspective. Equally > satisfying, I found, was to build peaceful worlds that change and > evolve according to my rules?a digital terrarium in which trees launch > glowing fruit and little creatures mingle peacefully and multiply. As > you build your world, it becomes increasingly likely you will get > strange and unexpected results when all of your rules interact. In my > first game, I unwittingly created a never-ending cascade of exploding > apples as two of my trees perpetually provoked one another?a fantastic > demonstration of the dangers of coding an infinite loop. > > The marriage of games and coding has often felt forced. Most attempts > err on the side of being educational, which is probably why they're > more often associated with school than home. The graphics in these > programs have gotten progressively better since Logo's heyday, but > most of them?Alice and Scratch, for example?still involve writing > code. (Lego, which used to collaborate with Logo, now offers a > sophisticated robotics line with a more graphical programming > interface.) I loved playing Logo, but I was always aware that I was > learning. Super Mario Bros. had come out three years earlier, and not > too many of us would have chosen turtles over their mutant cousins the > Koopa Troopas. Kodu's pedagogical mission, in contrast to its > predecessors, doesn't feel contrived because it doesn't require any of > that pesky writing and it has the same production quality as any other > video game for kids. > > What are kids who play with Kodu actually learning? While Logo puts > code in the foreground, Kodu deliberately keeps out any mention of > variables, functions, recursion, or any other programming argot. In > fact, the interface is so friendly that players can be forgiven if > they don't realize that they're learning anything at all. There is not > currently any obvious bridge between the game and traditional > coding?you aren't taught how to write out commands, and there's no way > to look under the hood to see your rules translated into traditional > code. What you are learning is how to build an environment. > > >From a programming perspective, this is an advanced concept. Most > software is still written sequentially, like Logo, with one command > running after another, the same way you read a book line by line. Kodu > is more like a piece of orchestral music, with lots of individual > parts all playing at once. The characters you create do not patiently > wait their turn to act?all of the UFOs react to all of the other UFOs, > all at the same time?which is why delightful complexity is almost > unavoidable after you've written a few lines of Kodu legislation. > > Without making any bold predictions about the future of computer > science, this feels like a useful way to think about how to write a > program, particularly as we move to a computing environment in which > lots of parallel processors are running in tandem. That being said, > Kodu's built-in language probably won't escape the bounds of the game > anytime soon. Matt MacLaurin, the game's creator, says he's thought > about expanding Kodu to allow players to write their own rules in code > when they want to do something that's not included in the game's > considerable library of tools. (By way of analogy, think of blogging > platforms that let you write posts in a word-processor window but give > you the option of messing with the HTML directly if you're trying to > do something fancy.) > > While this is a sensible thing to offer down the line, it's not an > essential part of Kodu's mission. Even without tinkering with code, > kids will develop reasoning skills by simply messing around. That's > why I recommend the game even for those of us who are over the age of > 9. There is something innately appealing about dabbling in a > mechanical world of your own making. Building a game forces you to > think of complicated situations as the sum of simple rules. It also > makes you realize that, even when you write the rules yourself, > understanding the whole system isn't as easy as understanding each > individual part. Predicting how lots of pieces will or won't work > together is a central question in any number of fields, and Kodu is a > surprisingly good microcosm of this problem. Give it a shot, even if > Logo lost you at Forward 10. > -- > Emlyn > > http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related > http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting > http://emlynoregan.com - main site > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- -- -- -- -- Venimus, Vidimus, Dolavimus James Choate jameschoate at austin.rr.com james.choate at twcable.com 512-657-1279 www.ssz.com http://www.twine.com/twine/1128gqhxn-dwr/solar-soyuz-zaibatsu http://www.twine.com/twine/1178v3j0v-76w/confusion-research-center Adapt, Adopt, Improvise -- -- -- -- From aware at awareresearch.com Sun Jul 12 04:03:18 2009 From: aware at awareresearch.com (Aware) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 21:03:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> References: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 1:44 PM, ben wrote: > Jef bemoaned: > >>Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children >>alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. > > If one wanted to give oneself an education in systems-thinking, what would > you recommend? > And is it necessary or desirable to be maths-educated, or even particularly > numerate, for this? One might begin here: I don't see that it has much to with skill with numbers, but for me it does have a very geometrical, or rather topological aspect. For example, systems necessarily have an inside, an outside and an interface. Systems may be nested like Matrioshka dolls, and may exhibit various symmetries, hierarchies, self-similarities, growth (both positive and negative), coupling, hysteresis, and feedback loops (also both positive and negative.) Synergies, economies and dis-economies of scale come into play. More to my point of educating children, I've been playing with the idea of writing a "Child's Garden of Conceptual Archetypes." Written in language and settings appropriate for children of selected ages and phases of development, stories would entertain while engaging with the child's thinking around archetypes including the following: [in no particular order] * Synergies *Moving targets *Unasking a question *Encompassing a paradox *Encompassing a disagreement *Resonance *Damping *Equilibrium (static and dynamic) *Negative feedback *Positive feedback *Hysteresis *Delays *Oscillation *Avalanche (cascades) *Phase change *Regression to the mean *Diminishing returns *Economies of scale *Dis-economies of scale *Boom and bust cycles *Goal-seeking vs values-promoting behavior *Escalation *Shifting the burden *The importance of scale *The importance of context *Seeing the bigger picture *Fixing a problem at its source *Conservation of resources *Depletion of resources *The idea that "bigger is better" *Analysis and synthesis *Compounding of effects, of seemingly rational decisions *Figure-ground effects *Perceptual filters *Multiple levels of perspective *Sensitization *Leverage *Non-linearity (small decisions leading to big problems) *Cumulative error *Central tendency *Randomness vs uncertainty *Coupling efficiency *Hierarchies of information *Hierarchies of control *Arithmetic, geometric, exponential, logistical growth *Circular causation *Multiple cause and effect *Interconnectedness *Unintended consequences *Emergence *Structure as low-frequency change *Interdependence *Coherence *Boundaries and horizons *Everything happens at an interface *Linear, areal, volumetric scaling *Short-term vs long-term effects *Systems within systems within... *Entropy and negentropy *Solutions that create problems and so on, in some roughly reinforcing, constructive sequence. - Jef From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 05:23:48 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:23:48 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership"/was Re: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A58A4AD.8040507@libero.it> References: <562164.45591.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <4A58A4AD.8040507@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > The problem on returning stolen goods to their original owners is that > often they don't exist any more. > Homesteading is, IMHO, the best way to let people take land not owned by > anyone. But land owned by the government that must free itself of it, it > is better sold at the higher bidder (in small lots) and the money used > to repay the debts of the government. If any money are left, divide it > between the citizens. That is in fact what is usually done when it is decided (by the people who support the government) that a public enterprise is best held and managed privately. But sometimes people, rightly or wrongly, decide that some enterprises are best managed publicly, either because they are loss-making (eg. police, prisons, defence, public transport, basic science) or because they are too important to be left to the vagaries of the free market (eg. health, education). If the government did dissolve in a non-chaotic manner then one might expect that people would continue to manage these enterprises collectively. > Collectives don't exist. > They are fictions between individuals. > Take away the individuals and the collective disappear. Sure, but two people can decide to own and manage something collectively, with rights and responsibilities set out in an agreement. It may be in particular cases that this arrangement is for the worse, and if this is recognised it might be dissolved. But there is nothing wrong in principle with collective agreements. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 05:34:56 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:34:56 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > Obviously nothing, if they really want this. > The problems arises when they have no option about it. > > In the example of city street privately owned, there are limits to how > much the owners of the street could charge to use the street. > > First, people could choose to limit as much as possible the use of > street owned by the greedy capitalist. This would imply that the greedy > capitalist would have the same costs but less revenues. > > Second, people could leave the city and go doing their business in > another place, where there are less greedy capitalists owning streets. > This would leave the greedy capitalist owner of the streets without > clients and with fixed costs. > > Third, the people could retaliate against the greedy capitalist and > prevent him and his minions from using any and all building facing to > his streets. No shopping, not eating, no hospital, etc. > > In between they could build a second network of streets underground or > overground. Then we could discuss how much the ownership of a road give > right over the underground and the overground. Or they could decide not to sell the streets to private individuals. Through experience, people have decided that some things, like restaurants, are best run privately, and other things, like law enforcement and education, are best run collectively. It's OK to try to argue that your particular way of running things works better, as long as people are free to choose, preferably on the basis of evidence from past experience or observation of alternative systems around the world. Ultimately, if people make the wrong choice their country will fall further and further behind, and it will become more and more obvious that they have made the wrong choice.. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 12 11:21:03 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:21:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <580930c20907080331l566b59edh5735a8aba711b82d@mail.gmail.com> References: <434160.24265.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <580930c20907080331l566b59edh5735a8aba711b82d@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A59C71F.7050304@libero.it> Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 3:10 PM, Dan wrote: >> As one long suffering from paranoia, isn't it also possible that the Iranian government put this out in hopes of discrediting her? > > Why, the *real* discredit would come, not for her but for her > mourners, from persuasive evidence that her death was owed to > "anything" different from excessive police reaction... You suppose her death was caused by "excessive" police reaction. This could be because you think police in Iran have the same goal of police in Italy or US. I doubt it. Anyway, the death is probably caused not by a policeman but by a basiji, that are, basically, death squad used expressly to put down protesters. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 12 11:35:56 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 13:35:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > Or they could decide not to sell the streets to private individuals. This would be a Common, a tragedy of the. > Through experience, people have decided that some things, like > restaurants, are best run privately, and other things, like law > enforcement and education, are best run collectively. The real history usually is a bit different: for example education was entirely private and public education was introduced, by governments, to "help the poor" that could not pay and send the children to school. Then they enlarged the pool to the people that could pay, driving out the private providers. The fact that private providers exist after a century or more is testament that free and good rarely come together. Many societal problems we have today can be traced to the way schools and public schools were structured in the past from the governments. Maybe taking the children from the family and indoctrinating them with the government ideology is good, maybe it is not. Maybe, desocialize the children from their families and neighbours and socialize them with a bunch of same age individuals is good, maybe it is not. > It's OK to try > to argue that your particular way of running things works better, as > long as people are free to choose, preferably on the basis of evidence > from past experience or observation of alternative systems around the > world. Ultimately, if people make the wrong choice their country will > fall further and further behind, and it will become more and more > obvious that they have made the wrong choice.. It appear that the US and Europe, in many fields, are losing their advantages in respect to East Asia. Maybe they are or were doing something wrong. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 12:16:30 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:16:30 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > >> Or they could decide not to sell the streets to private individuals. > > This would be a Common, a tragedy of the. > >> Through experience, people have decided that some things, like >> restaurants, are best run privately, and other things, like law >> enforcement and education, are best run collectively. > > The real history usually is a bit different: > for example education was entirely private and public education was > introduced, by governments, to "help the poor" that could not pay and > send the children to school. Then they enlarged the pool to the people > that could pay, driving out the private providers. The fact that private > providers exist after a century or more is testament that free and good > rarely come together. Public education is not free, it's paid for, and it's a major drain on taxpayers. > Many societal problems we have today can be traced to the way schools > and public schools were structured in the past from the governments. > > Maybe taking the children from the family and indoctrinating them with > the government ideology is good, maybe it is not. > Maybe, desocialize the children from their families and neighbours and > socialize them with a bunch of same age individuals is good, maybe it is > not. I have attended both public and private schools in my life and I don't feel I was ever subjected to any specific political indoctrination in either. I was indoctrinated by both school and family to believe that work and study were good, breaking the law was bad, and so on, which I recognised as just another ideology that had to be critically examined when I was about 13, and decided to become an anarchist. The main difference between the private school and the public school was that the private school had better facilities - science labs, computers, and especially sporting facilities (which I didn't care about in the slightest). Another difference was that the students in the private school were from wealthier families (not me - I was there on a scholarship) and had a natural assumption that they would go on to tertiary education and get a good job, while equally bright students at the public school had lower aspirations. I have friends who have been teachers at both private and public schools and they prefer the private schools because, they say, the students there are more motivated to learn and do well. This effect is mitigated by comparing private schools with public schools in well-to-do areas, where there is minimal difference in the academic results of the two school systems. >> It's OK to try >> to argue that your particular way of running things works better, as >> long as people are free to choose, preferably on the basis of evidence >> from past experience or observation of alternative systems around the >> world. Ultimately, if people make the wrong choice their country will >> fall further and further behind, and it will become more and more >> obvious that they have made the wrong choice.. > > It appear that the US and Europe, in many fields, are losing their > advantages in respect to East Asia. Maybe they are or were doing > something wrong. You mean, losing out to the communists, who maintain a tight grip on every aspect of their "market" economy, even to the point of arresting the executives of commercial rivals: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25768420-601,00.html -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 12 13:15:09 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:15:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A59E1DD.8020902@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : >> The real history usually is a bit different: >> for example education was entirely private and public education was >> introduced, by governments, to "help the poor" that could not pay and >> send the children to school. Then they enlarged the pool to the people >> that could pay, driving out the private providers. The fact that private >> providers exist after a century or more is testament that free and good >> rarely come together. > Public education is not free, it's paid for, and it's a major drain on > taxpayers. It is free after the government have extorted your money from you. The choice is "free" public education or paid (anew) private education. But this beg the question, "Why is it a major drain for the taxpayers?" For example ( from here http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/a_lesson_in_stupid_tax_policy.html ) North Carolina have 2.300.000 inhabitants under 18 years, so I suppose they go to school. The state budget for public schools is 8 billions of $ (37% of the state budget). So, around 2 million of students cost 8 billions every years. This is 4.000$ per head per years Now, looking at Cato Institute paper ( http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3231 ) I find that "The most recent figures available from the U.S. Department of Education show that in 2000 the average tuition for private elementary schools nationwide was $3,267. Government figures also indicate that 41 percent of all private elementary and secondary schools -- more than 27,000 nationwide -- charged less than $2,500 for tuition. Less than 21 percent of all private schools charged more than $5,000 per year in tuition. According to these figures, elite and very expensive private schools tend to be the exception in their communities, not the rule." Now, supposing the worst private school is at par of the median public school, moving to all private schools would save North Carolina 1.8-2.0 Billions $ every year. They could repay debts (so paying less in the long run) or lower taxes. But, as the politicos need the support of the teacher's unions to be re-elected, this is out of question. Better raise taxes and make people poorer. > You mean, losing out to the communists, who maintain a tight grip on > every aspect of their "market" economy, even to the point of arresting > the executives of commercial rivals: > > http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25768420-601,00.html Cheap shot. This don't change the facts that their economy is growing faster than ours. Why? We, in theory, have more wealth available to reinvestment, so Why we are not growing faster than them? Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 12 13:27:39 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:27:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> spike ha scritto: > > > The world was electrified by the YouTube images of Neda Soltani, the young > Iranian woman who was killed after the "election." Furious riots ensued, as > she became the symbol of the inhumanity and brutality of the theocratic > militia. I will mercifully spare you the horrifying video of Neda's final > moments. > > The Germans are now reporting Neda was a Christian: > > http://www.pi-news.net/2009/06/neda-symbolfigur-der-revolution-war-christin/ > > The Iranians mourned her death assuming she was Muslim. Now what will they > do? She probably was not. These women probably are: http://eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com/2009/07/amid-political-turmoil-iranian.html And they risk limbs and lives because they decided that The Religion of Peace is not of their liking. Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 14:20:24 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:20:24 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A59E1DD.8020902@libero.it> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> <4A59E1DD.8020902@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > > >>> The real history usually is a bit different: >>> for example education was entirely private and public education was >>> introduced, by governments, to "help the poor" that could not pay and >>> send the children to school. Then they enlarged the pool to the people >>> that could pay, driving out the private providers. The fact that private >>> providers exist after a century or more is testament that free and good >>> rarely come together. > >> Public education is not free, it's paid for, and it's a major drain on >> taxpayers. > > It is free after the government have extorted your money from you. > The choice is "free" public education or paid (anew) private education. > > But this beg the question, "Why is it a major drain for the taxpayers?" > > For example ( from here > http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/07/a_lesson_in_stupid_tax_policy.html > ) North Carolina have 2.300.000 inhabitants under 18 years, so I suppose > they go to school. The state budget for public schools is 8 billions of > $ (37% of the state budget). So, around 2 million of students cost 8 > billions every years. This is 4.000$ per head per years > > Now, looking at Cato Institute paper ( > http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=3231 ) I find that > > "The most recent figures available from the U.S. Department of Education > show that in 2000 the average tuition for private elementary schools > nationwide was $3,267. Government figures also indicate that 41 percent > of all private elementary and secondary schools -- more than 27,000 > nationwide -- charged less than $2,500 for tuition. Less than 21 percent > of all private schools charged more than $5,000 per year in tuition. > According to these figures, elite and very expensive private schools > tend to be the exception in their communities, not the rule." > > Now, supposing the worst private school is at par of the median public > school, moving to all private schools would save North Carolina 1.8-2.0 > Billions $ every year. They could repay debts (so paying less in the > long run) or lower taxes. But, as the politicos need the support of the > teacher's unions to be re-elected, this is out of question. Better raise > taxes and make people poorer. If a private enterprise is demonstrably cheaper *and* better than a public enterprise, then the public enterprise should reform itself. Sack management, make each school accountable for its own budget, privatise the schools and allow them to compete for students (while the government still pays the tuition), whatever - unless a good reason can be found against doing so. It might be OK to waste private money, but if it's taxpayer's money that's being wasted, the taxpayers should get rid of the government, and if they won't go, overthrow them. >> You mean, losing out to the communists, who maintain a tight grip on >> every aspect of their "market" economy, even to the point of arresting >> the executives of commercial rivals: >> >> http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25768420-601,00.html > > Cheap shot. > This don't change the facts that their economy is growing faster than > ours. Why? We, in theory, have more wealth available to reinvestment, so > ?Why we are not growing faster than them? I think it's because the West has grown fat and lazy on easy credit and an overvalued currency. An American hairdresser gets a lot more gold per haircut than an Indian or a Chinese hairdresser, when they do exactly the same work. This is currently what the market says should be the case and some people will argue that ipso facto, an American haircut *is* more valuable than a Chinese haircut. Ultimately these things correct themselves and in 50 years time, it might be the Chinese buying cheap American and European imports. Against this happening would be a grossly inefficient economic system closed to foreign investment, such as used to be the case in China and the Soviet Union. But the point is, the Chinese economy today is still much less "free" of government control than any Western economy. The politburo supervises, finances, even sits on the board of directors of large "private" firms. I'm not saying this is good, but it does show that it is not incompatible with high and sustained economic growth. -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 12 14:21:32 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:21:32 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A59F16C.8010300@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : >> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: >> The fact that private providers exist after a century or more is >> testament that free and good rarely come together. > Public education is not free, it's paid for, and it's a major drain > on taxpayers. Not free and, not strangely, of a very poor quality. A few example here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1198827/Traditional-haberdashery-forced-turn-away-9-10-staff--add-up.html > Colin Bamberger, 82, whose parents founded the Remnant Shop in 1944, > said that less than one in ten applicants are now able to solve > basic maths problems without turning to a calculator or till. In the > past, around eight in ten made the grade. Mr Bamberger, who stills > runs one of the family's two stores, yesterday blamed the decline on > falling education standards and over-reliance on the pocket > calculator. He said: 'Most of the youngsters who come to us for jobs > are unemployable because they are not numerate. > Last year, it emerged more than half of trainee teachers needed > multiple attempts to pass a basic numeracy test. Although the exam > was originally introduced to drive up standards, it emerged that > trainees could take it as many times as they like. One reportedly > took the test 28 times before passing. I'm sure a private school unable to teach basic maths would not survive for long. Nor they would hire teacher unable to do basic maths. Or a school that let students on students violence for fear of retaliation: http://www.libertyforall.net/?p=2818 In the same time in Taiwan: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/07/09/2003448208 > At Dan Fong Elementary and ESTMUE, I observed six excellent practices > worth adopting by US schools: > > 1. Serve nutritious lunches: Unlike in the US, Taiwanese school > lunches do not consist of processed foods high in fat and sugar. > Instead, they generally consist of rice, soup, meat, fruit and > vegetables. Studies show that improving nutrition boosts academic > performance. > > 2. Keep students active: While US schools have cut back on or > completely eliminated physical education and recess, Taiwanese > schools provide physical education classes twice a week and 10-minute > recess periods four times a day. Both Taiwanese elementary schools I > visited had athletic tracks, which are rare in US elementary schools. > Studies show that increased physical activity leads to higher > academic performance. > > 3. Require school uniforms: School uniforms are the norm in Taiwanese > public schools. Only 15 percent of US public schools require them. > Studies show that school uniforms raise academic performance, while > lowering violence, theft and the negative effects of peer pressure. > > 4. Use hands-on learning: I observed more hands-on learning in the > Taiwanese schools than I have in US schools. For example, Taiwanese > students went on a field trip to a castle they studied in social > studies; they collected local plants and used them to make a dye in > science; and they worked with compasses and rulers in math. Studies > show that hands-on learning involves students in real-world > activities and thereby improves their academic performance. > > 5. Use interdisciplinary learning: Based on my observations, US > teachers tend to teach one curricular discipline at a time, while > Taiwanese teachers try to incorporate several into a lesson. For > example, I observed a science teacher and art teacher in Taiwan > collaborate in guiding students through a science project that > involved drawing. Studies show that interdisciplinary learning helps > students apply their knowledge in various contexts and thus enhances > their academic performance. > > 6. Instill personal responsibility: In US schools, janitors clean up > after the students. In Taiwanese schools, the students clean up after > themselves. Cleanup time is a daily ritual wherein Taiwanese students > clean the school building, sweep the school grounds and dump trash. > Studies show that students who become more responsible tend to > improve their academic performance. In Australia things are not always good: http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25753048-3102,00.html Mirco From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 14:37:49 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:37:49 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : > These women probably are: > http://eye-on-the-world.blogspot.com/2009/07/amid-political-turmoil-iranian.html > > And they risk limbs and lives because they decided that The Religion of > Peace is not of their liking. They are guilty of the crime of apostasy, which like sodomy, warrants the death penalty in the Abrahamic religions. As it says in Deuteronomy 13:6-10: "If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which [is] as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; [Namely], of the gods of the people which [are] round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the [one] end of the earth even unto the [other] end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die; because he hath sought to thrust thee away from the LORD thy God, which brought thee out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage." Now the Jews and the Christians and many of the Muslims in the world don't follow this sort of thing today because they know deep down that their religion is a fantasy, and with a fantasy you can pick the parts that appeal to you and ignore the parts that don't. But the Mullahs in Iran and several other Middle eastern states *take their religion seriously*, which means you can't ignore the parts which you don't like. Still, in the article you cited it says the Iranians are considering changing their penal code so that apostasy is no longer a capital crime. Secularisation will win eventually, as it has everywhere else. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 14:52:25 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 00:52:25 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A59F16C.8010300@libero.it> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> <4A59F16C.8010300@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/13 Mirco Romanato : > In the same time in Taiwan: > http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/07/09/2003448208 > >> At Dan Fong Elementary and ESTMUE, I observed six excellent practices >> worth adopting by US schools: >> >> 1. Serve nutritious lunches: Unlike in the US, Taiwanese school >> lunches do not consist of processed foods high in fat and sugar. >> Instead, they generally consist of rice, soup, meat, fruit and >> vegetables. Studies show that improving nutrition boosts academic >> performance. >> >> 2. Keep students active: While US schools have cut back on or >> completely eliminated physical education and recess, Taiwanese >> schools provide physical education classes twice a week and 10-minute >> recess periods four times a day. Both Taiwanese elementary schools I >> visited had athletic tracks, which are rare in US elementary schools. >> Studies show that increased physical activity leads to higher >> academic performance. >> >> 3. Require school uniforms: School uniforms are the norm in Taiwanese >> public schools. Only 15 percent of US public schools require them. >> Studies show that school uniforms raise academic performance, while >> lowering violence, theft and the negative effects of peer pressure. >> >> 4. Use hands-on learning: I observed more hands-on learning in the >> Taiwanese schools than I have in US schools. For example, Taiwanese >> students went on a field trip to a castle they studied in social >> studies; they collected local plants and used them to make a dye in >> science; and they worked with compasses and rulers in math. Studies >> show that hands-on learning involves students in real-world >> activities and thereby improves their academic performance. >> >> 5. Use interdisciplinary learning: Based on my observations, US >> teachers tend to teach one curricular discipline at a time, while >> Taiwanese teachers try to incorporate several into a lesson. For >> example, I observed a science teacher and art teacher in Taiwan >> collaborate in guiding students through a science project that >> involved drawing. Studies show that interdisciplinary learning helps >> students apply their knowledge in various contexts and thus enhances >> their academic performance. >> >> 6. Instill personal responsibility: In US schools, janitors clean up >> after the students. In Taiwanese schools, the students clean up after >> themselves. Cleanup time is a daily ritual wherein Taiwanese students >> clean the school building, sweep the school grounds and dump trash. >> Studies show that students who become more responsible tend to >> improve their academic performance. But you will note that the Taiwanese schools are public schools. If the schools in one country or state are better than in another (as they will be - there isn't just one way of doing things) then less well performing schools should take note and improve themselves. This is, or ought to be, a point of national importance. You seem to be claiming that governments and parents are spending money on public education when they don't care about education; but if that were true why not just make education private and optional, and either give the taxpayers a large tax cut (boosting electoral appeal) or spend the money on more important things, like palaces and private jets for the politicians? -- Stathis Papaioannou From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Jul 12 15:03:46 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 17:03:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A59FB52.70505@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > Still, in the article you cited it says the Iranians are > considering changing their penal code so that apostasy is no longer a > capital crime. Secularisation will win eventually, as it has > everywhere else. You don't understood. They are changing the law to introduce the death penalty for apostasy. Until now, there was a lower penalty (jail and loss of other rights). The reform was publicized too early, so they slowed the pace of the reform until people lose interest. The apostates will die anyway, they will have other charges push against them or will die by a brain bleeding like an iranian-canadia journalists a few years ago. Formalities can not stop people that disregard other's lives. Mirco From hkhenson at rogers.com Sun Jul 12 17:59:35 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 10:59:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we stand on the shoulders of giants In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1247422106_10541@s7.cableone.net> At 05:00 AM 7/12/2009, ben wrote: >This is a fun exercise, and probably many of us have idly speculated on >something similar. I know I have. In fact, it's musing on this kind of >thing that made me realise that in a very real way, we are defined by >our technology, and without it, we are dead. Even tens of thousands of >years ago, we were dependent on technology for survival, Make that millions. The human line first started chipping rocks for shape edges ~2.5 million years ago. http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1155690 >so I reckon you >wouldn't need so much high-tech knowledge to survive in a sudden >transplant to a new planet scenario. The low-tech would be much more >important. So Iron would definitely not be a first priority. No, but it would not be the last either. Metals make a huge improvement in the standard of living. Not to mention that flaking rocks is a hard skill to learn. >To make iron you need charcoal, coal, coke, or something similar >(basically, carbon) that will burn very hot with enough oxygen. Making >charcoal isn't that difficult, but it's not easy either, and would >likely need a few tries before you got it right (and you'd need a LOT). Much of the history of iron has been about controlling the minor elements, carbon, phosphorus and sulphur. Of course pre chemistry days they didn't understand this. One reason the Titanic went down was brittle fracture. "The steel grain size; the oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus content of the steel; and the cold-punched, unreamed rivet holes were found to have contributed to the breakup of the Titanic, along with the steel's relatively low ductility at the freezing point of water. The shell plates showed signs of brittle fracture, though some plates demonstrated significant plasticity." http://www.memagazine.org/backissues/membersonly/aug98/features/titanic/testing.html > In addition to the mighty bellows Skip this step. I visited this place in 1996 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbeydale_Industrial_Hamlet The source of air for the forge was a pair of wooden barrels with pistons in them driven by the water wheel. The wheel also drove the tilt hammer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Abbeydale_Industrial_Hamlet.JPG Inside this building they made the jugs and slowly dried them for making crucible steel. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_steel snp >Freshly broken glass is the sharpest thing we know of (even now), so if >you can make lumps of glass and smash them up, You don't need to make glass. Certain kinds of rocks work just fine. But having done it and used the sharp edges, the process is much more controlled than smashing. >Making leather the low-tech way involves unpleasant and smelly >procedures, and is best left to the strong-stomached (put your tannery >next to the latrines, know what i'm sayin?). I think you need to ensure >all the fat is scraped off the hides first, as well. I tanned at least a hundred rabbit hides. Few people appreciate how much work is involved without specialized machines. >So I think you could bootstrap an industrial base by starting with bark, >sticks and stones, inventing fire, boiling sap to make glue (more >experiments to find the right sap), making glass, then spears and bows, >catching animals, making leather, digging up clay, making pots, then >start the chemistry experiments to re-invent stuff like soap, cement, >better glue, and making textiles, rope and string, by which time you >should be able to make simple lathes which can be used to make better >lathes, etc., and wooden machines. Gunpowder if you can find sulphur, >and bronze if you can find copper and tin. It would be a wierd kind of >hopping from one point in history to the next, because you already know >the uses of certain things if you can just make them, and things like >the germ theory wouldn't have to be developed, you'd already be aware of >the need for good hygiene and the benefits of running water, various >medical facts, etc. Steampunk! _Blue World_ by Jack Vance described some of this process--after 14 generations had built up the population. >With the right natural resouces, and enough people who remember stuff >like the above, and a bit of good luck, you could have a fairly decent >early-industrial society going within a few months or maybe a year or >two, provided people survive the first few weeks. Once the Iron problem >was cracked, the world is your shellfish. You'd be Romans with guns and >antibiotics. > >I.T. would still be some way off, and if you have people like Keith who >actually do know how to build an IC, then a computer, they'd better have >good genes, because it'd be decades before you'd be ready to start >tinkering with such things. I think it would be more like centuries. Remember that without relatively high technology, 90 percent of the population are farmers. It would take a huge population buildup before they had the resources to devote to the technologies leading to computer technology. What was available in plants and animals would make a big difference as well. >In the end, I reckon the major limiting factor would be the low >population. Imagine an internet in a world with only a few thousand people. The resources available are a massive problem as well. Easter Island grew from something like 20 people to as many as 20,000. But given the resources they had I don't think it would have been possible to create a technological civilization there, even with all of current knowledge. Heck, I doubt the could have made iron even before they lost all the trees. Incidentally, the smallest long term survival of a human population was Tasmania at about 4000. And at that, they lost a lot of their technology. Keith From xuenay at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 20:17:04 2009 From: xuenay at gmail.com (Kaj Sotala) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:17:04 +0300 Subject: [ExI] Wanted - academic discussions of mind uploading Message-ID: <6a13bb8f0907121317y1c7ffc95yb537a5e2c8522cde@mail.gmail.com> I'm playing around with the idea of doing a paper on the hive mind aspect of an uploaded society (see http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-February/047770.html for my previous post on the topic), for which I need to do a survery on the previous academic discussions on mind uploading. Both journal articles and books are fine - also, if any of you happen to know of any fictional works concerning uploading where the people involved eventually develop into a hive mind, do mention them. (Note that I'm specifically looking for hive minds that have developed from *human uploads*. I'm not looking for AI hive minds, cyborg hive minds or hive minds in general - I know that scifi has plenty of *those*.) Here are the academic uploading articles which I'm already aware of (which might also be a handy reference for anyone else interested in the topic). Non-fiction about uploading in general: Anders Sandberg & Nick Bostrom (2008): Whole Brain Emulation: A Roadmap, Technical Report #2008-3. Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University. (An analysis of what is yet required for uploads.) Robin Hanson (1994, 2008): If uploads come first - The crack of a future dawn; Economics of the Singularity. (Hanson's classic must-read papers on the economic consequences of uploads.) Susan Schneider (2008): Future Minds: Transhumanism, Cognitive Enhancement and the Nature of Persons. Neuroethics Publications. (Critique of uploading on the grounds that an uploaded copy "would be just a clone, not you", and seems to assume that this can just be taken as granted. Groan.) V. Astakhov (2008): Mind Uploading and Resurrection of Human Consciousness. Place for Science? NeuroQuantology. (/Seems/ to discuss some sort of theory for the actual upload process. I think. Not sure if it's entirely serious, but at least I'm unable to follow it.) Ray Kurzweil (2005): The Singularity is Near. (Briefly discusses the possibility of uploading.) Nick Bostrom (2004): The Future of Human Evolution. In Death and Anti-Death: Two Hundred Years After Kant, Fifty Years After Turing. (The only paper I could find that actually discusses a hive mind -like scenario.) Hans Moravec (2000): Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. (Mentions uploading in the form of a "cyberspace" that people will move into.) Robert Harle (2002): Cyborgs, Uploading and Immortality - Some Serious Concerns. Sophia, Volume 41, Number 2. (Mainly attempts to debunk the whole idea of uploading. Humorous for stating that "the most serious problem for uploaders" is the fact that a brain cannot function without body, completely ignoring the possibility of *gasp* people also simulating a body. Not very interesting.) Hans Moravec (1988): Mind Children. (Has a brief description of an upload process.) From benboc at lineone.net Sun Jul 12 21:07:54 2009 From: benboc at lineone.net (ben) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:07:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4A5A50AA.1040100@lineone.net> Jef helpfully suggested: On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 1:44 PM, ben wrote: > > Jef bemoaned: > > >> >>Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children >> >>alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. > > > > If one wanted to give oneself an education in systems-thinking, what would > > you recommend? > > And is it necessary or desirable to be maths-educated, or even particularly > > numerate, for this? > One might begin here: > OK, I'm a bit confused. I assumed that the term 'systems thinking' denoted something new and specific, some particular discipline that was worth investigating and maybe learning about. Your "Child's Garden of Conceptual Archetypes" seems to be just stuff we learn as we go along, distilled from electronics, economics, physics, neurology, biology, etc. I would add a few things to it myself, more general things that I've always thought were lacking from traditional basic education, but I don't see how this is different or special, and deserving of a special name. It seems that the label "Learning about stuff" or "Learning about the world" would be just as valid. Am I missing some perspective that links this list together, and separates it from learning about population dynamics, reading and writing, plotting and interpreting graphs, how to design an experiment, interpreting shakespeare's plays, metabolic pathways, woodwork, the causes and effects of world war 1, etc. etc, etc.? /Maybe/ it would be a good idea to separate the general principles from their specific usual context that people first encounter them in (Hysteresis is a good example), but is this actually necessary? Once you learn about Schmitt triggers, you can easily understand the same concept applying to many different areas, from economics to cell biology. So are you saying we should explicity extract the general principles that apply across many domains, and call them 'systems thinking'? Reading that wiki article, my response is "Der!". Why does this deserve a special name? Isn't it blindingly obvious? Things affect other things. So what's new? If children actually take any notice of their education, they _are_ taught 'systems thinking', it seems to me. It's just not called that, it's distributed among many bits and pieces of the curriculum. I thought there was something new to learn, but it seems not. Am I missing something? Ben Zaiboc From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 22:03:27 2009 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:03:27 +0800 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: <4A5A50AA.1040100@lineone.net> References: <4A5A50AA.1040100@lineone.net> Message-ID: On 7/13/09, ben wrote: > If children actually take any notice of their education, they _are_ taught > 'systems thinking', it seems to me. It's just not called that, it's > distributed among many bits and pieces of the curriculum. > > I thought there was something new to learn, but it seems not. > In the UK schools, you can get an A-Level course on Critical Thinking. (A-Level certificates count towards university entrance qualifications). * AS Unit 1: Credibility of Evidence * AS Unit 2: Assessing and Developing Argument * A2 Unit 3: Resolution of Dilemmas * A2 Unit 4: Critical Reasoning Although this course teaches pupils how to think clearly, unfortunately, many universities do not accept this as a 'proper' course, like History or Physics, and will not accept this certificate as part of your university entrance qualification. BillK From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sun Jul 12 22:54:21 2009 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 16:54:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Wanted - academic discussions of mind uploading In-Reply-To: <6a13bb8f0907121317y1c7ffc95yb537a5e2c8522cde@mail.gmail.com> References: <6a13bb8f0907121317y1c7ffc95yb537a5e2c8522cde@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A5A699D.1010509@canonizer.com> Kaj, I'm certainly looking forward to following any such academic effort. I love what I've seen so far. In case you haven't heard, a growing bunch of world class mind expert volunteers are working on using the open survey system at canonizer.com to rigorously measure or survey for the 'scientific consensus' (see: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/53/11) to determine and track, quantitatively, what the experts currently believe are the best theories of consciousness. Some argue that we are about to make the greatest scientific discovery of all time: what / how is the mind is. Our goal is to rigorously measure this process as the demonstrable scientific proof starts to convert all experts to THE ONE true theory of consciousness possibly already represented by a camp in the survey topic on the best theories of mind here: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88 Leading experts like Steven Lehar, John Smythies, Jonathan Edwards, John Gregg, and many more are starting to contribute. It is definitely exciting to watch this horse race as ever more experts contribute (canonizer if you will) their beliefs to this real time open survey. Most people think there is no consensus whatsoever in this field of study, but if these early still tentative results continue to bear out, there is an extreme and increasing amount of scientific consensus revolutionizing this field of study as we speak. To date, everyone and their dog has been developing their own pet theory of consciousness. But the evidence we're seeing so far seems to increasingly be saying that none of these theories has more than one or two supporters by scientific experts, except for the representational and real theory represented by this so far obvious current scientific consensus camp here: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/88/6 This theory predicts (falsifiably so) we are about to develop what will make the subjective objectively sharable via something referred to as effing the ineffable (First proposed by V.S. Ramachandran http://www.imprint.co.uk/rama/qualia.pdf). You know, as in "oh THAT is what salt tastes like!" It further predicts that multiple 'spirits' will be able to inhabit unified 'spirit worlds' of conscious awareness (WARNING: see the above camp statement for a definition of 'spirit' and 'spirit world', these are not ghosts, and are dependent on the brain - but other than that, they are what they sound like.) Currently, when you hug someone, you are only aware of half of the phenomenal sensations. This theory predicts we will achieve the ability to 'merge' conscious worlds in ways such that multiple of our spirits will be able to inhabit shared spaces of conscious awareness. This will enable all parties involved to spiritually experience all that is going on, not just half, and much more. And of course all this will be the beginnings of what will surely be 'hive minds' as these conscious worlds finally pierce the 'veil of perception', escape from being ineffablly trapped inside these mortal spirit prison walls that currently are our skulls, and eventually, as Raymond Kurzweil predicts, the entire universe starts to phenomenally or spiritually 'wake up' into one unfied shared consciouses spiritual hive mind. The universe is obviosly made of much more than just cause and effect properties, if this theory is correct we are about to demonstrably discover all this. Also, since you asked, there is a reference to a fictionalized short story in the above 'camp' describing in chapters 5 and 6 what phenomenal uploading and hive minds, could be like, as predicted by this theory. (See reference to "1229 Years After Titanic" in the notes section of the above camp statement.) I'd love to know if you find or if there is anything along these phenomenal lines in what you've included in your survey so far. And of course, everyone would love to know what you think is most likely possible in the future in our open survey also. Brent Allsop P. S. I am happy to hear about you for the fist time. I love your 'opinion page' here: http://www.saunalahti.fi/~tspro1/aboutme.html that enables me to know much about you. If you are interested, here is my personal 'canonized' opinion page: http://canonizer.com/support_list.asp?nick_name_id=1 It appears that we have much in common. Kaj Sotala wrote: > I'm playing around with the idea of doing a paper on the hive mind > aspect of an uploaded society (see > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2009-February/047770.html > for my previous post on the topic), for which I need to do a survery > on the previous academic discussions on mind uploading. Both journal > articles and books are fine - also, if any of you happen to know of > any fictional works concerning uploading where the people involved > eventually develop into a hive mind, do mention them. (Note that I'm > specifically looking for hive minds that have developed from *human > uploads*. I'm not looking for AI hive minds, cyborg hive minds or hive > minds in general - I know that scifi has plenty of *those*.) > > Here are the academic uploading articles which I'm already aware of > (which might also be a handy reference for anyone else interested in > the topic). > > Non-fiction about uploading in general: > > Anders Sandberg & Nick Bostrom (2008): Whole Brain Emulation: A > Roadmap, Technical Report #2008-3. Future of Humanity Institute, > Oxford University. (An analysis of what is yet required for uploads.) > Robin Hanson (1994, 2008): If uploads come first - The crack of a > future dawn; Economics of the Singularity. (Hanson's classic must-read > papers on the economic consequences of uploads.) > Susan Schneider (2008): Future Minds: Transhumanism, Cognitive > Enhancement and the Nature of Persons. Neuroethics Publications. > (Critique of uploading on the grounds that an uploaded copy "would be > just a clone, not you", and seems to assume that this can just be > taken as granted. Groan.) > V. Astakhov (2008): Mind Uploading and Resurrection of Human > Consciousness. Place for Science? NeuroQuantology. (/Seems/ to discuss > some sort of theory for the actual upload process. I think. Not sure > if it's entirely serious, but at least I'm unable to follow it.) > Ray Kurzweil (2005): The Singularity is Near. (Briefly discusses the > possibility of uploading.) > Nick Bostrom (2004): The Future of Human Evolution. In Death and > Anti-Death: Two Hundred Years After Kant, Fifty Years After Turing. > (The only paper I could find that actually discusses a hive mind -like > scenario.) > Hans Moravec (2000): Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendent Mind. > (Mentions uploading in the form of a "cyberspace" that people will > move into.) > Robert Harle (2002): Cyborgs, Uploading and Immortality - Some Serious > Concerns. Sophia, Volume 41, Number 2. (Mainly attempts to debunk the > whole idea of uploading. Humorous for stating that "the most serious > problem for uploaders" is the fact that a brain cannot function > without body, completely ignoring the possibility of *gasp* people > also simulating a body. Not very interesting.) > Hans Moravec (1988): Mind Children. (Has a brief description of an > upload process.) > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 23:37:43 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:37:43 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A59FB52.70505@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <4A59FB52.70505@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/13 Mirco Romanato : > Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > >> Still, in the article you cited it says the Iranians are >> considering changing their penal code so that apostasy is no longer a >> capital crime. Secularisation will win eventually, as it has >> everywhere else. > > You don't understood. > They are changing the law to introduce the death penalty for apostasy. > Until now, there was a lower penalty (jail and loss of other rights). > The reform was publicized too early, so they slowed the pace of the > reform until people lose interest. "After international pressure, the Iranian Government's Parliamentary Committee reportedly removed articles stipulating the death penalty for apostasy from the Islamic Penal Code Bill, but the changes have to be approved by legislators." They are making changes tending towards greater secularisation, which is the historical trend over the centuries. There may be temporary setbacks but ultimately religion is doomed, or at least doomed to be watered down until it's inoffensive. -- Stathis Papaioannou From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 03:04:33 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:34:33 +0930 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: References: <4A5A50AA.1040100@lineone.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907122004p3e87f5c9s74d74af48700dc2a@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/13 BillK : > On 7/13/09, ben wrote: > >> ?If children actually take any notice of their education, they _are_ taught >> 'systems thinking', it seems to me. ?It's just not called that, it's >> distributed among many bits and pieces of the curriculum. >> >> ?I thought there was something new to learn, but it seems not. >> > > In the UK schools, you can get an A-Level course on Critical Thinking. > (A-Level certificates count towards university entrance qualifications). > > ? ?* ?AS Unit 1: Credibility of Evidence > ? ?* AS Unit 2: Assessing and Developing Argument > ? ?* A2 Unit 3: Resolution of Dilemmas > ? ?* A2 Unit 4: Critical Reasoning > > > Although this course teaches pupils how to think clearly, > unfortunately, many universities do not accept this as a 'proper' > course, like History or Physics, and will not accept this certificate > as part of your university entrance qualification. > > BillK While invaluable, critical thinking is in no way systems thinking. To me, critical thinking (synonymous with analytical thinking?) is about deconstructing and critiquing what exists, not so much about building, except perhaps in the area of building an argument. System thinking is at heart I think about being able to mentally model complex systems. You can very explicitly use it (in engineering for example), but I think it's also what is less intentionally used by all people who work hands on with technology, it's how we can "feel" how things work, why something is malfunctioning. The knack. The guy who can whack the old TV just so to make it work properly, might just be using systems thinking. It's in no way integral to being intelligent (many very bright people are hopeless with this, eg: positive rights :-) ), and I think it is taught poorly or not at all at school, maybe at least partly because there is no part of being a school teacher that requires this skill. Back to the original question, I'd say numeracy is probably important, serious maths not so much. Actually, one of the ways kids get good system thinking nowadays is in the land of computer games. Not so much in playing them, but there's a class of creative tools in / around games which are excellent. The strategy game map building tools are great, where you can build your own scenarios (my son dabbles in warcraft III maps, and is just starting to hassle me to help him with the bits that require scripting). Little Big Planet looks great for it, you build what are essentially crazy machines in a simulator. There are lots of other things like this. I'm starting to think that the answer to the "how to start kids programming" dilemma is, don't, just encourage them to be creative, they'll discover code on their own soon enough. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From spike66 at att.net Mon Jul 13 02:48:55 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:48:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> Message-ID: <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou > > They are guilty of the crime of apostasy, which like sodomy, > warrants the death penalty in the Abrahamic religions. As it > says in Deuteronomy 13:6-10: ... > ...But the Mullahs in Iran and several > other Middle eastern states *take their religion seriously*, > which means you can't ignore the parts which you don't like... Stathis Stathis, this comment gets part of the way there, but misses something really important. Most people have long ago recognized that church and state must be kept strictly separate. The religion that must not be named not only rejects that notion, it specifically insists that church and state be unified. The ongoing Iranian riots are not so much about support for the losing candidate, but rather that the Iranian election is only a show, and that it is really a theocracy. The young people of Iran do not want to be ruled by religion. We should be supporting them. spike From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jul 13 09:36:35 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:36:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <4A59FB52.70505@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A5B0023.2000603@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > "After international pressure, the Iranian Government's Parliamentary > Committee reportedly removed articles stipulating the death penalty > for apostasy from the Islamic Penal Code Bill, but the changes have to > be approved by legislators." > They are making changes tending towards greater secularisation, which > is the historical trend over the centuries. My impression is, anyway, that they wrote the law and approved it. Now, under pressure from abroad, they are refraining from using it and are waiting journalists lose interest in the issue. The fact that "they reportedly removed" is probably only this. "They said they did", no proof they did or proof the legislators have the will to abrogate it. The changes tending toward greater secularism are inside the society, not the ruling class. And the ruling class rule and kill now. > There may be temporary > setbacks but ultimately religion is doomed, or at least doomed to be > watered down until it's inoffensive. I would classify this under "religious prophecies". Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 10:43:45 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:43:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> References: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> Message-ID: <580930c20907130343q2caf8f06r708f3f94ce0d02e2@mail.gmail.com> On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 10:44 PM, ben wrote: > Jef bemoaned: > >>Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children >>alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. > > If one wanted to give oneself an education in systems-thinking, what would > you recommend? Why, I have always believed that fairy tales and mythology do amount to "systems-thinking for children". -- Stefano Vaj From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 12:45:19 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:45:19 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> Message-ID: 2009/7/13 spike : > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou >> >> They are guilty of the crime of apostasy, which like sodomy, >> warrants the death penalty in the Abrahamic religions. As it >> says in Deuteronomy 13:6-10: > ... >> ...But the Mullahs in Iran and several >> other Middle eastern states *take their religion seriously*, >> which means you can't ignore the parts which you don't like... Stathis > > > Stathis, this comment gets part of the way there, but misses something > really important. ?Most people have long ago recognized that church and > state must be kept strictly separate. ?The religion that must not be named > not only rejects that notion, it specifically insists that church and state > be unified. It's a problem when the religion itself says you have to kill apostates or homosexuals, for example. As discussed previously, until very recently in many Western countries sodomy was a crime punishable with long prison terms or even death. This was despite either de facto or constitutionally guaranteed separation of church and state. The religious laws had been so thoroughly assimilated into the legal system that they weren't even recognised as such! You could look at the history of European politics as a gradual dissolution of a system of Christian theocracies started by the emperor Constantine. > The ongoing Iranian riots are not so much about support for the losing > candidate, but rather that the Iranian election is only a show, and that it > is really a theocracy. ?The young people of Iran do not want to be ruled by > religion. ?We should be supporting them. If in fact the election was fair, we would be supporting something undemocratic. Still, that's not enough reason not to support the rebels. In a democracy, 51% could vote to kill and eat the other 49%, and it would be perfectly legal. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 12:53:36 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:53:36 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A5B0023.2000603@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <4A59FB52.70505@libero.it> <4A5B0023.2000603@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/13 Mirco Romanato : >> There may be temporary >> setbacks but ultimately religion is doomed, or at least doomed to be >> watered down until it's inoffensive. > > I would classify this under "religious prophecies". It is a description of what has happened progressively everywhere in the world over many centuries. The increasing religiosity in the Islamic world and in the US in the last few decades is an aberration. As you can see, even in Iran it is gradually being watered down, with a semisecular semidemocratic government, and now protests in the streets. Compare this situation with the situation in 1979 and extrapolate another 30 years. No guarantees, of course, but I am hopeful. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 13:16:03 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:16:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> Message-ID: <580930c20907130616s335c1318o5e3b2812e2d83925@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 2:45 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > It's a problem when the religion itself says you have to kill > apostates or homosexuals, for example. I am all for sexual and gender freedom in our ranks, but shouldn't we introduce ourselves a crime of apostasy? ;-) As a token of the nicer nature of our creed in comparison with Abrahmitic religions, we could merely provide for an exclusion of former transhumanists from the Net. :-D -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Mon Jul 13 14:19:34 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 07:19:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> Message-ID: <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou > ... > > If in fact the election was fair, we would be supporting > something undemocratic. Still, that's not enough reason not > to support the rebels. In a democracy, 51% could vote to kill > and eat the other 49%, and it would be perfectly legal... > Stathis Papaioannou Ja, agreed, thanks for that comment. The American founders realized this, and that is why America is not a democracy but rather is a democratic republic. Our current government fails to recognize this, but we will survive another 3.4 years when most of them will be gone. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 15:11:57 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:11:57 +1000 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> Message-ID: 2009/7/14 spike : >> If in fact the election was fair, we would be supporting >> something undemocratic. Still, that's not enough reason not >> to support the rebels. In a democracy, 51% could vote to kill >> and eat the other 49%, and it would be perfectly legal... >> Stathis Papaioannou > > > Ja, agreed, thanks for that comment. ?The American founders realized this, > and that is why America is not a democracy but rather is a democratic > republic. ?Our current government fails to recognize this, but we will > survive another 3.4 years when most of them will be gone. I'm not sure what you mean by this distinction. Are you referring to the US Constitution? A constitution itself will either be written and ratified by a team of dictators or by some sort of democratically elected committee. The democratic method is preferable, since dictators are less likely to be benevolent, in general, than the mass of public opinion. Still, the democratic method can also lead to all manner of unpleasantness. The US Constitution could be amended in any way whatsoever if enough state and federal politicians agree, couldn't it? It is technically harder to change the constitution but if the problem with democracy is thought to be the process of majority decision, would it make it any better if a government or law could only be changed if, say, 2/3 of the population agree? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Jul 13 15:24:07 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 17:24:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> Message-ID: <580930c20907130824y3ece1681xe65e0c9071024551@mail.gmail.com> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 4:19 PM, spike wrote: > ?The American founders realized this, > and that is why America is not a democracy but rather is a democratic > republic. I thought that with a sufficient majority congress had not limit in amending the federal constitution, including the republican form of goverment (btw, Iran is not a monarchy either any more...). -- Stefano Vaj From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 13 15:42:39 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 08:42:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Public education myths/was Re: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> Message-ID: <705011.72793.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Sun, 7/12/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > > 2009/7/12 Mirco Romanato : >> Or they could decide not to sell the streets to >> private individuals. > > This would be a Common, a tragedy of the. This also assumes that the streets, etc. are justly held by the people -- and not merely expropriated from certain groups or individuals. Actual history seems to be the latter and not the former: property is stolen in the name of the people by the state (or the ruling class). Later on, they might talk about privatization, but this is merely some in the ruling class nakedly claiming private ownership -- as opposed to covertly having private ownership. (After all, and again, public ownership merely means the ruling class owns it -- not that every last member of the public owns it. This is also further complicated by just what ownership means: the right to exclude. E.g., that I own my body means I can exclude others from doing with it as they will. If the public owns my body, how can I exclude anyone from doing with it as they will?) >> Through experience, people have decided that some >> things, like >> restaurants, are best run privately, and other things, >> like law >> enforcement and education, are best run collectively. > > The real history usually is a bit different: > for example education was entirely private and public > education was > introduced, by governments, to "help the poor" that could > not pay and send the children to school. I'm not as familiar with other nations, but in the US public education was mostly promulgated not so much to help the poor as to indoctrinate them to become good workers and obedient citizens -- and also as an antidote to Catholicism among Irish, Italian, and other immigrants during the late 19th century. It's popularity among the upper classes (remember, the poor didn't and still don't have much say anywhere) was mainly because they seemed to feel the poor would become ne'er do wells if not taught Protestant culture. Also, the school schedule was mainly, it seems, to make them ready for the work life -- not to educate them to become smarter, think for themselves, or have some sort of say over their destiny. (See, e.g., _Class, Bureaucracy, and Schools: The Illusion of Educational Change in America_ by Michael B. Katz. I bring up Katz because he's no libertarian.) > Then they enlarged the pool to the people > that could pay, driving out the private providers. The fact > that private > providers exist after a century or more is testament that > free and good rarely come together. > Many societal problems we have today can be traced to the > way schools > and public schools were structured in the past from the > governments. > > Maybe taking the children from the family and > indoctrinating them with > the government ideology is good, maybe it is not. My guess is any indoctrination is bad, but far worse when great masses of people, especially childen whose parents lack the skills to see through the indoctrination, are indoctrinated in roughly the same way. > Maybe, desocialize the children from their families and > neighbours and > socialize them with a bunch of same age individuals is > good, maybe it is not. Some believe it tends to disrupt "natural" social orders. Note the model too: put lots of little children into a room with one authority who tells them what to do. This is social regimentation that seems best suited not for learning but for fostering obedience. >> It's OK to try >> to argue that your particular way of running things >> works better, as >> long as people are free to choose, preferably on the >> basis of evidence >> from past experience or observation of alternative >> systems around the >> world. Ultimately, if people make the wrong choice >> their country will >> fall further and further behind, and it will become >> more and more >> obvious that they have made the wrong choice.. > > It appear that the US and Europe, in many fields, are > losing their > advantages in respect to East Asia. Maybe they are or were > doing something wrong. I think it might be a bit more complicated than the form of schooling in each country. I also think that having educational choices made at the national level is a way to guarantee failure. Yes, eventually, over decades, different nations might figure out this or that educational policy is bad, but this is similar to having, say, diet or technology choices made this way. Imagine had nation's -- meaning, really, the ruling classes of nations -- decide on the proper diet and not allowing people inside them to deviate. How quickly would the world settle on the best diet? A far better system is to allow individual people to make their dietary choices. Yes, some will make stupendously stupid choices, but most won't because they have a direct incentive to get it right. Also, by having individual freedom, people can self-correct -- rather than wait until the leaders change their minds or some sort of national consensus is reached. Regards, Dan From hkhenson at rogers.com Mon Jul 13 16:03:23 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 09:03:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Human evolution model (was Iranian riots) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1247501536_13499@s7.cableone.net> At 05:00 AM 7/13/2009, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: snip >They are making changes tending towards greater secularisation, which >is the historical trend over the centuries. There may be temporary >setbacks but ultimately religion is doomed, or at least doomed to be >watered down until it's inoffensive. This depends on what model you have for why humans have religions at all and the trends of the driving forces if you consider religion to be an intermediate outcome instead of being a primary factor. Given the mortality associated with religions and the near universal tendency of humans to be vulnerable to them, basic evolutionary biology will cause you to suspect that the psychological trait behind religions evolved in the EEA and increased the reproductive success of those who had it. How does getting yourself killed help the reproductive success of your genes? It depends on the alternatives. And you absolutely must understand inclusive fitness for the rest of this to make any sense. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness#Hamilton.27s_equation, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kin_selection "Thus a gene causing altruistic behavior towards brothers and sisters will be selected only if the behavior and the circumstances are generally such that the gain is more than twice the loss; for half-brothers it must be more than four times the loss; and so on. To put the matter more vividly, an ani- mal acting on this principle would sacrifice its life if it could thereby save more than two brothers, but not for less. Some similar illustrations were given by Haldane (1955)." http://74.125.155.132/search?q=cache:xM5Wr3LV_RIJ:www.montana.edu/~wwwbi/staff/creel/bio405/hamilton%25201963.pdf+Haldane+%22more+than+two+brothers%22&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a As some of you know, my view of religions is that they are xenophobic memes. The human trait to host and be influence by these memes is a variable depending on the economic outlook. It is modulated up when the economic outlook is bleak (effectively a behavioral switch when the gain in a group goes over one). Today it would be measured in income per capita, in the stone age it was the ability of the ecosystem (game and berries) to feed the population. In the Stone Age such memes synchronized a tribe's warriors for an attempt to kill neighbors for resources. What we need to show is that going to war, for all its costs, is an evolutionary stable strategy (EES) in some recurring situations. Of course "war" can range from raids that kill a few of the other tribe (and perhaps steal some of their women) to total defeat such as is described the Book of Numbers, Chapter 31 Simple model assumptions. Humans trip into war mode (after a delay for xenophobic memes to build up) at some subjective probability that hard times a-coming will starve them. This ranges from zero of them dying (being wrong) to the whole tribe starving. Just to put a number on it, say the average event will cost the tribe half its members (and gene copies) if they do nothing. This is the case we have to beat by going to war. For the model I am going to say that on average the men who went off to a stone age war had 6 children (since that's about the number needed for a couple to raise two to adulthood in hunter gatherer societies) and one brother plus enough cousins to make up the equal of another brother (sisters were traded away for unrelated wives). That's 8x!/2 (Hamilton's relatedness factor). The cost of raids is relatively low, but so are the rewards. The gene selection model will assume the extreme (once in a lifetime) case--which probably caused most of the selection. For this simple model we will say that a tribe that goes to war loses none of the men's genes if it wins and all of the men's genes if it loses, plus the genes of all the male children but none of the female children who are taken as booty. The additional resources captured removes the threat of starvation for the winners even though they incorporate the losing tribe's young females. Genes of winners come out as 4, losers at 1.5 (three female children x 1/2). Since the chance of winning is 50%, you average the numbers, giving 2.75. That's the average gene survival for making a choice to go to war with a 50% chance of winning. Genes numbers for not going to war at a 50% starvation rate come out at 2. Hmm. 2.75/2 is 1.375, a 37% advantage. In per generation evolutionary terms that's a *big* number (intense selection). Of course, going to war when the tribe didn't face starvation was 4/2.75 or a disadvantage of about 45% so the selection is even stronger for not going to war when you didn't see bad times a-coming. The mental detector for making an accurate forecast was also under intense selection since the genetic consequences of making a wrong decision were so serious. Back to what Stathis wrote "They are making changes tending towards greater secularisation, which is the historical trend over the centuries. There may be temporary setbacks but ultimately religion is doomed, or at least doomed to be watered down until it's inoffensive." The model indicates that a positive future outlook, i.e., good economic prospects for you and your children will turn off the switch to pass around and be strongly influenced by religious (xenophobic) memes. The current world situation, especially the energy situation, leads me to predict that religions (and wars or related social disruptions) will be a major problem in the coming decades unless we solve the energy problem. Of course since the detector is tripped on per capita, low or negative population growth helps a great deal. To keep humans out of going to war, delta income/population must be positive or at least not negative for all segments of the population. Keith PS A more complicated model of human stone age evolution could be built, but my bet is that it will come to the same general conclusions as this simple one. It looks like the psychological traits for war (and religion) would not have evolved if it were not for the practice of incorporating the young women of the losers into the winning tribe. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 13 18:06:33 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 11:06:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership" Message-ID: <664784.44321.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/10/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/10 Dan : >>> As for what type the shares will be, that >>> should ultimately be up to the shareholders. >> >> And you seem to have definite ideas on just what >> shareholders would decide and how they should decide it.? I >> think, instead, the common law property approach would be >> best.? Yes, in some cases, it might mean an ownership >> arrangement that's entangled, but I doubt that'd be so in >> every case.? And I think it would almost never be the case >> that people wouldn't be allowed to sell shares.? In fact, I >> would think any case where a publicly stolen property were >> returned or turned over to a group -- say, a group of >> taxpayers who were forced, over the years to pay for that >> property -- with the stipulation that each shareholder (and >> I'd expect shares to be held by the level of taxation -- not >> equally unless all suffered equal taxation) could not sell >> her or his shares that this was not actually turning >> property back to its original owners was illegitimate.? If, >> afterward, all such owners -- not the majority, but all -- >> decided no one could sell her or his >> shares or could only do so with majority consent is >> another matter. > > I gave this as one example of what might be done if people > are quite > happy to continue managing a public resource as a public > resource. But you seem to think this is the default case.? Also, in fact, this could never be a matter of continuing things as they are -- unless all consented, including the original owners of the properties that were stolen.? (Or, in the case of property improperly taken from an unowned (or abandoned), homesteading would have to be allowed.) > They might decide that roads should be treated differently > to a telecommunication company or airline that is being > privatised, for example, with a different share structure. Whole possible, it appears to me rather that you're baking in a possible case as the only likely one.? This is not to say it's unlikely.? One could easily imagine people having little imagination -- believing roads have always been [mis]managed in one way and not being able to see any other way -- and continuing with present forms.? But then why de-nationalization or de-socialization at all?? It's almost as if you're imagining that the Soviets fell and people in, say, Hungary decided they actually prefered to be ruled by the Soviets, so they're going to keep the Red Army there, keep the secret police, and all that, but just do it through a different form.? It's not impossible, but hard to see why they'd bother changing things at all. > If these really were > "stolen" from an individual or corporation then there may > be a case > for returning them to the previous owner, but if they were > built up on > public land with public funds, then they should be returned > to the > public, or if privatised the money thus obtained returned > to the public. As I pointed out earlier, it's not the public per se, but taxpayers or others robbed.? These would be, in this case, the original owners.? If, e.g., the government taxes you and me to buy, say, a computer, then it's really our (your and my) property -- not the property of the whole public.? (Especially, not the property of other net tax-receiving members of the public.? In this case, net tax-receivers actually owe money or property back to the net tax-payers, all else being equal.) I grant that in might be tough to figure out who owns what if many are taxed, it's all put into one fund and the government doles it out for this or that item.? (And most government spending is pure consumption anyhow -- and almost all of this will never be recovered.? This is little different than the guy who robs your dinner and then eats it.? Yes, he owes you dinner, but the original property has been consumed.? One can imagine an extreme case of the guy robbing your dinner every night for years and not being able to compensate you -- maybe because he just can't afford to pay you back.? This is, sadly, the case with a lot of theft by government.)? But this doesn't change the principle. Now you might add that, in many cases, the best rule is to divide up the properties among the public.? Again, it would only be the net tax-payers and not the whole public.? And this would have to be judged according to how much on net they were stolen from.? For example, someone who, on net, was robbed of $1 million (say, over the course of decades) is owed a larger share than another person who, on net, was robbed of $100,000.? (I also grant that determining these net amounts might not be easy in practice, but assuming equal shares shouldn't be the default state.? Just as in the case of, e.g., two farmers whose grain was robbed, we shouldn't assume on finding the robbers with all the grain that both farmers get exactly one half of the grain.? It could be the case that each owns one half of it, but that would remain to be proved NOT merely assumed.) in this vein, I am critiquing most de-socialization and de-nationalization schemes, such as those carried out in the former Soviet bloc nations.? And I'd also critique many "privatization" schemes, which, in too many cases, seem merely to transfer property from nomimal state ownership to ownership by a clique of connected political insiders.? (Granted, in some cases, this might be slightly better than state control and ownership, but that doesn't make it just.) >> I would argue that the core libertarian principle is >> something akin to a mathematical theorem. > > That's the part that worries me. An a priori truth is not > changed if people suffer. I can understand that fear.? I'm not sure it applies here.? That is, on the economics side, any a priori truth would not be something that could change.? It would merely describe how things are -- not something open to choice.? So, e.g., that rent control won't work can't help you mitigate human suffering.? The choice is merely whether one is willing to trade the suffering caused by rent control over the suffering caused by lack of it. As rent control generally takes a long time to bear its fruits -- current tenants tend to realize an immediate windfall making it look palatable and as if it has no downside save for whining landlords, but the bad effects happen over the long term as less people decide to improve or provide housing in the first place -- look at anti-gouging laws instead.? These tend to be put in place or enforce during crises or natural disasters.? For instance, during a flood, the government might decree that no one can raise prices on various goods.? This seems to have the immediate effect of these goods being available to those suffering the immediate problem -- say, of lack of hotel rooms, potable water, or various tools to rebuild, etc.? But what happens is, given a crises or disaster, more people stock up on these at the set price so the supplies run down and there's no incentive to ship more supplies in -- save for pure charity. The case of hotel rooms is telling.? Given the same price for a hotel room, refugees from a flood region will not economize as much.? For example, they'll continue to sleep one to a room or one couple to a room.? But at a higher price, they might start to sleep, where legally allowed, more than one or one couple to a room.? Thus, where at the legally decreed price, a few people get rooms to stay in, at the market price ever more people will get rooms.? The anti-gouging law, while perhaps well-intended (though none of us can yet read people's minds to tell what the motives are here), ends up causing more suffering: some are left without a place to stay. The same logic applies to potable water, food, and the like. But you were also talking not about economic laws/principles (in a previous), but explicitly here about the libertarian principle.? And here I can see your fear.? (And, of course, you're not the first person to raise this fear; and I'm not the first person to address the raising of it.)? Just a side comment here: I would say that the main way people cause suffering for others is via coercion. So, the presumption against increasing suffering is strange to be pitted against the libertarian principle. Add to this, if one takes a stance that a priori principles might lead to suffering because following them blindly might cause one to adhere to some rule that works in most cases (works in terms of reducing suffering), but fails miserably in others seems to be a type of a priori principle against suffering. Don't you think this alone might make you reconsider apriorism? + >> I'm not sure how this applies to either free trade or >> to noninitiation of force. ?To wit, the usual libertarian >> take on slavery is that it's forbidden tout court. ?To wit, >> the usual libertarian take on selling air is that, under >> most circumstances, it's a free good and people just have a >> right to it as is. ?(That said, there are special >> circumstances where it becomes an economic good -- i.e., a >> good one would economize and so possibly buy and sell -- >> such as at high altitudes, in space, and underwater.) ?This >> means, it's just a ground condition no one can take away >> from someone else. ?Yes, someone might be able to someday >> buy the sky, but they wouldn't likely have the ability to >> say, "I own the air around you, so you must pay me if you >> plan on having any." > > I can freely sell you the atmosphere above my house, and > lease it back > from you. If the lease expires you can freely increase the > air rent to > whatever you want, and I can freely agree to the price or > else stop breathing. Or move. > If I continue to breathe then I am stealing your property, > and you are within your rights to prevent me from doing so, > using > violent means if necessary. If I can't pay and wish to > continue > breathing you might agree to let me be your slave for life, > and I can > freely accept or reject your offer. Is there anything wrong > with any of this? If i understand you correct, your fear is that someone might sell away this right -- and you fear they'll basically be enslaved by their choice. While possible, I hardly see how "public ownership" changes this. What's to stop, e.g., the government -- er, what you believe to be the people -- deciding to charge an air tax as it might claim to need to tend this vital resource? What democratic principle would this go against? How is it ruled out? >> One way to examine this issue is perhaps to look at >> the case of water rights on a river. ?Imagine a bunch of >> people homestead property on a river. ?Let's say they use >> the river as a source of water -- say, for drinking, >> washing, and farming. ?Someone upstream from them can't >> decide she owns the river up there and dam it without their >> approval and then charge them for water. ?That would cut >> off their water supply. ?In a sense, and this lines up with >> common law notions of property, those people don't just have >> a right to the land along the river, but also to the water >> supply from it. ?One could make a similar argument for air. >>?Someone couldn't homestead all the air and then cut these >> people off and charge them for air. > > But if I sell or give you my part of the river, I lose my > right to it. Yes, that's true.? I was merely trying to show, though, that people would not start in the state of someone claiming to have homesteaded a resource that, in fact, other people have, in fact, already homesteaded.? My meaning here is that the people living on the river, using its water, have already homesteaded the use of that water and that a latter party -- the dam builder upstream from them -- can overturn this -- at least, not without their consent. Now, you might persist here that this can lead to someone in the desert selling their well and being forced to give all they own for a drink.? This is not ruled out.? (And one might repair to Rand's "ethics of emergencies," though my feeling is this escape hatch allows far too much for blurring the lines.? While, say, you and I might agree the man dying of thirst deserves a drink, regardless of who owns the well -- we might say this emergency case trumps all talk about rights and property -- another person might just as well argue that the man about to lose his home because he was stupid enough to buy when he had a good job and housing prices were rising is now in an emergency situation and should be allowed to keep it.? And there's also the case, all too frequent these days, of arguing this or that very large corporation should be bailed out because the whole economy is in an emergency.) >>> Moral or economic principles should not be >>> established >>> a priori and followed to ridiculous ends, no >>> matter what. >>> That was the mistake of the Soviets. >> >> The Soviets had a completely different stand in >> regards to both moral and economic principles.? They did >> not hold any a priori principles in this regard -- and took >> a firm stand against apriorism.? IIRC, their actual view >> was the Party itself decides which principles are to hold at >> any time -- kind of negating the notion of principles or of >> any principle other than obedience to the Party.? Also, >> purely in terms of economics, Marxism -- and Soviet ideology >> followed it in this respect -- does not hold any a priori >> economic principles.? IIRC, Marx and Engels sided with the >> German Historicist school -- a school famous for believing >> that there are no economic laws aside from particular >> regularities for specific historical settings.? In other >> words, economic laws are not eternal or immutable, but >> determined purely by historical context.? (This view of >> economic laws was used by socialists and nationalists (later >> on, fascists) to argue against things like >> the?Law of Supply and Demand or any critique of their >> specific economic policies.) >> >> Also, with Marxists in general, and the Soviets in >> particular, wasn't the belief here that economic >> regularities were, at best, merely manifestations of a given >> stage of social development?? I.e., primitive communism had >> its economics laws, ancient slave societies theirs, >> feudalism its, various stages of capitalism its various >> laws, and later stages -- socialism and eventual communism >> -- its newer laws that would not fit the earlier stages? > > Marx believed in historical progress towards communism as a > scientific > law, which I suppose does make it a posteriori rather than > a priori. > But the point I was making is that the Soviets believed > this so > completely that they ignored any evidence to the contrary; > for > example, they ignored any evidence suggesting that the > working class > in their capitalist neighbours were better off and their > lot > materially improving, because, well, you can't argue with a > scientific > law! I see something similar happening with those who > worship the free market. > Faced with evidence that people are happier and better off > with (for example) public health or public education, they > *know* that > this can't be right, and their challenge is to find the > flaw, like > finding the flaw in a design for a perpetual motion > machine. While in some sense true, I thought the matter was under dispute -- that is, whether everyone is actually better off under government (i.e., coerced) provision of certain (or all?) goods and services.? And how would one measure this being happier and better off?? To know, one would have to have a clear measure of happiness and being better off.? I thought you and others were using longevity as a proxy for this -- that is, that people who living longer are, all else considered, probably happier and better off than otherwise.? And were drawing the conclusion that since Americans on average don't live as long as, say, the Dutch, that nationalized healthcare must be better and make them happier?? Is this not your view? Weren't others, including me, not just drawing on a priori laws of economics here, but also questioning the conclusion and the data?? After all, even if one thinks economic laws are not a priori, one might still question the claim.? (The particular grounding of economic law might differ -- some might believe they are a priori, others not, but people in the latter category -- no a priori economic laws -- might still believe there are economic laws (just as there are laws of physics) and also question the data and conclusions on nationalized healthcare.) Add to this, Rafal, others, and I have questioned the characterization of America as having almost no involvement of government in healthcare.? In fact, in terms of % of GDP -- if that's a good measure; there are reasons to question it, but it's a measure one can use for most countries today regardless -- the US government puts more money into healthcare than most Western countries with nationalized healthcare.? Thus, comparisons between, say, the US and other countries are not comparisons between nations with a voluntary system in healthcare -- i.e., no government [coerced] provision of healthcare -- and those with nationalized healthcare, but merely between different forms of mostly government provision of healthcare.? Thus what do the data say that leads one to the conclusion that freedom in this area would be worse?? Some might say that only an a priori stand against freedom would lead one to conclude that only nationalized healthcare can work and not only work but work much better than freedom in this area. >> I would also distinguish between moral and economic >> principles.? The former are normative -- telling one what >> should be done; the latter are descriptive -- telling one >> what happens under such and such conditions.? For instance, >> there might be a moral principle to not to coerce, but there >> is no such economic one.? Instead, as an economist, one >> might ask what happens when there is coercion.? In fact, >> many economic analyses of old were examinations of just what >> happened under different forms of coercion.? For instance, >> how rent control causes housing shortages.? Now, from a >> purely economic standpoint, one can recognize that rent >> control causes housing shortages, but economics as economics >> does not tell one that one should be for, against, or >> indifferent to rent control.? (Of course, one could make an >> argument against coercion based on it having undesireable >> unintended consequences.*? But this requires the person >> actually disvalue the undesireable >> unintended consequences more than she or he values >> other aspects of coercion.? For instance, I've heard many >> statists argue that, yes, public schooling really does suck, >> but they still value it because they value things like >> molding people to the national ideology or having most or >> all have a common experience of that institution.) >> >> I bring up this distinction because whatever our >> disagreements on moral principles, I think there are valid >> economic laws and a valid economic science regardless. > > Yes, although in practice economists tend to be > prescriptive in a way that scientists generally are. This doesn't matter.? What matters is whether economics itself need be prescriptive.? Yes, a scientist -- for example, a medical researcher -- might say, "This course is best."? But then she or he is speaking in terms of preferences and not purely as a scientist.? Ditto for economists.? There's nothing wrong with them expressing preferences as such, but then they are not specifically doing economics, but expressing their preferences for particular policies.? And such preferences might be backed by economics -- as in when an economist comes out against raising the minimum wage because it'll cause unemployment.? She is actually arguing from the expected outcome -- causing unemployment -- and expressing a preference not to raise this.? Often, too, this is in the context of policy makers and others arguing for a particular policy for specific reasons that simply don't hold.? For instance, sticking with this case, politicians and others who argue that raising the minimum wage will actually benefit everyone are either mistaken or lying because, all else being the same, unemployment will be higher.? (Aside from fitting with purely theoretical arguments, this has actually been shown to fit the data, though arguments about data often devolve into how much unemployment is caused by how much of an increase -- and then some express preferences of the type, "An X % rise in unemployment is acceptable given a greater than X% rise in the minimum wage."*) > I also have an issue with your > definition of "coercion". If an economic or political > system leads to > an impoverished underclass at the mercy of the wealthy > capitalists, > then you might think that's OK because they weren't > "coerced" into this state, but I would disagree. This is generally a myth. The typical history is an "impoverished underclass" already exists. Any moves in the direction of a free society are then blamed on creating such a class, when, in fact, the free society is merely inheriting the underclass and, usually, offering opportunities for people to complain about it. Cf. the works of historians such as T. S. Ashton on this in England. However, let's look at the abstract statement: there is a process by which an "impoverished underclass" might be created. All else being equal, one would likely not desire this. One would have to ask a few questions how to chuck out the process. One would be what are the alternatives to this process? Do they not create such an underclass? Do they create one but it's much smaller or much less imporvished? If one is to set as moral and justice claims and just worry about the potential for creating such an underclass, this would have to be asked. If, as you hint elsewhere, the cure for this is to have the people (as a whole -- since you certainly don't want each person having choice here) decide, it's hard to see why, given a voluntary social order in which most people don't want an underclass, such an underclass would form. (And were there an underclass already in existence, why the people who don't want this wouldn't just voluntarily work to overcome it.) For instance, in any transaction, people might aim not at the most pecuniary profit, but at what they believed was equitable. Impossible! you say. However, people do this now by choosing to buy or not to buy from sources based on their feelings of fairness. Think of the fair trade movement. Now, you could bring in that people will vote for a good policy they would practice voluntarily. But this remains to be proved. It seems more likely to me that people will vote for policies that don't seem to cost them anything or that redistribute costs to others. There's no reason to assume that when people vote as opposed to when they freely interact that somehow they become angels and saints aiming at the common good -- as well as they bceoming all wise in knowing just what policies will work. If you're afraid people acting under no coercion will make bad choices -- such as creating an imporverished underclass -- I hardly see why they should be less feared when acting via the anonymity of the voting booth and when their specific choice is unlikely to cost them personally much. > A gross maldistribution of the > world's resources is evidence that the haves have stolen > from the > have-nots, even if they have done so by cleverly adhering > to the laws > relating to voluntary exchange. My example of selling the > atmosphere and debt slavery is a case in point. Actually, your examples are speculative. In the real world, there is inequality of distribution. And one would expect inequality, but not all inequality is just. In the real world, we have to ask how the inequality came about. Whatever came out coercively is not just and, hence, open to some sort of remedy. (This doesn't mean it must be in the direction of equality, though, generally, when people coerce other people, it's to take something from the coerced for the benefit of the coercers -- and individuals or groups that're successful at this tend to repeatedly do this and tend to be a small minority. So, they tend to concentrate wealth in a small class -- e.g., the ruling class.) Perhaps an archetypal example of this is land theft in Latin America, where a wealthy ruling class tends to "own" most of the land. This is generally because peasants have had land stolen from them -- land they've either homesteaded or should have through some sort of usufruct right. A libertarian correction of this would, in this case, be taking the land from the current legal land owners and giving it back to the peasants. (This doesn't mean this is always simple. Even in the Latin American case, there are complications, but the general rule is return land to the original owners where possible and allow homesteading to take place where land should be unowned. Of course, ruling classes won't go gently into the night, so I'm not sure how to implement this -- aside from persuading as many people as possible...) >> As I said, "Granted, if people who justly owned these >> decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's >> another story."? If the people who actually justly own Nova >> Scotia -- who actually own it and NOT who merely are members >> of the public or citizens or whatever entity (or alternate >> classification) you prefer to repair to -- decide on a >> particular process (one that doesn't, of course, violate >> rights), that's their call. > > You're fixated on the idea that someone must own > everything. What's > wrong with the idea that some land might be held in common > by the people who live there? Nothing per se. The problem is assuming the land IS held in common as a starting point. Unowned land is unowned land. It's not common land. Common land, too, would have to be held in common via some just process -- that is, via either being homesteaded by a group (e.g., a group of individuals must agree to hold whatever they homestead in common) or otherwise justly transferred to a group (e.g., some gifts something to a group that the members of said group agree to hold in common or some group trades something (e.g., money) for something they agree to hold in common). There is no presumption of common ownership. It must arise from the unowned condition -- just as in non-common ownership. Also, note that the group holding something common here would have to be defined. It can't be all humanity. It might be something like the people who live in this or that valley and their descendants. (Let's leave aside the tragedy of the commons -- where a commonly held resource, such as land, is ill-used because the incentive to care for it is low and the concommitant incentive to overuse is high. A classic example is a grazing pasture held in common by a village. The benefit of overgrazing is immediate profit while the cost of it is distributed. Of course, social customs and mores might control some of these excesses, but the larger the group, the tendency is for less care about what others think and enforcement of such customs and mores becomes harder. Your friends and family shunning you for taking too much dessert at the dinner table is more likely to change your behavior than the prime minister scolding people who abuse the natural resources of a nation (ignoring, for the moment, that the nation owns no such resources; the government merely claims it does and that it speaks for the nation).) >> Any collective is only composed of individuals.? >> Collectives do not have any special rights apart from their >> individuals.? Yes, a particular collective could come to >> own property -- just like individuals.? But it has claim >> over and above individual claims.? And a collective would >> still have to obtain property via just means -- viz., via >> either homesteading, trade, or gift. > > If you push the definition of homesteading then you can say > that > public land is owned by the public by means of > homesteading. For > example, you can apply this to a town hall erected on > previously unowned land using public money. Nope. We've already been over this. A group of thieves who steals from you to fund their expedition to Mars cannot be said to have justly homesteaded land on Mars. They did so with stolen funds AND by doing so they've not only unjustly acquired the land, but prevented others from justly homesteading the same land. Groups can homestead property, but they must do it justly -- not by using stolen funds or by, say, enslaving people to erect a pyramid or whatnot. >> Georgism's problems in this respect are manifold, but >> can, I believe, be divided into two sets: moral ones and >> economic ones.? A major economic one is how to figure out >> rent on land and who gets it.? Elsewhere, others and I have >> shown, I believe, this to be an insoluble problem. >> >> The main moral one, from a libertarian standpoint, is >> the view that all land is held in common or collectively.? >> This claim seems to not follow from anything -- save for >> maybe underlying egalitarian sentiments -- and is just laid >> out there.? Also, if one agrees with an egalitarian >> underpinning, it's hard to see why this would and should be >> limited to land.? Why not to labor and even to people?? >> Georgists tend to hold views that land is special in this >> case, but often this goes back to economic arguments or ad >> hoc moral ones.? (Of course, I'm speaking as a critic of >> Georgism (and its supposed libertarian variant geoism).) > > There may be practical arguments against Georgism, but the > position > that all land is the common property of humanity is no less > ad hoc > than your contention that everything has to be owned by > someone. That's not my position.? My position is that there is property and there is the unowned according to libertarian rights theory.? I hold this theory to be basically correct -- which is not to say problem free, but less problematic than all other contenders. Also, the Georgist contention is not that everything is not owned by someone, but that all land is owned by someone -- namely, the whole community. > In fact, in Australian and North American aboriginal cultures > the idea > that land could be owned by an individual was considered > bizarre. Some of them did.? In terms of libertarianism, though, there's nothing per se wrong with group ownership.? There is, however, something wrong when the group (or an individual) claims to own everything -- as in the Georgist account of all land being owned by the group known as humanity. Regards, Dan *? This is still expressing merely a preference.? After all, from a pareto optimality standpoint, there is no way to express values -- costs and benefits -- interpersonally.? So, harming someone by making him unemployed cannot be directly compared with increasing someone else's wages.? This is many using pareto optimality opt for policies that do no harm or do less overall harm -- rather than comparing costs and benefits and pretending than harming Peter to help Paul is scientific and we can precisely weigh the harming of Peter against the helping of Paul. + Of course, my views on the a priori and apriorism are actually not in line with strict Austro-libertarianism here. I actually think the libertarian principle is not axiomatic or a priori. I think it follows, however, in the fashion of an "intuitive induction" (epagogue) a la Aristotle -- and this applies, I believe, to other seemingly a priori principles. In other words, I don't buy into Kant's notion of the a priori however much I might agree with the rest of his views of ethics and rights. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Jul 13 21:23:45 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 14:23:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort/was Re: systems thinking In-Reply-To: <580930c20907130343q2caf8f06r708f3f94ce0d02e2@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <515836.54527.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 7/13/09, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 10:44 PM, ben wrote: >> Jef bemoaned: >> >>> Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught >>> to children >>> alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and >>> pop-culture. >> >> If one wanted to give oneself an education in >> systems-thinking, what would you recommend? > > Why, I have always believed that fairy tales and mythology > do amount to "systems-thinking for children". You might be right about that... And this goes for adults too. This sounds similar to the ideas of Bruno Bettelheim, especially as given in his _The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales_. Regarding adults, too, might this function be served by art? I know Rand has been trashed (and defended) on this list, but look soberly at her ideas on art. She sees art as concretizing certain types of abstractions. This seems akin to a systems view of the world. E.g., one doesn't draw out chains of reasoning when thinking of, say, Othello or Ahad. Instead, one seems to have a sort of image one can draw on of just what it means to be obsessed. (This can also go awry -- as in stereotypes.) Regards, Dan From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jul 13 22:03:15 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 00:03:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> <4A59F16C.8010300@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A5BAF23.8050600@libero.it> Stathis Papaioannou ha scritto: > 2009/7/13 Mirco Romanato : > >> In the same time in Taiwan: >> http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/editorials/archives/2009/07/09/2003448208 >> >>> At and ESTMUE, I observed six excellent practices >>> worth adopting by US schools: >>> >>> 1. Serve nutritious lunches: Unlike in the US, Taiwanese school >>> lunches do not consist of processed foods high in fat and sugar. >>> Instead, they generally consist of rice, soup, meat, fruit and >>> vegetables. Studies show that improving nutrition boosts academic >>> performance. >>> >>> 2. Keep students active: While US schools have cut back on or >>> completely eliminated physical education and recess, Taiwanese >>> schools provide physical education classes twice a week and 10-minute >>> recess periods four times a day. Both Taiwanese elementary schools I >>> visited had athletic tracks, which are rare in US elementary schools. >>> Studies show that increased physical activity leads to higher >>> academic performance. >>> >>> 3. Require school uniforms: School uniforms are the norm in Taiwanese >>> public schools. Only 15 percent of US public schools require them. >>> Studies show that school uniforms raise academic performance, while >>> lowering violence, theft and the negative effects of peer pressure. >>> >>> 4. Use hands-on learning: I observed more hands-on learning in the >>> Taiwanese schools than I have in US schools. For example, Taiwanese >>> students went on a field trip to a castle they studied in social >>> studies; they collected local plants and used them to make a dye in >>> science; and they worked with compasses and rulers in math. Studies >>> show that hands-on learning involves students in real-world >>> activities and thereby improves their academic performance. >>> >>> 5. Use interdisciplinary learning: Based on my observations, US >>> teachers tend to teach one curricular discipline at a time, while >>> Taiwanese teachers try to incorporate several into a lesson. For >>> example, I observed a science teacher and art teacher in Taiwan >>> collaborate in guiding students through a science project that >>> involved drawing. Studies show that interdisciplinary learning helps >>> students apply their knowledge in various contexts and thus enhances >>> their academic performance. >>> >>> 6. Instill personal responsibility: In US schools, janitors clean up >>> after the students. In Taiwanese schools, the students clean up after >>> themselves. Cleanup time is a daily ritual wherein Taiwanese students >>> clean the school building, sweep the school grounds and dump trash. >>> Studies show that students who become more responsible tend to >>> improve their academic performance. > But you will note that the Taiwanese schools are public schools. Like the public schools of Washington D.C. and the horrible schools that I cited. Taiwan spend around 5.02% of their GDP in education where the US spend around 7% of their GDP. Strangely, Taiwan appear to obtain more with less. http://www.ccsindia.org/policy/ed/Edustats.doc http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_tot_exp_as_of_gdp-education-total-expenditure-gdp In Taiwan, the class are larger, the school are larger, etc. > If > the schools in one country or state are better than in another (as > they will be - there isn't just one way of doing things) then less > well performing schools should take note and improve themselves. Do you know why they don't take note and don't improve? Do you believe that a teacher barely able to read or to do math would be hired there and never dismissed? Why the violence and the unruliness of some schools in the US is unheard in Japan or China or Taiwan? > This is, or ought to be, a point of national importance. National, sure. But it is not a point of personal importance for so many people in the US; either teachers, principals, students and parent of students. > You seem to be > claiming that governments and parents are spending money on public > education when they don't care about education; Government spend money on public education. Where is that parents have any say in how government officials spend the money? Or in hiring and firing the staff? > but if that were true > why not just make education private and optional, and either give the > taxpayers a large tax cut (boosting electoral appeal) or spend the > money on more important things, like palaces and private jets for the > politicians? Because, if you keep education public, you have the excuse to spend money to build schools, hire teachers and janitors, etc. and the excuse to tax people. No public schools no excuse to tax people. Tax are important, as they are used to pay for hire people, that will, in change, vote for the party representing them. Or the tax will pay for the buildings of schools that will be built by friends of the friends of the politicians (and they will be grateful funding future elections, selling mansions at lower prices to the same politics, giving direct bribes, etc.). Taking the money from the people will prevent them from having the means to buy private education and will starve the private education sector for all apart the wealthy. So, after a few years, people will start to believe that private education is too costly, there are not enough schools to serve all, etc. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jul 13 23:05:20 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:05:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Public education myths/was Re: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <705011.72793.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <705011.72793.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A5BBDB0.3030301@libero.it> Dan ha scritto: > --- On Sun, 7/12/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > This also assumes that the streets, etc. are justly held by the > people I try to keep thing simply, for the sake of clarity. Giving back to the owners it relatively easy in the short time, but after decades is as easy as make eggs using omelettes. This, I suppose, it is the reason that make forgiveness so useful and prized. If people continued, after decades and centuries to mind of any and all wrongs they and their ancestors were subjected, there would not be peace and collaboration, only conflict and war. > I'm not as familiar with other nations, but in the US I was referring to the rationale given to the UK people, and probably near all people in the world, to support public compulsory education. I agree that the rationale given could not be the real rationale. Or, probably, many people acted for different rationales and someone hijacked the process and their work. >> Maybe, desocialize the children from their families and neighbours >> and socialize them with a bunch of same age individuals is good, >> maybe it is not. > Some believe it tends to disrupt "natural" social orders. Note the > model too: put lots of little children into a room with one authority > who tells them what to do. This is social regimentation that seems > best suited not for learning but for fostering obedience. True. But only if the teacher have authority and is respected and feared. Just now, in many schools of the western society, the teacher is without authority and it is not respected by the pupils or their parents, nor supported by his/her superior. In this way, the pupils will not learn to obey to an higher authority; they will learn that authority figures must not be respected and only the bullies need to be respected and feared. They will learn that hard work is not rewarded, that the authority (the teacher) is intimidated by the bullies or their parents. In a way this is understandable. People is no more required to work in their live, they are entitled to welfare in their live. And authority people must provide for them. So, there is no need to force them to learn, even in a paternalistic setting. It is not useful they learn, as if they learn, they will not be dependant on welfare and the political class that dole it out. Obviously, this will destroy the wealth of the nation in the not so long period. But for the people in the Ivory towers and in the leading position this is not important, as they believe that they will not be damaged. >> It appear that the US and Europe, in many fields, are losing their >> advantages in respect to East Asia. Maybe they are or were doing >> something wrong. > I think it might be a bit more complicated than the form of schooling > in each country. For sure. Schooling and education don't happen in a vacuum. > I also think that having educational choices made at the national > level is a way to guarantee failure. Yes, eventually, over decades, > different nations might figure out this or that educational policy is > bad, but this is similar to having, say, diet or technology choices > made this way. Imagine had nation's -- meaning, really, the ruling > classes of nations -- decide on the proper diet and not allowing > people inside them to deviate. How quickly would the world settle on > the best diet? I don't know. I only know the life expectations would fall rapidly. And people would immediately find way to break the laws and, possibly, break the lawmakers. > A far better system is to allow individual people to make their > dietary choices. Yes, some will make stupendously stupid choices, > but most won't because they have a direct incentive to get it right. > Also, by having individual freedom, people can self-correct -- rather > than wait until the leaders change their minds or some sort of > national consensus is reached. Agree. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Jul 13 23:12:29 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 01:12:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <580930c20907130824y3ece1681xe65e0c9071024551@mail.gmail.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <580930c20907130824y3ece1681xe65e0c9071024551@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A5BBF5D.2030101@libero.it> Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 4:19 PM, spike wrote: >> The American founders realized this, >> and that is why America is not a democracy but rather is a democratic >> republic. > > I thought that with a sufficient majority congress had not limit in > amending the federal constitution, including the republican form of > goverment (btw, Iran is not a monarchy either any more...). In reality, I could argue that Iran is an elective monarchy where the Supreme Leader have supreme authority and have life tenure. The others are windows dressing around. Nothing can be done against the will of the Supreme Leader. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Tue Jul 14 01:05:49 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:05:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike><710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> Message-ID: <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou ... > > > > > > Ja, agreed, thanks for that comment. ?The American founders > realized > > this, and that is why America is not a democracy but rather is a > > democratic republic. ?Our current government fails to > recognize this, > > but we will survive another 3.4 years when most of them > will be gone. > > I'm not sure what you mean by this distinction. Are you > referring to the US Constitution?... I meant most of the members of the current congress and the executive branch will be changed out, if it plays out the way I expect. If it doesn't play out the way I expect, then nearly everything I thought I knew about economics is wrong. If what I think I know about economics is right, in fall of 2010 we will be struggling along with 11% unemployment and a huge number of the representatives will be sent packing. In 2012, we will be struggling along with 12% unemployment and a huge number of the senate and executive branch will go home. The new guys may be just as bad, possibly worse, than the ones they replaced. Democrat and republican are two wings of the same bird of prey. > A constitution itself will > either be written and ratified by a team of dictators or by > some sort of democratically elected committee... Ja, but fortunately the US constitution was designed by a bunch of guys who had suffered directly under government tyranny. They carefully designed a form of government that has a bunch of ways of resisting tyranny. > ...would it make it any > better if a government or law could only be changed if, say, > 2/3 of the population agree? Stathis Papaioannou Ja, but recall that it is difficult to get 2/3 of the voters to agree on *anything* including the color of snow and whether the sun will rise tomorrow. That fact gives the constitution some degree of stability. The military insures that the government stays within the bounds of the constitution, for it is that document that defines who is in command of that awesome force. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 03:36:01 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:36:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907132036t1cac069kf02e500fa3883b38@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 2:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >> ### Are you asking if I would buy these shares in an initial public >> offering? > > No, that would be a quite different situation. The shares are issued > to everyone for free, with the option of voting to change the > structure so that they can be sold and accumulated. You assume that > the shareholders would vote to do this, and maybe they would. But they > might also choose to leave things as they are, just as voters choose > to leave some assets and organisations in public control and to > privatise others. Now I understand that you think privatising > everything is for the best, and perhaps you also think that left to > their own devices people will decide to do just that. But what should > be done if, foolishly, they choose to keep some things communally > owned? > ### You are begging the question: You posit that some group of people may decide to use an accounting fiction to run their road system, you implicitly assume the legitimacy of a democratic polity, and then ask what to do. Well, obviously, if the people want to use an accounting fiction, an accounting fiction they'll have, and by the implicit assumption of legitimacy, this state of affairs cannot be changed except by a vote, which you already precluded in the premises. Am I clear? Rafal P.S. Of course, I refuse the assumption of democratic legitimacy, since it is based on violence and is inefficient as well, so personally I would endorse other actions to change the status quo - but you didn't ask WWRD (what would Rafal do), you asked an impersonal "what should be done". From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 03:38:48 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:38:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <00838114FF7849209DAD0E5D45CA82F7@pcnx6325> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <32757B142684465A9DE2A2196A821B52@pcnx6325> <7641ddc60907082039g78a85587sbdd5da79cfe6003e@mail.gmail.com> <00838114FF7849209DAD0E5D45CA82F7@pcnx6325> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907132038q47e47b9el428290f78015399b@mail.gmail.com> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:24 AM, Henrique Moraes Machado wrote: > > Rafal> ### You have an idea on how to move me around as quickly, > comfortably, >> >> safely, and cheaply as in a car, but without the "wrongness" you >> allude to, don't hesitate to patent it, and soon you will be rich >> beyond imagination, and you will have conferred the greatest boon on >> humanity since the invention of the wheel. Otherwise, stay away from >> my Mustang. > > LOL. Yes, but it's already been done. Look for things like the Ventureone > which I cited on the previous message to Mr .Grigg. ### This is an unsafe, impractical, rather expensive joke. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 03:43:51 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:43:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> <4A59E1DD.8020902@libero.it> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907132043m43a3137cq2daa69e5f49c851c@mail.gmail.com> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 10:20 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: It might be OK to waste private > money, but if it's taxpayer's money that's being wasted, the taxpayers > should get rid of the government, and if they won't go, overthrow > them. ### Now ya talkin, Stat! Keep it up! Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 03:58:35 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 23:58:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: References: <36086.48595.qm@web59911.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <7641ddc60907040013n62ed648aj3a5f74602f0327cd@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907072041r62805751pefc107fb439faf3b@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907090224y48cab2b3o1083e2cbbd7b3660@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907092204t6a566f70n18e40db2255e1f09@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907132058t557daabcu1b48079ee1e5f72a@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:56 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/10 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:48 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : >>> >>>> ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: >>>> >>>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html and other >>>> pages there, especially >>>> >>>> http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html >>> >>> The cited papers claim a "moderate correlation". That is not >>> equivalent to claiming that if people were smarter there would be less >>> violent crime. >> >> ### Read again. "randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals >> would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent (i.e., from >> 60 percent to 40 percent)?certainly a meaningful change." > > And that's a completely unwarranted assumption based on the evidence > of correlation. It's like discovering that people in prison are of > below average height, and concluding that increasing the average > height of the population will decrease crime. ### No, it is not unwarranted, since in this case there is theoretical validity to the assumption of causality. IQ is a measure of the general ability to arrive at correct solutions to problems. Crimes are solutions that are deemed incorrect by the lawmaker, and the law is designed to increase the cost of such solutions in relation to other solutions. Having a higher IQ allows you to arrive at the correct solution, given available data, such as the expected utility of mugging a stranger and spending a year in prison, vs. working productively and enjoying the fruits of your labor. Thus, stupid people tend to do stupid, destructive stuff. The so-called "poor" in rich countries are usually stupid, frequently depraved, and they tend to commit crimes. Increasing their IQ would, by allowing them to make better informed choices, decrease their criminal behavior. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 06:58:01 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 02:58:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] speeding up Message-ID: <7641ddc60907132358x65792b47t4682dfbd2a4d584e@mail.gmail.com> We had a discussion of Obama's spending spree a couple months ago, here is a great illustration: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5yxFtTwDcc&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vickiboykis.com%2F&feature=player_embedded Crazy world, isn't it? Rafal From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 07:27:32 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:57:32 +0930 Subject: [ExI] systems thinking In-Reply-To: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> References: <4A58F996.4030106@lineone.net> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907140027w7632cb94hc38c6213d7608684@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/12 ben : > Jef bemoaned: > >>Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught to children >>alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and pop-culture. > > If one wanted to give oneself an education in systems-thinking, what would > you recommend? > And is it necessary or desirable to be maths-educated, or even particularly > numerate, for this? > > Ben Zaiboc > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > I think this Douglas Rushkoff radio show is a good example of someone who thinks in terms of deep systems vs someone who doesn't. The guest, Arthur Brock, is the guy who does, Rushkoff is the one struggling. Douglas Rushkoff http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/32215 "Currency" Starts at 17:40 (skip to here, or at least to 2:00, past the crappy Ramones song intro, waaaay too long). Arthur Brock is all about alternative currencies, and a really different definition of "currency" from what we normally use. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 10:03:16 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 06:03:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The undivided mind Message-ID: <7641ddc60907140303n39d6dea9k85f3573912997989@mail.gmail.com> I just started reading "Create your own economy" by Tyler Cowen - so far is extremely interesting. It's a book about the autistic cognitive style and its validity in our internet-enabled society. Highly recommended. I have some of my own reflections on autistic cognitive style: Autism is a form of abnormal development of the brain, where the most basic neurological substrate of cognition, such as the cortical mantle, cortical columns, and the subcortical support structures, develop normally, yet there is an impairment in the long-range connections (white matter tracts) between cortical modules. This differs from garden-variety retardation where the substrate of cognition is itself dysfunctional. Furthermore, the impairment of long-range white matter tracts is not random. Random damage to white matter is seen in multiple sclerosis and microvascular disease which produce a totally different cognitive outcome (although infrequently one may observe some savant-like traits). The tracts most affected in autism tend to be the highly specialized networks important for social and linguistic tasks, while general-purpose cognitive circuitry is spared. The special purpose circuitry is very important for fast achievement of social competence, which is obviously extremely important for survival in the prehistoric jungle that shaped our genes. Yet, such speed comes at a cost: The social circuitry imposes a pre-determined structure on cognition, directing attention to stimuli and phenomena most important for survival in the jungle. This structure carries with itself evolutionary assumptions about social tactics, finely calibrated to life in small tribes. It teaches about dominance and submission games, coalition-building and exclusion of strangers, the uses of violence and deception in both offensive and defensive applications. It teaches to devote cognitive resources to tracking the alphas, rather than count petals in various flowers. It weaves lies, violence and the ability to self-deceive into the very fabric of the mind, making them into unseen yet all pervading facts of life. The mildly autistic mind is to some extent deprived of such pre-ordained structure. It is free to use its raw intelligence without compulsive focus on tribal structure. It tends to excel and then focus on tasks that do not require extensive long-range cortical connections, such as mathematics, or physical modeling of the environment. It is forced to come up with its own ways of imposing structure on sensory input which is much slower than pre-configured ideas - but it is free not to be shackled by tricks calibrated for the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. The autistic person is in a way weak, innocent, inept at bullying, lying and social manipulation, yet his mind is like a primal force, unbound by outdated assumptions. He is mentally undivided, applying his general cognitive engine to a greater scope of tasks than usual among the dominant social animals. His style reflects his neural structure - a Hawkins' hierarchical temporal memory, fluidly building ever more complex hierarchy of world models from simpler units, without the shortcuts afforded by the specialized neural hardware seen in standard humans - slower but less likely to make systematic mistakes in understanding. He is the persistent truth-finder, at times appalled by what he finds out. He is the innocent, fluid force of truth. Rafal From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 11:40:05 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:40:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A5BBF5D.2030101@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <580930c20907130824y3ece1681xe65e0c9071024551@mail.gmail.com> <4A5BBF5D.2030101@libero.it> Message-ID: <580930c20907140440hb3bf8aetbdff246ab64b7cc4@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 1:12 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > In reality, I could argue that Iran is an elective monarchy where the > Supreme Leader have supreme authority and have life tenure. > The others are windows dressing around. > Nothing can be done against the will of the Supreme Leader. Speaking of checks and balance the Supreme Leader AFAIK has a lesser, not greater, constitutional role in governmental affairs than the President of the United States. In fact, even though at the end of the day he still decided to support Amahdinejad during the last elections, it is no mystery that he had to endure the "excessive" independence shown by the latter and the related discontend of traditionalist clergy (see Rafsanjani). But, sure, the US constitutional system itself has been described by European political scientists as a temporary elective monarchy... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 11:44:55 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 13:44:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> Message-ID: <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 3:05 AM, spike wrote: > Ja, but recall that it is difficult to get 2/3 of the voters to agree on > *anything* including the color of snow and whether the sun will rise > tomorrow. ?That fact gives the constitution some degree of stability. ?The > military insures that the government stays within the bounds of the > constitution, for it is that document that defines who is in command of that > awesome force. Technically, this is known as a "semi-rigid" constitution, in the sense that special proceedings and majority are required to change it. Amendments to the US constitution have however repeatedly passed, and it remains the case that a sufficient majority can do whatever it likes, including eating the rest of the population. Of course, even "rigid" constitutions can be reversed. But this require a revolutionary, illegal breach of the previous order (say, a switch from monarchy to republic in the UK). -- Stefano Vaj From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 12:26:22 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 22:26:22 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Human evolution model (was Iranian riots) In-Reply-To: <1247501536_13499@s7.cableone.net> References: <1247501536_13499@s7.cableone.net> Message-ID: 2009/7/14 hkhenson : > Back to what Stathis wrote > > "They are making changes tending towards greater secularisation, which > is the historical trend over the centuries. There may be temporary > setbacks but ultimately religion is doomed, or at least doomed to be > watered down until it's inoffensive." > > The model indicates that a positive future outlook, i.e., good economic > prospects for you and your children will turn off the switch to pass around > and be strongly influenced by religious (xenophobic) memes. ?The current > world situation, especially the energy situation, leads me to predict that > religions (and wars or related social disruptions) will be a major problem > in the coming decades unless we solve the energy problem. ?Of course since > the detector is tripped on per capita, low or negative population growth > helps a great deal. ?To keep humans out of going to war, delta > income/population must be positive or at least not negative for all segments > of the population. This seems like a good explanation and is consistent with the observation that most of the time increasing prosperity correlates with decreasing religiosity (although this doesn't seem to apply to the US and the Middle east oil states). However, alternative explanations are possible. For example, religion exists as a side-effect of the tendency to adopt group customs and beliefs (however silly they may be), which has obvious benefits in building community cooperation. When people are wealthier and better-educated, they are just as keen to belong to a community, but they can't help seeing through the silliness and therefore find other things to bind them together. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 14:09:19 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:09:19 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Privatization and so called public "ownership" In-Reply-To: <664784.44321.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <664784.44321.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/14 Dan : > But you seem to think this is the default case.? Also, in fact, this could never be a matter of continuing things as they are -- unless all consented, including the original owners of the properties that were stolen.? (Or, in the case of property improperly taken from an unowned (or abandoned), homesteading would have to be allowed.) I don't think it's the default case that people will want to manage everything communally, but they do as a matter of fact decide to manage some things at least semi-communally, in that they decide to have public services. Rarely is the property so managed directly "stolen"; that usually happens in revolutions, and the revolutionaries generally argue in their turn that they are taking the property back from thieves and returning it to its rightful owners. >> They might decide that roads should be treated differently >> to a telecommunication company or airline that is being >> privatised, for example, with a different share structure. > > Whole possible, it appears to me rather that you're baking in a possible case as the only likely one.? This is not to say it's unlikely.? One could easily imagine people having little imagination -- believing roads have always been [mis]managed in one way and not being able to see any other way -- and continuing with present forms.? But then why de-nationalization or de-socialization at all?? It's almost as if you're imagining that the Soviets fell and people in, say, Hungary decided they actually prefered to be ruled by the Soviets, so they're going to keep the Red Army there, keep the secret police, and all that, but just do it through a different form.? It's not impossible, but hard to see why they'd bother changing things at all. As I have explained, allowed the freedom to choose people often decide that restaurants, shoe factories and farms are better managed privately and hospitals, schools and prisons are best managed publicly. The Soviets decreed that *everything* is best managed publicly, and the extreme capitalists decree that *everything* is best managed privately. Is it in general a better idea to base your decision on how things are best run on experience and observation of how the different systems work, rather than blind ideology? >> If these really were >> "stolen" from an individual or corporation then there may >> be a case >> for returning them to the previous owner, but if they were >> built up on >> public land with public funds, then they should be returned >> to the >> public, or if privatised the money thus obtained returned >> to the public. > > As I pointed out earlier, it's not the public per se, but taxpayers or others robbed.? These would be, in this case, the original owners.? If, e.g., the government taxes you and me to buy, say, a computer, then it's really our (your and my) property -- not the property of the whole public.? (Especially, not the property of other net tax-receiving members of the public.? In this case, net tax-receivers actually owe money or property back to the net tax-payers, all else being equal.) If your computer breaks and the insurance company buys you another one then who really owns the new computer: You? The insurance company? All the people who have paid premiums for longer than you have and never claimed, and whose premiums will now be increased by the insurer to pay for your carelessness? > I grant that in might be tough to figure out who owns what if many are taxed, it's all put into one fund and the government doles it out for this or that item.? (And most government spending is pure consumption anyhow -- and almost all of this will never be recovered.? This is little different than the guy who robs your dinner and then eats it.? Yes, he owes you dinner, but the original property has been consumed.? One can imagine an extreme case of the guy robbing your dinner every night for years and not being able to compensate you -- maybe because he just can't afford to pay you back.? This is, sadly, the case with a lot of theft by government.)? But this doesn't change the principle. We could start a whole debate about the morality of taxation again. You think that taxation is immoral; I think that a refusal to tax or pay tax is immoral. We're not going to agree. > Now you might add that, in many cases, the best rule is to divide up the properties among the public.? Again, it would only be the net tax-payers and not the whole public.? And this would have to be judged according to how much on net they were stolen from.? For example, someone who, on net, was robbed of $1 million (say, over the course of decades) is owed a larger share than another person who, on net, was robbed of $100,000.? (I also grant that determining these net amounts might not be easy in practice, but assuming equal shares shouldn't be the default state.? Just as in the case of, e.g., two farmers whose grain was robbed, we shouldn't assume on finding the robbers with all the grain that both farmers get exactly one half of the grain.? It could be the case that each owns one half of it, but that would remain to be proved NOT merely assumed.) Unless what happened wasn't actually robbery. > in this vein, I am critiquing most de-socialization and de-nationalization schemes, such as those carried out in the former Soviet bloc nations.? And I'd also critique many "privatization" schemes, which, in too many cases, seem merely to transfer property from nomimal state ownership to ownership by a clique of connected political insiders.? (Granted, in some cases, this might be slightly better than state control and ownership, but that doesn't make it just.) In my experience, most government privatisation schemes involve selling shares to the public. Complaints are made by the public if the price of the shares is too low (i.e. if those who buy them make a quick capital gain) on the grounds that the public which originally owned the shares missed out, since only a small proportion of the public usually buy the shares, and that proportion are usually richer to begin with. Thus, it could be construed that selling the shares transfers wealth from the poor (who originally owned them in equal part) to the rich. >>> I would argue that the core libertarian principle is >>> something akin to a mathematical theorem. >> >> That's the part that worries me. An a priori truth is not >> changed if people suffer. > > I can understand that fear.? I'm not sure it applies here.? That is, on the economics side, any a priori truth would not be something that could change.? It would merely describe how things are -- not something open to choice.? So, e.g., that rent control won't work can't help you mitigate human suffering.? The choice is merely whether one is willing to trade the suffering caused by rent control over the suffering caused by lack of it. But what if rent control in some form reduces suffering? Are you saying that is a physical impossibility? > As rent control generally takes a long time to bear its fruits -- current tenants tend to realize an immediate windfall making it look palatable and as if it has no downside save for whining landlords, but the bad effects happen over the long term as less people decide to improve or provide housing in the first place -- look at anti-gouging laws instead.? These tend to be put in place or enforce during crises or natural disasters.? For instance, during a flood, the government might decree that no one can raise prices on various goods.? This seems to have the immediate effect of these goods being available to those suffering the immediate problem -- say, of lack of hotel rooms, potable water, or various tools to rebuild, etc.? But what happens is, given a crises or disaster, more people stock up on these at the set price so the supplies run down and there's no incentive to ship more supplies in -- save for pure charity. > > The case of hotel rooms is telling.? Given the same price for a hotel room, refugees from a flood region will not economize as much.? For example, they'll continue to sleep one to a room or one couple to a room.? But at a higher price, they might start to sleep, where legally allowed, more than one or one couple to a room.? Thus, where at the legally decreed price, a few people get rooms to stay in, at the market price ever more people will get rooms.? The anti-gouging law, while perhaps well-intended (though none of us can yet read people's minds to tell what the motives are here), ends up causing more suffering: some are left without a place to stay. > > The same logic applies to potable water, food, and the like. You may as well say that no help at all should ever be provided by a government to disaster victims. This is the sort of statement that would make people see libertarianism as immoral, if not outright crazy. > But you were also talking not about economic laws/principles (in a previous), but explicitly here about the libertarian principle.? And here I can see your fear.? (And, of course, you're not the first person to raise this fear; and I'm not the first person to address the raising of it.) > > Just a side comment here: I would say that the main way people cause suffering for others is via coercion. ?So, the presumption against increasing suffering is strange to be pitted against the libertarian principle. ?Add to this, if one takes a stance that a priori principles might lead to suffering because following them blindly might cause one to adhere to some rule that works in most cases (works in terms of reducing suffering), but fails miserably in others seems to be a type of a priori principle against suffering. ?Don't you think this alone might make you reconsider apriorism? + The a priori principle causes suffering because it's wrong - it's not actually an a priori principle - or it doesn't actually have a bearing on suffering. >>> I'm not sure how this applies to either free trade or >>> to noninitiation of force. ?To wit, the usual libertarian >>> take on slavery is that it's forbidden tout court. ?To wit, >>> the usual libertarian take on selling air is that, under >>> most circumstances, it's a free good and people just have a >>> right to it as is. ?(That said, there are special >>> circumstances where it becomes an economic good -- i.e., a >>> good one would economize and so possibly buy and sell -- >>> such as at high altitudes, in space, and underwater.) ?This >>> means, it's just a ground condition no one can take away >>> from someone else. ?Yes, someone might be able to someday >>> buy the sky, but they wouldn't likely have the ability to >>> say, "I own the air around you, so you must pay me if you >>> plan on having any." >> >> I can freely sell you the atmosphere above my house, and >> lease it back >> from you. If the lease expires you can freely increase the >> air rent to >> whatever you want, and I can freely agree to the price or >> else stop breathing. > > Or move. > >> If I continue to breathe then I am stealing your property, >> and you are within your rights to prevent me from doing so, >> using >> violent means if necessary. If I can't pay and wish to >> continue >> breathing you might agree to let me be your slave for life, >> and I can >> freely accept or reject your offer. Is there anything wrong >> with any of this? > > If i understand you correct, your fear is that someone might sell away this right -- and you fear they'll basically be enslaved by their choice. ?While possible, I hardly see how "public ownership" changes this. ?What's to stop, e.g., the government -- er, what you believe to be the people -- deciding to charge an air tax as it might claim to need to tend this vital resource? ?What democratic principle would this go against? ?How is it ruled out? It isn't ruled out, but in general people will decide it is a terrible thing and vote against it. Even bad people will often choose what is universally considered good when in a position to choose as disinterested observers, but not if they stand to directly profit from what is universally considered bad. This is why a democracy is better than a dictatorship, and why a direct democracy or anarchism might be better still if they could be implemented. >>> One way to examine this issue is perhaps to look at >>> the case of water rights on a river. ?Imagine a bunch of >>> people homestead property on a river. ?Let's say they use >>> the river as a source of water -- say, for drinking, >>> washing, and farming. ?Someone upstream from them can't >>> decide she owns the river up there and dam it without their >>> approval and then charge them for water. ?That would cut >>> off their water supply. ?In a sense, and this lines up with >>> common law notions of property, those people don't just have >>> a right to the land along the river, but also to the water >>> supply from it. ?One could make a similar argument for air. >>>?Someone couldn't homestead all the air and then cut these >>> people off and charge them for air. >> >> But if I sell or give you my part of the river, I lose my >> right to it. > > Yes, that's true.? I was merely trying to show, though, that people would not start in the state of someone claiming to have homesteaded a resource that, in fact, other people have, in fact, already homesteaded.? My meaning here is that the people living on the river, using its water, have already homesteaded the use of that water and that a latter party -- the dam builder upstream from them -- can overturn this -- at least, not without their consent. > > Now, you might persist here that this can lead to someone in the desert selling their well and being forced to give all they own for a drink.? This is not ruled out.? (And one might repair to Rand's "ethics of emergencies," though my feeling is this escape hatch allows far too much for blurring the lines.? While, say, you and I might agree the man dying of thirst deserves a drink, regardless of who owns the well -- we might say this emergency case trumps all talk about rights and property -- another person might just as well argue that the man about to lose his home because he was stupid enough to buy when he had a good job and housing prices were rising is now in an emergency situation and should be allowed to keep it.? And there's also the case, all too frequent these days, of arguing this or that very large corporation should be bailed out because the whole economy is in an emergency.) A good point, and obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere. An income at subsistence level is the place where most wealthy countries in the world decide the line should be drawn. People would pay lower taxes if there were no such safety net, but they choose to pay the higher taxes. > While in some sense true, I thought the matter was under dispute -- that is, whether everyone is actually better off under government (i.e., coerced) provision of certain (or all?) goods and services.? And how would one measure this being happier and better off?? To know, one would have to have a clear measure of happiness and being better off.? I thought you and others were using longevity as a proxy for this -- that is, that people who living longer are, all else considered, probably happier and better off than otherwise.? And were drawing the conclusion that since Americans on average don't live as long as, say, the Dutch, that nationalized healthcare must be better and make them happier?? Is this not your view? No, my view is that people aren't so stupid that they can't see they were better off under the older system with higher taxes and more services or lower taxes and fewer services, as the case may be, and that this view informs their decision on what sort of system they will have in future. Even dictatorships the effects of their policies, or observe the systems in neighbouring states, and adjust policies accordingly. If abolition of public education, to give one example, led to improved educational standards at lower cost, don't you think this would have become obvious by now in at least one advanced thinker among states, and therefore widely copied? Or is it Mirco's conspiracy of teacher unions that have prevented this from happening anywhere in the world? > Weren't others, including me, not just drawing on a priori laws of economics here, but also questioning the conclusion and the data?? After all, even if one thinks economic laws are not a priori, one might still question the claim.? (The particular grounding of economic law might differ -- some might believe they are a priori, others not, but people in the latter category -- no a priori economic laws -- might still believe there are economic laws (just as there are laws of physics) and also question the data and conclusions on nationalized healthcare.) Yes, you have to look at empirical results. > Add to this, Rafal, others, and I have questioned the characterization of America as having almost no involvement of government in healthcare.? In fact, in terms of % of GDP -- if that's a good measure; there are reasons to question it, but it's a measure one can use for most countries today regardless -- the US government puts more money into healthcare than most Western countries with nationalized healthcare.? Thus, comparisons between, say, the US and other countries are not comparisons between nations with a voluntary system in healthcare -- i.e., no government [coerced] provision of healthcare -- and those with nationalized healthcare, but merely between different forms of mostly government provision of healthcare.? Thus what do the data say that leads one to the conclusion that freedom in this area would be worse?? Some might say that only an a priori stand against freedom would lead one to conclude that only nationalized healthcare can work > ?and not only work but work much better than freedom in this area. Yes, the US spends more public money on health care for less result than most other countries. They spend more per capita on public health care than Canada spends on all health care, for example. this means that US public health care is less efficient than that in other countries. It's also possible that US public education, or any other government provided service is less efficient than that in other countries, just as the US car industry is less efficient. Is it surprising that there are better and worse ways of doing a particular thing? >>> I would also distinguish between moral and economic >>> principles.? The former are normative -- telling one what >>> should be done; the latter are descriptive -- telling one >>> what happens under such and such conditions.? For instance, >>> there might be a moral principle to not to coerce, but there >>> is no such economic one.? Instead, as an economist, one >>> might ask what happens when there is coercion.? In fact, >>> many economic analyses of old were examinations of just what >>> happened under different forms of coercion.? For instance, >>> how rent control causes housing shortages.? Now, from a >>> purely economic standpoint, one can recognize that rent >>> control causes housing shortages, but economics as economics >>> does not tell one that one should be for, against, or >>> indifferent to rent control.? (Of course, one could make an >>> argument against coercion based on it having undesireable >>> unintended consequences.*? But this requires the person >>> actually disvalue the undesireable >>> unintended consequences more than she or he values >>> other aspects of coercion.? For instance, I've heard many >>> statists argue that, yes, public schooling really does suck, >>> but they still value it because they value things like >>> molding people to the national ideology or having most or >>> all have a common experience of that institution.) >>> >>> I bring up this distinction because whatever our >>> disagreements on moral principles, I think there are valid >>> economic laws and a valid economic science regardless. >> >> Yes, although in practice economists tend to be >> prescriptive in a way that scientists generally are. [I meant to say "in a way that scientists generally aren't"] > This doesn't matter.? What matters is whether economics itself need be prescriptive.? Yes, a scientist -- for example, a medical researcher -- might say, "This course is best."? But then she or he is speaking in terms of preferences and not purely as a scientist.? Ditto for economists.? There's nothing wrong with them expressing preferences as such, but then they are not specifically doing economics, but expressing their preferences for particular policies.? And such preferences might be backed by economics -- as in when an economist comes out against raising the minimum wage because it'll cause unemployment.? She is actually arguing from the expected outcome -- causing unemployment -- and expressing a preference not to raise this.? Often, too, this is in the context of policy makers and others arguing for a particular policy for specific reasons that simply don't hold.? For instance, sticking with this case, politicians and others who argue > ?that raising > ?the minimum wage will actually benefit everyone are either mistaken or lying because, all else being the same, unemployment will be higher.? (Aside from fitting with purely theoretical arguments, this has actually been shown to fit the data, though arguments about data often devolve into how much unemployment is caused by how much of an increase -- and then some express preferences of the type, "An X % rise in unemployment is acceptable given a greater than X% rise in the minimum wage."*) > >> I also have an issue with your >> definition of "coercion". If an economic or political >> system leads to >> an impoverished underclass at the mercy of the wealthy >> capitalists, >> then you might think that's OK because they weren't >> "coerced" into this state, but I would disagree. > > This is generally a myth. ?The typical history is an "impoverished underclass" already exists. ?Any moves in the direction of a free society are then blamed on creating such a class, when, in fact, the free society is merely inheriting the underclass and, usually, offering opportunities for people to complain about it. ?Cf. the works of historians such as T. S. Ashton on this in England. > > However, let's look at the abstract statement: there is a process by which an "impoverished underclass" might be created. ?All else being equal, one would likely not desire this. ?One would have to ask a few questions how to chuck out the process. ?One would be what are the alternatives to this process? ?Do they not create such an underclass? ?Do they create one but it's much smaller or much less imporvished? ?If one is to set as moral and justice claims and just worry about the potential for creating such an underclass, this would have to be asked. > > If, as you hint elsewhere, the cure for this is to have the people (as a whole -- since you certainly don't want each person having choice here) decide, it's hard to see why, given a voluntary social order in which most people don't want an underclass, such an underclass would form. ?(And were there an underclass already in existence, why the people who don't want this wouldn't just voluntarily work to overcome it.) ?For instance, in any transaction, people might aim not at the most pecuniary profit, but at what they believed was equitable. ?Impossible! you say. ?However, people do this now by choosing to buy or not to buy from sources based on their feelings of fairness. ?Think of the fair trade movement. But that's not how capitalism generally works. People can be nice in unison but horrible individually. The opposite is also possible - people in unison might feel powerful enough to invade a neighbour or destroy a minority group. > Now, you could bring in that people will vote for a good policy they would practice voluntarily. ?But this remains to be proved. ?It seems more likely to me that people will vote for policies that don't seem to cost them anything or that redistribute costs to others. ?There's no reason to assume that when people vote as opposed to when they freely interact that somehow they become angels and saints aiming at the common good -- as well as they bceoming all wise in knowing just what policies will work. ?If you're afraid people acting under no coercion will make bad choices -- such as creating an imporverished underclass -- I hardly see why they should be less feared when acting via the anonymity of the voting booth and when their specific choice is unlikely to cost them personally much. A person might not voluntarily give up most of his fortune to help the poor, but might agree to give up a small portion of his fortune for this purpose provided that everyone else does the same. This is what people agree to when they agree to be taxed. >> A gross maldistribution of the >> world's resources is evidence that the haves have stolen >> from the >> have-nots, even if they have done so by cleverly adhering >> to the laws >> relating to voluntary exchange. My example of selling the >> atmosphere and debt slavery is a case in point. > > Actually, your examples are speculative. ?In the real world, there is inequality of distribution. ?And one would expect inequality, but not all inequality is just. ?In the real world, we have to ask how the inequality came about. ?Whatever came out coercively is not just and, hence, open to some sort of remedy. ?(This doesn't mean it must be in the direction of equality, though, generally, when people coerce other people, it's to take something from the coerced for the benefit of the coercers -- and individuals or groups that're successful at this tend to repeatedly do this and tend to be a small minority. ?So, they tend to concentrate wealth in a small class -- e.g., the ruling class.) Perhaps an archetypal example of this is land theft in Latin America, where a wealthy ruling class tends to "own" most of the land. ?This is generally because peasants have had land stolen from them -- land they've either homesteaded or should have through some sort of > ?usufruct right. ?A libertarian correction of this would, in this case, be taking the land from the current legal land owners and giving it back to the peasants. ?(This doesn't mean this is always simple. ?Even in the Latin American case, there are complications, but the general rule is return land to the original owners where possible and allow homesteading to take place where land should be unowned. ?Of course, ruling classes won't go gently into the night, so I'm not sure how to implement this -- aside from persuading as many people as possible...) There is the labour theory of value, which says that a wealthy capitalist *must* have obtained his wealth through exploiting the workers, giving them less for their labour than they deserve and keeping the difference as profit. This was a voluntary arrangement, and it may even have been for the common good, since without the attraction of the exploitation the factory and the jobs would never have been created; but it is exploitation nonetheless. Thus, inequality itself is evidence of theft, even if the inequality arose through legal means without apparent coercion. >>> As I said, "Granted, if people who justly owned these >>> decided to give me some claim to the properties, that's >>> another story."? If the people who actually justly own Nova >>> Scotia -- who actually own it and NOT who merely are members >>> of the public or citizens or whatever entity (or alternate >>> classification) you prefer to repair to -- decide on a >>> particular process (one that doesn't, of course, violate >>> rights), that's their call. >> >> You're fixated on the idea that someone must own >> everything. What's >> wrong with the idea that some land might be held in common >> by the people who live there? > > Nothing per se. ?The problem is assuming the land IS held in common as a starting point. ?Unowned land is unowned land. ?It's not common land. ?Common land, too, would have to be held in common via some just process -- that is, via either being homesteaded by a group (e.g., a group of individuals must agree to hold whatever they homestead in common) or otherwise justly transferred to a group (e.g., some gifts something to a group that the members of said group agree to hold in common or some group trades something (e.g., money) for something they agree to hold in common). ?There is no presumption of common ownership. ?It must arise from the unowned condition -- just as in non-common ownership. ?Also, note that the group holding something common here would have to be defined. ?It can't be all humanity. ?It might be something like the people who live in this or that valley and their descendants. > > (Let's leave aside the tragedy of the commons -- where a commonly held resource, such as land, is ill-used because the incentive to care for it is low and the concommitant incentive to overuse is high. ?A classic example is a grazing pasture held in common by a village. ?The benefit of overgrazing is immediate profit while the cost of it is distributed. ?Of course, social customs and mores might control some of these excesses, but the larger the group, the tendency is for less care about what others think and enforcement of such customs and mores becomes harder. ?Your friends and family shunning you for taking too much dessert at the dinner table is more likely to change your behavior than the prime minister scolding people who abuse the natural resources of a nation (ignoring, for the moment, that the nation owns no such resources; the government merely claims it does and that it speaks for the nation).) > >>> Any collective is only composed of individuals. >>> Collectives do not have any special rights apart from their >>> individuals.? Yes, a particular collective could come to >>> own property -- just like individuals.? But it has claim >>> over and above individual claims.? And a collective would >>> still have to obtain property via just means -- viz., via >>> either homesteading, trade, or gift. >> >> If you push the definition of homesteading then you can say >> that >> public land is owned by the public by means of >> homesteading. For >> example, you can apply this to a town hall erected on >> previously unowned land using public money. > > Nope. ?We've already been over this. ?A group of thieves who steals from you to fund their expedition to Mars cannot be said to have justly homesteaded land on Mars. ?They did so with stolen funds AND by doing so they've not only unjustly acquired the land, but prevented others from justly homesteading the same land. ?Groups can homestead property, but they must do it justly -- not by using stolen funds or by, say, enslaving people to erect a pyramid or whatnot. Again, the legitimacy of taxation. -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 14:21:43 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:21:43 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <4A5BAF23.8050600@libero.it> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <4A58AB26.40309@libero.it> <4A59CA9C.1080703@libero.it> <4A59F16C.8010300@libero.it> <4A5BAF23.8050600@libero.it> Message-ID: 2009/7/14 Mirco Romanato : >> But you will note that the Taiwanese schools are public schools. > > Like the public schools of Washington D.C. and the horrible schools that > I cited. > Taiwan spend around 5.02% of their GDP in education where the US spend > around 7% of their GDP. Strangely, Taiwan appear to obtain more with less. > http://www.ccsindia.org/policy/ed/Edustats.doc > http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/edu_tot_exp_as_of_gdp-education-total-expenditure-gdp > > In Taiwan, the class are larger, the school are larger, etc. > > > >> If >> the schools in one country or state are better than in another (as >> they will be - there isn't just one way of doing things) then less >> well performing schools should take note and improve themselves. > > Do you know why they don't take note and don't improve? > Do you believe that a teacher barely able to read or to do math would be > hired there and never dismissed? > Why the violence and the unruliness of some schools in the US is unheard > in Japan or China or Taiwan? There are better and worse ways ways of running a public school system, just as there are better and worse ways of running a restaurant or car factory. The differences you have alluded to are a reflection of this. >> This is, or ought to be, a point of national importance. > > National, sure. > But it is not a point of personal importance for so many people in the > US; either teachers, principals, students and parent of students. > >> You seem to be >> claiming that governments and parents are spending money on public >> education when they don't care about education; > > Government spend money on public education. Where is that parents have > any say in how government officials spend the money? Or in hiring and > firing the staff? Well, parents could say, we want the schools closed and our taxes lowered. Or they could say, we want to sit on the board of local schools and have a say in the hiring of staff, or whatever. >> but if that were true >> why not just make education private and optional, and either give the >> taxpayers a large tax cut (boosting electoral appeal) or spend the >> money on more important things, like palaces and private jets for the >> politicians? > > Because, if you keep education public, you have the excuse to spend > money to build schools, hire teachers and janitors, etc. and the excuse > to tax people. No public schools no excuse to tax people. > Tax are important, as they are used to pay for hire people, that will, > in change, vote for the party representing them. Or the tax will pay for > the buildings of schools that will be built by friends of the friends of > the politicians (and they will be grateful funding future elections, > selling mansions at lower prices to the same politics, giving direct > bribes, etc.). > > Taking the money from the people will prevent them from having the means > to buy private education and will starve the private education sector > for all apart the wealthy. So, after a few years, people will start to > believe that private education is too costly, there are not enough > schools to serve all, etc. Even better, you could collect the tax and directly bribe people. Why go to all the effort of setting up a public school system, which is subject to constant scrutiny and potential criticism, a large drain on funds that might otherwise be used to build a better presidential palace, or defence, or publicly funded soccer, or whatever? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 14:39:53 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 00:39:53 +1000 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> Message-ID: 2009/7/14 spike : >> ...would it make it any >> better if a government or law could only be changed if, say, >> 2/3 of the population agree? Stathis Papaioannou > > Ja, but recall that it is difficult to get 2/3 of the voters to agree on > *anything* including the color of snow and whether the sun will rise > tomorrow. ?That fact gives the constitution some degree of stability. ?The > military insures that the government stays within the bounds of the > constitution, for it is that document that defines who is in command of that > awesome force. But I don't see why it should be considered a good thing per se that changing laws should be very difficult. What if they're bad laws? It's like being subject to the edicts of an ancient dictatorship; fine if you agree with the edicts, not so good if you don't. -- Stathis Papaioannou From eschatoon at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 15:21:44 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:21:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907132036t1cac069kf02e500fa3883b38@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60907072029l7b9db175n50a54afb5b94da10@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082033l4cd20b3ct7cf6d38da569b551@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907082256j3d6b4f65ycd39cd181e5dd87f@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907132036t1cac069kf02e500fa3883b38@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907140821h19d830d1re297b4882361e9ab@mail.gmail.com> WWRD? On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 5:36 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 2:37 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> >>> ### Are you asking if I would buy these shares in an initial public >>> offering? >> >> No, that would be a quite different situation. The shares are issued >> to everyone for free, with the option of voting to change the >> structure so that they can be sold and accumulated. You assume that >> the shareholders would vote to do this, and maybe they would. But they >> might also choose to leave things as they are, just as voters choose >> to leave some assets and organisations in public control and to >> privatise others. Now I understand that you think privatising >> everything is for the best, and perhaps you also think that left to >> their own devices people will decide to do just that. But what should >> be done if, foolishly, they choose to keep some things communally >> owned? >> > ### You are begging the question: You posit that some group of people > may decide to use an accounting fiction to run their road system, you > implicitly assume the legitimacy of a democratic polity, and then ask > what to do. Well, obviously, if the people want to use an accounting > fiction, an accounting fiction they'll have, and by the implicit > assumption of legitimacy, this state of affairs cannot be changed > except by a vote, which you already precluded in the premises. > > Am I clear? > > Rafal > > P.S. Of course, I refuse the assumption of democratic legitimacy, > since it is based on violence and is inefficient as well, so > personally I would endorse other actions to change the status quo - > but you didn't ask WWRD (what would Rafal do), you asked an impersonal > "what should be done". > _______________________________________________ > 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 dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Jul 14 15:08:56 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 08:08:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Public education myths Message-ID: <939679.81170.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 7/13/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Dan ha scritto: >> --- On Sun, 7/12/09, Mirco Romanato >> wrote: >> This also assumes that the streets, etc. are justly >> held by the people > > I try to keep thing simply, for the sake of clarity. > Giving back to the owners it relatively easy in the short > time, but > after decades is as easy as make eggs using omelettes. > This, I suppose, it is the reason that make forgiveness so > useful and > prized. If people continued, after decades and centuries to > mind of any > and all wrongs they and their ancestors were subjected, > there would not > be peace and collaboration, only conflict and war. I've had some thoughts, over the years, on how to apply this in a way that doesn't create utter chaos.? My ideas here are not necessarily original.? I'd say, in most cases, whoever occupies a property gets to keep it.? It's up to someone else to make a claim against the occupant.? There are special cases where where the current occupant would have no right to continue possession -- much less have a claim to the just title.? The obvious ones are where the current occupant took the property by coercion.? And, obviously, this applies to all government (i.e., public) property.? All of it is the result of coercion. What to do with it is not something to settle from the armchair, but the government must be removed from it period.? This is no different than if a band of thieves heads into several villages, plundering and causing havoc, and then we catch them on the road several months later.? Let's say we know all they possess is not theirs justly.? We might not know who the rightful owners are of each item, but we do know that not of thieves are the rightful owners, so they should NOT be allowed to keep any of it.? (This applies to government employees and contractors too.? If the band of thieves had a cook who did no direct stealing, she or he would not have any right to any of the loot.? The cook couldn't say, e.g., "These are my pots" if, in truth, the pots were stolen even if the cook didn't do the actual stealing.) This steal leaves a lot of problem cases.? And some of this would be difficult to settle.? Public roads, in some instances, will be one of them.? However, that doesn't mean the only remedy available is to continue some form of statism -- even of the democratic form that some here are entranced with. I believe that in many of these cases it won't be so hard.? Obviously, in any recent eminent domain cases where a piece of land was stolen from someone -- i.e., eminent domain was used to force a sale -- the property should be returned to that person.? In other cases, it might be easy to trace some ownership, via taxes collected, to certain local parties -- as in the case where a town or village builds a road using local funds.? (As an alternative, the road might be sold and the funds used to pay back these taxpayers.) But I don't have a blanket solution either, but that's no argument against private road ownership, but rather underscores the mess violation of property rights creates when practiced generation after generation.? In any case, I don't imagine that all property can be returned.? As I've said before, some will be just to difficult to trace back to any rightful owner.? Some should be put up for homesteading -- especially in cases where governments prevented homesteading or where they allowed groups with special privileges to homestead.? In still others, property will have been consumed.? (E.g., the taxes used to pay for wars have been used up.? There simply, in most cases, is no way to pay people back.? This doesn't mean politicians, government employees, and the like shouldn't be punished or made to pay restitution (to all their victims -- not just taxpayers), but it's doubtful if, say, a war cost $100 million to the taxpayers that they're going to get $100 million back plus interest.? It's more likely they'll get pennies on the dollar if anything.) >> I'm not as familiar with other nations, but in the US > > I was referring to the rationale given to the UK people, > and probably > near all people in the world, to support public compulsory > education. > I agree that the rationale given could not be the real > rationale. > Or, probably, many people acted for different rationales > and someone hijacked the process and their work. One must also be careful.? Sometimes the rationale offered today is not the one that was offered when a policy was originally put into effect.? An example from our time is how the Bush Administration justified its invasion of Iraq.? The rationale changed over time.? The case with schooling is similar, though the period of time is longer and no one defending public schooling today was likely around defending it back in, say, the big period of growth in this area -- maybe the 1890s and then the 1930s in America.? (The UK had similar periods of growth in this area.? I forget the details and am not as familiar with this case.)? In the US case, the rationales offered in the late 19th century were mainly anti-immigrant and stoked the fears of a mainly Protestant population of English, Scottish, and German descent of the big migrations of Irish Catholics and later Italians Catholics.? The fear was of cultural and religious change -- not some desire to uplift the masses and give them opportunities, but to make them fit in and not upset the apple cart. In the 1930s, the rationale -- at this time, more to make public schooling mandatory rather than to make it widespread -- was more to prevent children from competing against unionized labor so as to keep union wages up at the expense of all other workers. Today, while there are a few people who might use the cultural rationale in the US, they're more likely to be of a more benign sort.? And I haven't heard anyone using the anti-competition argument.? (It's doubtful, too, if public schooling were to disappear today that children would suddenly pop up all over the place with jobs.? That might happen in a generation or two -- and would likely be a good change.? I don't mean children working in dangerous or back-breaking work, but rather doing something to produce wealth as well as learn a career.) Not to labor the point, the same pattern repeats with drug laws in the US.? Most drugs laws that came into being in the early 20th century were actually racist in rationale: specific racial groups were said to sell drugs to Whites and this was harming Whites both by giving them a vice and by association with non-Whites.? E.g., anti-opium campaigns were targeted against Chinese immigrants.? (And, today, it's mostly Blacks who suffer from various drug laws: they tend to be over-represented in prison for possession, use, or sales of currently illegal drugs.)? I don't think anyone today would use the same rationale to keep opium or other "narcotics" illegal. Maybe the problem here is lack of historical understanding.? A lot of people today who support statism tend to think it's a good thing.? And they tend to have a mythical history of how specific laws or policies arose.? It seems they have the view that the law-makers are saintly beings and the voters who put them there knew exactly what they were doing -- and both knew the best policy and operated from the best motives. And, of course, somehow, these same people, were they to lower themselves to doing things voluntarily -- i.e., trying to persuade each other to do this or that -- they would almost always happen on the wrong policy and only operate from the worst motives and without enough forethought.? In other words, when someone is in political office or in the voting both, she's an angel, but outside of it she's a demon.? Somehow, it seems, statists believe that government transforms people. Now, this is not to say voluntary systems change people into saints or angels either.? As I've pointed out before, I don't trust a businessman either, but I'm not forced to deal with him.? I can always, in most cases very easily, choose not to deal with him. >>> Maybe, desocialize the children from their >>> families and neighbours >>> and socialize them with a bunch of same age >>> individuals is good, maybe it is not. > >> Some believe it tends to disrupt "natural" social >> orders.? Note the >> model too: put lots of little children into a room >> with one authority >> who tells them what to do.? This is social >> regimentation that seems >> best suited not for learning but for fostering >> obedience. > > True. But only if the teacher have authority and is > respected and feared. > Just now, in many schools of the western society, the > teacher is without > authority and it is not respected by the pupils or their > parents, nor supported by his/her superior. > In this way, the pupils will not learn to obey to an higher > authority; > they will learn that authority figures must not be > respected and only > the bullies need to be respected and feared. They will > learn that hard > work is not rewarded, that the authority (the teacher) is > intimidated by the bullies or their parents. That sounds like conservative rhetoric. As one who actually went through the public school system, yeah, there are bullies, but my personal experience is of obedient students taught to obey and agree with whatever the teacher says. There are always some who rebel, but the main message seems to get through quite well: Do as we say and you'll be rewarded, go against us and your life will be miserable. > In a way this is understandable. People is no more required > to work in > their live, they are entitled to welfare in their live. And > authority > people must provide for them. So, there is no need to force > them to > learn, even in a paternalistic setting. It is not useful > they learn, as > if they learn, they will not be dependant on welfare and > the political class that dole it out. That sounds again like conservative rhetoric. The ruling class mainly wants people to work, pay taxes, and keep the system going. They do have a welfare class and in most nations today it's hard to pick out who are net tax payers and who are net tax recipients. In fact, the poor who receive welfare, while net tax receivers, are a tiny minority here. The much larger class are middle income people who both pay and receive much -- and hence, since they receive goodies, tend to think government is good. (This is similar to David Friedman's illustration of the government agent who takes and gives. In his illustration, something like 100 people with $100 each are sitting in a circle and the government agent takes a dollar from each one, then plunks down fifty dollars for one guy. The process is repeated. Soon, everyone in the circle forgets that the government is taking a dollar from each one and keeping fifty cents of it. In the end, the government agent has half their money and each person only $50. Instead, each person is focused on getting the $50 -- forgetting that he or she is actually losing $50 in the process.) Yes, a small government sponsored underclass is mostly desired. In the US and in Europe, note how anti-poverty programs do not eliminate poverty. (There's been a few studies over the years, e.g., that show that were the trillions spent on government anti-poverty programs in the US given to the poor, they'd all be middle class. Where'd the money go? This isn't to say it's all failed. Some people do climb out of poverty, but how is this any different than how anyone climbs out of poverty when there's no government program to help?) > Obviously, this will destroy the wealth of the nation in > the not so long > period. But for the people in the Ivory towers and in the > leading > position this is not important, as they believe that they > will not be damaged. I disagree. Statism is parasitic and does have crises, but what usually happens is either the ruling class changes its policies for a time to lower its parasitism -- and once the pie is bigger, changes the policies again to parasitize more -- or is replaced by another ruling class that does. It's a rare case where the ruling class destroys society completely... Rare but not impossible as one can see looking at Germany in the early 1920s and Zimbabwe today. >>> It appear that the US and Europe, in many fields, >>> are losing their >>> advantages in respect to East Asia. Maybe they are >>> or were doing >>> something wrong. > >> I think it might be a bit more complicated than the >> form of schooling in each country. > > For sure. > Schooling and education don't happen in a vacuum. Yes, so I would make too many broad statements here about public education and one nation's fortunes. Too many other factors play a role. >> I also think that having educational choices made at >> the national >> level is a way to guarantee failure.? Yes, >> eventually, over decades, >> different nations might figure out this or that >> educational policy is >> bad, but this is similar to having, say, diet or >> technology choices >> made this way.? Imagine had nation's -- meaning, >> really, the ruling >> classes of nations -- decide on the proper diet and >> not allowing >> people inside them to deviate.? How quickly would >> the world settle on the best diet? > > I don't know. > I only know the life expectations would fall rapidly. > And people would immediately find way to break the laws > and, possibly, break the lawmakers. I'm not so sure. Imagine the diet is mediocre but not completely unhealthy. Think of the USRDA over years. You won't die immediately if you follow it. Your life will simply not be at the maximum possible health following it. Now why we would ever want to have people coerced to follow the USRDA and just hope that the Canadians, the Dutch, the Japanese, etc. follow a different RDA and that, after a few decades, we can see which nation's RDA is best? (Of course, were it forced, my recommendation would be immediate overthrow of any government so enforcing it. But, then again, this is my recommendation wherever one finds government: get rid of it.) >> A far better system is to allow individual people to >> make their >> dietary choices.? Yes, some will make >> stupendously stupid choices, >> but most won't because they have a direct incentive to >> get it right. >> Also, by having individual freedom, people can >> self-correct -- rather >> than wait until the leaders change their minds or some >> sort of national consensus is reached. > > Agree. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Jul 14 17:33:37 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:33:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments In-Reply-To: <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> Message-ID: <763298.22829.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Mon, 7/13/09, spike wrote: > > > Ja, agreed, thanks for that comment. ?The > American founders > > realized > > > this, and that is why America is not a democracy > but rather is a > > > democratic republic. ?Our current government > fails to > > recognize this, > > > but we will survive another 3.4 years when most > of them > > will be gone. > > > > I'm not sure what you mean by this distinction. Are > you > > referring to the US Constitution?... > > I meant most of the members of the current congress and the > executive branch > will be changed out, if it plays out the way I > expect.? If it doesn't play > out the way I expect, then nearly everything I thought I > knew about > economics is wrong.? If what I think I know about > economics is right, in > fall of 2010 we will be struggling along with 11% > unemployment and a huge > number of the representatives will be sent packing.? > In 2012, we will be > struggling along with 12% unemployment and a huge number of > the senate and > executive branch will go home.? The new guys may be > just as bad, possibly > worse, than the ones they replaced. I think the unemployment rate is higher than reported. I recall reading, last year, about how the technique used for reporting the numbers changed during the 1990s and made unemployment seem lower. Last year, I'd read using the old technique, the number would've been double-digit. > Democrat and republican are two wings of the same bird of > prey. Pretty much, though I would judge each one individually, of course. Roderick Long basically sees them as two parts of the ruling class (in the US, of course): the Bureaucrats and the Plutocrats -- or the political ruling class and the corporate one. >> A constitution itself will >> either be written and ratified by a team of dictators >> or by >> some sort of democratically elected committee... > > Ja, but fortunately the US constitution was designed by a > bunch of guys who > had suffered directly under government tyranny.? They > carefully designed a > form of government that has a bunch of ways of resisting > tyranny. And it failed miserably in the first few years. In order to make it work, it requires a way different culture, including a populace that's ready to secede or revolt frequently. I think, too, this shows the likely failure point of any attempts at libertarian minarchism: once you have a state in place, regardless of constitutional limits, it'll eventually become a threat to freedom. (One problem with constitutionalism, of course, is that the state interprets and enforces the constitution. In the US, there's the Supreme Court and all lesser courts. They're part of the state. This is no different than a criminal gang having a set of strict by-laws and getting to interpret and enforce them. How would one expect the criminal gang to rule? To never overstep the by-laws' limits? Or to interpret them loosely or ignore them at times?) >> ...would it make it any >> better if a government or law could only be changed >> if, say, >> 2/3 of the population agree? Stathis Papaioannou > > Ja, but recall that it is difficult to get 2/3 of the > voters to agree on > *anything* including the color of snow and whether the sun > will rise > tomorrow.? That fact gives the constitution some > degree of stability.? The > military insures that the government stays within the > bounds of the > constitution, for it is that document that defines who is > in command of that > awesome force. While a 2/3rds majority sounds good, all this means in practice is that the 2/3rds will agree on things, more or less, when this exploits the remaining third. The same applies with a 99% agreement. Granted, this would likely be much better -- assuming we start from a position not of today's bloated managerial states, but from something much more modest. But it'll likely still be eroded and as long as the state still gets to interpret the laws, why would this matter? Only in extreme cases -- ones where most of the people would revolt anyhow -- will there be a check on laws. In most cases, limits will be interpreted loosely and most people won't notice. This is, after all, what we see now. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Jul 14 18:05:49 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 11:05:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <883916.30698.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 7/14/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Date: Tuesday, July 14, 2009, 10:39 AM > 2009/7/14 spike : > >> ...would it make it any > >> better if a government or law could only be > changed if, say, > >> 2/3 of the population agree? Stathis Papaioannou > > > > Ja, but recall that it is difficult to get 2/3 of the > voters to agree on > > *anything* including the color of snow and whether the > sun will rise > > tomorrow. ?That fact gives the constitution some > degree of stability. ?The > > military insures that the government stays within the > bounds of the > > constitution, for it is that document that defines who > is in command of that > > awesome force. > > But I don't see why it should be considered a good thing > per se that > changing laws should be very difficult. What if they're bad > laws? It's > like being subject to the edicts of an ancient > dictatorship; fine if > you agree with the edicts, not so good if you don't. Agreed, though I thought Spike's view here was in the context of a smaller initial government. This limit might keep it from growing too quickly. I still think constitutionalism itself is flawed and the supermajority fix is, at best, likely to fail once the political class figures out how to exploit the people not in the supermajority. Regards, Dan From lubkin at unreasonable.com Tue Jul 14 21:14:25 2009 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:14:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Charles Brown of Locus dies Message-ID: <200907142134.n6ELYNl7016177@andromeda.ziaspace.com> As Patrick Nielsen Hayden blogged (and I've noted as well), << There's a very real sense in which the modern science fiction world, professional and fan, can be defined as "the set of people who know what Locus is and care about it." >> I replied in paraphrase << There's a very real sense in which the modern science fiction world, professional and fan, can be defined as "the set of people who know who Charles Brown was and care about his death." >> There's an obit at www.locusmag.com and tributes on Patrick's blog at . I saw Charlie this past weekend at Readercon. He was a little tired but in full form, on several panels and in hallway conversation. He died on his flight back to California, ten minutes before landing. You may not have known him, or even of him or of Locus, but be aware that any sf of the last half-century that you've liked was probably written by someone who is aching today. -- David. From rob4332000 at yahoo.com Tue Jul 14 19:13:55 2009 From: rob4332000 at yahoo.com (rob4332000 at yahoo.com) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 12:13:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D Message-ID: <184415.44054.qm@web58307.mail.re3.yahoo.com> On Fri, Jul 10, 2009 at 1:56 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/10 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 7:48 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >>> 2009/7/9 Rafal Smigrodzki : >>> >>>> ### Peer-reviewed research indicates otherwise: >>>> >>>>?http://law.jrank.org/pages/1368/Intelligence-Crime.html?and other >>>> pages there, especially >>>> >>>>?http://law.jrank.org/pages/1364/Intelligence-Crime-R-20-meaningful-correlation-size.html >>> >>> The cited papers claim a "moderate correlation". That is not >>> equivalent to claiming that if people were smarter there would be less >>> violent crime. >> >> ### Read again. "randomly assigning high IQs to low-IQ individuals >> would decrease their criminal behavior by about 30 percent (i.e., from >> 60 percent to 40 percent)?certainly a meaningful change." > > And that's a completely unwarranted assumption based on the evidence > of correlation. It's like discovering that people in prison are of > below average height, and concluding that increasing the average > height of the population will decrease crime. ### No, it is not unwarranted, since in this case there is theoretical validity to the assumption of causality. IQ is a measure of the general ability to arrive at correct solutions to problems. Crimes are solutions that are deemed incorrect by the lawmaker, and the law is designed to increase the cost of such solutions in relation to other solutions. Having a higher IQ allows you to arrive at the correct solution, given available data, such as the expected utility of mugging a stranger and spending a year in prison, vs. working productively and enjoying the fruits of your labor. =============== But the correlation is equally consistent with the other theoretical explanation proposed in this thread, namely that stupid criminals get caught more often than smart ones. ?If that's the case, raising the intelligence of the criminally minded might result in fewer of them being incarcerated--so that there would be more of them on the streets, and MORE crime. Rob Masters -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Jul 14 21:59:22 2009 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:59:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Charles Brown of Locus dies In-Reply-To: <200907142134.n6ELYNl7016177@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <200907142134.n6ELYNl7016177@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <20090714215922214.YMYA21440@cdptpa-omta01.mail.rr.com> At 05:14 PM 7/14/2009 -0400, David Lubkin wrote: >I saw Charlie this past weekend at Readercon. He was a little >tired but in full form, on several panels and in hallway conversation. >He died on his flight back to California, ten minutes before landing. Ah-ha! You, David, however, I see at last, are still alive! Apologies for posting via the list, but you have declined to answer any of my emails directed to you for the last few years (or perhaps never got them), ever since you asked me to contribute to your proposed anthology in tribute to the late, great Cordwainer Smith. This is just to say that I finally gave up, sent my story to Tor.com instead, where it will be published online in a couple of weeks, along with an audio version read horribly by me. Damien Broderick From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 23:12:58 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:12:58 +1000 Subject: [ExI] No need for radical changes in human nature/was Re: Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <184415.44054.qm@web58307.mail.re3.yahoo.com> References: <184415.44054.qm@web58307.mail.re3.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/15 : > But the correlation is equally consistent with the other theoretical > explanation proposed in this thread, namely that stupid criminals get caught > more often than smart ones. ?If that's the case, raising the intelligence of > the criminally minded might result in fewer of them being incarcerated--so > that there would be more of them on the streets, and MORE crime. > Rob Masters It is stated in some of the cited literature that this may be part of it, but that there is also an increased (though less so) incidence of criminal behaviour when self-reports rather than convictions are taken into account. But maybe smart people are less likely to self-report, not trusting that the researchers aren't working for the authorities, or can more easily convince themselves that their crime is not actually a crime since they didn't get caught, or something like that. It's very hard to know the "correct" explanation. -- Stathis Papaioannou From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Jul 14 23:40:13 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:40:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] CONF: The Large, The Small and the Human Mind Message-ID: <20090714194013.f535i25274csc4ko@webmail.natasha.cc> My colleague Rene' Stettler has put together an amazing conference in Lucerne, this January. Other friends/colleagues are David McConville, is presenting his amazing Dome project, and Pier Luigi Luisi and Kevin Kelly who are keynotes, plus the WOW factor of Peter Weibel will be there leading the panel. "The Large, the Small and the Human Mind" The 8th Swiss Biennial on Science, Technics + Aesthetics Saturday, January 16, 2010, 12 ? 7 p.m. Sunday, January 17, 2010, 12 ? 7 p.m. Swiss Museum of Transport, Lucerne Early Register: http://www.neugalu.ch/e_bienn_2010.html#9 Roger Penrose?s hotly disputed book The Large, the Small and the Human Mind (1997) contributed to a new scientific world-view of physics and a more complete understanding of conscious minds at the boundary between the physics of the small and the physics of the large. In a similiar vein, the Swiss Biennial 2010, The Large, the Small and the Human Mind, will trigger debate about the unequal status that we have attributed to the physical world ?out there? and our many beliefs and mental conceptions ?in us? about this world, and it explores the fingers of science, rationality, ontology, epistemology, reflexivity, ethics, ecology, and politics that point to the realities of our beliefs. The New Gallery Lucerne organises this two-day conference which brings together a group of internationally renowned scientists, sociologists, philosophers, ecologists, writers, artists, and policy-makers. From the debate about the pursuit of a ?Theory of Everyhing? (TOE) in physics, extreme objectivity, our relationship to the ?Universe,? to ?human,? ?nature,? ?human culture,? and the ?human mind,? The Large, the Small and the Human Mind will touch on the world?s first climate war, the destructive side of globalization, and the contradictions of our striving for unlimited economic growth and consumption. ?When the sage points at the Moon,? says the Chinese proverb, ?the fool looks at his fingertip.? The Large, the Small and the Human Mind offers a critical look at the fingertip, and from it to the Moon. From the question of how to free Pandora?s Hope, to the meaning of Leonardo?s science for our time, and the significance of the Space Age for humanity, the Swiss Biennial will reflect on these topics from an interdisciplinary perspective with the aim to create a deeper and finer sense of possibility. Confirmed Keynote Speakers Michel Bitbol (physicist and philosopher of mind, Director of Research, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique [CNRS], Paris) Fritjof Capra (physicist and systems theorist, Berkeley) John Horgan (science writer/author, Director of the Center for Science Writings [CSW], Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, USA) Kevin W. Kelley (artist, author, and entrepreneur, San Rafael / USA) Bruno Latour (sociologist, Scientific Director and Professor at Sciences Po, Paris) Pier Luigi Luisi (Professor Emeritus ETH Zurich, Professor at the Dipartimento di Biologia, Universit? degli Studi di Roma) Robert Poole (historian, University of Cumbria, Lancaster / UK) Harald Welzer (social psychologist, Director of the Center for Interdisciplinary Memory Research, Essen) Margaret Wertheim (science writer, curator, cultural historian of physics, Director of the Institute for Figuring, Los Angeles) Confirmed Presenter David McConville (artist, Director of Noospheric Research, The Elumenati, Asheville / USA) Confirmed Chairpersons Christina Ljungberg (University of Zurich) Josef Mitterer (University of Klagenfurt) Isabelle Stengers (Free University of Brusells) Confirmed Leader of the Panel Discussions Peter Weibel (Chairman and CEO, Center for Art and Media [ZKM], Karlsruhe) A New Gallery Lucerne conference in association with the Swiss Museum of Transport, the City of Lucerne, the Swiss Federal Office of Culture (BAK), and the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF). Swiss Museum of Transport, Lucerne, Coronado Hall CHF 90.00 (CHF 65.00 concessions) ? Booking required http://www.neugalu.ch/e_bienn_2010.html#9 The Large, the Small and the Human Mind continues the Swiss Biennial?s aim to involve people from all faculties, schools of thought and walks of life in a critical dialogue concerned with science, technological innovation, art, and society which they have long sought themselves but for which there has been no point of contact to date. The Swiss Biennial sees its role as that of a touchstone for such dialogues. Its interdisciplinary activities and projects are concerned with new challenges posed by widely varying fields of knowledge and research. Find the Swiss Biennial on Science, Technics + Aesthetics on http://www.neugalu.ch New Gallery Lucerne and The Swiss Biennial on Science, Technics + Aesthetics P.O. Box 3501, 6002 Lucerne / Switzerland, Tel. +41 (0) 41 370 38 18 Image credit: Jacket photograph, Earth, from Apollo 4 (November 1967) ? NASA. From hkhenson at rogers.com Wed Jul 15 00:07:09 2009 From: hkhenson at rogers.com (hkhenson) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:07:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Human evolution model (was Iranian riots) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1247616992_66239@s8.cableone.net> At 02:59 PM 7/14/2009, Stathis wrote: (Keith wrote) >?To keep humans out of going to war, delta > > income/population must be positive or at least not negative for > all segments > > of the population. > >This seems like a good explanation and is consistent with the >observation that most of the time increasing prosperity correlates >with decreasing religiosity (although this doesn't seem to apply to >the US and the Middle east oil states). Re the US. If you look carefully at these two, they also fit. While the average income has not fallen much the bulk of what used to be the middle class in the US fell into lower income status in the past few decades, corresponding with out sourcing (or automating away) most manufacturing jobs. The class who dropped in income are the ones who fueled the growth and political activities of the religious right. Confounding this is the *other* way people get into the war psychological state, being attacked. The US *was* attacked and through modern communications the effect on the US population was very large. One effect (because it benefited genes in the EEA) of being in "war mode" is to make people stupid (or stupider). This includes the leaders. Re the Middle east If you look at the economics leading up to the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in Saudi Arabia there were lots of confounding factors, but (I think) the most important one was a population doubling combined with a drop in oil prices by half. This 75% drop in per capita population income was probably a major factor in pushing a number of "warriors" into the 9/11 events. The hard one for me to account for was the US Civil war because there the economics situation was doing ok at the time. What I finally realized was that *anticipation* of hard time a-coming was also trips the detectors, and they were right. The economy of the South was based on slaves. It could be said that it took 100 years for the economy to recover. It was clear that slavery was going away if they stayed in the Union. If they had not attacked the North, chances are the South would still be a separate country, but people in war mode are stupid so there was little chance of them not attacking. >However, alternative >explanations are possible. For example, religion exists as a >side-effect of the tendency to adopt group customs and beliefs >(however silly they may be), which has obvious benefits in building >community cooperation. When people are wealthier and better-educated, >they are just as keen to belong to a community, but they can't help >seeing through the silliness and therefore find other things to bind >them together. It's a good idea, but I don't think it can be backed up by the data unless you apply it to a population average. As far as I know, the tendency to be hooked into a religion is not strongly correlated to wealth. The wealthy tend to belong to different churches of course. Keith From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 15 01:12:08 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:12:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] we choose the moon Message-ID: Here's something way cool, especially for those of you (us) who were around 40 yrs ago and remember this very special time: http://wechoosethemoon.org/ spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 15 01:36:18 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:36:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments In-Reply-To: <883916.30698.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <883916.30698.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1215C7B913374392BC4B32E695FB86B1@spike> ... > > >> ...would it make it any > > >> better if a government or law could only be > > changed if, say, > > >> 2/3 of the population agree? Stathis Papaioannou > > > > > > ...The > > > military insures that the government stays within the > > bounds of the > > > constitution, for it is that document that defines who > > is in command of that > > > awesome force. > > > > But I don't see why it should be considered a good thing > per se that > > changing laws should be very difficult. What if they're bad > laws? It's > > like being subject to the edicts of an ancient > dictatorship; fine if > > you agree with the edicts, not so good if you don't... Stathis Ja, agree. Fortunately for me, I see little in the US constitution with which I disagree, very little. On the contrary, I find that a most remarkably well-designed document. We should study that, early and often. The most egregious laws in the US are not in the constitution, such as the body of drug laws for instance. > Agreed, though I thought Spike's view here was in the context > of a smaller initial government... Regards, Dan Exactly. I note that every political leader who tried to reduce the size of the US government has failed. Watch California in the next few weeks. There you will see a state government which is brutally forced to reduce in size, not by the Taahx Tuuurminator (as much as we like that guy) but more fundamentally by stark lack of funds. spike From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 03:11:00 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:41:00 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort/was Re: systems thinking In-Reply-To: <515836.54527.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c20907130343q2caf8f06r708f3f94ce0d02e2@mail.gmail.com> <515836.54527.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <710b78fc0907142011u45869ba8n67f4cdc6c8337417@mail.gmail.com> 2009/7/14 Dan : > > --- On Mon, 7/13/09, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> On Sat, Jul 11, 2009 at 10:44 PM, ben wrote: >>> Jef bemoaned: >>> >>>> Oh, for a world where systems-thinking were taught >>>> to children >>>> alongside fairy tales, fables, mythology and >>>> pop-culture. >>> >>> If one wanted to give oneself an education in >>> systems-thinking, what would you recommend? >> >> Why, I have always believed that fairy tales and mythology >> do amount to "systems-thinking for children". > > You might be right about that... And this goes for adults too. This sounds similar to the ideas of Bruno Bettelheim, especially as given in his _The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales_. > > Regarding adults, too, might this function be served by art? I know Rand has been trashed (and defended) on this list, but look soberly at her ideas on art. She sees art as concretizing certain types of abstractions. This seems akin to a systems view of the world. E.g., one doesn't draw out chains of reasoning when thinking of, say, Othello or Ahad. Instead, one seems to have a sort of image one can draw on of just what it means to be obsessed. (This can also go awry -- as in stereotypes.) > > Regards, > > Dan I totally disagree that any of this stuff relates to systems thinking. You could stretch and say that various types of art could help stimulate novel system-related ideas, but as part of the actual system design / modeling / understanding process, no. Also, I'm sure elements of system thinking help stimulate the artistic process. But they are separate things. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From lubkin at unreasonable.com Wed Jul 15 00:44:38 2009 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 20:44:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Charles Brown of Locus dies In-Reply-To: <20090714215922214.YMYA21440@cdptpa-omta01.mail.rr.com> References: <200907142134.n6ELYNl7016177@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <20090714215922214.YMYA21440@cdptpa-omta01.mail.rr.com> Message-ID: <200907150043.n6F0hp1O016940@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Damien wrote: >Ah-ha! You, David, however, I see at last, are still alive! >Apologies for posting via the list, but you have declined to answer >any of my emails directed to you for the last few years (or perhaps >never got them) I'll write to you off-list to explain. -- David. From emlynoregan at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 05:51:30 2009 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:21:30 +0930 Subject: [ExI] Repulsive' Side To Light Force Could Control Nanodevices Message-ID: <710b78fc0907142251r71c7303dm5d9fd4d7f4826859@mail.gmail.com> My physics knowledge gets me to "step in hole, fall down" level, so I can't evaluate this. It looks exciting to this caveman. -- 'Repulsive' Side To Light Force Could Control Nanodevices http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/07/090713131556.htm ScienceDaily (July 13, 2009) ? A team of Yale University researchers has discovered a "repulsive" light force that can be used to control components on silicon microchips, meaning future nanodevices could be controlled by light rather than electricity. The team previously discovered an "attractive" force of light and showed how it could be manipulated to move components in semiconducting micro- and nano-electrical systems?tiny mechanical switches on a chip. The scientists have now uncovered a complementary repulsive force. Researchers had theorized the existence of both the attractive and repulsive forces since 2005, but the latter had remained unproven until now. The team, led by Hong Tang, assistant professor at Yale's School of Engineering & Applied Science, reports its findings in the July 13 edition of Nature Photonics's advanced online publication. "This completes the picture," Tang said. "We've shown that this is indeed a bipolar light force with both an attractive and repulsive component." The attractive and repulsive light forces Tang's team discovered are separate from the force created by light's radiation pressure, which pushes against an object as light shines on it. Instead, they push out or pull in sideways from the direction the light travels. Previously, the engineers used the attractive force they discovered to move components on the silicon chip in one direction, such as pulling on a nanoscale switch to open it, but were unable to push it in the opposite direction. Using both forces means they can now have complete control and can manipulate components in both directions. "We've demonstrated that these are tunable forces we can engineer," Tang said. In order to create the repulsive force, or the "push," on a silicon chip, the team split a beam of infrared light into two separate beams and forced each one to travel a different length of silicon nanowire, called a waveguide. As a result, the two light beams became out of phase with one another, creating a repulsive force with an intensity that can be controlled?the more out of phase the two light beams, the stronger the force. "We can control how the light beams interact," said Mo Li, a postdoctoral associate in electrical engineering at Yale and lead author of the paper. "This is not possible in free space?it is only possible when light is confined in the nanoscale waveguides that are placed so close to each other on the chip." "The light force is intriguing because it works in the opposite way as charged objects," said Wolfram Pernice, another postdoctoral fellow in Tang's group. "Opposite charges attract each other, whereas out-of-phase light beams repel each other in this case." These light forces may one day control telecommunications devices that would require far less power but would be much faster than today's conventional counterparts, Tang said. An added benefit of using light rather than electricity is that it can be routed through a circuit with almost no interference in signal, and it eliminates the need to lay down large numbers of electrical wires. Funding for the project includes a seed grant from the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and a Young Faculty Award from the National Science Foundation. -- Emlyn http://emlyntech.wordpress.com - coding related http://point7.wordpress.com - ranting http://emlynoregan.com - main site From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 09:26:48 2009 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:26:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> Message-ID: <580930c20907150226p7f7cb138s57ae59380a8fc68a@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/14 spike : > > But I don't see why it should be considered a good thing per se that > changing laws should be very difficult. What if they're bad laws? It's > like being subject to the edicts of an ancient dictatorship; fine if > you agree with the edicts, not so good if you don't. > The very idea of self-determination is that the people is sovereign - including in the ability of giving oneself the constitutional and legal system of its choice. Even there, the debate remains open on the possibile formalities required to achieve such goal, but the real point is whether there is some final authority (e.g., the "tradition", natural law, the rule of a foreign power, utilitarianist philosophy) which restricts legislation to the mere enactment and legalisation of some "eteronomic", pre-existing, and possibly universal or eternal rules. It need not be stressed which view sounds more transhumanist to my ears... :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 13:45:49 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:45:49 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments Message-ID: <127517.88122.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 7/14/09, spike wrote: >>> But I don't see why it should be considered a >>> good thing >>> per se that >>> changing laws should be very difficult. What if >>> they're bad laws? It's >>> like being subject to the edicts of an ancient >>> dictatorship; fine if >>> you agree with the edicts, not so good if you >>> don't...? Stathis > > Ja, agree.? Fortunately for me, I see little in the US > constitution with > which I disagree, very little.? On the contrary, I > find that a most > remarkably well-designed document.? We should study > that, early and often.? It'd be a study in failure: the various limits were mostly set aside immediately after it was ratified. For instance, the creation of the Bank of US seems utterly unconstitutional -- by reading the document, there is no power to create a national bank listed. However, supporters of this bank were able to argue it was implied in the document. Maybe it was, but then you see the problem: if that's implied, where are the actual limits? What's not implied, since the document could then be used to support lots of other things. > The most egregious laws in the US are not in the > constitution, such as the > body of drug laws for instance. I'm not so sure. The "commerce clause" and the "welfare clauses" have probably been used to justify more egregious laws. In fact, many classical liberal and libertarian legal scholars trace the growth of the federal government to these two clauses -- and they were baked into the document from the start. Some might argue that there's always going to be a loophole for interpretive distortion, but these seems to play against constitutionalism and in favor of something like Bruno Leoni's hard line against legislative law (and constitutionalism is a species of legislative law). (Cf. Leoni's _Freedom and the Law_* and Stephen Kinsella's essays on this topic at: http://www.kinsellalaw.com/publications/ ) >> Agreed, though I thought Spike's view here was in the >> context >> of a smaller initial government... Regards, Dan > > Exactly.? I note that every political leader who tried > to reduce the size of > the US government has failed.? Watch California in the > next few weeks. > There you will see a state government which is brutally > forced to reduce in > size, not by the Taahx Tuuurminator (as much as we like > that guy) but more > fundamentally by stark lack of funds. I think the problem is we're no longer in that position -- the position of a tiny government. Even if we were, I think some of the checks discussed here would, at best, only delay things. The real problem, to me, is cultural -- viz., enough people accept or don't get in an uproar about using coercion -- and structural -- viz., once you have a centralized state, no matter how small it is, it's going to grow. (This doesn't mean, absent a central government, one won't form. Elsewhere I've addressed this concern. I think, all else being equal, it's better to start with none. Starting with one makes it much easier to grow it from a small one into a larger, more oppressive one. This is, of course, my armchair speculation.) Regards, Dan * The whole book is online at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=920 From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 13:25:02 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 06:25:02 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907142011u45869ba8n67f4cdc6c8337417@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <764617.99471.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 7/14/09, Emlyn wrote: > 2009/7/14 Dan : >> --- On Mon, 7/13/09, Stefano Vaj >> wrote: >>> Why, I have always believed that fairy tales and >>> mythology >>> do amount to "systems-thinking for children". >> >> You might be right about that... And this goes for >> adults too. This sounds similar to the ideas of Bruno >> Bettelheim, especially as given in his _The Uses of >> Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales_. >> >> Regarding adults, too, might this function be served >> by art? I know Rand has been trashed (and defended) on this >> list, but look soberly at her ideas on art. She sees art as >> concretizing certain types of abstractions. This seems akin >> to a systems view of the world. E.g., one doesn't draw out >> chains of reasoning when thinking of, say, Othello or Ahad. >> Instead, one seems to have a sort of image one can draw on >> of just what it means to be obsessed. (This can also go awry >> -- as in stereotypes.) > > I totally disagree that any of this stuff relates to > systems thinking. > You could stretch and say that various types of art could > help > stimulate novel system-related ideas, but as part of the > actual system > design / modeling / understanding process, no. Also, I'm > sure elements > of system thinking help stimulate the artistic process. But > they are separate things. I'm not so sure one way or the other. I think art not as a process of production or creation, but one of reception or experience does trigger something like systems thinking. E.g., art objects are typically perceived as "organic" wholes and not as an assemblage or lump. This often folds into how they are received and criticized -- as in when Euripedes' "Medea" is criticized for having a "deus ex machina" ending. But maybe you're right in one sense here. I see, looking at Rand's esthetics theory, her seeing art as a way of subconsciously doing a lot of complicated thought. (Hence my subject line change earlier: "systems thinking of a sort.") Though I think she means both sides of art -- both making it and experiencing the finished object -- I think the take home for the systems thinking thesis might be that art a surrogate for systems thinking -- not necessarily better or worse, not exactly the same thing, but something that allows people to "mentally model complex systems," no? I used the examples of Othello and Ahab in particular because these seems to simply the complex system of an obsessed individual. As Rand might say, it gives us a means to think about these things by asking, "What might an Othello do in this situation?" (I believe the example she used was of Babbitt in her collection of essays on the subject, _The Romantic Manifesto_.) Also, as to your remarks on video games, an intereting take on them as a contemporary art form is that of Paul Cantor in his lecture "Commerce and Culture." I don't want to overplay my hand here, but it seems there's some overlap between art (both making and experiencing it; in video games, of course, part of the experience is usually having many alternatives to choose from) and systems thinking. I imagine Koestler has similar ideas. To be sure, I'm not offering, here, teaching art or art appreciation as a substitute for attempting to teach systems thinking. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 14:06:18 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:06:18 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments In-Reply-To: <580930c20907150226p7f7cb138s57ae59380a8fc68a@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <994506.98217.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 4:39 PM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: >> But I don't see why it should be considered a >> good thing per se that >> changing laws should be very difficult. What if they're >> bad laws? It's >> like being subject to the edicts of an ancient >> dictatorship; fine if >> you agree with the edicts, not so good if you don't. > > The very idea of self-determination is that the people is > sovereign - including in the ability of giving oneself the > constitutional and legal system of its choice. But what is meant by "the people is sovereign"? (Let's leave aside that whoever is sovereign can still make mistakes.) Unless you have true unanimity, all it can mean is some group of persons -- which is or becomes a ruling class -- get to determine what law and rules all others live under in a given society. This group will, naturally, tell us it speaks for or represents "the people," but this just a myth used to quell any rebellious thoughts or deeds, specifically to prevent anyone from de-legitamizing the rule of the current ruling class. > Even there, the debate remains open on the possibile > formalities required to achieve such goal, but the real > point is whether there is some final authority (e.g., the > "tradition", natural law, the rule of a foreign > power, utilitarianist philosophy) which restricts > legislation to the mere enactment and legalisation of some > "eteronomic", pre-existing, and possibly universal > or eternal? rules. All you're saying is you fear the legislator being limited or constrained. Okay, so in your view, whoever gets to legislate has her or his way. But I think the salient the point of constitutional limits was not to arbitrarily bow before some alternate power, but to prevent or at least to control the excesses of arbitrary power. In other word, yes, the legislators, be they one person, a small group, or even a majority, are limited and somehow controlled. They don't get to do whatever they want because they don't and shouldn't have arbitrary power. I.e., they shouldn't be able to change the legal system for everyone else at a whim, but only by adhering to certain processes. (Let's leave aside, for the moment, that massive arbitrary changes, even when voted on by a supposed majority, are likely to result in complete and utter chaos as no one will be sure from one vote to the next if she or he is in the majority or not or whether what was once thought secure will suddenly be up for the vote. More notably, the lesson of the history of statism is that most people prefer to be exploited -- and that is all being ruled by a government ever amounts to -- in a somewhat orderly fashion or being exploited in a more or less whimsical and chaotic fashion. Thus, we see periods of revolutionary political and legal change tend to be short-lived followed by periods where things settle down and the state goes about preying on the populace in a fairly orderly way. This is probably because the chaotic periods give way to coalitions because they tend to politicize everyone. People who formerly didn't give a sh** about politics and law enter the fray and want things to settle down. Elites that recognize this -- and recognize the danger (to the elite or to the notion of elite rule) of everyone getting into the political and legal rings -- usually win out in the long run. They'll promise, and to some extent deliver, the social peace most people seem to desire.) > It need not be stressed which view sounds more > transhumanist to my ears... :-) Not to mine. Regards, Dan "It is still one of the deeply rooted political beliefs of our age that because legislation is passed by parliaments and because parliaments are elected by the people, the people are the source of the legislative process and that the will of the people, or at least that part of the people identifiable with the electorate, will ultimately prevail on all subjects to be determined by the government, as Dicey might have put it." -- Bruno Leoni, _Freedom and the Law_ From eschatoon at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 14:48:11 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:48:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] we choose the moon In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907150748x34dcbfd4t69959b5b6ef2770a@mail.gmail.com> Great. Too bad it is only an anniversary. I wonder how and when we will go back to space to stay. 2009/7/15 spike : > > > Here's something way cool, especially for those of you (us) who were around > 40 yrs ago and remember this very special time: > > > > http://wechoosethemoon.org/ > > > > 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 natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 15 15:18:33 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:18:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort/was Re: systemsthinking In-Reply-To: <515836.54527.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <580930c20907130343q2caf8f06r708f3f94ce0d02e2@mail.gmail.com> <515836.54527.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <38BD8D98816243008C80C54C3DA3DA6A@DFC68LF1> I am not sure when this thread started, but I will pick up here where Dan wrote: "You might be right about that... And this goes for adults too. This sounds similar to the ideas of Bruno Bettelheim, especially as given in his _The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales_. "Regarding adults, too, might this function be served by art? I know Rand has been trashed (and defended) on this list, but look soberly at her ideas on art. She sees art as concretizing certain types of abstractions. This seems akin to a systems view of the world. E.g., one doesn't draw out chains of reasoning when thinking of, say, Othello or Ahad. Instead, one seems to have a sort of image one can draw on of just what it means to be obsessed. (This can also go awry -- as in stereotypes.)" Rand is a weak example of scholarly, knowledgeable thinking about art or the arts. Her rigid interpretation concerning art holds little value, if any at all, in the arts and humanities. Her arguments are weak, at best, and are used to support her philosophical views. I may not agree with Foucault, Danto, Lyotard, Dickie or Sontag, but they are far better examples of deep investigations on abstraction, systems, and art. This not meant to trash, as you say, Rand. I value her fiction as being superb. Yet, this does not excuse her inability to understand art and the role of the artist. Just read the Romantic Manifesto! Yee gads! I mean, who cannot understand modern art as it is situated historically. Rand tried to concretize the hell out of everything to suit her point of view, which she does with amazing articulation that few possess. But that does not excuse her trying to put a label, chain and stamp on everything she could not grok because she simply did not have the wherewithal to do so. Maybe it was her upbringing. Maybe it was because she was a woman in a man's world. Who knows. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 15 15:29:00 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:29:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort/was Re:systems thinking In-Reply-To: <710b78fc0907142011u45869ba8n67f4cdc6c8337417@mail.gmail.com> References: <580930c20907130343q2caf8f06r708f3f94ce0d02e2@mail.gmail.com><515836.54527.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <710b78fc0907142011u45869ba8n67f4cdc6c8337417@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: Emlyn wrote in response to Dan: "I totally disagree that any of this stuff relates to systems thinking. You could stretch and say that various types of art could help stimulate novel system-related ideas, but as part of the actual system design / modeling / understanding process, no. Also, I'm sure elements of system thinking help stimulate the artistic process. But they are separate things." I have to disagree. Dan was correct. Art and systems thinking share many common aspects. It seems that you are trying to categorize art as a single thing, when art is an ever-changing process of exploration, imagination, invention and which builds upon the gestalt of systems networks and in returns supplies variables/agents into the system. Systems thinking includes the STEEP categories plus - (social, technological, economic, environmental, political, etc.) and art is about STEEP in making socio-political references through whatever format art takes - be it literary, filmic, pictorial, interactive, immersive, virtual, etc. Art is all about systems because it approaches its own field from the perspective of the complexity of social networks. One area which expands on this is aesthetic theory. Even going back to the narrow-focus of aesthetics in the Ancient times, beauty and truth-seeking were based on how art interprets the world and formulates objects of art based on such formulations. After much revisiting of aesthetics by Hume, Kant, Nietzsche, Beardsley, Dewey, Deleuze, aesthetics became the realization of perceptions and functionality. Today the field of aesthetics is focused on "information aesthetics" through HCI and other digital protocols and which frames the relationship of human to computer to information. While the interface is a system, the "information" is about systems thinking on an individual basis and the relationship of the individual the environment, in all its complexity. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 15 15:38:22 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:38:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <764617.99471.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <710b78fc0907142011u45869ba8n67f4cdc6c8337417@mail.gmail.com> <764617.99471.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1D970FC4313748EFA6BCD94EBD4D1FCC@DFC68LF1> Dan wrote: "I'm not so sure one way or the other. I think art not as a process of production or creation, but one of reception or experience does trigger something like systems thinking. E.g., art objects are typically perceived as "organic" wholes and not as an assemblage or lump. This often folds into how they are received and criticized -- as in when Euripedes' "Medea" is criticized for having a "deus ex machina" ending." Art as an object is a misconception of art. The artistic process is equal to its output. Conceptual art is a valued genre of the arts and is a valued aspect of transhumanism. Also, art is judged by its critics by the parts, not the lump. But I get what you mean and I agree in large part. [delete paragraph because I already offered my view on Rand and her manifesto.] "Also, as to your remarks on video games, an intereting take on them as a contemporary art form is that of Paul Cantor in his lecture "Commerce and Culture." I don't want to overplay my hand here, but it seems there's some overlap between art (both making and experiencing it; in video games, of course, part of the experience is usually having many alternatives to choose from) and systems thinking." I'm not sure why there is any question about video games being art. Of course video games are art and gamers are artists. Even if they are commercialized. Films are art, even though they are commercialized. "To be sure, I'm not offering, here, teaching art or art appreciation as a substitute for attempting to teach systems thinking." Teaching art and teaching systems thinking are two different field of study. They cross over, but I doubt most systems thinking courses would not admit to it, outside of a relationship to the role of aesthetics. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 15 15:47:45 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:47:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <1D970FC4313748EFA6BCD94EBD4D1FCC@DFC68LF1> References: <710b78fc0907142011u45869ba8n67f4cdc6c8337417@mail.gmail.com><764617.99471.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <1D970FC4313748EFA6BCD94EBD4D1FCC@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Sorry, I mean in last paragraph: "Teaching art and teaching systems thinking are two different field of study. They cross over, but I doubt most systems thinking courses would [delete not] admit to it, outside of a relationship to the role of aesthetics." And I say this because they are in two different academic departments and we all know how academic departments usually keep to their own kind. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More -----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: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 10:38 AM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort Dan wrote: "I'm not so sure one way or the other. I think art not as a process of production or creation, but one of reception or experience does trigger something like systems thinking. E.g., art objects are typically perceived as "organic" wholes and not as an assemblage or lump. This often folds into how they are received and criticized -- as in when Euripedes' "Medea" is criticized for having a "deus ex machina" ending." Art as an object is a misconception of art. The artistic process is equal to its output. Conceptual art is a valued genre of the arts and is a valued aspect of transhumanism. Also, art is judged by its critics by the parts, not the lump. But I get what you mean and I agree in large part. [delete paragraph because I already offered my view on Rand and her manifesto.] "Also, as to your remarks on video games, an intereting take on them as a contemporary art form is that of Paul Cantor in his lecture "Commerce and Culture." I don't want to overplay my hand here, but it seems there's some overlap between art (both making and experiencing it; in video games, of course, part of the experience is usually having many alternatives to choose from) and systems thinking." I'm not sure why there is any question about video games being art. Of course video games are art and gamers are artists. Even if they are commercialized. Films are art, even though they are commercialized. "To be sure, I'm not offering, here, teaching art or art appreciation as a substitute for attempting to teach systems thinking." Teaching art and teaching systems thinking are two different field of study. They cross over, but I doubt most systems thinking courses would not admit to it, outside of a relationship to the role of aesthetics. Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 16:34:20 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 09:34:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <38BD8D98816243008C80C54C3DA3DA6A@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <671325.77100.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > I am not sure when this thread started, Notthat it's directly relevant to the rest of your post, but I believe it started with Emlym posting on systems thinking. > but I will pick up here where Dan wrote: > > "You might be right about that... And this goes for adults > too. This sounds > similar to the ideas of Bruno Bettelheim, especially as > given in his _The > Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy > Tales_. > > "Regarding adults, too, might this function be served by > art? I know Rand > has been trashed (and defended) on this list, but look > soberly at her ideas > on art. She sees art as concretizing certain types of > abstractions. This > seems akin to a systems view of the world. E.g., one > doesn't draw out chains > of reasoning when thinking of, say, Othello or Ahad. > Instead, one seems to > have a sort of image one can draw on of just what it means > to be obsessed. > (This can also go awry -- as in stereotypes.)" > > Rand is a weak example of scholarly, knowledgeable thinking > about art or the arts. > Her rigid interpretation concerning art holds little > value, if any at > all, in the arts and humanities. That's, of course, a conclusion that would have to be proved. > Her arguments are weak, at best, and are > used to support her philosophical views. Another conclusion that would have to be proved. I will say, though, that Rand at times appears aware of certain problems and then sloppily ignores them. Of course, one problem is that she didn't really do a book length treatment of the subject. Her _The Romantic Manifesto_ is a collection of essays, some of which treat esthetics on an abstract level, but others that are more culture criticism and other more focused or timely issues, and a short story. This is not to escuse her sloppiness or inconsistencies here, but merely to put them in context -- especially in case anyone reads the book with the intent to merely find flaws.* > I may not agree with Foucault, > Danto, Lyotard, Dickie or Sontag, but they are far better > examples of deep > investigations on abstraction, systems, and art. In some of these cases, not to apologize for Rand's mistakes or other problems here, these thinkers were far more focused on esthetics or art, whereas, for Rand, it appears that esthetics is merely a piece of the puzzle. (Granted, this plays into your criticism that she's merely using her esthetic theory "to support her [broader] philosophical views.") > This not meant to trash, as you say, Rand.? I value > her fiction as being > superb.? Yet, this does not excuse her inability to > understand art and the role of the artist. My wonder here is whether she really fails to understand these -- or if you merely disagree with her view on both. > Just read the Romantic Manifesto!? > Yee gads!? I mean, > who cannot understand modern art as it is situated > historically. I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think there are two major comments one can make here. One is that her basic theory of esthetics could be excised from her other views on art. In other words, one could look at her core view of art, of sense of life, and such and then apply this to Modern Art, etc. to see if one would arrive at the same conclusions as her. You might disagree with her core views here, but I hope you're willing to entertain that she might not be applying her theory correctly in all cases. The other comment is it does seem to me that she was trying to situated Modern Art historically and culturally. A lot of her criticism of it is dedicate to just such, though you might disagree with this. And, heck, she might be wrong here, but it's not that she was thinking, "Modern Art can't possibly be placed. It just plopped down from the sky and we have to deal with it -- specifically by trashing it and anyone who likes it." (As a side comment, I imagine people who sternly disagree with Rand might think of this as an example of systems thinking gone amok: she has here fundamental views of "life, the universe, and everything" and systematically applies them to art, politics, history, etc. without regard to anything but preserving her fundamental views. I don't completely agree or completely disagree with this. The bane of the systems builder is, of course, coming up with a grand system that shoehorns all reality into the system a la Procustes. And I do think she does this on occasion.) > Rand tried > to concretize the hell out of everything to suit her point > of view, which > she does with amazing articulation that few possess.? > But that does not > excuse her trying to put a label, chain and stamp on > everything she could > not grok because she simply did not have the wherewithal to > do so. Maybe it > was her upbringing.? Maybe it was because she was a > woman in a man's world. > Who knows. Well, where she does this I think it's a matter of her being a systems builder, so it's a general flaw of system building which she suffered from. But I also feel there was some personal arrogance on her part -- some of which drove away any intelligent but sympathetic critics. And I also think that since she was trying to make her system she was just bound to make some errors, especially as she tried to have a view on everything from ontology to pornography. Regards, Dan * One of my efforts in this direction is "Architecture: The Missing Art Form" online at: http://uweb.superlink.net/~neptune/Arch.html This is clearly an inconsistency on her part; pointing it out required no great familiarity with esthetics in general or architecture in particular, but merely noticing her definitions clashed. Not get into an orgy of self-promotion here, but see also my "Romanticism ? Beyond Rand" at: http://uweb.superlink.net/~neptune/Romaticism.html This one has more scattered criticisms of Rand that do depend on some familiarity with art history, criticism, and esthetics -- though, to be certain, nothing on a deep, scholarly level. Cf., my "Response to David C. Adams on Rand's View of Romanticism" for rejoinder to one critic. That's online at: http://uweb.superlink.net/~neptune/Adams.html I'm not sure if Adams' critique is online anymore. From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 15 16:50:46 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:50:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <671325.77100.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <38BD8D98816243008C80C54C3DA3DA6A@DFC68LF1> <671325.77100.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <427ED74E555F4063AED966F736F683F4@DFC68LF1> See below please: Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > I am not sure when this thread started, > Rand is a weak example of scholarly, knowledgeable thinking about art > or the arts. > Her rigid interpretation concerning art holds little value, if any at > all, in the arts and humanities. "That's, of course, a conclusion that would have to be proved." The fact that she is seldom mentioned within artistic discourse is worth noting, and that her ideas about art is seldom referenced in writings on the arts. > Her arguments are weak, at best, and are used to support her > philosophical views. "Another conclusion that would have to be proved. I will say, though, that Rand at times appears aware of certain problems and then sloppily ignores them. Of course, one problem is that she didn't really do a book length treatment of the subject. Her _The Romantic Manifesto_ is a collection of essays, some of which treat esthetics on an abstract level, but others that are more culture criticism and other more focused or timely issues, and a short story. This is not to escuse her sloppiness or inconsistencies here, but merely to put them in context -- especially in case anyone reads the book with the intent to merely find flaws.*" I think proving this is easy enough - all it takes is looking through artistic journals, arts exhibitions, art discourse, art critical theory, aesthetic theory, etc. Rand was a big-wig in her own domain, but she was not influential in arts discourse. > I may not agree with Foucault, > Danto, Lyotard, Dickie or Sontag, but they are far better examples of > deep investigations on abstraction, systems, and art. "In some of these cases, not to apologize for Rand's mistakes or other problems here, these thinkers were far more focused on esthetics or art, whereas, for Rand, it appears that esthetics is merely a piece of the puzzle. (Granted, this plays into your criticism that she's merely using her esthetic theory "to support her [broader] philosophical views.")" Sure, but Rand is not a recognizable voice in the arts. > This not meant to trash, as you say, Rand.? I value her fiction as > being superb.? Yet, this does not excuse her inability to understand > art and the role of the artist. "My wonder here is whether she really fails to understand these -- or if you merely disagree with her view on both." She fails to understand. > Just read the Romantic Manifesto! > Yee gads!? I mean, > who cannot understand modern art as it is situated historically. "I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think there are two major comments one can make here. One is that her basic theory of esthetics could be excised from her other views on art. In other words, one could look at her core view of art, of sense of life, and such and then apply this to Modern Art, etc. to see if one would arrive at the same conclusions as her. You might disagree with her core views here, but I hope you're willing to entertain that she might not be applying her theory correctly in all cases." She fails to understand. "The other comment is it does seem to me that she was trying to situated Modern Art historically and culturally. A lot of her criticism of it is dedicate to just such, though you might disagree with this. And, heck, she might be wrong here, but it's not that she was thinking, "Modern Art can't possibly be placed. It just plopped down from the sky and we have to deal with it -- specifically by trashing it and anyone who likes it."" She fails to understand. "(As a side comment, I imagine people who sternly disagree with Rand might think of this as an example of systems thinking gone amok: she has here fundamental views of "life, the universe, and everything" and systematically applies them to art, politics, history, etc. without regard to anything but preserving her fundamental views. I don't completely agree or completely disagree with this. The bane of the systems builder is, of course, coming up with a grand system that shoehorns all reality into the system a la Procustes. And I do think she does this on occasion.)" Yes, true. But she applies them to life, the universe, and everything from HER PERSPECTIVE and that is her failure. She cannot see outside her narrow-focus, no matter how dense it is. > Rand tried > to concretize the hell out of everything to suit her point of view, > which she does with amazing articulation that few possess. > But that does not > excuse her trying to put a label, chain and stamp on everything she > could not grok because she simply did not have the wherewithal to do > so. Maybe it was her upbringing.? Maybe it was because she was a woman > in a man's world. > Who knows. "Well, where she does this I think it's a matter of her being a systems builder, so it's a general flaw of system building which she suffered from. But I also feel there was some personal arrogance on her part -- some of which drove away any intelligent but sympathetic critics. And I also think that since she was trying to make her system she was just bound to make some errors, especially as she tried to have a view on everything from ontology to pornography." Listen, you make good points. I simply do not find her all that interesting on this level. I find her interesting on other levels, but not this one. She simply is not the best source in relation to Emlyn's question/concerns/interests. Best, Natasha From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 17:05:48 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 10:05:48 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <1D970FC4313748EFA6BCD94EBD4D1FCC@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <912449.91202.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Dan wrote: > > "I'm not so sure one way or the other. I think art not as a > process of > production or creation, but one of reception or experience > does trigger > something like systems thinking. E.g., art objects are > typically perceived > as "organic" wholes and not as an assemblage or lump. This > often folds into > how they are received and criticized -- as in when > Euripedes' "Medea" is > criticized for having a "deus ex machina" ending." > > Art as an object is a misconception of art.? The > artistic process is equal > to its output.? Conceptual art is a valued genre of > the arts and is a valued > aspect of transhumanism.? Also, art is judged by its > critics by the parts, not the lump. Well, in using the "Medea" example, I was giving a case of someone critizing a part by reference to the whole: some feel the ending does not fit the rest of the play. Or you could say they believe the various parts don't fit together. (I'm not saying I agree with this view of "Medea" or that this particular example is a valid form of art criticism. I just wanted to give an example of how an artwork can be viewed as an integrated whole. I think, too, this would apply to looking at art as a process rather than as a bunch of objects.) > But I get what you mean and I agree in large > part. > > [delete paragraph because I already offered my view on Rand > and her manifesto.] I'd be careful about accepting Rand's title for her work. She called it "The Romantic Manifesto," but the collection of 11 essays and one short story is hardly that. Yes, one of the essays is a manifesto of sorts, but the first four are really her theory of art. (Of course, like Henry James, E. M. Forster, and many other writers, she offers her views of what writing is and what it should be.) Also, while her subtitle -- "A Philosophy of Literature" -- only adds to the confusion. Only two essays deal specifically with literature -- though, to be sure, all deal with literature among the other arts. > "Also, as to your remarks on video games, an intereting > take on them as a > contemporary art form is that of Paul Cantor in his lecture > "Commerce and > Culture." I don't want to overplay my hand here, but it > seems there's some > overlap between art (both making and experiencing it; in > video games, of > course, part of the experience is usually having many > alternatives to choose > from) and systems thinking." > > I'm not sure why there is any question about video games > being art. I think there is among many people. I'm not saying I'm one of them. > Of > course video games are art and gamers are artists.? > Even if they are > commercialized.? Films are art, even though they are > commercialized. I'm not sure where you're getting this view from. Cantor actually accepts video games as art and he relishes commercialism in art. > "To be sure, I'm not offering, here, teaching art or art > appreciation as a > substitute for attempting to teach systems thinking." > > Teaching art and teaching systems thinking are two > different field of study. > They cross over, but I doubt most systems thinking courses > would not admit > to it, outside of a relationship to the role of > aesthetics.? Removing the infelicitous "not" as you suggest in a later post, I agree. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 19:45:30 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:45:30 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Rand's esthetics/was Re: Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <427ED74E555F4063AED966F736F683F4@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <913055.40954.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > See below please: > > Nlogo1.tif Natasha Vita-More > > --- On Wed, 7/15/09, Natasha Vita-More > wrote: > > I am not sure when this thread started, > >> Rand is a weak example of scholarly, knowledgeable >> thinking about art >> or the arts. >> Her rigid interpretation concerning art holds little >> value, if any at all, in the arts and humanities. > > "That's, of course, a conclusion that would have to be > proved." > > The fact that she is seldom mentioned within artistic > discourse is worth > noting, and that her ideas about art is seldom referenced > in writings on the arts. But this proves what? She or her views are unknown, ignored, or unpopular among the places you're looking. Of course, you might say these places are frequented by established experts on this, but this means what? Only that these people either are ignorant of her esthetics, don't find her work in this are of merit, or don't like her. (Remember, too, she is usually rejected by many people who are only exposed to her novels or, worse, to reviews of her novels. I can just imagine the intellectual here who rejects Rand as a hack novelists not even bothering to read any of her other work -- maybe not even knowing that she wrote on esthetics.) >> Her arguments are weak, at best, and are used to >> support her philosophical views. > > "Another conclusion that would have to be proved. I will > say, though, that > Rand at times appears aware of certain problems and then > sloppily ignores > them. Of course, one problem is that she didn't really do a > book length > treatment of the subject. Her _The Romantic Manifesto_ is a > collection of > essays, some of which treat esthetics on an abstract level, > but others that > are more culture criticism and other more focused or timely > issues, and a > short story. This is not to escuse her sloppiness or > inconsistencies here, > but merely to put them in context -- especially in case > anyone reads the > book with the intent to merely find flaws.*" > > I think proving this is easy enough - all it takes is > looking through > artistic journals, arts exhibitions, art discourse, art > critical theory, aesthetic theory, etc. Again, this is a weak argument. It only shows that she's either unknown or unpopular in these venues. > Rand was a big-wig in her own > domain, but she was > not influential in arts discourse. And what was this domain? I mean you admit to liking her novels, but you've already seen here (and I know many other places) where people trounce her novels and would likely think of her, at best, as merely a bestselling author, but, otherwise, as a hack and definitely not a "big-wig." If you mean politics or philosophy, you can find her cited from time to time in these areas, but it's an event when she is and not at all typical -- except maybe among libertarians and even there often rarely and sometimes even dismissively. >> I may not agree with Foucault, >> Danto, Lyotard, Dickie or Sontag, but they are far >> better examples of >> deep investigations on abstraction, systems, and art. > > "In some of these cases, not to apologize for Rand's > mistakes or other > problems here, these thinkers were far more focused on > esthetics or art, > whereas, for Rand, it appears that esthetics is merely a > piece of the > puzzle. (Granted, this plays into your criticism that she's > merely using her > esthetic theory "to support her [broader] philosophical > views.")" > > Sure, but Rand is not a recognizable voice in the arts. Do you have anything else to offer -- save for her unpopularity or being relatively unknown? Is this your only or final test of an ideas validity: the number of people who accept it -- even these are people you respect? >> This not meant to trash, as you say, Rand.? I value >> her fiction as >> being superb.? Yet, this does not excuse her >> inability to understand >> art and the role of the artist. > > "My wonder here is whether she really fails to understand > these -- or if you merely disagree with her view on both." > > She fails to understand.? Care to give an example of this? >> Just read the Romantic Manifesto! >> Yee gads!? I mean, >> who cannot understand modern art as it is situated >> historically. > > "I'm not sure exactly what you mean, but I think there are > two major > comments one can make here. One is that her basic theory of > esthetics could > be excised from her other views on art. In other words, one > could look at > her core view of art, of sense of life, and such and then > apply this to > Modern Art, etc. to see if one would arrive at the same > conclusions as her. > You might disagree with her core views here, but I hope > you're willing to > entertain that she might not be applying her theory > correctly in all cases." > > She fails to understand. Care to give an example of this? > "The other comment is it does seem to me that she was > trying to situated > Modern Art historically and culturally. A lot of her > criticism of it is > dedicate to just such, though you might disagree with this. > And, heck, she > might be wrong here, but it's not that she was thinking, > "Modern Art can't > possibly be placed. It just plopped down from the sky and > we have to deal > with it -- specifically by trashing it and anyone who likes > it."" > > She fails to understand. Care to give an example of this? > "(As a side comment, I imagine people who sternly disagree > with Rand might > think of this as an example of systems thinking gone amok: > she has here > fundamental views of "life, the universe, and everything" > and systematically > applies them to art, politics, history, etc. without regard > to anything but > preserving her fundamental views. I don't completely agree > or completely > disagree with this. The bane of the systems builder is, of > course, coming up > with a grand system that shoehorns all reality into the > system a la > Procustes. And I do think she does this on occasion.)" > > Yes, true.? But she applies them to life, the > universe, and everything from > HER PERSPECTIVE and that is her failure. She cannot see > outside her narrow-focus, no matter how dense it is. This sounds to me curiously like "I don't agree with her perspective, therefore her problem is her perspective. Why can't she see things my way, dammit?!" :) Seriously, though, I think everyone is limited with how far they can see. I don't think Rand is a special case here and I find nothing wrong with someone presenting his or her perspective. It's even better if the perspective appears to be valid or true -- in the sense of cohering or corresponding with reality. Of course, it's better when that perspective is otherwise interesting or useful -- but these are, admittedly relatively and somewhat subjective criteria. But I'm not sure you'd argue against this. Again, I feel as if you just don't agree with her and the perspective angle is merely a way of rationalizing this disagreement. Naturally, I could be wrong here. After all, if her perspective is really off then her inability to see other perspectives might be a clue to why it's off. But that point -- that she "see outside her narrow-focus" -- remains as well to be proved. I think that's not exactly true -- not from reading her works, including her works on esthetics. That said, I admit she's not as widely read or as cognizant of other views as many other thinkers, especially ones who've focused their whole careers on esthetics. This shouldn't need pointing out, but, still, not being up on all the journal articles, theories, and the like is not the same as being dead wrong. >> Rand tried >> to concretize the hell out of everything to suit her >> point of view, >> which she does with amazing articulation that few >> possess. >> But that does not >> excuse her trying to put a label, chain and stamp on >> everything she >> could not grok because she simply did not have the >> wherewithal to do >> so. Maybe it was her upbringing.? Maybe it was >> because she was a woman in a man's world. >> Who knows. > > "Well, where she does this I think it's a matter of her > being a systems > builder, so it's a general flaw of system building which > she suffered from. > But I also feel there was some personal arrogance on her > part -- some of > which drove away any intelligent but sympathetic critics. > And I also think > that since she was trying to make her system she was just > bound to make some > errors, especially as she tried to have a view on > everything from ontology > to pornography." > > Listen, you make good points.? I simply do not find > her all that interesting > on this level. I find her interesting on other levels, but > not this one. > She simply is not the best source in relation to Emlyn's > question/concerns/interests. I'm not sure she's the "best source,"* but her ideas on art -- specifically how people experience art -- do seem relevant to the Emlyn's "question/concerns/interests" on systems thinking. I also think Emlyn and other might consider the work of Arthur Koestler and Susanne Langer in regards to art and systems thinking. Of course, whether anyone is interesting is, to a large extent, dependent on of interest to whom. It might be simply that since she doesn't address issues you find highly important or doesn't address them in a way you think relevant, that you're just not finding anything of interest because of that. Regards, Dan * Is there a "best source" on this? Is there any reason not to consider views far and wide here? From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Jul 15 20:55:59 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 13:55:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Who are the people? Who suffers?/was Re: Privatization and so called public "ownership" In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <77189.56266.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Tue, 7/14/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/14 Dan : >> But you seem to think this is the default case.? >> Also, in fact, this could never be a matter of continuing >> things as they are -- unless all consented, including the >> original owners of the properties that were stolen.? (Or, >> in the case of property improperly taken from an unowned (or >> abandoned), homesteading would have to be allowed.) > > I don't think it's the default case that people will want > to manage > everything communally, but they do as a matter of fact > decide to > manage some things at least semi-communally, in that they > decide to have public services. Uh, no. The state or a group of people who petition the state to do this does exist, but this is not all people. If you agree, then how is this different than saying, "people" "do as a matter of fact decide to manage some things at least semi-" criminally, "in that they decide to have" criminal syndicates run some things? :) > Rarely is the property so managed directly > "stolen"; that usually happens in revolutions, and the > revolutionaries > generally argue in their turn that they are taking the > property back > from thieves and returning it to its rightful owners. It is directly stolen in the form of taxes, eminent domain, and other means of coercive transfer. That such transfers require coercion -- e.g., the people whose wealth is being taken can't decide they don't want to transfer it -- is enough to describe them as not the product of their choice and deliberation, but of someone else forcing them to do something or to give up something. Anyone can, of course, claim people want to do something some way because some of them do it that way or because there's a coercive apparatus in place and they are forced to do it that way. But one can't really tell how they would do something until they are free to choose. That said, if you merely meant that people prefer to voluntarily do things communally, I see no problem with that from a libertarian perspective. However, in that case, such things wouldn't need to be provided or managed by the state. The state is a coercive institution or process. >>> They might decide that roads should be treated >>> differently >>> to a telecommunication company or airline that is >>> being >>> privatised, for example, with a different share >>> structure. >> >> Whole possible, it appears to me rather that you're >> baking in a possible case as the only likely one.? This is >> not to say it's unlikely.? One could easily imagine people >> having little imagination -- believing roads have always >> been [mis]managed in one way and not being able to see any >> other way -- and continuing with present forms.? But then >> why de-nationalization or de-socialization at all?? It's >> almost as if you're imagining that the Soviets fell and >> people in, say, Hungary decided they actually prefered to be >> ruled by the Soviets, so they're going to keep the Red Army >> there, keep the secret police, and all that, but just do it >> through a different form.? It's not impossible, but hard to >> see why they'd bother changing things at all. > > As I have explained, allowed the freedom to choose people > often decide > that restaurants, shoe factories and farms are better > managed > privately and hospitals, schools and prisons are best > managed publicly. At best, some people have decided this. The rest did not. So there was no free choice -- such as taking a vote that is only binding if all parties consent -- but merely some people enforcing their policies (tax funding for hospitals, prisons, and compulsory schools) on others. The very fact that schooling is compulsory as well as tax funded, too, shows that some people must disagree with these things. If not, why are they forced to pay for or attend? > The Soviets decreed that *everything* is best > managed > publicly, and the extreme capitalists decree that > *everything* is best managed privately. This is not my point. My point is that initiating coercion should be banned in society. That means that the notion of coercing people in the name of the majority, the people, the race, the nation, the proletariat, social efficiency, future generations, God, etc. is ruled out. If people then want to voluntarily manage some or all things communally, fine. But this would not give any more rights or powers to the people who decide on this than they formerly had -- in other words, Rafal and I can take a vote on how to communally manage your labor. > Is it in general a better idea to base your > decision on how things are best run on experience and > observation of > how the different systems work, rather than blind ideology? I've nothing against observation. My point, though, has been that if you already start with false notions baked in, your observations are likely to go awry. Think of the case where people here have voiced the opinion that a free market in healthcare has failed and use as evidence of this failure the US healthcare system -- the very system where the government actually spends more perecentage-wise and in terms of absolute amount on healthcare and where regulation is extremely high. I.e., the very case where we're very far from a free market or any sort of voluntary system (free markets aren't the form of voluntary interaction). In that case, what does observation tell one? (This is leaving alone the difficulties of generalizing with data on societies and which data anyone will accept.) >>> If these really were >>> "stolen" from an individual or corporation then >>> there may >>> be a case >>> for returning them to the previous owner, but if >>> they were >>> built up on >>> public land with public funds, then they should be >>> returned >>> to the >>> public, or if privatised the money thus obtained >>> returned to the public. >> >> As I pointed out earlier, it's not the public per se, >> but taxpayers or others robbed.? These would be, in this >> case, the original owners.? If, e.g., the government taxes >> you and me to buy, say, a computer, then it's really our >> (your and my) property -- not the property of the whole >> public.? (Especially, not the property of other net >> tax-receiving members of the public.? In this case, net >> tax-receivers actually owe money or property back to the net >> tax-payers, all else being equal.) > > If your computer breaks and the insurance company buys you > another one > then who really owns the new computer: You? The insurance > company? All > the people who have paid premiums for longer than you have > and never > claimed, and whose premiums will now be increased by the > insurer to pay for your carelessness? We've been over this sort of example before. In this case, assuming no one is coerced, there's no problem. I'm not forced to buy computer insurance. No insurance company is forced to insure me. No one else is forced to buy insurance. All these are voluntary interactions. You can't generalize from the voluntary case -- one where someone agrees to buy me a new computer and however she or he got the money to pay for it was also voluntarily gotten -- to a coerce one -- one where someone is forced to buy me a new computer either directly (where the insurer is forced) or indirectly (where the insurers other customers are forced). >> I grant that in might be tough to figure out who owns >> what if many are taxed, it's all put into one fund and the >> government doles it out for this or that item.? (And most >> government spending is pure consumption anyhow -- and almost >> all of this will never be recovered.? This is little >> different than the guy who robs your dinner and then eats >> it.? Yes, he owes you dinner, but the original property has >> been consumed.? One can imagine an extreme case of the guy >> robbing your dinner every night for years and not being able >> to compensate you -- maybe because he just can't afford to >> pay you back.? This is, sadly, the case with a lot of theft >> by government.)? But this doesn't change the principle. > > We could start a whole debate about the morality of > taxation again. > You think that taxation is immoral; I think that a refusal > to tax or pay tax is immoral. We're not going to agree. Taxation is unjust because it coerces people. It does so in a clearly observable way: they pay taxes because they fear the penalties of not paying taxes. This is no different than it's clearly observable that if an old lady is being mugged, she's not giving up her purse of her own volition. Now, you might believe, say, someone is getting services, so he or she should pay. That argument would be flawed because people cannot opt out of these services -- which would be like a restaurant charging me for a dinner I never wanted or agreed to have. Or you might believe that people should just be coerced because this serves some higher purpose. If that's the case, then any arguments about human suffering fall by the wayside and in a practical sense might makes right. After all, real human suffering will happen under coercion -- to be coerced is to suffer -- and it's anyone's guess if anyone is better off in the long-run from this. (To my knowledge, no one here has addressed the problem of how to measure suffering -- much less addressed my earlier use of pareto optimality and subjectivism here. Let me repeat this point: there seems no objective way of making such interpersonal comparisons. So, the best "meta-policy," from the perspective of not wanting to increase suffering, is to not to adopt policies that entail any more suffering. To wit, there's no way to tell if a policy that makes some people suffer while benefiting others really balances out, so pareto optimality forces out to seek policies where, at least, suffering is not increased. Put another way, pareto optimality counsels one not rob Peter to pay Paul because one can never tell if Peter's suffering is balanced out by Paul's gain. This is so even if Paul is suffering: one can't tell if Paul's suffer is worse than Peter's will be. To wit, policies that reckon these things in terms of social cost or other supposedly objective measures are merely some person or group pretending, wittingly or not, that his/her/its subjective evaluation is objective -- that it knows who suffers, by how much, and can actually make valid decisions based on this.*) Or you might claim that the state is merely taking back what belongs to it or to society. But, in that case, one would have to show how the state or society as a whole (and apart from the person ostensibly being coerced) came to own this property it's supposedly taking back. >> Now you might add that, in many cases, the best rule >> is to divide up the properties among the public.? Again, it >> would only be the net tax-payers and not the whole public.? >> And this would have to be judged according to how much on >> net they were stolen from.? For example, someone who, on >> net, was robbed of $1 million (say, over the course of >> decades) is owed a larger share than another person who, on >> net, was robbed of $100,000.? (I also grant that >> determining these net amounts might not be easy in practice, >> but assuming equal shares shouldn't be the default state.? >> Just as in the case of, e.g., two farmers whose grain was >> robbed, we shouldn't assume on finding the robbers with all >> the grain that both farmers get exactly one half of the >> grain.? It could be the case that each owns one half of it, >> but that would remain to be proved NOT merely assumed.) > > Unless what happened wasn't actually robbery. Which is merely a way of avoiding the problem. I started out in this example by saying they were robbed and we were discussing returning property taken from various individuals or groups -- particularly how it might be returned to its just owners. If you disagree that it was taken in the first place, then what's being discussed? I'll respond to the rest of your post later. Regards, Dan * Well, of course, in some cases one might be forced to make such choices, but in terms of "meta-policy" one should not make this the rule, but the exception and try to make it as rarely used as possible, no? From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Jul 15 20:58:27 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 16:58:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Rand's esthetics/was Re: Art and myth as systems thinking of a sort In-Reply-To: <913055.40954.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <913055.40954.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20090715165827.59po3fmymkgok0og@webmail.natasha.cc> Dan, I'll make this short because I'm preparing to leave town. Artistic projects are re-creations of real-time, synthetic reality, and concept-experiences (mental processes). Artists apply their unique sense of life and fundamental values into their works. [This is not my personal view, but the accessed knowledge of experts in the field of art and sciences, art theory and aesthetics.] Rand agrees with this and made "metaphysical value-judgment" her well-known phrase. [This is common knowledge of objectivists, Randians and others who have read Rand.] Nonetheless, because her own metaphysical value-judgment conflicted with contemporary art, she was at a loss in understanding the era because she could not *experience* it. And, since she could not *experience* it, her view of aesthetics is incomplete and lacks a full understanding "art". [This has been expressed by those close to her, including Nathanial Brandon, and by critics of her dislike of contemporary art. (No references included because they are too many to list and I do not have the time. Just Google it.)] Since systems thinking is inclusive of all areas, Rand is not the most appropriate thinker to draw from. [This above-sentence is my personal view based on 40 years in the wide field of the arts and sciences and 15 years immersed in the academic study of art practice and art theory.] That's all Dan. Best, Natasha From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Jul 16 11:34:30 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:34:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > Of course, even "rigid" constitutions can be reversed. But this > require a revolutionary, illegal breach of the previous order (say, a > switch from monarchy to republic in the UK). Like trying to illegally change the Constitution with an illegal referendum to remove the limit to the number of presidential mandates. Like in Honduras. Well, often they fail. Mirco From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 16 13:46:03 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 06:46:03 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Jeff Riggenbach on why many believe... Message-ID: <604603.7840.qm@web30103.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I thought this might be of interest regarding beliefs in general -- not just global warming. Of course, it doesn't settle anything. Regards, Dan http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LeftLibertarian2/message/29630 "Your answer above? It assumes that climate scientists are mostly stupid in Precisely the same way. I find the assertion questionable. Some will like silly clothes, some will like silly music. Some will believe in UFOs. But ALL of them will be stupid aboutt[sic] the Climate in just the same way?" No, not necessarily. When I said people will go to great lengths to believe comforting fairy tales they want to believe, I did not mean that they all want to believe a particular fairy tale about climate change (though it may be, of course, that some of them do). What virtually all climate scientists, virtually all scientists, and most human beings of this time and place *do* all believe in unison, however, is that the level of understanding human beings have managed to achieve in the field of climate science (and in the field of scientific inquiry generally) is much, much higher than in fact it is. Wanting to believe that human beings know far, far more than they actually do would appear to be a key feature of the human condition. It's the root, I suspect, of the special instance Hayek labeled "the fatal conceit." People want to believe that they have the knowledge and power to run everything and to fix anything. They can understand exactly how the weather works, how the climate works; they can effect changes in the weather and the climate, at will; they can write computer programs that will perfectly model all the complex, simultaneous processes that go into making the weather and the climate what they are, and they can use these computer programs to accurately predict the outcomes of various human activities. Admitting that we know and understand a good deal less than most of us believe we do, acknowledging that we're frequently brought up short by processes that *don't* work out exactly as we thought they would, acknowledging that unintended and unanticipated consequences are another seeming staple of the human condition, admitting that all the results of scientific inquiry are not equally reliable, equally well informed, qually "certain" - doing any of this is tantamount to denouncing science as useless and generally going over to the Dark Side. I often think of this mindset as the most successful religion of the 20th Century. I call it Scientism. JR From stathisp at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 14:04:36 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:04:36 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Who are the people? Who suffers?/was Re: Privatization and so called public "ownership" In-Reply-To: <77189.56266.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <77189.56266.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/16 Dan : >> I don't think it's the default case that people will want >> to manage >> everything communally, but they do as a matter of fact >> decide to >> manage some things at least semi-communally, in that they >> decide to have public services. > > Uh, no. The state or a group of people who petition the state to do this does exist, but this is not all people. If you agree, then how is this different than saying, "people" "do as a matter of fact decide to manage some things at least semi-" criminally, "in that they decide to have" criminal syndicates run some things? ?:) The criminals impose their will on others. The voluntary communal organisations do not, except on their own members, who agree in being part of the organisation that they will go along with the majority decision even if they don't agree with every decision. This can happen whenever two or more people get together and decide to do something. I agree that as a strong principle it is best *not* to coerce people, as far as possible. But sometimes people agree to be coerced. We might all agree that project X which will cost each of us $Y is worth pursuing, but it won't happen if we are able to make our contribution voluntary; many of us will not contribute and the rest, if they even have enough money, would have to contribute multiples of $Y, while not receiving back multiples of utility from X as a result. Therefore, the choice is between X with everyone agreeing to contribute (and to be held to that agreement) or no X at all. >> Rarely is the property so managed directly >> "stolen"; that usually happens in revolutions, and the >> revolutionaries >> generally argue in their turn that they are taking the >> property back >> from thieves and returning it to its rightful owners. > > It is directly stolen in the form of taxes, eminent domain, and other means of coercive transfer. That such transfers require coercion -- e.g., the people whose wealth is being taken can't decide they don't want to transfer it -- is enough to describe them as not the product of their choice and deliberation, but of someone else forcing them to do something or to give up something. Anyone can, of course, claim people want to do something some way because some of them do it that way or because there's a coercive apparatus in place and they are forced to do it that way. But one can't really tell how they would do something until they are free to choose. Are they really free to choose if they have to work and have to accept the wage they are given, even though large profits are made off their labour? This is something communists and anarchists call "theft", but which is legal in capitalists societies. >> As I have explained, allowed the freedom to choose people >> often decide >> that restaurants, shoe factories and farms are better >> managed >> privately and hospitals, schools and prisons are best >> managed publicly. > > At best, some people have decided this. The rest did not. So there was no free choice -- such as taking a vote that is only binding if all parties consent -- but merely some people enforcing their policies (tax funding for hospitals, prisons, and compulsory schools) on others. The very fact that schooling is compulsory as well as tax funded, too, shows that some people must disagree with these things. If not, why are they forced to pay for or attend? We get back to the problem of nothing being possible without unanimous decision. >> The Soviets decreed that *everything* is best >> managed >> publicly, and the extreme capitalists decree that >> *everything* is best managed privately. > > This is not my point. My point is that initiating coercion should be banned in society. That means that the notion of coercing people in the name of the majority, the people, the race, the nation, the proletariat, social efficiency, future generations, God, etc. is ruled out. If people then want to voluntarily manage some or all things communally, fine. But this would not give any more rights or powers to the people who decide on this than they formerly had -- in other words, Rafal and I can take a vote on how to communally manage your labor. You would stick with this even if the end result was *more* violence and coercion, due to untrammelled capitalism leading to an underclass of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die, on the grounds that this would not technically be violence or coercion? >> Is it in general a better idea to base your >> decision on how things are best run on experience and >> observation of >> how the different systems work, rather than blind ideology? > > I've nothing against observation. My point, though, has been that if you already start with false notions baked in, your observations are likely to go awry. Think of the case where people here have voiced the opinion that a free market in healthcare has failed and use as evidence of this failure the US healthcare system -- the very system where the government actually spends more perecentage-wise and in terms of absolute amount on healthcare and where regulation is extremely high. I.e., the very case where we're very far from a free market or any sort of voluntary system (free markets aren't the form of voluntary interaction). In that case, what does observation tell one? (This is leaving alone the difficulties of generalizing with data on societies and which data anyone will accept.) You keep claiming this as evidence that public health care doesn't work. But that is like claiming that private car companies don't work because general Motors went bankrupt. Obviously, there are more efficient and less efficient ways to spend money for a particular purpose. The US spends public health money far less efficiently than any other country does. The main point of difference seems to be that the US system is not universal. There may be other differences leading to inefficiency, and these need to be worked out, just as a private company needs to observe their competitors and work out why they are making more money than they are. >> If your computer breaks and the insurance company buys you >> another one >> then who really owns the new computer: You? The insurance >> company? All >> the people who have paid premiums for longer than you have >> and never >> claimed, and whose premiums will now be increased by the >> insurer to pay for your carelessness? > > We've been over this sort of example before. In this case, assuming no one is coerced, there's no problem. I'm not forced to buy computer insurance. No insurance company is forced to insure me. No one else is forced to buy insurance. All these are voluntary interactions. You can't generalize from the voluntary case -- one where someone agrees to buy me a new computer and however she or he got the money to pay for it was also voluntarily gotten -- to a coerce one -- one where someone is forced to buy me a new computer either directly (where the insurer is forced) or indirectly (where the insurers other customers are forced). I'm forced to insure my apartment. As an apartment owner, I am happy that I and everyone else is forced to do this. If I don't like it, I can sell it. If I don't like paying taxes, I can choose not to work, not to move to the tax-paying country, leave if I was born there, or not work. These aren't ideal choices - I'd rather have it all my own way. >>> I grant that in might be tough to figure out who owns >>> what if many are taxed, it's all put into one fund and the >>> government doles it out for this or that item.? (And most >>> government spending is pure consumption anyhow -- and almost >>> all of this will never be recovered.? This is little >>> different than the guy who robs your dinner and then eats >>> it.? Yes, he owes you dinner, but the original property has >>> been consumed.? One can imagine an extreme case of the guy >>> robbing your dinner every night for years and not being able >>> to compensate you -- maybe because he just can't afford to >>> pay you back.? This is, sadly, the case with a lot of theft >>> by government.)? But this doesn't change the principle. >> >> We could start a whole debate about the morality of >> taxation again. >> You think that taxation is immoral; I think that a refusal >> to tax or pay tax is immoral. We're not going to agree. > > Taxation is unjust because it coerces people. It does so in a clearly observable way: they pay taxes because they fear the penalties of not paying taxes. This is no different than it's clearly observable that if an old lady is being mugged, she's not giving up her purse of her own volition. > > Now, you might believe, say, someone is getting services, so he or she should pay. That argument would be flawed because people cannot opt out of these services -- which would be like a restaurant charging me for a dinner I never wanted or agreed to have. > > Or you might believe that people should just be coerced because this serves some higher purpose. If that's the case, then any arguments about human suffering fall by the wayside and in a practical sense might makes right. After all, real human suffering will happen under coercion -- to be coerced is to suffer -- and it's anyone's guess if anyone is better off in the long-run from this. > > (To my knowledge, no one here has addressed the problem of how to measure suffering -- much less addressed my earlier use of pareto optimality and subjectivism here. Let me repeat this point: there seems no objective way of making such interpersonal comparisons. So, the best "meta-policy," from the perspective of not wanting to increase suffering, is to not to adopt policies that entail any more suffering. To wit, there's no way to tell if a policy that makes some people suffer while benefiting others really balances out, so pareto optimality forces out to seek policies where, at least, suffering is not increased. Put another way, pareto optimality counsels one not rob Peter to pay Paul because one can never tell if Peter's suffering is balanced out by Paul's gain. This is so even if Paul is suffering: one can't tell if Paul's suffer is worse than Peter's will be. To wit, policies that reckon these things in terms of social cost or other supposedly > ?objective measures are merely some person or group pretending, wittingly or not, that his/her/its subjective evaluation is objective -- that it knows who suffers, by how much, and can actually make valid decisions based on this.*) I avoid measuring suffering by discussing only what people want; presumably, they want that which they believe will cause them less suffering. They vote to be taxed, so they believe, whether rightly or wrongly, that taxation will cause them less suffering than the alternative. Some would prefer not to be taxed, but a voluntary tax won't work since no-one would pay it (not even those who want to be taxed). So the alternative is to allow a policy which most people, perhaps even all the people, believe will cause them more suffering on the grounds that implementing the policy will be coercive and that coercion is bad because it causes suffering. Another question to ask is, Where does your non-coercion principle come from and why is it invulnerable to criticism while you can easily dismiss other ethical principles that many people hold dear, such as the right of the weak to be cared for by their society or the right of a worker to get the full value of his labour? -- Stathis Papaioannou From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 14:13:59 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:13:59 -0300 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <710b78fc0907051854x58cf9116n1661bc97ff9eb630@mail.gmail.com> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike><580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> Message-ID: <1BE9E448E1304C208BF5FFC0F5AB3A5E@pcnx6325> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mirco Romanato" To: "ExI chat list" Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:34 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake > Stefano Vaj ha scritto: > >> Of course, even "rigid" constitutions can be reversed. But this >> require a revolutionary, illegal breach of the previous order (say, a >> switch from monarchy to republic in the UK). Mirco Romanato> Like trying to illegally change the Constitution with an illegal > referendum to remove the limit to the number of presidential mandates. > Like in Honduras. > Well, often they fail. And sometimes it unfortunately works. Vide Venezuela for instance. From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 16 14:14:22 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 07:14:22 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Rand's esthetics In-Reply-To: <20090715165827.59po3fmymkgok0og@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <766800.53010.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Wed, 7/15/09, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > Dan, I'll make this short because I'm preparing to leave town. No big deal. This discussion can wait and have a good trip. I'll make a few comments here. > Artistic projects are re-creations of real-time, synthetic > reality, and concept-experiences (mental processes). Artists > apply their unique sense of life and fundamental values into > their works. > > [This is not my personal view, but the accessed knowledge > of experts in the field of art and sciences, art theory and > aesthetics.] I'm not sure about all the features of this definition, but it's not objectionable to me as a whole. The thing that I'm not sure about is what would a re-creation of non-real-time, synthetic reality be like and why would that not be art? This is a minor quibble, but it sounds like there's too much verbiage in there. > Rand agrees with this and made "metaphysical > value-judgment" her well-known phrase. > > [This is common knowledge of objectivists, Randians and > others who have read Rand.] For the benefit of those not familiar with her definition, according to her, art is "the selective re-creation of reality according to an artist's metaphysical value-judgments." (The Romantic Manifesto, p19) And I agree that this doesn't clash to much with the above view. > Nonetheless, because her own metaphysical value-judgment > conflicted with contemporary art, she was at a loss in > understanding the era because she could not *experience* > it.? And, since she could not *experience* it, her view > of aesthetics is incomplete and lacks a full understanding > "art". I'm not so sure, but I'd say it was probably also her psychology too that influenced what she dismissed here. > [This has been expressed by those close to her, including > Nathanial Brandon, and by critics of her dislike of > contemporary art. (No references included because they are > too many to list and I do not have the time.? Just > Google it.)] > > Since systems thinking is inclusive of all areas, Rand is > not the most appropriate thinker to draw from. I disagree. One can separate her core views -- such as the definition above or her other views on art -- while rejecting a lot of the specifics. This is no different that something Roderick Long recently pointed out on another list: "If we were to reject Rand's aesthetics just because of the cranky or goofball things she said in _The Romantic Manifesto_, we'd likewise have to reject all those 18th-century aestheticians like Hutcheson, Smith, Burke, and Kant, who, in the course of developing some really ground-breaking ideas that are still central in philosophy of art today, also tossed off such nonsense as that the Alps are ugly and that Voltaire is a better dramatist than Shakespeare. More broadly, most good philosophers have said loads and loads of stupid things, not just in aesthetics but generally. If we judged Kant solely by what he said about blacks, or Nietzsche solely by what he said about women, or Berkeley solely by what he said about tar-water, or Wittgenstein solely by what he said about Stalin, we'd have to dump the lot. One needs to sift carefully. "In the past few years there's been a lot of interesting work on Rand's theory of art published in the _Journal of Ayn Rand Studies_; I'd urge critics to read through some of it before dismissing her contributions as worthless." > [This above-sentence is my personal view based on 40 years > in the wide field of the arts and sciences and 15 years > immersed in the academic study of art practice and art > theory.] > > That's all Dan. All for now, but not the last word in this discussion -- I hope! Regards, Dan From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Jul 16 17:51:08 2009 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:51:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rand's esthetics In-Reply-To: <766800.53010.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20090715165827.59po3fmymkgok0og@webmail.natasha.cc> <766800.53010.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Dan wrote: "I'm not sure about all the features of this definition, but it's not objectionable to me as a whole. The thing that I'm not sure about is what would a re-creation of non-real-time, synthetic reality be like and why would that not be art? This is a minor quibble, but it sounds like there's too much verbiage in there." I did not say it was not art, I said the statement is not made in my voice. Outside of this fact, I agree with it in total. But really I have nothing more to say on this because I am studying other views on aesthetics and this is distracting for me. Maybe at some point we can engage in discussions about something outside of objectivist/libertarian/Rand topics. It simply is not captivating for me, where it is for you and others. This does not mean it is not good or great or meaningful. I just don't care to invest in it. (Please do not analyze this paragraph too much, it is just a statement as I am rushing off to work.) Best, Natasha From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 16 18:11:55 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:11:55 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Rand's esthetics In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <964734.7573.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Dan wrote: > > "I'm not sure about all the features of this definition, > but it's not > objectionable to me as a whole. The thing that I'm not sure > about is what > would a re-creation of non-real-time, synthetic reality be > like and why > would that not be art? This is a minor quibble, but it > sounds like there's > too much verbiage in there." > > I did not say it was not art, I said the statement is not > made in my voice. My question was aimed at showing that this the statement* seems too narrow or seems a bit wordy. Anyhow, no big deal. I would problem go for: "Artistic projects are re-creations of some aspects of reality. Artists apply their unique sense of life and fundamental values into their works." And then leave it up to discuss just what falls under "aspects of reality." I think it'd cover just about anything -- as anything could be re-created in an artistic project. I'm also wonder what's gained by the particular definition you posted. Why is it, e.g., better than that of, well, you know who? > Outside of this fact, I agree with it in total. It's true that you did point out it's not your personal view -- though I was unsure how to interpret that. Did you mean it was the expert view in the field and you don't agree with it? Given you say you "agree with it in total," what does that mean? Do you have a different personal view? It's a bit confusing here. > But really I have nothing more to say on this because I am > studying other > views on aesthetics and this is distracting for me.? > Maybe at some point we > can engage in discussions about something outside of > objectivist/libertarian/Rand topics.? It simply is not > captivating for me, > where it is for you and others.? This does not mean it > is not good or great > or meaningful.? I just don't care to invest in > it.? (Please do not analyze > this paragraph too much, it is just a statement as I am > rushing off to work.) Okay, nothing more to add on that particular issue if all you're saying is you don't personally find it interesting at this time. Regards, Dan * "Artistic projects are re-creations of real-time, synthetic reality, and concept-experiences (mental processes). Artists apply their unique sense of life and fundamental values into their works." From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 16 18:39:46 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:39:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara Message-ID: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Any ideas on how to do this? An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark material, thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing the air to rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. Once rainfall is higher, it seems the greening would take care of itself. Any thoughts on this? Regards, Dan From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 20:43:11 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:43:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Like trying to illegally change the Constitution with an illegal > referendum to remove the limit to the number of presidential mandates. > Like in Honduras. Factual accuracy problem here. The referendum Zelaya called for was NOT about removing the limit on presidential terms (the word MIrco wanted in place of "mandates" above). It was non-binding, legal, and sought to pose the question to Honduran voters whether they would approve the formation of a body to update/rewrite/reform the constitution. The lie re the "illegality" of the referendum was the cover story for the coup, you know, like the Iraqi WMDs. Standard narrative for US dominated, central American banana republics -- military dictatorships posing as democracies. Best, Jeff Davis "What surrounds us...is a vast tapestry of lies..." Harold Pinter From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 20:51:43 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:51:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Put a cute baby picture in your wallet Message-ID: "Unperson" posted this article to the cryonet: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6681923.ece Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture What would you do if you found a wallet on the street? ... The answer, scientists have found, depends rather more on evolution than morality. Hundreds of wallets were planted on the streets of Edinburgh by psychologists last year. Perhaps surprisingly, nearly half of the 240 wallets were posted back. But there was a twist. Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, and his team inserted one of four photographs behind a clear plastic window inside, showing either a smiling baby, a cute puppy, a happy family or a contented elderly couple. Some wallets had no image and some had charity papers inside. When faced with the photograph of the baby, people were far more likely to send the wallet back, the study found. In fact, only one in ten were hard-hearted enough not to do so. With no picture to tug at the emotions, just one in seven were sent back. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From dan_ust at yahoo.com Thu Jul 16 22:11:24 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 15:11:24 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Honduras/was Re: constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <581013.20279.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, Jeff Davis wrote: > On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 4:34 AM, > Mirco Romanato > wrote: >> Like trying to illegally change the Constitution with >> an illegal >> referendum to remove the limit to the number of >> presidential mandates. Like in Honduras. > > Factual accuracy problem here. > > The referendum Zelaya called for was NOT about removing the > limit on > presidential terms (the word MIrco wanted in place of > "mandates" > above).? It was non-binding, legal, and sought to pose > the question to > Honduran voters whether they would approve the formation of > a body to > update/rewrite/reform the constitution. > > The lie re the "illegality" of the referendum was the cover > story for > the coup, you know, like the Iraqi WMDs. > > Standard narrative for US dominated, central American > banana republics > -- military dictatorships posing as democracies. I think it's a little more complicated than that, but not much: http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2009/06/30/history-haunts-honduras/ > "What surrounds us...is a vast tapestry of lies..." > ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? > ? ? ? ???Harold Pinter Indeed! Regards, Dan From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 17 01:56:14 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:56:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <43C05557171B41B1A84C30D3357F4659@spike> > ...On Behalf Of Dan > Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara > > Any ideas on how to do this? > > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark > material... Any thoughts on this? Dan Why not the tried and true pipes and pumps? It seems a shame the Nile dumps all that fresh water into the sea. We could use every drop of it, similar to the way North America uses all the water that flows down the Colorado. Very little of that makes it to the sea. spike From brentn at freeshell.org Fri Jul 17 03:26:20 2009 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:26:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <466A0F5C-A469-49C8-87CE-E9725A48B3F0@freeshell.org> On 16 Jul, 2009, at 14:39, Dan wrote: > Any ideas on how to do this? > > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark > material, thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing > the air to rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. > Once rainfall is higher, it seems the greening would take care of > itself. > > Any thoughts on this? > > Regards, > > Dan > > Geoff Lawton, of the Permaculture Institute, was able to reclaim desertified/degraded land in Jordan. An adaptation of his methods would work, presuming that you started in the Sahel and started reversing the desertification process. Without organic matter in and on the soil to collect the moisture, the greening will not take care of itself efficiently. You get more bang for your buck by finding ways to concentrate and retain that moisture. There's a video on YouTube of an interview with Lawton. B -- Brent Neal, Ph.D. http://brentn.freeshell.org From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 04:56:00 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:56:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907022051k72793e89s8d80e39f8deeae5@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907162156r627dfe09he574d855f7cf8d27@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 1:40 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/3 Rafal Smigrodzki : > >>> I might be financially better off without taxation since I am in a >>> relatively high tax bracket, but the people who currently can't work >>> for one reason or another would definitely be worse off, >> >> ### Why would they be worse off? Can't they use charity, insurance? > > They're not as efficient. The US has an extensive public health > system, as well as charity and insurance, and *still* millions of > people can't access adequate medical services. ### So you think this statement (which BTW is factually incorrect), *supports* the need for taxation? You mean, the US taxes me a lot, and people still don't get what you think they should get, but it only means I should be taxed more? Let me give you a one-word answer: Insane. And you unfavorably compare the efficiency of charity with taxation? Jesus H. Christ wept. -------------------------- > >> What about the inevitable fact that without violence economic growth >> would be much higher, making the median citizen much wealthier? (look >> at the difference between South and North Korea caused by 50 years of >> a mild reduction in violence achieved in the south) > > By "violence" I assume you mean taxation and government regulation. It > isn't the case that less of this leads to greater economic growth, > consistently over time. The Soviet Union grew very quickly in its > first few decades, then stagnated. China is growing very quickly but > it has very extensive government involvement in industry. Switzerland > is growing very slowly despite being one of the most > capitalist-friendly countries in the world. ### You want to convince yourself about the rightness of violence so much..... ---------------- > >> ?You don't believe this, >>> obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree to be taxed >>> when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant thing. >> >> ### Oh, they have been bamboozled by years of schooling in government >> controlled schools, where the fox teaches the chickens to appreciate >> what he does to the integrity of their coop. > > An overriding principle in the curriculum of the government-controlled > schools that I attended was that a partisan approach to teaching was > to be avoided at all times. I don't remember being taught that one > political or economic system was better than another, although perhaps > the propaganda was *so good* that it infected my mind without my even > realising it. ### Freedom and non-violence were never even described in their true meaning in your school which is why you do not understand them. It's just like the term "people's republic" used in my communist-controlled grade school - a newspeak reuse of an old word to mean its opposite. ------------------ > >> But, you are not "most" >> people, you are a smart dude, you can see that there are two main >> reasons for the acceptance of this form of violence: envy of the rich >> and a callous disregard for the well-being of others (because if you >> care, you don't threaten them with violence except in defense). No? > > The only reason for accepting any political system as far as I'm > concerned is that it leads to people being better off. If a particular > policy has the opposite effect, whether it's a right wing or left wing > policy, it should be dropped. When I was younger I believed more in > ideological purity, but I now see that that's nonsense, and the only > thing that matters is the result. > ### Yet you are consistently refusing consequentialist arguments if they conflict with your conviction that you have the right to trample over other people's lives. Rafal From moulton at moulton.com Fri Jul 17 05:30:47 2009 From: moulton at moulton.com (Fred C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:30:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1247808647.7141.1237.camel@hayek> Whenever I hear of a large scale project like this I ask "what are the downside risks?" The earth as a whole and weather in particular are not simple. Do we know what greater rainfall in the Sahara would mean for rainfall else where? How would weather change in other areas if weather changed in the Sahara? I am not saying it is necessarily a bad idea. I am just raising the question. For example would in change the weather in Greece or Italy or Egypt or anywhere else? Fred On Thu, 2009-07-16 at 11:39 -0700, Dan wrote: > Any ideas on how to do this? > > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark material, > thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing the air to > rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. Once rainfall is > higher, it seems the greening would take care of itself. > > Any thoughts on this? > > Regards, > > Dan > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 05:46:14 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:46:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] What would Rafal drive? was Fwd: Americans are poor drivers Message-ID: <7641ddc60907162246g7a30901bk677d57e1ac9adab6@mail.gmail.com> On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 11:21 AM, Eschatoon Magic top-posted the following question: > WWRD? ### "What would Rafal do? which could be also interpreted as meaning "What would Rafal drive?" and "Where would Rafal drive?". So let me address the meanings in turn: What would Rafal do? Nothing. I am not a revolutionary, if 320 million idiots choose to literally put roadblocks in their (and my) way, I will just live with it, until I can find a better place and move there. What would Rafal drive? A car with a titanium sphere fully enclosing me, gimbaled to allow free rotation in an accident (a human can easily survive 130 - 150 g deceleration in the antero-posterior direction, much less otherwise). Of course, I would need fully synthetic, multispectral vision inside, a motorized deceleration harness, a supply of air (in case I get into an accident where the car bursts into flames, trapping me inside), creamy Italian leather seats, and a kick-ass audio system. On the outside of the sphere, the car should have a titanium-carbon fiber skeleton that allows sliding of the sphere during impact, to provide maximally long deceleration pathway at about 150g, enabling me to hit a concrete wall at 100 mph and never even lose consciousness. It should also have 8 wheels with in-hub electric motors (with active electromagnetic Bose suspension!), with at least 600lb/ft of torque combined, powered by a gas turbine hooked up to an ultracapacitor. There should be also computer-controlled gas-rocket motors mounted in front, to provide extreme deceleration thrust (>10g) during panic braking. With these gizmos I could drive at sustained 200mph safer than in my present car at 60 mph, and probably still burn the same amount of gas per mile. All that should be wrapped in a smoothly aerodynamic fuselage, brightly polished stainless steel, raked uprights, bright crystal LED lights, all low to the ground (but capable of jumping curbs if needed, thanks to the Bose suspension), the very image of automotive beauty. Finally "Where would Rafal drive?" - Anywhere the cops wave you on with a smile as you pass them at 215 miles an hour. Rafal From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 06:34:58 2009 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 23:34:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What would Rafal drive? was Fwd: Americans are poor drivers In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907162246g7a30901bk677d57e1ac9adab6@mail.gmail.com> References: <7641ddc60907162246g7a30901bk677d57e1ac9adab6@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <2d6187670907162334k3171b844kfe8ba1e39c607d@mail.gmail.com> > > Rafal wrote: > What would Rafal drive? A car with a titanium sphere fully enclosing > me, gimbaled to allow free rotation in an accident (a human can easily > survive 130 - 150 g deceleration in the antero-posterior direction, > much less otherwise). Of course, I would need fully synthetic, > multispectral vision inside, a motorized deceleration harness, a > supply of air (in case I get into an accident where the car bursts > into flames, trapping me inside), creamy Italian leather seats, and a > kick-ass audio system. > > On the outside of the sphere, the car should have a titanium-carbon > fiber skeleton that allows sliding of the sphere during impact, to > provide maximally long deceleration pathway at about 150g, enabling me > to hit a concrete wall at 100 mph and never even lose consciousness. > It should also have 8 wheels with in-hub electric motors (with active > electromagnetic Bose suspension!), with at least 600lb/ft of torque > combined, powered by a gas turbine hooked up to an ultracapacitor. > There should be also computer-controlled gas-rocket motors mounted in > front, to provide extreme deceleration thrust (>10g) during panic > braking. > > With these gizmos I could drive at sustained 200mph safer than in my > present car at 60 mph, and probably still burn the same amount of gas > per mile. > > All that should be wrapped in a smoothly aerodynamic fuselage, > brightly polished stainless steel, raked uprights, bright crystal LED > lights, all low to the ground (but capable of jumping curbs if needed, > thanks to the Bose suspension), the very image of automotive beauty. > > Finally "Where would Rafal drive?" - Anywhere the cops wave you on > with a smile as you pass them at 215 miles an hour. > >>> I love it! But please provide us with some pictures... : ) John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From florent.berthet at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 07:47:06 2009 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:47:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Put a cute baby picture in your wallet In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6d342ad70907170047l5e6a67a1rb9351fff7460e7a7@mail.gmail.com> It would be interesting to see whether or not people give more (e.g to charity) in the case where they have just seen a picture of a baby. Maybe fundraisers should flood their powerpoint presentations with baby pictures... - Florent Berthet 2009/7/16 Jeff Davis > "Unperson" posted this article to the cryonet: > > http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article6681923.ece > > Want to keep your wallet? Carry a baby picture > > What would you do if you found a wallet on the street? ... > > The answer, scientists have found, depends rather more on evolution > than morality. > Hundreds of wallets were planted on the streets of Edinburgh by > psychologists last year. Perhaps surprisingly, nearly half of the 240 > wallets were posted back. But there was a twist. > > Richard Wiseman, a psychologist, and his team inserted one of four > photographs behind a clear plastic window inside, showing either a > smiling baby, a cute puppy, a happy family or a contented elderly > couple. Some wallets had no image and some had charity papers inside. > > When faced with the photograph of the baby, people were far more > likely to send the wallet back, the study found. In fact, only one in > ten were hard-hearted enough not to do so. With no picture to tug at > the emotions, just one in seven were sent back. > > Best, Jeff Davis > > "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." > Ray Charles > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Jul 16 23:51:47 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 01:51:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4A5FBD13.6050403@libero.it> Dan ha scritto: > Any ideas on how to do this? > > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark material, > thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing the air to > rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. Once rainfall > is higher, it seems the greening would take care of itself. > > Any thoughts on this? It would raise the temperature locally, big time. Killing the life there. The best way to green the desert is to plant trees, many trees. The biggest problem is to keep the water from sinking down, becoming unavailable or washing up salt poisoning the terrain. The solution is hydrophobic sands. The plan is simple, and locals already do it with low technology around their orchards. The sands is not so costly, so it is possible to deploy it and profit of the new terrain available for agriculture. The hydrophobic sand can be packed inside a tape-like structure and deployed 2-3 meters under the terrain. Then, all the water will stay near the surface and will be available to the plants roots. Planting trees and letting them grow will provide a cover of the terrain, that will reduce the evaporation and the temperature at the ground level. This need to start around existing oasis and water bodies and grow from there. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Jul 17 10:10:00 2009 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 12:10:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> Message-ID: <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> Jeff Davis ha scritto: > On Thu, Jul 16, 2009 at 4:34 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > >> Like trying to illegally change the Constitution with an illegal >> referendum to remove the limit to the number of presidential mandates. >> Like in Honduras. > Factual accuracy problem here. > The referendum Zelaya called for was NOT about removing the limit on > presidential terms (the word MIrco wanted in place of "mandates" > above). It was non-binding, legal, and sought to pose the question to > Honduran voters whether they would approve the formation of a body to > update/rewrite/reform the constitution. The only body that can propose a similar thing is the parliament of Honduras. And the Constitution is clear that whoever propose, not only act so, is out of any office he could have. If he wanted to change the Constitution, he could ask the Parliament to call for the referendum. The Parliament said "NO", the Supreme Court said "NO", the party of the President said "NO", and the majority of the population said "NO" from what we see. > The lie re the "illegality" of the referendum was the cover story for > the coup, you know, like the Iraqi WMDs. Both "reasons" used only by the news salesmen. Something that fit the "narrative" they choose to print. > Standard narrative for US dominated, central American banana republics > -- military dictatorships posing as democracies. If GWB had forced a "consultive" not binding referendum to the US people, against the Senate and the Congress will, against the ruling of the Supreme Court, about "updating" the Constitution, you would be screaming "coup". But his would fit your "narrative". Mirco From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 13:38:21 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 06:38:21 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <43C05557171B41B1A84C30D3357F4659@spike> Message-ID: <472970.24187.qm@web30104.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, spike wrote: > > ...On Behalf Of Dan > > Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara > > > > Any ideas on how to do this? > > > > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with > dark > > material... Any thoughts on this? Dan > > Why not the tried and true pipes and pumps?? It seems > a shame the Nile dumps > all that fresh water into the sea.? We could use every > drop of it, similar > to the way North America uses all the water that flows down > the Colorado. > Very little of that makes it to the sea. Not a bad idea, though I'm not sure how much of this would help and from a practical standpoint, the Nile output would probably best be used only at the far eastern parts of that desert. Also, it involves a large infrastructure, whereas my idea could just be taking an area where wind is low -- maybe a rockier portion of the desert -- and merely dropping some soot or similar dark material on it. An alternative could be to burn something smoky near the region -- where the exhaust will locally raise temperature to cause the air to rise kicking off the convection process. Also, I had a similar idea regarding using the Meditarranean waters. IIRC, Libya currently does some desalination of these waters for its use, but it also draws a lot from aquifers under the desert. These are not being replenished -- so, in a sense, the Libyans are draining the aquifers. I thought a huge desalination project could be started to replenish the aquifers and provide water for desert communities, etc. (Naturally, the idea could be used anywhere where a sea is nearby a desert.) Back to my idea, locally heating the air would draw in water from the Atlantic and Mediterranean and probably even from sub-Saharan Africa. (Coupled with flooding the East African Rift valley, maybe some of the waters could come from that area as well.) Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 14:05:33 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:05:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Put a cute baby picture in your wallet In-Reply-To: <6d342ad70907170047l5e6a67a1rb9351fff7460e7a7@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <400151.54608.qm@web30102.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/17/09, Florent Berthet wrote: > It would be interesting to see whether or > not people give more (e.g to charity) in the case where they > have just seen a picture of a baby. Maybe fundraisers should > flood their powerpoint presentations with baby pictures... Don't they do that already? I recall a recent TV ad where they show an elderly man helping out small children. I believe I've already seen ones with babies. After a while, too, I imagine people would become desensitized to this if it's overused. Regards, Dan From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 14:05:40 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 00:05:40 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907162156r627dfe09he574d855f7cf8d27@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <7641ddc60906302115y795e043g60e180b79d125d1@mail.gmail.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907022051k72793e89s8d80e39f8deeae5@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907162156r627dfe09he574d855f7cf8d27@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/17 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> They're not as efficient. The US has an extensive public health >> system, as well as charity and insurance, and *still* millions of >> people can't access adequate medical services. > > ### So you think this statement (which BTW is factually incorrect), > *supports* the need for taxation? > > You mean, the US taxes me a lot, and people still don't get what you > think they should get, but it only means I should be taxed more? > > Let me give you a one-word answer: > > Insane. > > And you unfavorably compare the efficiency of charity with taxation? > > Jesus H. Christ wept. Charity won't reliably cover everyone. Charity is fickle and demeaning, although better than nothing. I know a lot of people who on principle would not accept charity, but do accept government provided services, since they are provided under a binding and reciprocal agreement: i.e., if they earn enough money, they will also contribute to these services. In Canada, you pay less tax for public health care per capita than you do in the US and you get high quality universal health care, with minimal need to rely on charity or private insurance. Why is the Canadian system so much more efficient? >>> What about the inevitable fact that without violence economic growth >>> would be much higher, making the median citizen much wealthier? (look >>> at the difference between South and North Korea caused by 50 years of >>> a mild reduction in violence achieved in the south) >> >> By "violence" I assume you mean taxation and government regulation. It >> isn't the case that less of this leads to greater economic growth, >> consistently over time. The Soviet Union grew very quickly in its >> first few decades, then stagnated. China is growing very quickly but >> it has very extensive government involvement in industry. Switzerland >> is growing very slowly despite being one of the most >> capitalist-friendly countries in the world. > > ### You want to convince yourself about the rightness of violence so much..... I could respond by saying that you want to convince yourself of the rightness of selfishness and contempt for the weak and the unfortunate. >>> ?You don't believe this, >>>> obviously, but most people do, which is why they agree to be taxed >>>> when taxation is such an intrinsically unpleasant thing. >>> >>> ### Oh, they have been bamboozled by years of schooling in government >>> controlled schools, where the fox teaches the chickens to appreciate >>> what he does to the integrity of their coop. >> >> An overriding principle in the curriculum of the government-controlled >> schools that I attended was that a partisan approach to teaching was >> to be avoided at all times. I don't remember being taught that one >> political or economic system was better than another, although perhaps >> the propaganda was *so good* that it infected my mind without my even >> realising it. > > ### Freedom and non-violence were never even described in their true > meaning in your school which is why you do not understand them. > > It's just like the term "people's republic" used in my > communist-controlled grade school - a newspeak reuse of an old word to > mean its opposite. My senior schooling was actually private. The students were mostly conservative (from conservative families) but there were a few radicals but all were tolerated. Politics was not a prominent part of the curriculum, but when it was taught, the emphasis was on disinterested discussion of the facts relating to the various systems that have existed historically. The teachers were expressly forbidden from displaying their own bias, although it was often easy to guess. I confess that I had never heard of "libertarianism" until a few years ago, as it seems to be a purely American phenomenon. I have certainly been aware of anarchism, but traditional anarchists are usually opposed to capitalism, considering it a force for exploitation and oppression of the working class, effectively a government without even the pretence of allowing the governed to have a say. >> The only reason for accepting any political system as far as I'm >> concerned is that it leads to people being better off. If a particular >> policy has the opposite effect, whether it's a right wing or left wing >> policy, it should be dropped. When I was younger I believed more in >> ideological purity, but I now see that that's nonsense, and the only >> thing that matters is the result. >> > ### Yet you are consistently refusing consequentialist arguments if > they conflict with your conviction that you have the right to trample > over other people's lives. The consequentialist argument is that equitable wealth distribution and limitation of the exploitation of workers by private corporations is for the common good. In other words, unfettered capitalism will trample on peoples' lives more. -- Stathis Papaioannou From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 14:43:07 2009 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:43:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907022051k72793e89s8d80e39f8deeae5@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907162156r627dfe09he574d855f7cf8d27@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: <7641ddc60907170743m217629e0oc3bd1fac5bd68414@mail.gmail.com> On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 10:05 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > > Charity won't reliably cover everyone. Charity is fickle and > demeaning, although better than nothing. I know a lot of people who on > principle would not accept charity, but do accept government provided > services, since they are provided under a binding and reciprocal > agreement: i.e., if they earn enough money, they will also contribute > to these services. ### Scum. They will gladly take money wrested from workers by an impersonal force but consider themselves too superior to acknowledge weakness to an individual by accepting his charity. A binding and reciprocal agreement, yeah, that we "agreed" to on pain of SWAT. Taxes are immoral and demeaning, and mostly are used to pay for slaughter and transfers to affluent parasites but you don't care, and you keep trotting out the "weak and unfortunate" ploy. Whatever. ---------------- Why is the > Canadian system so much more efficient? ### Why do you say stuff like that? --------------- > I could respond by saying that you want to convince yourself of the > rightness of selfishness and contempt for the weak and the > unfortunate. > ### Yeah. Because I refuse to accept violence, it makes me contemptuous of the weak, sure. Brilliant logic. --------------------- > > My senior schooling was actually private. The students were mostly > conservative (from conservative families) but there were a few > radicals but all were tolerated. Politics was not a prominent part of > the curriculum, but when it was taught, the emphasis was on > disinterested discussion of the facts relating to the various systems > that have existed historically. The teachers were expressly forbidden > from displaying their own bias, although it was often easy to guess. I > confess that I had never heard of "libertarianism" until a few years > ago, as it seems to be a purely American phenomenon. I have certainly > been aware of anarchism, but traditional anarchists are usually > opposed to capitalism, considering it a force for exploitation and > oppression of the working class, effectively a government without even > the pretence of allowing the governed to have a say. ### In other words, you were taught by socialists. Small surprise you like violence. --------------------------- > > The consequentialist argument is that equitable wealth distribution > and limitation of the exploitation of workers by private corporations > is for the common good. In other words, unfettered capitalism will > trample on peoples' lives more. > ### As I said, whatever. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 17 14:23:01 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 07:23:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <4A59E4CB.1070401@libero.it> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> Message-ID: <51FCF3C767F9463AA0CD0AC8E87B4FC9@spike> > ... > ...The Parliament said > "NO", the Supreme Court said "NO", the party of the President > said "NO", and the majority of the population said "NO" from > what we see. Mirco > > > The lie re the "illegality" of the referendum was the cover > story for > > the coup... Jeff I have seen both contentions, but it looks like neither side is offering solid evidence. I can't tell if the Honduran military staged a coup or a legal action or somewhere in between, where both the president and the military acted illegally. Obamao said the military "did not use legal means to remove the president..." which is subtly different from "...used illegal means to remove the president..." spike From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 15:21:22 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:21:22 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D [was Health care in the USA] In-Reply-To: <7641ddc60907170743m217629e0oc3bd1fac5bd68414@mail.gmail.com> References: <200906281603.n5SG3MUj005695@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <4A4B5157.8030103@libero.it> <7641ddc60907020034s4655e8f0v5b450423bced9459@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907022051k72793e89s8d80e39f8deeae5@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907162156r627dfe09he574d855f7cf8d27@mail.gmail.com> <7641ddc60907170743m217629e0oc3bd1fac5bd68414@mail.gmail.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/18 Rafal Smigrodzki : > ?Why is the >> Canadian system so much more efficient? > > ### Why do you say stuff like that? Canadian taxpayers pay less per capita for their universal public health system than US taxpayers do for their more limited system. That makes the US public health system much less efficient. Why is that? -- Stathis Papaioannou From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 15:23:28 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 01:23:28 +1000 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <51FCF3C767F9463AA0CD0AC8E87B4FC9@spike> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> <51FCF3C767F9463AA0CD0AC8E87B4FC9@spike> Message-ID: 2009/7/18 spike : > I have seen both contentions, but it looks like neither side is offering > solid evidence. ?I can't tell if the Honduran military staged a coup or a > legal action or somewhere in between, where both the president and the > military acted illegally. ?Obamao said the military "did not use legal means > to remove the president..." which is subtly different from "...used illegal > means to remove the president..." When has the military ever "legally" removed a president? -- Stathis Papaioannou From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 15:53:05 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:53:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <944756.8529.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/17/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/18 Rafal Smigrodzki : >> ?Why is the >>> Canadian system so much more efficient? >> >> ### Why do you say stuff like that? > > Canadian taxpayers pay less per capita for their universal > public > health system than US taxpayers do for their more limited > system. That > makes the US public health system much less efficient. Why > is that? Is that the measure of efficiency? Are you sure Canadians, too, are enough like Americans that that comparison makes sense? Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 16:12:44 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:12:44 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <1247808647.7141.1237.camel@hayek> Message-ID: <300085.86117.qm@web30106.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Fri, 7/17/09, Fred C. Moulton wrote: > Whenever I hear of a large scale project like this I ask > "what are the downside risks?" Me too. There is one risk you don't mention and one that might be considered by most only minor in the scheme of things. This is the loss of fossils and other finds scattered about the Sahara. I've actually been thinking about this too. One partial solution might be an exhaustive mapping of all surface finds in that desert. This seems impractical, but I was thinking of using high res sat imagery as well as ground rovers and having a lot of the stuff posted on the web in "mechanical turk" fashion to have humans scan for items that might be of interest. (The rovers might also be partly adapted to "notice" fossils. This seems an acquired skill in humans. I imagine rovers can be similarly trained.) > The earth as a whole and weather in particular are not > simple.? Do we > know what greater rainfall in the Sahara would mean for > rainfall else > where?? How would weather change in other areas if > weather changed in the Sahara? I'm not sure and don't trust current climate models enough to say. A clue might come from some models or from looking at the past when the Sahara was warmer and wetter. (The actual desertification, in my understanding, is due to the region cooling and this changed weather patterns so that it received ever less rain.) > I am not saying it is necessarily a bad idea.? I am > just raising the > question.? For example would in change the weather in > Greece or Italy or Egypt or anywhere else? I don't think you're wrong to consider these regional or global effects. Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 18:50:27 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 11:50:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Who are the people? Who suffers? Message-ID: <513059.28385.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > 2009/7/16 Dan : >>> I don't think it's the default case that people >>> will want to manage >>> everything communally, but they do as a matter of >>> fact decide to >>> manage some things at least semi-communally, in >>> that they decide to have public services. >> >> Uh, no. The state or a group of people who petition >> the state to do this does exist, but this is not all >> people. If you agree, then how is this different than >> saying, "people" "do as a matter of fact decide to >> manage some things at least semi-" criminally, "in >> that they decide to have" criminal syndicates run >> some things? ?:) > > The criminals impose their will on others. Yes, and that is how government works: people in government "impose their will on others." This is true for democracies as well: voting majorities or their representatives "impose their will on others." > The voluntary communal > organisations do not, except on their own members, who > agree in being > part of the organisation that they will go along with the > majority > decision even if they don't agree with every decision. This > can happen > whenever two or more people get together and decide to do > something. This is only so if the organization is truly voluntary. If, e.g., you and I agree to join and abide by certain rules. This is NOT the case with public services as we see today. There was no such uncoerced agreement in any of them -- not in any nation anyone today is living in. Instead, at best, a large group of people or a bunch of politicians decided that some things would be done their way period. That is nothing more than them "impos[ing] their will on others." > I > agree that as a strong principle it is best *not* to coerce > people, as > far as possible. But sometimes people agree to be coerced. It's not really coercion if they agree to it. This appears also to be a word game with you. If you agree to pay a certain fee for something, then you're not coerced to pay that. You might agree to pay said fee for twenty years. You're still not coerced. This fee might be extracted automatically from your bank account. Still no coercion. The problem arises when you don't agree to that. > We might > all agree that project X which will cost each of us $Y is > worth > pursuing, but it won't happen if we are able to make our > contribution > voluntary; many of us will not contribute and the rest, if > they even > have enough money, would have to contribute multiples of > $Y, while not > receiving back multiples of utility from X as a result. > Therefore, the > choice is between X with everyone agreeing to contribute > (and to be held to that agreement) or no X at all. There is coercion if anyone is forced to pay who doesn't agree. If everyone -- and I mean everyone -- agreed to pay -- say, e.g., have the amount deducted from their bank accounts or paychecks -- as long as everyone else paid AND everyone else did pay, then it's not coerced. (And this would only apply to the "everyone" in that context. It can't be binding on future generations or on others who weren't party to the agreement, such as if everyone in your village agrees to pay, you can't use to compell someone from another village to pay.) The problem arises, in the real world, when some subset of everyone decided -- say, a majority or, more likely, a vocal but well organized minority (e.g., business folks, their lobbyists and the politicians they lobby) decides X is worth doing and all must pay to get X done. And this still doesn't answer how you would measure utility. You seem to think this is easy. There's a utility-meter that we simply wave it around the plans for some project and it outputs the utility in a convenient measure that only a fool or an ideologue would quibble with. In the real world, there's no way to make those comparisons. Even using money measures -- and assuming that the models are correct; the recent financial crisis should give everyone pause about financial modeling -- tell us nothing about utility because each individual values money differently (and subjective). >>> Rarely is the property so managed directly >>> "stolen"; that usually happens in revolutions, and >>> the revolutionaries >>> generally argue in their turn that they are taking >>> the property back >>> from thieves and returning it to its rightful >>> owners. >> >> It is directly stolen in the form of taxes, eminent >> domain, and other means of coercive transfer. That such >> transfers require coercion -- e.g., the people whose wealth >> is being taken can't decide they don't want to transfer it >> -- is enough to describe them as not the product of their >> choice and deliberation, but of someone else forcing them to >> do something or to give up something. Anyone can, of course, >> claim people want to do something some way because some of >> them do it that way or because there's a coercive apparatus >> in place and they are forced to do it that way. But one >> can't really tell how they would do something until they are >> free to choose. > > Are they really free to choose if they have to work and > have to accept > the wage they are given, even though large profits are made > off their > labour? This is something communists and anarchists call > "theft", but which is legal in capitalists societies. The false economic theories of communists and some anarchists (not free market anarchists) still live on!* A wage per se is freely chosen -- assuming no one is coerced into accepting it -- because the supplier of labor is free to choose to sell her or his labor or not. A motto for a free society, borrowed from Robert Nozick, might be: From each as she chooses, to each as she is chosen. Profits are not made off labor as such. Pure profits arise when there's a difference between the cost of inputs and the price of the output. (A loss is the opposite: inputs end up costing more than the output price.) Labor is not exploited to make profits -- any more than any other factor is. Under a free market, too, laborers tend to bid up their wage to the marginal productivity of a unit of labor. Buyers of labor -- viz., employers -- cannot escape this. If they try to get labor below market prices, then they attract less labor -- if any. Also, any attempt to set wages above the market rate, as William H. Hutt and others have shown, actually results in unemployment as some workers end up exploiting other workers because, e.g., a union wage above the market rate means those still employed receive the higher wages, but the unemployed lose out. >>> As I have explained, allowed the freedom to choose >>> people often decide >>> that restaurants, shoe factories and farms are >>> better managed >>> privately and hospitals, schools and prisons are >>> best managed publicly. >> >> At best, some people have decided this. The rest did >> not. So there was no free choice -- such as taking a vote >> that is only binding if all parties consent -- but merely >> some people enforcing their policies (tax funding for >> hospitals, prisons, and compulsory schools) on others. The >> very fact that schooling is compulsory as well as tax >> funded, too, shows that some people must disagree with these >> things. If not, why are they forced to pay for or attend? > > We get back to the problem of nothing being possible > without unanimous decision. Not so. If we set aside coercion, anything is possible that doesn't involve unanimous decision when it doesn't involve coercing others. For instance, you and I can work together on a project, but we'll have to persuade others to help us rather than seek to coerce them (either directly by, say, enslaving them or stealing their property or indirectly by using a third party like the state to enslave them or steal their property). Yes, this does rule out projects where others would have to be forced to help out. But this is no different than, say, ruling out medical experiments where you need to murder people to get results. >>> The Soviets decreed that *everything* is best >>> managed >>> publicly, and the extreme capitalists decree that >>> *everything* is best managed privately. >> >> This is not my point. My point is that initiating >> coercion should be banned in society. That means that the >> notion of coercing people in the name of the majority, the >> people, the race, the nation, the proletariat, social >> efficiency, future generations, God, etc. is ruled out. If >> people then want to voluntarily manage some or all things >> communally, fine. But this would not give any more rights or >> powers to the people who decide on this than they formerly >> had -- in other words, Rafal and I can take a vote on how to >> communally manage your labor. > > You would stick with this even if the end result was *more* > violence > and coercion, due to untrammelled capitalism leading to an > underclass > of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die, on > the grounds > that this would not technically be violence or coercion? It seems your view is a little violence and coercion now will lead to less later. This is a common view, but it's no different than how fascists of all stripes view the world: if we just beat up or hurt the right people, all will be well later on. Also, it remains to be proved how this would work in any real world case. As for "untrammelled capitalism leading to an underclass of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die," this reveals a fantastical view of freedom and free markets -- and it hearkens back to the misleading views of Engels and others on history. (See the works of Ashton among others to see how Engels & Co. got it wrong.) The actual history of capitalism -- which has never been totally free -- is one of rising living standards, especially among the lower classes. Centuries ago, before the rise of wider markets and when capital investment was limited, there was an underclass of peasants and serfs. They did not, contrary to popular opinion, live an idyllic life. >> I've nothing against observation. My point, though, >> has been that if you already start with false notions baked > in, your observations are likely to go awry. Think of the > case where people here have voiced the opinion that a free > market in healthcare has failed and use as evidence of this > failure the US healthcare system -- the very system where > the government actually spends more perecentage-wise and in > terms of absolute amount on healthcare and where regulation > is extremely high. I.e., the very case where we're very far > from a free market or any sort of voluntary system (free >> markets aren't the form of voluntary interaction). In that >> case, what does observation tell one? (This is leaving alone >> the difficulties of generalizing with data on societies and >> which data anyone will accept.) > > You keep claiming this as evidence that public health care > doesn't > work. But that is like claiming that private car companies > don't work because general Motors went bankrupt. And let's look at that particular datum. GM is a private company that both benefited and suffered from government interference in the US auto market. It benefited from government contracts and also from import quotas and tariffs on foreign cars, among other things. It suffered from similar trade restrictions on some of its inputs -- most recently, the steel tariff. It also suffered from coercive unionism. But the wider point is merely that one must consider the context and have a sound theory to interpret the data -- heck, to even know which data are relevant. I bring this up especially as some here keep pointing to examples comparing entire countries and then looking at one policy -- as if they had the correct model and all the relevant data. > Obviously, there are more > efficient and less efficient ways to spend money for a > particular purpose. Yes, though there are two points to be made on this. One, one must understand what's meant by efficiency here. It's not obvious what's meant by it in most cases and not obvious why anyone should be coerced into following your or anyone else's specific beliefs about efficiency. This, again, appears to be Hayek's "fatal conceit" in action: some believe they know what's efficient. They know the right choices, have the answers here, and are so sure of them they're willing to force everyone else to agree with them. Two, on a meta-level, one doesn't choose between particular efficiency cases, but between frameworks that allow for more efficient choices to be made. Think of the case of a dictatorship. The dictator might make a few very efficient choices -- maybe he's right about using, say, grassoline when his subjects would've freely chosen, say, gasoline (petrol). But is it likely he'd always outperform his subjects were they free to choose? The same might apply to a real smart, well read, creative person running science today. That person might turn us all on to the right theories and avenues of research, but what would be the long run effect of a science czar? Don't you think in both these cases, the better meta-level rule is to allow free choice for all rather than for one? And doesn't the same apply when the choice is instead of being made by a single dictator, by a dictating minority or a dictating majority? > The US spends public health money far less > efficiently than > any other country does. The main point of difference seems > to be that > the US system is not universal. There may be other > differences leading > to inefficiency, and these need to be worked out, just as a > private > company needs to observe their competitors and work out why > they are making more money than they are. I'm not sure that's the main point of inefficiency for US healthcare -- or even a point of inefficiency. What happens now with people who aren't covered is they tend to get health services anyhow -- either by private donation, from the government, or by taking and not paying. Also, in order for the competitive discovery process to take place, one can't regulate or socialize it. One must allow private individuals and groups to make decisions with their resources. This is mostly not allowed on the planet in the arena healthcare. I recommend not only de-socializing the US in this respect (and all others), but the rest of the planet. >>> If your computer breaks and the insurance company >>> buys you another one >>> then who really owns the new computer: You? The >>> insurance company? All >>> the people who have paid premiums for longer than >>> you have and never >>> claimed, and whose premiums will now be increased >>> by the insurer to pay for your carelessness? > > > > We've been over this sort of example before. In this > case, assuming no one is coerced, there's no problem. I'm > not forced to buy computer insurance. No insurance company > is forced to insure me. No one else is forced to buy > insurance. All these are voluntary interactions. You can't > generalize from the voluntary case -- one where someone > agrees to buy me a new computer and however she or he got > the money to pay for it was also voluntarily gotten -- to a > coerce one -- one where someone is forced to buy me a new > computer either directly (where the insurer is forced) or > indirectly (where the insurers other customers are forced). > > I'm forced to insure my apartment. As an apartment owner, I > am happy > that I and everyone else is forced to do this. If I don't > like it, I can sell it. I don't know enough about your situation here. Why must insure your apartment? Who forces you? I take it you mean real force and not just something like, "My girlfriend forces me to wash before we bed down. Oh, the horror!" > If I don't like paying taxes, I can choose not > to work, > not to move to the tax-paying country, leave if I was born > there, or > not work. These aren't ideal choices - I'd rather have it > all my own way. This is like saying, if I don't like being raped, I can flee the area. > > Taxation is unjust because it coerces people. It does > so in a clearly observable way: they pay taxes because they > fear the penalties of not paying taxes. This is no different > than it's clearly observable that if an old lady is being > mugged, she's not giving up her purse of her own volition. > > > > Now, you might believe, say, someone is getting > services, so he or she should pay. That argument would be > flawed because people cannot opt out of these services -- > which would be like a restaurant charging me for a dinner I > never wanted or agreed to have. > > > > Or you might believe that people should just be > coerced because this serves some higher purpose. If that's > the case, then any arguments about human suffering fall by > the wayside and in a practical sense might makes right. > After all, real human suffering will happen under coercion > -- to be coerced is to suffer -- and it's anyone's guess if > anyone is better off in the long-run from this. > > > > (To my knowledge, no one here has addressed the > problem of how to measure suffering -- much less addressed > my earlier use of pareto optimality and subjectivism here. > Let me repeat this point: there seems no objective way of > making such interpersonal comparisons. So, the best > "meta-policy," from the perspective of not wanting to > increase suffering, is to not to adopt policies that entail > any more suffering. To wit, there's no way to tell if a > policy that makes some people suffer while benefiting others > really balances out, so pareto optimality forces out to seek > policies where, at least, suffering is not increased. Put > another way, pareto optimality counsels one not rob Peter to > pay Paul because one can never tell if Peter's suffering is > balanced out by Paul's gain. This is so even if Paul is > suffering: one can't tell if Paul's suffer is worse than > Peter's will be. To wit, policies that reckon these things > in terms of social cost or other supposedly > > ?objective measures are merely some person or group > pretending, wittingly or not, that his/her/its subjective > evaluation is objective -- that it knows who suffers, by how > much, and can actually make valid decisions based on > this.*) > > I avoid measuring suffering by discussing only what people > want; > presumably, they want that which they believe will cause > them less suffering. That's fine, but has problems. Demonstrated preference is a better measure here: not what people say they want, but what they actually act to obtain. E.g., if I tell you I want to lose weight, but I spend my time lounging around and pigging out, then I've demonstrated that, whatever I say to you, I really prefer lounging around and overeating to losing weight. E.g., if I tell you or even think in my mind that I want to be a nice person, but am cruel and mean to everyone, then you should question whether I really want to be a nice person. > They vote to be taxed, so they believe, whether > rightly or > wrongly, that taxation will cause them less suffering than > the alternative. Actually, not all people vote and not all those who do vote vote to raise taxes. Even among those who might vote for the representative -- since almost all voting is NOT for policies but for a particular person -- who raises taxes, they might not have voted for the taxes (or other programs), but merely be choosing among constrained choices. By this is meant someone might vote for, say, Obama, because she's anti-war and doesn't really buy into the whole Obama agenda. In that case -- and this seems typical, as many Americans voted for Obama as a sort of nay vote for the Iraq war -- the voter isn't really say Yes to taxes, but that gets bundled with the anti-war vote. And, again, you have yet to show why a vote should bind anyone else. > Some would prefer not to be taxed, but a voluntary tax > won't work since no-one would pay it (not even those who > want to be taxed). This is no argument at all. The point is it's coercive period. The coercion can't be justified because your pet projects won't be funded. > So the alternative is to allow a policy which most > people, > perhaps even all the people, believe will cause them more > suffering on > the grounds that implementing the policy will be coercive > and that coercion is bad because it causes suffering. If they truly believe in lowering suffering and they believe a specific project will do that, then one must ask why they don't voluntarily support the project? The truth is since they would act against the project -- i.e., since they won't fund it unless forced -- then they must not be for it. The only beliefs here that matter, really, are the ones people act on. > Another question to ask is, Where does your non-coercion > principle > come from and why is it invulnerable to criticism while you > can easily > dismiss other ethical principles that many people hold > dear, such as > the right of the weak to be cared for by their society or > the right of a worker to get the full value of his labour? I don't see how the non-coercion principle is immune from criticism. All principles are open to reasonable criticism, but some survive it and others don't. The principle of helping the weak doesn't necessarily clash with non-coercion, though non-coercion means you can't force someone else. (It's strange you'd argue this way. After all, someone who can be forced is obviously weak. The state is strong and while it might help out some of the weak it only does this by harming others of the weak. After all, if someone's strong enough to truly resist the state and doesn't want to pay taxes or obey other whims of the state, the state will not be forcing him to do anything.) But you actually bring up "society" caring for the weak. What does this mean? Society as society doesn't care for anyone; individuals care for other individuals. It's merely so much rhetoric to pretend that when I care for my neighbor that society is caring for him. Surely, too, when I donate money or clothes to some group, pooling my meager resources to help someone or some group of people, it might seem like it's society caring for someone. But it's not. It's still one or more individuals caring for other individuals. Talk of society doing it is merely a way to cover coercion or just to make people feel like they're part of some superorganism. As for the worker getting the "full value of his labour," there's a simple way to do this. Have no coercion in labor markets. Workers would then be free to sell their labor at the market price. Note: in this respect, value here is always voluntary and always involves a trade, so there's an "of value to whom" aspect. Just like with anyone else or any other trade, there is no full value for a trade apart from what someone else consent to give for it. If the trading parties can't agree to trade, then one can only speculate what would have been the right amount for the trade. Thus, there is nothing to say apart from what freely interacting parties are willing to trade -- at least, not in terms of their values. Or have you an objective theory of economic value? If so, please elaborate it! If your view can survive criticism, you'll be hailed as probably the most important economic thinker of this century. :) Regards, Dan * B?hm-Bawerk refuted Marxist views of exploitation, value, and labor in the late 19th century. His _Karl Marx and the Close of His System_ is available online at: http://hussonet.free.fr/bohm.pdf From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 21:41:33 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:41:33 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <466A0F5C-A469-49C8-87CE-E9725A48B3F0@freeshell.org> Message-ID: <772334.52661.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, Brent Neal wrote: > On 16 Jul, 2009, at 14:39, Dan wrote: >> Any ideas on how to do this? >> >> An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with >> dark material, thereby causing its daytime temperature to >> rise causing the air to rise faster pulling in more moist >> air from the costs. Once rainfall is higher, it seems the >> greening would take care of itself. >> >> Any thoughts on this? > > Geoff Lawton, of the Permaculture Institute, was able to > reclaim desertified/degraded land in Jordan. An adaptation > of his methods would work, presuming that you started in the > Sahel and started reversing the desertification process. > > Without organic matter in and on the soil to collect the > moisture, the greening will not take care of itself > efficiently. You get more bang for your buck by finding ways > to concentrate and retain that moisture. > > There's a video on YouTube of an interview with Lawton. I'll have to look this up. Thanks for recommendation! Prima facie, though, I'm thinking this would be slow and take a long, long time. Warming up the desert would quickly draw in moist air, increasing rainfall. (I reckon the problem then would be keeping this rainfall high and then making sure the water doesn't just runoff and away from the desert area.) Regards, Dan From dan_ust at yahoo.com Fri Jul 17 21:16:47 2009 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:16:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <4A5FBD13.6050403@libero.it> Message-ID: <957273.73660.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> --- On Thu, 7/16/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Dan ha scritto: > > Any ideas on how to do this? > > > > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with > dark material, > > thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise > causing the air to > > rise faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. > Once rainfall > > is higher, it seems the greening would take care of > itself. > > > > Any thoughts on this? > > It would raise the temperature locally, big time. Killing > the life there. I disagree. The temperature would rise locally, but that would start or increase the regional convection cycle, pulling in cooler moist air from the Atlantic, Mediterranean, and perhaps the rest of Africa. The average temperature would likely rise, but given higher percipitation, the daily high temperature might fall. And I'm not talking about making the surface temperature 200 degrees Celsius. I think a five degree rise would do the trick, but I don't have a precise model to determine what's needed here. > The best way to green the desert is to plant trees, many > trees. Given current trees, hard to solve this problem without lots of rainfall. > The biggest problem is to keep the water from sinking down, > becoming > unavailable or washing up salt poisoning the terrain. > The solution is hydrophobic sands. I thought, given that any rainfall tends to actually cause huge flooding, that the problem is water doesn't usually stay there, but rushes away. Granted, it's a very rare occurence in the first place, but I'm not sure the problem is whatever rain comes all sinks into the ground. > The plan is simple, and locals already do it with low > technology around their orchards. Too small scale to regreen the whole desert quickly. > The sands is not so costly, so it is possible to deploy it > and profit of > the new terrain available for agriculture. > The hydrophobic sand can be packed inside a tape-like > structure and > deployed 2-3 meters under the terrain. Then, all the water > will stay > near the surface and will be available to the plants > roots. It's a nice idea, but I'd have to see the costs. > Planting trees and letting them grow will provide a cover > of the > terrain, that will reduce the evaporation and the > temperature at the > ground level. > > This need to start around existing oasis and water bodies > and grow from > there. Well, if that were the plan, yes. You'd still need a means of drawing a lot more water -- probably by means of rain -- in. Without that, you'd probably have larger and more oases, but it'd still mostly be desert. Regards, Dan From jrd1415 at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 21:57:38 2009 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 14:57:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <396420995472420A9625FB165378B3E7@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike> <580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 3:10 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> The referendum Zelaya called for ... I wrote the above, and now I find that I made a mistake. Apparently the term "referendum" is wrong. So permit me to correct myself. The correct terminology should have been "non-binding public consultation". "Referendum" apparently has some legal meaning, which may in fact support Mirco's contention that > The only body that can propose a similar thing is the parliament of > Honduras. That said, before accepting the above as on point or accurate, it needs some authoritative support, like say a link to the Honduran constitution or an excerpt therefrom. (It often turns out that in political discussions of this sort various "factoids" are propelled into the fray by pure political bias, with little concern for factual accuracy. In order then to make progress, one needs to clean things up,one needs facts made of sterner stuff, reality-based, if you will.) > And the Constitution is clear This is reassuring. You've read the Honduran constitution then? If you have, please say so, if you haven't please fess up. For the record, I have not. I relied on this article for a reality-based factual foundation re the "business" in Honduras: http://www.counterpunch.org/thorensen07012009.html for a reality-based factual foundation re the "business" in Honduras: July 1, 2009 Behind the Honduran Coup Why Zelaya's Actions Were Legal *********here's a short excerpt************ President Zelaya intended to perform a non-binding public consultation, about the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly. To do this, he invoked article 5 of the Honduran ?Civil Participation Act? of 2006. According to this act, all public functionaries can perform non-binding public consultations to inquire what the population thinks about policy measures. This act was approved by the National Congress and it was not contested by the Supreme Court of Justice, when it was published in the Official Paper of 2006. That is, until the president of the republic employed it in a manner that was not amicable to the interests of the members of these institutions. Furthermore, the Honduran Constitution says nothing against the conformation of an elected National Constituent Assembly, with the mandate to draw up a completely new constitution, which the Honduran public would need to approve. > If GWB had forced a "consultive" not binding referendum to the US > people, against the Senate and the Congress will, against the ruling of > the Supreme Court, about "updating" the Constitution, you would be > screaming "coup". Nonsense! I'm a big fan of referendums, plebiscites, polls, petitions, initiatives, and all manner of going to the people and asking them what they think. Such is my support for the people's right to participate directly, that when someone proffers a petition regarding some ballot initiative, I sign it without regard to the issue itself. I say, "Let the people decide." It's the American way. If GWB had sought any sort of consult with the public (or congress, or anyone other than Cheney) re amending the constitution or for that matter convening a body to rewrite the constitution I would have supported him. I would not have worried, because the actual subsequent constitutional amendment/rewrite would not have been up to GWB. And I think its long past time to modernize the constitution. (Then again one must be careful what one wishes for. In the end, I'd probably hate the new constitution. Americans are incredibly stupid.) Best, Jeff Davis "From my point of view, democracy is a crappy tool, to be used only until enough people grow up and are capable of making a better society." Rafal Smigrodski From cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 22:21:33 2009 From: cetico.iconoclasta at gmail.com (Henrique Moraes Machado) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:21:33 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara References: <402495.94324.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <39A73A573C364462A278B0AD0320805A@pcnx6325> Dan> Any ideas on how to do this? > An idea I had was to cover strategic swaths of it with dark material, > thereby causing its daytime temperature to rise causing the air to rise > faster pulling in more moist air from the costs. Once rainfall is higher, > it seems the greening would take care of itself. The Sahara is a sand desert and it?s surface is highly mobile. The wind blows the sand and the dunes move a lot. I think that any dark material covering the sand would be quickly covered back with sand by the blowing winds. Here?s a thought. And this can be a complete nonsensical idea (almost certainly is). I don?t know how deep is the sand layer and what lies beneath, but what about digging big potholes (too bad we can?t use thermonuclear blasts to do this, because of the residual radiation) and fill them with seawater. These potholes evenly distributed across the desert could provide a lot of water for evaporation. From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 00:56:29 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:56:29 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Private and government R&D In-Reply-To: <944756.8529.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <944756.8529.qm@web30107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/18 Dan : > --- On Fri, 7/17/09, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: >> 2009/7/18 Rafal Smigrodzki : >>> ?Why is the >>>> Canadian system so much more efficient? >>> >>> ### Why do you say stuff like that? >> >> Canadian taxpayers pay less per capita for their universal >> public >> health system than US taxpayers do for their more limited >> system. That >> makes the US public health system much less efficient. Why >> is that? > > Is that the measure of efficiency? Are you sure Canadians, too, are enough like Americans that that comparison makes sense? Economic efficiency, what you get for your money. In Canada it's almost all publicly provided, while in the US only some of it is publicly provided, but at greater cost. There is then the additional issue of health outcomes: does the US system, having a greater private component, lead to better outcomes than in Canada albeit at a higher total price? In fact the evidence points to the opposite, but even if it were the case, the Canadian health consumer would still be financially better off than his American counterpart taking out private insurance to cover any deficit in the public system. I would have thought that Canada is closer to the US demographically than most other countries in the world. Canadians are thinner, but tackling lifestyle issues is part of the job description of primary health care providers, and is in fact one of the main arguments in favour of universal health care. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 18 02:00:56 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 19:00:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <957273.73660.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4A5FBD13.6050403@libero.it> <957273.73660.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Pump sea water up into large shallow reservoirs on the western edge of the Sahara. If you get tricky the pumping can be done with tidal action, so it is passive. All that heat and dry air would evaporate the water, raising the humidity and lowering the temperature. Rainfall would be increased further east, downwind of the reservoirs. spike > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan > Sent: Friday, July 17, 2009 2:17 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Greening the Sahara > > --- On Thu, 7/16/09, Mirco Romanato wrote: > > Dan ha scritto: > > > Any ideas on how to do this? > > > ... From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 18 01:52:03 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 18:52:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] constitution amendments, was: iranian riots all a huge mistake In-Reply-To: References: <568B49EAE7D34D87891BED73740D85AB@spike> <46D107C8AC24469585626270BA383FDC@spike> <770E7AEE2906449C9BDF8178AEA41F46@spike><580930c20907140444x7ce3ee0ejba29d907182d1aff@mail.gmail.com> <4A5F1046.4040509@libero.it> <4A604DF8.80405@libero.it> <51FCF3C767F9463AA0CD0AC8E87B4FC9@spike> Message-ID: <280E012F234843129C5AEC8C8749B2B4@spike> > > 2009/7/18 spike : > > > ... > the military > > "did not use legal means to remove the president..." which > is subtly > > different from "...used illegal means to remove the president..." > > When has the military ever "legally" removed a president?... Stathis Papaioannou Possibly last month. I don't know enough about the Honduras constitution or the actions of their supreme court to know for sure. I notice our government is leaving itself some wiggle room in case it turns out Zelaya really did defy the SCOH. The lamestream media here have reported it both ways: the Honduran military and the Zelaya did illegal actions. Time will tell. I have no particular dog in that fight. I do consider it a valuable demonstration to the US government, a reminder that the military vows to uphold the constitution, and part of their duty is to remove any president that steps outside its limits. spike From brentn at freeshell.org Sat Jul 18 02:20:10 2009 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 22:20:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Greening the Sahara In-Reply-To: <772334.52661.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <772334.52661.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <3C163C2F-7B65-4450-8C66-7D8E0A278F8F@freeshell.org> On 17 Jul, 2009, at 17:41, Dan wrote: > I'll have to look this up. Thanks for recommendation! > > Prima facie, though, I'm thinking this would be slow and take a > long, long time. Warming up the desert would quickly draw in moist > air, increasing rainfall. (I reckon the problem then would be > keeping this rainfall high and then making sure the water doesn't > just runoff and away from the desert area.) > > Regards, > > Dan The Jordan project showed significant results in 2 years. The beauty of it is that success causes an acceleration in rate. As you get more canopy cover to slow evaporation and more organic matter to hold water down, you get the band of cooling necessary to take that warm moist air and get it to dump its water where you want it. You're exactly right about the runoff being a problem. The way the permies handle that is to build large swales on contour to hold the water in and force it to soak into the ground. B -- Brent Neal, Ph.D. http://brentn.freeshell.org From stathisp at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 03:16:00 2009 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 13:16:00 +1000 Subject: [ExI] Who are the people? Who suffers? In-Reply-To: <513059.28385.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <513059.28385.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2009/7/18 Dan : >> The voluntary communal >> organisations do not, except on their own members, who >> agree in being >> part of the organisation that they will go along with the >> majority >> decision even if they don't agree with every decision. This >> can happen >> whenever two or more people get together and decide to do >> something. > > This is only so if the organization is truly voluntary. If, e.g., you and I agree to join and abide by certain rules. This is NOT the case with public services as we see today. There was no such uncoerced agreement in any of them -- not in any nation anyone today is living in. Instead, at best, a large group of people or a bunch of politicians decided that some things would be done their way period. That is nothing more than them "impos[ing] their will on others." A large voluntary organisation will always have members who don't agree with all of the decisions. They then have the option of leaving the organisation. This is also the case with nations, although it is more difficult than leaving a club or a job. I'd consider leaving the country if they got rid of all public services, but I probably wouldn't actually go unless things got really bad for me personally. >> I >> agree that as a strong principle it is best *not* to coerce >> people, as >> far as possible. But sometimes people agree to be coerced. > > It's not really coercion if they agree to it. This appears also to be a word game with you. If you agree to pay a certain fee for something, then you're not coerced to pay that. You might agree to pay said fee for twenty years. You're still not coerced. This fee might be extracted automatically from your bank account. Still no coercion. The problem arises when you don't agree to that. I agree to be coerced to pay taxes: I wouldn't pay taxes if it were optional, but I wouldn't want it to be made optional. >> We might >> all agree that project X which will cost each of us $Y is >> worth >> pursuing, but it won't happen if we are able to make our >> contribution >> voluntary; many of us will not contribute and the rest, if >> they even >> have enough money, would have to contribute multiples of >> $Y, while not >> receiving back multiples of utility from X as a result. >> Therefore, the >> choice is between X with everyone agreeing to contribute >> (and to be held to that agreement) or no X at all. > > There is coercion if anyone is forced to pay who doesn't agree. If everyone -- and I mean everyone -- agreed to pay -- say, e.g., have the amount deducted from their bank accounts or paychecks -- as long as everyone else paid AND everyone else did pay, then it's not coerced. (And this would only apply to the "everyone" in that context. It can't be binding on future generations or on others who weren't party to the agreement, such as if everyone in your village agrees to pay, you can't use to compell someone from another village to pay.) The problem arises, in the real world, when some subset of everyone decided -- say, a majority or, more likely, a vocal but well organized minority (e.g., business folks, their lobbyists and the politicians they lobby) decides X is worth doing and all must pay to get X done. If we had to divert an asteroid from destroying the Earth, collecting the funds would have to be made voluntary even though 99% of the population might agree to being taxed for this purpose, and if not enough people donated money, that would just be too bad. > And this still doesn't answer how you would measure utility. You seem to think this is easy. There's a utility-meter that we simply wave it around the plans for some project and it outputs the utility in a convenient measure that only a fool or an ideologue would quibble with. In the real world, there's no way to make those comparisons. Even using money measures -- and assuming that the models are correct; the recent financial crisis should give everyone pause about financial modeling -- tell us nothing about utility because each individual values money differently (and subjective). The utility of a project is roughly proportional to the public support it gets. If people think too much money is being spent on public education, then less money will be spent on public hospitals and more on something else, or taxes decreased. Then, a few years later, if educational standards have fallen and people start to worry, they might decide to spend more money again. This is the best that we can do. >> Are they really free to choose if they have to work and >> have to accept >> the wage they are given, even though large profits are made >> off their >> labour? This is something communists and anarchists call >> "theft", but which is legal in capitalists societies. > > The false economic theories of communists and some anarchists (not free market anarchists) still live on!* A wage per se is freely chosen -- assuming no one is coerced into accepting it -- because the supplier of labor is free to choose to sell her or his labor or not. A motto for a free society, borrowed from Robert Nozick, might be: From each as she chooses, to each as she is chosen. > > Profits are not made off labor as such. Pure profits arise when there's a difference between the cost of inputs and the price of the output. (A loss is the opposite: inputs end up costing more than the output price.) Labor is not exploited to make profits -- any more than any other factor is. Under a free market, too, laborers tend to bid up their wage to the marginal productivity of a unit of labor. Buyers of labor -- viz., employers -- cannot escape this. If they try to get labor below market prices, then they attract less labor -- if any. > > Also, any attempt to set wages above the market rate, as William H. Hutt and others have shown, actually results in unemployment as some workers end up exploiting other workers because, e.g., a union wage above the market rate means those still employed receive the higher wages, but the unemployed lose out. If the market gives me $10000/hr for my efforts and you $10/hr, then exploitation is taking place even if all the transactions are voluntary. This is something we are just going to have to disagree on. Whether it is actually useful in a utilitarian sense is a different question. I would agree that the opportunity for this sort of exploitation motivates people to set up businesses and therefore can be for the greater good. This is analogous to the utilitarian argument for taxation. >> We get back to the problem of nothing being possible >> without unanimous decision. > > Not so. If we set aside coercion, anything is possible that doesn't involve unanimous decision when it doesn't involve coercing others. For instance, you and I can work together on a project, but we'll have to persuade others to help us rather than seek to coerce them (either directly by, say, enslaving them or stealing their property or indirectly by using a third party like the state to enslave them or steal their property). Yes, this does rule out projects where others would have to be forced to help out. But this is no different than, say, ruling out medical experiments where you need to murder people to get results. But if there are ten of us, at least one, perhaps a different person every time, will probably disagree with a decision at every step. If someone is unhappy enough they can leave, but that might be difficult if they have already invested a lot of time and money in the project. >> You would stick with this even if the end result was *more* >> violence >> and coercion, due to untrammelled capitalism leading to an >> underclass >> of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die, on >> the grounds >> that this would not technically be violence or coercion? > > It seems your view is a little violence and coercion now will lead to less later. This is a common view, but it's no different than how fascists of all stripes view the world: if we just beat up or hurt the right people, all will be well later on. Also, it remains to be proved how this would work in any real world case. My view is that capitalism is more coercive and more violent than, say, a social democracy that looks after its population and tries to redistribute some of the money the capitalists have stolen (since we are using emotive terms) from the population. > As for "untrammelled capitalism leading to an underclass of near-slaves who have to work for a pittance or die," this reveals a fantastical view of freedom and free markets -- and it hearkens back to the misleading views of Engels and others on history. (See the works of Ashton among others to see how Engels & Co. got it wrong.) The actual history of capitalism -- which has never been totally free -- is one of rising living standards, especially among the lower classes. Centuries ago, before the rise of wider markets and when capital investment was limited, there was an underclass of peasants and serfs. They did not, contrary to popular opinion, live an idyllic life. It is in part due to the rise of unions and social democracy that capitalism has been watered down and not resulted in the catastrophic end that Marx and Engels envisaged. >> Obviously, there are more >> efficient and less efficient ways to spend money for a >> particular purpose. > > Yes, though there are two points to be made on this. One, one must understand what's meant by efficiency here. It's not obvious what's meant by it in most cases and not obvious why anyone should be coerced into following your or anyone else's specific beliefs about efficiency. This, again, appears to be Hayek's "fatal conceit" in action: some believe they know what's efficient. They know the right choices, have the answers here, and are so sure of them they're willing to force everyone else to agree with them. If one system produces two items at a particular cost while another produces only one item, and the items are of equivalent quality, then the first system is more efficient. Efficiency isn't everything - for example, if the system provided efficient health care but only to the rich, that would be bad - but it is very important, especially when public money is being spent. > Two, on a meta-level, one doesn't choose between particular efficiency cases, but between frameworks that allow for more efficient choices to be made. Think of the case of a dictatorship. The dictator might make a few very efficient choices -- maybe he's right about using, say, grassoline when his subjects would've freely chosen, say, gasoline (petrol). But is it likely he'd always outperform his subjects were they free to choose? The same might apply to a real smart, well read, creative person running science today. That person might turn us all on to the right theories and avenues of research, but what would be the long run effect of a science czar? Don't you think in both these cases, the better meta-level rule is to allow free choice for all rather than for one? And doesn't the same apply when the choice is instead of being made by a single dictator, by a dictating minority or a dictating majority? Important projects would not get done at all if left to private individuals and corporations. Basic science, underpinning the entire modern world, is one example of this. but we're going over the same arguments. >> The US spends public health money far less >> efficiently than >> any other country does. The main point of difference seems >> to be that >> the US system is not universal. There may be other >> differences leading >> to inefficiency, and these need to be worked out, just as a >> private >> company needs to observe their competitors and work out why >> they are making more money than they are. > > I'm not sure that's the main point of inefficiency for US healthcare -- or even a point of inefficiency. What happens now with people who aren't covered is they tend to get health services anyhow -- either by private donation, from the government, or by taking and not paying. They get emergency health care, but they don't get primary health care, which is both cheaper and focussed on preventive medicine. > Also, in order for the competitive discovery process to take place, one can't regulate or socialize it. One must allow private individuals and groups to make decisions with their resources. This is mostly not allowed on the planet in the arena healthcare. I recommend not only de-socializing the US in this respect (and all others), but the rest of the planet. I recommend that the US introduce a single payer health insurer covering everyone. The private health care providers can remain more or less unchanged and compete amongst themselves for customers. This would allow universal health care access and greatly diminish administrative costs, which are about 30% of the total in the US. http://www.pnhp.org/facts/single_payer_resources.php >> I'm forced to insure my apartment. As an apartment owner, I >> am happy >> that I and everyone else is forced to do this. If I don't >> like it, I can sell it. > > I don't know enough about your situation here. Why must insure your apartment? Who forces you? I take it you mean real force and not just something like, "My girlfriend forces me to wash before we bed down. Oh, the horror!" The Owners' Corporation for the apartment building levies fees for insurance and general maintenance. The owners also vote on major alterations to the building. If I don't pay up I can be sued. The argument is that the building itself is common property, and it would not do for everyone else to suffer because one recalcitrant owner refuses to agree with everyone else. My only way out if I don't like the situation is to sell and move, although that is a major and disruptive decision to take and I will probably encounter the same problem wherever else I go anyway. >> If I don't like paying taxes, I can choose not >> to work, >> not to move to the tax-paying country, leave if I was born >> there, or >> not work. These aren't ideal choices - I'd rather have it >> all my own way. > > This is like saying, if I don't like being raped, I can flee the area. It's also like saying, if I don't want to work for the wages I'm offered I can leave my job. >> I avoid measuring suffering by discussing only what people >> want; >> presumably, they want that which they believe will cause >> them less suffering. > > That's fine, but has problems. Demonstrated preference is a better measure here: not what people say they want, but what they actually act to obtain. E.g., if I tell you I want to lose weight, but I spend my time lounging around and pigging out, then I've demonstrated that, whatever I say to you, I really prefer lounging around and overeating to losing weight. E.g., if I tell you or even think in my mind that I want to be a nice person, but am cruel and mean to everyone, then you should question whether I really want to be a nice person. This raises the issue of a conflict between desires and higher order desires, or akrasia. The world would be a very different place, perhaps unpredictably so, if we could directly alter our desires in order to become the sort of person we would like to be. >> They vote to be taxed, so they believe, whether >> rightly or >> wrongly, that taxation will cause them less suffering than >> the alternative. > > Actually, not all people vote and not all those who do vote vote to raise taxes. Even among those who might vote for the representative -- since almost all voting is NOT for policies but for a particular person -- who raises taxes, they might not have voted for the taxes (or other programs), but merely be choosing among constrained choices. By this is meant someone might vote for, say, Obama, because she's anti-war and doesn't really buy into the whole Obama agenda. In that case -- and this seems typical, as many Americans voted for Obama as a sort of nay vote for the Iraq war -- the voter isn't really say Yes to taxes, but that gets bundled with the anti-war vote. > > And, again, you have yet to show why a vote should bind anyone else. Because not everyone in an organisation will always agree with every decision. They generally join the organisation because, on balance, they think it's a good idea, not because they agree with everything that it does and with everything that it will ever do in future. If they decide that, on balance, they don't agree with the organisation any more, they can leave. But that is difficult when the organisation is something they have invested a lot of time and money in, or the country they live in. >> Some would prefer not to be taxed, but a voluntary tax >> won't work since no-one would pay it (not even those who >> want to be taxed). > > This is no argument at all. The point is it's coercive period. The coercion can't be justified because your pet projects won't be funded. > >> So the alternative is to allow a policy which most >> people, >> perhaps even all the people, believe will cause them more >> suffering on >> the grounds that implementing the policy will be coercive >> and that coercion is bad because it causes suffering. > > If they truly believe in lowering suffering and they believe a specific project will do that, then one must ask why they don't voluntarily support the project? The truth is since they would act against the project -- i.e., since they won't fund it unless forced -- then they must not be for it. The only beliefs here that matter, really, are the ones people act on. It's the Prisoner's Dilemma. People get the benefit even if they cheat, so they cheat; but if enough cheat, no-one gets anything. Unfortunately, this is the way that people behave. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 18 04:52:28 2009 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 21:52:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Who are the people? Who suffers? In-Reply-To: References: <513059.28385.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: > ...On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou > ... > I recommend that the US introduce a single payer health > insurer covering everyone... Stathis Papaioannou Stathis, I don't know how much of the current debate is making it into the European press. The notion of a major overhaul of the US medical system was sunk yesterday by a report by the Congressional Budget Office, which claims that total health care costs under Obamacare will not go down, but would go up. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/16/AR2009071602 242.html So. No farewell cruel working world for the old spikester. It is easy to tell that there was a major shift in attitude. The congress was pushing madly for a vote on this before the recess in August, if not sooner, hurry hurry urgent, danger Will Robinson, etc. But with this Budget Office report, the American democrat party splintered into factions. Some are now arguing that a good plan will take time (imagine that, the scoundrels!) But if they allow time, the congress members will have a chance to actually read the bill, and will vote against it. The stealth and speed aspect of the surprise attack are lost. What happens now can be seen as clearly as if it has already happened. The health bill falters, a very much weakened version of it eventually passes which contains the words "health system reform" but doesn't actually do anything (single payer? Ja. You.) The tax and trade CO2 bill which passed recently in the house will be voted down by the senate, the current government's approval rating goes into freefall, little significant economic recovery for some time to come. OK here are some very specific prognostications. Save it in your prophecy file, grade me on it in a couple years. I will still be here. spike From eschatoon at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 08:32:17 2009 From: eschatoon at gmail.com (Eschatoon Magic) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 10:32:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Thoughts on space, on the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing Message-ID: <1fa8c3b90907180132i75b2df57qf5e737c629b3b784@mail.gmail.com> Thoughts on space, on the 40th anniversary of the Moon landing http://cosmi2le.com/index.php/site/thoughts_on_space_on_the_40th_anniversary_of_the_moon_landing/ It is that time of the year when we look at the sky and think about space. 40 years ago, we watched Neil Armstrong walking on the Moon. And many people are once again asking the question, why did we give up space, and when do we go back? Yes, yes, we have telecom and Earth watching satellites, robotic planetary missions that produce a lot of good science and all that. But? I want to see people in space. Do you? The IEET blog has a post and a poll on Should off-Earth expansion be a high priority for humanity?. The options given in the poll are: No, we should devote all our resources to solving current problems. - We need to expand, but with biologically modified transhumans. - Yes, to protect our species from extinction in all-out war. - No, because humans will never survive long in space. - Yes, in order to preserve Earth from further ecological damage. - Expansion, yes, but with robots first and humans later. - Other: (enter another option). I voted Other: YES!! In some sense I tend to agree with the option ?We need to expand, but with biologically modified transhumans?. I am sure our ultimate destiny in space will be, in the beautiful words of Sir Arthur: ?And now, out among the stars, evolution was driving toward new goals. The first explorers of Earth had long since come to the limits of flesh and blood; as soon as their machines were better than their bodies, it was time to move. First their brains, and then their thoughts alone, they transferred into shining new homes of metal and of plastic. In these, they roamed among the stars. They no longer built spaceships. They were spaceships. But the age of the Machine-entities swiftly passed. In their ceaseless experimenting, they had learned to store knowledge in the structure of space itself, and to preserve their thoughts for eternity in frozen lattices of light. They could become creatures of radiation, free at last from the tyranny of matter.? One may think that it makes much more sense to wait for the development of some transhumanist technologies, and then resume our (post-)human adventure in space. There are a lot of valid points in support of this position, but I think they miss a very important point: We need space. We need it now. We need it for our mental health as a species. Watching the Moon knowing that other people are living and working there would be a powerful pointer to future, even more daring cosmic journeys, that could contribute to the mental health of the zeitgeist and give us a renewed confidence in the relevance of our lives on this little planet. Not everyone can be a space explorer, but we are all partners and stakeholders in the cosmic future of our species and its ?manifest destiny? among the stars. This is a powerful meme that could result not only in much more support for space, but also in a more positive and proactive attitude on other pressing issues, at a moment of our history where we need positive thinking, confidence and optimism. The last paragraph is from my paper on A Virtual World Space Agency to be published by Futures (Futures 41 (2009) pp. 569-571) (link). I cannot post the full text here, but I wish to post some excerpts: We need new initiatives able to ignite the imagination of people, especially young people, al over the planet. I have worked for many years in public space agencies, for example in ESA in the eighties and nineties. I used to say that, despite the scientific value of robotic planetary missions, the practical value of communication, earth observation and navigation satellites, and the pragmatism of a cautious approach to crewed space missions based on the shuttle and the space station, their impact on the public at large was nil. In order to support spending money in space, people need to see other people in space taking risks to do momentous things. This is the simple truth that every marketing or advertising professional knows, but paper pushers in government and industry have forgotten. For the same reason, aseptic orbital or planetary missions do not sufficiently stimulate young people to study science and pursue careers in technology and space, hence also decreasing the available expertise in terms of both quantity and quality. I used to say that the emphasis on cost-effective pragmatic mission with only a scientific return and no PR value would kill both public and political support for space, and the facts have given me reason. To my knowledge, nobody said this better than William Sims Bainbridge: ?To become fully interplanetary, let alone interstellar, our society would need another leap?and it needs that leap very soon before world culture ossifies into secure uniformity. We need a new spaceflight social movement capable of giving a sense of transcendent purpose to dominant sectors of the society?. We need grand cosmic visions and daring exploration projects to muster the drive, energy and commitment to steadily give our best contribution in our chosen fields. Marshall T. Savage published a tentative space exploration and settlement plan, fully compatible with this memetic engineering program and based on current (at the time of writing) science and technology. Savage appreciated that space exploration cannot be disentangled from other industrial and social concerns, and that space settlement will be more a political issue than an engineering problem, and dedicated considerable space to analyzing the best organizational structures and strong criticism to the ?standard model? based on national space agencies and big corporations. Are national space agencies going to take us to space? Are international space agencies going to take us to space? Is industry going to take up to space? In short, no, no, and no. Who should take the lead?... Why not forming a global P2P space agency of the people, by the people, and for the people? Such a Wor