From anders at aleph.se Fri Nov 1 00:33:01 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 00:33:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] How to build a happier brain In-Reply-To: <016a01ced651$496cdf90$dc469eb0$@att.net> References: <0eb6f01259fc7bbf12d9ee77ea761976@sics.se> <016a01ced651$496cdf90$dc469eb0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5272F6BD.7040206@aleph.se> On 2013-10-31 15:53, spike wrote: > An Aspie might be more likely to be home studying on a typical college > Saturday night than to be out at a frat party, where few scientific > insights are derived. Or at least remembered the day after. Lack of social life, or at least a lack of time consuming social life, seems to be an effective way of focusing. It does not improve productivity (work per time): parents seem to be far better in that domain than people with too plentiful time. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From rahmans at me.com Fri Nov 1 08:46:47 2013 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Fri, 01 Nov 2013 09:46:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2F599AB3-C87D-41F6-9046-BBF3BD290213@me.com> Date: Thu, 31 Oct 2013 15:51:43 -0700 From: "spike" > The > government should somehow farm out the task of surveillance to private > companies and industries, for none of the above list are likely to be > military adversaries. Theoretically we can imagine a private solution to every public need but that doesn't mean we should suggest or implement them. If we pause for even a moment to consider a private corporation, by which I assume you mean a publicly traded profit making entity, that is empowered to meet the nation's surveillance needs it seems ludicrous. 1.) Shareholder's rights - shouldn't shareholder have the right to review the operation and the 'product' 2.) What if your (Spike's) dreaded 'Mormons' bought it? 3.) What if, maybe, just maybe, industrial espionage was a part intelligence efforts? . . . [to an arbitrarily large number].) Capitalism rewards profit making above all else, so as our privacy was strip-mined we might reach a point of 'environmental collapse' where our privacy resources were completely depleted. I guess at that point we might actually need government intervention to 'recapitalise the privacy market'. Spike, this notion is almost as bad as suggesting that private corporations placed in charge of our health care would do anything other that extort us as soon as we became seriously ill. No one would be gullible enough to believe that corporations care for anything other than their profits. Oh wait..... Hmmmmm, maybe if the states did it we could have 50 competing systems and we could could change our residence every time our health situation changes (or our surveillance needs.) I'm sure that, for example, crossing the Rocky Mountains wouldn't constitute a barrier for a Californian to enter the health care and surveillance markets of Nevada and vice versa. We have 'single payer' military, spies, etc. If you and others say that it is not constitutional for the Federal Government to implement a single payer system that doesn't prove anything to me other than that we should immediately implement a constitutional amendment to give them that power. As a direct consequence of a single payer system you get the power to control costs. THAT'S what this is all about. It IS a huge expansion of government. We want it to do that precisely because of capitalistic principles of 'supply and demand'. When you are bleeding or you have some other serious condition guess what: YOUR DEMAND GOES FROM ZERO TO 100% INSTANTLY. Your supply goes from 'maybe x, or maybe y, or maybe nothing' to 'which one is closest, step on the gas I'm bleeding'. Privatised medicine and insurance are under this law of supply and demand. We as a society recognise imbalances in markets and we (sometimes) break up monopolies, and (sometimes) regulate banks. To put it in mathematical terms the supply and demand curve for medical services (excluding optional/elective procedures) is discontinuous and this is indicative of an inherently unfair marketplace. Spike, elsewhere you have stated that it's not in the "track team's" interest to sign up for healthcare because they are healthy. This is not true because: 1) sooner or later the 'track team' will turn into the 'zombies' you talk of 2) they will need a functioning health care system to take care of them which can only be built and maintained through constant effort 3) I was on the track team (literally) and we're not (all) short sighted jocks, we generally 'grow up' and hopefully grow (very) old and live responsible lives Regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 1 16:01:55 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 09:01:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <2F599AB3-C87D-41F6-9046-BBF3BD290213@me.com> References: <2F599AB3-C87D-41F6-9046-BBF3BD290213@me.com> Message-ID: <00fb01ced71b$b0e2b760$12a82620$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Omar Rahman . >.Spike, elsewhere you have stated that it's not in the "track team's" interest to sign up for healthcare because they are healthy. This is not true because: >.1) sooner or later the 'track team' will turn into the 'zombies' you talk of >.2) they will need a functioning health care system to take care of them which can only be built and maintained through constant effort >.3) I was on the track team (literally) and we're not (all) short sighted jocks, we generally 'grow up' and hopefully grow (very) old and live responsible lives >.Regards, >.Omar Rahman Hi Omar, agree to all. I was on the literal cross country team, which is vaguely related to track I suppose, in that both involve running. We used to say the track guys were either immune to boredom or were addicted to having their groupies along the track cheering them on, for their sport really offered little on the way of variety of scenery, while ours offered us nothing for people cheering along the course. There were very few even at the end. Oh well. Regarding your contention that the track team will eventually turn into zombies, you are absolutely correct. What I see wrong with our current proposed system is that it overcharges the track team, meaning they will not come. They will wait until they do turn into zombies before they opt in. This has two distinct disadvantages: they will become accustomed to living without health insurance, for it is unclear when they make the transition from track star to zombie; probably whenever the opt-out cost exceeds the insurance bill, or first time they get some serious illness. Secondly it will cause them to lose their fear of the IRS, since that is the once-respected organization placed in charge of collecting the opt-out fees. The problem is, the law was declared a tax after the fact, against the explicit declaration of the president who claimed it was not a tax. The language of the law is not easily adaptable to a tax; it isn't adaptable at all. It doesn't explicitly give the IRS the same authority to collect as it has for other taxes. As if to make matters worse, the language of the ACA makes it inherently difficult to modify, by design. When we start from scratch or begin actual health care reform, I suggest we call on the insurance companies to set the price structure, rather than dictate it to them. They know what it really costs; we do not. If we want the track team to come, in their best interest as well as ours, we must first ditch the absurdity of setting price structures. This is an example of a government which presumes to have the expertise to set pricing of risk categories better than the CEO of a health insurance company, when they haven't even demonstrated expertise in designing a website. We end up with absurdities such as a factor of three maximum between the lowest cost category and the highest. Three? Ask any insurance company CEO, they will likely say that number needs to be at least 10. Three is a joke. There is no possible way those in the lowest cost category will pay that. The system cannot even deal with the very biggest known health risk: smoking. The 65 year old smoker pays thrice the rate of the 25 year old non-smoker, when their risk cost differs by a factor of nearly 9. The 25 year old track star is not going to willingly pay triple so that the puffing 65 yr old zombie can pay a third of his risk cost. We cannot make them: the tax penalty is meaningless if the IRS cannot collect it. But now we have a new problem: the IRS has two different levels of authority. To collect income taxes, their authority is iron-fisted totalitarian absolute authority without accountability. To collect opt-out taxes, their authority is to wheedle, cajole and beg. A prole can be imprisoned for failing to pay income taxes, but not for failing to buy health insurance, according to the Supreme Court decision. A private business cannot be padlocked for failure to pay opt-out penalties. Conclusion: the track team will not come; the system will collapse without them. The zombies will come; the system will collapse with them. Meanwhile, insurance policy cancellation notices are flying like the leaves of autumn. We have taken a broken system and broke it worse than it was before. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 1 19:55:35 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 20:55:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Actual Visionary of the Future In-Reply-To: References: <20131025133031.GL10405@leitl.org> <20131025195114.GU10405@leitl.org> <20131028103712.GC10405@leitl.org> <090a01ced3f7$24a57890$6df069b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131101195535.GX10405@leitl.org> On Mon, Oct 28, 2013 at 01:56:14PM -0600, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > The unemployed can supply lower cost labor > > than they were before when more people were employed. > > > > Unless there is an unreasonably high minimum wage. Then more will just be > automated. You can't automate construction work on top your roof. Fields, yes, roofs, no. > > > I can see myself doing something like that; we > > could have some fun with it. Yes it will cost money. If we have a > > believable plan that pencils out, investors will come. > > > > But solar isn't yet economically viable for most applications. You have to It is actually, if you count all collateral costs in. > have government subsidies to get it going at this point most of the time. I > know you don't want that Spike. > > > > Sheesh they are doing this in GERMANY! > > > The government over there is doing it. Or rather paying for it. Subsidies for fossil and nuclear are 3x of renewable. So, yes, by all means let's end *all* subsidies, and level the playing field. > > > We yanks have more rooftop area per > > capita and way more sun than they do, and they can supply a cost model. > > They have the PV factories, so we hire the kraut engineers over here to > > help > > build our PV factories using our cheap labor. > > > > We can go from a discontented idler society to one in which most people are > > cheerfully working their asses off most of the time. > > > > This is what we mean by Practical Optimism. > > > I think a better plan is to open up more areas for energy exploration. Just The world shall look like Alberta. > a thought. It's working in North Dakota and parts of Texas. It's not really working, if you look at the numbers. From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 1 22:05:45 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 15:05:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Actual Visionary of the Future In-Reply-To: <20131101195535.GX10405@leitl.org> References: <20131025133031.GL10405@leitl.org> <20131025195114.GU10405@leitl.org> <20131028103712.GC10405@leitl.org> <090a01ced3f7$24a57890$6df069b0$@att.net> <20131101195535.GX10405@leitl.org> Message-ID: <034101ced74e$848e6af0$8dab40d0$@att.net> ... > >>... But solar isn't yet economically viable for most applications... >...It is actually, if you count all collateral costs in... One of the practical applications is rooftop solar, which is ideal in several ways. It is almost free real estate, the support structure is already in place, the power need not be cleaned up on site, so you don't need on-site energy storage or stand-alone power conditioning, the cable to carry away the power is already in place, there is reduced risk from blowing debris damage, there are no beasts to be harmed, no desert tortoises displaced etc, so you don't have land-use disputes with the green crowd, a central facility cleans up the power and levels the load. It isn't stand-alone off-grid living, I realize that, so it isn't for everyone, but I can imagine plenty of people would go for it. I can envision 10 or more percent of power eventually being generated that way, just from rooftop PVs alone, which shouldn't be all that costly to install, 10k to 20k per household average. I can see payback times on that in the 15 yr neighborhood, 4 to 5 percent-ish, which makes it better than most currently-available investments. There is a local company offering to install rooftop PV, which they continue to own but they give you a small utilities subsidy for use of your house; no up-front cost to the homeowner, no proportional payback (only the subsidy) and only if your house qualifies (sturdy south-facing roof, no trees hanging over, etc.) It must be economically viable, or nearly so, because all subsidies I know of have expired. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Nov 2 06:39:06 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 23:39:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] enders game Message-ID: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> Cool, I went to a screening of Enders Game this evening. They did something I thought was proven impossible: make a movie from a good book without screwing up the book. They followed it closely and even managed to get the point across. They even fixed that problem Card had in the arena scene: in that the movie is actually an improvement over an excellent book. Well done, Gavin Hood! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Nov 2 11:24:34 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 05:24:34 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin Survey. Message-ID: <5274E0F2.6090207@canonizer.com> Folks, For those interested, Laura Etudes is doing an interesting survey of Bitcoiners: https://www.facebook.com/groups/256406324441664/permalink/538789936203300/ Brent Allsop From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sat Nov 2 13:57:07 2013 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 05:57:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster Message-ID: I only recently became aware of this, some you might have known about it for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident#! Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. Keith From rahmans at me.com Sat Nov 2 14:42:16 2013 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 15:42:16 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> > Date: Fri, 1 Nov 2013 09:01:55 -0700 > From: "spike" > To: "'ExI chat list'" > Subject: Re: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks > Republicans are "asinine" > > From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org > [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Omar Rahman > . > >> .Spike, elsewhere you have stated that it's not in the "track team's" > interest to sign up for healthcare because they are healthy. This is not > true because: > > > >> .1) sooner or later the 'track team' will turn into the 'zombies' you talk > of > >> .2) they will need a functioning health care system to take care of them > which can only be built and maintained through constant effort > >> .3) I was on the track team (literally) and we're not (all) short sighted > jocks, we generally 'grow up' and hopefully grow (very) old and live > responsible lives > >> .Regards, >> .Omar Rahman > > > > Hi Omar, agree to all. I was on the literal cross country team, which is > vaguely related to track I suppose, in that both involve running. We used > to say the track guys were either immune to boredom or were addicted to > having their groupies along the track cheering them on, for their sport > really offered little on the way of variety of scenery, while ours offered > us nothing for people cheering along the course. There were very few even > at the end. Oh well. > > > > Regarding your contention that the track team will eventually turn into > zombies, you are absolutely correct. What I see wrong with our current > proposed system is that it overcharges the track team, meaning they will not > come. They will wait until they do turn into zombies before they opt in. > This has two distinct disadvantages: they will become accustomed to living > without health insurance, for it is unclear when they make the transition > from track star to zombie; probably whenever the opt-out cost exceeds the > insurance bill, or first time they get some serious illness. > The ACA is a classic case of 'slippery slope' actually. You see the generation that is under 26 right now IS GOING TO HAVE HEALTH CARE from their parents unless those parents are either irresponsible jerks or rabid ideologues. Once a person is 26, they are probably going to be mature enough to understand that, like it or not, 'something bad is going to happen to them sometime' and pony up for health care. For them it isn't going to be about 'getting' health care, they will be thinking of the context of 'losing' the health care they had until age 26. Once that shift takes place in the general population it's game over. > > > Secondly it will cause them to lose their fear of the IRS, since that is the > once-respected organization placed in charge of collecting the opt-out fees. > The problem is, the law was declared a tax after the fact, against the > explicit declaration of the president who claimed it was not a tax. The > language of the law is not easily adaptable to a tax; it isn't adaptable at > all. It doesn't explicitly give the IRS the same authority to collect as it > has for other taxes. As if to make matters worse, the language of the ACA > makes it inherently difficult to modify, by design. > If the Supreme court has declared it a tax then it's a tax and therefore the IRS can collect it. Where is the problem? > > When we start from scratch or begin actual health care reform, I suggest we > call on the insurance companies to set the price structure, rather than > dictate it to them. They know what it really costs; we do not. > Asking private insurance companies to set the prices is a bit like asking the wolves what the acceptable loss of sheep is for the shepherd. The solution is simple: single payer. It addresses the broken supply and demand curve that I mentioned in my post. > > If we want the track team to come, in their best interest as well as ours, > we must first ditch the absurdity of setting price structures. I would avoid the 'pricing of risk categories' altogether. Everyone pays the same tax, everyone gets the same care. If you want to smoke $100/pack cigarettes that's your choice. A pack of cigarettes needs to reflect it's true societal cost. Generally do what you want, but we're going to tax it enough so that we can clean up the mess later. No free riders! > This is an > example of a government which presumes to have the expertise to set pricing > of risk categories better than the CEO of a health insurance company, when > they haven't even demonstrated expertise in designing a website. Spike, you were (are?) an aerospace engineer? And you worked on some contracts for the government? When did you notice your competence rising and falling? Did it happen the instant the government contract was signed and/or completed? If so, we have solved the problem of FTL signalling! Now we just need a pairs of government employees in every home and stacks of contract for them to sign and breach/fulfil. I didn't realise you were so pro-big government Spike but the logic is irrefutable! ;) > We end up > with absurdities such as a factor of three maximum between the lowest cost > category and the highest. Three? Ask any insurance company CEO, they will > likely say that number needs to be at least 10. Three is a joke. There is > no possible way those in the lowest cost category will pay that. > I wouldn't even start to play that game. Quite simply I would make the opt-out-tax $100 more than the insurance fee you would pay and involve 20 more pages of paperwork to file. > > The system cannot even deal with the very biggest known health risk: > smoking. The 65 year old smoker pays thrice the rate of the 25 year old > non-smoker, when their risk cost differs by a factor of nearly 9. The 25 > year old track star is not going to willingly pay triple so that the puffing > 65 yr old zombie can pay a third of his risk cost. We cannot make them: the > tax penalty is meaningless if the IRS cannot collect it. > True, it would be meaningless. Do you honestly think the IRS will tolerate a direct challenge to its core mission? > > But now we have a new problem: the IRS has two different levels of > authority. To collect income taxes, their authority is iron-fisted > totalitarian absolute authority without accountability. To collect opt-out > taxes, their authority is to wheedle, cajole and beg. A prole can be > imprisoned for failing to pay income taxes, but not for failing to buy > health insurance, according to the Supreme Court decision. A private > business cannot be padlocked for failure to pay opt-out penalties. > Conclusion: the track team will not come; the system will collapse without > them. The zombies will come; the system will collapse with them. > Meanwhile, insurance policy cancellation notices are flying like the leaves > of autumn. We have taken a broken system and broke it worse than it was > before. > > > > spike If the IRS isn't able to collect these opt-out-taxes (fees?) I will be VERY surprised. We'll see soon enough if people can get away with not paying it. If they can't threaten prison sentences then I guess they'll have to just use debt collectors. Hurray, we will have privatised a portion of government and I'm sure everything will be better once we have more private debt collectors roaming the land. No potential for abuse of authority in the private debt collection industry. UK's Scariest Debt Collector (Full Length) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUzlmWWdjEQ Many people had health care until they got seriously sick and got dumped by the insurance corporations. Many of these people are the walking dead 'zombies' you speak of; people who now require palliative care or will require therapy for the rest of their lives. Reintegrating them into the system will be a cost and the insurance companies with their superior data analysis tools have priced this in already. Or did you miss the ramp up in premiums over the last few years? > We have taken a broken system and broke it worse than it was > before. There wasn't a system it was just a mess. It was exploitative and it still is because there isn't a non-profit insurance option as far as I know. I'm pretty sure for the 50 million people without insurance, many of whom wanted/needed health care, it couldn't really get much worse. Regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Nov 2 17:21:18 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 13:21:18 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Our Demon-Haunted World Message-ID: Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is considered by many to be a intellectual, in fact the leading intellectual on the Supreme Court, and yet we get the following exchange between Jennifer Senior of New York Magazine and Scalia that happened just 2 weeks ago but could have come straight out of the middle ages and vividly illustrated what Carl Sagan called "The Demon-Haunted World?. Incidentally Scalia has said that he disagrees with the idea that religious belief is a private matter that can be put in a airtight box and has no effect on public life. Senior: You believe in heaven and hell? Scalia: Oh, of course I do. Don?t you believe in heaven and hell? Senior: No. Scalia: Oh, my. Senior: Does that mean I?m not going? Scalia: [Laughing.] Unfortunately not! Senior: Wait, to heaven or hell? Scalia: It doesn?t mean you?re not going to hell, just because you don?t believe in it. That?s Catholic doctrine! Everyone is going one place or the other. Senior: But you don?t have to be a Catholic to get into heaven? Or believe in it? Scalia: Of course not! Senior: Oh. So you don?t know where I?m going. Thank God. Scalia: I don?t know where you?re going. I don?t even know whether Judas Iscariot is in hell. I mean, that?s what the pope meant when he said, ?Who am I to judge?? He may have recanted and had severe penance just before he died. Who knows? Senior: Can we talk about your drafting process ? Scalia: [Leans in, stage-whispers.] I even believe in the devil. Senior: You do? Scalia: Of course! Yeah, he?s a real person. Hey, c?mon, that?s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that. Senior: Every Catholic believes this? There?s a wide variety of Catholics out there ? Scalia: If you are faithful to Catholic dogma, that is certainly a large part of it. Senior: Have you seen evidence of the devil lately? Scalia: You know, it is curious. In the Gospels, the devil is doing all sorts of things. He?s making pigs run off cliffs, he?s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn?t happen very much anymore. Senior: No. Scalia: It?s because he?s smart. Senior: So what?s he doing now? Scalia: What he?s doing now is getting people not to believe in him or in God. He?s much more successful that way. Senior: That has really painful implications for atheists. Are you sure that?s the ? devil?s work? Scalia: I didn?t say atheists are the devil?s work. Senior: Well, you?re saying the devil is persuading people to not believe in God. Couldn?t there be other reasons to not believe? Scalia: Well, there certainly can be other reasons. But it certainly favors the devil?s desires. I mean, c?mon, that?s the explanation for why there?s not demonic possession all over the place. That always puzzled me. What happened to the devil, you know? He used to be all over the place. He used to be all over the New Testament. Senior: Right. Scalia: What happened to him? Senior: He just got wilier. Scalia: He got wilier. Senior: Isn?t it terribly frightening to believe in the devil? Scalia: You?re looking at me as though I?m weird. My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It?s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil. Senior: I hope you weren?t sensing contempt from me. It wasn?t your belief that surprised me so much as how boldly you expressed it. Scalia: I was offended by that. I really was. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Nov 2 17:26:10 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 13:26:10 -0400 Subject: [ExI] enders game In-Reply-To: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> References: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 2:39 AM, spike wrote: > Cool, I went to a screening of Enders Game this evening. They did > something I thought was proven impossible: make a movie from a good book > without screwing up the book. They followed it closely and even managed to > get the point across. They even fixed that problem Card had in the arena > scene: in that the movie is actually an improvement over an excellent book. > Well done, Gavin Hood! > I too saw Ender's Game yesterday, I almost didn't go because I thought I wouldn't like it much but I was wrong, it was excellent. And I haven't even read the book but now I think I should. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From veronese at uab.edu Sat Nov 2 17:27:58 2013 From: veronese at uab.edu (Keith Veronese) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 12:27:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] enders game In-Reply-To: References: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> Message-ID: The movie is fantastic. Well paced, with quality dialogue, something sadly lacking from most sci-fi fare. - Keith Veronese On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 12:26 PM, John Clark wrote: > > > > On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 2:39 AM, spike wrote: > > > Cool, I went to a screening of Enders Game this evening. They did >> something I thought was proven impossible: make a movie from a good book >> without screwing up the book. They followed it closely and even managed to >> get the point across. They even fixed that problem Card had in the arena >> scene: in that the movie is actually an improvement over an excellent book. >> Well done, Gavin Hood! >> > > I too saw Ender's Game yesterday, I almost didn't go because I thought I > wouldn't like it much but I was wrong, it was excellent. And I haven't even > read the book but now I think I should. > > John K Clark > > _______________________________________________ > 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 Sat Nov 2 18:41:32 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 11:41:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] enders game In-Reply-To: References: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <066201ced7fb$2778bbb0$766a3310$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] enders game On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 2:39 AM, spike wrote: >>. Cool, I went to a screening of Enders Game this evening. They did something I thought was proven impossible: make a movie from a good book without screwing up the book. They followed it closely and even managed to get the point across. They even fixed that problem Card had in the arena scene: in that the movie is actually an improvement over an excellent book. Well done, Gavin Hood! >.I too saw Ender's Game yesterday, I almost didn't go because I thought I wouldn't like it much but I was wrong, it was excellent. And I haven't even read the book but now I think I should. John K Clark Ja, I thought the book was excellent, most worthwhile, for it does something I don't see often in SciFi: real character development. (Damien Broderick gets this and does a good job with it too; Damien is a writer who took up SciFi as opposed to a scientist who took up writing.) Card really gets it; the entire Enders series has excellent pathos and ethos. John I almost didn't go too, because I was worried Hollywood would screw up the story by overemphasizing the fighting aspect, the kind of stuff that sells movies to the movie crowd. Ender gets into two fights in the book, actually kills both of his opponents. They downplay that in the movie, which I think is probably a slight improvement, and make the second case a legitimate accident, where Ender's intention was unclear in the book. (Ender readers, did he intend to slay the bastard in the second case?) The final battle scene graphics are excellent, better than Star Wars quality. Hood was appropriately modest: he didn't try to rewrite the story, he stayed close to the original, recognized what was the point of the book, the whole reluctant warrior leader aspect of it all. He recognizes that any yahoo can write a space cowboys vs Indians battle story, but Card's Ender is special. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sat Nov 2 19:47:53 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 20:47:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Inflation graph In-Reply-To: References: <04bf01ced34e$02ba59c0$082f0d40$@att.net> <099f01ced3fd$7e167270$7a435750$@att.net> <035601ced675$60a273e0$21e75ba0$@att.net> Message-ID: <527556E9.7070804@libero.it> Il 31/10/2013 21:39, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 2:11 PM, spike > wrote: > > As automation accumulates, the price of manufactured goods does > decline. It doesn?t wreck an economy if prices decline. > I am not an economist, This is obvious... > but if prices decline, you are better off holding > onto cash, rather than investing it. It depend. I never read something about you complaining about the descending prices of computers and electronics appliances and likes. Or complaining against the reduction in price of Lasik surgery or likes. Or complaining about the reduction in price of oil, gold, platinum, food, etc. Your utility measure could vary a lot. > That is a recipe for disaster > because investment would stop, and the markets would lose their > liquidity. That would be a bad thing. Basic necessities would be sold and bought anyway. Many other prices would consistently fall (and this is not a bug, it is a feature). It is not a bug when homes are affordable by younger generations with a normal job in few years of SAVINGS instead of being forced in 30 years of servitude by the banks to buy an overvalued house at, formerly, cheap interest rates, then being evicted because they are no more able to pay their mortgages and the homes left smoldering. Do you understand a lot of current high prices are totally dependent on money printing and easy credit? > The price of technology going down isn't a problem because we always buy > the new stuff and the old stuff obsolesces fast. If we get off Moore > significantly, then old stuff is just about as good, and then we have a > problem because deflation means something even in the tech world then. This sentence of yours is so wrong I really have no idea where to start to address it. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Sat Nov 2 20:47:18 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 13:47:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> References: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> Message-ID: <06de01ced80c$b92463a0$2b6d2ae0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Omar Rahman >.The ACA is a classic case of 'slippery slope' actually. You see the generation that is under 26 right now IS GOING TO HAVE HEALTH CARE from their parents unless those parents are either irresponsible jerks or rabid ideologues. .Or they can't afford these prices either, ja. If the parents have those good corporation-supplied health plans, agreed, the 26-and-under crowd can likely get on that. But plenty of parents are being moved to 30 hour weeks, which means they lose their insurance and a chunk of their paychecks, so Junior is on his own, 26 or otherwise. They can be neither irresponsible nor ideological; they designed their lives for 40 hrs pay, now they have 30 and a pile of new bills. Health insurance is the first thing to go overboard, since a lot of the rest of it is unyielding: car payments, house payments, food, etc. >. Once a person is 26, they are probably going to be mature enough to understand that, like it or not, 'something bad is going to happen to them sometime' and pony up for health care. OK well you are more optimistic than I am. I conjecture that plenty of them will look at the deal and just decide to wait until something bad happens, then buy the insurance, after being told they couldn't be turned away for pre-existing conditions. >. For them it isn't going to be about 'getting' health care, they will be thinking of the context of 'losing' the health care they had until age 26. Once that shift takes place in the general population it's game over. You are more optimistic than I am regarding human nature. My guess is that it might work on a few of them, but in general, these considerations will be insufficient to keep them digging out the old checkbook and sending in payments regularly. I predict failure. >.If the Supreme court has declared it a tax then it's a tax and therefore the IRS can collect it. Where is the problem? Not really. It was declared a tax after the fact. The law itself doesn't have the usual legal infrastructure needed for taxation. The ACA is inherently impossible to modify. >.Asking private insurance companies to set the prices is a bit like asking the wolves what the acceptable loss of sheep is for the shepherd. Omar, they aren't going to lose money. This I can assure you. >.The solution is simple: single payer. It addresses the broken supply and demand curve that I mentioned in my post. You already know what that requires: a constitutional amendment. After the rollout.gov debacle and the way the Republicans and Tea Partiers were treated, good luck with that, see ya. >.I would avoid the 'pricing of risk categories' altogether. You would, they won't. >. Everyone pays the same tax, everyone gets the same care. If you want to smoke $100/pack cigarettes that's your choice. A pack of cigarettes needs to reflect it's true societal cost. Generally do what you want, but we're going to tax it enough so that we can clean up the mess later. No free riders!... Ja, and the young and healthy will sign on for that? I think not sir. >.Spike, you were (are?) an aerospace engineer? And you worked on some contracts for the government? When did you notice your competence rising and falling? Did it happen the instant the government contract was signed and/or completed? If so, we have solved the problem of FTL signalling! Now we just need a pairs of government employees in every home and stacks of contract for them to sign and breach/fulfil. I didn't realise you were so pro-big government Spike but the logic is irrefutable! ;) Dealing with government customers is always a special challenge. Screwing up the specifications is a common problem. More later, spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 3 02:37:15 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 22:37:15 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5275B6DB.5030207@aleph.se> On 2013-11-02 09:57, Keith Henson wrote: > Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. Only goes to show: moving parts are bad news! Solid state for the win! :-) (Unfortunately, I doubt a Lorentz-effect magnetohydroelectric plant is a good idea - I suspect the losses are too big.) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 3 02:41:47 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 02 Nov 2013 22:41:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] enders game In-Reply-To: <066201ced7fb$2778bbb0$766a3310$@att.net> References: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> <066201ced7fb$2778bbb0$766a3310$@att.net> Message-ID: <5275B7EB.8010202@aleph.se> On 2013-11-02 14:41, spike wrote: > > They downplay that in the movie, which I think is probably a slight > improvement, and make the second case a legitimate accident, where > Ender's intention was unclear in the book. (Ender readers, did he > intend to slay the bastard in the second case?) > As far as I remember, yes. Maybe not consciously, but he always did what it took to win *permanently*. I seem to recall that these scenes were also a reason the movie was delayed for so long - several writers struggled with how to handle the touchy subject. It couldn't be excised, yet could easily wreck the viewer relation to the protagonist. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 3 06:38:30 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 2 Nov 2013 23:38:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: <5275B6DB.5030207@aleph.se> References: <5275B6DB.5030207@aleph.se> Message-ID: <083a01ced85f$4fd58890$ef8099b0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Awesome disaster On 2013-11-02 09:57, Keith Henson wrote: > Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. Only goes to show: moving parts are bad news! Solid state for the win! :-) (Unfortunately, I doubt a Lorentz-effect magnetohydroelectric plant is a good idea - I suspect the losses are too big.) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University _______________________________________________ Ja. The efficiency of MHD is a small fraction of a percent for fresh water. Salt water is better, but there is not much flowing salt water. I am searching my memory from 1989 about a project where we calculated one digit BOTECs on how much power could be extracted from the Columbia River. Turned out it was almost worth doing, but not quite. We calculated that wind turbines along the Columbia would be worth doing. I note that both calcs were right: today nearly a quarter of a century later, there are no MHD plants and lots of wind turbines up there along the gorge. spike From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 3 07:00:12 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 00:00:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] enders game In-Reply-To: <5275B7EB.8010202@aleph.se> References: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> <066201ced7fb$2778bbb0$766a3310$@att.net> <5275B7EB.8010202@aleph.se> Message-ID: <083b01ced862$57f435a0$07dca0e0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] enders game On 2013-11-02 14:41, spike wrote: They downplay that in the movie, which I think is probably a slight improvement, and make the second case a legitimate accident, where Ender's intention was unclear in the book. (Ender readers, did he intend to slay the bastard in the second case?) >.As far as I remember, yes. Maybe not consciously, but he always did what it took to win *permanently*. >.I seem to recall that these scenes were also a reason the movie was delayed for so long - several writers struggled with how to handle the touchy subject. It couldn't be excised, yet could easily wreck the viewer relation to the protagonist. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Ender was a complicated character: he had to be really smart, have killer instinct, and be empathetic. Valentine had the smarts and the empathy, but not the killer instinct. Peter lacked empathy. Ender had all three traits. That shower scene had a special impact on me because of a tragic memory from high school, a freak accident. Four guys wanted to make a cross-town dash for Burger King at lunch time, which was only 35 minutes. They piled into a car, but one of the four was standing with the back door open, yelling to someone. His buddy in the back seat grabbed him by the belt and pulled him into the car, but on his way in, the guy hit his head right at the base of the skull against the car roof, and within a day he was dead. Note in Ender's shower fight, how Bonzo lands. That scene reminded me of the tragedy from over 30 yrs ago, oy vey. I get the feeling that Gavin Hood must have collected a bunch of Ender geeks into a Reddit group or something, and gave them a question: If you were to make a movie of Ender's Game, what would you change from the book? Surely a chorus would arise: fix that mess Card made in describing the arena maneuvers, and conserver angular momentum this time. That seems important to me, considering what they were doing in there. The movie fixes that delightfully. Make Ender about 15 instead of 7, and allow at least some sexual tension between Ender and Petra. The movie fixed that without ruining it by avoiding making the attraction into a distraction. But please don't touch anything in the last 20 pages of that book. Try to make it as close to the book as you can for that last part. Hood's movie did that ending exactly right; he didn't try to improve on Card where Card didn't need any help, but did so where Card did need help, and did it successfully. Bravo! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Sun Nov 3 15:31:57 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 16:31:57 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> Message-ID: <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> Il 28/10/2013 22:28, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 5:57 AM, Mirco Romanato > wrote: > > The problem in this reasoning is to impute to the POTUSes the > responsibility of deficit spending. > Is the legislative branch totally innocent? > Though you wouldn't know it from recent media reports, the House of > Representatives has the constitutional power of the purse in the United > States. Whenever they responsibly execute that constitutional privilege, > they are jumped on by EVERYONE. If they are there and are not able to say "NO" to people asking for free money, what is their job? > And the Judiciary Branch? > Almost zero power over the money. Though they did find Obamacare to be > constitutional. I don't follow how they managed that, but whatever, it's > done. IIRC correctly, many judicial ruling have caused enormous expenditures by the federal and local governments and indirectly to all individuals and private enterprises. For example, when a judge mandate school busing and forced integration the cost fall on the local government and the local people Desegregation busing in the United States (also known as forced busing or simply busing) is the practice of assigning and transporting students to schools in such a manner as to redress prior racial segregation of schools, or to overcome the effects of residential segregation on local school demographics. > In between, Bitcoin hit 210$ today. > Nice. Wish I had some. XBT (Bitcoin) are, now, in my opinion, at least a 10 bagger in a year a an hundred bagger in two three years. If you have patience, it could be a 10.000 bagger by 2020. It is not too late to enter and profit doing the right thing. Better to do it now on your free will or be "forced" to do it later by the market. > It will do democracy a lot less interesting, also. > Because if you can not vote to rob you neighbors, where is the fun? > In keeping what you earn. That's fun enough, isn't it? It is a lot fun keeping what you earn with your work. Mirco From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Nov 3 15:45:43 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 10:45:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] How to build a happier brain In-Reply-To: References: <526EE5F2.1010207@aleph.se> <058f01ced511$dbee9750$93cbc5f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I would submit that John F Kennedy was more conservative than anyone in > government today. Including the Tea Party "fanatics" and the Libertarians. > In my opinion John F Kennedy was the greatest president the USA ever had, and I would still say that even if he'd been a total fuckup every day of his presidency except for the 13 days between October 14 and 28 1962, because those were the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest the human race has come to extinction since the eruption of Mt. Toba in Indonesia 75,000 years ago. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 3 17:01:36 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 09:01:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> Message-ID: <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato Subject: Re: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" Il 28/10/2013 22:28, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: ... >>... And the Judiciary Branch? > ...Almost zero power over the money. Though they did find Obamacare to be > constitutional. I don't follow how they managed that, but whatever, > it's done... Kelly keep reminding yourself: the Supreme Court declared the individual mandate unconstitutional as a mandate. But they declared the opt-out fee a tax, which is legal under the 16th amendment. The Federal government may charge you a tax based on a behavior, even if that behavior is passive (not doing something.) This will have enormous consequences as soon as they get to the SCOTUS with the argument that this oddball tax does not give the employer the authority to withhold funds from the paycheck (in all those pages of the ACA, that wasn't in there) and the IRS has no authority to collect the tax, as they do with income tax. Reasoning: as written, the tax applies to those who do not make enough money to require a tax return. So now what does the IRS do? What happens when we see burn-your-W2 rally, a modern echo of the 1960s burn-your-draft-card rally and the burn-your-feminine-undergarment rally? Does the IRS raid the place and arrest everyone? And what does the SCOTUS do as soon as someone shows up for an IRS audit claiming US constitution, Article 1, section 7 clause 1? That clause very clearly says a tax must originate in the house. But the ACA originated in the senate, the law can stand, the penalty for opt-out cannot. The opt-out tax is unconstitutional. That isn't just a technicality, it's the highest law in the land. That SCOTUS decision that made the ACA opt-out fee a tax will have enormous consequences. If the opt-out tax is struck down because of non-compliance with USC1.7.1, there are cross references to it all over the ACA and no isolation clauses, these having been intentionally and carefully omitted or removed, by the insurance companies exactly for this reason: they figured all this out back in 2009, and didn't want to be left with a mandate to insure zombies while the track team goes free. Do stand by, this will be interesting. >...IIRC correctly, many judicial ruling have caused enormous expenditures by the federal and local governments and indirectly to all individuals and private enterprises. For example, when a judge mandate school busing and forced integration the cost fall on the local government and the local people... Mirco Ja, well sort of. Judges do not legislate. Legislatures legislate. (In real life, judges do legislate, bad ones do, but they are not legally entitled to that power.) In the case you cited, the state legislature mandated busing, it was immediately challenged in court, a judge had to make a decision not on whether it was a good law (it wasn't), but rather if it was within the state's authority to do it (it was.) The judge read that state's constitution (Alabama) and decided the state had the authority to do it. So the judge didn't mandate busing, the state legislature of Alabama did that. States can do things like that. Their constitutions are easier to modify. We had a wave of Alabama expatriates to Florida in the early 60s as a result of that ruling. We also had busing, and I was part of it, but Florida dealt with it more effectively and sanely than did Alabama. That case demonstrates why I have always thought health care reform must be done at the state level rather than the Fed. The states have more power in those kinds of matters. The states have more space to experiment and change things if they fail. Otherwise, I would suggest step one in health care reform is to get a constitutional amendment to empower the Fed to do it. That would cause an immediate change of attitude in congress, for the two major parties need to work together to get an amendment. spike From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 3 18:21:01 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 18:21:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math Message-ID: Everybody knows that our political views can sometimes get in the way of thinking clearly. But perhaps we don?t realize how bad the problem actually is. According to a new psychology paper, our political passions can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills. More specifically, the study finds that people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs. For study author Kahan, these results are a fairly strong refutation of what is called the ?deficit model? in the field of science and technology studies ? the idea that if people just had more knowledge, or more reasoning ability, then they would be better able to come to consensus with scientists and experts on issues like climate change, evolution, the safety of vaccines, and pretty much anything else involving science or data (for instance, whether concealed weapons bans work). Kahan?s data suggest the opposite ? that political biases skew our reasoning abilities, and this problem seems to be worse for people with advanced capacities like scientific literacy and numeracy. ?If the people who have the greatest capacities are the ones most prone to this, that?s reason to believe that the problem isn?t some kind of deficit in comprehension,? Kahan explained in an interview. ---------- That's why politics and religion are verboten in conversation. When fundamental beliefs enter, logical reasoning exits stage left. BillK From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sun Nov 3 19:35:06 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 12:35:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] enders game In-Reply-To: <083b01ced862$57f435a0$07dca0e0$@att.net> References: <04a501ced796$3af230a0$b0d691e0$@att.net> <066201ced7fb$2778bbb0$766a3310$@att.net> <5275B7EB.8010202@aleph.se> <083b01ced862$57f435a0$07dca0e0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5276A56A.9030602@canonizer.com> Thanks, all, for these recommendations. I'm glad I went to see it last night. And the music is by Steve Jablonsky! You can't not like a movie with that. I just got the soundtrack and listening to it now. I just wish that someday there could be some science fiction with less very hard problems solved, as if they are easy, and easy problems still not solved. For example, they are doing inter stellar travel. Yet they have not improved the human body at all! Surely, long before we are doing inter stellar travel, we'll have the ability to back ourselves up, and restore them. We'll be transporting ourselves, and so on. And we won't be dependent on any one body... And what's up with everyone but Ender thinking: "They can't talk they don't even have vocal chords"? I did enjoy the general idea being presented that "winning" by destroying your enemy isn't really winning. And it was fun to see them doing this by twisting the alien destroyer theme into us being the destroyers. As I've always believed, meeting up with another alien species will necessarily be either our or their salvation. And there is no way both species are going to be at near the same level like in this movie. All parties must be significantly improved by co-operation. I don't get how people can't see such logical necessities, and how everyone just projects our primitive animalistic survival of the fittest history, into advanced futures where such makes absolutely no sense. Yet another example of easy to overcome primitive destroyer attitudes still not solved, but hard to do giant space stations are easy. At least that's how I feel about such. Brent Allsop From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 3 19:36:35 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 11:36:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math >...Everybody knows that our political views can sometimes get in the way of thinking clearly. But perhaps we don't realize how bad the problem actually is. According to a new psychology paper, our political passions can even undermine our very basic reasoning skills. More specifically, the study finds that people who are otherwise very good at math may totally flunk a problem that they would otherwise probably be able to solve, simply because giving the right answer goes against their political beliefs. ... >...BillK ---------- Thanks BillK. If anything, the study grossly understates its case. We are witnessing a stunning case of massive failure on the part of American voters to perform the very most basic form of linear extrapolation. spike From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 3 20:57:26 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 15:57:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> Message-ID: <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> It is an interesting study. Since I am right now diving into applied cognitive bias thinking, it is particularly relevant. The deficit theory of public understanding of science (or anything) has been dead for several years, but like a kitchy Halloween monster it keeps popping up since it is easy. Worse, we are pretty numerate on this list. What horrific biases might we harbour about things? (Looks worried at the energy quarrel and takes cover) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From atymes at gmail.com Sun Nov 3 21:03:34 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 13:03:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Worse, we are pretty numerate on this list. What horrific biases might we > harbour about things? (Looks worried at the energy quarrel and takes cover) > Indeed. It is one's intellectual responsibility, to honesty, to recognize such biases within oneself and accept when the data might prove that one's own cherished opinions are wrong. Perhaps we can not fix this in most of humanity. But each and every one of us can fix this within ourselves, so that at least we avoid making the problem worse...and perhaps inspire others to rise with us, that we can all find agreement based on what actually is, regardless of what we wish would be. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 3 21:44:11 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 21:44:11 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 9:03 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Perhaps we can not fix this in most of humanity. But each and every one of > us can fix this within ourselves, so that at least we avoid making the > problem worse...and perhaps inspire others to rise with us, that we can all > find agreement based on what actually is, regardless of what we wish would > be. > > A noble thought....... But it makes me think, be careful what you wish for. Humans are emotion driven creatures. There are floods of constantly changing chemicals coursing through our bodies and brains. If you lose the emotions, you lose a lot of what makes you human. Perhaps the benefit of increased rationality might have rather large unforeseen consequences. Kirk: At times you seem quite human. Spock: Captain, I don't think that insults are within your prerogative as my commanding officer. BillK From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 3 22:03:54 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 14:03:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0a3101ced8e0$971eb8d0$c55c2a70$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster >...I only recently became aware of this, some you might have known about it for years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station _accident#! They didn't talk about it much at the time. I have some power plant buddies from college who sent around text accounts and a few photos. The Russians didn't even let out any news of it for several weeks after the fact. Commies are that way you know, secretive, even when we don't hold any really serious hard feelings over the whole cold war thing. >...Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. Keith _______________________________________________ Oooh boy, that musta really been something to see. From a very safe distance of course. They didn't want to admit that most of the eighty 11.5cm bolts holding the rotor cover were fatigue cracked from vibration. The rotor's design life was 30 yrs. At the time of the accident it was 29 yrs 10 months. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_ accident spike From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 3 22:07:06 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 03 Nov 2013 17:07:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5276C90A.6000506@aleph.se> On 2013-11-03 16:44, BillK wrote: > Humans are emotion driven creatures. There are floods of constantly > changing chemicals coursing through our bodies and brains. If you lose > the emotions, you lose a lot of what makes you human. Perhaps the > benefit of increased rationality might have rather large unforeseen > consequences. Something like this, said on a transhumanist mailing list?! What is the world coming to? Soon you will claim there might be downsides to radical life extension or being a cyborg! :-) Note however that Adrian did not say we should get rid of emotions. He said that we should aspire to become more rational. *Very* different. Unfortunately we have a culture that somehow imagines emotions to be the opposite or counterpart to rationality, rather than part of the way the whole system works. I think it would be a great thing to be disgusted by bad arguments or feel delight when uncertainty is reduced in a Bayesian way. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From atymes at gmail.com Sun Nov 3 22:31:49 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 14:31:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: <5276C90A.6000506@aleph.se> References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> <5276C90A.6000506@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I think it would be a great thing to be disgusted by bad arguments or feel > delight when uncertainty is reduced in a Bayesian way. > "Ever feel that twinge of disgust when some fool keeps trying to 'prove' something you've seen thoroughly debunked, and you have the data to prove it but this is the tenth moron in a row who can't be bothered with the facts? Yeah. THAT is one part of our human nature we transhumanists are trying to save and promote." -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 3 22:34:01 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 14:34:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> Message-ID: <0a3801ced8e4$cc417cb0$64c47610$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Subject: Re: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 12:57 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >>.Worse, we are pretty numerate on this list. What horrific biases might we harbour about things? (Looks worried at the energy quarrel and takes cover) >.Indeed. It is one's intellectual responsibility, to honesty, to recognize such biases within oneself and accept when the data might prove that one's own cherished opinions are wrong. Ja. It isn't even necessarily cherished opinions, but rather differing initial assumptions. Let us consider an example peculiar to the point of view of many of us here; the inevitability of the singularity. Even that can fall into differing categories. For normal people, there is no expectation of the singularity; it just happens like the Spanish Inquisition. For those of us aware of the notion, we have those who think the singularity must happen, within the near term, the next fifty years or so. There are those who say such a thing might happen that soon, but it might not: there might be some still unknown something that makes the whole concept impossible with current technology. There are those who think we have reached peak intelligence and we just didn't quite make it to the singularity. Look now at those three assumptions: no singularity, near term certainty of singularity, and the maybes. Can you see how different one's outlook is deeply impacted by which of those three categories one belongs? Which are you? I put myself in the third category: I can't convince myself the singularity is a near term certainty, but it sure might happen. >.Perhaps we can not fix this in most of humanity. But each and every one of us can fix this within ourselves, so that at least we avoid making the problem worse...and perhaps inspire others to rise with us, that we can all find agreement based on what actually is, regardless of what we wish would be. Ja. We can explain much of the current political struggle on differences in assumptions regarding government debt. There are those who believe governments must eventually balance their books, and those who believe they do not. As a possible third category, we could imagine even if governments do not ever balance their books, they must at least demonstrate they are trying. I put myself in the first category. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 4 02:34:17 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 3 Nov 2013 19:34:17 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Science confirms: Politics wrecks your ability to do math In-Reply-To: <0a3801ced8e4$cc417cb0$64c47610$@att.net> References: <094c01ced8cc$02b11210$08133630$@att.net> <5276B8B6.6040809@aleph.se> <0a3801ced8e4$cc417cb0$64c47610$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 3:34 PM, spike wrote: > > Ja. We can explain much of the current political struggle on differences > in assumptions regarding government debt. There are those who believe > governments must eventually balance their books, and those who believe they > do not. As a possible third category, we could imagine even if governments > do not ever balance their books, they must at least demonstrate they are > trying. I put myself in the first category. > The government can accept a small amount of continuing debt that will erode to a smaller amount with the force of inflation over time. The question is whether the current amount of debt is too large for inflation to ever erode to a manageable level. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Mon Nov 4 08:52:27 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 01:52:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to Damien Broderick? Message-ID: Damien was one of my favorite extro-list friends, but he has not posted to my knowledge, for quite some time. Has anyone seen/communicated with him lately? I miss our very bright Aussie writer friend, who married Barbara Lamar, an American gal, and moved to Texas.... John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 4 09:38:24 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 10:38:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to Damien Broderick? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20131104093824.GP10405@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 04, 2013 at 01:52:27AM -0700, John Grigg wrote: > Damien was one of my favorite extro-list friends, but he has not posted to > my knowledge, for quite some time. Has anyone seen/communicated with him > lately? I miss our very bright Aussie writer friend, who married Barbara > Lamar, an American gal, and moved to Texas.... He is still occasionally posting to the GRG list. From anders at aleph.se Mon Nov 4 11:12:54 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 06:12:54 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to Damien Broderick? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52778136.8020105@aleph.se> On 2013-11-04 03:52, John Grigg wrote: > Damien was one of my favorite extro-list friends, but he has not > posted to my knowledge, for quite some time. Has anyone > seen/communicated with him lately? Yes, he is around. He is editing a book where I have submitted a chapter. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From stathisp at gmail.com Mon Nov 4 11:55:52 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 22:55:52 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: <0a3101ced8e0$971eb8d0$c55c2a70$@att.net> References: <0a3101ced8e0$971eb8d0$c55c2a70$@att.net> Message-ID: On Monday, 4 November 2013, spike wrote: > >... On Behalf Of Keith Henson > Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster > > >...I only recently became aware of this, some you might have known about > it > for years. > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station > _accident#! > > They didn't talk about it much at the time. I have some power plant > buddies > from college who sent around text accounts and a few photos. The Russians > didn't even let out any news of it for several weeks after the fact. > Commies are that way you know, secretive, even when we don't hold any > really > serious hard feelings over the whole cold war thing. > Are they still commies? > >...Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. > > Keith > _______________________________________________ > > > Oooh boy, that musta really been something to see. From a very safe > distance of course. They didn't want to admit that most of the eighty > 11.5cm bolts holding the rotor cover were fatigue cracked from vibration. > The rotor's design life was 30 yrs. At the time of the accident it was 29 > yrs 10 months. > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_ > accident > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- Stathis Papaioannou -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Nov 4 14:11:43 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 06:11:43 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to Damien Broderick? In-Reply-To: <52778136.8020105@aleph.se> References: <52778136.8020105@aleph.se> Message-ID: <0c1a01ced967$ca920870$5fb61950$@att.net> On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] Whatever happened to Damien Broderick? On 2013-11-04 03:52, John Grigg wrote: >>... Damien was one of my favorite extro-list friends, but he has not > posted to my knowledge, for quite some time. Has anyone > seen/communicated with him lately? >...Yes, he is around. He is editing a book where I have submitted a chapter. -- Dr Anders Sandberg As of four weeks ago, he was rushing to meet a deadline on that book, which was this past Friday. spike From spike66 at att.net Mon Nov 4 14:58:14 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 06:58:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" References: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> Message-ID: <0c3501ced96e$4a53f810$defbe830$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Omar Rahman >.If the Supreme court has declared it a tax then it's a tax and therefore the IRS can collect it. Where is the problem? The problem is on page 231 of the PDF of the ACA: (3) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.-The Secretary (or, if applicable, the Attorney General of the United States) shall not- (A) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a person by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this subsection; or (B) levy on any such property with respect to such failure. Then later on page 249: ''(g) ADMINISTRATION AND PROCEDURE.- ''(1) IN GENERAL.-The penalty provided by this section shall be paid upon notice and demand by the Secretary, and except as provided in paragraph (2), shall be assessed and collected in the same manner as an assessable penalty under subchapter B of chapter 68. ''(2) SPECIAL RULES.-Notwithstanding any other provision of law- ''(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.-In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure. ''(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.-The Secretary shall not- ''(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or ''(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.''. So the ACA was designed to make the standard of constitutionality under the Welfare clause in the preamble, which empowers the government to "promote the general welfare." Putting liens against a prole's property or threatening to imprison her for refusing to pay for Sandra Flock's birth control pills can scarcely make the grade for promoting the general welfare, as the Supreme Court agreed. That subchapter B of chapter 68 allows the IRS Secretary to issue notice and demand payment. The special rules below that provision specify they IRS may not do anything about it if the taxpayer opts to not pay. The IRS may withhold funds from the tax refund however. Of course that is easy to fix: arrange to not have a refund coming by not over-withholding. The SCOTUS (rightly in my opinion) offered a way out, just by observing that the 16th amendment can cover a passive act (not doing something) as a taxable event. I read the 16th amendment; it looks to me like it can be applied to anything the government wants. They could solve homelessness by using the IRS to force everyone to buy a home, merely by requiring penalties for those who don't have one, for instance. Then we could heap more pressure on the stubbornly homeless by calling them irresponsible jerks, problem solved. We could empty mental health institutes by having the IRS command the patients to get sane. Conclusion: by Supreme Court decree, the IRS could replace the FBI, the ATF, all domestic law enforcement agencies and completely wipe away crime and all other social ills. Or not. However, even with all its miraculous healing power, the IRS still cannot make people buy health insurance, because the ACA law specifically forbids the IRS from issuing criminal penalties for non-payment, and from any liens or levies on property. Also note there are no provisions for modification of the ACA by careful design. If the IRS cannot collect the opt-out tax for the ACA with legal force, this means the opt-out tax becomes a donation. The government is certainly a non-profit (it is a massively negative profit) and donations to NPOs are tax deductible, so one might argue the opt-out tax is itself tax deductible. By that reasoning, the opt-out tax cancels itself. The taxpayer could just write the opt-out tax check to herself and be done with it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Nov 4 15:42:14 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 07:42:14 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: References: <0a3101ced8e0$971eb8d0$c55c2a70$@att.net> Message-ID: <0c5301ced974$70291f60$507b5e20$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Stathis Papaioannou >>?Commies are that way you know, secretive? >?Are they still commies? Stathis Papaioannou Not that you can tell. The real question: is America still capitalist? Not that you can tell. Debatable. I can?t easily tell the difference between us and the commies anymore. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Nov 4 16:08:01 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 11:08:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: <0c5301ced974$70291f60$507b5e20$@att.net> References: <0a3101ced8e0$971eb8d0$c55c2a70$@att.net> <0c5301ced974$70291f60$507b5e20$@att.net> Message-ID: <5277C661.8080407@aleph.se> On 2013-11-04 10:42, spike wrote: > > >>...Commies are that way you know, secretive... > > >...Are they still commies? Stathis Papaioannou > > Not that you can tell. The real question: is America still > capitalist? Not that you can tell. Debatable. I can't easily tell > the difference between us and the commies anymore. > > You might want to check http://www.heritage.org/index/ranking US has rank 10, Russia rank 139 out of 177. Of course, some might argue that the whole list has been moving towards the North Korea end, but I think that is doubtful. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Nov 4 18:35:14 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 13:35:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin flaw Message-ID: http://mashable.com/2013/11/04/bitcoin-cornell-researchers/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 4 23:31:32 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 16:31:32 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin flaw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 11:35 AM, John Clark wrote: > http://mashable.com/2013/11/04/bitcoin-cornell-researchers/ > Basic story is that if you or your group controls a large enough collection of the bitcoining hardware, you can benefit by NOT publishing found blocks early. That is a very interesting "hole" but one that would be quite difficult to exploit, in that you would have to have control of a VERY significant set of computation. They also have a pretty easy fix, which should be straightforward to implement. I don't see this exploit as being damaging to the long term perception of Bitcoins. It is interesting that the natural curve has caught up to the last bubble... though the curve does look just a little steepish at the moment. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 00:52:55 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 17:52:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Keith Henson wrote: > I only recently became aware of this, some you might have known about > it for years. > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident# > ! > > Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. > This is the first time I've heard of this as well. That's quite a mess they made there. My question is, If this were a nuclear power plant, do you think this would be the first time you would have heard about it? 70 people killed makes hydroelectric more dangerous than nuclear power, wouldn't you think? Why aren't people down picketing Hoover Dam to make them stop producing power in such a dangerous way? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 01:37:28 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 18:37:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> References: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Omar Rahman wrote: > > The solution is simple: single payer. It addresses the broken supply and > demand curve that I mentioned in my post. > See, I told you that's where the left would take this. It is inevitable. > There wasn't a system it was just a mess. It was exploitative and it still > is because there isn't a non-profit insurance option as far as I know. I'm > pretty sure for the 50 million people without insurance, many of whom > wanted/needed health care, it couldn't really get much worse. > Which is why every rich sick person from every corner of the earth came to the United States when they were really sick. Of course, those days are fast going. As one of the millions of people without health insurance, I want to thank father Obama that I still don't have insurance. As to Spike's idea of privatizing the CIA. I couldn't agree less. While there needs to be a certain level of transparency in collecting secrets, I don't think going private is the answer. The need for ONE single payer defense system is the only thing that keeps me from going full on anarchist. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 03:24:26 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 20:24:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 4:51 PM, spike wrote: > > > >?I see NOTHING wrong with the NSA spying on Angela Merkel. The only > thing they did wrong was allowing themselves to get caught? > > > > Ja, I do see something wrong with the NSA spying on me however. If I were > Merkel, I suppose I would feel likewise. > The constitution only protects the privacy of US citizens, and possibly visitors to the USA. Ms. Merkel is a foreign national who is not protected by the constitution. > A problem I have had with the current bunch is they don?t seem to know the > difference between our friends and our enemies. They alienate exactly the > kinds who we should be working hard to strengthen alliances, the Brits, the > French, the commies, the Italians, DEFINITELY the krauts, all our natural > allies as the world realigns after retiring the old capitalism/communism > divide, these having merged into one nearly indistinguishable mass. The > government should somehow farm out the task of surveillance to private > companies and industries, for none of the above list are likely to be > military adversaries. But our companies will compete against each other, > and it looks like China will be home to the most of the strongest of those > companies. > Which is why they shouldn't have gotten caught. Don't we have the obligation to make sure our "friends" are really our friends, even behind closed doors? > We see the current bunch are saying the Tea Party patriots are terrorists > and coming very close to identifying them as national enemies. OK then > what happens if they get a bunch of seats in congress next fall, more than > they already have? > History is not with them on gaining seats during the second term of a lame duck president. > >?I thought of something else. All this time and oxygen spent on > Obamacare guarantees that we aren't doing anything to reform Social > Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Since those are the REAL problem areas > in the federal budget, Obamacare is like the magician making us look away > from where the real action is. I can't believe I didn't see the trick > before now! Even talk radio is ignoring that stuff for the moment. ?Kelly > > > > I have heard a closely related theory, is that this O-care is a > sacrificial lamb, an intentional failure intended to distract us from > immigration reform or a path to single payer. > Oh, I totally believe we're on the path to single payer. O-care is just the first step down a long road. As for immigration reform, I don't think the house is going to let that happen. > The reason I don?t find the theory compelling is that health care reform > is the cornerstone of liberal thought, a huge expansion of government > power, and something liberals have really wanted for a really long time. > Sorry, I didn't say it was intentional. It is just a happy side effect for the socialists in government that O-care is taking all the lead. If it weren't there on the front line though, maybe we could have some kind of reform of Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid. Just saying. But Obamacare failing is exactly what will lead to a single payer system. It's too big to fail, remember? > To fail this badly would need to call into question the whole notion of > big government being trusted with anything, never mind our entire > healthcare system, along with our medical records. I can?t imagine Obama > and his people wanting to decrease the power of central government. > They can't help but fail. It is the government we're talking about. They never really succeed at anything really important. Yes, they occasionally build a bridge to somewhere. Yes, they did defend us against Hitler. But generally speaking if you want something screwed up badly enough you give it to the government and you are assured it will be. > I can imagine a younger generation coming up which is scarcely > recognizable as a younger generation. They may wake up and see that the > government came up with all these healthcare reforms and then sent them the > bill. Then it will be the sixties all over again with many of the roles > reversed in a sense. Instead of burning draft cards, that generation might > burn their W2 forms. Then we have a whole new set of headaches. > I would love to see the youth of America revolt against this. It is them who are getting the biggest shaft from O-care. Paying for insurance that THEY DON'T NEED. It is redistribution of health. Only it is from the poorest youth of America who can't get a job coming out of college, to the richest, the older folk in America, who are the most well off demographic. I thought socialism was supposed to help the poor. > > I'll opt out unless I have an employer providing insurance by then? > Kelly > > > > Me too. In any election the guy with the simplest shortest bumper > sticker gets a big advantage. This was known even before there were > bumpers, back in 1840 with Tippecanoe and Tyler too, which could be even > further shortened to Tip and Ty. Later, it was: I Like Ike. > > > > In the coming election I can imagine the bumper stickers: > > > > Obama Lied, HealthCare Died > Obama lied, grandma died > Hillary Failed to Answer the 3am Call > While Obama slept through it. > HealthCare.gov is why the Republicans Just Said No > LOL > > My favorite I have thought of so far: > > > > Tune In, Turn On, Opt Out > LOL. That will work for a few years, until the penalties are so large that you have to pay attention to them. > I can imagine a counterpart to that, perhaps a T-shirt worn by drunken > cheerleaders at a frat party, emblazoned with the words: > > > > OPT IN! or no pussy for YOU! > > > > Or a related meme, also appropriate on a young attractive female body: > > > > Opt in, shell out or fuck off. > > > > Or > > > > You no opt in, I no put out. > > > > {8^D Kelly we could make a ton of money selling those shirts. > I have already failed at selling T-Shirts, remember Caucasians for Mitt Romney? Of course, I haven't learned my lesson, I'm now working on a T-Shirt deal for http://www.itanimulli.com (Note that is illuminati.com spelled backwards. You should see what happens when you type that into a web browser. > Inviting creative minds in ExI-chat for T-shirt or bumper sticker > suggestions, with no particular political view preferred. I am far more > interested in making money than spreading any particular meme. > I've always liked: You can keep the Change, but I want my Hope back. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From me at michaeldevault.com Tue Nov 5 03:19:47 2013 From: me at michaeldevault.com (Michael DeVault) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:19:47 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Awesome disaster In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: You raise a good point, Kelly. My grandfather was head of energy management for Walmart and oversaw development of their centralized management system. Given that Walmart is pretty much the largest consumer of Yes, it is no wonder the power companies kept tabs on Walmart. Big Daddy even appeared on the cover of a trade magazine or two. One of the frequent refrains the power companies stressed was that, by 2020, the power grid would be unable to support the demand placed, unless the nation began moving rapidly toward nuclear power. The companies even tried to pressure the NRC to follow the French model. "You want to build a station? Thank you for your permitting fee. Here are your plans and the list of approved sites for construction. Next?" We see how that went. md Sent from my iPhone > On Nov 4, 2013, at 6:52 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 7:57 AM, Keith Henson wrote: >> I only recently became aware of this, some you might have known about >> it for years. >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Sayano%E2%80%93Shushenskaya_power_station_accident#! >> >> Wow. A 900 ton spinning generator rotor flying out of the floor. > > This is the first time I've heard of this as well. That's quite a mess they made there. > > My question is, If this were a nuclear power plant, do you think this would be the first time you would have heard about it? 70 people killed makes hydroelectric more dangerous than nuclear power, wouldn't you think? Why aren't people down picketing Hoover Dam to make them stop producing power in such a dangerous way? > > -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 kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 03:42:01 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 20:42:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 10:01 AM, spike wrote: > > and the IRS has no authority to > collect the tax, as they do with income tax. Reasoning: as written, the > tax > applies to those who do not make enough money to require a tax return. > I'm not sure of that. Those who do not make enough to pay are thrown into the Medicare Medicaid pile. > So now what does the IRS do? What happens when we see burn-your-W2 rally, > a > modern echo of the 1960s burn-your-draft-card rally and the > burn-your-feminine-undergarment rally? I think Ayn Rand wrote a book about that... too bad it's all just a wet dream. > Do stand by, this will be interesting. > Sort of like a train wreck is interesting, yes. > That case demonstrates why I have always thought health care reform must be > done at the state level rather than the Fed. The states have more power in > those kinds of matters. The states have more space to experiment and > change > things if they fail. Romneycare, as big a mess as it is for those in Massachusetts, is not as big a mess as Obamacare will be. The US is simply bigger than Mass. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 04:06:10 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:06:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] How to build a happier brain In-Reply-To: References: <526EE5F2.1010207@aleph.se> <058f01ced511$dbee9750$93cbc5f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 8:45 AM, John Clark wrote: > > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 12:01 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > I would submit that John F Kennedy was more conservative than anyone in >> government today. Including the Tea Party "fanatics" and the Libertarians. >> > > In my opinion John F Kennedy was the greatest president the USA ever had, > and I would still say that even if he'd been a total fuckup every day of > his presidency except for the 13 days between October 14 and 28 1962, > because those were the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the closest the > human race has come to extinction since the eruption of Mt. Toba in > Indonesia 75,000 years ago. > A reasonable argument. Then there's also that little thing about sending men to the moon. It was Camelot for science. Science has suffered a lot at the hands of the Creationist political right since that time. Too bad. Science shouldn't be political. Case in point, one rather big piece of news for those who wonder if global warming is really all that big a deal today... http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485772/Global-warming-pause-20-years-Arctic-sea-ice-started-recover.html Now before you all go forgetting how to do math because of your politics, remember this paper was peer-reviewed for the journal Climate Dynamics. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Tue Nov 5 04:48:56 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Mon, 04 Nov 2013 21:48:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin flaw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <527878B8.6030001@canonizer.com> On 11/4/2013 4:31 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > It is interesting that the natural curve has caught up to the last > bubble... though the curve does look just a little steepish at the moment. > > -Kelly > > It doesn't look "steepish" to me. It's nothing compared to the first 5 order of magnitude price increases that each only took 6 months. This is exactly the shape the expert consensus camp (which says it will reach $1000/BTC in 2014) has been predicting. http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/154/2 Brent Allsop From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 5 05:38:41 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:38:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> Message-ID: <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >.The constitution only protects the privacy of US citizens, and possibly visitors to the USA. Ah EXCELLENT! Finally someone who has found where in the constitution it says anything about US citizens having the inalienable right to privacy. I have been searching for that since I don't know how long. Kelly, where did you find that? >.Ms. Merkel is a foreign national who is not protected by the constitution. I agree. Now where in the constitution does it say anything about privacy? My heartburn with it is not that it is illegal but rather that it would piss off the one who should be our strongest ally. One day soon we will wake up and discover that China, Japan and Germany are the only three countries in the world capable of loaning money in the kinds of absurd quantities we USians demand of other countries, and I am not so sure about Japan. >.Which is why they shouldn't have gotten caught. Don't we have the obligation to make sure our "friends" are really our friends, even behind closed doors? They aren't really friends Kelly. There are no friends. Only potential bankers. We see the current bunch are saying the Tea Party patriots are terrorists and coming very close to identifying them as national enemies. OK then what happens if they get a bunch of seats in congress next fall, more than they already have? >.History is not with them on gaining seats during the second term of a lame duck president. The midterms a year from today will be a referendum on ObamaCare. One year from now, very little else will matter. If this thing crashes as hard as I think it will, the Democrat party will lose a bunch of seats, the Republicans will break even or lose a few and the Tea Party will be a force to be with reckoned. If O-care succeeds, just the opposite. Nothing else will matter much. >.But Obamacare failing is exactly what will lead to a single payer system. It's too big to fail, remember? That isn't clear to me. It sure appears to be set up for failure, but it isn't at all clear the next step is single payer. I would go for that if done at a state level, or if we get a national balanced budget amendment to go with it. Or we destroy our credit rating, so no sane party will loan us money. >.They can't help but fail. It is the government we're talking about. They never really succeed at anything really important. Yes, they occasionally build a bridge to somewhere. Yes, they did defend us against Hitler. But generally speaking if you want something screwed up badly enough you give it to the government and you are assured it will be. Agreed, so why do you think this current misadventure is a step toward single payer? >.I would love to see the youth of America revolt against this. It is them who are getting the biggest shaft from O-care. Paying for insurance that THEY DON'T NEED. It is redistribution of health. Only it is from the poorest youth of America who can't get a job coming out of college, to the richest, the older folk in America, who are the most well off demographic. I thought socialism was supposed to help the poor. Don't worry Kelly, the young will revolt bigtime. It will be like the old burn the draft card days, but this one may have some damn serious consequences. That business about setting the IRS to where they can demand payment but not place any criminal sanctions for non-payment nor issue liens against property or bank accounts for non-payment will hurt us. It will send a message to a generation that they do not need to pay their taxes. The whole scheme dilutes the power of the IRS, which could have catastrophic consequences. >.Obama lied, grandma died. Oooh that's cold. {8^D My favorite I have thought of so far: Tune In, Turn On, Opt Out >.LOL. That will work for a few years, until the penalties are so large that you have to pay attention to them. No sir. Even if you pay attention to them, the IRS still has no means of collecting the opt-out fees. I notice a lot of the articles on the topic say things like "The ACA didn't include any provisions for the IRS to enforce collection of the penalties." This kinda misses the point by understatement: the ACA clearly specifically forbids the IRS from enforcing the penalties. They are free to DEMAND payment, they can even send a bill. They just can't do anything if the taxpayer just says no. Next, note that the ACA is designed to be difficult or impossible to modify without nullifying the whole thing. That is why they specifically removed the isolation clauses. They didn't forget them, they carefully extracted them, so the insurance companies wouldn't be left holding the bag. The section which explicitly forbids the IRS from collecting the opt-out tax is cross linked to the section on the insurance companies requirement to sell to any zombie who staggers thru the door. If they kill the prohibition for the IRS to collect, they kill the requirement for the insurance company to sell to zombies. If those two things go out, the only thing that is left of O-care is a pile of wood pulp, granted a tall one. That linking of those two things was intentional and carefully designed by those who wrote this bill behind closed doors in Senate private chambers, with one party and a collection of insurance company reps with plenty of campaign donations to hand out freely. Kelly, is this all making sense now? >.I have already failed at selling T-Shirts, remember Caucasians for Mitt Romney? {8^D >.Of course, I haven't learned my lesson, I'm now working on a T-Shirt deal for http://www.itanimulli.com (Note that is illuminati.com spelled backwards. You should see what happens when you type that into a web browser. Haaaaahahahahahhaaaaa! Excellent gag, me lad. The New World Order crowd just keeps falling for the same gag, over and over and over. It seems they just cannot learn. They were falling for that back when I was in high school, they still are. That crowd doesn't seem to get it: the New World Order isn't some big secret evil conspiracy; that isn't necessary. We create the New World Order by borrowing two million dollars per second with no credible means of repaying it, then identify as enemies of the state anyone who points out that this madness is madness. I've always liked: You can keep the Change, but I want my Hope back. -Kelly We will not be keeping the change. We already saw the 1 November fix date blow by, the HealthCare.gov site isn't fixed. We are already seeing what looks to me like pre-emptive apologies for not making the 1 December date with a report I heard just today: the site never even attempted to encrypt any of the information they were collecting. Didn't even try! I know it takes more than four weeks to tack on after the fact some kind of encryption that could scale to millions of applicants, considering how complicated that site is and how many leaky contractors are involved. That whole task should never have involved the Fed, it should have been done by the insurance companies. They would each have smaller, more manageable systems in place and would have incentive to keep their own customer's data private. But back to the most interesting claim you made right at first Kelly: where did you find in the constitution anything about US citizens being entitled to privacy? I know the legal system has laws and that "reasonable expectation of privacy" phrase that determines the legality of snooping, but where is it in the constitution? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 5 06:06:44 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 4 Nov 2013 22:06:44 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets Message-ID: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> OK now I am more puzzled than ever. NASA says there are about 8.8 billion Goldilocks planets in the Milky Way alone: http://news.yahoo.com/study-8-8-billion-earth-size-just-planets-212232920.ht ml I had always assumed it about 4 orders of magnitude below that number. Now get one of the NASA deep space imagines, and imagine all those smudges of light each containing more such planets than there are people on this Goldilocks planet. I must reluctantly conclude that we are missing something fundamental, so much so that it calls into question nearly everything we thought was true. I just can't get my head around the notion that we are the only ones here with all those habitable planets all over the place. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 07:12:58 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 18:12:58 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <63E929A5-85CD-4C48-A513-A741793B05D3@me.com> Message-ID: On 5 November 2013 12:37, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Sat, Nov 2, 2013 at 8:42 AM, Omar Rahman wrote: >> >> >> The solution is simple: single payer. It addresses the broken supply and >> demand curve that I mentioned in my post. > > > See, I told you that's where the left would take this. It is inevitable. > >> >> There wasn't a system it was just a mess. It was exploitative and it still >> is because there isn't a non-profit insurance option as far as I know. I'm >> pretty sure for the 50 million people without insurance, many of whom >> wanted/needed health care, it couldn't really get much worse. > > > Which is why every rich sick person from every corner of the earth came to > the United States when they were really sick. Of course, those days are fast > going. > > As one of the millions of people without health insurance, I want to thank > father Obama that I still don't have insurance. > > As to Spike's idea of privatizing the CIA. I couldn't agree less. While > there needs to be a certain level of transparency in collecting secrets, I > don't think going private is the answer. The need for ONE single payer > defense system is the only thing that keeps me from going full on anarchist. The problem with the US health care system is not just access, it is that it is incredibly expensive for equivalent procedures, far more expensive than in any other country. This is all the more striking since apart from health care, goods and services in the US are the same price or cheaper than the equivalent in similarly wealthy countries. Where does this extra cash go? http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/26/21-graphs-that-show-americas-health-care-prices-are-ludicrous/ -- Stathis Papaioannou From deimtee at optusnet.com.au Tue Nov 5 10:40:17 2013 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (david) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 21:40:17 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131105214017.40eb03a4@jarrah> On Mon, 4 Nov 2013 21:38:41 -0800 "spike" wrote: > No sir. Even if you pay attention to them, the IRS still has no > means of collecting the opt-out fees. I notice a lot of the > articles on the topic say things like "The ACA didn't include any > provisions for the IRS to enforce collection of the penalties." > This kinda misses the point by understatement: the ACA clearly > specifically forbids the IRS from enforcing the penalties. They are > free to DEMAND payment, they can even send a bill. They just can't do > anything if the taxpayer just says no. > > > Next, note that the ACA is designed to be difficult or impossible to > modify without nullifying the whole thing. That is why they > specifically removed the isolation clauses. They didn't forget > them, they carefully extracted them, so the insurance companies > wouldn't be left holding the bag. > The section which explicitly forbids the IRS from collecting the > opt-out tax is cross linked to the section on the insurance > companies requirement to sell to any zombie who staggers thru the > door. If they kill the prohibition for the IRS to collect, they > kill the requirement for the insurance company to sell to zombies. > If those two things go out, the only thing that is left of O-care is > a pile of wood pulp, granted a tall one. That linking of those two > things was intentional and carefully designed by those who wrote this > bill behind closed doors in Senate private chambers, with one party > and a collection of insurance company reps with plenty of campaign > donations to hand out freely. Kelly, is this all making sense > now? > > spike Is there anything to stop the IRS simply applying whatever taxes or with-holding that you have paid, to the opt-out tax first, then coming after you boots and all for the "unpaid" income tax? -David From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 5 11:40:38 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 06:40:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> Message-ID: <5278D936.1060607@aleph.se> On 2013-11-04 22:24, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Oct 31, 2013 at 4:51 PM, spike > wrote: > > >...I see NOTHING wrong with the NSA spying on Angela Merkel. The only > thing they did wrong was allowing themselves to get caught... > > Ja, I do see something wrong with the NSA spying on me however. > If I were Merkel, I suppose I would feel likewise. > > > The constitution only protects the privacy of US citizens, and > possibly visitors to the USA. Ms. Merkel is a foreign national who is > not protected by the constitution. Actually, visitors to the US (and US citizens returning home from abroad) pass through a zone where they have very few constitutional protections: https://www.eff.org/press/releases/protect-yourself-intrusive-laptop-and-phone-searches-us-border Meanwhile the Swedish constitution protects Swedish citizens. The law also allows the FRA (the military intelligence agency) to monitor communications crossing Swedish borders (remember that there are some internet backbone trunks crossing the border). Isn't it lovely that the 9 million Swedes who stay at home are safe from eavesdropping? Sure, there are 7.113 billion foreigners (and Swedes abroad) who are fair game. No wonder Sweden is part of the "14 eyes" collaboration - the smaller the country, the more of the world it is constitutionally allowed to see... and then share. http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/01/gchq-europe-spy-agencies-mass-surveillance-snowden And as foreign minister Bildt responded, blanket surveillance doesn't have chilling effects as long as it is performed discreetly. I wonder how much China (or Saudi Arabia, the Mafia, or EvilCorp) would be willing to pay for one small country in the collaboration to turn double agent? Obama's blackberry was certified by the NSA... which might be a bad thing in this case. (Nej, k?ra FRA, jag implicerar naturligtvis ingenting om er. Jag ?r en lojal medborgare och litar helt p? er - den svenska konspirationen i Oxford fortg?r precis som planerat. Men jag undrar om vi kan lita p? norrm?nnen...) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 5 12:35:07 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 07:35:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> On 2013-11-05 01:06, spike wrote: > > OK now I am more puzzled than ever. > I share in the puzzlement. And remember, this is just earth-like planets - if life can function in Europa-like oceans, ammonia, methane, liquid nitrogen, sulphuric acid, or supercritical carbon dioxide solvents the number of potential life-bearing worlds pushes up enormously. Say we assign only 1% chance to Europa-like reducing water biospheres being possible, and given that Europa-like places look slightly more common in the solar system than earthlike places, we should expect a distribution with 99% probability of 8.8 potential biospheres and 1% probability with up to 20 billion potential biospheres. Now we can repeat for the other biospheres (with weighting for the ranges of liquidity). The end result is that our prior distribution of the number of potential biospheres likely should look like an exponential distribution, with a mean significantly higher than just 8.8 billion worlds. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 12:42:42 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 01:42:42 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, 05 Nov 2013 19:06:44 +1300, spike wrote: > I must reluctantly conclude that we are missing something fundamental, so > much so that it calls into question nearly everything we thought was > true. > I just can't get my head around the notion that we are the only ones here > with all those habitable planets all over the place. By an odd coincidence, I think I know almost but not quite how you feel. I just finished reading a book titled 'The Electric Sky', if the electric plasma universe model is in fact correct then it would seem that a lot of current cosmology is just flat out wrong, the implications of which kind drive me into a dark tea time of the soul mode. It probably doesn't help much, but I take it under the electric universe model the reason why we seem to be alone is simpler, we just happen to be living in one of the oldest parts of the universe. Anyone on this list happen to read that and/or related papers/books, and have an intelligent argument on why the electric plasma theory is invalid? From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 5 13:20:53 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 14:20:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131105132052.GQ8041@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 01:42:42AM +1300, Andrew Mckee wrote: > On Tue, 05 Nov 2013 19:06:44 +1300, spike wrote: > > Anyone on this list happen to read that and/or related papers/books, > and have an intelligent argument on why the electric plasma theory > is invalid? These one-star reviews is probably all the argument this book deserves.... http://www.amazon.com/The-Electric-Sky-Donald-Scott/product-reviews/0977285111/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?filterBy=addOneStar From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 5 14:11:11 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 09:11:11 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <5278FC7F.3040305@aleph.se> On 2013-11-05 07:42, Andrew Mckee wrote: > Anyone on this list happen to read that and/or related papers/books, > and have an intelligent argument on why the electric plasma theory is > invalid? The Zeeman effect allow you to measure magnetic field strengths remotely, and they are quite weak. http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March03/Vallee/Vallee_contents.html http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1302/1302.5663.pdf -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 5 15:04:20 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 07:04:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <20131105214017.40eb03a4@jarrah> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> <20131105214017.40eb03a4@jarrah> Message-ID: <021001ceda38$4ec54d20$ec4fe760$@att.net> -----Original Message----- >... On Behalf Of david "spike" wrote: >> ... the ACA clearly specifically forbids the IRS from enforcing the penalties. They are > free to DEMAND payment, they can even send a bill. They just can't do > anything if the taxpayer just says no... spike >...Is there anything to stop the IRS simply applying whatever taxes or with-holding that you have paid, to the opt-out tax first, then coming after you boots and all for the "unpaid" income tax? -David _______________________________________________ Sure, they can keep the refund you would have gotten. But if you do your withholdings right, you shouldn't have a refund coming anyway. Or if so, it should be very small. Here's the text: ''(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.-In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure. ''(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.-The Secretary shall not- ''(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or ''(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.''. So here's the interesting part. Do they differentiate the normal income tax bill from that which is levied for not having health insurance? I would think they would need to keep those two bills separate, since the IRS has the authority to collect ordinary taxes, but does not have the authority to assess penalties for refusing this one. So if they mix the two into one bill, it might add the threat of criminal sanction for not paying the opt-out tax (specifically prohibited by law) or it might cause the IRS to lose its power over collecting the income tax (which has some enormous consequences in itself.) There are a number of waivers available for the opt-out tax: one of the major religions often found in places such as Saudi Arabia is exempt, since insurance is gambling. Presumably anyone who converts to that religion now is as exempt as the others. Native Americans are exempt even though you can buy a membership into some Native American tribes without the actual relationship, or just claim it, as in the case of Elizabeth Warren. You can be a union or a big corporation, with the term "big" defined by how "big" is the campaign donation you offer. You can be sure the IRS can and will keep your refund if you have one coming, but if you do, that is a bookkeeping error on your part. To answer your question, can they come boots and all. Yes to boots, not to all. Boots but not criminal sanctions, boots but not liens against your property or levies against your bank accounts. OK so what happens when the mighty much-feared IRS shows up boots and that's all? The taxpayers now tweak them with "I invoke the fifth amendment" or say "Hey nice boots. Boots are made for walking. Now hit the road." The IRS cannot do its job without a serious threat behind it. That waiver removed the fist from the glove. spike From atymes at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 15:40:06 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 07:40:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 4:35 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I share in the puzzlement. > [snip] > Say we assign only 1% chance to > That's the source of your confusion: the illusion of convenient numbers. The actual percentages are probably unwieldy small fractions of a single percent. Nature doesn't care that we decimalize things. Consider the exact fraction you would need, for Earth to be the only one. The reason it feels wrong is because it's an inconvenient fraction. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 5 16:18:28 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 17:18:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Master of many trades Message-ID: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/anyone-can-learn-to-be-a-polymath/ Master of many trades Our age reveres the narrow specialist but humans are natural polymaths, at our best when we turn our minds to many things by Robert Twigger 2,400 words Renaissance man: Portrait of a Young Gentleman in His Studio by Lorenzo Lotto, c. 1530. Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice. Photo by Corbis Robert Twigger is a British poet, writer and explorer. He lives in Cairo, Egypt. I travelled with Bedouin in the Western Desert of Egypt. When we got a puncture, they used tape and an old inner tube to suck air from three tyres to inflate a fourth. It was the cook who suggested the idea; maybe he was used to making food designed for a few go further. Far from expressing shame at having no pump, they told me that carrying too many tools is the sign of a weak man; it makes him lazy. The real master has no tools at all, only a limitless capacity to improvise with what is to hand. The more fields of knowledge you cover, the greater your resources for improvisation. We hear the descriptive words psychopath and sociopath all the time, but here?s a new one: monopath. It means a person with a narrow mind, a one-track brain, a bore, a super-specialist, an expert with no other interests ? in other words, the role-model of choice in the Western world. You think I jest? In June, I was invited on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 to say a few words on the river Nile, because I had a new book about it. The producer called me ?Dr Twigger? several times. I was flattered, but I also felt a sense of panic. I have never sought or held a PhD. After the third ?Dr?, I gently put the producer right. And of course, it was fine ? he didn?t especially want me to be a doctor. The culture did. My Nile book was necessarily the work of a generalist. But the radio needs credible guests. It needs an expert ? otherwise why would anyone listen? The monopathic model derives some of its credibility from its success in business. In the late 18th century, Adam Smith (himself an early polymath who wrote not only on economics but also philosophy, astronomy, literature and law) noted that the division of labour was the engine of capitalism. His famous example was the way in which pin-making could be broken down into its component parts, greatly increasing the overall efficiency of the production process. But Smith also observed that ?mental mutilation? followed the too-strict division of labour. Or as Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: ?Nothing tends to materialise man, and to deprive his work of the faintest trace of mind, more than extreme division of labour.? Ever since the beginning of the industrial era, we have known both the benefits and the drawbacks of dividing jobs into ever smaller and more tedious ones. Riches must be balanced against boredom and misery. But as long as a boring job retains an element of physicality, one can find a rhythm, entering a ?flow? state wherein time passes easily and the hard labour is followed by a sense of accomplishment. In Jack Kerouac?s novel Big Sur (1962) there is a marvellous description of Neal Cassady working like a demon, changing tyres in a tyre shop and finding himself uplifted rather than diminished by the work. Industrialism tends toward monopathy because of the growth of divided labour, but it is only when the physical element is removed that the real problems begin. When the body remains still and the mind is forced to do something repetitive, the human inside us rebels. The average job now is done by someone who is stationary in front of some kind of screen. Someone who has just one overriding interest is tunnel-visioned, a bore, but also a specialist, an expert. Welcome to the monopathic world, a place where only the single-minded can thrive. Of course, the rest of us are very adept at pretending to be specialists. We doctor our CVs to make it look as if all we ever wanted to do was sell mobile homes or Nespresso machines. It?s common sense, isn?t it, to try to create the impression that we are entirely focused on the job we want? And wasn?t it ever thus? In fact, it wasn?t. Classically, a polymath was someone who ?had learnt much?, conquering many different subject areas. As the 15th-century polymath Leon Battista Alberti ? an architect, painter, horseman, archer and inventor ? wrote: ?a man can do all things if he will?. During the Renaissance, polymathy became part of the idea of the ?perfected man?, the manifold master of intellectual, artistic and physical pursuits. Leonardo da Vinci was said to be as proud of his ability to bend iron bars with his hands as he was of the Mona Lisa. Polymaths such as Da Vinci, Goethe and Benjamin Franklin were such high achievers that we might feel a bit reluctant to use the word ?polymath? to describe our own humble attempts to become multi-talented. We can?t all be geniuses. But we do all still indulge in polymathic activity; it?s part of what makes us human. So, say that we all have at least the potential to become polymaths. Once we have a word, we can see the world more clearly. And that?s when we notice a huge cognitive dissonance at the centre of Western culture: a huge confusion about how new ideas, new discoveries, and new art actually come about. Science, for example, likes to project itself as clean, logical, rational and unemotional. In fact, it?s pretty haphazard, driven by funding and ego, reliant on inspired intuition by its top-flight practitioners. Above all it is polymathic. New ideas frequently come from the cross-fertilisation of two separate fields. Francis Crick, who intuited the structure of DNA, was originally a physicist; he claimed this background gave him the confidence to solve problems that biologists thought were insoluble. Richard Feynman came up with his Nobel Prize-winning ideas about quantum electrodynamics by reflecting on a peculiar hobby of his ? spinning a plate on his finger (he also played the bongos and was an expert safe-cracker). Percy Spencer, a radar expert, noticed that the radiation produced by microwaves melted a chocolate bar in his pocket and developed microwave ovens. And Hiram Maxim, the inventor of the modern machine gun, was inspired by a self-cocking mousetrap he had made in his teens. I thought you were either a ?natural? or nothing. Then I saw natural athletes fall behind when they didn?t practice enough. This, shamefully, was a great morale booster Despite all this, there remains the melancholy joke about the scientist who outlines a whole new area of study only to dismiss it out of hand because it trespasses across too many field boundaries and would never get funding. Somehow, this is just as believable as any number of amazing breakthroughs inspired by the cross-fertilisation of disciplines. One could tell similar stories about breakthroughs in art ? cubism crossed the simplicity of African carving with a growing non-representational trend in European painting. Jean-Michel Basquiat and Banksy took street graffiti and made it acceptable to galleries. In business, cross-fertilisation is the source of all kinds of innovations: fibres inspired by spider webs have become a source of bulletproof fabric; practically every mobile phone also seems to be a computer, a camera and a GPS tracker. To come up with such ideas, you need to know things outside your field. What?s more, the further afield your knowledge extends, the greater potential you have for innovation. Invention fights specialisation at every turn. Human nature and human progress are polymathic at root. And life itself is various ? you need many skills to be able to live it. In traditional cultures, everyone can do a little of everything. Though one man might be the best hunter or archer or trapper, he doesn?t do only that. The benefits of polymathic endeavour in innovation are not so hard to see. What is less obvious is how we ever allowed ourselves to lose sight of them. The problem, I believe, is some mistaken assumptions about learning. We come to believe that we can only learn when we are young, and that only ?naturals? can acquire certain skills. We imagine that we have a limited budget for learning, and that different skills absorb all the effort we plough into them, without giving us anything to spend on other pursuits. Our hunch that it?s easier to learn when you?re young isn?t completely wrong, or at least it has a real basis in neurology. However, the pessimistic assumption that learning somehow ?stops? when you leave school or university or hit thirty is at odds with the evidence. It appears that a great deal depends on the nucleus basalis, located in the basal forebrain. Among other things, this bit of the brain produces significant amounts of acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that regulates the rate at which new connections are made between brain cells. This in turn dictates how readily we form memories of various kinds, and how strongly we retain them. When the nucleus basalisis ?switched on?, acetylcholine flows and new connections occur. When it is switched off, we make far fewer new connections. Between birth and the age of ten or eleven, the nucleus basalisis is permanently ?switched on?. It contains an abundance of the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, and this means new connections are being made all the time. Typically this means that a child will be learning almost all the time ? if they see or hear something once they remember it. But as we progress towards the later teenage years the brain becomes more selective. From research into the way stroke victims recover lost skills it has been observed that the nucleus basalis only switches on when one of three conditions occur: a novel situation, a shock, or intense focus, maintained through repetition or continuous application. Over-specialisation, eventually retreats into defending what one has learnt rather than making new connections I know from my own experience of studying martial arts in Japan that intense study brings rewards that are impossible to achieve by casual application. For a year I studied an hour a day three days a week and made minimal progress. For a further year I switched to an intensive course of five hours a day five days a week. The gains were dramatic and permanent, resulting in a black belt and an instructor certificate. Deep down I was pessimistic that I could actually learn a martial art. I thought you were either a ?natural? or nothing. Then I saw natural athletes fall behind when they didn?t practice enough. This, shamefully, was a great morale booster. The fact that I succeeded where others were failing also gave me an important key to the secret of learning. There was nothing special about me, but I worked at it and I got it. One reason many people shy away from polymathic activity is that they think they can?t learn new skills. I believe we all can ? and at any age too ? but only if we keep learning. ?Use it or lose it? is the watchword of brain plasticity. People as old as 90 who actively acquire new interests that involve learning retain their ability to learn. But if we stop taxing the nucleus basalis, it begins to dry up. In some older people it has been shown to contain no acetylcholine ? they have been ?switched off? for so long the organ no longer functions. In extreme cases this is considered to be one factor in Alzheimers and other forms of dementia ? treated, effectively at first, by artificially raising acetylcholine levels. But simply attempting new things seems to offer health benefits to people who aren?t suffering from Alzheimers. After only short periods of trying, the ability to make new connections develops. And it isn?t just about doing puzzles and crosswords; you really have to try and learn something new. Monopathy, or over-specialisation, eventually retreats into defending what one has learnt rather than making new connections. The initial spurt of learning gives out, and the expert is left, like an animal, merely defending his territory. One sees this in the academic arena, where ancient professors vie with each other to expel intruders from their hard-won patches. Just look at the bitter arguments over how far the sciences should be allowed to encroach on the humanities. But the polymath, whatever his or her ?level? or societal status, is not constrained to defend their own turf. The polymath?s identity and value comes from multiple mastery. Besides, it may be that the humanities have less to worry about than it seems. An intriguing study funded by the Dana foundation and summarised by Dr Michael Gazzaniga of the University of California, Santa Barbara, suggests that studying the performing arts ? dance, music and acting ? actually improves one's ability to learn anything else. Collating several studies, the researchers found that performing arts generated much higher levels of motivation than other subjects. These enhanced levels of motivation made students aware of their own ability to focus and concentrate on improvement. Later, even if they gave up the arts, they could apply their new-found talent for concentration to learning anything new. I find this very suggestive. The old Renaissance idea of mastering physical as well as intellectual skills appears to have real grounding in improving our general ability to learn new things. It is having the confidence that one can learn something new that opens the gates to polymathic activity. There is, I think, a case to be made for a new area of study to counter the monopathic drift of the modern world. Call it polymathics. Any such field would have to include physical, artistic and scientific elements to be truly rounded. It isn?t just that mastering physical skills aids general learning. The fact is, if we exclude the physicality of existence and reduce everything worth knowing down to book-learning, we miss out on a huge chunk of what makes us human. Remember, Feynman had to be physically competent enough to spin a plate to get his new idea. Polymathics might focus on rapid methods of learning that allow you to master multiple fields. It might also work to develop transferable learning methods. A large part of it would naturally be concerned with creativity ? crossing unrelated things to invent something new. But polymathics would not just be another name for innovation. It would, I believe, help build better judgment in all areas. There is often something rather obvious about people with narrow interests ? they are bores, and bores always lack a sense of humour. They just don?t see that it?s absurd to devote your life to a tiny area of study and have no other outside interests. I suspect that the converse is true: by being more polymathic, you develop a better sense of proportion and balance ? which gives you a better sense of humour. And that can?t be a bad thing. Published on 4 November 2013 Article topics: Education, Knowledge, Society From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 5 17:37:27 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 12:37:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> On 2013-11-05 10:40, Adrian Tymes wrote: > That's the source of your confusion: the illusion of convenient > numbers. The actual percentages are probably unwieldy small fractions > of a single percent. Nature doesn't care that we decimalize things. Bah. See below. > Consider the exact fraction you would need, for Earth to be the only > one. The reason it feels wrong is because it's an inconvenient fraction. I have exactly one cup of coffee in front of me. What probability need I assume for coffee cups to make it the only one? Clearly, if nobody else has a coffee cup, it needs to be way less than one in 7 billion! Wow, what a rare coffee cup I have! Sorry, this is not how it works. Let's do it right then: http://aleph0.clarku.edu/~djoyce/ma218/bayes2.pdf http://www.stat.tamu.edu/~fliang/STAT605/lect01.pdf http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~jordan/courses/260-spring10/lectures/lecture7.pdf We observe ourselves to be on Earth. What does that do to the probability of biospheres being *possible* on exactly Earth-like planets? Obviously it sets it to 1. What does it do to the probability p of life on similar planets? This is equivalent to doing a Bernouilli trial and getting one success. If you start with a uniform prior, then the resulting posterior probabability distribution for the real probability is now f(p)=2p - a triangular distribution with maximum at p=1. If we instead use an uninformative Jeffrey prior for a Bernouilli trial, P(p) = 1/[pi sqrt(p(1-p))] - a lot of the mass is really close to 0 or 1, quite inconvenient. In this case the posterior is proportional to p/sqrt(p(1-p)). Again most of the probability mass is close to p=1. If we enlarge the class to planets in or near the life zone, we have one success and two failures in the solar system. In this case we get a beta distribution as posterior, P(p)=p(1-p)^2/B(2,3) for the uniform prior - a softer bulge peaking at p=1/3. Multiplying with a Jeffreys prior shifts the peak down a little bit, but not by much. Now repeat the process with the other planet classes. We do not have any known examples, so it will just be priors going into the estimate. The expected number of biospheres will be E(sum_i p_i N_i)=sum_i E(p_i N_i) where p_i is the probability for class i, N_i the number of planets in class i. The expectation for both uniform or Jeffries priors is N/2 - far, far more than 1% (since each category has mean p=1/2). So the rational thing is to expect *lots* of biospheres. Which is of course not good news, since that makes a future Great Filter more likely. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 17:51:21 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 17:51:21 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > So the rational thing is to expect *lots* of biospheres. Which is of course > not good news, since that makes a future Great Filter more likely. > > Not necessarily bad news, though. If the Great Filter is Heaven on Earth, who are we to complain? The Filter just stops species thrashing around in the physical universe. Good idea if it is because they all find something much, much better to do. :) BillK From protokol2020 at gmail.com Tue Nov 5 18:02:49 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 19:02:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> Message-ID: If NASA says, that they are Earth-like, it doesn't mean that they are *enough* Earth-like for a nontrivial biology. Mars was a sure thing, a decade ago, that it contains at least some bacterial life. I was watching a poor turtle in a lab, crawling around in Mars-like environment. SEE!? those enthusiastic scientist were screaming. Now we see, there isn't a drop of water to be found on Mars. NASA needs a budget for another Kepler, that's all. On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 6:51 PM, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > > So the rational thing is to expect *lots* of biospheres. Which is of > course > > not good news, since that makes a future Great Filter more likely. > > > > > > Not necessarily bad news, though. If the Great Filter is Heaven on > Earth, who are we to complain? > > The Filter just stops species thrashing around in the physical > universe. Good idea if it is because they all find something much, > much better to do. :) > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Nov 5 18:09:19 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 19:09:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin flaw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5279344F.1020202@libero.it> Il 05/11/2013 00:31, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 11:35 AM, John Clark > wrote: > > http://mashable.com/2013/11/04/bitcoin-cornell-researchers/ > > > Basic story is that if you or your group controls a large enough > collection of the bitcoining hardware, you can benefit by NOT publishing > found blocks early. That is a very interesting "hole" but one that would > be quite difficult to exploit, in that you would have to have control of > a VERY significant set of computation. They also have a pretty easy fix, > which should be straightforward to implement. > > I don't see this exploit as being damaging to the long term perception > of Bitcoins. > > It is interesting that the natural curve has caught up to the last > bubble... though the curve does look just a little steepish at the moment. It is steepish only if you look at it with a linear chart. http://www.bitcoincharts.com/charts/mtgoxUSD#tgSzm1g10zm2g25zcvzl The problem is the wide oscillation band is pretty large (now I would roughly say 100-1000 now), so it is easy to be confounded. The chart, IMHO, point to a 300-500$/BTC by year end with no major catastrophes. Any Cyprus, Lehman and likes and it could easily shot to the higher side of the band in days. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Nov 5 18:54:03 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 05 Nov 2013 19:54:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> Message-ID: <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> Il 05/11/2013 04:24, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > LOL. That will work for a few years, until the penalties are so large > that you have to pay attention to them. The problem with the penalties large enough is, after a threshold, they become irrelevant. If they transform the penalty in a criminal matter, they are threatening all and any citizen and resident in the US (a part the people with a waiver). Is it possible to give waivers to avoid the sanction of a criminal law? But fundamentally, you are talking to morph the IRS in the Sheriff of Nottingham and his Soldiers. Boots at the door, kick, enter, take stuff, arrest people, etc. We know how ended in England, I do not think it would end very well in the US given the 3-500 hundred millions guns in civilian hands. What criminal sanction would be applicable if the IRS could apply it? How many years of jail people would receive for refusing to pay the "tax"? How many of them would fight against being arrested? Maybe not the first time, but the following. Mirco From rtomek at ceti.pl Tue Nov 5 19:52:30 2013 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 20:52:30 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Master of many trades In-Reply-To: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> References: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, 5 Nov 2013, Eugen Leitl wrote: > http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/anyone-can-learn-to-be-a-polymath/ > Master of many trades > Our age reveres the narrow specialist but humans are natural polymaths, > at our best when we turn our minds to many things "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." Robert Heinlein, Hoooly fork, I am almost a human being. Now I have a motivation. Will improve. That's a nice goal to have. 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 deimtee at optusnet.com.au Tue Nov 5 21:22:01 2013 From: deimtee at optusnet.com.au (david) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 08:22:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <021001ceda38$4ec54d20$ec4fe760$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> <20131105214017.40eb03a4@jarrah> <021001ceda38$4ec54d20$ec4fe760$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131106082201.586e8b6c@jarrah> On Tue, 5 Nov 2013 07:04:20 -0800 "spike" wrote: > -----Original Message----- > >... On Behalf Of david > > "spike" wrote: > > >> ... the ACA clearly specifically forbids the IRS from enforcing the > penalties. They are > > free to DEMAND payment, they can even send a bill. They just can't do > > anything if the taxpayer just says no... spike > > >...Is there anything to stop the IRS simply applying whatever taxes or > with-holding that you have paid, to the opt-out tax first, then coming after > you boots and all for the "unpaid" income tax? > > -David > _______________________________________________ > > Sure, they can keep the refund you would have gotten. But if you do your > withholdings right, you shouldn't have a refund coming anyway. Or if so, it > should be very small. Here's the text: > > ''(A) WAIVER OF CRIMINAL PENALTIES.-In the case of > any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed > by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any > criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure. > ''(B) LIMITATIONS ON LIENS AND LEVIES.-The Secretary > shall not- > ''(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property > of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the > penalty imposed by this section, or > ''(ii) levy on any such property with respect to > such failure.''. > > So here's the interesting part. Do they differentiate the normal income tax > bill from that which is levied for not having health insurance? I would > think they would need to keep those two bills separate, since the IRS has > the authority to collect ordinary taxes, but does not have the authority to > assess penalties for refusing this one. So if they mix the two into one > bill, it might add the threat of criminal sanction for not paying the > opt-out tax (specifically prohibited by law) or it might cause the IRS to > lose its power over collecting the income tax (which has some enormous > consequences in itself.) > > There are a number of waivers available for the opt-out tax: one of the > major religions often found in places such as Saudi Arabia is exempt, since > insurance is gambling. Presumably anyone who converts to that religion now > is as exempt as the others. Native Americans are exempt even though you can > buy a membership into some Native American tribes without the actual > relationship, or just claim it, as in the case of Elizabeth Warren. You can > be a union or a big corporation, with the term "big" defined by how "big" is > the campaign donation you offer. > > You can be sure the IRS can and will keep your refund if you have one > coming, but if you do, that is a bookkeeping error on your part. To answer > your question, can they come boots and all. Yes to boots, not to all. > Boots but not criminal sanctions, boots but not liens against your property > or levies against your bank accounts. OK so what happens when the mighty > much-feared IRS shows up boots and that's all? The taxpayers now tweak them > with "I invoke the fifth amendment" or say "Hey nice boots. Boots are made > for walking. Now hit the road." > > The IRS cannot do its job without a serious threat behind it. That waiver > removed the fist from the glove. > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat Yes to "they will keep your refund", but that's not exactly what I meant. If you have any tax liability at all they can collect. For example assume your income tax should be $1000 and your opt out tax $500. You adjust your with-holding to be exactly $1000. The IRS says "You have paid your $500 opt out tax and $500 of your income tax. Now pay the other $500 under threat of income tax collection penalties." The only people immune to this are those who have absolutely no other tax liability than the opt-out tax. -David. From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 5 23:58:05 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 15:58:05 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> Message-ID: <040201ceda82$dfc38720$9f4a9560$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato >...Subject: Re: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" Il 05/11/2013 04:24, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >>... LOL. That will work for a few years, until the penalties are so large that you have to pay attention to them. >...The problem with the penalties large enough is, after a threshold, they become irrelevant. Mirco, they are irrelevant already, if there is no legal way to collect them. >...If they transform the penalty in a criminal matter, they are threatening all and any citizen and resident in the US... Ja, which is why the law is written as it is, specifically forbidding criminal sanctions. This is an interesting subtlety for you legal eagles. When O-care was written, they already knew it was breaking new legal ground in several ways: if it is considered a tax, it is a unique example of a flat tax levied at the federal level (the minimum tax next year is 285 bucks minimum for a family next year, 2085 per family by 2016.) It has a minimum, regardless of earnings, so that is the only flat tax at the federal level I have ever of-heard. Second: When the law was written they knew they would need to defend it before the Supreme Court. But the government's argument wasn't based on declaring O-care a tax; they didn't want to go that route. Reason: it places control over the law in the hands of the house of representatives. We have one party who voted unanimously against the law, and has continued to vote against it ever since. That party now controls the house. For the current house minority party to prevent defunding of the law, they had to go to extraordinary, and extreme measures, such as threatening to default on our loans. This time, they managed to blame the house majority party, but how many times will that work? And how do they expect the majority party to cooperate when they continue to insult, rather than doing everything to patch up the divide? Consider the how the press has treated the house majority party. Consider the subject line of this thread. Is that the way to treat your own boss? The majority party in the house is the boss over O-care. >...Is it possible to give waivers to avoid the sanction of a criminal law?... We all have a waiver of avoiding criminal sanction already. >...But fundamentally, you are talking to morph the IRS in the Sheriff of Nottingham and his Soldiers... Ja, and it looks to me like this gets you around all those inconveniences for the government found in the first ten amendments to the constitution. The IRS does not need to read you your rights (because once they are on your case, you don't have any.) They don't need to convince a judge of anything. If we allow this to go forward, we just took a giant leap down Hayek's road to serfdom. >...Boots at the door, kick, enter, take stuff, arrest people, etc. We know how ended in England, I do not think it would end very well in the US given the 3-500 hundred millions guns in civilian hands... The IRS was specifically forbidden this power in order to prevent exactly this scenario. >...What criminal sanction would be applicable if the IRS could apply it?... None. >...How many years of jail people would receive for refusing to pay the "tax"? None. >...How many of them would fight against being arrested? Maybe not the first time, but the following. Mirco _______________________________________________ There was a good reason why that no-criminal sanction clause was added. When the law was written it was never envisioned as a tax. The government knew it would need to defend the legality of the law, so they designed a strange hybrid: the opt-out fees are collected by the IRS, but the justification for the fee was never part of the government's defense. It was justified as legal under the welfare clause of the constitution: the government is allowed to "...promote the general welfare..." OK then. If you are threatening the opt-outs with liens against property, levies against bank accounts or prison, it becomes rather difficult to argue this scheme in any way promotes the general welfare. So they had to write that clause in there. Now of course it is unlikely to be modified, since the House controls the law, and they haven't been treated well. So one can scarcely expect them to refrain from telling the minority party in the house to go to hell. All this completely ignores the fact that O-care is intentionally designed to be difficult to modify anyway. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 6 00:59:19 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 16:59:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <20131106082201.586e8b6c@jarrah> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> <20131105214017.40eb03a4@jarrah> <021001ceda38$4ec54d20$ec4fe760$@att.net> <20131106082201.586e8b6c@jarrah> Message-ID: <044401ceda8b$6d3a9c30$47afd490$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of david > _______________________________________________ >... >...Yes to "they will keep your refund", but that's not exactly what I meant. If you have any tax liability at all they can collect. >...For example assume your income tax should be $1000 and your opt out tax $500. >...You adjust your with-holding to be exactly $1000. >...The IRS says "You have paid your $500 opt out tax and $500 of your income tax. Now pay the other $500 under threat of income tax collection penalties." >...The only people immune to this are those who have absolutely no other tax liability than the opt-out tax.-David. _______________________________________________ Ja, I see. I would think they will carefully differentiate those two, for the IRS doesn't want to risk losing the authority they have maintained and built all these years, by mixing a tax they do have the authority to collect with another tax they do not have the authority to collect. That being said, considering the revelations of the last few days, good chance the IRS will be very cautious about doing anything with the opt-out tax. We found out the president flat out lied to get the ACA to pass. The comment, repeated at least a couple dozen times is "If you like your current plan, you can keep your current plan. Period. End of story." Now we find out the rules for what constitutes adequate coverage would cause many of the current plans to not qualify. So the people who had those plans have lost their insurance, even if they liked their plans. If a person had a plan which failed to cover Sandra Fluke's birth control pills and abortion services for instance, even if they liked that plan, they now don't like that plan. One of Obama's predecessors commented "It depends on what your definition of is is." Now we see redefinement of the terms Period and End of story. With regard to the comment "If you like your current plan, you can keep your current plan. Period. End of story," period now means comma or asterisk. End of story now means "The government now gets to tell you if you like your current policy." The 'period, end of story' comment was not true. The revelation today is the government knew at the time that it wasn't true. So now, do we think the IRS will stake its authority trying to collect a tax which it is specifically forbidden to collect by force, on a tax which was levied based on a lie? spike From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 01:40:26 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 18:40:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Master of many trades In-Reply-To: References: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: "WWAS?" What would Anders say? John ; ) On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Tue, 5 Nov 2013, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > > > http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/anyone-can-learn-to-be-a-polymath/ > > > Master of many trades > > > Our age reveres the narrow specialist but humans are natural polymaths, > > at our best when we turn our minds to many things > > "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, > butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance > accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give > orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, > pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, > die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." > Robert Heinlein, > > Hoooly fork, I am almost a human being. Now I have a motivation. Will > improve. That's a nice goal to have. > > 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 ** > _______________________________________________ > 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 Wed Nov 6 02:17:13 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 5 Nov 2013 18:17:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> Message-ID: <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On 2013-11-05 10:40, Adrian Tymes wrote: That's the source of your confusion: the illusion of convenient numbers. The actual percentages are probably unwieldy small fractions of a single percent. Nature doesn't care that we decimalize things. >.Bah. See below. snip{...lots of waaaay cool mathematical reasoning} >. So the rational thing is to expect *lots* of biospheres. Which is of course not good news, since that makes a future Great Filter more likely. -- Dr Anders Sandberg OK so this makes me think it is very possible that there is something very fundamentally wrong with both models. In the first case, we explain the silence everywhere by recognizing the probability of what happened here must be on the order of 1E-20. That compels me to just say something must be wrong with it. Anders suggested the Great Filter model is more likely, but even then, it just feels to me (ja, I recognize the universe doesn't care how I feel) that occasionally some detectible signal would leak past the Great Filter. I do sincerely propose we keep thinking, hard, keep pondering and proposing solutions, even if outlandish. Both the above solutions (crazy coincidence and Great Filter) just feel so wrong, even after correcting by F sub a, the factor which compensates for human intuition vs the apathy of the universe towards our human intuition. Even after dividing through by Fa, it still feels like the right answer isn't yet on our list of theories. The latest Kepler estimate reinforces that notion; if there really are ten billion goldilocks planets per galaxy, the total silence is an anomalous observation in both theories, a still unresolved puzzle. Think! Keep thinking! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 09:39:54 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:39:54 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <5278FC7F.3040305@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278FC7F.3040305@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 03:11:11 +1300, Anders Sandberg wrote: > The Zeeman effect allow you to measure magnetic field strengths > remotely, and they are quite weak. > > http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/March03/Vallee/Vallee_contents.html > http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1302/1302.5663.pdf Thanks, I'll add it to the reading list. But fields of 10^3 to 10^12 Gauss are weak?, so what do you consider a strong magnetic field then?, and how does one avoid ever meeting one in a dark alley? ;-) From andymck35 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 09:42:30 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:42:30 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <20131105132052.GQ8041@leitl.org> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <20131105132052.GQ8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 02:20:53 +1300, Eugen Leitl wrote: > These one-star reviews is probably all the argument this book > deserves.... > > http://www.amazon.com/The-Electric-Sky-Donald-Scott/product-reviews/0977285111/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?filterBy=addOneStar You're hilarious. Your future as a stand up comodian is assured. From gts_2000 at yahoo.com Wed Nov 6 09:32:36 2013 From: gts_2000 at yahoo.com (Gordon) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 01:32:36 -0800 (PST) Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin flaw In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1383730356.7392.YahooMailNeo@web121201.mail.ne1.yahoo.com> Kelly Anderson wrote: > I don't see this exploit as being damaging to the long term perception of Bitcoins. Nor do I. The market would have responded negatively to news of any serious flaw. Instead, it ignored the supposed bad news and continued on to make a new all time high today. In related good news, (not that there is any scarcity of it), an Australian car manufacturer announced today that it will accept Bitcoin. This I think is an important first. Tomcar Australia is world's first car manufacturer to accept Bitcoin http://prwire.com.au/pr/40127/tomcar-australia-is-world-s-first-car-manufacturer-to-accept-bitcoin Gordon -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 6 09:47:52 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 10:47:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <20131105132052.GQ8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20131106094752.GG5661@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 10:42:30PM +1300, Andrew Mckee wrote: > On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 02:20:53 +1300, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > >These one-star reviews is probably all the argument this book > >deserves.... > > > >http://www.amazon.com/The-Electric-Sky-Donald-Scott/product-reviews/0977285111/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?filterBy=addOneStar > > You're hilarious. > > Your future as a stand up comodian is assured. I'm happy you find me as funny as I the electric universe kooks. From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 09:55:34 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 02:55:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "If this isn't terrifying, I don't know what is..." -Dr. David Suzuki Message-ID: Can the situation in Japan really be this potentially nightmarish?!!! Doctor David Suzuki declares... "I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth plant goes under in an earthquake and those rods are exposed, it's bye bye Japan and everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate," http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/04/david-suzuki-fukushima-warning_n_4213061.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 10:08:30 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 03:08:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Orion's Arm Message-ID: I just wanted to make sure that everyone on the list was aware of this incredible "shared sandbox" of astounding creativity, which envisions the far future. Orion's Arm is very dear to my heart... http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/52780bfa04d76 John : ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 10:12:18 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 11:12:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Orion's Arm In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Orion's Arm is very, very dear to my heart too. A coherent and vast future universe, and a background rich enough for thousands of great science fiction stories. On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:08 AM, John Grigg wrote: > I just wanted to make sure that everyone on the list was aware of this > incredible "shared sandbox" of astounding creativity, which envisions the > far future. Orion's Arm is very dear to my heart... > > > http://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/52780bfa04d76 > > > John : ) > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 10:16:14 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 03:16:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" Message-ID: "Some might call scientifically enhanced athletes mutants. Many futurists, scientists, and technologists, however, would call them inspirational heroes, leading the way forward to discover how far the human body can be made to perform. Instead of developing a culture of paranoia at athletes using illegal technologies and performance enhancing drugs, why not develop a culture where athleticism can be combined with the most advanced science on the planet? Let coaches get advanced degrees in biology, chemistry, and medicine. Let entire new industries emerge which are dedicated to improving athletic performance via the latest tech. Let a whole new genre of sporting events develop. Let a new category of athletes become the very best in their sports that they can become." -Zoltan Istvan, Author of "The Transhumanist Wager." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/is-it-time-for-a-transhum_b_4077194.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 10:30:24 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 03:30:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius Message-ID: "Jonathan Rothberg founded two genetic-sequencing companies and sold them for hundreds of millions of dollars.He helped to sequence the genomes of a Neanderthal man and James Watson, who co-discovered DNA?s double helix. Now, entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg has set his sights on another milestone: finding the genes that underlie mathematical genius." http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/multi-millionaire-funds-gene-sequencing.html John -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Wed Nov 6 11:53:13 2013 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 06:53:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> Message-ID: <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> > On Nov 4, 2013, at 22:42, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> On Sun, Nov 3, 2013 at 10:01 AM, spike wrote: >> >> and the IRS has no authority to >> collect the tax, as they do with income tax. Reasoning: as written, the tax >> applies to those who do not make enough money to require a tax return. > > I'm not sure of that. Those who do not make enough to pay are thrown into the Medicare Medicaid pile. > >> So now what does the IRS do? What happens when we see burn-your-W2 rally, a >> modern echo of the 1960s burn-your-draft-card rally and the >> burn-your-feminine-undergarment rally? > > I think Ayn Rand wrote a book about that... too bad it's all just a wet dream. > >> Do stand by, this will be interesting. > > Sort of like a train wreck is interesting, yes. > >> That case demonstrates why I have always thought health care reform must be >> done at the state level rather than the Fed. The states have more power in >> those kinds of matters. The states have more space to experiment and change >> things if they fail. > > Romneycare, as big a mess as it is for those in Massachusetts, is not as big a mess as Obamacare will be. The US is simply bigger than Mass. As a Massachusetts resident and a healthcare provider, I can tell you Romneycare is not a big mess here. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 6 13:55:59 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 13:55:59 +0000 Subject: [ExI] "If this isn't terrifying, I don't know what is..." -Dr. David Suzuki In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <527A4A6F.9080406@aleph.se> On 06/11/2013 09:55, John Grigg wrote: > Can the situation in Japan really be this potentially nightmarish?!!! > Doctor David Suzuki declares... > > > "I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth > plant goes under in an earthquake and those rods are > exposed, it's bye bye Japan and everybody on the west coast > of North America should evacuate," > Sounds like he is not applying much critical thinking here. Compare to Chernobyl, which was about as bad as it can possibly get: yes, measurable contamination over vast areas, but actual harms still very debatable, and an exclusion zone that is pretty tiny. The problem with exaggerating in order to get people to take an important problem seriously is that it both breeds fatalism (consider nuclear armageddon), and when you are found out you undermine taking the problem seriously because now claims the risks were exaggerated have a good factual basis. -- 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 Nov 6 14:02:25 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:02:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> Message-ID: <527A4BF1.6050808@aleph.se> On 06/11/2013 02:17, spike wrote: > > > OK so this makes me think it is very possible that there is something > very fundamentally wrong with both models. In the first case, we > explain the silence everywhere by recognizing the probability of what > happened here must be on the order of 1E-20. That compels me to just > say something must be wrong with it. Anders suggested the Great > Filter model is more likely, but even then, it just feels to me (ja, I > recognize the universe doesn't care how I feel) that occasionally some > detectible signal would leak past the Great Filter. > Note that crazy coincidence is also a Great Filter argument, it just claims that the probability of a habitable planet times the probability of life times the probability of intelligence is super-small. But yes, something important is still missing. -- 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 Nov 6 14:03:53 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:03:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278FC7F.3040305@aleph.se> Message-ID: <527A4C49.2060307@aleph.se> On 06/11/2013 09:39, Andrew Mckee wrote: > > But fields of 10^3 to 10^12 Gauss are weak?, so what do you consider a > strong magnetic field then?, and how does one avoid ever meeting one > in a dark alley? ;-) Where do you see those fields, besides near neutron stars? Note that the Caltech paper typically reports fields in the range of 1-1000 *micro* Gauss. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 6 14:04:13 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 14:04:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Master of many trades In-Reply-To: References: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: <527A4C5D.1010605@aleph.se> On 06/11/2013 01:40, John Grigg wrote: > "WWAS?" > > > What would Anders say? > I say what the fox says. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 6 14:30:17 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 15:30:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131106143017.GU5661@leitl.org> On Tue, Nov 05, 2013 at 05:51:21PM +0000, BillK wrote: > On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 5:37 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > > So the rational thing is to expect *lots* of biospheres. Which is of course > > not good news, since that makes a future Great Filter more likely. There is absolutely no data to postulate a future filter. You being able to read this message is not a source of data for statistical reasoning (lottery winners don't have a good grasp of overall winning probability). As long as we don't have causally unentangled data about higher life nevermind life capable of intelligent observer status nobody has a case. > > > > > > Not necessarily bad news, though. If the Great Filter is Heaven on > Earth, who are we to complain? Heavens need giant entropy sinks, and glow brighter than Satan's asshole. > The Filter just stops species thrashing around in the physical > universe. Good idea if it is because they all find something much, > much better to do. :) From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 6 15:53:13 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 07:53:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> Message-ID: <01e401cedb08$4e03b450$ea0b1cf0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Henry Rivera >>?That case demonstrates why I have always thought health care reform must be done at the state level rather than the Fed. The states have more power in those kinds of matters. The states have more space to experiment and change things if they fail? spike >?Romneycare, as big a mess as it is for those in Massachusetts, is not as big a mess as Obamacare will be. The US is simply bigger than Mass? Kelly >?As a Massachusetts resident and a healthcare provider, I can tell you Romneycare is not a big mess here. -Henry EXCELLENT, thanks Henry. This strengthens my contention that health care reform must be done at the state level. The Fed doesn?t have the authority to do this and does not have a balanced budget requirement. States do, in both cases. I would go along with health care at the federal level, if the US does two things: pass a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced budget and pass a constitutional amendment giving it the authority to run health care. It?s unlikely either of those two things will happen soon. Until then, state governments period end of story, assuming the original definition of period end of story. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 16:12:31 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 11:12:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:06 AM, spike wrote: > OK now I am more puzzled than ever. NASA says there are about 8.8 > billion Goldilocks planets in the Milky Way alone: > http://news.yahoo.com/study-8-8-billion-earth-size-just-planets-212232920.html > > Well, 8.8*10^9 is a big number but that alone doesn't tell you anything, the real question is if chemistry and biology can generate numbers as big or bigger that can counteract astronomy's numbers. A chain of 20 amino acids is too short to be considered a protein, but there are 20 different types of amino acids in earthly life so there are 1.05*10^26 different ways to make such a little chain. So already we have a number ten million billion times larger than 8.8*10^9. And even bacteria are "astronomically" more complex than such a simple 20 element peptide chain. And we aren?t just talking about any old type of life, we're talking about life that can make advanced technology, and so we must add yet another layer of big numbers and "astronomical" complexity. > I must reluctantly conclude that we are missing something fundamental, > I think one of the fundamental things we don't understand very well is how life originated. In fact as far as we know right now, even the entire observable universe is FAR too small to have made the existence of the simplest known bacteria likely. And natural selection couldn't reduce the odds until heredity was invented, only then do Darwin's ideas come into play. So life simply can't exist, and yet it does, so we're missing something. Graham Cairns-Smith and his clay hypothesis have some very interesting ideas and could be the first step toward explaining it, maybe, but we need a lot more evidence. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it will turn out that biology's big numbers can't equal astronomy's and life is common, then another mystery arises, how likely is the Evolution of intelligence? Technology only started about 10,000 years ago, and for over 85% of life's 3.8 billion year existence on Earth it was satisfied with nothing but one celled organisms. Why the sudden change? Or maybe the reason we don't see ET is that some principle puts a lid on how smart something can be and how much cosmic engineering that can be done by it, my best guess on why that could be is that having access to your emotional control panel might lead to positive feedback and mental instability. I hope that's not the answer, I hope the answer is just that the numbers from biology are bigger than the numbers from astronomy. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 6 16:48:32 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 08:48:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <028401cedb10$0826e710$1874b530$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:06 AM, spike wrote: > OK now I am more puzzled than ever. NASA says there are about 8.8 billion Goldilocks planets in the Milky Way alone: http://news.yahoo.com/study-8-8-billion-earth-size-just-planets-212232920.ht ml >.Well, 8.8*10^9 is a big number but that alone doesn't tell you anything, the real question is if chemistry and biology can generate numbers as big or bigger that can counteract astronomy's numbers. A chain of 20 amino acids is too short to be considered a protein, but there are 20 different types of amino acids in earthly life so there are 1.05*10^26 different ways to make such a little chain. So already we have a number ten million billion times larger than 8.8*10^9. Ja, but when we see these kinds of comparisons, we immediately recognize that the 8.8 e9 is this galaxy alone, so tack on about 10 more OOMs, then recognize something even more important: the use of a planet as a unit of measure is irrelevant. The radius of the earth is about 6E6 meters, so surface area is about 1e14 m^2 or about 1e20 mm^2 or 1e26 square microns, so we must ask ourselves how much real estate the first organism needed to evolve. We don't know. My intuition is screaming there is something wrong with our whole picture here, even after I divide thru by Fa and set Fa arbitrarily large. We are still missing something. This feels to me like an investigation in the rocket science biz 15 yrs ago where we had where we listed 20 scenarios and tested them all. We still didn't have the right answer up there, but I watched as one guy after another picked a favorite theory and defended it like it was his own cub from any and all counter-evidence or anomalous observations. We kept thinking, eventually found the right answer. >. And even bacteria are "astronomically" more complex than such a simple 20 element peptide chain. John keep in mind that this argument ignores the possibility that the simplest possible life form is as complex as the simplest lifeform currently on earth. The simplest car on the road today is vastly more complex than the model T. There might be some model T equivalent in the biological world, but we have never seen it because it is long since extinct and left not a trace. >.Or maybe the reason we don't see ET is that some principle puts a lid on how smart something can be and how much cosmic engineering that can be done by it, my best guess on why that could be is that having access to your emotional control panel might lead to positive feedback and mental instability. I hope that's not the answer, I hope the answer is just that the numbers from biology are bigger than the numbers from astronomy. .John K Clark This one sounds more plausible to me, and it does cause worry. I tend to see everything thru the lens of controls engineering (we control freaks are like that.) Just like everything else, there are positive and negative feedback loops on intelligence. It is possible that at some point, the negative feedback loops dominate. Singularity theory is dependent on the notion of positive feedback loops crush every negative loop, or as we controls guys like to say, there are poles in the right half plane. I hope that is true, but it might be wrong. If evolution can somehow kickstart life and result in something as awesome as this, then I have high hopes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPTO3L2rSjI But if negative feedback loops eventually dominate our intelligence model, then all we are is dust in the wind. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 6 17:45:37 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 18:45:37 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [liberationtech] How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? Message-ID: <20131106174537.GL5661@leitl.org> ----- Forwarded message from Yosem Companys ----- Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 09:31:24 -0800 From: Yosem Companys To: Liberation Technologies Subject: [liberationtech] How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? Message-ID: Reply-To: liberationtech http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/surveillance-vs-democracy.html How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? by Richard Stallman A version of this article was first published in Wired in October 2013. The current level of general surveillance in society is incompatible with human rights. To recover our freedom and restore democracy, we must reduce surveillance to the point where it is possible for whistleblowers of all kinds to talk with journalists without being spotted. To do this reliably, we must reduce the surveillance capacity of the systems we use. Using free/libre software, as I've advocated for 30 years, is the first step in taking control of our digital lives. We can't trust nonfree software; the NSA uses and even createssecurity weaknesses in nonfree software to invade our own computers and routers. Free software gives us control of our own computers, but that won't protect our privacy once we set foot on the Internet. Bipartisan legislation to ?curtail the domestic surveillance powers? in the U.S. is being drawn up, but it relies on limiting the government's use of our virtual dossiers. That won't suffice to protect whistleblowers if ?catching the whistleblower? is grounds for access sufficient to identify him or her. We need to go further. Thanks to Edward Snowden's disclosures, we know that the current level of general surveillance in society is incompatible with human rights. The repeated harassment and prosecution of dissidents, sources, and journalists provides confirmation. We need to reduce the level of general surveillance, but how far? Where exactly is the maximum tolerable level of surveillance, beyond which it becomes oppressive? That happens when surveillance interferes with the functioning of democracy: when whistleblowers (such as Snowden) are likely to be caught. The Upper Limit on Surveillance in a Democracy If whistleblowers don't dare reveal crimes and lies, we lose the last shred of effective control over our government and institutions. That's why surveillance that enables the state to find out who has talked with a reporter is too much surveillance?too much for democracy to endure. An unnamed U.S. government official ominously told journalists in 2011 that the U.S. would not subpoena reporters because ?We know who you're talking to.? Sometimesjournalists' phone call records are subpoenaed to find this out, but Snowden has shown us that in effect they subpoena all the phone call records of everyone in the U.S., all the time. Opposition and dissident activities need to keep secrets from states that are willing to play dirty tricks on them. The ACLU has demonstrated the U.S. government's systematic practice of infiltrating peaceful dissident groups on the pretext that there might be terrorists among them. The point at which surveillance is too much is the point at which the state can find who spoke to a known journalist or a known dissident. Information, Once Collected, Will Be Misused When people recognize that the level of general surveillance is too high, the first response is to propose limits on access to the accumulated data. That sounds nice, but it won't fix the problem, not even slightly, even supposing that the government obeys the rules. (The NSA has misled the FISA court, which said it was unable to effectively hold the NSA accountable.) Suspicion of a crime will be grounds for access, so once a whistleblower is accused of ?espionage,? finding the ?spy? will provide an excuse to access the accumulated material. The state's surveillance staff will misuse the data for personal reasons too. Some NSA agents used U.S. surveillance systems to track their lovers?past, present, or wished-for?in a practice called ?LOVEINT.? The NSA says it has caught and punished this a few times; we don't know how many other times it wasn't caught. But these events shouldn't surprise us, because police have long used their access to driver's license records to track down someone attractive, a practice known as ?running a plate for a date.? Surveillance data will always be used for other purposes, even if this is prohibited. Once the data has been accumulated and the state has the possibility of access to it, it canmisuse that data in dreadful ways. Total surveillance plus vague law provides an opening for a massive fishing expedition against any desired target. To make journalism and democracy safe, we must limit the accumulation of data that is easily accessible to the state. Robust Protection for Privacy Must Be Technical The Electronic Frontier Foundation and other organizations propose a set of legal principles designed to prevent the abuses of massive surveillance. These principles include, crucially, explicit legal protection for whistleblowers; as a consequence, they would be adequate for protecting democratic freedoms?if adopted completely and enforced without exception forever. However, such legal protections are precarious: as recent history shows, they can be repealed (as in the FISA Amendments Act), suspended, or ignored. Meanwhile, demagogues will cite the usual excuses as grounds for total surveillance; any terrorist attack, even one that kills just a handful of people, will give them an opportunity. If limits on access to the data are set aside, it will be as if they had never existed: years worth of dossiers would suddenly become available for misuse by the state and its agents and, if collected by companies, for their private misuse as well. If, however, we stop the collection of dossiers on everyone, those dossiers won't exist, and there will be no way to compile them retroactively. A new illiberal regime would have to implement surveillance afresh, and it would only collect data starting at that date. As for suspending or momentarily ignoring this law, the idea would hardly make sense. We Must Design Every System for Privacy If we don't want a total surveillance society, we must consider surveillance a kind of social pollution, and limit the surveillance impact of each new digital system just as we limit the environmental impact of physical construction. For example: ?Smart? meters for electricity are touted for sending the power company moment-by-moment data about each customer's electric usage, including how usage compares with users in general. This is implemented based on general surveillance, but does not require any surveillance. It would be easy for the power company to calculate the average usage in a residential neighborhood by dividing the total usage by the number of subscribers, and send that to the meters. Each customer's meter could compare her usage, over any desired period of time, with the average usage pattern for that period. The same benefit, with no surveillance! We need to design such privacy into all our digital systems. Remedy for Collecting Data: Leaving It Dispersed One way to make monitoring safe for privacy is to keep the data dispersed and inconvenient to access. Old-fashioned security cameras were no threat to privacy. The recording was stored on the premises, and kept for a few weeks at most. Because of the inconvenience of accessing these recordings, it was never done massively; they were accessed only in the places where someone reported a crime. It would not be feasible to physically collect millions of tapes every day and watch them or copy them. Nowadays, security cameras have become surveillance cameras: they are connected to the Internet so recordings can be collected in a data center and saved forever. This is already dangerous, but it is going to get worse. Advances in face recognition may bring the day when suspected journalists can be tracked on the street all the time to see who they talk with. Internet-connected cameras often have lousy digital security themselves, so anyone could watch what the camera sees. To restore privacy, we should ban the use of Internet-connected cameras aimed where and when the public is admitted, except when carried by people. Everyone must be free to post photos and video recordings occasionally, but the systematic accumulation of such data on the Internet must be limited. Remedy for Internet Commerce Surveillance Most data collection comes from people's own digital activities. Usually the data is collected first by companies. But when it comes to the threat to privacy and democracy, it makes no difference whether surveillance is done directly by the state or farmed out to a business, because the data that the companies collect is systematically available to the state. The NSA, through PRISM, has gotten into the databases of many large Internet corporations. AT&T has saved all its phone call records since 1987 and makes them available to the DEA to search on request. Strictly speaking, the U.S. government does not possess that data, but in practical terms it may as well possess it. The goal of making journalism and democracy safe therefore requires that we reduce the data collected about people by any organization, not just by the state. We must redesign digital systems so that they do not accumulate data about their users. If they need digital data about our transactions, they should not be allowed to keep them more than a short time beyond what is inherently necessary for their dealings with us. One of the motives for the current level of surveillance of the Internet is that sites are financed through advertising based on tracking users' activities and propensities. This converts a mere annoyance?advertising that we can learn to ignore?into a surveillance system that harms us whether we know it or not. Purchases over the Internet also track their users. And we are all aware that ?privacy policies? are more excuses to violate privacy than commitments to uphold it. We could correct both problems by adopting a system of anonymous payments?anonymous for the payer, that is. (We don't want the payee to dodge taxes.) Bitcoin is not anonymous, but technology for digital cash was first developed 25 years ago; we need only suitable business arrangements, and for the state not to obstruct them. A further threat from sites' collection of personal data is that security breakers might get in, take it, and misuse it. This includes customers' credit card details. An anonymous payment system would end this danger: a security hole in the site can't hurt you if the site knows nothing about you. Remedy for Travel Surveillance We must convert digital toll collection to anonymous payment (using digital cash, for instance). License-plate recognition systems recognize all license plates, and the data can be kept indefinitely; they should be required by law to notice and record only those license numbers that are on a list of cars sought by court orders. A less secure alternative would record all cars locally but only for a few days, and not make the full data available over the Internet; access to the data should be limited to searching for a list of court-ordered license-numbers. The U.S. ?no-fly? list must be abolished because it is punishment without trial. It is acceptable to have a list of people whose person and luggage will be searched with extra care, and anonymous passengers on domestic flights could be treated as if they were on this list. It is also acceptable to bar non-citizens, if they are not permitted to enter the country at all, from boarding flights to the country. This ought to be enough for all legitimate purposes. Many mass transit systems use some kind of smart cards or RFIDs for payment. These systems accumulate personal data: if you once make the mistake of paying with anything but cash, they associate the card permanently with your name. Furthermore, they record all travel associated with each card. Together they amount to massive surveillance. This data collection must be reduced. Navigation services do surveillance: the user's computer tells the map service the user's location and where the user wants to go; then the server determines the route and sends it back to the user's computer, which displays it. Nowadays, the server probably records the user's locations, since there is nothing to prevent it. This surveillance is not inherently necessary, and redesign could avoid it: free/libre software in the user's computer could download map data for the pertinent regions (if not downloaded previously), compute the route, and display it, without ever telling anyone where the user is or wants to go. Systems for borrowing bicycles, etc., can be designed so that the borrower's identity is known only inside the station where the item was borrowed. Borrowing would inform all stations that the item is ?out,? so when the user returns it at any station (in general, a different one), that station will know where and when that item was borrowed. It will inform the other station that the item is no longer ?out.? It will also calculate the user's bill, and send it (after waiting some random number of minutes) to headquarters along a ring of stations, so that headquarters would not find out which station the bill came from. Once this is done, the return station would forget all about the transaction. If an item remains ?out? for too long, the station where it was borrowed can inform headquarters; in that case, it could send the borrower's identity immediately. Remedy for Communications Dossiers Internet service providers and telephone companies keep extensive data on their users' contacts (browsing, phone calls, etc). With mobile phones, they also record the user's physical location. They keep these dossiers for a long time: over 30 years, in the case of AT&T. Soon they will even record the user's body activities. It appears that the NSA collects cell phone location data in bulk. Unmonitored communication is impossible where systems create such dossiers. So it should be illegal to create or keep them. ISPs and phone companies must not be allowed to keep this information for very long, in the absence of a court order to surveil a certain party. This solution is not entirely satisfactory, because it won't physically stop the government from collecting all the information immediately as it is generated?which is what theU.S. does with some or all phone companies. We would have to rely on prohibiting that by law. However, that would be better than the current situation, where the relevant law (the PATRIOT Act) does not clearly prohibit the practice. In addition, if the government did resume this sort of surveillance, it would not get data about everyone's phone calls made prior to that time. But Some Surveillance Is Necessary For the state to find criminals, it needs to be able to investigate specific crimes, or specific suspected planned crimes, under a court order. With the Internet, the power to tap phone conversations would naturally extend to the power to tap Internet connections. This power is easy to abuse for political reasons, but it is also necessary. Fortunately, this won't make it possible to find whistleblowers after the fact. Individuals with special state-granted power, such as police, forfeit their right to privacy and must be monitored. (In fact, police have their own jargon term for perjury, ?testilying,? since they do it so frequently, particularly about protesters and photographers.) One city in California that required police to wear video cameras all the time found their use of force fell by 60%. The ACLU is in favor of this. Corporations are not people, and not entitled to human rights. It is legitimate to require businesses to publish the details of processes that might cause chemical, biological, nuclear, fiscal, computational (e.g., DRM) or political (e.g., lobbying) hazards to society, to whatever level is needed for public well-being. The danger of these operations (consider the BP oil spill, the Fukushima meltdowns, and the 2008 fiscal crisis) dwarfs that of terrorism. However, journalism must be protected from surveillance even when it is carried out as part of a business. ________________________________ Digital technology has brought about a tremendous increase in the level of surveillance of our movements, actions, and communications. It is far more than we experienced in the 1990s, and far more than people behind the Iron Curtain experienced in the 1980s, and would still be far more even with additional legal limits on state use of the accumulated data. Unless we believe that our free countries previously suffered from a grave surveillance deficit, and ought to be surveilled more than the Soviet Union and East Germany were, we must reverse this increase. That requires stopping the accumulation of big data about people. Copyright 2013 Richard Stallman Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys at stanford.edu. ----- End forwarded message ----- From pharos at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 18:06:53 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 18:06:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <028401cedb10$0826e710$1874b530$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <028401cedb10$0826e710$1874b530$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 4:48 PM, spike wrote: > But if negative feedback loops eventually dominate our intelligence model, > then all we are is dust in the wind. > > If what we see in the universe is real, then nothing we see is rearranging nature. Perhaps it is the light speed time delay. Suddenly next year the light will reach us and the universe will burst into life. But due to differing development times throughout our galaxy and the universe, I think this is unlikely. But it is possible! If life is not space-faring then it must have a good reason to stay home. Intelligence fails, self-destruction, nirvana, or we are the first or only. I find it difficult to consider us as the peak of universe intelligence. :) BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 18:51:26 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 13:51:26 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <028401cedb10$0826e710$1874b530$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <028401cedb10$0826e710$1874b530$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:48 AM, spike wrote: >> ? And even bacteria are "astronomically" more complex than such a simple >> 20 element peptide chain > > > > John keep in mind that this argument ignores the possibility that the > simplest possible life form is as complex as the simplest lifeform > currently on earth. > Yes, the first lifeform was probably simpler than anything we see today, but it can't be too simple because it must not only have the ability to reproduce itself it must have heredity. Fire can reproduce itself but it has no heredity. And if it were really simple we would have already figured out what it must have been, and we haven't. > I tend to see everything thru the lens of controls engineering (we > control freaks are like that.) > If you like control you should like a little negative feedback, without it Watt's steam engine wouldn't work properly and amplifiers tend to go crazy. The worst positive audio feedback I ever heard was when I was young and went to a lecture by the physicist Paul Dirac. Everybody wanted to hear the great man so they held it in the largest lecture hall. He had a rather soft voice so somebody had the bright idea of handing him a microphone, Dirac opened his mouth to start the lecture and the loudest most painful most godawful howling screech I have ever heard filled the hall. It sounded like the tortures of the damned and people, including me, were putting their hands over their ears. Surprisingly Dirac remained perfectly serene and calmly watched as embarrassed high ranking university officials ran around in circles trying to fix the problem. Eventually it was decided to just pull the plug and ditch the microphone, and Dirac then restarted his lecture as if nothing had happened. > if negative feedback loops eventually dominate our intelligence model, > then all we are is dust in the wind. > It's positive feedback loops that I worry about, not of intelligence but of emotions; look at all the problems that drugs have caused the human race in the last few decades, and they only provide rudimentary access to the emotional control panel, imagine if it was the real deal. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 19:04:55 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 14:04:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "If this isn't terrifying, I don't know what is..." -Dr. David Suzuki In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 11/6/13, John Grigg wrote: > Can the situation in Japan really be this potentially nightmarish?!!! > Doctor David Suzuki declares... > > "I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth plant goes under > in an earthquake and those rods are exposed, it's bye bye Japan and > everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate," > > http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/04/david-suzuki-fukushima-warning_n_4213061.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false > ### David Suzuki is a professional, major league enviro-leftoid propagandist and hypocrite, best known in Canada. He is as likely to say something reasonable on energy production as Obama is likely to condemn Obamacare. See a takedown here: http://video.thewhig.com/search/all/source/niagara-falls-review/the-fallen-saint/2809834489001/page/10 Rafal From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 20:23:43 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 13:23:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "If this isn't terrifying, I don't know what is..." -Dr. David Suzuki In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The damage from evacuating Japan and the west coast would be terrible, see this TED talk about Chernobyl to see how the old ladies living there are content and happy: http://www.ted.com/talks/holly_morris_why_stay_in_chernobyl_because_it_s_home.html That's not to downplay the risks of radiation, but the risks of dislocation are even higher. David Suzuki is a nut case of the first caliber. I've heard his rants on PBS before, and he is NOT a scientist. He is a left wing environmentalist nut job who would be happy if all us people would JUST DIE and let the earth go back to the natural way of doing things. -Kelly On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 2:55 AM, John Grigg wrote: > Can the situation in Japan really be this potentially nightmarish?!!! > Doctor David Suzuki declares... > > "I have seen a paper which says that if in fact the fourth plant goes > under in an earthquake and those rods are exposed, it's bye bye Japan and > everybody on the west coast of North America should evacuate," > > > http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/11/04/david-suzuki-fukushima-warning_n_4213061.html?utm_hp_ref=fb&src=sp&comm_ref=false > > > John > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 20:33:28 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 12:33:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2013 2:17 AM, "John Grigg" wrote: > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/is-it-time-for-a-transhum_b_4077194.html Wrong tone. If this is to be done, one must get lots of people to watch. Browbeating the morality of those choosing to watch or not watch will not accomplish this. Instead, play up how this would enhance those things that sports fans tune in to watch in the first place. Unfortunately, it is difficult to portray base drama and get average viewers to relate, when the subject matter is far beyond what most viewers think they might personally experience...and transhuman sports are pretty much that by definition. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 20:46:47 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 12:46:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] [liberationtech] How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? In-Reply-To: <20131106174537.GL5661@leitl.org> References: <20131106174537.GL5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: Now, how do we get this read on the floor of the US Senate? (Easier to do it there than at the House, I suspect.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 20:51:22 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 13:51:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 11:51 AM, John Clark wrote: > It's positive feedback loops that I worry about, not of intelligence but > of emotions; look at all the problems that drugs have caused the human race > in the last few decades, and they only provide rudimentary access to the > emotional control panel, imagine if it was the real deal. > I don't recall discussing drugs on the list, at least for a while. It is clearly an extropian issue, as drugs tend to increase entropy in the human brain. Also, some kinds of drugs are clearly putting some of us into the realm of posthuman. My girlfriend, for example, isn't herself when not on anti-anxiety medication. She is a post human, because as her natural self she drives herself and those in her life just a little nuts. Now, I know John was referring to illegal drugs, and I believe most illegal drugs are create a huge detriment to those who use them and to the children of those who use them to excess. That being said, the problems with the war on drugs are worse than the original problems of drugs themselves. Prior to Richard Nixon creating the War on Drugs, and the Reagans expanding it, there were how many deaths from drug use in America? Well, it wasn't zero. Here are a couple of references. http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu12.htm http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.zEVnBrwe.dpbs Bottom line seems to be that there are around 17000 deaths per year in the USA attributable to bad use of illicit drugs. How many of those deaths would be prevented if there were a safe and legal place to go to use drugs? I'm guessing most of them. In the past 8 years or so, there have been 80,000 deaths in the drug wars just in Mexico. Of the 16,000 or so homicides yearly in the United States, how many are casualties of drug violence? 20%? 30%? Prior to the war on drugs, drug use was lower (not that there is a causal relationship) and you had almost no drug deaths in Mexico (other than the occasional addict one could assume). So is the "cure" worse than the problem? Is there a "military-industrial complex" that feeds off of the war on drugs? Is that why no politician will talk about getting rid of the damn thing? We lose more people (21,329 vs. ~17,000) to misuse of legal drugs than to misuse of illicit drugs. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 20:52:29 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 13:52:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [liberationtech] How Much Surveillance Can Democracy Withstand? In-Reply-To: References: <20131106174537.GL5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:46 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Now, how do we get this read on the floor of the US Senate? (Easier to do > it there than at the House, I suspect.) > All you would have to do to get this read on the floor of the house is contact Jason Chaffetz. Done deal. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Wed Nov 6 21:50:36 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 14:50:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Nov 6, 2013 2:17 AM, "John Grigg" wrote: > > > http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/is-it-time-for-a-transhum_b_4077194.html > > Wrong tone. If this is to be done, one must get lots of people to watch. > Browbeating the morality of those choosing to watch or not watch will not > accomplish this. Instead, play up how this would enhance those things that > sports fans tune in to watch in the first place. > > Unfortunately, it is difficult to portray base drama and get average > viewers to relate, when the subject matter is far beyond what most viewers > think they might personally experience > If so, how do you explain the tremendous popularity of superhero movies? Or science fiction? Or all the dramatic fiction involving things far beyond what most viewers expect to experiences personally? --Max -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 6 22:38:54 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 14:38:54 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <042d01cedb40$f9fed360$edfc7a20$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >. How many of those deaths would be prevented if there were a safe and legal place to go to use drugs? I'm guessing most of them. Kelly we have been given reason for optimism. We can at least imagine using those big see-thru office spaces for a place to go get stoned, sort of like a bar, only crazier. We could even combine recreational drugs with various simulated realities, isolate the stoners from the paying spectators, let them do their thing. The optimism comes in technology handing us a means for the stoners to get home after their time in the arena is up, without their getting behind the wheel and introducing a risk to me. If we get a facility like that and a means for their cars to take the stoners home safely afterwards, we can end this absurd war on drugs. >.In the past 8 years or so, there have been 80,000 deaths in the drug wars just in Mexico.So is the "cure" worse than the problem? Ja, sure is. >.We lose more people (21,329 vs. ~17,000) to misuse of legal drugs than to misuse of illicit drugs. -Kelly Ja, alcohol being the big one. It was grandfathered in. It is clear enough to me we need to just let it go as in trying to control recreational drugs. I notice no one has yet suggested turning over drug enforcement to the IRS. As a parting shot on that last comment, it occurred to me that the IRS has been used as a law enforcement agency in the past. Al Capone was really good a understanding law: he knew how to control evidence so it would be inherently difficult to prosecute him. So the feds finally prosecuted him on tax evasion. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 23:19:53 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 16:19:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: <042d01cedb40$f9fed360$edfc7a20$@att.net> References: <042d01cedb40$f9fed360$edfc7a20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 3:38 PM, spike wrote: > is the "cure" worse than the problem? > > > > Ja, sure is. > > > > >?We lose more people (21,329 vs. ~17,000) to misuse of legal drugs than > to misuse of illicit drugs. ?Kelly > > > > Ja, alcohol being the big one. > This number doesn't include deaths from alcohol, it's only for things like mistakes at hospitals, or overdoses of Oxycodone and the like. > It was grandfathered in. It is clear enough to me we need to just let it > go as in trying to control recreational drugs. I notice no one has yet > suggested turning over drug enforcement to the IRS. > E gad! > As a parting shot on that last comment, it occurred to me that the IRS has > been used as a law enforcement agency in the past. Al Capone was really > good a understanding law: he knew how to control evidence so it would be > inherently difficult to prosecute him. So the feds finally prosecuted him > on tax evasion. > If the IRS wants you, the IRS gets you. As to driving stoned and autonomous vehicles saving us from the war on drugs... I think that's only one part of it. There is also the drive that many have to impose their morality upon others. They've lost the sex wars and the rock and roll wars, and they don't want to lose the drug war too... That would be the tripartite loss of morality in the land of the free and the home of the brave! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 6 23:27:26 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:27:26 +0000 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <527AD05E.40901@aleph.se> On 2013-11-06 10:16, John Grigg wrote: > "Let a new category of athletes become the very best in their sports > that they can become." It sounds a bit similar to a talk we had a while ago here in Oxford: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/10/neither-god-nor-nature-could-the-doping-sinner-be-an-exemplar-of-humanist-dignity/ Pieter argued on existentialist grounds that the doping regimen limits sports and athletes, forcing them into a narrow and traditional concept of the "good", "pure" and "human". He suggests instead ?virtuous exploration of bodily virtuosity? ? a playful existence where we responsibly explore biology as an open system using sport. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 6 23:34:00 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 23:34:00 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <20131106143017.GU5661@leitl.org> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <20131106143017.GU5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <527AD1E8.1090300@aleph.se> On 2013-11-06 14:30, Eugen Leitl wrote: > There is absolutely no data to postulate a future filter. You being > able to read this message is not a source of data for statistical > reasoning Actually, it is. It is just a single data point, but it can skew things surprisingly strongly: http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/anthropicshadow.pdf > (lottery winners don't have a good grasp of overall winning probability). Actually, they know the probability is nonzero. That is in itself a lot of information. And depending on which branch of anthropics you buy into (BTW: advert: http://www.philosophy-of-cosmology.ox.ac.uk/events/fourth-oxford-miniseries-anthropics-selection-effects-and-fine-tuning-in-cosmology/ - course and workshop in December) they might get other weak information. > As long as we don't have causally unentangled data about higher life > nevermind life capable of intelligent observer status nobody has a case. Well, data can be of different kinds. The evolutionary history of Earth has a bias due to one species becoming observers, but there is information in it (does it look hard to ramp up or down encephalization or behavioral complexity?) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 6 23:57:21 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 16:57:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 4, 2013 at 10:38 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > > > > >?The constitution only protects the privacy of US citizens, and possibly > visitors to the USA? > > > > Ah EXCELLENT! Finally someone who has found where in the constitution it > says anything about US citizens having the inalienable right to privacy. I > have been searching for that since I don?t know how long. Kelly, where did > you find that? > Ammendment 4 Search and Seizure The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. > >?Ms. Merkel is a foreign national who is not protected by the > constitution? > > > > I agree. Now where in the constitution does it say anything about privacy? > 4th Ammendment > > My heartburn with it is not that it is illegal but rather that it would > piss off the one who should be our strongest ally. > Thus the need to NOT GET CAUGHT. Just as the Germans have not YET been caught spying on us. Now with wikileaks out there, the Germans may have smartened up and STOPPED spying on us, but I can assure you that they have in the past, even without specific proof of the same. We KNOW the Chinese spy on us all the time, and the Russians. Why not the Germans? And the Mormons! > One day soon we will wake up and discover that China, Japan and Germany > are the only three countries in the world capable of loaning money in the > kinds of absurd quantities we USians demand of other countries, and I am > not so sure about Japan. > Japan is off the table for the moment. They went through their little 20 year deflationary period. Very painful that. > >?Which is why they shouldn't have gotten caught. Don't we have the > obligation to make sure our "friends" are really our friends, even behind > closed doors? > > > > They aren?t really friends Kelly. There are no friends. Only potential > bankers. > We would never know if we didn't spy on them. > > > We see the current bunch are saying the Tea Party patriots are terrorists > and coming very close to identifying them as national enemies. OK then > what happens if they get a bunch of seats in congress next fall, more than > they already have? > > >?History is not with them on gaining seats during the second term of a > lame duck president? > > > > The midterms a year from today will be a referendum on ObamaCare. One > year from now, very little else will matter. If this thing crashes as hard > as I think it will, the Democrat party will lose a bunch of seats, the > Republicans will break even or lose a few and the Tea Party will be a force > to be with reckoned. If O-care succeeds, just the opposite. Nothing else > will matter much. > I tend to agree with you. Obama's approval rating just dipped into the 30s for the first time, btw. I'm sure that has nothing to do with healthcare.gov... oh no no... > > > >?But Obamacare failing is exactly what will lead to a single payer > system. It's too big to fail, remember? > > > > That isn?t clear to me. It sure appears to be set up for failure, but it > isn?t at all clear the next step is single payer. I would go for that if > done at a state level, or if we get a national balanced budget amendment to > go with it. Or we destroy our credit rating, so no sane party will loan us > money. > If we lose our liquidity, we are indeed screwed. Even with a Libertarian president, and both houses of congress, we would be screwed if we lost our liquidity. It took us a 100 years to get into this mess, and we can't get out of it over night. > > >?They can't help but fail. It is the government we're talking about. > They never really succeed at anything really important. Yes, they > occasionally build a bridge to somewhere. Yes, they did defend us against > Hitler. But generally speaking if you want something screwed up badly > enough you give it to the government and you are assured it will be? > > > > Agreed, so why do you think this current misadventure is a step toward > single payer? > Because they have made sure we can't go back to what we had before. The only way forward, the only way to fix the problem is to make a bigger problem. That's the way the government usually operates, isn't it? > >?I would love to see the youth of America revolt against this. It is > them who are getting the biggest shaft from O-care. Paying for insurance > that THEY DON'T NEED. It is redistribution of health. Only it is from the > poorest youth of America who can't get a job coming out of college, to the > richest, the older folk in America, who are the most well off demographic. > I thought socialism was supposed to help the poor? > > Don?t worry Kelly, the young will revolt bigtime. It will be like the old > burn the draft card days, but this one may have some damn serious > consequences. That business about setting the IRS to where they can demand > payment but not place any criminal sanctions for non-payment nor issue > liens against property or bank accounts for non-payment will hurt us. It > will send a message to a generation that they do not need to pay their > taxes. The whole scheme dilutes the power of the IRS, which could have > catastrophic consequences. > The young put Obama into office. They get what they deserve for not paying attention. > > > >?Obama lied, grandma died? > > > > Oooh that?s cold. {8^D > Well, they are the ones that made the commercial wheeling grandma over the cliff in a wheelchair. They deserve what they have coming. And I tell you, it is coming. Mike Lee got an 8 minute long standing ovation here in Utah Saturday. I don't think he's going anywhere soon, despite an attempt to change the system in Utah from a caucus to something that will favor establishment Republicans more. With the words "Mike Lee" coming off of the lips of Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity ten times a day as the example of what little is being done right in Washington today, I assure you that he will not lose his seat. So long as he doesn't make child porn, denounce Islam or something incredibly stupid. > > My favorite I have thought of so far: > > > > Tune In, Turn On, Opt Out > > > > >?LOL. That will work for a few years, until the penalties are so large > that you have to pay attention to them? > > > > No sir. Even if you pay attention to them, the IRS still has no means of > collecting the opt-out fees. I notice a lot of the articles on the topic > say things like ?The ACA didn?t include any provisions for the IRS to > enforce collection of the penalties.? This kinda misses the point by > understatement: the ACA clearly specifically forbids the IRS from enforcing > the penalties. They are free to DEMAND payment, they can even send a > bill. They just can?t do anything if the taxpayer just says no. > Most people overpay their taxes anyway, so the IRS will just give them a smaller refund. Not really a problem, is it? They aren't giving the money back once they have it and have the right under the law to keep it. > Next, note that the ACA is designed to be difficult or impossible to > modify without nullifying the whole thing. That is why they specifically > removed the isolation clauses. They didn?t forget them, they carefully > extracted them, so the insurance companies wouldn?t be left holding the bag. > Oh, you can be sure that the insurance companies will be blamed when the time comes. It's part of the progression towards single payer. The Democrats demonize whoever they need to in order to stay in power, and the insurance companies are part of the "usual suspects" according to the left. If I were the president of an insurance company these days, I'd be looking for a new job. The proles will stay on as government employees. > > The section which explicitly forbids the IRS from collecting the opt-out > tax is cross linked to the section on the insurance companies requirement > to sell to any zombie who staggers thru the door. If they kill the > prohibition for the IRS to collect, they kill the requirement for the > insurance company to sell to zombies. If those two things go out, the only > thing that is left of O-care is a pile of wood pulp, granted a tall one. > That linking of those two things was intentional and carefully designed by > those who wrote this bill behind closed doors in Senate private chambers, > with one party and a collection of insurance company reps with plenty of > campaign donations to hand out freely. Kelly, is this all making sense now? > > Woah, woah, woah, you think that Obamacare was written behind Senate doors? What are you smoking Spike? Max Baucus was the senator that put forth the monstrosity, but he never read it. http://www.sfexaminer.com/sanfrancisco/max-baucus-author-of-obamacare-admits-he-never-read-his-own-bill/Content?oid=2161708 I would not that the San Francisco Examiner is hardly a right wing paper. ?I don?t think you want me to waste my time to read every page of the health care bill. You know why? It?s statutory language,? Baucus said. ?We hire experts.? Oh, another goodie hidden in Obamacare. I hadn't heard about this one... "I?m awaiting a further statement from Baucus? staff as to whether or not the senator was aware of a provision of the health care law (unpopular even among liberals) which mandates that businesses send out 1099 tax forms to any individual or corporation from which they purchase goods or services worth more than $600." Obamacare was partially written by the Center for American Progress. See this admission on Bill Mayer's show by the President of the CfAP. http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/06/02/center_for_american_progress_president_shares_part_in_obamacare_i_helped_write_the_bill.html I've heard they wrote a LOT of the actual text that made it into the bill. Now, if you don't know who the Center for American Progress is, then I encourage you to look into it, as they are behind a LOT of the shenanigans of late. > > > > >?I have already failed at selling T-Shirts, remember Caucasians for Mitt > Romney? > > > > {8^D > > > > >?Of course, I haven't learned my lesson, I'm now working on a T-Shirt > deal for http://www.itanimulli.com (Note that is illuminati.com spelled > backwards. You should see what happens when you type that into a web browser > ? > > > > Haaaaahahahahahhaaaaa! Excellent gag, me lad. The New World Order crowd > just keeps falling for the same gag, over and over and over. It seems they > just cannot learn. They were falling for that back when I was in high > school, they still are. That crowd doesn?t seem to get it: the New World > Order isn?t some big secret evil conspiracy; that isn?t necessary. We > create the New World Order by borrowing two million dollars per second with > no credible means of repaying it, then identify as enemies of the state > anyone who points out that this madness is madness. > Yup. Exactly. But maybe I'll sell a T-shirt or two this time. We'll see. > > I've always liked: > > You can keep the Change, but I want my Hope back. > > > > -Kelly > > > > We will not be keeping the change. > We will keep Obamacare, sadly. And that is the change we were promised. There will be no free pocket change. Period. > We already saw the 1 November fix date blow by, the HealthCare.gov site > isn?t fixed. > Duh. Software is hard, even when done right. And this mess wasn't even close to done right. It is the software architecture from hell, driven by a bureaucracy that is constantly changing the rules. I wouldn't sign up to program on this beasty for all the pop tarts in Nicaragua. > We are already seeing what looks to me like pre-emptive apologies for not > making the 1 December date with a report I heard just today: the site never > even attempted to encrypt any of the information they were collecting. > Didn?t even try! > Lord. And that is one of the easiest parts. Just do the https thing, no big deal. Of course that doesn't matter if they just mail your paperwork to someone else in another state. Duh. I know it takes more than four weeks to tack on after the fact some kind > of encryption that could scale to millions of applicants, considering how > complicated that site is and how many leaky contractors are involved. > You could not easily encrypt all of the web services, but you could the main web site fairly easily. > That whole task should never have involved the Fed, it should have been > done by the insurance companies. They would each have smaller, more > manageable systems in place and would have incentive to keep their own > customer?s data private. > Yeah, well insurance companies aren't exactly known for their stellar software either. Else how could Dentrix charge a dollar per insurance form submitted just to make sure that the insurance company wouldn't reject it. The insurance company should have been able to do that. (Not that Dentrix is exactly the high tech leader, having worked there. They just slog away until it mostly works.) > > But back to the most interesting claim you made right at first Kelly: > where did you find in the constitution anything about US citizens being > entitled to privacy? I know the legal system has laws and that ?reasonable > expectation of privacy? phrase that determines the legality of snooping, > but where is it in the constitution? > > > 4th Amendment. And other places. If you really want to know more about it, try here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:01:11 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:01:11 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <021001ceda38$4ec54d20$ec4fe760$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> <20131105214017.40eb03a4@jarrah> <021001ceda38$4ec54d20$ec4fe760$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 8:04 AM, spike wrote: > -----Original Message----- > >... On Behalf Of david > > "spike" wrote: > > Sure, they can keep the refund you would have gotten. But if you do your > withholdings right, you shouldn't have a refund coming anyway. Or if so, > it > should be very small. They often make it at least inconvenient to withhold less than you need to. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:03:52 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 16:03:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:50 PM, Max More wrote: > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> Wrong tone. If this is to be done, one must get lots of people to >> watch. Browbeating the morality of those choosing to watch or not watch >> will not accomplish this. Instead, play up how this would enhance those >> things that sports fans tune in to watch in the first place. >> >> Unfortunately, it is difficult to portray base drama and get average >> viewers to relate, when the subject matter is far beyond what most viewers >> think they might personally experience >> > If so, how do you explain the tremendous popularity of superhero movies? > Or science fiction? Or all the dramatic fiction involving things far beyond > what most viewers expect to experiences personally? > Different audience. They might overlap somewhat, but in fiction there's no premise that this is really happening, which can induce the audience to engage in willing suspension of disbelief. They can think, "Okay, I know this didn't actually happen, but if I were in this situation I might feel thusly". With sports, the audience might imagine themselves athletes, or to relate to the athlete as a representative of wherever they happen to live. It is harder for most of them to imagine themselves transhuman athletes, or to accept them as representatives. Consider your average, mundane American citizen. Ask them which one they think best represents America at war: a foot soldier, a tank, or a UAV. I suspect the first answer would get the most votes. (Conversely, ask an average citizen of the Middle East, and the UAV might be most commonly selected.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:05:42 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:05:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 11:54 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 05/11/2013 04:24, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > But fundamentally, you are talking to morph the IRS in the Sheriff of > Nottingham and his Soldiers. > Boots at the door, kick, enter, take stuff, arrest people, etc. > We know how ended in England, I do not think it would end very well in > the US given the 3-500 hundred millions guns in civilian hands. > Mirco! Bless you! That is EXACTLY WHY the founding fathers put the right to bear arms into the constitution! Why a limited right to bear arms has survived 230 years of tyrannical creep since then is anybody's guess. > What criminal sanction would be applicable if the IRS could apply it? > How many years of jail people would receive for refusing to pay the "tax"? > How many of them would fight against being arrested? Maybe not the first > time, but the following. > There are a lot of tax cheats in jail. I can't find how many, but I have known at least one personally. Two if you count his innocent wife. Ah yes, three if you count his accountant, who also did time. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:15:10 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:15:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 4:53 AM, Henry Rivera wrote: > > On Nov 4, 2013, at 22:42, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > As a Massachusetts resident and a healthcare provider, I can tell you > Romneycare is not a big mess here. > I remember a number of stories when it first came out... For example, only 123 people were able to sign up for Romneycare the first month it was available. And there are continuing nightmares for some people: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/08/01/560833/-MassHealth-the-nightmare-continues Of course, you can always find anecdotal evidence for anything. If you say it's not a mess, then I take you at your word. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:20:41 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:20:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Master of many trades In-Reply-To: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> References: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 9:18 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > http://www.aeonmagazine.com/world-views/anyone-can-learn-to-be-a-polymath/ > > Master of many trades > > Our age reveres the narrow specialist but humans are natural polymaths, at > our best when we turn our minds to many things > Tell that to SOMEONE, ANYONE hiring in Utah! Please! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:23:14 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:23:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Master of many trades In-Reply-To: References: <20131105161828.GX8041@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 12:52 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Tue, 5 Nov 2013, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, > butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance > accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give > orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, > pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, > die gallantly. Specialization is for insects." > I count 16/21 for me. And I also plan to die gallantly when the time is right... -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 00:23:14 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 17:23:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: No comments? I find this absolutely fascinating, even if it takes years to really bear fruit. "Summon my mentat!" John : ) On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 3:30 AM, John Grigg wrote: > "Jonathan Rothberg founded two genetic-sequencing companies and sold them > for hundreds of millions of dollars.He helped to sequence the genomes of a Neanderthal man and James Watson, > who co-discovered DNA?s double helix. Now, entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg > has set his sights on another milestone: finding the genes that underlie > mathematical genius." > > > > http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/multi-millionaire-funds-gene-sequencing.html > > > John > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Nov 7 00:29:06 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 00:29:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <527ADED2.6030903@aleph.se> On 07/11/2013 00:23, John Grigg wrote: > No comments? I find this absolutely fascinating, even if it takes > years to really bear fruit. "Summon my mentat!" My comment is this: http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/10/breaking-the-mould-genetics-and-education/ Great research, worth doing - but might not in itself be useful for selecting or boosting ability. What it can do is to validate other tests developed by looking at the normal range. And maybe hint about where to start looking in the genome and brain. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 00:40:26 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 16:40:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <00df01ced9e9$4a40ef60$dec2ce20$@att.net> Message-ID: <05a501cedb51$f439b6a0$dcad23e0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Ah EXCELLENT! Finally someone who has found where in the constitution it says anything about US citizens having the inalienable right to privacy. I have been searching for that since I don't know how long. Kelly, where did you find that? >.Ammendment 4 Search and Seizure >.4th Amendment. And other places.-Kelly Ja, the usual answer. The argument is that if anything is done or said in the public domain where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy, the interception of that information, and even its subsequent misuse, constitutes neither search nor seizure. By that reasoning, the 4th amendment is not applicable, if the terms and conditions of a website specify you have no reasonable expectation of privacy. I am not sure what to do with the HealthCare.gov site which has that 'no reasonable expectation of privacy' crack in the source code but not in the terms and conditions. I am sure what to guess regarding what happens if the data leaks: the government will find itself not guilty, since this is the internet, where you can never have any reasonable expectation of privacy. Certainly not anymore. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 00:47:18 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 01:47:18 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> Message-ID: <527AE316.7010109@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 01:05, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > There are a lot of tax cheats in jail. I can't find how many, but I have > known at least one personally. Two if you count his innocent wife. Ah > yes, three if you count his accountant, who also did time. Usually, the taxman stay away from the prole and look for high rewarding targets (like high middle class and more). For example, they legislate so the employer pay the taxes for the employees or they make the prole tax exempt. But any individual mandate is an individual mandate, it is not a employer mandate. The prole must pay the check and write the check. To enforce an individual mandate the government must have enforcers to stalk individual people. Already the IRS have a list of dangerous to contact people, I suppose the list will be a lot more populated in the future. The majority of these people will do nothing, a limited number will react in the heat of the moment, but if just a few start acting like Joe Stack ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack ) it could rapidly get out of control. When there is a lot of dry hay a single spark can do a lot of damage. Mirco From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 00:47:21 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 16:47:21 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> Message-ID: <05aa01cedb52$ebd996f0$c38cc4d0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson . >.There are a lot of tax cheats in jail. I can't find how many -Kelly I am waiting for someone in government to explicitly say that failure to pay or refusal to pay the opt-out penalty is tax cheating. As soon as someone somewhere does that, you will hear a roaring chorus saying THAT ISN'T TAX CHEATING! Actually I look forward to that debate. I want someone to say the opt-out tax is the same as the income tax, and refusing to pay it is the same as refusing to pay income tax. Come on, some O-care government guy, say it. Let's go, say it. They will soon find they have created a huge mess by setting the IRS as the collection agency for all this, a HUGE mistake. They have created two different kinds of tax, one which has the force of law behind it and the other which does not. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 01:25:33 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 02:25:33 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <05aa01cedb52$ebd996f0$c38cc4d0$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> <05aa01cedb52$ebd996f0$c38cc4d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <527AEC0D.4060802@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 01:47, spike ha scritto: > *>?**On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > *?* >>?There are a lot of tax cheats in jail. I can't find how many -Kelly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potentially_dangerous_taxpayer 2008 960 163 615 601 2009 989 136 706 695 2010 1,154 151 774 747 2011 1531 158 993 967 2012* 691 117 492 473 2012 is only thru July of 2012 Is it me or I see some increase with the time? > I am waiting for someone in government to explicitly say that failure to > pay or refusal to pay the opt-out penalty is tax cheating. As soon as > someone somewhere does that, you will hear a roaring chorus saying THAT > ISN?T TAX CHEATING! > They will soon find they have created a huge mess by setting the IRS as > the collection agency for all this, a HUGE mistake. They have created > two different kinds of tax, one which has the force of law behind it and > the other which does not. There is this Dune quote coming up so often in the last few years: There exists a limit to the force even the most powerful may apply without destroying themselves. Judging this limit is the true artistry of government. Misuse of power is the fatal sin. The law cannot be a tool of vengeance, never a hostage, nor a fortification against the martyrs it has created. You cannot threaten any individual and escape the consequences. Muad'Dib on Law The Stilgar Commentary Mirco From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 02:11:36 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 18:11:36 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <527AE316.7010109@libero.it> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> <527AE316.7010109@libero.it> Message-ID: <062f01cedb5e$b12fc630$138f5290$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato >...But any individual mandate is an individual mandate, it is not a employer mandate. The prole must pay the check and write the check... Mirco, do you see why I said the ACA creates two different kinds of tax? For one, the IRS is specifically forbidden from attaching wages, placing liens against bank accounts or property, or from issuing criminal sanctions against the prole. The other taxes, they can and will do all these things. This to me represents two fundamentally different kinds of tax. I would really like to hear what the IRS employees are saying about this, in the privacy of their own offices. This must be most puzzling to them, how the government expects them to collect what must look to them like a voluntary tax. I can imagine what will happen as soon as some ballsy libertarian with a perfectly simple earnings statement goes in for an audit with a recording device and flat out refuses to pay the ACA opt-out tax. She puts the recording on YouTube, instantly a jillion hits. That sends the message that the IRS has diluted their authority in a failed attempt at overreach. Then what? >... To enforce an individual mandate the government must have enforcers to stalk individual people. Mirco ____________________________________________ Sure, they can stalk. But then what? Their actual enforcement mechanisms have been specifically taken from them. They are free to demand, but if the taxpayer refuses to pay what amounts to a donation, I see no recourse other than a pointlessly repeated demand. What is a poor IRS agent to do? Call her an irresponsible jerk? spike From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Nov 7 05:12:12 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:12:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? Message-ID: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Transhumanist economists, As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that this will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million bucks. It's so funny to tell people that, and see them look at you with that "Your CRAZY" look in their eyes, as they say "A Bitcoin isn't going to be worth a million bucks!" Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, dramatically, for 2 years now. Why do you think? The so called gold experts, are saying things like: "The bear market in gold has been going on for two years. It seems to fly in the face of fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency to paper the world." Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what otherwise doesn't make sense to these traditional gold "experts" that have made lots of money up till two years ago. In other words, All the money that is in the pockets of holders of Gold, is now flowing into the pockets of holders of Bitcoins, at a very rapid rate. And My belief is that this Gold casualty that is just getting started, is just the first casualty. It will soon spread to stocks, bonds, real estate, and anything with value that can be sold. All the money in the pockets of the people holding them, will be quickly draining into the pockets of Bitcoiners at an increasing accelerating rate. Bitcoin, as many experts are starting to say: "is simply the best investment out there, bar none." So what would you expect? Money flows to where it is treated the best, just like water flows downhill. And if you have a Bitcoin in your pocket, that is looking increasingly tempting. As the cost of money and interest rates starts to skyrocket, as all sources of capital continue to flow into Bitcoin what will happen? I think at least the following will happen: 1. People will be selling anything they can liquidate, so they can buy Bitcoin. Even at a loss, since that loss will soon be made up for, once it is in Bitcoin. (Do you think a tax penalty of 10%, will stop people from liquidating their IRAs?) 2. People will be borrowing money, mortgaging things, like their house, to buy Bitcoins, because no interest rate will come close to the rate at which Bitcoin will continue to go up. 3. The price of stocks will decline. The PE ratio of stocks has historically been at around 20. This will drop by half or more, as nobody will want to buy stocks, unless it is a very good value. The greatly reduced PE, will become "the new normal" and it will be much harder to make money by going public. 4. Interest rates will go up significantly, because of the demand for money, to buy Bitcoins. 5. The economy will convert from a consumer economy with lots of debt to everyone will only want to only buy something when they absolutely need it. As it will be far better to spend it on something that will be worth 10 times its value in a year or so. It will convert to a bit time saving economy. Will this stabilize the boom and bust cycle? 6. The Winklevoss twins will be laughing at Facebook, and Zukkerberg, as Facebook stock price continues to decline and fails to keep pace with their 1% of all bitcoins. When we head into a recession, the fed lowers the interest rate to Zero to provide 'liquidity' and in hopes people will borrow money to invest in the economy. But this doesn't work very well as there is nothing that is making money, to make it worth borrowing during a recession. But Bitcoin will change this dramatically. Everyone will want to borrow money even more in a recession, as recession will cause Bitcoins to go up even faster than they are now. People will have even less motivation to invest in the economy. So there will be two market forces. Bitcoins driving up interest rates, and the federal reserve printing money and trying to lower interest rates. People will be borrowing this printed money, purchasing Bitcions. WIll that cause rapid inflation of fiat currency? Who will win such an epic battle between Bitcoin trying to increasa interest rates, and the Fed trying to lower them? What will the effect be, when Bitcoin starts rapidly approaching one million $$ ? My minds seems to get all scrambled when I try to analyze such. Can you guys help provide some additional rational to my attempt to get my head around what could happen? Could everyone brainstorm some of the long term possibilities, here? I've tried to browse some of the Bitcoins forums for some intelligent information on this, but all of them are idiots that can only think linearly, and they haven't got a clue. While Transhumanists are good at thinking exponentially. So, what are some of the more extreme possibilities you guys see? One thing I feel for sure. Everyone should have at last one Bitcoin. And people only say there is no such thing as a "Get Rich Quick Scheme", because they don't know how close the singularity is. Brent Allsop From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 06:12:45 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 01:12:45 -0500 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 4:50 PM, Max More wrote: > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 1:33 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: >> >> Unfortunately, it is difficult to portray base drama and get average >> viewers to relate, when the subject matter is far beyond what most viewers >> think they might personally experience > > If so, how do you explain the tremendous popularity of superhero movies? Or > science fiction? Or all the dramatic fiction involving things far beyond > what most viewers expect to experiences personally? > ### Reportedly, Freestyle chess is quite unpopular with human audiences, even though the games played are the highest quality chess ever, distinctly superhuman. At the same time, old style chess played by humans, at a much lower absolute level of competence, still attracts a fair amount of interest. I never watch sports, and I find it difficult to relate to those who do but it looks like for many paying viewers participation may be driven by a need for affiliation, rather than interest in what actually is going on. No-holds barred enhanced sport would have to cater to this need if it is to attract an audience and advertiser support. My intuition is that it could, as long as the enhancement part was narrated as a struggle, similar to training. In this story, the sportsman, one of us, through perseverance and skill, with the help of trainers, surgeons, pharmacists and genetic engineers, reaches new heights of power, and steamrolls the opposition - maybe it could sell. But then, my intuition in these human affiliative matters is rather tenuous, so YMMV. Rafal From max at maxmore.com Thu Nov 7 06:10:15 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 23:10:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". I don't pretend to have a good understanding of bitcoins, despite having read (lightly) many posts here and some articles (such as the helpful one by Keegan Macintosh in the November issue of *Cryonics*), but I do have the strong feeling that I really ought to have a few of these peculiar things. However, my impression is that it's now too late -- that you can only generate new bitcoins if you have some fairly serious computing power. Is this right? If so, are there any reasonably non-speculative ways to acquire bitcoins? My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people would like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift Alcor) using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better. --Max On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 10:12 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Transhumanist economists, > > As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of > Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that this > will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million bucks. > It's so funny to tell people that, and see them look at you with that > "Your CRAZY" look in their eyes, as they say "A Bitcoin isn't going to be > worth a million bucks!" > > Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, > dramatically, for 2 years now. Why do you think? The so called gold > experts, are saying things like: > > "The bear market in gold has been going on for two years. It seems to fly > in the face of fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency to > paper the world." > > Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and > that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what > otherwise doesn't make sense to these traditional gold "experts" that have > made lots of money up till two years ago. In other words, All the money > that is in the pockets of holders of Gold, is now flowing into the pockets > of holders of Bitcoins, at a very rapid rate. > > And My belief is that this Gold casualty that is just getting started, is > just the first casualty. It will soon spread to stocks, bonds, real > estate, and anything with value that can be sold. All the money in the > pockets of the people holding them, will be quickly draining into the > pockets of Bitcoiners at an increasing accelerating rate. > > Bitcoin, as many experts are starting to say: "is simply the best > investment out there, bar none." So what would you expect? Money flows to > where it is treated the best, just like water flows downhill. And if you > have a Bitcoin in your pocket, that is looking increasingly tempting. > > As the cost of money and interest rates starts to skyrocket, as all > sources of capital continue to flow into Bitcoin what will happen? I think > at least the following will happen: > > 1. People will be selling anything they can liquidate, so they can buy > Bitcoin. Even at a loss, since that loss will soon be made up for, once it > is in Bitcoin. (Do you think a tax penalty of 10%, will stop people from > liquidating their IRAs?) > 2. People will be borrowing money, mortgaging things, like their house, > to buy Bitcoins, because no interest rate will come close to the rate at > which Bitcoin will continue to go up. > 3. The price of stocks will decline. The PE ratio of stocks has > historically been at around 20. This will drop by half or more, as nobody > will want to buy stocks, unless it is a very good value. The greatly > reduced PE, will become "the new normal" and it will be much harder to make > money by going public. > 4. Interest rates will go up significantly, because of the demand for > money, to buy Bitcoins. > 5. The economy will convert from a consumer economy with lots of debt > to everyone will only want to only buy something when they absolutely need > it. As it will be far better to spend it on something that will be worth > 10 times its value in a year or so. It will convert to a bit time saving > economy. Will this stabilize the boom and bust cycle? > 6. The Winklevoss twins will be laughing at Facebook, and Zukkerberg, > as Facebook stock price continues to decline and fails to keep pace with > their 1% of all bitcoins. > > When we head into a recession, the fed lowers the interest rate to Zero to > provide 'liquidity' and in hopes people will borrow money to invest in the > economy. But this doesn't work very well as there is nothing that is > making money, to make it worth borrowing during a recession. > > But Bitcoin will change this dramatically. Everyone will want to borrow > money even more in a recession, as recession will cause Bitcoins to go up > even faster than they are now. People will have even less motivation to > invest in the economy. So there will be two market forces. Bitcoins > driving up interest rates, and the federal reserve printing money and > trying to lower interest rates. People will be borrowing this printed > money, purchasing Bitcions. WIll that cause rapid inflation of fiat > currency? > > Who will win such an epic battle between Bitcoin trying to increasa > interest rates, and the Fed trying to lower them? What will the effect be, > when Bitcoin starts rapidly approaching one million $$ ? > > My minds seems to get all scrambled when I try to analyze such. Can you > guys help provide some additional rational to my attempt to get my head > around what could happen? Could everyone brainstorm some of the long term > possibilities, here? > > I've tried to browse some of the Bitcoins forums for some intelligent > information on this, but all of them are idiots that can only think > linearly, and they haven't got a clue. While Transhumanists are good at > thinking exponentially. So, what are some of the more extreme > possibilities you guys see? > > One thing I feel for sure. Everyone should have at last one Bitcoin. And > people only say there is no such thing as a "Get Rich Quick Scheme", > because they don't know how close the singularity is. > > Brent Allsop > > > > > _______________________________________________ > 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* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 06:34:35 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 01:34:35 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 9:17 PM, spike wrote: > > OK so this makes me think it is very possible that there is something very > fundamentally wrong with both models. In the first case, we explain the > silence everywhere by recognizing the probability of what happened here must > be on the order of 1E-20. That compels me to just say something must be > wrong with it. Anders suggested the Great Filter model is more likely, but > even then, it just feels to me (ja, I recognize the universe doesn?t care > how I feel) that occasionally some detectible signal would leak past the > Great Filter. ### Paradoxically, these extremely large numbers make me much more sanguine about the Great Filter in our future. As long as the predicted filter is supposed to claim 90 - 99 % of our futures, it's worrisome, because it's realistic, even when vague on the physical details - but once the prediction claims a 99.9999999 % likelihood of our imminent destruction, I know I can relax. I cannot imagine any physical process, known or plausible, that would with 99.9999999 likelihood eliminate civilizations like us, just on the cusp of starting a wave of interstellar expansion. Can anybody give plausible candidates for the actual physical implementation of this extremely high efficiency Great Filter? Rafal From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 06:56:20 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 22:56:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <077c01cedb86$77d9b4e0$678d1ea0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki >...My intuition is that it could, as long as the enhancement part was narrated as a struggle, similar to training. In this story, the sportsman, one of us, through perseverance and skill, with the help of trainers, surgeons, pharmacists and genetic engineers, reaches new heights of power, and steamrolls the opposition - maybe it could sell. But then, my intuition in these human affiliative matters is rather tenuous, so YMMV. Rafal _______________________________________________ Ja. We pay these top athletes all this money, then we throw away the real contribution they could make to humanity by disallowing their chemical enhancements, which results in their recipes being covered up and lost forever. We could be learning so much. Professional sports stars are easy to track well into their old age, since those records are kept faithfully. I met one: Ted Williams, before he was Max's client. We have an opportunity here. If we let all pro athletes use anything they want, so long as they promise to faithfully record it and reveal everything at the end of their sports careers, we could follow them until they perish, note long term consequences of all these steroids and performance enhancers, figure out which ones work and which ones do not, which ones cause damage later and which ones are safe. Instead we throw away all that potentially life-saving data. Oy. spike From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 07:06:53 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 6 Nov 2013 23:06:53 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> Message-ID: <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 9:17 PM, spike wrote: > > >... that occasionally some detectible signal would leak past the Great Filter. ### Paradoxically, these extremely large numbers make me much more sanguine about the Great Filter in our future... Me too, in a way. We think of the Great Filter notion as something that always slays tech-enabled societies, but there is another way: a Great Filter could be something positive. If for instance, we figure out how to upload, it is easy enough to imagine that the only compelling task remaining for that species is to gather all the locally available metals and convert it all to computronium. There is no point in sending out signals to another star, for a post computronium planetary system has nothing to gain by signaling others in the galaxy. >...Can anybody give plausible candidates for the actual physical implementation of this extremely high efficiency Great Filter? Rafal ____________________________________________ Rafal, every scenario I can think of points to an MBrain, yet we see no evidence anywhere that those exist. For any intelligent tech-enabled species, thinking and inventing are fun. So eventually they invent thinking machines. That leads to the desire to convert all available metals to thinking matter. So why don't we see MBrains everywhere? I am still thinking, and still no closer to a solution. spike From rahmans at me.com Thu Nov 7 08:09:10 2013 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 09:09:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> > From: Max More > To: Brent Allsop , ExI chat list > > Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? > > > Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". I don't > pretend to have a good understanding of bitcoins, despite having read > (lightly) many posts here and some articles (such as the helpful one by > Keegan Macintosh in the November issue of *Cryonics*), but I do have the > strong feeling that I really ought to have a few of these peculiar things. > However, my impression is that it's now too late -- that you can only > generate new bitcoins if you have some fairly serious computing power. > > Is this right? If so, are there any reasonably non-speculative ways to > acquire bitcoins? > > My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people would > like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift Alcor) > using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better. > > --Max > > Max, The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of 21 million coins available. The anonymous people behind bitcoin have designed this as a 'boutique' currency for test purposes I think. The 21 million upper limit automatically places it out of contention to be a general means of exchange. Hmm....unless we want to get into 'virtual' bitcoins. ;) Of course 'real' currencies only exist in finite amounts which are only a small fraction of the total assets in a country but we have 'trusted' banks to magnify these currencies through fractional reserve banking. And, of course, as we see in 'quantitative easing' you can print more and add zeroes to the numbers. May I offer to pay for cryopreservation in Dutch Tulips Max? Or cowrie shells? Etc. etc. etc. All sorts of things have been used for money. If I had enough money to pay for cryopreservation I would want to pay you in a currency which is future-proof and had some stability. And I would want your organisation to be very financially savvy so that you protect my assets so that when/if I wake up I have some scratch to get started with again. The longer someone has to be cryopreserved the more complex it will be for them to emerge as anything other than a pauper. I would much rather give payment in the form of Berkshire Hathaway stock if I had it. Hopefully if they manage their transition from Warren Buffet to whoever's next they will have a corporation that will generate profits reliably for a few generations at least. > > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 10:12 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > >> >> Transhumanist economists, >> >> As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of >> Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that this >> will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million bucks. >> It's so funny to tell people that, and see them look at you with that >> "Your CRAZY" look in their eyes, as they say "A Bitcoin isn't going to be >> worth a million bucks!" >> >> Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, >> dramatically, for 2 years now. Why do you think? The so called gold >> experts, are saying things like: >> >> "The bear market in gold has been going on for two years. It seems to fly >> in the face of fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency to >> paper the world." >> >> Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and >> that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what >> otherwise doesn't make sense to these traditional gold "experts" that have >> made lots of money up till two years ago. In other words, All the money >> that is in the pockets of holders of Gold, is now flowing into the pockets >> of holders of Bitcoins, at a very rapid rate. >> >> And My belief is that this Gold casualty that is just getting started, is >> just the first casualty. It will soon spread to stocks, bonds, real >> estate, and anything with value that can be sold. All the money in the >> pockets of the people holding them, will be quickly draining into the >> pockets of Bitcoiners at an increasing accelerating rate. >> >> Bitcoin, as many experts are starting to say: "is simply the best >> investment out there, bar none." So what would you expect? Money flows to >> where it is treated the best, just like water flows downhill. And if you >> have a Bitcoin in your pocket, that is looking increasingly tempting. >> >> As the cost of money and interest rates starts to skyrocket, as all >> sources of capital continue to flow into Bitcoin what will happen? I think >> at least the following will happen: >> >> 1. People will be selling anything they can liquidate, so they can buy >> Bitcoin. Even at a loss, since that loss will soon be made up for, once it >> is in Bitcoin. (Do you think a tax penalty of 10%, will stop people from >> liquidating their IRAs?) >> 2. People will be borrowing money, mortgaging things, like their house, >> to buy Bitcoins, because no interest rate will come close to the rate at >> which Bitcoin will continue to go up. >> 3. The price of stocks will decline. The PE ratio of stocks has >> historically been at around 20. This will drop by half or more, as nobody >> will want to buy stocks, unless it is a very good value. The greatly >> reduced PE, will become "the new normal" and it will be much harder to make >> money by going public. >> 4. Interest rates will go up significantly, because of the demand for >> money, to buy Bitcoins. >> 5. The economy will convert from a consumer economy with lots of debt >> to everyone will only want to only buy something when they absolutely need >> it. As it will be far better to spend it on something that will be worth >> 10 times its value in a year or so. It will convert to a bit time saving >> economy. Will this stabilize the boom and bust cycle? >> 6. The Winklevoss twins will be laughing at Facebook, and Zukkerberg, >> as Facebook stock price continues to decline and fails to keep pace with >> their 1% of all bitcoins. >> >> When we head into a recession, the fed lowers the interest rate to Zero to >> provide 'liquidity' and in hopes people will borrow money to invest in the >> economy. But this doesn't work very well as there is nothing that is >> making money, to make it worth borrowing during a recession. >> >> But Bitcoin will change this dramatically. Everyone will want to borrow >> money even more in a recession, as recession will cause Bitcoins to go up >> even faster than they are now. People will have even less motivation to >> invest in the economy. So there will be two market forces. Bitcoins >> driving up interest rates, and the federal reserve printing money and >> trying to lower interest rates. People will be borrowing this printed >> money, purchasing Bitcions. WIll that cause rapid inflation of fiat >> currency? >> >> Who will win such an epic battle between Bitcoin trying to increasa >> interest rates, and the Fed trying to lower them? What will the effect be, >> when Bitcoin starts rapidly approaching one million $$ ? >> >> My minds seems to get all scrambled when I try to analyze such. Can you >> guys help provide some additional rational to my attempt to get my head >> around what could happen? Could everyone brainstorm some of the long term >> possibilities, here? >> >> I've tried to browse some of the Bitcoins forums for some intelligent >> information on this, but all of them are idiots that can only think >> linearly, and they haven't got a clue. While Transhumanists are good at >> thinking exponentially. So, what are some of the more extreme >> possibilities you guys see? >> >> One thing I feel for sure. Everyone should have at last one Bitcoin. And >> people only say there is no such thing as a "Get Rich Quick Scheme", >> because they don't know how close the singularity is. >> >> Brent Allsop >> >> > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher Generally I am in favour of a digital currency, because I believe it will act to reduce economic disparity around the world. The days of currency fluctuations on the latest 'news' would be gone. Think about it, something happens and your currency drops by 5% (or possibly much more). Does anyone REALLY believe that a nation and it's entire accumulated assets have been destroyed by 5% because Prime Minister X put his penis in Woman Z instead of the usual Woman Y and therefore his government is going to collapse? (Please feel free to read that with whatever gender roles you prefer.) A real digital currency is going to need to be open source, available to all, and it is going to need some 'mathematical backup' so that if/when someone breaks the encryption you can switch fairly painlessly to a different encryption standard. It will also need to be issued by a globally trusted source. So, Hello One World Government! Of course there will be multiple digital currencies for all the usual reasons, not least of which is that those in the currency speculation/ currency manipulation/ currency exchange business won't want to see their 'industry' be destroyed by technological innovation. So, Goodbye One World Government! Regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 7 09:56:49 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 10:56:49 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <20131107095648.GP5661@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 11:10:15PM -0700, Max More wrote: > Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". I don't > pretend to have a good understanding of bitcoins, despite having read > (lightly) many posts here and some articles (such as the helpful one by > Keegan Macintosh in the November issue of *Cryonics*), but I do have the > strong feeling that I really ought to have a few of these peculiar things. > However, my impression is that it's now too late -- that you can only > generate new bitcoins if you have some fairly serious computing power. The most cost-effective way to get Bitcoins is to purchase them. The mining was only very profitable in the early beginnings. > Is this right? If so, are there any reasonably non-speculative ways to > acquire bitcoins? > > My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people would > like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift Alcor) > using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better. I'm not sure Bitcoins are a good store of value. They will be either worth a lot or nothing at all. As such you should probalby figure out which fraction to cash out and which to retain, speculating on future rise of value. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 7 09:58:06 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 10:58:06 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Monkeys Use Minds to Control Avatar Arms Message-ID: <20131107095806.GQ5661@leitl.org> http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2013/11/monkeys-use-minds-control-avatar-arms Monkeys Use Minds to Control Avatar Arms 6 November 2013 2:30 pm Two monkeys learned to move avatar arms toward shifting targets (see animation below), simply by putting their minds to it. Nicolelis Lab/Duke Center for Neuroengineering Monkey mind. Two monkeys learned to move avatar arms toward shifting targets (see animation below), simply by putting their minds to it. MONKEYS USE MINDS TO CONTROL AVATAR ARMS Most of us don?t think twice when we extend our arms to hug a friend or push a shopping cart?our limbs work together seamlessly to follow our mental commands. For researchers designing brain-controlled prosthetic limbs for people, however, this coordinated arm movement is a daunting technical challenge. A new study showing that monkeys can move two virtual limbs with only their brain activity is a major step toward achieving that goal, scientists say. The brain controls movement by sending electrical signals to our muscles through nerve cells. When limb-connecting nerve cells are damaged or a limb is amputated, the brain is still able to produce those motion-inducing signals, but the limb can't receive them or simply doesn?t exist. In recent years, scientists have worked to create devices called brain-machine interfaces (BMIs) that can pick up these interrupted electrical signals and control the movements of a computer cursor or a real or virtual prosthetic. So far, the success of BMIs in humans has been largely limited to moving single body parts, such as a hand or an arm. Last year, for example, a woman paralyzed from the neck down for 10 years commanded a robotic arm to pick up and lift a piece of chocolate to her mouth just by thinking about it. But, "no device will ever work for people unless it restores bimanual behaviors,? says neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, senior author of the paper. "You need to use both arms and hands for the simplest tasks.? In 2011, Nicolelis made waves by announcing on The Daily Show that he is developing a robotic, thought-controlled "exoskeleton" that will allow paralyzed people to walk again. Further raising the stakes, he pledged that the robotic body suit will enable a paralyzed person to kick a soccer ball during the opening ceremony of the 2014 Brazil World Cup. (Nicolelis is Brazilian and his research is partly funded by the nation?s government.) That feat will require decoding the complex neural signals that coordinate two legs as they walk together and keep a person upright. Now, by successfully training two monkeys to control virtual arms using only their minds, Nicolelis?s team has moved closer to that goal. The new experiment involved two monkeys, a male and a female. Before it began, each monkey had electrodes implanted into its right and left brain hemisphere, which recorded the activity of up to 500 neurons acting together?the highest number of neurons yet used in such an experiment, Nicolelis says. The animal?s task was to control the movement of two avatar arms on a computer monitor: To get a fruit juice reward, it had to place both hands over two circles and hold them there for 100 milliseconds, as demonstrated in the video above. A computer algorithm processed the monkey?s brain activity, homing in on patterns of neurons firing as it learned to do the task. The female monkey, called monkey C, first learned how to get the juice by moving joysticks with her real arms and hands?as she manipulated the joysticks, the right and left avatar arms did what she wished. After practicing this during regular 20- to 40-minute sessions over the course of a year, she was strapped into a padded chair so that she couldn?t move her own arms or hands, and trained to control the avatar arms just by thinking. After weeks of practice, she was able to complete the task more than 75% of the time, the scientists report today in Science Translational Medicine. Because a paralyzed person or amputee can't necessarily practice a task using joysticks, the next step was to determine whether observation alone could teach the BMI. Monkey M, a male, wasn't allowed to use the joysticks or move his arms at any point in the experiment?he simply observed the task being performed. It took longer for him to learn, but monkey M also learned to control the virtual arms using only his thoughts. Both animals? performances improved over time, and the researchers noticed that their neuronal firing patterns changed as this happened, suggesting that their brains were adapting to the BMI devices. This could be because the monkeys came to consider the virtual arms as part of their own bodies, Nicolelis suggests. ?The animals literally incorporate the avatar as if the avatar was them.? The basic technology that Nicolelis and colleagues used to extract instructions for movement from the mishmash of monkey brain signals isn't new, says Jose Contreras-Vidal, a biomedical engineer at the University of Houston in Texas. The real advance of the study, he says, is that the team was able to figure out which neurons they needed to record to control two arms working together. Although one might assume that it would be possible to simply combine neural activity from two arms acting independently, the study shows that cells act differently when they are coordinating the movements of two limbs than they do when separately instructing one limb or the other, he says. This is the first study to extract and use that complex information to coordinate arm movements in real time, Contreras-Vidal says. Although he agrees that the new study is strong, Andrew Schwartz, a neurobiologist at the University of Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania, thinks scientists can do better. Even though the monkeys? task was quite simple, they had only about a 45% success rate overall, he notes. ?I?m looking forward to higher performance and success rates and more realistic natural movements.? Nicolelis may have shown that the monkeys can learn to use these avatar arms to complete a one simple task, but it's not clear that the same type of training will work for the more complex activities that humans need to perform, Contreras-Vidal cautions. "This is a first step." From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 7 11:23:30 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:23:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20131107112329.GR5661@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 01:51:22PM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I don't recall discussing drugs on the list, at least for a while. It is > clearly an extropian issue, as drugs tend to increase entropy in the human Interesting claim. How do you measure that? > brain. Also, some kinds of drugs are clearly putting some of us into the > realm of posthuman. My girlfriend, for example, isn't herself when not on Posthuman is a very big word. I would reserve its use for entities that are actually qualified. Unless your girlfriend is actually a Power, in which case: carry on. > anti-anxiety medication. She is a post human, because as her natural self > she drives herself and those in her life just a little nuts. > > Now, I know John was referring to illegal drugs, and I believe most illegal Illegal, when and where? Such things tend to not be fixed across time and space. > drugs are create a huge detriment to those who use them and to the children And your evidence for that claim would be??? Let's look at good, old psychoactives like cannabis, MDMA/MDA, LSD, diverse Psilocybe, and such. I would like to see some evidence that most of that use more harmful than those drugs which are legal in Western societies. > of those who use them to excess. That being said, the problems with the war > on drugs are worse than the original problems of drugs themselves. No disagreement with that. > Prior to Richard Nixon creating the War on Drugs, and the Reagans expanding > it, there were how many deaths from drug use in America? > > Well, it wasn't zero. Here are a couple of references. > http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/studies/cu/cu12.htm > http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.zEVnBrwe.dpbs > > Bottom line seems to be that there are around 17000 deaths per year in the > USA attributable to bad use of illicit drugs. How many of those deaths > would be prevented if there were a safe and legal place to go to use drugs? > I'm guessing most of them. > > In the past 8 years or so, there have been 80,000 deaths in the drug wars > just in Mexico. Of the 16,000 or so homicides yearly in the United States, > how many are casualties of drug violence? 20%? 30%? > > Prior to the war on drugs, drug use was lower (not that there is a causal > relationship) and you had almost no drug deaths in Mexico (other than the > occasional addict one could assume). > > So is the "cure" worse than the problem? > > Is there a "military-industrial complex" that feeds off of the war on There is definitely a prison industry in the US. The incarceration rate is higher than in Stalin's USSR, or North Korea. > drugs? Is that why no politician will talk about getting rid of the damn > thing? > > We lose more people (21,329 vs. ~17,000) to misuse of legal drugs than to > misuse of illicit drugs. Which is why the proper name of that is The War on (Some) Drugs. From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 13:10:14 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 14:10:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <062f01cedb5e$b12fc630$138f5290$@att.net> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> <527AE316.7010109@libero.it> <062f01cedb5e$b12fc630$138f5290$@att.net> Message-ID: <527B9136.7020300@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 03:11, spike ha scritto: >> ... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato >> ...But any individual mandate is an individual mandate, it is not a > employer mandate. The prole must pay the check and write the check... > Mirco, do you see why I said the ACA creates two different kinds of tax? > For one, the IRS is specifically forbidden from attaching wages, placing > liens against bank accounts or property, or from issuing criminal sanctions > against the prole. The other taxes, they can and will do all these things. > This to me represents two fundamentally different kinds of tax. I would > really like to hear what the IRS employees are saying about this, in the > privacy of their own offices. This must be most puzzling to them, how the > government expects them to collect what must look to them like a voluntary > tax. I suppose it is not about what they employees of the IRS say, it is about what their bosses say to them and what to do and how to do. In my experience these bosses (the bosses in any bureaucratic law enforcement structure in the world) are not all well adjusted, so they will do incredibly stupid things thinking themselves smart and outside the reach of law. And they could be outside the reach of law. But the consequences of their actions can not be legislated away and will not be ignored. Must I remember the "Fast & Furious" operation of the ATF? In Italy we have a number of suicides between the small business owners / self employed because the tax burden is unsustainable. Many of them found themselves unable to pay the taxes, the employees and their suppliers. Initially there were only suicides on the newspapers. Then we had a few episodes of violence against the government employees (like an armed man entering and shooting two women and not at random). And this type of violence here is very rare, very very rare. People, here, usually kill themselves and sometimes their wife if they are broken by taxes or delayed/missing payments. > I can imagine what will happen as soon as some ballsy libertarian with a > perfectly simple earnings statement goes in for an audit with a recording > device and flat out refuses to pay the ACA opt-out tax. She puts the > recording on YouTube, instantly a jillion hits. That sends the message that > the IRS has diluted their authority in a failed attempt at overreach. Then > what? It would be interesting to hear how they will try to threat him/her outside the boundary of the law (audit their wife, brothers, parents, employer, and so on). >> ... To enforce an individual mandate the government must have enforcers to > stalk individual people. Mirco > ____________________________________________ > > Sure, they can stalk. But then what? Their actual enforcement mechanisms > have been specifically taken from them. They are free to demand, but if the > taxpayer refuses to pay what amounts to a donation, I see no recourse other > than a pointlessly repeated demand. What is a poor IRS agent to do? Call > her an irresponsible jerk? Spike, you underestimate the wickedness of a government employee. Higher is their position, lower is their humanity. They would find any and all justification to do what they must and want. Like an abusive wife will find any and all justification to beat his hubby and claim he is abusive. Mirco From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 13:15:15 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 08:15:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:06 AM, spike wrote: > > For any intelligent tech-enabled species, thinking and inventing are fun. > So eventually they invent thinking machines. That leads to the desire to > convert all available metals to thinking matter. So why don't we see > MBrains everywhere? > > I am still thinking, and still no closer to a solution. > > Just throwing this out as food for thought: Why are there no teenagers in kindergarten? Perhaps civilizations with the power to overcome interstellar distances and lightspeed delays simply move out of this neighborhood. Maybe 8.8e9 earthlike planets is just an incubator and we've just about hatched? Sorry no, I don't have any cosmology evidence to support this idea. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 13:46:36 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 14:46:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <527B99BC.20201@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 07:10, Max More ha scritto: > Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". I don't > pretend to have a good understanding of bitcoins, despite having read > (lightly) many posts here and some articles (such as the helpful one by > Keegan Macintosh in the November issue of /Cryonics/), but I do have the > strong feeling that I really ought to have a few of these peculiar > things. However, my impression is that it's now too late -- that you can > only generate new bitcoins if you have some fairly serious computing power. Max generating bitcoin to own them or spend them is like mining gold to own gold or spend gold coin. It is not for all of us, just for a specialized few able to be very efficient at it (and it is not the most efficient and cheap way to procure bitcoin). What matter is not the price now, but the price in the future. If, in any reasonable outcome, the price is a lot higher than now, some funds should be stored in Bitcoin and Bitcoin accepted as payment/gift. > Is this right? If so, are there any reasonably non-speculative ways to > acquire bitcoins? The same as any other form of money, like selling goods and services. > My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people > would like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift > Alcor) using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better. Alcor could simply accept Bitcoin using Bitpay and having the desired % of bitcoin (from 0 to 100%) converted immediately in cash ($). Bitpay service cost 1% of the transaction (max) or could be a flat fee of 30-3000 $ (depend on service) per month. IMHO 30$/month would be perfect for Alcor needs if you have more than 3000$ in revenues every month in bitcoin. What is more important is to secure the cold wallet(s) where to store the coins. In the last few days, we had Silk Road 2.0 (and a new Dread Pirate Roberts), 7.000 restaurants/takeaway in Europe added Bitcoin as a payment method, the price spike to >300$. IMHO, Alcor should have assets stored in many very conservative ways, as to be able to save purchasing power for the foreseeable future and be safe against government debasing the currency and banks stealing the funds (in legal ways, of course). Mirco From veronesepk at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 14:09:09 2013 From: veronesepk at gmail.com (Keith Veronese) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 08:09:09 -0600 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <0F6487F4-6BEA-4F9A-8738-87EA192DBE62@gmail.com> The bitcoin spoke over the past few days has certainly been interesting and fun to watch. I've been buying litecoins (just a small amount) for fun, something to make me keep an eye on the market. The lower cost per whole unit versus bitcoin might make litecoins a little more attractive and useful for retail transactions (at least at current USD/LTC and USD/BTC values). - Keith Veronese > On Nov 7, 2013, at 12:10 AM, Max More wrote: > > Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". I don't pretend to have a good understanding of bitcoins, despite having read (lightly) many posts here and some articles (such as the helpful one by Keegan Macintosh in the November issue of Cryonics), but I do have the strong feeling that I really ought to have a few of these peculiar things. However, my impression is that it's now too late -- that you can only generate new bitcoins if you have some fairly serious computing power. > > Is this right? If so, are there any reasonably non-speculative ways to acquire bitcoins? > > My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people would like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift Alcor) using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better. > > --Max > > > >> On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 10:12 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: >> >> Transhumanist economists, >> >> As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that this will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million bucks. It's so funny to tell people that, and see them look at you with that "Your CRAZY" look in their eyes, as they say "A Bitcoin isn't going to be worth a million bucks!" >> >> Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, dramatically, for 2 years now. Why do you think? The so called gold experts, are saying things like: >> >> "The bear market in gold has been going on for two years. It seems to fly in the face of fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency to paper the world." >> >> Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what otherwise doesn't make sense to these traditional gold "experts" that have made lots of money up till two years ago. In other words, All the money that is in the pockets of holders of Gold, is now flowing into the pockets of holders of Bitcoins, at a very rapid rate. >> >> And My belief is that this Gold casualty that is just getting started, is just the first casualty. It will soon spread to stocks, bonds, real estate, and anything with value that can be sold. All the money in the pockets of the people holding them, will be quickly draining into the pockets of Bitcoiners at an increasing accelerating rate. >> >> Bitcoin, as many experts are starting to say: "is simply the best investment out there, bar none." So what would you expect? Money flows to where it is treated the best, just like water flows downhill. And if you have a Bitcoin in your pocket, that is looking increasingly tempting. >> >> As the cost of money and interest rates starts to skyrocket, as all sources of capital continue to flow into Bitcoin what will happen? I think at least the following will happen: >> >> 1. People will be selling anything they can liquidate, so they can buy Bitcoin. Even at a loss, since that loss will soon be made up for, once it is in Bitcoin. (Do you think a tax penalty of 10%, will stop people from liquidating their IRAs?) >> 2. People will be borrowing money, mortgaging things, like their house, to buy Bitcoins, because no interest rate will come close to the rate at which Bitcoin will continue to go up. >> 3. The price of stocks will decline. The PE ratio of stocks has historically been at around 20. This will drop by half or more, as nobody will want to buy stocks, unless it is a very good value. The greatly reduced PE, will become "the new normal" and it will be much harder to make money by going public. >> 4. Interest rates will go up significantly, because of the demand for money, to buy Bitcoins. >> 5. The economy will convert from a consumer economy with lots of debt to everyone will only want to only buy something when they absolutely need it. As it will be far better to spend it on something that will be worth 10 times its value in a year or so. It will convert to a bit time saving economy. Will this stabilize the boom and bust cycle? >> 6. The Winklevoss twins will be laughing at Facebook, and Zukkerberg, as Facebook stock price continues to decline and fails to keep pace with their 1% of all bitcoins. >> >> When we head into a recession, the fed lowers the interest rate to Zero to provide 'liquidity' and in hopes people will borrow money to invest in the economy. But this doesn't work very well as there is nothing that is making money, to make it worth borrowing during a recession. >> >> But Bitcoin will change this dramatically. Everyone will want to borrow money even more in a recession, as recession will cause Bitcoins to go up even faster than they are now. People will have even less motivation to invest in the economy. So there will be two market forces. Bitcoins driving up interest rates, and the federal reserve printing money and trying to lower interest rates. People will be borrowing this printed money, purchasing Bitcions. WIll that cause rapid inflation of fiat currency? >> >> Who will win such an epic battle between Bitcoin trying to increasa interest rates, and the Fed trying to lower them? What will the effect be, when Bitcoin starts rapidly approaching one million $$ ? >> >> My minds seems to get all scrambled when I try to analyze such. Can you guys help provide some additional rational to my attempt to get my head around what could happen? Could everyone brainstorm some of the long term possibilities, here? >> >> I've tried to browse some of the Bitcoins forums for some intelligent information on this, but all of them are idiots that can only think linearly, and they haven't got a clue. While Transhumanists are good at thinking exponentially. So, what are some of the more extreme possibilities you guys see? >> >> One thing I feel for sure. Everyone should have at last one Bitcoin. And people only say there is no such thing as a "Get Rich Quick Scheme", because they don't know how close the singularity is. >> >> Brent Allsop >> >> >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader > President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > _______________________________________________ > 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 eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 7 14:28:21 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 15:28:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131107142821.GD5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 08:15:15AM -0500, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Just throwing this out as food for thought: Why are there no teenagers in > kindergarten? > > Perhaps civilizations with the power to overcome interstellar distances and > lightspeed delays simply move out of this neighborhood. Maybe 8.8e9 They cannot move out of this universe, so they're subject to the laws of thermodynamics. > earthlike planets is just an incubator and we've just about hatched? > > Sorry no, I don't have any cosmology evidence to support this idea. There is plenty of evidence against that idea: you can see the stars. You can read this message. Ergo, we're in nobody's smart light cone. QED. From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 14:38:58 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 09:38:58 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> Message-ID: On 11/7/13, Omar Rahman wrote: > The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for > everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of > 21 million coins available. The anonymous people behind bitcoin have > designed this as a 'boutique' currency for test purposes I think. The 21 > million upper limit automatically places it out of contention to be a > general means of exchange. Hmm....unless we want to get into 'virtual' > bitcoins. ;) ### Omar, you think the limit on the number of bitcoins puts it "out of contention to be a general means of exchange"? Lol. Rafal From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 14:47:52 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 09:47:52 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> Message-ID: On 11/7/13, spike wrote: > > Me too, in a way. We think of the Great Filter notion as something that > always slays tech-enabled societies, but there is another way: a Great > Filter could be something positive. If for instance, we figure out how to > upload, it is easy enough to imagine that the only compelling task remaining > for that species is to gather all the locally available metals and convert > it all to computronium. There is no point in sending out signals to another > star, for a post computronium planetary system has nothing to gain by > signaling others in the galaxy. ### Even this is kinda hard to believe as a Great Filter - 10e20 potential civilizations, and not a single one strays from the narrow path? Also, if a civ thinks it makes sense to eat your own solar system and make it into a brain, why not eat the neighboring one too, and then next one and the next one? Rafal From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 7 14:55:50 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 15:55:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131107145550.GI5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 09:47:52AM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > ### Even this is kinda hard to believe as a Great Filter - 10e20 > potential civilizations, and not a single one strays from the narrow Nobody has any probability for civilization nucleation density, until there's at least one sample not causally correlated with us. > path? Also, if a civ thinks it makes sense to eat your own solar > system and make it into a brain, why not eat the neighboring one too, > and then next one and the next one? Precisely. There's never a single star turning ~AU FIR blackbody, nor even a single galaxy. There would be spherical voids impossible to miss -- except the expansion is relativistic, so you don't see them until you're suddenly From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 7 14:58:02 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 15:58:02 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> Message-ID: <20131107145802.GJ5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 09:38:58AM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On 11/7/13, Omar Rahman wrote: > > > The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for > > everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of > > 21 million coins available. The anonymous people behind bitcoin have > > designed this as a 'boutique' currency for test purposes I think. The 21 > > million upper limit automatically places it out of contention to be a > > general means of exchange. Hmm....unless we want to get into 'virtual' > > bitcoins. ;) > > ### Omar, you think the limit on the number of bitcoins puts it "out > of contention to be a general means of exchange"? Lol. Psst. Nobody tell him that the current limit (1/100000000) is a satoshi, and it's not a fundamental limit. From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 15:15:35 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 07:15:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> Message-ID: <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Omar Rahman Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:09 AM To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? From: Max More < max at maxmore.com> To: Brent Allsop < brent.allsop at canonizer.com>, ExI chat list < extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". .--Max >.The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of 21 million coins available...unless we want to get into 'virtual' bitcoins. ;) .Regards, Omar Rahman Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? Why can't we have fractional bitcoins? Can someone with a bitcoin issue currency representing a fraction of that bitcoin? If I had a bitcoin and I could create a table with a limited and fixed subdivisions, such as the letters A thru Z, then each bitcoin with that number and an alpha would be 1/26 of that coin. Then if someone owned all 26 suffix letters, she could retire that and create a new closed-ended set of subdivisions, such as cents, so that there are 100 divisions of that coin. I might plunk down a few bucks for a centi-bitcoin. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 15:53:17 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 07:53:17 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> Message-ID: <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:06 AM, spike wrote: >>.For any intelligent tech-enabled species, thinking and inventing are fun. >. Why are there no teenagers in kindergarten? Mike clearly you have not visited your local high school for a while. >.Perhaps civilizations with the power to overcome interstellar distances and lightspeed delays simply move out of this neighborhood. Ja, or moved into their own nieghborhood: they turned inward. If a civilization figures out how to super-organize matter, as our own species has done more and more in just the past few centuries, then mastery of that could cause that species to forget other stars as far away and irrelevant. The problem I find with that theory is what I call the Shakespeare anomaly. To high schoolers, Shakespeare is far away and irrelevant. But a few of them find his stuff very cool and interesting. I know, I was one of those oddballs. So a Shakespeare species would be an odd one which discovers nanotech and turns inward (inloads) but still thinks there is something worthwhile in listening to, and perhaps transmitting to, species in transition, such as modern humans. So let us assume the transition time from interstellar EM signaling capability to nanotech is generally short, a century or two. If tech-transitioned species are rare, then Shakespeare oddballs are even more rare, so it shouldn't surprise us that we haven't seen one yet. >. Maybe 8.8e9 earthlike planets is just an incubator and we've just about hatched? Ja, we would be in that short transition period. Problem: the NASA findings increased by four orders of magnitude the number of expected Shakespeare species. So that news is evidence against the whole notion. >.Sorry no, I don't have any cosmology evidence to support this idea. Don't worry too much about evidence yet; we are back to the brainstorming phase. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Nov 7 16:07:53 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 09:07:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Hi Max, Currently the best thing for someone in the US to do is open an account with Coinbase.com. Then you need to go through some optional "Know Your Customer" (KYC) information providing and such to increase your trustworthiness and limits. You can, and should, set up the optional two factor authorization, using the "google authenticator" app on your phone. (And it's a good idea to have someone else's phone linked in as a backup.) That way, if a virus get's on your computer, and get's your password, they won't be able to spend your money without your phone. Then you need to link your bank checking account up, which is like setting up an auto payment on a credit card. All this takes about a week or so. Then you just enter one Bitcoin in the purchase form, and say buy. It will instantly purchase the coin, at the current price, and start the process to auto deduct that amount of $$ (including the %1 fee), from your checking account. If you hurry, you might be able to get a coin at below $1000/BTC. This might be the last opportunity for anyone to do this. And right now, coinbase.com is offering a referal bonus. $5 worth of bitcoin to you, and $5 worth of bitcoin to me, if you register using this link, and purchase at last one Bitcoin. https://coinbase.com/?r=51709be3194e3316cd000057&utm_campaign=user- And once you do this, if you give me your new bitcoin address, I'll pay this $5 of Bitcoin back to you, so you can see how easy it is to receive Bitcoin from Coinbase, and from me. I'll probably also do this for anyone else, if there aren't too many of you. Oh, and for all those that think Bitcoin is nothing more than Tulip bulbs, and such, you should try to canonize that view, to see if there are any other experts that agree with you, in this surprising historical open survey asking experts what they predict the future value of Bitcoin will be: http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/154/2 But good luck finding any experts that don't see the obvious difference between tulip bulbs and Bitcoin. Brent Allsop On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 8:15 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Omar Rahman > *Sent:* Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:09 AM > *To:* extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? > > > > > > From: Max More > To: Brent Allsop , ExI chat list > > > > Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? > > > Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". ?--Max > > > >?The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for > everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of > 21 million coins available...unless we want to get into 'virtual' > bitcoins. ;) > > ?Regards, Omar Rahman > > > > > > Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? Why can?t we have fractional bitcoins? > Can someone with a bitcoin issue currency representing a fraction of that > bitcoin? If I had a bitcoin and I could create a table with a limited and > fixed subdivisions, such as the letters A thru Z, then each bitcoin with > that number and an alpha would be 1/26 of that coin. Then if someone owned > all 26 suffix letters, she could retire that and create a new closed-ended > set of subdivisions, such as cents, so that there are 100 divisions of that > coin. I might plunk down a few bucks for a centi-bitcoin. > > > > 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 painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 16:13:26 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 17:13:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <527BBC26.701@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 06:12, Brent Allsop ha scritto: > > Transhumanist economists, > > As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of > Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that > this will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million > bucks. It's so funny to tell people that, and see them look at you with > that "Your CRAZY" look in their eyes, as they say "A Bitcoin isn't going > to be worth a million bucks!" Yes, appearing an idiot to a bunch of stupid people have its own appeal. Then we will see in a few years who was an idiot and who was not. > Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, > dramatically, for 2 years now. Why do you think? The so called gold > experts, are saying things like: > "The bear market in gold has been going on for two years. It seems to > fly in the face of fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency > to paper the world." The problem with gold is simply the future market drive the physical market, so paper claims on gold drive the price of actual gold. But backwardation of gold (negative GOFO rates) signal there is a severe scarcity of physical gold to be delivered. The governments papering the world with their worthless paper are driving the market crash with injections of physical gold. They are dis-hoarding their gold (or someone else gold) in a stealth manner (if they did openly it would defeat their goal). Why they are doing this? Because the price of gold is the canary in the mine. The price of gold is like a canary with its own oxygen reservoir in a sealed cage. There could be gas outside, but the canary will not signal it. But the fact the canary have a sealed cage with its own oxygen is a signal of something very dangerous is occurring. > Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and > that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what > otherwise doesn't make sense to these traditional gold "experts" that > have made lots of money up till two years ago. In other words, All the > money that is in the pockets of holders of Gold, is now flowing into the > pockets of holders of Bitcoins, at a very rapid rate. No. The money flowing in and out bitcoin is, for now, too smallish to modify the price trend of gold (even if it come only from gold). Gold is, now, around 1% of the value of investment assets. Bitcoin is, at the current market cap, no more than 0.5% of the market cap of gold. Currently the Fed print just the entire market cap of Bitcoin in just 30 hours. it was 15 hours a month ago. > And My belief is that this Gold casualty that is just getting started, > is just the first casualty. It will soon spread to stocks, bonds, real > estate, and anything with value that can be sold. All the money in the > pockets of the people holding them, will be quickly draining into the > pockets of Bitcoiners at an increasing accelerating rate. Gold is just a coiled spring. TPTB are just able to push down the price, but can not prevent people from buying physical gold and silver and take delivery. This is draining the COMEX, the GLD and, probably, the SLV. Or they call force majeur and settle people in cash (and rumors say they are already doing it with small players). > Bitcoin, as many experts are starting to say: "is simply the best > investment out there, bar none." So what would you expect? Money flows > to where it is treated the best, just like water flows downhill. And if > you have a Bitcoin in your pocket, that is looking increasingly tempting. I do not think is the best investment out there, just because investments are a personal thing. What is good for me is not good for you or for a major enterprise like Amazon. We have different needs, outlook, preferences. > As the cost of money and interest rates starts to skyrocket, as all > sources of capital continue to flow into Bitcoin what will happen? I > think at least the following will happen: > 1. People will be selling anything they can liquidate, so they can > buy Bitcoin. Even at a loss, since that loss will soon be made up for, > once it is in Bitcoin. (Do you think a tax penalty of 10%, will stop > people from liquidating their IRAs?) This will happen later on, when a real mania phase will start and the crowd will tumult to enter bitcoin. Usually is when the smart money start to move for the exits. This if they are allowed to liquidate their IRAs. > 2. People will be borrowing money, mortgaging things, like their > house, to buy Bitcoins, because no interest rate will come close to the > rate at which Bitcoin will continue to go up. This could be a smart move or a very stupid move, because leveraging is very dangerous but allow large gains. > 3. The price of stocks will decline. The PE ratio of stocks has > historically been at around 20. This will drop by half or more, as > nobody will want to buy stocks, unless it is a very good value. The > greatly reduced PE, will become "the new normal" and it will be much > harder to make money by going public. Usually stocks are a pass-through (in the end) of inflation: Their price adjust to their value. But PE of 20 is pretty low (thanks Fed low interest rate policy). As the Fed QE policy start to fail (it will) interest rates will raise a lot (and the government will directly monetize the debt or default on it). A PE of 10 is more sustainable in the long term, but many stocks could collapse or go bankrupt in the meantime. > 4. Interest rates will go up significantly, because of the demand for > money, to buy Bitcoins. Or they could go up because people foresee a devaluation of the currency ($) and ask an interest rate high enough to compensate the devaluation. Many people will just try to sell stuff for Bitcoin, reducing the demand for fiat currency (and discounting the prices to offer bargains to bitcoin holders). > 5. Yhe economy will convert from a consumer economy with lots of debt > to everyone will only want to only buy something when they absolutely > need it. As it will be far better to spend it on something that will be > worth 10 times its value in a year or so. It will convert to a bit time > saving economy. Will this stabilize the boom and bust cycle? It is not buying only what you need. it is buying only what you can afford to pay in cash. Or, if you go in debt, buying only what will make you a lot more money than you pay for interests. > 6. The Winklevoss twins will be laughing at Facebook, and Zukkerberg, > as Facebook stock price continues to decline and fails to keep pace > with their 1% of all bitcoins. Zuckember could, if he want, enter the Bitcoin market and buy a lot of Bitcoin (driving the prices nut). The statements of the Winlevoss make me think they were behind the spike of price in August 2011. > When we head into a recession, the fed lowers the interest rate to Zero > to provide 'liquidity' and in hopes people will borrow money to invest > in the economy. But this doesn't work very well as there is nothing > that is making money, to make it worth borrowing during a recession. The problem is you do not fix a blood loss with water. Not if it is severe and continuous. Because blood is make of water and other stuff. > But Bitcoin will change this dramatically. Everyone will want to borrow > money even more in a recession, as recession will cause Bitcoins to go > up even faster than they are now. The problem is, in a recession, even with QE, credit is cheap but difficult to get at cheap rates. > People will have even less motivation to invest in the economy. Every thing is "the economy". But people usually try to invest in something with the best return in purchasing power. > So there will be two market forces. Bitcoins > driving up interest rates, and the federal reserve printing money and > trying to lower interest rates. People will be borrowing this printed > money, purchasing Bitcions. WIll that cause rapid inflation of fiat > currency? In the end, the interest rate is decided at the margin: the interest rate of bitcoin will be somewhere the interest rate of the US$ plus devaluation of the US$ against the bitcoin. Currently only a madman would take loans in Bitcoin for more than a few hours or days if they have any other option. > Who will win such an epic battle between Bitcoin trying to increasa > interest rates, and the Fed trying to lower them? What will the effect > be, when Bitcoin starts rapidly approaching one million $$ ? The market will win. It always do, in the end. The market will inflate the value of not inflationable assets like gold, silver, land, whatever, and deflate the value of inflationable (and inflated) assets like fiat currency and assets denominated in fiat currencies. > One thing I feel for sure. Everyone should have at last one Bitcoin. > And people only say there is no such thing as a "Get Rich Quick Scheme", > because they don't know how close the singularity is. It is not as a "Get rich Quick scheme" as a "redistribute the wealth quick scheme". It do not work alway, just when the "planets" are in the right alignment. And like in the "V" movie, all dominoes are set and we are seeing the fall Parity watch https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=154954.0;all http://coinometrics.com/bitcoin/bmix 107 Costa Rica 3,871 (Billions US$) 108 Bitcoin 3,791 109 Senegal 3,577 Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 16:20:23 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 17:20:23 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <527BBDC7.8070305@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 16:15, spike ha scritto: > Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? You can buy any part of a bitcoin and it is your. > Why can?t we have fractional bitcoins? Yes, You can. Currently the smaller part you can buy is limited by the exchanges (it must be worth at least 1$ or 0.1$ or something) > Can someone with a bitcoin issue currency representing a > fraction of that bitcoin? Obviously. 1 Satoshi is 1/10.000.000 of a Bitcoin and you can get one, if you ask. The transaction fee will be 500 time larger (1 or 2 cent) but.... > If I had a bitcoin and I could create a table > with a limited and fixed subdivisions, such as the letters A thru Z, > then each bitcoin with that number and an alpha would be 1/26 of that > coin. Then if someone owned all 26 suffix letters, she could retire > that and create a new closed-ended set of subdivisions, such as cents, > so that there are 100 divisions of that coin. I might plunk down a few > bucks for a centi-bitcoin. You can do it now. Just buy 10 milliBitcoin (3$). Mirco From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 16:22:38 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 08:22:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <018a01cedbd5$9446d4b0$bcd47e10$@att.net> >>...unless we want to get into 'virtual' bitcoins. ;) Regards, Omar Rahman >.Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? . I might plunk down a few bucks for a centi-bitcoin. Spike There was something vaguely analogous to a proto-bitcoin, if you don't push the analogy too hard. Prime95 was an early internet organized search in nature for something: Mersenne primes, started in 1995. Each time one is discovered, it becomes the largest known prime number, so the discoverer is for a time a world record holder. For some people, being on that short list means exactly nothing to them; they might not even know anything about prime numbers at all. They might not even realize the computer used to find that number is worth tens of thousands as a museum piece. A newly discovered Mersenne prime is worth at least tens of thousands to the right buyer, but unlike bitcoin, they cannot be sold multiple times: once it goes into the record books, it is there forever. So I would argue that running Prime95 is analogous in many ways to bitcoin mining, except far more difficult to find one and with much higher potential rewards. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Nov 7 16:42:24 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 09:42:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Oops, I didn't notice that the coinbase.com referral link wrapped to a second line, so I failed to get the entire link, which is here: https://coinbase.com/?r=51709be3194e3316cd000057&utm_campaign=user-referral&src=referral-link On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Max, > > Currently the best thing for someone in the US to do is open an account > with Coinbase.com. Then you need to go through some optional "Know Your > Customer" (KYC) information providing and such to increase your > trustworthiness and limits. You can, and should, set up the optional two > factor authorization, using the "google authenticator" app on your phone. > (And it's a good idea to have someone else's phone linked in as a backup.) > That way, if a virus get's on your computer, and get's your password, they > won't be able to spend your money without your phone. > > Then you need to link your bank checking account up, which is like setting > up an auto payment on a credit card. All this takes about a week or so. > Then you just enter one Bitcoin in the purchase form, and say buy. It will > instantly purchase the coin, at the current price, and start the process to > auto deduct that amount of $$ (including the %1 fee), from your checking > account. If you hurry, you might be able to get a coin at below > $1000/BTC. This might be the last opportunity for anyone to do this. > > And right now, coinbase.com is offering a referal bonus. $5 worth of > bitcoin to you, and $5 worth of bitcoin to me, if you register using this > link, and purchase at last one Bitcoin. > > https://coinbase.com/?r=51709be3194e3316cd000057&utm_campaign=user- > > And once you do this, if you give me your new bitcoin address, I'll pay > this $5 of Bitcoin back to you, so you can see how easy it is to receive > Bitcoin from Coinbase, and from me. I'll probably also do this for anyone > else, if there aren't too many of you. > > > Oh, and for all those that think Bitcoin is nothing more than Tulip bulbs, > and such, you should try to canonize that view, to see if there are any > other experts that agree with you, in this surprising historical open > survey asking experts what they predict the future value of Bitcoin will be: > > http://canonizer.com/topic.asp/154/2 > > But good luck finding any experts that don't see the obvious difference > between tulip bulbs and Bitcoin. > > Brent Allsop > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 8:15 AM, spike wrote: > >> >> >> >> >> *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: >> extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Omar Rahman >> *Sent:* Thursday, November 07, 2013 12:09 AM >> *To:* extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> >> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? >> >> >> >> >> >> From: Max More >> To: Brent Allsop , ExI chat list >> > > >> >> Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? >> >> >> Brent: You say that "Everyone should have at least one Bitcoin". ?--Max >> >> >> >?The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for >> everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of >> 21 million coins available...unless we want to get into 'virtual' >> bitcoins. ;) >> >> ?Regards, Omar Rahman >> >> >> >> >> >> Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? Why can?t we have fractional bitcoins? >> Can someone with a bitcoin issue currency representing a fraction of that >> bitcoin? If I had a bitcoin and I could create a table with a limited and >> fixed subdivisions, such as the letters A thru Z, then each bitcoin with >> that number and an alpha would be 1/26 of that coin. Then if someone owned >> all 26 suffix letters, she could retire that and create a new closed-ended >> set of subdivisions, such as cents, so that there are 100 divisions of that >> coin. I might plunk down a few bucks for a centi-bitcoin. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 16:40:27 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 08:40:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527BBDC7.8070305@libero.it> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> <527BBDC7.8070305@libero.it> Message-ID: <01bc01cedbd8$11400430$33c00c90$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? Il 07/11/2013 16:15, spike ha scritto: >>... Can you buy shares in a bitcoin?... I might plunk down a few bucks for a centi-bitcoin. >...You can do it now. Just buy 10 milliBitcoin (3$). Mirco _______________________________________________ Oy vey, I am so not hip. Just as Americans show their innumeracy by not really appreciating the 3 orders of magnitude difference in their illions (many voters became far more panicky about our current 670 billion deficit than they were about our one trillion deficit) someone could likely profit by innumeracy in prefixes. They could trade ten nano-BCs for a micro-BC. The proles might fall for that. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 17:03:18 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:03:18 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 10:53 AM, spike wrote: > > > Don?t worry too much about evidence yet; we are back to the brainstorming > phase. > > > Eugen's comment about obeying laws of thermodynamics and also not able to 'leave this universe' makes me ask: (and perhaps sharing my ignorance in the process, smarties please forgive) In Edwin Abbot Abbot's "Flatland" Square is sure of the order and nature of existence. Sphere overcomes Square's certainty when he introduces the concept of a 3rd dimension. Of course we always ignore Time as a dimension for the sake of progressing through a story, but we'll handwave that away too. Anyway, if Flatland is mapped in Spaceland at { x, y, 0 } and the rules of Flatland have "universal law" that hold true for every point {x,y} then it is with the special exception that those rules are valid in Spaceland when the z dimension is exactly 0. The "even-more universal law" of Spaceland has a freak anomaly at z==0 that is a life-sustaining plane. If the life equation in Spaceland has a divisor by z, then that special condition (mathematical singularity?) is "interesting" So if (as did Square) we looked at Spaceland to see if it contains this "interesting" feature, the "even-more universal law" might be a special case of a higher-dimensional land. What can we say about the capabilities of the inhabitants of that state of being? I feel it's hubris to make predictions of post-singularity existence (pretty much by definition, eh?) While I appreciate Eugen's priestly devotion to the Science of Knowing ["stuff"] I also wonder if Circles fail to dream of their higher dimensional selves. (admittedly, there's plenty to do in the here & now that is pretty important; energy starvation, et al ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 17:32:56 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 09:32:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> Message-ID: <024001cedbdf$668c8c40$33a5a4c0$@att.net> As of 0930 on 7 November 2013, the following comment is STILL on the official Whitehouse dot gov site: ?For Americans with insurance coverage who like what they have, they can keep it. Nothing in this act or anywhere in the bill forces anyone to change the insurance they have, period.? http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal/titlei Last two sentences, first paragraph. Can you imagine, they didn?t take this down, after millions are having their insurance cancelled. Which word of those two sentences am I failing to understand? Is this one of those Orwellian Newspeak comments? That comment is still there, right on the official site, in all its refulgent wretchedness. Someone offer some kind of explanation please? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 18:15:08 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 19:15:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <024001cedbdf$668c8c40$33a5a4c0$@att.net> References: <98403CF1-5A40-46A2-9DE8-3661B39FC7BF@me.com> <5267B995.3020906@libero.it> <52766C6D.8060901@libero.it> <090301ced8b6$5bae7350$130b59f0$@att.net> <15F43A6C-139E-4380-83D8-9C10AB02065B@alumni.Virginia.edu> <024001cedbdf$668c8c40$33a5a4c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <527BD8AC.6080800@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 18:32, spike ha scritto: > As of 0930 on 7 November 2013, the following comment is STILL on the > official Whitehouse dot gov site: > ?For Americans with insurance coverage who like what they have, they can > keep it. Nothing in this act or anywhere in the bill forces anyone to > change the insurance they have, period.? > > http://www.whitehouse.gov/health-care-meeting/proposal/titlei > Last two sentences, first paragraph. Can you imagine, they didn?t take > this down, after millions are having their insurance cancelled. Which > word of those two sentences am I failing to understand? Is this one of > those Orwellian Newspeak comments? That comment is still there, right > on the official site, in all its refulgent wretchedness. > Someone offer some kind of explanation please? Nothing in the act force the buyer to change his/her plan. In fact, no one is changing her health care plan or is forced to do so by the government. The insurers dropped the plans and the employers dropped the coverage, because they were forced to do so to stay in business. I was watching the last Conan movie last night (the only character interesting was the Evil-Witch-Daughter-of-the-Evil-Warlord.) There Conan promised to not kill one evil minion of the Warlord in exchange for informations. In fact he didn't kill him. He just showed a key in his mouth and forced him to swallow it. Then put the evil minion disarmed and helpless in the middle of his slaves and told the slaves the key to open their chain was in the miniong gut. Technically Conan didn't kill him, but the result was the same. Mirco From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 18:26:14 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:26:14 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Now, I know John was referring to illegal drugs > Actually I was referring to something much more general than chemicals, legal or illegal. I'd like to know if it is in the very nature of intelligent minds that if they have complete access to their emotional control panel they won't be motivated to do anything except move the happiness, pleasure, and pride in a job well done knob to a higher setting. If Einstein could have felt just as good as he did on the day he discovered General Relativity just by turning a knob would he have bothered to spend eleven grueling years to actually discover it? It's this sort of positive feedback that worries me. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 18:35:51 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 11:35:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Warren Buffett is worried too and thinks Republicans are "asinine" In-Reply-To: <527AE316.7010109@libero.it> References: <2C17352F-6BCF-4DF9-BFF0-6333CC83FDA1@me.com> <080201ced3a0$48ed1c50$dac754f0$@att.net> <047d01ced68b$c5fa0c60$51ee2520$@att.net> <52793ECB.2090608@libero.it> <527AE316.7010109@libero.it> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:47 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 07/11/2013 01:05, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > > There are a lot of tax cheats in jail. I can't find how many, but I have > > known at least one personally. Two if you count his innocent wife. Ah > > yes, three if you count his accountant, who also did time. > > Usually, the taxman stay away from the prole and look for high rewarding > targets (like high middle class and more). > Yes, my friends that went to jail were quite wealthy, although their creative accountant likely was not. > But any individual mandate is an individual mandate, it is not a > employer mandate. The prole must pay the check and write the check. > To enforce an individual mandate the government must have enforcers to > stalk individual people. > It will be interesting to see if they slip around the sides of the text Spike has pointed out regarding enforcement. > Already the IRS have a list of dangerous to contact people, I suppose > the list will be a lot more populated in the future. > I don't understand this statement. Who are dangerous, to whom, and why? > The majority of these people will do nothing, a limited number will > react in the heat of the moment, but if just a few start acting like Joe > Stack ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Austin_suicide_attack ) it > could rapidly get out of control. When there is a lot of dry hay a > single spark can do a lot of damage. According to the article, he worked as an embedded software consultant. That would be enough by itself to drive many people to suicide. Trouble with the IRS would just push you over the edge. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 18:48:19 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 10:48:19 -0800 Subject: [ExI] "Is it time for a transhumanist Olympics?" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Nov 6, 2013 10:16 PM, "Rafal Smigrodzki" wrote: > I never watch sports, and I find it difficult to relate to those who > do but it looks like for many paying viewers participation may be > driven by a need for affiliation, rather than interest in what > actually is going on. No-holds barred enhanced sport would have to > cater to this need if it is to attract an audience and advertiser > support. > > My intuition is that it could, as long as the enhancement part was > narrated as a struggle, similar to training. In this story, the > sportsman, one of us, through perseverance and skill, with the help of > trainers, surgeons, pharmacists and genetic engineers, reaches new > heights of power, and steamrolls the opposition - maybe it could sell. > But then, my intuition in these human affiliative matters is rather > tenuous, so YMMV. I suspect it would be easier to sell if the enhancements were clearly not part of the athletes. For instance, I suspect the sci-fi visions of mecha might be more easily realized as a form of motorized sport and entertainment before seeing much use on actual battlefields. This might also be a path to more quickly get personal-scale enhancements, in powered armor that could (in some cases) translate to implanted systems, into general public use. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 19:32:05 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 19:32:05 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:53 PM, spike wrote: > Ja, we would be in that short transition period. Problem: the NASA findings > increased by four orders of magnitude the number of expected Shakespeare > species. So that news is evidence against the whole notion. > > Don?t worry too much about evidence yet; we are back to the brainstorming > phase. > You've even got Bloomberg worrying about it now! Quote: Fermi?s question remains unanswered. But it only grows more compelling, and more perplexing, with each new discovery. BillK From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 19:32:55 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:32:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:26 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > Now, I know John was referring to illegal drugs >> > > Actually I was referring to something much more general than chemicals, > legal or illegal. > Sorry if I mischaracterized what you were saying, thanks for the clarification. > I'd like to know if it is in the very nature of intelligent minds that if > they have complete access to their emotional control panel they won't be > motivated to do anything except move the happiness, pleasure, and pride in > a job well done knob to a higher setting. If Einstein could have felt just > as good as he did on the day he discovered General Relativity just by > turning a knob would he have bothered to spend eleven grueling years to > actually discover it? It's this sort of positive feedback that worries me. > There are a number of studies of mammals out there that indicate that if they have direct access to their pleasure centers, that they indeed forego eating, sleeping, etc. to poke their pleasure centers again. While no official human studies of this nature exist to my knowledge (and there would be reason to believe they would not be for ethical reasons), there are the unofficial studies we call addiction. So my answer is that no, Einstein would NOT have discovered General Relativity if he were addicted to immediate pleasure. The ability to have delayed gratification, and suffer for greater gratification later is one of the key predictors of human success. Here is a great talk on this subject. http://www.ted.com/talks/joachim_de_posada_says_don_t_eat_the_marshmallow_yet.html Apologies in advance to the videophobes. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 19:32:55 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 20:32:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <527BEAE7.8080409@libero.it> Il 06/11/2013 11:30, John Grigg ha scritto: > "Jonathan Rothberg founded two genetic-sequencing companies and sold > them for hundreds of millions of dollars. > He > helped to sequence the genomes of a Neanderthal man and James Watson, > who co-discovered DNA?s double helix. Now, entrepreneur Jonathan > Rothberg has set his sights on another milestone: finding the genes that > underlie mathematical genius." > > > http://nextbigfuture.com/2013/10/multi-millionaire-funds-gene-sequencing.html > Howard's Families anyone? Mirco From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 19:58:41 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:58:41 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 10:12 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Transhumanist economists, > > As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of > Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that this > will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million bucks. > It's so funny to tell people that, and see them look at you with that > "Your CRAZY" look in their eyes, as they say "A Bitcoin isn't going to be > worth a million bucks!" > It did briefly shoot above $300 for a moment this morning. Crazier things have happened. My dad is typical of the "it's a Ponzi scheme" crowd. I don't know exactly how to explain why it is not a Ponzi scheme, but it is my belief that it is not. In looking at the graph, it seems we're in a third bubble at the moment. It is just going up too steep. The $20 of bitcoin I bought Tuesday are now at $25. Crazy stuff. > Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, > dramatically, for 2 years now. Why do you think? The so called gold > experts, are saying things like: > > "The bear market in gold has been going on for two years. It seems to fly > in the face of fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency to > paper the world." > It is hard to believe that gold isn't flying upwards given the state of the world. Guess there are more optimists than pessimists. Which overall may be good, or bad... depending on who's right about that sort of thing. > Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and > that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what > otherwise doesn't make sense to these traditional gold "experts" that have > made lots of money up till two years ago. In other words, All the money > that is in the pockets of holders of Gold, is now flowing into the pockets > of holders of Bitcoins, at a very rapid rate. > I think it is incredibly premature to say "All the money" is doing ANYTHING. All the Bitcoins in the world are worth around $3.5 billion dollars at present. (It was $2.5 billion last week, so who knows where it will be next week) http://blockchain.info/charts/market-cap Accordign to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold The total gold mined to 2012 was estimated to be 5.6 billion troy ounces Current spot is $1305.40, so that's $7,310,240,000,000 if I did my math right. Not quite half of the US national debt. That means all the gold in the world is worth 2089 times what all the Bitcoins in the world are currently worth (even in the current little bubble). Do you honestly think the price of Bitcoins could effect the price of gold all that much given that ratio? And My belief is that this Gold casualty that is just getting started, is > just the first casualty. It will soon spread to stocks, bonds, real > estate, and anything with value that can be sold. All the money in the > pockets of the people holding them, will be quickly draining into the > pockets of Bitcoiners at an increasing accelerating rate. > We'll see. I'm a huge fan of Bitcoins. I think they will keep going up (although they might go down a little before they continue up). But someone explained to me last night that if you valued everything on the planet, and divided it by the number of Sitoshi you would get about 50 cents. (They used this to prove that the rapper 50 cent is Sitoshi, an interesting speculation at best.) > Bitcoin, as many experts are starting to say: "is simply the best > investment out there, bar none." So what would you expect? Money flows to > where it is treated the best, just like water flows downhill. And if you > have a Bitcoin in your pocket, that is looking increasingly tempting. > Scary that people look at it as an investment, rather than as a means to an end. > As the cost of money and interest rates starts to skyrocket, as all > sources of capital continue to flow into Bitcoin what will happen? I think > at least the following will happen: > > 1. People will be selling anything they can liquidate, so they can buy > Bitcoin. Even at a loss, since that loss will soon be made up for, once it > is in Bitcoin. (Do you think a tax penalty of 10%, will stop people from > liquidating their IRAs?) > That kind of "gold fever" is not sustainable, and this kind of thinking does turn Bitcoin into a kind of Ponzi scheme. > 2. People will be borrowing money, mortgaging things, like their house, > to buy Bitcoins, because no interest rate will come close to the rate at > which Bitcoin will continue to go up. > I hope people don't do that. > 3. The price of stocks will decline. The PE ratio of stocks has > historically been at around 20. This will drop by half or more, as nobody > will want to buy stocks, unless it is a very good value. The greatly > reduced PE, will become "the new normal" and it will be much harder to make > money by going public. > It would take a mass hysteria for that to happen. > 4. Interest rates will go up significantly, because of the demand for > money, to buy Bitcoins. > 5. The economy will convert from a consumer economy with lots of debt > to everyone will only want to only buy something when they absolutely need > it. As it will be far better to spend it on something that will be worth > 10 times its value in a year or so. It will convert to a bit time saving > economy. Will this stabilize the boom and bust cycle? > This all assumes that Bitcoin is going to catch on like wildfire. If people don't use it like money, it won't succeed, and then it is just a Ponzi scheme. > 6. The Winklevoss twins will be laughing at Facebook, and Zukkerberg, > as Facebook stock price continues to decline and fails to keep pace with > their 1% of all bitcoins. > That could happen. > When we head into a recession, the fed lowers the interest rate to Zero to > provide 'liquidity' and in hopes people will borrow money to invest in the > economy. But this doesn't work very well as there is nothing that is > making money, to make it worth borrowing during a recession. > > But Bitcoin will change this dramatically. Everyone will want to borrow > money even more in a recession, as recession will cause Bitcoins to go up > even faster than they are now. People will have even less motivation to > invest in the economy. So there will be two market forces. Bitcoins > driving up interest rates, and the federal reserve printing money and > trying to lower interest rates. People will be borrowing this printed > money, purchasing Bitcions. WIll that cause rapid inflation of fiat > currency? > > Who will win such an epic battle between Bitcoin trying to increasa > interest rates, and the Fed trying to lower them? What will the effect be, > when Bitcoin starts rapidly approaching one million $$ ? > > My minds seems to get all scrambled when I try to analyze such. Can you > guys help provide some additional rational to my attempt to get my head > around what could happen? Could everyone brainstorm some of the long term > possibilities, here? > What COULD happen is anything. I think that some sanity will eventually grip the market, and that Bitcoin will settle back into a slower growth mode. How far in the future that is depends on whether it can be made into real money, or just the biggest mess in the history of ever. > I've tried to browse some of the Bitcoins forums for some intelligent > information on this, but all of them are idiots that can only think > linearly, and they haven't got a clue. While Transhumanists are good at > thinking exponentially. So, what are some of the more extreme > possibilities you guys see? > > One thing I feel for sure. Everyone should have at last one Bitcoin. And > people only say there is no such thing as a "Get Rich Quick Scheme", > because they don't know how close the singularity is. > How do you see the Singularity as being tied to Bitcoin? (Real question, not rhetorical.) I just bought my first bitcoins the other day. I will buy more soon if I can. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 20:04:26 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:04:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 1:09 AM, Omar Rahman wrote: > > My question is not just from a personal perspective. Several people would > like to pay for their some part of their cryopreservation (or gift Alcor) > using Bitcoins, so I would like to understand the situation better. > > If someone wants to gift Alcor Bitcoins, take them Max! If they want to bet their future resurrection on the price of Bitcoins, that's a trickier proposition. The "we'll thaw you out if the price of Bitcoin goes below X" is a big bet for a cryonaut to take. Of course you could sell some of them for whatever the price of cryo is if they ever go above that rate of dollars. In the same sense though, you can't tell what the value of the dollars in cryonaut's accounts will be worth in 50 years either. So it is a bit of a crap shoot no matter how you slice it. The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for > everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of > 21 million coins available. The anonymous people behind bitcoin have > designed this as a 'boutique' currency for test purposes I think. The 21 > million upper limit automatically places it out of contention to be a > general means of exchange. Hmm....unless we want to get into 'virtual' > bitcoins. ;) > Bitcoins are divisible into infinitesimally small parts. Everyone can have bitcoins, but not a whole bitcoin. > Of course 'real' currencies only exist in finite amounts which are only a > small fraction of the total assets in a country but we have 'trusted' banks > to magnify these currencies through fractional reserve banking. And, of > course, as we see in 'quantitative easing' you can print more and add > zeroes to the numbers. > Yeah, that's comforting. Not. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 20:07:34 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:07:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527B99BC.20201@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527B99BC.20201@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 6:46 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > In the last few days, we had Silk Road 2.0 (and a new Dread Pirate > Roberts), 7.000 restaurants/takeaway in Europe added Bitcoin as a > payment method, the price spike to >300$. > Brilliant Mirco! I've been trying to figure out what was going on all day. Thanks!!! Brilliant that the Dread Pirate Roberts in the movie kept becoming a new person, and exactly that same thing is happening now... absolutely amazing how life and art are intersecting on that bit. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 20:12:48 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:12:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 8:15 AM, spike wrote: > Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? Why can?t we have fractional bitcoins? > It's already designed into the system. I own 0.009 bitcoins. Worth $20 on Tuesday, and $25 today. I would recommend buying $100 worth of Bitcoins and just holding on to them NO MATTER WHAT happens. Worst thing is you lose $100. On the upside... well, that would be a nice upside. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From veronese at uab.edu Thu Nov 7 20:22:52 2013 From: veronese at uab.edu (Keith Veronese) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 14:22:52 -0600 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <68595A07-DC6D-400E-AEED-1E92B7FEDC81@me.com> <012901cedbcc$362dddf0$a28999d0$@att.net> Message-ID: I'm with Kelly's idea. Put a small amount of money into bitcoins (or other cryptocurrencies) for fun. You'll learn a lot and pay more attention since "you're in the game", and the upside beats the heck out of the downside. - Keith V On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:12 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 8:15 AM, spike wrote: > >> Can you buy shares in a bitcoin? Why can?t we have fractional bitcoins? >> > > It's already designed into the system. I own 0.009 bitcoins. Worth $20 on > Tuesday, and $25 today. > > I would recommend buying $100 worth of Bitcoins and just holding on to > them NO MATTER WHAT happens. Worst thing is you lose $100. On the upside... > well, that would be a nice upside. > > -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 kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 20:40:14 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:40:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius In-Reply-To: <527ADED2.6030903@aleph.se> References: <527ADED2.6030903@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:29 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 07/11/2013 00:23, John Grigg wrote: > >> No comments? I find this absolutely fascinating, even if it takes years >> to really bear fruit. "Summon my mentat!" >> > My comment is this: http://blog.practicalethics. > ox.ac.uk/2013/10/breaking-the-mould-genetics-and-education/ > > Great research, worth doing - but might not in itself be useful for > selecting or boosting ability. What it can do is to validate other tests > developed by looking at the normal range. And maybe hint about where to > start looking in the genome and brain. If all it did was provide a DNA screening test for potential mathematical geniuses (no small feat) it would be very useful in helping to find students to focus special attention on. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 20:47:07 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 15:47:07 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:32 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > So my answer is that no, Einstein would NOT have discovered General > Relativity if he were addicted to immediate pleasure. > So my next question is could any mind avoid becoming addicted if it had complete unrestricted access to its own emotional control panel? John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 20:57:46 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 12:57:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527B99BC.20201@libero.it> Message-ID: On Nov 7, 2013 12:08 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > Brilliant that the Dread Pirate Roberts in the movie kept becoming a new person, and exactly that same thing is happening now... absolutely amazing how life and art are intersecting on that bit. It's an ancient practice; the movie just cited it. What's important is the mask (or office), not the person who wears (or holds) it, even if it has a person-type name like "Dread Pirate Roberts". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rebelwithaclue at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 21:04:17 2013 From: rebelwithaclue at gmail.com (rwac) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 02:34:17 +0530 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > > > So my answer is that no, Einstein would NOT have discovered General >> Relativity if he were addicted to immediate pleasure. >> > > So my next question is could any mind avoid becoming addicted if it had > complete unrestricted access to its own emotional control panel? > Well, opiates are the closest thing to the emotional control panel we have. And the Rat Park experiment showed that "addicted" rats will de-addict themselves given adequate stimulation in the environment. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park "Alexander built Rat Park, an 8.8 m2 (95 sq ft) housing colony, 200 times the floor area of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16?20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters.[3]:166 The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment."[1] Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments." Kiran -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Nov 7 21:10:24 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 21:10:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius In-Reply-To: References: <527ADED2.6030903@aleph.se> Message-ID: <527C01C0.3030208@aleph.se> On 2013-11-07 20:40, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:29 PM, Anders Sandberg > wrote: > > On 07/11/2013 00:23, John Grigg wrote: > > No comments? I find this absolutely fascinating, even if it > takes years to really bear fruit. "Summon my mentat!" > > My comment is this: > http://blog.practicalethics.ox.ac.uk/2013/10/breaking-the-mould-genetics-and-education/ > > Great research, worth doing - but might not in itself be useful > for selecting or boosting ability. What it can do is to validate > other tests developed by looking at the normal range. And maybe > hint about where to start looking in the genome and brain. > > > If all it did was provide a DNA screening test for potential > mathematical geniuses (no small feat) it would be very useful in > helping to find students to focus special attention on. Statistics doesn't work that way. Hypothetical example: if *everybody* in the genius group reliably shows a certain signal it might still be useless in practice, if 50% of the population has the signal. Yes, if you lack the signal you will not be a genius, but if you have it the probability is just a tiny fraction higher. Since the genius group will be small it will not be possible to determine genomic signals very firmly - simply too few data points. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 21:17:50 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 16:17:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 11/7/13, John Clark wrote: > So my next question is could any mind avoid becoming addicted if it had > complete unrestricted access to its own emotional control panel? ### Yes, of course. Any person interested in achieving any goal, aside from bliss, would modify its emotions to optimize the likelihood of achieving said goals. This might even involve removing the abilty to experience addiction. Indeed, a part of growing up is acquiring the ability to disregard some internal states and desires in order to respond to others. This usually means developing a consistent, general idea of self, including a hierarchy of goals, and frequently classifying some existing goals as dissonant with the general goal structure, therefore in need of being suppressed, which in turn depends on your frontal lobe's functionality. Having direct access to your mind's emotional structure would be like having the option of growing up at the turn of a knob, the very opposite of the childishness that is drug addiction or wireheading. Rafal From rahmans at me.com Thu Nov 7 21:26:54 2013 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 22:26:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 122, Issue 15 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 15:58:02 +0100 > From: Eugen Leitl > To: extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > Subject: Re: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? > Message-ID: <20131107145802.GJ5661 at leitl.org> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii > > On Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 09:38:58AM -0500, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> On 11/7/13, Omar Rahman wrote: >> >>> The main problem with bitcoin is precisely this: it is impossible for >>> everyone to have a bitcoin. The system was designed with an upper limit of >>> 21 million coins available. The anonymous people behind bitcoin have >>> designed this as a 'boutique' currency for test purposes I think. The 21 >>> million upper limit automatically places it out of contention to be a >>> general means of exchange. Hmm....unless we want to get into 'virtual' >>> bitcoins. ;) >> >> ### Omar, you think the limit on the number of bitcoins puts it "out >> of contention to be a general means of exchange"? Lol. > > Psst. Nobody tell him that the current limit (1/100000000) is a satoshi, and it's > not a fundamental limit. I guess the 21 million thing is sort of 'old fashioned' of me. It doesn't technically matter if I can or can't have a whole bitcoin but it 'feels' wrong to me that each person on the planet on average can only have about 1/300 of a bitcoin. So, I actually do think that the upper limit of bitcoins is a problem unless the value of a single coin goes right through the roof. I guess that's what you're all hoping for and good luck to you. If all 21 million coins were available right now you would have a currency worth something like $6 000 000 000 or so, yes? On the other hand, if you have a bitcoin you might have 1/21 000 000 of the future money supply. What, if any, do you think the weaknesses of bitcoin are? The potential for forking in the block chain, the continuing assault on public-private key encryption, and adopting changes to the hashing function seem like serious concerns for bitcoin. Well to be fair any weakness of public-private key encryption is a more general problem. The most obvious weakness I saw for bitcoin was the possibility for a DDOS attack with many micro-transactions but they have eliminated this with 'transaction fees'. It seems to me that the limits one places on processing a transaction through these fees represent some sort of limit on the effective divisibility of the coin. As the number of bitcions produced goes down towards zero as we approach the 21 million limit these fees are envisioned as the incentive for people to continue processing blocks. At some point won't that actually commoditise bitcoins into a function of the cost of processing power? What do you do if someone steals your bitcoins? Can't they just transfer them to some other address and they are gone. Isn't your ability to recover them nil? Even if someone is forced by some court to make reparations in real world goods or a traditional currency could they be compelled to accept some exchange rate? For many libertarians bitcoin is probably a dream come true. However, world politics could force the issue if a major government or group of governments declared that contracts in bitcoins are not enforceable. This seems an obvious move if a government felt threatened by bitcoins. And of course if they can't tax it and revenues fall they will feel threatened. As a digital currency which relies on it's users and community to confirm the transactions and use the same hash function it is profoundly democratic and I like that. But it is also therefore open to the possibility of a split if enough people could choose to fork the block chain. This might even be a good thing, but it is something that should be considered. As I said later in my post I think a digital currency is a good idea, I'm just not sure bitcoin is the right implementation. Regards, Omar Rahman -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 7 21:17:04 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 13:17:04 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> Message-ID: <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:53 PM, spike wrote: >>... Problem: the NASA findings increased by four orders of magnitude the number of expected... >...You've even got Bloomberg worrying about it now! BillK, not I have got. NASA's got. I didn't do the study or write the report. Quote: >...Fermi's question remains unanswered. But it only grows more compelling, and more perplexing, with each new discovery. BillK _______________________________________________ So before this NASA study came out, did you have an estimate of the number of Goldilocks planets? I did: my ROM estimated was about a million or so, just by saying perhaps there is some reason why a Goldie needs a main sequence population 1 yellow dwarf with spectral type G2, old enough to have planets congealed out of a dust lane. Then I estimated a typical Goldilocks band and came up with about a million such Goldies in the galaxy. So those who remember, did you have numbers in that OOM? Who had one greater than ten billion? What was your reasoning? Who had one more than an order below a million? Reasoning? In retrospect, I may have been letting Fermi influence my estimate downward, because I may have unconsciously been trying for an explanation of the silence based on the (probably absurd) notion that there just weren't enough decent planets out there. spike From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 7 21:35:18 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 14:35:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527B99BC.20201@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 1:57 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Nov 7, 2013 12:08 PM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > Brilliant that the Dread Pirate Roberts in the movie kept becoming a new > person, and exactly that same thing is happening now... absolutely amazing > how life and art are intersecting on that bit. > > It's an ancient practice; the movie just cited it. What's important is > the mask (or office), not the person who wears (or holds) it, even if it > has a person-type name like "Dread Pirate Roberts". > Thought the current DPR might not have been aware of that without the movie... :-) Another thing that might be moving the value of bitcoins north is the crypto virus. This evil piece of shit is talked about here: http://krebsonsecurity.com/2013/11/how-to-avoid-cryptolocker-ransomware/ And a fix is free here: http://bit.ly/1aunHSC Basic bottom line is that if these bastards get into your computer, you may have to pay $300 IN BITCOIN only to get your files decrypted. That is one of the nastiest viruses I've ever heard of. I installed the above fix, hopefully it will help some. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 7 21:36:47 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 22:36:47 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 20:58, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > How do you see the Singularity as being tied to Bitcoin? (Real question, > not rhetorical.) I just bought my first bitcoins the other day. I will > buy more soon if I can. Autonomous Corporations first and AI (and Augmented Humans) later need a way to cooperate. Or this is done in a way we are not able to understand now or it will be based on something we understand: money. Bitcoin allow unlimited payment to unlimited number of entities. Any AI doing something useful will be rewarded using bitcoin where any AI doing something harmful will be not. Just like humans are. So we have a way to select for useful AI: we pay them for doing something useful. And they pay us back if w do something useful to them. And if we are useful to them, they will not think about recycling us as Grey Goo. Mirco From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 00:44:39 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 17:44:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:36 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 07/11/2013 20:58, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > > How do you see the Singularity as being tied to Bitcoin? (Real question, > > not rhetorical.) I just bought my first bitcoins the other day. I will > > buy more soon if I can. > > Autonomous Corporations first and AI (and Augmented Humans) later need a > way to cooperate. Or this is done in a way we are not able to understand > now or it will be based on something we understand: money. > > Bitcoin allow unlimited payment to unlimited number of entities. > Any AI doing something useful will be rewarded using bitcoin where any > AI doing something harmful will be not. Just like humans are. > So we have a way to select for useful AI: we pay them for doing > something useful. And they pay us back if w do something useful to them. > And if we are useful to them, they will not think about recycling us as > Grey Goo. > Mirco, I can see the possibility for money surviving the Singularity. It may not be 100% necessary, but it may be helpful. I can't see the future of money past the Singularity, so I really can't say. That being said, what does Bitcoin specifically (or cryptocurrency in general) add to the scenario that isn't provided by government backed currencies? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 00:52:39 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 17:52:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:17 PM, spike wrote: > >... On Behalf Of BillK > Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets > > On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 3:53 PM, spike wrote: > > >>... Problem: the NASA findings increased by four orders of magnitude > the > number of expected... > > >...You've even got Bloomberg worrying about it now! > > BillK, not I have got. NASA's got. I didn't do the study or write the > report. > > < > http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-06/don-t-believe-in-aliens-maybe-you- > re-the-crazy-one.html> > Quote: > >...Fermi's question remains unanswered. But it only grows more compelling, > and more perplexing, with each new discovery. BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > So before this NASA study came out, did you have an estimate of the number > of Goldilocks planets? I did: my ROM estimated was about a million or so, > just by saying perhaps there is some reason why a Goldie needs a main > sequence population 1 yellow dwarf with spectral type G2, old enough to > have > planets congealed out of a dust lane. Then I estimated a typical > Goldilocks > band and came up with about a million such Goldies in the galaxy. > > So those who remember, did you have numbers in that OOM? Who had one > greater than ten billion? What was your reasoning? Who had one more than > an order below a million? Reasoning? > > In retrospect, I may have been letting Fermi influence my estimate > downward, > because I may have unconsciously been trying for an explanation of the > silence based on the (probably absurd) notion that there just weren't > enough > decent planets out there. > The "earth like" definition used by the scientists that wrote the paper include approximately three variables. Rare Earth proposes around 12 such variables if I remember correctly. For example, we need a molten core and plate tectonics in order to get the right metals to the surface, provide both land and ocean (for the evolution of land animals, since hands evolving on a fish seems like a bit of a long shot) and other reasons. Then there is Jupiter and Saturn filtering out the comets. Very useful that. If you refigure all of the Rare Earth variables in with NASA's numbers, I'm guessing you would end up with a MUCH smaller number. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 8 02:55:34 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 18:55:34 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> Message-ID: <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson The "earth like" definition used by the scientists that wrote the paper include approximately three variables. Rare Earth proposes around 12 such variables if I remember correctly. Ja, but the three variable case makes more sense for reasons I will give. >.For example, we need a molten core and plate tectonics in order to get the right metals to the surface. A molten core follows directly in most rocky core planets. They have an enormous amount of heat from potential energy conversion as the rocky dust congeals. >.provide both land and ocean (for the evolution of land animals, since hands evolving on a fish seems like a bit of a long shot) and other reasons. Perhaps. But I haven't been able to convince myself that intelligence could never evolve in the sea. >.Then there is Jupiter and Saturn filtering out the comets. Very useful that. Useful but not necessarily critical. If you had a Goldie with oceans 50km deep, a good sized comet or other hunk of space debris could strike the planet without wiping out all the biota. An ocean planet could still reasonably have ice caps, or for that matter be ice everywhere, with liquid oceans below. Then it is conceivable that life could be air breathing on a planet with no rocky surface anywhere. >.If you refigure all of the Rare Earth variables in with NASA's numbers, I'm guessing you would end up with a MUCH smaller number. -Kelly Ja. I found Ward's Rare Earth a bit too narrow minded on what kind of life forms could become tech enabled. He might be right. But it just felt like he was over reaching just a bit. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 04:45:52 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 17:45:52 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <527A4C49.2060307@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278FC7F.3040305@aleph.se> <527A4C49.2060307@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Thu, 07 Nov 2013 03:03:53 +1300, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Where do you see those fields, besides near neutron stars? Note that the In the introductory page of that Caltech site you just linked to. ;-) > Caltech paper typically reports fields in the range of 1-1000 *micro* > Gauss. In interstellar space(?), where plasma densities are the lowest you will ever find, thats to be expected and entirely consistent with the EU model I would have thought. But strengths of fields aside, the fact that there are remotely observable magnetic fields throughout the universe at all is surely a smoking gun in the EU models favor, not a refutation of it. The argument would seem to be over what exactly is generating all those magnetic fields, I think you already know what the EU crowd and most electrical engineers are going to say. The trick it would seem to be is gathering the necessary data to either confirm or deny their theories. Good thing we have a star burning brightly in our own backyard. WE CAN DO SCIENCE TO IT! From andymck35 at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 04:45:59 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 17:45:59 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <20131106094752.GG5661@leitl.org> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <20131105132052.GQ8041@leitl.org> <20131106094752.GG5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Wed, 06 Nov 2013 22:47:52 +1300, Eugen Leitl wrote: >> You're hilarious. >> >> Your future as a stand up comodian is assured. > I'm happy you find me as funny as I the electric universe kooks. Possibly you're missing the sarcasm. A comedian is typically quite funny, a comodian on the other hand, is not. And I'm entirely okay with being considered a kook, for it is a small price to pay for giving due consideration to a heretical scientific theory that may very well be closer to the truth than many people like you would give it credit for. On the other hand if you consider known Wikipedia sockpuppets, writing up factually incorrect reviews of books they clearly haven't read, to be your form of gospel truth, then I dare say it is not you, in the fullness of time, whom shall be enjoying the last laugh. From andymck35 at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 04:46:01 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 17:46:01 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, 07 Nov 2013 05:12:31 +1300, John Clark wrote: >> I must reluctantly conclude that we are missing something fundamental, >> > > I think one of the fundamental things we don't understand very well is > how > life originated. In fact as far as we know right now, even the entire > observable universe is FAR too small to have made the existence of the > simplest known bacteria likely. And natural selection couldn't reduce the > odds until heredity was invented, only then do Darwin's ideas come into > play. So life simply can't exist, and yet it does, so we're missing > something. Not to be seen flogging a 'kooky' horse, but it would seem to me prudent to look at all the arguments being put forth, especially if current scientific theories seem to be falling short of a completely satisfying explanation of how life could arise on earth like planets. For instance, if (yes, big IF I know) the EU crowd are right and electric plasma fusion of the elements is occurring in the suns photosphere, and thanks to sunspots and solar flares, is being regularly flung outwards into electrically confined plasma streams where they can mix and mingle and fuse into simple organic molecules, before being deposited onto the surfaces of earth like planets by the cubic boatload. Then surely that would be a major game changer to the balance of probabilities of life self assembling from a thick, frequently mutating bio-molecular soup. And even better, it's a hypothesis we can actually test for isn't it?, surely a far better thing to muse over than a bunch of untestable numbers that just don't seem to add up. YMMV. From max at maxmore.com Fri Nov 8 05:33:22 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Thu, 7 Nov 2013 22:33:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] NOVA web special on Alcor and cryonics Message-ID: We didn't make it into the "Making Things Colder" show that was broadcast a few days ago, but they did use some footage for this web video: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/tech/cryonics.html -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Nov 8 08:45:24 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 08:45:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> On 2013-11-08 04:46, Andrew Mckee wrote: > For instance, if (yes, big IF I know) the EU crowd are right and > electric plasma fusion of the elements is occurring in the suns > photosphere, and thanks to sunspots and solar flares, is being > regularly flung outwards into electrically confined plasma streams > where they can mix and mingle and fuse into simple organic molecules, > before being deposited onto the surfaces of earth like planets by the > cubic boatload. > > Then surely that would be a major game changer to the balance of > probabilities of life self assembling from a thick, frequently > mutating bio-molecular soup. Yes, but more importantly, it would *completely* change the behavior of stellar models. This is an area where a *huge* amount of theoretical and empirical work has been done, producing models that agree with observation very well (check any intro astrophysics book), yet would behave very differently if you add fusion in the photosphere. Astrophysics is full of testable predictions. And anything that affects metallicity and temperature of star photospheres is very easy to check. Of course, maybe a century of astrophysicists have all barked up the wrong tree. But in that case they managed to build a self-consistent false family of models that accurately reproduce most features of the H-Z diagram and empirical data from nearly every star. This is so non-trivial that I hold it to be much less likely than alternate theories require extraordinary proof (like running a star code with the new assumptions and reconstructing the empirical data). -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Nov 8 09:35:22 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 10:35:22 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> Message-ID: <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> Il 08/11/2013 01:44, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > Bitcoin allow unlimited payment to unlimited number of entities. > Any AI doing something useful will be rewarded using bitcoin where any > AI doing something harmful will be not. Just like humans are. > So we have a way to select for useful AI: we pay them for doing > something useful. And they pay us back if w do something useful to them. > And if we are useful to them, they will not think about recycling us as > Grey Goo. > I can see the possibility for money surviving the Singularity. It may > not be 100% necessary, but it may be helpful. I can't see the future of > money past the Singularity, so I really can't say. > That being said, what does Bitcoin specifically (or cryptocurrency in > general) add to the scenario that isn't provided by government backed > currencies? Bitcoin add trust because it is trustless. Fiat currency (but also gold and silver) can not add trust because they can be debased, payment reversed, fund seized at the source bank, in transit and at the receiving bank and from the hand of the payer and the payed. Governments or sociopathic AIs could and would exploit the weakness of the system like sociopathic speculators and politics exploit the system now. Given their time preferences and limited resources they could not even understand the scope of the damage they are doing to others and themselves in the present and future. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Fri Nov 8 09:40:14 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 10:40:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Multi-millionaire funds gene sequencing to find genes for mathematical genius In-Reply-To: <527C01C0.3030208@aleph.se> References: <527ADED2.6030903@aleph.se> <527C01C0.3030208@aleph.se> Message-ID: <527CB17E.4010608@libero.it> Il 07/11/2013 22:10, Anders Sandberg ha scritto: > On 2013-11-07 20:40, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> If all it did was provide a DNA screening test for potential >> mathematical geniuses (no small feat) it would be very useful in >> helping to find students to focus special attention on. > Statistics doesn't work that way. Hypothetical example: if *everybody* > in the genius group reliably shows a certain signal it might still be > useless in practice, if 50% of the population has the signal. Yes, if > you lack the signal you will not be a genius, but if you have it the > probability is just a tiny fraction higher. > Since the genius group will be small it will not be possible to > determine genomic signals very firmly - simply too few data points. But maybe the best strategy to increase the mathematical genius in the population is to select against the lack of the gene and not in favor of the presence. This until we have better understanding of the functions and interactions of the other genes. Mirco From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 8 12:13:44 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 13:13:44 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131108121344.GN5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 07, 2013 at 12:03:18PM -0500, Mike Dougherty wrote: > While I appreciate Eugen's priestly devotion to the Science of Knowing > ["stuff"] I also wonder if Circles fail to dream of their higher There is an effective infinity of things which could be, so the only way to stay functional is to limit yourself to what is currently known. Everything else is a self denial of service, if people would be borderline consistent. The problem with new physics is that this assumes that from a potentially large population every single one must transcend tracelessly, and recall every single instance of already expansive yet subtrascendent tech that is already expanding (you'll notice we already have probes which have left our stellar system, the next generations of such probes will have considerable onboard fabrication capacities). Every single instance that escapes will punch giant FIR blackbody holes into the cosmos which are detectable across GLyrs. There are no such holes, hence invisible pink unicorns don't exist. QED. > dimensional selves. (admittedly, there's plenty to do in the here & now > that is pretty important; energy starvation, et al ) From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 8 15:17:56 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 07:17:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg >...Of course, maybe a century of astrophysicists have all barked up the wrong tree. But in that case they managed to build a self-consistent false family of models that accurately reproduce most features of the H-Z diagram and empirical data from nearly every star... -- Dr Anders Sandberg _______________________________________________ Can you imagine what it must have felt like to be Russell and Hertzsprung when they started plotting magnitude against spectrum and discovered that relationship? What must it have been like to go to a conference with that paper in your briefcase? How about when you are next up? They would be sitting there with some silly goof droning on while the other astronomers dozed, knowing that your data is about to knock their socks off. Oh that would be cool. Now it is a century later, and the H-Z diagram still blows my mind. Regarding an earlier comment by Kelly, hands evolving in sea creatures, and the implied prerequisite of hands for tech-enabled life, that really has my wheels spinning. Reason: of all those Goldilocks planets, I have having a far easier time imagining a Goldie completely covered in ocean, probably deep. That shouldn't be so hard for us to imagine: this planet is almost deluged. If you go that route, it is easy to picture ice caps, so the sea creatures could have access to the atmosphere, and if the ice goes down to bedrock, it would be theoretically possible for lifeforms to dig thru the ice and reach the rock, so that metals could be brought to the surface. Of course actual dry land is a good thing for growing smarts. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 16:37:12 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 11:37:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 10:17 AM, spike wrote: > deluged. If you go that route, it is easy to picture ice caps, so the sea > creatures could have access to the atmosphere, and if the ice goes down to > bedrock, it would be theoretically possible for lifeforms to dig thru the > ice and reach the rock, so that metals could be brought to the surface. Of > course actual dry land is a good thing for growing smarts. > Why is dry land [inherently] better for smarts than ocean? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 17:05:16 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 17:05:16 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > Why is dry land [inherently] better for smarts than ocean? > > Because on dry land you are forced to invent umbrellas. As opposed to just swimming around and occasionally opening your mouth to eat something. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 17:39:24 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 12:39:24 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 12:05 PM, BillK wrote: > On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 4:37 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > > Why is dry land [inherently] better for smarts than ocean? > > Because on dry land you are forced to invent umbrellas. > > As opposed to just swimming around and occasionally opening your mouth > to eat something. > Our oceans may mean abundance for the life that started there, but that isn't necessarily a feature of all oceans. Another case might be superabundance of resource provides an equally superdangerous environment - which could drive innovation/clever to afford a survival advantage. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 8 18:33:41 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 10:33:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> Message-ID: <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty Sent: Friday, November 08, 2013 8:37 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 10:17 AM, spike wrote: deluged. If you go that route, it is easy to picture ice caps, so the sea creatures could have access to the atmosphere, and if the ice goes down to bedrock, it would be theoretically possible for lifeforms to dig thru the ice and reach the rock, so that metals could be brought to the surface. Of course actual dry land is a good thing for growing smarts. Why is dry land [inherently] better for smarts than ocean? To be tech enabled, you definitely need to get dry somehow. You can concentrate elements, do jillions of experiments that can never be done without dryness. Kelly's notion of hands I am still pondering, but I was thinking of how limited is the range of experiments without dry land of some sort, and the materials limitations. There are smart beasts in the sea. But the smartest ones we know of apparently evolved brains on land, then went back to the sea. Check this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPge_0lea3o spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Nov 8 21:11:12 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 16:11:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:46 PM, Andrew Mckee wrote: > For instance, if (yes, big IF I know) the EU crowd are right and electric > plasma fusion of the elements is occurring in the suns photosphere, That seems pretty unlikely, the suns photosphere is icy cold, about 6000K, and as for the sun's corona the density is too low and the temperature is only about 2 million degrees Kelvin, far too low for significant fusion to occur. Fusion is really hard to do, even the center of the sun is lousy at it, per pound the sun produces less power than the human body does, and it will take 10 billion years to fuse 90% of the hydrogen in the sun. In fact we know of only two things in the entire universe that are really really good at fusion, supernovas and H-bombs. > and thanks to sunspots and solar flares, is being regularly flung > outwards into electrically confined plasma streams where they can mix and > mingle and fuse into simple organic molecules, before being deposited onto > the surfaces of earth like planets by the cubic boatload. Then surely that > would be a major game changer to the balance of probabilities of life self > assembling from a thick, frequently mutating bio-molecular soup. That's not the problem, the problem is that the gap between simple organic molecules and the simplest one celled organism known is astronomical. And it is entirely possible that the word " astronomical" is far too weak a word to describe that gap, if so then you need to look no further to explain why the universe doesn't look like it's been engineered. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 8 21:15:49 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 13:15:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <00b201cedcc7$b35444d0$19fcce70$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of John Clark Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 11:46 PM, Andrew Mckee wrote: >> For instance, if (yes, big IF I know) the EU crowd are right and electric plasma fusion of the elements is occurring in the suns photosphere, >.That seems pretty unlikely, the suns photosphere is icy cold, about 6000K, and as for the sun's corona the density is too low and the temperature is only about 2 million degrees Kelvin, far too low for significant fusion to occur. John K Clark Ja. Fusion in the photosphere would have a clear detectable signature. A nova is fusion on the photosphere, and we know exactly what that looks like. Keep looking, me lads. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 8 21:20:03 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2013 13:20:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] quiet season in the altantic Message-ID: <00b701cedcc8$4a86a0f0$df93e2d0$@att.net> Just when the headlines are filled with this monster typhoon in the Pacific, we see something that is unusual this time of year: no cyclones in the Altantic. It has been a record quiet year, with two storms that managed to make it to category 1, even if briefly in both cases. Here's the map I use: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ I don't know if they needed to cancel the storms on account of a lack of government funding or what is the deal, but this has been a really slow year. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Nov 8 23:07:43 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 08 Nov 2013 23:07:43 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> Message-ID: <527D6EBF.1050205@aleph.se> On 2013-11-08 15:17, spike wrote: > Reason: of all those Goldilocks planets, I have having a far easier > time imagining a Goldie completely covered in ocean, probably deep. > That shouldn't be so hard for us to imagine: this planet is almost > deluged. In fact, the models of waterworld exoplanets I have found in the astronomical literature have *really* deep oceans. Earth is mildly odd in that it has just so much water it would cover the entire surface to a few kilometres: most of these have hundreds of kilometres of water. That means a few interesting things. The ocean floor will be covered by a mantle of high-pressure ice, likely with veins of mineral erupted from the rocky core (a planet has volume ~R^3 and area ~R^2, so the heat flux grows as ~R - big worlds will tend to be much more volcanic and plate-tectonic than Earth). The latest results on metallic ices suggest that they will not occur, since they require 5 TPa, and that moves us into gas giant territory - but non-metallic warm ice is still odd. The atmosphere may have plenty of water vapour as a greenhouse gas. The surface temperature distribution depends on the rotation rate; if it is fast winds will be more zonal and the poles will be cooler (possibly with ice), while a slower rotation produces an even temperature. If it is warm enough you can get some amazing hurricanes or hypercanes. Most of the ocean will be totally dark, heated only by a geothermal gradient or volcano-induced currents - surface heating only penetrates down to a thermocline a few hundred meters down, and the lack of undersea mountains reduces mixing. (See Charles Stross' "Neptunes' brood" for a fictional world that gets close to this - although he admitted he choose some parameters for simplicity, and I have my doubts about his awesome blue smokers.) I don't know if general technology could emerge here. Sure, it looks near-impossible to build a lab underwater. But that might just be our limited imagination. Many compounds are volatile in air and dissolve, yet we have found ways of managing them. It might be that a waterworlder would have an equally hard time imaging how a dry lab could work. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From eugen at leitl.org Sat Nov 9 11:24:08 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 12:24:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <527AD1E8.1090300@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <20131106143017.GU5661@leitl.org> <527AD1E8.1090300@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131109112408.GQ5661@leitl.org> On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 11:34:00PM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-11-06 14:30, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >There is absolutely no data to postulate a future filter. You > >being able to read this message is not a source of data for > >statistical reasoning > > Actually, it is. It is just a single data point, but it can skew > things surprisingly strongly: > http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/anthropicshadow.pdf Why are you using probability in a perfectly biased case of one sample? It isn't applicable. The first sample only gives you the information that it's possible. Only the second unbiased sample gives you a lot of information. The first sample is almost pefectly useless. > >(lottery winners don't have a good grasp of overall winning > >probability). > > Actually, they know the probability is nonzero. That is in itself a Cogito, ergo sum is a trivial result. We know we exist, we care to know how many of others like us are there. > lot of information. And depending on which branch of anthropics you > buy into (BTW: advert: http://www.philosophy-of-cosmology.ox.ac.uk/events/fourth-oxford-miniseries-anthropics-selection-effects-and-fine-tuning-in-cosmology/ > - course and workshop in December) they might get other weak > information. I need to read your paper at leisure. > >As long as we don't have causally unentangled data about higher > >life nevermind life capable of intelligent observer status nobody > >has a case. > > Well, data can be of different kinds. The evolutionary history of > Earth has a bias due to one species becoming observers, but there is > information in it (does it look hard to ramp up or down > encephalization or behavioral complexity?) You still have no idea how special or common that pattern is. Even if you get a different sample of a nontrivial ecosystem in this solar system but which is causually entangled with local emergence events it's tainted. From anders at aleph.se Sat Nov 9 12:24:38 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 12:24:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <20131109112408.GQ5661@leitl.org> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <20131106143017.GU5661@leitl.org> <527AD1E8.1090300@aleph.se> <20131109112408.GQ5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <527E2986.80903@aleph.se> On 2013-11-09 11:24, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Wed, Nov 06, 2013 at 11:34:00PM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> Actually, it is. It is just a single data point, but it can skew >> things surprisingly strongly: >> http://www.nickbostrom.com/papers/anthropicshadow.pdf > Why are you using probability in a perfectly biased case > of one sample? It isn't applicable. The first sample only > gives you the information that it's possible. Only the > second unbiased sample gives you a lot of information. > > The first sample is almost pefectly useless. The "almost" is the relevant thing here. What is the probability of an existential threat wiping out humanity this century? It makes sense to talk about this probability, yet there is *no* data point for it. (And if there were ever one data point, there would never be another one - frequentism fails. ) One can reason under conditions of high uncertainty, and that does include having no or one data points. Sure, the dispersion of your probability estimates is going to be huge, but one can still apply rigorous thinking. If I flip a coin and get heads, I have very little evidence for how biased the coin is. I know the probability of heads cannot be 0, but it could be that it actually is 10^-100 and I was lucky. What I can do is estimate a posterior probability distribution (in this case it ends up a triangular beta distribution) and use that as my best guess. Obviously getting more data will quickly improve the estimate, but that is not always possible. Saying "I don't know" and refusing to reason about anything dependent on the probability might not be on the table, nor rational - I actually do know a little. >> Actually, they know the probability is nonzero. That is in itself a > Cogito, ergo sum is a trivial result. We know we exist, we care > to know how many of others like us are there. Depending on whether you buy the self-sampling assumption or the self-indication assumption you get some weak evidence for this (or not). Reasoning under extreme uncertainty is very different from reasoning under normal uncertainty. Normal uncertainty can afford to shy away from tainted data; extreme uncertainty has to squeeze every drop of rational evidence out of even the (non)existence of data. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Nov 9 12:58:56 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 05:58:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 122, Issue 15 In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Omar Rahman wrote: > > > I guess the 21 million thing is sort of 'old fashioned' of me. It doesn't > technically matter if I can or can't have a whole bitcoin but it 'feels' > wrong to me that each person on the planet on average can only have about > 1/300 of a bitcoin. So, I actually do think that the upper limit of > bitcoins is a problem unless the value of a single coin goes right through > the roof. I guess that's what you're all hoping for and good luck to you. > If all 21 million coins were available right now you would have a currency > worth something like $6 000 000 000 or so, yes? On the other hand, if you > have a bitcoin you might have 1/21 000 000 of the future money supply. > Earlier today the market cap of bitcoins was 3.1 billion dollars. Kind of exciting to be able to have that much money. But I don't personally see Bitcoin displacing ALL OTHER currencies. It's never worked that way, except by firm governmental control. Given a choice, people will choose other things sometimes. Like my space gold backed Bitcoin idea... some people might really like that more. > What, if any, do you think the weaknesses of bitcoin are? > Technically, I know of no significant weaknesses. In practice, it doesn't provide the kind of privacy some people expect of it, but that doesn't reduce it's usefulness as money, just its usefulness at things like money laundering and buying illegal stuff. One of the weaknesses of bitcoin that is most often pointed out is it's volatility. Of course, it is volatility on the way to the stratosphere, so not all bad. > The potential for forking in the block chain, the continuing assault on > public-private key encryption, and adopting changes to the hashing function > seem like serious concerns for bitcoin. Well to be fair any weakness of > public-private key encryption is a more general problem. > I think there is some good math behind bitcoin that keeps it fairly safe. > The most obvious weakness I saw for bitcoin was the possibility for a DDOS > attack with many micro-transactions but they have eliminated this with > 'transaction fees'. It seems to me that the limits one places on processing > a transaction through these fees represent some sort of limit on the > effective divisibility of the coin. > The fees should go down over time, as the coins become more valuable. > As the number of bitcions produced goes down towards zero as we approach > the 21 million limit these fees are envisioned as the incentive for people > to continue processing blocks. At some point won't that actually > commoditise bitcoins into a function of the cost of processing power? > Not really, as the difficulty keeps increasing, and the overall number is limited. > What do you do if someone steals your bitcoins? > What do you do if someone steals the money from your wallet. You have to take precautions. You don't carry your retirement portfolio around in your wallet, do you? > Can't they just transfer them to some other address and they are gone. > Isn't your ability to recover them nil? > Yes. > Even if someone is forced by some court to make reparations in real world > goods or a traditional currency could they be compelled to accept some > exchange rate? > > For many libertarians bitcoin is probably a dream come true. > The libertarian and the technologist in me loves bitcoin. Micropayments is a dream come true. Bitcoin's libertarian bent just makes it all the better. > However, world politics could force the issue if a major government or > group of governments declared that contracts in bitcoins are not > enforceable. This seems an obvious move if a government felt threatened by > bitcoins. And of course if they can't tax it and revenues fall they will > feel threatened. > In theory, bitcoin transactions are taxable, just like giving the neighborhood boy 50 tomatoes to mow your lawn. In practice, it's just like giving the neighborhood boy 50 tomatoes to mow your lawn, at least at this time. You pay these sorts of taxes if your reputation as a tax payer is important to you for some reason. > As a digital currency which relies on it's users and community to confirm > the transactions and use the same hash function it is profoundly democratic > and I like that. But it is also therefore open to the possibility of a > split if enough people could choose to fork the block chain. This might > even be a good thing, but it is something that should be considered. > > As I said later in my post I think a digital currency is a good idea, I'm > just not sure bitcoin is the right implementation. > When you get it right, let us know so we can buy in on day one... :-) -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Nov 9 13:03:48 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 06:03:48 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 7:55 PM, spike wrote: > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > > The "earth like" definition used by the scientists that wrote the paper > include approximately three variables. Rare Earth proposes around 12 such > variables if I remember correctly? > > > > Ja, but the three variable case makes more sense for reasons I will give. > > > > >?For example, we need a molten core and plate tectonics in order to get > the right metals to the surface? > > > > A molten core follows directly in most rocky core planets. They have an > enormous amount of heat from potential energy conversion as the rocky dust > congeals. > And yet mars currently lacks a molten core. It also lacks the magnetosphere that would protect martians from radiation. Would mars count as one of the planets counted by NASA in this survey? > >?provide both land and ocean (for the evolution of land animals, since > hands evolving on a fish seems like a bit of a long shot) and other reasons > ? > > > > Perhaps. But I haven?t been able to convince myself that intelligence > could never evolve in the sea. > I think there are reasons that it is unlikely. One piece of evidence is that the most intelligent sea animals are land animals that have returned to the sea. > > >?Then there is Jupiter and Saturn filtering out the comets. Very useful > that? > > > > Useful but not necessarily critical. If you had a Goldie with oceans 50km > deep, a good sized comet or other hunk of space debris could strike the > planet without wiping out all the biota. An ocean planet could still > reasonably have ice caps, or for that matter be ice everywhere, with liquid > oceans below. Then it is conceivable that life could be air breathing on a > planet with no rocky surface anywhere. > Sure. > > >?If you refigure all of the Rare Earth variables in with NASA's numbers, > I'm guessing you would end up with a MUCH smaller number. ?Kelly > > > > Ja. I found Ward?s Rare Earth a bit too narrow minded on what kind of > life forms could become tech enabled. He might be right. But it just felt > like he was over reaching just a bit. > > > Probably. Rare earth is loved by creationists, which also makes it a little suspect. I haven't read the book myself, so I dare not comment further on the book itself. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Sat Nov 9 13:11:58 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 06:11:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 9:12 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:06 AM, spike wrote: > > > OK now I am more puzzled than ever. NASA says there are about 8.8 >> billion Goldilocks planets in the Milky Way alone: >> http://news.yahoo.com/study-8-8-billion-earth-size-just-planets-212232920.html >> >> > > Well, 8.8*10^9 is a big number but that alone doesn't tell you anything, > the real question is if chemistry and biology can generate numbers as big > or bigger that can counteract astronomy's numbers. A chain of 20 amino > acids is too short to be considered a protein, but there are 20 different > types of amino acids in earthly life so there are 1.05*10^26 different ways > to make such a little chain. So already we have a number ten million > billion times larger than 8.8*10^9. And even bacteria are "astronomically" > more complex than such a simple 20 element peptide chain. And we aren?t > just talking about any old type of life, we're talking about life that can > make advanced technology, and so we must add yet another layer of big > numbers and "astronomical" complexity. > > > I must reluctantly conclude that we are missing something fundamental, >> > > I think one of the fundamental things we don't understand very well is how > life originated. In fact as far as we know right now, even the entire > observable universe is FAR too small to have made the existence of the > simplest known bacteria likely. And natural selection couldn't reduce the > odds until heredity was invented, only then do Darwin's ideas come into > play. So life simply can't exist, and yet it does, so we're missing > something. Graham Cairns-Smith and his clay hypothesis have some very > interesting ideas and could be the first step toward explaining it, maybe, > but we need a lot more evidence. > I recommend reading "Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins" by Robert Hazen for an overview of the clay model and a half dozen other similar models. But maybe I'm wrong, maybe it will turn out that biology's big numbers > can't equal astronomy's and life is common, then another mystery arises, > how likely is the Evolution of intelligence? Technology only started about > 10,000 years ago, and for over 85% of life's 3.8 billion year existence on > Earth it was satisfied with nothing but one celled organisms. Why the > sudden change? > The truth is that without knowing the simplest non DNA heredity available, we just don't know how difficult it is for life to evolve. The basic building blocks of amino acids are readily available. But there are a few orders of magnitude of increase in complexity between those and bacteria. Something had to happen in between. And maybe it happened on mars. Who knows? > Or maybe the reason we don't see ET is that some principle puts a lid on > how smart something can be and how much cosmic engineering that can be done > by it, my best guess on why that could be is that having access to your > emotional control panel might lead to positive feedback and mental > instability. I hope that's not the answer, I hope the answer is just that > the numbers from biology are bigger than the numbers from astronomy. > Me too. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Nov 9 14:12:25 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 14:12:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > And yet mars currently lacks a molten core. It also lacks the magnetosphere > that would protect martians from radiation. Would mars count as one of the > planets counted by NASA in this survey? > I think there is still debate about Mars. Quote: Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., analyzing three years of radio tracking data from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, concluded that Mars has not cooled to a completely solid iron core, rather its interior is made up of either a completely liquid iron core or a liquid outer core with a solid inner core. Their results are published in the March 7, 2003 online issue of the journal Science. ------- Quote: UCLA scientist discovers plate tectonics on Mars August 09, 2012 For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet's surface, also exists on Mars. ----------- BillK From spike66 at att.net Sat Nov 9 14:33:41 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 06:33:41 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> Message-ID: <03c301cedd58$b0680270$11380750$@att.net> .... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > And yet mars currently lacks a molten core. It also lacks the > magnetosphere that would protect martians from radiation. Would mars > count as one of the planets counted by NASA in this survey? > I think there is still debate about Mars. Quote: >...Researchers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., analyzing three years of radio tracking data from the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, concluded that Mars has not cooled to a completely solid iron core, rather its interior is made up of either a completely liquid iron core or a liquid outer core with a solid inner core. Their results are published in the March 7, 2003 online issue of the journal Science... -----------BillK _______________________________________________ Ja. The six elements known to be common to all lifeforms are CHONSP, roughly in that order by mass. All six of those are found on the surface of Mars. At one time it had water and a reducing atmosphere. I don't know for sure if it qualifies as a Goldilocks planet. To make that criterion water must exist in all three phases in equilibrium, as it does here on a frosty foggy morning, or on a misty forest pond. Actually I don't know if the definition requires ice, (probably not, there is no natural ice in the tropical rain forest.) Water and vapor is all you would need. spike From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Nov 9 17:03:27 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 12:03:27 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> So my next question is could any mind avoid becoming addicted if it had >> complete unrestricted access to its own emotional control panel? >> > > > of course. Any person interested in achieving any goal, aside from > bliss, But the emotional control panel would have more knobs in it than just one for bliss. If you want to experience a feeling of awe and mystery at the majesty of the universe just turn a knob. If you want to feel the beauty inherent in nature turn a knob. If you like to laugh but don't find The Three Stooges funny turn a knob. If all this knob turning makes you uneasy just turn yet another knob, now you feel that nothing is more noble than knob turning. > would modify its emotions to optimize the likelihood of achieving said > goals. We strive to achieve goals because it feels great when we are successful, but the trouble is achieving goals is almost always hard and sometimes downright impossible. The obvious solution is to create a much easier goal with the same emotional payoff. Any physicists alive would feel great on the day he was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering a quantum theory of gravity, but he may not have felt better that a eight year old who won his third grade science fair by showing that a mixture of vinegar and baking soda makes a lot of bubbles. So forget quantum gravity, it's too hard, just make bubbles. > > This might even involve removing the abilty to experience addiction. > I don't see how that could be done without removing the ability to be happy or experience pleasure, and then there would be no motivation to do anything at all. You could invert all the switches in your emotional control panel, but all that would mean is that pleasure and pain would swap positions; and if sickness and physical injury were pleasurable it could lead to other obvious problems. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Sat Nov 9 18:55:42 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sat, 9 Nov 2013 13:55:42 -0500 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 12:12 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > As most of you know, in 2010, some guy purchased about $25 worth of > Bitcoin, which is now worth over $800K. My working hypothesis is that this > will continue and that before 2020, Bitcoin will be worth a million bucks. > Maybe, but if simple extrapolation always worked predicting the future would be easy. It isn't. > Have you checked the price of Gold, lately? It's been crashing, > dramatically, for 2 years now. Yes. > Why do you think? There can only be one reason, the consensus in the free market is that inflation will not be a serious problem in the immediate future and that the greater problem right now is the exact opposite, deflation. Of course the free market is not infallible and can be wrong, but it's probably more likely to be right than you or me > The so called gold experts, are saying things like: "The bear market in > gold has been going on for two years. It seems to fly in the face of > fundamentals, as central banks print enough currency to paper the world." > Therefore the free market must have decided that factors other than the speed of government printing presses are more important in predicting the future, like the low percentage of factory utilization, high unemployment, and the dramatic increase in the availability of fossil fuels due to new technologies like fracking. > Once you factor in the fact that there is a new competitor in town, and > that people are starting to sell Gold to buy Bitcoin, that explains what > otherwise doesn't make sense That's ridiculous, most gold traders have probably never even heard of bitcoin and it's below microscopic compared with the gold market. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 03:54:33 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 16:54:33 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, 09 Nov 2013 10:11:12 +1300, John Clark wrote: > That seems pretty unlikely, the suns photosphere is icy cold, about > 6000K, > and as for the sun's corona the density is too low and the temperature is > only about 2 million degrees Kelvin, far too low for significant fusion > to > occur. Fusion is really hard to do, even the center of the sun is lousy > at it, Ah, perhaps it would have been better if I'd just said somewhere near the suns surface and left it at that, I could very well be mis-representing where exactly the author wrote it was happening. Although perhaps I should add that it's a bit complicated, there was mention of plasma streams forming double layers which induce nearby streams into forming tightly bound spirals, in the center of which something called Z-pinching occurs, which I presume is where plasma densities are increased and intense electric currents do their thing. But it's really a subject matter someone with a big brain should be looking at, I couldn't even pretend to know how plasma physics works in a neon sign, let alone parrot intelligently on how they claim a star works. > That's not the problem, the problem is that the gap between simple > organic > molecules and the simplest one celled organism known is astronomical. And > it is entirely possible that the word " astronomical" is far too weak a > word to describe that gap, if so then you need to look no further to > explain why the universe doesn't look like it's been engineered. Well I could be wrong, but seems to me biology has only recently got its second wind, so along with the synthetic bio-tech industry maybe in a decade or two they will have made more than a few discoveries that reveal a lot about some of the nifty shortcuts nature used in the beginning to get the job done. Well that, and maybe the critics are right and the current estimate of the age of the universe is off, or indeed a great big red herring in the first place. Maybe it really is just that our lucky numbers came up ahead of anybody else in the observable universe. A scary thought to be sure, but what are the alternative explanations we can live with?, at least till humans (or trans- or post-humans) start launching star-ships out into the universe and actively start looking for the answers. From andymck35 at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 03:54:39 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 16:54:39 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, 08 Nov 2013 21:45:24 +1300, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Yes, but more importantly, it would *completely* change the behavior of > stellar models. This is an area where a *huge* amount of theoretical and > empirical work has been done, producing models that agree with > observation very well (check any intro astrophysics book), yet would > behave very differently if you add fusion in the photosphere. Yeah sorry, scratch photosphere, I might very well be getting the labels wrong. But if I got the gist of it correctly, it's not 'adding' fusion at the surface, more likely 'instead of' fusion at the sun's core. And I should add, the fusion is merely a by-product, it's not what is actually powering the sun, their claim is that the sun is powered externally by vast electric plasma streams sitting/flowing around galaxies and the universe. So yeah, 'completely change' is probably an understatement. But hey, on the bright side, their arguments are claimed to be based entirely on the known laws of physics and states of matter, so in theory they are eminently testable. Anyone up for designing and building a ceramic probe that could be shot into a sunspot? The data returned could go on to settle a lot of arguments, possibly even upend the universe as we know it. :-) > Of course, maybe a century of astrophysicists have all barked up the > wrong tree. But in that case they managed to build a self-consistent > false family of models that accurately reproduce most features of the > H-Z diagram Well that is somewhat like what the author is claiming, although I'd say he states it a bit more gently. Scientists were and still are faced with the problem of not being able to put an instrument package on an interstellar probe and physically verify that the forces measured are in agreement with remote observation and the models that got developed. > and empirical data from nearly every star. Well thats one of the sticking points isn't it, if an astronomer or two can write a book cataloging images of stellar objects that the standard model indicates shouldn't physically exist, then that to me would be a sign that maybe the standard universe model isn't quite the done deal that many say it is. YMMV. > This is so non-trivial that I hold it to be much less likely than > alternate theories require extraordinary proof (like running a star code > with the new assumptions and reconstructing the empirical data). Not sure what a 'star code' is, but I'd note that some in the EU crowd have been running super computer simulations of star clusters (galaxies maybe?) running a plasma physics model, and the produced results that do indeed seem tally up closely with actual images of real stellar objects. The book has glossy images of the results to look at, amongst the other pretty and somewhat puzzling astronomical images (possibly also on a website somewhere I presume). From stathisp at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 06:06:50 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:06:50 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 8 November 2013 05:26, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 3:51 PM, Kelly Anderson > wrote: > >> > Now, I know John was referring to illegal drugs > > > Actually I was referring to something much more general than chemicals, > legal or illegal. I'd like to know if it is in the very nature of > intelligent minds that if they have complete access to their emotional > control panel they won't be motivated to do anything except move the > happiness, pleasure, and pride in a job well done knob to a higher setting. > If Einstein could have felt just as good as he did on the day he discovered > General Relativity just by turning a knob would he have bothered to spend > eleven grueling years to actually discover it? It's this sort of positive > feedback that worries me. Here's what Einstein would have done if he had direct access to his brain's control panel: he would have adjusted things so that his drive to do theoretical physics was even greater, the process more rewarding, and the dejection from going down a wrong pathway much less so as to minimise the risk that he would give up. Equivalently, if you were a heroin addict and could adjust your brain so you get the same reinforcement from something that you considered intrinsically worthwhile but normally found too difficult, why would you continue using heroin? -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 10 15:56:24 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 07:56:24 -0800 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment Message-ID: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> OK, so I went into Google maps, I was looking around when the idea struck me to check what information the commies have glastnosted to the world by now. I was astonished that they have Google maps working in street view. What a mind blower! I could wander the streets of Moscow without fear the commies would grab me. So I did, and I came to an intersection they would only identify as this: ???????? ?????, Moscow, Russia Address is approximate But they didn't actually tell me what that approximate address was. There was a young blonde woman walking along the street. She looks so nice! I wish I could meet her. Of course she is a godless commie and I am not, but at least we have the godless part in common. It's a phenomenon. So now I am obsessed with figuring out where this place is, so I might try to find that sweet looking blondie. Well not really. But it is really cool in any case to see what Google maps has done. I did have a real question for anyone who knows from Russia. Where are all the houses? Does everyone in and around Moscow live in those big apartment buildings? Do they not have anything analogous to American suburbs? Where are they? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 16:41:23 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 16:41:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment In-Reply-To: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> References: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: > I did have a real question for anyone who knows from Russia. Where are all > the houses? Does everyone in and around Moscow live in those big apartment > buildings? Do they not have anything analogous to American suburbs? Where > are they? > > You are talking like an American that has never visited European cities. Ooops - That's what you are! :) Those are city centre apartment blocks. Very common throughout Europe. Try street view in London, Paris or Milan. The million dollar apartments in London are much the same, but better furnished inside. You pay for the area, the company of other millionaires. I suspect the suburbs are out of town. :) BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 16:52:05 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 11:52:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 10:54 PM, Andrew Mckee wrote: > Although perhaps I should add that it's a bit complicated, there was > mention of plasma streams forming double layers which induce nearby > streams into forming tightly bound spirals, in the center of which > something called Z-pinching occurs, which I presume is where plasma > densities are increased and intense electric currents do their thing. > Even if significant fusion does occur in the sun's corona, which seems extremely unlikely, I don't see what that would have to do with the origin on life on Earth. >> That's not the problem, the problem is that the gap between simple >> organic >> molecules and the simplest one celled organism known is astronomical. And >> it is entirely possible that the word " astronomical" is far too weak a >> word to describe that gap, if so then you need to look no further to >> explain why the universe doesn't look like it's been engineered. >> > > > Well I could be wrong, but seems to me biology has only recently got its > second wind, so along with the synthetic bio-tech industry maybe in a > decade or two they will have made more than a few discoveries that reveal a > lot about some of the nifty shortcuts nature used in the beginning to get > the job done. > The observable universe is FAR too small and has existed for FAR too short a time for a living cell to have been created randomly anywhere, so there must be physical processes currently unknown that brings those odds way way way down. That much is clear, what is not clear is if the odds are brought down to the astronomical level, in which case it would be reasonable to expect that life happened once in the universe, or if the odds are brought down so low that life is common. Equally unknown is the likelihood that life will advance to the multicellular organism stage or the likelihood that one of those organisms will develop technology. > Maybe it really is just that our lucky numbers came up ahead of anybody > else in the observable universe. A scary thought to be sure, but what are > the alternative explanations we can live with? at least till humans (or > trans- or post-humans) start launching star-ships out into the universe and > actively start looking for the answers. If there were a billion or even a million year old technological civilization in the galaxy that had not descended into navel gazing and lotus eating I don't think you'd need a star-ship to find it because it would be immediately obvious to anyone who looked at the night sky. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 10 16:44:42 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 08:44:42 -0800 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment In-Reply-To: References: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> Message-ID: <083b01cede34$28908a70$79b19f50$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: Re: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: >>... I did have a real question for anyone who knows from Russia. Where > are all the houses? Does everyone in and around Moscow live in those > big apartment buildings? Do they not have anything analogous to > American suburbs? Where are they? >...You are talking like an American that has never visited European cities. Ooops - That's what you are! :) BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, if I had enough money to travel in Europe, I would use it to buy health insurance instead. spike {8-] From johnkclark at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 17:22:03 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 12:22:03 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 1:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou wrote: > Here's what Einstein would have done if he had direct access to his > brain's control panel: he would have adjusted things so that his drive > to do theoretical physics was even greater, the process more > rewarding, and the dejection from going down a wrong pathway much less > so as to minimise the risk that he would give up. I hope something like that could be made to work but I see problems. It's OK if he enjoys doing physics but to advance he must receive much more pleasure from doing NEW physics, but the trouble is that's very hard to do and happens rarely; it took Einstein over a decade to receive his reward in the pleasure of finding General Relativity. If you wanted to maximize your happiness it seems to me it would be better to reset the switches in your emotional control panel so that you received happiness not from finding new physics but from something much easier to accomplish and therefore happens a lot more often, like blowing bubbles. I hope I'm wrong about this. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 10 22:22:50 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 22:22:50 +0000 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment In-Reply-To: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> References: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> Message-ID: <5280073A.6060200@aleph.se> On 2013-11-10 15:56, spike wrote: > > So I did, and I came to an intersection they would only identify as this: > > ???????? ?????, Moscow, Russia > > Address is approximate > Googling it leads me to https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9B%D1%8F%D0%BB%D0%B8%D0%BD_%D0%BF%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%83%D0%BB%D0%BE%D0%BA, which google translate turns into "Lialin lane". Seems to be a nice street. > > Well not really. But it is really cool in any case to see what Google > maps has done. > It is pretty amazing. I use it in my roleplaying games to get realistic descriptions of the surroundings ("Across Ben Yehuda from your cafe there is a burger bar/thai/Subway building with a flat roof. Suddenly you see the telltale glint from a sniper scope on the second floor balcony... what do you do?") > I did have a real question for anyone who knows from Russia. Where > are all the houses? Does everyone in and around Moscow live in those > big apartment buildings? Do they not have anything analogous to > American suburbs? Where are they? > Look at https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=moscow&hl=en&ll=55.908148,37.482841&spn=0.003404,0.010568&sll=32.077577,34.768397&sspn=0.001295,0.002642&gl=uk&hnear=Moscow,+gorod+Moskva,+Russia&t=h&z=17 - yes, there are suburbs with villas. But most suburbs are of the big apartment type. It is actually quite telling how few villa-suburbs there are in Russian cities. Looking at Helsinki over in Finland you find lots of them, like https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=moscow&hl=en&ll=60.244949,24.933985&spn=0.012055,0.042272&sll=32.077577,34.768397&sspn=0.001295,0.002642&gl=uk&hnear=Moscow,+gorod+Moskva,+Russia&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=60.244949,24.933985&panoid=_xWZ5d6hqfcgf6WZ9a-1SQ&cbp=12,0,,0,0 - a lot of big apartment suburbs too, of course. A sign of the amount of central planning of the economy, and how much individual wealth/self-control there was. In fact, to me it is hard to tell Helsinki and Stockholm apart if just shown a random location in the suburbs. Of course, some places are dear to my heart like the street of my childhood: https://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Hagalundsgatan+11,+Solna,+Sweden&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=59.362816,18.008855&spn=0.000774,0.002642&sll=60.24503,24.934373&sspn=0.012055,0.042272&oq=hagalundsgatan+11,+sol&t=h&gl=uk&hnear=Hagalundsgatan+11,+169+65+Solna,+Stockholms+l%C3%A4n,+Sweden&z=19&layer=c&cbll=59.362816,18.008855&panoid=nWiZTJBEpKmqngHhNSzHSw&cbp=12,87.85,,0,-11.7 (much nicer than it looks, I promise) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 22:28:12 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 17:28:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment In-Reply-To: <5280073A.6060200@aleph.se> References: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> <5280073A.6060200@aleph.se> Message-ID: Talking about childhood places captured by google: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dlugosza+110&ie=UTF-8&ei=4AeAUoyDJtG0kQeF4IGADg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg I grew up in this house, and it just so happens that the guy photographed by the roving google van is my father. From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 22:41:54 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 22:41:54 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter Message-ID: I thought that I understood that dark matter was the invisible 'glue' holding galaxies together. i.e. Observation shows that the rotational speed of galaxies is such that there must be invisible dark matter present that stops the galaxy flying apart. But a casual comment in a documentary I have just watched used the phrase 'web of dark matter'. So I checked, and it appears that there are filaments of dark matter that link galaxies together. Quote: She added: ?Our standard picture of cosmology tells us that filaments of invisible matter thread through the universe, and this bridge of dark matter connecting two clusters is exactly what we would expect.? The research confirms that galaxy clusters form at the intersections of these vast filaments of dark matter. Quote: Simulations of the Universe on the largest scales show an unexpected resemblance to nerve cells in the human brain, with galaxy clusters playing the role of the cell body and thinner filaments of matter linking them like axons. These observations lend strong support to the theory that the Universe is built on a web of dark matter that has drawn in visible structures like galaxies and clusters. The large-scale structure (LSS) of the Universe that's predicted by the most widely accepted cosmological model involves long filaments of dark matter. Where these filaments intersect, large dark matter halos grow, and these provide the gravity for ordinary matter to collect. The largest halos become galaxy clusters, the biggest objects in the Universe held together by their own gravity. Surveys of galaxies show that the distribution of clusters corresponds to the predictions of LSS theory, providing strong indirect evidence for the existence of dark matter. ----------- I find the scale of these structures a bit mind boggling. So I think I'll sit quiet for a while until the boggle factor returns to normal. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 10 23:02:25 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 23:02:25 +0000 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment In-Reply-To: References: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> <5280073A.6060200@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > Talking about childhood places captured by google: > > https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dlugosza+110&ie=UTF-8&ei=4AeAUoyDJtG0kQeF4IGADg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg > > I grew up in this house, and it just so happens that the guy > photographed by the roving google van is my father. > The link gives me a list of many D?ugosza 110 in Poland. It must be a popular name. Do you mean D?ugosza 110, Nowa S?l, nowosolski, lubuskie, Poland? That was the first one I found with a man in the picture. BillK From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 04:19:51 2013 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 23:19:51 -0500 Subject: [ExI] google maps creates enders game moment In-Reply-To: References: <080701cede2d$68f60010$3ae20030$@att.net> <5280073A.6060200@aleph.se> Message-ID: Ok, this one should work right: https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&layer=c&z=17&iwloc=A&sll=50.365255,18.986047&cbp=13,160.7,0,0,0&cbll=50.365334,18.986003&q=dlugosza+110+piekary+slaskie&ei=WFqAUuv_HaKq2wW7vYGQBQ&ved=0CC8QxB0wAA On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 6:02 PM, BillK wrote: > On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 10:28 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: >> Talking about childhood places captured by google: >> >> https://maps.google.com/maps?q=dlugosza+110&ie=UTF-8&ei=4AeAUoyDJtG0kQeF4IGADg&ved=0CAoQ_AUoAg >> >> I grew up in this house, and it just so happens that the guy >> photographed by the roving google van is my father. >> > > The link gives me a list of many D?ugosza 110 in Poland. It must be a > popular name. > Do you mean D?ugosza 110, Nowa S?l, nowosolski, lubuskie, Poland? > > That was the first one I found with a man in the picture. > > > BillK > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -- Rafal Smigrodzki, MD-PhD Senior Scientist, Gencia Corporation 706 B Forest St. Charlottesville, VA 22903 tel: (434) 295-4800 fax: (434) 295-4951 This electronic message transmission contains information from the biotechnology firm of Gencia Corporation which may be confidential or privileged. The information is intended to be for the use of the individual or entity named above. If you are not the intended recipient, be aware that any disclosure, copying, distribution or use of the contents of this information is prohibited. If you have received this electronic transmission in error, please notify us by telephone (434-295-4800) or by electronic mail (fportell at genciabiotech.com) immediately. From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 05:41:35 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 22:41:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 3:41 PM, BillK wrote: > I find the scale of these structures a bit mind boggling. > So I think I'll sit quiet for a while until the boggle factor returns to > normal. > It might boggle your mind a little less to understand that these large scale structures likely formed VERY early in the life of the universe and have simply been expanding to their ungodly current size over the last 13.7 billion years. Yes, the scales of anything beyond our little planet strain our African-made and optimized primate brains. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Mon Nov 11 08:00:33 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 08:00:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> On 2013-11-11 05:41, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 3:41 PM, BillK > wrote: > > I find the scale of these structures a bit mind boggling. > So I think I'll sit quiet for a while until the boggle factor > returns to normal. > > > It might boggle your mind a little less to understand that these large > scale structures likely formed VERY early in the life of the universe > and have simply been expanding to their ungodly current size over the > last 13.7 billion years. Yes, the scales of anything beyond our little > planet strain our African-made and optimized primate brains. In fact, we cannot even handle planetary scales. I cannot intuitively think about the distance from Oxford to Stockholm or even London. I can compare it to known distances, I can play around with imagined maps, I can remember what the trip is like, but I don't *feel* it like I feel the distances within the towns where I have walked. I suspect the reason is that in order to go between these places I have to take a vehicle rather than wander. In between these target places there is an awful lot of places that would feel big to me if I were in them, but since I have never been to Ipswich I do not have any feel for it. It is just a point on my mental map (with a sticky note saying it was used in a Monty Python joke). The large scale structure is pretty awesome. This video looks at the local motions of galactic clusters (starts slow, gets awesome): http://vimeo.com/66641648 -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andymck35 at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 11:07:09 2013 From: andymck35 at gmail.com (Andrew Mckee) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 00:07:09 +1300 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 05:52:05 +1300, John Clark wrote: > Even if significant fusion does occur in the sun's corona, which seems > extremely unlikely, I don't see what that would have to do with the > origin > on life on Earth. Merely speculating that two different sun models might have very different emission profiles, assuming of course anything essential for life does or can escape the suns gravity well. > If there were a billion or even a million year old technological > civilization in the galaxy that had not descended into navel gazing and > lotus eating I don't think you'd need a star-ship to find it because it > would be immediately obvious to anyone who looked at the night sky. Maybe. But do all technology trees necessarily result in civilizations broadcasting their existence out to the universe? What about species evolved to be extremely fearful of doing anything that might call attention to themselves? What if broadcasting your existence is really stupid because some stealthy Borg like race like nothing more than assimilating tech capable civilizations, blink at your telescope and you miss their rise and downfall. From protokol2020 at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 11:25:32 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:25:32 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: > Maybe. Those who might be there for a long time already and aren't capable/willing of colonizing space, are as useless as rocks on Mars. Now we know, those rocks are stone dead. Something "we didn't know" not that long ago. BTW, as I can recall, Kepler was supposed to be able to detect free oxygen on those far away planets. Or it was just a NASA's marketing, like these 10^10 Goldilocks planets now. On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:07 PM, Andrew Mckee wrote: > On Mon, 11 Nov 2013 05:52:05 +1300, John Clark > wrote: > > Even if significant fusion does occur in the sun's corona, which seems >> extremely unlikely, I don't see what that would have to do with the origin >> on life on Earth. >> > > Merely speculating that two different sun models might have very different > emission profiles, assuming of course anything essential for life does or > can escape the suns gravity well. > > > > If there were a billion or even a million year old technological >> civilization in the galaxy that had not descended into navel gazing and >> lotus eating I don't think you'd need a star-ship to find it because it >> would be immediately obvious to anyone who looked at the night sky. >> > > Maybe. > > But do all technology trees necessarily result in civilizations > broadcasting their existence out to the universe? > > What about species evolved to be extremely fearful of doing anything that > might call attention to themselves? > > What if broadcasting your existence is really stupid because some stealthy > Borg like race like nothing more than assimilating tech capable > civilizations, blink at your telescope and you miss their rise and downfall. > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 11 11:42:03 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:42:03 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131111114203.GI5661@leitl.org> On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:07:09AM +1300, Andrew Mckee wrote: > Merely speculating that two different sun models might have very > different emission profiles, assuming of course anything essential > for life does or can escape the suns gravity well. When cooking dogs, do not exceed the recommended cooking time for canines. > > >If there were a billion or even a million year old technological > >civilization in the galaxy that had not descended into navel gazing and > >lotus eating I don't think you'd need a star-ship to find it because it > >would be immediately obvious to anyone who looked at the night sky. > > Maybe. > > But do all technology trees necessarily result in civilizations > broadcasting their existence out to the universe? Yes. Because the laws of thermdynamics are not optional. And they're not civilizations. They're diverse postecosystems. There is a very large difference between these two. > What about species evolved to be extremely fearful of doing anything > that might call attention to themselves? Out of a trillion species one or two will actually do that, and never matter. All the other ones go forth and multiply. > What if broadcasting your existence is really stupid because some Breathing is really stupid. Ever tried not to? > stealthy Borg like race like nothing more than assimilating tech You only need atoms and Joules. > capable civilizations, blink at your telescope and you miss their > rise and downfall. You might miss one or two FIR blacbodies. But not whole superclusters of them. You will only miss them if you're dead. From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 11 11:57:54 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 12:57:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131111115754.GL5661@leitl.org> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 08:00:33AM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: > In fact, we cannot even handle planetary scales. I cannot > intuitively think about the distance from Oxford to Stockholm or > even London. I can compare it to known distances, I can play around > with imagined maps, I can remember what the trip is like, but I > don't *feel* it like I feel the distances within the towns where I > have walked. I suspect the reason is that in order to go between > these places I have to take a vehicle rather than wander. In between > these target places there is an awful lot of places that would feel > big to me if I were in them, but since I have never been to Ipswich > I do not have any feel for it. It is just a point on my mental map > (with a sticky note saying it was used in a Monty Python joke). I think the failure is due to absence of evolutionary pressures to evolve e.g. place cell representations for large scale landscapes. When navigating there, you string along landmarks -- probably a different representation (linear memory sequence) from place cells. From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 12:47:00 2013 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:47:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > BTW, as I can recall, Kepler was supposed to be able to detect free oxygen on those far away planets. Or it was just a NASA's marketing, like these 10^10 Goldilocks planets now. Actually, no it cannot do that. Kepler only detect brightness changes, when a planet partly eclipses its star relative to us. In order to detect oxygen, you'll need observations with telescopes capable of taking spectra. While most ground-based telescope are equipped for that, I don't know if any of them are sensitive enough - those planets are extremely faint. Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Mon Nov 11 13:03:35 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 14:03:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Computer chips inspired by human neurons can do more with less power. Message-ID: <20131111130335.GM5661@leitl.org> http://www.nature.com/news/neuroelectronics-smart-connections-1.14089 Neuroelectronics: Smart connections Computer chips inspired by human neurons can do more with less power. M. Mitchell Waldrop 06 November 2013 Kwabena Boahen holds a 'neuromorphic' circuit board from his Neurogrid device. RAMIN RAHIMIAN Kwabena Boahen got his first computer in 1982, when he was a teenager living in Accra. ?It was a really cool device,? he recalls. He just had to connect up a cassette player for storage and a television set for a monitor, and he could start writing programs. But Boahen wasn't so impressed when he found out how the guts of his computer worked. ?I learned how the central processing unit is constantly shuffling data back and forth. And I thought to myself, 'Man! It really has to work like crazy!'? He instinctively felt that computers needed a little more 'Africa' in their design, ?something more distributed, more fluid and less rigid?. Today, as a bioengineer at Stanford University in California, Boahen is among a small band of researchers trying to create this kind of computing by reverse-engineering the brain. The brain is remarkably energy efficient and can carry out computations that challenge the world's largest supercomputers, even though it relies on decidedly imperfect components: neurons that are a slow, variable, organic mess. Comprehending language, conducting abstract reasoning, controlling movement ? the brain does all this and more in a package that is smaller than a shoebox, consumes less power than a household light bulb, and contains nothing remotely like a central processor. To achieve similar feats in silicon, researchers are building systems of non-digital chips that function as much as possible like networks of real neurons. Just a few years ago, Boahen completed a device called Neurogrid that emulates a million neurons ? about as many as there are in a honeybee's brain. And now, after a quarter-century of development, applications for 'neuromorphic technology' are finally in sight. The technique holds promise for anything that needs to be small and run on low power, from smartphones and robots to artificial eyes and ears. That prospect has attracted many investigators to the field during the past five years, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding from agencies in both the United States and Europe. Neuromorphic devices are also providing neuroscientists with a powerful research tool, says Giacomo Indiveri at the Institute of Neuroinformatics (INI) in Zurich, Switzerland. By seeing which models of neural function do or do not work as expected in real physical systems, he says, ?you get insight into why the brain is built the way it is?. Nature special: New angles on the brain And, says Boahen, the neuromorphic approach should help to circumvent a looming limitation to Moore's law ? the longstanding trend of computer-chip manufacturers managing to double the number of transistors they can fit into a given space every two years or so. This relentless shrinkage will soon lead to the creation of silicon circuits so small and tightly packed that they no longer generate clean signals: electrons will leak through the components, making them as messy as neurons. Some researchers are aiming to solve this problem with software fixes, for example by using statistical error-correction techniques similar to those that help the Internet to run smoothly. But ultimately, argues Boahen, the most effective solution is the same one the brain arrived at millions of years ago. ?My goal is a new computing paradigm,? Boahen says, ?something that will compute even when the components are too small to be reliable.? Silicon cells The neuromorphic idea goes back to the 1980s and Carver Mead: a world-renowned pioneer in microchip design at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. He coined the term and was one of the first to emphasize the brain's huge energy-efficiency advantage. ?That's been the fascination for me,? he says, ?how in the heck can the brain do what it does?? Mead's strategy for answering that question was to mimic the brain's low-power processing with 'sub-threshold' silicon: circuitry that operates at voltages too small to flip a standard computer bit from a 0 to a 1. At those voltages, there is still a tiny, irregular trickle of electrons running through the transistors ? a spontaneous ebb and flow of current that is remarkably similar in size and variability to that carried by ions flowing through a channel in a neuron. With the addition of microscopic capacitors, resistors and other components to control these currents, Mead reasoned, it should be possible to make tiny circuits that exhibit the same electrical behaviour as real neurons. They could be linked up in decentralized networks that function much like real neural circuits in the brain, with communication lines running between components rather than through a central processor1, 2. Expand By the 1990s, Mead and his colleagues had shown it was possible to build a realistic silicon neuron3 (see 'Biological inspiration'). That device could accept outside electrical input through junctions that performed the role of synapses, the tiny structures through which nerve impulses jump from one neuron to the next. It allowed the incoming signals to build up voltage in the circuit's interior, much as they do in real neurons. And if the accumulating voltage passed a certain threshold, the silicon neuron 'fired', producing a series of voltage spikes that travelled along a wire playing the part of an axon, the neuron's communication cable. Although the spikes were 'digital' in the sense that they were either on or off, the body of the silicon neuron operated ? like real neurons ? in a non-digital way, meaning that the voltages and currents weren't restricted to a few discrete values as they are in conventional chips. That behaviour mimics one key to the brain's low-power usage: just like their biological counterparts, the silicon neurons simply integrated inputs, using very little energy, until they fired. By contrast, a conventional computer needs a constant flow of energy to run an internal clock, whether or not the chips are computing anything. Mead's group also demonstrated decentralized neural circuits ? most notably in a silicon version of the eye's retina. That device captured light using a 50-by-50 grid of detectors. When their activity was displayed on a computer screen, these silicon cells showed much the same response as their real counterparts to light, shadow and motion4. Like the brain, this device saves energy by sending only the data that matters: most of the cells in the retina don't fire until the light level changes. This has the effect of highlighting the edges of moving objects, while minimizing the amount of data that has to be transmitted and processed. Coding challenge In those early days, researchers had their hands full mastering single-chip devices such as the silicon retina, says Boahen, who joined Mead's lab in 1990. But by the end of the 1990s, he says, ?we wanted to build a brain, and for that we needed large-scale communication?. That was a huge challenge: the standard coding algorithms for chip-to-chip communication had been devised for precisely coordinated digital signals, and wouldn't work for the more-random spikes created by neuromorphic systems. Only in the 2000s did Boahen and others devise circuitry and algorithms that would work in this messier system, opening the way for a flurry of development in large-scale neuromorphic systems. Among the first applications were large-scale emulators to give neuroscientists an easy way to test models of brain function. In September 2006, for example, Boahen launched the Neurogrid project: an effort to emulate a million neurons. That is only a tiny chunk of the 86 billion neurons in the human brain, but enough to model several of the densely interconnected columns of neurons thought to form the computational units of the human cortex. Neuroscientists can program Neurogrid to emulate almost any model of the cortex, says Boahen. They can then watch their model run at the same speed as the brain ? hundreds to thousands of times faster than a conventional digital simulation. Graduate students and researchers have used it to test theoretical models of neural function for processes such as working memory, decision-making and visual attention. ?In terms of real efficiency, in terms of fidelity to the brain's neuronal networks, Kwabena's Neurogrid is well in advance of other large-scale neuromorphic systems,? says Rodney Douglas, co-founder of the INI and co-developer of the silicon neuron. But no system is perfect, as Boahen himself is quick to point out. One of Neurogrid's biggest shortcomings is that its synapses ? of which there is an average of 5,000 per neuron ? are simplified connections that cannot be modified individually. This means that the system cannot be used to model learning, which occurs in the brain when synapses are modified by experience. Given the limited space available on the chip, squeezing in the complex circuitry needed to make each synapse behave in a more realistic manner would require circuit elements about a thousand times smaller in area than they are at present ? in the realm of nanotechnology. This is currently impossible, although a newly developed class of nanometre-scale memory devices called 'memristors' could someday solve the problem. ?We envision building fully autonomous robots that interact with their environments in a meaningful way.? Another issue stems from inevitable variations in the fabrication process, which mean that every neuromorphic chip performs slightly differently. ?The variability is still much less than what is observed in the brain,? says Boahen ? but it does mean that programs for Neurogrid have to allow for substantial variations in the silicon neurons' firing rates. This issue has led some researchers to abandon Mead's original idea of using sub-threshold chips. Instead, they are using more conventional digital systems that are still neuromorphic in the sense that they mimic the electrical behaviour of individual neurons, but are more predictable and much easier to program ? at the cost of using more power. A leading example is the SpiNNaker Project, led since 2005 by computer engineer Steve Furber at the University of Manchester, UK. This system uses a version of the very-low-power digital chips ? which Furber helped to develop ? that are found in many smartphones. SpiNNaker can currently emulate up to 5 million neurons. These neurons are simpler than those in Neurogrid and burn more power, says Furber, but the system's purpose is similar: ?running large-scale brain models in biological real time?. Another effort sticks with neuron-like chips, but boosts their speed. Neurogrid's neurons operate at exactly the same rate as real ones. But the European BrainScaleS project, headed by former accelerator-physicist Karlheinz Meier at Heidelberg University in Germany, is developing a neuromorphic system that currently emulates 400,000 neurons running up to 10,000 times faster than real time. This means it consumes about 10,000 times more energy than equivalent processes in the brain. But the speed is a boon for some neuroscience researchers. ?We can simulate a day of neural activity in 10 seconds,? Meier says. Furber and Meier now have the money to push for bigger and better. Together they constitute the neuromorphic arm of the European Union's ten-year, ?1-billion (US$1.3-billion) Human Brain Project, which was officially launched last month. The roughly ?100 million devoted to neuromorphic research will allow Furber's group to scale up his system to 500 million digital neurons; Meier's group, meanwhile, is aiming for 4 million. The success of these research-oriented projects has helped to stoke interest in the idea of using neuromorphic hardware for practical, ultra-low-power applications in devices from phones to robots. Until recently, that hadn't been a priority in the computer industry. Chip designers could usually minimize energy consumption by simplifying circuit design, or splitting computations over multiple processor 'cores' that can run in parallel or shut down when they are not needed. But these approaches can only achieve so much. Since 2008, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has spent more than $100 million on its SyNAPSE project to develop compact, low-power neuromorphic technology. One of the project's main contractors, the cognitive computing group at IBM's research centre in Almaden, California, has used its share of the money to develop digital, 256-neuron chips that can be used as building blocks for larger-scale systems. Brain power Boahen is pursuing his own approach to practical applications ? most notably in an as-yet-unnamed initiative he started in April. The project is based on Spaun: a design for a computer model of the brain that includes the parts responsible for vision, movement and decision-making. Spaun relies on a programming language for neural circuitry developed a decade ago by Chris Eliasmith, a theoretical neuroscientist at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada. A user just has to specify a desired neural function ? the generation of instructions to move an arm, for example ? and Eliasmith's system will automatically design a network of spiking neurons to carry out that function. To see if it would work, Eliasmith and his colleagues simulated Spaun on a conventional computer. They showed that, with 2.5 million simulated neurons plus a simulated retina and hand, it could copy handwritten digits, recall the items in a list, work out the next number in a given sequence and carry out several other cognitive tasks5. That's an unprecedented range of abilities by neural simulation standards, says Boahen. But the Spaun simulation ran about 9,000 times slower than real time, taking 2.5 hours to simulate 1 second of behaviour. Boahen contacted Eliasmith with the obvious proposition: build a physical version of Spaun using real-time neuromorphic hardware. ?I got very excited,? says Eliasmith, for whom the match seemed perfect. ?You've got the peanut butter, we've got the chocolate!? With funding from the US Office of Naval Research, Boahen and Eliasmith have put together a team that plans to build a small-scale prototype in three years and a full-scale system in five. For sensory input they will use neuromorphic retinas and cochleas developed at the INI, says Boahen. For output, they have a robotic arm. But the cognitive hardware will be built from scratch. ?This is not a new Neurogrid, but a whole new architecture,? he says. It will trade a certain amount of realism for practicality, relying on ?very simple, very efficient neurons so that we can scale to the millions?. The system is explicitly designed for real-world applications. On a five-year timescale, says Boahen, ?we envision building fully autonomous robots that interact with their environments in a meaningful way, and operate in real-time while [their brains] consume as much electricity as a cell phone?. Such devices would be much more flexible and adaptive than today's autonomous robots, and would consume considerably less power. In the longer term, Boahen adds, the project could pave the way for compact, low-power processors in any computer system, not just robotics. If researchers really have managed to capture the essential ingredients that make the brain so efficient, compact and robust, then it could be the salvation of an industry about to run into a wall as chips get ever smaller. ?But we won't know for sure,? Boahen says, ?until we try.? Nature 503, 22?24 (07 November 2013) doi:10.1038/503022a References Mead, C. Analog VLSI and Neural Systems (Addison-Wesley, 1989). ?They could be linked up in decentralized networks that function much like real neural circuits in the brain, with communication lines running between components rather than through a central processor1, 2? in article Mead, C. Proc. IEEE 78, 1629?1636 (1990). ?They could be linked up in decentralized networks that function much like real neural circuits in the brain, with communication lines running between components rather than through a central processor1, 2? in article Mahowald, M. & Douglas, R. Nature 354, 515?518 (1991). By the 1990s, Mead and his colleagues had shown it was possible to build a realistic silicon neuron3 (see 'Biological inspiration')? in article Mahowald, M. A. & Mead, C. Sci. Am. 264, 76?82 (May 1991). ?When their activity was displayed on a computer screen, these silicon cells showed much the same response as their real counterparts to light, shadow and motion4? in article Eliasmith, C. et al. Science 338, 1202?1205 (2012). ?5 million simulated neurons plus a simulated retina and hand, it could copy handwritten digits, recall the items in a list, work out the next number in a given sequence and carry out several other cognitive tasks5? in article From protokol2020 at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 14:14:50 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 15:14:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: > Actually, no it cannot do that. I can. Now NASA wants TESS mission to do the spectroscopy and oxygen search. I don't know when it was postponed to the next mission. But originally was advertised for Kepler. On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:47 PM, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > > > > On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:25 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > > > BTW, as I can recall, Kepler was supposed to be able to detect free > oxygen on those far away planets. Or it was just a NASA's marketing, like > these 10^10 Goldilocks planets now. > > Actually, no it cannot do that. Kepler only detect brightness changes, > when a planet partly eclipses its star relative to us. In order to detect > oxygen, you'll need observations with telescopes capable of taking spectra. > While most ground-based telescope are equipped for that, I don't know if > any of them are sensitive enough - those planets are extremely faint. > > Alfio > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From alfio.puglisi at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 14:49:17 2013 From: alfio.puglisi at gmail.com (Alfio Puglisi) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 15:49:17 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:14 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > > Actually, no it cannot do that. > > I can. Now NASA wants TESS mission to do the spectroscopy and oxygen > search. I don't know when it was postponed to the next mission. But > originally was advertised for Kepler. > You mean that there were plans to have a spectrometer on Kepler in addition to ordinary focal plane detectors? That's news to me, but I would be interested in some links if you have them Alfio -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Nov 11 14:43:50 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 06:43:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] ny and md limits on 23andMe Message-ID: <044d01cedeec$70c91ec0$525b5c40$@att.net> Perfect example of why we empower states: http://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog/2012/12/23/ny-and-md-limits-on-23andme/ NY and NJ are free to be DNA Nazis if they want. The fed gets paid twice, since the citizens of those states must mail their sample to a friend in another state, who then unwraps the package within and sends it on. Alternative, the fed doesn't get paid at all, since the sender goes to FedEx or UPS. spike From protokol2020 at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 16:09:31 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:09:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: I can't find any direct reference to this now. Currently everybody agrees that Kepler is unfortunately unable to find free oxygen, but the next mission will be able to. Still I remember it. 100 000 stars will be scanned they said and we can "hope for a free oxygen footprint". Something like that. Now, wait for TESS! On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > > > On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:14 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > >> > Actually, no it cannot do that. >> >> I can. Now NASA wants TESS mission to do the spectroscopy and oxygen >> search. I don't know when it was postponed to the next mission. But >> originally was advertised for Kepler. >> > > > You mean that there were plans to have a spectrometer on Kepler in > addition to ordinary focal plane detectors? That's news to me, but I would > be interested in some links if you have them > > Alfio > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Mon Nov 11 17:23:47 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 09:23:47 -0800 Subject: [ExI] next stop, whoville, was: RE: Dark Matter Message-ID: <063e01cedf02$c8ab20f0$5a0162d0$@att.net> On Behalf Of Eugen Leitl Subject: Re: [ExI] Dark Matter On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 08:00:33AM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: >>... In fact, we cannot even handle planetary scales... >...I think the failure is due to absence of evolutionary pressures to evolve e.g. place cell representations for large scale landscapes... _______________________________________________ We have a pretty good feel for the fact that human population is already at or beyond the long term environmental carrying capacity of the earth. But we don't necessarily need to solve that by reducing our numbers, which is difficult or impossible to do gracefully. But we have an evolutionary path open to us which will likely become very important. We humans in our current form are very disorganized at the atomic level. If we manage to upload to a smaller more organized substrate, we can get to more human minds using less matter, less land mass, less energy. Even before we get to true uploading, if we can tweak our own internal emotional operating system, we could perhaps figure out a way to adjust our male sexual ideal from the 6 ft tall 200 pound to a 4 ft 100 pound male for instance. We could perhaps get there just with ordinary embryo selection using only current technology. With carry-everywhere internet connection, we have the first step toward outloading and wearing our human knowledge base. In the last few centuries with the industrial revolution, we have freed ourselves from the need to fight alpha predators, and largely freed ourselves from having to fight each other at the individual human scale. With those developments, we have opened the door to evolving downward in physical size. From their point of view during the evolving downsize process, for the first time in history, the physical size of the planet actually increases from their perspective. All we now need is a way to influence female mate selection instincts to choose downward in physical size; we should be able to do that somehow. We can imagine a civilization of small, numerous, well fed prosperous super interconnected inter-evolving humans, who pity those left behind in the sparsely populated areas of the planet where the hungry, violent ignorant biggies live in wretched poverty, still battling the brutal elements and the wild beasts. Next stop Whoville. spike From dan_ust at yahoo.com Mon Nov 11 21:32:38 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 13:32:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] ny and md limits on 23andMe In-Reply-To: <044d01cedeec$70c91ec0$525b5c40$@att.net> References: <044d01cedeec$70c91ec0$525b5c40$@att.net> Message-ID: <7EF6F25B-F9D0-486E-9271-53A84864760F@yahoo.com> On Nov 11, 2013, at 6:43 AM, "spike" wrote: > Perfect example of why we empower states: But "we" don't "empower" states. They didn't you or me, "Hey, guys, would you allow us to place several layers of despotism over you? No? How about this: we pretend these levels compete with each and this makes you more free than, say, if each of you decided these issues without our meddling in everyone's lives? Isn't that a delusion that will satisfy the easily distracted?" Regards, Dan A thriller by me set in the far south seas: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GHX2M1O -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Nov 11 23:22:12 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 18:22:12 -0500 Subject: [ExI] next stop, whoville, was: RE: Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <063e01cedf02$c8ab20f0$5a0162d0$@att.net> References: <063e01cedf02$c8ab20f0$5a0162d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:23 PM, spike wrote: > We can imagine a civilization of small, numerous, well fed prosperous super > interconnected inter-evolving humans, who pity those left behind in the > sparsely populated areas of the planet where the hungry, violent ignorant > biggies live in wretched poverty, still battling the brutal elements and > the > wild beasts. > > Next stop Whoville. > Is this morlocks vs eloi, where the eloi are tiny smarties and the morlocks are big dumb brutes? Just checking because it sounded familiar even with the characteristics reversed. :) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Nov 12 01:37:25 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:37:25 -0800 Subject: [ExI] next stop, whoville In-Reply-To: References: <063e01cedf02$c8ab20f0$5a0162d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Nov 11, 2013, at 3:22 PM, Mike Dougherty wrote: >> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 12:23 PM, spike wrote: >> We can imagine a civilization of small, numerous, well fed prosperous super >> interconnected inter-evolving humans, who pity those left behind in the >> sparsely populated areas of the planet where the hungry, violent ignorant biggies live in wretched poverty, still battling the brutal elements and the wild beasts. >> >> Next stop Whoville. > > Is this morlocks vs eloi, where the eloi are tiny smarties and the morlocks are big dumb brutes? > > Just checking because it sounded familiar even with the characteristics reversed. :) Morlocks were brutish, but I don't think they were stupid. The Eloi were gentle but they were definitely not smart. The former used the latter as cattle. Regards, Dan My latest story, a thriller set in the far south seas: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GHX2M1O -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Nov 12 01:41:07 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Mon, 11 Nov 2013 17:41:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Nov 10, 2013, at 9:41 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > It might boggle your mind a little less to understand that these large scale structures likely formed VERY early in the life of the universe and have simply been expanding to their ungodly current size over the last 13.7 billion years. Yes, the scales of anything beyond our little planet strain our African-made and optimized primate brains. I don't primate brain evolution began and stopped in Africa. Regards, Dan A thriller by me set in the far south seas: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GHX2M1O -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 07:32:55 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:32:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: But if you don't have a spectrometer, you have some RGB images and you can do this: http://www.cabrillo.edu/~dbrown/tracker/AAPT_spectroscopy_poster.pdf There is no excuse of not having a spectrometer on Kepler. If you really want to find free oxygen on a distant planet, you can do it with the above technique. In fact, traces of O2 have been found on some giants like Kepler 22b. Tiny amounts. So, it should be easy to spot 20% of free oxygen in an atmosphere, even far away. On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 5:09 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > I can't find any direct reference to this now. Currently everybody agrees > that Kepler is unfortunately unable to find free oxygen, but the next > mission will be able to. > > Still I remember it. 100 000 stars will be scanned they said and we can > "hope for a free oxygen footprint". Something like that. > > Now, wait for TESS! > > > On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:49 PM, Alfio Puglisi wrote: > >> >> >> On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 3:14 PM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: >> >>> > Actually, no it cannot do that. >>> >>> I can. Now NASA wants TESS mission to do the spectroscopy and oxygen >>> search. I don't know when it was postponed to the next mission. But >>> originally was advertised for Kepler. >>> >> >> >> You mean that there were plans to have a spectrometer on Kepler in >> addition to ordinary focal plane detectors? That's news to me, but I would >> be interested in some links if you have them >> >> Alfio >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > > -- > https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Tue Nov 12 07:32:53 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:32:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun Message-ID: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> https://www.coursera.org/course/nanotech From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 12 08:22:24 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:22:24 +0000 Subject: [ExI] next stop, whoville In-Reply-To: References: <063e01cedf02$c8ab20f0$5a0162d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <5281E540.4080600@aleph.se> Well, I have the paper about the ethics. http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/human-engineering-climate-change.pdf http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/03/how-engineering-the-human-body-could-combat-climate-change/253981/ As some of you might remember, it was mildly controversial. When trolling, finding a group that has two hot buttons and pressing them simultaneously works very well: there were a lot of bioconservative climate denialists out there. I think size change is unlikely to matter if we just do it biologically - we ought to go fully virtual. It is the green thing: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/03/a_really_green_and_sustainable_humanity.html -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 12 08:24:40 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:24:40 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <20131111115754.GL5661@leitl.org> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <20131111115754.GL5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5281E5C8.6040209@aleph.se> On 2013-11-11 11:57, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 08:00:33AM +0000, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> In between >> these target places there is an awful lot of places that would feel >> big to me if I were in them, but since I have never been to Ipswich >> I do not have any feel for it. It is just a point on my mental map >> (with a sticky note saying it was used in a Monty Python joke). > I think the failure is due to absence of evolutionary pressures > to evolve e.g. place cell representations for large scale landscapes. > When navigating there, you string along landmarks -- probably a > different representation (linear memory sequence) from place > cells. > Yup. Distance is experienced in terms of passed landmarks and/or perceived movement in a space. This is why travel by subway makes a city's geography very warped. Enhanced place and grid cells would be awesome. Imagine a google map interface for the hippocampus. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From dan_ust at yahoo.com Tue Nov 12 18:03:32 2013 From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 10:03:32 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Review of Antifragile Message-ID: http://www.mises.org/emails/QJAE/QJAE_16_3_Howden.html Regards, Dan A thriller by me set in the far south seas: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GHX2M1O -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 18:45:28 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:45:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:32 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > There is no excuse of not having a spectrometer on Kepler. > I can think of a pretty good excuse, the telescope on Kepler was nowhere near big enough even to produce a single pixel image of a earth-like planet, let alone produce enough light to feed into a spectroscope. All Kepler could do is record the small dinning of the host star when a planet occluded it. If NASA had 10 or 20 extra billion to spend on a much much larger telescope then a spectroscope might have been appropriate. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 18:56:06 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:56:06 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Review of Antifragile In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 6:03 PM, Dan Ust wrote: > http://www.mises.org/emails/QJAE/QJAE_16_3_Howden.html > > The trouble with getting an Austrian economist to review the book is that he criticizes it whenever it doesn't fit in with Austrian economics theory and reckons that it would be greatly improved by adding Austrian propaganda. For a more balanced (and enthusiastic) review: Quote: Every once in a while, a book comes out with ideas that are like fireworks. Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book "Antifragile" is a explosion of life changing ideas. Even thinking that things are predictable makes us more fragile for we invest in that vision of the future and optimize for that single future. "Life is lived forward, but remembered backward." We as humans are prone to single path thinking. Our human minds make up narratives to fit circumstances retroactively. Even a false narrative will make us feel better. Predictions are based on normal variations and the recent past which ignores a Hurricane Sandy. The author describes Hurricane Sandy events as Black Swan events. These are events that are so rare that no one anticipates them. A very-smart corporate turkey is being fed for a thousand days by a butcher. A staff of analysts say that butchers love turkeys and the future looks brighter and hopeful with each passing day. The positive outlook has a greater statistical significance each day. The turkey assumes from the past that since there was no harm so far that there will be no harm in the future. Then butchering day comes! So then how can we win as turkeys in this world, when we cannot know who is the butcher and when butchering day happens? Here is where Taleb's book shines with practical suggestions. ----------- BillK From max at maxmore.com Tue Nov 12 19:06:22 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 12:06:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party Message-ID: A bit of balance: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clementlawyer at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 19:45:49 2013 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:45:49 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Well, with quotes like this: "Numerically speaking, according to Gallup, only a marginally higher percentage of Republicans *reject evolution completely*than do Democrats. Yes, an embarrassing *half of Republicans* believe the earth is only 10,000 years old?but so do more than *a third of Democrats*. And a slightly higher percentage of Democrats believe God was the guiding factor in evolution than Republicans," who cares whether one's talking about Democrats or Republicans, they both have far too many religious idiots! On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Max More wrote: > A bit of balance: > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ > > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher > Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* > > http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader > President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > 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 giulio at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 20:12:50 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:12:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <33DBAF17-9765-4266-A4E3-B9CFDFC5CE6B@gmail.com> Good article, balanced indeed. > On 12 Nov 2013, at 08:06 pm, Max More wrote: > > A bit of balance: > > http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ > > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher > Co-editor, The Transhumanist Reader > http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader > President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Tue Nov 12 21:00:45 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:00:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:45 PM, James Clement wrote: > Well, with quotes like this: "Numerically speaking, according to Gallup, only > a marginally higher percentage of Republicans *reject evolution > completely* than do Democrats. Yes, an embarrassing *half of Republicans*believe the earth is only 10,000 years old?but so do more than *a > third of Democrats*. And a slightly higher percentage of Democrats > believe God was the guiding factor in evolution than Republicans," who > cares whether one's talking about Democrats or Republicans, they both have > far too many religious idiots! > Completely agreed, of course. But note that the article was not titled "The Republics Aren't Really Anti-Science". Instead the title and article helped correct the idea that all the problem lies in that party. Even some people on this list seem to have bought into that claim. Yes, it's appalling how scientifically ignorant (willfully or not) the majority of people in both major parties are. --Max > > > On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Max More wrote: > >> A bit of balance: >> >> >> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ >> >> -- >> Max More, PhD >> Strategic Philosopher >> Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* >> >> http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader >> President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 12 21:01:02 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 13:01:02 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stuxnet hits commie nuke plant, space station Message-ID: <038101cedfea$4c6a2890$e53e79b0$@att.net> Local internet security hipsters, does this sound believable to you? That nuke plant strains my imagination, but the Space Station? Every line of code to any spacecraft is reviewed and tested. Kaspersky is supposed to be credible, but I have a hard time believing this story: Subject: [tt] (Times of Israel) Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant, space station http://www.timesofisrael.com/stuxnet-gone-rogue-hit-russian-nuke-plant-space -station/ (... links deleted all the way down ...) * Tuesday, November 12, 2013 * Kislev 9, 5774 * 12:43 am IST * Site updated 2 minutes ago Stuxnet, gone rogue, hit Russian nuke plant, space station A cyber-security expert says several ostensibly secure facilities became victims of the virus that struck Iran's nuclear program By [30]David Shamah November 11, 2013, 4:21 pm [36]Eugene Kaspersky (Photo credit: Courtesy Tel Aviv University) Eugene Kaspersky (Photo credit: Courtesy Tel Aviv University) A Russian nuclear power plant was reportedly "badly infected" by the rogue Stuxnet virus, the same malware that reportedly disrupted Iran's nuclear program several years ago. The virus then spread to the International Space Station via a Stuxnet-infected USB stick transported by Russian cosmonauts. Speaking to journalists in Canberra, Australia, last week, Eugene Kaspersky, head of the anti-virus and cyber protection firm that bears his name, said he had been tipped off about the damage by a friend who works at the Russian plant. Kaspersky did not say when the attacks took place, but implied that they occurred around the same time the Iranian infection was reported. He also did not comment on the impact of the infections on either the nuclear plant or the space station, but did say that the latter facility had been attacked several times. The revelation came during a question-and-answer period after a presentation on cyber-security. The point, Kaspersky told reporters at Australia's National Press Club last week, was that not being connected to the Internet -- the public web cannot be accessed at either the nuclear plant or on the ISS -- is a guarantee that systems will remain safe. The identity of the entity that released Stuxnet into the "wild" is still unknown (although media speculation insists it was developed by Israel and the United States), but those who think they can control a released virus are mistaken, Kaspersky warned. "What goes around comes around," Kaspersky said. "Everything you do will boomerang." The Stuxnet virus came to light in 2010, having attacked Iranian nuclear facilities by hitting the programmable logic control automation systems that control them. The PLC system, manufactured by German conglomerate Siemens, runs the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at Iran's Natanz facility. Variants of Stuxnet have affected the facility's centrifuges in various ways, mostly by changing the activity of valves controlled by the PLC software that feed the uranium to centrifuges at a specific rate required for enrichment, Kaspersky said in several presentations last year. It's not known when Stuxnet began its activities, but researchers at anti-virus company Symantec said that they had gathered evidence that earlier versions of the code were already seen "in the wild" in 2005, although it wasn't yet operational as a virus. Stuxnet, said Symantec, was the first virus known to attack national infrastructure projects, and according to the company, the groups behind Stuxnet were already seeking to compromise Iran's nuclear program in 2007 -- the year Iran's Natanz nuclear facility, where much of the country's uranium enrichment is taking place, went online. Now that the plague has been unleashed, said Kaspersky, no one is immune -- and that includes its originators, who are no longer in control of it. "There are no borders" in cyberspace, and no one should be surprised at any reports of a virus attack, no matter how ostensibly secure the facility, he said. (... links deleted ...) ? 2013 The Times of Israel, All rights reserved. Concept, design & development by [188]RGB Media Powered by [189]Salamandra Quantcast References (... all deleted, ouch ...) From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 12 21:35:36 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:35:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] stuxnet hits commie nuke plant, space station In-Reply-To: <038101cedfea$4c6a2890$e53e79b0$@att.net> References: <038101cedfea$4c6a2890$e53e79b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <52829F28.4070203@aleph.se> On 12/11/2013 21:01, spike wrote: > Local internet security hipsters, does this sound believable to you? That > nuke plant strains my imagination, but the Space Station? Every line of > code to any spacecraft is reviewed and tested. Code tested, yes, but what about hardware? SCADA systems are in a lot of places and have fundamental vulnerabilities. And the station is sending and receiving data at least indirectly to the internet. One USB key or malicious tweet link clicked, and a virus could get in. Also, Nasa no doubt looks carefully at code for reliability. That is not the same thing as security. Consider the vulnerabilities found in pacemakers and other implants - medical-grade software, but no firewall. -- Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Faculty of Philosophy Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Tue Nov 12 22:05:51 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 22:05:51 +0000 Subject: [ExI] stuxnet hits commie nuke plant, space station In-Reply-To: <038101cedfea$4c6a2890$e53e79b0$@att.net> References: <038101cedfea$4c6a2890$e53e79b0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:01 PM, spike wrote: > Local internet security hipsters, does this sound believable to you? That > nuke plant strains my imagination, but the Space Station? Every line of > code to any spacecraft is reviewed and tested. Kaspersky is supposed to be > credible, but I have a hard time believing this story: > Kaspersky was misquoted. He said that Russian astronauts had several times infected the ISS with viruses from USB memory sticks and he knew of a Russian nuclear power station that Stuxnet had infected via a USB stick. He didn't say that Stuxnet had got into the ISS, just some other viruses. So it is down to the Russians for not scanning all USB sticks thoroughly. Though virus writers are always trying to evade scanners, so some might have got through testing. Remember that virus writers test all their creations against the latest virus scanning packages. It is a common technique to spread viruses. Just drop some USB sticks in the car park. People, being people, think "Oh goody - a free memory stick", and take it in to their workplace and plug it in to see what's on it. Bingo - Infected pc. And if it is on the company network, the whole network is soon infected. BillK From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 12 22:32:15 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 14:32:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] stuxnet hits commie nuke plant, space station In-Reply-To: References: <038101cedfea$4c6a2890$e53e79b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <003601cedff7$0ac21210$20463630$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 2:06 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] stuxnet hits commie nuke plant, space station On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 9:01 PM, spike wrote: >>... Local internet security hipsters, does this sound believable to you? >...Kaspersky was misquoted. >...He said that Russian astronauts had several times infected the ISS with viruses from USB memory sticks and he knew of a Russian nuclear power station that Stuxnet had infected via a USB stick...BillK _______________________________________________ Oh OK cool thanks BillK, that sounds way more believable. Even then, it would only apply to the laptop computers on the space station, which really are not part of the space station. They made it sound like the control software was at risk. The space station control software is not on a network that could be spread in this way. There isn't a lot of free memory in any case, and those computers do not use USB ports. I can see where they could get infected by viruses that may interfere with what is likely the most common computer usages in space: solitaire, chess, Minecraft and email. spike From spike66 at att.net Tue Nov 12 23:04:08 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 15:04:08 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <006701cedffb$7f458190$7dd084b0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Max More Subject: Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:45 PM, James Clement wrote: >. "Numerically speaking, according to Gallup, only a marginally higher percentage of Republicans reject evolution completely than do Democrats. Yes, an embarrassing half of Republicans believe the earth is only 10,000 years old-but so do more than a third of Democrats.James Ja. I have a hard time taking seriously these kinds of studies however, for the direction of US education (and for that matter the sizeable portion of the rest of the world which is following our common core standards) takes the attitude that if something is not going to be covered on the evaluation tests, don't even mention it in class, for that would be taking time away from that which will help the student and the school to better assessment scores. Regarding politicians and their views on creation, we fool ourselves if we think we can get at their actual views. Anything any politician utters on the topic of evolution has extremely nothing to do with evolution or science in general, even if we recognize the awkwardness of the term "extremely nothing." A representative's job is to represent. Most politicians are lawyers. A defense lawyers own personal views of a client's guilt or innocence is irrelevant to that lawyer's task. You cannot learn what a politician believes on evolution merely by asking. You can only learn which views they perceive will get them the most votes. We cannot say that a self-proclaimed creationist politician believes in creationism, and therefore is stupid. If they managed to get elected, they are smarter than their evolutionist opponent, regardless of either's views on the topic (if any.) Regarding the citizen's views on evolution, even that is mostly out of reach. We are seeing currently a proposed takeover of most school curricula by the Federal Government. If that means introducing evolution into the classroom in a meaningful way, this would be a benefit to a plan mostly filled with detriments, the most important one being it takes away control from the state level and hands it down to the Federal level. Ron Numbers has shown that the views of the citizens on evolution vs creationism cannot be determined from multiple choice surveys, for most of the surveys contain answers that are mutually contradictory. Numbers did a study in which the self-contradictory surveys were eliminated. The remaining surveys showed an overwhelming understanding of, and firm belief in evolution (see Numbers, The Creationists, 1992: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Numbers ) Currently we in the USA face bigger problems than ever regarding creationism in the public schools. If evolution is not introduced in school, there is little chance proles will ever come to any significant appreciation of the topic. We have evolution being neglected as a component of Common Core, we have states' rights issues all mixed up in there, we have the concept of evolution coming under fire from both ends of the political spectrum and several points in between, for reasons having nothing to do with science: the notion that evolution fights religion, that evolution promotes immorality, that it promotes racism, that it's teachings result in homosexuality (not kidding on this last bit, there are those who claim that.) These are political notions, for nature cares not how we humans deal with her ways. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 01:06:58 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 18:06:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 12:06 PM, Max More wrote: > A bit of balance: > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ > Thanks Max, great article. I would like to take a moment to slap the backs of you my fellow extropians for a moment. I don't believe there is anyone on the left here who believes in astrology. Though there may be a few who are against genetically modified foods. I also know of nobody on this right of this list that doesn't believe in evolution. I don't think we are as polarized on nuclear energy as the great unwashed masses either. We are far more enlightened than the unwashed masses on both the left and the right. It is admittedly frustrating for both sides when we present "facts" that appear to us to support our position, only to be batted down by the other side. These biases are the enemy to true skepticism. I identify as a skeptic, and remain firmly open to being convinced of my wrong headedness on all topics. That is one of my most cherished core beliefs. So don't give up on trying to convince me, but do it with science, the best data available, and solid logic. That will go a long way with me. And I think the same could be said of most members of this illustrious list. The science of global warming (as opposed to the politics of global warming) has hit a snag in the last month. Does that do anything to dampen anyone's position about it? Well, not really. It is only one study. But if it is true, others will eventually back it up, and we can throw out one of the biggest impediments to mutual understanding there is today. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tech101 at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 01:25:43 2013 From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:25:43 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: I have joined - I don't have any formal background in physics or chemistry, so I hope to just augment my basic understanding of nanotechnology by doing this course. I am interested in interviewing some experts in this area - results would go on my youtube channel and/or H+ Magazine. (links below will only work if you have joined the nanotechnology course and while you are logged in to Coursera) I am surprised at how much the course conveners refer to Drexler's views as Science Fiction in forums and in the main lecture video: https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/lecture/7 There seems to be some heated debate on the course forums so far 'Fenyman/Drexler Nanotechnology vs Nanomaterials': https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/forum/thread?thread_id=31 So you can just do a forum search on 'Drexler' - https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/forum/search?q=Drexler#2-state-query=Drexler Kind regards, Adam A. Ford Director - Humanity+ Global, Director - Humanity+ Australia, Chair - Humanity+ @ Melbourne Summit Chair - Singularity Summit Australia Director - Future Day Mob: +61 421 979 977 | Email: tech101 at gmail.com *Science, Technology & the Future * conference on *30th Nov - 1st Dec 2013*. *"The conference will feature a diverse range of presenters from across the globe. Scientists, Engineers, Artists and Philosophers will discuss evidence-based research, community awareness of rapid technological change, and scenarios for navigating our future."* *Future Day - "Join the conversation on Future Day March 1st to explore the possibilities about how the future is transforming us. You can celebrate Future Day however you like, the ball is in your court ? feel free to send a photo of your Future Day gatherings to info at futureday.org , and your jubilation may wind up being commemorated on the Future Day website and the Facebook page! "* Humanity+ | Humanity+ Australia| Singularity Summit Australia | Facebook| Twitter | YouTube| Future Day "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels." ("Atomic Education Urged by Albert Einstein", New York Times, 25 May 1946) Please consider the environment before printing this email On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 6:32 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > https://www.coursera.org/course/nanotech > _______________________________________________ > 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 Nov 13 03:11:31 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 03:11:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <5282EDE3.3080305@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 01:25, Adam A. Ford wrote: > > I am surprised at how much the course conveners refer to Drexler's > views as Science Fiction in forums and in the main lecture video: > https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/lecture/7 Maybe you should bring up what he really argues for? See his Guardian blogs, and his recent book. The problem seem that everybody argues against Strawman Drexler, who has little to do with real Drexler. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 13 03:50:07 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 19:50:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Tuesday, November 12, 2013 5:07 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party >.The science of global warming (as opposed to the politics of global warming) has hit a snag in the last month. Kelly did you mean this? http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ I have been following hurricanes for years now after being told they would get more frequent and more violent. This year has been eerie quiet in the Atlantic. Do let us hope that doesn't point to global cooling. Warming would be OK, cooling, not. >.Does that do anything to dampen anyone's position about it? Well, not really. It is only one study. Kelly didn't you get the memo? The science is settled on that. >. But if it is true, others will eventually back it up, and we can throw out one of the biggest impediments to mutual understanding there is today. -Kelly My fondest hope is that we focus attention where it belongs: how to deal with increasing cost of energy before that becomes a bigger catastrophe than that monster typhoon that hit the Philippines. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 04:58:51 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 21:58:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> References: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 8:50 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto: > extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > *Sent:* Tuesday, November 12, 2013 5:07 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science > Party > > > > > > >?The science of global warming (as opposed to the politics of global > warming) has hit a snag in the last month. > > > > Kelly did you mean this? > > > > http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ > More like these sorts of stories about why the temperature has been steady for the past 20 years and how climate change scientists are on the defensive about it. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-24874060 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/opinion/a-pause-not-an-end-to-warming.html?_r=0 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2485772/Global-warming-pause-20-years-Arctic-sea-ice-started-recover.html The Daily Mail piece has a graph that shows the nature of the problem faced by scientists that predicted one thing and then an entirely different thing actually happened. This takes the edge off of the shrillness of people like Al Gore in the 90s. Apparently, we aren't all going to die in a fire storm in the very near future. Though they claim it will start up again in a while... yawn. Show me the real data, not what your computer model shows. I have been following hurricanes for years now after being told they would > get more frequent and more violent. This year has been eerie quiet in the > Atlantic. Do let us hope that doesn?t point to global cooling. Warming > would be OK, cooling, not. > Once again Spike, you aren't with the cool kids. The cool kids now say "Human Caused Climate Change" not global warming. That way whether the temperature goes up, down or stays the same, it's our fault. > > >?Does that do anything to dampen anyone's position about it? Well, not > really. It is only one study? > > > > Kelly didn?t you get the memo? The science is settled on that. > I've always remained slightly skeptical of it on the basis that the science is really hard. I have been consistently against the idea that the government can fix climate change with tax games that send money from the rich to the poor (countries and people). > >? But if it is true, others will eventually back it up, and we can throw > out one of the biggest impediments to mutual understanding there is today. > ?Kelly > > > > My fondest hope is that we focus attention where it belongs: how to deal > with increasing cost of energy before that becomes a bigger catastrophe > than that monster typhoon that hit the Philippines. > Of course, the climate change crowd will point to that and say, "isn't it better that we have smaller Atlantic storms than this sort of monster in the Pacific?" to which I answer, "Shit happens man, get used to it." And if you are in the Philippines this is indeed very shitty. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 13 06:42:08 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 06:42:08 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> References: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <52831F40.3090709@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 03:50, spike wrote: > > I have been following hurricanes for years now after being told they > would get more frequent and more violent. This year has been eerie > quiet in the Atlantic. Do let us hope that doesn't point to global > cooling. Warming would be OK, cooling, not. > Hurricane numbers are a bad indicator for climate: you get very few data points even in a high hurricane year. Consider flipping a biased coin, trying to estimate how biased it is. But you only get 2-10 flips each year. Worse, you are trying to tell whether the bias is changing. [ The variance of the estimate from N trials with pN heads is (1-p)/(N+1)^2 (it is a beta distribution). going from 2 to 10 flips reduces the variance by a factor of 0.67, which is just a 19% reduction of standard deviation. If you want to reliably detect a change in p on the order of 10% you will need a lot more data - at least more than 20 data points. ] I am always annoyed at how many people confuse weather - the stochastic outcomes - with climate - the underlying parameters. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 07:11:01 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:11:01 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 5:25 PM, Adam A. Ford wrote: > I have joined - I don't have any formal background in physics or > chemistry, so I hope to just augment my basic understanding of > nanotechnology by doing this course. > I have as well. Thanks for the update, Eugen. I have some formal background in the sciences, and I actually ran a nanotech project some years ago, so for me this is curiosity/seeing how well I can do. I wouldn't call myself an "expert", but I wish to see if my current understanding includes everything in a course such as this. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Wed Nov 13 07:17:31 2013 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Tue, 12 Nov 2013 23:17:31 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <52831F40.3090709@aleph.se> References: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> <52831F40.3090709@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131113071731.GA21361@ninja.nosyntax.net> Anders Sandberg [2013-11-12 22:46]: > Hurricane numbers are a bad indicator for climate: you get very few data > points even in a high hurricane year. > > Consider flipping a biased coin, trying to estimate how biased it is. But > you only get 2-10 flips each year. Worse, you are trying to tell whether > the bias is changing.? > > [ The variance of the estimate from N trials with pN heads is > (1-p)/(N+1)^2 (it is a beta distribution). going from 2 to 10 flips > reduces the variance by a factor of 0.67, which is just a 19% reduction of > standard deviation. If you want to reliably detect a change in p on the > order of 10% you will need a lot more data - at least more than 20 data > points. ] Interesting idea, Anders, but I don't understand it. We have a record of hurricane numbers h[i] for years i = 1:N, and temperature records for those years. We could do a linear regression to try to estimate how much of the variance in hurricane numbers is accounted for by temperature, but where does the biased coin model enter into it? -rex -- Nostalgia is like a grammar lesson; you find the present tense and the past perfect. From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 08:24:34 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:24:34 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 11:33 AM, spike wrote: > Why is dry land [inherently] better for smarts than ocean? > Evolution requires a few things that are harder to get in the ocean. First, and perhaps most important, in order to get new species, you have to have geographical separation of two cousins for a period of time so they forget how to interbreed. That is harder to come by in the ocean than on land where you have mountains, rivers, etc. dividing things up. There are fewer niches to occupy in the ocean than on land. So evolution tends to wash out a bit in the ocean. That is it goes slower. There are estimated to be approximately 28,000 species of fish. 15,300 species of marine (saltwater) fish were cataloged in the Census of Marine Life database. Another site says there are 27,500 species of freshwater fish. But this article: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2097874/There-actually-ARENT-fish-sea-Rivers-lakes-contain-80-Earths-species--despite-covering-2-surface.html states what I expected to find, that "There are more fish species in freshwater than in saltwater habitats, despite the much greater area and volume of the oceans" "Despite covering 70% of the Earth's surface, marine environments contain only 20% of all its species." By marine, I think they mean saltwater, but I'm unsure. So one of the numbers or facts above is suspect as they seem to be contradictory. However, I'm going to go with the 80% of the fish species live in fresh water despite it being only about 2% of the water out there because rivers and lakes provide the separation required for speciation, whereas the ocean does not do this nearly as well. While it is possible to evolve very good tentacles underwater, nothing like hands has evolved underwater. Part of the problem is that water tends to evolve creatures that are streamlined. Hands, are clearly not very streamlined. Could tentacles lead to intelligence? Perhaps. But without high rates of speciation, it would take much longer in the ocean than on land. > To be tech enabled, you definitely need to get dry somehow. You can > concentrate elements, do jillions of experiments that can never be done > without dryness. Kelly?s notion of hands I am still pondering, but I was > thinking of how limited is the range of experiments without dry land of > some sort, and the materials limitations. > > The smartest animals that evolved entirely in the sea are the cephalopods, octopi and their cousins. They are smart enough to open bottles and the like. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cephalopod_intelligence I don't believe that they are nearly as smart as most mammals, but I can't back that up with any particular data. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 08:32:37 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 01:32:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 7:12 AM, BillK wrote: > On Sat, Nov 9, 2013 at 1:03 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > And yet mars currently lacks a molten core. It also lacks the > magnetosphere > > that would protect martians from radiation. Would mars count as one of > the > > planets counted by NASA in this survey? > > I think there is still debate about Mars. > There is no debate (that I know of) that mars has a very weak magnetosphere. That is the issue that most affects life at this point. It probably did have one in the distant past. So nobody knows NASA's definition of goldilocks planets well enough to know if mars would count as one of the eight billion or not? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 09:11:56 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 02:11:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-11-11 05:41, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 3:41 PM, BillK wrote: > >> I find the scale of these structures a bit mind boggling. >> So I think I'll sit quiet for a while until the boggle factor returns to >> normal. >> > > It might boggle your mind a little less to understand that these large > scale structures likely formed VERY early in the life of the universe and > have simply been expanding to their ungodly current size over the last 13.7 > billion years. Yes, the scales of anything beyond our little planet strain > our African-made and optimized primate brains. > > In fact, we cannot even handle planetary scales. I cannot intuitively > think about the distance from Oxford to Stockholm or even London. I can > compare it to known distances, I can play around with imagined maps, I can > remember what the trip is like, but I don't *feel* it like I feel the > distances within the towns where I have walked. > But it's not incomprehensible... Just slightly out of our daily experience level. > I suspect the reason is that in order to go between these places I have to > take a vehicle rather than wander. > But if you have ever walked to somewhere you normally drive to, it gives you a sense of how to scale. > In between these target places there is an awful lot of places that would > feel big to me if I were in them, but since I have never been to Ipswich I > do not have any feel for it. It is just a point on my mental map (with a > sticky note saying it was used in a Monty Python joke). > I can't say that I have ANY feeling for Great Britain, despite having flown over it once or twice. > The large scale structure is pretty awesome. This video looks at the local > motions of galactic clusters (starts slow, gets awesome): > http://vimeo.com/66641648 > That video reminds me of my childhood trying to understand what the hell Jaques Cousteu was saying about all those pretty fish. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 09:32:53 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:32:53 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > There is no debate (that I know of) that mars has a very weak magnetosphere. > That is the issue that most affects life at this point. It probably did have > one in the distant past. > > So nobody knows NASA's definition of goldilocks planets well enough to know > if mars would count as one of the eight billion or not? > > I think the confusion is between 'habitable zone' and 'habitable planet'. A goldilocks planet must be in the habitable zone, but for other reasons (like being too small) may not be habitable. Quote: In astronomy and astrobiology, the circumstellar habitable zone (CHZ) (or simply the habitable zone), colloquially known as the Goldilocks zone, is the region around a star within which planetary-mass objects with sufficient atmospheric pressure can support liquid water at their surfaces. ------------ But there is even some dispute about the size of Sol's habitable zone. Quote: Given the large spread in the masses of planets within a circumstellar habitable zone, coupled with the discovery of super-Earth planets which can sustain thicker atmospheres and stronger magnetic fields than Earth, circumstellar habitable zones are now split into two separate regions?a "conservative habitable zone" in which lower-mass planets like Earth or Venus can remain habitable, complemented by a larger "extended habitable zone" in which super-Earth planets, with stronger greenhouse effects, can have the right temperature for liquid water to exist at the surface. ---------- See: BillK From pharos at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 10:16:48 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:16:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Statistical tests Message-ID: Weak statistical standards implicated in scientific irreproducibility One-quarter of studies that meet commonly used statistical cutoff may be false. 11 November 2013 Quote: Johnson then used these uniformly most powerful tests to compare P values to Bayes factors. When he did so, he found that a P value of 0.05 or less ? commonly considered evidence in support of a hypothesis in fields such as social science, in which non-reproducibility has become a serious issue ? corresponds to Bayes factors of between 3 and 5, which are considered weak evidence to support a finding. Indeed, as many as 17?25% of such findings are probably false, Johnson calculates. He advocates for scientists to use more stringent P values of 0.005 or less to support their findings, and thinks that the use of the 0.05 standard might account for most of the problem of non-reproducibility in science ? even more than other issues, such as biases and scientific misconduct. ----------------- BillK From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 13 12:17:09 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:17:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> Message-ID: <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 09:32, BillK wrote: > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> So nobody knows NASA's definition of goldilocks planets well enough to know >> if mars would count as one of the eight billion or not? > I think the confusion is between 'habitable zone' and 'habitable planet'. > A goldilocks planet must be in the habitable zone, but for other > reasons (like being too small) may not be habitable. Goldilocks is not even a proper scientific term, just a shorthand and journa-splaining word. Whether Mars is too small to be habitable is best phrased as a timing issue: Mars-sized worlds will stop continental drift early (crudely: total internal energy ~R^3, radiation rate ~R^2, so the time until things stop is ~R) and then become dry and lose atmosphere. But once it had oceans, and no doubt life could have lived in them (given what Earth-life can do). The zone where water can exist also moves somewhat across the lifespan of the star (the inner and outer radii scale as sqrt(luminosity)) but depends on planet mass and atmosphere. So we might talk about habitability in terms of time and space. Right now we do not know the number density of small terrestrials. A fair guess is some kind of power-law (it works for asteroids, and seem to fit the simulations I have seen that people fit to real exoplanet data). Their frequency is R^-a where a is some exponent: 0.48 according to http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1305/1305.0542.pdf/. However, there may be a plateau below 2 Earth radiuses (http://arxiv.org/pdf/1304.0460.pdf) - but this might be mainly about the very near star planets. (And a power law with that kind of heavy tail will by necessity have a cut-off - or actually have an exponent If it is a power law all the way down to some limit, the total amount of habitable time is the integral of R^(-a+1). This is dominated by the smallest worlds if a>2, and by the largest ones if a<2. So if the above papers are correct, then most habitable world-moments are on pretty big planets. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 13 12:30:24 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:30:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <20131113071731.GA21361@ninja.nosyntax.net> References: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> <52831F40.3090709@aleph.se> <20131113071731.GA21361@ninja.nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <528370E0.80701@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 08:17, rex wrote: > Interesting idea, Anders, but I don't understand it. We have a record > of hurricane numbers h[i] for years i = 1:N, and temperature records for > those years. We could do a linear regression to try to estimate how > much of the variance in hurricane numbers is accounted for by > temperature, > but where does the biased coin model enter into it? I wanted to give an easy example, rather than get into the statistics. Yes, we can try to model how hurricanes are affected by temperature, and maybe it is even possible to say something sensible about it. But going in the opposite direction, looking for evidence of higher temperatures in the hurricane frequency, does not work at all. There are few data points, but worse, we do not know the map hurricane "frequency -> temperature". Sure, we could first do the regression and then use it, but then we are just feeding the data back twice - we are not learning anything new. Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_hurricane_season shows a pretty noisy time series; the trend is definitely smaller than the variability. Hehehe... another political thread hi-jacked by statistics! :-) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 13 14:38:27 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:38:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 10:11, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:00 AM, Anders Sandberg > wrote: > > > In fact, we cannot even handle planetary scales. I cannot > intuitively think about the distance from Oxford to Stockholm or > even London. I can compare it to known distances, I can play > around with imagined maps, I can remember what the trip is like, > but I don't *feel* it like I feel the distances within the towns > where I have walked. > > > But it's not incomprehensible... Just slightly out of our daily > experience level. Kind of. I just arrived in Plzen in the Czech republic (world capital of the letter 'Z'!) I have been here before, I know where it is on the map, but I do not *feel* like I am 1,051 kilometres away from home. I *feel* that walking to the university from where I am now is a long walk. But I cannot *feel* how much longer walking to Oxford would be compared to walking to Prague, despite a sizeable difference. > I suspect the reason is that in order to go between these places I > have to take a vehicle rather than wander. > > > But if you have ever walked to somewhere you normally drive to, it > gives you a sense of how to scale. What happens is that your local place cell maps get joined up. London is typically first experienced as a "mole map", where you get to know regions around tube stations. Gradually they join up, forming a larger map of neighbourhoods. Scale shows up about now, except that it only covers the central parts you deal with. Human movement is somewhat fractal: lots of local movement in small clustered regions (home, work, museums, strolls), fewer longer trips (commutes, visit to remote office) and even fewer very long trips (the median UK business traveller makes 7 flights per year). Only the local movement produces sensible senses of scale. > In between these target places there is an awful lot of places > that would feel big to me if I were in them, but since I have > never been to Ipswich I do not have any feel for it. It is just a > point on my mental map (with a sticky note saying it was used in a > Monty Python joke). > > > I can't say that I have ANY feeling for Great Britain, despite having > flown over it once or twice. Exactly! The American Midwest is an abstraction or TV setting for me, despite having seen it ("flyover country") from the airplane window many times. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 13 14:49:51 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:49:51 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Statistical tests In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5283918F.2070803@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 11:16, BillK wrote: > Weak statistical standards implicated in scientific irreproducibility > One-quarter of studies that meet commonly used statistical cutoff may > be false. But even sharp p-values can be useless if effect sizes are not stated. If a medicine reduces the length of colds at p=0.000001 but has an effect size of only 1%, it is useless in practice. A surprising number of papers downplay or hide effect sizes. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 16:11:33 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:11:33 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Max More wrote: > A bit of balance: > > > http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ > They're not just anti-science, after learning that the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted to default on the national debt I concluded that Republicans were anti-logic. I could no longer stand the humiliation of being a member of such a hillbilly organization, therefore last week I resigned from the Republican party ending my long association with the party of Lincoln. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 16:49:25 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:49:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:24 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > While it is possible to evolve very good tentacles underwater, nothing > like hands has evolved underwater. Part of the problem is that water tends > to evolve creatures that are streamlined. Hands, are clearly not very > streamlined. Could tentacles lead to intelligence? Perhaps. But without > high rates of speciation, it would take much longer in the ocean than on > land. > I think it would be almost impossible for sea creatures, however smart they were, to develop technology. The laws of Newtonian Physics were hard enough to discover for humans who lived in a atmosphere not in a vacuum, but it would be astronomically harder under water; there things NEVER move at the same speed unless a force is constantly applied, and intelligent fish wouldn't have the motions of the stars and planets to help them figure out basic physics. Even humans would never have discovered Quantum Mechanics if they hadn't figured out a way to make a vacuum first. And intelligent fish would lack one of the first and most important inventions, fire. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 17:13:52 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 18:13:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> Message-ID: John K Clark > I can think of a pretty good excuse, the telescope on Kepler ... Can't disagree. But then also all other "optimistic" claims abut all other exo-planets are quite void, too. Here, how jubilant are some: http://seagerexoplanets.mit.edu/research.htm On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 5:49 PM, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:24 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > While it is possible to evolve very good tentacles underwater, nothing >> like hands has evolved underwater. Part of the problem is that water tends >> to evolve creatures that are streamlined. Hands, are clearly not very >> streamlined. Could tentacles lead to intelligence? Perhaps. But without >> high rates of speciation, it would take much longer in the ocean than on >> land. >> > > I think it would be almost impossible for sea creatures, however smart > they were, to develop technology. The laws of Newtonian Physics were hard > enough to discover for humans who lived in a atmosphere not in a vacuum, > but it would be astronomically harder under water; there things NEVER move > at the same speed unless a force is constantly applied, and intelligent > fish wouldn't have the motions of the stars and planets to help them figure > out basic physics. Even humans would never have discovered Quantum > Mechanics if they hadn't figured out a way to make a vacuum first. And > intelligent fish would lack one of the first and most important inventions, > fire. > > John K Clark > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 13 17:24:49 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:24:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <52831F40.3090709@aleph.se> References: <01ff01cee023$72ed3af0$58c7b0d0$@att.net> <52831F40.3090709@aleph.se> Message-ID: <00fc01cee095$426669c0$c7333d40$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Subject: Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party On 2013-11-13 03:50, spike wrote: I have been following hurricanes for years now after being told they would get more frequent and more violent. This year has been eerie quiet in the Atlantic. Do let us hope that doesn't point to global cooling. Warming would be OK, cooling, not. >.Hurricane numbers are a bad indicator for climate: you get very few data points even in a high hurricane year. >.I am always annoyed at how many people confuse weather - the stochastic outcomes - with climate - the underlying parameters.-- Dr Anders Sandberg Ja, agreed. Most of us here do understand the difference between weather and climate. This is a special problem we see specifically with the global warming debate, because it is tangled in politics, which is subject to change as fast as the weather. Note in the internet archives how political agents used the super destructive hurricane Katrina for political leverage back in the peak days of global warming interest of 2005 (by predicting more and stronger hurricanes) compared to the internet traffic on the same topic today. We can only hope to see a similar interest level in sustainable energy sources as we saw in 2005 regarding hurricanes. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Wed Nov 13 17:54:10 2013 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:54:10 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Statistical tests In-Reply-To: <5283918F.2070803@aleph.se> References: <5283918F.2070803@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131113175410.GC21361@ninja.nosyntax.net> Anders Sandberg [2013-11-13 06:52]: >But even sharp p-values can be useless if effect sizes are not >stated. If a medicine reduces the length of colds at p=0.000001 but >has an effect size of only 1%, it is useless in practice. A >surprising number of papers downplay or hide effect sizes. Surprising until one recalls, "Publish or perish." What fraction of authors will (correctly) note, "X is related to Y at the p=0.000001 level, but the effect is utterly insignificant." Who wants to be known as the fellow who finds lots of useless, but statistically significant, relationships? -rex -- Tales are like trees: both grow taller over time. From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 13 17:57:37 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 09:57:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Statistical tests In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <013a01cee099$d73c3b70$85b4b250$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK Subject: [ExI] Statistical tests Weak statistical standards implicated in scientific irreproducibility One-quarter of studies that meet commonly used statistical cutoff may be false. 11 November 2013 Quote: >...Johnson then used these uniformly most powerful tests to compare P values to Bayes factors. When he did so, he found that a P value of 0.05 or less - commonly considered evidence in support of a hypothesis in fields such as social science, in which non-reproducibility has become a serious issue - corresponds to Bayes factors of between 3 and 5, which are considered weak evidence to support a finding... ----------------- BillK ____________________________________________ Thanks BillK, I have thought this for a long time. Back when I was learning about Bayesian statistics I did the math on this and came to the same startling conclusion: that arbitrary 95% confidence level we are taught in Statistics 101 is misleading. That does not mean your conclusion will be right 95% of the time. I encourage the math geeks to go over the equations to see why. This doesn't mean the 95% criterion is useless, only that it is an oversimplification that leads often to misinterpretation, and creates opportunity for all kinds of mischief. I saw this firsthand in a failed manufacturing line in 1990 and 1991. The engineers involved in that are a pathetic poster child for this phenom. They were absolutely set in stone convinced, if any test was below 95% confidence, out with it, meaningless. Above, chisel it in stone tablets, a universal truth has been discovered. Nature doesn't really work that way. It was classic example of a fuzzy line that became chiseled in stone as a sharp boundary between truth and fiction. I kept trying to explain why this was going wrong, but I might as well have been talking to a wall; 95% confidence is not just an arbitrary mathematical convenience to them. Everyone's statistics book said plainly, 95% confidence determines statistical significance period end of story. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 13 18:09:26 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 10:09:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> Message-ID: <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg >.Exactly! The American Midwest is an abstraction or TV setting for me, despite having seen it ("flyover country") from the airplane window many times. --Dr Anders Sandberg Hi Anders, I often urge people especially Europeans, to come to the states, fly in to Phoenix, or Las Vegas, even Los Angeles, or just pick one out there somewhere, any one of those states where you look out your plane window and see no signs of civilization for half an hour at a time at airliner speeds. Rent a car, a good comfortable fast one, then just drive out across the US desert southwest. Note how empty and how vast and how sunny it is out there. Note the stark desert beauty everywhere. Go across Highway 50 in Nevada is a great example. Stop somewhere. Right in the middle of the road if you wish, no one is coming, either direction. Get out of your car, and listen. That is a sound you seldom hear: your heart beating and your lungs breathing. Drive for a week thru the fly-over states. Take camping gear along, because cities are far apart. When you get back to the airport, ask yourself if your views on massive ground based solar have been influenced by your lonely drive thru those massive empty desert states. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 18:52:24 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:52:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 7:38 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-11-13 10:11, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 11, 2013 at 1:00 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> >> But it's not incomprehensible... Just slightly out of our daily > experience level. > > > Kind of. I just arrived in Plzen in the Czech republic (world capital of > the letter 'Z'!) I have been here before, I know where it is on the map, > but I do not *feel* like I am 1,051 kilometres away from home. I *feel* > that walking to the university from where I am now is a long walk. But I > cannot *feel* how much longer walking to Oxford would be compared to > walking to Prague, despite a sizeable difference. > I can't argue with how you feel, as they are your feelings. Just out of curiosity though, what's the longest distance you have walked Anders? > I can't say that I have ANY feeling for Great Britain, despite having > flown over it once or twice. > > > Exactly! The American Midwest is an abstraction or TV setting for me, > despite having seen it ("flyover country") from the airplane window many > times. > And I have driven across America many times. While I don't have the same feel for anyone who has done the two to three month walk, I do have some kind of feel for it. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 18:57:14 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:57:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:09 AM, spike wrote: > > > Note how empty and how vast and how sunny it is out there. Note the stark > desert beauty everywhere. Go across Highway 50 in Nevada is a great > example. Stop somewhere. Right in the middle of the road if you wish, no > one is coming, either direction. Get out of your car, and listen. That is > a sound you seldom hear: your heart beating and your lungs breathing. > While highway 50 is a breathtaking example of loneliness, it's also a great example of why the government shouldn't be in charge of deciding where roads go. What a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars! Any private company that would have built it as a toll road would have LONG AGO gone out of business. I hate that highways are the example people always bring up of why we need large government projects. They do it so poorly. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 19:08:53 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:08:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 9:11 AM, John Clark wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Max More wrote: > > > A bit of balance: >> >> >> http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isnt-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ >> > > They're not just anti-science, after learning that the majority of > Republicans in the House and Senate voted to default on the national debt I > concluded that Republicans were anti-logic. I could no longer stand the > humiliation of being a member of such a hillbilly organization, therefore > last week I resigned from the Republican party ending my long association > with the party of Lincoln. > I'm sure you'll be missed John. Are you coming to the light and joining the Libertarians now? ;-) -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 19:17:12 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:17:12 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 9:49 AM, John Clark wrote: > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:24 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > While it is possible to evolve very good tentacles underwater, nothing >> like hands has evolved underwater. Part of the problem is that water tends >> to evolve creatures that are streamlined. Hands, are clearly not very >> streamlined. Could tentacles lead to intelligence? Perhaps. But without >> high rates of speciation, it would take much longer in the ocean than on >> land. >> > > I think it would be almost impossible for sea creatures, however smart > they were, to develop technology. The laws of Newtonian Physics were hard > enough to discover for humans who lived in a atmosphere not in a vacuum, > but it would be astronomically harder under water; there things NEVER move > at the same speed unless a force is constantly applied, and intelligent > fish wouldn't have the motions of the stars and planets to help them figure > out basic physics. Even humans would never have discovered Quantum > Mechanics if they hadn't figured out a way to make a vacuum first. And > intelligent fish would lack one of the first and most important inventions, > fire. > While fire is important to land animals, what makes it important is that it is terrestrial. Of greater importance to this discussion might be the invention of writing. Imagine that cephalopods had another billion years of evolution without the interference of land returning to water animals... and they got enough intelligence that they could invent writing. It would be far more difficult to find an alternative to clay tablets or papyrus underwater. And what would you write with. Also, mining would be terribly difficult underwater, and especially in the very deep water worlds. How would they be able to pass through the bronze and iron ages in such a world? While I have no problem seeing life and even intelligent life evolve in the ocean eventually, the rise of technology in a water world seems far more difficult. Of course this might just be because I have a lack of an imagination. Intelligent creatures might figure out how to do it. But if you live in a world covered with 7 to 70 miles of water everywhere, with compressed warm ice at the bottom of the ocean, the materials issue would be difficult. Even the occasional underwater volcano would be hard to take advantage of. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 19:24:52 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 12:24:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <5278E5FB.8080302@aleph.se> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 5:17 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-11-13 09:32, BillK wrote: > >> On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:32 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: >> >>> So nobody knows NASA's definition of goldilocks planets well enough to >>> know >>> >>> if mars would count as one of the eight billion or not? >>> >> I think the confusion is between 'habitable zone' and 'habitable planet'. >> A goldilocks planet must be in the habitable zone, but for other >> reasons (like being too small) may not be habitable. >> > > Goldilocks is not even a proper scientific term, just a shorthand and > journa-splaining word. > > Whether Mars is too small to be habitable is best phrased as a timing > issue: Mars-sized worlds will stop continental drift early (crudely: total > internal energy ~R^3, radiation rate ~R^2, so the time until things stop is > ~R) and then become dry and lose atmosphere. But once it had oceans, and no > doubt life could have lived in them (given what Earth-life can do). The > zone where water can exist also moves somewhat across the lifespan of the > star (the inner and outer radii scale as sqrt(luminosity)) but depends on > planet mass and atmosphere. So we might talk about habitability in terms > of time and space. > If intelligent life had evolved on mars in the distant past, then they might have been able to escape the death of their world. The loss of atmosphere is of course related to the loss of the magnetosphere. For planets very close to their sun would the increased density of the solar wind require an even stronger magnetosphere to preserve an atmosphere? Would larger planets with greater gravity be able to hold onto an atmosphere more tightly? The dynamic interaction of atmosphere, magnetosphere and solar wind might make it difficult to have enough atmosphere for enough time to evolve intelligent life. Also, if the atmosphere is too thick, that seems like it would cause its own set of problems. You can't live on Jupiter for example, thought that is an extreme example. I don't know the necessary physics, but if you had a planet 2x the size of earth with the same proportion of water and atmosphere, but a much greater magnetosphere because of the size of the core, would you have problems with the atmosphere being too dense? Would the oceans be too deep in some sense? Would it be harder for continents to arise from the deep? So many questions. I'm sure there are people at NASA who have been scratching their heads about this stuff for decades. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 13 19:43:18 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 11:43:18 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <026001cee0a8$9aec5470$d0c4fd50$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 8:12 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 2:06 PM, Max More wrote: > A bit of balance: http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/11/the-republican-party-isn t-really-the-anti-science-party/281219/ >.They're not just anti-science, after learning that the majority of Republicans in the House and Senate voted to default on the national debt I concluded that Republicans were anti-logic. I could no longer stand the humiliation of being a member of such a hillbilly organization. Now that is an egregiously elevationist comment. They prefer the more respectful "Mountain Williams" if you don't mind, and believe in the fundamental equality of all mankind regardless of distance from sea level. >.therefore last week I resigned from the Republican party ending my long association with the party of Lincoln. John K Clark How will they ever cope without you, John? Utter collapse is imminent! Or not. Be kind to Republicans John, they may soon run your government. John you were aware that the state of California has defaulted twice that I can remember, once in 2009 where they sent out IOUs. I didn't have any but I saw one. People treated them as real money for a while, and even when they weren't immediately redeemed, the discount on them wasn't much. Note that the state of California went Chapter 11 (not 13) with a balanced budget requirement and the option of its citizens to move away, taking their money with them. So if that wasn't a big catastrophe, you can see why the citizens of California (and pretty much everyone else) didn't get too panicky over the threat of a US default. A US default would raise our price of borrowing, but our borrowing should be more expensive than it is: it is riskier than it appears. The Fed has a bunch of options the states don't have, such as their arbitrary calculation on inflation. They could just find a way to declare inflation negative and give COLA decreases on all Social Security pensioners (that is coming) or just keep raises for all federal employees and pensioners to zero for a year or three. They could take the money in Medicare, dump it into some other plan (whose name escapes me at the moment, perhaps named after that guy in the Whitehouse) then declare that program delayed indefinitely because of technical issues of some kind, such as a faulty website. Yes this is a form of default and yes you and I are holding the bag. We knew it was coming (didn't we?) for a long time. Yes it will be painful. But do let us move on to the acceptance stage, shall we? Our government set up a huge Ponzi scheme; eventually it has to collapse. It is doing that now. Anger and denial are so yesterday. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 20:20:29 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 13:20:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <026001cee0a8$9aec5470$d0c4fd50$@att.net> References: <026001cee0a8$9aec5470$d0c4fd50$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 12:43 PM, spike wrote: > Or not. Be kind to Republicans John, they may soon run your government. > Perhaps this is wishful thinking Spike. Demographics are on the Democrat's side. While the abject stupidity of Washington is undeniable, you can see that an otherwise very smart person can end up blaming the wrong party for the trouble. > A US default would raise our price of borrowing, but our borrowing should > be more expensive than it is: it is riskier than it appears. > Ok Spike, you've off the rails here a bit. Defaulting on our debt would increase the rate of interest the Federal Government would have to pay. While that doesn't sound so horrible, in 2012, payment of interest on the debt cost $220 billion, or about 6 percent of the budget. If the interest rate doubled from its current low rate (sorry, I can't make sense of the numbers to tell you exactly what it is today) then Poof! All of a sudden this goes from 6% of the budget to 12% and that's mostly going to come out of discretionary spending on the things we like the most, like basic science research, NASA and the like. So the Fed keeps printing money to keep the interest rates low. It is a big problem if we get downgraded. Every politician, even the dumber Republicans, understand this, and there is no way a majority of them would ever actually vote to default. However, it is very difficult to get any kind of leverage over this press protected president without threatening something extremely dire. > Our government set up a huge Ponzi scheme; eventually it has to collapse. > It is doing that now. Anger and denial are so yesterday. > Perhaps not yet, but soon it is possible. Anyone who thinks otherwise risks being one of those dead optimists Eugen is so eager about. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From stathisp at gmail.com Wed Nov 13 22:54:05 2013 From: stathisp at gmail.com (Stathis Papaioannou) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 09:54:05 +1100 Subject: [ExI] The Problem with Drugs (was Re: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 11 November 2013 04:22, John Clark wrote: > > > > On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 1:06 AM, Stathis Papaioannou > wrote: > >> > Here's what Einstein would have done if he had direct access to his >> brain's control panel: he would have adjusted things so that his drive >> to do theoretical physics was even greater, the process more >> rewarding, and the dejection from going down a wrong pathway much less >> so as to minimise the risk that he would give up. > > > I hope something like that could be made to work but I see problems. It's OK > if he enjoys doing physics but to advance he must receive much more pleasure > from doing NEW physics, but the trouble is that's very hard to do and > happens rarely; it took Einstein over a decade to receive his reward in the > pleasure of finding General Relativity. If you wanted to maximize your > happiness it seems to me it would be better to reset the switches in your > emotional control panel so that you received happiness not from finding new > physics but from something much easier to accomplish and therefore happens a > lot more often, like blowing bubbles. I hope I'm wrong about this. The happiness would be linked to the process and anticipation, not to the final result. If I work really hard I can perhaps achieve a lot, which would make me happy, but against that is the fact that the hard work is difficult and after a point, unpleasant. If I could, I would make the hard work more pleasant than, say, sitting around browsing the Internet. There is no reason why either intensity of happiness or happiness per unit time should depend on the difficult of the activity. -- Stathis Papaioannou From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 13 23:56:13 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 15:56:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> Message-ID: <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 10:57 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Dark Matter On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:09 AM, spike wrote: Note how empty and how vast and how sunny it is out there. Note the stark desert beauty everywhere. Go across Highway 50 in Nevada is a great example. Stop somewhere.. While highway 50 is a breathtaking example of loneliness, it's also a great example of why the government shouldn't be in charge of deciding where roads go. What a tremendous waste of taxpayer dollars! Any private company that would have built it as a toll road would have LONG AGO gone out of business. I hate that highways are the example people always bring up of why we need large government projects. They do it so poorly. -Kelly Kelly I totally agree, so don't interpret the next bit as refuting it in any way. Here's our chance to redeem a mistake of the past, to turn a stumbling block into a stepping stone. Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based solar. It's about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old desert. What we could do is use all those Chinese PV factories' output, install ground based PV a km or more either side of the road, collect the power every km or so, use the power to convert low-grade bituminous coal from Wyoming and Utah or biomass from California's Central Valley to liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Autonomous trucks would haul in water and feedstock, then haul out Diesel oil. Since the trucks are autonomous, we could use smaller trucks to preserve the road, or even do stuff like taking standard tanker trucks and retrofitting the big Diesel engines with smaller ones so that the trucks cruise at 80 kph instead of the usual 110-130, so that alone would nearly double the fuel economy in hauling out synfuel. The road already exists, and isn't being used for anything, snaking all the way out thru that lonely desert. The PV factories in China already exist, and they are filled with workers who will rise up and kill if they don't have something to do. We could use Chinese PVs, American sunshine and coal, synthesize the fuel in Nevada and ship it all the way back to China if we wanted. Time to fire up the old spreadsheet! There is so much empty land out there, it would be interesting to estimate what could be done with 1000 square km of ground based PV used for biomass or coal conversion to liquids. Highway 50 was built for the wrong reasons, but if we used that as a showcase for a huge GBPV installation, it would be an example of using cheap energy now to create an energy source for expensive energy times in the future. A successful demonstration of that would give the world new hope. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 00:27:00 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 16:27:00 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: References: <026001cee0a8$9aec5470$d0c4fd50$@att.net> Message-ID: <039001cee0d0$3c98a860$b5c9f920$@att.net> Skip to the end if you are hard up for time. It is worth it. s >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 12:43 PM, spike wrote: Or not. Be kind to Republicans John, they may soon run your government. >.Perhaps this is wishful thinking Spike. No. I don't see the Rs as an improvement over the Ds. The Tea Party might be an improvement, or the libertarian party, but the two majors are difficult for me to distinguish from each other. >.Demographics are on the Democrat's side. True, but this time around, the Democrats may not be on the Democrats' side. Consider this ad, and imagine yourself a serious Catholic, an important component of the American left and the Democrat party. Now check out this ad: http://www.doyougotinsurance.com/index.php?id=20 How does that make you feel? I'll tell you what I am feeling when I see something like this: Damn she is hot. But I am not Catholic. If I had been, this would really piss me offwardly. I would find it highly offensive I suppose, enough to make me stay home next November or possibly even vote for the other guy for the first time ever. Suppose you match the demographic of the cocky young man in this ad. Would it compel you to go buy insurance? Didn't think so. They will not come. Suppose you are the girl. Will this ad work on you? Didn't think so. It might encourage you to buy BCPs out of pocket I suppose, then go on the prowl for guys like this one. So they don't come either. Now the system collapses, and you have all those target demographics who usually vote D are bewildered. Some who have long been told they could keep their current health plans are getting notices that they are being cancelled because they don't cover maternity expenses. >. While the abject stupidity of Washington is undeniable, you can see that an otherwise very smart person can end up blaming the wrong party for the trouble. As we saw, yes. That only works for a while. A US default would raise our price of borrowing, but our borrowing should be more expensive than it is: it is riskier than it appears. >.Ok Spike, you've off the rails here a bit. Defaulting on our debt would increase the rate of interest the Federal Government would have to pay. They won't default. They might reduce payouts of Social Security or Medicare, but will find some justification for it besides the obvious. >. While that doesn't sound so horrible, in 2012, payment of interest on the debt cost $220 billion, or about 6 percent of the budget. If the interest rate doubled from its current low rate (sorry, I can't make sense of the numbers to tell you exactly what it is today) then Poof! All of a sudden this goes from 6% of the budget to 12% -Kelly . Kelly I know it is bad, but interest rates will eventually go up, regardless of Federal monetary policy. Stopping them will be like holding back the rising tide. We can at least try to make for a softer landing, or just keep pretending we can live far beyond our means as long as we persistently outvote those who say this will end badly, and keep borrowing like desperate addicts. To end on a cheerful note, Adrianna the Mona Lisa of HealthCare.gov has been found! And oooooohhhh she is hot, slender, perfect skin, perfect teeth, seeeeexy Columbian accent, oh my, I can't get enough of her: http://gma.yahoo.com/exclusive-obamacares-mystery-woman-says-she-fell-victim -111640839--abc-news-topstories.html If she can't figure out some way to leverage this to a cool fortune, she might as well have stayed in Columbia. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 01:40:26 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 17:40:26 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: <040901cee0da$7f3e6150$7dbb23f0$@att.net> .. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >>.While highway 50 is a breathtaking example of loneliness, it's also a great example of why the government shouldn't be in charge of deciding where roads go.I hate that highways are the example people always bring up of why we need large government projects. They do it so poorly. -Kelly >. Kelly I totally agree, so don't interpret the next bit as refuting it in any way. Here's our chance to redeem a mistake of the past, to turn a stumbling block into a stepping stone..Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based solar. It's about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old desert.The road already exists, and isn't being used for anything, snaking all the way out thru that lonely desert. The PV factories in China already exist, and they are filled with workers who will rise up and kill if they don't have something to do. We could use Chinese PVs, American sunshine and coal, synthesize the fuel in Nevada and ship it all the way back to China if we wanted. Time to fire up the old spreadsheet! .spike Ok did it. Assume using route 50 where it diverges from Interstate 80 east of Reno, and take that road all the way to Payson Utah. That gives us over 800km of good two lane road through desert where the annual average is over 5 kWh/day, so 5 could be used as a conservative figure. That's about 1.8e6Wh/yr/m^2, so one km either side of the road would give us 1.6e3 km^2 or 1.6e9m^2 so that would make about about 3e15Wh/yr, which is a little more power than the US generated from coal and natural gas combined last year. Someone check my figures. A single km either side of the road for less than the distance from Reno Nevada to Payson Utah along and existing road that NOOOObody uses would replace coal and natural gas power in the US, and no one would even notice it was out there. How many have ever been on that road? Kelly has, I have. We may be the only two here. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 02:28:13 2013 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 20:28:13 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <040901cee0da$7f3e6150$7dbb23f0$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <040901cee0da$7f3e6150$7dbb23f0$@att.net> Message-ID: On the topic of dark matter, isn't it wonderful to live in a place and time where we know so woefully little about the universe? I think it's quite charming. Also encouraging to understand that our current models ARE far too arbitrary and that they have become and will probably become less arbitrary multiple times throughout our lifetimes! -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 03:43:13 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 19:43:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: > Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based > solar. It?s about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it > and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old > desert. What we could do is use all those Chinese PV factories? output, > install ground based PV a km or more either side of the road, collect the > power every km or so, use the power to convert low-grade bituminous coal > from Wyoming and Utah or biomass from California?s Central Valley to liquid > hydrocarbon fuel. Autonomous trucks would haul in water and feedstock, > then haul out Diesel oil. Since the trucks are autonomous, we could use > smaller trucks to preserve the road, or even do stuff like taking standard > tanker trucks and retrofitting the big Diesel engines with smaller ones so > that the trucks cruise at 80 kph instead of the usual 110-130, so that > alone would nearly double the fuel economy in hauling out synfuel. > Better: pipelines. Since you have a stationary power source, let the water & feedstock flow in and the fuel out. Over flat enough land, angle them so the water & feedstock pipes go down, and the fuel pipe up, about a centimeter for every kilometer horizontally, and you might be able to pool the fuel & have water/feedstock pumped out at existing towns, possibly piped straight to gas stations, greatly decreasing the infrastructure needed. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 05:37:50 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:37:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: > >> Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground >> based solar. It?s about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base >> under it and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that >> big old desert. What we could do is use all those Chinese PV factories? >> output, install ground based PV a km or more either side of the road, >> collect the power every km or so, use the power to convert low-grade >> bituminous coal from Wyoming and Utah or biomass from California?s Central >> Valley to liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Autonomous trucks would haul in water >> and feedstock, then haul out Diesel oil. Since the trucks are autonomous, >> we could use smaller trucks to preserve the road, or even do stuff like >> taking standard tanker trucks and retrofitting the big Diesel engines with >> smaller ones so that the trucks cruise at 80 kph instead of the usual >> 110-130, so that alone would nearly double the fuel economy in hauling out >> synfuel. >> > Not a bad idea. As long as you can fund it with kickstarter instead of gov dollars... LOL > Better: pipelines. > Pipelines are better, though if you are talking about oil shale, I don't know if that would be easy to pump through pipes, even as a slurry. Maybe the autonomous trucks or a train > Since you have a stationary power source, let the water & feedstock flow > in and the fuel out. Over flat enough land, angle them so the water & > feedstock pipes go down, and the fuel pipe up, about a centimeter for every > kilometer horizontally, and you might be able to pool the fuel & have > water/feedstock pumped out at existing towns, possibly piped straight to > gas stations, greatly decreasing the infrastructure needed. > The only gas station shown on Google maps in the 152 miles between Delta, Utah and Ely, Nevada is three miles off the road in Baker, NV. Google street views shows that it has two pumps and no permanent attendant. There isn't even a door on the gas station. http://goo.gl/maps/jAC56 The other station has four pumps and isn't even listed as a gas station on Google maps. http://goo.gl/maps/0wH5i I don't think either sells enough gasoline to justify local pumping. The day Google did street views, apparently only four other cars were seen along this 152 mile stretch. Check out this hyperview I made: http://bit.ly/HZzOjE There is a lot of sun there... that's for sure. Of note is that Nevada was the first state to legalize autonomous vehicles. Go figure. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 05:52:20 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 21:52:20 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Pipelines are better, though if you are talking about oil shale > We're not. We're talking about much more liquid things. > The only gas station shown on Google maps in the 152 miles between Delta, > Utah and Ely, Nevada is three miles off the road in Baker, NV. > > With the right tilt and separation of pipes, that's no problem. The pipes only have to handle half the distance from one gas station to the next; the other half is handled by pipes going to the next gas station. Therefore, one gas station in the middle of a 152 mile stretch, where there's also a station at either end of that stretch, only needs pipes that can handle 152/4 = 38 miles. Granted, 4 sets of these pipes would be needed. > I don't think either sells enough gasoline to justify local pumping. > If not, it's at least a more convenient depot for the trucks to carry things to and from, greatly reducing equipment costs - which in turn justifies the local pumping. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 06:38:11 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 22:38:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 7:43 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Dark Matter On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: >>.Highway 50 has enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based solar. It's about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old desert. What we could do is use all those Chinese PV factories' output, install ground based PV a km or more either side of the road, collect the power every km or so, use the power to convert low-grade bituminous coal from Wyoming and Utah or biomass from California's Central Valley to liquid hydrocarbon fuel. Autonomous trucks would haul in water and feedstock, then haul out Diesel oil. Since the trucks are autonomous, we could use smaller trucks to preserve the road, or even do stuff like taking standard tanker trucks and retrofitting the big Diesel engines with smaller ones so that the trucks cruise at 80 kph instead of the usual 110-130, so that alone would nearly double the fuel economy in hauling out synfuel. >.Better: pipelines. Since you have a stationary power source, let the water & feedstock flow in and the fuel out. Over flat enough land, angle them so the water & feedstock pipes go down, and the fuel pipe up, about a centimeter for every kilometer horizontally, and you might be able to pool the fuel & have water/feedstock pumped out at existing towns, possibly piped straight to gas stations, greatly decreasing the infrastructure needed. I think you are onto something there, me lad. We grind the biomass and create a slurry, then send the feedstock and water together in a pipe. I need to work out that economic model. I know how much tanker trucks cost, don't know much about pipe costs. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 06:58:29 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 13 Nov 2013 23:58:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 10:52 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 9:37 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Pipelines are better, though if you are talking about oil shale >> > > We're not. We're talking about much more liquid things. > Ok, good. > > The only gas station shown on Google maps in the 152 miles between Delta, >> Utah and Ely, Nevada is three miles off the road in Baker, NV. >> >> > > With the right tilt and separation of pipes, that's no problem. The pipes > only have to handle half the distance from one gas station to the next; the > other half is handled by pipes going to the next gas station. Therefore, > one gas station in the middle of a 152 mile stretch, where there's also a > station at either end of that stretch, only needs pipes that can handle > 152/4 = 38 miles. Granted, 4 sets of these pipes would be needed. > As you can see here: http://bit.ly/1bFsOCh we've built a lot of pipelines already. None are all that close to the area of interest, but we could build another if the environmentalists don't jack it all up. > >> I don't think either sells enough gasoline to justify local pumping. >> > > If not, it's at least a more convenient depot for the trucks to carry > things to and from, greatly reducing equipment costs - which in turn > justifies the local pumping. > You could justify pumping it all the way to Salt Lake or Los Angeles or just to the nearest existing pipeline. IF there were enough fuel produced, of course. The better use of Nevada is to use Yucca Mountain for what Cthulhu intended it for, the storage of nuclear waste. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 07:01:56 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 00:01:56 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:38 PM, spike wrote: > I think you are onto something there, me lad. We grind the biomass and > create a slurry, then send the feedstock and water together in a pipe. I > need to work out that economic model. I know how much tanker trucks cost, > don?t know much about pipe costs. > Railroads are far cheaper than trucks. And pipes are far cheaper than railroads. But good luck prying water out of the hands of the Los Angeleans... they are really attached to their wet stuff. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Trucks-Trains-or-Pipelines-The-Best-Way-to-Transport-Petroleum.html The Washington-based Association of American Railroads said in a report this year the rate of hazardous-material spills by railroads is about 2.7 times higher than pipelines. The cost for rail transport is about three times higher than pipelining. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 08:08:05 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 01:08:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:35 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > > > That being said, what does Bitcoin specifically (or cryptocurrency in > > general) add to the scenario that isn't provided by government backed > > currencies? > > Bitcoin add trust because it is trustless. > Ok, I get that part. But I don't see really what it has to do with the Singularity specifically. > Fiat currency (but also gold and silver) can not add trust because they > can be debased, payment reversed, fund seized at the source bank, in > transit and at the receiving bank and from the hand of the payer and the > payed. > Not good, of course. > Governments or sociopathic AIs Governments are just one type of sociopathic AI... > could and would exploit the weakness of > the system like sociopathic speculators and politics exploit the system > now. Given their time preferences and limited resources they could not > even understand the scope of the damage they are doing to others and > themselves in the present and future. I get all these advantages of Bitcoin. The question remains as to how this specifically relates to the Singularity. Sorry if I'm being dense here, it is late. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 09:26:20 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 02:26:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code Message-ID: Thought you might enjoy this. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/ According to this, the number of lines of code required to fix healthcare.gov is roughly the size of a modern web browser, firefox or chrome... The kicker is at the bottom of the page. Unreal. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Nov 14 12:07:13 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 05:07:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> Message-ID: <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Hi Kelly, For me, from within the singularity, or from wherever you happen to be, as you approach such, the only way you can tell you are approaching it, is the number of great opportunities like Bitcoin expands at least exponentially. The internet and the world wide web were a great opportunity. Lots of people got stinking rich, making the world a far better place. Bitcoin is yet another one of those, built on the internet. As we continue to fall into the singularity, the significance of these types of opportunities, and the rate at which they occur, will continue to explode, as the next ones are always based on, and enabled by, the last ones, making everyone even more stinking rich than the last one, at an ever increasing rate. Brent On 11/14/2013 1:08 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 2:35 AM, Mirco Romanato > wrote: > > > > That being said, what does Bitcoin specifically (or > cryptocurrency in > > general) add to the scenario that isn't provided by government > backed > > currencies? > > Bitcoin add trust because it is trustless. > > > Ok, I get that part. But I don't see really what it has to do with the > Singularity specifically. > > Fiat currency (but also gold and silver) can not add trust because > they > can be debased, payment reversed, fund seized at the source bank, in > transit and at the receiving bank and from the hand of the payer > and the > payed. > > > Not good, of course. > > Governments or sociopathic AIs > > > Governments are just one type of sociopathic AI... > > could and would exploit the weakness of > the system like sociopathic speculators and politics exploit the > system > now. Given their time preferences and limited resources they could not > even understand the scope of the damage they are doing to others and > themselves in the present and future. > > > I get all these advantages of Bitcoin. The question remains as to how > this specifically relates to the Singularity. Sorry if I'm being dense > here, it is late. > > -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 pharos at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 12:40:34 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:40:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:07 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > The internet and the world wide web were a great opportunity. Lots of > people got stinking rich, making the world a far better place. Bitcoin is > yet another one of those, built on the internet. As we continue to fall > into the singularity, the significance of these types of opportunities, and > the rate at which they occur, will continue to explode, as the next ones are > always based on, and enabled by, the last ones, making everyone even more > stinking rich than the last one, at an ever increasing rate. > Viewed from an alternate universe, a few people got stinking rich while millions were driven towards reduced income, poverty and unemployment, natural resources were consumed at an ever increasing rate and environmental pollution and destruction increased. More of the same appears like the Gates of Hell are opening wide. BillK From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Thu Nov 14 12:53:23 2013 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 05:53:23 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <5284C7C3.8040300@canonizer.com> Hi Bill, So, let me ask you this. The internet dissrupted most all industries. Lots of dumb, inefficient pockets of capital (i.e. large companies that did not adapt very fast) had their wealth taken from them, and given to the new upstarts that could better see the future - making everything WAY more efficient. So, other than a few rich dumb bastards that did not deserve the wealth, is anyone in the world today worse off, because of the internet? Brent On 11/14/2013 5:40 AM, BillK wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:07 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: >> The internet and the world wide web were a great opportunity. Lots of >> people got stinking rich, making the world a far better place. Bitcoin is >> yet another one of those, built on the internet. As we continue to fall >> into the singularity, the significance of these types of opportunities, and >> the rate at which they occur, will continue to explode, as the next ones are >> always based on, and enabled by, the last ones, making everyone even more >> stinking rich than the last one, at an ever increasing rate. >> > > Viewed from an alternate universe, a few people got stinking rich > while millions were driven towards reduced income, poverty and > unemployment, natural resources were consumed at an ever increasing > rate and environmental pollution and destruction increased. > > More of the same appears like the Gates of Hell are opening wide. > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > From rahmans at me.com Thu Nov 14 13:16:10 2013 From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:16:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> > Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 02:26:20 -0700 > From: Kelly Anderson > Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code > > Thought you might enjoy this. > http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/ > > According to this, the number of lines of code required to fix > healthcare.gov is roughly the size of a modern web browser, firefox or > chrome... > > The kicker is at the bottom of the page. Unreal. > > -Kelly Hi Kelly, There is no doubt that the website is a bloated piece of $#!+. The only question for me is how they achieved such epic levels of bloat and craptasticness. The suspected size of the code base displayed on the site you gave puts this thing in a league of it's own. But seriously, how did they manage to make it so big? Thousands of plans x thousands of insurers x 50 state versions x thousands of procedures might do it but that's data and not code. Are they counting the data set as part of the code base? I honestly have a hard time imagining how they achieved such bloat. I guess it's a failure of my imagination because somehow they seem to have done it. Regards, Omar Rahman From pharos at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 13:28:48 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:28:48 +0000 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <5284C7C3.8040300@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> <5284C7C3.8040300@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:53 PM, Brent Allsop wrote: > So, let me ask you this. The internet disrupted most all industries. Lots > of dumb, inefficient pockets of capital (i.e. large companies that did not > adapt very fast) had their wealth taken from them, and given to the new > upstarts that could better see the future - making everything WAY more > efficient. > > So, other than a few rich dumb bastards that did not deserve the wealth, is > anyone in the world today worse off, because of the internet? > > You want me to specifically list the disadvantages of the internet??? (And ignore the rest of the environment?). The internet is an improved communication system, a tool that can be used for good or bad purposes. So some uses will help people and some uses will make people worse off, just as the telephone did. Do I really need to list the bits that make people worse off? NSA and corporation monitoring, population surveillance, export of jobs overseas (aided by improved communication), never away from work (email and messaging evenings and weekends), alienation, loneliness and relationship breakups (living on the internet reduces personal contacts), SPAM, id theft and monetary loss, financial frauds, internet paedophile clubs, virus takeover and misuse of personal pcs, worldwide publicity for insanity in forums and chat rooms, easy access for children to the worst kinds of violence and pornography, etc. This list is just a quick sample and probably incomplete. I do appreciate the good bits of the internet as well. But it is certainly not a one-way 'good thing'. BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 14 13:23:08 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:23:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> Message-ID: <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> Il 14/11/2013 09:08, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > I get all these advantages of Bitcoin. The question remains as to how > this specifically relates to the Singularity. Sorry if I'm being dense > here, it is late. In the past we (humans or protohumans) moved from a social group formed by collaborators (help others) AND exploiters (exploit collaborators) AND not collaborators (do not collaborate but are not exploited). This configurations limit the group size and the type of cooperation possible. The advent of the altruistic punisher v1.0 allowed the group to flourish and become larger (it limited the number of exploiters in small groups). Larger groups were able to wipe out smaller groups and most important to not be wiped out by natural causes (like wolves or hyenas packs). Then Altruistic Punisher 2.0 come out and instead to punish just the exploiters & defectors it punished them AND the individuals unwilling to join the punishing efforts. This allowed the groups to grow larger and larger, without real limits of sizes, because larger the group less costly is the punishing effort. But, as larger groups we changed the environment around ourselves in many ways. This allowed the exploiters and the defectors to find new strategies to exploit the collaborators and the punishers without being detected or making the punishing unsustainable. Politicians and bureaucrats are in position to exploit people with little or no repercussion to their reproductive fitness, because they do it with many degree of separation and are able to deflect blame in many cases. In many cases, this is done by writing and continuously changing rules and administering them to regulate the conflicts between individuals (at least this is the stated rationale). This confound the individual at individual level because in many cases he is unable to tell if someone act with malice or is pushed by other forces to act in the way he act. Bitcoin and the blockchain, acting as a ledger of properties and possessions, is able to take away the obscure and intricate rules of laws and the discretion they are enforced with. If a rule is decided between two parties, the rule can not be broken. If the majority accept a rule, it can not be changed easily after by a minority, interpreted differently and so on. There is no "depend of what the means of is is", because if someone is able to change the mean of is, it must change it for all at the same time (and it would not be pretty to see the after effects on everyone him included). Without central banks to be able to redistribute the wealth from producers to exploiters (a little elite) a lot of more capital could be accumulated by producers making their lives better and allowing them to thrive and produce even more wealth and science and technology. Without judges and prosecutors able to selectively enforce rules a lot of bad laws would be striked down. Without the money, a lot of police would not spend time running around to punish people for victimless crimes. And so on. Mirco From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 14 13:30:52 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:30:52 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> Message-ID: <5284D08C.6090107@libero.it> Il 14/11/2013 14:16, Omar Rahman ha scritto: According to this, the number of lines of code required to fix >> healthcare.gov is roughly the size of a modern web browser, firefox >> or chrome... >> >> The kicker is at the bottom of the page. Unreal. > There is no doubt that the website is a bloated piece of $#!+. The > only question for me is how they achieved such epic levels of bloat > and craptasticness. The suspected size of the code base displayed on > the site you gave puts this thing in a league of it's own. But > seriously, how did they manage to make it so big? > Thousands of plans x thousands of insurers x 50 state versions x > thousands of procedures might do it but that's data and not code. Are > they counting the data set as part of the code base? I honestly have > a hard time imagining how they achieved such bloat. I guess it's a > failure of my imagination because somehow they seem to have done it. They probably tried to code the law(s), with all it loopholes, exceptions, and so on. It is not the code of healthcare.gov that is bloated beyond belief, it is the laws and regulations that are bloated way inside the twilight zone. Mirco From anders at aleph.se Thu Nov 14 14:08:12 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:08:12 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: <5284D08C.6090107@libero.it> References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> <5284D08C.6090107@libero.it> Message-ID: <5284D94C.6080709@aleph.se> On 2013-11-14 14:30, Mirco Romanato wrote: > They probably tried to code the law(s), with all it loopholes, > exceptions, and so on. It is not the code of healthcare.gov that is > bloated beyond belief, it is the laws and regulations that are bloated > way inside the twilight zone. True. But even coding non-bloated laws seem to be very, very hard: http://robohub.org/we-robot-conference-2-law-as-algorithm/ -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 14:58:03 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 06:58:03 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> Message-ID: <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Subject: Re: [ExI] Dark Matter On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based solar. It's about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old desert. >.Not a bad idea. As long as you can fund it with kickstarter instead of gov dollars... LOL This is an idea which scales well. >.There is a lot of sun there... that's for sure. Of note is that Nevada was the first state to legalize autonomous vehicles. Go figure. -Kelly OK hold on, I think I figured out the problem. It felt one order of magnitude off and it is. I worked this problem about 20 years ago and was getting numbers more like 10 km either side of the road. This time I forgot to account for the fact that those cheapy PVs the Chinese are grinding out below cost are only about 10% efficient. I did the calcs on this back when PVs were about an order of magnitude more expensive than they are now, and oil was a quarter what it is now. So to generate the amount of power we make with natural gas and coal combined requires about 10 km either side of the road along a nearly abandoned stretch of pavement in Nevada. Get on Google Maps, go to street view, look around. There is pleeeenty of room for something like that. Next step is to price out 16 thousand square kilometers of PV panels, or 16 billion square meters. Any gurus among us? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rtomek at ceti.pl Thu Nov 14 15:19:27 2013 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 16:19:27 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> Message-ID: On Thu, 14 Nov 2013, Omar Rahman wrote: [...] > Thousands of plans x thousands of insurers x 50 state versions x > thousands of procedures might do it but that's data and not code. Are > they counting the data set as part of the code base? I honestly have a > hard time imagining how they achieved such bloat. I guess it's a failure > of my imagination because somehow they seem to have done it. Don't try too hard to understand it. We become what we understand, so if you go too far on the bloat side, the bloatness will stick to you... and all your coding from that time on will become bloat. Chances are, they heard about SQL injection and decided to go without database. So, they took a data and generated code from it, full of IF and CASE statements. And GOTOs, because without GOTOs no web service would be complete... Kind of, the treatment happened to be more deadly than disease. 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 Thu Nov 14 15:38:55 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 07:38:55 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> Message-ID: <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Wednesday, November 13, 2013 11:02 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Dark Matter On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 11:38 PM, spike wrote: I think you are onto something there, me lad. spike >.Railroads are far cheaper than trucks. And pipes are far cheaper than railroads. But good luck prying water out of the hands of the Los Angeleans... they are really attached to their wet stuff. http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Trucks-Trains-or-Pipelines-The-Bes t-Way-to-Transport-Petroleum.html >.The Washington-based Association of American Railroads said in a report this year the rate of hazardous-material spills by railroads is about 2.7 times higher than pipelines. The cost for rail transport is about three times higher than pipelining. -Kelly Cool thanks Kelly. It might be possible to transport the biomass using seawater somehow, but I haven't worked out the economic model or the cooling model for that matter. It might not be practical to carry off the waste heat with evaporation. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 16:00:52 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 08:00:52 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <031e01cee152$b27fc950$177f5bf0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 1:26 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code Thought you might enjoy this. http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/million-lines-of-code/ According to this, the number of lines of code required to fix healthcare.gov is roughly the size of a modern web browser, firefox or chrome... The kicker is at the bottom of the page. Unreal. -Kelly Kelly, in all this code, no one has ever discovered a plausible explanation for why they ever needed allll thiiiis coooode in the first place. Why didn't they just set it up like the old days, where the whole deal could be presented on a paper chart, or fifty different charts, one for each state? It would have an income column, age brackets, a list of companies and their prices, along with what they cover, a column for the penalty for opting out, and they're done. Let the insurance companies fill in most of the blanks. Easy. Doesn't need code at all, or if so, not much. What in the goddam hell are allllll thoooose liiiiines of code actually doing? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 17:45:37 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 09:45:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 6:58 AM, spike wrote: > Next step is to price out 16 thousand square kilometers of PV panels, or > 16 billion square meters. Any gurus among us? > From http://shop.mlsolar.com/50W-Solar-Panel-12V-Free-Shipping-OFF-GRID-RV-BOAT-181068755276.htmwe have one price point, at least, of $85 for 590x665 mm, which comes to a bit under $220 per square meter. Granted, this is better quality than the panels you're talking about, but between discount for lower quality and bulk purchase discount, I suspect the price wouldn't come down by more than 2 orders of magnitude and probably no more than 1. And that's not including the cost of the land, or the fuel processing equipment. So, if you Kickstarter finance this, you're going to start off with much less than 16,000 km^2. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 18:17:24 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:17:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 6:16 AM, Omar Rahman wrote: > > Hi Kelly, > > There is no doubt that the website is a bloated piece of $#!+. The only > question for me is how they achieved such epic levels of bloat and > craptasticness. Bureaucracy. > The suspected size of the code base displayed on the site you gave puts > this thing in a league of it's own. But seriously, how did they manage to > make it so big? > Cut and paste coding on an industrial scale? Or perhaps, since this is a government project, they did something stupid and told the developers that they would be paid for every line of code... hehe. That would do it. > Thousands of plans x thousands of insurers x 50 state versions x thousands > of procedures might do it but that's data and not code. Apparently, that is what did it. All tied together with some kind of web services calls. Also, they must have used at least 100 million lines of code to program Debbie Wasserman-Schultz. http://hotair.com/archives/2013/11/14/debbie-wasserman-schultz-i-meant-what-i-said-were-running-on-obamacare-next-year/ http://hotair.com/archives/2013/10/23/cnn-blowing-up-healthcare-gov-and-starting-over-still-looking-like-their-best-option-say-more-tech-experts/ Maybe they should throw the whole damn thing out and start over by hiring a software architect. I am guessing that a lot of the code is intended to implement various things in the 1500+ page Obamacare law, which is unpardonably large for a law to begin with, but who knows? Are they counting the data set as part of the code base? I honestly have a > hard time imagining how they achieved such bloat. I guess it's a failure of > my imagination because somehow they seem to have done it. > Here are a couple of pithy quotes from Slate: http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/2013/10/21/healthcare_gov_problems_why_5_million_lines_of_code_is_the_wrong_way_to.html If the site really contains 500 million lines of code, they say, *that?s a strong hint that the programmers involved are doing something wrong.* Jeff Atwood, co-founder of the coding question-and-answer site Stack Overflow, wrote in 2006: ?Here's the single most important decision you can make on your software project if you want it to be successful: *keep it small.* Small may not accomplish much, but the odds of outright failure?a disturbingly common outcome for most software projects?(are) low.? === http://www.slate.com/articles/business/bitwise/2013/10/what_went_wrong_with_healthcare_gov_the_front_end_and_back_end_never_talked.html "Writing in Medium in defense of Development Seed, technologist and contractor CTO Adam Becker complains of ?layers upon layers of contractors, a high ratio of project managers to programmers, and a severe lack of technical ownership.? Sounds right to me." "Power flows upward while responsibility flows downward, which is why you couldn?t pay me to work as a government contractor. It?d be like going back to Microsoft ." David Auerbach === Apparently, CGI, one of the big contractors on the project hasn't even hired a spokesman to explain their side of the story. That should tell you how bad it is all by itself. It's so bad, we don't even want to talk about it because that would be digging our own grave. My prediction stands. Obamacare will fail. Obama will blame the insurance companies, and now the software programmers and designers too. In the end, it will be EVERYBODY's fault but Obama, and we'll all be working for the government trying to fix their code. If they can make us pay taxes for things we don't want or need, then they sure as hell can chain us to a desk and make us code. We'll write trillions of lines of code hehehe... -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 18:06:30 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:06:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: <031e01cee152$b27fc950$177f5bf0$@att.net> References: <031e01cee152$b27fc950$177f5bf0$@att.net> Message-ID: <005d01cee164$3ff96050$bfec20f0$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of spike Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson The kicker is at the bottom of the page. Unreal. -Kelly OK I have two questions. First, imagine you are a writer for the Onion. How could you possibly create a parody of this? https://twitter.com/sarahkliff/status/400318902300708864/photo/1 And if so, it leads to my second question. Never mind Adriana, the beautiful brown-eyed Mona Lisa of HealthCare.gov; how do we find the Susie, the adequate-in-a-pinch hot to trot Brosurance slut? Adriana was found alive and well, and she is as gorgeous as her picture, but she is taken: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/obamacare-model-health-care-website -felt-bullied-critics-article-1.1515206 The search continues for HTH Susie however. We are left to wonder if she was told when that photo of her with Nate would be used this way. I wonder what her father thinks of that ad. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 18:19:52 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:19:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 7:58 AM, spike wrote: > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Kelly Anderson > > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Dark Matter > > > > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 8:43 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 3:56 PM, spike wrote: > > Highway 50 had enormous potential as a showcase location for ground based > solar. It?s about 600 km of paved two-lane with a good solid base under it > and very little rain, little cloud cover ever out there in that big old > desert? > > > > >?Not a bad idea. As long as you can fund it with kickstarter instead of > gov dollars... LOL > > > > This is an idea which scales well. > Just like health care... > >?There is a lot of sun there... that's for sure. Of note is that Nevada > was the first state to legalize autonomous vehicles. Go figure. -Kelly > > > > > > OK hold on, I think I figured out the problem. It felt one order of > magnitude off and it is. I worked this problem about 20 years ago and was > getting numbers more like 10 km either side of the road. This time I > forgot to account for the fact that those cheapy PVs the Chinese are > grinding out below cost are only about 10% efficient. I did the calcs on > this back when PVs were about an order of magnitude more expensive than > they are now, and oil was a quarter what it is now. > > > > So to generate the amount of power we make with natural gas and coal > combined requires about 10 km either side of the road along a nearly > abandoned stretch of pavement in Nevada. Get on Google Maps, go to street > view, look around. There is pleeeenty of room for something like that. > Next step is to price out 16 thousand square kilometers of PV panels, or 16 > billion square meters. Any gurus among us? > The problem with that is you are creating more demand than there is supply. That will drive the price up (econ 101). And whatever numbers you start with won't be the ones you end with. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 18:22:14 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 11:22:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 8:38 AM, spike wrote: > > > Cool thanks Kelly. It might be possible to transport the biomass using > seawater somehow, > Only if you can desalinate it first. And if you do that, Los Angeles will want to drink it. And when Los Angeles wants water, Lolita gets water! Seriously, you can't do it with seawater because it is too corrosive. Anything you built would not last long enough to be worth the cost. > but I haven?t worked out the economic model or the cooling model for that > matter. It might not be practical to carry off the waste heat with > evaporation. spike > Sorry, what needs to be cooled here? I'm lost. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msd001 at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 18:32:01 2013 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:32:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Maybe they should throw the whole damn thing out and start over by hiring > a software architect. I am guessing that a lot of the code is intended to > implement various things in the 1500+ page Obamacare law, which is > unpardonably large for a law to begin with, but who knows? > > Maybe each provider should sell their "product" via an Amazon store... I'm confident Amazon has the infrastructure and logistics know-how to satisfy 300+ million American's "shopping" needs with 1-click ease. Or maybe I'm woefully ignorant of ACA's true complexity _requirements_ - there could be several layers of subterfuge surrounding the real reason why it must suck so hard. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 18:55:09 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 10:55:09 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Nov 14, 2013 10:23 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 8:38 AM, spike wrote: >> Cool thanks Kelly. It might be possible to transport the biomass using seawater somehow, > > > Only if you can desalinate it first. And if you do that, Los Angeles will want to drink it. And when Los Angeles wants water, Lolita gets water! Indeed, a more viable product for all this electricity might well be simple desalinated water. At least if the energy production was near the coast. That doesn't require radical new technology. In fact, it's somewhat boring. But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable first step toward this sort of scheme. Further, this step could quite readily attract large private investment - if and only if the data and projections are believable to said investors. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 19:08:06 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:08:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:17 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> Maybe they should throw the whole damn thing out and start over by hiring >> a software architect. I am guessing that a lot of the code is intended to >> implement various things in the 1500+ page Obamacare law, which is >> unpardonably large for a law to begin with, but who knows? >> >> > Maybe each provider should sell their "product" via an Amazon store... > I'm confident Amazon has the infrastructure and logistics know-how to > satisfy 300+ million American's "shopping" needs with 1-click ease. > > Or maybe I'm woefully ignorant of ACA's true complexity _requirements_ - > there could be several layers of subterfuge surrounding the real reason why > it must suck so hard. > While Amazon does have the shopping cart figured out, they don't have the facilities, required by the law to protect the privacy of their customers. In addition, how much various insurance companies charge various people varies by a relatively large number of variables, and they want to keep those variables secret just as Google wants to keep their algorithms secret from SEO merchants. What you have here is a collision of galaxies. Large Washington Bureaucracies colliding with large Insurance Bureaucracies colliding with smaller but still large state bureaucracies from 47 states. (I guess three states have opted out??? is that right???) When the juggernaut LOL. I just got this from Wikipedia: WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION Error Our servers are currently experiencing a technical problem. This is probably temporary and should be fixed soon. Please try again in a few minutes. The Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit organisation which hosts some of the most popular sites on the Internet, including Wikipedia. It has a constant need to purchase new hardware. If you would like to help, please donate . ------------------------------ If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request: GET http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juggernaut, from 10.64.32.104 via cp1055 cp1055 ([10.64.32.107]:3128), Varnish XID 2611000651 Forwarded for: 66.182.94.87, 10.64.32.104 Error: 503, Service Unavailable at Thu, 14 Nov 2013 18:59:21 GMT Perhaps Wikipedia has become a bureaucracy... LOL Here is a picture of three original juggernauts http://www.archaeologyonline.net/indology/jagannatha-puri/rathayatra-carts-panorama.jpg The story goes that if someone falls beneath these things, they don't stop. They can't stop. And the person is killed and ground into the dirt. The effect of Obamacare is only important in what it does to the juggernauts of government, insurance and government. What it does to the proles is of no concern. The wheels of justice are lubricated with human blood. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 19:12:14 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:12:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Nov 14, 2013 10:23 AM, "Kelly Anderson" wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 8:38 AM, spike wrote: > >> Cool thanks Kelly. It might be possible to transport the biomass using > seawater somehow, > > > > > > Only if you can desalinate it first. And if you do that, Los Angeles > will want to drink it. And when Los Angeles wants water, Lolita gets water! > > Indeed, a more viable product for all this electricity might well be > simple desalinated water. At least if the energy production was near the > coast. > Correct. The problem now being that land near the coast in sunny areas is expensive. Spike's solution took advantage of existing infrastructure (i-50) that is underutilized and of low value, that happens to be in an area with a lot of sun. Also an area where people don't generally want to live, I might add. > That doesn't require radical new technology. In fact, it's somewhat > boring. But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable first > step toward this sort of scheme. Further, this step could quite readily > attract large private investment - if and only if the data and projections > are believable to said investors. > Correct. And I don't think you can make the numbers work for Solar today. I would love to be proven wrong, as I love solar in principle. I still think putting up that many solar panels would likely kill as many people as Chernobyl... LOL -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 19:18:59 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:18:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 5:07 AM, Brent Allsop wrote: > > Hi Kelly, > > For me, from within the singularity, or from wherever you happen to be, as > you approach such, the only way you can tell you are approaching it, is the > number of great opportunities like Bitcoin expands at least exponentially. > > The internet and the world wide web were a great opportunity. Lots of > people got stinking rich, making the world a far better place. Bitcoin is > yet another one of those, built on the internet. As we continue to fall > into the singularity, the significance of these types of opportunities, and > the rate at which they occur, will continue to explode, as the next ones > are always based on, and enabled by, the last ones, making everyone even > more stinking rich than the last one, at an ever increasing rate. > Ok, finally an argument that combines Bitcoins and the Singularity. Strangely, Brent, I think I agree with you. Faster change means faster paradigm shift, which leads to more and more opportunities in less and less time. I just saw the Winklewonder twins' interview on one of the money news shows. The guy running the show was f'ing clueless. Amazing. So there is opportunity out there for us geeks at this time. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 19:19:53 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:19:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 5:40 AM, BillK wrote: > > Viewed from an alternate universe, a few people got stinking rich > while millions were driven towards reduced income, poverty and > unemployment, natural resources were consumed at an ever increasing > rate and environmental pollution and destruction increased. > > More of the same appears like the Gates of Hell are opening wide. > Bill, are you actually arguing that the Internet is a bad thing? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 14 19:24:26 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 20:24:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <5285236A.3040601@libero.it> Il 14/11/2013 20:18, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > Strangely, Brent, I think I agree with you. Faster change means faster > paradigm shift, which leads to more and more opportunities in less and > less time. I just saw the Winklewonder twins' interview on one of the > money news shows. The guy running the show was f'ing clueless. Amazing. > So there is opportunity out there for us geeks at this time. "The fact you don't get it is the reason the opportunity exist" I love that answer. Mirco From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 19:25:58 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:25:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 6:23 AM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 14/11/2013 09:08, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > > I get all these advantages of Bitcoin. The question remains as to how > > this specifically relates to the Singularity. Sorry if I'm being dense > > here, it is late. > > In the past we (humans or protohumans) moved from a social group formed > by collaborators (help others) AND exploiters (exploit collaborators) > AND not collaborators (do not collaborate but are not exploited). > > This configurations limit the group size and the type of cooperation > possible. > > The advent of the altruistic punisher v1.0 allowed the group to flourish > and become larger (it limited the number of exploiters in small groups). > Larger groups were able to wipe out smaller groups and most important to > not be wiped out by natural causes (like wolves or hyenas packs). > > Then Altruistic Punisher 2.0 come out and instead to punish just the > exploiters & defectors it punished them AND the individuals unwilling to > join the punishing efforts. This allowed the groups to grow larger and > larger, without real limits of sizes, because larger the group less > costly is the punishing effort. > > But, as larger groups we changed the environment around ourselves in > many ways. This allowed the exploiters and the defectors to find new > strategies to exploit the collaborators and the punishers without being > detected or making the punishing unsustainable. > > Politicians and bureaucrats are in position to exploit people with > little or no repercussion to their reproductive fitness, because they do > it with many degree of separation and are able to deflect blame in many > cases. > > In many cases, this is done by writing and continuously changing rules > and administering them to regulate the conflicts between individuals (at > least this is the stated rationale). This confound the individual at > individual level because in many cases he is unable to tell if someone > act with malice or is pushed by other forces to act in the way he act. > > Bitcoin and the blockchain, acting as a ledger of properties and > possessions, is able to take away the obscure and intricate rules of > laws and the discretion they are enforced with. > If a rule is decided between two parties, the rule can not be broken. > If the majority accept a rule, it can not be changed easily after by a > minority, interpreted differently and so on. There is no "depend of what > the means of is is", because if someone is able to change the mean of > is, it must change it for all at the same time (and it would not be > pretty to see the after effects on everyone him included). > > Without central banks to be able to redistribute the wealth from > producers to exploiters (a little elite) a lot of more capital could be > accumulated by producers making their lives better and allowing them to > thrive and produce even more wealth and science and technology. > > Without judges and prosecutors able to selectively enforce rules a lot > of bad laws would be striked down. > Without the money, a lot of police would not spend time running around > to punish people for victimless crimes. > > And so on. > Mirco, I couldn't have said it better. I believe I agree with every word you have said, and it was brilliantly stated. Thank you for that. I'm still struggling with the tie in to the Singularity. Are you predicting that the Singularity will bring an end to big business, big government, and empower the intelligent? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 20:02:47 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:02:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The Republican Party Isn't Really the Anti-Science Party In-Reply-To: <026001cee0a8$9aec5470$d0c4fd50$@att.net> References: <026001cee0a8$9aec5470$d0c4fd50$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 2:43 PM, spike wrote: > Be kind to Republicans John, they may soon run your government. > If in January Republican troglodytes continue to throw their feces at economic logic and behave as they did in October I have 3 predictions: 1) The approval rating of congress will drop even lower than its current 9% and Republicans will loose control of the House in the next election. 2) The level of stupidity displayed in October was so enormous that it even started to scare rich people like the Koch brothers (who said defaulting on the debt would be a disaster), so if they see a repeat performance in January money to Republican crazies will dry up. 3) No Republican will ever be president again. > Our government set up a huge Ponzi scheme; eventually it has to > collapse. > That could happen in 30 or 40 years but only if one takes the pessimistic assumption that future productivity will be no greater than what it is now, and I like most Extropians am not pessimistic in that regard. > It is doing that now. > For as long as I've been alive I've been hearing that government bankruptcy is imminent, but except for the imbecilic Republican stunt on October 23 2013 I never saw any evidence that it was actually going to happen. And I'm not the only one, the free market can't find any evidence that the government is about to go broke either, hence the anemic performance of gold and the insatiable demand for government bonds even at historic low interest rates. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 14 20:09:38 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:09:38 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131114200937.GZ5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 09:45:37AM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 6:58 AM, spike wrote: > > > Next step is to price out 16 thousand square kilometers of PV panels, or > > 16 billion square meters. Any gurus among us? > > It's not a good idea to use PV (~20% efficiency) to drive a synfuel plant (low efficiency) to refuel vehicles. PV to EV efficiency is quantitative, and automatically deployed trolleys (plus autonomous driving) will even let you forego large batteries, or run your plug-in hybrid in trolleybus mode during cruise. Not an option for planes or ships, obviously. Though for planes wireless delivery is an option. Synthetic chemical industry and fertilizer are also not wireless. So if you're beyond 100% peak by wind or sun, make hydrogen and/or methane and/or ammonia. > From > http://shop.mlsolar.com/50W-Solar-Panel-12V-Free-Shipping-OFF-GRID-RV-BOAT-181068755276.htmwe > have one price point, at least, of $85 for 590x665 mm, which comes to > a > bit under $220 per square meter. Granted, this is better quality than the > panels you're talking about, but between discount for lower quality and > bulk purchase discount, I suspect the price wouldn't come down by more than > 2 orders of magnitude and probably no more than 1. And that's not > including the cost of the land, or the fuel processing equipment. > > So, if you Kickstarter finance this, you're going to start off with much > less than 16,000 km^2. > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 20:21:13 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:21:13 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <527CA4A4.9000009@aleph.se> <00d601cedc95$b4995ab0$1dcc1010$@att.net> <024001cedcb1$0d064580$2712d080$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 13, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > While fire is important to land animals, what makes it important is that > it is terrestrial. [...] mining would be terribly difficult underwater, and > especially in the very deep water worlds. How would they be able to pass > through the bronze and iron ages in such a world? > Even if the underwater creatures could obtain copper and tin ore it would do them no good if they didn't have fire and the necessary heat to refine the ore into bronze. And making iron tools requires even more heat than bronze, and steel more than iron. > Imagine that cephalopods had another billion years of evolution without > the interference of land returning to water animals > But they don't have another billion years, the sun will leave the main sequence and the Earth will become uninhabitable in about half that time, John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 14 20:21:07 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:21:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131114202107.GA5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:12:14PM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: > Correct. The problem now being that land near the coast in sunny areas is > expensive. Spike's solution took advantage of existing infrastructure > (i-50) that is underutilized and of low value, that happens to be in an Over here, you would think that running high-speed trains and heavy rail in general by PV put by the side of the rail is a no-brainer. One would think wrong. (But, on paper, the DB is running their trains on renewables. On paper). > area with a lot of sun. Also an area where people don't generally want to > live, I might add. > > > That doesn't require radical new technology. In fact, it's somewhat > > boring. But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable first > > step toward this sort of scheme. Further, this step could quite readily > > attract large private investment - if and only if the data and projections > > are believable to said investors. > > > Correct. And I don't think you can make the numbers work for Solar today. I It's weird how renewables and PV work for countries like Denmark and Germany, today. > would love to be proven wrong, as I love solar in principle. I still think > putting up that many solar panels would likely kill as many people as > Chernobyl... LOL Chernobyl and Fukushima are not bad because they kill people. They're bad because they ruin agriculture across large areas, and simply because the sustainability and financials do not check out. Notice neither Chernobyl or Fukushima produce power. And their cleanup costs would ruin their operators many times over, if they had to operate in an unsubsidized, commercial context. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 14 20:28:10 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:28:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <02e501cee149$ebfbe820$c3f3b860$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131114202810.GC5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:19:52AM -0700, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > So to generate the amount of power we make with natural gas and coal > > combined requires about 10 km either side of the road along a nearly > > abandoned stretch of pavement in Nevada. Get on Google Maps, go to street There's no point in making power where nobody needs it. You can power transportation by about the amount of pavement the highway or the rail needs. Normal suburbia would be net exporting, if you just utilized building skin. A bit more (plenty of dead/sealed area) and you can run everything. > > view, look around. There is pleeeenty of room for something like that. > > Next step is to price out 16 thousand square kilometers of PV panels, or 16 > > billion square meters. Any gurus among us? > > > > The problem with that is you are creating more demand than there is supply. > That will drive the price up (econ 101). And whatever numbers you start If Germany did not use FITs there would be no global solar market today. Does Econ 101 cover that, too? > with won't be the ones you end with. Yes, the numbers would be way lower. Economies of scale alone would do it, but long-term you would have other effects kicking in. E.g., there's no point in have higher-voltage AC in a home. Lower-voltage DC would cover >90%. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 14 20:34:10 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 21:34:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20131114203410.GD5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 10:55:09AM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Indeed, a more viable product for all this electricity might well be simple > desalinated water. At least if the energy production was near the coast. Apropos desalination near the coast: http://news.sciencemag.org/asiapacific/2013/11/desert-farming-experiment-yields-first-results Not the first time mentioned here, but this is a very recent newsitem, and notice where it's published. > That doesn't require radical new technology. In fact, it's somewhat > boring. But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable first Large scale seawater desal is anything but boring. In fact, it's an unsolved problem. Both in term of the energetics of the fundamental process as well as sheer logistics. If you want to grow a gigaton of vegetables, the numbers get big, fast. > step toward this sort of scheme. Further, this step could quite readily > attract large private investment - if and only if the data and projections > are believable to said investors. From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 20:48:35 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:48:35 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:12 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Nov 14, 2013 10:23 AM, "Kelly Anderson" >> wrote: >> > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 8:38 AM, spike wrote: >> >> Cool thanks Kelly. It might be possible to transport the biomass >> using seawater somehow, >> > >> > >> > Only if you can desalinate it first. And if you do that, Los Angeles >> will want to drink it. And when Los Angeles wants water, Lolita gets water! >> >> Indeed, a more viable product for all this electricity might well be >> simple desalinated water. At least if the energy production was near the >> coast. >> > Correct. The problem now being that land near the coast in sunny areas is > expensive. Spike's solution took advantage of existing infrastructure > (i-50) that is underutilized and of low value, that happens to be in an > area with a lot of sun. Also an area where people don't generally want to > live, I might add. > Actually he said "highway 50", by which I assume he meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._Route_50_in_California as there is no I-50. But there is a lot of unused coastal land along http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_State_Route_1 between Santa Barbara and Los Angeles (assuming Los Angeles would be the main destination). Not all of it, of course, but more than enough to stick a few large solar facilities powering a desalination plant out of sight of existing settlements. (South of Los Angeles, it seems to become mostly one long sprawl - though perhaps someone w/Marine contacts could ask Camp Pendleton if they'd be willing to host a major desal facility on their coast.) > That doesn't require radical new technology. In fact, it's somewhat >> boring. But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable first >> step toward this sort of scheme. Further, this step could quite readily >> attract large private investment - if and only if the data and projections >> are believable to said investors. > > Correct. And I don't think you can make the numbers work for Solar today. > I would love to be proven wrong, as I love solar in principle. > IIRC, solar-powered desalination was tried before, many years ago. The numbers almost but not quite worked. If that is the case, there's reason to believe they could work today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 20:57:48 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 12:57:48 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <20131114203410.GD5661@leitl.org> References: <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> <20131114203410.GD5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:34 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Not the first time mentioned here, but this is a very > recent newsitem, and notice where it's published. > Quite. Some places are making effective use of it. > > That doesn't require radical new technology. In fact, it's somewhat > > boring. But if you could make the numbers work, it would be a viable > first > > Large scale seawater desal is anything but boring. In fact, it's an > unsolved problem. Both in term of the energetics of the fundamental > process as well as sheer logistics. If you want to grow a gigaton > of vegetables, the numbers get big, fast. > Yes, but the biggest problem with it is logistics, not fundamentally new technology. That inherently makes is a less exciting problem to solve, for many people. Of course, this doesn't make it any less important or challenging, though it does make it more difficult to attract funding and competent help. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Thu Nov 14 21:17:54 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 22:17:54 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> Message-ID: <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> Il 14/11/2013 20:25, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > I'm still struggling with the tie in to the Singularity. Are you > predicting that the Singularity will bring an end to big business, big > government, and empower the intelligent? The Singularity will bring, for sure, enhanced ways to cooperate and collaborate, increasing the productivity of the productive individuals: allowing faster and freer economic transactions without the need of a third party is just one of them. I think there will be big business but, without a big government granting them privileges, they will be forced to be a lot more useful or the competition will eat their lunch with no remorse. What is the point of a Singularity or living an unlimited amount of time or be mentally, physically and ethically enhanced if we need more government to run our lives. We don't want become like Gods to live like Z the Ant. Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should be done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a better work than any government. Mirco From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 14 21:27:36 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 22:27:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> <20131114203410.GD5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <20131114212736.GG5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 12:57:48PM -0800, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Yes, but the biggest problem with it is logistics, not fundamentally new > technology. That inherently makes is a less exciting problem to solve, for There's plenty of innovation in desal. http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/11/Sunlight-Helps-Turn-Salty-Water.html Of course in order to run ecosystem scale you'll need MNT, which is many decades away from being a solved problem. > many people. Of course, this doesn't make it any less important or > challenging, though it does make it more difficult to attract funding and > competent help. For pretty much the same reason why AIDS drew a disproportionately larger effort than malaria, as it hit a richer and educated demographic. Central Valley is running pretty unsustainably though, so it's only a question of time until large scale water desalination becomes a national priority. From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 14 21:34:43 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 22:34:43 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> Message-ID: <20131114213442.GH5661@leitl.org> On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 10:17:54PM +0100, Mirco Romanato wrote: > The Singularity will bring, for sure, enhanced ways to cooperate and The Singularity, for sure, is defined as a prediction horizon. So trying to predict that is, by definition, is impossible. > collaborate, increasing the productivity of the productive individuals: > allowing faster and freer economic transactions without the need of a > third party is just one of them. > > I think there will be big business but, without a big government Business? Government? Where we're going, we don't need either. > granting them privileges, they will be forced to be a lot more useful or > the competition will eat their lunch with no remorse. > > What is the point of a Singularity or living an unlimited amount of time > or be mentally, physically and ethically enhanced if we need more > government to run our lives. There is no point in the Singularity, any more than any point there is in your current existence. Why are you there, wasting perfectly good air? The universe certainly doesn't care, but us chickens sure do. > We don't want become like Gods to live like Z the Ant. It doesn't matter what we want, it only matter what we're going to get, collectively. > Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should be > done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a > better work than any government. As an anarchist, I care about neither governments, nor corporations. As a pragmatic anarchist, I'm willing to run for office or being an enterpreneur if it helps getting things done, short-term. Long-term, we'll see if we live long enough to care about that. From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 21:36:38 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:36:38 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: <20131114212736.GG5661@leitl.org> References: <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> <20131114203410.GD5661@leitl.org> <20131114212736.GG5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 1:27 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > Central Valley is running pretty unsustainably though, so it's only > a question of time until large scale water desalination becomes a > national priority. > Or at least a California priority. Obtaining state money might be easier than obtaining federal, especially for a project using Californian industries (shipping from China, if not its own solar companies) and Californian land for the benefit of Californian agriculture and cities. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 21:26:15 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 13:26:15 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code In-Reply-To: References: <50C575F1-04BB-4F66-9A43-97B34EE4E8C4@me.com> Message-ID: <028001cee180$276a1450$763e3cf0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson Sent: Thursday, November 14, 2013 11:08 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Millions of Lines of Code On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 11:32 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote: .Or maybe I'm woefully ignorant of ACA's true complexity _requirements_ - there could be several layers of subterfuge surrounding the real reason why it must suck so hard. >.While Amazon does have the shopping cart figured out, they don't have the facilities, required by the law to protect the privacy of their customers. In addition, how much various insurance companies charge various people varies by a relatively large number of variables.-Kelly Kelly, the whole point of this is the government does not need to know all that info, and shouldn't be trusted with it to start with. Recall we currently have an IRS chief who has refused to testify by invoking the fifth, and another who has been shown to be sharing taxpayer info with the government. So why would we trust them with private data? The government's role in all this is to list which insurance policies qualify, then estimate subsidies for the low income (note I didn't say poor, but low income) and tax penalties for the opt-outs. They could do that using only W2 info, which they already have anyway. Then the competing insurance companies would be responsible for handling their own client's info. They do that currently. I have been an Amazon customer since the thing started, and I have never had them screw up an order, never had them leak my credit card info, nothing has ever gone wrong, and they handle buttloads of transactions; they know how to do it. The government, not so much. They shouldn't be in the insurance biz. Leave that to those who know how. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tech101 at gmail.com Thu Nov 14 22:53:10 2013 From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 09:53:10 +1100 Subject: [ExI] [tt] Molecular robot mimics life's protein-builder In-Reply-To: <20130115075956.GO6172@leitl.org> References: <20130114161951.GD6172@leitl.org> <009801cdf28f$af480430$0dd80c90$@att.net> <20130115075956.GO6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: This paper I just stumbled on recently - the full paper is here. And on the Leigh Group website they state "Over the last decade we have developed some of the first examples?all be they primitive by biological standards?of functional synthetic molecular level machines and motors" >From someone who does not have a strong background in physics and chemistry let alone nanotechnology, what they are doing at the Leigh grouplooks interesting, but I wonder if my enthusiasm for nanotech is coloring my assessment. Has anyone here spoken to David A. Leigh about this work? Or done any serious investigation? What some people seem to take away from the Drexler/Smalley debate is that molecular manufacturing is science fiction (might be possible in a few centuries), and that molecular assemblers are fantasy (might be possible in another universe or in VR). More moderate skeptics may suggest that molecular manufacturing beyond biology is folly. I get this impression from the lecturers of the coursera 'Nanotechnology' MOOC. Does Leigh's example of a synthetic molecular machine make one more optimistic about the possibility of molecular manufacturing? Does it support Drexler's vision of nanotechnology? Are there any other research or engineering projects that show promise for molecular manufacturing? p.s. Apologies for all the questions, but this looks pretty interesting. Kind regards, Adam A. Ford Director - Humanity+ Global, Director - Humanity+ Australia, Chair - Humanity+ @ Melbourne Summit Chair - Singularity Summit Australia Director - Future Day Mob: +61 421 979 977 | Email: tech101 at gmail.com *Science, Technology & the Future * conference on *30th Nov - 1st Dec 2013*. *"The conference will feature a diverse range of presenters from across the globe. Scientists, Engineers, Artists and Philosophers will discuss evidence-based research, community awareness of rapid technological change, and scenarios for navigating our future."* *Future Day - "Join the conversation on Future Day March 1st to explore the possibilities about how the future is transforming us. You can celebrate Future Day however you like, the ball is in your court ? feel free to send a photo of your Future Day gatherings to info at futureday.org , and your jubilation may wind up being commemorated on the Future Day website and the Facebook page! "* Humanity+ | Humanity+ Australia| Singularity Summit Australia | Facebook| Twitter | YouTube| Future Day "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels." ("Atomic Education Urged by Albert Einstein", New York Times, 25 May 1946) Please consider the environment before printing this email On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 6:59 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 11:45:18AM -0800, spike wrote: > > > Gene, is not this an example of a nano-machine creating a covalent bond? > > Creating or breaking bond is not scale-dependant. > > > Is not a nano-machine creating a covalent bond exactly the mega-holy > nano-grail the nay-saying crowd insists cannot be done? > > I don't recall that particular objection. > > Smalley mentioned the 'fat finger' problem, which > is real for soft, floppy enzyme-like systems, > but not relevant for rigid cages depositing > highly reactive moieties, which work > pretty much like today's numerically controlled > rapid prototyping. > _______________________________________________ > 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 Thu Nov 14 22:45:29 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 14:45:29 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> Message-ID: <007e01cee18b$388c8500$a9a58f00$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 5:40 AM, BillK wrote: >>.More of the same appears like the Gates of Hell are opening wide. >.Bill, are you actually arguing that the Internet is a bad thing? -Kelly Depends on how you look at it. If hell has gates, presumably it has a wall or fence with the gates being the entrance/exit. Unless hell is a lot more fun than has been portrayed, presumably the inhabitants would be far more eager to exit than would be outsiders to gain entry via those gates. So if the gates of hell are open wide, this would be a good thing, as demonstrated by the first wave of winged rodents, exiting the place like proverbial bats outta hell. Of course, all the paintings made of the place have two things in common, one of which is the heat, but the other is that no one is wearing clothes. With all that wicked-cool nekkidness everywhere, it is no mystery that people would want in. BillK's list of consequences I fully recognize as bad things for some people. I am one of those who came out on the winning side of everything on that list, but I know people who generally are not internet users who express discontent. A good example is that people don't gather and socialize as much, so those who remember the time before. As it turns out, people still gather, but they do so with more specialized interest. People who are not internet users today seldom have special interests, or if so, they cannot find the others who are like-minded, these having found each other long before in internet groups. Without internet use, their own specialties might be having social gatherings right next door, and the non-surfer would never know it was going on. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Nov 14 23:25:14 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 00:25:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] [tt] Molecular robot mimics life's protein-builder In-Reply-To: References: <20130114161951.GD6172@leitl.org> <009801cdf28f$af480430$0dd80c90$@att.net> <20130115075956.GO6172@leitl.org> Message-ID: <52855BDA.5040607@aleph.se> On 2013-11-14 23:53, Adam A. Ford wrote: > Does it support Drexler's vision of nanotechnology? Yes. Note that Drexler's vision is not pure diamondoid, but rather the precision. This is a demonstration of designer nanostructures that does something useful. The slow speed is not an issue, if this (or something like this) can be used to bootstrap something better. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 14 23:30:30 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 15:30:30 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Dark Matter In-Reply-To: References: <52808EA1.6070508@aleph.se> <52838EE3.7080103@aleph.se> <013b01cee09b$7de4ea70$79aebf50$@att.net> <036501cee0cb$f0d72ea0$d2858be0$@att.net> <012f01cee104$17374520$45a5cf60$@att.net> <030e01cee14f$a11e8140$e35b83c0$@att.net> Message-ID: <00fc01cee191$82db4a00$8891de00$@att.net> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Kelly Anderson >. >.Seriously, you can't do it with seawater because it is too corrosive. Anything you built would not last long enough to be worth the cost. Ja I was afraid of that. but I haven't worked out the economic model or the cooling model for that matter. It might not be practical to carry off the waste heat with evaporation. spike >.Sorry, what needs to be cooled here? I'm lost. -Kelly There is waste heat in the conversion process of any carbon source to liquid fuels. Carrying away all that waste heat is a big challenge out there along SR50 in Nevada because of limited access to sufficient quantities of fresh water, which can be used for evaporative cooling. Sea water is unsuitable for evaporative cooling. I don't know how to exhaust the waste heat without a plentiful fresh water source. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From odellhuff2 at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 15:56:57 2013 From: odellhuff2 at gmail.com (Odell Huff) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 10:56:57 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game Message-ID: Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list and this is my first post, or question rather. In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types complete-sentence emails with one hand on a touch screen. Does this technology actually exist, or could it? I was thinking I would very much like to take notes mobilely, on say an iPhone, the writing equivalent to a micro recorder. It seems to me the tech would be easy, the hard part might be having to learn to type like a court reporter... --Odell -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 15 16:26:53 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 17:26:53 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 10:56:57AM -0500, Odell Huff wrote: > Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list and this is my > first post, or question rather. In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types Two-decade lurker, that's got to be a new record. > complete-sentence emails with one hand on a touch screen. Does this > technology actually exist, or could it? I was thinking I would very much > like to take notes mobilely, on say an iPhone, the writing equivalent to a > micro recorder. It seems to me the tech would be easy, the hard part might > be having to learn to type like a court reporter... You mean a chorded keyboard on a multitouch device? http://labs.teague.com/2012/02/08/doug-engelbarts-chorded-keyboard-as-a-multi-touch-interface/ From florent.berthet at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 16:31:14 2013 From: florent.berthet at gmail.com (Florent Berthet) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 17:31:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> References: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: This is feasible. Look at this concept that could work by using a head-mounted display such as the Oculus Rift with either VR gloves or a kinect-like motion capture system: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rs9kocefwaA 2013/11/15 Eugen Leitl > On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 10:56:57AM -0500, Odell Huff wrote: > > > Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list and this is my > > first post, or question rather. In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types > > Two-decade lurker, that's got to be a new record. > > > complete-sentence emails with one hand on a touch screen. Does this > > technology actually exist, or could it? I was thinking I would very much > > like to take notes mobilely, on say an iPhone, the writing equivalent to > a > > micro recorder. It seems to me the tech would be easy, the hard part > might > > be having to learn to type like a court reporter... > > You mean a chorded keyboard on a multitouch device? > > > http://labs.teague.com/2012/02/08/doug-engelbarts-chorded-keyboard-as-a-multi-touch-interface/ > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Nov 15 16:45:07 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 08:45:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <036b01cee222$0b5c0af0$221420d0$@att.net> 2013/11/15 Eugen Leitl On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 10:56:57AM -0500, Odell Huff wrote: > Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list and this is my > first post, or question rather. In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types Two-decade lurker, that's got to be a new record. > complete-sentence emails with one hand on a touch screen. Does this > technology actually exist, or could it? I was thinking I would very much > like to take notes mobilely, on say an iPhone, the writing equivalent to a > micro recorder. It seems to me the tech would be easy, the hard part might > be having to learn to type like a court reporter... You mean a chorded keyboard on a multitouch device? http://labs.teague.com/2012/02/08/doug-engelbarts-chorded-keyboard-as-a-mult i-touch-interface/ _______________________________________________ Some of you guys might have been around in the early to mid 90s when we had a wearable computer group; Eugen I vaguely recall seeing you there but I might be mistaken. I was a lurker on ExI in those days, but the wearables group almost predated ExI-chat. We had a vision going back to about 1989 when I saw a demonstration of a head-up display at a trade show. It wasn't good resolution, but it was good enough for grainy graphics and 640x480 resolution text, which was common in those primitive savage days. The data egg or one-handed keyboard was big then. We debated if that would be the way, or speech recognition. >.Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list. In retrospect, it is interesting that the bulk of this discussion on data eggs vs speech rec happened twenty years ago, but it wasn't really here, it was on another group. I think ExI-chat took it up mostly in the later 90s. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rolandodegilead at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 17:01:08 2013 From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eugenio_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 18:01:08 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: Not the same, not even similar, but http://bit.ly/InGooglePlay and http://www.swype.com/ are the most similar thing we have for now. For mobiles and tablets. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rolandodegilead at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 17:02:13 2013 From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eugenio_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 18:02:13 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: <036b01cee222$0b5c0af0$221420d0$@att.net> References: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> <036b01cee222$0b5c0af0$221420d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Well.. I mean, the only ones easily affordables that we have in reality, of course, ha ha. On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 5:45 PM, spike wrote: > > > 2013/11/15 Eugen Leitl > > On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 10:56:57AM -0500, Odell Huff wrote: > > > Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list and this is my > > first post, or question rather. In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types > > Two-decade lurker, that's got to be a new record. > > > > complete-sentence emails with one hand on a touch screen. Does this > > technology actually exist, or could it? I was thinking I would very much > > like to take notes mobilely, on say an iPhone, the writing equivalent to > a > > micro recorder. It seems to me the tech would be easy, the hard part > might > > be having to learn to type like a court reporter... > > You mean a chorded keyboard on a multitouch device? > > > http://labs.teague.com/2012/02/08/doug-engelbarts-chorded-keyboard-as-a-multi-touch-interface/ > _______________________________________________ > > > > Some of you guys might have been around in the early to mid 90s when we > had a wearable computer group; Eugen I vaguely recall seeing you there but > I might be mistaken. I was a lurker on ExI in those days, but the > wearables group almost predated ExI-chat. > > > > We had a vision going back to about 1989 when I saw a demonstration of a > head-up display at a trade show. It wasn?t good resolution, but it was > good enough for grainy graphics and 640x480 resolution text, which was > common in those primitive savage days. The data egg or one-handed keyboard > was big then. We debated if that would be the way, or speech recognition. > > > > >?Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list? > > > > In retrospect, it is interesting that the bulk of this discussion on data > eggs vs speech rec happened twenty years ago, but it wasn?t really here, it > was on another group. I think ExI-chat took it up mostly in the later 90s. > > > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- OLVIDATE.DE Tatachan.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 18:37:16 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 13:37:16 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Quantum Computers Message-ID: Perhaps the biggest problem in making a quantum computer is overcoming quantum decoherence. In yesterday's issue of the journal Science Kamyar Saeedi and his team reported that they placed phosphorous atoms in a silicon matrix in a state of quantum coherence for over 3 hours at liquid helium temperatures. And even at room temperature they remained in quantum coherence for 39 minutes, at room temperature the previous record was 2 seconds. They think they might be able to do even better, and possibly much better, if they use selenium instead of phosphorous next time. John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 20:02:53 2013 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:02:53 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: <20131115162653.GW5661@leitl.org> <036b01cee222$0b5c0af0$221420d0$@att.net> Message-ID: Swype is really novel and has changed the way I write on phones. On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 11:02 AM, Eugenio Mart?nez < rolandodegilead at gmail.com> wrote: > Well.. I mean, the only ones easily affordables that we have in reality, > of course, ha ha. > > > On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 5:45 PM, spike wrote: > >> >> >> 2013/11/15 Eugen Leitl >> >> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 10:56:57AM -0500, Odell Huff wrote: >> >> > Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list and this is my >> > first post, or question rather. In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types >> >> Two-decade lurker, that's got to be a new record. >> >> >> > complete-sentence emails with one hand on a touch screen. Does this >> > technology actually exist, or could it? I was thinking I would very much >> > like to take notes mobilely, on say an iPhone, the writing equivalent >> to a >> > micro recorder. It seems to me the tech would be easy, the hard part >> might >> > be having to learn to type like a court reporter... >> >> You mean a chorded keyboard on a multitouch device? >> >> >> http://labs.teague.com/2012/02/08/doug-engelbarts-chorded-keyboard-as-a-multi-touch-interface/ >> _______________________________________________ >> >> >> >> Some of you guys might have been around in the early to mid 90s when we >> had a wearable computer group; Eugen I vaguely recall seeing you there but >> I might be mistaken. I was a lurker on ExI in those days, but the >> wearables group almost predated ExI-chat. >> >> >> >> We had a vision going back to about 1989 when I saw a demonstration of a >> head-up display at a trade show. It wasn?t good resolution, but it was >> good enough for grainy graphics and 640x480 resolution text, which was >> common in those primitive savage days. The data egg or one-handed keyboard >> was big then. We debated if that would be the way, or speech recognition. >> >> >> >> >?Dear Cave Shadows--I'm a twenty-year lurker on this list? >> >> >> >> In retrospect, it is interesting that the bulk of this discussion on data >> eggs vs speech rec happened twenty years ago, but it wasn?t really here, it >> was on another group. I think ExI-chat took it up mostly in the later 90s. >> >> >> >> spike >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > > -- > OLVIDATE.DE > Tatachan.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 20:07:06 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 12:07:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 7:56 AM, Odell Huff wrote: > In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types complete-sentence emails with one > hand on a touch screen. Does this technology actually exist, or could it? > I have composed some of my recent emails to this list on a touch screen with one hand - indeed, with two fingers, sometimes just one. This did not take any special software; this was just using the standard GMail app with the standard Android in-screen keyboard. I have used in-screen keyboards on iOS as well. Perhaps the UI could be improved to increase typing speed (including reducing typos that need to be corrected, lowering speed), but what you have described exists, and is readily available today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 20:18:14 2013 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 14:18:14 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Adrian, what version of Android are you running? On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 2:07 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 7:56 AM, Odell Huff wrote: > >> In the (enthralling!) movie, Ender types complete-sentence emails with >> one hand on a touch screen. Does this technology actually exist, or could >> it? >> > > I have composed some of my recent emails to this list on a touch screen > with one hand - indeed, with two fingers, sometimes just one. This did not > take any special software; this was just using the standard GMail app with > the standard Android in-screen keyboard. I have used in-screen keyboards > on iOS as well. > > Perhaps the UI could be improved to increase typing speed (including > reducing typos that need to be corrected, lowering speed), but what you > have described exists, and is readily available today. > > _______________________________________________ > 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 atymes at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 20:46:28 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 12:46:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 12:18 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Adrian, what version of Android are you running? > Currently, 4.1.2. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Nov 15 22:16:03 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 22:16:03 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Quantum Computers In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <52869D23.5070303@aleph.se> On 2013-11-15 18:37, John Clark wrote: > Perhaps the biggest problem in making a quantum computer is overcoming > quantum decoherence. In yesterday's issue of the journal Science > Kamyar Saeedi and his team reported that they placed phosphorous atoms > in a silicon matrix in a state of quantum coherence for over 3 hours > at liquid helium temperatures. And even at room temperature they > remained in quantum coherence for 39 minutes, at room temperature the > previous record was 2 seconds. They think they might be able to do > even better, and possibly much better, if they use selenium instead of > phosphorous next time. It is pretty impressive, indeed. Of course, nuclear spins are much more stable than particle spins and naturally isolated from each other. By the way, I read the news story on my way back home in Oxford - just when I was passing outside the building where the group works. Nice coincidence... or is it? :-) (phone reception is always bad in that area. I assume the signals get eaten by escaped quantum states, or something) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From steinberg.will at gmail.com Fri Nov 15 22:18:05 2013 From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 16:18:05 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Do you use Swype, then? I've been wondering if people think it's as great as I do. It has easily tripled my phone typing speed, and made typing on my phone a more aesthetically perfect task in general. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sat Nov 16 02:29:06 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 18:29:06 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: > Do you use Swype, then? I've been wondering if people think it's as great > as I do. It has easily tripled my phone typing speed, and made typing on > my phone a more aesthetically perfect task in general. > I myself do not use Swype at this time, though some of my friends do. I have heard mixed reviews about it, though that suggests it is at least usable. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Sat Nov 16 18:26:38 2013 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2013 13:26:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Single-hand touch typing in Ender's Game In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Nov 15, 2013, at 21:29, Adrian Tymes wrote: > >> On Fri, Nov 15, 2013 at 2:18 PM, Will Steinberg wrote: >> Do you use Swype, then? I've been wondering if people think it's as great as I do. It has easily tripled my phone typing speed, and made typing on my phone a more aesthetically perfect task in general. >> > > I myself do not use Swype at this time, though some of my friends do. I have heard mixed reviews about it, though that suggests it is at least usable. > I still use ShapeWriter (formerly known as SHARK--shorthand aided rapid keyboarding). It's the original. I don't think you can't get it anymore however since they were bought by Nuance, who put the technology in Swype. I never switched to Swype. There is also SlideIT, TouchPal, and MessageEase according to Wikipedia. -Henry -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 17 11:04:28 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 11:04:28 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era Message-ID: 'Superbugs could erase a century of medical advances' experts warn. Doctors issue new warning of devastating effect of over-prescribing antibiotics for trivial ailments Quote: Routine operations could become deadly "in the very near future" as bacteria evolve to resist the drugs we use to combat them. This process could erase a century of medical advances, say government doctors in a special editorial in The Lancet health journal. Writing in The Lancet, experts, including England's chief medical officer, Dame Sally Davies, warn that death rates from bacterial infections "might return to those of the early 20th century". They write: "Rarely has modern medicine faced such a grave threat. Without antibiotics, treatments from minor surgery to major transplants could become impossible, and health-care costs are likely to spiral as we resort to newer, more expensive antibiotics and sustain longer hospital admissions." About 35 million antibiotics are prescribed by GPs in England every year. The more the drugs circulate, the more bacteria are able to evolve to resist them. In the past, drug development kept pace with evolving microbes, with a constant production line of new classes of antibiotics. But the drugs have ceased to be profitable and a new class has not been created since 1987. Antibiotics are also used in vast quantities in agriculture, fisheries and by vets, the resulting environmental exposure adding to bacterial resistance, with further consequences for human health. Writing in The Lancet, Professor Otto Cars of Uppsala University in Sweden, and one of the world's leading experts on antibiotic resistance, said: "Antibiotic resistance is a complex ecological problem which doesn't just affect people, but is also intimately connected with agriculture and the environment. ------- BillK From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 17 12:13:34 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 12:13:34 +0000 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> On 2013-11-13 19:24, Kelly Anderson wrote: > The loss of atmosphere is of course related to the loss of the > magnetosphere. Is that really obvious? I know a fair bit of planetary science, and I always thought it was more UV-dissociation of water into hydrogen that does a Jeans escape or hydrodynamic escape that dried out the planet and led to most atmospheric loss. > For planets very close to their sun would the increased density of the > solar wind require an even stronger magnetosphere to preserve an > atmosphere? Would larger planets with greater gravity be able to hold > onto an atmosphere more tightly? The solar wind intensity goes down as 1/a^2 where a is the orbital radius. The magnetosphere doesn't seem to scale in a simple way with planet size: I have tried to find some neat rule of thumb, but it mainly looks like big planets with fast rotation have a better chance of being more magnetic, but it all depends on iffy magnetohydrodynamic properties of the core. One possible scaling law I don't trust is that field strength goes as sqrt(density/period). A heavy planet will have a shorter atmospheric scale height; 7400/g meters, where g is the surface gravity in Earth gravities. But a low atmosphere doesn't necessary help, it is temperature that matters most. However, the escape temperature for each gas scales as 1/R - large planets need to be hotter to lose as much atmosphere. > > The dynamic interaction of atmosphere, magnetosphere and solar wind > might make it difficult to have enough atmosphere for enough time to > evolve intelligent life. Also, if the atmosphere is too thick, that > seems like it would cause its own set of problems. You can't live on > Jupiter for example, thought that is an extreme example. Even thick terrestrial planet atmospheres cause a lot of complications - they distribute temperature evenly, they convect in ways different from our thin atmosphere (thinness in this case is all about how many optical length constants deep the atmosphere is - can an IR photon get through it without scattering?) > > I don't know the necessary physics, but if you had a planet 2x the > size of earth with the same proportion of water and atmosphere, but a > much greater magnetosphere because of the size of the core, would you > have problems with the atmosphere being too dense? Would the oceans be > too deep in some sense? Would it be harder for continents to arise > from the deep? A double-Earth would likely be a waterworld, from what I have read. Rock after all contains water, and if you squeeze it enough it will be released to the surface (plus cometary water). So double-Earth will at least have eight times the water volume but just four times the surface area. Plenty of volcanism, and over time I think continents will develop. Mountains would be half of our height (since gravity would be twice as large), but that is still enough to get some to poke up. Atmospheric density is the hard part: it depends on how the planet formed, and its temperature. It is to some extent a free variable which also affects the temperature that constrains it - it is a real headache in my worldbuilding program ;-) Quick guess: the atmosphere would be thicker but not super-thick, as long as surface temperatures are fairly low and like Earth's. Might be unbreathable to humans (too high oxygen partial pressure) but not to local life. > > So many questions. I'm sure there are people at NASA who have been > scratching their heads about this stuff for decades. Indeed. I have to rush, but I have a library of papers and books on this. Am writing a short guide for worldbuilding. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 17 11:55:32 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 11:55:32 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> On 2013-11-17 11:04, BillK wrote: > 'Superbugs could erase a century of medical advances' experts warn. It is not quite that bad, but it is taking seriously. Not an existential risk, and unlikely to shorten lifespans dramatically (note that she talks about death rates of bacterial infections), but a real risk to our individual lives. The problem seems to be that right now (1) there are few economic incentives to develop better or new kinds of antibiotics for a variety of reasons, (2) the people struggling against resistance are mostly stuck in "reduce misuse"-mode, which means that they do not help (1) much, and likely will fail because they can at most stipulate sensible rules in their own countries, not in emerging markets where the big breeding of resistant pathogens take place. Meanwhile the right kind of hospital organisation and handling of patients with resistant pathogens can help a lot; there are regional differences in Europe that show this (apparently the Netherlands and Sweden are paradigm examples, while Germany for some reason fails at it). Bring on the nanoparticle antibiotics, Sonia and Sonia! http://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/briefings/nano-antibiotics-breifing.pdf -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From protokol2020 at gmail.com Sun Nov 17 15:10:15 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 16:10:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> Message-ID: > A double-Earth would likely be a waterworld, from what I have read. Rock after all contains water, and if you squeeze it enough it will be released to the surface (plus cometary water). So double-Earth will at least have eight times the water volume but just four times the surface area. > Plenty of volcanism, and over time I think continents will develop. Mountains would be half of our height (since gravity would be twice as large), but that is still enough to get some to poke up. Twice as much water is 8 km deep on average. 4 km above Earth ocean surface. And mountains half as big, not even Mont Everest would be above water. On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-11-13 19:24, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> The loss of atmosphere is of course related to the loss of the >> magnetosphere. >> > > Is that really obvious? I know a fair bit of planetary science, and I > always thought it was more UV-dissociation of water into hydrogen that does > a Jeans escape or hydrodynamic escape that dried out the planet and led to > most atmospheric loss. > > > For planets very close to their sun would the increased density of the >> solar wind require an even stronger magnetosphere to preserve an >> atmosphere? Would larger planets with greater gravity be able to hold onto >> an atmosphere more tightly? >> > > The solar wind intensity goes down as 1/a^2 where a is the orbital radius. > The magnetosphere doesn't seem to scale in a simple way with planet size: I > have tried to find some neat rule of thumb, but it mainly looks like big > planets with fast rotation have a better chance of being more magnetic, but > it all depends on iffy magnetohydrodynamic properties of the core. One > possible scaling law I don't trust is that field strength goes as > sqrt(density/period). > > A heavy planet will have a shorter atmospheric scale height; 7400/g > meters, where g is the surface gravity in Earth gravities. But a low > atmosphere doesn't necessary help, it is temperature that matters most. > However, the escape temperature for each gas scales as 1/R - large planets > need to be hotter to lose as much atmosphere. > > > > >> The dynamic interaction of atmosphere, magnetosphere and solar wind might >> make it difficult to have enough atmosphere for enough time to evolve >> intelligent life. Also, if the atmosphere is too thick, that seems like it >> would cause its own set of problems. You can't live on Jupiter for example, >> thought that is an extreme example. >> > > Even thick terrestrial planet atmospheres cause a lot of complications - > they distribute temperature evenly, they convect in ways different from our > thin atmosphere (thinness in this case is all about how many optical length > constants deep the atmosphere is - can an IR photon get through it without > scattering?) > > > >> I don't know the necessary physics, but if you had a planet 2x the size >> of earth with the same proportion of water and atmosphere, but a much >> greater magnetosphere because of the size of the core, would you have >> problems with the atmosphere being too dense? Would the oceans be too deep >> in some sense? Would it be harder for continents to arise from the deep? >> > > A double-Earth would likely be a waterworld, from what I have read. Rock > after all contains water, and if you squeeze it enough it will be released > to the surface (plus cometary water). So double-Earth will at least have > eight times the water volume but just four times the surface area. > > Plenty of volcanism, and over time I think continents will develop. > Mountains would be half of our height (since gravity would be twice as > large), but that is still enough to get some to poke up. > > Atmospheric density is the hard part: it depends on how the planet formed, > and its temperature. It is to some extent a free variable which also > affects the temperature that constrains it - it is a real headache in my > worldbuilding program ;-) > > Quick guess: the atmosphere would be thicker but not super-thick, as long > as surface temperatures are fairly low and like Earth's. Might be > unbreathable to humans (too high oxygen partial pressure) but not to local > life. > > > >> So many questions. I'm sure there are people at NASA who have been >> scratching their heads about this stuff for decades. >> > > Indeed. I have to rush, but I have a library of papers and books on this. > Am writing a short guide for worldbuilding. > > > -- > Dr Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 17 16:33:39 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 16:33:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> Message-ID: <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> OK, now I have the time to run my code, based on what I have gathered from the exoplanet literature. Welcome to dry and wet Double-Earth: A lot hinges on whether we assume Double-Earth started out beyond the iceline and moved inwards, in which case it will be really wet, or started out close to the sun and never got much volatiles. In the first case the mass will be about 3 Earths and the average density 37% of Earth, with a surface gravity of 0.73 g and an escape velocity of 13.6 km/s. This will have an ocean hundreds of kilometres deep, surrounding a rocky core covered with high pressure warm ices. In the second case the mass will be 15 Earths, the density will be 167%, gravity 3.4 g and escape velocity 30 km/s. Note that if the component rock contributes water like on Earth, a planet with 15 times the mass but only 4 times the area will have 3.75 times deeper hydrosphere, assuming everything equal. That means 16 km deep oceans - "dry" Double-Earth might still be a waterworld. Now we need to make some guesses at atmosphere and temperatures. The basic temperature for a greybody with Earthlike albedo at this orbital distance (1 AU around a sun-like star) is 250 K, if we add the 36 K greenhouse correction of Earth this becomes 13 degrees C average. In the wet case the scale height is 11.3 km - air pressure will be 36% less at this altitude. The temperature needed for a molecular species to escape is 1.49 times on Earth: in this case hydrogen certainly escapes and I think helium will escape (it depends on the exosphere temperature, something that is hard to calculate). Methane and ammonia could be retained, but if there is life and oxygen they will have been turned into carbon dioxide and nitrogen. In the dry case scale height is 2.4 km: clouds will be very low. The retention temperature is 7.5 times Earth - dry Double-Earth could potentially retain hydrogen gas. This means that potentially it could have gathered a much denser atmosphere from the beginning, potentially turning into a gas giant. Note however that by assumption we had it form in the "dry" zone near the star, so it might not have accumulated that much. We should still expect it to have a denser atmosphere than the wet case. If we make the assumption that the surface pressure is proportional to surface gravity (might make sense in this particular case) wet Double-Earth has surface pressure 0.73 and dry Double-Earth surface pressure 3.4 atmospheres. Let's also assume the mean wind speed is a terrestrial 10 m/s - again, this is hard to evaluate without running a full model. Finally, most doubtfully, let's assume the rotation period is 24 hours. In this case wet Double-Earth gets air density 0.9 Earths. The radiative timescale of 1.8 days and advection timescale of 1.4 days - this means that the weather is complex like on Earth, and responds rather quickly to seasons (ah, I implicitly assumed an Earth-like axial tilt: things will get really strange if it is more extreme). Wet will have about 9-10 jet-streams (Earth has about 7). Dry Double-Earth instead has surface air density is 4.3 times Earth, fast timescales and 10 jet streams. Not too alien. Weather is partially driven by buoyancy. On wet Double-Earth this is weaker: clouds will be taller and move more ponderously, while on dry Double-Earth the higher gravity will make small density differences generate more force: flatter, more intense convection. The strength of hurricanes depends on the temperature difference between the ocean and the stratosphere; I do not know how to calculate this, but I note that in the absence of land they can run much longer before drifting too far towards the poles that they dissipate. I am a bit uncertain about whether latitudinal mixing is strong enough to keep the poles too warm to form ice sheets or not. I suspect the lack of land will destabilize ice. If we assume 20% oxygen, then dry Double-Earth will have 537 mmHg partial pressure oxygen - toxic to humans. Even worse, the partial pressure of CO2 will be 10.4 mmHg - causing hypercapnia in humans. Still, local life could likely evolve to handle that with little problem. Wet Double-Earth looks pretty OK for humans. The radiogenic heating (assuming an Earthlike composition) of dry Double-Earth is 3.34 times higher than on Earth, 0.29 W/m^2. Still not enough to melt the crust into an Io-like volcanic mess, but it is far more active. Wet Double-Earth will have less radiogenic heating than Earth, although this is complicated by the very different composition. I still get continental drift (hence churning the ice crust), but it is not as vigorous and it will stop earlier (reducing convection in the deep ocean, likely strongly reducing the available minerals to life). Mountains on wet Double-Earth will tend to be 1.37 times taller than on Earth, but they will all be on the bottom of the super-deep ocean. On dry Double-Earth they will be just 0.29 times the height - the local Mount Everest will be just 2.4 km. Given my guess at mean ocean depths, this means that it will indeed be a waterworld. If one buys the idea that Coriolis-Lorenz dynamos in the core scales as sqrt(density/period) the magnetic field of wet Double-Earth will be 60% of Earths, while dry Double-Earth 130% - not an enormous difference, although wet Double-Earth will be less protected. Note that it has an enormous store of volatiles to bleed off, though. The higher cosmic radiation might be nasty for beings on the surface, but the water absorbs it fine. The optical depth of the atmospheres on the Double-Earths will be the same as on Earth (because of my assumption of pressure = surface gravity), so you can see the same distance. The vertical optical depth is 1.37 times more than Earth on wet Double-Earth: the sky is more milky, but not too alien. On dry Double-Earth it is just 1.1: almost normal. If you were to fly a plane, it would however turn dark blue at a much lower altitude. On the oceans, waves would be moving differently. On wet Double-Earth they would move at 85% of Earth speed, while on dry Double-Earth 184%. The height would of course scale inversely with gravity: 136% on wet Double-Earth, but just 29% on dry Double-Earth. So the seas would be choppier but slower in the wet case (but the waves will have more energy per square meter), while the dry case would have fast low swells. To sum up: both Double-Earths are waterworlds, but one is *deep*. Neither has any land. Both might have interesting deep sea vent ecologies, the wet case around vents in the high pressure ice and the dry case more terrestrial-style vents (which are more common than on Earth). On the surface the ocean has weather like on Earth, either strangely tall or fiercely squat clouds. Life could probably thrive on both worlds, but would be limited by minerals: no land, no surface weathering, and hence less minerals added to the oceans. Getting into space from wet Double-Earth is about as tough as on Earth, while dry Double-Earth is pretty tough to get away from. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 17 16:44:46 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 08:44:46 -0800 Subject: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> Message-ID: <007e01cee3b4$53be9360$fb3bba20$@att.net> >. On Behalf Of Tomaz Kristan Subject: Re: [ExI] kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets >>. A double-Earth would likely be a waterworld, from what I have read. Rock after all contains water, and if you squeeze it enough it will be released to the surface (plus cometary water). So double-Earth will at least have eight times the water volume but just four times the surface area. >> Plenty of volcanism, and over time I think continents will develop. Mountains would be half of our height (since gravity would be twice as large), but that is still enough to get some to poke up. Dr Anders Sandberg >.Twice as much water is 8 km deep on average. 4 km above Earth ocean surface. And mountains half as big, not even Mont Everest would be above water. -- Tomaz Hmmm, it might work that way, but it isn't clear. Increased gravity would reduce the altitude of the mountains, but it would also decrease the depths of the deepest parts of the sea, so the same amount of water might cover more land. A double earth with twice the radius of earth (and 8 times the mass and 8 times the water) might have no dry continents. Since we know think there are many Goldilocks planets and there is justification for thinking they have similar composition to the earth for all the same reasons, and since Kepler is proportionally capable of discovering larger planets, we can extrapolate to plenty of larger Goldies. >From that I get to a lot of water worlds. Since we started the thread regarding the need for dry land for the evolution of intelligent life, I have been thinking about all the possibilities: life can evolve in the seas of course, but as far as I know, biogenesis theory requires dry land for tidal pools to concentrate organic matter, and I don't think ice gets it done. So if there are no islands and ice caps don't help, are there any other possibilities? I thought of one: floating pumice islands. I am not referring to the floating island of Guam, which representative Johnson fears will capsize at 1:20 in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7XXVLKWd3Q ({8^D heeeeeeheheheheheeeeeeehaaaaahahahahahaaaaaheh} But rather a floating pumice raft such as the one formed in 2006 near Tonga: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumice_raft http://www.livescience.com/22268-huge-pumice-island-floats-in-pacific.html http://www.space.com/15491-volcanic-rock-microbes-life.html So if pumice rafts could perhaps have had some role in biogenesis, then it feels like a reasonable extrapolation that a pumice raft could eventually form a stable land mass on a water planet under some conditions, such as: the salinity of the sea is much higher than the earth's so its freezing point is lower, and the planet is colder, then the rain and snow falling on the pumice raft would freeze (being fresh water) which would cement the mass together and cause more pumice to collect underneath it, raising the whole dirty snowball, making it an even better place for rain and snow to collect. Or it could be I am working too hard to imagine intelligent life on a water planet. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Sun Nov 17 16:59:24 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 17:59:24 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> Message-ID: This deep vents life we know on Earth, needs oxygen. It gets it from green plants in our case. Worth to remember. On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 5:33 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > OK, now I have the time to run my code, based on what I have gathered from > the exoplanet literature. Welcome to dry and wet Double-Earth: > > A lot hinges on whether we assume Double-Earth started out beyond the > iceline and moved inwards, in which case it will be really wet, or started > out close to the sun and never got much volatiles. In the first case the > mass will be about 3 Earths and the average density 37% of Earth, with a > surface gravity of 0.73 g and an escape velocity of 13.6 km/s. This will > have an ocean hundreds of kilometres deep, surrounding a rocky core covered > with high pressure warm ices. In the second case the mass will be 15 > Earths, the density will be 167%, gravity 3.4 g and escape velocity 30 km/s. > > Note that if the component rock contributes water like on Earth, a planet > with 15 times the mass but only 4 times the area will have 3.75 times > deeper hydrosphere, assuming everything equal. That means 16 km deep > oceans - "dry" Double-Earth might still be a waterworld. > > Now we need to make some guesses at atmosphere and temperatures. The basic > temperature for a greybody with Earthlike albedo at this orbital distance > (1 AU around a sun-like star) is 250 K, if we add the 36 K greenhouse > correction of Earth this becomes 13 degrees C average. > > In the wet case the scale height is 11.3 km - air pressure will be 36% > less at this altitude. The temperature needed for a molecular species to > escape is 1.49 times on Earth: in this case hydrogen certainly escapes and > I think helium will escape (it depends on the exosphere temperature, > something that is hard to calculate). Methane and ammonia could be > retained, but if there is life and oxygen they will have been turned into > carbon dioxide and nitrogen. > > In the dry case scale height is 2.4 km: clouds will be very low. The > retention temperature is 7.5 times Earth - dry Double-Earth could > potentially retain hydrogen gas. This means that potentially it could have > gathered a much denser atmosphere from the beginning, potentially turning > into a gas giant. Note however that by assumption we had it form in the > "dry" zone near the star, so it might not have accumulated that much. We > should still expect it to have a denser atmosphere than the wet case. > > If we make the assumption that the surface pressure is proportional to > surface gravity (might make sense in this particular case) wet Double-Earth > has surface pressure 0.73 and dry Double-Earth surface pressure 3.4 > atmospheres. Let's also assume the mean wind speed is a terrestrial 10 m/s > - again, this is hard to evaluate without running a full model. Finally, > most doubtfully, let's assume the rotation period is 24 hours. > > In this case wet Double-Earth gets air density 0.9 Earths. The radiative > timescale of 1.8 days and advection timescale of 1.4 days - this means that > the weather is complex like on Earth, and responds rather quickly to > seasons (ah, I implicitly assumed an Earth-like axial tilt: things will get > really strange if it is more extreme). Wet will have about 9-10 jet-streams > (Earth has about 7). Dry Double-Earth instead has surface air density is > 4.3 times Earth, fast timescales and 10 jet streams. Not too alien. > > Weather is partially driven by buoyancy. On wet Double-Earth this is > weaker: clouds will be taller and move more ponderously, while on dry > Double-Earth the higher gravity will make small density differences > generate more force: flatter, more intense convection. The strength of > hurricanes depends on the temperature difference between the ocean and the > stratosphere; I do not know how to calculate this, but I note that in the > absence of land they can run much longer before drifting too far towards > the poles that they dissipate. I am a bit uncertain about whether > latitudinal mixing is strong enough to keep the poles too warm to form ice > sheets or not. I suspect the lack of land will destabilize ice. > > If we assume 20% oxygen, then dry Double-Earth will have 537 mmHg partial > pressure oxygen - toxic to humans. Even worse, the partial pressure of CO2 > will be 10.4 mmHg - causing hypercapnia in humans. Still, local life could > likely evolve to handle that with little problem. Wet Double-Earth looks > pretty OK for humans. > > The radiogenic heating (assuming an Earthlike composition) of dry > Double-Earth is 3.34 times higher than on Earth, 0.29 W/m^2. Still not > enough to melt the crust into an Io-like volcanic mess, but it is far more > active. Wet Double-Earth will have less radiogenic heating than Earth, > although this is complicated by the very different composition. I still get > continental drift (hence churning the ice crust), but it is not as vigorous > and it will stop earlier (reducing convection in the deep ocean, likely > strongly reducing the available minerals to life). > > Mountains on wet Double-Earth will tend to be 1.37 times taller than on > Earth, but they will all be on the bottom of the super-deep ocean. On dry > Double-Earth they will be just 0.29 times the height - the local Mount > Everest will be just 2.4 km. Given my guess at mean ocean depths, this > means that it will indeed be a waterworld. > > If one buys the idea that Coriolis-Lorenz dynamos in the core scales as > sqrt(density/period) the magnetic field of wet Double-Earth will be 60% of > Earths, while dry Double-Earth 130% - not an enormous difference, although > wet Double-Earth will be less protected. Note that it has an enormous store > of volatiles to bleed off, though. The higher cosmic radiation might be > nasty for beings on the surface, but the water absorbs it fine. > > The optical depth of the atmospheres on the Double-Earths will be the same > as on Earth (because of my assumption of pressure = surface gravity), so > you can see the same distance. The vertical optical depth is 1.37 times > more than Earth on wet Double-Earth: the sky is more milky, but not too > alien. On dry Double-Earth it is just 1.1: almost normal. If you were to > fly a plane, it would however turn dark blue at a much lower altitude. > > On the oceans, waves would be moving differently. On wet Double-Earth they > would move at 85% of Earth speed, while on dry Double-Earth 184%. The > height would of course scale inversely with gravity: 136% on wet > Double-Earth, but just 29% on dry Double-Earth. So the seas would be > choppier but slower in the wet case (but the waves will have more energy > per square meter), while the dry case would have fast low swells. > > To sum up: both Double-Earths are waterworlds, but one is *deep*. Neither > has any land. Both might have interesting deep sea vent ecologies, the wet > case around vents in the high pressure ice and the dry case more > terrestrial-style vents (which are more common than on Earth). On the > surface the ocean has weather like on Earth, either strangely tall or > fiercely squat clouds. Life could probably thrive on both worlds, but would > be limited by minerals: no land, no surface weathering, and hence less > minerals added to the oceans. Getting into space from wet Double-Earth is > about as tough as on Earth, while dry Double-Earth is pretty tough to get > away from. > > -- > Dr Anders Sandberg > Future of Humanity Institute > Oxford Martin School > Oxford University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 17 18:39:31 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 18:39:31 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52890D63.9000603@aleph.se> On 2013-11-17 16:59, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > This deep vents life we know on Earth, needs oxygen. It gets it from > green plants in our case. Worth to remember. No problem really, since either you could have an oxidizing atmosphere courtesy of surface algae, or a reducing environment with some alternative electron transport solutions. For example Anammox bacteria turn ammonia into nitrogen without any oxygen need (they use nitrites instead), Thiobacillus denitrificans turn sulphur into sulphates using nitrates, hydrogen bacteria turn hydrogen into water using sulphates, while phosphite bacteria convert phosphite into phosphate using sulphate, metanogens turn hydrogen into water using carbon dioxide, and the carboxydotropic bacteria convert carbon monoxide into carbon dioxide while turning water into hydrogen. If you have a good, strong flow of volcanic chemicals you can build a pretty functional ecosystem even without any oxygen. This is why I think dry Double-Earth will be a nicer place for life than wet Double-Earth: the heavier volcanism will really add a proper chemical outflow that will last for a long time no matter how the surface looks. While wet Double-Earth will stop continental drift after about 3 gigayears and then have the ice-crust become increasingly inert. Without heavy volcanism the sea will become very stratified and the ice will insulate it from the rocks, making the mineral content low. The total sea volume is also much bigger (at least a factor of 10), making it even harder to get any heavier atoms. Note that life might still thrive on Wet. Even if one thinks it is unlikely to originate there it could spread through panspermias, and once established on the surface it can use photosynthesis to grab CHON into structures that catch the rare heavier atoms needed. (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siderophore ) But it will be largely limited to the surface layer: just four times Earth's area, and well mixed so that there will be fewer species. Dry at the very least can run two near-independent ecosystem layers plus some stuff in-between. Intelligence evolution... well, I don't think I know enough to say anything. (In Charles Stross' "Neptune's Brood" there is Shin-Tethys, a waterworld relatively similar to Wet, although the higher amount of radioactives in the rocky core plays a fun role in the ecosystem/economy. However, when we chatted he admitted he did not do any elaborate calculations for the planet. His ecosystem also seems to be at least partially escaped nanotech. I suspect that one could tweak my model to have a much denser and more radioactive core and get something more like it. ) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Sun Nov 17 19:33:33 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:33:33 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > It is not quite that bad, but it is taking seriously. Not an existential > risk, and unlikely to shorten lifespans dramatically (note that she talks > about death rates of bacterial infections), but a real risk to our > individual lives. > > The problem seems to be that right now (1) there are few economic incentives > to develop better or new kinds of antibiotics for a variety of reasons, (2) > the people struggling against resistance are mostly stuck in "reduce > misuse"-mode, which means that they do not help (1) much, and likely will > fail because they can at most stipulate sensible rules in their own > countries, not in emerging markets where the big breeding of resistant > pathogens take place. > > The tone of your comment seems to indicate that you think it is not a really serious problem. (?) The medics, on the other hand, seem to be panicking about it. In the US, deaths from resistant infections is approaching the scale of road deaths. The CDC has issued a Threat Report 2013 that says "Each year in the United States, at least 2 million people become infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics and at least 23,000 people die each year as a direct result of these infections. Many more people die from other conditions that were complicated by an antibiotic-resistant infection. The estimates are based on conservative assumptions and are likely minimum estimates. They are the best approximations that can be derived from currently available data." To rephrase your comment about 'few economic incentives', that means that the giant pharma companies don't see big enough profits to justify them developing new drugs. As the report says, they stopped developing new antibiotics in 1987. So presumably they are already making big enough profits on existing drugs (which are now failing to cure infections). So we will have to rely on government-funded research for new drugs. BillK From anders at aleph.se Sun Nov 17 22:49:36 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:49:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> On 2013-11-17 19:33, BillK wrote: > The tone of your comment seems to indicate that you think it is not a > really serious problem. (?) > > The medics, on the other hand, seem to be panicking about it. Yes, but that is because they do not have the big picture. They look at mortality rates and deaths around them, rather than mortality distributions and existential risk. From my ivory tower resistent bacteria are a stinking, nasty cesspit in the landscape, but not anything like the bioweaponry dragon in the synthbio mountains, the gleaming nuclear silos, or that dust cloud on the horizon that might be bad AI. Yes, per average year resistant bacteria is likely to kill more people than the weird threats I watch for, but they are not going to end humanity. They are just bad news like climate change. The insurance people are worried because they see rising costs (at least health and life; I don't know if pension is quietly smug). But they are down in that small skyscraper beneath the tower, and have clearly said they don't mind the dragons. > To rephrase your comment about 'few economic incentives', that means > that the giant pharma companies don't see big enough profits to > justify them developing new drugs. As the report says, they stopped > developing new antibiotics in 1987. So presumably they are already > making big enough profits on existing drugs (which are now failing to > cure infections). No, existing antibiotics do not give big profits since they are out of patent and the market is full of generics. The problem is that the cost of developing a new drug is enormous in the current risk-averse testing climate, and antibiotics does not tend to pay well. If you add in that emergency drug licensing is likely for antibiotics in countries with problems, there is even less incentive. > So we will have to rely on government-funded research for new drugs. Either that or philanthropic foundations. Or we could lobby for a bit less risk-averse FDA, EMEA etc? -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Sun Nov 17 22:56:37 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 14:56:37 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <017d01cee3e8$462c9dd0$d285d970$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK >...As the report says, they stopped developing new antibiotics in 1987. So presumably they are already making big enough profits on existing drugs (which are now failing to cure infections). So we will have to rely on government-funded research for new drugs. BillK _______________________________________________ Which government? spike From lloydmillerus at yahoo.com Mon Nov 18 00:18:10 2013 From: lloydmillerus at yahoo.com (Lloyd Miller) Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 19:18:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> Message-ID: <067501cee3f3$aa4304c0$fec90e40$@yahoo.com> To rephrase your comment about 'few economic incentives', that means that the giant pharma companies don't see big enough profits to justify them developing new drugs. As the report says, they stopped developing new antibiotics in 1987. So presumably they are already making big enough profits on existing drugs (which are now failing to cure infections). So we will have to rely on government-funded research for new drugs. BillK Lloyd Sez: No, we have to stop regulating to control prices and profits. From max at maxmore.com Mon Nov 18 16:51:53 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 09:51:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Appealing German video on Alcor Message-ID: Popular German science magazine, Galileo, visited Alcor in 1999. They returned in 2013 and produced a very nicely-done 10 minute video. Here is the English version: https://vimeo.com/77562754 The Password is "jynx-cryonics" -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Mon Nov 18 16:59:35 2013 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 10:59:35 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Appealing German video on Alcor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Can we downloaded and repost it on FB? Giovanni On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Max More wrote: > Popular German science magazine, Galileo, visited Alcor in 1999. They > returned in 2013 and produced a very nicely-done 10 minute video. Here is > the English version: > > https://vimeo.com/77562754 > > The Password is "jynx-cryonics" > > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher > Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* > > http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader > President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Nov 18 17:42:37 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 10:42:37 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Appealing German video on Alcor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Since they send a password to a private video, I don't think so. --Max On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Can we downloaded and repost it on FB? > > Giovanni > > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Max More wrote: > >> Popular German science magazine, Galileo, visited Alcor in 1999. They >> returned in 2013 and produced a very nicely-done 10 minute video. Here is >> the English version: >> >> https://vimeo.com/77562754 >> >> The Password is "jynx-cryonics" >> >> -- >> Max More, PhD >> Strategic Philosopher >> Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* >> >> http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader >> President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From max at maxmore.com Mon Nov 18 18:51:44 2013 From: max at maxmore.com (Max More) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 11:51:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Appealing German video on Alcor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Okay, I heard from the producer. He has no objection to posting the link on Facebook. --Max On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Giovanni Santostasi wrote: > Can we downloaded and repost it on FB? > > Giovanni > > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Max More wrote: > >> Popular German science magazine, Galileo, visited Alcor in 1999. They >> returned in 2013 and produced a very nicely-done 10 minute video. Here is >> the English version: >> >> https://vimeo.com/77562754 >> >> The Password is "jynx-cryonics" >> >> -- >> Max More, PhD >> Strategic Philosopher >> Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* >> >> http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader >> President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation >> >> _______________________________________________ >> 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 > > -- Max More, PhD Strategic Philosopher Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From gsantostasi at gmail.com Mon Nov 18 19:22:18 2013 From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:22:18 -0600 Subject: [ExI] Appealing German video on Alcor In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: So link with password? Or upload the video? What is best? Giovanni On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 12:51 PM, Max More wrote: > Okay, I heard from the producer. He has no objection to posting the link > on Facebook. > > --Max > > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 9:59 AM, Giovanni Santostasi < > gsantostasi at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Can we downloaded and repost it on FB? >> >> Giovanni >> >> >> On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:51 AM, Max More wrote: >> >>> Popular German science magazine, Galileo, visited Alcor in 1999. They >>> returned in 2013 and produced a very nicely-done 10 minute video. Here is >>> the English version: >>> >>> https://vimeo.com/77562754 >>> >>> The Password is "jynx-cryonics" >>> >>> -- >>> Max More, PhD >>> Strategic Philosopher >>> Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* >>> >>> http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader >>> President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation >>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> 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 >> >> > > > -- > Max More, PhD > Strategic Philosopher > Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader* > > http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader > President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > 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 kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 18 20:54:25 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:54:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 2:17 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 14/11/2013 20:25, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > > I'm still struggling with the tie in to the Singularity. Are you > > predicting that the Singularity will bring an end to big business, big > > government, and empower the intelligent? > > The Singularity will bring, for sure, enhanced ways to cooperate and > collaborate, increasing the productivity of the productive individuals: > allowing faster and freer economic transactions without the need of a > third party is just one of them. > All right, but this is happening now, prior to the Singularity. I think there will be big business but, without a big government > granting them privileges, they will be forced to be a lot more useful or > the competition will eat their lunch with no remorse. > Fortunately, Bitcoin does accomplish this IMHO. > What is the point of a Singularity or living an unlimited amount of time > or be mentally, physically and ethically enhanced if we need more > government to run our lives. > Amen brother! Can I hear an Amen!!! > We don't want become like Gods to live like Z the Ant. > > Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should be > done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a > better work than any government. > As I look at the chart in the blog: http://bit.ly/1amBcrP Here is a link directly to the chart, in case he releases another blog or someone is looking at this in the archive: http://bit.ly/1amBcrP The one thing that I have to say that Bitcoin and the Singularity have in common is that they are both based upon the idea of exponential curves. There are those who clearly argue against both curves, and that's ok. But to the true believer, exponential growth, whether it be of things that will lead to the Singularity or things that will lead to their personal wealth, is a key concept. It's also a key concept for those who predict the doom of mankind by resource depletion (Malthus, Paul Ehrlich, et al). Will Bitcoin help enable the Singularity? It certainly makes it more difficult for individual governments to outlaw things that might lead to the Singularity (should it be viewed, correctly, as damaging to the status quo). This week http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304439804579205740125297358 -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 18 20:56:06 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 13:56:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] A Step Towards an Autonomous Truck (Big Rig) Message-ID: This seems like a large step towards autonomous big rigs. It's also cool as hell. Even video haters should watch this Van Damme commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7FIvfx5J10 -Kelly (I have no stock in Volvo... LOL) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 18 21:03:39 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:03:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Communication Singularity (was Re: What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks?) Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 2:34 PM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 10:17:54PM +0100, Mirco Romanato wrote: > > > The Singularity will bring, for sure, enhanced ways to cooperate and > > The Singularity, for sure, is defined as a prediction horizon. > So trying to predict that is, by definition, is impossible. > Predicting up to the Singularity is, however, possible. One of the exponential curves that I feel (though I don't think it can be measured precisely) is the increase in speed and frequency of interpersonal communications. If you think about runners progressing to post men, to telegraphy, to telephony, to the Internet, to Text messaging and twitter, you see a progression in frequency and speed of delivery of messages between individuals. I believe this is one of those Singularity curve thingys. Now, that being said, what does being near the Singularity mean for this particular curve? One thing that it certainly means in order to continue is that you will have to communicate nearly continuously, and eventually with more than one person at a time. To achieve this level of communications, it will be necessary to either be uploaded, or have an avatar that answers many of your communications on your behalf. In twenty years, it could be that this mailing list will be entirely filled with communications between our individual avatars. They will then summarize the results of the communication back to our "main brain". This will be part of what I call the Multi Threaded Life. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But I do believe that autonomous communications on our behalf is just a couple of decades around the corner. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Mon Nov 18 21:07:19 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 14:07:19 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <007e01cee18b$388c8500$a9a58f00$@att.net> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284BCF1.2000806@canonizer.com> <007e01cee18b$388c8500$a9a58f00$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 3:45 PM, spike wrote: > > On Thu, Nov 14, 2013 at 5:40 AM, BillK wrote: > > > > > > >>?More of the same appears like the Gates of Hell are opening wide. > > > > >?Bill, are you actually arguing that the Internet is a bad thing? -Kelly > > > > > > Depends on how you look at it. If hell has gates, presumably it has a > wall or fence with the gates being the entrance/exit. Unless hell is a lot > more fun than has been portrayed, presumably the inhabitants would be far > more eager to exit than would be outsiders to gain entry via those gates. > So if the gates of hell are open wide, this would be a good thing, as > demonstrated by the first wave of winged rodents, exiting the place like > proverbial bats outta hell. > > > > Of course, all the paintings made of the place have two things in common, > one of which is the heat, but the other is that no one is wearing clothes. > With all that wicked-cool nekkidness everywhere, it is no mystery that > people would want in. > Sign me up. > BillK?s list of consequences I fully recognize as bad things for some > people. I am one of those who came out on the winning side of everything > on that list, but I know people who generally are not internet users who > express discontent. A good example is that people don?t gather and > socialize as much, so those who remember the time before. > If you don't buy into motor cars, you're going to be left behind with your horse and buggy. > As it turns out, people still gather, but they do so with more specialized > interest. People who are not internet users today seldom have special > interests, or if so, they cannot find the others who are like-minded, these > having found each other long before in internet groups. Without internet > use, their own specialties might be having social gatherings right next > door, and the non-surfer would never know it was going on. > Yes, I see the silos of interest growing around me. Fortunately, I maintain interest in several silos, so I find life to be interesting and fulfilling. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Mon Nov 18 21:46:26 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 22:46:26 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> Message-ID: <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Il 18/11/2013 21:54, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should be > done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a > better work than any government. > As I look at the chart in the blog: > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP > Here is a link directly to the chart, in case he releases another blog > or someone is looking at this in the archive: > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP What do you think about my comment of the post? Mirco From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 00:16:43 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:16:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 12:33 PM, BillK wrote: > So we will have to rely on government-funded research for new drugs. > Yeah! Let's destroy all economic incentives for the pharmaceutical industry, then take it over. Great idea. I think it will work for health care in general too!!! -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 00:42:24 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:42:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <52792CD7.9090606@aleph.se> <048101ceda96$4f950980$eebf1c80$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 9:33 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Weather is partially driven by buoyancy. On wet Double-Earth this is > weaker: clouds will be taller and move more ponderously, while on dry > Double-Earth the higher gravity will make small density differences > generate more force: flatter, more intense convection. The strength of > hurricanes depends on the temperature difference between the ocean and the > stratosphere; I do not know how to calculate this, but I note that in the > absence of land they can run much longer before drifting too far towards > the poles that they dissipate. Without land masses, and the water currents they create, I suspect that on any water world you would get a permanent hurricane analogous to Jupiter's red spot. It is interesting to note that the hot spot under Hawaii is at the exact same location as the red spot on Jupiter and it is just as stable. I think there may be physics happening here. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Nov 19 01:03:07 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 01:03:07 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> Message-ID: <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> On 2013-11-19 00:42, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > Without land masses, and the water currents they create, I suspect > that on any water world you would get a permanent hurricane analogous > to Jupiter's red spot. Maybe. The red spot is kept in place because of reliable convection bands, in turn stabilized by the high rate of rotation. Double-Earth is rotating a bit too slow and has too small raius to have enough Coriolis force to make a purely banded atmosphere, so hurricanes will likely eventually escape. But cycling a few turns around the planet may work fine. > > It is interesting to note that the hot spot under Hawaii is at the > exact same location as the red spot on Jupiter and it is just as > stable. I think there may be physics happening here. There is always physics where there is energy flow. However, the Hawaii hotspot is likely different from the red spot: it is vertical convection rather than a vortex - the lithosphere is really viscous, it is hard to get it to twirl. (Which leaves me wondering about the core) -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From rolandodegilead at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 11:22:19 2013 From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eugenio_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 12:22:19 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government works under certain guarantees. A government is the "bondsman" (Guarantor?) that watch if rules are kept and that weak ones are not abused. Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect government... and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to work anymore. That idea entail a lot of problems, of course. Vgr: what to do with productive private property On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:46 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > Il 18/11/2013 21:54, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: > > > > > Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should > be > > done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a > > better work than any government. > > > As I look at the chart in the blog: > > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP > > Here is a link directly to the chart, in case he releases another blog > > or someone is looking at this in the archive: > > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP > > What do you think about my comment of the post? > > Mirco > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -- OLVIDATE.DE Tatachan.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddraig at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 14:43:01 2013 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 01:43:01 +1100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: This is a fascinating thread. I've been aware of bitcoins since pretty close to the beginning, but ignored it as Yet Another Net.Fad I was told about a guy a few years ago (!) who decided to heat his house over winter by leaving the heating off and running a heap of computers 24/7 to mine bitcoins. I'd love to know if he sold them, and if not, what are they worth now? Dwayne On 19 November 2013 22:22, Eugenio Mart?nez wrote: > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government > works under certain guarantees. > > A government is the "bondsman" (Guarantor?) that watch if rules are kept > and that weak ones are not abused. > > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect government... > and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to work anymore. > > That idea entail a lot of problems, of course. Vgr: what to do with > productive private property > > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:46 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > >> Il 18/11/2013 21:54, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> >> > >> > Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should >> be >> > done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a >> > better work than any government. >> >> > As I look at the chart in the blog: >> > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP >> > Here is a link directly to the chart, in case he releases another blog >> > or someone is looking at this in the archive: >> > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP >> >> What do you think about my comment of the post? >> >> Mirco >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > > -- > OLVIDATE.DE > Tatachan.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://tinyurl.com/he-is-right-you-know-jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 17:59:49 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 17:59:49 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Inheritance - It's not just the DNA Message-ID: The Toxins That Affected Your Great-Grandparents Could Be In Your Genes Quote: For half a century it has been common knowledge that the genetic material DNA controls this process; the ?letters? in the DNA strand spell out messages that are passed from parent to offspring and so on. The messages come in the form of genes, the molecular equivalent of sentences, but they are not permanent. A change in a letter, a result of a random mutation, for example, can alter a gene?s message. The altered message can then be transmitted instead. The strange thing about Skinner?s lab rats was that three generations after the pregnant mothers were exposed to the fungicide, the animals had abnormally low sperm counts?but not because of a change in their inherited DNA sequence. Puzzled, Skinner and his team repeated the experiments?once, twice, 15 times?and found the same sperm defects. Skinner and his team found instead that as the toxins flooded in, they altered the pattern of simple molecules called methyl groups that latch onto DNA in the fetus? germ-line cells, which would eventually become its eggs or sperm. Like burrs stuck to a knit sweater, these methyl molecules interfered with the functioning of the DNA and rode it down through future generations, opening each new one to the same diseases. These burrs, known to be involved in development, persisted for generations. The phenomenon was so unexpected that it has given rise to a new field, with Skinner an acknowledged leader, named transgenerational epigenetics, or the study of inherited changes that can?t be explained by traditional genetics. ----------- BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 18:38:55 2013 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:38:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin Message-ID: The following article was on the front page of the business section of today's New York Times: ============= The virtual currency bitcoin took a big step toward the mainstream on Monday as federal authorities signaled their willingness to accept it as a legitimate payment alternative. A number of federal officials told a Senate hearing that such financial networks offered real benefits for the financial system even as they acknowledged that new forms of digital money had provided avenues for money laundering and illegal activity. ?There are plenty of opportunities for digital currencies to operate within existing laws and regulations,? said Edward Lowery, a special agent with the Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting the integrity of the dollar. Signs that the government would not stand in the way of bitcoin?s development, even as it has been cracking down on criminal networks that use the digital money, stoked a strong rally in the price of the crypto-currency. By Monday evening, the value of a bitcoin unit soared past $700 on some exchanges. The total outstanding pool of bitcoin ? which is created by a network of users who solve complex mathematical problems ? is now worth more than $7 billion. The Senate hearing Monday afternoon was the clearest indication yet of the government?s desire to grapple with the consequences of this growth, and the recognition that bitcoin and other similar networks could become more lasting and significant parts of the financial landscape. ?The decision to bring virtual currency within the scope of our regulatory framework should be viewed by those who respect and obey the basic rule of law as a positive development for this sector,? said Jennifer Shasky Calvery, the director of the Treasury Department?s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. ?It recognizes the innovation virtual currencies provide, and the benefits they might offer.? Ms. Shasky Calvery and the other officials at the hearing did say that basic questions still had to be answered about virtual currencies, including whether they can actually be considered currencies or whether they are more properly categorized as commodities or securities. The distinction will determine which agencies regulate the networks and how they are treated under tax law. Ms. Shasky Calvery said that the Internal Revenue Service was ?actively working? on its own rules for bitcoin. The hearing followed other less visible steps taken by regulators and lawmakers to bring digital money into the mainstream. New York State?s top financial regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky, said last week that he would hold a hearing to consider the creation of a BitLicense to provide more oversight for transactions. Earlier, the Federal Election Commissionput out an advisory indicating that bitcoin could be legally accepted as political donations. The general counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit advocating the currency, said in his testimony on Monday that he was receiving a much more friendly response from both government and the financial industry. ?We have recently perceived a marked improvement in the tone and tenor taken by both state officials and bank executives,? the general counsel, Patrick Murck, said. Bitcoin has experienced a remarkable ascent since it was created in 2009 by an anonymous programmer or collective known as Satoshi Nakamoto. The money, which is not tied to any national currency, has been popular with technophiles who are skeptical of the world?s central banks. Only a finite amount of bitcoin will ever be created ? 21 million units. Users have bid up the price on Internet exchanges, betting that the currency will be more widely used in the future. There are significant questions about the wisdom of the digital money as an investment, given that bitcoin has no intrinsic value and has proved to be vulnerable to hackers. Many money managers have recommended that unsophisticated investors stay away. Recently, though, bitcoin has been catching fire around the world, with exchanges in China particularly active. A growing number of prominent American investors have also bought stakes, including Michael Novogratz, a principal at the private equityand hedge fund giantFortress Investment Group, as well as the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler. The increasingly widespread ownership of bitcoin has shifted attention away from the criminal enterprises that have used digital money, but it was a focus at the Senate hearing. Last month, the online marketplace Silk Road, where bitcoin was the primary form of payment, was shut down and its founder arrested after authorities accused it of being used to buy and sell drugs, weapons and pornography. The chairman of the Senate committee, Thomas R. Carper, Democrat of Delaware, said that a few days after the arrest, a similar site sprang up. It can be harder to track criminals who use bitcoin, law enforcement officials said at the hearing, because they operate across international borders and often do not use established financial institutions that report transactions. But Mythili Raman, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, also said that because every bitcoin transaction was recorded on a public ledger, it was possible for investigators to trace the movement of money between accounts. ?It is not in fact anonymous. It is not immune from investigation,? Ms. Raman said. All the officials at the hearing said that crime had been an issue during the early days of credit cards and online payment systems like PayPal, and should not be a reason to limit innovation. ?It is our duty as law enforcement to stay vigilant while recognizing that there are many legitimate users of those services,? Ms. Raman said. The bitcoin supporters who testified at the hearing said bitcoin could bring major changes to the financial system by cutting out the middle men needed to move money around the world. ?I am here to testify because I believe that global digital currency represents one of the most important technical and economic innovations of our time,? said Jeremy Allaire, the chief executive of Circle Internet Financial, which is seeking to promote more widespread use of the currency. Given bitcoin?s appeal to skeptics of government, many aficionados have been wary of involvement by Washington. But advocates at the hearing said that the increasing cooperation with regulators could lay the groundwork for further growth. ?As this technology moves from early adopters into mainstream acceptance, it is critical in my view that federal and state governments establish policies surrounding digital currency,? Mr. Allaire said. A version of this article appears in print on 11/19/2013, on page B1 of the NewYork edition with the headline: Regulators See Value in Bitcoin, And Investors Hasten to Agree . -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 21:25:59 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 13:25:59 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: <5282EDE3.3080305@aleph.se> References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> <5282EDE3.3080305@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > On 2013-11-13 01:25, Adam A. Ford wrote: > >> I am surprised at how much the course conveners refer to Drexler's views >> as Science Fiction in forums and in the main lecture video: >> https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/lecture/7 >> > > Maybe you should bring up what he really argues for? See his Guardian > blogs, and his recent book. The problem seem that everybody argues against > Strawman Drexler, who has little to do with real Drexler. This is definitely seeming to be the trend here. Even one of the professors clings to Strawman Drexler after having been called out on it, in detail, by four of the respondents (myself and Adam included). But it turns out there might be a financial incentive for this: if the don't spout that, government funding sources worry they're promoting a scary vision of uncontrolled nanotech, and pull funding (because of course one must not be seen as supporting that which scares the sheeple, if one wishes to get reelected). And of course we wind up dealing with those who got funded, far more than those who did not. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Tue Nov 19 22:01:28 2013 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:01:28 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> <5282EDE3.3080305@aleph.se> Message-ID: Adrian Tymes wrote: "But it turns out there might be a financial incentive for this: if the don't spout that, government funding sources worry they're promoting a scary vision of uncontrolled nanotech, and pull funding (because of course one must not be seen as supporting that which scares the sheeple, if one wishes to get reelected). And of course we wind up dealing with those who got funded, far more than those who did not." I suspect there are at least several (if not far more) extremely well funded top secret/above top secret Drexlerian-style nanotech research projects going on for the U.S. military, which we are "in the black" about. And I suspect the same regarding quantum computers and artificial intelligence.... Now if I could only confidently say that about extreme longevity research! LOL.... John On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 2:25 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> On 2013-11-13 01:25, Adam A. Ford wrote: >> >>> I am surprised at how much the course conveners refer to Drexler's views >>> as Science Fiction in forums and in the main lecture video: >>> https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/lecture/7 >>> >> >> Maybe you should bring up what he really argues for? See his Guardian >> blogs, and his recent book. The problem seem that everybody argues against >> Strawman Drexler, who has little to do with real Drexler. > > > This is definitely seeming to be the trend here. Even one of the > professors clings to Strawman Drexler after having been called out on it, > in detail, by four of the respondents (myself and Adam included). > > But it turns out there might be a financial incentive for this: if the > don't spout that, government funding sources worry they're promoting a > scary vision of uncontrolled nanotech, and pull funding (because of course > one must not be seen as supporting that which scares the sheeple, if one > wishes to get reelected). And of course we wind up dealing with those who > got funded, far more than those who did not. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From painlord2k at libero.it Tue Nov 19 14:41:14 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 15:41:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> Il 19/11/2013 12:22, Eugenio Mart?nez ha scritto: > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government > works under certain guarantees. Me too...but I'm not sure your "certain guarantees" are mines. "Whoever wants to see the world governed according to his own ideas must strive for dominion over men?s minds. It is impossible, in the long run, to subject men against their will to a regime that they reject. Whoever tries to do so by force will ultimately come to grief, and the struggles provoked by his attempt will do more harm than the worst government based on the consent of the governed could ever do. Men cannot be made happy against their will." Liberalism, p. 46 > A government is the "bondsman" (Guarantor?) that watch if rules are kept > and that weak ones are not abused. The problems arise when the particular "bondsman" is unable or unwilling to work as intended. This because government is conceived as a monopoly of force and coercion. "Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation of what is called economic freedom." Human Action, p. 283 "Once the principle is admitted that it is duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments." Human Action, pp. 728?29, p. 733 > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect > government... and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to > work anymore. I'm not sure a strong AI will be happy to exist as a manservant and man keeper. You know, just like in a jail. > That idea entail a lot of problems, of course. Vgr: what to do with > productive private property Leave it to their legitimate owners? Mirco From giulio at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 08:19:36 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 09:19:36 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> <5282EDE3.3080305@aleph.se> Message-ID: Yes, criticizing early Drexler's visions is Politically Correct these days. Of course only PC science gets funded, and suspects of unPCness can kill a scientist's career. Note that even Drexler himself, in his last book Radical Abundance, seems to forget his juvenile unPC sins and focus on down-to-earth nanotech only. This means also that, even if many technologies discussed on this list in the 90s are approaching the mainstream, radical futurist groups such as the ExI list have still an important role to play. The mainstream may have appropriated a mild version of transhumanist tech, but they don't tell the whole story. On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 10:25 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Tue, Nov 12, 2013 at 7:11 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> >> On 2013-11-13 01:25, Adam A. Ford wrote: >>> >>> I am surprised at how much the course conveners refer to Drexler's views >>> as Science Fiction in forums and in the main lecture video: >>> https://class.coursera.org/nanotech-001/lecture/7 >> >> >> Maybe you should bring up what he really argues for? See his Guardian >> blogs, and his recent book. The problem seem that everybody argues against >> Strawman Drexler, who has little to do with real Drexler. > > > This is definitely seeming to be the trend here. Even one of the professors > clings to Strawman Drexler after having been called out on it, in detail, by > four of the respondents (myself and Adam included). > > But it turns out there might be a financial incentive for this: if the don't > spout that, government funding sources worry they're promoting a scary > vision of uncontrolled nanotech, and pull funding (because of course one > must not be seen as supporting that which scares the sheeple, if one wishes > to get reelected). And of course we wind up dealing with those who got > funded, far more than those who did not. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From sondre-list at bjellas.com Tue Nov 19 19:14:50 2013 From: sondre-list at bjellas.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Sondre_Bjell=E5s?=) Date: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 20:14:50 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For anyone interested in trading Bitcoin, here is a nice site that shows the differences in value between the various currency exchanges: http://www.coined.com/ BTC hit $900 on MTGOX yesterday, fell hard afterwards but that's normal as a lot of users sold their BTCs. Will we see $1000 soon? It passed that in China yesterday. - Sondre On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 7:38 PM, John Clark wrote: > The following article was on the front page of the business section of > today's New York Times: > > ============= > > The virtual currency bitcoin took a big step toward the mainstream on > Monday as federal authorities signaled their willingness to accept it as a > legitimate payment alternative. > > A number of federal officials told a Senate hearing that such financial > networks offered real benefits for the financial system even as they > acknowledged that new forms of digital money had provided avenues for money > laundering and illegal activity. > > ?There are plenty of opportunities for digital currencies to operate > within existing laws and regulations,? said Edward Lowery, a special agent > with the Secret Service, which is tasked with protecting the integrity of > the dollar. > > Signs that the government would not stand in the way of bitcoin?s > development, even as it has been cracking down on criminal networks that > use the digital money, stoked a strong rally in the price of the > crypto-currency. > > By Monday evening, the value of a bitcoin unit soared past $700 on some > exchanges. The total outstanding pool of bitcoin ? which is created by a > network of users who solve complex mathematical problems ? is now worth > more than $7 billion. > > The Senate hearing Monday afternoon was the clearest indication yet of the > government?s desire to grapple with the consequences of this growth, and > the recognition that bitcoin and other similar networks could become more > lasting and significant parts of the financial landscape. > > ?The decision to bring virtual currency within the scope of our regulatory > framework should be viewed by those who respect and obey the basic rule of > law as a positive development for this sector,? said Jennifer Shasky > Calvery, the director of the Treasury Department?s Financial Crimes > Enforcement Network. ?It recognizes the innovation virtual currencies > provide, and the benefits they might offer.? > > Ms. Shasky Calvery and the other officials at the hearing did say that > basic questions still had to be answered about virtual currencies, > including whether they can actually be considered currencies or whether > they are more properly categorized as commodities or securities. The > distinction will determine which agencies regulate the networks and how > they are treated under tax law. > > Ms. Shasky Calvery said that the Internal Revenue Service was ?actively > working? on its own rules for bitcoin. > > The hearing followed other less visible steps taken by regulators and > lawmakers to bring digital money into the mainstream. > > New York State?s top financial regulator, Benjamin M. Lawsky, said last > week that he would hold a hearing to consider the creation of a BitLicense > to provide more oversight for transactions. Earlier, the Federal Election > Commissionput out an advisory indicating that bitcoin could be legally > accepted as political donations. > > The general counsel of the Bitcoin Foundation, a nonprofit advocating the > currency, said in his testimony on Monday that he was receiving a much more > friendly response from both government and the financial industry. > > ?We have recently perceived a marked improvement in the tone and tenor > taken by both state officials and bank executives,? the general counsel, > Patrick Murck, said. > > Bitcoin has experienced a remarkable ascent since it was created in 2009 > by an anonymous programmer or collective known as Satoshi Nakamoto. The > money, which is not tied to any national currency, has been popular with > technophiles who are skeptical of the world?s central banks. Only a finite > amount of bitcoin will ever be created ? 21 million units. Users have bid > up the price on Internet exchanges, betting that the currency will be more > widely used in the future. > > There are significant questions about the wisdom of the digital money as > an investment, given that bitcoin has no intrinsic value and has proved to > be vulnerable to hackers. Many money managers have recommended that > unsophisticated investors stay away. > > Recently, though, bitcoin has been catching fire around the world, with > exchanges in China particularly active. A growing number of prominent > American investors have also bought stakes, including Michael Novogratz, a > principal at the private equityand hedge fund giantFortress Investment > Group, as well as the Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler. > > The increasingly widespread ownership of bitcoin has shifted attention > away from the criminal enterprises that have used digital money, but it was > a focus at the Senate hearing. > > Last month, the online marketplace Silk Road, where bitcoin was the > primary form of payment, was shut down and its founder arrested after > authorities accused it of being used to buy and sell drugs, weapons and > pornography. The chairman of the Senate committee, Thomas R. Carper, > Democrat of Delaware, said that a few days after the arrest, a similar site > sprang up. > > It can be harder to track criminals who use bitcoin, law enforcement > officials said at the hearing, because they operate across international > borders and often do not use established financial institutions that report > transactions. > > But Mythili Raman, an assistant attorney general at the Justice > Department, also said that because every bitcoin transaction was recorded > on a public ledger, it was possible for investigators to trace the movement > of money between accounts. > > ?It is not in fact anonymous. It is not immune from investigation,? Ms. > Raman said. > > All the officials at the hearing said that crime had been an issue during > the early days of credit cards and online payment systems like PayPal, and > should not be a reason to limit innovation. > > ?It is our duty as law enforcement to stay vigilant while recognizing that > there are many legitimate users of those services,? Ms. Raman said. > > The bitcoin supporters who testified at the hearing said bitcoin could > bring major changes to the financial system by cutting out the middle men > needed to move money around the world. > > ?I am here to testify because I believe that global digital currency > represents one of the most important technical and economic innovations of > our time,? said Jeremy Allaire, the chief executive of Circle Internet > Financial, which is seeking to promote more widespread use of the currency. > > Given bitcoin?s appeal to skeptics of government, many aficionados have > been wary of involvement by Washington. But advocates at the hearing said > that the increasing cooperation with regulators could lay the groundwork > for further growth. > > ?As this technology moves from early adopters into mainstream acceptance, > it is critical in my view that federal and state governments establish > policies surrounding digital currency,? Mr. Allaire said. > A version of this article appears in print on 11/19/2013, on page B1 of > the NewYork edition with the headline: Regulators See Value in Bitcoin, And > Investors Hasten to Agree . > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Sondre Bjell?s http://www.sondreb.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ddraig at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 09:18:54 2013 From: ddraig at gmail.com (ddraig) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 20:18:54 +1100 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 20 November 2013 06:14, Sondre Bjell?s wrote: > For anyone interested in trading Bitcoin, here is a nice site that shows > the differences in value between the various currency exchanges: > > http://www.coined.com/ > > BTC hit $900 on MTGOX yesterday, fell hard afterwards but that's normal as > a lot of users sold their BTCs. Will we see $1000 soon? It passed that in > China yesterday. > > I read the enormous thread you guys have been posting to yesterday, got interested, and put a widget on my phone to track the value of bitcoins. It went from 650 to 520 in an hour - interesting volatility. Dwayne -- ddraig at pobox.com irc.bluesphereweb.com #dna ...r.e.t.u.r.n....t.o....t.h.e....s.o.u.r.c.e... http://tinyurl.com/he-is-right-you-know-jpg our aim is wakefulness, our enemy is dreamless sleep -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rolandodegilead at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 10:54:41 2013 From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eugenio_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:54:41 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> Message-ID: > > > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government > > works under certain guarantees. > > Me too...but I'm not sure your "certain guarantees" are mines. > > "Whoever wants to see the world governed according to his > own ideas must strive for dominion over men?s minds. It is > impossible, in the long run, to subject men against their will to > a regime that they reject. Whoever tries to do so by force will > ultimately come to grief, and the struggles provoked by his > attempt will do more harm than the worst government based > on the consent of the governed could ever do. Men cannot be > made happy against their will." > Liberalism, p. 46 > Certain guarantees are that the government is easily changeable if it fails and punishable if it is deserved. Like in modern democracies, but in a more equalitarian way (I say that because, as far as I know, there are more than two parties in USA, but it is impossible for one of the other parties to reach everybody) The problem with that quote is that No Government is also a way of governing and I?d say that is not desired by general public (since nobody votes anarchist or anachcapitalist parties). Also, I don?t know when a nation will embrace transhumanism. Maybe in 50 years. I don?t know how many years it will take to develop. Maybe 50 years more. But I know that 101 years later, all the nations will embrace it or will be left behind. Because of his own definition, I cannot know what happens after singularity, but I think that grief and struggles would be futile against a government protected with transhumanist forces. > A government is the "bondsman" (Guarantor?) that watch if rules are kept > > and that weak ones are not abused. > > The problems arise when the particular "bondsman" is unable or unwilling > to work as intended. > Then is when the certain guarantees comes to scene. > "Government is a guarantor of liberty and is compatible with > liberty only if its range is adequately restricted to the preservation > of what is called economic freedom." > Human Action, p. 283 > Well. Economic freedom is Ok. It is a right. But I?d say that there are more important rights like right to work, food, healthcare,physical integrity, freedom of expression, fair trials, education and that kind of basic things. If that fails, system is not working. Just economic freedom means child labour. And that is a non working system. "Once the principle is admitted that it is duty of government > to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious > objections can be advanced against further encroachments." > Human Action, pp. 728?29, p. 733 > Oh, no no no no. Not against his own foolishness, but against other people foolishness. Now I am suffering banks and Lehman Brothers lack of ethics and I am unemployed for first time on my life. That is because economic freedom. I?d like to be protected. In Spain 12 billion ? has been stolen to citizens by banks selling preferred stock as fixed income and nobody is in prison because economic freedom. Defrauded ones would like to be protected. > > > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect > > government... and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to > > work anymore. > > I'm not sure a strong AI will be happy to exist as a manservant and man > keeper. You know, just like in a jail. > If you just add more computational power, is just a little task. Like visit your parents in the weekend. Or like move a finger. > > That idea entail a lot of problems, of course. Vgr: what to do with > > productive private property > > Leave it to their legitimate owners? > It?s ok. But then.. if there is a IA that can work, the productive private property owners would buy it and there would be 100% unemployent and hunger. There is an existencial problem. Caused why? Because having in our hands the solution to one of the main problems of humanity (work division, unemployment, low salaries and class struggle), private property of a few was considered more important that the right to live with dignity of everybody -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Wed Nov 20 10:46:46 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:46:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] biops Message-ID: <20131120104646.GT5661@leitl.org> Anyone knows who's behind this? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTMS9y8OVuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDC35pcr-Fg From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 20 12:36:39 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 12:36:39 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> Message-ID: <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> OK, now I have a better writeup: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2013/11/greetings_from_doubleearth.html I am starting to think that really "wet" ocean worlds are likely not as hospitable to life as the "dry" ones. But land might still be optional. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From spike66 at att.net Wed Nov 20 14:59:11 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 06:59:11 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> Message-ID: <00ea01cee601$12ddbac0$38993040$@att.net> > On Behalf Of Eugenio Mart?nez > "Whoever wants to see the world governed according to his own ideas must strive for dominion over men?s minds.... Men cannot be made happy against their will." Liberalism, p. 46 COOL! Eugenio, who wrote that? > (I say that because, as far as I know, there are more than two parties in USA, but it is impossible for one of the other parties to reach everybody) We have a number of third parties which tend to mostly ally themselves with one of the two majors. In the past two decades, our two major parties have become nearly indistinguishable. A new one came along recently, the Tea Party, with the main platform of ?Don?t raise taxes, cut spending.? That sounded right to me. The two majors united in common cause against that one. Even the IRS got in on the act, illegally suppressing that party at every opportunity. They got caught. Nothing happened. It appears nothing will happen. Does that tell you what you need to know about American politics? > The problem with that quote is that No Government is also a way of governing and I?d say that is not desired by general public (since nobody votes anarchist or anachcapitalist parties). Eugenio, I am astonished at how often in America today we are seeing the concept of limited central government being equated with no government. We see the concept of states (rather than the Fed) doing most of the governing being equated to anarchy. We see the concept of local governments doing that for which they were established being equated with chaos. The notion that the Federal government is held to the intentionally strict guidelines of its own Constitution is treated as a quaint and outdated theory, established by racists and slavers. It then follows with how wonderful it will all be if a big brother federal government just does everything for us, feeds our poor, supports our unemployed, heals our sickness, binds our wounds, stops the rising of the seas, holds our helpless little hands and tells us exactly what we are to do. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 15:32:10 2013 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 16:32:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] biops In-Reply-To: <20131120104646.GT5661@leitl.org> References: <20131120104646.GT5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: See http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-video-series-aims-to-popularize-transhumanism-kickstarter-launched On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > Anyone knows who's behind this? > > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTMS9y8OVuY > > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDC35pcr-Fg > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From atymes at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 16:58:50 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 08:58:50 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Coursera Nanotechnology has begun In-Reply-To: References: <20131112073253.GW5661@leitl.org> <5282EDE3.3080305@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 2:01 PM, John Grigg wrote: > I suspect there are at least several (if not far more) extremely well > funded top secret/above top secret Drexlerian-style nanotech research > projects going on for the U.S. military, which we are "in the black" about. > I doubt it. Such research would be far more valuable to the US - even to just the US military - if done in the open (due to the amount of capital needed to fully exploit this technology - e.g., the intelligence community as a whole can never manufacture chips nearly as cheaply as Intel), and they know it. Notice that the specific details of the US Navy's nuclear program are merely Secret, and then only mainly for how to operate (and thus, how to sabotage) their particular reactors. The basic theory and most principles of design are unclassified. It's a safe bet that the Navy has been taking advantage of reactor design enhancements made in the open over the past few decades. Same principle here. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 19:01:13 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 11:01:13 -0800 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 2:54 AM, Eugenio Mart?nez wrote: > "Once the principle is admitted that it is duty of government >> to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious >> objections can be advanced against further encroachments." >> Human Action, pp. 728?29, p. 733 >> > > Oh, no no no no. Not against his own foolishness, but against other people > foolishness. Now I am suffering banks and Lehman Brothers lack of ethics > and I am unemployed for first time on my life. > What about cases that cross the line? For instance, some people who worked for Lehman Brothers are now out of work due to this same thing. Would protecting them against their own foolishness be okay, if it would also protect you against their foolishness? (Note that they would ignore that it's about protecting others - but really, most "protect from themselves" arguments can be cast as protecting others. If nothing else, letting you take yourself out of the labor force means you're not doing stuff to support the rest of us.) Simpler examples can be seen in public health - e.g., disallowing people from becoming another Typhoid Mary. (She did not want to be protected from herself, and insisted she was not carrying disease even though she provably was. She very strongly resisted the notion that she either give up her career as a cook or at least take measures such as washing her hands before cooking.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sondre-list at bjellas.com Wed Nov 20 19:04:14 2013 From: sondre-list at bjellas.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Sondre_Bjell=E5s?=) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 20:04:14 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: ... "weak ones are not abused" ... can you give some examples? When did the government protect and help the weak ones? Even in social democracies such as Norway, it's clearly the rich, wealthy, connected and corporations that gets benefits. If you are a weak one, and have issues with the government, you will never win a law suite or get the proper retribution. - Sondre On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 12:22 PM, Eugenio Mart?nez < rolandodegilead at gmail.com> wrote: > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government > works under certain guarantees. > > A government is the "bondsman" (Guarantor?) that watch if rules are kept > and that weak ones are not abused. > > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect government... > and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to work anymore. > > That idea entail a lot of problems, of course. Vgr: what to do with > productive private property > > > On Mon, Nov 18, 2013 at 10:46 PM, Mirco Romanato wrote: > >> Il 18/11/2013 21:54, Kelly Anderson ha scritto: >> >> > >> > Bitcoin show that many things done by the government can and should >> be >> > done by the market, by the people. And the people can and will do a >> > better work than any government. >> >> > As I look at the chart in the blog: >> > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP >> > Here is a link directly to the chart, in case he releases another blog >> > or someone is looking at this in the archive: >> > http://bit.ly/1amBcrP >> >> What do you think about my comment of the post? >> >> Mirco >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> > > > > -- > OLVIDATE.DE > Tatachan.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- Sondre Bjell?s http://www.sondreb.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 19:39:13 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 19:39:13 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 10:49 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Yes, but that is because they do not have the big picture. They look at > mortality rates and deaths around them, rather than mortality distributions > and existential risk. > > From my ivory tower resistent bacteria are a stinking, nasty cesspit in the > landscape, but not anything like the bioweaponry dragon in the synthbio > mountains, the gleaming nuclear silos, or that dust cloud on the horizon > that might be bad AI. Yes, per average year resistant bacteria is likely to > kill more people than the weird threats I watch for, but they are not going > to end humanity. They are just bad news like climate change. > > The doctors so far are only seeing the first signs of the increased death rate from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. It is the future death rates they are worried about. A new article describes what happens when operations become impossible and every accident, large or small, that gets infected becomes fatal. Quote: If we really lost antibiotics to advancing drug resistance ? and trust me, we?re not far off ? here?s what we would lose. Not just the ability to treat infectious disease; that?s obvious. But also: The ability to treat cancer, and to transplant organs, because doing those successfully relies on suppressing the immune system and willingly making ourselves vulnerable to infection. Any treatment that relies on a permanent port into the bloodstream ? for instance, kidney dialysis. Any major open-cavity surgery, on the heart, the lungs, the abdomen. Any surgery on a part of the body that already harbors a population of bacteria: the guts, the bladder, the genitals. Implantable devices: new hips, new knees, new heart valves. Cosmetic plastic surgery. Liposuction. Tattoos. We?d lose the ability to treat people after traumatic accidents, as major as crashing your car and as minor as your kid falling out of a tree. We?d lose the safety of modern childbirth: Before the antibiotic era, 5 women died out of every 1,000 who gave birth. One out of every nine skin infections killed. Three out of every 10 people who got pneumonia died from it. And we?d lose, as well, a good portion of our cheap modern food supply. Most of the meat we eat in the industrialized world is raised with the routine use of antibiotics, to fatten livestock and protect them from the conditions in which the animals are raised. Without the drugs that keep livestock healthy in concentrated agriculture, we?d lose the ability to raise them that way. Either animals would sicken, or farmers would have to change their raising practices, spending more money when their margins are thin. Either way, meat ? and fish and seafood, also raised with abundant antibiotics in the fish farms of Asia ? would become much more expensive. And it wouldn?t be just meat. Antibiotics are used in plant agriculture as well, especially on fruit. Right now, a drug-resistant version of the bacterial disease fire blight is attacking American apple crops. There?s currently one drug left to fight it. And when major crops are lost, the local farm economy goes too. --------- The future effect will be many times more than the current 23,000 deaths per year (in USA). It will be much worse for third world countries where there is more infection and who will also be badly hit by food shortages and higher food prices. BillK From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 20 20:27:45 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 20:27:45 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> Message-ID: <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> On 2013-11-20 19:39, BillK wrote: > The doctors so far are only seeing the first signs of the increased > death rate from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. > It is the future death rates they are worried about. Yes, I know. And I still think they are being myopic. A world without antibiotic would be nastier. Surgery would indeed be far harder (but not impossible - there are non-specific sterilization methods too that are resistant to resistance) and many common accidents would become far more serious. Not to mention childbirth. But... most people live longer today because they do not get sick and have fewer accidents, not because they have lots of surgery or antibiotics to treat minor wounds. Good immune systems thanks to sanitation, plentiful food and vaccines count for a lot. Antibiotic use in animal husbandry is actually a serious bad, and rightly banned in many countries (e.g. banned for non-medical purposes across EU since 2006). You can produce cheap meat without it. It is just that you can make cheaper meat with it, at the price of feeding resistance bigtime. (Not that the EU cares about cheap meat...) Conflating antibiotics used for plants with the ones used for humans is just stupid - I lost all my respect for the Wired article at that point. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 21:10:01 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 21:10:01 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 8:27 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Conflating antibiotics used for plants with the ones used for humans is just > stupid - I lost all my respect for the Wired article at that point. > I think you may have misunderstood the quotation. The author is writing about antibiotic resistance developing in *both* the antibiotics used in humans and animals and also in the antibiotics used on fruit trees. The plant bacteria resistance will lead to less plant food being produced, which is an additional problem for humans. The author is an award-winning reporter on epidemics. She has written a book on MRSA. She knows her subject. Her Wired blog is here: BillK From painlord2k at libero.it Wed Nov 20 21:16:09 2013 From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 22:16:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <00ea01cee601$12ddbac0$38993040$@att.net> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> <00ea01cee601$12ddbac0$38993040$@att.net> Message-ID: <528D2699.6070302@libero.it> Il 20/11/2013 15:59, spike ha scritto: > *COOL! Eugenio, who wrote that?* I'm quoting "The Quotable Mises". >>?The problem with that quote is that No Government is also a way of > governing and I?d say that is not desired by general public (since > nobody votes anarchist or anachcapitalist parties). > Eugenio, I am astonished at how often in America today we are seeing the > concept of limited central government being equated with no > government. > We see the concept of states (rather than the Fed) doing > most of the governing being equated to anarchy. We see the concept of > local governments doing that for which they were established being > equated with chaos. The notion that the Federal government is held to > the intentionally strict guidelines of its own Constitution is treated > as a quaint and outdated theory, established by racists and slavers. It > then follows with how wonderful it will all be if a big brother federal > government just does everything for us, feeds our poor, supports our > unemployed, heals our sickness, binds our wounds, stops the rising of > the seas, holds our helpless little hands and tells us exactly what we > are to do. Or else.... Mirco From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 20 22:20:21 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 22:20:21 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> Message-ID: <528D35A5.8020108@aleph.se> On 2013-11-20 21:10, BillK wrote: > The author is an award-winning reporter on epidemics. She has written > a book on MRSA. > She knows her subject. She is a journalist, for heavens sake. Maybe a good one. But as arguments from authority goes, it is rather bad. Meanwhile I have based my views on actual meetings with researchers and insurers. Part of my *job* is to track global risk and think about it. Note that my point isn't that antibiotics resistance is a trivial matter: it isn't. But it seems that people tend to end up thinking that their particular nasty problem is the End of the World. There are *plenty* of ongoing tough problems more (or at least rational) effort should be going into - nuclear weapon safety, pandemics, couplings between the food and energy system, climate change, invasive species, digital freedom, underdevelopment of vaccines, Eroom's law, demographic trouble, massive digital insecurity, bioweapons, priority setting itself... antibiotics resistance is on the list, but it may not be the top. What annoys me with the media references that have been mentioned in this thread is the shrill doomsayer tone. Maybe the writers think that is a good way of getting people off their couches to *do* something. After all, it worked for nuclear weapons... I mean climate change... I mean cybersecurity... actually, I think it *only* worked for the Y2K bug. Which is an interesting data point. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From pharos at gmail.com Wed Nov 20 23:00:47 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 23:00:47 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: <528D35A5.8020108@aleph.se> References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> <528D35A5.8020108@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:20 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Note that my point isn't that antibiotics resistance is a trivial matter: it > isn't. But it seems that people tend to end up thinking that their > particular nasty problem is the End of the World. There are *plenty* of > ongoing tough problems more (or at least rational) effort should be going > into - nuclear weapon safety, pandemics, couplings between the food and > energy system, climate change, invasive species, digital freedom, > underdevelopment of vaccines, Eroom's law, demographic trouble, massive > digital insecurity, bioweapons, priority setting itself... antibiotics > resistance is on the list, but it may not be the top. > > What annoys me with the media references that have been mentioned in this > thread is the shrill doomsayer tone. Maybe the writers think that is a good > way of getting people off their couches to *do* something. After all, it > worked for nuclear weapons... I mean climate change... I mean > cybersecurity... actually, I think it *only* worked for the Y2K bug. Which > is an interesting data point. > I think the UK Chief Medical Officer (and her deputy) writing in the Lancet and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might be a trifle upset at being called 'doomsayers'. There are different kinds and scales of risks. Since the Cold War ended hardly anyone even considers nuclear annihilation as a significant risk. (Maybe they should, of course). But people are already dying in hospitals from antibiotic resistant infections. That strikes close to home, so people see it as a much bigger risk. In my own life I would certainly be far more worried about dying in hospital from a resistant infection than a nuclear bomb in London. People will always consider personal risks to be far more important than vague large-scale threats. Especially when they can see a simple, specific cure for the problem - New antibiotics. The cure for large scale threats is neither obvious or straightforward, so let's solve the easier, more pressing problems first. BillK From anders at aleph.se Wed Nov 20 23:56:23 2013 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 23:56:23 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> <528D35A5.8020108@aleph.se> Message-ID: <528D4C27.4020408@aleph.se> On 2013-11-20 23:00, BillK wrote: > I think the UK Chief Medical Officer (and her deputy) writing in the > Lancet and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might be > a trifle upset at being called 'doomsayers'. Maybe. But that does not mean the epithet is completely unwarranted. I prefer to see them as myopic: they see a major world problem on their turf and shout about it. It is just that it is one among several. > There are different kinds and scales of risks. Since the Cold War > ended hardly anyone even considers nuclear annihilation as a > significant risk. (Maybe they should, of course). My best estimate is around 0.1% chance per year. Over a 70 year lifespan, that means a total risk of 6.7%. This means it beats things like cerebrovascular disease, accidents, influenza, and liver disease as a potential cause of death. It is just that it likely either happens or it doesn't, unlike most of the others that have ongoing mortality. > But people are already dying in hospitals from antibiotic resistant > infections. That strikes close to home, so people see it as a much > bigger risk. In my own life I would certainly be far more worried > about dying in hospital from a resistant infection than a nuclear bomb > in London. Exactly. The availability heuristic strikes again. Note that from an individual perspective antibiotics resistance is likely about as big threat as a nuclear war to your health. It is just that from a global perspective nuclear wars are much worse, since they cause massive correlated death and damage. > The cure for large scale threats is neither obvious or > straightforward, so let's solve the easier, more pressing problems > first. Which is of course a mistake, since (1) the "easier" problems are often rather tough (common cold, antibiotics resistance) and (2) there might be rational reasons to focus much more on the big and important problems. We had a discussion in the office today about this diagram: http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/11/infoporn-causes-of-death/ Imagine that a genie offered you to either permanently remove kidney disease or war from the world. Which one should you choose? Removing kidney disease will save many more life-years per year than removing war. Even a major decrease in the diseases will save more lives! So from a consequentialist perspective it looks like one ought to do it. A deontologist might argue that wars are more evil because people do seriously immoral things in them, but that position essentially means that all intentional bad stuff in the diagram (and the vast amount of non-lethal intentional evil) should have priority before "mere" bad luck like cancer, starvation and malaria. Yep, deontologists are crazy. Still, there is a very good reason to choose to end war rather than kidney disease. Wars have a power law distribution with a very heavy tail. The frequency might be going down (c.f. Pinker) but sooner or later there will be a Big One, and it has nonzero chance of wiping us out. In fact, there is no average war size because of the tail: the expectation diverges, so if you measure long enough the war box will totally dominate (unless the pandemic box beats it). Meanwhile kidney disease remains fluctuating around a mean size: there is no risk of it wiping out much of humanity. So in the short run removing it is the best choice, but in the long run removing war is the wisest choice. Same thing for antibiotics resistance: removing one of the nasty heavy tail risks is more important in the long run than the resistance. Not removing the heavy tails might mean there will not be any long run, even if we successfully fix antibiotics resistance. -- Dr Anders Sandberg Future of Humanity Institute Oxford Martin School Oxford University From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 00:22:06 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:22:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 12:14 PM, Sondre Bjell?s wrote: > For anyone interested in trading Bitcoin, here is a nice site that shows > the differences in value between the various currency exchanges: > > http://www.coined.com/ > I don't understand how a spread of $70 can be maintained here. Can't you just run money around in circles and make a profit? What am I missing here? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Thu Nov 21 00:06:33 2013 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 16:06:33 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131121000633.GO22956@ninja.nosyntax.net> BillK [2013-11-20 11:45]: >On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 10:49 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> Yes, but that is because they do not have the big picture. They look at >> mortality rates and deaths around them, rather than mortality distributions >> and existential risk. >> >> From my ivory tower resistent bacteria are a stinking, nasty cesspit in the >> landscape, but not anything like the bioweaponry dragon in the synthbio >> mountains, the gleaming nuclear silos, or that dust cloud on the horizon >> that might be bad AI. Yes, per average year resistant bacteria is likely to >> kill more people than the weird threats I watch for, but they are not going >> to end humanity. They are just bad news like climate change. >> >> > >The doctors so far are only seeing the first signs of the increased >death rate from antibiotic-resistant bacteria. >It is the future death rates they are worried about. > >A new article describes what happens when operations become impossible >and every accident, large or small, that gets infected becomes fatal. That's FUD. Normal immune systems constantly defeat infections, mostly unnoticed. Those that reach the noticeable level are also usually naturally defeated without resorting to antibiotics. Life expectancy in 1st world countries increased markedly _before_ antibiotic use became widespread. IOW, good public health practices are more important than antibiotics are. > >Quote: >If we really lost antibiotics to advancing drug resistance ? and trust >me, we?re not far off ? here?s what we would lose. Not just the >ability to treat infectious disease; that?s obvious. Sorry, I don't trust journalists. Marc Lappe wrote, _Germs That Won't Die: The New Threat of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria_ in -- wait for it -- 1982. IOW, the threat is real and has been known for a long time, but it's not tomorrow's TEOTWAWKI. >And we?d lose, as well, a good portion of our cheap modern food >supply. Most of the meat we eat in the industrialized world is raised >with the routine use of antibiotics, to fatten livestock and protect >them from the conditions in which the animals are raised. Without the >drugs that keep livestock healthy in concentrated agriculture, we?d >lose the ability to raise them that way. This is counterfactual. Small amounts of antibiotics are commonly added to animal feed in the US, not to "fatten" the animals and protect them from disease, but to increase the growth rate. If the practice were ended (which IMO it should be, yesterday), growth rates would be only slightly lower and disease rates would remain about the same because the amounts of antibiotics in feed are subtherapeutic. >Either way, meat ? and fish and seafood, also raised with abundant >antibiotics in the fish farms of Asia ? would become much more >expensive. Only if "much more" means "a few percent more." >And it wouldn?t be just meat. Antibiotics are used in plant >agriculture as well, especially on fruit. Right now, a drug-resistant >version of the bacterial disease fire blight is attacking American >apple crops. There?s currently one drug left to fight it. And when >major crops are lost, the local farm economy goes too. More FUD. At this point McKenna's credibility dropped to zero for me. Fire blight is a problem to be sure, but it will not end apple farming, much less destroy the farm economy. Why not? At least two reasons: a) there are apple varieties (red delicious, winesap) that are naturally resistant to fire blight; b) A natural strain of _Pseudomonas fluorescens_ is used to control fire blight. http://www.apsnet.org/publications/apsnetfeatures/Pages/AntibioticsForPlants.aspx >The future effect will be many times more than the current 23,000 >deaths per year (in USA). "Many times"? Doubtful. Got anything more than McKenna's & similar FUD to show us? Like Anders, I see antibiotic resistance as _a_ problem, but not a TEOTWAWKI problem. >It will be much worse for third world countries where there is more >infection and who will also be badly hit by food shortages and higher >food prices. Gaia has an out-of-control _H. hubris_ infestation. If _H. hubris_ cannot handle the problem, Ma Nature will. -rex -- The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data. --John Tukey From rolandodegilead at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 00:26:00 2013 From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eugenio_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 01:26:00 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: <00ea01cee601$12ddbac0$38993040$@att.net> References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> <528B788A.3010604@libero.it> <00ea01cee601$12ddbac0$38993040$@att.net> Message-ID: > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Eugenio Mart?nez > > > > >?"Whoever wants to see the world governed according to his > own ideas must strive for dominion over men?s minds.... Men cannot be > > made happy against their will." > Liberalism, p. 46 > > > > *COOL! Eugenio, who wrote that?* > Mirco Romanato a couple of mails before this one. > > > *>?* (I say that because, as far as I know, there are more than two > parties in USA, but it is impossible for one of the other parties to reach > everybody) > > > We have a number of third parties which tend to mostly ally themselves > with one of the two majors. In the past two decades, our two major parties > have become nearly indistinguishable. A new one came along recently, the > Tea Party, with the main platform of ?Don?t raise taxes, cut spending.? > That sounded right to me. The two majors united in common cause against > that one. Even the IRS got in on the act, illegally suppressing that party > at every opportunity. They got caught. Nothing happened. It appears > nothing will happen. > > Does that tell you what you need to know about American politics? > I was thinking more on the green party or the USA?s comunist party I don?t know about the Tea Party more than I heard in the news, that is more or less that they are ultrareligious, ultranationalistic, ultra-anti-ecologist, ultra-conservative, etc. > >?The problem with that quote is that No Government is also a way of > governing and I?d say that is not desired by general public (since nobody > votes anarchist or anachcapitalist parties). > > Eugenio, I am astonished at how often in America today we are seeing the > concept of limited central government being equated with no government. > We see the concept of states (rather than the Fed) doing most of the > governing being equated to anarchy. We see the concept of local > governments doing that for which they were established being equated with > chaos. The notion that the Federal government is held to the intentionally > strict guidelines of its own Constitution is treated as a quaint and > outdated theory, established by racists and slavers. It then follows with > how wonderful it will all be if a big brother federal government just does > everything for us, feeds our poor, supports our unemployed, heals our > sickness, binds our wounds, stops the rising of the seas, holds our > helpless little hands and tells us exactly what we are to do. > Here in Spain there was a example of that with Jose Mar?a Aznar in the leading role: While Zapatero?s government (light-right-winged monarchic-catholic socialdemocracy), there was and advertisment about road security that had as slogan "No podemos conducir por ti" ("We can?t drive for you"). Aznar, after praise the wine, said that "Nobody wants the government to drive by you" . I was astonished at how often the concept of security and traffic laws was equated to a big brother doing everything for us. In the past, for thousand of years probably, there was a perfect economic freedom, before doing economic laws. Do you really think that it was an egalitarian society? I don?t want my sickness being forced to be healed, but If I have a sickness and I want it to be healed and I can?t afford a heal plan, Must I die because not having money enough? Giving freedom or right to live only to people with money is moraly wrong. > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- OLVIDATE.DE Tatachan.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 00:31:59 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:31:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 4:22 AM, Eugenio Mart?nez wrote: > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government > works under certain guarantees. > It isn't that government is any worse than big corporations, just usually less efficient. As for evil, neither has the corner on that. > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect government... > and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to work anymore. > And perhaps, we won't need to live anymore either... -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 00:47:07 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 17:47:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the Ross Ulbricht (aaka: Dread Pirate Roberts) defense fund Message-ID: https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/legal-defense-fund-for-ross-ulbricht I think it is hilarious that they don't take Bitcoin. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Thu Nov 21 02:04:49 2013 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 18:04:49 -0800 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> <528D35A5.8020108@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131121020449.GQ22956@ninja.nosyntax.net> BillK [2013-11-20 15:06]: > >People will always consider personal risks to be far more important >than vague large-scale threats. >Especially when they can see a simple, specific cure for the problem - >New antibiotics. Antibiotics inevitably eventually fail due to a combination of one species of bacteria developing resistance and horizontal gene transfer between species of bacteria. There are better approaches on the horizon. http://www.healthline.com/health-news/tech-two-new-techniques-to-fight-bacteria-without-antibiotics-101813 >The cure for large scale threats is neither obvious or >straightforward, so let's solve the easier, more pressing problems >first. Easier? And, a reduction in the frequency of deaths due to antibiotic resistance necessarily increases the frequency of deaths due to other things. For example, a reduction in death rate due to cardiovascular disease necessarily increases the death rate due to cancer, because we all eventually die of _something_. -rex -- There are two kinds of geniuses: the "ordinary" and the "magicians." An ordinary genius is a fellow whom you and I would be just as good as, if we were only many times better. There is no mystery as to how his mind works. Once we understand what they've done, we feel certain that we, too, could have done it. It is different with the magicians. Even after we understand what they have done it is completely dark. Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest calibre. --Mark Kac From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 21 02:19:07 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 18:19:07 -0800 Subject: [ExI] biops In-Reply-To: References: <20131120104646.GT5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <043601cee660$0f2ed760$2d8c8620$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Giulio Prisco Subject: Re: [ExI] biops >...See http://www.kurzweilai.net/new-video-series-aims-to-popularize-transhumanism- kickstarter-launched On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 11:46 AM, Eugen Leitl wrote: > >>... Anyone knows who's behind this? > http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bTMS9y8OVuY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDC35pcr-Fg > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat _______________________________________________ The British Institute of Posthuman Studies does not have much of a web presence yet, but this video is excellent, thanks Gene. It gave me an idea. Transhumanist videos have that polished often British accent that sounds so articulate and erudite. What if... we were to write a script with all the most cutting edge transhumanist notions, then record it in whatever we can think of that would be the most opposite to that, or rather a counterpart. Imagine for instance this script spoken in a Junior Samples accent: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WRyfJer6gU We would clean up Junior's grammar, but keep the strumming dobro in the background and his slow-talking Southern pronunciation as he discusses the latest breakthroughs in transhumanism and the future of humanity. Would not this put a whole new spin on things? I might be able to write a script and do the accent. I don't talk that way now, but I know how to do it; I used to sound a more like Junior in my misspent youth than I do now. Old friends from my childhood now tell me I speak with a foreign accent. spike From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 03:52:28 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 19:52:28 -0800 Subject: [ExI] Bitcoin In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 4:22 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 12:14 PM, Sondre Bjell?s wrote: > >> For anyone interested in trading Bitcoin, here is a nice site that shows >> the differences in value between the various currency exchanges: >> >> http://www.coined.com/ >> > > I don't understand how a spread of $70 can be maintained here. Can't you > just run money around in circles and make a profit? What am I missing here? > Transaction volume and processing time. (Also transaction fees, but they're not a big enough portion to make a $70 spread unattractive.) In short, nobody's running enough money around to close the gap...yet. Other than that, it is as you think. If you've got several thousand $ you could afford to lose (never invest what you need to pay rent and groceries)...well, I'd experiment with just one bitcoin first, see what the hidden gotchas are. But if those pan out and the gap hasn't closed yet, good luck. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Nov 21 06:06:27 2013 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 20 Nov 2013 22:06:27 -0800 Subject: [ExI] ...or else... was: RE: What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? Message-ID: <04c101cee67f$d17e8d50$747ba7f0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato >> ... big brother federal government just does everything for us, feeds our poor, > supports our unemployed, heals our sickness, binds our wounds, stops > the rising of the seas, holds our helpless little hands and tells us > exactly what we are to do. >...Or else.... >...Mirco _____________________________________________ Ja. Mirco everywhere in the last decade I have seen evidence of a Federal government which has become too big for its breeches. The whole reason why the constitution was written was to prevent the kinds of abuses we are seeing today. It is too bad it had to be this way. The American people are to suffer for the way we vested so much authority into our Federal government, even knowing that it leads to corruption. Our near-term suffering will come in the form of chaos in our medical care industry, panic and disruption everywhere, brutal destruction of a system which didn't work well, but worked for some. We will pay the price in the form of power shifting from one of the major parties to the other, but the problem will not be solved. I am convinced the other major party will prove to be nearly as corrupt and perhaps over half as incompetent as the one currently holding two of the three seats of power. Regarding that bungled HealthCare.gov website launch, I am emboldened to make another prediction. Recall in mid-October they assured us the website would be fixed by 30 November. It will not be fixed by 30 November, even after we note they didn't specify which year. The system was based on a flawed premise: healthy young people can be compelled to buy insurance. I thought three years ago they could not and would not. I still think that way. Prediction: the American people will shrug and suggest we give the other guys a chance to fix it. They too will fail, for different reasons. They will not recognize that this kind of problem must be tackled at the state level, and that federal government must shrink to fit its budget. The other guys find that notion as repugnant as the current crew. Any questions? spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 09:24:00 2013 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 09:24:00 +0000 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: <528D4C27.4020408@aleph.se> References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> <528D1B41.8020505@aleph.se> <528D35A5.8020108@aleph.se> <528D4C27.4020408@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 11:56 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > My best estimate is around 0.1% chance per year. Over a 70 year lifespan, > that means a total risk of 6.7%. This means it beats things like > cerebrovascular disease, accidents, influenza, and liver disease as a > potential cause of death. It is just that it likely either happens or it > doesn't, unlike most of the others that have ongoing mortality. > > Note that from an individual perspective antibiotics resistance is likely > about as big threat as a nuclear war to your health. It is just that from a > global perspective nuclear wars are much worse, since they cause massive > correlated death and damage. > I am rather doubtful about how to use stats and percentages concerning mortality risks. Nobody gets 6% pregnant or 6% dead. I appreciate that for large-scale national budget planning, policy should aim to get the best return for the money spent. (Apart from the usual political considerations of popularity, re-election and profits for allies). A lifetime risk of 6.7% for nuclear war sounds OK. But if you are talking to a 60 year old politician, he is very likely to reason that 80% of his life is already over and reduce pro-rota the risk for him personally. When you talk to somebody about the risk of death from specific causes, they don't really care about a national 5% rate. The rate doesn't mean that everyone gets 5% of the disease. It means that 5% of the population get 100% of the disease and for 95% of the population the statistic doesn't apply. Where death is concerned people want to know the risk as it applies to themselves. Are they likely to be in the 5% fatality group? The same applies to car accidents. If you don't drive, ignore it. Obesity. If you are slim and watch what you eat, ignore it. Etc. etc. And of course, men can ignore the health risks of childbirth, just as women can ignore the risk of prostate cancer. This is not using the availability heuristic to reason incorrectly. For each individual this is correct reasoning, because some risks just don't apply to them. So people are more concerned about the steady ongoing mortality risks that happen every day, because they are more likely to encounter them, and they want the likely risks reduced first. And encountering MRSA in a hospital stay, is beginning to loom very large in the likelihood scenario. If you want people to pay attention to huge but very rare risks, I think you need to convince them that it is likely to affect them in their lifetime. (That's why climate change has been generally ignored. People thought they would be dead long before it became a serious problem). The other way of dealing with rare risks is just to spend a small amount of money steadily over a very long time and hope that a solution is developed before the rare event happens. This seems to be the option being adopted for asteroid strikes. BillK From rolandodegilead at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 11:01:31 2013 From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Eugenio_Mart=EDnez?=) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:01:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: > > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government >> works under certain guarantees. >> > > It isn't that government is any worse than big corporations, just usually > less efficient. As for evil, neither has the corner on that. > > Of course is less efficient: Is not a business and his ultimate target is not winning money > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect >> government... and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to work >> anymore. >> >> And perhaps, we won't need to live anymore either... >> > Are you a Catholic? I don?t know your case. I need to live. And working is a way to get money to live confortably... but consume living time. I am not thinking on Wall-e model, where people who don?t have to work use their times to just stay in the sofa. I am thinking on a model where people who don?t have to work use their times to study, get lots of university degrees, pass time with their families, etc > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- OLVIDATE.DE Tatachan.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Thu Nov 21 11:29:58 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:29:58 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere Message-ID: <20131121112958.GF5661@leitl.org> http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/20/exclusive_inside_americas_plan_to_kill_online_privacy_rights_everywhere Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere Posted By Colum Lynch Wednesday, November 20, 2013 - 6:10 PM Share The United States and its key intelligence allies are quietly working behind the scenes to kneecap a mounting movement in the United Nations to promote a universal human right to online privacy, according to diplomatic sources and an internal American government document obtained by The Cable. The diplomatic battle is playing out in an obscure U.N. General Assembly committee that is considering a proposal by Brazil and Germany to place constraints on unchecked internet surveillance by the National Security Agency and other foreign intelligence services. American representatives have made it clear that they won't tolerate such checks on their global surveillance network. The stakes are high, particularly in Washington -- which is seeking to contain an international backlash against NSA spying -- and in Brasilia, where Brazilian President Dilma Roussef is personally involved in monitoring the U.N. negotiations. The Brazilian and German initiative seeks to apply the right to privacy, which is enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to online communications. Their proposal, first revealed by The Cable, affirms a "right to privacy that is not to be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with their privacy, family, home, or correspondence." It notes that while public safety may "justify the gathering and protection of certain sensitive information," nations "must ensure full compliance" with international human rights laws. A final version the text is scheduled to be presented to U.N. members on Wednesday evening and the resolution is expected to be adopted next week. A draft of the resolution, which was obtained by The Cable, calls on states to "to respect and protect the right to privacy," asserting that the "same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, including the right to privacy." It also requests the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, present the U.N. General Assembly next year with a report on the protection and promotion of the right to privacy, a provision that will ensure the issue remains on the front burner. Publicly, U.S. representatives say they're open to an affirmation of privacy rights. "The United States takes very seriously our international legal obligations, including those under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights," Kurtis Cooper, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in an email. "We have been actively and constructively negotiating to ensure that the resolution promotes human rights and is consistent with those obligations." But privately, American diplomats are pushing hard to kill a provision of the Brazilian and German draft which states that "extraterritorial surveillance" and mass interception of communications, personal information, and metadata may constitute a violation of human rights. The United States and its allies, according to diplomats, outside observers, and documents, contend that the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights does not apply to foreign espionage. In recent days, the United States circulated to its allies a confidential paper highlighting American objectives in the negotiations, "Right to Privacy in the Digital Age -- U.S. Redlines." It calls for changing the Brazilian and German text so "that references to privacy rights are referring explicitly to States' obligations under ICCPR and remove suggestion that such obligations apply extraterritorially." In other words: America wants to make sure it preserves the right to spy overseas. The U.S. paper also calls on governments to promote amendments that would weaken Brazil's and Germany's contention that some "highly intrusive" acts of online espionage may constitute a violation of freedom of expression. Instead, the United States wants to limit the focus to illegal surveillance -- which the American government claims it never, ever does. Collecting information on tens of millions of people around the world is perfectly acceptable, the Obama administration has repeatedly said. It's authorized by U.S. statute, overseen by Congress, and approved by American courts. "Recall that the USG's [U.S. government's] collection activities that have been disclosed are lawful collections done in a manner protective of privacy rights," the paper states. "So a paragraph expressing concern about illegal surveillance is one with which we would agree." The privacy resolution, like most General Assembly decisions, is neither legally binding nor enforceable by any international court. But international lawyers say it is important because it creates the basis for an international consensus -- referred to as "soft law" -- that over time will make it harder and harder for the United States to argue that its mass collection of foreigners' data is lawful and in conformity with human rights norms. "They want to be able to say ?we haven't broken the law, we're not breaking the law, and we won't break the law,'" said Dinah PoKempner, the general counsel for Human Rights Watch, who has been tracking the negotiations. The United States, she added, wants to be able to maintain that "we have the freedom to scoop up anything we want through the massive surveillance of foreigners because we have no legal obligations." The United States negotiators have been pressing their case behind the scenes, raising concerns that the assertion of extraterritorial human rights could constrain America's effort to go after international terrorists. But Washington has remained relatively muted about their concerns in the U.N. negotiating sessions. According to one diplomat, "the United States has been very much in the backseat," leaving it to its allies, Australia, Britain, and Canada, to take the lead. There is no extraterritorial obligation on states "to comply with human rights," explained one diplomat who supports the U.S. position. "The obligation is on states to uphold the human rights of citizens within their territory and areas of their jurisdictions." The position, according to Jamil Dakwar, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union's Human Rights Program, has little international backing. The International Court of Justice, the U.N. Human Rights Committee, and the European Court have all asserted that states do have an obligation to comply with human rights laws beyond their own borders, he noted. "Governments do have obligation beyond their territories," said Dakwar, particularly in situations, like the Guantanamo Bay detention center, where the United States exercises "effective control" over the lives of the detainees. Both PoKempner and Dakwar suggested that courts may also judge that the U.S. dominance of the Internet places special legal obligations on it to ensure the protection of users' human rights. "It's clear that when the United States is conducting surveillance, these decisions and operations start in the United States, the servers are at NSA headquarters, and the capabilities are mainly in the United States," he said. "To argue that they have no human rights obligations overseas is dangerous because it sends a message that there is void in terms of human rights protection outside countries territory. It's going back to the idea that you can create a legal black hole where there is no applicable law." There were signs emerging on Wednesday that America may have been making ground in pressing the Brazilians and Germans to back on one of its toughest provisions. In an effort to address the concerns of the U.S. and its allies, Brazil and Germany agreed to soften the language suggesting that mass surveillance may constitute a violation of human rights. Instead, it simply deep "concern at the negative impact" that extraterritorial surveillance "may have on the exercise of and enjoyment of human rights." The U.S., however, has not yet indicated it would support the revised proposal. The concession "is regrettable. But it?s not the end of the battle by any means," said Human Rights Watch?s PoKempner. She added that there will soon be another opportunity to corral America's spies: a U.N. discussion on possible human rights violations as a result of extraterritorial surveillance will soon be taken up by the U.N. High commissioner. Follow me on Twitter: @columlynch. From michael at briarproject.org Thu Nov 21 12:17:38 2013 From: michael at briarproject.org (Michael Rogers) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 12:17:38 +0000 Subject: [ExI] [liberationtech] Exclusive: Inside America's Plan to Kill Online Privacy Rights Everywhere In-Reply-To: <20131121112958.GF5661@leitl.org> References: <20131121112958.GF5661@leitl.org> Message-ID: <528DF9E2.4090306@briarproject.org> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 21/11/13 11:29, Eugen Leitl wrote: > > http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/11/20/exclusive_inside_americas_plan_to_kill_online_privacy_rights_everywhere > > For users of Adblock Plus, the following rule allows access: ||foreignpolicy.com/sites/all/themes/fp/projects/identity/* Cheers, Michael -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.10 (GNU/Linux) iQEcBAEBAgAGBQJSjfniAAoJEBEET9GfxSfMOhAH/j5j+BCdksuQDQphW7xJVAxt FURTm1NP2wWGXtjUuZs1vYkylcOx41KMnhtbz+RcEuVuF2MYEgh44Uo9byioVEdt zG+83d1mugmFwh0t2kAEL6HzO4PjQI2TdbZmbl2bx7rCgMVLJ3S1+woihr5WJfJr Jf/SoFBeQKPO+WtgNDpOqoTW6dmvdYuFxkiocwf0ush0JCyxOoyz8M4KUZ+ro91Z 5MWswlfJZxoCBbWCEoY9c5j/kxUJ8GFcY7opXsrFf0RD1pyvZHcaACDkzLb416fi Y+ryOOt/F6BO8y7Phtcn9tgv5rCAUxqw0+xpCmUMeTLeRWrFXHvLgH2fpTI/Xr0= =+k9L -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- Liberationtech is public & archives are searchable on Google. Violations of list guidelines will get you moderated: https://mailman.stanford.edu/mailman/listinfo/liberationtech. Unsubscribe, change to digest, or change password by emailing moderator at companys at stanford.edu. From rtomek at ceti.pl Thu Nov 21 19:56:36 2013 From: rtomek at ceti.pl (Tomasz Rola) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 20:56:36 +0100 (CET) Subject: [ExI] the Ross Ulbricht (aaka: Dread Pirate Roberts) defense fund In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, 20 Nov 2013, Kelly Anderson wrote: > https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/legal-defense-fund-for-ross-ulbricht > > I think it is hilarious that they don't take Bitcoin. > > -Kelly Ross Ulbricht - isn't he the guy who wanted to pay money for assasination service? If this was so, then I find it hilarious that some people ask for public support of him. I mean, there may be pioneers, misunderstood innovators, anti-gov personas and the like, no problem. But once certain border is crossed they become as good as any other bandit out there. 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 kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 21:13:05 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 14:13:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the Ross Ulbricht (aaka: Dread Pirate Roberts) defense fund In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 12:56 PM, Tomasz Rola wrote: > On Wed, 20 Nov 2013, Kelly Anderson wrote: > > > https://www.crowdtilt.com/campaigns/legal-defense-fund-for-ross-ulbricht > > > > I think it is hilarious that they don't take Bitcoin. > > > > -Kelly > > Ross Ulbricht - isn't he the guy who wanted to pay money for assasination > service? If this was so, then I find it hilarious that some people ask for > public support of him. > Allegedly, yes. His friends believe he has been set up. They can not reconcile the man they know with the man described in the court records. Apparently, in his personal life, he lived to an exemplary standard. Perhaps he is a bit like Ted Bundy, carrying on a perfectly normal surface life, but having a secret life that none of his friends knew about. Not one of his friends were aware of his work as the Dread Pirate Roberts. He was Batman and Bruce Wayne, according to the feds. There is the possibility that he was framed by the real DPR, but that seems a little far fetched without some evidence in that direction. > I mean, there may be pioneers, misunderstood innovators, anti-gov personas > and the like, no problem. But once certain border is crossed they become > as good as any other bandit out there. > I agree with you. While I'm a borderline anarchist, I don't support Leon Czolgosz types. I think a site like the Silk Road should be legal, but specific illegal activities that occur there should be investigated by the authorities. (It is probably not economical to chase down individual sales of narcotics on Silk Road, but things like hit men should be chased down, IMHO.) Bitcoin leaves enough of a trail that serious criminals can be tracked down through their financial activities. You can at least say, "Whoever is associated with this account number is doing bad things." Associating someone with an account number, however, is somewhat more tricky if the person using Bitcoin is not exceptionally aware and cautious of their activities. It's hard for the authorities to track you down, but if you are bad enough, they can do it. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 21:26:56 2013 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 13:26:56 -0800 Subject: [ExI] the Ross Ulbricht (aaka: Dread Pirate Roberts) defense fund In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > I think a site like the Silk Road should be legal, but specific illegal > activities that occur there should be investigated by the authorities. > I'm mildly surprised they didn't leave it in place as a honeypot. "Hey everyone who wants to commit crimes: go here! It's safe! It's anonymous! A majority of those advertising the worst services aren't actually the authorities, honest!" But perhaps there was too much political pressure to shut it down. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Thu Nov 21 22:08:25 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 15:08:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] the Ross Ulbricht (aaka: Dread Pirate Roberts) defense fund In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 2:26 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 1:13 PM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> I think a site like the Silk Road should be legal, but specific illegal >> activities that occur there should be investigated by the authorities. >> > > I'm mildly surprised they didn't leave it in place as a honeypot. "Hey > everyone who wants to commit crimes: go here! It's safe! It's anonymous! > A majority of those advertising the worst services aren't actually the > authorities, honest!" > > But perhaps there was too much political pressure to shut it down. > Or perhaps they knew it would be replaced soon... almost immediately as it turned out. Think of it this way... the authorities exist to grow the power and size and influence of what? The authorities, of course. Any organization wants to grow and increase their own power. The policing forces are no different than any other organization in this way. So do they get the politicians to give them more money by letting Silk Road get big enough to be a REAL problem before they try to tackle it? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu Thu Nov 21 22:51:28 2013 From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera) Date: Thu, 21 Nov 2013 17:51:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] The post-antibiotic era In-Reply-To: References: <5288AEB4.5000301@aleph.se> <52894800.8040505@aleph.se> Message-ID: <440249B1-9803-412D-94C4-31EDAD2B8D81@alumni.virginia.edu> > On Nov 20, 2013, at 2:39 PM, BillK wrote: > ... > And we?d lose, as well, a good portion of our cheap modern food > supply. Most of the meat we eat in the industrialized world is raised > with the routine use of antibiotics, to fatten livestock and protect > them from the conditions in which the animals are raised. Without the > drugs that keep livestock healthy in concentrated agriculture, we?d > lose the ability to raise them that way. I hate to say it, but this might be the only positive outcome of the loss of use of antibiotics. Of course, I'm way biased as a vegetarian and opponent of the deplorable conditions in which most of these animals are raised. Anyone seen the movie Food Inc.? It's worth checking out. -Henry From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Nov 22 08:13:43 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 01:13:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] What happens when Bitcoin goes to a million bucks? In-Reply-To: References: <527B212C.6000408@canonizer.com> <527C07EF.1090605@libero.it> <527CB05A.1010401@libero.it> <5284CEBC.3000403@libero.it> <52853E02.4070308@libero.it> <528A8AB2.2070909@libero.it> Message-ID: On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 4:01 AM, Eugenio Mart?nez wrote: > I don?t find a problem having more government as far as this government >>> works under certain guarantees. >>> >> >> It isn't that government is any worse than big corporations, just usually >> less efficient. As for evil, neither has the corner on that. >> >> Of course is less efficient: Is not a business and his ultimate target is > not winning money > That is correct. When you can correlate good things happening with money being made, that is the ultimate in efficiency. I grant that there are times when it takes huge imagination to correlate these two elements, and that is where the socialists say, "gotcha" and that is where I say, "We simply have a failure of imagination." > > Furthermore: If there is a strong IA it would be the perfect >>> government... and the perfect worker. We, as humans, will not need to work >>> anymore. >>> >>> And perhaps, we won't need to live anymore either... >>> >> > Are you a Catholic? I don?t know your case. I need to live. And working is > a way to get money to live confortably... but consume living time. I am not > thinking on Wall-e model, where people who don?t have to work use their > times to just stay in the sofa. I am thinking on a model where people who > don?t have to work use their times to study, get lots of university > degrees, pass time with their families, etc > You do not seem to understand my point precisely. Let me try using a few more words. I shall try to select them carefully. It seems to be the case in evolution that there is not much room for two super intelligent predators to occupy the same niche together. Homo Sapiens likely wiped out Neandertal, for example. Homo Erectus suffered a similar fate, even though he was likely fairly intelligent. As soon as homo sapiens arrived, homo florensiensus' days were numbered. When homo silicensiensus arrives, it may be our turn to be put into the dust bin where 99% of species currently lies. Am I Catholic, by no means. I desire to live, for a long time if possible. The utopia you describe does not square with the idea that everyone must earn the right to occupy their niche. Against homo silicensiensus, we stand little hope of successfully occupying our previous niche for long. -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Nov 22 09:28:33 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 02:28:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 5:36 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > OK, now I have a better writeup: > http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2013/11/greetings_ > from_doubleearth.html That was an incredibly detailed writeup. Thank you Anders. So if I understand, the physics of a "twice as large" earth lead to no continents? Does that assume the same proportion of water as earth was formed from? It kind of seems like if there were less water for some reason, you still might get continents, but perhaps I'm missing some rule of thumb that suggests the ratio of water is similar everywhere??? -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Fri Nov 22 09:58:56 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 10:58:56 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> Message-ID: I guess that a lot of water is a direct consequence of the fact, that the oxygen is the number 3 most frequent element in the Galaxy. It likely bounds with the number 1, hydrogen - and there is water. The number three, helium doesn't bound. The real problem might be, why the Earth is so dry? On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 5:36 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > >> OK, now I have a better writeup: >> http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2013/11/greetings_ >> from_doubleearth.html > > > That was an incredibly detailed writeup. Thank you Anders. So if I > understand, the physics of a "twice as large" earth lead to no continents? > Does that assume the same proportion of water as earth was formed from? It > kind of seems like if there were less water for some reason, you still > might get continents, but perhaps I'm missing some rule of thumb that > suggests the ratio of water is similar everywhere??? > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Fri Nov 22 10:00:15 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:00:15 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> Message-ID: The number *two*, helium. Apologize. On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > I guess that a lot of water is a direct consequence of the fact, that the > oxygen is the number 3 most frequent element in the Galaxy. It likely > bounds with the number 1, hydrogen - and there is water. The number three, > helium doesn't bound. > > The real problem might be, why the Earth is so dry? > > > On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 10:28 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > >> On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 5:36 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> >>> OK, now I have a better writeup: >>> http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2013/11/greetings_ >>> from_doubleearth.html >> >> >> That was an incredibly detailed writeup. Thank you Anders. So if I >> understand, the physics of a "twice as large" earth lead to no continents? >> Does that assume the same proportion of water as earth was formed from? It >> kind of seems like if there were less water for some reason, you still >> might get continents, but perhaps I'm missing some rule of thumb that >> suggests the ratio of water is similar everywhere??? >> >> -Kelly >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> extropy-chat mailing list >> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org >> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat >> >> > > > -- > https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kellycoinguy at gmail.com Fri Nov 22 10:18:08 2013 From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 03:18:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> Message-ID: On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > I guess that a lot of water is a direct consequence of the fact, that the > oxygen is the number 3 most frequent element in the Galaxy. It likely > bounds with the number 1, hydrogen - and there is water. The number three, > helium doesn't bound. > > The real problem might be, why the Earth is so dry? > You may be spot on. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that water was the most common molecule in the universe... but that doesn't tell you what percentage of the universe is expected to be made up of water though... -Kelly -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From protokol2020 at gmail.com Fri Nov 22 10:26:27 2013 From: protokol2020 at gmail.com (Tomaz Kristan) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:26:27 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <010601ced9ed$35846a30$a08d3e90$@att.net> <078c01cedb87$f0ebb490$d2c31db0$@att.net> <015b01cedbd1$7addd810$70998830$@att.net> <052101cedbfe$b5fac610$21f05230$@att.net> <072e01cedc2d$ff4564e0$fdd02ea0$@att.net> <52836DC5.7030707@aleph.se> <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> Message-ID: I think H2 must be the most frequent molecule, and H2O must be the second. The third might be CO2, since the carbon is the number 4. Anyway, we don't need to ask ourselves - where all this water came from. We rather should ask - where almost all the water has gone? On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 11:18 AM, Kelly Anderson wrote: > On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 2:58 AM, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > >> I guess that a lot of water is a direct consequence of the fact, that the >> oxygen is the number 3 most frequent element in the Galaxy. It likely >> bounds with the number 1, hydrogen - and there is water. The number three, >> helium doesn't bound. >> >> The real problem might be, why the Earth is so dry? >> > > You may be spot on. > > I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that water was the most common molecule > in the universe... but that doesn't tell you what percentage of the > universe is expected to be made up of water though... > > -Kelly > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -- https://protokol2020.wordpress.com/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eugen at leitl.org Fri Nov 22 10:46:30 2013 From: eugen at leitl.org (Eugen Leitl) Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2013 11:46:30 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Double-Earth (Was: kepler study says 8.8e9 earthlike planets) In-Reply-To: References: <5288B2EE.7020909@aleph.se> <5288EFE3.1010304@aleph.se> <528AB8CB.2040302@aleph.se> <528CACD7.9080907@aleph.se> Message-ID: <20131122104630.GM5661@leitl.org> On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 11:26:27AM +0100, Tomaz Kristan wrote: > I think H2