[ExI] Inevitability of the Singularity (was Re: To Max, re Natasha and Extropy (Kevin Haskell)

[Tomasz Rola]

On Fri, 15 Jul 2011, Kelly Anderson wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:34 AM, Tomasz Rola <rtomek at ceti.pl> wrote:
> > On Thu, 14 Jul 2011, Kelly Anderson wrote:
> >
[...]
> >> threats. How much did we spend in WWII to solve the Hitler problem? A
> >> lot. We had a big problem and we solved it.
> >
> > This is not the best example, really. Actually it is a half-example, at
> > best. US spent a lot on WW2 and I don't deny it. On the other hand, US
> > gained much more than they spent.
> 
> I know families of dead soldiers and veterans who have suffered years
> of PTSD who would likely disagree with that statement, even though
> from a purely economic viewpoint, you make an interesting argument.
> The post WWII rise in the power of America probably also came from the
> fact that our industrial capacity wasn't blown to hell... just a
> thought.

PTSD is nasty thing, especially when one is in a society unprepared to 
understand it (I think US is not). Next time I drink, I will drink one for 
those guys. Probably would not help much, however.

> > Literally tons of German know-how (and
> > some from other countries) had been transported to US, as well as
> > thousands of scientists, engineers and other specialists (Operation
> > Paperclip).
> 
> Indeed, this did mitigate the cost somewhat. I understand that there
> are European nations that still owe the US money that we "loaned" them
> to fight WWII... at least that's what my high school history teacher
> drummed into my head. Of course, if the US defaults on its loans now,
> it will make that look like a minor accounting incident.

Land Lease, very helpful indeed. From what they write here,

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Land_Lease ]

a lot of congressmen opposed it. Maybe there is a connection to allegation 
that some US corporations have been doing their business with Nazis but on 
the other hand, this old dirty stuff gets boring sooner or later.

BTW, pity that as far as I can tell, Land Lease wasn't sent to Poland, too 
- we had our own government in exile, residing in London, army, navy etc. 
We even managed to evacuate gold reserves via Romania, but from what I 
learned they have been confiscated by our British ally - I wonder why, 
especially because this had put us on pension,  but again this is a bit 
boring, at least on this particular day.

> > Last but not least, a great number of
> > folks running away from Hitler (and later, even years after the war, from
> > living in communism, however good this could have been), mostly educated
[...]
> 
> Gee, you don't think some of those people were attracted by the
> freedom and opportunity offered in the United States at the time? This
> is a very interesting spin...

Ehem, I have kind of allergy for some words, like freedoom or emocracy. 
Perhaps they are so often repeated that they start to sound unnaturally 
and like they were to be recognised and reassured, over and over, until 
they are empty and without meaning.

Opportunity, this I like.

I cannot say what drove those other people, never asked them. I guess they 
wanted opportunity.

> Perhaps communism could be good, if it were real communism, and not
> dictatorship dressed up.

It is rather hard for me to deliberate on virtues and demerits of 
communism. I don't remember having any clashes with it, even if I have 
been told of those who had. I think I owe a lot to people who surrounded 
me. As I grown up, however, I have learned this and that. I wonder, for 
example, if "real communism" is possible on big scale. I guess not. Then 
again, it would be cool to see model of this and negative proof with some 
graphs.

> There have been, here and there, small
> examples of communist type communities that worked. The Mormons, for
> example, early on had a thing called the "United Order", where all
> property was held in common by a group of people. It failed utterly
> every place it was tried except one, Orderville, UT.
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orderville,_Ut
> 
> So this is evidence that people who are all poor, who are a small
> group, who are desperate, who have strong common belief systems, can
> live something like communism successfully. I would assume some of the
> Israeli kibitz communities worked too. The Wikipedia article doesn't
> mention that disassembling the united order in Orderville just about
> tore the community into bits. It was real ugly disassembling things at
> the end of the experiment from what locals have told me.

The article sums up what I wanted to say: "The extreme poverty of these 
settlers likely contributed significantly to their devotion to the 
principles of the United Order."

When one has close to nothing, one is willing to share with others 
similarly ill-fated individuals.

> If I can steal an idea of Alistair Cockburn (a local programming guru,
> one of the signers of the original Agile Manifesto), any form of
> teamwork (waterfall, agile, whatever in programming) will work well
> with a good enough team. And nearly any organizational patterns will
> fail with a bad enough team. So the fact that communism or pure
> democracy or Waterfall style programming was made to work in small
> instances is not good evidence that it's a good approach on a larger
> scale with more potential bad actors and complicating side effects.

Perhaps it is also a matter of matching right methodology to a project. A 
team can be trained or changed (including leader - this is easy in 
programming, where every team member is accountable). Also, I sometimes 
read a book, but rememmber to not pray to it. The book's author is not 
authority on my project, he may be only advisor.

> > Now, to make it all clear - I don't blame US for being US. However I think
> > there is nasty tendency to constantly rewrite and reinterpret history
> > along ideallistic-idyllic lines. I mean, do whatever you do, just make an
> > effort and stick to the facts (this can be also called honesty - but
> > of course I don't accuse you [Kelly] of not being honest). On the other
> > hand, if US folk en masse chooses living in their own dream about the
> > world, well, not quite my problem.
> 
> I understand very clearly that the winners write the history that is
> read by most. So there MUST be a kernel of truth in what you are
> saying here. What I would like you to reflect upon though is just HOW
> the US BECAME the winner in this case... I would submit that it was
> through application of the tenants of freedom. I could be wrong about
> that, but I honestly don't think so.

First, losers have their history, too. However I think that those 
histories don't really differ so much (if done by historians). What I was 
addressing is that there is "cinematic/movie history", in which facts are 
dropped, rearranged and painted different colors as needed to make a 
fable "more interesting". From my point of view, these acts make a fable 
less interesting. Well I don't really care if some Kate or Laura finds 
herself love. One could argue, that those, say, movies are just love 
stories in historic costume. So they are not important. OTOH as I see it, 
such stories with their defecated version of history are going to reign so 
called public awareness. On the face of it, they deal with unfortunate 
love, but in the depth they can smuggle points of view.

IMHO such twisted (hi)stories are doing harm. If nothing else, they help
to lure people into mantraps and meat grinders. They make it so much 
easier to sell different kinds of shit to the gullible folk.

Of course, as I mentioned above, whoever wants to buy shit is going to 
have it.

But let's keep in mind that humans tend to err. So maybe I erred.

> > Overally, what US gained during WW2 has kept them running for at least
> > fifty years. Just my holy opinion.
> 
> The rise of the US in world power started right around 1898 with the
> Spanish American war and big industrial projects like the Panama
> Canal. We avoided most of the damage from WWI and WWII (other than a
> RELATIVELY small loss of life when compared to our allies), and had
> our production capacity increased at the expense of Europe. I don't
> think there is a counterargument to this point.

Yep. As I lurk into history of various countries, I can see how, during 
last 150 years, they all first started to rise (some slower, some faster), 
few dropped out after WW1, some more after WW2 and from my point of view 
only States stayed in a game after that. Soviet Union & friends tried 
hard, but they--we have missed the idea of looking for new ideas. Even 
more, proponents of new ideas have been prosecuted until official 
recognition of those ideas (like, genetics, and before WW2 theory of 
relativity, if I am right, and maybe some more). It was like if race 
runners had their legs broken first (legally) and later, after official 
recognition of racing, healed and sent to olympic games.

Pitiful attitude.

> Now, I also believe that Europe is not doing itself any favors in its
> rush to socialism over the past few decades, but this is another force
> entirely. The work laws in France, for example, are a joke. The tax
> rates in much of Europe are catastrophically high.

I don't feel too well qualified to discuss European issues. I am still 
learning about them. I've found it easier to study States first. Strange, 
isn't it - it is rather hard to look oneself in the eyes, especially 
without good mirror.

But if I was ever asked to talk bullshit about this, well I think that 
whoever says Europe is undergoing a crisis is right. But they later 
disagree about a reason for this. I suspect the reason is lack of faith - 
I don't mean religious faith. They don't dare to mention faith in their 
debates. Too bad. Without it, future cannot be done. All that is left is 
just shifting resources back and forth.

BTW, from what I have read, neither China nor Russia have faith, too. It 
seems that Chinese top tovarischi recognised a problem (or part of it) and 
they try to go back to old style philosophies, like Confucianism. Russians 
seem to be stuck a little.

I suspect Greeks and Romans had faith. I also suspect we have come a bit 
too far away from the roots.

Oh, I mean, how to say it, maybe it's faith in underlying order of things. 
Or some other bullshit. It's nothing esotheric, however.

But I must err, since otherwise some wiser guy would have got his Nobel 
for saying so.

> At least you can envision a future with cinemas... :-)

Now the puzzle is, am I an optimist or a pessimist?

[...]
> > Yes, let's hope they do something positive. Even if at the same time they
> > evade taxes (don't know if they do), if this ends malaria I can accept it.
> 
> If you had your choice between eradicating malaria AND eradicating
> polio AND giving fresh water to every man woman and child on earth AND
> giving a laptop to every urchin all over the world, OR reducing the
> global temperature by 0.002 degrees (an estimate I pulled out of my
> ass, but it is some number along those lines) for the same amount of
> money... Which would you choose?

At first I thought you want me to choose between malaria, polio, water, 
laptop and glob-temp. And I thought 'wow, that is so cool question'. Nope 
:-). Well, why would I care about 0.002 degrees? Of course I would give 
all the cool stuff to people in need. As of 2 degrees - over how long, 200 
years? If so, frak it. Glaciers are moving back since 18000 years. I 
understand, temps are going up during this period, too. I think most of 
Antropocentric GW talk is marketing, selling houses in Spain, or in 
tundra. GW is not antropocentric, I'm afraid. It is something else, 
probably.

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacial_period ]

[ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_glacial_period ]

However, I would like to not give them laptops. They are hard to maintain, 
they break, they can get stolen. I would build ruggedized kiosks, for a 
price close to 2-3 laptops (I guesstimate). Use reinforced concrete, old 
cpus (Pentium M, 1GHz or so), simple displays. Mouse optional. Keyboard - 
ruggedized, probably specially designed for this one adventure - like, it 
could be made of wood, wires and steel springs, with simple connector to 
the kiosk. Such keyboards can be easily repaired or build from locally 
available stuff.

Give every child a pendrive, connect kiosks to the internet. No porn 
and no ads. Just wikipedia, usenet, free books, lectures, this kind of 
stuff. Games - I think some simple games will do.

I have heard of something similar having been done in India once, wonder 
how they fare?

Kiosks could be put inside communes/villages (if we are talking 3rd 
world), perhaps with participation of local schools and churches. So that 
children can meet there together and maybe learn from each other.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **