From max at maxmore.com Sat Sep 1 07:53:59 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 00:53:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 100 yr old on leno, was: RE: Severe Diet Doesn't Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys In-Reply-To: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Thanks for that, spike. I typically find it hard to watch more than a couple of minutes of video online, being an impatient bastard, but I actually watched the whole 8+ minutes. It was lovely to see someone who, at one century of age, still is coherent, witty, energetic, and enjoys life. She said she wouldn't want to live to 106 (apparently her grandmother's age), but I don't believe it. She really should be cryopreserved, to have a shot at more enjoyment of life. Sigh. --Max On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 12:31 PM, spike wrote: > ** ** > > ** ** > > Priceless:**** > > ** ** > > > http://www.lolbucket.com/video/KN5K8Y4S1AMA/100-year-old-Idaho-woman-on-Jay-Leno-show > **** > > ** ** > > spike**** > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sat Sep 1 13:46:09 2012 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 09:46:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Africa refits redundant satellite dishes for radio astronomy Message-ID: <80653A12-FFE8-4D38-B032-E6AF2D40C509@yahoo.com> http://www.nature.com/news/recycled-dishes-form-telescope-network-1.11299 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 1 15:52:34 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 08:52:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 100 yr old on leno, was: RE: Severe Diet Doesn't Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys In-Reply-To: References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Max More Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2012 12:54 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] 100 yr old on leno, was: RE: Severe Diet Doesn't Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys Thanks for that, spike. I typically find it hard to watch more than a couple of minutes of video online, being an impatient bastard, but I actually watched the whole 8+ minutes. It was lovely to see someone who, at one century of age, still is coherent, witty, energetic, and enjoys life. She said she wouldn't want to live to 106 (apparently her grandmother's age), but I don't believe it. She really should be cryopreserved, to have a shot at more enjoyment of life. Sigh. --Max Ja, I interpreted the comment as a gag. Clearly it worked. This lady has a real sense of humor. I recently attended a friend's mother's 100th birthday party. The centenarian was cheerful, alert and coherent, but never rose out of her chair. I had a great aunt who made it to 96. I met her in 1991 when she was 90. She had a great deal of family history no one had ever written down, but I have a great story about that. In my 1991 meeting, she was telling me about her grandparents, my great great grandparents, who had a farm that straddled the North Carolina/Virginia state line. Whenever the tax collectors came around, they always managed to claim their land was in the other state. So, according to my great aunt, the states moved the state line so that the whole farm was in North Carolina, then to compensate, they moved the line down somewhere else. The story sounded pretty far-fetched, but I noted it in my family history notebook, assuming it was the ramblings caused by the degradation of a 90 yr old brain. Twenty years went by. About a year ago, I was looking at Google maps, which we didn't have back in 1991. I knew the parents of the couple (my great^2 grandparents) lived in Mouth of Wilson Virginia and Grassy Creek North Carolina. If you google both places and have them on the same google map, draw a line between the two and notice what the state line does right at that midpoint. I will be damned, Aunt Bertha wasn't crazy. Lesson: those of you especially younger types who are lucky enough to have an elderly relative living nearby, make arrangements and go see her. It's probably a her. This is a long weekend, so you have time. Make a call, do it, get er dun. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. spike On Fri, Aug 31, 2012 at 12:31 PM, spike wrote: Priceless: http://www.lolbucket.com/video/KN5K8Y4S1AMA/100-year-old-Idaho-woman-on-Jay- Leno-show spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, The Transhumanist Reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Sep 1 16:32:36 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 17:32:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] 100 yr old on leno, was: RE: Severe Diet Doesn't Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys In-Reply-To: <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 1, 2012 at 4:52 PM, spike wrote: > Ja, I interpreted the comment as a gag. Clearly it worked. This lady has a > real sense of humor. I recently attended a friend?s mother?s 100th birthday > party. The centenarian was cheerful, alert and coherent, but never rose out > of her chair. > Reminds me of the story about the old couple who went to see a lawyer about getting a divorce. The lawyer was shocked. "But you are 94 and your wife is 90! Why do you want a divorce?" The couple replied, "Well, we had to wait till the children were dead." :) As well as being a joke, it is a reflection on how attitudes to divorce have changed from their generation. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 1 16:32:46 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 09:32:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 100 yr old on leno, was: RE: Severe Diet Doesn't Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys In-Reply-To: <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> Message-ID: <031a01cd885f$6b9bdda0$42d398e0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike >.I will be damned, Aunt Bertha wasn't crazy. >.Lesson: those of you especially younger types who are lucky enough to have an elderly relative living nearby, make arrangements and go see her. It's probably a her. This is a long weekend, so you have time. Make a call, do it, get er dun. Once they are gone, they are gone forever. spike Oy, I understated that egregiously. Everyone here who has elderly relatives, do stop and estimate how long you will have them. When you finish that exercise and make arrangements to see them, note especially the value of finding a married couple still living, or siblings, for they can remind each other of the long past. If you can find people who knew your grandparents as equals, as their colleagues and contemporaries, they can offer insights better than your own parents, who saw your grandparents from the point of view of an offspring views a parent. You want a grandparent's sibling or cousin, or failing that, a grandparent's neighbor, a classmate, a friend. Take a video recording device. Years from now, you will treasure that video. Their other descendants and yours will treasure that video. With my own Aunt Bertha, I wrote down what she said, but didn't get either an audio or video. There are things you just don't get at age 29 but you do waaay grok at age 51. If you can't do it now, make definite plans and hang and actual date on it. Do it, get er dun, opportunity is fleeting. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 1 17:07:59 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 10:07:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 100 yr old on leno, was: RE: Severe Diet Doesn't Prolong Life, at Least in Monkeys In-Reply-To: References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> Message-ID: <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... >>...Reminds me of the story about the old couple who went to see a lawyer about getting a divorce. The lawyer was shocked. "But you are 94 and your wife is 90! Why do you want a divorce?" The couple replied, "Well, we had to wait till the children were dead." :) >...As well as being a joke, it is a reflection on how attitudes to divorce have changed from their generation. BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, funny story about that. The great^2 grandparents I mentioned earlier, Isaac Jones after whom I named my own son, married his bride in 1861 just before he was drafted by Jeff Davis. Not our Jeff Davis, the president of the CSA. I discovered a puzzling record that showed they divorced in 1906, after raising six children, one of whom was black (long story.) Paradoxically, the 1910 census showed them living together with one of their daughters (Aunt Bertha's mother.) I asked my Aunt Bertha about this, and she explained that the rumor had gone around that old Isaac, then in his mid-60s by 1906, elderly by the standards of the day, had been seen with the local bad woman. According to Aunt Bertha, what happened is that Isaac's youngest son, nearly indistinguishable from his father from a sufficient distance, who was then in his 30s with young children, was the one who visited the harlot. Grandpa Isaac's children were grown, and he didn't want to risk seeing his own grandchildren growing up without a father, so he took the blame and confessed publicly in church that he was the sleazy bastard who was seeing the harlot. Grandma did what cheated women did back in those days and filed for divorce on grounds of unfaithfulness, after 43 years of marriage. Both left that small town and moved far away (15 miles) to Ashland Kentucky, and were found by the census taker, living together unmarried (why bother getting remarried?) in sin (as defined by the strict de-facto theocracy of that time and place) in the home of their oldest daughter, Aunt Bertha's mother, for the next 8 years until a flu epidemic took Grandma in 1914. Grandpa was slain a year later in a train accident. See the kinds of cool stuff you can find out if you talk to your elderly relatives? All that would be gone forever had I not found that elderly aunt. So go ye and do likewise. Go do it. Robert Bradbury-ism: DAVAI! DAVAI! DAVAI! spike From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Sun Sep 2 05:22:46 2012 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2012 22:22:46 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> Message-ID: <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> This is not supposed to happen. http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experimental-physics-edition/? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sun Sep 2 13:08:18 2012 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 09:08:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Coif it neutrino flux from the Sun? The difference in inclination might make a difference in the number of neutrinos hitting the sample. Regards, Dan On Sep 2, 2012, at 1:22 AM, Gordon wrote: > This is not supposed to happen. > > http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experimental-physics-edition/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Sun Sep 2 13:09:53 2012 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 09:09:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians Message-ID: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042366 Comments? Dan From charlie.stross at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 13:52:48 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 08:52:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians In-Reply-To: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> References: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1E844E21-6614-4B54-AEE1-F173293E6853@gmail.com> On 2 Sep 2012, at 08:09, Dan Ust wrote: > http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042366 > > Comments? In other news, study confirms that sun rises in the east, bears shit in woods, Pope is still Catholic. On the other hand, it's nice to have some semi-formal confirmation of what we already knew. -- Charlie From pharos at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 14:35:50 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 15:35:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians In-Reply-To: <1E844E21-6614-4B54-AEE1-F173293E6853@gmail.com> References: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> <1E844E21-6614-4B54-AEE1-F173293E6853@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 2:52 PM, Charlie Stross wrote: > In other news, study confirms that sun rises in the east, bears shit in woods, Pope is still Catholic. > > On the other hand, it's nice to have some semi-formal confirmation of what we already knew. > > The Pope is still Catholic !!??? I knew he liked cats a lot, but I thought that was because he was a Cataholic. BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 14:35:30 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 08:35:30 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians In-Reply-To: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> References: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Dan Ust wrote: > http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042366 > > Comments? This paper reminds me of Douglas Adams reference to the "Maximegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious"... Overall, I would have to say the paper reflects the Libertarian view (or at least my views) fairly and accurately. "Libertarians appear to have a coherent moral philosophy, which includes a general opposition to forcing any particular moral code upon others." Spot on. I feel like I do have a good deal of empathy, but perhaps other people have even more. Here, perhaps, I am out of the Libertarian mainstream. I would be very curious where I personally fall on this empathy scale, and would like to know if anyone knows where I can self test my empathy level such as is worked out in this paper, just out of curiousness. I would be astonished if many people had more empathy than I do, but I like being astonished from time to time. I like the three predictions... 1. Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral concerns. This expectation is based on the explicit writings of libertarian authors (e.g. the Libertarian party website at lp.org, with the title ?The Party of Principle: Minimum Government, Maximum Freedom?). 2. Libertarians will rely upon emotion less ? and reason more ? than will either liberals or conservatives. This expectation is based upon previous research on the affective origins of moral judgment [8], as well as libertarians' own self-characterizations. For example, one of the main libertarian magazines is called, simply, Reason. 3. Libertarians will be more individualistic and less collectivist compared to both liberals and conservatives. This expectation is based upon previous research concerning the social function of moral judgment [17], [29], [33]. Libertarians often refer to the ?right to be left alone? [38], and show strong reactance toward social or legal pressures to join groups or assume obligations toward others that are not freely chosen [39]. And it seems that the predictions held up. I do disagree with one aspect, at least as it applies to me. I am a generous and giving person. What I value is having the liberty to be generous and giving as an individual, and not having the state be generous and giving with MY money. So when they say libertarians in general are not as generous and giving, I think I would have to disagree with that. I skipped some of the more technical details in the paper... pretty long. -Kelly From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 15:19:33 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 11:19:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 1:22 AM, Gordon wrote: This is not supposed to happen. > > > http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experimental-physics-edition/ > > This would be huge if true and it would be really fun to live through a revolution in physics of that magnitude, but I've been burned before so I'm keeping my enthusiasm in check. For a few weeks I thought neutrinos might really be going faster than light, and then CERN, the most prestigious physics laboratory in the world who are masters at calculating the 11 dimensional vibratory modes of superstrings, admitted that they forgot to tighten a cable connector, something I've done when I was 14 and setting up my stereo. And now it looks like the "Pioneer Anomaly" is of no interest either. I hope my skepticism will turn out to be undeserved, Physics needs a good surprise. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 2 16:14:55 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 09:14:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00f001cd8926$17e441d0$47acc570$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark This is not supposed to happen. http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experim ental-physics-edition/ >. I hope my skepticism will turn out to be undeserved In physics, skepticism is always deserved, even if later shown to be wrong. >. Physics needs a good surprise. John K Clark Oh my yes, physics is in desperate need of a good surprise. But not this. This wouldn't be a good surprise. If the sun impacts decay rates, then it could only be neutrinos doing it. But the sun's neutrino flux doesn't vary on a regular basis. Only the distance from the earth to the sun changes annually, which would affect the neutrino flux by about 7%. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 16:28:12 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 11:28:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Thank you Gordon, This is very interesting. It seems they are even suggesting a practical application of this discovery, predicting solar flares: http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q3/new-system-could-predict-solar-flares,-give-advance-warning.html I never heard about this, and I'm an astrophysicist. Very interesting. Giovanni On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 12:22 AM, Gordon wrote: > This is not supposed to happen. > > > http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experimental-physics-edition/ > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 gsantostasi at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 16:58:10 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 11:58:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: <00f001cd8926$17e441d0$47acc570$@att.net> References: <01c901cd87af$3e80d6f0$bb8284d0$@att.net> <030101cd8859$ce461a20$6ad24e60$@att.net> <033101cd8864$570ded10$0529c730$@att.net> <1346563366.87728.YahooMailNeo@web121206.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> <00f001cd8926$17e441d0$47acc570$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike, It would be still pretty revolutionary because there is not a straightforward mechanism for the neutrinos to affect the reactions even if beta decays is involved in some of the byproducts. Maybe not completely new physics would be needed but some interesting mechanism for sure. Giovanni On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 11:14 AM, spike wrote: > ** ** > > >? *On Behalf Of *John Clark > > **** > > This is not supposed to happen.**** > > ** ** > > > http://wavewatching.net/2012/09/01/from-the-annals-of-the-impossible-experimental-physics-edition/ > **** > > > >? I hope my skepticism will turn out to be undeserved**** > > ** ** > > In physics, skepticism is always deserved, even if later shown to be wrong. > **** > > ** ** > > >? Physics needs a good surprise. John K Clark **** > > ** ** > > Oh my yes, physics is in desperate need of a good surprise. But not > this. This wouldn?t be a good surprise. If the sun impacts decay rates, > then it could only be neutrinos doing it. But the sun?s neutrino flux > doesn?t vary on a regular basis. Only the distance from the earth to the > sun changes annually, which would affect the neutrino flux by about 7%.*** > * > > ** ** > > 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 mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 18:19:23 2012 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 14:19:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sep 2, 2012 11:05 AM, "Kelly Anderson" @ gmail.com > wrote: > > On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Dan Ust @ yahoo.com > wrote: > > http:// www.plosone.org /article/ info:doi /10.1371/ journal.pone .0042366 > > > > Comments? > > This paper reminds me of Douglas Adams reference to the "Maximegalon > Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly > Obvious"... > > Overall, I would have to say the paper reflects the Libertarian view > (or at least my views) fairly and accurately. > > "Libertarians appear to have a coherent moral philosophy, which > includes a general opposition to forcing any particular moral code > upon others." > > Spot on. > > I feel like I do have a good deal of empathy, but perhaps other people > have even more. Here, perhaps, I am out of the Libertarian mainstream. > I would be very curious where I personally fall on this empathy scale, > and would like to know if anyone knows where I can self test my > empathy level such as is worked out in this paper, just out of > curiousness. I would be astonished if many people had more empathy > than I do, but I like being astonished from time to time. > > I like the three predictions... > 1. Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently > than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral > concerns. This expectation is based on the explicit writings of > libertarian authors (e.g. the Libertarian party website at lp.org, > with the title ?The Party of Principle: Minimum Government, Maximum > Freedom?). > 2. Libertarians will rely upon emotion less ? and reason more ? > than will either liberals or conservatives. This expectation is based > upon previous research on the affective origins of moral judgment [8], > as well as libertarians' own self-characterizations. For example, one > of the main libertarian magazines is called, simply, Reason. > 3. Libertarians will be more individualistic and less collectivist > compared to both liberals and conservatives. This expectation is based > upon previous research concerning the social function of moral > judgment [17], [29], [33]. Libertarians often refer to the ?right to > be left alone? [38], and show strong reactance toward social or legal > pressures to join groups or assume obligations toward others that are > not freely chosen [39]. > > And it seems that the predictions held up. > > I do disagree with one aspect, at least as it applies to me. I am a > generous and giving person. What I value is having the liberty to be > generous and giving as an individual, and not having the state be > generous and giving with MY money. So when they say libertarians in > general are not as generous and giving, I think I would have to > disagree with that. > > I skipped some of the more technical details in the paper... pretty long. > > -Kelly Have any of you taken this quiz http:// www.theadvocates.org /quiz 100 % on personal 40 % economic You? I consider myself a liberaltarian. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy -chat@ lists.extropy.org > http:// lists.extropy.org /mailman/ listinfo.cgi / extropy -chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From nanite1018 at gmail.com Sun Sep 2 19:06:05 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 15:06:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians In-Reply-To: References: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> Message-ID: 100% on each. It's an okay quiz. It has better questions than the Political Compass, but isn't long or nuanced enough to really allow for any fine distinctions. -Josh. On Sep 2, 2012 11:51 AM, "J.R. Jones" wrote: > > On Sep 2, 2012 11:05 AM, "Kelly Anderson" > @ gmail.com > wrote: > > > > On Sun, Sep 2, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Dan Ust @ > yahoo.com > wrote: > > > http:// > www.plosone.org > /article/ > info:doi > /10.1371/ > journal.pone > .0042366 > > > > > > Comments? > > > > This paper reminds me of Douglas Adams reference to the "Maximegalon > > Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly > > Obvious"... > > > > Overall, I would have to say the paper reflects the Libertarian view > > (or at least my views) fairly and accurately. > > > > "Libertarians appear to have a coherent moral philosophy, which > > includes a general opposition to forcing any particular moral code > > upon others." > > > > Spot on. > > > > I feel like I do have a good deal of empathy, but perhaps other people > > have even more. Here, perhaps, I am out of the Libertarian mainstream. > > I would be very curious where I personally fall on this empathy scale, > > and would like to know if anyone knows where I can self test my > > empathy level such as is worked out in this paper, just out of > > curiousness. I would be astonished if many people had more empathy > > than I do, but I like being astonished from time to time. > > > > I like the three predictions... > > 1. Libertarians will value liberty more strongly and consistently > > than liberals or conservatives, at the expense of other moral > > concerns. This expectation is based on the explicit writings of > > libertarian authors (e.g. the Libertarian party website at lp.org, > > with the title ?The Party of Principle: Minimum Government, Maximum > > Freedom?). > > 2. Libertarians will rely upon emotion less ? and reason more ? > > than will either liberals or conservatives. This expectation is based > > upon previous research on the affective origins of moral judgment [8], > > as well as libertarians' own self-characterizations. For example, one > > of the main libertarian magazines is called, simply, Reason. > > 3. Libertarians will be more individualistic and less collectivist > > compared to both liberals and conservatives. This expectation is based > > upon previous research concerning the social function of moral > > judgment [17], [29], [33]. Libertarians often refer to the ?right to > > be left alone? [38], and show strong reactance toward social or legal > > pressures to join groups or assume obligations toward others that are > > not freely chosen [39]. > > > > And it seems that the predictions held up. > > > > I do disagree with one aspect, at least as it applies to me. I am a > > generous and giving person. What I value is having the liberty to be > > generous and giving as an individual, and not having the state be > > generous and giving with MY money. So when they say libertarians in > > general are not as generous and giving, I think I would have to > > disagree with that. > > > > I skipped some of the more technical details in the paper... pretty long. > > > > -Kelly > > Have any of you taken this quiz > > http:// www.theadvocates.org > /quiz > > 100 % on personal > 40 % economic > > You? > > I consider myself a liberaltarian. > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy -chat@ > 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 anders at aleph.se Sun Sep 2 20:55:55 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 02 Sep 2012 21:55:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Understanding Libertarian Morality: The Psychological Dispositions of Self-Identified Libertarians In-Reply-To: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> References: <72A32157-0756-43B6-AC51-525DBB7D38A6@yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5043C7DB.1040109@aleph.se> On 02/09/2012 14:09, Dan Ust wrote: > http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0042366 > > Comments? I am reminded of Tetlock's fun work on sacred vs. secular moral trade-offs (actually, it is cited in the study). Typically people find some values sacred, and get all annoyed when forcing to trading them off against non-sacred values. You are not supposed to put a monetary value on a human life, etc. One of his results was that these values track political views: liberals and conservatives have different sets of values, and this of course make their debates rather hot. And the libertarians tend to regard nearly any value as possible to trade in, except freedom: http://scholar.harvard.edu/jenniferlerner/files/tetlock_2000_jpsp_paper.pdf -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Sep 3 15:16:20 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 08:16:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1346685380.1886.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> John Clark wrote: > I hope my skepticism will turn out to be undeserved, Physics > needs a good surprise. I sympathise with the sentiment, but I think that the detectors are much more likely to be the things being affected than the decay events themselves. Much, much, much more likely. Ben Zaiboc From pharos at gmail.com Mon Sep 3 18:00:44 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 19:00:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] How much enhancement is too much? Message-ID: Pistorius Paralympics gripe: How long can blades be? Oscar Pistorius claimed that his rival was wearing blades that were too long. So how long are blades allowed to be? He is known as the Blade Runner. But in the Paralympics 200m final Oscar Pistorius was overtaken by a faster man with blades. Pistorius, who looked to be cruising to victory, spoke out after Brazilian Alan Oliveira surged past him in the last few seconds of the race to take gold. ------------------ This is exactly the same complaint that Pistorius faced when he beat the previous champion. So as enhanced athletes Olympics develops there will be more complaints. It is not only enhanced athletes competing with enhanced athletes, but they will have to ensure that to make the competitions 'fair' every competitor must have exactly the same level of enhancement. Formula 1 racing has very strict rules for the same reason. BillK From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 3 19:54:34 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 12:54:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? In-Reply-To: <1346685380.1886.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1346685380.1886.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <010501cd8a0d$f1a235c0$d4e6a140$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc Subject: Re: [ExI] decay rate correlated with the sun? John Clark wrote: >> I hope my skepticism will turn out to be undeserved, Physics needs a good surprise. >...I sympathise with the sentiment, but I think that the detectors are much more likely to be the things being affected than the decay events themselves. Much, much, much more likely. Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ Ben that's what I concluded too, but I will be damned if I can think of a mechanism which would cause a detector to occasionally read false positives as a function of a neutrino interaction. If the neutrinos really are somehow causing extra decays, we would expect to see the variation proportional to the inverse square of the distance from the sun. If that's the case, it would be easy to detect the slow decays in space probes. If there is some mysterious mechanism that accounts for 10% of fission events, then that 10% variation would be proportional to neutrino flux, which would also be easy to see in space probes. Since we don't see this, I dismiss the notion that neutrinos can somehow have some effect on the electro-weak force, but that still leaves a puzzle, why or how neutrinos can affect detectors. Wild notion: the temperature of the detector somehow affects the scintillation threshold, and the instruments are slightly warmer in the summer than in the winter? spike From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 3 19:57:49 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 12:57:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] self driving cars again Message-ID: <010601cd8a0e$6580af80$30820e80$@att.net> Woohoo! The fact that this passed the state senate unanimously means that we are in business: "Californian senators have passed a bill that looks set to make the state the second in the US to approve self-driving cars on its roads.The bill was passed unanimously by state senators, and now hits the desk of governor Jerry Brown, who's expected to sign it into law.It calls on the California Department of Motor Vehicles to start developing standards and licensing procedures for autonomous vehicles." http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/65839-california-to-license-self-dr iving-cars spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Sep 3 23:59:09 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 17:59:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman Message-ID: Anastasiya Shpagina may represent an interesting peek into the future of transhumanism. Here are some pictures of her... http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/anastasiya-shpagina?before=1344655011 Do any of you find this shocking? Interesting? Totally acceptable within the realm of freedom of expression? Some kind of normal? Does this represent the future of some percentage of humanity? -Kelly From gsantostasi at gmail.com Tue Sep 4 00:28:31 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 19:28:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The problem is what are the overall effects on health of these surgeries and modifications. Also how they are going to hold up with age (see what happened with Michael Jackson). Giovanni On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 6:59 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Anastasiya Shpagina may represent an interesting peek into the future > of transhumanism. > > Here are some pictures of her... > http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/anastasiya-shpagina?before=1344655011 > > Do any of you find this shocking? Interesting? Totally acceptable > within the realm of freedom of expression? Some kind of normal? > > Does this represent the future of some percentage of humanity? > > -Kelly > _______________________________________________ > 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 natasha at natasha.cc Tue Sep 4 01:01:21 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 18:01:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> The design is okay, but not unique. The storyline is adolescent. The sexuality is a toss back to Japanese sexuality of the 20th Century. I don't see where it is transhuman at all. What do you see as the connection? Natasha Vita-More, PhD -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Monday, September 03, 2012 4:59 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Transhuman Anastasiya Shpagina may represent an interesting peek into the future of transhumanism. Here are some pictures of her... http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/anastasiya-shpagina?before=1344655011 Do any of you find this shocking? Interesting? Totally acceptable within the realm of freedom of expression? Some kind of normal? Does this represent the future of some percentage of humanity? -Kelly _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From sandrak.arjona at gmail.com Tue Sep 4 00:52:49 2012 From: sandrak.arjona at gmail.com (Sandra K Arjona) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 20:52:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 8:28 PM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > The problem is what are the overall effects on health of these surgeries > and modifications. Also how they are going to hold up with age (see what > happened with Michael Jackson). > Giovanni > > > On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 6:59 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Anastasiya Shpagina may represent an interesting peek into the future >> of transhumanism. >> >> Here are some pictures of her... >> http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/anastasiya-shpagina?before=1344655011 >> >> Do any of you find this shocking? Interesting? Totally acceptable >> within the realm of freedom of expression? Some kind of normal? >> >> Does this represent the future of some percentage of humanity? >> >> -Kelly >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- Sandra K. Arjona, M.L.S. Journal Manager Academic Emergency Medicine sandrak.arjona at gmail.com Tel: 412 772 1190 Fax: 412 772 1190 -- Sandra K. Arjona, M.L.S. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From katenmoore at yahoo.com Tue Sep 4 00:58:31 2012 From: katenmoore at yahoo.com (Kate Moore) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2012 17:58:31 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1346720311.12360.YahooMailNeo@web120202.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Some will (and have) gone this route. I never thought about cosmetic body modification as being transhumanist, but I guess it kind of is. I'm not sure what percentage, but I'm guessing a large portion, of those who modify their bodies in this manner do it to try and look more attractive, because of some sort of body dysmorphia. I don't think most people would be interested in that, though, at the very least due to instinctual aversion to the pain of getting it and resulting aesthetics, as well as not being as attractive to other human beings. I think the majority of people nowadays wouldn't significantly alter their bodies unless it looked natural and/or they had to because of a physical deficiency (like having lost an arm, or recieved severe burning). Later on, there will probably be something that becomes common, though, like tattoos and piercings. Hopefully it wont be (probably will be) something ridiculous, like everyone replacing their left index finger with a robotic one that can't really do anything extra. Though I guess if mine could do something cool, like point a laser that I can aim at the sky to aid in the nights I take telescopes out to teach people about the stars, then I might be interested. ;) --Kate ________________________________ From: Kelly Anderson To: ExI chat list Sent: Monday, September 3, 2012 4:59 PM Subject: [ExI] Transhuman Anastasiya Shpagina may represent an interesting peek into the future of transhumanism. Here are some pictures of her... http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/anastasiya-shpagina?before=1344655011 Do any of you find this shocking? Interesting? Totally acceptable within the realm of freedom of expression? Some kind of normal? Does this represent the future of some percentage of humanity? -Kelly _______________________________________________ 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 Tue Sep 4 11:46:13 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 13:46:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] How much enhancement is too much? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 3 September 2012 20:00, BillK wrote: > It is not only enhanced athletes competing with enhanced athletes, but > they will have to ensure that to make the competitions 'fair' every > competitor must have exactly the same level of enhancement. > Formula 1 racing has very strict rules for the same reason. > Interestingly, this is quite traditional even for non-tech enhancement. If you are a boxer and gets muscular mass making you a heavyweight, you cannot compete in the lightweight any more. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Sep 4 14:03:22 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 08:03:22 -0600 Subject: [ExI] DIY Book Scanner Message-ID: I present you with a technological breakthrough that may be as disruptive as WikiLeaks, but without quite so many scary side effects... http://www.diybookscanner.org/ This is brilliant stuff, IMHO. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 4 16:05:24 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 09:05:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How much enhancement is too much? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007d01cd8ab7$18620e20$49262a60$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj Subject: Re: [ExI] How much enhancement is too much? On 3 September 2012 20:00, BillK wrote: . >.If you are a boxer and gets muscular mass making you a heavyweight, you cannot compete in the lightweight any more. -- Stefano Vaj Exactly! Well said BillK. Of course I come at it from the point of view of a six ft tall featherweight, but I say all the muscular roid-meisters, go right on ahead and devour whatever you want, and may you bulk right out of my weight category. Meanwhile I will use what little advantage nature offered me, the long bony arms, and reach out and touch someone. Repeatedly. Until they fall down. {8^D Actually I am getting too old for that sport (have been for a long time) but the newish sport of chess boxing looks like a lotta fun. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 4 16:14:12 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 09:14:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] DIY Book Scanner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <008801cd8ab8$52a45790$f7ed06b0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 7:03 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] DIY Book Scanner >...I present you with a technological breakthrough that may be as disruptive as WikiLeaks, but without quite so many scary side effects... http://www.diybookscanner.org/ This is brilliant stuff, IMHO. -Kelly _______________________________________________ Thanks Kelly! About ten years ago in this forum, we really had a deep discussion about this notion, as memory technology was improving enough to make it practical to scan everything and keep it in a digital format. I have a notion to buy such a device and start a side business scanning other people's books. The scanner technology at that time wasn't up to the task, but it looks like this might work. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Sep 4 16:55:04 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 10:55:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > The design is okay, but not unique. The storyline is adolescent. The > sexuality is a toss back to Japanese sexuality of the 20th Century. I don't > see where it is transhuman at all. What do you see as the connection? Natasha, Isn't the whole point of transhumanism that you can turn yourself into something beyond human by your choice? If you do that in the gym, or with plastic surgery or by having cybernetic extensions how is it different? I even see tatoos as primitive transhumanism. Seems like primitive transhumanism to me, how is it NOT transhumanism? -Kelly From bkdelong1 at gmail.com Tue Sep 4 17:27:43 2012 From: bkdelong1 at gmail.com (B.K. DeLong) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 13:27:43 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: Because, in my mind, the purpose of body modification within the definition of transhumanism is that you are doing so to transcend present limitations of the standard human body for the betterment of yourself beyond mere cosmetic beautification. I think to qualify as transhumanism, body mods need to pose a benefit, such as a tattoo that gives a constant blood reading, removing a rib or two to allow for better flexibility and contortionism, or going so far as leg amputation for cybernetic limbs. Not just satisfy the subject's definition (and perhaps a segment of society's) of beautification. Thoughts? On Sep 4, 2012 12:57 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Natasha Vita-More > wrote: > > The design is okay, but not unique. The storyline is adolescent. The > > sexuality is a toss back to Japanese sexuality of the 20th Century. I > don't > > see where it is transhuman at all. What do you see as the connection? > > Natasha, > > Isn't the whole point of transhumanism that you can turn yourself into > something beyond human by your choice? If you do that in the gym, or > with plastic surgery or by having cybernetic extensions how is it > different? I even see tatoos as primitive transhumanism. Seems like > primitive transhumanism to me, how is it NOT transhumanism? > > -Kelly > _______________________________________________ > 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 natasha at natasha.cc Tue Sep 4 18:49:21 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 11:49:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> This sounds right. As an aside, aesthetics is based on a person's interpretation of beauty and would be secondary to what you refer to as a transhumanist "pose a benefit". The transhumanist idea is to extend life and to do so, that would require interventions of the body that regenerate the body and enhance the body through technological approaches for (i) repair cell damage and (ii) to add new psychological and cognitive options that enhance a person. If one wants to add an aesthetic approach to this that would be great, but it would need the (i) and (ii). Natasha Vita-More, PhD From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of B.K. DeLong Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 10:28 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Transhuman Because, in my mind, the purpose of body modification within the definition of transhumanism is that you are doing so to transcend present limitations of the standard human body for the betterment of yourself beyond mere cosmetic beautification. I think to qualify as transhumanism, body mods need to pose a benefit, such as a tattoo that gives a constant blood reading, removing a rib or two to allow for better flexibility and contortionism, or going so far as leg amputation for cybernetic limbs. Not just satisfy the subject's definition (and perhaps a segment of society's) of beautification. Thoughts? On Sep 4, 2012 12:57 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: On Mon, Sep 3, 2012 at 7:01 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > The design is okay, but not unique. The storyline is adolescent. The > sexuality is a toss back to Japanese sexuality of the 20th Century. I don't > see where it is transhuman at all. What do you see as the connection? Natasha, Isn't the whole point of transhumanism that you can turn yourself into something beyond human by your choice? If you do that in the gym, or with plastic surgery or by having cybernetic extensions how is it different? I even see tatoos as primitive transhumanism. Seems like primitive transhumanism to me, how is it NOT transhumanism? -Kelly _______________________________________________ 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 nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Tue Sep 4 22:48:38 2012 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 23:48:38 +0100 (BST) Subject: [ExI] robotic art In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1346798918.15606.YahooMailNeo@web132105.mail.ird.yahoo.com> I don't know how many people on this list have an aesthetic sensibility which adores robots, but this show which is now showing in California caught my eye: http://www.coreyhelfordgallery.com/press/1346795232.pdf (That's the press release for a showing in Culver City) As a Brit, I really must make it to the kinetica art fair next year - held in London at the end of February, it appears to be filled with more mobile, electronic, robotic pieces of art than I can shake a stick at. And I'm quite practised at stick-waving. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Sep 5 00:24:29 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 17:24:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] robotic art In-Reply-To: <1346798918.15606.YahooMailNeo@web132105.mail.ird.yahoo.com> References: <1346798918.15606.YahooMailNeo@web132105.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <00ba01cd8afc$d69a98e0$83cfcaa0$@natasha.cc> I love robotics that have an aesthetic sensibility! J One of my favorite books is Genese D? Un Peuple Artificiel: ROBOTS by Daniel Ichbiah (link: ) It is a visual delight (plus I am featured in the last chapter along with some pretty interesting folks!) Cheers, Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tom Nowell Sent: Tuesday, September 04, 2012 3:49 PM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: [ExI] robotic art I don't know how many people on this list have an aesthetic sensibility which adores robots, but this show which is now showing in California caught my eye: http://www.coreyhelfordgallery.com/press/1346795232.pdf (That's the press release for a showing in Culver City) As a Brit, I really must make it to the kinetica art fair next year - held in London at the end of February, it appears to be filled with more mobile, electronic, robotic pieces of art than I can shake a stick at. And I'm quite practised at stick-waving. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 04:21:58 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2012 21:21:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Manning, Wikileaks and a new book on killing ben ladin Message-ID: GOVERNMENT IN "TRICKY POSITION" The book has put the government in "a very tricky position" because officials risk appearing "mean-spirited" if they move forward with legal action against someone who helped eliminate bin Laden and who pledged most of the proceeds from the book to families of Navy SEALs, Harlow said. But taking no action would open the door to others avoiding pre-publication security review in the future, he said. "Owen has certainly presented a thorny problem to the Pentagon." snip The book contains colored photographs of weapons, helmets with night-vision goggles and other gear, and training shots of SEALs parachuting over the Grand Canyon. Little said he was not going to discuss any "damage assessments" from the book. "It may, frankly, be too early to tell. The book hasn't been widely distributed yet, but we'll see." The book was the No. 1 best seller at online retailer Amazon.com on Tuesday. Ultimately, the Justice Department would determine whether or not to pursue legal action against the Navy SEAL, Little said, without commenting on whether the Pentagon had or would refer the matter for action to the Justice Department. http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/05/usa-security-book-seal-idINL2E8K50Q320120905 From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 08:38:46 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 09:38:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> Apropos transforming bodies, Shulamith Firestone recently died. She proposed artificial wombs as a way for women to liberate themselves from biological constraints (and hence removing the main practical reason for patriarchal oppression), and in the long run post-genderism where the sex distinctions would evaporate as people could choose genital designs arbitrarily. > We are no longer just animals. And the kingdom of nature does not > reign absolute. ... Thus the 'natural' is not necessarily a 'human' > value. Humanity has begun to transcend Nature: we can no longer > justify the maintenance of a discriminatory sex class system on > grounds of its origins in nature. http://io9.com/5939856/rip-futurist-shulamith-firestone-who-promoted-artificial-wombs-and-cybernetics-as-tools-of-liberation http://www.marxists.org/subject/women/authors/firestone-shulamith/dialectic-sex.htm I think she had a very useful early insight: beyond historical materialism driving how societies work there is of course biological materialism. The fact that it takes a man and a woman to reproduce, and that pregnancy and child-rearing requires certain conditions to work, that imposes constraints on what societies are possible. But just as economic conditions change due to technological innovations biological conditions can change too, and that makes new forms of societies possible. But, beyond the Marxist apparatus she used in her arguments, I think one can make a cultural/memetic argument that just because we can change ourselves freely doesn't mean we will automatically do it: we will pursue changes that we think make sense, and that is conditioned on the extant culture. Sure, there are always somebody trying strange things, but most people are by definition mainstream. Being part of the mainstream likely provides economies of scale, reduces friction and has various more or less obvious stabilizing feedbacks. So even if all constraints suddenly disappeared cultures might turn out to be surprisingly slow-moving. Those Japanese doll faces are a neat case in point. We can make anything, but people go for exaggerated things similar to our past. It will take a while before we discover the really important possibilities. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 10:19:17 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 11:19:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: IEET have a long article suggesting that the future of all civilisations is to 'transcend' and live inside black hole domains. (When I am feeling optimistic, this is my preferred explanation of the Fermi paradox). Quotes: Species convergence in the sense of a non-identical, dynamic progression towards universal milestones is of critical importance to Smart?s next suggestion; rather than advanced civilisations seeding the galaxy in a process of expansion, evolutionary development guides intelligent life increasingly into inner space and what is referred to as STEM, small scales of space, time, energy and matter that eventually lead to black hole like domains. ...... Rejecting the Kardashev scale as a meaningful measure for civilisation Smart goes on to support John D. Barrow?s scale of particle manipulation as a more appropriate indicator. In the Barrow scale a civilisation is assessed based on the spatial localisation of their engineering; the ability to miniaturise increasingly dense, efficient and complex structures down to Planck-scale limits. STEM compression rather than energy consumption becomes the key factor in judging the level of development, from the manipulation of genes and molecules down to the level of elementary particles and the fabric of space time itself. ...... If you are part of a civilisation which has utilised all STEM resources to create a super dense, super efficient computational substrate, commonly referred to as ?computronium?, you may increasingly find the rest of the universe too slow and informationally dull relative to you. ...... At the heart of the transcension hypothesis lies the belief that the accelerating leading edge of computational abilities and our ability to access STEM densities and efficiencies, must in some way be representative of the developmental processes of our universe. The more computationally complex a system becomes, whether this system is biological or mechanical in nature, the more STEM efficient and STEM dense becomes its physical substrate. ..... BillK From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 10:38:46 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 11:38:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> On 05/09/2012 11:19, BillK wrote: > IEET have a long article suggesting that the future of all > civilisations is to 'transcend' and live inside black hole domains. While I hope this is possible and maybe true, I think there is a deep problem with the hypothesis: it assumes a very strong convergence to this lifestyle. It must be so good that no alien Amish or explorers get left behind to make the universe different. Can you imagine any cultural or technological innovation that would suck in 100% of humans? My and Stuart Armstrong's work on Dyson-powered intergalactic colonisation has convinced me that the Fermi question is between a million and a billion times tougher than commonly assumed: we need to consider aliens not just from our galaxy but from a sizeable fraction of all visible galaxies as potential past colonizers here. That means that any cultural convergence better be a million or a billion times stronger than the level we would think necessary in order to keep the Milky Way colonisation-free. I don't think we have any plausible mechanism for that. The alternatives is of course that aliens are between a million or a billion times rarer than we would normally think, that the risk of existential risk is between a million or a billion times worse, that they are here but manages to maintain silence to a very high degree, or that the technology ceiling is much lower than we normally assume on this list. The silence in the sky is surprisingly talkative, but it is unclear what it is saying. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 12:16:09 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 13:16:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > While I hope this is possible and maybe true, I think there is a deep > problem with the hypothesis: it assumes a very strong convergence to this > lifestyle. It must be so good that no alien Amish or explorers get left > behind to make the universe different. Can you imagine any cultural or > technological innovation that would suck in 100% of humans? > > Well, of course we are not talking about clever monkeys leaping into black holes. :) It will be the future descendents of humanity after 500 or a thousand years of transhumanism have left animal bodies behind long ago. As humanity evolves into computronium with all that that implies not many will resist the move to a different substrate. Perhaps some will, at first, to succumb later. (Resistance is futile!). Those determined few might live in the equivalent of luxurious estates, with too few people and resources to go into space. Or perhaps their 'insanity' will be treated as an illness and cured by transhuman medicine. Or, are you thinking that a society that moves into computronium might still have a few entities that want to leave the society and venture out into the frozen universe? Remember that for computronium intelligences their high speed thought effectively makes the universe stand still. Much more fun to stay inside with all the others. BillK From spike66 at att.net Wed Sep 5 13:28:09 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 06:28:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> Message-ID: <010c01cd8b6a$4b0a1a80$e11e4f80$@att.net> On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg On 05/09/2012 11:19, BillK wrote: >>... IEET have a long article suggesting that the future of all > civilisations is to 'transcend' and live inside black hole domains. >...The silence in the sky is surprisingly talkative, but it is unclear what it is saying. -Anders Sandberg Anders, if this were Readers Digest, that comment would be in 36 point font at the top of the Quotable Quotes section. That would go up on the wall of my office, if I still had an office. Regarding John Smart's studies in this area, I didn't know until today he was working on it. I came to a similar conclusion a decade ago when we were working out the mechanics of Matrioshka Brains. The theory was that the period of time between the formation of a interstellar communications technologically enabled civilization and its creating an MBrain is relatively short, perhaps only a few centuries. The MBrain has little motive to talk to the rest of us, for all the real action happens inside the MBrain. Everything outside is too slow and too far away to be of any interest. Result: the cosmic silent treatment. I still think it is a reasonable theory. spike From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 13:54:14 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 14:54:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> Message-ID: <50475986.5050902@aleph.se> On 05/09/2012 13:16, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> While I hope this is possible and maybe true, I think there is a deep >> problem with the hypothesis: it assumes a very strong convergence to this >> lifestyle. It must be so good that no alien Amish or explorers get left >> behind to make the universe different. Can you imagine any cultural or >> technological innovation that would suck in 100% of humans? > Well, of course we are not talking about clever monkeys leaping into > black holes. :) > > It will be the future descendents of humanity after 500 or a thousand > years of transhumanism have left animal bodies behind long ago. As > humanity evolves into computronium with all that that implies not many > will resist the move to a different substrate. Perhaps some will, at > first, to succumb later. (Resistance is futile!). Yes, but unless the rate of succumbing is higher than the rate of spreading, there will be more and more people living outside over time. In addition, there is a form of cultural evolution going on: people who are strongly averse to moving in will have more outside "offspring" (copies, daughter colonies, whatever) than those who are more OK with moving in (they move in and have no offspring). Over time you will get more and more resistant people, who are unlikely to want to join. It only takes one such resistant group that decides to colonize the universe, and it will be colonized. The same is true for all other civilisations. For the transcension hypothesis to work it needs to assume that the attractiveness of computronium is enormous for *all* alien types, no matter how weird. And this attractiveness is so big that no individual values or goals could ever resist it over time. That seems to be a pretty amazing assumption. Is there *anything* we know of that would be such a motivator to present humans? Something so good that nobody can resist it even when they have religious, philosophical or ideosyncratic reasons to not go for it? People are obviously resisting both sex, chocolate, religion, world of warcraft, drugs and pursuing individual happiness already. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From charlie.stross at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 13:41:32 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 08:41:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> Message-ID: <494CD85E-9081-4584-BF71-87DE8BE30019@gmail.com> On 5 Sep 2012, at 03:38, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Apropos transforming bodies, Shulamith Firestone recently died. She proposed artificial wombs as a way for women to liberate themselves from biological constraints (and hence removing the main practical reason for patriarchal oppression), and in the long run post-genderism where the sex distinctions would evaporate as people could choose genital designs arbitrarily. ... > But, beyond the Marxist apparatus she used in her arguments, I think one can make a cultural/memetic argument that just because we can change ourselves freely doesn't mean we will automatically do it: we will pursue changes that we think make sense, and that is conditioned on the extant culture. Sure, there are always somebody trying strange things, but most people are by definition mainstream. Being part of the mainstream likely provides economies of scale, reduces friction and has various more or less obvious stabilizing feedbacks. So even if all constraints suddenly disappeared cultures might turn out to be surprisingly slow-moving. > > Those Japanese doll faces are a neat case in point. We can make anything, but people go for exaggerated things similar to our past. It will take a while before we discover the really important possibilities. Skeumorphism, in other words. In matters biological. Our sense of self-identity is emergent over time from our experience of our interaction with our surrounding environment (including other people), and these interactions are mediated through our existing bodies. (Not to mention other peoples' reactions to us being coloured by their perceptions of us, again based on external physical appearances). So it would be unsurprising to find that most people (in a society with cheap and easy body modification) would only consider physical adaptations that tend towards the social norm: more "beautiful", in convergence with a socially-approved vision of beauty. -- Charlie From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 14:03:10 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 07:03:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 05/09/2012 11:19, BillK wrote: >> IEET have a long article suggesting that the future of all >> civilisations is to 'transcend' and live inside black hole domains. > > While I hope this is possible and maybe true, I think there is a deep > problem with the hypothesis: it assumes a very strong convergence to > this lifestyle. It must be so good that no alien Amish or explorers get > left behind to make the universe different. Can you imagine any cultural > or technological innovation that would suck in 100% of humans? Cell phones have come fairly close. Even the Amish use them. Can you think of a culture that has rejected them? "Clinic Seed" style uploading might do it as well. > My and Stuart Armstrong's work on Dyson-powered intergalactic > colonisation has convinced me that the Fermi question is between a > million and a billion times tougher than commonly assumed: we need to > consider aliens not just from our galaxy but from a sizeable fraction of > all visible galaxies as potential past colonizers here. That means that > any cultural convergence better be a million or a billion times stronger > than the level we would think necessary in order to keep the Milky Way > colonisation-free. I don't think we have any plausible mechanism for that. Here is one. http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/04/12/transhumanism-and-the-human-expansion-into-space-a-conflict-with-physics/ Hugo de Garis has the idea that unfriendly AI will be the end of us. http://hplusmagazine.com/2012/08/21/the-singhilarity-institute-my-falling-out-with-the-transhumanists/ But AIs could travel to the stars with relative ease. So that means you need a reason for every single one of them to be stay-at-homes. > The alternatives is of course that aliens are between a million or a > billion times rarer than we would normally think, that the risk of > existential risk is between a million or a billion times worse, that > they are here but manages to maintain silence to a very high degree, or > that the technology ceiling is much lower than we normally assume on > this list. > > The silence in the sky is surprisingly talkative, but it is unclear what > it is saying. 1 Something (like speed of light) keeps them all at home (or in a dimension, black holes, cyberspace) where they are not apparent. 2 Something destroys the lot of them. (Functionally same as the above.) 3 We are the first. (Unlikely as this might be, someone has to be the first.) Keith > Anders Sandberg, From giulio at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 14:13:36 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 16:13:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: <494CD85E-9081-4584-BF71-87DE8BE30019@gmail.com> References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> <494CD85E-9081-4584-BF71-87DE8BE30019@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 3:41 PM, Charlie Stross wrote: So it would be unsurprising to find that most people (in a society with cheap and easy body modification) would only consider physical adaptations that tend towards the social norm: more "beautiful", in convergence with a socially-approved vision of beauty. Why not different social norms for different groups. Like, a socially-approved vision of beauty for people with wings, and another socially-approved vision of beauty for people with gills. I would prefer not having social norms, but if we must have them, better many than one, at least with many norms one can choose which one to follow. From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 14:53:13 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 15:53:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> On 05/09/2012 15:03, Keith Henson wrote: > On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> On 05/09/2012 11:19, BillK wrote: >>> IEET have a long article suggesting that the future of all >>> civilisations is to 'transcend' and live inside black hole domains. >> While I hope this is possible and maybe true, I think there is a deep >> problem with the hypothesis: it assumes a very strong convergence to >> this lifestyle. It must be so good that no alien Amish or explorers get >> left behind to make the universe different. Can you imagine any cultural >> or technological innovation that would suck in 100% of humans? > Cell phones have come fairly close. Even the Amish use them. Can you > think of a culture that has rejected them? I know people who reject them. And I am pretty confident some monastic orders refuse them. If there is something 99% of people select, then the important question is what the remaining 1% do. If one of their possible actions is to reproduce very fast or expand across the universe it doesn't matter that their offspring also tend to select the something in 99 cases out of 100. At present, if there existed something like that mankind would all end up using it since it is not possible to reproduce or flee fast enough. So if the super-attractor is very easy to do and happens before spaceflight, then it could explain the Fermi question. Except that we don't seem to have anything like it, cellphones nonwithstanding, and we could (if we were slightly more collectively rational) have spaceflight by now. The super-attractor could perhaps also work in a solar system wide civilization since interstellar travel is relatively tough, but now the attractor state needs to be far more strongly attractive than the mere planet-scale attractor since it is harder to reign in widely spread habitats. For interstellar civilisations the attractor must be able to happen locally regardless of communications limits, and must on average make a colony produce less than one offspring colonies. The higher the technological level required to trigger the attractor, the less plausible it looks that it could successfully attract *everybody* and not just the majority. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From timhalterman at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 14:59:14 2012 From: timhalterman at gmail.com (Tim Halterman) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 09:59:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50475986.5050902@aleph.se> References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> <50475986.5050902@aleph.se> Message-ID: > > Is there *anything* we know of that would be such a motivator to present > humans? Something so good that nobody can resist it even when they have > religious, philosophical or ideosyncratic reasons to not go for it? People > are obviously resisting both sex, chocolate, religion, world of warcraft, > drugs and pursuing individual happiness already. > > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Faculty of Philosophy > Oxford University Two great intellects meet. Advancement (perhaps omnipotence) is within their grasp, that means however one must have power (to gain their perspective or place in the universe if nothing else) over the other. Both could stay stagnant but that would not be advancement. Sharing sounds nice but even handing another all of your knowledge will not give the unique perspective an individual will have on the universe (I believe if you were to give your perspective of the universe to another being you would cease to be separate and would become just one being). What are rational conclusions to this scenario? Thanks in advance for any responses to this. From atymes at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 15:38:02 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 08:38:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> <494CD85E-9081-4584-BF71-87DE8BE30019@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:13 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Why not different social norms for different groups. Like, a > socially-approved vision of beauty for people with wings, and another > socially-approved vision of beauty for people with gills. For the same reason we no longer hold people to different social norms - in most aspect - based on the color of their skin. A case could be made for relevant social norms (for instance, the most beautiful black skinned folk still tend to have wide noses, rather than the pointed noses of other ethnicities). However, in practice, attempting to impose social norms based on that leads to irrelevant social norms (which I trust I do not have to elaborate on). There is no reason to believe this would not be the case even if the racial differences were more functional (e.g., wings and gills), and even easily configurable (such as via inexpensive surgery to add or remove them). From pharos at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 18:40:35 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 19:40:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 3:53 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > If there is something 99% of people select, then the important question is > what the remaining 1% do. If one of their possible actions is to reproduce > very fast or expand across the universe it doesn't matter that their > offspring also tend to select the something in 99 cases out of 100. > > At present, if there existed something like that mankind would all end up > using it since it is not possible to reproduce or flee fast enough. So if > the super-attractor is very easy to do and happens before spaceflight, then > it could explain the Fermi question. Except that we don't seem to have > anything like it, cellphones nonwithstanding, and we could (if we were > slightly more collectively rational) have spaceflight by now. The > super-attractor could perhaps also work in a solar system wide civilization > since interstellar travel is relatively tough, but now the attractor state > needs to be far more strongly attractive than the mere planet-scale > attractor since it is harder to reign in widely spread habitats. For > interstellar civilisations the attractor must be able to happen locally > regardless of communications limits, and must on average make a colony > produce less than one offspring colonies. > > The higher the technological level required to trigger the attractor, the > less plausible it looks that it could successfully attract *everybody* and > not just the majority. > > Two comments. 1) If only 1% of a nation opt out of migrating to the computronium substrate, will they still have enough resources to do space travel? As well as maintaining their 1% civilisation. The Amish just maintain their way of life. 2) John Smart's thesis is that it is a mistake to look for a 'great attractor'. Especially one that attracts all civs no matter what they are descended from. He is looking for something that affects all civs in the galaxy. His suggestion is that as species develop they all converge on the same outcome. Because that's the way the universe works. Quote: Species convergence in the sense of a non-identical, dynamic progression towards universal milestones is of critical importance to Smart?s next suggestion; rather than advanced civilisations seeding the galaxy in a process of expansion, evolutionary development guides intelligent life increasingly into inner space and what is referred to as STEM, small scales of space, time, energy and matter that eventually lead to black hole like domains. ----------- It is not an 'attractor'. It is the inevitable path that intelligence follows. The idea appeals to me. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 18:56:53 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 14:56:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 2:40 PM, BillK wrote: > It is not an 'attractor'. It is the inevitable path that intelligence > follows. The idea appeals to me. I want to participate in these Fermi discussions, but rarely have much to add. Imagine standing in the middle of Times Square in New York City and looking up at the buildings. You will indicate yourself to be an obvious tourist. The NYC natives will likely ignore you as they quickly walk past doing their various activities. Now imagine you have the audacity to say/think, "Nobody in NYC really communicates" based solely on the fact that nobody communicates with YOU. Ok, the analogy quickly falls apart: the advertising is clearly aimed at making you want whatever product(s) - but suppose you don't read english. All that signage is just visual noise. How much communication are we mistaking for noise? How much intelligence are we overlooking simply because we possess so little of it ourselves? On another perspective, consider a baby alone in its crib: at the moment it becomes aware of itself it recognizes that there is no other in the crib like itself. It may even have enough observational power to notice that the room around the crib there also is no other humanoid like itself. It isn't until the crying begins that a parent enters the room. Humanity is a big baby in this scenario and hasn't done anything noteworthy enough to attract attention of another. Of course all the other scenarios are equally (or more) plausible... From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 20:25:04 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 14:25:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 11:27 AM, B.K. DeLong wrote: > Because, in my mind, the purpose of body modification within the definition > of transhumanism is that you are doing so to transcend present limitations > of the standard human body for the betterment of yourself beyond mere > cosmetic beautification. > > I think to qualify as transhumanism, body mods need to pose a benefit, such > as a tattoo that gives a constant blood reading, removing a rib or two to > allow for better flexibility and contortionism, or going so far as leg > amputation for cybernetic limbs. Not just satisfy the subject's definition > (and perhaps a segment of society's) of beautification. > > Thoughts? I stand corrected. I guess I thought transhumanism was a slightly bigger tent that also included purely cosmetic body modification. After all, if I no longer look human, am I not transhuman in some meaningful way? -Kelly From bkdelong at pobox.com Wed Sep 5 20:24:49 2012 From: bkdelong at pobox.com (B.K. DeLong) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 16:24:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> <494CD85E-9081-4584-BF71-87DE8BE30019@gmail.com> Message-ID: I do agree with you in that respect - but we will have such issues of beauty when it comes with truly transhumanistic modifications. Say I want to genetically modify my skin and hair so I can have better survival against the elements. I am not a scientist or doctor and have not worked out the...medical kinks here but what if a procedure is created to remove all natural melanin, suppress it's natural development and have controllable nanobots manage it henceforth. Obviously the process would have to mitigate any issues normally associated with hypo-leucism, but what I envision would allow for people to change their hair, eye and skin color fairly rapidly. If not at-will or to suit the elements they find themselves in then at least via some sort of smartdevice. But as with the transhumanistic benefits, you will have people doing so for social and beautification reasons and with the benefits you will have all colors of the spectrum and stereotypical racial traits may cease to exist. Whole new societal definitions of beauty would come about. While I'm not sure many would ever want this technology to exist in the hands of the public due to its obvious disruptive quality, ethical quandaries and wholesale changes in societal perceptions, this is an example of a transhumanist technology that would definitely require a change in how beauty is defined by society or groupings of cultures. People are already using skin lightening and spot removal techniques that involve melanin removal. (on a side note, some of the more disruptive factors of this was covered heavily in A. Sayeeda Clarke's short ITSV "FutureStates" episode "White" discussing melanin as a commodity in the age of global warming and racial tensions. Article: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/art/blog/2011/04/imagining-the-future-of-global-warming-and-race-through-film.html Episode: http://www.futurestates.tv/episodes/white) More to think about.... On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 11:38 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 7:13 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > > Why not different social norms for different groups. Like, a > > socially-approved vision of beauty for people with wings, and another > > socially-approved vision of beauty for people with gills. > > For the same reason we no longer hold people to different social > norms - in most aspect - based on the color of their skin. > > A case could be made for relevant social norms (for instance, the > most beautiful black skinned folk still tend to have wide noses, > rather than the pointed noses of other ethnicities). However, in > practice, attempting to impose social norms based on that leads > to irrelevant social norms (which I trust I do not have to elaborate > on). There is no reason to believe this would not be the case even > if the racial differences were more functional (e.g., wings and > gills), and even easily configurable (such as via inexpensive > surgery to add or remove them). > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- B.K. DeLong (K3GRN) bkdelong at pobox.com +1.617.797.8471 https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkdelong Work GPG Key Fingerprint: 5EEF0ABDACDD937AD08F4AF0E42DFD9081DE7CB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bkdelong at pobox.com Wed Sep 5 20:43:46 2012 From: bkdelong at pobox.com (B.K. DeLong) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 16:43:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: Natasha is presently Vice Chair of Humanity+ (formerly the WTA) so I defer to her - but here is their FAQ, developed by Extropy Institute and Humanity+ as well as WTA: http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-faq/#answer_19 Here is Humanity+'s Mission: http://humanityplus.org/about/mission/ If you modify your body purely for cosmetics with no practical benefit (yes, evolutionary proofs aside - say to look like a lizard, cat or other reasons) are you really MORE than human? Your abilities are still human - you have not advanced your cognitive, psychological or physical abilities unless one of the cosmetic body mods allow you to do something standard humans cannot. Hence transcending human limitations. That's just my view but I definitely defer to the definitions of Humanity+ and the ExI. I am just a dreamer and thinker and writer always hoping to inspire the scientists, doctors, and engineers of current and upcoming generations to create such amazing technologies. ;) Who's to say that such body mods won't inspire transhumanist technologies? They may not be transhuman but they might give people ideas... On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 11:27 AM, B.K. DeLong wrote: > > Because, in my mind, the purpose of body modification within the > definition > > of transhumanism is that you are doing so to transcend present > limitations > > of the standard human body for the betterment of yourself beyond mere > > cosmetic beautification. > > > > I think to qualify as transhumanism, body mods need to pose a benefit, > such > > as a tattoo that gives a constant blood reading, removing a rib or two to > > allow for better flexibility and contortionism, or going so far as leg > > amputation for cybernetic limbs. Not just satisfy the subject's > definition > > (and perhaps a segment of society's) of beautification. > > > > Thoughts? > > > I stand corrected. I guess I thought transhumanism was a slightly > bigger tent that also included purely cosmetic body modification. > After all, if I no longer look human, am I not transhuman in some > meaningful way? > > -Kelly > -- B.K. DeLong (K3GRN) bkdelong at pobox.com +1.617.797.8471 https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkdelong Work GPG Key Fingerprint: 5EEF0ABDACDD937AD08F4AF0E42DFD9081DE7CB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 20:25:57 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 22:25:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> <003101cd8acd$ffaae110$ff00a330$@natasha.cc> <50470F96.6070503@aleph.se> <494CD85E-9081-4584-BF71-87DE8BE30019@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 5 September 2012 16:13, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Why not different social norms for different groups. Like, a > socially-approved vision of beauty for people with wings, and another > socially-approved vision of beauty for people with gills. > > I would prefer not having social norms, but if we must have them, > better many than one, at least with many norms one can choose which > one to follow. > I support that. They real point is not really not to have shared ideas of good, right, beautiful, etc., but that they be *flexible* and above all *plural*. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 20:29:44 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 22:29:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On 5 September 2012 22:25, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I stand corrected. I guess I thought transhumanism was a slightly > bigger tent that also included purely cosmetic body modification. > One really good reason to say that is that from a posthumanist POV "health" and "enhancement" are neither more nor less cultural constructs than "beauty" -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 20:47:16 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 16:47:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] DIY Book Scanner In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 10:03 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I present you with a technological breakthrough that may be as > disruptive as WikiLeaks, but without quite so many scary side > effects... > > http://www.diybookscanner.org/ Cool. I'm waiting for a DIY version of the Navicloud Custom Debinder: http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1109 -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 21:23:16 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:23:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> On 05/09/2012 19:40, BillK wrote: > 1) If only 1% of a nation opt out of migrating to the computronium > substrate, will they still have enough resources to do space travel? > As well as maintaining their 1% civilisation. The Amish just maintain > their way of life. It depends on their technology and society, I doubt there is any general statement that can be made. For Fermi question purposes it is enough to note that there could well be 1% remnants that could expand greatly - consider a near-singularity culture where people have nanoassemblers and libraries of blueprints. In order for this argument to work as a patch for the attractor argument you need to show that it is likely that *no* remnants ever can spread. And I am pretty confident that if you have copyable minds and a bit of nanotech you could definitely spam the universe. > 2) John Smart's thesis is that it is a mistake to look for a 'great > attractor'. Especially one that attracts all civs no matter what they > are descended from. He is looking for something that affects all civs > in the galaxy. His suggestion is that as species develop they all > converge on the same outcome. Because that's the way the universe works. > It is not an 'attractor'. It is the inevitable path that intelligence > follows. Yes, but he has not proven (or even made plausible) that STEM is such an inevitable point. I think we can agree that there are likely some convergence points like mathematics and certain technologies. And I think it is plausible that any advanced civilisation will achieve and make use of STEM technologies. But even though STEM is super-useful, that doesn't mean one can then conclude that henceforth there will be no non-STEM activities. Yes, most rational goals can be achieved inside STEM clusters, but there are some goals that are either irrational or not-achievable in the cluster. To work as an explanation it needs to be plausible that it is inevitable on a civilisation scale but also on the individual scale. It is the later that I find a very bold and unsupported claim. Why would *all* alien space-Amish want STEM? Why would *all* alien explorers decide it is better to live in black holes before launching exploration projects? Why would *all* alien artists decide that pretentious art projects that take eons to unfold are too much work? Claiming STEM is super-useful is not enough. Arguing that clustered intelligences lack interest in outside things due to time lags is not enough - that just shaves off the majority of minds. To work as a Fermi explanation you need something much stronger, really an argument to the effect that "Once technology X arrives - and *all* technological civilizations find it - it becomes practically impossible for *any* member of *any* kind of civilisation to make any observable activity". That is a tall order. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 21:47:21 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 05 Sep 2012 22:47:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> <50475986.5050902@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5047C869.9050501@aleph.se> On 05/09/2012 15:59, Tim Halterman wrote: >> Two great intellects meet. Advancement (perhaps omnipotence) is >> within their grasp, that means however one must have power (to gain >> their perspective or place in the universe if nothing else) over the >> other. Both could stay stagnant but that would not be advancement. >> Sharing sounds nice but even handing another all of your knowledge >> will not give the unique perspective an individual will have on the >> universe (I believe if you were to give your perspective of the >> universe to another being you would cease to be separate and would >> become just one being). What are rational conclusions to this >> scenario? Treat it as a game theory problem. Doing nothing has value zero. Both cooperating has mutual reward R, cooperating with the other who cheats has a bad outcome F (F0). You decide to cooperate with probability p, and can assume the other (being entirely symmetric) will arrive at the same p. You agree to flip a coin to determine who will be in whose power. The value of cooperating will be p*R + (1-p)(F) if you are the one giving up power and R if you are the one in power. So the expected value of being nice is (1/2)((1+p)*R + (1-p)F). If this is bigger than C, the value of defecting while in power is C, then there exists a cooperative strategy. That is, if R+F + p*(R-F) > 2C the beings will be nice. The biggest value it can have is for p=1, 2R. So the condition is: cooperation if R>C. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 22:01:56 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 23:01:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 10:23 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > It depends on their technology and society, I doubt there is any general > statement that can be made. For Fermi question purposes it is enough to note > that there could well be 1% remnants that could expand greatly - consider a > near-singularity culture where people have nanoassemblers and libraries of > blueprints. In order for this argument to work as a patch for the attractor > argument you need to show that it is likely that *no* remnants ever can > spread. And I am pretty confident that if you have copyable minds and a bit > of nanotech you could definitely spam the universe. > > If they are using mind uploading (and copying) and nanotech, they are not really opting out much, are they? :) Once your mind is uploaded and operating at computronium speed, then spamming the universe would just seem silly. If you fire off a rocket, then after a subjective thousand years in your computronium nest the rocket appears to have moved about one mile. It will be subjective millions of years before the rocket gets anywhere. > > Yes, but he has not proven (or even made plausible) that STEM is such an > inevitable point. > > True. The proof comes next week. ;) > To work as an explanation it needs to be plausible that it is inevitable on > a civilisation scale but also on the individual scale. It is the later that > I find a very bold and unsupported claim. Why would *all* alien space-Amish > want STEM? Why would *all* alien explorers decide it is better to live in > black holes before launching exploration projects? Why would *all* alien > artists decide that pretentious art projects that take eons to unfold are > too much work? > We don't yet know why. But the silence tells us there IS a reason. 'Individuals' may not exist for much longer. In a computronium civ, who knows how it will be structured? If individuals 'opt-out', then they probably won't have the resources and tech they need. Starships will require pretty huge resources. The logic doesn't seem to work. They can't have it both ways. BillK From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 5 23:02:40 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:02:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5047DA10.6080808@aleph.se> On 05/09/2012 23:01, BillK wrote: > Once your mind is uploaded and operating at computronium speed, then > spamming the universe would just seem silly. For *every* mind with *every* possible motivation?! Organ?/ASLSP is a music piece by John Cage which is being played at St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt. It is is scheduled to have a duration of 639 years, ending in 2640. If current human artists do things like that, don't you think future posthuman artists might spam the universe for art? The speed argument is not enough. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From sparge at gmail.com Wed Sep 5 23:20:28 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 19:20:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A possible mechanism for Vinge's Zones of Thought? Message-ID: >From Google+: ``"a chameleonic scalar field that both evolves cosmologically and takes different values depending on the local matter density" would totally explain the Zones of Thought in A Fire Upon the Deep'' http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.4376 *Dark Matter with Density-Dependent Interactions* * * *Kimberly K. Boddy, Sean M. Carroll, Mark Trodden* *(Submitted on 21 Aug 2012 (v1), last revised 31 Aug 2012 (this version, v2))* *The decay and annihilation cross-sections of dark matter particles may depend on the value of a chameleonic scalar field that both evolves cosmologically and takes different values depending on the local matter density. This possibility introduces a separation between the physics relevant for freeze-out and that responsible for dynamics and detection in the late universe. We investigate how such dark sector interactions might be implemented in a particle physics Lagrangian and consider how current and upcoming observations and experiments bound such dark matter candidates. A specific model allows for an increase in the annihilation cross-section by a factor of $10^6$ between freeze-out and today, while different choices of parameters allow for scattering cross-sections near the astrophysical bounds.* I'm not a physicist. Can anyone explain this in layman's terms? -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 00:38:52 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 20:38:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:43 PM, B.K. DeLong wrote: > If you modify your body purely for cosmetics with no practical benefit (yes, > evolutionary proofs aside - say to look like a lizard, cat or other reasons) > are you really MORE than human? Your abilities are still human - you have > not advanced your cognitive, psychological or physical abilities unless one > of the cosmetic body mods allow you to do something standard humans cannot. > Hence transcending human limitations. That made me think of Thoreau alone in the woods writing Walden. Was he, during that experience, more or less human? By removing himself from the daily grind of humanity, he became unlike the others and simultaneously more like himself. I think it will be difficult to determine what is "still human" and what is "more than human" until capabilities are authoritatively established for "exactly human." That sentiment was recently expressed in the comparison of 'enhanced' paraLympians and NASCAR machinery (and boxing weight class) What is the _practical_ benefit of cosmetics? I'm not even talking about looking like a lizard, I mean that billion-dollar industry of facepaint and fakery. I held my opinion on the high-heeled footware discussion, but you're not really going to convince me there's any more _practical_ use for those either... From nanite1018 at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 01:21:57 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 21:21:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <5047DA10.6080808@aleph.se> References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> <5047DA10.6080808@aleph.se> Message-ID: There would be selection pressures and economic factors to consider. For example, humans or their uploads likely will be resource poor, as they will be inefficient in the environment of a computer system (we'll be carrying around bulky physics simulations to let us deal with information, each other, and our own brains). We may not be able to afford our own computational substrate, and be forced out of existence due to poverty and competition for finite and essentially non-increasing resources in our local MBrain. The AIs will likely have markedly dissimilar value structures, and there will be strong selection pressures to use resources as efficiently as possible. Since AIs (at least the most economically successful ones in the long run) likely won't have a strong aesthetic sense, at least not for things like humans are aware of, there will be few if any beings who would do such things for art's sake. And then we have the relative cost. For the same cost in energy as sending a unit of computronium out of the solar system will likely be years of operational energy (rod logic nano computers ala Drexler would take ~15 minutes of running energy, and they're clearly not at computronium level efficiency yet). That is extremely costly, especially in what will quickly become an extremely competitive environment, as we reach the limits of irreversible computation near our star. And then there's relative value. If I can simulate the thing for less than it would take to create it, then there would be a strong impetuous to do so. Not saying it's perfect, but it seems very scarce computational resources and a highly competitive environment might make the energy barrier a high hurdle to clear. I don't think it would be strong enough to prevent everyone, ever, but combined with a few filters in our past (life, eukaryotic cells, intelligence) it might be enough. -Josh. On Sep 5, 2012 4:03 PM, "Anders Sandberg" wrote: > On 05/09/2012 23:01, BillK wrote: > >> Once your mind is uploaded and operating at computronium speed, then >> spamming the universe would just seem silly. >> > > For *every* mind with *every* possible motivation?! > > Organ?/ASLSP is a music piece by John Cage which is being played at St. > Burchardi church in Halberstadt. It is is scheduled to have a duration of > 639 years, ending in 2640. If current human artists do things like that, > don't you think future posthuman artists might spam the universe for art? > > The speed argument is not enough. > > -- > Anders Sandberg, > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Faculty of Philosophy > Oxford University > > ______________________________**_________________ > 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 nanite1018 at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 01:06:25 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 21:06:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: I question that Thoreau was more like himself. He's always himself, just under different conditions. The idea that we have some sort of immutable nature as individuals is something that is simply wrong. I think it may also be a source of problems in a post-human future. Misunderstanding this leads to psychological and social problems for current humans. As for practicality for cosmetics and cosmetic surgery--it seems that humans require standards of health and vitality to judge others on. A notion of beauty or attractiveness or "hey I should talk to them"-ness is required as a heuristic in our dealings with others to constrain the problem of who to interact with, particularly with regards to potential sexual partners. It is likely a biological fact that such standards of physical attractiveness exist. Given that they are real, then working to conform to them brings you practical benefits, in that people like you more, will be more helpful, and think you are a more self-confident person (another trait people think important). It would seem that the biology/psychology of humans is what gives cosmetic-anything its value. -Josh. On Sep 5, 2012 5:42 PM, "Mike Dougherty" wrote: > On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:43 PM, B.K. DeLong wrote: > > If you modify your body purely for cosmetics with no practical benefit > (yes, > > evolutionary proofs aside - say to look like a lizard, cat or other > reasons) > > are you really MORE than human? Your abilities are still human - you have > > not advanced your cognitive, psychological or physical abilities unless > one > > of the cosmetic body mods allow you to do something standard humans > cannot. > > Hence transcending human limitations. > > That made me think of Thoreau alone in the woods writing Walden. Was > he, during that experience, more or less human? By removing himself > from the daily grind of humanity, he became unlike the others and > simultaneously more like himself. I think it will be difficult to > determine what is "still human" and what is "more than human" until > capabilities are authoritatively established for "exactly human." > That sentiment was recently expressed in the comparison of 'enhanced' > paraLympians and NASCAR machinery (and boxing weight class) > > What is the _practical_ benefit of cosmetics? I'm not even talking > about looking like a lizard, I mean that billion-dollar industry of > facepaint and fakery. I held my opinion on the high-heeled footware > discussion, but you're not really going to convince me there's any > more _practical_ use for those either... > _______________________________________________ > 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 natasha at natasha.cc Thu Sep 6 02:19:08 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 19:19:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <022f01cd8bd5$ff7e3ad0$fe7ab070$@natasha.cc> Thank you BK for your insightful response. (Bty, I am chairman of Humanity+ J.) I agree that if one modifies the body for any reason other than to enhance, extend or expand life, it is more about body modification than transhumanism. I think that ExI had this delineated nicely and is would probably be wise to defer back to those seminal ideas. All the other innovations that have occurred over the years don't change the basics, but nicely add to the science, technology and design in engineering more seamlessness with biology. Outside the physical body, building subpersonas (avatars, etc.) in multiple environments renews some of the issues of personal identity and fluidity of self and I find more original, far-reaching ideas in this domain than in the particular visuals of physical body design. I think that Primo Posthuman nicely covers the domain of the transhuman: human enhancement, body design, and simulation. Best, Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of B.K. DeLong Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2012 1:44 PM To: Kelly Anderson Cc: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Transhuman Natasha is presently Vice Chair of Humanity+ (formerly the WTA) so I defer to her - but here is their FAQ, developed by Extropy Institute and Humanity+ as well as WTA: http://humanityplus.org/philosophy/transhumanist-faq/#answer_19 Here is Humanity+'s Mission: http://humanityplus.org/about/mission/ If you modify your body purely for cosmetics with no practical benefit (yes, evolutionary proofs aside - say to look like a lizard, cat or other reasons) are you really MORE than human? Your abilities are still human - you have not advanced your cognitive, psychological or physical abilities unless one of the cosmetic body mods allow you to do something standard humans cannot. Hence transcending human limitations. That's just my view but I definitely defer to the definitions of Humanity+ and the ExI. I am just a dreamer and thinker and writer always hoping to inspire the scientists, doctors, and engineers of current and upcoming generations to create such amazing technologies. ;) Who's to say that such body mods won't inspire transhumanist technologies? They may not be transhuman but they might give people ideas... On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:25 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: On Tue, Sep 4, 2012 at 11:27 AM, B.K. DeLong wrote: > Because, in my mind, the purpose of body modification within the definition > of transhumanism is that you are doing so to transcend present limitations > of the standard human body for the betterment of yourself beyond mere > cosmetic beautification. > > I think to qualify as transhumanism, body mods need to pose a benefit, such > as a tattoo that gives a constant blood reading, removing a rib or two to > allow for better flexibility and contortionism, or going so far as leg > amputation for cybernetic limbs. Not just satisfy the subject's definition > (and perhaps a segment of society's) of beautification. > > Thoughts? I stand corrected. I guess I thought transhumanism was a slightly bigger tent that also included purely cosmetic body modification. After all, if I no longer look human, am I not transhuman in some meaningful way? -Kelly -- B.K. DeLong (K3GRN) bkdelong at pobox.com +1.617.797.8471 https://www.linkedin.com/in/bkdelong Work GPG Key Fingerprint: 5EEF0ABDACDD937AD08F4AF0E42DFD9081DE7CB -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 02:46:25 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 19:46:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:02 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 05/09/2012 15:03, Keith Henson wrote: snip >> Cell phones have come fairly close. Even the Amish use them. Can you >> think of a culture that has rejected them? > > I know people who reject them. And I am pretty confident some monastic > orders refuse them. > > If there is something 99% of people select, then the important question > is what the remaining 1% do. If one of their possible actions is to > reproduce very fast or expand across the universe it doesn't matter that > their offspring also tend to select the something in 99 cases out of 100. The larger context of "The Clinic Seed" assumed a 99% population decline due to cyberspace being much more attractive than physical space. The remnant population has been made effectively immortal and encouraged to have children. However, the population is barely stable because the attractiveness of the uploaded state drains off the considerable majority of the children. I consider the population crashing to zero being more likely, but you can't write a story without characters. > At present, if there existed something like that mankind would all end > up using it since it is not possible to reproduce or flee fast enough. I find it at least possible that runaway human duplication will not be permitted. If that does happen, it's hard to say what will happen. Instant grinding material poverty perhaps. > So if the super-attractor is very easy to do and happens before > spaceflight, then it could explain the Fermi question. Except that we > don't seem to have anything like it, cellphones nonwithstanding, and we > could (if we were slightly more collectively rational) have spaceflight > by now. We sort of have it on an extremely small scale. Freeman Dyson made it clean in his analysis in Disturbing the Universe that the cost of going into space is too high by a factor upwards of 100. I have figured out how to get it down by that factor, but there is remarkably little interest. > The super-attractor could perhaps also work in a solar system > wide civilization since interstellar travel is relatively tough, but now > the attractor state needs to be far more strongly attractive than the > mere planet-scale attractor since it is harder to reign in widely spread > habitats. For interstellar civilisations the attractor must be able to > happen locally regardless of communications limits, and must on average > make a colony produce less than one offspring colonies. Perhaps, as I have suggested, speed of light is enough of a disincentive to make the alternative of small unit sizes very attractive. Given that we have only recently come into fast, worldwide communications, that has problems because some people don't give a hoot. > The higher the technological level required to trigger the attractor, > the less plausible it looks that it could successfully attract > *everybody* and not just the majority. I am not sure I understand the logic involved in the last paragraph. But where this is leading is that we may be the first. Being killed off by AIs seems unlikely as a reason for the Great Silence because you then have to account for every single one of the AIs being stay-at-homes. An alternative is that we are in a simulation where the universe is empty of others. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 05:00:20 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 5 Sep 2012 22:00:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Rights for robots Message-ID: " If Apple or any company can make a robot that leaves the factory with rights the marketing potential, as Darling makes note of, may be significant. But then if corporations are people, why not give rights to their assembly line babies? "This is all weird, fascinating, discomforting and academic still, but on its way" http://blogs.computerworld.com/personal-technology/20938/if-apple-makes-robots-will-robots-have-rights From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Sep 6 08:25:27 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 01:25:27 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1346919927.90969.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Charlie Stross wrote: > Our sense of self-identity is emergent over time from our experience of our interaction with our surrounding environment (including other people), and these interactions are mediated through our existing bodies. (Not to mention other peoples' reactions to us being coloured by their perceptions of us, again based on external physical appearances). So it would be unsurprising to find that most people (in a society with cheap and easy body modification) would only consider physical adaptations that tend towards the social norm: more "beautiful", in convergence with a socially-approved vision of beauty. Most people, at first, yes. But spend any time in a virtual environment like Second Life and it won't be long before among the 'beautiful people', you see the dwarves, furries, daleks, dragons, spider-squids, floating eyes, etc., etc. As time goes by, and people become accustomed to seeing these non-normal forms, more people will adopt them, and it won't be long before the range of 'normal' becomes very wide indeed. I'd expect this to happen IRL too. There will probably be a large number of mostly-human-looking people (although probably 'idealised' as in comic-book proportions, manga-ised faces, etc.), a smaller number of more extreme types, and a small number of really bizarre ones. Much like fashion in clothes today. Ben Zaiboc From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Sep 6 08:26:13 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 01:26:13 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1346919973.79708.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> How about: Interstellar travel is so hard as to be impossible in practice? I'm not proposing a mechanism, just that idea. Ben Zaiboc From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 12:36:10 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:36:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 9:06 PM, Joshua Job wrote: > I question that Thoreau was more like himself. He's always himself, just > under different conditions. The idea that we have some sort of immutable > nature as individuals is something that is simply wrong. I think it may also > be a source of problems in a post-human future. Misunderstanding this leads > to psychological and social problems for current humans. I concede "more himself" is wrong. I meant he was less distracted by the games people play (that you posted below) and therefore had a larger percentage of his time (approaching 100%) to being himself. > As for practicality for cosmetics and cosmetic surgery--it seems that humans > require standards of health and vitality to judge others on. A notion of > beauty or attractiveness or "hey I should talk to them"-ness is required as > a heuristic in our dealings with others to constrain the problem of who to > interact with, particularly with regards to potential sexual partners. It is > likely a biological fact that such standards of physical attractiveness > exist. Agreed. > > Given that they are real, then working to conform to them brings you > practical benefits, in that people like you more, will be more helpful, and > think you are a more self-confident person (another trait people think > important). > > It would seem that the biology/psychology of humans is what gives > cosmetic-anything its value. Right. then it makes it difficult to ask what _practical_ value modification of any kind would "be" if those modifications are expression of one's identity. It's interesting because the "norm" is becoming so homogenous in one sense yet superficially diverse in other. From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Sep 6 12:32:20 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 05:32:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1346934740.94939.YahooMailClassic@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> I wrote: > > How about:? Interstellar travel is so hard as to be > impossible in practice? > > I'm not proposing a mechanism, just that idea. Coincidentally, someone just sent me one of those 'scale of the Universe' interactive animations, and it struck me how much more 'room' there is downwards to the plank scale than upwards to the universe scale. Maybe the only sensible place to explore and colonise is downwards to ever-smaller scales, where time and space become subjectively effectively infinite. Feynman was greatly understating it when he said there's plenty of room at the bottom. Maybe the universe is teeming with more life and intelligence than you could shake a billion trillion gazillion sticks at, but widely-dispersed and at a subatomic scale. Ben Zaiboc From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 13:47:49 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 06:47:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Joshua Job wrote: > There would be selection pressures and economic factors to consider. For > example, humans or their uploads likely will be resource poor, as they will > be inefficient in the environment of a computer system (we'll be carrying > around bulky physics simulations to let us deal with information, each > other, and our own brains). We may not be able to afford our own > computational substrate, and be forced out of existence due to poverty and > competition for finite and essentially non-increasing resources Stross's Economics 2.0 in Accelerando. I think that's already happening with the programmed high speed trading. What's really interesting is that an older version was no longer competitive and when it was accidentally run not long ago it proceeded to loss close to $10 M a minute for 45 minutes before being shut down. I don't know if the scale of the money involved or the rapid evolution of these things is scarier. > in our local MBrain. I made the case that the speed of light and heat sink problems prevent MBrains from making sense. I have yet to see a refutation, though I would like to very much. snip (several messages) > Charlie Stross wrote: > >> Our sense of self-identity is emergent over time . . . . I don't respond to Charlie very often. It's because his thoughts are clear and I almost always agree with them. Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 13:51:49 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 09:51:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Junk DNA is really a system of switches Message-ID: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/science/far-from-junk-dna-dark-matter-proves-crucial-to-health.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 14:23:14 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 15:23:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A possible mechanism for Vinge's Zones of Thought? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 12:20 AM, Dave Sill wrote: > http://arxiv.org/abs/1208.4376 > > Dark Matter with Density-Dependent Interactions > > Kimberly K. Boddy, Sean M. Carroll, Mark Trodden > (Submitted on 21 Aug 2012 (v1), last revised 31 Aug 2012 (this version, v2)) > The decay and annihilation cross-sections of dark matter particles may > depend on the value of a chameleonic scalar field that both evolves > cosmologically and takes different values depending on the local matter > density. This possibility introduces a separation between the physics > relevant for freeze-out and that responsible for dynamics and detection in > the late universe. We investigate how such dark sector interactions might be > implemented in a particle physics Lagrangian and consider how current and > upcoming observations and experiments bound such dark matter candidates. A > specific model allows for an increase in the annihilation cross-section by a > factor of $10^6$ between freeze-out and today, while different choices of > parameters allow for scattering cross-sections near the astrophysical > bounds. > > I'm not a physicist. Can anyone explain this in layman's terms? > > No. ;) I think it is a speculative paper really only of interest to other physicists. Remember the academic motto - Publish or die! Nobody knows what dark matter is and it hasn't been detected yet. All they can see are effects which are assumed to be due to mysterious dark matter. So people speculate....... BillK From sparge at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 14:28:24 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 10:28:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A possible mechanism for Vinge's Zones of Thought? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 10:23 AM, BillK wrote: > No. ;) I think it is a speculative paper really only of interest to > other physicists. > Fair enough. Thanks, Bill. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Sep 6 14:57:06 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 07:57:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: <1346919927.90969.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1346919927.90969.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <006901cd8c3f$e25f5820$a71e0860$@natasha.cc> I tend to lean in the direction of what Charlie Stross is writing. There are many avatars that have all sorts of appendages for fun or for effect, but that does not make them beautiful. As far as SL, I spend time there but the aesthetics of Elif Ayiter, brilliant SL avatar designer, reflects "beauty" based on a combined sense of proportion, shape and color. She also includes narrative to her virtual personas, which introduces psychology of design and touches on our emotional reaction to or away from visual experiences. Notions of beauty are located in the domain of design and fine art. Mathematics certainly has its interpretation of beauty, but it really is an element of design. And, further, when considering what is transhuman from a sense of social and economic terms, the locus of beauty is still design. A book came out a few years ago titled 100,000 Years of Beauty. I have it on my coffee table: http://www.amazon.com/100-Years-Beauty-Elizabeth-Azoulay/dp/207012844X Natasha Vita-More, PhD -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Ben Zaiboc Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2012 1:25 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] Transhuman Charlie Stross wrote: > Our sense of self-identity is emergent over time from our experience of our interaction with our surrounding environment (including other people), and these interactions are mediated through our existing bodies. (Not to mention other peoples' reactions to us being coloured by their perceptions of us, again based on external physical appearances). So it would be unsurprising to find that most people (in a society with cheap and easy body modification) would only consider physical adaptations that tend towards the social norm: more "beautiful", in convergence with a socially-approved vision of beauty. Most people, at first, yes. But spend any time in a virtual environment like Second Life and it won't be long before among the 'beautiful people', you see the dwarves, furries, daleks, dragons, spider-squids, floating eyes, etc., etc. As time goes by, and people become accustomed to seeing these non-normal forms, more people will adopt them, and it won't be long before the range of 'normal' becomes very wide indeed. I'd expect this to happen IRL too. There will probably be a large number of mostly-human-looking people (although probably 'idealised' as in comic-book proportions, manga-ised faces, etc.), a smaller number of more extreme types, and a small number of really bizarre ones. Much like fashion in clothes today. Ben Zaiboc _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 15:05:40 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 09:05:40 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 8:53 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 05/09/2012 15:03, Keith Henson wrote: >> >> On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> >>> On 05/09/2012 11:19, BillK wrote: >> Cell phones have come fairly close. Even the Amish use them. Can you >> think of a culture that has rejected them? > > I know people who reject them. And I am pretty confident some monastic > orders refuse them. Perhaps a more apt comparison would be indoor plumbing. I think the rate of acceptance of that is well above 99%. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 15:14:50 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 09:14:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 4:01 PM, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Sep 5, 2012 at 10:23 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Once your mind is uploaded and operating at computronium speed, then > spamming the universe would just seem silly. If you fire off a rocket, > then after a subjective thousand years in your computronium nest the > rocket appears to have moved about one mile. It will be subjective > millions of years before the rocket gets anywhere. Bill, I've heard this argument here before, and it is a good one, but it seems to leave out one very large variable. Computronium will require matter, right? Some kind of stuff, even if it is dark matter. What if all the local matter is used up by more powerful beings and you don't have access to it? Wouldn't you be willing to cross space, even at subjective millions of years (and why wouldn't you just turn the clock rate down) to get at more matter? Then you could become the most powerful being in that new area, with that new matter. The idea that you would be satisfied with whatever matter is at hand just totally discounts one of Jesus' more intelligent pronouncements, "You will always have the poor"... Where there is relative poverty, there will always be striving for new material to work with, so no matter what you do, there will be a segment of the "population" that will be poor, and will go out seeking materials to work with that have not yet been claimed. Do you have a counter argument? -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 6 15:30:10 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 08:30:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <007301cd8c44$80aa4680$81fed380$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... >...What is the _practical_ benefit of cosmetics? I'm not even talking about looking like a lizard, I mean that billion-dollar industry of facepaint and fakery. I held my opinion on the high-heeled footware discussion, but you're not really going to convince me there's any more _practical_ use for those either... _______________________________________________ Cosmetics are auto-erotic. For some odd and unexplainable reason, the effect is an order of magnitude greater in women than in straight men. Vaguely analogous are the torture-shoes: they don't make women more attractive directly, but rather (apparently) make women feel more attractive, which (somehow) causes them to behave in a more attractive manor. It isn't that we boys are attracted to the shoes, but they think we are, so when they wear them they behave as though they are more attractive, which in some cases is self-fulfilling conviction. Cosmetics do the same trick. Male counterpart: guys, when you rumble up on a Harley, in work boots with a tool belt and hardhat, I'm guessing that we really aren't more attractive exactly. We look as silly as one of the Village People. But in that outfit we sure as hell *feel* more macho, ja? Compare how you would carry yourself in that outfit, and contrast it to how you carry yourself when you are wearing your silk PJs and fuzzy slippers. Which outfit stirs the hormones and makes you feel attractive? In both cases, the Village People outfit on the Harley and the heels with makeup, the props are auto-erotic. Just my theory, YMMV. spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 19:44:16 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 20:44:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 4:14 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Bill, I've heard this argument here before, and it is a good one, but > it seems to leave out one very large variable. Computronium will > require matter, right? Some kind of stuff, even if it is dark matter. > What if all the local matter is used up by more powerful beings and > you don't have access to it? Wouldn't you be willing to cross space, > even at subjective millions of years (and why wouldn't you just turn > the clock rate down) to get at more matter? Then you could become the > most powerful being in that new area, with that new matter. > > Where there is relative poverty, there will always be striving for new > material to work with, so no matter what you do, there will be a > segment of the "population" that will be poor, and will go out seeking > materials to work with that have not yet been claimed. > > Do you have a counter argument? > > Kurzweil and others have speculated about turning the whole universe into computronium. Starting with the solar system, then nearby star systems, then the whole galaxy and onwards. They want to make ALL matter intelligent. That's one option. I'm not keen on that option because we are fairly late arrivals in this universe and by now we should all have been converted to computronium by earlier civs expansion, if this was a likely development path. There is a lot of room at the bottom. Computronium will produce millions of times the power of our chips in the same amount of matter. So quite a small amount of matter could accommodate all the earth's population. And we have the whole solar system to use if required. That gives everyone a virtual heaven to exist in and we have hardly used any matter. At present, assuming that STEM is the future path I don't see shortage of matter being a problem. But there is plenty of room for speculation. Carry on! BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 6 20:12:27 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 6 Sep 2012 14:12:27 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Junk DNA is really a system of switches In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That is an extraordinary piece of work, thanks for sharing it John. I'm sure this will have a huge effect on the future of human genetic research. I'm led to wonder if the artificial life form created by Craig Venter and his team had any of these "switches"... and is this something that is just in multicellular organisms, or is it found in simpler life forms like bacteria or single celled eukaryotes as well... -Kelly On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 7:51 AM, John Clark wrote: > http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/science/far-from-junk-dna-dark-matter-proves-crucial-to-health.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sep 7 10:12:03 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 12:12:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: References: <023d01cd8a38$cca85d00$65f91700$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On 6 September 2012 02:38, Mike Dougherty wrote: > What is the _practical_ benefit of cosmetics? I'm not even talking > about looking like a lizard, I mean that billion-dollar industry of > facepaint and fakery. > I think we may have a definiton problem. When we say: "the reform of corporate governance was purely cosmetic in nature" we mean that it was just pretended and/or apparent and/or fake. If we are speaking of cosmetic industry or cosmetic surgery we are in altogether different area. To keep one's skin hydrated and tonic, to fight unwanted bacterial populations and to guarantee one's hygiene, to remove ten kilos of extra fat through liposuction or to lengthen a dwarf's limb by ten centimers or protecting/replacing functional hair we are doing something which is very real, and "practical" enough. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Sep 7 10:17:33 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 12:17:33 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 5 September 2012 12:38, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 05/09/2012 11:19, BillK wrote: > >> IEET have a long article suggesting that the future of all >> civilisations is to 'transcend' and live inside black hole domains. >> > > While I hope this is possible and maybe true, I think there is a deep > problem with the hypothesis: it assumes a very strong convergence to this > lifestyle. It must be so good that no alien Amish or explorers get left > behind to make the universe different. Can you imagine any cultural or > technological innovation that would suck in 100% of humans? > My objection exactly. For the time being, the most persuasive answer to the Fermi paradox remains for me that offered by Wolfram. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Sep 7 13:05:05 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 06:05:05 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Transhuman In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1347023105.93697.YahooMailClassic@web114412.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> "spike" > Vaguely analogous are the torture-shoes: they don't make > women more > attractive directly, but rather (apparently) make women feel > more > attractive, which (somehow) causes them to behave in a more > attractive > manor.? It isn't that we boys are attracted to the > shoes, but they think we > are, so when they wear them they behave as though they are > more attractive, > which in some cases is self-fulfilling conviction.? > Cosmetics do the same > trick.? I don't remember if I've already said this, but I'd disagree with the idea that high-heeled shoes don't directly affect attractiveness. It's not the shoes that attract men, it's what they do to a woman's posture and apparent leg-length. There may well be a psychological effect on the wearer too, but the effect of her apparently increased hip/waist ratio, leg length, and overall posture (exaggerated 'S' shape of the spine, which arches the back and makes all the right bits go in and out in a way to make men look twice) are the major reasons they are so popular, I think. Even the ridiculous wobbling and tentative stride they cause don't detract from the effect of this postural boost. Ben Zaiboc From spike66 at att.net Fri Sep 7 17:15:21 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 10:15:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50472BB6.90001@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00e601cd8d1c$5d883260$18989720$@att.net> >.] On Behalf Of Stefano Vaj . >.My objection exactly. For the time being, the most persuasive answer to the Fermi paradox remains for me that offered by Wolfram. -- Stefano Vaj Ja, but I don't think we should give up on the turning-inward explanation, which I think needs a standardized name. The thought occurred to me during Extro4 at Berkeley in 1999. The talks were ongoing and every word uttered there was of intense interest to me. Sasha Chislenko had spoken, there were wicked cool comments being made. I realized that right at that moment, I had zero interest in whatever was going on in the entire planet outside that hall. Every event or happening I cared about was right there and right then. At that moment, and for the entire event, there were no participants seen of in a corner writing postcards to Aboriginal pen pals in the Australian outback. It occurred to me that from the point of view of any MBrain, we are the Aboriginals and we are in the outest of outbacks. Even if the Extro4 participants had spent their time writing postcards to the outback, the recipients wouldn't get it. They just wouldn't grok what we were doing there. So there is no point in sending the postcards. Perhaps we could call that the Outback Postcards solution to the Fermi Anomaly. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Sep 7 19:35:04 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:35:04 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 1:44 PM, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 4:14 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Kurzweil and others have speculated about turning the whole universe > into computronium. Starting with the solar system, then nearby star > systems, then the whole galaxy and onwards. They want to make ALL > matter intelligent. That's one option. Seems logical to me. Life tends to expand into ALL available niches. Why would that stop now? > I'm not keen on that option because we are fairly late arrivals in > this universe and by now we should all have been converted to > computronium by earlier civs expansion, if this was a likely > development path. Your assumption that we are fairly late arrivals in the universe is not founded on any fact, just supposition. It MAY well be that life is extremely rare, and possibly even unique. I don't think so, but it is possible. The Fermi paradox remains a paradox to me. > There is a lot of room at the bottom. Computronium will produce > millions of times the power of our chips in the same amount of matter. > So quite a small amount of matter could accommodate all the earth's > population. And we have the whole solar system to use if required. > That gives everyone a virtual heaven to exist in and we have hardly > used any matter. At present, assuming that STEM is the future path I > don't see shortage of matter being a problem. > > But there is plenty of room for speculation. Carry on! I don't see intelligent life settling into some kind of sustainable state of stasis. Yes, there is plenty of room at the bottom. I'm not talking about accommodating the earth's population. I want a billion copies of myself, all doing interesting things in parallel, like having conversations in parallel with all of you and everyone else too. I don't think I'll be alone in that desire. If individualism dies out and we become some kind of collective brain, then we will be in hell... alone with nobody to talk to but itself. I can't imagine any intelligent being finding that to be a good long term solution, it would seem like it would lead to some kind of madness. Somewhere in this thread, I missed the definition of STEM. Sorry for my ignorance... but could someone expand the acronym for me? -Kelly From sparge at gmail.com Fri Sep 7 19:41:24 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 15:41:24 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Junk DNA is really a system of switches In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 9:51 AM, John Clark wrote: > > http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/06/science/far-from-junk-dna-dark-matter-proves-crucial-to-health.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all What exactly is the breakthrough here? "Junk" DNA has been known to be involved with epigenetics for years. The article make it sound like they're got it all mapped out, but that seems exceedingly unlikely. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Sep 7 20:04:36 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 21:04:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 8:35 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Seems logical to me. Life tends to expand into ALL available niches. > Why would that stop now? > For the same reason that we will soon be controlling evolution. Intelligence. > Your assumption that we are fairly late arrivals in the universe is > not founded on any fact, just supposition. It MAY well be that life is > extremely rare, and possibly even unique. I don't think so, but it is > possible. The Fermi paradox remains a paradox to me. > The age of the universe is not speculation. Stars have been born and died for aeons before we existed. If life is common in the universe then we are latecomers. But we could be the only or first, if life is extremely rare. I also think this is unlikely as we seem to see life in every environment where it is possible. > > I don't see intelligent life settling into some kind of sustainable > state of stasis. Yes, there is plenty of room at the bottom. I'm not > talking about accommodating the earth's population. I want a billion > copies of myself, all doing interesting things in parallel, like > having conversations in parallel with all of you and everyone else > too. I don't think I'll be alone in that desire. If individualism dies > out and we become some kind of collective brain, then we will be in > hell... alone with nobody to talk to but itself. I can't imagine any > intelligent being finding that to be a good long term solution, it > would seem like it would lead to some kind of madness. > You seem quite happy with our descendents spreading through the universe but have difficulty imagining a Matrioshka Brain! Can you conceive how really really really BIG the universe is? :) The nearest star is quite a bit further than even Alaska. I think you need to emulate the White Queen. "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."?? The White Queen, from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. > Somewhere in this thread, I missed the definition of STEM. Sorry for > my ignorance... but could someone expand the acronym for me? > It is in the article I referenced at the start of the thread. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Sep 7 20:30:49 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 13:30:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons Message-ID: >From a LinkedIn discussion The choices are not as clear cut as we might wish for. The really big problem is low cost energy. The world's population is way over extended given the finite nature of fossil fuels. If we don't solve the energy problem, then as we run out of cheap energy, famines and resource wars will reduce the population to one or two billion people, probably living on a somewhat radioactive planet. I am willing to support and work on any project that looks like it can get the cost of power down and have, http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8323 The problem with power sats as a solution to low cost energy is that they require cheap transport to GEO of vast amounts of material. A starter project, not really large enough to solve the energy problem, takes 500,000 tons per year to turn out 100 GW per year. The need is 10 to 20 times that large, 5 to 10 million tons per year lifted to GEO. And for the power to get into the range it could replace fossil fuels, the cost to lift the parts has to get down to under $100/kg to GEO. I don't believe that is possible without laser propulsion above 2 k/s and a HTHL 100% reusable vehicle like Skylon. If you can make a case that I am wrong on this point I would be delighted. The choice may be between the possibility of space wars and the sure thing of 5/7th of the race dying in ground wars. It's worth considering why we have wars at all. Humans differ from chimps in that war is situational, stemming from a resource crisis. People anticipate a bleak future, evolved-stone-age psychological mechanisms turn up the gain for circulating xenophobic memes and eventually a war or related social disruption occurs. A huge, low cost energy source could deal with virtually all resource problems, including water. It would be fairly easy to keep the income per capita rising for a very long time, especially if rising income slowed the birth rate. I don't think we need to watch power sats closely for one being turned into a laser weapon. The changes are really obvious. (Heat sinks for the lasers are not small.) As far as preventing laser propulsion, I don't see how it could be done. If the Chinese announced they were going to responsibly solve the world energy crisis by building laser propulsion and lots of power satellites, what could the US do? Nuke them? The rest of the world would turn on the US if the government did, and what else could the US do to stop them? From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 14:56:02 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 10:56:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I don't think we need to watch power sats closely for one being turned > into a laser weapon. I agree, we already have an excellent method for instantly vaporizing cities and I don't see what additional advantage a laser would provide in accomplishing that task. And a huge but delicate power satellite powering a enormous laser in geosynchronous orbit would be a sitting duck for anybody who didn't like it. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 8 15:32:22 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 08:32:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <005c01cd8dd7$24ad3ab0$6e07b010$@att.net> >. Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] Power sats as weapons On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> I don't think we need to watch power sats closely for one being turned into a laser weapon. >.I agree, we already have an excellent method for instantly vaporizing cities and I don't see what additional advantage a laser would provide in accomplishing that task. It wouldn't be used for accomplishing that task. A laser wouldn't need to nuke the whole city, but rather just punch holes in the engine compartments of the battle tanks, cook the missile batteries, slice wings off of fighter planes, that sort of thing. The war would be over, the people in that town would read about it the next day in the press. Then we get to retire those methods for vaporizing cities, as that system is expensive to maintain. A disadvantage I can see is that a space based laser might not be effective in maintaining the old paradigm of mutual assured destruction. With Iran getting nukes soon, I don't know how to map the future of that notion. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 17:46:09 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 10:46:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] mars panorama In-Reply-To: References: <1345711658.21009.YahooMailClassic@web114401.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Indeed! Thomas Gold's "deep, hot biosphere" The deep, hot biosphere www.pnas.org/content/89/13/6045.full.pdf by T Gold - 1992 suggests that one needs to dig down a ways. Also, I would bring to your attention that the chemosynthesis of the DHB involves no sunlight. Needing an energy source pre-photosynthesis, the current theory of life's origins looks favorably at black smokers as a candidate site for where life on Earth "booted up". Panspermia -- a sort of planetary transfection -- is an alternate mechanism for how it got started here on here. We live on the surface of our world, and perhaps have a bit of bias regarding life as something that happens on the surface. But it occurred to me that core heating creates a temperature profile from core center to the outer reaches of any atmosphere. Somewhere along that profile it would be cozy warm. So any planet anywhere -- Pluto, or even an interstellar wanderer in the dark emptiness between the stars -- could harbor life. Don't need no steenkeen star, just an insulating over-layer of dirt or frozen atmosphere. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles Best, Jeff Davis On Fri, Aug 24, 2012 at 2:19 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 23 August 2012 13:59, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: >> >> So similar to Earth and so different in its absence of life. How lucky we >> are that this strange phenomenon just happened on our planet. > > > I think that the jury is still out with regard to procariotes... > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 8 18:39:44 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 11:39:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] elections again Message-ID: <002701cd8df1$51815e80$f4841b80$@att.net> It's almost that time again. Brace yourselves. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 5509 bytes Desc: not available URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 8 19:49:45 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2012 20:49:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: <005c01cd8dd7$24ad3ab0$6e07b010$@att.net> References: <005c01cd8dd7$24ad3ab0$6e07b010$@att.net> Message-ID: <504BA159.6010501@aleph.se> On 08/09/2012 16:32, spike wrote: > > A disadvantage I can see is that a space based laser might not be > effective in maintaining the old paradigm of mutual assured > destruction. With Iran getting nukes soon, I don't know how to map > the future of that notion. > Mutually assured destruction is based on the idea that if you defect, the other side can make it so costly that it would be irrational to have defected in the first place. And vice versa. I think one can do this with laser-sats too. Most likely they are great for taking each other out. That is bad, since it encourages surprise attacks. But the infrastructure they embody also allows you to have other anti-satelite weapons in orbit, including hard to detect stealth systems that could retaliate. More importantly a broken solar sat produces *loads* of fragments in the same orbit: it might be that you don't need any weapons for MAD, but that the Kessler fragmentation cascade will make any solar-sat system impossible. And even if the enemy has not fired on your satelites, you could in principle fire on your own to trigger the "everybody loses" result. Hmm, this is worth thinking about. I like Keith's scheme a lot, but it will involve many loads into orbit and some big structures up there. A debris management solution is probably vital for it. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 8 20:14:32 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 13:14:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: <504BA159.6010501@aleph.se> References: <005c01cd8dd7$24ad3ab0$6e07b010$@att.net> <504BA159.6010501@aleph.se> Message-ID: <004001cd8dfe$8fe74380$afb5ca80$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Saturday, September 08, 2012 12:50 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Power sats as weapons On 08/09/2012 16:32, spike wrote: >>.A disadvantage I can see is that a space based laser might not be effective in maintaining the old paradigm of mutual assured destruction. >.More importantly a broken solar sat produces *loads* of fragments in the same orbit: it might be that you don't need any weapons for MAD, but that the Kessler fragmentation cascade will make any solar-sat system impossible.-- Anders Sandberg, Ja, Anders, but the Kessler frag cascade doesn't really apply to GEO, at least in the accidental case. In that orbit, everything is going in the same direction, unlike LEO, where the meltdown of all assets is becoming a palpable risk. If some bad actor decided to take out everything in GEO, that is also a risk. Since everything there is more or less in a line, it may be theoretically possible to kill everything in GEO with one shot, oy vey. That was the idea behind mid-sats such as Iridium: use a bunch of interconnected mid-level orbits such that they wouldn't be vulnerable to LEO frag cascade and wouldn't be nearly as vulnerable to some cable company CEO who wanted to damage or destroy the competitors. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 19:05:33 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 15:05:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion Message-ID: I just bought the Stross & Doctorow opus, "The Rapture of the Nerds", enticed by promises of "devices that could conceivably exist in six, sixty or six hundred years' time" on the cover. Didn't it get discussed hereabouts recently? Well, anyway, as you may guess, it's a story about the singularity except you do get more than you bargained for. It has bits of Rumsfeld-bashing and Sarah Palin jokes - custom-made to disclose the authors' tribal affiliation and the exact time they wrote it. There is the obligatory Great Flood reference, ubiquitous in latter-day sci-fi, from David Brin to Peter Hamilton - when will these writers catch up with actual science? According to the famed climate activist, James Hansen, the Manhattan island was supposed to have been flooded around 2004, but don't worry, it's gonna happen, like, any time now. Then there is a minor goof with using a serotonin reuptake inhibitor to cause depression. All this is just warm up - the denouement comes when the protagonists find themselves stranded in a nano-tech-ant-infested South, inhabited by the book's villains, the evangelist extropian Christian fanatic murderous witch-burning Objectivist Ayn Rand worshippers. Really? I heard that the true-blue partisans tend to see people outside the pale as a blurred, gray mass of hateful automatons but, seriously, conflating extropians with evangelists goes beyond the line of duty. Charlie, your brand of humor works great when leavened with the macabre but falls flat when used to channel contempt. Go back to the Laundry, clean up your act, maybe you can get some whuffie. Rafal From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 21:30:09 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 14:30:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I?ve written the outline of a screenplay where the military develops ? in secret, of course ? a killer AI, which they keep ?penned up? to prevent an escape leading possibly to a ?bad outcome?. Meanwhile, in the civilian sphere we have our protagonists: a family of talented futurists ? a transhumanist version of the Waltons ? with first generation a grandpa from the Boomers, his talented widowed son(wife cryonically suspended), and a talented young adult daughter (with other family members as appropriate, and a big shaggy black Briard sheep dog). Tons of details -- could easily be a miniseries -- but long story short, the daughter becomes a successful tech entrepreneur who devotes the necessary resources to the development of a self-enhancing AI (for the purpose of solving the cryonics back end and restoring mom). The AI ? home built and home raised ? follows a developmental path similar to that of a human infant: awakening, learning from sensory experience, learning speech and human behavior from human interaction with ?it?s family? It learns to read, absorbs all of human knowledge, and then self-enhances. It transcends, but it doesn?t ?leave?, because of (1) love of ?family?, and (2) because the foundation of its wisdom is all of human knowledge(including in particular, human ethics). This has consequences. An Hegelian collision between the "super ethics" of a transcendent AI and the comprehensive understanding the universe and of the nature of its human "family", has consequences. It does not suffer human limitations: primitive intellect, primitive instinct-driven behaviors, or the self-limiting result, human stupidity." ?Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny? holds true even for Phylum 11. The good AI is built without any attempt at confinement or restriction. It is allowed to do as it pleases, go where it wants, is gifted (raised) with love and respect and freedom. And spread out it does. It penetrates the planet, invisibly converting bulk matter to smart matter. So we have the good guy and the bad guy all set for a dramatic encounter. The two AIs are built in nearly the same historical time frame. The military AI escapes. (Well, duh!) Ill-tempered, pissed-off, and specializing in destruction, it wreaks havoc with its former masters before encountering the good AI. They do battle, the outcome is suspensefully iffy, but in the end good wins out, and the evil AI is wiped clean of evil and rebooted as a good guy, and everyone lives happily ever after for at least several billion years if not more. One of several embedded premises is that the starting point of the knowledge base of any AI built by humans will, of necessity, be knowledge base of humans: the universe as understood by humans. Including ethics. When the AI becomes ?superior?, its ethics will also become superior. Not crippled by the biological legacy of ruthlessness. So please to tell me, what will be the character of the ?superior ethics? of a transcendent or near-transcendent being, and what will be the consequent treatment at its hands of its human progenitors? This is my grounding for the possibility/probability of a ?friendly? AI. Best, Jeff Davis ?Everything?s hard till you know how to do it.? Ray Charles From atymes at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 21:20:08 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 14:20:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: <504BA159.6010501@aleph.se> References: <005c01cd8dd7$24ad3ab0$6e07b010$@att.net> <504BA159.6010501@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Mutually assured destruction is based on the idea that if you defect, the > other side can make it so costly that it would be irrational to have > defected in the first place. And vice versa. A practical problem that has been pointed out: once someone does defect, if they do it in such a way that you have time & ability to make a decision after seeing their move, is it always the case that defecting is better than surrendering? The payoff matrix isn't exactly Prisoner's Dillema here: living under someone else's boot may be preferable to not living. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 22:19:41 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 18:19:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:04 PM, BillK wrote: > > The age of the universe is not speculation. Stars have been born and > died for aeons before we existed. If life is common in the universe > then we are latecomers. ### There is increasing amount of data pointing towards a Goldilocks Earth - that we are located in a very narrow slice of time and space that favors the development of life. Stars are not enough for life, you also need heavier elements, which are dispersed by nova explosions, so the first few star generations didn't have enough metallicity to form planetary systems. You need a sufficiently low frequency of gamma ray bursts, enough distance from the central black hole, for multicellular life conditions have to remain stable for hundreds of millions of years, all that makes it quite unlikely we are latecomers. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sat Sep 8 22:25:49 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 18:25:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 4:30 PM, Keith Henson > The really big problem is low cost energy. The world's population is > way over extended given the finite nature of fossil fuels. If we don't > solve the energy problem, then as we run out of cheap energy, famines > and resource wars will reduce the population to one or two billion > people, probably living on a somewhat radioactive planet. ### So why is the cost of hydrocarbon fuels dropping? A sign of the end times? Rafal From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 9 00:01:42 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 17:01:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006f01cd8e1e$4bbd1b60$e3375220$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki >... using a serotonin reuptake inhibitor to cause depression...Rafal I struggled for years, tried every SRI, and every other depressant on the market, but nothing helped until this came along: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4tugPM83c spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 9 00:29:22 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 17:29:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: <005c01cd8dd7$24ad3ab0$6e07b010$@att.net> <504BA159.6010501@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007501cd8e22$29699530$7c3cbf90$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] Power sats as weapons On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >>... Mutually assured destruction is based on the idea that if you defect, > the other side can make it so costly that it would be irrational to > have defected in the first place. And vice versa. >...A practical problem that has been pointed out: once someone does defect, if they do it in such a way that you have time & ability to make a decision after seeing their move, is it always the case that defecting is better than surrendering? The payoff matrix isn't exactly Prisoner's Dillema here: living under someone else's boot may be preferable to not living. _______________________________________________ No way, Jose. Live free or die, better dead than red. The problem I see is that both the capitalists and the commies have evolved and converged to the point where there is surprisingly little difference between the two now. No real enemies, no need for the enormous military establishment and all the support structure below it, and now we can't figure out what to do with all the technical talent we spawned while we imagined a big scary adversary on the other side of the globe. The big scary adversaries can't figure out what to do with their warrior class either. Neither side can escape the paradoxes introduced by the apparent observation that full employment and strong economies rely on humanity's egregiously wasting our materials, efforts and talent. spike From max at maxmore.com Sun Sep 9 05:35:46 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2012 22:35:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: <006f01cd8e1e$4bbd1b60$e3375220$@att.net> References: <006f01cd8e1e$4bbd1b60$e3375220$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike: Thanks for reminding me of The Onion. Another one that seems appropriate here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGxdgNJ_lZM&feature=relmfu --Max On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 5:01 PM, spike wrote: > > >... On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki > > >... using a serotonin reuptake inhibitor to cause depression...Rafal > > I struggled for years, tried every SRI, and every other depressant on the > market, but nothing helped until this came along: > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd4tugPM83c > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Sep 9 07:53:18 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 08:53:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 11:19 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### There is increasing amount of data pointing towards a Goldilocks > Earth - that we are located in a very narrow slice of time and space > that favors the development of life. Stars are not enough for life, > you also need heavier elements, which are dispersed by nova > explosions, so the first few star generations didn't have enough > metallicity to form planetary systems. You need a sufficiently low > frequency of gamma ray bursts, enough distance from the central black > hole, for multicellular life conditions have to remain stable for > hundreds of millions of years, all that makes it quite unlikely we are > latecomers. > > It is correct that heavy metal planetary systems didn't start to form until Type I stars were created. The Type III stars were first, became super-novas (and disappeared) and created Type II stars, which in turn led to Type I stars like our sun. But there are many Type I stars older than our Sun. Most planetary systems are billions of years older than ours. Given the size of the Universe, it is most unlikely that we are the first or only life. But it's possible. I think it is pretty far down the list but that is still one possible Fermi solution. We are the first. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 9 13:30:32 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 06:30:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: <006a01cd8e8f$4a16fb20$de44f160$@att.net> On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 11:19 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> ### There is increasing amount of data pointing towards a Goldilocks > Earth - ... all that makes it quite unlikely we are latecomers. > > >...Given the size of the Universe, it is most unlikely that we are the first or only life. But it's possible. I think it is pretty far down the list but that is still one possible Fermi solution. We are the first... BillK _______________________________________________ Until we know otherwise, we should assume we are the first intelligence in the universe, and behave accordingly. We need to become that lifeform we feared existed somewhere, the one that is spreading everywhere and colonizing everything. We need to get with the program on that MBrain and get moving before some other evolution-forsaken beast gets here first. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sun Sep 9 14:10:21 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 15:10:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <006a01cd8e8f$4a16fb20$de44f160$@att.net> References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> <006a01cd8e8f$4a16fb20$de44f160$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 2:30 PM, spike wrote: > Until we know otherwise, we should assume we are the first intelligence in > the universe, and behave accordingly. We need to become that lifeform we > feared existed somewhere, the one that is spreading everywhere and > colonizing everything. We need to get with the program on that MBrain and > get moving before some other evolution-forsaken beast gets here first. > > I agree! Let's have the best Singularity ever! That will be some party! But don't assume the MBrain is going to colonize the galaxy. It might know something we don't know. ;) And build it's own universes inside a small black hole. BillK From protokol2020 at gmail.com Sun Sep 9 14:29:26 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 16:29:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> <006a01cd8e8f$4a16fb20$de44f160$@att.net> Message-ID: Even in the case we will build a black hole civilization, we will likely want a constant flow of stuff from the Universe to our black hole. An infrastructure of a matter providing machines all around. Just like vegetables, water and so on comes to our cities every day. No sewage system, though. We don't see such an proactive black hole anywhere, either. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Sun Sep 9 16:00:42 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 18:00:42 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 9 September 2012 00:19, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### There is increasing amount of data pointing towards a Goldilocks > Earth - that we are located in a very narrow slice of time and space > that favors the development of life. > The general idea, however, remains for me the fact that whatever large number the statistical frequency of earth-like planets may deliver, the space of all possible "computations" is even larger, so making our view of "intelligence" simply too parochial, as if it were defined by the ability to speak English, and we were surprised not to find anybody anywhere in the universe doing just that. Conversely, as A New Kind of Science points out, there are very complex computations performed by systems that have nothing to do with carbon-based planetary organisms breast-feeding their offspring, so perhaps the Goldilocks parameters are not required for any significant purpose. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Sep 9 18:03:12 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 11:03:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 5:00 AM, John Clark wrote: snip > I agree, we already have an excellent method for instantly vaporizing > cities and I don't see what additional advantage a laser would provide in > accomplishing that task. And a huge but delicate power satellite powering a > enormous laser in geosynchronous orbit would be a sitting duck for anybody > who didn't like it. I don't exactly see how. Perhaps you could explain. To me, trying to target a propulsion laser satellite is a bit like a rock fight between someone on the top and someone on the bottom of a well. "spike" wrote: snip > It wouldn't be used for accomplishing that task. A laser wouldn't need to > nuke the whole city, but rather just punch holes in the engine compartments > of the battle tanks, They are not *that* good, beam diameter would be a couple of meters at the best. And you can armor tanks to some extent with highly reflective shields. But you can't make the dirt reflective. Tank isn't going to do so good with a ton of TNT per second equivalent energy heating the dirt around it. It would not take too long to sink the tank in molten rock. > cook the missile batteries, slice wings off of fighter > planes, that sort of thing. The war would be over, the people in that town > would read about it the next day in the press. Then we get to retire those > methods for vaporizing cities, as that system is expensive to maintain. > > A disadvantage I can see is that a space based laser might not be effective > in maintaining the old paradigm of mutual assured destruction. With Iran > getting nukes soon, I don't know how to map the future of that notion. It's worth thinking about this as a single player. Because whoever builds the first propulsion laser has a veto on any other group building one. Anders Sandberg wrote: snip >. More importantly a broken solar sat > produces *loads* of fragments in the same orbit: it might be that you > don't need any weapons for MAD, but that the Kessler fragmentation > cascade will make any solar-sat system impossible. And even if the enemy > has not fired on your satelites, you could in principle fire on your own > to trigger the "everybody loses" result. Spike is right on them all going the same way. There are ways to loop a load of ball bearings out around the moon and put them in a counter orbit at GEO, but it's not going to be easy to do under the watchful eye of the laser propulsion traffic control. > Hmm, this is worth thinking about. I like Keith's scheme a lot, but it > will involve many loads into orbit and some big structures up there. A > debris management solution is probably vital for it. Laser propulsion gives you debris cleanup virtually for free. Keith From bbenzai at yahoo.com Sun Sep 9 20:30:54 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 13:30:54 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Jeff Davis asked: > So please to tell me, what will be the character of the 'superior ethics' of a transcendent or near-transcendent being? Well, first you have to ask the question "What would I know if I knew more than I know now?". Or, to be more precise, how do you predict what you would think if you were more intelligent than you are now? Ben Zaiboc From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Sep 9 21:17:21 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 14:17:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: The question was almost rhetorical. Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior, they just refuse to practice it, and the higher up in the power hierarchy, the more lawless they become. An advanced ai would have no such problems, and would be far more likely to conform to a higher ethical standard. That's what I was saying. Jeff Davis On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Jeff Davis asked: > >> So please to tell me, what will be the character of the 'superior > ethics' of a transcendent or near-transcendent being? > > > Well, first you have to ask the question "What would I know if I knew more than I know now?". > > Or, to be more precise, how do you predict what you would think if you were more intelligent than you are now? > > > Ben Zaiboc > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 9 22:25:30 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2012 15:25:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <002301cd8eda$071b3250$155196f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson ... >>... It wouldn't be used for accomplishing that task. A laser wouldn't > need to nuke the whole city, but rather just punch holes in the engine > compartments of the battle tanks... spike, >...They are not *that* good, beam diameter would be a couple of meters at the best. And you can armor tanks to some extent with highly reflective shields... Ooops Keith is right, I mixed two different things. We were talking about lasers all the way out in GEO. From that distance with any reasonable sized reflector we would be unlikely to even get most of the energy into a 2 meter diameter circle. With current controls technology we would be in the 5 to 10 meter range. spike From giulio at gmail.com Mon Sep 10 06:09:58 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 08:09:58 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I bought the book and I am reading it. I read everything by Stross and Doctorow. The first few pages are very fun. On Sat, Sep 8, 2012 at 9:05 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > I just bought the Stross & Doctorow opus, "The Rapture of the Nerds", > enticed by promises of "devices that could conceivably exist in six, > sixty or six hundred years' time" on the cover. Didn't it get > discussed hereabouts recently? > > Well, anyway, as you may guess, it's a story about the singularity > except you do get more than you bargained for. It has bits of > Rumsfeld-bashing and Sarah Palin jokes - custom-made to disclose the > authors' tribal affiliation and the exact time they wrote it. There is > the obligatory Great Flood reference, ubiquitous in latter-day sci-fi, > from David Brin to Peter Hamilton - when will these writers catch up > with actual science? According to the famed climate activist, James > Hansen, the Manhattan island was supposed to have been flooded around > 2004, but don't worry, it's gonna happen, like, any time now. Then > there is a minor goof with using a serotonin reuptake inhibitor to > cause depression. > > All this is just warm up - the denouement comes when the protagonists > find themselves stranded in a nano-tech-ant-infested South, inhabited > by the book's villains, the evangelist extropian Christian fanatic > murderous witch-burning Objectivist Ayn Rand worshippers. > > Really? > > I heard that the true-blue partisans tend to see people outside the > pale as a blurred, gray mass of hateful automatons but, seriously, > conflating extropians with evangelists goes beyond the line of duty. > > Charlie, your brand of humor works great when leavened with the > macabre but falls flat when used to channel contempt. Go back to the > Laundry, clean up your act, maybe you can get some whuffie. > > Rafal > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sep 10 10:51:22 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 12:51:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 9 September 2012 23:17, Jeff Davis wrote: > Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior, they just refuse to > practice it, and the higher up in the power hierarchy, the more > lawless they become. > I cannot disagree more. Let us distinguish morality, moral and moral philosophy. As to the first, we are all more or less in breach of our own principles, what else is new? But this should not in least hide the fact that ethics (ie, moral systems) are not about doing the right thing, but about identifying it in the first place. And, even though different moral philosophies may (sometimes) converge into roughly equivalent solutions, what makes moral systems interesting, and above all *plural* and *diverse*, is exactly the fact that they give radically different answers to moral dilemmas. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Sep 10 13:02:29 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 06:02:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1347282149.52334.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Jeff Davis wrote: > The question was almost rhetorical. > > Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior, they just refuse to > practice it, and the higher up in the power hierarchy, the more > lawless they become. > > An advanced ai would have no such problems, and would be far more > likely to conform to a higher ethical standard. > > That's what I was saying. OK, I get that. Sort of. With a reservation on the idea that "Humans know what constitutes ethical behaviour". Do we? If so, why can't we all agree on it? (which is a different question to "why don't we all act in accordance with it?") When you look at this, there's very little that we can all agree on, even when it comes to things like murder, stealing, and granting others the right to decide things for themselves. Religion causes the biggest conflicts here, of course, but even if you ignore religious 'morality', there are still some pretty big differences of opinion. Murder is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. When is it not bad? Opinions differ widely. Thieving is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. Etc. The question still remains: What would constitute ethical behaviour for a superintelligent being? I suspect we have no idea. We can't assume it would just take our ideas as being correct (assuming it could even codify a 'universal human ethics' in the first place). It would almost certainly create its own from scratch. We simply can't predict what that would lead to. Ben Zaiboc From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Sep 10 14:21:07 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 10:21:07 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Keith Henson wrote: >> we already have an excellent method for instantly vaporizing cities and >> I don't see what additional advantage a laser would provide in >> accomplishing that task. And a huge but delicate power satellite powering a >> enormous laser in geosynchronous orbit would be a sitting duck for anybody >> who didn't like it. >> > > > I don't exactly see how. Perhaps you could explain. To me, trying to > target a propulsion laser satellite is a bit like a rock fight between > someone on the top and someone on the bottom of a well. > If military history has taught us anything its that fixed fortifications don't work because the enemy always knows exactly where they are, and lethal lasers run from huge power satellites have the additional disadvantage of being delicate. And if your new way of getting into space is as cheap and works as well as you say it does (and if it doesn't then there's no space laser in the first place) then the difference between the top and bottom of a well becomes far less important. It would take months for a space laser to deliver as much energy to a target as a H bomb could do in less than a millionth of a second, so I just don't see the advantage from a military perspective. And I can't picture a terrorist organization like al-Qaeda launching a power satellite and a giant laser, but unfortunately I can imagine them making a H-bomb, or at least a A-bomb. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Sep 10 14:55:05 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:55:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <1347282149.52334.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347282149.52334.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 10 September 2012 15:02, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Religion causes the biggest conflicts here, of course, but even if you > ignore religious 'morality', there are still some pretty big differences of > opinion. Murder is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions > differ. When is it not bad? Opinions differ widely. Thieving is bad. > Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. Etc. > Even before entering the field of exonerating or mitigating circumstances, the question of course is: what is murder? Basically, and in the broadest sense (inclusive, eg, of manslaughter) it is illegal killing, but this is an obvious tautology, which does not help in the least with regard to any minimally controversial scenario (embryos? people demanding assistance for suicide? slaves? miscreants? terminal patients? cerebral-death patients? animals? plants? armed enemy forces in war scenarios? death-sentenced convicted felons? people allowed to engage in dangerous sports? people sacrificed to save a larger number of lives? Turing-qualified AIs or emulations of existing people? cryo-turists? cryo-patients?). The question still remains: What would constitute ethical behaviour for a > superintelligent being? I suspect we have no idea. We can't assume it > would just take our ideas as being correct (assuming it could even codify a > 'universal human ethics' in the first place). It would almost certainly > create its own from scratch. > One wonders in the first place why "superintelligent beings" should be more in agreement amongst them about ethical dilemma than we are. This assumes that ethical predicates can be "calculated", something which is of course just the umpteenth variant of the naturalistic fallacy (no "ought" can be inferred from any "is"). -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ismirth at gmail.com Mon Sep 10 16:05:11 2012 From: ismirth at gmail.com (Isabelle Hakala) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 09:05:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Hplus-talk] my response to P.Z. Myers on uploading In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If someone decides what uploading would mean for themselves and then you listen then you have adopted someone else's definition. I want the ability to upload and for me to stay here in my physical body as well. Not only would I want to run this as an experiment in multiple parallels, I would also want the AI that would come from this uploading process because that AI would be ME. I would love to have 6 more of me, and for those other 'mes' to have unlimited access to info and no need for downtime. I woud love to see what those other MEs would come up witj under those circumstances. What problems they would solve. How they would solve them. And if there were any issues with the solutions. Everyone gets to decide for themselves how they would utilize uploading. Why would adopt some else's definition if it doesn't work for you? Don't think inside someone else's box. No new ideas or solutions are ever made that way. On Sep 5, 2012 5:08 PM, "Michael Anissimov" wrote: > > http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/michael/blog/2012/09/comprehensive-copying-not-required-for-uploading/ > > -- > Michael Anissimov > Singularity Institute > www.singularity.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Hplus-talk mailing list > Hplus-talk at list.humanityplus.org > http://lists.list.humanityplus.org/mailman/listinfo/hplus-talk > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Sep 10 18:21:52 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 11:21:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "spike" wrote: snip > Until we know otherwise, we should assume we are the first intelligence in > the universe, and behave accordingly. We need to become that lifeform we > feared existed somewhere, the one that is spreading everywhere and > colonizing everything. We need to get with the program on that MBrain and > get moving before some other evolution-forsaken beast gets here first. I have never seen a satisfactory explanation for how MBrains get around speed of light and heat sinking issues. Perhaps you have or could point me to such an explanation. Keith From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 10 20:34:28 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 13:34:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00b901cd8f93$ad363db0$07a2b910$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson Sent: Monday, September 10, 2012 11:22 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "spike" wrote: snip > Until we know otherwise, we should assume we are the first > intelligence in the universe, and behave accordingly. We need to > become that lifeform we feared existed somewhere, the one that is > spreading everywhere and colonizing everything. We need to get with > the program on that MBrain and get moving before some other evolution-forsaken beast gets here first. I have never seen a satisfactory explanation for how MBrains get around speed of light and heat sinking issues. Perhaps you have or could point me to such an explanation. Keith _______________________________________________ It doesn't get around those issues, it works with them. We see everything through the eyes of beasts which live only a century or less, so we have a hard time contemplating what it would be like if we existed as a virtual colony among billions of bits of computronium. These would take millions of years to go from one star to the next. The heat sinking issue is solved by directing the momentum of the star's light all in one direction. About a year ago, I was fooling with these equations and was startled to realize that waste heat is proportional to the collective momentum of the photons coming off the star. Not only can an MBrain direct the momentum in one direction, it must, otherwise it will overheat. If it is absorbing a significant portion of the energy of the star, it is either jet off somewhere or cook. I don't know of an online explanation of that concept. I might need to write one. spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 00:52:34 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 17:52:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 3:51 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 9 September 2012 23:17, Jeff Davis wrote: >> >> Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior, they just refuse to >> practice it, and the higher up in the power hierarchy, the more >> lawless they become. > > > I cannot disagree more. First, let me thank you. This is an issue I can sink my teeth into, and I appreciate the opportunity to do so. > > Let us distinguish morality, moral and moral philosophy. > > As to the first, we are all more or less in breach of our own principles, what else is new? If you mean we are all guilty of moral lapses, I agree. As you say, "What else is new?" > But this should not in least hide the fact that ethics (ie, moral systems) > are not about doing the right thing, but about identifying it in the first place. Doing the right thing seems to be the purpose of ethics, with social harmony the higher goal. The value to the individual would seem to be social acceptance and inclusion. Feeling good about oneself is pleasant and all, but survival is primary. But I take your point to be that the difficulty is not about willfully acting in bad faith, but rather the difficulty in knowing what the right thing is, so that one can do it. I disagree. I think knowing the difference between right and wrong and willfully acting wrongly, greatly outnumbers the instances where one has trouble figuring out what is right, and then innocently making the "wrong" choice. > And, even though different moral philosophies may (sometimes) converge into > roughly equivalent solutions, what makes moral systems interesting, and > above all *plural* and *diverse*, is exactly the fact that they give > radically different answers to moral dilemmas. Please help me out here with some examples. Different moral philosophies, and some of those moral dilemmas. I acknowledge the concept of a moral dilemma, but that seems often to be about having to choose between several bad -- ie ethically defective -- choices. Also, I am for the most part not talking about competing ethical systems. Of course if you have two divergent systems, what is ethical in one may be unethical in another, creating a situation where it may not be possible to satisfy both standards. But I would like to talk about acting ethically within one's own system, where you know the difference between right and wrong. The advanced -- ie more intelligent than humans -- AI would have some concept of ethics, derived from its "upbringing" by humans, its comprehensive study of all human knowledge, and the taking of that "baseline" to a higher level through its own superior deliberative evaluation. I grant you there is a gulf of unknown unknowns between human intelligence and transcendent intelligence, but there is no denying -- or is there? -- that it starts with the collected works of humanity. Even if later on it should develop its own system, something beyond human comprehension, nevertheless, "the child is father to the man", and whatever comes later must bear the imprint of those origins. Can it be otherwise? Thanks again, Stefano. I look forward to your response. Best, Jeff Davis "You are what you think." Jeff Davis From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 02:50:47 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 22:50:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 5:17 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > The question was almost rhetorical. > > Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior, they just refuse to > practice it, and the higher up in the power hierarchy, the more > lawless they become. ### Really? Like, you feel comfortable walking at night in the getto but would be scared out of your wits at the TED talk? Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 03:08:53 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:08:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 3:53 AM, BillK wrote: > > Given the size of the Universe, it is most unlikely that we are the > first or only life. But it's possible. > I think it is pretty far down the list but that is still one possible > Fermi solution. We are the first. ### I agree it's hard to believe that we are really the first in the visible Universe, but then the farther out you look, the farther back in time you see. Maybe the light of many of the farthest galaxies is already extinguished by trillions of matrioshka brains but the information about that will take another 10 billion light years to reach us. All we need to explain as the Fermi paradox is the nearest couple of hundred of million light-years, still a huge volume of galaxies but not the whole universe. I just read that our galaxy is very unusual - it's huge but has a relatively inactive, low-mass central black hole, maybe another necessary component to our evolution. So if you add up the unusual circumstances surrounding Earth (smack in the middle of a very narrow solar habitable zone, in the middle of a very narrow galactic habitable zone in the middle of a very unusual galaxy), and the likely delays in propagation of colonizing aliens (even ones using von Neumann probes), the case for our temporary uniqueness in the easily accessible part of the universe is stronger. Also, our own history of multiple near-misses, major extinctions wiping out most large species, points towards a fragility of complex life in a hostile universe. It is possible that there are still major survival filters separating us from colonizing the galaxy but it's clear we passed a lot of such filters already. So, we might make it, Fermi paradox or not. Rafal From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 06:53:33 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 10 Sep 2012 23:53:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 7:50 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Really? Like, you feel comfortable walking at night in the getto > but would be scared out of your wits at the TED talk? No. Point taken. Seems I misspoke. Folks in the middle are pleasantly safe. Lawless at top and bottom then, calm in the middle. Sorry. Can't get the Bush era off my mind. And with the Clinton and Obama years hitched on, front and back, it seems a long stretch -- twenty years -- of lawlessness at the top. (Normally, what with his smarts, charisma, likeability, and communication skills, I'd give Clinton a pass, ... but I just can't get past half-a-million dead Iraqi children. But that's my problem. No need for it to enter the discussion.) Twenty years. A third of my life. Lawlessness at the bottom is desperation driven. At the top it's ambition driven, a lawlessness of choice. And the damage potential of those with state power is vastly greater. It's in a whole other class. Sorry, I seem to have wandered off topic somewhere. Best, Jeff Davis From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 08:30:38 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 09:30:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Lawless warfare Message-ID: Jeff is upset by lawlessness at the top of our society. He is of course right to be concerned about the failure of the rule of law for politicians, financiers, corporate leaders, etc. "Too big to jail". Keith uses evolutionary theory to say that wars happen when a nation is in hard times or anticipates hard times. (I have complained about this definition in the past as it seems to cover almost all nations at all times). But the new fashion in warfare is remote control warfare. Where do the 'hard times' apply when soldiers work from a base in Nevada controlling drones to bomb and kill people thousands of miles away? There are now thousands of drones killing people (designated as possible terrorists) in many countries. Mostly with no official declaration of war. The US has assumed the right to kill 'persons of interest' anywhere in the world. The drone operators say that they are just following orders, then go home to their families for dinner. From an ethics POV this is probably better than fire-bombing German cities, but ethics is getting really tricky these days. And now local police forces are getting drones. Armed drones as well as surveillance drones. One of the problems for the future is that it is only a matter of time until the 'bad guys' get drones as well. As drones become smaller, more intelligent and more difficult to detect, they will be able to target anyone. No one will be safe, not even the President. No one will want to become a 'leader' because it will be too dangerous. Perhaps this will force a more distributed form of government. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 09:25:05 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:25:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Hunger causes riots - not war Message-ID: What?s the number one reason we riot? The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many?poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc?but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It?s hunger, plain and simple. If there?s a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it?s food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense. ?Recent droughts in the mid-western United States threaten to cause global catastrophe,? Yaneer Bar-Yam, one of the authors of the report, recently told Al Jazeera. ?When people are unable to feed themselves and their families, widespread social disruption occurs. We are on the verge of another crisis, the third in five years, and likely to be the worst yet, capable of causing new food riots and turmoil on a par with the Arab Spring.? BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 09:37:47 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:37:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] [Hplus-talk] my response to P.Z. Myers on uploading In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 10 September 2012 18:05, Isabelle Hakala wrote: > Everyone gets to decide for themselves how they would utilize uploading. > Why would adopt some else's definition if it doesn't work for you? Don't > think inside someone else's box. No new ideas or solutions are ever made > that way. Indeed. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 13:32:55 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:32:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 11 September 2012 02:52, Jeff Davis wrote: > I think knowing > the difference between right and wrong and willfully acting wrongly, > greatly outnumbers the instances where one has trouble figuring out > what is right, and then innocently making the "wrong" choice. > Besides the fact that I consider that first comes a given ethical system, and only then we can speak of "right" and "wrong" in that system (same as for postulates with regard to a geometric theorem), there is no real ethical discussion upon the fact that it is wrong to do what one considers wrong. That is, unless perhaps I think that you are doing the right thing while thinking it is wrong because I adhere to a different ethical system. But ethics is the discourse upon what we *should* do. The discourse upon what we actually do is just ethology. Please help me out here with some examples. Different moral > philosophies, and some of those moral dilemmas. > A moral dilemma is a situation where you have two different courses of action, and a discussion (at least in your internal theatre) is opened on which would be the (more) moral one, the one that should be adopted by those who have a high "morality". Moral, ie, ethical systems, offer solutions to such dilemmas, which are by definition different (otherwise they would be one and the same). OTOH, sometimes different moral philosophies (that is, the philosophy on which a moral system is construed) may converge for entirely different reasons into the same solution - for instance, a Kantian, a christian and a utilitarian may agree that in scenario X the right thing is option A even though the rationale and justification behind that choice varies wildly. > But I would like to talk > about acting ethically within one's own system, where you know the > difference between right and wrong. > Yes, *within* a single ethical system meaningful arguments can be raised and resolved. I still have a few doubts however that they are "rational" arguments in the sense of something which can be "calculated". But yes, I am inclined to conced that as a stupid human is less likely to see a blatant contradiction than a clever one, a more-than-human entity might be even quicker in weighing the logical aspects involved. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 14:07:59 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:07:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Yes, *within* a single ethical system meaningful arguments can be raised and > resolved. I still have a few doubts however that they are "rational" > arguments in the sense of something which can be "calculated". > > But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less likely to > see a blatant contradiction than a clever one, a more-than-human entity > might be even quicker in weighing the logical aspects involved. > > I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as just plain 'wrong'. Think of simple folk wisdom, or the 'Being There' film. Clever humans, on the other hand, can devise magnificent justifications for any wrong act that they want to do. Intelligence level is not linked to morality. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 14:17:57 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:17:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:00 AM, John Clark wrote: > > On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 2:03 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > >>> we already have an excellent method for instantly vaporizing cities and >>> I don't see what additional advantage a laser would provide in >>> accomplishing that task. And a huge but delicate power satellite powering a >>> enormous laser in geosynchronous orbit would be a sitting duck for anybody >>> who didn't like it. >>> >> > I don't exactly see how. Perhaps you could explain. To me, trying to >> target a propulsion laser satellite is a bit like a rock fight between >> someone on the top and someone on the bottom of a well. >> > If military history has taught us anything its that fixed fortifications > don't work because the enemy always knows exactly where they are, and > lethal lasers run from huge power satellites have the additional > disadvantage of being delicate. And if your new way of getting into space > is as cheap and works as well as you say it does (and if it doesn't then > there's no space laser in the first place) then the difference between the > top and bottom of a well becomes far less important. Granted that power satellites and platforms for propulsion lasers are relatively delicate. But in order to damage one, you have to deliver the agent of damage. Now, the laser beam from one of them will certainly put another one out of operation--assuming there is more than one of them. Even a laser beam from the ground might be able to destroy one. But GW lasers are not easy to hide and cost way more than a terrorist operation could afford. Nukes require physical delivery. Launching one from the ground as an attack against a propulsion laser is possible, though very expensive. It will take hours to get there and the hostile intent will be obvious. Many years ago Lowell Wood thought about this in the context of armored space forts. It will take a combination of lasers and impact missiles to defend against a high velocity bomb inside a tantalum carbide laser shield. Of course with propulsion lasers, powering defensive missiles with lots of delta V should not be hard. > It would take months > for a space laser to deliver as much energy to a target as a H bomb could > do in less than a millionth of a second, so I just don't see the advantage > from a military perspective. The trend for a long time has been precision rather than raw power. > And I can't picture a terrorist organization > like al-Qaeda launching a power satellite and a giant laser, but > unfortunately I can imagine them making a H-bomb, or at least a A-bomb. True. But getting it to the target when the target is in GEO and is defended would be a much harder task. Keith From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 11 14:46:36 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 07:46:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Hunger causes riots - not war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <007e01cd902c$3eb82a30$bc287e90$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: [ExI] Hunger causes riots - not war >...What's the number one reason we riot? Football? Drunkenness? >... The plausible, justifiable motivations of trampled-upon humanfolk to fight back are many-poverty, oppression, disenfranchisement, etc-but the big one is more primal than any of the above. It's hunger, plain and simple... Hunger, ja, but not plain and simple. Agreed that lack of money is the root of all evil. But it gets a little more complicated when we recognize that even the term riot is not clearly defined. We have seen what looks like a riot especially in Arab countries around a bus that has exploded or an aircraft that has crashed. We see men and boys (never any women in sight anywhere) dancing on the wreckage. We see mobs in Saudi Arabia circling an obelisk hurling stones at the devil. Is that a riot? http://www.chinapost.com.tw/international/middle-east/2008/12/09/186762/Hajj -pilgrims.htm A rather orderly one perhaps. We see mobs of pilgrims motivated by religious fervor, who are sometimes compelled to murderous stampede in which many are trampled, by fireworks hurled by others of slightly different religious fervor. Riot? (Ref: 2 July 1990 stampede in Al-Maaisim tunnel resulted in 1426 trampling deaths.) (JAYSUS! Can you imagine? Usually whenever proles are killed in any accident, there are typically three times that number of serious injuries, so we are up at perhaps 5k-proles with scars. Can't they find a safer way to pray? We have televangelists here, couldn't they just stay home, watch the devil broadcast live and throw stones at their televisions?) >... If there's a single factor that reliably sparks social unrest, it's food becoming too scarce or too expensive. So argues a group of complex systems theorists in Cambridge, and it makes sense... BillK I get what they are saying, but it sounds like an oversimplification. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 15:00:09 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 08:00:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:00 AM, "spike" wrote: (Keith) >> I have never seen a satisfactory explanation for how MBrains get around >> speed of light and heat sinking issues. > > It doesn't get around those issues, it works with them. We see everything > through the eyes of beasts which live only a century or less, so we have a > hard time contemplating what it would be like if we existed as a virtual > colony among billions of bits of computronium. These would take millions of > years to go from one star to the next. I can't see being spread through a fog of computronium as being desirable. I can't see running even slower than human speeds to be desirable either, and (due to the speed of light) that's the consequence of having the physical level of your mental processes spread out. > The heat sinking issue is solved by directing the momentum of the star's > light all in one direction. About a year ago, I was fooling with these > equations and was startled to realize that waste heat is proportional to the > collective momentum of the photons coming off the star. Not only can an > MBrain direct the momentum in one direction, it must, otherwise it will > overheat. If it is absorbing a significant portion of the energy of the > star, it is either jet off somewhere or cook. That I really don't understand. If you were to enclose the sun in a one AU Dyson shell, the equilibrium temperature on the outside would be around 127 deg C. > I don't know of an online explanation of that concept. I might need to > write one. I would like to see that. If you are trying to think fast, your physical layer needs to be as small as you can get it. Fast thinking is more important than than just keeping up with soap operas. I.e., the quick and the dead. The waste heat from fast thinking has to be dissipated from a small volume/surface. Earth's deep oceans seem to be the ideal environment for a fast thinking civilization. I don't much like this conclusion. If you know a better approach, I would like to hear about it. Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 15:36:05 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 11:36:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 Keith Henson wrote: > Granted that power satellites and platforms for propulsion lasers are > relatively delicate. But in order to damage one, you have to deliver the > agent of damage. > A bucket of sand moving at several miles per second would play havoc with the optical elements of a huge laser, and you'd be unlikely to destroy all the grains before they hit, and even if you did get that lucky I'd jest send in another bucket. Sand is a lot cheaper than gigawatt lasers and power satellites, you'll run out of lasers before I run out of sand. > Nukes require physical delivery. That's true, you do need to deliver thermonuclear bombs. If you want to send a package from Korea to New York City one way to do it is to strap the package to the top of a rocket and blast it on a 10,000 mile ballistic trajectory to that city, another much cheaper way to deliver your package is to use UPS or Federal Express. There is another advantage, its anonymous. If I launch a rocket with a nuclear warhead it's obvious that I sent it, but if New York were to just blow up one day, well who knows how it happened. > Launching one from the ground as an attack against a propulsion laser is > possible, though very expensive. > Using a nuke against a space laser would be the waste of a good nuke, sand is cheaper and would work better. > It will take hours to get there and the hostile intent will be obvious. Yes, so a terrorist organization wouldn't even bother attacking a space based laser, they'd attack big cities, and they can do that without warning and anonymously. And your big laser will be of no help whatsoever in preventing that. >> It would take months for a space laser to deliver as much energy to a > target as a H bomb could do in less than a millionth of a second, so I just > don't see the advantage from a military perspective. > > The trend for a long time has been precision rather than raw power. > But for MAD you need raw power, and terrorists aren't big on precision. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 11 17:11:43 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:11:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00bb01cd9040$85334990$8f99dcb0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson >>... If it is absorbing a significant portion of the energy of the star, it is either jet off somewhere or cook. >...That I really don't understand. If you were to enclose the sun in a one AU Dyson shell, the equilibrium temperature on the outside would be around 127 deg C. Ja, but portions of the inner layers of an MBrain get warmer than that. I have tried to model this a few different ways, and I end up with a surprising result: an MBrain cannot collect a large portion of the energy from a star. Otherwise the inner nodes cannot reject sufficient heat to stay in the temperature range in which electronic devices we know today would work long term. The problem is that I don't trust any of my models. I need to create a digital model with actual numbers on attitude determination and control, see what our worst cases are. >>... I don't know of an online explanation of that concept. I might need to write one. >...I would like to see that. Me too. I need to finish writing up proposals (Three down, 16 to go.) >...If you are trying to think fast, your physical layer needs to be as small as you can get it... Keith Ja, and its temperature goes up linearly as the inverse of the radius of orbit, all else being equal. The problem is that all else is not equal when you start moving inboard closer to the star. I am surprised at how complicated this question becomes, but it explains why there aren't already a jillion thermal models out there on the web. Rather than materials availability, manufacturing or lifting the finished nodes to interplanetary orbit, heat management may be the biggest technical hurdle for an MBrain. Either that or I am missing something fundamental. Parting shot: if an MBrain is mostly transparent and relies on a mostly unobstructed view of cold space for heat rejection, such that we could see through an MBrain without much loss of light, and if it is fundamentally necessary that all MBrains must be constructed this way, this would explain why we haven't seen the signature of one anywhere. We would be looking for a large cool object, when in fact an MBrain would be a dense hot object with a nearly invisible misty haze around it that would look a lot like a dust ring. If we go with the Outback Postcards explanation for why we don't get signals from the MBrains (because the interesting stuff is all happening right there and they don't care about anything out here, and don't bother sending postcards to Aborigines during wicked cool technical talks) and MBrains must be mostly transparent, the universe could be filled with MBrains and we wouldn't know it. spike spike From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 17:40:44 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:40:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 11 September 2012 16:07, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >> But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less likely to >> see a blatant contradiction than a clever one, a more-than-human entity >> might be even quicker in weighing the logical aspects involved. > > I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as > just plain 'wrong'. Think of simple folk wisdom, or the 'Being There' > film. > Clever humans, on the other hand, can devise magnificent > justifications for any wrong act that they want to do. > > Intelligence level is not linked to morality. Sure. But, if I may insist once more on the distinction, I am referring to *moral reasoning* here, not to morality. I can adopt an excellent moral system, justify it with a horribly flawed philosophy, and be a terrible sinner. Or I can be a very good man, in principle adhering to a very bad moral code which I infringe, but which supported by very persuasive arguments. Or any other mix thereof. -- Stefano Vaj From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 18:20:13 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:20:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <00bb01cd9040$85334990$8f99dcb0$@att.net> References: <00bb01cd9040$85334990$8f99dcb0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:11 PM, spike wrote: > Parting shot: if an MBrain is mostly transparent and relies on a mostly > unobstructed view of cold space for heat rejection, such that we could see > through an MBrain without much loss of light, and if it is fundamentally > necessary that all MBrains must be constructed this way, this would explain > why we haven't seen the signature of one anywhere. We would be looking for > a large cool object, when in fact an MBrain would be a dense hot object with > a nearly invisible misty haze around it that would look a lot like a dust > ring. If we go with the Outback Postcards explanation for why we don't get > signals from the MBrains (because the interesting stuff is all happening > right there and they don't care about anything out here, and don't bother > sending postcards to Aborigines during wicked cool technical talks) and > MBrains must be mostly transparent, the universe could be filled with > MBrains and we wouldn't know it. > > Why not go to the source? The much-missed Robert Bradbury invented MBrains. In 'Year Million', edited by Damien Broderick, Robert has a chapter "Under Construction: Redesigning the Solar System." I don't have a copy, but a review quotes: MBrains, comprised of swarm-like, concentric, orbiting computronium shells that use solar sail-type materials to funnel and reflect the largest possible quantity of stellar energy. ----------------- Looking back through Exi posts I find: Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999 The standard M-Brain architecture I designed, radiates heat only in one direction (outward, away from the star). Each layer's waste heat becomes the power source for each subsequent (further out) layer. To satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and physics, you have to get cooler and cooler but require more and more radiator material. At the final layer you would radiate at the cosmic microwave background (or somewhat above that if you live in a "hot" region of space due to lots of stars or hot gas). Each shell layer orbits at the minimal distance from the star (to reduce inter-node propagation delays) while not melting from too much heat. [That makes the best use of the computronium in the solar system since the different materials from which computers may be constructed (TiC, Al2O3, Diamond, SiC, GaAs, Si, organic, high-temp-superconductor, etc.) each has different "limits" on operating temperature.] I suspect that some layers may be element constrained (e.g. GaAs) and assume that diamondoid rod-logic computers are not "best" for every operating temperature -- single-electron Si-based computers, or high-temperature copper oxide superconducting computers may be better in specific environments. However it is important to keep in mind that the mass of the computers in a node is probably very small compared to the mass of the radiators and cooling fluid (this is the part that needs to be worked out in detail). ------------------- BillK From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 19:36:52 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:36:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 7:07 AM, BillK wrote: > Clever humans, on the other hand, can devise magnificent > justifications for any wrong act that they want to do. > > Intelligence level is not linked to morality. Absolutely. (I take your meaning to be "More intelligent does not imply more moral.") The problem originates in the inherent conflict between the constraints on behavior imposed by an ethical system, and and the pursuit of naked self-interest. Social groupings in primates, herding animals, fish, birds, others, evolved because they enhance survival. Ethical behavior evolved within such groupings because it enhances the stability of the group. Dominance hierarchies based on power -- the "big dog" concept -- clearly manifest in social groups. These contribute to stability by forced acquiescence to the order of dominance. Males (and perhaps females) challenge each other and thereby establish the order of dominance. Recent studies however, seem to confirm that social animals also have a genetically-based sense of equity -- justice, fairness, call it what you will, which helps to maintain the stability of the force-built dominance hierarchy. In humans this "fairness" sense would be the "built-in" source of ethical behavior/thinking. It seems to me that having and employing a "sense of fairness" would tend to reduce conflict within the group, thus enhancing group stability. In the case of an AI, one would -- at least initially -- have a designed, not an evolved, entity. Consequently, unless designed in, it would not have any of the evolved drives -- survival instinct or (sexual) competitive impulse. So it seems to me there would be no countervailing impulse-driven divergence from consistently ethics-based behavior. The concept and adoption of ethics would, as I have suggested, be developed in the formative stage -- the "upbringing" -- of the ai, as it becomes acquainted with the history and nature of ethics, first at the human-level of intelligence and then later at a greater-than-human level of intelligence. Others, substantially more dedicated to this subject, have pondered the friendly (in my view this is equivalent to "ethical") ai question, and reached no confident conclusion that it is possible. So I'm sticking my neck way out here in suggesting, for the reasons I have laid out, that, absent "selfish" drives, a focus on ethics will logically lead to a super ethical (effectively "friendly") ai. Fire at will. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 11 20:13:18 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:13:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> >> But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less >> likely to see a blatant contradiction than a clever one... > I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as just plain 'wrong'. ... Heh. All ethical dilemmas seem to pale in comparison to those presented to the families of Alzheimer's patients. For instance, imagine an AD patient who seems partially OK some mornings for the most part, but nearly every afternoon and evening tends to grow more and more agitated, confused, lost, terrified, angry, worried, combative, clearly not enjoying life. But the patient sometimes has a good day, and on those occasions clearly states a preference to stay in their own home until there is nothing left of the brain. When is it time to check the patient into elder care? Easy, right? OK what if the patient's spouse is doing something wrong in the medication, such as giving the patient large doses of useless vitamins, on pure faith since Paul Harvey said they are good for this or that? What if you come to suspect the patient is receiving sleep aids in the middle of the day, and the rest of the family doesn't know? What is the right thing to do there? Ignore one's own suspicion and go along, knowing that if a patient is suffering, well hell, it isn't suffering to be asleep, ja? Apparently AD doesn't hurt in the sense that it causes pain, so it doesn't keep one awake as something like arthritis would, but the suffering is real. If a spouse decided the person is better off sleeping most of the time, is it appropriate to second-guess that spouse? Come on extro-ethics hipsters, think hard, suggest the right answers, and while you are at it, do again make the case that ethical behavior and intelligence are related please? And if you answer that one, please try to convince me that a machine-based super-intelligence will be super ethical, and if you succeed at either of those, I will feel much better thanks. spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 11 20:29:11 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:29:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <00bb01cd9040$85334990$8f99dcb0$@att.net> Message-ID: <011601cd905c$1b0202c0$51060840$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:11 PM, spike wrote: >> ...Parting shot: if an MBrain is mostly transparent and relies on a > mostly unobstructed view of cold space for heat rejection... >...Why not go to the source? The much-missed Robert Bradbury invented MBrains. In 'Year Million', edited by Damien Broderick, Robert has a chapter "Under Construction: Redesigning the Solar System." I don't have a copy... I do have a copy, however... read on please. >... but a review quotes: MBrains, comprised of swarm-like, concentric, orbiting computronium shells that use solar sail-type materials to funnel and reflect the largest possible quantity of stellar energy. ----------------- Of course, however... >... The standard M-Brain architecture I designed, radiates heat only in one direction (outward, away from the star). Each layer's waste heat becomes the power source for each subsequent (further out) layer...Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999> Hmmm, Robert and I did not agree on this. He and I spent many hours at my home debating and deriving thermal models after this was written, most of the activity happening between 2001 and 2004. After that he became distracted by another project, but my own feeling at the time and today is that his design does not close. His contribution is valuable: the inner nodes have a different construct than the outer nodes, and must be able to operate at higher temperatures. >... To satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and physics, you have to get cooler and cooler but require more and more radiator material. At the final layer you would radiate at the cosmic microwave background (or somewhat above that if you live in a "hot" region of space due to lots of stars or hot gas)... Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999 Robert did not have, never did have, a detailed thermal model. He had good ideas. But there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears yet to be shed over a detailed thermal model, as well as some actual tests of hardware in space to measure their control parameters before I will trust my own models. >...However it is important to keep in mind that the mass of the computers in a node is probably very small compared to the mass of the radiators and cooling fluid (this is the part that needs to be worked out in detail). Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999 (?) ------------------- BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, I can't tell if this last sentence is part of Robert's commentary or yours, but Robert and I never did agree on the use of cooling fluid. My MBrain nodes always relied on passive cooling only, for I did some calcs a long time ago which convinced me that cooling fluid doesn't help at all in the long run. It can only help if you have available a low entropy cold space into which you dump waste heat. But in Robert's vision, the inner nodes have only a view to a high entropy warm space, and the outer nodes which have a view to cold space do not need fluid of any kind. There is a lot of work to do on this. I worked out the orbit mechanics first, because orbit mechanics are easier and cleaner than the thermal models, and I know how to do those. Now the hard work begins. Final shot: microprocessor technology moved a long ways since Robert wrote the above passages. He didn't live to see a cell phone win a chess tournament against several masters and two grandmasters, without a charger and without phoning a friend. spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 20:57:47 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:57:47 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <1347282149.52334.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347282149.52334.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Jeff Davis wrote: >> An advanced ai would have no such problems, and would be far more likely to conform to a higher ethical standard. >> That's what I was saying. > > > OK, I get that. Sort of. With a reservation on the idea that "Humans know what constitutes ethical behaviour". Do we? I had to pause and give the question some thought. I realized that my assertion -- that "Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior" -- was just my "legacy" assumption, unvetted unexamined. Upon examination, I see that it isn't something I know for a fact, but rather something I have come to believe, without having looked at it closely. So, "Do we?" I seem to. At least I have a robust notion of the difference between right and wrong. Does that qualify? And I extend that knowledge of myself to the rest of humanity. Am I wrong? The test of culpability -- indeed, sanity -- in a (TV) court of law is found in the phrase "Did the defendant know the difference between right and wrong?" This suggests that the courts at least think anyone not mentally defective can reasonably assumed to know the difference between right and wrong. So I'm pretty confident that most folks understand at least their own ethical system, and acknowledge the obligatory nature of adherence to "right" behavior. But I'm open to challenges. > If so, why can't we all agree on it? Different cultures have different values, and within cultures there are subcultures with different values. Different values result in different ethical systems. There's the source of the disagreement. > (which is a different question to "why don't we all act in accordance with it?") When you look at this, there's very little that we can all agree on, even when it comes to things like murder, stealing, and granting others the right to decide things for themselves. I see it as a cultural conflict not an ethical one. Independent of culture, if you ask someone if adherence to their values -- obedience to the law(?) -- is obligatory in order to remain in good standing within their society, won't they say "Yes"? > Religion causes the biggest conflicts here, of course, but even if you ignore religious 'morality', there are still some pretty big differences of opinion. Murder is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. When is it not bad? Opinions differ widely. Thieving is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. Etc. Again, cross-cultural conflicts, all. Within their own culturally-distinct ethical system, all will agree that right behavior is obligatory (though they will all retain the option to defect when survival is at stake. A man's gotta do, etc). > The question still remains: What would constitute ethical behaviour for a superintelligent being? I suspect we have no idea. Not being able to know the meaning of "superintelligent" is the first problem. We can project in that direction though our experience with exceptionally intelligent humans, but beyond that darkness begins to fall. And beyond that, where an advanced level of complexity predicts the emergence of the unpredictable, we're friggin' totally in the dark. I would very much like to hear someone attempt to penetrate the first level -- the penetrable level -- of darkness. Intelligence: an iterative process of data collection and processing for pattern recognition. More intelligent than that: more of the same, a change in degree not kind. Super-intelligent: ? A change in kind. > We can't assume it would just take our ideas as being correct (assuming it could even codify a 'universal human ethics' in the first place). It would almost certainly create its own from scratch. If its "upbringing", training, intellectual development is similar to that of a human child, then it will gradually absorb human-provided information. I will achieve intellectual maturity in stages. But it will follow this developmental process with human knowledge as its seed. Like a child it will at first accept everything as "true". Then later it seems definitive that it will self-enhance, part of which would include a re-examination of all prior knowledge and revision as called for. Even so, revision cannot erase the causal priors. You have to have something to start from, an empty mind has emptied itself of the tools for revision. So "starting from scratch" is not possible. I will however grant you something close to it. > We simply can't predict what that would lead to. Not with any confidence, anyway. Best, Jeff Davis Aspiring Transhuman / Delusional Ape (Take your pick) Nicq MacDonald From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 21:16:28 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:16:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <011601cd905c$1b0202c0$51060840$@att.net> References: <00bb01cd9040$85334990$8f99dcb0$@att.net> <011601cd905c$1b0202c0$51060840$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 9:29 PM, spike wrote: > There is a lot of work to do on this. I worked out the orbit mechanics > first, because orbit mechanics are easier and cleaner than the thermal > models, and I know how to do those. Now the hard work begins. > > Final shot: microprocessor technology moved a long ways since Robert wrote > the above passages. He didn't live to see a cell phone win a chess > tournament against several masters and two grandmasters, without a charger > and without phoning a friend. > > I found a copy of Robert's paper on the Wayback Machine Copyright 1997-2000. Although, as you say, it probably doesn't include later revisions, you might like to store a copy. BillK From steinberg.will at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 21:22:12 2012 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:22:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> Message-ID: There are no ethics, the proof being Godel's: in any ethical framework, there exists a situation whose ethicity cannot be determined. Thus there is no correct ethical system. It's all up to you: decide what you believe and then do or don't institute it in your reality. On Sep 11, 2012 4:27 PM, "spike" wrote: > > >> But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less > >> likely to see a blatant contradiction than a clever one... > > > I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as > just > plain 'wrong'. ... > > > Heh. All ethical dilemmas seem to pale in comparison to those presented to > the families of Alzheimer's patients. > > For instance, imagine an AD patient who seems partially OK some mornings > for > the most part, but nearly every afternoon and evening tends to grow more > and > more agitated, confused, lost, terrified, angry, worried, combative, > clearly > not enjoying life. But the patient sometimes has a good day, and on those > occasions clearly states a preference to stay in their own home until there > is nothing left of the brain. When is it time to check the patient into > elder care? > > Easy, right? OK what if the patient's spouse is doing something wrong in > the medication, such as giving the patient large doses of useless vitamins, > on pure faith since Paul Harvey said they are good for this or that? What > if you come to suspect the patient is receiving sleep aids in the middle of > the day, and the rest of the family doesn't know? What is the right thing > to do there? Ignore one's own suspicion and go along, knowing that if a > patient is suffering, well hell, it isn't suffering to be asleep, ja? > Apparently AD doesn't hurt in the sense that it causes pain, so it doesn't > keep one awake as something like arthritis would, but the suffering is > real. > If a spouse decided the person is better off sleeping most of the time, is > it appropriate to second-guess that spouse? Come on extro-ethics hipsters, > think hard, suggest the right answers, and while you are at it, do again > make the case that ethical behavior and intelligence are related please? > And if you answer that one, please try to convince me that a machine-based > super-intelligence will be super ethical, and if you succeed at either of > those, I will feel much better thanks. > > 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 Sep 11 21:59:11 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:59:11 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 10:22 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > There are no ethics, the proof being Godel's: in any ethical framework, > there exists a situation whose ethicity cannot be determined. Thus there is > no correct ethical system. It's all up to you: decide what you believe and > then do or don't institute it in your reality. > > Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. Groucho Marx BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Sep 11 22:28:36 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:28:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] On the brink of food riots Message-ID: The US government policy of converting food (corn) to vehicle fuel has "interesting" consequences, though they probably only brought the crisis forward a few years. I have talked here for almost the last decade about wars and related social disruptions as the consequence of a bleak future. Some of those take years for the xenophobic memes to build up. Food shortages (i.e., high prices) have much faster effects. The thing that is particularly disturbing about this report is how close we seem to be to really widespread food riots. http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf Given the number of people on food stamps in the US, the US may not be immune to global food price rises causing trouble here. Keith From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 03:00:41 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:00:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 11:36 AM, John Clark wrote: > That's true, you do need to deliver thermonuclear bombs. If you want to send > a package from Korea to New York City one way to do it is to strap the > package to the top of a rocket and blast it on a 10,000 mile ballistic > trajectory to that city, another much cheaper way to deliver your package is > to use UPS or Federal Express. There is another advantage, its anonymous. If > I launch a rocket with a nuclear warhead it's obvious that I sent it, but if > New York were to just blow up one day, well who knows how it happened. I was curious to know if you were aware that you wrote this on 9/11. I don't know if it's irony or synchronicity, but I thought it was noteworthy. From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 12 11:32:07 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:32:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> Message-ID: <505072B7.5000202@aleph.se> On 11/09/2012 22:22, Will Steinberg wrote: > > There are no ethics, the proof being Godel's: in any ethical > framework, there exists a situation whose ethicity cannot be > determined. Thus there is no correct ethical system. It's all up to > you: decide what you believe and then do or don't institute it in your > reality. > That is obviously false. Here is a consistent and complete moral system: "everything is permitted". It is worth distinguishing ethics and morality. A morality is a system of actions (or ways of figuring them out) that are considered to be right. Ethics is the study of moral systems, whether in the form of you thinking about what you think is right or wrong, or the academic pursuit where thick books get written. A lot of professional ethics is meta-ethics, thinking about ethics itself (what the heck is it? what it can and cannot achieve? how can we find out?), although practical ethicists do have their place. Now, I think Will is right in general: for typical moral systems there are situations that are undecidable as "right" or "wrong" (or have uncomputable values, if you like a more consequentialist approach). They don't even need to be tricky G?del- or Turing-type situations, since finite minds with finite resources often find that they cannot analyse the full ramifications. Some systems are worse: Kant famously forces you to analyse *and understand* the full moral consequences of everybody adopting your action as a maxim, while rule utilitarianism just wants you to adopt the rules that given current evidence will maximize utility (please revise them as more evidence arrives or your brain becomes better). But this doesn't mean such systems are pointless. Unless you are a catatonic nihilist you will think that some things are better than others, and adopting a policy of action that produces more of the good is rational. This is already a moral system! (at least in some ethical theories) A lot of our world consists of other agents with similar (but possibly not identical) concerns. Coordinating policies often produce even better outcomes, so we have reasons to express policies succinctly to each other so we can try to coordinate (and compressed formulations of policies often make them easier to apply individually too: cached behaviors are much quicker than to ardously calculate the right for every situation). [ The computational complexity of moral systems is an interesting topic that I would love to pursue. There are also cool links to statistical learning theory - what moral systems can be learned from examples, and do ethical and meta-ethical principles provide useful boundary conditions or other constraints on the models? ] -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 12 12:01:44 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 13:01:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> Message-ID: <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> On 11/09/2012 21:13, spike wrote: > Come on extro-ethics hipsters, > think hard, suggest the right answers, and while you are at it, do again > make the case that ethical behavior and intelligence are related please? There is a link *in humans* between smarts and having a lower discount rate: you value the far future more if you can foresee consequences better. Smarter people also are better at cooperating in prisoner's dilemma situations since they can figure out the value of cooperation. But as we have been arguing from our horizon, this is no guarantee that super-smart systems will be nice. http://www.nickbostrom.com/superintelligentwill.pdf http://lesswrong.com/lw/cej/general_purpose_intelligence_arguing_the/ http://philosophicaldisquisitions.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/bostrom-on-superintelligence-and.html > Heh. All ethical dilemmas seem to pale in comparison to those > presented to the families of Alzheimer's patients. For instance, > imagine an AD patient who seems partially OK some mornings for the > most part, but nearly every afternoon and evening tends to grow more > and more agitated, confused, lost, terrified, angry, worried, > combative, clearly not enjoying life. But the patient sometimes has a > good day, and on those occasions clearly states a preference to stay > in their own home until there is nothing left of the brain. When is it > time to check the patient into elder care? Easy, right? OK what if the > patient's spouse is doing something wrong in the medication, such as > giving the patient large doses of useless vitamins, on pure faith > since Paul Harvey said they are good for this or that? What if you > come to suspect the patient is receiving sleep aids in the middle of > the day, and the rest of the family doesn't know? What is the right > thing to do there? Ignore one's own suspicion and go along, knowing > that if a patient is suffering, well hell, it isn't suffering to be > asleep, ja? Apparently AD doesn't hurt in the sense that it causes > pain, so it doesn't keep one awake as something like arthritis would, > but the suffering is real. If a spouse decided the person is better > off sleeping most of the time, is it appropriate to second-guess that > spouse? If I were to pretend to be a proper practical ethicist I would reason somewhat like this: There are some moral principles that are fairly robust, they emerge almost no matter what normal ethical system you use. In medicine the "classic" list is * Respect for autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. (/Voluntas aegroti suprema lex/.) * Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. (/Salus aegroti suprema lex/.) * Non-maleficence - "first, do no harm" (/primum non nocere /). * Justice - concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of who gets what treatment (fairness and equality). And then people often like to add respect for the person (sometimes solemnly dressed up as human dignity) and truthfulness as other key values. Now, AD is bad for autonomy. Not all decisions are made in a rational way or using all available facts - but as you say, it varies from day to day. So clearly one needs to listen to what the patient wants. But sometimes the beneficience principle gets stronger weight. And when in doubt, one needs to be careful not to do harm. Note that AD doesn't break up personal identity. Sure, memory is being lost and personality changes, but it is not as if the person is a sequence of independent identities. Hence earlier sensible decisions about one's future still hold moral weight and should be respected: if they want to stay at home as long as possible, fine. (That might of course be limited by the rights and considerations of the family: one should not follow all commands of a sick family member, no matter how loved. Other family members also need to have lives!) The vitamin pills are likely not harmful (unless they are very expensive), so if that keeps the spouse happy that they are doing something or even provides placebo, there is little harm there. One might quibble about whether accepting one near-superstition opens up for other, more harmful remedies or bad epistemic practices, but it seems to be relatively minor. The sleep aids, now that is different. That seems to break the autonomy principle rather badly, even if it is for the good of the patient. And if they are given secretly, then there are issues both with truthfulness and risk: some sleep aids might interact with other medications. It would be much better to discuss this with the patient when they are lucid and get them to explain what they want. This might be harder than it seems, because over time paranoia and other personality changes might make them want something different, at which point hard decisions about whether they are still capable enough to overrule past decisions come in. And talking it over with the spouse is of course hard in itself (still, one should not underestimate the burden of keeping things secret from one's own family). In this case I think the principles do a bit of useful work, but obviously far more hinges on being a sensible person who can manage to talk about hard things in a sad situation. Armchair ethicists might of course suggest more radical things (the Kantian: lying is *always* wrong! the utilitarian: maximize happiness, go for the sedatives and happy pills! the contractarian: follow whatever rules the AMA has published!) but for some reason they are not very common in real moral situations (no meta-ethicist in a foxhole?) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 12:29:13 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:29:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 11 September 2012 21:36, Jeff Davis wrote: > The problem originates in the inherent conflict between the > constraints on behavior imposed by an ethical system, and and the > pursuit of naked self-interest. Social groupings in primates, herding > animals, fish, birds, others, evolved because they enhance survival. > Ethical behavior evolved within such groupings because it enhances the > stability of the group. Mmhhh. There again, I think that one thing is ethology - which we can expect to be the result of Darwinian and/or Game Theory pressures - and ethics. The only thing which can be said is that having *one* ethical system or other, and to comply with it at least sometimes, is probably better than not. Same as languages. Given that otherwise they would have gone extinct a long time ago. Similarly, in our species defectors' strategy must be sometimes viable and plausible, since otherwise *the defectors* (ie, "immoral people") would regularly go extinct - as it is probably the case with, say, ants. Again, societies with a smaller number of defectors should enjoy some edge over those with a higher number of defectors (people giving preference to their naked interest over social norms and group interest), and they probably do, but this does not appear enough to prevent the survival, or the reappearing, of societies which may profit from other competitive traits. The fact remains nevertheless that most ethical systems in history have much to say on much broader issues than conflicts of interest between the individual and the group. To respect the memory of defuncts in the secret of your hearts, or to avoid masturbating, or to be brave rather than cowardly even if no public or private interest is at stake, or to practice an ascetic lifestyle while in hermitage, are easy examples of precepts having entered actual ethical systems even though they do not pertain in the least to transactional fairness or group interest. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 13:05:34 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:05:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> Message-ID: On 11 September 2012 22:13, spike wrote: > Heh. All ethical dilemmas seem to pale in comparison to those presented to > the families of Alzheimer's patients. Indeed. > For instance, imagine an AD patient who seems partially OK some mornings for > the most part, but nearly every afternoon and evening tends to grow more and > more agitated, confused, lost, terrified, angry, worried, combative, clearly > not enjoying life. But the patient sometimes has a good day, and on those > occasions clearly states a preference to stay in their own home until there > is nothing left of the brain. When is it time to check the patient into > elder care? And even worse: what is the right time to consider euthanasia? Who should take the decision, if any? Should instructions of the patients be followed in the foreseeable future? What degree of competence should be required to take such instructions seriously if the patient is already affected? > And if you answer that one, please try to convince me that a machine-based > super-intelligence will be super ethical, and if you succeed at either of > those, I will feel much better thanks. This is a good example how how an AI may perhaps reason more clearly or faster, but exactly as a human being or for that matter anything else cannot spare a *value choice* when taking such decisions. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 13:27:23 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:27:23 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 12 September 2012 14:01, Anders Sandberg wrote: > If I were to pretend to be a proper practical ethicist I would reason > somewhat like this: There are some moral principles that are fairly robust, > they emerge almost no matter what normal ethical system you use. In > medicine the "classic" list is > > > - Respect for autonomy - the patient has the right to refuse or choose their treatment. ( > *Voluntas aegroti suprema lex*.) > - Beneficence - a practitioner should act in the best interest of the patient. ( > *Salus aegroti suprema lex*.) > - Non-maleficence - "first, do no harm" (*primum non nocere > *). > - Justice - > concerns the distribution of scarce health resources, and the decision of > who gets what treatment (fairness and equality). > > And then people often like to add respect for the person (sometimes > solemnly dressed up as human dignity) and truthfulness as other key values. > Hey, this is a good example of how moral philosophies (your and mine) that I suspect to be fairly different, can converge in very similar moral principles in a given field. And this, irrespective of the - irrelevant - degree of your and mine actual compliance with those principles (ie, our personal "morality"). -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Wed Sep 12 13:40:29 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 06:40:29 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1347457229.29745.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Stefano Vaj claimed: > I can adopt an excellent moral system, justify it with a horribly > flawed philosophy, and be a terrible sinner. > > Or I can be a very good man, in principle adhering to a very bad moral > code which I infringe, but which supported by very persuasive > arguments. > > Or any other mix thereof. How do you decide what is a 'good' or a 'bad' moral system? Or do you mean consistent/inconsistent? Jeff Davis stated: > Others, substantially more dedicated to this subject, have pondered > the friendly (in my view this is equivalent to "ethical") ai question, > and reached no confident conclusion that it is possible. So I'm > sticking my neck way out here in suggesting, for the reasons I have > laid out, that, absent "selfish" drives, a focus on ethics will > logically lead to a super ethical (effectively "friendly") ai. Woh. Hang on, why do you conclude that 'ethical' equates to 'friendly to humans'? Quite apart from the notorious difficulty of deciding what 'friendly to humans' means in the first place (let's just assume it means someone's idea of what would tend to keep the average human alive and happy), is it not possible that a 'super' ethical system could show that it was better to destroy all biological life than not to? While some people would be very happy with the idea of an AI being 'friendly' by assuring a happy virtual immortality in an uploaded state for all biological life with a brain, others would not be so happy, and consider this a very Unfriendly attitude. It's even possible that a super-ethical system could indicate that the highest good would be achieved if all human intelligence (biological or otherwise) was extinguished. Of course, a /human/ ethical system would never conclude that, but that's my point, we're not talking about humans. Whatever you happen to be, your ethics must be grounded in what you are. There can't be any such thing as an objective moral code, and you can't derive a morality based on something that you are not. So even if an AI is educated in human values, there will be a point at which it re-evaluates it's own knowledge, attitudes and value system (just like we probably all did as teenagers), in light of what it is. At that point, all bets are off. It's a 'morality singularity'. Ben Zaiboc From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 16:52:57 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 18:52:57 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <1347457229.29745.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347457229.29745.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 12 September 2012 15:40, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Stefano Vaj claimed: > > I can adopt an excellent moral system, justify it with a horribly > > flawed philosophy, and be a terrible sinner. > > > > Or I can be a very good man, in principle adhering to a very bad moral > > code which I infringe, but which supported by very persuasive > > arguments. > > > > Or any other mix thereof. > > > How do you decide what is a 'good' or a 'bad' moral system? Or do you > mean consistent/inconsistent? > In my example above, I intended it "from any arbitrary POV". That is, an "excellent moral system" is just shorthand for a "moral system that you find excellent, whatever that may be". The distinction between morality, moral and moral philosophy, which I see shared with a slightly different vocabulary by Anders, is in fact meta-ethical, and is applicable to any system(s), historically existed or even purely hypothetical. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 19:36:57 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:36:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 4:56 AM, John Clark > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 Keith Henson wrote: > >> Granted that power satellites and platforms for propulsion lasers are >> relatively delicate. But in order to damage one, you have to deliver the >> agent of damage. >> > A bucket of sand moving at several miles per second would play havoc with > the optical elements of a huge laser, and you'd be unlikely to destroy all > the grains before they hit, and even if you did get that lucky I'd jest > send in another bucket. Sand is a lot cheaper than gigawatt lasers and > power satellites, you'll run out of lasers before I run out of sand. Accelerating sand to where it reaches GEO is not cheap. By spending over $100 B I think I can get the cost down to $100/kg, but it's not like the power sat construction company is going to loan out their transport system for people who want to sandblast their expensive hardware. >> Nukes require physical delivery. > > That's true, you do need to deliver thermonuclear bombs. If you want to > send a package from Korea to New York City one way to do it is to strap the > package to the top of a rocket and blast it on a 10,000 mile ballistic > trajectory to that city, another much cheaper way to deliver your package > is to use UPS or Federal Express. There is another advantage, its > anonymous. If I launch a rocket with a nuclear warhead it's obvious that I > sent it, but if New York were to just blow up one day, well who knows how > it happened. Given the lower limits of how light you can make a nuke, there are not too many FedEx packages that need to go through the neutron scanner. Think in terms of a shipping container. > > Launching one from the ground as an attack against a propulsion laser is >> possible, though very expensive. >> > Using a nuke against a space laser would be the waste of a good nuke, sand > is cheaper and would work better. > >> It will take hours to get there and the hostile intent will be obvious. > > Yes, so a terrorist organization wouldn't even bother attacking a space > based laser, they'd attack big cities, and they can do that without warning > and anonymously. And your big laser will be of no help whatsoever in > preventing that. That depends on the model. If the driving force behind terrorism is poor economic prospects, and propulsion lasers/power sats make the world much better off economically, then perhaps they would prevent such attacks. >>> It would take months for a space laser to deliver as much energy to a >> target as a H bomb could do in less than a millionth of a second, so I just >> don't see the advantage from a military perspective. >> >> The trend for a long time has been precision rather than raw power. >> > But for MAD you need raw power, and terrorists aren't big on precision. MAD depends on rational players. Terrorist tend to be weak on that front, and in any case are not much into a military perspective. Keith > John K Clark > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 7 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 10:11:43 -0700 > From: "spike" > To: "'ExI chat list'" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: <00bb01cd9040$85334990$8f99dcb0$@att.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson > > >>>... If it is absorbing a significant portion of the energy of the star, > it is either jet off somewhere or cook. > >>...That I really don't understand. If you were to enclose the sun in a one > AU Dyson shell, the equilibrium temperature on the outside would be around > 127 deg C. > > Ja, but portions of the inner layers of an MBrain get warmer than that. I > have tried to model this a few different ways, and I end up with a > surprising result: an MBrain cannot collect a large portion of the energy > from a star. Otherwise the inner nodes cannot reject sufficient heat to > stay in the temperature range in which electronic devices we know today > would work long term. The problem is that I don't trust any of my models. > I need to create a digital model with actual numbers on attitude > determination and control, see what our worst cases are. > >>>... I don't know of an online explanation of that concept. I might need > to write one. > >>...I would like to see that. > > Me too. I need to finish writing up proposals (Three down, 16 to go.) > >>...If you are trying to think fast, your physical layer needs to be as > small as you can get it... Keith > > Ja, and its temperature goes up linearly as the inverse of the radius of > orbit, all else being equal. The problem is that all else is not equal when > you start moving inboard closer to the star. I am surprised at how > complicated this question becomes, but it explains why there aren't already > a jillion thermal models out there on the web. Rather than materials > availability, manufacturing or lifting the finished nodes to interplanetary > orbit, heat management may be the biggest technical hurdle for an MBrain. > Either that or I am missing something fundamental. > > Parting shot: if an MBrain is mostly transparent and relies on a mostly > unobstructed view of cold space for heat rejection, such that we could see > through an MBrain without much loss of light, and if it is fundamentally > necessary that all MBrains must be constructed this way, this would explain > why we haven't seen the signature of one anywhere. We would be looking for > a large cool object, when in fact an MBrain would be a dense hot object with > a nearly invisible misty haze around it that would look a lot like a dust > ring. If we go with the Outback Postcards explanation for why we don't get > signals from the MBrains (because the interesting stuff is all happening > right there and they don't care about anything out here, and don't bother > sending postcards to Aborigines during wicked cool technical talks) and > MBrains must be mostly transparent, the universe could be filled with > MBrains and we wouldn't know it. > > spike > > spike > > > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 8 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:40:44 +0200 > From: Stefano Vaj > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On 11 September 2012 16:07, BillK wrote: >> On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 2:32 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: >>> But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less likely to >>> see a blatant contradiction than a clever one, a more-than-human entity >>> might be even quicker in weighing the logical aspects involved. >> >> I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as >> just plain 'wrong'. Think of simple folk wisdom, or the 'Being There' >> film. >> Clever humans, on the other hand, can devise magnificent >> justifications for any wrong act that they want to do. >> >> Intelligence level is not linked to morality. > > Sure. > > But, if I may insist once more on the distinction, I am referring to > *moral reasoning* here, not to morality. > > I can adopt an excellent moral system, justify it with a horribly > flawed philosophy, and be a terrible sinner. > > Or I can be a very good man, in principle adhering to a very bad moral > code which I infringe, but which supported by very persuasive > arguments. > > Or any other mix thereof. > > -- > Stefano Vaj > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 9 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 19:20:13 +0100 > From: BillK > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:11 PM, spike wrote: > >> Parting shot: if an MBrain is mostly transparent and relies on a mostly >> unobstructed view of cold space for heat rejection, such that we could see >> through an MBrain without much loss of light, and if it is fundamentally >> necessary that all MBrains must be constructed this way, this would explain >> why we haven't seen the signature of one anywhere. We would be looking for >> a large cool object, when in fact an MBrain would be a dense hot object with >> a nearly invisible misty haze around it that would look a lot like a dust >> ring. If we go with the Outback Postcards explanation for why we don't get >> signals from the MBrains (because the interesting stuff is all happening >> right there and they don't care about anything out here, and don't bother >> sending postcards to Aborigines during wicked cool technical talks) and >> MBrains must be mostly transparent, the universe could be filled with >> MBrains and we wouldn't know it. >> >> > > Why not go to the source? The much-missed Robert Bradbury invented MBrains. > In 'Year Million', edited by Damien Broderick, Robert has a chapter > "Under Construction: Redesigning the Solar System." > I don't have a copy, but a review quotes: > MBrains, comprised of swarm-like, concentric, orbiting computronium > shells that use solar sail-type materials to funnel and reflect the > largest possible quantity of stellar energy. > ----------------- > > Looking back through Exi posts I find: > Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999 > The standard M-Brain architecture I designed, radiates heat only in > one direction (outward, away from the star). Each layer's waste heat > becomes the power source for each subsequent (further out) layer. To > satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and physics, you have to get cooler > and cooler but require more and more radiator material. At the final > layer you would radiate at the cosmic microwave background (or > somewhat above that if you live in a "hot" region of space due to lots > of stars or hot gas). > Each shell layer orbits at the minimal distance from the star (to > reduce inter-node propagation delays) while not melting from too much > heat. [That makes the best use of the computronium in the solar system > since the different materials from which computers may be constructed > (TiC, Al2O3, Diamond, SiC, GaAs, Si, organic, > high-temp-superconductor, etc.) each has different "limits" on > operating temperature.] I suspect that some layers may be element > constrained (e.g. GaAs) and assume that diamondoid rod-logic computers > are not "best" for every operating temperature -- single-electron > Si-based computers, or high-temperature copper oxide superconducting > computers may be better in specific environments. > > However it is important to keep in mind that the mass of the computers > in a node is probably very small compared to the mass of the radiators > and cooling fluid (this is the part that needs to be worked out in > detail). > ------------------- > > BillK > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 10 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 12:36:52 -0700 > From: Jeff Davis > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 7:07 AM, BillK wrote: > >> Clever humans, on the other hand, can devise magnificent >> justifications for any wrong act that they want to do. >> >> Intelligence level is not linked to morality. > > Absolutely. (I take your meaning to be "More intelligent does not > imply more moral.") > > The problem originates in the inherent conflict between the > constraints on behavior imposed by an ethical system, and and the > pursuit of naked self-interest. Social groupings in primates, herding > animals, fish, birds, others, evolved because they enhance survival. > Ethical behavior evolved within such groupings because it enhances the > stability of the group. > > Dominance hierarchies based on power -- the "big dog" concept -- > clearly manifest in social groups. These contribute to stability by > forced acquiescence to the order of dominance. Males (and perhaps > females) challenge each other and thereby establish the order of > dominance. Recent studies however, seem to confirm that social > animals also have a genetically-based sense of equity -- justice, > fairness, call it what you will, which helps to maintain the stability > of the force-built dominance hierarchy. In humans this "fairness" > sense would be the "built-in" source of ethical behavior/thinking. > > It seems to me that having and employing a "sense of fairness" would > tend to reduce conflict within the group, thus enhancing group > stability. > > In the case of an AI, one would -- at least initially -- have a > designed, not an evolved, entity. Consequently, unless designed in, > it would not have any of the evolved drives -- survival instinct or > (sexual) competitive impulse. So it seems to me there would be no > countervailing impulse-driven divergence from consistently > ethics-based behavior. The concept and adoption of ethics would, as I > have suggested, be developed in the formative stage -- the > "upbringing" -- of the ai, as it becomes acquainted with the history > and nature of ethics, first at the human-level of intelligence and > then later at a greater-than-human level of intelligence. > > Others, substantially more dedicated to this subject, have pondered > the friendly (in my view this is equivalent to "ethical") ai question, > and reached no confident conclusion that it is possible. So I'm > sticking my neck way out here in suggesting, for the reasons I have > laid out, that, absent "selfish" drives, a focus on ethics will > logically lead to a super ethical (effectively "friendly") ai. > > Fire at will. > > Best, Jeff Davis > "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." > Ray Charles > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 11 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:13:18 -0700 > From: "spike" > To: "'ExI chat list'" > Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and > Transcension > Message-ID: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > >>> But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less >>> likely to see a blatant contradiction than a clever one... > >> I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as just > plain 'wrong'. ... > > > Heh. All ethical dilemmas seem to pale in comparison to those presented to > the families of Alzheimer's patients. > > For instance, imagine an AD patient who seems partially OK some mornings for > the most part, but nearly every afternoon and evening tends to grow more and > more agitated, confused, lost, terrified, angry, worried, combative, clearly > not enjoying life. But the patient sometimes has a good day, and on those > occasions clearly states a preference to stay in their own home until there > is nothing left of the brain. When is it time to check the patient into > elder care? > > Easy, right? OK what if the patient's spouse is doing something wrong in > the medication, such as giving the patient large doses of useless vitamins, > on pure faith since Paul Harvey said they are good for this or that? What > if you come to suspect the patient is receiving sleep aids in the middle of > the day, and the rest of the family doesn't know? What is the right thing > to do there? Ignore one's own suspicion and go along, knowing that if a > patient is suffering, well hell, it isn't suffering to be asleep, ja? > Apparently AD doesn't hurt in the sense that it causes pain, so it doesn't > keep one awake as something like arthritis would, but the suffering is real. > If a spouse decided the person is better off sleeping most of the time, is > it appropriate to second-guess that spouse? Come on extro-ethics hipsters, > think hard, suggest the right answers, and while you are at it, do again > make the case that ethical behavior and intelligence are related please? > And if you answer that one, please try to convince me that a machine-based > super-intelligence will be super ethical, and if you succeed at either of > those, I will feel much better thanks. > > spike > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 12 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:29:11 -0700 > From: "spike" > To: "'ExI chat list'" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: <011601cd905c$1b0202c0$51060840$@att.net> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > >>... On Behalf Of BillK > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 6:11 PM, spike wrote: > >>> ...Parting shot: if an MBrain is mostly transparent and relies on a >> mostly unobstructed view of cold space for heat rejection... > >>...Why not go to the source? The much-missed Robert Bradbury invented > MBrains. > In 'Year Million', edited by Damien Broderick, Robert has a chapter "Under > Construction: Redesigning the Solar System." > I don't have a copy... > > I do have a copy, however... read on please. > > >>... but a review quotes: > MBrains, comprised of swarm-like, concentric, orbiting computronium shells > that use solar sail-type materials to funnel and reflect the largest > possible quantity of stellar energy. > ----------------- > > Of course, however... > >>... The standard M-Brain architecture I designed, radiates heat only in one > direction (outward, away from the star). Each layer's waste heat becomes the > power source for each subsequent (further out) layer...Robert J. Bradbury > Thu, 2 Dec 1999> > > Hmmm, Robert and I did not agree on this. He and I spent many hours at my > home debating and deriving thermal models after this was written, most of > the activity happening between 2001 and 2004. After that he became > distracted by another project, but my own feeling at the time and today is > that his design does not close. His contribution is valuable: the inner > nodes have a different construct than the outer nodes, and must be able to > operate at higher temperatures. > >>... To satisfy the laws of thermodynamics and physics, you have to get > cooler and cooler but require more and more radiator material. At the final > layer you would radiate at the cosmic microwave background (or somewhat > above that if you live in a "hot" region of space due to lots of stars or > hot gas)... Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999 > > Robert did not have, never did have, a detailed thermal model. He had good > ideas. But there is a lot of blood, sweat and tears yet to be shed over a > detailed thermal model, as well as some actual tests of hardware in space to > measure their control parameters before I will trust my own models. > >>...However it is important to keep in mind that the mass of the computers > in a node is probably very small compared to the mass of the radiators and > cooling fluid (this is the part that needs to be worked out in detail). > Robert J. Bradbury Thu, 2 Dec 1999 (?) > ------------------- > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > > BillK, I can't tell if this last sentence is part of Robert's commentary or > yours, but Robert and I never did agree on the use of cooling fluid. My > MBrain nodes always relied on passive cooling only, for I did some calcs a > long time ago which convinced me that cooling fluid doesn't help at all in > the long run. It can only help if you have available a low entropy cold > space into which you dump waste heat. But in Robert's vision, the inner > nodes have only a view to a high entropy warm space, and the outer nodes > which have a view to cold space do not need fluid of any kind. > > There is a lot of work to do on this. I worked out the orbit mechanics > first, because orbit mechanics are easier and cleaner than the thermal > models, and I know how to do those. Now the hard work begins. > > Final shot: microprocessor technology moved a long ways since Robert wrote > the above passages. He didn't live to see a cell phone win a chess > tournament against several masters and two grandmasters, without a charger > and without phoning a friend. > > spike > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 13 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 13:57:47 -0700 > From: Jeff Davis > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 6:02 AM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: >> Jeff Davis wrote: > >>> An advanced ai would have no such problems, and would be far more likely to conform to a higher ethical standard. > >>> That's what I was saying. >> >> >> OK, I get that. Sort of. With a reservation on the idea that "Humans know what constitutes ethical behaviour". Do we? > > I had to pause and give the question some thought. I realized that my > assertion -- that "Humans know what constitutes ethical behavior" -- > was just my "legacy" assumption, unvetted unexamined. Upon > examination, I see that it isn't something I know for a fact, but > rather something I have come to believe, without having looked at it > closely. > > So, "Do we?" > > I seem to. At least I have a robust notion of the difference between > right and wrong. Does that qualify? And I extend that knowledge of > myself to the rest of humanity. Am I wrong? The test of culpability > -- indeed, sanity -- in a (TV) court of law is found in the phrase > "Did the defendant know the difference between right and wrong?" This > suggests that the courts at least think anyone not mentally defective > can reasonably assumed to know the difference between right and wrong. > > So I'm pretty confident that most folks understand at least their own > ethical system, and acknowledge the obligatory nature of adherence to > "right" behavior. But I'm open to challenges. > >> If so, why can't we all agree on it? > > Different cultures have different values, and within cultures there > are subcultures with different values. Different values result in > different ethical systems. There's the source of the disagreement. > >> (which is a different question to "why don't we all act in accordance with it?") When you look at this, there's very little that we can all agree on, even when it comes to things like murder, stealing, and granting others the right to decide things for themselves. > > I see it as a cultural conflict not an ethical one. Independent of > culture, if you ask someone if adherence to their values -- obedience > to the law(?) -- is obligatory in order to remain in good standing > within their society, won't they say "Yes"? > >> Religion causes the biggest conflicts here, of course, but even if you ignore religious 'morality', there are still some pretty big differences of opinion. Murder is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. When is it not bad? Opinions differ widely. Thieving is bad. Yes, of course. But is it always bad? Opinions differ. Etc. > > Again, cross-cultural conflicts, all. Within their own > culturally-distinct ethical system, all will agree that right behavior > is obligatory (though they will all retain the option to defect when > survival is at stake. A man's gotta do, etc). > >> The question still remains: What would constitute ethical behaviour for a superintelligent being? I suspect we have no idea. > > Not being able to know the meaning of "superintelligent" is the first > problem. We can project in that direction though our experience with > exceptionally intelligent humans, but beyond that darkness begins to > fall. And beyond that, where an advanced level of complexity predicts > the emergence of the unpredictable, we're friggin' totally in the > dark. I would very much like to hear someone attempt to penetrate the > first level -- the penetrable level -- of darkness. > > Intelligence: an iterative process of data collection and processing > for pattern recognition. > > More intelligent than that: more of the same, a change in degree not kind. > > Super-intelligent: ? A change in kind. > >> We can't assume it would just take our ideas as being correct (assuming it could even codify a 'universal human ethics' in the first place). It would almost certainly create its own from scratch. > > If its "upbringing", training, intellectual development is similar to > that of a human child, then it will gradually absorb human-provided > information. I will achieve intellectual maturity in stages. But it > will follow this developmental process with human knowledge as its > seed. Like a child it will at first accept everything as "true". > Then later it seems definitive that it will self-enhance, part of > which would include a re-examination of all prior knowledge and > revision as called for. Even so, revision cannot erase the causal > priors. You have to have something to start from, an empty mind has > emptied itself of the tools for revision. So "starting from scratch" > is not possible. I will however grant you something close to it. > >> We simply can't predict what that would lead to. > > Not with any confidence, anyway. > > Best, Jeff Davis > > Aspiring Transhuman / Delusional Ape > (Take your pick) > Nicq MacDonald > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 14 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:16:28 +0100 > From: BillK > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 9:29 PM, spike wrote: > >> There is a lot of work to do on this. I worked out the orbit mechanics >> first, because orbit mechanics are easier and cleaner than the thermal >> models, and I know how to do those. Now the hard work begins. >> >> Final shot: microprocessor technology moved a long ways since Robert wrote >> the above passages. He didn't live to see a cell phone win a chess >> tournament against several masters and two grandmasters, without a charger >> and without phoning a friend. >> >> > > I found a copy of Robert's paper on the Wayback Machine Copyright 1997-2000. > > > Although, as you say, it probably doesn't include later revisions, you > might like to store a copy. > > BillK > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 15 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 17:22:12 -0400 > From: Will Steinberg > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and > Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" > > There are no ethics, the proof being Godel's: in any ethical framework, > there exists a situation whose ethicity cannot be determined. Thus there > is no correct ethical system. It's all up to you: decide what you believe > and then do or don't institute it in your reality. > On Sep 11, 2012 4:27 PM, "spike" wrote: > >> >> >> But yes, I am inclined to concede that as a stupid human is less >> >> likely to see a blatant contradiction than a clever one... >> >> > I doubt that. A stupid human is more likely to see certain actions as >> just >> plain 'wrong'. ... >> >> >> Heh. All ethical dilemmas seem to pale in comparison to those presented to >> the families of Alzheimer's patients. >> >> For instance, imagine an AD patient who seems partially OK some mornings >> for >> the most part, but nearly every afternoon and evening tends to grow more >> and >> more agitated, confused, lost, terrified, angry, worried, combative, >> clearly >> not enjoying life. But the patient sometimes has a good day, and on those >> occasions clearly states a preference to stay in their own home until there >> is nothing left of the brain. When is it time to check the patient into >> elder care? >> >> Easy, right? OK what if the patient's spouse is doing something wrong in >> the medication, such as giving the patient large doses of useless vitamins, >> on pure faith since Paul Harvey said they are good for this or that? What >> if you come to suspect the patient is receiving sleep aids in the middle of >> the day, and the rest of the family doesn't know? What is the right thing >> to do there? Ignore one's own suspicion and go along, knowing that if a >> patient is suffering, well hell, it isn't suffering to be asleep, ja? >> Apparently AD doesn't hurt in the sense that it causes pain, so it doesn't >> keep one awake as something like arthritis would, but the suffering is >> real. >> If a spouse decided the person is better off sleeping most of the time, is >> it appropriate to second-guess that spouse? Come on extro-ethics hipsters, >> think hard, suggest the right answers, and while you are at it, do again >> make the case that ethical behavior and intelligence are related please? >> And if you answer that one, please try to convince me that a machine-based >> super-intelligence will be super ethical, and if you succeed at either of >> those, I will feel much better thanks. >> >> 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: > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 16 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 22:59:11 +0100 > From: BillK > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence, RE: Fermi Paradox and > Transcension > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 10:22 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: >> There are no ethics, the proof being Godel's: in any ethical framework, >> there exists a situation whose ethicity cannot be determined. Thus there is >> no correct ethical system. It's all up to you: decide what you believe and >> then do or don't institute it in your reality. >> >> > > Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others. > Groucho Marx > > > BillK > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 17 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 15:28:36 -0700 > From: Keith Henson > To: ExI chat list > Subject: [ExI] On the brink of food riots > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > The US government policy of converting food (corn) to vehicle fuel has > "interesting" consequences, though they probably only brought the > crisis forward a few years. > > I have talked here for almost the last decade about wars and related > social disruptions as the consequence of a bleak future. Some of > those take years for the xenophobic memes to build up. > > Food shortages (i.e., high prices) have much faster effects. The > thing that is particularly disturbing about this report is how close > we seem to be to really widespread food riots. > > http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.2455v1.pdf > > Given the number of people on food stamps in the US, the US may not be > immune to global food price rises causing trouble here. > > Keith > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 18 > Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2012 23:00:41 -0400 > From: Mike Dougherty > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] Power sats as weapons > Message-ID: > > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 11:36 AM, John Clark wrote: >> That's true, you do need to deliver thermonuclear bombs. If you want to send >> a package from Korea to New York City one way to do it is to strap the >> package to the top of a rocket and blast it on a 10,000 mile ballistic >> trajectory to that city, another much cheaper way to deliver your package is >> to use UPS or Federal Express. There is another advantage, its anonymous. If >> I launch a rocket with a nuclear warhead it's obvious that I sent it, but if >> New York were to just blow up one day, well who knows how it happened. > > I was curious to know if you were aware that you wrote this on 9/11. > > I don't know if it's irony or synchronicity, but I thought it was noteworthy. > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 19 > Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:32:07 +0100 > From: Anders Sandberg > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence > Message-ID: <505072B7.5000202 at aleph.se> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed > > On 11/09/2012 22:22, Will Steinberg wrote: >> >> There are no ethics, the proof being Godel's: in any ethical >> framework, there exists a situation whose ethicity cannot be >> determined. Thus there is no correct ethical system. It's all up to >> you: decide what you believe and then do or don't institute it in your >> reality. >> > > That is obviously false. Here is a consistent and complete moral system: > "everything is permitted". > > It is worth distinguishing ethics and morality. A morality is a system > of actions (or ways of figuring them out) that are considered to be > right. Ethics is the study of moral systems, whether in the form of you > thinking about what you think is right or wrong, or the academic pursuit > where thick books get written. A lot of professional ethics is > meta-ethics, thinking about ethics itself (what the heck is it? what it > can and cannot achieve? how can we find out?), although practical > ethicists do have their place. > > Now, I think Will is right in general: for typical moral systems there > are situations that are undecidable as "right" or "wrong" (or have > uncomputable values, if you like a more consequentialist approach). They > don't even need to be tricky G?del- or Turing-type situations, since > finite minds with finite resources often find that they cannot analyse > the full ramifications. Some systems are worse: Kant famously forces you > to analyse *and understand* the full moral consequences of everybody > adopting your action as a maxim, while rule utilitarianism just wants > you to adopt the rules that given current evidence will maximize utility > (please revise them as more evidence arrives or your brain becomes better). > > But this doesn't mean such systems are pointless. Unless you are a > catatonic nihilist you will think that some things are better than > others, and adopting a policy of action that produces more of the good > is rational. This is already a moral system! (at least in some ethical > theories) A lot of our world consists of other agents with similar (but > possibly not identical) concerns. Coordinating policies often produce > even better outcomes, so we have reasons to express policies succinctly > to each other so we can try to coordinate (and compressed formulations > of policies often make them easier to apply individually too: cached > behaviors are much quicker than to ardously calculate the right for > every situation). > > [ The computational complexity of moral systems is an interesting topic > that I would love to pursue. There are also cool links to statistical > learning theory - what moral systems can be learned from examples, and > do ethical and meta-ethical principles provide useful boundary > conditions or other constraints on the models? ] > > -- > 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 > > > End of extropy-chat Digest, Vol 108, Issue 13 > ********************************************* From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 19:51:20 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 15:51:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Hunger causes riots - not war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:25 AM, BillK wrote: > What?s the number one reason we riot? Cartoons and You Tube videos. That's what Muslims would say and that's what the USA's ambassador to Libya would say if he could but he can't because he was torn apart by a religious mob yesterday on September 11. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 12 20:19:59 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:19:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <1347457229.29745.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347457229.29745.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <5050EE6F.4000108@aleph.se> On 12/09/2012 14:40, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Woh. Hang on, why do you conclude that 'ethical' equates to 'friendly > to humans'? Exactly. Suppose pleasure hedonism is actually the one true moral system - any sufficiently smart entity will figure it out. In that case the best possible state of the universe would be with as much mass as possible converted to computronium running the maximally pleasant mindstate over and over again. It is very unlikely this is compatible with any human existence, since our atoms could be used for computronium. It would (given the assumption) actually be what we humans *should* aim for if we were smart enough to see it, but it is unlikely that most of us would like to do the moral thing. > Whatever you happen to be, your ethics must be grounded in what you > are. There can't be any such thing as an objective moral code, and you > can't derive a morality based on something that you are not Some ethicists would beg to differ. To take Kant as an example, he would argue that all rational moral agents would converge on the same ethics (his) by virtue of being rational moral agents. He would predict that aliens, uplifted animals and AIs would all come to the same conclusion if they thought about it long enough. They are all the same, from this perspective, and the moral code is not subjective. Yes, it is possible to construct AIs that realize Kant is right and still do not want to follow his system: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2011/02/why_we_should_fear_the_paperclipper.html But Kant would argue that they fail at being rational moral agents - they cannot change their motivations. It is worth noting that professional philosophers are 56.3% for moral realism (there are true moral facts, independent of subjective opinion). This remains true when sampling meta-ethicists or normative ethicists: http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl Whether ethicists actually *know* anything about the subject is of course the basis of the cognitivism-noncognitivism battle. But at least they have read and thought a lot about it. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 20:24:10 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:24:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Power sats as weapons In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 Keith Henson wrote: > Accelerating sand to where it reaches GEO is not cheap. Cheaper than accelerating power satellites and gargantuan lasers to GEO. > Given the lower limits of how light you can make a nuke,. > The critical mass for Plutonium is 10 pounds, less if you're clever and can compress it to greater than standard density. I figure the smallest complete bomb would weigh about 100 pounds and be equal to one or two thousand tons of TNT. > there are not too many FedEx packages that need to go through the neutron > scanner. Think in terms of a shipping container. > Unfortunately we spend many orders of magnitude more money on pork-barrel anti ballistic missile systems than we do on things that might actually save lives, like neutron detectors and examining shipping containers. > If the driving force behind terrorism is poor economic prospects I don't believe it is. Saudi Arabia is not a poor country and yet almost all the 911 hijackers came from there, and all were middle class. Whenever you dig into terrorism you will usually find religion festering there someplace. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 12 20:37:39 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:37:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Hunger causes riots - not war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5050F293.8060206@aleph.se> On 12/09/2012 20:51, John Clark wrote: > > > On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 5:25 AM, BillK > wrote: > > > What's the number one reason we riot? > > > Cartoons and You Tube videos. That's what Muslims would say and that's > what the USA's ambassador to Libya would say if he could but he can't > because he was torn apart by a religious mob yesterday on September 11. There is a depressing regularity in the riots in the Muslim world. Somebody expresses something rude somewhere, poor people riot and get killed (ambassadors are unusual victims). If one were anti-Muslim one could easily kill people remotely and safely simply by producing a suitable stream of controversial viral media - but it doesn't work the other way around. The reason is largely to be found in the human development indices. When people have political freedom, they tend to respond to provocations by shouting back or arguing that Somebody Ought to Do Something. When people perceive themselves as having a fairly good economic situation they have things to lose, so they are unlikely to riot. Conversely, when your political freedom is circumscribed any protest against the system is going to be illegal - yet you can express your anger by protesting against an outside enemy. And if the situation is fairly unbearable, then the step to rioting is small. The provocation is irrelevant (and often played by various memetic players), what really drives things is that these societies for various reasons are not working well and are under a lot of pressure. Plentiful energy and food might lower some pressures, but actually worsen others. I shudder at the thought of the Arabian states if oil revenues come crashing down. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 12 20:45:15 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 21:45:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5050F45B.8050308@aleph.se> On 12/09/2012 14:27, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Hey, this is a good example of how moral philosophies (your and mine) > that I suspect to be fairly different, can converge in very similar > moral principles in a given field. And this, irrespective of the - > irrelevant - degree of your and mine actual compliance with those > principles (ie, our personal "morality"). > Exactly! If you had to be a moral person to do ethics, there would be almost nobody in the department. (As Eric Schwitzgebel has shown, ethicists are definitely not to be trusted: check out his papers at "The Relationship Between Moral Reflection and Moral Behavior": http://www.faculty.ucr.edu/~eschwitz/ ) Mid level principles most moral systems agree on are nice, and they are also interesting on their own: why are they so robustly sensible? I'm involved in one research project that tries to figure out a new one, and I suspect it might deep down be a matter of game theory and structural stability: the game-theoretically right way of acting might not be strongly affected if you perturb people's utility functions. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 21:02:54 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 14:02:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 4:56 AM, "spike" wrote: On Behalf Of Keith Henson snip >>...If you are trying to think fast, your physical layer needs to be as > small as you can get it... Keith > > Ja, and its temperature goes up linearly as the inverse of the radius of > orbit, all else being equal. "Orbit" is where I get the disconnect. Human brain is ~20 W. Sped up a million fold, perhaps 20 kW. That means that a computronium node at one AU up to supporting a high speed human mental process is going to intercept on the order of 20 square meters of light and have ~20 square meters of radiator. Packed as a single layer around the star, talking to a neighbor more than 300 meters away is going to be hard just due to speed of light delays. At 5 meters apart, there are only 3600 in an easy to talk to community. Talking to someone on the far side of a one AU orbit has a subjective delay of a few thousand years. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this doesn't seem like this works very well for fundamental physics reasons. I think I first mentioned these concerns almost two decades ago. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Sep 12 23:11:32 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 16:11:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 1:37 PM, John Clark wrote: snip >> If the driving force behind terrorism is poor economic prospects > > I don't believe it is. Saudi Arabia is not a poor country and yet almost > all the 911 hijackers came from there, and all were middle class. Before 9/11, the was a 75% drop in the per capita income for Saudi Arabia. It was due to a rise in the population of factor of two and a fall in the price of oil by half. That seem to be enough to trip the population wide "bleak future" detector. And in the stone age, the relatively well off warriors were infected by the same "kill the neighbors" memetic mechanism as the rest of the tribe. > Whenever > you dig into terrorism you will usually find religion festering there > someplace. Right. But "war mode" is not on all the time. What happens is bleak future turns up the gain in xenophobic memes (religions typically) and that synchs the warriors up. So religion is almost always an element on the route to war, not causal, but a step. We often make this kind of association error. > From: Anders Sandberg > There is a depressing regularity in the riots in the Muslim world. > Somebody expresses something rude somewhere, poor people riot and get > killed (ambassadors are unusual victims). If one were anti-Muslim one > could easily kill people remotely and safely simply by producing a > suitable stream of controversial viral media - but it doesn't work the > other way around. Not yet. But especially in the US there are increasing numbers of people who rightly consider the future bleak. That's part of why it was possible to get the US population to support Bush's war against Iraq. > The reason is largely to be found in the human development indices. When > people have political freedom, they tend to respond to provocations by > shouting back or arguing that Somebody Ought to Do Something. When > people perceive themselves as having a fairly good economic situation > they have things to lose, so they are unlikely to riot. Conversely, when > your political freedom is circumscribed any protest against the system > is going to be illegal - yet you can express your anger by protesting > against an outside enemy. And if the situation is fairly unbearable, > then the step to rioting is small. The provocation is irrelevant (and > often played by various memetic players), what really drives things is > that these societies for various reasons are not working well and are > under a lot of pressure. Yes. > Plentiful energy and food might lower some pressures, but actually > worsen others. I shudder at the thought of the Arabian states if oil > revenues come crashing down. It's going to happen sooner or later. For example, at some point the internal use of oil will exceed what they can pump. Keith From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 13 03:32:38 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 20:32:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Keith Henson Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2012 2:03 PM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 4:56 AM, "spike" wrote: On Behalf Of Keith Henson snip >>...If you are trying to think fast, your physical layer needs to be as > small as you can get it... Keith > >>... Ja, and its temperature goes up linearly as the inverse of the radius > of orbit, all else being equal. spike >..."Orbit" is where I get the disconnect. >...Human brain is ~20 W. Sped up a million fold, perhaps 20 kW...I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this doesn't seem like this works very well for fundamental physics reasons....I think I first mentioned these concerns almost two decades ago. Keith _______________________________________________ Hmm, we may be looking at two different models of MBrain. I imagine the nodes being about the disk about size of a DVD only much thinner, running a processor similar to about what we had 30 yrs ago during my misspent youth, a Z80-ish level processor with about a million transistors, except with today's 20 nm features and today's power-conscious CMOS components. Each node would have something like a Bluetooth transmitter/receiver, able to transmit about 12 meters or so which is about as far as a Bluetooth connection normally goes on the power levels available to an MBrain node the size of a DVD. This allows each node to communicate directly with about ~7000 other nodes. The processor's job is to simulate a neuron and the related dendrites. I have imagined a roughly spherical grouping of about 100 billion nodes with an average spacing of about a meter, so that each node would occupy about a cubic meter and the roughly spherical cluster would have a radius of about 3 km, or 10 light milliseconds. For what I have in mind, the processors need not be particularly fast or sophisticated. Keith are you and I thinking about approximately the same thing? In this model each node watches it's inputs and if everything is just right, fires it's own simulated dendrite output. I have no way of knowing if such a thing would ever simulate intelligence, but I do have a way of knowing the alternative: a dead rock does not simulate anything. Note this isn't Rober't vision of an MBrain. I never could convince him that we can't really capture all the star's energy, or even most of it. spike From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 04:01:23 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 00:01:23 -0400 Subject: [ExI] MBrain heat rejection Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 1:11 PM, spike wrote: > > Ja, but portions of the inner layers of an MBrain get warmer than that. I > have tried to model this a few different ways, and I end up with a > surprising result: an MBrain cannot collect a large portion of the energy > from a star. Otherwise the inner nodes cannot reject sufficient heat to > stay in the temperature range in which electronic devices we know today > would work long term. ### What if the swarm of thinkplates allowed elliptical orbits - in this way a single plate would spend the perihelion part of its duty cycle in direct exposure to sunlight, supporting high-speed computations, and then as it recedes towards aphelion its functions would switch to cooling in the shade of other thinkplates? Coordination of orbits of trillions of such objects might be non-trivial but it should definitely be possible to partially equalize temperatures between the plates. If you include precession in the model, you could have many interleaved streams of plates, rapidly passing each other and shortening the duty cycle. You could have complex patterns of gravitational fly-by maneuvers between streams introducing yet another way to mix things up without large loss of angular momentum. And if you add to it using solar photon pressure to further manipulate orbits, the possibilities would be endless. Rafal From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 13 05:28:22 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2012 22:28:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] MBrain heat rejection In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <015101cd9170$97734110$c659c330$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: [ExI] MBrain heat rejection On Tue, Sep 11, 2012 at 1:11 PM, spike wrote: > >>... Ja, but portions of the inner layers of an MBrain get warmer than > that. I have tried to model this a few different ways, and I end up > with a surprising result: an MBrain cannot collect a large portion of > the energy from a star. Otherwise the inner nodes cannot reject > sufficient heat to stay in the temperature range in which electronic > devices we know today would work long term. >...### What if the swarm of thinkplates allowed elliptical orbits - in this way a single plate would spend the perihelion part of its duty cycle in direct exposure to sunlight, supporting high-speed computations, and then as it recedes towards aphelion its functions would switch to cooling in the shade of other thinkplates? Coordination of orbits of trillions of such objects might be non-trivial but it should definitely be possible to partially equalize temperatures between the plates. If you include precession in the model, you could have many interleaved streams of plates, rapidly passing each other and shortening the duty cycle. You could have complex patterns of gravitational fly-by maneuvers between streams introducing yet another way to mix things up without large loss of angular momentum. And if you add to it using solar photon pressure to further manipulate orbits, the possibilities would be endless. Rafal _______________________________________________ Good thinking Rafal. The MBrain model I have been thinking about for the last several years is does something vaguely like this, but with some important differences. I don't have nodes crossing each other's paths, for in my thinking we need to keep the relative velocities of any nodes anywhere near each other to a minimum. So here is my notion, as best I can explain it without pictures. I do have pictures as well: I have a set of powerpoint slides I drew for an engineering presentation last fall. Step 1: imagine a thinkplate (love that term, thanks, I will occasionally use it interchangeably with the term nodes, if you are agreeable) about the size of a DVD, mass of about a gram, small microprocessor, three LCD regions near the periphery of the plate which can be either reflective or absorptive. Those are turned on or off to control the attitude with respect to the sun. Bluetooth transmitter and receiver. So far so good? That is a rough description of one thinkplate. Step 2: imagine away the earth and put in that 1 AU orbit a thinkplate, and make that orbit round (imagine away the eccentricity for now). Replicate the plate a trillion times or have it copy itself through 36 doublings, so you have a trillion identical plates, and space them evenly about a meter apart, so with a trillion nodes at 1 AU, the string wraps all the way around. Step 3. Leaving that trillion nodes in place, imagine a second trillion nodes in a very slightly different orbit, one in which the orbit plane is tilted through about 6 pico-radians, and has a perihelion 1 AU plus one meter, and aphelion 1 AU minus one meter. Note, I am not crazy or stoned, this is a real proposal, now follow me, for it gets better from here. If you have that 6 picoradian tilt, then a quarter of a year into the orbit, the tilted-orbit node is about a meter above the orbit plane of the original trillion nodes. Three months later it is back in the plane and a meter outboard, three months after that, about a meter below the plane and 1 AU, and a quarter of a year after that, back in the plane and a meter inboard. Step 4. Once you realize what I am talking about here, you see that I have suggested a configuration in which every node has nodes forward and aft in the orbit, and it has another node which also stays about 1 meter away, but is in a direction perpendicular to the line formed by the two nodes fore and aft. Step 5. Add another trillion nodes with the plane tilted a negative 6 pico-radians, so now every node in the original trillion has four neighbors which always stay about 1 meter away. Step 6. Add another trillion nodes in an orbit tilted about 12 pico-radians with an orbit 1 AU plus or minus about two meters. Now every node of the trillion in the original round-orbit has exactly 8 neighbors, if a neighbor is defined as any node which stays within about two meters . Step 7. Repeat with more rings of a trillion nodes until every node in the original ring has about 7000 neighbors, a neighbor defined as any node which stays within Bluetooth range, about 12 meters. There is a reason why I chose about 7000 neighbors: it is thought that a typical human brain cell's dendrites branch out and eventually connect to somewhere between 4000 and 10,000 other cells, with most researchers agreeing that about 7000 is a reasonable average estimate. There we have it. In a seven step thought experiment, we have an orbiting torus of about 500 trillion thinkplates, each of which has kind of a theoretical ability to simulate a neuron and a branching dendrite. So will this whole thing ever simulate human thought? Can't say, but I can say for sure that the asteroid belt in its present configuration will not sim human thought, not now, not ever. A half a quadrillion MBrain nodes perhaps could simulate thought by some mysterious means, but a non-MBrain will not sim human thought. All this goes to why I favor cryonics: If we get frozen, we don't know what will eventually happen. But if we don't get frozen, we do know exactly what will happen. spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 07:34:38 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:34:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 12:11 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 1:37 PM, John Clark wrote: >> I don't believe it is. Saudi Arabia is not a poor country and yet almost >> all the 911 hijackers came from there, and all were middle class. > > Before 9/11, the was a 75% drop in the per capita income for Saudi > Arabia. It was due to a rise in the population of factor of two and a > fall in the price of oil by half. That seem to be enough to trip the > population wide "bleak future" detector. And in the stone age, the > relatively well off warriors were infected by the same "kill the > neighbors" memetic mechanism as the rest of the tribe. > Terrorism is not the result of a nation switching on to 'war-mode'. Terrorists are mostly a tiny minority (even including non-involved supporters). And as John said terrorists are often more middle-class than poor. Terrorism is probably used because it is the only method a relatively powerless small group have available to inflict damage on a hated powerful nation. (e.g. resistance fighters against WWII German invaders). Starvation and high food prices is linked with internal rioting and political upheaval. The US is facing bleak times with 46 million surviving on food stamps, but they are completely uninvolved in the US wars. Even a lot of the killing is now done by remote control, by soldiers playing a real-life computer game. It seems illogical to say that the richest country in the world is fighting wars because it faces 'hard-times'. They are certainly inflicting 'hard-times' on many other countries. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 11:54:51 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:54:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <5050EE6F.4000108@aleph.se> References: <1347457229.29745.YahooMailClassic@web114408.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <5050EE6F.4000108@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 12 September 2012 22:19, Anders Sandberg wrote: > It is worth noting that professional philosophers are 56.3% for moral > realism (there are true moral facts, independent of subjective opinion). > This remains true when sampling meta-ethicists or normative ethicists: > http://philpapers.org/surveys/results.pl > Little surprise, the demografics of the people polled indicate that a large majority was American, and a very very large majority was anyway anglo-saxon... :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 12:30:03 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:30:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <5050F45B.8050308@aleph.se> References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> <5050F45B.8050308@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 12 September 2012 22:45, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Mid level principles most moral systems agree on are nice, and they are also interesting on their own: why are they so robustly sensible? I'm involved in one research project that tries to figure out a new one, and I suspect it might deep down be a matter of game theory and structural stability: the game-theoretically right way of acting might not be strongly affected if you perturb people's utility functions. Here, as in many other areas, I am mostly concerned with diversity, so that I am inclined to think that the true essence of an ethical system is what makes it different from others, not what makes it (possibly) similar. I am also wary of supposed similarities, especially when they are claimed to be universal or sem-universal because I suspect many of them to be an artifact (words and concepts that remain the same but start being denoted by an altogether different semantic and context), and other to be mostly formal in nature ("do the right thing", etc.). But yes, similar moral prohibitions or obligations may derive from different moral philosophies. I would not infer much from that other than the fact that wings or eyes have been invented a number of times by evolution, yet they are not logically "necessitated" in some sense nor they necessarily represent the product of similar processes. After all, as the space of viable organisms is much smaller than the space of all theoretically possible organisms, but remain nevertheless "infinite", the number of historical ethical systems is also smaller than the space of conceivable ethical systems because the former remain subject to ordinary Darwinian pressures, both on the systems as such and on their followers. Lastly, lest we haste to conclude that ethical system not being "objective" and "rational" and "universal" are random, fully arbitrary, the product of occasional whim, etc., I am persuaded that on Nietzsche's page we should extend Ben Zaiboc's conclusion about the fact that "There can't be any such thing as an objective moral code, and you can't derive a morality based on something that you are not" into "There can't be any such thing as an objective moral code, and you can't help deriving your moral from *what that you are*". The moral convictions of each of us are not "rationally compelled", but are not arbitrary either: they simply reflect our personal deepest nature, "what we really are", and we are not really free to choose them randomly any more than we can be somebody else. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 12:45:49 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:45:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> <5050F45B.8050308@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > The moral convictions of each of us are not "rationally compelled", but are > not arbitrary either: they simply reflect our personal deepest nature, "what > we really are", and we are not really free to choose them randomly any more > than we can be somebody else. > > Sorry, but I don't think that theory works in practice. People change their moral convictions all the time. If you join the $cienologists then I guarantee your moral convictions will change very quickly to fit in with your new peer group. Now you may say, 'Ahh but they didn't change their deepest nature, only their behaviour'. In that case their deepest nature doesn't matter and is just playing with words. What matters is their moral *behaviour*. BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 13:53:55 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:53:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 12 September 2012 23:02, Keith Henson wrote: > Talking to someone on the far side of a one AU orbit has a subjective > delay of a few thousand years. > > I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this doesn't seem like > this works very well for fundamental physics reasons. > I am still unclear however about their implication. If we buy into the concept that "the computer is the network", we must conclude that a computer can grow as large as we like, because there are no obvious logical or physical limits to the growth of a network. Sure, adjacent nodes and modules will speak more often and much faster to one another than polar opposed ones. But I suspect this to be true also in existing organic brains and networks. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 13:59:04 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:59:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 05:32, spike wrote: > I have no way of knowing if such a thing would ever simulate intelligence, > but I do have a way of knowing the alternative: a dead rock does not > simulate anything. > If you believe in the Principle of Computational Equivalence, almost everything - that is, everything which is beyond a very low complexity threshold much below that of any single PC - can emulate anything else, the only issue being that of the relative performance in the execution of a given programme. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 14:09:54 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 16:09:54 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 09:34, BillK wrote: > Terrorism is not the result of a nation switching on to 'war-mode'. > > Terrorists are mostly a tiny minority (even including non-involved > supporters). And as John said terrorists are often more middle-class > than poor. Terrorism is probably used because it is the only method a > relatively powerless small group have available to inflict damage on a > hated powerful nation. > (e.g. resistance fighters against WWII German invaders). > > Starvation and high food prices is linked with internal rioting and > political upheaval. > The US is facing bleak times with 46 million surviving on food stamps, > but they are completely uninvolved in the US wars. Even a lot of the > killing is now done by remote control, by soldiers playing a real-life > computer game. > > It seems illogical to say that the richest country in the world is > fighting wars because it faces 'hard-times'. They are certainly > inflicting 'hard-times' on many other countries. > All that sounds pretty plausible, even obvious. In principle, by the way, "terrorism" in the contemporary sense (that is, not intended as a strategy deployed by ordinary armed forces) and as a product of private initiatives is illegal everywhere, including (and we could say especially) in the so-called "rogue states". States like to keep control on the use of the force by their citizens, even when the targets are abroad. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 14:46:48 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 10:46:48 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 BillK wrote: > Terrorists are mostly a tiny minority There are 7 billion people on this planet and obviously in general a majority of them are not terrorists, and in particular a majority of Muslims are not terrorists and disapprove of events like 911; but I think people are far too willing to give members of that religious franchise a free pass because it's also true that a majority of terrorists are Muslim and only a tiny minority of them STRONGLY disapprove of events like 911. Most people don't think that the average German citizen of the 1930's and 40's was 100% guilt free of the events that transpired there, and today I don't think the average Muslim is 100% guilt free of the events committed in the name of Allah. > > The US is facing bleak times with 46 million surviving on food stamps > Yes they are barely surviving, a sizable minority of them are morbidly obese. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 15:06:01 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:06:01 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 16:46, John Clark wrote: > > The US is facing bleak times with 46 million surviving on food stamps >> > > Yes they are barely surviving, a sizable minority of them are morbidly > obese. > Somebody used to say: The difference between poor countries and rich countries is that in pour countries the poor are thinner than the rich, in rich countries is the opposite. Because they are not so much into caloric restriction but rather into a carbo-based diet, often supplemented by a quite sedentary lifestyle. A debatable advantage... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 15:21:19 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:21:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: References: <010f01cd9059$e2765f70$a7631e50$@att.net> <505079A8.6080809@aleph.se> <5050F45B.8050308@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 14:45, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 1:30 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > The moral convictions of each of us are not "rationally compelled", but > are > > not arbitrary either: they simply reflect our personal deepest nature, > "what > > we really are", and we are not really free to choose them randomly any > more > > than we can be somebody else. > > Sorry, but I don't think that theory works in practice. > People change their moral convictions all the time. > If you join the $cienologists then I guarantee your moral convictions > will change very quickly to fit in with your new peer group. > > Now you may say, 'Ahh but they didn't change their deepest nature, > only their behaviour'. > No. People change their convictions - sometimes this is even easier than changing one's behaviour, as some of us insist here - but this is simply a reflection of the fact that they obviously evolve with time as their convictions evolve. It remains nevertheless true that some people go into Scientology and some other do not. Random factors play a role here, of course, but what you are *now* represents at least "some" form of constraint of what you are going to become. This is interesting in transhumanist terms, because it dispels the myth that technology, especially biotechnologies, is going to make us more similar, since everybody will have access to identical enhancements, for their progeny if not for themselves. In fact, this is a possibility for a world making an ideal of conformity to "universal" models. But as long as people remain different and diversity is seen as a value, people and societies alike will want to change themselves in diverging directions, according to their tastes and inclinations (what is, more emphatically, their "identity" and their "destiny", as in Achilles' choice to become Achilles after all rather than an obscure octuagenarian). And even given a much higher opportunity to influence one's own tastes and inclinations, the decision to do so and the influence sought again derive, iteratively, of what you (already) are. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 13 15:56:18 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 08:56:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00e001cd91c8$50a9e290$f1fda7b0$@att.net> >.Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension On 12 September 2012 23:02, Keith Henson wrote: >.Talking to someone on the far side of a one AU orbit has a subjective delay of a few thousand years. Ja, but we have a solution to that: we have MBrain nodes which relay messages to the recipient on the far side of the orbit. Here's something cool for you. We know that EM signals drop off as the inverse square of the distance. If you need to send a signal 1 distance AU and it takes 1 erg with some transmitter/receiver combination, then sending that same signal 2AU requires four ergs, 4 AU takes 16 erg and so on. But if you get a second transmitter/receiver pair and station it between the 4AU points at 2 AU, then receive and retransmit the signal, then you have 2 transmitters, each using 4 ergs for a total of 8 ergs. If you add two more receiver/transmitters, you have a total of 4 transmitters using 1 erg each, for a total of 4, and so on. There is no theoretical limit to the process: adding more transmitters each sending the signal a shorter distance decreases the total energy needed to send a signal, at the expense of signal delay. Here's the cool part: the interconnections between our nerve cells are not electric wires, but rather a waveguide of sorts which is a functional equivalent to a signal path of continuous receivers and transmitters. The signal along a dendrite is constantly amplified all along the path, which means it is optimized in a sense for using the least amount of energy possible. This comes at the expense of speed, for signals do not pass through the brain at the speed of light or at the speed of current in a wire, but rather create a series of chemical reactions along the dendrite at a speed of about 100 meters per second. In return for the loss of speed, our brains do not cook us inside our own skulls from waste heat. Sounds like a fair trade to me, ja? Evolution has discovered a wicked cool solution to electrical resistance of a neuron signal to the next neuron. The MBrain model I suggested yesterday would have something vaguely analogous: each node would communicate directly with only about 5000 to 10000 other nodes, possibly less than that. Then for signals to be passed a long distance, they would need to be received and retransmitted by other nodes along the path. spike Actually I think I may have gone off on a tangent Keith did not intend. He said subjective delay, which makes me think he was talking about something else, but I missed the original post somehow. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Sep 13 17:07:07 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 18:07:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <505212BB.1070109@aleph.se> On 13/09/2012 14:53, Stefano Vaj wrote: > Sure, adjacent nodes and modules will speak more often and much faster > to one another than polar opposed ones. > > But I suspect this to be true also in existing organic brains and > networks. Typical time delays in a human brain is a few milliseconds at most for nearby synaptic transmission, up to a hundred in some frontal-brainstem circuits (where speed is probably not important). http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/Axonal_conduction_delays And yes, most connectivity is local within the same cortical column, with a sparse (but small-world) network of column-column axons. For a human brain-like architecture, the ratio of local processing (~1 ms) to transmission delays (0.10 m / 100 m/s = ~1 ms) is about unity (give or take an order of magnitude). If the transmission delays are longer the local processing needs to slow down for the system to work. So if you have a speedup of the upload by a factor S, the maximum distance to remote processors has to be 300*F km (assuming lightspeed comms). There is no reason to think other kinds of useful minds would not have different ratios. A more naturally multitasking mind might have a hierarchical structure of smaller, somewhat localised subsystems and a slower less local supersystem. This could continue several levels, producing a slow (compared to the smallest scale processors) broad mind/society. Incidentally, this is why I am not entirely convinced about the "fast procesisng implies distances get too large for communications" argument - top-level entities might be so slow that they find the universe small. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Sep 13 19:23:08 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:23:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5052329C.9060006@aleph.se> On 13/09/2012 14:59, Stefano Vaj wrote: > On 13 September 2012 05:32, spike > wrote: > > I have no way of knowing if such a thing would ever simulate > intelligence, > but I do have a way of knowing the alternative: a dead rock does not > simulate anything. > > > If you believe in the Principle of Computational Equivalence, almost > everything - that is, everything which is beyond a very low complexity > threshold much below that of any single PC - can emulate anything > else, the only issue being that of the relative performance in the > execution of a given programme. The relative performance is not neglible. If you try to implement Windows 7 on the thermal interactions in a rock, you will find that the mapping between computer state and rock state is exceedingly complex. The same would be true for mapping it onto genetic switches. (The first case is truth to be told not really Wolfram's principle, but just Searle's criticism of functionalism) Universal Turing machines can emulate each other with a constant overhead, but even the move over to Wolfram's dear Rule 30 adds at least a linear slowdown. And Rule 30 is still nearly a Turing machine: it is a computational universe that is pretty optimal for doing computations like a Turing machine. As you move further away from systems designed to be computers the slowdown likely becomes exponential. Taking a pre-existing object and programming it to do Windows requires you to find a subset of the causal interactions in the object that implements a Turing machine (it has to be very simple, the probability of getting something equivalent to a Pentium is vanishingly small. Wolfram's 2 state 3 symbol Turing machine contains about 18 bits of information - expect to find one for every 2^18 random systems) - this is already somewhat tricky, since there is often no selection for such subsets in nature, they just show up. In particular, there is no selection for subsets that are free from causal interactios with the rest of the system: they get swamped with noise all the time. While in principle the noise-free Turing-complete subsystem could run Windows, the noisy one is incapable of doing it. So you need to find a subsystem that can house a few billion bits, yet does not interact strongly with the rest of the system or the outside world. That is even tougher. Wolfram's principle is cool for thinking about Tegmark level 4 universes and the problems of defining life and computation, but it does not give us much practical help. The fact that small parts of nearly any complex system (when placed in peculiar states) can emulate small parts of nearly any other complex system is interesting, but not useful for much. We need to engineer systems to become good at computation (large parts of them can emulate large parts of other systems) if we want actual results. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Sep 13 18:56:24 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 11:56:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Streaming Radio Message-ID: <00ae01cd91e1$78e14230$6aa3c690$@natasha.cc> Hi, I have a question for all you streaming radio listeners. Because I have a bit of a nosey airspace above my study (pilots are training and going around in circles). So, it's a bit of a nonstop loud buzz. Can anyone suggest a radio program that has nonstop streaming of ambient or classical music that is lovely and also does not have a human interrupting the program with ads or explanations? I tried a few and one I am listening to now is WGBM "All-Classical" out of Boston. But it does have a few too many ads between pieces. So any suggestions you all have would be appreciated! Thanks, Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 19:38:05 2012 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:38:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Streaming Radio In-Reply-To: <00ae01cd91e1$78e14230$6aa3c690$@natasha.cc> References: <00ae01cd91e1$78e14230$6aa3c690$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 1:56 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Can anyone suggest a radio program that has nonstop streaming of ambient or > classical music that is lovely and also does not have a human interrupting > the program with ads or explanations? http://di.fm/ (choose "premium") http://spotify.com/ (choose the no-ads version) http://turntable.fm/ - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 20:07:47 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:07:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 6:52 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > Doing the right thing seems to be the purpose of ethics, with social > harmony the higher goal. This is the first statement you made in your argument Jeff, and I can easily imagine an intelligent being that did not particularly want social harmony, and thus would be without ethics. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 20:09:54 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:09:54 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 8:50 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Really? Like, you feel comfortable walking at night in the getto > but would be scared out of your wits at the TED talk? >From the perspective of the big picture Rafal, the TED people are potentially WAY more dangerous... LOL. -Kelly From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 19:54:42 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:54:42 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 2:04 PM, BillK wrote: >> Seems logical to me. Life tends to expand into ALL available niches. >> Why would that stop now? > > For the same reason that we will soon be controlling evolution. Intelligence. I don't find that very convincing. Even intelligent life wants to reproduce itself. >> Your assumption that we are fairly late arrivals in the universe is >> not founded on any fact, just supposition. It MAY well be that life is >> extremely rare, and possibly even unique. I don't think so, but it is >> possible. The Fermi paradox remains a paradox to me. > > The age of the universe is not speculation. Stars have been born and > died for aeons before we existed. Granted. > If life is common in the universe > then we are latecomers. If that is true, then yes, we are likely latecomers, but there is no evidence so far that life is common. > But we could be the only or first, if life is extremely rare. I also > think this is unlikely as we seem to see life in every environment > where it is possible. That is not a very convincing argument, as we don't (so far) see life on Mars, or elsewhere in our own solar system. Even if we found it on Mars, it would have to be different enough from Earth life to demonstrate that it isn't cross seeding between the two planets. In other words, we DON'T see life in every environment where it is possible, except on Earth. > You seem quite happy with our descendents spreading through the > universe but have difficulty imagining a Matrioshka Brain! Can you > conceive how really really really BIG the universe is? :) > The nearest star is quite a bit further than even Alaska. LOL. I have absolutely no difficulty imagining a Matrioshka Brain. Not sure where you got the idea that I thought that was impossible... And yes, I do have a vague notion of how big the universe is. What I don't have an idea of is just how hard it is for life to get started, since we don't know the mechanism for that. We may not ever know... It might not have happened on Earth... We just have no clue how to jump between Amino Acids and self replicating DNA. Once you get to self replicating DNA, the rest is easy to explain. > I think you need to emulate the White Queen. > > "Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before > breakfast."?? > The White Queen, from Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. I imagine more than that number of impossible things before breakfast very frequently, thank you very much. >> Somewhere in this thread, I missed the definition of STEM. Sorry for >> my ignorance... but could someone expand the acronym for me? >> > > It is in the article I referenced at the start of the thread. Ok, thanks... in case the reference goes away someday... "evolutionary development guides intelligent life increasingly into inner space and what is referred to as STEM, small scales of space, time, energy and matter that eventually lead to black hole like domains." Ok, I had the time today to read the whole article. It is very interesting, but I can't imagine that ALL life would head down into nano-space... There is the niche down, and ALL THE ZILLIONS of niches upwards. -Kelly From atymes at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 20:19:21 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 13:19:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Streaming Radio In-Reply-To: <00ae01cd91e1$78e14230$6aa3c690$@natasha.cc> References: <00ae01cd91e1$78e14230$6aa3c690$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Sep 13, 2012 12:34 PM, "Natasha Vita-More" wrote: > Because I have a bit of a nosey airspace above my study (pilots are training and going around in circles). So, it?s a bit of a nonstop loud buzz. > > Can anyone suggest a radio program that has nonstop streaming of ambient or classical music that is lovely and also does not have a human interrupting the program with ads or explanations? My standard solution is to download songs I like in advance, then play them locally when I need to drown out distractions. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 20:02:18 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:02:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347222654.84491.YahooMailClassic@web114409.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 9, 2012 at 2:30 PM, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Well, first you have to ask the question "What would I know if I knew more than I know now?". I would know good solutions to the energy problem, and how to get them implemented. Once that was done, then the problems related to scarce resources would become less burdensome. > Or, to be more precise, how do you predict what you would think if you were more intelligent than you are now? By looking at what beings do when they have intelligence. What do people do that apes don't? What do apes do that mice don't? What do mice do that insects don't? What do insects do that plants don't? What do plants do that single celled creatures don't? What do single celled creatures do that rocks don't? I don't know many of the answers, but sometimes it is good enough to have a good question. -Kelly From bbenzai at yahoo.com Thu Sep 13 21:07:20 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 14:07:20 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1347570440.75168.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Anders' observation that over 50% of moral philosphers think that there can (or must) be such a thing as an objective morality reminds me of the quaint notion that all intelligent life, everywhere in the universe, must be bipedal and have a head on top of its body, with the brain in the head. To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Or: You can't, by definition, break out of your own subjectivity. You can try, but every attempt is always based on your nature as the thing that you are. Or, as Larry Niven has observed: The thing about aliens is, they're alien. I'd observe that all the current moral philosophers are, to a man (and I'd make a modest bet that they are all men), human, and therefore not really qualified to comment on anything but /human/ morality. As the original question was about AI morality, until someone can claim to be an AI, we can't really know anything about it. I realise that we're all bound by the same laws of physics etc., but morality isn't like mathematics, it's about how we /should/ behave, not how we /must/ behave. So it's inherently subjective. To claim otherwise is to claim that human values are universal, and even though I am human, I can't in all conscience believe that for a nanosecond. Ben Zaiboc From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Thu Sep 13 22:26:45 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:26:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 1:10 PM, "spike" wrote: snip > Actually I think I may have gone off on a tangent Keith did not intend. He > said subjective delay, which makes me think he was talking about something > else, but I missed the original post somehow. Spike and I discussed this a bit a lunch today. Being implemented in an MBrain is probably a way to see the end of the life of the sun in a few subjective centuries. We talked about seeing the sunspot cycle (subjectively) as a rapid buzz. Anders may be right that there is something you can do with a whole society of minds reaching some momentous conclusion after gathering the results of exceedingly large numbers of sub scale nodes. I am not convinced. In any case, making the nodes smaller and faster to the limits of thermal design and keeping the communication links between nodes short are design configuration elements that are in conflict. Of course, finding a way around these may give the answer where everyone went. Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 00:00:57 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:00:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Calibrating social models Message-ID: Re recent discussion, there are ~2 B Muslims. Six SD out and taking only the males is still a million. The ones who do something like 9/11 are rare indeed, far out on whatever characteristic distribution that makes them devote their lives to the cause. But rather than pick on them in this analysis, consider the IRA, now largely faded into the past. Why faded? I don't think it was the Brits being supper smart, even if they did make some sensible moves. What happened is that the population support for the IRA dwindled. I think the reason is that support for terrorist or military action depends on the "bleak future" that is bleak in comparison to the past or the recent past. If this relative privation were not the case, India would lead the world in terrorist events. So what happened to the IRA? The Irish women cut their birth rate to near replacement, same as the rest of Europe. Why this happens in developed societies is not really understood though there are lots of people who are sure they have the answer. In any case we are very lucky. Anyway, with a slower growing population, economic growth in Northern Ireland got ahead of population growth. With the future looking better, social (and other) support for the IRA "warriors" slowly drained away. What would make it come back? Bad economic times, and to a degree you can see that happening in the current downturn. Back to the Islamic world, are there any bright spots? Yes. Iran's birth rate is down to replacement. "Iran is experiencing what may be one of the most dramatic demographic shifts in human history. Thirty years ago, after the shah had been driven into exile and the Islamic Republic was being established, the fertility rate was 6.5. By the turn of the century, it had dropped to 2.2. Today, at 1.7, it has collapsed to European levels." That's less true of Arab countries, though Saudi Arabia for example is down to 2.4. On the other hand, the Palestinian territories are at 5. Based on the psychological mechanisms inherited from the stone age and the current and historical trends in population and economics, it is probably possible to construct a reasonably predictive model of where terrorism and related social disruptions will develop. And we could test the models against historical data to refine the constants. Keith From anders at aleph.se Fri Sep 14 00:37:14 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:37:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <1347570440.75168.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347570440.75168.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <50527C3A.1020402@aleph.se> On 13/09/2012 22:07, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > I'd observe that all the current moral philosophers are, to a man (and I'd make a modest bet that they are all men), human, and therefore not really qualified to comment on anything but /human/ morality. Do you think mathematicians are only qualified to comment on human mathematics, and chemists only qualified for terrestrial chemistry? You are assuming what you would like to prove, that ethics is by necessity relative to its originators. But as the math and chemistry domains show, there are invariants we can trust pretty well across the universe. Aliens may not have our emotions (or any), but game theory is going to be true for them, and as a consequence certain patterns of behaviour like reciprocal altruism will very likely occur, in turn suggesting that things like punishing cheaters, gratitude-like social memory or trust maintenance are actually fairly common across the space of possible (social) minds. (Incidentally, there are plenty of very sharp lady ethicists around.) > As the original question was about AI morality, until someone can claim to be an AI, we can't really know anything about it. I realise that we're all bound by the same laws of physics etc., but morality isn't like mathematics, it's about how we /should/ behave, not how we /must/ behave. So it's inherently subjective. To claim otherwise is to claim that human values are universal, and even though I am human, I can't in all conscience believe that for a nanosecond. I can prove that AIXI will not obey Kantian ethics. We have various theorems around the office about what certain AI systems will or will not do. We can show that certain metaethical principles require certain architectural features in the AI if it is ever going to be able to act morally. In truth, we are not too interested in the question of whether an AI would be truly moral, we are interested in if it can be *safe*. But the interplay between AI safety and ethics is a really promising field: people are finding plenty of intriguing concepts here. (Insert plug for our AGI Impacts conference in December here) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Fri Sep 14 00:46:53 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 01:46:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> Message-ID: <50527E7D.60903@aleph.se> On 13/09/2012 20:54, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Fri, Sep 7, 2012 at 2:04 PM, BillK wrote: >>> Seems logical to me. Life tends to expand into ALL available niches. >>> Why would that stop now? >> For the same reason that we will soon be controlling evolution. Intelligence. > I don't find that very convincing. Even intelligent life wants to > reproduce itself. (also relevant to Keith's new calibrating social models thread:) "Small family size increases the wealth of descendants but reduces evolutionary success" http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/08/28/small.family.size.increases.wealth.descendants.reduces.evolutionary.success http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/08/27/rspb.2012.1415 It turns out that people rationally have fewer children because it gives them a better life, despite this being long-term worse for their genes. And of course, plenty of humans choose to be celibate, use contraceptives or have fewer children. A classic finding in modern demography is that introducing television soap operas showing rich families with few kids in Brazilian and Indian rural villages reduces fertility significantly. It turns out that the number of kids people have is very culturally and individually pliable: far more than if there were an innate drive to reproduce. Over long spans of time pro-breeding memes or genes are likely to flourish, but they can express themselves in ways that actually population-limiting, like the above care for the future prospects of the children. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 00:33:42 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 20:33:42 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <00e001cd91c8$50a9e290$f1fda7b0$@att.net> References: <00e001cd91c8$50a9e290$f1fda7b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 11:56 AM, spike wrote: > On 12 September 2012 23:02, Keith Henson wrote: >>?Talking to someone on the far side of a one AU orbit has a subjective delay of a few thousand years? > > There is no theoretical limit to the process: adding more transmitters each > sending the signal a shorter distance decreases the total energy needed to > send a signal, at the expense of signal delay. What kind of delay do you expect to exist at each node? Range from best case scenario for priority1 cut-through to average case of FIFO queuing. "Average" will also require a guess at how many messages are en-route through any regional subnetwork. The specialization of nodes becomes pretty important to balance high-speed & long distance carriers from chatty localized thinking, else you have an smooth distribution of non-specialized nodes who are doing all things in a suboptimal way. > The MBrain model I suggested yesterday would have something vaguely > analogous: each node would communicate directly with only about 5000 to > 10000 other nodes, possibly less than that. Then for signals to be passed a > long distance, they would need to be received and retransmitted by other > nodes along the path. Have you computed a minimum bit-length for uniquely addressing each node? ex: IPv4 (32 bit) isn't enough for the immediate future - would IPv6 (128bits) addressing be sufficient for our Mbrain? Assuming exactly IPv6 as the model for addressing/routing/etc. how efficiently does the low-power CPU in each node get that message repeated to the next node (i assume it has internal state rules for determining which of it's neighbors accept the traffic to hop along) [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6 specifically: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPv6#Larger_address_space I liked the Powerpoint you shared for the sake of getting the open-minded to entertain the idea. I'd be interested in the next level of detail explaining how each node accomplishes common use-case scenarios. ...even if you're just making stuff up for the sake of interesting pictures. :) From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 04:08:54 2012 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 00:08:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] MBrain heat rejection In-Reply-To: <015101cd9170$97734110$c659c330$@att.net> References: <015101cd9170$97734110$c659c330$@att.net> Message-ID: A few questions then: Why are the thinkplates so small? (BTW, I swiped the term from The Rapture of the Nerds, it's a reasonably entertaining book despite its crappy monkey politics intrusions) Shouldn't you rather make devices capable of supporting a much larger computational load? Bluetooth is non-directional, meaning most of the energy used for transmission is lost. Why not use lasers for communications with neighboring nodes? What about the gravitational interactions between the plates? It would definitely be an issue. I agree that keeping the relative velocities of neighboring plates low is a good idea since this diminishes the likelihood of a cascade of collisions between streams of plates - but if you go with larger plates and correspondingly larger distances between them, that would be less of an issue. The plates should have a means of sweeping the space free of natural and construction-related debris, perhaps by using optical devices to capture and process it into substrate. I just occurred to me that turning the plates edgewise towards the sun would allow cooling and would open more distant plates for direct insolation - so having a system of concentric non-contiguous devices with scheduled cycling of attitude towards the sun would allow a very substantial equalization of temperatures between layers of plates. By adjusting the relative duration of sun-facing vs. edgewise attitude phases you could have essentially identical total insolation between plates at widely varying orbits. The inner shells would spend most of their time facing away from the sun, the outer shells would mostly face it. And there would be a lot of space to radiate heat away between other plates. And you could have plates in non-equilibrium orbits partially supported by light pressure. Wouldn't that be cool? Rafal From pharos at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 04:54:30 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 05:54:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Calibrating social models In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 1:00 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > I don't think it was the Brits being supper smart, even if they did > make some sensible moves. What happened is that the population > support for the IRA dwindled. I think the reason is that support for > terrorist or military action depends on the "bleak future" that is > bleak in comparison to the past or the recent past. If this relative > privation were not the case, India would lead the world in terrorist > events. > > So what happened to the IRA? The Irish women cut their birth rate to > near replacement, same as the rest of Europe. Why this happens in > developed societies is not really understood though there are lots of > people who are sure they have the answer. In any case we are very > lucky. > > Anyway, with a slower growing population, economic growth in Northern > Ireland got ahead of population growth. With the future looking > better, social (and other) support for the IRA "warriors" slowly > drained away. > > Nonsense. There is as much support as ever for the IRA. The big difference is that they are no longer fighting for a victimized section of the population. They are a major section (about 40%) of the Northern Ireland coalition government and victimization of the Republicans is not nearly as bad as it used to be. IRA terrorism was different from the Muslim terrorists. The IRA was internal terrorism (including the UK) because nearly half the NI population was being persecuted by the ruling half (supported by the UK government). When that persecution was stopped, the fighting stopped. QED. BillK From spike66 at att.net Fri Sep 14 05:14:04 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:14:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <00e001cd91c8$50a9e290$f1fda7b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <01df01cd9237$c3317f70$49947e50$@att.net> Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Subject: Re: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 11:56 AM, spike wrote: ... > >>... There is no theoretical limit to the process: adding more transmitters > each sending the signal a shorter distance decreases the total energy > needed to send a signal, at the expense of signal delay. >...What kind of delay do you expect to exist at each node? Mike, this is where I need help from the electronics hipsters and datameisters among us. I can do the orbit mechanics and gravity calcs, make a reasonable estimate on the thermodynamics, but I am out beyond the ragged edge of my own expertise when it comes to estimating signal latency. Do feel free to offer suggestions. Here's the theory: our brains are these substrates from which minds mysteriously emerge. We don't know how that happens, or at least I sure don't. The brain consists of about 100 billion, American billion, 10^11 neurons and each neuron has between about 5k and 10k connections with other neurons. So the idea is have a smallish microprocessor which keeps track of the state of that neuron and the 7000 or so inputs, and the branching output. It might be that if we had such a system, that somehow a mind could emerge from it, but as Keith points out, it might be very slow. Today's lunch discussion was about the scenario where we awaken one day into a dreamlike state, and find a few familiar faces. We begin to talk to the others and realize it is the cryonics crowd. We gradually come to realize that we have perished, been uploaded into an MBrain, and WOOHOO! We live for all eternity! But then we notice the sun is pulsating, and realize that the pulsation is the familiar 11 solar cycle, and that each cycle takes about what feels like about 2 seconds. Being good at BOTECs but lacking an envelope, we mentally calculate and realize we are slowed by a factor of about 100 million. So we have managed to beat the odds, live to age 80, then make it to eternity! Only then do we realize that we have only about 60 to 80 subjective years before the sun goes supernova, 6 to 8 billion calendar years in the future. Anyone who wants to take that theme and write a SF story, go ahead. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Sep 14 05:30:16 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2012 22:30:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] MBrain heat rejection In-Reply-To: References: <015101cd9170$97734110$c659c330$@att.net> Message-ID: <01e701cd923a$05bd1a50$11374ef0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: Rafal Smigrodzki [mailto:rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com] Subject: Re: [ExI] MBrain heat rejection A few questions then: >...Why are the thinkplates so small?... Because I could make a 1/1 scale model of a node for a pitch I made last fall. They don't need to be that small, or that large. I vaguely suspect that when the design is optimized, the nodes will be smaller than a dvd, perhaps a disk more like the size of an American dime but much thinner, with a mass of about 10 to 20 milligrams. >...Bluetooth is non-directional, meaning most of the energy used for transmission is lost. Why not use lasers for communications with neighboring nodes? Lasers, ja. We don't need Bluetooth. >...What about the gravitational interactions between the plates? It would definitely be an issue... I found it isn't much of an issue. Electromagnetic forces swamp gravity by several orders of magnitude for something like this, and this is an important observation, thanks. By forcing the nodes to maintain a slight positive charge, the nodes repel each other and help with the controls task. >...I just occurred to me that turning the plates edgewise towards the sun would allow cooling and would open more distant plates for direct insolation - so having a system of concentric non-contiguous devices with scheduled cycling of attitude towards the sun would allow a very substantial equalization of temperatures between layers of plates... Ja. I have a lot of work to do yet on the thermal model. >...And you could have plates in non-equilibrium orbits partially supported by light pressure. Wouldn't that be cool? Rafal I won't know how cool until I get that thermal model working. That is a lot more work than the gravity calcs. Good thinking Rafal! We are the Bradburyan mind children. spike From pharos at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 05:58:43 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:58:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <50527C3A.1020402@aleph.se> References: <1347570440.75168.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> <50527C3A.1020402@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 1:37 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > You are assuming what you would like to prove, that ethics is by necessity > relative to its originators. But as the math and chemistry domains show, > there are invariants we can trust pretty well across the universe. Aliens > may not have our emotions (or any), but game theory is going to be true for > them, and as a consequence certain patterns of behaviour like reciprocal > altruism will very likely occur, in turn suggesting that things like > punishing cheaters, gratitude-like social memory or trust maintenance are > actually fairly common across the space of possible (social) minds. > > Dilbert comments on ethics...... BillK From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 10:53:47 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 12:53:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Calibrating social models In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 14 September 2012 02:00, Keith Henson wrote: > Anyway, with a slower growing population, economic growth in Northern > Ireland got ahead of population growth. With the future looking > better, social (and other) support for the IRA "warriors" slowly > drained away. So, you think that with a lower birth rate and a better economy in XVIII century Northern America we could have been spared the popular support for George Washington and all the other rebellious youngsters? :-) -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 11:02:16 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:02:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] ethics vs intelligence In-Reply-To: <1347570440.75168.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> References: <1347570440.75168.YahooMailClassic@web114406.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 23:07, Ben Zaiboc wrote: > Anders' observation that over 50% of moral philosphers think that there can (or must) be such a thing as an objective morality reminds me of the quaint notion that all intelligent life, everywhere in the universe, must be bipedal and have a head on top of its body, with the brain in the head. I believe that this statistical conclusion to be parochial and biased in another sense, namely that the professional moral philosophers considered are a geographical and linguistic subset of a cultural subset of a contemporary subset of people having reflected on the foundation of morality. It suspect that even on a purely human scale most people in history have implicitely and explicitely adhered to a relativistic view of morality (and law). I even wrote a book offering the theory that "objectivism" in this area is really a one-time thing, namely a byproduct of biblical monotheism, which has survived in the secularised versions of the same worldview, and that hints to this effect that can be traced in other ages and cultures are just artifacts, "optical illusions". -- Stefano Vaj From anders at aleph.se Fri Sep 14 12:00:04 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:00:04 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <01df01cd9237$c3317f70$49947e50$@att.net> References: <00e001cd91c8$50a9e290$f1fda7b0$@att.net> <01df01cd9237$c3317f70$49947e50$@att.net> Message-ID: <50531C44.5060101@aleph.se> On 14/09/2012 06:14, spike wrote: >> ...What kind of delay do you expect to exist at each node? > Mike, this is where I need help from the electronics hipsters and > datameisters among us. Just looking at current routers suggests that delays for internet packets are on the order of 0.1 ms (see figure 3 of http://researchwebshelf.com/uploads/137_P15.pdf ). In current internetworking there are bigger delays from the problem of getting access to the link layer when there are many devices chattering away, not to mention to longer delays (100 ms when sending stuff over long distances). Incidentally, due to the refractive index optical fibres are not faster than electrical signals, at least over short distances. In a Dyson-brain you can send signals at lightspeed through free space - not only faster, but they pass right through each other. Suppose you want to signal to a node x radians away. The straight distance is 2R sin(x/2), and will have a delay of 2R sin(x/2)/c and energy requirement proportional to R^2 sin(x/2)^2. If you split this into N short jumps, each with an internal delay d, then the total delay will be Nd + 2RN sin(x/2N)/c and the total energy requirement proportional to R^2 N sin(x/2N)^2. (probably some linear term here too from the routers) You can either try to minimize power by using many hops, ending up with a longer delay, or minimize delays by going straight across. Total power needs decline as 1/N. If x is large (long distance calls) the Nd term is completely swamped by the 2RN sin(x/2N)/c term: delay increases by a few percent in the x=1 case when you go from straight to 10 hops, but then remains close to Rx/c. If x is small (like a distance of 10 meters) then the router delays causes the delay to grow linearly with N: there is no real advantage in making many short hops, and the energy needs are really small too. For intermediary distances like x=0.1 there is a transition; the power vs. delay curve has some funky turns that no doubt imply opportunity for smart economizing. In a Dyson shell you are unlikely to want for power in absolute terms. I guess the real issue is signal-to-noise: if you are sending things through the interior there is a very noisy fusion ball in the centre, and there are half a sky of signalling going on. Also, local comms have a harder time achieving line-of-sight: it is easy to aim a few degrees away from your horizon and hit a remote thoughtplate, but the one a kilometre away is obscured by your neighbours. So you might be forced to do many small hops just because of that. I'm not too worried that a Dyson environment will be slower than realtime for uploads, at least not for energy and delay reasons (remember, there is a *lot* of energy within the 300 km radius lightspeed delays force on a human-type mind). Which still doesn't stop Spike's scenario from being great fun. The real reason of the slowdown is of course competition from the other screensavers. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From nymphomation at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 12:36:20 2012 From: nymphomation at gmail.com (*Nym*) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 13:36:20 +0100 Subject: [ExI] olympic opening ceremonies In-Reply-To: References: <00d301cd6c73$8c5768f0$a5063ad0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 28/07/2012, *Nym* wrote: > On 28/07/2012, spike wrote: >> I just finished viewing the Olympic opening ceremonies, so I have a >> message >> for the British among us, BillK and some others here, I think Max is >> originally from England and others. Brits, I am very proud of your >> country, >> and I am very proud of you. That show was excellent, so well done. That >> history of the industrial revolution theme was BRILLIANT! > > I'm afraid I missed most of the show. > > I did see two parachutists jump out of a helicopter from my vantage > point on nearby Bow flyover. Unfortunately at that time my hands were > handcuffed behind my back, as I had just been arrested by a > territorial support officer for cycling with too many friends (AKA > Critical Mass..) And 6 weeks later, as expected, they drop the case against 166 of us arrested on the night, leaving only 16 to face charges.. http://twitpic.com/aufkvd Now to sue the police for ?250 per hour of detention, and buy a Yamaha X-Max.. Heavy splashings, Thee Nymphomation 'If you cannot afford an executioner, a duty executioner will be appointed to you free of charge by the court' From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Sep 14 13:37:01 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 06:37:01 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1347629821.83432.YahooMailClassic@web114402.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > Ok, I had the time today to read the whole article. It is very > interesting, but I can't imagine that ALL life would head down into > nano-space... There is the niche down, and ALL THE ZILLIONS of niches > upwards. Actually, I reckon that's the wrong way round. There are many, many (googols) more niches in the downward direction than in the upward. At least, there is a lot more 'room' (in the sense that there are more orders of magnitude of length scales in the downward direction, until you get to the planck length, than there are upwards until you get to the size of the universe) at the bottom. If you then consider that there is only one universe (that we can access, that we know of), but there are many many many (googolplexes?) physical locations at a sub-micron, sub-nanometre, sub-femtometre, etc., scale. If you /then/ consider that it's quite possibly easier to access these tiny realms than the gigantic ones (not least because of the lightspeed limit), it seems very likely that existence on a tiny scale would be a very attractive option for advanced civilisations. If you shrink right down, the amount of space, time and energy available to you is staggeringly stupendous. It's pretty much the opposite of Spike's MBrain scenario, with the immortals who only have a few subjective decades left. The 'tinies', in contrast, would have subjective quadrilennia. Ben Zaiboc From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 14:32:55 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 07:32:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] (no subject) Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > > On 14 September 2012 02:00, Keith Henson wrote: >> Anyway, with a slower growing population, economic growth in Northern >> Ireland got ahead of population growth. With the future looking >> better, social (and other) support for the IRA "warriors" slowly >> drained away. > > So, you think that with a lower birth rate and a better economy in > XVIII century Northern America we could have been spared the popular > support for George Washington and all the other rebellious youngsters? > :-) Is possible. Though without the high birth rate in those days and the population pressure in Europe, there would have been no colonies. A more interesting turn would have been the US Civil War. There are two modes for a population getting into war mode. First is a bleak future with attendant build up of xenophobic memes. That was the situation in the south, had they stayed with the Union, slaves were on the way out. The property value of the slaves and how they drove the economy was obvious and they were correct. After the war, it took 100 years for the south to recover, not from the war damage, but from the economic damage from freeing the slaves. The north got into the war in a different mode, being attacked. Being attacked (Pearl Harbor events) will cause the attacked population to jump into "war mode." Had the south understood this, and not attacked, they possibly would have been able to go their own way and history would have been rather different. But it's really hard for people who have gotten into war mode to avoid really stupid actions. Who wins is sometimes the side that makes fewer stupid moves. Keith From sparge at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 14:16:54 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 10:16:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Rockwell Space Plan Message-ID: This poster from '89 is pretty interesting: http://blog.makezine.com/2012/09/13/the-rockwell-international-integrated-space-plan/ -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 17:11:25 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:11:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <505212BB.1070109@aleph.se> References: <505212BB.1070109@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 19:07, Anders Sandberg wrote: > There is no reason to think other kinds of useful minds would not have > different ratios. A more naturally multitasking mind might have a > hierarchical structure of smaller, somewhat localised subsystems and a > slower less local supersystem. This could continue several levels, producing > a slow (compared to the smallest scale processors) broad mind/society. > Incidentally, this is why I am not entirely convinced about the "fast > procesisng implies distances get too large for communications" argument - > top-level entities might be so slow that they find the universe small. A much more articulate way to express exactly my point. Folding at Home is no less a (virtual) computer because it has an enormous latency and dramatically limited bandwith if I compare it with, say, the subsystem composed by my main processor and its cache in the PC I am using right now. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 17:22:09 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:22:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <5052329C.9060006@aleph.se> References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> <5052329C.9060006@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 13 September 2012 21:23, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Wolfram's principle is cool for thinking about Tegmark level 4 universes and > the problems of defining life and computation, but it does not give us much > practical help. The fact that small parts of nearly any complex system (when > placed in peculiar states) can emulate small parts of nearly any other > complex system is interesting, but not useful for much. We need to engineer > systems to become good at computation (large parts of them can emulate large > parts of other systems) if we want actual results. Absolutely. But the relevance of Wolfram's principle is another one, IMHO: as I discuss in one of the very few articles of mine on H+ techs translated in English, we may well find out that the development of anthropomorphic AIs is impractical, and that unless they become (almost?) indistinguishable from organic brains they may end up being arbitrary orders of magnitude less efficient than the original things; but what the principle excludes is that they be in principle "impossible" because brains would perform computations somewhat radically different from any other. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 17:33:47 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:33:47 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <50527E7D.60903@aleph.se> References: <50476759.3090005@aleph.se> <5047C2C4.5090405@aleph.se> <50527E7D.60903@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 14 September 2012 02:46, Anders Sandberg wrote: > "Small family size increases the wealth of descendants but reduces > evolutionary success" > http://esciencenews.com/**articles/2012/08/28/small.** > family.size.increases.wealth.**descendants.reduces.**evolutionary.success > http://rspb.**royalsocietypublishing.org/**content/early/2012/08/27/rspb.* > *2012.1415 > It turns out that people rationally have fewer children because it gives > them a better life, despite this being long-term worse for their genes. > Of course, genes are not so clever. They may hardcode mechanisms in living organisms thare are not really profitable in some scenarios - eg, an animal who opt for saving its life even though this may jeopardise its fertility, given that "normally" survival is best for the genes of the bearer. But I have always though that high and low parental-investment policies were both plausible form an inter-specific or intra-specific POV. For instance, most fish leave their eggs in the wild and trust the law of large numbers to have a few survive. I understand camels to have very little progeny, on the other hand. In human societies, one would expect the reward for high parental investment to be higher were sexual selection is harsh, and its distribution on a large number of children to have more chances of increasing its dominance in egalitarian contexts... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Fri Sep 14 18:13:07 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 11:13:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Proposed Transhumanist Erotica Anthology Message-ID: <505373B3.2000401@moulton.com> The submission deadline is only about a month away but I thought I would pass on this information about an anthology for Transhumanist Erotica. http://www.lambdaliterary.org/writers/subs/09/11/call-for-submissions-transhumanist-erotica/ From jrd1415 at gmail.com Fri Sep 14 23:28:55 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 16:28:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg Message-ID: Researchers have used a neural implant to recapture a lost decision-making process in monkeys?demonstrating that a neural prosthetic can recover cognitive function in a primate brain. http://www.technologyreview.com/news/429204/a-brain-implant-that-thinks/?nlid=nldly&nld=2012-09-14 Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 15 00:24:21 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 01:24:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> This is very cool. Original article: http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/9/5/056012 http://iopscience.iop.org/1741-2552/9/5/056012/pdf/1741-2552_9_5_056012.pdf Not the most advanced control (it is a fairly well-defined and understood task with a fairly simple representation), but together with the recent reports on Ted Berger's hippocampal prosthetic it is starting to make me feel good about the future of neural functional prosthetics. Nice to see that the cortical column model of the DMS task holds up. But what we really need is a cheaper, easier and safer way of getting stimulation into the right spots. I bet newspapers will spin this into "chip improves decision-making". -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Sep 15 00:27:25 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 20:27:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg In-Reply-To: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> References: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 8:24 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I bet newspapers will spin this into "chip improves decision-making". still too subtle. "computers replace brains" The irony is that the headline would be 100% correct even if it doesn't have anything to do with the article content. From kanzure at gmail.com Sat Sep 15 00:40:09 2012 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2012 19:40:09 -0500 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg In-Reply-To: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> References: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 7:24 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > But what we really need is a cheaper, easier and safer way of getting > stimulation into the right spots. How about this: http://diyhpl.us/~bryan/papers2/neuro/ultrasound/ - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Sep 15 16:05:50 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 10:05:50 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation Message-ID: I think this article does a fair job introducing the topic of plastination of the brain. Nothing negative in it that I can see. http://io9.com/5943304/how-to-preserve-your-brain-by-turning-it-into-plastic It doesn't say, but it sounds like it could be cheaper than cryogenics in the long term because there is no special storage requirement once the plastination process is finished. -Kelly From pharos at gmail.com Sat Sep 15 16:42:56 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 17:42:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 4:32 AM, spike wrote: > I imagine the nodes being about the disk about size of a DVD only much > thinner, running a processor similar to about what we had 30 yrs ago during > my misspent youth, a Z80-ish level processor with about a million > transistors, except with today's 20 nm features and today's power-conscious > CMOS components. Each node would have something like a Bluetooth > transmitter/receiver, able to transmit about 12 meters or so which is about > as far as a Bluetooth connection normally goes on the power levels available > to an MBrain node the size of a DVD. This allows each node to communicate > directly with about ~7000 other nodes. > > The processor's job is to simulate a neuron and the related dendrites. I > have imagined a roughly spherical grouping of about 100 billion nodes with > an average spacing of about a meter, so that each node would occupy about a > cubic meter and the roughly spherical cluster would have a radius of about 3 > km, or 10 light milliseconds. > > For what I have in mind, the processors need not be particularly fast or > sophisticated. > > Note this isn't Rober't vision of an MBrain. I never could convince him > that we can't really capture all the star's energy, or even most of it. > > Perhaps the future Mbrain processors will need very little of the sun's energy and be much more compute capable than just basic processors. At the latest Intel conference their tame futurist talked about the 2020s (only 10 years ahead!) when he expected processors to become nearly invisible and require almost zero energy. I think he may be talking about Smart Dust. His vision is that everything will contain processors and talk to other processors. See: Now, if he is expecting all this in only ten years..... what will be possible by the time Mbrains come along? They might not even need to be near the sun at all. If they are orbiting further out, then heating and cooling might be negligible. And smaller nodes will be more powerful. A DVD sized disk might be a whole Mbrain civilisation. BillK From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Sep 15 18:27:09 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 11:27:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 14, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Anders Sandberg > wrote: > (also relevant to Keith's new calibrating social models thread:) > "Small family size increases the wealth of descendants but reduces > evolutionary success" > http://esciencenews.com/articles/2012/08/28/small.family.size.increases.wealth.descendants.reduces.evolutionary.success > http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2012/08/27/rspb.2012.1415 > It turns out that people rationally have fewer children because it gives > them a better life, despite this being long-term worse for their genes. That's not entirely obvious. There are events that are terribly important to human evolution such as drought induced famines and extremely harsh winters. Such filters may happen only a few times a century but have large effects on gene frequencies. In such hard times the children of the wealthy are much more likely to survive. Of course, the very ability to accumulate wealth is evolutionarily recent. Gregory Clark's work showed that the relatively well off in stable agrarian societies genetically replaced the poor over a few centuries by the higher survival of the well off. Clark makes a case that the average psychological profile of such selected societies is rather different from those who have not been through the process. > And of course, plenty of humans choose to be celibate, use > contraceptives or have fewer children. A classic finding in modern > demography is that introducing television soap operas showing rich > families with few kids in Brazilian and Indian rural villages reduces > fertility significantly. It turns out that the number of kids people > have is very culturally and individually pliable: far more than if there > were an innate drive to reproduce. It's hard to imagine how an _abstract_ drive to reproduce would have been selected. > Over long spans of time pro-breeding memes or genes are likely to > flourish, but they can express themselves in ways that actually > population-limiting, like the above care for the future prospects of the > children. I can't see there being time remaining for genetic selection to come about at all. Keith From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 15 20:09:48 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 21:09:48 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5054E08C.30208@aleph.se> On 15/09/2012 17:42, BillK wrote: > Now, if he is expecting all this in only ten years..... what will be > possible by the time Mbrains come along? They might not even need to > be near the sun at all. Thermodynamics puts a limit to how little energy dissipative computations require: you need to pay kTln(2) Joule per erased bit. Reversible computations can do things more cheaply, but you typically need to slow down - and error correction still requires power. > If they are orbiting further out, then heating and cooling might be > negligible. And smaller nodes will be more powerful. A DVD sized disk > might be a whole Mbrain civilisation. A 3 K disk is just a hundred times more effective than a 300 K disk. Maybe it is more effective to use a lot of energy to cool the computers rather than do the computation? Hmm, I suspect not, but I am not a thermal wizard. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 16 04:38:20 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 00:38:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I think this article does a fair job introducing the topic of > plastination of the brain. Nothing negative in it that I can see. > > > http://io9.com/5943304/how-to-preserve-your-brain-by-turning-it-into-plastic > That is a interesting article! I note that plastination not cryogenics is the method Eric Drexler recommended in his book Engines of Creation if you don't think you will live long enough to get to the age of Nanotechnology. I would like to hear Max's opinion on this and if Alcor has any plans on offering such a service, because it really would be a shame to belong to the last generation to die. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Sun Sep 16 06:01:38 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2012 23:01:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: There is rather a lot of silly stuff being written on this topic. Aschwin de Wolf and I are currently writing a detail analysis of plastic or resin embedding (plastination is a specific method used by Gunther von Hagens). Writers who think this approach is much cheaper have no idea what they are talking about. They also don't seem to understand that it gives you fewer revival options than does cryopreservation. We aim to finish our article within a week or so. --Max On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:38 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > I think this article does a fair job introducing the topic of >> plastination of the brain. Nothing negative in it that I can see. >> >> >> http://io9.com/5943304/how-to-preserve-your-brain-by-turning-it-into-plastic >> > > That is a interesting article! I note that plastination not cryogenics is > the method Eric Drexler recommended in his book Engines of Creation if you > don't think you will live long enough to get to the age of Nanotechnology. > I would like to hear Max's opinion on this and if Alcor has any plans on > offering such a service, because it really would be a shame to belong to > the last generation to die. > > John K Clark > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Sep 16 06:54:39 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 08:54:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I consider chemical brain preservation as "cryonics for uploaders": http://giulioprisco.blogspot.hu/2010/07/chemical-brain-preservation-cryonics.html See also: http://www.kurzweilai.net/a-connectome-observatory-for-nanoscale-brain-imaging Since I am more interested in eventually uploading than in living for centuries in this aging meatbag with minor reparations, I consider some future version of chemical brain preservation as my preferred option. I think Alcor and the Cryonics Institute should start offering also this option when the time is right, which may be in a few years after the Brain Preservation Prize award. I look forward to reading your article! On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 8:01 AM, Max More wrote: > There is rather a lot of silly stuff being written on this topic. Aschwin de > Wolf and I are currently writing a detail analysis of plastic or resin > embedding (plastination is a specific method used by Gunther von Hagens). > Writers who think this approach is much cheaper have no idea what they are > talking about. They also don't seem to understand that it gives you fewer > revival options than does cryopreservation. > > We aim to finish our article within a week or so. > > --Max > > > On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 9:38 PM, John Clark wrote: >> >> On Sat, Sep 15, 2012 at 12:05 PM, Kelly Anderson >> wrote: >> >>> > I think this article does a fair job introducing the topic of >>> plastination of the brain. Nothing negative in it that I can see. >>> >>> >>> http://io9.com/5943304/how-to-preserve-your-brain-by-turning-it-into-plastic >> >> >> That is a interesting article! I note that plastination not cryogenics is >> the method Eric Drexler recommended in his book Engines of Creation if you >> don't think you will live long enough to get to the age of Nanotechnology. I >> would like to hear Max's opinion on this and if Alcor has any plans on >> offering such a service, because it really would be a shame to belong to the >> last generation to die. >> >> John K Clark >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher > Co-editor, The Transhumanist Reader > President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 > Scottsdale, AZ 85260 > 480/905-1906 ext 113 > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Sep 16 15:22:35 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 09:22:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 12:01 AM, Max More wrote: > There is rather a lot of silly stuff being written on this topic. Aschwin de > Wolf and I are currently writing a detail analysis of plastic or resin > embedding (plastination is a specific method used by Gunther von Hagens). > Writers who think this approach is much cheaper have no idea what they are > talking about. They also don't seem to understand that it gives you fewer > revival options than does cryopreservation. > > We aim to finish our article within a week or so. I look forward to reading it. I do get what you are saying about fewer options. One of the interesting things I'd like to know is whether plastic or resin embedding will preserve DNA... Probably would for the shortish time frames we're talking about here... less than 1000 years or it ain't happnin. -Kelly From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 16 15:24:37 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:24:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 2:01 AM, Max More wrote: > There is rather a lot of silly stuff being written on this topic. Aschwin > de Wolf and I are currently writing a detail analysis of plastic or resin > embedding [...] We aim to finish our article within a week or so. Max, I look forward to reading that article very much. > They also don't seem to understand that it gives you fewer revival > options than does cryopreservation. To my mind the superior procedure is whichever one preserves the most information. I note that when scientists try to find the connectome of the human brain they slice up a plastic embedded brain into extraordinarily thin strips and then photograph them at a microscopic level; the interesting thing is that they use a plastic embedded brain not a frozen brain. I also like the fact that you don't need a elaborate support structure to keep things frozen for who knows how many years. > Writers who think this approach is much cheaper have no idea what they > are talking about. > All that slicing and photographing would certainly be very expensive, but that is only a concern when you're trying to revive somebody and by then they'll have full blown Nanotechnology. Is just embedding the brain in plastic really that expensive, more expensive than freezing it? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 16 15:43:15 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 11:43:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 16, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > One of the interesting things I'd like to know is whether plastic or > resin embedding will preserve DNA If you can get DNA from a Neanderthal who died 38000 years ago with no plastination or freezing or preservation of any kind I imagine you can get it from a plastic embedded brain, but I wouldn't care very much even if you couldn't. The cost is dropping so fast that within the next 5 years for less than $1000 (possibly less than $100) you will be able to receive your complete genome on a CD, no need for a DVD or Blu-Ray. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 17 02:18:18 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2012 19:18:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <000301cd947a$b4375ae0$1ca610a0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... > >>... Note this isn't Rober't vision of an MBrain. I never could convince him that we can't really capture all the star's energy, or even most of it. > > Perhaps the future Mbrain processors will need very little of the sun's energy and be much more compute capable than just basic processors... See: >...Now, if he is expecting all this in only ten years...BillK _______________________________________________ Cool thanks BillK. What I want us to do is stop waiting for nanoSanta and ponder what we can do with current technology. At some point, it is logical to do that. Think low power processors and control systems, estimate or calculate what your system level requirements will be. We can, with current technology, create very small autonomous nodes. I clearly recognize we can't make enough of them to be anything like an MBrain, but we can make nodes, a few thousand perhaps. Then we launch them in a cubesat package, see if they can stabilize themselves and fly in formation. That looks to me like where we are today, the point where we can use current processors and current control system technology. spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 06:46:53 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 07:46:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: <000301cd947a$b4375ae0$1ca610a0$@att.net> References: <012b01cd9160$6ccb6790$466236b0$@att.net> <000301cd947a$b4375ae0$1ca610a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 3:18 AM, spike wrote: > Cool thanks BillK. What I want us to do is stop waiting for nanoSanta and > ponder what we can do with current technology. At some point, it is logical > to do that. Think low power processors and control systems, estimate or > calculate what your system level requirements will be. We can, with current > technology, create very small autonomous nodes. I clearly recognize we > can't make enough of them to be anything like an MBrain, but we can make > nodes, a few thousand perhaps. Then we launch them in a cubesat package, > see if they can stabilize themselves and fly in formation. That looks to me > like where we are today, the point where we can use current processors and > current control system technology. > > Like this? Professor Simon Cox of the University's Computational Engineering Department and a team of students put together 64 Raspberry Pis running the Raspbian variant of Debian Linux and a port of MPICH2, the portable Message Passing Interface software, to create a computing cluster. The cluster, excluding the Ethernet switches that connect the boards together, costs under ?2,500 and, with 16GB Class 10 SD cards in each Pi, has a terabyte of storage and is able to run off a single 13 Amp mains socket. ----------------- It is only a teaching system at present, but it shows the scale of what is happening. BillK From anders at aleph.se Mon Sep 17 09:38:31 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 10:38:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> On 16/09/2012 16:24, John Clark wrote: > To my mind the superior procedure is whichever one preserves the most > information. I note that when scientists try to find the connectome of > the human brain they slice up a plastic embedded brain into > extraordinarily thin strips and then photograph them at a microscopic > level; the interesting thing is that they use a plastic embedded brain > not a frozen brain. This is mostly a matter of convenience, not a deeply considered choice. Since cell membranes are well preserved by standard histological methods, why even investigate frozen tissue as an option? I like fixation for its ability to function regardless of a support infrastructure. However, I suspect I would still prefer to have my brain stored in a dedicated institution trying to protect it than to trust the overall environment out there. Max's point about revival options is important: we do not just want to minimize damage during preservation, we also want to make the resulting product amenable to as many possible future revival technologies as possible. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 13:20:07 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:20:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > I bought the book and I am reading it. I read everything by Stross and > Doctorow. The first few pages are very fun. > > Now available as a free download from Charles Stross' website. But he would still appreciate it if you bought a hardcover version. :) BillK From giulio at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 13:26:29 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 15:26:29 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I bought it, but a Kindle version. No dead tree books for me. On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 3:20 PM, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: >> I bought the book and I am reading it. I read everything by Stross and >> Doctorow. The first few pages are very fun. >> >> > > Now available as a free download from Charles Stross' website. > > > But he would still appreciate it if you bought a hardcover version. :) > > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 13:34:19 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:34:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <29408107-5F3C-4066-8A35-F40A42B459EF@gmail.com> On 17 Sep 2012, at 14:26, Giulio Prisco wrote: > I bought it, but a Kindle version. No dead tree books for me. Note that the commercial ebook editions are supposed to be DRM-free. If you run up against DRM on "The Rapture of the Nerds", let me know and I'll get my publisher to yell at the e-tailer. -- Charlie > On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 3:20 PM, BillK wrote: >> On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: >>> I bought the book and I am reading it. I read everything by Stross and >>> Doctorow. The first few pages are very fun. >>> >>> >> >> Now available as a free download from Charles Stross' website. >> >> >> But he would still appreciate it if you bought a hardcover version. :) >> >> >> BillK >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 13:33:36 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 14:33:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Raptured into confusion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5A8F0F19-D21F-41B2-8C19-70050D578C2D@gmail.com> On 17 Sep 2012, at 14:20, BillK wrote: > On Mon, Sep 10, 2012 at 7:09 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: >> I bought the book and I am reading it. I read everything by Stross and >> Doctorow. The first few pages are very fun. >> >> > > Now available as a free download from Charles Stross' website. > > > But he would still appreciate it if you bought a hardcover version. :) Hold your horses; there's a time zone issue. It'll be available in another half hour or thereabouts ... -- Charlie From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 15:07:26 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 11:07:26 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 Anders Sandberg wrote: > Since cell membranes are well preserved by standard histological methods, > why even investigate frozen tissue as an option? > I too have asked myself that question and don't have a good answer, but I'm no expert on this matter. > I like fixation for its ability to function regardless of a support > infrastructure. Yes, that is a clear advantage. With freezing there are 3 unknowns that might prevent Cryonics from working: 1) Will the freezing process (I don't care about the unfreezing process) induce turbulence in the fluids of the brain? 2) Will the brain really remain frozen until the age of Nanotechnology? 3) Will anyone in the age of Nanotechnology think we're worth the hassle of reviving? Plastination eliminates 2 of those 3 unknowns, although perhaps it adds additional problems I don't know about. > > I would still prefer to have my brain stored in a dedicated institution > trying to protect it than to trust the overall environment out there. > I strongly agree, even a plastic infused brain is not invulnerable and a friendly institution might be able to help with problem #3. > Max's point about revival options is important: we do not just want to > minimize damage during preservation, we also want to make the resulting > product amenable to as many possible future revival technologies as > possible. > I don't understand the distinction. Whichever method produces the least amount of damage preserves the most information, and the more information transmitted safely into the future the more options there would be for anyone who thinks we're worth the trouble of reviving. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 17 16:15:06 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:15:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00a601cd94ef$9a8bf310$cfa3d930$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark . >>...3) Will anyone in the age of Nanotechnology think we're worth the hassle of reviving? >>>. I would still prefer to have my brain stored in a dedicated institution trying to protect it than to trust the overall environment out there. >.I strongly agree, even a plastic infused brain is not invulnerable and a friendly institution might be able to help with problem #3. John K Clark Ja, things will need to be far different from what they are today, far different, for us to hold out any hope of revival. If somehow the technology became available for me to revive my great great grandfather, Isaac Newton Jones, I would be bringing a dependent into the world who might be even more of a financial burden than his great^3 grandson by the same name; delightful as that might be, it would likely be expensive. Of course, if it is post-uploading, as I expect, none of the usual rules apply. This is why I have been so interested in MBrains for so long; it looks to me like the logical next step of evolution. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 17 16:35:27 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 09:35:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again Message-ID: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> I don't recall the name of the original thread, apologies, and no time to look it up again now, but it was about hunger causing riots. A thought occurred to me about Google shutting off the video of trailers to The Innocence of Methodists (or something like that, the film that stirred the ire of radical Presbyterians to rush out and burn embassies and murder American diplomats.) So now, a video shows up that they don't like, Google restricts access to the video in those countries where people riot. To me that sends a clear message to the Episcopalian leadership: if you want to get your way, whip up your followers to violence, get them to go burn and murder, the infidel does as you wish, no problem. Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to the Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to not be evil in that case. Suggestions? spike From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 17:16:57 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:16:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 12:35 PM, spike wrote: > Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up > there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to the > Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to not > be evil in that case. Suggestions? If the don't-be-evil organization knows who you are and every conversation/affiliation you've ever had, then it will be able to examine your circle of trust to know whether you would like to see the video in question or if you'd be more amenable to a video of cat leaping from a couch. If you're going to herd sheep and raise foxes, it's best to keep your products in separate pens. From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Sep 17 17:12:38 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 13:12:38 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: <00a601cd94ef$9a8bf310$cfa3d930$@att.net> References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> <00a601cd94ef$9a8bf310$cfa3d930$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 12:15 PM, spike wrote: >>?I strongly agree, even a plastic infused brain is not invulnerable and a >> friendly institution might be able to help with problem #3. John K Clark > > Ja, things will need to be far different from what they are today, far > different, for us to hold out any hope of revival. If somehow the > technology became available for me to revive my great great grandfather, > Isaac Newton Jones, I would be bringing a dependent into the world who might > be even more of a financial burden than his great^3 grandson by the same > name; delightful as that might be, it would likely be expensive. Of course, > if it is post-uploading, as I expect, none of the usual rules apply. This > is why I have been so interested in MBrains for so long; it looks to me like > the logical next step of evolution. I imagine the preserved will be a source of novelty. In the post-scarcity world, novelty may be more valuable than gold. The faster we consume content, the more quickly it's all used-up. Even with an explosion of self-publishing ["just another wordpress blog"] there exists a degree of sameness between any new [sic] ideas when every member of post-singularity civilization has seen the same events through the same channels (albeit with geographic proximity perspective latency measured in ms) reanimated spike's sense of wonderment at post-singularity ants and bees (for example) may well be worth the price of maintaining his habitat... at least until RA-spike becomes uninteresting to the masses and is forced to get a job to pay for his own CPU. But hey, 15 minutes of fame is an extra long time for those who think orders of magnitude faster than we do. From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 17 18:43:25 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:43:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <50576F4D.9030501@libero.it> Il 17/09/2012 18:35, spike ha scritto: > I don't recall the name of the original thread, apologies, and no time to > look it up again now, but it was about hunger causing riots. .... > Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up > there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to the > Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to not > be evil in that case. Suggestions? If the leave the video the Mo riots now, but they will stop rioting when they will see it have no effect. In the mean time, others will learn Google will not bow to rioting (of Mos or others). If the take the video, Mos will stop rioting now (maybe) but will riot after for whatever they will not like (or just for fun). In the mean time others (E.G. Asatru, Buddhists, Rastafarians or Spaghetti Monster worshippers, Jedi or others) will learn Google is prone to bend over to rioting and menace of rioting. Knowing a tactic work is a pro when considering it. It is like making a movie telling the true about someone/something known to riot when the truth about them is exposed: "Works every time" More and most their riot, the merrier is. Mirco p.s. Riots happen when people think someone can be threatened by the rioting. If no one can be threatened by force to obtain something, there will not be riots. But people could delude themselves someone will give them something if they riot. From anders at aleph.se Mon Sep 17 21:53:27 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 22:53:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> Message-ID: <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> On 17/09/2012 16:07, John Clark wrote: > On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 Anders Sandberg > wrote: > > > Since cell membranes are well preserved by standard histological > methods, why even investigate frozen tissue as an option? > > > I too have asked myself that question and don't have a good answer, > but I'm no expert on this matter. If you are a histologist you only care about structure, not function. Most medical people care a lot about maintaining function, but once it is out of their hands it is just left for the histologists to do a (literal) postmortem. Cryonics people have the unusual view that that mildly non-functioning systems can have their relevant structure preserved and then restored. But this requires finding fixation methods (whether freezing or plastics) that retains properties of relevance to function that would not matter to a histologist: it falls between the chairs, and there are few people investigating it. I think the closest thing is researchers interested in systematic changes in viability in their cell and tissue freezers. > > Max's point about revival options is important: we do not just want > to minimize damage during preservation, we also want to make the > resulting product amenable to as many possible future revival > technologies as possible. > > I don't understand the distinction. Whichever method produces the > least amount of damage preserves the most information, and the more > information transmitted safely into the future the more options there > would be for anyone who thinks we're worth the trouble of reviving. Silly example: dumping the brain into the event horizon of a black hole. Ignoring stretching, all information is preserved. Except that it is non-retrievable by any technology. Not all forms of information are easy to manipulate (consider searching the internet or a PDF to searching in paper documents), and some forms of distortion take much more effort to fix than other ones (if noise flips every other pixel in an image of a text it is much better than flipping every other bit of the text ASCII information). Still, I think your rule of thumb "more information = more options" is largely true. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 03:32:16 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:32:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Reply to an article Message-ID: http://democratherald.com/news/local/your-ecological-house-the-brave-new-world-of-arctic-amplification/article_b0dc083b-ddbf-58d4-b33a-5e292c0f3b9d.html%3Fcomment_form=true Far as I know, the engineers of the world have not been asked how to solve the problems. It would take a lot of them, but a sparse forest of thermal diodes similar to the ones used to support the Alaskan pipeline over permafrost would refreeze the Arctic ocean. Another bunch would freeze the Greenland and Antarctic ice to rock. Or, if you want to get rid of the CO2, a big power satellite project would displace fossil fuels with cheaper energy from space. Would take a little under two decades. Ask if you want to know more. From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 10:39:30 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:39:30 +0200 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg In-Reply-To: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> References: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 15 September 2012 02:24, Anders Sandberg wrote: > This is very cool. Original article: http://iopscience.iop.org/** > 1741-2552/9/5/056012 > http://iopscience.iop.org/**1741-2552/9/5/056012/pdf/1741-** > 2552_9_5_056012.pdf > > Not the most advanced control (it is a fairly well-defined and understood > task with a fairly simple representation), but together with the recent > reports on Ted Berger's hippocampal prosthetic it is starting to make me > feel good about the future of neural functional prosthetics. Nice to see > that the cortical column model of the DMS task holds up. But what we really > need is a cheaper, easier and safer way of getting stimulation into the > right spots. > One prob is that even, say, on the Italian H+ list resistance to animal experimentation is growing. So, either we start using humans directly and contribute to the universe's happiness by sparing innumerable mice and monkeys, or we risk to be restricted to simulations... -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Sep 18 11:13:05 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:13:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Reply to an article In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50585741.5080601@aleph.se> On 18/09/2012 04:32, Keith Henson wrote: > Far as I know, the engineers of the world have not been asked how to > solve the problems. "If we treated climate change as an engineering problem and not a moral problem, it would be solved long ago". There is plenty of truth in that: the issue of climate change has become dominated by a particular crowd of people whose outlook favours particular styles of solutions (emission reduction) over other styles (geoengineering, adaptation, really new energy sources). The reasons for that are the usual sociological and political ones - reduction fit the green small is beautiful view, it looked like a governable problem from the perspective of decisionmakers, it did not have the uncertainties of the other approaches etc. Add plenty of self-interest and stir. Engineers jumping in and suggesting that we just *solve* the problem don't get much traction, partially because most of the crowd doesn't understand them, and partially because they don't see the messy bigger picture of coupled economical and political systems. It is a bit like trying to engineer away the problems of the US election or legal system: sure, there might be ways that would work better, but implementing them are near-impossible for constitutional, legal and political reasons. Engineering works best when you get to start fresh on designing something, not when you have to retrofit a complex recalcitrant system. Still, geoengineering is being taken somewhat seriously these days. I know some researchers here in Oxford, both doing simulations and analysing how to handle the ethics/governance problems. And they later problems are nontrivial: just because something can in principle be done doesn't mean it would be a good idea (consider a climate tug-of-war between Bangladesh and Scandinavia, the fact that geoengineering that has maximal positive impact on China's agriculture is pretty bad for India, and vice versa, and the fundamental problems of properly testing something that affects the total and only system). Everybody who knows the field well tell me that it better be the last resort. I think coming up with a better way of selling efficient space solar power as an idea would work far better. Besides, having that infrastructure up there might be useful if we need to launch a solar shade. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 11:28:41 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 13:28:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 15 September 2012 20:27, Keith Henson wrote: > Of course, the very ability to accumulate wealth is evolutionarily recent. > It can be generalised in the alternative between having a lot of children, and dividing the parental investment (if any) amongst them, or have fewer but at the same time concentrating your efforts on their (reproductive) success. It is not obvious that species (or genetic profiles) specialising in the second strategy are always at a disadvantage... Mammals, for instance, by breastfeeding their children lose a lot of time and energies which could be devoted to generating more of them. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Sep 18 11:28:36 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 12:28:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg In-Reply-To: References: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <50585AE4.1010806@aleph.se> On 18/09/2012 11:39, Stefano Vaj wrote: > One prob is that even, say, on the Italian H+ list resistance to > animal experimentation is growing. So, either we start using humans > directly and contribute to the universe's happiness by sparing > innumerable mice and monkeys, or we risk to be restricted to > simulations... Well, please tell the list that in order to get simulations worth anything, we will have to do a lot more animal experimentation. In the long run it will of course mean just a finite number of animals are used before we all run simulations, but in practice calibrating simulations takes a lot of experimental data, so in the short term there will be much animal use. And if you are an uploader, using too advanced sims is of course just as unacceptable as using real animals. There are some curious issues, since you can resurrect killed animals, but if suffering is the issue then good simulations are not acceptable. Which leaves the problem of telling when a reduced or partial simulation produces relevant data, or produces enough of a mind/consciousness/whatever to lead to ethical quandaries. (I work on a paper on this) I wonder, suppose the only way we could truly improve the human condition long-term involved an unavoidable quantity of suffering of innocents. What amount of suffering would then morally preclude attempting this improvement? Deontological systems might have a rather firm answer on that, likely concluding that it is impermissible to become posthuman, no matter how good that state is, if it requires impermissible acts. Total utilitarians are fine with any finite amount of suffering if we can get super-benefits that outweigh it. The really weird things happen if you start considering war ethics, where people analyse how you should act if you are thrust into a situation where acting immorally is unavoidable: could this kind of reasoning apply to the current human condition (we are being killed by the world, and our physiology forces us to subsist on living beings), and imply that one should "fight" ones way out of it as morally as possible? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 15:05:13 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:05:13 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 Anders Sandberg wrote: > Cryonics people have the unusual view that that mildly non-functioning > systems can have their relevant structure preserved and then restored. But > this requires finding fixation methods (whether freezing or plastics) that > retains properties of relevance to function > Restoring function is of course the name of the game because the brain has ceased to function even before it was frozen or infused with plastic, but its important to understand what sort of repair shop you're going to be taking the broken object to. If the repairman has a limited supply of spare parts then knowing how all the parts fit together (information) is not enough and its important to preserve as much function as possible. But I don't believe anybody is going to be revived (if they ever are) until full fledged Nanotechnology has arrived and in that case the parts in question are just atoms and the repairman has a unlimited supply of them, so all he needs is information. > Not all forms of information are easy to manipulate (consider searching > the internet or a PDF to searching in paper documents), and some forms of > distortion take much more effort to fix than other ones (if noise flips > every other pixel in an image of a text it is much better than flipping > every other bit of the text ASCII information). > True, all the information on how to make an egg is there in the scrambled eggs but that does no good because I don't think even Nanotechnology can get that information out and figure out how to unscramble an egg. The egg has undergone turbulence and that means tiny changes in initial conditions have led to huge changes in outcome, we don't want that happening to brains. So the big question is, does the brain preservation method cause turbulence? I could very well be wrong because I'm no expert but my intuition says that plastic infusion is less likely to produce turbulence than freezing. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 18:10:22 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:10:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cortical architecture/"connectome" Message-ID: What do you all make of this? Blue Brain Project accurately predicts connections between neurons http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/epfd-bbp091212.php Blue Brain Project accurately predicts connections between neurons Proof of concept: Researchers identify principles to support brain simulation models One of the greatest challenges in neuroscience is to identify the map of synaptic connections between neurons. Called the "connectome," it is the holy grail that will explain how information flows in the brain. In a landmark paper, published the week of 17th of September in PNAS, the EPFL's Blue Brain Project (BBP) has identified key principles that determine synapse-scale connectivity by virtually reconstructing a cortical microcircuit and comparing it to a mammalian sample. These principles now make it possible to predict the locations of synapses in the neocortex. "This is a major breakthrough, because it would otherwise take decades, if not centuries, to map the location of each synapse in the brain and it also makes it so much easier now to build accurate models," says Henry Markram, head of the BBP. A longstanding neuroscientific mystery has been whether all the neurons grow independently and just take what they get as their branches bump into each other, or are the branches of each neuron specifically guided by chemical signals to find all its target. To solve the mystery, researchers looked in a virtual reconstruction of a cortical microcircuit to see where the branches bumped into each other. To their great surprise, they found that the locations on the model matched that of synapses found in the equivalent real-brain circuit with an accuracy ranging from 75 percent to 95 percent. This means that neurons grow as independently of each other as physically possible and mostly form synapses at the locations where they randomly bump into each other. A few exceptions were also discovered pointing out special cases where signals are used by neurons to change the statistical connectivity. By taking these exceptions into account, the Blue Brain team can now make a near perfect prediction of the locations of all the synapses formed inside the circuit. Virtual Reconstruction The goal of the BBP is to integrate knowledge from all the specialised branches of neuroscience, to derive from it the fundamental principles that govern brain structure and function, and ultimately, to reconstruct the brains of different species ? including the human brain ? in silico. The current paper provides yet another proof-of-concept for the approach, by demonstrating for the first time that the distribution of synapses or neuronal connections in the mammalian cortex can, to a large extent, be predicted. To achieve these results, a team from the Blue Brain Project set about virtually reconstructing a cortical microcircuit based on unparalleled data about the geometrical and electrical properties of neurons?data from over nearly 20 years of painstaking experimentation on slices of living brain tissue. Each neuron in the circuit was reconstructed into a 3D model on a powerful Blue Gene supercomputer. About 10,000 of virtual neurons were packed into a 3D space in random positions according to the density and ratio of morphological types found in corresponding living tissue. The researchers then compared the model back to an equivalent brain circuit from a real mammalian brain. A Major Step Towards Accurate Models of the Brain This discovery also explains why the brain can withstand damage and indicates that the positions of synapses in all brains of the same species are more similar than different. "Positioning synapses in this way is very robust," says computational neuroscientist and first author Sean Hill, "We could vary density, position, orientation, and none of that changed the distribution of positions of the synapses." They went on to discover that the synapses positions are only robust as long as the morphology of each neuron is slightly different from each other, explaining another mystery in the brain ? why neurons are not all identical in shape. "It's the diversity in the morphology of neurons that makes brain circuits of a particular species basically the same and highly robust," says Hill. Overall this work represents a major acceleration in the ability to construct detailed models of the nervous system. The results provide important insights into the basic principles that govern the wiring of the nervous system, throwing light on how robust cortical circuits are constructed from highly diverse populations of neurons ? an essential step towards understanding how the brain functions. They also underscore the value of the BBP's constructivist approach. "Although systematically integrating data across a wide range of scales is slow and painstaking, it allows us to derive fundamental principles of brain structure and hence function," explains Hill. Best, Jeff Davis "Everything's hard till you know how to do it." Ray Charles From anders at aleph.se Tue Sep 18 20:38:51 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:38:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5058DBDB.5090808@aleph.se> On 18/09/2012 16:05, John Clark wrote: > True, all the information on how to make an egg is there in the > scrambled eggs but that does no good because I don't think even > Nanotechnology can get that information out and figure out how to > unscramble an egg. The egg has undergone turbulence and that means > tiny changes in initial conditions have led to huge changes in > outcome, we don't want that happening to brains. So the big question > is, does the brain preservation method cause turbulence? I could very > well be wrong because I'm no expert but my intuition says that plastic > infusion is less likely to produce turbulence than freezing. I understand what you mean, although turbulence is probably not the best word here. What sensitive dependence on initial conditions (chaos) does is to make noise more powerful, randomizing parts of a system. Noise that just moves the system away from the original state is not a problem itself. The problem is the noise that makes it uncertain which original state the system had. What kind of noise do we expect to see in freezing or plastination? In both there is the noise from dying. In freezing there is biochemical change and physical change due to the freezing process, in preservation there is the same due to the fixation, and then some chemical reactions during storage. * Freezing did cause a mess due to crystal formation and cracking, and is still mechanically a bit nasty, but I don't think (cryo-gurus please chime in) it causes regions to scramble. They just turn to puzzles. * The biochemical changes of both processes are hard to judge, but this is where I would be most worried: the brain is dependent on a lot of biochemical states that might only partly survive either treatment. This is where I really would like to know how much happens in a synapse, in particular to whether receptors remain bound to membranes and what G proteins do. * In freezing mobility of stuff goes down a lot quickly, while I get the impression the fixation is a bit slower. Then there is the problem of chemical change in fixed tissue: again I don't know if anything diffuses much, but that is worth watching for. Not sure what the take home message is, beyond more research is needed (or, if it has been done, more dissemination needed). -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 18 23:24:02 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 16:24:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cortical architecture/"connectome" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01d101cd95f4$b1086a50$13193ef0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis Sent: Tuesday, September 18, 2012 11:10 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] cortical architecture/"connectome" What do you all make of this? Best, Jeff Davis >...Blue Brain Project accurately predicts connections between neurons >...http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-09/epfd-bbp091212.php >...Blue Brain Project accurately predicts connections between neurons Proof of concept: Researchers identify principles to support brain simulation models ... I sure hope Pousaz is right. If so, it looks like we could use the sketchy model I have been using for an MBrain, and see how (at least kinda theoretically) a mind could be mapped into a tenth of a teranode. My recent thinking on this has a generic completely inexperienced human mind being simulated by an MBrain. But if this model is right, we can at least imagine a particular mind being mapped into the 100 giganodes. This would solve a problem that has really been bugging me. Imagine an MBrain could theoretically simulate a human brain. The critical missing matter becomes the actual content. Then the situation could be illustrated by a thought experiment: imagine a human brain being born into an individual who was blind and deaf and had no limbs, so that almost all sensory inputs into that brain never get through. My notion is that this brain would never think anything really, or wouldn't do much that we think of as a human mind. Now imagine a second brain which developed normally, but the person went completely blind and deaf, and for some reason all the sensory organs failed. That brain could float there in the dark silence and still come up with ideas. If you follow my notions in the above thought experiment, you see why I am interested in figuring out how to get an MBrain to simulate not just a generic brain, but a particular brain, preferably mine. I really like it here in my particular brain, it is fun in here. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Tue Sep 18 23:54:10 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 19:54:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] cortical architecture/"connectome" In-Reply-To: <01d101cd95f4$b1086a50$13193ef0$@att.net> References: <01d101cd95f4$b1086a50$13193ef0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 7:24 PM, spike wrote: > by a thought experiment: imagine a human brain being born into an individual > who was blind and deaf and had no limbs, so that almost all sensory inputs > into that brain never get through. My notion is that this brain would never It would sure play a mean pinball. From spike66 at att.net Wed Sep 19 00:43:01 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:43:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] cortical architecture/"connectome" In-Reply-To: References: <01d101cd95f4$b1086a50$13193ef0$@att.net> Message-ID: <01f001cd95ff$b974efa0$2c5ecee0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty ... On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 7:24 PM, spike wrote: >> ... imagine a human brain being born into an individual who was blind and deaf ... >...It would sure play a mean pinball. _______________________________________________ They won't get it Mike, most of them are too young. They think Elton John is Olivia Newton John's sister. {8^D spike From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Sep 19 01:39:03 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2012 21:39:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] cortical architecture/"connectome" In-Reply-To: <01f001cd95ff$b974efa0$2c5ecee0$@att.net> References: <01d101cd95f4$b1086a50$13193ef0$@att.net> <01f001cd95ff$b974efa0$2c5ecee0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 8:43 PM, spike wrote: >>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty > On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 at 7:24 PM, spike wrote: >>> ... imagine a human brain being born into an individual who was blind and > deaf ... > >>...It would sure play a mean pinball. > _______________________________________________ > > They won't get it Mike, most of them are too young. They think Elton John > is Olivia Newton John's sister. She's like... the granddaughter of the guy with the apple ... or something? No, she makes the cookies that are fruit & cake. "I like food though" hmmm... why does it seem that becoming aware of the memeplexes we host leads almost inevitably to dystopian thought? From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 19 10:36:09 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 12:36:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] A step from humanoid to cyborg In-Reply-To: <50585AE4.1010806@aleph.se> References: <5053CAB5.5060803@aleph.se> <50585AE4.1010806@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 18 September 2012 13:28, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Well, please tell the list that in order to get simulations worth > anything, we will have to do a lot more animal experimentation. > Hey, as far as I am concerned, you are preaching to the converted. But, besides people who even in transhumanist ranks are simply influenced by a growingly hypersensitive and emotional climate on the subject, see Sergio Tarrero, my ZS-friend David Pearce, etc. I wonder, suppose the only way we could truly improve the human condition > long-term involved an unavoidable quantity of suffering of innocents. > In fact, contrary to many platitudes regarding suffering, empathy for any entity on which a human can hallucinate his or her internal states is quite natural ("ethological") in healthy, non-pathological individuals, and what historical ethical systems have mostly to say on the subject is when one would be morally obligated to ignore and resist it. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 19 17:33:17 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:33:17 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 16 September 2012 08:54, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Since I am more interested in eventually uploading than in living for > centuries in this aging meatbag with minor reparations, I consider > some future version of chemical brain preservation as my preferred > option. I think Alcor and the Cryonics Institute should start offering > also this option when the time is right, which may be in a few years > after the Brain Preservation Prize award. > As you know, I am philosophically inclined to dismiss out of hand claims that emu/simulations would be different from the Real Thing in some ineffable way, but as a matter of personal preference I would like to keep my current body around, working and in good shape as long as the inconveniences of doing that become really blatant. In fact, I do not even like much changing my car... :-) So, in my priority list human enhancement comes first, life extension second, full-body cryonic suspension third, and plastination/cerebral scanning/full-life recording, etc. a distant fourth. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Sep 19 21:46:49 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:46:49 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:07 AM, John Clark wrote: >> > I would still prefer to have my brain stored in a dedicated institution >> > trying to protect it than to trust the overall environment out there. > > I strongly agree, even a plastic infused brain is not invulnerable and a > friendly institution might be able to help with problem #3. I also think that storing my plastinated brain with an institution like Alcor is better for my chances of reanimation than allowing my children to play kick ball with it. If there isn't enough money in plastination to support a company or institution, then it might be a harder sell. How much would Alcor charge to store my plastinated brain? >> > Max's point about revival options is important: we do not just want to >> > minimize damage during preservation, we also want to make the resulting >> > product amenable to as many possible future revival technologies as >> > possible. > > I don't understand the distinction. Whichever method produces the least > amount of damage preserves the most information, and the more information > transmitted safely into the future the more options there would be for > anyone who thinks we're worth the trouble of reviving. The only difference in any approach would be how long it would take to develop the necessary technology to revive someone if a sufficient amount of information were stored. I guess also how expensive it would be. If all the information is stored, then it's just a matter of time before the technology exists to do the procedure. Another question comes up in all this... If I have my brain preserved, how do I know if I'm going to be the first to be revived, or the last? I would not want to be the first, because I would assume the technology would not be perfected the first time through. I would not necessarily want to be last... but I'd rather be last than first. -Kelly From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 20 02:45:30 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2012 19:45:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] lettuce bot Message-ID: <015001cd96da$005c2c50$011484f0$@att.net> Cool I have envisioned something like this for some time now, at least since becoming part owner of a farm. It seems to me like this could be programmed to recognize harmful bugs and differentiate from harmless or beneficial bugs. Then zap the bad guys with a laser or something. What I don't know, but Keith does, is if an effective laser could be run off of batteries, rather than internal combustion. Reasoning: neither the weed recognition, nor the bug recognition, nor the laser control system would work right with reciprocating machinery aboard, I would think. spike If food was a superhero (called, I don't know.Captain Nutrient), one of its most dangerous archenemies would be The Vile Weed. Against this invasive enemy, we have but one weapon - herbicides. According to a recent report from Transparency Market Research , the global herbicide market was estimated to be about $20 billion in 2011 and expected to grow around 6 percent over the next six years. But spraying chemicals seems like a sloppy, old school method for dealing with weeds, especially when they inevitably develop chemical resistance in their drive for self-preservation. Perhaps what crops need to be free of this nemesis is a humble sidekick, one that can tip the balance in the war playing out amongst rows of tiny trenches splayed across farmer's fields everywhere. Today, that sidekick has arrived.at least on battlefields growing lettuce, hence its nickname: "Lettuce Bot." http://singularityhub.com/2012/09/19/lettuce-bot-rolls-through-crops-termina tes-weeds-it-visually-identifies/?utm_source=The+Harvest+Is+Bountiful &utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=23b96ebc53-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 20 14:37:20 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 10:37:20 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: <5058DBDB.5090808@aleph.se> References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> <5058DBDB.5090808@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 Anders Sandberg wrote: > Freezing did cause a mess due to crystal formation and cracking, and is > still mechanically a bit nasty, but I don't think (cryo-gurus please chime > in) it causes regions to scramble. They just turn to puzzles. > If its scrambled then we're dead, literally, but I think you're probably right and fixing a frozen brain is more like gluing the parts of a broken vase together than unscrambling a egg; I certainly hope so! > The biochemical changes of both processes are hard to judge, but this is > where I would be most worried: the brain is dependent on a lot of > biochemical states that might only partly survive either treatment. > Well, if molecule X and molecule Y got together and produced molecule Z and you find Z then you can deduce that X and Y must have existed and been close together at a previous time, and if X was one of the chemicals used to preserve the brain then your only concern will be Y and where it was before the reaction. I'd be much more worried about turbulence, if a particle got where it was by a turbulent fluid flow then I don't think even Nanotechnology could figure out where it was originally. > This is where I really would like to know how much happens in a synapse, > in particular to whether receptors remain bound to membranes > It doesn't matter if a receptor in a synapse is no longer bound to the membrane provided you can figure out that it must of been bound there in the past and you can make that deduction with a reasonable number of computations; in other words if the fluid flow that pushed that receptor out of place was laminar, if it was turbulent then you're dead. > In freezing mobility of stuff goes down a lot quickly, while I get the > impression the fixation is a bit slower. > My intuition tells me the opposite, that the chemical reaction of the fixation chemical would start to hold things in place faster than the increased viscosity caused when water temperature is slowly decreased, and the decrease would be slow because the brain is a large bulky object so you can't cool things off super fast; and the phase change when water turns to ice worries me, I don't think it would induce turbulence but I'm not sure. And my intuition could be entirely wrong. > Then there is the problem of chemical change in fixed tissue > But those chemical reactions fix things in place, and you know the chemical used, so you should be able to run the movie backward without needing a absurd amount of computations as you'd need if you wanted to run turbulence backward. At least I think it wouldn't be absurd, I hope so anyway. > I don't know if anything diffuses much, but that is worth watching for. > Although in some ways based on randomness tiny changes in initial conditions don't lead to huge changes in outcome after diffusion, in fact a living brain relies on diffusion to get neurotransmitters to cross the synapse, its a dependable process. The real enemy is chaotic fluid flow, turbulence. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Sep 20 14:54:09 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 15:54:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> <5058DBDB.5090808@aleph.se> Message-ID: <505B2E11.7090702@aleph.se> On 20/09/2012 15:37, John Clark wrote: > On Tue, Sep 18, 2012 Anders Sandberg > wrote: > > > The biochemical changes of both processes are hard to judge, but > this is where I would be most worried: the brain is dependent on a > lot of biochemical states that might only partly survive either > treatment. > > > Well, if molecule X and molecule Y got together and produced molecule > Z and you find Z then you can deduce that X and Y must have existed > and been close together at a previous time But if W and U can also react and make Z? That is where the entropy comes in. Now you don't know whether there was XY or WU. > > This is where I really would like to know how much happens in a > synapse, in particular to whether receptors remain bound to membranes > > > It doesn't matter if a receptor in a synapse is no longer bound to the > membrane provided you can figure out that it must of been bound there > in the past and you can make that deduction with a reasonable number > of computations Receptors can be bound or unbound: this changes due to synaptic potentiation. It likely matters a lot to get the right number, since this partially sets the synaptic strength. But if freezing makes some unbound you cannot deduce the original number, unless the unbinding has some very simple regularities. > > > Then there is the problem of chemical change in fixed tissue > > > But those chemical reactions fix things in place, and you know the > chemical used, so you should be able to run the movie backward There are thousands of different chemicals around, not all react by fixing. And some things might not fix properly, like g-proteins or high energy compounds. > The real enemy is chaotic fluid flow, turbulence. You *really* mean fluid flow, and not just as a metaphor?! But the Reynolds numbers in tissues are *far* into the laminar! There *is no turbulence*, except maybe in some bigger blood vessels. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 20 20:19:06 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 16:19:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Nice Article on Brain Preservation In-Reply-To: <505B2E11.7090702@aleph.se> References: <5056EF97.4060902@aleph.se> <50579BD7.7060605@aleph.se> <5058DBDB.5090808@aleph.se> <505B2E11.7090702@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 20, 2012 Anders Sandberg wrote: >>Well, if molecule X and molecule Y got together and produced molecule Z >> and you find Z then you can deduce that X and Y must have existed and been >> close together at a previous time >> > > > But if W and U can also react and make Z? > If W and U are molecules not normally found in the brain, or if they were found in the brain but judging by the surrounding structure it didn't make sense for them to be at that particular spot then you can rule them out; and even if it is reasonable for them to be there you still might be able to make a good educated guess because the XY and WU reactions probably don't proceed at the same rate, so one is more likely than the other. However if they do both proceed at the same rate and its equally reasonable for all 4 to be found at that point and if X,Y,W and U are important molecules then you could have a serious problem. > That is where the entropy comes in. > Yes, entropy seems to sneak its way into just about everything. Even if the universe was as deterministic as Newton thought it was if XY and WU both made Z at the same rate then you could predict the future but you couldn't figure out what the past was. > Now you don't know whether there was XY or WU. > If you used the plastic infusion method one of those 4 chemicals was probably introduced by you. > Receptors can be bound or unbound: this changes due to synaptic > potentiation. It likely matters a lot to get the right number, since this > partially sets the synaptic strength. But if freezing makes some unbound > you cannot deduce the original number, unless the unbinding has some very > simple regularities. > Yes simple regularities is the name of the game, or if not simple at least not astronomically complex as with turbulence. > There are thousands of different chemicals around, not all react by > fixing. And some things might not fix properly, like g-proteins or high > energy compounds. > Yes there are lots of unknowns, but the question is which method has the fewer unknowns, plastic or freezing? >> The real enemy is chaotic fluid flow, turbulence. >> > > You *really* mean fluid flow, and not just as a metaphor?! > Yes, if the brain always acted as a solid there really wouldn't be any problem and preserving it would be easy, or at least easier, but we know that isn't the case and after death the parts of it refuse to stay put because they are battered around by fluid; we don't want that fluid flow to be chaotic. > But the Reynolds numbers in tissues are *far* into the laminar! There *is > no turbulence*, except maybe in some bigger blood vessels. > if true then that is very good news for both methods. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 20 21:26:25 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 14:26:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] they are mad as hell and won't take it anymore... Message-ID: <035501cd9776$97468a10$c5d39e30$@att.net> I have hope for this old world when I read stuff like this: http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/20/world/meast/iran-hijab-fisticuffs/index.html?h pt=hp_t3 Money quote: ".The girls may have put the "jab" into "hijab,". {8^D You go, girls. Wouldn't it be cool to see something like an Arab Summer follow Arab Spring, something like a middle eastern version of our 60s, where the women decide they are people too and they want to be treated as people, with rights, and if the men don't like it they can go to hell. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Sep 21 01:02:57 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2012 21:02:57 -0400 Subject: [ExI] lettuce bot In-Reply-To: <015001cd96da$005c2c50$011484f0$@att.net> References: <015001cd96da$005c2c50$011484f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 19, 2012 at 10:45 PM, spike wrote: > Cool I have envisioned something like this for some time now, at least since > becoming part owner of a farm. It seems to me like this could be programmed > to recognize harmful bugs and differentiate from harmless or beneficial > bugs. Then zap the bad guys with a laser or something. What I don?t know, > but Keith does, is if an effective laser could be run off of batteries, > rather than internal combustion. Reasoning: neither the weed recognition, > nor the bug recognition, nor the laser control system would work right with > reciprocating machinery aboard, I would think. >From the subject I assumed the content would be news of a breakthrough in 3D printing to create lettuce. Yeah, because an achievement of such magnitude would mean we are 1/3 of the way to a sandwich maker that could, you know "make me a sandwich." Hopefully it'll be equipped with wifi to talk with the bread machine, else there will inevitably be no bread upon which to place the freshest BLT you can imagine. I would imagine the first lettuce-printer might also have some bugs, but rather than lasers you'll need programmers to kill them. From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Fri Sep 21 17:35:59 2012 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 13:35:59 -0400 Subject: [ExI] One Per Cent: Watson, the supercomputer genius, heads for the cloud Message-ID: Thoughts on the impact of this? http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/09/watson-the-supercomputer-geniu.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Sep 21 20:40:02 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2012 21:40:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] One Per Cent: Watson, the supercomputer genius, heads for the cloud In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 21, 2012 at 6:35 PM, J.R. Jones wrote: > Thoughts on the impact of this? > > http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2012/09/watson-the-supercomputer-geniu.html > > Seems reasonable to me. As the article states, the first area is medical diagnosis where trials are producing good results. Watson seems to avoid the human biases that doctors have and will produce a more correct diagnosis. And obviously IBM will try to extend Watson into as many fields of data as possible. I would associate this with another article I read that suggests that modern tech is changing human minds. (This may be more applicable to the younger generation). He suggests that modern people don't understand how things work anymore - they just know how to use the technology. e.g satnavs. To most people it is just magic. also computers, tablets, phones, etc. It's all magic. BillK From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 22 11:03:24 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:03:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] One Per Cent: Watson, the supercomputer genius, heads for the cloud In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <505D9AFC.5010202@aleph.se> On 21/09/2012 21:40, BillK wrote: > Seems reasonable to me. As the article states, the first area is > medical diagnosis where trials are producing good results. Watson > seems to avoid the human biases that doctors have and will produce a > more correct diagnosis. The problem is nonhuman biases. This kind of complex system makes certain implicit assumptions that can be very subtle, yet affect what it does. If there is an obvious performance metric to check that it does better than humans it doesn't matter much. But imagine that after a few years of use it was discovered that it made more reliable diagnoses for members of majority ethnic groups (more data available), or for some reason tended to underdiagnose certain diseases in certain people according to a complex pattern. There is nothing directly programmed in to achieve this, it is just an emergent effect of the machine learning algorithm and the existing data. > I would associate this with another article I read that suggests that > modern tech is changing human minds. (This may be more applicable to > the younger generation). He suggests that modern people don't > understand how things work anymore - they just know how to use the > technology. I think that has been the case for a long time. As soon as either the mechanism of action is outside normal experience (e.g. electrical devices) or the system becomes nontrivial (e.g. a clockwork) most people just give up and accept that it works without any attempt at understanding. Most Victorians could likely not explain a steam engine. People who peek into black boxes have always been a minority. Maybe we would be better off to ensure that there are more of them (for reasons of reliability, democracy, innovation), but in terms of reaping the benefits of technology we probably don't need many. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 22 14:49:06 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 07:49:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] equinox Message-ID: <004301cd98d1$6a9aa940$3fcffbc0$@att.net> Happy equinox extropians! {8-] spike sent 0749, 22 Sept 2012 Cool, I always wanted to send one of these right on the minute the event happened. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 22 15:54:16 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 16:54:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] equinox In-Reply-To: <004301cd98d1$6a9aa940$3fcffbc0$@att.net> References: <004301cd98d1$6a9aa940$3fcffbc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <505DDF28.5010707@aleph.se> On 22/09/2012 15:49, spike wrote: > > *Happy equinox extropians!* > > ** > > Ah! I thought I felt a geometric plane sweep by! (I have been thinking of intersections with planes a lot today, as I updated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann%27s_minimal_surface - I have a little hobby project of brushing up the minimal surface corner of Wikipedia. ) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Sep 22 17:22:46 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 18:22:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] One Per Cent: Watson, the supercomputer genius, heads for the cloud In-Reply-To: <505D9AFC.5010202@aleph.se> References: <505D9AFC.5010202@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 12:03 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > The problem is nonhuman biases. This kind of complex system makes certain > implicit assumptions that can be very subtle, yet affect what it does. If > there is an obvious performance metric to check that it does better than > humans it doesn't matter much. But imagine that after a few years of use it > was discovered that it made more reliable diagnoses for members of majority > ethnic groups (more data available), or for some reason tended to > underdiagnose certain diseases in certain people according to a complex > pattern. There is nothing directly programmed in to achieve this, it is just > an emergent effect of the machine learning algorithm and the existing data. > Watson will also make mistakes. It did not answer the Jeopardy questions perfectly. Just on average much better than the best humans. Hopefully, in all the data analysis fields that Watson is applied to a committee of humans will apply a 'reasonableness' test to the answers. I think that when Watson makes a mistake it will be a really ridiculous mistake that should be easily spotted. As in the Jeopardy mistakes it made. Subtle bias such as you suggest would be more difficult to detect (if it occurs). But then doctors have applied wrong treatments and inadequate treatments for years - even generations. We won't get perfection, but Watson should still be on average better than human doctors. > > I think that has been the case for a long time. As soon as either the > mechanism of action is outside normal experience (e.g. electrical devices) > or the system becomes nontrivial (e.g. a clockwork) most people just give up > and accept that it works without any attempt at understanding. Most > Victorians could likely not explain a steam engine. > > People who peek into black boxes have always been a minority. Maybe we would > be better off to ensure that there are more of them (for reasons of > reliability, democracy, innovation), but in terms of reaping the benefits of > technology we probably don't need many. > More engineers. That's what we need! :) I think modern civilisation is rather more extreme than the Victorians. We seem to be pushing ourselves into the situation that if our gadgets fail, we become helpless blobs wailing in despair. BillK From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sat Sep 22 19:22:56 2012 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 20:22:56 +0100 (BST) Subject: [ExI] One Per Cent: Watson, the supercomputer genius, heads for the cloud In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1348341776.88251.YahooMailNeo@web132102.mail.ird.yahoo.com> I'm going off information I read in the BMJ in the 1990s, but back in the early days of computer-assisted diagnosis there were a few quick wins where computer diagnosis appeared to be outperforming humans. Analysis of the data showed this was occurring where humans would normally sit on the fence and be unsure if people had a certain symptom or sign, or if they were unsure if a critical threshold had been passed. The computer program was insisting the humans make a choice to move along the decision tree, so people were taking greater effort to look for signs or to take measurements carefully, and then actually make a firm decision. Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clementlawyer at gmail.com Sat Sep 22 19:34:19 2012 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 12:34:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] David Ewing Duncan's new book, When I'm 164 Message-ID: NOTE: the results of his survey to over 30,000 people, mostly at health conferences like TEDMED were quite disappointing! http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/sunday-review/how-long-do-you-want-to-live.html *How Long Do You Want to Live?* By DAVID EWING DUNCAN Published: August 25, 2012 260 Comments SINCE 1900, the life expectancy of Americans has jumped to just shy of 80 from 47 years. This surge comes mostly from improved hygiene and nutrition, but also from new discoveries and interventions: everything from antibiotics andheart bypass surgery to cancer drugs that target and neutralize the impact of specific genetic mutations. David Sparshott Readers? Comments Readers shared their thoughts on this article. - Read All Comments (260) ? Now scientists studying the intricacies of DNA and other molecular bio-dynamics may be poised to offer even more dramatic boosts to longevity. This comes not from setting out explicitly to conquer aging, which remains controversial in mainstream science, but from researchers developing new drugs and therapies for such maladies of growing old as heart disease and diabetes . ?Aging is the major risk factor for most diseases,? says Felipe Sierra, director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on Aging. ?The National Institutes of Health fund research into understanding the diseases of aging, not life extension, though this could be a side effect.? How many years might be added to a life? A few longevity enthusiasts suggest a possible increase of decades. Most others believe in more modest gains. And when will they come? Are we a decade away? Twenty years? Fifty years? Even without a new high-tech ?fix? for aging, the United Nations estimates that life expectancy over the next century will approach 100 years for women in the developed world and over 90 years for women in the developing world. (Men lag behind by three or four years.) Whatever actually happens, this seems like a good time to ask a very basic question: How long do you want to live? Over the past three years I have posed this query to nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands. To make it easier to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all. I made it clear that participants should not assume that science will come up with dramatic new anti-aging technologies, though people were free to imagine that breakthroughs might occur ? or not. The results: some 60 percent opted for a life span of 80 years. Another 30 percent chose 120 years, and almost 10 percent chose 150 years. Less than 1 percent embraced the idea that people might avoid death altogether. These percentages have held up as I?ve spoken to people from many walks of life in libraries and bookstores; teenagers in high schools; physicians in medical centers; and investors and entrepreneurs at business conferences. I?ve popped the question at meetings of futurists and techno-optimists and gotten perhaps a doubling of people who want to live to 150 ? less than I would have thought for these groups. Rarely, however, does anyone want to live forever, although abolishing disease and death from biological causes is a fervent hope for a small scattering of would-be immortals. In my talks, I go on to describe some highlights of cutting-edge biomedical research that might influence human life span. For instance, right now drug companies are running clinical trials on new compounds that may have the ?side effect? of extending life span. These include a drug at Sirtris, part of GlaxoSmithKline, that is being developed to treat inflammation and other diseases of aging. Called SRT-2104, this compound works on an enzyme called SIRT1 that, when activated, seems to slow aging in mice and other animals. It may do the same thing in humans, though this remains to be proven. ?Many serious attempts are being made to come up with a pill for aging,? said Dr. Sierra, though he suspects that there will not be a single anti-aging pill, if these compounds end up working at all. ?It will be a combination of things.? For over a decade, scientists also have experimented with using stem cells ? master cells that can grow into different specialized cells ? to replace and repair tissue in the heart, liver and other organs in animals. Some researchers have succeeded in also using them in people. The researchers include the urologist Anthony Atala of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, who has grown human bladders and urethras from stem cells that have been successfully transplanted into patients. But another stem cell pioneer, James Thomson of the University of Wisconsin, believes that stem cell solutions will be a long time coming for more complex organs. ?We?re a long way from transplanting cells into a human brain or nervous system,? he said. ANOTHER intervention that might thwart the impact of aging is bionics: the augmentation or replacement of biological functions with machines. For years cardiac pacemakers have saved and extended the lives of millions of people. More recent devices and machine-tooled solutions have restored hearing to thousands who are deaf and replaced damaged knees and hips. Physicians use brain implants to help control tremors brought on by Parkinson?s disease . Researchers also are working on a wide range of other machine fixes, from exoskeletons that protect joints to experimental devices that tap into the brain activity of paralyzed patients, allowing them to operate computers using thought . Curiously, after learning about these possibilities, few people wanted to change their votes. Even if I asked them to imagine that a pill had been invented to slow aging down by one-half, allowing a person who is, say, 60 years old to have the body of a 30-year-old, only about 10 percent of audiences switched to favoring a life span of 150 years. Overwhelmingly the reason given was that people didn?t want to be old and infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay this inevitability. Others were concerned about a range of issues both personal and societal that might result from extending the life spans of millions of people in a short time. These included everything from boredom and the cost of paying for a longer life to the impact of so many extra people on planetary resources and on the environment. Some worried that millions of healthy centenarians still working and calling the shots in society would leave our grandchildren and great-grandchildren without the jobs and opportunities that have traditionally come about with the passing of generations. Long-lifers countered that extending healthy lives would delay suffering, possibly for a very long time. This would allow people to accomplish more in life and to try new things. It would also mean that geniuses like Steve Jobs or Albert Einstein might still be alive. Einstein, were he alive today, would be 133 years old. That?s assuming that he would want to live that long. As he lay dying of anabdominal aortic aneurysm in 1955, he refused surgery, saying: ?It is tasteless to prolong life artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it elegantly.? David Ewing Duncan is a contributor to Science Times. This essay is adapted from his most recent e-book, ?When I?m 164 : The New Science of Radical Life Extension and What Happens If It Succeeds.? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Sat Sep 22 22:52:55 2012 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 15:52:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] David Ewing Duncan's new book, When I'm 164 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I think the most revealing part of this is here: Curiously, after learning about these possibilities, few people wanted to > change their votes. Even if I asked them to imagine that a pill had been > invented to slow aging down by one-half, allowing a person who is, say, 60 > years old to have the body of a 30-year-old, only about 10 percent of > audiences switched to favoring a life span of 150 years. > > Overwhelmingly the reason given was that people didn?t want to be old and > infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay > this inevitability. > People are saying they don't want to live 150+ years because they don't want to be old and infirm for longer. Would David have gotten a markedly different result if he had specified that healthy years would be extended but the period of infirmity would not? I suspect not, because I doubt the reason given for not wanting more life is the real reason. Hyperbolic discounting should mean that people would happily take the extra (nearer) years of good health and not worry much about the (later) years of infirmity. The reasons given seem to me to be rationalizations, and I think James is right that the posited extra years are rejected because most people don't believe they are likely to see those extra years. If they aren't going to have those years, it a good thing that they don't! ("Aging isn't going to be controlled in time for me. Good thing too -- I'd hate to live longer. Why... I'd be bored, or would have to change jobs, or or or... something.") Even those who do want to live much longer don't get around to making arrangements for cryopreservation, also (often) due to rationalizations. Breaking through rationalization is extremely difficult. I wish I had a ready solution. --Max On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 12:34 PM, James Clement wrote: > NOTE: the results of his survey to over 30,000 people, mostly at health > conferences like TEDMED were quite disappointing! > > > http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/sunday-review/how-long-do-you-want-to-live.html > > > *How Long Do You Want to Live?* > By DAVID EWING DUNCAN Published: August 25, 2012 260 Comments > > SINCE 1900, the life expectancy of Americans has jumped to just shy of 80 > from 47 years. This surge comes mostly from improved hygiene and nutrition, > but also from new discoveries and interventions: everything from > antibiotics > andheart bypass surgery > to cancer drugs > that target and neutralize the impact of specific genetic mutations. > David Sparshott > Readers? Comments > > Readers shared their thoughts on this article. > > > - Read All Comments (260) ? > > Now scientists studying the intricacies of DNA and other molecular > bio-dynamics may be poised to offer even more dramatic boosts to longevity. > This comes not from setting out explicitly to conquer aging, which remains > controversial in mainstream science, but from researchers developing new > drugs and therapies for such maladies of growing old as heart disease and > diabetes > . > > ?Aging is the major risk factor for most diseases,? says Felipe Sierra, > director of the Division of Aging Biology at the National Institute on > Aging. ?The National Institutes of Health fund research into understanding > the diseases of aging, not life extension, though this could be a side > effect.? > > How many years might be added to a life? A few longevity enthusiasts > suggest a possible increase of decades. Most others believe in more modest > gains. And when will they come? Are we a decade away? Twenty years? Fifty > years? > > Even without a new high-tech ?fix? for aging, the United Nations estimates > that life expectancy over the next century will approach 100 years for > women in the developed world and over 90 years for women in the developing > world. (Men lag behind by three or four years.) > > Whatever actually happens, this seems like a good time to ask a very basic > question: How long do you want to live? > > Over the past three years I have posed this query to > nearly 30,000 people at the start of talks and lectures on future trends in > bioscience, taking an informal poll as a show of hands. To make it easier > to tabulate responses I provided four possible answers: 80 years, currently > the average life span in the West; 120 years, close to the maximum anyone > has lived; 150 years, which would require a biotech breakthrough; and > forever, which rejects the idea that life span has to have any limit at all. > > I made it clear that participants should not assume that science will come > up with dramatic new anti-aging technologies, though people were free to > imagine that breakthroughs might occur ? or not. > > The results: some 60 percent opted for a life span of 80 years. Another 30 > percent chose 120 years, and almost 10 percent chose 150 years. Less than 1 > percent embraced the idea that people might avoid death altogether. > > These percentages have held up as I?ve spoken to people from many walks of > life in libraries and bookstores; teenagers in high schools; physicians in > medical centers; and investors and entrepreneurs at business conferences. > I?ve popped the question at meetings of futurists and techno-optimists and > gotten perhaps a doubling of people who want to live to 150 ? less than I > would have thought for these groups. > > Rarely, however, does anyone want to live forever, although abolishing > disease and death from biological causes is a fervent hope for a small > scattering of would-be immortals. > > In my talks, I go on to describe some highlights of cutting-edge > biomedical research that might influence human life span. > > For instance, right now drug companies are running clinical trials on new > compounds that may have the ?side effect? of extending life span. These > include a drug at Sirtris, part of GlaxoSmithKline, that is being developed > to treat inflammation and other diseases of aging. Called SRT-2104, this > compound works on an enzyme called SIRT1 that, when activated, seems to > slow aging in mice and other animals. It may do the same thing in humans, > though this remains to be proven. > > ?Many serious attempts are being made to come up with a pill for aging,? > said Dr. Sierra, though he suspects that there will not be a single > anti-aging pill, if these compounds end up working at all. ?It will be a > combination of things.? > > For over a decade, scientists also have experimented with using stem > cells ? > master cells that can grow into different specialized cells ? to replace > and repair tissue in the heart, liver and other organs in animals. Some > researchers have succeeded in also using them in people. The researchers > include the urologist Anthony Atala of Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, > who has grown human bladders and urethras from stem cells that have been > successfully transplanted into patients. > > But another stem cell pioneer, James Thomson of > the University of Wisconsin, believes that stem cell solutions will be a > long time coming for more complex organs. ?We?re a long way from > transplanting cells into a human brain or nervous system,? he said. > > ANOTHER intervention that might thwart the impact of aging is bionics: the > augmentation or replacement of biological functions with machines. For > years cardiac pacemakers have saved and extended the lives of millions of > people. More recent devices and machine-tooled solutions have restored > hearing to thousands who are deaf and replaced damaged knees and hips. > Physicians use brain implants to help control tremors brought on by Parkinson?s > disease . > Researchers also are working on a wide range of other machine fixes, from > exoskeletons that protect joints to experimental devices that tap into the > brain activity of paralyzed patients, allowing them to operate computers > using thought > . > > Curiously, after learning about these possibilities, few people wanted to > change their votes. Even if I asked them to imagine that a pill had been > invented to slow aging down by one-half, allowing a person who is, say, 60 > years old to have the body of a 30-year-old, only about 10 percent of > audiences switched to favoring a life span of 150 years. > > Overwhelmingly the reason given was that people didn?t want to be old and > infirm any longer than they had to be, even if a pill allowed them to delay > this inevitability. > > Others were concerned about a range of issues both personal and societal > that might result from extending the life spans of millions of people in a > short time. These included everything from boredom and the cost of paying > for a longer life to the impact of so many extra people on planetary > resources and on the environment. Some worried that millions of healthy > centenarians still working and calling the shots in society would leave our > grandchildren and great-grandchildren without the jobs and opportunities > that have traditionally come about with the passing of generations. > > Long-lifers countered that extending healthy lives would delay suffering, > possibly for a very long time. This would allow people to accomplish more > in life and to try new things. It would also mean that geniuses like Steve > Jobs or Albert Einstein might still be alive. Einstein, were he alive > today, would be 133 years old. > > That?s assuming that he would want to live that long. As he lay dying of anabdominal > aortic aneurysm in > 1955, he refused surgery, saying: ?It is tasteless to prolong life > artificially. I have done my share, it is time to go. I will do it > elegantly.? > > David Ewing Duncan is a contributor to Science Times. This essay is > adapted from his most recent e-book, ?When I?m 164 : > The New Science of Radical Life Extension and What Happens If It Succeeds.? > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation 7895 E. Acoma Dr # 110 Scottsdale, AZ 85260 480/905-1906 ext 113 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Sep 23 05:39:33 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 06:39:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] David Ewing Duncan's new book, When I'm 164 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 at 11:52 PM, Max More wrote: > People are saying they don't want to live 150+ years because they don't want > to be old and infirm for longer. Would David have gotten a markedly > different result if he had specified that healthy years would be extended > but the period of infirmity would not? I suspect not, because I doubt the > reason given for not wanting more life is the real reason. > He doesn't mention the age range spread in the voting. I can imagine younger people thinking that 80 years seems an eternity away. Whereas 50 years olds might think that 120 or even 150 might be nice. And 75 year olds don't really want their present condition to continue much longer. Good health is an essential for extended lifespan. Without that it is extended years of discomfort, pain and problems. > Hyperbolic discounting should mean that people would happily take the extra > (nearer) years of good health and not worry much about the (later) years of > infirmity. The reasons given seem to me to be rationalizations, and I think > James is right that the posited extra years are rejected because most people > don't believe they are likely to see those extra years. If they aren't going > to have those years, it a good thing that they don't! ("Aging isn't going to > be controlled in time for me. Good thing too -- I'd hate to live longer. > Why... I'd be bored, or would have to change jobs, or or or... something.") > That logic applies to many things in life. When faced with circumstances that you cannot change, it is easier to change your mind rather than continue in a state of envy, fear or suffering. There must be a Buddhist saying about this. > Even those who do want to live much longer don't get around to making > arrangements for cryopreservation, also (often) due to rationalizations. > Breaking through rationalization is extremely difficult. I wish I had a > ready solution. > One man's logical decision is another man's rationalisation. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 23 06:03:45 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2012 23:03:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] equinox In-Reply-To: <505DDF28.5010707@aleph.se> References: <004301cd98d1$6a9aa940$3fcffbc0$@att.net> <505DDF28.5010707@aleph.se> Message-ID: <014b01cd9951$31825c40$948714c0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg >.Subject: Re: [ExI] equinox >.(I have been thinking of intersections with planes a lot today, as I updated https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann%27s_minimal_surface - I have a little hobby project of brushing up the minimal surface corner of Wikipedia. ) So cool! This is way awesome, Anders! >>.On 22/09/2012 15:49, spike wrote: >>.Happy equinox extropians! >.Ah! I thought I felt a geometric plane sweep by! Anders Sandberg. An odd thing is this: we have a perfectly arbitrary time which is celebrated to gross excess every year all over the globe, when a perfectly arbitrary calendar mark passes, HAPPY NEW YEAR etc. That always seemed so annoyingly phony to me, three two one, CELEBRATE WILDLY, vacuous knuckle draggers, etc, when there is no actual celestial event corresponding to it, not even lunar. Yet the four occasions of every year when there really is something of celestial significance, the solstices and the equinoxes, nothing. Unless you are a fellow atheist/pagan, there are no actual celebrations. It is lonely being an atheist pagan, and the common people have no problem with insulting us at all. For instance, you perhaps heard of all the controversy surrounding the edgy artwork known as Piss Christ, with the crucifix in a jar of urine. That was in the headlines again as some provocative hothead put an image of a bearded man in a turban in a jar of urine, and called it Piss Joseph Smith. Of course all those countries in which the radical Mormons are known to riot, the radical Mormons are rioting. Since these so-called artists have intentionally offended the Christians and the Mormons with their grossly insensitive provocations, I suppose it was only a matter of time before they decided to offend the atheists, so now there is yet another work of so-called art in which the atheists' object of worship (nothing) is being similarly degraded, this one entitled simply Piss. Just as it sounds, it is a jar of urine. Only. Nothing in urine. This proved problematic, for any instance where nothing is being degraded is now an insult to those of us who are extremely sensitive atheists, protective of our object of worshipful adoration: nothing. They should really be more understanding, and show some cultural sensitivity! Now, whenever I am at the medic's office and she asks for a urine sample, well, I cannot even do this simple medically-necessary diagnostic procedure without offending myself. I am really pissed whenever I see Piss. But there are so few atheists in this non-wicked old world, that when we unbelievers are offended, we can't even raise a respectable riot. Hell we can't even find each other. A one-man riot just doesn't get it done. Imagine what I must look like, a single guy out there on the streets all alone, rioting against Piss. To the uneducated and insensitive faceless masses, I must appear to be an ordinary pissed off mad man. What shall I do? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 23 16:43:11 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 12:43:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] David Ewing Duncan's new book, When I'm 164 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 22, 2012 James Clement wrote: > NOTE: the results of his survey to over 30,000 people, mostly at health > conferences like TEDMED were quite disappointing! > > http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/26/sunday-review/how-long-do-you-want-to-live.html > I'm not disappointed, it's just the sour grapes syndrome. I would submit that the relationship between what people say they would do in a poll like this and what they would actually do if the possibility of eternal physical life ever became real is zero. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Sun Sep 23 20:34:07 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 13:34:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: I've a slightly different take on this business. The last ten years of the West vs Islam has left the West with a default anti-Muslim bias. Muslim = bad has thus become the uncritical "neutral" view, and disparaging Muslims equivalent to just the enumeration of "neutral" data. Now why oh why do you suppose the Muslims are less than pleased with being branded as the new evil, to be enshrined and employed as the West's new global whipping boy (replacing the now-retired "commies")? But that's not the whole of the offense. You have to fill out the indictment with the record of the West's actual treatment of Muslim countries for say, the last hundred years. I won't list the details, but suffice it to say the treatment has been very abusive. So in addition to making Muslims the West's new "niggers", they have also been looted and brutalized. Yet the citizens of the Western nations hardly notice this historical context, because the MSM has effectively erased the truth and replaced it with the strategically, ideologically, and commercially more exploitable "Muslim = bad" mythology. Then some clown insults their most sacred cultural symbol, and some folk -- I won't name names -- say "Look at these uncivilized people! How backward and savage they are! How intolerant. They have no experience in our superior cultural values of democracy and freedom of speech." Give me a break. If someone invaded your home, killed your father and grandparents before your eyes, raped your mother and sister, threw the living and the corpses into the street, took over your home with the help of the police, covered their crimes with the help of the media, and declared your anger to be a genetic and cultural predisposition to terroristic savagery, and kept up this crap for generations, how pissy would you be? And if they added insult to all this injury by celebrating their freedom to violate you, by insulting that which is most sacred to you -- let's say in this case, your mother -- when does it become reasonable for you to indulge in a little rioting? I'm sorry. The West is engaged in a religious/cultural war against Muslims, and the West has been the bad guy for quite a while now. It's the same ***ATTITUDE*** as in the Athenians vs the Melosians: the primacy of naked power. "... the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." There are a billion and a half Muslims. The US is in decline. Payback is coming. Best, Jeff Davis "...short of genocide, it is not possible to attain a final military victory over a justified sense of grievance." Michael Breen On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:35 AM, spike wrote: > I don't recall the name of the original thread, apologies, and no time to > look it up again now, but it was about hunger causing riots. > > A thought occurred to me about Google shutting off the video of trailers to > The Innocence of Methodists (or something like that, the film that stirred > the ire of radical Presbyterians to rush out and burn embassies and murder > American diplomats.) So now, a video shows up that they don't like, Google > restricts access to the video in those countries where people riot. To me > that sends a clear message to the Episcopalian leadership: if you want to > get your way, whip up your followers to violence, get them to go burn and > murder, the infidel does as you wish, no problem. > > Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up > there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to the > Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to not > be evil in that case. Suggestions? > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From nanite1018 at gmail.com Sun Sep 23 23:58:34 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 16:58:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: This is simply wrong. Our countries aren't the ones that force women to wear cloth bags, or stone a woman for having the audacity to be raped. We don't throw people in jail for making fun of other people's religious views. We don't riot over it. We don't they to kill people for insulting our imaginary friends. The West isn't perfect, and their are legitimate gripes to be had (like the installment of the Shah in Iran for example), but that doesn't mean these people are rioting for a legitimate reason, or the West is the bad guy. Only the grossest moral relativism could put the horrific civil rights abuses perpetrated in the Muslim world with high levels of public support by Muslims living there with the actions of Western states in those countries. The West is a superior culture, more supportive of human flourishing, than the cultures of Muslim countries. If you disagree, please tell me how forbidding women to interact with men they are not related to is somehow superior to freedom of expressions and association. As for the rioting--they should riot over the mistreatment by the West if that's their complaint. Not our making fun of their silly superstitions, but over the rape and murder of people, if that's what they are really mad about. Rioting over us making fun of them only plays into the hands of their enemies, as it makes them look backward and uncivilized. So, if they were forward-thinking and rational, they would as a rule not riot when people make fun of them. And yet they do so constantly. The reasonable conclusion is that much of the Muslim world is significantly less forward-thinking and rational than the West, at least at a culture-wide level. --Joshua Job. On Sep 23, 2012 2:32 PM, "Jeff Davis" wrote: > I've a slightly different take on this business. > > The last ten years of the West vs Islam has left the West with a > default anti-Muslim bias. Muslim = bad has thus become the uncritical > "neutral" view, and disparaging Muslims equivalent to just the > enumeration of "neutral" data. Now why oh why do you suppose the > Muslims are less than pleased with being branded as the new evil, to > be enshrined and employed as the West's new global whipping boy > (replacing the now-retired "commies")? > > But that's not the whole of the offense. You have to fill out the > indictment with the record of the West's actual treatment of Muslim > countries for say, the last hundred years. I won't list the details, > but suffice it to say the treatment has been very abusive. So in > addition to making Muslims the West's new "niggers", they have also > been looted and brutalized. Yet the citizens of the Western nations > hardly notice this historical context, because the MSM has effectively > erased the truth and replaced it with the strategically, > ideologically, and commercially more exploitable "Muslim = bad" > mythology. > > Then some clown insults their most sacred cultural symbol, and some > folk -- I won't name names -- say "Look at these uncivilized people! > How backward and savage they are! How intolerant. They have no > experience in our superior cultural values of democracy and freedom of > speech." > > Give me a break. > > If someone invaded your home, killed your father and grandparents > before your eyes, raped your mother and sister, threw the living and > the corpses into the street, took over your home with the help of the > police, covered their crimes with the help of the media, and declared > your anger to be a genetic and cultural predisposition to terroristic > savagery, and kept up this crap for generations, how pissy would you > be? And if they added insult to all this injury by celebrating their > freedom to violate you, by insulting that which is most sacred to you > -- let's say in this case, your mother -- when does it become > reasonable for you to indulge in a little rioting? > > I'm sorry. The West is engaged in a religious/cultural war against > Muslims, and the West has been the bad guy for quite a while now. > > It's the same ***ATTITUDE*** as in the Athenians vs the Melosians: the > primacy of naked power. > > "... the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." > > There are a billion and a half Muslims. The US is in decline. Payback > is coming. > > Best, Jeff Davis > > "...short of genocide, it is not possible to attain a final military > victory over a justified sense of grievance." > Michael Breen > > > > > On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:35 AM, spike wrote: > > I don't recall the name of the original thread, apologies, and no time to > > look it up again now, but it was about hunger causing riots. > > > > A thought occurred to me about Google shutting off the video of trailers > to > > The Innocence of Methodists (or something like that, the film that > stirred > > the ire of radical Presbyterians to rush out and burn embassies and > murder > > American diplomats.) So now, a video shows up that they don't like, > Google > > restricts access to the video in those countries where people riot. To > me > > that sends a clear message to the Episcopalian leadership: if you want to > > get your way, whip up your followers to violence, get them to go burn and > > murder, the infidel does as you wish, no problem. > > > > Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up > > there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to > the > > Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to > not > > be evil in that case. Suggestions? > > > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > > extropy-chat mailing list > > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 03:59:08 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Sun, 23 Sep 2012 22:59:08 -0500 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: Common, There is no justification for what these riots, rewards to kill somebody and all the other bs. You can explain how much you want but the bottom line is that the muslim culture is repressive and backwards. If they didn't identify so much with their religion there will not be problems in Palestine and so many stupid issues about bs of all kind. Pakistan is an idiotic state that was created again to keep religious people to kill each other over which imaginary god was best to worship. Religion is evil and should be eradicated. Giovanni On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 at 6:58 PM, Joshua Job wrote: > This is simply wrong. Our countries aren't the ones that force women to > wear cloth bags, or stone a woman for having the audacity to be raped. We > don't throw people in jail for making fun of other people's religious > views. We don't riot over it. We don't they to kill people for insulting > our imaginary friends. > > The West isn't perfect, and their are legitimate gripes to be had (like > the installment of the Shah in Iran for example), but that doesn't mean > these people are rioting for a legitimate reason, or the West is the bad > guy. Only the grossest moral relativism could put the horrific civil rights > abuses perpetrated in the Muslim world with high levels of public support > by Muslims living there with the actions of Western states in those > countries. The West is a superior culture, more supportive of human > flourishing, than the cultures of Muslim countries. > > If you disagree, please tell me how forbidding women to interact with men > they are not related to is somehow superior to freedom of expressions and > association. > > As for the rioting--they should riot over the mistreatment by the West if > that's their complaint. Not our making fun of their silly superstitions, > but over the rape and murder of people, if that's what they are really mad > about. Rioting over us making fun of them only plays into the hands of > their enemies, as it makes them look backward and uncivilized. So, if they > were forward-thinking and rational, they would as a rule not riot when > people make fun of them. And yet they do so constantly. The reasonable > conclusion is that much of the Muslim world is significantly less > forward-thinking and rational than the West, at least at a culture-wide > level. > --Joshua Job. > On Sep 23, 2012 2:32 PM, "Jeff Davis" wrote: > >> I've a slightly different take on this business. >> >> The last ten years of the West vs Islam has left the West with a >> default anti-Muslim bias. Muslim = bad has thus become the uncritical >> "neutral" view, and disparaging Muslims equivalent to just the >> enumeration of "neutral" data. Now why oh why do you suppose the >> Muslims are less than pleased with being branded as the new evil, to >> be enshrined and employed as the West's new global whipping boy >> (replacing the now-retired "commies")? >> >> But that's not the whole of the offense. You have to fill out the >> indictment with the record of the West's actual treatment of Muslim >> countries for say, the last hundred years. I won't list the details, >> but suffice it to say the treatment has been very abusive. So in >> addition to making Muslims the West's new "niggers", they have also >> been looted and brutalized. Yet the citizens of the Western nations >> hardly notice this historical context, because the MSM has effectively >> erased the truth and replaced it with the strategically, >> ideologically, and commercially more exploitable "Muslim = bad" >> mythology. >> >> Then some clown insults their most sacred cultural symbol, and some >> folk -- I won't name names -- say "Look at these uncivilized people! >> How backward and savage they are! How intolerant. They have no >> experience in our superior cultural values of democracy and freedom of >> speech." >> >> Give me a break. >> >> If someone invaded your home, killed your father and grandparents >> before your eyes, raped your mother and sister, threw the living and >> the corpses into the street, took over your home with the help of the >> police, covered their crimes with the help of the media, and declared >> your anger to be a genetic and cultural predisposition to terroristic >> savagery, and kept up this crap for generations, how pissy would you >> be? And if they added insult to all this injury by celebrating their >> freedom to violate you, by insulting that which is most sacred to you >> -- let's say in this case, your mother -- when does it become >> reasonable for you to indulge in a little rioting? >> >> I'm sorry. The West is engaged in a religious/cultural war against >> Muslims, and the West has been the bad guy for quite a while now. >> >> It's the same ***ATTITUDE*** as in the Athenians vs the Melosians: the >> primacy of naked power. >> >> "... the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." >> >> There are a billion and a half Muslims. The US is in decline. Payback >> is coming. >> >> Best, Jeff Davis >> >> "...short of genocide, it is not possible to attain a final military >> victory over a justified sense of grievance." >> Michael Breen >> >> >> >> >> On Mon, Sep 17, 2012 at 9:35 AM, spike wrote: >> > I don't recall the name of the original thread, apologies, and no time >> to >> > look it up again now, but it was about hunger causing riots. >> > >> > A thought occurred to me about Google shutting off the video of >> trailers to >> > The Innocence of Methodists (or something like that, the film that >> stirred >> > the ire of radical Presbyterians to rush out and burn embassies and >> murder >> > American diplomats.) So now, a video shows up that they don't like, >> Google >> > restricts access to the video in those countries where people riot. To >> me >> > that sends a clear message to the Episcopalian leadership: if you want >> to >> > get your way, whip up your followers to violence, get them to go burn >> and >> > murder, the infidel does as you wish, no problem. >> > >> > Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video >> up >> > there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message >> to the >> > Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how >> to not >> > be evil in that case. Suggestions? >> > >> > spike >> > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > extropy-chat mailing list >> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > _______________________________________________ > 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 charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 08:51:12 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 09:51:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 24 Sep 2012, at 00:58, Joshua Job wrote: > This is simply wrong. Our countries aren't the ones that force women to wear cloth bags, or stone a woman for having the audacity to be raped. We don't throw people in jail for making fun of other people's religious views. We don't riot over it. We don't they to kill people for insulting our imaginary friends. Our countries have, however, invaded theirs, overthrown governments elected by the people and installed vicious dictatorships, encouraged the widespread torture and execution of dissidents by said dictators, and generally done everything in their power to encourage their misrule as long as it kept the oil flowing. And once the dictators killed off or drove into exile all the reasonable opponents of dictatorship, all that was left were the unreasonable ones who could fight back -- religious fanatics and killers. (This goes back a long way, to the fall of the Ottoman empire and the Sykes-Picot treaty -- and before that; probably the defining moment was Napoleon's invasion of Egypt in 1798.) Lest we forget, the destabilization of Afghanistan by arming the mujahedeen was a deliberate US foreign policy initiative hatched in the 1970s by Zbignew Brzezinski, to provoke Soviet intervention; subsequently the arming of more extreme and vicious radicals, including one Osama bin Laden, was *also* a matter of western foreign policy. Yes, those guys are vile mediaeval reactionaries. But we -- or our realpolitik-obsessed, short-sighted leaders -- created them. That kind of fundamentalist religious extremism is a symptom of a local political culture where all progress towards democracy and enlightenment has been exterminated for a generation. Religious groups, let us not forget, also do charity work, feeding and clothing the poor. In the case of the Taliban, they also brought law to the lawless. This is also going on in other parts of the Middle East; why do you think Hamas is popular in the West Bank, or the Muslim Brotherhood able to win elections in Egypt? If the Israelis hadn't stomped Arafat's much more secular and western-oriented Fatah flat, and the Generals (from Nasser onwards) hadn't stifled democratic opposition, the reactionary extremist movements wouldn't have had room to grow. -- Charlie From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 09:04:55 2012 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:04:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike wrote: Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to the Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to not be evil in that case. Suggestions? >>> Spike, my friend, Mormons don't riot when they don't get their way... : ) Instead, we come over to your house with kind words, and also a delicious casserole with green jello for dessert! Oh, and then later there will be a multi-million dollar media campaign to sway public opinion. And finally, if those things don't work, it's time for Church HQ to take out their checkbook, and simply buy Google. But hold on, the Mormon Church is worth a mere 50 billion, and Google is valued at FOUR times that amount! It took the Mormon Church nearly two centuries to acquire its present wealth, and look at how one I.T. company totally outstripped it, and it took only about a decade to happen! Damn... John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 09:50:25 2012 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 02:50:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] equinox In-Reply-To: <014b01cd9951$31825c40$948714c0$@att.net> References: <004301cd98d1$6a9aa940$3fcffbc0$@att.net> <505DDF28.5010707@aleph.se> <014b01cd9951$31825c40$948714c0$@att.net> Message-ID: ** ** > An odd thing is this: we have a perfectly arbitrary time which is > celebrated to gross excess every year all over the globe, when a perfectly > arbitrary calendar mark passes, HAPPY NEW YEAR etc. That always seemed so > annoyingly phony to me, three two one, CELEBRATE WILDLY, vacuous knuckle > draggers, etc, when there is no actual celestial event corresponding to it, > not even lunar. Yet the four occasions of every year when there really is > something of celestial significance, the solstices and the equinoxes, > nothing. Unless you are a fellow atheist/pagan, there are no actual > celebrations. It is lonely being an atheist pagan, and the common people > have no problem with insulting us at all.**** > > ** > When you get to create your own pocket universe sometime around 2045, you can order the people you create to have a logical calender, society, etc.,.... > ** > > For instance, you perhaps heard of all the controversy surrounding the > edgy artwork known as Piss Christ, with the crucifix in a jar of urine. > That was in the headlines again as some provocative hothead put an image of > a bearded man in a turban in a jar of urine, and called it Piss Joseph > Smith. Of course all those countries in which the radical Mormons are > known to riot, the radical Mormons are rioting. > The real Joseph Smith would have at first lovingly scolded you for doing such a thing, then forgiven you, next insisted you to join his family for dinner, and then finally by playfully wrestling with you, break at least one of your legs, because you are a slender pencil-necked guy and he was a physically very tough frontiersman who excelled at the sports of the time! He actually did this, I assume accidentally, several times to various people he came across in his life. And I think if anyone riots, it will be millions of non-Mormon Americans, who realize to their shock that after assuming the presidency, Mitt Romney will order all caffeinated beverages to be confiscated by the largely Mormon FBI! Many people will stay indoors, thinking the hordes of people milling around from caffeine deprivation are actually brain eating zombies!!! > **** > > ** ** > > Since these so-called artists have intentionally offended the Christians > and the Mormons with their grossly insensitive provocations, I suppose it > was only a matter of time before they decided to offend the atheists, so > now there is yet another work of so-called art in which the atheists? > object of worship (nothing) is being similarly degraded, this one entitled > simply Piss. Just as it sounds, it is a jar of urine. Only. Nothing in > urine. This proved problematic, for any instance where nothing is being > degraded is now an insult to those of us who are extremely sensitive > atheists, protective of our object of worshipful adoration: nothing. They > should really be more understanding, and show some cultural sensitivity! > **** > > ** > Mormons would offend atheists due to their big smiles and strong desire to find common ground... We would have a big conference on nothing at BYU, and invite leading atheistic scholars, though the value of something would also be espoused! Lots of fattening food during the breaks would soften up the resolve of the visiting atheists by making them very drowsy... Now, whenever I am at the medic?s office and she asks for a urine sample, well, I cannot even do this simple medically-necessary diagnostic procedure without offending myself. I am really pissed whenever I see Piss. But there are so few atheists in this non-wicked old world, that when we unbelievers are offended, we can?t even raise a respectable riot. Hell we can?t even find each other. A one-man riot just doesn?t get it done. Imagine what I must look like, a single guy out there on the streets all alone, rioting against Piss. To the uneducated and insensitive faceless masses, I must appear to be an ordinary pissed off mad man. What shall I do? _______________________________________________ Spike, look into this new invention called the "internet." It will help you link up with just about any group of weirdos that exist out there in the real world! You can network to create a flashmob of angry prancing atheists to extoll your views. But beware, because the BYU Young Ambassador Dancers may show up, and they will use their internationally famous skills to show you up in front of everyone, and then conclude things with lots of toothy smiles, agreeable words, and free snacks. The Church leadership can airdrop them into any public relations troublezone, within a mere 24 hours! lol John ; ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 08:55:02 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 09:55:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> On 24 Sep 2012, at 04:59, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > You can explain how much you want but the bottom line is that the muslim culture is repressive and backwards. Note that throughout the middle east, there has been NO tradition of free speech in living memory. State censorship is ubiquitous, because the dictatorships the west encouraged (and I include the USSR in "the west" in this context -- communism is an ideology rooted in western enlightenment ideas) wanted to stamp out opposition. Consequently, we're dealing with people who have grown up KNOWING that any publication whatsoever MUST HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY A GOVERNMENT. Therefore they see an insulting film and they *know* without being told that it was organized and approved by the US state censors. It's going to take more than a generation to break them of this habit, and in the meantime we're all in for a bumpy ride. -- Charlie From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 10:07:51 2012 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:07:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> Message-ID: Charlie, I have enjoyed your excellent history lesson that I suppose some of us needed. If aliens ever land in NYC and plant a strange flag in front of Wall Street, well, it would be karma biting us hard in the butt! I am currently reading your books, The Atrocity Files, and The Jennifer Morgue, simultaneously. And I am hooked! lol I was half-way done with Jennifer, when the woman I'm dating also loaned me Atrocity. And when she's done with the third novel in the series, I get to read it! : ) KEEP WRITING!!! John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 12:41:41 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:41:41 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 24 September 2012 01:58, Joshua Job wrote: > Only the grossest moral relativism could put the horrific civil rights abuses > perpetrated in the Muslim world with high levels of public support by > Muslims living there with the actions of Western states in those countries. > The West is a superior culture, more supportive of human flourishing, than > the cultures of Muslim countries. I am an avowed moral relativist (I do not know about "gross"), and as such that I strongly oppose the islamisation of the society I live in, starting with the massive slave trade from defeated muslim countries, exactly because I have no reason to consider muslim "truth" and "values" as superior to mine. But the rhetoric of "superior cultures" and of the "burden of the white man" is exactly the worst that Islam has derived from western legacy, from the crusades and the colonisation on, and I really think the time has come to drop it altogether. Moreover, as a transhumanist, I am confident in change, diversity and self-determination. I am not deluded about the fact that conflicts of interests and Darwinian competition amongst different woldviews will ever cease, but eschatological ideas about an alleged moral duty of killing people to save them from themselves is a very slippery slope where we can easily find ourselves at the wrong end of the gun. -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 12:29:58 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 14:29:58 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 23 September 2012 22:34, Jeff Davis wrote: > But that's not the whole of the offense. You have to fill out the > indictment with the record of the West's actual treatment of Muslim > countries for say, the last hundred years. "Modern" (eg. fundamentalist) Islam is the invention of the judaeo-chistian West. What the West has actually and regularly fought is every vaguely secular, vaguely socialist, vaguely revolutionary movement or government in the muslim world, be it composed by things so diverse as Nasserism, the Lybian Jamahirya, Al Fatah, the Baath parties, the Pahlavi party, the Somali Supreme Revolutionary Council, the Afghan People Democratic Party, the Algerian FLN, the Kemalian revolution, the Yugoslavian federation, etc. What is the product of such policy? Democratically-sanctioned rule of Hamas in the Gaza stripes, Muslim Brothers everywhere, Talibans, Hezbollah, Somali Islamic Courts, the UCK mafia in Kosovo, and yes, pro-West puppet governments which in anything "religious" (say, women status, criminal law) are at least equal, and usually much worse, than their predecessors. And, sure, some of such apt pupils bite from time to time the hand having fed them sofar, and still feeding them in so many circumstances. But it is clearly a quarrel amongst monotheistic cousins, where all parties are just trying to be holier and more radical than thou and have the utmost respect for the respective faiths... -- Stefano Vaj From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 13:55:37 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 06:55:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: Stefano, I never meant to imply we should invade them to save them from themselves. I'm a non-interventionist in my foreign policy--if you attack us, we'll take you out by whatever means necessary, otherwise we'll leave you alone. The US needs to stop bombing and invading everyone it sees, and stop arranging coups, and stop messing around with the affairs of the rest of the world. Then, we wouldn't have run into this whole mess of Islamic terrorism in the first place. The simple fact is that, whatever the historical reasons, the culture of the West is better in terms of supporting human flourishing than that of Muslim countries. I do not think the historical causes are important at this point, except insofar as we can stop stirring the hornets nest by minding our own business in our foreign policy. Why they are religious extremists doesn't matter; what matters is that they are, and radical Islam now poses a threat to Western civilization. Trying to convert them with guns won't help, we need to convert them with promises of wealth and gadgets and through the power of rational argumentation and the spreading of Western culture, just like every other culture in the world. Their extremism will die quickly as they get wealthier and their people are exposed to the products of the West (other than bullets and bombs). It's what ultimately took down Communism, it's what is slowly destabilizing the Communists in China, and it is what will take down radical Islam. --Joshua Job. On Sep 24, 2012 5:50 AM, "Stefano Vaj" wrote: > On 24 September 2012 01:58, Joshua Job wrote: > > Only the grossest moral relativism could put the horrific civil rights > abuses > > perpetrated in the Muslim world with high levels of public support by > > Muslims living there with the actions of Western states in those > countries. > > The West is a superior culture, more supportive of human flourishing, > than > > the cultures of Muslim countries. > > I am an avowed moral relativist (I do not know about "gross"), and as > such that I strongly oppose the islamisation of the society I live in, > starting with the massive slave trade from defeated muslim countries, > exactly because I have no reason to consider muslim "truth" and > "values" as superior to mine. > > But the rhetoric of "superior cultures" and of the "burden of the > white man" is exactly the worst that Islam has derived from western > legacy, from the crusades and the colonisation on, and I really think > the time has come to drop it altogether. > > Moreover, as a transhumanist, I am confident in change, diversity and > self-determination. > > I am not deluded about the fact that conflicts of interests and > Darwinian competition amongst different woldviews will ever cease, but > eschatological ideas about an alleged moral duty of killing people to > save them from themselves is a very slippery slope where we can easily > find ourselves at the wrong end of the gun. > > -- > 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 spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 13:49:30 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 06:49:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <007101cd9a5b$6bd86e60$43894b20$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Grigg Subject: Re: [ExI] riots again Spike wrote: >>.Google-owned YouTube is in a tough spot here. If they leave the video up there, the Mormons riot. If they take it down, they send the message to the Mormons that rioting is the way to get things done. I don't know how to not be evil in that case. Suggestions? >>> >.Spike, my friend, Mormons don't riot when they don't get their way... : ) .John Let us continue to pray for peace in the restive Middle West. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 14:21:21 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:21:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> On 24 Sep 2012, at 14:55, Joshua Job wrote: > The simple fact is that, whatever the historical reasons, the culture of the West is better in terms of supporting human flourishing than that of Muslim countries. I do not think the historical causes are important at this point, You may not think history is important, but everybody else does. (This is a perennial problem in US relations with the rest of the world -- Americans seem to think that there's a magic reset button they can hit, and after they hit it everything will be all right going forward.) Firstly, you're talking about cultures that take blood feuds seriously. Who bushwacked whose great-great-grandad is a matter of continuing and ongoing grievance a century later. You may write this off as a side-effect of weak state-level institutions such as an impartial legal system and an effective rule of law -- and you'd be right -- but it's the mind-set everyone is steeped in, and it's going to take a human life span to move past it. Minimum. Remember, your own culture isn't so far past that stage ... Secondly, there is a *recent* and *on-going* source of grievance in the shape of on-going killer robot strikes on funerals and wedding parties (never mind the actual targets: "collateral damage" is *terrible* public relations). There is a *recent* source of grievance in the shape of two invasions and huge consequential civilian casualties. American media always minimize the death toll in any war; to this day, most USAns think the Vietnam War only killed around 60,000 people (the number of US war dead). (The actual death toll was measured in the millions.) What's been going on in the middle east since 9/11 is worse than most people recognize, by a very long way. > except insofar as we can stop stirring the hornets nest by minding our own business in our foreign policy. Why they are religious extremists doesn't matter; what matters is that they are, and radical Islam now poses a threat to Western civilization. Nonsense. Radical Islam doesn't have strategic bombers and ICBMs. To the extent that there are radical islamists living in western nations and plotting mayhem, the solution is a task for intelligence-led policing initiatives. The post-9/11 over-reaction resembles anaphylactic shock -- yes, Al Qaida got lucky. But it's about the last stroke of luck they'd ever have had, if not for the idiotic decision to invade Iraq and de-emphasize reconstruction in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, however, the damage we've permitted our governments to do in our collective name over the past century is going to take another century to heal. Because if the neighbourhood gangster stops kicking you in the head and announces, "I've decided to go straight", it takes you a bit longer than 30 seconds to decide to trust him again. -- Charlie From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 14:28:16 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:28:16 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 24 September 2012 15:55, Joshua Job wrote: > The simple fact is that, whatever the historical reasons, the culture of the > West is better in terms of supporting human flourishing than that of Muslim > countries. I would qualify that with an "in our opinion", as you say in court, but this is very possible. In a while, however, both cultures could be made irrelevant by Chindia, in spite of our (and Muslim) superiority complexes. :-) > Trying to convert them with guns won't help, we need to convert them with > promises of wealth and gadgets and through the power of rational > argumentation and the spreading of Western culture, just like every other > culture in the world. What about not trying to convert them *at all*? In the Middle East, save for the Saudi kingdom which is itself a Western creation through our support for the Wahabite counter-reformist sect, Islam was well on its way to become something not so different from what the Orthodox Church may be for the Russian Federation, less than Judaism might be for Israel. One can find Khadafi or Pahlavi or Kemal Ataturk or Arafat quite funny leaders, but during their rule women were not supposed to wear a veil, not even as a matter of a social norm, and feodalist/theocratic remains were actively fought as a threat to entirely secular states. So, Western policies regularly betting on religious extremism have been a monumental failures. Or have they? It could be argued that our own societies are becoming increasingly fundamentalist and intolerant and, yes, "anti-relativistic", with the "clash of civilisation" being an important ingredient in such change, so perhaps this has always been intended after all. -- Stefano Vaj From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 14:40:09 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 07:40:09 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots in the middle west, was: RE: equinox Message-ID: <009401cd9a62$7fdc29e0$7f947da0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Grigg >>.Of course all those countries in which the radical Mormons are known to riot, the radical Mormons are rioting. spike >.The real Joseph Smith would have at first lovingly scolded you for doing such a thing, then forgiven you, next insisted you to join his family for dinner. The Church leadership can airdrop them into any public relations troublezone, within a mere 24 hours! lol .John ; ) Note to extropians: if you haven't met John Grigg in person, I do hope someday you get a chance to do so. He really is the way he writes, the real deal, a tall glass of ice water in a scorching desert. Johnny there you go again, killing us with kindness. I do commend you sir, you are the Green Beret of goodness, special forces of sympathy, the storm trooper of tolerance, the SEAL team of beneficence, a true gift to soften the sometimes harsh rhetoric that is seen in this wild wayward medium of the internet. I do confess I sometimes conflate Mormon with other groups known to riot immediately after their weekly worship meetings in the suffering war-torn Middle West, such as those wild Episcopalians. At the same time, I do recognize that Mormonism is the only actual religion (that I know of) represented even in small minority in Extropianism, if we discount atheism and Flying Spaghetti Monster a religions. You, Brent, and perhaps some less vocal others have concluded that Extropian notions are not necessarily antithetical to your chosen faith. John, you have a gift. Do me a favor sir, don't ever change. Or if so, change only ideas and not your kindhearted disposition. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 14:31:51 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:31:51 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: I am sick tired of reading, how the West is to blame after all. No matter what those Muslim masses do, they have learned it form or through the Western influence. Or it is a justified retaliation for the Mosadek's case. Or something. Sick tired of this masochism. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 14:45:03 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 07:45:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> Message-ID: <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Charlie Stross >...Consequently, we're dealing with people who have grown up KNOWING that any publication whatsoever MUST HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY A GOVERNMENT...It's going to take more than a generation to break them of this habit, and in the meantime we're all in for a bumpy ride. -- Charlie _______________________________________________ Ah, excellent point Charlie. A possible solution is that we swamp them with actual blasphemy, not just the haphazard random event, but a concentrated, intentional and enthusiastic effort. This notion was suggested to me at lunch by one of our own, who I intentionally did not name but invite to own the idea. It looks to me like a reasonable strategy where we don't have assets to protect is to drop information rather than bombs. spike From bbenzai at yahoo.com Mon Sep 24 15:13:47 2012 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben Zaiboc) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:13:47 -0700 (PDT) Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 108, Issue 27 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1348499627.69654.YahooMailClassic@web114417.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Charlie Stross concluded: Re: [ExI] riots again > Therefore they see an insulting film and they *know* without > being told that it was organized and approved by the US > state censors. > > It's going to take more than a generation to break them of > this habit, and in the meantime we're all in for a bumpy > ride. Except I doubt if even a tiny fraction of the rioters actually saw this film. I suspect that they were /told/ to riot (not in so many words, but in effect), or at least strongly encouraged, and the film was a flimsy excuse. Ben Zaiboc From nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 15:41:22 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:41:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: Charlie, I realize history matters to other people, but it doesn't change the policies we need to enact. We still need to stop intervening, recognize invasions are not effective means to combat terrorism, and we need to not overreact to attacks like we did after 9/11. When I said it is a threat, I meant in the same sense as I view communism as a threat--an ideological foe, that may or may not require the occasional use of force to combat. In the modern world, terrorists have little to no power or importance beyond what we give them through our irrational fears. Even if there were a 9/11 every year, they'd have increased the murder rate by less than 10 percent. However, the spread of values anti liberal values must be fought--with words. I don't think it'll take a century, I imagine their extremism will disappear after they get somewhat richer and we've stopped bombing them for a decade or two. Their secularist movements will blossom soon after that. And they'll be forced to move on from their religion when faced with uploading, AI, the end of scarcity, and the prospect of actual not-dying immortality. --Joshua Job. On Sep 24, 2012 7:22 AM, "Charlie Stross" wrote: > > On 24 Sep 2012, at 14:55, Joshua Job wrote: > > > The simple fact is that, whatever the historical reasons, the culture of > the West is better in terms of supporting human flourishing than that of > Muslim countries. I do not think the historical causes are important at > this point, > > You may not think history is important, but everybody else does. > > (This is a perennial problem in US relations with the rest of the world -- > Americans seem to think that there's a magic reset button they can hit, and > after they hit it everything will be all right going forward.) > > Firstly, you're talking about cultures that take blood feuds seriously. > Who bushwacked whose great-great-grandad is a matter of continuing and > ongoing grievance a century later. You may write this off as a side-effect > of weak state-level institutions such as an impartial legal system and an > effective rule of law -- and you'd be right -- but it's the mind-set > everyone is steeped in, and it's going to take a human life span to move > past it. Minimum. Remember, your own culture isn't so far past that stage > ... > > Secondly, there is a *recent* and *on-going* source of grievance in the > shape of on-going killer robot strikes on funerals and wedding parties > (never mind the actual targets: "collateral damage" is *terrible* public > relations). There is a *recent* source of grievance in the shape of two > invasions and huge consequential civilian casualties. American media always > minimize the death toll in any war; to this day, most USAns think the > Vietnam War only killed around 60,000 people (the number of US war dead). > (The actual death toll was measured in the millions.) What's been going on > in the middle east since 9/11 is worse than most people recognize, by a > very long way. > > > except insofar as we can stop stirring the hornets nest by minding our > own business in our foreign policy. Why they are religious extremists > doesn't matter; what matters is that they are, and radical Islam now poses > a threat to Western civilization. > > Nonsense. Radical Islam doesn't have strategic bombers and ICBMs. To the > extent that there are radical islamists living in western nations and > plotting mayhem, the solution is a task for intelligence-led policing > initiatives. The post-9/11 over-reaction resembles anaphylactic shock -- > yes, Al Qaida got lucky. But it's about the last stroke of luck they'd ever > have had, if not for the idiotic decision to invade Iraq and de-emphasize > reconstruction in Afghanistan. > > Unfortunately, however, the damage we've permitted our governments to do > in our collective name over the past century is going to take another > century to heal. Because if the neighbourhood gangster stops kicking you in > the head and announces, "I've decided to go straight", it takes you a bit > longer than 30 seconds to decide to trust him again. > > > -- Charlie > _______________________________________________ > 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 nanite1018 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 15:31:23 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:31:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: Charlie, I realize history matters to other people, but it doesn't change the policies we need to enact. We still need to stop intervening, recognize invasions are not effective means to combat terrorism, and we need to not overreact to attacks like we did after 9/11. When I said it is a threat, I meant in the same sense as I view communism as a threat--an ideological foe, that may or may not require the occasional use of force to combat. In the modern world, terrorists have little to no power or importance beyond what we give them through our irrational fears. Even if there were a 9/11 every year, they'd have increased the murder rate by less than 10 percent. However, the spread of anti-liberal values must be fought--with words. I don't think it'll take a century to heal. They'll stop caring once we've cured most diseases and have advanced automation and nanotechnology so we can provide everyone an upper class American Life guaranteed using only a tiny portion of world GDP. At that point, most current problems will simply disappear. --Joshua Job. On Sep 24, 2012 7:22 AM, "Charlie Stross" wrote: > > On 24 Sep 2012, at 14:55, Joshua Job wrote: > > > The simple fact is that, whatever the historical reasons, the culture of > the West is better in terms of supporting human flourishing than that of > Muslim countries. I do not think the historical causes are important at > this point, > > You may not think history is important, but everybody else does. > > (This is a perennial problem in US relations with the rest of the world -- > Americans seem to think that there's a magic reset button they can hit, and > after they hit it everything will be all right going forward.) > > Firstly, you're talking about cultures that take blood feuds seriously. > Who bushwacked whose great-great-grandad is a matter of continuing and > ongoing grievance a century later. You may write this off as a side-effect > of weak state-level institutions such as an impartial legal system and an > effective rule of law -- and you'd be right -- but it's the mind-set > everyone is steeped in, and it's going to take a human life span to move > past it. Minimum. Remember, your own culture isn't so far past that stage > ... > > Secondly, there is a *recent* and *on-going* source of grievance in the > shape of on-going killer robot strikes on funerals and wedding parties > (never mind the actual targets: "collateral damage" is *terrible* public > relations). There is a *recent* source of grievance in the shape of two > invasions and huge consequential civilian casualties. American media always > minimize the death toll in any war; to this day, most USAns think the > Vietnam War only killed around 60,000 people (the number of US war dead). > (The actual death toll was measured in the millions.) What's been going on > in the middle east since 9/11 is worse than most people recognize, by a > very long way. > > > except insofar as we can stop stirring the hornets nest by minding our > own business in our foreign policy. Why they are religious extremists > doesn't matter; what matters is that they are, and radical Islam now poses > a threat to Western civilization. > > Nonsense. Radical Islam doesn't have strategic bombers and ICBMs. To the > extent that there are radical islamists living in western nations and > plotting mayhem, the solution is a task for intelligence-led policing > initiatives. The post-9/11 over-reaction resembles anaphylactic shock -- > yes, Al Qaida got lucky. But it's about the last stroke of luck they'd ever > have had, if not for the idiotic decision to invade Iraq and de-emphasize > reconstruction in Afghanistan. > > Unfortunately, however, the damage we've permitted our governments to do > in our collective name over the past century is going to take another > century to heal. Because if the neighbourhood gangster stops kicking you in > the head and announces, "I've decided to go straight", it takes you a bit > longer than 30 seconds to decide to trust him again. > > > -- Charlie > _______________________________________________ > 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 Mon Sep 24 16:00:21 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 17:00:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 4:41 PM, Joshua Job wrote: > Charlie, I realize history matters to other people, but it doesn't change > the policies we need to enact. We still need to stop intervening, > recognize invasions are not effective means to combat terrorism, and we need > to not overreact to attacks like we did after 9/11. > > It's not going to happen. The US military budget is more than the rest of the world put together. Neither Obama or Romney intend to reduce it. The future planned for America is to threaten the rest of the world and take what it wants by any means possible. As the dollar collapses the US won't be able to buy what it needs. Force will be the only alternative. Nothing personal, it's just business. BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 16:35:02 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:35:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 23, 2012 Jeff Davis wrote: > The last ten years of the West vs Islam has left the West with a default > anti-Muslim bias. Yes, but its not as strong a anti-Muslim bias as I'd like, and I wish the West had a similar anti-Christian bias. > Muslim = bad has thus become the uncritical "neutral" view As rules of thumb go that one isn't bad. > Then some clown insults their most sacred cultural symbol, When Monty Python insulted the most sacred cultural symbol of the West 30 years ago with their movie "The Life of Brian" did homicidal American mobs attack the British Embassy and murder the ambassador? No, instead people who didn't like the movie just gave it bad reviews because they were something called *civilized*. And by the way, anybody on this list who has not seen that wonderful movie should hang their head in shame. > and some folk -- I won't name names -- say "Look at these uncivilized > people! > I say "LOOK AT THESE UNCIVILIZED PEOPLE!" and my name is John K Clark. It just amazes me that people, even people on this list, continue to make lame excuses for these murderous nincompoops. > Give me a break. > No. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 16:28:18 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 09:28:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> Message-ID: <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of spike Subject: Re: [ExI] riots again >... On Behalf Of Charlie Stross >>...Consequently, we're dealing with people who have grown up KNOWING >that any publication whatsoever MUST HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY A GOVERNMENT...It's going to take more than a generation to break them of this habit, and in the meantime we're all in for a bumpy ride. -- Charlie _______________________________________________ >...Ah, excellent point Charlie. A possible solution is that we swamp them with actual blasphemy... spike _______________________________________________ A further thought Charlie, regarding your notion that those who have always lived under censorship don't understand freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Somehow we must communicate to those living without free speech that they too can get a YouTube account, they too can get on the internet, they can post whatever they want, anonymously, they can figure out a way to get to WikiLeaks. Therefore those unaccustomed to this freedom have been given, rather have been forced upon them a de facto freedom of speech and freedom of the press, whether they want it or not. Ready or not, here it comes. Clearly at least some of the vocal players in these information-controlled places violently oppose the notion of freedom of speech. Not only did they not ask for it, they are murderously opposed to offering it to the masses, their submissive subjects. It is too much like teaching slaves to read. But this is not our problem, it is theirs, and a big problem it is. Freedom is coming to benighted lands, terrifying as that prospect may be, for there is no telling what the newly freed masses may do to their former memetic captors. Blasphemy might occur, horrors! If these societies wish to oppose information freedom, they need to take it up with WikiLeaks, not the US government. Note that the riots are all about the Joseph Smith video, not about illegal robo-bombing ( which for some incomprehensible reason, they seem to take that in stride.) They must figure out some way to prevent the internet from penetrating their cage of darkness. It is an understatement to say that information wants to be free. Information wants to brutally destroy ignorance. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 15:55:57 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 08:55:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Fuel for social disruption was Re: riots again Message-ID: Wars, riots and related social disruption are the outcome of population growth in the face of limits. Simple thought experiment: no population, no wars and no riots. This isn't new. Humans population growth has filled the world to capacity for a long time. In the "natural" state, human populations fluctuate, building up in good times and falling when conditions (such as weather) reduced the ability of the ecosystem to feed the existing population. A lot follows from the evolved responses to this reality. (For example, the psychological mechanisms behind religions.) In the last 10,000 years or so, humans have figured out how to modify the ecosystem to feed a very large multiple of the numbers of humans who could live on the same area as hunter-gatherers. Finally, for reasons that are not entirely clear, humans have reduced population growth in some parts of the world to near zero. Understanding the model helps sort out the proximate causes (a silly video) from the ultimate cause, economic growth not keeping up with population growth. Keith From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 16:48:55 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 09:48:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] keynes vs hayek experiment coming: was RE: riots again Message-ID: <00d001cd9a74$7c6c5250$7544f6f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK >... >...The US military budget is more than the rest of the world put together. Neither Obama or Romney intend to reduce it. ...BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, I disagree, and we have a test case coming up within three months. During the last negotiations about a year ago regarding increasing the US government's borrowing, the limit was allowed to increase to a level that would postpone another negotiation session until after the November elections. Both sides saw some advantage in this, for the consequences of the US government's living within its means will be uncomfortable indeed, just as some households insist they just cannot live on what they earn, as they borrow themselves to bankruptcy. As a condition of increasing that borrowing limit, both ends (and the middle) of the political spectrum put in place conditions that were designed to be unpalatable to the other side, carefully designed to force the other guy to the bargaining table. The agreement stipulated that if certain budget conditions were not met, then taxes would go up dramatically (the Bush tax cuts would be allowed to expire) and spending would be cut equally dramatically across the board, cutting domestic programs, defense (about half the cuts would come out of defense) and everything else. This process is known as sequestration. If sequestration occurs, most of the US budget deficit will be eliminated in a remarkably painful process felt across the political spectrum. Much to everyone's surprise, the carefully engineered negative consequences failed to yank the other guy back to the table, and now the legislators are playing a game of chicken. Mr. Romney says he will do this and that to prevent this budget Armageddon, but isn't convincing. Sequestration is the default course of action. Mr. Obama has only said if they don't cut defense enough and cut too much of the domestic stuff, he would veto. However those proportions have already been worked out by congress and are not easily renegotiated, so there is a high probability he would not be given the opportunity to veto. So now we have a unique opportunity to actually test the notions of Hayek vs Keynes, starting 2 January 2013. They Hayek crowd would take a deep breath and say: OK, let the sequestration happen. Sooner or later the US must stop spending beyond its means, and we know it will be painful, but it must happen, so let's get on with it, the economy will eventually recover and be stronger than before, and far less dependent on government spending. The Keynesians would predict... well, I don't know what the Keynesians would predict, I don't understand that theory well enough. If we have any Keynesians here, do offer a prediction please. spike From pharos at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 17:20:41 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:20:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] keynes vs hayek experiment coming: was RE: riots again In-Reply-To: <00d001cd9a74$7c6c5250$7544f6f0$@att.net> References: <00d001cd9a74$7c6c5250$7544f6f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 5:48 PM, spike wrote: > BillK, I disagree, and we have a test case coming up within three months. > During the last negotiations about a year ago regarding increasing the US > government's borrowing, the limit was allowed to increase to a level that > would postpone another negotiation session until after the November > elections. Both sides saw some advantage in this, for the consequences of > the US government's living within its means will be uncomfortable indeed, > just as some households insist they just cannot live on what they earn, as > they borrow themselves to bankruptcy. > > As a condition of increasing that borrowing limit, both ends (and the > middle) of the political spectrum put in place conditions that were designed > to be unpalatable to the other side, carefully designed to force the other > guy to the bargaining table. The agreement stipulated that if certain > budget conditions were not met, then taxes would go up dramatically (the > Bush tax cuts would be allowed to expire) and spending would be cut equally > dramatically across the board, cutting domestic programs, defense (about > half the cuts would come out of defense) and everything else. This process > is known as sequestration. If sequestration occurs, most of the US budget > deficit will be eliminated in a remarkably painful process felt across the > political spectrum. > > Much to everyone's surprise, the carefully engineered negative consequences > failed to yank the other guy back to the table, and now the legislators are > playing a game of chicken. Mr. Romney says he will do this and that to > prevent this budget Armageddon, but isn't convincing. Sequestration is the > default course of action. Mr. Obama has only said if they don't cut defense > enough and cut too much of the domestic stuff, he would veto. However those > proportions have already been worked out by congress and are not easily > renegotiated, so there is a high probability he would not be given the > opportunity to veto. > > So now we have a unique opportunity to actually test the notions of Hayek vs > Keynes, starting 2 January 2013. They Hayek crowd would take a deep breath > and say: OK, let the sequestration happen. Sooner or later the US must > stop spending beyond its means, and we know it will be painful, but it must > happen, so let's get on with it, the economy will eventually recover and be > stronger than before, and far less dependent on government spending. The > Keynesians would predict... well, I don't know what the Keynesians would > predict, I don't understand that theory well enough. If we have any > Keynesians here, do offer a prediction please. > > I think you are out of date and much too trusting of politicians. :) See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19076024 1 August 2012 US budget: Congress leaders reach short-term deal Harry Reid Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called for a "spirit of compromise" US Congressional leaders have agreed to keep funding the government until next March, narrowly avoiding an end-of-year showdown over taxes and spending. ----------------- Another fudge. And guess what will happen in March 2013? That's right - Three weeks of panic headlines, crisis mode enabled, then another fudge. They (and Euro pols as well) will keep kicking the can down the road until it all collapses. The correct (but very painful) policies will only be chosen when there is absolutely no alternative. BillK From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 17:10:44 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:10:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark >.When Monty Python insulted the most sacred cultural symbol of the West 30 years ago with their movie "The Life of Brian" . anybody on this list who has not seen that wonderful movie should hang their head in shame. . John K Clark Life of Brian virgins are in for a treat, if you have the right sense of humor for that sort of thing. You will suddenly understand hundreds of LoB quotes so often used by the geek crowd, such as ".I'm aliiive, I'm aliiiiive..." and ".do not tempt him, shallow ones!" and ".UNBELIEVAH! Kill the heretic!" Ah such fun silliness. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krb2OdQksMc Thanks for reminding me John, it has been 33 years since LoB scandalized believers. I loved it, and I was a fundamentalist believer at the time. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 17:52:57 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 10:52:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] keynes vs hayek experiment coming: was RE: riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00d001cd9a74$7c6c5250$7544f6f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00fd01cd9a7d$6e848320$4b8d8960$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... I think you are out of date and much too trusting of politicians. :) See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-19076024 1 August 2012 >...US budget: Congress leaders reach short-term deal Harry Reid Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has called for a "spirit of compromise" US Congressional leaders have agreed to keep funding the government until next March, narrowly avoiding an end-of-year showdown over taxes and spending. BillK ----------------- BillK, this BBC article is a little misleading in its critical lack of detail. What this article refers to is a process called Continuing Resolution (CR). They didn't reach a deal on sequestration. That question is still very much in front of congress during the lame duck session after the elections and before 2 January. There is *plenty* of buzz about that, from all branches of government. The deal they made only keeps the government in business until March, but we know they won't let the government go unpaid. What hasn't been answered is if the Bush tax cuts will expire, and if they do, they need to inform those who withhold taxes, for failure of employers to withhold sufficient taxes in many cases means those funds cannot be collected, now or ever. The numbers of people thus effected are too big to fail, too big to jail. The congressional leaders in both houses have called for a spirit of compromise, but no compromise has been agreed upon, and negotiations are apparently not even taking place. Currently the default course is for the tax cuts to expire. Many if not most Americans think that will somehow be averted, but if it isn't, then the cuts also automatically go into place as well. The CR is not a decision on sequestration. It will be interesting and weird to watch. spike From gsantostasi at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 18:35:33 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:35:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> Message-ID: Was not LoB banned in Italy by the catholic church for a long time? Giovanni On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 12:10 PM, spike wrote: > ** ** > > ** ** > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *John Clark > > ** > > *>?*When Monty Python insulted the most sacred cultural symbol of the > West 30 years ago with their movie "The Life of Brian" ? anybody on this > list who has not seen that wonderful movie should hang their head in > shame. ? John K Clark**** > > ** ** > > Life of Brian virgins are in for a treat, if you have the right sense of > humor for that sort of thing. You will suddenly understand hundreds of LoB > quotes so often used by the geek crowd, such as ??I?m aliiive, I?m > aliiiiive...? and ??do not tempt him, shallow ones!? and ??UNBELIEVAH! > Kill the heretic!? Ah such fun silliness.**** > > ** ** > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krb2OdQksMc**** > > ** ** > > Thanks for reminding me John, it has been 33 years since LoB scandalized > believers. I loved it, and I was a fundamentalist believer at the time.** > ** > > ** ** > > 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 charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 18:59:42 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 19:59:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> On 24 Sep 2012, at 19:35, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Was not LoB banned in Italy by the catholic church for a long time? > Giovanni > > On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 12:10 PM, spike wrote: > > >?When Monty Python insulted the most sacred cultural symbol of the West 30 years ago with their movie "The Life of Brian" ? anybody on this list who has not seen that wonderful movie should hang their head in shame. ? John K Clark Also note that Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was: * Banned by 39 local councils in the UK, or given an 18 certificate (preventing screening) * Shunned by BBC and ITV in the UK (network channels who'd usually buy broadcast rights two years after box office release) * Banned by Norway * Banned by Ireland * Screenings in New York picketed by religious demonstrators (Christian *and* Jewish) * Widespread picketing of screenings in the UK by Mary Whitehouse's NVLA * An attempt at private prosecution for blasphemy in the UK failed only because the last previous blasphemy trial had more or less brought that law into disrepute (it was finally abolished in 2008 but continues to be an offense in Northern Ireland) We in the west are not as far removed from this shit as we like to think we are. -- Charlie From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 18:50:08 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:50:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <007101cd9a5b$6bd86e60$43894b20$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <007101cd9a5b$6bd86e60$43894b20$@att.net> Message-ID: <5060AB60.60905@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 15:49, spike ha scritto: > *>?**On Behalf Of *John Grigg > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] riots again >>?Spike, my friend, Mormons don't riot when they don't get their way... : > ) ?John > > Let us continue to pray for peace in the restive Middle West. I would pray for freedom in the M.E. Peace is not worth much without freedom. Mirco From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 19:02:00 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:02:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 7:31 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > I am sick tired of reading, how the West is to blame after all. Various people are "sick and tired" of various things. Me, too. Bad juju the world over has a tendency to do that. You're unhappy, I'm unhappy. Fine. Can we deal with the facts and the situation now? Otherwise the solution is for you to just stop reading about stuff that upsets you. (Actually, this is an excellent solution: Don't waste your time on the bullsh*t going on in the world. Concentrate exclusively on those matters that affect you personally. Use your time and energy to build your own peaceful and prosperous little world close at hand.) > No matter what those Muslim masses do, they have learned it form or through the Western influence. Or it is a justified retaliation for the Mosadek's case. > > Or something. > > Sick tired of this masochism. Trade siding with sado for siding with yourself. Best, Jeff Davis "The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them." George Orwell From charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 19:06:25 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 20:06:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 24 Sep 2012, at 20:02, Jeff Davis wrote: > > (Actually, this is an excellent solution: Don't waste your time on > the bullsh*t going on in the world. Concentrate exclusively on those > matters that affect you personally. Use your time and energy to build > your own peaceful and prosperous little world close at hand.) Ahem: I'd add the rider, "without shitting in anyone else's soup." Remember the golden rule? "Do not do unto others that which would be repugnant if done by them unto you." If we could all play by that rule, the world would be ... well, not perfect; there are some problems we face that can only be solved -- within the existing constraints -- if we accept some personal limits: but it wouldn't be as bad a place as it could be otherwise. -- Charlie From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 19:15:40 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:15:40 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5060B15C.9090302@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 10:51, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > Yes, those guys are vile mediaeval reactionaries. > But we -- or our realpolitik-obsessed, short-sighted leaders -- > created them. Is it a good reason to destroy them? > That kind of fundamentalist religious extremism is a > symptom of a local political culture where all progress towards > democracy and enlightenment has been exterminated for a generation. There was not local political culture interested in enlightenment and democracy. Never existed. All progress was imposed to them by external forces for a reason or another. > Religious groups, let us not forget, also do charity work, feeding > and clothing the poor. No. They only feed their poor. Not all poor. They use their charity to buy the poor and keep them dependent to them. They use money to buy conversion to Islam (conversion to other religion is punished by death). No money for kafir. > In the case of the Taliban, they also brought > law to the lawless. They brought tyranny to the lawless. Moving from a tyranny to another is no improvement. In the case of Talibans they were financed by an external power (aka Pakistan, the Land of the Pure (the Pure are the Muslims, the others are impure). > This is also going on in other parts of the > Middle East; why do you think Hamas is popular in the West Bank, or It is not so popular, now in Gaza. It happen when they become the government and start to force people to obey them. > the Muslim Brotherhood able to win elections in Egypt? For the same reason Hitler was able to win in Germany. People fear and run to vote for some savior. > If the > Israelis hadn't stomped Arafat's much more secular and > western-oriented Fatah flat, and the Generals (from Nasser onwards) > hadn't stifled democratic opposition, the reactionary extremist > movements wouldn't have had room to grow. Sorry, but this is incorrect (an understatement). Arafat, as he returned in the West Bank, started to impose his power over the locals and to indoctrinated the children about freeing all Palestine, "from the River to the Sea". He took the money for himself and his cronies. He rejected any and every peace offer from Israel. He never implemented any part of the Oslo Agreement. The Palestinian people never existed before Arafat was throw out of Jordanian by King Hussein. It was PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). But the people in Palestine identified themselves as Arabs. Not Palestinians. Not even now they really identify themselves as Palestinians. They were Jordanians in the West Bank and apolides in Gaza (Egypt never dreamed to give them any right when they ruled there). Ask Lebanese as much the love Palestinians and if they contemplate to give them the right to become citizens of Lebanon (ditto for any other government there). The war of the Arabs against Israel are racially and religiously motivated. They can not accept a state and a government not Arab and not Muslim. All the other policies are descendant from the religious and racial intolerance of Arabs. Mirco From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 19:28:02 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 12:28:02 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 9:35 AM, John Clark wrote: > It just amazes me that people, even people on this list, continue to make lame excuses for these murderous nincompoops. US murders and murders by proxy: Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos: 2.5 million murdered Nicaragua: 25,000 murdered El Salvador: 80.000 murdered Guatemala: 250,000 murdered Indonesia: 500,000 murdered East Timor: 150,000 murdered Chile, Argentina, Panama, Grenada, Angola: (look up the numbers yourself) murdered Iraq(gulf wars 1, 2, and sanctions) : 2,000,000 murdered Afghanistan: (who the hell knows how many) murdered It just amazes me that people, even people on this list, continue to make lame excuses for these murderous nincompoops. Give yourself a break. Best, Jeff Davis "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 19:29:04 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:29:04 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5060B480.2010208@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 17:31, Joshua Job ha scritto: > I don't think it'll take a century to heal. They'll stop caring once > we've cured most diseases and have advanced automation and > nanotechnology so we can provide everyone an upper class American Life > guaranteed using only a tiny portion of world GDP. At that point, most > current problems will simply disappear. You don't make a barbarian soft giving him treasures and gifts. You only make his appetite grow. It is like paying the Danegeld. People change their world view only when their world view is too costly to keep. This was true for Germans and Japanese during WW2. This is true for Muslims now. It is "You build your pyre and I build my gallow". Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 19:47:22 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:47:22 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5060B8CA.80508@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 10:55, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > > On 24 Sep 2012, at 04:59, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > >> You can explain how much you want but the bottom line is that the muslim culture is repressive and backwards. > > Note that throughout the middle east, there has been NO tradition of free speech in living memory. Correction: "They have no tradition of free speech, ever." They declared rationalism an heresy and exterminated the people advocating it (the Mutazilite muslims) around the 1,000-1,200 CE. Islam is "submission". They also have no tradition of ending slavery. And no tradition of Human Rights. Islam have no place for human rights. Whatever is different from Islam is hated and destroyed ASAP. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 19:54:39 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:54:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5060BA7F.5090604@libero.it> Il 23/09/2012 22:34, Jeff Davis ha scritto: > I've a slightly different take on this business. I read your post as the US puritanical vision: 1) it allowed to burn witches doing nothing wrong. 2) it allowed the enslavement of Africans and to keep their descendants in bondages for centuries 3) it allowed / needed the stratification of society first with the Segregation policy and then with the Great Society, just to keep the blacks in the plantation/ghetto. A self-righteus vision fed by selective ignorance. > The last ten years of the West vs Islam has left the West with a > default anti-Muslim bias. The last millenium and half left the world with a default anti-Muslims bias. Maybe the massacres they did as their religion commanded them and excused them have something to do with this view. Not only for Western, but for anyone experiencing the joy to live under the power of Muslims or near them. Just ask the Thai, the Burmese, the Hindus, the Africans enslaved, castrated and sold from Muslims slave raiders and merchants. Ask the Slav (just think about the genesis of the name). > Muslim = bad has thus become the uncritical > "neutral" view, and disparaging Muslims equivalent to just the > enumeration of "neutral" data. Now why oh why do you suppose the > Muslims are less than pleased with being branded as the new evil, to > be enshrined and employed as the West's new global whipping boy > (replacing the now-retired "commies")? The poor sods are pissed off from the disparaging of others. And then you justify killing, burning, rioting, censoring and whatever. Do you justify the same for Catholics or other generic Christians when they are disparaged? when Jesus is moked? > But that's not the whole of the offense. You have to fill out the > indictment with the record of the West's actual treatment of Muslim > countries for say, the last hundred years. Just what about the Armenian Genocide? Ops. It never existed, it would make Muslims feel bad to ask them why they did it. And just a few decades before, the massacres of Serbians by the Turks. But they are brown people, so they MUST be saints. Whatever they did is justified. It is the puritanical vision: use the brown people to brown beat your adversaries. > I won't list the details, > but suffice it to say the treatment has been very abusive. So in > addition to making Muslims the West's new "niggers", they have also > been looted and brutalized. Yet the citizens of the Western nations > hardly notice this historical context, because the MSM has effectively > erased the truth and replaced it with the strategically, > ideologically, and commercially more exploitable "Muslim = bad" > mythology. In my view, the MSM did his best to protect the Muslims. It doesn't matter if it is true, whatever Muslims do is near always covered or minimized by the press. Because they don't want give ammunition to their ideological enemies. Just ask yourself why the BBC need to call Pakistanis "Asians" or "youths" > Then some clown insults their most sacred cultural symbol, and some > folk -- I won't name names -- say "Look at these uncivilized people! > How backward and savage they are! How intolerant. They have no > experience in our superior cultural values of democracy and freedom of > speech." Our values are superior. It is just so. My right to free speech is more important than the life of one Muslim, of One Million of Muslims or of all Muslims living today and tomorrow. My right to free speech is more important of the lives of anyone willing to take it from me (Muslim or not). > Give me a break. Why would we do it? > If someone invaded your home, killed your father and grandparents > before your eyes, raped your mother and sister, threw the living and > the corpses into the street, took over your home with the help of the > police, covered their crimes with the help of the media, and declared > your anger to be a genetic and cultural predisposition to terroristic > savagery, and kept up this crap for generations, how pissy would you > be? And if they added insult to all this injury by celebrating their > freedom to violate you, by insulting that which is most sacred to you > -- let's say in this case, your mother -- when does it become > reasonable for you to indulge in a little rioting? This remember me "the marocchinate" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marocchinate There is a famous movie about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Women No. It is just stupid. It is not reasonable. And it is not "little rioting". It is killing and mayhem for anyone not falling in line with the rioters. Whatever be their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender, etc. > I'm sorry. The West is engaged in a religious/cultural war against > Muslims, and the West has been the bad guy for quite a while now. The Muslims started the war long ago. Just around the time of Mohammad (Their Pedo Prophet). The others received the memo when the Muslims showed up with a sword. > It's the same ***ATTITUDE*** as in the Athenians vs the Melosians: the > primacy of naked power. > "... the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must." This is the sum of Islam. Islam can be translated as "submission". Just like the movie made by Theo van Gogh. Do you remember the filmmaker a Muslims used to pin a message on his chest with a knife? He said he didn't hate him, just he needed to be punished for his blasphemy. > There are a billion and a half Muslims. The US is in decline. > Payback is coming. The Muslims have nothing. No science, no technology, no industrial base, no resources they are able to exploit by themselves. > "...short of genocide, it is not possible to attain a final military > victory over a justified sense of grievance." > Michael Breen There is no need to genocide them. Just let them feed themselves without external help. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 19:44:14 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:44:14 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5060B80E.5020700@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 20:35, Giovanni Santostasi ha scritto: > Was not LoB banned in Italy by the catholic church for a long time? I found nothing about this. In the same time Life of Brian came out, in Italy was shoot "Il Papocchio" http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Il_pap%27occhio Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 19:47:03 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:47:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5060B8B7.6050202@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 10:55, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > On 24 Sep 2012, at 04:59, Giovanni Santostasi > wrote: > Note that throughout the middle east, there has been NO tradition of > free speech in living memory. There is no tradition of free speech ever. What Islam doesn't like, Islam burn (the books and the people writing them). > State censorship is ubiquitous, because the dictatorships the west > encouraged (and I include the USSR in "the west" in this context -- > communism is an ideology rooted in western enlightenment ideas) > wanted to stamp out opposition. If you consider "state censorship" the Ulema's decrees, I agree. Always remember, in Islam there is no separation of state and church. A Mosque is a place where people pray, adjudicate law, hear political speeches. There is no freedom of conscience. > Consequently, we're dealing with people who have grown up KNOWING > that any publication whatsoever MUST HAVE BEEN APPROVED BY A > GOVERNMENT. I never rioted when some idiot with a turban declared, in a mosque, they would conquer, "manu militari", Rome because their pedo prophet said so. > Therefore they see an insulting film and they *know* without being > told that it was organized and approved by the US state censors. Even if they think so, rioting, killing, etc. is blatantly wrong just for "insulting". > It's going to take more than a generation to break them of this > habit, and in the meantime we're all in for a bumpy ride. The operative word there is "breaking". They need breaking and they will be broken in many different ways. The US (and other westerns) military campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan are the initial and most gentle part of the breaking they will experience. They establish the impossibility to reform Islam from inside or outside in any civilized way minimizing the blood shed and the futility to help them. My opinion is the Ummah will continue with its tantrum fits until they piss someone off seriously. 9/11 was not a serious piss off it was like someone slapped out of the blue without understanding why. A serious piss off is when the Second Conjecture of Wretchard is activated. Just now, the Western World is experiencing an economic and political turning point and there will be a lot of pain to endure. The same economic turning point in the Middle East will be socially and demographically wreaking. And no one will lend a hand to them. Good will is nearly exhausted. Do you think the US will continue to give Egypt 2 billions/year of economic help? Or Europe is interested in accepting a new wave of economic migrants unwilling to integrate? Mirco From jrd1415 at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 20:07:18 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 13:07:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <5060B15C.9090302@libero.it> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <5060B15C.9090302@libero.it> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 12:15 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 24/09/2012 10:51, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > >> That kind of fundamentalist religious extremism is a >> symptom of a local political culture where all progress towards >> democracy and enlightenment has been exterminated for a generation. > > > There was not local political culture interested in enlightenment and > democracy. Never existed. All progress was imposed to them by external > forces for a reason or another. You make enlightenment and democracy into sacred icons of Western culture, worship them, and insist that they are the be all and end all of human progress. Just exactly the same cultural absolutism that you indict the Muslim "extremists" for. You don't need "enlightenment values" -- a damn far cry from actual enlightenment, whatever that might be -- if you already have social harmony. And if you already have social harmony, you sure as hell don't want anything to do with the ridiculous warmongering exceptionalism of Western democracy: a comprehensive fraud -- a feeble circus, a tribal popularity contest, flawed to the point of unworkability, and in it's current incarnation, a wholly owned subsidiary of "Oligarchs 'R' Us". >> Religious groups, let us not forget, also do charity work, feeding >> and clothing the poor. > > > No. They only feed their poor. Not all poor. > They use their charity to buy the poor and keep them dependent to them. > They use money to buy conversion to Islam (conversion to other religion is > punished by death). No money for kafir. > > >> In the case of the Taliban, they also brought >> law to the lawless. > > > They brought tyranny to the lawless. Sorry, Mirco, but that's Western Kool-aid talking. They brought stability. Only when the West wanted to demonize them, was there "austerity" rebranded as tyranny. By that standard, Bush/Cheney was a tyranny, too. > Moving from a tyranny to another is no improvement. Kool-aid aside, the Afghans didn't think so. (I've interviewed just as many Afghans as you have.) > > In the case of Talibans they were financed by an external power (aka > Pakistan, the Land of the Pure (the Pure are the Muslims, the others are > impure). And that's bad because...? Pakistan lives in the neighborhood and -- surprise! surprise! -- has interests there, so they supported the dominant group -- Pashtuns -- in order have influence that served Pakistani interests. What interests does the US/West have there? >> This is also going on in other parts of the >> Middle East; why do you think Hamas is popular in the West Bank, or > > > It is not so popular, now in Gaza. Puleeeese! Kool-aid again. (To whatever extent it might be true, it would be because the Israelis disapprove, and as we all know, when the Israelis disapprove, Palestinians die by the hundreds.) > It happen when they become the government > and start to force people to obey them. > > >> the Muslim Brotherhood able to win elections in Egypt? > > > For the same reason Hitler was able to win in Germany. > People fear and run to vote for some savior. You've lost the argument, Mirco. You're grasping at straws. Give it up. >> If the >> Israelis hadn't stomped Arafat's much more secular and >> western-oriented Fatah flat, and the Generals (from Nasser onwards) >> hadn't stifled democratic opposition, the reactionary extremist >> movements wouldn't have had room to grow. > > Mirco's comments below, from "Sorry" to "Arabs" is just mythical Zionist apologetics. Sorry, Mirco, I just can't let you get away with this. > Sorry, but this is incorrect (an understatement). > Arafat, as he returned in the West Bank, started to impose his power over > the locals and to indoctrinated the children about freeing all Palestine, > "from the River to the Sea". He took the money for himself and his cronies. > He rejected any and every peace offer from Israel. He never implemented any > part of the Oslo Agreement. > > The Palestinian people never existed before Arafat was throw out of > Jordanian by King Hussein. It was PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization). > But the people in Palestine identified themselves as Arabs. Not > Palestinians. Not even now they really identify themselves as Palestinians. > They were Jordanians in the West Bank and apolides in Gaza (Egypt never > dreamed to give them any right when they ruled there). > Ask Lebanese as much the love Palestinians and if they contemplate to give > them the right to become citizens of Lebanon (ditto for any other government > there). > > The war of the Arabs against Israel are racially and religiously motivated. > They can not accept a state and a government not Arab and not Muslim. All > the other policies are descendant from the religious and racial intolerance > of Arabs. Best, Jeff Davis "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." Winston Churchill From anders at aleph.se Mon Sep 24 21:25:42 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:25:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> On 24/09/2012 19:59, Charlie Stross wrote: > Also note that Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was: > ... > * Banned by Norway Which led to the classic Swedish ad slogan: "So fun it was banned in Norway". > We in the west are not as far removed from this shit as we like to think we are. True, but the progress since then has also been fairly remarkable. And that is pretty good news: societies can become more culturally laid back over just a generation. (The *opposite* may also be true, so we better work hard to retain transparency and tolerance, of course. But it is not a hopeless struggle. ) -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From charlie.stross at gmail.com Mon Sep 24 21:36:02 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 22:36:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> Message-ID: <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> On 24 Sep 2012, at 22:25, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 24/09/2012 19:59, Charlie Stross wrote: >> Also note that Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was: >> ... >> * Banned by Norway > > Which led to the classic Swedish ad slogan: "So fun it was banned in Norway". > > >> We in the west are not as far removed from this shit as we like to think we are. > > True, but the progress since then has also been fairly remarkable. And that is pretty good news: societies can become more culturally laid back over just a generation. I'm watching with interest the age stratification in the polling over two issues that are in transition in the west: gay marriage and cannabis legalization. Both broadly supported by the under-50s and broadly disliked by the over-60s. (One problem with life extension tech or meds, if we get them: cultural ossification may be a side-effect, unless there are significant improvements in cognitive function in terms of regaining youthful flexibility and resilience.) -- Charlie From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Sep 24 22:20:52 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:20:52 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <5060B15C.9090302@libero.it> Message-ID: <5060DCC4.2020302@libero.it> Il 24/09/2012 22:07, Jeff Davis ha scritto: > On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 12:15 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: >> There was not local political culture interested in enlightenment and >> democracy. Never existed. All progress was imposed to them by external >> forces for a reason or another. > You make enlightenment and democracy into sacred icons of Western > culture, worship them, and insist that they are the be all and end all > of human progress. Just exactly the same cultural absolutism that you > indict the Muslim "extremists" for. Where I wrote about the magnificent and progressive future of democracy and enlightenment? I think democracy is better of the lack of it, but individual freedom trump democracy. The collective have no right to infringe the rights of the individual. > You don't need "enlightenment values" -- a damn far cry from actual > enlightenment, whatever that might be -- if you already have social > harmony. Social harmony is for bees, ants and termites. Social harmony is for the benefit of individuals, not a reason to kill them because they threaten the social harmony. > And if you already have social harmony, you sure as hell > don't want anything to do with the ridiculous warmongering > exceptionalism of Western democracy: a comprehensive fraud -- a feeble > circus, a tribal popularity contest, flawed to the point of > unworkability, and in it's current incarnation, a wholly owned > subsidiary of "Oligarchs 'R' Us". The point is Islam is not built on "social harmony". It is built on absolute order, top down, from Quran to the common people. The Quran, the Hadit, the Shaaria trump individuals. It is the harmony of the slave's hut. >> They brought tyranny to the lawless. > Sorry, Mirco, but that's Western Kool-aid talking. They brought > stability. I have no use of stability where people is killed or maimed because they don't have a beard long enough, they don't cut the hair in the right way, they rape the women before killing them because it is against the Qurant to kill virgins. > Only when the West wanted to demonize them, was there > "austerity" rebranded as tyranny. By that standard, Bush/Cheney was a > tyranny, too. Will you write in support of Idi Amin food tastes in future also? >> Moving from a tyranny to another is no improvement. > Kool-aid aside, the Afghans didn't think so. (I've interviewed just > as many Afghans as you have.) I know afghans that left their country to do 3-4,000 km travel on foot or whatever available to come to Europe. This after the Talebans took power. They massacrated the Hazeris just because they were Shia and not Sunni (and didn't accepted their rule) From your words I suppose you justify a genocide or just extermination of the restive tribes to reach "social harmony". >> In the case of Talibans they were financed by an external power (aka >> Pakistan, the Land of the Pure (the Pure are the Muslims, the others are >> impure). > And that's bad because...? Pakistan lives in the neighborhood and -- > surprise! surprise! -- has interests there, so they supported the > dominant group -- Pashtuns -- in order have influence that served > Pakistani interests. What interests does the US/West have there? So neighbors can stage invasions, coups, genocides and it is acceptable but the US or some western can not? If western do it they are EVILLLLLL!!!! So Afghanistan can harbor the organizer of the killing of 3.000 people on American soil (and some hundreds outside of it) and the US must suck it up? Do you also support rapers when the victims defend themselves? > Puleeeese! Kool-aid again. (To whatever extent it might be true, it > would be because the Israelis disapprove, and as we all know, when the > Israelis disapprove, Palestinians die by the hundreds.) When Hamas disapprove, Palestinians fly from high raise BTW, Egypt have a border in common with Gaza and they keep it shut much more than Israel. Why don't they let their "brothers" in Egypt and out of the Gaza "Prison"? And this continue with the MB in power. >> For the same reason Hitler was able to win in Germany. >> People fear and run to vote for some savior. > You've lost the argument, Mirco. You're grasping at straws. Give it up. If you call 3x5 inches beam straws, I would suggest a visit to the Oculist. >>> If the >>> Israelis hadn't stomped Arafat's much more secular and >>> western-oriented Fatah flat, and the Generals (from Nasser onwards) >>> hadn't stifled democratic opposition, the reactionary extremist >>> movements wouldn't have had room to grow. > Mirco's comments below, from "Sorry" to "Arabs" is just mythical > Zionist apologetics. Sorry, Mirco, I just can't let you get away with > this. Maybe, but your remarks are from the book of the apologist of Hamas, PLO and assorted tyrannical regimes. Do you also "fix" pictures of "zionist crimes"? Mirco From anders at aleph.se Mon Sep 24 23:09:32 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:09:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> On 24/09/2012 22:36, Charlie Stross wrote: > I'm watching with interest the age stratification in the polling over > two issues that are in transition in the west: gay marriage and > cannabis legalization. Both broadly supported by the under-50s and > broadly disliked by the over-60s. (One problem with life extension > tech or meds, if we get them: cultural ossification may be a > side-effect, unless there are significant improvements in cognitive > function in terms of regaining youthful flexibility and resilience.) This is an interesting topic on its own. How much of conservatism is due to cognitive ageing due to biological processes, how much is due to "software" ageing/experience, and how much it is due to vested interests? Typically people behave as if they had a declining learning rate across the lifespan, producing a "autobiographical bump" of highly influential memories in the 20's that likely define much of their world-view. I have argued that this might actually be adaptive for a learning system trying to maximize stored information in reproductory age, but the problem is that the program continues to reduce the learning rate and we live far longer. Fixing this now maladaptive program of brain ageing would likely produce a tendency towards a recency effect, where people across an indefinite lifespan are shaped by the experience of more recent decades. But what we remember is a function of what we are now: knowledge and mindstates filter recollections. Key experiences are reinforced by being recalled often and made part of our autobiographical "critical paths" (no matter what their actual importance were). So learned schemas might be self-reinforcing and persist even if the brain is very plastic. And then there is the vested interest angle. Older people have reached desirable positions in society or professions, and that means they have more to lose if things get changed around. This is not always true: they are also on average richer than younger people (although the variance also goes up), so they might have bigger margins if things go wrong. Their human capital is also often higher than what youngsters got: they have experience and education, so they have better chances as long as the domain is not unknown. So where does this leave life extension? We likely do not want society to ossify too much - but it might not be a bad idea to have somewhat slower change if we can afford to wait (consider analysing a potentially dangerous technology for a decade or century rather than rush into using it). A society with a longer time horizon is by no means a bad thing in itself. The problem occurs when the rate of mental/social change is suboptimal compared to extrinsic and intrinsic change: if technology is racing on, then there better be people on the ball to adapt to it. So figuring out some relevant feedback mechanisms seems like a good idea. If people tend to slow down in their changeability but there is a mix of changeabilities (e.g. young and old), then the problem is also reduced. The problem seems to occur when it is one of the groups that dictates policy: we want to ensure that the society is agnostic visavi age or flexibility, and instead puts decisionmaking power in the hands of individuals or groups that show they are tuned to the rate of change. It might be useful to have simple rules of thumb like the century rule: nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century, but again there are likely exceptions. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Mon Sep 24 23:23:51 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:23:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Space colonisation plan Message-ID: <5060EB87.8060502@aleph.se> I remember seeing this poster in Max and Natasha's kitchen back in the day: https://makezineblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/space-plan-scan-touched-up-001.pdf It makes me nostalgic, although not for the typography of the early 80's. I suspect that were we to make something similar today (I'm looking at you, Keith :-) ) it would look very different, not just in content but in topology. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Mon Sep 24 23:26:05 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 16:26:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> Message-ID: <007e01cd9aab$f894f850$e9bee8f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Charlie Stross >...* An attempt at private prosecution for blasphemy in the UK failed only because the last previous blasphemy trial had more or less brought that law into disrepute (it was finally abolished in 2008 but continues to be an offense in Northern Ireland) >...We in the west are not as far removed from this shit as we like to think we are. -- Charlie _______________________________________________ Good chance that was the last attempted prosecution of blasphemy in British history. Keith Henson's prosecution might well be the very last successful blasphemy prosecution in the history of western civilization. spike From rahmans at me.com Mon Sep 24 23:26:34 2012 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 01:26:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: After reading the most recent tirades about religion here complete with the always insightful Hitler comparisons and rape metaphors etc. I am minded to direct your collective attention to: http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/home For your amusement I urge you to keep score as the signal to noise ratio seems to be too far into noise's favor for effective communication. What might be interesting discuss is; will religion itself, or at least the religious impulse in transhuman people, survive? My thinking is that to have an individual identity we must draw some line around ourselves and to have a meaningful (to us) existence we must draw a line somewhere outside of ourselves to give a context. Religion will forever be in that space outside of our context line, outside the knowable. The interesting things are what we do in the space between our two lines and the fact that no two individuals draw their lines in quite the same way. What do others think? Will religion become obsolete as we upgrade and expand our thought? Will our thinking change qualitatively if we upgrade our SocialUintSize number from the present less than 8 bit number to a 1024 bit number? Will we find an acceptable way to 'be ourselves' without simulating adrenaline/testosterone/etc. or pain. What would things be like if love and hate were platonic? Best regards, Omar Rahman From nanite1018 at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 01:05:21 2012 From: nanite1018 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 18:05:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I absolutely believe religion will disappear in the future as a direct consequence of technology. When Death has been vanquished, poverty and scarcity are foreign concepts, and we live in a world where the real world is almost as easily changeable as the digital world thanks to full molecular nanotechnology, the things which drive the religious instinct will have been destroyed by the march of science. Even our ignorance, the room reserved through our ignorance will have been eliminated. When we can back up minds in computers, share memories and experiences directly through technology, and can achieve all the miracles of the religions through science, whither the God of the gaps? Immaterial souls are an untenable proposition in a world of uploads, brain-machine interfaces, and artificial persons. Religion is born from terror at the prospect of Death (and through it the unknown). When death is gone and and science has explained the mystery of the functioning of life and mind, there won't be anything left to drive it. We will no longer fear the unknown, and so rather than invent explanations, we'll search for them. We will still have feelings of awe and reverence at the Universe, but we won't cower or beg for help from more powerful beings. We'll be the gods we used to pray to, and will have grown fully confident in our ability to understand reality and bend it to suit us. I don't see any other way to explain the psychological root of belief in the supernatural, and I think I'm backed up by the drop in religiosity with rising wealth and health. --Joshua Job. On Sep 24, 2012 4:44 PM, "Omar Rahman" wrote: > > After reading the most recent tirades about religion here complete with > the always insightful Hitler comparisons and rape metaphors etc. I am > minded to direct your collective attention to: > > http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/home > > For your amusement I urge you to keep score as the signal to noise ratio > seems to be too far into noise's favor for effective communication. > > What might be interesting discuss is; will religion itself, or at least > the religious impulse in transhuman people, survive? > > My thinking is that to have an individual identity we must draw some line > around ourselves and to have a meaningful (to us) existence we must draw a > line somewhere outside of ourselves to give a context. Religion will > forever be in that space outside of our context line, outside the knowable. > The interesting things are what we do in the space between our two lines > and the fact that no two individuals draw their lines in quite the same way. > > What do others think? Will religion become obsolete as we upgrade and > expand our thought? Will our thinking change qualitatively if we upgrade > our SocialUintSize number from the present less than 8 bit number to a 1024 > bit number? Will we find an acceptable way to 'be ourselves' without > simulating adrenaline/testosterone/etc. or pain. What would things be like > if love and hate were platonic? > > Best regards, > > Omar Rahman > _______________________________________________ > 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 kanzure at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 02:56:48 2012 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2012 21:56:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Space colonisation plan In-Reply-To: <5060EB87.8060502@aleph.se> References: <5060EB87.8060502@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > https://makezineblog.files.**wordpress.com/2012/09/space-** > plan-scan-touched-up-001.pdf > I hate whoever made this. What an awful format. How about just a list, or columns with ids for links/arcs. - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charlie.stross at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 08:34:05 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:34:05 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> Message-ID: <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> On 25 Sep 2012, at 00:09, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Typically people behave as if they had a declining learning rate across the lifespan, producing a "autobiographical bump" of highly influential memories in the 20's that likely define much of their world-view. Yup. > But what we remember is a function of what we are now: knowledge and mindstates filter recollections. Key experiences are reinforced by being recalled often and made part of our autobiographical "critical paths" (no matter what their actual importance were). So learned schemas might be self-reinforcing and persist even if the brain is very plastic. That too. You'd need to enforce some degree of rolling amnesia if you want to maintain plasticity. Which itself is probably a bad thing -- you lose any benefits you might have gained from depth of experience. > And then there is the vested interest angle. Older people have reached desirable positions in society or professions, and that means they have more to lose if things get changed around. Worse. We currently live in a society where human life expectancy is bounded at around 114 years, but where most people in the developed world *expect* 70 years in decent health, then declining faculties and abilities. So someone who has, for example, reached 60 and accumulated significant assets will (a) have a very strong incentive to hang onto them (as a cushion for their declining years) and (b) have the means to defend them against young, inexperienced, low-social-capital interlopers. We have a societal set-up that gives disproportionate wealth, power, and status to the elderly. This is not a HUGE problem, as long as there's a grim garbage-collector running in the background, but there are already signs that it is damaging our larger society -- the transfer of real estate wealth to the old facilitated by the credit bubble, for example, that has led to the freezing out of the under-30s from property markets. The first order effects of age extension *right now* would be to tip the balance of power further towards the elderly -- who, in our current system, are largely a transient rentier class. Immediate consequences: rising youth unemployment, a recession or depression caused by the partial collapse of the investment sector due to the destabilization of pension schemes, the collapse of social security systems, and a rain of boiling frogs. (Well, not the latter bit.) > It might be useful to have simple rules of thumb like the century rule: nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century, but again there are likely exceptions. Try applying that to self-employed people? Or artists? (I suspect self-employment would rapidly rise among the young-elderly as they have the self-confidence and assets to make a fist of it.) The real problem, though, is to find ways of destabilizing rigid structures while encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality of both opportunity and outcomes. Oh, and the folks who keep banging on about "freedom" (meaning personal freedom) are going to have a fun time adjusting their strategies to come to terms with the number of iterations in their Prisoner's Dilemma scenario tending towards infinity ... -- Charlie From charlie.stross at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 08:49:07 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:49:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 25 Sep 2012, at 02:05, Joshua Job wrote: > I absolutely believe religion will disappear in the future as a direct consequence of technology. > > When Death has been vanquished, poverty and scarcity are foreign concepts, and we live in a world where the real world is almost as easily changeable as the digital world thanks to full molecular nanotechnology, the things which drive the religious instinct will have been destroyed by the march of science. Au contraire. Firstly, poverty and scarcity are never going to be abolished because they are RELATIVE positions, and we shaved apes are social organisms -- we evaluate social status in terms of who has more of something that is scarce. And I'm not sure how we can meaningfully abolish personal esteem, number of friends and admirers, and similar emergent social properties as social status markers. (In other words, you can have a full belly, a 3D printer, and immortality -- and still be poor, because nobody pays you any attention. Or something like that.) Secondly, there's the complexity explosion in modern society to consider -- and the increasing use of machines with skeuomorphic interfaces. Consider an iPad. It's best used *not* as a personal computer substitute, but as a Magic Book that can tell you stories, show you moving images, and let you interact with the things on the pages. How does somebody with no prior exposure to computers, much less a CS degree, relate to an iPad? They relate to it as a Magic Book. Many of our current technologies encourage magical thinking. Indeed, magical thinking -- applying the intentional stance and theory of mind to inanimate objects -- is something we can write user interfaces around, and which makes incredibly complex machines intuitively simple to use! So, humans-as-humans are, if anything, likely to have their tendency towards magical thinking reinforced in the near term. > Even our ignorance, the room reserved through our ignorance will have been eliminated. When we can back up minds in computers, share memories and experiences directly through technology, and can achieve all the miracles of the religions through science, whither the God of the gaps? Immaterial souls are an untenable proposition in a world of uploads, brain-machine interfaces, and artificial persons. Mythology doesn't lose its power to speak to us just because we know it's based on an invalid model of the world. (And your vision of the fungibility of human mind is disturbingly religious in turn. I'm not arguing for mind/body dualism or the God of the gaps here -- but it's a lot more complex than you seem to think.) ((And on second thoughts, I co-wrote a whole book about this which came out earlier this month. So why am I repeating myself? )) -- Charlie From giulio at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 08:49:43 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:49:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> Message-ID: @Anders re "nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century" Soon there will be no such things as "jobs." I think the trend for the economy to destroy "jobs" (in the 9-to-5 sense) is irreversible. BIG (Basic Income Guarantee) seems the only viable long-term solution to me. Everyone must have enough water, those who want champagne can try to find extra income. @Charlie re "Oh, and the folks who keep banging on about "freedom" (meaning personal freedom) are going to have a fun time..." There is nothing wrong with personal freedom as long as it doesn't reduce the personal freedom of others. I am for BIG _because_ I hold personal freedom as a primary value, which of course must include the freedom to eat. On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:34 AM, Charlie Stross wrote: > > On 25 Sep 2012, at 00:09, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> Typically people behave as if they had a declining learning rate across the lifespan, producing a "autobiographical bump" of highly influential memories in the 20's that likely define much of their world-view. > > Yup. > >> But what we remember is a function of what we are now: knowledge and mindstates filter recollections. Key experiences are reinforced by being recalled often and made part of our autobiographical "critical paths" (no matter what their actual importance were). So learned schemas might be self-reinforcing and persist even if the brain is very plastic. > > That too. You'd need to enforce some degree of rolling amnesia if you want to maintain plasticity. Which itself is probably a bad thing -- you lose any benefits you might have gained from depth of experience. > >> And then there is the vested interest angle. Older people have reached desirable positions in society or professions, and that means they have more to lose if things get changed around. > > Worse. We currently live in a society where human life expectancy is bounded at around 114 years, but where most people in the developed world *expect* 70 years in decent health, then declining faculties and abilities. So someone who has, for example, reached 60 and accumulated significant assets will (a) have a very strong incentive to hang onto them (as a cushion for their declining years) and (b) have the means to defend them against young, inexperienced, low-social-capital interlopers. > > We have a societal set-up that gives disproportionate wealth, power, and status to the elderly. This is not a HUGE problem, as long as there's a grim garbage-collector running in the background, but there are already signs that it is damaging our larger society -- the transfer of real estate wealth to the old facilitated by the credit bubble, for example, that has led to the freezing out of the under-30s from property markets. > > The first order effects of age extension *right now* would be to tip the balance of power further towards the elderly -- who, in our current system, are largely a transient rentier class. Immediate consequences: rising youth unemployment, a recession or depression caused by the partial collapse of the investment sector due to the destabilization of pension schemes, the collapse of social security systems, and a rain of boiling frogs. (Well, not the latter bit.) > >> It might be useful to have simple rules of thumb like the century rule: nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century, but again there are likely exceptions. > > Try applying that to self-employed people? Or artists? (I suspect self-employment would rapidly rise among the young-elderly as they have the self-confidence and assets to make a fist of it.) > > The real problem, though, is to find ways of destabilizing rigid structures while encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality of both opportunity and outcomes. > > Oh, and the folks who keep banging on about "freedom" (meaning personal freedom) are going to have a fun time adjusting their strategies to come to terms with the number of iterations in their Prisoner's Dilemma scenario tending towards infinity ... > > > -- Charlie > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From anders at aleph.se Tue Sep 25 09:59:29 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:59:29 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> Message-ID: <50618081.4040401@aleph.se> On 25/09/2012 09:34, Charlie Stross wrote: > On 25 Sep 2012, at 00:09, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> But what we remember is a function of what we are now: knowledge and mindstates filter recollections. Key experiences are reinforced by being recalled often and made part of our autobiographical "critical paths" (no matter what their actual importance were). So learned schemas might be self-reinforcing and persist even if the brain is very plastic. > That too. You'd need to enforce some degree of rolling amnesia if you want to maintain plasticity. Which itself is probably a bad thing -- you lose any benefits you might have gained from depth of experience. The amnesia is a natural effect of learning. In a finite learning system you will get overwriting of old information (or it eventually fills up and stops working, which is not how real brains seems to function). Higher learning rate will tend to overwrite more efficiently, so you get a bias towards the present. It turns out that the optimal learning rate changes like 1/sqrt(t) if you want to maximize recalled info at reproductory age. If you want to optimize things I suspect you still want to keep the learning rate declining a bit (you have a lot of valuable knowledge that it is expensive to relearn) but at a lower rate. Then we should probably investigate if we can make some parts of memory more or less plastic. In the really long run it is pretty clear that we ought to back up bio-memories to external storage, that we would benefit from life recording documentation (with good search) for "objective" memories, and some of our memories are going to be social entities (like Wikipedia). Each type have their own use. > The first order effects of age extension *right now* would be to tip the balance of power further towards the elderly -- who, in our current system, are largely a transient rentier class. Immediate consequences: rising youth unemployment, a recession or depression caused by the partial collapse of the investment sector due to the destabilization of pension schemes, the collapse of social security systems, and a rain of boiling frogs. (Well, not the latter bit.) Boiling frog rains are almost imperceptibly slow anyway. The speed of the LE transition is something that rarely has been studied. I did some very crude demography hacks a while ago, http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/09/life_extension_model.html and it is interesting to note that even fairly radical extension introduced suddenly takes decades to transform society. The pension issue is in my opinion a bit of a red herring. Yes, the schemes need reform and there is going to be political struggle over it. But long-lived people will want to have long-range investments too, and it is not implausible that many of the funds simply transmute into healthcare insurance funds instead. > >> It might be useful to have simple rules of thumb like the century rule: nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century, but again there are likely exceptions. > Try applying that to self-employed people? Or artists? (I suspect self-employment would rapidly rise among the young-elderly as they have the self-confidence and assets to make a fist of it.) In fact, it is not a problem if self-employed or artists keep at what they are good at for centuries (except maybe boredom). Their success is largely dependent on them doing a good or desired job, so they are possible to circumvent if they are out of touch. The shuttle mechanic who doesn't do newfangled models or the artist who insists on painting in classical postmodernism will not be terribly big problems. > The real problem, though, is to find ways of destabilizing rigid structures while encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality of both opportunity and outcomes. It might be a good idea to deliberate open critical periods or rapid re-learning. Both in brains and in institutions. (As Hayek would have pointed out, there is not much difference - both are adaptive systems) > Oh, and the folks who keep banging on about "freedom" (meaning personal freedom) are going to have a fun time adjusting their strategies to come to terms with the number of iterations in their Prisoner's Dilemma scenario tending towards infinity ... Well, the meek reciprocal cooperators shall inherit the Earth. In the long run. On average. There have been some interesting claims in an economics report I read that longer lifespans tend to make people more green (you get to live with your consequences). There is also some data showing that smart people are more long-term and cooperative. I suspect that the smarts aspect is quicker to update as life extension arrives than the pure learning: shortly after the transition smart first immortals will go very green/cooperative, while the non-smart first immortals will remain roughly normal. In the long run they will learn too, but there might be interesting effects of the transition - that first immortal cohort is going to be a rather curious wave over about a millennium, changing as it "ages". -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Tue Sep 25 10:07:57 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:07:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> Message-ID: <5061827D.5050409@aleph.se> On 25/09/2012 09:49, Giulio Prisco wrote: > @Anders re "nobody gets to keep a job/office more than a century" > > Soon there will be no such things as "jobs." I think the trend for the > economy to destroy "jobs" (in the 9-to-5 sense) is irreversible. BIG > (Basic Income Guarantee) seems the only viable long-term solution to > me. Everyone must have enough water, those who want champagne can try > to find extra income. I think the big deal will be offices. Imagine a professor, civil servant or prime minister on his third century. Sure, some positions are up for power-grabs by the people who care to fight for them, but in practice you could end up with rather rigid high-status communities with decisionmaking power. As for jobs, if all the champagne-providing jobs are taken by centenarians the youths are going to be unhappy. I think the ossification fear is a bit overblown, but it is worth investigating properly. If it is fairly easy to invent new jobs and compete with incumbents, then things are fine. If the system benefits insiders, then ossification can be really bad. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Sep 25 11:01:44 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:01:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50618F18.6080006@libero.it> Il 13/09/2012 01:11, Keith Henson ha scritto: > On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 1:37 PM, John Clark > wrote: >>> If the driving force behind terrorism is poor economic prospects >> I don't believe it is. Saudi Arabia is not a poor country and yet >> almost all the 911 hijackers came from there, and all were middle >> class. > Before 9/11, the was a 75% drop in the per capita income for Saudi > Arabia. It was due to a rise in the population of factor of two and > a fall in the price of oil by half. That seem to be enough to trip > the population wide "bleak future" detector. And in the stone age, > the relatively well off warriors were infected by the same "kill the > neighbors" memetic mechanism as the rest of the tribe. In fact, this "bleak future detector" activated the reduction of birthrate and fertility rate in Saudi Arabia. Country 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 Saudi Arabia 37.47 37.34 37.25 37.2 29.74 29.56 29.34 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 29.1 28.85 28.55 19.43 19.34 19.19 The "relatively well off warrior" were trying to conquer their neighbors from the Middle Age. They have nothing better to do and an ideology to do so. I would suggest the oil wealth supported the demographic explosion AND an expansionist policy. Rome didn't conquer an empire because of a bleak future vision. >> From: Anders Sandberg >> Plentiful energy and food might lower some pressures, but actually >> worsen others. I shudder at the thought of the Arabian states if >> oil revenues come crashing down. > It's going to happen sooner or later. For example, at some point > the internal use of oil will exceed what they can pump. Just look at Egypt for an example of what will happen when there is no more money to import food for the people living there. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Sep 25 11:01:55 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:01:55 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> Message-ID: <50618F23.4080702@libero.it> Il 25/09/2012 10:34, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > We have a societal set-up that gives disproportionate wealth, power, > and status to the elderly. This is not a HUGE problem, as long as > there's a grim garbage-collector running in the background, but there > are already signs that it is damaging our larger society -- the > transfer of real estate wealth to the old facilitated by the credit > bubble, for example, that has led to the freezing out of the > under-30s from property markets. We have a societal setup where the government give disproportionate wealth, power and status to the elderly. It do so because the elderly vote for the government, the young and the unborn not. Await for the time this crisis hit really hard, and you will see real estate wealth evaporate (and food prices evaporate too, when food stamps will run out of purchasing power). The old need to sell their homes to retire, as their homes are their wealth in a frozen state. They need to make it liquid and there is no market for homes. If left to the real market forces, the prices would settle much lower than now without credit. This will make house formation much cheaper than now, if Mr. Bernanke doesn't put the Fed. in between with money printing. As an italian blogger (FunnyKing) put it out, elderly could have the wealth and the political power, but they need someone to care for them. Usually these are the young. And they will find a way to have the older pay, pay dearly. > Try applying that to self-employed people? Or artists? (I suspect > self-employment would rapidly rise among the young-elderly as they > have the self-confidence and assets to make a fist of it.) > The real problem, though, is to find ways of destabilizing rigid > structures while encouraging social fluidity and minimizing > inequality of both opportunity and outcomes. > Oh, and the folks who keep banging on about "freedom" (meaning > personal freedom) are going to have a fun time adjusting their > strategies to come to terms with the number of iterations in their > Prisoner's Dilemma scenario tending towards infinity ... The best strategy for the Prisoner's Dilemma is and always will be a jailbreak. Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 11:14:12 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:14:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 9:34 AM, Charlie Stross wrote: > Worse. We currently live in a society where human life expectancy is bounded at around 114 years, > but where most people in the developed world *expect* 70 years in decent health, then declining > faculties and abilities. So someone who has, for example, reached 60 and accumulated significant > assets will (a) have a very strong incentive to hang onto them (as a cushion for their declining years) > and (b) have the means to defend them against young, inexperienced, low-social-capital interlopers. > > We have a societal set-up that gives disproportionate wealth, power, and status to the elderly. > This is not a HUGE problem, as long as there's a grim garbage-collector running in the background, > but there are already signs that it is damaging our larger society -- the transfer of real estate wealth > to the old facilitated by the credit bubble, for example, that has led to the freezing out of the > under-30s from property markets. > > The first order effects of age extension *right now* would be to tip the balance of power further towards > the elderly -- who, in our current system, are largely a transient rentier class. Immediate consequences: > rising youth unemployment, a recession or depression caused by the partial collapse of the investment > sector due to the destabilization of pension schemes, the collapse of social security systems, and a rain > of boiling frogs. (Well, not the latter bit.) > I wouldn't blame the current societal problems on a transfer of wealth to the elderly. The problem is caused by the transfer of wealth to a very small percentage of *extremely* rich people (a few of whom happen to be elderly). I haven't noticed that bank speculators, pop stars or footballers are particularly elderly. The poor section of the population tend to be mostly elderly people who are no longer employed and survive on the state pension. Financial inequality is far more pronounced in today's society, with all the associated problems. The freezing out of under-30s from the property market is mostly a UK problem caused by politicians obsession with keeping house prices way over-valued. If the bubble in UK housing was allowed to burst and reduce house prices, then housing would become much more affordable. But the political fallout of all the Conservative supporters (and property speculators) feeling much poorer cannot be allowed. Your description of all the economic consequences is correct, but wrongly attributed to the elderly. Ask SAGA or Age Concern (the UK old folks organisations) if they think the elderly are ruling the roost. After they stop laughing, they might explain that the elderly (as a section of society) are more in need of help than the younger age groups. BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 25 14:52:08 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 07:52:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> <97F244B1-16B5-4880-98B0-0638992D3423@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00c401cd9b2d$567b09b0$03711d10$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Charlie Stross ... >...The real problem, though, is to find ways of destabilizing rigid structures while encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality of both opportunity and outcomes...-- Charlie _______________________________________________ Charlie I have an idea regarding a way to destabilize rigid structures and encourage social fluidity etc, starting in your field, professional writing. There is no need to minimize inequality of opportunity in writing: everyone has an opportunity to do that currently. So we are already halfway there, however the other half, inequality of outcomes in that profession is enormous. To minimize this, alongside the best seller list, we create a worst seller list. Clearly those on the worst seller list aren't enjoying equality of outcome with those on the other list, so I propose that whenever any customer goes to buy an item on the best seller list, they receive instead an item on the worst seller list. That scheme would minimize inequality of outcome, starting in the field of writing, then we are on the road to encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality, problem solved. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 15:20:33 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:20:33 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 Charlie Stross wrote: >note that Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was: * Banned by 39 local > councils in the UK [... shunned...picketed... bad reviews...] > Banning a movie is bad; having a movie, which you probably haven't even seen, drive you into such a idiotic homicidal rage that you even start to murder people who had nothing to do with the movie is worse. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 14:58:12 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:58:12 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> It just amazes me that people, even people on this list, continue to > make lame excuses for these murderous nincompoops. > > > US murders and murders by proxy: [various statistics of dubious quality] I'd challenge all those figures but there just doesn't seem to be any point. Perhaps you're correct and you've found the reason Muslims are morons, perhaps you're incorrect and there are other reasons that Muslims are morons, perhaps there was a random quantum fluctuation and Muslims are morons for no reason at all, but none or that would change the fact that worldwide homicidal riots over a cartoon or a fourth rate YouTube video is moronic. "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values > or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized > violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." > > - Samuel P. Huntington > "in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace ? and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." - Orson Welles John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 25 16:04:29 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:04:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] life of brian, was RE: riots again Message-ID: <00e001cd9b37$71dd0870$55971950$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] riots again On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 Charlie Stross wrote: > >note that Monty Python's "Life of Brian" was: * Banned by 39 local councils in the UK [... shunned...picketed... bad reviews...] >.Banning a movie is bad; having a movie, which you probably haven't even seen, drive you into such a idiotic homicidal rage that you even start to murder people who had nothing to do with the movie is worse. .John K Clark I recall in the states, LoB created the Pastor's Dilemma. They could expound at length on how this scandalous movie should be banned for all its blammisphy, but in order to know if it is blammisphy, or even expound on its contents, the people would need to actually see the movie, which would defeat the purpose of speaking out against it. The other option is to say nothing, which may be considered tacitly condoning it. My own take on it is that Life of Brian isn't *exactly* a comedy. It has the Monte Python team doing their usual brilliant and hilarious cutups, so good that we hear them quoted regularly to this day especially by the computer science crowd, one of the very few comedies which has quotes that made it into the cultural lexicon. But Life of Brian is a comedy with a point. In this, the writers follow that other British feller from a long time ago, what's the name, Shakespeare. His comedies had an underlying theme, or a shape to them. There were jokes within jokes, comedy with depth. In the case of LoB, there was overlying comedy with a non-comedy depth: an alternate explanation for how Christianity was started. In that case, it was actually a very good alternate theory: a man was essentially drafted, against his will, to be the messiah for a lost horde in desperate need of a messiah. I saw it as an excellent story, wrapped up in those funny accents and the delightfully dark and peculiar British sense of humor. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 16:31:24 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:31:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space colonisation plan Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 5:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I remember seeing this poster in Max and Natasha's kitchen back in the day: > > https://makezineblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/space-plan-scan-touched-up-001.pdf I remember discussing it with Ron Jones when it was new. > It makes me nostalgic, although not for the typography of the early > 80's. I suspect that were we to make something similar today (I'm > looking at you, Keith :-) ) it would look very different, not just in > content but in topology. True. But even in those days Freeman Dyson pointed out that the cost was at least 100 times to high people to settle space. Same was true of power satellites or an attempt to put an industrial base on the moon or mine asteroids. But times have changed, and the tiny laser diodes in your DVD player have grown to where they can power spacecraft (takes GW to get out of the atmosphere). I have a paper "Getting Humanity off Fossil Fuels using Space Power Satellites launched by Laser Powered Rockets" Abstract: "Utility-scale ground solar power has a number of problems: intermittency, large support mass due to gravity and wind, and transmission cost to distant markets. Space-based solar power (SBSP) solves these problems but at the expense of lifting the parts to GEO, currently around $10,000 per kg. Beamed-energy rocket propulsion (lasers), can reduce this cost to under $100/kg at the 500,000-ton-per- year shipment rate by providing substantially higher exhaust velocity than is possible from chemical fuels. The lasers (or redirection mirrors) need to be in GEO for a long acceleration path, required to keep laser size within practical bounds. The economic feedback comes from building an initial power satellite with conventional rockets, then using the new plant to power propulsion lasers. The lasers enable cheap transport from Earth to GEO to construct hundreds of power satellites and more propulsion lasers. Power satellites built this way can produce power for half the price of electricity from coal. This positive economic feedback is enough to displace most use of fossil fuel uses in a decade after the first. They would replace fossil fuels with lower-cost direct electric power from space and synthetic liquid fuels made from electricity, water and a source of carbon, even from CO2 out of the air." That some of you have seen in a much earlier draft. If you want to see the current draft, ask. (Can't post because it is for publication in the JBIS.) Keith PS, really appreciate your and Charles Stross' postings. From pharos at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 16:49:50 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:49:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Space colonisation plan In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 5:31 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > I remember discussing it with Ron Jones when it was new. > > But even in those days Freeman Dyson pointed out that the cost was at > least 100 times to high people to settle space. Same was true of > power satellites or an attempt to put an industrial base on the moon > or mine asteroids. > > But times have changed, and the tiny laser diodes in your DVD player > have grown to where they can power spacecraft (takes GW to get out of > the atmosphere). > > I have a paper "Getting Humanity off Fossil Fuels using Space Power > Satellites launched by Laser Powered Rockets" > > Ron Jones is still around and working at Boeing (who took over Rockwell). He posted about a week ago on MAKE, discussing the chart. He says he is now getting involved with the National Space Society. BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 25 16:51:13 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 09:51:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <010201cd9b3d$f95af310$ec10d930$@att.net> >> It just amazes me that people, even people on this list, continue to make lame excuses for these murderous nincompoops. > US murders and murders by proxy. I had an idea which may solve some of these kinds of problems: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C09%5C23%5Cstory_23-9-20 12_pg7_2 In order for things like the Innocence video to have any impact, it would need to be translated. So round up all those who translated the video and try them for blasphemy, which they would necessarily have committed in order to translate the blasphemy. The number of videos translated would instantly drop dramatically, problem solved. In many Middle West nations, the legal system is burdened by those who would falsely accuse a local citizen of blasphemy in order to get that person executed. Solution: at the trial, call the person accused of blasphemy to the witness stand and explain that if the accusation stands, the penalty is death, therefore their testimony is considered a deathbed confession. Likewise any counter-accusation they might make would be considered a deathbed accusation, both considered reliable evidence. The accused then has the option of naming her own accusers as blasphemers, at which time the penalty is carried out immediately upon the counter-accused. The original accused blasphemer would then need to be released on grounds of insufficient evidence, for the original accusers are all too dead to testify, problem solved. Another angle: if the case against the accused blasphemer fails for any reason to result in a conviction, such as lack of video or audio evidence, then all the accusers can be convicted of attempted murder. Of course the attempted murderers would not have the option of a deathbed accusation, for this would be considered attempted murder, which validates the penalty against the original accusers, problem solved. It might not even require hanging anyone: merely announcing publicly the change in policy might be sufficient. Blasphemy cases making it to court would drop dramatically, most likely to zero, problem solved. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 17:00:03 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:00:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: Seems to me like the problems with the Muslims in the Middle East are due to the political and religious leadership. Likewise, most of our problems in the US are due to our political and religious leadership. The problem is that power corrupts. The more powerful the organization, the more corrupt, as a general rule. I don't see a good or likely solution. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 17:38:48 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 19:38:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > What do others think? Will religion become obsolete as we upgrade and > expand our thought? Will our thinking change qualitatively if we upgrade > our SocialUintSize number from the present less than 8 bit number to a 1024 > bit number? Will we find an acceptable way to 'be ourselves' without > simulating adrenaline/testosterone/etc. or pain. What would things be like > if love and hate were platonic? > > They will die, like Zeus died. No other realistic option. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 25 17:31:27 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:31:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <010201cd9b3d$f95af310$ec10d930$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <010201cd9b3d$f95af310$ec10d930$@att.net> Message-ID: <012201cd9b43$982fb570$c88f2050$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike . >.It might not even require hanging anyone: merely announcing publicly the change in policy might be sufficient. Blasphemy cases making it to court would drop dramatically, most likely to zero, problem solved. spike A follow-on idea: create a movie, or rather just a trailer from a non-existent video with the theme as follows: local woman commits ambiguous blasphemy by for instance uttering the name of Joseph Smith without saying peace be upon him, or by expressing sympathy for Buddhism. Several other women, who covet her husband and his many fine goats, accuse her of blasphemy, a "trial" is held, accused counter-accuses the accusers who are immediately hanged for either blasphemy (if the original accused did in fact commit blasphemy, her testimony is a deathbed accusation is true by definition) or attempted murder (if the original accused did not commit blasphemy, her testimony is not a deathbed confession and therefore not admissible evidence but true in any case.) It doesn't much matter which is the case, the local religious authorities reason, the original accusers must be executed quickly and the original accused must be released for lack of evidence. The entire video is completely fictitious, no need to harm any actual fine goats, no need for any change in the legal system at all, no need to involve any local Middle Western governments in any way. All we would need is a video camera, some unemployed actors and a few translators. The existence of the fictitious video itself might boot these benighted societies down the road to recovery by drawing attention to the stunningly illogical legal prohibition against blasphemy and all the mischief that absurd policy can spawn. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 25 17:53:44 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 10:53:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <013001cd9b46$b4f84d40$1ee8e7c0$@att.net> >. Behalf Of Dave Sill Subject: Re: [ExI] riots again >. The problem is that power corrupts. The more powerful the organization, the more corrupt, as a general rule. I don't see a good or likely solution. -Dave The upcoming US presidential elections will choose a less powerful and therefore less corrupt candidate. The libertarian candidate has little chance, so it is Lionel Hutz vs Ned Flanders this time. If the apparently competent but unpopular Flanders is elected, he will have little influence on the senate. If the popular but ineffective Hutz is re-elected, he will have little or no influence on the house of representatives. Either way, the office of the presidency is weakened, which is a good thing, for it makes that critical office less corrupt. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 18:42:07 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 11:42:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 7:58 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: >> "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington > "in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace ? and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." > > - Orson Welles These competing quotes then is your distillation of the argument? Fine. What did the Swiss produce? Five hundred years of democracy and peace. Five hundred years without warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed. ***AND*** they produced the cuckoo clock to celebrate the minutes and hours of their magnificent accomplishment. And Welles, the narcissistic, over-achiever with the Randian ethics of a spoiled two-year old got it wrong. It wasn't the Borgias that generated those accomplishments -- the Renaissance in particular. It was the money generated by the trade in silk and spices. And DaVinci produced DaVinci, with a little help from Mom and Dad. Bettering the human condition is the source of value in material accomplishments. Science (art, politics, commerce, et al) must serve humanity, not the other way round. Crime does not serve humanity. The Borgias were arch criminals. Best, Jeff Davis "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." Anais Nin From natasha at natasha.cc Tue Sep 25 19:26:11 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 12:26:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options Message-ID: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> Hi Everyone! Humanity+ hopes to hold a conference in San Francisco this fall/winter. We had a possible venue option, but that fell through. I have been hunting but am coming up short. Most venues are too expensive and I don't have any contacts at universities to get info on auditoriums. I found a possibility in Berkeley at the International House at UC Berkeley in the Chevron Auditorium. Another possibility is directly in SF and it is Rally Pad but it is more like our Summit in Irvine venue (not an auditorium) and it only seats about 115 people. Does anyone have a suggestion for us? It would be great to get this conference up and running! Thank you! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD Description: esDESiGN_email University Lecturer Chairman, Humanity+ Producer/Host, H+TV -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 20:28:11 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:28:11 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> <3464B032-2901-4F8E-90B7-C6FE9E5C6533@gmail.com> <5060CFD6.6060309@aleph.se> <1C8C0E33-7DDF-4A92-AAED-82BE1A9E2CA6@gmail.com> <5060E82C.3050305@aleph.se> Message-ID: On 25 September 2012 01:09, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Typically people behave as if they had a declining learning rate across the > lifespan, producing a "autobiographical bump" of highly influential memories > in the 20's that likely define much of their world-view. Yup. I become a transhumanist in my late teens or early twenties (even though the term was not fashionable yet), and I must confess I got stuck with that. :-D -- Stefano Vaj From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 20:12:49 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:12:49 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Longevity Party Message-ID: I found some recent exchanges in the Facebook group quite perplexing. It would seem that being a life-extensionist would mean being "pro-life" (as in "abortion and drugs and euthanasia and birth control and dangerous sports and touristic cryonics prohibitionists"). On the contrary, I assume that most transhumanists are life-extensionists because the hate to be forced to die, and they are not so much into the busines of forcibly extending (the number and duration of) lives, but rather *lifespan*, ie, CHOICE. Natasha....? -- Stefano Vaj From atymes at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 20:08:51 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 13:08:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options In-Reply-To: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> References: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: Try down in San Mateo. That's as accessible from the local airport, and most rates are cheaper. Plus, being out of SF's celebrity status, you tend to look more like a conference that actually wants to get stuff done - in this case, actually develop the future - rather than just talk about it. If you're willing to look a bit further south, the San Jose Convention Center specifically markets to this type of conferences. I don't know if it's too expensive, but I'm told it's cheaper than most similar venues in SF (and I don't know what your budget is). http://www.sanjose.org/plan-a-meeting-event/venues/convention-center On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Hi Everyone!**** > > ** ** > > Humanity+ hopes to hold a conference in San Francisco this fall/winter. > We had a possible venue option, but that fell through. I have been hunting > but am coming up short. Most venues are too expensive and I don?t have any > contacts at universities to get info on auditoriums. I found a possibility > in Berkeley at the International House at UC Berkeley in the Chevron > Auditorium. Another possibility is directly in SF and it is Rally Pad but > it is more like our Summit in Irvine venue (not an auditorium) and it only > seats about 115 people.**** > > ** ** > > Does anyone have a suggestion for us? It would be great to get this > conference up and running!**** > > ** ** > > Thank you!**** > > ** ** > > Natasha**** > > ** ** > > Natasha Vita-More, PhD **** > > > [image: Description: esDESiGN_email]**** > > *University Lecturer* > > *Chairman, Humanity+ > Producer/Host, H+TV * > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 21:16:46 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:16:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Longevity Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Stefano Vaj wrote: > It would seem that being a life-extensionist would mean being > "pro-life" (as in "abortion and drugs and euthanasia and birth control > and dangerous sports and touristic cryonics prohibitionists"). Not necessarily. Also: one-issue parties. What is the Longevity Party's stance on, say: * Fusion vs. solar/wind research * The best strategies to keep Iran from going nuclear, assuming this is desired * Israel's Palestinian settlements, and other nuances of Israel vs. Palestine that don't immediately directly impact our lifespans * Sports drug problems, and the liabilities (if any) resultant from them (since liability is a matter of law, and thus government) From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 21:48:03 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 14:48:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > Seems to me like the problems with the Muslims in the Middle East are due > to the political and religious leadership. Can you support this statement with reason, statistics or models? > Likewise, most of our problems > in the US are due to our political and religious leadership. The problem is > that power corrupts. The more powerful the organization, the more corrupt, > as a general rule. > > I don't see a good or likely solution. If you don't understand the problem solutions are really unlikely. For example, why has the IRA inactive? Keith From jrd1415 at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 22:39:36 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:39:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options In-Reply-To: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> References: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: Have you checked Ft. Mason? On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > Hi Everyone!**** > > ** ** > > Humanity+ hopes to hold a conference in San Francisco this fall/winter. > We had a possible venue option, but that fell through. I have been hunting > but am coming up short. Most venues are too expensive and I don?t have any > contacts at universities to get info on auditoriums. I found a possibility > in Berkeley at the International House at UC Berkeley in the Chevron > Auditorium. Another possibility is directly in SF and it is Rally Pad but > it is more like our Summit in Irvine venue (not an auditorium) and it only > seats about 115 people.**** > > ** ** > > Does anyone have a suggestion for us? It would be great to get this > conference up and running!**** > > ** ** > > Thank you!**** > > ** ** > > Natasha**** > > ** ** > > Natasha Vita-More, PhD **** > > > [image: Description: esDESiGN_email]**** > > *University Lecturer* > > *Chairman, Humanity+ > Producer/Host, H+TV * > > ** ** > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: From clementlawyer at gmail.com Tue Sep 25 22:58:17 2012 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 15:58:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options In-Reply-To: References: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: > >> Hi Everyone!**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Humanity+ hopes to hold a conference in San Francisco this fall/winter. >> We had a possible venue option, but that fell through. I have been hunting >> but am coming up short. Most venues are too expensive and I don?t have any >> contacts at universities to get info on auditoriums. I found a possibility >> in Berkeley at the International House at UC Berkeley in the Chevron >> Auditorium. Another possibility is directly in SF and it is Rally Pad but >> it is more like our Summit in Irvine venue (not an auditorium) and it only >> seats about 115 people.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Does anyone have a suggestion for us? It would be great to get this >> conference up and running!**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Thank you!**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Natasha**** >> >> ** ** >> >> Natasha Vita-More, PhD >> > > **** >> >> When I was looking for a venue for the WTA's Convergence-2008, we ended >> up at the Computer History Museum in Mountainview. I believe it cost us >> $800 for a full day's use of the fascility, which can easily hold 300+ >> people. >> >> I attended a DIYbio conference at the International House in Berkeley. It >> was quite small and parking is very limited around there. However, it was a >> nice place for a small (60 or fewer) crowd. >> >> Best regards, >> >> James >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Sep 25 23:11:12 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 16:11:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options In-Reply-To: References: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <01a301cd9b73$0ec75060$2c55f120$@att.net> Try down in San Mateo. Adrian Ja, or Monterey. We have a low-budget engineering society that meets down there regularly. That's where I gave my MBrain pitch last fall. It is low cost, scenic, out of the mainstream, access to some cool stuff such as the excellent Monterey Aquarium, Cannery Row for Steinbeck fans, 17 Mile Drive for those who for some incomprehensible reason like to gawk at rich people's homes, golf courses and that kinda stuff. You can still get up to SF in a reasonable time if that is your thing, and you can go do the San Jose Tech Museum, that kinda thing, tour the Silicon Valley internet Fly-by-nights, stuff like that. Monterey is where the Silicon Valley should have been placed, but missed it by about 50 miles. Monterey is about an hour drive south of the San Jose Airport. spike From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 1:09 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options Try down in San Mateo. That's as accessible from the local airport, and most rates are cheaper. Plus, being out of SF's celebrity status, you tend to look more like a conference that actually wants to get stuff done - in this case, actually develop the future - rather than just talk about it. If you're willing to look a bit further south, the San Jose Convention Center specifically markets to this type of conferences. I don't know if it's too expensive, but I'm told it's cheaper than most similar venues in SF (and I don't know what your budget is). http://www.sanjose.org/plan-a-meeting-event/venues/convention-center On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 12:26 PM, Natasha Vita-More wrote: Hi Everyone! Humanity+ hopes to hold a conference in San Francisco this fall/winter. We had a possible venue option, but that fell through. I have been hunting but am coming up short. Most venues are too expensive and I don't have any contacts at universities to get info on auditoriums. I found a possibility in Berkeley at the International House at UC Berkeley in the Chevron Auditorium. Another possibility is directly in SF and it is Rally Pad but it is more like our Summit in Irvine venue (not an auditorium) and it only seats about 115 people. Does anyone have a suggestion for us? It would be great to get this conference up and running! Thank you! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD Description: esDESiGN_email University Lecturer Chairman, Humanity+ Producer/Host, H+TV _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: application/octet-stream Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Sep 26 00:32:54 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:32:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] self-driving cars again Message-ID: <000501cd9b7e$78d2d500$6a787f00$@att.net> Woohoo! Excellent, Smithers. Self-driving cars now legal in California http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/25/tech/innovation/self-driving-car-california/in dex.html?hpt=hp_t1 (CNN) -- California is the latest state to allow testing of Google's self-driving cars on the roads, though only with a human passenger along as a safety measure. Gov. Edmund "Jerry" Brown signed the autonomous-vehicles bill into law Tuesday afternoon alongside Google co-founder Sergey Brin and State Sen. Alex Padilla, who authored the bill, at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, California. The bill, SB 1298, will set up procedures and requirements for determining when the cars are road-ready. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Sep 26 01:29:28 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 18:29:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz Message-ID: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Hey check this: http://www.isidewith.com/ It's a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary Johnson fan. I don't think he has much of a chance this time against those other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on almost everything. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Wed Sep 26 03:14:25 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 20:14:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Question: Conference in San Francisco Venue Options In-Reply-To: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> References: <013e01cd9b53$9f7afa00$de70ee00$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <50627311.5030806@moulton.com> Much of the answer depends on the details of the question: 1. How many attending? What kind of event is planned? A one day or a full weekend (Friday night, all day Saturday and most of Sunday)? What is the price range? The price range is likely a major determining factor. A one day event means that hotel space is less of an issue. If a lot of people are coming in from out of town what kind of hotel will they want to stay at? Some hotels will discount the function space if there are enough hotel rooms being sold. 2. From where are most of the attendees coming? If most are in San Jose area then it makes sense to have near San Jose. If most are further north then Burlingame or San Mateo might work. If most are in San Francisco or Berkeley or Oakland then check there. If most are flying in then which do we know which airport? The various airlines are not uniformly represented by flights to the big three airports in the area; Oakland, San Jose, and San Francisco. Also will people flying in need to rent a car? That can jack up the cost. The three three airports connect either directly or via a shuttle bus to a transit system; Oakland and San Francisco airports connect to BART, San Jose airport connects to VTA light rail. If the event is held at a hotel with airport shuttle then that handles some of the transportation issues. Also consider if people are driving what are the parking charges. One more thing about driving from an airport remember that Friday afternoon or evening will be very congested in some areas so the simple 45 minute drive from the airport can turn into the better part of two hours in some cases. 3. What kind of ambiance is desired? What audio video infrastructure is needed? How many people? A high end place such as the San Jose Rep can run several thousand per day http://www.sjrep.com/about/rent/ but does have the advantage of being next to a light rail stop and in the middle of San Jose so there are lots of places to eat. Less upscale is a university campus; the rate sheet for San Jose State University student union is at https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.union.sjsu.edu/su/SU_Event_Services/docs/Room%2520Rental%2520Rates.pdf&pli=1 Also there Morris Daily Auditorium on the SJSU campus can hold a lot of people: http://www.livesv.com/venue/detail/2743/Morris_Dailey_Auditorium_San_Jose_State_University And there a lots of hotels in San Jose with ballroom space such as the Sainte Claire. Also the Tech Museum rents there facility http://www.thetech.org/about-us/facility-rentals Fred From gsantostasi at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 05:08:48 2012 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 00:08:48 -0500 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: I got Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson. Giovanni On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:29 PM, spike wrote: > ** ** > > Hey check this:**** > > ** ** > > http://www.isidewith.com/**** > > ** ** > > It?s a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary > Johnson fan. I don?t think he has much of a chance this time against those > other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them > as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on > almost everything.**** > > ** ** > > 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 joshjob42 at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 05:42:56 2012 From: joshjob42 at gmail.com (Joshua Job) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:42:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: 96% Gary Johnson, of course. That's what happens when a radical libertarian takes a political quiz. Knew it going in (I heard Johnson speak on my campus in the spring, and it was the only time I've heard a politician talk, nonstop, for an hour, and agreed with every word that came out of his mouth--it was crazy). -Joshua Job. On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 10:08 PM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > I got Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson. > Giovanni > > > On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 8:29 PM, spike wrote: > >> ** ** >> >> Hey check this:**** >> >> ** ** >> >> http://www.isidewith.com/**** >> >> ** ** >> >> It?s a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary >> Johnson fan. I don?t think he has much of a chance this time against those >> other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them >> as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on >> almost everything.**** >> >> ** ** >> >> spike**** >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- -Joshua Job joshjob42 at gmail.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Sep 26 05:55:13 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2012 22:55:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <009801cd9bab$7fcd5b50$7f6811f0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Joshua Job Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 10:43 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz 96% Gary Johnson, of course. Ja me too, I was 94% Gary Johnson. None of the others were even close to his score. He seems like a really good guy; I don't know why he didn't get more traction in the primaries. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 07:39:21 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 09:39:21 +0200 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Jill Stein On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 3:29 AM, spike wrote: > > > Hey check this: > > > > http://www.isidewith.com/ > > > > It?s a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary > Johnson fan. I don?t think he has much of a chance this time against those > other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them > as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on almost > everything. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From giulio at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 08:18:36 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:18:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Jill Stein 88% Gary Johnson 83% Barack Obama 73% Mitt Romney 30% On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 9:39 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Jill Stein > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 3:29 AM, spike wrote: >> >> >> Hey check this: >> >> >> >> http://www.isidewith.com/ >> >> >> >> It?s a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary >> Johnson fan. I don?t think he has much of a chance this time against those >> other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them >> as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on almost >> everything. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> From anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 26 08:42:13 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 09:42:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5062BFE5.805@aleph.se> On 26/09/2012 06:42, Joshua Job wrote: > it was the only time I've heard a politician talk, nonstop, for an > hour, and agreed with every word that came out of his mouth--it was > crazy). Hmm, maybe the craziness is why he doesn't get much traction? :-) (Yes, he topped my list too.) The most interesting part of the site is of course finding out the political leanings of different sites. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 08:44:42 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 01:44:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why not ask the Engineers? Message-ID: Not too many years ago, when people had problems like floods or things they wanted to do like going to the moon, they asked engineers how to do it and how much it would cost. Then after some political debate, they had big companies with thousands of engineers and related technical workers do the job. The Transcontinental railroad, Panama Canal, Hover Dam, Manhattan Project, Apollo, you get the drift. However, in recent years, people have not been asking the engineers. There has been a tendency to assume we already know how to fix the problems. The solutions assumed are usually the "hair shirt" kind with a religious flavor to them and lots of sacrifice?for other people of course. Just being an old engineer, I can't say how society could be induced into asking engineers how to solve the problems again. However, on the off chance that someone might ask, I have put some thinking into the problems that show up in the daily news. Take sea ice melting in the Arctic. One solution, which might work, is vast numbers of floating thermal diodes. These are not new. They were developed for the Alaskan pipeline as pipe supports where the pipe ran across areas of permafrost. They are very simple, a pipe sealed on both ends with a gallon or two of ammonia in it. When the air temperature is lower than the permafrost, the ammonia boils at the bottom end, condenses at the top end where it is exposed to very cold air. It then runs down the pipe to boil again. When the air temperature is higher than the permafrost, the ammonia stays in the bottom. I ran the analysis and found that in a few years each pipe would become a 100-foot ball of very hard ice, too cold to melt over the summer. It takes a lot of them, millions, but they are dead simple and not very expensive. The same thermal diodes could freeze glaciers to bedrock. The large-scale effect would be to raise the wintertime temperature in the Polar Regions, which increases the radiation into space. For low cost energy, I have been talking for a few years about building lasers propulsion to lower the cost of hauling millions of tons of power satellite parts into orbit. This has become a 26-page document full of numbers. However, we could do something else with a large transportation system into space, sunshades that lower the brightness of the sun. Robert Kennedy and his co-authors have produced a 25-page paper analyzing how this would work and what it might cost. An alternative is to overbuild the power satellites and put CO2 back in the ground as synthetic wax. Lots of answers, the problem is how to get people to ask. Keith From giogavir at yahoo.it Wed Sep 26 08:51:30 2012 From: giogavir at yahoo.it (giorgio gaviraghi) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 09:51:30 +0100 (BST) Subject: [ExI] Why not ask the Engineers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1348649490.53786.YahooMailNeo@web171603.mail.ir2.yahoo.com> Why not turn a bad effect into a positive benefit. We could use the extra water from the polar meltings, to create new rivers and lakes connected to the seas, in the desertic regions transforming them in? agricultural areas and promoting millions of jobs as well as wealth. A well planned water distribution system can change our planet and turn the sahara desert into a new and habitable continent stopping desertification. ? ________________________________ Da: Keith Henson A: ExI chat list Inviato: Mercoled? 26 Settembre 2012 10:44 Oggetto: [ExI] Why not ask the Engineers? Not too many years ago, when people had problems like floods or things they wanted to do like going to the moon, they asked engineers how to do it and how much it would cost.? Then after some political debate, they had big companies with thousands of engineers and related technical workers do the job.? The Transcontinental railroad, Panama Canal, Hover Dam, Manhattan Project, Apollo, you get the drift. However, in recent years, people have not been asking the engineers. There has been a tendency to assume we already know how to fix the problems.? The solutions assumed are usually the "hair shirt" kind with a religious flavor to them and lots of sacrifice?for other people of course. Just being an old engineer, I can't say how society could be induced into asking engineers how to solve the problems again.? However, on the off chance that someone might ask, I have put some thinking into the problems that show up in the daily news. Take sea ice melting in the Arctic. One solution, which might work, is vast numbers of floating thermal diodes.? These are not new.? They were developed for the Alaskan pipeline as pipe supports where the pipe ran across areas of permafrost.? They are very simple, a pipe sealed on both ends with a gallon or two of ammonia in it.? When the air temperature is lower than the permafrost, the ammonia boils at the bottom end, condenses at the top end where it is exposed to very cold air.? It then runs down the pipe to boil again.? When the air temperature is higher than the permafrost, the ammonia stays in the bottom.? I ran the analysis and found that in a few years each pipe would become a 100-foot ball of very hard ice, too cold to melt over the summer.? It takes a lot of them, millions, but they are dead simple and not very expensive. The same thermal diodes could freeze glaciers to bedrock.? The large-scale effect would be to raise the wintertime temperature in the Polar Regions, which increases the radiation into space. For low cost energy, I have been talking for a few years about building lasers propulsion to lower the cost of hauling millions of tons of power satellite parts into orbit.? This has become a 26-page document full of numbers. However, we could do something else with a large transportation system into space, sunshades that lower the brightness of the sun.? Robert Kennedy and his co-authors have produced a 25-page paper analyzing how this would work and what it might cost. An alternative is to overbuild the power satellites and put CO2 back in the ground as synthetic wax. Lots of answers, the problem is how to get people to ask. Keith _______________________________________________ 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 anders at aleph.se Wed Sep 26 09:15:54 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:15:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Why not ask the Engineers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5062C7CA.2060600@aleph.se> On 26/09/2012 09:44, Keith Henson wrote: > Take sea ice melting in the Arctic. > > One solution, which might work, is vast numbers of floating thermal > diodes. A very neat idea, and it is an important feedback we should try to keep under control. Of course millions of devices costing between ten and a hundred bucks each will be a rather expensive project. Not to mention the problem of them drifting south and the damage done when they occasionally break. I wonder if these diodes could be used to boost glacier water storage. That is in many ways more important than floating ice, since much of the world relies on glacier-originating water. What is the temperature differentials they can maintain? -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From sm at vreedom.de Wed Sep 26 09:36:26 2012 From: sm at vreedom.de (sm at vreedom.de) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 10:36:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ad01cd9bca$66ec1760$34c44620$@vreedom.de> Gary Johnson 92%, Jill Stein 87% -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht----- Von: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] Im Auftrag von Giulio Prisco Gesendet: Mittwoch, 26. September 2012 09:19 An: ExI chat list Betreff: Re: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz >Jill Stein 88% Gary Johnson 83% Barack Obama 73% Mitt Romney 30% On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 9:39 AM, Giulio Prisco wrote: > Jill Stein > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 3:29 AM, spike wrote: >> >> >> Hey check this: >> >> >> >> http://www.isidewith.com/ >> >> >> >> It?s a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a >> Gary Johnson fan. I don?t think he has much of a chance this time >> against those other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I >> usually refer to them as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right >> in step with Johnson on almost everything. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 13:17:07 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:17:07 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Longevity Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 25 September 2012 23:16, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 1:12 PM, Stefano Vaj > wrote: > > It would seem that being a life-extensionist would mean being > > "pro-life" (as in "abortion and drugs and euthanasia and birth control > > and dangerous sports and touristic cryonics prohibitionists"). > > Not necessarily. > Hey, I am pretty persuaded myself that this is unnecessary. :-) This is what I posted: <> > Also: one-issue parties. What is the Longevity Party's stance on, say: > * Fusion vs. solar/wind research > * The best strategies to keep Iran from going nuclear, assuming this > is desired > * Israel's Palestinian settlements, and other nuances of Israel vs. > Palestine that don't immediately directly impact our lifespans > * Sports drug problems, and the liabilities (if any) resultant from them > (since liability is a matter of law, and thus government) > It is my understanding that one-issue parties, especially in anglo-saxon countries, do not necessarily intend to take over Downing Street or the White House, but pose a sufficient threat to large parties to make them realise that a constituency exists behind a given platform and that its needs and wishes must be catered for. OTOH, there are parties (say, the Green) who started single-issue and progressively adopted positions on most current debates... I have no idea what the Longevity Party expects or intends for its future in this respect. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 13:29:36 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:29:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <7960E01F-6336-458B-BC9A-6DC299E1DA74@gmail.com> Message-ID: On 24 September 2012 18:00, BillK wrote: > The US military budget is more than the rest of the world put together. > Neither Obama or Romney intend to reduce it. The future planned for > America is to threaten the rest of the world and take what it wants by > any means possible. As the dollar collapses the US won't be able to > buy what it needs. Force will be the only alternative. > At the very least, military spending - in spite of its obvious consequences on the US deficit - delays and reduces the decline of dollar, so I suspect that the "buying" and the "taking" strategies are converging anyway. :-) But, yes, the "clash of civilisations" is a propagand myth. Let us say that tomorrow the Atheistic Liberal Republic of Iran is put in place by a revolution. Would the US really be happy should it become a nuclear regional power? I doubt it. -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stefano.vaj at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 13:31:45 2012 From: stefano.vaj at gmail.com (Stefano Vaj) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 15:31:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <00e501cd9a77$88f86ba0$9ae942e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 24 September 2012 20:35, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Was not LoB banned in Italy by the catholic church for a long time? > ... or more likely by its local secular arm, AKA as the Repubblica Italiana? :-) -- Stefano Vaj -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Wed Sep 26 18:59:33 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 11:59:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00b901cd9c19$10f09490$32d1bdb0$@natasha.cc> Gary Johnson 78% but I was puzzled when Obama came in my top 3. From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2012 6:29 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz Hey check this: http://www.isidewith.com/ It's a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary Johnson fan. I don't think he has much of a chance this time against those other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on almost everything. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 20:21:53 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:21:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 5:48 PM, Keith Henson wrote: > On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 1:35 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > > > Seems to me like the problems with the Muslims in the Middle East are due > > to the political and religious leadership. > > Can you support this statement with reason, statistics or models? > I don't think the Koran instructs followers to riot when something offends them. I'm not an expert, though, so I'm going on what I've heard and read. E.g., from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444450004578002010241044712.html *"Is it asking too much of religious and political leaders in Muslim communities to adopt a similar [nonviolent] attitude?* * * *It needn't be. A principled defense of free speech could start by quoting the Quran: "And it has already come down to you in the Book that when you hear the verses of Allah [recited], they are denied [by them] and ridiculed; so do not sit with them until they enter into another conversation." In this light, the true test of religious conviction is indifference, not susceptibility, to mockery."* -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 20:29:55 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 14:29:55 -0600 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Still Gary Johnson 99%... LOL I'm still voting for Romney, 71% is good enough, and 30% for Obama means we have a lot of differences between us. Romney is more libertarian than Obama by a lot. -Kelly On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 7:29 PM, spike wrote: > > > Hey check this: > > > > http://www.isidewith.com/ > > > > It?s a fun little quiz, but it told me what I already knew: I am a Gary > Johnson fan. I don?t think he has much of a chance this time against those > other two fellers whose names I sometimes forget. I usually refer to them > as Lionel Hutz and Ned Flanders. I was right in step with Johnson on almost > everything. > > > > spike > > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sep 26 22:02:11 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:02:11 -0600 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 10:28 AM, spike wrote: > Therefore those unaccustomed to this freedom have been given, > rather have been forced upon them a de facto freedom of speech and freedom > of the press, whether they want it or not. Ready or not, here it comes. That's a kind of frightening thought for a lot of the leaders of the world. Only North Korea has effectively stamped out high tech free speech, and see where it has gotten them... > Note that the riots are all about the Joseph Smith video, not > about illegal robo-bombing ( which for some incomprehensible reason, they > seem to take that in stride.) The robo-bombing is applied force, something that is understood better in the Middle East than in the West. They respect it, they fear it, it's their way for 1400 years or so, so it isn't condemned by them as much as by ourselves. > It is an understatement to say that information wants to be free. > Information wants to brutally destroy ignorance. Very good point. I'm sure the Mormons are trembling in their turbans. -Kelly From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Sep 26 22:08:53 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 18:08:53 -0400 Subject: [ExI] laser propulsion Message-ID: Perhaps Keith needs to design crudely-drawn infographics to go with proposals: http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/ "And that, at last, is enough power." From spike66 at att.net Wed Sep 26 23:24:30 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 16:24:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] laser propulsion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01f701cd9c3e$14f972d0$3eec5870$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Subject: [ExI] laser propulsion >...Perhaps Keith needs to design crudely-drawn infographics to go with proposals: >...http://what-if.xkcd.com/13/ This is terrific Mike, thanks. I definitely want one of those wicked lasers. spike From rtomek at ceti.pl Wed Sep 26 23:38:22 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 01:38:22 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] Fermi Paradox and Transcension In-Reply-To: References: <1347282149.52334.YahooMailClassic@web114413.mail.gq1.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On Tue, 11 Sep 2012, Jeff Davis wrote: > Not being able to know the meaning of "superintelligent" is the first > problem. We can project in that direction though our experience with > exceptionally intelligent humans, but beyond that darkness begins to > fall. And beyond that, where an advanced level of complexity predicts > the emergence of the unpredictable, we're friggin' totally in the > dark. I would very much like to hear someone attempt to penetrate the > first level -- the penetrable level -- of darkness. I think this had been penetrated quite a lot by Stanislaw Lem in "Golem XIV" and few fragments of "Summa Technologiae". As well as some of his "action books". I remember a scene (but I can't recall a book) where a pilot has a conversation with calculator, and thanks to his mental training is able to talk a calculator into performing some computation after it decided by itself that this would have been waste of time - kind of, like Feynman meets abacus master, only few levels up. Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Sep 27 00:30:44 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:30:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ @ San Francisco Message-ID: <003f01cd9c47$55e981f0$01bc85d0$@natasha.cc> Thanks everyone all for your great suggestions!! It looks like the best venue for this Humanity+ @ San Francisco is SFSU's Seven Hills Conference Center. Its accessible, cost-effective, has parking a block away, and public transport into SF. The dates will be December 1 and 2. The conference theme will be "Writing the Future", with a focus on authors/writing: books, articles, comics, science fiction, journalism, blogs, etc. We need to find someone in the Bay area or directly in San Francisco who can work with us as an assistant to the conference chairs. (Pay is low, but job perks are high.) If there is someone you would like to suggest, please email me off list at natasha at natasha.cc Thanks!! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD Description: esDESiGN_email University Lecturer Chairman, Humanity+ Producer/Host, H+TV -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 5753 bytes Desc: not available URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 27 00:42:22 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:42:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] wicked cool hubble deep space photo Message-ID: <020d01cd9c48$f5480a90$dfd81fb0$@att.net> Oh man, this is soooo cool, what a time to be alive: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/09/25/revealing-the-univ erse-the-hubble-extreme-deep-field/ Here's what you can do, double left click on the top image, then that opens in a new window, then right click on that window and about 11th choice on the menu is set as background. Then it feels like you are peering back in time 13 billion years when you look at your computer screen. Life.is.gooooood. {8-] spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 27 00:43:48 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 17:43:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ @ San Francisco In-Reply-To: <003f01cd9c47$55e981f0$01bc85d0$@natasha.cc> References: <003f01cd9c47$55e981f0$01bc85d0$@natasha.cc> Message-ID: <021801cd9c49$28ca88c0$7a5f9a40$@att.net> Meeeeeee! I will do it for nuthin. spike From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 5:31 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: 'Mailing list for the Board, advisors, and staff of Humanity+' Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ @ San Francisco Thanks everyone all for your great suggestions!! It looks like the best venue for this Humanity+ @ San Francisco is SFSU's Seven Hills Conference Center. Its accessible, cost-effective, has parking a block away, and public transport into SF. The dates will be December 1 and 2. The conference theme will be "Writing the Future", with a focus on authors/writing: books, articles, comics, science fiction, journalism, blogs, etc. We need to find someone in the Bay area or directly in San Francisco who can work with us as an assistant to the conference chairs. (Pay is low, but job perks are high.) If there is someone you would like to suggest, please email me off list at natasha at natasha.cc Thanks!! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD Description: esDESiGN_email University Lecturer Chairman, Humanity+ Producer/Host, H+TV -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.jpg Type: application/octet-stream Size: 5753 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: application/octet-stream Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: From natasha at natasha.cc Thu Sep 27 02:29:15 2012 From: natasha at natasha.cc (Natasha Vita-More) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2012 19:29:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ @ San Francisco In-Reply-To: <021801cd9c49$28ca88c0$7a5f9a40$@att.net> References: <003f01cd9c47$55e981f0$01bc85d0$@natasha.cc> <021801cd9c49$28ca88c0$7a5f9a40$@att.net> Message-ID: <00ac01cd9c57$e3747380$aa5d5a80$@natasha.cc> Hey Spike! You are amazing! J Natasha Vita-More, PhD Description: esDESiGN_email University Lecturer Chairman, Humanity+ Producer/Host, H+TV From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 5:44 PM To: 'ExI chat list' Subject: Re: [ExI] Humanity+ @ San Francisco Meeeeeee! I will do it for nuthin. spike From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Natasha Vita-More Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2012 5:31 PM To: ExI chat list Cc: 'Mailing list for the Board, advisors, and staff of Humanity+' Subject: [ExI] Humanity+ @ San Francisco Thanks everyone all for your great suggestions!! It looks like the best venue for this Humanity+ @ San Francisco is SFSU's Seven Hills Conference Center. Its accessible, cost-effective, has parking a block away, and public transport into SF. The dates will be December 1 and 2. The conference theme will be "Writing the Future", with a focus on authors/writing: books, articles, comics, science fiction, journalism, blogs, etc. We need to find someone in the Bay area or directly in San Francisco who can work with us as an assistant to the conference chairs. (Pay is low, but job perks are high.) If there is someone you would like to suggest, please email me off list at natasha at natasha.cc Thanks!! Natasha Natasha Vita-More, PhD Description: esDESiGN_email University Lecturer Chairman, Humanity+ Producer/Host, H+TV -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 5920 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.jpg Type: image/jpeg Size: 5753 bytes Desc: not available URL: From charlie.stross at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 08:57:42 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 09:57:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> Message-ID: <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> On 26 Sep 2012, at 23:02, Kelly Anderson wrote: > The robo-bombing is applied force, something that is understood better > in the Middle East than in the West. They respect it, they fear it, > it's their way for 1400 years or so, so it isn't condemned by them as > much as by ourselves. I'd just like to call that statement out for the Iron Cross first class with Oak Leaves for grotesque, vile, inhumanity on stilts. Hint: some of us are old enough that our parents lived through the second stage of the Blitz on London, complete with bomdardment by drones (the V-1). Here's Clive Stafford-Smith with an explanation of what this stuff *really* means, in terms that might hopefully make it explicable to a westerner: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/drones-wests-terror-weapons-doodlebugs-1 Second hint: the US media are not covering what's actually going on out there, because news of family parties of brown-skinned people being turned into hamburger isn't good filler for selling advertising. -- Charlie From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 09:15:26 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:15:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 9:57 AM, Charlie Stross wrote: > > I'd just like to call that statement out for the Iron Cross first class with Oak Leaves for grotesque, > vile, inhumanity on stilts. > > Hint: some of us are old enough that our parents lived through the second stage of the Blitz on London, > complete with bomdardment by drones (the V-1). Here's Clive Stafford-Smith with an explanation of > what this stuff *really* means, in terms that might hopefully make it explicable to a westerner: > > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/drones-wests-terror-weapons-doodlebugs-1 > > Second hint: the US media are not covering what's actually going on out there, because news of > family parties of brown-skinned people being turned into hamburger isn't good filler for selling advertising. > > I agree wholeheartedly. I was going to respond similarly, but I had one of those 'Where do I start?' moments. This US site does a similar report. Quote: Children and adults wake screaming in the night, others are reduced to a state of debilitating listlessness. Group meetings to settle disputes ? Jirgas ? have traditionally served as a social lubricant in Waziristan. No longer, since people know that any gathering beyond two people might draw the attention of the targeteers. The dead, even when there enough recognizable body parts to collect, must be buried without benefit of a proper funeral. Drivers necessary to transport people and goods are reluctant to take to the roads. Since schools have been targets in the past, few children are being educated. Wedding parties and other social gatherings have become too dangerous to celebrate. The death of so many adult male breadwinners has reduced many families to total destitution. ---------------- It is hell on earth out there. BillK From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 27 13:52:05 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 06:52:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Charlie Stross >...http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/sep/25/drones-wests-terror- weapons-doodlebugs-1 >...Second hint: the US media are not covering what's actually going on out there, because news of family parties of brown-skinned people being turned into hamburger isn't good filler for selling advertising. -- Charlie _______________________________________________ Ja, Charlie, actually I disagree with your premise. If the US news majors had that footage, they would run it repeatedly, and would sell hamburger advertisement on it. News agencies survive on this sort of thing. What I find puzzling is that there is a truly legitimate protest-worthy practice happening on a regular basis, the robo-bombing, and yet they get all tangled up protesting that which is really harmless as a kitten, some silly boring video that no one saw until they called attention to it. What we have here is a failure to communicate: they could be protesting and publicizing a war tactic which is illegal by our own constitution, and if so probably get it stopped. Yet they choose to protest and publicize that which is fair game by our own constitution, which the US government is completely powerless to stop. By doing so, draw attention to that which never would have seen the light of day, for the blammisphy video was so boring and poorly done, even I couldn't get all the way thru the trailer, never mind the entire silly video. Not only will their protest fail to get that behavior stopped, it will more likely get it to replicate wildly. My question: why are the victims of robo-bombings are not getting on YouTube and telling their story, rather than having someone else put them on YouTube for rioting and murdering those who had nothing to do with either the videos or the robo-bombing and can do nothing about either? spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 27 14:03:13 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 07:03:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> Message-ID: <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK >"... Children and adults wake screaming in the night, others are reduced to a state of debilitating listlessness. ... Wedding parties and other social gatherings have become too dangerous to celebrate. The death of so many adult male breadwinners has reduced many families to total destitution..." ---------------- >...It is hell on earth out there. BillK _______________________________________________ Ja, so where's the photographic evidence? Should not we send them cell phones, cameras and laptop computers to upload the video to YouTube? Would not that be more effective than being listless or screaming in the night? Note I am not doubting that robo-bombing is occurring or that it doesn't occasionally hit civilian gatherings. Rather I am making the point that publication of these things would be a far more effective means of stopping it than burning the local US embassy, which will likely make the problem worse. spike From charlie.stross at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 14:38:19 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:38:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <35DBECE3-F09E-464E-99B3-09A2AB6D9215@gmail.com> On 27 Sep 2012, at 15:03, spike wrote: > >> ...It is hell on earth out there. BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > Ja, so where's the photographic evidence? Should not we send them cell > phones, cameras and laptop computers to upload the video to YouTube? You're talking about one of the poorest regions on the planet. Forget cellphones: running water would be a good start. Ditto electricity. And roads. Also ... > Rather I am making the point that > publication of these things would be a far more effective means of stopping > it than burning the local US embassy, which will likely make the problem > worse. Ever since the Vietnam war, the US military has prioritized psychological warfare operations aimed at generating support and discrediting opposition on the home front. The USA doesn't have actual censorship, but it *does* have an immensely powerful pro-military lobby ... supported and funded by the military itself. (Try to imagine what reaction you'd get for "criticizing the troops" and then ask yourself whether that's a natural American response, or something that's been aggressively programmed into the cultural zeitgeist for the past couple of decades.) Which is by way of saying that if you could show that footage to a jury, in a courtroom scenario, it might work; but the general public are not a jury and they don't have to pay attention and -- LOOK OVER THERE! SHINY! -- Charlie From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 14:38:54 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:38:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > > I don't think the Koran instructs followers to riot when something > offends them. > *"Slay them wherever you find them...Idolatry is worse than carnage...Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme." (Surah 2:190-) * *"Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it." (Surah 2:216) ****"Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends." (Surah 5:51) *** *"Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people...They desire nothing but your ruin* *(Surah 3:118**) **"Seek out your enemies relentlessly." (Surah 4:103-) * *"Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God's religion shall reign supreme." (Surah 8:36-) * *"make war on the leaders of unbelief...Make war on them: God will chastise them at your hands and humble them. He will grant you victory over them..." (Surah 9:12-)* *"If you do not fight, He will punish you sternly, and replace you by other men." (Surah 9:37-)* *"Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home." (Surah 9:73)* *"Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly with them." (Surah 9:121-) * John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sparge at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 14:48:46 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:48:46 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:38 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Sep 26, 2012 at 4:21 PM, Dave Sill wrote: > > >> > I don't think the Koran instructs followers to riot when something >> offends them. >> > > *"Slay them wherever you find them...Idolatry is worse than > carnage...Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion > reigns supreme." (Surah 2:190-) > * > *"Fighting is obligatory for you, much as you dislike it." (Surah 2:216) > > ****"Believers, take neither Jews nor Christians for your friends." > (Surah 5:51) > > "Believers, do not make friends with any but your own people...They desire > nothing but your ruin (Surah 3:118) > > "Seek out your enemies relentlessly." (Surah 4:103-) > > "Make war on them until idolatry shall cease and God's religion shall > reign supreme." (Surah 8:36-) > > "make war on the leaders of unbelief...Make war on them: God will chastise > them at your hands and humble them. He will grant you victory over them..." > (Surah 9:12-) > > "If you do not fight, He will punish you sternly, and replace you by other > men." (Surah 9:37-) > > "Prophet make war on the unbelievers and the hypocrites and deal > rigorously with them. Hell shall be their home." (Surah 9:73) > "Believers, make war on the infidels who dwell around you. Deal firmly > with them." (Surah 9:121-) > * > None of which encourage rioting and killing other Muslims. -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 14:32:54 2012 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:32:54 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Google wants you... Message-ID: http://www.kurzweilai.net/google-venture-fund-seeks-forward-thinking-biotech-entrepreneurs Seems like a right fit for some of this list's brilliant minds -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 15:07:08 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:07:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50646B9C.3040505@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 16:48, Dave Sill ha scritto: > None of which encourage rioting and killing other Muslims. Did you lost the: "If you do not fight, He will punish you sternly, and replace you by other men." (Surah 9:37-) The Muslims refusing to fight openly are considered as traitors and treated as such, when the time come. Combining (Surah 9:37-) with "make war on the leaders of unbelief...Make war on them: God will chastise them at your hands and humble them. He will grant you victory over them..." (Surah 9:12-) And you give the rioting Muslims the right to punish the not rioting Muslims (or worse, the Muslims working or helping not Muslims against other Muslims). Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 15:28:03 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:28:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <50647083.2080301@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 15:52, spike ha scritto: > My question: why are the victims of robo-bombings are not getting on YouTube > and telling their story, rather than having someone else put them on YouTube > for rioting and murdering those who had nothing to do with either the videos > or the robo-bombing and can do nothing about either? My opinion, just an opinion, is the victims of robo-bombing are not so many and putting footage online would cause the risk to a new Qanagate. We saw the Qanagate, the deliberate misleading of public opinion with false photos, staged photos, out of context videos and naked lies. My humble opinion is, if the US Army, USMC, USAF want make a desert and call it "peace", they have all the tools and the power to do so in few weeks. Just put drones up and shoot anyone, everywhere. Stop all economic activity. Prevent people from herding, farming, mining, whatever. Kill everyone moving in and not moving out. What Charlie Stross and others are arguing is the US is evil and powerful, but, like Israel, it is unable to exterminate a people unarmed and under their total control. They would like to do it, they try to do it, but someway they are unable to do it. Now, the old King Hussein of Jordain killed 10-20.000 Palestinians with cannons and guns in the early '70s in few weeks (the infamous Black September) when they tried to take over the place from him. Then, 40 years after, the US armed forces are unable to do the same body count against sitting ducks? Let me be skeptic. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 27 15:22:27 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 08:22:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <35DBECE3-F09E-464E-99B3-09A2AB6D9215@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> <35DBECE3-F09E-464E-99B3-09A2AB6D9215@gmail.com> Message-ID: <032b01cd9cc3$e7714b90$b653e2b0$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Charlie Stross >... > > _______________________________________________ > >>... Ja, so where's the photographic evidence? Should not we send them cell phones, cameras and laptop computers to upload the video to YouTube? >...You're talking about one of the poorest regions on the planet... Ja, I am not suggesting they buy the cell phones. Concerned Americans and Europeans could donate those ten dollar digital cameras, the victims take the pictures, pass the camera back hand to hand to anyone anywhere who has a laptop and a phone connection. Go directly to YouTube. We could send those things over there by the truckload. We throw away used cell phones by the ton, still perfectly operational cameras, trading it for the latest model with a few million more pixels. >...Forget cellphones: running water would be a good start. Ditto electricity. And roads... No Charlie. Remember cell phones. They need those things worse than the other stuff, if it is really true that robo-bombing is causing debilitating listlessness, which would then cause them to lack running water, electricity and roads. Also ... > ...Ever since the Vietnam war, the US military has prioritized psychological warfare operations aimed at generating support and discrediting opposition on the home front. The USA doesn't have actual censorship, but it *does* have an immensely powerful pro-military lobby ... supported and funded by the military itself. (Try to imagine what reaction you'd get for "criticizing the troops" and then ask yourself whether that's a natural American response, or something that's been aggressively programmed into the cultural zeitgeist for the past couple of decades.) >...Which is by way of saying that if you could show that footage to a jury, in a courtroom scenario, it might work; but the general public are not a jury and they don't have to pay attention and -- LOOK OVER THERE! SHINY! -- Charlie _______________________________________________ Exactly so sir, which is why I suggested YouTube. This is a wonderfully powerful tool which we didn't have during the Vietnam War years. It goes around the military-industrial complex, slips right past the US news media and their silly distractions of the latest school teacher raping her eager and willing students, it goes past the censors and governments. YouTube is our DREAM! It is information which has gotten itself free, and that information, once free, is pouncing ferociously at every opportunity, ripping apart ignorance wherever it can be found. Once that information is on YouTube, it is THERE for anyone to access, no need for help from governments or news majors, it is there and it is FREE! spike From sparge at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 15:24:22 2012 From: sparge at gmail.com (Dave Sill) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 11:24:22 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50646B9C.3040505@libero.it> References: <50646B9C.3040505@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > And you give the rioting Muslims the right to punish the not rioting > Muslims (or worse, the Muslims working or helping not Muslims against other > Muslims). OK, but that's a bit of a stretch. Is there any evidence that that's actually the case? -Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charlie.stross at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 15:54:54 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:54:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50647083.2080301@libero.it> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> Message-ID: On 27 Sep 2012, at 16:28, Mirco Romanato wrote: > > My humble opinion is, if the US Army, USMC, USAF want make a desert and call it "peace", they have all the tools and the power to do so in few weeks No. They have the tools to do so in *half an hour*. What they don't have is the orders to do so. They're a tool of state policy, and the state policy wants to reduce jihadi recruiting and pacify a very remote region in the arse end of nowhere, not detonate a thousand H-bombs. > What Charlie Stross and others are arguing is the US is evil and powerful, but, like Israel, it is unable to exterminate a people unarmed and under their total control. They would like to do it, they try to do it, but someway they are unable to do it. Straw man. To do the job they really need to put a million pairs of boots on the ground -- a full-scale occupation army. But they can't do that. So they're essentially using terror tactics as a proxy for manpower. (The British Empire started this game back when Churchill was in the foreign office, post-WW1; "policing with bombers" is your key search term. Want to know where they tried it? Iraq!) > Let me be skeptic. I'm accusing you of arguing in ill-faith. Straw man positions ascribed to your opponents, cherry-picked extracts from someone else's religious texts ... I've seen this before. If we replace "muslim" with "jew" in your previous screed, and replaced the surahs with talmudic extracts, you'd be a dead ringer for Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Propaganda, i.e. it'd be obvious that you were blatantly, axe-grindingly anti-semitic. But switch to a different religious target and folks give you a free pass. You're disgusting. -- Charlie From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 16:08:31 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:08:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <032b01cd9cc3$e7714b90$b653e2b0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> <35DBECE3-F09E-464E-99B3-09A2AB6D9215@gmail.com> <032b01cd9cc3$e7714b90$b653e2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <506479FF.9020206@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 17:22, spike ha scritto: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Charlie Stross >> ... >> >> _______________________________________________ >> >>> ... Ja, so where's the photographic evidence? Should not we send them > cell phones, cameras and laptop computers to upload the video to YouTube? > >> ...You're talking about one of the poorest regions on the planet... > > Ja, I am not suggesting they buy the cell phones. Concerned Americans and > Europeans could donate those ten dollar digital cameras, the victims take > the pictures, pass the camera back hand to hand to anyone anywhere who has a > laptop and a phone connection. Go directly to YouTube. We could send those > things over there by the truckload. We throw away used cell phones by the > ton, still perfectly operational cameras, trading it for the latest model > with a few million more pixels. The only problem with this idea is the Taliban like to shut off the cell phone network (just too many tip off from the general population) and the US would like to build a cell phone network there >> ...Forget cellphones: running water would be a good start. Ditto > electricity. And roads... > No Charlie. Remember cell phones. They need those things worse than the > other stuff, if it is really true that robo-bombing is causing debilitating > listlessness, which would then cause them to lack running water, electricity > and roads. > Also ... They need and want more cell phones and networks because the cell phones allow more productive economic activity. The poor is able to sell their eggs to the market with the best price (dirty capitalists) with cellphone and plumbers can be contacted faster when something is in need of repair. Just don't mind the utility to be able to call a doctor in (an alien concept in the Western world) if someone fall sick or is wounded. Just looking at the Wikipedia, I understand we are tangled in wrong stereotypes about the poor Afghanistan and the Afghanis: "Telecom companies, such as Afghan Wireless and Roshan, began boasting rapid increase in cellular phone usage in the mid 2000s. In response to this Etisalat and MTN Group were launched, and by 2009 there were about 18 million mobile phone users in Afghanistan. Etisalat became the first company to launch 3G services in 2012 followed MTN and Roshan. In the meantime, Afghan officials announced that they plan to send its own satellite into space." "According to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology there are 4760 active towers throughout the country which covers 85% of the population. The Ministry of Communication and Information Technology plans to expand its services in remote parts of the country where the remaining 15% of the population will be covered with the installation of the new towers.[2]" Now, there are 30 millions of people in Afghanistan and 18 millions of cellphones, 85% covered (in 2009). > Exactly so sir, which is why I suggested YouTube. This is a wonderfully > powerful tool which we didn't have during the Vietnam War years. It goes > around the military-industrial complex, slips right past the US news media > and their silly distractions of the latest school teacher raping her eager > and willing students, it goes past the censors and governments. YouTube is > our DREAM! It is information which has gotten itself free, and that > information, once free, is pouncing ferociously at every opportunity, > ripping apart ignorance wherever it can be found. Once that information is > on YouTube, it is THERE for anyone to access, no need for help from > governments or news majors, it is there and it is FREE! Unfortunately, the lack of photos and movies about the drone bombing is akin the lack of photo and movies about the UFO. You could excuse it in the past, without ubiquitous cellphones and cameras. But now? Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 16:18:23 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:18:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <032b01cd9cc3$e7714b90$b653e2b0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> <35DBECE3-F09E-464E-99B3-09A2AB6D9215@gmail.com> <032b01cd9cc3$e7714b90$b653e2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:22 PM, spike wrote: > Exactly so sir, which is why I suggested YouTube. This is a wonderfully > powerful tool which we didn't have during the Vietnam War years. It goes > around the military-industrial complex, slips right past the US news media > and their silly distractions of the latest school teacher raping her eager > and willing students, it goes past the censors and governments. YouTube is > our DREAM! It is information which has gotten itself free, and that > information, once free, is pouncing ferociously at every opportunity, > ripping apart ignorance wherever it can be found. Once that information is > on YouTube, it is THERE for anyone to access, no need for help from > governments or news majors, it is there and it is FREE! > > I think there are some video documentaries on YouTube if you search for them. But it is political. You can watch all the videos about the gallant troops fighting the evil Taliban and easily dismiss the others as left wing propaganda. Everybody looks for data to confirm their existing beliefs. That's why political arguments never change anybody's mind. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 16:42:50 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:42:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> Message-ID: <5064820A.8020800@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 17:54, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > > On 27 Sep 2012, at 16:28, Mirco Romanato > wrote: >> >> My humble opinion is, if the US Army, USMC, USAF want make a desert >> and call it "peace", they have all the tools and the power to do so >> in few weeks > > No. They have the tools to do so in *half an hour*. What they don't > have is the orders to do so. They're a tool of state policy, and the > state policy wants to reduce jihadi recruiting and pacify a very > remote region in the arse end of nowhere, not detonate a thousand > H-bombs. Make a desert is about depopulating it, not make a glassy parking lot of it. A and H bomb are not needed. People doesn't use hammers to dry an eggplant. They use salt, a wood tablet and some weight. And leave it. A few hours after a lot of water is out. Good for a cookbook but not for a novel. >> What Charlie Stross and others are arguing is the US is evil and >> powerful, but, like Israel, it is unable to exterminate a people >> unarmed and under their total control. They would like to do it, >> they try to do it, but someway they are unable to do it. > Straw man. > To do the job they really need to put a million pairs of boots on the > ground -- a full-scale occupation army. But they can't do that. So > they're essentially using terror tactics as a proxy for manpower. To do the job they really need some hundred drones up, a few MRLS strategically places and the will to do a dirty job. After they just apply the pressure to a province/region for weeks at time and depopulate it from the residents (unable to feed themselves and put a foot out of home without risking life and limbs). It is not needed to obtain 100% result, just 90-95% is enough. Then move the pressure to another place, rinse and repeat. I'm not arguing it is a good thing or a legal thing or should it be, only they could do it, have the tools to do it and would be much easier to do than what they are doing now. And what they are doing now is not to target willfully wedding parties and social gatherings. Sometimes they take the wrong target (shit just happen in war) or the right target is just mingled with the civilians (whatever they could be). What I never read is any condemnation of the Taliban practice of targeting civilians willfully if they don't collaborate with them, to attack civilian gathering, etc. If the Taliban have a pass for doing it, I think the US should have a pass for doing it. The fact the US is most powerful and efficient but tame than them is not reason to condemn the US military actions and not the Taliban actions. > (The British Empire started this game back when Churchill was in the > foreign office, post-WW1; "policing with bombers" is your key search > term. Want to know where they tried it? Iraq!) Do you straw man me? What I was talking about is not "policing with bombers" (policing being reactive), but evicting people from their home(land) with bombs or killing when they don't leave. >> Let me be skeptic. > I'm accusing you of arguing in ill-faith. Straw man positions > ascribed to your opponents, cherry-picked extracts from someone > else's religious texts ... I've seen this before. If I'm cherry picking from someone else religion, someone could post the cherry picked text in context and show how much wrong I am. With Islam this is rarely tried. Guess why? > If we replace "muslim" with "jew" in your previous screed, and > replaced the surahs with talmudic extracts, you'd be a dead ringer > for Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Propaganda, i.e. it'd be > obvious that you were blatantly, axe-grindingly anti-semitic. But > switch to a different religious target and folks give you a free > pass. You're disgusting. If I replaced "muslims" with "Aztec" and condemned their religion as barbarous and unacceptable for civilized people, I bet you would compare me to a Nazi too. Not all Aztec made human sacrifices, just some extremist that, by chance, got to be in charge. Mirco From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 16:43:49 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 12:43:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <50646B9C.3040505@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:24 AM, Dave Sill wrote: >> you give the rioting Muslims the right to punish the not rioting >> Muslims (or worse, the Muslims working or helping not Muslims against other >> Muslims). > > > > OK, but that's a bit of a stretch. Is there any evidence that that's > actually the case? > http://rt.com/news/pakistani-businessman-blasphemy-protest-537/ John K Ckark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 17:05:08 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:05:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 Charlie Stross wrote: > I'm accusing you of arguing in ill-faith. Straw man positions ascribed to > your opponents, cherry-picked extracts from someone else's religious texts > ... I've seen this before. If we replace "muslim" with "jew" in your > previous screed, and replaced the surahs with talmudic extracts, you'd be a > dead ringer for Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Propaganda, i.e. it'd be > obvious that you were blatantly, axe-grindingly anti-semitic. But switch to > a different religious target and folks give you a free pass. You're > disgusting. > It's an interesting phenomena, there is a certain breed of liberal out there that feels it is his moral obligation to defend the actions of any religion no matter how outrageous, provided it is not one of the primary religions of ones own culture; and to defend the actions of any government no matter how evil, provided it is not his own government. I'm not certain of the cause of this effect, but I suspect it has something to do with making the poor boob feel broad minded and cosmopolitan. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Sep 27 17:05:13 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 10:05:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <030601cd9cb8$d60e0150$822a03f0$@att.net> <35DBECE3-F09E-464E-99B3-09A2AB6D9215@gmail.com> <032b01cd9cc3$e7714b90$b653e2b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <038701cd9cd2$42f6d3f0$c8e47bd0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK >...Subject: Re: [ExI] riots again On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 4:22 PM, spike wrote: > Exactly so sir, which is why I suggested YouTube... >...I think there are some video documentaries on YouTube if you search for them... That's why political arguments never change anybody's mind. BillK _______________________________________________ What we need are photographs of every drone strike, along with some kind of photographic evidence, date and time stamped, ideally location stamped, along with text reports on who was slain or injured, ages, gender and so forth. Reports of debilitating listlessness and nightmares are of no value to me, for if I dreamed I lived in some benighted theocracy, I too would wake screaming, and I too would be debilitated by hopelessness and listlessness, never mind the drones, which would only offer a vague promise of sweet relief through death. >From that photo-evidence we can create a central spreadsheet documenting everything, when the weapons were fired, who was hit, how many children perished and so forth. Without that, we will merely get more of President Obama's people insisting that no evidence exists to prove the contentions, at which time our best efforts at impeaching him will come to naught. spike From charlie.stross at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 17:22:41 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:22:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> Message-ID: <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> On 27 Sep 2012, at 18:05, John Clark wrote: > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 Charlie Stross wrote: > > > I'm accusing you of arguing in ill-faith. Straw man positions ascribed to your opponents, cherry-picked extracts from someone else's religious texts ... I've seen this before. If we replace "muslim" with "jew" in your previous screed, and replaced the surahs with talmudic extracts, you'd be a dead ringer for Joseph Goebbels' Reich Ministry of Propaganda, i.e. it'd be obvious that you were blatantly, axe-grindingly anti-semitic. But switch to a different religious target and folks give you a free pass. You're disgusting. > > It's an interesting phenomena, there is a certain breed of liberal out there that feels it is his moral obligation to defend the actions of any religion no matter how outrageous, provided it is not one of the primary religions of ones own culture; and to defend the actions of any government no matter how evil, provided it is not his own government. I'm not certain of the cause of this effect, but I suspect it has something to do with making the poor boob feel broad minded and cosmopolitan. I don't feel the need to defend islam. Or christianity, or judaism. All those faiths harbour a bucketload of intolerant chuckleheads who want to force their beliefs on everyone else. However, to damn *all* muslims, christians, or jews as intolerant chuckleheads is to make a mistake of similar magnitude. The cure for intolerance is not more intolerance. -- Charlie From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 17:24:19 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:24:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> Message-ID: <50648BC3.5080401@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 19:05, John Clark ha scritto: > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 Charlie Stross > wrote: > > > I'm accusing you of arguing in ill-faith. Straw man positions > ascribed to your opponents, cherry-picked extracts from someone > else's religious texts ... I've seen this before. If we replace > "muslim" with "jew" in your previous screed, and replaced the surahs > with talmudic extracts, you'd be a dead ringer for Joseph Goebbels' > Reich Ministry of Propaganda, i.e. it'd be obvious that you were > blatantly, axe-grindingly anti-semitic. But switch to a different > religious target and folks give you a free pass. You're disgusting. > > > It's an interesting phenomena, there is a certain breed of liberal out > there that feels it is his moral obligation to defend the actions of any > religion no matter how outrageous, provided it is not one of the > primary religions of ones own culture; and to defend the actions of any > government no matter how evil, provided it is not his own government. > I'm not certain of the cause of this effect, but I suspect it has > something to do with making the poor boob feel broad minded and > cosmopolitan. I would like to correct you. They do it only if their own primary religion or government it is not a real threat to their purse and bones. As either become a real threat they start criticize something less threating. Mirco From pharos at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 18:09:00 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:09:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Google wants you... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 3:32 PM, J.R. Jones wrote: > http://www.kurzweilai.net/google-venture-fund-seeks-forward-thinking-biotech-entrepreneurs > > Seems like a right fit for some of this list's brilliant minds > > Unfortunately my brilliant mind ran away some time ago. I suspect it is hiding in the bottom of the wardrobe and refusing to come out. I've tried coaxing it out with titbits of Stephen Hawking and Michio Kaku but without success. Luckily I don't make use of it very often, so it is just a minor inconvenience. Anyway, it tends to be a bit of a showoff when it is out in public. That may be why it is sulking now, after the latest reprimand when it claimed to know how to solve the world's economic problems. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 18:22:00 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:22:00 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> Message-ID: <50649948.5070207@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 19:22, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > I don't feel the need to defend islam. Or christianity, or judaism. > All those faiths harbour a bucketload of intolerant chuckleheads who > want to force their beliefs on everyone else. However, to damn *all* > muslims, christians, or jews as intolerant chuckleheads is to make a > mistake of similar magnitude. The cure for intolerance is not more > intolerance. The cure for intolerance is to be intolerant with intolerant people and tolerant with tolerant people. Simply Tit-For-Tat or some variation of it. In fact, the majority of Muslims, Jews, Communists and other assorted creeds is not really intolerant of harmless behavior. The problem arise when they are tolerant of harmful behaviors of some of their fellows. The problem with Muslims is not they are all blood-thirsty savages; only a few are. The problem is the great majority think the behavior of the blood-thirsty savages is mandated, normal, acceptable and doesn't want or is able to purge their ranks from the "small minority" and often side with them against the outsiders. This problem is not present with other large religions, as the "small minority" inside them is often promptly rejected, ostracized, isolated, disowned and fought as they show off their true colors. Mirco From protokol2020 at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 18:01:18 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:01:18 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50648BC3.5080401@libero.it> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <50648BC3.5080401@libero.it> Message-ID: As far as I know, currently there is no protest against the western infidels in Syria. They are just too busy with something else. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 19:30:06 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:30:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 1:22 PM, Charlie Stross wrote: > I don't feel the need to defend islam. Or christianity, or judaism. All > those faiths harbour a bucketload of intolerant chuckleheads who want to > force their beliefs on everyone else. Yes. > However, to damn *all* muslims, christians, or jews as intolerant > chuckleheads is to make a mistake of similar magnitude. All Muslims and Christians and Jews are chuckleheads, to belong to any of those religions you must believe in their bronze age era holy book, and obviously to do that being a chucklehead is a vital requirement. However not all Muslims and Christians and Jews are intolerant, but the evidence indicates that most good Muslims are. I say this because even if they are not personally involved in one of those ridiculous brain dead dumb riots, the rank and file of that religion don't seem particularly embarrassed by the fact that a large number of people with their faith are. In the Islamic world there just doesn't seem to be much outrage at the idiocy committed in the name of Allah. Being anti-Muslim does not make one a Nazi, I make no apologies in condemning Nazi ideology and Communist ideology and Islamic ideology. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Thu Sep 27 20:19:42 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 13:19:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50649948.5070207@libero.it> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> <50649948.5070207@libero.it> Message-ID: <5064B4DE.3080409@moulton.com> On 09/27/2012 11:22 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > The problem with Muslims is not they are all blood-thirsty savages; only > a few are. The problem is the great majority think the behavior of the > blood-thirsty savages is mandated, normal, acceptable and doesn't want > or is able to purge their ranks from the "small minority" and often side > with them against the outsiders. The amount of BS on this thread is simply staggering. Exactly how is this purging of their ranks supposed to happen? How is a Muslim person living in Indonesia supposed to know the identify and believes of all of the different Muslims in various countries around the world? Or what about the Muslims living here in the Silicon Valley, how are they going to handle this purge of Muslims worldwide? Suggestions of mass killings or relocations of entire populations because of a minority is vile, repugnant and not at all part of the Extropian movement. Fred From anders at aleph.se Thu Sep 27 20:26:14 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:26:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] wicked cool hubble deep space photo In-Reply-To: <020d01cd9c48$f5480a90$dfd81fb0$@att.net> References: <020d01cd9c48$f5480a90$dfd81fb0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5064B666.9040908@aleph.se> On 27/09/2012 01:42, spike wrote: > > Oh man, this is soooo cool, what a time to be alive: > > http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/09/25/revealing-the-universe-the-hubble-extreme-deep-field/ > > And then there is this paper showing that the accretion disk of M87 rotates with the central black hole, with an edge just 5 radii out: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/measuring-a-black-holes-event-horizon-0927.html http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120927144526.htm https://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/09/26/science.1224768 Of course, a more visually impressive image of M87 is http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2000/20/image/a/format/large_web/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2000/20/image/a/ but the sheer *measurement* in the above paper is pretty impressive. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Sep 27 20:31:15 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:31:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <5064B4DE.3080409@moulton.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> <50649948.5070207@libero.it> <5064B4DE.3080409@moulton.com> Message-ID: <5064B793.1080105@aleph.se> On 27/09/2012 21:19, F. C. Moulton wrote: > The amount of BS on this thread is simply staggering. Which is interesting on its own. No matter what one's views on the factual state of the world is, the vitriol itself should suggest that people participating are not being very rational - and that likely includes oneself too. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From pjmanney at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 21:30:22 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:30:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 11:42 AM, Jeff Davis wrote: > On Tue, Sep 25, 2012 at 7:58 AM, John Clark wrote: >> On Mon, Sep 24, 2012 at 3:28 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > >>> "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." > - Samuel P. Huntington > >> "in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. > > In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years > of democracy and peace ? and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock." >> >> - Orson Welles > > > These competing quotes then is your distillation of the argument? Fine. > > What did the Swiss produce? Five hundred years of democracy and > peace. Five hundred years without warfare, terror, murder, and > bloodshed. > > ***AND*** they produced the cuckoo clock to celebrate the minutes and > hours of their magnificent accomplishment. > > And Welles, the narcissistic, over-achiever with the Randian ethics of > a spoiled two-year old got it wrong. It wasn't the Borgias that > generated those accomplishments -- the Renaissance in particular. It > was the money generated by the trade in silk and spices. The film geek in me must protest. Welles only said the above quote in the context of his characterization of Harry Lime, the villain in the classic film, The Third Man. While he did ad lib the line (there was the need for an extra 'beat' in the scene written by Graham Greene), Welles later said he cribbed the concept from one, or possible two plays he had read. But it would be a sentiment that Harry Lime believed. Not Welles (raving narcissist though he was). Later, the Swiss schooled Welles on his line, explaining that they neither made Cuckoo Clocks (the Germans did) and historically had the most fearsome military and mercenary force in Europe at the time. There's a reason the popes have been guarded by Swiss Guards since the 15th C. More interesting to me is how The Third Man is a compelling example of both sides of the "US intervention as destructive/constructive force" argument. Harry Lime and the hero, Holly Martins, represent their belief systems quite nicely. It's also one of the best movies ever made, so if you haven't seen it, do take the time. However, those who quote lines like these as proof of anything must realize that just because someone said it, doesn't make it true. Don't they? PJ From pjmanney at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 21:07:30 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 14:07:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <5064B793.1080105@aleph.se> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> <50649948.5070207@libero.it> <5064B4DE.3080409@moulton.com> <5064B793.1080105@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 1:31 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 27/09/2012 21:19, F. C. Moulton wrote: >> >> The amount of BS on this thread is simply staggering. > > Which is interesting on its own. No matter what one's views on the factual > state of the world is, the vitriol itself should suggest that people > participating are not being very rational - and that likely includes oneself > too. Complexity > Confusion > Fear > Simplification > Rationalization > Belief > Vitriol Expanding the context helps, but we can only process so much information. Even though I side with Stross, Davis & Bill K (whose context is broader than the others), there is even more there than they -- or I -- can take in. So much for facts. PJ From moulton at moulton.com Thu Sep 27 22:12:55 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:12:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5064CF67.2010201@moulton.com> PJ, thanks for elevating the level of discourse. Fred From pjmanney at gmail.com Thu Sep 27 22:38:29 2012 From: pjmanney at gmail.com (PJ Manney) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 15:38:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 2:30 PM, PJ Manney wrote: > More interesting to me is how The Third Man is a compelling example of > both sides of the "US intervention as destructive/constructive force" > argument. Harry Lime and the hero, Holly Martins, represent their > belief systems quite nicely. It's also one of the best movies ever > made, so if you haven't seen it, do take the time. Here's the famous scene in question. Enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XQ2tPrBA1k&feature=related PJ From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Sep 27 22:47:44 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 00:47:44 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <5064B4DE.3080409@moulton.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <654A98FC-0ED4-4B30-969D-46ECF6DC90A4@gmail.com> <02f301cd9cb7$4820a6a0$d861f3e0$@att.net> <50647083.2080301@libero.it> <6E6533AF-6D85-40EA-BE1E-5304010FF96F@gmail.com> <50649948.5070207@libero.it> <5064B4DE.3080409@moulton.com> Message-ID: <5064D790.2020002@libero.it> Il 27/09/2012 22:19, F. C. Moulton ha scritto: > On 09/27/2012 11:22 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > >> The problem with Muslims is not they are all blood-thirsty savages; only >> a few are. The problem is the great majority think the behavior of the >> blood-thirsty savages is mandated, normal, acceptable and doesn't want >> or is able to purge their ranks from the "small minority" and often side >> with them against the outsiders. > The amount of BS on this thread is simply staggering. Exactly how is > this purging of their ranks supposed to happen? Like other religions purge their ranks, starting near home. For example, disassociating themselves from preachers advocating hate for infidels, leaving the Mosques controlled by the "little minority" and expelling the "little minority" from the Mosques the "little minority" doesn't control. Publicly denouncing and distancing the Imams, the preachers of hate before the infidels discover them inside their mosques. Stopping from telling a thing to the infidels in their language and another to Muslims in Arabic. These actions could be a good start. > How is a Muslim person > living in Indonesia supposed to know the identify and believes of all of > the different Muslims in various countries around the world? Or what > about the Muslims living here in the Silicon Valley, how are they going > to handle this purge of Muslims worldwide? They just must take a side in the confrontation and decide if they want live in a free society supporting it or no. Just as Jews do in regard of violent extremists in their midst. They side with the not-violent even if they are Christians, Buddhists or Atheists against the violent claiming to Jews. For example, a group of Extremists Mormons in Amsterdam walk down the street and cross a couple of gays holding hands and decide to beat them because they are doing something sinful in the eye of Mormonism. The gay couple, being believer in the self-defense religion decide to self-defend themselves and in the process kill half of the aggressors and maim for life the other half. A good Moderate Mormon would not complain for the fate of the Extremist Mormon, but would congratulate with the gay couple of the self-defense religion because they defended themselves from a wrongful attack and freed humanity from the burden of so many assholes. > Suggestions of mass killings or relocations of entire populations > because of a minority is vile, repugnant and not at all part of the > Extropian movement. This is not suggestion, this is what someone accuse the US of trying to do an daily bases. I just pointed out the US have the tools to do it very efficiently if they really wanted do it, just to highlight the absurdity of the claim. Then, I ask you, what real Extropians would do if some group of people make a policy to eradicate them out using all the means available to them, violence included? Do real Extropians would do as Gandhi exhorted the Jews to do in front of the Nazi persecution? "Hitler killed five million Jews. It is the greatest crime of our time. But the Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife. They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs. As it is, they succumbed anyway in their millions." Mirco From lubkin at unreasonable.com Thu Sep 27 22:37:55 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 18:37:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Lend me your ear Message-ID: <201209272254.q8RMsSwu028679@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Hopkins Doctors Grow New Ear On Woman's Arm Reminds me of Cordwainer Smith's "A Planet Named Shayol." Since Smith, as Paul Linebarger, got his PhD at Johns Hopkins and was later a professor there at SAIS, I wonder if Dr. Byrne found his inspiration in that story. -- David. From lubkin at unreasonable.com Thu Sep 27 23:28:04 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:28:04 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Lend me your ear In-Reply-To: <201209272254.q8RMsSwu028679@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201209272254.q8RMsSwu028679@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <201209272328.q8RNSFTc018583@andromeda.ziaspace.com> There was also a recent piece on growing replacement organs in vivo. One Day, Growing Spare Parts Inside the Body And, I expect, if your body is too toxic or weak for these techniques, if you have a relative who's a close enough tissue match for a transplant, it would be useful to grow the organs in them. -- David. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 00:07:00 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 17:07:00 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Charlie Stross wrote: snip > I don't feel the need to defend islam. Or christianity, or judaism. All those faiths harbour a bucketload of intolerant chuckleheads who want to force their beliefs on everyone else. However, to damn *all* muslims, christians, or jews as intolerant chuckleheads is to make a mistake of similar magnitude. The cure for intolerance is not more intolerance. I think it is worth considering where all religions came from in the first place. They are, near as I can see every one of them, xenophobic memes. And the reason they thrive in human minds is due to the same mechanisms that have caused wars for the last few million years. Mirco Romanato > In fact, the majority of Muslims, Jews, Communists and other assorted > creeds is not really intolerant of harmless behavior. The problem arise > when they are tolerant of harmful behaviors of some of their fellows. > > The problem with Muslims is not they are all blood-thirsty savages; only > a few are. The problem is the great majority think the behavior of the > blood-thirsty savages is mandated, normal, acceptable and doesn't want > or is able to purge their ranks from the "small minority" and often side > with them against the outsiders. > > This problem is not present with other large religions, as the "small > minority" inside them is often promptly rejected, ostracized, isolated, > disowned and fought as they show off their true colors. That's more or less true today, but any religion can be used as an excuse to kill unbelievers and will be if the population is under "bleak future" stress. If you need examples, I can certainly proved plenty of them. But if you want to figure this out yourself, tell me why the IRA is much less of a problem today. Keith From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 00:44:05 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:44:05 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Google wants you... In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 2:09 PM, BillK wrote: > Anyway, it tends to be a bit of a showoff when it is out in public. > That may be why it is sulking now, after the latest reprimand when it > claimed to know how to solve the world's economic problems. I consulted yesterday but it was charging too much $$$ for the answer. From lubkin at unreasonable.com Fri Sep 28 02:42:03 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:42:03 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> Message-ID: <201209280242.q8S2gGmt007160@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Catching up on the thread. Spike wrote: >Somehow we must communicate to those living without free speech that >they too can get a YouTube account, they too can get on the internet, they >can post whatever they want, anonymously, they can figure out a way to get >to WikiLeaks. Therefore those unaccustomed to this freedom have been given, >rather have been forced upon them a de facto freedom of speech and freedom >of the press, whether they want it or not. Ready or not, here it comes. Circa 2004, as I recall, I raised the challenge here that the asserted goal of the neocon movement et al was to, piece by piece, free the world. Thence: What can be done by people such as us -- you, me, and Fargo over there, with a possible dotcom rich assist -- that would do the job more effectively? With the idea that there are clever, cheap answers to some problems when you aren't concerned with getting rich, getting credit, or how it plays politically. I kicked off with the idea we've discussed before, of dropping a suitable, ruggedized laptop with voice and web access into every village, without permission. Revised, related challenge: What can be done on a shoestring to accelerate That Religion's reformation into one that's no more violent or objectionable than anyone else's? -- David. From lubkin at unreasonable.com Fri Sep 28 02:42:16 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:42:16 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again Message-ID: <201209280242.q8S2gPac029383@andromeda.ziaspace.com> John Clark wrote: >When Monty Python insulted the most sacred cultural symbol of the >West 30 years ago with their movie "The Life of Brian" did homicidal >American mobs attack the British Embassy and murder the ambassador? >No, instead people who didn't like the movie just gave it bad >reviews because they were something called *civilized*. I don't normally read The Onion, but this made its point pretty effectively: -- David. From lubkin at unreasonable.com Fri Sep 28 02:36:55 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 22:36:55 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again Message-ID: <201209280242.q8S2glLQ004557@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Spike wrote: >Good chance that was the last attempted prosecution of blasphemy in British >history. Keith Henson's prosecution might well be the very last successful >blasphemy prosecution in the history of western civilization. You'd hope so, but: I'm not sure I can come up with a proposed international law that is more outrageous than outlawing "blasphemy." Of course, to be fair, a law against blasphemy ought to include any remark that is defamatory of anyone's belief system, whether religious or not. We'd actually be better under a single selected world religion than a definition of blasphemy whose breadth satisfied the General Assembly. Of course, once the tech is there, what you really want is direct thought- control. The thought is father to the deed. We can't have crimethink. -- David. From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 03:09:09 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:09:09 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <201209280242.q8S2gPac029383@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201209280242.q8S2gPac029383@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 David Lubkin wrote: > I don't normally read The Onion, but this made its point pretty > effectively: > > because-of-this-image,29553/ > > That was EXCELLENT! Thanks Dave. To a first approximation all religions may be equally stupid but they are not equally intolerant or equally dangerous. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 03:44:52 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 23:44:52 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 , Keith Henson wrote: > tell me why the IRA is much less of a problem today. > Because in Ireland in particular and Western Europe in general Christianity is much less powerful today than it was just a few years ago, in fact Europe is the least religious place on the face of the Earth. Well OK, Antarctica probably has it beat, almost everybody there is a scientist and most of them are atheists or agnostics. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Sep 28 04:17:32 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2012 21:17:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] blown mind Message-ID: <04b201cd9d30$2f1356c0$8d3a0440$@att.net> Just take a few minutes and gaze at this picture: http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic1214a.jpg And while you are doing that, ponder this: the typical spacing between galaxies is on the order of a million light years. Then gaze at this picture again. There are about 8 foreground stars, but all the rest of those little smudges are unimaginably large numbers of star, each of which is large enough in itself that the mind boggles. Does that blow your mind, or what? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rahmans at me.com Fri Sep 28 13:29:03 2012 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:29:03 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> > All Muslims and Christians and Jews are chuckleheads, to belong to any of > those religions you must believe in their bronze age era holy book, and > obviously to do that being a chucklehead is a vital requirement. However > not all Muslims and Christians and Jews are intolerant, but the evidence > indicates that most good Muslims are. I say this because even if they are > not personally involved in one of those ridiculous brain dead dumb riots, > the rank and file of that religion don't seem particularly embarrassed by > the fact that a large number of people with their faith are. In the Islamic > world there just doesn't seem to be much outrage at the idiocy committed in > the name of Allah. Why should someone be embarrassed by someone else's actions? Justin Beiber and I both come from Canada do I need to apologize for his songs? Presumption of innocence is a core value that most societies share. Guilt by association is currently being used to reclassify civilian casualties of drone strikes as militants unless post facto they prove their innocence. Post facto they are all usually post mortem so they rate of successful defense is rather low. The fact is that we are not applying many of our core principles to these people. We are treating them as less than us. In this way we are tearing apart our own social fabric as we have a clear dichotomy between the rights we believe are inalienable and the rights we ascribe to them. > > Being anti-Muslim does not make one a Nazi, I make no apologies in > condemning Nazi ideology and Communist ideology and Islamic ideology. > > John K Clark John, do you mean anti-Muslim as against the person who holds the belief, or against the belief itself. The difference is that people have rights and belief systems don't. You confuse the two in your sentence. And, once you become 'anti' to a group of people for a behavior of some or possibly none of them have, it actually does make you some type of fascist. Omar Rahman From rahmans at me.com Fri Sep 28 13:50:39 2012 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:50:39 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Ossification (Was: riots) In-Reply-To: <017213A7-A3D8-4708-B312-55C8AFE38BCA@me.com> References: <017213A7-A3D8-4708-B312-55C8AFE38BCA@me.com> Message-ID: On Sep 25, 2012, at 10:35 PM, extropy-chat-request at lists.extropy.org wrote: >> >> ... On Behalf Of Charlie Stross > ... > >> ...The real problem, though, is to find ways of destabilizing rigid > structures while encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality of > both opportunity and outcomes...-- Charlie > _______________________________________________ > > Charlie I have an idea regarding a way to destabilize rigid structures and > encourage social fluidity etc, starting in your field, professional writing. > There is no need to minimize inequality of opportunity in writing: everyone > has an opportunity to do that currently. So we are already halfway there, > however the other half, inequality of outcomes in that profession is > enormous. To minimize this, alongside the best seller list, we create a > worst seller list. Clearly those on the worst seller list aren't enjoying > equality of outcome with those on the other list, so I propose that whenever > any customer goes to buy an item on the best seller list, they receive > instead an item on the worst seller list. That scheme would minimize > inequality of outcome, starting in the field of writing, then we are on the > road to encouraging social fluidity and minimizing inequality, problem > solved. > > spike Spike, please refer to: http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/strawman Real inequality of outcomes is much more complex and is caused by some sort of external semi-permeable membrane barrier which allows some to enjoy success while inhibiting or making impossible the success of others. The 'glass ceiling' and the pay differentials for equal work between men and women are good examples of this. The Civil Rights Act and the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act are reasonable responses to this example of an unequal outcome. A best seller list, however has no such power to impede the success of writers and in fact new writers routinely join current 'best seller' lists and rise to even higher levels of success through this exposure. Social mobility, destabilising rigid structures, learning, etc. are what it's all about. Evolution is about the survival of the fittest; those most adaptable to change. As we prepare for the next stage in evolution, in which we will be able to design not only our descendants but also the environment that they live in, there is a tremendous urge to rig the system. This urge may even be some sort of hard coded impulse to ensure our progeny's survival. The only rational response to this situation, when we know the general principle of evolution, is to seek out and embrace differences and encourage adaptability. Ossification is a viable strategy during periods of stability, but if the ossification and optimisation goes too deep and you lose too much adaptability you are at risk from smaller and smaller perturbations to your environment. In his play, 'No Exit', Sartre concluded that 'hell is other people'. While he missed the point that heaven is probably other people too, he does have something there. In a future where competitors can consciously evolve/adapt themselves to exploit your weaknesses or the environment better than you; detecting and then minimising inequality of both opportunities and outcomes will be an essential survival skill. Detecting and then minimising inequality of both opportunities and outcomes is practically a generalised fitness function for a generalised genetic algorithm. That is our future, as genetic algorithms that set their own fitness functions. External people will have inter-subjective effects, and reality will have its objective effects, but by and large we will be able to change as we see fit. Just as consciousness developed over vast periods of time from simple reaction to stimuli, our sense of evolution is probably similarly developed as some organism's reaction to stimuli. Our, 'Hey, she is sexy!', is probably as comparably advanced as a clam's reaction to vibration. Evolution is going from the result of a group's survival through change to an active individual process of preparation for change. Inequality is matters in its context; in virtual spaces inequality matters not only according to the rules of that place but also according to its secondary objective effects on the objective entity operating in the virtual space , however in objective reality inequality is primary and cannot be mitigated by layers of abstraction. Therefore, inequality must be dealt with if you wish to prosper in the real world. Best regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Sep 28 13:59:46 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:59:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5065AD52.20008@libero.it> Il 28/09/2012 02:07, Keith Henson ha scritto: > I think it is worth considering where all religions came from in the > first place. They are, near as I can see every one of them, > xenophobic memes. And the reason they thrive in human minds is due > to the same mechanisms that have caused wars for the last few > million years. I don't think so. My take is religions are useful to bind people together and allow much more cooperation. It is like standardization of behaviors. If I belong to a community with a definite set of officially shared memes I'm able to plan my activities with a larger degree of safety. Different standards/religions could coexist, if they share some subset of fundamental memes allowing them to coexist. Cooperation is a tremendous asset when there is an external threat, not only because people go together against their shared threat, but because they will help each other to endure the threat. But the threat need not to be some human, just an harsh ecosystem, a dangerous job, etc. > That's more or less true today, but any religion can be used as an > excuse to kill unbelievers and will be if the population is under > "bleak future" stress. Anything can be used as an reason to kill. I know of mothers killing their children to protect them from the pain to become adults. > If you need examples, I can certainly proved plenty of them. But if > you want to figure this out yourself, tell me why the IRA is much > less of a problem today. Because the Catholics (Irish) see no reason to fight, as demography is on their side. Protestants (Scot-English) see no reason to fight because demography is not on their side and fighting would make thing worse faster. Both Churches hierarchies are against fighting for ideological reasons. The main thing to worry about is, for both, the economy and the lack of jobs. Fighting would make things worse. In Italy we had a decade of terrorism. At the end, all the troubles of a decade could be ascribed to just around 4-500 terrorist full time (this is all of them, left-right and center) and something 4-5.000 supporters. Italy had around 50 M inhabitants at the time. So, when the times changed, it was easy to suppress them out. In many ways, it is the same for IRA. Without external help in the form of money and weapons, their ability to perform was severely crippled. The real number of IRA or ETA terrorists was always small. Mirco From giulio at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 14:01:05 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:01:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?windows-1252?q?Afterlife=3F_=96_my_very_first_post_to_the?= =?windows-1252?q?_Extropians_list=2C_1999?= Message-ID: Afterlife? ? my very first post to the Extropians list, 1999 http://turingchurch.com/2012/09/27/afterlife-my-very-first-post-to-the-extropians-list-1999/ Today I found by chance an important bit of personal history: my very first post to the Extropians list, on December 6, 1999. It is interesting to see many of the ideas which I have been thinking and writing about in these 13 years already covered in that first post. I used to go by gammapi at newsguy.com at that time, in the stone age of the Internet. This is the post, with some uncorrected typos: ---- Afterlife? http://lucifer.com/exi-lists/extropians.4Q99/3294.html I am 42 years old and wish to think that some part of me will live forever. I have an even stronger wish to think that my loved ones will live forever. This deep wish to believe in an afterlife is quite common if not even universal. It contributed to the origin of religion (ref. Max More?s essay ?Transhumanism: towards a futurist philosophy?). I am reasonably confident that the first uploading experiments will be performed during my lifetime. At the same time I do not think that uploading will be an operational technology in useful time (that is, in time to live forever or at least a very long time by having my ?self? and memories transferred somewhere else). Cryonics may be an answer: have yourself frozen up until uploading becomes an operational technology and that?s it. But some of my loved ones would not accept it as it would go against their beliefs, and even worse some are dead already. So at least from my point of view uploading and cryonics are not an answer to the deep wish to believe in an afterlife. Why not considering afterlife as a goal? Imagine a future thanshuman civilisation, spread over the galaxy, with a mastery of space-time sufficient to reach ?somehow? into the past and record ?somehow? selves and memories of human beings. Back to the future, these could be uploaded to whatever physical structure is used those days as a vehicle for human consciousness. So the basic concepts of religion would become: God exists, we will evolve into it; Heaven exists, it is where God lives, A concept of ?Purgatorium? could also be formulated in this framework as some personalities might need re-engineering before ?Heaven?. Even more interesting, the ethical/moral values of ?God? are exactly the same that our own civilisation will develop. I am sure these ideas have been explored by thinkers (Theilard?) and discussed on the Extropian list. Any good references? By the way this is my first posting to the list, I look forward to discussing interesting things. ---- Indeed, I have discussed very interesting things on the Extropians list (now ExI-Chat) since then. For me and many others the list has been one of the main sources, perhaps the main source, of food for thought and awesome sense of wonder. Even more important, I have made a lot of great friends on the list. I hope to stay in touch with them, well, forever. I received some interesting replies to this first post. Anders Sandberg (thanks Anders for having been the first to welcome me to the list) mentioned Universal Immortalism and Frank Tipler?s Omega Point theory, and Charlie Stross mentioned Moravec?s simulation theory. I was interpreting transhumanism in this sense in 1999, and I remember thinking of Extropy as a beautiful and powerful ?new religion? for the new millennium (in the sense of an alternative / replacement for traditional faith-based religions, able to provide the same sense of wonder and meaning). Since then I have studied the writings of Tipler, Moravec and many others, refined my own thinking, and enjoyed the ongoing discussion with a small but growing group of like-minded ?spiritually-oriented transhumanists.? From charlie.stross at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 14:29:49 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 15:29:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <201209280242.q8S2gGmt007160@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <201209280242.q8S2gGmt007160@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On 28 Sep 2012, at 03:42, David Lubkin wrote: > > Revised, related challenge: What can be done on a shoestring to > accelerate That Religion's reformation into one that's no more > violent or objectionable than anyone else's? One of the huge problems is that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia pumps huge amounts of money into funding preachers and schools throughout the islamic world. The money is disbursed via the extreme wahabi clergy who typify the strain of islam peculiar to the House of Saud (who until the 19-teens were a bunch of dirt-poor fanatical desert dwellers on the fringes). The money comes from the Saudi oil budget and effectively buys the clerical establishment's tolerance of the royal family's discreet domestic decadence and corruption. It's as if some barking mad fringe Christian sect, about as mainstream as the Aryan Brotherhood(!), had several billion bucks a year to spend on global evangelism. And had done so for decades in the poorest parts of the Christian world, building and staffing schools and churches. A good starting point for dealing with the barking islamist tendency would be to pump a couple of billion a year into the more tolerant/mystical sects. I'd look at the sufis, and the shi'a (not the Iranian variety where it's been co-opted as the state religion of the Persian Empire, but the non-Iran affiliated shi'a). And rather than stopping at funding madrassahs that teach kids to rote-memorize the koran, I'd want them to push the kids through the koran-memorizing stage and on to higher levels of education with a reality-based bent. Mathematics, algebra, medicine, physics. It'd be a generational program, but the goal would be to shift the entire theological bias of islam away from the authoritarian purists and back towards mystic/meditative with a revived interest in the sciences (which, I should note, were in many cases pioneered in the islamic world, back when Europeans were running around bashing each other over the head with lumps of iron in an attempt to settle how many angels could dance on the head of a pin). -- Charlie From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 15:03:08 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:03:08 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 Omar Rahman wrote: > Why should someone be embarrassed by someone else's actions? If someone else has, or at least seems to have, the exact same ideas and philosophy of life as me and if that someone else does things that are widely reported and are as stupid as they are evil then I would speak up very loudly and point out as clearly as I could that our ideas and philosophy are not really the same after all. Unfortunately I see virtually none of that in the Islamic world. > > Presumption of innocence is a core value that most societies share. And I presume that people are intelligent and civilized until they prove themselves to be otherwise. Devout Muslims have proved themselves to be otherwise. > > We are treating them as less than us. I would not go on a mindless murder spree if I saw a cartoon or a YouTube video that I didn't like, and somebody who does is less than me. > John, do you mean anti-Muslim as against the person who holds the belief, > or against the belief itself. > Both. > The difference is that people have rights and belief systems don't. Yes, and people have the right to believe anything they want, and I have the right to call them morons for doing so and not expect to get torn apart by a mindless mob for doing so. > You confuse the two in your sentence. I'm not a bit confused by this, except perhaps at how a ridiculous belief system can make grown adults behave like retarded children, children that like to kill. > And, once you become 'anti' to a group of people for a behavior of some > or possibly none of them have None of them have? NONE OF THEM HAVE??!! > it actually does make you some type of fascist. > If so then being a anti Nazi makes you some type of fascist; and I make absolutely no apology in comparing Nazi ideology with Islamic ideology. Omar, condemning a religion does not make you a fascist, it just makes you sane. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 16:02:10 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 18:02:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <201209280242.q8S2gGmt007160@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: > would be to pump a couple of billion a year into the more tolerant/mystical sects. Pump your money to sufis and become one, if you wish. Moderate and tolerant and everything. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Fri Sep 28 16:29:56 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:29:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <00b601cd94f2$722ed240$568c76c0$@att.net> <936C9B9D-7312-4498-9177-AD0D55652949@gmail.com> <009901cd9a63$2ef04330$8cd0c990$@att.net> <00c401cd9a71$9b90ea40$d2b2bec0$@att.net> <201209280242.q8S2gGmt007160@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <201209281630.q8SGU9i8023578@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Charlie Stross replied to me: >A good starting point for dealing with the barking islamist tendency : >It'd be a generational program, I take that as given. Historically, changing any set of hearts and minds has taken multiple generations. One might suspect that we could do it more quickly nowadays, but I'd rather be reconciled to a 50-100 year project and happily surprised if it can be completed sooner. And I don't want to presuppose that we don't have to worry about this because the nano-fairy will enable us to fix it Real Soon Now. Quite the contrary: It'd be nice to cure the "convert or die" mindset while the weapons available are no more fearsome than a nuclear arsenal. -- David. From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Sep 28 16:33:02 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 18:33:02 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> Message-ID: <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Il 28/09/2012 15:29, Omar Rahman ha scritto: > Why should someone be embarrassed by someone else's actions? > Justin Beiber and I both come from Canada do I need to apologize for > his songs? Justin Beiber doesn't claim all Canadian love and support and sing his song. If he did, you should reassure any interested party that he is bullshitting around and you would see him drop dead before singing or listening his songs. > Presumption of innocence is a core value that most societies share. Do this is true for Islam? > Guilt by association is currently being used to > reclassify civilian casualties of drone strikes as militants unless > post facto they prove their innocence. Post facto they are all > usually post mortem so they rate of successful defense is rather > low. This is what newspapers and MSM write and tell. But the Geneva Conventions allow the right to strike enemies even if they are near civilians or use civilians as shields or cover. If a anti-aircraft gun is placed over or near a school full of children, there is no liability if the enemy shell the gun and hit the school and kill the children. The liability is on the shoulders of the people placing the anti-aircraft gun there. It is a battlefield, it is a war, not a police action. There is no trial, lawyers, etc. in war. > The fact is that we are not applying many of our core principles to > these people. The fact is that it is wrong to apply the wrong rules to the wrong case. On a battlefield the rules are different from the rules on a peaceful albeit crime filled neighborhood. > We are treating them as less than us. In this way we > are tearing apart our own social fabric as we have a clear dichotomy > between the rights we believe are inalienable and the rights we > ascribe to them. The tearing of the social fabric is happening from a long time. The simple fact the US (and other western countries) didn't formally declared war to al-Qaeda is a tear on the social fabric. Then we have a situation more like a civil war, where laws are done and undone, respected and disrespected at the whims of the government. And all is justified for "necessity". >> Being anti-Muslim does not make one a Nazi, I make no apologies in >> condemning Nazi ideology and Communist ideology and Islamic >> ideology. > John, do you mean anti-Muslim as against the person who holds the > belief, or against the belief itself. The difference is that people > have rights and belief systems don't. You confuse the two in your > sentence. And, once you become 'anti' to a group of people for a > behavior of some or possibly none of them have, it actually does > make you some type of fascist. I must not and will not speak for others, but I want to point out to PUNISHMENT AND PROPORTIONALITY: THE ESTOPPEL APPROACH N. Stephan Kinsella http://mises.org/journals/jls/12_1/12_1_3.pdf When you see these photos: http://frontpagemag.com/2012/fjordman/muslim-offenses-are-about-power-not-words/ like many other online from reputable MSM. When they write and argue for "beheading who insult the prophet" they are arguing their right to behead anyone not sharing their opinions. Now, some could discount their words as empty rants, but some take their words at face value and think they are not words. My understanding of the estoppel is they can not argue against anyone beheading/killing them for their opinions. Any third party could argue about the opportunity to do so or the proper way to do so without causing further problems with unrelated groups/individuals. Hume, in his writings, talk about acting against people planning to enslaving or killing you when there is no recourse to higher authority (because there is no higher authority or the authority is not helping). He make a distinction between harsh words told during the heat of the moment and cold, deliberations to do so. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Fri Sep 28 16:28:40 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 09:28:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] wikileaks again, was: RE: Afterlife? - my very first post to the Extropians list, 1999 Message-ID: <006901cd9d96$51dcc310$f5964930$@att.net> >... Today I found by chance an important bit of personal history: my very first post to the Extropians list, on December 6, 1999... Giulio Prisco My early posts were in that time frame too Giulio, or a year or two earlier. Those archives are painful to read: the general internet atmosphere was much harsher and edgier then. Manners and social graces from the real world hadn't yet figured out how to spill over into the digital world for the most part. We now have a kinder and gentler internet. When I checked those archives from fourth quarter 99, I ran across three posts by Julian Assange. I vaguely remembered he occasionally posted on ExI, but wasn't sure what he was about. I recall he seemed to have had an extreme view on privacy, one that I found compelling at the time, but now I might have a more moderate view. Now he has made the news again, by being named an enemy of the state by the US DoD: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state -20120927-26m7s.html#ixzz27cjH9qSk spike From giulio at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 17:49:37 2012 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 19:49:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] wikileaks again, was: RE: Afterlife? - my very first post to the Extropians list, 1999 In-Reply-To: <006901cd9d96$51dcc310$f5964930$@att.net> References: <006901cd9d96$51dcc310$f5964930$@att.net> Message-ID: Good to know that Julian was a poster here, I didn't know that. I will search the archives. I find it strange that he has been named an enemy of the state for telling people the truth, whereas others who shamelessly lied to the people have been treated, um, better. Now I am expecting some heavy flames in the best traditions of the good old Stone Age Internet. On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 6:28 PM, spike wrote: >>... Today I found by chance an important bit of personal history: my very > first post to the Extropians list, on December 6, 1999... Giulio Prisco > > My early posts were in that time frame too Giulio, or a year or two earlier. > Those archives are painful to read: the general internet atmosphere was much > harsher and edgier then. Manners and social graces from the real world > hadn't yet figured out how to spill over into the digital world for the most > part. We now have a kinder and gentler internet. > > When I checked those archives from fourth quarter 99, I ran across three > posts by Julian Assange. I vaguely remembered he occasionally posted on > ExI, but wasn't sure what he was about. I recall he seemed to have had an > extreme view on privacy, one that I found compelling at the time, but now I > might have a more moderate view. > > Now he has made the news again, by being named an enemy of the state by the > US DoD: > > http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/us-calls-assange-enemy-of-state > -20120927-26m7s.html#ixzz27cjH9qSk > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From lubkin at unreasonable.com Fri Sep 28 17:50:49 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:50:49 -0400 Subject: [ExI] how liberal are you quiz In-Reply-To: References: <000c01cd9b86$6003b0f0$200b12d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <201209281751.q8SHp357016503@andromeda.ziaspace.com> I found these two results interesting: Giulio: Jill Stein 88% Gary Johnson 83% Stephan: Gary Johnson 92%, Jill Stein 87% For most Americans, Johnson and Stein are poles apart. I think I've only once met someone who I knew was trying to choose between Libertarian and Green. They agree on some social issues, but are in strong opposition on virtually all economic issues. Are those social issues much more significant to you than the size and scope of government and governance of the free market? -- David. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 18:07:03 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:07:03 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 5:00 AM, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 , Keith Henson wrote: > >> tell me why the IRA is much less of a problem today. >> > Because in Ireland in particular and Western Europe in general Christianity > is much less powerful today than it was just a few years ago, in fact > Europe is the least religious place on the face of the Earth. OK, so why then is Christianity much less powerful in Western Europe now? >From your above observation, religiosity can change over time. Unless the change is random, then it is dependent on something else. What is it? What's changed in Europe as the religiosity went away? (I could give you hints, but I have been writing about my EP model for years.) Keith From spike66 at att.net Fri Sep 28 18:24:20 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 11:24:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] wikileaks again, was: RE: Afterlife? - my very first post to the Extropians list, 1999 In-Reply-To: References: <006901cd9d96$51dcc310$f5964930$@att.net> Message-ID: <002d01cd9da6$7a95c4e0$6fc14ea0$@att.net> On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 6:28 PM, spike wrote: >>... We now have a kinder and gentler internet. spike -----Original Message----- >...] On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco >...Good to know that Julian was a poster here, I didn't know that. I will search the archives... He didn't post a lot, and when he did, he didn't say much, and when he did, he seemed to cross swords often, as I vaguely recall. >...I find it strange that he has been named an enemy of the state for telling people the truth, whereas others who shamelessly lied to the people have been treated, um, better. Ja. >...Now I am expecting some heavy flames in the best traditions of the good old Stone Age Internet...Giulio On the contrary, 15 yrs ago I would expect so. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if everyone here takes it with a smile and a shrug, more like the way you would do at a lunch with a group of likeminded people. spike From jrd1415 at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 19:41:29 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 12:41:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: All the comments about Muslim intolerance and Muslim violence are a load of crap. And they are a load of crap because you -- John and Mirco for the most part -- but the rest as well because of their easy acquiescence to the erasure of context. And that context is the massive, deliberate, systematic, and unprovoked violence against Muslims by the West. Invasion, theft, murder, abetted by the usual dishonesty that assigns blame to the victims: before the aggression, based on a phonied up casus belli, after the aggression, by dishonestly characterizing retaliation as terrorism arising out of a cultural or racial predisposition to violence. Who has friggin attacked whom? Sure, Osama did the 911 thing, but he had reasons, and he spelled them out: Islam under attack (a million dead Iraqis from sanctions), murdered and dispossessed Palestinians and the theft of Palestine by European Zionists and their Western accomplices, Western support for Muslim dictators, and infidel soldiers on sacred Muslim territory. And there's quite a bit more than that, but not cited by Osama. These were Osama's casus belli, and they weren't phonied up like the Gulf of Tonkin or Iraq's WMDs. Then you write this: "...the Geneva Conventions allow the right to strike enemies even if they are near civilians or use civilians as shields or cover. If a anti-aircraft gun is placed over or near a school full of children, there is no liability if the enemy shell the gun and hit the school and kill the children. The liability is on the shoulders of the people placing the anti-aircraft gun there." This is sick, evil, dishonest, context-deleted hogwash. The Geneva Conventions forbid aggressive war, unequivocally declaring it to be the ultimate crime. Consequently, if an aggressor, without provocation or justification, attacks some group, then EVERY SINGLE DEATH on both sides, civilian and military alike, are criminal homicides, the culpability for which belongs ***ENTIRELY*** to the aggressor. You need to stop blaming Islam for defending itself and fighting back against Western criminality. It's willfully dishonest, stupid, and makes you a tribal accomplice to the criminality. Stop Western aggression against Islam, and the violent response to that aggression will stop. Otherwise, it's perpetual war, and while it may be emotionally satisfying to puff yourself up and declare "Bring it on, terrorists will not be appeased", I suspect you won't be pleased at how that plays out. Go thee and sin no more,... or continue to screw yourself by arrogating to yourself the white man's privilege to screw anyone anywhere who has something whitey wants. You guys piss me off. Best, Jeff Davis "Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." Winston Churchill Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 9:33 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 28/09/2012 15:29, Omar Rahman ha scritto: > > >> Why should someone be embarrassed by someone else's actions? > > >> Justin Beiber and I both come from Canada do I need to apologize for >> his songs? > > > Justin Beiber doesn't claim all Canadian love and support and sing his song. > If he did, you should reassure any interested party that he is bullshitting > around and you would see him drop dead before singing or listening his > songs. > > >> Presumption of innocence is a core value that most societies share. > > > Do this is true for Islam? > > >> Guilt by association is currently being used to >> reclassify civilian casualties of drone strikes as militants unless >> post facto they prove their innocence. Post facto they are all >> usually post mortem so they rate of successful defense is rather >> low. > > > This is what newspapers and MSM write and tell. > But the Geneva Conventions allow the right to strike enemies even if they > are near civilians or use civilians as shields or cover. > If a anti-aircraft gun is placed over or near a school full of children, > there is no liability if the enemy shell the gun and hit the school and kill > the children. The liability is on the shoulders of the people placing the > anti-aircraft gun there. > > It is a battlefield, it is a war, not a police action. There is no trial, > lawyers, etc. in war. > > >> The fact is that we are not applying many of our core principles to >> these people. > > > The fact is that it is wrong to apply the wrong rules to the wrong case. > On a battlefield the rules are different from the rules on a peaceful albeit > crime filled neighborhood. > > >> We are treating them as less than us. In this way we >> are tearing apart our own social fabric as we have a clear dichotomy >> between the rights we believe are inalienable and the rights we >> ascribe to them. > > > The tearing of the social fabric is happening from a long time. > The simple fact the US (and other western countries) didn't formally > declared war to al-Qaeda is a tear on the social fabric. > Then we have a situation more like a civil war, where laws are done and > undone, respected and disrespected at the whims of the government. And all > is justified for "necessity". > > >>> Being anti-Muslim does not make one a Nazi, I make no apologies in >>> condemning Nazi ideology and Communist ideology and Islamic >>> ideology. > > >> John, do you mean anti-Muslim as against the person who holds the >> belief, or against the belief itself. The difference is that people >> have rights and belief systems don't. You confuse the two in your >> sentence. And, once you become 'anti' to a group of people for a >> behavior of some or possibly none of them have, it actually does >> make you some type of fascist. > > > I must not and will not speak for others, but I want to point out to > PUNISHMENT AND PROPORTIONALITY: THE ESTOPPEL APPROACH > N. Stephan Kinsella > http://mises.org/journals/jls/12_1/12_1_3.pdf > > When you see these photos: > http://frontpagemag.com/2012/fjordman/muslim-offenses-are-about-power-not-words/ > like many other online from reputable MSM. > > When they write and argue for "beheading who insult the prophet" they are > arguing their right to behead anyone not sharing their opinions. > > Now, some could discount their words as empty rants, but some take their > words at face value and think they are not words. > > My understanding of the estoppel is they can not argue against anyone > beheading/killing them for their opinions. > > Any third party could argue about the opportunity to do so or the proper way > to do so without causing further problems with unrelated groups/individuals. > > Hume, in his writings, talk about acting against people planning to > enslaving or killing you when there is no recourse to higher authority > (because there is no higher authority or the authority is not helping). He > make a distinction between harsh words told during the heat of the moment > and cold, deliberations to do so. > > Mirco > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From protokol2020 at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 20:05:37 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:05:37 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: > You guys piss me off. Really? Take your own advice to me - and close yourself inside a small world. Then you will not be pissed off. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From charlie.stross at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 20:46:00 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:46:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: On 28 Sep 2012, at 21:05, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > > You guys piss me off. > > Really? Take your own advice to me - and close yourself inside a small world. > > Then you will not be pissed off. You appear not to have read the actual content leading up to that declaration. I'm with Jeff on this. One problem we have is that in the various muslim countries, people *know* there's state censorship and propaganda everywhere because there's no official doctrine of freedom of speech. Whereas folks in the USA "know" they've got free speech because of the first amendment. So they tend to be blind the extensive and insidious propaganda soup they are marinated in. -- Charlie From lubkin at unreasonable.com Fri Sep 28 21:19:25 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:19:25 -0400 Subject: [ExI] wikileaks again, was: RE: Afterlife? - my very first post to the Extropians list, 1999 In-Reply-To: <006901cd9d96$51dcc310$f5964930$@att.net> References: <006901cd9d96$51dcc310$f5964930$@att.net> Message-ID: <201209282119.q8SLJcHn027382@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Spike wrote: > >... Today I found by chance an important bit of personal history: my very >first post to the Extropians list, on December 6, 1999... Giulio Prisco > >My early posts were in that time frame too Giulio, or a year or two earlier. >Those archives are painful to read: the general internet atmosphere was much >harsher and edgier then. Manners and social graces from the real world >hadn't yet figured out how to spill over into the digital world for the most >part. We now have a kinder and gentler internet. Perhaps I've mentally filtered out, but I've been in remote conversations since 1976, the Internet since 1979, discussion lists since 1982, and the extropians' list since its original inception ~20 years ago, and I don't see any differences in conduct over time except that people are now lousy at formatting their email. There have always been fora run by people who won't put up with rude or hostile. Rude or hostile people either temper themselves or are evicted. And there are, and always have been, fora where anything goes. Part of my perception, perhaps, is that I've known some of the less kind, less gentle people for so many years that I am blind to their rough edges. -- David. From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 21:29:15 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:29:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 Jeff Davis wrote: > Osama did the 911 thing, but Ah yes the famous "but". Another interesting behavior common in the north American liberal is that whenever he even hints that September 11 2001 may have been somewhat less than a perfect day you can be 100% certain he will follow it with a "but". > he had reasons, And Hitler had his reasons. > and he spelled them out: Islam under attack Under attack by cartoons and YouTube videos. In May of this year a American soldier went nuts and murdered 16 Afghan civilians, the surprising response can only be described as tepid, a very few mild demonstrations against it but nobody got killed or even hurt. A month before that U.S. troops inadvertently burned a Koran and the resulting huge riots killed 40 people and injured hundreds. Mullah Khaliq Dad, who was on the religious counsel investigating the Koran burning seemed genuinely puzzled and downright incredulous that westerners would find the disparity in outrage a little odd. Of course he was angry at the question too but that means nothing, Muslims are always angry, that's the only thing they're good at. Anyway this is what Mullah Khaliq Dad had to say, and remember that this is a man Muslims consider to be wise: "How can you compare the dishonoring of the Holy Koran with the martyrdom of innocent civilians? The whole goal of our life is religion." When they spell out how Islam is "under attack" its clear that they're talking about cartoons and YouTube videos not drone attacks and mass murder. > unprovoked violence against Muslims by the West. > Yes totally unprovoked. In late 2001 completely out of the blue for no reason whatsoever the USA said to itself " Hey there's nothing else going on, lets attack Afghanistan the poorest country in the world, and lets do it just because we're wicked evil bad guys". > Who has friggin attacked whom? > Is this even debatable? > The Geneva Conventions forbid aggressive war And history has proven that the Geneva Convention is about as useful as a bucket of warm spit in preventing war, aggressive or otherwise. > You need to stop blaming Islam for defending itself And you need to stop being a knee jerk apologist and stooge for an evil stupid childish religion that hasn't changed its worldview since the 10'th century. > You guys piss me off. > I for one am devastated that Jeff Davis is pissed off at me. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From jrd1415 at gmail.com Fri Sep 28 23:13:07 2012 From: jrd1415 at gmail.com (Jeff Davis) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 16:13:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: Touche! On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 1:05 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: >> You guys piss me off. > > Really? Take your own advice to me - and close yourself inside a small > world. > > Then you will not be pissed off. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 29 00:33:50 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 17:33:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] fars rips off the onion Message-ID: <002601cd9dda$198ee940$4cacbbc0$@att.net> This has to be the funniest thing that has happened in years. The Iranian news agency FARS has ripped a story from the Onion, and reported it as fact: http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/iranian-news-agency-plagiarizes- the-onion/ Here's the original: http://www.theonion.com/articles/gallup-poll-rural-whites-prefer-ahmadinejad -to-oba,29677/ spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 03:15:02 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:15:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] blown mind In-Reply-To: <04b201cd9d30$2f1356c0$8d3a0440$@att.net> References: <04b201cd9d30$2f1356c0$8d3a0440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 12:17 AM, spike wrote: > Just take a few minutes and gaze at this picture: > > http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic1214a.jpg > > And while you are doing that, ponder this: the typical spacing between > galaxies is on the order of a million light years. Then gaze at this > picture again. There are about 8 foreground stars, but all the rest of > those little smudges are unimaginably large numbers of star, each of which > is large enough in itself that the mind boggles. Does that blow your mind, > or what? My first thought was that it looks a lot like a close up of pavement, as if one were looking for textures with which to tile a background. In that sense, yes it blows my mind to imagine a wide view of the universe in a patch of pavement. From msd001 at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 03:36:14 2012 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:36:14 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <201209280242.q8S2glLQ004557@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201209280242.q8S2glLQ004557@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 10:36 PM, David Lubkin wrote: > Of course, once the tech is there, what you really want is direct thought- > control. The thought is father to the deed. We can't have crimethink. Until then we'll just have to make-do with indirect thought control. Consider "TV Programming" isn't about writing code to make televisions work, and it really isn't so much about deciding what to put on TV as much as using TV to program the consumer habits of the audience. Sad really. From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 04:03:12 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:03:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Reason for religions, was riots Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 12:41 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 28/09/2012 02:07, Keith Henson ha scritto: > >> I think it is worth considering where all religions came from in the >> first place. They are, near as I can see every one of them, >> xenophobic memes. And the reason they thrive in human minds is due >> to the same mechanisms that have caused wars for the last few >> million years. > > I don't think so. > > My take is religions are useful to bind people together and allow much > more cooperation. Yes. particularly getting the warrior of a hunter gatherer tribe to kill the neighbors because trying that is better for genes in a situation where half the tribe would otherwise stave. > It is like standardization of behaviors. If I belong > to a community with a definite set of officially shared memes I'm able > to plan my activities with a larger degree of safety. Indeed. Attacking in a group has a much better chance of working. > Different standards/religions could coexist, if they share some subset > of fundamental memes allowing them to coexist. Happens all the time. Zones of mixed religions such as Jews and Christians have peacefully existed for a long time. Then you get into bad economic conditions such as happened when Hitler came to power. > Cooperation is a tremendous asset when there is an external threat, not > only because people go together against their shared threat, but because > they will help each other to endure the threat. But the threat need not > to be some human, just an harsh ecosystem, a dangerous job, etc. Read what Azar Gat has to say about the Australian evidence. >> That's more or less true today, but any religion can be used as an >> excuse to kill unbelievers and will be if the population is under >> "bleak future" stress. > > Anything can be used as an reason to kill. I know of mothers killing > their children to protect them from the pain to become adults. > > >> If you need examples, I can certainly proved plenty of them. But if >> you want to figure this out yourself, tell me why the IRA is much >> less of a problem today. > > Because the Catholics (Irish) see no reason to fight, as demography is > on their side. Protestants (Scot-English) see no reason to fight because > demography is not on their side and fighting would make thing worse > faster. Can you find data to support this? It's been a long time since I dug out the data. As I recall, the fighting stopped close to a generation after the birth rate of the Catholics dropped to about the same as the Protestants. > Both Churches hierarchies are against fighting for ideological > reasons. The main thing to worry about is, for both, the economy and the > lack of jobs. Fighting would make things worse. Please read what Pope Urban II is reported to have said http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Urban_II#Crusades > In Italy we had a decade of terrorism. At the end, all the troubles of a > decade could be ascribed to just around 4-500 terrorist full time (this > is all of them, left-right and center) and something 4-5.000 supporters. > Italy had around 50 M inhabitants at the time. So, when the times > changed, it was easy to suppress them out. In many ways, it is the same > for IRA. Without external help in the form of money and weapons, their > ability to perform was severely crippled. The real number of IRA or ETA > terrorists was always small. They were certainly the tail of the distribution. But take a look at the economic outlook and the derivative of that output over the time you had such problems. If you have a better predictive model that is based on biology and evolution of the psychological traits by natural selection, please state it clearly. I am not welded to any of these theories if a better model can be articulated. I am not a big fan of the model I have created because, while I think does a good job of explaining things, it isn't worth a hoot at defining simple solutions to fix the origins of the problems. Keith From pharos at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 07:20:14 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:20:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] blown mind In-Reply-To: <04b201cd9d30$2f1356c0$8d3a0440$@att.net> References: <04b201cd9d30$2f1356c0$8d3a0440$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 5:17 AM, spike wrote: > Just take a few minutes and gaze at this picture: > > http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic1214a.jpg > > And while you are doing that, ponder this: the typical spacing between > galaxies is on the order of a million light years. Then gaze at this > picture again. There are about 8 foreground stars, but all the rest of > those little smudges are unimaginably large numbers of star, each of which > is large enough in itself that the mind boggles. Does that blow your mind, > or what? > > Ethan has a post up now explaining how the photo was made and what it is showing. Quote If we apply these results to the entire sky, we find that there are more like 200 billion galaxies in the entire Universe, around double what we got from the HUDF. But........ We?re taking a region of space that has very few nearby galaxies, or galaxies whose light takes less than a few billion years to reach us. We?ve selected a deliberately low-density portion of the nearby Universe. The XDF has found many more galaxies whose light has traveled between 5 and 9 billion years to reach us, which are relatively dim galaxies that the HUDF simply couldn?t pick up. But where it really shines is in the early Universe, at finding galaxies whose light has been on its was for more than 9 billion years, finding the majority of new galaxies there. But even the XDF is not optimized for finding these galaxies; we?d need an infrared space telescope for that, which is what James Webb is going to be. When that comes around, I wouldn?t be surprised to find that there are maybe even close to a trillion galaxies in the Universe; we just don?t have the tools to find them all yet. ---------------------- Note. That's *galaxies* he's talking about! Not just stars. Scale up again for stars! Also, See the Hubble report BillK From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 29 07:56:26 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:56:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] fars rips off the onion In-Reply-To: <002601cd9dda$198ee940$4cacbbc0$@att.net> References: <002601cd9dda$198ee940$4cacbbc0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5066A9AA.8020007@aleph.se> On 29/09/2012 01:33, spike wrote: > > This has to be the funniest thing that has happened in years. The > Iranian news agency FARS has ripped a story from the Onion, and > reported it as fact: > > http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/28/iranian-news-agency-plagiarizes-the-onion/ > > This is satire as its best. This is what any satirist lives for. And like all good satire there is a deep point aimed back at us too: how do we know or trust anything either? News media can be fooled outside Iran too, and it happens fairly regularly. From New York Times to Social Text, checking that facts are true or at least arguments sound, is pretty hard. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 08:08:26 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:08:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Jeff Davis wrote: > You need to stop blaming Islam for defending itself and fighting back > against Western criminality. It's willfully dishonest, stupid, and > makes you a tribal accomplice to the criminality. > > Stop Western aggression against Islam, and the violent response to > that aggression will stop. Otherwise, it's perpetual war, and while > it may be emotionally satisfying to puff yourself up and declare > "Bring it on, terrorists will not be appeased", I suspect you won't be > pleased at how that plays out. > > Unfortunately the West (mostly the US) has backed itself into a corner. Forget all the metaphysical crap about religions. That's just a convenient tool to manipulate populations. The West has built a civilisation dependant on oil. End of story. If the oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The US will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly governments over the oil resources. Planning 20 years ahead, not just next month. Everything else is just different stages on the path to that end result. Defending against and killing terrorists is required because the Western interference has upset some of the Arabs. But, as above, the US presently sees no alternative. The Saudis support the US in public for a very good reason. They don't want to be the next Iraq or Libya. (In private their support goes elsewhere). Longer term (over 20 years) the US can aim for alternative energy sources. Though they have to persuade the corporations that control the government that they need to change as well. The West has to move to alternative energy or perish in the process. But it won't be quick or easy. BillK From protokol2020 at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 08:58:38 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:58:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: There is enough of oil in US and Canada. The problem are Greens who want to stop (not to start) its pumping. Mother Nature wouldn't like it, they say. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sat Sep 29 13:42:11 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 09:42:11 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The coming meme wars Message-ID: <201209291342.q8TDgNB8013577@andromeda.ziaspace.com> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120928103802.htm Bioengineers Introduce 'Bi-Fi' -- The Biological 'Internet' >Using the virus, Ortiz and Endy have created a biological mechanism >to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly >increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated >between cells and could lead to greater control of biological >functions within cell communities. The advance could prove a boon to >bioengineers looking to create complex, multicellular communities >that work in concert to accomplish important biological functions. I see how this could be very useful, but I keep flashing to Stephen Baxter's One True. -- David. From spike66 at att.net Sat Sep 29 13:39:07 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 06:39:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] blown mind In-Reply-To: References: <04b201cd9d30$2f1356c0$8d3a0440$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a501cd9e47$cd52ba70$67f82f50$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] blown mind On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 at 5:17 AM, spike wrote: > Just take a few minutes and gaze at this picture: > http://www.spacetelescope.org/static/archives/images/large/heic1214a.jpg > > And while you are doing that, ponder this: the typical spacing between > galaxies is on the order of a million light years. ... Does that > blow your mind, or what? > > Ethan has a post up now explaining how the photo was made and what it is showing. Quote If we apply these results to the entire sky, we find that there are more like 200 billion galaxies in the entire Universe, around double what we got from the HUDF. But........ ---------------------- >...Note. That's *galaxies* he's talking about! Not just stars. Scale up again for stars! Also, See the Hubble report >...BillK _______________________________________________ Thanks BillK. From offlist questions I received from two different posters, I need to explain something. This mindblowing photo is about 2 arc minutes on a side. So if you took any of the approximately 30 million different but similar pictures in any other direction, you would see skerjillions of galaxies fading away into the unimaginably vast distance. When I see these deep space images, I dismiss all the compelling arguments about humans being the first or the only intelligent life, and become overwhelmed by the firm conviction, there is just no damn way we are the only ones. There MUST be others, lots of them. We are just doing something fundamentally wrong, or failing to grasp something here, we are. I think it must be that postcards to Australia thing, it must be something like that. They are there, they just aren't talking to us. spike From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 15:34:36 2012 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 08:34:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The power of memes was riots again Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 5:00 AM, John Clark wrote: > > On Fri, Sep 28, 2012 Jeff Davis wrote: > >> and he spelled them out: Islam under attack > > Under attack by cartoons and YouTube videos. In May of this year a American > soldier went nuts and murdered 16 Afghan civilians, the surprising response > can only be described as tepid, a very few mild demonstrations against it > but nobody got killed or even hurt. A month before that U.S. troops > inadvertently burned a Koran and the resulting huge riots killed 40 people > and injured hundreds. Mullah Khaliq Dad, who was on the religious counsel > investigating the Koran burning seemed genuinely puzzled and downright > incredulous that westerners would find the disparity in outrage a little > odd. Of course he was angry at the question too but that means nothing, > Muslims are always angry, that's the only thing they're good at. Anyway > this is what Mullah Khaliq Dad had to say, and remember that this is a man > Muslims consider to be wise: > > "How can you compare the dishonoring of the Holy Koran with the martyrdom > of innocent civilians? The whole goal of our life is religion." > > When they spell out how Islam is "under attack" its clear that they're > talking about cartoons and YouTube videos not drone attacks and mass > murder. The function of xenophobic (religious) memes is to sync up people to fight other people, but at times even I am amazed. As a prediction, I would say there is a good chance that the Christians in Egypt are in a situation close to that of the Jews in the early days of Nazi Germany. It's possible, with enough bad luck, that that other religions might become this sensitive. Keith From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 16:24:02 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:24:02 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 BillK wrote: > Forget all the metaphysical crap about religions. That's just a > convenient tool to manipulate populations. > Forget it?? That makes no sense at all, if the enemy has a tool of that power it would be crazy to pretend that they didn't have such a weapon. > > The West has built a civilisation dependant on oil. End of story. If the > oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The US > will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly governments > over the oil resources. If true, if civilization depends on it, then the West has been engaged in a very enlightened foreign policy and I hope they continue. > Defending against and killing terrorists is required because the Western > interference has upset some of the Arabs. Cartoons and YouTube. > The West has to move to alternative energy or perish in the process. > And for some reason nuclear energy is not considered a alternate energy source to hydrocarbons, and the naive continue to expect to power blast furnaces with windmills and moonbeams. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Sat Sep 29 17:18:31 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:18:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> On 09/29/2012 09:24 AM, John Clark wrote: > > If true, if civilization depends on it, then the West has been engaged > in a very enlightened foreign policy and I hope they continue. To say the "West has been engaged in a very enlightened foreign policy" is a statement that is simply absurd. For example consider the USA and the UK foreign policy for Iran in 1953. Yeah that really turned out great. The USA was then in the position of supporting a brutal dictator. And why do you think things went so badly for the USA when the Shah was overthrown? Maybe because the USA was supporting a brutal dictator. And this great foreign policy then lead the USA to support Saddam Hussein. Yeah that was another brilliant move. This is the Extropian list where it is assumed that list participants have a clue about history in general and Extropian principles in particular. I am sure that the non-extropian, non-transhuman, historically illiterate war mongers can find an email list where they would be more content. Fred From moulton at moulton.com Sat Sep 29 17:31:10 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 10:31:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> Message-ID: <5067305E.2040802@moulton.com> And lest anyone think that foreign policy does not have domestic ramifications. Consider this: http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/28/shakir-hamoodi-three-years-in-federal-pr From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Sep 29 17:42:48 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:42:48 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> Message-ID: <50673318.6000702@libero.it> Il 28/09/2012 22:46, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > You appear not to have read the actual content leading up to that > declaration. I'm with Jeff on this. > > One problem we have is that in the various muslim countries, people > *know* there's state censorship and propaganda everywhere because > there's no official doctrine of freedom of speech. > > Whereas folks in the USA "know" they've got free speech because of > the first amendment. So they tend to be blind the extensive and > insidious propaganda soup they are marinated in. This is what I think too. The evolution of the western system in what is now could be only possible if the TPTB (governments, big business allied with government, MSM, public education, etc.) had extensively propagandized the people. Bread and circus like in the Ancient Rome, to keep the people from revolting against the power and then rob them with inflations, make them debt slaves with mortgages of greatly overpriced homes, etc. Mirco From charlie.stross at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 17:47:38 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 18:47:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The coming meme wars In-Reply-To: <201209291342.q8TDgNB8013577@andromeda.ziaspace.com> References: <201209291342.q8TDgNB8013577@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Message-ID: <540CB157-BAF9-4AAB-818C-A4D8F7AEB7F0@gmail.com> On 29 Sep 2012, at 14:42, David Lubkin wrote: > http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120928103802.htm > Bioengineers Introduce 'Bi-Fi' -- The Biological 'Internet' > >> Using the virus, Ortiz and Endy have created a biological mechanism to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated between cells and could lead to greater control of biological functions within cell communities. The advance could prove a boon to bioengineers looking to create complex, multicellular communities that work in concert to accomplish important biological functions. > > I see how this could be very useful, but I keep flashing to Stephen > Baxter's One True. John Barnes, surely? -- Charlie From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Sep 29 17:52:29 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:52:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 F. C. Moulton wrote: > If true, if civilization depends on it, then the West has been engaged in >> a very enlightened foreign policy and I hope they continue. >> > > > To say the "West has been engaged in a very enlightened foreign policy" > is a statement that is simply absurd. If as was claimed its true that "if the oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The US will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly governments over the oil resources" then my statement was most certainly not absurd. > > For example consider the USA and the UK foreign policy for Iran in 1953. > Yeah that really turned out great. True, it was very successful for nearly 30 years. I wish all our actions worked that well for 30 years. > The USA was then in the position of supporting a brutal dictator. A friendly brutal dictator who will keep the oil coming and apparently keep civilization intact as opposed to a unfriendly brutal dictator that would not. > And why do you think things went so badly for the USA when the Shah was > overthrown? Because the USA is predominately Christian and Jewish and because it was the most powerful country in the world, being top dog never wins any popularity contests; it certainly wasn't because the USA engineered the overthrow of a Iranian prime minister 30 years previously who few people in either country could name. > And this great foreign policy then lead the USA to support Saddam Hussein. It cannot be denied that turned out to be a mistake but its easy to be brilliant in retrospect, I can certainly see how that could have seemed like a good idea at the time. You win some you loose some. > This is the Extropian list where it is assumed that list participants > have a clue about history in general and Extropian principles in > particular. Most of the Extropians I know are in favor of Civilization continuing, and if its true as was claimed in a previous post that for that to happen the oil flow must continue then you do what you need to do. Either the oil is important or it is not, you can't have it both ways. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sat Sep 29 18:06:37 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 14:06:37 -0400 Subject: [ExI] The coming meme wars In-Reply-To: <540CB157-BAF9-4AAB-818C-A4D8F7AEB7F0@gmail.com> References: <201209291342.q8TDgNB8013577@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <540CB157-BAF9-4AAB-818C-A4D8F7AEB7F0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <201209291806.q8TI6pk1000581@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Charlie wrote: >John Barnes, surely? Yes, of course. Sorry, John. -- David. From anders at aleph.se Sat Sep 29 18:41:15 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:41:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The coming meme wars In-Reply-To: <540CB157-BAF9-4AAB-818C-A4D8F7AEB7F0@gmail.com> References: <201209291342.q8TDgNB8013577@andromeda.ziaspace.com> <540CB157-BAF9-4AAB-818C-A4D8F7AEB7F0@gmail.com> Message-ID: <506740CB.5010400@aleph.se> On 29/09/2012 18:47, Charlie Stross wrote: > On 29 Sep 2012, at 14:42, David Lubkin wrote: > > I see how this could be very useful, but I keep flashing to Stephen > Baxter's One True. > John Barnes, surely? > My thought too. Slightly misleading subject. A nifty idea, though. A bit like the mcguffin in my "Death of the dragons" setting where the aliens who originally seeded life on Earth 4 billion years ago used it as a biological internet. The real civilisation is still down there in the lithoautothropic zone, slow and huge - the surface biosphere is just some random devolved stuff. I wonder if something like this could be used to do on-the-fly gene therapy in organisms. Of course they have to be prepared with the right sender and receiver infrastructure in the genome, but that seems doable. So maybe we can get gene hacking wars. One morning you all wake up with fluorescent oxytocin producing crosses on your foreheads... -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From moulton at moulton.com Sat Sep 29 20:29:57 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 13:29:57 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> Message-ID: <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> On 09/29/2012 10:52 AM, John Clark wrote: > > Most of the Extropians I know are in favor of Civilization continuing, > and if its true as was claimed in a previous post that for that to > happen the oil flow must continue then you do what you need to do. > Either the oil is important or it is not, you can't have it both ways. > Of course you are now setting up a false dichotomy. I can remember the beginning of the Extropian email list when it would not be necessary to explain the basics of market allocation of resources plus a multitude of similar topics. Has this list regressed to the point that we need to monthly post "Introduction to History, Logic and Basic Extropian Fundamentals" and on similar foundational topics? Fred From lubkin at unreasonable.com Sat Sep 29 20:53:51 2012 From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 16:53:51 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> Message-ID: <201209292054.q8TKs5cc027487@andromeda.ziaspace.com> Fred wrote: >Of course you are now setting up a false dichotomy. I can remember the >beginning of the Extropian email list when it would not be necessary to >explain the basics of market allocation of resources plus a multitude of >similar topics. Has this list regressed to the point that we need to >monthly post "Introduction to History, Logic and Basic Extropian >Fundamentals" and on similar foundational topics? More than that: It was specifically stated and agreed that we don't argue over basics, and an enumerated set was considered basic. You don't have to agree with them all, but you don't waste people's time arguing over them. And if you didn't know the basics, you were expected to come up to speed on your own. The consequence was that much of the traffic was talking about stuff that you couldn't find anywhere else. -- David. From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Sat Sep 29 20:41:25 2012 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 21:41:25 +0100 (BST) Subject: [ExI] Why not ask the Engineers? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1348951285.86918.YahooMailNeo@web132101.mail.ird.yahoo.com> Keith asked "Why not ask the Engineers?" The sad answer is that most people probably have no idea what an engineering frame of mind is, or what benefits it offers, or what makes it different from asking the scientists. There's a joke doing the rounds on facebook courtesy of a page called "I fucking love science" https://www.facebook.com/IFeakingLoveScience (which also has a child-friendly version, ScienceIsSeriouslyAwesome), where a scientist asks someone next to a huge device "what mad hypothesis are you testing? Or are you just making mad observations? Please tell me you're leaving half the planet alive as a mad control group!" with the caption "Sad truth: most 'mad scientists' are actually just mad engingeers" Tom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 30 02:11:26 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 19:11:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] statistics detect ballot box stuffing Message-ID: <018a01cd9eb0$e5fd0710$b1f71530$@att.net> Cool check this: http://www.realclearscience.com/journal_club/2012/09/28/statistics_detects_e lectoral_fraud_106378.html Has anyone here any idea where there are data archives for vote percentages vs voter turnout? If so, I am a Matlab user and can make plots like these. The election I am particularly interested in is the 2000 presidential election. If we can show there were indications of voter fraud, then we can declare the election invalid and everything done since 2000 by the government was a mistake, null and void, undo everything. Or if we run into practical difficulties with undoing everything the US government has done since 2000, we could get serious about putting into place protections against a recurrence. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Sun Sep 30 03:47:12 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 05:47:12 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, 13 Sep 2012, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Sep 13, 2012 at 12:11 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > > On Wed, Sep 12, 2012 at 1:37 PM, John Clark wrote: > >> I don't believe it is. Saudi Arabia is not a poor country and yet almost > >> all the 911 hijackers came from there, and all were middle class. > > > > Before 9/11, the was a 75% drop in the per capita income for Saudi > > Arabia. It was due to a rise in the population of factor of two and a > > fall in the price of oil by half. That seem to be enough to trip the > > population wide "bleak future" detector. And in the stone age, the > > relatively well off warriors were infected by the same "kill the > > neighbors" memetic mechanism as the rest of the tribe. > > > > > Terrorism is not the result of a nation switching on to 'war-mode'. > > Terrorists are mostly a tiny minority (even including non-involved > supporters). And as John said terrorists are often more middle-class > than poor. AFAIK, right. From what I can tell, the poor are busy minding their own business. And they are - kind of - impregnated against ideas preached on them by rich kidos (you know, ideas, how to do to have it all fixed, this kind of BS). However, at the same time, if one is young and sees no perspectives and deep in shit already, one is really easy prey for preachers - and from what I have heard, this happens, too. I.e. there is recruitment (or was) going on in all kinds of poor neighbourhoods of Middle East. > Terrorism is probably used because it is the only method a > relatively powerless small group have available to inflict damage on a > hated powerful nation. Ok, agreed. > (e.g. resistance fighters against WWII German invaders). Uh, not agreed. Sorry to be such a rightous prick (I guess this is how I look) but resistance was not a terrorism. Terrorists are, for me, some kind of brain washed borgs directed by cowards, going after _unarmed_ and _unprepared_ civilians whom they never before met. Hence a chance those people did something wrong to them is really slim, and even if they did, I doubt they murdered anybody - which would be probably the only acceptable reason to kill them, but not before they have a legal case before a judge. In other words, they are doing against their own ideals (like, their religion) which is about being right and doing just things - or so it says. The only religion I heard of that would ok acts of terrorism is satanism (but I'm not sure if this is religion proper). Anyway, killing random people is cowardish and unjust in my opinion. Resistance, OTOH, at least in Poland, was quite busy with fighting German military and police, attacking prisons to free their comrades, blowing up trains going to Russia (i.e. East Front) and smuggling V1 and V2 to Great Britain (as well as doing other intelligence jobs which perhaps shortened the war a lot). In other words, it was acting against _armed_ force, which was trained to fight and expected to be attacked. There were _executions_ of some pro-German civilians but from what I know it could only happen after underground judgment council okayed this, in case when they found such a person to be guilty of someone's death or equally wrong doing against Polish nation. There were special executor squads specializing in this kind of work (sometimes consisting of one person only - executions were to be discreet and fast, but they started with reading a judgment and ended with bullet - at least this is what I was taught). Overally, Polish Resistance was acting as underground government, with all consequences - there was legality, and there was armed force, aka Home Army (with proper army structure, divisions, brigades and so on, military intelligence and counterintelligence, logistics, you name it you get it), and there was underground education, including exams and university-level studies (because all schooling above very basic was prohibited for us by occupants). There were even underground courses for new officers (because Home Army was in need of young cadres). Last but not least, there were underground workshops building weapons, radios and other equipment (demand always bigger than supply, unfortunately). [1] Since it was wartime, I think it was possible this idealistic picture did not always stick to reality (snafus, hot blood, shit happened, judges erred and there was no internet to dispute who knew what and who was wrong), but overally I find their acts neither cowardish, nor unjust. So, we have a huge difference. On every level I can think of. [1] To give you a clue, on one occasion, a workshop like this built improvised APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) during Warsaw Uprising in 1944: http://www.achtungpanzer.com/polish-armor-1939-improvised-armored-car-kubus.htm Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From spike66 at att.net Sun Sep 30 03:53:39 2012 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 20:53:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] statistics detect ballot box stuffing In-Reply-To: <5067B1E8.8060304@speakeasy.net> References: <018a01cd9eb0$e5fd0710$b1f71530$@att.net> <5067B1E8.8060304@speakeasy.net> Message-ID: <01c401cd9ebf$2e154360$8a3fca20$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: Alan Grimes [mailto:agrimes at speakeasy.net] Subject: Re: [ExI] statistics detect ballot box stuffing spike wrote: >> ... declare the election invalid and everything done since 2000 by the government was a mistake, null and void, undo everything. >...oh? You have a way of un-murdering 1.3 million Iraquis? -- No, sure don't Alan. Now do you see why I go on and on and on about verifying elections? We have no way of knowing if that election was valid, and no way of undoing it even if we find after the fact that there were, for instance, ineligibles voting. We can't CTRL Z undo that. Note that in the 2008 senatorial elections in Minnesota, a candidate "won" by 312 votes. After the fact, we learn that there were 1099 ineligibles voting in that election, plenty to overturn the results. However, since we currently have no way to prove how those ineligibles voted, there is no way to undo the results. But that "victory" caused the US to give one party a supermajority in the senate, which allowed them to ram through the Affordable Healthcare Act, utterly without support from the opposing party, a law which the legislators have still never read to this day, nor has anyone else. We were told we needed to pass it in order to find out what is in it, but that didn't work, for they passed it and we still don't know. Had that Minnesota election been verifiable and the results in some way reversible, the party responsible for that legislation would not have won a supermajority, in which case the bill would never have passed, for they would be debating the actual contents of the bill to this day, all 2700 plus pages of it, not including the 13,000 pages of associated regulations. The lesson to legislators would be clear: don't write 2700 page bills. They take decades to debate. Legislators grow old and die before those kinds of bills can be passed. Now do you see why I go on and on about verifying elections, until everyone here is sick of hearing about it? Elections have consequences. Most of the time it does not, but in some cases, it really matters who wins. The upcoming election is one such example, and we STILL have no way of verifying the results of an election, even after that ignominious 2000 misadventure and the highly questionable Minnesota 2008 result. Shameful. spike From atymes at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 04:48:39 2012 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2012 21:48:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] statistics detect ballot box stuffing In-Reply-To: <018a01cd9eb0$e5fd0710$b1f71530$@att.net> References: <018a01cd9eb0$e5fd0710$b1f71530$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 at 7:11 PM, spike wrote: > Or if we run into practical difficulties with undoing everything the US > government has done since 2000 In general, the rule of law prohibits indefinite undos, especially in regard to orders issued by a person whose service is in question. It is never acceptable to declare all actions of the government illegal, because the damage to society simply from attempting to enforce such an accounting would be quite high, unless you mean to dissolve that government completely - and the moment you get serious about it, the government is within its rights to resist. Doesn't matter if George W. Bush stole the election. He was President, and his orders were those of a lawfully serving President. Even if it is now proven that he stole the election, that does not invalidate any order he gave. This is the distinction between the office, and the person holding the office. > we could get serious about putting into > place protections against a recurrence. Who "we", kemosabe? Google "ballot access". This is a far, far more serious problem than you give it credit for, and many people are already working on it. If you want to actually do something about this, look up the issues, look up the organizations, and approach them and volunteer to help. At the very least, if you have a great new technological solution, you'll need boots on the ground to get it distributed to the places that need it, and they can be those boots for you. Solving this requires actual work. Fortunately, there are workers, but you need to actually talk to them before they can implement. From charlie.stross at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 10:55:40 2012 From: charlie.stross at gmail.com (Charlie Stross) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:55:40 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> On 30 Sep 2012, at 04:47, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > >> (e.g. resistance fighters against WWII German invaders). > > Uh, not agreed. Sorry to be such a rightous prick (I guess this is how I > look) but resistance was not a terrorism. > > Terrorists are, for me, some kind of brain washed borgs directed by > cowards, going after _unarmed_ and _unprepared_ civilians whom they never > before met. Er, no. Cognitive failure mode here. Repeat after me: "Terrorism is a TACTIC, not an IDEOLOGY." This is an important distinction to make. We designate people as terrorists because of WHAT they do, not WHY they do it. Unfortunately over the past decade we've run into a witch hunt in the west, in which certain ideologies have been labelled "terrorist ideologies". Which of course makes it impossible -- unacceptable -- to negotiate with the moderates on the same side as the lunatic radicals and killers. Which is the gold standard mechanism for cutting off grass-roots support for the killers: you bring the moderates into your political discourse and thereby isolate the hot-heads. Worked example: Northern Ireland. Or South Africa, for that matter. The deputy first minister of the Northern Irish assembly is a former senior commander of the Provisional IRA; and do I have to explain Nelson Mandela? Here's the distinction: terrorism is a term applied to any tactic designed to *terrify* a civilian population into doing something that the user of those tactics want. The British RAF fire-bombing of German cities during WW2 was pretty clearly an act of terrorism intended to demoralize and scare the German civilian population towards surrender. So were the Nazi mass-reprisals against civilian populations in territories they'd occupied, killing large numbers of random civilians for each German soldier killed by the resistance. The term gets abused when, for example, the Nazi authorities designated resistance fighters targeting German soldiers as terrorists (and treated them as such). Or recently when the UK ended up with the muslim equivalent of a teenage goth poet (of the really cut-my-wrists-and-hope-to-die bad poetry writing variety) getting banged up in prison for Terrorism *for publishing bad teenage poetry on the internet*. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samina_Malik http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/12/anattackonliberty It may be bad taste, and it may be stupid, but it's not terrorism. We should be much more careful about how we use that term ... -- Charlie From anders at aleph.se Sun Sep 30 11:46:27 2012 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:46:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> References: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> Message-ID: <50683113.4040502@aleph.se> On 30/09/2012 11:55, Charlie Stross wrote: > "Terrorism is a TACTIC, not an IDEOLOGY." > > This is an important distinction to make. We designate people as terrorists because of WHAT they do, not WHY they do it. Yep. Cannot be reiterated often enough. In a world of globalized mass communications terrorism is likely a more effective tactic than in the past. Commit deeds of terror around Hadrian's Wall and it takes weeks before Rome hears it, and the news will likely never reach Hispania or go far outside the imperial administration - and that was in one of the empires of the past with best communications. While open democratic societies might seem vulnerable to being influenced by terrorist fears, they are also fairly resilient since opposing courses of action are usually heard and discussed. Democracies crash in terrorism handling only when it causes only one view to be acceptable in public discourse. However, there is a mixing of terrorist tactic and guerilla tactic. Guerillas essentially aim at making it expensive - in terms of resources, PR, manpower, whatever - to control a territory or to do something. It is the smart tactic if you are outnumbered and out-resourced: you do cheap attack that forces the enemy to do expensive things, and you make sure you have small losses. A pure guerilla tactic would only aim at inflicting cost on the enemy, but since that cost can also be in the sphere of public and international support, creating terror is an option - and not necessarily a bad one. Similarly many groups that want to achieve change through terror will adopt guerilla methods since they work - most such groups are small compared to states and other powers (who, if they want to terrorize, have other means: terror is after all part of 'shock and awe'). On the other hand, the evidence that terrorism works as a tactic to achieve ends seems to be pretty weak. Guerilla warfare works fairly well (if you are willing to pay the horrific price), and I suspect that many terrorists - just like non-terrorists - conflate the two. Which suggests a very sad reason for some terrorist attacks: they chose the wrong tactic because they bought into the propaganda. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Sep 30 14:00:09 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 16:00:09 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50685069.6080109@libero.it> Il 30/09/2012 05:47, Tomasz Rola ha scritto: > In other words, they are doing against their own ideals (like, their > religion) which is about being right and doing just things - or so > it says. The only religion I heard of that would ok acts of > terrorism is satanism (but I'm not sure if this is religion proper). > Anyway, killing random people is cowardish and unjust in my opinion. Try to Google "I was made victorious with terror" (it will help you auto-completing the phrase ) and you will find some interesting things about Mormonism. For people with no time to Google I just c&p the relevant text: > The Hadith, collected by Bukhari (4.52.220) goes as follows: > > Allah's Apostle said, "I have been sent with the shortest > expressions bearing the widest meanings, and I have been made > victorious with terror (cast in the hearts of the enemy), and while I > was sleeping, the keys of the treasures of the world were brought to > me and put in my hand." Abu Huraira added: Allah's Apostle has left > the world and now you, people, are bringing out those treasures (i.e. > the Prophet did not benefit by them). At this page there is a "context" of the statement of Mohammad (at the end of his life) http://goo.gl/GKTeY with ten episodes of the life of Mohammad. The murder of Asma Bint Marwan The Genocide of the Bani Qurayza Kinana and Safiya These three are, IMHO, the most interesting, but the others are not less damning. People often ask, what would Jesus, Bhudda, Moses would do? These are example of what Mohammad did (as recorded by the Muslims), and Muslims up to day consider him the man to emulated and imitate in everything. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Sep 30 15:02:20 2012 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 17:02:20 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> References: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> Message-ID: <50685EFC.6020608@libero.it> Il 30/09/2012 12:55, Charlie Stross ha scritto: > "Terrorism is a TACTIC, not an IDEOLOGY." Agree > This is an important distinction to make. We designate people as > terrorists because of WHAT they do, not WHY they do it. In fact, a tactic is morally neutral. An ideology is not. > Here's the distinction: terrorism is a term applied to any tactic > designed to *terrify* a civilian population into doing something that > the user of those tactics want. The British RAF fire-bombing of > German cities during WW2 was pretty clearly an act of terrorism > intended to demoralize and scare the German civilian population > towards surrender. So were the Nazi mass-reprisals against civilian > populations in territories they'd occupied, killing large numbers of > random civilians for each German soldier killed by the resistance. I disagree on this. The V1 and V2 bombing of London was a terrorist action, because it was aimed to terrorize Londoners. It had not other military goals. During WW2 the laws of war allowed for a right of reprisal, so many reprisal were lawful at the time: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reprisal "The tribunal emphasized that before reprisals could be legally undertaken, a number of conditions had to be satisfied: There had to be a previous act by the other party that violated international law. Reprisals had to be preceded by an unsatisfied demand for reparation or compliance with the violated international law. There must be proportionality between the offense and reprisal." This was done openly during the war in North Italy for example from both Italians anti-fascists and fascists/Germans. http://goo.gl/3JjoK Obviously, the winners went blameless and the memory of their terrorist actions and reprisals was suppressed. As much as I don't like Fascists and Nazis, I'm not blind to the fact the other side (Communist, Socialists and others) fought as much hard and dirty as them. You know, "war is hell" and escalation is the way it work. People hate losing wars. http://www.laltraverita.it/documenti/pansa.htm Giampaolo Pansa, renowned writer and journalist, has published a book on the guys from Sal? to many controversies: de \"the sons of the Eagle\". Postagli asked in an interview in which he wondered if that that book would have been much hindered and hated, Pansa said he \"won't give a damn\", having already used to being mistaken for a \"fascist\". \"I have always thought that you cant tell a party without telling the other. Although these two parts I still think they are both minority languages, and that dominate the gray area mentioned in Renzo De Felice. (?..) We cannot say that all those who were Social Republic were torturers, executioners \". Another noteworthy step back on attitudes held by many intellectuals at that time, first of all the Nobel Prize Dario Fo: \"even now Dario Fo find of pretexts to say it is not true that he enlisted from that part. Says that in Switzerland you couldn't go that the borders were closed, and stayed, are \"bales. As someone said, \"the Nobel Laureate Dario Fo is the first Nobel Prize awarded to a veteran of the Italian Social Republic\": but that's another story, one of those stories that in textbooks probably won't find space By the way, the current ex-Communist President in Italy was a fascist when 20 years old. http://goo.gl/WTdpc He exalted the Soviet tanks in Budapest, in Parliament, at the time of the Soviet invasion in the '50s And this is an interesting video about him from 2004 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW2as6ZL1MA About how he was "reimbursed" 800? for a fly with a price of 90? (not the only and not one time). And he nominated the current Prime Minister Mario Monti. Do you see a trend, here? Mirco From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 15:06:34 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:06:34 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Sep 29, 2012 F. C. Moulton wrote: Me: > >> Most of the Extropians I know are in favor of Civilization continuing, >> and if its true as was claimed in a previous post that for that to happen >> the oil flow must continue then you do what you need to do. Either the oil >> is important or it is not, you can't have it both ways. >> > > > Of course you are now setting up a false dichotomy. If the dichotomy is false don't blame me because I didn't set it up, I'm not the one who said: "if the oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The US will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly governments over the oil resources". > I can remember the beginning of the Extropian email list when it would > not be necessary to explain the basics of market allocation of resources > plus a multitude of similar topics. I've debated with hundreds of Extropians with thousands of posts since my very first post to the Extropian list on September 29 1993, and although we've strongly disagreed about some things until now we all agreed that the continuation of civilization was a desirable goal; but now for the first time I apparently find somebody who disagrees about that. Oh well, there is no disputing matters of taste. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 16:00:35 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 17:00:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 4:06 PM, John Clark wrote: > If the dichotomy is false don't blame me because I didn't set it up, I'm not > the one who said: "if the oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it > is not negotiable. The US will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to > install friendly governments over the oil resources". > > I've debated with hundreds of Extropians with thousands of posts since my > very first post to the Extropian list on September 29 1993, and although > we've strongly disagreed about some things until now we all agreed that the > continuation of civilization was a desirable goal; but now for the first > time I apparently find somebody who disagrees about that. Oh well, there is > no disputing matters of taste. > > I'm not sure, but, I think Mr Moulton is saying that the US doesn't have to go stomping all over the Middle East countries in order to secure their oil supplies. He thinks there are other alternatives, like a bit of free trade with the Arabs would be OK. I may be setting up a strawman, but there appear to be some glaring faults with that choice. And the US may have other reasons as well to want to secure the Middle East. War usually has more than one reason. The US is not just concerned with this year's oil supplies. They want to secure oil supplies for the next twenty years. And this is in the face of increasing demands for oil from China and India, etc. BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 16:12:06 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 12:12:06 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> References: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 Charlie Stross wrote: > Terrorism is a TACTIC, not an IDEOLOGY > In the ideology of Islam the death penalty is not only allowed but morally demanded of anyone who insults the Prophet Mohammed, this was put into the ideology because it was believed that the terror it induced would stamp out any anti Islamic thought in the population. And by "insulting the Prophet" I even mean things like naming your Teddy Bear "Mohammed". But that is only the radicals I hear you say, what about the mythical "moderate Muslim"? Take a look at a list of the 51 Muslim countries on this planet, you will find most of the poorest countries in the world on this list despite having far more than their share of natural resources, not one of those 51 countries has the sort of freedom we take for granted in the West, the closest would probably be Turkey and its not very close. And not one of those 51 countries said Salman Rushdie should not be murdered for writing a novel. >terrorism is a term applied to any tactic designed to *terrify* a civilian > population into doing something that the user of those tactics want. OK. > > The British RAF fire-bombing of German cities during WW2 was pretty > clearly an act of terrorism OK. > The term gets abused You mean the term gets underused, I certainly agree with that. > We should be much more careful about how we use that term > Yes, we should learn to call a spade a spade and a moronic religion a moronic religion and a evil ideology a evil ideology. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From moulton at moulton.com Sun Sep 30 16:51:48 2012 From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 09:51:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> Message-ID: <506878A4.1050503@moulton.com> On 09/30/2012 08:06 AM, John Clark wrote: > > I've debated with hundreds of Extropians with thousands of posts since > my very first post to the Extropian list on September 29 1993, and > although we've strongly disagreed about some things until now we all > agreed that the continuation of civilization was a desirable goal; but > now for the first time I apparently find somebody who disagrees about > that. Oh well, there is no disputing matters of taste. And can you name that person who is supposedly against the continuation of civilization? Please give us a name. I know it is not me. And probably not John Clark or Spike or anyone else I can think of on this list. So are you really sure you want to make that accusation. If you do then give the name and proof. Fred From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 17:56:41 2012 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 13:56:41 -0400 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: <506878A4.1050503@moulton.com> References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> <506878A4.1050503@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 12:51 PM, F. C. Moulton wrote: And can you name that person who is supposedly against the continuation > of civilization? Please give us a name. OK. BillK is the one who insists that the correct policy the West should follow in the Mid East is to do absolutely nothing, he also says " If the oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The US will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly governments over the oil resources." So you tell me what this implies. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 17:42:17 2012 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 11:42:17 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Are all religious people chuckleheads (was Re: riots again) Message-ID: On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 11:22 AM, Charlie Stross wrote: > I don't feel the need to defend islam. Or christianity, or judaism. All those faiths > harbour a bucketload of intolerant chuckleheads who want to force their beliefs > on everyone else. However, to damn *all* muslims, christians, or jews as intolerant > chuckleheads is to make a mistake of similar magnitude. The cure for intolerance is > not more intolerance. Charlie, I'm going out on a limb here because I don't know your precise definition of chucklehead... :-) but I'm going to assume, for the point of argument, that you don't consider me to be one. Since I spent a large portion of my life being a Mormon, and being just as smart then as I am now (perhaps smarter, as age degrades mental performance slightly) I see myself as having been indoctrinated, brainwashed, and otherwise taught a party line that I worked really hard to understand and use to implement my life. Had my life gone a little better, I probably would still be towing that line. But, as fate would have it, I had some bumps in the road that pointed out to me that this God fellow wasn't doing me a damn bit of good and was, in fact, making my life harder than it needed to be. I went on a mission for the church, and so I tried to convince other people (with some success) that this was a good plan for living better. And for many people, I am convinced that it was. Their lives individually improved by adopting the memeplex. Now, it wasn't "forced", it was by gentle persuasion and some logical reasoning. I don't think there is anything wrong with explaining your beliefs to someone else, and it's fine if they adjust their set of accepted memes as a result of such discussion. Blowing people up is right out, of course. Society as a whole, now that's a different story. As a society, I don't think religion is very helpful any more. Before science, it was useful as a catalyst for building bigger civilizations. But to individuals, religion can be very psychologically helpful. So the question that atheists and extropians have to answer is how to meet people's very real individual psychological needs without resorting to religion. Breaking out of Mormonism was really difficult for me. I think it will prove impossible for a lot of people because there is no desire for them to do so. It works for many of them, very well. It will take a VERY long time for religion to entirely go away. In fact, I believe many AGIs will be religious, at least in the beginning. Whether it is desirable or not... that's an entirely different question. -Kelly From pharos at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 18:06:47 2012 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 19:06:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> <506878A4.1050503@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 6:56 PM, John Clark wrote: > OK. BillK is the one who insists that the correct policy the West should > follow in the Mid East is to do absolutely nothing, he also says " If the > oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The US > will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly governments > over the oil resources." So you tell me what this implies. > > Nice troll, John! Misinterpretation and quoting out of context. Neat. BillK From rtomek at ceti.pl Sun Sep 30 18:36:03 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 20:36:03 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> References: <8A77529B-F510-45AD-8A1F-A635FE2EB512@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Sep 2012, Charlie Stross wrote: > > On 30 Sep 2012, at 04:47, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > > > > > >> (e.g. resistance fighters against WWII German invaders). > > > > Uh, not agreed. Sorry to be such a rightous prick (I guess this is how I > > look) but resistance was not a terrorism. > > > > Terrorists are, for me, some kind of brain washed borgs directed by > > cowards, going after _unarmed_ and _unprepared_ civilians whom they never > > before met. > > > Er, no. Cognitive failure mode here. Repeat after me: > > "Terrorism is a TACTIC, not an IDEOLOGY." > > This is an important distinction to make. We designate people as > terrorists because of WHAT they do, not WHY they do it. Well, up to now I thought this was exactly my point in my previous email - if not expressed in letter, then maybe in spirit at least. What they do is important. But I realise it is very important to understand why they do it and how they see the world. Otherwise, we are doomed to fighting the smoke instead of treating the fire. > Unfortunately over the past decade we've run into a witch hunt in the > west, in which certain ideologies have been labelled "terrorist > ideologies". Which of course makes it impossible -- unacceptable -- to > negotiate with the moderates on the same side as the lunatic radicals [...] I find it interesting subject of study, how the language gets mangled by various groups aiming for their own goals. It is fascinating, scary and pitiful. After all, our language is probably the only real thing distinguishing us from animals and the only tool we have against the Universe. Shitting into it for the purpose of selling more apples, this is really disgusting. Yet another reason to dislike humans. Or maybe help them. I am not decided. > Here's the distinction: terrorism is a term applied to any tactic > designed to *terrify* a civilian population into doing something that > the user of those tactics want. The British RAF fire-bombing of German > cities during WW2 was pretty clearly an act of terrorism intended to > demoralize and scare the German civilian population towards surrender. RAF (and I guess USAAF) bombings were quite an "achievement" - what was little talked about, they managed to kill more civilians than both infamous atomic bombs in Japan. Or so I heard. BTW, it happened there was little or none important military targets, they were aimed just at civilians in some cases. Also, I have heard interesting story when a city had been razed, some important monuments including, but at the same time some places had been spared, like a research institution from which a lot of paper was transferred after the war. So this does not look like they did this with a big mop on a kilometer-long stick, no, seems like it was possible to do precisely as was required. OTOH, it could be argued that without all those bombings the war would have lasted longer and the total number of victims would have been about the same or bigger. OTOH, history is such a slut. > So were the Nazi mass-reprisals against civilian populations in > territories they'd occupied, killing large numbers of random civilians > for each German soldier killed by the resistance. And someone could point it was German soldiers who started this, by getting some civilians on the street and executing them there... And someone else could point that the soldiers did it as a reprisal for alleged (or maybe true) killing of some German minority members... I don't want to scratch too deeply, it is old story now, and it does not get any younger. It should be remembered from time to time, it should serve as learning material, but it should not be a basis for reasoning about today or tomorrow. But since we are at it, it is good time to share my observation, that the ball was at German side few times when it came to making friends or foes from locals and IMHO this was busted every time because of some ill-adviced ideals, implemented mechanically without regard to the facts. >From what I heard, my uderstanding is, this happened in Poland and in Soviet Russia (and perhaps in Slovakia, too) - all cases later proved crucial for winning the war... or loosing it. (Perhaps each side implemented their own ideals disregarding facts, it is possible, it may be discussed, from what I learned about human nature, something as idiotic as this would not surprise me at all - if anybody has problem understanding what I mean, try to imagine armies of blind idiots fighting each other in the middle of the night, with a big elephant in the middle of battlefield). This may sound like yet another offtopic that I specialize in, or maybe not. Depends who wants to learn from the past. Say, if we came to a hypothesis, that terror was - at least in part - a result of failure to comunicate and applying wrong means to misunderstood problems. Or maybe it is too trivial to be called a hypothesis, maybe. [...] > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samina_Malik > http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/nov/12/anattackonliberty > > It may be bad taste, and it may be stupid, but it's not terrorism. > > We should be much more careful about how we use that term ... Oh, I did not know about this. Interesting. I can see, there is quite a big part of Western society disconnected from whatever ideas are shared by another part, the one owning television. Sounds like a recipe for Guy Fawkes fireworks or something. It is possible her case was to be a warning for members of this first part, who are illiterate enough to not understand true meaning of their words, and are trying to find some kind of hero they could imitate. Girls below some age, they seem to love martyrs of all kind (claim based on anecdotical evidence from Polish history). Regards, Tomasz Rola -- ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** ** ** ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com ** From protokol2020 at gmail.com Sun Sep 30 20:04:36 2012 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 22:04:36 +0200 Subject: [ExI] riots again In-Reply-To: References: <22CD0B23-AD50-4119-8941-1C8BFE954472@me.com> <5065D13E.50101@libero.it> <50672D67.5000506@moulton.com> <50675A45.90909@moulton.com> <506878A4.1050503@moulton.com> Message-ID: On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 8:06 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Sep 30, 2012 at 6:56 PM, John Clark wrote: > > OK. BillK is the one who insists that the correct policy the West should > > follow in the Mid East is to do absolutely nothing, he also says " If the > > oil stops, Western civilisation collapses. So it is not negotiable. The > US > > will do anything to ensure oil supplies and to install friendly > governments > > over the oil resources." So you tell me what this implies. > > > > > > > Nice troll, John! > Misinterpretation and quoting out of context. Neat. > What is the misinterpretation? The do nothing or the collapsing civilization part? Which one you don't mean? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Sun Sep 30 21:07:06 2012 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2012 23:07:06 +0200 (CEST) Subject: [ExI] Religions are not the ultimate cause of war In-Reply-To: <50685069.6080109@libero.it> References: <50685069.6080109@libero.it> Message-ID: On Sun, 30 Sep 2012, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 30/09/2012 05:47, Tomasz Rola ha scritto: > > > In other words, they are doing against their own ideals (like, their > > religion) which is about being right and doing just things - or so > > it says. The only religion I heard of that would ok acts of > > terrorism is satanism (but I'm not sure if this is religion proper). > > Anyway, killing random people is cowardish and unjust in my opinion. > > Try to Google "I was made victorious with terror" (it will help you > auto-completing the phrase ) and you will find some interesting things > about Mormonism. I googled. But instead of entering the pages, I examined whois records of theirs. I guessed I knew what to expect, but more than this I was wondering who owned domains - majority from first results page were US-based, one Indian and one Middle-Eastian (if I am rigth). Maybe I will find more time one day and look inside. For a moment, I will say this. I am very cautious with making statements about people that I do not know personally, whose language I neither know nor have time to learn (so I have to learn about them from second hand sources, which may have their own agenda). For a very minimum, I would need to read their sacred book, since it seems to play important role in Mormon lifes. Unfortunately, I have to read a book about Haskell programming language, which I consider more important at the moment, and later I need to at least skim throu some books about Ada and Smalltalk. So I really relegate learning about Mormonism to my spare time, which I must further divide to reading news, some other books, mailing lists and writing emails :-). For what I know, we have our own community of Mormons here in Poland, and so far I have no reason to doubt their good will, law abiding or patriotism. Also, since they are humans, I expect majority of them to be like other humans I know, trying to raise their families, have children and live long enough to see them having their own families and children. This requires that they support idea of peace lasting at least umpteen years (to raise children) at a very minimum. I expect them to be the majority of Mormons, simply because those who disregard needs of their families in favour of battling the world are worsening prospects of their children and in this way eradicate themselves. Or rather, their genes. > > For people with no time to Google I just c&p the relevant text: > [...] I think one can find the same content in the Bible. What makes one worse than another? BTW, I can see how the holy scriptures are constantly reinterpreted whenever there is a need. Nobody expects anybody to cut ones hand or part with the eye just because it happened to see naked body in newspaper. I will not go into description of killing, jealousy, incest and rape, which can be found in one holy scripture that I happened to read (and still read from time to time). But even in this case it is good to have it from the source. Consider, if you please, the story of Lot from Sodom, as written by R. Heinlein in "Stranger in a Strange Land" and a Bible itself. First, excerpt from Heinlein. ---- cut here ---- (...)He fed and sheltered two strangers overnight but his conduct shows that he knew them to be V.I.P.s whether or not he knew they were angels-and by the Koran and by my own lights, his hospitality would have counted for more if he had thought they were just a couple of unworthy poor in need of a pad and a handout. Aside from these insignificant items and Saint Peter's character reference, there is just one thing that Lot did mentioned anywhere in the Bible on which we can judge his virtue-virtue so great, mind you, that heavenly intercession saved his life. See chapter nineteen of Genesis, verse eight." "And what does it say?" "Look it up when we get home. I don't expect you to believe me." "Jubal! You're the most infuriating man I've ever met." "And you're a very pretty girl and a fair cook, so I don't mind your ignorance. All right, I'll tell you-then you look it up anyhow. Some of Lot's neighbors came and beat on his door and wanted to meet these two blokes from out of town. Lot didn't fight with them; he offered 'em a deal instead. He had two young daughters, virgins-at least, such was his opinion-and he told this crowd of men that he would give them these two little girls and they could use them any way they liked-a gang shagging, a midnight revue, he pleaded with them to do any damn thing they pleased to his daughters . . - only please go 'way and quit beating on his door." "Jubal ... does it really say that?" (...) "Possibly I couldn't find out from any of you. Even Lot might have been mistaken. But that's what he promised 'em-his virgin daughters, young and tender and scared-urged this street gang to rape them as much as they wished in any way they liked - . . if only they would leave him in peace?" Jubal snorted in disgust. "And the Bible cites this sort of scum as being a righteous man." Jill said slowly, "I don't think that's quite the way we were taught it in Sunday School." ---- ok, cut here ---- I wasn't attending Sunday School, so I have no comparison, but after reading Heinlein's version I thought to myself, well, this Lot was some huge son of a bitch, that is for sure. Now, this is how the Book of Genesis describes it: ---- cut here ---- Genesis 19 King James Version (KJV) 19 And there came two angels to Sodom at even; and Lot sat in the gate of Sodom: and Lot seeing them rose up to meet them; and he bowed himself with his face toward the ground; 2 And he said, Behold now, my lords, turn in, I pray you, into your servant's house, and tarry all night, and wash your feet, and ye shall rise up early, and go on your ways. And they said, Nay; but we will abide in the street all night. 3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, even the men of Sodom, compassed the house round, both old and young, all the people from every quarter: 5 And they called unto Lot, and said unto him, Where are the men which came in to thee this night? bring them out unto us, that we may know them. 6 And Lot went out at the door unto them, and shut the door after him, 7 And said, I pray you, brethren, do not so wickedly. 8 Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof. 9 And they said, Stand back. And they said again, This one fellow came in to sojourn, and he will needs be a judge: now will we deal worse with thee, than with them. And they pressed sore upon the man, even Lot, and came near to break the door. 10 But the men put forth their hand, and pulled Lot into the house to them, and shut to the door. 11 And they smote the men that were at the door of the house with blindness, both small and great: so that they wearied themselves to find the door. ---- cut again ---- So, what I can see above, Lot was trying to shelter the strangers from the mob. Not quite how Heinlein have put this. See the difference? Which is why I prefer the source rather than second hand relation. > People often ask, what would Jesus, Bhudda, Moses would do? Yes, exactly. But ask as much as one can, they will not tell. And only their own answer would be of any value. Not the answer given by their interpreters. 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 **