From max at maxmore.com Fri Apr 1 01:06:47 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 18:06:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Stan_Ovshinsky=92s_Solar_Revolution?= Message-ID: I've only very quickly skimmed this article, but thought it of interest given the recent and continuing discussion on this list: http://www.strategy-business.com/article/11111?gko=ddb47&cid=20110329enews -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 03:25:01 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 21:25:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 3:59 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 11:49:45PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> > >> > Science has been slow to embrace Peak Oil, but they're >> > there now. (How long will it take for them to admit >> > Peak Coal?) >> >> I should expect hundreds of years. The US has something like 400 years >> of coal reserves, and China has a lot too. > > Try around 2025. > > http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2396 "The general consensus view on coal supplies has long been that we have hundreds of years of the stuff left" The articles you provided indicated that we were close to peak coal, but it also showed a slowly tailing off supply. What I'm saying is that after peak oil most charts show the supplies falling off rather precipitously, but with peak coal there was a significant amount of coal available for a significant amount of time afterward. So peak oil is a much greater problem than peak coal (assuming they are even right there, which I'm not particularly giving in on yet.) Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers on China's usage, and reserves before commenting further... it is interesting though. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 04:17:21 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:17:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] note from a foaf in japan In-Reply-To: <4D8DEFD5.7050804@libero.it> References: <4D8DEFD5.7050804@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 25/03/2011 10.23, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 9:07 AM, Keith Henson >> wrote: >>> On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 5:00 AM, ? Kelly Anderson >>> wrote: >>>> It seems unlikely to me that humans are genetically diverse >>>> enough to account for highly social behavior in the face of >>>> disaster as a genetic issue. It seems much more likely to be a >>>> 100% cultural issue. >>> >>> I would not discount the genetic angle. ?I know it is not >>> politically correct, but consider the differences between wild and >>> tame foxes that came about in only 20 generations (with much of it >>> in 8). ?It depends on a consistent selection criteria. ?If you >>> have not read Gregory Clark's work, you should. >> >> I am familiar with the fox experiment in Russia (Siberia). In that >> experiment, 1% of each generation was selected for each trait >> (aggressive and tame) and 99% were put down. > > I have a big problem believing these numbers. > Simply, I don't think they started with 10^16 foxes and then culled down > the 99% too aggressive or not enough tame. Don't be silly. They bred a few hundred foxes with each generation, then only bred the 1% that were most tame or most aggressive. I don't know the details of exactly how this culling was done, but I'd guess that the selection was done more on the male side than the female to avoid needing too much breeding stock. > Given a normal figure of 6 kitten per litter or 10 (very optimistic), it > is difficult to believe that. Why would you assume that every litter would produce a selected survivor? > A fox couple would need to have 100 kitten, and the female fox would > need to give birth ten times (at least) during her life (improbable, as > the live 1.5 years in the wild and up to twelve - very rarely - in > captivity and I suppose their fecundity after the first two years is > very low). > > Now, the article of ?1992 give number a bit different from yours: > 5% of the males and 20% of the females could breed in in the first > generations. > This is a severe selection, but not as severe as you wrote. > Humans were/are selected under historically a bit less severe conditions. My numbers came from the report on NOVA. If you have a publication direct from the source, then your numbers are probably better as they are closer to the source. The main point though is that these foxes were under a very severe selection compared to anything humans have ever faced. The black death took 20% of a generation at its height! > >From what I remember, it is common, during history, that only 40% of the > males and 80% of the female reproduce. But what was the selection process? If it is highly randomized, then there is no selective pressure, right? If it is highly selected, then what is it selected for? Has the selection pressure remained the same over time? These things are necessary to produce genetic drift. > We can add to this that humans are able to move in other places, if > local conditions are unfriendly. And they are able of assortative > mating. These possibilities can, alone, make up for the difference in > selective pressure. Agreed. Thus the selective pressure on humans has been fairly low over time, which was my point. >> That is a VERY heavy selection mechanism. Lots of genes go away very >> quickly under that heavy of a culling. > > Again, this is against what the article say. > After any selection, they added new foxes from commercial breed farm. > These foxes were at the early stages of domestication (the point where > the experiment started). So, the chance of interbreeding of recessive > traits is very low (2-7%) for every generation. But that is high enough to produce genetic drift over several generations. It doesn't take much. I would suggest that you review the mathematics of genetics, and you will see that anything that has a 2% impact per generation will become very dominant after only 20 generations or so. >> Humans have never faced that level of culling, so getting rid of any >> specific set of genes is very difficult. > > Given the wrong premises, I can not agree with the conclusions. Please restate your premise, or what you think is mine. I'm not following your point here perhaps. Sorry, I'm just a bit lost... >> We know this because two humans from any part of the world are more >> closely genetically related than two chimpanzees from 20 miles apart >> in Africa. The bottleneck around 600,000 years ago (Tambura(sp) >> supervolcano??) was estimated to reduce the human ancestor population >> to around 4000 individuals. So the chances of that big of a genetic >> drift coming in seems very slight to me. > > The drifts is, probably, not so big. But I would call it difference, as > drift recall some random process. And this is all but random. If culture leads to genetic selection over the generations, i.e. if a person has a specific trait, they are more likely to breed in a given population, then yes, this could have an effect. This seems possible, at least. But I can't think of a documented case. >> If the Japanese had put down 99% of their population on >> socialization principles, then I would be more likely to believe >> there was a genetic component. > > In China, numbers I red said that 10% of the people (usually the poor) > didn't reproduce in normal conditions (peace time). And this is > consistent with the rate in other places like Western Europe. > This rate is a mean, so it is very probable that poorer men didn't > breed, where poorer women had a chance to reproduce with wealthier (than > them) men. > This would have amplified the reproductive fitness of the wealthier men > a bit. This should breed out the poor. So why do we keep getting new poor? ;-) >> Obviously, I could be wrong here, but I think it would be hard to >> prove either way. However, from a genetics standpoint, there just >> isn't a heavy enough hand IMHO to have Occam come down on genetic vs. >> culture in this particular case. > > The problem is, if culture is the culprit, it would work everywhere in > the same way. No, it would work differently in each culture... Again, not following your logic. > This, in the US is not true, as North-East Asians are law > abiding more than Europeans that are more abiding than Latino Americans > that are more law abiding than blacks. This is a whole other can of worms. Blacks are more carefully watched by the police, leading to higher arrest rates. Their poverty leads to poor representation, which leads to higher conviction rates. That does not imply that blacks are necessarily less law abiding than other races. You might be able to make a successful argument on a different basis. Besides, you can hardly argue that blacks in South Central LA live in the same culture as I do. That is beyond naive. > They are all exposed ?to the same culture (or cultures) and the outcome > is very different. And this is consistent. > >> By the way, I'd love to get a hold of a mating pair of those tame >> foxes. > > You only need money. > http://www.sibfox.com/ > $6,950 (USA only) (delivery at your door in max 90 days) Sweet! Now I wish I had some money. :-) That's really cool, and those foxes are really quite cute fellows... >> Have we had a serious disaster in those populations? I can't think of >> one off the top of my head. > > I don't remember big riots or revolts during the fall of the East block. > The only violence outbreaks were when some groups in power tried to take > the power from another group (Romania was a coup against the Chaucescu - > Gorbachev fell because a coup by the communist party). > > Nothing like LA riots or LO after Katrina and likes. > >>> I suspect several thousand years of farming in north temperate >>> zones worked some fairly serious changes in the genetics of the >>> populations, changes that a few decades of cultural variations >>> don't erase. > >> Only where there is a selection pressure, such as melatonin in the >> skin leading to skin cancer... You have to spell out the >> selection/survival vector for this to be a credible genetic theory. > > Change in melatonin happened for Vit D deficit, not the reverse. Of course. >>>>> What are the difference in behavior between Sendai (Japan) and >>>>> Bam (Iran) or Indonesia, Italy, Chile and China or New Orleans >>>>> (US)? > >>> You might include Haiti. ?Re China: > >> I think Haiti went to hell after the earthquake. Roaming bands of >> rapists and such. Having been to Haiti myself, it isn't hard to >> believe. They have a really messed up culture from decades of living >> ?off of the generosity of the first world. > > I don't remember they had any different culture before. > IIRC, when Haiti gained his independence from France, they killed all > the whites in their half of Santo Domingo (male, female and children). > It could not be strange the Dominicans (the other half of the island) as > black as them, but a colony from England, hate and despise them with all > their heart and their past relations (probably even the current) were > very violent. Haiti is f'ed up. I would not necessarily attribute that to genetics. Their government has been horrible for a very long time. I attribute most of their problems to that. >> Yes, I believe you are absolutely right here. I don't think that is >> much of an argument for genetics, just an argument for the >> persistence of underlying culture in the face of totalitarianism. >> Just look at the comeback of Christianity in Russia... > > But Christianity is coming back in Russia because it was resilient or > because the genetics of the russians make it easier to it to return. Here is my bottom line. If there were as much genetic difference between groups as you suggest, then I think there would be a larger and more popular belief in racism. I'm not saying that you are a racist, but what I am saying is that if there were as much difference between different humans as you suggest, there would be a greater basis for racist thought. >>> Clark makes a case that impulse control has been intensely >>> selected in stable societies along with literacy and numeracy. > >> If you were going to pick something, that might do it. However, you >> would pretty quickly weed out any effective warrior class, which >> could have downsides if other societies did not pick the same. > > In fact, stable societies don't like warrior classes. They want soldier > classes. Warriors' ability to wage a war don't scale where the ability > of soldiers scale much better. And, usually, stable societies are able > to field much more soldiers than unstable ones, for more time and with > stable goals. I think that you have thought this particular aspect through more than I have. I believe I will concede this point. > In fact, modern and less modern armies usually make a point to kill > their soldiers that don't respect orders and kill out of the > battlefield, without orders and without a good reason. > > IMHO, modern armies want soldiers that have an internal "switch" they > (soldiers) are able to turn on and off at will. The "switch" to kill and > use violence. Quite possibly. I do know that more extensive and effective training makes a big difference in whether soldiers are able to pull the trigger when the moment comes... and more modern armies have better training facilities. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 04:31:59 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 22:31:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Moving big things in Utah tonight In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 9:40 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> Tonight, the Utah Transportation Authority will break the western >> hemisphere record for moving a bridge constructed at the side of the >> road. It is 80' x 354', roughly the size of a football field. >> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORtXe3trR_o >> >> Is that cool or what? If it weren't going to be snowing at the time, >> I'd go watch, even though it is in the middle of the night. >> >> Apparently 60% of ALL bridges built in this way have been built in >> Utah. Why wouldn't they do this in California and other places? It >> takes the disruption of traffic down from several months to one night >> and makes things safer for workers too. > > 1) Not Invented Here You probably have a point on this one. But if it is cheaper, faster, safer and less disruptive to traffic, eventually I would think it would prevail. > 2) Because it is not well understood by contractors out here, and/or > not well adapted to particular details of the local geography, the > projected costs would be way up for doing it out here. ?Note, for > example, that this bridge is being moved into place over completely > dry ground - freeway, in fact - that can take the load and allow workers > to access the bottom without special equipment. The only cost is the need for a nearby empty field to build the bridge on. This could really be a big problem in parts of Los Angeles, no empty fields nearby could be a big problem. Utah has a good supply of empty fields, apparently. I suspect that the contractors not knowing the technology is a big part of the issue, but I think that education is being done now. Apparently there were a lot of big wigs from around the country watching this particular bridge being put in. One fellow from Minnesota DOT was very excited about it. I don't think the soil taking the load is a big issue. They moved the bridge the other night in the mud as it was snowing at the time. They had hundreds of big wheels on the ground, which would reduce the PSI quite a bit. I don't have the specific numbers, but my sense having watched a few of these go up, is that they don't do a lot of ground prep to move the bridge. I might have missed something, but I do know they move most of them over dirt. UDOT has finished most of their projects lately under budget and on time or early. It's pretty impressive really. -Kelly From max at maxmore.com Fri Apr 1 06:54:26 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 31 Mar 2011 23:54:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Source Code movie article Message-ID: The preview didn't look that interesting, but this interview raises my interest some. Sounds like it might be worth transhumanists keeping an eye on. http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/03/31/6384693-sci-fi-director-cracks-source-code -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 1 13:58:13 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 15:58:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110401135812.GG23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is > that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact > that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The > other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going > through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers > on China's usage, and reserves before commenting further... it is > interesting though. What I find quite concerning is how few people find peak fossil concerning. The typical reactions are either ignorance, or denial. That worked well enough in the last ~40 years, but we don't have another 40 years. -- 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 From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 14:33:00 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:33:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110401135812.GG23560@leitl.org> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110401135812.GG23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > What I find quite concerning is how few people find peak fossil concerning. Ignorance is bliss. At least for now. Until the whole thing comes crashing down around their ears, and they're starving to death. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 15:16:00 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 08:16:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 5:00 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > My Gedankenexperiment - which I admittedly like, but am ready to drop > against the harsh truths of arithmetics - was: > > - You bring "n" tons of energy-generating solar-power stuff of the > gravitational well by making use of large-scale Project-Orion nuclear > propulsors (why a continuous flow of materials would be so different from a > small number of very large launches?); > > - That "n" is calculated in a measure sufficient to send energy back to > Earth which be enough to maintain and expand your installed space-based > solar power facilities (e.g., by making use of lasers or by cheaply > synthetising chemical fuels such hydrogen or hydrocarbons) without the need > to continue resorting to nuclear propulsion. If you are ever going to do laser propulsion, you don't need Orian type propulsion at all. The energy needed to power the lasers is relatively modest and can be pulled from the existing grid, at least in places such as Three Gorges or Sylmar. The problem is the cost of the lasers--$60 B or so at $10 per watt. > - You end up with a permanent flow of energy in exchange for a > pre-determined, "once for ever", increase in environmental radioactivity. A million tons per year makes 200 GW/year. We need on the order of 20 TW over the next few decades, so the production rate will probably go to 2 TW per year. Especially if the power sats are made of the obvious material (Invar) then I suspect that mining asteroids for nickle will start by ten years after the first power sat is turned on. The combination of burning hydrogen with air to get above 20 km and up to about 2 km/sec combined with the "long boost" of about 15 minutes is the key to getting the laser power so low. Previous work on straight boost gives a laser requirement of a GW per ton. This approach puts 50 tons of vehicle and 50 tons of payload in LEO with 6 GW of laser power (up to 12 GW off the grid). The cost is a flotilla of redirection mirrors in GEO that lets the beam sweep along the equator for good fraction of the circumference of the earth. Relatively low acceleration takes a long distance to get up to orbital speed. Is it worth doing? It all depends on how long humans stay in charge. If I was sure the singularity would get here before the energy crisis starves a substantial fraction of the population, I would not bother. Surely thinking power that extreme can solve such simple problems as energy. Keith From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 16:38:02 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:38:02 -0600 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110401135812.GG23560@leitl.org> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110401135812.GG23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 7:58 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is >> that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact >> that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The >> other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going >> through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers >> on China's usage, and reserves before commenting further... it is >> interesting though. > > What I find quite concerning is how few people find peak fossil concerning. > > The typical reactions are either ignorance, or denial. That worked > well enough in the last ~40 years, but we don't have another 40 years. It isn't that I'm not concerned. it's that I think with enough economic incentive (which peak anything will produce) there are a number of viable alternatives that can be developed. -Kelly From atymes at gmail.com Fri Apr 1 17:33:35 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 1 Apr 2011 10:33:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 8:16 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > Is it worth doing? > > It all depends on how long humans stay in charge. ?If I was sure the > singularity would get here before the energy crisis starves a > substantial fraction of the population, I would not bother. ?Surely > thinking power that extreme can solve such simple problems as energy. Perhaps, but wouldn't it be easier on them - our children, in whatever sense - if we'd already fixed that problem by then? Besides, if we fix the problem ourselves, we don't have to bet on a near-term Singularity. More importantly, wouldn't a global energy surplus be more conducive to factors accelerating the Singularity? Chicken and the egg, and there's no serious question that we can tackle the energy problem, given enough resources directed the right way. From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 1 18:57:37 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:57:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] note from a foaf in japan In-Reply-To: References: <4D8DEFD5.7050804@libero.it> Message-ID: <4D962021.4070806@libero.it> Il 01/04/2011 6.17, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Mirco Romanato > wrote: >> I have a big problem believing these numbers. Simply, I don't >> think they started with 10^16 foxes and then culled down the 99% >> too aggressive or not enough tame. > Don't be silly. It is a silly reply to a silly statement. > They bred a few hundred foxes with each generation, then only bred > the 1% that were most tame or most aggressive. As I stated, this could not happen without having an huge number of foxes. Even with females able to carry ten kittens they would not be able to keep their population stable without an huge inflow of new foxes, that would have washed away any genetic trait selected. It is a math problem, not other. If we had 99 vixen and one fox, any vixen could give birth to 10 kittens at time. Make it 20 in her life. This is a total of 1980 kitten in two years. Half female and half male (I don't know of any sex imbalance in foxes). Kill all the males apart one and 99% of the female and you will have only 20 (rounded up) females and 1 male. The next generation would leave 4 vixen and a fox. And they would be very inbreed. Now, If you replenish the gene pool with other foxes and vixens, you simply outnumber the selected breed with the unselected one, diluting any gene selected for in the previous generation. > I don't know the details of exactly how this culling was done, but > I'd guess that the selection was done more on the male side than the > female to avoid needing too much breeding stock. I'm contesting the number of 1% as not real and not realistic. Not anything else. >> Given a normal figure of 6 kitten per litter or 10 (very >> optimistic), it is difficult to believe that. > Why would you assume that every litter would produce a selected > survivor? Where I wrote one kitten per litter would survive? >> Now, the article of 1992 give number a bit different from yours: >> 5% of the males and 20% of the females could breed in in the first >> generations. This is a severe selection, but not as severe as you >> wrote. Humans were/are selected under historically a bit less >> severe conditions. > My numbers came from the report on NOVA. If you have a publication > direct from the source, then your numbers are probably better as they > are closer to the source. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/feature/early-canid-domestication-the-farm-fox-experiment/1 Even if the numbers you gave was from the source, I would criticize them as I do with you, unless they are able to explain how they did the process and didn't kill all of the breed with a so high selection rates. > The main point though is that these foxes were under a very severe > selection compared to anything humans have ever faced. The black > death took 20% of a generation at its height! This number is a bit optimistic. The Black Death had taken out around 30% of the population of Europe when ended. Given that more than one generation lived in the same time (usually three), in many cases it wiped out entire generations and populations and social strata. We can suppose that it wiped out the most weak, physically, of the population. And we can suppose that the poor were the most weak of all (statistically). >>> From what I remember, it is common, during history, that only >>> 40% of the >> males and 80% of the female reproduce. > But what was the selection process? If it is highly randomized, then > there is no selective pressure, right? If it is highly selected, > then what is it selected for? Has the selection pressure remained > the same over time? These things are necessary to produce genetic > drift. In the wild I think highly randomized selection is very rare if not impossible. The selective pressure of people living in cities is continuous over centuries. They are selected for traits allowing to thrive there. Also, being city population sinks, they attracted large numbers of people during many generations that allowed the selection process to continue unabated. Often, then, the most successful families in the cities would move out of the city with their wealth and buy farms and large homes, to be able to afford more children. >> We can add to this that humans are able to move in other places, if >> local conditions are unfriendly. And they are able of assortative >> mating. These possibilities can, alone, make up for the difference >> in selective pressure. > Agreed. Thus the selective pressure on humans has been fairly low > over time, which was my point. I don't think so. The poor were able to become a class only in the last two centuries because before they near always died with few or no offspring. And they were supplanted by the less accomplished (but better than them) offspring of the middle class. In this way, in 20 generations (say the double of the time the foxes needed to be culled) the people in England was selecting for middle class traits and culling the poor (and partially the noble) out of the breeding stock. >> Again, this is against what the article say. After any selection, >> they added new foxes from commercial breed farm. These foxes were >> at the early stages of domestication (the point where the >> experiment started). So, the chance of interbreeding of recessive >> traits is very low (2-7%) for every generation. > But that is high enough to produce genetic drift over several > generations. It doesn't take much. I would suggest that you review > the mathematics of genetics, and you will see that anything that has > a 2% impact per generation will become very dominant after only 20 > generations or so. Recessive traits can not become dominating after a few generations or many generations. They could outnumber the dominating traits due to selection or inbreeding, but in presence of a dominating gene they would not appear. An inbreeding of 2-7% could cause a drift during many generations if the population is keep closed. But if the population is replenished of individuals with no inbreeding, the inbreed traits of one generation have only 2-7% of a chance to be passed to the next. So in the best case we have 4/10K to pass the same trait to the second generation and in the worst 49/10K AKA 0.5%. > Please restate your premise, or what you think is mine. I'm not > following your point here perhaps. Sorry, I'm just a bit lost... Your premises (as I understood them) are that the foxes and the vixens were subjected to an extensive culling (1% surviving to generate), where the actual number given in the article I linked were 5% for foxes and 20% for vixen. Another premises of yours was that the population was not replenished by new individuals. In fact, the scientists replenished the population selected with other foxes and vixens coming from the original breeding stock of foxes they started from (the ones used to produces furs). They did it to avoid the spreading of recessive traits and inbreeding; but you assumed inbreeding and the diffusion of recessive traits in the tame foxes population. >> The drifts is, probably, not so big. But I would call it >> difference, as drift recall some random process. And this is all >> but random. > If culture leads to genetic selection over the generations, i.e. if a > person has a specific trait, they are more likely to breed in a given > population, then yes, this could have an effect. This seems possible, > at least. But I can't think of a documented case. The predisposition to learn how to read, write, do simple math is and was a strong cultural trait that cause genetic selection. Try to breed today without being able to read/write/do simple math. Take away the welfare state, the food stamps and the rest. Leave them on their devices. Like 200 years ago or more. Even more strong and durable, the selection for taking out people unable to control their impulses and empathize others. They would be, at least, be banned from the civil society. And without welfare they would die because of starvation or be prey of organized groups. For example, a not married woman having sex and becoming pregnant would lose her family support and be shunned by any other reputable man. Why? Because they would not risk to be rising someone else children instead of theirs. Exceptions abound, but invariably they concern very low standing women (prostitute or maiden) or very high standing women (too valuable to consider their previous sins). > This should breed out the poor. So why do we keep getting new poor? > ;-) Because poor is relative and not absolute. It is the Red Queen Effect. Also, the people coming from the country have traits that could be useful in the country but are not useful or are damaging when living in a city. This is something discovered studying an African tribe; the same traits that made them successful in herding sheep (so they were able to feed themselves well) made them not very successful in keeping a job in a city (so they were unable to keep themselves well fed). >> The problem is, if culture is the culprit, it would work >> everywhere in the same way. > No, it would work differently in each culture... Again, not following > your logic. If the culture is the dominant factor, if you take Africans (black) and put them on adoption on European (white) families they would be behaviorally and intellectually indistinguishable from other (white) Europeans. They would be intellectually indistinguishable from Europeans. Unfortunately it is not so. The same would be true for Asians in Europeans families and the reverse or Europeans in African families. >> This, in the US is not true, as North-East Asians are law abiding >> more than Europeans that are more abiding than Latino Americans >> that are more law abiding than blacks. > This is a whole other can of worms. A can of worms that people in the US is often afraid to touch for cultural and social reasons. It is like talking about freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia. If you talk abut the freedom of some Christian to convert to Islam, all is good. The reverse is not well accepted in the mainstream. > Blacks are more carefully watched by the police, Why? Why they don't check more for Hispanics or Vietnamese or Italians? Are the policemen racists? Even the blacks one? What allowed Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, French, Russian and others to come in the US and, starting from the bottom, climb up the social ladder until they were at par (and sometimes over) the WASPs? Surely they were subjected to their fair (or unfair) share of stereotyping, racist slurs, hate and lynching from the dominant groups. Why they succeed anyway and the blacks didn't? There are cultural (maybe also genetic) differenced in behavior between blacks coming from American ancestries and blacks coming from the Caribbeans and blacks coming from Africa. Often they don't go well together because of this. > leading to higher arrest rates. If I know to be more carefully watched by police, I usually try to be more law abiding than usual. > Their poverty leads to poor representation, which leads to higher > conviction rates. That does not imply that blacks are necessarily > less law abiding than other races. Law abiding, in fact, is a too vague. Could we talk about homicide rate? Could we compare the Blacks on Blacks, White on White, Blacks on Whites and Whites on Blacks or the East Asians on Blacks, etc.? I suppose this is independent of who the police is watching more. > You might be able to make a successful argument on a different > basis. Besides, you can hardly argue that blacks in South Central LA > live in the same culture as I do. That is beyond naive. So, if it is not genetics, then it is cultural. But this imply that the culture of South Central is the main cause of the lawlessness (or of the high arrest rate) of the Blacks. But, if it is the culture, why is it not possible to force a culture on a group to change its behavior in a generation or two. If it was possible, someone would have already done it. What would had prevent them from succeeding? For example, the Conquistadors had not problem to raze Aztec temples, kill their priests, and force the survivors to convert to Christianity. One would suppose the Mexican population would be formed by perfect Catholics, adopting Spanish costumes. It didn't worked exactly in this way. > Sweet! Now I wish I had some money. :-) That's really cool, and those > foxes are really quite cute fellows... I would like to have the money to clone my current dog. But also be able to buy a cute tame fox would be interesting. > Haiti is f'ed up. I would not necessarily attribute that to genetics. > Their government has been horrible for a very long time. I attribute > most of their problems to that. But the governments don't fall from the sky at random. Not usually. Usually they are an expression of their population behaviors. This is true for Haitians, Italians, Chinese and others. > Here is my bottom line. If there were as much genetic difference > between groups as you suggest, then I think there would be a larger > and more popular belief in racism. I'm not saying that you are a > racist, but what I am saying is that if there were as much difference > between different humans as you suggest, there would be a greater > basis for racist thought. Are you talking about emotive/innate basis for racism or logical/scientific/moral basis for racism? Are we talking about the gut feelings of common people or the rational, often learned, arguments of polite people in polite circles? Apart from the mainstream white western world, the rest is racist. Maybe they don't wear the KKK hoods or don't shave their heads, but they behave and often speak out their belief without any problems. For example, recently the Thai police cracked down on blacks of Africans origin (mainly Nigerians) because they engaged in too much drug trafficking and behave in a too aggressive way to be tolerated. Was the Thai police "racist"? Try to apply the "racism" argument to the foxes. After the breeding program, we have two population of foxes. One tame and one wild. We know that some of the tame foxes developed characteristics that were not present before in the wild population: curly tails, blue eyes, white spots on the fur, floppy ears and these characteristics are common in domesticated mammals. Now, a blue eyed population of foxes, looking at their wild counterparts living on the wild, could note the others are more aggressive. They don't know why the others are more aggressive. They could develop one or more cultural explanations why the wild foxes are more aggressive: the "racists" could say the "blue eyed" foxes are superiors because they live in a peaceful civilization and all blue eyed foxes must stick together to defend their civilization against the wild, not blue eyed foxes. Others could think the white spotted foxes are better behaving than the red foxes living in the wild. Some full white and blue eyed foxes would develop the belief they are better than all others (elitists exist everywhere). On the other side the "racist" wild foxes would look at the white-lily, watery eyed foxes as a bunch of weak, degenerated, infantile and whining individuals, only able to play with their human masters and live in their cages or inside human homes. Why don't take advantage of their individual weakness? Than another group of tame foxes could develop the explanation that the wild ones are as they are because they are unfortunate and they never were born inside their breeding farm. So they never developed and learned how to behave and how good are humans to take care of them and how beautiful is to love them. Now, these "enlightened foxes" could be open to mate with wild ones or adopt wild foxes kitten without parents or to invite the wild type to live with them at the farm. Then they would be surprised that things would not work out as they think. I think they could also blame the "racist" foxes for the failure, because they never accepted and continued to discriminated against the wild red furred, black eyed ones. They all would be wrong. They could feel better or find some advantage to believe a thing or another, but they would anyway be wrong. If the tame foxes want to bring inside some wilder foxes they must know and accept the facts. The wilder foxes must be breed and selected for a behavior more tamer. And if the tame foxes want live with the wilder one, they must breed themselves to be more aggressive (in this the most aggressive can help). Maybe they can breed in or out in different, novel, ways. What they can not avoid, like it or not, is evolution and selection to happen anyway. Their believes and their behavior can change how evolution and selection happen, to themselves and to others, but can not stop it. >> In fact, modern and less modern armies usually make a point to kill >> their soldiers that don't respect orders and kill out of the >> battlefield, without orders and without a good reason. >> >> IMHO, modern armies want soldiers that have an internal "switch" >> they (soldiers) are able to turn on and off at will. The "switch" >> to kill and use violence. > > Quite possibly. I do know that more extensive and effective training > makes a big difference in whether soldiers are able to pull the > trigger when the moment comes... and more modern armies have better > training facilities. Yes. But soldiers in moder professional armies are mainly from middle class and their IQ is a bit over the mean (this is surely true for in the US). And in modern society the middle class is the bigger part of the society. If they come from there, they are genetically and culturally inhibited from acting aggressively. In fact I remember a German soldier, in a documentary about the Battle of Cassino, complaining that the US soldiers didn't went in battle like "real soldiers" but like they were going to a "normal" job. -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3544 - Data di rilascio: 01/04/2011 From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 12:55:29 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 08:55:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 1:33 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > More importantly, wouldn't a global energy surplus be more conducive to > factors accelerating the Singularity? > **nods** exactly. It'd make the wait a whole lot more manageable as well. We (humanity) can spend $1T/yr to kill/destroy/blow up each other, but we can't spend 10% of our 'death fund' to alleviate the issues we're fighting for? Penny-wise/Pound-foolish. ReTool the Military Industrial Complex to Green Energy Complex, and this big ship would steer much more manage-ably than we realize. It's all about priorities, and ours (humanity) are severely misguided. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From darren.greer3 at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 12:39:34 2011 From: darren.greer3 at gmail.com (Darren Greer) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 09:39:34 -0300 Subject: [ExI] Canada's Science Minister doesn't believe in evolution. Now what? Message-ID: Just another little gift from our ultra-conservative, anti-everything government up here in the great white north. Hope these bozos are defeated in the May 2nd election. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/science-minister-wont-confirm-belief-in-evolution/article320476/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 13:30:41 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 09:30:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Canada's Science Minister doesn't believe in evolution. Now what? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/2 Darren Greer > Just another little gift from our ultra-conservative, anti-everything > government up here in the great white north. Hope these bozos are defeated > in the May 2nd election. > > > http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/science-minister-wont-confirm-belief-in-evolution/article320476/ > > He should be out immediately. That's just plain ole "I'm sorry, you're not qualified for the job" right there. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 2 14:53:31 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 07:53:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mr Jones . We (humanity) can spend $1T/yr to kill/destroy/blow up each other, but we can't spend 10% of our 'death fund' to alleviate the issues we're fighting for? Penny-wise/Pound-foolish. . This implies you understand what we (humanity) are fighting for. Do you? Explain please. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sat Apr 2 13:24:41 2011 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sat, 02 Apr 2011 09:24:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] a new Vinge is coming In-Reply-To: <4D8B6F7F.90302@satx.rr.com> References: <4D8B6F7F.90302@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <201104021535.p32FZ9Tl000044@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Damien B wrote: >I see that Vernor Vinge's The Children of the Sky, the sequel to >Vinge's Hugo Award-winning A Fire Upon the Deep, will be released by >Tor books in October. Interesting! FWIW, Amazon discounts books more heavily if you pre-order them. They don't bill your credit card until the book ships. If the price drops between order and release, you get the lower price. The only annoyance is if the book is delayed, you have to reconfirm your order or they cancel it. And again every time it's delayed further. With enough pre-orders, a book can become an Amazon best-seller months before it comes out. That's useful for an author. The publisher, libraries, retail bookstores, show bookers, etc. pay attention, and alter their plans. On the other hand, it's also useful for authors to go in person to bookstores and buy out their stock. A retail sales spike generates replenishment orders up the distribution chain. (So do both. And ask your library to order a copy.) It's useful for avid readers to stay on top of how bookselling and publishing work. (It's constantly changing.) Not as much as, say, Damien and Charlie need to but, still, you need to understand the ways you can send signals that shape the future for the authors and genres you like. -- David. From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 15:55:18 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 11:55:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> References: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/2 spike > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Mr Jones > *?* > > We (humanity) can spend $1T/yr to kill/destroy/blow up each other, but we > can't spend 10% of our 'death fund' to alleviate the issues we're fighting > for? Penny-wise/Pound-foolish. > > ? > > > > This implies you understand what we (humanity) are fighting for. Do you? > Explain please. > > > Energy. Whether it be in the form of fuel in our tanks, or food in our stomach. It's all about energy. Always has been. Before OIL it was COAL. Before COAL it was WOOD. If the brilliant minds humanity has at it's disposal, spent less brain cycles devoted to destroying/controlling one another, and instead focused on freeing ourselves...we'd be much better off imho. It's silly, we spend $400B plus a year importing oil, yet $100B investment in renewable/sustainable energy is unheard of? It's a matter of mindset. Like being pro-peace, not anti-war. Move towards things, don't run away from them. Hell, the USoA has spent what...$2-3T on Iraq/Afghanistan, for what..global oil production? Imagine what $2-3T would have accomplished had it went to R&D in the energy sector. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 17:41:36 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 10:41:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 91, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 5:00 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 01/04/2011 6.17, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Mirco Romanato >> wrote: Snip >>> We can add to this that humans are able to move in other places, if >>> local conditions are unfriendly. And they are able of assortative >>> mating. These possibilities can, alone, make up for the difference >>> in selective pressure. > >> Agreed. Thus the selective pressure on humans has been fairly low >> over time, which was my point. > > I don't think so. > The poor were able to become a self sustaining [to clarify] > class only in the last two centuries > because before they near always died with few or no offspring. And they > were supplanted by the less accomplished (but better than them) > offspring of the middle class. As Clark notes, "downward social mobility." > In this way, in 20 generations (say the double of the time the foxes > needed to be culled) the people in England was selecting for middle > class traits and culling the poor (and partially the noble) out of the > breeding stock. I don't think the noble lost anything like the poor, who for generation after generation, died with few offspring. It doesn't take really intense breeding if it is over a long time. And in fact the selection in the UK was fairly intense from the numbers Clark found analyzing probated wills. Kelly, I really recommend reading Clark's research paper, Genetically capitalist. Or his book or both. Mirco has a solid understanding of the situation. There are substantial differences in populations because of different past selection pressures. It's not politically correct to say so of course. snip Keith From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 19:57:59 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 20:57:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 91, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Kelly, I really recommend reading Clark's research paper, Genetically > capitalist. ?Or his book or both. > > There are substantial differences in populations because of different > past selection pressures. ?It's not politically correct to say so of > course. > > Because it's wrong, of course. Culture and institutions are far more important. For example, you could try reading Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 by Fernand Braudel. it is a massive 3-volume epic by a real historian. Quote: Braudel claimed that there are long-term cycles in the capitalist economy which developed in Europe in the 12th century. Particular cities, and later nation-states, follow each other sequentially as centers of these cycles: Venice and Genoa in 13th through 15th centuries (1250?1510), Antwerp in 16th century (1500?1569), Amsterdam in 16th through 18th centuries (1570?1733), and London (and England) in 18th and 19th centuries (1733?1896). ------------------------------ BillK From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Sat Apr 2 22:47:41 2011 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:47:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is > that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact We might be exporting crap coal, and importing the good low-sulphur stuff for use in domestic power. Imports might be cheaper than burning our crap more cleanly, even if we could provide all our own coal. Just a guess. > that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The > other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going > through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers And if oil runs out enough that people start synthesizing it from coal, coal'll run down even faster. -xx- Damien X-) From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 2 23:23:38 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 17:23:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] note from a foaf in japan In-Reply-To: <4D962021.4070806@libero.it> References: <4D8DEFD5.7050804@libero.it> <4D962021.4070806@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 01/04/2011 6.17, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Mirco Romanato >> They bred a few hundred foxes with each generation, then only bred >> the 1% that were most tame or most aggressive. > > As I stated, this could not happen without having an huge number of > foxes. Even with females able to carry ten kittens they would not be > able to keep their population stable without an huge inflow of new > foxes, that would have washed away any genetic trait selected. > It is a math problem, not other. > If we had 99 vixen and one fox, any vixen could give birth to 10 kittens > at time. Make it 20 in her life. > This is a total of 1980 kitten in two years. Half female and half male > (I don't know of any sex imbalance in foxes). > Kill all the males apart one and 99% of the female and you will have > only 20 (rounded up) females and 1 male. > The next generation would leave 4 vixen and a fox. > And they would be very inbreed. This makes sense. Stated simply, to be able to pick 1% of the population at each generation, you would have to have 200 offspring per mating pair. So obviously, the report on NOVA was at the very least incomplete, if not completely wrong or I just misunderstood it completely. > Now, If you replenish the gene pool with other foxes and vixens, you > simply outnumber the selected breed with the unselected one, diluting > any gene selected for in the previous generation. Under heavy selection, genes would not be diluted, as long as you always bred a new fox with one in the studied population. Suppose that we have 50 foxes from the previous generation, 25 male and 25 female. We bring in 50 foxes from a non-selected group. If the gene is recessive, then we would expect 50% of the babies to be carriers, 25% to express the gene, and 25% would (on average) not have the gene. If you choose to keep the 25% that express the gene only, then the recessive gene becomes the only expression of the gene in the population in one generation. If it is a set of genes, it gets harder to get just the genes you care about, but not so much that you can't get terrific drift in 20 generations. The key is how good the selection criteria are. Diluting the genes from a general population would not be a huge issue. Genes don't dilute like sugar in water... it's a digital issue. You have the gene, or you don't. If you are doing good selection, you will get fast results. If nature does the selection imprecisely, then it takes longer, but it can still have a huge effect. >> I don't know the details of exactly how this culling was done, but >> I'd guess that the selection was done more on the male side than the >> female to avoid needing too much breeding stock. > > I'm contesting the number of 1% as not real and not realistic. > Not anything else. Having thought it through with you, I am inclined to agree with you. I was merely repeating what I had heard without critical thought. Not good... thanks for straightening things out. I'd still like to see the original research papers to see how they did it. >> The main point though is that these foxes were under a very severe >> selection compared to anything humans have ever faced. The black >> death took 20% of a generation at its height! > > This number is a bit optimistic. > The Black Death had taken out around 30% of the population of Europe > when ended. Given that more than one generation lived in the same time > (usually three), in many cases it wiped out entire generations and > populations and social strata. The key issue is what was the selection criteria? In this case, the only criteria was 'can this individual survive the plague?' That doesn't select for much of anything else, even though poor and weak individuals would more likely die for non-genetic factors. > We can suppose that it wiped out the most weak, physically, of the > population. And we can suppose that the poor were the most weak of all > (statistically). Recall that most of the people at the time were very poor. The rich ruling class was very small at this time, and there was virtually no middle class in feudal Europe. > In the wild I think highly randomized selection is very rare if not > impossible. It happens all the time on genes that are secondary to the primary gene set that assures survival. For example, the first dinosaurs that evolved feathers weren't selected for whether or not they had feathers, but for how fast they could run, or some other feature that was more important. As feathers evolved, the selection became more focused on feathers, and particularly on the ability to glide and eventually fly. Once birds were fully evolved, feather formation became a primary selection mechanism because feathers are much more important to birds than to the first dinosaurs that evolved feathers. So for secondary traits, highly randomized selection is the norm, so long as the mutation isn't negative towards the survival of the animal. > The selective pressure of people living in cities is continuous over > centuries. They are selected for traits allowing to thrive there. > Also, being city population sinks, they attracted large numbers of > people during many generations that allowed the selection process to > continue unabated. Often, then, the most successful families in the > cities would move out of the city with their wealth and buy farms and > large homes, to be able to afford more children. Name a specific trait that allows people to thrive in cities. Then tell me what the selection mechanism is to keep people without that trait from reproducing. The bottom line with people is that memes have been more important than genes for hundreds of years, so I would not expect see a lot of genetic changes over the past few hundred years because a wide cross section of society reproduces. Another way to ask the question is what sort of people don't reproduce in our modern societies? >>> We can add to this that humans are able to move in other places, if >>> local conditions are unfriendly. And they are able of assortative >>> mating. These possibilities can, alone, make up for the difference >>> in selective pressure. > >> Agreed. Thus the selective pressure on humans has been fairly low >> over time, which was my point. > > I don't think so. > The poor were able to become a class only in the last two centuries > because before they near always died with few or no offspring. And they > were supplanted by the less accomplished (but better than them) > offspring of the middle class. The children of rich people can become poor very easily. Today the poor reproduce at higher rates than the rich. I'm not sure what the historical case is, but farmers have historically had lots of kids. > In this way, in 20 generations (say the double of the time the foxes > needed to be culled) the people in England was selecting for middle > class traits and culling the poor (and partially the noble) out of the > breeding stock. The evolution of the middle class is memetic more than genetic, imho. > Recessive traits can not become dominating after a few generations or > many generations. This is true. However, the alternative gene set can become so rare that the trait becomes ubiquitous in the population. I'm sure there are thousands of recessive genes that are expressed in each of us for just this reason. > They could outnumber the dominating traits due to selection or > inbreeding, but in presence of a dominating gene they would not appear. > > An inbreeding of 2-7% could cause a drift during many generations if the > population is keep closed. But if the population is replenished of > individuals with no inbreeding, the inbreed traits of one generation > have only 2-7% of a chance to be passed to the next. So in the best case > we have 4/10K to pass the same trait to the second generation and in the > worst 49/10K AKA 0.5%. > >> Please restate your premise, or what you think is mine. I'm not >> following your point here perhaps. Sorry, I'm just a bit lost... > > Your premises (as I understood them) are that the foxes and the vixens > were subjected to an extensive culling (1% surviving to generate), where > the actual number given in the article I linked were 5% for foxes and > 20% for vixen. You are probably right. Still, with a 5% or even 20% survival rate, that is an EXTREME selection pressure that human beings have almost never seen. And certainly we haven't seen those extreme selection pressures based on the kinds of cultural issues that we started talking about. > Another premises of yours was that the population was not replenished by > new individuals. In fact, the scientists replenished the population > selected with other foxes and vixens coming from the original breeding > stock of foxes they started from (the ones used to produces furs). > They did it to avoid the spreading of recessive traits and inbreeding; > but you assumed inbreeding and the diffusion of recessive traits in the > tame foxes population. That does not surprise me. Nevertheless, the genes apparently became quite common in the population overall. >> If culture leads to genetic selection over the generations, i.e. if a >> person has a specific trait, they are more likely to breed in a given >> population, then yes, this could have an effect. This seems possible, >> at least. But I can't think of a documented case. > > The predisposition to learn how to read, write, do simple math is and > was a strong cultural trait that cause genetic selection. I don't think this is a justified statement. > Try to breed today without being able to read/write/do simple math. Lots of people do. > Take away the welfare state, the food stamps and the rest. Leave them on > their devices. Like 200 years ago or more. > Even more strong and durable, the selection for taking out people unable > to control their impulses and empathize others. > They would be, at least, be banned from the civil society. And without > welfare they would die because of starvation or be prey of organized > groups. For example, a not married woman having sex and becoming > pregnant would lose her family support and be shunned by any other > reputable man. Why? Because they would not risk to be rising someone > else children instead of theirs. > Exceptions abound, but invariably they concern very low standing women > (prostitute or maiden) or very high standing women (too valuable to > consider their previous sins). But can you point to one case where genetic change has happened. The only one that comes to mind is that our genes for lactose intolerance have been bred out after the creation of dairy as a main human food source. That is a very different kind of genetic drift than you are talking about. What you are saying is theoretically possible, but as far as I know undocumented as having actually happened. >> This should breed out the poor. So why do we keep getting new poor? >> ;-) > > Because poor is relative and not absolute. That is mostly because of technology, such as indoor plumbing, dentistry, etc. > It is the Red Queen Effect. Understood. This is what led Darwin to some of his initial thoughts in the first place. > Also, the people coming from the country have traits that could be > useful in the country but are not useful or are damaging when living in > a city. This is something discovered studying an African tribe; the same > traits that made them successful in herding sheep (so they were able to > feed themselves well) made them not very successful in keeping a job in > a city (so they were unable to keep themselves well fed). African tribes have definitely had enough time for some genetic drift. Is this research or a guess? In western cultures where people move to the city, then to the country and back, there isn't enough pressure or time to create meaningful genetic drift. >>> The problem is, if culture is the culprit, it would work >>> everywhere in the same way. > >> No, it would work differently in each culture... Again, not following >> your logic. > > If the culture is the dominant factor, if you take Africans (black) and > put them on adoption on European (white) families they would be > behaviorally and intellectually indistinguishable from other (white) > Europeans. They would be intellectually indistinguishable from > Europeans. Unfortunately it is not so. The same would be true for Asians > in Europeans families and the reverse or Europeans in African families. I am engaged in just such an experiment. I am Caucasian, I have six African American children, four Hispanic and one half Asian child. Culturally, they are all mostly culturally white. They are intellectually indistinguishable from me (other than some physical issues stemming from in utero abuse). Your position on this point seems racist, and completely unsupported by research. Of course, there is a cultural limit on how much real research has been done in this area because nobody wants to be called a racist. >>> This, in the US is not true, as North-East Asians are law abiding >>> more than Europeans that are more abiding than Latino Americans >>> that are more law abiding than blacks. > >> This is a whole other can of worms. > > A can of worms that people in the US is often afraid to touch for > cultural and social reasons. It is like talking about freedom of > religion in Saudi Arabia. If you talk abut the freedom of some Christian > to convert to Islam, all is good. The reverse is not well accepted in > the mainstream. We talk a lot about the higher rates of incarceration of minorities. >> Blacks are more carefully watched by the police, > > Why? > Why they don't check more for Hispanics or Vietnamese or Italians? > Are the policemen racists? Even the blacks one? Yes, even some black policemen are racist against blacks. In certain areas other minorities are targeted. For example in south Salt Lake city, there is a lot of pressure by police on the Polynesian population because so many of them have joined gangs. Again this is cultural, not genetic. > What allowed Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, > French, Russian and others to come in the US and, starting from the > bottom, climb up the social ladder until they were at par (and sometimes > over) the WASPs? Surely they were subjected to their fair (or unfair) > share of stereotyping, racist slurs, hate and lynching from the dominant > groups. Why they succeed anyway and the blacks didn't? My short answer is that politicians, particularly Democrats, have conspired to keep the blacks poor so that they would remain dependent upon the welfare state. It is a very complex situation. We have had racial issues in America since the beginning of our nation. Those issues are less prominent today than they ever have been, but they still exist. The problems of poverty, hopelessness and drugs in the inner cities affect minorities more than white people. It took the Irish at least three generations to escape from being the lowest in American society. At one point, the coal mines in West Virginia would hire Irish over black slaves because they were less valuable than the slaves to the mine owners. Similarly, the Chinese who build the transcontinental railroad were valued less than slaves. I blame politicians more than anyone else for the problems facing the blacks in America today. The black leadership (Jessie Jackson and the like) are particularly guilty IMHO. > There are cultural (maybe also genetic) differenced in behavior between > blacks coming from American ancestries and blacks coming from the > Caribbeans and blacks coming from Africa. Often they don't go well > together because of this. Blacks who recently came from Africa or the Caribbean are usually more immediately successful than African Americans with the cultural history. Yesterday, I interacted with an African pharmacist. I was not surprised, but I would have been more surprised by an African American pharmacist. In other words, the problem is not such much the color of their skin, but the color of their mind. After hearing that the "man is going to keep you down" for generations, many African Americans give up. My own African American children don't hear this negative talk, and I fully expect them to succeed in America. It's not genetic, it's cultural. >> leading to higher arrest rates. > > If I know to be more carefully watched by police, I usually try to be > more law abiding than usual. > >> Their poverty leads to poor representation, which leads to higher >> conviction rates. That does not imply that blacks are necessarily >> less law abiding than other races. > > Law abiding, in fact, is a too vague. > Could we talk about homicide rate? > Could we compare the Blacks on Blacks, White on White, Blacks on Whites > and Whites on Blacks or the East Asians on Blacks, etc.? > I suppose this is independent of who the police is watching more. Where I live, the most disproportionate homicide is done by undocumented Mexicans. Again, even if the homicide rate nation wide is higher for black on whoever, that doesn't mean it is genetic. It is societal and cultural if that is the case. >> You might be able to make a successful argument on a different >> basis. Besides, you can hardly argue that blacks in South Central LA >> live in the same culture as I do. That is beyond naive. > > So, if it is not genetics, then it is cultural. But this imply that the > culture of South Central is the main cause of the lawlessness (or of the > high arrest rate) of the Blacks. Correct. It is also the main cause of lawlessness of the Hispanics that live there. I would suspect that any white people living in South Central would also commit crime at a rate higher than the rest of the nation, but there are very few whites living there. I don't have numbers, this is a feeling. Four of my kids come from Compton (in south central) and I have spent some time there. I have also spent a couple of months in East Palo Alto, another troubled neighborhood. > But, if it is the culture, why is it not possible to force a culture on > a group to change its behavior in a generation or two. If it was > possible, someone would have already done it. What would had prevent > them from succeeding? They have succeeded. This doesn't make sense. Large changes in the zeitgeist are accomplished all the time. Look at the change in Southern attitudes towards blacks, or the nation's view of homosexuality. They have changed a lot just in my life time. > For example, the Conquistadors had not problem to raze Aztec temples, > kill their priests, and force the survivors to convert to Christianity. > One would suppose the Mexican population would be formed by perfect > Catholics, adopting Spanish costumes. It didn't worked exactly in this way. I have also spent a lot of time in Mexico. It DID work exactly this way. Mexico is 90%+ Catholic to this day. Where are you getting these ideas? >> Sweet! Now I wish I had some money. :-) That's really cool, and those >> foxes are really quite cute fellows... > > I would like to have the money to clone my current dog. > But also be able to buy a cute tame fox would be interesting. Sadly, they not only charge close to $7K, but you also get a neutered animal. Only five Americans have bothered to this point. You are prohibited from reproducing the animal. Not that you could without cloning. I think they are making a marketing mistake with this. >> Haiti is f'ed up. I would not necessarily attribute that to genetics. >> Their government has been horrible for a very long time. I attribute >> most of their problems to that. > > But the governments don't fall from the sky at random. Not usually. > Usually they are an expression of their population behaviors. > This is true for Haitians, Italians, Chinese and others. Yes, you do have something of a point here. Bad enough governments do eventually get overthrown. There are secondary religious issues in Haiti, as well as a huge amount of hopelessness. I took a water filtration system to an orphanage in Haiti. Rather than using it to filter water, it was immediately stolen and sold. It was very sad. >> Here is my bottom line. If there were as much genetic difference >> between groups as you suggest, then I think there would be a larger >> and more popular belief in racism. I'm not saying that you are a >> racist, but what I am saying is that if there were as much difference >> between different humans as you suggest, there would be a greater >> basis for racist thought. > > Are you talking about emotive/innate basis for racism or > logical/scientific/moral basis for racism? > Are we talking about the gut feelings of common people or the rational, > often learned, arguments of polite people in polite circles? I am talking about logical/scientific basis for racism. I don't think it exists. > Apart from the mainstream white western world, the rest is racist. Maybe > they don't wear the KKK hoods or don't shave > their heads, but they behave and often speak out their belief without > any problems. If you believe some people, ONLY white people in America are capable of racism. I don't agree with them. And in fact, I believe there are more black racists than white. Unfortunately, it is self directed racism in many cases. It's a kind of self inflicted wound. It really sucks. Yes, there is racism in every corner of the globe. Japan is racist against Koreans and Chinese. Don't even get started with tribal racism (Rwanda, etc.) It's all over the place. That doesn't mean people are right (in the scientific sense). > For example, recently the Thai police cracked down on blacks of Africans > origin (mainly Nigerians) because they engaged in too much drug > trafficking and behave in a too aggressive way to be tolerated. > Was the Thai police "racist"? Possibly not. Racial profiling of criminals is not necessarily racist, it's reality. Racial profiling of people getting on airplanes seems like a good idea to me. I think it is ridiculous to confuse racism with racial profiling of criminal elements. It is part of the confusion that is rampant in America today. > Try to apply the "racism" argument to the foxes. > After the breeding program, we have two population of foxes. > One tame and one wild. And one VERY wild, don't forget. > We know that some of the tame foxes developed characteristics that were > not present before in the wild population: curly tails, blue eyes, white > spots on the fur, floppy ears and these characteristics are common in > domesticated mammals. Correct. The chemical processes that bring about tameness, also bring about these other changes. > Now, a blue eyed population of foxes, looking at their wild counterparts > living on the wild, could note the others are more aggressive. They > don't know why the others are more aggressive. > They could develop one or more ?cultural explanations why the wild foxes > are more aggressive: the "racists" could say the "blue eyed" foxes are > superiors because they live in a peaceful civilization and all blue eyed > foxes must stick together to defend their civilization against the wild, > not blue eyed foxes. Others could think the white spotted foxes are > better behaving than the red foxes living in the wild. > Some full white and blue eyed foxes would develop the belief they are > better than all others (elitists exist everywhere). > On the other side the "racist" wild foxes would look at the white-lily, > watery eyed foxes as a bunch of weak, degenerated, infantile and whining > individuals, only able to play with their human masters and live in > their cages or inside human homes. Why don't take advantage of their > individual weakness? Ok. Here you are talking about real selected genetic difference. Racism in humans is not based on significant genetic differences because humans don't have very significant genetic differences. This is primarily because of the population bottleneck around 600K years ago. > Than another group of tame foxes could develop the explanation that the > wild ones are as they are because they are unfortunate and they never > were born inside their breeding farm. So they never developed and > learned how to behave and how good are humans to take care of them and > how beautiful is to love them. > Now, these "enlightened foxes" could be open to mate with wild ones or > adopt wild foxes kitten without parents or to invite the wild type to > live with them at the farm. Then they would be surprised that things > would not work out as they think. I think they could also blame the > "racist" foxes for the failure, because they never accepted and > continued to discriminated against the wild red furred, black eyed ones. As we progress towards real genetic differences engineered in post-humanity, I can see this becoming a REAL issue. I don't think it is a real genetic issue now. > They all would be wrong. They could feel better or find some advantage > to believe a thing or another, but they would anyway be wrong. > > If the tame foxes want to bring inside some wilder foxes they must know > and accept the facts. The wilder foxes must be breed and selected for a > behavior more tamer. And if the tame foxes want live with the wilder > one, they must breed themselves to be more aggressive (in this the most > aggressive can help). > > Maybe they can breed in or out in different, novel, ways. > What they can not avoid, like it or not, is evolution and selection to > happen anyway. Their believes and their behavior can change how > evolution and selection happen, to themselves and to others, but can not > stop it. Ok. > Yes. But soldiers in moder professional armies are mainly from middle > class and their IQ is a bit over the mean (this is surely true for in > the US). And in modern society the middle class is the bigger part of > the society. Actually, in the US armed forces, minorities and poor are represented in higher proportion than middle class and white. This is because of the financial benefits of joining the armed forces are more effective in recruiting people who need those benefits. > If they come from there, they are genetically and culturally inhibited > from acting aggressively. In fact I remember a German soldier, in a > documentary about the Battle of Cassino, complaining that the US > soldiers didn't went in battle like "real soldiers" but like they were > going to a "normal" job. In World War II, it was a very different issue because they had a draft. So the army had more middle class elements. My bottom line is that I believe memetics are more important in recent human evolution than genetics. Culture brings about changes much more quickly than genetics, to the point that human genetics (at this point) are nearly meaningless. As we engineer human genetics, it will start to make a bigger difference, of course. Even then, I personally believe that cybernetic implants will have a bigger effect than genetic changes. Racism is wrong morally. It is also wrong scientifically. Comparing humans to the foxes just throws out too much baby with the bath water. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 06:46:15 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 00:46:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Damien Sullivan wrote: > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is >> that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact > > We might be exporting crap coal, and importing the good low-sulphur > stuff for use in domestic power. ?Imports might be cheaper than burning > our crap more cleanly, even if we could provide all our own coal. ?Just > a guess. This is just the kind of crap that happens when we say that we're concerned about the global environment, but really only care about the politics of power. I'm just so sick of it. I really do care about the environment, but none of the politicians seem to really care about that, except when it gives them some political advantage. It makes me sick. I hope this isn't really happening, but you're probably right. >> that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The >> other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going >> through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers > > And if oil runs out enough that people start synthesizing it from coal, > coal'll run down even faster. True, but I'm not worried about that so much, because I think it's cheaper to synthesize oil from tar sands (Canada has a LOT of that) and even the methane deposits at the bottom of the ocean will *probably* be cheaper in the long term than coal gassification. There will probably be some conversion of coal to a liquid fuel, but I'm hoping that the other options (even if they are fossil options) will kick in first. I don't know what the actual cost is of each option, this is just my sense of things hearing how people talk about it. I can do the research later if anyone is really interested in the relative costs. The methane fuel (methane hydrates?) is really a big deal because there is an abundance of it. Of course, the global warming crowd won't like liberating any more CO2, and at some point it really is going to start having a big effect. Sorry, it's late... I'll do more fact checking later if I get a chance. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 06:50:57 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 00:50:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 91, Issue 2 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > Kelly, I really recommend reading Clark's research paper, Genetically > capitalist. ?Or his book or both. Do you have a URL? I'm not afraid of additional facts, no matter how politically incorrect they may be. > Mirco has a solid understanding of the situation. > > There are substantial differences in populations because of different > past selection pressures. ?It's not politically correct to say so of > course. I may be wrong, but I don't think genetics plays a bigger part in recent zeitgeist shifts than memetics. You'll never convince me that I'm smarter than my non-Caucasian children... :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 07:08:06 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:08:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/2 Mr Jones : > 2011/4/2 spike >> This implies you understand what we (humanity) are fighting for.? Do you? >> Explain please. I'm fighting/hoping for more intelligence in the world. With enough intelligence, I think we can solve our energy problems. > Energy. ?Whether it be in the form of fuel in our tanks, or food in our > stomach. ?It's all about energy. ?Always has been. ?Before OIL it was COAL. > ?Before COAL it was WOOD. Energy is clearly central to the endeavors of human beings and will be to our successors as well. Let's do a little exercise... Let's suppose that in 100 years most intelligence is non-human. That is, it runs on a non-biological substrate. I would suppose that such a substrate would be able to survive without too much difficulty in outer space. Given the nearly limitless solar energy that could be harvested by orbiting the sun, I kind of wonder if earth itself won't be a backwater in 100 years. If intelligent robots can survive in space without the life support that biological humans require, then harvesting the needed materials from asteroids, comets and other sources will be cheaper than bringing materials up from earth to space. So the whole concept of the importance of the space elevator, beaming solar energy down to earth, solving global warming and so forth may be a problem for the remaining biological legacy on earth, but may not be "where it's happening" in the future. This is just a thought experiment, I'm curious what you all think. > If the brilliant minds humanity has at it's disposal, spent less brain > cycles devoted to destroying/controlling one another, and instead focused on > freeing ourselves...we'd be much better off imho. Of course we would, but if we didn't spend money on war, we certainly wouldn't be spending it on something less politically important. At some point, when gasoline is $20 a gallon, and there is no hope of it ever going under $15 a gallon, then the people of the USA will raise the priority of energy management to the point that such spending will seem justified to the point that the politicians will pay attention. Sorry for the cynical attitude today... but I just don't see politicians as an intelligent life form. > It's silly, we spend $400B plus a year importing oil, yet $100B investment > in renewable/sustainable energy is unheard of? Yup. The idea that Al Gore would have done things differently is a pipe dream... even with his green ideas, I don't think it would have turned out all that differently. > It's a matter of mindset. ?Like being pro-peace, not anti-war. ?Move towards > things, don't run away from them. > Hell, the USoA has spent what...$2-3T on Iraq/Afghanistan, for what..global > oil production? ?Imagine what $2-3T would have accomplished had it went to > R&D in the energy sector. I love the spin on Libya. It's so clearly about oil, why do they have to maintain the facade that it's human rights concerns? We haven't done crap in Sudan. There is more human suffering in Haiti, Sumatra and Japan than there ever will be in Libya, but Libya has oil... it's the only difference. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 07:24:30 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:24:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <374011.22744.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <003a01cbed67$c7e4b4e0$57ae1ea0$@att.net> <374011.22744.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Serious question to the paleo dieters... Why would we emulate a diet that resulted in a 25 year life span? I understand the bit about us being evolved to the diet, but we also were living short fast difficult lives at the time. Is that what we want to return to? It just seems counter intuitive to me. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 07:29:01 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:29:01 -0600 Subject: [ExI] THE END for nuclear power In-Reply-To: <4D935653.5050607@lightlink.com> References: <00f801cbe970$b6768260$23638720$@att.net> <4D8BD7E5.7030503@lightlink.com> <4D935653.5050607@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > *reflected* back by the wall, it will build up behind it, because it is > travelling at 50 mph. Just a dumb question here... but they say that the tsunami waves travel at mid ocean around 500 MPH. Why do they slow down so much when they go onto land? I get the bunching up and getting tall part, but why does it slow down 10x? Does anyone have a handle on that? -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 08:41:59 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 02:41:59 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Are mini nuclear power stations the way forward? In-Reply-To: <20110327113806.GM23560@leitl.org> References: <4D8122EC.5060202@libero.it> <00b801cbe425$e882f310$b988d930$@att.net> <20110317075001.GS23560@leitl.org> <20110319082726.GP23560@leitl.org> <20110322092159.GT23560@leitl.org> <20110327113806.GM23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 06:58:45PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 3:21 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> >> I think the future in offline storage MAY lie in compressed air. Large >> > >> > No, only for very large scale. The thermodynamics of it doesn't allow >> > small scale. >> >> Tell it to Tata motors. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car > > Disadvantages > > The principal disadvantage is the indirect use of energy. Energy is used to compress air, >which - in turn - provides the energy to run the motor. Any conversion of energy between >forms results in loss. Absolutely! And we have the same problem with batteries and fuel cells as well. Since we're talking about storing excess solar energy, it is all the same kind of problem, although the specific numbers may differ for particular systems. >For conventional combustion motor cars, the energy is lost when chemical energy in fossil >fuels is converted to heat energy, most of which goes to waste. For compressed-air cars, >energy is lost when chemical energy is converted to electrical energy, and then when >electrical energy is converted to compressed air. Yup. > When air expands in the engine it cools dramatically (Charles's law) and must be heated to >ambient temperature using a heat exchanger. The heating is necessary in order to obtain a >significant fraction of the theoretical energy output. The heat exchanger can be problematic: >while it performs a similar task to an intercooler for an internal combustion engine, the >temperature difference between the incoming air and the working gas is smaller. In heating >the stored air, the device gets very cold and may ice up in cool, moist climates. I agree that the heating of air on compression, and the cooling of air on decompression are the greatest problems to overcome in a compressed air power storage system. > Conversely, when air is compressed to fill the tank it heats up: as the stored air cools, its >pressure decreases and available energy decreases. It is difficult to cool the tank efficiently >while charging and thus it would either take a long time to fill the tank, or less energy is stored. That is a correct analysis. > Refueling the compressed air container using a home or low-end conventional air >compressor may take as long as 4 hours, though specialized equipment at service stations >may fill the tanks in only 3 minutes.[3] To store 14.3 kWh @300 bar in 300 l (90 m3 @ 1 bar) >reservoirs, you need at least 93 kWh on the compressor side (with an optimum single stage >compressor working on the ideal adiabatic limit), or rather less with a multistage unit. That >means, a compressor power of over 1 Megawatt (1000 kW) is needed to fill the reservoirs in >5 minutes from a single stage unit, or several hundred horsepower for a multistage one.[6] >[citation needed] Ok, correct me if I'm wrong on this one... but if you have compressed air in a large storage tank at the gas station, and you merely transport that compressed air into the car's tank, that doesn't involve active compression, and thus for that particular exchange, there is no heating or cooling issues. Getting the air compressed at the gas station is admittedly a big issue, but fueling up is not, I think, a big problem. Going down the road of course is another time where the temperature issues come up. > The overall efficiency of a vehicle using compressed air energy storage, using the above >refueling figures, cannot exceed 14%, even with a 100% efficient engine?and practical >engines are closer to 10-20%.[7] For comparison, well to wheel efficiency using a modern >internal-combustion drivetrain is about 20%,[8] Therefore, if powered by air compressed >using a compressor driven by an engine using fossil fuels technology, a compressed air car >would have a larger carbon footprint than a car powered directly by an engine using fossil >fuels technology. Not if the compression were accomplished with solar or wind... right? > Early tests have demonstrated the limited storage capacity of the tanks; the only published >test of a vehicle running on compressed air alone was limited to a range of 7.22 km.[9] I had heard Tata had gone above 20 miles, but that may have been with a hybrid system compressing air as you go... > A 2005 study demonstrated that cars running on lithium-ion batteries out-perform both >compressed air and fuel cell vehicles more than threefold at the same speeds.[10] Interesting. >MDI has recently claimed that an air car will be able to travel 140 km in urban driving, and >have a range of 80 km with a top speed of 110 km/h (68 mph) on highways,[11] when >operating on compressed air alone, but in as late as mid 2009, MDI has still not produced any >proof to that effect. Yeah, got to see something actually working to totally believe it. > A 2009 University of Berkeley Research Letter found that "Even under highly optimistic >assumptions the compressed-air car is significantly less efficient than a battery electric >vehicle and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional gas-powered car >with a coal intensive power mix." however they also suggested, "a pneumatic?combustion >hybrid is technologically feasible, inexpensive and could eventually compete with hybrid >electric vehicles."[12] > > >> If I could score some parts from a Tata Nano, I think I could make a >> nice storage system... I don't understand what you mean by the >> thermodynamics of the situation in detail, I do understand that > > Just ideal gas law. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage > > Compression of air generates a lot of heat. The air is warmer after compression. Understood. >Decompression requires heat. If no extra heat is added, the air will be much colder after >decompression. If the heat generated during compression can be stored and used again >during decomression, the efficiency of the storage improves considerably. Perhaps something can be accomplished with this more effectively in a home electric storage system than in a car where weight is more of an issue... just a thought. > There are three ways in which a CAES system can deal with the heat. Air storage can be >adiabatic, diabatic, or isothermic: > Adiabatic storage retains the heat produced by compression and returns it to the air when >the air is expanded to generate power. This is a subject of ongoing study, with no utility scale >plants as of 2010. Its theoretical efficiency approaches 100% for large and/or rapidly cycled >devices and/or perfect thermal insulation, but in practice round trip efficiency is expected to >be 70%.[3] Heat can be stored in a solid such as concrete or stone, or more likely in a fluid >such as hot oil (up to 300 ?C) or molten salt solutions (600 ?C). fascinating. > Diabatic storage dissipates the extra heat with intercoolers (thus approaching isothermal >compression) into the atmosphere as waste. Upon removal from storage, the air must be >re-heated prior to expansion in the turbine to power a generator which can be accomplished >with a natural gas fired burner for utility grade storage or with a heated metal mass. The lost >heat degrades efficiency, but this approach is simpler and is thus far the only system which >has been implemented commercially. The McIntosh, Alabama CAES plant requires 2.5 MJ of >electricity and 1.2 MJ lower heating value (LHV) of gas for each megajoule of energy >output.[4] A General Electric 7FA 2x1 combined cycle plant, one of the most efficient natural >gas plants in operation, uses 6.6 MJ (LHV) of gas per kW?h generated,[5] a 54% thermal >efficiency comparable to the McIntosh 6.8 MJ, at 53% thermal efficiency. So how much does the natural gas heating eat into the storage capacity and efficiency? > Isothermal compression and expansion approaches attempt to maintain operating >temperature by constant heat exchange to the environment. They are only practical for low >power levels, without very effective heat exchangers. The theoretical efficiency of isothermal >energy storage approaches 100% for small and/or slowly cycled devices and/or perfect heat >transfer to the environment. In practice neither of these perfect thermodynamic cycles are >obtainable, as some heat losses are unavoidable. Yes, conversion of energy type always results in some heat loss. That is to be expected. Low power levels sounds like it might work in a home storage environment. How much do you think the rules change when dealing with a home electricity storage unit vs. running a car? i.e. what can you gain by having the luxury of extra weight in the system? > A different, highly efficient arrangement, which fits neatly into none of the above categories, >uses high, medium and low pressure pistons in series, with each stage followed by an airblast >venturi that draws ambient air over an air-to-air (or air-to-seawater) heat exchanger between >each expansion stage. Early compressed air torpedo designs used a similar approach, >substituting seawater for air. The venturi warms the exhaust of the preceding stage and >admits this preheated air to the following stage. This approach was widely adopted in various >compressed air vehicles such as H. K. Porter, Inc's mining locomotives[6] and trams.[7] Here >the heat of compression is effectively stored in the atmosphere (or sea) and returned later on. > Compression can be done with electrically powered turbo-compressors and expansion with >turbo 'expanders'[8] or air engines driving electrical generators to produce electricity. > The storage vessel is often an underground cavern created by solution mining (salt is >dissolved in water for extraction)[9] or by utilizing an abandoned mine. Plants operate on a >daily cycle, charging at night and discharging during the day. > Compressed air energy storage can also be employed on a smaller scale such as exploited >by air cars and air-driven locomotives, and also by the use of high-strength carbon-fiber air >storage tanks. Yes, I understand that the carbon fiber tanks are a necessity for weight and safety issues. >> compressed air can get very hot and needs to be cooled... but it would >> SEEM that Tata has resolved these issues to some extent. > > Tata can't magically route around thermodynamics. No, they can't. It would seem that they have backed off of some of their initial claims and schedules as well :-( >> >> building sized batteries also have some interesting potential. An >> > >> > The car industry will bring you pretty powerful batteries within >> > the next 10 years. >> >> I hope so. Battery power stored per kilogram follows a Law of >> Accelerating Returns curve, does it not? > > Not at all, progress is linear, and will be sublinear as > it asymptotically approaches the ceiling of the storage > technology: > > e.g. http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/07/was_moores_law.php > > http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/Battery%20Energy%20Density.jpg > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density > > http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Energy_density.svg Pity that. >> > Yes, but one of the most inefficient things you can do with PV >> > panels you rely on to sit under snow. Climbing up the roof to >> > clean them off is not a particular sane way of dealing with the >> > situation. >> >> I think it is the only sane way to deal with it... putting in a >> heating system is just not practical. If I had it to do over again, I > > It is not that difficult to add adhesive resistive heating pads to the > back of the panels even after the fact. (More adventurous natures > could attempt to bypass the panel diodes, and use the panel > itself for heating, e.g. this is a problem with monocrystalline > cells parts of which are shaded off, but I wouldn't do that). > > Just use ethylene glycol or another antifreeze mix, picking a mix that > will survive your worst case without freezing. That makes sense. > What is your battery capacity, in Wh? What exactly are you running > at night? Is your diesel on-demand or has to be switched on manually? My generator is gasoline, not diesel. Currently, I have no batteries, but previously I had 8 large L16P Trojan batteries. http://www.trojanbatteryre.com/PDF/datasheets/L16PAC_Trojan_Data_Sheets.pdf I can't get it to download right now, so I don't know the Wh off hand. -Kelly From js_exi at gnolls.org Sun Apr 3 09:18:33 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 02:18:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> > From: Kelly Anderson > Serious question to the paleo dieters... Why would we emulate a diet > that resulted in a 25 year life span? I understand the bit about us > being evolved to the diet, but we also were living short fast > difficult lives at the time. Is that what we want to return to? It > just seems counter intuitive to me. That's a common myth, cleanly addressed here: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf "The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68-78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional equivalent of an "adaptive" human lifespan." [...] "Illnesses account for 70 percent, violence and accidents for 20 percent, and degenerative diseases for 9 percent of all deaths in our sample." [...] "Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of hunter-gatherers and of the life cycle of Homo sapiens. Survivorship to grandparental age is achieved by over two-thirds of people who reach sexual maturity and can last an average of 20 years." It is important to note that to a first approximation, 0% of 'civilized' people would survive to such a lifespan without the benefit of emergency rooms, antibiotics, stents, bypasses, joint replacements, and a pharmacopoeia of medications...let alone contribute positively to the society in which they live. In other words, this is a functional human lifespan...and our functional lifespan, here in 'civilization', is currently *decreasing* even though absolute lifespan is increasing: http://www.gnolls.org/864/the-lipid-hypothesis-has-officially-failed-part-2-of-many/ Further reading: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2010/02/paleo-life-expectancy.html http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com/2008/07/mortality-and-lifespan-of-inuit.html JS http://www.gnolls.org From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 3 09:22:39 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 11:22:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> Message-ID: <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 02, 2011 at 03:47:41PM -0700, Damien Sullivan wrote: > And if oil runs out enough that people start synthesizing it from coal, > coal'll run down even faster. Things never run out. There just a point where demand eclipses supply. Your pain starts at that point, and gets more severe with the progressively opening demand gap. In case of key resource like energy this cripples growth until substituted. Unlike WWII Fischer-Tropsch using coal both as carbon and energy source won't save the day because declining EROEI makes you consume it exponentially. Even using fossils as concentrated carbon source of synfuels using water electrolysis as hydrogen and photovoltaics as energy source doesn't make sense, as there's plenty of high-quality carbon dioxide sources and in terms of energy input scrubbing CO2 directly from the atmosphere has negligible penalty. Photovoltaics has the interesting property that a 2% electricity source can produce >20% peak demand. Obviously you can be >100% after just 2-3 doublings, even not counting other renewable. Even the grid could absorb it nobody can use that much. Negative prices during peak happen even now. What do you do with surplus? Dump it into synfuel. What does this mean long-term? That current projections of future electricity demand are junk. Multiply them by N. -- 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 From js_exi at gnolls.org Sun Apr 3 09:41:22 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 02:41:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity paleo diet again Message-ID: <4D9840C2.2060604@gnolls.org> Resending: roughly one-half of my emails to this list are inexplicably eaten. On 3/29/11 5:00 AM, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: > My theory is that for optimum results, instead of eating low fat foods in > high quantities, dieters should eat high fat foods in low quantities. Similar to Stefano, I prefer to eat high-fat foods in high quantities, but with low *frequency*. In fact, a low frequency of eating is beneficial in several ways, AFAIK: intermittent fasting produces most of the same effects as calorie restriction (beneficial autophagy, etc.), without decreasing muscle mass or lowering energy levels (as net calorie intake is diminished far less than with full-time CR). Even if you're not engaging in IF, it's best not to "snack", because ingesting food without complete protein is always catabolic to some extent: http://www.gnolls.org/1794/why-snacking-makes-you-weak-not-just-fat/ Quantities aren't independent. Dietary guidelines that "Everyone should eat less fat" imply "Everyone should eat more of something else". For decades this was left unstated, and the hole left by "Stop eating fat and cholesterol" was filled with "Eat more sugar" (i.e. "carbohydrates"). My argument is that humans have an animal-fat-based metabolism as a consequence of our unique evolutionary history (not a protein-based metabolism, like obligate carnivores), and that is why we crave fat so much: http://www.gnolls.org/1763/why-humans-crave-fat/ Currently the majority of my caloric intake comes from animal fat, primarily from fatty red meat and eggs. I've never felt better in my life: apparently I've been suffering from a multi-decade saturated fat deficiency, and am just now re-learning to eat like a human being. JS http://www.gnolls.org From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 09:47:52 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 10:47:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> References: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 10:18 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > "The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a > range of 68-78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional > equivalent of an "adaptive" human lifespan." > > "Illnesses account for 70 percent, violence and accidents for 20 percent, > and degenerative diseases for 9 percent of all deaths in our sample." > > "Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of hunter-gatherers and of > the life cycle of Homo sapiens. Survivorship to grandparental age is > achieved by over two-thirds of people who reach sexual maturity and can last > an average of 20 years." > > I don't believe it is a myth that paleo people only had an average life span of around 30-35 years. But it wasn't due to their diet. Your report is probably correct in saying that humans have evolved to have a 70-80 year expected lifespan. But going back through history the average life expectancy never got above about 45 years until around 1950. Long life expectancy is a really new event in human history. Think back to the 1920s when families had ten children and at least half of them died. The reason for the short lifespan had little to do with diet. Humans can live on almost anything. They are very adaptable. Disease, lack of hygiene, trauma, fighting, caused the short life spans. BillK From rpwl at lightlink.com Sun Apr 3 12:43:44 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 08:43:44 -0400 Subject: [ExI] THE END for nuclear power In-Reply-To: References: <00f801cbe970$b6768260$23638720$@att.net> <4D8BD7E5.7030503@lightlink.com> <4D935653.5050607@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4D986B80.3050501@lightlink.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> Kelly Anderson wrote: >>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> *reflected* back by the wall, it will build up behind it, because it is >> travelling at 50 mph. > > Just a dumb question here... but they say that the tsunami waves > travel at mid ocean around 500 MPH. Why do they slow down so much when > they go onto land? I get the bunching up and getting tall part, but > why does it slow down 10x? Does anyone have a handle on that? If the waves bunch up and get very tall, they have to also be travelling slower because otherwise there would be gain of energy and momentum en route. The underlying cause of the slowdown is the decreasing depth of the water. The wave motion is a composite o orbital motions of the water particles, down to a certain depth below the surface. When the water is deep this orbital motion can occur freely, but as the sea bed comes up there is obstruction of that motion that has the net effect of slowing the wave. Richard Loosemore From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 13:00:20 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 06:00:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 91, Issue 3 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 1:42 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> Kelly, I really recommend reading Clark's research paper, Genetically >> capitalist. ?Or his book or both. > > Do you have a URL? I'm not afraid of additional facts, no matter how > politically incorrect they may be. I have cited the paper on this mailing list at least a dozen times in the last few years, back to Dec 2007 http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2007-December/039363.html I should add that Google is your friend. The entire first page of results for Genetically Capitalist in are about this paper, the third one in the list point to the above URL >> Mirco has a solid understanding of the situation. >> >> There are substantial differences in populations because of different >> past selection pressures. ?It's not politically correct to say so of >> course. > > I may be wrong, but I don't think genetics plays a bigger part in > recent zeitgeist shifts than memetics. The poor don't currently starve in western culture. Incidentally, you could Google memetics "Keith Henson" to see what I have contributed to this area back to the mid 80s. > You'll never convince me that > I'm smarter than my non-Caucasian children... :-) If you say so, I have no argument. Given the spread we know, there is much overlap between groups even if the Chinese average smarter than people from Western Europe.. But in any case Clark was not talking about smartness, he was talking more about the personality traits needed to become well off in a stable agrarian society. The twin studies have made it very clear that personality traits are largely the results of genes. If you want to argue that genes have little or no effect, I have this horse that needs to learn calculus. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 13:05:49 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 06:05:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost Message-ID: (sorry about not fixing the subject line in the previous) On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 6:00 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2007-December/039363.html Being much influenced by the concepts of evolutionary psychology, I have tended to discount the idea of humans being much shaped by recent evolution. Exceptions have been accumulating, the taming of wild foxes in as few as 8 generations, and the acquisition of genes (a number of them!) for adult lactose tolerance in peoples with a dairy culture. Yes, you can get serious population average shifts if the selection pressure is high enough. Now Dr. Gregory Clark, in one of those huge efforts that lead to breakthroughs, has produced a study that makes a strong case for recent (last few hundred years) and massive changes in population average psychological traits. It leaves in place that a huge part of our psychological traits did indeed come out of the stone age, but adds to that recent and very strong selection pressures on the population of settled agriculture societies in the "Malthusian trap." I came a bit late to this party, Dr. Clark's book _A Farewell to Alms_ peaked at 17 on Amazon's sales months ago. My copy has not come yet so I read this paper off his academic web site. http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf "Genetically Capitalist? The Malthusian Era, Institutions and the Formation of Modern Preferences." There is lots of other material here: http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/research.html but this paper is just stunning because of how much light it shines on a long list of mysteries. Such as: Why did the modern world grow out of a small part of Europe and why did it take so long? Why are the Chinese doing so well compared to say Africa? The upshot of his research was that in the Mathusian era in England people with the personality characteristics to become well off economically had at least twice as many surviving children as those in the lower economic classes--who were not replacing themselves. This, of course, led to "downward social mobility," where the numerous sons and daughters of the rich tended to be less well off (on average) than their parents. But over 20 generations (1200-1800) it did spread the genes for the personality characteristics for accumulating wealth through the entire population. "In the institutional and technological context of these societies, a new set of human attributes mattered for the only currency that mattered in the Malthusian era, which was reproductive success. In this world literacy and numeracy, which were irrelevant before, were both helpful for economic success in agrarian pre-industrial economies. Thus since economic success was linked to reproductive success, facility with numbers and wordswas pulled along in its wake. Since patience and hard work found a new reward in a society with large amounts of capital, patience and hard work were also favored." Fascinating work, memes that slot right in to the rest of my understanding of the world and the people in it. I very strongly recommend reading this paper at least. Keith Henson From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 15:43:00 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 08:43:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Clark and Braudel Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 1:42 AM, > wrote: > On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 6:41 PM, Keith Henson ?wrote: > >> Kelly, I really recommend reading Clark's research paper, Genetically >> capitalist. ?Or his book or both. >> >> There are substantial differences in populations because of different >> past selection pressures. ?It's not politically correct to say so of >> course. > > Because it's wrong, of course. > > Culture and institutions are far more important. Bill, if you read Clark's rather detailed research, you would find that it was long persisting culture and institutions that set up the conditions for the strong genetic selection in the UK. Kind of like the strong selection for lactase production into adulthood was the result of the culture where people were keeping dairy animals. So from a *causal* perspective, culture came before the strong Darwinian/Malthusian selection that changed the average personality characteristics of certain populations. Clark makes a case that in 400 years of selection, the UK population got a nearly complete genetic replacement by those well off in the Middle ages. By 1800, when the poor largely quit dying from starvation, the stage was set for the industrial revolution. "Importance" is hard to assign in complicated systems of feedback loops. > For example, you could try reading Capitalism and Material Life, > 1400-1800 by Fernand Braudel. it is a massive 3-volume epic by a real > historian. I have to wonder what Fernand Braudel would think about Gregory Clark's work. Braudel is one of the few who took a long enough view of economic history to appreciate what Clark is proposing. They are both economic historians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_Clark_%28economist%29 Keith > > > Quote: > Braudel claimed that there are long-term cycles in the capitalist > economy which developed in Europe in the 12th century. Particular > cities, and later nation-states, follow each other sequentially as > centers of these cycles: Venice and Genoa in 13th through 15th > centuries (1250?1510), Antwerp in 16th century (1500?1569), Amsterdam > in 16th through 18th centuries (1570?1733), and London (and England) > in 18th and 19th centuries (1733?1896). > ------------------------------ > > BillK > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 9 > Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 15:47:41 -0700 > From: Damien Sullivan > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] THE END for fossil power > Message-ID: <20110402224741.GA3953 at ofb.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is >> that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact > > We might be exporting crap coal, and importing the good low-sulphur > stuff for use in domestic power. ?Imports might be cheaper than burning > our crap more cleanly, even if we could provide all our own coal. ?Just > a guess. > >> that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The >> other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going >> through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers > > And if oil runs out enough that people start synthesizing it from coal, > coal'll run down even faster. > > -xx- Damien X-) > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 10 > Date: Sat, 2 Apr 2011 17:23:38 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] note from a foaf in japan > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> Il 01/04/2011 6.17, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Mirco Romanato >>> They bred a few hundred foxes with each generation, then only bred >>> the 1% that were most tame or most aggressive. >> >> As I stated, this could not happen without having an huge number of >> foxes. Even with females able to carry ten kittens they would not be >> able to keep their population stable without an huge inflow of new >> foxes, that would have washed away any genetic trait selected. >> It is a math problem, not other. >> If we had 99 vixen and one fox, any vixen could give birth to 10 kittens >> at time. Make it 20 in her life. >> This is a total of 1980 kitten in two years. Half female and half male >> (I don't know of any sex imbalance in foxes). >> Kill all the males apart one and 99% of the female and you will have >> only 20 (rounded up) females and 1 male. >> The next generation would leave 4 vixen and a fox. >> And they would be very inbreed. > > This makes sense. Stated simply, to be able to pick 1% of the > population at each generation, you would have to have 200 offspring > per mating pair. So obviously, the report on NOVA was at the very > least incomplete, if not completely wrong or I just misunderstood it > completely. > >> Now, If you replenish the gene pool with other foxes and vixens, you >> simply outnumber the selected breed with the unselected one, diluting >> any gene selected for in the previous generation. > > Under heavy selection, genes would not be diluted, as long as you > always bred a new fox with one in the studied population. Suppose that > we have 50 foxes from the previous generation, 25 male and 25 female. > We bring in 50 foxes from a non-selected group. If the gene is > recessive, then we would expect 50% of the babies to be carriers, 25% > to express the gene, and 25% would (on average) not have the gene. If > you choose to keep the 25% that express the gene only, then the > recessive gene becomes the only expression of the gene in the > population in one generation. If it is a set of genes, it gets harder > to get just the genes you care about, but not so much that you can't > get terrific drift in 20 generations. > > The key is how good the selection criteria are. Diluting the genes > from a general population would not be a huge issue. Genes don't > dilute like sugar in water... it's a digital issue. You have the gene, > or you don't. If you are doing good selection, you will get fast > results. If nature does the selection imprecisely, then it takes > longer, but it can still have a huge effect. > >>> I don't know the details of exactly how this culling was done, but >>> I'd guess that the selection was done more on the male side than the >>> female to avoid needing too much breeding stock. >> >> I'm contesting the number of 1% as not real and not realistic. >> Not anything else. > > Having thought it through with you, I am inclined to agree with you. I > was merely repeating what I had heard without critical thought. Not > good... thanks for straightening things out. I'd still like to see the > original research papers to see how they did it. > >>> The main point though is that these foxes were under a very severe >>> selection compared to anything humans have ever faced. The black >>> death took 20% of a generation at its height! >> >> This number is a bit optimistic. >> The Black Death had taken out around 30% of the population of Europe >> when ended. Given that more than one generation lived in the same time >> (usually three), in many cases it wiped out entire generations and >> populations and social strata. > > The key issue is what was the selection criteria? In this case, the > only criteria was 'can this individual survive the plague?' That > doesn't select for much of anything else, even though poor and weak > individuals would more likely die for non-genetic factors. > >> We can suppose that it wiped out the most weak, physically, of the >> population. And we can suppose that the poor were the most weak of all >> (statistically). > > Recall that most of the people at the time were very poor. The rich > ruling class was very small at this time, and there was virtually no > middle class in feudal Europe. > >> In the wild I think highly randomized selection is very rare if not >> impossible. > > It happens all the time on genes that are secondary to the primary > gene set that assures survival. For example, the first dinosaurs that > evolved feathers weren't selected for whether or not they had > feathers, but for how fast they could run, or some other feature that > was more important. As feathers evolved, the selection became more > focused on feathers, and particularly on the ability to glide and > eventually fly. Once birds were fully evolved, feather formation > became a primary selection mechanism because feathers are much more > important to birds than to the first dinosaurs that evolved feathers. > > So for secondary traits, highly randomized selection is the norm, so > long as the mutation isn't negative towards the survival of the > animal. > >> The selective pressure of people living in cities is continuous over >> centuries. They are selected for traits allowing to thrive there. >> Also, being city population sinks, they attracted large numbers of >> people during many generations that allowed the selection process to >> continue unabated. Often, then, the most successful families in the >> cities would move out of the city with their wealth and buy farms and >> large homes, to be able to afford more children. > > Name a specific trait that allows people to thrive in cities. Then > tell me what the selection mechanism is to keep people without that > trait from reproducing. > > The bottom line with people is that memes have been more important > than genes for hundreds of years, so I would not expect see a lot of > genetic changes over the past few hundred years because a wide cross > section of society reproduces. Another way to ask the question is what > sort of people don't reproduce in our modern societies? > >>>> We can add to this that humans are able to move in other places, if >>>> local conditions are unfriendly. And they are able of assortative >>>> mating. These possibilities can, alone, make up for the difference >>>> in selective pressure. >> >>> Agreed. Thus the selective pressure on humans has been fairly low >>> over time, which was my point. >> >> I don't think so. >> The poor were able to become a class only in the last two centuries >> because before they near always died with few or no offspring. And they >> were supplanted by the less accomplished (but better than them) >> offspring of the middle class. > > The children of rich people can become poor very easily. Today the > poor reproduce at higher rates than the rich. I'm not sure what the > historical case is, but farmers have historically had lots of kids. > >> In this way, in 20 generations (say the double of the time the foxes >> needed to be culled) the people in England was selecting for middle >> class traits and culling the poor (and partially the noble) out of the >> breeding stock. > > The evolution of the middle class is memetic more than genetic, imho. > >> Recessive traits can not become dominating after a few generations or >> many generations. > > This is true. However, the alternative gene set can become so rare > that the trait becomes ubiquitous in the population. I'm sure there > are thousands of recessive genes that are expressed in each of us for > just this reason. > >> They could outnumber the dominating traits due to selection or >> inbreeding, but in presence of a dominating gene they would not appear. >> >> An inbreeding of 2-7% could cause a drift during many generations if the >> population is keep closed. But if the population is replenished of >> individuals with no inbreeding, the inbreed traits of one generation >> have only 2-7% of a chance to be passed to the next. So in the best case >> we have 4/10K to pass the same trait to the second generation and in the >> worst 49/10K AKA 0.5%. >> >>> Please restate your premise, or what you think is mine. I'm not >>> following your point here perhaps. Sorry, I'm just a bit lost... >> >> Your premises (as I understood them) are that the foxes and the vixens >> were subjected to an extensive culling (1% surviving to generate), where >> the actual number given in the article I linked were 5% for foxes and >> 20% for vixen. > > You are probably right. Still, with a 5% or even 20% survival rate, > that is an EXTREME selection pressure that human beings have almost > never seen. And certainly we haven't seen those extreme selection > pressures based on the kinds of cultural issues that we started > talking about. > >> Another premises of yours was that the population was not replenished by >> new individuals. In fact, the scientists replenished the population >> selected with other foxes and vixens coming from the original breeding >> stock of foxes they started from (the ones used to produces furs). >> They did it to avoid the spreading of recessive traits and inbreeding; >> but you assumed inbreeding and the diffusion of recessive traits in the >> tame foxes population. > > That does not surprise me. Nevertheless, the genes apparently became > quite common in the population overall. > >>> If culture leads to genetic selection over the generations, i.e. if a >>> person has a specific trait, they are more likely to breed in a given >>> population, then yes, this could have an effect. This seems possible, >>> at least. But I can't think of a documented case. >> >> The predisposition to learn how to read, write, do simple math is and >> was a strong cultural trait that cause genetic selection. > > I don't think this is a justified statement. > >> Try to breed today without being able to read/write/do simple math. > > Lots of people do. > >> Take away the welfare state, the food stamps and the rest. Leave them on >> their devices. Like 200 years ago or more. >> Even more strong and durable, the selection for taking out people unable >> to control their impulses and empathize others. >> They would be, at least, be banned from the civil society. And without >> welfare they would die because of starvation or be prey of organized >> groups. For example, a not married woman having sex and becoming >> pregnant would lose her family support and be shunned by any other >> reputable man. Why? Because they would not risk to be rising someone >> else children instead of theirs. >> Exceptions abound, but invariably they concern very low standing women >> (prostitute or maiden) or very high standing women (too valuable to >> consider their previous sins). > > But can you point to one case where genetic change has happened. The > only one that comes to mind is that our genes for lactose intolerance > have been bred out after the creation of dairy as a main human food > source. That is a very different kind of genetic drift than you are > talking about. What you are saying is theoretically possible, but as > far as I know undocumented as having actually happened. > >>> This should breed out the poor. So why do we keep getting new poor? >>> ;-) >> >> Because poor is relative and not absolute. > > That is mostly because of technology, such as indoor plumbing, dentistry, etc. > >> It is the Red Queen Effect. > > Understood. This is what led Darwin to some of his initial thoughts in > the first place. > >> Also, the people coming from the country have traits that could be >> useful in the country but are not useful or are damaging when living in >> a city. This is something discovered studying an African tribe; the same >> traits that made them successful in herding sheep (so they were able to >> feed themselves well) made them not very successful in keeping a job in >> a city (so they were unable to keep themselves well fed). > > African tribes have definitely had enough time for some genetic drift. > Is this research or a guess? In western cultures where people move to > the city, then to the country and back, there isn't enough pressure or > time to create meaningful genetic drift. > >>>> The problem is, if culture is the culprit, it would work >>>> everywhere in the same way. >> >>> No, it would work differently in each culture... Again, not following >>> your logic. >> >> If the culture is the dominant factor, if you take Africans (black) and >> put them on adoption on European (white) families they would be >> behaviorally and intellectually indistinguishable from other (white) >> Europeans. They would be intellectually indistinguishable from >> Europeans. Unfortunately it is not so. The same would be true for Asians >> in Europeans families and the reverse or Europeans in African families. > > I am engaged in just such an experiment. I am Caucasian, I have six > African American children, four Hispanic and one half Asian child. > Culturally, they are all mostly culturally white. They are > intellectually indistinguishable from me (other than some physical > issues stemming from in utero abuse). Your position on this point > seems racist, and completely unsupported by research. Of course, there > is a cultural limit on how much real research has been done in this > area because nobody wants to be called a racist. > >>>> This, in the US is not true, as North-East Asians are law abiding >>>> more than Europeans that are more abiding than Latino Americans >>>> that are more law abiding than blacks. >> >>> This is a whole other can of worms. >> >> A can of worms that people in the US is often afraid to touch for >> cultural and social reasons. It is like talking about freedom of >> religion in Saudi Arabia. If you talk abut the freedom of some Christian >> to convert to Islam, all is good. The reverse is not well accepted in >> the mainstream. > > We talk a lot about the higher rates of incarceration of minorities. > >>> Blacks are more carefully watched by the police, >> >> Why? >> Why they don't check more for Hispanics or Vietnamese or Italians? >> Are the policemen racists? Even the blacks one? > > Yes, even some black policemen are racist against blacks. In certain > areas other minorities are targeted. For example in south Salt Lake > city, there is a lot of pressure by police on the Polynesian > population because so many of them have joined gangs. Again this is > cultural, not genetic. > >> What allowed Jews, Italians, Irish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, >> French, Russian and others to come in the US and, starting from the >> bottom, climb up the social ladder until they were at par (and sometimes >> over) the WASPs? Surely they were subjected to their fair (or unfair) >> share of stereotyping, racist slurs, hate and lynching from the dominant >> groups. Why they succeed anyway and the blacks didn't? > > My short answer is that politicians, particularly Democrats, have > conspired to keep the blacks poor so that they would remain dependent > upon the welfare state. It is a very complex situation. We have had > racial issues in America since the beginning of our nation. Those > issues are less prominent today than they ever have been, but they > still exist. The problems of poverty, hopelessness and drugs in the > inner cities affect minorities more than white people. > > It took the Irish at least three generations to escape from being the > lowest in American society. At one point, the coal mines in West > Virginia would hire Irish over black slaves because they were less > valuable than the slaves to the mine owners. Similarly, the Chinese > who build the transcontinental railroad were valued less than slaves. > > I blame politicians more than anyone else for the problems facing the > blacks in America today. The black leadership (Jessie Jackson and the > like) are particularly guilty IMHO. > >> There are cultural (maybe also genetic) differenced in behavior between >> blacks coming from American ancestries and blacks coming from the >> Caribbeans and blacks coming from Africa. Often they don't go well >> together because of this. > > Blacks who recently came from Africa or the Caribbean are usually more > immediately successful than African Americans with the cultural > history. Yesterday, I interacted with an African pharmacist. I was not > surprised, but I would have been more surprised by an African American > pharmacist. In other words, the problem is not such much the color of > their skin, but the color of their mind. After hearing that the "man > is going to keep you down" for generations, many African Americans > give up. My own African American children don't hear this negative > talk, and I fully expect them to succeed in America. It's not genetic, > it's cultural. > >>> leading to higher arrest rates. >> >> If I know to be more carefully watched by police, I usually try to be >> more law abiding than usual. >> >>> Their poverty leads to poor representation, which leads to higher >>> conviction rates. That does not imply that blacks are necessarily >>> less law abiding than other races. >> >> Law abiding, in fact, is a too vague. >> Could we talk about homicide rate? >> Could we compare the Blacks on Blacks, White on White, Blacks on Whites >> and Whites on Blacks or the East Asians on Blacks, etc.? >> I suppose this is independent of who the police is watching more. > > Where I live, the most disproportionate homicide is done by > undocumented Mexicans. Again, even if the homicide rate nation wide is > higher for black on whoever, that doesn't mean it is genetic. It is > societal and cultural if that is the case. > >>> You might be able to make a successful argument on a different >>> basis. Besides, you can hardly argue that blacks in South Central LA >>> live in the same culture as I do. That is beyond naive. >> >> So, if it is not genetics, then it is cultural. But this imply that the >> culture of South Central is the main cause of the lawlessness (or of the >> high arrest rate) of the Blacks. > > Correct. It is also the main cause of lawlessness of the Hispanics > that live there. I would suspect that any white people living in South > Central would also commit crime at a rate higher than the rest of the > nation, but there are very few whites living there. I don't have > numbers, this is a feeling. Four of my kids come from Compton (in > south central) and I have spent some time there. I have also spent a > couple of months in East Palo Alto, another troubled neighborhood. > >> But, if it is the culture, why is it not possible to force a culture on >> a group to change its behavior in a generation or two. If it was >> possible, someone would have already done it. What would had prevent >> them from succeeding? > > They have succeeded. This doesn't make sense. Large changes in the > zeitgeist are accomplished all the time. Look at the change in > Southern attitudes towards blacks, or the nation's view of > homosexuality. They have changed a lot just in my life time. > >> For example, the Conquistadors had not problem to raze Aztec temples, >> kill their priests, and force the survivors to convert to Christianity. >> One would suppose the Mexican population would be formed by perfect >> Catholics, adopting Spanish costumes. It didn't worked exactly in this way. > > I have also spent a lot of time in Mexico. It DID work exactly this > way. Mexico is 90%+ Catholic to this day. Where are you getting these > ideas? > >>> Sweet! Now I wish I had some money. :-) That's really cool, and those >>> foxes are really quite cute fellows... >> >> I would like to have the money to clone my current dog. >> But also be able to buy a cute tame fox would be interesting. > > Sadly, they not only charge close to $7K, but you also get a neutered > animal. Only five Americans have bothered to this point. You are > prohibited from reproducing the animal. Not that you could without > cloning. I think they are making a marketing mistake with this. > >>> Haiti is f'ed up. I would not necessarily attribute that to genetics. >>> Their government has been horrible for a very long time. I attribute >>> most of their problems to that. >> >> But the governments don't fall from the sky at random. Not usually. >> Usually they are an expression of their population behaviors. >> This is true for Haitians, Italians, Chinese and others. > > Yes, you do have something of a point here. Bad enough governments do > eventually get overthrown. There are secondary religious issues in > Haiti, as well as a huge amount of hopelessness. I took a water > filtration system to an orphanage in Haiti. Rather than using it to > filter water, it was immediately stolen and sold. It was very sad. > >>> Here is my bottom line. If there were as much genetic difference >>> between groups as you suggest, then I think there would be a larger >>> and more popular belief in racism. I'm not saying that you are a >>> racist, but what I am saying is that if there were as much difference >>> between different humans as you suggest, there would be a greater >>> basis for racist thought. >> >> Are you talking about emotive/innate basis for racism or >> logical/scientific/moral basis for racism? >> Are we talking about the gut feelings of common people or the rational, >> often learned, arguments of polite people in polite circles? > > I am talking about logical/scientific basis for racism. I don't think it exists. > >> Apart from the mainstream white western world, the rest is racist. Maybe >> they don't wear the KKK hoods or don't shave >> their heads, but they behave and often speak out their belief without >> any problems. > > If you believe some people, ONLY white people in America are capable > of racism. I don't agree with them. And in fact, I believe there are > more black racists than white. Unfortunately, it is self directed > racism in many cases. It's a kind of self inflicted wound. It really > sucks. Yes, there is racism in every corner of the globe. Japan is > racist against Koreans and Chinese. Don't even get started with tribal > racism (Rwanda, etc.) It's all over the place. That doesn't mean > people are right (in the scientific sense). > >> For example, recently the Thai police cracked down on blacks of Africans >> origin (mainly Nigerians) because they engaged in too much drug >> trafficking and behave in a too aggressive way to be tolerated. >> Was the Thai police "racist"? > > Possibly not. Racial profiling of criminals is not necessarily racist, > it's reality. Racial profiling of people getting on airplanes seems > like a good idea to me. I think it is ridiculous to confuse racism > with racial profiling of criminal elements. It is part of the > confusion that is rampant in America today. > >> Try to apply the "racism" argument to the foxes. >> After the breeding program, we have two population of foxes. >> One tame and one wild. > > And one VERY wild, don't forget. > >> We know that some of the tame foxes developed characteristics that were >> not present before in the wild population: curly tails, blue eyes, white >> spots on the fur, floppy ears and these characteristics are common in >> domesticated mammals. > > Correct. The chemical processes that bring about tameness, also bring > about these other changes. > >> Now, a blue eyed population of foxes, looking at their wild counterparts >> living on the wild, could note the others are more aggressive. They >> don't know why the others are more aggressive. >> They could develop one or more ?cultural explanations why the wild foxes >> are more aggressive: the "racists" could say the "blue eyed" foxes are >> superiors because they live in a peaceful civilization and all blue eyed >> foxes must stick together to defend their civilization against the wild, >> not blue eyed foxes. Others could think the white spotted foxes are >> better behaving than the red foxes living in the wild. >> Some full white and blue eyed foxes would develop the belief they are >> better than all others (elitists exist everywhere). >> On the other side the "racist" wild foxes would look at the white-lily, >> watery eyed foxes as a bunch of weak, degenerated, infantile and whining >> individuals, only able to play with their human masters and live in >> their cages or inside human homes. Why don't take advantage of their >> individual weakness? > > Ok. Here you are talking about real selected genetic difference. > Racism in humans is not based on significant genetic differences > because humans don't have very significant genetic differences. This > is primarily because of the population bottleneck around 600K years > ago. > >> Than another group of tame foxes could develop the explanation that the >> wild ones are as they are because they are unfortunate and they never >> were born inside their breeding farm. So they never developed and >> learned how to behave and how good are humans to take care of them and >> how beautiful is to love them. >> Now, these "enlightened foxes" could be open to mate with wild ones or >> adopt wild foxes kitten without parents or to invite the wild type to >> live with them at the farm. Then they would be surprised that things >> would not work out as they think. I think they could also blame the >> "racist" foxes for the failure, because they never accepted and >> continued to discriminated against the wild red furred, black eyed ones. > > As we progress towards real genetic differences engineered in > post-humanity, I can see this becoming a REAL issue. I don't think it > is a real genetic issue now. > >> They all would be wrong. They could feel better or find some advantage >> to believe a thing or another, but they would anyway be wrong. >> >> If the tame foxes want to bring inside some wilder foxes they must know >> and accept the facts. The wilder foxes must be breed and selected for a >> behavior more tamer. And if the tame foxes want live with the wilder >> one, they must breed themselves to be more aggressive (in this the most >> aggressive can help). >> >> Maybe they can breed in or out in different, novel, ways. >> What they can not avoid, like it or not, is evolution and selection to >> happen anyway. Their believes and their behavior can change how >> evolution and selection happen, to themselves and to others, but can not >> stop it. > > Ok. > >> Yes. But soldiers in moder professional armies are mainly from middle >> class and their IQ is a bit over the mean (this is surely true for in >> the US). And in modern society the middle class is the bigger part of >> the society. > > Actually, in the US armed forces, minorities and poor are represented > in higher proportion than middle class and white. This is because of > the financial benefits of joining the ?armed forces are more effective > in recruiting people who need those benefits. > >> If they come from there, they are genetically and culturally inhibited >> from acting aggressively. In fact I remember a German soldier, in a >> documentary about the Battle of Cassino, complaining that the US >> soldiers didn't went in battle like "real soldiers" but like they were >> going to a "normal" job. > > In World War II, it was a very different issue because they had a > draft. So the army had more middle class elements. > > My bottom line is that I believe memetics are more important in recent > human evolution than genetics. Culture brings about changes much more > quickly than genetics, to the point that human genetics (at this > point) are nearly meaningless. As we engineer human genetics, it will > start to make a bigger difference, of course. Even then, I personally > believe that cybernetic implants will have a bigger effect than > genetic changes. > > Racism is wrong morally. It is also wrong scientifically. Comparing > humans to the foxes just throws out too much baby with the bath water. > > -Kelly > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 11 > Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 00:46:15 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] THE END for fossil power > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 4:47 PM, Damien Sullivan > wrote: >> On Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 09:25:01PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >>> Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is >>> that the US is now a net coal importer. That has geopolitical impact >> >> We might be exporting crap coal, and importing the good low-sulphur >> stuff for use in domestic power. ?Imports might be cheaper than burning >> our crap more cleanly, even if we could provide all our own coal. ?Just >> a guess. > > This is just the kind of crap that happens when we say that we're > concerned about the global environment, but really only care about the > politics of power. I'm just so sick of it. I really do care about the > environment, but none of the politicians seem to really care about > that, except when it gives them some political advantage. It makes me > sick. I hope this isn't really happening, but you're probably right. > >>> that goes beyond whether we are imminently running out of coal. The >>> other thing that was truly disconcerting is how fast China was going >>> through their supplies. I'd like to see some more mainstream numbers >> >> And if oil runs out enough that people start synthesizing it from coal, >> coal'll run down even faster. > > True, but I'm not worried about that so much, because I think it's > cheaper to synthesize oil from tar sands (Canada has a LOT of that) > and even the methane deposits at the bottom of the ocean will > *probably* be cheaper in the long term than coal gassification. There > will probably be some conversion of coal to a liquid fuel, but I'm > hoping that the other options (even if they are fossil options) will > kick in first. I don't know what the actual cost is of each option, > this is just my sense of things hearing how people talk about it. I > can do the research later if anyone is really interested in the > relative costs. The methane fuel (methane hydrates?) is really a big > deal because there is an abundance of it. Of course, the global > warming crowd won't like liberating any more CO2, and at some point it > really is going to start having a big effect. Sorry, it's late... I'll > do more fact checking later if I get a chance. > > -Kelly > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 12 > Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 00:50:57 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 91, Issue 2 > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Sat, Apr 2, 2011 at 11:41 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> Kelly, I really recommend reading Clark's research paper, Genetically >> capitalist. ?Or his book or both. > > Do you have a URL? I'm not afraid of additional facts, no matter how > politically incorrect they may be. > >> Mirco has a solid understanding of the situation. >> >> There are substantial differences in populations because of different >> past selection pressures. ?It's not politically correct to say so of >> course. > > I may be wrong, but I don't think genetics plays a bigger part in > recent zeitgeist shifts than memetics. You'll never convince me that > I'm smarter than my non-Caucasian children... :-) > > -Kelly > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 13 > Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:08:06 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of tons to space > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > 2011/4/2 Mr Jones : >> 2011/4/2 spike >>> This implies you understand what we (humanity) are fighting for.? Do you? >>> Explain please. > > I'm fighting/hoping for more intelligence in the world. With enough > intelligence, I think we can solve our energy problems. > >> Energy. ?Whether it be in the form of fuel in our tanks, or food in our >> stomach. ?It's all about energy. ?Always has been. ?Before OIL it was COAL. >> ?Before COAL it was WOOD. > > Energy is clearly central to the endeavors of human beings and will be > to our successors as well. Let's do a little exercise... Let's suppose > that in 100 years most intelligence is non-human. That is, it runs on > a non-biological substrate. I would suppose that such a substrate > would be able to survive without too much difficulty in outer space. > Given the nearly limitless solar energy that could be harvested by > orbiting the sun, I kind of wonder if earth itself won't be a > backwater in 100 years. If intelligent robots can survive in space > without the life support that biological humans require, then > harvesting the needed materials from asteroids, comets and other > sources will be cheaper than bringing materials up from earth to > space. > > So the whole concept of the importance of the space elevator, beaming > solar energy down to earth, solving global warming and so forth may be > a problem for the remaining biological legacy on earth, but may not be > "where it's happening" in the future. > > This is just a thought experiment, I'm curious what you all think. > >> If the brilliant minds humanity has at it's disposal, spent less brain >> cycles devoted to destroying/controlling one another, and instead focused on >> freeing ourselves...we'd be much better off imho. > > Of course we would, but if we didn't spend money on war, we certainly > wouldn't be spending it on something less politically important. At > some point, when gasoline is $20 a gallon, and there is no hope of it > ever going under $15 a gallon, then the people of the USA will raise > the priority of energy management to the point that such spending will > seem justified to the point that the politicians will pay attention. > Sorry for the cynical attitude today... but I just don't see > politicians as an intelligent life form. > >> It's silly, we spend $400B plus a year importing oil, yet $100B investment >> in renewable/sustainable energy is unheard of? > > Yup. The idea that Al Gore would have done things differently is a > pipe dream... even with his green ideas, I don't think it would have > turned out all that differently. > >> It's a matter of mindset. ?Like being pro-peace, not anti-war. ?Move towards >> things, don't run away from them. >> Hell, the USoA has spent what...$2-3T on Iraq/Afghanistan, for what..global >> oil production? ?Imagine what $2-3T would have accomplished had it went to >> R&D in the energy sector. > > I love the spin on Libya. It's so clearly about oil, why do they have > to maintain the facade that it's human rights concerns? We haven't > done crap in Sudan. There is more human suffering in Haiti, Sumatra > and Japan than there ever will be in Libya, but Libya has oil... it's > the only difference. > > -Kelly > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 14 > Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:24:30 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who > ? ? ? ?survive. > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Serious question to the paleo dieters... Why would we emulate a diet > that resulted in a 25 year life span? I understand the bit about us > being evolved to the diet, but we also were living short fast > difficult lives at the time. Is that what we want to return to? It > just seems counter intuitive to me. > > -Kelly > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 15 > Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 01:29:01 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] THE END for nuclear power > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Wed, Mar 30, 2011 at 10:12 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> Kelly Anderson wrote: >>> >>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 1:04 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> *reflected* back by the wall, it will build up behind it, because it is >> travelling at 50 mph. > > Just a dumb question here... but they say that the tsunami waves > travel at mid ocean around 500 MPH. Why do they slow down so much when > they go onto land? I get the bunching up and getting tall part, but > why does it slow down 10x? Does anyone have a handle on that? > > -Kelly > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 16 > Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 02:41:59 -0600 > From: Kelly Anderson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Are mini nuclear power stations the way forward? > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252 > > On Sun, Mar 27, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 06:58:45PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: >>> On Tue, Mar 22, 2011 at 3:21 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >>> >> I think the future in offline storage MAY lie in compressed air. Large >>> > >>> > No, only for very large scale. The thermodynamics of it doesn't allow >>> > small scale. >>> >>> Tell it to Tata motors. >>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_car >> >> Disadvantages >> >> The principal disadvantage is the indirect use of energy. Energy is used to compress air, >>which - in turn - provides the energy to run the motor. Any conversion of energy between >>forms results in loss. > > Absolutely! And we have the same problem with batteries and fuel cells > as well. Since we're talking about storing excess solar energy, it is > all the same kind of problem, although the specific numbers may differ > for particular systems. > >>For conventional combustion motor cars, the energy is lost when chemical energy in fossil >>fuels is converted to heat energy, most of which goes to waste. For compressed-air cars, >>energy is lost when chemical energy is converted to electrical energy, and then when >>electrical energy is converted to compressed air. > > Yup. > >> When air expands in the engine it cools dramatically (Charles's law) and must be heated to >>ambient temperature using a heat exchanger. The heating is necessary in order to obtain a >>significant fraction of the theoretical energy output. The heat exchanger can be problematic: >>while it performs a similar task to an intercooler for an internal combustion engine, the >>temperature difference between the incoming air and the working gas is smaller. In heating >>the stored air, the device gets very cold and may ice up in cool, moist climates. > > I agree that the heating of air on compression, and the cooling of air > on decompression are the greatest problems to overcome in a compressed > air power storage system. > >> Conversely, when air is compressed to fill the tank it heats up: as the stored air cools, its >>pressure decreases and available energy decreases. It is difficult to cool the tank efficiently >>while charging and thus it would either take a long time to fill the tank, or less energy is stored. > > That is a correct analysis. > >> Refueling the compressed air container using a home or low-end conventional air >>compressor may take as long as 4 hours, though specialized equipment at service stations >>may fill the tanks in only 3 minutes.[3] To store 14.3 kWh @300 bar in 300 l (90 m3 @ 1 bar) >>reservoirs, you need at least 93 kWh on the compressor side (with an optimum single stage >>compressor working on the ideal adiabatic limit), or rather less with a multistage unit. That >>means, a compressor power of over 1 Megawatt (1000 kW) is needed to fill the reservoirs in >>5 minutes from a single stage unit, or several hundred horsepower for a multistage one.[6] >>[citation needed] > > Ok, correct me if I'm wrong on this one... but if you have compressed > air in a large storage tank at the gas station, and you merely > transport that compressed air into the car's tank, that doesn't > involve active compression, and thus for that particular exchange, > there is no heating or cooling issues. Getting the air compressed at > the gas station is admittedly a big issue, but fueling up is not, I > think, a big problem. Going down the road of course is another time > where the temperature issues come up. > >> The overall efficiency of a vehicle using compressed air energy storage, using the above >>refueling figures, cannot exceed 14%, even with a 100% efficient engine?and practical >>engines are closer to 10-20%.[7] For comparison, well to wheel efficiency using a modern >>internal-combustion drivetrain is about 20%,[8] Therefore, if powered by air compressed >>using a compressor driven by an engine using fossil fuels technology, a compressed air car >>would have a larger carbon footprint than a car powered directly by an engine using fossil >>fuels technology. > > Not if the compression were accomplished with solar or wind... right? > >> Early tests have demonstrated the limited storage capacity of the tanks; the only published >>test of a vehicle running on compressed air alone was limited to a range of 7.22 km.[9] > > I had heard Tata had gone above 20 miles, but that may have been with > a hybrid system compressing air as you go... > >> A 2005 study demonstrated that cars running on lithium-ion batteries out-perform both >>compressed air and fuel cell vehicles more than threefold at the same speeds.[10] > > Interesting. > >>MDI has recently claimed that an air car will be able to travel 140 km in urban driving, and >>have a range of 80 km with a top speed of 110 km/h (68 mph) on highways,[11] when >>operating on compressed air alone, but in as late as mid 2009, MDI has still not produced any >>proof to that effect. > > Yeah, got to see something actually working to totally believe it. > >> A 2009 University of Berkeley Research Letter found that "Even under highly optimistic >>assumptions the compressed-air car is significantly less efficient than a battery electric >>vehicle and produces more greenhouse gas emissions than a conventional gas-powered car >>with a coal intensive power mix." however they also suggested, "a pneumatic?combustion >>hybrid is technologically feasible, inexpensive and could eventually compete with hybrid >>electric vehicles."[12] >> >> >>> If I could score some parts from a Tata Nano, I think I could make a >>> nice storage system... I don't understand what you mean by the >>> thermodynamics of the situation in detail, I do understand that >> >> Just ideal gas law. >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_air_energy_storage >> >> Compression of air generates a lot of heat. The air is warmer after compression. > > Understood. > >>Decompression requires heat. If no extra heat is added, the air will be much colder after >>decompression. If the heat generated during compression can be stored and used again >>during decomression, the efficiency of the storage improves considerably. > > Perhaps something can be accomplished with this more effectively in a > home electric storage system than in a car where weight is more of an > issue... just a thought. > >> There are three ways in which a CAES system can deal with the heat. Air storage can be >>adiabatic, diabatic, or isothermic: >> Adiabatic storage retains the heat produced by compression and returns it to the air when >>the air is expanded to generate power. This is a subject of ongoing study, with no utility scale >>plants as of 2010. Its theoretical efficiency approaches 100% for large and/or rapidly cycled >>devices and/or perfect thermal insulation, but in practice round trip efficiency is expected to >>be 70%.[3] Heat can be stored in a solid such as concrete or stone, or more likely in a fluid >>such as hot oil (up to 300 ?C) or molten salt solutions (600 ?C). > > fascinating. > >> Diabatic storage dissipates the extra heat with intercoolers (thus approaching isothermal >>compression) into the atmosphere as waste. Upon removal from storage, the air must be >>re-heated prior to expansion in the turbine to power a generator which can be accomplished >>with a natural gas fired burner for utility grade storage or with a heated metal mass. The lost >>heat degrades efficiency, but this approach is simpler and is thus far the only system which >>has been implemented commercially. The McIntosh, Alabama CAES plant requires 2.5 MJ of >>electricity and 1.2 MJ lower heating value (LHV) of gas for each megajoule of energy >>output.[4] A General Electric 7FA 2x1 combined cycle plant, one of the most efficient natural >>gas plants in operation, uses 6.6 MJ (LHV) of gas per kW?h generated,[5] a 54% thermal >>efficiency comparable to the McIntosh 6.8 MJ, at 53% thermal efficiency. > > So how much does the natural gas heating eat into the storage capacity > and efficiency? > >> Isothermal compression and expansion approaches attempt to maintain operating >>temperature by constant heat exchange to the environment. They are only practical for low >>power levels, without very effective heat exchangers. The theoretical efficiency of isothermal >>energy storage approaches 100% for small and/or slowly cycled devices and/or perfect heat >>transfer to the environment. In practice neither of these perfect thermodynamic cycles are >obtainable, as some heat losses are unavoidable. > > Yes, conversion of energy type always results in some heat loss. That > is to be expected. Low power levels sounds like it might work in a > home storage environment. How much do you think the rules change when > dealing with a home electricity storage unit vs. running a car? i.e. > what can you gain by having the luxury of extra weight in the system? > >> A different, highly efficient arrangement, which fits neatly into none of the above categories, >>uses high, medium and low pressure pistons in series, with each stage followed by an airblast >>venturi that draws ambient air over an air-to-air (or air-to-seawater) heat exchanger between >>each expansion stage. Early compressed air torpedo designs used a similar approach, >>substituting seawater for air. The venturi warms the exhaust of the preceding stage and >>admits this preheated air to the following stage. This approach was widely adopted in various >>compressed air vehicles such as H. K. Porter, Inc's mining locomotives[6] and trams.[7] Here >>the heat of compression is effectively stored in the atmosphere (or sea) and returned later on. >> Compression can be done with electrically powered turbo-compressors and expansion with >>turbo 'expanders'[8] or air engines driving electrical generators to produce electricity. >> The storage vessel is often an underground cavern created by solution mining (salt is >>dissolved in water for extraction)[9] or by utilizing an abandoned mine. Plants operate on a >>daily cycle, charging at night and discharging during the day. >> Compressed air energy storage can also be employed on a smaller scale such as exploited >>by air cars and air-driven locomotives, and also by the use of high-strength carbon-fiber air >>storage tanks. > > Yes, I understand that the carbon fiber tanks are a necessity for > weight and safety issues. > >>> compressed air can get very hot and needs to be cooled... but it would >>> SEEM that Tata has resolved these issues to some extent. >> >> Tata can't magically route around thermodynamics. > > No, they can't. It would seem that they have backed off of some of > their initial claims and schedules as well :-( > >>> >> building sized batteries also have some interesting potential. An >>> > >>> > The car industry will bring you pretty powerful batteries within >>> > the next 10 years. >>> >>> I hope so. Battery power stored per kilogram follows a Law of >>> Accelerating Returns curve, does it not? >> >> Not at all, progress is linear, and will be sublinear as >> it asymptotically approaches the ceiling of the storage >> technology: >> >> e.g. http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/07/was_moores_law.php >> >> http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/Battery%20Energy%20Density.jpg >> >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_density >> >> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c6/Energy_density.svg > > Pity that. > >>> > Yes, but one of the most inefficient things you can do with PV >>> > panels you rely on to sit under snow. Climbing up the roof to >>> > clean them off is not a particular sane way of dealing with the >>> > situation. >>> >>> I think it is the only sane way to deal with it... putting in a >>> heating system is just not practical. If I had it to do over again, I >> >> It is not that difficult to add adhesive resistive heating pads to the >> back of the panels even after the fact. (More adventurous natures >> could attempt to bypass the panel diodes, and use the panel >> itself for heating, e.g. this is a problem with monocrystalline >> cells parts of which are shaded off, but I wouldn't do that). >> >> Just use ethylene glycol or another antifreeze mix, picking a mix that >> will survive your worst case without freezing. > > That makes sense. > >> What is your battery capacity, in Wh? What exactly are you running >> at night? Is your diesel on-demand or has to be switched on manually? > > My generator is gasoline, not diesel. Currently, I have no batteries, > but previously I had 8 large L16P Trojan batteries. > > http://www.trojanbatteryre.com/PDF/datasheets/L16PAC_Trojan_Data_Sheets.pdf > > I can't get it to download right now, so I don't know the Wh off hand. > > -Kelly > > > > ------------------------------ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > End of extropy-chat Digest, Vol 91, Issue 3 > ******************************************* > From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 15:39:33 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 08:39:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> References: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 2:18 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf > "The average modal age of adult death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a > range of 68-78 years. This range appears to be the closest functional > equivalent of an "adaptive" human lifespan." > [...] > "Illnesses account for 70 percent, violence and accidents for 20 percent, > and degenerative diseases for 9 percent of all deaths in our sample." > [...] > "Post-reproductive longevity is a robust feature of hunter-gatherers and of > the life cycle of Homo sapiens. Survivorship to grandparental age is > achieved by over two-thirds of people who reach sexual maturity and can last > an average of 20 years." Err...grandparental age ain't 68-78 years back in paleo times. Even accounting for later average sexual maturity than we see today, people would have babies ASAP in that era - which means parent around 15 and grandparent around 30. Moreover, that article seems to say near its beginning that, with modern infectious diseases (which are around the globe regardless of where and who you are) and other interactions, even modern people living the paleo lifestyle (say, the remaining uncontacted tribes) don't get the same lifespan as their ancestors. From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 3 15:40:51 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 08:40:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity paleo diet again In-Reply-To: <4D9840C2.2060604@gnolls.org> References: <4D9840C2.2060604@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <00e101cbf215$83aeb110$8b0c1330$@att.net> >...] On Behalf Of J. Stanton Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity paleo diet again >Resending: roughly one-half of my emails to this list are inexplicably eaten. ... We don't know why that happens. Some servers don't play well with the server that ExI-chat uses. Open to suggestion. >...http://www.gnolls.org/1763/why-humans-crave-fat/ >...Currently the majority of my caloric intake comes from animal fat, primarily from fatty red meat and eggs. I've never felt better in my life: apparently I've been suffering from a multi-decade saturated fat deficiency, and am just now re-learning to eat like a human being...JS JS if you ever want dramatic confirmation of that notion, try a four night backpacking trip with only freeze-dried foods. Those must be zero fat: oils will not freeze dry. Carry about a third of your weight on your back, walk about 15 miles a day. In a situation where you are burning calories like a forest fire and eat zero fat, watch what happens to your appetite. You will gain an immediate insight into why so many diets have failed for so many decades of doctors urging low-fat diets. Patients go on the zero-fat diets with the grim determination of suicide bomber, yet about a week later they are reduced to failure like whimpering addict on heroine withdrawal. I have never dieted for weight loss, but I get this. My own experience: I seriously wanted to try to catch a fish out there, rip it open with my bare hands and devour the son of a bitch raw. My vegetarian wife objected. After about the fourth day of zero-fat calorie burning, the hikers present a danger to the bears. Although we actually had sufficient calories along, I discovered there is a subtle but important difference between *hunger* and a craving for fat. Those are two related but distinct feelings. Hunger is tolerable but fat craving is overwhelming and diet-defeating. Discount as necessary, coming from a bony guy who has never even attempted a weight loss diet: humans need both calories and fat. Too many dieters have never had the backpacking experience, and don't understand why their weight-loss plans consistently fail. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 16:37:57 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 18:37:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <003a01cbed67$c7e4b4e0$57ae1ea0$@att.net> <374011.22744.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 3 April 2011 09:24, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Serious question to the paleo dieters... Why would we emulate a diet > that resulted in a 25 year life span? I understand the bit about us > being evolved to the diet, but we also were living short fast > difficult lives at the time. Is that what we want to return to? It > just seems counter intuitive to me. The point has been raised innumerable time, but it arises from a confusion between life expectation and lifespan. The first is obviously determined by inter alia things such as infantile mortality, your chances of being killed by a rival tribe or eaten by a predator, the risk of starving to death, or today your exposure to car accidents. As to the second, it would appear that in spite of relative advances in medicine, sheltering, etc. we had to wait until the XVIII century to reach back paleolitic standards. Individuals in their seventies or eighties were in fact more frequent in hunter-and-gatherer society than they were in Europe when America was discovered. -- Stefano Vaj From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 17:00:52 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 13:00:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 3:08 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > 2011/4/2 Mr Jones : > > 2011/4/2 spike > >> This implies you understand what we (humanity) are fighting for. Do > you? > >> Explain please. > > I'm fighting/hoping for more intelligence in the world. With enough > intelligence, I think we can solve our energy problems. > > > Energy. Whether it be in the form of fuel in our tanks, or food in our > > stomach. It's all about energy. Always has been. Before OIL it was > COAL. > > Before COAL it was WOOD. > > Energy is clearly central to the endeavors of human beings and will be > to our successors as well. Let's do a little exercise... Let's suppose > that in 100 years most intelligence is non-human. That is, it runs on > a non-biological substrate. I would suppose that such a substrate > would be able to survive without too much difficulty in outer space. > Given the nearly limitless solar energy that could be harvested by > orbiting the sun, I kind of wonder if earth itself won't be a > backwater in 100 years. I'm perhaps a touch idealistic, but I would hope that it's been maintained as an 'animal preserve' so to speak. > If intelligent robots can survive in space > without the life support that biological humans require, then > harvesting the needed materials from asteroids, comets and other > sources will be cheaper than bringing materials up from earth to > space. > Exactly. And to increase real-estate when necessary, you tow hunks from space into an orbit > > So the whole concept of the importance of the space elevator, beaming > solar energy down to earth, solving global warming and so forth may be > a problem for the remaining biological legacy on earth, but may not be > "where it's happening" in the future. > I see abundant solar energy solutions as a precursor to the Singularity. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think they're very necessary in the grand scheme of things. I'd like to see humanity build a solar/hydrogen economy, seeing as it's the most abundant element in our Universe. > > This is just a thought experiment, I'm curious what you all think. > Sign me up for virtualization, I'm game. > > > If the brilliant minds humanity has at it's disposal, spent less brain > > cycles devoted to destroying/controlling one another, and instead focused > on > > freeing ourselves...we'd be much better off imho. > > Of course we would, but if we didn't spend money on war, we certainly > wouldn't be spending it on something less politically important. At > some point, when gasoline is $20 a gallon, and there is no hope of it > ever going under $15 a gallon, then the people of the USA will raise > the priority of energy management to the point that such spending will > seem justified to the point that the politicians will pay attention. > I just don't understand how the foresight isn't in place already. How can we not see the giant cliff we're headed towards? It's not as if the writing hasn't been on the wall for decades. Not to mention previous 'empires' being brought down by extremely similar situations. The perfect storm of sorts. I get the 300+ million sheeple in the USoA sleeping at the wheel, they've been programmed well. What confuses me, is how upper management, the top 10%, sees it as being in their own best interest to fleece the middle/lower class they skim off of. I guess everything's international and out-sourced enough to where location is irrelevant. Bad time to have inferior manufacturing huh? > Sorry for the cynical attitude today... but I just don't see > politicians as an intelligent life form. > I'd like humanity to revolutionize governance by way of the internet. Gov 2.0 type deal. > > > It's silly, we spend $400B plus a year importing oil, yet $100B > investment > > in renewable/sustainable energy is unheard of? > > Yup. The idea that Al Gore would have done things differently is a > pipe dream... even with his green ideas, I don't think it would have > turned out all that differently. > I agree. Politicians go in with the best of intentions, I'm sure they're not all evil/incompetent. But reality sets in quickly. It's very entrenched, I have no doubt. Which is why drastic actions are called for. No incumbents allowed, and 'none-of-the-above' would be a great start. > > > It's a matter of mindset. Like being pro-peace, not anti-war. Move > towards > > things, don't run away from them. > > Hell, the USoA has spent what...$2-3T on Iraq/Afghanistan, for > what..global > > oil production? Imagine what $2-3T would have accomplished had it went > to > > R&D in the energy sector. > > I love the spin on Libya. It's so clearly about oil, why do they have > to maintain the facade that it's human rights concerns? Because we're complacent enough to allow it to continue. > We haven't > done crap in Sudan. There is more human suffering in Haiti, Sumatra > and Japan than there ever will be in Libya, but Libya has oil... it's > the only difference. > The only one that matters right now, yes. I just can't wrap my mind around this suicidal kind of thinking. Each day we push ahead with this garbage oil business, is a month (just a guess, picked an arbitrary #, no sources) we're going to pay for it in spades down the road. I just can't comprehend how killing one another is a better choice than cooperating until we colonize space, and then you can go your way, I go mine, and we've got more room than we could ever know what to do with. We need to do it because we can, and it's necessary. Not because it's profitable. sorry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 17:07:26 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 13:07:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <003a01cbed67$c7e4b4e0$57ae1ea0$@att.net> <374011.22744.qm@web30101.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 3:24 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Serious question to the paleo dieters... Why would we emulate a diet > that resulted in a 25 year life span? I understand the bit about us > being evolved to the diet, but we also were living short fast > difficult lives at the time. Is that what we want to return to? It > just seems counter intuitive to me. > > Clean water/sanitation are two areas that have significantly extended our lives. The paleo dieters of past didn't suffer from the diet itself, other than lack of supply perhaps. Their short lifespans were due to other circumstances, not malnutrition. I recently came across information claiming that the process of cooking foods itself causes an immune response during digestion, and recommends that at least 51% of each meal be raw/uncooked food to prevent/counter this response. I've been eating raw/uncooked as much as possible, and I've got to say, it really does make a difference. You have so much more energy. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 17:10:41 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 13:10:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity paleo diet again In-Reply-To: <4D9840C2.2060604@gnolls.org> References: <4D9840C2.2060604@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 5:41 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > My argument is that humans have an animal-fat-based metabolism as a > consequence of our unique evolutionary history (not a protein-based > metabolism, like obligate carnivores), and that is why we crave fat so much: Absolutely. Which is precisely why we suffer 'rabbit starvation' if we consume too much protein with no fat. Fresh fruits/vegetables and meat/eggs like you said. Never been better. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 17:14:00 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 18:14:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity paleo diet again In-Reply-To: <00e101cbf215$83aeb110$8b0c1330$@att.net> References: <4D9840C2.2060604@gnolls.org> <00e101cbf215$83aeb110$8b0c1330$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 4:40 PM, spike wrote: > JS if you ever want dramatic confirmation of that notion, try a four night > backpacking trip with only freeze-dried foods. ?Those must be zero fat: oils > will not freeze dry. ?Carry about a third of your weight on your back, walk > about 15 miles a day. ?In a situation where you are burning calories like a > forest fire and eat zero fat, watch what happens to your appetite. ?You will > gain an immediate insight into why so many diets have failed for so many > decades of doctors urging low-fat diets. ?Patients go on the zero-fat diets > with the grim determination of suicide bomber, yet about a week later they > are reduced to failure like whimpering addict on heroine withdrawal. > > Heroine withdrawal is terrible! Where's Wonder Woman when you need her? ;) BillK From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 17:27:04 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 13:27:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 5:22 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > What do you do with surplus? Dump it into synfuel. Why not dump it into hydrogen? I understand not converting fossils to hydrogen, but water... Hell, it's the most abundant element in our Universe, seems to me we should get familiar with it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 18:15:44 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 12:15:44 -0600 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/3 Mr Jones : > On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 5:22 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> >> What do you do with surplus? Dump it into synfuel. > > Why not dump it into hydrogen? ?I understand not converting fossils to > hydrogen, but water... > Hell, it's the most abundant element in our Universe, seems to me we should > get familiar with it. Some of the main challenges with hydrogen vs. synfuel are: 1) Storage. Hydrogen being such a small molecule, it escapes any attempt to contain it with relative ease. 2) Energy density. Hydrogen stores less energy per pound of fuel. 3) Expense. Hydrogen fuel cells (the most direct way to turn hydrogen into electricity) are currently rather expensive. 4) Infrastructure. Converting from current fuel systems to hydrogen is massively expensive. Current pipelines don't handle hydrogen well (see point 1). 5) Public acceptance. People still equate hydrogen with the Hindenburg. In some ways, hydrogen is kind of like nuclear power in the sense that people don't understand the true risks. Technological solutions, and public experience will overcome this, I hope. 6) Some places with lots of energy don't have lots of water. Arizona (solar) Wyoming (wind). This probably isn't a major issue. The energy density problem is particularly difficult in mobile applications (cars). Hydrogen sounds like a great idea. It is a great idea. We just need more research to make it practical and we need to understand its limitations, particularly with regard to energy density. Some schemes for packing the hydrogen into latices have been proposed which would solve this problem, if they can actually build them. Of course, synfuels still have the familiar problems including pollution and CO2 production. -Kelly From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 18:37:30 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 11:37:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 10:07 AM, Mr Jones wrote: snip > I just don't understand how the foresight isn't in place already. The simple reason is that energy sources are expensive. Solar and wind are particularly so because they are dilute and only there part time. If there were a way to get solar energy for less than the cost of coal, gas or nuclear, then it would happen, but for the most part people just don't know how to do it, or in one case, (SBSP) the front end cost to get the transportation cost down is in the $100 B range. But you won't see a lot of discussion here or any other place I know about that gets into the details. I guess it's just too hard and people will not take the effort to understand it even if they are able. The few people of influence who do understand what we are up against seem to be expecting a population collapse. Keith From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 18:43:36 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 12:43:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> References: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> Message-ID: One of the best surviving examples of a hunter gatherer society is the Hadza in Tanzania. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/finkel-text/1 The story talks about the tribal elder, a man of 60. In conclusion, the author remarks: "But I could never live like the Hadza. Their entire life, it appears to me, is one insanely committed camping trip. It's incredibly risky. Medical help is far away. One bad fall from a tree, one bite from a black mamba snake, one lunge from a lion, and you're dead. Women give birth in the bush, squatting. About a fifth of all babies die within their first year, and nearly half of all children do not make it to age 15. They have to cope with extreme heat and frequent thirst and swarming tsetse flies and malaria-?laced mosquitoes." Granted, the Hadza have tobacco, which traditional hunter gatherers did not have to deal with, but this hardly sounds like a group that lives to an average age of 70. I don't know how you would come up with an average mortality of 70 in groups like this. It just doesn't seem possible. -Kelly From js_exi at gnolls.org Sun Apr 3 18:50:29 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:50:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity: paleo diet again Message-ID: <4D98C175.50209@gnolls.org> Originally posted by spike: > JS if you ever want dramatic confirmation of that notion, try a four night > backpacking trip with only freeze-dried foods. ... > Too many dieters have never had the backpacking experience, and don't > understand why their weight-loss plans consistently fail. I understand completely! Even back when I was trying to eat the 'healthy' version of the SAD (Standard American Diet), only dinner would be freeze-dried on backpacking trips: the rest would be peanut butter on some sort of bread, plus "energy bars" that were ~30% fat. I never liked oatmeal as a backpacking breakfast. Fortunately I never totally bought into the low-fat hype (though I was bamboozled into vegetarianism for a while) because I always figured as a very active person I was just burning it off anyway. But I still felt vaguely guilty about it, and spent a lot of time eating way too much pasta and bread and way too little meat. The biggest dietary difference for me has been cutting 'carbs' to perhaps 15-20% of calorie intake (though I don't count anything), keeping the remaining ones gluten-free, and replacing them with fat: no more 'food coma', and I can skip meals at will. I ate a bunch of pizza recently as a cheat. No matter how much I ate I still felt hungry, and I felt like crap afterward. Slow, tired, sleepy, almost drugged...like I had hand and ankle weights on. Then I remembered: this is how I always used to feel after big meals. I just defined it as "normal". JS http://www.gnolls.org From js_exi at gnolls.org Sun Apr 3 18:50:42 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 11:50:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan (and an aside from Capitalism Genes) Message-ID: <4D98C182.1090102@gnolls.org> Originally posted by BillK: > I don't believe it is a myth that paleo people only had an average > life span of around 30-35 years. But it wasn't due to their diet. Agreed. All I'm pointing out is that "average lifespan" is a misleading measure of how long they lived, due to massive infant and child mortality, and therefore doesn't tell us whether Paleolithic habits are healthy. Since we're talking about Clark's "Capitalism Genes", one of the startling facts he begins with is that the *average* modern hunter-gatherer tribe (banished to the most hostile and least productive lands on the planet) eats better than the residents of the richest countries in the world previous to 1800 -- and still eats better than the average African! I will also note that several of these tribes are composed of people we call "pygmies", with average heights at or below five feet, and that their caloric intake is therefore even larger in proportion. JS http://www.gnolls.org From js_exi at gnolls.org Sun Apr 3 19:02:33 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 12:02:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Raw vs. cooked (was paleo) Message-ID: <4D98C449.6020100@gnolls.org> Originally posted by Mr Jones: > I recently came across information claiming that the process of cooking > foods itself causes an immune response during digestion, and recommends that > at least 51% of each meal be raw/uncooked food to prevent/counter this > response. > > I've been eating raw/uncooked as much as possible, and I've got to say, it > really does make a difference. You have so much more energy. The raw/cooked thing is an interesting balancing act between energy availability (generally increased by cooking), nutrient availability (often decreased by cooking), and toxin degradation (usually the purpose of cooking in the first place). As far as immune response, where did you read that? Foods are so different in composition that I can't imagine a blanket recommendation that covers all of them. Raw potatoes, for instance, are a bad idea, as are raw eggs...whereas certain raw veggies may be a good idea. Interestingly, raw meat is actually a very good idea nutritionally: it's bacterial and parasitic contamination we're worried about. I wonder if hard freezing (the same process used for sushi in America) does the same thing for meat that it does for fish? "...'freezing and storing seafood at -4?F (-20?C) or below for 7 days (total time), or freezing at -31?F (-35?C) or below until solid and storing at -31?F (-35?C) or below for 15 hours, or freezing at -31?F (-35?C) or below until solid and storing at -4?F (-20?C) or below for 24 hours' which is sufficient to kill parasites." http://www.sushifaq.com/sushi-grade-fish.htm JS http://www.gnolls.org From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 3 19:12:56 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 12:12:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004501cbf233$2571cce0$705566a0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson ... >...The few people of influence who do understand what we are up against seem to be expecting a population collapse...Keith Those who do envision a population collapse somehow always envision *somewhere else* being the place where the population collapses. This helps explain why we are *still* farting around worrying about long term inconveniences such as global warming, instead of focusing on the rattlesnake preparing to strike us. Internet readers don't seem be able to envision choosing their own least favorite child to stop feeding. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 19:34:44 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 12:34:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <004501cbf233$2571cce0$705566a0$@att.net> References: <004501cbf233$2571cce0$705566a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 12:12 PM, spike wrote: >>... On Behalf Of Keith Henson > ... > >>...The few people of influence who do understand what we are up against > seem to be expecting a population collapse...Keith > > Those who do envision a population collapse somehow always envision > *somewhere else* being the place where the population collapses. ?This helps > explain why we are *still* farting around worrying about long term > inconveniences such as global warming, instead of focusing on the > rattlesnake preparing to strike us. ?Internet readers don't seem be able to > envision choosing their own least favorite child to stop feeding. Yeah. I am most amused by the rich who think their money will protect them. It never seems to occur to them that if the power goes off they will have no money (most money is just magnetic spots on hard disks). Keith From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 3 19:47:31 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 21:47:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110403194731.GW23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 01:27:04PM -0400, Mr Jones wrote: > On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 5:22 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > What do you do with surplus? Dump it into synfuel. > > > Why not dump it into hydrogen? I understand not converting fossils to > hydrogen, but water... Hydrogen would be one of the gaseous synfuels, or at least reduction equivalents and synthetic precursors. The interesting part of hydrogen is that water electrolysis is an old, cheap technology, and natural gas network can take considerable fraction of hydrogen mix at the edge without producing embrittlement or leaking. > Hell, it's the most abundant element in our Universe, seems to me we should > get familiar with it. We've been deeply familiar with hydrogen on industrial scale roughly for about a century http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process -- 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 From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 20:01:36 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:01:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: References: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 3 April 2011 20:43, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Granted, the Hadza have tobacco, which traditional hunter gatherers > did not have to deal with, but this hardly sounds like a group that > lives to an average age of 70. I don't know how you would come up with > an average mortality of 70 in groups like this. It just doesn't seem > possible. No, it is undisputed that they do not have a life expectation of 70. What we are discussing here however is lifespan, meaning that they *can* attain such an age, and even more, while doing that has only quite recently been again made possible for medically-pampered, disease-affected, functionally-impaired middle-class westerners. If we can both reduce to nil the chance of being killed by a mamba snake *and* profit from a healthier lifestyle, we would be have the best of both worlds, wouldn't we? An entirely different issue is whether a paleo lifestyle would be sustainable on a global basis. The answer here is obviously no (there was a reason after all for the neolithic revolution), but this also true for an undefinitely growing post-neolithic society, and is precisely where transhumanism comes into play... -- Stefano Vaj From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 3 20:10:07 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:10:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110403201007.GY23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 12:15:44PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Some of the main challenges with hydrogen vs. synfuel are: > 1) Storage. Hydrogen being such a small molecule, it escapes any > attempt to contain it with relative ease. The petrochemical industry maintains a considerable high-pressure hydrogen pipeline network across much of Europe. Hydrogen at normal pressure is no big deal, and can be easily stored in gas holders. Hydrogen in pressurized gas cyliders is also old, familiar stuff. There is some volatility with ultra-high pressure composite storage for vehicles. I frankly think it's a stupid idea. There's more hydrogen in methanol than in liquid hydrogen, by volume. > 2) Energy density. Hydrogen stores less energy per pound of fuel. Not a problem for stationary applications. In case of EV, consider that ICEs have a street efficiency of about 20%. > 3) Expense. Hydrogen fuel cells (the most direct way to turn hydrogen > into electricity) are currently rather expensive. Hydrogen burns just fine, and in micro co-gen efficiency is >90%. > 4) Infrastructure. Converting from current fuel systems to hydrogen is > massively expensive. Current pipelines don't handle hydrogen well (see Depends, catalytic burners do fine, as to Stirlings. > point 1). Only high-pressure pipelines for natural gas. Yes, you need special pipe materials, larger crossections and different pumps. > 5) Public acceptance. People still equate hydrogen with the > Hindenburg. In some ways, hydrogen is kind of like nuclear power in > the sense that people don't understand the true risks. Technological > solutions, and public experience will overcome this, I hope. Small scale hydrogen should take care of that. > 6) Some places with lots of energy don't have lots of water. Arizona > (solar) Wyoming (wind). This probably isn't a major issue. Water demand is negligible, there's 55.5 mol/l in water. > The energy density problem is particularly difficult in mobile > applications (cars). Hydrogen doesn't work in cars very well, and probably never will. Liquid hydrogen could be quite interesting for aerospace, however, > Hydrogen sounds like a great idea. It is a great idea. We just need > more research to make it practical and we need to understand its The research part is already done. Apart from minor things like really cheap and durable hydrogen fuel cells. > limitations, particularly with regard to energy density. Some schemes > for packing the hydrogen into latices have been proposed which would > solve this problem, if they can actually build them. The energy density is a non-issue for immobile applications. > Of course, synfuels still have the familiar problems including > pollution and CO2 production. Synfuels from CO2 scrubbed from air or fuel gas are carbon neutral by definition. E.g. DMFC ran from synmethanol obviously has a very good carbon and pollution story, nevermind efficiency. -- 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 From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 20:07:59 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:07:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Frequency vs. quantity: paleo diet again In-Reply-To: <4D98C175.50209@gnolls.org> References: <4D98C175.50209@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 3 April 2011 20:50, J. Stanton wrote: > Fortunately I never totally bought into the low-fat hype (though I was > bamboozled into vegetarianism for a while) because I always figured as a > very active person I was just burning it off anyway. ?But I still felt > vaguely guilty about it, and spent a lot of time eating way too much pasta > and bread and way too little meat. I have always hated gastronomically and ideologically hi-carbo diets, but at a time I thought that it would be best to reduce fats as well, and try feeding as much as possible on lean proteins, and I have to thank Atkins for making me see the light in this respect... :-) > I ate a bunch of pizza recently as a cheat. ?No matter how much I ate I > still felt hungry, and I felt like crap afterward. ?Slow, tired, sleepy, > almost drugged...like I had hand and ankle weights on. ?Then I remembered: > this is how I always used to feel after big meals. ?I just defined it as > "normal". Indeed. -- Stefano Vaj From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 3 20:18:38 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:18:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110403201838.GZ23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 11:37:30AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > > I just don't understand how the foresight isn't in place already. > > The simple reason is that energy sources are expensive. Solar and > wind are particularly so because they are dilute and only there part If insolation on outer building skin is enough to drive the building I don't call that dilute, I call that exactly right. A little bit more than you can cool comfortably, and you've got failure modes like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corium_%28nuclear_reactor%29 > time. When production matches demand peak you can have 2% of total produce >20% (17 GW of 85 GW peak) and allow you to switch off nuclear and coal. Another decade of such growht, and you'd get >100% of peak. Sure, you'd have to cover with gas turbines and micro co-gen for really dark, windstill days. > If there were a way to get solar energy for less than the cost of > coal, gas or nuclear, then it would happen, but for the most part It is already there sometimes and in location. Give it less than 10 years for Mid-Europe. > people just don't know how to do it, or in one case, (SBSP) the front > end cost to get the transportation cost down is in the $100 B range. > > But you won't see a lot of discussion here or any other place I know > about that gets into the details. I guess it's just too hard and > people will not take the effort to understand it even if they are > able. This used to surprise me, but no longer does. > The few people of influence who do understand what we are up against > seem to be expecting a population collapse. So what? We've done it before, a few times, in fact. -- Eugen* Leitl leitl http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com http://postbiota.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sun Apr 3 20:23:02 2011 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 16:23:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> Message-ID: <201104032023.p33KNMNj019476@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Kelly wrote: >I love the spin on Libya. It's so clearly about oil, why do they have >to maintain the facade that it's human rights concerns? We haven't >done crap in Sudan. There is more human suffering in Haiti, Sumatra >and Japan than there ever will be in Libya, but Libya has oil... it's >the only difference. I find any analysis of a foreign policy or the causes of a war that says it's about any one thing is too simplistic. There are inevitably many things going on, and each country has a different set of priorities. What matters to France is different than what matters to Jordan or Canada. I do enjoy the analyses of geopolitics or history that add a new dimension to consider. For instance, the role of disease in deciding the outcome of wars. Or the importance of transportation hubs and of topography in migration, conflict, and prosperity. -- David. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 20:33:45 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 22:33:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Raw vs. cooked (was paleo) In-Reply-To: <4D98C449.6020100@gnolls.org> References: <4D98C449.6020100@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 3 April 2011 21:02, J. Stanton wrote: >Raw potatoes, for instance, are a bad idea, as are raw > eggs...whereas certain raw veggies may be a good idea. I have always thought that at least "normal" potatoes (I do not know how to call them in English) were not not edible unless cooked. But what would be wrong with raw eggs? > Interestingly, raw meat is actually a very good idea nutritionally: it's > bacterial and parasitic contamination we're worried about. Since after all we are not into neoprimitivism, but rather technology, why not produce bacteria- and parasites-free meat? Not such a hard feat, I would say. Even though "bacteria charge" seems to be important at least for gastronomic purposes. But be reminded that we eat here our steaks in 15, as opposed to the US 40, days of dry-aging... -- Stefano Vaj From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 3 21:51:34 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 3 Apr 2011 14:51:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: References: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 1:01 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > No, it is undisputed that they do not have a life expectation of 70. > > What ?we are discussing here however is lifespan, meaning that they > *can* attain such an age, and even more, while doing that has only > quite recently been again made possible for medically-pampered, > disease-affected, functionally-impaired middle-class westerners. People in Western societies have been making it past 100 for quite a while now. You're saying paleos *can* get to 70. Westerners, on Western diets, *can* get far past 70. From js_exi at gnolls.org Mon Apr 4 00:57:05 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 03 Apr 2011 17:57:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan (and eggs/avidin) Message-ID: <4D991761.90100@gnolls.org> Originally posted by Adrian Tymes: > You're saying paleos *can* get to 70. Westerners, on Western diets, > *can* get far past 70. If you had read the articles I linked, you would have noticed that hunter-gatherers *can* make it into the 90s... ...without the benefit of nursing homes, emergency rooms, antibiotics, stents, bypasses, joint replacements, or any of the other benefits of modern health care. Weston A. Price's "Nutrition and Physical Degeneration" is essential reading on this subject. It shows what happens to physical health and development when traditional cultures adopt the Western diet, with hundreds of pictures. Full text and illustrations here: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200251h.html Price was far, far ahead of his time. He couldn't have understood what epigenetics were, but he clearly understood their effects. And he discovered what was later found to be vitamin K2 via its effects on dental and bone health. Originally posted by Kelly Anderson: > Granted, the Hadza have tobacco, which traditional hunter gatherers > did not have to deal with, but this hardly sounds like a group that > lives to an average age of 70. Again: "The average modal age of *** adult *** death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68-78 years." Infant and child mortality pull the average down dramatically. Keep in mind that natural selection has continued to operate amongst the Hadza, selecting them for survival in their environment -- whereas 'civilized' humans haven't been selected for those skills for thousands of years. (If anything, we've been selected for docility in response to arbitrary authority.) Originally posted by Stefano Vaj: > But what would be wrong with raw eggs? Raw egg white contains a protein called avidin, which bonds to the biotin in the yolk and makes it biologically unavailable. Cooking the egg breaks down the avidin. Not that raw eggs will kill you: you just won't get any biotin out of them, and they'll bond any biotin in whatever you eat with them. As far as parasite-free meat, most meat these days is low enough in bacteria and parasites that a healthy person won't ever have a problem eating it raw. But there are a lot of unhealthy people out there, and there is a lot more paranoia out there than is justifiable. In fact, I seem to recall that someone brought up earlier the fact that intestinal parasites are used to treat autoimmune disease. It turns out we're basically supposed to be fighting some number of intestinal parasites, and in the absence of real enemies, our immune system is more likely to react mistakenly against our own bodies. This is related to the reason we have an appendix: it's the place our gut bacteria hang out so they can recolonize after we get cleaned out. Bush African water sources are generally full of hippo and crocodile shit, and get wallowed in by everything from elephants to hyenas: it seems likely, at least to me, that Paleolithic humans spent a significant amount of time with the trots. Thus the difference between research and re-enactment when it comes to dietary recommendations. We most likely ate a good quantity of rotten meat in the Paleolithic: the health benefits of doing so are dubious. JS http://www.gnolls.org From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 4 09:58:07 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:58:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan In-Reply-To: References: <4D983B69.6050803@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 3 April 2011 23:51, Adrian Tymes wrote: > You're saying paleos *can* get to 70. ?Westerners, on Western diets, > *can* get far past 70. Diet is of course not the only factor with regard to longevity in general, and to one's specific survival for the entire lifespan his genes are going to allow. But those in the west who get beyond 100 are rarely affected by obesity, hypertension, cavities, diabete, or are used to gorge on carbos. And in fact, from a paleo POV western ?lites have been eating for a long time much better than the average post-neolithic individual, as long as they have been ignoring the "healthy" rules and thriving on relatively fresh filet mignon, lobster, foie gras, salmon, oysters, caviar, lettuce, berries, etc. :-) I think that the only real problem with a 3-star Michelin regime (with again involves having no more than one real meal per day...) are the desserts. You are not getting to eat much bread in an eight-course, proteine- and fat-rich meal... -- Stefano Vaj From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Apr 4 13:24:12 2011 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 06:24:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan (and eggs/avidin) In-Reply-To: <4D991761.90100@gnolls.org> References: <4D991761.90100@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <703900.19973.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> I thought violent death would also be a factor. From what little I've read on hunter-gatherers, I gathered (sorry, bad pun!) that they were much more prone to violence and murder rates were far higher amongst them. Regards, Dan From: J. Stanton To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Sun, April 3, 2011 8:57:05 PM Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan (and eggs/avidin) [snip] Originally posted by Kelly Anderson: > Granted, the Hadza have tobacco, which traditional hunter gatherers > did not have to deal with, but this hardly sounds like a group that > lives to an average age of 70. Again: "The average modal age of *** adult *** death for hunter-gatherers is 72 with a range of 68-78 years."? Infant and child mortality pull the average down dramatically. Keep in mind that natural selection has continued to operate amongst the Hadza, selecting them for survival in their environment -- whereas 'civilized' humans haven't been selected for those skills for thousands of years.? (If anything, we've been selected for docility in response to arbitrary authority.) [snip] JS http://www.gnolls.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 4 19:12:56 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 12:12:56 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <38723.67107.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson asked: > Message-ID: > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > Serious question to the paleo dieters... Why would we > emulate a diet > that resulted in a 25 year life span? I understand the bit > about us > being evolved to the diet, but we also were living short > fast > difficult lives at the time. Is that what we want to return > to? It > just seems counter intuitive to me. LOL. Is that really a serious question? Your definition of 'diet' seems... broad. :D Ben Zaiboc From zero.powers at gmail.com Mon Apr 4 18:56:28 2011 From: zero.powers at gmail.com (Zero Powers) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 11:56:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] IBM researchers create nanomedicine to kill bacteria where antibiotics fail Message-ID: This strikes me as one of those "Holy Schlamoley" moments... "IBM and a research group in Singapore have engineered a new kind of synthetic, biodegradable nano particle that could be used to attack bacteria that have become resistant to antibiotics." http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/03/ibm-researchers-create-nanomedicine-to-kill-bacteria-where-antibiotics-fail/ From js_exi at gnolls.org Mon Apr 4 21:57:54 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 14:57:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Foragers and violence Message-ID: <4D9A3EE2.9000309@gnolls.org> Dan wrote: > I thought violent death would also be a factor. From what little I've read on > hunter-gatherers, I gathered (sorry, bad pun!) that they were much more prone to > violence and murder rates were far higher amongst them Those are some very squishy numbers, based on a lot of assumptions, many of which are poor or entirely false. First, most such arguments I've seen are based on non-hunter-gatherer cultures! The Yanomamo, for instance, are swidden agriculturalists that live in villages, as are the New Guinea highlanders on which most of these comparisons are made. It's astounding to see a competent anthropologist like Richard Wrangham making such comparisons with a straight face: you'd better go back more than a few thousand years if you're making an argument about 'human nature'. (To be fair, he admits that the Yanomamo are farmers...but why, then, is that an interesting data point? Primitive agriculture is still agriculture.) Second, most of the violence figures for civilization are based on modern urban crime rates in Western nations, and omit the hundreds of millions of deaths due to war, genocide, famine, and plague. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_and_disasters_by_death_toll Third, the few remaining hunter-gatherer societies only remain because their land is either so worthless to us that we never bothered to take it -- or because they were so warlike that we were unable to conquer them. The Huaorani are warlike because their rainforest habitat is only *mostly* undesirable and they've had to survive the incursions of the Quechua, whereas the Hadza and !Kung, whose desert habitat no one wanted until very recently, are generally peaceful. In other words, the sampling is not representative. This isn't to say that foragers led an idyllic life free from violence. But slavery, organized war, social class, and the entire notion that one can control another's behavior by threat of force are features of agricultural civilization, not of foragers. JS http://www.gnolls.org From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Apr 4 22:38:35 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:38:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New nuclear plants designed to be safest ever In-Reply-To: <20110329063557.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <20110329063557.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9A486B.5070107@mac.com> On 03/28/2011 11:35 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 01:20:13PM -0700, Max More wrote: >> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42258191/ns/business-world_business/ > When will they design people that will make use of them, > everywhere, all the time? > > You cannot solve a political and human problem with > technology. Not until tools themselves are persons, > able to pursue their own agenda. > Hear, hear. This latest nuclear hysteria has sent my working view of humanity as a whole through the floor. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Apr 4 22:47:49 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:47:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110401135812.GG23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9A4A95.4080004@mac.com> On 04/01/2011 07:33 AM, Mr Jones wrote: > > > On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 9:58 AM, Eugen Leitl > wrote: > > What I find quite concerning is how few people find peak fossil > concerning. > > > Ignorance is bliss. At least for now. Until the whole thing comes > crashing down around their ears, and they're starving to death. I was concerned enough to think through what it would take technologically to be more than ready for Peak Oil. BTW it turns out there is a LOT more natural gas available in the US and Europe than was thought. Enough in the US for 100 years.. But I digress. What I can't do anything about is anyone actually applying the solutions instead of keeping their head firmly in the sand and wringing their hands like a bunch of brainless ninnies. - samantha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Apr 4 22:52:39 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 04 Apr 2011 15:52:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9A4BB7.40201@mac.com> On 03/31/2011 08:25 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 3:59 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 11:49:45PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: >>> On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 10:21 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >>>> Science has been slow to embrace Peak Oil, but they're >>>> there now. (How long will it take for them to admit >>>> Peak Coal?) >>> I should expect hundreds of years. The US has something like 400 years >>> of coal reserves, and China has a lot too. >> Try around 2025. >> >> http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2396 > "The general consensus view on coal supplies has long been that we > have hundreds of years of the stuff left" > > The articles you provided indicated that we were close to peak coal, > but it also showed a slowly tailing off supply. What I'm saying is > that after peak oil most charts show the supplies falling off rather > precipitously, No, I don't think so. Peak Oil means "peak", i.e., that we manage to get less out of the ground year on year ever after that. It doesn't mean the amount we get falls precipitously. What would fall more rapidly is the percent of demand actually met as the demand curve for oil is still increasing. > but with peak coal there was a significant amount of > coal available for a significant amount of time afterward. So peak oil > is a much greater problem than peak coal (assuming they are even right > there, which I'm not particularly giving in on yet.) > > Now one thing I found very concerning, and I hope it is not right is > that the US is now a net coal importer. Not from what I have read. China has depleted enough of its coal supply that it is very likely it will seek to import coal from the US. Build molten salt thorium reactors fast enough and you can forget about oil and coal as primary energy sources in a fairly short timeframe. - samantha From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 04:28:34 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 21:28:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan (and eggs/avidin) In-Reply-To: <703900.19973.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <4D991761.90100@gnolls.org> <703900.19973.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: An Azar Gat paper "The Human Motivational Complex: Evolutionary Theory And The Causes Of Hunter-Gatherer Fighting." goes into considerable detail about the Australian aborigines who were pure hunter gatherers. The number who died in wars or related violence was rather high, much higher than the number who die in modern times from wars and related violence. Keith 2011/4/4 Dan : > I thought violent death would also be a factor. From what little I've read > on hunter-gatherers, I gathered (sorry, bad pun!) that they were much more > prone to violence and murder rates were far higher amongst them. > > Regards, > > Dan > From: J. Stanton > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Sent: Sun, April 3, 2011 8:57:05 PM > Subject: [ExI] Paleo lifespan (and eggs/avidin) > > [snip] > > Originally posted by Kelly Anderson: >> Granted, the Hadza have tobacco, which traditional hunter gatherers >> did not have to deal with, but this hardly sounds like a group that >> lives to an average age of 70. > > Again: "The average modal age of *** adult *** death for hunter-gatherers is > 72 with a range of 68-78 years."? Infant and child mortality pull the > average down dramatically. > > Keep in mind that natural selection has continued to operate amongst the > Hadza, selecting them for survival in their environment -- whereas > 'civilized' humans haven't been selected for those skills for thousands of > years.? (If anything, we've been selected for docility in response to > arbitrary authority.) > > [snip] > JS > http://www.gnolls.org > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 5 06:28:00 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 4 Apr 2011 23:28:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: <004501cbf233$2571cce0$705566a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <000001cbf35a$9cc89b70$d659d250$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson ... >...I am most amused by the rich who think their money will protect them. It never seems to occur to them that if the power goes off they will have no money (most money is just magnetic spots on hard disks)...Keith Even converting wealth to gold will not help much in worst case scenarios. Anyone who tries to use it as a trade medium would likely become a target. Hungry people are dangerous people. spike From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 5 08:52:30 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 10:52:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <000001cbf35a$9cc89b70$d659d250$@att.net> References: <004501cbf233$2571cce0$705566a0$@att.net> <000001cbf35a$9cc89b70$d659d250$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110405085230.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 04, 2011 at 11:28:00PM -0700, spike wrote: > Even converting wealth to gold will not help much in worst case scenarios. > Anyone who tries to use it as a trade medium would likely become a target. > Hungry people are dangerous people. Hungry people have to get to the tropical island first, and get past security. Assuming they even know where it is. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 10:54:23 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 12:54:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Foragers and violence In-Reply-To: <4D9A3EE2.9000309@gnolls.org> References: <4D9A3EE2.9000309@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 4 April 2011 23:57, J. Stanton wrote: > This isn't to say that foragers led an idyllic life free from violence. ?But > slavery, organized war, social class, and the entire notion that one can > control another's behavior by threat of force are features of agricultural > civilization, not of foragers. Moreover, this is not to say that there were not good reasons for the neolithic revolution, not the least being its phenomenal competitive success, indeed incomparably higher than that of industrialism, communism, capitalism or anything else so far. The idea in fact would be for transhumanism to be the next big thing... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 13:58:39 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 09:58:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <20110405085230.GQ23560@leitl.org> References: <004501cbf233$2571cce0$705566a0$@att.net> <000001cbf35a$9cc89b70$d659d250$@att.net> <20110405085230.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 4:52 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Hungry people have to get to the tropical island first, and get > past security. Assuming they even know where it is. > May a Tsunami land on their heads. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 5 14:59:18 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 07:59:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] IBM researchers create nanomedicine to kill bacteria where antibiotics fail In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <017a01cbf3a2$0b0eec50$212cc4f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Zero Powers >This strikes me as one of those "Holy Schlamoley" moments... ... >http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/03/ibm-researchers-create-nanomedicine-to-ki ll-bacteria-where-antibiotics-fail/ _______________________________________________ Zero Powers! Where the heck have you been? We looked all over for you man! Welcome back. {8-] spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 5 17:14:52 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 10:14:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter Message-ID: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> This caught my attention because I have long thought of this approach as compelling: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/04/6409132-spacex-shoots-for-ne xt-big-thing It has advantages in structural dynamics to have side-by-side boosters instead of stacked vertically. The aerodynamic disadvantage of that arrangement is more than compensated by weight savings in structural rigidity. It has costs in replicating the thrust vector control so many times, and it has disadvantages in reliability, since the risk of failure in one or more of the 27 nozzles, but the design can likely tolerate any one failing, and some pairs, so long as they are not adjacent. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Tue Apr 5 17:27:24 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:27:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> On Apr 5, 2011, at 1:14 PM, spike wrote: > > This caught my attention because I have long thought of this approach as compelling: > > http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/04/6409132-spacex-shoots-for-next-big-thing > > It has advantages in structural dynamics to have side-by-side boosters instead of stacked vertically. The aerodynamic disadvantage of that arrangement is more than compensated by weight savings in structural rigidity. It has costs in replicating the thrust vector control so many times, and it has disadvantages in reliability, since the risk of failure in one or more of the 27 nozzles, but the design can likely tolerate any one failing, and some pairs, so long as they are not adjacent. > > spike I hope the claims made for this prove to be more accurate than those made for the space shuttle. There is more and a promotional video at: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/05/powerful-rocket-world-ready-2012-spacex-says/ John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 5 18:10:04 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 11:10:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] new heavy lifter On Apr 5, 2011, at 1:14 PM, spike wrote: >>.This caught my attention because I have long thought of this approach as compelling: http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/04/6409132-spacex-shoots-for-ne xt-big-thing . spike >.I hope the claims made for this prove to be more accurate than those made for the space shuttle. There is more and a promotional video at: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/05/powerful-rocket-world-ready-2012-s pacex-says/ >John K Clark Hmmm, John there is a subtlety here I hope to up-clear. I often hear the comment that the space shuttle's capability was exaggerated (30 tons to LEO, 12 tons return.) It never came close to either, but it was *theoretically* capable of both of these goals in its final configuration. The original design specs called for carrying the Hubble Space Telescope to orbit and returning it to the deck for periodic maintenance and relaunch. The shuttle was never used for this purpose, but that was for a good reason: it's dangerous as all hell to carry that much payload either direction. In either scenario, it stresses everything to the maximum. We saw one shuttle come apart on re-entry. Carrying the maximum design load greatly increases the risk of a structural failure resulting in the loss of vehicle and crew. Also note: if they were to attempt a maximum payload re-entry, they need to go to every level of heroics to get the human payload down. It isn't just the weight of the apes, it's the weight of all the associated life support equipment, and the risk of a failure that may give the astronaut several minutes forewarning of impending doom, with nothing to do about it but tell her family and the whole world her final words. One can imagine a single occupant aboard during an attempted landing, or even none, since it would be inherently high risk. Back in 1989 we returned a very valuable payload, the LDEF. That one weighed about 5 tons, and we were aaaaaallllll sweating blood in huge red droplets until that payload rolled to a stop. Nooooobody wanted to even think about trying to return a 12 ton payload, nobody. But I would estimate a good ~85% chance the shuttle could have done it and landed safely, maybe 90% spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 18:46:24 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 11:46:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/5 spike : > > > This caught my attention because I have long thought of this approach as > compelling: > > http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/04/6409132-spacex-shoots-for-next-big-thing > They are saying $1000 per pound, $2200 per kg to LEO. The cost to GEO would be at least double, the cost per kW at 5 kg/kW for the lift would be $22,000 plus the cost of the power sat materials and rectenna. Call it $24,000 per kW. Paid off by the delivery of 80,000 kWh in a decade, the cost per kWh would be 30 cents per kWh. Making synthetic oil out of power costs $10 per bbl for the capital and $20 x 30 for the energy, or $610 per bbl. Gasoline from that would sell for around $24 per gallon. The Reaction Engine people think they can get the cost of a flight down into the $2 million range for a high flight rate. For that they get 12 tons to LEO, or about 6 tons to GEO. That's perhaps $400 per kg to GEO. The lift cost would be $2,000 per kW plus $1000 for parts and the rectenna. This give a cost for power generation of around 4 cents per kWh. Synthetic oil would be $90 per bbl and gasoline at about $4 per gallon. Using laser boost on a Skylon type vehicle allows swapping oxygen for payload so the payload to LEO would be 50 tons and the payload to GEO 35 tons. You have to pay energy and capital on the lasers, but even so, the cost of parts to GEO gets down to $100/kg and the cost per kW to $1600. At that the cost of power would be two cents. The cost of synthetic oil would be around $50 per bbl and gasoline around $2 per gallon. If might be less if the synthetic oil companies could buy off peak power and the numbers were expanded to where peak demand could be met mostly from power satellites. Power at a penny a kWh makes synthetic oil at $30 per bbl and gasoline for under a dollar a gallon. Keith > > It has advantages in structural dynamics to have side-by-side boosters > instead of stacked vertically.? The aerodynamic disadvantage of that > arrangement is more than compensated by weight savings in structural > rigidity.? It has costs in replicating the thrust vector control so many > times, and it has disadvantages in reliability, since the risk of failure in > one or more of the 27 nozzles, but the design can likely tolerate any one > failing, and some pairs, so long as they are not adjacent. > > > > spike > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From amara at kurzweilai.net Tue Apr 5 18:41:41 2011 From: amara at kurzweilai.net (Amara D. Angelica) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 11:41:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Invitation from Ray Kurzweil for S.F. screening of Transcendental Man Message-ID: <011b01cbf3c1$1bea51d0$53bef570$@net> Ray Kurzweil asked me to pass this along to the ExI list. (I plan to be at the screening, and hope to catch up with folks in the ExItribe.) From: Ray Kurzweil (April 5, 2011) I'd like to invite members of the Extropy Institute list (started by my friends Max and Natasha) to our much-anticipated screening of Transcendent Man in San Francisco on April 14 (8 p.m. at the Palace of Fine Arts). I'll be introducing the film, and afterward, director Barry Ptolemy and I will do a Q&A with the audience. It's going to be a fun night, and I especially look forward to meeting and talking to Extropy Institute list members. Where: Palace of Fine Arts 3301 Lyon Street San Francisco, CA 94123 Tickets and info: transcendentman.com Reviews: One of the top ten documentaries of the year" - International Documentary Association "Not only is Transcendent Man the must-see film of 2011 but it just might change your life forever." - Ain't It Cool News "Prophetic, [and] mind-bending." - Fast Company Press: Charlie Rose: Ray Kurzweil and Barry Ptolemy on the film 'Transcendent Man' [VIDEO] 3/18/11; Voice of America: Ray Kurzweil and "Transcendent Man" [VIDEO] 3/18/11; Voice of America: Barry Ptolemy on "Transcendent Man" [VIDEO] 3/17/111; The Economist: The New Overlords 3/10/11; CNN Newsroom with Ali Velshi: The Big "I" - Transcendent Man [VIDEO] 3/7/11; MSNBC.com: Ray and Barry on The Dylan Ratigan Show [VIDEO] 3/1/11; Fox News "America's Newsroom": Rise of the Machines Not So Farfetched - Interview with Bill Hemmer [VIDEO] 2/25/11; TIME Magazine: 2045: The Year Man Becomes Immortal 2/10/11. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amara at kurzweilai.net Tue Apr 5 20:10:50 2011 From: amara at kurzweilai.net (Amara D. Angelica) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:10:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Invitation from Ray Kurzweil for S.F. screening of Transcendent Man In-Reply-To: <011b01cbf3c1$1bea51d0$53bef570$@net> References: <011b01cbf3c1$1bea51d0$53bef570$@net> Message-ID: <01cb01cbf3cd$8fc26c80$af474580$@net> To clarify: there are no complementary tickets available (the event is being produced by a San Francisco promoter). (And I spelled "Transcendent" wrong in the subject line.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 5 20:02:29 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:02:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low Message-ID: U.S. traffic deaths dropped by 3 percent to a record annual low of 32,788 for 2010 even as motorists drove more in an improving economy, projected government figures showed on Friday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42383028/ns/health-health_care/ Good news for longevity! Once we finally conquer aging, attention will shift even more strongly to progressively reducing the death rate from accidents. -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From zero.powers at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 21:47:47 2011 From: zero.powers at gmail.com (Zero Powers) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 14:47:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] IBM researchers create nanomedicine to kill bacteria where antibiotics fail In-Reply-To: <017a01cbf3a2$0b0eec50$212cc4f0$@att.net> References: <017a01cbf3a2$0b0eec50$212cc4f0$@att.net> Message-ID: Hi Spike -- I still lurk. But only contribute when I find something I think might be of interest. Hope this finds you doing well. Take care, Zero On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 7:59 AM, spike wrote: > > >... On Behalf Of Zero Powers > > >This strikes me as one of those "Holy Schlamoley" moments... > ... > > > http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/03/ibm-researchers-create-nanomedicine-to-ki > ll-bacteria-where-antibiotics-fail/ > _______________________________________________ > > > > Zero Powers! Where the heck have you been? We looked all over for you > man! > > Welcome back. {8-] > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 21:56:43 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 22:56:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/5 Max More commented: > U.S. traffic deaths dropped by 3 percent to a record annual low of 32,788 > for 2010 even as motorists drove more in an improving economy, projected > government figures showed on Friday. > > http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42383028/ns/health-health_care/ > > Good news for longevity! Once we finally conquer aging, attention will shift > even more strongly to progressively reducing the death rate from accidents. > > The 'improving economy' bit is just government spin. Miles driven correlates strongly with the price of gas, not the economy. There has been a consistent downward trend in traffic deaths for many years. This is indeed good news. This Wall street Journal article (Dec 2010) considers some of the reasons: Quotes: The dramatic decline in highway fatalities in the U.S. since 2005 is a piece of good news that's also a bit of a mystery. Is it the result of better vehicle safety technology? Less stupid, reckless behavior? Smarter strategies for easing teens into the responsibilities of driving? Or just an unexpected positive side effect of a slumping economy? A new study by two University of Michigan researchers of detailed federal crash statistics from 2005 to 2008 suggests all these reasons could be behind the reduced death toll. Alcohol and speed, he says, explain why so many people die on the highway alone, without hitting another car. Out of 34,017 total accidents in 2008 ascribed in federal data to a collision, about 62%?just over 21,000?involved a single-vehicle crash. Such deadly wrecks declined by 9% between 2005 and 2008, less than the 13% decline in deadly collisions overall. So what's helping to reduce deaths? Technology deserves some credit, according to the data. Deaths in side-impact crashes declined between 2005 and 2008 at a faster rate than the decline for deaths overall. That suggests that side airbags are helping more people survive crashes, the researchers found. The Michigan study found a nearly 20% decline in deaths among young drivers, age 16 to 25. Among the possible reasons: the increasing number of states that use graduated licensing programs that delay granting full driving privileges until teens have more experience, and rising teen joblessness. etc...................... --------------------------- So fewer traffic deaths has multiple reasons. No magic bullet here. BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 5 22:02:13 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 15:02:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] IBM researchers create nanomedicine to kill bacteria where antibiotics fail In-Reply-To: References: <017a01cbf3a2$0b0eec50$212cc4f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <010d01cbf3dd$1f6202b0$5e260810$@att.net> Lurk schmurk, you should post stuff man! We like your stuff from a few years ago. We missed you. I recall last time we went looking for you, I was surprised you had so little internet presence. In any case, I hope you do post, and that this finds you doing well too. Me: laid off for a year and a half now, after 26 years at Lockheed. I have a four year old son, wife still working at the Heed, don't know for how long, hoping for the best. Later! spike From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Zero Powers Sent: Tuesday, April 05, 2011 2:48 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] IBM researchers create nanomedicine to kill bacteria where antibiotics fail Hi Spike -- I still lurk. But only contribute when I find something I think might be of interest. Hope this finds you doing well. Take care, Zero On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 7:59 AM, spike wrote: >... On Behalf Of Zero Powers >This strikes me as one of those "Holy Schlamoley" moments... ... >http://venturebeat.com/2011/04/03/ibm-researchers-create-nanomedicine-to-ki ll-bacteria-where-antibiotics-fail/ _______________________________________________ Zero Powers! Where the heck have you been? We looked all over for you man! Welcome back. {8-] spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 5 22:09:36 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 15:09:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <011501cbf3de$272b0090$758101b0$@att.net> >On Behalf Of BillK 2011/4/5 Max More commented: >> U.S. traffic deaths dropped by 3 percent to a record annual low of ... --------------------------- >...So fewer traffic deaths has multiple reasons. No magic bullet here...BillK Ja. I suspect there are a number of subtle items that make a difference, such as improvements in tires. In the 1990s, Japan incorporated started developing stock motorcycles which would go 190 mph. Those kinds of speeds require special tires, otherwise the centrifugal force can unseat the bead on the rim, causing the tubeless tire to lose pressure, which can be harmful or seriously fatal at those speeds. The fast bikes came stock with those tires, but they are expensive, so a problem arose: yahoos would buy the bikes new, wear out the tires, replace with lower rated cheaper tires, sell the bike, the next owner gets it out, turns it loose, tire fails, prole is slain. Answer: tire companies dropped their cheaper lines, made all their tires capable of taking insane speeds, result: everyone pays more for rubber, but all bikers are actually safer. spike From ryanobjc at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 22:23:23 2011 From: ryanobjc at gmail.com (Ryan Rawson) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 15:23:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Invitation from Ray Kurzweil for S.F. screening of Transcendent Man In-Reply-To: <01cb01cbf3cd$8fc26c80$af474580$@net> References: <011b01cbf3c1$1bea51d0$53bef570$@net> <01cb01cbf3cd$8fc26c80$af474580$@net> Message-ID: Is ray showing up in person? On Apr 5, 2011 1:28 PM, "Amara D. Angelica" wrote: > To clarify: there are no complementary tickets available (the event is being > produced by a San Francisco promoter). (And I spelled "Transcendent" wrong > in the subject line.) > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 5 22:50:12 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 18:50:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <011501cbf3de$272b0090$758101b0$@att.net> References: <011501cbf3de$272b0090$758101b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 6:09 PM, spike wrote: > on the rim, causing the tubeless tire to lose pressure, which can be harmful > or seriously fatal at those speeds. ?The fast bikes came stock with those haha... seriously fatal. As opposed to mildly fatal or even the comically fatal? I know there are degrees of fatality - it just made me laugh. From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 6 00:54:35 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 17:54:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: <011501cbf3de$272b0090$758101b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <004101cbf3f5$33486270$99d92750$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Subject: Re: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 6:09 PM, spike wrote: >> on the rim, causing the tubeless tire to lose pressure, which can be >> harmful or seriously fatal at those speeds... >...haha... seriously fatal. As opposed to mildly fatal or even the comically fatal? >I know there are degrees of fatality - it just made me laugh. Mike, being mildly killed is one thing. Being severely killed is where Alcor can't find enough of the prole to freeze. We in the west make a big deal of the Amish habit beheading infidels, but that to me looks like the mildest form of killing. It would actually in some ways make Alcor's job easier, assuming the team is present and ready to take the appropriate actions. So, yes there are degrees of fatality. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 03:51:45 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 21:51:45 -0600 Subject: [ExI] THE END for fossil power In-Reply-To: <20110403201007.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <20110325162148.GX23560@leitl.org> <20110326095909.GH23560@leitl.org> <20110402224741.GA3953@ofb.net> <20110403092239.GS23560@leitl.org> <20110403201007.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 2:10 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 03, 2011 at 12:15:44PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Some of the main challenges with hydrogen vs. synfuel are: >> 1) Storage. Hydrogen being such a small molecule, it escapes any >> attempt to contain it with relative ease. > > The petrochemical industry maintains a considerable > high-pressure hydrogen pipeline network across much > of Europe. At what cost? This goes to the infrastructure issue. Europe is of course more dense than the US, and such infrastructure typically costs us more because the pipes are longer. I wonder if there is any significant leakage from the European system. Of course, electricity is lost in long distance transmission, so this could be seen as an equivalent sort of loss. > Hydrogen at normal pressure is no big deal, > and can be easily stored in gas holders. Hydrogen in > pressurized gas cyliders is also old, familiar stuff. > There is some volatility with ultra-high pressure > composite storage for vehicles. I frankly think it's > a stupid idea. There's more hydrogen in methanol than > in liquid hydrogen, by volume. The public face of hydrogen is that the exhaust produced is water. Turning clean hydrogen into methanol, ethanol or some other petrochemical that produces toxic exhaust is going to make it less desirable from that point of view. Unless the full synthetic burns much cleaner... but I don't know if it would. It is no surprise to me that methanol has more hydrogen by volume. >> 2) Energy density. Hydrogen stores less energy per pound of fuel. > > Not a problem for stationary applications. True enough. > In case of EV, consider > that ICEs have a street efficiency of about 20%. Sorry, no comprendo EV? ICEs? >> 3) Expense. Hydrogen fuel cells (the most direct way to turn hydrogen >> into electricity) are currently rather expensive. > > Hydrogen burns just fine, and in micro co-gen efficiency is >90%. So you're saying you could just burn hydrogen in a little generator? Would that be as clean as a fuel cell? Would there be pollution as a side effect? >> 4) Infrastructure. Converting from current fuel systems to hydrogen is >> massively expensive. Current pipelines don't handle hydrogen well (see > > Depends, catalytic burners do fine, as to Stirlings. But the current oil/gasoline infrastructure can't handle hydrogen... I understand that replacing all of the gasoline infrastructure with equivalent hydrogen infrastructure would cost billions if not trillions. >> point 1). > > Only high-pressure pipelines for natural gas. Yes, you need special > pipe materials, larger crossections and different pumps. i.e. it will be quite expensive. >> 5) Public acceptance. People still equate hydrogen with the >> Hindenburg. In some ways, hydrogen is kind of like nuclear power in >> the sense that people don't understand the true risks. Technological >> solutions, and public experience will overcome this, I hope. > > Small scale hydrogen should take care of that. We can hope. >> 6) Some places with lots of energy don't have lots of water. Arizona >> (solar) Wyoming (wind). This probably isn't a major issue. > > Water demand is negligible, there's 55.5 mol/l in water. Just to double check. Suppose that a wind turbine creates 1 MWatt. To store 1 MW in hydrogen using electrolysis for a day, how much water is required? >> The energy density problem is particularly difficult in mobile >> applications (cars). > > Hydrogen doesn't work in cars very well, and probably never will. > Liquid hydrogen could be quite interesting for aerospace, however, That's too bad since people are so focused on it. >> Hydrogen sounds like a great idea. It is a great idea. We just need >> more research to make it practical and we need to understand its > > The research part is already done. Apart from minor things like > really cheap and durable hydrogen fuel cells. And mass production... there is a lot of research and development needed to produce this stuff on a mass scale. In addition, I've heard of interesting research on ways to pack more hydrogen into matrices such that you might be able to carry months worth of fuel in a very small package. Whether such research is practical or not remains to be seen, but it is very interesting, and if it is successful, it will make hydrogen practical for automobiles. >> limitations, particularly with regard to energy density. Some schemes >> for packing the hydrogen into latices have been proposed which would >> solve this problem, if they can actually build them. > > The energy density is a non-issue for immobile applications. Yes, but it is a big issue for mobile applications. >> Of course, synfuels still have the familiar problems including >> pollution and CO2 production. > > Synfuels from CO2 scrubbed from air or fuel gas are carbon neutral > by definition. E.g. DMFC ran from synmethanol obviously has a very > good carbon and pollution story, nevermind efficiency. I don't personally care as much about CO2 as pollution. Are synfuels pollution free? I'm guessing not... but would be pleasantly surprised if they were. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 04:38:15 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 22:38:15 -0600 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think the end game for reducing vehicle fatalities (esp the 21,000 solo idiots) is fully autonomous vehicles. It will take a decade or so to get the technology common enough to save many lives, but I have hope that eventually, this number will go way down. My prediction is that we'll see some form of highway autonomy in the 2014 model year. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 04:24:13 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 22:24:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/3 Mr Jones : > On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 3:08 AM, Kelly Anderson > wrote: >> 2011/4/2 Mr Jones : >> Energy is clearly central to the endeavors of human beings and will be >> to our successors as well. Let's do a little exercise... Let's suppose >> that in 100 years most intelligence is non-human. That is, it runs on >> a non-biological substrate. I would suppose that such a substrate >> would be able to survive without too much difficulty in outer space. >> Given the nearly limitless solar energy that could be harvested by >> orbiting the sun, I kind of wonder if earth itself won't be a >> backwater in 100 years. > > I'm perhaps a touch idealistic, but I would hope that it's been maintained > as an 'animal preserve' so to speak. I think of many outcomes, this one is very much within the realm of possibility. The ethics of preservation would have to be accepted by the AGIs... which is why artificial ethics is such an important area for the future of biological humanity (not to mention the rest of the biosphere). I can see Earth being a museum piece. >> If intelligent robots can survive in space >> without the life support that biological humans require, then >> harvesting the needed materials from asteroids, comets and other >> sources will be cheaper than bringing materials up from earth to >> space. > > Exactly. ?And to increase real-estate when necessary, you tow hunks from > space into an orbit Precisely. Of course you eventually run out of hunks, and at that point, earth starts to look like something you could harvest hunks from... hopefully there won't be quite that level of greed in the AGIs... I hope, I hope... >> So the whole concept of the importance of the space elevator, beaming >> solar energy down to earth, solving global warming and so forth may be >> a problem for the remaining biological legacy on earth, but may not be >> "where it's happening" in the future. > > I see abundant solar energy solutions as a precursor to the Singularity. I don't think there is enough time. We aren't even working on space based solar, except as a mental exercise. > ?Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think they're very necessary in the grand scheme > of things. ?I'd like to see humanity build a solar/hydrogen economy, seeing > as it's the most abundant element in our Universe. I think it would be nice too. >> This is just a thought experiment, I'm curious what you all think. > > Sign me up for virtualization, I'm game. That's a separate question. Very interesting but off thread to some extent... I'm talking about intelligence that was always non-biological first and foremost. >> Of course we would, but if we didn't spend money on war, we certainly >> wouldn't be spending it on something less politically important. At >> some point, when gasoline is $20 a gallon, and there is no hope of it >> ever going under $15 a gallon, then the people of the USA will raise >> the priority of energy management to the point that such spending will >> seem justified to the point that the politicians will pay attention. > > I just don't understand how the foresight isn't in place already. Propaganda. The power brokers in oil and government (and they cooperate) don't want a switch from oil to anything else until it is absolutely necessary. Sperm whale oil sold for $200 a barrel in 1823 (equivalent price by 2003 standards*), but by 1855 this animal product was fetching more than seven times that amount. Those higher prices helped prompt the permanent switch from whale oil to other lighting fluids and eventually electricity. (Whale oil was only used by the rich, and was the best fuel for lighting. It wasn't widely used, other liquid fuels and candles were used by poorer folk.) The point is that there are people who don't want us to have this foresight, especially in public thought, and so we don't. Gasoline is highly subsidized to this day. If we paid the full cost of gasoline at the pump, we would be switching to something else rather more quickly. > How can > we not see the giant cliff we're headed towards? ?It's not as if the writing > hasn't been on the wall for decades. ?Not to mention previous 'empires' > being brought down by extremely similar situations. ?The perfect storm of > sorts. ?I get the 300+ million sheeple in the USoA sleeping at the wheel, > they've been programmed well. ?What confuses me, is how upper management, > the top 10%, sees it as being in their own best interest to fleece the > middle/lower class they skim off of. Follow the money. Who donates to politician's reelection funds more than oil companies? Why were George Bush 1 and 2 elected? Partly because of their connections to the oil industry. >?I guess everything's international and > out-sourced enough to where location is irrelevant. ?Bad time to have > inferior manufacturing huh? Perhaps. I'm very concerned about the government numbers that came out this week indicating that we have twice as many people working for the government than we do in manufacturing. That seems very far out of balance to me. >> Sorry for the cynical attitude today... but I just don't see >> politicians as an intelligent life form. > > I'd like humanity to revolutionize governance by way of the internet. ?Gov > 2.0 type deal. I'd like to see an AGI elected to be president, once it's smart enough. >> > It's silly, we spend $400B plus a year importing oil, yet $100B >> > investment >> > in renewable/sustainable energy is unheard of? >> >> Yup. The idea that Al Gore would have done things differently is a >> pipe dream... even with his green ideas, I don't think it would have >> turned out all that differently. > > I agree. ?Politicians go in with the best of intentions, I'm sure they're > not all evil/incompetent. ?But reality sets in quickly. ?It's very > entrenched, I have no doubt. ?Which is why drastic actions are called for. > ?No incumbents allowed, and 'none-of-the-above' would be a great start. I couldn't agree more, but the bigger problem is the entrenched bureaucratic monster. That's why I rather like the idea of government shutting down... permanently, if possible. >> I love the spin on Libya. It's so clearly about oil, why do they have >> to maintain the facade that it's human rights concerns? > > Because we're complacent enough to allow it to continue. I think the American public is losing it's complacency. See "tea party". >> We haven't >> done crap in Sudan. There is more human suffering in Haiti, Sumatra >> and Japan than there ever will be in Libya, but Libya has oil... it's >> the only difference. > > The only one that matters right now, yes. > I just can't wrap my mind around this suicidal kind of thinking. ?Each day > we push ahead with this garbage oil business, is a month (just a guess, > picked an arbitrary #, no sources) we're going to pay for it in spades down > the road. ?I just can't comprehend how killing one another is a better > choice than cooperating until we colonize space, and then you can go your > way, I go mine, and we've got more room than we could ever know what to do > with. Cooperation is not possible. Only competition. But competition can be non-violent. It has been pointed out that no two nations both of which have a McDonalds have ever declared war on each other. It's an interesting point. Once you are part of the international marketplace, it's tough to throw that away for a disagreement. It pulled India and Pakistan back from the brink. > We need to do it because we can, and it's necessary. ?Not because it's > profitable. But if the costs are born at the pump, then it will be profitable to do the right thing. Pay for the wars with gasoline tax. Pay for CO2 sequestration with gasoline taxes. It's the only fair thing to do. We're hurting bad soon if we do anything different. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 6 04:52:04 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 21:52:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002001cbf416$60be1940$223a4bc0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low >...I think the end game for reducing vehicle fatalities (esp the 21,000 solo idiots) is fully autonomous vehicles. It will take a decade or so to get the technology common enough to save many lives, but I have hope that eventually, this number will go way down. My prediction is that we'll see some form of highway autonomy in the 2014 model year. -Kelly I predict we will not. We haven't worked out the liability issues. Those seem to get bigger over time instead of smaller. Technically we can do this now, but legally, we are nowhere close, and the goal seems to be receding all the time. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 6 05:11:28 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 22:11:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <002101cbf419$16e04f70$44a0ee50$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson Subject: Re: [ExI] new heavy lifter 2011/4/5 spike : > >> This caught my attention because I have long thought of this approach as compelling: > >> http://cosmiclog.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/04/04/6409132-spacex-shoots-for-ne xt-big-thing >...They are saying $1000 per pound, $2200 per kg to LEO...Keith Oh my, goooood luck SpaceX, I do hope you make it. http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/05/powerful-rocket-world-ready-2012-s pacex-says/?test=faces If they manage to achieve 1000 bucks a pound to LEO, it will be a new day for space, and perhaps give us a new take on how we live our lives. A breakthrough of that magnitude would enable vast constellations of communications satellites, so that much if not most travel would be obviated. Meeting with colleagues in an office would by an uncompetitive thing to do: the opportunity cost of spending half an hour each way in a car to get to an office would be far too high. With far better information technology, our needs would be far better met by staying close to our homes. Energy would be used far differently from how it is used today. Imagine for instance we re-examine many of our most basic assumptions. I already mentioned our daily trip to the office, but imagine we had sufficient secure bandwidth to have all our business meetings right in our own homes. Imagine instead of going shopping for groceries for instance, we make a list of items that are running low on the computer, visible in some form, and by some mysterious process several sources which has that particular item or product compete with each other to supply it to you. You choose the best deal, the item or product appears at your home perhaps within minutes, possibly from a source over on the adjacent street, hand carried by the person who lives there. Imagine your finding no further use for some household item of value, and you list it somehow for a certain price. At some unspecified time, a person shows up at your door to collect the item and pay you, and carry it somewhere else to where some other person has purchased the item for enough profit to cover the local who picked it up. Bricks and mortar stores, gone with the wind, poof. Shopping malls, poof. Most offices, gone. Most traffic, gone. Farms, still there, still producing food in much the same way as always, still using energy, but a lot more of them, a lot smaller, a wildly efficient market coming from nearby to take away the food as it ripens, allowing small farms and small food value-added operations to exist, with information flow allowing everyone to buy exactly what they need or want, and everyone to sell exactly what they don't need or don't want, or can make. Look at what we already have, stuff which popped into existence just in the past couple decades: the internet has enabled Craig's List, eBay, and their many variations. So much of what used to cost us money is now really free: information we used to extract from books can now be accessed much more easily. Eventually our other needs will be filled the same way. As energy costs go up, we will find ways to move around less, and do everything much more efficiently. Cheaper access to space will allow information to move better, even if it doesn't move us more effectively. spike From atymes at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 06:28:03 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 23:28:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <002101cbf419$16e04f70$44a0ee50$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <002101cbf419$16e04f70$44a0ee50$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 5, 2011 at 10:11 PM, spike wrote: > If they manage to achieve 1000 bucks a pound to LEO, it will be a new day > for space, and perhaps give us a new take on how we live our lives. ?A > breakthrough of that magnitude would enable vast constellations of > communications satellites, so that much if not most travel would be > obviated. ?Meeting with colleagues in an office would by an uncompetitive > thing to do: the opportunity cost of spending half an hour each way in a car > to get to an office would be far too high. ?With far better information > technology, our needs would be far better met by staying close to our homes. > Energy would be used far differently from how it is used today. [etc.] Most of the examples you list are already quite possible, and in fact have been tried, with the Internet today. They simply don't work, for reasons having nothing to do with the cost of bandwidth. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 6 08:52:06 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 10:52:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <004101cbf3f5$33486270$99d92750$@att.net> References: <011501cbf3de$272b0090$758101b0$@att.net> <004101cbf3f5$33486270$99d92750$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110406085206.GL23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 05:54:35PM -0700, spike wrote: > Mike, being mildly killed is one thing. Being severely killed is where > Alcor can't find enough of the prole to freeze. Unfortunately, bike accidents (particularly for people who think helmets are optional or minimal) frequently make for vent vegetable, which is a) extremely expensive b) not worth suspending. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 6 09:01:13 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 11:01:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110406090113.GM23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 10:38:15PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I think the end game for reducing vehicle fatalities (esp the 21,000 > solo idiots) is fully autonomous vehicles. It will take a decade or so > to get the technology common enough to save many lives, but I have > hope that eventually, this number will go way down. My prediction is > that we'll see some form of highway autonomy in the 2014 model year. It will happen the year an insurance will find the risk acceptable to offer affordable insurance. Vendor liability is an issue even now, consider the potential for litigation for autonomous vehicles. Ugh. -- 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 From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 07:49:38 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 08:49:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I think the end game for reducing vehicle fatalities (esp the 21,000 > solo idiots) is fully autonomous vehicles. It will take a decade or so > to get the technology common enough to save many lives, but I have > hope that eventually, this number will go way down. My prediction is > that we'll see some form of highway autonomy in the 2014 model year. > > Self driving cars might start as an option, which the driver can enable when wanted. Like if you want to catch up with emails during your one-hour commute. Autonomous cars will, of course, be recording everything that happens so that in the event of an accident there will be exact evidence as to who or what was the cause. Just a more advanced version of the black box recorders already in most new cars today. Driving is regarded as 'self-expression' by many, so many drivers would still prefer to drive themselves. It is a pity that the 'self' they are expressing is an aggressive yahoo. It would be really neat if you stagger out the bar after a celebration and the car car says 'Forget it - I'm driving us home'. :) BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 12:47:51 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 14:47:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: References: <001001cbf145$bcc11900$36434b00$@att.net> Message-ID: On 6 April 2011 06:24, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I think of many outcomes, this one is very much within the realm of > possibility. The ethics of preservation would have to be accepted by > the AGIs... which is why artificial ethics is such an important area > for the future of biological humanity (not to mention the rest of the > biosphere). I can see Earth being a museum piece. I have no definite position on the subject. Of course, what appears essential i the preservation of the *information* - which if anything is more likely to succeed in a posthuman and technologically avanced context as opposed to its contrary. Do we really want to preserve the actual *rocks*? I am not so sure, but I am also not sure of the contrary. :-/ OTOH, I do not see what this may have to do with "artificial" ethics or with ethics at all. I do expect anthropomorfic AGIs to have splitted, controversial opinions on the subject as most biological humans today do. I do not see how and why running in silicon would change one's view in this respect. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 12:53:56 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 14:53:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <002101cbf419$16e04f70$44a0ee50$@att.net> Message-ID: On 6 April 2011 08:28, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Most of the examples you list are already quite possible, and in fact have > been tried, with the Internet today. ?They simply don't work, for reasons > having nothing to do with the cost of bandwidth. Yep. This was also my first thought. Actually, available bandwith already exceeds in most places by orders of magnitude what is required by things as trivial as e-commerce or telework. -- Stefano Vaj From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 6 13:23:26 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 15:23:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <002101cbf419$16e04f70$44a0ee50$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <002101cbf419$16e04f70$44a0ee50$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110406132326.GR23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 10:11:28PM -0700, spike wrote: > Oh my, goooood luck SpaceX, I do hope you make it. > > http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2011/04/05/powerful-rocket-world-ready-2012-s > pacex-says/?test=faces Sanity check from http://aldaylongmusings.blogspot.com/2011/04/spacex-sanity-check.html thinks the claims are not outrageous. -- 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 From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Apr 6 13:39:04 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 06:39:04 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <800426.81143.qm@web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > > I can see Earth being a museum piece. > Permanently lock away all that useful rock and metal, for the sake of a zoo for a few primitive biological organisms? I think there are probably better solutions. Ben Zaiboc From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Apr 6 14:52:34 2011 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 07:52:34 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <800426.81143.qm@web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <800426.81143.qm@web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <852847.50723.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> You speak as if Earth contained most of the rock and metal in the solar system if not the galaxy. There's plenty of rock and metal around to play with. Regards, Dan From: Ben Zaiboc To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Wed, April 6, 2011 9:39:04 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of tons to space Kelly Anderson wrote: > > I can see Earth being a museum piece. Permanently lock away all that useful rock and metal, for the sake of a zoo for a few primitive biological organisms? I think there are probably better solutions. Ben Zaiboc -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 6 15:30:09 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 17:30:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <852847.50723.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <800426.81143.qm@web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <852847.50723.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20110406153009.GT23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 07:52:34AM -0700, Dan wrote: > You speak as if Earth contained most of the rock and metal in the solar system > if not the galaxy. There's plenty of rock and metal around to play with. Most of the metals in the solar system are locked in the inner planets. There are 4 MT/s of flux to work with, and more if you use fusables for fuel. -- 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 From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Tue Apr 5 10:31:35 2011 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 06:31:35 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes Message-ID: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> A number of points in Mirco's argument have face validity, but they oversimplify the dynamics at work. As a psychologist, I must interject some data he has not factored in to this discussion. I'm not suggesting a resolution to the discussion; I just want to demonstrate that it is more complicated when we are dealing with humans. Human selection processes in recent generations have likely been significantly influenced by non-rational cultural factors such as these: Microaggressions: people often internalize racists beliefs and behave accordingly without conscious awareness or intent of being racist. The proposition that human "races" exist is a social construct; there are variable human phenotypes for hair color and texture as well as skin color. Some variations/mutations will confer advantages over time, but the discrete categories we try to group them in at a particular moment in time are not robust. Thus it is difficult to make sense of microaggressions as being genetically driven. Seehttp://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=microaggressions+&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C22&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 Implicit biases: these are prevalent and largely outside of conscious awareness. Decisions about, for example, who to breed with are influence by such biases which we are not even aware of, and I'd suggest these are not genetically driven biases. Do some Implicit Association Tests athttps://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/ to discover biases you may hold that you are not conscious of. Psychology of oppression and social change: those in positions of power create rules that perpetuate their power and facilitate the continued oppression of those who might threaten their power. People with traits more different from those in positions of power are systematically oppressed more aggressively. Consider that law enforcement (police) are instruments of the oppressors. Much on this topic has been published:http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=psychology+oppression+&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C22&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 Lastly, human societal status and education (intelligence increase), at least in recent generations, has had significant influence from factors beyond one's genetic predisposition. I submit it is self-evident that access to information and literacy, for example is a relatively new advantage available to the non-elites.Tim Leary wrote much about this is Chaos and Cyber Culture (http://www.scribd.com/doc/35954417/Timothy-Leary-Chaos-Cyber-Culture). Here's a quote to give you a flavor: "CHILDHOOD'S END? It seems clear that we are facing one of those genetic cross-roads that have occurred so frequently in the history of primates. The members of the human gene pool who form symbiotic links with solid-state computers will be characterized by extremely high individual intelligence and will settle in geographic niches that encourage individual access to knowledge-information-processing software. New associations of individuals linked by computers will surely emerge. Information nets will encourage a swift, free inter- change among individuals. Feedback peripherals will dramatically expand the mode of exchange from keyboard punching to neuro- physiological interaction. The key word is, of course, "interaction." The intoxicating power of interactive software is that it eliminates dependence on the enormous bureaucracy of knowledge professionals that flourished in the industrial age. In the factory culture, guilds and unions and associations of knowledge-workers jealously monopolized the flow of information. Educators, teachers, professors, consultants, psychotherapists, librarians, managers, journalists, editors, writers, labor unions, medical groups all such roles are now threatened." None of these factors carry weight among the tame and aggressive foxes but are very relevant to human interaction (and thus selection). -hENRY -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 15:49:05 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 17:49:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes In-Reply-To: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: 2011/4/5 Henry Rivera : > The proposition that human "races" exist is a social construct. The proposition that animal races, or for that matter species, exist is also a "social construct", more accurately an epistemological construct. What really matters is diversity and its protection and if possible increase. Taxonomies are however inevitable to organise our perceptions and understanding thereof. -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 6 15:42:19 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 08:42:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005301cbf471$36bd5290$a437f7b0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... >...Autonomous cars will, of course, be recording everything that happens so that in the event of an accident there will be exact evidence as to who or what was the cause. Just a more advanced version of the black box recorders already in most new cars today...BillK _______________________________________________ That still doesn't get us there. In the states, whenever there is *any* accident and one of the drivers is found to be legally intoxicated, the drunk is considered at fault, even if there is clear evidence the other car caused the accident. If a drunk is sitting stopped at a red light and is struck from behind by another driver who is sober and merely stupid, the drunk is at fault. The line of reasoning may be that had the stationary drunk been sober, perhaps she could have carried out some evasive action. That line of reasoning could be extended to fault the computer in any accident, with the reasoning being that even if the other driver caused the accident, an actual human could have perhaps done a better job of defensive driving. This argument will hold even after computers become expert drivers and humans are even more pathetic than we are now. I predict that researchers will go down the same line of reasoning I just did, and realize it isn't worth their time. I predict we will not see auto-autos in the next couple decades at least. spike From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 6 17:10:47 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 10:10:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power Message-ID: Some interesting data on the (low) efficiency of wind power: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/#more-37420 --- Max -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Wed Apr 6 17:18:55 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 13:18:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> Message-ID: On Apr 5, 2011, at 2:10 PM, spike wrote: > > I often hear the comment that the space shuttle?s capability was exaggerated (30 tons to LEO, 12 tons return.) It never came close to either, but it was *theoretically* capable of both of these goals in its final configuration. Originally we were told that a Space Shuttle would have a turnaround time of only 2 weeks and could make 25 trips a year, but they were lucky to get 3 trips a year. Originally we were told the probability of catastrophic failure was astronomically unlikely, but the true figure was about 2% per flight. Originally we were told that because its reusable the cost of putting something into orbit would drop by many orders of magnitude, but we'd have done better if we never heard of the shuttle and just kept on making Saturn 5's. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 17:42:07 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 19:42:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/6 John Clark : > Originally we were told that a Space Shuttle would have a turnaround time of > only 2 weeks and could make 25 trips a year, but they were lucky to get 3 > trips a year. Originally we were told the probability of catastrophic > failure was astronomically unlikely, but the true figure was about 2% per > flight. Originally we were told that because its reusable the cost of > putting something into orbit would drop by many orders of magnitude, but > we'd have done better if we never heard of the shuttle and just kept on > making Saturn 5's. I am far from being an expert, but read that the real problem is that the Shuttles never had a clear mission in the first place. And of course price per trip of an expensive re-usable vs that of throw-away solutions is bound to increase dramatically if it is severely under-used. -- Stefano Vaj From dan_ust at yahoo.com Wed Apr 6 18:00:12 2011 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 11:00:12 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <20110406153009.GT23560@leitl.org> References: <800426.81143.qm@web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <852847.50723.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20110406153009.GT23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <343324.38897.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Given the likehood of Uranus and Neptune having rocky metal cores about an Earth mass or so, this still means most of the rock and metal in the solar system is off Earth, no? Of course, it'd be really hard to access much of it, but the same applies to the rock and metal not in Earth's crust. (And, once you're off world, it seems like the rock and metal available on Luna and smaller bodies would be far more accessible and useable than the stuff packed into the Earth or any terrestrial planet.) I just don't see, at this time, such a shortage of these materials, that the only possible attitude to take is Earth must be gobbled up for resource extraction. Regards, Dan ? From: Eugen Leitl To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Sent: Wed, April 6, 2011 11:30:09 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of tons to space On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 07:52:34AM -0700, Dan wrote: > You speak as if Earth contained most of the rock and metal in the solar system > if not the galaxy. There's plenty of rock and metal around to play with. Most of the metals in the solar system are locked in the inner planets. There are 4 MT/s of flux to work with, and more if you use fusables for fuel. -- 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 _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 18:43:47 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 19:43:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes In-Reply-To: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> References: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: 2011/4/5 Henry Rivera wrote: > A number of points in Mirco's argument have face validity, but they > oversimplify the dynamics at work. As a psychologist, I must interject some > data he has not factored in to this discussion. I'm not suggesting a > resolution to the discussion; I just want to demonstrate that it is more > complicated when we are dealing with humans. Human selection processes in > recent generations have likely been significantly influenced by non-rational > cultural factors such as these: > > Microaggressions: people often internalize racists beliefs and behave > accordingly without conscious awareness or intent of being racist. The > proposition that human "races" exist is a social construct; there are > variable human phenotypes for hair color and texture as well as skin color. > > Implicit biases: these are prevalent and largely outside of conscious > awareness. Decisions about, for example, who to breed with are influence by > such biases which we are not even aware of, and I'd suggest these are not > genetically driven biases. Do some Implicit Association Tests > athttps://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/?to discover biases you may > hold that you are not conscious of. > > Psychology of oppression and social change: those in positions of power > create rules that perpetuate their power and facilitate the continued > oppression of those who might threaten their power. People with traits more > different from those in positions of power are systematically oppressed more > aggressively. Consider that law enforcement (police) are instruments of the > oppressors. Much on this topic has been > published:http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=psychology+oppression+&btnG=Search&as_sdt=0%2C22&as_ylo=&as_vis=0 > > Lastly,? human societal status and education (intelligence increase), at > least in recent generations, has had significant influence from factors > beyond one's genetic predisposition. I submit it is self-evident that access > to information and literacy, for example is a relatively new advantage > available to the non-elites. > > None of these factors carry weight among the tame and aggressive foxes but > are very relevant to human interaction (and thus selection). > > Agreed. Human culture and institutions are far more significant in human behaviour. Genetic changes cannot possibly have such an immediate and powerful effect. Show me the capitalist gene that is supposed to have appeared in Britain in a few generations! Especially as the trading and business culture developed across Europe centuries before the British Industrial Revolution. BillK From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 6 19:28:19 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 12:28:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 10:11 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power Some interesting data on the (low) efficiency of wind power: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-belo w-advertised-efficiency/#more-37420 --- Max Thanks Max. I was a big fan of wind power until ~2008. Starting in that year, I began making frequent trips coast to coast, and saw wind farms in various places. I noted the locations and set my computer to remind me to look out the window when various wind farms were coming into view. It is something that burned an image into my retinas: most of the time in most of those wind farms, all of the turbines were sitting still and quiet. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 6 20:00:23 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 13:00:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> Message-ID: <013401cbf495$442aa120$cc7fe360$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] new heavy lifter On Apr 5, 2011, at 2:10 PM, spike wrote: >.I often hear the comment that the space shuttle's capability was exaggerated (30 tons to LEO, 12 tons return.) It never came close to either, but it was *theoretically* capable of both of these goals in its final configuration. >.Originally we were told that a Space Shuttle would have a turnaround time of only 2 weeks and could make 25 trips a year, but they were lucky to get 3 trips a year. Originally we were told the probability of catastrophic failure was astronomically unlikely, but the true figure was about 2% per flight. Originally we were told that because its reusable the cost of putting something into orbit would drop by many orders of magnitude, but we'd have done better if we never heard of the shuttle and just kept on making Saturn 5's. John K Clark John I agree the shuttle program was a long term catastrophe for the US space program. Do let us make sure we are whooping the right dog. Those numbers you cited were for a different set of assumptions. NASA made some decisions in the 1970s during the shuttle design and build phase that made it clear they were sacrificing some of those end goals, long before the shuttles flew. During the design phase, and after a lot of the hype had already been printed in hard copy, they defunded a lot of the stuff that would have contributed to faster turnaround and long term performance. After the first transport to Cape Canaveral aboard a B747, it was already clear the shuttle would achieve nothing like a 2 week turnaround. That was on 10 April 1979. I remember that day as clearly as any from that entire decade. I was there when the aircraft landed at Cape Canaveral. That was the oddest mixture of elation and disappointment, I have a hard time even describing it, but I will try. Many of the tiles failed during the 10 April flight and fell off. I was an engineering student at the University of Central Florida then, so you can imagine the hot topic of conversation. We knew enough about re-entry systems to know that if any of the tiles came off the critical surfaces (pretty much anything on the bottom side) during re-entry, the aerodynamic load would be transferred to the tile behind the failed one, and it too would fail within seconds, then the one behind that, in what came to be called the zipper effect. Row of tiles come off, front to back, wing rips off, result: loss of vehicle and crew. We saw an example of that on 16 January 2003. Most were surprised when Challenger exploded on liftoff in 1986, but few were surprised by Columbia's break up on reentry in 2003. We knew that could happen. Back in 1979, a lot of the smart guys realized the existing thermal protection system would need to be redone. I knew this because I was acquainted with many of these smart guys, including my girlfriend's father. He had crystal foresight: NASA would end up redoing the tiles, payload capacity would go way down, turnaround time would go way up, costs would go thru an already very high roof. All this was well known by summer of 1979, two years before first flight. There was a strong contingency arguing at the time to scrap the damn thing and restart the Saturn V program. There were already credible voices arguing that we couldn't rebuild a Saturn V at that time. I was there, heard it, saw it, believed it, still do. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 22:37:56 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 15:37:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes In-Reply-To: References: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 11:43 AM, BillK wrote: snip > > Agreed. Human culture and institutions are far more significant in > human behaviour. Genetic changes cannot possibly have such an > immediate and powerful effect. I am kind of amazed that you deny the results of several decades of twin studies. Or for that matter the horror of David Reimer http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Reimer You don't have to be politically correct on this list. Culture and institutions do indeed have an effect. But if everyone is well fed, the differences in say, adult height, are due to genes. > Show me the capitalist gene that is supposed to have appeared in > Britain in a few generations! Come back in a decade or so when we have mapped the genes that became more common over 400 years of a stable society that was both drawinian and malthusian. It might not take that long. They already have a list of some 40 genes that are different between tame and wild foxes. Given that we fished out the DNA of Neanderthals, it should not be too hard to get a decent DNA sampling from a 1000 years ago in the UK and compare it to the current prevalence of various genes. > Especially as the trading and business > culture developed across Europe centuries before the British > Industrial Revolution. And farming came in ten millennia before that. I suspect that farming drove the selection for acquisitiveness at least in the northern temperate zone. In a bad winter those who just had enough food and fuel to make it through a normal winter died and the children of the ones who had piled up more than most thought they needed repopulated the farms of those who starved or froze. Keith From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 22:47:14 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 23:47:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes In-Reply-To: References: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > > Come back in a decade or so when we have mapped the genes that became > more common over 400 years of a stable society that was both drawinian > and malthusian. > > It might not take that long. ?They already have a list of some 40 > genes that are different between tame and wild foxes. ?Given that we > fished out the DNA of Neanderthals, it should not be too hard to get a > decent DNA sampling from a 1000 years ago in the UK and compare it to > the current prevalence of various genes. > > And farming came in ten millennia before that. ?I suspect that farming > drove the selection for acquisitiveness at least in the northern > temperate zone. ?In a bad winter those who just had enough food and > fuel to make it through a normal winter died and the children of the > ones who had piled up more than most thought they needed repopulated > the farms of those who starved or froze. > > Well, if you believe that some nations evolved superior genes that make them good capitalists, then you must also believe that they un-evolve these genes as their capitalism goes downhill and other nations take over. National success goes in cycles. The torch gets passed along from nation to nation over the centuries. It's a cultural thing. Empires rise and fall. Nothing to do with genetics. BillK From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Apr 6 22:52:26 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 06 Apr 2011 15:52:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. Message-ID: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Dan wrote, > This also seems to fit some of the archaeological evidence too. There seems to > have been many big kills where there was even waste, but these were not everyday > or even every month affairs, it seems. This is my problem with the Paleo diet. The archeology does not fit a high-fat diet. Everything I read shows that hunter/gatherers got more of their diet from gathering than hunting. Big game meat was not a daily occurrence. And even when big game was bagged, it was not high-fat as seen in today's deliberately fattened meats. Therefore, I do not believe that high-fat meals are a good emulation of a paleo diet, even if eaten rarely. I also doubt the lack of grains in the diet. Archeological evidence shows that grains were routinely gathered and used in paleo times. Just because agriculture did not domesticate grains until later does not mean they were lacking in the paleo diet. So, besides the nutritional objections to the paleo diet, I also object to the diet on archeological grounds. Even if I wanted to emulate a paleo diet, it certainly would not be a high-meat or high-fat diet. And it would not exclude grains. (It might exclude dairy.) -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 6 23:47:13 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 16:47:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes In-Reply-To: References: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 3:47 PM, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 11:37 PM, Keith Henson ?wrote: >> >> Come back in a decade or so when we have mapped the genes that became >> more common over 400 years of a stable society that was both drawinian >> and malthusian. >> >> It might not take that long. ?They already have a list of some 40 >> genes that are different between tame and wild foxes. ?Given that we >> fished out the DNA of Neanderthals, it should not be too hard to get a >> decent DNA sampling from a 1000 years ago in the UK and compare it to >> the current prevalence of various genes. >> >> And farming came in ten millennia before that. ?I suspect that farming >> drove the selection for acquisitiveness at least in the northern >> temperate zone. ?In a bad winter those who just had enough food and >> fuel to make it through a normal winter died and the children of the >> ones who had piled up more than most thought they needed repopulated >> the farms of those who starved or froze. >> > > Well, if you believe that some nations evolved superior genes Not superior genes. Those genes would have come in dead last in hunter gatherer societies. Just better adapted to a stable agrarian society where the accumulation of wealth greatly improved the chances of your kids reaching adulthood. > that > make them good capitalists, then you must also believe that they > un-evolve these genes as their capitalism goes downhill and other > nations take over. The selection pressure has been off for 200 years now. Even the poorest of the poor seldom starve. > National success goes in cycles. The torch gets passed along from > nation to nation over the centuries. > > It's a cultural thing. Empires rise and fall. Nothing to do with genetics. Can you think of an example where cultural failure was the cause of an empire failing? The ones that really went down hard like the Myans were due to weather and environmental damage. The Greenland Norse I suppose were partly a failure of their culture to change in the face of much colder weather. Keith From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 7 00:57:17 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 17:57:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power Message-ID: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More >>Some interesting data on the (low) efficiency of wind power: >>http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-be low-advertised-efficiency/#more-37420 --- Max >. It is something that burned an image into my retinas: most of the time in most of those wind farms, all of the turbines were sitting still and quiet. spike I gave you some bad news, now I will give you something good. This past weekend I was at a class reunion for Shelly's high school, in Caldwell Idaho where she is from. We went to a big party out north and west past Vale Oregon. Driving out to the ranch of some old friends, I was struck by how much land there is where there is insufficient water resources to grow much of anything, no civilization, harsh climate, clear, windy most of the time, but there is a road and some existing power infrastructure. There is no reason whatsoever we couldn't make a mile wide field of PVs on either side of the road going up highway 26 from Vale and out highway 20 west of Vale, south from Marsing on highway 95, where one goes for hour after hour seeing on either side of the road to the horizon, flat unused ground, un-farmable, unbuildable. There is sooooo damn much wide open land out there, being used for nothing, useful for nothing else. If you have a few days to mess around, I do encourage those who worry about mankind's future energy resources to get in a Detroit and drive out to some of these desert wastelands, just to get a feel for how open and vast they are. Go down highway 395 in eastern Oregon and California, or go nearly anywhere in Nevada. Plenty of open space out there, and the land is practically free. We could add enormous power lines, or set up coal to octane plants out there to soak up the peak production. If you don't have time to drive out there, go on Google maps, enter Ontario Oregon, look around. If we really committed to doing this, we could set up solar panel fabs that would produce standardized 1 meter by 1 meter panels in quantities that would give manufacturing engineers the tingles. We would churn out so many of these things, we could get very close to lights-out factories. Over a couple decades we could gradually replace so many of the alternative energy sources, all of which have their severe shortcomings. We could end up with enough with enough spare energy to use the excess to synthesize ammonium nitrate for fertilizers, octane for our Detroits, power air conditioning to counteract global warming, all that stuff. The wind farms haven't lived up to their promise, geothermal and falling water are nearly completely exploited, oil is in decline, coal is dirty, Japanese tsunami generated all that bad press for nuclear power. Now I am convinced to steer my own investment dollars towards advanced domestic PV fabs. After it is all said and done, I am convinced to my own satisfaction that PVs are the path forward, with load leveling being largely accomplished by using peak power for conversion of coal to octane and for electric power-intensive processes such as metal extraction. Expensive, takes a long time to transition, lot of loss in transmission. But considering all alternatives, the downsides don't seem so far down now. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 01:26:16 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 18:26:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/6 spike : > If you have a few days to mess around, I do encourage those who worry about > mankind?s future energy resources to get in a Detroit and drive out to some > of these desert wastelands, just to get a feel for how open and vast they > are.? Go down highway 395 in eastern Oregon and California, or go nearly > anywhere in Nevada.? Plenty of open space out there, and the land is > practically free. Save for the cost of fending off inevitable "environmentalist" lawsuits. The existing oil players have shown that they will astroturf large solar energy plants to death where they can. From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 7 01:50:14 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 03:50:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] note from a foaf in japan In-Reply-To: References: <4D8DEFD5.7050804@libero.it> <4D962021.4070806@libero.it> Message-ID: <4D9D1856.8090501@libero.it> Il 03/04/2011 1.23, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Mirco Romanato > wrote: >> Il 01/04/2011 6.17, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >>> On Sat, Mar 26, 2011 at 7:53 AM, Mirco Romanato They bred a few >>> hundred foxes with each generation, then only bred the 1% that >>> were most tame or most aggressive. >> We can suppose that it wiped out the most weak, physically, of the >> population. And we can suppose that the poor were the most weak of >> all (statistically). > Recall that most of the people at the time were very poor. The rich > ruling class was very small at this time, and there was virtually no > middle class in feudal Europe. I think "poor" in this discussion is whoever is not able to feed themselves and his family members and allow them to be healthy enough to pass the genes to the next generation. Many paesants would be able to do so. Many others not. >> The selective pressure of people living in cities is continuous >> over centuries. They are selected for traits allowing to thrive >> there. Also, being city population sinks, they attracted large >> numbers of people during many generations that allowed the >> selection process to continue unabated. Often, then, the most >> successful families in the cities would move out of the city with >> their wealth and buy farms and large homes, to be able to afford >> more children. > Name a specific trait that allows people to thrive in cities. Then > tell me what the selection mechanism is to keep people without that > trait from reproducing. Attention disorders and hyperactivity disorders are not good for city dwellers. It interfere with the constant toiling of the jobs usually available in cities like blacksmithing. The predisposition to learn how read and write and do maths. For example, in Florence during the XII century half of the children in the city went to "Schools of Abacus" (not public funded) to learn to do maths and be able to land a good job in some banks or keep a shop. Impulsiveness is a bad trait, as you are near too much people to get away with aggression, murder, thief, etc. easily. There is a reason the word "urbane" and "villain" are used to denote a behavior and not only the dweller in city and in the country. > The bottom line with people is that memes have been more important > than genes for hundreds of years, so I would not expect see a lot of > genetic changes over the past few hundred years because a wide cross > section of society reproduces. Another way to ask the question is > what sort of people don't reproduce in our modern societies? The productive middle class that it taxed out of existence and have not the resources to raise more than two children (often not enough to raise one). The lower classes, the unproductive on the dole, many of them reproduce far more than the the middle class because they can offload their reproduction to the taxpayers. This is a problem much debated in the manosphere. >> I don't think so. The poor were able to become a class only in the >> last two centuries because before they near always died with few or >> no offspring. And they were supplanted by the less accomplished >> (but better than them) offspring of the middle class. > The children of rich people can become poor very easily. Today the > poor reproduce at higher rates than the rich. I'm not sure what the > historical case is, but farmers have historically had lots of kids. Some farmers rarely were poor for the standards of the time. They had many children and bough land. They divided the land with their children. Some succeed and some not. Repeat. >> Your premises (as I understood them) are that the foxes and the >> vixens were subjected to an extensive culling (1% surviving to >> generate), where the actual number given in the article I linked >> were 5% for foxes and 20% for vixen. > You are probably right. Still, with a 5% or even 20% survival rate, > that is an EXTREME selection pressure that human beings have almost > never seen. And certainly we haven't seen those extreme selection > pressures based on the kinds of cultural issues that we started > talking about. In fact, I think it required much more time for the humans to select the right traits in the right conditions. In England it was something like 5-600 years or 20-30 generations. >> Take away the welfare state, the food stamps and the rest. Leave >> them on their devices. Like 200 years ago or more. Even more strong >> and durable, the selection for taking out people unable to control >> their impulses and empathize others. They would be, at least, be >> banned from the civil society. And without welfare they would die >> because of starvation or be prey of organized groups. For example, >> a not married woman having sex and becoming pregnant would lose her >> family support and be shunned by any other reputable man. Why? >> Because they would not risk to be rising someone else children >> instead of theirs. Exceptions abound, but invariably they concern >> very low standing women (prostitute or maiden) or very high >> standing women (too valuable to consider their previous sins). > > But can you point to one case where genetic change has happened. The > only one that comes to mind is that our genes for lactose > intolerance have been bred out after the creation of dairy as a main > human food source. That is a very different kind of genetic drift > than you are talking about. What you are saying is theoretically > possible, but as far as I know undocumented as having actually > happened. I think deMause "History of childhood" and "The Emotional Life of Nations" could be interesting. For something available on the net: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/07/return-of-quetzalcoatl-preface.html >> Also, the people coming from the country have traits that could be >> useful in the country but are not useful or are damaging when >> living in a city. This is something discovered studying an African >> tribe; the same traits that made them successful in herding sheep >> (so they were able to feed themselves well) made them not very >> successful in keeping a job in a city (so they were unable to keep >> themselves well fed). > > African tribes have definitely had enough time for some genetic > drift. Is this research or a guess? In western cultures where people > move to the city, then to the country and back, there isn't enough > pressure or time to create meaningful genetic drift. Recent research about a tribe, I read it a few years ago. Probably from Futurepundit. > I am engaged in just such an experiment. I am Caucasian, I have six > African American children, four Hispanic and one half Asian child. > Culturally, they are all mostly culturally white. They are > intellectually indistinguishable from me (other than some physical > issues stemming from in utero abuse). Your position on this point > seems racist, and completely unsupported by research. Of course, > there is a cultural limit on how much real research has been done in > this area because nobody wants to be called a racist. Exactly. The data about the IQ gap of blacks relative to whites in the US is well know. It also didn't change much with time. IIRC the data about mulattos/mestizos is something in between. Also, the distribution of personality traits and psychic disorders is different for Africans and Europeans and, IMHO, appear to follow the adaptations to the local conditions of Africa and Europe. I think the next decade will be very interesting in this field, dispelling many wrong ideas. > We talk a lot about the higher rates of incarceration of minorities. The problem is when some explanations can not be uttered because they are not acceptable to the polite discourse. >>> Blacks are more carefully watched by the police, >> >> Why? Why they don't check more for Hispanics or Vietnamese or >> Italians? Are the policemen racists? Even the blacks one? > Yes, even some black policemen are racist against blacks. This beg the question: "Are they racist without reasons or with reasons?" > It took the Irish at least three generations to escape from being > the lowest in American society. At one point, the coal mines in West > Virginia would hire Irish over black slaves because they were less > valuable than the slaves to the mine owners. Similarly, the Chinese > who build the transcontinental railroad were valued less than > slaves. This because slaves were property and the freemen not. > I blame politicians more than anyone else for the problems facing > the blacks in America today. The black leadership (Jessie Jackson and > the like) are particularly guilty IMHO. :-) I agree that many politicians (blacks and whites) give as much help as they are able to keep the blacks in the plantation. > Blacks who recently came from Africa or the Caribbean are usually > more immediately successful than African Americans with the cultural > history. Yesterday, I interacted with an African pharmacist. I was > not surprised, but I would have been more surprised by an African > American pharmacist. In other words, the problem is not such much the > color of their skin, but the color of their mind. After hearing that > the "man is going to keep you down" for generations, many African > Americans give up. My own African American children don't hear this > negative talk, and I fully expect them to succeed in America. It's > not genetic, it's cultural. How much old are they. Theory say the older they will be the greater the difference. For the sake of the experiment you could sequence their genome when the costs will be down in the next few years and look for their real share of European, African, whatever genes. I agree that skin color is a poor proxy for something so complex like the genetics of the mind. > Where I live, the most disproportionate homicide is done by > undocumented Mexicans. Again, even if the homicide rate nation wide > is higher for black on whoever, that doesn't mean it is genetic. It > is societal and cultural if that is the case. As I wrote before, this decade will give up so much genetic data that we will be able to know much more about this. Maybe more than many of us would know are are able to accept. Reality have many surprises. > Correct. It is also the main cause of lawlessness of the Hispanics > that live there. I would suspect that any white people living in > South Central would also commit crime at a rate higher than the rest > of the nation, but there are very few whites living there. I don't > have numbers, this is a feeling. Four of my kids come from Compton > (in south central) and I have spent some time there. I have also > spent a couple of months in East Palo Alto, another troubled > neighborhood. Wish you a successful experiment. > They have succeeded. This doesn't make sense. Large changes in the > zeitgeist are accomplished all the time. Look at the change in > Southern attitudes towards blacks, or the nation's view of > homosexuality. They have changed a lot just in my life time. These are cultural changes of others, not the blacks. > I have also spent a lot of time in Mexico. It DID work exactly this > way. Mexico is 90%+ Catholic to this day. Where are you getting > these ideas? The issue is a bit more complex than formal adhesion to the Catholic Church. Local customs and way of thinking resisted the Conquistadors, mainly in the rural areas. > Ok. Here you are talking about real selected genetic difference. > Racism in humans is not based on significant genetic differences > because humans don't have very significant genetic differences. This > is primarily because of the population bottleneck around 600K years > ago. Significant genetic differences must be defined. It would be interesting, but not very ethics, to take a group of Africans and land them in rural Finland (with enough resources for living for a few years and have the chance to adapt) and land a group of Finns in rural Africa (with the same resources). Then look at how they succeed or not. I remember something like this in an old sci-fi book (Genoa-Texcoco:0.0) but it was more a testing of economics systems. >> Yes. But soldiers in moder professional armies are mainly from >> middle class and their IQ is a bit over the mean (this is surely >> true for in the US). And in modern society the middle class is the >> bigger part of the society. > > Actually, in the US armed forces, minorities and poor are > represented in higher proportion than middle class and white. This is > because of the financial benefits of joining the armed forces are > more effective in recruiting people who need those benefits. I would reconsider this info. Mine is that whites, middle class are the majority and overrepresented in the armed forces. Minorities are more represented in not combat positions than in combat positions. -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3555 - Data di rilascio: 06/04/2011 From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 7 05:25:52 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 6 Apr 2011 22:25:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 3:52 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Dan wrote, > > This also seems to fit some of the archaeological evidence too. There > seems to > > have been many big kills where there was even waste, but these were not > everyday > > or even every month affairs, it seems. > > This is my problem with the Paleo diet. The archeology does not fit a > high-fat diet. Everything I read shows that hunter/gatherers got more > of their diet from gathering than hunting. Big game meat was not a > daily occurrence. And even when big game was bagged, it was not > high-fat as seen in today's deliberately fattened meats. Therefore, I > do not believe that high-fat meals are a good emulation of a paleo diet, > even if eaten rarely. > There are a range of opinions about this in the paleo community. As a 30-year advocate of low-fat eating, I have made a huge shift in deciding that animal fats are not a bad thing (so long as they are not combined with high levels of carbohydrates). Have you read Loren Cordain's analyses of the paleo diet? Have you read the more high-fat-friend paleo analyses, such as that by recent, well-informed poster to this list, J. Stanton? Additionally, regardless of the history, have you read Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories? I would add that there is no one Paleo diet. What human ate varied considerably depending on the time period we're talking about and on their location. Some people ate almost exclusively animal meat. Others a more varied diet. I'm not aware of *any* vegetarian paleo people. > > I also doubt the lack of grains in the diet. Archeological evidence > shows that grains were routinely gathered and used in paleo times. That contradicts everything I've seen. I'd be interested in the evidence that you mention. We had this discussion a few months back. The skeptics of paleo could only come up with rather weak evidence of apparently rare consumption of any kind of grains. Whatever our differences on these issues, can I assume that you would agree that the vast increase in consumption over the last few decades of refined carbohydrates -- especially high-fructose corn syrup -- is a very bad thing for health? --- Max -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 7 07:00:14 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 09:00:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: <343324.38897.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <800426.81143.qm@web114415.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <852847.50723.qm@web30105.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <20110406153009.GT23560@leitl.org> <343324.38897.qm@web30108.mail.mud.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20110407070014.GW23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 11:00:12AM -0700, Dan wrote: > Given the likehood of Uranus and Neptune having rocky metal cores about an Earth Please do not top-post (message unchanged below). > mass or so, this still means most of the rock and metal in the solar system is > off Earth, no? Of course, it'd be really hard to access much of it, but the same Exactly. > applies to the rock and metal not in Earth's crust. (And, once you're off world, Absolutely not, asteroids, rocky planetesimals, Mercury, Moon are all fair game for stripmining. Once you run out of these you can e.g. blow off the atmosphere off Venus, which is frankly quite useless as is. > it seems like the rock and metal available on Luna and smaller bodies would be > far more accessible and useable than the stuff packed into the Earth or any > terrestrial planet.) > > I just don't see, at this time, such a shortage of these materials, that the > only possible attitude to take is Earth must be gobbled up for resource > extraction. Self-replication has exponential dynamics, so you'll run out of stuff before you run out of flux (4 MT/s, you'll need to build a cloud of nodes at about ~AU), and of course if you run out of flux before you run out of stuff there's fusion. > Regards, > > Dan > ? > From: Eugen Leitl > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Sent: Wed, April 6, 2011 11:30:09 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of tons to space > > On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 07:52:34AM -0700, Dan wrote: > > You speak as if Earth contained most of the rock and metal in the solar system > > > if not the galaxy. There's plenty of rock and metal around to play with. > > Most of the metals in the solar system are locked in the inner > planets. There are 4 MT/s of flux to work with, and more if you > use fusables for fuel. > > -- > 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- 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 From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 7 08:15:39 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 10:15:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> Message-ID: <4D9D72AB.1000503@libero.it> Il 07/04/2011 3.26, Adrian Tymes ha scritto: > 2011/4/6 spike : >> If you have a few days to mess around, I do encourage those who worry about >> mankind?s future energy resources to get in a Detroit and drive out to some >> of these desert wastelands, just to get a feel for how open and vast they > >> are. Go down highway 395 in eastern Oregon and California, or go nearly >> anywhere in Nevada. Plenty of open space out there, and the land is >> practically free. > > Save for the cost of fending off inevitable "environmentalist" lawsuits. > The existing oil players have shown that they will astroturf large solar > energy plants to death where they can. They opened a large PV plant, here, near Verona (Romeo, Juliet, a big mess, you know). They obtained a large incentive from the government and placed themselves over good land used for horticulture. Now they produce electricity instead of fine food (and when I say fine, it is really fine). PV is reasonable inside city (where it will be used offsetting the use of power transmitted on long lines) or where fuel or lines can not be used or are impractical. -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3556 - Data di rilascio: 06/04/2011 From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 7 08:31:03 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 10:31:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 12:28:19PM -0700, spike wrote: > Thanks Max. I was a big fan of wind power until ~2008. Starting in that I never was. The potential is limited to locations, and as a secondary source to the solar primary it is limited in total volume. See respective total available energy on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Available_Energy-4.png As you see, even terrestrial solar flux is about a factor of 6000 in excess our needs, and 2000 in excess of our needs just considered land area. Incidentally, just the flux upon human-made structures matches the total energy demand. Solar also happens to match demand very closely, at least in Germany (peak around noon), so you can get rid of inefficient and/or nonagile peak plants. > year, I began making frequent trips coast to coast, and saw wind farms in > various places. I noted the locations and set my computer to remind me to > look out the window when various wind farms were coming into view. It is > something that burned an image into my retinas: most of the time in most of > those wind farms, all of the turbines were sitting still and quiet. Nevertheless it is possible to generate a fair fraction of total electricity with wind alone: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany Recent study says 65% of total electricity production in Germany could be done with wind power -- in theory. -- 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 From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 11:48:15 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 13:48:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <013401cbf495$442aa120$cc7fe360$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> <013401cbf495$442aa120$cc7fe360$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/6 spike : > Back in 1979, a lot of the smart guys realized the existing thermal > protection system would need to be redone.? I knew this because I was > acquainted with many of these smart guys, including my girlfriend?s father. > He had crystal foresight: NASA would end up redoing the tiles, payload > capacity would go way down, turnaround time would go way up, costs would go > thru an already very high roof.? All this was well known by summer of 1979, > two years before first flight. So, what should they have done, in your opinion? -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 12:31:24 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 14:31:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On 7 April 2011 00:52, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > This is my problem with the Paleo diet. ?The archeology does not fit a > high-fat diet. ?Everything I read shows that hunter/gatherers got more > of their diet from gathering than hunting. ?Big game meat was not a > daily occurrence. ?And even when big game was bagged, it was not > high-fat as seen in today's deliberately fattened meats. ?Therefore, I > do not believe that high-fat meals are a good emulation of a paleo diet, > even if eaten rarely. Certainly, there were differences between the diet. say. in equatorial Africa and in northern Europe. But gathering what? Eggs, insects, shellfish, half-eaten carcasses do not really qualify as hunting. Moroever, while nuts *are* high fat, wild semi-ripe fruits and roots are even more different (high-fiber, high-vitanutrients, low sugar) from contemporary agricultural products than meat is. But yes, nothing wrong in preferring venison or wild salmon over hormones-pumped veals. I suppose however that our paleo ancestors whenever they had to choose which part of their rare-treat big game to eat and which to relinquish were obviously favouring the fattest parts, which offered a better caloric deal pro-kilo. -- Stefano Vaj From sparge at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 12:35:24 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 08:35:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 6:52 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > This is my problem with the Paleo diet. The archeology does not fit a > high-fat diet. Everything I read shows that hunter/gatherers got more > of their diet from gathering than hunting. I'd be curious to know what evidence there is for that assertion. > Big game meat was not a daily occurrence. Big game is not the only source of meat. There's small games, fish, and insects, too. And even when big game was bagged, it was not > high-fat as seen in today's deliberately fattened meats. Most primal/paleo eaters prefer pasture-raised and finished meat for that reason and because of the better balance of omega 3's and omega 6's. I also doubt the lack of grains in the diet. Archeological evidence > shows that grains were routinely gathered and used in paleo times. Just > because agriculture did not domesticate grains until later does not mean > they were lacking in the paleo diet. > There's evidence of pre-agricultural grain consumption but it's pretty thin. However, a diet that includes occasional *wild* grains would have to qualify as primal/paleo, in my book. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Apr 7 13:37:00 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 06:37:00 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Millions of tons to space In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <178983.39412.qm@web114416.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Dan wrote: > > You speak as if Earth contained most of the rock and metal > in the solar system > if not the galaxy. There's plenty of rock and metal around > to play with. > > From: Ben Zaiboc > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Sent: Wed, April 6, 2011 9:39:04 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of tons to space > > Kelly Anderson > wrote: > > > > I can see Earth being a museum piece. > > Permanently lock away all that useful rock and metal, for > the sake of a zoo for > a few primitive biological organisms? > > I think there are probably better solutions. There was plenty of oil, too, a century ago, yet many people think we're going to run out of the stuff soon. If we discovered an oil-reservoir-dwelling bacterial ecosystem, I rather doubt it would be widely thought a good idea to preserve a multi-billion-barrel amount of oil under the ground, for the sake of those bacteria. We would think of a better solution, I'm sure. We could easily provide for the bacteria *and* still avail ourselves of the bulk of the oil. Planets are a terrible way to make a habitat (even for biologicals). Wasteful, dangerous, and so difficult to leave, when you want to. I wouldn't be surprised if there were no bodies larger than a few km in size left in the whole solar system (expect the sun), in a few hundred years. Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 7 15:05:04 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 08:05:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> <013401cbf495$442aa120$cc7fe360$@att.net> Message-ID: <006001cbf535$2d454fa0$87cfeee0$@att.net> ... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] new heavy lifter 2011/4/6 spike : >> Back in 1979... acquainted with many of these smart guys, including my girlfriend?s father. >> He had crystal foresight: ...? All this was well known by summer of 1979, two years before first flight. >So, what should they have done, in your opinion?--Stefano Vaj With the advantage of hindsight, what should have been done in 1979? * Cancel the shuttle program, forget returning payloads from space. That was a bad idea all along. Most of the time, the shuttles returned nearly empty, which is why they didn't break up on re-entry from structural failure. * Make a small re-entry vehicle, possibly even with wings and wheels, but no cargo bay, with six seats, three rows of two, or possibly five: one three one, with a heat shield and parachute landing. Keep a smaller two-seat re-entry body like the Gemini capsule (which is steerable to some extent and has a ground landing option.) Keep a single seat RB like the Mercury capsule with sea-landing only capability. * Have a small man-lifter that doesn't do much other than haul humans, four at a time, to orbit. The acceptable risk per launch is about 1% for man-rated launch. * Make heavy-lift non-man rated. This allows engineers to cut margins closer. Set acceptable risk to 10% loss per launch, for enormous weight savings. That isn't far off from what we ended up doing anyway, with the Titan and Delta families heavy lifters. The heavies could be more Titaney and less Delta-ey, but that might be personal bias. The Booeing boys might disagree. * Forget the space station. We had one of those in 1975, and we already knew in 1979 that humans can live a long time in weightlessness, and that they have nothing to do up there but copulate. (Well what you think they are doing up there for months at a time?) * Use most of that NASA budget in figuring out how to build highly capable autonomous robotics, to eventually assemble space stations and build Mars habitats. Have NASA study science, not humans in weightlessness for decades. * Use NASA budgets to work out aggressive goals for miniaturization, which has one hell of a lot of commercial spinoff. * Encourage space commercialization at every step. spike From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 15:13:27 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 11:13:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/7 Dave Sill > There's evidence of pre-agricultural grain consumption but it's pretty > thin. However, a diet that includes occasional *wild* grains would have to > qualify as primal/paleo, in my book. I believe they had to be near starving before they resorted to grains. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 15:26:17 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 11:26:17 -0400 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/6 spike > geothermal and falling water are nearly completely exploited I think geothermal heating/cooling should be used for homes/buildings. Using the Earth's constant temperature could save us a lot of grid usage. Sure, on the heating side we'll need to supplement, but we 'pay' to heat from 55-70, versus 34-70. Water sources deeper than 8' I believe it is, can be used as these geothermal heatsinks. We can kill 2 birds with one stone on this one, and create more ponds/lakes to help with the upcoming water issues (sporadic cycles, floods, droughts, etc.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Apr 7 16:50:53 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 11:50:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] ANNOUNCE: Humanity+ Conference May 14-15, in NYC Message-ID: <5D51A350333346618AEDBCF4FAACCF64@DFC68LF1> On May 14-15 2011, Humanity+ International is partnering with Parsons The New School for Design in New York City to produce Transhumanism Meets Design, a conference exploring emerging technology, transdisciplinary design, culture and media theory, and biotech. http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/ The conference brings together futurists, cyberneticists, life extensionists, singularity advocates, A[G]I and robotics experts, human enhancement specialists, inventors, ethicists, philosophers, and theorists to meet with the creativity and rigorous scholarship of design at Parsons. http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/ http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/speakers/ Technological innovation permeates all aspects of society-from tiny water purification packets and portable LifeStraw filters, to GPS tracking devices, wearable Timex iPods and Gel-Kinsei high-tech running shoes. Because technology and society evolve together, it has become increasingly important to develop a greater understanding of how technology is shaping the course of our lives. We are faced with a need to continuously become more innovative in harnessing and controlling technology's acceleration. Nevertheless, innovation develops in stages. When it speeds up, we are faced with an urge to become ever more resourceful. When it slows down there is an impending impatience to compete with the exuberance of China. There is no doubt that even the most conservative thinkers agree that we have stepped into an era of a massive change. The good news is that our human diversity continues to spawn inventiveness and novelty. Register! http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1089760503 Hotels information: http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/travel-hotels/ Other travel information: http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/travel-airports-subway/ See you there! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Thu Apr 7 18:15:50 2011 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 20:15:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 10:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 06, 2011 at 12:28:19PM -0700, spike wrote: > > > Thanks Max. I was a big fan of wind power until ~2008. Starting in that > > I never was. The potential is limited to locations, and as a secondary > source to the solar primary it is limited in total volume. > > > [...] > > Nevertheless it is possible to generate a fair fraction of total > electricity with wind alone: > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Germany > > Recent study says 65% of total electricity production in > Germany could be done with wind power -- in theory. > And in practice, wind power in Spain is already generating 21% of the total electricity - and that's an average over the whole month of March 2011: link in English: http://www.ree.es/ingles/sala_prensa/web/notas_detalle.aspx?id_nota=180 On a particularly good day, Spanish wind power generation surpassed 50% of the total generation: http://www.flickr.com/photos/traftery/4100600251/lightbox/ Note how hydroelectric goes negative (pumped storage), and how coal and gas stations are almost turned off. Also, international exchanges remained quite low - the load balancing was done mostly inside Spain, without increasing exports. This is exactly what wind power can do - not replace 100% of your electrical generation, but offset a significant percentage of fossil fuel generation. Up to 50% on any given day (on a sizable country with 46m people) has already been demonstrated in practice. Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Apr 7 19:19:00 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 14:19:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> [chances are that this email, like an earlier couple of mine, will be bounced by ExI chat] On 4/7/2011 3:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > See respective total available energy on > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Available_Energy-4.png > > As you see, even terrestrial solar flux is about a factor > of 6000 in excess our needs, and 2000 in excess of our > needs just considered land area. Incidentally, just the flux > upon human-made structures matches the total energy demand. I don't suppose anyone here has even the slightest curiosity about the alleged Rossi process: Damien Broderick From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 7 19:48:47 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:48:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110407194847.GD23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 08:15:50PM +0200, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > This is exactly what wind power can do - not replace 100% of your electrical > generation, but offset a significant percentage of fossil fuel generation. > Up to 50% on any given day (on a sizable country with 46m people) has > already been demonstrated in practice. Solar PV in Germany provides up to 17 GW peak of 85 GW peak demand. That at only 2% total contribution (doubled from 1% within a year). At the current growth rate renewable would provide >100% of peak by 2020, though it won't as the grid won't be able to be refitted for variable, multiple distributed sources on time. http://www.renewablesinternational.net/yes-we-have-no-base-load/150/537/29353/ > Alfio > -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 7 19:54:11 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:54:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 02:19:00PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote: > I don't suppose anyone here has even the slightest curiosity about the > alleged Rossi process: > > The known fraudster (illegal gold import and tax fraud) Andrea Rossi? -- 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 From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Apr 7 20:37:32 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 15:37:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Rossi In-Reply-To: <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9E208C.3010305@satx.rr.com> On 4/7/2011 2:54 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> > > The known fraudster (illegal gold import and tax fraud) Andrea Rossi? You mean the obsessive Biblical interpreter and alchemical madman Isaac Newton? Or the many tax dodgers and gold hoarders on this list? As a physicist associate commented: Whatever. Damien Broderick From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 7 20:44:57 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 13:44:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... >I don't suppose anyone here has even the slightest curiosity about the alleged Rossi process: >Damien Broderick It's bogus Damien. A huge hint is the comment that the used powder contains 10% copper. It suggested proton capture to transform nickel to copper, but to do that would require the presence of a lot of the rare-ish (~3%) isotope nickel62 doing the proton capture (never mind how such a wacky event could be happening.) Otherwise, if we imagine the copper is formed by a neutron decay (never mind how) the nickel atom would form copper62 which has a half life of about 10 minutes. This we can nail before we go to the trouble of calculating the nucleon energy transitions. Into the bit bucket with it. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Apr 7 22:30:23 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:30:23 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> Message-ID: <4D9E3AFF.7000606@satx.rr.com> On 4/7/2011 3:44 PM, spike wrote: > It's bogus Damien. A huge hint is the comment that the used powder contains > 10% copper. It suggested proton capture to transform nickel to copper, but > to do that would require the presence of a lot of the rare-ish (~3%) isotope > nickel62 doing the proton capture (never mind how such a wacky event could > be happening.) Yer probably right. But one physicist replies: while another agrees strenuously with you: Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 7 22:35:48 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 15:35:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ANNOUNCE: Humanity+ Conference May 14-15, in NYC In-Reply-To: <5D51A350333346618AEDBCF4FAACCF64@DFC68LF1> References: <5D51A350333346618AEDBCF4FAACCF64@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Fantastic! I'm really looking forward to participating in this event, the venue and focus being refreshingly different from so many other transhumanist conferences. The collection of speakers is large, diverse, and impressive. I hope lots of east coasters will attend, as well as some from further afield. See you in New York! --- Max 2011/4/7 Natasha Vita-More > On *May 14-15 2011, Humanity+* International is partnering with *Parsons > The New School for Design* in New York City to produce *Transhumanism > Meets Design*, a conference exploring emerging technology, > transdisciplinary design, culture and media theory, and biotech. > http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/ > > The conference brings together futurists, cyberneticists, life > extensionists, singularity advocates, A[G]I and robotics experts, human > enhancement specialists, inventors, ethicists, philosophers, and theorists > to meet with the creativity and rigorous scholarship of design at Parsons. > http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/ > http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/speakers/ > > Technological innovation permeates all aspects of society?from tiny water > purification packets and portable LifeStraw filters, to GPS tracking > devices, wearable Timex iPods and Gel-Kinsei high-tech running shoes. > Because technology and society evolve together, it has become increasingly > important to develop a greater understanding of how technology is shaping > the course of our lives. We are faced with a need to continuously become > more innovative in harnessing and controlling technology?s acceleration. > Nevertheless, innovation develops in stages. When it speeds up, we are faced > with an urge to become ever more resourceful. When it slows down there is an > impending impatience to compete with the exuberance of China. There is no > doubt that even the most conservative thinkers agree that we have stepped > into an era of a massive change. The good news is that our human diversity > continues to spawn inventiveness and novelty. > > Register! http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1089760503 > > Hotels information: > http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/travel-hotels/ > > Other travel information: > http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/travel-airports-subway/ > > See you there! > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 7 22:45:22 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 00:45:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> Message-ID: <4D9E3E82.7060205@libero.it> Il 07/04/2011 22.44, spike ha scritto: > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Damien > Broderick > ... > >> I don't suppose anyone here has even the slightest curiosity about the > alleged Rossi process: > > It's bogus Damien. A huge hint is the comment that the used powder contains > 10% copper. It suggested proton capture to transform nickel to copper, but > to do that would require the presence of a lot of the rare-ish (~3%) isotope > nickel62 doing the proton capture (never mind how such a wacky event could > be happening.) > Otherwise, if we imagine the copper is formed by a neutron decay (never mind > how) the nickel atom would form copper62 which has a half life of about 10 > minutes. This we can nail before we go to the trouble of calculating the > nucleon energy transitions. > Into the bit bucket with it. Well, Rossi say they will install a 1MW heat modular reactor in Greece in October. If it will deliver heat water until march to the paying customers could we agree there is something interesting there? It is interesting, for a scammer, to have the device tested by professionals from famous universities. Hanno Essen was chairman of the Sceptick Society in Sweden, so I suppose he know how debunk scammers. http://www.vof.se/visa-english Rossi could have stumbled on the effect by chance and found a way to turn it on and off at will by trial and error, without any knowledge of what is happening. The news is they are building the modules that will form the 1 MW plant in the US and will give a demonstration of them for the journalists before shipping to Greece. I suppose it will be an interesting summer. -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3557 - Data di rilascio: 07/04/2011 From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 7 23:16:11 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 16:16:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <4D9E3AFF.7000606@satx.rr.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> <4D9E3AFF.7000606@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <00eb01cbf579$c9129fc0$5b37df40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Damien Broderick ... >...while another agrees strenuously with you: >... References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> <4D9E3E82.7060205@libero.it> Message-ID: <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato ... >> Otherwise, if we imagine the copper is formed by a neutron decay (never mind > how) the nickel atom would form copper62 which has a half life of > about 10 minutes. This we can nail before we go to the trouble of > calculating the nucleon energy transitions. >> Into the bit bucket with it. >...Well, Rossi say they will install a 1MW heat modular reactor in Greece in October. If it will deliver heat water until march to the paying customers could we agree there is something interesting there? ... >I suppose it will be an interesting summer. -- *Mirco Romanato* Guys, did anyone every check the date on the original postings for this whole thing? Was it by any chance from last Friday? {8^D I saw the funniest April Fools gag ever: a news anchor was punked into believing someone had come up with an Ipad app that would cause the device to emit an odor and a flavor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNxX4SDqpVU&feature=player_embedded#at=12 spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 8 01:51:27 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 18:51:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> <4D9E3E82.7060205@libero.it> <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: <002501cbf58f$79e350a0$6da9f1e0$@att.net> ... >> Into the bit bucket with it. >...Well, Rossi say they will install a 1MW heat modular reactor in >Greece in October. If it will deliver heat water until march to the paying customers could we agree there is something >interesting there? ... Regarding cold fusion, I do not universally treat it as a joke. In an autobiography called Alvarez: Adventures of a Physicist, the Nobel laureate Luis Alvarez describes an experiment they were doing at Berkeley (as I recall from reading it over 20 yrs ago), in the mid 1950s. They couldn't explain it, but there appeared to be excess heat being generated. They did an audit of all materials in the experiment, did some nucleon end-state energy calculations and thought they must somehow be seeing muon-catalyzed nuclear reactions. He writes: for a few heady hours, we thought we had found the solution to all mankind's energy needs for all time. (Quote approximate, from 20+ year old memories.) The team calculated furiously for some time, then realized the muon's life span was too short to do what they thought might be happening. Still, Alvarez was at the top of his game in the mid 1950s, and he had a team of the best minds around. If they could be fooled, even for a few hours, I can see how other teams can fumble as well. A couple years after I read Alvarez's book, Pons and Fleischmann announced they had achieved cold fusion. I hoped like hell they were right, but thought they were most probably mistaken. spike From thespike at satx.rr.com Fri Apr 8 02:51:57 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 07 Apr 2011 21:51:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <002501cbf58f$79e350a0$6da9f1e0$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> <4D9E3E82.7060205@libero.it> <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> <002501cbf58f$79e350a0$6da9f1e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <4D9E784D.7050008@satx.rr.com> On 4/7/2011 8:51 PM, spike jones wrote: > Nobel laureate > Luis Alvarez describes an experiment they were doing at Berkeley (as I > recall from reading it over 20 yrs ago), in the mid 1950s. They couldn't > explain it, but there appeared to be excess heat being generated. My understanding is that some serious, experienced physicists are reporting that they see unexplained excess heat from Rossi's set-up. If that is true and isn't due to some overlooked glitch, while nuclear explanations are inapplicable, it just means that some other kind of account is needed (maybe of some new sort). I'm always surprised when science buffs think that "It can't be due to X" means that an observed phenomenon therefore doesn't exist, or if it does exist it can't be anomalous, must be due to fraud or carelessness or stupidity. Yes, often that will be the case. The history of science shows that often enough it *isn't* the case. In this instance, it looks to me as if time, and lots of scrutiny, will tell; it's too soon to bit-bucket the claim. Since it's already had quite a lot of initial scrutiny without falling over, it is interesting enough to track. Damien Broderick From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 03:41:39 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:41:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/6 spike : > Thanks Max.? I was a big fan of wind power until ~2008.? Starting in that > year, I began making frequent trips coast to coast, and saw wind farms in > various places.? I noted the locations and set my computer to remind me to > look out the window when various wind farms were coming into view.? It is > something that burned an image into my retinas: most of the time in most of > those wind farms, all of the turbines were sitting still and quiet. You must not have spent much of your time in Wyoming... :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 03:49:50 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:49:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> <4D9E3E82.7060205@libero.it> <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 5:24 PM, spike wrote: > I saw the funniest April Fools gag ever: a news anchor was punked into > believing someone had come up with an Ipad app that would cause the device > to emit an odor and a flavor: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNxX4SDqpVU&feature=player_embedded#at=12 Ha! Reminds me of the iPhone app distributed by Orabrush that "detected" whether you had bad breath when you blew on it. What a great app!!! -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 03:52:37 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Apr 2011 21:52:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/7 Alfio Puglisi : > And in practice, wind power in Spain is already generating 21% of the total > electricity - and that's an average over the whole month of March 2011 I have heard (on talk radio) that the pursuit of alternative energy sources in Spain has had a very large negative effect on job creation and other aspects of their economy. It makes sense that there would be problems if you put too much capital investment all at once. Does anyone have good data on that? -Kelly From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Fri Apr 8 06:30:18 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 02:30:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Recent study says 65% of total electricity production in > Germany could be done with wind power -- in theory. I don't believe that number, current wind farms produce less than 30% of the power they were supposed to and their output is very irregular. See: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/ And wind power is not inexhaustible, if wind farms become common that 30% figure will drop even more; and environmentalists will bitch about disrupting wind patterns killing birds looking ugly and making noise. As for solar cells, they use indium and tellurium and there is not enough in the earth's crust to make enough cells to make a serious dent in the problem. Maybe substitutions will be found but they wouldn't be a solution to global warming; solar cells are black and only about 20% efficient, so 80% of the light that would otherwise be reflected back into space is converted directly into heat. And I just can't see powering a steel making blast furnace with solar cells. The only technology that is ready today to take over from fossil fuels is nuclear fission, moonbeams just aren't going to work. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 8 06:58:13 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 08:58:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Rossi In-Reply-To: <4D9E208C.3010305@satx.rr.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> <4D9E208C.3010305@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20110408065813.GK23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 03:37:32PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 4/7/2011 2:54 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >>> >> >> The known fraudster (illegal gold import and tax fraud) Andrea Rossi? > > You mean the obsessive Biblical interpreter and alchemical madman Isaac > Newton? > > Or the many tax dodgers and gold hoarders on this list? Damien, do you remember how many scientists could find no fault with spiritual media of yore? Yet at closer inquiry by professionals experienced in charlatan exposure they turned out frauds. > As a physicist associate commented: > > the Royal Swedish Academy, which should count for something.> > > Whatever. Science doesn't work that way. There's nothing wrong with wanting to believe a piece of good news. There's plenty of wrong with being gullible enough to fall for common crooks camouflaging as scientists. I wasn't looking for that guy, but I kept hearing mentions of him, including first hand accounts of students at the school he teaches. I did a websearch of on him in conjunctions with Randi, and I did post an URL of the thread discussing him. Do read it, and form your own opinion. I did. > Damien Broderick -- 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 From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 08:18:13 2011 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 10:18:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 7, 2011 at 9:19 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I don't suppose anyone here has even the slightest curiosity about the > alleged Rossi process: > > > > Apart from problems like the deadly neutron flux, I found this other claim: ...the inventive apparatus, installed on October 16, 2007, is *?*at present perfectly operating 24 hours per day, and provides an amount of heat sufficient to heat the factory of the Company EON of via Carlo Ragazzi 18, at Bondeno Province of Ferrara, Italy.? So, if he's got a large working system since two and half years ago, why the need for theatrical demonstrations? Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 8 09:54:23 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 11:54:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <20110408095423.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 02:30:18AM -0400, John Clark wrote: > On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > Recent study says 65% of total electricity production in > > Germany could be done with wind power -- in theory. > > I don't believe that number, Take your beef to Fraunhofer (IWES): http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Studie-Onshore-Wind-kann-Kernenergie-ersetzen-1222015.html > current wind farms produce less than 30% of the power they were supposed to and their output is very irregular. See: 390 TWh/year contains the unit hours. Again, the 65% of total is a theoretical value, assuming 100% utilization of existing *potential*. Trying to approach that would be a stupid idea, since PV will eat wind's lunch long term. > http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/ > > And wind power is not inexhaustible, if wind farms become common that 30% figure will drop even more; and environmentalists will bitch about disrupting wind patterns killing birds looking ugly and making noise. You forgot the bats. > As for solar cells, they use indium and tellurium and Plants don't use scarce elements. Even photovoltaics has produced a wide range of semiconductor materials in a short time. FWIW, there are about 12 g/m^2 of CdTe in a thin-film cell. CuInGaSe ditto. > there is not enough in the earth's crust to make enough > cells to make a serious dent in the problem. I'd call 17 GW peak of 85 GW total peak demand a good start. > Maybe substitutions will be found but they wouldn't > be a solution to global warming; solar cells are You're forgetting that the roofs are already there, and they are black. The change in Earth's albedo will be effectively zero. If you care about global warming, look into reducing greenhouse gases like CO2 and methane. > black and only about 20% efficient, so 80% of the > light that would otherwise be reflected back into But it wouldn't be reflected back into space. > space is converted directly into heat. And I just can't > see powering a steel making blast furnace with solar cells. Then you're uninformed. Power is fungible, most of local steel is electrosteel, and hydrogen ore reduction is of course possible. > The only technology that is ready today to take over from fossil fuels is nuclear fission, moonbeams just aren't going to work. You know, for a guy who likes numbers and actual arguments instead of rhetorical assertions your post was remarkably devoid of such. You know what, let's postpone this and rehash the issue in 2021. Let's see what the numbers for renewable and nuclear will be in Germany ten years from now. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 8 10:16:39 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 12:16:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <4D9E784D.7050008@satx.rr.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <00c301cbf564$a86754b0$f935fe10$@att.net> <4D9E3E82.7060205@libero.it> <00ec01cbf57a$ff7034f0$fe509ed0$@att.net> <002501cbf58f$79e350a0$6da9f1e0$@att.net> <4D9E784D.7050008@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20110408101639.GT23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 09:51:57PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 4/7/2011 8:51 PM, spike jones wrote: > >> Nobel laureate >> Luis Alvarez describes an experiment they were doing at Berkeley (as I >> recall from reading it over 20 yrs ago), in the mid 1950s. They couldn't >> explain it, but there appeared to be excess heat being generated. > > My understanding is that some serious, experienced physicists are > reporting that they see unexplained excess heat from Rossi's set-up. If That's just the point: it's Rossi's setup. > that is true and isn't due to some overlooked glitch, while nuclear > explanations are inapplicable, it just means that some other kind of > account is needed (maybe of some new sort). My guess it's a hidden power line or he's otherwise feeding the device with external power, or energetic material. > I'm always surprised when science buffs think that "It can't be due to > X" means that an observed phenomenon therefore doesn't exist, or if it > does exist it can't be anomalous, must be due to fraud or carelessness > or stupidity. Yes, often that will be the case. The history of science > shows that often enough it *isn't* the case. I genuinely hope you're not as gullible as this in your daily life. The crooks would otherwise have a field day. > In this instance, it looks to me as if time, and lots of scrutiny, will > tell; it's too soon to bit-bucket the claim. Since it's already had > quite a lot of initial scrutiny without falling over, it is interesting > enough to track. The only moment it will become interesting is when it will be replicated elsewhere and published in a peer-reviewed journal. Before it's about as interesting as a dog barking outside. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 8 10:19:15 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 12:19:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110408101915.GU23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 09:52:37PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > 2011/4/7 Alfio Puglisi : > > And in practice, wind power in Spain is already generating 21% of the total > > electricity - and that's an average over the whole month of March 2011 > > I have heard (on talk radio) that the pursuit of alternative energy > sources in Spain has had a very large negative effect on job creation > and other aspects of their economy. It makes sense that there would be > problems if you put too much capital investment all at once. Does > anyone have good data on that? What cooked Spain's goose single-handedly was the real estate bubble. That was basically the single source that powered the Spain's economy, for a while. There have been some shenanigans with renewables as well (illuminating photovoltaics with fossil power during the night rings a bell?), but they were negligible in comparison. -- 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 From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 8 12:02:25 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 14:02:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9EF951.10101@libero.it> Il 07/04/2011 21.54, Eugen Leitl ha scritto: > On Thu, Apr 07, 2011 at 02:19:00PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote: >> I don't suppose anyone here has even the slightest curiosity about the >> alleged Rossi process: >> > The known fraudster (illegal gold import and tax fraud) Andrea Rossi? I don't know the case, but in Italy it is too much easy to break the laws in good faith or be find guilty for something no sane person could think is illegal. The laws are confused and broad and often the prosecutors are totally irrational. For example, just a few days ago, Dolce & Gabbana were acquited for tax fraud. The prosecutor accused them of fraud because they sold a 100 what the prosecutor say had a value of 300 and paid the taxes on the 100. So they defrauded the government of the taxes on the difference. -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3558 - Data di rilascio: 07/04/2011 From amon at doctrinezero.com Fri Apr 8 13:06:38 2011 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 14:06:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "Wolfpack" (Transhumanist media intervention team) Message-ID: Hi All - I hope this post is appropriate here. Over a year ago, it was pointed out on the ExtroBritannia (H+UK) list that a good way to influence public opinion (or at least perceived public opinion) in favour of transhumanism is to comment on online articles - particularly in major mainstream publications - and to follow up those comments where conversations are sparked. The idea is that it doesn't take many such comments for newspaper editors and the like to realise that there is an audience with and for pro-tech opinions, which subsequently seems to influence editorial decisions on which articles to print. Most importantly, in order to be effective such comments must be intelligent, friendly, and open-minded. Some of us on ExtroB briefly discussed the possibility of setting up an H+UK "media intervention team", pooling resources in order to make such interventions most effective. Anders Sandberg even suggested using the colourful name "Wolfpack" for the team. At the time, the idea went no further. As part of my new Zero State project, however, I've set up a wiki page for the Wolfpack, as originally discussed. The plan is to create a new entry under that page documenting each media intervention, with a few brief notes on any feedback. When anyone is planning a new comment or article in any publication, they can check the list for any previous interventions which may yield useful material, which you may freely use as you see fit. https://sites.google.com/site/dimensionzerodmz/home/08-resources/ongoing-projects/wolfpack This is a Google Sites wiki, closed to the public, so you must request permission to access it. Regardless of whether you're remotely interested in any other aspect of the ZS project, I do hope you'll consider making at least one comment in favour of transhumanism or technology on any media site, and using the Wolfpack resource in order to make your effort most effective. If you document your intervention - a simple cut'n'paste which takes a few seconds - then you will also be helping those who follow in your footsteps. Onward & Upward! - Amon http://zerostate.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 19:05:57 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 13:05:57 -0600 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <005301cbf471$36bd5290$a437f7b0$@att.net> References: <005301cbf471$36bd5290$a437f7b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:42 AM, spike wrote: > I predict we will not see > auto-autos in the next couple decades at least. Sweet! Want to go on Stewart Brand's Long Now web site and make a wager? :-) I can't imagine a case where autonomous vehicles aren't the default in 2025. People are just too slow, too inattentive (and getting worse), and too drunk at times to drive cars as safely as a good computerized system. And yes, I agree with BillK that initially it will be something the driver initiates when he feels comfortable. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 19:25:08 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 13:25:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Racist foxes In-Reply-To: References: <961F55C4-97AF-483B-8AF9-64E63291409E@alumni.virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 5:47 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Can you think of an example where cultural failure was the cause of an > empire failing? Oh, I don't know... How about Rome. Or the disintegration of Greece at the death of Alexander. The Jews in 70 AD (not submitting to reasonable Roman rule). There are many other examples. Rome is by far the best example. They did not run out of any resource other than intelligence. Or the USA over the past 25 years (granted, it hasn't completely fallen YET). Yes, there are the cases of environmental overuse, like Easter Island, Mayans, Mohenjo Daro, and so forth, but these cases are elevated in the public mind by the environmental faction. -Kelly From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 8 19:41:11 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 21:41:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: <005301cbf471$36bd5290$a437f7b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110408194111.GF23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 01:05:57PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:42 AM, spike wrote: > > I predict we will not see > > auto-autos in the next couple decades at least. > > Sweet! Want to go on Stewart Brand's Long Now web site and make a wager? :-) > > I can't imagine a case where autonomous vehicles aren't the default in > 2025. People are just too slow, too inattentive (and getting worse), That's just 14 years away. You *might* get some autonomous vehicles and armor for the military. Which don't have to deal with liability, unlike truckers and delivery guys. > and too drunk at times to drive cars as safely as a good computerized > system. It will take many lawsuits until people will eventually get there. > And yes, I agree with BillK that initially it will be something the > driver initiates when he feels comfortable. So what happens when the system disengages, and the driver isn't ready, or says he isn't ready, and something happens, for parts irrelevant? Blame assignment is a a game a lot like ballistic feces. -- 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 From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Apr 8 20:05:24 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 08 Apr 2011 13:05:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <20110408194111.GF23560@leitl.org> References: <005301cbf471$36bd5290$a437f7b0$@att.net> <20110408194111.GF23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4D9F6A84.7080109@mac.com> A good site on robocars, their variations and many associated issues and possible ways forward is at http://www.templetons.com/brad/robocars/ On 04/08/2011 12:41 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 01:05:57PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 9:42 AM, spike wrote: >>> I predict we will not see >>> auto-autos in the next couple decades at least. >> Sweet! Want to go on Stewart Brand's Long Now web site and make a wager? :-) >> >> I can't imagine a case where autonomous vehicles aren't the default in >> 2025. People are just too slow, too inattentive (and getting worse), > That's just 14 years away. You *might* get some autonomous vehicles > and armor for the military. Which don't have to deal with liability, > unlike truckers and delivery guys. > >> and too drunk at times to drive cars as safely as a good computerized >> system. > It will take many lawsuits until people will eventually get there. > >> And yes, I agree with BillK that initially it will be something the >> driver initiates when he feels comfortable. > So what happens when the system disengages, and the driver isn't > ready, or says he isn't ready, and something happens, for parts > irrelevant? Blame assignment is a a game a lot like ballistic feces. > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 20:25:25 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 14:25:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] note from a foaf in japan In-Reply-To: <4D9D1856.8090501@libero.it> References: <4D8DEFD5.7050804@libero.it> <4D962021.4070806@libero.it> <4D9D1856.8090501@libero.it> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 7:50 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 03/04/2011 1.23, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> On Fri, Apr 1, 2011 at 12:57 PM, Mirco Romanato >> wrote: >>> Il 01/04/2011 6.17, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> Recall that most of the people at the time were very poor. The rich >> ruling class was very small at this time, and there was virtually no >> middle class in feudal Europe. > > I think "poor" in this discussion is whoever is not able to feed > themselves and his family members and allow them to be healthy enough to > pass the genes to the next generation. Many paesants would be able to do > so. Many others not. Starvation of a portion of the populace at each generation was fairly common until the past couple hundred years. Occasionally, you would have mass famines (China, Irish Potato famine), but more common was families that fell on hard times as individual units. This is classic individual Darwinistic pressure. >> Name a specific trait that allows people to thrive in cities. Then >> tell me what the selection mechanism is to keep people without that >> trait from reproducing. > > Attention disorders and hyperactivity disorders are not good for city > dwellers. It interfere with the constant toiling of the jobs usually > available in cities like blacksmithing. There is more attention disorder and hyperactivity today than in the past. At least it is easier to notice when you have the problem because there are so many things to distract us today. > The predisposition to learn how read and write and do maths. For > example, in Florence during the XII century half of the children in the > city went to "Schools of Abacus" (not public funded) to learn to do > maths and be able to land a good job in some banks or keep a shop. Did this effect reproduction? Usually higher education leads to lower reproductive levels. Farmers reproduced at the highest rates historically, due to the free labor of children. > Impulsiveness is a bad trait, as you are near too much people to get > away with aggression, murder, thief, etc. easily. > > There is a reason the word "urbane" and "villain" are used to denote a > behavior and not only the dweller in city and in the country. But none of these are Darwinistic pressures. That is, being bad at math does not lead to lower reproductive levels. >> The bottom line with people is that memes have been more important >> than genes for hundreds of years, so I would not expect see a lot of >> genetic changes over the past few hundred years because a wide cross >> section of society reproduces. Another way to ask the question is >> what sort of people don't reproduce in our modern societies? > > The productive middle class that it taxed out of existence and have not > the resources to raise more than two children (often not enough to raise > one). The lower classes, the unproductive on the dole, many of them > reproduce far more than the the middle class because they can offload > their reproduction to the taxpayers. We are now selecting for people willing to live off of welfare. This is a heavy pressure. Some males in the inner city have as many kids as they possibly can to get bigger government checks. If this keeps up for a few more generations, this may indeed lead to some genetic results, but for now I would say it is mostly cultural. > This is a problem much debated in the manosphere. > > >> The children of rich people can become poor very easily. Today the >> poor reproduce at higher rates than the rich. I'm not sure what the >> historical case is, but farmers have historically had lots of kids. > > Some farmers rarely were poor for the standards of the time. > They had many children and bough land. They divided the land with their > children. Some succeed and some not. Repeat. The problem with farming is how the land is inherited. If all the land goes to the eldest son, then he still has enough land for the next generation. The other nine kids have to fend for themselves, perhaps by going to the city, if there is one. If the land is divided amongst the ten kids, then you have a problem. >> You are probably right. Still, with a 5% or even 20% survival rate, >> that is an EXTREME selection pressure that human beings have almost >> never seen. And certainly we haven't seen those extreme selection >> pressures based on the kinds of cultural issues that we started >> talking about. > > In fact, I think it required much more time for the humans to select the > right traits in the right conditions. > In England it was something like 5-600 years or 20-30 generations. And now that we are mixing our genes across country boundaries at a fast rate, any such selection is quickly being diluted, or at least distributed. I of course contend that there haven't been any terribly important genetic changes in the last 60K years of human evolution. Of course, there have been some, particularly related to livestock domestication and agriculture. >> But can you point to one case where genetic change has happened. The >> only one that comes to mind is that our genes for lactose >> intolerance have been bred out after the creation of dairy as a main >> human food source. That is a very different kind of genetic drift >> than you are talking about. What you are saying is theoretically >> possible, but as far as I know undocumented as having actually >> happened. > > I think deMause "History of childhood" and "The Emotional Life of > Nations" could be interesting. > > For something available on the net: > http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2009/07/return-of-quetzalcoatl-preface.html That was sad, frightening and pretty disgusting. However, I did not see anything there that pointed towards Darwinian selection. Killing female babies does not lead to fewer females in the next generation. Duh. >> African tribes have definitely had enough time for some genetic >> drift. Is this research or a guess? In western cultures where people >> move to the city, then to the country and back, there isn't enough >> pressure or time to create meaningful genetic drift. > > Recent research about a tribe, I read it a few years ago. > Probably from Futurepundit. > >> I am engaged in just such an experiment. I am Caucasian, I have six >> African American children, four Hispanic and one half Asian child. >> Culturally, they are all mostly culturally white. They are >> intellectually indistinguishable from me (other than some physical >> issues stemming from in utero abuse). Your position on this point >> seems racist, and completely unsupported by research. Of course, >> there is a cultural limit on how much real research has been done in >> this area because nobody wants to be called a racist. > > Exactly. > The data about the IQ gap of blacks relative to whites in the US is well > know. Yes, but is it genetic or cultural? That is the question. > It also didn't change much with time. IIRC the data about > mulattos/mestizos is something in between. > Also, the distribution of personality traits and psychic disorders is > different for Africans and Europeans and, IMHO, appear to follow the > adaptations to the local conditions of Africa and Europe. > > I think the next decade will be very interesting in this field, > dispelling many wrong ideas. I hope so. >> We talk a lot about the higher rates of incarceration of minorities. > > The problem is when some explanations can not be uttered because they > are not acceptable to the polite discourse. > >>>> Blacks are more carefully watched by the police, >>> >>> Why? Why they don't check more for Hispanics or Vietnamese or >>> Italians? Are the policemen racists? Even the blacks one? > >> Yes, even some black policemen are racist against blacks. > > This beg the question: > "Are they racist without reasons or with reasons?" I would assume with reason. If blacks are incarcerated at a higher rate, and you as a police man want to optimize your time, it is better to arrest people more likely to be incarcerated. So you might focus on the poor, or drug addicted, or minorities to up your effectiveness measured in numbers. This is not because they are more apt to crime (although generations of being prayed upon can lead to moral decay due to the loss of parents to the next generation) but because of the circumstances created. >> It took the Irish at least three generations to escape from being >> the lowest in American society. At one point, the coal mines in West >> Virginia would hire Irish over black slaves because they were less >> valuable than the slaves to the mine owners. Similarly, the Chinese >> who build the transcontinental railroad were valued less than >> slaves. > > This because slaves were property and the freemen not. Exactly. >> I blame politicians more than anyone else for the problems facing >> the blacks in America today. The black leadership (Jessie Jackson and >> the like) are particularly guilty IMHO. > > :-) > I agree that many politicians (blacks and whites) give as much help as > they are able to keep the blacks in the plantation. The sick thing to me is that Democrats seem more guilty of this than Republicans, and yet more blacks sign up as Democrats. That seems suicidal to me. >> Blacks who recently came from Africa or the Caribbean are usually >> more immediately successful than African Americans with the cultural >> history. Yesterday, I interacted with an African pharmacist. I was >> not surprised, but I would have been more surprised by an African >> American pharmacist. In other words, the problem is not such much the >> color of their skin, but the color of their mind. After hearing that >> the "man is going to keep you down" for generations, many African >> Americans give up. My own African American children don't hear this >> negative talk, and I fully expect them to succeed in America. It's >> not genetic, it's cultural. > > How much old are they. > Theory say the older they will be the greater the difference. > For the sake of the experiment you could sequence their genome when the > costs will be down in the next few years and look for their real share > of European, African, whatever genes. > > I agree that skin color is a poor proxy for something so complex like > the genetics of the mind. Clearly skin color and mental ability are not strongly correlated. >> Where I live, the most disproportionate homicide is done by >> undocumented Mexicans. Again, even if the homicide rate nation wide >> is higher for black on whoever, that doesn't mean it is genetic. It >> is societal and cultural if that is the case. > > As I wrote before, this decade will give up so much genetic data that we > will be able to know much more about this. Maybe more than many of us > would know are are able to accept. Reality have many surprises. I just hope it doesn't lead to a second round of eugenics. >> They have succeeded. This doesn't make sense. Large changes in the >> zeitgeist are accomplished all the time. Look at the change in >> Southern attitudes towards blacks, or the nation's view of >> homosexuality. They have changed a lot just in my life time. > > These are cultural changes of others, not the blacks. I wasn't talking about blacks. Just how quickly society changes, compared to the glacial progress of genetics. Tens of years rather than millions. >> I have also spent a lot of time in Mexico. It DID work exactly this >> way. Mexico is 90%+ Catholic to this day. Where are you getting >> these ideas? > > The issue is a bit more complex than formal adhesion to the Catholic > Church. Local customs and way of thinking resisted the Conquistadors, > mainly in the rural areas. For a few generations, I'm sure you are sure. >> Ok. Here you are talking about real selected genetic difference. >> Racism in humans is not based on significant genetic differences >> because humans don't have very significant genetic differences. This >> is primarily because of the population bottleneck around 600K years >> ago. > > Significant genetic differences must be defined. > It would be interesting, but not very ethics, to take a group of > Africans and land them in rural Finland (with enough resources for > living for a few years and have the chance to adapt) and land a group of > Finns in rural Africa (with the same resources). Then look ?at how they > succeed or not. I remember something like this in an old sci-fi book > (Genoa-Texcoco:0.0) but it was more a testing of economics systems. Still, whatever success or failure was achieved would be more a function of how adaptable their culture was than their genetic makeup. >> Actually, in the US armed forces, minorities and poor are >> represented in higher proportion than middle class and white. This is >> because of the financial benefits of joining the ?armed forces are >> more effective in recruiting people who need those benefits. > > I would reconsider this info. Mine is that whites, middle class are the > majority and overrepresented in the armed forces. > Minorities are more represented in not combat positions than in combat > positions. I do not think you are right, but I'll try to dig up some real numbers later. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 22:00:55 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 16:00:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/8 John Clark : > Maybe substitutions will be found but they wouldn't be a solution > to global warming; solar cells are black and only about 20% efficient, so > 80% of the light that would otherwise be reflected back into space is > converted directly into heat. John, This is a common misconception. The earth is very good at radiating excess heat into space. The globe hasn't warmed because of the heat generated by burning fossil fuels, but rather by the changes to the atmosphere caused by the change to the composition of gases in the air. So it is solar energy that heats the earth once the composition of the atmosphere has changed. Likewise, it will not heat up because some panels get hot. Now there is local heating, such as the well documented fact that cities are a few degrees warmer than the surrounding country side. This is hardly a climate issue, but more of a local inconvenience. For many centuries, they have made ice in Iran by putting water out in shallow pans in the desert at night. The heat radiates out of the water into space, and viola, ice. As for the materials required to create solar panels, they are working on many different alternatives. Some of my favorite are biological, and require no special equipment. I love what you can do with algae to use solar power to create flammable gases (I think mostly methane). -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Apr 8 22:09:47 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 16:09:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: <006001cbf535$2d454fa0$87cfeee0$@att.net> References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> <013401cbf495$442aa120$cc7fe360$@att.net> <006001cbf535$2d454fa0$87cfeee0$@att.net> Message-ID: Do you think the future of space is in non-governmental efforts? It seems so from outside, but I can't be sure. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 8 22:14:17 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 15:14:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] new heavy lifter In-Reply-To: References: <005601cbf3b4$fa71b590$ef5520b0$@att.net> <494D6619-054D-4CAB-BC32-06BC23100E62@bellsouth.net> <007601cbf3bc$b0645e00$112d1a00$@att.net> <013401cbf495$442aa120$cc7fe360$@att.net> <006001cbf535$2d454fa0$87cfeee0$@att.net> Message-ID: <012c01cbf63a$4dfec770$e9fc5650$@att.net> >...Do you think the future of space is in non-governmental efforts? It seems so from outside, but I can't be sure. -Kelly The future of everything is in non-governmental efforts. It seems so from outside. You can be sure. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Apr 9 03:11:56 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 23:11:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/8 John Clark : > And wind power is not inexhaustible, if wind farms become common that 30% > figure will drop even more; and environmentalists will bitch about > disrupting wind patterns killing birds looking ugly and making noise. I'm all for killing ugly birds that make noise. If birds are anything like foxes then in as few as 8 generations they'll be more attractive and quieter. From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 9 04:11:24 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 21:11:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty 2011/4/8 John Clark : > >... killing birds looking ugly and making noise. >...I'm all for killing ugly birds that make noise. If birds are anything like foxes then in as few as 8 generations they'll be more attractive and quieter. In a few generations, the ugly noisy birds will be afraid of wind turbines, along with their attractive quiet cousins. There are some places where wind power definitely does pay and does make sense. These are often not near population centers, so the cost of transporting the power is too great, such as out in Wyoming for instance. What I envision is that they will be used to do stuff like electroplating metals out of solution which takes a buttload of energy, or in making synthetic octane from coal. I haven't done the numbers on these processes, so I don't know if it out-pencils. spike From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 9 04:56:02 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 00:56:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > even terrestrial solar flux is about a factor of 6000 in excess our needs, and 2000 in excess of our > needs just considered land area. It's true that the total energy that humans use only accounts to one part in 6000 of the solar energy hitting the planet, but that's still a lot, about 47 terawatts (17 of that from fossil fuels) if you include solar powered green plants that humans use for fuel or food. Axel Kleidon has calculated the thermodynamic limits of what heat engines and other mechanisms powered by the sun could theoretically produce on the Earth at: http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/1103/1103.2014v1.pdf and http://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/2/1/2011/esd-2-1-2011.html The maximum theoretical amount of power you could extract from wind, is in the range of 18?68 TW, and if you took it that far the environmental change caused by disruption of wind patterns would be considerable. Next he figured out what you could realistically expect from biofuels given that the overall photosynthetic efficiency of plants is only 3 to 6 percent of the solar radiation they receive. The most you could get is about 215 TW. Gravitational engines, tides caused by the sun and moon, could give you another 5TW. Geothermal: Given that the heat flux from the interior to the surface is less than 0.1 W m^2 the efficiency would be very low and only about 40 TW of free energy could be obtained. And given the fact that the population is increasing and the number of people demanding to live a good middle class lifestyle is increasing even faster the 47 terawatts that humans currently use is certain to increase, and increase considerably. Unless we have a technological breakthrough long term nuclear fission is the only technology that is economically and thermodynamically feasible. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 9 05:03:23 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 23:03:23 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 10:11 PM, spike wrote: > There are some places where wind power definitely does pay and does make > sense. ?These are often not near population centers, so the cost of > transporting the power is too great, such as out in Wyoming for instance. > What I envision is that they will be used to do stuff like electroplating > metals out of solution which takes a buttload of energy, or in making > synthetic octane from coal. ?I haven't done the numbers on these processes, > so I don't know if it out-pencils. I can think of an analogous historical and a current example. In the 1930s, they build a load of hydroelectric dams in the Tennessee Valley. In spite of being one of the most socialist and heavy handed endeavors in US history, it was overall a good project from an engineering standpoint. The electricity was primarily used to extract aluminum from bauxite, which takes a LOT of electricity. It was ready just in time to build the aluminum aircraft that helped to win WWII. When you can find industries that use a LOT of electricity like this, and you can locate them close to the source of the electricity, that is a good thing. I am not a big fan of the social aspects of the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority), but it is hard to argue with the success of the resulting technological achievements. A few years back, Google built a very large data processing center right next to one of the really big dams (The Dalles) on the Columbia river. Considering that Google is a huge user of electricity, and that electricity is sold at a discount that close to the source, this was a really good move. One of the most important high energy processes in the future may be desalinization of sea water. In some places in the Middle East, I understand this is done today mostly with petroleum. Too bad they didn't do more with solar, as it is a very hot very sunny region. I suspect that in the future more of these projects will be done with solar power. One of the windiest places on earth is in Antarctica. There is a valley there that I understand has six months of just unbelievable wind nearly constantly. It is a terribly difficult place to build , maintain and inhabit. Perhaps this is a good job for specialized robotics some day... but what could you do with virtually unlimited electricity in Antarctica that would make it all worth while? Perhaps extracting gold from sea water? There has to be something. -Kelly From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 9 05:23:19 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 01:23:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: On Apr 8, 2011, at 6:00 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Now there is local heating, such as the well documented fact that > cities are a few degrees warmer than the surrounding country side. > This is hardly a climate issue Of course it's a climate issue! If you change the Earth's albedo you change the climate in a fundamental way because you change the amount of energy that drives the entire show, and solar cells are black and only 20% efficient. But to be honest global warming rather bores me, I just enjoy throwing environmental arguments back at people. > As for the materials required to create solar panels, they are > working on many different alternatives. Some of my favorite are > biological, and require no special equipment. Moonbeams. I'm talking about technologies that we have right now that are ready to take over the MASSIVE job of driving the world's economy from fossil fuels, and like it or not I know of only one, nuclear. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 9 05:46:16 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Apr 2011 22:46:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> Message-ID: <019701cbf679$72216ce0$566446a0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 10:11 PM, spike wrote: >> There are some places where wind power definitely does pay and does >> make sense. ?These are often not near population centers, so the cost >> of transporting the power is too great... do stuff like >> electroplating metals out of solution which takes a buttload of >> energy... >...In the 1930s, they build a load of hydroelectric dams in the Tennessee Valley... >...One of the windiest places on earth is in Antarctica... Perhaps extracting gold from sea water? There has to be something. > - Kelly There are ways to use power in large but unsteady quantities. The places where wind power can pay off tend to be where there are few or no people: they don't want to live out there, too windy. I think of the desert US west. Consider China Lake California, the naval base. There we have vast stretches of unused land where the wind howls with such ferocity one often wishes for merciful death to come soon. The USNavy used it to let the guys do practice runs in the jets, dogfights, bombing practice, that sort of thing. But we really don't need that much anymore. Modern weapons guide themselves, they are really accurate and they don't make much of a boom compared to WW2 and WW3 era weapons. Modern fighter planes are too expensive to risk them in a fight anyway. So now those two big Navy test ranges can be used for something else. I can imagine planting huge wind turbines out on those ranges. No people to bother, almost no birds out there, too dry. There would be housing nearby for the workers to live, in Ridgecrest. The environmentalists would be happy, since it would preserve the land for local beasts. The Navy could still use it even with a bunch of turbines. We could do experimental PV installations near the southern border of the range and use the power locally and for aluminum and copper production. Go on Google Maps, enter Ridgecrest California, look around. In the summertime you can get scorching sunlight every day for four months in a row, and good reliable sunlight the rest of the time, as well as crazy wind for six months. Nuclear fission isn't the only way to go. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 9 06:03:38 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 00:03:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/8 John Clark : > On Apr 7, 2011, at 4:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > Geothermal: Given that?the heat flux from the interior to the surface is > less than 0.1 W m^2?the efficiency would be very low and only about 40 TW of > free energy could be obtained. In the VERY VERY long term, if we got extremely active and successful about extracting heat from the earth's core, we might eventually affect the magnetic fields that protect the earth from solar radiation. That would make global warming look like a cake walk. :-) Given that the core is heated by nuclear fission, it would be a long time before it created huge problems, it would be interesting what it did to the dynamics of subduction zones too. > Unless we have a technological breakthrough long > term nuclear fission is the only technology that is economically and > thermodynamically feasible. Well, you didn't mention nuclear fusion. True we can't do it today, but perhaps someday with a lot of AI we might figure it out. That would resolve a lot of problems for quite a while. -Kelly From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 9 15:04:22 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 10:04:22 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Human Enhancement Symposium Message-ID: <98EF319C71224A4885F9D3205395D1B4@DFC68LF1> Hi, I will be giving a talk today at the "Exploring Human Enhancement: A Symposium". http://www.utdallas.edu/c4v/human-enhancement-symposium/ It looks like another academic assessment of some transhumanist ideas. Here are some of the abstracts: http://www.utdallas.edu/c4v/human-enhancement-symposium-abstracts/#wearble Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Planetary Collegium, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Vice Chair : Humanity+ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 9 15:45:52 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 17:45:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110409154552.GK23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 09:11:24PM -0700, spike wrote: > There are some places where wind power definitely does pay and does make > sense. These are often not near population centers, so the cost of > transporting the power is too great, such as out in Wyoming for instance. There is another transportation problem of sorts: producing more power than the grid can be absorbed. At the moment the operators shut down the turbines, but it would make more sense to dump the surplus into water electrolysis. > What I envision is that they will be used to do stuff like electroplating > metals out of solution which takes a buttload of energy, or in making > synthetic octane from coal. I haven't done the numbers on these processes, If you don't need the energy from coal you do not need the coal as carbon source, either. Also: peak coal. > so I don't know if it out-pencils. -- 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 From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 9 15:47:24 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 17:47:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <20110406155226.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c713b68474.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/7 Mr Jones : > 2011/4/7 Dave Sill >> >> There's evidence of pre-agricultural grain consumption but it's pretty >> thin. However, a diet that includes occasional *wild* grains would have to >> qualify as primal/paleo, in my book. > > I believe they had to be near starving before they resorted to grains. Could any of us, today, actually survive, let alone thrive, on wild, raw, unprocessed grains? I assume not. And certainly I am not eager to give it a try. -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 9 16:39:48 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 09:39:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <20110409154552.GK23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <75F7E4DF-5027-4918-9A91-176FF1BBC608@bellsouth.net> <017a01cbf66c$317d7ec0$94787c40$@att.net> <20110409154552.GK23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <004601cbf6d4$be9beae0$3bd3c0a0$@att.net> >...On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. On Fri, Apr 08, 2011 at 09:11:24PM -0700, spike wrote: >> There are some places where wind power definitely does pay and does make sense... >There is another transportation problem of sorts: producing more power than the grid can be absorbed... I witnessed that on my vacation in Washington state last summer. We had several days in a row when the wind was steady and blowing like hell. The local newspaper commented that they were running the power wires at about 5% above maximum design capacity, and they dared not smoke them any higher than that. This went on for several days. We drove west to east through the Columbia Gorge with a steady 50 mph tailwind. My wife drove a two axle trailer at 80 mph and got better fuel economy than the truck normally gets unburdened. That day she could have turned off the motor and let the wind push her down the road. > At the moment the operators shut down the turbines, but it would make more sense to dump the surplus into water electrolysis... Ja, but only if the facilities are in place to use the hydrogen and oxygen for something. > ... or in making synthetic octane from coal... If you don't need the energy from coal you do not need the coal as carbon source, either. Also: peak coal. The coal to octane wouldn't need to be a huge operation, or even necessarily competitive with refined crude. Where this would come into play is in taking advantage of existing octane burning infrastructure, and the fact that octane is easily transported arbitrary distances using existing infrastructure. I see it as being used to skim off peak power from PV farms and large wind installations that are way the hell out from population centers. Regarding peak coal: the total amount of coal used is relatively small if the energy source is supplied by some external source, rather than burning coal itself to convert coal to octane. spike From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 9 16:48:59 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 12:48:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> On Apr 9, 2011, at 2:03 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Given that the core is heated by nuclear fission, Geothermal heat does not come from nuclear fission, 80% of it comes from the decay of radioactive isotopes, primarily Potassium Uranium and Thorium; the remaining 20% comes from the formation of the Earth when a large cloud of matter was compressed by gravity into a small ball 8000 miles in diameter, all that gravitational potential energy was converted into heat. > Well, you didn't mention nuclear fusion. Because fusion has not yet reached theoretical break-even and produced one watt of usable power (other than in the H bomb), and it is even further from economic break-even. > True we can't do it today,but perhaps someday with a lot of AI we might figure it out. Maybe, but we can't base our future on some marvelous new discovery made at some unspecified time that may or may not even happen. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 9 17:24:40 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 13:24:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <4D9E0E24.10906@satx.rr.com> <20110407195411.GF23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: The trouble with wind farms is that windmills create a wind shadow behind them, the bigger the windmill the bigger the shadow, and that means the further apart you must space your windmills, and that means the more land you must buy, and that means the more expensive it becomes. Nobody would bother building wind farms at all except for the massive tax breaks and other incentives offered by governments; but I think if they're really all hot and bothered over global warming (I'm not) they'd do better forgetting about wind farms and offering tax breaks to people who paint their roofs white and insist that all new highways be constructed using light colored concrete not jet black asphalt. When and if wind power becomes economical tax breaks will not be needed to bribe people to build windmills. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Sat Apr 9 18:15:44 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 11:15:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Tim Minchin video Message-ID: This was posted to the Extrobritannia list. Just about everyone here will enjoy it. I can very rarely tolerate watching videos online that are longer than 2 minutes, but had no problem with this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhGuXCuDb1U&feature=player_embedded --- Max -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 9 18:48:37 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 11:48:37 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <634806.17662.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Mike Dougherty commented > 2011/4/8 John Clark : > > And wind power is not inexhaustible, if wind farms > become common that 30% > > figure will drop even more; and environmentalists will > bitch about > > disrupting wind patterns killing birds looking ugly > and making noise. > > I'm all for killing ugly birds that make noise.? If > birds are anything > like foxes then in as few as 8 generations they'll be more > attractive > and quieter. LOL. Thanks, Mike. I've had a shitty day today, but that made me laugh. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 9 18:53:39 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 11:53:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] "Wolfpack" (Transhumanist media intervention team) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <482186.10562.qm@web114416.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Amon Zero wrote: > Over a year ago, it was pointed out on the ExtroBritannia > (H+UK) list that a > good way to influence public opinion (or at least perceived > public opinion) > in favour of transhumanism is to comment on online articles > - particularly > in major mainstream publications - and to follow up those > comments where > conversations are sparked. The idea is that it doesn't take > many such > comments for newspaper editors and the like to realise that > there is an > audience with and for pro-tech opinions, which subsequently > seems to > influence editorial decisions on which articles to print. > Most importantly, > in order to be effective such comments must be intelligent, > friendly, and > open-minded. > > Some of us on ExtroB briefly discussed the possibility of > setting up an H+UK > "media intervention team", pooling resources in order to > make such > interventions most effective. Anders Sandberg even > suggested using the > colourful name "Wolfpack" for the team. > ... > I do hope you'll consider making at least one > comment in favour > of transhumanism or technology on any media site, and using > the Wolfpack > resource in order to make your effort most effective. If > you document your > intervention - a simple cut'n'paste which takes a few > seconds - then you > will also be helping those who follow in your footsteps. This sounds like a good way that those of us who aren't scientists, technologists or entrepreneurs, can actually do something that may make a difference, for a change. I give it a thumbs up. Ben Zaiboc From msd001 at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 04:43:43 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:43:43 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <634806.17662.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <634806.17662.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 9, 2011 at 2:48 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Mike Dougherty commented >> 2011/4/8 John Clark : >> > And wind power is not inexhaustible, if wind farms >> become common that 30% >> > figure will drop even more; and environmentalists will >> bitch about >> > disrupting wind patterns killing birds looking ugly >> and making noise. >> >> I'm all for killing ugly birds that make noise.? If >> birds are anything >> like foxes then in as few as 8 generations they'll be more >> attractive >> and quieter. > > > LOL. Thanks, Mike. ?I've had a shitty day today, but that made me laugh. > That was my intention :) When Spike responded I wasn't sure if he knew I was kidding or thought I was a simpleton lacking a clear understanding of the point being made. John's lack of punctuation was an opportunity for mis-parsing the sentence and I found it funnier to imagine environmentalists applying 'selection pressure' against ugly and noisy birds. 'Glad you got a chuckle. From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 10 05:12:29 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 22:12:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: References: <634806.17662.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <000001cbf73d$e4e46470$aead2d50$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... > >> LOL. Thanks, Mike. ?I've had a shitty day today, but that made me laugh. > {8^D Ja me too. >...That was my intention :) When Spike responded I wasn't sure if he knew I was kidding or thought I was a simpleton lacking a clear understanding of the point being made... Ja I got it, I was playing along. It's a particular quirky type of humor, where one treads right on the boundary of absurdity while kinda making a point at the same time. I love word play and all the odd humor found in the ambiguity of language. I like playing the fool in such a way as to fool the audience. If anyone here is old enough to remember the Smothers Brothers, think Tommy Smothers. >...'Glad you got a chuckle. Me too, a chuckle is always welcome. I am in that time of life when the previous generation is having one serious health problem after another. Six parents, all with life threatening conditions of one type or another, none into cryonics. Earlier this evening I got word that a good friend's father passed away at 84. The ER docs accidentally killed him. Oddly enough, they admitted everything. Regarding wind power, I will likely do some calcs when I can get to it, regarding the feasibility of using peak energy when it is available, comparing processes such as coal to Diesel fuel with electrolyzed water as the hydrogen source vs coal to Diesel using natural gas. First I need to get my friend's wife to the airport. spike From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Sun Apr 10 06:05:05 2011 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Sat, 9 Apr 2011 23:05:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America Message-ID: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> http://www.greencar.com/articles/vw-polo-bluemotion-tops-70-mpg.php This?car?runs on diesel, has a top speed of 109 mph, has lower CO2 emissions than a Prius,?and gets a whopping 70 miles to the gallon. ? So here is a riddle for you: ? Why can't we?get this in North America? ? Stuart LaForge "There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure."- Dwight D. Eisenhower From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 07:50:57 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 08:50:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 7:05 AM, The Avantguardian wrote: > > > http://www.greencar.com/articles/vw-polo-bluemotion-tops-70-mpg.php > > > This?car?runs on diesel, has a top speed of 109 mph, has lower CO2 emissions > than a Prius,on?and gets a whopping 70 miles to the gallon. > > So here is a riddle for you: > Why can't we?get this in North America? > > Because you've been naughty and don't deserve it! ;) No, really it is because 1) US gas prices(including tax) need to double to get nearer to European prices before economical cars become a significant user demand. 2) The very economical European cars tend to be too small for US preferences. This article is from 2008 and there are now in 2011 many standard production European cars (diesel or hybrid) that will get over 70 mpg on mixed city / freeway driving (called combined cycle mpg). You have to adjust for US gallons, though, by dividing by 1.2. So 70 mpg European = 58.3 mpg US - quite a difference! Use to search for over 50 cars with better than 70 mpg (European). BillK From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 09:29:03 2011 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:29:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 9:50 AM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 7:05 AM, The Avantguardian wrote: > > > > > > http://www.greencar.com/articles/vw-polo-bluemotion-tops-70-mpg.php > > > > > > This car runs on diesel, has a top speed of 109 mph, has lower CO2 > emissions > > than a Prius,on and gets a whopping 70 miles to the gallon. > > > > So here is a riddle for you: > > Why can't we get this in North America? > > > > > > > Because you've been naughty and don't deserve it! ;) > > No, really it is because > 1) US gas prices(including tax) need to double to get nearer to > European prices before economical cars become a significant user > demand. > 2) The very economical European cars tend to be too small for US > preferences. > > This article is from 2008 and there are now in 2011 many standard > production European cars (diesel or hybrid) that will get over 70 mpg > on mixed city / freeway driving (called combined cycle mpg). You have > to adjust for US gallons, though, by dividing by 1.2. So 70 mpg > European = 58.3 mpg US - quite a difference! > This is correct, but note that the greencar.com's article used American gallons: 3.8 liters/100 km translates to 62 mpg, so the 48 city / 74 highway is valid for the US. There may be some difference in the standards used to calculate the fuel consumption, though. What you call the "European" gallon is actually the UK gallon, which is unknown to us continental southerners. Actually, most people don't even know that some kind of gallon is used this side of the atlantic pond :-) > > Use > > to search for over 50 cars with better than 70 mpg (European). > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 10:03:43 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:03:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/10 Alfio Puglisi wrote: > This is correct, but note that the greencar.com's article used American > gallons:?3.8 liters/100 km translates to 62 mpg, so the 48 city / 74 highway > is valid for the US. There may be some difference in the standards used to > calculate the fuel consumption, though. > What you call the "European" gallon is actually the UK gallon, which is > unknown to us continental?southerners. Actually, most people don't even know > that some kind of gallon is used this side of the atlantic pond :-) > > All the pumps in the UK dispense in litres due to the government metrication laws, but litres / 100 km is universally ignored by drivers. Maybe the next UK generation will think in litres /100 km if they are taught that in school. Same applies to Kilos versus pounds weight. All hospitals weigh in kilos and grams which is meaningless to the older generation. BillK From amon at doctrinezero.com Sun Apr 10 10:40:30 2011 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:40:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "Wolfpack" (Transhumanist media intervention team) In-Reply-To: <482186.10562.qm@web114416.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <482186.10562.qm@web114416.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 9 April 2011 19:53, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > This sounds like a good way that those of us who aren't scientists, > technologists or entrepreneurs, can actually do something that may make a > difference, for a change. I give it a thumbs up. > Cheers Ben - Always glad to hear positive feedback :-) Not my idea originally, of course, but at least it's rolling now... p.s. As suggested, it is now called "FlashComment", and is here: https://sites.google.com/site/dimensionzerodmz/home/08-resources/ongoing-projects/flashcomment OR via here: *http://tinyurl.com/flashcomment* There is a forward link on the original page. Best, A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 11:58:34 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 07:58:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/10 Alfio Puglisi > Actually, most people don't even know that some kind of gallon is used this > side of the atlantic pond :-) **raises hand** When I hear gallon, I only know of one gallon. Good piece of info. I was under the impression that fuel was sold in liters, versus gallons overseas, but I didn't know that a Euro gal doesn't equal a US gal. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 10 16:02:57 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:02:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005d01cbf798$c2d9e2a0$488da7e0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of The Avantguardian Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America http://www.greencar.com/articles/vw-polo-bluemotion-tops-70-mpg.php >...This?car?runs on diesel, has a top speed of 109 mph, has lower CO2 emissions than a Prius,?and gets a whopping 70 miles to the gallon. ? >...So here is a riddle for you: Why can't we?get this in North America? ? Stuart LaForge Stuart, I am a fan of turbo Diesel, but there is an important subtlety in the emissions numbers. Diesel actually does produce less CO2 per kW of power production, but it emits more carbon particulate. In the US, CO2 isn't actually considered a pollutant, but carbon soot is definitely a pollutant. Modern Diesel engines have a particulate filter, which helps, but there is some particulate which necessarily escapes. Changing the filter is an expense to the owner, so of course they will remove them. Carbon particulate is bad for humans, whereas carbon dioxide is harmless in the quantities that cars and trucks make it. Some will argue carbon dioxide is bad for the earth, but that is a different question. That being said, I can envision a two cylinder 20 kW turbo Diesel in a series hybrid configuration which would beat both BlueMotion and the Prius in fuel economy and greenness. It wouldn't be fast. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 10 16:11:20 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:11:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <005e01cbf799$ee9302e0$cbb908a0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America 2011/4/10 Alfio Puglisi wrote: > ... What you call the "European" gallon is actually the UK gallon, which > is unknown to us continental?southerners. Actually, most people don't > even know that some kind of gallon is used this side of the atlantic > pond :-) Why O Evolution are we STILL suffering from the absurd English units? >...Same applies to Kilos versus pounds weight. All hospitals weigh in kilos and grams which is meaningless to the older generation...BillK When my son was born almost five years ago, Stanford University recorded his birth weight in kilos. It came out to 3.999 grams. I knew that a standard sheet of paper is about 6 grams, so I quickly took a paper bill out of my wallet and dropped it on the scale. He went to 4.000 kilos. He was born at 0024 on 6-24-06 at a weight of 4 kilos. spike From js_exi at gnolls.org Sun Apr 10 17:08:10 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:08:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Message-ID: <4DA1E3FA.7050708@gnolls.org> [Another resend: the extropy server apparently hates my mail server.] On 4/7/11 5:00 AM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > This is my problem with the Paleo diet. The archeology does not fit a > high-fat diet. Everything I read shows that hunter/gatherers got more > of their diet from gathering than hunting. That is a common misconception created by misinterpretations of many of the original papers. Someone, I forget who, classified meat procured by fishing, trapping, etc. as "gathering" instead of "hunting" (large animals only), someone else took "gathering" to mean "solely plant source foods", and an approximate ratio of 2/3 meat to 1/3 everything else magically became 1/3 meat to 2/3 everything else. Yes, this is a modern study, but it's instructive: "In this review we have analyzed the 13 known quantitative dietary studies of hunter-gatherers and demonstrate that animal food actually provided the dominant (65%) energy source, while gathered plant foods comprised the remainder (35%)." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11965522 The easiest argument against a vegetable-based diet is that it's impossible to get enough calories to build and maintain our brains -- particularly the long-chain PUFAs EPA and DHA -- without meat. Read up on Kleiber's Law and The Expensive Tissue Hypothesis if you want to understand why this is so, while recalling that vegetables have no significant digestible calories for humans, who can't digest cellulose. (An asparagus spear has FOUR CALORIES.) I explain all these issues in detail (including links to the original papers) here: http://www.gnolls.org/1763/why-humans-crave-fat/ > Big game meat was not a daily occurrence. Source? You might consider reading Dr. Craig Stanford's "Meat-Eating And Human Evolution". And in addition to the above point (no significant calories from vegetables), you're going to have to explain multiple continents worth of Quaternary megafaunal extinctions that JUST HAPPEN to coincide with the arrival of humans. (Neither do they coincide with ice ages, except for North America, and even that begs the question as to why the seven previous Ice Ages didn't cause proportionate extinctions.) The only serious scientific debate at this point is at what point humans transitioned from primarily scavenging to primarily hunting, and at what point humans controlled fire. Recent evidence from South Africa indisputably indicates that by c. 180 KYa humans were both anatomically modern and behaviorally big game hunters/fishers. "Man the wimpy" was a popular theory for a few years in the early 1990s, mostly due to vegetarian and feminist politics...but the continued weight of evidence has long since demoted that. And even when big game was bagged, it was not > high-fat as seen in today's deliberately fattened meats. Therefore, I > do not believe that high-fat meals are a good emulation of a paleo diet, > even if eaten rarely. That's the Cordain theory...and it's bunk, not supported by the archeology or the biology. I discuss this subject at great length here: http://www.gnolls.org/715/when-the-conclusions-dont-match-the-data-even-loren-cordain-whiffs-it-sometimes-because-saturated-fat-is-most-definitely-paleo/ Shortlink: http://www.gnolls.org/?p=715 Here is some first-hand data from someone who butchers free-range bison to feed their family: http://www.archevore.com/panu-weblog/2011/4/6/more-on-grass-fed-bison.html Here are some pictures of "not high-fat" free-range bison: http://www.tribeoffive.com/2010/11/just-watch-animals.html http://www.tribeoffive.com/2011/04/hunting-for-good-food-and-roaming-bison.html > I also doubt the lack of grains in the diet. Archeological evidence > shows that grains were routinely gathered and used in paleo times. That's another common misconception based on pop science misinterpretation of actual science. Popular articles talk about "grains" found on surfaces, and pop-science writers take that to mean "cereal grains" -- when actually reading the paper reveals that they're talking about grains of starch from *root starches*, like ancestral cassava, yam, etc. The earliest undisputed evidence of regular consumption of cereal grains is Ohalo II in Israel, ~21 KYa. "Archeologists have conducted an exhaustive study of Hut 1 at Ohalo II: this hut yielded over 90,000 seeds. The seeds account for more than 100 species of wild barley and fruits." Recall also that for grains to be a significant contribution to the diet, one must also have evidence of grain *storage*. Grain harvest is seasonal, and Paleolithic grains had not yet been selected (as modern grains have) for a propensity to not immediately drop their seeds so they won't be eaten by birds and insects. The wild rice harvesting window is measured in days. > So, besides the nutritional objections to the paleo diet, I also object > to the diet on archeological grounds. Even if I wanted to emulate a > paleo diet, it certainly would not be a high-meat or high-fat diet. And > it would not exclude grains. (It might exclude dairy.) That's your loss :) JS http://www.gnolls.org From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 16:29:16 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 09:29:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <005e01cbf799$ee9302e0$cbb908a0$@att.net> References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <005e01cbf799$ee9302e0$cbb908a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 9:11 AM, spike wrote: > When my son was born almost five years ago, Stanford University recorded his > birth weight in kilos. ?It came out to 3.999 grams. Or 0.003999 kilograms? Gives a new meaning to "light as a feather". ;) From max at maxmore.com Sun Apr 10 17:42:15 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 10:42:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <005d01cbf798$c2d9e2a0$488da7e0$@att.net> References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <005d01cbf798$c2d9e2a0$488da7e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On the negative side of diesel, not only is it more expensive -- at least in the USA; I don't recall the difference the last times I was in Europe -- but it seems that cars and trucks running on diesel are MUCH noiser. Is this a necessary feature of diesel. (I find that unlikely.) If not, why does it seem to be typical? I see and hear small pick-up trucks that sound like enormous commercial trucks ("lorries" for the UK). Can someone point me to a *brief* but informative answer? --- Max On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 9:02 AM, spike wrote: > > > Stuart, I am a fan of turbo Diesel, but there is an important subtlety in > the emissions numbers. Diesel actually does produce less CO2 per kW of > power production, but it emits more carbon particulate. In the US, CO2 > isn't actually considered a pollutant, but carbon soot is definitely a > pollutant. Modern Diesel engines have a particulate filter, which helps, > but there is some particulate which necessarily escapes. Changing the > filter is an expense to the owner, so of course they will remove them. > Carbon particulate is bad for humans, whereas carbon dioxide is harmless in > the quantities that cars and trucks make it. Some will argue carbon > dioxide > is bad for the earth, but that is a different question. > > That being said, I can envision a two cylinder 20 kW turbo Diesel in a > series hybrid configuration which would beat both BlueMotion and the Prius > in fuel economy and greenness. It wouldn't be fast. > > spike > > > -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Apr 10 18:35:09 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 11:35:09 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Stefano Vaj wrote: > > Could any of us, today, actually survive, let alone thrive, > on wild, > raw, unprocessed grains? > > I assume not. > > And certainly I am not eager to give it a try. Wild cereal grains are grass seeds. It is possible to eat grass seeds, and even turn them into a form of bread (I've done it). Given the effort involved, and the poor results, I'm pretty sure they'd be an emergency resort only. You'd be better off digging up earthworms (which can be made into a nutritious, if rather gritty, soup, if you're squeamish about just swallowing them whole). Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 10 19:34:53 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 12:34:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <005e01cbf799$ee9302e0$cbb908a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ab01cbf7b6$5d9dead0$18d9c070$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes ... > recorded his birth weight in kilos. ?It came out to 3.999 grams. Or 0.003999 kilograms? Gives a new meaning to "light as a feather". ;) Oooops. {8^D Good eye Adrian. The Europeans switch their commas and periods, so of course in American I actually meant 3,999 grams. Or at least that makes a good story for covering my error. {8-] s From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 10 19:40:31 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 12:40:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <812699.70141.qm@web65607.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <005d01cbf798$c2d9e2a0$488da7e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 10:42 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America On the negative side of diesel, not only is it more expensive -- at least in the USA; I don't recall the difference the last times I was in Europe -- but it seems that cars and trucks running on diesel are MUCH noiser. Is this a necessary feature of diesel. (I find that unlikely.) If not, why does it seem to be typical? I see and hear small pick-up trucks that sound like enormous commercial trucks ("lorries" for the UK). Can someone point me to a *brief* but informative answer? Max Sure can. Diesel engines have a higher compression ratio (they need to) in order to ignite the fuel/air mixture. At the end of the power stroke, when the exhaust valve opens, the pressure inside the cylinder is higher in a Diesel than in an equivalent gasoline engine. So with identical sound muffling equipment, the Diesel will be inherently louder, because of the pressure differential between the exhaust valve and the manifold. All is not lost. If we use a small Diesel and a constant speed and constant load as in a series hybrid, we can design an exhaust system that will hold the noise level within reason. Diesel engines are great if they are used under ideal speed and load. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 10 20:41:48 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 21:41:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Wild cereal grains are grass seeds. ?It is possible to eat grass seeds, and even turn them into > a form of bread (I've done it). ?Given the effort involved, and the poor results, I'm pretty sure > they'd be an emergency resort only. ?You'd be better off digging up earthworms > (which can be made into a nutritious, if rather gritty, soup, if you're squeamish about just > swallowing them whole). > > Worm stew! Yummy! You've nearly persuaded me to the paleo diet. Any other tasty treats? BillK ;) From max at maxmore.com Sun Apr 10 21:19:35 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 14:19:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Yes, Bill. Juicy, bloody, tasty grass-fed beef steaks. If you're lazy or too busy, grass-fed beef hot dogs from Applegate. Enormous salads in technicolor with green, yellow, red, and orange peppers with olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Wild salmon with garlic and your favorite spices. Or you just eat a bunch of bird seed and diesel fuel. I'm *loving* my paleo diet. Haven't eaten any worms and haven't seen the need the need to, but I'm open to nutritional reason. How about you? --- Max On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 1:41 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 7:35 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > > Wild cereal grains are grass seeds. It is possible to eat grass seeds, > and even turn them into > > a form of bread (I've done it). Given the effort involved, and the poor > results, I'm pretty sure > > they'd be an emergency resort only. You'd be better off digging up > earthworms > > (which can be made into a nutritious, if rather gritty, soup, if you're > squeamish about just > > swallowing them whole). > > > > > > > Worm stew! Yummy! > > You've nearly persuaded me to the paleo diet. Any other tasty treats? > > > BillK ;) > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Apr 10 23:55:36 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 18:55:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll Message-ID: <6D3240B85054439E9D30662A74A2AF43@DFC68LF1> I just voted for Ray. Here is the link information to cast your vote: Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll, edging out Obama; voting still open TIME has announced its 2011 TIME 100 Poll, which asks readers to "cast your votes for the leaders, artists, innovators, icons and heroes that you think are the most influential people in the world." The Top 100 will be included in TIME's annual TIME 100 special edition. As of 5:30 p.m. EDT Sunday April 10, Ray Kurzweil ranks 41, just above U.S. President Barack Obama. Voting is open through April 14, 2011, limited to one vote per nominee per computer per day. To vote: click on the link below, click on the person you wish to vote for (or against), choose "Yes" or "No" (influential or not), and click Submit. You can also share your choice on Facebook or Twitter. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2058044_2061021_2 061023,00.html Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Planetary Collegium, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Vice Chair : Humanity+ Fellow: Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 11 00:12:14 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:12:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll In-Reply-To: <6D3240B85054439E9D30662A74A2AF43@DFC68LF1> References: <6D3240B85054439E9D30662A74A2AF43@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <012201cbf7dd$1cda6920$568f3b60$@att.net> On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More Subject: [ExI] Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll I just voted for Ray. Here is the link information to cast your vote: Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll, edging out Obama; voting still open. Natasha I was also pleased to see Christopher Hitchens at number 7. It worries me that I have never heard of any of those six above Hitchens, and I am completely baffled that "Rain" gets over a quarter of a million votes. Perhaps a pop star? American Idol winners? Actually this might be saying something important about the poll, if I have heard of most of them at 7 and below, but none of the top 6. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From amon at doctrinezero.com Mon Apr 11 09:30:28 2011 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:30:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll In-Reply-To: <012201cbf7dd$1cda6920$568f3b60$@att.net> References: <6D3240B85054439E9D30662A74A2AF43@DFC68LF1> <012201cbf7dd$1cda6920$568f3b60$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/11 spike > > > I was also pleased to see Christopher Hitchens at number 7. It worries me > that I have never heard of any of those six above Hitchens, and I am > completely baffled that ?Rain? gets over a quarter of a million votes. > Perhaps a pop star? American Idol winners? > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rain_%28entertainer%29 Not sure what TIME's definition of "influential" was, but by some definitions, Rain fits. Although in that case there seems to be a correlation between 'influential' (now) and 'inconsequential' (some months or years down the line). This is why a scaled-up Athenian democracy would be a bad, bad idea! ;-) - A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 11:06:33 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:06:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/10 Max More wrote>: > Yes, Bill. Juicy, bloody, tasty grass-fed beef steaks. If you're lazy or too > busy, grass-fed beef hot dogs from Applegate. Enormous salads in technicolor > with green, yellow, red, and orange peppers with olive oil and balsamic > vinegar. Wild salmon with garlic and your favorite spices. > > Or you just eat a bunch of bird seed and diesel fuel. > > I'm *loving* my paleo diet. Haven't eaten any worms and haven't seen the > need the need to, but I'm open to nutritional reason. How about you? > > OK, so your paleo diet won't save the world. Too expensive in resource usage and money. >From my POV it is just another fad diet, one of thousands. All with fanatical supporters and just as many critics. Some good points and some not so good, like all diet plans. Humans are very adaptable and can live on almost any diet. Many diet flaws won't show up for ten or twenty years. Loss of bone calcium is a long term problem for some diets, among others. A general, mixed diet, with lots of vegetables and avoiding over-consumption will do just fine. Attitude seems to have just as much to do with long life as diet (and genetics). For example, Quote: So what's going on here? Unusual longevity often has a genetic basis, and Reichert probably does have a gene that contributes to her unusual longevity. But she also exhibits a powerful trait geriatricians call adaptive competence. I define it loosely as the ability to bounce back from stress. Many scientists view this solely as biological stress. But many of us who care for older patients see adaptive competence as psychologically critical as well. -------------------- This also seems to be backed up by 'Blue Zone' surveys. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 11 11:56:22 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:56:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Focardi & Rossi Energy Catalyzer Message-ID: <4DA2EC66.10003@libero.it> The saga continue: In the last weeks, the Rossi's device was demonstrated again and again. Swedish physicists on the E-cat: ?It?s a nuclear reaction? http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3144827.ece here their detailed report http://www.nyteknik.se/incoming/article3144960.ece/BINARY/Download+the+report+by+Kullander+and+Ess%C3%A9n+%28pdf%29. Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rossi_Reactor The most interesting parts, IMHO, until now, is the experiment conducted in front of the Swedish physicists (one of the just ex-chairman and on the board of the Skeptic Society of Sweden) that were convinced that there is "something" nuclear there and excluded any chemical explanation. In an interview, an Italian physicist that follow the story for the CICAP (the equivalent of the Skeptic Society in Italy) didn't affirmed nothing about the experiments, but simply said: "If it is a trick, we have no idea how he did it and Rossi could surely patent it". -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3564 - Data di rilascio: 10/04/2011 From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 11 14:01:10 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 07:01:10 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <920696.95285.qm@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> BillK asked: > Worm stew!? Yummy! > > You've nearly persuaded me to the paleo diet. Any other > tasty treats? Baked Bullrush roots with your haunch of venison. Bracket fungus, caterpillars (careful though, some of them are poisonous). Honeycomb with added protein (bee larvae). Hawthorn berries (you need a lot. Not much flesh on them, but it's tasty). And if you come across a dead animal that's just too whiffy to stomach, the maggots are usually good. There's food all over the place, if you're not too fussy, and know which mushrooms/caterpillars/berries *not* to eat. (btw, in case you were wondering, I do my shopping at the supermarket, same as anyone else) I can second what Max said, about enjoying food. I used to enjoy a big slice of fresh-baked bread with butter and honey on it, but that's *nowhere near* as good as a big hunk of medium-rare Bambi. Come to think of it, it was mostly the butter and honey I liked, anyway! And no, this can never be a diet for the majority, it wouldn't be sustainable. The worst thing for people on a palaeo diet would be for loads of people to go on it, driving up the price of meat to insane levels. Ben Zaiboc From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 15:38:04 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:38:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 11 April 2011 13:06, BillK wrote: > OK, so your paleo diet won't save the world. Too expensive in resource > usage and money. > There is a reason after all why the neolithic revolution has won. We accepted, or rather Darwinian forces imposed on survivors, disease and shorter lives for many of us in exchange for number, power, knowledge (see under "labour division"), sedentary life, etc. OTOH, what is transhumanism if not the bold decision to have one's steak and eat it too? :-) As a first step it is reasonable that those who are lucky enough to make the right choice do it. As a second, we know that if we want to extend the benefits, we need either to alter our genetic make or to alter our food production technologies. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 15:30:19 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:30:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 10 April 2011 20:35, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Stefano Vaj wrote: >> Could any of us, today, actually survive, let alone thrive, >> on wild, >> raw, unprocessed grains? >> I assume not. >> And certainly I am not eager to give it a try. > > Wild cereal grains are grass seeds. It is possible to eat grass seeds, and even turn them into a form of bread (I've done it). ... and that would anyway qualify for "cooking" or "processing" in my book. :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Apr 11 17:24:52 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 10:24:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 4:06 AM, BillK wrote: > > OK, so your paleo diet won't save the world. Too expensive in resource > usage and money. > I've never claimed that it will save the world. However, I suspect that it can be considerably less expensive than you think, both in personal terms and in terms of resource usage. For instance: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/09/11/animal-vegetable-or-e-o-wilson/ > > >From my POV it is just another fad diet, one of thousands. A fad diet that we lived on healthily for over two million years. That's one enduring fad! > A general, mixed diet, with lots of vegetables and avoiding > over-consumption will do just fine. > Not if that mix includes plenty of carbohydrates, especially but not only simple ones such as HFCS. I agree that avoiding overconsumption is crucial. Modest underconsumption is even better (and keeps the costs of even a top-class paleo diet down -- no need to eat huge grass-fed steaks or pounds of salmon). -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From js_exi at gnolls.org Mon Apr 11 18:22:37 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 11:22:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability Message-ID: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Ben Zaiboc said: > And no, this can never be a diet for the majority, it wouldn't be sustainable. The same can be said about agriculture, particularly industrial agriculture -- which depends on: -A continual depletion of topsoil and soil nutrients http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/agriculture/farming/6828878/Britain-facing-food-crisis-as-worlds-soil-vanishes-in-60-years.html http://www.seattlepi.com/national/348200_dirt22.html -A continual influx of fossil fuels via the Haber process (which uses 3-5% of world natural gas production) -A continual influx of fossil water via depletion of underground aquifers (example: Oglalla aquifer), or a continual influx of irrigation water, resulting in soil salinization and abandonment -The complete destruction of whatever biotic community existed previous to agriculture The sustainable carrying capacity of the Earth has little to do with energy: it has to do with soil, in which our food grows, and without which we don't have any. Lierre Keith's "The Vegetarian Myth" happens to be written as an argument against vegetarianism -- but it's even more important for guilty omnivores, who comprise a much larger segment of the population. Its real subject is how food is grown, and how soil is created and destroyed -- a subject on which most of us are completely ignorant -- and how animals and animal products are an *absolutely necessary* part of that cycle. The upshot is that agriculture is the equivalent of strip-mining, it's even more destructive than pastoralism (as can be seen by the current condition of, say, the "Fertile Crescent"), and that seven billion people is far, far beyond the sustainable population of the Earth even if you posit nearly free energy and force everyone to eat corn and soy. I can't stress this enough. Most of the Earth can't support agriculture, anyway: it can only support ruminants grazing on the grasses and other perennials that grow there. For example, only ~19% of the United States is arable, most of that due to exploitation of fossil water and gigantic, destructive dams that silt up anyway. (Feeding grains to cattle was uneconomical until our massive subsidies for destructive, unsustainable industrial grain production.) I link quite a few references here: http://www.gnolls.org/1833/we-must-reclaim-human-health-sustainability-environmental-justice-and-morality-from-the-birdseed-brigade/ Here are some more articles of interest: "Allan Savory won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Challenge Prize of $100,000 for the Africa Center for Holistic Management (ACHM) in Zimbabwe by demonstrating that by INCREASING the number of livestock on barren land by 400% we can convert it from desert back to productive grassland." http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2011/03/operation-hope-meat-is-medicine-for.html (Note that Buckminster Fuller was a high-meat, low-carb dieter, and lived to age 88.) "...taking the farm as a whole, the food output per acre from a well-run mixed farm was often higher than today's intensive chemical operation." http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/nov/05/cereal-crop-farming-wheat-prices Again, I recommend "The Vegetarian Myth" in order to to understand the process by which food is grown and consumed sustainably. It involves animals and animal products, which are necessary to return consumed nutrients to the soil so that more plants can grow, and which are necessary to consume the foliage that naturally grows but we can't eat. JS http://www.gnolls.org PS: I must point out that the first review on Amazon is a hatchet job that makes blatantly false claims about the book: for instance, claiming that the fact that ulcers are caused by bacteria counteracts Keith's assertion that bacterial digestion does not occur in the human stomach. From max at maxmore.com Mon Apr 11 19:23:16 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:23:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New gasoline engine design Message-ID: Relevant to recent discussions here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/11/new-gasoline-engine-design-has-4x-efficiency-of-pistons/ -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 11 19:56:14 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:56:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] New gasoline engine design In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006801cbf882$8416ba30$8c442e90$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Max More Subject: [ExI] New gasoline engine design Relevant to recent discussions here: http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/11/new-gasoline-engine-design-has-4x-effi ciency-of-pistons/ -- Max More Cool, but looking at the site, I can't figure out what he is claiming is new about this design. Turbines have their uses and may even have value in automotive use as a series hybrid. We can harness combustion far more efficiently if we figure out how to get around the problem of variable speed and variable load, which you do in series hybrid designs. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 11 21:55:20 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 16:55:20 -0500 Subject: [ExI] and speaking of qualia... Message-ID: <4DA378C8.6010207@satx.rr.com> Centuries-old debate on perception settled Monday, 11 April 2011 by Marlowe Hood Agence France-Presse 'Molyneux's question' asks, "if a man born blind can feel the differences between shapes such as spheres and cubes, could he similarly distinguish those objects by sight if given the ability to see?" PARIS: A conundrum about human perception has stumped philosophers and scientists alike since it was first articulated by an Irish politician in a letter to John Locke 323 years ago. But French scientists now claim that they have it solved. Imagine, William Molyneux wrote to the great British thinker, that a man blind from birth who has learned to identify objects - a sphere and a cube, for example - only through his sense of touch is suddenly able to see. The puzzle, he continued, is "Whether he Could, by his Sight, and before he touch them, know which is the Globe and which the Cube?" For philosophers of the time, answering 'Molyneux's question', as it was known ever after, would resolve a fundamental uncertainty about the human mind. ?Nurture vs. nature? Empiricists believed that we are born blank slates, and become the sum total of our accumulated experience. So-called ?nativists? countered that our minds are, from the outset, pre-stocked with ideas waiting to be activated by sight, sound and touch. If a blind man who miraculously recovered his sight could instantly distinguish the cube from the globe it would mean the knowledge was somehow innate, they argued. More recently, this ?nurture vs. nature? debate has found its counterpart in modern neuroscience. "The beauty of Molyneux's question is that it also relates to how representations are formed in the brain," said Pawan Sinha, a professor at The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Boston and the main architect of the study. "Do the different modalities, or senses, build up a common representation, or are these independent representations that one cannot access even though the other modality has built it?" he asked. Finding the cured blind Recent studies have suggested that the mental images we accumulate through sight and touch do, in fact, form a common pool of impressions that can be triggered and retrieved by one sense or the other. But until now, no one has been able to design a definitive experiment. The problem was finding subjects. They would have to have been blind at birth and then have had their sight restored, but not until they were old enough to reliably participate in tests. Most forms of curable congenital blindness, however, are detected and cured in infancy, so such individuals are extremely rare. More precisely, they are rare in rich countries. So in 2003, Sinha set up a program in India in cooperation with the Shroff Charity Eye Hospital in New Delhi. Discriminating between similar shapes Among the many patients he treated, he found five - four boys and one girl, aged eight to 17 - who met the criteria for surgery that would almost instantly take them from total blindness to fully seeing. Once bandages were removed, researchers had to first be sure that the volunteers could see well. Using objects that looked like Lego building blocks, they tested the ability to discriminate visually between similar shapes. The subjects scored nearly 100%. They scored nearly as well when it came to telling the difference by touch alone, according to the study, published in Nature Neuroscience. Barely better than a guess For the critical test, however, in which the children first felt an object and then tried to distinguish visually between that same object and a similar one, the results were barely better than if they had guessed. "They couldn't form the connection," said Yuri Ostrovsky, also a researcher at MIT and a co-author of the study. "The conclusion is that there does not seem to be any cross-modal" - that is, from one sense to the other - "representation available to perform the task," he said. The answer is 'no' The answer to Molyneux's question, then, appears to be ?no?: the data blind people gather tactically that allows them to identify a cup and a vase, and to tell them apart, is not accessible through vision. At least not at first. "From a neuro-scientific point of view, the most interesting finding is the rapidity with which this inability was compensated," said Richard Held, an emeritus professor at MIT and lead author of the study. "Within about a week, it's done - and that is very fast. We were surprised," he said. The overall results suggest that the human brain is more ?plastic?, or malleable, longer into childhood than previously thought, the researchers said. "This challenges the dogma of 'critical periods,' the idea that if a child has been deprived of vision for the first three or four years of life, he or she will be unable to acquire any visual proficiency," Sinha said. From sjatkins at mac.com Tue Apr 12 00:48:30 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 17:48:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> On 04/11/2011 11:22 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > > Ben Zaiboc said: >> And no, this can never be a diet for the majority, it wouldn't be >> sustainable. > > The same can be said about agriculture, particularly industrial > agriculture -- which depends on: Wait a second. To raise cattle takes a lot of agriculture to grow enough vegetable matter to feed the cattle. The amount of land needed for that is roughly 17 times as large as that needed for just growing human consumable vegetable matter on the same land. You don't get away from agriculture by having diets with a lot of meat in them. - samantha From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 12 01:01:40 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 18:01:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> Message-ID: Samantha: It doesn't seem like you read any of the relevant references J. Stanton and I provided on this exact point. --- Max On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/11/2011 11:22 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > >> >> Ben Zaiboc said: >> >>> And no, this can never be a diet for the majority, it wouldn't be >>> sustainable. >>> >> >> The same can be said about agriculture, particularly industrial >> agriculture -- which depends on: >> > > Wait a second. To raise cattle takes a lot of agriculture to grow enough > vegetable matter to feed the cattle. The amount of land needed for that is > roughly 17 times as large as that needed for just growing human consumable > vegetable matter on the same land. You don't get away from agriculture by > having diets with a lot of meat in them. > > - samantha > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 19:06:13 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (kellycoinguy at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 13:06:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4da3aa0e.4581dc0a.230a.69ce@mx.google.com> Putting solar panels all over Arizona would not change the albedo of the earth very much, if it did you could compensate with lots of white paint... :-) Are all of the black asphalt roofs changing the albedo substantially? If so then we already have a problem roughly equivqlent. I like moonbeams...  The algae columns are ready for deployment today. Kelly -- Sent from my Palm Pre On Apr 8, 2011 11:43 PM, John Clark <Jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote: On Apr 8, 2011, at 6:00 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: Now there is local heating, such as the well documented fact that cities are a few degrees warmer than the surrounding country side. This is hardly a climate issue Of course it's a climate issue! If you change the Earth's albedo you change the climate in a fundamental way because you change the amount of energy that drives the entire show, and solar cells are black and only 20% efficient. But to be honest global warming rather bores me, I just enjoy throwing environmental arguments back at people. As for the materials required to create solar panels, they are working on many different alternatives. Some of my favorite are biological, and require no special equipment. Moonbeams. I'm talking about technologies that we have right now that are ready to take over the MASSIVE job of driving the world's economy from fossil fuels, and like it or not I know of only one, nuclear.  John K Clark  -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 18:41:43 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (kellycoinguy at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:41:43 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4da3a9f4.4581dc0a.230a.69ca@mx.google.com> 2011/4/11 spike <spike66 at att.net>  I was also pleased to see Christopher Hitchens at number 7.  It worries me that I have never heard of any of those six above Hitchens You have not heard of Glenn Beck? This is why a scaled-up Athenian democracy would be a bad, bad idea!   I have often thought that an Athenian style democracy would work well enough if we each had enough intellectual capacity to fully investigate every issue. Obviously congressmen can not do this as they all require a substantial staff. Maybe some day when we are posthumans we can take another try. Athens worked because there was a match between what they knew and what they needed to know. Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 18:48:37 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (kellycoinguy at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:48:37 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> Message-ID: <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> I heard that there is more energy in a gallon of diesel vs. Gasoline. Is that true? Miles per dollar has always seemed more interesting to me than MPG. Kelly -- Sent from my Palm Pre On Apr 10, 2011 1:55 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:   From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Sunday, April 10, 2011 10:42 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America On the negative side of diesel, not only is it more expensive -- at least in the USA; I don't recall the difference the last times I was in Europe -- but it seems that cars and trucks running on diesel are MUCH noiser. Is this a necessary feature of diesel. (I find that unlikely.) If not, why does it seem to be typical? I see and hear small pick-up trucks that sound like enormous commercial trucks ("lorries" for the UK). Can someone point me to a *brief* but informative answer?  Max  Sure can.  Diesel engines have a higher compression ratio (they need to) in order to ignite the fuel/air mixture.  At the end of the power stroke, when the exhaust valve opens, the pressure inside the cylinder is higher in a Diesel than in an equivalent gasoline engine.  So with identical sound muffling equipment, the Diesel will be inherently louder, because of the pressure differential between the exhaust valve and the manifold.   All is not lost.  If we use a small Diesel and a constant speed and constant load as in a series hybrid, we can design an exhaust system that will hold the noise level within reason.  Diesel engines are great if they are used under ideal speed and load. spike       -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 11 18:56:11 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (kellycoinguy at gmail.com) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 12:56:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <4da3aa05.4581dc0a.230a.69cd@mx.google.com> I heard recently that part of the reason that oil is cheaper in the US is because the international price is stated in dollars. Also that if we stopped denominating oil in dollars that the price would jump in the us. This seems like a crazy argument to me. Do any of you have any reason to believe it moght be true? Kelly -- Sent from my Palm Pre On Apr 10, 2011 3:29 AM, Alfio Puglisi <alfio.puglisi at gmail.com> wrote: On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 9:50 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote: On Sun, Apr 10, 2011 at 7:05 AM, The Avantguardian  wrote: > > > http://www.greencar.com/articles/vw-polo-bluemotion-tops-70-mpg.php > > > This car runs on diesel, has a top speed of 109 mph, has lower CO2 emissions > than a Prius,on and gets a whopping 70 miles to the gallon. > > So here is a riddle for you: > Why can't we get this in North America? > > Because you've been naughty and don't deserve it!     ;) No, really it is because 1) US gas prices(including tax) need to double to get nearer to European prices before economical cars become a significant user demand. 2) The very economical European cars tend to be too small for US preferences. This article is from 2008 and there are now in 2011 many standard production European cars (diesel or hybrid) that will get over 70 mpg on mixed city / freeway driving (called combined cycle mpg). You have to adjust for US gallons, though, by dividing by 1.2.   So 70 mpg European = 58.3 mpg US - quite a difference! This is correct, but note that the greencar.com's article used American gallons: 3.8 liters/100 km translates to 62 mpg, so the 48 city / 74 highway is valid for the US. There may be some difference in the standards used to calculate the fuel consumption, though. What you call the "European" gallon is actually the UK gallon, which is unknown to us continental southerners. Actually, most people don't even know that some kind of gallon is used this side of the atlantic pond :-)   Use <http://carfueldata.direct.gov.uk/search-by-fuel-economy.aspx> to search for over 50 cars with better than 70 mpg (European). BillK _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 12 02:45:58 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:45:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <4da3aa0e.4581dc0a.230a.69ce@mx.google.com> References: <4da3aa0e.4581dc0a.230a.69ce@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <005401cbf8bb$c1738fa0$445aaee0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 12:06 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. Putting solar panels all over Arizona would not change the albedo of the earth very much, if it did you could compensate with lots of white paint... :-) Are all of the black asphalt roofs changing the albedo substantially? If so then we already have a problem roughly equivqlent. I like moonbeams... The algae columns are ready for deployment today. Kelly We suffer from an illusion created by living where there are lots of people, where the natural environment has been changed considerably. Everywhere we ever go is on a road, with roads everywhere. Next time you fly, look out the window and estimate the total effect of humanity on albedo. Or if you don?t want to spend the money on a plane ticket, go into GoogleEarth and look around. Randomly choose a spot. Do you see any roads or houses? Or do the following BOTEC: the typical house is about 2000 ft^2 and there are? say, ~100 million of them in the US, so just say about 2E11 ft^2 of roof area and a square meter is about ten square feet, so about 2e10 m^2 of roof area, and for estimation purposes the US is close enough to 5e6 by about 3e6 meters, so about 1.5e13 m^2, so all the roof area in the US combined is on the order of around 1 to 1.5 parts per 1000 in area, a tenth of a percent, without looking up anything. I wouldn?t be a bit surprised if all the road surfaces combined have a similar magnitude or perhaps about a magnitude more road area than roof area, still all told perhaps a few tenths of a percent. When you finish with that BOTEC, consider most of this globe is ocean. Roads and roofs are not causing this old planet to warm. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 12 02:54:08 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:54:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sent: Monday, April 11, 2011 11:49 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America I heard that there is more energy in a gallon of diesel vs. Gasoline. Is that true? Miles per dollar has always seemed more interesting to me than MPG. Kelly -- Sent from my Palm Pre Actually it depends on how the question is stated. A Diesel engine converts more energy to useful work from a gallon of Diesel fuel than a gasoline engine converts from a gallon of octane, assuming the Diesel is loaded optimally. Octane burning engines are actually more efficient than Diesel when very lightly loaded. This is what has me thinking small turbo-Diesel engines spinning generators at constant speed and load to hold them in their most efficient rev band. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 12 02:50:00 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:50:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ray Kurzweil ranks 41 in TIME's 2011 TIME 100 Poll In-Reply-To: <4da3a9f4.4581dc0a.230a.69ca@mx.google.com> References: <4da3a9f4.4581dc0a.230a.69ca@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <005901cbf8bc$514e57e0$f3eb07a0$@att.net> 2011/4/11 spike I was also pleased to see Christopher Hitchens at number 7. It worries me that I have never heard of any of those six above Hitchens >You have not heard of Glenn Beck? >This is why a scaled-up Athenian democracy would be a bad, bad idea! ? >Kelly The list is changing daily. Beck wasn?t up there when I looked. The top 6 were all popular entertainers I think. In a way this make perfect sense. When we are young, we are far more influenced by and familiar with popular entertainers. Now, I don?t know who they are. I get all my entertainment here, free. If they are asking who is the most influential, the movie stars and singers, comedians, dancers, models, etc, may be legitimately named, for they influence huge numbers of young people. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 03:19:56 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 11 Apr 2011 20:19:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Large scale energy sources Message-ID: Just got back from the Space Access conference. The most interesting presentation to me was by Reaction Engines on the big ESA review of the projected performance of the Skylon vehicle. The conclusion was that the engineering is sound and the vehicle should meet the performance specifications. Skylon gets the equal of 10.5 km/s exhaust velocity till it runs out of air at 26 km and 2000 m/s. If you want to get space transportation down to where power satellites make sense, that's a very good start. If you could get only 8 km/s for the rest of the way to orbit, the vehicle mass ratio would be 3 and the cost down to well under $100/kg to LEO and just about $100/kg to GEO. That is low enough for power satellites to become the dominate world wide energy source. Because it offered an even less than SBSP cost, I have spent the last year working on StratoSolar. I have not found a showstopper in the design to date, but it has taken a lot of conceptual design work to get around the problems in the original design. It is a difficult engineering project that is sensitive to peak wind loads. Keith From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 04:58:50 2011 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:28:50 +0930 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/7 spike : > > > > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More > > > >>>Some interesting data on the (low) efficiency of wind power: > > > >>>http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/whoa-windfarms-in-uk-operate-well-below-advertised-efficiency/#more-37420 > > --- Max > > > >>?? It is something that burned an image into my retinas: most of the time >> in most of those wind farms, all of the turbines were sitting still and >> quiet.? spike > > > > > > I gave you some bad news, now I will give you something good. > > > > This past weekend I was at a class reunion for Shelly?s high school, in > Caldwell Idaho where she is from.? We went to a big party out north and west > past Vale Oregon.? Driving out to the ranch of some old friends, I was > struck by how much land there is where there is insufficient water resources > to grow much of anything, no civilization, harsh climate, clear, windy most > of the time, but there is a road and some existing power infrastructure. > There is no reason whatsoever we couldn?t make a mile wide field of PVs on > either side of the road going up highway 26 from Vale and out highway 20 > west of Vale, south from Marsing on highway 95, where one goes for hour > after hour seeing on either side of the road to the horizon, flat unused > ground, un-farmable, unbuildable.? There is sooooo damn much wide open land > out there, being used for nothing, useful for nothing else. > > > > If you have a few days to mess around, I do encourage those who worry about > mankind?s future energy resources to get in a Detroit and drive out to some > of these desert wastelands, just to get a feel for how open and vast they > are.? Go down highway 395 in eastern Oregon and California, or go nearly > anywhere in Nevada.? Plenty of open space out there, and the land is > practically free.? We could add enormous power lines, or set up coal to > octane plants out there to soak up the peak production.? If you don?t have > time to drive out there, go on Google maps, enter Ontario Oregon, look > around. > > > > If we really committed to doing this, we could set up solar panel fabs that > would produce standardized 1 meter by 1 meter panels in quantities that > would give manufacturing engineers the tingles.? We would churn out so many > of these things, we could get very close to lights-out factories.? Over a > couple decades we could gradually replace so many of the alternative energy > sources, all of which have their severe shortcomings.? We could end up with > enough with enough spare energy to use the excess to synthesize ammonium > nitrate for fertilizers, octane for our Detroits, power air conditioning to > counteract global warming, all that stuff. > > > > The wind farms haven?t lived up to their promise, geothermal and falling > water are nearly completely exploited, oil is in decline, coal is dirty, > Japanese tsunami generated all that bad press for nuclear power.? Now I am > convinced to steer my own investment dollars towards advanced domestic PV > fabs.? After it is all said and done, I am convinced to my own satisfaction > that PVs are the path forward, with load leveling being largely accomplished > by using peak power for conversion of coal to octane and for electric > power-intensive processes such as metal extraction.? Expensive, takes a long > time to transition, lot of loss in transmission.? But considering all > alternatives, the downsides don?t seem so far down now. > > spike If you're talking PV, then I agree! Especially since they seem to be on an exponential improvement path, unlike any other energy technology (ever?). But, why would you worry too much about losses in transmission? PV is a decentralizing technology. Just put it where you need it, the grid takes a back seat. Ray K recently put forward a timeframe of 20 years until the world is 100% solar, based on current doubling time of uptake. Certainly, in 20 years there'll be a lot of it. Out the other side of that? Masses of power, far more than now, with no concept of power use being a bad thing. Bring it on! -- Emlyn http://my.syyn.cc - A service for syncing buzz and facebook, posts, comments and all. http://www.blahblahbleh.com - A simple youtube radio that I built http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 08:43:50 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:43:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/12 Max More wrote: > Samantha: It doesn't seem like you read any of the relevant references J. > Stanton and I provided on this exact point. > > Reading those references doesn't mean that you have to agree with them. :) Those references are from paleo enthusiasts looking for an excuse to farm animals for their steaks. Sustainable agriculture involves things like crop rotation and recycling vegetable waste back into the land. Over-application of animal waste as fertiliser causes pollution problems outside the farming area. There may be a case for grazing some animals on very poor pasture land, but not as a major source of food production. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 11:21:41 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:21:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <791721.16781.qm@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/11 Max More : > Not if that mix includes plenty of carbohydrates, especially but not only > simple ones such as HFCS. I agree that avoiding overconsumption is crucial. > Modest underconsumption is even better (and keeps the costs of even a > top-class paleo diet down -- no need to eat huge grass-fed steaks or pounds > of salmon). I suspect however that underconsumption is especially crucial for neolithic diets. I believe we all have anecdotical evidence of how its damages are positively reduced by mild-to-severe caloric restriction. -- Stefano Vaj From sparge at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 12:44:06 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 08:44:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > > Wait a second. ?To raise cattle takes a lot of agriculture to grow enough > vegetable matter to feed the cattle. Not true. Cattle and other ruminants require no agriculture, just wild forage. The vast herds of buffalo that used to live in North America, for example, weren't supported by agriculture. I can raise half a dozen cattle on my 10 acres of pasture with no agriculture whatsoever. >?The amount of land needed for that is > roughly 17 times as large as that needed for just growing human consumable > vegetable matter on the same land. Citation required. -Dave From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 12 14:44:11 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 16:44:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <4da3aa0e.4581dc0a.230a.69ce@mx.google.com> References: <4da3aa0e.4581dc0a.230a.69ce@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <20110412144411.GG23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 01:06:13PM -0600, kellycoinguy at gmail.com wrote: > Putting solar panels all over Arizona would not change > the albedo of the earth very much, if it did you could compensate with lots of white paint... :-) Painting the roofs white has actually been suggested as mitigator for climate change. I frankly think it's a drop in the bucket, with permafrost/clathrate anoxic event outgassing and now also fracking. Besides, everybody knows that we'll burn up the last little drop and piece of dead dino we can get our hands on before calling it a day. > Are all of the black asphalt roofs changing the albedo > substantially? If so then we already have a problem roughly equivqlent. Actually, we have. > I like moonbeams...  The algae columns are ready for deployment today. Actually the Moon receives 12.3 PW solar flux, while we only need 15 TW, so moonbeams are a factor of 1000 in excess of humanity's current needs. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 12 16:01:00 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:01:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power. In-Reply-To: <005401cbf8bb$c1738fa0$445aaee0$@att.net> References: <4da3aa0e.4581dc0a.230a.69ce@mx.google.com> <005401cbf8bb$c1738fa0$445aaee0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110412160100.GK23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 07:45:58PM -0700, spike wrote: > We suffer from an illusion created by living where there are lots of people, where the natural environment has been changed considerably. Everywhere we ever go is on a road, with roads everywhere. Next time you fly, look out the window and estimate the total effect of humanity on albedo. Or if you don?t want to spend the money on a plane ticket, go into GoogleEarth and look around. Randomly choose a spot. Do you see any roads or houses? > > Or do the following BOTEC: the typical house is about 2000 ft^2 and there are? say, ~100 million of them in the US, so just say about 2E11 ft^2 of roof area and a square meter is about ten square feet, so about 2e10 m^2 of roof area, and for estimation purposes the US is close enough to 5e6 by about 3e6 meters, so about 1.5e13 m^2, so all the roof area in the US combined is on the order of around 1 to 1.5 parts per 1000 in area, a tenth of a percent, without looking up anything. I wouldn?t be a bit surprised if all the road surfaces combined have a similar magnitude or perhaps about a magnitude more road area than roof area, still all told perhaps a few tenths of a percent. > > When you finish with that BOTEC, consider most of this globe is ocean. Roads and roofs are not causing this old planet to warm. About 12% of Germany's surface is altered. If you consider HANPP http://www.eoearth.org/article/Global_human_appropriation_of_net_primary_production_%28HANPP%29 then we definitely have an impact on Earth's albedo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo There has been some work on putting the numbers on it. http://www.climatechange.ca.gov/events/2008_conference/presentations/2008-09-09/Hashem_Akbari.pdf Notice that PV would have very little impact http://www.californiavalleysolarranch.com/deir/070710%20Data/Impact%20of%20PV%20Systems%20on%20Local%20Temps%207-6-10%20FINAL.pdf and more than offset that by being greenhouse-neutral. -- 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 From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 17:50:41 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 10:50:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:22 AM, J. Stanton wrote: I am really getting annoyed at the postings on this list. I would think the people who post here should understand Extropy. snip > seven billion people is far, far > beyond the sustainable population of the Earth even if you posit nearly free > energy . . . . That is utter nonsense. With really low cost energy you can make fresh water out of salt and pump it inland a thousand miles. Likewise, you can salvage phosphorous our of sewage and ship it back to the farms. Not that this means a lot. I seriously doubt there will be any biologically based people left by 2100. Keith From atymes at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 18:35:04 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:35:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> Message-ID: On Apr 11, 2011 7:55 PM, "spike" wrote: > Actually it depends on how the question is stated. A Diesel engine converts more energy to useful work from a gallon of Diesel fuel than a gasoline engine converts from a gallon of octane, assuming the Diesel is loaded optimally. Octane burning engines are actually more efficient than Diesel when very lightly loaded. This is what has me thinking small turbo-Diesel engines spinning generators at constant speed and load to hold them in their most efficient rev band. Isn't that the basic principle behind many hybrids? Use the electric motor for fractional power needs, and run the gas engine at one or a few optimized revs to provide drive power and/or recharge the batteries. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 12 19:35:29 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:35:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Message-ID: Keith: While I agree with you about that particular shortcoming in J. Stanton's post, I don't think you should be too annoyed. Although his assumptions in that respect show a lack of knowledge of what we've discussed for ages, his posts are otherwise extremely substantial and informative about issues that directly affect health and longevity right now. Best, --- Max On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 10:50 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 11:22 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > > I am really getting annoyed at the postings on this list. I would > think the people who post here should understand Extropy. > > snip > > > seven billion people is far, far > > beyond the sustainable population of the Earth even if you posit nearly > free > > energy . . . . > > That is utter nonsense. With really low cost energy you can make > fresh water out of salt and pump it inland a thousand miles. > > Likewise, you can salvage phosphorous our of sewage and ship it back > to the farms. > > Not that this means a lot. I seriously doubt there will be any > biologically based people left by 2100. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 12 20:34:14 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 13:34:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> Message-ID: <003901cbf950$fdc8b440$f95a1cc0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Tuesday, April 12, 2011 11:35 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America On Apr 11, 2011 7:55 PM, "spike" wrote: > >. A Diesel engine converts more energy to useful work from a gallon of Diesel fuel than a gasoline engine converts from a gallon of octane, assuming the Diesel is loaded optimally. >.Isn't that the basic principle behind many hybrids? Ja, but the first generation hybrids such as the prius sacrifices efficiency to some extent for driveability. Toyota didn't want to get electric hybrids associated with underpowered lousy performance. So that generation of parallel hybrids doesn't get all that much better fuel economy above straight gasoline, but they aren't slow either. Nissan's hybrid, the leaf, is a good performer. Octane burners are not so great on efficiency, but they beat everybody on versatility: they do OK over a huge range of speed and load, they are simple and light, broad power band, we all know how to fix them (we older cats do anyway.) If we can tolerate low acceleration, we have a whole bunch of options, such as series hybrids using a turbo-Diesel. These have a narrow power and efficiency band, but with series hybrid, you can take advantage of that, and even keep it quiet with tuned exhaust. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Apr 12 21:06:08 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:06:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <003901cbf950$fdc8b440$f95a1cc0$@att.net> References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> <003901cbf950$fdc8b440$f95a1cc0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/12 spike : > Nissan?s hybrid, the leaf, is a good performer. It's electric, not hybrid. -Dave From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 12 21:47:21 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 14:47:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> <003901cbf950$fdc8b440$f95a1cc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <006f01cbf95b$346efc20$9d4cf460$@att.net> 2011/4/12 spike : >> Nissan's hybrid, the leaf, is a good performer. >It's electric, not hybrid. >-Dave Oops, right, Altima hybrid rather. The leaf is an all-electric plug-in. I rented a hybrid Altima, goes like hell. Didn't have it long enough to determine if it gets good fuel economy, but I got it going 80mph on the freeway, no problem at all. spike From lubkin at unreasonable.com Tue Apr 12 22:49:42 2011 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 18:49:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Yuri Message-ID: <201104122334.p3CNY77s001980@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Today is the 50th anniversary of the first manned spaceflight. Check out google.com, and mouse over the logo. -- David. From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 13 01:53:26 2011 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:53:26 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [mta] Vote for Ray Kurzweil! In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DA50216.7030700@canonizer.com> Lincoln, This is great! You missed appending "per IP address" to that "you can vote once per day", so you can vote at home, work, your phone, and any other IP you have access to each day. Does anyone have access to any large blocks of IP addresses? We could probably work up a quick and simple redirection server script serving the re-captcha immages to all of us through a proxy, using all of them at random or till they are used up that day or something? Perhaps sending out e-mail notifications to these lists with the server links till all the IPs were exhausted that today? And shouldn't the technically expert have more influence on society after all? Oh, wait, I forgot, transhumanists are a bunch of anti social lazy buts not interested in organizing or working together to influence anything for good like this - certainly nothing like a bunch of pre-teen girls getting all their friends to vote for Justin Bieber or something. Or are they? Brent Allsop On 4/12/2011 11:46 AM, Lincoln Cannon wrote: > Ray Kurweil is making a great showing in Time's poll to identify the > persons that influence us most. This is a good opportunity to give > Transhumanism more mainstream exposure. You can vote once per day! > > http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2058044_2060338_2060189,00.html > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "Mormon Transhumanist Association" group. > To post to this group, send email to transfigurism at googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > transfigurism+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/transfigurism?hl=en. From algaenymph at gmail.com Wed Apr 13 02:23:12 2011 From: algaenymph at gmail.com (AlgaeNymph) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 19:23:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [mta] Vote for Ray Kurzweil! In-Reply-To: <4DA50216.7030700@canonizer.com> References: <4DA50216.7030700@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <4DA50910.3060607@gmail.com> On 4/12/11 6:53 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > I forgot, transhumanists are a bunch of anti- social lazy-butts not > interested in organizing or working together to influence anything for > good like this - certainly nothing like a bunch of pre-teen girls > getting all their friends to vote for Justin Bieber or something. You have my thanks for saying what needs to be said. :) From sjatkins at mac.com Wed Apr 13 05:49:28 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:49:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> Message-ID: On Apr 12, 2011, at 5:44 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: >> >> Wait a second. To raise cattle takes a lot of agriculture to grow enough >> vegetable matter to feed the cattle. > > Not true. Cattle and other ruminants require no agriculture, just wild > forage. That is grossly inefficient for the size of the modern appetite for meat. > The vast herds of buffalo that used to live in North America, > for example, weren't supported by agriculture. I can raise half a > dozen cattle on my 10 acres of pasture with no agriculture whatsoever. Sure. Now try to scale it up.. > >> The amount of land needed for that is >> roughly 17 times as large as that needed for just growing human consumable >> vegetable matter on the same land. > > Citation required. > No, I have better things to do. -s From sjatkins at mac.com Wed Apr 13 05:57:24 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:57:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <4da3aa05.4581dc0a.230a.69cd@mx.google.com> References: <4da3aa05.4581dc0a.230a.69cd@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Apr 11, 2011, at 11:56 AM, kellycoinguy at gmail.com wrote: > I heard recently that part of the reason that oil is cheaper in the US is because the international price is stated in dollars. Also that if we stopped denominating oil in dollars that the price would jump in the us. This seems like a crazy argument to me. Do any of you have any reason to believe it moght be true? > It is denominated in $US and the $US is the world reserve currency. This generally enables the US to inflate its currency with less blowback and less quick consequences as everyone wants dollars to buy energy and for other reasons. I am don't see how that keeps the price of oil or gas in the US down by itself though. We do import a tremendous amount of it and we did put it on the map. So I think part of it is that we were ass deep it in from the beginning and brokered a lot of favorable deals. Including things like arming Saudia Arabia to the teeth in what looks a bit like an indirect kickback (to me anyway). OTOH I was shocked last week to read that China now buys more oil from Saudi Arabia than we do. - samantha From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 13 05:40:36 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 12 Apr 2011 23:40:36 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [mta] Vote for Ray Kurzweil! In-Reply-To: <4DA50910.3060607@gmail.com> References: <4DA50216.7030700@canonizer.com> <4DA50910.3060607@gmail.com> Message-ID: He is up to #30 tonight. I guess transhumanists are not just a bunch of anti social lazy butts... :-) -Kelly On 4/12/11, AlgaeNymph wrote: > On 4/12/11 6:53 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: >> I forgot, transhumanists are a bunch of anti- social lazy-butts not >> interested in organizing or working together to influence anything for >> good like this - certainly nothing like a bunch of pre-teen girls >> getting all their friends to vote for Justin Bieber or something. > > You have my thanks for saying what needs to be said. :) > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 13 06:49:10 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:49:10 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 11:49 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: >>> ?The amount of land needed for that is >>> roughly 17 times as large as that needed for just growing human consumable >>> vegetable matter on the same land. >> >> Citation required. > > No, I have better things to do. To risk jumping in for Samantha... I believe the above number is true (or close to true) when you take into account that cattle spend the last weeks of their lives in feed lots eating huge amounts of corn (mixed with molasses, etc.). While this is not "necessary" in the sense that cattle can be raised just on grass, it is just not what is actually typically done in America today. An old rule of thumb is that it requires 50 bushels of grain to finish an animal in a feedlot. There are 56 pounds of corn in a bushel, for example, so you will need around 2,800 pounds of corn (and other grain) to produce an animal that weighs 1,250 to 1,350 pounds. Some cattle sent to feedlots young and lighter consume about 3,500 pounds. (http://www.greerfarm.com/cattle/beef.html) You can raise about 183 bushels of corn per acre, at least in Iowa. (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_bushels_of_corn_can_you_get_from_an_acre_of_corn) By way of comparison, the average American consumes something around 1500 pounds of corn a year... http://fatknowledge.blogspot.com/2007/04/average-american-consumes-1500-pounds.html The cows spend much less than a year in the feed lot... so people don't eat quite like a cow :-) Anyway, if you eat a pound of meat, you're eating a couple of pounds of corn, and whatever grass and other things it ate prior to getting to the feed lot. In addition to all of this... cows fart a lot. Methane is a green house gas that is 20 times more effective at greenhousing (neologism) than CO2. (http://www.epa.gov/outreach/). A cow has a more negative greenhouse effect than driving an SUV. (http://openthefuture.com/cheeseburger_CF.html) Bottom line, you just can't win. :-) -Kelly From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Wed Apr 13 06:28:08 2011 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:28:08 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [mta] Vote for Ray Kurzweil! In-Reply-To: References: <4DA50216.7030700@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <4DA54278.5070709@canonizer.com> Hi Giovanni, Yea, but notice the count on the server side doesn't increment each time you do that, unlike if you do it on a different IP, or a different day. Brent Allsop On 4/12/2011 11:43 PM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Simply clean the cache and reload the page and vote again and again... > very simple on firefox > Giovanni > > > On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 8:53 PM, Brent Allsop > wrote: >> Lincoln, >> >> This is great! >> >> You missed appending "per IP address" to that "you can vote once per day", >> so you can vote at home, work, your phone, and any other IP you have access >> to each day. >> >> Does anyone have access to any large blocks of IP addresses? We could >> probably work up a quick and simple redirection server script serving the >> re-captcha immages to all of us through a proxy, using all of them at random >> or till they are used up that day or something? Perhaps sending out e-mail >> notifications to these lists with the server links till all the IPs were >> exhausted that today? >> >> And shouldn't the technically expert have more influence on society after >> all? Oh, wait, I forgot, transhumanists are a bunch of anti social lazy >> buts not interested in organizing or working together to influence anything >> for good like this - certainly nothing like a bunch of pre-teen girls >> getting all their friends to vote for Justin Bieber or something. Or are >> they? >> >> Brent Allsop >> >> >> >> On 4/12/2011 11:46 AM, Lincoln Cannon wrote: >>> Ray Kurweil is making a great showing in Time's poll to identify the >>> persons that influence us most. This is a good opportunity to give >>> Transhumanism more mainstream exposure. You can vote once per day! >>> >>> >>> http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2058044_2060338_2060189,00.html >>> >>> -- >>> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >>> "Mormon Transhumanist Association" group. >>> To post to this group, send email to transfigurism at googlegroups.com. >>> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >>> transfigurism+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com. >>> For more options, visit this group at >>> http://groups.google.com/group/transfigurism?hl=en. >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> From js_exi at gnolls.org Wed Apr 13 07:00:33 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:00:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability, again Message-ID: <4DA54A11.9000305@gnolls.org> > On Apr 12, 2011, at 5:44 AM, Dave Sill wrote: >> On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: >>> Wait a second. To raise cattle takes a lot of agriculture to grow enough >>> vegetable matter to feed the cattle. >> >> Not true. Cattle and other ruminants require no agriculture, just wild >> forage. > > That is grossly inefficient for the size of the modern appetite for meat. I do not think the word "efficient" means what you think it means. Recall that the USA (one of the most productive nations in the world) is only 19% arable, and much of that only due to massive government-subsidized dams and irrigation projects. It is maximally efficient to graze animals on land that cannot grow crops. Also, I think Dave knows more about cattle than you or I do :) I learned that lesson earlier. >> The vast herds of buffalo that used to live in North America, >> for example, weren't supported by agriculture. I can raise half a >> dozen cattle on my 10 acres of pasture with no agriculture whatsoever. > > Sure. Now try to scale it up.. Attempting to "scale up" food production is the cause of most of our problems. It is most efficient and least damaging to grow and consume local food grown appropriate to the water, soil, exposure, and shade conditions of the land (see: "permaculture"). Yet we heavily subsidize industrial-scale farming that strip-mines topsoil, pollutes water, and requires massive energy input both for fertilizer and transportation. Factory farming is destructive whether it produces cows or soybeans. >>> The amount of land needed for that is >>> roughly 17 times as large as that needed for just growing human consumable >>> vegetable matter on the same land. >> >> Citation required. > > No, I have better things to do. Then I have better things to do than read your posts. You might consider that what vegetarian propaganda calls the "inefficiency" of animals grazing is, in reality, nutrients being returned to the land in the form of dung -- which actually *increases* the fertility and productivity of the soil vs. the dry, dead grass that would otherwise build up... ...and versus human consumption of grains and vegetables, which results in those nutrients being flushed into the nearest body of water. Yes, properly managed grazing *creates* topsoil...which should be common sense, or the Serengeti and Great Plains would have blown away into dust tens of millions of years ago. We're currently living on the drawdown of the accumulated capital of millions of years of grazing (among other things). Again: http://donmatesz.blogspot.com/2011/03/operation-hope-meat-is-medicine-for.html JS http://www.gnolls.org From js_exi at gnolls.org Wed Apr 13 07:11:20 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 00:11:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability, yet again Message-ID: <4DA54C98.9070702@gnolls.org> Keith Henson wrote: >> seven billion people is far, far >> beyond the sustainable population of the Earth even if you posit nearly free >> energy . . . . > > That is utter nonsense. With really low cost energy you can make > fresh water out of salt and pump it inland a thousand miles. See: soil salinization. "Estimates indicate that roughly one-third of the irrigated land in the major irrigation countries is already badly affected by salinity or is expected to become so in the near future. Present estimates for India range from 27% to 60% of the irrigated land, Pakistan 14%, Israel 13%, Australia 20%, China 15%, Iraq 50%, Egypt 30%." http://134.121.74.103/newsletter/fall2001/IrrImpact2.pdf > Likewise, you can salvage phosphorous our of sewage and ship it back > to the farms. Plants are not made entirely of ammonium nitrate, potash, and phosphate. Just to choose one example: http://www.mineralresourcesint.co.uk/pdf/Mineral_Depletion_of_Foods_1940_2002.pdf Also see: giant dead zones (larger than Connecticut) in river deltas due to fertilizer runoff. http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/ I'm not sure your understanding is at a level that allows you to throw around terms like "nonsense". Cheap energy doesn't solve the problems of agriculture any more than cheap caffeine solves the problems of sleep. Frankly, this is a self-cancelling argument. If anyone is worried about the impact of eating meat (or anything else), then by definition these are issues of concern. There's a reason most of us go into technology or theoretical disciplines: it allows us to work on well-constrained problems in a restricted space. These are not such problems. Soil alone is a complex biological system -- let alone entire ecosystems of which it is but one part. There's a reason I posted the references I did: most people have no concept at all of the realities of the cycle of life, and either romanticize it, oversimplify it, or ignore it because its constraints are momentarily inconvenient. And we're still a long way from free energy. > I am really getting annoyed at the postings on this list. I would > think the people who post here should understand Extropy. Tirelessly working to overcome limits is more productive than ignoring them, wishing them away, or claiming they don't exist. It's easy for all of us to see the fallacies in attitudes such as Singularity Utopia's, because that's our field of expertise. It's harder for us to see the fallacies in our own attitudes as applied to fields that are much more messy and complicated -- and generally outside our expertise. Finally, recall that it's only the educated middle-class and above that advances knowledge: filling the world with poor people whose entire life is devoted to simple survival doesn't accomplish anything but making more people poor in a vicious positive feedback loop. There's a reason we don't see headlines like "New Cancer Treatment Discovered by Illiterate Liberian Slum-Dweller" or "Bangladeshi Subsistence Farmer Invents More Efficient Refrigerator, Production to Begin In 2012". I'm inclined to drop this subject now, because it is not terribly germane to the purpose of this list, and it's unlikely to win me any friends or allies. However, I do ask that people keep in mind the degree of irritation they justifiably evince when someone who knows little about spaceflight or computation makes sweeping generalizations -- and that it is possible to be on the other end of that particular equation. JS http://www.gnolls.org PS: As a reward for slogging through all this, here's a delicious recipe that even the worst kitchen klutz can make: http://www.gnolls.org/1887/the-best-gravlax-recipe-on-the-internet/ From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 13 10:36:46 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 12:36:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <006f01cbf95b$346efc20$9d4cf460$@att.net> References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> <005e01cbf8bc$e561e7d0$b025b770$@att.net> <003901cbf950$fdc8b440$f95a1cc0$@att.net> <006f01cbf95b$346efc20$9d4cf460$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110413103646.GU23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 02:47:21PM -0700, spike wrote: > > > 2011/4/12 spike : > > >> Nissan's hybrid, the leaf, is a good performer. > > >It's electric, not hybrid. > > >-Dave > > > Oops, right, Altima hybrid rather. The leaf is an all-electric plug-in. I > rented a hybrid Altima, goes like hell. Didn't have it long enough to > determine if it gets good fuel economy, but I got it going 80mph on the > freeway, no problem at all. The advantage of straight EV or advanced hybrids that they need only to handle cruise, as peak comes from spike cache. Plus, regenerative braking, smaller gear to no gears (hub motor, can be done with low unsprung mass), advanced control with power electronics driven by software, drive by wire, including ability to integrate powerful computers for future autonomous navigation, and so on. As soon as sufficiently reliable batteries get sufficiently cheap the ICE is effectively finished, at least for commute and short cruises. Current stock diesel cars do >1000 km on a single tank, no way to do that with even advanced unobtainium batteries unless in flimsy ultralites. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 13 14:31:01 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:31:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 02:28:50PM +0930, Emlyn wrote: > 2011/4/7 spike : > If you're talking PV, then I agree! Especially since they seem to be > on an exponential improvement path, unlike any other energy technology > (ever?). > > But, why would you worry too much about losses in transmission? PV is > a decentralizing technology. Just put it where you need it, the grid > takes a back seat. > > Ray K recently put forward a timeframe of 20 years until the world is > 100% solar, based on current doubling time of uptake. Certainly, in 20 If you need to substitute 20 TW in 20 years, that's a conversion rate of 1 TW/year, linearly. This might look superficially nice: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WorldWindPower.png but this definitely doesn't: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_energy_usage_width_chart.svg See "fake fire brigade", parts 1 to 4: http://www.theoildrum.com/tag/fake_fire_brigade Unlike Moore's law, making solar cells smaller doesn't double the power. The opposite, in fact. And surface doesn't install itself, magically connect to the grid, while upgrading it in the process, and building these extremely large and expensive slow-to-build synfuel plants, or substitutes infrastructure by increasing electrification. > years there'll be a lot of it. Out the other side of that? Masses of Germany doubled PV from 1% to 2% total within about a year. Doubling very little should be easy, but it was very expensive even for a renewable world leader -- now think about the world. If anything, the doubling times will increase as the converted volume has to increase. We have done it before when we converted to fossil, but it took a long time, and it resulted in innovation we haven't been able to improve upon yet. Carnot-driven turbines are firmly with us. And of course now the volume is one order of magnitude larger, while we have much less time. At which point extremely popular words like demand destruction, frugality and austerity come in. > power, far more than now, with no concept of power use being a bad > thing. Bring it on! -- 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 From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 13 15:07:36 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 16:07:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Germany doubled PV from 1% to 2% total within about a year. Doubling > very little should be easy, but it was very expensive even for a > renewable world leader -- now think about the world. If anything, > the doubling times will increase as the converted volume has to > increase. We have done it before when we converted to fossil, but > it took a long time, and it resulted in innovation we haven't been > able to improve upon yet. Carnot-driven turbines are firmly with us. > > And of course now the volume is one order of magnitude larger, > while we have much less time. At which point extremely popular > words like demand destruction, frugality and austerity come in. > Google invests US$168 million in world?s largest solar power tower plant By Darren Quick April 13, 2011 Overshadowing the 20 MW PS20 solar power tower plant in Spain, the scale of ISEGS can't be overstated. It will be the first large-scale solar power tower plant built in the U.S. in nearly two decades and will single-handedly almost double the amount of commercial solar thermal electricity produced in the U.S. today and nearly equal the amount of total solar installed in the U.S. in 2009 alone. The entire complex will consist of three separate plants developed by BrightSource Energy that will be built in phases between 2010 and 2013. The energy generated from all three plants will be enough to supply more than 140,000 homes in California during peak usage hours, with the project contracted to provide 1,300 MW to Southern California Edison and 1,310 MW to Pacific Gas and Electric Company. ----------------- So large solar power stations will be developed as well as individual solar self-sufficient houses and offices. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 13 16:11:29 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:11:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability, yet again In-Reply-To: <4DA54C98.9070702@gnolls.org> References: <4DA54C98.9070702@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 12:11 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > Keith Henson wrote: >>> >>> ?seven billion people is far, far >>> beyond the sustainable population of the Earth even if you posit nearly >>> free >>> energy . . . . >> >> That is utter nonsense. ?With really low cost energy you can make >> fresh water out of salt and pump it inland a thousand miles. > > See: soil salinization. > "Estimates indicate that roughly one-third of the irrigated land in the > major irrigation countries is already badly affected by salinity or is > expected to become so in the near future. ?Present estimates for India range > from 27% to 60% of the irrigated land, Pakistan 14%, Israel 13%, Australia > 20%, China 15%, Iraq 50%, Egypt 30%." > http://134.121.74.103/newsletter/fall2001/IrrImpact2.pdf And with lot of energy, i.e., lots of pure water available, it's easy to reverse. >> Likewise, you can salvage phosphorous our of sewage and ship it back >> to the farms. > > Plants are not made entirely of ammonium nitrate, potash, and phosphate. > ?Just to choose one example: > http://www.mineralresourcesint.co.uk/pdf/Mineral_Depletion_of_Foods_1940_2002.pdf I made up hydroponics solutions in junior high school and grew a (small) greenhouse full of plants in it. Nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, calcium, sulfur and magnesium, traces of iron, boron, manganese, zinc, molybdenum, copper, cobalt, chlorine, selenium and silicon. > Also see: giant dead zones (larger than Connecticut) in river deltas due to > fertilizer runoff. > http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/topics/deadzone/ > > I'm not sure your understanding is at a level that allows you to throw > around terms like "nonsense". ?Closed Ecosystems of High Agricultural Yield,? H.K. Henson, C. Meinel Henson, Proceedings of the Space Manufacturing Facilities (Space Colonies) Princeton/AIAA/NASA Conference, May 7-9, 1975. Have you done all the steps from planting wheat to baking bread? Have you lived for years on meat you raised yourself? I have done both. > Cheap energy doesn't solve the problems of > agriculture any more than cheap caffeine solves the problems of sleep. > > Frankly, this is a self-cancelling argument. ?If anyone is worried about the > impact of eating meat (or anything else), then by definition these are > issues of concern. > > There's a reason most of us go into technology or theoretical disciplines: > it allows us to work on well-constrained problems in a restricted space. > ?These are not such problems. ?Soil alone is a complex biological system -- > let alone entire ecosystems of which it is but one part. So what? Tomatoes, for example, are largely grown in *sand.* > There's a reason I > posted the references I did: most people have no concept at all of the > realities of the cycle of life, and either romanticize it, oversimplify it, > or ignore it because its constraints are momentarily inconvenient. ?And > we're still a long way from free energy. Sunlight is free. Collecting it and putting it in a useful form isn't. >> I am really getting annoyed at the postings on this list. ?I would >> think the people who post here should understand Extropy. > > Tirelessly working to overcome limits is more productive than ignoring them, > wishing them away, or claiming they don't exist. > > It's easy for all of us to see the fallacies in attitudes such as > Singularity Utopia's, because that's our field of expertise. ?It's harder > for us to see the fallacies in our own attitudes as applied to fields that > are much more messy and complicated -- and generally outside our expertise. You obviously don't know who you are responding to. I have spent the last year working on www.stratosolar.com, the three years before that working out a way to get the cost of space based solar energy down to where it could displace coal by under pricing it. As for the singularity . . . it's very much of a mixed bag, and in the _best_ case it is the end of the human race as we know it. http://www.terasemjournals.org/GNJournal/GN0202/henson1.html > Finally, recall that it's only the educated middle-class and above that > advances knowledge: filling the world with poor people whose entire life is > devoted to simple survival doesn't accomplish anything but making more > people poor in a vicious positive feedback loop. A self perpetuating underclass is a very recent (last 200 years) anomaly in human history. I have been talking about this *on this list* for more than three years. *************** The upshot of his research was that in the Mathusian era in England people with the personality characteristics to become well off economically had at least twice as many surviving children as those in the lower economic classes--who were not replacing themselves. This, of course, led to "downward social mobility," where the numerous sons and daughters of the rich tended to be less well off (on average) than their parents. But over 20 generations (1200-1800) it did spread the genes for the personality characteristics for accumulating wealth through the entire population. "In the institutional and technological context of these societies, a new set of human attributes mattered for the only currency that mattered in the Malthusian era, which was reproductive success. In this world literacy and numeracy, which were irrelevant before, were both helpful for economic success in agrarian pre-industrial economies. Thus since economic success was linked to reproductive success, facility with numbers and wordswas pulled along in its wake. Since patience and hard work found a new reward in a society with large amounts of capital, patience and hard work were also favored." **************** http://lists.extropy.org/pipermail/extropy-chat/2007-December/039363.html > There's a reason we don't > see headlines like "New Cancer Treatment Discovered by Illiterate Liberian > Slum-Dweller" or "Bangladeshi Subsistence Farmer Invents More Efficient > Refrigerator, Production to Begin In 2012". > I'm inclined to drop this subject now, because it is not terribly germane to > the purpose of this list, and it's unlikely to win me any friends or allies. > ?However, I do ask that people keep in mind the degree of irritation they > justifiably evince when someone who knows little about spaceflight or > computation makes sweeping generalizations -- and that it is possible to be > on the other end of that particular equation. Yes. Often. ********** H. Keith Henson: Beamed Energy and the Economics of Space Based Solar Power, Beamed Energy Propulsion: 6th International Symposium, American Inst. of Physics, 2010 ISBN 978-0735407749 Power Satellites, Carbon Dioxide, Synthetic Fuel, Sequestering Carbon as Synthetic Oil and Fresh Water from Seawater Keith Henson, H. BEAMED ENERGY PROPULSION: 6th International Symposium. AIP Conference Proceedings, Volume 1230, pp. 348-352 (2010). A small number of people have been working for the past year on ways to reduce the cost of power from space to the point that it could entirely displace fossil fuels and even put carbon dioxide back in empty oil fields as synthetic oil. The challenging part is reducing the cost of transport to GEO by a factor of ~200 discussed in another paper in this volume. Given low cost power, synthetic fuels, carbon sequestration, and fresh water from seawater become economical. ********** What have you been doing? Keith PS. You might want to read back into the archives of this list. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 13 21:18:41 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:18:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] FRIDA- a new industrial robot Message-ID: What do you think of this robotic system? And where do you think it will be in ten years? http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/13/frida-concept-robot-will-solve-all-of-foxconns-problems-by-re/ John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 13 21:50:39 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 14:50:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef Message-ID: A timely piece by one of the most popular (and non-dogmatic) paleo proponents on aspects of a topic we're currently discussing: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-differences-between-grass-fed-beef-and-grain-fed-beef/ -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 03:11:36 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2011 20:11:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] FRIDA- a new industrial robot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/13 John Grigg : > What do you think of this robotic system?? And where do you think it will be > in ten years? > > http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/13/frida-concept-robot-will-solve-all-of-foxconns-problems-by-re/ Issue one: can they get it cheap? Issue two: no, *really* cheap, to where it really does compete with barely-trained third world labor? Still, it's a promising start. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 13:01:54 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 06:01:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Years ago I (partly) joked about a sign of the singularity being immanent being that someone could start a company at breakfast have it be worth a billion dollars by noon and bankrupt by dinner. This is not that fast, but it's certainly getting faster. "Rutkowski cited the company Zynga that created Farmville as being worth almost $12 billion now and it ?didn?t even exist 18 months ago?. http://www.techworld.com.au/article/383125/facebook_biggest_bank_by_2015/?fp=2&fpid=1 Economics 2.0 anyone? Keith From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 14 14:01:39 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 07:01:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01bc01cbfaac$7a4f7e20$6eee7a60$@att.net> >"Rutkowski cited the company Zynga that created Farmville as being worth almost $12 billion now and it "didn't even exist 18 months ago". http://www.techworld.com.au/article/383125/facebook_biggest_bank_by_2015/?fp =2&fpid=1 Keith That silly game came out of nowhere and has millions of people playing it. Oddly enough, it may have caused the value of farmland to go crazy, because a million amateur farmers want to try their hand at the real thing. I am sorely tempted to try to subdivide my folks' farm into about 40 one-hectare lots and sell them for 30k each, while offering a standing crew which does in real life what Farmvillers do in the virtual world. Imagine all those contiguous postage stamp hobby farms being run by people with desk jobs in the city, what could possibly go wrong? spike From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Apr 14 14:15:36 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 10:15:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> Keith Henson wrote: > Years ago I (partly) joked about a sign of the singularity being > immanent being that someone could start a company at breakfast have it > be worth a billion dollars by noon and bankrupt by dinner. > > This is not that fast, but it's certainly getting faster. > > "Rutkowski cited the company Zynga that created Farmville as being > worth almost $12 billion now and it ?didn?t even exist 18 months ago?. > > http://www.techworld.com.au/article/383125/facebook_biggest_bank_by_2015/?fp=2&fpid=1 > > Economics 2.0 anyone? You have got to be kidding. The millionaires' gambling casino known as the "free market" got faster betting machinery, so it could speculate harder and faster and bigger ... and this has how much to do with the singularity? Stock market gambling thrives on *gradients* in the curves. Static, orderly pricing is a hideous disease threat to that kind of gambling, so it has to be eliminated wherever possible. The drive toward volatility in the trading systems creates opportunities for the gamblers, so they promote it like crazy. Richard Loosemore From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 15:46:44 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:46:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> <4DA3A15E.1040600@mac.com> Message-ID: On 13 April 2011 07:49, Samantha Atkins wrote: > > On Apr 12, 2011, at 5:44 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > > > On Mon, Apr 11, 2011 at 8:48 PM, Samantha Atkins > wrote: > >> > >> Wait a second. To raise cattle takes a lot of agriculture to grow > enough > >> vegetable matter to feed the cattle. > > > > Not true. Cattle and other ruminants require no agriculture, just wild > > forage. > > That is grossly inefficient for the size of the modern appetite for meat. > > The "modern appetite for meat" of course depends on the growing number of people to feed, and on their natural demand for a better, more satisfactory nutrition. The cheapest meat used to be that of animals on a different food chain. If we have deliberately moved those animals on our own, this would appear to mean that it is more economically efficient to do so than sparing their food or keeping them out of it. Of course, this need not mean that it is also the best possible nutritional choice. Nor that we cannot try and have our steak and eat it too by applying technology to the problem of producing high-quality meat in the most efficient possible way, perhaps doing it without full-fledged animals altogether. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 15:36:57 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:36:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 12 April 2011 19:50, Keith Henson wrote: > That is utter nonsense. With really low cost energy you can make > fresh water out of salt and pump it inland a thousand miles. I am pretty much convinced myself that given a sufficient quantity of energy (and of information one can do more or less anything at all. What about reorganising the matter in the solar system into a Dyson sphere around our star? Such solution would certainly sustain a much larger population than six, or sixty, billion people for a rather long time, including in the framework of very inefficient food-production choices. Nevertheless, I think that J. Stanton may have a point as far as more immediate scenarios are concerned. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 14 16:17:53 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:17:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> References: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <002d01cbfabf$82145820$863d0860$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore ... >...Stock market gambling thrives on *gradients* in the curves. Static, orderly pricing is a hideous disease threat to that kind of gambling, so it has to be eliminated wherever possible. The drive toward volatility in the trading systems creates opportunities for the gamblers, so they promote it like crazy...Richard Loosemore But saying that way almost makes it sound like a bad thing. spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 16:46:22 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 17:46:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: <002d01cbfabf$82145820$863d0860$@att.net> References: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> <002d01cbfabf$82145820$863d0860$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 5:17 PM, spike wrote: > >>... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore >>...Stock market gambling thrives on *gradients* in the curves. ?Static, >> orderly pricing is a hideous disease threat to that kind of gambling, so it >> has to be eliminated wherever possible. ?The drive toward volatility in the >> trading systems creates opportunities for the gamblers, so they promote it >> like crazy...Richard Loosemore > > > But saying that way almost makes it sound like a bad thing. > > If you've just seen your pension fund disappear while the gamblers traded it back and forth raking in commissions, I think you might also consider it a bad thing. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 14 16:53:40 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 18:53:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> <002d01cbfabf$82145820$863d0860$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110414165340.GJ23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 05:46:22PM +0100, BillK wrote: > If you've just seen your pension fund disappear while the gamblers > traded it back and forth raking in commissions, I think you might also > consider it a bad thing. Pension? You actually believe in these things? From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 21:27:14 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:27:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/14 Stefano Vaj : snip > What about reorganising the matter in the solar system into a Dyson sphere > around our star? Such solution would certainly sustain a much larger > population than six, or sixty, billion people for a rather long time, > including in the framework of very inefficient food-production choices. By the time we *could* do that, it's not obvious we would be eating food rather than using energy directly. How many people equivalent intelligences could a Dyson sphere support? The area at 1.5 x 10^8 km is about 2.8 x 10^23 square meters. A biological human intelligence runs on about 20 watts, even low efficiency PV would give 200 watts per square meter. So it would be at least one per square meter or 4.7 x 10^14 times the current population. > Nevertheless, I think that J. Stanton may have a point as far as more > immediate scenarios are concerned. That's true. On *current* technology we can't sustain the food supply for as many people as exist now and are projected to exist in a few decades. But just *identifying* an obvious problem isn't enough on this list. You need to propose some way around the problem, even if it is of the Dyson Sphere or flying pig class. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 21:34:30 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:34:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] More singularity run up. Message-ID: Wow. Charles Stross' Cop Space already. http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/brazilian-cops-get-glasses-can-pick-guilty-faces-out-crowd Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 14 21:55:58 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:55:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: <01bc01cbfaac$7a4f7e20$6eee7a60$@att.net> References: <01bc01cbfaac$7a4f7e20$6eee7a60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 7:01 AM, spike wrote: snip > > That silly game came out of nowhere and has millions of people playing it. > Oddly enough, it may have caused the value of farmland to go crazy, because > a million amateur farmers want to try their hand at the real thing. ?I am > sorely tempted to try to subdivide my folks' farm into about 40 one-hectare > lots and sell them for 30k each, while offering a standing crew which does > in real life what Farmvillers do in ?the virtual world. ?Imagine all those > contiguous postage stamp hobby farms being run by people with desk jobs in > the city, what could possibly go wrong? It actually might be a good idea. I don't know how much Farmville demonstrates it, but evolution has almost certainly selected for sets of genes that make people _like_ to farm. In western Europe people who stayed on the farms had kids in excess of the number who could farm when their parents died. The ones who didn't want to farm went off to the exciting cities, where the bad sanitation killed most of them generation after generation. The current farmers are the residual of that process. Farming, even with lots of machines to help, still hard dangerous work that requires a lot of insight and willingness to invest current efforts in anticipation of a future crop. So could you tap this genetically entrained yearn to farm? (And make money on it?) Probably. The question is how. We should talk about this offline. Keith From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Apr 14 21:54:39 2011 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 14:54:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 10:56:43PM +0100, BillK wrote: > So fewer traffic deaths has multiple reasons. No magic bullet here. I can't help noting that if all those cars were replaced by bus and rail transit, those 32,000/year deaths would drop to somewhere between 300 and 3000, based on relative safety rates. -xx- Damien X-) From amon at doctrinezero.com Thu Apr 14 22:15:46 2011 From: amon at doctrinezero.com (Amon Zero) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:15:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] More singularity run up. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14 April 2011 22:34, Keith Henson wrote: > Wow. Charles Stross' Cop Space already. > > > http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011-04/brazilian-cops-get-glasses-can-pick-guilty-faces-out-crowd > > Keith Second that wow! It's weird, even when you see something coming, I'm still amazed at the reality of it when innovations like this stroll nonchalantly into real life. Every time I see this kind of thing it feels like I've been given a slap and told "remember transhumanism? keep paying attention!". - A -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 14 22:35:28 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 15:35:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: References: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> <002d01cbfabf$82145820$863d0860$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a001cbfaf4$41880ab0$c4982010$@att.net> ... On Behalf Of BillK ... >> But saying that way almost makes it sound like a bad thing. >...If you've just seen your pension fund disappear while the gamblers traded it back and forth raking in commissions, I think you might also consider it a bad thing...BillK BillK, that's why pension funds go into stable value funds. If you had your pensions in the high fliers, you are one of the gamblers. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 14 23:30:12 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:30:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> Message-ID: <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Damien Sullivan Subject: Re: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low On Tue, Apr 05, 2011 at 10:56:43PM +0100, BillK wrote: >>... So fewer traffic deaths has multiple reasons. No magic bullet here. >...I can't help noting that if all those cars were replaced by bus and rail transit, those 32,000/year deaths would drop to somewhere between 300 and 3000, based on relative safety rates. -xx- Damien X-) Damien, compare this site: http://www.good.is/post/the-worst-cities-for-walking/ with this site: http://awesome.good.is/transparency/web/1008/dead-walking/flat.html Find the same city in both, and ask yourself, Why is it that the fatalities of pedestrians per 100,000 differ in some cases by a factor of 8? Answer: it's all in how it is counted. It isn't entirely clear how it should be counted. Note I am not endorsing one over the other, just suggesting comparison. For instance, if a pedestrian is slain crossing a street, that counts, but what if that pedestrian is fleeing from a gang when she crosses in panic? Does that still count? What if a pedestrian is shot for insufficient alacrity in giving up her purse? What if she is struck by a skateboarder on the sidewalk, breaks a hip and perishes in agony? Heart attack while walking, count or no count? Liquor store robber shot by owner while fleeing on foot, pedestrian fatality? To explain the wide disparity in the cited statistics, I would suggest that one site counts everyone who is on foot when they perish for any reason, and the other disregards as a crime anything other than an accidental meeting of Detroit and flesh. In the same mindset, do we not count the train passenger who is slain by another train passenger? How do we count the train passenger who is a crime victim while at the station waiting for the train? How do we count the train passenger who is savagely beaten either on the train or waiting for the train, then later perishes in the hospital? Do we count the train passenger who is followed out of the train terminal and assaulted, perhaps fatally, in the parking lot? Do we count only the exceedingly rare case of those who perish in an actual train collision? Why? Do we count as traffic fatalities caused by alcohol? Do we count as traffic fatalities the stupid proles who go off the road while racing motorcycles? Why? We create an illusion by counting as traffic fatalities *anyone* who perishes in any Detroit for any reason, while treating as a crime (and as not applicable) those who perish in most any public transit related circumstance. I would argue that we should count all fatalities that would not have occurred had the person not risked mass transit. Now assume one does not drive drunk or stoned, does not race motorcycles, does not race any road vehicle, does not drive tired, and isn't stupid, then cars are safer than mass transit. Our cars are our rubber and steel war horses, our rolling suit of armor. We have the option of carrying our 38 caliber lance tucked down between the seats. Even if that isn't safer, it sure as hell feels safer. spike From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Thu Apr 14 23:59:46 2011 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 16:59:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 04:30:12PM -0700, spike wrote: > I would argue that we should count all fatalities that would not have > occurred had the person not risked mass transit. Now assume one does not > drive drunk or stoned, does not race motorcycles, does not race any road > vehicle, does not drive tired, and isn't stupid, then cars are safer than > mass transit. Our cars are our rubber and steel war horses, our rolling "cars are safer than mass transit" Are they? What's the evidence? You typed a lot of FUD about mass transit crime risks, but no numbers. You're bringing it up, so how many people do die due to taking mass transit for reasons not captured in the accident statistics? I note that while deaths due to cars are 32,000, I see 15,000-18,000 for murder or homicide rates. > suit of armor. We have the option of carrying our 38 caliber lance tucked > down between the seats. Even if that isn't safer, it sure as hell feels > safer. "Damn the facts, I feel better!" Your "rolling suit of armor" is an enemy tank in someone else's hands. -xx- Damien X-) From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 02:22:22 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 22:22:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Paleo diet and sustainability In-Reply-To: References: <4DA346ED.4060108@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > decades. ?But just *identifying* an obvious problem isn't enough on > this list. ?You need to propose some way around the problem, even if > it is of the Dyson Sphere or flying pig class. how many people can you feed with flying pigs? (I'm assuming dirigible-sized swine) From atymes at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 04:34:25 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 21:34:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The run up to the singularity In-Reply-To: <00a001cbfaf4$41880ab0$c4982010$@att.net> References: <4DA70188.7010802@lightlink.com> <002d01cbfabf$82145820$863d0860$@att.net> <00a001cbfaf4$41880ab0$c4982010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 3:35 PM, spike wrote: >>...If you've just seen your pension fund disappear while the gamblers > traded it back and forth raking in commissions, I think you might also > consider it a bad thing...BillK > > > BillK, that's why pension funds go into stable value funds. ?If you had your > pensions in the high fliers, you are one of the gamblers. Unless you had no say in this, and someone else traded your pension fund back and forth and raked in the commissions. Of course, if you had little enough control for that to happen, it wasn't really "your" pension fund in any meaningful sense to begin with. From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Fri Apr 15 05:39:05 2011 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:39:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Is techno trans music artist Stefan Persson, a transhumanist? Message-ID: <4DA7D9F9.5040001@canonizer.com> Extropians, I'd love to know how many of you enjoy techno trance music. My recently discovered favorite artist in this genre is Stefan Persson at Imphenzia (see: http://music.imphenzia.com for free music). Does anyone else like him like I do? I figure he must be some kind of transhumanist, given the names of many of his tracks including "Mind Machine" http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/mind-machine-hibernation-edit.html , "Duplicate My Soul" http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/duplicate-my-soul-piano.html , "False Awakening" http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/false-awakening.html , "Evolution" http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/evolution-extended.html , "Beautiful Sin" http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/beautiful-sin.html and one of my favorites: "Natural Perception" http://music.imphenzia.com/tracks/natural-perception.html ... I just wonder if any of you know Stefan or any more about his beliefs or philosophy. Brent Allsop From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 15 06:40:05 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Apr 2011 23:40:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> Message-ID: <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Damien Sullivan Subject: Re: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low On Thu, Apr 14, 2011 at 04:30:12PM -0700, spike wrote: >> I would argue that we should count all fatalities that would not have > occurred had the person not risked mass transit... Our cars are our rubber and steel war > horses, our rolling >"cars are safer than mass transit" >...Are they? What's the evidence? You typed a lot of FUD about mass transit crime risks, but no numbers. You're bringing it up, so how many people do die due to taking mass transit for reasons not captured in the accident statistics?... The point of my bringing in the two websites citing numbers disparate by a factor of 8 is that the numbers you ask for are elusive. They depend on how you count. There isn't a clear right or wrong way to reduce messy human interactions to numbers. Even counting homicides doesn't completely get at the problem, because plenty of what are defined as traffic fatalities are actually homicides. Do they get double counted? There isn't a clear answer to this one. >...I note that while deaths due to cars are 32,000, I see 15,000-18,000 for murder or homicide rates... Ja. If someone is driving drunk and manages to slay themselves and their passengers, how is that counted? Why is that counted? I would consider it a suicide. If racing triple digits on a motorcycle, how? I can give a personal example of a colleague who perished just that way, and that one was ruled a suicide for insurance purposes and a traffic fatality for legal purposes. >> suit of armor. We have the option of carrying our 38 caliber lance > tucked down between the seats. Even if that isn't safer, it sure as > hell feels safer. >..."Damn the facts, I feel better!" If this could be reduced to numbers I would do it. Driving risk can be enormously reduced by taking a few simple precautions, very simple ones. Similarly, risk of homicide can be greatly reduced just by staying out of that section of town where they happen. Do you not know where that is? Visit the local police station, likely they have a map with pins in there. Note how tightly they cluster. Stay out of there. >...Your "rolling suit of armor" is an enemy tank in someone else's hands... -xx- Damien X-) Enemy tank, cool, I like that. {8^D Just this evening, I was trying to find the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco. I thought I was close, but I was lost. I saw a street called Broderick, stopped to take a picture for my own friend and your namesake. Broke down and suffered the excruciating humiliation of asking directions. The guy told me I should leave my car where it was and walk the rest of the way, a couple blocks. Found it, loved the show. Afterwards, coming back at about 1030 PM, I was in the city in a neighborhood I didn't know, at night. I breathed a long sigh of relief when I could slam the door on my Detroit, lock it and reach for Sir Remington, just to know it is there. I guess that would be my turret in your apt analogy. That was another case where the statistics are not clear, but it sure felt safer. spike From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 07:30:50 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 08:30:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 7:40 AM, spike wrote: > The point of my bringing in the two websites citing numbers disparate by a > factor of 8 is that the numbers you ask for are elusive. ?They depend on how > you count. ?There isn't a clear right or wrong way to reduce messy human > interactions to numbers. ?Even counting homicides doesn't completely get at > the problem, because plenty of what are defined as traffic fatalities are > actually homicides. ?Do they get double counted? ?There isn't a clear answer > to this one. Spike, 80% of traffic fatalities are people in the vehicle. (Driver or passengers). Roughly another 10% are motorcyclists and the other 10% are pedestrians. Traffic fatalities are roughly 50% Urban and 50% Rural. (Possibly surprising considering the difference in population size between Rural and Urban). Mass transit would not reduce the 50% Rural fatalities because the population is too low to support mass transit, Rural people have to drive themselves, BillK > >>...I note that while deaths due to cars are 32,000, I see 15,000-18,000 for > murder or homicide rates... > > Ja. ?If someone is driving drunk and manages to slay themselves and their > passengers, how is that counted? ?Why is that counted? ?I would consider it > a suicide. ?If racing triple digits on a motorcycle, how? ?I can give a > personal example of a colleague who perished just that way, and that one was > ruled a suicide for insurance purposes and a traffic fatality for legal > purposes. > > >>> suit of armor. ?We have the option of carrying our 38 caliber lance >> tucked down between the seats. ?Even if that isn't safer, it sure as >> hell feels safer. > >>..."Damn the facts, I feel better!" > > If this could be reduced to numbers I would do it. ?Driving risk can be > enormously reduced by taking a few simple precautions, very simple ones. > Similarly, risk of homicide can be greatly reduced just by staying out of > that section of town where they happen. ?Do you not know where that is? > Visit the local police station, likely they have a map with pins in there. > Note how tightly they cluster. ?Stay out of there. > >>...Your "rolling suit of armor" is an enemy tank in someone else's hands... > -xx- Damien X-) > > Enemy tank, cool, I like that. ?{8^D > > Just this evening, I was trying to find the Palace of Fine Arts in San > Francisco. ?I thought I was close, but I was lost. ?I saw a street called > Broderick, stopped to take a picture for my own friend and your namesake. > Broke down and suffered the excruciating humiliation of asking directions. > The guy told me I should leave my car where it was and walk the rest of the > way, a couple blocks. ?Found it, loved the show. > > Afterwards, coming back at about 1030 PM, I was in the city in a > neighborhood I didn't know, at night. ?I breathed a long sigh of relief when > I could slam the door on my Detroit, lock it and reach for Sir Remington, > just to know it is there. ?I guess that would be my turret in your apt > analogy. ?That was another case where the statistics are not clear, but it > sure felt safer. > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu Fri Apr 15 08:49:20 2011 From: phoenix at ugcs.caltech.edu (Damien Sullivan) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 01:49:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110415084920.GA17823@ofb.net> On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 08:30:50AM +0100, BillK wrote: > Traffic fatalities are roughly 50% Urban and 50% Rural. > (Possibly surprising considering the difference in population size > between Rural and Urban). Is that rural as in rural residents, or does it include highways between cities? The latter would boost the reference population, as well as be readily divertible by good intercity bus and rail options. -xx- Damien X-) From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 09:27:27 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 11:27:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Grass-fed vs. grain-fed beef In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/13 Max More > A timely piece by one of the most popular (and non-dogmatic) paleo > proponents on aspects of a topic we're currently discussing: > > > http://www.marksdailyapple.com/the-differences-between-grass-fed-beef-and-grain-fed-beef/ > "When making the transition into the Primal way of life, a lot of people get tripped up on the question of grass-fed beef. Is it necessary? (No.)" I suspect he may be right. But of course this is much more debatable if one had in mind a paleo-diet *for cows*. :-))) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 13:08:28 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 14:08:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <20110415084920.GA17823@ofb.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> <20110415084920.GA17823@ofb.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 9:49 AM, Damien Sullivan wrote: > On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 08:30:50AM +0100, BillK wrote: > >> Traffic fatalities are roughly 50% Urban and 50% Rural. >> (Possibly surprising considering the difference in population size >> between Rural and Urban). > > Is that rural as in rural residents, or does it include highways between > cities? ?The latter would boost the reference population, as well as be > readily divertible by good intercity bus and rail options. > > Rural as in non-freeway country roads. Freeways are the safest roads. No crossroads or sharp bends, contra flow traffic separated by crash barriers. BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 15 14:28:01 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:28:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> Message-ID: <002401cbfb79$538634f0$fa929ed0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 7:40 AM, spike wrote: >> The point of my bringing in the two websites citing numbers disparate > by a factor of 8 is that the numbers you ask for are elusive. ?They > depend on how you count... >Spike, >80% of traffic fatalities are people in the vehicle. (Driver or passengers). Roughly another 10% are motorcyclists and the other 10% are pedestrians. >Traffic fatalities are roughly 50% Urban and 50% Rural. (Possibly surprising considering the difference in population size between Rural and Urban)...BillK Thanks BillK, but again it isn't as clear as that. Sure we can compare numbers and we have lots of good mathematical tools for doing that. But the question remains, which are counted and why? We saw in the pedestrian fatalities statistics a factor of 8 disagreement based on how they are counted. Which is right? When we see numbers like those above, are we free to assume a factor of 8 uncertainty? Plenty of cases are unambiguous, but many are debatable how they should be counted. This uncertainty may get worse as the population ages and cars actually get safer and better. Driver has heart attack, drives into a tree. Perhaps the driver was dead on impact, but it isn't worth doing an autopsy to find out. Counted as a traffic fatality? Would not that driver have had a heart attack anyway? Driver has heart attack, crosses centerline, slays an oncoming prole. One traffic fatality or two? spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 15 14:45:26 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 07:45:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie Message-ID: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> Kurzweil's movie Transcendent Man was shown at a premier last night at the SF Palace of Fine Arts. I liked it! Some minor complaints, but overall I would rate it very good to low end of the excellent range, certainly worth my time. I saw a lot of familiar faces in the movie from years of hanging out with that crowd. One scene, Kurzweil is conversing with William Shatner. In the background of that scene was a person looking the other way whose hair looked like Max More's. Right at the end of that scene, Ray and Bill look at the camera and Max turns facing the camera, between the other two, perhaps 10 feet behind them. Biggest complaint: why the hell didn't they have interviews with Max? There are several people who hang out at Eliezer's singularity events in there, such as Ben Goertzel and others. Ben is interviewed at length, wearing his trademark black and white tiger hat. What's up with that? Summary of complaints: missing interviews or scenes with major players in the field, too much of several minor players, too many references to religion and Ray's father, no mention of cryonics, no sufficient explanation of the modern version of uploading. Good clean fun however. More commentary later, on my way out. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 15:21:06 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 16:21:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <002401cbfb79$538634f0$fa929ed0$@att.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> <002401cbfb79$538634f0$fa929ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:28 PM, spike wrote: > Thanks BillK, but again it isn't as clear as that. ?Sure we can compare > numbers and we have lots of good mathematical tools for doing that. ?But the > question remains, which are counted and why? ?We saw in the pedestrian > fatalities statistics a factor of 8 disagreement based on how they are > counted. ?Which is right? ?When we see numbers like those above, are we free > to assume a factor of 8 uncertainty? ?Plenty of cases are unambiguous, but > many are debatable how they should be counted. > There is no discrepancy between the two sites that you quoted. They are both interpreting the same study. One is quoting pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 residents and the other (quoting from the actual study) is quoting the Pedestrian Danger Index. The Index is a calculated figure and has no direct connection with the number of fatalities. Quote: Researchers at the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership in the 1990s developed the Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) in order to establish a level playing field for comparing metropolitan areas based on the danger to pedestrians. The PDI corrects for the fact that the cities where more people walk on a daily basis are likely to have a greater number of pedestrian fatalities, by computing the rate of pedestrian deaths relative to the amount of walking residents do on average. ------------------- > This uncertainty may get worse as the population ages and cars actually get > safer and better. ?Driver has heart attack, drives into a tree. ?Perhaps the > driver was dead on impact, but it isn't worth doing an autopsy to find out. > Counted as a traffic fatality? ?Would not that driver have had a heart > attack anyway? ?Driver has heart attack, crosses centerline, slays an > oncoming prole. ?One traffic fatality or two? > > Heart attacks while driving are a tiny factor in the total carnage figures. But, even so they should still be included as a pointer to the need to make car crashes more survivable. If the driver has a heart attack it would be nice if crumple zones, airbags, safety belts, and other measures mean that all the passengers survive. BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 15 16:08:49 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 09:08:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> <002401cbfb79$538634f0$fa929ed0$@att.net> Message-ID: <002401cbfb87$6863f890$392be9b0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 3:28 PM, spike wrote: > >... the pedestrian fatalities statistics a factor of 8 disagreement based > on how they are counted. ?Which is right? ?When we see numbers like > those above, are we free to assume a factor of 8 uncertainty? ?Plenty > of cases are unambiguous, but many are debatable how they should be counted. >...There is no discrepancy between the two sites that you quoted. They are both interpreting the same study. Indeed? Their interpretations disagree by a factor of 8? >...One is quoting pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 residents and the other (quoting from the actual study) is quoting the Pedestrian Danger Index. The Index is a calculated figure and has no direct connection with the number of fatalities... Hmmm. I fail to see what value is that index. On the contrary, I see negative value: it is misleading. >...Quote: Researchers at the Surface Transportation Policy Partnership in the 1990s developed the Pedestrian Danger Index (PDI) in order to establish a level playing field for comparing metropolitan areas based on the danger to pedestrians. The PDI corrects for the fact that the cities where more people walk on a daily basis are likely to have a greater number of pedestrian fatalities, by computing the rate of pedestrian deaths relative to the amount of walking residents do on average. ------------------- OK, well then. I do urge a bit of intuition. One of the sites was using the pedestrian deaths to urge greater investment in better sidewalks and crosswalks. I saw four of the cities listed as the worst for walking. I have been in all four of those Florida cities. My intuition is that better sidewalks and crosswalks would do little or nothing to improve the situation. In the areas I suspect their pedestrian fatalities were occurring, the ambiguity comes from something else entirely. For instance, if a prole drives into a neighborhood to purchase drugs, gets out of her Detroit to complete the transaction, is shot by the competing pharmacist next door and perishes on the sidewalk, is that a pedestrian fatality? If she manages to get back into her car and bleeds out while searching for a medic, is that a traffic fatality? If she perishes en route, crosses the centerline and hits pedestrians, would better sidewalks have helped? If one is in a neighborhood where one KNOWS one has no business being and gets slain, is not that a suicide? And if one actually lives in that neighborhood, clearly that person does have business being in there, so is that counted differently? In those places where there are many homeless, and they perish of exposure in the night, is that a pedestrian fatality? Often we see public transit proposed as a solution, yet the local homeless people use those as rolling shelters: they get aboard in the morning, ride around all day, collect alms from the rich, enjoy the warmth of the very expensive steam belching clean vehicle. >> This uncertainty may get worse as the population ages and cars actually get safer and better... >Heart attacks while driving are a tiny factor in the total carnage figures. But, even so they should still be included as a pointer to the need to make car crashes more survivable. If the driver has a heart attack it would be nice if crumple zones, airbags, safety belts, and other measures mean that all the passengers survive...BillK Heart attack while driving is an extreme example of something far more common and becoming more so: driving while impaired by any medication or medical condition. spike From stathisp at gmail.com Fri Apr 15 20:30:12 2011 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 06:30:12 +1000 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: <002401cbfb87$6863f890$392be9b0$@att.net> References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> <002401cbfb79$538634f0$fa929ed0$@att.net> <002401cbfb87$6863f890$392be9b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 2:08 AM, spike wrote: > Heart attack while driving is an extreme example of something far more > common and becoming more so: driving while impaired by any medication or > medical condition. There won't be any accidents if driver, vehicle and road are all functioning perfectly, but the point is that that can't be guaranteed. Even if you do everything within your control there are all the other drivers out there. -- Stathis Papaioannou From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sat Apr 16 04:30:18 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 21:30:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Message-ID: <20110415213018.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.2e6b6cd813.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "J. Stanton" wrote, > "Man the wimpy" was a popular theory for a few years in the early 1990s, > mostly due to vegetarian and feminist politics...but the continued > weight of evidence has long since demoted that. So now we replace it with "Man the macho" as a popular theory mostly due to and industrialist and neocon politics. Sadly, the truth turns out to be "Man the hungry" who ate whatever he could find whether it was animal or vegetable. It's an opportunistic diet that doesn't promote any political ideology. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 16 05:59:38 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:59:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Skylon can boost a 30 ton payload to 157 km and 6966 m/s. see page 10 of http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/downloads/SKYLON_User_%20Manual_rev1%5B3%5D.pdf That's well short of LEO and 3286 m/s short of GTO. ?However, any acceleration over 2 m/s^2 has enough time to put the second stage payload in orbit. ?(It falls slowly because the local g at this velocity is around 2 m/s^2) There are limits on how long you can accelerate with a laser because you have to keep the vehicle in view of the bounce mirror. GTO velocity is around 10252 m/s ?To circularize the orbit at GEO would take 1630 .m/s more or a total delta V of 11, 682 m/s. Together, 4916 m/s which is about half the exhaust velocity leading to a mass ratio of ~1.7 ? Either constant acceleration or constant heater temperature are options. ?Constant heater temperature gets the higher ISP. Both accelerations can't take more than 20 minutes together to get a transfer rate of 3 flights per hour. It turns out (from a spread sheet I ran off) that 400 MW and a flow of 8.33 kg/s of hydrogen results in a constant heater temperature of 3000 deg K and an initial acceleration of 2.721 m/s^2. The vehicle enters GTO downrange 7743 km at 970 seconds with 21,900 kg of mass remaining. ?Because thrust is constant as mass is used up acceleration goes up to 3.727 m/s^2. It takes until1206 seconds to reach GTO insertion, i.e., a second burn 5 or 15 hours later of 236 seconds. ?For a first pass this is close enough to 20 minutes. The peak acceleration at the end of circularizing at GEO is just over 4 m/s^2 (all really low accelerations). ?There is almost 20,000 kg (19937 kg) left. ?I.e., 20 tons gets to GEO per Skylon flight. ?The assumption is that everything going to GEO gets turned into power satellites. ?(Even the sandwich wrappers for 500-1000 workers at GEO) Conventional use of Skylon will deliver about 6 tons per flight to GEO. ?For a 3 per hour flight rate, that's 18 tons per hour. ?By adding $4 B of lasers (and the GEO bounce mirrors) laser boosting a suborbital payload will put 60 tons per hr in GEO, slightly in excess of 3X. Operated 90% of the time, that would be 8000h x60 t/h or 480,000 t per year. ?That would support a substantial power satellite production, at 5 kg/kW, 5000 t/GW, 96 per year. ?At a rock bottom price of $1.6 B/GW (2 cents per kWh paid off over ten years) the revenue stream would be over $150 B. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ To put these numbers in context, for the SKYLON case where all costs are being recovered, the cost of launching 150,000 tonnes into orbit at $200/kg is $30,000 million per year. This compares with a cost of about $3 trillion per year ($3,000,000 million) if expendable launch vehicles were to be used (although this flight rate is unachievable with expendable rockets). This clearly illustrates the point that a reusable spaceplane system is an essential, enabling part of implementing a solar power satellite infrastructure. http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/downloads/ssp_skylon_ver2.pdf ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ?I have assumed 5000 t per GW, the Skylon analysis assumed 3000. To put the addition of laser powered rockets in context, the same flight rate would allow over three times as much cargo to GEO for the same cost in Skylon launches. ?The cost to *GEO* would come down to under $100/kg, which is the magic number for two cent per kWh power, i.e., half the price of coal. So at least from the physics of rockets and the economics of power satellites, it seems to be possible to have a world with plenty of low cost energy. This is by no means a fully worked out proposal. ?For example, I don't know exactly how to get the Skylons back to their launch site. But it is possible (with some more work) that the entire project to profitability might come in around $20 B. ?If that's the case, it's less than the Chunnel or Three Gorges Dam in current dollars. Keith PS. If there is anyone besides Spike who can grok physics and spread sheets, be happy to send you a copy. From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sat Apr 16 14:08:59 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 07:08:59 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> "Harvey Newstrom" observed: > "J. Stanton" > wrote, > > "Man the wimpy" was a popular theory for a few years > in the early 1990s, > > mostly due to vegetarian and feminist politics...but > the continued > > weight of evidence has long since demoted that. > > So now we replace it with "Man the macho" as a popular > theory mostly due > to and industrialist and neocon politics. > > Sadly, the truth turns out to be "Man the hungry" who ate > whatever he > could find whether it was animal or vegetable.? It's > an opportunistic > diet that doesn't promote any political ideology. Harvey, that strikes me as being right on the money. The question is, how can modern humans best approximate the diet that our bodies are evolved for? (in the absence of gene tweaks that can make us optimally healthy on vegetarian or vegan diets, or any other kind of sustainable diet, for that matter). Modern (western/'first world') humans hunt and scavenge in supermarkets and shops. These outlets don't really cater for the kind of diet that our evolutionarily significant ancestors ate. So those of us who buy into the whole palaeo diet idea need to adapt our diet to whatever we can approximate to the original palaeolithic diet. Bugs are pretty much out, so are plants that aren't on the modern menu (try and find Bullrush roots in your supermarket), but we can do pretty well if we concentrate on meat high in saturated fat, Omega 3s, and avoid wheat in particular, and most grains. This hasn't been too difficult in my experience, and I can confirm (so far, one-mouse-experiment warning applies) that it seems to be beneficial: More energy, slow but steady weight-loss, general feeling of well-being, *much* greater appreciation of my food, diminished cravings, increased inclination to exercise, changing muscle:fat ratio (in favour of muscle!), and the occasional day when I just feel on top of the world. It's really something that makes you take notice if, in your fifties, a regimen makes you feel like a teenager again! Ben Zaiboc From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 16 14:52:53 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 09:52:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> Ben Zaiboc wrote: "Harvey Newstrom" observed: > Sadly, the truth turns out to be "Man the hungry" who ate whatever he > could find whether it was animal or vegetable.? It's an opportunistic > diet that doesn't promote any political ideology. "Harvey, that strikes me as being right on the money. The question is, how can modern humans best approximate the diet that our bodies are evolved for? (in the absence of gene tweaks that can make us optimally healthy on vegetarian or vegan diets, or any other kind of sustainable diet, for that matter)." This diet works for me to some extent. The problem with it for me is 2-fold: I do not want to loose weight and I do not want to eat animals. Making sure I get enough calories each day to keep weight on is difficult. [My aesthetics does not favor with CR at all. I love human bodies that are svelte with muscles, curves and sex appeal.] The second part is that I do not want to or enjoy eating dead animals. It seems that there is a solution though. Rather than breeding and killing animals, we should be harvesting meat that has the best health benefits (and enough calories) for the bio-body. Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Planetary Collegium, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Vice Chair: Humanity+ Fellow: Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Visiting Scholar: 21st Century Medicine Advisor: Policy, Law & Ethics Track, Singularity University From agrimes at speakeasy.net Fri Apr 15 23:18:55 2011 From: agrimes at speakeasy.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2011 19:18:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DA8D25F.4030207@speakeasy.net> > Summary of complaints: missing interviews or scenes with major players > in the field, too much of several minor players, too many references to > religion and Ray?s father, no mention of cryonics, no sufficient > explanation of the modern version of uploading. Just what, precisely, is the "modern version of uploading"? ps: I think there is a killbot on the mail server that is deleting my messages before you, or probably anyone, gets a chance to look at them... =\ -- IMPEACH OBAMA NOW. Presidents cannot be allowed to start wars. Powers are not rights. From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 16 16:19:38 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 12:19:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: <4DA8D25F.4030207@speakeasy.net> References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> <4DA8D25F.4030207@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: <156AD2B3-5E0A-4186-9A30-7F9501CD63C9@bellsouth.net> On Apr 15, 2011, Alan Grimes wrote: > > Just what, precisely, is the "modern version of uploading"? You've been on this list for over a decade, why now do you feel the need to ask that question? > I think there is a killbot on the mail server that is deleting my messages before you, or probably anyone, gets a chance to look at them Sinister forces are afoot. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 16 17:20:56 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 10:20:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: <156AD2B3-5E0A-4186-9A30-7F9501CD63C9@bellsouth.net> References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> <4DA8D25F.4030207@speakeasy.net> <156AD2B3-5E0A-4186-9A30-7F9501CD63C9@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/16 John Clark : > On Apr 15, 2011, Alan Grimes wrote: > > Just what, precisely, is the "modern version of uploading"? > > You've been on this list for over a decade, why now do you feel the need to > ask that question? I am not exactly sure myself, though the fully reversible kind worked into "the clinic seed" might qualify. Sneaky, sneaky, AI. Subverts human primate into transcending. Keith From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Apr 16 17:42:57 2011 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:42:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Natasha wrote: > It seems that there is a solution though. Rather than breeding and killing > animals, we should be harvesting meat that has the best health benefits (and > enough calories) for the bio-body. This would suit me too, although I'm quite willing to eat dead animals. If the "vat-grown meat" would have similar taste and texture to animal meat, that would be fine. Does anyone else remember the McRib from McDonalds? That was a pre-formed pasty sandwich filling patty porkish thing (with extra sweet fake barbecue sauce). If that is what "vat-grown meat" is like it will, IMHO, fail, badly. Regards. MB From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sat Apr 16 17:36:57 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 13:36:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A Heartless God In-Reply-To: References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> <4DA8D25F.4030207@speakeasy.net> <156AD2B3-5E0A-4186-9A30-7F9501CD63C9@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <817ED973-0F95-48E9-AF7F-F5647CDCB8C8@bellsouth.net> http://www.theonion.com/audio/video-game-character-wonders-why-heartless-god-alw,19890/ John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 16 19:17:05 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 14:17:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> For marketing purposes, "vat grown meat" does not sound or look tasty. I don't remember the McRib because I would never eat such a thing. Cloned animal cells for harvesting meat would best to described as: "Organically Grown Cells" and the byline: "Our meat is specifically grown and harvested to provide the bio-identical proteins for sustaining health and longevity". This covers the "organic" section of the market and the hormone replacement savvy buyers who look for bio-identical hormones, Peta supporters, and environmentalists. Of course, vegetarians would not like this, but they would purchase "Organically Grown Proteins" with the byline: "Our proteins are specially grown and harvested for a greener tomorrow". Best, Natasha -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of MB Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2011 12:43 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Natasha wrote: > It seems that there is a solution though. Rather than breeding and > killing animals, we should be harvesting meat that has the best health > benefits (and enough calories) for the bio-body. This would suit me too, although I'm quite willing to eat dead animals. If the "vat-grown meat" would have similar taste and texture to animal meat, that would be fine. Does anyone else remember the McRib from McDonalds? That was a pre-formed pasty sandwich filling patty porkish thing (with extra sweet fake barbecue sauce). If that is what "vat-grown meat" is like it will, IMHO, fail, badly. Regards. MB _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From rpwl at lightlink.com Sat Apr 16 19:41:34 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:41:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> Did this one slip by me unnoticed ... Hugo de Garis decided to call it quits on AGI? This is from his H+ article at http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/04/15/friendly-ai-a-dangerous-delusion/ > One of the reasons I stopped my brain-building work was that I got > bored evolving neural net modules for artificial brains. These > modules were a black box to me. They worked because they were > evolved, but I had no scientific understanding as to why they worked. > I was doing great engineering but lousy science. After 20 years of > it, I finally got fed up and turned to other research topics that > taxed my own biological human brain more, such as pure math and > mathematical physics. Last time I talked to him he was gung-ho about getting a full-scale AGI up and running with those neural nets. Now he says he got bored and abandoned that and went back to physics and math. Hnnnh. Richard Loosemore From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 16 19:57:55 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:57:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> References: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 8:41 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > > Did this one slip by me unnoticed ... Hugo de Garis decided to call it quits > on AGI? > > See: This claims it is more like retired from wage-slavery. :) Quote: He continues to live in China, where his U.S. savings go 7 times further, given China?s much lower cost of living. He spends his afternoons in his favorite (beautiful) park, and his nights in his apartment, intensively studying PhD-level pure math and mathematical physics to be able to write books on topics such as femtometer scale technology (?femtotech?), topological quantum computing (TQC), as well as other technical and sociopolitical themes. He labels his new lifestyle ?ARCing? (After-Retirement Careering), feeling freed from wage slavery, spending (probably) the remaining 30 years of his life pursuing with passion those deep and interesting topics that truly fascinate him, without having to waste huge amounts of time writing an endless stream of relatively unread, un-meaningful, short-horizon scientific papers or research grant proposals just to receive a salary. He feels liberated from all that, and can recommend ARCing to anyone with sufficient savings (i.e.. to take up ?wage free careering in the third of life?). -------------------- BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Sat Apr 16 20:00:46 2011 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 15:00:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Eat bugs! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Apr 16 20:32:26 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:32:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: 2011/4/16 Will Steinberg : > Eat bugs! And Daffy! From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sat Apr 16 21:28:19 2011 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:28:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com><2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: Natasha wrote: > For marketing purposes, "vat grown meat" does not sound or look tasty. I > don't remember the McRib because I would never eat such a thing. > Yes, "vat-grown meat" is not a good marketing slogan. :))) But that's what it would *be*, right? The McRib - I only tried it once (must have been 20 years ago) - a waste of money, even with the coupon! It soon disappeared from the menu. Maybe it has improved, it was advertised again not long ago. Didn't bother testing it! ;) Don't go to McD's any longer. Regards, MB From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Apr 16 22:24:09 2011 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 16:24:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/11 kellycoinguy at gmail.com : > Miles per dollar has always seemed more interesting to me than MPG. Indeed. And what I want to know is how does miles per dollar of gasoline in a gas vehicle compare to miles per dollar of electricity in an electric vehicle? Anyone? Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Apr 17 01:07:58 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:07:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Message-ID: <20110416180758.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.2876978916.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "MB" wrote, > Does anyone else remember the McRib from McDonalds? That was a pre-formed pasty > sandwich filling patty porkish thing (with extra sweet fake barbecue sauce). If > that is what "vat-grown meat" is like it will, IMHO, fail, badly. I remember that abomination. I ate it before I turned vegetarian in 1986. (I wonder if there is a connection.) But I think taste is a matter of expectation and category. When I eat a soy steak with A1 sauce, I might be tempted to think, "Worst steak I ever tasted!" Until I remember that I am eating soybeans, and then I think, "Best salad I ever tasted!" -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Apr 17 01:32:07 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 18:32:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Message-ID: <20110416183207.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.d30f709f69.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "Natasha Vita-More" wrote, > > "Harvey, that strikes me as being right on the money. The question is, how > can modern humans best approximate the diet that our bodies are evolved for? > (in the absence of gene tweaks that can make us optimally healthy on > vegetarian or vegan diets, or any other kind of sustainable diet, for that > matter)." > This diet works for me to some extent. The problem with it for me is 2-fold: > I do not want to loose weight and I do not want to eat animals. Making sure > I get enough calories each day to keep weight on is difficult. [My > aesthetics does not favor with CR at all. I love human bodies that are > svelte with muscles, curves and sex appeal.] The second part is that I do > not want to or enjoy eating dead animals. Eating meat is totally unnecessary with modern technology. There are dairy or vegetarian sources of protein and fat. Even saturated fat if you want. So the nutrient content of any diet can be simulated from other sources. We don't get the same meat that primative people did, so even eating meat might not recreate the same balance of protein and fats of the animals they ate. So I like to try to choose a diet based macronutrients desired, and then choose foods to obtain them in the right proportion. And I believe either meat-based or veggie-based diets can approximate proetin/fat ratios and types as desired. (I think I choose more long-chain carbs and less saturated fats than some here. But all combinations of high/low carbs/proteins/fats can be combined from vegetarian sources.) -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mbb386 at main.nc.us Sun Apr 17 02:53:21 2011 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 22:53:21 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <20110416180758.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.2876978916.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110416180758.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.2876978916.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <855904860eaa02eafe8aa5654787e2a2.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > "MB" wrote, >> Does anyone else remember the McRib from McDonalds? That was a pre-formed pasty >> sandwich filling patty porkish thing (with extra sweet fake barbecue sauce). If >> that is what "vat-grown meat" is like it will, IMHO, fail, badly. > > I remember that abomination. I ate it before I turned vegetarian in > 1986. (I wonder if there is a connection.) Heh. I can see why you might wonder! :))) I only tried McRib once. Yuk. Vat-grown meat has *got* to be better, much better, or it will never get market share! > > When I eat a soy steak with A1 sauce, I might be tempted to think, > "Worst steak I ever tasted!" Until I remember that I am eating > soybeans, and then I think, "Best salad I ever tasted!" Fresh green soybeans are delicious, used to grow them in my veggie garden, but now must steer clear of soy, it conflicts with my thyroid med. :( I was vegetarian for some years, but really do like meat. Never stopped missing it, dreamed about it. And when the $$ came back the meat came back into my diet. Regards, MB From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Apr 17 02:58:13 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 19:58:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. Message-ID: <20110416195813.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c2d6e543ac.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Max More wrote, > There are a range of opinions about this in the paleo community. As a > 30-year advocate of low-fat eating, I have made a huge shift in deciding > that animal fats are not a bad thing (so long as they are not combined with > high levels of carbohydrates). I personally don't believe in low-carb. Almost everything bad about carbs is skewed toward sugar and short-chain quickly digested carbs. That is, foods with a high glycemic load. Longer-chain carbs that are digested slowly seem a lot safer and healther. That is, foods with a low glycemic load. So instead of being "low-carb", I try to be "slow-carb". But in my opinion, the human mitochondria and human brain seem to efficient at utilizing carbs to eliminate them as totally unnecessary. I think we are too efficient and need to slow down and temper our carb intake, but I still see it as a primary energy source. I also still think saturated fats are bad. But I temper this opinion with the knowledge that mammals create our own saturated fat. Even if I don't supplement my diet with extra saturated fat, my body will make its own, and I still get plenty in the modern American diet even if I don't want it. However, the body needs a lot of essential fatty acids, even if I want to avoid saturated fat. So in the realm of fat, I am not "low-fat". I am "unsaturated-fat". I think both "low-fat" and "low-carb" are confusing terms and don't distinguish between good carbs and fats versus bad carbs and fats. And studies that look at "low-fat" and "low-carb" versus "high-fat" and "high-carb" also are of little use if they don't distinguish between. So a high saturated fat diet of meat would be lumped with a high olive-oil diet in statistical analysis of "high-fat" diets, and the conclusions would be unclear about what to eat. The same is true with "high-carb" diets of pure sugar lumped with whole grains as if they are similar diets. So again, I think the studies are hard to interpret. (Old cholesterol studies have the same problem, not distinguishing between "good" HDL and "bad" LDL cholesterol. A study of "high-cholesterol" isn't clear what they raised or lowered compared to the control group.) So for me, as I said in another post, I like to be more specific as to which macronutrients I want to minimize or maximize for my diet. And then I choose foods related to those. It is less important to me whether they are meat-based or veggie-based. My current dietary evolution is toward: - more mono-unsaturated fats, same poly-unsaturated fats, less saturated fats - more fiber, more long-chain carbs/whole grains, less short-chain carbs/sugar - more protein > Have you read[....] I have not read these source A very quick (and unfair) review seems to show that they present ideas I have already seen before as I studied these dietary issues. So I do not expect them to change my mind, to be honest. But I want to take more time to look at these and become more knowledgeable about them. I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but thus far, I am not convinced that Paleos ate "low-carb". Evidence for grain use is admittedly weak, but that could easily be because grains don't survive archaeological timeframes as easily as animal bones. And I certainly don't believe in a vegetarian primative civilization as some have imagined. > > I also doubt the lack of grains in the diet. Archeological evidence > > shows that grains were routinely gathered and used in paleo times. > > That contradicts everything I've seen. I'd be interested in the evidence > that you mention. We had this discussion a few months back. The skeptics of > paleo could only come up with rather weak evidence of apparently rare > consumption of any kind of grains. - Gorham Cave in Gibraltar contained fossilized grains in the habitat and feces of Neanderthals from 40,000 years ago. - Shanidar Cave in Iraq and Spy Cave in Belgium contained Neanderthal fossils with tooth tartar containing plants, legumes, and grains. They prove that the foods were cooked by Neanderthals. And they chose multi-latitudinal sites to demonstrate the use of cooked grains as a wide-spread phenomenon. - A supporting pdf shows pictures and catalogs a dozen different starch grains found that were used to prove that the grains were cooked by Neanderthals! > Whatever our differences on these issues, can I assume that you would agree > that the vast increase in consumption over the last few decades of refined > carbohydrates -- especially high-fructose corn syrup -- is a very bad thing > for health? Oh, very definitely! I totally agree with this. I am very much trying to eat much lower on the glycemic index. But in keeping with the above evidence of a Paleo diet, I am including whole grains in my lower-glycemic diet. -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Apr 17 03:22:35 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 20:22:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Message-ID: <20110416202235.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.e6dcf50ae1.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Ben Zaiboc wrote, > I can confirm (so far, one-mouse-experiment warning applies) that it > seems to be beneficial: More energy, slow but steady weight-loss, > general feeling of well-being, *much* greater appreciation of my food, > diminished cravings, increased inclination to exercise, changing > muscle:fat ratio (in favour of muscle!), and the occasional day when > I just feel on top of the world. > > It's really something that makes you take notice if, in your fifties, > a regimen makes you feel like a teenager again! Nice! Unfortunately, I had the opposite experience. I tried to go low-carb for over a year. I had zero energy and couldn't think straight. I felt like I was walking around in a fog all the time. I decreased my ability to lift weights, and saw my performance go downhill all year. I just couldn't do as many reps, and I kept having to decrease my weights. When I started eating low-glycemic whole-grain carbs again, I felt wonderful. I did double the reps my first gym session. And I started thinking clearly again, and made a tremendous breakthrough at work during my first week back on carbs. I had even tried eating more cheese and saturated fats, even though I did not believe in the nutritional validity of this. Low-carb just didn't work for me. And I did stubbornly stick with it long-term. Any weight-lifters have good experiences on low-carb? I keep reading that carb-loading is required for enough energy to get through multiple reps, and that digesting protein and fat just can't release energy fast enough to keep up with peak demand. -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From natasha at natasha.cc Sun Apr 17 04:17:37 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 23:17:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <20110416183207.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.d30f709f69.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110416183207.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.d30f709f69.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <4FE82C9C5B6649AEB93DBFB20D612D36@DFC68LF1> Hi Harvey, I think Max is spot on with his research and that meat is crucial for many humans. As a former vegetarian who has survived cancer 2x and has had other serious diseases, I think I will try meat for a decade or longer. Best, Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Planetary Collegium, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Vice Chair: Humanity+ Fellow: Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Visiting Scholar: 21st Century Medicine Advisor: Policy, Law & Ethics Track, Singularity University -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom Sent: Saturday, April 16, 2011 8:32 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again "Natasha Vita-More" wrote, > > "Harvey, that strikes me as being right on the money. The question > is, how can modern humans best approximate the diet that our bodies are evolved for? > (in the absence of gene tweaks that can make us optimally healthy on > vegetarian or vegan diets, or any other kind of sustainable diet, for > that matter)." > This diet works for me to some extent. The problem with it for me is 2-fold: > I do not want to loose weight and I do not want to eat animals. > Making sure I get enough calories each day to keep weight on is > difficult. [My aesthetics does not favor with CR at all. I love human > bodies that are svelte with muscles, curves and sex appeal.] The > second part is that I do not want to or enjoy eating dead animals. Eating meat is totally unnecessary with modern technology. There are dairy or vegetarian sources of protein and fat. Even saturated fat if you want. So the nutrient content of any diet can be simulated from other sources. We don't get the same meat that primative people did, so even eating meat might not recreate the same balance of protein and fats of the animals they ate. So I like to try to choose a diet based macronutrients desired, and then choose foods to obtain them in the right proportion. And I believe either meat-based or veggie-based diets can approximate proetin/fat ratios and types as desired. (I think I choose more long-chain carbs and less saturated fats than some here. But all combinations of high/low carbs/proteins/fats can be combined from vegetarian sources.) -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From micheals at msu.edu Sat Apr 16 21:09:29 2011 From: micheals at msu.edu (salvatore micheal / sam iam) Date: Sat, 16 Apr 2011 17:09:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] skylon, peds vs traffic deaths, paleo diet, sb-solar, frida, trance music, .. Message-ID: for some reason, recent posts on extropy have Resonated with me, inspiring me to reach out and commend :) first i want to thank all recent contributors for impressing me with your depth of contemplation, insights, data analysis, and latitude of consideration :) truly commendable :) thx Brent for posting that music .. i think we sometimes forget how important music is for a balanced and fully human life :) (no matter how transhuman we'd like to think of ourselves;) ... the post on frida was interesting considering the potential impacts on human manufacturing.. some immediate concerns: can the bots do more than assembly? i tried to find out on the manufacturer websites.. they'd be more useful if they could also do detailed fabrication such as the hand-work i recently performed in a Thai sweat-shop (see http://my.nowpublic.com/world/work-units-and-uniform-wage-scales ) the manufacturer seemed more conventionally obsessed with customer perceptions of safety and robotic acceptance while i would have gone for functionality and diverse applications ^^ .. the impact on manufacturing nations is an interesting consideration. ... sb-solar was raised indirectly by Keith H by providing a ref for skylon which i'll get to later.. sb-solar, after looking at http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/ 's version of it, looks a LOT more tempting if we put it in the context of skylon ... paleo-diet is relevant to 'how we got here' but a little irrelevant about 'where we're going' in terms of diet.. if it was efficient, tolerable, and tasty, we could eat blood-red meat 3Xs a day .. or soy-based protein .. or solient-green (or yellow or..;) i think you get my pt .. if we had food synthesizers that took some base protein, say soy, and shaped/colored/textured it to anything desirable, say a dripping 'hamburger' with all the 'toppings' (again - soy based protein made to look like toppings), many on this list would accept (i'm guessing) that food source - as long as the source protein was environmentally sound, sustainable, and robust (and manufactured/texturized in like ways) .. so .. let's research into texturing existing environmentally sound sustainable robust proteins so we can 'all' (those of us who crave it) have our slobbery dripping (tho fake and actually healthy) hamburger. 8)):::: ... as the recent discussion on ped vs traffic fatalities has evinced, this can be a convoluted topic depending on how you'd like to spin the statistics but since that was my major in university and one favorite expression of my late father was: "you can massage data to 'prove' any hypothesis", let's take the red pill and see just how far the rabbit hole goes: most every city wants to be perceived as 'ped safe' - so they'll massage the data to appear safe traffic fatalities can indeed be complex with multiple causes .. a friend of the family recently complained about a driver who had a heart attack: "i can't believe he still had a license! they should have taken that away from him!" but if they took away your license for a medical condition and possibility of negative incident, i think you'd object (even for national safety) for Americans, freedom (and privileges such as driving) is paramount compared to potential negative impacts (see http://my.nowpublic.com/world/thousands-march-slutwalk-rally ) (this article is about the freedom of 'sluts' to dress any way they like irregardless of potential rapists lurking about slobbering over their next victim .. scroll to the bottom to see my comment) .. to reiterate my late father: data can be massaged to 'prove' any hypothesis .. so we must look at everyone's 'punch line' / bottom line to see what they're arguing for in order to understand why they spin data a particular way. ... skylon - i saved the 'best' for last because this concept has the greatest potential to improve/impact future human society. we .. need .. cheap (and safe) .. orbital .. lift capacity (if we're to 'live the dream' we saw glimpses back in the 60s). was it only me who was disillusioned by our lack of vision after those years??? was it only me who was disappointed by our diminishing lack of interest (much like a john's hard interest goes limp when he finds the price of the trick;) in space ventures??? if indeed American space efforts back then were mostly based on "let's beat the Russkies!", i pity Americans! .. our space initiatives must be: enduring, thrust for meaning, enhance overall capacities, and preferably indicate a paradigm shift (as with skylon required technologies). .. i'm not all (-) about our space initiatives .. skylon, if properly backed/funded/endorsed, could be that next paradigm shift required to lift us to the stars :) we need to focus, as national priorities, on dependent technology: sabre and 'skylon skin' (exterior surface) prototypes and manufacturing essentials so any industrial, mechanical, and materials engineers reading this post should 'get a move on' and volunteer (at least) for this project. any investors should get involved likewise. ... if we want to 'bootstrap ourselves' (lift ourselves out of the quagmire we've created for humanity), we need an objective and doable plan which differs distinctly from the human-earth focused perspective prevalent today. we cannot 'save ourselves' by focusing only on human problems (or human created problems such as the ozone hole) .. our destiny is not on this planet Earth. our destiny is 'out there'.. sam iam / Salvatore G. Micheal plz visit the following websites when u have time: https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/before-2012.pdf https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/BW-docs.pdf https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/WfM.pdf https://www.msu.edu/~micheal/resume.pdf Iam University Plz protect, cherish, and cultivate innocence everywhere everywhen. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Jonkc at bellsouth.net Sun Apr 17 13:26:46 2011 From: Jonkc at bellsouth.net (John Clark) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:26:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> <4DA8D25F.4030207@speakeasy.net> <156AD2B3-5E0A-4186-9A30-7F9501CD63C9@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <3A173726-766B-49AF-A421-A78BBE2E1E8A@bellsouth.net> On Apr 16, 2011, at 12:46 PM, Alan Grimes wrote: > >> You've been on this list for over a decade, why now do you feel the need >> to ask that question? > > It only seems like I've been on the list for that long, I actually > joined only about five months ago. You're right, I was thinking of the old Transhuman list, is that thing still around? At any rate I know that you have been exposed to the concept of uploading before, although as I recall your views and mine were not identical on the subject. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 15:48:42 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 09:48:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/15 spike : > Kurzweil?s movie Transcendent Man was shown at a premier last night at the > SF Palace of Fine Arts.? I liked it!? Some minor complaints, but overall I > would rate it very good to low end of the excellent range, certainly worth > my time.? I saw a lot of familiar faces in the movie from years of hanging > out with that crowd.? One scene, Kurzweil is conversing with William > Shatner.? In the background of that scene was a person looking the other way > whose hair looked like Max More?s. I also loved the movie and give it 5 stars! I have been a RK fan for many years, since way before he wrote the Age of Intelligent Machines... (I read his technical papers on character recognition back in 1985 or so.) The think that was most disappointing to me, and it could have been just how the movie was edited, was just how deeply tragic the death of his father was portrayed. It leaves Ray coming across as a kind of "poor me" because his father died early. Almost to the point of being kind of mental over the issue. If that is an accurate portrayal of his personality, that's kind of an odd driving force. If it's not accurate... why show it that way? Whatever drives him, I really like what he's doing and what he's done. I wish they had spent more time with Stevie Wonder, and the synthesizer stuff, although it admittedly would have detracted from the main theme a bit. Good stuff. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 16:02:33 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 10:02:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/9 John Clark : > On Apr 9, 2011, at 2:03 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Given that the core is heated by nuclear fission, > > Geothermal heat does not come from nuclear fission, 80% of it comes from the > decay of radioactive isotopes, primarily Potassium Uranium and Thorium; the > remaining 20% comes from the formation of the Earth when a large cloud of > matter was compressed by gravity into a small ball 8000 miles in diameter, > all that gravitational potential energy was converted into heat. Thank you very much for this clarification. I somehow missed the difference between fission and nuclear decay. Lord Kelvin estimated the age of the earth at something around 8000 years based on the cooling without the nuclear component... what is science's best guess as to when the decay of isotopes will stop? Is it before or after we are swallowed by the sun? I ask because it seems bad things happened to Mars after it's core became more solid and it lost it's magnetosphere. I would add that a lot of the initial heat in the formation of the earth came from the impacts of comets and asteroids into the earth. This may be what you meant by gravitational potential energy converted into heat, but the picture is so much more vivid when you look at comets slamming into a molten orb at 20,000 MPH! :-) That's a LOT of heat, although assuming Kelvin was right about that part, it seems not to account for the majority of the heat over the eons... but I don't know if Kelvin was correct even on that point. He may have just been trying to match the Biblical numbers with pseudo science. -Kelly From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 16:02:52 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:02:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110416195813.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c2d6e543ac.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110416195813.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c2d6e543ac.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On 17 April 2011 04:58, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > I personally don't believe in low-carb. Almost everything bad about > carbs is skewed toward sugar and short-chain quickly digested carbs. > That is, foods with a high glycemic load. Longer-chain carbs that are > digested slowly seem a lot safer and healther. > Yes, we agree that if must have carbs at all long-chain, hi-fiber, diluted, carbs, in a caloric restriction framework, are a lot safer and healthier. This is also true for heroin, however, and it could be contended that a heroin flash is more satisfactory to many people. :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 16:06:30 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:06:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: On 16 April 2011 16:52, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > The second part is that I do > not want to or enjoy eating dead animals. > Have you tried eating them alive? :-) More seriously, what about eggs and/or animals without a nervous system to speak of or without an "animal" appearance? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rpwl at lightlink.com Sun Apr 17 16:27:16 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 12:27:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > 2011/4/9 John Clark : >> On Apr 9, 2011, at 2:03 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >> Given that the core is heated by nuclear fission, >> >> Geothermal heat does not come from nuclear fission, 80% of it comes from the >> decay of radioactive isotopes, primarily Potassium Uranium and Thorium; the >> remaining 20% comes from the formation of the Earth when a large cloud of >> matter was compressed by gravity into a small ball 8000 miles in diameter, >> all that gravitational potential energy was converted into heat. > > Thank you very much for this clarification. I somehow missed the > difference between fission and nuclear decay. Lord Kelvin estimated > the age of the earth at something around 8000 years based on the > cooling without the nuclear component... what is science's best guess > as to when the decay of isotopes will stop? Is it before or after we > are swallowed by the sun? I ask because it seems bad things happened > to Mars after it's core became more solid and it lost it's > magnetosphere. > > I would add that a lot of the initial heat in the formation of the > earth came from the impacts of comets and asteroids into the earth. > This may be what you meant by gravitational potential energy converted > into heat, but the picture is so much more vivid when you look at > comets slamming into a molten orb at 20,000 MPH! :-) That's a LOT of > heat, although assuming Kelvin was right about that part, it seems not > to account for the majority of the heat over the eons... but I don't > know if Kelvin was correct even on that point. He may have just been > trying to match the Biblical numbers with pseudo science. Gravitational PE converting to heat is really a continuous process, which applies to everything from individual atoms to entire planetesimals falling down Earth's potential well. Drop a ham sandwich onto the ground right now and it will warm the planet up just a little. So, the Earth was already bleeping hot before anything recognizable as comets started raining down on the surface. I am guessing that the half life of the Earth's heat would be determined by the isotope with the longest half life, which would be Thorium at about 14 billion years. Comparable to the Sun's lifetime, and well before I plan to move to another solar system, so there is no need to worry yet. Richard Loosemore From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 17:10:51 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:10:51 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 3, 2011 at 7:05 AM, Keith Henson wrote: Sorry for the late reply; I think this is still an important issue and it has taken some time to get through Dr. Clark's paper. > Yes, you can get serious population average shifts if > the selection pressure is high enough. Granted. But is that what happened to bring about the Industrial Revolution in England? If it did, was it the major factor? > Now Dr. Gregory Clark, in one of those huge efforts that lead to > breakthroughs, has produced a study that makes a strong case for > recent ?(last few hundred years) and massive changes in population > average psychological traits. > > http://www.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf > > "Genetically Capitalist? The Malthusian Era, Institutions and the > Formation of Modern Preferences." I finally read through this whole paper. It was a bit of a slog in that it wasn't written in a very entertaining fashion. I haven't read his entire book, and don't especially plan to. I did learn a lot of things from reading this paper, and I am glad that I took the time. I remain, however, unconvinced that genetics played a major role in the Industrial Revolution. I also have reached the conclusion that Gregory Clark himself is not concluding that this is a very strong thesis, but only a small part of the overall story (which it could be, VERY SMALL). Dr. Clark does make a very strong argument that the rich reproduced more successfully than the poor. He doesn't make as strong an argument that the rich had genes that the poor lacked. He starts out explaining and justifying his belief in the Malthusian trap. I judge that he did a very good job of explaining the trap, and showing that all pre-industrial societies were equally caught in the trap. Point made and accepted. He then goes through a rather tedious review of English wills. It does make the point that the rich reproduced more successfully than the poor. The graph labeled Figure 8 on page 22 says it all (and the rest could have been left on the editing room floor for my tastes). I grant this point as well, although I don't see how it supports his conclusions all that well. Finally, at the end of page 36, he gets on to more interesting points about Interest Rates, Literacy and numeracy, Work hours, and interpersonal violence. He states that during the period of the Malthusian trap, that "Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work were imbuing themselves into communities that had been spendthrift, violent, impulsive and leisure loving." He then states, "A plausible source of this seeming evolution of human preferences is the survival of the richest that is evident in pre-industrial England. The arrival of institutionally stable agrarian economies with the Neolithic Agricultural Revolution of as early as 6,000-7,000 BC, gradually molded human behavior, probably mostly culturally, but also potentially genetically." I will not be critical of this statement in that it is his hypothesis. You are allowed in the scientific method to state a hypothesis without proof, and that is what he is doing at this point in the paper IMHO. Look at the soft words like plausible and potentially. I don't think he's saying "This is the truth!" only that "This is a hypothesis that is well worth looking into." He further states, "The exact date and trigger of the Industrial Revolution may remain a mystery, but its probability was increasing over time in the environment of institutionally stable Malthusian economies." This statement boggles my mind. Of course there is no exact date as it was a process over a period of decades from the 1780s to the 1830s... one major trigger was, I believe, the steam engine. I refer you to: The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention by William Rosen Rosen's work is entertaining, informative and most of all persuasive, at least to me. He makes the argument that the invention of invention itself, with supporting legal, intellectual property concepts and implementations (patents), led directly to the evolution of the steam engine over a period of decades. The steam engine led to woolen mills, and the need for coal, as well as coal mine water pumps and finally to Rocket, the first workable steam locomotive that carried coal from the mines to the woolen mills. I VERY highly recommend this book as I believe it presents an extremely strong hypothesis, and convincing evidence of that hypothesis. Dr Clark then talks about "future beliefs" (Page 42) and continues tediously about interest rates, then makes his best argument of the entire paper... "The Pirah?, a forager group in the Brazilian Amazon, are an extreme example of this. They have only the number words ?h?i? (roughly one), ?ho?? (roughly two), and ?aibaagi? (many). On tests they could not reliably match number groups beyond 3. Once the number of objects reached as large as 9, they could almost never match them.49 Yet the Pirah? perform very well as hunters, and in tests of spatial and other abilities. Similarly the number vocabulary of many surviving forager societies encompasses only the numbers 1, 2 and many. So forager society must thus have had no selective pressures towards the kinds of attitudes and abilities that make an Industrial Revolution." Here he makes the argument that there is a genetic basis for counting beyond low numbers, and that this evolutionary change occurred around the time of the agrarian revolution. That is a believable evolutionary time period (10,000 years) and the selective pressure isn't hard to imagine. If you can't count beyond 3, it would be hard to figure out inventory, how much to plant and so forth. I can see that being selected for. I can also see the case for future thinking having a genetic component. Then at the top of page 54, he states, "Thus it is plausible that through the long agrarian passage leading up to the Industrial Revolution man was becoming biologically more adapted to the modern economic world." Again with the soft words. Is this still just a hypothesis? I accept that important genetic changes occurred between the Neolithic Revolution and the Industrial Revolution. He hasn't made the case for genetic changes being a big factor between 1250 and 1800. In fact, he doesn't strongly claim it. (in the paper, maybe he does in the book) If I had his facts, my thesis would be: "Sufficient money increases your chances of surviving and reproducing and keeping children safe into adulthood." It does this by the reproduction of "success" memes. When a rich literate father ensures that his son also becomes literate, he further insures his "success". When a rich mother encourages thrift in her daughter, she reproduces the "sacrifice today for success tomorrow" meme which leads out of poverty. If these memes don't reproduce in a Malthusian trap, then the next generation is more likely to become poor. His facts fit the memetic evolution much better in my mind than the genetic evolution. He doesn't state what the rich traits are, except in memetic terms. "Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work" are, after all, primarily memetic. So, in conclusion, I don't find the hypothesis of Dr. Clark to be supported by his facts, because there is an alternative hypothesis that fits his data even better. Again, I strongly encourage you to read Rosen's book. -Kelly From mail at harveynewstrom.com Sun Apr 17 18:02:47 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 11:02:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. Message-ID: <20110417110247.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.0970fbc76f.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Stefano Vaj wrote, > Yes, we agree that if must have carbs at all long-chain, hi-fiber, diluted, > carbs, in a caloric restriction framework, are a lot safer and healthier. > > This is also true for heroin, however, and it could be contended that a > heroin flash is more satisfactory to many people. :-) This is merely an assertion that carbs are as bad as heroin. There is no evidence here for me to refute. Do you have any evidence that carbs are not required for human nutrition? Because I have plenty of evidence that they are. Every cell of our body has mitochondria churning away at the Krebs Cycle to process carbs for energy. Every muscle in our body burns carbs to move. Our brain requires carbs to function. We store carbs (as fat) for later use. We retrieve this fat storage to convert back into carbs when we don't eat enough carbs. If we don't get carbs, we go into ketosis to convert fat into carbs. Everything about our body is design to use carbs for energy. Fat is a secondary source of energy. It must first be converted to carbs before it can be used for energy. The body cannot use the fat as-is but must have carbs. Burning fats for energy is actually the initial stage of starvation, wherein one starts to lose weight. (Burning protein for energy is the end stage of starvation, wherein one starts to lose core muscle mass.) A low-carb high-fat diet forces the body into ketosis where it starts burning fat to create carbs. It does this in excess to counter the carb starvation, such that it actually raises blood sugar levels higher than before carbs were eliminated from the diet. Switching to a low-carb, high-fat diet actually increases blood sugar levels in the body. If one is trying to get rid of carbs, I am not sure why one would choose to do that. Given all this, it is clear that the body evolved to eat carbs for energy. Eating anything else is just an inefficient way to get carbs for energy. Nothing else can provide any energy without first being converted to carbs. Therefore, it is ludicrous to deny that carbs are the primary macronutrient for human nutrition. -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 18:26:39 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 12:26:39 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 13, 2011 at 8:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Apr 12, 2011 at 02:28:50PM +0930, Emlyn wrote: >> 2011/4/7 spike : >> Ray K recently put forward a timeframe of 20 years until the world is >> 100% solar, based on current doubling time of uptake. Certainly, in 20 > > Unlike Moore's law, making solar cells smaller doesn't double > the power. The opposite, in fact. Just to be crystal clear... Ray K's application of the Law of Accelerating Returns is to the Price of a Watt of Solar Panel, not to it's size. The period of halving the price is estimated at around 3 years. -Kelly From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 17 18:42:34 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:42:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 12:26:39PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Unlike Moore's law, making solar cells smaller doesn't double > > the power. The opposite, in fact. > > Just to be crystal clear... Ray K's application of the Law of > Accelerating Returns is to the Price of a Watt of Solar Panel, not to Yes, I know. I pointed out the reason why Moore scales that way and why solar doesn't. USD/Wp is subject to world demand, USD/Wp installed is a lot higher, since inverters don't follow the same price curve, installation costs are basically constant, and grid upgrade costs are also nothing like that. Kurzweil said he expects 100% of renewable *total* power, world wide. This means a substitution rate of 1 TW/year, for the next 20 years. As the current substution rate is negligible, and he believes in linear semilog plots, this means most of substution will happen in the last 1-2 years. > it's size. The period of halving the price is estimated at around 3 > years. Germany doubled PV from 1% to 2% within about a year. Will this year double it to 4%? Unfortunately, probably not. Will the next year see it to 8%? Definitely not. The year after to 16%? The next, to 32%? And then, to 64%, and then to 128%? Singularity is sure quicker, but Singularity in 20 years? It's always 20, 30 years away. From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 17 18:44:52 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:44:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> References: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110417184452.GJ23560@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 03:41:34PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > > Did this one slip by me unnoticed ... Hugo de Garis decided to call it > quits on AGI? > > This is from his H+ article at > http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/04/15/friendly-ai-a-dangerous-delusion/ > >> One of the reasons I stopped my brain-building work was that I got >> bored evolving neural net modules for artificial brains. These >> modules were a black box to me. They worked because they were >> evolved, but I had no scientific understanding as to why they worked. Duh, what else did he expect? General theory of AI? There isn't any. >> I was doing great engineering but lousy science. After 20 years of >> it, I finally got fed up and turned to other research topics that >> taxed my own biological human brain more, such as pure math and >> mathematical physics. > > Last time I talked to him he was gung-ho about getting a full-scale AGI > up and running with those neural nets. Now he says he got bored and > abandoned that and went back to physics and math. > > Hnnnh. Another one bites the dust. -- 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 From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 19:00:21 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 13:00:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] US traffic deaths dropped to new low In-Reply-To: References: <20110414215439.GA22832@ofb.net> <00bc01cbfafb$e7333820$b599a860$@att.net> <20110414235946.GA7999@ofb.net> <004401cbfb37$f4bf4560$de3dd020$@att.net> <002401cbfb79$538634f0$fa929ed0$@att.net> <002401cbfb87$6863f890$392be9b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 2:30 PM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > There won't be any accidents if driver, vehicle and road are all > functioning perfectly, but the point is that that can't be guaranteed. > Even if you do everything within your control there are all the other > drivers out there. Thus my proposed solution. Get rid of all drivers. Replace with robotics. ASAP. :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 17 19:16:17 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 13:16:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >> 2011/4/9 John Clark : >>> >>> On Apr 9, 2011, at 2:03 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >>> >>> Given that the core is heated by nuclear fission, >>> > Gravitational PE converting to heat is really a continuous process, which > applies to everything from individual atoms to entire planetesimals falling > down Earth's potential well. ?Drop a ham sandwich onto the ground right now > and it will warm the planet up just a little. Yes, just a little... :-) > So, the Earth was already bleeping hot before anything recognizable as > comets started raining down on the surface. Yes, substitute anything moving at supersonic speeds for "comet" in my previous post... > I am guessing that the half life of the Earth's heat would be determined by > the isotope with the longest half life, which would be Thorium at about 14 > billion years. ?Comparable to the Sun's lifetime, and well before I plan to > move to another solar system, so there is no need to worry yet. Will it make any difference if we get efficient at stealing heat from the earth's core? When will we experience Peak geothermal energy? :-) Heck, we'll probably have the dang fusion and flying cars before that's a problem... -Kelly From rpwl at lightlink.com Sun Apr 17 20:29:41 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:29:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <20110417184452.GJ23560@leitl.org> References: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> <20110417184452.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DAB4DB5.8050709@lightlink.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > Hugo de Garis wrote: >>> One of the reasons I stopped my brain-building work was that I got >>> bored evolving neural net modules for artificial brains. These >>> modules were a black box to me. They worked because they were >>> evolved, but I had no scientific understanding as to why they worked. > > Duh, what else did he expect? General theory of AI? There isn't any. Says who? Just because Hugo decided his approach was not getting anywhere, it does not follow that there is never going to be a general theory of AI. I am not surprised that Hugo's approach ended up disappointing him. I saw what he was doing just before he left for China, and my feeling at the time was that he would hit a wall. What I didn't expect was that he'd just give up completely. But then, he's that kind of guy. Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Sun Apr 17 20:33:03 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:33:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:27 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> I am guessing that the half life of the Earth's heat would be determined by >> the isotope with the longest half life, which would be Thorium at about 14 >> billion years. Comparable to the Sun's lifetime, and well before I plan to >> move to another solar system, so there is no need to worry yet. > > Will it make any difference if we get efficient at stealing heat from > the earth's core? When will we experience Peak geothermal energy? :-) > Heck, we'll probably have the dang fusion and flying cars before > that's a problem... Stealing heat through geothermal will make no appreciable impact, even over the course of a few million years. Plenty of time to develop the fusion, flying cars, space elevators sending down truckloads of high-density energy collected in space...... Richard Loosemore From brentn at freeshell.org Sun Apr 17 21:32:51 2011 From: brentn at freeshell.org (Brent Neal) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:32:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1A3EF359-88BC-4A0D-95A9-CEA2378C623E@freeshell.org> On 16 Apr, 2011, at 1:59, Keith Henson wrote: > Skylon can boost a 30 ton payload to 157 km and 6966 m/s. see page 10 of > > PS. If there is anyone besides Spike who can grok physics and spread > sheets, be happy to send you a copy. > Keith, I'd like to see the spreadsheets, if you don't mind. B -- Brent Neal, Ph.D. http://brentn.freeshell.org From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 17 22:40:58 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 15:40:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <022c01cbfd50$8ea0e070$abe2a150$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More ... >...My aesthetics does not favor with CR at all. I love human bodies that are svelte with muscles... Tissue chauvinism. The best I can do is being svelte with bones. > curves... Hey we CR types have curves. Sorta. They have very small radii, but they are still curves, by the strict mathematical definition. >... and sex appeal... Hmmm, well OK, I am definitely busted there. >... The second part is that I do not want to or enjoy eating dead animals... Something I have wondered about, being a sushi lover: can it be arranged to devour the beasts so fresh they are still alive? >...It seems that there is a solution though. Rather than breeding and killing animals, we should be harvesting meat that has the best health benefits (and enough calories) for the bio-body. ...Natasha Ja. I am still hoping for figuring out how to create meat without the rest of the beast. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 17 23:39:11 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:39:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <4DA9F0EE.9040409@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <023901cbfd58$b0beba30$123c2e90$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 8:41 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >>... Hugo de Garis decided to call it quits on AGI? >See: > >This claims it is more like retired from wage-slavery. :) Quote: >...He continues to live in China...BillK De Garis was in the Kurzweil movie a lot. He had nearly as much face time as anyone outside the main character. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 17 23:43:14 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 16:43:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> <00FADE2FB6CA4CA7B74EDF377CDD7448@DFC68LF1> Message-ID: <023a01cbfd59$40af0640$c20d12c0$@att.net> 2011/4/16 Will Steinberg : > Eat bugs! Objection your honor! Otherwise compassionate people who will not devour cattle, sheep and swine will sometimes suggest this solution, but bugs are people too. A single cow can feed dozens of proles for weeks, but a single prole would need to devour hundreds if not thousands of bugs just to exist. Where is the compassion in that? spike From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 18 00:01:07 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:01:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> Message-ID: <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson ... >...Thank you very much for this clarification. I somehow missed the difference between fission and nuclear decay. Lord Kelvin estimated the age of the earth at something around 8000 years based on the cooling without the nuclear component...-Kelly _______________________________________________ Reference please, but I very much disagree. For history of science fans, this is an interesting chapter. Before anyone heard of radioactivity, the devout Christian Lord Kelvin had done a calculation that showed the earth was at least 20 million years old. That piece of mathematics was *remarkably* sophisticated. I went through that analysis line by line in my misspent youth, learned about Bessel functions that way. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 00:31:50 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 17:31:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: snip > If I had his facts, my thesis would be: > "Sufficient money increases your chances of surviving and reproducing > and keeping children safe into adulthood." > > It does this by the reproduction of "success" memes. When a rich > literate father ensures that his son also becomes literate, he further > insures his "success". When a rich mother encourages thrift in her > daughter, she reproduces the "sacrifice today for success tomorrow" > meme which leads out of poverty. If these memes don't reproduce in a > Malthusian trap, then the next generation is more likely to become > poor. On average, the next generation of rich parents *was* poorer. Whatever exceptional characteristics the parents have, chances are that the average of the next generation will suffer "regression to the mean." Not to mention the well known business of a worthless playboy who through impulsive acts burns through the money he inherited. A person I know is from a family that was very wealthy a century or so ago. As he put it, his branch was into fast women and slow horses. So whatever memes and genes they started with, they didn't stay wealthy. "You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my mother told me when I was young." [Ford Prefect:] "Why, what did she tell you?" [Arthur:] "I don't know, I didn't listen." :-) So much for memes. You need a personality to pay attention to them as well as a source. (Not that I don't appreciate memes. Google memetics "keith henson") > His facts fit the memetic evolution much better in my mind than the > genetic evolution. He doesn't state what the rich traits are, except > in memetic terms. "Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work" are, > after all, primarily memetic. I *very* much doubt it. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study Personality characteristics are very much determined by genes as you can see by how similar raised apart identical twins are. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption Memes don't particularly come from parents. > So, in conclusion, I don't find the hypothesis of Dr. Clark to be > supported by his facts, because there is an alternative hypothesis > that fits his data even better. Again, I strongly encourage you to > read Rosen's book. I have read dozens of books on the rise of technology during that time. It's a major hobby of mine. But Clark's hypothesis can and almost certainly will be verified at the genetic level. We can get DNA out of bones thousands of years old, and there are lots of old human bones in the UK. The detailed changes in the variations of genes will be plotted over the centuries. If there are changes in genes over the centuries that relate to human personality characteristics we will figure them out. About in time for it to have very little application. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 01:09:14 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:09:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> Message-ID: As a matter of fact, there are people who think the center of the earth is a ball of uranium that periodically goes critical at times. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georeactor I have not put in enough study to have an opinion. Keith From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Apr 18 02:15:35 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:15:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Neanderthals ate cooked grains and lentils Message-ID: <20110417191535.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.853ee7de6f.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> (Sorry if this is a repeat. I see posts claiming that the list eats messages. I did not see these refs come back at me. So I am posting again in a new thread, just to make sure they get through.) - Gorham Cave in Gibraltar contained fossilized grains in the habitat and feces of Neanderthals from 40,000 years ago. ; - Shanidar Cave in Iraq and Spy Cave in Belgium contained Neanderthal fossils with tooth tartar containing plants, legumes, and grains. The multi-latitudinal sites demonstrate that this was a wide-spread activity for Neanderthals. ; - A supporting pdf shows pictures, catalogs a dozen different starch grains in the diet. They even demonstrate that the grains were cooked. ; -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP> > I also doubt the lack of grains in the From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Apr 18 02:19:02 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 19:19:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again Message-ID: <20110417191902.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.fed5515549.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "spike" asked, > Something I have wondered about, being a sushi lover: can it be arranged to > devour the beasts so fresh they are still alive? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldfish_swallowing -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 02:15:48 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 20:15:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <20110416195813.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c2d6e543ac.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/17 Stefano Vaj : > This is also true for heroin, however, and it could be contended that a > heroin flash is more satisfactory to many people. :-) The paleo-Leary diet... that could be the next big thing ;-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 03:55:14 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:55:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:01 PM, spike wrote: >>... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson > ... > >>...Thank you very much for this clarification. I somehow missed the > difference between fission and nuclear decay. Lord Kelvin estimated the age > of the earth at something around 8000 years based on the cooling without the > nuclear component...-Kelly > _______________________________________________ > > > Reference please, but I very much disagree. ?For history of science fans, > this is an interesting chapter. ?Before anyone heard of radioactivity, the > devout Christian Lord Kelvin had done a calculation that showed the earth > was at least 20 million years old. ?That piece of mathematics was > *remarkably* sophisticated. ?I went through that analysis line by line in my > misspent youth, learned about Bessel functions that way. I will learn some day not to put anything in my posts that I don't look up. You are of course correct. I guess I got my Christian creationist apologist stories cross linked. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 04:04:22 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:04:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 12:42 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 12:26:39PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> > Unlike Moore's law, making solar cells smaller doesn't double >> > the power. The opposite, in fact. >> >> Just to be crystal clear... Ray K's application of the Law of >> Accelerating Returns is to the Price of a Watt of Solar Panel, not to > > Yes, I know. I hoped that was the case. > I pointed out the reason why Moore scales that way > and why solar doesn't. USD/Wp is subject to world demand, USD/Wp > installed is a lot higher, since inverters don't follow the same > price curve, installation costs are basically constant, and grid > upgrade costs are also nothing like that. Agreed. Nanosolar takes the position that solar installations should not be per house, but per neighborhood or small city, thus reducing the per household cost of the inverters. I disagree that installation costs are constant, particularly with the Nanosolar approach of using farming implements to install huge arrays of PV panels at the speed of plowing. That would be MUCH cheaper than putting solar panels on each roof. Installation costs in space are also much different set of cats to skin than one per roof. > Kurzweil said he expects 100% of renewable *total* power, > world wide. This means a substitution rate of 1 TW/year, for > the next 20 years. As the current substution rate is negligible, > and he believes in linear semilog plots, this means most of > substution will happen in the last 1-2 years. Yeah, RK has trouble sometimes differentiating between PURE information technologies, and those that are also tied to infrastructure. His continued failure to predict when we all talk to our computers rather than type is typical of this blind spot. Not everyone has four walls around them, or is comfortable talking to their machine. >> it's size. The period of halving the price is estimated at around 3 >> years. > > Germany doubled PV from 1% to 2% within about a year. Will this year > double it to 4%? Unfortunately, probably not. Will the next year see it > to 8%? Definitely not. The year after to 16%? The next, to 32%? And then, > to 64%, and then to 128%? RK's halving claim is only the price of the PV, I don't think it has anything to do with the installation rate, unless I missed that claim. I suppose that he believes if it is cheaper, it will be installed quickly, which has a certain logic, but we can't all become solar installers unless the installation process becomes much easier. Perhaps RK thinks all the solar will be installed by robots... :-) > Singularity is sure quicker, but Singularity in 20 years? It's always > 20, 30 years away. Depends on which definition of Singularity you choose, I suppose. If your definition is the year that without computers we would have something close to an extinction event for humanity, then perhaps we are already there... ;-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 07:32:58 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 01:32:58 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On average, the next generation of rich parents *was* poorer. Yes, because of the Malthusian trap. The resources didn't grow for society as a whole, and with the rich reproducing more than the poor, it is obvious that many of the rich produced poorer offspring. I understood this from the paper and it is a very interesting fact. > Whatever exceptional characteristics the parents have, chances are > that the average of the next generation will suffer "regression to the > mean." ?Not to mention the well known business of a worthless playboy > who through impulsive acts burns through the money he inherited. ?A > person I know is from a family that was very wealthy a century or so > ago. ?As he put it, his branch was into fast women and slow horses. > So whatever memes and genes they started with, they didn't stay > wealthy. An old and common story. Now we know why at a little bit deeper level. > "You know," said Arthur, "it's at times like this, when I'm trapped in > a Vogon airlock with a man from Betelgeuse, and about to die of > asphyxiation in deep space that I really wish I'd listened to what my > mother told me when I was young." > [Ford Prefect:] "Why, what did she tell you?" > [Arthur:] "I don't know, I didn't listen." :-) > :-) ?So much for memes. ?You need a personality to pay attention to > them as well as a source. ?(Not that I don't appreciate memes. ?Google > memetics "keith henson") Memetics sometimes suffer bad press, but I think they are pretty powerful as a way to comprehend the world. >> His facts fit the memetic evolution much better in my mind than the >> genetic evolution. He doesn't state what the rich traits are, except >> in memetic terms. "Thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work" are, >> after all, primarily memetic. > > I *very* much doubt it. ?See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_study > Personality characteristics are very much determined by genes as you > can see by how similar raised apart identical twins are. ? Also see > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Nurture_Assumption ?Memes don't > particularly come from parents. I am somewhat familiar with these studies and what they imply. I'm just unconvinced that the selection pressure in England really selected for thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work, even if these are ultimately based in genetics. I see the point, I get the hypothesis, I simply don't see it as convincing over and above the memes that were towering over the country. >> So, in conclusion, I don't find the hypothesis of Dr. Clark to be >> supported by his facts, because there is an alternative hypothesis >> that fits his data even better. Again, I strongly encourage you to >> read Rosen's book. > > I have read dozens of books on the rise of technology during that > time. ?It's a major hobby of mine. Then I think you would really enjoy Rosen's book. It's written in such an entertaining way as well. Another really nicely written book is Frozen Desire, which is a history of money. > But Clark's hypothesis can and almost certainly will be verified at > the genetic level. I can't wait to be proven wrong. At least that way I'm learning something. > We can get DNA out of bones thousands of years old, and there are lots > of old human bones in the UK. ?The detailed changes in the variations > of genes will be plotted over the centuries. ?If there are changes in > genes over the centuries that relate to human personality > characteristics we will figure them out. Sounds fascinating. I'm still hanging with the meme hypothesis at this time. > About in time for it to have very little application. Don't we want AGIs with prudence, negotiation and hard work? :-) > Keith From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 09:32:55 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 11:32:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110418093255.GL23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 06:09:14PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > As a matter of fact, there are people who think the center of the > earth is a ball of uranium that periodically goes critical at times. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georeactor > > I have not put in enough study to have an opinion. Uranium is lithophile, so unlikely. -- 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 From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 09:42:29 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:42:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110418093255.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> <20110418093255.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Uranium is lithophile, so unlikely. > > Can you expand this? Meaning is unclear. uranium - A heavy silvery-white metallic element. Lithophiles are micro-organisms that can live within the pore interstices of sedimentary and even igneous (if they are cracked?no natural space in igneous) rocks to depths of several kilometres BillK From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 10:23:09 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:23:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <024101cbfd5b$c252f920$46f8eb60$@att.net> <20110418093255.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110418102309.GN23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 10:42:29AM +0100, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > Uranium is lithophile, so unlikely. > > > > > > Can you expand this? Meaning is unclear. > > uranium - A heavy silvery-white metallic element. > > Lithophiles are micro-organisms that can live within the pore > interstices of sedimentary and even igneous (if they are cracked?no > natural space in igneous) rocks to depths of several kilometres According to the Goldschmidt classification: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldschmidt_classification Nor uranior nor thorium are siderophile, hence there is little of it in Earth's iron/iron sulfide core. -- 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 From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Apr 18 09:57:00 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:57:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. Message-ID: <20110418025700.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.e32d4fc00a.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Kelly Anderson wrote, > 2011/4/17 Stefano Vaj : > > This is also true for heroin, however, and it could be contended that a > > heroin flash is more satisfactory to many people. :-) > > The paleo-Leary diet... that could be the next big thing ;-) "Turn on, tune in, chow down." :-) -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 12:05:42 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:05:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:04:22PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > I pointed out the reason why Moore scales that way > > and why solar doesn't. USD/Wp is subject to world demand, USD/Wp > > installed is a lot higher, since inverters don't follow the same > > price curve, installation costs are basically constant, and grid > > upgrade costs are also nothing like that. > > Agreed. Nanosolar takes the position that solar installations should > not be per house, but per neighborhood or small city, thus reducing > the per household cost of the inverters. I disagree that installation Inverters are still power electronics, and inverters don't upgrade the grid so it can deal with multiple, variable points of power injection. It is the grid that is keeping us down at the moment. Alternatively, large scale electrochemical energy storage, which allows to keep the power local so the grid needs less capacity. > costs are constant, particularly with the Nanosolar approach of using > farming implements to install huge arrays of PV panels at the speed of > plowing. That would be MUCH cheaper than putting solar panels on each > roof. Installation costs in space are also much different set of cats Roofs need to be put up no matter what. Factoring in PV at design stage results only in minor incremental costs. > to skin than one per roof. In densely populated places free space is a premium. > > Kurzweil said he expects 100% of renewable *total* power, > > world wide. This means a substitution rate of 1 TW/year, for > > the next 20 years. As the current substution rate is negligible, > > and he believes in linear semilog plots, this means most of > > substution will happen in the last 1-2 years. > > Yeah, RK has trouble sometimes differentiating between PURE Sometimes always. > information technologies, and those that are also tied to > infrastructure. His continued failure to predict when we all talk to > our computers rather than type is typical of this blind spot. Not > everyone has four walls around them, or is comfortable talking to > their machine. > > >> it's size. The period of halving the price is estimated at around 3 > >> years. > > > > Germany doubled PV from 1% to 2% within about a year. Will this year > > double it to 4%? Unfortunately, probably not. Will the next year see it > > to 8%? Definitely not. The year after to 16%? The next, to 32%? And then, > > to 64%, and then to 128%? > > RK's halving claim is only the price of the PV, I don't think it has No, Ray claims that in 20 years the world will be powered by 100% solar energy, total. http://www.psfk.com/2011/02/kurzweil-predicts-100-solar-power-in-20-years.html See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_energy_usage_width_chart.svg It's 100x since 1970 for sure, but it's still only 0.04% of total. So if it doubles every two years, that's 2010 0.04% 2012 0.08% 2014 0.16% 2016 0.32% 2018 0.64% 2020 1.28% 2022 2.56% 2024 5.12% 2026 10.2% 2028 20.5% 2030 51.2% 2032 100% Total demand should be a lot more than 15 TW by then, but that's close enough. Just check above numbers ever two years, and see how the prediction fares. > anything to do with the installation rate, unless I missed that claim. > I suppose that he believes if it is cheaper, it will be installed > quickly, which has a certain logic, but we can't all become solar > installers unless the installation process becomes much easier. > Perhaps RK thinks all the solar will be installed by robots... :-) It's pretty much how it has to happen in order for it to become reality. Including robotic electricians upgrading the grid. > > Singularity is sure quicker, but Singularity in 20 years? It's always > > 20, 30 years away. > > Depends on which definition of Singularity you choose, I suppose. If > your definition is the year that without computers we would have > something close to an extinction event for humanity, then perhaps we > are already there... ;-) The interesting threshold is when people cease to matter, both as planners and as executing agents. Schedule an gedanken rapture every year, how long until everything grinds to a halt? We know we're making progress if the clock continues ticking longer and longer every year. Needless to say, right now we don't look very good. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 12:32:45 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 14:32:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fuel efficient car for anywhere but America In-Reply-To: References: <00ac01cbf7b7$2736cdd0$75a46970$@att.net> <4da3a9fe.4581dc0a.230a.69cb@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <20110418123245.GU23560@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 04:24:09PM -0600, Jeff Davis wrote: > 2011/4/11 kellycoinguy at gmail.com : > > > Miles per dollar has always seemed more interesting to me than MPG. > > Indeed. And what I want to know is how does miles per dollar of See "The MPG Illusion" http://www.sciencemag.org/content/320/5883/1593.full?sid=e2da957f-14a4-438b-8a32-ac65f1c9c924 > gasoline in a gas vehicle compare to miles per dollar of electricity > in an electric vehicle? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aptera_Motors sez 300 mpg (0.78 l/100 km). Aptera Type-1e was 52 Wh/km (1 kWh = 19.2 km) http://apteraforum.com/showthread.php?t=231 The new one should be lots better, somebody do the math. (By integrating thin-film PV you could probably limp along on solar power alone, augment during cruise or recharge when parked, though here you typically use the carport roof to recharge). > Anyone? -- 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 From js_exi at gnolls.org Mon Apr 18 12:46:51 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 05:46:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy Message-ID: <4DAC32BB.5000003@gnolls.org> [Once again, this reply disappeared. Resending. I believe the pattern is that if I haven't posted in a day or two, the list eats my first message but posts subsequent ones.] I'm very busy right now and owe a couple other replies, but I couldn't let this go by: Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Given all this, it is clear that the body evolved to eat carbs for > energy. Eating anything else is just an inefficient way to get carbs > for energy. Nothing else can provide any energy without first being > converted to carbs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beta_oxidation Please have some understanding of basic metabolic pathways before making such pronouncements. Therefore, it is ludicrous to deny that carbs are > the primary macronutrient for human nutrition. Recall that the amount of glucose in your bloodstream at any one time is about a teaspoon. Much less and your cells die for lack of energy: much more and they're slowly poisoned (the complications of diabetes are simply long-term glucose poisoning of your tissues). Therefore, unless your high-carbohydrate diet is based on an intravenous glucose drip carefully metered to keep exactly a teaspoon in circulation, it is clear that most of the 'carbohydrates' (sugars) you eat will be converted either to glycogen or to palmitic acid before you use them. As the glycogen reserves of sedentary people tend to be full, most dietary carbohydrate is converted to palmitic acid -- a horrible, evil, artery-clogging saturated fat! And fructose is either converted directly to liver glycogen or to fat. A high-carb diet is a high-fat diet. My approach is to eat an amount of glucose more proportional to my body's actual use for it: ~20% of calories, more if I'm doing hard aerobic work. Much of the remainder is fat, which is both the body's most efficient energy source and a necessary delivery matrix for crucial fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K2...not to mention choline and other important nutrients in which most of us are deficient. Also keep in mind that glycemic index is far more dependent on the fat content of the meal than on the "complexness" of the carbohydrate: http://www.gnolls.org/1029/fat-and-glycemic-index-the-myth-of-complex-carbohydrates/ Shortlink: http://www.gnolls.org/?p=1029 JS http://www.gnolls.org From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Apr 18 13:39:39 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 06:39:39 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I was disappointed to read this: "Ask yourself how it?s possible for a creature of a given intelligence level to be able to design a creature of greater intelligence. Designing a creature of superior intelligence requires a level of intelligence that the designer simply does not have. Therefore, it is logically impossible to use the traditional blueprint-design approach to create a creature of superior intelligence" So it's 'logically impossible', because designing a creature of superior intelligence requires a level of intelligence that the designer simply does not have?? Answering the question with a simple "No", with no actual reason given, other than "because it's impossible", is not acceptable. He's saying "just because". The best you can say is "I don't know". There is absolutely no proof that a given intelligence can't design a superior one. I expect most of the people reading this could think of at least one way of increasing their own intelligence, if we only had the tools. I can think of 3 without even trying, and I'm far from very bright. The other disturbing thing about the article is the assumption that if you don't understand every detail about how something works, you shouldn't use it. Not to mention the implicit assumption that just because you use an evolutionary algorithm to design something, it's *inherently* non-understandable. Ben Zaiboc From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Apr 18 13:41:29 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:41:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAC3F89.5030604@libero.it> Il 18/04/2011 9.32, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Keith Henson > wrote: >> On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:10 AM, Kelly Anderson >> wrote: On average, the next generation of >> rich parents *was* poorer. > I am somewhat familiar with these studies and what they imply. I'm > just unconvinced that the selection pressure in England really > selected for thrift, prudence, negotiation and hard work, even if > these are ultimately based in genetics. I see the point, I get the > hypothesis, I simply don't see it as convincing over and above the > memes that were towering over the country. It selected for the same in other places of Europe also. The advantage of England was/is to be an island, so it was safe from foreign invasions that could have slowed the coming of the Industrial Revolution as they slowed or stopped it in Holland and Italy. -- Leggimi su Extropolitica Blog Leggimi su Estropico Blog *Mirco Romanato* ----- Nessun virus nel messaggio. Controllato da AVG - www.avg.com Versione: 10.0.1209 / Database dei virus: 1500/3580 - Data di rilascio: 17/04/2011 From rpwl at lightlink.com Mon Apr 18 13:59:54 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 09:59:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <4DAC43DA.3080206@lightlink.com> Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I was disappointed to read this: > > "Ask yourself how it???s possible for a creature of a given > intelligence level to be able to design a creature of greater > intelligence. Designing a creature of superior intelligence requires > a level of intelligence that the designer simply does not have. > Therefore, it is logically impossible to use the traditional > blueprint-design approach to create a creature of superior > intelligence" > > > So it's 'logically impossible', because designing a creature of > superior intelligence requires a level of intelligence that the > designer simply does not have?? > > Answering the question with a simple "No", with no actual reason > given, other than "because it's impossible", is not acceptable. He's > saying "just because". > > The best you can say is "I don't know". There is absolutely no proof > that a given intelligence can't design a superior one. I expect most > of the people reading this could think of at least one way of > increasing their own intelligence, if we only had the tools. I can > think of 3 without even trying, and I'm far from very bright. > > The other disturbing thing about the article is the assumption that > if you don't understand every detail about how something works, you > shouldn't use it. Not to mention the implicit assumption that just > because you use an evolutionary algorithm to design something, it's > *inherently* non-understandable. I agree completely. I can think of many ways to boost the intelligence beyond human level, so Hugo's comment is outright silly. Richard Loosemore From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 14:01:15 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:01:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 06:39:39AM -0700, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I was disappointed to read this: > > "Ask yourself how it?s possible for a creature of a given intelligence level to be able to design a creature of greater intelligence. Designing a creature of superior intelligence requires a level of intelligence that the designer simply does not have. Therefore, it is logically impossible to use the traditional blueprint-design approach to create a creature of superior intelligence" He sounds like a creationist. -- 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 From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 14:12:15 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:12:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <4DAC32BB.5000003@gnolls.org> References: <4DAC32BB.5000003@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 1:46 PM, J. Stanton wrote: > My approach is to eat an amount of glucose more proportional to my > body's actual use for it: ~20% of calories, more if I'm doing hard > aerobic work. Much of the remainder is fat, which is both the body's > most efficient energy source and a necessary delivery matrix for crucial > fat-soluble vitamins like A, D, E, and K2...not to mention choline and > other important nutrients in which most of us are deficient. > > Also keep in mind that glycemic index is far more dependent on the fat > content of the meal than on the "complexness" of the carbohydrate: > http://www.gnolls.org/1029/fat-and-glycemic-index-the-myth-of-complex-carbohydrates/ > Shortlink: http://www.gnolls.org/?p=1029 > > It is rather worrying when I see people who know far more than me about human metabolism seemingly arguing for completely opposite points of view. To me it indicates that the science is not yet clear enough or thoroughly understood. I certainly would not be prepared to gamble my health and possible future medical problems on one particular subset of the ongoing arguments. BillK From emlynoregan at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 14:33:13 2011 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 00:03:13 +0930 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 18 April 2011 21:35, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:04:22PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> > I pointed out the reason why Moore scales that way >> > and why solar doesn't. USD/Wp is subject to world demand, USD/Wp >> > installed is a lot higher, since inverters don't follow the same >> > price curve, installation costs are basically constant, and grid >> > upgrade costs are also nothing like that. >> >> Agreed. Nanosolar takes the position that solar installations should >> not be per house, but per neighborhood or small city, thus reducing >> the per household cost of the inverters. I disagree that installation > > Inverters are still power electronics, and inverters don't upgrade > the grid so it can deal with multiple, variable points of power > injection. It is the grid that is keeping us down at the moment. > Alternatively, large scale electrochemical energy storage, which > allows to keep the power local so the grid needs less capacity. The grid is a centralising, industrial age technology, solar isn't. Surely we'll see solar uptake largely in a decentralised setting (householders, business), with the grid eventually reforming into something useful in that context, but some time after. Meanwhile, for storage, isn't it more likely we'll see super/ultra caps than conventional batteries? -- Emlyn http://my.syyn.cc - A service for syncing buzz and facebook, posts, comments and all. http://www.blahblahbleh.com - A simple youtube radio that I built http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 15:20:02 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:20:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 12:03:13AM +0930, Emlyn wrote: > The grid is a centralising, industrial age technology, solar isn't. Which is why the grid has so much pain dealing with it. Can't be helped. > Surely we'll see solar uptake largely in a decentralised setting > (householders, business), with the grid eventually reforming into > something useful in that context, but some time after. The time is now. 17 GW of peak solar nevermind wind are bringing the grid to the limits, and our grid is in slightly better shape than elsewhere. The problem is both capacity, which is easy, but also moving away from central control. Long-term, it may go DC or offer galvanic separation (pipes for gases or liquids). > Meanwhile, for storage, isn't it more likely we'll see super/ultra > caps than conventional batteries? Supercaps are great for providing peak current. Not quite enough to reach even today's lithium-ion energy density. You will not see conventional batteries, but large and very lage scale installations built on cheap, durable, nontoxic electrochemistries. This is a field in flux, but not done yet. Luckily, we don't have to solve that immediately, provided we can upgrade the grid. -- 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 From anders at aleph.se Mon Apr 18 17:07:26 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 18:07:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: <4DAC3F89.5030604@libero.it> References: <4DAC3F89.5030604@libero.it> Message-ID: <4DAC6FCE.8020607@aleph.se> Mirco Romanato wrote: > It selected for the same in other places of Europe also. > The advantage of England was/is to be an island, so it was safe from > foreign invasions that could have slowed the coming of the Industrial > Revolution as they slowed or stopped it in Holland and Italy. > Hmm, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Normans, the Dutch.... Britain has probably been invaded and taken over more often than than the average European country. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 17:38:11 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 10:38:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: <4DAC3F89.5030604@libero.it> References: <4DAC3F89.5030604@libero.it> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: snip > It selected for the same in other places of Europe also. > The advantage of England was/is to be an island, so it was safe from > foreign invasions that could have slowed the coming of the Industrial > Revolution as they slowed or stopped it in Holland and Italy. Clark comments in his work that the same genetic selection was going on over much of western Europe. From his viewpoint the advantage of the UK was the old probate records where he could show that generation after generation the rich left more children than the poor. :-) Keith From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 18:21:55 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:21:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 6:05 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 10:04:22PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Inverters are still power electronics, and inverters don't upgrade > the grid so it can deal with multiple, variable points of power > injection. Eugen, I apparently have a huge hole in my understanding of the grid here, so be gentle with me. When we do net metering, we run the meter backwards and the electricity goes out on the grid. To me this is just the "magic" of the grid, that it somehow balances and moves the electricity to where it needs to be. I have always assumed that this is possible somehow because of AC. I assume that if everyone in an area is running their meters backwards, that it would be a problem... I don't assume that it would pump water back up the dam... So how does it work? I guess you're saying that the problem is that it doesn't work. I read the Wikipedia articles, and didn't get any understanding from there. So what is the problem with the current grid, exactly. It would seem that as long as the Demand Response can shut down unneeded power sources on a sunny day, why doesn't it work? > It is the grid that is keeping us down at the moment. > Alternatively, large scale electrochemical energy storage, which > allows to keep the power local so the grid needs less capacity. Yes, I can see that this keeps the electricity from flowing too far upstream, and moving electricity around loses power because of the inefficiency. Transmitting electricity in power lines causes a heat loss, I get that part. I feel kind of dumb about this because I studied Electrical Engineering for a couple of years, and it SEEMS like I should understand this. >> costs are constant, particularly with the Nanosolar approach of using >> farming implements to install huge arrays of PV panels at the speed of >> plowing. That would be MUCH cheaper than putting solar panels on each >> roof. Installation costs in space are also much different set of cats > > Roofs need to be put up no matter what. Factoring in PV at > design stage results only in minor incremental costs. Why do you need a roof? Can't you just create a stand in a field? This doesn't make sense. The problem as I see it is inverters and batteries in every single house because there is no efficiency of scale. >> to skin than one per roof. > > In densely populated places free space is a premium. Yes, but we can hardly believe that enough sunlight falls on New York to meet their power needs in any case. We'll always have the need to import concentrated power (hydrogen, gasoline, whatever). >> Yeah, RK has trouble sometimes differentiating between PURE > > Sometimes always. > >> information technologies, and those that are also tied to >> infrastructure. His continued failure to predict when we all talk to >> our computers rather than type is typical of this blind spot. Not >> everyone has four walls around them, or is comfortable talking to >> their machine. >> >> >> it's size. The period of halving the price is estimated at around 3 >> >> years. >> > >> > Germany doubled PV from 1% to 2% within about a year. Will this year >> > double it to 4%? Unfortunately, probably not. Will the next year see it >> > to 8%? Definitely not. The year after to 16%? The next, to 32%? And then, >> > to 64%, and then to 128%? >> >> RK's halving claim is only the price of the PV, I don't think it has > > No, Ray claims that in 20 years the world will be powered by 100% > solar energy, total. This is the closest thing to this claim from TSIN: "As I discussed in chapter 5, nanotechnology-based designs for virtually all applications?computation, communication, manufacturing, and transportation?will require substantially less energy than they do today. Nanotechnology will also facilitate capturing renewable energy sources such as sunlight. We could meet all of our projected energy needs of thirty trillion watts in 2030 with solar power if we captured only 0.03 percent (three tenthousandths) of the sun's energy as it hit the Earth. This will be feasible with extremely inexpensive, lightweight, and efficient nanoengineered solar panels together with nano-fuel cells to store and distribute the captured energy." - Ray K. Granted there is a "could" and an "if" in there... but I don't see anything about 100% of energy. Do you have another reference for this claim? I can't imagine any future with just one energy source. That doesn't make any sense at all. > http://www.psfk.com/2011/02/kurzweil-predicts-100-solar-power-in-20-years.html The context is kind of important here. Ray, on a radio show says: "In 20 years we?ll be meeting all of our energy needs with solar, based on this trend which has already been under way for 20 years." I think if he thought about it, he would not state it in exactly these terms. Just because you could afford solar, doesn't mean you'll instantly replace everything with it. I think this was just an off the cuff remark that was talking about the cost of it. If he had said in twenty years all new power production will be met with solar, I might go along with that a little easier. RK seems to get carried away with things. Just because it's cheaper/better to run a car than a horse doesn't mean nobody rides horses anymore. > See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:World_energy_usage_width_chart.svg > > It's 100x since 1970 for sure, but it's still only 0.04% of total. > So if it doubles every two years, that's > > 2010 0.04% > 2012 0.08% > 2014 0.16% > 2016 0.32% > 2018 0.64% > 2020 1.28% > 2022 2.56% > 2024 5.12% > 2026 10.2% > 2028 20.5% > 2030 51.2% > 2032 100% > > Total demand should be a lot more than 15 TW by then, but > that's close enough. Just check above numbers ever two years, > and see how the prediction fares. It will be interesting to see how RK does with this prediction. I don't think he's terribly far off, especially given the political climate (hehe) today. It will be interesting to see what us tea party folks do with solar and wind if we get a new president and senate in a couple of years. However, this isn't a US thing, it's a world wide trend that is important. Africa needs solar, and they may have it first, just like they got cell phones before they had land lines. > It's pretty much how it has to happen in order for it to become > reality. Including robotic electricians upgrading the grid. It's all part of Ray's grand vision... :-) >> > Singularity is sure quicker, but Singularity in 20 years? It's always >> > 20, 30 years away. >> >> Depends on which definition of Singularity you choose, I suppose. If >> your definition is the year that without computers we would have >> something close to an extinction event for humanity, then perhaps we >> are already there... ;-) > > The interesting threshold is when people cease to matter, both > as planners and as executing agents. First US president that is non-organic? > Schedule an gedanken rapture every year, how long until everything > grinds to a halt? We know we're making progress if the clock continues > ticking longer and longer every year. I'm not sure I'm following your question here, could you rephrase? > Needless to say, right now we don't look very good. If there is one thing that seems to be the case, it is that you are more pessimistic than I am. Perhaps you've spent too much time in Europe... :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 18:39:28 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:39:28 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Recent human evolution repost In-Reply-To: <4DAC6FCE.8020607@aleph.se> References: <4DAC3F89.5030604@libero.it> <4DAC6FCE.8020607@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Mirco Romanato wrote: >> >> It selected for the same in other places of Europe also. >> The advantage of England was/is to be an island, so it was safe from >> foreign invasions that could have slowed the coming of the Industrial >> Revolution as they slowed or stopped it in Holland and Italy. > > Hmm, Romans, Vikings, Saxons, Normans, the Dutch.... Britain has probably > been invaded and taken over more often than than the average European > country. If you were going to make an argument about Vikings, English and genetics... One of the strongest arguments you would be able to make is that based upon centuries of Vikings kidnapping the prettiest English girls... that Iceland has beautiful women and England, well, draw your own conclusions. http://www.9uy.info/2009/08/beautiful-icelandic-women.html This hypothesis seems as worthy of study as the other to me. It probably would be even more fun to study than digging through thousands of dusty old wills..,. ;-) -Kelly From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Apr 18 19:43:24 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 12:43:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> On 04/18/2011 07:01 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 06:39:39AM -0700, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> I was disappointed to read this: >> >> "Ask yourself how it?s possible for a creature of a given intelligence level to be able to design a creature of greater intelligence. Designing a creature of superior intelligence requires a level of intelligence that the designer simply does not have. Therefore, it is logically impossible to use the traditional blueprint-design approach to create a creature of superior intelligence" > He sounds like a creationist. > Actually, what was said is exactly correct. We can't fully spec out an AGI ("traditional blueprint"). It must recursively self-improve. I thought this was and has been accepted information in these circles for a very long time now. - s From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 18 20:33:36 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:33:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> Message-ID: <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:43:24PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote: >> He sounds like a creationist. >> > Actually, what was said is exactly correct. We can't fully spec out an > AGI ("traditional blueprint"). It must recursively self-improve. I > thought this was and has been accepted information in these circles for > a very long time now. My beef was with the idea that a more advanced system is required to produce a less advanced. This is trivially untrue, because darwinian evolution is extremely stupid, yet since you can read this message it most assuredly does work. I have never believed into recursive self-improvement. Nobody is that smart. You just bump up the boundary condition, and let emergence handle the rest. -- 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 From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 20:09:24 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:09:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 4:33 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Will it make any difference if we get efficient at stealing heat from >> the earth's core? When will we experience Peak geothermal energy? :-) >> ... >> > I've wondered this very same thing. Especially considering Jevons paradox, population growth, etc. > > Stealing heat through geothermal will make no appreciable impact, even over > the course of a few million years. Plenty of time to develop the fusion, > flying cars, space elevators sending down truckloads of high-density energy > collected in space...... Unintended consequences? Is the geo-loop's depth/usage so minuscule as to seriously not even warrant consideration? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 20:39:24 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 16:39:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: References: <4DAC32BB.5000003@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 10:12 AM, BillK wrote: > It is rather worrying when I see people who know far more than me > about human metabolism seemingly arguing for completely opposite > points of view. > J. Stanton knows his stuff...imho. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at harveynewstrom.com Mon Apr 18 22:02:59 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 15:02:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy Message-ID: <20110418150259.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.8ee8d04033.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "J. Stanton" wrote, > A high-carb diet is a high-fat diet. And I was trying to explain how a high-fat diet is the same as a high-carb diet. Maybe we are not in as much disagreement as I had thought. > My approach is to eat an amount of glucose more proportional to my > body's actual use for it: ~20% of calories, more if I'm doing hard > aerobic work. I thought you were arguing *against* eating carbs for your energy needs. But now it looks like you prefer to get your primary energy needs from carbs, as long as you don't overdo it by eating more carbs than needed for energy. That's the same as I do in my diet. Only instead of eating ~20% of my calories from glucose, I could eat ~80% of my calories from fructose. Since fructose has 25% of the glycemic index as glucose, you and I would be experiencing the same glycemic load, even though you would call your diet "low-carb" and call my diet "high-carb". > Also keep in mind that glycemic index is far more dependent on the fat > content of the meal than on the "complexness" of the carbohydrate You eat high-fat to lower your glycemic load. I eat more complex carbohydrates to lower my glycemic load. I don't think it matters which factor is "more" of an influence, if the resulting glycemic load is the same. I think the real point of contention was *why* modern humans need to stop eating too many carbs. I was saying that we are so well adapted (or evolved) to be so efficient at absorbing carbs that we get too much of it. You seemed to be saying that we are so maladapted (or unevolved) at absorbing carbs that we get too much of it. We agree on the outcome, but I still think my evolutionary reason makes more explanatory sense. (Especially given my other posting showing that Neanderthals had a history of eating cooked grains.) -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From sparge at gmail.com Mon Apr 18 23:43:48 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 19:43:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <20110418150259.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.8ee8d04033.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110418150259.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.8ee8d04033.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 6:02 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > "J. Stanton" wrote, > >> My approach is to eat an amount of glucose more proportional to my >> body's actual use for it: ~20% of calories, more if I'm doing hard >> aerobic work. > > I thought you were arguing *against* eating carbs for your energy needs. You were apparently wrong. I can't speak for J., but I think he's arguing for a low carb, high saturated fat diet that doesn't include grains/seeds or seed oils. > ?But now it looks like you prefer to get your primary energy needs from > carbs, as long as you don't overdo it by eating more carbs than needed > for energy. 20% of calories from carbs isn't satisfying his "primary energy needs", it's only satisfying one fifth of them. And he's not getting them from sucrose, fructose, HFCS, etc., he's getting them from fruits and vegetables, which have lower glycemic indices than refined sweeteners. > That's the same as I do in my diet. ?Only instead of eating ~20% of my > calories from glucose, I could eat ~80% of my calories from fructose. > Since fructose has 25% of the glycemic index as glucose, you and I would > be experiencing the same glycemic load, even though you would call your > diet "low-carb" and call my diet "high-carb". Methinks you're putting to much faith in glycemic index. Have you read Gary Taubes' "Is Sugar Toxic?" from the NYT Magazine last week? If not, you should: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/magazine/mag-17Sugar-t.html > (Especially given my other posting showing that Neanderthals had a > history of eating cooked grains.) Sorry, but that's very thin evidence for grain consumption. I have no doubt whatsoever that some grains were eaten, but I have real doubts that it was widespread and/or represented a significant fraction of the seasonal or annual diet. And in one of those finds, the "grains" referred to are particles of cassava or some other starchy tuber, not grass seeds. -Dave From emlynoregan at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 02:03:28 2011 From: emlynoregan at gmail.com (Emlyn) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:33:28 +0930 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 19 April 2011 00:50, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 12:03:13AM +0930, Emlyn wrote: > >> The grid is a centralising, industrial age technology, solar isn't. > > Which is why the grid has so much pain dealing with it. > Can't be helped. > Well, yeah. Inverters, mentioned earlier, are only necessary if you're going to use AC. Inside a dwelling or business, if you convert to DC throughout (9V?), solar becomes a lot simpler. Appliances/electronics get much easier (just chuck the power pack and plug it straight in, they'll disappear eventually). Washing machines and such are tougher, but solvable. So then it (solar) looks like a technology which will make the most sense on buildings to power themselves, to begin with, with industrial scale stuff on the old system for a while. The grid then needs to turn inside out; rather than a system for broadcasting mass power from central places, and have conversion losses at the point of consumption, you need a system for sharing locally produced power, with conversion losses in the grid here and there where you want to bump the power up to a distance transmittable form; eg: a DC local network, with suburban subs providing inverters to jump it up to high voltage AC for shipping elsewhere, where appropriate. I guess what'll happen is we'll have both grids for a while - the high voltage "broadcast" one and an emerging inside-out local power DC network, which can be a lot more ad hoc because it's just about shipping around surplus where it exists. -- Emlyn http://my.syyn.cc - A service for syncing buzz and facebook, posts, comments and all. http://www.blahblahbleh.com - A simple youtube radio that I built http://point7.wordpress.com - My blog Find me on Facebook and Buzz From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 03:04:56 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:04:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 8:03 PM, Emlyn wrote: > Well, yeah. Inverters, mentioned earlier, are only necessary if you're > going to use AC. Inside a dwelling or business, if you convert to DC > throughout (9V?), solar becomes a lot simpler. Appliances/electronics > get much easier (just chuck the power pack and plug it straight in, > they'll disappear eventually). Washing machines and such are tougher, > but solvable. The only problem with DC is that (in my experience) you can't buy decent appliances that run off of DC at this point. If you do find something, it's twice the money and half the size. Economies of scale might help, but I don't expect that any time soon. So to have decent appliances, at this point you need inverters. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 03:52:00 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Apr 2011 21:52:00 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: References: <011401cbf490$c94dfaf0$5be9f0d0$@att.net> <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> Message-ID: 2011/4/18 Mr Jones : > Unintended consequences? ?Is the geo-loop's depth/usage so?minuscule?as to > seriously not even warrant consideration? It would be very good if we could figure out how to steal heat from the hot spot under Yellowstone to the point of putting off the next eruption of the super volcano... Probably a more potent risk than asteroids, but fixing the problem seems significantly more difficult. -Kelly From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 19 11:15:31 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:15:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 11:33:28AM +0930, Emlyn wrote: > Well, yeah. Inverters, mentioned earlier, are only necessary if you're > going to use AC. Inside a dwelling or business, if you convert to DC I like DC a lot, but due to infrastructure lock-in changing it will be tough. Due to ohmic losses you want to go to a higher voltage, e.g. the new automotive 42 V http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/42-volt_electrical_system which is still reasonably safe (or 110 or 230 V DC to make use of existing wiring while increasing shock hazard) and higher DC still if you want to go residential microgrid. In general I'm nervous about lots of galvanically linked power electronics which default failure mode is expensive smoke. Black swans are rare, but you can count on them landing eventually. E.g. next solar superstorm would tough to harden against. I would be much, much happer about using hydrogen or methane for galvanic separation of invididual installations. > throughout (9V?), solar becomes a lot simpler. Appliances/electronics > get much easier (just chuck the power pack and plug it straight in, > they'll disappear eventually). Washing machines and such are tougher, > but solvable. There are DC motors and there are smart DC motors which use power electronics driven by microcontrollers. > So then it (solar) looks like a technology which will make the most > sense on buildings to power themselves, to begin with, with industrial I agree. > scale stuff on the old system for a while. The grid then needs to turn Right now the industry does profit from grid-tied small scale installations. Most of these 17 GW peak are residential small plants. > inside out; rather than a system for broadcasting mass power from > central places, and have conversion losses at the point of In a network of sources and sinks most of the power doesn't travel far. As power is fungible, you can think of it as power peering. It doesn't matter for a network segment if ingress and egress are roughly balanced. We already have realtime power markets, the interesting part is making the markets sufficiently small scale that individual households and even appliances can participate in bids. This is easy, as even small embeddeds can carry the full stack and enough CPU power for running bidding algorithms. You can have a large local buffer using http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanadium_redox_battery trading cheap peak juice with expensive nightime juice, load-leveling in the process. > consumption, you need a system for sharing locally produced power, > with conversion losses in the grid here and there where you want to > bump the power up to a distance transmittable form; eg: a DC local > network, with suburban subs providing inverters to jump it up to high > voltage AC for shipping elsewhere, where appropriate. Already long-distance are HVDC. I'm not sure you can go up from 100 V to high kV and MV without some losses. You might have to take an electrochemical converter road. > I guess what'll happen is we'll have both grids for a while - the high > voltage "broadcast" one and an emerging inside-out local power DC > network, which can be a lot more ad hoc because it's just about > shipping around surplus where it exists. There is some work being done (unfortunately, kraut) for deal with load difference for large scale http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/34/34475/1.html -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 19 11:23:55 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:23:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: References: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110419112355.GS23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 09:52:00PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > 2011/4/18 Mr Jones : > > Unintended consequences? ?Is the geo-loop's depth/usage so?minuscule?as to > > seriously not even warrant consideration? > > It would be very good if we could figure out how to steal heat from > the hot spot under Yellowstone to the point of putting off the next > eruption of the super volcano... Probably a more potent risk than > asteroids, but fixing the problem seems significantly more difficult. Geothermal is a niche. It can be an important niche for some locations, but in the great total it doesn't matter that much. You can also deplete the local reservoir very easily and/or cause earthquakes and ground sinking if you don't know where you're doing. E.g. my place is tapping the Malm karst geothermal aquifer, which is somewhat anomalously high http://www.liag-hannover.de/fileadmin/produkte/20070713113243.pdf and uses to adjacent well to reinject the Kalina cycle-depleted water, causing a cooler plume dowstream so you must take care with well spacing and alignment. -- 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 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Tue Apr 19 11:21:45 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 07:21:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: References: <20110418150259.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.8ee8d04033.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <000b01cbfe83$fa68e3a0$ef3aaae0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Dave Sill wrote, > Methinks you're putting too much faith in glycemic index. Have you read Gary Taubes' "Is Sugar Toxic?" from the NYT Magazine last week? If not, you should: > > Methinks you're putting too much faith in glycemic index. Have you read Gary Taubes' "Is Sugar Toxic?" from the NYT Magazine last week? If not, you should: No faith at all. I look at the scientific evidence. This article looks like hand-waving and denialism to me. It argues maybe the scientists are wrong. Maybe animal experiments don't apply to humans. Maybe the lab doesn't represent the real world. Maybe more research is required. Maybe. If we don't use current science or current experimental results or the scientific method, what do we base our nutritional opinions upon? > > (Especially given my other posting showing that Neanderthals had a > > history of eating cooked grains.) > > Sorry, but that's very thin evidence for grain consumption Did you read the same references I gave? Multiple historical sites? Wide-spread geography? Different latitudes? A dozen different grains cataloged? Proof of widespread cooking of grains? Fossils in teeth and excrement and storage of grains? What part of all of this are you calling "thin evidence"? What more could you possible want as evidence? From sparge at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 14:26:11 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:26:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <000b01cbfe83$fa68e3a0$ef3aaae0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110418150259.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.8ee8d04033.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <000b01cbfe83$fa68e3a0$ef3aaae0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Apr 19, 2011 8:23 AM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > No faith at all. I look at the scientific evidence. OK, then what scientific evidence do you have that your diet is healthy? Has it even been studied? > This article looks like hand-waving and denialism to me. It argues maybe > the scientists are wrong. Maybe animal experiments don't apply to humans. > Maybe the lab doesn't represent the real world. Maybe more research is > required. Maybe. I don't think Taubes argues that *maybe* more research it's required...clearly he thinks it is required. > If we don't use current science or current experimental results or the > scientific method, what do we base our nutritional opinions upon? How about (1) knowledge of human biochemistry and (2) knowledge of the diets that our species evolved under? > Did you read the same references I gave? Yeah, I read then when I posted them here back in round 1 of the paleo/primal discussion. > Multiple historical sites? > Wide-spread geography? Different latitudes? A dozen different grains > cataloged? Proof of widespread cooking of grains? Fossils in teeth and > excrement and storage of grains? > > What part of all of this are you calling "thin evidence"? That's less than half a dozen examples of wild grain consumption. Compare that to the thousands of sites with evidence of meat consumption. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 15:31:39 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:31:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: <20110419112355.GS23560@leitl.org> References: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> <20110419112355.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: > Kelly Anderson:> It would be very good if we could figure out how to steal > heat from > > the hot spot under Yellowstone to the point of putting off the next > > eruption of the super volcano... Probably a more potent risk than > > asteroids, but fixing the problem seems significantly more difficult. > **nods** I've thought of this very same thing. If we could somehow draw away some of that heat safely, we could prevent the super-volcano from sending us into the history books. The problem is, we like to take the easy/cheap way, instead of the long-term responsible way...so we'd pollute the area, and destroy the balance; because it was cheaper. > > Eugen: Geothermal is a niche. It can be an important niche for some > locations, but in the great total it doesn't matter that much. > What about ground loops, versus wells. 5-8' deep loops, 100's or 1000's of meters in length, acting as the 'heatsink'. I'm thinking of geo in terms of a supplementation to home heating/cooling solutions. Granted, some areas don't have open space to trench in this manner, but I've heard that lakes/ponds are also good sources. > > You can also deplete the local reservoir very easily and/or > cause earthquakes and ground sinking if you don't know where > you're doing. E.g. my place is tapping the Malm karst > geothermal aquifer, which is somewhat anomalously high > http://www.liag-hannover.de/fileadmin/produkte/20070713113243.pdf > and uses to adjacent well to reinject the Kalina cycle-depleted water, > causing a cooler plume dowstream so you must take care with > well spacing and alignment. > Yeah, see I'm thinking more along the lines of using the top layer of ground to act as a heat-sink for our homes...not so much tapping into giant geo-thermal geysers n' such. In winter I'd only need to heat from 55-70 or so, so approx 15degrees of difference, which would come by way of a high efficiency natural gas boiler. During summer, the geo would MORE than cool the home enough, requiring no supplementation. Certainly the energy savings from this setup would be sizable. If millions of homes across the globe did this, that'd be a lot of coal/oil not being burned. Once the loops are ran/connected, there's no reason we can't use the land for other purposes right? We could still grow crops over them, have animals graze, etc. I see what you're saying though, it's a regional thing. Not everywhere is suited for this type of system. But isn't it a good idea to implement it in the areas where we can? It's nothing but some trenches, and tubing, some anti-freeze and plumbing equipment etc. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From patrick at patrickmclaren.com Sun Apr 17 12:59:00 2011 From: patrick at patrickmclaren.com (Patrick McLaren) Date: Sun, 17 Apr 2011 22:59:00 +1000 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110416195813.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c2d6e543ac.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110416195813.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.c2d6e543ac.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <20110417125900.GA4223@patrickmclaren.network> On Apr 16 07:58 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > - Gorham Cave in Gibraltar contained fossilized grains in the habitat > and feces of Neanderthals from 40,000 years ago. > > > - Shanidar Cave in Iraq and Spy Cave in Belgium contained Neanderthal > fossils with tooth tartar containing plants, legumes, and grains. They > prove that the foods were cooked by Neanderthals. And they chose > multi-latitudinal sites to demonstrate the use of cooked grains as a > wide-spread phenomenon. One problem I have when considering high-carb in context of the paleo diet is the ability to *satisfy* caloric requirements when eating unprocessed plants, legumes, and grains. I'll take our modern day office-bound vegetable as an example. The "average adult diet" is 8700Kj, or ~2175 calories. If we say that around about 60% of total calories is considered "high-carb" then we're looking at ~1300 calories recieved from carbs. Personally, I find it hard to intake this amount of *plain* carbs. Note, I'm a bodybuilder, so when I say plain, I don't mean plain with a drizzle of syrup. Now, paleo man trying to satisfy his guestimated intake ~1300 calories of carbs probably wouldn't consider pasta or jasmine white rice but let's just use these as an example because they are *highly* loaded with carbs, a best case scenario. Noting the nutritional information from the pasta packet in my kitchen, you'll need 650g of uncooked pasta to get 1300 calories from carbs. That is, 650g of pasta = 325g of carbs = 1300 calories. Although 650g of pasta is actually greater than 1300 total calories. Eating 650g of carbs a day is hard work. You'll feel extremely bloated and definitely not in the mood to go hunting for the rest of your nutritional requirements. Looking away from pasta and rice, you'll be hard pressed to find a widely available sustainable high carb source that matches the earlier macronutrient ratio. Removing the macronutrient ratio restriction to consider other carb sources and the carb-weight ratio is only going to increase. Increasing food intake to account for lower available carbs and paleo man is now eating plants, legumes and grains in the *kilos*. At this point paleo man will be reaching for the prune juice. Eating such a significant amount of unhusked material and the digestive system will begging for a break. Sure setting the requirement at 1300 calories might be a bit steep. Even at 40% of calories, he's still eating 435g of mini bowtie pasta. However, decrease calories from carbs again and soon we won't be even on a high-carb diet. Although if he ate fruit, he'd probably get there quite easily... Hmm. From mail at harveynewstrom.com Tue Apr 19 17:03:18 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:03:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy Message-ID: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Dave Sill wrote, > On Apr 19, 2011 8:23 AM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > > > No faith at all. I look at the scientific evidence. > > OK, then what scientific evidence do you have that your diet is healthy? Has > it even been studied? You're joking, right? Just read all the sources you are pointing me toward. They are full of refutations of the current scientific thinking that high-fat is bad. They explain why all the doctors are wrong, why the scientific studies are wrong, why the glycemic index is an inaccruate measure, why bloodtests are an inaccurate measure, why animal studies don't apply to people, why paleontologists are misinterpretting the data, etc., etc. There is no doubt that this stuff has been scientifically studied. Nor is there any doubt what the current standard scientific consensus is. The paleo diet hypothesis is still in the minority opinion among professionals and research, whether you like it or not. It's ludicrous to ask if anybody has studied this stuff yet. > > This article looks like hand-waving and denialism to me. It argues maybe > > the scientists are wrong. Maybe animal experiments don't apply to humans. > > Maybe the lab doesn't represent the real world. Maybe more research is > > required. Maybe. > > I don't think Taubes argues that *maybe* more research it's > required...clearly he thinks it is required. "More research required" = FUD. It's all fine to doubt all the existing evidence. But eventually there has to be evidence on your own side. If the fossilized evidence of grain use by Neanderthals is wrong, then where do you get an accurate picture of Neanderthal diet? If glycemic index is an inaccurate, then how do you measure sugar impact? If blood tests are wrong, than how do you determine blood cholesterol and sugar levels? If researchers are misinterpreting reports, scientists are misreading results, and doctors are promoting propaganda, then where do we get reliable information? Low-carb diets are not a new hypothesis anymore. We have decades of research and results now. The request for "more research required" cannot be continued indefinitely, just because previous research failed to produce the desired results. > > If we don't use current science or current experimental results or the > > scientific method, what do we base our nutritional opinions upon? > > How about (1) knowledge of human biochemistry and (2) knowledge of the diets > that our species evolved under? I tried that. Paleos either "disbelieve" the results, accuse the researchers of conspiracy, or claim the archaelogical evidence is undefineably "thin". I've show my evidence. Seriously, what additional evidence would convince you? How about showing some evidence *for* the Paleo theory instead of merely asserting that prevalent theories are wrong. > > Multiple historical sites? > > Wide-spread geography? Different latitudes? A dozen different grains > > cataloged? Proof of widespread cooking of grains? Fossils in teeth and > > excrement and storage of grains? > > > > What part of all of this are you calling "thin evidence"? > > That's less than half a dozen examples of wild grain consumption. Compare > that to the thousands of sites with evidence of meat consumption. A lack of evidence is not evidence of lack. Yes, I gave a small number of sites where fossilied teeth and feces were examined for diet. That's because that's all I know about that have examined teeth and feces to determine what the diet was. Yet they all came up with grains. Do you have ANY examples where teeth and feces were found to be lacking grains? 100% seems like a good success rate to me. From mail at harveynewstrom.com Tue Apr 19 17:19:44 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 10:19:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. Message-ID: <20110419101944.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.cded2fd617.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Patrick McLaren wrote, > One problem I have when considering high-carb in context of the paleo diet is the ability to *satisfy* caloric requirements when eating unprocessed plants, legumes, and grains. Thanks for your complicated nutritional calculations. You are absolutely correct, and I agree with your analysis. To be clearer: I am not denying that Paleos ate meat, vegetables and fruit. You are absolutely correct that grains couldn't fulfill most of the diet. I am merely arguing that neopaleos shouldn't avoid whole grains based on a mistaken believe that early paleos didn't eat grain. They also ate legumes. They also cooked them. And even though I am personally vegetarian, there is no doubt that Paleos ate meat. Claims to the contrary have no historical basis. My personal diet does not fit the common definition of low-fat or high-fat, because it's low-saturated-fat with high-monounsaturated-fat. My personal diet does not fit the common definition of low-carb or high-carb, because it's low-sugar with high-complex-carbs. My personal diet is vegetarian, but it is not low-protein. -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 17:25:38 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:25:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: Did any of you happen to catch this yet?... http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/04/story.php?id=7980&tr=y&auid=8154157 The light must be shone through a material that does not conduct > electricity, such as glass. And it must be focused to an intensity of 10 > million watts per square centimeter. How difficult a task is this? Are the optics required difficult to come by/produce? I think I saw somewhere in the article 10% efficiency. What are current solar panels rated at? What efficiency do we need to attain to make solar ubiquitous? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 17:40:10 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:40:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110419101944.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.cded2fd617.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110419101944.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.cded2fd617.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 6:19 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > To be clearer: ?I am not denying that Paleos ate meat, vegetables and > fruit. ?You are absolutely correct that grains couldn't fulfill most of > the diet. ?I am merely arguing that neopaleos shouldn't avoid whole > grains based on a mistaken believe that early paleos didn't eat grain. > They also ate legumes. ?They also cooked them. ?And even though I am > personally vegetarian, there is no doubt that Paleos ate meat. ?Claims > to the contrary have no historical basis. > > Sounds pretty much like what I would call a balanced diet. Meat, veg, grain and fruit. What's not to like? Though paleos probably had to exercise a lot more than modern man to get it. Compare their lifestyle with driving the SUV to the supermarket. And they probably had to survive on a lot less than modern man, with intermittent fasting / starvation. BillK From sparge at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 17:27:10 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:27:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On Apr 19, 2011 1:05 PM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > Dave Sill wrote, > > On Apr 19, 2011 8:23 AM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > > > > > No faith at all. I look at the scientific evidence. > > > > OK, then what scientific evidence do you have that your diet is healthy? Has > > it even been studied? > > You're joking, right? No, I'm dead serious. You've come up with your own 'slow carb' diet based on your own research and experience, and I'm sure you think it's super awesome, but has that diet been subjected to long-term clinical trails? I don't think so. I'd like to see long-term trials of paleo/primal diets, too, but none have been conducted, yet, to my knowledge. > Just read all the sources you are pointing me > toward. They are full of refutations of the current scientific thinking > that high-fat is bad. They explain why all the doctors are wrong, why > the scientific studies are wrong, why the glycemic index is an > inaccruate measure, why bloodtests are an inaccurate measure, why animal > studies don't apply to people, why paleontologists are misinterpretting > the data, etc., etc. There is no doubt that this stuff has been > scientifically studied. Nor is there any doubt what the current > standard scientific consensus is. The paleo diet hypothesis is still in > the minority opinion among professionals and research, whether you like > it or not. It's ludicrous to ask if anybody has studied this stuff yet. Can I ask what the heck that rant has to with my question? > > I don't think Taubes argues that *maybe* more research it's > > required...clearly he thinks it is required. > > "More research required" = FUD. ... OK, cool. You clearly have an axe to grind. Knock yourself out, but I'm not going to help you. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 19 18:09:29 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:09:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: References: <20110419101944.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.cded2fd617.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <007a01cbfebc$ee19dc10$ca4d9430$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 6:19 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: >> To be clearer: ?I am not denying that Paleos ate meat, vegetables and >> fruit. ?You are absolutely correct that grains couldn't fulfill most >> of the diet... >Sounds pretty much like what I would call a balanced diet. >Meat, veg, grain and fruit. What's not to like?...BillK The paleo diet is based on the notion that we should eat in accordance with the way we evolved. Humans radiated out of Africa long enough ago that they would have been time for digestive systems to evolve variations dependent on where the genetically isolated subgroups of humans evolved. For instance, the Inuits have developed the ability to subsist entirely on meat, whereas the Europeans tend to develop gout and ketosis if we try that. We suspect that some groups of humans can subsist entirely on diets that apparently lack one or two essential amino acids. Some humans have cow's milk allergies, others do not. The examples are plentiful and informative. Since humans are suddenly no longer reproductively isolated, my notion is that human digestive systems have wide diversity today even within genetically related groups. Everyone must discover for themselves what works and what doesn't. Universal rules need not apply. If such were universally applicable, there would be little debate: we would have discovered all of them long ago. My intuition from half a century of experimentation: eat light, get sufficient fat from both plant and animal sources, go easy on the sugar and alcohol, fast occasionally, devour sushi at every opportunity. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 20:17:14 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:17:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: I have not been commenting here lately. But after reading this thread, and the lack of critical comment, I have concluded I am the only person on the list who has designed power supplies for commercial products. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 19 20:44:04 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 13:44:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 1:33 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:43:24PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote: >>> He sounds like a creationist. >>> >> Actually, what was said is exactly correct. ?We can't fully spec out an >> AGI ("traditional blueprint"). ?It must recursively self-improve. ?I >> thought this was and has been accepted information in these circles for >> a very long time now. > > My beef was with the idea that a more advanced system is > required to produce a less advanced. This is trivially > untrue, because darwinian evolution is extremely stupid, > yet since you can read this message it most assuredly > does work. That's because the present NI (natural intelligences) come in two parts, a hardware that self extracts from the genome, and a knowledge base/software that gets loaded from past evolutionary accumulations of culture. Both are needed. > I have never believed into recursive self-improvement. > Nobody is that smart. You just bump up the boundary > condition, and let emergence handle the rest. View as a whole, recursive self-improvement is exactly what culture has been doing since the days when chipping rocks was high tech. And, yes, the number of people in a culture makes a big difference in the boundary conditions. Keith From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 19 22:37:31 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 15:37:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> Message-ID: <00e801cbfee2$5fd8f870$1f8ae950$@att.net> ... From: Giovanni Santostasi [mailto:gsantostasi at gmail.com] ... Subject: Re: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power >...So what do you think about this stuff, is too good to be true? I am a hard core optimist. I see it not so much too good to be true. Rather too false to be true. >...Is this all bogus? I think so. Read on: >http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-italian-scientists-cold-fusion-video.ht ml >...Giovanni ... Comment that raises immediate suspicion: "...Andrea Rossi and Sergio Focardi of the University of Bologna announced that they developed a cold fusion device capable of producing 12,400 W of heat power with an input of just 400 W..." Hmmm. This version of the experimental description has enough numbers in it for us to evaluate. But for now, read on. "...Rossi and Focardi say that, when the atomic nuclei of nickel and hydrogen are fused in their reactor, the reaction produces copper and a large amount of energy..." No! You guys make me work so hard to remember my college physics! But it's OK, I enjoyed it in my misspent youth, now it's fun to relearn it. Let us ignore the nucleon energy argument for the moment, since we are talking weird physics here. If I am reading my chart correctly (do feel free to refute, you won't hurt my feelings {8-]) there are only four isotopes of nickel that could form copper by proton absorption (the others are by beta decay, which I refuted last week): 51Ni, 52Ni, 53Ni, and 54Ni. When these undergo proton absorption (which is what these guys are claiming) you get 52Cu, 53Cu, 54Cu and 55Cu, respectively. Otherwise you would see betas like crazy, and they don't say that, and if there were beta decays, the experiment wouldn't do this anyways. Note these guys are specifically claiming copper from nickel by proton absorption, rather than by beta decay of any kind. The respective half lives of those last three copper isotopes are less than 300 nanoseconds, 75 nanoseconds, 40 milliseconds. Regarding 52Cu, no one is claiming to know the halflife of that stuff, but it doesn't matter because there isn't enough 51Ni to worry about in any case. Out of all this, I thought of a hell of a clever physics joke we could play on the undergrads on April 1. We could get some ordinary stable copper (63 and 65), in granular form, flash plate it with nickel (nickel will electroplate directly onto a chemically excited copper surface, I can show you how.) Then we give it to the undergrads, who fail to notice it's density is very slightly higher than it should be. They couldn't be faulted for that, the density is very nearly identical for those two, right around 8.9 g/cm^3. In granular form, they would never notice, no one would. Then we give them this setup with a phony input but which chemically dissolves the nickel, making it look like they have created copper. Since the resulting copper is stable with no observed beta decay, they would go to the chalk board and theorize some previously-unknown proton absorption. The electroplating process requires energy input: it comes back out when the nickel flash coating dissolves, heating the water. Undergrads go crazy, we laugh our asses off. That would be a kick, we could have such fun! Oh wait. Do you suppose the undergrads thought of this trick, and slipped some nickel plated copper into the lab (labeled pure nickel) when the professors weren't looking? spike From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Tue Apr 19 21:51:23 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 17:51:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Dave Sill wrote, > No, I'm dead serious. You've come up with your own 'slow carb' > diet based on your own research and experience, and I'm sure > you think it's super awesome, but has that diet been subjected > to long-term clinical trails? I don't think so. Google the terms "glycemic index" and "glycemic load". Some carbs are simply slower to absorb than others. I'm not making any of this stuff up by myself. This is standard nutritional science. Nothing new here. There has been plenty of long-term clinical trials about the benefits of eating more complex carbohydrates and less sugar. > Can I ask what the heck that rant has to with my question? I was describing the failings of the references you thought proved your point. I am glad that you recognized the content as "ranting". But I am waiting for you to realize that it was not "my" rant, but your own sources that I was describing. > > "More research required" = FUD. ... > OK, cool. You clearly have an axe to grind. Knock yourself out, but I'm not going to help you. I did not mean the term "FUD" as an insult. I meant it calmly and literally. The sources you referenced do not present evidence for their own position. Instead, they try to develop fear of the other side, uncertainty about the other side, and doubt about the other side. Literally, "FUD" *against* a position, not evidence *for* a position. From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 19 23:03:18 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 16:03:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <00e801cbfee2$5fd8f870$1f8ae950$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <00e801cbfee2$5fd8f870$1f8ae950$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ef01cbfee5$f924de60$eb6e9b20$@att.net> Giovanni wrote: >>So what do you think about this stuff, is too good to be true? Is this all bogus? >>http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-01-italian-scientists-cold-fusion-video.h tml >>Giovanni >... On Behalf Of spike ... >...We could get some ordinary stable copper (63 and 65), in granular form, flash plate it with nickel (nickel will electroplate directly onto a chemically excited copper surface, I can show you how.) ... Oh wait. Do you suppose the undergrads thought of this trick, and slipped some nickel plated copper into the lab (labeled pure nickel) when the professors weren't looking?...spike Alternate scenario, to avoid looking like the whole Piltdown Man conspiracy theorist: Member of sorority Pi Delta Pi leaves boyfriend, leader of jock frat Alpha Betas, takes up with a geek from Lambda Lambda Lambda. In revenge, the Alpha Betas come over and beat the tri-lambs beyond recognition. As they bandage their wounds while studying for a physics test, a tri-lamb thinks of a perfect nerd revenge and comments: Bwaaaaahahahahahahaaaaaa (sinisterly). Plotting, scheming using their chemistry expertise, they flash plate the copper with a few thousand angstroms of nickel, put it in the nickel container, hoping to screw with the Alpha Betas in the lab the next day. But something goes terribly wrong, as something always does in these scenarios: two physics professors get ahold of the fake nickel! They do the experiment, they unsuspectingly conclude an unknown proton absorption has taken place, they plaster the results out there for the world to see, unknowing! The tri-Lambs panic and flee. The professors are heading for destruction, for no one, not even they, will be able to reproduce the results once the nickel plated copper is used up. The professors reputations are ruined. The tri-lambs are never seen again. The girlfriend from Pi Delta Pi is already sleeping with a Gamma Tau. The jocks in Alpha Beta struggle to master their multiplication tables. spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 01:36:35 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:36:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 10 things killed by the smartphone Message-ID: I had fun reading over this list... http://www.pcworld.com/article/225372/10_things_killed_by_the_smartphone.html#tk.nl_dnx_t_crawl John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 01:28:20 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:28:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review Message-ID: A not very kind review... http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/sc-mov-0413-atlas-shrugged-20110415-33,0,179159.story John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 01:31:41 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:31:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Brain nerve stimulation may boost learning capacities Message-ID: This makes me think of the classic science fiction image of a scientist wearing a brain enhancing helmet... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110413171327.htm John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 01:34:48 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 18:34:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled Message-ID: This is perhaps a baby step toward uploading... http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/worlds-first-human-brain-map-u.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 20 02:03:43 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:03:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 2:51 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > Google the terms "glycemic index" and "glycemic load". Some carbs are > simply slower to absorb than others. I'm not making any of this stuff up > by > myself. This is standard nutritional science. Nothing new here. There > has > been plenty of long-term clinical trials about the benefits of eating more > complex carbohydrates and less sugar. > Harvey, it seems like you think paleo advocates reject the concepts of glycemic index and load. Where did you get that idea? I would say that the vast majority of paleos that I've read (which is quite a few by now) find glycemic index of very limited value but find glycemic load to be quite valuable. The paleo argument is that, glycemic index/load aside, even complex carbs can be problematic because most of us (to widely varying degrees) find other problems with them, including reactions to gluten and other substances in grains, and reduced nutrient absorption due to anti-nutrients. The Gary Taubes article cited was far from his best material. It was merely suggestive. I would strongly recommend his book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. You'll find ample evidence in favor of higher-fat diets and against the American orthodoxy, as you requested. --- Max -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 20 02:10:52 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:10:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I'm sure not very kind reviews will be easy to find. I saw it on Sunday. The audience seemed to enjoy it. For a low-budget movie ($15m -- a pittance in these days) I thought it was okay, not great, not bad. Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart very well (a point on which almost all reviews I've seen agreed). I also liked Grant Bowler as Hank Rearden (oddly, he played "Captain Gault" in Lost!). Michael Lerner was pretty good as Wesley Mouch. The book itself is often criticized for including too many long speeches (including one REALLY long one). Ironically, I thought the movie suffered from not allowing the characters to speak the philosophy at sufficient length. It was only about an hour-an-a-half movie; they could have allowed a bit more speechifying. It was good enough, in my view, that I'd like to see it do well enough to justify funding parts II and III. --- Max 2011/4/19 John Grigg > A not very kind review... > > > http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/sc-mov-0413-atlas-shrugged-20110415-33,0,179159.story > > John > > > > -- > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 02:06:41 2011 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 21:06:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Brain nerve stimulation may boost learning capacities In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Puttin' on my thinking cap On Apr 19, 2011 9:01 PM, "John Grigg" wrote: This makes me think of the classic science fiction image of a scientist wearing a brain enhancing helmet... http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110413171327.htm John _______________________________________________ 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 ismirth at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 02:09:49 2011 From: ismirth at gmail.com (Isabelle Hakala) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 22:09:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I haven't read much Ayn Rand. I have only read Atlas Shrugged, which I felt was a good explanation of the extremes. I found the book to be compelling in a way towards self-understanding of what my views are. The film version left out every single bit of intensity possible. I was literally *bored* while watching it. I was aghast because I have listed to it as an audio book at least 20 times. This LA times review really hits it on the head. I feel that the director missed every single point that was made. The movie was dumbed down so much that there was literally nothing left to comprehend. If you had not read the book first I doubt you would have any idea what was going on in the film. On Apr 19, 2011 9:52 PM, "John Grigg" wrote: A not very kind review... http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/sc-mov-0413-atlas-shrugged-20110415-33,0,179159.story John _______________________________________________ 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 max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 20 03:01:18 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 20:01:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I should have added: The fellow playing John Galt (who is also the director) was very weak. Although seen only in shadows, his voice and presence were far too weak for that character. Since we haven't seen his face in Part I, perhaps they can replace him. I hope so. --- Max On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 7:10 PM, Max More wrote: > I'm sure not very kind reviews will be easy to find. > > I saw it on Sunday. The audience seemed to enjoy it. For a low-budget movie > ($15m -- a pittance in these days) I thought it was okay, not great, not > bad. Taylor Schilling played Dagny Taggart very well (a point on which > almost all reviews I've seen agreed). I also liked Grant Bowler as Hank > Rearden (oddly, he played "Captain Gault" in Lost!). Michael Lerner was > pretty good as Wesley Mouch. > > The book itself is often criticized for including too many long speeches > (including one REALLY long one). Ironically, I thought the movie suffered > from not allowing the characters to speak the philosophy at sufficient > length. It was only about an hour-an-a-half movie; they could have allowed a > bit more speechifying. > > It was good enough, in my view, that I'd like to see it do well enough to > justify funding parts II and III. > > --- Max > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From Frankmac at ripco.com Wed Apr 20 03:25:42 2011 From: Frankmac at ripco.com (Frank McElligott) Date: Tue, 19 Apr 2011 23:25:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] the time and the brain Message-ID: <000601cbff0a$a6943e00$854ba243@sx28047db9d36c> Following John Grigg's link to information concerning getting smarter I thought a link to the "NEWYORKER" piece on the brain and time would be a nice addition to the discussion. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/04/25/110425fa_fact_bilger -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 06:23:31 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:23:31 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: What else would you expect from the LA Times? Like nearly every other paper in America, it is terribly liberal in it's views. Hollywood in general despises Rand, even though she got her big break in Hollywood. The critic seemed to attack Rand first, and the movie second. I haven't yet seen the movie, but I plan to. Atlas Shrugged is an awfully big book to try and shoehorn into a movie, and I'm sure that Rand fans will find plenty to be unhappy about, just as the typical comic book fan hates most comic book movies... -Kelly 2011/4/19 John Grigg : > A not very kind review... > > http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/sc-mov-0413-atlas-shrugged-20110415-33,0,179159.story > > John From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 06:59:04 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 00:59:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] FRIDA- a new industrial robot In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/13 John Grigg : > What do you think of this robotic system?? And where do you think it will be > in ten years? > > http://www.engadget.com/2011/04/13/frida-concept-robot-will-solve-all-of-foxconns-problems-by-re/ I finally had time to look into this little fellow... it's a prototype, but a very interesting one. For those who haven't seen it, it has shoulders, two arms and is roughly the size of a human being and is extremely articulate. It is not terribly fast, at least in the videos I have seen. The article indicated that they wanted to sell them to Foxconn, where the Chinese put together iPods, iPads, cell phones, etc. in huge Boeing sized rooms full of folks directly from the Chinese country side. Wired had an article on Foxconn a couple of months back, emphasizing the human cost of humans working in these environments. Nevertheless, compared to trudging around in rice fields, these are very good jobs that a lot of people compete for. We tend to forget that here in America, and merely feel sorry for the people working in these factories. This is unjust poppycock, as our grandparents did similar work for Henry Ford. It's just time shifted. The folks at ABB (who make FRIDA) apparently have a vision of these guys sitting in between the former peasants at Foxconn, being interchangeable when, for example, the work order changes and the robot hasn't had time to be programmed, a person could step in until the robot had been programmed for the new task. This is an interesting proposal, robots side by side with former rice farmers. Unfortunately, I don't think this model will initially be very successful for very human reasons. I suspect that the humans will revert to Luddite behavior that has always accompanied this kind of incursion on what was formerly a humans only endeavor. I suspect that the nets around Foxcon will end up full of more FRIDAS than suicidal workers, at least for a while. Perhaps there is some part of the Chinese ethos that will make this concern moot, but if they follow the textile workers of England, I fear for the little automatons. With time it will work out when the technology has been perfected. The other problem is that at least with the prototype, the robot moves much more slowly than the humans at Foxconn. I saw a video of a lady assembling an electrical breaker that was just amazing on a TED video! The little robot could not possibly keep up with her, at least as it was shown. They will have to work a lot on total cost of ownership, because programming the little beasties could be much more expensive than just importing more former rice farmers... it will be interesting to see how it all plays out over both the short and long term. -Kelly From thespike at satx.rr.com Wed Apr 20 07:46:21 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 02:46:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> On 4/20/2011 1:23 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > What else would you expect from the LA Times? Like nearly every other > paper in America, it is terribly liberal in it is views. Like that notorious flaming Red, P. J. O'Rourke: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 20 08:39:54 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:39:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110420083953.GI23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 01:25:38PM -0400, Mr Jones wrote: > Did any of you happen to catch this yet?... > > http://michigantoday.umich.edu/2011/04/story.php?id=7980&tr=y&auid=8154157 Yes. > The light must be shone through a material that does not conduct > > electricity, such as glass. And it must be focused to an intensity of 10 > > million watts per square centimeter. > > > How difficult a task is this? Are the optics required difficult to come > by/produce? Nanometamaterials/photonic crystal patterning are hard problems on their own. Semiconductors, particularly in quantum dot form can be pretty cheap and made from nonscarce/nontoxic elements. Long-term we're likely to see interesting new approaches (e.g. rectennas scaled into VIS/NIR) with quantitative efficiency, but we're again looking at fabrication issues. This will be probably done by autoassembly or outright machine-phase which are both comfortably far off. > I think I saw somewhere in the article 10% efficiency. What are current > solar panels rated at? What efficiency do we need to attain to make solar > ubiquitous? In PV you're looking at ROI and EROEI integrated over lifetime. Efficiency is typically negatively correlated to that, so as long as you're above some minimal (~2-5%) efficiency with all other factors compensating for it you're in the clear. Best commercial efficiencies are ~20% IIRC, best lab is approaching 50%, but that's concentrated multujunction/tuned bandgap stacks made from unobtainium. Trend see http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/74/PVeff%28rev100921%29.jpg -- 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 From giulio at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 08:18:51 2011 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:18:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I look fwd to watching the movie, but I hope it is better done than Rand's books. My problem with Rand is not her ideology, which I find extreme but often refreshing in its unPCness, but the fact that she is an awfully boring writer. I am a very avid reader of everything, novels, SF, thrillers, literature, philosophy, science and everything else, but I am afraid I never managed to finish a Rand novel. Just too boring. On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:23 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > What else would you expect from the LA Times? Like nearly every other > paper in America, it is terribly liberal in it's views. Hollywood in > general despises Rand, even though she got her big break in Hollywood. > The critic seemed to attack Rand first, and the movie second. > > I haven't yet seen the movie, but I plan to. Atlas Shrugged is an > awfully big book to try and shoehorn into a movie, and I'm sure that > Rand fans will find plenty to be unhappy about, just as the typical > comic book fan hates most comic book movies... > > -Kelly > > 2011/4/19 John Grigg : >> A not very kind review... >> >> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/sc-mov-0413-atlas-shrugged-20110415-33,0,179159.story >> >> John > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 09:03:24 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:03:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:46 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > On 4/20/2011 1:23 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> What else would you expect from the LA Times? Like nearly every other >> paper in America, it is terribly liberal in it is views. > > Like that notorious flaming Red, P. J. O'Rourke: > > > The comments (pro and against) are also fun to read. Quote: * Nergol wrote: ?There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old?s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.? ? John Rogers -------------- BillK From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 20 10:58:12 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:58:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110420105812.GJ23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 01:17:14PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > I have not been commenting here lately. But after reading this > thread, and the lack of critical comment, I have concluded I am the > only person on the list who has designed power supplies for commercial > products. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. -- 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 From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 12:06:09 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:06:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 5:03 AM, BillK wrote: > ?There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old?s > life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish > fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its > unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially > crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of > course, involves orcs.? ? John Rogers > Love it! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Wed Apr 20 11:13:51 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:13:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <005101cbff4c$09c1bc00$1d453400$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Max More wrote, > Harvey, it seems like you think paleo advocates reject the concepts of glycemic index and load. Where did you get that idea? Those comments were directed at Dave Sill, who seemed to think it was a wacky idea that I personally made up. Dave Sill said, > You've come up with your own 'slow carb' diet based on your own research and experience, and I'm sure you think it's super awesome [....] > Methinks you're putting to much faith in glycemic index. [....] > Has it even been studied? From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 12:17:45 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:17:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/19 John Grigg > This is perhaps a baby step toward uploading... Are you familiar with http://www.humanconnectomeproject.org/ Exciting stuff, mapping the brain. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 20 12:19:37 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:19:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Brain nerve stimulation may boost learning capacities In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAECF59.7050002@aleph.se> Sounds a bit similar to how vagus nerve stimulation improves learning. However, the paper in the link stimulates the nucleus basalis to release acetylcholine in the right part of the cortex. The title in the sciencedaily article is misleading - this is no mere nerve, this is a deep part of the brain: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Nucleus_basalis_of_Meynert There is earlier work by Michael Merzenich's team on using it to gate cortical plasticity. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 20 12:22:16 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 14:22:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <00e801cbfee2$5fd8f870$1f8ae950$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <00e801cbfee2$5fd8f870$1f8ae950$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110420122216.GK23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 03:37:31PM -0700, spike wrote: > Oh wait. Do you suppose the undergrads thought of this trick, and slipped > some nickel plated copper into the lab (labeled pure nickel) when the > professors weren't looking? "The professors" are crooks. Much simpler explanation http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=198040 (notice the thread has 14 pages) From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Wed Apr 20 11:22:21 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:22:21 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Max More wrote, > The Gary Taubes article cited was far from his best material. It was merely suggestive. >I would strongly recommend his book, Good Calories, Bad Calories. You'll find ample > evidence in favor of higher-fat diets and against the American orthodoxy, as you requested. I have not gotten that book yet. But I am afraid it will be a more polished version of the same. From js_exi at gnolls.org Wed Apr 20 12:47:22 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 05:47:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations Message-ID: <4DAED5DA.2030707@gnolls.org> I'll get back to Harvey's stuff in a bit, but: Spike wrote: > Humans radiated out of Africa long enough ago that they > would have been time for digestive systems to evolve variations dependent on > where the genetically isolated subgroups of humans evolved. For instance, > the Inuits have developed the ability to subsist entirely on meat, whereas > the Europeans tend to develop gout and ketosis if we try that. I love you, Spike, but there are a couple problems here. First, the idea that meat (or purines in general) cause gout is an old myth. Fructose is the primary driver of blood uric acid, and, therefore, gout: http://paleozonenutrition.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/gout-and-fructose/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7219473.stm "Men who consume two or more sugary soft drinks a day have an 85% higher risk of gout compared with those who drink less than one a month, a study suggests." ... "Diet soft drinks did not increase the risk of gout but fruit juice and fructose rich fruits (apples and oranges) were associated with a higher risk, the researchers said." And an excellent overview of the real issues, which are fructose, ***high insulin***, and underhydration (includes links/references): http://www.emotionsforengineers.com/2009/09/causes-of-gout.html A severe gout sufferer I know said that he has not had a single gout attack -- not even a tingle -- since going on a high-fat paleo diet. Second, the idea that there is a special Inuit adaptation to meat-based diets is unsupported by any evidence with which I'm familiar. The ApoE variation that allows us to process dietary fat much better than chimpanzees is millions of years old: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15101252 Pardon the website, but here's another instructive article about non-Inuit eating meat-based diets (the magazine it's from is otherwise behind a paywall), i.e. Vilhjalmur Stefansson: http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm JS http://www.gnolls.org From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 14:17:50 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 15:17:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <4DAED5DA.2030707@gnolls.org> References: <4DAED5DA.2030707@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 1:47 PM, J. Stanton wrote: > First, the idea that meat (or purines in general) cause gout is an old myth. > ?Fructose is the primary driver of blood uric acid, and, therefore, gout: > http://paleozonenutrition.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/gout-and-fructose/ > > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7219473.stm > "Men who consume two or more sugary soft drinks a day have an 85% higher > risk of gout compared with those who drink less than one a month, a study > suggests." ... "Diet soft drinks did not increase the risk of gout but fruit > juice and fructose rich fruits (apples and oranges) were associated with a > higher risk, the researchers said." > > And an excellent overview of the real issues, which are fructose, ***high > insulin***, and underhydration (includes links/references): > http://www.emotionsforengineers.com/2009/09/causes-of-gout.html > > These articles don't say that fructose causes gout. They say that fructose might be one of many factors that aggravate gout. I prefer to believe what sites like WebMD say, rather than paleo support sites where almost everything can apparently be cured by a paleo diet. Gout often has nothing at all to do with diet. Genetics, obesity, alcohol consumption, enzyme deficiency or even some medications can cause or aggravate the condition. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 14:52:39 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 07:52:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I had two people who asked for the path into space graph and the spread sheet to check my "rocket science" math and one who complained in private email that the Skylon/laser/power sat posting I made recently was incomprehensible. So here is another shot at it: It's been known for decades that solar power satellites *can* send energy to the earth. After all, communication satellites do it every day, just not at levels useful for power. The question is cost, and that's almost all due to the high cost of rockets to get millions of tons of power satellite parts to GEO. If you want to sell power on earth in serious competition with coal, the economics indicates you need to reduce the cost of getting parts to GEO by a factor of around 200. That's $20,000 per kg down to $100/kg. Unfortunately, the chemical energy in rocket fuel vs. the physics energy it takes to get to orbit just won't do it. Round numbers, the Falcon Heavy will put 50 tons in LEO or 25 tons in GEO for a cost of $100 M. That's a reduction to $4000/kg, a factor 5 but not enough. Launching one every hour might get the price down to $1000/kg which is still too high by five times. Skylon, the proposed rocket plane from Reaction Engines, at several flights per hour is expected to put 10 tons in LEO and 5 tons in GEO for a cost of $1.5 M or $300/kg. *Still* too high. A brand new concept starts with the sub orbital maximum load of 30 tons for a Skylon then uses 400 MW of laser power to get 10km/s exhaust velocity from a second stage. This will get 20 tons to GEO per flight. The estimated capital cost of the lasers ($4 B or $400 M/year) is under $2/kg. Spread over 480,000 tons per year it drives the lift cost for parts down to $100/kg. If we can get the lift cost down that far, a power satellite comes in at $1600/kW or $1.6 B/GW. At that capital cost, energy from space could sell for substantially less than energy from coal. The development could come in as low as $20 B, maybe less. The profit after this was going is up in the hundred billion a year class rapidly growing into the trillions--enough to cope with social security and the other cost of government. Not that the US is likely to do it, but whoever does it will put a cap on energy cost Keith On Fri, Apr 15, 2011 at 10:59 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Skylon can boost a 30 ton payload to 157 km and 6966 m/s. see page 10 of > > http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/downloads/SKYLON_User_%20Manual_rev1%5B3%5D.pdf > > That's well short of LEO and 3286 m/s short of GTO. ?However, any > acceleration over 2 m/s^2 has enough time to put the second stage > payload in orbit. ?(It falls slowly because the local g at this > velocity is around 2 m/s^2) > > There are limits on how long you can accelerate with a laser because > you have to keep the vehicle in view of the bounce mirror. > > GTO velocity is around 10252 m/s ?To circularize the orbit at GEO > would take 1630 .m/s more or a total delta V of 11, 682 m/s. > Together, 4916 m/s which is about half the exhaust velocity leading to > a mass ratio of ~1.7 ? Either constant acceleration or constant heater > temperature are options. ?Constant heater temperature gets the higher > ISP. Both accelerations can't take more than 20 minutes together to > get a transfer rate of 3 flights per hour. > > It turns out (from a spread sheet I ran off) that 400 MW and a flow of > 8.33 kg/s of hydrogen results in a constant heater temperature of 3000 > deg K and an initial acceleration of 2.721 m/s^2. > > The vehicle enters GTO downrange 7743 km at 970 seconds with 21,900 kg > of mass remaining. ?Because thrust is constant as mass is used up > acceleration goes up to 3.727 m/s^2. > > It takes until1206 seconds to reach GTO insertion, i.e., a second burn > 5 or 15 hours later of 236 seconds. ?For a first pass this is close > enough to 20 minutes. > > The peak acceleration at the end of circularizing at GEO is just over > 4 m/s^2 (all really low accelerations). ?There is almost 20,000 kg > (19937 kg) left. ?I.e., 20 tons gets to GEO per Skylon flight. ?The > assumption is that everything going to GEO gets turned into power > satellites. ?(Even the sandwich wrappers for 500-1000 workers at GEO) > > Conventional use of Skylon will deliver about 6 tons per flight to > GEO. ?For a 3 per hour flight rate, that's 18 tons per hour. ?By > adding $4 B of lasers (and the GEO bounce mirrors) laser boosting a > suborbital payload will put 60 tons per hr in GEO, slightly in excess > of 3X. > > Operated 90% of the time, that would be 8000h x60 t/h or 480,000 t per > year. ?That would support a substantial power satellite production, at > 5 kg/kW, 5000 t/GW, 96 per year. ?At a rock bottom price of $1.6 B/GW > (2 cents per kWh paid off over ten years) the revenue stream would be > over $150 B. > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > To put these numbers in context, for the SKYLON case where all costs > are being recovered, the cost of launching 150,000 tonnes into orbit > at $200/kg is $30,000 million per year. > > This compares with a cost of about $3 trillion per year ($3,000,000 > million) if expendable launch vehicles were to be used (although this > flight rate is unachievable with expendable rockets). > > This clearly illustrates the point that a reusable spaceplane system > is an essential, enabling part of implementing a solar power satellite > infrastructure. > > http://www.reactionengines.co.uk/downloads/ssp_skylon_ver2.pdf > > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > > ?I have assumed 5000 t per GW, the Skylon analysis assumed 3000. > > To put the addition of laser powered rockets in context, the same > flight rate would allow over three times as much cargo to GEO for the > same cost in Skylon launches. ?The cost to *GEO* would come down to > under $100/kg, which is the magic number for two cent per kWh power, > i.e., half the price of coal. > > So at least from the physics of rockets and the economics of power > satellites, it seems to be possible to have a world with plenty of low > cost energy. > > This is by no means a fully worked out proposal. ?For example, I don't > know exactly how to get the Skylons back to their launch site. > > But it is possible (with some more work) that the entire project to > profitability might come in around $20 B. ?If that's the case, it's > less than the Chunnel or Three Gorges Dam in current dollars. > > Keith > > PS. ?If there is anyone besides Spike who can grok physics and spread > sheets, be happy to send you a copy. > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 20 15:12:10 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:12:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 07:52:39AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > The question is cost, and that's almost all due to the high cost of > rockets to get millions of tons of power satellite parts to GEO. The question is not just cost (by the way, have a look at http://www.fastcompany.com/1745113/what-happens-when-solar-power-is-as-cheap-as-coal ) the problem is EROEI. When we're looking at kW/kg, we shouldn't forget that the kg is at ~Mach 25, and it came from the bottom of the gravity well which taxes your EROEI -- unless it came from lunar material. -- 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 From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 15:15:11 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:15:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Heat of the Earth [WAS Re: Efficiency of wind power] In-Reply-To: References: <20110407083103.GB23560@leitl.org> <6592456A-FFA4-4EED-B0DD-AA94B1E9AB20@bellsouth.net> <75AB4B33-32D8-4576-929E-4FE4B712C7B0@bellsouth.net> <4DAB14E4.2080504@lightlink.com> <4DAB4E7F.7050506@lightlink.com> <20110419112355.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/19 Mr Jones : >> Kelly Anderson:> It would be very good if we could figure out how to steal >> heat from >> > the hot spot under Yellowstone to the point of putting off the next >> > eruption of the super volcano... Probably a more potent risk than >> > asteroids, but fixing the problem seems significantly more difficult. > > **nods** I've thought of this very same thing. ?If we could somehow draw > away some of that heat safely, we could prevent the?super-volcano?from > sending us into the history books. Not that there would be any history books. :-) > The problem is, we like to take the > easy/cheap way, instead of the long-term responsible way...so we'd pollute > the area, and destroy the balance; because it was cheaper. If we could do it at all, that might still be a long term good trade-off. Geothermal itself is relatively clean, though what you do with it might not be. If you could steal enough energy to make a difference, it would be a huge power source. The environmental damage of a super volcanic eruption (which could lead to a 90% reduction in the overall population of people world wide) seems more than any industrial complex I can imagine. Parenthetically... why do we even have a hot spot under Yellowstone? It has been there for a very long time. I have heard a hypothesis for the hot spot under Hawaii... but that theory doesn't fit for Yellowstone. The Hawaiian hypothesis noted that the hot spot now under the new underwater island near the big island is at the same place on our planet as the great spot on Jupiter. Perhaps the same fluid dynamics that cause the great spot are at work in the magma under the earth's surface? It's an interesting theory, but I don't know if serious scientists give it the time of day. It could just be a strange coincidence, with the Yellowstone hot spot being contrary evidence... I haven't heard if there is a similar hot spot under Tambora (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bqpOTJAAwBU), or the Kamchatka peninsula (which has similar geothermal properties to Yellowstone). I actually got very side tracked here, as there is apparently a newly discovered (2006) supervolcano in Kamchatka, but it isn't widely known. More on this later. >> Eugen: Geothermal is a niche. It can be an important niche for some >> locations, but in the great total it doesn't matter that much. > > What about ground loops, versus wells. ?5-8' deep loops, 100's or 1000's of > meters in length, acting as the 'heatsink'. ?I'm thinking of geo in terms of > a supplementation to home heating/cooling?solutions. ?Granted, some areas > don't have open space to trench in this manner, but I've heard that > lakes/ponds are also good sources. Lakes and ponds have convection currents that allow them to dissipate heat in just the way that in ground systems take advantage of. So I would assume that water based systems wouldn't work quite as well as underground systems since they generally change temperature more with the seasons. I did a lot of caving in my youth, and was always impressed that while it was ten degrees outside, it was always comfortable in the cave. I have always had my doubts about these in ground systems, in that the sizing of the system to prevent the slow cooling of the ground in the winter would have to be very large, making them expensive. Basically, it is a heat pump that takes advantage of the constant 55 degree temperature of the underground below a certain depth. The heat pump has to work much less to extract heat from 55 degrees than from 10 degrees. >> You can also deplete the local reservoir very easily and/or >> cause earthquakes and ground sinking if you don't know where >> you're doing. E.g. my place is tapping the Malm karst >> geothermal aquifer, which is somewhat anomalously high >> http://www.liag-hannover.de/fileadmin/produkte/20070713113243.pdf >> and uses to adjacent well to reinject the Kalina cycle-depleted water, >> causing a cooler plume dowstream so you must take care with >> well spacing and alignment. > > Yeah, see I'm thinking more along the lines of using the top layer of ground > to act as a?heat-sink?for our homes...not so much tapping into giant > geo-thermal geysers n' such. > In winter I'd only need to heat from 55-70 or so, so approx 15degrees of > difference, which would come by way of a high efficiency natural gas boiler. > ?During summer, the geo would MORE than cool the home enough, requiring no > supplementation. There are issues of condensation and humidity to be dealt with in such systems. These are not insurmountable problems, but they do require a bit of additional energy to be introduced into the system. I tried to talk my in floor heating guy into circulating cold water through the in floor heating system in the summer, and he was very much against it on these grounds. >?Certainly the energy savings from this setup would > be?sizable. ?If millions of homes across the globe did this, that'd be a lot > of coal/oil not being burned. Once again it is the short term capital vs the long term cost. Same economics as PV panels and wind turbines. Also, you need a particular geology to make the excavation pay off. Too much rock, and it just doesn't pay. > Once the loops are ran/connected, there's no reason we can't use the land > for other purposes right? ?We could still grow crops over them, have animals > graze, etc. Yes, but the systems aren't all that big... > I see what you're saying though, it's a regional thing. ?Not everywhere is > suited for this type of system. ?But isn't it a good idea to implement it in > the areas where we can? ?It's nothing but some trenches, and tubing, some > anti-freeze and plumbing equipment etc. Yes, conceptually it is pretty simple, but in practice it is a bit more complex. The trenches have to be pretty deep, repairing leaks is very difficult so you have to design so that there aren't likely to be any, you have to deal with ground water and condensation in various parts of the system. Almost anything is simpler in theory than in practice, so don't let me discourage you. It has been done successfully. It is not cheap. It is not easy. Unless you compare it to something like orbiting solar power satellites or nuclear power plants... :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 15:32:54 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:32:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I have not been commenting here lately. ?But after reading this > thread, and the lack of critical comment, I have concluded I am the > only person on the list who has designed power supplies for commercial > products. I sure haven't! I flunked out of EE and fell to the dark side of Computer Science. All I have is a crappy little PV solar system that is constantly giving me trouble... I'd like a better one please. :-) -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 20 15:32:30 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:32:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110420122216.GK23560@leitl.org> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <00e801cbfee2$5fd8f870$1f8ae950$@att.net> <20110420122216.GK23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <005d01cbff70$29fc6d20$7df54760$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power On Tue, Apr 19, 2011 at 03:37:31PM -0700, spike wrote: >> Oh wait. Do you suppose the undergrads thought of this trick, and >> slipped some nickel plated copper into the lab (labeled pure nickel) >> when the professors weren't looking? >"The professors" are crooks. Much simpler explanation >http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=198040 OK thanks Eugen. I am interested in how these kinds of things can be done from a technology point of view: all the many anti-gravity machines for instance, that draw a bunch of gullible investors from a demonstration, after which the inventor flees with the money, or perhaps is involved in a terrible and suspicious accident, in which the body is never found, that sort of thing. I am old enough to have seen plenty of these over the years. I did some looking at nucleon energies of nickel and copper. If someone is starting with a clean sheet of paper to convince investors they had figured out cold fusion, those two metals would be the chosen ones. Nickel is super abundant and cheap. It doesn't take much of it to create a lot of energy if you could somehow get muon-catalyzed proton capture to work. Nickel and copper are chemically compatible enough that one can electroplate nickel onto copper granules and *I think* copper could be plated onto nickel granules. I have never tried to copper plate nickel, but we used to flash nickel onto copper surfaces in order to make gold/lead/tin interfaces which minimize galvanic action in high-reliability electrical interconnects in satellites. I know that copper and nickel like each other. When these "professors" get caught, I hope the technical details come out: did they bother with copper plating nickel? Or did they nickel plate copper, then use the device to dissolve the plating? The trick is that copper plated nickel would be durn near impossible to distinguish non-destructively from pure copper granules. Similarly, nickel plated copper would be near impossible to distinguish from pure nickel. I still never did figure out how they suggested any *stable* copper isotope could be formed by proton capture from any nickel isotope common enough to be relevant. Perhaps they are hoping we have forgotten how to read our nucleon charts? I haven't forgotten. General rule: if you look anywhere on the periodic table, choose any element and take the stable isotope with the most neutrons. Add one proton (by some mysterious means), moving one position to the right on that table. The resulting isotope will in general be radioactive, or almost certainly less stable than the previous nucleus. But don't worry, muons don't live long enough to reach out and grab a proton. Too bad for us. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 15:47:38 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:47:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:12 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > When we're looking at kW/kg, we shouldn't forget that the > kg is at ~Mach 25, and it came from the bottom of the gravity > well which taxes your EROEI -- unless it came from lunar material. How much of the material necessary to create solar power satellites is easily obtainable from the moon? Also, the rocket that runs from a laser based on the ground... could that work from the moon just as well? What would the propellant be? Since there are no airplanes on the moon, it seems like a bit safer/easier place for that system. I assume the water from the moon topic has been done here. http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space.html -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 20 15:39:33 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:39:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <4DAED5DA.2030707@gnolls.org> References: <4DAED5DA.2030707@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <005e01cbff71$25c536a0$714fa3e0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of J. Stanton ... Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations ... Spike wrote: >> Humans radiated out of Africa long enough ago that they would have > been time for digestive systems to evolve variations dependent on > where the genetically isolated subgroups of humans evolved. For > instance, the Inuits have developed the ability to subsist entirely on > meat, whereas the Europeans tend to develop gout and ketosis if we try that. >...I love you, Spike, but there are a couple problems here. >...First, the idea that meat (or purines in general) cause gout is an old myth. Fructose is the primary driver of blood uric acid, and, therefore, gout: http://paleozonenutrition.wordpress.com/2010/11/17/gout-and-fructose/...JS Cool thanks J. What do you think of my notion that human groups radiated long enough ago that some (limited) digestive system adaptations and genetic drift have had time to occurr, which allow some humans to do things with their diet that others cannot do? Seems like there should be plenty of documentation on variation of digestive system anatomy within the species. spike From rpwl at lightlink.com Wed Apr 20 15:55:23 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:55:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > What else would you expect from the LA Times? Like nearly every other > paper in America, it is terribly liberal in it's views. Oh god not this again. The idea that the press is "liberal" is so manifesty false that it is not worth arguing with anyone who would argue otherwise. Only in a country in which the right defines the word "liberal" to be synonymous with "questioning an extreme right-wing position in any way whatsoever", can the newspapers be considered "liberal". The Guardian is liberal. The Morning Star is extreme liberal/communist. Anything to the right of those is either centrist (The Independent) or slightly right of center (New York Times) or further to the right. Richard Loosemore From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 20 15:56:03 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:56:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >...All I have is a crappy little PV solar system that is constantly giving me trouble... I'd like a better one please. :-) -Kelly Kelly that one offhanded comment has my full and undivided attention. I have always assumed any rooftop PV system is pay the initial cost, install, forget. Now you have me worried. Do feel free to elaborate in arbitrary detail. Did you keep records on what went wrong when, and how much it cost to fix, and did you personally have the tech expertise to repair it yourself, or did you need to call in proles to help? I have a friend who is installing a hundred kWh peak on a ranch in Oregon to run pumps. I am concerned, his brother is worried, he is terrified. spike From rpwl at lightlink.com Wed Apr 20 15:57:29 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:57:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4DAF0269.5010907@lightlink.com> BillK wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:46 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: >> On 4/20/2011 1:23 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >>> What else would you expect from the LA Times? Like nearly every other >>> paper in America, it is terribly liberal in it is views. >> Like that notorious flaming Red, P. J. O'Rourke: >> >> >> > > > The comments (pro and against) are also fun to read. > > Quote: > * Nergol wrote: > > ?There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old?s > life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish > fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its > unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially > crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of > course, involves orcs.? ? John Rogers Ack!! This cheered up a gloomy morning. :-) Thanks! Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Wed Apr 20 15:59:29 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:59:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> John Grigg wrote: > This is perhaps a baby step toward uploading... > > http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/worlds-first-human-brain-map-u.html My only problem with this is that it is only really a kind of map .... as far as I can make out it tells a lot about gene expression, but not about connectivity, and unfortunately the gene expression story is several steps removed from telling me anything about functionality. Richard Loosemore From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 20 16:03:34 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:03:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike: Yes, I was a little surprised at not being interviewed for the film. I presume it's either because I'm not famous enough (most likely) or because I'm a Singularity skeptic (but didn't the director include others?). The shots of Ray, Shatner, and me (Natasha was also nearby) were taken at the reception after Shatner's very entertaining and remarkably well-informed talk at the Chicago TransVision conference in 2007. (If it's online and you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it.) --- Max 2011/4/15 spike > Kurzweil?s movie Transcendent Man was shown at a premier last night at > the SF Palace of Fine Arts. I liked it! Some minor complaints, but overall > I would rate it very good to low end of the excellent range, certainly worth > my time. I saw a lot of familiar faces in the movie from years of hanging > out with that crowd. One scene, Kurzweil is conversing with William > Shatner. In the background of that scene was a person looking the other way > whose hair looked like Max More?s. Right at the end of that scene, Ray and > Bill look at the camera and Max turns facing the camera, between the other > two, perhaps 10 feet behind them. Biggest complaint: why the hell didn?t > they have interviews with Max? > > > > There are several people who hang out at Eliezer?s singularity events in > there, such as Ben Goertzel and others. Ben is interviewed at length, > wearing his trademark black and white tiger hat. What?s up with that? > > > > Summary of complaints: missing interviews or scenes with major players in > the field, too much of several minor players, too many references to > religion and Ray?s father, no mention of cryonics, no sufficient explanation > of the modern version of uploading. > > > > Good clean fun however. > > > > More commentary later, on my way out. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 16:11:36 2011 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:11:36 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DAF0269.5010907@lightlink.com> References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> <4DAF0269.5010907@lightlink.com> Message-ID: > > BillK wrote: > >> >> >> The comments (pro and against) are also fun to read. >> >> Quote: >> * Nergol wrote: >> >> ?There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old?s >> life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish >> fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its >> unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially >> crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of >> course, involves orcs.? ? John Rogers >> > Absolutely fantastic. Too many of my peers think objectivism is a tenable worldview... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rpwl at lightlink.com Wed Apr 20 16:23:58 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 12:23:58 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> <4DAF0269.5010907@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DAF089E.3060208@lightlink.com> Will Steinberg wrote: > BillK wrote: > ?There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old?s > life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish > fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its > unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially > crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The > other, of > course, involves orcs.? ? John Rogers > > Absolutely fantastic. Too many of my peers think objectivism is a > tenable worldview... Orcs, on the other hand, are only too real. They make up at least 50% of the population of internet mailing lists.... :-) Richard Loosemore From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Apr 20 16:03:15 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:03:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Reminder: Humanity+ @ Parsons The New School for Design - May 14-15 New York City Message-ID: http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Human ity+ at Parsons_NYC_PressRelease-1.pdf How will world class designers such as Vivian Rosenthal , Scott Draves , Benjamin Bratton , address transhumanism and how will transhumanists approach design? What new ideas will emerge when "Transhumanism Meets Design"? -- Come and see! Register here! http://www.eventbrite.com/event/1089760503 Venue, travel, etc.: http://humanityplus.org/conferences/parsons/logistics/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: H+ at ParsonsWebsiteHomePageI copy.PNG Type: image/png Size: 20539 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 16:46:34 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:46:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:12 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 07:52:39AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> The question is cost, and that's almost all due to the high cost of >> rockets to get millions of tons of power satellite parts to GEO. > > The question is not just cost (by the way, have a look at > http://www.fastcompany.com/1745113/what-happens-when-solar-power-is-as-cheap-as-coal ) > the problem is EROEI. I looked at this in some detail from the perspective of a moving cable (loop) space elevator. That's the gold standard for lifting stuff to GEO, being slightly more than 100% efficient. (Ask if you can't figure out why.) Takes (round numbers) 15 kWh per kg. Reasonable number for power sat mass is 5 kg/kW. A good way to look at energy return on energy invested is how long it takes to get a payback. For ground solar or wind it's measured in years. For a power satellite made with stuff brought up by elevator, 5 kg will take 75 kWh to lift it. The 5 kg makes 1 kw, so the payback time is just over *3 days.* Chemical rockets are around 2.5% efficient so the payback time is 40 times that long or about 120 days. For the laser part, it draws around a GW to send 60 t/h to GEO. (Starting from a sub orbital boost by the Skylon.) 1 M kW/60,000kg is 17 kWh/kg The Skylon phase burns 66807 kg of hydrogen per launch. The energy content for three per hour would be 14029470 kWh (at 70 kW/kg), or 233 kWh/kg. Together, 250 kWh/kg, (6% efficient) so material for a kW of production would take 1250 kWh to lift--which gives an energy payback time of around 52 days. By renewable energy standards, that's amazingly good. See any problems with the logic or math? > When we're looking at kW/kg, we shouldn't forget that the > kg is at ~Mach 25, and it came from the bottom of the gravity > well which taxes your EROEI -- unless it came from lunar material. Later in power sat production it's worth going after lunar material just so you don't need to be flying so often. But the way to go after lunar material is with a moving cable elevator out through L1. It takes an investment of around 100,000 tons and pays back the investment at around a 1000 tons per day (pays back in mass in 100 days). But you really need big lift capacity from the earth before you go after lunar materials. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 16:53:38 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 09:53:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:47 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: snip > How much of the material necessary to create solar power satellites is > easily obtainable from the moon? 100% after a few decades of building up an industrial base. 20-30% with minimal processing to make heat sink fluid (grind to find dust) and none for space anchors where you can use any mass. > Also, the rocket that runs from a laser based on the ground... could > that work from the moon just as well? What would the propellant be? > Since there are no airplanes on the moon, it seems like a bit > safer/easier place for that system. >From the moon you use a loop elevator. It's a much better approach. > I assume the water from the moon topic has been done here. > http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space.html The problem is the water is at the poles and the elevator comes down in the center of the near side (500 km or so radius around the center should work). Trucks or railroads might work. Keith From max at maxmore.com Wed Apr 20 17:10:24 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 10:10:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] NASA's future depends on spaceflight neophytes Message-ID: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42667942/ns/technology_and_science-space/ Opinions on the author's slant? Spike? Others? --- Max -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 18:03:52 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 20:03:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Meat and the paleo diet, again In-Reply-To: <022c01cbfd50$8ea0e070$abe2a150$@att.net> References: <39468.96191.qm@web114407.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <2AB51CE68FC94BE383CA9A49653AE2B9@DFC68LF1> <022c01cbfd50$8ea0e070$abe2a150$@att.net> Message-ID: On 18 April 2011 00:40, spike wrote: > Something I have wondered about, being a sushi lover: can it be arranged to > devour the beasts so fresh they are still alive? > Raw shellfish, say, oysters, are routinely eaten alive even in the west. As for Japan, I have been served with live lobster, and with live fish in beer. Then there is monkey brain eaten from the animal in India... > >...It seems that there is a solution though. Rather than breeding and > killing animals, we should be harvesting meat that has the best health > benefits (and enough calories) for the bio-body. ...Natasha > > Ja. I am still hoping for figuring out how to create meat without the rest > of the beast. > Yes. This is also a terrible waste. As far as I know, we are by now able to produce a kind of low-quality hamburger, and not on industrial scale, but I am sure things will improve. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 20 18:32:13 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 11:32:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] NASA's future depends on spaceflight neophytes In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <004e01cbff89$4548ea40$cfdabec0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Subject: [ExI] NASA's future depends on spaceflight neophytes http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42667942/ns/technology_and_science-space/ Opinions on the author's slant? Spike? Others? --- Max Max, do let me preface my comments here by saying I have been a Jay Barbree follower for a long time, since my childhood. He goes back that far. I think Jay has it right here, with a few exceptions, which I will note. Earlier today we saw Keith and Kelly commenting on lunar manufacturing. We are still lacking *some* of the necessary control technology to do something like that, but in the long run, I see most of the interesting space infrastructure construction needing advanced robotics. Reasoning: if we make launchers man-rated, we need to give away too much payload to increased safety margins. We have man-rated vehicles, but they are inherently expensive. If we are willing to go with non-man-rated launchers, I can imagine something like a four-stage all-solid rocket, and yes I know solids are dirty and low tech and we space guys are supposed to hate them, but do read on. We can piggy-back off of the Trident nuke delivery system, so the manufacturing process is already in place (Morton Thiokol), we can stack two Trident first stages and use a beefed-up first to second interstage without a lot of redesign, plus the tooling to make these already exists, the tooling and facilities to make the huge aluminum billets is already in place, everything needed to carve the billet into an interstage exists in Sunnyvale California in building 181, grinding away 24/7, software already written to do all that, we already have all the hoisting and logistics infrastructure for those Trident first stages and all the other smaller stages in Utah, we have launch facilities at Vandenberg for high latitude orbits and at Cape Canaveral for low latitude, we have the most of the control algorithms to keep such a thing flying pointy end first, we have all this stuff already and plenty of guys who will work their asses off, eagerly at reasonable cost to make it all happen. But much of that doesn't apply to man-rated vehicles. So my notion is this: rig up a four stage all-solid with something like a Mercury capsule on top if we feel we really must carry an ape, with one of those emergency egress towers on top, and recognize that this venture is risky as hell, probably not as risky as climbing Mount Everest which doesn't accomplish a damn thing, good luck and evolution speed, let's light this candle. Better still, do everything will completely autonomous contructobots. spike . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From js_exi at gnolls.org Wed Apr 20 20:02:41 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:02:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digestive adaptations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAF3BE1.7030300@gnolls.org> Spike wrote: > What do you think of my notion that human groups radiated long enough ago > that some (limited) digestive system adaptations and genetic drift have had > time to occurr, which allow some humans to do things with their diet that > others cannot do? Seems like there should be plenty of documentation on > variation of digestive system anatomy within the species. You're absolutely correct -- just in regard to different issues. Classic example 1 is celiac. There is genetic evidence for this in the MHC gene complex: the HLA haplotypes associated with celiac are less common among populations that have been agriculturalists for longer. Simoons, F. J. 1981. Celiac disease as a geographic problem. In Food, nutrition and evolution, ed. D. N. Walcher and N. Kretchmer, pp. 179?99 (unfortunately not available online in any form I can find) Classic example 2 is lactase persistence, i.e. the ability to enzymatically digest lactose through adulthood. (Note that most people can digest small amounts of lactose via bacteria in the colon.) Lactose intolerance varies by population from a few percent to basically 100%. (There is also speculation that an ability to deal well with a high-carbohydrate diet is genetically determined to some degree, based on the prevalence of obesity and diabetes in recently 'civilized' traditional cultures. However, I'm unaware of any research that pinpoints a genetic difference, and many of these effects are also epigenetically effected.) However, as far as ability to digest fat, the obvious counterexamples are the aforementioned Inuit (already mentioned) and the Maasai (an African tribe of pastoralists who live almost entirely on milk, meat, and cow's blood). In both cases, when traditional Inuit or Maasai move to 'civilization' and begin eating Western foods, they suffer atherosclerosis and heart disease. Another example is Australian aboriginals on a Western diet, who have one of the worst rates of heart disease in the world despite one of the lowest blood cholesterol levels. JS http//www.gnolls.org From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Apr 20 20:35:44 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:35:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations Message-ID: <20110420133544.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.99b1891822.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "J. Stanton" wrote, > http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7219473.stm > "Men who consume two or more sugary soft drinks a day have an 85% higher > risk of gout compared with those who drink less than one a month, a > study suggests." ... "Diet soft drinks did not increase the risk of gout > but fruit juice and fructose rich fruits (apples and oranges) were > associated with a higher risk, the researchers said." That study is outdated. It only found a correlation. But correlation is not causation. Follow-up experiments to test actual causation showed that increased fructose intake does not increase uric acid or cause gout. . -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From sparge at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 20:46:52 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:46:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations Message-ID: On Apr 20, 2011 4:36 PM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > That study is outdated. It only found a correlation. But correlation > is not causation. Follow-up experiments to test actual causation showed > that increased fructose intake does not increase uric acid or cause > gout. . Seriously? The author of that paper is a full-time employee of Archer Daniels Midland. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Apr 20 20:48:23 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:48:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations Message-ID: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "spike" wrote, > What do you think of my notion that human groups radiated long enough ago > that some (limited) digestive system adaptations and genetic drift have had > time to occurr, which allow some humans to do things with their diet that > others cannot do? Seems like there should be plenty of documentation on > variation of digestive system anatomy within the species. > > spike This is absolutely correct. The best know example is, of course, lactose intolerance. Early Africans could not digest lactose, but the European population quickly spread the ability to digest lactose. They didn't necessarily develop the ability from scratch. It might have been a pre-existing ability in a small percent of the population. However, those with that ability thrived over the generations and spread this genetic ability fairly quickly in the European environment. People often confuse the speed of individual mutations with the speed of population adaptation. Developing a mutation to digest lactose may have taken a long time. But spreading that mutation once it became advantageous could occur very quickly. -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From js_exi at gnolls.org Wed Apr 20 20:58:40 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:58:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and primary sources In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAF4900.5060604@gnolls.org> BillK wrote: > These articles don't say that fructose causes gout. > They say that fructose might be one of many factors that aggravate gout. They also show that fructose consumption is much more strongly associated with gout than meat consumption. (And I can't figure out if the studies that show gout correlated with meat control for sugar or alcohol intake...this is the problem with associational studies. Red meat and alcohol consumption correlate reasonably well AFAIK.) However, it is most important to understand the mechanisms by which gout occurs. The body retains uric acid in the blood because it's a powerful antioxidant: high uric acid levels are associated with oxidative stress. Further in support of its protective role, uric acid levels correlate with lifespan in primates: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6532339 Dietary purine is mostly a red herring: more purines in = more uric acid excreted. The important question is "What causes the body to retain uric acid?" And an important part of that is most likely that fructose is tremendously reactive in vivo (~10x more than glucose) and the body retains uric acid in the presence of fructose in order to reduce oxidative stress. This is a perfectly reasonable response in an evolutionary milieu that lacks refined sugar, HFCS, and fruits bred to contain pathological quantities of fructose. > I prefer to believe what sites like WebMD say, rather than paleo > support sites where almost everything can apparently be cured by a > paleo diet. I have no interest in "believing" anything. I want to know how things work, or admit that I don't. As one of the foundational principles of any reasonable paleo diet is to greatly reduce fructose intake, it is unsurprising that gout is a solvable problem via eating paleo. Moving on: Both the articles I linked feature plenty of primary source citations. WebMD is not a primary source. It is an advertising-sponsored, for-profit institution. And their articles don't appear to ever cite any primary sources. WebMD doesnt provide a list of sponsors, but here are some I found by removing my ad-blocker and clicking on sponsored articles: Forest Laboratories Procter & Gamble Eli Lilly Cephalon Amgen Pfizer In other words, 100% of their sponsors are drug companies. I prefer to get information from peer-reviewed and unsponsored sources that cite and link their primary sources. > Gout often has nothing at all to do with diet. Genetics, obesity, > alcohol consumption, enzyme deficiency or even some medications can > cause or aggravate the condition. Obviously there is variation in susceptibility to gout! However, it is trivially untrue to say it has nothing to do with diet (of which alcohol consumption is a known part). JS http://www.gnolls.org From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 20 21:08:37 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:08:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DAF4B55.2030905@aleph.se> Max More wrote: > Spike: Yes, I was a little surprised at not being interviewed for the > film. I presume it's either because I'm not famous enough (most > likely) or because I'm a Singularity skeptic (but didn't the director > include others?). Overall, the filmmaker seemed to choose people according to some non-obvious scheme. I think few good arguments were shown from critics or supporters, yet he had apparently filmed a whole host of people who did not even appear in the film. But I suspect he was less interested in a talking heads movie where people give firm arguments and rebuttals, and more a movie about the grand circle around Ray. > > The shots of Ray, Shatner, and me (Natasha was also nearby) were taken > at the reception after Shatner's very entertaining and remarkably > well-informed talk at the Chicago TransVision conference in 2007. (If > it's online and you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it.) > I recognized it, and was pretty amused by knowing that I was indirectly in the movie, only visible in reflections in wine glasses and chandeliers :-) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Apr 20 21:11:15 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:11:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled In-Reply-To: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DAF4BF3.3010404@aleph.se> Richard Loosemore wrote: > John Grigg wrote: >> This is perhaps a baby step toward uploading... >> >> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/worlds-first-human-brain-map-u.html >> > > My only problem with this is that it is only really a kind of map .... > as far as I can make out it tells a lot about gene expression, but not > about connectivity, and unfortunately the gene expression story is > several steps removed from telling me anything about functionality. The real use is for figuring out chemical and developmental modularity, which we can then use for drug or nanoparticle targeting. The real fun starts when we have this, the connectome and some close-up studies of how different expression patterns correlate with neuron types. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From mail at harveynewstrom.com Wed Apr 20 20:51:24 2011 From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:51:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations Message-ID: <20110420135124.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.ff6fcb941e.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> "J. Stanton" wrote, > I'll get back to Harvey's stuff in a bit No hurry. I understand that you are busy. And people want me to read some books and websites before continuing. (I get the impression that this topic keeps coming around, anyway.) -- Harvey Newstrom, Security Consultant, CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Wed Apr 20 22:52:25 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:52:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <003301cbffad$a0bf2e60$e23d8b20$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Dave Sill wrote, > On Apr 20, 2011 4:36 PM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > > > That study is outdated. ?It only found a correlation. ?But correlation > > is not causation. ?Follow-up experiments to test actual causation showed > > that increased fructose intake does not increase uric acid or cause > > gout. ?. > > Seriously? The author of that paper is a full-time employee of Archer Daniels Midland. Yes. And he did a wonderful job establishing correlation and proposing a hypothesis. But that's not a conclusion, according to the scientific method. The scientific method requires hypotheses to be tested experimentally. When we did that, we determined that fructose intake does not raise uric acid levels. This in no way detracts from this guy's career. He did good science. It's just that you shouldn't be referencing his intermediate correlations or hypothesis while ignoring the experimental results. By doing so, you are referring to outdated data when later date further along the scientific sequence is available. So if you don't agree with my representation of the scientific method, steps, and conclusion, enlighten me. What sequence of steps did you use to determine that the original hypothesis is correct and the experimental test of it was incorrect? Because you are clearly implying that I am somehow mistaken. But you have not clearly articulated any reason why. From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Apr 20 22:56:19 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 18:56:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled In-Reply-To: <4DAF4BF3.3010404@aleph.se> References: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> <4DAF4BF3.3010404@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20110420185619.ypg7pertsk44sowc@webmail.natasha.cc> Quoting Anders Sandberg : > Richard Loosemore wrote: >> John Grigg wrote: >>> This is perhaps a baby step toward uploading... >>> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/worlds-first-human-brain-map-u.html >> >> My only problem with this is that it is only really a kind of map >> .... as far as I can make out it tells a lot about gene expression, >> but not about connectivity, and unfortunately the gene expression >> story is several steps removed from telling me anything about >> functionality. > > The real use is for figuring out chemical and developmental modularity, > which we can then use for drug or nanoparticle targeting. The real fun > starts when we have this, the connectome and some close-up studies of > how different expression patterns correlate with neuron types. What is the "leading edge technology" that was used to create this computerized brain map? Does this mean that the combination of MRI, DTI, microarry and ISH, form this leading edge technology? But then it says it this is a "gene map" and that RNA was obtained through slicing and dicing. Are there two projects here? From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 20 23:10:16 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:10:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Gout and primary sources In-Reply-To: <4DAF4900.5060604@gnolls.org> References: <4DAF4900.5060604@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:58 PM, J. Stanton wrote: > > WebMD is not a primary source. ?It is an advertising-sponsored, for-profit > institution. ?And their articles don't appear to ever cite any primary > sources. > I only mentioned WebMD because it is the biggest US medical website. And yes, they probably will advertise pills to cure medical conditions. But their medical descriptions and symptom checker are as good as you'll get anywhere. But all the reputable medical sites agree that fructose doesn't cause gout. Try the Mayo clinic if you prefer. Google will provide plenty more sites to check with. You know, of course, that gout was a common disease of the rich Victorians in the UK. And they certainly didn't have fructose drinks available then. > > Obviously there is variation in susceptibility to gout! ?However, it is > trivially untrue to say it has nothing to do with diet (of which alcohol > consumption is a known part). > I didn't say that gout was *never* caused by diet. I said that often it had little to do with diet. >From the Mayo Clinic: You're more likely to develop gout if you have high levels of uric acid in your body. Factors that increase the uric acid level in your body include: * Lifestyle factors. Choices you make in your everyday life may increase your risk of gout. Excessive alcohol use ? generally more than two drinks a day for men and more than one for women ? increases the risk of gout. * Medical conditions. Certain diseases and conditions make it more likely that you'll develop gout. These include untreated high blood pressure (hypertension) and chronic conditions such as diabetes, high levels of fat and cholesterol in the blood (hyperlipidemia), and narrowing of the arteries (arteriosclerosis). * Certain medications. The use of thiazide diuretics ? commonly used to treat hypertension ? and low-dose aspirin also can increase uric acid levels. So can the use of anti-rejection drugs prescribed for people who have undergone an organ transplant. * Family history of gout. If other members of your family have had gout, you're more likely to develop the disease. * Age and sex. Gout occurs more often in men than it does in women, primarily because women tend to have lower uric acid levels than men do. After menopause, however, women's uric acid levels approach those of men. Men also are more likely to develop gout earlier ? usually between the ages of 40 and 50 ? whereas women generally develop signs and symptoms after menopause. --------------- (Note - no mention of fructose drinks). BillK From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 20 23:12:50 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:12:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Digestive adaptations In-Reply-To: <4DAF3BE1.7030300@gnolls.org> References: <4DAF3BE1.7030300@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <004201cbffb0$7923afe0$6b6b0fa0$@att.net> ... On Behalf Of J. Stanton Subject: [ExI] Digestive adaptations Spike wrote: >> What do you think of my notion that human groups radiated long enough >> ago that some (limited) digestive system adaptations and genetic drift have had time to occur... >...You're absolutely correct -- just in regard to different issues. >...Classic example 1 is celiac. There is genetic evidence for this in the MHC gene complex: the HLA haplotypes associated with celiac are less common among populations that have been agriculturalists for longer...JS Cool thanks J. You, Harvey, Max More and others here are my new food hipsters. One of these days I will say to myself something like the classic "If I had known I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself." spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 20 23:26:05 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 16:26:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Harvey Newstrom Subject: Re: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations "spike" wrote, > What do you think of my notion that human groups radiated long enough > ago that some (limited) digestive system adaptations ... > > spike >...This is absolutely correct. The best know example is, of course, lactose intolerance. Early Africans could not digest lactose, but the European population quickly spread the ability to digest lactose...Harvey Newstrom... Cool thanks Harvey. One of these days I plan to get serious on studying what the heck it is I am eating. But not now, I have family emergencies stacked high, plenty to last for the next few months if not 3 to 5 years. When that all blows over I will still be young enough to repent of a lifetime of intemperance, ignorance and outright disregard of reasonable health principles. That being said, I will make this observation. When I was a teenager I was eating to maximize athletic performance (cross country) and to some extent to spare as many beasts as practical. From a health standpoint I experimented much. My intuition from that was that it matters less what one eats than how much one eats. I figured at the time to just hold to moderation and balance, keep the total calories such that I look like... well... like we do. {8^D Seems to have worked. The rest of my family all have diabetes, I don't. I don't push my luck: I can easily imagine developing it. I can still do several pull ups at age 50, and I can still run like the wind. Well, rather I should say, run like the breeze. On a really calm day. Perhaps like a still and sultry, overcast day. Ummm... I can still do pull ups. {8-] spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 00:16:26 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:16:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kurzweil movie In-Reply-To: <4DAF4B55.2030905@aleph.se> References: <002501cbfb7b$c296e810$47c4b830$@att.net> <4DAF4B55.2030905@aleph.se> Message-ID: Max More wrote: The shots of Ray, Shatner, and me (Natasha was also nearby) were taken at the reception after Shatner's very entertaining and remarkably well-informed talk at the Chicago TransVision conference in 2007. (If it's online and you haven't seen it, I recommend watching it.) >>> Anders Sandberg replied: I recognized it, and was pretty amused by knowing that I was indirectly in the movie, only visible in reflections in wine glasses and chandeliers :-) >>> Anders, this is in itself reflective of how you seem to desire a relatively low profile within your professonal and personal life! What would Freud, Rogers, or Jung have to say? John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 21 00:18:54 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 17:18:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 12:46 AM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Like that notorious flaming Red, P. J. O'Rourke: > > > > > I've enjoyed PJ, but I thought his review was very weak. The only point that resonated with me is that those who should shrug are not just the super-wealthy businesspeople, but the producers at every level. A more insightful and surprisingly balanced (given that it's a Rand fan) review is linked from the PJ review comments: http://hustlebear.com/2011/02/28/im-so-relieved-the-atlas-shrugged-movie-was-fantastic/ If they do part 2, they MUST find someone else to play Galt... --- Max -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Apr 21 02:00:49 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 19:00:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> On 04/18/2011 01:33 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 18, 2011 at 12:43:24PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote: >>> He sounds like a creationist. >>> >> Actually, what was said is exactly correct. We can't fully spec out an >> AGI ("traditional blueprint"). It must recursively self-improve. I >> thought this was and has been accepted information in these circles for >> a very long time now. > My beef was with the idea that a more advanced system is > required to produce a less advanced. This is trivially > untrue, because darwinian evolution is extremely stupid, > yet since you can read this message it most assuredly > does work. > > I have never believed into recursive self-improvement. > Nobody is that smart. You just bump up the boundary > condition, and let emergence handle the rest. > Well, ok, partially. To assume that even an AGI will not be smart enough to self-improve on purpose seems like a stretch. Surely evolution is not the only way to get to improvements. - samantha From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Apr 21 02:44:41 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:44:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> References: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> Message-ID: <000c01cbffce$134cb090$39e611b0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> "spike" wrote, > That being said, I will make this observation. When I was a teenager > I was eating to maximize athletic performance (cross country) and to > some extent to spare as many beasts as practical. Good for you! That's probably why you are as young as you are. > My intuition from that was that it matters less what one eats than how > much one eats. I figured at the time to just hold to moderation and > balance, keep the total calories such that I look like... > well... like we do. {8^D Seems to have worked. The rest of my family > all have diabetes, I don't. I don't push my luck: I can easily imagine developing it. Despite "Good Calories, Bad Calories", you are right again. This is what all the studies show. Calories are calories. It doesn't matter the source. > I can still do several pull ups at age 50, and I can still run like the wind. > Well, rather I should say, run like the breeze. On a really calm day. > Perhaps like a still and sultry, overcast day. Ummm... I can still do pull ups. I'm close to 50. I use my Soloflex machine regularly. I try to eat right. And I follow all the latest scientific studies on health. It's not really that difficult. And it's not really as complex or as conflicted as people make out. Although the media likes to tout the underdog, present "both" sides of every issue, and make a controversy out of everything, there really is a consistent understanding of most things in science. We know what we know. We know what we don't know. And we know how our understanding has changed over the years as we grow to learn more. I would say that most "controversies" have 99% of the scientists on one side, and 1% of fringe conspiracy theorists on the other. As real science progresses, real scientists constantly update their position with new data. It really is not the rollercoaster ride of back-and-forth opinions as portrayed in the media. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 21 04:43:00 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 21:43:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <000c01cbffce$134cb090$39e611b0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> <000c01cbffce$134cb090$39e611b0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 7:44 PM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > "spike" wrote, > > That being said, I will make this observation. When I was a teenager > > I was eating to maximize athletic performance (cross country) and to > > some extent to spare as many beasts as practical. > > Good for you! That's probably why you are as young as you are. > No doubt eating less has been good for Spike. Paleo approaches frequently praise intermittent fasting. > > Despite "Good Calories, Bad Calories", you are right again. This is what > all the studies show. Calories are calories. It doesn't matter the > source. > I couldn't disagree more. Apparently haven't yet read "Good Calories, Bad Calories", so I don't understand why you make your "despite" comment here. That book, in my reading, utterly and totally demolished the idea that "calories are calories". (Or, to draw on another thread, as Rand would say: "A is A".) Carbohydrates are metabolized differently than protein and fat. Taubes is very far from the only person to demonstrate this, but his book is the magnum opus on the topic. Aside from different health effects, abundant evidence exists for the greater effectiveness of low-calorie diets in achieving reduction in body fat. Those results cannot be explained on the assumption that "a calorie is a calorie". BTW, your previous comments about sugars being essential for energy contradict not only what I've read but also my experience. This morning I did a session of high-intensity interval training (and yesterday I did a weights workout), with my fast periods at a pace of 6:15 min/mile. I didn't lack for energy, despite being close to zero-carbs over the last few days. (Breakfast today was zero carbs; dinner the night before had just a very few carbs in my spring mix salad.) After switching to a low-carb version of paleo (many paleo variants include considerably more carbs from fruit and some vegetables that I eat), my energy levels are much more stable -- I no longer have the familiar mid-afternoon crash. --- Max -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 05:02:17 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:02:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 8:00 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Well, ok, partially. ? To assume that even an AGI will not be smart enough > to self-improve on purpose seems like a stretch. > > Surely evolution is not the only way to get to improvements. There seems to be a philosophical position on the part of some that you can't design intelligence that is more intelligent than yourself. I think that is just a ridiculous position. Just having an intelligence with the same structure as ours, but on a better substrate, or larger than a physical skull would result in higher intelligence rather trivially. Add a computer type memory without the fuzziness of human memory and you would get better processing. I have never understood the argument that the brain is insufficiently bright to understand itself, since we work in groups... it just confuses me that anyone would take this position. It seems like saying one person could never design a mission to land men on the moon. That may be true, but it is also entirely irrelevant to whether we can accomplish it as a species. -Kelly From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 05:12:41 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 22:12:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement was Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? Message-ID: Thought experiment. Build an AI. Put a clock rate control in that it can mess with. If it is measuring it's performance against an outside clock, it is going to notice that it does better with the clock rate on fast. So it sets it's clock rate to fast, effectively becoming smarter. Seems to me this is self improvement. Keith From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 05:16:48 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:16:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:56 AM, spike wrote: >>...All I have is a crappy little PV solar system that is constantly giving > me trouble... ?I'd like a better one please. :-) > > -Kelly > > Kelly that one offhanded comment has my full and undivided attention. ?I > have always assumed any rooftop PV system is pay the initial cost, install, > forget. I had a boss who once said "Do not confuse sale with install." The sale is the install and forget it model. The install is a bit more complicated. > Now you have me worried. ?Do feel free to elaborate in arbitrary > detail. ?Did you keep records on what went wrong when, and how much it cost > to fix, and did you personally have the tech expertise to repair it > yourself, or did you need to call in proles to help? I have not had the expertise to fix things myself, other than very simple things like putting water into batteries. The major problem is that since solar is so new, the people who are installing and maintaining it are rank amateurs, and usually get it wrong. In my first system, they didn't put in a ground, and that made various electronic equipment fail mysteriously until we figured it out after hiring an electrician that actually knew his head from a hole in the ground. Imagine yourself in 1906 trying to find a reliable automobile mechanic. That is the situation today with solar. The guy who installed my second system (I wasn't here when it was actually installed) has a day job as an emergency room nurse. Sigh. And he's one of the better ones around. The best guy lives three and a half hours away. One of the trickier bits is getting things set up so that the generator is turned on automatically by the system when the batteries need a charge and aren't getting anything from the PV panels. This is important because if you wait for the batteries to run down completely, then turn the generator on manually when the lights go out, you are deep cycling the batteries which leads to short battery life. The system won't work without batteries, so now I'm in the position of waiting until we can afford new batteries before we can use the PV system. I'm running the generator 24/7 until I can put the money together for the new batteries (about $3000). My batteries are only three years old, even though they supposedly can last as much as six years. Keeping them full of water has been a challenging maintenance issue. Before that, I was having to go downstairs and reset the inverter at least a couple of times a week as it would crash for no apparent reason. Blown fuses have also been common with our system. Add to that the normal maintenance of scraping the snow off the roof where the panels are, and it is a significant time investment. You have to like doing it to do this sort of thing. If you live off the road like I do, it is also very difficult to get electricians to come up during the winter. Most don't have their own snow machines, so you have to shuttle them up, etc. But this isn't going to be a problem for people living in town. > I have a friend who is installing a hundred kWh peak on a ranch in Oregon to > run pumps. ?I am concerned, his brother is worried, he is terrified. If the system runs when it is sunny, and doesn't run when it is not sunny, has no batteries and runs on DC, then it probably isn't so bad. Just get a VERY good electrician, which is very hard to find. Maybe an investment in Angie's list?? -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 05:26:38 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:26:38 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: > The idea that the press is "liberal" is so manifesty false that it is not > worth arguing with anyone who would argue otherwise. > > Only in a country in which the right defines the word "liberal" to be > synonymous with "questioning an extreme right-wing position in any way > whatsoever", can the newspapers be considered "liberal". > > The Guardian is liberal. ?The Morning Star is extreme liberal/communist. > ?Anything to the right of those is either centrist (The Independent) or > slightly right of center (New York Times) or further to the right. UCLA is not exactly a bastion of conservatism, but they found it was real... http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx I think the New York Times is very left leaning from the stuff I have read there, but that's just my personal opinion rather than science. The Washington Times is right leaning, as of course is Fox. I'm not going to argue this to death, because I know I won't get anywhere. I am simply stating my own opinion that people who are journalists naturally have a left leaning view of the world. They vote Democrat MUCH more than Republican. That's just a simple fact. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 05:44:42 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Apr 2011 23:44:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > But you really need big lift capacity from the earth before you go > after lunar materials. As I understand it, we have the material science to build a space elevator from the moon with current technology, where the space elevator from earth has to be built with a stronger belt than we can currently produce. That might serve as the basis for an argument to do things from the moon first. -Kelly From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 07:11:34 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:11:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement was Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 1:12 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > Thought experiment. > > Build an AI. ?Put a clock rate control in that it can mess with. > > If it is measuring it's performance against an outside clock, it is > going to notice that it does better with the clock rate on fast. > > So it sets it's clock rate to fast, effectively becoming smarter. > > Seems to me this is self improvement. I think that's self-evident if we agree on the definition and measurement of "smarter" I'd say your own ability to solve any arbitrary engineering problem is sufficiently beyond my own that even with my local clock running at 2X you'd still be smarter than me. So I think the definition of smarter (especially in light of self-control of clock rate) must include some normalizing factor such that "smarter" measures useful/effective output per 'clock.' I think it would be a good realization for the AI to turn the clock all the way up - at least to the optimum of physical constraints such as heat dissipation and energy consumption. Intentionally consuming short-term smart-drugs with the long term effect of destroying the brain is not smart overall. From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 21 07:16:07 2011 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 00:16:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DAFD9B7.2050803@moulton.com> Before we go round and round on this issue of identifying media as liberal or whatever can I suggest we slow down and recognize a few things: 1. The meaning of terms like liberal and conservative vary by time and place. Personally I find these terms usually useless in political discourse and more often than not a hindrance to communication and understanding. Similarly with the terms "left" and "right". 2. Political positions tend not to fit well on a line. A two dimensional chart is arguably better however it is still woefully inadequate. 3. Does this mean that discussion of media and political positions comes to a halt? No. What is required is to look at a media organization and determine the political positions it takes on a wide variety of issues and attempt to understand what reasons are behind the positions. The positions might be the result of long deliberation or it might be the result of the latest opinion poll for boosting circulation and it is quite possible that persons outside the media outlet will not be able to tell the difference. 4. Having a familiarity with a variety of sources is helpful in understanding different perspectives. For example consider magazines; I find it helpful to subscribe to The Economist, Reason and Mother Jones. 5. As far as I can tell every media outlet has a bias; sometimes conscious, sometimes not; sometimes explicit, sometimes not. The point is try to determine the bias and then view the contents of that media outlet with the bias in mind. 6. Do not forget to be self-referential; we all need to examine our own individual biases. Fred From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 07:21:26 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 03:21:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > hiring an electrician that actually knew his head from a hole in the ground. That sounds like a joke: electrician... hole in the ground... sorry, couldn't quite put it into a punchline. Have you calculated ROI on your PV setup compared to lugging electricity in from the grid? I've lived in the northeast megalopolis my whole life; I share a well with my neighbors but I have difficulty imagining non-grid electricity. (upon re-read before send, I realized "Lugging electricity" is the same accidental word play as I quoted from your post) From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 21 08:42:16 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:42:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> It is easy to see an example of self-improving piece of software. Take an optimizing compiler's source code, compile it with optimization using a version that was not compiled in an optimized way, and voila! You have self-improvement. Except that it stops there. It is also easy to make a piece of software that can self-improve by any measurable metric: just generate random variations, measure how well they do, and select the best. This works, but tends to be completely impractical. In the literature we have examples such as AIXI(tl) (potentially unlimited, but in practice too slow) and G?del machines (definitely self-improving, implementable, but likely too slow to matter and possibly limited by what it can prove). So the real question ought to be: can we produce self-improving software that improves *fast*, along an *important* metric and in an *unlimited* way? Getting just two of these will not matter much (with the possible exception of fast but limited improvement along an important metric). We need a proper theory for this! So far the results in theoretical AI have put some constraints on it (e.g. see Shane Legg's "Machine Superintelligence"), but none that seems to matter for the rather pertinent question of whether rapid takeoffs are possible. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 21 08:49:53 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:49:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled In-Reply-To: <20110420185619.ypg7pertsk44sowc@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> <4DAF4BF3.3010404@aleph.se> <20110420185619.ypg7pertsk44sowc@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <4DAFEFB1.9040408@aleph.se> natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > > What is the "leading edge technology" that was used to create this > computerized brain map? Does this mean that the combination of MRI, > DTI, microarry and ISH, form this leading edge technology? > > But then it says it this is a "gene map" and that RNA was obtained > through slicing and dicing. The Allen brain map is one project, and they are using anatomical sampling from two human brains. Not the complete slice and dice I would favor, but taking a sample from roughly every region and measuring what genes are expressed. http://human.brain-map.org/content/WholeBrainMicroarray_WhitePaper_March2011.pdf?1301097406 The conenctome project is separate. http://iic.seas.harvard.edu/research/the-connectome/ -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 09:03:20 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:03:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110421090319.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 09:47:38AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > How much of the material necessary to create solar power satellites is > easily obtainable from the moon? There are multiple ISRU projects under way: http://www.cam.uh.edu/SpaRC/ISRU%202p%20v1%20022007.pdf http://www.highfrontier.org/Archive/Jt/s5.05b.Ignatiev%20Moon%20Base%20Conf%2010-05.pdf etc. > Also, the rocket that runs from a laser based on the ground... could > that work from the moon just as well? What would the propellant be? On the Moon, you can use linear motor/magnetic levitation launches. http://www.physorg.com/news91272157.html You ideally start at one of the poles, creating annular structures to make use of 24/7/365 insolation, and then progressively working yourself towards the equator, building high-voltage transmission to provide power to the night side to avoid shutting down for two weeks. > Since there are no airplanes on the moon, it seems like a bit > safer/easier place for that system. The whole idea is to tap extraterrestrial materials and energy sources to escape the limits of a crowded planet and a vulnerable biosphere. > I assume the water from the moon topic has been done here. > http://www.ted.com/talks/bill_stone_explores_the_earth_and_space.html You don't need much water for ISRU producing materials and launch facilities. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 09:13:40 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:13:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> References: <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110421091340.GS23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 08:56:03AM -0700, spike wrote: > I have a friend who is installing a hundred kWh peak on a ranch in Oregon to 100 kWp is a reasonably big installation for a residential one. What was the price tag, if it's not a secret? Which company did it, and does he have 30+ years manufacturer's warranty, and does the installation company offer warranty of their own? > run pumps. I am concerned, his brother is worried, he is terrified. Current commercial systems are turnkey and give zero trouble. The worst that could happen is hail damage. Is his system insured, and up to which hail grain size? Make sure he's covered. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 09:24:38 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:24:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] World's biggest human brain map unveiled In-Reply-To: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF02E1.4040703@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110421092438.GT23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 11:59:29AM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > John Grigg wrote: >> This is perhaps a baby step toward uploading... >> >> http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/shortsharpscience/2011/04/worlds-first-human-brain-map-u.html > > My only problem with this is that it is only really a kind of map .... It's only one stage of the project: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/04/the-human-brain-atlas/ "Jones: Next up for the Allen Institute is a project that focuses on the wiring of the brain in the mouse; we?ll again take our industrial approaches to build out a highway map of the brain. We?re also excited to have recently brought on board our new Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Christof Koch. With him, we?re going to be figuring out some future strategies for tackling some of the really hard problems in neuroscience related to the encoding of information." > as far as I can make out it tells a lot about gene expression, but not > about connectivity, and unfortunately the gene expression story is > several steps removed from telling me anything about functionality. Oh, I disagree. Observing the genetic expression pattern over space and time tells you a lot about the according molecular and ultrascale machinery. You need this information to be able to make sense from structure. The other part of the puzzle is from in vivo recording. You need all of these to have a chance to succeed. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 09:30:49 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:30:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DAF089E.3060208@lightlink.com> References: <4DAE8F4D.3090909@satx.rr.com> <4DAF0269.5010907@lightlink.com> <4DAF089E.3060208@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110421093049.GU23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 12:23:58PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Orcs, on the other hand, are only too real. They make up at least 50% > of the population of internet mailing lists.... Here be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Internet) From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 10:03:42 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:03:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 09:42:16AM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > It is easy to see an example of self-improving piece of software. Take > an optimizing compiler's source code, compile it with optimization using > a version that was not compiled in an optimized way, and voila! You have > self-improvement. Except that it stops there. Ah, but it doesn't actually enhance your program. Apart from making it run faster, which is a trivial modification. Applied on itself, it doesn't extend the language. It won't rewrite itself or your code to make use of new hardware features, e.g. parallelism, detected at runtime (yes, there's some OpenCL JIT which kinda, sorta does it, but not really). > It is also easy to make a piece of software that can self-improve by any > measurable metric: just generate random variations, measure how well > they do, and select the best. This works, but tends to be completely > impractical. > > In the literature we have examples such as AIXI(tl) (potentially > unlimited, but in practice too slow) and G?del machines (definitely > self-improving, implementable, but likely too slow to matter and > possibly limited by what it can prove). > > So the real question ought to be: can we produce self-improving software > that improves *fast*, along an *important* metric and in an *unlimited* > way? Getting just two of these will not matter much (with the possible > exception of fast but limited improvement along an important metric). We > need a proper theory for this! So far the results in theoretical AI have I am willing to bet good money that there is none. You can use it as a diagnostic: whenever the system starts doing something interesting your analytical approaches start breaking down. Consider an oscillator. A system of coupled oscillators. A system of coupled oscillators using positive-feedback loops. A system of coupled oscillators using negative-feedback loops. A system of oscillators using positive-feedback *and* negative-feedback loops. Oops. Consider formal proofs. It's an infinitely powerful tool, unfortunately of infinitesimal reach. The interesting part is that people continue to be in awe and in great expectation of analystical methods, just because they have been extremely effective in some areas. Which is pretty unreasonable. As long as we continue to treat artificial intelligence as a scientific domain instead of "merely" engineering, we won't be making progress. > put some constraints on it (e.g. see Shane Legg's "Machine > Superintelligence"), but none that seems to matter for the rather > pertinent question of whether rapid takeoffs are possible. Of course rapid takeoffs are possible. I can draw you a blueprint of hardware which will accelerate neural processes by a factor of at least 10^6. The physical limit is somewhere at 10^9. A human civilisation will produce something interesting in a megayear, even if the rate of matter manipulation is limited. And of course you can just look at differences in really effective ultra-high IQ individuals and merely us at arbitrary detail (virtual systems are arbitrarily inspectable), and figure out what the relevant delta is, and instantiate more of these for a particular task. All of this is engineering. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 10:16:40 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:16:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110421101640.GZ23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 03:21:26AM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Have you calculated ROI on your PV setup compared to lugging > electricity in from the grid? I've lived in the northeast megalopolis That would seem to be beyond 100 kUSD, depending on distance which needs to be covered. > my whole life; I share a well with my neighbors but I have difficulty > imagining non-grid electricity. I don't. It's not cost-effective for most locations yet, but it has been done. You see many insular systems every day, without recognizing them as such, unless you're looking out for these. With each passing year the spatial, temporal and design niches can only grow. The nonrenewable only shrink. What I find strange is how few people are being unenthusiastic or outright sceptical about these. Decentral energy production cannot be controlled by monopolies, and they're a key requirement for decentral fabrication, and such basics like extraterrestrial resource utilization. The solid-state revolution never ended. It will continue all the way to machine-phase. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 10:44:18 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:44:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110421104418.GA23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 09:46:34AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > I looked at this in some detail from the perspective of a moving cable > (loop) space elevator. That's the gold standard for lifting stuff to > GEO, being slightly more than 100% efficient. (Ask if you can't > figure out why.) This is all very well, but we don't have such elevators, and the number of launches required to build such an elevator, even if we had theoretical-strength SWNT ribbons (which we don't) would seem enough to wreck major havoc on this planet (look at the environmental footprint of the Shuttle, and Russians are only slightly better). Meanwhile, on the Moon you only need commercial aramide. > Takes (round numbers) 15 kWh per kg. Reasonable number for power sat > mass is 5 kg/kW. A good way to look at energy return on energy > invested is how long it takes to get a payback. For ground solar or > wind it's measured in years. EPBT for current CIGS or CdTe is under a year (EROEI is 40:1 at the moment). The trend is is of course towards better, though it will turn asymptotic at some point. > For a power satellite made with stuff brought up by elevator, 5 kg > will take 75 kWh to lift it. The 5 kg makes 1 kw, so the payback time > is just over *3 days.* > > Chemical rockets are around 2.5% efficient so the payback time is 40 > times that long or about 120 days. Chemical rockets currently means kerosene/LOX or maybe liquid methane/LOX or even liquid hydrogen/LOX. Synfuels will screw with your energy, and e.g. you waste half of energy in liquid hydrogen to liquify it. Including rocket construction, supply chain, the EPBT for chemical rocket-launched SPS is probably never. EROEI needs to be better than 5:1 to bother, so I think chemical rocket SPS is stone cold dead. The only reason you want to do it is to supply global wireless power for military applications, where prices are less relevant. > For the laser part, it draws around a GW to send 60 t/h to GEO. > (Starting from a sub orbital boost by the Skylon.) 1 M kW/60,000kg is > 17 kWh/kg Yes, but Skylons don't yet exist. It is not obvious we can make scramjets to work, though of course I hope we will. > The Skylon phase burns 66807 kg of hydrogen per launch. The energy > content for three per hour would be 14029470 kWh (at 70 kW/kg), or 233 > kWh/kg. > > Together, 250 kWh/kg, (6% efficient) so material for a kW of > production would take 1250 kWh to lift--which gives an energy payback > time of around 52 days. > > By renewable energy standards, that's amazingly good. I think we'll be at EROEI of 100:1 and payback times of few months for terrestrial PV within 20 years or less. I think that would be pretty good. Of course, long-term is self-replicating machine-phase photovoltaics both on Earth and in space. > > See any problems with the logic or math? > > > When we're looking at kW/kg, we shouldn't forget that the > > kg is at ~Mach 25, and it came from the bottom of the gravity > > well which taxes your EROEI -- unless it came from lunar material. > > Later in power sat production it's worth going after lunar material > just so you don't need to be flying so often. But the way to go after > lunar material is with a moving cable elevator out through L1. It I think we'll first get chemical rockets from in-situ synfuels from lunar cryotrap water, and then maglev launches. The advantage of maglev is that it scales, and can produce effectively continous stream of material, and is self-amplifying since you can beam down more power from Earth-Moon space SPS as you run out of available flux. > takes an investment of around 100,000 tons and pays back the > investment at around a 1000 tons per day (pays back in mass in 100 > days). > > But you really need big lift capacity from the earth before you go > after lunar materials. The whole point of boostrap with ISRU is that you need minimal amount of material until you go near self-rep closure of unity, and none after you're above. The ultimate free lunch, long-term. -- 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 From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Apr 21 11:00:01 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:00:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <001201cc0013$45ebc640$d1c352c0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Max More wrote, > The Gary Taubes article cited was far from his best material. It was > merely suggestive. I would strongly recommend his book, > Good Calories, Bad Calories. You'll find ample evidence in favor > of higher-fat diets and against the American orthodoxy, > as you requested. The order tracking webpage says the book reached my local distribution point last night and should be delivered sometime today. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Apr 21 11:57:12 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:57:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: References: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> <000c01cbffce$134cb090$39e611b0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <001301cc001b$433733f0$c9a59bd0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Max More wrote, > I couldn't disagree more. Apparently haven't yet read "Good Calories, Bad > Calories", so I don't understand why you make your "despite" comment here. The book has not yet arrived. I just sent off a previous posting saying that I should get it sometime today. However, even before reading the book, the controversy is well-known in this area. Nobody can follow the field of nutrition for as long as I have and not be familiar with this theory. I have seen it presented, tested, and debunked over and over. It makes a fine hypothesis that should be tested. But all tests I have seen have proven it wrong. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But I have kept an open mind. I have ordered the book and will read it myself to see if the entire body of science is wrong, if the entire liberal media complex have mislead me, and if somehow I missed experimental data in the field that actually supports this hypothesis. And as a scientist, I will be pleasantly surprised if it does, and will gladly adapt my diet based on the new evidence. However, Bayesian statistics lead me to estimate a low probability that this conspiracy-theory scenario will actually pan out to be true. Conspiracy theories seldom do. > BTW, your previous comments about sugars being essential for > energy contradict not only what I've read but??also my experience. I doubt I advocated eating sugar. Sugar is bad. When I say "carbs", I mean "complex carbohydrates", but paleos tend to hear "sugar". (I did give an example of a paleo's "low carb" diet of 20% calories from glucose equaling a "high carb" diet of 80% fructose using the glycemic index. But I was arguing that the terms "low carb" and "high carb" were meaningless, not advocating that one should really consume most calories from sugar.) I have no doubt that you can get plenty of energy from fat. But you have to go into ketosis to do it. And you risk an Atkins-style heart-attack. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 13:35:09 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:35:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> Message-ID: <20110421133509.GP23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 07:00:49PM -0700, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Well, ok, partially. To assume that even an AGI will not be smart > enough to self-improve on purpose seems like a stretch. Let's say you have full write access to your genome. How would you improve yourself? An AI doesn't have any source code. It just has state, plenty of it. Of course inspectable. But improvements by monkeypatching a live system are hard. If you're not layered or modular, with clean interfaces, how do you improve yourself? -- 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 From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 14:23:25 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:23:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> Message-ID: <007601cc002f$ad930c60$08b92520$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson ... >> I have a friend who is installing a hundred kWh peak on a ranch in >> Oregon to run pumps. ?I am concerned, his brother is worried, he is terrified. >If the system runs when it is sunny, and doesn't run when it is not sunny, has no batteries and runs on DC, then it probably isn't so bad. Just get a VERY good electrician, which is very hard to find. Maybe an investment in Angie's list?? -Kelly Thanks Kelly. I can imagine specialty applications like that where one has plenty of land, doesn't use the PV for home electronics (and so is still relying on the commercial grid) but rather uses the PVs to lift water from a deep aquifer to run a center pivot. Out there in the eastern Oregon desert, there is intense sunlight all day every day during the time one needs the water. This would use a lot of PVs, but is still a specialty application. I can imagine this arrangement being very common in the desert US west soon. The notion of maintaining a bunch of lead acid batteries in the home is not attractive. Among other things, you have a huge contamination risk if you have a house fire, plus the room taken up in your house, oy. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 14:37:36 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:37:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:44 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> But you really need big lift capacity from the earth before you go >> after lunar materials. > > As I understand it, we have the material science to build a space > elevator from the moon with current technology, where the space > elevator from earth has to be built with a stronger belt than we can > currently produce. That might serve as the basis for an argument to do > things from the moon first. It true we have the material, Spectra, and it happens that I am the person who ran the calculation for a moving cable elevator off the lunar surface. The counterweight *alone* for a minimum sized (1000 t/day) lunar elevator came in at 65,000 tons. Now if you have a 2500 ton per day materials lift for building power sats you can borrow the parts shipments for 30 days and afford the rest, like 19,000 tons of cable and a 15 MW power plant. But to do this *first* before you have a solid production of power satellites running and haul up the extraction and fabrications plants to make lunar rock into useful parts, well, run the numbers, then multiply them by whatever figure you think it will cost to lift the stuff to GEO or beyond. Keith From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 14:25:46 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:25:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson ... >...I'm not going to argue this to death, because I know I won't get anywhere. I am simply stating my own opinion that people who are journalists naturally have a left leaning view of the world. They vote Democrat MUCH more than Republican. That's just a simple fact. -Kelly Do you remember the journalism majors from when you were in college? Compare them as a group with your engineering majors. What is the most striking difference? {8^D spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 14:41:18 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:41:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: <20110421090319.GQ23560@leitl.org> References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> <20110421090319.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 2:03 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: snip > On the Moon, you can use linear motor/magnetic levitation launches. > http://www.physorg.com/news91272157.html MagLev is *so* 70s. Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 14:44:30 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:44:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <20110417110247.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.0970fbc76f.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> References: <20110417110247.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.0970fbc76f.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> Message-ID: On 17 April 2011 20:02, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > Stefano Vaj wrote, > > Yes, we agree that if must have carbs at all long-chain, hi-fiber, > diluted, > > carbs, in a caloric restriction framework, are a lot safer and healthier. > > > > This is also true for heroin, however, and it could be contended that a > > heroin flash is more satisfactory to many people. :-) > > This is merely an assertion that carbs are as bad as heroin. This is merely an assertion that heroin is bad, which all in all is not really true for anybody at anytime. But, yes, I think that we can live better without both heroin and grains/sugar, and that in most circumstances it would be advisable to do so. > Every cell of our body has mitochondria churning away at the Krebs Cycle > to process carbs for energy. Every muscle in our body burns carbs to > move. Our brain requires carbs to function. We store carbs (as fat) > for later use. > Is there anything different here than what happens to any animal at all? Are we suggesting that, say, "nothing proves that grains are not necessary to a wolf's diet"? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 14:18:46 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:18:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer Message-ID: The father of a good friend of mine has been regrettably diagnosed (well, such diagnoses appear to be really final only after post-mortem investigations, but probability is very high...) to be in the very first stages of Alzheimer. Besides the protein I am folding right now in a Folding at Home task on my PC, I am not really up-to-date with regard to either official state-of-the-art and etherodox approaches. Has anybody some information or sources that he would care to share? -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 15:01:04 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:01:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] pale diet again: RE: It's not only the fittest who survive. In-Reply-To: <007a01cbfebc$ee19dc10$ca4d9430$@att.net> References: <20110419101944.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.cded2fd617.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <007a01cbfebc$ee19dc10$ca4d9430$@att.net> Message-ID: On 19 April 2011 20:09, spike wrote: > For instance, > the Inuits have developed the ability to subsist entirely on meat, whereas > the Europeans tend to develop gout and ketosis if we try that. Same as for scurvy, I believe there is some evidence suggesting that gout has little to do with a diet based on fresh meat and fish, and that once proteins are are mixed with the right balance of fats we do not really need much else. An europoid Norwegian tried to subsist for a couple of years on a purely carnivorous diet, and the only thing he had to do to be perfectly well was to adjust his fat intake. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 14:52:01 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 07:52:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110421091340.GS23560@leitl.org> References: <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> <20110421091340.GS23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <009601cc0033$ac3924e0$04ab6ea0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power >...On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 08:56:03AM -0700, spike wrote: >>... I have a friend who is installing a hundred kWh peak on a ranch in Oregon to >...100 kWp is a reasonably big installation for a residential one. What was the price tag, if it's not a secret? Which company did it, and does he have 30+ years manufacturer's warranty, and does the installation company offer warranty of their own?... I don't have any of these details, but he is the kind of guy who does all his financial calculations carefully (masters degree in electrical engineering.) His installation isn't primarily for residential. His PVs are for farm use, which makes it attractive because of it actually provides it's own load leveling: irrigation goes on when the sun shines. >>... run pumps. I am concerned, his brother is worried, he is terrified. >...Current commercial systems are turnkey and give zero trouble. The worst that could happen is hail damage. Is his system insured, and up to which hail grain size? Make sure he's covered. _______________________________________________ Hail isn't considered a threat out in that part of the desert (eastern Oregon.) That's a good question however: we occasionally get hail in central west coast, thrice already this year, all pea size and smaller. My friend's PV system is experimental: they want to see how well it works out there in anticipation of adding enough to run all the center pivots and wheel lines. If you want to get an idea of what this is, go to Google Maps and look out along John Day Highway (26) out north and west of Jamieson Oregon. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 15:25:47 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:25:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: <20110421104418.GA23560@leitl.org> References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> <20110421104418.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 3:44 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 09:46:34AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> I looked at this in some detail from the perspective of a moving cable >> (loop) space elevator. ?That's the gold standard for lifting stuff to >> GEO, being slightly more than 100% efficient. ?(Ask if you can't >> figure out why.) > > This is all very well, but we don't have such elevators, and > the number of launches required to build such an elevator, even > if we had theoretical-strength SWNT ribbons (which we don't) > would seem enough to wreck major havoc on this planet (look > at the environmental footprint of the Shuttle, and Russians > are only slightly better). _If_ we had the material (which we don't) you only have to lift a small thread to state the project. Then you lift larger and larger cables, doubling the capacity of the cable about 3 times a year. "In the background was the vibration of the 31-foot diameter driver wheels turning at 900 rpm, the whip-cracking sound of the supersonic space elevator cable, reminding Marc of a flag flapping in a strong wind, and the occasional run down and run up of the variable speed cable. The elevator was mostly lifting parts now, but over its life, more than ninety percent of the capacity of the elevator had raised more cable and counterweight. Four more doublings would take it from its current capacity of 125 tons a day to its design capacity of 2,000 tons per day." (From UpLift, the 4th chapter in the saga that includes "the clinic seed.") > Meanwhile, on the Moon you only need commercial aramide. Spectra. Density is very important when designing space elevators. >> Takes (round numbers) 15 kWh per kg. ?Reasonable number for power sat >> mass is 5 kg/kW. ?A good way to look at energy return on energy >> invested is how long it takes to get a payback. ?For ground solar or >> wind it's measured in years. > > EPBT for current CIGS or CdTe is under a year (EROEI is 40:1 at the > moment). The trend is is of course towards better, though it will > turn asymptotic at some point. > >> For a power satellite made with stuff brought up by elevator, 5 kg >> will take 75 kWh to lift it. ?The 5 kg makes 1 kw, so the payback time >> is just over *3 days.* >> >> Chemical rockets are around 2.5% efficient so the payback time is 40 >> times that long or about 120 days. > > Chemical rockets currently means kerosene/LOX or maybe liquid > methane/LOX or even liquid hydrogen/LOX. Synfuels will screw with > your energy, and e.g. you waste half of energy in liquid hydrogen > to liquify it. Takes around 50 kWh/kg to make H2 from water and 20 kWh/kg to liquefy it. > Including rocket construction, supply chain, the > EPBT for chemical rocket-launched SPS is probably never. EROEI > needs to be better than 5:1 to bother, For oil, coal, oil sands, etc, EROEI is a good metric. It's not so on sun or wind renewable energy. There, the more useful metric is time to repay the energy invested in energy out. For single use rockets you may be right, we could work it out given that rockets are mostly aluminum which takes considerable energy to reduce. But reuseable rockets are a different story because the energy cost of the materials is spread over hundreds to thousands of flights, and you can recycle the worn out ones back into metals. > so I think chemical rocket > SPS is stone cold dead. The only reason you want to do it is > to supply global wireless power for military applications, where > prices are less relevant. I have tried to make a case for military SBSP based on current or even projected rockets and just can't do it. >> For the laser part, it draws around a GW to send 60 t/h to GEO. >> (Starting from a sub orbital boost by the Skylon.) ?1 M kW/60,000kg is >> 17 kWh/kg > > Yes, but Skylons don't yet exist. It is not obvious we can > make scramjets to work, though of course I hope we will. The Skylon is a lot closer to existing than a lot of stuff we talk about on this list. >> The Skylon phase burns 66807 kg of hydrogen per launch. ?The energy >> content for three per hour would be 14029470 kWh (at 70 kW/kg), or 233 >> kWh/kg. >> >> Together, 250 kWh/kg, (6% efficient) so material for a kW of >> production would take 1250 kWh to lift--which gives an energy payback >> time of around 52 days. >> >> By renewable energy standards, that's amazingly good. > > I think we'll be at EROEI of 100:1 and payback times of few > months for terrestrial PV within 20 years or less. How are you calculating EROEI for wind or solar? > I think that > would be pretty good. Of course, long-term is self-replicating > machine-phase photovoltaics both on Earth and in space. And you complain Skylon doesn't exist yet? >> See any problems with the logic or math? >> >> > When we're looking at kW/kg, we shouldn't forget that the >> > kg is at ~Mach 25, and it came from the bottom of the gravity >> > well which taxes your EROEI -- unless it came from lunar material. >> >> Later in power sat production it's worth going after lunar material >> just so you don't need to be flying so often. ?But the way to go after >> lunar material is with a moving cable elevator out through L1. ?It > > I think we'll first get chemical rockets from in-situ synfuels > from lunar cryotrap water, and then maglev launches. The advantage > of maglev is that it scales, and can produce effectively continous > stream of material, and is self-amplifying since you can beam > down more power from Earth-Moon space SPS as you run out of > available flux. Hmm. Do you have any idea of how hard maglev is? Do you realize there is just one place on the moon where maglev makes any sense? Ever heard of achromatic orbits? Google achromatic orbit heppenheimer Any idea of the difficulty of catching a stream of packages of lunar dirt with the mass and velocity of an 18th century cannon ball? Don't forget they have shotgun pattern and some will flat out miss the "catcher." A *lot* of thought went into mass drivers back in the 70s. It wasn't easy then and it isn't now. >> takes an investment of around 100,000 tons and pays back the >> investment at around a 1000 tons per day (pays back in mass in 100 >> days). >> >> But you really need big lift capacity from the earth before you go >> after lunar materials. > > The whole point of boostrap with ISRU is that you need minimal > amount of material until you go near self-rep closure of unity, > and none after you're above. The ultimate free lunch, long-term. With full blown nanotechnology a coke can sized payload is all you need to convert the moon to whatever you want. But for the current state of the art, the only study I know about in recent years came in at $2 T and at least 20 years. If you can put numbers on how to do it and support them, I am eager to listen. Keith From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Apr 21 15:39:01 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:39:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> Kelly Anderson wrote: >> The idea that the press is "liberal" is so manifesty false that it is not >> worth arguing with anyone who would argue otherwise. >> >> Only in a country in which the right defines the word "liberal" to be >> synonymous with "questioning an extreme right-wing position in any way >> whatsoever", can the newspapers be considered "liberal". >> >> The Guardian is liberal. The Morning Star is extreme liberal/communist. >> Anything to the right of those is either centrist (The Independent) or >> slightly right of center (New York Times) or further to the right. > > UCLA is not exactly a bastion of conservatism, but they found it was real... > > http://newsroom.ucla.edu/portal/ucla/Media-Bias-Is-Real-Finds-UCLA-6664.aspx > > I think the New York Times is very left leaning from the stuff I have > read there, but that's just my personal opinion rather than science. > The Washington Times is right leaning, as of course is Fox. > > I'm not going to argue this to death, because I know I won't get > anywhere. I am simply stating my own opinion that people who are > journalists naturally have a left leaning view of the world. They vote > Democrat MUCH more than Republican. That's just a simple fact. Do you know what is funny about people in the US? They grow up with an educational system that trains them NEVER to use their own brains to think about something, but instead just take someone else's opinion as fact (as long as the opinion agrees with what they want to believe). So, NEVER read and think about the content of a paper if its conclusion seems to support your point of view. Just cite it as fact. Exhibit A: your reference to the Groseclose and Milyo paper. If you read the report, and think about the methods that Groseclose and Milyo used, you can see that the justification for why their measure should actually correlate with the direction of bias is pathetic. Groseclose and Milyo took a measure of the number of times reporters cited "think tanks", and then they cross-compared that to the number of citations made by politicians, then used the ADA measure (itself normalized to put the House at an average of "centrist"!) to find out how liberal those numbers were. Every link in that chain is a joke. If the vast majority of reporters in the country decided to, say, ignore a huge accumulation of evidence pointing to the fact that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, just before it is due to be invaded on the grounds that it has WMD, ...... but at the very same time that the reporters ignore this overwheleming evidence, they just do not bother to make any pertinent references to various think tanks, this would show up in Groseclose and Milyo's study as ....NOTHING. No evidence of media bias there whatsoever. Or, if those same reporters decided, on the eve of the Iraq war, to bury the story about the biggest anti-war protest in world history on page 23, while devoting their front page to the "historic" news that the British Parliament had decided to ban fox hunting Or: if there is a big breaking news story that General Electric paid no corporate taxes in the last few years, but instead got a massive rebate from the government -- with this being extremely relevant to an ongoing right-wing crusade against the crippling, business-destroying corporate tax rate in this country -- and if the major television news networks decide to say absolutely NOTHING about this story, but instead headlined with a news item about "LOL" getting into the Oxford English Dictionary, this glaring distortion of the news to cover up something embarrassing to the right wing would not make any impact whatsoever on Groseclose and Milyo's statistical measure of media bias. But, hell, don't let yourself be influenced by stupid, embarrassing little facts like these. If the Groseclose and Milyo paper tells you what you want to believe, I am sure it must be true. Richard Loosemore From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 15:39:17 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:39:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 8:25 AM, spike wrote: > Do you remember the journalism majors from when you were in college? No. Never met one to my knowledge... :-) > Compare them as a group with your engineering majors. ?What is the most > striking difference? ?{8^D Ability to make a living? Mathematics? :-) -Kelly From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 15:53:02 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 08:53:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] CCC Message-ID: Just wondered if any of you are going to this http://events.ccc.de/camp/2011/space.html Keith From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 15:47:19 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:47:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 18 April 2011 15:39, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I was disappointed to read this: > > "Ask yourself how it?s possible for a creature of a given intelligence > level to be able to design a creature of greater intelligence. Designing a > creature of superior intelligence requires a level of intelligence that the > designer simply does not have. Therefore, it is logically impossible to use > the traditional blueprint-design approach to create a creature of superior > intelligence" > There again, it sounds as if there is some fundamental flaw of a philosophical nature in this line of reasoning. I am more and more inclined to define "intelligence" simply as the ability to exhibit a universal computation ability - something which, as shown by Wolfram is indeed a very low threshold. I suspect in fact that "human" or "animal" intelligence is nothing else than a universal computation device running a very peculiar program. Accordingly. something more intelligent than something else is simply something performing better at a given task. Now, we already know that we are able to design devices offering better performances than human brains at given tasks (say, adding integers). Why should there be tasks were we would be prevented to do just the same? For instance, I do not see any deep conceptual obstacle to designing devices that perform even better than humans in Turing tests. An entirely different story is the effort required to do so and whether we should consider such achievement as a top priority. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 15:56:02 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 17:56:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 20 April 2011 10:18, Giulio Prisco wrote: > I look fwd to watching the movie, but I hope it is better done than > Rand's books. My problem with Rand is not her ideology, which I find > extreme but often refreshing in its unPCness, but the fact that she is > an awfully boring writer. I am a very avid reader of everything, > novels, SF, thrillers, literature, philosophy, science and everything > else, but I am afraid I never managed to finish a Rand novel. Just too > boring. > I do not like much the choice to set the action in *our* future. What's wrong with ucronias, in the steam-punk style? Sounds like a remake of Metropolis set in 2014 with people looking in their PCs or TV sets. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rpwl at lightlink.com Thu Apr 21 15:58:39 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:58:39 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB0542F.5010800@lightlink.com> Anders Sandberg wrote: > So the real question ought to be: can we produce self-improving software > that improves *fast*, along an *important* metric and in an *unlimited* > way? Getting just two of these will not matter much (with the possible > exception of fast but limited improvement along an important metric). We > need a proper theory for this! So far the results in theoretical AI have > put some constraints on it (e.g. see Shane Legg's "Machine > Superintelligence"), but none that seems to matter for the rather > pertinent question of whether rapid takeoffs are possible. I disagree with the statement that "the results in theoretical AI have put some constraints on it". These theoretical results exploit the fact that there is no objective measure of "intelligence" to get their seemingly useful results, when in fact the results say nothing of importance. To illustrate the point, if I were to define "intelligence" as, say, some kind of entropy measure on the knowledge base of an AI, so that less entroy meant more intelligence, I might be able to use this definition to bring in a boatload of mathematical results from elsewhere, to say an awful lot about AI systems. If, at the same time, I could distract people from asking the awkward question of whether my definition of intelligence actually corresponded to the real thing, I might be able to dazzle a lot of people with all the mathematics, and make them think that I was doing real work. But if that entropic measure was actually not intelligence at all, but just .... well, just a measure of a certain type of entropy, with some faint family resemblance, in some circumstance, to the thing we call "intelligence", then all my mathematical analysis would mean nothing. So it actually is with AIXItl, Godel Machines, Shane Legg's papers, and numerous other "theoretical AI" work. So I agree with you when you say, of that theoretical work, that "none [of these results] seems to matter for the rather pertinent question of whether rapid takeoffs are possible", except that I would have stopped the sentence at "none [of these results] seems to matter." Richard Loosemore From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 16:08:45 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:08:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <007601cc002f$ad930c60$08b92520$@att.net> References: <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> <007601cc002f$ad930c60$08b92520$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110421160845.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 07:23:25AM -0700, spike wrote: > The notion of maintaining a bunch of lead acid batteries in the home is not > attractive. Among other things, you have a huge contamination risk if you > have a house fire, plus the room taken up in your house, oy. Charged lead-acid batteries (or any other batteries, for that matter) can be a considerable hazard. A short will easily make you lose your finger, and exploded lead-acid (nevermind outgassing) have blinded or killed people. -- 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 From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 16:13:08 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 09:13:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <20110421160845.GQ23560@leitl.org> References: <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> <007601cc002f$ad930c60$08b92520$@att.net> <20110421160845.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 9:08 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 07:23:25AM -0700, spike wrote: > >> The notion of maintaining a bunch of lead acid batteries in the home is not >> attractive. ?Among other things, you have a huge contamination risk if you >> have a house fire, plus the room taken up in your house, oy. > > Charged lead-acid batteries (or any other batteries, for that matter) > can be a considerable hazard. A short will easily make you lose your finger, > and exploded lead-acid (nevermind outgassing) have blinded or killed people. Having pried the heat distorted lead acid batteries out of a couple of UPS systems, this may be more common than people think. Keith From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 21 16:26:51 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:26:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> <20110421090319.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110421162651.GR23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 07:41:18AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 2:03 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > snip > > > On the Moon, you can use linear motor/magnetic levitation launches. > > http://www.physorg.com/news91272157.html > > MagLev is *so* 70s. Turbines and ICEs are *so* steampunk. But they continue to provide the bulk of our power. Hybrids are 110 years old http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohner-Porsche_Mixte_Hybrid yet they haven't quite happened. Maglev doesn't yet quite exist apart from test lines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_(transport) nevermind more advanced approaches like mass driver, or launch loop, or space fountain. We've got great technology in the pipeline, but the first steps in SPS will be quite pedestrian, using technology more than 1000 years old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket#In_antiquity ?The future is already here, it is just unevenly distributed.? From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 16:32:13 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:32:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 1:21 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 1:16 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> hiring an electrician that actually knew his head from a hole in the ground. > > That sounds like a joke: electrician... hole in the ground... ?sorry, > couldn't quite put it into a punchline. Perhaps you were thinking that the electrician was not well grounded... ;-) > Have you calculated ROI on your PV setup compared to lugging > electricity in from the grid? The cost of connecting to the grid is somewhere between $75,000 and $150,000. Plus we would have to negotiate running wire across several unfriendly neighbors' property. THEN we get to pay the bill every month. :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 16:45:54 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 10:45:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] solar is looking better all the time: was RE: Efficiency of wind power In-Reply-To: <007601cc002f$ad930c60$08b92520$@att.net> References: <002701cbf4be$be2d3b30$3a87b190$@att.net> <20110413143101.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110417184234.GI23560@leitl.org> <20110418120542.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110418152002.GD23560@leitl.org> <20110419111531.GQ23560@leitl.org> <006c01cbff73$74460960$5cd21c20$@att.net> <007601cc002f$ad930c60$08b92520$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 8:23 AM, spike wrote: > Thanks Kelly. NP. > I can imagine specialty applications like that where one has plenty of land, > doesn't use the PV for home electronics (and so is still relying on the > commercial grid) but rather uses the PVs to lift water from a deep aquifer > to run a center pivot. ?Out there in the eastern Oregon desert, there is > intense sunlight all day every day during the time one needs the water. > This would use a lot of PVs, but is still a specialty application. ?I can > imagine this arrangement being very common in the desert US west soon. Depleting aquifers (largely fossil water) being another interesting sustainability topic... ;-) > The notion of maintaining a bunch of lead acid batteries in the home is not > attractive. ?Among other things, you have a huge contamination risk if you > have a house fire, plus the room taken up in your house, oy. I hadn't considered the batteries in a fire.. not pretty. Space wise, it is all in a big box about three feet wide and four feet long and about two and a half feet tall. So it's not all that big given a rural house. -Kelly From thespike at satx.rr.com Thu Apr 21 17:55:39 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 12:55:39 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DB06F9B.6040100@satx.rr.com> On 4/21/2011 9:25 AM, spike wrote: > Do you remember the journalism majors from when you were in college? > Compare them as a group with your engineering majors. What is the most > striking difference? Journalists got way more action? Damien Broderick From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 21 18:34:41 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:34:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ketogenic diet to replace dialysis? Message-ID: Interesting: A type of low-carb, high-fat diet that's typically used to manage seizures for children with epilepsy could reverse kidney disease in Type 1 and Type 2 diabetics, a new animal study suggests. If successful in humans, the so-called ketogenic diet could have the potential to replace dialysis... http://www.livescience.com/13817-ketogenic-diet-reverses-mice-kidney-disease.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Livesciencecom+%28LiveScience.com+Science+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher -- Max From sparge at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 18:35:45 2011 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:35:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <001301cc001b$433733f0$c9a59bd0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> <000c01cbffce$134cb090$39e611b0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> <001301cc001b$433733f0$c9a59bd0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Apr 21, 2011 8:59 AM, "Harvey Newstrom" wrote: > > I have no doubt that you can get plenty of energy from fat. But you have to > go into ketosis to do it. And you risk an Atkins-style heart-attack. Wow, ketosis causes cardiomyopathy? Who knew? -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 21 18:38:47 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:38:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: Harvey, In my post yesterday, I said "sugars" because that's what all carbohydrate are eventually broken down into for fuel. Since you are going to read Taubes' GCBC, can you suggest a particularly good book that supports the view that saturated fat is bad (and related issues that we've been discussing)? I know I have some books back at the house in Austin that take the standard view, but they may not be current and you can probably suggest a strong source. --- Max From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 21 18:57:48 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:57:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Gout and meat adaptations In-Reply-To: <001301cc001b$433733f0$c9a59bd0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> References: <20110420134823.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.08f117b682.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <004301cbffb2$528dfe10$f7a9fa30$@att.net> <000c01cbffce$134cb090$39e611b0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> <001301cc001b$433733f0$c9a59bd0$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 4:57 AM, Harvey Newstrom wrote: > > I have no doubt that you can get plenty of energy from fat. ?But you have to > go into ketosis to do it. ?And you risk an Atkins-style heart-attack. My understanding is that Atkins had cardiomyopathy most likely due to a viral infection. http://archives.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/diet.fitness/04/25/atkins.diet/index.html "We have been treating this condition, cardiomyopathy, for almost two years," said Patrick Fratellone, Atkins' personal physician and cardiologist. "Clearly, his own nutritional protocols have left him, at the age of 71, with an extraordinarily healthy cardiovascular system." Dr. Clyde Yancy, a cardiologist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and a member of the American Heart Association's national board of directors, said: "Despite the obvious irony, I believe there is a total disconnect between the cardiac arrest and the health approach he (Atkins) popularizes." So I don't take Atkin's death as indicating a risk for me -- especially when my blood fat numbers look good. --- Max -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 20:07:25 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:07:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> Message-ID: <004601cc005f$bc05c690$341153b0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson ... Subject: Re: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 8:25 AM, spike wrote: >> Do you remember the journalism majors from when you were in college? >No. Never met one to my knowledge... :-) They were up on the other end of campus. >> Compare them as a group with your engineering majors. ?What is the most striking difference? ?{8^D >Ability to make a living? Mathematics? :-) -Kelly They all seemed to have such a life of ease. Continuous party, play play play, while we sloggers in the sciences and technical end of the campus were down in the labs, studying our asses off, sweating and praying we would pass the test. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 20:01:10 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:01:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore ... Subject: Re: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review ... >...If the vast majority of reporters in the country decided to, say, ignore a huge accumulation of evidence pointing to the fact that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction, just before it is due to be invaded on the grounds that it has WMD...Richard Loosemore Reporters don't have security clearances. Those with the clearances are not at liberty to report. See George Tenet, former director of the CIA, in his explanation of the reasoning for invading Iraq, Center of the Storm. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 18:50:13 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 11:50:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Skylon as first stage. In-Reply-To: <20110421162651.GR23560@leitl.org> References: <20110420151210.GO23560@leitl.org> <20110421090319.GQ23560@leitl.org> <20110421162651.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 9:26 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 07:41:18AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 2:03 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> >> snip >> >> > On the Moon, you can use linear motor/magnetic levitation launches. >> > http://www.physorg.com/news91272157.html >> >> MagLev is *so* 70s. > > Turbines and ICEs are *so* steampunk. But they continue to provide the bulk > of our power. Turbines run as high as 60% efficient. It is unlike that PV will ever get that good. Commercial ones already mass as little as 1/10th kg/kW. I think they are the best choice for power satellites. snip > > Maglev doesn't yet quite exist apart from test lines > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maglev_(transport) > nevermind more advanced approaches like mass driver, > or launch loop, or space fountain. It bothers me that nobody has built a model of a launch loop. It shouldn't be that hard, particularly if you built it upside down > We've got great technology in the pipeline, but the first > steps in SPS will be quite pedestrian, using technology > more than 1000 years old: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket#In_antiquity That's my opinion. Heating a working fluid (hydrogen) with concentrated light is something Hero of Alexandria would have understood 2000 years ago. "An aeolipile (or aeolipyle, or eolipile), also known as a Hero engine, is a rocket style[1] jet engine[2]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeolipile Keith From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 20:42:22 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:42:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DB06F9B.6040100@satx.rr.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> <4DB06F9B.6040100@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <005201cc0064$9e0f8a90$da2e9fb0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Damien Broderick Subject: Re: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review On 4/21/2011 9:25 AM, spike wrote: >> Do you remember the journalism majors from when you were in college? >> Compare them as a group with your engineering majors. What is the >> most striking difference? >Journalists got way more action? Damien Broderick Waaaaaaay more, orders of magnitude more. I know for a fact there were engineering students who left college still virgins! I don't know if a sexless college life even qualifies as college. spike From max at maxmore.com Thu Apr 21 20:56:50 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 13:56:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <005201cc0064$9e0f8a90$da2e9fb0$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <007701cc0030$01c2de00$05489a00$@att.net> <4DB06F9B.6040100@satx.rr.com> <005201cc0064$9e0f8a90$da2e9fb0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 1:42 PM, spike wrote: > > Waaaaaaay more, orders of magnitude more. ?I know for a fact there were > engineering students who left college still virgins! ?I don't know if a > sexless college life even qualifies as college. The Scholastic philosophical tradition distinguishes between the essence and the accident of a thing. Clearly, to any right-thinking person, having sex is an essential part of the college experience. So, those who left college as virgins, ipso facto (and ceteris paribus and other impressive greek terms) never truly attended college. --- Max From atymes at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 21:21:57 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:21:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: One simple stopgap measure: increased mental activity. Like, a regimen of one Sudoku (or more dedicated stuff, like one Brain Age session) per day. It's no panacea, but odds are it will at least slow the progression, and the potential for backfire is essentially nil. Granted, it might not be as effective as proper medications, but he can start on this while you find out if there are good meds. On Apr 21, 2011 7:50 AM, "Stefano Vaj" wrote: > The father of a good friend of mine has been regrettably diagnosed (well, > such diagnoses appear to be really final only after post-mortem > investigations, but probability is very high...) to be in the very first > stages of Alzheimer. > > Besides the protein I am folding right now in a Folding at Home task on my PC, > I am not really up-to-date with regard to either official state-of-the-art > and etherodox approaches. Has anybody some information or sources that he > would care to share? > > -- > Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 21:53:50 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 14:53:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Apr 21, 2011 8:39 AM, "Richard Loosemore" wrote: > Do you know what is funny about people in the US? They grow up with an educational system that trains them NEVER to use their own brains to think about something, but instead just take someone else's opinion as fact (as long as the opinion agrees with what they want to believe). > > So, NEVER read and think about the content of a paper if its conclusion seems to support your point of view. Just cite it as fact. And yet we find so many more people, per capita, who question this in the US than in, say, China - and immigration does not seem to be able to fully account for the difference. I suspect your condemnation of the educational system is overreaching. (Some people don't think, but some people do...) > If you read the report, and think about the methods that Groseclose and Milyo used, you can see that the justification for why their measure should actually correlate with the direction of bias is pathetic. This, though, seems correct. But then, anything claiming to rigorously prove conservative/liberal leanings is automatically suspect: first, one must rigorously define "conservative" and "liberal", which is notoriously hard to do. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Apr 21 22:13:34 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:13:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 9:39 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Kelly Anderson wrote: A few weeks back (on or about Mar 12, 2011) the entire NBC evening news was (appropriately) devoted to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. But, they did take a minute of the broadcast to inform the American people that Michelle Bachman (darling of the right) got confused about Lexington and Concord being in New Hampshire rather than Massachusetts. Given that there is a Concord in New Hampshire, it seems like the kind of gaff that we all make. The point is that they could not pass on this story when it fit their political agenda, EVEN with the tsunami, the imminent budget battle and other really big stories. They never make this kind of time for vice president Biden who is a well known gaffer, but they did for Dan Quayle when it was his turn. What was the point of that? Do you REALLY think that was the most important story aside from the tsunami? Really? Can you point out a time that CBS News was similarly slanted towards the right? I know Fox is right leaning, to the point of being silly. They are not fair and balanced at all. Do you admit the same for CBS? NBC? ABC? Perhaps the newspapers aren't as glaring, but I can come up with a lot of examples there too. -Kelly From js_exi at gnolls.org Thu Apr 21 22:25:35 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:25:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Causation, fat oxidation, ketosis, and disqualification Message-ID: <4DB0AEDF.1030609@gnolls.org> Harvey Newstrom said: > That study is outdated. It only found a correlation. But correlation > is not causation. Follow-up experiments to test actual causation showed > that increased fructose intake does not increase uric acid or cause > gout. . Really? You're claiming correlation is not causation (true) -- and then claiming a second *associative study* as proof of causation? Really? You can't possibly have looked at the *title* of that paper ("Lack of ASSOCIATION between dietary fructose and hyperuricemia risk in adults"), let alone the abstract or the full text, and claimed it as proof of *causation* over another associative study. Frankly, I expect more out of people on this list than making confident yet trivially false statements and raising your arms like you just won something. Harvey Newstrom wrote: > I have no doubt that you can get plenty of energy from fat. But you have to > go into ketosis to do it. And you risk an Atkins-style heart-attack. Once again, you've made a trivially false statement about human metabolism. Beta-oxidation (fat oxidation) in humans is continuous except near peak VO2max. Look up the respiratory exchange ratio (RER): 0.7 indicates primarily fat oxidation, 0.85 is a mix of fat and carbohydrate oxidation, and 1+ indicates primarily carbohydrate. A typical resting RER for healthy people is 0.8. (And higher resting RER is predictive of obesity, as one might imagine.) Also, you're confusing 'ketosis' and 'ketoacidosis'. Ketosis is a natural and reasonable state to be in: your brain and heart actually run more efficiently on ketones than they do on glucose. Ketoacidosis is a pathological state, usually created by alcoholism and sometimes by uncontrolled diabetes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketoacidosis I will be frank: between these and your previous trivially false statements about glucose metabolism, you've disqualified yourself from discussing any topic relating to human diet and metabolism, ancestral or modern. *plonk* I apologize to the list for the tone of this response, but I'm genuinely dumbfounded. I haven't been on the receiving end of this sort of nonsense since my last encounter with a young-earth creationist. JS http://www.gnolls.org From spike66 at att.net Thu Apr 21 22:14:54 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 15:14:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007601cc0071$8b1d7610$a1586230$@att.net> . On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] Alzheimer One simple stopgap measure: increased mental activity. Like, a regimen of one Sudoku (or more dedicated stuff, like one Brain Age session) per day. Adrian Ja, and here's one for you: do variations on your favorite puzzles that exercise the brain in ways that it isn't accustomed to doing. We get too good at certain tasks and fool ourselves because we are better than everyone around. But it isn't working the brain as much as we think it is. I suggest doing crosswords upside down. I mean the puzzle is upside down, not you. Solve sudokus where you substitute each number at the start with a letter. But don't choose the letters A thru I, mix them. Otherwise you get too good at seeing 6 numbers and immediately recognizing which three are missing. Doing the letter substitution defeats that, and makes you think like crazy. Try to write while looking in a mirror. You can do it after a while, but it takes concentration, which is the whole point. Tutor a physics or calculus student. If you want to see how much your brain slows by age fifty, note how quickly and accurately a sharp high schooler can tear down thru a column of calculations, oy, you want to swat em. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Apr 21 22:38:20 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 23:38:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB0542F.5010800@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <4DB0542F.5010800@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DB0B1DC.5010609@aleph.se> Richard Loosemore wrote: > > I disagree with the statement that "the results in theoretical AI have > put some constraints on it". These theoretical results exploit the > fact that there is no objective measure of "intelligence" to get their > seemingly useful results, when in fact the results say nothing of > importance. So you think Shane Legg's definition doesn't have any useful content or similarity to what we usually talk about? I think the real problem is that we do not have a good methodology at all for approaching the pertinent question. Theory might indeed be too abstracted from reality to say anything about it (a common complaint from real programmers), empirical programming experience doesn't give much data (we have failed at getting recursive self-improvement for 50+ years, heuristics systems seem to level off rather than take off, but this doesn't tell us much), analogies from other domains (economics, evolution) is of doubtful use. So how can we come up with a way of getting information about the question? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Apr 21 22:13:01 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:13:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy In-Reply-To: References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <003901cc0071$4aad0820$e0071860$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Max More wrote, > Since you are going to read Taubes' GCBC, can you suggest a particularly > good book that supports the view that saturated fat is bad (and related > issues that we've been discussing)? I know I have some books back at > the house in Austin that take the standard view, but they may not be > current and you can probably suggest a strong source. I actually don't use reference books for technology or medicine. I find books to be at least five years out of date and get most of the science wrong anyway. The medium is just not fast enough to keep up with the exponential growth of the fields. By the time a book gets published, it has already been superseded by follow-up science or advances in the technology. -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Apr 21 23:19:19 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:19:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Causation, fat oxidation, ketosis, and disqualification In-Reply-To: <4DB0AEDF.1030609@gnolls.org> References: <4DB0AEDF.1030609@gnolls.org> Message-ID: <000701cc007a$8af45420$a0dcfc60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Behalf Of J. Stanton wrote, > You're claiming correlation is not causation (true) -- and then claiming a second *associative study* as proof of causation? No, I did the opposite of what you just said. I objected to your using an associative study to indicate causation because "Correlation DOES NOT INDICATE causation" And then I did indeed use a second *associative study* as proof of non-causation because "A lack of correlation DOES INDICATE a lack of causation." I suggest you brush up on these basic rules of evidence before you post another long diatribe about how I am breaking them. From js_exi at gnolls.org Thu Apr 21 23:51:20 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 16:51:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] More on gout Message-ID: <4DB0C2F8.4050808@gnolls.org> Now I'm going to spend some time with the study Harvey cited, because it's instructive even though his claims about it are nonsense. First, here's the original study cited in the BBC article I posted (full text): "Soft drinks, fructose consumption, and the risk of gout in men: prospective cohort study" HK Choi, G Curhan http://www.bmj.com/content/336/7639/309.full And here's the study Harvey claims supersedes it: "Lack of association between dietary fructose and hyperuricemia risk in adults" SZ Sun*, BD Flickinger, PS Williamson-Hughes, MW Empie http://www.nutritionandmetabolism.com/content/7/1/16 Note that these are both associational studies, both use old data sets -- and neither proves causation, contrary to Harvey's claim that the second does but the first does not. First, one might notice from the title of Sun et.al. that it is measuring hyperuricemia, not actual cases of gout. AFAIK less than 10% of hyperuricemic people develop gout. So even if we take Sun et.al. at face value, it's still entirely possible for fructose to cause gout. Second, there is the fact Dave Sill already noted: the Nut. Metab. paper is authored entirely by employees of Archer Daniels Midland -- the largest industrial producer of corn in the country. Continued sales of HFCS are very important to their bottom line. Moving on. I'll start by pointing to actual controlled studies that show urate (= uric acid) rising in response to fructose administration: "Effect of oral fructose on urate production" http://ard.bmj.com/content/33/3/276.full.pdf+html?ijkey=92d5193dfe5c53b71319d1d96d28630f25b6b814&keytype2=tf_ipsecsha "Stimulation of human purine synthesis de novo by fructose infusion" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/166270?dopt=Abstract "The rate of infusion appeared more important than total dose in determining the magnitude of this effect. [increased rate of purine synthesis]" This is important, because it shows that drinking soft drinks between meals (= quick infusion of fructose) is likely far worse than consuming fructose as part of a meal. "Hyperuricemia and hypertriglyceridemia: Metabolic basis for the association" http://hdl.handle.net/2027.42/25613 http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/25613/1/0000161.pdf Also note: "To examine whether hypertriglyceridemia leads to hyperuricemia, IV Intralipid was given to three gouty patients. Triglycerides increased from 169 to 700 mg/dl for three hours but caused no change in serum urate level or urine uric acid and oxypurine excretion." Furthermore, from "Relation between serum triglyceride level, serum urate concentration, and fractional urate excretion" http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9284901 "Serum triglyceride level was positively correlated with serum urate concentration and inversely correlated with fractional urate excretion in both simple and multiple linear regression analysis." So a high-fat paleo diet removes things that raise blood urate (fructose, alcohol, sugar and 'carbs' through their effect on triglycerides) and replaces them with things that do not (fat). Therefore, there is indeed a plausible mechanism by which high-fat paleo benefits gout sufferers more than a standard low-fat, high-carbohydrate diet. Continuing: I'll continue by pointing out that the studies the Nut. Metab. article cites to claim no relationship between urate and fructose consumption tend to do the following: 1) Sampling urine at a single point in time instead of collecting 24-hour urine or urine over a period of time. Uric acid levels fluctuate both seasonally, over days, and dramatically within the course of a day. 2) Same issue for blood sampling. 3) Comparing high to very high doses of fructose. One study cited by Sun et.al. compared 63 mg/day to 99 g/day! 63 mg is roughly equivalent to the fructose in three cans of Coca-Cola. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&cmd=prlinks&retmode=ref&id=6369956 4) Not accounting for the rate of fructose absorption: conflating fructose as part of a meal with soda or candy consumed in isolation Then, read the "Estimation of dietary fructose intake" section. There are a lot of guesstimates involved. In contrast, Choi and Curhan measure a clinical outcome (gout) that cannot be missed by sampling during the wrong time window, and directly survey soft drink intake as opposed to attempting to indirectly impute total fructose through several layers of estimation -- any of which is easy to fudge in order to produce the desired result. Furthermore, since infusion rate is apparently more important than total amount, soft drink consumption is likely to be more strongly correlated than total fructose intake, since soft drinks are likely to be consumed in isolation. You can check the footnotes in the BMJ paper for a list of references to the fact that fructose increases uric acid levels. This is not controversial science. And as the BMJ paper correctly points out, it was understood that fruit and sugars contributed to gout even before we knew what fructose was. For an example of one mechanism by which this might be occurring, see this paper, which identifies a transporter of both fructose and uric acid (SLC2A9): http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18327257 And: "Multiple Genetic Loci Influence Serum Urate Levels and Their Relationship With Gout and Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors" (SLC2A9 is among them) http://circgenetics.ahajournals.org/content/3/6/523.full So it seems likely that some people have a greater problem with dietary fructose than others. Well, this went completely out of control...I should write an article about it! JS http://www.gnolls.org From mail at HarveyNewstrom.com Thu Apr 21 22:52:01 2011 From: mail at HarveyNewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:52:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Carbohydrates and energy References: <20110419100318.d32794d095cdfcc0018508d9c136b552.5352973a6d.wbe@email09.secureserver.net> <003c01cbfedb$efad0e20$cf072a60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> <005201cbff4d$3a087ab0$ae197010$@HarveyNewstrom.com> Message-ID: <000601cc0076$bd592a20$380b7e60$@HarveyNewstrom.com> A good history of the lipid hypothesis, the controversy, and how it was established as proven (according to mainstream medical science) can be found at the Journal of Lipid Research. "Thematic review series: The Pathogenesis of Atherosclerosis. An interpretive history of the cholesterol controversy" Part 1: http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/45/9/1583 Part 2: http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/46/2/179 Part 3: http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/46/10/2037 Part 4: http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/47/1/1 Part 5: http://www.jlr.org/cgi/content/full/47/7/1339 -- Harvey Newstrom CISSP CISA CISM CGEIT CSSLP CRISC CIFI NSA-IAM ISSAP ISSMP ISSPCS IBMCP From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Apr 22 02:23:01 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 19:23:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> On 04/21/2011 01:01 PM, spike wrote: >> ... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore > ... > Subject: Re: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review > > ... > >> ...If the vast majority of reporters in the country decided to, say, ignore > a huge accumulation of evidence pointing to the fact that Iraq has no > weapons of mass destruction, just before it is due to be invaded on the > grounds that it has WMD...Richard Loosemore > > > Reporters don't have security clearances. Those with the clearances are not > at liberty to report. See George Tenet, former director of the CIA, in his > explanation of the reasoning for invading Iraq, Center of the Storm. > You did not need a security clearance to know that Iraq had no WMD + delivery methods that were remotely a threat to us before the Iraq invasion. Simple examination of what we did no and a modest amount of analysis would have made it quite clear with 99.99% probability of a correct conclusion. I said so at the time and was roundly criticized for it or at least dismissed on the grounds that "those in the know may know something we don't". But that kind of thinking always forgives and support anything any government decides to do and makes rule by the people a farce. - s From spike66 at att.net Fri Apr 22 04:01:11 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 21 Apr 2011 21:01:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> Message-ID: <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins ... > > >> Reporters don't have security clearances. Those with the clearances >> are not at liberty to report. See George Tenet, former director of >> the CIA, in his explanation of the reasoning for invading Iraq, Center of the Storm. > >...You did not need a security clearance to know that Iraq had no WMD + delivery methods that were remotely a threat to us before the Iraq invasion. Simple examination of what we did no and a modest amount of analysis would have made it quite clear with 99.99% probability of a correct conclusion... , she said with complete self-confidence. But did she look up Tenet? Once you get past his annoying habit of bashing any and every conservative at any and every opportunity, Tenet does a reasonably good job of summarizing what we had in 2002, and how it was that people from a bunch of countries who looked at it decided they needed to participate in the invasion. Also note that George Piro's report came out after Tenet's book was released. Tenet mentions Piro on page 332 (misspelling his name) but Piro's full report didn't come out until January 2008. The bookmark in my copy of Tenet has the date 1 May 2007. I do remember that day in the San Francisco airport when they were hauling in copies of Center of the storm. It seemed like every fourth traveller had his nose in a copy of that book. Between Piro and Tenet, one gets a pretty good idea of what happened. Both writers blame Bush and blame Saddam more: Saddam for faking that he was developing nukes, Bush for falling for it. spike From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 22 09:34:24 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:34:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 09:42:16AM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> We >> need a proper theory for this! >> > > I am willing to bet good money that there is none. You can use > it as a diagnostic: whenever the system starts doing something > interesting your analytical approaches start breaking down. > Interesting approach. Essentially it boils down to the "true creativity is truly unpredictable" view (David Deutsch seems to hold this too). > As long as we continue to treat artificial intelligence as > a scientific domain instead of "merely" engineering, we won't > be making progress. > On the other hand "mere" engineering doesn't lend itself well to foresight. We get the science as a side effect when we try to understand the results (worked for thermodynamics and steam engines) but that is too late for understanding the dangers very well. "Look! Based on the past data, I can now predict that this kind of AI architecture can go FOOM if you run it for more than 48 hours!" "Oh, it already did, 35 minutes ago. We left it on over the weekend." "At least it wont paperclip us. That is easily proved from the structure of the motivation module..." "It replaced that one with a random number generator on Saturday for some reason." -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Fri Apr 22 09:38:13 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 10:38:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey Message-ID: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> Here are the results (long delayed) of the survey on AGI we did at the Winter Intelligence workshop: http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/21516/MI_survey.pdf Validity questionable, but the results are consistent with earlier surveys - the kind of people who respond to this tend to think mid-century human-level AI is fairly plausible, with a tail towards the far future. Opinions on the overall effect were not divided but bimodal - it will likely be really good or really bad, not something in between. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From js_exi at gnolls.org Fri Apr 22 10:18:26 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 03:18:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer Message-ID: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> In addition to the "mental exercise" mentioned earlier: Low blood cholesterol is associated with cognitive decline. This is not surprising, as a significant proportion of our brains are made out of cholesterol. There's a very good reason almost every cell in our body can synthesize cholesterol: it's a necessary nutrient. http://www.cholesterol-and-health.org.uk/alzheimers.html Note that past retirement age, low total cholesterol is associated with *increased* risk of death. (And even for younger people it's still a U-shape: low total cholesterol is just as associated with death as high cholesterol.) A long, technical series you might find useful in understanding the issues, including dietary recommendations at the end of Part II. http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/Cholesterol-Alzheimers.html Takeaway: more dietary cholesterol, more DHA, less n-6 seed oils, more saturated fat (with emphasis on coconut oil), less carbs. JS http://www.gnolls.org From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 10:57:00 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 11:57:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> References: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:18 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > Takeaway: more dietary cholesterol, more DHA, less n-6 seed oils, more > saturated fat (with emphasis on coconut oil), less carbs. > > So the paleo diet cures Alzheimer's as well now! Really???!!! You are really straining your credibility by quoting from these fringe paleo support sites. If I wanted to know about Alzheimer's I wouldn't go to fringe sites. You will find sites supporting every kooky cure in the world if you search hard enough. How about going to something like this instead: The Alzheimer's Association is the leading, global voluntary health organization in Alzheimer care and support, and the largest private, nonprofit funder of Alzheimer research. See: Quote: Scientists have identified factors that increase the risk of Alzheimer?s. The most important risk factors?age, family history and heredity?can't be changed, but emerging evidence suggests there may be other factors we can influence. Age The greatest known risk factor for Alzheimer?s is advancing age. Most individuals with the disease are age 65 or older. The likelihood of developing Alzheimer?s doubles about every five years after age 65. After age 85, the risk reaches nearly 50 percent. One of the greatest mysteries of Alzheimer's disease is why risk rises so dramatically as we grow older. Family history Another strong risk factor is family history. Those who have a parent, brother, sister or child with Alzheimer?s are more likely to develop the disease. The risk increases if more than one family member has the illness. When diseases tend to run in families, either heredity (genetics) or environmental factors, or both, may play a role. What you can do now: Factors you may be able to influence Most experts believe that the majority of Alzheimer's disease occurs as a result of complex interactions among genes and other risk factors. Age, family history and heredity are all risk factors we can?t change. Now, research is beginning to reveal clues about other risk factors we may be able to influence through general lifestyle and wellness choices and effective management of other health conditions. Head trauma: There may be a strong link between serious head injury and future risk of Alzheimer?s, especially when trauma occurs repeatedly or involves loss of consciousness. Protect your brain by buckling your seat belt, wearing your helmet when participating in sports, and ?fall-proofing? your home. Heart-head connection: Growing evidence links brain health to heart health. Your brain is nourished by one of your body?s richest networks of blood vessels. Every heartbeat pumps about 20 to 25 percent of your blood to your head, where brain cells use at least 20 percent of the food and oxygen your blood carries. The risk of developing Alzheimer?s or vascular dementia appears to be increased by many conditions that damage the heart or blood vessels. These include high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, diabetes and high cholesterol. Work with your doctor to monitor your heart health and treat any problems that arise. General healthy aging: Other lines of evidence suggest that strategies for overall healthy aging may help keep your brain as well as your body fit. These strategies may even offer some protection against developing Alzheimer?s or related disorders. Try to keep your weight within recommended guidelines, avoid tobacco and excess alcohol, stay socially connected, and exercise both your body and mind. ------------------ BillK From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Apr 22 13:45:11 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:45:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB18667.9040908@lightlink.com> Anders Sandberg wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 09:42:16AM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> >>> We need a proper theory for this! >> >> I am willing to bet good money that there is none. You can use >> it as a diagnostic: whenever the system starts doing something >> interesting your analytical approaches start breaking down. >> > > Interesting approach. Essentially it boils down to the "true creativity > is truly unpredictable" view (David Deutsch seems to hold this too). > > >> As long as we continue to treat artificial intelligence as >> a scientific domain instead of "merely" engineering, we won't be >> making progress. >> > > On the other hand "mere" engineering doesn't lend itself well to > foresight. We get the science as a side effect when we try to understand > the results (worked for thermodynamics and steam engines) but that is > too late for understanding the dangers very well. > "Look! Based on the past data, I can now predict that this kind of AI > architecture can go FOOM if you run it for more than 48 hours!" > "Oh, it already did, 35 minutes ago. We left it on over the weekend." > "At least it wont paperclip us. That is easily proved from the structure > of the motivation module..." > "It replaced that one with a random number generator on Saturday for > some reason." > > I will get to a more detailed reply to your question as soon as I can, but in the mean time I'll make a couple of quick observations. 1) Eugen's suggestion that there might not be a "proper theory" is something I have already said in a published paper (Complex Systems paper from 2007), although I said it in a more rigorous way, and with a different starting point. 2) You hint at one of the "bad" scenarios in your last couple of sentences .... but even in this abbreviated dialog format there is a glaring error. If the supposed motivation module prevents paperclipping, it also (by trivial extension) prevents motivation module replacement. It is almost a logical fallacy to suppose that there is a danger of the system replacing its motivation module, when the thing that determines whether the motivation module gets replaced is the CURRENT design of the motivation module. As I say, more in due course. Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Apr 22 13:48:12 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:48:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> Message-ID: <4DB1871C.1010101@lightlink.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/21/2011 01:01 PM, spike wrote: >>> ... On Behalf Of Richard Loosemore >> ... >> Subject: Re: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review >> >> ... >> >>> ...If the vast majority of reporters in the country decided to, say, >>> ignore >> a huge accumulation of evidence pointing to the fact that Iraq has no >> weapons of mass destruction, just before it is due to be invaded on the >> grounds that it has WMD...Richard Loosemore >> >> >> Reporters don't have security clearances. Those with the clearances >> are not >> at liberty to report. See George Tenet, former director of the CIA, >> in his >> explanation of the reasoning for invading Iraq, Center of the Storm. >> > > You did not need a security clearance to know that Iraq had no WMD + > delivery methods that were remotely a threat to us before the Iraq > invasion. Simple examination of what we did no and a modest amount of > analysis would have made it quite clear with 99.99% probability of a > correct conclusion. I said so at the time and was roundly criticized > for it or at least dismissed on the grounds that "those in the know may > know something we don't". But that kind of thinking always forgives > and support anything any government decides to do and makes rule by the > people a farce. Hnnhh. I agree with you. :-) Not only did you not need a security clearance, but the head of the UN WMD search team gave a speech to the United Nations in which he carefully explained his rationale for concluding that there were not WMD over there. And in addition, the New York Times later published an editorial in which it apologized for its behavior and said, essentially, that all the evidence was there in plain sight, but for some inexplicable reason they failed to publish it. Heck, this case was closed years ago. Richard Loosemore From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 13:51:23 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 15:51:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 22 April 2011 12:57, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:18 AM, J. Stanton wrote: > > > Takeaway: more dietary cholesterol, more DHA, less n-6 seed oils, more > > saturated fat (with emphasis on coconut oil), less carbs. > > So the paleo diet cures Alzheimer's as well now! Really???!!! > "Cure" may be too strong a word. But I had already thought myself that one's body biochemistry, besides being possibly a risk factor, is quite likely to influence one way or another the evolution of the disease *and/or of its symptoms and compensatory mechanisms* - as it does with practically everything which happens therein. And of course nutritional choices is one major factor which influences that biochemistry. How about going to something like this instead: > > > The Alzheimer's Association is the leading, global voluntary health > organization in Alzheimer care and support, and the largest private, > nonprofit funder of Alzheimer research. > > See: > > > Quote: > Scientists have identified factors that increase the risk of > Alzheimer?s. The most important risk factors?age, family history and > heredity?can't be changed, but emerging evidence suggests there may be > other factors we can influence. > Thank you very much. I will check all that. Unfortunately, your quotations seem essentially to concern risk factors and strategies allegedly effective in preventing Alzheimer, but do not make any assumptions, not even far-fetched ones, as to what might be one way or another useful to somebody who already *has* Alzheimer. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rebelwithaclue at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 14:01:22 2011 From: rebelwithaclue at gmail.com (rebelwithaclue at gmail.com) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:01:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> Message-ID: Have you seen this: Vascular risk factors promote conversion from mild cognitive impairment to > Alzheimer disease > *...* > *Conclusion:* VRF increased the risk of incident AD dementia. Treatment of > VRF was associated with a reduced risk of incident AD dementia. Although our > findings are observational, they sugge > http://www.neurology.org/content/early/2011/04/13/WNL.0b013e318217e7a4.abstract?sid=fbacb11e-3c37-4cf2-9177-15a7bcd4b8f4 Kiran 2011/4/22 Stefano Vaj > On 22 April 2011 12:57, BillK wrote: > >> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:18 AM, J. Stanton wrote: >> >> > Takeaway: more dietary cholesterol, more DHA, less n-6 seed oils, more >> > saturated fat (with emphasis on coconut oil), less carbs. >> >> So the paleo diet cures Alzheimer's as well now! Really???!!! >> > > "Cure" may be too strong a word. But I had already thought myself that > one's body biochemistry, besides being possibly a risk factor, is quite > likely to influence one way or another the evolution of the disease *and/or > of its symptoms and compensatory mechanisms* - as it does with practically > everything which happens therein. And of course nutritional choices is one > major factor which influences that biochemistry. > > How about going to something like this instead: >> >> >> The Alzheimer's Association is the leading, global voluntary health >> organization in Alzheimer care and support, and the largest private, >> nonprofit funder of Alzheimer research. >> >> See: >> >> >> Quote: >> Scientists have identified factors that increase the risk of >> Alzheimer?s. The most important risk factors?age, family history and >> heredity?can't be changed, but emerging evidence suggests there may be >> other factors we can influence. >> > > Thank you very much. I will check all that. > > Unfortunately, your quotations seem essentially to concern risk factors and > strategies allegedly effective in preventing Alzheimer, but do not make any > assumptions, not even far-fetched ones, as to what might be one way or > another useful to somebody who already *has* Alzheimer. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 14:49:50 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:49:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: <007601cc0071$8b1d7610$a1586230$@att.net> References: <007601cc0071$8b1d7610$a1586230$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/22 spike > ? *On Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Alzheimer > > One simple stopgap measure: increased mental activity. Like, a regimen of > one Sudoku (or more dedicated stuff, like one Brain Age session) per day. > Adrian > > Ja, and here?s one for you: do variations on your favorite puzzles that > exercise the brain in ways that it isn?t accustomed to doing. We get too > good at certain tasks and fool ourselves because we are better than everyone > around. But it isn?t working the brain as much as we think it is. > Yes, I also suspect that what would ordinarily lead to an improvement of cognitive capabilities may also involve a diminished and slower loss thereof, by helping you to make better and better use of the decreasing number of neurons you have to do with. After all, some room for improvement is definitely there even when neuron loss is firmly in place simply as a consequence of aging... With Alzheimer, it might be just the same, even though you have to run on a much more slippery and steep slope. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 15:34:47 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 08:34:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 2:34 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> >> On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 09:42:16AM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> >>> >>> ?We ?need a proper theory for this! >> >> I am willing to bet good money that there is none. You can use >> it as a diagnostic: whenever the system starts doing something >> interesting your analytical approaches start breaking down. >> > > Interesting approach. Essentially it boils down to the "true creativity is > truly unpredictable" view (David Deutsch seems to hold this too). > > >> As long as we continue to treat artificial intelligence as >> a scientific domain instead of "merely" engineering, we won't be making >> progress. >> > > On the other hand "mere" engineering doesn't lend itself well to foresight. > We get the science as a side effect when we try to understand the results > (worked for thermodynamics and steam engines) but that is too late for > understanding the dangers very well. > "Look! Based on the past data, I can now predict that this kind of AI > architecture can go FOOM if you run it for more than 48 hours!" > "Oh, it already did, 35 minutes ago. We left it on over the weekend." > "At least it wont paperclip us. That is easily proved from the structure of > the motivation module..." > "It replaced that one with a random number generator on Saturday for some > reason." There is something to be said for ROM or hardware. I suspect, for speed of light reasons, that there will be a lot of AIs rather than one. If there are, I sure hope they will be friendly toward each other. It would be just awful to be caught in a war waged by AIs. Keith From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 15:53:23 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 16:53:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/22 Stefano Vaj wrote>: > Thank you very much. I will check all that. > Unfortunately, your quotations seem essentially to concern risk factors and > strategies allegedly effective in preventing Alzheimer, but do not make any > assumptions, not even far-fetched ones, as to what might be one way or > another useful to somebody who already *has* Alzheimer. > -- > That's because you are looking at the risk factors page. :) You want the treatments page - Quote: Currently, there is no cure for Alzheimer's. But drug and non-drug treatments may help with both cognitive and behavioral symptoms. Researchers are looking for new treatments to alter the course of the disease and improve the quality of life for people with dementia. In this section: * Medications for Memory Loss * Treatments for Behavior * Treatments for Sleep Changes * Alternative Treatments * Questions for Your Doctor * Treatment Horizon --------------------------------------------- BillK From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Apr 22 16:17:13 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:17:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> Keith Henson wrote: > I suspect, for speed of light reasons, that there will be a lot of AIs > rather than one. > > If there are, I sure hope they will be friendly toward each other. It > would be just awful to be caught in a war waged by AIs. But... this is where just I cannot understand the standard line on "whether an AI would be friendly". The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other is a matter of design, very much the same as the question of whether or not they would be good at arithmetic. You wouldn't say "I sure hope they will be good at artithmetic", you would say "I sure hope somebody will remember to include a good arithmetic module, or a good set of arithmetic concepts". And, if you said that, everyone would kind of yawn and say "Yeah well, we hope the designers paint it a nice color too, but so what?" Now, you can question the accuracy of the analogy -- is it really as easy to design the behavior as it is to insert an arithmetic module? -- but no matter how strongly you dispute my analogy, what you can't do is blatantly, without supporting argument, talk as if they diametric opposite is the case. You can't say "I wonder whether they will be friendly..." or "I sure hope they will be friendly..." as if the friendliness is SELF-EVIDENTLY a 100% emergent property that we have no control over. The [assumed] lack of control over their motivational behavior is not self-evident: you have to show some argument as to why we have no say over the motivation. And to do that, you have to speak to specific motivational designs, and not just assume that all motivational designs are the same. I bring this up frequently. The challenge is never answered (only ignored, or deflected into some other discussion). Richard Loosemore P.S. [I say "you" of course, not meaning you personally, but the point of view you represented there. That point of view is widespread]. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 22 16:31:13 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:31:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other is a > matter of design, very much the same as the question of whether or not > they would be good at arithmetic. The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 16:26:41 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 18:26:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On 22 April 2011 17:53, BillK wrote: > That's because you are looking at the risk factors page. :) > > You want the treatments page - > > > Right. Thank you again!!! -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 16:56:42 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 09:56:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: snip > The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. > > Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. In *some* circumstances humans are friendly (cooperative) toward other humans. There are non-zero sum game reasons rooted in evolution as to why humans (conditionally) act this way. The switch between alternative human behaviors has also been under evolutionary selection for a long time. I have been discussion this for years on this list and other places. The works of Azar Gat and Steven Leblanc are critical to understanding this subject. Keith From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Apr 22 18:40:28 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:40:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > >> The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other is a >> matter of design, very much the same as the question of whether or not >> they would be good at arithmetic. > > The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. > > Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. That is not the difference at all. It is not possible, and will never be possible, to define "friendly" in formal terms. For the same reason that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. There are other ways to effect a definition without it being "formal". I we understand the roots of human motivation, and if we understand the components of human motivation in such a way that we can differentiate "empathic" behavior from other kinds, like selfishly aggressive behavior, then we could discover that (as seems likely) these are impemented by separable modules in the human brain. Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that with that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from the design, a thinking creature would experience all of the empathic motivations that we so prize in human beings, and not even be aware of the violent or aggressive motivations. With that information in hand, we would then be able to predict that the appropriately designed AI would exhibit a cluster of behaviors that, in normal human terms, would be summed up by the label "friendly". By that stage, the term "friendliness" would have achieved the status of having a functional definition in terms of the behavior, and the stability, of certain brain modules (and their AGI counterparts). At that point we would have: a) A common-speech, DESCRIPTIVE definition of "friendliness", b) A technical, FUNCTIONAL definition of "friendliness", and c) A method for designing systems in which the effectiveness and stability of the friendliness modules could be stated in concrete, measureable terms. This would give us everything we could ask for in the way of a guarantee of friendliness, short of a guarantee based on logically necessary premises and strictly correct logical deduction (a type of guarantee that is virtually impossible in any real world science). -- So, if you are going to argue that "friendliness" cannot be given a formal definition in the mathematical sense, I agree with you. If you are going to claim that this has any relevance for the question at hand, you are mistaken, and you need to address the above line of argument if you want to maintain otherwise. Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Apr 22 18:43:05 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 14:43:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB1CC39.7010102@lightlink.com> Keith Henson wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 9:31 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > snip > >> The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. >> >> Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. > > In *some* circumstances humans are friendly (cooperative) toward other humans. > > There are non-zero sum game reasons rooted in evolution as to why > humans (conditionally) act this way. > > The switch between alternative human behaviors has also been under > evolutionary selection for a long time. > > I have been discussion this for years on this list and other places. > > The works of Azar Gat and Steven Leblanc are critical to understanding > this subject. All of which may be true, but of no relevance to the question. If evolution designs a set of motivation modules that includes a selfish aggression module and an empathy module, and if I then go right ahead and design and AGI that has an empathy module but the aggression module is entirely missing, with that one stroke all the evolutionary arguments become moot. Richard Loosemore From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Apr 22 19:14:37 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 12:14:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DB1D39D.1030103@mac.com> On 04/22/2011 11:40 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> >>> The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other >>> is a matter of design, very much the same as the question of >>> whether or not they would be good at arithmetic. >> >> The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. >> >> Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. > > That is not the difference at all. It is not possible, and will never > be possible, to define "friendly" in formal terms. For the same > reason that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. > > There are other ways to effect a definition without it being "formal". > I we understand the roots of human motivation, and if we understand > the components of human motivation in such a way that we can > differentiate "empathic" behavior from other kinds, like selfishly > aggressive behavior, then we could discover that (as seems likely) > these are impemented by separable modules in the human brain. Lumping "selfish" with "aggressive" or implying it is somehow opposite than or not convoluted with "empathic" all seems problematic. I don't know if it is likely at all these are controlled by separable human brain modules. > > Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the > dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that > with that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from > the design, a thinking creature would experience all of the empathic > motivations that we so prize in human beings, and not even be aware of > the violent or aggressive motivations. Given the above problematic issues this seems wildly optimistic. Also if you just model what is in this purported empathy module of the human brain and none of what is in the purported selfish and or aggressive module you are very likely to get a slew of other things that are mixed in with or give rise to empathy in human beings, many of which may be far less than ideal in an AGI. > > With that information in hand, we would then be able to predict that > the appropriately designed AI would exhibit a cluster of behaviors > that, in normal human terms, would be summed up by the label > "friendly". By that stage, the term "friendliness" would have > achieved the status of having a functional definition in terms of the > behavior, and the stability, of certain brain modules (and their AGI > counterparts). At that point we would have: What does "feeling with" have to do with actual behavior toward. I can feel the pain of an other and yet still cause them pain or act in a way most would consider "unfriendly" toward them. - samantha From rpwl at lightlink.com Fri Apr 22 21:11:30 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:11:30 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB1D39D.1030103@mac.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> <4DB1D39D.1030103@mac.com> Message-ID: <4DB1EF02.4000107@lightlink.com> Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/22/2011 11:40 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> Eugen Leitl wrote: >>> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: >>> >>>> The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other >>>> is a matter of design, very much the same as the question of >>>> whether or not they would be good at arithmetic. >>> >>> The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. >>> >>> Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. >> >> That is not the difference at all. It is not possible, and will never >> be possible, to define "friendly" in formal terms. For the same >> reason that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. >> >> There are other ways to effect a definition without it being "formal". >> I we understand the roots of human motivation, and if we understand >> the components of human motivation in such a way that we can >> differentiate "empathic" behavior from other kinds, like selfishly >> aggressive behavior, then we could discover that (as seems likely) >> these are impemented by separable modules in the human brain. > > Lumping "selfish" with "aggressive" or implying it is somehow opposite > than or not convoluted with "empathic" all seems problematic. I don't > know if it is likely at all these are controlled by separable human > brain modules. On what grounds do you claim "problematic"? And, I did not intentionally lump selfish and aggressive: I was picking random modules that would be unwanted. Clearly, the exact details are less important than the general method. >> >> Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the >> dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that >> with that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from >> the design, a thinking creature would experience all of the empathic >> motivations that we so prize in human beings, and not even be aware of >> the violent or aggressive motivations. > > Given the above problematic issues this seems wildly optimistic. Also > if you just model what is in this purported empathy module of the human > brain and none of what is in the purported selfish and or aggressive > module you are very likely to get a slew of other things that are mixed > in with or give rise to empathy in human beings, many of which may be > far less than ideal in an AGI. You're doing no more than wave your hands: why speculate on the limits of mechanisms that have only been proposed *in* *principle* by myself? I say "if this is the kind of system we find..." and you seem to already know about the likely properties of the system I have put on the table as no more than a potential candidate! I did not go as far as to present my own speculations as to what is and is not possible. If I had, I would have waved my hands in a direction exactly contradicting your position here. >> >> With that information in hand, we would then be able to predict that >> the appropriately designed AI would exhibit a cluster of behaviors >> that, in normal human terms, would be summed up by the label >> "friendly". By that stage, the term "friendliness" would have >> achieved the status of having a functional definition in terms of the >> behavior, and the stability, of certain brain modules (and their AGI >> counterparts). At that point we would have: > > What does "feeling with" have to do with actual behavior toward. I can > feel the pain of an other and yet still cause them pain or act in a way > most would consider "unfriendly" toward them. What has this got to do with what I said? The phrase "feeling with" is not in the above quote text of mine. Richard Loosemore From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 22 21:03:03 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 17:03:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: <4DB155F2.2070700@gnolls.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 6:57 AM, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 11:18 AM, J. Stanton ?wrote: > >> Takeaway: more dietary cholesterol, more DHA, less n-6 seed oils, more >> saturated fat (with emphasis on coconut oil), less carbs. >> >> > > > So the paleo diet cures Alzheimer's as well now! ?Really???!!! > > You are really straining your credibility by quoting from these fringe > paleo support sites. > > If I wanted to know about Alzheimer's I wouldn't go to fringe sites. > You will find sites supporting every kooky cure in the world if you > search hard enough. > > How about going to something like this instead: > ### The problem is, the mainstream AD research community has been barking up the same wrong tree for the last 25 years or so, with hardly any signs of recovery. About 90% of AD research is done on under the assumption that amyloid is the direct cause of AD, and of course all the kooky "cures" coming out of this work (anti-amyloid antibodies, secretase inhibitors, etc.) are completely useless, no matter how many tens of billions of dollars are thrown against the problem. You may be more likely to prevent AD by following paleo diet than by paying attention to the likes of Dennis Selkoe, or John Hardy. At least, ketone bodies are known to improve cognition in AD patients, so inducing ketosis by low carb/high fat diet has a sliver of experimental evidence in its favor, although I am not knowledgeable enough to unequivocally suggest or reject it. My gut feeling is, low calories(from any source)/high exercise is the best approach. Rafal From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 23 03:39:28 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:39:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] BS article Message-ID: These types of articles piss me off because they are inaccurate. RU, as much as I like him as a friend and enjoy his ideas, is from the cyberpunk culture and was not a transhumanist in the 1990s and does not have an accurate account of thus years. http://singularityblog.singularitysymposium.com/how-do-transhumanists-party/ Natasha Natasha Vita-More PhD Researcher, Planetary Collegium, Univ. of Plymouth, UK Vice Chair : Humanity+ Fellow: Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies Visiting Scholar: 21st Century Medicine Advisor: Policy, Law & Ethics Track, Singularity University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 23 03:40:53 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Fri, 22 Apr 2011 22:40:53 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Transhumanism in Wired - coverage of upcoming conference in NYC Message-ID: http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2011/04/design-fiction-designer-trans humanity-at-parsons/ Natasha -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 23 07:56:58 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:56:58 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 09:56:42AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > > Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. > > In *some* circumstances humans are friendly (cooperative) toward other humans. Hence the Holocene extinction. Very friendly, that. > There are non-zero sum game reasons rooted in evolution as to why > humans (conditionally) act this way. > > The switch between alternative human behaviors has also been under > evolutionary selection for a long time. > > I have been discussion this for years on this list and other places. > > The works of Azar Gat and Steven Leblanc are critical to understanding > this subject. There is nothing to understand. You must be able to define friendliness in formal form first in order to start building development constraints on trajectory to assert conservation or minimax according to the metric. -- 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 From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Apr 23 08:09:12 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:09:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Apr 19, 2011, at 7:09 PM, Isabelle Hakala wrote: > I haven't read much Ayn Rand. I have only read Atlas Shrugged, which I felt was a good explanation of the extremes. I found the book to be compelling in a way towards self-understanding of what my views are. > > The film version left out every single bit of intensity possible. I was literally *bored* while watching it. I was aghast because I have listed to it as an audio book at least 20 times. This LA times review really hits it on the head. I feel that the director missed every single point that was made. The movie was dumbed down so much that there was literally nothing left to comprehend. If you had not read the book first I doubt you would have any idea what was going on in the film. > > I think people got the main message, maybe. I was impressed by how many attended this limited opening. A lot of people are hungry. I felt like it wasn't so much dumbed down as something rich and subtle crammed into today's faster paced "entertainment" framework. - s > >> On Apr 19, 2011 9:52 PM, "John Grigg" wrote: >> >> A not very kind review... >> >> http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/sc-mov-0413-atlas-shrugged-20110415-33,0,179159.story >> >> John >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Apr 23 08:20:02 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:20:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB1EF02.4000107@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> <4DB1D39D.1030103@mac.com> <4DB1EF02.4000107@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <9005FBED-6FA6-4DF6-B81A-0BB4B3EB7B7F@mac.com> On Apr 22, 2011, at 2:11 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Samantha Atkins wrote: >> On 04/22/2011 11:40 AM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >>> Eugen Leitl wrote: >>>> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: >>>> >>>>> The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other is a matter of design, very much the same as the question of whether or not they would be good at arithmetic. >>>> >>>> The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. >>>> >>>> Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. >>> >>> That is not the difference at all. It is not possible, and will never be possible, to define "friendly" in formal terms. For the same reason that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. >>> >>> There are other ways to effect a definition without it being "formal". I we understand the roots of human motivation, and if we understand the components of human motivation in such a way that we can differentiate "empathic" behavior from other kinds, like selfishly aggressive behavior, then we could discover that (as seems likely) these are impemented by separable modules in the human brain. >> Lumping "selfish" with "aggressive" or implying it is somehow opposite than or not convoluted with "empathic" all seems problematic. I don't know if it is likely at all these are controlled by separable human brain modules. > > On what grounds do you claim "problematic"? I would hope that is rather obvious. Rational selfishness, for instance, is in no way synonymous with aggression or contrary to empathy. > > And, I did not intentionally lump selfish and aggressive: I was picking random modules that would be unwanted. Clearly, the exact details are less important than the general method. > Selfishness and its highest sense is certainly not unwanted. The general method is very doubtful. > > > >>> >>> Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that with that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from the design, a thinking creature would experience all of the empathic motivations that we so prize in human beings, and not even be aware of the violent or aggressive motivations. >> Given the above problematic issues this seems wildly optimistic. Also if you just model what is in this purported empathy module of the human brain and none of what is in the purported selfish and or aggressive module you are very likely to get a slew of other things that are mixed in with or give rise to empathy in human beings, many of which may be far less than ideal in an AGI. > > You're doing no more than wave your hands: why speculate on the limits of mechanisms that have only been proposed *in* *principle* by myself? > You are waving your hands! You are claiming on mere supposition that there are separate brain modules for empathy and selfishness aggression. You are apparently assuming you can copy these to a machine version which is quite an assumption. And that you can filter out the unwanted human aspects that may be entangled with them. And you say I am waving my hands when I point out how doubtful this is? You're in principal does not even see like a likely guess to me at this point. > I say "if this is the kind of system we find..." and you seem to already know about the likely properties of the system I have put on the table as no more than a potential candidate! > > I did not go as far as to present my own speculations as to what is and is not possible. If I had, I would have waved my hands in a direction exactly contradicting your position here. > Do tell. If you aren't serious about the proposal then please excuse me for taking it seriously given my general respect for your intelligence and care in this area. > >>> >>> With that information in hand, we would then be able to predict that the appropriately designed AI would exhibit a cluster of behaviors that, in normal human terms, would be summed up by the label "friendly". By that stage, the term "friendliness" would have achieved the status of having a functional definition in terms of the behavior, and the stability, of certain brain modules (and their AGI counterparts). At that point we would have: >> What does "feeling with" have to do with actual behavior toward. I can feel the pain of an other and yet still cause them pain or act in a way most would consider "unfriendly" toward them. > > What has this got to do with what I said? The phrase "feeling with" is not in the above quote text of mine. > Please define "empathy" for me if it does not include that. The obvious point I was attempted to make is that instilling empathy, even if you can, is not at all the same as guarantee of friendliness. - s From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Apr 23 08:27:45 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:27:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <4154E48B-6E17-46A0-8A91-EBDAA5C61844@mac.com> On Apr 21, 2011, at 9:01 PM, spike wrote: >> ... On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins > ... >> >> >>> Reporters don't have security clearances. Those with the clearances >>> are not at liberty to report. See George Tenet, former director of >>> the CIA, in his explanation of the reasoning for invading Iraq, Center of > the Storm. >> > >> ...You did not need a security clearance to know that Iraq had no WMD + > delivery methods that were remotely a threat to us before the Iraq invasion. > Simple examination of what we did no and a modest amount of analysis would > have made it quite clear with 99.99% probability of a correct conclusion... > > , she said with complete self-confidence. But did she look up Tenet? Once > you get past his annoying habit of bashing any and every conservative at any > and every opportunity, Tenet does a reasonably good job of summarizing what > we had in 2002, and how it was that people from a bunch of countries who > looked at it decided they needed to participate in the invasion. > > Also note that George Piro's report came out after Tenet's book was > released. Tenet mentions Piro on page 332 (misspelling his name) but Piro's > full report didn't come out until January 2008. The bookmark in my copy of > Tenet has the date 1 May 2007. I do remember that day in the San Francisco > airport when they were hauling in copies of Center of the storm. It seemed > like every fourth traveller had his nose in a copy of that book. > > Between Piro and Tenet, one gets a pretty good idea of what happened. Both > writers blame Bush and blame Saddam more: Saddam for faking that he was > developing nukes, Bush for falling for it. Sigh. We had been bombing anything that could remotely be the manufacturing capability to do anything with nukes since the first Iraq War and severely limiting incoming supplies to the country. There was absolutely no possibility that Iraq had any capability as the hype said to fire and land a missile of any kind anywhere in the US. They didn't even have the capacity to keep they normal pharmaceuticals up much less launch some biological attack on the US. - s From sjatkins at mac.com Sat Apr 23 08:36:07 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 01:36:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> References: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> Message-ID: Barring technological capacity breakdown I believe it is quite possible before 2030. I won't go as far as Marvin Minsky but I believe it is possible at current technology levels if only we knew how. - s On Apr 22, 2011, at 2:38 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Here are the results (long delayed) of the survey on AGI we did at the Winter Intelligence workshop: > http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/21516/MI_survey.pdf > > Validity questionable, but the results are consistent with earlier surveys - the kind of people who respond to this tend to think mid-century human-level AI is fairly plausible, with a tail towards the far future. Opinions on the overall effect were not divided but bimodal - it will likely be really good or really bad, not something in between. > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 23 08:40:22 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:40:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 8:56 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > There is nothing to understand. You must be able to define > friendliness in formal form first in order to start building > development constraints on trajectory to assert conservation > or minimax according to the metric. > > Easy. The ideal Friendliness to any human is - 'Don't do anything that affects me (short-term or long-term) that I object to'. Implications - Friendliness will be different for everyone, but so what - I have no right to object to things that don't affect me. Friendliness actions to one human must not cause an Unfriendly reaction in another human. The idea 'I am causing you pain for your own greater good' is not allowed. So forcing humans to do something *against their will* even though it may ultimately benefit them is not allowed. Individuals are still allowed to choose pain for later benefit, for example, like medical operations or arduous training. Problem solved! Of course, this definition may result in the AI finding itself unable to do much of anything. So, if this happens, humans will forget idealism and concentrate on developing AI than will be Friendly to them personally and forget about being Friendly to all humanity. In fact, I suspect this will be the driving motive for the near-time development of AI. i.e. as a weapon to benefit a particular nation. BillK From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sat Apr 23 10:40:54 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 03:40:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: References: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> Message-ID: Samantha Atkins wrote: >Barring technological capacity breakdown I believe it [human level AGI] is quite possible before 2030. I agree. But my big question is, how many days/weeks/months/years/decades after that, do we see exponential increases in AGI intelligence, that leads to sentient machines that are 100, 1000, or even 10,000 times more intelligent than a bright human being? And of course, their lightning speed in regards to thinking, as compared to our limited grey matter, will be a huge advantage over us. Also, their memory capacity and recall powers will also be a staggering advantage. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 23 11:36:25 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 04:36:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 12:56 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 09:56:42AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> > Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. >> >> In *some* circumstances humans are friendly (cooperative) toward other humans. > > Hence the Holocene extinction. Very friendly, that. Are you saying humans went extinct in the Holocene? Please expand. >> There are non-zero sum game reasons rooted in evolution as to why >> humans (conditionally) act this way. >> >> The switch between alternative human behaviors has also been under >> evolutionary selection for a long time. >> >> I have been discussion this for years on this list and other places. >> >> The works of Azar Gat and Steven Leblanc are critical to understanding >> this subject. > > There is nothing to understand. You must be able to define > friendliness in formal form first in order to start building > development constraints on trajectory to assert conservation > or minimax according to the metric. You might be right. On the other hand, I find the way you have put it to be obscure and faintly hostile. Keith From anders at aleph.se Sat Apr 23 13:25:20 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:25:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> I prefer to approach the whole AI safety thing from a broader standpoint, checking the different possibilities. AI might emerge rapidly, or more slowly. In the first case it is more likely to be unitary since there will be just one system recursively selfimproving, and there are some arguments that for some forms of softer takeoffs there would be a 'merging' of the goals if they are compatible (Shulman, Armstrong). In the case of softer takeoffs power differentials are going to be less extreme, but there will also be many more motivations and architectures around. Systems can be designed in different ways for safety - by reducing their capabilities (might or might not preclude recursive self improvement), various motivational measures, or by constraints from other systems of roughly equal power. So we need to analyse a number of cases: Hard takeoff (one agent): capability constraints ("AI in a box" for example), motivational constraints ("friendly" designs of various kinds, CEV, values copied from person, etc), ability to prevent accidental or deliberate takeoffs Soft takeoff (multiple agents): as above (but with the complication that defection of some agents is likely due to accident, design or systemic properties), various mutual balancing schemes, issues of safeguarding against or using 'evolutionary attractors' or coordination issues (e.g. the large scale economic/evolutionary pressures discussed in some of Robin's and Nick's papers, singletons) This is not a small field. Even the subfields have pretty deep ramifications (friendliness being a good case in point). It is stupid to spend all one's effort on one possible subsection and claiming this is the only one that matters. Some doubtlessly matter more, but even if you think there is 99% chance of a soft takeoff safeguarding against that 1% chance of a bad hard takeoff can be very rational. We will need to specialize ourselves in researching them, but we shouldn't forget we need to cover the possibility space well enough that we can start formulating policies (including even the null policy of not doing anything and just hoping for the best). -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 23 14:39:42 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 07:39:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <4154E48B-6E17-46A0-8A91-EBDAA5C61844@mac.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> <4154E48B-6E17-46A0-8A91-EBDAA5C61844@mac.com> Message-ID: <004d01cc01c4$487f93c0$d97ebb40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Samantha Atkins ... >...Sigh. We had been bombing anything that could remotely be the manufacturing capability to do anything with nukes since the first Iraq War and severely limiting incoming supplies to the country. There was absolutely no possibility that Iraq had any capability as the hype said to fire and land a missile of any kind anywhere in the US... Missiles? We knew they didn't have missiles. Saddam was faking that he was trying to refine yellowcake into uranium 235. He was trying to get the US to be just suspicious enough to warn off Iran. Actually that worked, sort of: Iran did stay back, but for fear of chemical and bio weapons. Saddam's goal was to scare away the invaders, not provoke them to invade. It's the Middle Eastern way. It's a dangerous neighborhood. >...They didn't even have the capacity to keep they normal pharmaceuticals up much less launch some biological attack on the US. - s Sadam didn't seem particularly interested in normal pharmaceuticals. But launching a bio attack was one of the fears. That seemed to be the one that was giving Powell nightmares. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 23 16:47:39 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 09:47:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 6:25 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I prefer to approach the whole AI safety thing from a broader standpoint, > checking the different possibilities. That seems like it would be a reasonably approach. > AI might emerge rapidly, or more > slowly. In the first case it is more likely to be unitary since there will > be just one system recursively selfimproving, and there are some arguments > that for some forms of softer takeoffs there would be a 'merging' of the > goals if they are compatible (Shulman, Armstrong). In the case of softer > takeoffs power differentials are going to be less extreme, but there will > also be many more motivations and architectures around. Systems can be > designed in different ways for safety - by reducing their capabilities > (might or might not preclude recursive self improvement), various > motivational measures, or by constraints from other systems of roughly equal > power. One such constraint is the amount of processing power available. Hard takeoff seems to imply that the AI either has or can obtain all the processing it needs. We do have an example of a worm that doubled every 8.5 seconds sucking in computers from the net. Now there's a scary scenario, an AI running on MS boxes. Of course the effect of an AI running on the net would be to slow down its clock rate to nearly human speeds because of communication delay between processing nodes. > So we need to analyse a number of cases: > > Hard takeoff (one agent): capability constraints ("AI in a box" for > example), motivational constraints ("friendly" designs of various kinds, > CEV, values copied from person, etc), ability to prevent accidental or > deliberate takeoffs Motivational constraints based on humans requires deep insight into human motivation, and especially into understanding how human motivations appear to change depending on external conditions. Because is has never been in the "interest" of genes for humans to understand gene derived motivations, I suspect we are biased against this kind of understanding. Humans go to war on the basis of a pending resource crisis. It would not do for an AI with a copied human motivational system to wake up, figure out it faced a resource crisis and was motivated to go to war with the people who made it. Agree with the rest of this. Keith > Soft takeoff (multiple agents): as above (but with the complication that > defection of some agents is likely due to accident, design or systemic > properties), various mutual balancing schemes, issues of safeguarding > against or using 'evolutionary attractors' or coordination issues (e.g. the > large scale economic/evolutionary pressures discussed in some of Robin's and > Nick's papers, singletons) > > This is not a small field. Even the subfields have pretty deep ramifications > (friendliness being a good case in point). It is stupid to spend all one's > effort on one possible subsection and claiming this is the only one that > matters. Some doubtlessly matter more, but even if you think there is 99% > chance of a soft takeoff safeguarding against that 1% chance of a bad hard > takeoff can be very rational. We will need to specialize ourselves in > researching them, but we shouldn't forget we need to cover the possibility > space well enough that we can start formulating policies (including even the > null policy of not doing anything and just hoping for the best). > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy > Faculty Oxford University > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From rpwl at lightlink.com Sat Apr 23 17:04:07 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 13:04:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> References: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB30687.8040805@lightlink.com> Anders Sandberg wrote: > Here are the results (long delayed) of the survey on AGI we did at the > Winter Intelligence workshop: > http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/21516/MI_survey.pdf > > Validity questionable, but the results are consistent with earlier > surveys - the kind of people who respond to this tend to think > mid-century human-level AI is fairly plausible, with a tail towards the > far future. Opinions on the overall effect were not divided but bimodal > - it will likely be really good or really bad, not something in between. Is there going to be a full conference proceedings available from this Winter Intelligence workshop...? I heard :-) that your FHI has been so overwhelmed with work as a result of the Winter Intelligence workshop that practically no other work could be done ..... and yet, so far, the only products of that overwhelming amount of work appear to be a one-page summary that said that everyone had a good time, and an opinion survey in which a lot of people who do not actually work in the AGI field speculate about when it is coming. :-) So, I assume some kind of book or full report is in the works...? Richard Loosemore From rpwl at lightlink.com Sat Apr 23 17:39:09 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 13:39:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB30EBD.4040406@lightlink.com> Anders Sandberg wrote: > I prefer to approach the whole AI safety thing from a broader > standpoint, checking the different possibilities. AI might emerge > rapidly, or more slowly. In the first case it is more likely to be > unitary since there will be just one system recursively selfimproving, > and there are some arguments that for some forms of softer takeoffs > there would be a 'merging' of the goals if they are compatible (Shulman, > Armstrong). In the case of softer takeoffs power differentials are going > to be less extreme, but there will also be many more motivations and > architectures around. Systems can be designed in different ways for > safety - by reducing their capabilities (might or might not preclude > recursive self improvement), various motivational measures, or by > constraints from other systems of roughly equal power. > > So we need to analyse a number of cases: > > Hard takeoff (one agent): capability constraints ("AI in a box" for > example), motivational constraints ("friendly" designs of various kinds, > CEV, values copied from person, etc), ability to prevent accidental or > deliberate takeoffs > > Soft takeoff (multiple agents): as above (but with the complication that > defection of some agents is likely due to accident, design or systemic > properties), various mutual balancing schemes, issues of safeguarding > against or using 'evolutionary attractors' or coordination issues (e.g. > the large scale economic/evolutionary pressures discussed in some of > Robin's and Nick's papers, singletons) > > This is not a small field. Even the subfields have pretty deep > ramifications (friendliness being a good case in point). It is stupid to > spend all one's effort on one possible subsection and claiming this is > the only one that matters. Some doubtlessly matter more, but even if you > think there is 99% chance of a soft takeoff safeguarding against that 1% > chance of a bad hard takeoff can be very rational. We will need to > specialize ourselves in researching them, but we shouldn't forget we > need to cover the possibility space well enough that we can start > formulating policies (including even the null policy of not doing > anything and just hoping for the best). I have to say that I think the main problem is not so much the fact that there is a cluster of different (and sometimes difficult to analyze) posibilities, which force us to (as you put it) "approach the whole AI safety thing from a broader standpoint". The critical issue is to understand the concept of "AGI motivation" in a more theoretically sound way. I find much of the discussion to be so confused on this matter, that the discussion itself is of little value. For example, you refer to some of the "large scale economic/evolutionary pressures discussed in some of Robin's and Nick's papers" (to which I would add Steve Omohundro's paper). The problem with these analyses is that they presuppose, without critical examination, that the motivation of the AGI is going to be controlled by somthing like a simple Utility optization function, such as the ones used to model human economic agents. That is just a supposition. And yet, if the supposition turns out to be wrong, everything that follows it is called into question. And we have good grounds for believing that that kind of supposition is indeed wrong: this is a classic example of the model/mechanism mistake. If you build a post-hoc model to *describe* a system, in might work in an approximate way (perhap well enough to allow crude modeling of the system).... but going from that model to the idea that a real, functioning version of that system is actually *driven* by a mechanism that is a direct instantiation of that model, is a ghastly (and very elementary) mistake. I can model the spawning rate of rabbits, for example, using a nice little Fibbonnaci algorithm. But going from that model to the suggestion that a colony of rabbits is controlled by a shared mechanism (presumably taking advantage of rabit telepathy!) that computes fibonnaci numbers and, at the appropriate moment, issues a command to spit out a new rabbit -- that would be a ridiculous confusion between model and mechanism. But instead of understanding that this model/mechanism mistake is seriously undermining progress in the field of AGI motivation (and by extension, the whole question of AGI safety and friendliness), we fall back on the assertion that we need a wide variety of perspectives, and argue that it is all very complex and multifaceted. Pity there aren't more people with a broad enough perspective working on these issues full time, huh...? :-) :-) Richard Loosemore From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 23 17:49:57 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:49:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110423174957.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 04:36:25AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > > Hence the Holocene extinction. Very friendly, that. > > Are you saying humans went extinct in the Holocene? Please expand. There's that interesting word, human. What is a human? There are plenty of extinct branches on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution Is a neanderthal a human? Is a posthuman is human? If the species splits up again, and into a thousands of new branches, who's the leitspecies, and just who died and made it king? How about the rest of the biosphere? And just who decides who's to live and who's to die? > > There is nothing to understand. You must be able to define > > friendliness in formal form first in order to start building > > development constraints on trajectory to assert conservation > > or minimax according to the metric. > > You might be right. On the other hand, I find the way you have put it > to be obscure and faintly hostile. It was not meant to be hostile, though after the nth iteration of basically the same problem there is some exasperation on my end. Friendliness as is means everything and hence nothing, so it has to be defined, at which point people should realize they have a slippery electric eel in their hands. It's one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem There are extremely nonobvious, pathological problems deriving from the idea of a set (you're absolutely correct that relativistic signalling alone requires there to be asynchonous population) of guardians for the physical layer, tracking a population of agents. I frankly think it's an awful idea, and it needs to die. From eugen at leitl.org Sat Apr 23 17:54:02 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 19:54:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20110423175402.GS23560@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 02:25:20PM +0100, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I prefer to approach the whole AI safety thing from a broader > standpoint, checking the different possibilities. AI might emerge > rapidly, or more slowly. In the first case it is more likely to be > unitary since there will be just one system recursively selfimproving, Remember why Crays looked that way? Memory latency. There is no unitary anything in a relativistic universe, at least until you've got population of clones splitting state, and in order to deal with locally differing input. Hence, diversity. -- 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 From rpwl at lightlink.com Sat Apr 23 18:04:09 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:04:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110423174957.GQ23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> <20110423174957.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB31499.2030000@lightlink.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > Friendliness as is means everything and hence nothing, > so it has to be defined, at which point people should > realize they have a slippery electric eel in their hands. > It's one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem Why is it that you repeat this assertion after I have argued that it is meaningless to say such a thing, in this context, and without bothering to address the argument I offered? Richard Loosemore From js_exi at gnolls.org Sat Apr 23 21:13:54 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:13:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Choline, cholesterol, and Alzheimer's Message-ID: <4DB34112.8030409@gnolls.org> BillK wrote: > So the paleo diet cures Alzheimer's as well now! Really???!!! There is no cure for Alzheimer's. There is only prevention and slowing of progression. Don't put words in my mouth, or in anyone else's. > You are really straining your credibility by quoting from these fringe > paleo support sites. I note the following, from alz.org: http://www.alz.org/alzheimers_disease_standard_prescriptions.asp "All of the prescription medications currently approved to treat Alzheimer?s symptoms in early to moderate stages are from a class of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors." ... "[They] Delay worsening of symptoms for 6 to 12 months, on average, for about half the people who take them." That's not a terribly encouraging prognosis. One wonders if it might, perhaps, be more efficient to eat foods that actually contain choline -- such as egg yolks (the best source by far), liver, and meat -- instead of scrupulously avoiding them, and then taking drugs to try and fix the biochemical pathways that can no longer synthesize adequate acetylcholine because of inadequate choline substrate. Furthermore: Psychosom Med. 2005 Jan-Feb;67(1):24-30. Serum cholesterol and cognitive performance in the Framingham Heart Study. Elias PK, Elias MF, D'Agostino RB, Sullivan LM, Wolf PA. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15673620 RESULTS: There was a significant positive linear association between TC [note: TC = total cholesterol] and measures of verbal fluency, attention/concentration, abstract reasoning, and a composite score measuring multiple cognitive domains. Performance levels for three clinically defined groups were examined. *** Participants with "desirable" TC levels (<200 mg/dL) performed less well than participants with borderline-high TC levels (200-239 mg/dL) and participants with high TC levels (there exists 240 mg/dL). *** > If I wanted to know about Alzheimer's I wouldn't go to fringe sites. > You will find sites supporting every kooky cure in the world if you > search hard enough. Do you really wish to define basic biochemistry and the Framingham Heart Study as "kooky" and "fringe"? (Y/N) Masterjohn's article is well-referenced and provides biologically plausible mechanisms for the progression of Alzheimer's. (Note that he's a graduate student pursuing a PhD at UConn in Biochemical and Molecular Nutrition.) You're free to make rational, well-referenced arguments against it, and I'll engage with you once you do. JS http://www.gnolls.org From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Apr 23 20:19:13 2011 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 23 Apr 2011 14:19:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> References: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB33441.20800@canonizer.com> Thank You Anders!! That was very fascinating information. It would sure be fun to make something like this more dynamic, and increasingly comprehensive, i.e. it'd be fun to be able to participate, and see others I know included. The averages of the 10%, 50%, and 90% ranges seemed to be right on where my personal beliefs are. I thought such a crowd would be much more optimistic / aggressive than that so the results were surprisingly conservative to me. Also, the free text, can you think of any milestones, section was fascinating. Open survey questions like this are what canonizer.com was designed for. It would enable the people with many similar ideas to colaboratively merge them in a consensus building way and get a comparative quantitative measure of just how many people accepted the best of such ideas. Also, it is more open ended so the survey continues on indefinitely, allowing anyone interested to contribute, for people to jump camps, when their camp is finally falsified, and so on. So we can track things going forward, know, definitively, when an expert consensus is achieved, and so on. Towards that end, I've created a canonizer.com survey topic and started a camp of my own, for your milestones question number 4 here: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/121 It'd be great to expand such survey's, make them much more comprehensive, and track where everyone is as ever more scientific data comes in, and be able to use such material as very convincing educational references for others on such important still theoretical topics. Anders, would you be interested in cross linking your survey back to this, so perhaps any others interested in participating in the future my be aware of this possibility at canonizer.com? Brent Allsop On 4/22/2011 3:38 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Here are the results (long delayed) of the survey on AGI we did at the > Winter Intelligence workshop: > http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0015/21516/MI_survey.pdf > > Validity questionable, but the results are consistent with earlier > surveys - the kind of people who respond to this tend to think > mid-century human-level AI is fairly plausible, with a tail towards > the far future. Opinions on the overall effect were not divided but > bimodal - it will likely be really good or really bad, not something > in between. > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 08:26:19 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 02:26:19 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <004d01cc01c4$487f93c0$d97ebb40$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> <4154E48B-6E17-46A0-8A91-EBDAA5C61844@mac.com> <004d01cc01c4$487f93c0$d97ebb40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 8:39 AM, spike wrote: > Missiles? ?We knew they didn't have missiles. Certainly not long range missiles, but there were the scuds, capable of reaching Israel, though without much accuracy. Whether they still had capacity to construct scuds at the time... who knows. I still wonder if some stuff (intellectual property, at least) wasn't smuggled out to Syria. I mean they had a year's warning, why wouldn't they? Who knows. > ... the > Middle Eastern way. ?It's a dangerous neighborhood. Indeed. And who is the biggest military bully in the neighborhood? Clearly now it is Iran. Pull out a map, and you'll notice that Iran is now nicely book-ended by Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is it possible that Iraq was invaded in hopes of isolating and weakening Iran? I am not saying that it has worked out that way, yet, but that could have been the hope. It may still be the hope. The Iranian people are reportedly very fond of the west. Why they don't rise up is anyone's guess. Especially now that other countries are erupting. One weakness of the Bush administration seems to have been an overabundance of optimism. Overthrow Saddam, and Iraq automatically becomes our ally? Weaken Iran and the populace will overthrow the ayatollahs? We only need a small armed force to hold Iraq? The middle east will automatically evolve to western style democracies with freedoms like the Bill of Rights? Really? They REALLY believed that stuff? Hard to swallow that degree of optimism. Of course, the same might be said of the current invasion of Libya. Despite McCain's assurances (Really, he was the BEST the Republicans could come up with, Really?) I really wonder if the Libyan insurgents are immune from current or future infiltration by Muslim radicals. Power vacuums suck up terrorists, haven't we learned that yet? Ultimately, I think a lot of the reason we went to Iraq was the attempted assassination of George Bush Sr. by Saddam. I don't know why people don't make a bigger deal out of that. If you knew there was a guy who was interested in a) killing your father and b) killing someone with your unique job, it would seem like self defense to do something about him, regardless of the excuse fed to the public. This isn't the first war where the reason we got in was misinterpreted to the American public. The Spanish American war and the Vietnam war come to mind. I'm sure there were more. Why would we think the government has changed it's approach to PR/propaganda? It is all solved by my plan to pay for all oil related wars at the gas pump. :-) -Kelly From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 24 10:04:33 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:04:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB31499.2030000@lightlink.com> References: <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> <20110423174957.GQ23560@leitl.org> <4DB31499.2030000@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110424100433.GZ23560@leitl.org> On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 02:04:09PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> Friendliness as is means everything and hence nothing, >> so it has to be defined, at which point people should >> realize they have a slippery electric eel in their hands. >> It's one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem > > Why is it that you repeat this assertion after I have argued that it is > meaningless to say such a thing, in this context, and without bothering > to address the argument I offered? Because I'm backlogged, and have not yet seen that message. From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 24 10:21:50 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 12:21:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110424102150.GA23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 02:40:28PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: > Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> >>> The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other >>> is a matter of design, very much the same as the question of whether >>> or not they would be good at arithmetic. >> >> The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. >> >> Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. > > That is not the difference at all. It is not possible, and will never > be possible, to define "friendly" in formal terms. For the same reason We agree. > that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. Yes; but it's irrelevant to the key assumption of people believing in guardian agents. Intelligence is as intelligence does, but in case of overcritical friendly you have zero error margin, at each interaction step of open-ended evolution on the side of both the guardian and guarded agent populations. There is no "oh well, we'll scrap it and redo it again". Because of this you need a brittle definition, which already clashes with overcriticality, which by necessity must be robust in order to succeed at all (in order to overcome the sterility barreer in absence of enough knowledge about where fertile regions start). > There are other ways to effect a definition without it being "formal". I > we understand the roots of human motivation, and if we understand the Humans are insufficiently friendly as is. The best you can do is to destill the ethics into a small hand-picked "the right stuff" tiny subpopulation. This is pretty thin, but I think it's our best bet. > components of human motivation in such a way that we can differentiate > "empathic" behavior from other kinds, like selfishly aggressive > behavior, then we could discover that (as seems likely) these are > impemented by separable modules in the human brain. I'm not sure the brain is sufficiently modular to allow for such easy extraction. But this definitely warrants further research. > Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the > dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that > with that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from > the design, a thinking creature would experience all of the empathic > motivations that we so prize in human beings, and not even be aware of > the violent or aggressive motivations. You're thinking about de novo, but it might work in people as well. However, the idea of engineering (emulated) people to make them superior ethical agents by itself appears on thin ice, even if mutually consensual. There definitely lots of dangers involved. > With that information in hand, we would then be able to predict that the > appropriately designed AI would exhibit a cluster of behaviors that, in > normal human terms, would be summed up by the label "friendly". By that But we're about the leave the domain of "normal human terms". At which point is there self-termination for the guardian task? And who exactly are they guarding against whom? > stage, the term "friendliness" would have achieved the status of having > a functional definition in terms of the behavior, and the stability, of > certain brain modules (and their AGI counterparts). At that point we > would have: What if the human condition has changed? Will your agents track the change, or be a constant? Which of the reference point in the new species are you using? The meat puppet? It seems a rather awful idea to imprint a simian paw upon the universe, world without end. > a) A common-speech, DESCRIPTIVE definition of "friendliness", > > b) A technical, FUNCTIONAL definition of "friendliness", and > > c) A method for designing systems in which the effectiveness and > stability of the friendliness modules could be stated in concrete, > measureable terms. This would give us everything we could ask for in > the way of a guarantee of friendliness, short of a guarantee based on > logically necessary premises and strictly correct logical deduction (a > type of guarantee that is virtually impossible in any real world > science). > > -- > > So, if you are going to argue that "friendliness" cannot be given a > formal definition in the mathematical sense, I agree with you. > > If you are going to claim that this has any relevance for the question > at hand, you are mistaken, and you need to address the above line of > argument if you want to maintain otherwise. I think what you're trying to build is not terribly meaningful. But it appears to be benign enough so that it doesn't appear to add to the problem space. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 24 11:53:45 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:53:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> Message-ID: <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 11:02:17PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > There seems to be a philosophical position on the part of some that > you can't design intelligence that is more intelligent than yourself. Artificial intelligence is hard. We know that darwinian design can do it, and we have plenty of educated guesses to prime the evolutionary pump: animals. It's just the easiest approach, particularly given the chronical hubris in the AI camp. I never understood the arrogance of early AI people, it was just not obvious that it was easy. But after getting so many bloody noses they still seem to think it's easy. Weird. > I think that is just a ridiculous position. Just having an > intelligence with the same structure as ours, but on a better > substrate, or larger than a physical skull would result in higher It does seem that we're metabolically constrained, so a larger cortex should result in more processing capacity. But the most interesting things is that we've got some pretty extreme outliers which manage extremely impressive feats within the same metabolic or more or less genetic envelope, so it's worthwhile to look at how they differ from us bog humans. It might be the synaptic density and the fibre connectivity as well as molecular-scale features, but right now nobody really knows. Both postmortem and in vivo instrumentation are difficult. > intelligence rather trivially. Add a computer type memory without the > fuzziness of human memory and you would get better processing. I have Ah, this is not obvious. There are some extreme cases where people are cursed with a real photographic memory to the point of their processing ability being completely overwhelmed. Have you ever had the problem of seeing too many options simultaneously, and unable to pick the right path? > never understood the argument that the brain is insufficiently bright > to understand itself, since we work in groups... it just confuses me I presume you're familiar with "The Mythical Man-month" and its more recent ilk. > that anyone would take this position. It seems like saying one person > could never design a mission to land men on the moon. That may be > true, but it is also entirely irrelevant to whether we can accomplish > it as a species. Artificial intelligence is a lot harder than putting men on the moon. And will have a *slightly* higher impact than that. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Sun Apr 24 11:58:43 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 13:58:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement was Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110424115843.GD23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 10:12:41PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > Thought experiment. > > Build an AI. Put a clock rate control in that it can mess with. Advanced computers won't have global oscillators, being more asynchronously coupled, free-running assemblies of signalling systems, but for the purposes you could implement a throttling option which would be equivalent to a clock. > If it is measuring it's performance against an outside clock, it is > going to notice that it does better with the clock rate on fast. > > So it sets it's clock rate to fast, effectively becoming smarter. Yes, but a dog running for a megayear won't come up with quantum cronodynamics. Wait, I won't come up with that, either. > Seems to me this is self improvement. If you have more time you can sample the problem space more thoroughly, but this obviously has a ceiling, unless you're trying to make a smarter system, and are actually making progress. -- 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 From anders at aleph.se Sun Apr 24 13:26:53 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:26:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Eugen Leitl wrote: > It's just the easiest approach, particularly given the > chronical hubris in the AI camp. I never understood the > arrogance of early AI people, it was just not obvious that > it was easy. But after getting so many bloody noses they > still seem to think it's easy. Weird. Yes, this might be one of the strangest properties of the field. We have about 55 years of evidence that it is harder than we think, yet it doesn't make us abandon it. Could it be the lack of progress metric that does it? For any specific problem we can see progress, yet the overall goal might be approached rapidly, slowly or not at all. Fusion might be similar - unlike AI it has some very firm theory underlying the field, all the problems are in engineering. Yet hot fusion seems to have the same perennial optimism without radical progress as AI. Overall, it is odd how bad we are at estimating problem difficulties. A simple "doomsday paradox" style argument might suggest we should expect mid-century AI success: if achieving AI takes X years, we should expect to find ourselves close to the midpoint. Hence, given that we have seen 55 years pass, we should expect success around 2066. This is of course a pretty silly argument, but one can dress it up in neater formal clothes. For example, we can view the continued failures as something akin to the Laplace analysis of the probability of the sun rising tomorrow: having seen X sunrises, the probability of another one tomorrow is (X+1)/(X+2) (to get this, view the probability as an unknown random variable distributed uniformly between 0 and 1, and run a Bayesian analysis). So right now the chance of an AI breakthrough next year will be 1-56/57, or 1.7%. However, reference class problems abound (count years, days or research hours?), and one could argue the proper prior should be something like the Jeffreys prior instead... just for starters. As Laplace noted, actually understanding the problem and the facts influencing it gives much better probability estimates. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 15:44:25 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 08:44:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110423174957.GQ23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <20110423075658.GL23560@leitl.org> <20110423174957.GQ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 10:49 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 04:36:25AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> > Hence the Holocene extinction. Very friendly, that. >> >> Are you saying humans went extinct in the Holocene? ?Please expand. > > There's that interesting word, human. What is a human? > There are plenty of extinct branches on > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_human_evolution > Is a neanderthal a human? We interbred with them. As much as 15-20% of our genome seems to be from alternate models who evolved a long time outside of Africa. > Is a posthuman is human? Hard to say, perhaps less so than we are australopithecines. On the other hand, they may well remember being us. By that I mean personal memories of people alive or in cryonic suspension today. > If the species splits up again, and into a thousands > of new branches, who's the leitspecies, and just who > died and made it king? How about the rest of the biosphere? > And just who decides who's to live and who's to die? I do. :-) >> > There is nothing to understand. You must be able to define >> > friendliness in formal form first in order to start building >> > development constraints on trajectory to assert conservation >> > or minimax according to the metric. >> >> You might be right. ?On the other hand, I find the way you have put it >> to be obscure and faintly hostile. > > It was not meant to be hostile, though after the nth iteration > of basically the same problem there is some exasperation on > my end. > > Friendliness as is means everything and hence nothing, > so it has to be defined, at which point people should > realize they have a slippery electric eel in their hands. > It's one of these http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undecidable_problem And in a down thread post you added: > Humans are insufficiently friendly as is. The best you can do is > to destill the ethics into a small hand-picked "the right stuff" > tiny subpopulation. This is pretty thin, but I think it's our best > bet. I don't expect that to work. "Friendly" in humans is situation dependent. We are friendly when it pays our genes to be so and nasty as hell when it does not. That's wired in. I have been trying get acceptance of the idea here for *years* or at least intelligent discussion pro or con about it. If we model AI off our own motivations, then we better figure out how to prevent the trigger for going into nasty mode from happening. > There are extremely nonobvious, pathological problems > deriving from the idea of a set (you're absolutely correct that > relativistic signalling alone requires there to be > asynchonous population) of guardians for the physical layer, tracking > a population of agents. I frankly think it's an awful idea, > and it needs to die. I based a story around that. How about ripping into "The Clinic Seed" and making a case for the idea in it needing to die? http://www.terasemjournals.org/GNJournal/GN0202/henson1.html Keith From rpwl at lightlink.com Sun Apr 24 15:54:59 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 11:54:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <20110424102150.GA23560@leitl.org> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> <20110424102150.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB447D3.4020705@lightlink.com> Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 02:40:28PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> Eugen Leitl wrote: >>> On Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 12:17:13PM -0400, Richard Loosemore wrote: >>> >>>> The question of whether the AIs would be friendly toward each other >>>> is a matter of design, very much the same as the question of whether >>>> or not they would be good at arithmetic. >>> The difference is that "friendly" is meaningless until defined. >>> >>> Please define "friendly" in formal terms, including context. >> That is not the difference at all. It is not possible, and will never >> be possible, to define "friendly" in formal terms. For the same reason > > We agree. > >> that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. > > Yes; but it's irrelevant to the key assumption of people believing > in guardian agents. Intelligence is as intelligence does, but in > case of overcritical friendly you have zero error margin, at each > interaction step of open-ended evolution on the side of both the > guardian and guarded agent populations. There is no "oh well, we'll > scrap it and redo it again". Because of this you need a brittle > definition, which already clashes with overcriticality, which > by necessity must be robust in order to succeed at all (in order > to overcome the sterility barreer in absence of enough knowledge > about where fertile regions start). This paragraph makes absolutely no sense to me. Too dense. >> There are other ways to effect a definition without it being "formal". I >> we understand the roots of human motivation, and if we understand the > > Humans are insufficiently friendly as is. The best you can do is > to destill the ethics into a small hand-picked "the right stuff" > tiny subpopulation. This is pretty thin, but I think it's our best > bet. > >> components of human motivation in such a way that we can differentiate >> "empathic" behavior from other kinds, like selfishly aggressive >> behavior, then we could discover that (as seems likely) these are >> impemented by separable modules in the human brain. > > I'm not sure the brain is sufficiently modular to allow for such > easy extraction. But this definitely warrants further research. It is not really a matter of the brain's modularity. This is something I have been working on for a very long time, so the line of my argument is nowhere near as simple as "find the right brain modules and we're done". The actual argument (which I always have to oversimplify for brevity) is that: 1) In order to understand cognition (not motivation, but tought proceses) it is necessary to take an approach that involves multiple, simultaneous, dynamic, weak constraint satisfaction (a mouthful: basically, a certain type of unusual neural computation). 2) For theoretical reasons, it is best to have the motivation of such a system *decoupled* from the relaxation network..... meaning, that the motivation process is not just oe part of the activity involved in thinking, its origin lies outside the flow of thought. 3) The mechanisms of motivation end up looking like a set of bias fields or gradients on the relaxation of the cognition process: so, there is a "slope" inherent in the cognition process, and the motivation mechanisms raise or lower that slope. (In fact, it is not one slope: it is a set of them, acting along different "dimensions"). 4) This picture of the way that the human mind "ought" to operate appears to be consistent with the neuroscience that we know so far. In particular, there do indeed appear to be some distinct centers that mediate at least some motivations. 5) Whether or not the "centers" for the various types of motivation in the human brain can be disentangled (that might not be possible, becuase they could be physically close together or overlapping), if the general principle is correct, then it allows us to build a corresponding artificial system in which the distinct sources can be added or omitted by design. Thus, even if they aggression and empathy modules are overlapping in the human brain's physiology, they can still be disentangled functionally, and one of them can be left out of the AGI design. >> Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the >> dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that >> with that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from >> the design, a thinking creature would experience all of the empathic >> motivations that we so prize in human beings, and not even be aware of >> the violent or aggressive motivations. > > You're thinking about de novo, but it might work in people as well. However, > the idea of engineering (emulated) people to make them superior ethical > agents by itself appears on thin ice, even if mutually consensual. There > definitely lots of dangers involved. I know not why you say this. We can only address the specific context of the model I am proposing, we cannot just start making general statements that "there are definitely lots of dangers". If I can enough time to work full time on these issues, I would be able to write several papers explaining all this in luxurious detail and giving experimental evidence. As it is, I have to work more than full time teaching for the next 12 months at least. Richard Loosemore From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 19:49:55 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 20:49:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again Message-ID: Michael Anissimov at Accelerating Future has just posted a comment that appeals to me. Quote: Another point I?ve made in the past is that as everyone becomes uploads and accelerates their thinking speeds, space will begin to seem very far away. Right now, Luna is 3-4 days away. To beings whose brains are made up of molecular computers with 100 GHz switching speeds, Luna is about 3,000,000,000 days away. That?s about eight million years. An eight million year trip to go to an empty wasteland without any art, culture, or much Kolmogorov complexity to speak of beyond geological and mineral patterns? The near-term future of humanity is to convert the Earth into a ?computronium globe? with a web of trillions of simulated worlds within it. In several subjective millennia, we may consume the Moon, but it will be subjective millions of years beyond that until we colonize Mars. In many billions of years, we may be fortunate enough to consume the Sun. --------------------------------- I think I've mentioned in the past that The Fermi problem is probably because advanced civs don't go out into space. For many possible reasons, including those mentioned by Michael above. Sometimes called the retreat into virtual worlds of computronium. BillK From rpwl at lightlink.com Sun Apr 24 20:28:51 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:28:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> BillK wrote: > Michael Anissimov at Accelerating Future has just posted a comment > that appeals to me. > > > > Quote: > Another point I?ve made in the past is that as everyone becomes > uploads and accelerates their thinking speeds, space will begin to > seem very far away. Right now, Luna is 3-4 days away. To beings whose > brains are made up of molecular computers with 100 GHz switching > speeds, Luna is about 3,000,000,000 days away. That?s about eight > million years. An eight million year trip to go to an empty wasteland > without any art, culture, or much Kolmogorov complexity to speak of > beyond geological and mineral patterns? > > The near-term future of humanity is to convert the Earth into a > ?computronium globe? with a web of trillions of simulated worlds > within it. In several subjective millennia, we may consume the Moon, > but it will be subjective millions of years beyond that until we > colonize Mars. In many billions of years, we may be fortunate enough > to consume the Sun. > --------------------------------- > > > I think I've mentioned in the past that The Fermi problem is probably > because advanced civs don't go out into space. > For many possible reasons, including those mentioned by Michael above. > > Sometimes called the retreat into virtual worlds of computronium. I hear the argument, but I don't feel compelled to buy it. For this (main) reason. If we had the power to speed up our consciousness to such an extent that one day RealTime became a million days VirtualTime, we would run the risk of becoming bored if we simply spent all that VT as a continuous consciousness. Much more likely, we would choose to establish a system of periodic rebirths, involving the archival storage of the current set of life experiences and the beginning of a new life in which we could experience everything as if for the first time. In that case, the million days VT would probably consist of several lifetimes. Moreover, people would not necessarily want to experience all of their lifetimes at VT speed, but would sometimes want to come back down to normal speed. And in fact, the lifetimes could, of course, be interleaved, so that several lives were being experienced at once, all at different speeds, but in packets. And (finally) one aspect of this would be the possibility to set up interstellar trips in which the consciousness was suspended for the duration. Or, where many different lives were led during the trip, but all within computronium VWorlds. That way, a community could go to the stars, arrive there with the subjective experience of having only just left, and then explore the remote worlds before going on to the next star. Some of us, I have got to say, would *still* be interested in what Nature, by herself, decided to do at all of those other star systems, and would not want to simply sit at home pretending to live in imagined worlds! Conclusion: I don't see any *necessary* force to to the argument that this is an explanation for the Fermi Paradox. Richard Loosemore From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 20:09:06 2011 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:09:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 10:01 PM, spike wrote: >>See George Tenet, ... Sorry, spike, but I have to go with Samantha on this. For his part, Tenet is completely without credibility. After 9/11, Bush kept him on as CIA chief. Excellent move on Bush's part. Not cashiering Tenet -- in effect "buying" Tenet -- made him a locked-in Bush loyalist, important, because at the time, everyone in the Bush Cabal was a candidate to take the fall for letting 9/11 happen. Tenet had told Bush that, regarding Bin Laden, "...the system was flashing red..." Had he been fired, Tenet as former intel chief, could have ripped Bush a new one by detailing how Bush had turned his back on his R2P the US. Tenet was lick-spittle from then on regarding whatever Cheney (ie Bush) wanted. Everyone at the CIA at the time was saying "No way. Saddam didn't do 9/11. And Saddam has no connections to al Quaida. And ***there's no evidence*** Saddam has WMD's or even a WMD program. Despite pressure from the VP, the CIA's unhelpfulness was clear. Cheney, knowing what was needed, and recognizing early on the difficulty with the CIA, went around the problem. He set up The Office of Special Plans and simply cooked up the "intelligence" needed to implement his policy (of regime change/war with Iraq). Remember the Downing Street Memo: "...the intelligence is being fixed around the policy..." It was all a pack of lies. "Everyone knew" that Saddam had WMDs only because everyone had been told what to "know". If you were out of the intelligence loop, you were told by the corporate media. Those in the loop were told by the incestuous sharing of intelligence. Tenet was Bush's bitch, just as Bush was Cheney's, and the whole damn US govt is the Likudnik's. Tenet was, and is, all "implausible deniability". Ancient history. "Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away." Best, Jeff Davis "During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." George Orwell From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 21:08:50 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 14:08:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: BillK wrote: Michael Anissimov at Accelerating Future has just posted a comment that appeals to me. < http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2011/04/elon-musk-ill-put-a-man-on-mars-in-10-years/ > Quote: Another point I?ve made in the past is that as everyone becomes uploads and accelerates their thinking speeds, space will begin to seem very far away. Right now, Luna is 3-4 days away. To beings whose brains are made up of molecular computers with 100 GHz switching speeds, Luna is about 3,000,000,000 days away. That?s about eight million years. An eight million year trip to go to an empty wasteland without any art, culture, or much Kolmogorov complexity to speak of beyond geological and mineral patterns? The near-term future of humanity is to convert the Earth into a ?computronium globe? with a web of trillions of simulated worlds within it. In several subjective millennia, we may consume the Moon, but it will be subjective millions of years beyond that until we colonize Mars. In many billions of years, we may be fortunate enough to consume the Sun. --------------------------------- I think I've mentioned in the past that The Fermi problem is probably because advanced civs don't go out into space. For many possible reasons, including those mentioned by Michael above. Sometimes called the retreat into virtual worlds of computronium. >>> Richard Loosemore replied: I hear the argument, but I don't feel compelled to buy it. For this (main) reason. If we had the power to speed up our consciousness to such an extent that one day RealTime became a million days VirtualTime, we would run the risk of becoming bored if we simply spent all that VT as a continuous consciousness. Much more likely, we would choose to establish a system of periodic rebirths, involving the archival storage of the current set of life experiences and the beginning of a new life in which we could experience everything as if for the first time. In that case, the million days VT would probably consist of several lifetimes. Moreover, people would not necessarily want to experience all of their lifetimes at VT speed, but would sometimes want to come back down to normal speed. And in fact, the lifetimes could, of course, be interleaved, so that several lives were being experienced at once, all at different speeds, but in packets. And (finally) one aspect of this would be the possibility to set up interstellar trips in which the consciousness was suspended for the duration. Or, where many different lives were led during the trip, but all within computronium VWorlds. That way, a community could go to the stars, arrive there with the subjective experience of having only just left, and then explore the remote worlds before going on to the next star. Some of us, I have got to say, would *still* be interested in what Nature, by herself, decided to do at all of those other star systems, and would not want to simply sit at home pretending to live in imagined worlds! Conclusion: I don't see any *necessary* force to to the argument that this is an explanation for the Fermi Paradox. >>> Richard, very well said!!! I am so tired of the "humanity uploading and retreating into virtual worlds/forgetting about space exploration and colonization" argument. You did an excellent job of dismantling it. John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 21:50:36 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 22:50:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 9:28 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > For this (main) reason. ?If we had the power to speed up our consciousness > to such an extent that one day RealTime became a million days VirtualTime, > we would run the risk of becoming bored if we simply spent all that VT as a > continuous consciousness. ?Much more likely, we would choose to establish a > system of periodic rebirths, involving the archival storage of the current > set of life experiences and the beginning of a new life in which we could > experience everything as if for the first time. We've discussed the problem that very long lifetimes might lead to boredom before and most on the list appeared to be horrified at the thought. I am more inclined towards accepting the possibility. But your suggestion seems unlikely to me. Certainly future uploaded civs could create as many new intelligences as they wish, but the same point applies as travelling out to space. If they start anew or leave Earth, they are cutting themselves off from the Matrix of the trillions of intelligences in the computronium world. And this would feel like suicide to them. These are uploaded transhuman civs, remember, Not apes with a few superpowers. ;) > > Moreover, people would not necessarily want to experience all of their > lifetimes at VT speed, but would sometimes want to come back down to normal > speed. ?And in fact, the lifetimes could, of course, be interleaved, so that > several lives were being experienced at once, all at different speeds, but > in packets. VT speed will be *normal* speed. The outside world is effectively frozen to a standstill. Why would they want to enter stasis? > > And (finally) one aspect of this would be the possibility to set up > interstellar trips in which the consciousness was suspended for the > duration. ?Or, where many different lives were led during the trip, but all > within computronium VWorlds. ?That way, a community could go to the stars, > arrive there with the subjective experience of having only just left, and > then explore the remote worlds before going on to the next star. So a whole community would have to choose to leave the Matrix and to dull the pain go to sleep for virtually trillions of years to wake up in a desert place with no Matrix? Future transhuman civs will find it unthinkable - even impossible - to leave the Matrix. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 22:13:36 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 15:13:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 2:50 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 9:28 PM, Richard Loosemore ?wrote: >> For this (main) reason. ?If we had the power to speed up our consciousness >> to such an extent that one day RealTime became a million days VirtualTime, >> we would run the risk of becoming bored if we simply spent all that VT as a >> continuous consciousness. ?Much more likely, we would choose to establish a >> system of periodic rebirths, involving the archival storage of the current >> set of life experiences and the beginning of a new life in which we could >> experience everything as if for the first time. > > > We've discussed the problem that very long lifetimes might lead to > boredom before and most on the list appeared to be horrified at the > thought. Include me in those who believe that the "long life = boring life" outcome is unsustainable - and that higher intelligence necessarily includes the realization, which has been successfully implemented by many seniors using merely the wetware available to them today, that finding new things to do is part and parcel of having a longer life. Put another way: if you allow yourself to become perpetually bored, you die much faster, and therefore are subsequently irrelevant to those who did not get bored and die. As to the "faster thought = less willing to deal with the real world", I don't see that. Desired features and ways of doing things expand to fill the available capacity. Such has it ever been, especially with software. I see no reason why uploaded intelligence would be any different. Instead of 70 million times faster meaning one experiences 70 million days for each outside world day, I find it more likely that one will do more with each day but still experience one day. You can see the first glimmers of this today, for people who use smartphones to augment their cognition. (Trivial example: when going to an Indian place with coworkers for lunch last week, none of us recognized half the items on the menu. We were on course to spend tens of minutes speculating - one or two person-hours total - until I took two minutes to google them all.) Some physical processes take time - and if one has good reason to believe that one will live for thousands of years, that tends to develop more, not less, patience for things like space voyages. Moreover, uploads will likely be better able to operate drone equipment, even over light speed lags of seconds or minutes. That argues for sending remote controlled but unintelligent drones to bring things closer to Earth - and makes exploitation of things at lunar distances much easier. Further, you can simply launch these drones and then get back to whatever else you're doing until the drones are in position. Think of it this way: say you had a project where you could work on it for a month or two, send it off, and know that in 10 years you would harvest $1 billion. The mere fact that you wouldn't be doing anything with it for 10 years doesn't make it seem not worth doing, right? Same deal for these uploads, only they can extend this time horizon to 100, 1000, or more years. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Apr 24 23:56:25 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:56:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: Re messing with you perception of time, I have been talking about subjective warp drive since at least 1990. http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics9010.txt I don't know how long I have been thinking about the consequences of speeding up, but by 2003 I wrote this: "To put bluntly, if technophilic life is common, none of them survive their local Singularity. "There are alternatives, for example, as we speed up our thinking, the stars recede out of reach. (If your subjective time is sped up a million fold, the nearest star becomes millions of years away.) But this assumes no variation, since slowing down your thinking brings the stars closer. (Assuming no FTL travel.) "Our entire species is going over a waterfall in a barrel. There doesn't seem to be a way to leave part of them on the shore as we drift downstream." http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=21617 Keith From spike66 at att.net Sun Apr 24 23:49:55 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:49:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Subject: Re: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review On Thu, Apr 21, 2011 at 10:01 PM, spike wrote: >>See George Tenet, ... >...Sorry, spike, but I have to go with Samantha on this. For his part, Tenet is completely without credibility. After 9/11, Bush kept him on as CIA chief. Excellent move on Bush's part. Not cashiering Tenet -- in effect "buying" Tenet -- made him a locked-in Bush loyalist, important, because at the time, everyone in the Bush Cabal was a candidate to take the fall for letting 9/11 happen. Tenet had told Bush that, regarding Bin Laden, "...the system was flashing red..." Had he been fired, Tenet as former intel chief, could have ripped Bush a new one by detailing how Bush had turned his back on his R2P the US. Tenet was lick-spittle from then on regarding whatever Cheney (ie Bush) wanted... Best, Jeff Davis Jeff the reason I don't buy that line of reasoning is that Tenet isn't a Bush loyalist. The closest I can come to that is that Tenet cares nothing about Bush, Clinton or anyone other than Tenet. I will agree his credibility is low, but this was damaged by himself, not by any particular loyalty. It certainly hurts one's credibility when the preface of one's book contains a provably false story. His book jumps on every opportunity to blame any neocon he can find. George Piro is more credible. Piro isn't a high ranking guy, has no political aspirations that I can tell, has no tracks to cover, and his report came out only after Bush's influence had waned, so there was little chance of political payback, good or bad. His story pretty much agrees with Tenet with regards to Saddam, and it has the ring of truth: when you have a lousy hand, bluff. In Middle East politics, even if you have a good hand, bluff anyway. Last September they aired some replays of the 9/11newscasts as it happened, nine years before. I didn't know it, but the newscasters were already naming Bin Ladin even before the plane hit the second tower, and they already knew he was a Saudi. Tenet reports that the day after the attacks, 9/12, he met Richard Perle on the steps of the white house, and Perle was blaming Saddam. But Perle was in France at the time, and made it back to Washington only days later, in the cargo net of a C130. My theory is that Tenet and others led the press and Americans to believe that the government blamed the attacks on Saddam, when the government already knew the attacks were done by a Saudi-based group. Evidence: the story starting in the third paragraph of Tenet's book Center of the Storm. Second evidence: George Piro's report regarding Saddam. Saddam didn't have a WMD program to amount to anything, but he was trying to make us believe that he did, because Iran was getting ready. Had the US thought Saddam did 9/11, we likely would have just stepped back and let Iran have at them. Saddma convinced enough players that he had a WMD program that the strategy backfired. Piro reports Saddam knew it was risky, but desperation moves often are. spike From sjatkins at mac.com Mon Apr 25 00:38:51 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 17:38:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Apr 24, 2011, at 4:56 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Re messing with you perception of time, I have been talking about > subjective warp drive since at least 1990. > http://www.alcor.org/cryonics/cryonics9010.txt > > I don't know how long I have been thinking about the consequences of > speeding up, but by 2003 I wrote this: > > "To put bluntly, if technophilic life is common, none of them survive their > local Singularity. > > "There are alternatives, for example, as we speed up our thinking, the stars > recede out of reach. (If your subjective time is sped up a million fold, > the nearest star becomes millions of years away.) But this assumes no > variation, since slowing down your thinking brings the stars > closer. (Assuming no FTL travel.) > > "Our entire species is going over a waterfall in a barrel. There doesn't > seem to be a way to leave part of them on the shore as we drift downstream." > > http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=21617 > As I recently wrote elsewhere: The solution is quite simple. Every evolved intelligent species, by reason of the particulars of its evolution, evolved with many characteristics that are inimical and/or inadequate for dealing with the rapidity of its technological progress up to tech singularity. In short the evolved nature of the species must be significantly overcome to be fit for the quite different world and future from the one their evolution shaped them for. Very very few evolved intelligent species successfully meet this challenge in a timely [enough] manner. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 01:04:32 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 18:04:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 5:38 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > > On Apr 24, 2011, at 4:56 PM, Keith Henson wrote: snip >> >> "Our entire species is going over a waterfall in a barrel. ?There doesn't >> seem to be a way to leave part of them on the shore as we drift downstream." >> >> http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=21617 >> > As I recently wrote elsewhere: > > The solution is quite simple. Every evolved intelligent species, by reason of the particulars of its evolution, evolved with many characteristics that are inimical and/or inadequate for dealing with the rapidity of its technological progress up to tech singularity. In short the evolved nature of the species must be significantly overcome to be fit for the quite different world and future from the one their evolution shaped them for. Very very few evolved intelligent species successfully meet this challenge in a timely [enough] manner. The evidence is inclusive, all we see is no evidence of techophilic agents messing with the wild state of the universe. _If_ technophilics are common then something eats them before they can put an obvious stamp on the universe. Or at least they don't do so probably for a common reason, perhaps as we have speculated they speed up, the starts go out of reach and they stay home. It's possible that is out fate. The alternative is that technophilics are so rare that we are the only example in our light cone. In which case, the future is just unknown. I suspect that evolution is going to shape species that achieve technophilic status in rather similar ways. Keith From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com Mon Apr 25 02:47:31 2011 From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 19:47:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <4DB447D3.4020705@lightlink.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> <20110424102150.GA23560@leitl.org> <4DB447D3.4020705@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <945641.70955.qm@web65610.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> ----- Original Message ---- > From: Richard Loosemore > To: ExI chat list > Sent: Sun, April 24, 2011 8:54:59 AM > Subject: Re: [ExI] Self improvement > > Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > >> that it is not possible to define "intelligent" in formal terms. > > > > Yes; but it's irrelevant to the key assumption of people believing > > in guardian agents. Intelligence is as intelligence does, but in > > case of overcritical friendly you have zero error margin, at each interaction >step of open-ended evolution on the side of both the guardian and guarded agent >populations. There is no "oh well, we'll scrap it and redo it again". Because of >this you need a brittle > > definition, which already clashes with overcriticality, which > > by necessity must be robust in order to succeed at all (in order > > to overcome the sterility barreer in absence of enough knowledge > > about where fertile regions start). > > This paragraph makes absolutely no sense to me.? Too dense. I think what Eugen is getting at is that your dilemma is actually?eerily similar to the one faced by God in the book of Genesis. In order to even qualify as an intelligent agent, the AI must always have a choice as to the actions it performs at any given time because decision-making is tied up somewhere in the very definitions of agency, morality,?and intelligence. If you don't give it the ability to make decisions, you are simply programming an "app" or automaton. You?could, as you suggest,?write a heuristic?module that constrains its moral choices in very specific ways, but as the AI evolves over time and becomes more intelligent, it is certain to have choices available to it that?no human programmer could have possibly foreseen and therefore made no allowance for in its morality module. Because?the consequences of?error are grave, the agent's moral code must be very unambiguous and specific, which is the same reason why human laws are written in verbose and redundant legalese so that they cannot be *misunderstood*. But since the AI is evolving in an open-ended fashion, the agents moral code must be also be?very general to account for choices we cannot foresee.?This is problematic?since a piece of code cannot be both specific and general at the same time, at least with regard to any reasonable performance metric. See the "No Free Lunch Theorem" for further details. So to recap:?If you?simply tell the AI to be "good", then it is free to?rationalize "good" however it pleases. If you give it a list of a million things that it is forbidden to do, then it?is liable to?screw you over with the million and first thing that comes to its mind.???? > The actual argument (which I always have to oversimplify for brevity) is that: > > 1)? In order to understand cognition (not motivation, but tought proceses) it >is necessary to take an approach that involves multiple, simultaneous, dynamic, >weak constraint satisfaction (a mouthful: basically, a certain type of unusual >neural computation). > > 2)? For theoretical reasons, it is best to have the motivation of such a system >*decoupled* from the relaxation network..... meaning, that the motivation >process is not just oe part of the activity involved in thinking, its origin >lies outside the flow of thought. > > 3)? The mechanisms of motivation end up looking like a set of bias fields or >gradients on the relaxation of the cognition process:? so, there is a "slope" >inherent in the cognition process, and the motivation mechanisms raise or lower >that slope.? (In fact, it is not one slope: it is a set of them, acting along >different "dimensions"). > > 4)? This picture of the way that the human mind "ought" to operate appears to >be consistent with the neuroscience that we know so far.? In particular, there >do indeed appear to be some distinct centers that mediate at least some >motivations. I don't think this is a bad?model of how the limbic system interacts with higher brain functions.?It seems to reflect how we fit?being thirsty, hungry, horny, sleepy,?angry,?and afraid?into our busy schedules. But?most of our "decoupled motivations" come from a somatic source seperate from our brains,?such as?our?endocrine system. A disembodied brain in a vat of nutrients?or a data matrix is unlikely to be thirsty, hungry, or horny.?What?do you plan to substitute for these missing drives???The uncontrollable desire to do arithmetic? > 5)? Whether or not the "centers" for the various types of motivation in the >human brain can be disentangled (that might not be possible, becuase they could >be physically close together or overlapping), if the general principle is >correct, then it allows us to build a corresponding artificial system in which >the distinct sources can be added or omitted by design.? Thus, even if they >aggression and empathy modules are overlapping in the human brain's physiology, >they can still be disentangled functionally, and one of them can be left out of >the AGI design. But there is so much more to?the problem?of friendliness than?simple empathy or aggression. If I am hungry, I will eat a critter without any animousity toward it, all the while feeling a tinge of sorrow at the pain I might have caused it. What about the AGI's fear module? Scared people are often more dangerous than angry people. Another problem I foresee stems from the Competitive Exclusion Principle. The mass extinction we humans are causing is not due to our aggression against other species but due to our outcompeting them for habitat. If the AI needs the same resources we need and by being more efficient at harvesting those resources, denies us of those those resources, we would die without any aggression on the part of the AI. Indeed we would likely be the aggressors in such a scenario. > >> Under those circumstances we would be in a position to investigate the? >dynamics of those modules and in the end we could come to be sure that? with >that type of design, and with the aggressive modules missing from? the design, a >thinking creature would experience all of the empathic? motivations that we so >prize in human beings, and not even be aware of? the violent or aggressive >motivations. Competition?often occurs without any aggression. There is no?aggression when oaks deprive maples of sunlight simply by being taller. Friendliness is moot. I would much prefer an AI need me for its own rational self-interest the way?bees need flowers,?than to trust in any friendliness module certified by a short-sighted primate to guarantee my safety. Stuart LaForge "There is nothing wrong with America that faith, love of freedom, intelligence, and energy of her citizens cannot cure."- Dwight D. Eisenhower From moulton at moulton.com Mon Apr 25 02:47:45 2011 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 19:47:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Unjustified invasion of Iraq In-Reply-To: <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DB4E0D1.7000508@moulton.com> I have changed the Subject since we have long ago ended movie reviews. I hope the historians are working on determining what actually happened in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. Certainly various journalists have started to weigh in on the issue. One work I listened to as an audio book is The Dark Side by Jane Mayer. It has been a year or so since I listened to it but my overall reaction was one of disgust at the level of duplicity and mendacity by Bush/Cheney and many of their hand picked minions. The point about Tenet is that even if Saddam was bluffing it was Tenet's job to know it. As far as I am concerned Tenet has virtually no credibility. Being "deceived by Saddam" seems to have been very common amongst people who could advance their agenda by being "deceived by Saddam". Funny how that happens. Fred From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 25 04:24:24 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sun, 24 Apr 2011 23:24:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] codependency with your friend, the invisible tormentor Message-ID: <4DB4F778.1020507@satx.rr.com> Talk about cognitive dissonance containment--here's a headline to make a rational person cringe: On Easter Sunday, Possum Kingdom Lake churchgoers find renewed faith amid wildfire Dallas Morning News Meanwhile India is in an uproar of grief, I read, after the death of that absurd fraud Sai Baba. From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 06:46:17 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 00:46:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 5:53 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 20, 2011 at 11:02:17PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> There seems to be a philosophical position on the part of some that >> you can't design intelligence that is more intelligent than yourself. > > Artificial intelligence is hard. We know that darwinian design > can do it, and we have plenty of educated guesses to prime > the evolutionary pump: animals. Ok, I agree AI is hard. That being said, doing AI without human level computational levels is probably even harder. That is, when your CPU has as much computational power as a real human brain, it should be SLIGHTLY easier to get results that are closer to human level. Trying to do human level AI with 1/100th of the power is definitely harder. > It's just the easiest approach, particularly given the > chronical hubris in the AI camp. I never understood the > arrogance of early AI people, it was just not obvious that > it was easy. But after getting so many bloody noses they > still seem to think it's easy. Weird. The results of the recent survey posted here seems to be that the AI people are a lot more conservative than they used to be. The early AI people can be forgiven because nobody understood how hard things that are easy for us were back then. >> I think that is just a ridiculous position. Just having an >> intelligence with the same structure as ours, but on a better >> substrate, or larger than a physical skull would result in higher > > It does seem that we're metabolically constrained, so a larger > cortex should result in more processing capacity. Seems logical. > But the most > interesting things is that we've got some pretty extreme outliers > which manage extremely impressive feats within the same metabolic > or more or less genetic envelope, so it's worthwhile to look > at how they differ from us bog humans. It might be the synaptic > density and the fibre connectivity as well as molecular-scale > features, but right now nobody really knows. Both postmortem > and in vivo instrumentation are difficult. Agreed. We may even stumble into a model for intelligence that is superior to human processing in every way... it COULD happen... >> intelligence rather trivially. Add a computer type memory without the >> fuzziness of human memory and you would get better processing. I have > > Ah, this is not obvious. There are some extreme cases where people > are cursed with a real photographic memory to the point of their > processing ability being completely overwhelmed. Have you ever > had the problem of seeing too many options simultaneously, and > unable to pick the right path? Yes, but Google helps us to get more things done with less time. If future AIs went with the model of "looking up" with precision the things they need to know, then it isn't the same as the idiot savant that has that poor processing model because of a good memory. As an aside, studying the brains of these savants could be helpful in figuring it all out... >> never understood the argument that the brain is insufficiently bright >> to understand itself, since we work in groups... it just confuses me > > I presume you're familiar with "The Mythical Man-month" and its more > recent ilk. Of course. And yet we build the Hoover Dam and went to the moon as a group. Studying the brain is a big group issue. >> that anyone would take this position. It seems like saying one person >> could never design a mission to land men on the moon. That may be >> true, but it is also entirely irrelevant to whether we can accomplish >> it as a species. > > Artificial intelligence is a lot harder than putting men on the moon. > And will have a *slightly* higher impact than that. Agreed, that's why we didn't do it first... :-) -Kelly From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 09:37:15 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 02:37:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions Message-ID: I came across "Reality Check," a book published by Wired in 1996, and written by Brad Wieners and David Pescovitz, with a foreward by Bruce Sterling. These are the predictions within their timeline... Bruce Sterling writes, "This book, despite it's out-there graphic design, is all-too-comprehensible. It's not the future, because it can't be, but it is a whole sizzling stack of today's sexist ideas about the future, and hunt as you might, you won't find a better treatment of these ideas." I'm not so sure if even back in '96, if this was the best treatment for these ideas. As an example, short of a full-blown singularity, I find it unlikely that anyone is going to be coming back from cryonic suspension (as compared to suspended animation) in 2043... And I'm sure a number of you will enjoy looking at the pre-2011 predictions to see how accurate they turned out to be. I realize some of these have more to do with the political will of the U.S., than merely technological progress. Have fun! John : ) 1996 Genetically engineered weapons of war 1997 Affordable home cd recorders Movies on demand Intelligent Agents 1998 E-cash gets real First virtual graduating class Flat rate phone service 1999 Male birth control pill Overnight custom clothing 2000 Gene therapy for cancer 2001 Solar powered automobiles Fortune 500 virtual corporation Global wireless telephone number 2002 Aids vaccine available Computer handwriting recognition Fat-destroying pill Remote-controlled surgery 2003 Universal picture phones One-fifth of U.S. workers telecommute 2004 Commercially viable nanotech Solar power to the people Most U.S. produce genetically engineered 2005 Computer defeats human chess master Universal organ donor animal Housecleaning robot Software superdistribution 2006 Self-cleaning toilets hit home Effective hair-loss prevention One-fourth of U.S. homes get smart 2007 Fiber in the home Smart fabrics go mainstream Online mass retailer as big as Sears 2008 Hemp-based auto fuel 20 percent of U.S. consumers tele-grocery shop 2009 VR sunglasses Orgasmotron 2010 Smart Drugs Robot surgeon in a pill Audio cd becomes a format of second choice 2013 The book goes digital 2014 Supersonic flight for the masses Online advertising eclipses TV commercials Aquaculture provides a majority of U.S. seafood 2015 Food tablets provide complete nutrition 2016 Holophone First large, public virtual library 2017 Automated highway systems in U.S. cities 2019 Decriminalization of drugs in the U.S. Self-driving vehicles Interoperable objects 2020 Humans on Mars "Sober up" drug 2021 Commercially viable magnetic levitation trains in the United States 2022 Entirely ex utero fetal development 2023 Tricorder 2025 Contact with extraterrestrial intelligence 2029 Cell repair technology 2034 More than 50 percent drive electric cars 2036 Teledildonics 2043 First cryonic reanimation 2044 Self-replicating robot 2047 C3P0 becomes a reality 2051 Most U.S. food grown hydroponically 2055 Virtual sex slave 2225 "Dial a mood" (I don't understand the date given) Unlikely End of two party system in the United States Unlikely Jetpacks for personal transportation Unlikely Orbiting solar power plant Never An interactive tv in every home (they admit it may come to be) Never The paperless office (the same thing) Never Human clones (the ethical problems) Never Virtual war (cyberwar yes, but real world conflict will always be there, they claim) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 25 11:50:30 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:50:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110425115030.GK23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 08:49:55PM +0100, BillK wrote: > Michael Anissimov at Accelerating Future has just posted a comment > that appeals to me. > > > > Quote: > Another point I?ve made in the past is that as everyone becomes > uploads and accelerates their thinking speeds, space will begin to Why did we leave Africa? At these speeds villages were months away. But there is always an adjacent village. And population pressure. > seem very far away. Right now, Luna is 3-4 days away. To beings whose Round trip about 2.6 seconds. > brains are made up of molecular computers with 100 GHz switching > speeds, Luna is about 3,000,000,000 days away. That?s about eight > million years. An eight million year trip to go to an empty wasteland > without any art, culture, or much Kolmogorov complexity to speak of > beyond geological and mineral patterns? Why did we settle Oceania? Australia? Americas? The whole goddamn world down to the smallest island barely above waterline, in fact. Kolmogorov complexity my arse. > The near-term future of humanity is to convert the Earth into a > ?computronium globe? with a web of trillions of simulated worlds Your "computronium globe" is many lightminutes across. Put that into your relativistic pipe, and smoke it. > within it. In several subjective millennia, we may consume the Moon, Subjective doesn't mean much. Time is of no essence. > but it will be subjective millions of years beyond that until we > colonize Mars. In many billions of years, we may be fortunate enough > to consume the Sun. > --------------------------------- > > > I think I've mentioned in the past that The Fermi problem is probably > because advanced civs don't go out into space. Yeah, just as we didn't. Wait, we've got probes leaving the solar system and we barely started crawling. Something doesn't add up. > For many possible reasons, including those mentioned by Michael above. > > Sometimes called the retreat into virtual worlds of computronium. Guess what, these won't go out and conquer the universe! We will. P.S. Excellent troll, haha. -- 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 From rpwl at lightlink.com Mon Apr 25 12:23:38 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:23:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> BillK wrote: > We've discussed the problem that very long lifetimes might lead to > boredom before and most on the list appeared to be horrified at the > thought. I am more inclined towards accepting the possibility. > > But your suggestion seems unlikely to me. Certainly future uploaded > civs could create as many new intelligences as they wish, but the same > point applies as travelling out to space. If they start anew or leave > Earth, they are cutting themselves off from the Matrix of the > trillions of intelligences in the computronium world. > And this would feel like suicide to them. > > These are uploaded transhuman civs, remember, Not apes with a few > superpowers. ;) Not necessarily. I suspect that a large community of people would go to the stars together. In fact, what if, when every large expedition starts, almost everyone on Earth decides to do a split, sending a version of themselves along with the ship, to experience time contemporaneously with the other travellers, while one version of themselves stays behind to be a virtual homebody? Then, when the expedition returns home, there can be a mass recombination of the stay-at-home and traveller personalities. There are just so many possible variations on these themes, that I doubt that all of them make no sense to any of those future non-ape-with-superpower creatures. :-) >> Moreover, people would not necessarily want to experience all of their >> lifetimes at VT speed, but would sometimes want to come back down to normal >> speed. And in fact, the lifetimes could, of course, be interleaved, so that >> several lives were being experienced at once, all at different speeds, but >> in packets. > > VT speed will be *normal* speed. The outside world is effectively > frozen to a standstill. > Why would they want to enter stasis? Why would it be stasis? Admitedly, a lot of people would have to do it together if they wanted company, or the same technique as above would be used, with a split and rejoining later. > >> And (finally) one aspect of this would be the possibility to set up >> interstellar trips in which the consciousness was suspended for the >> duration. Or, where many different lives were led during the trip, but all >> within computronium VWorlds. That way, a community could go to the stars, >> arrive there with the subjective experience of having only just left, and >> then explore the remote worlds before going on to the next star. > > > So a whole community would have to choose to leave the Matrix and to > dull the pain go to sleep for virtually trillions of years to wake up > in a desert place with no Matrix? > Future transhuman civs will find it unthinkable - even impossible - to > leave the Matrix. Why? I can already think of leaving it. If I can, why would it be so impossible for them? I suspect they will feel limited if they find themselves stuck in a situation like that. Richard Loosemore From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 12:00:18 2011 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 22:00:18 +1000 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:50 AM, BillK wrote: > So a whole community would have to choose to leave the Matrix and to > dull the pain go to sleep for virtually trillions of years to wake up > in a desert place with no Matrix? > Future transhuman civs will find it unthinkable - even impossible - to > leave the Matrix. If you are able to re-engineer your brain, you are able to choose your desires and change or eliminate your fears and anxieties. You could modify yourself so that you are awake for a trillion subjective years, enjoying every subjective second in anticipation of whatever noble (but in your unaltered state, unpleasant) goal you care to think of. -- Stathis Papaioannou From rpwl at lightlink.com Mon Apr 25 12:36:13 2011 From: rpwl at lightlink.com (Richard Loosemore) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 08:36:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Unjustified invasion of Iraq In-Reply-To: <4DB4E0D1.7000508@moulton.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> <4DB4E0D1.7000508@moulton.com> Message-ID: <4DB56ABD.5020406@lightlink.com> F. C. Moulton wrote: > I have changed the Subject since we have long ago ended movie reviews. > > I hope the historians are working on determining what actually happened > in the lead up to the Iraq invasion. Certainly various journalists have > started to weigh in on the issue. One work I listened to as an audio > book is The Dark Side by Jane Mayer. It has been a year or so since I > listened to it but my overall reaction was one of disgust at the level > of duplicity and mendacity by Bush/Cheney and many of their hand picked > minions. > > The point about Tenet is that even if Saddam was bluffing it was Tenet's > job to know it. As far as I am concerned Tenet has virtually no > credibility. You have to be very careful with historical details here. I recall very clearly that there was a point, early on, when Bush was beating on the drum to try to get everyone to agree that there were WMD over in Iraq, and the CIA produced a quiet assessment which surprised a lot of people: Tenet said to a House committee that he didn't really see much evidence pointing in that direction. The communist american media such as NPR ;-) made a point of noticing this. Then there was a report that Tenet had been called for urgent discussions at the White House. Then, a week or two later Tenet suddenly announced (as if the earlier comments had never even existed) that the CIA was convinced that Iraq had WMD. The media (apart from the ultra-communist, subsidized-by-Libya, pinko (did I say that already? ;-) ) Democracy Now) then just went along with the charade and made no further comment on the volte-face. I don't hold candle for Tenet. But frankly I think he started out being pretty honest. And a lot of people inside the CIA were apeshit furious about the official CIA line, all the way through the run up to the war. Richard Loosemore From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 25 12:42:59 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:42:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110425124259.GN23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 04:56:25PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > "To put bluntly, if technophilic life is common, none of them survive their > local Singularity. All the time? Arbitrary improbable. > "There are alternatives, for example, as we speed up our thinking, the stars > recede out of reach. (If your subjective time is sped up a million fold, > the nearest star becomes millions of years away.) But this assumes no > variation, since slowing down your thinking brings the stars > closer. (Assuming no FTL travel.) What is the subjective perception of time travelers locked in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault? > "Our entire species is going over a waterfall in a barrel. There doesn't > seem to be a way to leave part of them on the shore as we drift downstream." > > http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=21617 Why don't we wait, and find out in person. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 25 12:49:06 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:49:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110425124906.GO23560@leitl.org> On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 06:04:32PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > The alternative is that technophilics are so rare that we are the only > example in our light cone. We're not in anybody's smart lightcone. Observing relativistic pioneer wavefronts by yet subexpansive observers is arbitrarily improbable due to anthropic effect. Even so, if you look out into the spacetime it's obviously not very brilliant, at least at the time the photons emerged there. This puts nucleation density at low, very low. > In which case, the future is just unknown. > > I suspect that evolution is going to shape species that achieve > technophilic status in rather similar ways. Probabilistically also unlikely. Each trajectory could well be unique. We have overshoot, but this doesn't mean everybody should be as stupid. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 13:02:46 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 06:02:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <20110425124259.GN23560@leitl.org> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <20110425124259.GN23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 5:42 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 04:56:25PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> "To put bluntly, if technophilic life is common, none of them survive their >> local Singularity. > > All the time? Arbitrary improbable. Salt crystallizes only one way. All we do know is that we see *no* evidence of high tech life messing with the wild state of the universe. The obvious would be if the earth were in the beam of a laser being used to push sails between stars. Maybe all of them stay home. Maybe (unlikely as it seems) we are the first in our light cone. >> "There are alternatives, for example, as we speed up our thinking, the stars >> recede out of reach. ?(If your subjective time is sped up a million fold, >> the nearest star becomes millions of years away.) ?But this assumes no >> variation, since slowing down your thinking brings the stars >> closer. ?(Assuming no FTL travel.) > > What is the subjective perception of time travelers locked in the > Svalbard Global Seed Vault? > >> "Our entire species is going over a waterfall in a barrel. ?There doesn't >> seem to be a way to leave part of them on the shore as we drift downstream." >> >> http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/dsp.cgi?msg=21617 > > Why don't we wait, and find out in person. We have no choice about it. I suspect that most of the people on this list will live into the time when we find out. Keith > _______________________________________________ > 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 Mon Apr 25 13:34:30 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:34:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Unjustified invasion of Iraq In-Reply-To: <4DB56ABD.5020406@lightlink.com> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> <4DB4E0D1.7000508@moulton.com> <4DB56ABD.5020406@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On 25 April 2011 14:36, Richard Loosemore wrote: > I recall very clearly that there was a point, early on, when Bush was > beating on the drum to try to get everyone to agree that there were WMD over > in Iraq, and the CIA produced a quiet assessment which surprised a lot of > people: Tenet said to a House committee that he didn't really see much > evidence pointing in that direction. The communist american media such as > NPR ;-) made a point of noticing this. > I believe to remember that in the period concerned there were also rumours that Bush himself had vast arsenals of WMDs at his fingertips, as, say, nukes plus ICBMs. Strangely enough, it does not appear that any military attack to the metropolitan US territory ever took place as a consequence, unless of course one considers 9/11 in that light. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 12:41:05 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:41:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: > > Why would it be stasis? ?Admitedly, a lot of people would have to do it > together if they wanted company, or the same technique as above would be > used, with a split and rejoining later. > Subjective stasis. The outside world is frozen because of the high speed posthuman life-forms. If they launched a rocket, the civ would watch it for a million years (subjective) as it appeared to slowly crawl away from earth orbit. If you were on that rocket you would miss out on millions of years of Matrix life. > > Why? ?I can already think of leaving it. ?If I can, why would it be so > impossible for them? ?I suspect they will feel limited if they find > themselves stuck in a situation like that. > > Heh! :) People today start to have a nervous breakdown if they lose the web connection for a day. Consider a posthuman civ where they live in the Matrix. You'd die if you lost connection. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 13:52:27 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:52:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 24 April 2011 15:26, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Fusion might be similar - unlike AI it has some very firm theory underlying > the field, all the problems are in engineering. Yet hot fusion seems to have > the same perennial optimism without radical progress as AI. Extrapolations assume that techical skills, interest, mobilisation, creativity, lateral thinking and breakthrough capabilities, invested resources, risk propension, paradigm shift pace, etc. remain the same or increase with time. In retrospect, I am inclined to believe on the contrary that what the nice Kurzweilian S-shaped curves really describe are a few exceptionally "magic" periods on a background of substantial stagnation, the most important of which is probably that from 1860 to 1960. Now, my personal assumption is that, be it space, AI, nuclear fusion or radical genetic engineering, what is actually lacking for the relevant promises to be kept is the appropriate cultural and societal background. Were this in place, I suspect that science and engineering would take care of themselves. -- Stefano Vaj From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 25 14:31:56 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:31:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 01:41:05PM +0100, BillK wrote: > Subjective stasis. The outside world is frozen because of the high > speed posthuman life-forms. > If they launched a rocket, the civ would watch it for a million years You know, when a dandelion on my grass roof generates seeds it will never see what happens to them. Yet it still happens. Every. Fucking. Year. > (subjective) as it appeared to slowly crawl away from earth orbit. If > you were on that rocket you would miss out on millions of years of > Matrix life. > > > > > Why? ?I can already think of leaving it. ?If I can, why would it be so > > impossible for them? ?I suspect they will feel limited if they find > > themselves stuck in a situation like that. > > > > > > > Heh! :) People today start to have a nervous breakdown if they lose > the web connection for a day. > > Consider a posthuman civ where they live in the Matrix. You'd die if > you lost connection. A "posthuman civ" is a highly diverse set of species with widely differing complexities and goals. Some of them will be as dumb as viroids. They most assuredly "not not die if you lost connection" than you would die if you didn't check your twatr stats daily. Or the dandelions stop producing seeds, because, you know, the ennui, it's so unbearable. You know, this isn't a difficult concept. Either I'm really lousy at explaining it, or maybe it's you. From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 15:12:11 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 16:12:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > A "posthuman civ" is a highly diverse set of species with widely differing > complexities and goals. Some of them will be as dumb as viroids. They most > assuredly "not not die if you lost connection" than you would die if you > didn't check your twatr stats daily. Or the dandelions stop producing > seeds, because, you know, the ennui, it's so unbearable. > > You know, this isn't a difficult concept. Either I'm really lousy at > explaining it, or maybe it's you. > You are looking backwards and assuming that as it always was so shall it continue to be. Just because humans always had ten children doesn't mean they always will. Ooops, they've stopped already. Posthumans aren't like clever humans. They are fundamentally different. They don't want the same things as you do. As Keith says, either posthumans don't leave home throughout the galaxy (and we are pretty late arrivals in the Milky Way) or we are the first. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Mon Apr 25 15:27:28 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 17:27:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110425152728.GV23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 04:12:11PM +0100, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 3:31 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > A "posthuman civ" is a highly diverse set of species with widely differing > > complexities and goals. Some of them will be as dumb as viroids. They most > > assuredly "not not die if you lost connection" than you would die if you > > didn't check your twatr stats daily. Or the dandelions stop producing > > seeds, because, you know, the ennui, it's so unbearable. > > > > You know, this isn't a difficult concept. Either I'm really lousy at > > explaining it, or maybe it's you. > > > > > You are looking backwards and assuming that as it always was so shall > it continue to be. I'm assuming probabilistic behaviour by a diverse population of agents. Nothing else. > Just because humans always had ten children doesn't mean they always will. > Ooops, they've stopped already. The humans haven't stopped (see very interesting subpopulation growth dynamics of some groups) and humans are *just one species*. We've already diversified and extinguished other species even before we were able to create our own, including our nonbiological kind. You're looking backwards and assuming that as it always was so shall it continue to be. > Posthumans aren't like clever humans. They are fundamentally > different. They don't want the same things as you do. > > As Keith says, either posthumans don't leave home throughout the > galaxy (and we are pretty late arrivals in the Milky Way) or we are > the first. I keep writing these really short tl;dr things which people fail to read. You're pretty close to failing the Turing test. From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 16:21:29 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:21:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review In-Reply-To: <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> References: <4DAF01EB.1050505@lightlink.com> <4DB04F95.8060701@lightlink.com> <004501cc005e$dca86110$95f92330$@att.net> <4DB0E685.5030801@mac.com> <002b01cc00a1$ecb94040$c62bc0c0$@att.net> <005f01cc02da$508b8a30$f1a29e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 7:49 PM, spike wrote: > Jeff the reason I don't buy that line of reasoning is that Tenet isn't a > Bush loyalist. The closest I can come to that is that Tenet cares nothing > about Bush, Clinton or anyone other than Tenet. > A selfish enemy (non-loyalist) isn't any more difficult to position (control) than a friend; It's all about leverage. Instead of being sweet-talked by a 'friend', he was 'forced' by an enemy (Bush). Likely, the motivation behind his flip-flop was out of self-preservation for numero uno (Tenet). They've all got dirt on each other...Someone called in a 'favor' is all. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 25 17:30:00 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 12:30:00 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DB5AF98.90207@satx.rr.com> On 4/25/2011 4:37 AM, John Grigg wrote: > Bruce Sterling writes, "This book, despite it's out-there graphic > design, Erm--I doubt that Bruce made that its/it's goof, although it seems to be proliferating madly in this list. > is all-too-comprehensible. It's not the future, because it > can't be, but it is a whole sizzling stack of today's sexist ideas about > the future, Really? Bruce Sterling was excited by a sizzling stack of *sexist* ideas? Not in this universe. Damien Broderick From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Mon Apr 25 17:54:56 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 19:54:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/25 John Grigg : > 2013? The book goes digital About 20 yrs slow on that one. > Unlikely? End of two party system in the United States The two "parties" are really coalitions, and this is very obvious with the Democrats, who are far more ideologically diverse. About 30% of Dems are similar to Greens. Another 30%, the Blue Dog Democrats, are very similar to Republicans and would be considered right wingers in the rest of the West(opposed to abortion rights, religious/creationist, pro death penalty and so on ). Any multi-party system is likely to stabilize into roughly balanced coalitions. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 18:14:36 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 11:14:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 4/25/2011 4:37 AM, John Grigg wrote: Bruce Sterling writes, "This book, despite it's out-there graphic design, Damien wrote: >Erm--I doubt that Bruce made that its/it's goof, although it seems to be proliferating madly in this list. is all-too-comprehensible. It's not the future, because it can't be, but it is a whole sizzling stack of today's sexist ideas about the future, Damien wrote: >Really? Bruce Sterling was excited by a sizzling stack of *sexist* ideas? Not in this universe. Damien, if I ever write something substantial, I want you to be the editor/proofreader. Yes, you are correct on both counts! But I would say the book actually is sexist on page 132, though I am perhaps being too sensitive... John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 25 18:38:46 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:38:46 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> On 4/25/2011 1:14 PM, John Grigg wrote: > if I ever write something substantial, I want you to be the > editor/proofreader. I know that most people now moan about "punctuation nazis" (or complaining "That's just *semantics*" although semantics is about *what is meant*) as if being one's a bad thing. But for some reason I'm especially troubled by the growing incapacity of smart people to know the difference between it is and its. Maybe if nobody notices any long it stops mattering, like the really stupid widespread belief that "hoi polloi" means "rich and stuck-up" when it means the exact opposite, or that "momentarily" means "fairly soon" instead of "very very briefly"--but hey, I'll get over it momentarily, although probably not for long. Damien Broderick From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 25 18:51:43 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 13:51:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <4DB5C2BF.5050607@satx.rr.com> On 4/25/2011 1:38 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I know that most people now moan about "punctuation nazis" (or > complaining "That's just *semantics*" although semantics is about *what > is meant*) as if being one's a bad thing. Ha! It's a rule that grammar pests always trip themselves up. Obviously I should have written "complain" instead of "complaining" but I was moving chunks of sentences around without paying enough attention. I'll get me coat (as Brits might say). Damien Broderick From natasha at natasha.cc Mon Apr 25 18:57:19 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:57:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: <4DB5C2BF.5050607@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> <4DB5C2BF.5050607@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20110425145719.r1uwlhis0c848ogo@webmail.natasha.cc> Oh my. Damien, I'm sorry to see that you caught my bug. But with your excellence in wordsmithing and sentence structure, it will surely pass quickly. Natasha Quoting Damien Broderick : > On 4/25/2011 1:38 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > >> I know that most people now moan about "punctuation nazis" (or >> complaining "That's just *semantics*" although semantics is about *what >> is meant*) as if being one's a bad thing. > > Ha! It's a rule that grammar pests always trip themselves up. Obviously > I should have written "complain" instead of "complaining" but I was > moving chunks of sentences around without paying enough attention. I'll > get me coat (as Brits might say). > > Damien Broderick > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From thespike at satx.rr.com Mon Apr 25 19:17:29 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:17:29 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: <20110425145719.r1uwlhis0c848ogo@webmail.natasha.cc> References: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> <4DB5C2BF.5050607@satx.rr.com> <20110425145719.r1uwlhis0c848ogo@webmail.natasha.cc> Message-ID: <4DB5C8C9.6020007@satx.rr.com> On 4/25/2011 1:57 PM, natasha at natasha.cc wrote: > Oh my. Damien, I'm sorry to see that you caught my bug. It's a terrible affliction. :) My eyesight is giving out, but that's no excuse. Well, it *is* an excuse, but a feeble one. Damien Broderick [it's so hard to type with a white stick] [kidding] From pharos at gmail.com Mon Apr 25 20:34:50 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:34:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB5BFB6.9060907@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:38 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > I know that most people now moan about "punctuation nazis" (or complaining > "That's just *semantics*" although semantics is about *what is meant*) as if > being one's a bad thing. But for some reason I'm especially troubled by the > growing incapacity of smart people to know the difference between it is and > its. Maybe if nobody notices any long it stops mattering, like the really > stupid widespread belief that "hoi polloi" means "rich and stuck-up" when it > means the exact opposite, or that "momentarily" means "fairly soon" instead > of "very very briefly"--but hey, I'll get over it momentarily, although > probably not for long. > > The dictionaries say that Hoi polloi is sometimes incorrectly used to mean "the elite," possibly because it is reminiscent of high and mighty or because it sounds like hoity-toity. In $cientology, the Hoipolloi installed the Gorilla Goals about 300 trillion years ago. (before Greek was used so it must be true). ------------------- However........ The 'authorities' seem to accept both meanings for "momentarily" these days though they acknowledge that some people still dispute the usage. ----------------------------------------- Oxford English Dictionary adverb * 1 for a very short time: as he passed Jenny's door, he paused momentarily * 2 North American at any moment; very soon: my husband will be here to pick me up momentarily ----------------------------------- American Heritage? Dictionary of the English Language ADVERB: 1. For a moment or an instant. 2. Usage Problem In a moment; very soon. 3. Moment by moment; progressively. Usage Note: Momentarily is widely used in speech to mean "in a moment," as in The manager is on another line, but she'll be with you momentarily. This usage rarely leads to ambiguity since the intended sense can usually be determined on the basis of the tense of the verb and the context. Nonetheless, many critics hold that the adverb should be reserved for the senses "for a moment," and the extended usage is unacceptable to 59 percent of the Usage Panel. ------------------------ has their usual interesting story........ Quote: "Momentarily" can mean either "in a moment" or, as you remember it, "for a moment." Both forms are correct, and have been for a long, long time. It is true that the earliest example of "momentarily," dating to 1654, uses the word in the "for a moment" sense, but both senses have been used for centuries, although both were fairly rare until the early 20th century. Instead, people more often used the now-extinct form "momently," which could mean "in a moment," "for a moment," and, just to confuse things a bit more, "from moment to moment" or "constantly," as in "We waited at the bus stop, expecting the bus momently." When "momentarily" took over from "momently" in popular usage in the early 20th century, the "for a moment" sense of "momentarily" was the first to appear, but the "in a moment" sense was hot on its heels. The "constantly" sense of "momently" didn't really make the jump to "momentarily," for which we should all be grateful. -------------------------- BillK From spike66 at att.net Mon Apr 25 22:54:56 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:54:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] any day now... Message-ID: <00fc01cc039b$ccd1fdb0$6675f910$@att.net> The local atheists are planning to have a big party in Oakland on 21 and 22 May to celebrate that the world didn't come to an end. That might be fun, I have half a mind to ride up to that: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/04/25/billboard-battle-over-judgment-day/ ?hpt=C2 But won't we be surprised if while we are there it's the rapture or the singularity or something? {8^D spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Apr 25 22:49:32 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 15:49:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 25 books by legendary scientists Message-ID: http://io9.com/?utm_source=io9+Newsletter&utm_campaign=a33961c6df-UA-142218-29&utm_medium=email#!5708668/15-books-by-legendary-scientists-that-make-great-holiday-gifts -- Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 03:00:48 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:00:48 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 6:41 AM, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 1:23 PM, Richard Loosemore wrote: >> >> Why would it be stasis? ?Admitedly, a lot of people would have to do it >> together if they wanted company, or the same technique as above would be >> used, with a split and rejoining later. I postulate that the longer the split, the more difficult the rejoining will be. I can see splitting for a day, or a few weeks, but after years, the divergence would be so large that it would seem very tricky to reintegrate the networks (assuming they work like the brain). > Subjective stasis. ?The outside world is frozen because of the high > speed posthuman life-forms. > If they launched a rocket, the civ would watch it for a million years > (subjective) as it appeared to slowly crawl away from earth orbit. If > you were on that rocket you would miss out on millions of years of > Matrix life. What about the matrix on the rocket? > Heh! ?:) ?People today start to have a nervous breakdown if they lose > the web connection for a day. Sure, and it will get worse. I had a day mostly without Internet, it was slightly uncomfortable. But if you're going out into space with a group, wouldn't you have a net, just a smaller one? > Consider a posthuman civ where they live in the Matrix. You'd die if > you lost connection. If you lost connection to half of the matrix, you would not die. If you lost connection to 90% of the matrix, you would not die, but it might get inconvenient. If you lost connection to the entire matrix, then you would probably die. -Kelly From lubkin at unreasonable.com Tue Apr 26 03:36:04 2011 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 23:36:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <201104260433.p3Q4Xrlq001812@andromeda.ziaspace.com> John Grigg wrote: >I came across "Reality Check," a book published by Wired in 1996, >and written by Brad Wieners and David Pescovitz, with a foreward by >Bruce Sterling. These are the predictions within their timeline... I have a copy. I look it over every few years, along with Clarke's Profiles of the Future, Heinlein's Future History timeline, his predictions and updated predictions in Expanded Universe, Kurzweil's curves, etc. The future ain't what it used to be. -- David. From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 26 04:41:48 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 21:41:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Silence, indeed. In-Reply-To: <4DB642DE.3050705@speakeasy.net> References: <4DB642DE.3050705@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: <018901cc03cc$43546d80$c9fd4880$@att.net> >...From: Alan Grimes [mailto:agrimes at speakeasy.net] ... Cc: spike; Michael Anissimov Subject: Silence, indeed. >...Why does the duty, once again, fall to me to break the silence and properly denounce Anissimov for the outrageous statements he has made?!... Either my concerns are justified or Anissimov is pariah. The choice is upon you. Michael isn't a pariah, he is such a pleasant person, I always enjoy his company at the local events. So OK your concerns are justified, you stated it, very good, thanks. You don't want to upload, we get that. spike From js_exi at gnolls.org Tue Apr 26 06:46:45 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:46:45 -0000 Subject: [ExI] More information, technical and otherwise, about paleo diet and life In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4D7D2571.8080202@gnolls.org> Since Max has broached the subject again, I feel it's OK to note my detailed, comprehensive, and entertaining "paleo diet/exercise for beginners" guide: "Eat Like A Predator, Not Like Prey: Paleo In Six Easy Steps" http://www.gnolls.org/1141/eat-like-a-predator-not-like-prey-paleo-in-six-easy-steps-a-motivational-guide/ Followed by Part I and Part II of the "Paleo Starter Kit": http://www.gnolls.org/1517/the-paleo-starter-kit-part-i-a-functional-paleo-kitchen/ http://www.gnolls.org/1525/the-paleo-starter-kit-part-ii-the-paleo-scramble-a-basic-technique-for-real-world-cooking/ The end of the article contains a list of science-based nutrition resources that I've found instrumental, most notably the following: Dr. Stephan Guyenet: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com Chris Masterjohn: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/ Dr. Kurt Harris: http://www.paleonu.com Like Max, I subscribe to the Neo-Paleo/Paleo 2.0 view that prizes science and research over re-enactment -- most eloquently expounded by people like Dr. Harris, who notes that most of healthy eating is avoiding what he calls "the Neolithic agents of disease": -Wheat and all gluten grains -Omega-6 fats and trans fats from seed oils (misnamed 'vegetable oil') -Fructose To add to Max's list of books, I would also note: -The Drs. Jaminet's "Perfect Health Diet", a heavily science-based approach to healthy eating which is basically high-fat paleo plus rice, and falls into the "Paleo 2.0/Neo-Paleo" category. It's also much easier to sell to skeptical spouses as it's got a bunch of fruit and a yin-yang on the cover. Their website is good reading too: http://perfecthealthdiet.com -Dr. Mary Enig's "Know Your Fats", if you're still scared of saturated fat or want to know the biochemistry -Both books titled "The Great Cholesterol Con": Dr. Kendrick's is much more professional and easy to read, but less comprehensive. Anthony Colpo's is far more exhaustive, but tougher going and a bit amateurishly done. I will also note that I disagree with what Max appears to be saying about not eating starchy tubers: humans have many more copies of the AMY2 (amylase) gene in their saliva than mostly-fructivorous chimpanzees, which makes no sense except for consuming root starches, and the evidence for root starch consumption from the Middle Paleolithic on (and possibly earlier) is very well established. And while I agree that meat is a better source of nutrients than (say) sweet potatoes, my experience, and that of most active athletes, is that VLC/zero-carb is a weight-loss tool or for people whose metabolisms are broken. I can't keep weight on with VLC. However, even at the high end, my carbohydrate consumption is very low compared to before. (My opinion is that fructose is doing much more damage than glucose...otherwise you have a very hard time explaining the Kitavans and Okinawans.) Essentially I view Devany and Cordain as the "first wave" of paleo: they focus more on re-enactment than on the science, and Cordain in particular does some shaky data manipulation in order to 'prove' that all the differences between what he claims to be a Paleolithic diet and the modern diet are equally important. Example: http://www.gnolls.org/715/when-the-conclusions-dont-match-the-data-even-loren-cordain-whiffs-it-sometimes-because-saturated-fat-is-most-definitely-paleo/ Shortlink: http://www.gnolls.org/?p=715 And his advice (which he has, to his credit, since recanted) to fry steaks in flaxseed oil is simply insane, as anyone with a lick of chemistry knowledge can tell you. (Hello, oxidation and glycation! You're frying your steak in furniture varnish!) http://gnolls.org/1154/flaxseed-oil-for-the-greatest-shine-you-ever-tasted/ Either diet is still far superior to the modern diet, and I give them (along with people like Dr. Wolfgang Lutz and Ray Audette) all credit for being pioneers. Dr. Cordain has done some great and instrumental work. However, I'm with Max as far as wanting to look forward, not backward. JS http://www.gnolls.org From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 26 08:43:33 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:43:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB685B5.9090108@aleph.se> Stefano Vaj wrote: > In retrospect, I am inclined to believe on the contrary that what the > nice Kurzweilian S-shaped curves really describe are a few > exceptionally "magic" periods on a background of substantial > stagnation, the most important of which is probably that from 1860 to > 1960. Looking at the performance curve database by Bela Nagy at the Santa Fe Institute, http://pcdb.santafe.edu/ and especially his analysis of them, http://192.12.12.16/events/workshops/images/4/4f/Nagy.ModelingOrganizationalComplexity.pdf suggests that there is quite a lot of progress in quite a lot of domains. Those exponentials are not that unique. This doesn't preclude stagnation either. Wright/Sahal's laws, implies exponential improvement for things that sell exponentially, but at lower production/sales rates progress is still made but the overall change is slow. What I would like is to have something like the performance curve database for other domains, seeing if we can get good examples of stagnation too. Is there any sources on this? Maybe Tyler Cowen's book has something? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 08:44:45 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:44:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? Message-ID: Unfortunately none of us will be around to see the results of long-term whole-life human studies on Paleo 2.0 ad-lib versus CRON(Calorie restriction with optimal nutrition) diets. The two are not mutually exclusive, but I suspect reasonably strict(say 30% or tougher) CRON of any kind(including PaleoCRON) will end up trumping ad-lib Paleo. On Sun, Mar 13, 2011 at 9:13 PM, J. Stanton wrote: > > Since Max has broached the subject again, I feel it's OK to note my > detailed, comprehensive, and entertaining "paleo diet/exercise for > beginners" guide: > > "Eat Like A Predator, Not Like Prey: Paleo In Six Easy Steps" > http://www.gnolls.org/1141/eat-like-a-predator-not-like-prey-paleo-in-six-easy-steps-a-motivational-guide/ > > Followed by Part I and Part II of the "Paleo Starter Kit": > http://www.gnolls.org/1517/the-paleo-starter-kit-part-i-a-functional-paleo-kitchen/ > http://www.gnolls.org/1525/the-paleo-starter-kit-part-ii-the-paleo-scramble-a-basic-technique-for-real-world-cooking/ > > The end of the article contains a list of science-based nutrition resources > that I've found instrumental, most notably the following: > > Dr. Stephan Guyenet: http://wholehealthsource.blogspot.com > Chris Masterjohn: http://www.cholesterol-and-health.com/ > Dr. Kurt Harris: http://www.paleonu.com > > Like Max, I subscribe to the Neo-Paleo/Paleo 2.0 view that prizes science > and research over re-enactment -- most eloquently expounded by people like > Dr. Harris, who notes that most of healthy eating is avoiding what he calls > "the Neolithic agents of disease": > > -Wheat and all gluten grains > -Omega-6 fats and trans fats from seed oils (misnamed 'vegetable oil') > -Fructose > > To add to Max's list of books, I would also note: > -The Drs. Jaminet's "Perfect Health Diet", a heavily science-based approach > to healthy eating which is basically high-fat paleo plus rice, and falls > into the "Paleo 2.0/Neo-Paleo" category. ?It's also much easier to sell to > skeptical spouses as it's got a bunch of fruit and a yin-yang on the cover. > ?Their website is good reading too: > http://perfecthealthdiet.com > -Dr. Mary Enig's "Know Your Fats", if you're still scared of saturated fat > or want to know the biochemistry > -Both books titled "The Great Cholesterol Con": Dr. Kendrick's is much more > professional and easy to read, but less comprehensive. ?Anthony Colpo's is > far more exhaustive, but tougher going and a bit amateurishly done. > > I will also note that I disagree with what Max appears to be saying about > not eating starchy tubers: humans have many more copies of the AMY2 > (amylase) gene in their saliva than mostly-fructivorous chimpanzees, which > makes no sense except for consuming root starches, and the evidence for root > starch consumption from the Middle Paleolithic on (and possibly earlier) is > very well established. > > And while I agree that meat is a better source of nutrients than (say) sweet > potatoes, my experience, and that of most active athletes, is that > VLC/zero-carb is a weight-loss tool or for people whose metabolisms are > broken. ?I can't keep weight on with VLC. ?However, even at the high end, my > carbohydrate consumption is very low compared to before. ?(My opinion is > that fructose is doing much more damage than glucose...otherwise you have a > very hard time explaining the Kitavans and Okinawans.) > > Essentially I view Devany and Cordain as the "first wave" of paleo: they > focus more on re-enactment than on the science, and Cordain in particular > does some shaky data manipulation in order to 'prove' that all the > differences between what he claims to be a Paleolithic diet and the modern > diet are equally important. ?Example: > http://www.gnolls.org/715/when-the-conclusions-dont-match-the-data-even-loren-cordain-whiffs-it-sometimes-because-saturated-fat-is-most-definitely-paleo/ > Shortlink: http://www.gnolls.org/?p=715 > > And his advice (which he has, to his credit, since recanted) to fry steaks > in flaxseed oil is simply insane, as anyone with a lick of chemistry > knowledge can tell you. ?(Hello, oxidation and glycation! You're frying your > steak in furniture varnish!) > http://gnolls.org/1154/flaxseed-oil-for-the-greatest-shine-you-ever-tasted/ > > Either diet is still far superior to the modern diet, and I give them (along > with people like Dr. Wolfgang Lutz and Ray Audette) all credit for being > pioneers. ?Dr. Cordain has done some great and instrumental work. ?However, > I'm with Max as far as wanting to look forward, not backward. > > JS > http://www.gnolls.org > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 09:06:40 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:06:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> Message-ID: <20110426090640.GD23560@leitl.org> On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 09:00:48PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I postulate that the longer the split, the more difficult the > rejoining will be. I can see splitting for a day, or a few weeks, but With speedups of 10^6 to 10^9 you're looking at very small domains where things make sense. However, even for relatively small (to us) separation like lightminutes you cannot keep a consistent ecosystem. Local fluctuations diverge into entirely different ecosystem patches. This is like surface of planet Earth scaled to a Dyson sphere (gedanken, this does't work). Over sufficient distances the originating signature will be erased (because you're operating very close at the physical limits of the universe, let's call this the omega ceiling), so likely there is no detectable difference between "aliens" or regular resident species, apart from some extremely long-lived individuals remembering different points of origin. This is nothing what we are familiar with. The world is stranger than we can imagine. > after years, the divergence would be so large that it would seem very > tricky to reintegrate the networks (assuming they work like the > brain). Invididuals can cross over across invididual postecosystem cells. Their fates will depend on whether things make sense or not make sense. There will be invasive species, until a new equilibrium is reached. There will be extinctions. > What about the matrix on the rocket? Let's avoid hollywoodisms. They're rarely helpful. > > Heh! ?:) ?People today start to have a nervous breakdown if they lose > > the web connection for a day. > > Sure, and it will get worse. I had a day mostly without Internet, it > was slightly uncomfortable. But if you're going out into space with a > group, wouldn't you have a net, just a smaller one? You don't have "a net". It's a chunk of reality. It might be suspended into stasis, so that subjective time passage is zero. Or you could be a set of seeds, which are not invididuals but develop into them on arrival in a suitable system. > > Consider a posthuman civ where they live in the Matrix. You'd die if > > you lost connection. > > If you lost connection to half of the matrix, you would not die. If > you lost connection to 90% of the matrix, you would not die, but it > might get inconvenient. If you lost connection to the entire matrix, > then you would probably die. You cannot lose connection to the entire matrix, no more than you can lose your connection to your brain. You *are* a pattern in a chunk of molecular circuitry, interacting with other patterns in the same chunk or linked via a high-bandwidth connection to a (not too) remote chunk. Presumably the core issue people seem to have is that of isolation. We people are social (soon eusocial?) animals, so typically do not tolerate isolation well. Even so, there is considerable variation between individuals. And of course people have founded whole new cultures starting with just a band of travelers, and ecosystems have bootstrapped by species immune to ennui. Coconut palms rarely get bored. It took a while until U.S. become palatable enough for European decadents to cross over. Species successions happen. -- 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 From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 26 08:57:19 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 09:57:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: <4DB33441.20800@canonizer.com> References: <4DB14C85.5070608@aleph.se> <4DB33441.20800@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <4DB688EF.6050706@aleph.se> Brent Allsop wrote: > > That was very fascinating information. It would sure be fun to make > something like this more dynamic, and increasingly comprehensive, i.e. > it'd be fun to be able to participate, and see others I know included. We have been thinking of doing an extended version, likely aimed at top academics but maybe also with a public side (one interesting question is after all what different groups think - we didn't see any difference among our crowd, but surely there is a difference between different communities). > > Towards that end, I've created a canonizer.com survey topic and > started a camp of my own, for your milestones question number 4 here: > > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/121 Cool! I'll show it to the others at the institute. > > It'd be great to expand such survey's, make them much more > comprehensive, and track where everyone is as ever more scientific > data comes in, and be able to use such material as very convincing > educational references for others on such important still theoretical > topics. > > Anders, would you be interested in cross linking your survey back to > this, so perhaps any others interested in participating in the future > my be aware of this possibility at canonizer.com? I'll try to do that (not entirely trivial due to the website bureaucracy in Oxford), but it seems a worthwhile project. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Apr 26 09:50:45 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 02:50:45 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <491151.31461.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> BillK wrote: "I think I've mentioned in the past that The Fermi problem is probably because advanced civs don't go out into space. For many possible reasons, including those mentioned by Michael above. Sometimes called the retreat into virtual worlds of computronium." Possibly more relevant is the concept that the less notice you take of the 'real world', the more likely it is to eventually destroy you. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Tue Apr 26 10:04:32 2011 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 03:04:32 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <423708.30081.qm@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> BillK proposed: "Friendliness actions to one human must not cause an Unfriendly reaction in another human." I don't see that working. Imagine you're a woman and want an AI-assisted abortion... Ben Zaiboc From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 10:21:52 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:21:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 10:44, Jones Murphy wrote: > Unfortunately none of us will be around to see the results of > long-term whole-life human studies on Paleo 2.0 ad-lib versus > CRON(Calorie restriction with optimal nutrition) diets. The two are > not mutually exclusive, but I suspect reasonably strict(say 30% or > tougher) CRON of any kind(including PaleoCRON) will end up trumping > ad-lib Paleo. I think we all have some anedoctical evidence as to the dividends of caloric restriction, but I suspect they may be especially important when nutrition is NOT optimal, in particular in terms of proportionally high carb intake. I am inclined to believe both that carb damages are somewhat limited if you eat very little of anything (see famine societies...), and that eating very little of anything make for a slower, more parsimonious metabolism anyway. OTOH, one wonders what's the point of exchanging performance and intensity against duration. A distinctly anti-transhumanist attitude, if one asks me. -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 10:30:05 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:30:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <423708.30081.qm@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <423708.30081.qm@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:04 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > BillK proposed: >> "Friendliness actions to one human must not cause an Unfriendly >> reaction in another human." > > > I don't see that working. ?Imagine you're a woman and want an AI-assisted abortion... > > Yea. That was the point of my tongue-in-cheek 'easy' definition of Friendliness. All easy, reasonable and straightforward until you think in detail about putting them into practice. That's why I ended up expecting that we shall probably get a US agi and a Chinese agi. Don't turn your back on the Iranian agi! :) BillK From amara at kurzweilai.net Tue Apr 26 10:06:46 2011 From: amara at kurzweilai.net (Amara D. Angelica) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 03:06:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey Message-ID: <06a501cc03f9$a71a9920$f54fcb60$@net> I just posted a news item on this: http://www.kurzweilai.net/machines-will-achieve-human-level-intelligence-in- the-2028-to-2150-range-poll. Please feel free to comment. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 10:49:28 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:49:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: <945641.70955.qm@web65610.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <20110422163113.GK23560@leitl.org> <4DB1CB9C.7020704@lightlink.com> <20110424102150.GA23560@leitl.org> <4DB447D3.4020705@lightlink.com> <945641.70955.qm@web65610.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 25 April 2011 04:47, The Avantguardian wrote: > I think what Eugen is getting at is that your dilemma is actually eerily similar > to the one faced by God in the book of Genesis. In order to even qualify as an > intelligent agent, the AI must always have a choice as to the actions it > performs at any given time because decision-making is tied up somewhere in the > very definitions of agency, morality, and intelligence. If you don't give it the > ability to make decisions, you are simply programming an "app" or automaton. Even though this is is put in a slightly more moralistic terms, this has been a Leitmotif of mine for quite a long time on this list. 1) We can have dangerous or non-dangerous machines which may be arbitrarily stupid or "intelligent" (at given tasks) without exhibiting anything closer to biological entities-style "motivation" more than the average contemporary car or washing machine or abacus. 2) We can have, for the fun of it or as a way to perpetuate ourselves, machines emulating specific human beings (or animals) as well as generic ones, and/or a pseudo-Darwinian evolution thereof. In that case, they are as good or evil as any Darwinian-driven mechanism, and the danger they represent cannot really be distinguished from that involved in the existence of a human being with equivalent computational resources at his or her fingertips (and of course an appropriately hi-level interface thereto). 3) If we plan to avoid the perceived threat of scenario (2) we simply end up in scenario (1), and in any event we are not avoiding anything in particular since motivation is easily supplied by human beings controlling the type (1) machines. 4) One fails to see however why we should be more concerned by the risk of "us" being taken over by "them" ("us" who?) any more than any any human generation by the subsequent generation, or the genetic make of a species by the genetic make of that species in a 10,000 years time, or an old species by its successors. 5) As for personal, physical threats to our individual survival the risk of being killed by a type (2) machine really appears infinitesimal in comparison with that of dying of old age, accidents, or killing by type (1) machines and/or fellow biological entities (from bacteria to other human beings). Even if it were to happen, I suspect that you are more likely to end up murdered because you used to be the lover of your opponent's wife when he was still in flesh and bone than because of his having being uploaded on a different platform. But, hey, speaking of reprogramming human beings (or emulations thereof) in order to make them "naturally" good and still have them remain behaviourally human and not mechanism-like has been a time-honoured pastime for centuries, who am I to spoil the sport? -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 11:00:25 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:00:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: <4DB685B5.9090108@aleph.se> References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> <4DB685B5.9090108@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 10:43, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Looking at the performance curve database by Bela Nagy at the Santa Fe > Institute, http://pcdb.santafe.edu/ and especially his analysis of them, > http://192.12.12.16/events/workshops/images/4/4f/Nagy.ModelingOrganizationalComplexity.pdf > suggests that there is quite a lot of progress in quite a lot of domains. > Those exponentials are not that unique. One wonders however if breakthroughs and paradigm shifts are not what ultimately counts, and what the metrics thereof might be... I submit that technological optimism is declining also because the perceived pace of change, both in our view of the world and in our control thereof, is dramatically lower than that we were experiencing a few decades ago. -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 12:38:47 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:38:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: CRON doesn't trade away intensity for duration per se. It trades away youthful intensity(from a period when one has lots to spare) for middle age and later intensity(during a period when this means avoiding a lot of aches and pains and more serious problems) AND duration, a very big difference. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:21 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 26 April 2011 10:44, Jones Murphy wrote: >> Unfortunately none of us will be around to see the results of >> long-term whole-life human studies on Paleo 2.0 ad-lib versus >> CRON(Calorie restriction with optimal nutrition) diets. The two are >> not mutually exclusive, but I suspect reasonably strict(say 30% or >> tougher) CRON of any kind(including PaleoCRON) will end up trumping >> ad-lib Paleo. > > I think we all have some anedoctical evidence as to the dividends of > caloric restriction, but I suspect they may be especially important > when nutrition is NOT optimal, in particular in terms of > proportionally high carb intake. > > I am inclined to believe both that carb damages are somewhat limited > if you eat very little of anything (see famine societies...), and that > eating very little of anything make for a slower, more parsimonious > metabolism anyway. > > OTOH, one wonders what's the point of exchanging performance and > intensity against duration. A distinctly anti-transhumanist attitude, > if one asks me. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 12:41:47 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 06:41:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <20110426090640.GD23560@leitl.org> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110426090640.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 3:06 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 09:00:48PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> I postulate that the longer the split, the more difficult the >> rejoining will be. I can see splitting for a day, or a few weeks, but > > With speedups of 10^6 to 10^9 you're looking at very small domains > where things make sense. However, even for relatively small (to us) > separation like lightminutes you cannot keep a consistent ecosystem. > Local fluctuations diverge into entirely different ecosystem patches. > This is like surface of planet Earth scaled to a Dyson sphere (gedanken, > this does't work). Yes, that makes complete sense. > Over sufficient distances the originating signature will be erased > (because you're operating very close at the physical limits of the > universe, let's call this the omega ceiling), so likely there is no > detectable difference between "aliens" or regular resident species, > apart from some extremely long-lived individuals remembering different > points of origin. Evolution loves islands for speciation, so I suspect you are absolutely right. Pieces of computronium that are separated by very much distance will likely be populated with very different structures entirely. > This is nothing what we are familiar with. The world is stranger > than we can imagine. Indeed. And while your point is absolutely correct, and interesting, it may not be exactly the point I was trying to make... so let me try again just to make sure. Suppose that we have the ability to "upload" our brain into a VR. We do so, and it has some experiences that we wish to reintegrate into our main wetware brain. Because we are merging two neural networks, this is easier when integrating the two brains that have been separated for only a few hours, much harder if the two brains have been separated for a year. The problem being that the two nets become dissimilar over time, and reintegration (by which I would assume the growth of dendrites and other necessary brain structure changes) becomes more difficult because you are merging elements that have no context in the other brain. Does this make sense to anyone? Another aspect of this thought is that the reintegration of the brains would be a good thing to do while sleeping, as dreaming is thought to be some kind of brain reorganization anyway. >> after years, the divergence would be so large that it would seem very >> tricky to reintegrate the networks (assuming they work like the >> brain). > > Invididuals can cross over across invididual postecosystem cells. > Their fates will depend on whether things make sense or not make sense. > There will be invasive species, until a new equilibrium is reached. > There will be extinctions. Once we escape our biology, the concept of individual MAY become passe. I can imagine other organizations that might work better, such as actual independent memes as the primary element of being. >> What about the matrix on the rocket? > > Let's avoid hollywoodisms. They're rarely helpful. Sorry, what I meant was that if we sent a space craft to another star, that during the trip computation in various VRs would not stop. >> Sure, and it will get worse. I had a day mostly without Internet, it >> was slightly uncomfortable. But if you're going out into space with a >> group, wouldn't you have a net, just a smaller one? > > You don't have "a net". It's a chunk of reality. It might be suspended > into stasis, so that subjective time passage is zero. Or you could be > a set of seeds, which are not invididuals but develop into them on > arrival in a suitable system. Ok. That could work. Traveling to other stars is not a very interesting thing, so the interest must be internal, if that is possible. >> > Consider a posthuman civ where they live in the Matrix. You'd die if >> > you lost connection. >> >> If you lost connection to half of the matrix, you would not die. If >> you lost connection to 90% of the matrix, you would not die, but it >> might get inconvenient. If you lost connection to the entire matrix, >> then you would probably die. > > You cannot lose connection to the entire matrix, no more than you > can lose your connection to your brain. You *are* a pattern in a chunk > of molecular circuitry, interacting with other patterns in the same > chunk or linked via a high-bandwidth connection to a (not too) remote > chunk. Likely so. > Presumably the core issue people seem to have is that of isolation. > We people are social (soon eusocial?) animals, so typically do not > tolerate isolation well. Even so, there is considerable variation > between individuals. And of course people have founded whole new > cultures starting with just a band of travelers, and ecosystems > have bootstrapped by species immune to ennui. Coconut palms rarely > get bored. It took a while until U.S. become palatable enough for > European decadents to cross over. Species successions happen. Again, what is an "individual" anyway in such a situation. The future is indeed strange. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 13:40:24 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:40:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 4:21 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I think we all have some anedoctical evidence as to the dividends of > caloric restriction, but I suspect they may be especially important > when nutrition is NOT optimal, in particular in terms of > proportionally high carb intake. And there are actual primate studies that show caloric restriction does extend life span in a statistically significant way. > I am inclined to believe both that carb damages are somewhat limited > if you eat very little of anything (see famine societies...), and that > eating very little of anything make for a slower, more parsimonious > metabolism anyway. > > OTOH, one wonders what's the point of exchanging performance and > intensity against duration. A distinctly anti-transhumanist attitude, > if one asks me. Why is that Stefano? Living long enough to enjoy the transhumanist future seems like it would be the transhumanist way. What am I missing here? -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 13:50:33 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 07:50:33 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 7:52 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Extrapolations assume that techical skills, interest, mobilisation, > creativity, lateral thinking and breakthrough capabilities, invested > resources, risk propension, paradigm shift pace, etc. remain the same > or increase with time. Also the political climate may have an effect on all of the above. > In retrospect, I am inclined to believe on the contrary that what the > nice Kurzweilian S-shaped curves really describe are a few > exceptionally "magic" periods on a background of substantial > stagnation, the most important of which is probably that from 1860 to > 1960. You lose me here. What curve are you talking about? Seems to me that between the civil war and the dawn of the space race there was a lot of progress in a lot of areas. In which area do you claim stagnation in this period? > Now, my personal assumption is that, be it space, AI, nuclear fusion > or radical genetic engineering, what is actually lacking for the > relevant promises to be kept is the appropriate cultural and societal > background. Were this in place, I suspect that science and engineering > would take care of themselves. The point RK makes is that there is almost always an appropriate cultural and societal background SOMEWHERE. If the US ceases to be the main world power in 2017 like the IMF said the other day, then the curves may continue in China. I am totally in agreement that you need those things, but not everywhere all at once for progress to continue. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 14:25:49 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:25:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <4DAFEDE8.4040803@aleph.se> <20110421100342.GY23560@leitl.org> <4DB14BA0.9040909@aleph.se> <4DB1AA09.1090307@lightlink.com> <4DB2D340.1090007@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 10:47 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > Of course the effect of an AI running on the net would be to slow down > its clock rate to nearly human speeds because of communication delay > between processing nodes. Keeping in mind of course that such delays are always getting shorter (so far at an exponential rate). There is that pesky light speed thing of course... :-) -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 14:33:32 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:33:32 -0600 Subject: [ExI] codependency with your friend, the invisible tormentor In-Reply-To: <4DB4F778.1020507@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB4F778.1020507@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Apr 24, 2011 at 10:24 PM, Damien Broderick wrote: > Talk about cognitive dissonance containment--here's a headline to make a > rational person cringe: > > On Easter Sunday, Possum Kingdom Lake churchgoers find renewed faith amid > wildfire > ? ? ? ? Dallas Morning News It is very common to focus on the things that are most important to you in times of high stress. If you are an atheist, what you focus on may be your family or something else important to you. If you are a Christian, you may focus on your faith in God, your immortal soul, repentance or something else important to you. I find this to be a perfectly reasonable response on the part of the churchgoers. I would not find renewed faith amid wildfires, but it would surely focus me very sharply on what I think is important. -Kelly From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 14:37:04 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:37:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 14:38, Jones Murphy wrote: > CRON doesn't trade away intensity for duration per se. It trades away > youthful intensity(from a period when one has lots to spare) for > middle age and later intensity(during a period when this means > avoiding a lot of aches and pains and more serious problems) AND > duration, a very big difference. Aren't dramatically reduced physical performance (power *and* resistance), reduced libido, reduced fertility, reduced mobility, reduced aggressiveness, reduced resilience to temperature variations, reduced endurance to fasting periods, reduced range of interests (as in "food, food, food!"), mood alterations, reduced sociability, well-described consequences of severe caloric restrictions amongst humans? Both forced and deliberate CRs? What exactly would be the point? This sounds as a disease in itself to me. In fact, there is little surprise that CR has often been deliberately adopted in history to secure the effects described above. -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 14:39:59 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:39:59 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You snuck the word "severe" in there, which is quite important. CRON is not equal to SCRON. And in fact, sufficiently severe CRON will kill you pretty quickly. Numbers matter, proportions matter. Try to talk in more quantitative terms if you're able. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 4:37 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 26 April 2011 14:38, Jones Murphy wrote: >> CRON doesn't trade away intensity for duration per se. It trades away >> youthful intensity(from a period when one has lots to spare) for >> middle age and later intensity(during a period when this means >> avoiding a lot of aches and pains and more serious problems) AND >> duration, a very big difference. > > Aren't dramatically reduced physical performance (power *and* > resistance), reduced libido, reduced fertility, reduced mobility, > reduced aggressiveness, reduced resilience to temperature variations, > reduced endurance to fasting periods, reduced range of interests (as > in "food, food, food!"), ?mood alterations, reduced sociability, > well-described consequences of severe caloric restrictions amongst > humans? Both forced and deliberate CRs? > > What exactly would be the point? This sounds as a disease in itself to > me. In fact, there is little surprise that CR has often been > deliberately adopted in history to secure the effects described above. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 14:47:12 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:47:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/21 Adrian Tymes : > One simple stopgap measure: increased mental activity.? Like, a regimen of > one Sudoku (or more dedicated stuff, like one Brain Age session) per day. Are there more highly recommended brain calisthenics or brain gym type programs out there? I'm thinking about writing such a program, incorporating it with the Kinect so that it is a full body experience. While I can just go by the seat of my pants, if there is any good guiding research out there, that would be helpful. All ideas gratefully accepted. -Kelly From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 14:49:43 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:49:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 15:40, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Why is that Stefano? Living long enough to enjoy the transhumanist > future seems like it would be the transhumanist way. What am I missing > here? Nothing wrong of course in having such a wish, as it may be the case for, e.g., cryonic tourists. Nor, say, in adopting even far-fetched, experimental or high-risk life-extension, rejuvenation, or, for that matter, enhancement, strategies. What I would contend does not sound not very transhumanist IMHO is accepting an *aggravation* of the current limits of human performance in exchange for some marginal increase of one's lifespan as if it were an uncondtional bargain. If anything, I would feel more inclined to jump on technologies and strategies which promise to push such limits further away even at the risk of being the proverbial candle burning at both end (see the Forbidden Planet or Blade Runner). -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 14:57:06 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:57:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 16:39, Jones Murphy wrote: > You snuck the word "severe" in there, which is quite important. CRON > is not equal to SCRON. And in fact, sufficiently severe CRON will kill > you pretty quickly. Numbers matter, proportions matter. Try to talk in > more quantitative terms if you're able. OK. I am ready to accept that a CR level which is compatible with being, say, an Olympic-level athlete, inasmuch of course as this is within your genetic reach, is better than putting away fat you are rather unlikely really to need one day or another. OTOH, I suspect that on a paleo-diet and unless some tolerance/addiction or stress mechanisms kick in, inducing you to eat more than you actually need, you are not likely to exceed much such a number of calories anyway. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 15:06:27 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:06:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 15:50, Kelly Anderson wrote: > You lose me here. What curve are you talking about? Seems to me that > between the civil war and the dawn of the space race there was a lot > of progress in a lot of areas. In which area do you claim stagnation > in this period? No, I mean exactly the opposite. I am even inclined to consider the changes which took place in that period on an equal scale with the neolithic revolution Even though some of their consequences were realised or implemented only later, and in part still are being, thus giving us the false perspective of "dwarves on the shoulders of giants". > The point RK makes is that there is almost always an appropriate > cultural and societal background SOMEWHERE. Yes, this is also my bet and hope. Unless of course globalisation and one(-brave-new-)worldism have their way, that is. A constant point of argument with our friend James Hughes and his ideas of "planetary governance". -- Stefano Vaj From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 15:46:52 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:46:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: <201104260433.p3Q4Xrlq001812@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201104260433.p3Q4Xrlq001812@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: Most of the prediction to this date came about and some of them after 2011 as well. What's interesting is which ones didn't happen and why. Keith On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:36 PM, David Lubkin wrote: > John Grigg wrote: > >> I came across "Reality Check," a book published by Wired in 1996, and >> written by Brad Wieners and David Pescovitz, with a foreward by Bruce >> Sterling. ?These are the predictions within their timeline... > > I have a copy. I look it over every few years, along with Clarke's Profiles > of the Future, Heinlein's Future History timeline, his predictions and > updated predictions in Expanded Universe, Kurzweil's curves, etc. > > The future ain't what it used to be. > > > -- David. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 26 15:44:04 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 08:44:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005701cc0428$c60ac7e0$522057a0$@att.net> ... > > OTOH, one wonders what's the point of exchanging performance and > intensity against duration. A distinctly anti-transhumanist attitude, > if one asks me... -- Stefano Vaj If CRON is not taken to extremes, it does not significantly reduce performance. The question remains: if not taken to extremes, does CRON enhance duration? spike From lubkin at unreasonable.com Tue Apr 26 16:53:40 2011 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:53:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] "Reality Check," a book of predictions In-Reply-To: References: <201104260433.p3Q4Xrlq001812@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <201104261654.p3QGsprb007920@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Keith wrote: >Most of the prediction to this date came about and some of them after >2011 as well. Whose predictions are you referring to? Reality Check's? >What's interesting is which ones didn't happen and why. Right. I also like reading discussions of why a product, project, marketing campaign, design, etc. failed. A bit of learning from their mistakes, a bit of Schadenfreude. And if it was my own, I really want to know. I don't mind making mistakes; I mind repeating them. -- David. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 17:34:19 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:34:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator Message-ID: Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the importance of status seeking as a human motivator. I noticed a slashdot article that pointed to something on the topic by Philip Greenspun. It's a good read. http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science Why do American men (boys, actually) do it? Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of landing a $35,000/year post-doc job? Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation for men going into science is the following: 1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group 2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask the question "is this peer group worth impressing?" Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. ******** Greenspun is smart enough not to make the obvious self-referential observation that *he* is motivated by high status, something I was foolish enough to have written about. (Even though I noted that at the time I was not consciously aware of it.) I included the next paragraph just because it is such a vivid example, especially the last sentence. He also misses the *why* young men strive to achieve high status. The obvious reason from evolutionary psychology is that high status men got the most nooky (and wives) for millions of years, so of course we are selected to seek status. It's one of the things that really are in our genes. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 17:50:07 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:50:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Retail with no clerks Message-ID: I have been thinking about how stores will operate as the population collapses (transcending, uploading). Within a few years I expect we will be seeing stores that operate on off hours with nobody attending them, just computers. Along that line this story was interesting. +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | Computer Opens Unmanned Store For Holiday [0]tomhudson writes "The Walkato Times in New Zealand is reporting that [1]someone forgot to tell the computer not to unlock the supermarket on the Friday holiday. 'About half of the 24 people who came into the supermarket paid for their groceries using the self-scan service. 1. http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/4924352/Pak-n-Save-owner-sees-a-good-side Keith From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 17:55:31 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:55:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Keith, we've been over this many times before(I'm Jonesey from #extropy chat), and so I'm surprised to see you regurgitating this kind of stuff once again. The enormous spread in the degree to which women are involved in science across societies in the world today, plus the incredible velocity with which those degrees have changed just in the past century alone, lays waste to any sort of attempts at evolutionary explanations. Give it up. That list of possible jobs for scientists is hopelessly incomplete. LOTS of scientists go onto Wall St(as I have), do MBA's and go into business(not necessarily "industry") in general, etc etc. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was > lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the > importance of status seeking as a human motivator. ?I noticed a > slashdot article that pointed to something on the topic by Philip > Greenspun. ?It's a good read. > > http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science > > Why do American men (boys, actually) do it? > > Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why > any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans > starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry > Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: > > ? ?A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things > such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video > games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at > the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were > male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years > banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of > landing a $35,000/year post-doc job? > > Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation > for men going into science is the following: > > ? 1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group > ? 2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask > the question "is this peer group worth impressing?" > > Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we > call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is > the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of > his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier > departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding > classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the > best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public > school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier > university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his > choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's > attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. > > ******** > > Greenspun is smart enough not to make the obvious self-referential > observation that *he* is motivated by high status, something I was > foolish enough to have written about. ?(Even though I noted that at > the time I was not consciously aware of it.) ?I included the next > paragraph just because it is such a vivid example, especially the last > sentence. > > He also misses the *why* young men strive to achieve high status. ?The > obvious reason from evolutionary psychology is that high status men > got the most nooky (and wives) for millions of years, so of course we > are selected to seek status. ?It's one of the things that really are > in our genes. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 17:59:49 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 10:59:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Mon, Apr 25, 2011 at 8:12 AM, BillK wrote: snip > As Keith says, either posthumans don't leave home throughout the > galaxy (and we are pretty late arrivals in the Milky Way) or we are > the first. They don't even build shells around their stars and dim them to IR. At least not that we notice so far. That was the first thing Eric Drexler went looking for when he figured out how powerful nanotechnology could be. High computational speed and the low speed of light may result in some rather small civilizations. More than a few hundred nanoseconds may by way out on the edge of things. Keith From atymes at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 18:11:39 2011 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:11:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer Message-ID: On Apr 26, 2011 7:48 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > 2011/4/21 Adrian Tymes : > > One simple stopgap measure: increased mental activity. Like, a regimen of > > one Sudoku (or more dedicated stuff, like one Brain Age session) per day. > > Are there more highly recommended brain calisthenics or brain gym type > programs out there? Probably, but those are the two I hear of the most. Be careful not to overload the patient... > I'm thinking about writing such a program, > incorporating it with the Kinect so that it is a full body experience. ...and remember that their bodies usually do not fully work. A "full body experience" is less useful, in most cases, than Sudoku. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 18:26:49 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:26:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You missed the point of the post. It was about the meme of status seeking as a motivator, no intention of bringing up politically sensitive topics like women in science. If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. Keith On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Keith, we've been over this many times before(I'm Jonesey from > #extropy chat), and so I'm surprised to see you regurgitating this > kind of stuff once again. The enormous spread in the degree to which > women are involved in science across societies in the world today, > plus the incredible velocity with which those degrees have changed > just in the past century alone, lays waste to any sort of attempts at > evolutionary explanations. Give it up. > > That list of possible jobs for scientists is hopelessly incomplete. > LOTS of scientists go onto Wall St(as I have), do MBA's and go into > business(not necessarily "industry") in general, etc etc. > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was >> lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the >> importance of status seeking as a human motivator. ?I noticed a >> slashdot article that pointed to something on the topic by Philip >> Greenspun. ?It's a good read. >> >> http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science >> >> Why do American men (boys, actually) do it? >> >> Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why >> any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans >> starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry >> Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: >> >> ? ?A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things >> such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video >> games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at >> the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were >> male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years >> banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of >> landing a $35,000/year post-doc job? >> >> Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation >> for men going into science is the following: >> >> ? 1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group >> ? 2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask >> the question "is this peer group worth impressing?" >> >> Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we >> call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is >> the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of >> his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier >> departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding >> classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the >> best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public >> school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier >> university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his >> choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's >> attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. >> >> ******** >> >> Greenspun is smart enough not to make the obvious self-referential >> observation that *he* is motivated by high status, something I was >> foolish enough to have written about. ?(Even though I noted that at >> the time I was not consciously aware of it.) ?I included the next >> paragraph just because it is such a vivid example, especially the last >> sentence. >> >> He also misses the *why* young men strive to achieve high status. ?The >> obvious reason from evolutionary psychology is that high status men >> got the most nooky (and wives) for millions of years, so of course we >> are selected to seek status. ?It's one of the things that really are >> in our genes. >> >> Keith >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Apr 26 18:35:48 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:35:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> On 4/26/2011 12:59 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > They don't even build shells around their stars and dim them to IR. > At least not that we notice so far. Are you absolutely sure? Galaxies are surrounded by annuli of invisible mass, and there are vast voids between clumps of galaxies. Not making any superstitious, glib claims here, but it might not be *impossible* that radiating hyperintelligent cultures would leave such footprints. I'd been hoping to write something about this with Robert Bradbury, but then he upped and died on us. Damien Broderick From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 18:50:03 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:50:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You're killin' me here, Keith. A foolish consistency remains the hobgoblin of your mind(and of so many other like-minded), that's for sure. You've advanced an evolutionary gender-based explanation for something which varies massively across genetically similar societies, and is evolving rapidly decade by decade. Do you believe human evolution is that random and rapid? On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > You missed the point of the post. > > It was about the meme of status seeking as a motivator, no intention > of bringing up politically sensitive topics like women in science. > > If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. > > Keith > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> Keith, we've been over this many times before(I'm Jonesey from >> #extropy chat), and so I'm surprised to see you regurgitating this >> kind of stuff once again. The enormous spread in the degree to which >> women are involved in science across societies in the world today, >> plus the incredible velocity with which those degrees have changed >> just in the past century alone, lays waste to any sort of attempts at >> evolutionary explanations. Give it up. >> >> That list of possible jobs for scientists is hopelessly incomplete. >> LOTS of scientists go onto Wall St(as I have), do MBA's and go into >> business(not necessarily "industry") in general, etc etc. >> >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>> Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was >>> lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the >>> importance of status seeking as a human motivator. ?I noticed a >>> slashdot article that pointed to something on the topic by Philip >>> Greenspun. ?It's a good read. >>> >>> http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science >>> >>> Why do American men (boys, actually) do it? >>> >>> Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why >>> any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans >>> starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry >>> Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: >>> >>> ? ?A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things >>> such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video >>> games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at >>> the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were >>> male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years >>> banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of >>> landing a $35,000/year post-doc job? >>> >>> Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation >>> for men going into science is the following: >>> >>> ? 1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group >>> ? 2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask >>> the question "is this peer group worth impressing?" >>> >>> Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we >>> call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is >>> the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of >>> his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier >>> departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding >>> classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the >>> best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public >>> school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier >>> university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his >>> choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's >>> attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. >>> >>> ******** >>> >>> Greenspun is smart enough not to make the obvious self-referential >>> observation that *he* is motivated by high status, something I was >>> foolish enough to have written about. ?(Even though I noted that at >>> the time I was not consciously aware of it.) ?I included the next >>> paragraph just because it is such a vivid example, especially the last >>> sentence. >>> >>> He also misses the *why* young men strive to achieve high status. ?The >>> obvious reason from evolutionary psychology is that high status men >>> got the most nooky (and wives) for millions of years, so of course we >>> are selected to seek status. ?It's one of the things that really are >>> in our genes. >>> >>> Keith >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 19:04:51 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:04:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Agreed, Stefano, that Paleo does cut calories relative to typical modern diets. Most people do not have anywhere near the genetic potential of an Olympic athlete, so I'm not clear why that's the standard you hold CR in particular to...? If you have miserable athletic potential to start with, why would you care about sacrificing athletic performance to spend more than marginally more years in comfort down the road? CR yields about 1% lifespan per 1% reduction in calorie intake, up to well over 60% in the studies of animals. That ain't marginal my friend, esp considering the quality of life, late in life. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 4:57 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 26 April 2011 16:39, Jones Murphy wrote: >> You snuck the word "severe" in there, which is quite important. CRON >> is not equal to SCRON. And in fact, sufficiently severe CRON will kill >> you pretty quickly. Numbers matter, proportions matter. Try to talk in >> more quantitative terms if you're able. > > OK. I am ready to accept that a CR level which is compatible with > being, say, an Olympic-level athlete, inasmuch of course as this is > within your genetic reach, is better than putting away fat you are > rather unlikely really to need one day or another. > > OTOH, I suspect that on a paleo-diet and unless some > tolerance/addiction or stress mechanisms kick in, inducing you to eat > more than you actually need, you are not likely to exceed much such a > number of calories anyway. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From russell.rukin at lineone.net Tue Apr 26 18:52:01 2011 From: russell.rukin at lineone.net (russell rukin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:52:01 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Alzheimer In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DB71451.2000201@lineone.net> My girlfiend was a ward nurse on an Alzheimers ward for many years. Now she is in the research side and is also a DCM (Dementia Care Mapping) trainer. http://www.brad.ac.uk/health/dementia/DementiaCareMapping/ Get early intervention medically. If possible get onto a drug trial, its a very fast moving feild out there. Gental reminiccance therapy will be of benifit. Play old songs from the past, adverts, tv programmes (theme tunes), items from the past, visit places with meaning from the past you get the picture. You could do this and then try to stretch the brain with newer stimuli learning. R On 26/04/2011 19:11, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Apr 26, 2011 7:48 AM, "Kelly Anderson" > wrote: > > 2011/4/21 Adrian Tymes >: > > > One simple stopgap measure: increased mental activity. Like, a > regimen of > > > one Sudoku (or more dedicated stuff, like one Brain Age session) > per day. > > > > Are there more highly recommended brain calisthenics or brain gym type > > programs out there? > > Probably, but those are the two I hear of the most. > Be careful not to overload the patient... > > > I'm thinking about writing such a program, > > incorporating it with the Kinect so that it is a full body experience. > > ...and remember that their bodies usually do not fully work. > A "full body experience" is less useful, in most cases, than Sudoku. > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 26 19:22:52 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:22:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: We really don't yet know how much of a boost CR will give to the human life span. Note that both Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rose expect that CR produces results that are closer to absolute than relative to the species. This means, if they are correct, that humans will enjoy a quite modest extension, nothing like decades. I agree with Stefano about the downsides to moderate-to-severe CR. On the other hand, I see all kinds of good reasons to practice mild-to-modest CR in the form of intermittent fasting and portion control as part of a NeoPaleo approach. Doing fasting while on a NeoPaleo diet is easier, because blood sugar levels are more stable and hunger less acute. --- Max On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Agreed, Stefano, that Paleo does cut calories relative to typical > modern diets. Most people do not have anywhere near the genetic > potential of an Olympic athlete, so I'm not clear why that's the > standard you hold CR in particular to...? If you have miserable > athletic potential to start with, why would you care about sacrificing > athletic performance to spend more than marginally more years in > comfort down the road? CR yields about 1% lifespan per 1% reduction in > calorie intake, up to well over 60% in the studies of animals. That > ain't marginal my friend, esp considering the quality of life, late in > life. > > > > -- > Max More Strategic Philosopher Co-founder, Extropy Institute CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 877/462-5267 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 19:25:33 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:25:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:59:49AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > They don't even build shells around their stars and dim them to IR. > At least not that we notice so far. There have been multiple screens for Dyson blackbody emitters since. All of them are pushing the boundary low and lower. And, again, this is what is expected. Why would invididual cultures change their own origin system, and then stop? If they didn't stop you would never have happened. Difficult to observe anything if you're not there. That SETI is suspended is not that big of a deal. It's merely a hedge against something unexpected. > That was the first thing Eric Drexler went looking for when he figured > out how powerful nanotechnology could be. You don't need machine-phase to build circumstellar node clouds, but it definitely helps. > High computational speed and the low speed of light may result in some > rather small civilizations. More than a few hundred nanoseconds may No, they will result in a huge canvas of culture cells. Just as today's Earth, only much, much larger. > by way out on the edge of things. You know what, your neurons operate on ms range, yet you're across the world and we're using an asynchronous communication channel that is read in minute do day latencies. And patches of ecosystems only interact at the edge. Most of the organisms are stationary, and only signal. Few will travel, and those that travel will be light, unless you come embodied, relativistically. So you're describing the geometries of the cell edges, not assemblies of cells. These are vaster than empires, and more slow. There's world enough, and time. -- 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 From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 18:34:13 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:34:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. > > Keith ??? Why the hostility, Keith? Speaking of missed points, YOU missed the point of Jones' reply (and, furthermore, he never said anything about feeling guilty working on Wall Street). On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:26 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > You missed the point of the post. > > It was about the meme of status seeking as a motivator, no intention > of bringing up politically sensitive topics like women in science. > > If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. > > Keith > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> Keith, we've been over this many times before(I'm Jonesey from >> #extropy chat), and so I'm surprised to see you regurgitating this >> kind of stuff once again. The enormous spread in the degree to which >> women are involved in science across societies in the world today, >> plus the incredible velocity with which those degrees have changed >> just in the past century alone, lays waste to any sort of attempts at >> evolutionary explanations. Give it up. >> >> That list of possible jobs for scientists is hopelessly incomplete. >> LOTS of scientists go onto Wall St(as I have), do MBA's and go into >> business(not necessarily "industry") in general, etc etc. >> >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>> Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was >>> lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the >>> importance of status seeking as a human motivator. ?I noticed a >>> slashdot article that pointed to something on the topic by Philip >>> Greenspun. ?It's a good read. >>> >>> http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science >>> >>> Why do American men (boys, actually) do it? >>> >>> Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why >>> any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans >>> starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry >>> Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: >>> >>> ? ?A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things >>> such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video >>> games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at >>> the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were >>> male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years >>> banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of >>> landing a $35,000/year post-doc job? >>> >>> Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation >>> for men going into science is the following: >>> >>> ? 1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group >>> ? 2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask >>> the question "is this peer group worth impressing?" >>> >>> Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we >>> call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is >>> the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of >>> his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier >>> departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding >>> classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the >>> best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public >>> school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier >>> university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his >>> choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's >>> attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. >>> >>> ******** >>> >>> Greenspun is smart enough not to make the obvious self-referential >>> observation that *he* is motivated by high status, something I was >>> foolish enough to have written about. ?(Even though I noted that at >>> the time I was not consciously aware of it.) ?I included the next >>> paragraph just because it is such a vivid example, especially the last >>> sentence. >>> >>> He also misses the *why* young men strive to achieve high status. ?The >>> obvious reason from evolutionary psychology is that high status men >>> got the most nooky (and wives) for millions of years, so of course we >>> are selected to seek status. ?It's one of the things that really are >>> in our genes. >>> >>> Keith >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 19:35:07 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:35:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20110426193507.GN23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 01:35:48PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote: > Are you absolutely sure? Galaxies are surrounded by annuli of invisible You can only get lower bounds, but http://home.fnal.gov/~carrigan/infrared_astronomy/Fermilab_search.htm > mass, and there are vast voids between clumps of galaxies. Not making Expansion will be creating spherical voids, expanding at relativistic speeds. Time for visible dimming and spectral shift would be years to decades for the average system. If smart life is not rare then there's enough metallicity in early systems to give them lead times of several gigayears. The only reason you fail to observe them is for the same reason you will fail to observe the Tsar Bomba fireball. > any superstitious, glib claims here, but it might not be *impossible* > that radiating hyperintelligent cultures would leave such footprints. Inoculated cultures grow always spherically. Occam sez: I will cut you. -- 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 From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 19:35:53 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:35:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's already clear that CR will produce a boost of decades for those prone to diabetes and cardiovascular problems, so Aubrey and Michael are already just flat out wrong on those types. The remainder are those prone to cancer and other causes of death, maybe 50% of humans. Again on cancer, CR is looking good but the numbers are not yet in in the way that they are for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases of various kinds. It's not looking so great for the remainder, so something like 25% may only get the modest boost. So I'd say a boost of decades is very likely overall. But the data is not in on humans specifically yet and will not be for a long, long time. None of us will be around to see Aubrey and Michael definitively proven right or wrong, that's for sure. I come from diabetes- and cardiovascular disease-prone stock, so it's an easy choice for me. 2011/4/26 Max More : > We really don't yet know how much of a boost CR will give to the human life > span. Note that both Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rose expect that CR produces > results that are closer to absolute than relative to the species. > This?means, if they are correct,?that humans will enjoy a quite modest > extension, nothing like decades. > > I agree with Stefano about the downsides to moderate-to-severe CR. On the > other hand, I see all kinds of good reasons to practice mild-to-modest CR in > the form of intermittent fasting and portion control as part of a NeoPaleo > approach. Doing fasting while on a NeoPaleo diet is easier, because blood > sugar levels are more stable and hunger less acute. > > --- Max > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:04 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> >> Agreed, Stefano, that Paleo does cut calories relative to typical >> modern diets. Most people do not have anywhere near the genetic >> potential of an Olympic athlete, so I'm not clear why that's the >> standard you hold CR in particular to...? If you have miserable >> athletic potential to start with, why would you care about sacrificing >> athletic performance to spend more than marginally more years in >> comfort down the road? CR yields about 1% lifespan per 1% reduction in >> calorie intake, up to well over 60% in the studies of animals. That >> ain't marginal my friend, esp considering the quality of life, late in >> life. >> >> > > >> >> -- > > Max More > Strategic Philosopher > Co-founder, Extropy Institute > CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 > Scottsdale, AZ 85260 > 877/462-5267 ext 113 > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 19:39:50 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:39:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110426193950.GO23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:22:52PM -0700, Max More wrote: > We really don't yet know how much of a boost CR will give to the human life > span. Note that both Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rose expect that CR produces I would be very, very surprised if it gives you 20, maybe 30 years just as outliers. > results that are closer to absolute than relative to the species. > This means, if they are correct, that humans will enjoy a quite modest > extension, nothing like decades. I think CR as part of a lifestyle in absence of pathologies can result in one to three decades at high quality of life, similar to current supercentenarians. Nothing to write home about, unfortunately. > I agree with Stefano about the downsides to moderate-to-severe CR. On the > other hand, I see all kinds of good reasons to practice mild-to-modest CR in > the form of intermittent fasting and portion control as part of a NeoPaleo > approach. Doing fasting while on a NeoPaleo diet is easier, because blood > sugar levels are more stable and hunger less acute. Most of current jobs today are moderately stressful sedentary rodent pushing. It's hard to reconcile a healthy lifestyle with that, with CR being part of the package. From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 19:46:47 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:46:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <20110426193950.GO23560@leitl.org> References: <20110426193950.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: For those prone to type II diabetes(by far the most common type), the blood sugar benefits of CR prevent and/or cure their diabetes entirely if CR onset is early enough. That's worth a couple of decades. Similar is true for those prone to cardiovascular disease. Those are two big groups, accounting for about half of all deaths between them. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:39 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:22:52PM -0700, Max More wrote: >> We really don't yet know how much of a boost CR will give to the human life >> span. Note that both Aubrey de Grey and Michael Rose expect that CR produces > > I would be very, very surprised if it gives you 20, maybe 30 years > just as outliers. > >> results that are closer to absolute than relative to the species. >> This means, if they are correct, that humans will enjoy a quite modest >> extension, nothing like decades. > > I think CR as part of a lifestyle in absence of pathologies can result > in one to three decades at high quality of life, similar to current > supercentenarians. Nothing to write home about, unfortunately. > >> I agree with Stefano about the downsides to moderate-to-severe CR. On the >> other hand, I see all kinds of good reasons to practice mild-to-modest CR in >> the form of intermittent fasting and portion control as part of a NeoPaleo >> approach. Doing fasting while on a NeoPaleo diet is easier, because blood >> sugar levels are more stable and hunger less acute. > > Most of current jobs today are moderately stressful sedentary rodent > pushing. It's hard to reconcile a healthy lifestyle with that, with > CR being part of the package. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 19:42:05 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:42:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > No, they will result in a huge canvas of culture cells. Just as > today's Earth, only much, much larger. > But invisible and not changing any natural bodies in the galaxy. Do you think they exist outside your imagination? > > You know what, your neurons operate on ms range, yet > you're across the world and we're using an asynchronous > communication channel that is read in minute do day > latencies. And patches of ecosystems only interact at > the edge. Most of the organisms are stationary, and only > signal. Few will travel, and those that travel will > be light, unless you come embodied, relativistically. > > So you're describing the geometries of the cell > edges, not assemblies of cells. These are vaster > than empires, and more slow. There's world enough, > and time. > > The whole galaxy could easily have been colonised by now even at low sub-light speeds if they wanted to. We are late arrivals. These invisible civilisations haven't done too well at expanding up to now. BillK From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Apr 26 19:52:56 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:52:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <20110426193507.GN23560@leitl.org> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <20110426193507.GN23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB72298.7080401@satx.rr.com> On 4/26/2011 2:35 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Inoculated cultures grow always spherically. Unless there's something nasty and poisonous over to one side, like, I dunno, lots of gamma bursters near a galactic core, etc, and fewer nutrients on the other side, so you get an annulus. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 19:56:34 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:56:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110426195634.GP23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 08:42:05PM +0100, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > No, they will result in a huge canvas of culture cells. Just as > > today's Earth, only much, much larger. > > > > But invisible and not changing any natural bodies in the galaxy. They're about as invisible as Tsar Bomba from a few km distance. The observation window is very short. > Do you think they exist outside your imagination? You being able to write this message is the best proof that we're not in anybody's smart lightcone. In fact, the best way to observe an expansion is to be the nucleus; anthropic principle. > The whole galaxy could easily have been colonised by now even at low > sub-light speeds if they wanted to. We are late arrivals. These > invisible civilisations haven't done too well at expanding up to now. The entire galaxy is colonized by invisible pink unicorns. From max at maxmore.com Tue Apr 26 19:57:52 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:57:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I was talking about extension to *maximum* life span (as were Aubrey and Michael). Yes, no doubt for some people with health issues, moderate CR could produce a substantial book in life expectancy. If CR is done too strongly, I think the results will look worse for humans than for animals, since it makes you less robust in case of disease, accident, or other trauma. We don't live in cages in laboratories. --- Max On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > It's already clear that CR will produce a boost of decades for those > prone to diabetes and cardiovascular problems, so Aubrey and Michael > are already just flat out wrong on those types. The remainder are > those prone to cancer and other causes of death, maybe 50% of humans. > Again on cancer, CR is looking good but the numbers are not yet in in > the way that they are for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases of > various kinds. It's not looking so great for the remainder, so > something like 25% may only get the modest boost. So I'd say a boost > of decades is very likely overall. [snip] -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Tue Apr 26 20:05:39 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:05:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I do agree re "maximum lifespan" not moving out very much, probably. For most people, what matters is their individual life expectancy, and "squaring the curve" is quite a big deal. Emotionally healthy humans seem to have a very hard time doing severe CR. Anorexics, who do have the self-discipline to practice quite severe CR, have terrible body image problems. None that I know of have yet been convinced to follow a CRON program in an organized way. I doubt we'll get much data on severe CR in humans before alternative anti-aging therapies are developed which trump CR. I've pondered conducting such studies in very poor countries where people are starving and malnourished anyway and CR would be an improvement, but there are obvious ethical problems with that. 2011/4/26 Max More : > I was talking about extension to *maximum* life span (as were Aubrey and > Michael). Yes, no doubt for some people with health issues, moderate CR > could produce a substantial book in life expectancy. If CR is done too > strongly, I think the results will look worse for humans than for animals, > since it makes you less robust in case of disease, accident, or other > trauma. We don't live in cages in laboratories. > > > --- Max > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:35 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> >> It's already clear that CR will produce a boost of decades for those >> prone to diabetes and cardiovascular problems, so Aubrey and Michael >> are already just flat out wrong on those types. The remainder are >> those prone to cancer and other causes of death, maybe 50% of humans. >> Again on cancer, CR is looking good but the numbers are not yet in in >> the way that they are for diabetes and cardiovascular diseases of >> various kinds. It's not looking so great for the remainder, so >> something like 25% may only get the modest boost. So I'd say a boost >> of decades is very likely overall. [snip] > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 20:07:35 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:07:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB72298.7080401@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <20110426193507.GN23560@leitl.org> <4DB72298.7080401@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <20110426200734.GQ23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 02:52:56PM -0500, Damien Broderick wrote: >> Inoculated cultures grow always spherically. > > Unless there's something nasty and poisonous over to one side, like, I > dunno, lots of gamma bursters near a galactic core, etc, and fewer Machine-phase farts in GRB's general direction. Machine-phase can observe accretion disks from close distance, with only minimal shielding. Machine-phase inhales ionized clouds where D. radiodurans used to be. It's hard to imagine how badass machine-phase is for us squishies. > nutrients on the other side, so you get an annulus. This is 3d solid medium. More primitive cultures would use one-star hops, but soon after you can cross intergalactic voids with just advanced rabbit slippers. We're looking at feature sizes like Virgo supercluster to local supercluster. It is definitely hard to miss. All of the other explanations are weird and weirder. The logical approach is to to go for the simplest possible explanation, however dull and boring one personally finds it -- there's always chance for getting surprised that way. From eugen at leitl.org Tue Apr 26 20:15:11 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:15:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: <20110426193950.GO23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110426201511.GR23560@leitl.org> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 09:46:47PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > For those prone to type II diabetes(by far the most common type), the > blood sugar benefits of CR prevent and/or cure their diabetes entirely > if CR onset is early enough. That's worth a couple of decades. Similar In case of life-shortening diseases for which CR is a therapy you can of course push it it farther. Or ordinary healthy people capable of hitting 80+ years on autopilot CR offers only marginal cruise assist. > is true for those prone to cardiovascular disease. Those are two big > groups, accounting for about half of all deaths between them. My 10-30 years of maximum push by CR/healthy lifestyle were just an educated guess. I'm glad that wasn't too far off. The actual problem is that almost no one has the self-discipline to make it happen. I cannot see me add more than 5-10 years to my natural span without running into a serious asceticism control wall. Giving up alcohol for good instead of just rationing it? A cold day in hell. -- 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 From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 20:47:27 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:47:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > You're killin' me here, Keith. A foolish consistency remains the > hobgoblin of your mind(and of so many other like-minded), that's for > sure. I am confused by what you are trying to say here. > You've advanced an evolutionary gender-based explanation for something > which varies massively across genetically similar societies, and is > evolving rapidly decade by decade. Do you believe human evolution is > that random and rapid? Can you point out where I have made such a case? My words, not something I quoted. I have made a case (Google sex drugs cults) for the psychological traits behind Stockholm syndrome (capture-bonding) being selected in the female line during the million years or more that humans lived as hunter gatherers. (Captured males were normally killed.) But the traits (and side effects) show up in both sexes. Up until recent times seeking high status was more important for males in reproductive terms, but such seeking is hardly an exclusive trait and as I have pointed out, the children of high status females survived better, especially in bad times. Re reading, are you trying to say that status seeking is not a universal human trait? Keith > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> You missed the point of the post. >> >> It was about the meme of status seeking as a motivator, no intention >> of bringing up politically sensitive topics like women in science. >> >> If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. >> >> Keith >> >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:55 AM, Jones Murphy >> wrote: >>> Keith, we've been over this many times before(I'm Jonesey from >>> #extropy chat), and so I'm surprised to see you regurgitating this >>> kind of stuff once again. The enormous spread in the degree to which >>> women are involved in science across societies in the world today, >>> plus the incredible velocity with which those degrees have changed >>> just in the past century alone, lays waste to any sort of attempts at >>> evolutionary explanations. Give it up. >>> >>> That list of possible jobs for scientists is hopelessly incomplete. >>> LOTS of scientists go onto Wall St(as I have), do MBA's and go into >>> business(not necessarily "industry") in general, etc etc. >>> >>> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 7:34 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>>> Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was >>>> lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the >>>> importance of status seeking as a human motivator. ?I noticed a >>>> slashdot article that pointed to something on the topic by Philip >>>> Greenspun. ?It's a good read. >>>> >>>> http://philip.greenspun.com/careers/women-in-science >>>> >>>> Why do American men (boys, actually) do it? >>>> >>>> Pursuing science as a career seems so irrational that one wonders why >>>> any young American would do it. Yet we do find some young Americans >>>> starting out in the sciences and they are mostly men. When the Larry >>>> Summers story first broke, I wrote in my Weblog: >>>> >>>> ? ?A lot more men than women choose to do seemingly irrational things >>>> such as become petty criminals, fly homebuilt helicopters, play video >>>> games, and keep tropical fish as pets (98 percent of the attendees at >>>> the American Cichlid Association convention that I last attended were >>>> male). Should we be surprised that it is mostly men who spend 10 years >>>> banging their heads against an equation-filled blackboard in hopes of >>>> landing a $35,000/year post-doc job? >>>> >>>> Having been both a student and teacher at MIT, my personal explanation >>>> for men going into science is the following: >>>> >>>> ? 1. young men strive to achieve high status among their peer group >>>> ? 2. men tend to lack perspective and are unable to step back and ask >>>> the question "is this peer group worth impressing?" >>>> >>>> Consider Albert Q. Mathnerd, a math undergrad at MIT ("Course 18" we >>>> call it). He works hard and beats his chest to demonstrate that he is >>>> the best math nerd at MIT. This is important to Albert because most of >>>> his friends are math majors and the rest of his friends are in wimpier >>>> departments, impressed that Albert has even taken on such demanding >>>> classes. Albert never reflects on the fact that the guy who was the >>>> best math undergrad at MIT 20 years ago is now an entry-level public >>>> school teacher in Nebraska, having failed to get tenure at a 2nd tier >>>> university. When Albert goes to graduate school to get his PhD, his >>>> choice will have the same logical foundation as John Hinckley's >>>> attempt to impress Jodie Foster by shooting Ronald Reagan. >>>> >>>> ******** >>>> >>>> Greenspun is smart enough not to make the obvious self-referential >>>> observation that *he* is motivated by high status, something I was >>>> foolish enough to have written about. ?(Even though I noted that at >>>> the time I was not consciously aware of it.) ?I included the next >>>> paragraph just because it is such a vivid example, especially the last >>>> sentence. >>>> >>>> He also misses the *why* young men strive to achieve high status. ?The >>>> obvious reason from evolutionary psychology is that high status men >>>> got the most nooky (and wives) for millions of years, so of course we >>>> are selected to seek status. ?It's one of the things that really are >>>> in our genes. >>>> >>>> Keith >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> extropy-chat mailing list >>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>>> >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 20:49:43 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:49:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. >> >> Keith > (and, furthermore, he never said anything > about feeling guilty working on Wall Street). If he doesn't, he should. :-) Keith From js_exi at gnolls.org Tue Apr 26 20:50:45 2011 From: js_exi at gnolls.org (J. Stanton) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:50:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] I apologize: my posts are in a time warp! Message-ID: <4DB73025.9020302@gnolls.org> Note that my post titled "More information, technical and otherwise, about paleo diet and life" is dated... *** Sun, 13 Mar 2011 *** Yet somehow the list software decided to post it yesterday...over six weeks later! Of course, I had long since concluded it had been eaten and reposted it. This has happened to me once before. I apologize for this, and for any other inappropriate reposts of mine that may show up in the future. If anyone has any idea why this might be happening and how it can be prevented, please let me know. JS http://www.gnolls.org From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 21:03:31 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:03:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <20110426195634.GP23560@leitl.org> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> <20110426195634.GP23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 12:56 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 08:42:05PM +0100, BillK wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Eugen Leitl ?wrote: >> > No, they will result in a huge canvas of culture cells. Just as >> > today's Earth, only much, much larger. >> > >> >> But invisible and not changing any natural bodies in the galaxy. > > They're about as invisible as Tsar Bomba from a few km > distance. The observation window is very short. That's a very good point, if the maximum speed of expansion is close to the speed of light, you would not see a hole punched in a galaxy before the hole punchers were in your lap. If the speed of expansion is much slower, you could see them for a while before they got to you and went *munch*. >> Do you think they exist outside your imagination? > > You being able to write this message is the best > proof that we're not in anybody's smart lightcone. Good point. > In fact, the best way to observe an expansion is > to be the nucleus; anthropic principle. Possibly the only way. >> The whole galaxy could easily have been colonised by now even at low >> sub-light speeds if they wanted to. We are late arrivals. ?These >> invisible civilisations haven't done too well at expanding up to now. > > The entire galaxy is colonized by invisible pink unicorns. If we really are late arrivals, then chances are we are as doomed as they were. Keith From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 26 20:54:00 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 13:54:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> Message-ID: <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Damien Broderick Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Silence again On 4/26/2011 12:59 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> They don't even build shells around their stars and dim them to IR... >Are you absolutely sure? Keith inserted the appropriate uncertainty with this comment: >> ...At least not that we notice so far... Excellent. Then Damien continued: >Galaxies are surrounded by annuli of invisible mass, and there are vast voids between clumps of galaxies. Not making any superstitious, glib claims here, but it might not be *impossible* that radiating hyperintelligent cultures would leave such footprints. This is one of the few areas where we have the ability to use our advanced mathematical tools. Robert and I worked some on this about 10 yrs ago: is it possible that dark matter is actually a bunch of stars that have been MBrained? After we finished some BOTECs, he concluded that it couldn't be, and I concluded that it could, with caveats. I went over with him the conservation of momentum in photons and how that would direct the absorption of energy and re-radiating some of the energy at a lower frequency. You don't need to be a physicist to get this, alls ya need to know is that momentum is conserved and energy is not. You need to know that the energy of a photon is h*nu and the momentum is h*nu/c. Robert concluded that an MBrained star would appear as a very deep infrared star. I disagreed then and disagree now, under certain circumstances. These would be that the MBrain doesn't actually absorb and use all the energy available to it, but rather uses the momentum of the photons to drag the star to some other place. Reasoning: if the nodes of an MBrain were to orient themselves to reflect most of the light from the star toward the east, then the star is very slowly dragged to the west, by conservation of momentum. It really is, although I recognize it strains the imagination. Robert rejected the notion, based on his firm belief (very possibly true) that an MBrain would never waste available energy just to drag the star elsewhere, even if there existed something really cool at the other end such as another MBrain. It would devour all available energy to do more and faster calculations. I argued that may be so, however, we don't know what an MBrain wants to do. We only know what we want to do. >I'd been hoping to write something about this with Robert Bradbury, but then he upped and died on us... Damien Broderick That soaring brain left us with enough information that we can carry on from where he left off. If so, some of you young physics hipsters step up to the plate right now, for I am very busy now with some family crises. First assignment: given a sunlike star, with 1 sun mass and luminosity, assume an MBrain reflects 99% of the momentum eastward. What is the star system's westward acceleration? I calculated this about a decade ago, and it is in my green notebooks somewhere, but I haven't the time to find it. As I vaguely recall, it was a few meters per square year, but that seems high to me now. Hipsters, have it done by this time tomorrow, and I will do it independently as a check. DAVAI! DAVAI! DAVAI! (That's commie for DO IT!^3) spike From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 26 21:07:23 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:07:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: <06a501cc03f9$a71a9920$f54fcb60$@net> References: <06a501cc03f9$a71a9920$f54fcb60$@net> Message-ID: <4DB7340B.8050903@aleph.se> Amara D. Angelica wrote: > > I just posted a news item on this: > > http://www.kurzweilai.net/machines-will-achieve-human-level-intelligence-in-the-2028-to-2150-range-poll. > > > Please feel free to comment. > > > Cool! Coincidentally, I put up some extra diagrams and a blog post analysing people's probability distribution a bit more here today: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2011/04/ai_overlords_and_their_deciles.html http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/sets/72157626583204714/with/5657887546/ Maybe more of interest for the statistics nerds among us, although the overall diagram of inferred probability of human level AI http://www.flickr.com/photos/arenamontanus/5657887546/in/set-72157626583204714 looks rather nice. Note that the mode (the peak) occurs earlier than the actual mean or median - essentially the data predicts the 2030's to be potentially dynamic. This might of course represent people's personal mental horizon rather than anything real :-) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 21:22:51 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:22:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Cosmist Motorcycle South American Tour 2011 (15 july/15 sept) Message-ID: This sounds like fantastic fun for some of you out there! http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_215938841755469&ref=notif¬if_t=group_activity John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From thespike at satx.rr.com Tue Apr 26 21:24:47 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:24:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DB7381F.1040808@satx.rr.com> On 4/26/2011 3:54 PM, spike wrote: > ...if the nodes of an MBrain were to orient themselves > to reflect most of the light from the star toward the east, then the star is > very slowly dragged to the west, by conservation of momentum. It really is, > although I recognize it strains the imagination. > > Robert rejected the notion, based on his firm belief (very possibly true) > that an MBrain would never waste available energy just to drag the star > elsewhere, even if there existed something really cool at the other end such > as another MBrain. He changed his mind a bit in his essay for my book YEAR MILLION. Annoyingly, I lost the final text of the thing in disk crash a while back, and only have (I think) his early draft. Where he says... Damien Broderick From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 21:35:42 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:35:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Science fiction film: "Technotise: Edit & I" Message-ID: I just watched "Technotise" and greatly enjoyed the fun storyline and high quality animation. What Wikipedia had to say about it... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technotise:_Edit_%26_I The entire film can be viewed for free and without interruption on Youtube, you just need to hit "CC" to choose the appropriate subtitles... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcGTUaG930U I think I have a crush on Edit... John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 26 21:37:07 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:37:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> spike wrote: > If so, some of you young physics hipsters step up to the plate right now, > for I am very busy now with some family crises. First assignment: given a > sunlike star, with 1 sun mass and luminosity, assume an MBrain reflects 99% > of the momentum eastward. What is the star system's westward acceleration? > I calculated this about a decade ago, and it is in my green notebooks > somewhere, but I haven't the time to find it. As I vaguely recall, it was a > few meters per square year, but that seems high to me now. Hipsters, have > it done by this time tomorrow, and I will do it independently as a check. > Hmm, with momentum p=h/lambda and energy E=hc/lambda for each photon, if there is I Watts of energy at that wavelength I get lambda I/hc photons with a total momentum of I/c... great, no need to get into Planck's radiation law. So the total momentum per second if the luminosity is L and we have efficiency eta is eta L/c. For the sun and 99% efficiency, that is 1.27*10^18 kg m/s^2. Putting that into F=ma gives us the whooping acceleration 6.39*10^-13 m/s^2. It takes about 2.8 million years to move a lightyear this way... surprisingly fast, actually! This way you could get out of the galactic plane within a galactic rotation, even if you didn't use a stellar gravity assist. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Tue Apr 26 21:41:58 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:41:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> <4DB685B5.9090108@aleph.se> Message-ID: <4DB73C26.9050108@aleph.se> Stefano Vaj wrote: > One wonders however if breakthroughs and paradigm shifts are not what > ultimately counts, and what the metrics thereof might be... > Exactly! If anybody has a good idea of how to count them in a principled way I would be most interested - our programme on technological change at FHI is intended to deal with these questions. (i.e. a really good idea can be foisted onto clever postdocs) The method used by Charles Murray in "Human Excellence" might be a way of ranking discoveries, perhaps giving us some data. > I submit that technological optimism is declining also because the > perceived pace of change, both in our view of the world and in our > control thereof, is dramatically lower than that we were experiencing > a few decades ago. > But people grow up expecting a certain rate of technological change. So are today's youngsters more or less technologically optimist? I think they are about equally optimistic. It is just that they care about different technologies. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy Faculty Oxford University From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 21:58:36 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 14:58:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: >> (and, furthermore, he never said anything >> about feeling guilty working on Wall Street). > > If he doesn't, he should. :-) Keith OK, facetious element notwithstanding, what a cavalier comment, Keith. You have no idea the kind of discrimination scientists of black African descent have had to deal with. I have known a few of them personally during my lifetime, and many of their stories have made me cry. In a society with structural racism such as ours, why would you begrudge someone?s choice of finding a way to financial independence? Point your ?guilt? arrow towards racist scientists such as William Shockley, will you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley#Statements_about_populations_and_genetics On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>> If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. >>> >>> Keith >> (and, furthermore, he never said anything >> about feeling guilty working on Wall Street). > > If he doesn't, he should. ?:-) > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Apr 26 21:59:47 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:59:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Machine Intelligence Survey In-Reply-To: <06a501cc03f9$a71a9920$f54fcb60$@net> References: <06a501cc03f9$a71a9920$f54fcb60$@net> Message-ID: <4DB74053.1070905@libero.it> Il 26/04/2011 12:06, Amara D. Angelica ha scritto: > I just posted a news item on this: > > http://www.kurzweilai.net/machines-will-achieve-human-level-intelligence-in-the-2028-to-2150-range-poll. Well, some sign of self aware (libertarian) machines: http://www.business-opportunities.biz/2011/04/26/closed-super-market-opens-itself-up-for-business/ Mirco From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 26 22:09:07 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:09:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00a101cc045e$91cab680$b5602380$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Tuesday, April 26, 2011 2:37 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Silence again spike wrote: > If so, some of you young physics hipsters step up to the plate right > now, for I am very busy now with some family crises. First > assignment: given a sunlike star, with 1 sun mass and luminosity, > assume an MBrain reflects 99% of the momentum eastward. What is the star system's westward acceleration? > I calculated this about a decade ago, and it is in my green notebooks > somewhere, but I haven't the time to find it. As I vaguely recall, it > was a few meters per square year, but that seems high to me now. > Hipsters, have it done by this time tomorrow, and I will do it independently as a check. > >...Hmm, with momentum p=h/lambda and energy E=hc/lambda for each photon, if there is I Watts of energy at that wavelength I get lambda I/hc photons with a total momentum of I/c... great, no need to get into Planck's radiation law... Ja, all that stuff cancels. You can use the wavelength formulation Anders gives, instead of the frequency formulation I use. Some of us are special, others are temporal. Both give the same answers if you do it right. >... So the total momentum per second if the luminosity is L and we have efficiency eta is eta L/c. Cool huh? {8-] >...For the sun and 99% efficiency, that is 1.27*10^18 kg m/s^2. Putting that into F=ma gives us the whooping acceleration 6.39*10^-13 m/s^2... Ja, doesn't that seem high? A square year is about 10^15 square seconds, so I am getting about 600 meters per square year which agrees with what I calculated a decade ago, or about 20 microns per second per year. That seems high, but perhaps my intuition is underdeveloped in the field of hauling stars around. >... It takes about 2.8 million years to move a lightyear this way... Again in agreement with what I calculated long ago. I am astonished that we could get that far in a period of time comparable to that in which humans evolved. >...surprisingly fast, actually! This way you could get out of the galactic plane within a galactic rotation, even if you didn't use a stellar gravity assist... Anders Sandberg, Anders does this result violate your intuition as much as it does mine? Are we missing something fundamental? Feels like we are. I do not think a star would want to get *out* of the galaxy, but rather would want to go further inward in any case. I had to agree with Robert that the signature seems missing: we don't see stars on the galactic plane reflecting light towards us. If quasars are actually this phenomenon, there would be more of them visible in the galactic plane than elsewhere. Halton Arp argues that quasars are associated with galaxies, but I never did find his data very convincing. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 22:39:59 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 15:39:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: snip > For the sun and 99% efficiency, that is 1.27*10^18 kg m/s^2. Putting that > into F=ma gives us the whooping acceleration 6.39*10^-13 m/s^2. I got 13 x 10^-13 m/s^2 by totaling the radiation pressure over a 1 Au sphere at 9.15 N/km^2. I wonder if one of us left out a factor of two.? Keith It takes > about 2.8 million years to move a lightyear this way... surprisingly fast, > actually! This way you could get out of the galactic plane within a galactic > rotation, even if you didn't use a stellar gravity assist. > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute James Martin 21st Century School Philosophy > Faculty Oxford University > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 22:19:32 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:19:32 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <423708.30081.qm@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 6:30 AM, BillK wrote: > That's why I ended up expecting that we shall probably get a US agi > and a Chinese agi. > > Don't turn your back on the Iranian agi! ?:) Be especially wary of the Amish agi From spike66 at att.net Tue Apr 26 23:12:11 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:12:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> Message-ID: <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> ... On Behalf Of Keith Henson Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Silence again On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 2:37 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: snip >> For the sun and 99% efficiency, that is 1.27*10^18 kg m/s^2. Putting >> that into F=ma gives us the whooping acceleration 6.39*10^-13 m/s^2. >I got 13 x 10^-13 m/s^2 by totaling the radiation pressure over a 1 Au sphere at 9.15 N/km^2. >I wonder if one of us left out a factor of two.? Keith Keith, I think the factor of 2 in that approach comes from the fact that the light pressure cycles between that maximum you have and zero, so the average light pressure is half. Don't know however. I used a different approach from both yours and Anders' and the ~600 meters per square year agrees with what I had then. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Apr 26 23:30:34 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:30:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 2:58 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>> (and, furthermore, he never said anything >>> about feeling guilty working on Wall Street). >> >> If he doesn't, he should. ?:-) Keith > > OK, facetious element notwithstanding, what a cavalier comment, Keith. > > You have no idea the kind of discrimination scientists of black > African descent have had to deal with. I had no idea that Jones was of African descent. I probably would not remember it even if I had met him in person, to me it's just not significant. I would not cut him any slack on that account. It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. For that matter it should be a hanging offense to play those games at all. They don't help in the slightest with the problems (particularly energy) that are all too likely to be the cause of death for most of the race in the next few decades. > I have known a few of them > personally during my lifetime, and many of their stories have made me > cry. ? In a society with structural racism such as ours, Not my society, Monkey Boy. (Buckaroo Banzai)* Gender and Ethnicity (Jargon file) snip The ethnic distribution of hackers is understood by them to be a function of which ethnic groups tend to seek and value education. Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon and tends to be met with freezing contempt. When asked, hackers often ascribe their culture's gender- and color-blindness to a positive effect of text-only network channels, and this is doubtless a powerful influence. Also, the ties many hackers have to AI research and SF literature may have helped them to develop an idea of personhood that is inclusive rather than exclusive -- after all, if one's imagination readily grants full human rights to future AI programs, robots, dolphins, and extraterrestrial aliens, mere color and gender can't seem very important any more. > why would you > begrudge someone?s choice of finding a way to financial independence? I don't begrudge anyone who takes the highest paying job they can get. It's just stupid that people are not being paid big money to solve the big problems. > Point your ?guilt? arrow towards racist scientists such as William > Shockley, will you? > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Shockley#Statements_about_populations_and_genetics "He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human species," For me and Extropians who think about it, this is a big WHO CARES! The human species doesn't _have_ a "genetic future." People are who they are in the present and genetics will be under full control just before genes no longer matter at all. Keith *"It?s not my God damned planet, Monkey Boy." John Lithgow?s character was a Lectroid from planet 10. They were not evolved from apes. To them, humans have not evolved very far past apes. > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 1:49 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>>> If you feel guilty about working on Wall street, that's your problem. >>>> >>>> Keith >>> (and, furthermore, he never said anything >>> about feeling guilty working on Wall Street). >> >> If he doesn't, he should. ?:-) >> >> Keith >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From sjatkins at mac.com Wed Apr 27 00:54:47 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 17:54:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB76957.8070204@mac.com> On 04/26/2011 12:42 PM, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> No, they will result in a huge canvas of culture cells. Just as >> today's Earth, only much, much larger. >> > But invisible and not changing any natural bodies in the galaxy. Make than not changing any baryonic non-dark matter bodies in the galaxy in ways obviously not attributable to natural causes. - samantha From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 01:08:02 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 18:08:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DB76957.8070204@mac.com> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <20110426192533.GM23560@leitl.org> <4DB76957.8070204@mac.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 5:54 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/26/2011 12:42 PM, BillK wrote: >> >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:25 PM, Eugen Leitl ?wrote: >>> >>> No, they will result in a huge canvas of culture cells. Just as >>> today's Earth, only much, much larger. >>> >> But invisible and not changing any natural bodies in the galaxy. > > Make than not changing any baryonic non-dark matter bodies in the galaxy in > ways obviously not attributable to natural causes. That's close to not being there at all. But perhaps you are right. It might be that advanced civilizations figure out how to manipulate dark matter and vanish from the visible universe. Keith From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 03:20:32 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:20:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in > the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. So what have you got against capitalism, Keith? (Ah, but at least you support lynching!) How very interesting. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 03:49:36 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:49:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in >> the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. > > So what have you got against capitalism, Keith? ?(Ah, but at least you > support lynching!) > > How very interesting. I read this thread very differently. I see it as a committed member of one narrow field of interest becoming frustrated at the perceived waste of resource towards unimportant goals. A gifted young musician is slighted by the disproportionate investment in high school football (for example) while music programs are slashed at every budget cut. Similarly a talented chef being asked to provide institutional meals at minimal cost would be frustrated that he or she is prevented the opportunity to showcase the skill the person possesses. I assume Keith's intent was to "lynch" the misappropriation of money that could otherwise solve the critically important problem of energy rather than any person employing scientists on Wall Street. Keith's short list of topics (energy, EP) has never, to my knowledge, espoused any "lynching" ideology. I feel it's a bit unforgiving to take the above comment out of context. (an unusually sober post today, I'll be sure to return to my usual lighthearted silliness forthwith) From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 04:24:03 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 21:24:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Mike, I was being just a bit facetious myself about the "lynching" part (but also making reference to a cruelly real part of history, which seems irrelevant to Keith). I was hoping my lighthearted question: "So what have you got against capitalism ...?" would have been a tip-off, especially on this list. Sorry I forgot the smiley emoticon. I found Keith's previous reply to mine so unrelentingly mean spirited with unexamined racism that I frankly didn't know where to begin. But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. Ayn Rand gets a free pass. William Buckley gets a free pass. The Nobel Sperm Bank probably even gets a free pass. And nobody needs to concern themselves with the conservatives spewing their coded racism around the airwaves these days. Why? Well, because, as Keith went on to explain in his defense of the racist eugenecist Shockley ... WHO CARES?: "He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human species," For me and Extropians who think about it, this is a big WHO CARES! The human species doesn't _have_ a "genetic future." People are who they are in the present and genetics will be under full control just before genes no longer matter at all. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:20 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>> It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in >>> the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. >> >> So what have you got against capitalism, Keith? ?(Ah, but at least you >> support lynching!) >> >> How very interesting. > > I read this thread very differently. ?I see it as a committed member > of one narrow field of interest becoming frustrated at the perceived > waste of resource towards unimportant goals. ?A gifted young musician > is slighted by the disproportionate investment in high school football > (for example) while music programs are slashed at every budget cut. > Similarly a talented chef being asked to provide institutional meals > at minimal cost would be frustrated that he or she is prevented the > opportunity to showcase the skill the person possesses. > > I assume Keith's intent was to "lynch" the misappropriation of money > that could otherwise solve the critically important problem of energy > rather than any person employing scientists on Wall Street. ?Keith's > short list of topics (energy, EP) has never, to my knowledge, espoused > any "lynching" ideology. ?I feel it's a bit unforgiving to take the > above comment out of context. > > (an unusually sober post today, I'll be sure to return to my usual > lighthearted silliness forthwith) > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 04:59:25 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:59:25 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:06 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 26 April 2011 15:50, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> You lose me here. What curve are you talking about? Seems to me that >> between the civil war and the dawn of the space race there was a lot >> of progress in a lot of areas. In which area do you claim stagnation >> in this period? > > No, I mean exactly the opposite. I am even inclined to consider the > changes which took place in that period on an equal scale with the > neolithic revolution Even though some of their consequences were > realised or implemented only later, and in part still are being, thus > giving us the false perspective of "dwarves on the shoulders of > giants". Thanks for the clarification. That's how I see things too. Are you implying that the rate of change has slowed from 1960 to present? That doesn't make much sense to me either. >> The point RK makes is that there is almost always an appropriate >> cultural and societal background SOMEWHERE. > > Yes, this is also my bet and hope. Unless of course globalisation and > one(-brave-new-)worldism have their way, that is. A constant point of > argument with our friend James Hughes and his ideas of "planetary > governance". I'm unfamiliar with his work, which of his books is most relevant? The family wealth one or the Citizen Cyborg one? -Kelly From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 05:14:14 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:14:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dismissing Shockley was Status as human motivator Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: snip > I found Keith's previous reply to mine so unrelentingly mean spirited > with unexamined racism that I frankly didn't know where to begin. > > But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. ?Ayn Rand gets a free pass. > ?William Buckley gets a free pass. ?The Nobel Sperm Bank probably even > gets a free pass. ?And nobody needs to concern themselves with the > conservatives spewing their coded racism around the airwaves these > days. Why? ?Well, because, as Keith went on to explain in his defense > of the racist eugenecist Shockley ... WHO CARES?: > > "He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human > species," ?For me and Extropians who think about it, this is a big WHO > CARES! ?The human species doesn't _have_ a "genetic future." ? People > are who they are in the present and genetics will be under full > control just before genes no longer matter at all. Defense???? Can you think of a better way to put down someone like Shockley than to say that (given what we now understand) his concerns are outdated and ridiculous? If so lay it out. Keith From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 04:51:11 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:51:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Retail with no clerks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:50 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > I have been thinking about how stores will operate as the population > collapses (transcending, uploading). > > Within a few years I expect we will be seeing stores that operate on > off hours with nobody attending them, just computers. > > Along that line this story was interesting. > > +-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > | Computer Opens Unmanned Store For Holiday > > [0]tomhudson writes "The Walkato Times in New Zealand is reporting that > [1]someone forgot to tell the computer not to unlock the supermarket on > the Friday holiday. 'About half of the 24 people who came into the > supermarket paid for their groceries using the self-scan service. > > ? 1. http://www.stuff.co.nz/waikato-times/news/4924352/Pak-n-Save-owner-sees-a-good-side I'm shocked that half the people apparently did not pay. Don't they know that there are cameras watching their every move? Criminals, even those of opportunity always seem to be the less intelligent among us. -Kelly From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 05:21:52 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:21:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in >> the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. > > So what have you got against capitalism, Keith? Can you make a case that trading stocks on a time frame of milliseconds *is* capitalism? If you can explain how this invests capital in productive industry I would sure like you to do it. > (Ah, but at least you > support lynching!) > > How very interesting. "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and tends to be met with freezing contempt." Keith From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 05:37:46 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:37:46 -0600 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:49 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 26 April 2011 15:40, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> Why is that Stefano? Living long enough to enjoy the transhumanist >> future seems like it would be the transhumanist way. What am I missing >> here? > > Nothing wrong of course in having such a wish, as it may be the case > for, e.g., cryonic tourists. Nor, say, in adopting even far-fetched, > experimental or high-risk life-extension, rejuvenation, or, for that > matter, enhancement, strategies. > > What I would contend does not sound not very transhumanist IMHO is > accepting an *aggravation* of the current limits of human performance > in exchange for some marginal increase of one's lifespan as if it were > an uncondtional bargain. > > If anything, I would feel more inclined to jump on technologies and > strategies which promise to push such limits further away even at the > risk of being the proverbial candle burning at both end (see the > Forbidden Planet or Blade Runner). I see, life isn't worth living if you are living it in constant hunger pains? That makes sense to me. I have the advantage of good longevity genetics, as well as never having smoked, or participated in alcohol. I know some people think these "sacrifices" are too much, but it's just normal to me. So given the idea that CR doesn't push the maximums out for healthy people much, I'll pass too. :-) Thanks for explaining your position, I get it and agree. -Kelly From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 05:41:31 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:41:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? Message-ID: Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be before you'll consider them capitalism? On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>> It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in >>> the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. >> >> So what have you got against capitalism, Keith? > > Can you make a case that trading stocks on a time frame of > milliseconds *is* capitalism? ?If you can explain how this invests > capital in productive industry I would sure like you to do it. > >> (Ah, but at least you >> support lynching!) >> >> How very interesting. > > "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and > tends to be met > with freezing contempt." > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From moulton at moulton.com Wed Apr 27 05:43:30 2011 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:43:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Concerning racism On 04/26/2011 09:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. Allow me to disagree. I do not think that anyone should get a free pass on issues of race, gender, etc. I was actually considering how to structure a reply on the topic of race but got distracted by a small leak in my sink (now fixed) and the other intrusions of life. Talking about race or gender or similar matters is not easy particularly if we each have different conceptual frameworks and different backgrounds. Further we have different modes of discourse when discussing certain topics. Plus there is the problem of how we consciously perceive the actions of ourselves and our social group and the unconscious and unobserved actions. I am not accusing anyone of any thing and I am not excusing anyone of anything. I am just urging us to be careful in our communications so that we do not express things which we later regret. One the things that I have come to realize over the past couple of years is that there is a vocabulary about race and gender as well as conceptual framework which is common in some circles but is not common in the tech and most other circles that I frequent. While I do not agree in all aspects with the framework I have found it instructive to at least be aware of it and to be at least minimally conversant in that framework when someone else is using it to discuss a situation. Just as it is useful to have a basic understanding of economics, physics, chemistry, philosophy and computers to follow many of the discussions we have here. To get a brief idea of the kind of thing I am referring to I suggest the following as a starter: http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf I am not endorsing it whole heartedly but I think it is a reasonably short starting piece for those who are interested. It was written in the late 1980s so it is over 20 years old and thus might be a bit dated. But I do recommend it as a starting piece. I expect that some will read and say what rubbish and reject it out of hand as a personal insult. As I said above I am not saying it is totally correct; what I am saying is that by reading the document it might be easier to communicate on this topic with people who have that view point since there will be greater familiarity with the viewpoint. Of course this will lead to meta-level discussions but at least it will be easier to find the points of agreement and disagreement. I suspect that Olga and Keith are really not as much in disagreement as it might seem rather I suspect that it is a difference of focus and a difference in modes of expression as well as a sincere difference of perception of our daily situation. Sorry about how long this message turned out. I was trying without success to keep it short. Fred From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 05:49:04 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:49:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:49 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: snip > I read this thread very differently. ?I see it as a committed member > of one narrow field of interest becoming frustrated at the perceived > waste of resource towards unimportant goals. Mike, they are not "unimportant goals" they are utterly stupid behavior. Worse than rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while the water poured into the ship. Before the economy tanked something like 42% of "profits" were logged by the financial sector, a sector that historically had been a small service part of the economy. snip > I assume Keith's intent was to "lynch" the misappropriation of money > that could otherwise solve the critically important problem of energy > rather than any person employing scientists on Wall Street. I used the term "hanging offense" and I mean it. The current practices of that segment of the economy will ruin the US and any other country that permits this kind of gambling. What Goldman Sachs did (and is still doing) is only a short step from what "Bernie" Madoff is in jail for. There needs to be a *serious* overhaul of the laws to prevent the parasitic playing with paper and calling it "profits." Capital needs to be *invested* in productive stuff, mining, manufacturing, energy utilities, public works and the like. But, like my opinion of Shockley, it might not make any difference. If the singularity gets here sooner than then the financial manipulations ruin the economy we will not starve in the dark. > Keith's short list of topics (energy, EP) I have a much wider range of interests such as unconventional space projects, nanotechnology, biotech, classical and strange music, even the books and plays of Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket). I just don't talk about them much here. > has never, to my knowledge, espoused > any "lynching" ideology. I could make an exception in certain cases. Read the Wikipedia article if you want enlightenment. Keith > I feel it's a bit unforgiving to take the > above comment out of context. > > (an unusually sober post today, I'll be sure to return to my usual > lighthearted silliness forthwith) > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 05:56:20 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:56:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: Mike, I was being sarcastic, you know? I don't believe in "free passes," especially not the ones written by the largely "pale and male" crowd among the Extropian libertarians here. How accommodating not to have to discuss real-world issues by passing them off as irrelevant now due to alleged immateriality in the future. How special: "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and tends to be met with freezing contempt." On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:43 PM, F. C. Moulton wrote: > > Concerning racism > On 04/26/2011 09:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. > > Allow me to disagree. ?I do not think that anyone should get a free pass > on issues of race, gender, etc. ?I was actually considering how to > structure a reply on the topic of race but got distracted by a small > leak in my sink (now fixed) and the other intrusions of life. > > Talking about race or gender or similar matters is not easy particularly > if we each have different conceptual frameworks and different > backgrounds. ? Further we have different modes of discourse when > discussing certain topics. ?Plus there is the problem of how we > consciously perceive the actions of ourselves and our social group and > the unconscious and unobserved actions. ?I am not accusing anyone of any > thing and I am not excusing anyone of anything. ?I am just urging us to > be careful in our communications so that we do not express things which > we later regret. > > One the things that I have come to realize over the past couple of years > is that there is a vocabulary about race and gender as well as > conceptual framework which is common in some circles but is not common > in the tech and most other circles that I frequent. ?While I do not > agree in all aspects with the framework I have found it instructive to > at least be aware of it and to be at least minimally conversant in that > framework when someone else is using it to discuss a situation. ?Just as > it is useful to have a basic understanding of economics, physics, > chemistry, philosophy and computers to follow many of the discussions we > have here. > > To get a brief idea of the kind of thing I am referring to I suggest the > following as a starter: > http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf > I am not endorsing it whole heartedly but I think it is a reasonably > short starting piece for those who are interested. ?It was written in > the late 1980s so it is over 20 years old and thus might be a bit > dated. ?But I do recommend it as a starting piece. ?I expect that some > will read and say what rubbish and reject it out of hand as a personal > insult. ? As I said above I am not saying it is totally correct; what I > am saying is that by reading the document it might be easier to > communicate on this topic with people who have that view point since > there will be greater familiarity with the viewpoint. ?Of course this > will lead to meta-level discussions but at least it will be easier to > find the points of agreement and disagreement. > > I suspect that Olga and Keith are really not as much in disagreement as > it might seem rather I suspect that it is a difference of focus and a > difference in modes of expression as well as a sincere difference of > perception of our daily situation. > > Sorry about how long this message turned out. ?I was trying without > success to keep it short. > > Fred > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 05:48:02 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 22:48:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] telomere measurement in s.a. Message-ID: <002001cc049e$ac943640$05bca2c0$@att.net> Hey cool, this month's Scientific American mentions two companies who offer a measurement of telomeres: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/commercial-services-to-measure-te lomere-length.php We have been debating caloric restriction here for years, but the effectiveness is wildly difficult to assess. One's attitude towards it appears to depend on how much one does CR oneself. This may be just the development we need. I have long had the notion that CR extends life, that mild CR is nearly painless and somewhat beneficial, and that slowing aging may also slow telomere attrition. I hope so, for if that is the case, we can take the results from this company and actually determine how much benefit (if any) can be gained from mild CR vs the more severe and rigorous forms of the practice. Does anyone here know these folks doing the telomerase measurements? If so, do point out to them that client privacy can be maintained while creating a database of enormous value. They could even set it up on a volunteer basis, where the clients would agree to allow their information to be placed in a database, with the agreement to protect the information from escaping to a life insurance company for instance. This data has unknown and potentially priceless benefit for all mankind. What else can we do with the data besides estimate the effectiveness of CR? Could we not create a calculus of variation model to estimate the life extension value of various other health notions? Vitamin supplements? Exercise? Wine? What else? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 06:14:24 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:14:24 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:21 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > Can you make a case that trading stocks on a time frame of > milliseconds *is* capitalism? ?If you can explain how this invests > capital in productive industry I would sure like you to do it. Why is the time length of an investment important. The investment in the company doesn't go away, it just changes hands. The point to the company is that it was purchased by SOMEONE, not them, and the initial money they get from selling the stock at the Public Offering is the lasting value to the company. Companies focus on stock value because that keeps them safe from unfriendly takeovers and helps with the next public offering or dividend. If speculators subsequently use the chips for gambling, that doesn't change the fact that the chips were initially sold. So how does stock changing hands tens of times per second harm the company? There is the element of electronic trading causing faster swings up and down... which could be arguably bad. They have been trying to fix that to some extent... If I sell chips to a Vegas casino, I don't care that they are used for gambling later, I only care about the money I got for selling them the chip in the first place. I am not any kind of financial expert, so it is entirely probable that I've missed something vitally important in this argument. -Kelly From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 06:15:27 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:15:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] telomere measurement in s.a. In-Reply-To: References: <002001cc049e$ac943640$05bca2c0$@att.net> Message-ID: Actually Stephen Spindler has been doing gene chip measurements for well over a decade showing that CR stops or reverses 80% or so of age related DNA changes. On Apr 27, 2011 8:02 AM, "spike" wrote: Hey cool, this month?s Scientific American mentions two companies who offer a measurement of telomeres: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/commercial-services-to-measure-telomere-length.php We have been debating caloric restriction here for years, but the effectiveness is wildly difficult to assess. One?s attitude towards it appears to depend on how much one does CR oneself. This may be just the development we need. I have long had the notion that CR extends life, that mild CR is nearly painless and somewhat beneficial, and that slowing aging may also slow telomere attrition. I hope so, for if that is the case, we can take the results from this company and actually determine how much benefit (if any) can be gained from mild CR vs the more severe and rigorous forms of the practice. Does anyone here know these folks doing the telomerase measurements? If so, do point out to them that client privacy can be maintained while creating a database of enormous value. They could even set it up on a volunteer basis, where the clients would agree to allow their information to be placed in a database, with the agreement to protect the information from escaping to a life insurance company for instance. This data has unknown and potentially priceless benefit for all mankind. What else can we do with the data besides estimate the effectiveness of CR? Could we not create a calculus of variation model to estimate the life extension value of various other health notions? Vitamin supplements? Exercise? Wine? What else? spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 06:15:46 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:15:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > Mike, I was being sarcastic, you know? ?I don't believe in "free > passes," especially not the ones written by the largely "pale and > male" crowd I have not met more than a few, I think only 3 of the current posters. You could not get me to even say what species they are for sure. Do you know they are "pale and male"? Or could some of the be of intermediate gender, dark green and lots of tentacles? Or AIs hopelessly trapped in 386 computers running under MS DOS 5.0? > among the Extropian libertarians here. ?How accommodating > not to have to discuss real-world issues I happen to be rather up on a lot of "real-world" issues. Have you ever butchered a hog? Heated a house with wood? Testified before Congress? Put a cryonics patient on cardiac bypass? > by passing them off as > irrelevant now due to alleged immateriality in the future. ?How > special: > > "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and > tends to be met with freezing contempt." Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is? Keith > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:43 PM, F. C. Moulton wrote: >> >> Concerning racism >> On 04/26/2011 09:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>> But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. >> >> Allow me to disagree. ?I do not think that anyone should get a free pass >> on issues of race, gender, etc. ?I was actually considering how to >> structure a reply on the topic of race but got distracted by a small >> leak in my sink (now fixed) and the other intrusions of life. >> >> Talking about race or gender or similar matters is not easy particularly >> if we each have different conceptual frameworks and different >> backgrounds. ? Further we have different modes of discourse when >> discussing certain topics. ?Plus there is the problem of how we >> consciously perceive the actions of ourselves and our social group and >> the unconscious and unobserved actions. ?I am not accusing anyone of any >> thing and I am not excusing anyone of anything. ?I am just urging us to >> be careful in our communications so that we do not express things which >> we later regret. >> >> One the things that I have come to realize over the past couple of years >> is that there is a vocabulary about race and gender as well as >> conceptual framework which is common in some circles but is not common >> in the tech and most other circles that I frequent. ?While I do not >> agree in all aspects with the framework I have found it instructive to >> at least be aware of it and to be at least minimally conversant in that >> framework when someone else is using it to discuss a situation. ?Just as >> it is useful to have a basic understanding of economics, physics, >> chemistry, philosophy and computers to follow many of the discussions we >> have here. >> >> To get a brief idea of the kind of thing I am referring to I suggest the >> following as a starter: >> http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf >> I am not endorsing it whole heartedly but I think it is a reasonably >> short starting piece for those who are interested. ?It was written in >> the late 1980s so it is over 20 years old and thus might be a bit >> dated. ?But I do recommend it as a starting piece. ?I expect that some >> will read and say what rubbish and reject it out of hand as a personal >> insult. ? As I said above I am not saying it is totally correct; what I >> am saying is that by reading the document it might be easier to >> communicate on this topic with people who have that view point since >> there will be greater familiarity with the viewpoint. ?Of course this >> will lead to meta-level discussions but at least it will be easier to >> find the points of agreement and disagreement. >> >> I suspect that Olga and Keith are really not as much in disagreement as >> it might seem rather I suspect that it is a difference of focus and a >> difference in modes of expression as well as a sincere difference of >> perception of our daily situation. >> >> Sorry about how long this message turned out. ?I was trying without >> success to keep it short. >> >> Fred >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 06:08:19 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:08:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be Message-ID: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> A comment I read here has been rattling around in my brain, the common saying "The future ain't what it used to be." Usually this comment goes with noting we don't have power too cheap to meter, and we don't have flying cars and we don't have yakkity yak and bla bla, and too bad for us. To that whole notion I must say as politely as I can, bullshit. Sure some things didn't work out for us, but look what we did get that no one really anticipated, even AC Clarke. Right, we don't have flying cars like the Jetsons. Road travel is remarkably similar to how it was in my own childhood. But look what we did get: a new technology for getting information into the home which is so good and so effective, many of us don't want to go chasing off somewhere else, even if we could fly out of our own driveway. I wouldn't give up my internet for flying cars, given the choice of a trade straight across. Think about that. The future is better than it used to be. Consider Asimov's notion of a company being formed to create an encyclopedia of everything, as in the Foundation series. They struggled so hard to get that, and yet along comes Wikipedia in our own lifetimes, we put together something that actually is better than Hari Seldon's Encyclopedia Galactica, all put together in a few years by volunteers. We didn't need to collect the most intelligent minds in the galaxy, we made do just fine with a few tens of thousands of ordinary hipsters, and now the product exceeds our wildest imagination even if the information in there isn't always correct, it's free, it's available in our own homes instantly always. The future is better than it used to be. The right now is waaay better than it used to be. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 06:41:39 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:41:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate > program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be > before you'll consider them capitalism? You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal waste of talent. But don't complain when you wake up one morning and the power is off for good along with the Internet and nobody has any idea of how much "money" they have because it was all recorded in magnetic dots on spinning disks. Keith > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>>> It should be a *hanging* offense to employ scientists or engineers in >>>> the kinds of stupid games they play on Wall Street. >>> >>> So what have you got against capitalism, Keith? >> >> Can you make a case that trading stocks on a time frame of >> milliseconds *is* capitalism? ?If you can explain how this invests >> capital in productive industry I would sure like you to do it. >> >>> (Ah, but at least you >>> support lynching!) >>> >>> How very interesting. >> >> "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and >> tends to be met >> with freezing contempt." >> >> Keith >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 06:44:35 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:44:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:41 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate > program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be > before you'll consider them capitalism? > > As opposed to financial insider theft, you mean? BillK From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 06:53:53 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:53:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A collapse of civilization will not end money, though it might return it to a more concrete form for a while. I do not disagree that there ought to be more talent focused on R&D, though. On Apr 27, 2011 8:42 AM, "Keith Henson" wrote: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Keith, you're so... You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal waste of talent. But don't complain when you wake up one morning and the power is off for good along with the Internet and nobody has any idea of how much "money" they have because it was all recorded in magnetic dots on spinning disks. Keith > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, ... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 06:59:52 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 23:59:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/26 spike : > Sure some things didn?t work out for us, but look what we did get that no one really anticipated, even AC Clarke.? Right, we don?t have flying cars like the Jetsons.? Road travel is remarkably similar to how it was in my own childhood.? But look what we did get: a new technology for getting information into the home which is so good and so effective, many of us don?t want to go chasing off somewhere else, even if we could fly out of our own driveway.? I wouldn?t give up my internet for flying cars, given the choice of a trade straight across.? Think about that.? The future is better than it used to be. Absolutely some things are better, But there's also this: ?More and more Americans are desperately trying to hold on. In an astonishing reversal of the first 200 years of American history when we were seen as perhaps the most optimistic of all peoples, we have become one of the most personally insecure." This article does not take into account a good deal of unsavory American history, but the points it does make are important to contemplate. Look at the charts at the bottom, folks. http://defendingthepublicgood.org/2011/04/18/the-real-american-exceptionalism/ From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 07:22:36 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:22:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Retail with no clerks In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 5:51 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I'm shocked that half the people apparently did not pay. Don't they > know that there are cameras watching their every move? Criminals, even > those of opportunity always seem to be the less intelligent among us. > > Apparently most did try to pay. The security video showed no looting going on. Only about 24 people did early morning shopping on the Bank Holiday before the police arrived to lock up. They did their normal shopping then went to the checkouts. When they saw no tills were manned they went to the self-service checkouts. This worked fine until somebody tried to buy alcohol (at breakfast time on a Bank Holiday! ;) ). This locked up the tills as staff were required for age verification. Customers coming up behind were unable to pay, so just took their shopping and left. Ethically, probably fair enough, as the shop had no means for customers to pay. It looks as though the security videos are not clear enough for good facial identification. They seem to be more for watching for suspicious behaviour (and no staff were watching) and catching shoplifters in the act. In any case the shop-owner doesn't seem to think it would be good business policy to pursue those who got free shopping. He has said that if people do come back and offer to pay, he will donate the money to the Christchurch Earthquake fund. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 07:38:02 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 00:38:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/26 Jones Murphy : > A collapse of civilization will not end money, though it might return it to > a more concrete form for a while. I agree. The people who hold physical gold and silver will win, and loose because they will mostly starve or be robbed. But all that money in the bank and on Wall street will be just gone as if it never existed if the power fails. > I do not disagree that there ought to be > more talent focused on R&D, though. It's not just R&D. There needs to be a concrete willingness to spend vast sum of money on infrastructure. Ground based solar and wind will not supplant oil. SBSP, StratoSolar or something out of left field might. Once you get primary energy under control, consider what it will cost for synthetic oil plants (or other ways to make energy portable). The US uses about 20 M bbls per day. A billion dollar plant makes about 40,000 bbls per day. We will need 500 of them at a billion each. They will draw around 2 TW at at least $1200 B per TW. If it is done (and I doubt it) this will result in real returns on real investments. Keith > On Apr 27, 2011 8:42 AM, "Keith Henson" wrote: > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> Keith, you're so... > > You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal > waste of talent. > > But don't complain when you wake up one morning and the power is off > for good along with the Internet and nobody has any idea of how much > "money" they have because it was all recorded in magnetic dots on > spinning disks. > > Keith > >> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Keith Henson >> wrote: >>> On Tue, Apr 26, ... > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 08:29:00 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:29:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:15 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and >> tends to be met with freezing contempt." > > Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is? > > Keith I don't recognize where this comes from, or how old it is. But I do recognize how laughably false it is. Hackers are people, and are influenced by their parent cultures, including bigotry, tribalism, hierarchism, and other irrationalities. Sure, being generally more educated and logical than average certainly helps. But it generally does not totally cure ongoing indoctrination depending on the strength of that indoctrination. From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 08:51:02 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 10:51:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Oh, there are even more concretely consumable forms of money in use in poor areas of the world right now, such as salt, cattle, and various grains. Gold and silver are money in relatively sophisticated societies where people can pour energy into mining and refining. A complete societal collapse could destroy much(most?) of the value of gold and silver as much as it could destroy the value of paper money. If power fails the least of our problems will be Wall St and the banking system. People will starve in billions. For some odd reason you left out the cheapest form of power generation known yet, geothermal. Known reserves are already sufficient to power humanity for thousands of years at wildly optimistic growth rates. Alas, grass-roots support for subsidizing oil and gas over geothermal among right winger voters(including right-wing Democrats) remains extremely strong. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 9:38 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > 2011/4/26 Jones Murphy : >> A collapse of civilization will not end money, though it might return it to >> a more concrete form for a while. > > I agree. ?The people who hold physical gold and silver will win, and > loose because they will mostly starve or be robbed. ?But all that > money in the bank and on Wall street will be just gone as if it never > existed if the power fails. > >> I do not disagree that there ought to be >> more talent focused on R&D, though. > > It's not just R&D. ?There needs to be a concrete willingness to spend > vast sum of money on infrastructure. > > Ground based solar and wind will not supplant oil. ?SBSP, StratoSolar > or something out of left field might. > > Once you get primary energy under control, consider what it will cost > for synthetic oil plants (or other ways to make energy portable). ?The > US uses about 20 M bbls per day. ?A billion dollar plant makes about > 40,000 bbls per day. ?We will need 500 of them at a billion each. > They will draw around 2 TW at at least $1200 B per TW. > > If it is done (and I doubt it) this will result in real returns on > real investments. > > Keith > >> On Apr 27, 2011 8:42 AM, "Keith Henson" wrote: >> >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy >> wrote: >>> Keith, you're so... >> >> You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal >> waste of talent. >> >> But don't complain when you wake up one morning and the power is off >> for good along with the Internet and nobody has any idea of how much >> "money" they have because it was all recorded in magnetic dots on >> spinning disks. >> >> Keith >> >>> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:21 AM, Keith Henson >>> wrote: >>>> On Tue, Apr 26, ... >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 09:03:09 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:03:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110427090309.GX23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:51:02AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > For some odd reason you left out the cheapest form of power generation > known yet, geothermal. Known reserves are already sufficient to power Deep geothermal is the cheapest renewable only in some select locations, and its total potential is limited. Ditto wind. > humanity for thousands of years at wildly optimistic growth rates. That would be solar, and there's not enough doubling steps for more than a couple hundred years (guesstimate) in the entire solar system. > Alas, grass-roots support for subsidizing oil and gas over geothermal > among right winger voters(including right-wing Democrats) remains > extremely strong. Solar photovoltaics will be the cheapest power shortly, and the only renewable candidate. No amount of subsidies can distort physical realities: we're facing a number of nonrenewable peaks in a short succession. -- 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 From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 09:16:40 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:16:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427090309.GX23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427090309.GX23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: " A 2006 report by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), that included the potential of enhanced geothermal systems, estimated that investing 1 billion US dollars in research and development over 15 years would allow the creation of 100 GW of electrical generating capacity by 2050 in the United States alone.[12] The MIT report estimated that over 200 zettajoules (ZJ) would be extractable, with the potential to increase this to over 2,000 ZJ with technology improvements - sufficient to provide all the world's present energy needs for several millennia."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_electricity As far as "select locations" go, that is not a long-term issue due to the development of long-distance transmission which can go across continents and under oceans for many thousands of miles already and which are rapidly being improved: "The longest HVDC link in the world is currently the Xiangjiaba-Shanghai 2,071 km (1,287 mi) 6400 MW link connecting the Xiangjiaba Dam to Shanghai, in the People's Republic of China.[2] In 2012, the longest HVDC link will be the Rio Madeira link connecting the Amazonas to the S?o Paulo area and the length of the DC line is over 2,500 km (1,600 mi)."--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-voltage_direct_current I agree that there will be a brutal adjustment period out of fossil fuels, but it will overwhelmingly be due to right wing stupidity, and not to physics and engineering. In a few hundred years humans should be able to build quite decent fusion generators. They should also be contemplating tapping more directly into the big local fusion generator aka the sun's power than the long-distance solar we're discussing now. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:03 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:51:02AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > >> For some odd reason you left out the cheapest form of power generation >> known yet, geothermal. Known reserves are already sufficient to power > > Deep geothermal is the cheapest renewable only in some select locations, > and its total potential is limited. Ditto wind. > >> humanity for thousands of years at wildly optimistic growth rates. > > That would be solar, and there's not enough doubling steps for > more than a couple hundred years (guesstimate) in the entire > solar system. > >> Alas, grass-roots support for subsidizing oil and gas over geothermal >> among right winger voters(including right-wing Democrats) remains >> extremely strong. > > Solar photovoltaics will be the cheapest power shortly, and the only > renewable candidate. No amount of subsidies can distort physical > realities: we're facing a number of nonrenewable peaks in a short > succession. > > -- > 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 09:17:49 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:17:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:38:02AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > Ground based solar and wind will not supplant oil. SBSP, StratoSolar What do you do if after you produce 100% of peak demand from solar? Why, you produce 200%. And then 300%. So what do you do with that surplus? Use it, or lose it. > or something out of left field might. I find it curious that you continuously dismiss terrestrial solar which favoring pie-in-the-sky solar, which is exactly like ground solar, but more centralized, more difficult, more expensive, and has a worse EROEI. I absolutely can see how we can start producing SPS in 50 years, when we start starving the ecosystem of sunlight, but that time is not now. > Once you get primary energy under control, consider what it will cost > for synthetic oil plants (or other ways to make energy portable). The I think the classical city-scale Fischer-Tropsch won't happen. We don't have the money, the time, the resource base. What I hope will happen is scalable, modular synfuel from hydrogen to methane, methanol, and other synfuels, under relatively mild conditions. And we should see electrification substituting a lot what today takes dead dinos. > US uses about 20 M bbls per day. A billion dollar plant makes about > 40,000 bbls per day. We will need 500 of them at a billion each. > They will draw around 2 TW at at least $1200 B per TW. Don't forget coal. Getting rid of coal, and oil, and after that, gas. But we're so good at planning. Anyone still remember that IPv4 ran out start of this year, and the first regional registry hit exhaustion a short while ago? And deploying IPv6 is *easy* in comparision to infrastructure work around fossil. > If it is done (and I doubt it) this will result in real returns on > real investments. -- 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 From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 09:24:39 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:24:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <20110426201511.GR23560@leitl.org> References: <20110426193950.GO23560@leitl.org> <20110426201511.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:15 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > In case of life-shortening diseases for which CR is a therapy you can > of course push it it farther. Or ordinary healthy people capable > of hitting 80+ years on autopilot CR offers only marginal cruise > assist. Ordinary healthy people are hitting 80+ years right now, while we can see that by addressing the big 3 killers, we could boost that on average to something north of 100 years. This will not be marginal when you hit 80. Just as important are the quality of those additional years. CR'd animals well past their pre-CR life expectancy are much more vigorous than ad-libbed animals in old age. > The actual problem is that almost no one has the self-discipline > to make it happen. I cannot see me add more than 5-10 years to my > natural span without running into a serious asceticism control wall. > Giving up alcohol for good instead of just rationing it? A cold > day in hell. You will see people discover more and more reserves of self-discipline they never knew they had as the results continue to come in on CR, I expect. And CR does not involve giving up alcohol. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 09:28:51 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:28:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:14:24AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I am not any kind of financial expert, so it is entirely probable that > I've missed something vitally important in this argument. I am no financial expert either, but most of the current trades and investment instruments deal with imaginary money. There are very large very volatile numbers with no according activity at the physical layer. For all practical purposes this is Monte Carlo. (And, hey, pst, most of GDP is smoke and mirrors as well. Who knew?) And it's been getting worse as we speak. I hope you've stocked up on popcorn. -- 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 From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 09:31:14 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:31:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I see, life isn't worth living if you are living it in constant hunger > pains? I've been on some degree of CR for almost 20 years now, and am not in hunger pains at all, though I miss some tasty treats that I have very rarely these days. > That makes sense to me. I have the advantage of good longevity > genetics, as well as never having smoked, or participated in alcohol. > I know some people think these "sacrifices" are too much, but it's > just normal to me. So given the idea that CR doesn't push the maximums > out for healthy people much, I'll pass too. :-) "Participating in alcohol" is actually positive for life expectancy in limited quantities, particularly red wine. If you're from genetic stock that lives to something near human max life-span, i.e. well over 100 yrs consistently, then CR's benefits will be less for you indeed. But I imagine they won't be zero. And the late-life quality of life improvements beyond just number of years are quite substantial and are worth exploring. The big caveat with CR is that most of the benefits derive from starting young. Late onset delivers more limited benefits(though significant for those prone to diabetes, heart disease and cancer). At the DNA level CR does still stop or reverse something like 80% of age-related DNA changes, per Stephen Spindler's excellent gene-chip work. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 09:34:23 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:34:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 07:41:31AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate > program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be > before you'll consider them capitalism? The trading latency is now in microsecond range and below, and there are attempts to build trading platforms in locations where relativistic latency incurs minimal penalty. However, this has nothing to do with capitalism. It has everything to do with crooks running the world economy, and plenty of suckers (this means you) allowing it to happen. From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 09:46:48 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:46:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > The trading latency is now in microsecond range and below, and > there are attempts to build trading platforms in locations > where relativistic latency incurs minimal penalty. > > However, this has nothing to do with capitalism. It has > everything to do with crooks running the world economy, > and plenty of suckers (this means you) allowing it to happen. From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 09:47:56 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:47:56 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: Why stock up on popcorn? Why not borrow stocks you believe to be overvalued, sell them at these inflated prices and make long term short bets, and profit from your wisdom and insight? On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:28 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:14:24AM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> I am not any kind of financial expert, so it is entirely probable that >> I've missed something vitally important in this argument. > > I am no financial expert either, but most of the current trades and > investment instruments deal with imaginary money. There are very large > very volatile numbers with no according activity at the physical layer. > > For all practical purposes this is Monte Carlo. (And, hey, pst, most of > GDP is smoke and mirrors as well. Who knew?) > > And it's been getting worse as we speak. I hope you've stocked up > on popcorn. > > -- > 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 09:52:02 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:52:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: <20110426193950.GO23560@leitl.org> <20110426201511.GR23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427095202.GB23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:24:39AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:15 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > In case of life-shortening diseases for which CR is a therapy you can > > of course push it it farther. Or ordinary healthy people capable > > of hitting 80+ years on autopilot CR offers only marginal cruise > > assist. > > Ordinary healthy people are hitting 80+ years right now, while we can My point exactly. > see that by addressing the big 3 killers, we could boost that on > average to something north of 100 years. This will not be marginal > when you hit 80. Just as important are the quality of those additional I don't want to live 100+ as a slowly failing bipedal primate, I'm interested in indefinite life extension by way of migrating to a different substrate. As a realist, I don't expect 10-20 years will result in any escape velocity technologies, and given the record track of solid-state hypothermia in people it won't produce game-changers either. Newborns and yet unborn may or may not fare better, but all of you reading this will unfortunately have to grow old and to die (though perhaps not permanently). > years. CR'd animals well past their pre-CR life expectancy are much > more vigorous than ad-libbed animals in old age. I'm familiar with the basics of it. You see the same in supercentenarians. > > The actual problem is that almost no one has the self-discipline > > to make it happen. I cannot see me add more than 5-10 years to my > > natural span without running into a serious asceticism control wall. > > Giving up alcohol for good instead of just rationing it? A cold > > day in hell. > > You will see people discover more and more reserves of self-discipline > they never knew they had as the results continue to come in on CR, I If you have to work in today's economy the amount of self-discipline left after an average day is very little. > expect. And CR does not involve giving up alcohol. Emulating Uncle Gabby and Drinky Crow will most assuredly be not life-prolonging. What seems to work is a couple glasses of tannate wine daily. -- 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 From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 10:03:16 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:03:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Dismissing Shockley was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Shockley was paranoid about dysgenia, but there appears to be overwhelming eugenia going on: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect My favorite Shockley story comes from our mutual former workplace, Bell Labs: Shockley was in his office when he saw a tall young black guy walk past. Shockley ordered the guy to replace a light bulb, which the youngster cheerfully did. A few days later Shockley attended a talk on nuclear magnetic resonance, and to his dismay, the newly minted Berkeley physics PhD(Earl Shaw) giving the talk was the guy he had just ordered to replace his bulb. Shockley was apologetic, to put it mildly. But he is an excellent example of how even very bright people are heavily influenced by their local culture, particularly on emotional issues like caste and hierarchy. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:14 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > > snip > >> I found Keith's previous reply to mine so unrelentingly mean spirited >> with unexamined racism that I frankly didn't know where to begin. >> >> But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. ?Ayn Rand gets a free pass. >> ?William Buckley gets a free pass. ?The Nobel Sperm Bank probably even >> gets a free pass. ?And nobody needs to concern themselves with the >> conservatives spewing their coded racism around the airwaves these >> days. Why? ?Well, because, as Keith went on to explain in his defense >> of the racist eugenecist Shockley ... WHO CARES?: >> >> "He thought this work was important to the genetic future of the human >> species," ?For me and Extropians who think about it, this is a big WHO >> CARES! ?The human species doesn't _have_ a "genetic future." ? People >> are who they are in the present and genetics will be under full >> control just before genes no longer matter at all. > > Defense???? ?Can you think of a better way to put down someone like > Shockley than to say that (given what we now understand) his concerns > are outdated and ridiculous? > > If so lay it out. > > Keith > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 10:05:32 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:05:32 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:46:48AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? The speed of the trades stands in absolutely no relation to whether the entities traded correspond to real value, or imaginary money. You can take the last slow tulip boat or trade iridium in submicrosecond latency. You can have your slow tulips, if I can have my fast iridium. However, you're participating in the scam by being part of the system. The real stuff is mixed right with ricin. The only way to win is not to play. Few are so radical. Alternative systems do not yet exist. Few see the need to buld these though the tools have been existing for decades. Realistically, this won't happen on time. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 10:13:46 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:13:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:47:56AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > Why stock up on popcorn? Why not borrow stocks you believe to be You are very easy to troll. > overvalued, sell them at these inflated prices and make long term > short bets, and profit from your wisdom and insight? Because shorting is based on exact predictions. And markets have remained irrational far beyond to make you lose your shorts. But you know that, of course. And of course there's the slight problem of cashing in the plastic chips after Monte Carlo has closed its doors for good. No, I don't own any physical metals. From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 10:20:32 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:20:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? > > Capitalism depends on free trade between equals. Without that one party is stealing from the other. In the real world this can never be achieved as two parties won't have equal knowledge, ability or experience. If they did then no trade would take place. (This is the basic flaw in libertarian free trade theory). But outright theft, con tricks and fraud can be avoided so as to provide a fairly reasonable trading system for day to day living. Microsecond trading deals in the interval between placing an order and the trade being actioned is just plain fraud. Goldie (and others) have been clever enough to get away with it so far. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 10:22:47 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:22:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Dismissing Shockley was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110427102247.GE23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:03:16PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > Shockley was paranoid about dysgenia, but there appears to be > overwhelming eugenia going on: > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect People are measuring shit. You should talk to guys in HR. Which gives me the perfect prompt to mention http://chronopause.com/ which is really really insightful on a number of problems, including analysis on why we fail. I recommend anyone on the list to read this in its entirety. It starts here http://chronopause.com/index.php/page/5/ > My favorite Shockley story comes from our mutual former workplace, Bell Labs: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 10:28:43 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:28:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self improvement In-Reply-To: References: <423708.30081.qm@web114404.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 00:19, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Be especially wary of the Amish agi Especially because if running on Amish-level technology it is probably going to take a rather long time to answer your questions in a Turing test... :-) -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 10:30:24 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:30:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Dismissing Shockley was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <20110427102247.GE23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427102247.GE23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:03:16PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: >> Shockley was paranoid about dysgenia, but there appears to be >> overwhelming eugenia going on: >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect > > People are measuring shit. You should talk to guys in HR. I've spent many decades talking to people in HR at some very big companies. What does that have to do with the fact that vast numbers of people all over the world are better fed and nurtured in their critical early years, and thus have more working intelligence than ever before? What do you believe you know that these thousands of researchers have missed? From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 10:33:15 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:33:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: I think you've discovered something brilliant, BillK. If you're correct, due to sheer velocity all e-commerce is fraud, not just trading in financial markets(which frequently revolve around quite simple physical assets like oil, gas, gold and so on). On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:20 PM, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >> So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? >> >> > > > Capitalism depends on free trade between equals. > Without that one party is stealing from the other. > > In the real world this can never be achieved as two parties won't have > equal knowledge, ability or experience. If they did then no trade > would take place. (This is the basic flaw in libertarian free trade > theory). But outright theft, con tricks and fraud can be avoided so as > to provide a fairly reasonable trading system for day to day living. > > Microsecond trading deals in the interval between placing an order and > the trade being actioned is just plain fraud. Goldie (and others) have > been clever enough to get away with it so far. > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 10:35:28 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:35:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: Eugen, alternative systems exist and are in force all over the world, starting with stone-age barter. Your first 2 paragraphs contradict what you said before, that fast trading cannot be real capitalism. Yet, you refer to a "scam". I leave you to debate yourself. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:05 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:46:48AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: >> So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? > > The speed of the trades stands in absolutely no relation to > whether the entities traded correspond to real value, or > imaginary money. > > You can take the last slow tulip boat or trade iridium in > submicrosecond latency. You can have your slow tulips, if > I can have my fast iridium. > > However, you're participating in the scam by being part > of the system. The real stuff is mixed right with ricin. > The only way to win is not to play. Few are so radical. > > Alternative systems do not yet exist. Few see the need > to buld these though the tools have been existing for > decades. Realistically, this won't happen on time. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 10:37:46 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:37:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: Shorting is not based on exact predictions at all. All you need to be right about is that the stock goes down at some point in the future. That's it. If the market is as irrational as you claim, it must eventually collapse. All irrationality must collide with reality sooner or later. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:47:56AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: >> Why stock up on popcorn? Why not borrow stocks you believe to be > > You are very easy to troll. > >> overvalued, sell them at these inflated prices and make long term >> short bets, and profit from your wisdom and insight? > > Because shorting is based on exact predictions. And markets > have remained irrational far beyond to make you lose your > shorts. But you know that, of course. > > And of course there's the slight problem of cashing in the > plastic chips after Monte Carlo has closed its doors for good. > > No, I don't own any physical metals. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 10:50:18 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:50:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Dismissing Shockley was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427102247.GE23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427105018.GF23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:30:24PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:22 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:03:16PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > >> Shockley was paranoid about dysgenia, but there appears to be > >> overwhelming eugenia going on: > >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect > > > > People are measuring shit. You should talk to guys in HR. > > I've spent many decades talking to people in HR at some very big > companies. What does that have to do with the fact that vast numbers Are your contacts thinking that the recent crop of *local* talent (not globally sourced) over last 30 years is seeing the Flynn effect? Are they happy with the quality they're getting, and is the trend better, or worse? > of people all over the world are better fed and nurtured in their > critical early years, and thus have more working intelligence than > ever before? What do you believe you know that these thousands of > researchers have missed? I am thinking is that if Flynn is showing that developing world is getting smarter they're measuring pure bogon flux. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 10:58:16 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:58:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427105816.GG23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:37:46PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > Shorting is not based on exact predictions at all. All you need to be > right about is that the stock goes down at some point in the future. > That's it. If the market is as irrational as you claim, it must > eventually collapse. All irrationality must collide with reality > sooner or later. Such periodic readjustments happen. We're overdue for a big one. Trying to predict a particular time point of a market collapse is a fool's game, as you well know. Just knowing that it will happen eventually is not a particularly useful bit of information, unless you use it to minimize your exposure to consequence of such. The causes have been analyzed by many people, so I see no point in reiterating why we're overdue for a Big One. If you don't know by now no amount of evidence will convince you. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 11:12:21 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:12:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427111221.GH23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:35:28PM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > Eugen, alternative systems exist and are in force all over the world, > starting with stone-age barter. Your first 2 paragraphs contradict > what you said before, that fast trading cannot be real capitalism. > Yet, you refer to a "scam". I leave you to debate yourself. A cheap shot and a fast exit. Quite different from your usual quality. I'm disappointed. I'm sorry if I inadvertedly collided with your belief system. If the current system is not a series of bubbles, driven by foolishness, greed and fraud, there's nothing to worry about. I really hope I don't have to break out my popcorn. Time will tell. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 11:33:46 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:33:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Dismissing Shockley was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <20110427105018.GF23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427102247.GE23560@leitl.org> <20110427105018.GF23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427113346.GI23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:50:18PM +0200, Eugen Leitl wrote: > I am thinking is that if Flynn is showing that developing world > is getting smarter they're measuring pure bogon flux. I usually don't bother correcting myself, but in this case I meant developed, not developing. From moulton at moulton.com Wed Apr 27 12:54:35 2011 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 05:54:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB8120B.9040307@moulton.com> On 04/27/2011 03:20 AM, BillK wrote: > > Capitalism depends on free trade between equals. > Without that one party is stealing from the other. > > In the real world this can never be achieved as two parties won't have > equal knowledge, ability or experience. If they did then no trade > would take place. This is obviously false since even if two parties had equal knowledge, ability or experience it is possible for the parties to have different preferences and trade can occur when preferences differ. And please give a citation for the assertion that "Capitalism depends on free trade between equals" where by "equals" I take it to mean "equal knowledge, ability or experience". I ask for a citation because I can not recall it ever being made before. Also the use of the word "stealing" is rather unexpected. In the real world any two parties do not have equal knowledge, ability or experience yet we see economic activity all around us yet we do not call it stealing. The local grocery store has much better knowledge, ability and experience in dealing with selling bananas and yet when I buy a banana from them I do not call it stealing. Fred From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 13:04:04 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:04:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 21:04, Jones Murphy wrote: > Agreed, Stefano, that Paleo does cut calories relative to typical > modern diets. Most people do not have anywhere near the genetic > potential of an Olympic athlete, so I'm not clear why that's the > standard you hold CR in particular to...? If you have miserable > athletic potential to start with, why would you care about sacrificing > athletic performance to spend more than marginally more years in > comfort down the road? CR yields about 1% lifespan per 1% reduction in > calorie intake, up to well over 60% in the studies of animals. That > ain't marginal my friend, esp considering the quality of life, late in > life. Let me rephrase. Any CR which does not impact on your own potential performance and resilience (OK, let us exclude from our priorities the ability of living as long as possible on our body fat) in any sense is fine to me. In fact, I would expect the purpose of any dietary style or supplementation to *maximise* them. Within such limits, I wonder if the break even point really requires any deliberate, that is "unnatural". substantial restriction. -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 13:11:10 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:11:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It's not clear to me what you're wondering? You agree that CR confers long-term benefits for short-term costs, but wonder what exactly? On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Let me rephrase. Any CR which does not impact on your own potential > performance and resilience (OK, let us exclude from our priorities the > ability of living as long as possible on our body fat) in any sense is > fine to me. > > In fact, I would expect the purpose of any dietary style or > supplementation to *maximise* them. > > Within such limits, I wonder if the break even point really requires > any deliberate, that is "unnatural". substantial restriction. > > -- > Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 12:57:17 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:57:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 11:17, Eugen Leitl wrote: > I find it curious that you continuously dismiss terrestrial solar > which favoring pie-in-the-sky solar, which is exactly like ground > solar, but more centralized, more difficult, more expensive, and > has a worse EROEI. I am philosophically wary of ground-based solar power, even though it may certainly make sense in some circumstances (to warm yourself on the beach after a good swimming, eg). If anything because it plays with limited resources of rather marginal returns... -- Stefano Vaj From rebelwithaclue at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 13:05:03 2011 From: rebelwithaclue at gmail.com (rebelwithaclue at gmail.com) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 07:05:03 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: To quote Keynes: "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I can remain solvent." KP On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:37 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Shorting is not based on exact predictions at all. All you need to be > right about is that the stock goes down at some point in the future. > That's it. If the market is as irrational as you claim, it must > eventually collapse. All irrationality must collide with reality > sooner or later. > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:47:56AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > >> Why stock up on popcorn? Why not borrow stocks you believe to be > > > > You are very easy to troll. > > > >> overvalued, sell them at these inflated prices and make long term > >> short bets, and profit from your wisdom and insight? > > > > Because shorting is based on exact predictions. And markets > > have remained irrational far beyond to make you lose your > > shorts. But you know that, of course. > > > > And of course there's the slight problem of cashing in the > > plastic chips after Monte Carlo has closed its doors for good. > > > > No, I don't own any physical metals. > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 13:45:53 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:45:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: That depends on the degree of leverage of your short, KP 2011/4/27 : > To quote Keynes: "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I > can remain solvent." > > KP > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:37 AM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> >> Shorting is not based on exact predictions at all. All you need to be >> right about is that the stock goes down at some point in the future. >> That's it. If the market is as irrational as you claim, it must >> eventually collapse. All irrationality must collide with reality >> sooner or later. >> >> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:47:56AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: >> >> Why stock up on popcorn? Why not borrow stocks you believe to be >> > >> > You are very easy to troll. >> > >> >> overvalued, sell them at these inflated prices and make long term >> >> short bets, and profit from your wisdom and insight? >> > >> > Because shorting is based on exact predictions. And markets >> > have remained irrational far beyond to make you lose your >> > shorts. But you know that, of course. >> > >> > And of course there's the slight problem of cashing in the >> > plastic chips after Monte Carlo has closed its doors for good. >> > >> > No, I don't own any physical metals. >> > _______________________________________________ >> > extropy-chat mailing list >> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 13:57:40 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 06:57:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and >> tends to be met with freezing contempt." > Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is? I know! I know! This comes from the Elephant in the Living Room, and it's as old as time immemorial. On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> Mike, I was being sarcastic, you know? ?I don't believe in "free >> passes," especially not the ones written by the largely "pale and >> male" crowd > > I have not met more than a few, I think only 3 of the current posters. > ?You could not get me to even say what species they are for sure. ?Do > you know they are "pale and male"? ?Or could some of the be of > intermediate gender, dark green and lots of tentacles? ?Or AIs > hopelessly trapped in 386 computers running under MS DOS 5.0? > >> among the Extropian libertarians here. ?How accommodating >> not to have to discuss real-world issues > > I happen to be rather up on a lot of "real-world" issues. ?Have you > ever butchered a hog? ?Heated a house with wood? ?Testified before > Congress? ?Put a cryonics patient on cardiac bypass? > >> by passing them off as >> irrelevant now due to alleged immateriality in the future. ?How >> special: >> >> "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and >> tends to be met with freezing contempt." > > Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is? > > Keith > >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:43 PM, F. C. Moulton wrote: >>> >>> Concerning racism >>> On 04/26/2011 09:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>>> But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. >>> >>> Allow me to disagree. ?I do not think that anyone should get a free pass >>> on issues of race, gender, etc. ?I was actually considering how to >>> structure a reply on the topic of race but got distracted by a small >>> leak in my sink (now fixed) and the other intrusions of life. >>> >>> Talking about race or gender or similar matters is not easy particularly >>> if we each have different conceptual frameworks and different >>> backgrounds. ? Further we have different modes of discourse when >>> discussing certain topics. ?Plus there is the problem of how we >>> consciously perceive the actions of ourselves and our social group and >>> the unconscious and unobserved actions. ?I am not accusing anyone of any >>> thing and I am not excusing anyone of anything. ?I am just urging us to >>> be careful in our communications so that we do not express things which >>> we later regret. >>> >>> One the things that I have come to realize over the past couple of years >>> is that there is a vocabulary about race and gender as well as >>> conceptual framework which is common in some circles but is not common >>> in the tech and most other circles that I frequent. ?While I do not >>> agree in all aspects with the framework I have found it instructive to >>> at least be aware of it and to be at least minimally conversant in that >>> framework when someone else is using it to discuss a situation. ?Just as >>> it is useful to have a basic understanding of economics, physics, >>> chemistry, philosophy and computers to follow many of the discussions we >>> have here. >>> >>> To get a brief idea of the kind of thing I am referring to I suggest the >>> following as a starter: >>> http://www.nymbp.org/reference/WhitePrivilege.pdf >>> I am not endorsing it whole heartedly but I think it is a reasonably >>> short starting piece for those who are interested. ?It was written in >>> the late 1980s so it is over 20 years old and thus might be a bit >>> dated. ?But I do recommend it as a starting piece. ?I expect that some >>> will read and say what rubbish and reject it out of hand as a personal >>> insult. ? As I said above I am not saying it is totally correct; what I >>> am saying is that by reading the document it might be easier to >>> communicate on this topic with people who have that view point since >>> there will be greater familiarity with the viewpoint. ?Of course this >>> will lead to meta-level discussions but at least it will be easier to >>> find the points of agreement and disagreement. >>> >>> I suspect that Olga and Keith are really not as much in disagreement as >>> it might seem rather I suspect that it is a difference of focus and a >>> difference in modes of expression as well as a sincere difference of >>> perception of our daily situation. >>> >>> Sorry about how long this message turned out. ?I was trying without >>> success to keep it short. >>> >>> Fred >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> extropy-chat mailing list >>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >>> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 14:02:38 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:02:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 2:45 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > That depends on the degree of leverage of your short, KP > > Leverage! and more leverage! Goldie can create derivatives faster than the Fed can print money. Some people think this might be a problem. BillK From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 14:30:53 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:30:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427143053.GJ23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 02:57:17PM +0200, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I am philosophically wary of ground-based solar power, even though it Ah, but look at the numbers. These will tend to be convincing. > may certainly make sense in some circumstances (to warm yourself on > the beach after a good swimming, eg). If anything because it plays > with limited resources The great fusion plant in the sky which produces 4 MT/s of flux, of which Earth intercepts 2 kg/s? Which is what, 2000 Hiroshimas or two Tsar Bombas going off each second, for billions of years? Sure it's limited, but for pretty high values of limited. Definitely far less limited than the dead dinos we just peaked on. > of rather marginal returns... EROEI of 40:1, and still climbing. Grid parity coming soon. From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 14:32:13 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 16:32:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427143213.GK23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 07:05:03AM -0600, rebelwithaclue at gmail.com wrote: > To quote Keynes: "Markets can remain irrational a lot longer than you and I > can remain solvent." Yes, I was riffing on that quote. Tried do something with naked shorts leaving you naked (without even shorts), but couldn't get it to work. From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 13:40:19 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:40:19 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 5:17 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > What I hope will happen is scalable, modular synfuel from hydrogen > to methane, methanol, and other synfuels, under relatively mild > conditions. > Let's not even bother with the synfuels. Go right to hydrogen fuel cells. http://www.wired.com/autopia/2011/04/discovery-makes-fuel-cells-orders-of-magnitude-cheaper/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 15:14:27 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:14:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 2:17 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:38:02AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> Ground based solar and wind will not supplant oil. ?SBSP, StratoSolar > > What do you do if after you produce 100% of peak demand from solar? > Why, you produce 200%. And then 300%. So what do you do with > that surplus? Use it, or lose it. Turn it into liquid fuels. In the such a future the net loading will be constant with any current excess being diverted into hydrogen production. >> or something out of left field might. > > I find it curious that you continuously dismiss terrestrial solar > which favoring pie-in-the-sky solar, which is exactly like ground > solar, but more centralized, more difficult, more expensive, and > has a worse EROEI. Certainly current ways of getting huge masses of power sat parts to GEO don't have a decent return on investment or EROEI. (ROI is related to EROEI.) But if there is a way to get parts to GEO for $100/kg that would mean an investment of $500 per kg for the transport. There is no reason to think materials for the heavy parts (reflectors, radiators) would be much more expensive than a few dollars a kg. If the cost per GW is $1.6 B then the power could be sold at 2 cents per kWh and pay back the capital investment in ten years. (Nuclear is in the $5-8 range.) If ground solar gets down to 2 cents per kWh (averaged over the whole year and counting cost of storage) then neither power sats nor StratoSolar will be built because of the glut of cheap power. If the energy return on energy invested isn't better than other big sources, it won't happen. > I absolutely can see how we can start producing SPS in 50 years, > when we start starving the ecosystem of sunlight, but that time is > not now. 50 years is post nanotech, most likely post human. By then, if you are still in a biological form, you may have a folding leaf in a implanted backpack. No need to eat, just lie in the sun for food. >> Once you get primary energy under control, consider what it will cost >> for synthetic oil plants (or other ways to make energy portable). ?The > > I think the classical city-scale Fischer-Tropsch won't happen. > We don't have the money, the time, the resource base. The capital investment, based on what the Sasol plant in Qatar cost, is $100 per bbl. Given that oil is selling for that now, money should not be a problem. Energy is another matter. The energy cost in a bbl of oil is $10 per penny per kWh. So two cent power would make synthetic oil for $30 a bbl. Ten cent power would make oil for $210 per bbl. > What I hope will happen is scalable, modular synfuel from hydrogen > to methane, methanol, and other synfuels, under relatively mild > conditions. Perhaps. I don't care about the details, whatever works is fine by me. But since the energy dominates, I doubt it will make much of a difference. > And we should see electrification substituting a lot what today > takes dead dinos. No doubt, but it's harder than it seems. Almost everything is. >> US uses about 20 M bbls per day. ?A billion dollar plant makes about >> 40,000 bbls per day. ?We will need 500 of them at a billion each. >> They will draw around 2 TW at at least $1200 B per TW. > > Don't forget coal. Getting rid of coal, and oil, and after that, > gas. Coal would be the first to be replaced in making electricity, but the coal might be converted to oil for a while. It takes considerably less energy in the early days before there is a total glut of energy. > But we're so good at planning. Anyone still remember that IPv4 > ran out start of this year, and the first regional registry hit > exhaustion a short while ago? And deploying IPv6 is *easy* in > comparision to infrastructure work around fossil. Which gives you the idea that people are not *that* desperate yet. Keith >> If it is done (and I doubt it) this will result in real returns on >> real investments. > > -- > 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 > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 15:24:50 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:24:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: Outstanding article, Olga. To which I'd add the worrisome collapse in upward mobility in the US from best in the world to worst in the West, and dropping fast as wealth concentration accelerates. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:59 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > 2011/4/26 spike : > >> Sure some things didn?t work out for us, but look what we did get that no one really anticipated, even AC Clarke.? Right, we don?t have flying cars like the Jetsons.? Road travel is remarkably similar to how it was in my own childhood.? But look what we did get: a new technology for getting information into the home which is so good and so effective, many of us don?t want to go chasing off somewhere else, even if we could fly out of our own driveway.? I wouldn?t give up my internet for flying cars, given the choice of a trade straight across.? Think about that.? The future is better than it used to be. > > Absolutely some things are better, ?But there's also this: ?More and > more Americans are desperately trying to hold on. ?In an astonishing > reversal of the first 200 years of American history when we were seen > as perhaps the most optimistic of all peoples, we have become one of > the most personally insecure." > > This article does not take into account a good deal of unsavory > American history, but the points it does make are important to > contemplate. ?Look at the charts at the bottom, folks. > > http://defendingthepublicgood.org/2011/04/18/the-real-american-exceptionalism/ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 15:25:43 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:25:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:57 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > >>> "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and >>> tends to be met with freezing contempt." > >> Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is? > > I know! ?I know! ?This comes from the Elephant in the Living Room, and > it's as old as time immemorial. Are you being sarcastic again? Use Google. So much lost culture. 20 years ago on this list *everyone* would have known where it came from. Keith From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 15:16:10 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 08:16:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? Message-ID: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? On 27 April 2011 11:17, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> I find it curious that you continuously dismiss terrestrial solar which favoring pie-in-the-sky solar... >...I am philosophically wary of ground-based solar power, even though it may certainly make sense in some circumstances...--Stefano Vaj Update on my friend's Oregon PV installation: the deal may have fallen through, at least partially. He had a contract with the local power provider, which was required by Oregon state law to buy a certain percentage of its power in the form of renewables. This would have allowed my friend to sell a few of his kWh at $.41, several more at $.31 per kWh. Two days before the contracts were to be signed, the law was overturned, allowing the power company out of most of the requirement. A few days ago, someone commented about environmentalists blocking attempts at ground based solar. Who was that? Read on. That portion of power my friend was planning to sell wasn't actually very much, so that coming to an end in itself didn't kill the deal. What he had in mind was to lift water during peak sun and use a portion of his land as a water capacitor, drop the water on that, then drain it onto his corn during off-peak solar. Last week he was notified that if he did that, the portion of desert land he was to use as a water capacitor risked being declared a wetland, and if so, it couldn't be drained. If he can't get that risk retired, the PVs will not go in. To all recent posters, THANKS! The last several days have had so much good meaty stuff, it reminded me why I hang out here. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 15:59:46 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 17:59:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/26 Max More : > I agree with Stefano about the downsides to moderate-to-severe CR. On the > other hand, I see all kinds of good reasons to practice mild-to-modest CR in > the form of intermittent fasting and portion control as part of a NeoPaleo > approach. Doing fasting while on a NeoPaleo diet is easier, because blood > sugar levels are more stable and hunger less acute. I am also inclined to consider occasional fasting a good thing (I personally tend to adopt it to fight sleep deprivation or flu symptoms), but I always believed that the subjective and yet quite evident benefits derive more from the suspension from time to time of the digestive process than from any substantial reduction in overall caloric intake. This makes me think of another angle: are those who are on CRON really in a good position to profit from occasional fasting and its possible benefits? Admitting that in order to get the most out of it you are required to walk the borderline, fasting would immediately plunge you below the level where disadvantages exceed advantages. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 16:05:44 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:05:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: 2011/4/26 Max More : > If CR is done too > strongly, I think the results will look worse for humans than for animals, > since it makes you less robust in case of disease, accident, or other > trauma. We don't live in cages in laboratories. Besides that, as much as I may like the idea of being healthy and of having the option to continue living for as long as possible I have an immediate "philosophical" no-no reaction to anything which risks to make us less robust in any plausibly relevant senses. Including those sense who may not be really crucial to our survival in a typical modern context. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 16:23:04 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:23:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 07:37, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I see, life isn't worth living if you are living it in constant hunger > pains? That makes sense to me. I have the advantage of good longevity > genetics, as well as never having smoked, or participated in alcohol. > I know some people think these "sacrifices" are too much, but it's > just normal to me. So given the idea that CR doesn't push the maximums > out for healthy people much, I'll pass too. :-) > > Thanks for explaining your position, I get it and agree. My pleasure. Another issue comes now to my mind: To do anything one must be alive, and our species lifespan is of course (one of?) the sorest limitation we are currently faced with at a personal and collective level. But I am under the impression that until a few years ago when people were thinking of transhumanism, or at least "wet" transhumanism, the emphasis used to be on more intelligent, faster, stronger, more beautiful, more flexible, more resilient individuals with acuter senses and quicker responses and enhanced features in general. See, eg. Gregory Stock. Now, there is not doubt that in average healthier and stronger specimen usually (have the ability to) live longer. But isn't it the case that short-term prospectives in the public discourse of transhumanism have recently ended up emphasising longevism to the detriment of everything else? Perhaps because this is felt as a more immediate. and a less threatening!, concern for our hypothetical public? Or is our age in average increasing? :-) -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 16:22:48 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 09:22:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] PaleoCRON? 2011/4/26 Max More : >> I agree with Stefano about the downsides to moderate-to-severe CR. ... >I am also inclined to consider occasional fasting a good thing ... fasting would immediately plunge you below the level where disadvantages exceed advantages. -- Stefano Vaj A factor I haven't really seen or heard is the fact that food itself has evolved, very rapidly recently, with noticeable changes even in our lifetimes. Our food is so much more appealing than in past centuries, where humans generally hadn't the luxury to fuss over their meals, nor enjoy mass produced prepared meals. If we merely compensate for the rapid evolution of food, we are in a sense performing mild CR. If we fail to compensate, we are doing negative CR. Never mind eating the way we evolved, just eat the way humans did a couple centuries ago. I looked in my personal archives and found a comment I made in this forum in 2004: ...Think of the very best cook you have ever known in your life, the meals that masterful chef prepared, and how you loved to devour those delectable viands, which would tempt the palates of connoisseurs from both hemispheres. To those of more delicate sensibilities, they would add a still more aesthetic charm. Now what if that chef were cooking for you three squares a day, 7/52. What would happen? Remember those frozen dinners that showed up in the 1970s, how vile they were? How much better they are today. Like life forms, food is evolving. Those foods which few people devour soon fall off the radar screen, replaced by robust Krispy Kremes, those toxic toroids of luscious lipoproteins, McDonalds burgers and other such life-threatening delights... spike, 2004 Do let us ignore for the moment that I clearly had more time on my hands and a longer attention span in 2004. Back in those days I had no offspring and my parents were healthy. Consequently I had no adult responsibilities. The point remains: in most of human history, food was terrible by modern standards, revolting swill at best, raw, unappealing even to the hungry. The evolution of food is doing negative CR on us today. spike From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 16:44:18 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:44:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > I am also inclined to consider occasional fasting a good thing (I > personally tend to adopt it to fight sleep deprivation or flu > symptoms), but I always believed that the subjective and yet quite > evident benefits derive more from the suspension from time to time of > the digestive process than from any substantial reduction in overall > caloric intake. The benefits of intermittent fasting are not just subjective, and your intuition that even intermittent isocaloric fasting is beneficial is correct: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction#Intermittent_fasting_as_an_alternative_approach > This makes me think of another angle: are those who are on CRON really > in a good position to profit from occasional fasting and its possible > benefits? Admitting that in order to get the most out of it you are > required to walk the borderline, fasting would immediately plunge you > below the level where disadvantages exceed advantages. No CRONies I know of are "trying to get the most out of it" and "walking the borderline", so yes, most of us do get a benefit out of fasting, and many of us fast. I'm fasting today, coincidentally. I'll eat tomorrow evening after 48 hrs of fasting. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 16:49:23 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:49:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 15:11, Jones Murphy wrote: > It's not clear to me what you're wondering? You agree that CR confers > long-term benefits for short-term costs, but wonder what exactly? - I am pretty convinced that CRON, or even mere CR, confers notable both short- and long-term benefits to people subject to a post-neolithic mass dietary style. In other words, opulence dramatically increased the damages thereof, and this is especially blatant amongst those people you after surviving millennia of relative starvation have now a 50% rate of diabetes. - I am much less sure, but try to keep an open mind, with regard to possible longevity benefits from a CR cutting on the food intake which would otherwise assumed by a healthy individual whose metabolism and nutritional inclinations are not altered by tolerance/addiction (or stress) mechanisms. - Even if such benefits do exist, I would be very reluctant to pursue them if I had to pay (or beyond the level where I would have to pay) a price not just in terms of quality of life, but in my, actual or potential, physical or intellectual or sensorial present performances in any conceivable field. Of course, if the alleged benefits of CR derived from some trivial metabolic "trick" which could be piloted, emulated and obtained without having to pay the relative costs, this would be the path to go. If such benefits arised simply from the fact that by living slower, o less, you live longer, I frankly would not count them as such a great bargain. -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 17:05:14 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:05:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> References: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:16 PM, spike wrote: > That portion of power my friend was planning to sell wasn't actually very > much, so that coming to an end in itself didn't kill the deal. ?What he had > in mind was to lift water during peak sun and use a portion of his land as a > water capacitor, drop the water on that, then drain it onto his corn during > off-peak solar. ?Last week he was notified that if he did that, the portion > of desert land he was to use as a water capacitor risked being declared a > wetland, and if so, it couldn't be drained. ?If he can't get that risk > retired, the PVs will not go in. > > How about he gets planning permission for a reservoir? Definition: an artificial lake where water is collected and kept in quantity for use. Reservoirs don't usually get declared as wetlands. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 17:15:54 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:15:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> References: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 18:22, spike wrote: > A factor I haven't really seen or heard is the fact that food itself has > evolved, very rapidly recently, with noticeable changes even in our > lifetimes. ?Our food is so much more appealing than in past centuries, where > humans generally hadn't the luxury to fuss over their meals, nor enjoy mass > produced prepared meals. ?If we merely compensate for the rapid evolution of > food, we are in a sense performing mild CR. ?If we fail to compensate, we > are doing negative CR. ?Never mind eating the way we evolved, just eat the > way humans did a couple centuries ago. Interesting point. OTOH, sensorial satisfaction from 3-star Michelin treats already tends to compensate for substantially smaller quantities of food. Today's portions in great restaurants, and also in up home hospitality meals, are much smaller than they used to be in my grand-parents' time, even though they cost the same or more to the patron or to the host. -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 17:36:26 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 19:36:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:49 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > - I am much less sure, but try to keep an open mind, with regard to > possible longevity benefits from a CR cutting on the food intake which > would otherwise assumed by a healthy individual whose metabolism and > nutritional inclinations are not altered by tolerance/addiction (or > stress) mechanisms. > > - Even if such benefits do exist, I would be very reluctant to pursue > them if I had to pay (or beyond the level where I would have to pay) a > price not just in terms of quality of life, but in my, actual or > potential, physical or intellectual or sensorial present performances > in any conceivable field. There is plenty of evidence of the physical price to be paid for CR, beginning with reduced size for infancy-onset CR. For those who do not aspire to be athletes, that price can be worth paying so as to delay physical and mental deterioration by decades, let alone death.. Evidence for any mental price is not so clear yet, with CR animals always performing at or above normal early on, and very much above normal late in life. It appears the brain is very well defended. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 18:15:27 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:15:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:05 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:46:48AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: >> So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? > > The speed of the trades stands in absolutely no relation to > whether the entities traded correspond to real value, or > imaginary money. This makes me think of a farmer watching a horse race... The spectators cheer for their favorites and people win/lose tons of money on the outcome of each race - yet the farmer sees none of that because he's imagining which horse would be best for plowing his field. (for the sake of this example we'll forget about the fact that probably none of the race horses would be ideal for farm work, this is mostly a visualization of rhetoric and not strictly to scale) From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 18:09:08 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:09:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] PaleoCRON? On 27 April 2011 18:22, spike wrote: >> A factor I haven't really seen or heard is the fact that food itself has evolved, very rapidly recently, with noticeable changes even in > our lifetimes... >...Today's portions in great restaurants, and also in up home hospitality meals, are much smaller than they used to be in my grand-parents' time, even though they cost the same or more to the patron or to the host. -- Stefano Vaj Hmmm, indeed. Clearly I need to either travel to Europe or go to a great restaurant. It may very well be that I have never been to one that would fit your definition of "great restaurant." {8^D I am not much of a foodie. In the states, I have watched over the past 3 decades as restaurant servings went from big to bigger to enormous to absurd. I can never eat it all, even if I pre-starve. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 18:23:51 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 11:23:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a101cc0508$42b46e60$c81d4b20$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 4:16 PM, spike wrote: >> ...Last week he was > notified that if he did that, the portion of desert land he was to use > as a water capacitor risked being declared a wetland, and if so, it > couldn't be drained. ?If he can't get that risk retired, the PVs will not go in. > >...How about he gets planning permission for a reservoir? Definition: an artificial lake where water is collected and kept in quantity for use. Reservoirs don't usually get declared as wetlands...BillK That's where he is now, but it isn't clear having the planning commission declare the area a reservoir would necessarily protect him from determined anti-solar environmentalists. Planning commissions are usually state level, whereas EPA regs are federal. It isn't clear to me what happens if they conflict. There are many different kinds of environmentalists as well: anti-solar, anti-wind, anti-coal, anti-nuke, anti-everything, anti-{power tech that competes with ones own favorite.} It looks to me like one must contend with some protest group regardless of what tech one chooses to generate power. Now we have an energy czar (Van Jones) who wants to confer human rights on the planet earth. I can't tell if that is a promotion from a dead rock or a demotion from the goddess Gaia. Either way, oil and coal are mostly legally grandfathered, so I fear we will burn those until they are no more, regardless of the consequences. spike From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Wed Apr 27 18:54:28 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:54:28 +0200 Subject: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <00a101cc0508$42b46e60$c81d4b20$@att.net> References: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> <00a101cc0508$42b46e60$c81d4b20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:23 PM, spike wrote: > Now we have an energy czar (Van Jones) who wants to confer human rights on > the planet earth. ?I can't tell if that is a promotion from a dead rock or a > demotion from the goddess Gaia. Van Jones has not been an energy czar for 2 years now. He was fired almost immediately after Obama took office because of yet another race-baiting controversy manufactured by Breitbart and Fox News over his supposed signature of some petition accusing Bush of committing 9/11. The petition's authors( 911truth.org ) later admitted his signature was faked, but it was too late. From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 17:55:02 2011 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:55:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 1:56 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > Mike, I was being sarcastic, you know? ?I don't believe in "free > passes," especially not the ones written by the largely "pale and > male" crowd among the Extropian libertarians here. ?How accommodating > > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:43 PM, F. C. Moulton wrote: >> Concerning racism >> On 04/26/2011 09:24 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >>> But, hey, here everybody gets a free pass. >> >> Allow me to disagree. ?I do not think that anyone should get a free pass I'm checking back quite late considering the flurry of activity on this thread. For the record I got (and appreciated) your sarcasm in the message to which F.C. Moulton replied. Keith's reply to clarify the "hanging offense" comment also corrected my thinking. ---- If racially insensitive language offends you (the general you / anyone) then is inherently gender insensitive language any better or worse? How far down the road to Newspeak is an improvement and how far is too far? Maybe this idea is going off-topic; if so, consider it merely rhetorical. From mbb386 at main.nc.us Wed Apr 27 19:06:33 2011 From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 15:06:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> References: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <62e9579cafc21cc4c62d037a46f1fbac.squirrel@www.main.nc.us> > In the states, I have watched over the past 3 decades as restaurant servings > went from big to bigger to enormous to absurd. I can never eat it all, even > if I pre-starve. > Agreed! Doggie bags are my friend! ;) Check the menus at meals of the past... astonishing. One can get a feel for 19th century meals by looking at the table ware - both flatware and dishes. There were specific forks and spoons for everything, and one of the trainings for upperclass was to learn which was what and when to use. Since really high-class dining is beyond my purse (and AFAIK not available in my area) the current portion size in such places is an unknown. ;) Regards, MB From jrd1415 at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 19:39:07 2011 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:39:07 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Capitalism 2.0 was Status as human motivator Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:49 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I used the term "hanging offense" and I mean it. ?The current practices of that segment of the economy will ruin the US and any other country that permits this kind of gambling. ?What Goldman Sachs did (and is still doing) is only a short step from what "Bernie" Madoff is in jail for. ?There needs to be a *serious* overhaul of the laws to prevent the parasitic playing with paper and calling it "profits." ?Capital needs to be *invested* in productive stuff, mining, manufacturing, energy utilities, public works and the like. Thank you Keith. Perfectly stated and exactly right. Computerized trading has made it possible to algorithmically analyze and manipulate trading activity and then parasitically "skim""profits" without any enhancement of productivity. Gaming the system this way has always been around, but it may be that the computerized enhancement of this non-productive "profit skimming has reached a level that endangers the underlying productivity. ..."serious" overhaul of the laws... In spades. Absolutely. Immediately. A transaction tax (ie every transaction taxed) would be a good place to start. That would put a damper on the millisecond in-house trading activity (which feels like borderline-criminal manipulation and zero productivity to me) I'd also like to see complete transparency in all trading, in house and out. I would not be averse even to nationalizing the banking system -- investment and retail -- completely, just plain taking it out of the private sector. The long and ignoble history of thievery in the business of big money flows just begs for it. Enough's enough. The world economy is too important to the welfare of too many "regular" people to allow it to continue as a computerized rigged casino. That's not Capitalism, it's Cannibalism. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 19:50:54 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 12:50:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> References: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:09 AM, spike wrote: > In the states, I have watched over the past 3 decades as restaurant servings > went from big to bigger to enormous to absurd. ?I can never eat it all, even > if I pre-starve. Who needs to eat? I can live off of the crunchy and crackly nutritious fumes wafting from this list ? :) From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 19:56:41 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:56:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> <20110427100532.GC23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110427195641.GN23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 02:15:27PM -0400, Mike Dougherty wrote: > This makes me think of a farmer watching a horse race... The > spectators cheer for their favorites and people win/lose tons of money > on the outcome of each race - yet the farmer sees none of that because > he's imagining which horse would be best for plowing his field. (for > the sake of this example we'll forget about the fact that probably > none of the race horses would be ideal for farm work, this is mostly a > visualization of rhetoric and not strictly to scale) Your image is uncannily correct. This is a gamble, dumb people are throwing money around, the organizer of the races always win, and most of the time crooks run the show. At least with the races, you've got some socializing, primate dominance display (did you see her dressss???) and people are having a good time in general. Quants/traders... not so much. You know what? Fuck Wall Street. I'm off to see the races. As I went down to Galway Town To seek for recreation On the seventeenth of August Me mind being elevated There were passengers assembled With their tickets at the station And me eyes began to dazzle And they off to see the races With me wack fol the do fol The diddle idle day There were passengers from Limerick And passengers from Nenagh The boys of Connemara And the Clare unmarried maiden There were people from Cork City Who were loyal, true and faithful Who brought home the Fenian prisoners >From dying in foreign nations And it's there you'll see the pipers And the fiddlers competing And the sporting wheel of fortune And the four and twenty quarters And there's others without scruple Pelting wattles at poor Maggie And her father well contented And he gazing at his daughter And it's there you'll see the jockeys And they mounted on so stably The pink, the blue, the orange, and green The colors of our nation The time it came for starting All the horses seemed impatient Their feet they hardly touched the ground The speed was so amazing! There was half a million people there Of all denominations The Catholic, the Protestant, the Jew, the Presbyterian Yet there was no animosity No matter what persuasion But failte hospitality Inducing fresh acquaintance From agrimes at speakeasy.net Tue Apr 26 15:55:34 2011 From: agrimes at speakeasy.net (Alan Grimes) Date: Tue, 26 Apr 2011 11:55:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Talk like an uploader! =P Message-ID: <4DB6EAF6.2090900@speakeasy.net> The idea for this post has been rattling around in my head for several weeks now. Actually, I've spent the bulk of that time either playing video games or drafting the introduction. If I actually said everything that I wanted to say in the intro, I'd never get to the actual meme. I could cover the design and structure of the meme but then it should be fairly obvious to the astute. Memes are dangerous things especially when you don't know whether they'll act as penecillin or the plague. This one might do both but in different hosts. Before I begin there is one more thing that needs to be made absolutely clear. The views expressed below are intended only to parallel the writings of the Big Weenie (Kurzweil), Sandberg, and most especially Anissimov. I'm not nearly the physicist Sandberg is so I'm going to fudge things just to give it the same Aura of Absolute Authority(tm). I catagoricaly do not endorse the following as a political manifesto. I will definitely not be playing my usual character in any ensuing discussions. mu Human history can be understood as a discreet series of integrations facilitated by technology. Families became tribes, tribes became villages, villages became city-states, city-states became nations. Then a phase-change occurred, the mode of integration stopped being mere physical proximitity involving cities and sky-scrapers, it became informational, based on telecommunications. Telegraphs became telephones. Telephones became the internet. Now everyone is expected to carry it around in their pocket. The next stage of human evolution will be organic. The telecommunication devices will be implanted in the body, opening new channels of communication. This will begin a third major chain of evolutionary steps. The next stage after that will begin when we realize that as automation progresses, our bodies will become increasingly redundant. We will begin living in pods that maintain our bodies while allowing us to enjoy the gigabit bandwidths a land-line allows full-time. This next impetus for change will come from the costs inherent in maintaining separate systems. The next change in the social order will come when we abandon our individual dwellings and store our pods in huge communal facilities. The economies of scale will probably plateau at this stage for a while. The problem of maintaining individual pods will remain until the problem of merging bodies together is solved. This will permit the ultimate phase of integration. By fusing our bodies together we can achieve even greater economies of scale. Do to safety considerations of being too close to our impermanent sun, we will be forced to limit the level of integration to a few hundred tons worth so that it will be possible to launch us into space using rockets and then complete the integration while in orbit. The resulting being will be a tightly networked community of minds sharing a common dreamscape and linked to powerful computronium-based AI engines that will provide the necessary logistical support. Over the long term, the AI systems will mine out the solar system and maintain an appropriate balance between living and machine mater. As new planets are discovered, new people will be spawned off to go and experience it and then be returned to the collective after they have matured. The only questions that remain are the technical issues of how to accomplish this. The primary concern is heat. Heat will be the ultimate limiting factor of how dense the collective can be. In all probability, a fractal pattern will be used to increase the surface area available for radiating away heat. Energy is a lesser concern but can be mitigated because you only need to really support the brain and the base metabolism, there would be no need for any kind of physical exertion much less kitchen appliances or fast cars. The primary biological need is a constant source of ATP. The metabolization of fat and sugar molecules for energy involving the consumption of oxygen and the production of uric acid is far too inefficient. The collective's tissues will be converted to absorb microwave energy using nano-devices which will supply the necessary ATP. The balance of other nutrients will be maintained through a common blood stream and a combination of mechanical and organic organs to re-process toxic substances. Immune system compatibility issues will be solved by replacing the immune system with a nano-based system. The merging itself will be quite pleasant. It will be mediated by a dense swarm of nano-fog that will envelop part or all of the bodies to be merged and accomplish the merging while managing the sensory stimulation to be either numbed or pleasurable. As the collective grows, it will be able to completely envelop new members or smaller collectives. The process will involve upgrading individual cells and then re-organizing them into new tissues and structures. Brains, obviously, will be preserved as much as possible except where necessary to adapt to the new physical form. Specifically, the autonomic functions will be re-designed to meet the new set of needs. Life in the collective will be nearly careless except that you will have some perception of your part of the collective and some of your neighbors. This will be a minimal but essential role in maintaining the safety of the entire collective. If your body isn't strong enough to undergo the process or you feel that it is deficient, it can be upgraded before you begin the merging process. Evolution past this stage is less clear because it depends much on how a great many technical questions are resolved. I would tend to think it would feature a continuation of the blurring of the distinction between individuals and between what is deemed living and what is deemed machine. mu Okay, there I've done it. I took a completely new, and potentially dangerous meme, loaded it into a gun which I know works, and pulled the trigger. I can't say it's everything that I had hoped it would be then there is not much else I can say in the emotional state I'm in right now. -- IMPEACH OBAMA NOW. Presidents cannot be allowed to start wars. Powers are not rights. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 20:32:20 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:32:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Capitalism 2.0 was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:39 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:49 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > >> I used the term "hanging offense" and I mean it. ?The current practices of that segment of the economy will ruin the US and any other country that permits this kind of gambling. ?What Goldman Sachs did (and is still doing) is only a short step from what "Bernie" Madoff is in jail for. ?There needs to be a *serious* overhaul of the laws to prevent the parasitic playing with paper and calling it "profits." ?Capital needs to be *invested* in productive stuff, mining, manufacturing, energy utilities, public works and the like. > > Thank you Keith. ?Perfectly stated and exactly right. Glad you like it, though I am only stating the obvious. > Computerized trading has made it possible to algorithmically analyze > and manipulate trading activity and then parasitically "skim""profits" > without any enhancement of productivity. ?Gaming the system this way > has always been around, but it may be that the computerized > enhancement of this non-productive "profit skimming has reached a > level that endangers the underlying productivity. > > ..."serious" overhaul of the laws... > > In spades. ?Absolutely. ?Immediately. ?A transaction tax (ie every > transaction taxed) would be a good place to start. ?That would put a > damper on the millisecond in-house trading activity (which feels like > borderline-criminal manipulation and zero productivity to me) ? I'd > also like to see complete transparency in all trading, in house and > out. ?I would not be averse even to nationalizing the banking system > -- investment and retail -- completely, just plain taking it out of > the private sector. That would take some careful thought to prevent abuse as bad as we currently have. On the other hand . . . possibly the transparency would be enough. It might also require capping the pay in some way, perhaps indexed to the minimum wage. > The long and ignoble history of thievery in the > business of big money flows just begs for it. ?Enough's enough. ?The > world economy is too important to the welfare of too many "regular" > people to allow it to continue as a computerized rigged casino. > That's not Capitalism, it's Cannibalism. Bingo. Keith > 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 > From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 20:22:19 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 13:22:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Capitalism 2.0 was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00c701cc0518$d0e42b70$72ac8250$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Jeff Davis ... >... I would not be averse even to nationalizing the banking system -- investment and retail -- completely, just plain taking it out of the private sector. The long and ignoble history of thievery in the business of big money flows just begs for it...Best, Jeff Davis What of the long and ignoble history of thievery in the business of government? Nationalizing the banking system will not help. Rather it would make a bad problem worse, much worse. spike From eugen at leitl.org Wed Apr 27 20:41:01 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:41:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> References: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20110427204101.GP23560@leitl.org> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:09:08AM -0700, spike wrote: > In the states, I have watched over the past 3 decades as restaurant servings > went from big to bigger to enormous to absurd. I can never eat it all, even > if I pre-starve. Not even dreamy sashimi? From sjatkins at mac.com Wed Apr 27 21:30:15 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:30:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB88AE7.9030501@mac.com> On 04/27/2011 03:20 AM, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:46 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >> So answer the question, Eugen. How slow is real capitalism? >> >> > > Capitalism depends on free trade between equals. No. It depends on free trade Period. There are no such things as exact equals among people. They only need to be equal in their negative rights to be left alone and not have force in its variants initiated against them. > Without that one party is stealing from the other. > Baloney. > In the real world this can never be achieved as two parties won't have > equal knowledge, ability or experience. So you are claiming that the only fair economic interactions are ones that are coerced by some authority outside the parties directly involved? Why limit your reasoning to only economic interactions? Why not extend it to say, romantic and courtship interactions, or discussion interactions where some are "unfairly" brighter or more informed than others? - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Wed Apr 27 21:31:23 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:31:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB88B2B.9070409@mac.com> On 04/27/2011 03:37 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Shorting is not based on exact predictions at all. All you need to be > right about is that the stock goes down at some point in the future. > That's it. Obviously you have never shorted stock. Read up. From spike66 at att.net Wed Apr 27 21:31:07 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 14:31:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: <20110427204101.GP23560@leitl.org> References: <006f01cc04f7$59a79590$0cf6c0b0$@att.net> <00a001cc0506$3449dba0$9cdd92e0$@att.net> <20110427204101.GP23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <00d401cc0522$6c5cf4c0$4516de40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] PaleoCRON? On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:09:08AM -0700, spike wrote: >> In the states, I have watched over the past 3 decades as restaurant servings went from big to bigger to enormous to absurd. I can never > eat it all, even if I pre-starve. >Not even dreamy sashimi? Definitely an exception to the rule. In sushi, there is never enough. The portions haven't changed over the years. From pharos at gmail.com Wed Apr 27 21:45:22 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 22:45:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB88AE7.9030501@mac.com> References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> <4DB88AE7.9030501@mac.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 10:30 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > So you are claiming that the only fair economic interactions are ones that > are coerced by some authority outside the parties directly involved? ?Why > limit your reasoning to only economic interactions? ?Why not extend it to > say, romantic and courtship interactions, or discussion interactions where > some are "unfairly" brighter or more informed than others? > > Yup. Life ain't fair. The wolves need to be controlled. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 28 01:04:27 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:04:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: What if Medicare required a living will? In-Reply-To: <4db8acb8.513f2b0a.5a3e.fffffb15SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> References: <4db8acb8.513f2b0a.5a3e.fffffb15SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: This is something I find exceptionally sensible. Of course, I have had one for 26 years since it's part o what you must do to be signed up for cryonic suspension. Keith http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/what-if-medicare-required-a-living-will/2011/04/13/AFk8qZsE_blog.html?referrer=emaillink ======================================================================== Posted at 05:41 PM ET, 04/26/2011 What if Medicare required a living will? By Ezra Klein Andrew Sullivan has a proposal to lower health-care costs that actually makes some sense. ?If everyone aged 40 or over simply made sure we appointed someone to be our power-of-attorney and instructed that person not to prolong our lives by extraordinary measures if we lost consciousness in a long, fatal illness or simply old age,? he writes, ?then we?d immediately make a dent in some way on future healthcare costs. A remarkable proportion of healthcare costs go to the very last days or hours of our lives.? His idea is voluntary. But I?d make a different suggestion. What if, to be eligible for Medicare, you had to give someone power of attorney and sign a living will? You could tell your attorney, and write in your will, that you want every possible measure employed to keep you alive. You could say cost is no object, and neither is pain or quality of life. You could make whatever choice, and offer whatever instructions, you want. You just have to do it. You have to make the decision. Right now, of course, heroic measures are the default. The simple act of making that choice would cut costs, as I suspect many, many people would prefer something besides maximal treatment, and would ensure fewer people suffered needlessly because their health deteriorated before they made their wishes clear. And although Sarah Palin managed to rechristen medical counseling about end-of-life options ?death panels,? I choose to believe that that sort of childishness isn?t inevitable and that this country can make adult decisions about adult problems. This also raises the question of what other simple choices, or policies, have the potential to change a major driver of health-care costs without requiring major reforms to the health-care system. The floor is open for ideas. Related: Atul Gawande on end-of-life options. ? 2009 The Washington Post Company From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Apr 28 01:31:48 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 18:31:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> On 04/26/2011 11:41 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate >> program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be >> before you'll consider them capitalism? > You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal > waste of talent. > > But don't complain when you wake up one morning and the power is off > for good along with the Internet and nobody has any idea of how much > "money" they have because it was all recorded in magnetic dots on > spinning disks. You will blame the power being of on capitalism though or even on automatic trading rather than on government where I am quite certain almost all the blame actually belongs? From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 28 04:39:06 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:39:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/26/2011 11:41 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy >> ?wrote: >>> >>> Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate >>> program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be >>> before you'll consider them capitalism? >> >> You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal >> waste of talent. >> >> But don't complain when you wake up one morning and the power is off >> for good along with the Internet and nobody has any idea of how much >> "money" they have because it was all recorded in magnetic dots on >> spinning disks. > > You will blame the power being of on capitalism though or even on automatic > trading rather than on government where I am quite certain almost all the > blame actually belongs? You are right. The government should change the laws so MIT EEs, MEs, etc graduate don't get sucked into Wall Street casinos and do something useful. Keith From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Thu Apr 28 04:25:10 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:25:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> Message-ID: Samantha, there are vast ungoverned areas of the planet. Even within governed countries which are big enough, it is quite easy to escape into the wilderness and live life undetected, untaxed and untroubled by government. Presumably if government is causing almost all problems, those areas should be the happiest to live. I trust you're broadcasting from Somalia, the Eastern Congo or some other such ungoverned area? On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 3:31 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > You will blame the power being of on capitalism though or even on automatic > trading rather than on government where I am quite certain almost all the > blame actually belongs? From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Thu Apr 28 04:30:32 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 06:30:32 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <4DB88B2B.9070409@mac.com> References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> <4DB88B2B.9070409@mac.com> Message-ID: I've only shorted a few billion in stock(and bonds, and currencies and a whole lot of other things) in my ongoing trading career, Samantha. Tell me more about why shorting only succeeds because of exact predictions. On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/27/2011 03:37 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >> >> Shorting is not based on exact predictions at all. All you need to be >> right about is that the stock goes down at some point in the future. >> That's it. > > Obviously you have never shorted stock. ?Read up. From jrd1415 at gmail.com Thu Apr 28 06:32:56 2011 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:32:56 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Capitalism 2.0 was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <00c701cc0518$d0e42b70$72ac8250$@att.net> References: <00c701cc0518$d0e42b70$72ac8250$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 2:22 PM, spike wrote: > > What of the long and ignoble history of thievery in the business of government? Point exceedingly well taken. We need to rethink governance. Hey, we live in the computer age now, right? So maybe be can use that to enable a new form of governance, a step-up from the passe and unworkable relic we call representative democracy one point oh.. What say we try gladiatorial democracy This is where the candidate "representatives" are drafted by lottery or nomination, campaign against having people vote for them, and the loser is the one who has to go to Washington (or wherever). Then, at the end of his/her tenure, he/she must defend their job performance in gladiatorial combat as part of the super bowl half-time show. That might inspire a return to integrity in government. Gaddafi caused to be formed a Libyan central bank that issues it's own currency (I'm no economist, but there's said to be some benefit in that) and reportedly makes interest free loans (in accordance with Islamic law which prohibits loaning money at interest). Of course, Libya has just gobs of the best oil there is beneath its giant sand pile, so the Libyan currency would be robustly supported, "hard" even. Don't you wish we could find someone like Gaddafi to be our Dictator? Wait a minute! Isn't there some sort of kerfuffle goin' on over there? The silly Libyans are tired of green,...or something. Could it be the "G" man is looking for a new job, a step up, a challenge to match his genius? Oh the timing is sweet. Are we lucky or what. Utopia here we come. What shall we call it? No wait, I have it: the American Jamahiriya. [Now you see why I want to build a starship and leave the planet. Being trapped at the bottom of a gravity well with lawyers, politicians, birthers, truthers, armaments manufacturers, and investment bankers, is a shit sandwich without the bread.] > Nationalizing the banking system will not help. ?Rather it would make a bad problem worse, much worse. "We're doomed! We're all doomed!" Best, Jeff Davis "I thought I was taller."* Milton Berle * Uncle Milty raises his stogey as if to take a puff, but instead jabs his forehead with the chewed-on end. And says,... From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 28 07:01:08 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 09:01:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <20110427092851.GZ23560@leitl.org> <20110427101345.GD23560@leitl.org> <4DB88B2B.9070409@mac.com> Message-ID: <20110428070108.GR23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 06:30:32AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > I've only shorted a few billion in stock(and bonds, and currencies and > a whole lot of other things) in my ongoing trading career, Samantha. You're obviously not stupid. Why did you pick that particular career? > Tell me more about why shorting only succeeds because of exact > predictions. This looks like you have to meet a considerable number of assumptions in order to succeed http://www.fool.com/FoolFAQ/FoolFAQ0033.htm while you risk to blowing up is uncontainable. So this is exactly Monte Carlo investing. Of course if you're predicting the collapse of the entire system, you cannot use the system to your advantage. Few if any promises will be kept. From moulton at moulton.com Thu Apr 28 07:42:55 2011 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 00:42:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> Message-ID: <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> On 04/27/2011 09:39 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > You are right. The government should change the laws so MIT EEs, MEs, > etc graduate don't get sucked into Wall Street casinos and do > something useful. I disagree. I had written several detail objections but I have deleted them because the following was the most important of my list. The issue of individual liberty. It is ultimately the choice of each individual if that individual wants to work in a financial services firm who wants to employee them designing trading software or if the individual wants to go to work for a Silicon Valley firm who wants to employee them designing circuits. Yes this means that people go to medical school to become doctors and then spend the rest of their lives writing novels instead of practicing medicine. And people study physics and engineering and then spend their lives in finance. That is what individual choice is all about. Fred From eugen at leitl.org Thu Apr 28 08:36:45 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 10:36:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> Message-ID: <20110428083645.GS23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 12:42:55AM -0700, F. C. Moulton wrote: > Yes this means that people go to medical school to become doctors and > then spend the rest of their lives writing novels instead of practicing > medicine. And people study physics and engineering and then spend > their lives in finance. That is what individual choice is all about. I agree that we have to be able to make choices, including bad choices, both personally and collectively, and should experience all the consequences of having made these choices. Unfortunately, the planet is too small for some of these choices, so you need more space to be able to decouple and recover from the worse ones. From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Thu Apr 28 10:42:52 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:42:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> Message-ID: Keith is on to something here. While I obviously wouldn't agree with any law prohibiting me from doing what I do now, I certainly didn't leave physics for Wall St because quantum optics or general relativity were boring. If the playing field were tilted to the point where I could make more money doing physics or some other sort of scientific research, I would consider it. Unlike the allegedly anti-government(and I emphasize allegedly, due to how few of them move to the vast area of the planet which remains de facto ungoverned) types, I do think government can play a constructive role by incentivizing people to exercise their individual choices in certain ways. Relationships have been observed quite consisdtently between economic growth and R&D investment, and those can be translated into tax receipts and thus incentives to capable youngsters to do R&D instead of say trading. On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 9:42 AM, F. C. Moulton wrote: > On 04/27/2011 09:39 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> You are right. ?The government should change the laws so MIT EEs, MEs, >> etc graduate don't get sucked into Wall Street casinos and do >> something useful. > > I disagree. ?I had written several detail objections but I have deleted > them because the following was the most important of my list. > > The issue of individual liberty. ?It is ultimately the choice of each > individual if that individual wants to work in a financial services firm > who wants to employee them designing trading software or if the > individual wants to go to work for a Silicon Valley firm who wants to > employee them designing circuits. > > Yes this means that people go to medical school to become doctors and > then spend the rest of their lives writing novels instead of practicing > medicine. ? And people study physics and engineering and then spend > their lives in finance. ?That is what individual choice is all about. > > Fred > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 28 11:16:09 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:16:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB94C79.9030900@libero.it> Il 27/04/2011 17:14, Keith Henson ha scritto: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 2:17 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:38:02AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: >> I absolutely can see how we can start producing SPS in 50 years, >> when we start starving the ecosystem of sunlight, but that time is >> not now. > 50 years is post nanotech, most likely post human. By then, if you > are still in a biological form, you may have a folding leaf in a > implanted backpack. No need to eat, just lie in the sun for food. I would prefer an implanted backpack with a portable nuclear plant. An e-cat, if it is for real, would be the obvious choice. I find it strange no one is commenting about it here. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 28 11:30:12 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:30:12 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> Message-ID: <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> Il 28/04/2011 12:42, Jones Murphy ha scritto: > Keith is on to something here. While I obviously wouldn't agree with > any law prohibiting me from doing what I do now, I certainly didn't > leave physics for Wall St because quantum optics or general relativity > were boring. If the playing field were tilted to the point where I > could make more money doing physics or some other sort of scientific > research, I would consider it. Unlike the allegedly > anti-government(and I emphasize allegedly, due to how few of them move > to the vast area of the planet which remains de facto ungoverned) > types, I do think government can play a constructive role by > incentivizing people to exercise their individual choices in certain > ways. Relationships have been observed quite consistently between > economic growth and R&D investment, and those can be translated into > tax receipts and thus incentives to capable youngsters to do R&D > instead of say trading. Maybe the reason people don't move in some de facto ungoverned places inside governed nations is the inability to accumulate wealth without the government showing to collect after the hard work is done (or simply destroying the hard work done for some reasons). This is the reason of the Seasteading movement. Find the technological and economical way to move outside the reach of the governments, create wealth and be able to keep it from the governments. I would suggest that what the government could do and what they really do is vastly different. How many governments reduce the debts burden and save wealth for the rainy days? Ghaddafi apart (apparently he have 150 metric ton of gold stashed in Tripoli). The UK and the Frech are crying they have burned 30% of their reserve munitions in few weeks. Mirco From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Thu Apr 28 11:48:43 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:48:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> Message-ID: Why do you like Gaddafi so much? The general level of human development in Libya is miserable compared to resource-poor smaller countries such as Singapore, Bermuda, etc. If you accumulate wealth in a small cabin in Montana or in Eastern Congo, Somalia, rural Afghanistan, etc, no government will detect you. You will be safe, able to write your manifesto. You may however have a small problem with criminally inclined private individuals. On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 1:30 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Maybe the reason people don't move in some de facto ungoverned places > inside governed nations is the inability to accumulate wealth without > the government showing to collect after the hard work is done (or simply > destroying the hard work done for some reasons). > > This is the reason of the Seasteading movement. Find the technological > and economical way to move outside the reach of the governments, create > wealth and be able to keep it from the governments. > > I would suggest that what the government could do and what they really > do is vastly different. > > How many governments reduce the debts burden and save wealth for the > rainy days? Ghaddafi apart (apparently he have 150 metric ton of gold > stashed in Tripoli). The UK and the Frech are crying they have burned > 30% of their reserve munitions in few weeks. > > Mirco > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Thu Apr 28 11:55:02 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:55:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Shockley/Henson Bill Message-ID: Louisiana Ste Rep. John Labruzzon has authored a bill to ban all abortion in the state. He also proposes the government pay poor women to be sterilized and wealthier couples to have more children: http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/louisiana-republican-wants-to-sterilize-poor-women-pay/ From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 28 12:34:22 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:34:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 12:42 AM, F. C. Moulton wrote: > On 04/27/2011 09:39 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> You are right. ?The government should change the laws so MIT EEs, MEs, >> etc graduate don't get sucked into Wall Street casinos and do >> something useful. > > I disagree. ?I had written several detail objections but I have deleted > them because the following was the most important of my list. > > The issue of individual liberty. Fred, the government outlaws people working as hit men. It has taken away the individual liberty of working at that occupation because people generally agree it's undesirable. > It is ultimately the choice of each > individual if that individual wants to work in a financial services firm > who wants to employee them designing trading software or if the > individual wants to go to work for a Silicon Valley firm who wants to > employee them designing circuits. > Yes this means that people go to medical school to become doctors and > then spend the rest of their lives writing novels instead of practicing > medicine. ? And people study physics and engineering and then spend > their lives in finance. ?That is what individual choice is all about. God knows the finance people need physics and engineering people to help them invest wisely. I see investment money being poured down rat holes that violate chemistry and physics every day. But if you look at what these MIT graduates are doing in finance--it is harming everybody. Huge expenses for people and hardware, lots of high bandwidth pipes, and the only effect is to suck money out of the cracks. It's purely parasitic, nothing productive about it. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Apr 28 12:51:33 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 05:51:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Shockley/Henson Bill In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 4:55 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Louisiana Ste Rep. John Labruzzon has authored a bill to ban all > abortion in the state. He also proposes the government pay poor women > to be sterilized and wealthier couples to have more children: > > http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/louisiana-republican-wants-to-sterilize-poor-women-pay/ Ignoring the silly subject line, this is a really strange scrambled bunch of memes. Normally the anti abortion meme holders are opposed to any form of birth control. As for paying well off people to have children, what a joke! It would take a staggering amount of money to make any difference in the birth rate of the well off. Keith From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Apr 28 22:13:07 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:13:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> References: <20110427091749.GY23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <4DB9E673.6020706@mac.com> On 04/27/2011 02:17 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:38:02AM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > >> Ground based solar and wind will not supplant oil. SBSP, StratoSolar > What do you do if after you produce 100% of peak demand from solar? > Why, you produce 200%. And then 300%. So what do you do with > that surplus? Use it, or lose it. > >> or something out of left field might. > I find it curious that you continuously dismiss terrestrial solar > which favoring pie-in-the-sky solar, which is exactly like ground > solar, but more centralized, more difficult, more expensive, and > has a worse EROEI. Not to mention we have nowhere near the capability to do many varieties of it yet for any sum. Even if you nailed the huge launch costs you need an army of space walking astronauts in a much more hazardous than LEO environment or vastly better space robots (and an army of those) than we have today. > I absolutely can see how we can start producing SPS in 50 years, > when we start starving the ecosystem of sunlight, but that time is > not now. > >> Once you get primary energy under control, consider what it will cost >> for synthetic oil plants (or other ways to make energy portable). The > I think the classical city-scale Fischer-Tropsch won't happen. > We don't have the money, the time, the resource base. > > What I hope will happen is scalable, modular synfuel from hydrogen > to methane, methanol, and other synfuels, under relatively mild > conditions. Sure. There are ways to make almost competitive syngas and methanol today from basically yard waste or from algae farms. California figured out the necessary mods and ran a fleet of flex fuel cars that can run on any mxture of syngas, methanol, ethanol, gasoline you throw at them in the early 90s. > And we should see electrification substituting a lot what today > takes dead dinos. If you can get the adequate supply and distribution and if you wait about a decade for it to be possible that all gas using engines pretty much get replaced. >> US uses about 20 M bbls per day. A billion dollar plant makes about >> 40,000 bbls per day. We will need 500 of them at a billion each. >> They will draw around 2 TW at at least $1200 B per TW. > Don't forget coal. Getting rid of coal, and oil, and after that, > gas. And don't get rid of any of them at a cost higher than what we now pay for power from those sources. > But we're so good at planning. Anyone still remember that IPv4 > ran out start of this year, and the first regional registry hit > exhaustion a short while ago? And deploying IPv6 is *easy* in > comparision to infrastructure work around fossil. So how much of the IPV6 deployment can those of us that are not ISPs do? How much do we have to wait on ISPs for? If you have links answering these questions they would be much appreciated. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Apr 28 22:18:14 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:18:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> Message-ID: <4DB9E7A6.4070608@mac.com> On 04/28/2011 05:34 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 12:42 AM, F. C. Moulton wrote: >> On 04/27/2011 09:39 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>> You are right. The government should change the laws so MIT EEs, MEs, >>> etc graduate don't get sucked into Wall Street casinos and do >>> something useful. >> I disagree. I had written several detail objections but I have deleted >> them because the following was the most important of my list. >> >> The issue of individual liberty. > Fred, the government outlaws people working as hit men. It has taken > away the individual liberty of working at that occupation because > people generally agree it's undesirable. For crying out loud! What part of non-initiation of force being the core of legitimate freedom don't you understand? Being a hit man obviously does not qualify as a legitimate exercise of freedom. - samantha From sjatkins at mac.com Thu Apr 28 22:24:31 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 15:24:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> Message-ID: <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> On 04/28/2011 03:42 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Keith is on to something here. While I obviously wouldn't agree with > any law prohibiting me from doing what I do now, I certainly didn't > leave physics for Wall St because quantum optics or general relativity > were boring. Oh yeah. Government tilting the playing field has worked so especially well to date. It has produced such super abundant societies with huge surpluses that we should obviously do much more of it. If the government had not stole so much that the dollar is now worth 3 cents compared to when the Federal Reserve started then there would very likely be much much more money chasing physicists and other specialties than there is today. - samantha From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 28 23:02:41 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:02:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> Message-ID: <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Il 28/04/2011 13:48, Jones Murphy ha scritto: > Why do you like Gaddafi so much? The general level of human > development in Libya is miserable compared to resource-poor smaller > countries such as Singapore, Bermuda, etc. > > If you accumulate wealth in a small cabin in Montana or in Eastern > Congo, Somalia, rural Afghanistan, etc, no government will detect you. > You will be safe, able to write your manifesto. You may however have a > small problem with criminally inclined private individuals. The point is, Gaddafi considering Lybia his personal property (and hoping to pass it to his sons) have saved money for the rainy days. real money, not paper money. Politicians in the West have not these incentives, so they usually exploit the coffer of the government for their personal gain or their petty projects. Robber Barons (see Gaddafi) could sleep satisfied sometimes, but the busybodies (see our politicians and various political activists) will never be satisfied. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Apr 28 23:30:04 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 01:30:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB9E7A6.4070608@mac.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E7A6.4070608@mac.com> Message-ID: <4DB9F87C.8060802@libero.it> Il 29/04/2011 00:18, Samantha Atkins ha scritto: > On 04/28/2011 05:34 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> Fred, the government outlaws people working as hit men. It has >> taken away the individual liberty of working at that occupation >> because people generally agree it's undesirable. > For crying out loud! What part of non-initiation of force being the > core of legitimate freedom don't you understand? Agree. > Being a hit man obviously does not qualify as a legitimate exercise > of freedom. Well, there could be instances where someone could hire an hit man (or more) to obtain a redress from a previous attack on him or his fellows o prevent a new aggression. The movie "The Magnificent Seven" is an example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magnificent_Seven or better "The Evil That Men Do" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evil_That_Men_Do_%28film%29 Mirco From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 01:33:17 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 18:33:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] EROEI Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: snip > EROEI of 40:1, and still climbing. Grid parity coming > soon. I don't think EROEI is a good metric in all cases. For example, suppose you had a way to make energy that cost 80,000 kWh to make a steady 1 kW but would do so for 100 years (some RTG might be in this class). At the end of 100 years, you have an EROEI of 10 times, but it takes ten years just to pay back the energy that was invested in making it. Easy oil fields have a very high EROEI, typically 300 to one. Most of the oil is pumped out in ten years, with the majority of it in the early years, but even for linear production, they payback is 30 to one in the first year or an energy payback time on the order of ten days. The energy payback for solar cells may have come down by now, but it was in the years not long ago (of course that depends on where you put them too). Aluminum is the most expensive construction material in terms of releasing it from the oxide and it's less (13 kWh/kg) than the least possible energy investment to get it to GEO (15 kWh/kg). Since real and projected energy cost are many times more than the minimum, most of the energy investment in power satellites is in transport to GEO. For a power satellite made with stuff brought up by elevator, 5 kg (enough for a kW) will take 75 kWh to lift it. The payback time is just over *3 days.* (6 dats if you count the energy needed to make aluminum.) Chemical rockets are around 2.5% efficient so the energy payback time is 40 times that long or about 120 days. For the laser part, it draws around a GW to send 60 t/h to GEO. (Starting from a sub orbital boost by the Skylon.) 1 M kW/60,000kg is 17 kWh/kg The Skylon phase burns 66807 kg of hydrogen per launch. The energy content for three per hour would be 14029470 kWh (at 70 kW/kg), or 233 kWh/kg. Together, 250 kWh/kg, (6% efficient) so material for a kW of power satellite would take 1250 kWh to lift--which gives an energy payback time of around 52 days. Worse than oil, but about ten times as good as ground solar or wind. Keith From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 03:51:37 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:51:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no oil. What you are saying is just completely false, about Gaddafi building up real wealth in Libya. Poverty and frustration are big motivators for the violent opposition which has exploded against Gaddafi and similar dictators across the Arab world. Western politicians certainly can be extremely corrupt, e.g. Italy's Berlusconi. Yet despite being exceptionally corrupt compared to most Western leaders, Berlusconi owns a far smaller proportion of his country's wealth than Gaddafi does and is in continuous danger of criminal prosecution. The only thing which has saved Berlusconi from prison is the racism of Italian voters, who support his repetition of Fascist harassment of Gypsies and so on. So how do you get to the conclusion that Western politicians are never satisfied with their personal greed? On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 1:02 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 28/04/2011 13:48, Jones Murphy ha scritto: >> Why do you like Gaddafi so much? The general level of human >> development in Libya is miserable compared to resource-poor smaller >> countries such as Singapore, Bermuda, etc. >> >> If you accumulate wealth in a small cabin in Montana or in Eastern >> Congo, Somalia, rural Afghanistan, etc, no government will detect you. >> You will be safe, able to write your manifesto. You may however have a >> small problem with criminally inclined private individuals. > > The point is, Gaddafi considering Lybia his personal property (and > hoping to pass it to his sons) have saved money for the rainy days. real > money, not paper money. > Politicians in the West have not these incentives, so they usually > exploit the coffer of the government for their personal gain or their > petty projects. > > Robber Barons (see Gaddafi) could sleep satisfied sometimes, but the > busybodies (see our politicians and various political activists) will > never be satisfied. > > Mirco > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 03:53:15 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:53:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: You are welcome to go to live at the level of human development which existed when the Fed started. Once again, all you need to do is to move to a cabin in the wilderness, or to move to many undeveloped countries, where you will be free of Fed abuse and have money which will never deteriorate in value. Enjoy. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 12:24 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > On 04/28/2011 03:42 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >> >> Keith is on to something here. While I obviously wouldn't agree with >> any law prohibiting me from doing what I do now, I certainly didn't >> leave physics for Wall St because quantum optics or general relativity >> were boring. > > Oh yeah. ?Government tilting the playing field has worked so especially well > to date. ?It has produced such super abundant societies with huge surpluses > that we should obviously do much more of it. ?If the government had not > stole so much ?that the dollar is now worth 3 cents compared to when the > Federal Reserve started then there would very likely be much much more money > chasing physicists and other specialties than there is today. > > - samantha > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 06:17:53 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:17:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Shockley/Henson Bill In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Ignoring the silly subject line ... Oh, but "silly" is so much better than something like "boisterously eugenic." > ... this is a really strange scrambled bunch of memes. ... Normally the anti abortion meme holders are opposed to any form of birth control. Which brings me to ... did you hear the one about Nixon? He said, "There are times when an abortion is necessary. I know that. When you have a black and a white ....." http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2009/06/23/nixon_tapes On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 5:51 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 4:55 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >> Louisiana Ste Rep. John Labruzzon has authored a bill to ban all >> abortion in the state. He also proposes the government pay poor women >> to be sterilized and wealthier couples to have more children: >> >> http://www.care2.com/causes/womens-rights/blog/louisiana-republican-wants-to-sterilize-poor-women-pay/ > > Ignoring the silly subject line, this is a really strange scrambled > bunch of memes. > > Normally the anti abortion meme holders are opposed to any form of > birth control. > > As for paying well off people to have children, what a joke! ?It would > take a staggering amount of money to make any difference in the birth > rate of the well off. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > 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 Apr 29 06:46:13 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:46:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > You have no idea the kind of discrimination scientists of black > African descent have had to deal with. ?I have known a few of them > personally during my lifetime, and many of their stories have made me > cry. ? In a society with structural racism such as ours, why would you > begrudge someone?s choice of finding a way to financial independence? > ### Interesting. I am very familiar with black scientists in US universities and companies, and so far I have not found any evidence of "racism" - except in the form of affirmative action. My personal observations are supported by a wealth of statistical evidence - blacks in the US are in fact more likely to be admitted to universities, graduate programs and to find jobs than whites and most definitely than Asians of equal ability. If anything, there is a pervasive and significant discrimination against Asians in the US. Definitely not against blacks. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 06:29:46 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 02:29:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 3:39 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > > Computerized trading has made it possible to algorithmically analyze > and manipulate trading activity and then parasitically "skim""profits" > without any enhancement of productivity. ### "Parasitically"? What makes you think that algorithmic trading is "parasitic"? Do you actually know what is the content of the algorithms? How can you make judgments about the economic efficiency of an activity without a detailed understanding of the mechanisms involved? (Of course, you don't have a detailed understanding of the interplay of algorithmic trading with the economy at large - nobody does) All this looks to me like a knee-jerk reaction to other people making oodles of money in a way one does not understand - just like the demonstrably stupid yet depressingly common denigration of short-sellers and speculators. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 07:00:54 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:00:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > You are welcome to go to live at the level of human development which > existed when the Fed started. Once again, all you need to do is to > move to a cabin in the wilderness, or to move to many undeveloped > countries, where you will be free of Fed abuse and have money which > will never deteriorate in value. Enjoy. ### Are you saying the Fed contributed to the development over the last 100 years? Why would you think so? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 07:12:01 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:12:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:07 AM, John Grigg wrote: > Rafal, perhaps you need a "Black Like Me," experience.? Yes, I realize the > book is dated, but still... ### Can you point to specifics? ---------- ? I did not realize Asians faced significant > discrimination against them in the United States.? Well, I do remember a > male Asian friend saying Asian women preferred dating?white & black men, and > how frustrated he felt, but that's different. ### At least in university admissions, the penalty for being Asian is something like 400 SAT points. Rafal From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 07:07:48 2011 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:07:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > Rafal wrote: > ### Interesting. I am very familiar with black scientists in US > universities and companies, and so far I have not found any evidence > of "racism" - except in the form of affirmative action. My personal > observations are supported by a wealth of statistical evidence - > blacks in the US are in fact more likely to be admitted to > universities, graduate programs and to find jobs than whites and most > definitely than Asians of equal ability. If anything, there is a > pervasive and significant discrimination against Asians in the US. > Definitely not against blacks. > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > Rafal, perhaps you need a "Black Like Me," experience. Yes, I realize the book is dated, but still... I did not realize Asians faced significant discrimination against them in the United States. Well, I do remember a male Asian friend saying Asian women preferred dating white & black men, and how frustrated he felt, but that's different. John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 07:34:32 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 00:34:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > ### If anything, there is a pervasive and significant discrimination against Asians in the US. > Definitely not against blacks. "Definitely not against blacks," Rafal? So why do you suppose there's so much racism against our half-black president? From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 07:44:09 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 03:44:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:34 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > >> ### ?If anything, there is a pervasive and significant discrimination against Asians in the US. >> Definitely not against blacks. > > "Definitely not against blacks," Rafal? ?So why do you suppose there's > so much racism against our half-black president? > ### Are you saying that Mr Obama is a victim of racial discrimination? In what way? Rafal From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 08:42:42 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:42:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: If you think banking stability and control of the money supply is bad post-Fed, take a look at what happened pre-fed when random banks issued their own currencies. And contrast the general level of development in countries with central banks like the Fed, versus those with no central banks or ineffective ones where there is no currency and no regulation of financial institutions. The Fed has done a lot that I disagree with. But those bad things are very much a cumulative expression of the will of the American people over the last half century or so, which has been to concentrate wealth to an all time high degree, and crush upward mobility in response to liberal social changes which threatened to erode America's historical social hierarchy. This backlash is why an Ayn Rand disciple, Greenspan, ascended to head the Fed and proceeded to sit back and cheer as the US went from a typical Western wealth distribution to a typical South American one, and upward mobility which was one the greatest in the world is now worse than any in the West and dropping fast. Still, the Fed does a lot of useful things, like its counterparts in the strongest and stabilest economies on earth. And you might want to ask yourself why even after what you perceive as 100 yrs of Fed incompetence, the US dollar remains by far and away the currency of choice for well over 80% of international trade. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:00 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:53 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> You are welcome to go to live at the level of human development which >> existed when the Fed started. Once again, all you need to do is to >> move to a cabin in the wilderness, or to move to many undeveloped >> countries, where you will be free of Fed abuse and have money which >> will never deteriorate in value. Enjoy. > > ### Are you saying the Fed contributed to the development over the > last 100 years? Why would you think so? > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 08:44:25 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:44:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Rafal, your comments are extremely ignorant and naive. So much so that I won't even bother to respond to you. It would be like trying to debate Palin as to why the Earth is really older than 6000 years old. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:44 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:34 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 11:46 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki >> wrote: >>> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 5:58 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> >>> ### ?If anything, there is a pervasive and significant discrimination against Asians in the US. >>> Definitely not against blacks. >> >> "Definitely not against blacks," Rafal? ?So why do you suppose there's >> so much racism against our half-black president? >> > ### Are you saying that Mr Obama is a victim of racial discrimination? > In what way? > > Rafal > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 29 08:55:02 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:55:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: <20110429085502.GF23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 05:53:15AM +0200, Jones Murphy wrote: > You are welcome to go to live at the level of human development which > existed when the Fed started. Once again, all you need to do is to > move to a cabin in the wilderness, or to move to many undeveloped > countries, where you will be free of Fed abuse and have money which > will never deteriorate in value. Enjoy. Snide strawmen again, and top-posted to boot. Your career choice is making more and more sense now. From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 29 09:05:53 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:05:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 02:29:46AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > All this looks to me like a knee-jerk reaction to other people making Allright, it took me reading five books to arrive at my particular knee-jerk reaction. > oodles of money in a way one does not understand - just like the It's worse -- they do it it in the way they themselves do not understand. > demonstrably stupid yet depressingly common denigration of > short-sellers and speculators. Destroying retirement funds, making money off clueless small "investors" and bringing the system crashing down are defintely great value creators. I think the denigration these people deserve is doing jail time. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 09:09:14 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:09:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <20110427093423.GA23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 12:20, BillK wrote: > Capitalism depends on free trade between equals. > Without that one party is stealing from the other. Why, Marx and plenty of others would object to the first line, and agree on the second. :-D -- Stefano Vaj From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 09:13:45 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:13:45 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 4:44 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Rafal, your comments are extremely ignorant and naive. So much so that > I won't even bother to respond to you. It would be like trying to > debate Palin as to why the Earth is really older than 6000 years old. ### Hey, so why *did* you respond? Could it have to something to do with status? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 09:23:29 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 05:23:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 5:05 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 02:29:46AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > >> All this looks to me like a knee-jerk reaction to other people making > > Allright, it took me reading five books to arrive at my particular > knee-jerk reaction. ### Written specifically to cater to knee-jerk reactions. > >> oodles of money in a way one does not understand - just like the > > It's worse -- they do it it in the way they themselves do not > understand. ### Why should they? > >> demonstrably stupid yet depressingly common denigration of >> short-sellers and speculators. > > Destroying retirement funds, making money off clueless small > "investors" and bringing the system crashing down are defintely > great value creators. I think the denigration these people deserve > is doing jail time. ### Aww, c'mon, you are using this argumentation against short-sellers? There is large body of research showing that short-selling and speculation reduce price variability, smooth out supply shocks and lead to more efficient allocation of resources (references available on demand). "Clueless small investors", lol. Seriously, railing against short-sellers is for me a bad diagnostic factor, somehow didn't expect it from you. Rafal From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 09:25:25 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:25:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: On 29 April 2011 05:51, Jones Murphy wrote: > The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, > for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no > oil. What you are saying is just completely false, about Gaddafi > building up real wealth in Libya. Poverty and frustration are big > motivators for the violent opposition which has exploded against > Gaddafi and similar dictators across the Arab world. Western > politicians certainly can be extremely corrupt, e.g. Italy's > Berlusconi. I shall be the last to object to that, but are you getting your views on international politics straight out of US propaganda agencies? :-) One would have thought that after the end of the Cold War such black-and-white views of the world had gone out of fashion... -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 09:30:35 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:30:35 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: You don't object to my views, but they are propaganda? Would you make up your mind? On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 11:25 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 29 April 2011 05:51, Jones Murphy wrote: >> The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, >> for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no >> oil. What you are saying is just completely false, about Gaddafi >> building up real wealth in Libya. Poverty and frustration are big >> motivators for the violent opposition which has exploded against >> Gaddafi and similar dictators across the Arab world. Western >> politicians certainly can be extremely corrupt, e.g. Italy's >> Berlusconi. > > I shall be the last to object to that, but are you getting your views > on international politics straight out of US propaganda agencies? :-) > > One would have thought that after the end of the Cold War such > black-and-white views of the world had gone out of fashion... > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 29 09:38:52 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:38:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 05:23:29AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Aww, c'mon, you are using this argumentation against > short-sellers? There is large body of research showing that > short-selling and speculation reduce price variability, smooth out > supply shocks and lead to more efficient allocation of resources > (references available on demand). "Clueless small investors", lol. I thought it is well known that it's the predictability of collective actions of small investors that allows big players to make money off them. > Seriously, railing against short-sellers is for me a bad diagnostic > factor, somehow didn't expect it from you. I'm not singling out particular culprits, merely the fraud cluster in finance. The potential for damage is immense, and is not well understood by the general public. That core functions of finance are vital for advanced societies to operate is pretty obvious. What we need to do is move these functions into tamper-proof decentralized protocols and infrastructure, to protect them from human meddling. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 09:53:34 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:53:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Did Hugo de Garis leave the field? In-Reply-To: References: <480844.48052.qm@web114411.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <20110418140115.GZ23560@leitl.org> <4DAC945C.8010605@mac.com> <20110418203336.GL23560@leitl.org> <4DAF8FD1.8010502@mac.com> <20110424115345.GC23560@leitl.org> <4DB4251C.5060301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 27 April 2011 06:59, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Thanks for the clarification. That's how I see things too. Are you > implying that the rate of change has slowed from 1960 to present? That > doesn't make much sense to me either. Yes, I do. I am not sure that we can measure that in a fully rigorous manner, but I have once or twice listed in my writings a series of extremely dramatic turning points which have almost invariably taken place in the hundred of years roughly from the second half of the XIX century and the first half of the XX. Medicine, surgery, diagnostics, physics, engineering, chemistry, genetics, engines, biology, natural history, mathematics, lifestyle, avionics, linguistics, cosmology, computing, prophylaxis, art, you name it. As to the objections pointing to what has been achieved later, I contend that much of it has to do with consequences, implementations, refinements, fine-tunings, applications, adoptions, measurements, etc. which may well be flabbergasting, but merely adopt or verify or embody principles, discoveries and hypotheses which have been established in a previous, much more "incandescent" period, while much less I suspect we have to show of equivalent to the latter, owing a to general realignment of the cultural, educational and civilisational values of our societies, probably not for the best from a transhumanist POV. This is of course a very rough generalisation, and I may exaggerate my point. But in any event, even if I were wrong, I think that making it our responsibility to maintain and if possible increase the pace of change rather than sitting on our hands and wait starry-eyed for some global Rapture or other to be delivered by automagic mechanisms would still be a good thing for the transhumanist movement. For instance, rather than criticising past predictions of developments which appeared at hand and yet failed to take place, I would rather criticise our inability to deliver. > I'm unfamiliar with his [Hughes'] work, which of his books is most relevant? The > family wealth one or the Citizen Cyborg one? I am referring in general to his stances on the lists and in the framework of IEET. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 09:59:41 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:59:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: On 29 April 2011 11:30, Jones Murphy wrote: > You don't object to my views, but they are propaganda? Would you make > up your mind? I object to their caricatural and oversimplistic presentation. For instance, Lybia used to have an average income per capita much higher, and distributed in a much flatter fashion, than what we find in many countries which you probably would consider as happy democracies. And the idea that the rebellion there is the fruit of a sudden demand for "bread and freedom" would sounds incredibly naive to many ears this side of the pond. -- Stefano Vaj From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 10:10:38 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 06:10:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 5:38 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 05:23:29AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > I thought it is well known that it's the predictability of > collective actions of small investors that allows big players > to make money off them. ### Well, why should the clueless expect to gain? Inefficient actions (i.e. the short-sighted greed of the small investor) lead to incorrect pricing (i.e. prices that do not accurately reflect the underlying values of assets) and better investors (i.e. investors who understand the future over larger time scales) correct the inefficiencies, reaping a reward. There is nothing wrong with it, and it's the reason why I do not individually trade on the stock market. It bears repeating that the social purpose of the stock market is not the money that investors make there but rather the pricing signals generated by it, and the accompanying flows of resources to productive uses. Accurate prices are, well, priceless for the functioning of an economy, and the gains that investors make on the stock market are a small price the rest of us pay for the knowledge that is encoded in a price. Any feature of a trading system that produces more accurate prices is socially beneficial, no matter how many little greedy people get burned by it. --------------- > >> Seriously, railing against short-sellers is for me a bad diagnostic >> factor, somehow didn't expect it from you. > > I'm not singling out particular culprits, merely the fraud cluster > in finance. The potential for damage is immense, and is not well > understood by the general public. > > That core functions of finance are vital for advanced societies > to operate is pretty obvious. What we need to do is move these > functions into tamper-proof decentralized protocols and infrastructure, > to protect them from human meddling. ### Trade *is* human (even if done with algorithmic intermediaries). I am all with you in the decentralization camp but I haven't heard any interesting specifics from you yet. The fraud is mostly related to government involvement in banking, otherwise it tends to be a self-sanitizing business (just like other branches of the economy where reputation is key, and performance is easily measurable by outsiders). Rafal From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 10:34:53 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:34:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: I am on "this" side of the pond. I spent the last 5 yrs living in Rome, and just moved to Paris. And what I'm saying sounds perfectly sensible to my ears, and the ears of the people of Italy and France who are supporting the rebels in Libya militarily. Try again, with more of your condescending presumptions. And try to stay focused on the facts. Don't tell me about what Libya used to be. Tell me about what Libya is now that causes such dissatisfaction among so many of its people, which has to be suppressed with indiscriminate killing and atrocities. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 11:59 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 29 April 2011 11:30, Jones Murphy wrote: >> You don't object to my views, but they are propaganda? Would you make >> up your mind? > > I object to their caricatural and oversimplistic presentation. For > instance, Lybia used to have an average income per capita much higher, > and distributed in a much flatter fashion, than what we find in many > countries which you probably would consider as happy democracies. And > the idea that the rebellion there is the fruit of a sudden demand for > "bread and freedom" would sounds incredibly naive to many ears this > side of the pond. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 29 10:52:52 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:52:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 06:10:38AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Well, why should the clueless expect to gain? Inefficient actions There's a considerable incitement to bet large fractions of your retirement fund into stocks, at least in USia (Roth IRA etc.). Inversely, in Europe we have a pension model which is equally a Ponzi scheme, based on particular expectations in economic growth, wealth distribution and demography. Both models are broken. Of course subscribers to both models are technically suckers, but there's at least some criminal energy present on the part of peddlers of both models. And it's not so easy to opt out of these, deliberately designed to be so. > (i.e. the short-sighted greed of the small investor) lead to incorrect > pricing (i.e. prices that do not accurately reflect the underlying > values of assets) and better investors (i.e. investors who understand > the future over larger time scales) correct the inefficiencies, > reaping a reward. There is nothing wrong with it, and it's the reason > why I do not individually trade on the stock market. > > It bears repeating that the social purpose of the stock market is not > the money that investors make there but rather the pricing signals > generated by it, and the accompanying flows of resources to productive > uses. Accurate prices are, well, priceless for the functioning of an > economy, and the gains that investors make on the stock market are a > small price the rest of us pay for the knowledge that is encoded in a > price. Any feature of a trading system that produces more accurate > prices is socially beneficial, no matter how many little greedy people > get burned by it. > > ### Trade *is* human (even if done with algorithmic intermediaries). I While the prime causes currently reside in primates it is easy to see how systems become increasingly autonomous, pursing trades in their own interest. This can be as simple as household appliances realtime-bidding on slices of the power pie, with bid limits depending on how critical the function is. > am all with you in the decentralization camp but I haven't heard any > interesting specifics from you yet. The fraud is mostly related to It's basically just Tim May's vision, slightly souped up for today's end user cloud (freedom-box-like systems). The idea is to move critical parts of finance (like the monetary system, mint, individual transactions, and higher level functions based on above primitives. Reputation tracking, notarization, uncensorable permanent public record, and such. > government involvement in banking, otherwise it tends to be a You need to shield the system from manipulation on part of end users or user groups. Of course cryptography is no panacea (and would require diversity to avoid becoming a pivotal point of failure) but then it's not hard to improve on the track record of federal and corporate crooks. > self-sanitizing business (just like other branches of the economy > where reputation is key, and performance is easily measurable by > outsiders). One of the key functions if providing an unfalsifyable, publically inspectable track record of interactions, so that nym reputation for the particular scope can be obtained in realtime. Yes, most of the above are extremely hard problems. The smart people who still think Wall Street quant is a glorious occupation should get on that track instead. -- 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 From eugen at leitl.org Fri Apr 29 11:29:52 2011 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:29:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] EROEI In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20110429112952.GN23560@leitl.org> On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 06:33:17PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > snip > > > EROEI of 40:1, and still climbing. Grid parity coming > > soon. > > I don't think EROEI is a good metric in all cases. In case of energy production systems you will be looking at ROI, EROEI and ecosystem impact. The cutoff for practical EROEI is estimated to be at 5:1. http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3786 > For example, suppose you had a way to make energy that cost 80,000 kWh > to make a steady 1 kW but would do so for 100 years (some RTG might be > in this class). At the end of 100 years, you have an EROEI of 10 > times, but it takes ten years just to pay back the energy that was > invested in making it. > > Easy oil fields have a very high EROEI, typically 300 to one. Most of My sources say 100:1 for 1930s domestic oil. It's now down to 10-15:1. http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/2/114144/2387 Not only can supply rate (declining) match demand rate (increasing), to does that at precipitously declining EROEI. This is true for all nonrenewable sources. That is what makes peaking resources even worse than they look superficially. > the oil is pumped out in ten years, with the majority of it in the > early years, but even for linear production, they payback is 30 to one > in the first year or an energy payback time on the order of ten days. We no longer live in the land of milk on honey, if we ever did. > The energy payback for solar cells may have come down by now, but it > was in the years not long ago (of course that depends on where you put > them too). ... > Worse than oil, but about ten times as good as ground solar or wind. Terrestrial thin-film PV is on a track to cross over with dirty coal reasonably soon, which is the "cheapest" source of energy. I don't think we'll see much SPS presence any sooner than 2050-2060. By that time, the reason we will have to use SPS is not because it's cheaper, but because we've ran out of easy terrestrial flux to tap (though http://www.altestore.com/howto/images/article/world_solar_insolation_data.gif shows you great areas of high-insolation surface with only thin (desert) ecosystem present, if one is willing to transport energy/synfuels over large distances, though vulnerable bottlenecks (pipelines/HVDC). This is not where the strength of decentral energy sources is -- it's absence of control monopolies and no transport losses/no extortability. -- 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 From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 11:47:14 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:47:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 11:34 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > I am on "this" side of the pond. I spent the last 5 yrs living in > Rome, and just moved to Paris. And what I'm saying sounds perfectly > sensible to my ears, and the ears of the people of Italy and France > who are supporting the rebels in Libya militarily. Try again, with > more of your condescending presumptions. And try to stay focused on > the facts. Don't tell me about what Libya used to be. Tell me about > what Libya is now that causes such dissatisfaction among so many of > its people, which has to be suppressed with indiscriminate killing and > atrocities. > > Don't you think it is funny that the US, France and Britain are supporting fundamentalist Muslins (including Al Qaeda fighters) in Libya while fighting very similar people in Afghanistan and Iraq? Hardly a clear-cut situation. Must be something to do with oil and money. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 11:59:16 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 12:59:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 11:52 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Yes, most of the above are extremely hard problems. The smart > people who still think Wall Street quant is a glorious occupation > should get on that track instead. > > Rafal is having a good time trolling everything from finance and politics to insisting that there is no prejudice against blacks in the USA. :) Your wish for Wall Street to do jail time (while admirable) will never happen. Quote: Nobody goes to jail. This is the mantra of the financial-crisis era, one that saw virtually every major bank and financial company on Wall Street embroiled in obscene criminal scandals that impoverished millions and collectively destroyed hundreds of billions, in fact, trillions of dollars of the world's wealth ? and nobody went to jail. Nobody, that is, except Bernie Madoff, a flamboyant and pathological celebrity con artist, whose victims happened to be other rich and famous people. The rest of them, all of them, got off. Not a single executive who ran the companies that cooked up and cashed in on the phony financial boom ? an industry wide scam that involved the mass sale of mismarked, fraudulent mortgage-backed securities ? has ever been convicted. Their names by now are familiar to even the most casual Middle American news consumer: companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America and Morgan Stanley. Most of these firms were directly involved in elaborate fraud and theft. Lehman Brothers hid billions in loans from its investors. Bank of America lied about billions in bonuses. Goldman Sachs failed to tell clients how it put together the born-to-lose toxic mortgage deals it was selling. --------------------------------- BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 12:12:54 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 14:12:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: 2011/4/27 spike : > But look what we did get: a new technology for getting > information into the home which is so good and so effective, many of us > don?t want to go chasing off somewhere else, even if we could fly out of our > own driveway. Internet has been a big societal change, both intrinsically and in how we have ended up using it. But what exactly is so revolutionary in comparison with what could be envisioned in the Marconi's era? All the basic theory with regard to computing, electromagnetic or optical telecommunication, digital representation of texts, images and sounds, etc. was already in place. It might even be argued that for some of its entertainment value we are sustituting simulacrum to the real thing as far as hard technology is concerned. > They struggled so hard to get > that, and yet along comes Wikipedia in our own lifetimes, we put together > something that actually is better than Hari Seldon?s Encyclopedia Galactica, > all put together in a few years by volunteers. This sounds quite complacent. The *invention of writing* is a paradigm shift. Less so the invention of printing. Even less so the fact of having a rather trivial database of dubious "encyclopedic" information. And, btw, the importance of Wikipedia is already increasingly reduced by the improvement of search engines. If we get excited about Wikipedia, what should we say about the development or discovery of evolution, human flight, quantum mechanics, internal combustion engines, micro-organisms, nuclear reactions, DNA, mendelian laws, computing, microscopes, vaccins, mutations, antibiotics, cable and air electromagnetic transmissions, the power grid, the rocket, the submarine, the relativity, etc.? My contention is that the future could have been, and still could be, what it used to be. The problem of course is that not any *present* is able to produce any future. Be it technology or pure science, a relative stagnation as to fundamentals (say, from theoretical physics to transportation technology to genetic engineering to computing interfaces to energy production...) is perfectly compatible with a flourishing of increasingly refined applications of what we already have. Not to mention with escape in surrogates. Take "velocity", of which Italian futurism made a big issue as the very symbol of the "new world" Marinetti and the other wanted to come. During my grand-mother's life the speed record on wheel, on water, on the sea, in space, increased tenfold, and so the *average* speed one could move from place A to place B. Since the seventies, not only did nothing like that happened, but if the records remain the same the speed in average has been probably even *reduced* (traffic jams in cities, road speed limits, no more supersonic airlines flights, no more hypersonic military jets, etc.). Of course, one can find rationales behind that. So what? A rationale is a post-factum justification of trends which are in place, based on the dominant values and perceptions. Exactly what I do not like in the first place. -- Stefano Vaj From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 29 13:26:20 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:26:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> Il 29/04/2011 05:51, Jones Murphy ha scritto: > The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, > for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no > oil. I would suggest you to check your factoids because they are not facts: Libya 6.120.585 inhabitants (2008) 14.192 $ (per capita 2007) Singapore 4.987.600 (2006) 46.863 $ (per capita 2006) So, the difference of population of Singapore from Lybia is small, and given the difference in fecundity, it is not improbable that until 2000 Singapore had more people. I would suggest also, you note the difference in the quality of people (Chinese against Berber, Arabs and black Africans) and the quality of their culture (Confucianism against tribalism and Islam). Second, I never told Gaddafi made Libya wealthier than. I only note that with the wealth available (from oil) Gaddafi saved money for the rainy days (so he has a large surplus of money outside the country and a large stash of gold inside). At the contrary, the UK and France (nevermind Italy, Greece, US or Japan) have a large debt and a large deficits. This with better population (higher IQ), more hard working and more educated. > What you are saying is just completely false, about Gaddafi building > up real wealth in Libya. The 14 k $ per capita of Libya are better than the 6384 $ of Egypt, the 3851$ of Tunisia, or compare with the 16.000 of Saudi Arabia. Only the little emirates in the Gulf have higher incomes. > Poverty and frustration are big motivators for the violent > opposition which has exploded against Gaddafi and similar dictators > across the Arab world. Poverty and economic crises are the sparks, but don't be fooled. in Tunisia the Army govern and the Army toppled the previous president. They only needed an excuse and a way to let the steam out. And their action is strongly supported by some countries (like France) for geostrategic advantages. The past weeks are full of lies: like the number of people killed by Gaddafi soldiers. Al Jazeera showed up footage of a cemetery renovation and called them "mass graves on the beach of Tripoli". What mass graves are digged one by one with brick walls inside? It is no different from the coup in Romania that toppled Chaucescu. Some people saw the falling of the other regimes and prepared for their own future. Then they staged a coup and masked it as a "people insurrection". They also showed footage of the killings in Timisoara where the bodies showed clear sign of decay (no fresh killing) for the trained eyes. At the time I fell for the trick, emotion taken over rationality and scepticism. Only years later I read and understood what was the reality and what was the show for simpleton (myself included) . > Western politicians certainly can be extremely corrupt, e.g. Italy's > Berlusconi. Yet despite being exceptionally corrupt compared to most > Western leaders, Berlusconi owns a far smaller proportion of his > country's wealth than Gaddafi does and is in continuous danger of > criminal prosecution. The only thing which has saved Berlusconi from > prison is the racism of Italian voters, who support his repetition > of Fascist harassment of Gypsies and so on. So how do you get to the > conclusion that Western politicians are never satisfied with their > personal greed? I agree with the suggestion of Stefano that you avoid to take your infos from MSM like "La Repubblica", "Il Fatto Quotidiano", "Il Manifesto" and like. I voted for Berlusconi and I have nothing against Romas (Rom or Sinti) "per se". When a group of the camp in a field (their own property) near my home, by the way, the burglaries in the neighbours fall like a brick (this is a not scientific and only empirical observation). The reasons for this I don't know for sure, but I have a few hypotheses. This also raise a few "public good for free from private" questions. What the great majority of people here don't accept is to be burglarized or robbed by other people, whatever their skin pigmentation, their religion or their culture is. If the government are unwilling or impotent to prevent this, prevent people from defending themselves in their homes or workplaces, then it is lame to complain the people harassed react in violent way. A few years ago in Padua (the major is a leftist) 200 immigrants (half black Africans, half north Africans), mainly illegals, tried to clash together armed with axes and machetes (they were prevented from a little group of Policemen from coming in contact) for the control of drug trafficking. IS it fascist for the peaceful people living nearby (legal immigrants too) to ask for kicking them out altogether immediately? The leftist major also built a steel wall around the neighbourhood to allow only one access to the place (near a main street and a commercial center). The honest working people living there was forced to sell their homes at 10% of their previous value and flee the place for the sake of their children and families. Ten years or more thrown away for every one of them. It is so strange they start voting for the Lega Nord or worse. Because there is much worse hoping and waiting in the wings. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 13:27:04 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:27:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: On 29 April 2011 12:34, Jones Murphy wrote: > I am on "this" side of the pond. I spent the last 5 yrs living in > Rome, and just moved to Paris. And what I'm saying sounds perfectly > sensible to my ears, and the ears of the people of Italy and France > who are supporting the rebels in Libya militarily. I wonder what people are you referring to, given that, except for Mr. Berlusconi and (in fact, some of) his supporters, one would be indeed very hard pressed to find in Italy anybody in favour of a war with a country the Italian republic had just signed a friendship, cooperation and *non-interference* (!) treaty. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 13:32:16 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:32:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On 29 April 2011 11:38, Eugen Leitl wrote: > I'm not singling out particular culprits, merely the fraud cluster > in finance. The potential for damage is immense, and is not well > understood by the general public. I am inclined to agree. But if the system allows for its being played, or even worse for being played *legally*, I also suspect that what is wrong is the system. The rest is simply the mechanics of theory of games and Darwinism at play. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 13:37:13 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:37:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> Message-ID: On 29 April 2011 15:26, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 29/04/2011 05:51, Jones Murphy ha scritto: >> The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, >> ?for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no >> oil. > > I would suggest you to check your factoids because they are not facts: Yes. My politics are very different from Mirco's, but not only he is invariably intellectually honest, he is also more patient than I am in checking the facts. -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 13:39:17 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:39:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> Message-ID: OK, so where is the no confidence vote from the people of Italy to remove Berlusconi? He did not last very long after he followed Bush into Iraq, even with the popularity of his racist views. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:27 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 29 April 2011 12:34, Jones Murphy wrote: >> I am on "this" side of the pond. I spent the last 5 yrs living in >> Rome, and just moved to Paris. And what I'm saying sounds perfectly >> sensible to my ears, and the ears of the people of Italy and France >> who are supporting the rebels in Libya militarily. > > I wonder what people are you referring to, given that, except for Mr. > Berlusconi and (in fact, some of) his supporters, one would be indeed > very hard pressed to find in Italy anybody in favour of a war with a > country the Italian republic had just signed a friendship, cooperation > and *non-interference* (!) treaty. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 13:40:08 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:40:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> Message-ID: He checked the facts and discovered the same racism which makes him a supporter of Berlusconi. This is your idea of intellectual honesty, I see. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:37 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 29 April 2011 15:26, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> Il 29/04/2011 05:51, Jones Murphy ha scritto: >>> The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, >>> ?for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no >>> oil. >> >> I would suggest you to check your factoids because they are not facts: > > Yes. My politics are very different from Mirco's, but not only he is > invariably intellectually honest, he is also more patient than I am in > checking the facts. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 29 13:41:18 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:41:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <4DBABFFE.8030506@libero.it> Il 27/04/2011 08:41, Keith Henson ha scritto: > On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:41 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> Keith, you're sounding like the old-school manual traders who hate >> program trading as much as you do. How slow do trades need to be >> before you'll consider them capitalism? > You can call it capitalism if you want and I will call it a colossal > waste of talent. Is there something that cause this waste of talents? Like regulations that make financial trading more rewarding that building things. What regulations can we take away that will return people from financial to R&D? If in a free market they were anyway requested by the financial firms and paid enough to take them away from the R&D, they would satisfy a real need. If they are there only because the regulations make the financial sector more rewarding, then we are subsiding the financials sector. Mirco From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 13:44:36 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:44:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 26 April 2011 19:34, Keith Henson wrote: > Years ago, back in the nineties, I got a lot of abuse and even was > lambasted from the bench by a federal judge over recognizing the > importance of status seeking as a human motivator. I think this is an exceedingly interesting point. The crux of that, however, is that scientific or engineering or medical achievements used to be of much higher status value than they are today. Every child wanted to be Einstein or von Braun or Barnard in the sixties. Now I suppose many of them would rather be bankers or fashion stylists. -- Stefano Vaj From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 13:46:27 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:46:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> Message-ID: You said that my facts are not facts, then documented my facts. According to your old numbers, Libya's population is 20% greater than Singapore's. This difference has grown today. How does this in any way contradict what I said? What is this racist nonsense about high quality Chinese? The high quality Chinese of Singapore were as poor as the Libyans or poorer 2 generations ago before Malaysia kicked them out and forced them to accept independence by closing the causeway. The high quality Chinese begged to remain within Malaysia at that time. The development of Singapore has been extremely recent. Perhaps they evolved improved IQ's in the last 2 generations? And what of the overwhelming majority of "high quality" Chinese, who live in terrible poverty in China(worse than Libya's "low quallity" and "Low IQ" people), more than the population of the entire Western world? Singapore's development came from some good public policy choices, a very socialistic period in the first generation after independence, great education and upward mobility for talented poor people, and that sort of thing. Confucianism helped them as much as it is helping the billion plus poor majority in China itself and in the Greater Chinese diaspora which includes a lot of poverty among emigrants of Chinese descent around Asia. On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 3:26 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 29/04/2011 05:51, Jones Murphy ha scritto: >> The aggregate wealth in oil-rich Libya is much smaller than that of, >> ?for example, tiny Singapore, which has a smaller population and no >> oil. > > I would suggest you to check your factoids because they are not facts: > > Libya 6.120.585 inhabitants (2008) 14.192 $ (per capita 2007) > Singapore 4.987.600 (2006) 46.863 $ (per capita 2006) > So, the difference of population of Singapore from Lybia is small, and > given the difference in fecundity, it is not improbable that until 2000 > Singapore had more people. > > I would suggest also, you note the difference in the quality of people > (Chinese against Berber, Arabs and black Africans) and the quality of > their culture (Confucianism against tribalism and Islam). > > Second, I never told Gaddafi made Libya wealthier than. > I only note that with the wealth available (from oil) Gaddafi saved > money for the rainy days (so he has a large surplus of money outside the > country and a large stash of gold inside). At the contrary, the UK and > France (nevermind Italy, Greece, US or Japan) have a large ?debt and a > large deficits. This with better population (higher IQ), more hard > working and more educated. > >> What you are saying is just completely false, about Gaddafi building >> up real wealth in Libya. > > The 14 k $ per capita of Libya are better than the 6384 $ of Egypt, the > 3851$ of Tunisia, or compare with the 16.000 of Saudi Arabia. Only the > little emirates in the Gulf have higher incomes. > >> Poverty and frustration are big motivators for the violent >> opposition which has exploded against Gaddafi and similar dictators >> across the Arab world. > > Poverty and economic crises are the sparks, but don't be fooled. > in Tunisia the Army govern and the Army toppled the previous president. > They only needed an excuse and a way to let the steam out. And their > action is strongly supported by some countries (like France) for > geostrategic advantages. > > The past weeks are full of lies: like the number of people killed by > Gaddafi soldiers. Al Jazeera showed up footage of a cemetery renovation > and called them "mass graves on the beach of Tripoli". What mass graves > are digged one by one with brick walls inside? > > It is no different from the coup in Romania that toppled Chaucescu. Some > people saw the falling of the other regimes and prepared for their own > future. Then they staged a coup and masked it as a "people > insurrection". They also showed footage of the killings in Timisoara > where the bodies showed clear sign of decay (no fresh killing) for the > trained eyes. At the time I fell for the trick, emotion taken over > rationality and scepticism. Only years later I read and understood what > was the reality and what was the show for simpleton (myself included) . > >> Western politicians certainly can be extremely corrupt, e.g. Italy's >> Berlusconi. Yet despite being exceptionally corrupt compared to most >> Western leaders, Berlusconi owns a far smaller proportion of his >> country's wealth than Gaddafi does and is in continuous danger of >> criminal prosecution. The only thing which has saved Berlusconi from >> prison is the racism of Italian voters, who support his repetition >> of Fascist harassment of Gypsies and so on. So how do you get to the >> conclusion that Western politicians are never satisfied with their >> personal greed? > > I agree with the suggestion of Stefano that you avoid to take your infos > from MSM like "La Repubblica", "Il Fatto Quotidiano", "Il Manifesto" and > like. > > I voted for Berlusconi and I have nothing against Romas (Rom or Sinti) > "per se". When a group of the camp in a field (their own property) near > my home, by the way, the burglaries in the neighbours fall like a brick > (this is a not scientific and only empirical observation). The reasons > for this I don't know for sure, but I have a few hypotheses. > This also raise a few "public good for free from private" questions. > > What the great majority of people here don't accept is to be burglarized > or robbed by other people, whatever their skin pigmentation, their > religion or their culture is. > If the government are unwilling or impotent to prevent this, prevent > people from defending themselves in their homes or workplaces, then it > is lame to complain the people harassed react in violent way. > > A few years ago in Padua (the major is a leftist) 200 immigrants (half > black Africans, half north Africans), mainly illegals, tried to clash > together armed with axes and machetes (they were prevented from a little > group of Policemen from coming in contact) for the control of drug > trafficking. > IS it fascist for the peaceful people living nearby (legal immigrants > too) to ask for kicking them out altogether immediately? > The leftist major also built a steel wall around the neighbourhood to > allow only one access to the place (near a main street and a commercial > center). The honest working people living there was forced to sell their > homes at 10% of their previous value and flee the place for the sake of > their children and families. Ten years or more thrown away for every one > of them. It is so strange they start voting for the Lega Nord or worse. > Because there is much worse hoping and waiting in the wings. > > Mirco > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 29 15:08:34 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:08:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: <4DBAD472.3030106@libero.it> Il 27/04/2011 07:56, Olga Bourlin ha scritto: > Mike, I was being sarcastic, you know? I don't believe in "free > passes," especially not the ones written by the largely "pale and > male" crowd among the Extropian libertarians here. How accommodating > not to have to discuss real-world issues by passing them off as > irrelevant now due to alleged immateriality in the future. How > special: > > "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and > tends to be met with freezing contempt." My opinion is this: hackers have not affirmative actions. The only way an hacker can access the higher status is showing skills and proving them. A black African graduate (say a MA or MS) is suspected of favouritism because no one know if he obtained his admission by affirmative action or for his skills. For a white European this is not the case, because there is no affirmative action for them. So, people finding two young unproven physicians, one black and one white, will naturally trust more the white to be competent than he will trust the black. It is not racism, it is a rational (maybe subconscious) behaviour. Reverse the situation and make know that black are not helped and white are and people will reverse their behaviour. This is something already happen in the middle east. Christians are subject to negative prejudices by the Muslim majority. But strangely, when it is time to find a competent doctor or teacher, they are preferred. My advice is to kick out the affirmative action and its supporters. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 29 15:14:52 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 17:14:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: References: <4DB7AD02.1040600@moulton.com> Message-ID: <4DBAD5EC.6030104@libero.it> Il 27/04/2011 17:25, Keith Henson ha scritto: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 6:57 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 11:15 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >>> On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 10:56 PM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> >>>> "Racial and ethnic prejudice is notably uncommon [among hackers] and >>>> tends to be met with freezing contempt." >> >>> Do you recognize where this comes from or how old it is? >> >> I know! I know! This comes from the Elephant in the Living Room, and >> it's as old as time immemorial. > > Are you being sarcastic again? Use Google. > > So much lost culture. 20 years ago on this list *everyone* would have > known where it came from. Maybe I have found it (I'm not so old): "Yes, I'm a criminal. My crime is that of curiosity. My crime is that of judging people by what they say and think, not what they look like" Mirco From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 15:57:11 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 08:57:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] EROEI In-Reply-To: <20110429112952.GN23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429112952.GN23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 4:29 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 06:33:17PM -0700, Keith Henson wrote: >> On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:30 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> >> snip >> >> > EROEI of 40:1, and still climbing. Grid parity coming >> > soon. Over what period of time? If it last forever, then the EROEI is infinite. >> I don't think EROEI is a good metric in all cases. > > In case of energy production systems you will be looking at ROI, > EROEI and ecosystem impact. The cutoff for practical EROEI > is estimated to be at 5:1. > > http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3786 http://www.drmillslmu.com/peakoil.htm Even more detailed discussion here. > >> For example, suppose you had a way to make energy that cost 80,000 kWh >> to make a steady 1 kW but would do so for 100 years (some RTG might be >> in this class). ?At the end of 100 years, you have an EROEI of 10 >> times, but it takes ten years just to pay back the energy that was >> invested in making it. >> >> Easy oil fields have a very high EROEI, typically 300 to one. ?Most of > > My sources say 100:1 for 1930s domestic oil. It's now down to 10-15:1. > http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/8/2/114144/2387 > > Not only can supply rate (declining) match demand rate (increasing), > to does that at precipitously declining EROEI. This is true for all > nonrenewable sources. That is what makes peaking resources even > worse than they look superficially. Complete agreement. We are headed for or already may be in a collision between supply and demand. >> the oil is pumped out in ten years, with the majority of it in the >> early years, but even for linear production, they payback is 30 to one >> in the first year or an energy payback time on the order of ten days. > > We no longer live in the land of milk on honey, if we ever did. > >> The energy payback for solar cells may have come down by now, but it >> was in the years not long ago (of course that depends on where you put >> them too). > > ... > >> Worse than oil, but about ten times as good as ground solar or wind. > > Terrestrial thin-film PV is on a track to cross over with dirty > coal reasonably soon, which is the "cheapest" source of energy. In the long run, that's almost certainly true. But sunlight is a really dilute energy source. You need to cover an awful lot of land that with manufactured stuff. Now give nanotechnology, it's no problem but before that, well, if the PV was *free* I don't electric power would come down to much less then 5-10 cents per kWh, before you move it to places that need it or convert it to liquid transportation fuels. 10 cent power corresponds to $210/bbl synthetic oil. (Ten dollars of capital and $200 of energy input.) > I don't think we'll > see much SPS presence any sooner than 2050-2060. If it takes that long, I doubt we will see it at all. That's probably post singularity. I expect the singularity to be accompanied by a precipitous fall in energy demand per capita. The advanced countries use on the order of 10kW per person. It would take about 1% of that to power them directly and 1/5 of a percent to run the brains alone. > By that time, > the reason we will have to use SPS is not because it's cheaper, but > because we've ran out of easy terrestrial flux to tap (though > http://www.altestore.com/howto/images/article/world_solar_insolation_data.gif > shows you great areas of high-insolation surface with only > thin (desert) ecosystem present, if one is willing to transport > energy/synfuels over large distances, though vulnerable bottlenecks > (pipelines/HVDC). This is not where the strength of decentral energy > sources is -- it's absence of control monopolies and no transport > losses/no extortability. If anyone builds power satellites at all, they will be built by the thousands and owned by every country on earth. Keith From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Apr 29 16:05:05 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 18:05:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> Message-ID: <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Il 29/04/2011 15:46, Jones Murphy ha scritto: > You said that my facts are not facts, then documented my facts. > According to your old numbers, Libya's population is 20% greater than > Singapore's. This difference has grown today. How does this in any way > contradict what I said? You said Singapore have/had a much smaller population than Libya. It is false. The reverse was true until a few years ago. > What is this racist nonsense about high quality Chinese? > The high > quality Chinese of Singapore were as poor as the Libyans or poorer 2 > generations ago before Malaysia kicked them out and forced them to > accept independence by closing the causeway. I always know this in the reverse. Singapore obtained independence so the Malay had the majority of the population in Malaysia and the Chinese in Singapore. By the way, the "quality" of people is determinate by the people asking them to work. For example, Chinese enterprises working in Algeria bring their entire workforce with them. They rarely use local workforce. Could this be linked to their productivity? The same is true for businessmen opening factories in China. They started in China before they started in the Middle East. Usually the order of investment is from the most rewarding to the least rewarding. And the manpower quality is surely a factor (but not the only one). For what I know, a little, factory owner in North Africa prefer a female workforce when possible, because the males are slackers. IQ, culture, whatever. Don't matter. At the end they are less productive than Chinese. In Europe, for example, the number of Chinese supported by the welfare is small (I really never heard of one), where the number of Middle Eastern is disproportionated to their effective number. Do you think Italians or Europeans are racists with Middle Easterns, Roma or Africans but not with Chinese and East Asians? > The high quality Chinese > begged to remain within Malaysia at that time. The development of > Singapore has been extremely recent. Perhaps they evolved improved > IQ's in the last 2 generations? And what of the overwhelming majority > of "high quality" Chinese, who live in terrible poverty in China(worse > than Libya's "low quallity" and "Low IQ" people), more than the > population of the entire Western world? My opinion is that tiny Singapore leadership was short of any easy choices (natural resources and likes) and, being smart, settled for the hard but rewarding. In the not so long run it made much more sense. > Singapore's development came from some good public policy choices, a > very socialistic period in the first generation after independence, > great education and upward mobility for talented poor people, and that > sort of thing. Confucianism helped them as much as it is helping the > billion plus poor majority in China itself and in the Greater Chinese > diaspora which includes a lot of poverty among emigrants of Chinese > descent around Asia. I talked about culture, also. If you are a Muslim inside a tribe in Libya, it is difficult you have a Confucian or Calvinistic work ethic. If you have, you are a misfit. Mirco From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 16:31:38 2011 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 11:31:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: Oy. Is that the state of humanism in Europe? Racist apologetics? On Apr 29, 2011 11:06 AM, "Mirco Romanato" wrote: Il 29/04/2011 15:46, Jones Murphy ha scritto: > You said that my facts are not facts, then documented my facts. > According to your old numbers, L... You said Singapore have/had a much smaller population than Libya. It is false. The reverse was true until a few years ago. > What is this racist nonsense about high quality Chinese? > The high > quality Chinese of Singapor... I always know this in the reverse. Singapore obtained independence so the Malay had the majority of the population in Malaysia and the Chinese in Singapore. By the way, the "quality" of people is determinate by the people asking them to work. For example, Chinese enterprises working in Algeria bring their entire workforce with them. They rarely use local workforce. Could this be linked to their productivity? The same is true for businessmen opening factories in China. They started in China before they started in the Middle East. Usually the order of investment is from the most rewarding to the least rewarding. And the manpower quality is surely a factor (but not the only one). For what I know, a little, factory owner in North Africa prefer a female workforce when possible, because the males are slackers. IQ, culture, whatever. Don't matter. At the end they are less productive than Chinese. In Europe, for example, the number of Chinese supported by the welfare is small (I really never heard of one), where the number of Middle Eastern is disproportionated to their effective number. Do you think Italians or Europeans are racists with Middle Easterns, Roma or Africans but not with Chinese and East Asians? > The high quality Chinese > begged to remain within Malaysia at that time. The development of > Si... My opinion is that tiny Singapore leadership was short of any easy choices (natural resources and likes) and, being smart, settled for the hard but rewarding. In the not so long run it made much more sense. > Singapore's development came from some good public policy choices, a > very socialistic period in... I talked about culture, also. If you are a Muslim inside a tribe in Libya, it is difficult you have a Confucian or Calvinistic work ethic. If you have, you are a misfit. Mirco _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists... -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 17:28:25 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:28:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: Sad to say, these Eurofascist types are not any more racist than US conservative(including "libertarian") humanists, Will. 2011/4/29 Will Steinberg : > Oy.? Is that the state of humanism in Europe?? Racist apologetics? > > On Apr 29, 2011 11:06 AM, "Mirco Romanato" wrote: > > Il 29/04/2011 15:46, Jones Murphy ha scritto: > >> You said that my facts are not facts, then documented my facts. >> According to your old numbers, L... > > You said Singapore have/had a much smaller population than Libya. It is > false. The reverse was true until a few years ago. > >> What is this racist nonsense about high quality Chinese? >> The high >> quality Chinese of Singapor... > > I always know this in the reverse. > Singapore obtained independence so the Malay had the majority of the > population in Malaysia and the Chinese in Singapore. > > By the way, the "quality" of people is determinate by the people asking > them to work. For example, Chinese enterprises working in Algeria bring > their entire workforce with them. They rarely use local workforce. Could > this be linked to their productivity? > > The same is true for businessmen opening factories in China. They > started in China before they started in the Middle East. Usually the > order of investment is from the most rewarding to the least rewarding. > And the manpower quality is surely a factor (but not the only one). > > For what I know, a little, factory owner in North Africa prefer a female > workforce when possible, because the males are slackers. IQ, culture, > whatever. Don't matter. At the end they are less productive than Chinese. > > In Europe, for example, the number of Chinese supported by the welfare > is small (I really never heard of one), where the number of Middle > Eastern is disproportionated to their effective number. > > Do you think Italians or Europeans are racists with Middle Easterns, > Roma or Africans but not with Chinese and East Asians? > >> The high quality Chinese >> begged to remain within Malaysia at that time. The development of >> Si... > > My opinion is that tiny Singapore leadership was short of any easy > choices (natural resources and likes) and, being smart, settled for the > hard but rewarding. > > In the not so long run it made much more sense. > >> Singapore's development came from some good public policy choices, a >> very socialistic period in... > > I talked about culture, also. > If you are a Muslim inside a tribe in Libya, it is difficult you have a > Confucian or Calvinistic work ethic. If you have, you are a misfit. > > Mirco > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists... > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Apr 29 17:36:29 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:36:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: 2011/4/29 Will Steinberg : > Oy.? Is that the state of humanism in Europe?? Racist apologetics? I do not care much, as far as I am personally concerned, for the ambiguous label of "humanism", but the point here is that differences in the revenues generated by various economic choices are based on real-life factors affecting them. The choices of a financial (as opposed to a R&D) career, of waging war rather than respecting one's international treaties, of hiring confucian rather than muslim people all depend on underlying realities that we have to deal with, as much as we might prefer to ignore them. -- Stefano Vaj From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 17:32:04 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 10:32:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: Now there's a lead story if I ever saw one! Superman 'may end US citizenship', says Action Comics: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13237795 On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:24 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Outstanding article, Olga. To which I'd add the worrisome collapse in > upward mobility in the US from best in the world to worst in the West, > and dropping fast as wealth concentration accelerates. > > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:59 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: >> >> This article does not take into account a good deal of unsavory >> American history, but the points it does make are important to >> contemplate. ?Look at the charts at the bottom, folks. >> >> http://defendingthepublicgood.org/2011/04/18/the-real-american-exceptionalism/ >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 17:44:53 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 13:44:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > But if the system allows for its being played, or even worse for being > played *legally*, I also suspect that what is wrong is the system. The > rest is simply the mechanics of theory of games and Darwinism at play. > What's wrong is the ones making the 'laws' are in the pockets of those who've been winning the 'game' for decades/centuries. Laws/policy no longer reflect what's in the best interest of individuals at large, but what's in the best interest of the winners, and their government puppets (election/re-election). What we have is a plutocracy of republicrats. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 17:48:47 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 19:48:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: Mr. Jones, your name is impressive, but your argument is not. If what you're saying is true, how do you explain the dramatic redistribution of wealth from rich to poor which occurred from FDR-Carter(scroll down to see the graph of the % of America's wealth held by the top 1%): http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8 And do you seriously believe that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and the Progressive Caucus(about 30% of Dems) are just like the Dems on their right, or even worse the Republicans? 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> >> But if the system allows for its being played, or even worse for being >> played *legally*, I also suspect that what is wrong is the system. The >> rest is simply the mechanics of theory of games and Darwinism at play. > > What's wrong is the ones making the 'laws' are in the pockets of those > who've been winning the 'game' for decades/centuries. Laws/policy no longer > reflect what's in the best interest of individuals at large, but what's in > the best interest of the winners, and their government puppets > (election/re-election). > What we have is a plutocracy of republicrats. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Fri Apr 29 18:02:15 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:02:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: On 29 April 2011 19:28, Jones Murphy wrote: > Sad to say, these Eurofascist types are not any more racist than US > conservative(including "libertarian") humanists, Will. > I have no reasons to support Mirco's vibrant defence of an alleged intrinsic superiority of the US or "western" way of life over the, say, muslim ones, a view which is very far from my undying love for diversity, but this is perplexing: would libertarianism and fascism really be one and the same from an American perspective? :-) I am inclined to believe that many libertarians *and* fascists would not really agree with that in the least, and I suppose them to know best about what they think. :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 18:06:16 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 14:06:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > Mr. Jones, your name is impressive, but your argument is not. If what > you're saying is true, how do you explain the dramatic redistribution > of wealth from rich to poor which occurred from FDR-Carter(scroll down > to see the graph of the % of America's wealth held by the top 1%): > > http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8 To which I direct you here. http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php > > > And do you seriously believe that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and > the Progressive Caucus(about 30% of Dems) are just like the Dems on > their right, or even worse the Republicans? > There are a few who're worth their weight, but most politicians are incompetent at best; most tend towards Sociopath. Those few (Kucinich et al) are often ineffectual against said moneyed interests (Koch bros, AIPAC, Big Corps, etc). > > 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 9:32 AM, Stefano Vaj > wrote: > >> > >> But if the system allows for its being played, or even worse for being > >> played *legally*, I also suspect that what is wrong is the system. The > >> rest is simply the mechanics of theory of games and Darwinism at play. > > > > What's wrong is the ones making the 'laws' are in the pockets of those > > who've been winning the 'game' for decades/centuries. Laws/policy no > longer > > reflect what's in the best interest of individuals at large, but what's > in > > the best interest of the winners, and their government puppets > > (election/re-election). > > What we have is a plutocracy of republicrats. > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 18:11:48 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 20:11:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Jones Murphy > wrote: >> >> Mr. Jones, your name is impressive, but your argument is not. If what >> you're saying is true, how do you explain the dramatic redistribution >> of wealth from rich to poor which occurred from FDR-Carter(scroll down >> to see the graph of the % of America's wealth held by the top 1%): >> >> http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8 > > To which I direct you > here.?http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php You just directed me to even more documentation that the current record-breaking concentration of wealth and opportunity is not permanent, but is a product of the Reagan legacy, which has reversed the FDR legacy and then some. Thanks! So public policy does matter. You rest my case. >> And do you seriously believe that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and >> the Progressive Caucus(about 30% of Dems) are just like the Dems on >> their right, or even worse the Republicans? > > There are a few who're worth their weight, but most politicians are > incompetent at best; most tend towards Sociopath. ?Those few (Kucinich et > al) are often ineffectual against said moneyed interests (Koch bros, AIPAC, > Big Corps, etc). The progressive pols are ineffectual because they are now vastly outnumbered, thanks to the voters, fewer than 20% of whom now consider themselves progressives. That's not a problem with politicians. It's a problem with the electorate. From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Fri Apr 29 19:56:20 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:56:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 2:11 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Jones Murphy > > > wrote: > >> > >> Mr. Jones, your name is impressive, but your argument is not. If what > >> you're saying is true, how do you explain the dramatic redistribution > >> of wealth from rich to poor which occurred from FDR-Carter(scroll down > >> to see the graph of the % of America's wealth held by the top 1%): > >> > >> http://extremeinequality.org/?page_id=8 > > > > To which I direct you > > here. http://www.stanford.edu/group/scspi/cgi-bin/facts.php > > You just directed me to even more documentation that the current > record-breaking concentration of wealth and opportunity is not > permanent, Nothing is permanent. > but is a product of the Reagan legacy, Yeah, Reagan's to blame for it all. > which has reversed > the FDR legacy and then some. Thanks! So public policy does matter. > I wasn't aware anyone was claiming policy doesn't matter. > You rest my case. > I'm not sure what your case is. That's it's reasonable for CEO's to make over a thousand times an avg. worker? That advanced schemes to skim bigger/faster is good for the masses? That the world looks ok from your Parisian Penthouse, and you sleep comfortably on your $10k bed? MY case, is that inequality is anything but under control. I'd go further, but I've got a dinner to go to. Perhaps later. But we both know it's a waste of time. > > >> And do you seriously believe that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and > >> the Progressive Caucus(about 30% of Dems) are just like the Dems on > >> their right, or even worse the Republicans? > > > > There are a few who're worth their weight, but most politicians are > > incompetent at best; most tend towards Sociopath. Those few (Kucinich et > > al) are often ineffectual against said moneyed interests (Koch bros, > AIPAC, > > Big Corps, etc). > > The progressive pols are ineffectual because they are now vastly > outnumbered, More like out-financed. > thanks to the voters, fewer than 20% of whom now consider > themselves progressives. Most are too busy worrying about the stupid wedding, or who'll win idol. > That's not a problem with politicians. It's a > problem with the electorate. > Yes. I don't disagree entirely here. Certainly the lot of willful idiots has something to do with this. Politicians have merely become adept predators, in a target rich environment. > > _______________________________________________ > 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 morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Fri Apr 29 20:03:34 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:03:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > Nothing is permanent. OK, but you claimed wealth concentration and rigid stratification have been the case for centuries. That is not true. The US had the highest upward mobility in the world till Reagan. It has now collapsed to worst in the west and is dropping fast as wealth concentrates. > Yeah, Reagan's to blame for it all. And his right-wing successors, including many Reaganite Democrats. > I wasn't aware anyone was claiming policy doesn't matter. Yes, you did, you equated FDR and Reagan when you argued results have been the same for centuries. They have not. Public policy has made an enormous difference. >> You rest my case. > > I'm not sure what your case is..... See above. >> The progressive pols are ineffectual because they are now vastly >> outnumbered, > > More like out-financed. No. No amount of financing can elect a right-winger in San Francisco or New York City. And no amount of financing can elect a Sanders in about 80% of Congressional districts. >> thanks to the voters, fewer than 20% of whom now consider >> themselves progressives. > > Most are too busy worrying about the stupid wedding, or who'll win idol. Somehow, that doesn't change the very consistent geographical and demographic patterns we see in voting. >> That's not a problem with politicians. It's a >> problem with the electorate. > > Yes. ?I don't disagree entirely here. ?Certainly the lot of willful idiots > has something to do with this. ?Politicians have merely become adept > predators, in a target rich environment. No. Pols just reflect their electorate. From max at maxmore.com Fri Apr 29 22:45:10 2011 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 15:45:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: I read that one yesterday (Action Comics #900). This isn't at all new in comics (see The Authority, for instance), but it's a big deal when an American icon like Superman seriously considers renouncing his citizenship. (Batman has recently globalized too, though by supporting regional versions of himself rather than by renouncing citizenship or relocating). Too bad we can't be citizens of the world. Some of us can manage dual nationality, but it's not the same. In practice, however, I fear that global citizenship would come with an additional layer of taxes and rules. Up, up, and away! --- Max On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > Now there's a lead story if I ever saw one! > > Superman 'may end US citizenship', says Action Comics: > > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13237795 > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 03:13:36 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:13:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 4:42 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > If you think banking stability and control of the money supply is bad > post-Fed, take a look at what happened pre-fed when random banks > issued their own currencies. And contrast the general level of > development in countries with central banks like the Fed, versus those > with no central banks or ineffective ones where there is no currency > and no regulation of financial institutions. ### I re-read http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf again today - you will find historical analysis there flatly contradicting your account. Banking stability and currency stability was better before the spread of fractional reserve banking and centralization of money supply in the form of the Fed, and the same situation is invariably present in all other countries that switched from naturally produced money to fiat money. The alleged stabilizing and stimulating effects of the Fed are a complete myth. Sure, there were bank rush panics before the Fed, these are an invariable effect of fractional reserve, but as long as banks are not uniform in their lending practices and some of them have higher reserve rates, such panics are self-limited and they serve the useful purpose of periodically cleansing the system of inefficient lenders. It's only after the Fed was formed that large scale sustained inflation started, and the boom-bust cycle became more pervasive, involving larger fractions of the economy and with a longer time span. BTW, I do not share Rothbard's complete condemnation of fractional reserve - maybe immodestly I think my analysis goes deeper than his, and I do recognize both the dangers and the benefits of it - but I completely agree with him that centralization of banking and government counterfeiting of money added on top of a natural fractional reserve system is highly distortionary and largely responsible for the modern malady of the "business cycle". -------------------- > > The Fed has done a lot that I disagree with. But those bad things are > very much a cumulative expression of the will of the American people > over the last half century or so, which has been to concentrate wealth > to an all time high degree, and crush upward mobility in response to > liberal social changes which threatened to erode America's historical > social hierarchy. This backlash is why an Ayn Rand disciple, > Greenspan, ascended to head the Fed and proceeded to sit back and > cheer as the US went from a typical Western wealth distribution to a > typical South American one, and upward mobility which was one the > greatest in the world is now worse than any in the West and dropping > fast. ### This is complete baloney. ---------------- Still, the Fed does a lot of useful things, like its > counterparts in the strongest and stabilest economies on earth. And > you might want to ask yourself why even after what you perceive as 100 > yrs of Fed incompetence, the US dollar remains by far and away the > currency of choice for well over 80% of international trade. ### The US is the last major power to succumb to the allure of money counterfeiting. It's not difficult to be a giant among dwarves. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 03:20:23 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:20:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: 2011/4/29 Stefano Vaj : > On 29 April 2011 19:28, Jones Murphy wrote: >> >> Sad to say, these Eurofascist types are not any more racist than US >> conservative(including "libertarian") humanists, Will. > > I have no reasons to support Mirco's vibrant defence of an alleged intrinsic > superiority of the US or "western" way of life over the, say, muslim ones, a > view which is very far from my undying love for diversity, but this is > perplexing: would libertarianism and fascism really be one and the same from > an American perspective? :-) > > I am inclined to believe that many libertarians *and* fascists would not > really agree with that in the least, and I suppose them to know best about > what they think. :-) ### You are right Stefano - anybody conflating libertarians and fascists is just a troll. Interestingly, I get called a Nazi and occasionally racist with disturbing regularity .... these trolls are getting underfoot everywhere. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 03:58:36 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:58:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 6:52 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 06:10:38AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > >> ### Well, why should the clueless expect to gain? Inefficient actions > > There's a considerable incitement to bet large fractions of your > retirement fund into stocks, at least in USia (Roth IRA etc.). ### That actually prevents you from being a small investor, since you are using institutional intermediaries - and if they are using algorithmic trading on your behalf, you gain as well. Long-term stock investment as retirement savings is not a problem, it's the solution. --------- > Inversely, in Europe we have a pension model which is equally a Ponzi > scheme, based on particular expectations in economic growth, > wealth distribution and demography. Both models are broken. ### The broken parts of the US system are the involvement of the state in Social Security (which is the opposite of investing, it's fleecing workers to allow immediate consumption by parasites and bureaucrats, indeed a Ponzi scheme like the ones in Europe), and the money counterfeiting actions of the Fed (which have a negative effect on the stability of stocks, bonds and currency). -------------------- > >> am all with you in the decentralization camp but I haven't heard any >> interesting specifics from you yet. The fraud is mostly related to > > It's basically just Tim May's vision, slightly souped up for > today's end user cloud (freedom-box-like systems). The idea is > to move critical parts of finance (like the monetary system, mint, > individual transactions, and higher level functions based on above > primitives. Reputation tracking, notarization, uncensorable permanent > public record, and such. ### I am all with you there. But where do you see the problem with algorithmic trading? Wouldn't algorithmic trading be still possible (and of course, useful) in distributed financial system independent of large counterfeiters? --------------------------- > >> government involvement in banking, otherwise it tends to be a > > You need to shield the system from manipulation on part of end > users or user groups. Of course cryptography is no panacea (and > would require diversity to avoid becoming a pivotal point of failure) > but then it's not hard to improve on the track record of federal > and corporate crooks. ### Again, full agreement. -------------------------- > >> self-sanitizing business (just like other branches of the economy >> where reputation is key, and performance is easily measurable by >> outsiders). > > One of the key functions if providing an unfalsifyable, publically > inspectable track record of interactions, so that nym reputation > for the particular scope can be obtained in realtime. > > Yes, most of the above are extremely hard problems. The smart > people who still think Wall Street quant is a glorious occupation > should get on that track instead. ### Wall Street (i.e. the system of large government-regulated banks and businesses) is a centralized government creation, and I fully agree with you that devising technologies that could allow distributed short-feedback money management would a boon for humanity. One of the reasons why governments succeeded in taking control of the monetary system (aside from simple brute force) was the sheer difficulty in establishing verifiable information flows about solvency of various intermediaries and creditors in the pre-electronic era. An FDIC, for example, initially provided some short term benefits by imposing a floor on the quality of banks (in the long term it contributed to a hollowing-out of the system by inducing a false sense of security in users). It's possible that the acceleration in information flow possible with modern communication tools could allow the existence of a self-policed private banking system (and mean really private, not like Goldman-Sachs, Chase or other government regulated banks) with low latency of response to solvency changes. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 04:12:16 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:12:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 7:59 AM, BillK wrote: > Rafal is having a good time trolling everything from finance and > politics to insisting that there is no prejudice against blacks in the > USA. ? :) ### Where did I say there is no prejudice against blacks in the US? BTW, I agree that a part of the problem in the US banking system were crooks - but concentrating on them is missing the point. In a way, Bill, you are like the touchingly naive Russians sending worshipful letters to Stalin asking to redress grievances against corrupt officials. The problem is not the crook who absconds with a few million dollars but the long-feedback centralized system (i.e. government banking regulators) which allows the crook to cook the books (or just be stupid) long enough for major problems to accumulate, eventually leading to a more dramatic explosion. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 04:15:14 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:15:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 1:48 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > > And do you seriously believe that Bernie Sanders, Dennis Kucinich and > the Progressive Caucus(about 30% of Dems) are just like the Dems on > their right, or even worse the Republicans? ### Progressive Caucus? Kucinich? Instant fail. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 04:26:41 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:26:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > > Yes. ?I don't disagree entirely here. ?Certainly the lot of willful idiots > has something to do with this. ?Politicians have merely become adept > predators, in a target rich environment. ### Nah, it's the voters who are the predators, leading to high transfers of wealth from producers (e.g. CEOs) to parasites (entitlement recipients). You Joneses have it exactly the opposite of truth, most of the time. Obviously, CEOs of private companies deserve salaries tens or even thousands of times higher than average, including the "golden parachute" plans for failed executives. Thomas Sowell has a great analysis of this issue in his "Basic Economics". Pity that most humans are too predatory to accept the calm voice of the truthsayer. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 04:13:32 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 21:13:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <006f01cc06ec$f8594430$e90bcc90$@att.net> ... On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 06:10:38AM -0400, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Well, why should the clueless expect to gain? Inefficient actions > (i.e. the short-sighted greed of the small investor) lead to incorrect > pricing (i.e. prices that do not accurately reflect the underlying > values of assets) and better investors (i.e. investors who understand > the future over larger time scales) correct the inefficiencies, > reaping a reward. There is nothing wrong with it, and it's the reason > why I do not individually trade on the stock market... Ja. It looks to me like the programmed trading serves the purpose of obviating having guys down on some trading floor shrieking buy and sell orders like madmen. That always seemed to me the definition of absurdity. Why not just set up a program that just does whatever it is they are trying to do there, and why do they all need to be on Wall Street anyways? Couldn't they watch the ticker tapes from anywhere? Let anyone who wants to play that game do it from their own home on their own time. Think of all the savings. In fact, any strategy used by the human players can be written into computer code. That frees up the world's limited supply of RSPs (Royal Smart Persons) to do meaningful things like solving energy crises, while the computers tirelessly shout trade orders silently. The human comes in the next morning to see how much, if any, money they have left. spike From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Sat Apr 30 04:28:54 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 06:28:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: You can find websites which tell you that the planet is 6000 years old(a belief held by the overwhelming majority of American conservatives). That doesn't make it true. Try not to be so gullible about the things you read on the internet. Let's say Mieses' dishonest(if not outright insane) dismissal of the wild boom-and-bust cycles which preceded central banking is true. If so, why aren't the numerous countries with no central banks or ineffective central banks constantly bleeding capital to the countries with central banks, for the last few centuries and continuing today? Why is so much money continuing to flee freedom and stability for instability and megafraud? Why execute 80% plus of the world's transactions in a fraudulent currency, and virtually 100% in some central bank-managed currency or other? Why not more transactions in privately issued currencies, gold and what not? Why has the reign of an Ayn Rand disciple at the Fed, with the most Mieses-friendly policies since the ones which helped precipitate the Great Depression, ended in the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression? On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 5:13 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 4:42 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >> If you think banking stability and control of the money supply is bad >> post-Fed, take a look at what happened pre-fed when random banks >> issued their own currencies. And contrast the general level of >> development in countries with central banks like the Fed, versus those >> with no central banks or ineffective ones where there is no currency >> and no regulation of financial institutions. > > ### I re-read http://mises.org/books/fed.pdf again today - you will > find historical analysis there flatly contradicting your account. > Banking stability and currency stability was better before the spread > of fractional reserve banking ?and centralization of money supply in > the form of the Fed, and the same situation is invariably present in > all other countries that switched from naturally produced money to > fiat money. The alleged stabilizing and stimulating effects of the Fed > are a complete myth. Sure, there were bank rush panics before the Fed, > these are an invariable effect of fractional reserve, but as long as > banks are not uniform in their lending practices and some of them have > higher reserve rates, such panics are self-limited and they serve the > useful purpose of periodically cleansing the system of inefficient > lenders. It's only after the Fed was formed that large scale sustained > inflation started, and the boom-bust cycle became more pervasive, > involving larger fractions of the economy and with a longer time span. > > BTW, I do not share Rothbard's complete condemnation of fractional > reserve - maybe immodestly I think my analysis goes deeper than his, > and I do recognize both the dangers and the benefits of it - but I > completely agree with him that centralization of banking and > government counterfeiting of money added on top of a natural > fractional reserve system is highly distortionary and largely > responsible for the modern malady of the "business cycle". > > -------------------- >> >> The Fed has done a lot that I disagree with. But those bad things are >> very much a cumulative expression of the will of the American people >> over the last half century or so, which has been to concentrate wealth >> to an all time high degree, and crush upward mobility in response to >> liberal social changes which threatened to erode America's historical >> social hierarchy. This backlash is why an Ayn Rand disciple, >> Greenspan, ascended to head the Fed and proceeded to sit back and >> cheer as the US went from a typical Western wealth distribution to a >> typical South American one, and upward mobility which was one the >> greatest in the world is now worse than any in the West and dropping >> fast. > > ### This is complete baloney. > ---------------- > > Still, the Fed does a lot of useful things, like its >> counterparts in the strongest and stabilest economies on earth. And >> you might want to ask yourself why even after what you perceive as 100 >> yrs of Fed incompetence, the US dollar remains by far and away the >> currency of choice for well over 80% of international trade. > > ### The US is the last major power to succumb to the allure of money > counterfeiting. It's not difficult to be a giant among dwarves. > > Rafal > From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 04:28:45 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 21:28:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: <007001cc06ef$18c732c0$4a559840$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] it's better than it used to be 2011/4/27 spike : >> But look what we did get: a new technology for getting information > into the home which is so good and so effective, many of us don't want > to go chasing off somewhere else, even if we could fly out of our own > driveway. >Internet has been a big societal change, both intrinsically and in how we have ended up using it. But what exactly is so revolutionary in comparison with what could be envisioned in the Marconi's era?... -- Stefano Vaj What could be envisioned is so fundamentally different from having it. In Marconi's era, we could envision something analogous to a chat group and even web pages, but the storage medium would be primarily paper. That would be so expensive and messy, no one would bother with it. No one did back in the old days. Consider something as simple as eBay, in the following thought experiment. Imagine your grandmother's house, when she passed. The family had to go in and sort through all the junk. Some of it was actually valuable to someone somewhere, but there was no practical means of finding it, so the stuff was likely hauled to the dump, most of it. A lifetime spent collecting various odds and ends is represented by that pile of stuff. Plenty of it had intrinsic value, nice old books for instance as the best example, collector stuff that grandma understood but no one else did. Non-little-old-ladies considered it all junk, so off it went. But with eBay, everyone's personal effects can in theory be sold. Everyone's house suddenly became a little oddball store of sorts. So it could be legitimately argued that eBay dramatically increased the value of everything everywhere. spike From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 04:45:36 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 21:45:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### You are right Stefano - anybody conflating libertarians and > fascists is just a troll. Interestingly, I get called a Nazi and > occasionally racist with disturbing regularity .... these trolls are > getting underfoot everywhere. The word "troll" is being used so often these days that it's fast becoming meaningless. Everyone with whom one disagrees, it seems, becomes a viable "troll" candidate. On Facebook a couple of weeks ago I read something that made my head spin. After whining about Obama for a bit, someone decided to try for that edgy, all-out clever bit of observation by writing, "Nixon was more liberal than Obama." I corrected him by illustrating the gaping holes in his reasoning. His response was not to challenge me on the points I made, but to call me an "Obama troll." "Troll" is kind of like the new, improved, all-purpose ad hominem :). Except that it's still not a good argument. From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Sat Apr 30 04:52:42 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 06:52:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: "Troll" means to me someone who isn't serious about what they're saying and is just trying to pick a fight. Rafal is in for a rude shock for the rest of his life if he thinks he will get any letup in the number of people who recognize that most people who call themselves "libertarian" are just right wingers. We're not trolls. We just look at the sorts of leaders most popular among those who call themselves "libertarians" and recognize exactly what they are. You will frequently see American libertarians nominate Presidential candidates like Ron Paul and Bob Barr who are Republicans with a consistent history of opposition to Civil Rights, Voting Rights, gay rights, birth control rights, and other conservative bugaboos. You will not see them nominating anyone who has fought for those kinds of liberties in any significant way. By their fruits ye shall know them, and libertarians are overwhelmingly old-school conservative tribalists and hierarchists, frequently in a very annoying and unexamined way. On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 6:45 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 8:20 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki > wrote: > >> ### You are right Stefano - anybody conflating libertarians and >> fascists is just a troll. Interestingly, I get called a Nazi and >> occasionally racist with disturbing regularity .... these trolls are >> getting underfoot everywhere. > > The word "troll" is being used so often these days that it's fast > becoming meaningless. ?Everyone with whom one disagrees, it seems, > becomes a viable "troll" candidate. > > On Facebook a couple of weeks ago I read something that made my head > spin. ?After whining about Obama for a bit, someone decided to try for > that edgy, all-out clever bit of observation by writing, "Nixon was > more liberal than Obama." > > I corrected him by illustrating the gaping holes in his reasoning. > > His response was not to challenge me on the points I made, but to call > me an "Obama troll." > > "Troll" is kind of like the new, improved, all-purpose ad hominem :). > > Except that it's still not a good argument. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 05:01:50 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 23:01:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 6:12 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > 2011/4/27 spike : > This sounds quite complacent. The *invention of writing* is a paradigm > shift. Less so the invention of printing. Even less so the fact of > having a rather trivial database of dubious "encyclopedic" > information. And, btw, the importance of Wikipedia is already > increasingly reduced by the improvement of search engines. Wikipedia is important primarily as a prime example of a new economic model that is, IMHO quite important. The encyclopedia itself is a huge accomplishment, but the open source economic model is the paradigm shift, and I believe that actually does rank up there with the invention of the printing press, double entry book-keeping, money, writing, poetry, musical notation, the English patent system, discovery of evolution, the invention of intellectual property, sliced bread and the scientific method as one of the great memes of all time. It will take a couple more decades, I think, to fully appreciate the model for what it will become, but I have no doubt that it will take its place among these other great memes. > If we get excited about Wikipedia, what should we say about the > development or discovery of evolution, human flight, quantum > mechanics, internal combustion engines, micro-organisms, nuclear > reactions, DNA, mendelian laws, computing, microscopes, vaccins, > mutations, antibiotics, cable and air electromagnetic transmissions, > the power grid, the rocket, the submarine, the relativity, etc.? The discovery of evolution, relativity, quantum mechanics (particularly the uncertainty principle) and man's trip to the moon all changed the zeitgeist philosophy. Open source, or more generally, the recognition economy, is beginning to change the zeitgeist philosophy. Look how many young people today expect EVERYTHING digital to be free (as in beer). That is a huge shift in the populist zeitgeist philosophy. Faster transportation in general probably also meets this criteria looking at the American love affair with the car. I don't know if personal computers meets this criteria, but if you include things like the iPod, iPad, etc, then perhaps it does. Good virtual reality will probably also have this kind of effect. We already see shifts in people who are heavily into World of Warcraft. It will only get more pronounced as VR gets more realistic. > Take "velocity", of which Italian futurism made a big issue as the > very symbol of the "new world" Marinetti and the other wanted to come. > During my grand-mother's life the speed record on wheel, on water, on > the sea, in space, increased tenfold, and so the *average* speed one > could move from place A to place B. Since the seventies, not only did > nothing like that happened, but if the records remain the same the > speed in average has been probably even *reduced* (traffic jams in > cities, road speed limits, no more supersonic airlines flights, no > more hypersonic military jets, etc.). Well, we do have flight under human power (gossamer albatross), Solar powered flight, around the world ballooning, solo sledding to the north and south poles, the personal computer, digitization of many domains including the human genome project and various AI landmarks. So we haven't made a faster airplane of car for a while... we can't afford the energy output required by such devices, so it's good that we haven't built them IMHO. Why do the measurements of past progress have to be used to measure current progress? > Of course, one can find rationales behind that. So what? A rationale > is a post-factum justification of trends which are in place, based on > the dominant values and perceptions. Exactly what I do not like in the > first place. I see the trends as being fairly continuous. I don't see things as having stopped or even slowed in 1970. What progress looked like changed because we had reached acceptable plateaus in transportation. -Kelly From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 05:11:41 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 01:11:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:52 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > "Troll" means to me someone who isn't serious about what they're > saying and is just trying to pick a fight. Rafal is in for a rude > shock for the rest of his life if he thinks he will get any letup in > the number of people who recognize that most people who call > themselves "libertarian" are just right wingers. We're not trolls. ### Anybody who says Nazi=libertarian is trolling. End of story. ---------------- > and libertarians are overwhelmingly old-school conservative tribalists > and hierarchists, frequently in a very annoying and unexamined way. ### Yeah, yeah. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 05:16:42 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 01:16:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rafal Smigrodzki Date: Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 1:02 AM Subject: Re: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? To: Jones Murphy On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > You can find websites which tell you that the planet is 6000 years > old(a belief held by the overwhelming majority of American > conservatives). That doesn't make it true. Try not to be so gullible > about the things you read on the internet. Let's say Mieses' > dishonest(if not outright insane) dismissal of the wild boom-and-bust > cycles which preceded central banking is true. If so, why aren't the > numerous countries with no central banks or ineffective central banks > constantly bleeding capital to the countries with central banks, for > the last few centuries and continuing today? ### There are are the situations where you don't have a central bank because you are a mess - savages running around with sharp sticks (or nowadays Kalashnikovs) don't even have ATMs, much less a central bank, and obviously any pitiful capital that the local warlords accumulate soon goes to a Swiss bank. The other, more interesting situation, is due to Copernicus' law (a.k.a. Gresham's law) applied to international relationships. If you have a large group of counterfeiters, who use military force to prevent gold monetization in most of the world, any small country trying to use a gold standard currency would be at a some disadvantage - their citizens would still have to accept fiat money in any international trade (and all countries have to trade internationally) and this would deplete their money supply. ---------------------------- ?Why is so much money > continuing to flee freedom and stability for instability and > megafraud? ### Where do you see freedom in the world? --------------------------- ?Why execute 80% plus of the world's transactions in a > fraudulent currency, and virtually 100% in some central bank-managed > currency or other? ### The same reason why you can't live without using tax-paid infrastructure in a country where all infrastructure is owned by the government. If the fraudulent currency is supported by a massive military force, you can't just ignore it. ------------------------- Why not more transactions in privately issued > currencies, gold and what not? ### Legal tender laws and the like. Have you ever had Federal government agents enter your home and ask you questions? I had the experience. Didn't like it, even though it didn't have anything to do with money. ------------------------- Why has the reign of an Ayn Rand > disciple at the Fed, with the most Mieses-friendly policies since the > ones which helped precipitate the Great Depression, ended in the > greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression? ### The great depression was precipitated by interventionist policy of Hoover, further compounded by FDR. Mises-like thinking ended with the last honest US president, Calvin Coolidge. 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 spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 05:08:29 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:08:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mr Jones .That's it's reasonable for CEO's to make over a thousand times an avg. worker? . That isn't the real question. Better: What is the ratio of the CEO's pay compared to the average CEO? And what is the ratio of the pay of the worker compared to the average worker? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Sat Apr 30 05:27:29 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 07:27:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> Message-ID: No, Spike. Wealth concentration does matter, a lot. If it goes to sufficiently high record levels as it has in the US, it crushes upward mobility, as it has in the US. People shouldn't just be compared with people at their income/wealth level, because you do not get a sense of how rigidly stratified a society is until you look at intergenerational upward mobility. The fact that CEO:worker pay in the US has rocketed out of the range of other prosperous countries post-Reagan, and out of America's own historical ranges, while long-term average econonic growth has slowed and become more volatile, is not an encouraging indicator for this kind of extreme inequality. 2011/4/30 spike : > > > > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mr Jones > > ?That's it's reasonable for CEO's to make over a thousand times an avg. > worker? ?? > > > > > > That isn?t the real question.? Better: What is the ratio of the CEO?s pay > compared to the average CEO?? And what is the ratio of the pay of the worker > compared to the average worker? > > > > spike > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From moulton at moulton.com Sat Apr 30 05:51:35 2011 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:51:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB94FC4.4070405@libero.it> <4DB9F211.9020708@libero.it> <4DBABC7C.60702@libero.it> <4DBAE1B1.9030909@libero.it> Message-ID: <4DBBA367.2040007@moulton.com> On 04/29/2011 09:52 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > You > will frequently see American libertarians nominate Presidential > candidates like Ron Paul and Bob Barr who are Republicans with a > consistent history of opposition to Civil Rights, Voting Rights, gay > rights, birth control rights, and other conservative bugaboos. A small bit of clarification is needed here. There is a difference between libertarian as used in the name "Libertarian Party" and libertarian as referring to a political philosophy and tradition deriving from diverse sources. In the USA these sources go back to the 1800s to such figures as Lillian Harman and Voltairine de Cleyre; although these figures did not have a well formed and complete libertarian political philosophy because they lived prior to the development of some of the intellectual framework that we now have. More about both can be found at: http://www.voltairine.org/womenresisters.html As for the "Libertarian Party" it has long ago ceased being even close to what I would consider libertarian. The name "Libertarian Party" is just that; a name. It does not mean that members of it or position taken by it are necessarily libertarian. This is why it is important not to confuse the name of a thing with what it actually is. As for Ron Paul; he is a conservative who sometimes calls himself libertarian. Do not be confused; he is a conservative not a libertarian. As for Bob Barr. Have you ever put a drop of water on a very hot flat griddle and watched it skitter around? I can not predict where that drop of water will skitter to next and I can not predict where Bob Barr will skitter to next. Supposedly Bob Barr has renounced and apologized for his past views; but I have not seen any convincing evidence that Bob Barr has become a libertarian. A major problem is that there are a lot of conservatives running around afraid to say they are conservative so they start using the term libertarian and causing needless confusion particularly amongst persons not versed in the history of the libertarian movement. Fred From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 05:38:51 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:38:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: <008e01cc06f8$e5214280$af63c780$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki ... You Joneses have it exactly the opposite of truth, most of the time...Rafal Hey, what's this "you Joneses" jazz? {8^D Aside: even in this far-more-than-average enlightened group, we are seeing charges of racism flying around freely. Can you imagine what is coming in the next election year? I can easily see the level of US political discourse devolve until every other sentence will contain the terms racist and racism. Yet it is all a distraction, for not one of the politicians will have a good solution to the real problem: the out of control budget deficit. Oy. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 05:58:44 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 29 Apr 2011 22:58:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> Message-ID: <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Jones Murphy Subject: Re: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading >...No, Spike. Wealth concentration does matter, a lot. If it goes to sufficiently high record levels as it has in the US, it crushes upward mobility, as it has in the US. People shouldn't just be compared with people at their income/wealth level, because you do not get a sense of how rigidly stratified a society is until you look at intergenerational upward mobility. The fact that CEO:worker pay in the US has rocketed out of the range of other prosperous countries post-Reagan, and out of America's own historical ranges, while long-term average econonic growth has slowed and become more volatile, is not an encouraging indicator for this kind of extreme inequality. Simple solution: get an average worker to serve as CEO. Any takers? CEO pay is set by boards of directors, which are largely populated by major stockholders and owners. Imagine two companies merge. The job of the average worker hasn't changed, but the job of the CEO has just expanded dramatically. So why should not the pay of the CEO go up dramatically? The CEO pay going to the stars is a result of dramatically bigger companies. The CEOs make a ton of money, but there are fewer of them. I fail to see what this has to do with intergenerational upward mobility. I do urge us all to refrain from insulting each other's favorite political systems, or making sweeping generalizations regarding libertarians, conservatives, liberals, or anything else. We can do better than that here. spike From olga.bourlin at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 07:05:48 2011 From: olga.bourlin at gmail.com (Olga Bourlin) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 00:05:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:58 PM, spike wrote: > Aside: even in this far-more-than-average enlightened group ... and > I do urge us all to refrain from insulting each other's favorite political > systems, or making sweeping generalizations regarding libertarians, > conservatives, liberals, or anything else. ?We can do better than that here. Spike, since you made the sweeping generalization ;)) about this "far-more-than-average" enlightened group, I would love to know what it is that makes you (or anyone else) here think this. To begin with, what do you mean by "enlightened?" I've mainly been lurking in this group (for over 10 years), but I have to tell you the thing that's puzzled me the most about this group has been its lack of diversity - political, gender, and "racial." This may be another subject altogether, but it seems to me worth discussing (and perhaps how this lack of diversity fits into being - or not being so - "enlightened"). From morphy at alumni.caltech.edu Sat Apr 30 07:28:26 2011 From: morphy at alumni.caltech.edu (Jones Murphy) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:28:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> Message-ID: I agree, Olga. I have yet to see any evidence of superior enlightenment here, and I am unsubscribing from this group because I'm having to autoblock so many participants for nonsense and bigotry, much like I would in any average forum. So far I've just seen a lot of hierarchism, absurd claims of meritocracy in societies which horrifically and rigidly stratified, crude and aggressive tribalism and racism etc. The idea that the budget deficit is some great and insoluble problem is nonsense. Raising taxes on the wealthiest back to what they were during the peak of America's economic growth and upward mobility would easily cure the deficit by itself. More modest tax increases coupled with slashing the insane military budget to some small sane multiple of the next biggest(currently China's) would also take care of the budget deficit and pay down the national debt very quickly. The illusion of a budget deficit and national debt is created sustained by the lowest federal taxes in 80 years, since the low low taxes leading into the Great Crash. The idea that CEO's today are working so much harder(at 400plus times average worker pay) than CEO's when Reagan took power(40 times average worker pay) is false. CEO's are not working ten times harder now than 30 years ago. This is rank hierarchism again, and a false claim of meritocracy where it does not exist. I know. I'm a CEO of a small hedge fund, and in my own career have worked with and done business with a lot of CEO's of very big financial companies whose names you'd instantly recognize. Many are very talented, and many are not talented in any business sense but are great "survivor" contestants good at scheming and backstabbing their way to the top. Virtually none of them are worth 400 times what average workers are making. I wouldn't pay it, as a shareholder or director. It's just too easy to find talented people to replace them at a much lower price than these absurd multiples. And in fact that's what is happening in most of the world. The US is a striking exception, and this cannot last without severe negative consequences. On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 9:05 AM, Olga Bourlin wrote: > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:58 PM, spike wrote: > >> Aside: even in this far-more-than-average enlightened group ... > > and > >> I do urge us all to refrain from insulting each other's favorite political >> systems, or making sweeping generalizations regarding libertarians, >> conservatives, liberals, or anything else. ?We can do better than that here. > > Spike, since you made the sweeping generalization ;)) about this > "far-more-than-average" enlightened group, I would love to know what > it is that makes you (or anyone else) here think this. > > To begin with, what do you mean by "enlightened?" > > I've mainly been lurking in this group (for over 10 years), but I have > to tell you the thing that's puzzled me the most about this group has > been its lack of diversity - political, gender, and "racial." ?This > may be another subject altogether, but it seems to me worth discussing > (and perhaps how this lack of diversity fits into being - or not being > so - "enlightened"). > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From sjatkins at mac.com Fri Apr 29 06:54:56 2011 From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins) Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:54:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: <630D44D0-9077-45A4-8E21-862856D2E931@mac.com> On Apr 28, 2011, at 8:53 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > You are welcome to go to live at the level of human development which > existed when the Fed started. Once again, all you need to do is to > move to a cabin in the wilderness, or to move to many undeveloped > countries, where you will be free of Fed abuse and have money which > will never deteriorate in value. Enjoy. Do you think that is remotely an answer to what has been done to us? Do you think it will make things better from here? Do you have anything constructive to add? - s > > On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 12:24 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote: >> On 04/28/2011 03:42 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: >>> >>> Keith is on to something here. While I obviously wouldn't agree with >>> any law prohibiting me from doing what I do now, I certainly didn't >>> leave physics for Wall St because quantum optics or general relativity >>> were boring. >> >> Oh yeah. Government tilting the playing field has worked so especially well >> to date. It has produced such super abundant societies with huge surpluses >> that we should obviously do much more of it. If the government had not >> stole so much that the dollar is now worth 3 cents compared to when the >> Federal Reserve started then there would very likely be much much more money >> chasing physicists and other specialties than there is today. >> >> - samantha >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 08:09:39 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:09:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 5:12 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > BTW, I agree that a part of the problem in the US banking system were > crooks - but concentrating on them is missing the point. In a way, > Bill, you are like the touchingly naive Russians sending worshipful > letters to Stalin asking to redress grievances against corrupt > officials. The problem is not the crook who absconds with a few > million dollars but the long-feedback centralized system (i.e. > government banking regulators) which allows the crook to cook the > books (or just be stupid) long enough for major problems to > accumulate, eventually leading to a more dramatic explosion. > > I'm not concentrating on the crooks in Wall Street. Of course Wall Street is now totally corrupt and robbing the nation. But as the article I referenced makes clear, the big problem is the rule of law and regulatory capture. The laws are already on the books. But if you work in Wall Street, nobody will enforce the laws because they know that next year they will have a multi-million dollar job in Wall Street. The revolving door between government and Wall Street means government by the bankers and for the bankers. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 08:41:27 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:41:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: <630D44D0-9077-45A4-8E21-862856D2E931@mac.com> References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> <630D44D0-9077-45A4-8E21-862856D2E931@mac.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 7:54 AM, Samantha Atkins wrote: > Do you think that is remotely an answer to what has been done to us? > Do you think it will make things better from here? ?Do you have anything constructive to add? > > You don't need to tell the US people how bad things are. They know from daily experience that their leaders are lying to them. Survivalists used to be a fringe group. Now they call themselves 'preppers' and there are support groups in every state. Quote: Japan Earthquake & Nuclear Crisis Create Epic Demand For Emergency Preparedness Supplies Thursday, April 7, 2011 Japan earthquake, tsunami & nuclear crisis has slammed Emergency Preparedness Suppliers across the country, resulting in epic demand for Freeze Dried Food and Survival Kits. Unprecedented levels of demand for these products has literally wiped out inventories, resulting in months long delays for supplies. "Prepping," stocking supplies for an uncertain future -- an act that was once considered fringe -- is apparently becoming mainstream as more and more people are becoming alarmed by current events. "Our customer base is increasing dramatically in scale and diversity," reveals Baum. "Today we are just as likely to receive an order for 6 months of food supplies from a business executive in Los Angeles as we are a traditional prepper. Its good for business, but a sad state of affairs." -------------------------- I understand the Mormons are already into this as standard practice. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 13:24:34 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:24:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 4:09 AM, BillK wrote: > Of course Wall Street is now totally corrupt and robbing the nation. ### The financial system has been corrupted by the government, yes. And as usual under a government, the resulting outrages are actually used to support even more outrageous government actions. -------------------- > But as the article I referenced makes clear, the big problem is the > rule of law and regulatory capture. > > The laws are already on the books. But if you work in Wall Street, > nobody will enforce the laws because they know that next year they > will have a multi-million dollar job in Wall Street. ### It's more than that - the laws themselves are written in order to allow transfer of resources to those in power, so no matter how outrageous their actions are, there is nothing to prosecute. If you want to fix your bank, you need to start with abolishing the bureaucrats collectively running it from DC, Whitehall, or Brussels. In other words, it won't happen. Rafal From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 30 14:14:13 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:14:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DBC1935.4080904@libero.it> Il 29/04/2011 19:32, Olga Bourlin ha scritto: > Now there's a lead story if I ever saw one! > Superman 'may end US citizenship', says Action Comics: > http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-13237795 Does he move to Canada or France? Please, not Italy. We have Berlusconi already. The judiciary would not be able to handle the burden of enquire any and all his actions, accusing his of anything he did against or not the laws, put him in trial for whatever the prosecutors could dream and Lex Luthor, The Jocker and other "pentiti" (repennted) or "collaboratori di giustizia" (justice collaborators) could support with or without material proof but their "convergent statements". Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 14:14:11 2011 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:14:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 2:24 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### It's more than that - the laws themselves are written in order to > allow transfer of resources to those in power, so no matter how > outrageous their actions are, there is nothing to prosecute. If you > want to fix your bank, you need to start with abolishing the > bureaucrats collectively running it from DC, Whitehall, or Brussels. > > In other words, it won't happen. > > So without government you think the criminal bankers will reform themselves? Or would they become even more lawless and become like the Mafia? The country needs a few like Eliot Ness to enforce the laws, that's all. (But I'm glad to see that you realize that shouting about abolishing government is a waste of breath). BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 14:14:40 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:14:40 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 3:28 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > I agree, Olga. I have yet to see any evidence of superior > enlightenment here, and I am unsubscribing from this group because I'm > having to autoblock so many participants for nonsense and bigotry, > much like I would in any average forum. So far I've just seen a lot of > hierarchism, absurd claims of meritocracy in societies which > horrifically and rigidly stratified, crude and aggressive tribalism > and racism etc. ### Oh, phleeeze > > The idea that the budget deficit is some great and insoluble problem > is nonsense. Raising taxes on the wealthiest back to what they were > during the peak of America's economic growth and upward mobility would > easily cure the deficit by itself. ### To cure the deficit you would have to raise my taxes and the taxes of everybody who makes more than I to about 70 - 80 %, assuming persons who earn less get no tax increases. In other words, for every 10 dollars I make, 8 would go for taxes. This would make my net income drift down to somewhat below today's average. I am working in a crappy place away from home to bring in extra money and to be able to indulge my passion for science, working in a biotech company. But, if almost all I make was taken away, I would just stop doing it. The investors who pay for my company would be wiped out as well. So instead of some patients getting treated and some science getting done, I and many others would do something else - and it is absolutely guaranteed it would be much less socially useful, like writing NIH grant applications or lobbying the bureaucrats, or even becoming one. After all, if you can't lick them, join them. ----------------- More modest tax increases coupled > with slashing the insane military budget to some small sane multiple > of the next biggest(currently China's) would also take care of the > budget deficit and pay down the national debt very quickly. The > illusion of a budget deficit and national debt is created sustained by > the lowest federal taxes in 80 years, since the low ?low taxes leading > into the Great Crash. ### How about the highest government spending levels ever? Stealing money to pay for your lifestyle is a great idea until you run of suckers. ------------------ > > The idea that CEO's today are working so much harder(at 400plus times > average worker pay) than CEO's when Reagan took power(40 times average > worker pay) is false. ### Spike didn't say that. No reasonable person says that. ------------------ CEO's are not working ten times harder now than > 30 years ago. This is rank hierarchism again, and a false claim of > meritocracy where it does not exist. ### No, spike didn't say that either. So, who are you arguing against? ------------------ I know. I'm a CEO of a small > hedge fund, and in my own career have worked with and done business > with a lot of CEO's of very big financial companies whose names you'd > instantly recognize. Many are very talented, and many are not talented > in any business sense but are great "survivor" contestants good at > scheming and backstabbing their way to the top. Virtually none of them > are worth 400 times what average workers are making. I wouldn't pay > it, as a shareholder or director. ### Nobody's forcing you. -------------------- It's just too easy to find talented > people to replace them at a much lower price than these absurd > multiples. ### These "absurd multiples" are a drop in the bucket compared to losses you would sustain while looking for the cheap talent. The issue is not merit, talent or some nebulous idea of "desert" - the issue is day-to-day efficiency in running a company. Do you know that the stock price of a company (i.e. the value assigned by prospective buyers based on expectations of future economic productivity) drops by on average 20%, according to Danish data, after the death of a CEO's child? Imagine that Procter and Gamble would announce they are firing their CEO, to spend the next 6 months looking for a cheap replacement and save themselves about 0.01% of their gross income on executive pay. What is in your professional opinion, as a hedge fund CEO, the likely impact of this announcement on P&G stock? I note you are not providing any numbers and quantitative analysis in your posts. Is your hedge fund doing well? Just asking, not trying to be horrifically, rigidly, absurdly snide, hierarchical and tribalistic, or something. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 14:26:14 2011 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:26:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <20110429105252.GL23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 10:14 AM, BillK wrote: > So without government you think the criminal bankers will reform themselves? ### Yes, of course. Without a government preventing the entry of solid competitors, e.g. completely transparent gold deposit houses, you would have a choice of banks, and the bad ones would soon run out of customers to fleece. --------------------- > Or would they become even more lawless and become like the Mafia? ### Then you would send your private police after them. ------------------- > (But I'm glad to see that you realize that shouting about abolishing > government is a waste of breath). ### Bill, give it up :) You can't convince me that embracing malignant stupidity (i.e. centralized control of the society) is a good idea. Of course I will agitate for its abolition, even though I have no hope of success. It makes me feel both virtuous and smart. Can't beat that. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 14:30:26 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 07:30:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> Message-ID: <00cf01cc0743$263b1030$72b13090$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Olga Bourlin Subject: Re: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading On Fri, Apr 29, 2011 at 10:58 PM, spike wrote: > Aside: even in this far-more-than-average enlightened group ... and >> I do urge us all to refrain from insulting each other's favorite political systems, or making sweeping generalizations regarding >> libertarians, conservatives, liberals, or anything else. ?We can do better than that here. >...Spike, since you made the sweeping generalization ;)) about this "far-more-than-average" enlightened group, I would love to know what it is that makes you (or anyone else) here think this... I compare with my other internet groups. Do let me assure you. Regarding recent posts, one can get a pretty good idea of where a poster stands politically if they conflate two of the three major divisions: liberal, libertarian, conservative. As Fred pointed out, libertarian is actually a huge collection of disparate things. The same can be said of liberal and conservative. We saw the notion posted here that a libertarian and a conservative is actually the same thing, in every way that really matters. That comment says more about the poster than either the libertarian or the conservative. Consider this thought experiment. The true conservative says: the liberal and the libertarian are the really the same thing, because they all allow abortion, think the earth is older than 6000 years, but it doesn't matter because they will all burn in the lake of fire, etc. (Yes I am being snarky, but this is me.) The true liberal says: the conservative and the libertarian are really the same thing because they both want to starve grandmas and they are all a bunch of racists anyway. The true libertarian says: the conservative and the liberal are really the same thing, because they are big government types driving the bus of state towards the edge of the cliff, not arguing about which way to turn the steering wheel but rather how hard to stomp the gas pedal. One says to the floor, the other says beyond. spike From anders at aleph.se Sat Apr 30 15:38:26 2011 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:38:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> Message-ID: <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> One problem I see with our starmoving scheme is keeping the Dyson cloud in orbit. When it reflects the star's light it will also tend to expand/move ahead, and we need to restore it to it's original position relative to the star. That seems to require some work. A statite will be kept in place by gravity, but that only works for a ring around the star, not a whole shell. Is there any analysis of closed static orbits for reflectors reflecting in a particular direction? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 16:14:33 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:14:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: On 30 April 2011 06:28, Jones Murphy wrote: > Why execute 80% plus of the world's transactions in a > fraudulent currency, and virtually 100% in some central bank-managed > currency or other? Why indeed... -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 16:36:22 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:36:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: <007001cc06ef$18c732c0$4a559840$@att.net> References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> <007001cc06ef$18c732c0$4a559840$@att.net> Message-ID: On 30 April 2011 06:28, spike wrote: > What could be envisioned is so fundamentally different from having it. ?In > Marconi's era, we could envision something analogous to a chat group and > even web pages, but the storage medium would be primarily paper. ?That would > be so expensive and messy, no one would bother with it. ?No one did back in > the old days. Mmhhh, I think that you could have explained Internet exactly as it is, since all theoretical fundamentals for its later establishment had already been put in place. I am not absurdly arguing for the irrelevance of the Internet, and not even of eBay, Wikipedia, Second Life, etc. What I am trying to say is that as great as the social impact of it may have been, how could you compare it with the breakthroughs I mentioned before, and which to some extent made such things almost inevitable, as they were *not* before? We can be glad of having the Internet, rather than, say, a refined version of Compuserve or Minitel, and graphical interfaces are a nice touch over teletype-like computing. But the power grid and the theoretical and technological infrastructure which allowed us to establish it, is what really has been crucial in changing the world and making all that feasible. What are we doing now on such game-changing scale? From the horse to the rocket, from the abacus to universal electronic computers, from messengers and live performances to the recording and remote transmission of sounds, images and data, from herbal tea to vaccin/antibiotic/surgery based medicine? -- Stefano Vaj From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 16:36:22 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:36:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> Message-ID: A light sail can hover. It takes active control since both the light pressure and gravity fall off on a 1/R^2. If you hang a hemisphere of light sails around a star, the light more or less goes one way and the star, gravitationally coupled to the light sails, goes the other. Keith On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 8:38 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > One problem I see with our starmoving scheme is keeping the Dyson cloud in > orbit. When it reflects the star's light it will also tend to expand/move > ahead, and we need to restore it to it's original position relative to the > star. That seems to require some work. > > A statite will be kept in place by gravity, but that only works for a ring > around the star, not a whole shell. Is there any analysis of closed static > orbits for reflectors reflecting in a particular direction? > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute > Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 16:54:42 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 18:54:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> Message-ID: 2011/4/29 Mr Jones : > I'm not sure what your case is. ?That's it's reasonable for CEO's to make > over a thousand times an avg. worker? What about the ability of accumulating virtual exchange units - essentially by the manipulation thereof and beyond any limit of what you can expect to be able to consume - having become the exclusive adaptative trait, hierarchical factor and status symbol in our societies? I do not know what our libertarian friends make of it, but I do not see any of especially obvious or productive in such development. In fact, if you add to that an increasingly limited social mobility, I suspect it to make for an exceedingly stagnant society, where very little new wealth is created and real-world (as opposed to "financial") innovation is abhorred. But those who are concerned by the "end of work" in a "post-scarcity world" need not fear. There will always be more and more banks, financial institutions and intermediaries, employing increasing numbers of people in an endless trading and selling one another of increasingly abstract "financial products", at least as long as the system will be able to feed all those employees. :-) -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 16:54:40 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 09:54:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00fa01cc0757$4c28e740$e47ab5c0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] The Great Silence again >...One problem I see with our starmoving scheme is keeping the Dyson cloud in orbit. When it reflects the star's light it will also tend to expand/move ahead, and we need to restore it to it's original position relative to the star. That seems to require some work. >A statite will be kept in place by gravity, but that only works for a ring around the star, not a whole shell. Is there any analysis of closed static orbits for reflectors reflecting in a particular direction? -- Anders Sandberg Nein, Dr. Sandberg. If you take any orbiting mirror with mass per unit area sufficient such that the light pressure from the star is smaller than the gravitational attraction, the Dyson cloud does not need any orbit adjust. I can show you the orbit BOTECs Robert and I did on that question, but for now I will describe it with words instead. If one imagines the ring of reflecting nodes orbiting in a plane perpendicular to the acceleration vector, then the orbit plane is shifted in the direction towards the acceleration of the star. The angle from the center of the star to the reflectors in that plane is proportional to the tangent of the ratio of light pressure to gravitational attraction. If we are pulling the star west, the perpendicular plane is west of the centerline of the star. That part is easy. Now, here's the really wicked cool part: if we look at the nodes orbiting in a plane parallel to the acceleration vector, the nodes spend more time on the west side of the star than it spends on the east side of the star. So it is gently tugging at the star for more time when it is west than when it is east. Kepler's law is violated if light pressure is significant in comparison to gravity. (Kewall, huh? {8^D) I would like to see some orbit hipsters and general RSPs here to duplicate those calcs. My BOTECs from my irresponsible early adulthood showed that these orbits were all stable, so long as the reflectors were all heavier than statites, heavy enough that gravity overpowers light pressure. spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 17:00:22 2011 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:00:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 30 April 2011 17:38, Anders Sandberg wrote: > One problem I see with our starmoving scheme is keeping the Dyson cloud in > orbit. When it reflects the star's light it will also tend to expand/move > ahead, and we need to restore it to it's original position relative to the > star. That seems to require some work. Shouldn't a relatively rigid, highly symmetric Dyson sphere stay in position even without moving, since both gravity and light pressure would work equally in all directions? I have always wondered, however, if such a sphere built by the re-arrangement of the non-stellar matter of our system would find its internal surface at a distance from the sun suitable to life... I have no idea, also because I expect that the internal temperature of a Dyson star would probably be fairly different from that of a planetary surface at the same distance... -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Sat Apr 30 17:35:22 2011 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 10:35:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] it's better than it used to be In-Reply-To: References: <002b01cc04a1$82795fe0$876c1fa0$@att.net> <007001cc06ef$18c732c0$4a559840$@att.net> Message-ID: <011001cc075c$fc3502e0$f49f08a0$@att.net> ... On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] it's better than it used to be On 30 April 2011 06:28, spike wrote: >> What could be envisioned is so fundamentally different from having it. ? In Marconi's era...That would be so expensive and messy, no one would bother with >> it. ?No one did back in the old days. >...Mmhhh, I think that you could have explained Internet exactly as it is, since all theoretical fundamentals for its later establishment had already been put in place. >...I am not absurdly arguing for the irrelevance of the Internet, and not even of eBay, Wikipedia, Second Life, etc... Ja. >...What I am trying to say is that as great as the social impact of it may have been, how could you compare it with the breakthroughs I mentioned before, and which to some extent made such things almost inevitable, as they were *not* before? Granted they were envisioned. Check K. Eric Drexler's comments on what later became the web. That was in 1986, but he had crystal clear vision extending about ten years into the future. In Engines of Creation, the K.Eric had a good description of a web vision. >... What are we doing now on such game-changing scale? ...-- Stefano Vaj Our paradigms are gradually changing. I have fully accepted the fact that many of our old business models will fail. I do not expect the classic model of a guy sitting in a cubicle at a 9 to 5 for 40 years, then get a gold watch and die will be a common life map. Regarding game changing technologies, some of them are subtle and steady. The best example I can give is how solid state memory has revolutionized telephony, PDAs, photography, mass storage, etc. That is a game changer, but it is something that developed over years, rather than the web, which just showed up unannounced much to our delight. spike From natasha at natasha.cc Sat Apr 30 17:38:42 2011 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:38:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Book: Transhumanism and Its Critics Message-ID: I received my copy of the book today -- H?: Transhumanism and Its Critics Edited by Gregory Hansell and William Grassie Contributors (below) Humans Plus or Minus: An Introduction, by William Grassie and Gregory Hansell I. A Critical Historical Perspective on Transhumanism 1. Engaging Transhumanism, by Hava Tirosh-Samuelson II. H+ Proponents of Transhumanism 2. In Defense of Posthuman Dignity, by Nick Bostrom 3. SENS Statement of Principle, by Aubrey de Grey 4. Bringing Arts/Sciences and Design into the Discussion of Transhumanism, by Natasha Vita-More 5. Conceptualizing Future Identities, by Sky Marsen 6. Ship of Fools: Why Transhumanism is the Best Bet to Prevent the Extinction of Civilization, by Mark Walker 7. From Mind Loading to Mind Cloning ? Gene to Meme to Beme: A Perspective on the Nature of Humanity, by Martine Rothblatt III. H? Point Counterpoint 8. Of Which Human Are We Post?, by Don Ihde 9. True Transhumanism: A Reply to Don Ihde, by Max More 10. Transhumanism and the Posthuman Future, by Ted Peters 11. Trite Truths About Technology: A Reply to Ted Peters, by Russell Blackford 12. Brains, Selves and Spirituality in the History of Cybernetics by Andrew Pickering 13. Transhumanism: Threat or Menance? A Response to Andrew Pickering by Michael LaTorra IV. H-: Critical Perspectives on Transhumanism 14. Wrestling with Transhumanism, by Katherine Hayles 15. Cybernetics Is Antihumanism, by Jean-Pierre Dupuy 16. Millennialism at the Singularity: Reflections on Ray Kurzweil?s Exponential Logic, by William Grassie http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanism-Critics-Gregory-R-Hansell/dp/1456815652/ ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8 &qid=1304184444&sr=1-1-spell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Transhumanismanditscritics.png Type: image/png Size: 101414 bytes Desc: not available URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 19:06:47 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 12:06:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 10:00 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 30 April 2011 17:38, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> One problem I see with our starmoving scheme is keeping the Dyson cloud in >> orbit. When it reflects the star's light it will also tend to expand/move >> ahead, and we need to restore it to it's original position relative to the >> star. That seems to require some work. > > Shouldn't a relatively rigid, highly symmetric Dyson sphere stay in > position even without moving, since both gravity and light pressure > would work equally in all directions? For a non rotating Dyson sphere that's thin enough the light pressure would balance the gravity from the sun. The light pressure at the distance of the earth's orbit is around 9.3 N per square km. The force on this square km from solar gravity at the distance of earth is (solar mass) x mass of a square km x G/distance to the sun squared Thus 9.3 N/square km = 1.9891?10^30 x 6.674?10^-11 x m / (1.496?10^11)^2 Solving for m, m = 9/(1.9891?10^30 x 6.674?10^-11 / (1.496?10^11)^2) m = 9/(1.9891?10^30 x 6.674?10^-11 / (1.496?10^11)^2) m - 9/10^-3 x (1.9891 x 6.674? / (1.496)^2 m = 1568 kg/square km. or .001568 kg/square meter. Aluminum has a density of 2700 kg/cubic meter so if the shell were made of Al, it would be .001568 kg/m^2/2700 kg/m^3 or 5.8 x 10-7 meters thick. Or 580 nm thick. That's about the thickness of a soap bubble. It checks with what I remember of Eric Drexler's work on aluminum high performance light sails that were around 200 nm thick. Keith > I have always wondered, however, if such a sphere built by the > re-arrangement of the non-stellar matter of our system would find its > internal surface at a distance from the sun suitable to life... I have > no idea, also because I expect that the internal temperature of a > Dyson star would probably be fairly different from that of a planetary > surface at the same distance... > > -- > Stefano Vaj > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 20:44:30 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 14:44:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> <00a101cc0508$42b46e60$c81d4b20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 12:54 PM, Jones Murphy wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 8:23 PM, spike wrote: > > >> Now we have an energy czar (Van Jones) who wants to confer human rights on >> the planet earth. ?I can't tell if that is a promotion from a dead rock or a >> demotion from the goddess Gaia. > > Van Jones has not been an energy czar for 2 years now. He was fired > almost immediately after Obama took office because of yet another > race-baiting controversy manufactured by Breitbart and Fox News ?over > his supposed signature of some petition accusing Bush of committing > 9/11. The petition's authors( 911truth.org ) later admitted his > signature was faked, but it was too late. Van Jones also had a pretty extensively documented past as a devoted communist. I have heard recordings of him saying the following (think of the voice of a southern Baptist preacher while reading): "This movement is deeper than a solar panel. Deeper than a solar panel. Don?t stop there. Don?t stop there. No, we?re going to change the whole system. We?re going to change the whole thing. We?re not going to put a new battery in a broken system. We want a new system. We want a new system." "And our Native American sisters and brothers who were pushed and bullied and mistreated and shoved into all the land we didn?t want, where it was all hot and windy, well, guess what, renewable energy. Guess what, solar industry. Guess what, wind industry. They now own and control 80% of the renewable energy resources. No more broken treaties. No more broken treaties. Give them the wealth. Give them the wealth. Give them the dignity. Give them the respect that they deserve. No justice on stolen land. We owe them a debt." "The white polluters and the white environmentals(sic) are essentially steering poison into the people of colored communities." Those seem like some pretty radical and irresponsible statements IMHO for someone in a position of power in the government. Thankfully now he's working for the 'Center For American Progress' where he can't do much harm, or can he? A November 2008 article in Time stated that "not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan's transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway." Oh snap. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 21:15:12 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:15:12 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Talk like an uploader! =P In-Reply-To: <4DB6EAF6.2090900@speakeasy.net> References: <4DB6EAF6.2090900@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Apr 26, 2011 at 9:55 AM, Alan Grimes wrote: OK, nobody else has taken a stab at this, so I'll bite. > parallel the writings of the Big Weenie (Kurzweil), Why is RK the Big Weenie? And if he is the big weenie, why parallel his writings? Or is big weenie a good thing? ;-) > I catagoricaly do not endorse the following > as a political manifesto. That's good since it really isn't. More of a view of a potential future. > I will definitely not be playing my usual character in any ensuing > discussions. > > mu > > Human history can be understood as a discreet series of integrations > facilitated by technology. Families became tribes, tribes became > villages, villages became city-states, city-states became nations. Then > a phase-change occurred, the mode of integration stopped being mere > physical proximitity involving cities and sky-scrapers, it became > informational, based on telecommunications. Telegraphs became > telephones. Telephones became the internet. Now everyone is expected to > carry it around in their pocket. Looked at another way, the same trend can be stated, "There has been an exponential increase in the speed of communication between people over time. Because of this, the size of the network meaningfully interacted with by each individual has also grown, but linearly. There is no reason to believe that these increases will slow." > The next stage of human evolution will be organic. Here you lose me entirely. Why do you assert this? > The telecommunication > devices will be implanted in the body, opening new channels of > communication. Again, why? Communication devices that efficiently interface with us through our current senses will take us a long way. People are not likely to subject themselves to surgery until it is nano surgery, so I see this as a way down the road. > This will begin a third major chain of evolutionary > steps. The next stage after that will begin when we realize that as > automation progresses, our bodies will become increasingly redundant. I agree with the idea that bodies will become increasingly redundant, but not for some time. This will require an evolutionary path of robotics that will occur outside of human beings initially. The technologies will be merged eventually, but will evolve separately for some time. > We > will begin living in pods that maintain our bodies while allowing us to > enjoy the gigabit bandwidths a land-line allows full-time. If you're going to live in a pod, then lose the body. This pod to maintain the body idea is ridiculous IMHO. > This next > impetus for change will come from the costs inherent in maintaining > separate systems. The next change in the social order will come when we > abandon our individual dwellings and store our pods in huge communal > facilities. The economies of scale will probably plateau at this stage > for a while. I disagree. Individuality is at risk in the future, but moving a bunch of pods into a warehouse just seems unlikely to me. The only reason to maintain a body is so that you can leave the pod/matrix. > The problem of maintaining individual pods will remain until the problem > of merging bodies together is solved. This will permit the ultimate > phase of integration. By fusing our bodies together we can achieve even > greater economies of scale. Crazy talk. By the time you could do this, you wouldn't want to. > Do to safety considerations of being too > close to our impermanent sun, we will be forced to limit the level of > integration to a few hundred tons worth so that it will be possible to > launch us into space using rockets and then complete the integration > while in orbit. Why not just upload into a more efficient substrate of computronium. Why maintain cells and ATP? > The resulting being will be a tightly networked community of minds > sharing a common dreamscape and linked to powerful computronium-based AI > engines that will provide the necessary logistical support. This makes sense. Just lose the tie to biology. Biology is not the most compatible way to get into space. > Over the long term, the AI systems will mine out the solar system and > maintain an appropriate balance between living and machine mater. As new > planets are discovered, new people will be spawned off to go and > experience it and then be returned to the collective after they have > matured. Why return when you can just return the information and keep going? > The only questions that remain are the technical issues of how to > accomplish this. Sure. > The primary concern is heat. Heat will be the ultimate limiting factor > of how dense the collective can be. In all probability, a fractal > pattern will be used to increase the surface area available for > radiating away heat. You're diving into the details here. It weakens your argument to change the level of the discussion. > Energy is a lesser concern but can be mitigated because you only need to > really support the brain and the base metabolism, there would be no need > for any kind of physical exertion much less kitchen appliances or fast > cars. Even better is to be loaded into a substrate that can maintain healthy operations at 4 degrees Kelvin. A lot of the energy concern sending cells into outer space is keeping them above freezing. Lose the cells, and you lose most of the problem. > The primary biological need is a constant source of ATP. The > metabolization of fat and sugar molecules for energy involving the > consumption of oxygen and the production of uric acid is far too > inefficient. The collective's tissues will be converted to absorb > microwave energy using nano-devices which will supply the necessary ATP. > The balance of other nutrients will be maintained through a common blood > stream and a combination of mechanical and organic organs to re-process > toxic substances. Again, lose the biology, solve the problem. > Immune system compatibility issues will be solved by replacing the > immune system with a nano-based system. > > The merging itself will be quite pleasant. It will be mediated by a > dense swarm of nano-fog that will envelop part or all of the bodies to > be merged and accomplish the merging while managing the sensory > stimulation to be either numbed or pleasurable. As the collective grows, > it will be able to completely envelop new members or smaller collectives. We'll see. Again, much easier if you lose the cells. > The process will involve upgrading individual cells and then > re-organizing them into new tissues and structures. > > Brains, obviously, will be preserved as much as possible except where > necessary to adapt to the new physical form. Specifically, the autonomic > functions will be re-designed to meet the new set of needs. > > Life in the collective will be nearly careless except that you will have > some perception of your part of the collective and some of your > neighbors. This will be a minimal but essential role in maintaining the > safety of the entire collective. > > If your body isn't strong enough to undergo the process or you feel that > it is deficient, it can be upgraded before you begin the merging process. > > Evolution past this stage is less clear because it depends much on how a > great many technical questions are resolved. I would tend to think it > would feature a continuation of the blurring of the distinction between > individuals and between what is deemed living and what is deemed machine. I like this paragraph. It's accurate (we don't know a great number of things) and it is deep enough to provoke thought. > Okay, there I've done it. I took a completely new, and potentially > dangerous meme, loaded it into a gun which I know works, and pulled the > trigger. I can't say it's everything that I had hoped it would be then > there is not much else I can say in the emotional state I'm in right now. I'm not sure why this meme is dangerous. It's not all that believable, and so it's reproductive speed will be very slow. Slowly reproducing memes are rarely that hazardous. Sorry about your emotional state. > IMPEACH OBAMA NOW. > Presidents cannot be allowed to start wars. > Powers are not rights. Disagree as I do with Obama, I don't think he's done anything worthy of being impeached (that we know of). He would argue that he didn't start the war, but that the UN did. Whatever. I think Obama is chasing the ghost of Clinton's failure in Rwanda. He doesn't want to have to apologize for doing nothing in the future. The middle east is, of course, a quagmire, and nothing you do there will ever work out for your good. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 21:20:06 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:20:06 -0600 Subject: [ExI] PaleoCRON? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 3:31 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:37 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > "Participating in alcohol" is actually positive for life expectancy in > limited quantities, particularly red wine. The antioxidants and other ingredients of red wine have been shown to be healthy. I know of no proof that the alcohol is required to achieve these benefits. Perhaps the alcohol keeps you coming back often enough to get the benefit. ;-) > If you're from genetic > stock that lives to something near human max life-span, i.e. well over > 100 yrs consistently, then CR's benefits will be less for you indeed. > But I imagine they won't be zero. And the late-life quality of life > improvements beyond just number of years are quite substantial and are > worth exploring. Just living long is certainly less interesting than living well for a long time. > The big caveat with CR is that most of the benefits derive from > starting young. Late onset delivers more limited benefits(though > significant for those prone to diabetes, heart disease and cancer). At > the DNA level CR does still stop or reverse something like 80% of > age-related DNA changes, per Stephen Spindler's excellent gene-chip > work. Probably too late for me then... I eat like shit. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 21:27:18 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:27:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: What if Medicare required a living will? In-Reply-To: References: <4db8acb8.513f2b0a.5a3e.fffffb15SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > A remarkable proportion of healthcare costs go to > the very last days or hours of our lives.? Something like 50% of expenses are in the last two years, last I heard. > His idea is voluntary. But I?d make a different suggestion. What if, > to be eligible for Medicare, you had to give someone power of attorney > and sign a living will? Then the government would have to hire legions of lawyers. Still, this is an interesting idea. > And although Sarah Palin managed > to rechristen medical counseling about end-of-life options ?death > panels,? I choose to believe that that sort of childishness isn?t > inevitable and that this country can make adult decisions about adult > problems. I have understood death panels to mean groups of doctors deciding who can have their lives artificially extended by heroic means. I think most hospitals have committees that do this now. The fear of conservatives is that these panels will migrate from the private sphere to the public. I'd much rather have a group of well meaning doctors deciding my fate than a bunch of bureaucratic government types. I haven't read Palin's specific fears... > This also raises the question of what other simple choices, or > policies, have the potential to change a major driver of health-care > costs without requiring major reforms to the health-care system. The > floor is open for ideas. Of course the health care system can be improved. But does it need to be dismantled entirely in order to be improved? It's a slow moving tsunami destroying the system out there right now. I figure the Supreme Court is going to throw out some of all of Obamacare anyway. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 21:36:21 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:36:21 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Capitalism 2.0 was Status as human motivator In-Reply-To: <00c701cc0518$d0e42b70$72ac8250$@att.net> References: <00c701cc0518$d0e42b70$72ac8250$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 2:22 PM, spike wrote: >>... On Behalf Of Jeff Davis > ... > >>... ?I would not be averse even to nationalizing the banking system -- > investment and retail -- completely, just plain taking it out of the private > sector. ?The long and ignoble history of thievery in the business of big > money flows just begs for it...Best, Jeff Davis > > What of the long and ignoble history of thievery in the business of > government? ?Nationalizing the banking system will not help. ?Rather it > would make a bad problem worse, much worse. +1 Spike! Look no further than the current irresponsible actions of the Federal Reserve in devaluing the dollar. Sigh. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 21:41:09 2011 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:41:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] The Great Silence again In-Reply-To: References: <4DB48803.5000900@lightlink.com> <4DB567CA.505@lightlink.com> <20110425143156.GR23560@leitl.org> <4DB71084.2090805@satx.rr.com> <007f01cc0454$11f9a880$35ecf980$@att.net> <4DB73B03.5070107@aleph.se> <000001cc0467$5f8cb020$1ea61060$@att.net> <4DBC2CF2.2010008@aleph.se> Message-ID: >> Shouldn't a relatively rigid, highly symmetric Dyson sphere stay in >> position even without moving, since both gravity and light pressure >> would work equally in all directions? If you deployed sails on one side of the star, and folded the sails up on the other side, wouldn't you get an effective trust from the difference in light pressure? It might not be much acceleration, but it seems like it would produce some. -Kelly From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Apr 30 21:44:01 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 16:44:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: What if Medicare required a living will? In-Reply-To: References: <4db8acb8.513f2b0a.5a3e.fffffb15SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <4DBC82A1.3010209@satx.rr.com> On 4/30/2011 4:27 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I haven't read Palin's specific fears... Don't hold your breath. From thespike at satx.rr.com Sat Apr 30 22:05:10 2011 From: thespike at satx.rr.com (Damien Broderick) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 17:05:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] psi debate at Harvard (video) Message-ID: <4DBC8796.4070306@satx.rr.com> Recent psi debate at Harvard, with Daryl Bem, Jonathan Schooler, and Sam Moulton: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tdiu5kwjKs From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 22:05:42 2011 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 15:05:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: What if Medicare required a living will? In-Reply-To: References: <4db8acb8.513f2b0a.5a3e.fffffb15SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 2:27 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> A remarkable proportion of healthcare costs go to >> the very last days or hours of our lives.? > > Something like 50% of expenses are in the last two years, last I heard. > >> His idea is voluntary. But I?d make a different suggestion. What if, >> to be eligible for Medicare, you had to give someone power of attorney >> and sign a living will? > > Then the government would have to hire legions of lawyers. Still, this > is an interesting idea. Why? I have one and there were no lawyers involved. It could be as simple as a check sheet and a place to fill in the name of someone who you trust to make the decisions you would make it you are in a coma or something. snip > I'd much rather have a group of well meaning > doctors deciding my fate than a bunch of bureaucratic government > types. I haven't read Palin's specific fears... The trouble is, doctors or the hospital they work for, have a financial interest in spending a ton of money for end of life care. Or they fear they will be sued by relatives if they don't do everything possible to revive someone who might not want it. The function of living wills is to take such power out of the doctors hands and put it in your own. You can always say you want all possible measures taken to keep you "alive" no matter how bad the outcome. But most people don't want extreme measures taken to keep them alive and in pain or in a vegetative state. snip Keith From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 23:19:03 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:19:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] death of a pv installation: was RE: How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <005401cc04ee$0ae35560$20aa0020$@att.net> <00a101cc0508$42b46e60$c81d4b20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 4:44 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Those seem like some pretty radical and irresponsible statements IMHO > for someone in a position of power in the government. > Maybe if they weren't true. I can see how it'd upset the status quo, but those who haven't prospered under the current system are likely rejoicing in talk like that. If despising the way things are makes me a communist, gimme a card. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 23:27:15 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:27:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] How slow is capitalism? In-Reply-To: References: <4DB8C384.3020803@mac.com> <4DB91A7F.3060402@moulton.com> <4DB9E91F.8050003@mac.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 12:28 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > If so, why aren't the > numerous countries with no central banks or ineffective central banks > constantly bleeding capital to the countries with central banks, for > the last few centuries and continuing today? > 'We' had a big enough head start, and used our head start to sabotage any/everything we could along the way, that stood a chance of giving 'them' the upper hand. > Why is so much money > continuing to flee freedom and stability for instability and > megafraud? > Greed. Thrill seeking. Ignorance. The same reason Vegas racks 'em in every year. > Why execute 80% plus of the world's transactions in a > fraudulent currency, and virtually 100% in some central bank-managed > currency or other? > Because if they don't we'll bomb them to hell and back. > Why not more transactions in privately issued > currencies, > 'We' would deem them illegal, and stomp a muddy in their rears. Noticing a pattern here....force, deception, coercion... > gold and what not? > There's not enough gold to cover all the 'fake' money we've made over the decades. The game would be over. > Why has the reign of an Ayn Rand > disciple at the Fed, with the most Mieses-friendly policies since the > ones which helped precipitate the Great Depression, ended in the > greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression? > Because those truly in power planned for 'us' to be brought down. Borders are irrelevant to them. A nuisance to be soon overcome; if they get their way. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Apr 30 23:30:53 2011 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 01 May 2011 01:30:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: What if Medicare required a living will? In-Reply-To: References: <4db8acb8.513f2b0a.5a3e.fffffb15SMTPIN_ADDED@mx.google.com> Message-ID: <4DBC9BAD.8010503@libero.it> Il 30/04/2011 23:27, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Wed, Apr 27, 2011 at 7:04 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> And although Sarah Palin managed >> to rechristen medical counseling about end-of-life options ?death >> panels,? I choose to believe that that sort of childishness isn?t >> inevitable and that this country can make adult decisions about adult >> problems. > I have understood death panels to mean groups of doctors deciding who > can have their lives artificially extended by heroic means. I think > most hospitals have committees that do this now. The fear of > conservatives is that these panels will migrate from the private > sphere to the public. I'd much rather have a group of well meaning > doctors deciding my fate than a bunch of bureaucratic government > types. I haven't read Palin's specific fears... The problem, with socialized health care, is resources are limited, so some rationing must happen. If the hospitals are forced to extend heroic efforts to all, they would go broke if someone don't pay for it. The government is out of money. So, the panels are the groups that decide what is cost-effective and can be done and what is not cost-effective. Obviously, the guidelines and protocols given out by these panels will be binding or, anyway, the large part of the doctors will not annoy the bureaucrats for some decisions don't impacting on their life (not for long, anyway). Then, you will have people older than, with this or that pathology, that will be declared unworthy of treatments. All this justified because "we must think to the babieeessss". So, these could be the reasons to put a ninety years old last for a his prostheses, even if he is in relative good health. Add to this that, the patients with the right connections will, anyway, have their health care. Do you think a Senator of the US or of any state senate would not find a doctor or the head of an hospital available to do whatever is needed and not needed for his ninety years old mother, father or young but decerebrate (by a car crash) son? Do you think, if the POTUS is 85 years old, they will enforce the spending limits and appropriate care limits if he have a severe brain stroke? Mirco From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 23:43:56 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:43:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 1:58 AM, spike wrote: > Simple solution: get an average worker to serve as CEO. > > Any takers? > I'll take it. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Apr 30 23:59:01 2011 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (Mr Jones) Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2011 19:59:01 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Efficiency of algorithmic trading In-Reply-To: References: <20110429090553.GG23560@leitl.org> <20110429093852.GJ23560@leitl.org> <007a01cc06f4$a5a9fe70$f0fdfb50$@att.net> <009c01cc06fb$aa9bd8c0$ffd38a40$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 3:28 AM, Jones Murphy wrote: > The idea that the budget deficit is some great and insoluble problem > is nonsense. Raising taxes on the wealthiest back to what they were > during the peak of America's economic growth and upward mobility would > easily cure the deficit by itself. > Hell, I'd settle for Clinton-era tax levels. But sure. Absolutely. > More modest tax increases coupled > with slashing the insane military budget to some small sane multiple > of the next biggest(currently China's) would also take care of the > budget deficit and pay down the national debt very quickly. > Again, you've got my vote. This is exactly what I've been prescribing. > The > illusion of a budget deficit and national debt is created sustained by > the lowest federal taxes in 80 years, since the low low taxes leading > into the Great Crash. > Not to mention all the ridiculous games Corp. have been allowed to play. > > The idea that CEO's today are working so much harder(at 400plus times > average worker pay) than CEO's when Reagan took power(40 times average > worker pay) is false. > I don't care who you are, or what you've done; There isn't a man/woman walking this planet who's worthy of 100's of MILLIONS, while there's BILLIONS who exist on less than a dollar a day. > CEO's are not working ten times harder now than > 30 years ago. This is rank hierarchism again, and a false claim of > meritocracy where it does not exist. I know. I'm a CEO of a small > hedge fund, and in my own career have worked with and done business > with a lot of CEO's of very big financial companies whose names you'd > instantly recognize. Many are very talented, and many are not talented > in any business sense but are great "survivor" contestants good at > scheming and backstabbing their way to the top. > Many no doubt riding on the coat tails of something great dad/grand-dad did decades ago. > Virtually none of them > are worth 400 times what average workers are making. I wouldn't pay > it, as a shareholder or director. It's just too easy to find talented > people to replace them at a much lower price than these absurd > multiples. > Mix things up. Counter all the entrenchment rotting the system. This goes for govt. too. > And in fact that's what is happening in most of the world. > The US is a striking exception, and this cannot last without severe > negative consequences. > I couldn't agree with you more. We're about to get our asses handed to us. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: