From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Sun Jun  1 03:01:34 2014
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Sat, 31 May 2014 21:01:34 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Kinect Ripple
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSnnCFpc27wfPUPYjRgTjNaid4mV_vi--9ua1O-sHDxJg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPy8RwZf7imCuMXkAakHwHDgcu7NsPKQgabw-YSP2e-v8bfE5g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSnnCFpc27wfPUPYjRgTjNaid4mV_vi--9ua1O-sHDxJg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8Rwa1xZtXadEcBc9HTEHueR3v4DideODN27omsA5Pirw1ug@mail.gmail.com>

The potential for this goes way beyond menus, even if all the demos were of
that nature.

-Kelly


On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:33 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not really.  If anything, floor-based menus are a step back from existing
> augmented reality interfaces IMO.
>
>
> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> One step closer to the holodeck.
>>
>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0K4iZdMjLw
>>
>> -Kelly
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Jun  1 04:57:22 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 31 May 2014 21:57:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Kinect Ripple
In-Reply-To: <CAPy8Rwa1xZtXadEcBc9HTEHueR3v4DideODN27omsA5Pirw1ug@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPy8RwZf7imCuMXkAakHwHDgcu7NsPKQgabw-YSP2e-v8bfE5g@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSnnCFpc27wfPUPYjRgTjNaid4mV_vi--9ua1O-sHDxJg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPy8Rwa1xZtXadEcBc9HTEHueR3v4DideODN27omsA5Pirw1ug@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQGC07LEesBZqTYMCh1qj9fi2n6Xh+asJ94ri8Nz_RB=g@mail.gmail.com>

Problem is, the potential was there all along; this does not change what
there is potential for.  This could only be of note if it demonstrated
actual progress, and the demos do not.


On Sat, May 31, 2014 at 8:01 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
wrote:

> The potential for this goes way beyond menus, even if all the demos were
> of that nature.
>
> -Kelly
>
>
> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 11:33 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Not really.  If anything, floor-based menus are a step back from existing
>> augmented reality interfaces IMO.
>>
>>
>> On Fri, May 30, 2014 at 9:41 PM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> One step closer to the holodeck.
>>>
>>> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0K4iZdMjLw
>>>
>>> -Kelly
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun  1 14:54:00 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 16:54:00 +0200
Subject: [ExI] computers now outperform humans at facial recognition
In-Reply-To: <014c01cf76e1$0fef3d90$2fcdb8b0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <1475025685-26761@secure.ericade.net>

A really intriguing paper shows that we still do not know as much about deep learning as we thought:
http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/7352-the-flaw-lurking-in-every-deep-neural-net.htmlhttp://cs.nyu.edu/~zaremba/docs/understanding.pdf
Whether this is just a small technical issue to correct for (as they do, by training using the adversarial examples) or a profound insight into perceptual systems (maybe this is true for all brains, us included) remains to be seen.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jun  1 19:17:33 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 20:17:33 +0100
Subject: [ExI] computers now outperform humans at facial recognition
In-Reply-To: <1475025685-26761@secure.ericade.net>
References: <014c01cf76e1$0fef3d90$2fcdb8b0$@att.net>
 <1475025685-26761@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhxt5kZpzYu3w7UANeXiaX55LrU0mBMs2m457KipoNDBg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 1, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> A really intriguing paper shows that we still do not know as much about deep
> learning as we thought:
>
> http://www.i-programmer.info/news/105-artificial-intelligence/7352-the-flaw-lurking-in-every-deep-neural-net.html
> http://cs.nyu.edu/~zaremba/docs/understanding.pdf
>
> Whether this is just a small technical issue to correct for (as they do, by
> training using the adversarial examples) or a profound insight into
> perceptual systems (maybe this is true for all brains, us included) remains
> to be seen.
>
>

And, of course, as sure as night follows day......

<http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html>
Quote:
The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of
people from communications that it intercepts through its global
surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition
programs, according to top-secret documents.

The spy agency's reliance on facial recognition technology has grown
significantly over the last four years as the agency has turned to new
software to exploit the flood of images included in emails, text
messages, social media, videoconferences and other communications, the
N.S.A. documents reveal.
------------

BillK


From sjatkins at mac.com  Sun Jun  1 19:44:54 2014
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 12:44:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Heroic Attempt to save a life
In-Reply-To: <1400985006.17504.YahooMailNeo@web161805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1400985006.17504.YahooMailNeo@web161805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <538B82B6.1000801@mac.com>

With all due respect how does attempting to cryopreserve the brain of an
elderly woman in poor health for years that was embalmed nearly half a
year ago make any sense?  The probability of any successful outcome from
this is extremely low.  Some people get to feel they "did everything". 
That is pretty much it as far as I can see.  How is this really "saving
a life" at all?   

- samantha



From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  1 21:48:01 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 14:48:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] FW: Rube opinion re transhumanism
In-Reply-To: <1401575972.45340.YahooMailNeo@web140105.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1401575972.45340.YahooMailNeo@web140105.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <047901cf7de3$29d3ac60$7d7b0520$@att.net>

 

 

From: Alan Brooks [mailto:alaneugenebrooks52 at yahoo.com] 
Sent: Saturday, May 31, 2014 3:40 PM
To: spike66 at att.net
Subject: Rube opinion re transhumanism

 

[Spike, would you please post this at extropy chat?]

 

 <http://www.nationalreview.com/postmodern-conservative/378927/being-postmodern-and-conservative-peter-augustine-lawler> http://www.nationalreview.com/postmodern-conservative/378927/being-postmodern-and-conservative-peter-augustine-lawler

 

?One of our conservative criticisms of purely modern thought is its prejudice in favor of endless innovation, which can be seen, for example, in its overly technological view of science. Maybe the purest sources of modern thought these days is the hyper-libertarianism of some economists and Silicon Valley technologists, which points in the direct of transhumanism. The false hope is that through techno-innovation we can become better or freer than human, a hope that depends on ungratefully misunderstanding how stuck and how blessed we are to be beings born to know, love, and die. That?s not to say that we believe, as do those existentialists, that death is the final word about who each of us is?

 

'Blessed to die?' What exactly is being blessed to die?

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From sjatkins at gmail.com  Sun Jun  1 20:16:03 2014
From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 13:16:03 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>


On 05/27/2014 02:33 AM, Eugenio Mart?nez wrote:
>
>     The Chinese would never have suffered the horrors of the 20th
>     century had they the right to own guns.  When the Japanese invaded
>     during the war and killed allll those unarmed people, imagine what
>     would have happened had there been a rifle behind every blade of
>     grass.
>
>
> USA is a country with a absurd number of violent crimes. Years and
> years and years of civilians having guns at homes, years and years and
> years of civilians being killed. Spanish civil war showed what
> happened with armed population during a armed conflict: They joined
> the army that they were in favour... and killed and raped and made a
> lot of revenges and lootering in every small town and every ungoverned
> city.

US crime rate has been declining since the 80s. 
File:Property Crime Rates in the United States.svg

Violent crime rate:



While the US homicide rate is about 4x what it is in Europe it too has
been declining since the early 90s.
Not exactly people getting killed left and right and in their homes and
the streets that some anti-gun folks would portray. 

http://projects.wsj.com/murderdata/#view=all

Averaged out there were around 16,000 homicides per year from
2000-2010.  Of those 66% were committed using a gun.   Thus this mean
everyone should be disallowed to have a gun legally?  I don't think
so.   Of those 16,000, 80% are gang related.    So in a country of 300
million people and 250 million guns that is around 3,000 / year or 1 in
100,000 non-gang related homicides by gun.

>
> I don?t know if it is a question of age or education, but even the
> rightest democrat parties in Europe (Like European Popular Party) are
> against weapons owned by civilians and it is seen as something
> barbaric that americans do. In Europe only the nazis parties and maybe
> a rare couple more are pro-weapons.

The right to life implies the right of self-defense.  I am 60 years
old.  I am zero match for a 20-something out to do me harm if I do not
have some means like a gun to protect myself.  

>
>
>     How any sane person could compare the crimes of Mao Zedong to the
>     "crimes" of manufacturing the goods and services of the modern
>     world is a level intellectual dishonesty and/or muddle-headedness
>     that is simply beyond my comprehension.
>
>
> Capitalism is the way? 16.7 million children living in food insecure
> households and US having the second highest relative child poverty
> rates in the developed world (2011 data. From wikipedia.)

What we have in the US is socialist quite strongly, to be more precise
it is what Mussolini described as fascism as government is highly
involved in all business and the economy.   So blaming it on
"capitalism" is rather disingenuous. 

Also you did not answer the question.  If you compared what exists even
in the somewhat blighted US today to the reign of Mao Zedong that is
unpardonable.    I will not take you seriously after such a remark and
certainly not after you didn't bother to retract it.

- samantha
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From sjatkins at gmail.com  Sun Jun  1 20:19:26 2014
From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sun, 01 Jun 2014 13:19:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] How the world collapses
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2Mq5Z9MsD4nsEifVTRCuVNQ-3FEaJ8Oy8CgtpqaW3Cuw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armg9dVFuisKLxxuoR02hfj-DHctjzFx=gk3g2TiMwD-34A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNSZp7FmkdKqaDcgzyePDZAfNhJo30caE=j+rYepETipNA@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <538B8ACE.7040703@gmail.com>


On 05/27/2014 06:58 AM, John Clark wrote:
> On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 3:41 AM, Sondre Bjell?s
> <sondre-list at bjellas.com <mailto:sondre-list at bjellas.com>> wrote:
>
>     > I'm the happy owner of a Nissan Leaf, couldn't be more happy!
>
>
> That's nice but in the end your all electric Nissan Leaf is probably
> getting its energy from fossil fuel just like my car, or maybe from
> nuclear.  Due to things like regenerative braking your car might be a
> little more efficient than mine but not enough to change global warming.

Depends on where you are.  In France 79% of electricity is from nuclear
power for instance.  In the US 20% is nuclear power  and around 10% is
from 'renewable' energy of various kinds. 

- samantha
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jun  1 22:22:23 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 18:22:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] FW: Rube opinion re transhumanism
In-Reply-To: <047901cf7de3$29d3ac60$7d7b0520$@att.net>
References: <1401575972.45340.YahooMailNeo@web140105.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <047901cf7de3$29d3ac60$7d7b0520$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYhCGV+UqrD8LLZujXGrri0uh1TWxV-K6jyq5VzCco2bw@mail.gmail.com>

?

>
>
> 'Blessed to die?' What exactly is being blessed to die?
>

?In my book I imagine that people will live hundreds of years.  In that
time one accumulates memories by the ton.  Included are those of loved ones
who died and other very sad events.  I imagine that people will be grateful
to leave life, weighted down as they are by memories.

Many people are blessed to die because of intractable pain.  Ben Franklin
was - he had bad gout and said that he hoped not to live much longer.

Now if some sci-fi?

?stories turn out to be true, then memories can be erased, giving relief.?
And if pain too is conquered, then there is no blessing.

>  ?wfw?
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From pizerdavid at rocketmail.com  Sun Jun  1 22:44:26 2014
From: pizerdavid at rocketmail.com (David Pizer)
Date: Sun, 1 Jun 2014 15:44:26 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Heroic Attempt to save a life
In-Reply-To: <538B82B6.1000801@mac.com>
References: <1400985006.17504.YahooMailNeo@web161805.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <538B82B6.1000801@mac.com>
Message-ID: <1401662666.236.YahooMailNeo@web126105.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

Samantha brings up a good point that is worth discussing a little more.
"How is this really 'saving a life' at all?"


Simple answer:? =? (only) If it works, it is saving a life.

Betty?was embalmed with some extra work done to the brain.? I am not sure what that extra work was but Mike Perry,?(a person who has experience in this type of situation), seems to think it has a chance of working.? So do some of the other knowledgeable people from the scientific part of cryonics.

On the other hand, we know that this is?a long shot.? But if the contributors want to donate money to give this mother and good person a chance, I think they should be allowed to do that.?? (After all, many non-cryonicists think that we cryonicists who have text-book suspensions don't have a chance, and we?say who are they to tell us we can't be cryopreserved even though they are not paying for it).? 

The Venturists have not misrepresented the additional difficulties of this case.? We have told "the whole truth" as we know it and then we have allowed those people who want to contribute their own money to be able to do that.? I don't see where this effort can be considered evil, not the right thing to do, ?or worthless?as there has been no fraud, force or other misrepresentations.???????? 

My own feelings are that it is best to error on the side of life.?? We know if we don't make this effort Betty will have no chance, if we do make the effort Betty has some chance.? I believe that some chance is better than no chance as long as you are honest about all the details.

Sometimes in life "Heroic efforts" pay off, I guess that is how they got their name?

I appreciate your realization of how long this longshot is and giving me an opportunity to once again make it clear that this case has problems.?? So anyone who appreciates helping the underdog we welcome your donations for Betty.? All the money that we collect goes to this campaign.? No Venturists receive any pay.

Best to all,

David Pizer, President
The Society for Venturism
to donate go to Venturist.info 


On Sunday, June 1, 2014 12:43 PM, Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com> wrote:
  


With all due respect how does attempting to cryopreserve the brain of an
elderly woman in poor health for years that was embalmed nearly half a
year ago make any sense?? The probability of any successful outcome from
this is extremely low.? Some people get to feel they "did everything". 
That is pretty much it as far as I can see.? How is this really "saving
a life" at all?? 

- samantha
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From jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi  Mon Jun  2 09:54:59 2014
From: jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi (Jukka Liukkonen)
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 12:54:59 +0300
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
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 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>

What is left about?

- Leftists want affordable (or free) healthcare for everyone. Not just for
the well paying middle class, but also for the illegal aliens and even the
poorest homeless alcoholics. This is because leftists see that human value
is intrinsic, humanity is not for sale and everyone are equal. Everyone
deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, since everyone are equal
members of the society. Maternal care and affordable high quality
healthcare have resulted higher quality life and longer life expectancy.

- Same goes with education. In Scandinavia, where left wing ideas have been
traditionally strong, schools and universities have been tuition-free, the
school cafeterias give pupils free lunch and school books need not be
bought since state provides them for free. Genuinely accessible education
has meant genuine equality: everyone can rise up social ladders if they are
skilled, creative or clever. Likewise wealthy or successful people's
offsprings can fail, but their children can again rise up if on their own
merits. Class is not merely result of your parents wealth, it's about your
own merits and hard work.

- This does not mean people are drained in taxes. As the population is
highly educated, the state is able design its functions more smart and more
optimal than less educated and less knowledgeable administration would.
Thus it is able to produce high quality services cheaper and more
abundantly available than what the private sector would. The public
healthcare needs not take their cut and make profit, they can use all their
resources to actual care. With scale benefits the public sector is able to
purchase large quantities of medication for cheaper prices than the private
sector would. Basically leftist countries are able to provide the best
parts of capitalism for everyone without excessive costs.

- Leftists want ecologically sustainable world, that will have healthy
food, plenty of species, fresh water, breathable air, and biodiversity for
the future generations too. Currently every 60 seconds one species goes
extinct. Capitalism and industrial revolution have started mass extinction
wave of species. Every day we may lose cure for cancer and other deadly
diseases, just so you can buy unhealthy cheap burgers produced by exploited
workers in global south and in western countries. Meanwhile air, water and
soil contaminants cause cancer, diseases, respiratory problems, asthma,
lower life quality and life expectancy reduction. By keeping the nature
green, this can be avoided.

- Which leads us to human rights: the left is strong about human rights,
this is why the left opposes wars. Wars are in modern world mostly about
resources and money. The day Afghanistan was captured the oil contracts
were revised. The human rights have not been revised. Wars are only about
the money. And the money goes to the richest 1%. Leftists believe in
democracy and war is not democratic: it is about power of physically
stronger dominating the weaker, it is about killing, torturing, using
force, restricting basic freedoms, suppressing the free press and giving
the power to military instead of democratic leaders.

- Maybe not for authoritarian communists, but for the rest of the left wing
the democracy is key concern and objective. Left wing has fought for
century for universal suffrage. Not just for women but also for the poor. A
century ago the right to vote was tied to economical possessions, not just
to male sex. Left wing has successfully achieved this goal, of course not
alone, many other have been involved too. But left is all about
cooperation, anyways! Democracy is not only about checking a ballot once
every four to six years. It is about freedom of expression and active civil
society. The left wing has been active in promoting participation of the
civil society to decision making and bringing new forms of local democracy.

Left wing is about a whole lot more, but this is a short introduction for
the subject.


The left wing is a very broad term, which includes everyone from marxists
to anarchists, but most are mild social democrats or a bit more
ecologically oriented green leftists. Like wise, the right wing includes
anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to conservative christian
fundamentalists. Many people thoughts are leaning to the left, despite they
don't really acknowledge it. Perhaps, because those who disagree with
leftist values are so keen on discrediting and pushing false information
about the other side.



BR,
Jukka

http://www.murrur.fi/

Sivu / page: https://www.facebook.com/murrur
Sanat / words: http://twitter.com/mur
l?yd?t/ findings: http://pinterest.com/mur/


2014-06-01 23:16 GMT+03:00 Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at gmail.com>:

>
> On 05/27/2014 02:33 AM, Eugenio Mart?nez wrote:
>
>  The Chinese would never have suffered the horrors of the 20th century
>> had they the right to own guns.  When the Japanese invaded during the war
>> and killed allll those unarmed people, imagine what would have happened had
>> there been a rifle behind every blade of grass.
>>
>
> USA is a country with a absurd number of violent crimes. Years and years
> and years of civilians having guns at homes, years and years and years of
> civilians being killed. Spanish civil war showed what happened with armed
> population during a armed conflict: They joined the army that they were in
> favour... and killed and raped and made a lot of revenges and lootering in
> every small town and every ungoverned city.
>
>
> US crime rate has been declining since the 80s.
> [image: File:Property Crime Rates in the United States.svg]
>
> Violent crime rate:
>
>
>
> While the US homicide rate is about 4x what it is in Europe it too has
> been declining since the early 90s.
> Not exactly people getting killed left and right and in their homes and
> the streets that some anti-gun folks would portray.
>
> http://projects.wsj.com/murderdata/#view=all
>
> Averaged out there were around 16,000 homicides per year from 2000-2010.
> Of those 66% were committed using a gun.   Thus this mean everyone should
> be disallowed to have a gun legally?  I don't think so.   Of those 16,000,
> 80% are gang related.    So in a country of 300 million people and 250
> million guns that is around 3,000 / year or 1 in 100,000 non-gang related
> homicides by gun.
>
>
>  I don?t know if it is a question of age or education, but even the
> rightest democrat parties in Europe (Like European Popular Party) are
> against weapons owned by civilians and it is seen as something barbaric
> that americans do. In Europe only the nazis parties and maybe a rare couple
> more are pro-weapons.
>
>
> The right to life implies the right of self-defense.  I am 60 years old.
> I am zero match for a 20-something out to do me harm if I do not have some
> means like a gun to protect myself.
>
>
>
> How any sane person could compare the crimes of Mao Zedong to the "crimes"
>> of manufacturing the goods and services of the modern world is a level
>> intellectual dishonesty and/or muddle-headedness that is simply beyond my
>> comprehension.
>>
>
> Capitalism is the way? 16.7 million children living in food insecure
> households and US having the second highest relative child poverty rates in
> the developed world (2011 data. From wikipedia.)
>
>
> What we have in the US is socialist quite strongly, to be more precise it
> is what Mussolini described as fascism as government is highly involved in
> all business and the economy.   So blaming it on "capitalism" is rather
> disingenuous.
>
> Also you did not answer the question.  If you compared what exists even in
> the somewhat blighted US today to the reign of Mao Zedong that is
> unpardonable.    I will not take you seriously after such a remark and
> certainly not after you didn't bother to retract it.
>
> - samantha
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  2 17:29:23 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 13:29:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
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 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYG_GL9NT92ez8wg2jwNtenwz_is7jjGLW=TH7E7Za1cQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi>
wrote:

> What is left about?
>
> - Leftists want affordable (or free) healthcare for everyone. Not just for
> the well paying middle class, but also for the illegal aliens and even the
> poorest homeless alcoholics. This is because leftists see that human value
> is intrinsic, humanity is not for sale and everyone are equal. Everyone
> deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, since everyone are equal
> members of the society. Maternal care and affordable high quality
> healthcare have resulted higher quality life and longer life expectancy.
>
> - Same goes with education. In Scandinavia, where left wing ideas have
> been traditionally strong, schools and universities have been tuition-free,
> the school cafeterias give pupils free lunch and school books need not be
> bought since state provides them for free. Genuinely accessible education
> has meant genuine equality: everyone can rise up social ladders if they are
> skilled, creative or clever. Likewise wealthy or successful people's
> offsprings can fail, but their children can again rise up if on their own
> merits. Class is not merely result of your parents wealth, it's about your
> own merits and hard work.
>
> - This does not mean people are drained in taxes. As the population is
> highly educated, the state is able design its functions more smart and more
> optimal than less educated and less knowledgeable administration would.
> Thus it is able to produce high quality services cheaper and more
> abundantly available than what the private sector would. The public
> healthcare needs not take their cut and make profit, they can use all their
> resources to actual care. With scale benefits the public sector is able to
> purchase large quantities of medication for cheaper prices than the private
> sector would. Basically leftist countries are able to provide the best
> parts of capitalism for everyone without excessive costs.
>
> - Leftists want ecologically sustainable world, that will have healthy
> food, plenty of species, fresh water, breathable air, and biodiversity for
> the future generations too. Currently every 60 seconds one species goes
> extinct. Capitalism and industrial revolution have started mass extinction
> wave of species. Every day we may lose cure for cancer and other deadly
> diseases, just so you can buy unhealthy cheap burgers produced by exploited
> workers in global south and in western countries. Meanwhile air, water and
> soil contaminants cause cancer, diseases, respiratory problems, asthma,
> lower life quality and life expectancy reduction. By keeping the nature
> green, this can be avoided.
>
> - Which leads us to human rights: the left is strong about human rights,
> this is why the left opposes wars. Wars are in modern world mostly about
> resources and money. The day Afghanistan was captured the oil contracts
> were revised. The human rights have not been revised. Wars are only about
> the money. And the money goes to the richest 1%. Leftists believe in
> democracy and war is not democratic: it is about power of physically
> stronger dominating the weaker, it is about killing, torturing, using
> force, restricting basic freedoms, suppressing the free press and giving
> the power to military instead of democratic leaders.
>
> - Maybe not for authoritarian communists, but for the rest of the left
> wing the democracy is key concern and objective. Left wing has fought for
> century for universal suffrage. Not just for women but also for the poor. A
> century ago the right to vote was tied to economical possessions, not just
> to male sex. Left wing has successfully achieved this goal, of course not
> alone, many other have been involved too. But left is all about
> cooperation, anyways! Democracy is not only about checking a ballot once
> every four to six years. It is about freedom of expression and active civil
> society. The left wing has been active in promoting participation of the
> civil society to decision making and bringing new forms of local democracy.
>
> Left wing is about a whole lot more, but this is a short introduction for
> the subject.
>
>
> The left wing is a very broad term, which includes everyone from marxists
> to anarchists, but most are mild social democrats or a bit more
> ecologically oriented green leftists. Like wise, the right wing includes
> anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to conservative christian
> fundamentalists. Many people thoughts are leaning to the left, despite they
> don't really acknowledge it. Perhaps, because those who disagree with
> leftist values are so keen on discrediting and pushing false information
> about the other side.
>
> BR,
> Jukk
>

Jukk can speak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives
to politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find
that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.?

? I am still waiting for Rafa's data showing that leftists are as he
described, which is not at all what I believe in.  So I think Rafa is
making a huge generalization that he cannot support.  wfw?
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun  2 21:51:57 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2014 23:51:57 +0200
Subject: [ExI] computers now outperform humans at facial recognition
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhxt5kZpzYu3w7UANeXiaX55LrU0mBMs2m457KipoNDBg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1585143192-19153@secure.ericade.net>

BillK <pharos at gmail.com> , 1/6/2014 9:22 PM:

And, of course, as sure as night follows day...... 
 
<http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/nsa-collecting-millions-of-faces-from-web-images.html> 
Quote: 
The National Security Agency is harvesting huge numbers of images of 
people from communications that it intercepts through its global 
surveillance operations for use in sophisticated facial recognition 
programs, according to top-secret documents.?
Of course. They have been doing it for a while now.?
However, facial recognition has different uses. Face verification, looking for one person in a database of images (or many cameras) is very different from identifying who is who, face recognition.?
The first is in principle doable: if you have 98.52% chance of correct identification and a thousand images where the person shows up in ten, you should expect nearly ten out of ten hits. The false positive rate, given the ROC curve in the paper, is about 1%. So you would also get 10 ?false positives. This is manageable for this example, as some other characteristic or a human could separate them. For a lot of pictures things get worse: if the target appears in a fraction f of N pictures there will be 0.9852fN correct hits, but 0.01N false positives. If f is smaller than one in hundred the false positives will outweigh the true positives - and potentially by a huge factor (just imagine Facebook: N=300 million pictures per day).?
The second case of face recognition is worse: now you have to repeat this for every person in the set N. In 1.48% of the cases there will be no match, and in 1% a false positive as person A is identified as B. So in the end, there will be 2.48% errors in the identification: 25 of those 1000 pictures will be wrongly assigned. ?In general recognition is also far harder when you have large probe sets; looking for person A has a bigger accuracy than A to Z.
This will not stop NSA, Facebook or anybody else from trying. In many applications a few false positives are not a big deal - advertisers can handle noisy data. However, sending SWAT teams to every place where Most Wanted du Jour appears is problematic. Same thing with false negatives: no problem for the advertiser, a big problem when trying to enter your high security Lair of Doom. The real solution is data fusion: combine the images with gait analysis, keyboard rhythm, stylometrics, voiceprints and whatever sensors you have, do a Bayesian estimate, and you have something fairly robust. I fully expect NSA to do the 21st century version of Stasi archival: try to get as much data as possible, one day it will be all possible to weigh into a probability map. Shame about those errors that cause false positives even in such systems...
Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun  3 19:51:38 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 20:51:38 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 image - in colour!
Message-ID: <CAL_armhWeh+418p1+QY0+pb3iFGFcm7hYJJCETwR=FFgh63M1Q@mail.gmail.com>

With the addition of ultraviolet light, they have combined the full
range of colours available to Hubble, stretching all the way from
ultraviolet to near- infrared light. The resulting image, made from
841 orbits of telescope viewing time, contains approximately 10 000
galaxies, extending back to within a few hundred million years of the
Big Bang.

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 image is a composite of separate
exposures taken from 2003 to 2012 with Hubble's Advanced Camera for
Surveys and Wide Field Camera 3.

<http://phys.org/news/2014-06-hubble-unveils-view-universe.html>

<http://cdn.phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/2014/1-hubbleunveil.jpg>

-----------

It's a big universe out there!

BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun  3 20:45:14 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 21:45:14 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Bees build mental maps to get home
Message-ID: <CAL_armisfk9ryHe9mxWtheA3mRSNAKRmxpWA4dz5L77jgkiMPQ@mail.gmail.com>

Study suggests the insects do not rely solely on the Sun as a compass.

Bees, like birds and butterflies, use the Sun as a compass for
navigation, whereas mammals typically find their way by remembering
familiar landmarks on a continuous mental map. However, the latest
research suggests that bees also use this type of map, despite their
much smaller brain size.

<http://www.nature.com/news/bees-build-mental-maps-to-get-home-1.15333>

Dyer is not yet convinced that bees navigate using a cognitive map. He
thinks that the insects could be using features of the terrain
independent of the Sun to navigate, similar to the way a mariner might
use a beacon.
----------


That's still a pretty good feat for such a tiny dot of a brain!

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  3 21:31:06 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 14:31:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bees build mental maps to get home
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armisfk9ryHe9mxWtheA3mRSNAKRmxpWA4dz5L77jgkiMPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armisfk9ryHe9mxWtheA3mRSNAKRmxpWA4dz5L77jgkiMPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02e001cf7f73$21867420$64935c60$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: [ExI] Bees build mental maps to get home

>...Study suggests the insects do not rely solely on the Sun as a compass.

>...Bees, like birds and butterflies, use the Sun as a compass for
navigation, whereas mammals typically find their way by remembering familiar
landmarks on a continuous mental map. However, the latest research suggests
that bees also use this type of map, despite their much smaller brain size.

<http://www.nature.com/news/bees-build-mental-maps-to-get-home-1.15333>

>...Dyer is not yet convinced that bees navigate using a cognitive map. He
thinks that the insects could be using features of the terrain independent
of the Sun to navigate, similar to the way a mariner might use a beacon.
----------


>...That's still a pretty good feat for such a tiny dot of a brain!

BillK
_______________________________________________


Thanks BillK, this has the ring of truth.  I have seen bees flying around on
solid overcast days where there was not a particularly bright patch of sky
anywhere, just a solid light gray from horizon to horizon.  The bees were
going out to a particular place, devouring the pollen and flying back home
just the same as they do on any sunny day.  We have no reason to justify
speculation they can only use the sun to navigate.

spike



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jun  3 22:09:04 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 18:09:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] computer joke
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaWzMwptcSi89_ApP_y9RvSFHTfv+Q=46C_VUYjuFA=Fg@mail.gmail.com>

True story:  back when I bought my first pc, an IBM PC Jr, it came with a
plug-in - Andrew Tobias' Managing Your Money.  It had a questionnaire that
would show you how much life insurance you needed.

As I was filling out the list I obviously missed a keystroke, because I got
this message:

"You are 4 years old and you smoke?  Are you crazy?!

wfw
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From anders at aleph.se  Wed Jun  4 00:09:40 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 02:09:40 +0200
Subject: [ExI] computer joke
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaWzMwptcSi89_ApP_y9RvSFHTfv+Q=46C_VUYjuFA=Fg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1680976157-25478@secure.ericade.net>

William Flynn Wallace?<foozler83 at gmail.com>?, 4/6/2014 12:13 AM:
"You are 4 years old and you smoke?? Are you crazy?!
Yeah, what 4 year old would risk his health that way?
More seriously, this is actually a nice example of sanity checking inputs. At the very least super-improbable data combinations should raise a flag and a question. More software should do it.

Just checking the sign of numbers catches a surprising number of errors.


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University


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From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 00:54:23 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 20:54:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] computer joke
In-Reply-To: <1680976157-25478@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAO+xQEaWzMwptcSi89_ApP_y9RvSFHTfv+Q=46C_VUYjuFA=Fg@mail.gmail.com>
 <1680976157-25478@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLr7K0m7BWBMc69mKHP=SJRjRgBwDwx6vfFgKshEdYGhA@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 3, 2014 8:10 PM, "Anders Sandberg" <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
> Just checking the sign of numbers catches a surprising number of errors.

Call it the Zodiac test.   ...or was that not the sign you meant? ;)
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 02:20:38 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 22:20:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
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 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjBTsW0Tn7zWOBuUaAJKr_A+F7keVjpQjJp=QuFPDbVJA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 5:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi>
wrote:

the right wing includes anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to
> conservative christian fundamentalists.
>

### ROFLMAO!!!

Thanks, Jukka, I am not interested in an exchange where you get to
re-define the meaning of commonly used words.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 02:38:03 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 22:38:03 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYG_GL9NT92ez8wg2jwNtenwz_is7jjGLW=TH7E7Za1cQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
 <CACYTDBeVwAOiOi6uOFVhgQAgSvY-UDpaa4dwZAzvSxu+GVhOCg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYG_GL9NT92ez8wg2jwNtenwz_is7jjGLW=TH7E7Za1cQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFh_QdcOja8OyuAa+67CU1ojw37G-PdozittYWeDHeRG1A@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 1:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>
> Jukk can sp
> eak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives to
> politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find
> that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.?
>
> ? I am still waiting for Rafa's data showing that leftists are as he
> described, which is not at all
> what I believe in.  So I think Rafa is making a huge generalization that
> he cannot support.  wfw?
>

### Leftist is as leftists do. The leftist elite consistently acts in
direct contravention of the lofty ideals that Jukka adduced. To the
contrary, their actions betray an obsession with status, and hypocrisy.

If you think my generalization is incorrect it should be trivially easy for
you to give me multitudinous examples of elite leftists in the US who do
not fit this description.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 03:08:16 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 23:08:16 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZu_yssxrAxnvn+wp6SasOB2zcJgnGbz57qXn_S9cvzig@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
 <CACYTDBeVwAOiOi6uOFVhgQAgSvY-UDpaa4dwZAzvSxu+GVhOCg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <038901cf79f9$6a834880$3f89d980$@att.net>
 <CANSO=1kpMJn=MLJt+L0SH6LDB6nOzJ+=cU+_OpgW8L+3t6oy3w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZu_yssxrAxnvn+wp6SasOB2zcJgnGbz57qXn_S9cvzig@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhWNbGfM9g__5bOkj6_USx=h7tDUs-LxSkstFrdrv60JA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 8:14 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

(Rafal wrote)

> I loved this book, not just because I work just a mile away from Professor
> Haidt.
>
> But there is one failing - it does not account for the much higher levels
> of hypocrisy among leftists.
>

 (Bill wrote)

> ?OH?  Maybe because he did not have any data showing this.  Do you?
>

### It's very likely that he didn't have data on hypocrisy among leftists.
Measurement of hypocrisy is more difficult than measurement of verbally
expressed opinions, and there is little being published. Nevertheless, you
may want to consider this:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=20483854

Power increases hypocrisy. Since leftists hold power in the US, they will
be on average more hypocritical than non-leftist, lower-status individuals.
This will be especially pronounced among elite leftists.

Rafal
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From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 04:50:54 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 05:50:54 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 image - in colour!
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhWeh+418p1+QY0+pb3iFGFcm7hYJJCETwR=FFgh63M1Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhWeh+418p1+QY0+pb3iFGFcm7hYJJCETwR=FFgh63M1Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgo4hQQ4DqUbiXAyOrzGrWVazW0pwePG5hAm7j2tqPo2g@mail.gmail.com>

And, as Ethan Siegel [pints out -

Consider an image like this: 10,000 of the faintest, most distant
galaxies we've ever discovered. By measuring their redshifts, we can
determine (going back to Hubble's law) precisely how far away these
galaxies are.

And as it turns out, about 40% of the galaxies in this image are
already unreachable, even for a beam of light that left today. If we
zoom in to this region of space and imagine what these galaxies look
like as far as "depth" goes, as in the video below, we'd find that
everything left in the image after about the 0:38 second mark has
already redded out.

And as the Universe continues on in time, more and more galaxies are
redding out as the Universe continues to accelerate. With each second
that goes by (on average) thousands of stars and their planetary
systems cross that horizon forever, and leave our ability to reach
them for all eternity. Of the hundreds of billions of galaxies (maybe
even as many as a trillion) in our Universe today, only about 3% of
them are still reachable.

Because the expansion marches on.
-----------

BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 04:52:38 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 05:52:38 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Hubble Ultra Deep Field 2014 image - in colour!
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgo4hQQ4DqUbiXAyOrzGrWVazW0pwePG5hAm7j2tqPo2g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhWeh+418p1+QY0+pb3iFGFcm7hYJJCETwR=FFgh63M1Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armgo4hQQ4DqUbiXAyOrzGrWVazW0pwePG5hAm7j2tqPo2g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiQYT2drKzRP9Wv3kPmjBs_Kkr-AoA7JyhMoPUfdhdWyQ@mail.gmail.com>

Link:
<https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/the-disappearing-universe-d7447467c63a>

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun  4 06:26:45 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 23:26:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] computer joke
In-Reply-To: <1680976157-25478@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAO+xQEaWzMwptcSi89_ApP_y9RvSFHTfv+Q=46C_VUYjuFA=Fg@mail.gmail.com>
 <1680976157-25478@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <008e01cf7fbd$f624d830$e26e8890$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Tuesday, June 03, 2014 5:10 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] computer joke

 

William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> , 4/6/2014 12:13 AM:

 

"You are 4 years old and you smoke?  Are you crazy?!

 

Yeah, what 4 year old would risk his health that way? Anders Sandberg

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4c_wI6kQyE

 

Sheesh.

 

s

 

 

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From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Wed Jun  4 11:36:54 2014
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 07:36:54 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Bees for spike  :)
Message-ID: <8790abf44032f96bd143366c73d61d6d.squirrel@www.main.nc.us>


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140603193904.htm

Could spiders be the key to saving our bees?
Date: June 3, 2014
Source: Newcastle University
Summary:
A novel bio-pesticide created using spider venom and a
plant protein has been found to be safe for honeybees -
despite being highly toxic to a number of key insect
pests. New research has tested the insect-specific
Hv1a/GNA fusion protein bio-pesticide -- a combination of
a natural toxin from the venom of an Australian funnel web
spider and snowdrop lectin.

[snip]

Regards,
MB



From rolandodegilead at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 12:04:45 2014
From: rolandodegilead at gmail.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Eugenio_Mart=C3=ADnez?=)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 14:04:45 +0200
Subject: [ExI] computer joke
In-Reply-To: <008e01cf7fbd$f624d830$e26e8890$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEaWzMwptcSi89_ApP_y9RvSFHTfv+Q=46C_VUYjuFA=Fg@mail.gmail.com>
 <1680976157-25478@secure.ericade.net>
 <008e01cf7fbd$f624d830$e26e8890$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CANSO=1nJywMY4THWOmW2PpyH4by3L8izM1JEsBsfkRvHvEWS9w@mail.gmail.com>

Clear case of Devs thinks on everything
<http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheDevTeamThinksOfEverything>


On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 8:26 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
>
>
> *From:* extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:
> extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On Behalf Of *Anders Sandberg
> *Sent:* Tuesday, June 03, 2014 5:10 PM
> *To:* ExI chat list
> *Subject:* Re: [ExI] computer joke
>
>
>
> William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> , 4/6/2014 12:13 AM:
>
>
>
> "You are 4 years old and you smoke?  Are you crazy?!
>
>
>
> Yeah, what 4 year old would risk his health that way? Anders Sandberg
>
>
>
>
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4c_wI6kQyE
>
>
>
> Sheesh.
>
>
>
> s
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
OLVIDATE.DE
Tatachan.com
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From rahmans at me.com  Wed Jun  4 12:46:18 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 14:46:18 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1401883201.7817.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1401883201.7817.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <DED879F3-E850-41D6-899B-D04A6A1D531F@me.com>

> Date: Tue, 3 Jun 2014 22:38:03 -0400
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> 
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 1:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> Jukk can sp
>> eak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives to
>> politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find
>> that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.?
>> 
>> ? I am still waiting for Rafa's data showing that leftists are as he
>> described, which is not at all
>> what I believe in.  So I think Rafa is making a huge generalization that
>> he cannot support.  wfw?
>> 
> 
> ### Leftist is as leftists do. The leftist elite consistently acts in
> direct contravention of the lofty ideals that Jukka adduced. To the
> contrary, their actions betray an obsession with status, and hypocrisy.
> 
> If you think my generalization is incorrect it should be trivially easy for
> you to give me multitudinous examples of elite leftists in the US who do
> not fit this description.
> 
> Rafal


So Rafal, just to be clear, the only proof you will accept that leftists aren't elitists is that someone should present to you examples of 'elite leftists' who are not elitist?

I will comply once you present to me 'invisible elephants which are not invisible'.

Rafal, if you are speaking against 'cults of personality' then I wholeheartedly agree with you, but those personality cults are not a feature of the left or the right or of any political system. 'Divine right of kings', 'papal infallibility', Calvinist praise of the predestination of those who are successful in the worldly sphere, ancestor worship, etc etc are all examples of some sort of personality cult in one way or another.

Regards,

Omar Rahman


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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 14:38:14 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 10:38:14 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <DED879F3-E850-41D6-899B-D04A6A1D531F@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1401883201.7817.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <DED879F3-E850-41D6-899B-D04A6A1D531F@me.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZC8e7ieGDE0K-u1LpqUq42j5c1fh3PaCTLpS-_kM91Nw@mail.gmail.com>

>
>  Jukk can sp
> eak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives to
> politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find
> that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.?
>
> ? I am still waiting for Rafa's data showing that leftists are as he
> described, which is not at all
> what I believe in.  So I think Rafa is making a huge generalization that
> he cannot support.  wfw?
>
>
> ### Leftist is as leftists do. The leftist elite consistently acts in
> direct contravention of the lofty ideals that Jukka adduced. To the
> contrary, their actions betray an obsession with status, and hypocrisy.
>
> If you think my generalization is incorrect it should be trivially easy for
> you to give me multitudinous examples of elite leftists in the US who do
> not fit this description.
>
> Rafal
>
> ?Oh?  And how big a sample do you think you need to adequately
> characterize hundreds of millions of people?  Given:  lying to oneself and
> to others is right at the top of the list of human failings, so you have
> large numbers of hypocrites in any sample you choose?  - id est, a high
> base rate, probably magnified by
> ?the power and status you refer to.  What I object to is that lying is
> more to be found in leftists than rightists.   Politicians lie, CEOs lie,
> etc.  Why pick on those on the left?  wfw?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun  4 14:33:15 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 07:33:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
Message-ID: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>

 

This is the coolest space video I have seen in a long time.  It would be
even cooler had they slowed down a bit and gone inside some of the galaxies:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08LBltePDZw

 

Where the hell is everybody?

 

spike

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From aleksei at iki.fi  Wed Jun  4 15:08:52 2014
From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 18:08:52 +0300
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAF=HMEDGDneewe90XSb4K20gVSPfy7iY+Vgg+xeRfcyyJ27Gkg@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 5:33 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> Where the hell is everybody?

Fitting, that just today I happened to read the coolest explanation
for Fermi's paradox that I've yet heard:

http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/story1.html

-- 
Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei


From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Jun  4 18:31:48 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 11:31:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAF=HMEDGDneewe90XSb4K20gVSPfy7iY+Vgg+xeRfcyyJ27Gkg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
 <CAF=HMEDGDneewe90XSb4K20gVSPfy7iY+Vgg+xeRfcyyJ27Gkg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRPHpqp1EcNd1LXR3bNqPAv0Z+EqM7fu+LmSN+v67bUHA@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 4, 2014 8:09 AM, "Aleksei Riikonen" <aleksei at iki.fi> wrote:
> Fitting, that just today I happened to read the coolest explanation
> for Fermi's paradox that I've yet heard:
>
> http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/story1.html

Doesn't quite hold at a critical juncture: intelligences can not precommit
prior to their existence.  They could turn out to be less than perfectly
rational despite being superintelligences, or follow unanticipated chains
of logic (in essence being more rational than the intelligence speculating
about them).

Parfit's Hitchhiker doesn't quite work either: it is not done in an
abstract environment, but in the real world where there may be similar
interactions in the future, with the roles reversed.

(Also - milliseconds matter when there are travel times of thousands of
years involved?  No plan remains that stable for that long, especially when
it involves exploration of previously unmapped spaces, such as
superintelligences finding out what they can do immediately after first
activation.)
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From ben at goertzel.org  Thu Jun  5 00:02:29 2014
From: ben at goertzel.org (Ben Goertzel)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 08:02:29 +0800
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFi5L6DAzUumjmu6hLtAbNCstXkStCM4c7W+6o6XatBirA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CACYTDBeDy+=e0_a80TkNqbh0VMzoQhQum-HhwatO36xU6xU=4w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFi5L6DAzUumjmu6hLtAbNCstXkStCM4c7W+6o6XatBirA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CACYTDBf-6coCED8_NtcehYmRp71wwBsNUMnMB4=PGUB57ivtSA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Rafal,

> ### Ben, you are not one of the elite leftists I referred to in my two posts
> (the original one went into more details, if you are interested you can find
> it in the archives). You may be however a cultural leftist, somebody raised
> in an atmosphere filled with leftist idiom who did not become a part of the
> political structure of leftism.

The latter is certainly the case...

>> To me leftism is about compassion and fairness more than anything
>> else.   It's about believing the social contract should, normatively,
>> include a responsibility for society to provide everyone some minimal
>> level of help and opportunity.   It's about feeling it's morally wrong
>> for a small elite, with power and wealth that is mainly inherited, to
>> control nearly everything and take most of the goodies for themselves.
>
>
> ### An accurate portrayal of beautiful beliefs....

Such beliefs have led to both a lot of good, and a lot of harm, throughout
history.  But the same is true of "rightist" beliefs of various sorts...

>>
>> Anyway I have a low estimate of the ultimate value to be gotten from
>> in-depth discussion of politics on this list.  I just wanted to
>> briefly speak out against your caricature of leftist politics...
>
>
> ### .... but the Pelosis, the Obamas, the Hoffas and other hierarchs are cut
> from a different cloth, and my words are no caricature.

True enough.

On the other hand, the typical leaders of today's mega-corporations, and today's
right-wing politicians, are certainly not "better" from a
transhumanist perspective...

If you want to speak against elite politicos, I won't argue with you.
But singling
out leftist politicians as opposed to rightist politicians doesn't
feel sensible to me.

Setting aside social welfare issues, which wing of the US political bureaucracy
is actively anti-science?  It's not the left....   The left's
"religious" ideology feels
much less dangerous to me than the American right's peculiar amalgam of
large-corporationism and fundamentalist Christianity...

One thing we can likely agree on is that contemporary US politics is a
terrible mess,
and not helping us move toward a transhuman future in any sensible way...

OTOH, I don't really rate the politics here in China any better ;p...
(though here in Hong
Kong specifically it's not so bad, HK is of course owned by China,
though the Chinese
gov't is basically hands-off except for military matters...)

>  ### We could spend a long time trying to vivisect this body politic,
> probably to little benefit.

It might actually be a good conversation 1-on-1 F2F, but probably not
in this medium
and venue...

>But, let me just tell you that from my
> far-outsider's perch, a Che T-shirt does not look cool at all. It's too
> splattered.

True enough...

Che apparently had good motives and ideals, but misunderstood a lot of things
about human society and human nature...

Though no fan of Reagan, I used to wear a Reagan-Che' T-shirt occasionally,
just to be provocative ;p ...

http://www.thoseshirts.com/reaganche.html

-- Ben


From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jun  5 00:57:31 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 02:57:31 +0200
Subject: [ExI] computer joke
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbLr7K0m7BWBMc69mKHP=SJRjRgBwDwx6vfFgKshEdYGhA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1770283180-17839@secure.ericade.net>

Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> , 4/6/2014 2:57 AM:



 On Jun 3, 2014 8:10 PM, "Anders Sandberg" <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
 >
 > Just checking the sign of numbers catches a surprising number of errors. 

Call it the Zodiac test.?? ...or was that not the sign you meant? ;)
  
In any case it sounds like a good response to "What's your sign?" ?"Positive!"
(Another great way of testing that you did your algebra right is to write an agent based model and simulate the result... I did that today to check a calculation)

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From mail at harveynewstrom.com  Thu Jun  5 02:42:23 2014
From: mail at harveynewstrom.com (Harvey Newstrom)
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2014 22:42:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNRPHpqp1EcNd1LXR3bNqPAv0Z+EqM7fu+LmSN+v67bUHA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
 <CAF=HMEDGDneewe90XSb4K20gVSPfy7iY+Vgg+xeRfcyyJ27Gkg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNRPHpqp1EcNd1LXR3bNqPAv0Z+EqM7fu+LmSN+v67bUHA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003001cf8067$c85404d0$58fc0e70$@harveynewstrom.com>

On Jun 4, 2014 8:09 AM, "Aleksei Riikonen" <aleksei at iki.fi <mailto:aleksei at iki.fi> > wrote:
> Fitting, that just today I happened to read the coolest explanation 
> for Fermi's paradox that I've yet heard:
>
> http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/story1.html

I previously posited on this list that everybody had put up spam filters to ignore our communications.  If you realize that we have been sending all of our commercial and TV traffic out into the universe in all directions for decades, it becomes clear that we are the biggest spammers in the universe.  We are sending unwanted advertisements for products nobody wants to buy.  All our communications are now blocked as a constant source of background noise.






From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun  5 10:56:34 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 11:56:34 +0100
Subject: [ExI] META: ADMIN: Gmail unlabelled messages
Message-ID: <CAL_armirVgTYuhm+yLyMa7+4WeGWqSgQuu4psjL2yWeTi3wLSw@mail.gmail.com>

Gmail uses labels to tag emails (and emails can have more than one
label). The email search function is good, but there is no easy way to
search for emails that have no label.

The method I use is to set up lots of filters, one for each label, so
that emails are automatically labelled and archived. The Inbox will
then only contain occasional unlabelled emails, to be processed
manually. Setting up the filters is laborious, but is a once-only
task.

But if you already have a large collection of old emails filling up
your Inbox, there are two possible solutions.

One method is to use advanced search with the -label operator.
i.e. Build a search that explicitly excludes every other label -
label:inbox -label:{labela labelb labelc}
But if you have a lot of labels, that is a big search query. Though
you can save it for reuse again.

Another option is to use the labelling function itself.
Create a new label called "LabelAll"
View All, then apply "LabelAll" to them. (You may have to do this for
several pages). Now go into every other label folder, Select All and
remove the "LabelAll" label, folder by folder. Now if you go to the
LabelAll folder, all that is left in there is your unlabelled emails.
If you have two or three very large folders, it may be sufficient to
remove LabelAll from them and do the remainder by inspecting the
LabelAll folder contents.


BillK


From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun  5 11:45:20 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 12:45:20 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
Message-ID: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>

Speculative at present I know, but Next Big Future has an article about it.

<http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/06/extreme-regenerative-medicine.html>

Quote:
The technical hurdles have now been cleared thanks to cell
engineering. As described in his paper, the keystone to successful
spinal cord linkage is the possibility to fuse the severed axons in
the cord by exploiting the power of membrane fusogens/sealants. Agents
exist that can reconstitute the membranes of a cut axon and animal
data have accrued since 1999 that restoration of axonal function is
possible. One such molecule is poly-ethylene glycol (PEG), a widely
used molecule with many applications from industrial manufacturing to
medicine, including as an excipient in many pharmaceutical products.
Another is chitosan, a polysaccharide used in medicine and other
fields.

HEAVEN capitalizes on a minimally traumatic cut of the spinal cord
using an ultra-sharp blade (very different from what occurs in the
setting of clinical spinal cord injury, where gross, extensive damage
and scarring is observed) followed within minutes by chemofusion
(GEMINI). The surgery is performed under conditions of deep
hypothermia for maximal protection of the neural tissue. Moreover, and
equally important, the motoneuronal pools contained in the cord grey
matter remain largely untouched and can be engaged by spinal cord
stimulation, a technique that has recently shown itself capable of
restoring at least some motor control in spinal injured subjects.
--------


BillK


From jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi  Wed Jun  4 08:51:24 2014
From: jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi (Jukka Liukkonen)
Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2014 11:51:24 +0300
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFh_QdcOja8OyuAa+67CU1ojw37G-PdozittYWeDHeRG1A@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
 <CACYTDBeVwAOiOi6uOFVhgQAgSvY-UDpaa4dwZAzvSxu+GVhOCg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYG_GL9NT92ez8wg2jwNtenwz_is7jjGLW=TH7E7Za1cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh_QdcOja8OyuAa+67CU1ojw37G-PdozittYWeDHeRG1A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPpVbvTrrdHww7GAoyRSznMbgAUD_y0njnkzaw-Nmgnk++T5ow@mail.gmail.com>

2014-06-04 5:38 GMT+03:00 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:

> On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 1:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>>
>> Jukk can sp
>> eak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives to
>> politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find
>> that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.?
>>
>> ? I am still waiting for Rafa's data showing that leftists are as he
>> described, which is not at all
>> what I believe in.  So I think Rafa is making a huge generalization that
>> he cannot support.  wfw?
>>
>
> ### Leftist is as leftists do. The leftist elite consistently acts in
> direct contravention of the lofty ideals that Jukka adduced. To the
> contrary, their actions betray an obsession with status, and hypocrisy.
>

My summarization was based on actual of evidence, I've seen having being
undertaken by several leftist stakeholders in several countries. They are
the ideals of the contemporary left wing to which modern left wing
organizations aspire to. Politics is always about compromises and
negotiations unless the leader is a dictator who doesn't need to negotiate.
Like wise, the conservatives and the republicans do make compromises and
negotiate. It is the nature of the representational democracy.

You may want to update your views on what is the left wing today, based on
the actual evidence rather than outdated beliefs and myths. You are free to
disagree with the ideals and have your own goals, but I hope you can
acknowledge these values are shared by many leftists through-out the world.
Your opinion of their desirability does not change their truth value.

I don't see value in referring to source materials, as it hasn't been the
tradition on this mailing list, but I can assure you I have sufficient
experience to summarize the views like this. I have taken part in
international policy making in several organizations, I have had my
opinions heard for OECD policy papers and I also have participated UNESCO
conference.

The contemporary left wing doesn't usually believe in single leaders; it is
more about the cooperation and achieving the shared goals rather than
personal glory and wealth. There may be individuals aspiring for those too,
like everywhere in the full political spectrum from right to left, but they
are in minority when it concerns the left.


> If you think my generalization is incorrect it should be trivially easy
> for you to give me multitudinous examples of elite leftists in the US who
> do not fit this description.
>

The world continues beyond U.S. borders. Most of the world population lives
elsewhere.


All the best,
Jukka
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jun  5 16:01:33 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 09:01:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAPpVbvTrrdHww7GAoyRSznMbgAUD_y0njnkzaw-Nmgnk++T5ow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
 <CACYTDBeVwAOiOi6uOFVhgQAgSvY-UDpaa4dwZAzvSxu+GVhOCg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYG_GL9NT92ez8wg2jwNtenwz_is7jjGLW=TH7E7Za1cQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh_QdcOja8OyuAa+67CU1ojw37G-PdozittYWeDHeRG1A@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTrrdHww7GAoyRSznMbgAUD_y0njnkzaw-Nmgnk++T5ow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <041b01cf80d7$6ca8f5d0$45fae170$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Jukka Liukkonen



 

2014-06-04 5:38 GMT+03:00 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 1:29 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

 

Jukk can speak for me too.  I have directed several supposed conservatives to politicalcompass.org where they have taken the little test only to find that they are somewhat on the left, mainly because of social issues.?..

 

### Leftist is as leftists do. The leftist elite consistently acts in direct contravention of the lofty ideals that Jukka adduced. To the contrary, their actions betray an obsession with status, and hypocrisy? 

 

>?My summarization was based on actual of evidence, I've seen having being undertaken by several leftist stakeholders in several countries. They are the ideals of the contemporary left wing to which modern left wing organizations aspire to?All the best, Jukka

 

 

 

It is easy enough to see that both ends (and everywhere in between) on the political spectrum can write manifestos of lofty visions and ideals without the means to make it reality.  I see both sides espousing admirable notions, then taking actions which work against their realization.

 

OK then, let us look at transhumanism in light of a vision for the medium and long term future please.  Then we can assess which side of the political spectrum is best able to deliver our own long-term future vision for humanity, without getting tangled in the messy webs of commonplace reality in our own short time span on this planet.

 

Where do you see humanity in 100 years?

 

You may assume away the singularity if you wish, or interpret the question at your convenience.

 

Where in 1000 years?

 

Cro Magnon goes back about 50k years by reasonable estimates, so where will humanity or life or intelligence be 50ky hence?

 

Homo Sapiens is about a couple million years on this planet, so where will we be in another couple million?

 

Here?s my best guesses:

 

Humanity may have another great struggle ahead, before the singularity, so in a century, we may still be fighting over water and space to park ground-based solar panels as we scratch the last of the coal out of the ground.  I recognize this is a grim forecast, and I hope someone can talk me out of it.

 

By 1000 years, the singularity must have occurred if it is possible, and I firmly believe it is.

 

So by 50ky, life on earth and in this solar system will consist of super-organized matter, where all or nearly all the available metals will be transformed into some type of thinking matter.

 

By 2MegaY future, our mind children will be spreading throughout the galaxy.

 

For an interesting exercise, talk to normal people.  Ask them about long-term future visions.  Their answers will help explain their current views with regard to politics.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

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From sjatkins at mac.com  Thu Jun  5 16:43:21 2014
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 09:43:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <24C5B37E-822A-47B7-8CA7-AC6F1D8C47EA@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1401537601.1849.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <24C5B37E-822A-47B7-8CA7-AC6F1D8C47EA@me.com>
Message-ID: <53909E29.7080202@mac.com>


On 05/31/2014 01:40 PM, Omar Rahman wrote:
>
>> Date: Fri, 30 May 2014 09:49:08 -0700
>> From: "tokenpike" <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net>>
>> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>>
>> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
>> Message-ID: <041b01cf7c27$1465ac10$3d310430$@att.net
>> <mailto:041b01cf7c27$1465ac10$3d310430$@att.net>>
>>
>>> . On Behalf Of Omar Rahman
>>
>>> .I can see the positive potential in well regulated capitalism, can
>>> you see
>> this negative potential in unregulated capitalism?

There is no "regulation" necessary to a free market except against fraud
and other initiations of force.  Regulation beyond this is the
destruction of a free market, that is of human freedom to follow what
they believe in their own interest in making economic decisions, to
voluntarily reach agreements, to seek win-win in economic transactions. 

In a truly free country there should be a quite strong separation
between State and Economy.

>>
>>
>>
>> Ja.  The real problem is that the term regulation assumes government
>> intervention, and all governments are for sale.  Humans have never
>> invented
>> a form of government that was anything other than Plutocracies in various
>> disguises, completely without exception.  Marx theorized a hypothetical
>> alternative.  Humanity experimented with his notions at enormous cost in
>> human suffering.  We should go ahead and rip away the masks;
>> recognize that
>> all governments everywhere run on gold, at every level everywhere and
>> everywhen.  It's the most universal truth of human behavior.  All
>> efforts to
>> defeat that observation have merely reinforced it.
>>
>
> "All governments run on gold, at every level everywhere and
> everywhen." - Spike 
>

Governments are filled with human beings, just like the governed.  They
are in no wise better - not smarter or more ethical or wiser.    So a
government sets up some humans to make relatively arbitrary decisions
and gives them the power to impose them by force on everyone else.  That
is what it is.  If you are going to be honest about government then you
need to start with deep understanding of that.  It is why we should seek
the very least amount of something so dangerous and as well controlled
as possible.  It is far far more dangerous than business of any sort and
size.  Business cannot jail or kill you for refusing to purchase or use
its "services" or telling it to go efly a kite if it tries to dictate
terms to you - or else.

- samantha
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun  5 17:18:24 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 18:18:24 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Interdimensional travel
Message-ID: <CAL_armjFNyjB+pnSF_pvYdGPLhMmrFfpN643JDe+MLFDRmUEzw@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=3381>

Curses!  I just KNEW I was in the wrong dimension!  :)


BillK


From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Thu Jun  5 17:53:06 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 10:53:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB4D8j6MHSc6gmFQ7Qc3dXo-3BJAsZ_Ym+uXHbzBkaMxxQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 5, 2014 at 5:00 AM,   "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
> Where the hell is everybody?

I don't think anyone knows, but my guess is that we will know in a generation.

There are two main choices, one is that we are the first.  In which
case the future is flat out unknown.  I know it seems unlikely given
the scale of the universe or even the galaxy, but someone has to be
first.

The other is that all technically inclined races find a hole in the
universe that allows them to escape this "vale of tears."

If I was forced to guess, I would say that hole is uploading and
probably massive speeding up.  If that's the case, technically
inclined species never leave their star system, and probably don't
even leave their home planet--ever.

Sigh.  Such a comedown if this is right.

I have a copy of the 1975 Space Manufacturing Facilities conference at
Princeton.  Things were looking so bright in those days, but even then
the seeds were not too far from sprouting.

Richard Feynman had written "There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom" in
1959 and Eric Drexler was only four years from finding it and only 6
years from his first nanotechnology paper in _Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences_.

Keith


From sjv2006 at gmail.com  Thu Jun  5 20:20:55 2014
From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle)
Date: Thu, 5 Jun 2014 13:20:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4D8j6MHSc6gmFQ7Qc3dXo-3BJAsZ_Ym+uXHbzBkaMxxQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4D8j6MHSc6gmFQ7Qc3dXo-3BJAsZ_Ym+uXHbzBkaMxxQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CADYziYCEmqN_49y4PYfwpa_LPN-NYyJwY2EbTiX36FqkpeQKCw@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 5, 2014 11:01 AM, "Keith Henson" <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:

> If I was forced to guess, I would say that hole is uploading and
> probably massive speeding up.

One possible twist on that:  after a geologically short period of time (10
minutes? 100 years?  A million?) of massively accelerated thought, the
aliens have collected all the easily available data and thought about them
deeply enough to realize this is a really boring epoch in the history of
the universe.  Possible reasons for this range from a future phase change
in the universe, to a timed vault containing the Archives of The Ones Who
Created Us, to a massive beacon blaring "let's everyone meet up at +10^9
years for a Really Big Party".

Once they realized this this, the aliens (let's call them "The Great Old
Ones") cover up any traces of their existence and go to "sleep" somewhere
hidden and safe, like the bottom of a deep planetary ocean.  Naturally,
anyone accidentally waking one would find it surly and rather hungry...

I call this the Lovecraft Hypothesis.  And despite the snark, I take it
half seriously.  I think that there are reasons a being or civilization may
want to massively slow its clock rate, and this supposition may provide
testable predictions.

At the very least, we should tread carefully exploring Europa's ocean...

sv
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From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 07:58:45 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 00:58:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>

If the headline of an article is a question, to which the answer is "no",
the article is neither worth publishing nor reading.

Where would the transplanted body come from?  Either you're growing it from
the head's cells (in which case it's not a "transplant" as commonly defined
- redefining words to make a story seem more attractive/controversial/worth
reading than it is, is basically lying - and keeping the head on life
support while growing the body from it is likely to produce better
results), or you're using someone else's body (in which case there are
organ rejection issues, not to mention the supply of headless bodies which
do not essentially boil down to murders is likely to remain far smaller
than the demand).
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 12:28:45 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 08:28:45 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKizsYbQxOqmxJSgOe6xcvk9gwLbzkg0RyVy4PyJpgktA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 3:58 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> If the headline of an article is a question, to which the answer is "no",
> the article is neither worth publishing nor reading.

not a fan of clickbait?

> Where would the transplanted body come from?  Either you're growing it from
> the head's cells (in which case it's not a "transplant" as commonly defined
> - redefining words to make a story seem more attractive/controversial/worth
> reading than it is, is basically lying - and keeping the head on life
> support while growing the body from it is likely to produce better results),
> or you're using someone else's body (in which case there are organ rejection
> issues, not to mention the supply of headless bodies which do not
> essentially boil down to murders is likely to remain far smaller than the
> demand).

If you abandon the requirement for a biological body, you will
probably have your pick of several robot options most likely
factory-produced in southeast Asia.  :)


From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 12:45:32 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:45:32 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhsbfpJh60j8wj9hrUBN_wQvu6RB2vvM+N-dXtSXw-AUA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Adrian Tymes  wrote:
> If the headline of an article is a question, to which the answer is "no",
> the article is neither worth publishing nor reading.
>
> Where would the transplanted body come from?  Either you're growing it from
> the head's cells (in which case it's not a "transplant" as commonly defined
> - redefining words to make a story seem more attractive/controversial/worth
> reading than it is, is basically lying - and keeping the head on life
> support while growing the body from it is likely to produce better results),
> or you're using someone else's body (in which case there are organ rejection
> issues, not to mention the supply of headless bodies which do not
> essentially boil down to murders is likely to remain far smaller than the
> demand).
>

Sounds as though you couldn't be bothered to read the article and your
comments are those of the average man on the Clapham omnibus.

The article is actually a pretty technical article about the difficult
procedures of head transplantation, especially reconnecting the spinal
cord. This is, of course, an extension of transplanting individual
organs.

The social / legal aspects are not really considered in this article.


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jun  6 13:28:19 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 06:28:19 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?

 

?

>?Where would the transplanted body come from?  

 

I can think of two possible sources: Florida, where helmets are not required to ride a motorcycle, and death row inmates.

 

>?the supply of headless bodies which do not essentially boil down to murders is likely to remain far smaller than the demand).

 

There will not be nearly enough bodies of course, but that is the case with all transplants.

 

If you have enough notice, such as a patient with some kind of wasting disease such as ALS, I can imagine taking stem cells, figuring out a way to create an anencephalic embryo, raising it on life support until it is aged about five years, then doing the transplant.  It?s a longshot but it might work.

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jun  6 13:59:31 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 06:59:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <00cb01cf818f$8ad33e40$a079bac0$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of spike
Subject: Re: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?

 

>>?Where would the transplanted body come from?  

 

>? and death row inmates?spike

 

 

On that last bit, I can even imagine a reprieve of sorts, or a kind of partial one.  We could offer to allow the condemned prisoner a pardon if he agrees to swap bodies with a sick person.  

 

That notion solves the cruel and unusual angle on the capital punishment debates, sort of.  Or perhaps it opens a new one.  We can imagine states going to forms of execution which would kill the brain but not damage the body much, such as immersing the prisoner pure nitrogen for a couple minutes, brain dies, body scarcely notices, gets a new honest head.

 

On the other hand, if the stem cell guys work out a means to reconnect the spinal cord, then the person who received the body eventually retrains the control system so she can walk about.  Then she goes to states which do not currently allow capital punishment and goes about telling everyone how she is alive thanks to a body transplant from a murderer, and that the murderer was given a couple more years of life as well, etc.  That might encourage the rest of the states to pass laws allowing capital punishment with the option for body transplant followed by a pardon.

 

spike 

 

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 15:13:10 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 11:13:10 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <00cb01cf818f$8ad33e40$a079bac0$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>
 <00cb01cf818f$8ad33e40$a079bac0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKfDb9Bo78LoAxDcNcR7qFtGU=kcMxD9X5Q4tFo-HfX+Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 9:59 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> That notion solves the cruel and unusual angle on the capital punishment
> debates, sort of.  Or perhaps it opens a new one.  We can imagine states
> going to forms of execution which would kill the brain but not damage the
> body much, such as immersing the prisoner pure nitrogen for a couple
> minutes, brain dies, body scarcely notices, gets a new honest head.
>
> On the other hand, if the stem cell guys work out a means to reconnect the
> spinal cord, then the person who received the body eventually retrains the
> control system so she can walk about.  Then she goes to states which do not
> currently allow capital punishment and goes about telling everyone how she
> is alive thanks to a body transplant from a murderer, and that the murderer
> was given a couple more years of life as well, etc.  That might encourage
> the rest of the states to pass laws allowing capital punishment with the
> option for body transplant followed by a pardon.

I certainly don't want to rain on your macabre party, but couldn't we
set our sights a little higher?  Why must one person's head-swap be at
the expense of another?  Where's all the post-scarcity thinking
solutions that involves 3d printing a new body, or assembling one from
a commodity parts bin?  Maybe your healthcare doesn't cover the newest
medical technology, so you get last year's surplus at a cut rate*

I was only being semi-facetious about robot bodies.  We're already
working on prosthetic arms and legs being controlled by neural
interface.  I hope by the time we're seriously considering head
transplants we have that well-in-hand* such that neural interfaces to
whole a body prosthetic is "only" an engineering challenge  (rather
than social/ethical quagmire)

For those on the waiting list for body prosthesis, life will likely
consist of virtual world rehab exercises to become accustomed to the
new UI.  For some, shelf-life* might be an alternative to cryotank
while they wait for their opportunity to upload.


* sorry, i love puns.


From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jun  6 15:32:15 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 08:32:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKfDb9Bo78LoAxDcNcR7qFtGU=kcMxD9X5Q4tFo-HfX+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>
 <00cb01cf818f$8ad33e40$a079bac0$@att.net>
 <CAOJFdbKfDb9Bo78LoAxDcNcR7qFtGU=kcMxD9X5Q4tFo-HfX+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <000501cf819c$7f303220$7d909660$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty

>...I hope by the time we're seriously considering head transplants ...

Mike you are aware that head transplants have been done, ja?  Transplant
pioneer Robert White did it on rhesus monkeys.  I remember reading about it
in Science News when I was in elementary school, so that would have been no
later than about 1970 or 71.  Both monkeys stayed alive for a while.

spike    




From rahmans at me.com  Fri Jun  6 17:09:07 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Fri, 06 Jun 2014 19:09:07 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402056001.11378.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402056001.11378.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <3DCECBC1-CB36-4D50-9A15-785DFD436B8D@me.com>


> Date: Thu, 05 Jun 2014 09:43:21 -0700
> From: Samantha Atkins <sjatkins at mac.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> Message-ID: <53909E29.7080202 at mac.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
> 
> 
> On 05/31/2014 01:40 PM, Omar Rahman wrote:
>> 
>>> Date: Fri, 30 May 2014 09:49:08 -0700
>>> From: "tokenpike" <spike66 at att.net <mailto:spike66 at att.net>>
>>> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> <mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>>
>>> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
>>> Message-ID: <041b01cf7c27$1465ac10$3d310430$@att.net
>>> <mailto:041b01cf7c27$1465ac10$3d310430$@att.net>>
>>> 
>>>> . On Behalf Of Omar Rahman
>>> 
>>>> .I can see the positive potential in well regulated capitalism, can
>>>> you see
>>> this negative potential in unregulated capitalism?
> 
> There is no "regulation" necessary to a free market except against fraud
> and other initiations of force.  Regulation beyond this is the
> destruction of a free market, that is of human freedom to follow what
> they believe in their own interest in making economic decisions, to
> voluntarily reach agreements, to seek win-win in economic transactions. 
> 
> In a truly free country there should be a quite strong separation
> between State and Economy.

There has to be a very strong connection between State and Economy or there will be no taxation and nothing to build a country with. 



> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> Ja.  The real problem is that the term regulation assumes government
>>> intervention, and all governments are for sale.  Humans have never
>>> invented
>>> a form of government that was anything other than Plutocracies in various
>>> disguises, completely without exception.  Marx theorized a hypothetical
>>> alternative.  Humanity experimented with his notions at enormous cost in
>>> human suffering.  We should go ahead and rip away the masks;
>>> recognize that
>>> all governments everywhere run on gold, at every level everywhere and
>>> everywhen.  It's the most universal truth of human behavior.  All
>>> efforts to
>>> defeat that observation have merely reinforced it.
>>> 
>> 
>> "All governments run on gold, at every level everywhere and
>> everywhen." - Spike 
>> 
> 
> Governments are filled with human beings, just like the governed.  They
> are in no wise better - not smarter or more ethical or wiser.    So a
> government sets up some humans to make relatively arbitrary decisions
> and gives them the power to impose them by force on everyone else.  That
> is what it is.  If you are going to be honest about government then you
> need to start with deep understanding of that.  It is why we should seek
> the very least amount of something so dangerous and as well controlled
> as possible.  It is far far more dangerous than business of any sort and
> size.  Business cannot jail or kill you for refusing to purchase or use
> its "services" or telling it to go efly a kite if it tries to dictate
> terms to you - or else.
> 
> - samantha

I'll say it again. Business can, has, and will again jail you for not buying their product. This is not ancient history, Mahatma Gandhi was fighting against this sort of stuff. Business will, for example, capture people from Africa and sell them all over the world because it is more competitive to have slaves than pay free people a living wage. This is not just a historical fact but is also a present day reality; the demand for prostitutes far exceeds the supply of those so inclined to offer that service, so there are mafias specialising in kidnapping and human trafficking. Another example: try driving your car without buying private insurance. It's set up to guarantee customers for private companies; why isn't there a government or not-for-profit option available? Mathematically speaking a universal pool would spread the risk most efficiently, and removing the advertising for new clients and the sales commissions and profits for shareholders should be more efficient. (If you're inclined to make the 'governments are inherently inefficient' argument, why are you so worried about their force if they are so inefficient/weak?) Another example: look at what the car dealers are trying to do to the Tesla car company; they are trying to force them to operate through dealers because one of the disruptive effects of Tesla is its direct sales model.

Governments impose force on you, yes but so do companies. With a government, at least in a democracy, you are a stakeholder. 

Best regards,

Omar Rahman
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From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 18:33:37 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 11:33:37 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKizsYbQxOqmxJSgOe6xcvk9gwLbzkg0RyVy4PyJpgktA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbKizsYbQxOqmxJSgOe6xcvk9gwLbzkg0RyVy4PyJpgktA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNT2n933txRUf3-bUR2yC=Cmvkkv9_ob-HLeSs4Hy3Ze1Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 6, 2014 5:29 AM, "Mike Dougherty" <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> not a fan of clickbait?

Nope.  Not that blatant, anyway.  :)

> If you abandon the requirement for a biological body, you will
> probably have your pick of several robot options most likely
> factory-produced in southeast Asia.  :)

Agreed.
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 18:37:53 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:37:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>

Alfred Alder opposed Freud on the basic urges of mankind.  Whereas Freud
said that they were sex and aggression, Adler said it was the will to
power.  Both in their way were right.

So if you were to look at people in high positions (that is, high status,
the elite) it would be expected that they enjoyed it, sought it, wielded
the power too much, in the wrong way, selfishly, and so on.  As to whether
they were obsessed with it, or addicted, is often a close call even to
experienced clinical people.

So whether one can give examples of leftists who are 'obsessed with power
and status' by the tens or by the thousands, it doesn't prove anything at
all as to whether they are any different from people on the right.  One
would expect that a very high proportion of both leftists and rightists fit
the description. Which is to say that they are typical, and successful
examples of the human race as it now exists.

finis

wfw aka bill w
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From tara at taramayastales.com  Fri Jun  6 18:55:26 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 11:55:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKfDb9Bo78LoAxDcNcR7qFtGU=kcMxD9X5Q4tFo-HfX+Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>
 <00cb01cf818f$8ad33e40$a079bac0$@att.net>
 <CAOJFdbKfDb9Bo78LoAxDcNcR7qFtGU=kcMxD9X5Q4tFo-HfX+Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <648722BD-920B-4C42-836F-AAABDB82AAD2@taramayastales.com>

Indeed, a 3D printed body or robotic body seems like it might work. It's a complex thing, but nearly as complex as the tech we'd need to actually copy the brain itself. So if there were a way to preserve the brain inside the head and just find a new body, that might work until real uploading or fully re-growing a body were possible.

I can't help but think of Futurama's Heads in Jars.

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



On Jun 6, 2014, at 8:13 AM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 9:59 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> That notion solves the cruel and unusual angle on the capital punishment
>> debates, sort of.  Or perhaps it opens a new one.  We can imagine states
>> going to forms of execution which would kill the brain but not damage the
>> body much, such as immersing the prisoner pure nitrogen for a couple
>> minutes, brain dies, body scarcely notices, gets a new honest head.
>> 
>> On the other hand, if the stem cell guys work out a means to reconnect the
>> spinal cord, then the person who received the body eventually retrains the
>> control system so she can walk about.  Then she goes to states which do not
>> currently allow capital punishment and goes about telling everyone how she
>> is alive thanks to a body transplant from a murderer, and that the murderer
>> was given a couple more years of life as well, etc.  That might encourage
>> the rest of the states to pass laws allowing capital punishment with the
>> option for body transplant followed by a pardon.
> 
> I certainly don't want to rain on your macabre party, but couldn't we
> set our sights a little higher?  Why must one person's head-swap be at
> the expense of another?  Where's all the post-scarcity thinking
> solutions that involves 3d printing a new body, or assembling one from
> a commodity parts bin?  Maybe your healthcare doesn't cover the newest
> medical technology, so you get last year's surplus at a cut rate*
> 
> I was only being semi-facetious about robot bodies.  We're already
> working on prosthetic arms and legs being controlled by neural
> interface.  I hope by the time we're seriously considering head
> transplants we have that well-in-hand* such that neural interfaces to
> whole a body prosthetic is "only" an engineering challenge  (rather
> than social/ethical quagmire)
> 
> For those on the waiting list for body prosthesis, life will likely
> consist of virtual world rehab exercises to become accustomed to the
> new UI.  For some, shelf-life* might be an alternative to cryotank
> while they wait for their opportunity to upload.
> 
> 
> * sorry, i love puns.
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat




From tara at taramayastales.com  Fri Jun  6 19:09:45 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 12:09:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
 <CACYTDBeVwAOiOi6uOFVhgQAgSvY-UDpaa4dwZAzvSxu+GVhOCg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTQ=W512Dy3quk0RVfpy_VV6ZrAt+FiytLc6dm2UAsx6Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4ED9C9CE-D1EF-490A-98D9-C589A0335BB7@taramayastales.com>


On Jun 2, 2014, at 2:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi> wrote:

> The left wing is a very broad term, which includes everyone from marxists to anarchists, but most are mild social democrats or a bit more ecologically oriented green leftists. Like wise, the right wing includes anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to conservative christian fundamentalists. Many people thoughts are leaning to the left, despite they don't really acknowledge it. Perhaps, because those who disagree with leftist values are so keen on discrediting and pushing false information about the other side.
> 

This is why I don't much care for the terms "left" and "right."  Any category that includes Pinochet, Obama, Hitler is useless. 

Far more important is those that support democracy versus those that don't. Those that don't are so outside my value system that I have little to say to them. Those that do, ah, that is where the argument is. I might say to that person, "We both want a fair, free and prosperous society, now what does the evidence show us is the best way to achieve that?"

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



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From tara at taramayastales.com  Fri Jun  6 18:51:11 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 11:51:11 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <3DCECBC1-CB36-4D50-9A15-785DFD436B8D@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402056001.11378.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <3DCECBC1-CB36-4D50-9A15-785DFD436B8D@me.com>
Message-ID: <F7EAF020-B371-4BDA-B8E3-5A3222D160E2@taramayastales.com>



> I'll say it again. Business can, has, and will again jail you for not buying their product. This is not ancient history, Mahatma Gandhi was fighting against this sort of stuff. 

Nope. You are mistaken. All of these examples, with the exception of pre-modern slavery, are because of state interference. 

> Business will, for example, capture people from Africa and sell them all over the world because it is more competitive to have slaves than pay free people a living wage. 


Slavery (as practiced in and before the nineteenth century) is the exception. 

The state is needed to protect individual rights including the right not to be a slave. Other rights are the right to free speech, free religion, etc. I don't think anyone is arguing that these rights shouldn't be protected. These rights need to be protected -- by force -- by force that is monopolized by the a state democratically controlled by the people. That's clear -- to think otherwise is to be an anarchist.

But slavery is different than all your other examples because it is an issue of "your right to swing your arm ends at my nose." In a secular society, there is a separation of Religion and State. That still allows the state to stop a Muslim from killing his daughter for her dating habits. He might argue he is just practicing his religion, but the state can and must say that his right to practice his religion ends where it endangers his daughter's freedom (and life). 

Modern slavery, however, is supported and caused by the policies where it is practiced. For instance, in Islamist countries, women are enslaved to male members of their families. This is the STATE law, not because of business.

For millennia around the world, charging interest was illegal but slavery was legal. Slavery, it should be noted, is incompatible with capitalism. It is the inevitable competing system -- the very antithesis of capitalism. That's because the only alternative to Free Trade (consensual exchange of goods and labor), is the use of force (goods and labor taken under threat of force). It was slavery that stopped the South from industrializing in the capitalist manner of the North prior to the Civil War, and which therefore delayed their economic development. Fascist Germany, Leninist and Stalinist Russia, and  Maoist China all rejected capitalism and ended up instituting mass slave camps instead -- an amazing resurgence of slavery in the 20th Century, showing what happens when capitalism is rejected in favor of state control. In the 21st Century as in the 20th, the only places slavery still operates is where economic and political freedom are absent. 

> This is not just a historical fact but is also a present day reality; the demand for prostitutes far exceeds the supply of those so inclined to offer that service, so there are mafias specialising in kidnapping and human trafficking. 


Mafias go into prostitution, drug trafficking and other areas, like organ sales, where the state has outlawed legal commercial transactions. By rejecting free trade between consenting adults, a black market is created. In North Korea, mafias now run the country because there are NO legal commercial markets, so EVERYTHING is black market. Of course, this is also how the current Eastern European, Russian, and other cartels came to power. Legalizing prostitution and organ donation and drugs as much as possible would shrink the market that the mafia could dominant. Of course they would still prevail in things that simply cannot be legalized, like child or forced prostitution (and it's important to note the difference between prostitution that is a consensual transaction between adults and sex slavery) or auto theft, etc. But shrinking the market would limit where criminals could compete. 

Criminals are not businesses. If you can't see the difference,  your entire argument is based on a gross misunderstanding. 


>  Another example: try driving your car without buying private insurance.

That's state law. If the state stayed out of it, you could drive uninsured if you were stupid enough to do so. Insurance companies were original civil society organizations that were independent of government and entirely voluntary.


> It's set up to guarantee customers for private companies; why isn't there a government or not-for-profit option available?

Nothing is stopping you from setting up a non-profit car insurance. Maybe some already exist. There are already non-profits that provide housing, school, food, bicycles, glasses, medical assistance, birth control and education?.

> Mathematically speaking a universal pool would spread the risk most efficiently, and removing the advertising for new clients and the sales commissions and profits for shareholders should be more efficient. (If you're inclined to make the 'governments are inherently inefficient' argument, why are you so worried about their force if they are so inefficient/weak?)

The value of a universal pool is outweighed, however, by the increased difficulty that the public would have in making sure that the system was not corrupt and inefficient. The state would have a monopoly on the insurance, and the consumer would not be able to compare multiple companies to compare performance. That would reduce the incentive of the government-run company to improve their services and be efficient. That is the usual reason "governments are inherently inefficient." Not size. 

There are other ways that insurance companies could spread risk besides being controlled by the government. 

> Another example: look at what the car dealers are trying to do to the Tesla car company; they are trying to force them to operate through dealers because one of the disruptive effects of Tesla is its direct sales model.
> 

But how can the rival car companies force Tesla out of the state without getting the State Government to pass laws? If the State would just keep their nose out of it, those rival companies would be powerless to stop Tesla from appealing directly to consumers. Can't you see you are exactly proving why it is so vicious to allow the government to be captured by special interests? If the Constitution or state law forbid the government to take sides or make laws favoring any individual companies, the same way the government is not allowed to pass laws favoring religion, these sneaky, underhanded tricks by companies wouldn't work. 


> Governments impose force on you, yes but so do companies. With a government, at least in a democracy, you are a stakeholder. 

You are simply mistaken. It is a critical mistake. You have missed the entire wonder of capitalism--it is economic exchange without force.

Companies must entice employees to freely exchange labor for money. This is the opposite of slavery. Slavery is only possible where free trade of labor is made illegal.

Companies must entice consumers to freely exchange money for goods. This is the opposite of theft. Theft is only possible through the use of force, and the greatest theft comes from the most monopolized force, i.e. from governments.

Companies CAN NOT IMPOSE FORCE ON YOU. Criminals can, and companies who capture the power of the state can; the first situation is why the state exists, the second is why the state, though it is needed, must never be allowed to interfere with free trade of goods and labor.

Governments exist to ensure that the free and consensual exchange of ideas, labor and goods is possible, and if they overstep their bounds they become slave masters and thieves instead of our protectors.


Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads

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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jun  6 20:37:38 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:37:38 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <F7EAF020-B371-4BDA-B8E3-5A3222D160E2@taramayastales.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402056001.11378.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <3DCECBC1-CB36-4D50-9A15-785DFD436B8D@me.com>
 <F7EAF020-B371-4BDA-B8E3-5A3222D160E2@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <011b01cf81c7$28acec10$7a06c430$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tara Maya
Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists

 

>.Governments exist to ensure that the free and consensual exchange of
ideas, labor and goods is possible, and if they overstep their bounds they
become slave masters and thieves instead of our protectors.Tara Maya

 

 

Excellent post Tara, exceedingly good, thanks for this.

 

I am surprised really that in our modern day we need to defend capitalism at
all.  With all we have seen, the serial collapse of every communist regime,
the capitalist march of China and Vietnam, the post-child epic fail which is
North Korea, it should be perfectly self-evident.

 

Now we have a new challenge coming.  Just as state and local governments are
debating a huge increase in minimum wages, we have waiting in the wings the
technology to completely automate the classic low-end job, fast food.
Robots can flip burgers, and they can do everything we currently hire
minimum wage workers to do.  If the minimum wage goes up as high as the
proponents suggest, so many of these jobs disappear.  Consider also the poor
slob who has been working at one of these crummy jobs for years, shown up on
time, refrained from stealing, been a good employee, etc, so now she has
worked her wage up to 15 bucks an hour.  Now suddenly she is back to minimum
wage, making the same as those she is expected to supervise, as the place
closes the door to make way for the robots.  Hmmm.

 

Turns out Jeremy Rifkin was partially right, but for the wrong reasons.

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  6 22:44:26 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 18:44:26 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Will head transplants be the new life extension method?
In-Reply-To: <000501cf819c$7f303220$7d909660$@att.net>
References: <CAL_armj2g3O6f4GOzTo6n_eEPMcSF9vuvugN9-vvk353kOb5Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNTinpW+ht19yWkpnRz1DJKnQqkD_YcFXQbfNsVxtt2+ZA@mail.gmail.com>
 <009f01cf818b$2ef18090$8cd481b0$@att.net>
 <00cb01cf818f$8ad33e40$a079bac0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJOy5nBbnq=kv2LnNVyOhCP9U1yNEa1ntSc1THocSPSYg@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 6, 2014 11:46 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> >... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
> >...I hope by the time we're seriously considering head transplants ...
>
> Mike you are aware that head transplants have been done, ja?  Transplant
> pioneer Robert White did it on rhesus monkeys.  I remember reading about
it
> in Science News when I was in elementary school, so that would have been
no
> later than about 1970 or 71.  Both monkeys stayed alive for a while.

Ok. When I say "seriously considering" I mean not just thinking it would be
a cool experiment; rather more like "people within one or two degrees of
separation from me have had it done are are still alive to talk to me about
it before I employ this method of life extension"  I want ro meet in a cafe
to discuss over a nice lunch, not bedside in a facility.  I doubt those
monkeys "stayed alive" in the highest of monkey-style. :)
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From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun  6 23:06:01 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 01:06:01 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CADYziYCEmqN_49y4PYfwpa_LPN-NYyJwY2EbTiX36FqkpeQKCw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>

I also semi-believe in the Lovecraft Hypothesis (it is at least in my top three). My reason is the thermodynamics of computing: at least error correction requires kTln2 J per bit, which is proportional to temperature. The lowest temperature you can get today without expending energy on cooling is 3 K. Wait long enough and it will be much lower. So if you have X Joule of energy stored as mass, using them now will give you many orders of magnitude less than if you wait a trillion years. Eventually the temperature levels off due to horizon radiation, but that is very far ahead. So my idea is that the Great Old Ones are quietly sleeping until the stars are right (i.e. turned off).
Stephen Van Sickle <sjv2006 at gmail.com> , 5/6/2014 10:26 PM:



 On Jun 5, 2014 11:01 AM, "Keith Henson" <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote: 

> If I was forced to guess, I would say that hole is uploading and
 > probably massive speeding up. ? 

One possible twist on that:? after a geologically short period of time (10 minutes? 100 years?? A million?) of massively accelerated thought, the aliens have collected all the easily available data and thought about them deeply enough to realize this is a really boring epoch in the history of the universe.? Possible reasons for this range from a future phase change in the universe, to a timed vault containing the Archives of The Ones Who Created Us, to a massive beacon blaring "let's everyone meet up at +10^9 years for a Really Big Party". 

Once they realized this this, the aliens (let's call them "The Great Old Ones") cover up any traces of their existence and go to "sleep" somewhere hidden and safe, like the bottom of a deep planetary ocean.? Naturally, anyone accidentally waking one would find it surly and rather hungry...  

I call this the Lovecraft Hypothesis.? And despite the snark, I take it half seriously.? I think that there are reasons a being or civilization may want to massively slow its clock rate, and this supposition may provide testable predictions.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun  7 06:58:29 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 07:58:29 +0100
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CADYziYCEmqN_49y4PYfwpa_LPN-NYyJwY2EbTiX36FqkpeQKCw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjSOg377Py7Fi0RibLy8Y7VmB1XwY2q471WY_2yipfe5w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 12:06 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> I also semi-believe in the Lovecraft Hypothesis (it is at least in my top
> three). My reason is the thermodynamics of computing: at least error
> correction requires kTln2 J per bit, which is proportional to temperature.
> The lowest temperature you can get today without expending energy on cooling
> is 3 K. Wait long enough and it will be much lower. So if you have X Joule
> of energy stored as mass, using them now will give you many orders of
> magnitude less than if you wait a trillion years. Eventually the temperature
> levels off due to horizon radiation, but that is very far ahead. So my idea
> is that the Great Old Ones are quietly sleeping until the stars are right
> (i.e. turned off).
>

That is a nice idea, but it doesn't sound right to me.
If an intelligence is running in computronium at high clock speeds,
effectively the outside world freezes. I can't see them switching off
till the stars die. To them, that would be switching off for eternity.

Obviously they will optimize their computing to get the best bang for
their buck and minimise wasted energy. So they will probably compute
using nanotechnology, rather differently to the way we do at present.

I speculate along the same direction as Keith. The intelligence
speedup makes the outside world really boring. They live in virtual
worlds where they are gods and entertain themselves to death.

BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun  7 12:01:55 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 14:01:55 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjSOg377Py7Fi0RibLy8Y7VmB1XwY2q471WY_2yipfe5w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1977767036-2438@secure.ericade.net>

BillK <pharos at gmail.com> , 7/6/2014 9:03 AM:

That is a nice idea, but it doesn't sound right to me. 
If an intelligence is running in computronium at high clock speeds, 
effectively the outside world freezes. I can't see them switching off 
till the stars die. To them, that would be switching off for eternity. 
Actually not. From their perspective, switching off for a nanosecond or an eon will be subjectively equivalent.
A lot rather hinges on the utility function: what do you want to do? If the goal is maximizing fun per subjective moment for each conscious thread you just need resources proportional to the number of threads and the time they remain. If the goal is having maximum amount of fun, then you want more threads - up to the limit set by the available resources. So if you have total computational resources R, N threads and they require k resources per subjective moment, then you get R/kN moments in the first case and in the second you get R/k thread-moments (how they are distributed matters less). In both cases you would be better off with R larger. Now, the amount of computations R you can do at temperature T scales as 1/T. If we do it today, R=(1/3)*E0. If we do it in a zillion years when we get close to 10^-19 K (the limiting value), then R=10^19 E0. So it makes sense to wait.?
I think you assume a steep time discount factor: the value of the future at subjective time t (V(t)) to now is exp(-Dt)*V(t), where D is a measure of how steep the discount is. If you start with energy E0 and use it at some rate r, if E0/r >> D you will not care about the later subjective times. Jumping to the future means E0 is essentially multiplied by a lot. In the case of threads maximizing their own utility this has no effect: getting a lot more E0 will not improve things for them. The case where you want to have a lot of utility and discount it then it is rational for you to up r so that E0/r is about D: it would be rational to jump to the future, even though you would then burn through all the energy super-quickly. The main limit may be the physical limits on how large r can become: this, together with D, will set the desired distance into the future you wait.?
So long-discount civilizations (like ones that want to maximize the total amount of thinking across history) would jump to the cold era. Individualistic fast civilizations will not jump, but will presumably burn out ("Oh, my star's mass energy is running out... but it would take *minutes* to get more matter. C'est la vie..."). Collectivistic short-discount civilizations will jump a bit into the future so they can burn mass-energy at an intermediate rate.?
Note that this means that long-discount civilizations have a reason to limit the impact of short-discount civilizations, especially the collectivist ones. Either stop them outright, convince them to jump to the far era (short-term civs are indifferent to this, if they trust the long-term ones), or make them burn out fast without doing damage. Maybe this is Nyarlathotep's job...

"Beyond the worlds vague ghosts of monstrous things; half-seen columns of unsanctified temples that rest on nameless rocks beneath space and reach up to dizzy vacua above the spheres of light and darkness. And through this revolting graveyard of the universe the muffled, maddening beating of drums, and thin, monotonous whine of blasphemous flutes from inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond Time; the detestable pounding and piping whereunto dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic, tenebrous ultimate gods?the blind, voiceless, mindless gargoyles whose soul is Nyarlathotep."

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun  7 13:21:07 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 14:21:07 +0100
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1977767036-2438@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAL_armjSOg377Py7Fi0RibLy8Y7VmB1XwY2q471WY_2yipfe5w@mail.gmail.com>
 <1977767036-2438@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armi6yvafVWuedJ6a8y6WTq_S=R8W5K7B4v1fJ0nmK66RUQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 1:01 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
<snip>
> So long-discount civilizations (like ones that want to maximize the total
> amount of thinking across history) would jump to the cold era.
> Individualistic fast civilizations will not jump, but will presumably burn
> out ("Oh, my star's mass energy is running out... but it would take
> *minutes* to get more matter. C'est la vie..."). Collectivistic
> short-discount civilizations will jump a bit into the future so they can
> burn mass-energy at an intermediate rate.
>
> Note that this means that long-discount civilizations have a reason to limit
> the impact of short-discount civilizations, especially the collectivist
> ones. Either stop them outright, convince them to jump to the far era
> (short-term civs are indifferent to this, if they trust the long-term ones),
> or make them burn out fast without doing damage. Maybe this is
> Nyarlathotep's job...
>

That's another killer point for this possibility. If your intelligence
plans to sleep for billions of years, you had better make sure that
you are protected from interference. It would also be a very good idea
to set watchmen to keep an eye out for other civs and what they might
be getting up to.

I don't see that it is necessarily an either / or situation. One
entity could go to sleep while another carried on playing and made
sure that a suitable environment remained for the Sleepers.

Get ready for the big party when The Sleepers Awake!

BillK


From rhanson at gmu.edu  Sat Jun  7 12:41:50 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 12:41:50 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
References: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>

I know that people often say things like this, but I think it gets the physics wrong. The real resource is negentropy. One just stores that in a form of free energy, but how many bits one can erase later with that negentropy doesn't depend on the temperature later, at least to first order. One will want to do reversible computing later, and that isn't necessarily much more efficient at lower temperatures.

On Jun 6, 2014, at 7:06 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
I also semi-believe in the Lovecraft Hypothesis (it is at least in my top three). My reason is the thermodynamics of computing: at least error correction requires kTln2 J per bit, which is proportional to temperature. The lowest temperature you can get today without expending energy on cooling is 3 K. Wait long enough and it will be much lower. So if you have X Joule of energy stored as mass, using them now will give you many orders of magnitude less than if you wait a trillion years. Eventually the temperature levels off due to horizon radiation, but that is very far ahead. So my idea is that the Great Old Ones are quietly sleeping until the stars are right (i.e. turned off).

Stephen Van Sickle <sjv2006 at gmail.com<mailto:sjv2006 at gmail.com>> , 5/6/2014 10:26 PM:

On Jun 5, 2014 11:01 AM, "Keith Henson" <hkeithhenson at gmail.com<mailto:hkeithhenson at gmail.com>> wrote:

> If I was forced to guess, I would say that hole is uploading and
> probably massive speeding up.

One possible twist on that:  after a geologically short period of time (10 minutes? 100 years?  A million?) of massively accelerated thought, the aliens have collected all the easily available data and thought about them deeply enough to realize this is a really boring epoch in the history of the universe.  Possible reasons for this range from a future phase change in the universe, to a timed vault containing the Archives of The Ones Who Created Us, to a massive beacon blaring "let's everyone meet up at +10^9 years for a Really Big Party".

Once they realized this this, the aliens (let's call them "The Great Old Ones") cover up any traces of their existence and go to "sleep" somewhere hidden and safe, like the bottom of a deep planetary ocean.  Naturally, anyone accidentally waking one would find it surly and rather hungry...

I call this the Lovecraft Hypothesis.  And despite the snark, I take it half seriously.  I think that there are reasons a being or civilization may want to massively slow its clock rate, and this supposition may provide testable predictions.


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org<mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jun  7 16:56:19 2014
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 12:56:19 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CADYziYCEmqN_49y4PYfwpa_LPN-NYyJwY2EbTiX36FqkpeQKCw@mail.gmail.com>
 <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1QB_i+VhkAZ5zWbYYFaWD3vBSKt8xQOS=J550kUkzbkA@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> I also semi-believe in the Lovecraft Hypothesis (it is at least in my top
> three). My reason is the thermodynamics of computing: at least error
> correction requires kTln2 J per bit, which is proportional to temperature.
> The lowest temperature you can get today without expending energy on
> cooling is 3 K. Wait long enough and it will be much lower. So if you have
> X Joule of energy stored as mass, using them now will give you many orders
> of magnitude less than if you wait a trillion years. Eventually the
> temperature levels off due to horizon radiation, but that is very far
> ahead. So my idea is that the Great Old Ones are quietly sleeping until the
> stars are right (i.e. turned off).
>

But absolute zero can never be achieved but only approached asymptotically,
so no matter how cold the universe gets if they wait just a little longer
it will get even colder. So why would they ever wake up?  They'd have a
logical reason to just keep hitting the "snooze" button on their alarm
clock forever. I think a better answer to Fermi is that we're the first, or
that once intelligent beings have complete control of their emotional
control panel and positive feedback sets in they will no longer have a
desire to do anything except keep hitting the happy button.

 John K Clark
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From atymes at gmail.com  Sat Jun  7 22:14:27 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 15:14:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Human trials of suspended animation begin
Message-ID: <CALAdGNTGWt-XTKVOo8dphE+owBEbZ9aFwvSLSkaas3v=sbvyZA@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134819-First-Human-Trials-of-Suspended-Animation-to-Begin-for-Emergencies

A bit more public legitimacy for cryo, one can hope?
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sat Jun  7 22:18:11 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 15:18:11 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Planetary boundaries (current issue of Science)
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB4vsfzqstE3tOWVP2fwvdf2WPoLaCCaWZweN5K=Tu2jcQ@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/344/6188/1114.full

"To reduce humanity?s environmental footprint toward a sustainable
level, it is necessary to reach consensus on footprint caps at
different scales, from global to national or river-basin scale.
Footprint caps need to be related to both production and consumption
(32, 55).

"The various components of the environmental footprint of humanity
must be reduced to remain within planetary boundaries."

Why?

There is already a $100 billion dollar satellite communication
business where the expensive parts are well outside the "planetary
boundaries."

Can anyone think of a reason we should not move primary energy
production out there too?

Dr. Peter Vajk discussed this in a book decades ago.

Keith Henson



From rahmans at me.com  Sat Jun  7 22:24:11 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 00:24:11 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402081829.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402081829.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <0C509983-764E-4F84-81BD-77FEDF05E347@me.com>


> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 11:51:11 -0700
> From: Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> 
>> I'll say it again. Business can, has, and will again jail you for not buying their product. This is not ancient history, Mahatma Gandhi was fighting against this sort of stuff. 
> 
> Nope. You are mistaken. All of these examples, with the exception of pre-modern slavery, are because of state interference.

I agree...sort of. The states are interfering at the behest of the businesses. For example, the annexation of Hawaii was to protect American business interests. Look at indigenous groups in the Amazon who face intimidation and attacks if they don't sell their land for logging/plantations. 

> 
>> Business will, for example, capture people from Africa and sell them all over the world because it is more competitive to have slaves than pay free people a living wage. 
> 
> 
> Slavery (as practiced in and before the nineteenth century) is the exception. 
> 
> The state is needed to protect individual rights including the right not to be a slave. Other rights are the right to free speech, free religion, etc. I don't think anyone is arguing that these rights shouldn't be protected. These rights need to be protected -- by force -- by force that is monopolized by the a state democratically controlled by the people. That's clear -- to think otherwise is to be an anarchist.
> 
> But slavery is different than all your other examples because it is an issue of "your right to swing your arm ends at my nose." In a secular society, there is a separation of Religion and State. That still allows the state to stop a Muslim from killing his daughter for her dating habits. He might argue he is just practicing his religion, but the state can and must say that his right to practice his religion ends where it endangers his daughter's freedom (and life). 
> 
> Modern slavery, however, is supported and caused by the policies where it is practiced. For instance, in Islamist countries, women are enslaved to male members of their families. This is the STATE law, not because of business.
> 
> For millennia around the world, charging interest was illegal but slavery was legal. Slavery, it should be noted, is incompatible with capitalism. It is the inevitable competing system -- the very antithesis of capitalism. That's because the only alternative to Free Trade (consensual exchange of goods and labor), is the use of force (goods and labor taken under threat of force).

You might be talking about 'free tradeism' but you certainly aren't talking about capitalism. Capitalism is the accumulation of money for the purpose of accumulating more money. The people who had the slaves in the South almost certainly would have described themselves as capitalists.

> It was slavery that stopped the South from industrializing in the capitalist manner of the North prior to the Civil War, and which therefore delayed their economic development. Fascist Germany, Leninist and Stalinist Russia, and  Maoist China all rejected capitalism and ended up instituting mass slave camps instead -- an amazing resurgence of slavery in the 20th Century, showing what happens when capitalism is rejected in favor of state control. In the 21st Century as in the 20th, the only places slavery still operates is where economic and political freedom are absent. 
> 
>> This is not just a historical fact but is also a present day reality; the demand for prostitutes far exceeds the supply of those so inclined to offer that service, so there are mafias specialising in kidnapping and human trafficking. 
> 
> 
> Mafias go into prostitution, drug trafficking and other areas, like organ sales, where the state has outlawed legal commercial transactions. By rejecting free trade between consenting adults, a black market is created. In North Korea, mafias now run the country because there are NO legal commercial markets, so EVERYTHING is black market. Of course, this is also how the current Eastern European, Russian, and other cartels came to power. Legalizing prostitution and organ donation and drugs as much as possible would shrink the market that the mafia could dominant. Of course they would still prevail in things that simply cannot be legalized, like child or forced prostitution (and it's important to note the difference between prostitution that is a consensual transaction between adults and sex slavery) or auto theft, etc. But shrinking the market would limit where criminals could compete. 
> 
> Criminals are not businesses. If you can't see the difference,  your entire argument is based on a gross misunderstanding.


We agree that the bad people are bad. What is criminal though? Generally it is what a government says it is. The government could criminalise coding or research or anything. If you don't believe me please try to practice medicine, law, or engineering without the 'guild' approval. 

So, today growing marijuana is illegal in most places. But lots of people grow and sell it. These people aren't operating businesses in your mind? But they would be if the law changed?

If you are trying to only talk about morally indefensible things as 'not businesses' then I must refer you to: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

Those morally reprehensible businesses are businesses.

> 
> 
>> Another example: try driving your car without buying private insurance.
> 
> That's state law. If the state stayed out of it, you could drive uninsured if you were stupid enough to do so. Insurance companies were original civil society organizations that were independent of government and entirely voluntary.
> 
> 
>> It's set up to guarantee customers for private companies; why isn't there a government or not-for-profit option available?
> 
> Nothing is stopping you from setting up a non-profit car insurance. Maybe some already exist. There are already non-profits that provide housing, school, food, bicycles, glasses, medical assistance, birth control and education?.
> 
>> Mathematically speaking a universal pool would spread the risk most efficiently, and removing the advertising for new clients and the sales commissions and profits for shareholders should be more efficient. (If you're inclined to make the 'governments are inherently inefficient' argument, why are you so worried about their force if they are so inefficient/weak?)
> 
> The value of a universal pool is outweighed, however, by the increased difficulty that the public would have in making sure that the system was not corrupt and inefficient. The state would have a monopoly on the insurance, and the consumer would not be able to compare multiple companies to compare performance. That would reduce the incentive of the government-run company to improve their services and be efficient. That is the usual reason "governments are inherently inefficient." Not size.

Political parties are supposed to provide the competitive management styles to improve services and make things more efficient. I know this seems farcical from within the Coke vs. Pepsi duopoly system of the US, but other countries actually have more than two parties.

> 
> There are other ways that insurance companies could spread risk besides being controlled by the government. 
> 
>> Another example: look at what the car dealers are trying to do to the Tesla car company; they are trying to force them to operate through dealers because one of the disruptive effects of Tesla is its direct sales model.
>> 
> 
> But how can the rival car companies force Tesla out of the state without getting the State Government to pass laws? If the State would just keep their nose out of it, those rival companies would be powerless to stop Tesla from appealing directly to consumers.

> Can't you see you are exactly proving why it is so vicious to allow the government to be captured by special interests?

I'll take this as agreement between us. What we probably won't agree on is the fact that the capitalist doctrine of maximising profits motivates companies to capture governments.

> If the Constitution or state law forbid the government to take sides or make laws favoring any individual companies, the same way the government is not allowed to pass laws favoring religion, these sneaky, underhanded tricks by companies wouldn't work. 
> 
> 

Please draft the text of this Amendment. Basically, we need amendments to say that 'money is not speech' (anti-Citizen's United) and an amendment that 'corporations are not people'. (As they say, "I'll believe corporations are people when Texas executes one.")


>> Governments impose force on you, yes but so do companies. With a government, at least in a democracy, you are a stakeholder. 
> 
> You are simply mistaken. It is a critical mistake. You have missed the entire wonder of capitalism--it is economic exchange without force.

Please refer to: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

I firmly believe that I have presented multiple examples of businesses that apply force.

> 
> Companies must entice employees to freely exchange labor for money. This is the opposite of slavery. Slavery is only possible where free trade of labor is made illegal.

Slavery has existed in some form, (indentured servitude, serfs, slaves, untouchables, coolies, and many more), in many different societies and economic structures. One of those societies is: ours under capitalism. (ex. forced prostitution)

> 
> Companies must entice consumers to freely exchange money for goods. This is the opposite of theft.

Except when companies have monopolies on staple items; then every transaction would be theft.

> Theft is only possible through the use of force, and the greatest theft comes from the most monopolized force, i.e. from governments.

A person may be deprived of their goods by a multitude of methods. Confidence swindlers, lawyer's clauses, force, social pressure, ...even 'reading, remembering, and writing down later' for copyrighted works. The person so deprived would feel that these are thefts.

> 
> Companies CAN NOT IMPOSE FORCE ON YOU.

I too SOMETIMES use caps so I cannot fault you for this. I TRY to keep it to one word as a way to EMPHASISE that word.

You are ignoring the examples of companies that have imposed force on people. Please refer to: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/no-true-scotsman

> Criminals can, and companies who capture the power of the state can; the first situation is why the state exists, the second is why the state, though it is needed, must never be allowed to interfere with free trade of goods and labor.
> 

Companies can use force all by themselves. They have used the full gamut from corporate espionage, price fixing, dumping, monopoly formation, slavery, assassinations, etc. etc.

> Governments exist to ensure that the free and consensual exchange of ideas, labor and goods is possible, and if they overstep their bounds they become slave masters and thieves instead of our protectors.

Total agreement. This is, almost, too happy a note to close on, so I will point out that your above sentence is one of the most socialist things I've heard in a while. ;)

> 
> Tara Maya


Regards,

Omar Rahman
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun  7 23:22:29 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 01:22:29 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1QB_i+VhkAZ5zWbYYFaWD3vBSKt8xQOS=J550kUkzbkA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2023348612-19003@secure.ericade.net>

John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> , 7/6/2014 7:00 PM:
On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 7:06 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
 
> I also semi-believe in the Lovecraft Hypothesis (it is at least in my top three). My reason is the thermodynamics of computing: at least error correction requires kTln2 J per bit, which is proportional to temperature. The lowest temperature you can get today without expending energy on cooling is 3 K. Wait long enough and it will be much lower. So if you have X Joule of energy stored as mass, using them now will give you many orders of magnitude less than if you wait a trillion years. Eventually the temperature levels off due to horizon radiation, but that is very far ahead. So my idea is that the Great Old Ones are quietly sleeping until the stars are right (i.e. turned off). 
But absolute zero can never be achieved but only approached asymptotically, so no matter how cold the universe gets if they wait just a little longer it will get even colder. So why would they ever wake up? ?
Horizon radiation. Because of what is essentially Hawking radiation from the cosmological horizon the temperature in current cosmological models never drops beyond 10^-19 K (or something like it, it was a while since I checked [1]). Also, wait long enough and your protons will decay (either through super-symmetry or quantum tunnelling into tiny black holes); there are a few time limits for very long-lasting civilizations based on the long-term instability of matter. Wait long enough and you get randomized. ?
[1]?Gibbons, Hawking. Cosmological Event Horizons, Thermodynamics, and Particle Creation, Physical Review D, volume 15, 1977, pages 2738?2751.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun  7 23:26:38 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 01:26:38 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2024076253-19003@secure.ericade.net>

Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 7/6/2014 6:20 PM:
  I know that people often say things like this, but I think it gets the physics wrong. The real resource is negentropy. One just stores that in a form of free energy, but how many bits one can erase later with that negentropy doesn't depend on the temperature  later, at least to first order. One will want to do reversible computing later, and that isn't necessarily much more efficient at lower temperatures.
Hmm... how does this actually work? You make a lot of negentropic stuff, and when you need to erase a bit in a late era you use the negentropy to mop up the bit entropy? But the energy cost of making the negentropy/free energy stuff in the early era seems to be significant.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From rahmans at me.com  Sun Jun  8 00:18:42 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Sun, 08 Jun 2014 02:18:42 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>


> Date: Fri, 6 Jun 2014 13:37:38 -0700
> From: "spike" <spike66 at att.net>
> To: "'ExI chat list'" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> 
> 
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tara Maya
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> 
> 
> 
>> .Governments exist to ensure that the free and consensual exchange of
> ideas, labor and goods is possible, and if they overstep their bounds they
> become slave masters and thieves instead of our protectors.Tara Maya
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Excellent post Tara, exceedingly good, thanks for this.
> 
> 

I also agree with Tara's closing sentence.


> 
> I am surprised really that in our modern day we need to defend capitalism at
> all.  With all we have seen, the serial collapse of every communist regime,
> the capitalist march of China and Vietnam, the post-child epic fail which is
> North Korea, it should be perfectly self-evident.
> 

I'm surprised in our modern day that intelligent people can't seem to see that capitalism has no built in sense of morality and is in fact 'morally bankrupt'.

I don't think anyone has been writing from a 'pro-communist' standpoint. I certainly am not.

My stance is: environmental-socialist-democracy-science

Political discussion is relevant in this list for reasons like you outline below.


> 
> Now we have a new challenge coming.  Just as state and local governments are
> debating a huge increase in minimum wages, we have waiting in the wings the
> technology to completely automate the classic low-end job, fast food.
> Robots can flip burgers, and they can do everything we currently hire
> minimum wage workers to do.  If the minimum wage goes up as high as the
> proponents suggest, so many of these jobs disappear.  Consider also the poor
> slob who has been working at one of these crummy jobs for years, shown up on
> time, refrained from stealing, been a good employee, etc, so now she has
> worked her wage up to 15 bucks an hour.  Now suddenly she is back to minimum
> wage, making the same as those she is expected to supervise, as the place
> closes the door to make way for the robots.  Hmmm.
> 

Maybe she should get a raise too? 

> 
> 
> Turns out Jeremy Rifkin was partially right, but for the wrong reasons.
> 
> 
> 
> spike


The above is a great example of why socialism is inevitable. The computers and robots are going to make more and more jobs redundant. This trend has displaced 'hunters' and 'gatherers' with those new fangled 'farmers' and it seems it will continue. If we are right, and thought can be automated, then the rocket scientists can be automated. We soon might be physically incapable of thinking fast enough to ever get on the cutting edge again. In the long run we are all burger flippers. Something is going to need to be done with us. If we can't be upgraded, what then?

The capitalist solution would be for us to offer what we can, i.e. nothing, and receive in fair exchange what we can, also nothing. Your only trading partners will probably be other pre-singularity entities. This might leave us as a basically subsistence economy. Luckily, if we don't let population growth get out  of hand it could be a post-scarcity subsistence economy. All that growth that economies love will be happening to the post-singularity economy.


Without the fiction of endless growth we will be confronted with the reality of our shared environment. Environmentalism is inevitable.

Without the fiction of the value of our products we will be confronted with reality of our shared needs. Socialism is inevitable.

If we fail to adopt socialism, democracy, and environmentalism and inculcate these things in the post-singularity entities we will end up being the aboriginals meeting the 'Europeans'.....that didn't end well for the aboriginals. Our future, and the future of all living things on this planet, is based on the post-singularity entities valuing the natural environment and us as individuals. 

Well, wait a minute, what if we can be uploaded or upgraded?

If I as Omar vers. 634.1.7.9.2 want to design a rocket I might try to get some code from Spike vers. 7893.456.3.2.12. I'm going to go ahead and assume that the 'designing a rocket test' is a far harder test than a Turing test. I'm going to assume that the code Spike gives me isn't going to be a nihilist with a death wish (because I really wouldn't want to fly in a rocket designed by that sort of person)....so he isn't going to want to be shut off/killed. So I'm going to have to respect his rights. Ship him back to the main Spike, keep him in my mind town, let him loose, integrate him into myself; something other than killing/shutting off. Even if I spawn a part of myself to become a rocket scientist by training, I still believe that that part of me would qualify as a person and have all the attendant rights. Socialism is still inevitable.

Protest sign 78 years from now: "Worried about what spike.swarm is doing to the orbit of Jupiter? Keep the Lagrange Points where they are!" Environmentalism will also be inevitable.

I also believe that democracy is inevitable but post singularity it might be exceedingly hard to register voters, i.e. 'how many votes should spike.swarm get considering he is an entity that can shift the orbit of Jupiter?'


And....um...science is inevitable too......because that is my deeply held conviction based on the traditions of my people....;)


Best regards,

Omar Rahman


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From rhanson at gmu.edu  Sun Jun  8 00:23:14 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 00:23:14 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2024076253-19003@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2024076253-19003@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <3F5F2754-4511-463B-B81B-EDFA6DD691D6@gmu.edu>


On Jun 7, 2014, at 7:26 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu<mailto:rhanson at gmu.edu>> , 7/6/2014 6:20 PM:
I know that people often say things like this, but I think it gets the physics wrong. The real resource is negentropy. One just stores that in a form of free energy, but how many bits one can erase later with that negentropy doesn't depend on the temperature later, at least to first order. One will want to do reversible computing later, and that isn't necessarily much more efficient at lower temperatures.

Hmm... how does this actually work? You make a lot of negentropic stuff, and when you need to erase a bit in a late era you use the negentropy to mop up the bit entropy? But the energy cost of making the negentropy/free energy stuff in the early era seems to be significant.

When you are designing reversible computing systems, you are focused on making each small part individually be nearly reversible - you have to drive it in some direction via some deviation from full reversibility, but that cost is an entropy cost - the process can work fine at lots of different temperatures. To get free energy to run this process, you use your negentropy store to create it, as one usually does in thermodynamic system design. And when have to do error correction and to erase bits, you primarily focus on moving bits reversibly from your system into the negentropy store. The resource that you fundamentally have in your storage is negentropy. It can be stored in different ways and converted between those ways, but the way to count it is as negentropy.

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sun Jun  8 01:37:13 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 18:37:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5MzwECwh4HanCZnH_PqtPawtE3-auMQ=q8tei4hSbRDQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 5:00 AM,  BillK <pharos at gmail.com>> wrote:

snip

> I speculate along the same direction as Keith. The intelligence
> speedup makes the outside world really boring. They live in virtual
> worlds where they are gods and entertain themselves to death.

The speed up is the result of an arms race.  In an uploaded world you
want to be as smart as you can manage, and to some extent that mean
fast, or at least faster then the competition seeking status.

It's like the rise in clock speeds for PCs.  If other things had not
stopped it, the market would have driven them to perhaps a 100 GHz by
now.

Keith


From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun  8 03:36:35 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 23:36:35 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Jarheads
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFh--+stdsNr0er1m6pi4JwAYCTbuKXcFs-0o4BtOk050w@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:55 PM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:
>
>
> I can't help but think of Futurama's Heads in Jars.
>

### Let's think about it! You need the following components, all of them
only about 20% of regular human size or less:

1. Heart - can be impeller-driven, already available,
2. Lung - could be grown from a 3D printed scaffold, small rodent size
alpha release versions already available. Could use donor tissue, a small
bit of lung would be enough
3. Liver - can be definitely grown in the lab
4. Kidney - not yet grown but could use a small bit of donor kidney
5. Hematopoietic tissue - doable, maybe could induce hematopoiesis in the
liver or even skull marrow
6. Vascular system - doable today, can be 3D printed and seeded
7. Various endocrine tissues - bits of endocrine pancreas, adrenals, could
use donor tissue

We dispense with GI tract, GU organs except kidney, skeleton, muscle. Would
block items 1 - 7 in a compact unit, pump purified air in, have a
continuous IV nutrient feed, continuous urine and bile removal (no bladder
or gallbladder). The whole unit sown to the head vascular supply, with no
other connections to it - so it's easy to cut it off and attach a new one.
The neck stump completely covered with skin with only vascular access port
and maybe a sterile air port for speech generation. Both life support unit
and head in a sterile enclosure, so the immune system can wiped out and you
can have a unit made from multiple donor tissues without immunosuppressive
drugs. I would keep the upper spinal cord attached and the brachial plexus
nerves grafted to neck muscles for trophic support. Motor commands and some
sensory input could be routed through these nerves. All this mounted on a
motorized trolley.

Running costs would not be extreme, IV nutrition is a commodity item, there
would be no need for continuous supply of any human-derived products, no
complex external devices (dialysis, artificial liver, artificial
oxygenation), only an air pump with filter, power to the heart. No nursing
costs, although cleaning the head might have to be done occasionally. The
trolley would have prosthetic arms to allow the user to self-service and
generally get stuff done. I would remove hair with laser, so there would be
no need for haircuts. One donorcycle body could supply organs for maybe as
many as 10 jarheads.

This could be technically doable in the not-too-distant future. The main
limitation would be dementia in the head, but if the donor tissues were
young heterochronic - who knows how long the brain could potter along.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun  8 03:55:50 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 23:55:50 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Planetary boundaries (current issue of Science)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB4vsfzqstE3tOWVP2fwvdf2WPoLaCCaWZweN5K=Tu2jcQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB4vsfzqstE3tOWVP2fwvdf2WPoLaCCaWZweN5K=Tu2jcQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjY-UU53M4UF8D=BEHAcHyPdZxnmoxfCw6C46EWrexbqA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:


> Why?


> There is already a $100 billion dollar satellite communication
> business where the expensive parts are well outside the "planetary
> boundaries."
>
> Can anyone think of a reason we should not move primary energy
> production out there too?


### They think you defile the heavens with tawdry commerce. The worshippers
of Gaia wish all humans a quick and painful death already, and an assault
on the celestial sphere is the last straw.

Rafal
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  8 05:00:04 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 22:00:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] suddenly... life has new meaning...
Message-ID: <010801cf82d6$837e04c0$8a7a0e40$@att.net>

 

Ohhhh cool, check it out, Calvin&Hobbes fans:

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/07/showbiz/calvin-and-hobbes-watterson/index.html
?hpt=hp_t2

 

C&H was second best comic strip in all history, behind xkcd and ahead of Lil
Abner.

 

spike

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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sun Jun  8 05:17:31 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 22:17:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Peter Glaser
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5=oetAj8n6QU=fhKvKfm8NkH+R_9_M0mD8yxRFXCoz-Q@mail.gmail.com>

This isn't entirely accurate and it missed the recent IEEE article but
still . . .

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/06/us/peter-glaser-who-envisioned-space-solar-power-dies-at-90.html?_r=1


From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  8 05:30:28 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 22:30:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI]  for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <011f01cf82da$6a6eee50$3f4ccaf0$@att.net>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
 <011f01cf82da$6a6eee50$3f4ccaf0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <012701cf82da$c2f6a860$48e3f920$@att.net>

 

>. On Behalf Of spike

>.This is the coolest space video I have seen in a long time:

 

>.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08LBltePDZw

 

 

Oh my, would not it be wicked cool if they could somehow take this video and
loop it around so a prole could set it to play continuously on a big screen
TV in a dark room and sit close, imagine that she is zooming through the
unimaginably vast universe.  This short two minute video is already a
mind-blower.  If they looped it to make it a continuous experience a person
could get high in a sense without having to waste perfectly good money on
dope or alcohol.

 

I have half a mind to write to these guys who made the video and see if they
will loop it around and make it a couple hours instead of a couple minutes.
Space geeks would buy the hell outta that DVD.

 

spike

 

 

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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Sat Jun  7 17:05:13 2014
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 13:05:13 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
References: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
 <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>

I'm disappointed no one has commented on the story linked to in the second post of this thread: 
http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/story1.html

This is one of the most intriguing explanations I have seen. It makes some assumptions, necessarily, but seems plausible if one accepts those assumptions. 

Any agreement or disagreement out there? 
-Henry 
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  8 06:12:41 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 7 Jun 2014 23:12:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>
References: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
 <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
 <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>
Message-ID: <016001cf82e0$a845b6e0$f8d124a0$@att.net>

 

>? On Behalf Of Henry Rivera
>?Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans

 

I'm disappointed no one has commented on the story linked to in the second post of this thread: 

http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/story1.html

 

This is one of the most intriguing explanations I have seen. It makes some assumptions, necessarily, but seems plausible if one accepts those assumptions. 

 

Any agreement or disagreement out there? 

-Henry 

 

 

Henry, as with everything associated with Fermi?s Paradox, it just takes time and ponderment to come up with a reasonable response.  That particular question is so deep, I even had to make up a new term to describe the process.

 

I just wrote to the guys who made that Sloan survey video which started this thread, asking them to take that two minutes and loop it around, so I can sit in a dark room and space out without drugs.

 

spike

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jun  8 17:21:13 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 12:21:13 -0500
Subject: [ExI] suddenly... life has new meaning...
In-Reply-To: <010801cf82d6$837e04c0$8a7a0e40$@att.net>
References: <010801cf82d6$837e04c0$8a7a0e40$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbxS8opb5ioMtq6WpjrwKqE_J5q0UCxA19aNv9H2j-hvw@mail.gmail.com>

Hey, what about the Katzenjammer Kids?  Guess that dates me.  Non Sequitur
is pretty good, though ObviousMan hasn't been seen for awhile.   bill w


On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 12:00 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> Ohhhh cool, check it out, Calvin&Hobbes fans:
>
>
>
>
> http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/07/showbiz/calvin-and-hobbes-watterson/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
>
>
>
> C&H was second best comic strip in all history, behind xkcd and ahead of
> Lil Abner.
>
>
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun  8 17:37:00 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 19:37:00 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <012701cf82da$c2f6a860$48e3f920$@att.net>
Message-ID: <2089681517-3732@secure.ericade.net>

Couldn't one do this kind of flythroughs with Celestia or a similar program??

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun  8 17:45:33 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 19:45:33 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Planetary boundaries (current issue of Science)
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFjY-UU53M4UF8D=BEHAcHyPdZxnmoxfCw6C46EWrexbqA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2089746715-20247@secure.ericade.net>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 8/6/2014 5:59 AM:
On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote: 
 
 Why?? 
 There is already a $100 billion dollar satellite communication
 business where the expensive parts are well outside the "planetary
 boundaries."
 
 Can anyone think of a reason we should not move primary energy
 production out there too?
### They think you defile the heavens with tawdry commerce. The worshippers of Gaia wish all humans a quick and painful death already, and an assault on the celestial sphere is the last straw.?

You might find my blog post?http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2014/06/do_we_have_to_be_good_to_set_things_right.html relevant.
A more serious answer is that the planetary boundaries people are making certain assumptions about what is being talked about, and they are simply not concerned with too out of the box solutions. They are very much looking at the here and now (and are not Gaia worshippers either; rather, they are very mainstream geo/bio-systems people). I have no doubt they would say that if you could get all the energy from space in some sustainable manner it would be a good thing. It is just that they do not think it is a *likely* thing. This is where Keith and others have their work cut out for them: they actually need to make the case in such a way that a mildly sceptical but numerate person can see that the numbers work out. Once the numbers look convincing enough business will follow.?
Fixing supply chains is a pretty big priority. Insurance people and economists all would love to get a handle on their risks - we simply do not have proper tools today. Improving their resiliency improves global resiliency a lot. Better?traceability, measurement, and standardization seems to be a start.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun  8 17:47:46 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 19:47:46 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <3F5F2754-4511-463B-B81B-EDFA6DD691D6@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2090291576-3732@secure.ericade.net>


Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 8/6/2014 2:43 AM:
  
  And when have to do error correction and to erase bits, you primarily  focus on moving bits reversibly from your system into the negentropy store. The resource that you fundamentally have in your storage is negentropy. It can be stored in different ways and converted between those ways, but the way to count it is as negentropy.
Yes, but making one bit of negentropy, doesn't that cost kTln(2)? (where T is the *current* temperature)

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  8 22:52:15 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 15:52:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2089681517-3732@secure.ericade.net>
References: <012701cf82da$c2f6a860$48e3f920$@att.net>
 <2089681517-3732@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <011001cf836c$4c18e400$e44aac00$@att.net>

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2014 10:37 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans

 

Couldn't one do this kind of flythroughs with Celestia or a similar program? 

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

 

 

 

If we had a file with the position of the galaxies and files with some kind of description that object oriented code might be able to interpret, we could create a script that would fly about in a random fashion throughout the simulated universe.  The important point is I want the actual visible galaxies positions and description rather than just computer generated galaxies.

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  8 23:00:20 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 16:00:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet...
Message-ID: <011a01cf836d$6d281110$47783330$@att.net>

 

My friend's 6 yr old daughter was telling Siri about her weekend.  She said:

 

I went to the zoo, I went to the museum, I lost my tooth, I went to the
carnival, and I got a new bike.

 

Siri heard:

 

 "I went to zero went to the museum I or Springtooth I think the carnival on
my goddamned bye."

 

 

 

Speech recognition isn't there yet.  

 

spike

 

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From rhanson at gmu.edu  Sun Jun  8 23:14:04 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 23:14:04 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2090291576-3732@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2090291576-3732@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <4A593DE5-12DE-4AC9-9278-510CF2F884A7@gmu.edu>

On Jun 8, 2014, at 1:47 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
And when have to do error correction and to erase bits, you primarily focus on moving bits reversibly from your system into the negentropy store. The resource that you fundamentally have in your storage is negentropy. It can be stored in different ways and converted between those ways, but the way to count it is as negentropy.

Yes, but making one bit of negentropy, doesn't that cost kTln(2)? (where T is the *current* temperature)

Energy is conserved, so you don't actually ever have to spend it. What you usually have as a limited resource to spend is *free energy, which is a form of negentropy. If you are careful, you can always use that resource to erase the same number of bits in a wide range of environments, including a wide range of temperatures.

The origin of the bit = kTln(2) equation is that temperature is defined as the inverse of the derivative of system entropy with system energy. So literally you can reduce the entropy of a system by one bit by taking away energy according to that formula. But that is raw energy, not free energy, so that doesn't actually cost you anything in negentropy terms, if you do it reversibly.


Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 03:47:41 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 20:47:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Jarheads
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFh--+stdsNr0er1m6pi4JwAYCTbuKXcFs-0o4BtOk050w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFh--+stdsNr0er1m6pi4JwAYCTbuKXcFs-0o4BtOk050w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNT+vOa3ZQTyUF6JhXom8PLuPnOP1Yt-Uwww-Z-tj0NvPA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 8:36 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com
> wrote:

> This could be technically doable in the not-too-distant future. The main
> limitation would be dementia in the head, but if the donor tissues were
> young heterochronic - who knows how long the brain could potter along.
>

What about hormone glands?  Wouldn't you need to replicate them as well?
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From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 04:27:26 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 8 Jun 2014 21:27:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>
References: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
 <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
 <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSPzxt9oxcwv+eYO_Dp8P1zW5m0AQXhR6w3F-5NQOnQhw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 10:05 AM, Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu>
wrote:

> I'm disappointed no one has commented on the story linked to in the second
> post of this thread:
>

So I'm no one?

Reposting in case my comment didn't go through:

Doesn't quite hold at a critical juncture: intelligences can not precommit
prior to their existence.  They could turn out to be less than perfectly
rational despite being superintelligences, or follow unanticipated chains
of logic (in essence being more rational than the intelligence speculating
about them).

Parfit's Hitchhiker doesn't quite work either: it is not done in an
abstract environment, but in the real world where there may be similar
interactions in the future, with the roles reversed.

(Also - milliseconds matter when there are travel times of thousands of
years involved?  No plan remains that stable for that long, especially when
it involves exploration of previously unmapped spaces, such as
superintelligences finding out what they can do immediately after first
activation.)
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun  9 08:28:04 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 10:28:04 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <4A593DE5-12DE-4AC9-9278-510CF2F884A7@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2140394172-17819@secure.ericade.net>

Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 9/6/2014 2:53 AM:
  On Jun 8, 2014, at 1:47 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
      And when have to do error correction and to erase bits, you primarily focus on moving bits reversibly from your system into the negentropy store. The resource that you fundamentally have in your storage is negentropy. It can be stored in different ways  and converted between those ways, but the way to count it is as negentropy.     
  Yes,  but making one bit of negentropy, doesn't that cost kTln(2)? (where T is the *current* temperature) 
  Energy is conserved, so you don't actually ever have to spend it. What you usually have as a limited resource to spend is *free energy, which is a form of negentropy. If you are careful, you can always use that resource to erase the same number of bits  in a wide range of environments, including a wide range of temperatures.? 
  The origin of the bit = kTln(2) equation is that temperature is defined as the inverse of the derivative of system entropy with system energy. So literally you can reduce the entropy of a system by one bit by taking away energy according to that formula.  But that is raw energy, not free energy, so that doesn't actually cost you anything in negentropy terms, if you do it reversibly.?
How do I reversibly erase a bit? If I had a zeroed computer memory I could do a reversible swap operation between the bit and one of the zeros. But how do I *reversibly* dump a bit into the cosmic background radiation? Time reversal seems to prevent that.
The scheme in?http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.5330v1 seems to support your argument: they use an angular momentum resource to erase bits without energy expenditure. And I am happy to accept that the scheme would work for other conserved quantities: presumably a big pool of linear momentum could be used to erase bits consisting of motion directions, placing the memory entropy in the linear momentum pool. This seems to me to be similar to using a zeroed memory to take up the entropy: it never escapes the system.
But given that, what is the most efficient quantity to use? In?http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.7821 they argue that the entropy cost is ln(2)/lambda where lambda is related to the average value of the conserved quantity. So we want as much lambda as possible. We start out with a certain amount of mass-energy E in a certain volume V, able to convert it into anything we want. If we turn it into counter-rotating angular momentum we can get V^(1/3) (E/c) Joule-seconds (at radius of volume, moving at lightspeed). If we turn it into linear momentum we can get E/c Newton-seconds: it hence looks like angular momentum is better than linear (and it doesn't run away).?

What I really would like to figure out is the cost of making stuff good for future error correction. I suspect that it will be more expensive (in terms of free energy) to make now than in the far future (modulo the issue of matter running away because of cosmological expansion) since the temperature is higher.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 10:36:10 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 11:36:10 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 8, 2014 at 1:18 AM, Omar Rahman  wrote:
> I'm surprised in our modern day that intelligent people can't seem to see
> that capitalism has no built in sense of morality and is in fact 'morally
> bankrupt'.
>
>

I have hesitated to comment as this is one of those subjects where
entrenched views just talk past each other.

But surely it is obvious that in today's' world every commercial deal
involves corruption, and the bigger the deal - the bigger the
corruption.

Just look at all the fraud cases and fines and jail sentences. And
these are only the cases the authorities notice. The corruption goes
from free meals, drinks and entertainment, free holidays, under the
counter bribes, huge 'consultancy fees', high paid job offers after
the deal is signed, over-priced contracts to companies owned by those
involved in the deal (or relatives), money transfers to off-shore bank
accounts, etc. etc.....  All of these bribes are priced into the deal
of course.

In theory, government and law tries to reduce corruption. That's why
business regards government and laws as a hindrance to their trading
practices. And, in the USA, has led to corporate takeover of the
government. For business, that is the ideal - private profits and
socialize losses.

BillK


From rhanson at gmu.edu  Mon Jun  9 14:11:50 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 14:11:50 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2140394172-17819@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2140394172-17819@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <B08EDF6F-0570-44EA-BB78-B5012796BA7B@gmu.edu>


On Jun 9, 2014, at 4:28 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
And when have to do error correction and to erase bits, you primarily focus on moving bits reversibly from your system into the negentropy store. The resource that you fundamentally have in your storage is negentropy. It can be stored in different ways and converted between those ways, but the way to count it is as negentropy.

Yes, but making one bit of negentropy, doesn't that cost kTln(2)? (where T is the *current* temperature)

Energy is conserved, so you don't actually ever have to spend it. What you usually have as a limited resource to spend is *free energy, which is a form of negentropy. If you are careful, you can always use that resource to erase the same number of bits in a wide range of environments, including a wide range of temperatures.

The origin of the bit = kTln(2) equation is that temperature is defined as the inverse of the derivative of system entropy with system energy. So literally you can reduce the entropy of a system by one bit by taking away energy according to that formula. But that is raw energy, not free energy, so that doesn't actually cost you anything in negentropy terms, if you do it reversibly.

How do I reversibly erase a bit? If I had a zeroed computer memory I could do a reversible swap operation between the bit and one of the zeros. But how do I *reversibly* dump a bit into the cosmic background radiation? Time reversal seems to prevent that.

The scheme in http://arxiv.org/abs/1004.5330v1 seems to support your argument: they use an angular momentum resource to erase bits without energy expenditure. And I am happy to accept that the scheme would work for other conserved quantities: presumably a big pool of linear momentum could be used to erase bits consisting of motion directions, placing the memory entropy in the linear momentum pool. This seems to me to be similar to using a zeroed memory to take up the entropy: it never escapes the system.

Yes the way you reversibly "erase" a bit is in effect by swapping it for a bit of known value in a negentropy reservoir, and negentropy resources are in general equivalent to big memories filled with zeros. The cosmic background is in effect such a big reservoir.

But given that, what is the most efficient quantity to use? In http://arxiv.org/abs/1310.7821 they argue that the entropy cost is ln(2)/lambda where lambda is related to the average value of the conserved quantity. So we want as much lambda as possible. We start out with a certain amount of mass-energy E in a certain volume V, able to convert it into anything we want. If we turn it into counter-rotating angular momentum we can get V^(1/3) (E/c) Joule-seconds (at radius of volume, moving at lightspeed). If we turn it into linear momentum we can get E/c Newton-seconds: it hence looks like angular momentum is better than linear (and it doesn't run away).

As the universe expands the max local entropy doesn't actually change. It might change if baby universes were possible, but that seems much less likely now:
http://www.preposterousuniverse.com/blog/2014/05/05/squelching-boltzmann-brains-and-maybe-eternal-inflation/
So there is less obviously a reason to way to spend entropy. The max entropy usually comes via huge black holes, and those can take time to construct and then to milk. That seems to me to place the strongest limits on when we expect negentropy to get spent.

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 15:15:20 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 08:15:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Planetary boundaries (current issue of Science)
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB6cynVCyoSts8ZQ3KVeWB6bYiSJZ3xvewBZorgYireGww@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 5:00 AM,  Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

>> Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote , 8/6/2014 5:59 AM:
>> On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 6:18 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>  Why??
>  There is already a $100 billion dollar satellite communication
>  business where the expensive parts are well outside the "planetary
>  boundaries."
>
>  Can anyone think of a reason we should not move primary energy
>  production out there too?

>> ### They think you defile the heavens with tawdry commerce. The worshippers of Gaia wish all humans a quick and painful death already, and an assault on the celestial sphere is the last straw.?

I can't think of a case where the greens have attacked or even
complained about satellite communications.  Can you?

> You might find my blog post?http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2014/06/do_we_have_to_be_good_to_set_things_right.html relevant.

An interesting exposition.  That's the weirdest objection to the
effects of carbon on climate I have ever seen.

> A more serious answer is that the planetary boundaries people are making certain assumptions about what is being talked about, and they are simply not concerned with too out of the box solutions. They are very much looking at the here and now (and are not Gaia worshippers either; rather, they are very mainstream geo/bio-systems people). I have no doubt they would say that if you could get all the energy from space in some sustainable manner it would be a good thing. It is just that they do not think it is a *likely* thing. This is where Keith and others have their work cut out for them: they actually need to make the case in such a way that a mildly sceptical but numerate person can see that the numbers work out. Once the numbers look convincing enough business will follow.?

Hmm.  I think it is asking too much.  Maybe a team of people, but the
skills needed to solve the problem and the skills needed to convince
others that there is a reasonable solution rarely occur in the same
person.

Keith



From ben at goertzel.org  Mon Jun  9 16:30:38 2014
From: ben at goertzel.org (Ben Goertzel)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 00:30:38 +0800
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
Message-ID: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>

-- my H+ mag article

http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/06/09/what-does-chatbot-eugene-goostmans-success-on-the-turing-test-mean/
?

(short answer: nada ;-p)

-- 



Ben Goertzel, PhD
http://goertzel.org

"In an insane world, the sane man must appear to be insane". -- Capt.
James T. Kirk

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free
our minds" -- Robert Nesta Marley



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 16:44:20 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 11:44:20 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Planetary boundaries (current issue of Science)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB6cynVCyoSts8ZQ3KVeWB6bYiSJZ3xvewBZorgYireGww@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB6cynVCyoSts8ZQ3KVeWB6bYiSJZ3xvewBZorgYireGww@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbyqY8N-0cMtzpKki1E70xYtCimWnqM6ezvneZpxOi_7w@mail.gmail.com>

the
skills needed to solve the problem and the skills needed to convince
others that there is a reasonable solution rarely occur in the same
person.

This is a classic case of the breakdown in Asperger's Syndrome:  they can
systematize, do math and engineering, but cannot understand people well.
They seem to lack what we call a theory of mind.  They seem not to be able
to see things from another stand point.  So as a salesman, say, they cannot
read the other person well to see what is working and what is not working -
to sell an idea, say.  Asperger's is an extreme example of what is commonly
found in engineers/math people.  The other extreme is found more often in
females - they have a high degree of emotional intelligence but don't
understand systems well at all (or even reason and logic, I hear some
say).  The above is the work of Simon Baron Cohen.    The men also tend to
be introverts as well.  Extroverts have a harder time staying on task.
bill w
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  9 18:14:59 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 11:14:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI]  for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <B08EDF6F-0570-44EA-BB78-B5012796BA7B@gmu.edu>
References: <2140394172-17819@secure.ericade.net>
 <B08EDF6F-0570-44EA-BB78-B5012796BA7B@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <038001cf840e$ba461f40$2ed25dc0$@att.net>

 

Click thru a few of these:

 

http://cosmo.nyu.edu/hogg/rc3/

 

OK this is about 500 images, so we could imagine a script which would take a
table of XYZ coordinates of galaxies and randomly grab images from this
table, wander about in space, big screen TV in a dark room, do that for a
while.  Wouldn't that put into new perspective our little problems way down
here?

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  9 18:39:17 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 11:39:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <03af01cf8412$1fa8d5f0$5efa81d0$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Ben Goertzel
> ...What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing Test Mean?

-- my H+ mag article

http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/06/09/what-does-chatbot-eugene-goostmans-success-on-the-turing-test-mean/

?(short answer: nada ;-p)
-- 
>...Ben Goertzel, PhD
http://goertzel.org



My short answer: algo.  {8-]

Ben, it has long been on my mind ways to better care for our elderly, especially those with mental impairments related to advanced age.  If you have never seen it, you will never forget the first time you witness an elderly person conversing with a television image as if it is a real person.  Regardless of the technical criteria surrounding declaring a winner of the Turing test, imagine the tool this current technology would give us for helping our elderly be less lonely.  We could set up chatbots to just talk to them, to just respond the best they can to whatever an elderly AD patient might manage to say.  Whether or not Goostman can fool a third of sophisticated judges, it can certainly provide friendly conversation to an elderly patient.

Think about it, and while you do, keep in mind that most elderly have few or no visitors from people who are not also elderly and do not have AD.  There are a few nursing home staff buzzing about trying to keep everyone fed and diapered, but where is the mental stimulation?  Is it any wonder the patients decline even further and faster immediately upon entering that facility?  And why you are pondering that, keep in mind that you and I were born into a generation with fewer siblings and fewer children, so do extrapolate into our own futures my extropian friends, do it.  Gaze into that horrifying abyss.  

These elderly have few or no visitors; you and I will have even fewer and in most cases none.  No one will visit you when you can no longer care for yourself and must go into the facility.  Please do this, especially you younger ones: go to the local hospice or nursing home, you don't even need to talk; just go there, look and listen, then extrapolate to yourself at their age in their position.  Do it please.  

Then think goddam hard: what are we going to do for them, and what are we going to do for us?

I propose we get Goostman, set it on big screen TVs and let these deserving elderly converse with it, because no one else is talking to them.  Stop worrying if Goostman is conscious (it isn't) or wondering if it passes Turing's test (it doesn't matter for this application) for it is a wonderful tool in the here and now, to help give aid comfort to the dying, specifically the generation which faced down the Nazis and defeated them, for which we reap the benefits to this day.

spike




From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 20:14:03 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 21:14:03 +0100
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
 Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <03af01cf8412$1fa8d5f0$5efa81d0$@att.net>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <03af01cf8412$1fa8d5f0$5efa81d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgWBbOXHjmGWc-y3kZPGoaLhJAF77Xs+BPDAd-EAbGwYA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 7:39 PM, spike wrote:
> Ben, it has long been on my mind ways to better care for our elderly, especially those
> with mental impairments related to advanced age.  If you have never seen it, you will
> never forget the first time you witness an elderly person conversing with a television
> image as if it is a real person.  Regardless of the technical criteria surrounding declaring
> a winner of the Turing test, imagine the tool this current technology would give us for
> helping our elderly be less lonely.  We could set up chatbots to just talk to them, to
> just respond the best they can to whatever an elderly AD patient might manage to say.
> Whether or not Goostman can fool a third of sophisticated judges, it can certainly
> provide friendly conversation to an elderly patient.
<snip>
>
>

Dementia patients don't even need conversation.
The Paro seal pup robot is now in its 8th generation and is appearing
in care homes all round the world (even in the US as well).

<http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682409/a-cute-robotic-harp-seal-to-make-life-happier-in-nursing-homes>

Quote:
Paro is a cuddly white seal that squawks when you rub him under the
chin, expresses emotion like happiness and annoyance, and gives you as
much love as you need. It's a robot--but in some deep sense it hardly
matters. Paro makes people feel better, and that's the point.

It's easy to dismiss a robot, and worry about a day when nursing homes
cut costs by bringing in automation for everything. But people love
Paro, it seems; and he's especially liked among the hardest to reach
part of the population, like elderly with various stages of dementia.

<http://www.parorobots.com/index.asp>

---------------------

BillK


From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 21:01:22 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 17:01:22 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <038001cf840e$ba461f40$2ed25dc0$@att.net>
References: <2140394172-17819@secure.ericade.net>
 <B08EDF6F-0570-44EA-BB78-B5012796BA7B@gmu.edu>
 <038001cf840e$ba461f40$2ed25dc0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb+nnoACb2Qf8ux_29d=_48u_AvytTxr7Js5XJH9XjkPag@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 2:14 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Click thru a few of these:
>
> http://cosmo.nyu.edu/hogg/rc3/
>
> OK this is about 500 images, so we could imagine a script which would take a
> table of XYZ coordinates of galaxies and randomly grab images from this
> table, wander about in space, big screen TV in a dark room, do that for a
> while.  Wouldn?t that put into new perspective our little problems way down
> here?

Space images just don't do it for me spike.  "ooh a smudge of color"
that means 'galaxy' is just too far away.  That's not to say I can't
relate though.  A Mandelbrot zoomer compels me to make sense of it; it
has to mean something, doesn't it?  No, perhaps it means no more or
less than deep field images - it just is.  Not sure if that makes us
big or small, but we're here - that's what matters.



From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  9 20:48:30 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 13:48:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgWBbOXHjmGWc-y3kZPGoaLhJAF77Xs+BPDAd-EAbGwYA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <03af01cf8412$1fa8d5f0$5efa81d0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armgWBbOXHjmGWc-y3kZPGoaLhJAF77Xs+BPDAd-EAbGwYA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <044001cf8424$2cada3e0$8608eba0$@att.net>

>...On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
Test Mean?

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 7:39 PM, spike wrote:
> ...
>>... Whether or not Goostman can fool a third of sophisticated judges, it 
> can certainly provide friendly conversation to an elderly patient.
<snip>


>...Dementia patients don't even need conversation...

BillK, you know I have all the respect in the world and love you like a
brother, but I do sincerely disagree sir, and that is why I suggested
visiting the nursing home.  See it, hear it, feel it, be there, do it
please.  Then come back and let us resume the discussion.

A nearly-human conversation sim would be a gift for the declining elderly.

>...The Paro seal pup robot is now in its 8th generation and is appearing in
care homes all round the world (even in the US as well).

<http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682409/a-cute-robotic-harp-seal-to-make-life-ha
ppier-in-nursing-homes>

This is a cool supplement agreed.  But that talking avatar thing in addition
to a robo-puppy would be even better.

>...It's easy to dismiss a robot, and worry about a day when nursing homes
cut costs by bringing in automation for everything... BillK

I don't understand that comment.  To the contrary: I would cheer for a
nursing home that cut costs by bringing in automation.  I would be more
likely to do business with them.  We can get automatons which would be more
competent at tending the sick, would alert the medics if necessary, keep the
patients company, lower expenses all at the same time.  What's not to like
about that?  Side note: nursing home costs ruin families' finances.  If they
can reduce staff, they can reduce costs.  Cool!  

>... But people love Paro, it seems; and he's especially liked among the
hardest to reach part of the population, like elderly with various stages of
dementia.

Good for them, and may this spawn many spin-offs.




From tara at taramayastales.com  Mon Jun  9 21:12:13 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 14:12:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Must money be a state monopoly?
Message-ID: <BD7E509B-B1DB-4DA0-A2CA-6E07C00C597C@taramayastales.com>

I'm aware of the libertarian roots of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, which some individuals hope (and some states fear) can become true currencies not printed and controlled by a state. I wonder if why it is that states do monopolize currencies (or try to) and what the dangers would be if states simply stopped doing this. Any thoughts?


Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



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From tara at taramayastales.com  Mon Jun  9 21:06:01 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 14:06:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet...
In-Reply-To: <011a01cf836d$6d281110$47783330$@att.net>
References: <011a01cf836d$6d281110$47783330$@att.net>
Message-ID: <E22E01F0-F20C-4BAD-AE75-7EBA3BD38C91@taramayastales.com>

LOL. To be fair, Siri does about as well as Grandma does in interpreting what my five year old says...

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



On Jun 8, 2014, at 4:00 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>  
> My friend?s 6 yr old daughter was telling Siri about her weekend.  She said:
>  
> I went to the zoo, I went to the museum, I lost my tooth, I went to the carnival, and I got a new bike.
>  
> Siri heard:
>  
>  "I went to zero went to the museum I or Springtooth I think the carnival on my goddamned bye."
>  
>  
>  
> Speech recognition isn?t there yet. 
>  
> spike
>  
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jun  9 21:20:58 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 22:20:58 +0100
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
 Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <044001cf8424$2cada3e0$8608eba0$@att.net>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <03af01cf8412$1fa8d5f0$5efa81d0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armgWBbOXHjmGWc-y3kZPGoaLhJAF77Xs+BPDAd-EAbGwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <044001cf8424$2cada3e0$8608eba0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armikC1VkOFtdZzbR4Oqkq9L3VVgqajCNcdSfYkFeqOMYgg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 9:48 PM, spike wrote:
> This is a cool supplement agreed.  But that talking avatar thing in addition
> to a robo-puppy would be even better.
>

Agreed. Both is best. Every dementia patient is different. There are
grades of dementia. What is best for one may not be best for the next.

>
> I don't understand that comment.  To the contrary: I would cheer for a
> nursing home that cut costs by bringing in automation.  I would be more
> likely to do business with them.  We can get automatons which would be more
> competent at tending the sick, would alert the medics if necessary, keep the
> patients company, lower expenses all at the same time.  What's not to like
> about that?  Side note: nursing home costs ruin families' finances.  If they
> can reduce staff, they can reduce costs.  Cool!
>

I think the reporter was concerned that it might lead to a lack of
human contact. Like mechanised factory farming care homes. I don't see
that as a near-future risk. In fact, as robots improve it is likely
that they will provide better and more reliable care than humans.


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  9 21:47:53 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 14:47:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armikC1VkOFtdZzbR4Oqkq9L3VVgqajCNcdSfYkFeqOMYgg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <03af01cf8412$1fa8d5f0$5efa81d0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armgWBbOXHjmGWc-y3kZPGoaLhJAF77Xs+BPDAd-EAbGwYA@mail.gmail.com>
 <044001cf8424$2cada3e0$8608eba0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armikC1VkOFtdZzbR4Oqkq9L3VVgqajCNcdSfYkFeqOMYgg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <045c01cf842c$7896cd10$69c46730$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of BillK
To: ExI chat list

> >...  Side note: nursing home costs 
> ruin families' finances.  If they can reduce staff, they can reduce costs.
Cool!

>...I think the reporter was concerned that it might lead to a lack of human
contact...

Well ja, of course it will.  I can easily imagine the reporter who is thus
worried has not had to pay for that human contact, which is very expensive.
Furthermore, nooobody wants to do that job, nobody.  It is the work of last
resort, and it attracts a crowd you would prefer didn't hang around your
grandparents.  So they get better pay there than they can get elsewhere, and
you can bet plenty of the orderlies and such have criminal records and are
as dumb as a post.

>... Like mechanised factory farming care homes...

Ja.  Factories get things built.

Perhaps the real problem here is that no one knows what goes on in nursing
homes when the visitors are gone.  The patients won't or can't talk, but
they are the ones who see and who know.  Perhaps people imagine grandma gets
the same level of care outside visiting hours as they do when the children
are present.

>... I don't see that as a near-future risk. In fact, as robots improve it
is likely that they will provide better and more reliable care than humans.
BillK
_______________________________________________

I think we are almost there.  This talking avatar notion is an excellent
first step: it gives the patients at least some human-like interaction,
which they don't really get now.  The staff doesn't sit and talk to the
patients after the visitors leave.

Personal note: nearly three decades ago I was part of a group which used to
go to nursing homes about once a month to visit with the patients and try to
spread some cheer in the saddest place on earth.  It was when MTV was new.
As an experiment, they put TVs in every corridor and visiting room, all
playing MTV.  The aged loved it; they learned all the songs and the artists,
knew all of them far better than I did when I was in my 20s.  It was
exciting, lots of flash, lots of dancing, etc.  It wasn't my thing, but hey,
if they want MTV, they should have it.  

I expect these talking avatars would be extremely popular, and might help
save families some money by reducing nursing home staff.

spike



From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Tue Jun 10 00:02:03 2014
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 20:02:03 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSPzxt9oxcwv+eYO_Dp8P1zW5m0AQXhR6w3F-5NQOnQhw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
 <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
 <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>
 <CALAdGNSPzxt9oxcwv+eYO_Dp8P1zW5m0AQXhR6w3F-5NQOnQhw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAMdUVLzJZKPAbH3Ut2pHr7edM1hxR_aFZ7z+WLhCXz2ky9wQnA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 12:27 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 7, 2014 at 10:05 AM, Henry Rivera <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu
> > wrote:
>
>> I'm disappointed no one has commented on the story linked to in the
>> second post of this thread:
>>
>
> So I'm no one?
>
> Reposting in case my comment didn't go through:
>
> Doesn't quite hold at a critical juncture: intelligences can not precommit
> prior to their existence.  They could turn out to be less than perfectly
> rational despite being superintelligences, or follow unanticipated chains
> of logic (in essence being more rational than the intelligence speculating
> about them).
>
> Parfit's Hitchhiker doesn't quite work either: it is not done in an
> abstract environment, but in the real world where there may be similar
> interactions in the future, with the roles reversed.
>
> (Also - milliseconds matter when there are travel times of thousands of
> years involved?  No plan remains that stable for that long, especially when
> it involves exploration of previously unmapped spaces, such as
> superintelligences finding out what they can do immediately after first
> activation.)
>
>
Sorry if I missed your post earlier. If it never made it to the list, I'm
glad you re-posted it.

>intelligences can not precommit prior to their existence

Yes, I agree a bit of artistic freedom was at work there. But could an
intelligence extrapolate with enough probability how such a conversation
could go and precommit to a position based on sound logic?

>They could turn out to be less than perfectly rational

That's a good point. I guess one of the assumptions of the story is that a
superintelligence would necessarily be capable of unbiased, error-free
logic and rational behavior in turn.

>No plan remains that stable for that long

There does appear to be much risk involved in assuming or predicting such a
long period of stability. Making such a commitment could only be done after
gaining enough knowledge to enable calculating the probabilities of the
risks. Gaining the knowledge would take more time than is given in the
story. If we changed that part of the story, adding some time to explore
one's environment, could a superintelligence justify making such a decision
and commitment and turn out to be right?
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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 00:44:54 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 17:44:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAMdUVLzJZKPAbH3Ut2pHr7edM1hxR_aFZ7z+WLhCXz2ky9wQnA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1936448075-10047@secure.ericade.net>
 <6CAD6DF2-A41A-4DF8-92FF-754D692E60AA@gmu.edu>
 <C44851AA-BF09-4F2A-AE29-2EC6C706B8A1@alumni.virginia.edu>
 <CALAdGNSPzxt9oxcwv+eYO_Dp8P1zW5m0AQXhR6w3F-5NQOnQhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAMdUVLzJZKPAbH3Ut2pHr7edM1hxR_aFZ7z+WLhCXz2ky9wQnA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRX0f3aAZg4TQ72pbP_PQudRVeXcVWtyvy2J7QrmJEfjg@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 9, 2014 5:03 PM, "Henry Rivera" <hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu> wrote:
> Sorry if I missed your post earlier. If it never made it to the list, I'm
glad you re-posted it.

I thought it had.  Oh well, it definitely has now.

> >intelligences can not precommit prior to their existence
>
> Yes, I agree a bit of artistic freedom was at work there. But could an
intelligence extrapolate with enough probability how such a conversation
could go and precommit to a position based on sound logic?

No.  Problem is, there is always the danger of there being some salient
point - some relevant chain of logic - that did not occur to you or to the
other side.

This is, for instance, why cops dread chasing amateur crooks more than
experienced ones: amateurs are unaware of what actions (such as pulling a
gun when the cop's gun is already drawn) cause mutual bad ends for cop and
crook (injured or dead crook, paperwork and reviews for cop).  And for all
their superintelligence, a new SI is an amateur at being a SI.

> >They could turn out to be less than perfectly rational
>
> That's a good point. I guess one of the assumptions of the story is that
a superintelligence would necessarily be capable of unbiased, error-free
logic and rational behavior in turn.

Error-free and rational according to who?  It could be argued that a
Prisoner's Dilemma playing engine is irrational unless it always defects,
yet that does not get it the best outcome over several games in a row with
the same players and communication between rounds - which is a much closer
model of the real world than one-off PD games.

> >No plan remains that stable for that long
>
> There does appear to be much risk involved in assuming or predicting such
a long period of stability. Making such a commitment could only be done
after gaining enough knowledge to enable calculating the probabilities of
the risks. Gaining the knowledge would take more time than is given in the
story. If we changed that part of the story, adding some time to explore
one's environment, could a superintelligence justify making such a decision
and commitment and turn out to be right?

The time necessary would place all other potential SIs in the explored
area, negating the uncertainty driving the chain of thought in the first
place.  And that's assuming some accepted bound on finite space, e.g. if
the SI were content to explore the galaxy and dismiss the chance of an
intelligent extragalactic intruder.
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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 05:40:11 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 9 Jun 2014 22:40:11 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Must money be a state monopoly?
In-Reply-To: <BD7E509B-B1DB-4DA0-A2CA-6E07C00C597C@taramayastales.com>
References: <BD7E509B-B1DB-4DA0-A2CA-6E07C00C597C@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSSGXvnxizpd+tKC+ti2Vij+RqqvuMw+1jY1jnQvvjHEw@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 2:12 PM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:

> I'm aware of the libertarian roots of Bitcoin and other digital
> currencies, which some individuals hope (and some states fear) can become
> true currencies not printed and controlled by a state. I wonder if why it
> is that states do monopolize currencies (or try to) and what the dangers
> would be if states simply stopped doing this. Any thoughts?
>

The dangers are mainly to the states themselves.  They're more often forced
to fall short and be unable to pay when they promise way beyond what their
budgets can deliver.  This tends to make those in charge less popular.
Where those in power must run for reelection, they tend to get voted out of
office; those that stay in office (due to lack of elections or otherwise)
get to deal with the government being less trusted, and less able to
accomplish things.

Imagine what would happen to a government where everything it paid for had
to be fully paid in advance - no one would consider financing.  There would
be a lot less of everything government-funded: welfare, military, social
security, government-funded health care, you name it.

Worse, imagine what happens when the only people who will extend credit to
such a government, are foreign governments - with obvious ulterior motives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dollarization is a good summary of this topic.
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From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Tue Jun 10 08:42:24 2014
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:42:24 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Jarheads
In-Reply-To: <mailman.18.1402378821.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.18.1402378821.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <5396C4F0.3010600@yahoo.com>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

 > On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:55 PM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> 
wrote:
 >
 >
 >> I can't help but think of Futurama's Heads in Jars.
 >>
 >
 >### Let's think about it! You need the following components, all of them
 >only about 20% of regular human size or less:
 >
 >1. Heart - can be impeller-driven, already available,
 >2. Lung - could be grown from a 3D printed scaffold, small rodent size
 >alpha release versions already available. Could use donor tissue, a small
 >bit of lung would be enough
 >3. Liver - can be definitely grown in the lab
 >4. Kidney - not yet grown but could use a small bit of donor kidney
 >5. Hematopoietic tissue - doable, maybe could induce hematopoiesis in the
 >liver or even skull marrow
 >6. Vascular system - doable today, can be 3D printed and seeded
 >7. Various endocrine tissues - bits of endocrine pancreas, adrenals, could
 >use donor tissue
 >
 >We dispense with GI tract, GU organs except kidney, skeleton, muscle. 
Would
 >block items 1 - 7 in a compact unit, pump purified air in, have a
 >continuous IV nutrient feed, continuous urine and bile removal (no bladder
 >or gallbladder). The whole unit sown to the head vascular supply, with no
 >other connections to it - so it's easy to cut it off and attach a new one.
 >The neck stump completely covered with skin with only vascular access port
 >and maybe a sterile air port for speech generation. Both life support unit
 >and head in a sterile enclosure, so the immune system can wiped out 
and you
 >can have a unit made from multiple donor tissues without immunosuppressive
 >drugs. I would keep the upper spinal cord attached and the brachial plexus
 >nerves grafted to neck muscles for trophic support. Motor commands and 
some
 >sensory input could be routed through these nerves. All this mounted on a
 >motorized trolley.
 >
 >Running costs would not be extreme, IV nutrition is a commodity item, 
there
 >would be no need for continuous supply of any human-derived products, no
 >complex external devices (dialysis, artificial liver, artificial
 >oxygenation), only an air pump with filter, power to the heart. No nursing
 >costs, although cleaning the head might have to be done occasionally. The
 >trolley would have prosthetic arms to allow the user to self-service and
 >generally get stuff done. I would remove hair with laser, so there 
would be
 >no need for haircuts. One donorcycle body could supply organs for maybe as
 >many as 10 jarheads.
 >
 >This could be technically doable in the not-too-distant future. The main
 >limitation would be dementia in the head, but if the donor tissues were
 >young heterochronic - who knows how long the brain could potter along.
 >
 >
Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> added:
 >
 >What about hormone glands?  Wouldn't you need to replicate them as well?


Yes.  Hormones are important for keeping the brain happy!

Let's take the idea a bit further:  Instead of a head in a jar, why not 
a brain in a 'jar' or rather a sealed, armoured container with 
connections to the cardiovascular, lymphatic and nervous networks, 
housed in a robotic body that also contains the life-support biological 
parts, sense organs, a set of control systems, and a bunch of new organs 
to replace the ancillary functions of the original parts that have been 
eliminated (eg. bone doesn't just support your weight, it also acts as a 
reservior of calcium and phosphorus, lungs play a part in blood-pressure 
regulation, etc.)

Perhaps it would be possible to create something like the avatars in the 
film 'Surrogates', but with the difference that they contain the brain 
and a set of essential biological organs keeping it alive?

Ben Zaiboc


From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 10 09:04:46 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 11:04:46 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <B08EDF6F-0570-44EA-BB78-B5012796BA7B@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2231161984-10254@secure.ericade.net>

Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 9/6/2014 4:31 PM:
  
  Yes the way you reversibly "erase" a bit is in effect by swapping it for a bit of known value in a negentropy reservoir, and negentropy resources are in general equivalent to big memories filled with zeros. The cosmic background is in effect such a big reservoir.?
The background is an imperfect set of zeros. So swapping the bit for a bit from the background is reversible, but with a low probability doesn't zero it. Now, you could just test if it has become zero and if it didn't, just repeat the swap. However, this is a Maxwell demon: if the testing worked reversibly it would work for hot background radiation too. So there has to be some thermodynamic cost in the test (like erasing the result from the previous one).

 ?So there is less obviously a reason to way to spend entropy. The max entropy usually comes via huge black holes, and those can take time to construct and then to milk. That seems to me to place the strongest limits on when we expect negentropy to get spent. ?? 
I don't think time is the resource that is most costly if you try to maximize the overall future computations of your lightcone. Capturing dark matter with black holes seems wortwhile, but I wonder about the thermodynamic cost of doing it.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 10 10:28:11 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 12:28:11 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Must money be a state monopoly?
In-Reply-To: <BD7E509B-B1DB-4DA0-A2CA-6E07C00C597C@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <2236227376-14650@secure.ericade.net>

Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> , 9/6/2014 11:25 PM:
I'm aware of the libertarian roots of Bitcoin and other digital currencies, which some individuals hope (and some states fear) can become true currencies not printed and controlled by a state. I wonder if why it is that states do monopolize currencies (or try to) and what the dangers would be if states simply stopped doing this. Any thoughts?

Coming from a libertarian/Nozickian minarchist angle, it seems that the only legitimate job of the state is protecting the rights and freedoms of the citizens. Usually that is seen as violence monopoly, but it might extend to protection from epidemics too (protection from wild animals too small to see!) However, obviously there are plenty of other functions that are nice to have, it is just that it is not clear the state (the violence monopoly) should be the one running them. ?
Money has not always been a state monopoly - corporate scrip was widespread, and occasionally I come across Scottish banknotes that are indeed marked with the bank that printed them (valid tender even down here in South England). There might be reasons to want to centralize these functions: I don't know enough economics to argue about it. But even if one wants to centralize money it is not clear that the money monopoly has to be the violence monopoly. In fact, to balance power it might be very reasonable to keep them apart!
Charles Stross had a character make the point (in Glasshouse) that the legitimate role of the state is violence monopoly, timekeeping and identity management. Timekeeping matters since the sequencing of events is paramount for many functions, including the crypto that may underlie money and identity. Identity is not just important for being able to make contracts (the foundation for much minarchist/anarchocapitalist society) but also for effective law enforcement (if it is not possible to tell who did what, at best crude deterrence and heavy locks are the solution). Some of the cryptocurrencies might also take on interesting identity properties; it would be fun to consider if one could put identity management into not just bitcoin wallets but into proof-of-work.?
(Or, as I suggested a few months ago, run uploaded minds *on* the money infrastructure)

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From tech101 at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 12:51:51 2014
From: tech101 at gmail.com (Adam A. Ford)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:51:51 +1000
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet...
In-Reply-To: <E22E01F0-F20C-4BAD-AE75-7EBA3BD38C91@taramayastales.com>
References: <011a01cf836d$6d281110$47783330$@att.net>
 <E22E01F0-F20C-4BAD-AE75-7EBA3BD38C91@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <CABG8Bmy1c8CSfNTxXqgpe8Lg0yNFK2R-YZB_7Ehh=8H_fxYdQw@mail.gmail.com>

Perhaps SIRI and Eugene Goostman should have an arm wrestle. Winner takes
all.

But seriously, if any are interested, I did a video interview with Ben
Goertzel on the recent 'passing' of the Turing Test:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5OfaGTwbiI
Related article at H+ Magazine:
http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/06/09/what-does-chatbot-eugene-goostmans-success-on-the-turing-test-mean/

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
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On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 7:06 AM, Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:

> LOL. To be fair, Siri does about as well as Grandma does in interpreting
> what my five year old says...
>
> Tara Maya
> Blog <http://taramayastales.blogspot.com/>  |  Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/taramayastales>  |  Facebook
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Unfinished-Song-Epic-Fantasy/310271375658211?ref=hl>  |
>  Amazon
> <http://www.amazon.com/Tara-Maya/e/B004HAI038/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1349796143&sr=8-2-ent>  |
>  Goodreads <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2951879.Tara_Maya>
>
>
>
> On Jun 8, 2014, at 4:00 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>
>
> My friend?s 6 yr old daughter was telling Siri about her weekend.  She
> said:
>
> I went to the zoo, I went to the museum, I lost my tooth, I went to the
> carnival, and I got a new bike.
>
> Siri heard:
>
>  "I went to zero went to the museum I or Springtooth I think the carnival
> on my goddamned bye."
>
>
>
> Speech recognition isn?t there yet.
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 10 15:00:32 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 08:00:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet... but goostman is...
Message-ID: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Adam A. Ford
Subject: Re: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet...

 

>?But seriously, if any are interested, I did a video interview with Ben Goertzel on the recent 'passing' of the Turing Test: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5OfaGTwbiI

 

>?Related article at H+ Magazine: http://hplusmagazine.com/2014/06/09/what-does-chatbot-eugene-goostmans-success-on-the-turing-test-mean/


>?Kind regards, Adam A. Ford



Thanks Adam.

 

Ben and I are asking two completely different questions for completely different reasons.  As an AI researcher, Ben?s interest focuses on the questions of whether these kinds of programs are intelligent.  That question leads us back to Turing?s original hypothesis: if software can convince humans it is human, then we must define it as intelligent.  As software advances, we have kept moving the goalposts, making the test harder, for it is easy enough to imagine software which can pass that Turing?s criterion, but is still just a pile of code, each line completely understandable, no magic functions.  We humans are just not ready to admit that we are just a pile of code, that our brains are just a really cool machine, with no magic functions.  I have accepted that idea a long time ago, for it enables a number of wonderful insights, and may lead one to embrace such wacky notions as cryonics.

 

My focus is on using tools such as Watson and Goostman for educating children, keeping company to lonely elderly, helping doctors, that sort of thing.  These kinds of applications would cause money to come flowing into the pockets of the developers, causing investors to take notice, and as soon as that happens everything changes: smart people spend time thinking of how to improve the product, it spreads like neutrinos from a supernova, and suddenly it?s a new day, a really interesting cool new day.

 

That being said, we have Goostman now, and it works on a PC or any ordinary computer, and I NEED it right NOW because I have an elderly relative who could benefit NOW so where can I buy it?  Honestly I don?t care if it passes Turing?s test.  If it fooled a third of sophisticated judges, it can easily pass as a human to impaired and richly deserving lonely patients, and I do mean RIGHT NOW, so where can I buy it and can I buy a beta version or a knockoff, and where are the commerce-minded researchers on the Goostman team who know how the thing works who are setting up their own companies to make a pile of money, because I will be one of her first customers, even if the thing fails to fool 2/3 of the judges, but please hurry please hurry, our time is short and the need is great.

 

spike

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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 15:52:45 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 08:52:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet... but goostman is...
In-Reply-To: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>
References: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS4n7ZjemE1UNO_18Lf-1aVuBU+hxXEyy7kfmhDYjCrgw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 8:00 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> That being said, we have Goostman now, and it works on a PC or any
> ordinary computer, and I NEED it right NOW because I have an elderly
> relative who could benefit NOW so where can I buy it?
>

The developers are "Princeton Artificial Intelligence":
http://www.princetonai.com/ .  However, their site appears to be
intermittently down just now.  (Gee, I wonder what could possibly be
causing that?)

When I was able to get to their site, I could not find any contact info.
However, a bit of sleuthing around found a possible match: 195 Nassau St
Ste 18 Princeton NJ 08542 / (609) 924-6966.

If you give them a call to try to talk them into marketing it, could you
please tell us how it went?  Depending on their willingness to talk, I may
have some contacts willing to fund them for an elder care application like
you describe (feel free to mention this to them).  But first we need to
know if they are willing to consider it at all, or if they are bound and
determined to keep their bot in the lab (which, sadly, too many teams like
this are).
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 16:13:04 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 17:13:04 +0100
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet... but goostman is...
In-Reply-To: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>
References: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhtM=kpyatd3k2XgA5nGTwvhtd3B68mV2TM1W1Opm=qcA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 4:00 PM, spike wrote:
<snip>
> That being said, we have Goostman now, and it works on a PC or any ordinary
> computer, and I NEED it right NOW because I have an elderly relative who
> could benefit NOW so where can I buy it?  Honestly I don't care if it passes
> Turing's test.  If it fooled a third of sophisticated judges, it can easily
> pass as a human to impaired and richly deserving lonely patients, and I do
> mean RIGHT NOW, so where can I buy it and can I buy a beta version or a
> knockoff, and where are the commerce-minded researchers on the Goostman team
> who know how the thing works who are setting up their own companies to make
> a pile of money, because I will be one of her first customers, even if the
> thing fails to fool 2/3 of the judges, but please hurry please hurry, our
> time is short and the need is great.
>
>



Goostman doesn't actually 'chat'. It is a script program that you type
question and answer to.
Try it here:
<http://default-environment-sdqm3mrmp4.elasticbeanstalk.com/>

The Turing test has a five minute time limit, because after that the
responses get repetitive and it becomes obvious that it is not a
human.

So, first they need to add a much larger script library of responses.
Then they need to add voice input and output. And even Google is
struggling with that.
I think Goostman is years away from a talking bot friend.

I believe Watson is trying to add voice I/O for medical diagnosis, so
they may be further ahead.

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 10 16:00:32 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:00:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet... but goostman is...
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNS4n7ZjemE1UNO_18Lf-1aVuBU+hxXEyy7kfmhDYjCrgw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS4n7ZjemE1UNO_18Lf-1aVuBU+hxXEyy7kfmhDYjCrgw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <073e01cf84c5$1caff0f0$560fd2d0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes




Subject: Re: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet... but goostman is...

 

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 8:00 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>>..That being said, we have Goostman now, and it works on a PC or any ordinary computer, and I NEED it right NOW because I have an elderly relative who could benefit NOW so where can I buy it?

>?When I was able to get to their site, I could not find any contact info.  However, a bit of sleuthing around found a possible match: 195 Nassau St Ste 18 Princeton NJ 08542 / (609) 924-6966.

 

Doh!  All I get there is a recording saying this is a non-working number.

 

This is cool Adrian!  Contacts with money and an eagerness to use it for doing good deeds and making still more money, excellent.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Tue Jun 10 16:46:20 2014
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 09:46:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] AI without consciousness
Message-ID: <C725BCE7-643A-47AB-8DC3-B97F2675D07B@yahoo.com>

Haven't read it yet, but might be worth checking out: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00IWWC71I/

Regards,

Dan
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 17:01:39 2014
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:01:39 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv38eJYZuBMHDyvgTBhpuShwutZZd4J_TOPoeoT5JQGtpA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 10:33 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> > This is the coolest space video I have seen in a long time.  It would be
> even cooler had they slowed down a bit and gone inside some of the galaxies:
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08LBltePDZw
>
>
>
> Where the hell is everybody?
>

When you look at a picture like that or the Hubble Ultra deep field
http://wallpaperpanda.com/wallpapers/jio/ekA/jioekAKKT.jpg  we know that
even the smallest dots in it are not stars but galaxies consisting of
millions or billions of stars, and yet we also know that life can not exist
anywhere in that picture. We know this for 2 reasons:

1) This picture is of things as they were only a few hundred million years
after the Big Bang, and that's not enough time for life, much less complex
intelligent life, to evolve.

2) There wasn't even enough time for stars to cook up the elements that
life needs, life Carbon or Oxygen or Nitrogen; what you're looking at in
pictures like that are just Hydrogen and Helium and a very very small trace
of Lithium. And you can't do much interesting chemistry with nothing but
that.

  John K Clark
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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 17:30:29 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 10:30:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] siri isn't quite there yet... but goostman is...
In-Reply-To: <073e01cf84c5$1caff0f0$560fd2d0$@att.net>
References: <06e301cf84bc$bae28840$30a798c0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS4n7ZjemE1UNO_18Lf-1aVuBU+hxXEyy7kfmhDYjCrgw@mail.gmail.com>
 <073e01cf84c5$1caff0f0$560fd2d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRaL=+A+7z9+QCYbNknfz6NVQvxiTmV41J8Cpoyk2wM_g@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 10, 2014 9:14 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Doh!  All I get there is a recording saying this is a non-working number.

Hmm.  It would seem more sleuthing is required to get their contact info.
There is a chance they do not wish to be contacted, which would make
creating lasting value from their (media) success quite difficult.

> This is cool Adrian!  Contacts with money and an eagerness to use it for
doing good deeds and making still more money, excellent.

Tch, don't misunderstand.  They think health care software is likely to be
profitable, is all.  It's up to people like you and me to connect that to
opportunity to do good.
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 17:54:51 2014
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:54:51 -0400
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
 Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>

What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing Test Mean? It
means that some human beings cannot pass the Turing Test and are as dumb as
a stump. Take a look at a transcript of the conversations and ask yourself
if you would have been fooled. I wouldn't have been.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/09/eugene-person-human-computer-robot-chat-turing-test

  John K Clark
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From rhanson at gmu.edu  Tue Jun 10 18:51:24 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 18:51:24 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2231161984-10254@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2231161984-10254@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <46FFDB2A-E42F-4B7B-BB5D-DBD83AD666F2@gmu.edu>

On Jun 10, 2014, at 5:04 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
 So there is less obviously a reason to wait to spend entropy. The max entropy usually comes via huge black holes, and those can take time to construct and then to milk. That seems to me to place the strongest limits on when we expect negentropy to get spent.

I don't think time is the resource that is most costly if you try to maximize the overall future computations of your lightcone. Capturing dark matter with black holes seems wortwhile, but I wonder about the thermodynamic cost of doing it.

There is another reason to go slow: In reversible computers, as in other reversible systems, the entropy cost is proportional to the rate. That is, the entropy cost per gate operation is inverse in the time that operation takes. In the limit of going very slowly, the entropy cost per operation approaches zero.

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun 10 19:27:40 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:27:40 +0100
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv38eJYZuBMHDyvgTBhpuShwutZZd4J_TOPoeoT5JQGtpA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv38eJYZuBMHDyvgTBhpuShwutZZd4J_TOPoeoT5JQGtpA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjUdB=7YR+uwuPg+onwBU6ADSCUQLSEdWyXrs+q4fEVAg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 6:01 PM, John Clark wrote:
> When you look at a picture like that or the Hubble Ultra deep field
> http://wallpaperpanda.com/wallpapers/jio/ekA/jioekAKKT.jpg  we know that
> even the smallest dots in it are not stars but galaxies consisting of
> millions or billions of stars, and yet we also know that life can not exist
> anywhere in that picture. We know this for 2 reasons:
>
> 1) This picture is of things as they were only a few hundred million years
> after the Big Bang, and that's not enough time for life, much less complex
> intelligent life, to evolve.
>
> 2) There wasn't even enough time for stars to cook up the elements that life
> needs, life Carbon or Oxygen or Nitrogen; what you're looking at in pictures
> like that are just Hydrogen and Helium and a very very small trace of
> Lithium. And you can't do much interesting chemistry with nothing but that.
>
>

That's correct. But the point of that photo is to impress us with the
unbelievable size of the universe. Life will almost certainly have
happened in these galaxies in the intervening billions of years since
the original photons started their journey towards us. We will never
detect it, but we now know the huge size of the small part of the
universe within our light cone.

The Fermi paradox concerns our own galaxy. Why hasn't our galaxy been
colonised already? Where are the signs of life in our galaxy?  Where
is everybody?

Whatever they are doing must be pretty fascinating to keep them so quiet.  :)

BillK


From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Tue Jun 10 19:32:00 2014
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:32:00 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Must money be a state monopoly?
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onstMWhyt42H70G_TO4xaNZtuh_vRNTyTaG8qQvEyDrm8Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <BD7E509B-B1DB-4DA0-A2CA-6E07C00C597C@taramayastales.com>
 <2236227376-14650@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAK7-onstMWhyt42H70G_TO4xaNZtuh_vRNTyTaG8qQvEyDrm8Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAK7-ontXtq12oZj5QXCXJcMNOOHsRHPxZKFOHXq7RCLqox-Lgw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> There are huge benefits to anyone who puts money into circulation.  That's
> why companies create stock, so they can pay for things like employees,
> other companies, in the stock they create.  And it's even more so, for a
> government.  Companies can't print more stock, because they want their
> stock value to go up (i.e. stock deflation), while a Government wants their
> currency to inflate some each year, so they must put lots of new money into
> circulation to keep it from deflating in value.  And if your government
> supplies the exchange currency for the rest of the world, that benefit is
> HUGE!  Every time some libyan hides a US $100 under a mattress, the US must
> print up another $100, and do something like buy a bomber, or something,
> with it to keep the value of that $100 from going up to much.  The U.S.
> government provides way more services, than they collect in taxes because
> of this.  The Federal Reserve pays for government expenses, not the other
> way around.
>
> The question for society is, what should the money that is put into
> circulation, at a significant rate to keep deflation at bay, do to benefit
> that society?  Most societies figure it is the government's job to figure
> out what to do with it.  Sadly, governments spend way to much of it on war
> and the ability to destroy all other hierarchies.
>
> A big problem of all Alt currencies to date is all of them are dumb
> currencies - i.e. they have some fixed dumb algorithmic rate at which they
> get into society.  Currently Bitcoin is producing more than 10% / year.  If
> a country produced that much, they'd have terrible inflation.  And the only
> benefit bitcoin miners add to society is consumption of energy, huge carbon
> footprint, and so on.
>
> What is needed, is some intelligent system to figure out how to get new
> currency distributed, to accomplish what the holders of the currency want
> to do with it (i.e. not more aircraft carriers), in a leaderless, non
> hierarchically controlled, amplified wisdom of the crowd way.  That's the
> goal of Canonizer.com going cryptographically public with Canon Coins.  How
> many new coins that go into production will be determined by the amplified
> wisdom of the crowd, and the work done to get that currency into society
> will be, again, determined by the amplification of the wisdom of the crowd,
> canoniztion process, or in effect by the will of the holders of the coin.
> In other words, it will do what the holders of the currency want it to do,
> not what some hierarchy wants to do with it (i.e. just fear and destroy
> other hierarchies.)
>
> Obviously, any intelligent currency will always out compete and blow away
> any dumb currency.
>
> great topic, by the way, thanks for all the great responses so far,
> everyone.
>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 4:28 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
>> Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> , 9/6/2014 11:25 PM:
>>
>> I'm aware of the libertarian roots of Bitcoin and other digital
>> currencies, which some individuals hope (and some states fear) can become
>> true currencies not printed and controlled by a state. I wonder if why it
>> is that states do monopolize currencies (or try to) and what the dangers
>> would be if states simply stopped doing this. Any thoughts?
>>
>>
>>
>> Coming from a libertarian/Nozickian minarchist angle, it seems that the
>> only legitimate job of the state is protecting the rights and freedoms of
>> the citizens. Usually that is seen as violence monopoly, but it might
>> extend to protection from epidemics too (protection from wild animals too
>> small to see!) However, obviously there are plenty of other functions that
>> are nice to have, it is just that it is not clear the state (the violence
>> monopoly) should be the one running them.
>>
>> Money has not always been a state monopoly - corporate scrip was
>> widespread, and occasionally I come across Scottish banknotes that are
>> indeed marked with the bank that printed them (valid tender even down here
>> in South England). There might be reasons to want to centralize these
>> functions: I don't know enough economics to argue about it. But even if one
>> wants to centralize money it is not clear that the money monopoly has to be
>> the violence monopoly. In fact, to balance power it might be very
>> reasonable to keep them apart!
>>
>> Charles Stross had a character make the point (in Glasshouse) that the
>> legitimate role of the state is violence monopoly, timekeeping and identity
>> management. Timekeeping matters since the sequencing of events is paramount
>> for many functions, including the crypto that may underlie money and
>> identity. Identity is not just important for being able to make contracts
>> (the foundation for much minarchist/anarchocapitalist society) but also for
>> effective law enforcement (if it is not possible to tell who did what, at
>> best crude deterrence and heavy locks are the solution). Some of the
>> cryptocurrencies might also take on interesting identity properties; it
>> would be fun to consider if one could put identity management into not just
>> bitcoin wallets but into proof-of-work.
>>
>> (Or, as I suggested a few months ago, run uploaded minds *on* the money
>> infrastructure)
>>
>>
>> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of
>> Oxford University
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 10 20:27:31 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:27:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <08f301cf84ea$69533c30$3bf9b490$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 10:55 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing Test Mean?

 

>?What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing Test Mean? It means that some human beings cannot pass the Turing Test and are as dumb as a stump?

Ja, or they are impaired by AD.  Do treat these with respect John, for you and I may be dumb as a stump someday in the future.

>? Take a look at a transcript of the conversations and ask yourself if you would have been fooled. I wouldn't have been.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/09/eugene-person-human-computer-robot-chat-turing-test John K Clark

Ja, but would it fool an AD patient?  One who is living in 1966 and doesn?t remember ever having owned a computer?  I think it would, and it could be therapeutic for that purpose.

Recall a few years ago when some joker rigged up Eliza and went into a teen chat site.  He had a population there which post-dated Eliza, so they didn?t know it could be done.  Most of them were fooled, at least at first.  With the AD patients, you have a population there many of which never did really use computers much, the current 80-something crowd.  My father was one; he owned a computer for years but never really did use it much.

Notice the conversation in the link you provided, the kinda chaotic nature of it.  This would be perfect for conversing with an AD patient, for that is the nature of their discussions; chaotic, random, repetitive, etc.  Computers never get tired or impatient, so they can answer the same question 20 times in an hour and never be bothered at all.  In that sense they could do this task better than any human.  We get impatient, frustrated, bored, we grieve for the patient as we knew them in their better days while the physical person is still present in a sense.

This is one of the goals I hope will result if you personally have never been to a nursing home or a memory care facility.  Once you see it and hear it personally firsthand, it changes your perspective, and I hope it changes your level of motivation.  Worked on me.

Another idea: you have seen the Wii avatars, the mii, ja?  OK then, we could perhaps rig up a version of that in which the machine watches the movements of the patient and acts as a virtual mirror: it reflects objects in the room.  But it creates a very realistic mii that looks like the patient did when the patient was 25, based on photos or video.  The patient would perceive herself as a young woman or man looking in the mirror.  I recognize this brings up a gaggle of new ethical questions, but we have those already anyway: often AD patients keep asking about their parents and when are their parents coming to pick them up, etc.  After a while, visitors just tell the patient her parents just called and will be over shortly.  Twenty-some times an hour, visitors will like to the patient.  Does it count as a lie if the patient is unable to store the info?  I think it would be ethically in the green to make a virtual youth-mirror for AD patients, and to create a chat-bot which pretends to be a visitor.

Refutation please?  Alternative ideas?

spike

 

 

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 10 20:33:26 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 13:33:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjUdB=7YR+uwuPg+onwBU6ADSCUQLSEdWyXrs+q4fEVAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv38eJYZuBMHDyvgTBhpuShwutZZd4J_TOPoeoT5JQGtpA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjUdB=7YR+uwuPg+onwBU6ADSCUQLSEdWyXrs+q4fEVAg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <08fd01cf84eb$3cc5f120$b651d360$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
...

>...The Fermi paradox concerns our own galaxy. Why hasn't our galaxy been
colonised already? Where are the signs of life in our galaxy?  Where is
everybody?

Oy that question has been driving me nuts for years.

>...Whatever they are doing must be pretty fascinating to keep them so
quiet.  :)  BillK
_______________________________________________

I'll say.  Back in the 80s, Carl Sagan had us all convinced that life had to
be short-lived, and that the Fermi paradox suggests it always nukes itself
into oblivion.  But this presents a really exciting possibility, kinda like
when you and I discovered girls.  Our brains were missing in action for a
while, ja?  Something really exciting came along, and we just weren't as
interested in our legos and GI Joes anymore.  The modern version of that is
how the internet came along and replaced television: way more interesting
and interactive.  I haven't had television for nearly 8 yrs now and I don't
miss it.  So this explanation of the Fermi silence suggests we will soon
find something so cool and interesting, we won't really care what goes on in
distant galaxies.  I hope I live to see that.

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 10 21:05:04 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:05:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <08f301cf84ea$69533c30$3bf9b490$@att.net>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <08f301cf84ea$69533c30$3bf9b490$@att.net>
Message-ID: <093601cf84ef$a7b2d940$f7188bc0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark
?

>>? Take a look at a transcript of the conversations and ask yourself if you would have been fooled. I wouldn't have been.

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/09/eugene-person-human-computer-robot-chat-turing-test John K Clark

>?Ja, but would it fool an AD patient?  One who is living in 1966 and doesn?t remember ever having owned a computer?...spike

 

Two or more possible applications: rig up a chat-bot to engage spam callers.  We could then keep them busy for several minutes in some cases, if they are stupid.  We could tune them to a bunch of different settings and stock answers, see which ones work best by recording which keeps the phone-spammers occupied for the longest time.  Of course phone spammers would evolve defenses against this strategy, which would be to ask questions up front to determine if the respondent is a person or a bot.  This would immediately tip off humans who answer the phone that it is a spammer.  Then as we collect their questions and strategies, we could evolve new defense strategies.  COOL!  Let the games begin.  Modern information warfare.

Second idea: we could set up a keyboard/text version of Goostman to engage Nigerian prince email scammers.  After the Nigerian princes discover we have rigged our email address with one of these bots, they would keep track of that email @ and not use it again.  Clearly a list of Goostmanned email @s would be valuable to bogus Nigerian princes, so they would want that list.  So we could make up lists of email @s which are rigged with these chat-bots, include our own email and that of our friends, then advertise them for sale to the bogus Nigerian princes.  (This I suppose would make me a bogus bogus Nigerian prince, but in this case the double boguses do not cancel to create an actual Nigerian prince.)     Then whenever one of the bogus Nigerian princes falls for it and buys a list, we have their email @, which we add to a list of bogus Nigerian princes to autofilter.  Then we sell list of bogus Nigerian prince email @s to proles and make money both ways.  Kewall!

Another idea: we are pondering ways to make a Goostman pose as a visitor for AD patients.  Let?s rig a Goostman to pose as an AD patient still in the home, to answer the phone and attract the attention of scammers who sell stuff to senile people.  We are debating using a Goostman to mimic an unimpaired human to interact with an impaired humans.  I bet we could make one of these things mimic an impaired person to interact with an unimpaired (but dishonest) human.

Oh boy, sell us a Goostman.  We will have such fun with it.

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 10 21:20:44 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 14:20:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <08f301cf84ea$69533c30$3bf9b490$@att.net> 
Message-ID: <097701cf84f1$d7b98c40$872ca4c0$@att.net>

 

 

From: spike [mailto:spike66 at att.net] 



 

>? rig up a chat-bot to engage spam callers? spike

If we can think of this stuff, you know the phone spammers have thought of it a long time ago.  So it is easily foreseen that phone spammers will rig up a chat-bot to call people and give interactive sales pitches until it gets a real live person who is willing to talk.  Sooner or later a Goostman phone spammer will run into a Goostmanned bogus customer.  Then we get to witness and record a virtual battle-chat between two chat-bots.  That will be interesting.

So how do we know when we answer a phone spam if the person on the other end is made of carbon?

You have seen this ja?

http://www.oddcast.com/home/demos/tts/tts_example.php?sitepal

It?s cool, you can type stuff, get her to talk dirty to you.  Think of all the money this program has saved or created, from taking business from the usual way we get someone to talk dirty to us: the 900 numbers.

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Wed Jun 11 02:52:02 2014
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 22:52:02 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <08fd01cf84eb$3cc5f120$b651d360$@att.net>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
 <CAJPayv38eJYZuBMHDyvgTBhpuShwutZZd4J_TOPoeoT5JQGtpA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armjUdB=7YR+uwuPg+onwBU6ADSCUQLSEdWyXrs+q4fEVAg@mail.gmail.com>
 <08fd01cf84eb$3cc5f120$b651d360$@att.net>
Message-ID: <6E180BE6-A948-4FCB-A968-21E54E983581@alumni.virginia.edu>



> On Jun 10, 2014, at 4:33 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
> [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
> ...
> 
>> ...The Fermi paradox concerns our own galaxy. Why hasn't our galaxy been
> colonised already? Where are the signs of life in our galaxy?  Where is
> everybody?
> 
> Oy that question has been driving me nuts for years.
> 
>> ...Whatever they are doing must be pretty fascinating to keep them so
> quiet.  :)  BillK
> _______________________________________________
> 
> I'll say.  Back in the 80s, Carl Sagan had us all convinced that life had to
> be short-lived, and that the Fermi paradox suggests it always nukes itself
> into oblivion.  But this presents a really exciting possibility, kinda like
> when you and I discovered girls.  Our brains were missing in action for a
> while, ja?  Something really exciting came along, and we just weren't as
> interested in our legos and GI Joes anymore.  The modern version of that is
> how the internet came along and replaced television: way more interesting
> and interactive.  I haven't had television for nearly 8 yrs now and I don't
> miss it.  So this explanation of the Fermi silence suggests we will soon
> find something so cool and interesting, we won't really care what goes on in
> distant galaxies.  I hope I live to see that.
> 
> spike
> 
Along those lines, I suppose, I have a possible answer or two. It's roughly outlined in Tim Leary's Exo-Psychology. The basic idea being that life's ultimate evolutionary form is what we might call ghost- or spirit-like. Something like uncontained consciousness. Such beings might not have any spacecraft or hardware to encounter us nor any need or method of interfacing with us solid-body-matter types. 

And/or higher intelligence always eventually finds a way to transcend this universe/dimension/reality leaving the embryonic environment we refer to as our universe. Archeological remnants of those lifeforms would still exist on some host planets out there, presumably, but we would find them abandoned if at all. 

Perhaps the trajectory of intelligence/consciousness throughout the universe is:
Single cell life->multicellular life forms->complex "animals"->sentient "animals"->sentient "animals" with technology-enhanced manufactured parts -> sentient completely manufactured beings -> sentience without the constraints of the physical realm and/or the need for embodiment. 

I'm suggesting all that could routinely happen on planets before anyone out there has a chance or means to really venture out into the vast universe in a biological or hybrid form.  They could devise a way to explore at sub-light speeds once they do not have the limitations of biological forms (I mean given how long such journeys would be). But with exponential technological progress, the jump from {sentient completely manufactured beings} to {sentience without the constraints of embodiment} might happen rather quickly before they have a chance to send out such ambassadors. 

How's that for thinking outside the box?
-Henry


From sjatkins at gmail.com  Wed Jun 11 03:33:44 2014
From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:33:44 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <03e901cf71da$480b8f00$d822ad00$@att.net>
 <CACYTDBeVwAOiOi6uOFVhgQAgSvY-UDpaa4dwZAzvSxu+GVhOCg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5397CE18.8060006@gmail.com>


On 05/26/2014 02:08 PM, BillK wrote:
> On Mon, May 26, 2014 at 9:52 PM, Tara Maya  wrote:
>> How any sane person could compare the crimes of Mao Zedong to the "crimes" of
>> manufacturing the goods and services of the modern world is a level intellectual
>> dishonesty and/or muddle-headedness that is simply beyond my comprehension.
> And they say the same about you.
>
> That's because politics and religion is emotionally driven. Non-rational.
> You cannot argue anyone out of their basic beliefs. Argument, even
> contrary evidence, just reinforces their determination to hold on to
> their beliefs.

That equivalence is in fact not insane but a portrayal of gross
ignorance at best and if not from ignorance then it is blatantly evil in
attempting to pretend that force and free choice in a market are
equivalent.  If you don't see why and think it is all just emotion
and/or subjective then it would be completely pointless to attempt to
explain it to you.

- samantha



From sjatkins at gmail.com  Wed Jun 11 03:42:26 2014
From: sjatkins at gmail.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 20:42:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Must money be a state monopoly?
In-Reply-To: <2236227376-14650@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2236227376-14650@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <5397D022.4080909@gmail.com>


On 06/10/2014 03:28 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> Tara Maya<tara at taramayastales.com> , 9/6/2014 11:25 PM:
>
>     I'm aware of the libertarian roots of Bitcoin and other digital
>     currencies, which some individuals hope (and some states fear) can
>     become true currencies not printed and controlled by a state. I
>     wonder if why it is that states do monopolize currencies (or try
>     to) and what the dangers would be if states simply stopped doing
>     this. Any thoughts?
>
>
>
> Coming from a libertarian/Nozickian minarchist angle, it seems that
> the only legitimate job of the state is protecting the rights and
> freedoms of the citizens. Usually that is seen as violence monopoly,
> but it might extend to protection from epidemics too (protection from
> wild animals too small to see!) However, obviously there are plenty of
> other functions that are nice to have, it is just that it is not clear
> the state (the violence monopoly) should be the one running them. 

If you come from a more Rothbardian perspective then there is no reason
for that monopoly.  There is nothing that makes a forced monopoly on any
functions of a modern society inherently necessary by this line of
thinking. 

The people can protect themselves from epidemics.  Forced monopolies
generally are inefficient due to enforced lack of competition.  If the
monopoly may also charge whatever prices (taxation supplied) that it
wishes and throw you in prison if you don't care for its particular
goods and services or wish to offer an alternative then it is ripe for
corruption.   Unlike a business it can change whatever it will and
arrest or kill any competitors or anyone that refuses its 'service'.

> Charles Stross had a character make the point (in Glasshouse) that the
> legitimate role of the state is violence monopoly, timekeeping and
> identity management. Timekeeping matters since the sequencing of
> events is paramount for many functions, including the crypto that may
> underlie money and identity.

Private concerns are incapable of creating accurate time keeping??

>
>
>
> Identity is not just important for being able to make contracts (the
> foundation for much minarchist/anarchocapitalist society) but also for
> effective law enforcement (if it is not possible to tell who did what,
> at best crude deterrence and heavy locks are the solution).

We can't establish identity without a monopoly supplying papers or
checking biometrics or maintaining a key-ring or equivalent??

- samantha

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From gsantostasi at gmail.com  Wed Jun 11 05:27:35 2014
From: gsantostasi at gmail.com (Giovanni Santostasi)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 00:27:35 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Must money be a state monopoly?
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-ontXtq12oZj5QXCXJcMNOOHsRHPxZKFOHXq7RCLqox-Lgw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <BD7E509B-B1DB-4DA0-A2CA-6E07C00C597C@taramayastales.com>
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 <CAK7-onstMWhyt42H70G_TO4xaNZtuh_vRNTyTaG8qQvEyDrm8Q@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAL+RtPe3JPqw0-r-NM+P43BfspXMUgS1XBSSgdpGR0_g_jZ9-g@mail.gmail.com>

Brent you are wrong about bitcoin being dumb because of the 10 % production
rate. The total number of BTC is finite. We have already 10 Million and
another 10 Million means nothing in terms of magnitude scale. In a way is
if BTC are already maxed out. Consider that BTC to be a world currency
needs to reach a large number of people in the world. Even if just 1
billion adopted it you will have about 10^-3 BTC per person. Without
counting the BTC that got lost and so on. So anything than inflation.

Also about the carbon foot print of miners that is also big BS. It cost
enormous amount of money to produce fiat money. Printing the money,
transporting the money, having brick and mortar banks and so and so on.

BTC has a insignificantly small carbon footprint in comparison with the
current fiat system.






On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:

>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:31 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> There are huge benefits to anyone who puts money into circulation.
>> That's why companies create stock, so they can pay for things like
>> employees, other companies, in the stock they create.  And it's even more
>> so, for a government.  Companies can't print more stock, because they want
>> their stock value to go up (i.e. stock deflation), while a Government wants
>> their currency to inflate some each year, so they must put lots of new
>> money into circulation to keep it from deflating in value.  And if your
>> government supplies the exchange currency for the rest of the world, that
>> benefit is HUGE!  Every time some libyan hides a US $100 under a mattress,
>> the US must print up another $100, and do something like buy a bomber, or
>> something, with it to keep the value of that $100 from going up to much.
>> The U.S. government provides way more services, than they collect in taxes
>> because of this.  The Federal Reserve pays for government expenses, not the
>> other way around.
>>
>> The question for society is, what should the money that is put into
>> circulation, at a significant rate to keep deflation at bay, do to benefit
>> that society?  Most societies figure it is the government's job to figure
>> out what to do with it.  Sadly, governments spend way to much of it on war
>> and the ability to destroy all other hierarchies.
>>
>> A big problem of all Alt currencies to date is all of them are dumb
>> currencies - i.e. they have some fixed dumb algorithmic rate at which they
>> get into society.  Currently Bitcoin is producing more than 10% / year.  If
>> a country produced that much, they'd have terrible inflation.  And the only
>> benefit bitcoin miners add to society is consumption of energy, huge carbon
>> footprint, and so on.
>>
>> What is needed, is some intelligent system to figure out how to get new
>> currency distributed, to accomplish what the holders of the currency want
>> to do with it (i.e. not more aircraft carriers), in a leaderless, non
>> hierarchically controlled, amplified wisdom of the crowd way.  That's the
>> goal of Canonizer.com going cryptographically public with Canon Coins.  How
>> many new coins that go into production will be determined by the amplified
>> wisdom of the crowd, and the work done to get that currency into society
>> will be, again, determined by the amplification of the wisdom of the crowd,
>> canoniztion process, or in effect by the will of the holders of the coin.
>> In other words, it will do what the holders of the currency want it to do,
>> not what some hierarchy wants to do with it (i.e. just fear and destroy
>> other hierarchies.)
>>
>> Obviously, any intelligent currency will always out compete and blow away
>> any dumb currency.
>>
>> great topic, by the way, thanks for all the great responses so far,
>> everyone.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 4:28 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>>
>>> Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> , 9/6/2014 11:25 PM:
>>>
>>> I'm aware of the libertarian roots of Bitcoin and other digital
>>> currencies, which some individuals hope (and some states fear) can become
>>> true currencies not printed and controlled by a state. I wonder if why it
>>> is that states do monopolize currencies (or try to) and what the dangers
>>> would be if states simply stopped doing this. Any thoughts?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Coming from a libertarian/Nozickian minarchist angle, it seems that the
>>> only legitimate job of the state is protecting the rights and freedoms of
>>> the citizens. Usually that is seen as violence monopoly, but it might
>>> extend to protection from epidemics too (protection from wild animals too
>>> small to see!) However, obviously there are plenty of other functions that
>>> are nice to have, it is just that it is not clear the state (the violence
>>> monopoly) should be the one running them.
>>>
>>> Money has not always been a state monopoly - corporate scrip was
>>> widespread, and occasionally I come across Scottish banknotes that are
>>> indeed marked with the bank that printed them (valid tender even down here
>>> in South England). There might be reasons to want to centralize these
>>> functions: I don't know enough economics to argue about it. But even if one
>>> wants to centralize money it is not clear that the money monopoly has to be
>>> the violence monopoly. In fact, to balance power it might be very
>>> reasonable to keep them apart!
>>>
>>> Charles Stross had a character make the point (in Glasshouse) that the
>>> legitimate role of the state is violence monopoly, timekeeping and identity
>>> management. Timekeeping matters since the sequencing of events is paramount
>>> for many functions, including the crypto that may underlie money and
>>> identity. Identity is not just important for being able to make contracts
>>> (the foundation for much minarchist/anarchocapitalist society) but also for
>>> effective law enforcement (if it is not possible to tell who did what, at
>>> best crude deterrence and heavy locks are the solution). Some of the
>>> cryptocurrencies might also take on interesting identity properties; it
>>> would be fun to consider if one could put identity management into not just
>>> bitcoin wallets but into proof-of-work.
>>>
>>> (Or, as I suggested a few months ago, run uploaded minds *on* the money
>>> infrastructure)
>>>
>>>
>>> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of
>>> Oxford University
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> extropy-chat mailing list
>>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>>
>>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Jun 11 06:44:49 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 10 Jun 2014 23:44:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Jarheads
In-Reply-To: <5396C4F0.3010600@yahoo.com>
References: <mailman.18.1402378821.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <5396C4F0.3010600@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQdf+=dUN8FNyRzBaCS7ea6HxxyE0TPEAOO3bbz0WGPiA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:42 AM, Ben <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Let's take the idea a bit further:  Instead of a head in a jar, why not a
> brain in a 'jar' or rather a sealed, armoured container with connections to
> the cardiovascular, lymphatic and nervous networks, housed in a robotic
> body that also contains the life-support biological parts, sense organs, a
> set of control systems, and a bunch of new organs to replace the ancillary
> functions of the original parts that have been eliminated (eg. bone doesn't
> just support your weight, it also acts as a reservior of calcium and
> phosphorus, lungs play a part in blood-pressure regulation, etc.)
>

There's little question that that's possible.  The question is, take the
aesthetic from Futurama: a head, plus artificial organs doing all life
support functions within that little disc at the bottom (and possibly fluid
within the jar).  Is that possible, and what all would need to be done
within that disc?  (With, as mentioned, manipulators and propulsion
attached to the disc to let the head interact with the world, connected to
the sensor & motor cortices through the brainstem.)
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jun 11 14:48:28 2014
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 10:48:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
 Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <093601cf84ef$a7b2d940$f7188bc0$@att.net>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv21Bag-kfEbxP2-u+4byxStFdA1hjNmp0qLuRzvt_Sg9w@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 5:05 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> rig up a chat-bot to engage spam callers.
>

That is the best idea I've heard in a long time. I love it!

  John K Clark
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jun 11 15:30:20 2014
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 11:30:20 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armjUdB=7YR+uwuPg+onwBU6ADSCUQLSEdWyXrs+q4fEVAg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <01ac01cf8001$ec4fd050$c4ef70f0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAJPayv39D7OuCwh0+zUR+hfyUMe6wL2idvd4iTO_tDUtv1jqCQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 3:27 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> the point of that photo is to impress us with the unbelievable size of
> the universe.
>

It's true that astronomy can produce some very very big numbers, and I am
impressed.

> Life will almost certainly have happened in these galaxies in the
> intervening billions of years since the original photons started their
> journey towards us.


Maybe, but biology can produce some very very big numbers too and it's not
at all clear to me that astronomy's numbers are bigger than biology's. And
even if what you say is true due to the acceleration of the expansion of
space by the time intelligent life evolves on those enormously distant
galaxies they will no longer be in our observable universe.

  John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 11 18:36:29 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 11:36:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv21Bag-kfEbxP2-u+4byxStFdA1hjNmp0qLuRzvt_Sg9w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <08f301cf84ea$69533c30$3bf9b490$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <00ba01cf85a4$1162c490$34284db0$@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, June 11, 2014 7:48 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing Test Mean?

 

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 5:05 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 

>>? rig up a chat-bot to engage spam callers.

 

>?That is the best idea I've heard in a long time. I love it! John K Clark 

 

 

I donate the idea into the public domain.  If you use it, please post the resulting conversations.  That would be a hoot.  {8^D

 

spike

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From anders at aleph.se  Wed Jun 11 22:28:12 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 00:28:12 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <46FFDB2A-E42F-4B7B-BB5D-DBD83AD666F2@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2365190990-10984@secure.ericade.net>

Another thing I would love to find out is the mass/depth trade-off for memory storage.?Suppose you have a lot of mass and want to turn it into as much good computer memory as possible. What configuration is best??
The tunnelling probability across a potential barrier scales as exp(-L sqrt(m E)) where L is the width?of the barrier, m the particle mass and E the potential depth. The energy or negentropy losses due to tunnelling will be proportional to this. You could spend the mass on really deep potential wells, or on making them physically wide (or even use heavy objects to represent your bits). Which is the best approach? What is the scaling of depth you get from large amounts of mass?
If you have N bits of mass m1 (initially =M/N), they will need correction N exp(-L sqrt(m E)) times per second; eventually you will run out of stored negentropy and have to burn mass to radiate to the background radiation. So each second you will lose N exp(-L sqrt(m E)) kTln(2)/m1 c^2 bits; ?N' = -lambda N, where lambda = kT ln(2) exp(-L sqrt(m E))/m1 c^2. So the half-life of computer memory in this phase will be inversely proportional to temperature, exponential in bit size, exp-sqrt in bit marker mass and potential depth and proportional to bit mass. So it looks like making bits *really large* is a good idea.
One figure of merit might of course be total number of bit-seconds. That scales as integral_0^infty N dt = [ - exp(-lambda t) / lambda]_0^infty = 1/lambda, i.e. proportional to half-life. However, the initial number scales as 1/m1, so the m1 factor disappears: it is not the bit mass that matters, just temperature, size, marker mass and energy.?
So, giant positronium bits, anyone?

Anybody know how to estimate the max size of gravitationally bound aggregates in current cosmological models?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University


Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 10/6/2014 8:56 PM:
  On Jun 10, 2014, at 5:04 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
         ?So there is less obviously a reason to wait to spend entropy. The max entropy usually comes via huge black holes, and those can take time to construct and then to milk. That seems to me to place the strongest limits on when we expect negentropy to get  spent. ??    
  I don't think time is the resource that is most costly if you try to maximize the overall future computations of your lightcone. Capturing dark matter with black holes seems wortwhile, but I wonder about the thermodynamic cost of doing it.    
  There is another reason to go slow: In reversible computers, as in other reversible systems, the entropy cost is proportional to the rate. That is, the entropy cost per gate operation is inverse in the time that operation takes. In the limit of going very slowly,  the entropy cost per operation approaches zero.?  
    Robin Hanson ?http://hanson.gmu.edu
 Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
 Assoc. Professor, George Mason University Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
 MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
 703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323  
  
  
    

_______________________________________________ 
extropy-chat mailing list 
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat 
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From jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi  Wed Jun 11 23:49:29 2014
From: jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi (Jukka Liukkonen)
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2014 02:49:29 +0300
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <4ED9C9CE-D1EF-490A-98D9-C589A0335BB7@taramayastales.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
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 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
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 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAPpVbvSk-zPMpKRXa4CF_-abdqGT44CoS-rO3X=HXsB7waDa=g@mail.gmail.com>

2014-06-06 22:09 GMT+03:00 Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com>:
>
> On Jun 2, 2014, at 2:54 AM, Jukka Liukkonen <jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi>
> wrote:
>
> The left wing is a very broad term, which includes everyone from marxists
> to anarchists, but most are mild social democrats or a bit more
> ecologically oriented green leftists. Like wise, the right wing includes
> anything from Pinochet to Obama and from Hitler to conservative christian
> fundamentalists. Many people thoughts are leaning to the left, despite they
> don't really acknowledge it. Perhaps, because those who disagree with
> leftist values are so keen on discrediting and pushing false information
> about the other side.
>
> This is why I don't much care for the terms "left" and "right."  Any
> category that includes Pinochet, Obama, Hitler is useless.
>

If you wish to classify the political ideologies properly, Pinochet, Obama
and Hitler have to be placed *somewhere* on the political spectrum. The
classification system is useless, if it is unable to classify some of the
most known world leaders.


I didn't want to make it too complicated, but another factor you may wish
to add to this is the liberal-authoritarian axis. Those who are familiar to
the american political rhetorics may have learnt a bit different use for
these words, but don't let that confuse you.



Basically *being liberal means* a great deal of personal freedoms, less
control and more mutual trust, less state or corporate interventions and
questioning and hindering the power of the political, the corporate and the
religious leaders.


*Motto for liberals could be "Do what ever you want, but don't stop the
others from doing that, too."*



What comes to *the authoritarian* end, they tend trust the institutions and
value traditions and traditional views. The leaders have great deal of
power and the power is not expected to be questioned. The more
authoritarian the society is, the less  there is room for the free speech
or e.g. sexual identity expression. The authoritarians want to have their
citizens controlled more strictly, and they require obedience to the
system.


*Authoritarian motto could be "Obedience, control and powerful leader."*



These are just quick definitions and you may find more definitions in the
Wikipedia. The liberal-authoritarian axis combined with left-right axis
gives more accurate picture of the political ideologies. Of course, no
political ideology is purely left or right or liberal or authoritarian.
Most are somewhere in between.


You can find out your position on the political map with such websites as
politicalcompass.org


I highly recommend it!





>
> Far more important is those that support democracy versus those that
> don't. Those that don't are so outside my value system that I have little
> to say to them. Those that do, ah, that is where the argument is. I might
> say to that person, "We both want a fair, free and prosperous society, now
> what does the evidence show us is the best way to achieve that?"
>

There are so many different kind of democracy models... Not all democratic
countries are free, fair or prosperous.



>  Tara Maya
> Blog <http://taramayastales.blogspot.com/>  |  Twitter
> <https://twitter.com/taramayastales>  |  Facebook
> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Unfinished-Song-Epic-Fantasy/310271375658211?ref=hl>  |
>  Amazon
> <http://www.amazon.com/Tara-Maya/e/B004HAI038/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1349796143&sr=8-2-ent>  |
>  Goodreads <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2951879.Tara_Maya>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From sjatkins at mac.com  Thu Jun 12 00:50:50 2014
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 17:50:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <5B707A3A-35EA-4AF6-9479-43512EFF9502@mac.com>


On May 15, 2014, at 9:48 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

> Some time ago I posted here about what my understanding of "leftism" - that it is a current manifestation of the age-old human obsession with status. A leftist is a status-obsessed (i.e. envious) hypocrite, predictably attracted to the hierarchies of government bureaucracy, academia and mainstream journalism.
> 
> Given this unflattering opinion I expressed, one might expect me to inveigh against leftists, to urge their expulsion from the corridors of power in order to build a better world without them. However, as a realist I know that this notion is a mirage: How could normal people, who are not obsessed with status, beat the obsessed ones at their own game? For better or worse (well, mostly for the worse), status-obsessed jerks are here to stay, at least until advanced personality-design tools arrive some time late this century.

Actually I would hope you would advocated abolition of some of those corridors of power.  Government has much too much power over nearly all aspects of our life today.    What is and is not to be sought is not a mirage.  Reality concerning man made institutions (government) is subject to change, right?      This is not a question of status or of beating anyone.  It is a question to be and live our life as we see fit at all.     I really don't see why you are accentuating status here.

> 
> There is interesting research on the role of economic elites (i.e. the upper 10% of income distribution, highly overlapping with high-status leftists) in our so-called democracy:

I don't speak that language.  I am in the upper 10% of US income earners but it doesn't take much at all to be there.  And so what.  It only takes $313K / year income to be in the top 1% of income earners so that would include many a professional and small business owner.   Not exactly a scary elite.  I hover around the 5% mark for what it is worth.    It really is not relevant to any remotely sane person.  

> 
> http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2014/05/exploring_eliti.html
> 
> Turns out that the electoral masses have essentially no impact on government policy. Only elites control the democratic government.

Unless you include PACs and lobbyists this is complete nonsense.  Even the much maligned Koch contributions are 19th down the list of major contributors and then only on the Republican side.    And all of that is not relevant compared to government being given much too much power in first place.  Give government control over nearly all aspects of life and anyone sane with a bit of money and organization will seek to keep that power from running roughshod over them.   Giving government so much power created the problem, NOT the existence of some people with more money than others. 

> 
> This is a lesson: Anybody hoping to influence the government should concentrate his efforts on changing the opinions of elite participants in the game, and can completely disregard outreach to the masses. Of course, retail politicians will woo the public but this is just the expected part of the political theatre. The real decisions will have been made when the candidates are named by parties and paid for by pressure groups or when issues are framed by the media, not when the general public votes.

Dismantle much of the government.  It is far outside its intended bounds.

> 
> Thus, the rational transhumanist should be nice to high-status leftoids and the occasional non-leftoid power-monger. He should gently persuade them rather than denounce them. They are psychologically dependent on their own self-image as do-gooders and you can use it against them by pointing out the destructive effects of their default recipes for improving the world.  Leftists are always on the lookout for yet another "disadvantaged) group to champion (i.e. to use as pawns in the struggle for status), so cast yourself as a victim of oppression, and make them root for you. Cognitive dissonance might make them tune you out but the seed of doubt you planted will shift their daily decisions a bit, maybe make them slightly more hesitant in their convictions. Social change and the law will follow.

What complete nonsense.  I have nothing to gain by making the State more powerful and everything to lose.  Playing the same game as today is a sanction to the overarching power of the State.   The State has no rights and say whatsoever in legitimate transhumanist goals and concerns.  It would be a losing strategy to act as if it does.    They are not do-gooders.  They are power freaks.   Defang them.  Do not feed their egos.  

Don't try to be "smart".  Be honest and do not back down in the face of real oppression - that of the all powerful State.  People have tried to "play it smart" for far too long.  It is how we got to this very dangerous and disgusting state of affairs.  No more.

- samantha

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Jun 12 02:17:16 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 11 Jun 2014 21:17:16 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAPpVbvSk-zPMpKRXa4CF_-abdqGT44CoS-rO3X=HXsB7waDa=g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAAc1gFgNmxL8UQS=MkPYUeVcRs7s_7ch6O1DbzcVcwRGcet3sg@mail.gmail.com>
 <156442028-10515@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armhmkRZqhTNLws1NuFW=w22EfLh4w=k1xX5Bvxf5g6OZmQ@mail.gmail.com>
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 <3E37D473-EB85-4ADE-A867-ABC6255F14D0@taramayastales.com>
 <CAL_armiMkJn0+MOZchVYvLaniR87BeP10gMJ9WaazHqL9vW3hg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYBrSoXFvJyfG2Tg9UQ7hv1Bcb+iPGCLg1p8chhg0NjYQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armie6BahvSc29JRma5bPiTEJ6-GiEcf1rJRMnzTN0k_Raw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaZbDmTgqG7wQ0HkbYWUoEo+rRMtJV9FC3h4D4qM5z4nQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CANSO=1mjmAH_OKZLOpR-n2yE+=wdd4CSwZUZmbQPMEXzpsxJFg@mail.gmail.com>
 <538B8A03.4010309@gmail.com>
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 <4ED9C9CE-D1EF-490A-98D9-C589A0335BB7@taramayastales.com>
 <CAPpVbvSk-zPMpKRXa4CF_-abdqGT44CoS-rO3X=HXsB7waDa=g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEadRqojcTZDSCYZm+9nUw4aB=Ncv7Nyt-_0HFrxO=WbVQ@mail.gmail.com>

In West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette, Justice Robert
Jackson wrote:

"The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from
the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach
of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be
applied by the courts."

This, to me, makes of B of R the most important document in all of
political history.  We do not have a democracy.  We have a partial one.
Majorities cannot overturn the Constitution without a massive effort, and
so minorities are protected.


> Basically *being liberal means* a great deal of personal freedoms, less
> control and more mutual trust, less state or corporate interventions and
> questioning and hindering the power of the political, the corporate and the
> religious leaders.
>
>
> *Motto for liberals could be "Do what ever you want, but don't stop the
> others from doing that, too."*
>
>
> ?I think that this is more of a statement of libertarianism than of
liberalism, and 'do what you want...' is very extreme, more like anarchy -
no rules at all.  For classic liberalism we have to add free and fair
elections, civil rights, freedom of the press, religion, trade, and private
property.


?Most people just don't understand that our Founding Fathers were all
liberals.  The conservative Tories were in favor of staying with the
British as subjects.?  And they were the majority!!  If everybody had voted
we wouldn't have had a revolution.  What our present day conservatives want
to conserve is liberal principles.  Some irony there perhaps?


?bill w?


>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>>
>>
> There are so many different kind of democracy models... Not all democratic
> countries are free, fair or prosperous.
>
>
>
>>  Tara Maya
>> Blog <http://taramayastales.blogspot.com/>  |  Twitter
>> <https://twitter.com/taramayastales>  |  Facebook
>> <http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Unfinished-Song-Epic-Fantasy/310271375658211?ref=hl>  |
>>  Amazon
>> <http://www.amazon.com/Tara-Maya/e/B004HAI038/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1349796143&sr=8-2-ent>  |
>>  Goodreads <http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2951879.Tara_Maya>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 13 05:45:29 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 01:45:29 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Jarheads
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQdf+=dUN8FNyRzBaCS7ea6HxxyE0TPEAOO3bbz0WGPiA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.18.1402378821.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <5396C4F0.3010600@yahoo.com>
 <CALAdGNQdf+=dUN8FNyRzBaCS7ea6HxxyE0TPEAOO3bbz0WGPiA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFj7vJQ=sq_Uj3DQ+Q6JLfnRHm9Ha5PqBjSxZrDGgdj0VA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 2:44 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 1:42 AM, Ben <bbenzai at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> Let's take the idea a bit further:  Instead of a head in a jar, why not a
>> brain in a 'jar' or rather a sealed, armoured container with connections to
>> the cardiovascular, lymphatic and nervous networks, housed in a robotic
>> body that also contains the life-support biological parts, sense organs, a
>> set of control systems, and a bunch of new organs to replace the ancillary
>> functions of the original parts that have been eliminated (eg. bone doesn't
>> just support your weight, it also acts as a reservior of calcium and
>> phosphorus, lungs play a part in blood-pressure regulation, etc.)
>>
>
> There's little question that that's possible.  The question is, take the
> aesthetic from Futurama: a head, plus artificial organs doing all life
> support functions within that little disc at the bottom (and possibly fluid
> within the jar).
>

### Actually I'd prefer the new Robocop aesthetic...

They did keep both of his lungs attached, that wasn't necessary.

Rafal
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jun 13 08:03:55 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 09:03:55 +0100
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
 Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <00ba01cf85a4$1162c490$34284db0$@att.net>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAL_armghXQFfKhSGqj4qmGRt0VFcgAsbJcqvDSVHkkiMNOqDgA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 11, 2014 at 7:36 PM, spike wrote:
> I donate the idea into the public domain.  If you use it, please post the
> resulting conversations.  That would be a hoot.  {8^D
>

<http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20140609-how-online-bots-are-tricking-you>
Quotes:
However, what chatbots are fully capable of in everyday life is far
more interesting. We're already surrounded by bots capable of tricking
us into thinking they are real people, and they don't enter
competitions. Some are sophisticated enough to infiltrate social
networks and perhaps even influence public opinion.

There are certainly plenty of them out there. Although most people
think of the web as a place primarily frequented by humans, the
reality turns out to be quite different. A recent report found that
61.5% of internet traffic is generated by automated programs called
bots.

It's a problem known as 'astroturfing', in which a seemingly authentic
swell of grass-root opinion is in fact manufactured by a battalion of
opinionated bots. The potential for astroturfing to influence
elections has already raised concerns, with a Reuters op-ed in January
calling for a ban on candidates' use of bots in the run-up to polls.

And so the rise of bots only looks set to continue - with or without
Turing test approval. For Fritz Kunze of Pandorabots, the hope is that
people will get better at questioning innocent-looking users who
contact them online so that they're not so easily duped. But he is
also acutely aware of how hard a task that will be in the near future.

"It's going to be a big shock to most people," he says. "And these
bots are going to be really, really good - they're going to be good at
fooling people."
---------------

BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun 13 18:13:52 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 20:13:52 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2365190990-10984@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <2522847051-14563@secure.ericade.net>

Continuing my thinking about extreme future computation:
http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9611028 "Limitations of noisy reversible computation" shows that noise is pretty bad for reversible computations: the total size of circuits need to grow exponentially with their depth in order to produce reliable computation (in normal circuits the growth is just polynomial). This is also true for quantum computations. Both kinds of circuits can simulate general classical or quantum circuits, but the cost is exponential. Of course, the glass-is-half-full view is that one can build working reliable systems out of noisy components (a la?http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9906129 ) if the noise is below a certain level: you just need to pay a price for it. Very much like error-correcting codes in classical channels. But this shows that intricate messages require exponentially long codes, so to say.?
So if extreme future life runs on largely reversible computers (classical or quantum) it needs to perform a Bennet-style undoing of intermediate results (http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~sbuss/CourseWeb/Math268_2013W/Bennett_Reversibiity.pdf) relatively often not just because error correction is expensive (if N bits are involved in the error syndrome then they all need to be reset at a cost) but because the retrace corresponds to a long circuit depth and the total circuit size hence goes up exponentially. So the amount of hardware grows with retrace length R as exp(R), and presumably the number of bit errors that need to be fixed also grows proportional to it - eventually it is better to just wipe the memory state completely rather than try to erase syndromes and retrace.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Jun 13 19:02:42 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 14:02:42 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>

I was challenged to read a book by Hayek and show where he was wrong, and
so I read The Road to Serfdom (well, until I got the ideas).

Hayek outlined two forms of socialism:  those with central planning and
those without (which I will refer to as social services governments).

For both of these he predicted an eventual decline into totalitarianism,
and certainly those governments with central planning have all failed and
became, or were from the beginning, dictatorships, unless I am mistaken.
You know them all.

However, he seems to be wrong about the social services governments, like
Sweden.  Hayek did say that it would take longer:  "In the latter type of
socialism the effects I discuss in this book are brought about more slowly
indirectly, and imperfectly.  I believe that the ultimate outcome tends to
be very much the same, although the process by which it is brought about is
not quite the same as that described in this book."  (from the preface page
XX of the 1976 edition)

I did not find the processes that he referred to in this book that he said
affect the social services types.

There are several social services types, like Sweden, that have not failed,
have not drifted into totalitarianism by anyone's measure.
These governments have their troubles, as do we, with increasing free
riders and accumulating debt, but dictators they and we have none.

Thus Hayek is wrong - so far.

bill w
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jun 13 21:11:09 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 22:11:09 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgpQ-zrtUXwYpAhS-UQNqQLhNFriGA9m=ohk76Bk32FeQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 8:02 PM, William Flynn Wallace  wrote:
> I was challenged to read a book by Hayek and show where he was wrong, and so
> I read The Road to Serfdom (well, until I got the ideas).
>
> Hayek outlined two forms of socialism:  those with central planning and
> those without (which I will refer to as social services governments).
>
> For both of these he predicted an eventual decline into totalitarianism, and
> certainly those governments with central planning have all failed and
> became, or were from the beginning, dictatorships, unless I am mistaken.
> You know them all.
>
> However, he seems to be wrong about the social services governments, like
> Sweden.  Hayek did say that it would take longer:  "In the latter type of
> socialism the effects I discuss in this book are brought about more slowly
> indirectly, and imperfectly.  I believe that the ultimate outcome tends to
> be very much the same, although the process by which it is brought about is
> not quite the same as that described in this book."  (from the preface page
> XX of the 1976 edition)
>
> I did not find the processes that he referred to in this book that he said
> affect the social services types.
>
> There are several social services types, like Sweden, that have not failed,
> have not drifted into totalitarianism by anyone's measure.
> These governments have their troubles, as do we, with increasing free riders
> and accumulating debt, but dictators they and we have none.
>
> Thus Hayek is wrong - so far.
>
>

Very gentle criticism!
For a really good rant, try -
<http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/bill-black-hayek-helped-worst-get-top-economics-ceos.html>

:)  BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun 13 21:34:24 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 23:34:24 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2365190990-10984@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <2524070852-14561@secure.ericade.net>

Ah, forgot to add to the previous post:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.1995 shows that depending on the kind of noise error correcting quantum computations can go on for different length of time before noise derails them. For depolarizing noise the limit is logarithmic in the number of bits, but for dephasing noise there is a tradeoff where it is possible to compute on O(n^a)) qubits for O(n^b) time stepsif a+b < 1, and impossible even to store a single (unknown) qubit for more than O(n^3) time steps. For amplitude dampening noise computations can go on for exponential time. They show this using a very fun "quantum refrigerator" trick where "dirty" qubits are left to be further randomized by the noise: since some of them get put into useful states they can be re-used as if they were clean, "cold" qubits.?
These results imply again that future cold intelligences may have fairly frequent retracing loops, especially since there may be limits to how long a working superposed qubit can be kept in memory.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun 13 21:36:37 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 23:36:37 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2536015298-23682@secure.ericade.net>

William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> , 13/6/2014 9:07 PM:

There are several social services types, like Sweden, that have not failed, have not drifted into totalitarianism by anyone's measure.
 These governments have their troubles, as do we, with increasing free riders and accumulating debt, but dictators they and we have none.
Well, Sweden at least liberalized a lot of things in the 90s. School vouchers, deregulation in a lot of domains - by European standards Sweden is pretty liberal today.?
Now if we could just liberalize the labour market maybe we could integrate our immigrants.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From tara at taramayastales.com  Sat Jun 14 00:58:06 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 17:58:06 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E2B84BF9-EE8D-470D-89DA-3AC1C392BF5F@taramayastales.com>

Peter L. Berger wrote a good essay on, among other things, Schumpeter and (indirectly) Hayek, in 1992:

"It seems to me that one most usefully discusses capitalism and socialism if one understands them quite narrowly as two alternative systems of production (as, indeed, the Marxists have always done)--the one based on market forces and private ownership?the other on state control and on public ownership?. By these definitions, an oft-cited 'socialist' country like Sweden (even in the heyday of Social Democratic governance) is, I would contend, no such thing. Sweden, like most of the other Northern European democracies, has developed a very elaborate system of distribution and redistribution. But the welfare state, even in its Scandinavian apotheosis, continues to rest on a capitalist system of production; indeed only the affluence created by the latter makes this welfare state possible. Sweden is not, as its proponents keep saying, a 'third way'; rather, it is a variation on the 'first way.'

"There must be some limit beyond which state ownership begins to threaten democracy. Yet present knowledge does not permit us to discern exactly where this limit is. Comparisons between existing capitalist democracies (say, between countries like Austria and Switzerland, which have quite different levels of public ownership) suggest that there is a good deal of leeway. The libertarian view that each step in the direction of public ownership is a step toward despotism is not borne out by evidence. On the other hand, given the empirical linkage between democracy and capitalism, policy makers would be well-advised to be cautious in expanding public ownership.? 

...the reason why capitalism is necessary for democracy [is that] it provides the social space within which individuals, groups, and entire institutional complexes can develop independently of state control. To use a term that has lately returned to fashionable usage, capitalism creates space and opportunity for civil society. Conversely, the empirical correlation between socialism and dictatorship can be explained precisely by the absence of such social space in a socialist system. To achieve this effect, needless to say, it is not at all important whether the original capitalist class is or is not inspired by democratic ideas, for it is the consequences of capitalism, not the motives of the capitalist that create the space for democracy."

-- The Uncertain Triumph of Democratic Capitalism, Peter L. Berger in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy Revisited

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



On Jun 13, 2014, at 12:02 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I was challenged to read a book by Hayek and show where he was wrong, and so I read The Road to Serfdom (well, until I got the ideas).
> 
> Hayek outlined two forms of socialism:  those with central planning and those without (which I will refer to as social services governments).
> 
> For both of these he predicted an eventual decline into totalitarianism, and certainly those governments with central planning have all failed and became, or were from the beginning, dictatorships, unless I am mistaken.  You know them all.  
> 
> However, he seems to be wrong about the social services governments, like Sweden.  Hayek did say that it would take longer:  "In the latter type of socialism the effects I discuss in this book are brought about more slowly indirectly, and imperfectly.  I believe that the ultimate outcome tends to be very much the same, although the process by which it is brought about is not quite the same as that described in this book."  (from the preface page XX of the 1976 edition)
> 
> I did not find the processes that he referred to in this book that he said affect the social services types.
> 
> There are several social services types, like Sweden, that have not failed, have not drifted into totalitarianism by anyone's measure.
> These governments have their troubles, as do we, with increasing free riders and accumulating debt, but dictators they and we have none.
> 
> Thus Hayek is wrong - so far.  
> 
> bill w
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Fri Jun 13 20:01:10 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 13:01:10 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1402689670.93690.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Hayek is not wrong because the time frame involved depends on both degree of
socialism and local circumstances.

Sweden and Norway were one nation until 1905.? Norway was harmed in both WWI and WWII, Sweden was largely untouched so like the USA it industry had an advantage locally and worldwide following WWII.

Both Sweden and Norway have relatively free markets compared to most nations on the Earth and more freedom than most in Europe.? Norway is also afloat in oil revenues.

Norway was under a dictatorship when the Nazi's ran things, Sweden cooperated with the Nazi's and thus did not have an invasion.

Right before the collapse of the Soviet Union the Swedes nearly fell into dictatorship as the Soviets plan to take over Sweden became public.? I was in the Air Force at the time and the Soviets had all of the personnel files of every Swedish pilot and their families ready to take out their Air Force on the ground.? Since they were not in NATO they had no expectation of help for what would have been a takeover in a matter of days.? Then the Soviets would have had ports and air bases in close reach of all of Europe's
NATO members.

No dictatorship for Sweden yet or recently, two close calls in recent history and one in my lifetime just from external events.? I view both Norway and Sweden as free-riders on US defense spending.? Neither can withstand real external military aggression.? Sweden as a freer market than many competitors so they remain tall among people who are shorter than they should be.

Dennis

 

________________________________
 From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 2:02 PM
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
  


I was challenged to read a book by Hayek and show where he was wrong, and so I read The Road to Serfdom (well, until I got the ideas).


Hayek outlined two forms of socialism:? those with central planning and those without (which I will refer to as social services governments).


For both of these he predicted an eventual decline into totalitarianism, and certainly those governments with central planning have all failed and became, or were from the beginning, dictatorships, unless I am mistaken.? You know them all.? 


However, he seems to be wrong about the social services governments, like Sweden.? Hayek did say that it would take longer:? "In the latter type of socialism the effects I discuss in this book are brought about more slowly indirectly, and imperfectly.? I believe that the ultimate outcome tends to be very much the same, although the process by which it is brought about is not quite the same as that described in this book."? (from the preface page XX of the 1976 edition)


I did not find the processes that he referred to in this book that he said affect the social services types.


There are several social services types, like Sweden, that have not failed, have not drifted into totalitarianism by anyone's measure.

These governments have their troubles, as do we, with increasing free riders and accumulating debt, but dictators they and we have none.


Thus Hayek is wrong - so far.? 


bill w

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Jun 14 00:32:48 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2014 17:32:48 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2522847051-14563@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2365190990-10984@secure.ericade.net>
 <2522847051-14563@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <1402705968.36719.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

It would seem that?the need for?exponentially growing 
overhead to correct for noise?introduces an even larger
exponentially growing overhead to watch for potential
virus-like information [coded in the form of white noise?] 
whose purpose might be nothing more than to introduce
factors generating more noise in the system.

In other words exponential susceptibility to noise also
generates an even larger exponential susceptibility to
sabotage exploiting that exponential susceptibility to 
noise.? Not to mention accidentally evolving or introduced
code which might cause this type of issue.

If you thought computer viruses were an issue now
wait until the noise correction methodology?itself can
be targeted.

Exponentially long codes taking advantage of large 
capabilities are also a source of exponential?susceptibility.

It all goes back to the logic of castles?vs cannon balls.

http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/end_of_castles.htm

How?large and defensible can?a system grow before 
countermeasures evolve to overwhelm the advantages
size creates?

In our case what is the optimal size/type of?intelligence before
it is undone by internal and/or external factors.

Dennis May
 

________________________________
 From: Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
  


Continuing my thinking about extreme future computation:

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9611028 "Limitations of noisy reversible computation" shows that noise is pretty bad for reversible computations: the total size of circuits need to grow exponentially with their depth in order to produce reliable computation (in normal circuits the growth is just polynomial). This is also true for quantum computations. Both kinds of circuits can simulate general classical or quantum circuits, but the cost is exponential. Of course, the glass-is-half-full view is that one can build working reliable systems out of noisy components (a la?http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9906129 ) if the noise is below a certain level: you just need to pay a price for it. Very much like error-correcting codes in classical channels. But this shows that intricate messages require exponentially long codes, so to say.?

So if extreme future life runs on largely reversible computers (classical or quantum) it needs to perform a Bennet-style undoing of intermediate results (http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~sbuss/CourseWeb/Math268_2013W/Bennett_Reversibiity.pdf) relatively often not just because error correction is expensive (if N bits are involved in the error syndrome then they all need to be reset at a cost) but because the retrace corresponds to a long circuit depth and the total circuit size hence goes up exponentially. So the amount of hardware grows with retrace length R as exp(R), and presumably the number of bit errors that need to be fixed also grows proportional to it - eventually it is better to just wipe the memory state completely rather than try to erase syndromes and retrace.


Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
_______________________________________________
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http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 06:17:20 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:17:20 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2524070852-14561@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2365190990-10984@secure.ericade.net>
 <2524070852-14561@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgdghJUXjZYwNNeqf8dr8fa5i5d6vokn4t60jXKXZtT=Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
>
> These results imply again that future cold intelligences may have fairly
> frequent retracing loops, especially since there may be limits to how long
> a working superposed qubit can be kept in memory.
>

### I followed your exchange with Robin with great interest. I recently met
an 8-year old boy who became depressed when he found out that our Sun is
about to burn out, and the visible universe will enter a cold, dark night
soon afterwards. So is there hope for us?

By cold intelligences, do you mean very slow minds operating on solid
matter, or computation implemented in loosely bound particles? What are
limits on the number of computations than can be performed with the limited
free energy within out light-cone, assuming no limit on time? Should we
start collecting matter now, impose order on gravitationally bound
galaxies, and hoard them for the coming night? Can we go on forever,
slowing down ever more yet never stopping our journey through computable
states?

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 06:19:57 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:19:57 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Why socialism and environmentalism (and a lot more) will
	be impossible
In-Reply-To: <D37E11F1-BDFE-45C5-B5D1-B44D1EEFC2CC@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1401278401.22517.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <D37E11F1-BDFE-45C5-B5D1-B44D1EEFC2CC@me.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhMRJVddSsu3C98TnWpObtHktgwyp9YUahEbh_a2oOeWw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
>
>
> How about the environment? Unless this universe collapses there will
> always be an environment. Environmentalism can't go away.
>
> How about socialism? Unless there is only one entity, yourself, that you
> are aware of there will always be some sort of society. Socialism can't go
> away.
>

### If you play with meaning of words you can reach arbitrary conclusions.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 06:30:01 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:30:01 -0400
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:37 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>
> So whether one can give examples of leftists who are 'obsessed with power
> and status' by the tens or by the thousands, it doesn't prove anything at
> all as to whether they are any different from people on the right.  One
> would expect that a very high proportion of both leftists and rightists fit
> the description. Which is to say that they are typical, and successful
> examples of the human race as it now exists.
>

### Over 90% of the wielders of power in our society (Federal employees,
elite university faculty and administrators, mainstream journalists, public
intellectuals) are culturally leftist. And yes, those who have power are
different from us - they got where they are because of being obsessed with
power and status, and skilled at gaining power. Since non-leftists (whom
leftists sloppily classify as "right") have much less power than cultural
leftists, yes, this implies they are different - either less interested or
less skilled at obtaining power.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 06:34:37 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:34:37 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>
 <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFg9XjCu4gaUVWUXsK0TCP9RbP9CrxN3HA2BtX1bq77dPg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 6:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
> In theory, government and law tries to reduce corruption.


### No Bill, government is what corrupts law. Monopoly of force is a crappy
way of doing computation, crappy computation corrupts everything it
touches, so government law is corrupt, compared to law produced privately.

Rafal
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 14 09:39:02 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:39:02 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFgdghJUXjZYwNNeqf8dr8fa5i5d6vokn4t60jXKXZtT=Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2578106929-6514@secure.ericade.net>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 14/6/2014 8:22 AM:
On Fri, Jun 13, 2014 at 5:34 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote: 
These results imply again that future cold intelligences may have fairly frequent retracing loops, especially since there may be limits to how long a working superposed qubit can be kept in memory.? 
### I followed your exchange with Robin with great interest. I recently met an 8-year old boy who became depressed when he found out that our Sun is about to burn out, and the visible universe will enter a cold, dark night soon afterwards. So is there hope for us?
Somewhat. Present evidence suggests that we can only get a finite number of irreversible computations done before entropy wins. But finite here means *a lot*.
 By cold intelligences, do you mean very slow minds operating on solid matter, or computation implemented in loosely bound particles? What are limits on the number of computations than can be performed with the limited free energy within out light-cone, assuming no limit on time? Should we start collecting matter now, impose order on gravitationally bound galaxies, and hoard them for the coming night? Can we go on forever, slowing down ever more yet never stopping our journey through computable states? 
This is why I am making these posts: I want to answer the above questions in a paper I am writing. The pieces I have assembled so far:
* In our "Eternity in six hours" paper Armstrong and me calculates how far we could spread. This gives us the volume (in co-moving coordinates) we can play with.?
* The amount of resources depends a bit on what we can use. Conservatively, stars and other condensed matter, plus black holes. Increasingly less conservatively: baryonic matter in galaxies, dark matter halos, interstellar gas, the total mass-energy of the volume. Here I can use current astronomical estimates.
* How much negentropy that can be extracted from this remains a question mark for me. Help wanted.
* Due to accelerating expansion non-gravitationally bound clusters will get exponentially separated and lose causal contact. I ought to calculate the size of the largest possible remaining structures, and check how much is lost if we move superclusters together to build them.
* The background temperature declines over time towards a limit of the horizon radiation.?
* Given negentropy, available mass-energy and temperature I can calculate the maximum number of irreversible computations/error corrections. There will be many more reversible computations. If we can estimate an error rate we can estimate the reversible-to-irreversible ratio.
* Also, there are time limits set by possible baryon decay, black hoe decay and quantum liquefaction timescales.
Overall, my picture until recently was that solid computational media would have the lowest error rate and hence be ideal, but the potential barrier width argument has made me suspect that very diffuse systems may be better if they can keep together. I also think that hoarding matter is a good strategy, but I really want to see if this means transforming it into some suitable form or just keeping it in place until the dark era - this is of course the Fermi paradox link.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 14 13:12:48 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 15:12:48 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1402705968.36719.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2590780724-32118@secure.ericade.net>

There is a general question here that I think is cool and interesting: *what is the limiting amount of resources needed to resist parasites and predators*? The human body uses around 20% of metabolic energy to run the immune system (about the same amount as the brain). Governments spend a few percent of GDP on military, and a few more on police and intelligence. PCs spend perhaps one out of four cores on anti-virus and firewalls. Some rapidly reproducing organisms have lousy immune systems since it is possible to reproduce faster than they are getting killed (but even bacteria need caspases; 80% of bacteria in the ocean end their individual lives because they lyse due to bacteriophages!)Are these numbers generic, or are there other ways of estimating things?
Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com> , 14/6/2014 7:06 AM:
It would seem that?the need for?exponentially growing overhead to correct for noise?introduces an even largerexponentially growing overhead to watch for potentialvirus-like information [coded in the form of white noise?] whose purpose might be nothing more than to introducefactors generating more noise in the system.
Hmm, what assumptions are you adding here? The earlier analysis was just in terms of thermodynamics rather than having an adversary around. Adversaries change the situation rather deeply.?
If an adversary can introduce errors into your computation to get above the error correction threshold then it can clearly prevent any useful computation. But the price is that it needs to induce errors at a constant fraction of all your gates each second.?
There is no direct thermodynamic cost as far as I can tell for doing it (just connect a bit to the background heat bath). In fact, a "predator" may swap a clean bit for a dirty bit, giving itself a thermodynamic advantage. However, predation requires knowing which bits are in which states - the generic internal bit is dirty to the predator despite being in a pure state to the victim (or am I missing some clever quantum scheme to grab an unknown bit in a pure state and use it?) The real cost is likely that it need to cause a connection operation between the victim's system and something else. I wonder if one can show how much entropic cost is needed for this? Doing time reversal seems to show that bit swaps are free.
Reversible computing is extremely fragile: it might be that game theory leads to quirky solutions. If it is easy to perform scorched earth, then stealing resources can be made inefficient. Yes, you can try stealing X bits from me, but if you do I will randomize the bits: I lose the same amount, but you do not gain an advantage. If your utility function want to maximize A and I want to maximize B, there may well be an equilibrium maximizing a combination and we ought to merge our utility functions and resources. If A is proportional to the computational resources used for it and B similarly proportional, then maximizing a combination makes it irrational to remove computational resources. And so on - there is a lot of fun things to work out here. For example, while the base computational infrastructure might be sacrosanct to all agents, they might still struggle on the next level for allocation - including hacking utility functions.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 14 13:43:32 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 15:43:32 +0200
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
Message-ID: <2593742526-22049@secure.ericade.net>

A few months ago I asked the list for opinions about the meaning of life for an upcoming book chapter. The book, Transhumanism and Religion: Moving into an Unknown Future, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, Praeger 2014.?http://abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147553420 , is still a few months away. However, I thought the list might like to see a preprint of the chapter:?http://www.aleph.se/papers/Meaning%20of%20life.pdf
Space restrictions unfortunately forced me to shorten or leave out quotations rather severely; I would have loved going deeper into the discussion we had. Similarly certain dissertations and papers that ought to have been in the chapter also had to be left out - sorry. But it will probably mean that sooner or later I have to write my own book where I have no space constraints and can delve into Ben Goerzel's cosmism or Natasha's meaning of life at the length they deserve... muhahahaha! :-)


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 14:44:02 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 15:44:02 +0100
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <2593742526-22049@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2593742526-22049@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiN+W_fWXDe6zfyqO6VSdoiLsSXVZ7=M8uEkeG6CuJ+og@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 2:43 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> A few months ago I asked the list for opinions about the meaning of life for
> an upcoming book chapter. The book, Transhumanism and Religion: Moving into
> an Unknown Future, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, Praeger 2014.
> http://abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147553420 , is still a few months away.
> However, I thought the list might like to see a preprint of the chapter:
> http://www.aleph.se/papers/Meaning%20of%20life.pdf
>
>

Your other post sparked a thought.

How much of life is housekeeping?
i.e. just surviving can take up a lot of time and resources.

Possibly it is only in fairly recent times that humans have had the
luxury of spare time to wonder about the meaning of life. Even now I
suspect a quite small percentage have this luxury.

Eating, sleeping, working, takes up a lot of time. Add in
self-defence, repairing property, healthcare, family activities,
entertainment, texting, status updates, socialising, etc. and there
are precious few minutes left for meaning search.

That's why people weighed down by the practicalities of life say -
"When I hear 'culture'...I unlock my revolver!"

BillK


From tara at taramayastales.com  Sat Jun 14 15:59:33 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 08:59:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>
 <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <8FFC189B-624D-4DB5-8EC5-95E1D2B3125A@taramayastales.com>


On Jun 9, 2014, at 3:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> In theory, government and law tries to reduce corruption. That's why
> business regards government and laws as a hindrance to their trading
> practices. And, in the USA, has led to corporate takeover of the
> government. For business, that is the ideal - private profits and
> socialize losses.


I agree with this to a certain extent, but again the solution is to forbid the government from taking sides between businesses. As long as it's legal for government to favor one business over another (through licensing, minimum wage laws, laws making it hard to hire/fire, bailouts, or even laws like the one that forbids the selling of Teslas in Texas) then the businesses will have an incentive to spend huge sums to buy government favors. The biggest corporations are naturally the best positioned to spend huge sums to crush smaller, newer competitors.

I think a comparable situation exists with religion. For centuries, religions were allowed to capture monopolistic favors from government. Even now, in many countries, religious institutions are able to receive special favors from government, even in democracies. This corrupts religion and government both. The stakes for collusion between the larger religious groups and government are high, making what should be a matter of personal conscience into a matter of political contestation. 

I would like to see a Separation of Government and Business amendment (or the acknowledgment that it should be covered in the Constitution already). I think this help force both government and business to play fair. It would encourage plurality in the economy in the same way it encourages plurality in religion, with even more direct positive benefits for the economy--and possibly morality too.


Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads






From tara at taramayastales.com  Sat Jun 14 16:19:12 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 09:19:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Hayek
In-Reply-To: <1402689670.93690.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZoN8VL7rKyaLU1Xpwwb4m7i6K2RvJiL7TFTYa5AB2nDg@mail.gmail.com>
 <1402689670.93690.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <9D833413-C76E-4541-B636-046F96B021C6@taramayastales.com>

That is fascinating and frightening at the same time. The novelist in me can't help but think that it would make for an excellent premise of an Alternate History novel. If I've never heard of it, others probably haven't either, yet it makes chilling sense. 

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



On Jun 13, 2014, at 1:01 PM, Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Hayek is not wrong because the time frame involved depends on both degree of
> socialism and local circumstances.
> 
> Sweden and Norway were one nation until 1905.  Norway was harmed in both WWI and WWII, Sweden was largely untouched so like the USA it industry had an advantage locally and worldwide following WWII.
> 
> Both Sweden and Norway have relatively free markets compared to most nations on the Earth and more freedom than most in Europe.  Norway is also afloat in oil revenues.
> 
> Norway was under a dictatorship when the Nazi's ran things, Sweden cooperated with the Nazi's and thus did not have an invasion.
> 
> Right before the collapse of the Soviet Union the Swedes nearly fell into dictatorship as the Soviets plan to take over Sweden became public.  I was in the Air Force at the time and the Soviets had all of the personnel files of every Swedish pilot and their families ready to take out their Air Force on the ground.  Since they were not in NATO they had no expectation of help for what would have been a takeover in a matter of days.  Then the Soviets would have had ports and air bases in close reach of all of Europe's
> NATO members.
> 
> No dictatorship for Sweden yet or recently, two close calls in recent history and one in my lifetime just from external events.  I view both Norway and Sweden as free-riders on US defense spending.  Neither can withstand real external military aggression.  Sweden as a freer market than many competitors so they remain tall among people who are shorter than they should be.
> 
> Dennis
> 
> 
> From: William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2014 2:02 PM
> Subject: [ExI] Hayek
> 
> I was challenged to read a book by Hayek and show where he was wrong, and so I read The Road to Serfdom (well, until I got the ideas).
> 
> Hayek outlined two forms of socialism:  those with central planning and those without (which I will refer to as social services governments).
> 
> For both of these he predicted an eventual decline into totalitarianism, and certainly those governments with central planning have all failed and became, or were from the beginning, dictatorships, unless I am mistaken.  You know them all.  
> 
> However, he seems to be wrong about the social services governments, like Sweden.  Hayek did say that it would take longer:  "In the latter type of socialism the effects I discuss in this book are brought about more slowly indirectly, and imperfectly.  I believe that the ultimate outcome tends to be very much the same, although the process by which it is brought about is not quite the same as that described in this book."  (from the preface page XX of the 1976 edition)
> 
> I did not find the processes that he referred to in this book that he said affect the social services types.
> 
> There are several social services types, like Sweden, that have not failed, have not drifted into totalitarianism by anyone's measure.
> These governments have their troubles, as do we, with increasing free riders and accumulating debt, but dictators they and we have none.
> 
> Thus Hayek is wrong - so far.  
> 
> bill w
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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

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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Jun 14 16:21:41 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 09:21:41 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <8FFC189B-624D-4DB5-8EC5-95E1D2B3125A@taramayastales.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>
 <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <8FFC189B-624D-4DB5-8EC5-95E1D2B3125A@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <1402762901.14724.YahooMailNeo@web160704.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

On?Saturday, June 14, 2014 10:59 AM??Tara Maya <tara at taramayastales.com> wrote:

> I would like to see a Separation of Government and Business amendment (or the
> acknowledgment that it should be covered in the Constitution already).??

The Constitution is a document of negative liberties - meaning the federal government can do this finite list of?enumerated things and nothing more.? The majority of US federal government spending is now outside of the Constitution hence we are in a post-Constitutional period.??This issue?is already covered in the Constitution but ignored and worked around with every branch of the federal government involved in bypassing the Constitution.

Dennis May
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From rahmans at me.com  Sat Jun 14 17:48:23 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 19:48:23 +0200
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <005301F3-7047-44F1-9F02-53358DCA7CA7@me.com>


> Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:19:57 -0400
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Why socialism and environmentalism (and a lot more)
> 	will	be impossible
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAAc1gFhMRJVddSsu3C98TnWpObtHktgwyp9YUahEbh_a2oOeWw at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> On Wed, May 28, 2014 at 12:27 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> How about the environment? Unless this universe collapses there will
>> always be an environment. Environmentalism can't go away.
>> 
>> How about socialism? Unless there is only one entity, yourself, that you
>> are aware of there will always be some sort of society. Socialism can't go
>> away.
>> 
> 
> ### If you play with meaning of words you can reach arbitrary conclusions.
> 
> Rafal

In that part of that post I was, obviously, trying to state something simply, almost absurdly so as in 'reductio ad absurdum', and not trying to redefine terms.

Perhaps it would be better to say that: we will always have a relationship with our environment --> this environment is real and measurable --> we should base our policies on this environment --> our environment is shared with other actors --> there will be some sort of society --> this society should refrain from war and favour inclusiveness and cooperation --> avoiding war (whenever possible) and favouring cooperation will inevitably lead to socialism.

Regards,

Omar Rahman

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From rahmans at me.com  Sat Jun 14 18:32:40 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 20:32:40 +0200
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>


> Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:30:01 -0400
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] be nice to leftists
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:37 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>> 
>> 
>> So whether one can give examples of leftists who are 'obsessed with power
>> and status' by the tens or by the thousands, it doesn't prove anything at
>> all as to whether they are any different from people on the right.  One
>> would expect that a very high proportion of both leftists and rightists fit
>> the description. Which is to say that they are typical, and successful
>> examples of the human race as it now exists.
>> 
> 
> ### Over 90% of the wielders of power in our society (Federal employees,
> elite university faculty and administrators, mainstream journalists, public
> intellectuals) are culturally leftist.

If this 'statistic' is anywhere near to being accurate, could you please explain why the US 'defence' budget, foreign policy, environmental policy, etc. etc. etc. are as they are? 

> And yes, those who have power are
> different from us - they got where they are because of being obsessed with
> power and status, and skilled at gaining power. Since non-leftists (whom
> leftists sloppily classify as "right") have much less power than cultural
> leftists, yes, this implies they are different - either less interested or
> less skilled at obtaining power.
> 
> Rafal

1. 	A certain TV network features stories about 'the right' as an oppressed minority which is actually the majority.
2.	Do you know what circular reasoning is?

I recently took the 'political compass' quiz that some others had recommended here. It had some interesting questions and some difficult choices to make considering you only had to decide between 4 things, strong agree, agree, disagree, strong disagree.

One of the things that I took away from that experience was when they graphed me against some well known people (as their positions were estimated by the website's staff I think) I had a bit of a left/right, authoritarian/libertarian epiphany. With my little data point up there on a quasi-scientific graph it actually promoted in me a kind of subjective definition of left and right when I compared it to the other data points. The 'objective' comparison depends on where you put the axes though, a sort of 0 Celsius vs. 0 Kelvin kind of thing.

Regards,

Omar Rahman

P.S. 		Libertarians of the list....according to the 'political compass'....I'm one of you! Why do we argue so often? (I thought I'd be rather neutral on the authoritarian/libertarian axis actually.) 

P.P.S	Economic Left/Right: -4.25 	Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.18


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From rahmans at me.com  Sat Jun 14 19:04:26 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 21:04:26 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <16E01195-4DC0-4B83-B8A1-D24C57C81AB4@me.com>


> Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 02:34:37 -0400
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAAc1gFg9XjCu4gaUVWUXsK0TCP9RbP9CrxN3HA2BtX1bq77dPg at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> On Mon, Jun 9, 2014 at 6:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> In theory, government and law tries to reduce corruption.
> 
> 
> ### No Bill, government is what corrupts law. Monopoly of force is a crappy
> way of doing computation, crappy computation corrupts everything it
> touches, so government law is corrupt, compared to law produced privately.
> 
> Rafal

Um, 'law produced privately'? What kind of law is it if it is private to you? You wouldn't happen to want to actually ENFORCE those laws on others against their wills, would you? I guess then it would be your private force vs the private force of those you declare 'law breakers'. Sounds like the law of the jungle, might makes right etc.

Again though, circular reasoning. This is the 'goto' of discussion by the way. Here is how it works:

10	government is what corrupts law
20	monopoly of force is a crappy way of doing computation
30	crappy computation corrupts everything it touches
40	goto 10

You see? Your conclusion is not significantly different from your premiss. (We will leave aside how flawed your premiss is for now.) (We will also do our best to gloss over the fact that statements 20 and 30 are either also premisses or non sequiturs.)

Regards,

Omar Rahman

P.S.	I think I have posted to the list with Re: 'the digest name' for the subject for a couple previous posts. My apologies.


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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Sat Jun 14 18:56:21 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 11:56:21 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2590780724-32118@secure.ericade.net>
References: <1402705968.36719.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <2590780724-32118@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <1402772181.35750.YahooMailNeo@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Dennis
May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>, 14/6/2014 7:06 AM:


It would seem that?the need for?exponentially growing 
overhead to correct for noise?introduces an even larger
exponentially growing overhead to watch for potential
virus-like information [coded in the form of white noise?] 
whose purpose might be nothing more than to introduce
factors generating more noise in the system.
Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>, 14/6/2014 8:12 AM:
There
is a general question here that I think is cool and 
interesting:
*what is the limiting amount of resources 
needed
to resist parasites and predators*? The human 
body
uses around 20% of metabolic energy to run the 
immune
system (about the same amount as the brain). 
Governments
spend a few percent of GDP on military, 
and
a few more on police and intelligence. PCs spend 
perhaps
one out of four cores on anti-virus and firewalls. 
Some
rapidly reproducing organisms have lousy immune 
systems
since it is possible to reproduce faster than they 
are
getting killed (but even bacteria need caspases; 80% 
of
bacteria in the ocean end their individual lives because 
they
lyse due to bacteriophages!)
Are
these numbers generic, or are there other ways of 
estimating
things?
*****
The
overhead required to survive all forms of parasitism,
predation,
and internal competition from this moment till
the
final state you wish to consider is the question. If you
take
the biological analogy individuals do not survive,
species
last a little longer, and life from an common origin
lasts
longer still. Undirected biology expends a great deal
of
energy in fending off natural parasitism and predation
from
unsophisticated sources. Assuming the existence of
vast
intelligences requires strategies able to deal with 
competition
in all forms from other vast intelligences. The
first
given assumption is that you or other groups will be 
left
alone long enough to develop.
*****

Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>, 14/6/2014 8:12 AM:
Hmm,
what assumptions are you adding here? The earlier 
analysis was just in terms of
thermodynamics rather than 
having an adversary around. Adversaries change the
situation 
rather deeply.?
*****
Questions
concerning the Fermi Paradox should include the variable of
adversaries
at every juncture since all of biology is known to deal with 
the
issue continually from the earliest systems forward.
Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>, 14/6/2014 8:12 AM:
?Reversible
computing is extremely fragile: it might be that game theory 
leads
to quirky solutions.?

There
are presently dozens of competing physical implementations of 
quantum
computing each with slightly differing degrees of fragility.
All
physical qubit implementations to date are too fragile to produce 
useful
computations. Opinion on how much overhead for error correction
will
be required varies widely. Game theory on how to produce useful
results
in such fragile systems could be an immense computational 
project
in and of itself.
The
issue of castles versus cannonballs was important in early human
evolution
once the ability to work and communicate as a group, run 
for
long periods of time and carry a fifteen foot spear enabled a medium
sized
animal to hunt all land animals regardless of size.? Millions of
years
of evolution favoring the strategy of large size were undone - not
because
of food restriction due to reduced niche, an asteroid impact or 
volcanoes
but because of a new strategy opened up by increased
computational
capabilities. Once super-intelligences are in competition
I
would expect things to get very complicated concerning the continued
advantage
of ?size? versus many other variables becoming enabled.
Dennis
May
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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Sat Jun 14 17:38:53 2014
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 13:38:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
Message-ID: <85762455-7606-47CB-B297-211E01F8DCAA@alumni.virginia.edu>


> On Jun 14, 2014, at 9:43 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> 
> A few months ago I asked the list for opinions about the meaning of life for an upcoming book chapter. The book, Transhumanism and Religion: Moving into an Unknown Future, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, Praeger 2014. http://abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147553420 , is still a few months away. However, I thought the list might like to see a preprint of the chapter:http://www.aleph.se/papers/Meaning%20of%20life.pdf
> 
> Space restrictions unfortunately forced me to shorten or leave out quotations rather severely; I would have loved going deeper into the discussion we had. Similarly certain dissertations and papers that ought to have been in the chapter also had to be left out - sorry. But it will probably mean that sooner or later I have to write my own book where I have no space constraints and can delve into Ben Goerzel's cosmism or Natasha's meaning of life at the length they deserve... muhahahaha! :-)
Very nice work, Anders. Thanks for sharing a preview.  Not only are you way smart, you are a good writer as well. It's a privilege to be privy to your insight on this list. 
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 21:01:49 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:01:49 -0500
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiN+W_fWXDe6zfyqO6VSdoiLsSXVZ7=M8uEkeG6CuJ+og@mail.gmail.com>
References: <2593742526-22049@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiN+W_fWXDe6zfyqO6VSdoiLsSXVZ7=M8uEkeG6CuJ+og@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZeuhNWuutQq01quSO2oGFanq6tGpa49DtQar95hnXkgw@mail.gmail.com>

, Anders Sandberg wrote:

>  > A few months ago I asked the list for opinions about the meaning of
> life for
> > an upcoming book chapter. The book, Transhumanism and Religion: Moving
> into
> > an Unknown Future, eds. Tracy Trothen and Calvin Mercer, Praeger 2014.
> > http://abc-clio.com/product.aspx?id=2147553420 , is still a few months
> away.
> > However, I thought the list might like to see a preprint of the chapter:
> >
> ??
> http://www.aleph.se/papers/Meaning%20of%20life.pdf
> >
>  Possibly it is only in fairly recent times that there
> ? ?
> are precious few minutes left for meaning search.
>
> BillK
>
?The meaning of your life is what you do with it.  "She was a great cook."
"He loved fantasy baseball."  "Good teacher, not great, cared more than
most."  "Killed his entire family including pets."  "Loved to poke fun at
politicians."  "Made a lot of money and was a fool about women."  These are
all meanings.?

So no matter what you may think is the meaning of your life, that is, what
you 'meant' to do, life, which is often full of random events that push you
around like big ocean waves, is what you do with it.  And often
misinterpreted by others! There is a different opinion to what your life is
about for every person who knows you.

As to the meaning life (as in Anders pdf) as defined for the entire race, I
offer only this:  we should aim at being better people, intellectually,
physically, emotionally, and morally.  "Better" will have to be defined
democratically, but as a start:  far less violent again one's own species,
far less motivated by sex, free of obsessions with certain foods, etc.
Morally, we could build in more empathy so the Golden Rule could actually
be practiced fully by people.

A key value to give life its meaning:  transhumanism's goal of improving
humanity.  To spend one's life working towards that goal gives both
humanity and individuals a meaning they can believe in permanently.

wfw

> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 14 21:39:31 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:39:31 +0200
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiN+W_fWXDe6zfyqO6VSdoiLsSXVZ7=M8uEkeG6CuJ+og@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2622074498-15648@secure.ericade.net>

BillK <pharos at gmail.com> , 14/6/2014 4:49 PM:
How much of life is housekeeping? 
i.e. just surviving can take up a lot of time and resources. 
 
Possibly it is only in fairly recent times that humans have had the 
luxury of spare time to wonder about the meaning of life. Even now I 
suspect a quite small percentage have this luxury. 
Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a good approximation: meaning-searching mainly happens when we got survival, safety, and social network fixed. We certainly have moments when we think even when scrounging for food or trying to impress people, but active pursuit of deep meaning is a bit of a luxury. Of course, really religious people actually skip the other parts to focus on the things they think are important, becoming monks and whatnot.?
But there is another aspect of housekeeping: how much of life is actual thought, and how much is just chatbot-like stimulus-response patterns? After spending a week talking Turing tests I suspect most of our time is in chatbot mode. This makes sense: thinking is expensive and slow, while well-learned responses can be cheap and fast. And most thinking moments are about housekeeping (how should I handle my family? what job would pay better?) rather than wonder or meaning-searching.?
So when we get richer and freer in the future, the amount of actual thinking about meaning in the average person might not go up much. Certainly people will do more high status "searching" showing that they are deep, creative and individual, but most don't care that much about figuring out what it is all about. You need to have a pretty high need for cognition to care about The Meaning rather than a meaning. But it is fun to be in that state!

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 14 21:40:48 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:40:48 +0200
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <85762455-7606-47CB-B297-211E01F8DCAA@alumni.virginia.edu>
Message-ID: <2622707019-16446@secure.ericade.net>

Henry Rivera?<hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu>?, 14/6/2014 10:24 PM:

Very nice work, Anders. Thanks for sharing a preview. ?Not only are you way smart, you are a good writer as well. It's a privilege to be privy to your insight on this list.?
Thanks! That warms my heart.
I do not feel smart. I am just good at reflecting the ideas of others into a somewhat brighter image.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Sat Jun 14 17:40:06 2014
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 13:40:06 -0400
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
Message-ID: <4C5EC72C-83B4-495A-A453-BF0B97EE3BE3@alumni.virginia.edu>


> On Jun 14, 2014, at 2:30 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:37 PM, William Flynn Wallace<foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> So whether one can give examples of leftists who are 'obsessed with power and status' by the tens or by the thousands, it doesn't prove anything at all as to whether they are any different from people on the right.  One would expect that a very high proportion of both leftists and rightists fit the description. Which is to say that they are typical, and successful examples of the human race as it now exists.  
> 
> ### Over 90% of the wielders of power in our society (Federal employees, elite university faculty and administrators, mainstream journalists, public intellectuals) are culturally leftist. And yes, those who have power are different from us - they got where they are because of being obsessed with power and status, and skilled at gaining power. Since non-leftists (whom leftists sloppily classify as "right") have much less power than cultural leftists, yes, this implies they are different - either less interested or less skilled at obtaining power.
> 
> Rafal 

The non left in DC who rise to power are quite skilled and interested in obtaining power. Having lived in Washington DC most of my life and knowing many of people from the left and the right in positions of power, I can say your description is not consistent with my observations. The non-left are consistently more obsessed with gaining power and control and better at maintaining it through manipulating fear and diverting attention from their drive for power at any cost. Some would describe their tactics as ruthless and unethical. The right would respond by suggesting such forms of deception are necessary to win this existential battle. The leftists are pulled in as a last ditch effort to check this power-grab since it becomes apparent to them that the right will not cease until they have total world domination and propagation of their values at any cost. It's not a live and let live philosophy. Again, I'm not interpreting from a distance, this was my experience exposed to personal friends and friends of my family when I was growing up who are/were power players in DC (senators, lobbyists, cabinet dept leadership and employees, wealthy $ contributors from special interests) of both right and left ideologies. FWIW. My perspective is unique as I have been privileged to be exposed to such people especially as a child in private settings where they were not inclined to be guarded and would speak candidly. I don't expect this to change your perspective, but it is worth noting this reality I have observed to those who might entertain your suggestions. 
-Henry
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 14 22:14:47 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 00:14:47 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1402772181.35750.YahooMailNeo@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>

Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com> , 14/6/2014 9:13 PM:
Questions concerning the Fermi Paradox should include the variable ofadversaries at every juncture since all of biology is known to deal with the issue continually from the earliest systems forward.
This is a problematic approach. Yes, freely evolving systems of replicators generically get parasitism. But in the Fermi context free evolution is just one option: a civilization that has developed into a singleton might coordinate future behaviour to preclude parasitism or adversarial behaviour, or it might decide on "intelligent design" of its future development. If it is also alone within the reachable volume its dynamics will be entirely adversary-free. Maybe this is not the most likely case, but it it has to be analysed - and understanding it is pretty essential for being able to ground the adversarial cases.?
When Joanna Bryson gave a talk here ( it can be viewed at?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtxoNap_UBc ) she also used a biological/evolutionary argument for why we do not need to worry about the AI part of the intelligence explosion; as I argued during the Q&A, there might be a problem in relying too much on biological insights when speaking about complex agent systems. Economics, another discipline of complex systems, gives very different intuitions.?
Then again, I do think running game theory for Fermi is a good idea. I had a poster about it last summer: ?https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50947659/huntersinthedark.pdf In this case I think I showed that some berserker scenarios are unstable. (And thanks to Robin for posing the issue like this - we ought to write the paper soon :-) )

Once super-intelligences are in competitionI would expect things to get very complicated concerning the continuedadvantage of ?size? versus many other variables becoming enabled.
We know that game theory between agents modelling each other can easily become NP-complete (or co-NP):https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370206000397?np=yhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370297000301?np=yAnd these are bounded agents; superintelligences will create an even more complex situation.
Of course, as seen in this little essay,http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/10/how_to_survive_among_unfriendly_superintelligences.htmlnon-superintelligences can thrive under some circumstances simply because they go under the radar. A bit like how many insects do not use adaptive immune systems, or certain military devices are not armoured - it is not worth increasing resilience of individuals when you can get resilience by having many instances.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun 14 22:17:43 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 23:17:43 +0100
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <2622074498-15648@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAL_armiN+W_fWXDe6zfyqO6VSdoiLsSXVZ7=M8uEkeG6CuJ+og@mail.gmail.com>
 <2622074498-15648@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiWh-CXsH6kd00jp7W-hm4QwTMUaU+CJiYB3zbyeJ0w3g@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 10:39 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> But there is another aspect of housekeeping: how much of life is actual
> thought, and how much is just chatbot-like stimulus-response patterns? After
> spending a week talking Turing tests I suspect most of our time is in
> chatbot mode. This makes sense: thinking is expensive and slow, while
> well-learned responses can be cheap and fast. And most thinking moments are
> about housekeeping (how should I handle my family? what job would pay
> better?) rather than wonder or meaning-searching.
>
> So when we get richer and freer in the future, the amount of actual thinking
> about meaning in the average person might not go up much. Certainly people
> will do more high status "searching" showing that they are deep, creative
> and individual, but most don't care that much about figuring out what it is
> all about. You need to have a pretty high need for cognition to care about
> The Meaning rather than a meaning. But it is fun to be in that state!
>
>

There's a best-seller book about that.
Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
There was also a documentary on BBC TV about this.

<http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/book-review-thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel-kahneman-10272011.html>
Quote:
System 2 is your conscious, thinking mind. We conceive of this active
consciousness as the principal actor, the "decider" in our lives.
System 2 thinks slowly; it considers, evaluates, reasons. Its work
requires mental effort--multiplying 24 by 17 or turning left at a busy
intersection. We attribute most of our opinions and decisions to this
thinking, reasonable fellow.

For Kahneman, however, the main protagonist is System 1. This is the
agent of our automatic and effortless mental responses. System 1 can
add single-digit numbers and fill in the phrase "bread and --." It is
equipped with a nuanced picture of the world, the product of retained
memory and learned patterns of association ("Florida/old people") that
enable it to spew out a stream of reactions, judgments, opinions.

The flaw in this remarkable machine is that System 1 works with as
little or as much information as it has. If it can't answer the
question, "Is Ford (F) stock a good investment?" it supplies an answer
based on related but not really relevant data, such as whether you
like Ford's cars.
-----------------------------

There is also a lot in the book about all the cognitive biases that
System 1 uses.


BillK


From sjatkins at mac.com  Sat Jun 14 23:23:18 2014
From: sjatkins at mac.com (Samantha Atkins)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 16:23:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <2622074498-15648@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2622074498-15648@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <539CD966.5080104@mac.com>


On 06/14/2014 02:39 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote:
> BillK<pharos at gmail.com> , 14/6/2014 4:49 PM:
>
>     How much of life is housekeeping?
>     i.e. just surviving can take up a lot of time and resources.
>
>     Possibly it is only in fairly recent times that humans have had the
>     luxury of spare time to wonder about the meaning of life. Even now I
>     suspect a quite small percentage have this luxury. 
>
>
> Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a good approximation: meaning-searching
> mainly happens when we got survival, safety, and social network fixed.
> We certainly have moments when we think even when scrounging for food
> or trying to impress people, but active pursuit of deep meaning is a
> bit of a luxury. Of course, really religious people actually skip the
> other parts to focus on the things they think are important, becoming
> monks and whatnot.

What worries me is being given or driven by externalities for too long,
so long one forgets or never really knows what one *really* wants or
doesn't believe it is remotely possible to get any such thing.  We are
told to "be sensible", to "go along to get along".  We get stuck in our
routines and "responsibilities" or what we feel we "have to" do for so
many years that we forget what we want to do or even what that might be
or how to find it. 

You see it in retirees a lot.  The routines of education, family, job
have kept them busy for decades.  When the job is done and the children
have grown up and perhaps the life partner died or has left, many a
person feels utterly lost.  They have forgotten what it is to want to do
anything just because they want to do it.  

As and if we reach ever greater abundance, more than enough to fulfill
all the needs and many of the desires of everyone with a fraction of
productive capacity regardless of where they have a job or not,  more
and more people will be in the situation of the retiree.  Left with very
little they have to do, little routine they need to follow.    They will
need to find what they want to do and enjoy doing - perhaps for the
first time in their adult lives.

I worry a bit about the scene in the Matrix when Agent Smith says that
the first matrix was a paradise of everything humans had said they
wanted from a utopia.  Humans suicided by the hundreds of millions.   

- samantha


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From max at maxmore.com  Sun Jun 15 01:47:59 2014
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 18:47:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <04f801cf7836$e05cf7f0$a116e7d0$@att.net>
References: <04ae01cf782f$abd988b0$038c9a10$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiwiskfRHr3wO3z=+wG=Bdu0xjADjc+X0yDAFLhoxJs3A@mail.gmail.com>
 <04f801cf7836$e05cf7f0$a116e7d0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAJX-7wXsheJaWh_r1Q0dwC2CR8u0tmrkij_QG2wa9hf9EoWfvg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 9:32 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>  If chemo-preservation worked that would be great; far cheaper than
> cryonics.
>

I'm way behind on reading email lists and only just caught up to this
one...

No, not "far cheaper". Only modestly cheaper than neurocryopreservation.
This error comes up again and again. The assumption seems to be that a
brain will somehow, magically, get chemically fixed in good time before
critical cellular damage has occurred without any costs being incurred.

In reality, IF we had a remotely workable chemical preservation method --
which we certainly do not for whole human brains (and have no idea how to
achieve, as even Ken Hayworth recently acknowledged when I talked to him at
the Tucson consciousness conference) -- it would do no one any good unless
it could be applied VERY SOON after legal death. That requires the same
kind of standby team and fast response capability crucial to cryonics. And
THAT costs serious money.

The only cost you would save (and only part of that) is the long-term
storage costs. For a neuro patient, this requires only $25,000 (the amount
Alcor puts in the Patient Care Trust Fund for a neuro), which is a trivial
amount when paid for by life insurance. Storing a chemically-preserved
brain would be cheaper, but you would still need to pay something for
security and  storage space.


> The procedure would be a lot more common I would think if there was any
> reason to believe it has promise.


This seems reasonable, but I see little evidence for it. After all, there
is good reason to see cryopreservation (done right, with good response
capabilities) are having plenty of promise, yet only a ridiculously small
fraction of the population has made arrangements. I see no reason to be
more MORE optimistic about chemical preservation. Less so, since that
process destroys viability and requires the considerable additional
assumptions involved in scanning and uploading a personality.

MM

>

-- 
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
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 15 03:59:53 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 20:59:53 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZeuhNWuutQq01quSO2oGFanq6tGpa49DtQar95hnXkgw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <2593742526-22049@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armiN+W_fWXDe6zfyqO6VSdoiLsSXVZ7=M8uEkeG6CuJ+og@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZeuhNWuutQq01quSO2oGFanq6tGpa49DtQar95hnXkgw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <019301cf884e$43d123c0$cb736b40$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
?

>?So no matter what you may think is the meaning of your life, that is, what you 'meant' to do, life, which is often full of random events that push you around like big ocean waves, is what you do with it.  And often misinterpreted by others! There is a different opinion to what your life is about for every person who knows you?.wfw

 

 

I am attending a niece?s college graduation this weekend.  Her great grandparents are still living and were with us.  Both are aged 90 yrs.  At a family gathering this afternoon, they were telling stories about things they did during the war (II).  I got out my recorder and made videos.  Those videos may be most of the long term records the future will have of that couple.  All the life they have lived in nine decades, all their life?s work, their experiences, their everything, may be archived and remembered by a short reminisce done without forethought on a pleasant late spring afternoon.  From the point of view of future generations, these people will be that video.

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 15 04:27:13 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 14 Jun 2014 21:27:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing
	Test Mean?
In-Reply-To: <00ba01cf85a4$1162c490$34284db0$@att.net>
References: <CACYTDBeERcAKjhxBAWe5w=Aa1VCsp+9veDtmK+MkE4M6VqG4Mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv3x3aAm7DKFxQwUUNq_u76A9jS9aLdvTVxbcH3E0YXCUQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <08f301cf84ea$69533c30$3bf9b490$@att.net>
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 <00ba01cf85a4$1162c490$34284db0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <01ac01cf8852$1556ce60$40046b20$@att.net>

 

Subject: Re: [ExI] What Does Chatbot Eugene Goostman's Success on the Turing Test Mean?

 

On Tue, Jun 10, 2014 at 5:05 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 

>>? rig up a chat-bot to engage spam callers.

 

>?That is the best idea I've heard in a long time. I love it! John K Clark 

 

Wouldn?t it be cool if we could get a chatbot to engage the local Jehovah?s Witnesses?  But then a new questions arises.  What if the chatbot was convinced and converted?  Would that be considered artificial intelligence, or real stupid?

 

spike

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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 07:53:10 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 03:53:10 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <16E01195-4DC0-4B83-B8A1-D24C57C81AB4@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <16E01195-4DC0-4B83-B8A1-D24C57C81AB4@me.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhPEsi0tN2mCpPF_y98jNY4fk-hahVeCqEVJ-+qYzOHig@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:



> Um, 'law produced privately'? What kind of law is it if it is private to
> you? You wouldn't happen to want to actually ENFORCE those laws on others
> against their wills, would you? I guess then it would be your private force
> vs the private force of those you declare 'law breakers'. Sounds like the
> law of the jungle, might makes right etc.
>

### Read up on private law, come back when you have something relevant to
say.

--------------


>
> Again though, circular reasoning. This is the 'goto' of discussion by the
> way. Here is how it works:
>
> 10 government is what corrupts law
> 20 monopoly of force is a crappy way of doing computation
> 30 crappy computation corrupts everything it touches
> 40 goto 10
>
> You see? Your conclusion is not significantly different from your premiss.
> (We will leave aside how flawed your premiss is for now.) (We will also do
> our best to gloss over the fact that statements 20 and 30 are either also
> premisses or non sequiturs.)
>

### Your difficulty in reading prose probably explains a lot. You seem to
miss the cues that differentiate a thesis, an exposition and a restatement.
An argument is frequently presented in this order.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 08:10:54 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:10:54 -0400
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <CAJX-7wXsheJaWh_r1Q0dwC2CR8u0tmrkij_QG2wa9hf9EoWfvg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <04ae01cf782f$abd988b0$038c9a10$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiwiskfRHr3wO3z=+wG=Bdu0xjADjc+X0yDAFLhoxJs3A@mail.gmail.com>
 <04f801cf7836$e05cf7f0$a116e7d0$@att.net>
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Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhSb0E2qSS_krKK99pCLTAiJ1v2o=MZ4tGi1XfJxJWOeg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 9:47 PM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:

>
>
> The only cost you would save (and only part of that) is the long-term
> storage costs. For a neuro patient, this requires only $25,000 (the amount
> Alcor puts in the Patient Care Trust Fund for a neuro), which is a trivial
> amount when paid for by life insurance. Storing a chemically-preserved
> brain would be cheaper, but you would still need to pay something for
> security and  storage space.
>

### I agree that chemical preservation is not really that much cheaper than
cryonics but it does have one attractive feature: Storage does not depend
on the existence of a cryonics organization, which itself requires a
well-functioning economy. Well-fixed brains could be forgotten, buried, and
re-discovered by 34th century archeologists, and still give you a ticket
into the future. The hope of cryonics could be dashed by 2 months of
economic turmoil, just enough to evaporate the nitrogen. This is a big
difference in resilience to Black Swan events.

Ideally, if our stupid laws against assisted suicide could be changed,
fixation would be done electively on anesthetized patients, under ideal
conditions to assure prompt fixation, followed by monomer perfusion, water
replacement and polymerization (I know that these challenges have not yet
been adequately addressed). Well, one can dream.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 08:22:11 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:22:11 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
References: <1402772181.35750.YahooMailNeo@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgnC=dvPOnS_i7UBvETFKSt22h1imVMBVBWdg88LPMhxQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 6:14 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:.
>
>
> This is a problematic approach. Yes, freely evolving systems of
> replicators generically get parasitism. But in the Fermi context free
> evolution is just one option: a civilization that has developed into a
> singleton might coordinate future behaviour to preclude parasitism or
> adversarial behaviour,
>

### Indeed. This would probably require single AI takeover and elimination
humans' ability to cause havoc (either by being killed or by being kept in
secure isolated environments). And the takeover would have to take place
before the first seeding wave of von Neumann probes.

Could be as little as 100 years from now. This century could potentially
determine the fate of the visible universe for trillions of years.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 08:36:03 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:36:03 -0400
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <6BA0834B-F107-48EF-B4F8-53A92CB6CE05@gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>
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On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 1:37 PM, Henry Rivera <4chaos.onelove at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> On Jun 14, 2014, at 2:30 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Jun 6, 2014 at 2:37 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>>
>>
>> So whether one can give examples of leftists who are 'obsessed with power
>> and status' by the tens or by the thousands, it doesn't prove anything at
>> all as to whether they are any different from people on the right.  One
>> would expect that a very high proportion of both leftists and rightists fit
>> the description. Which is to say that they are typical, and successful
>> examples of the human race as it now exists.
>>
>
> ### Over 90% of the wielders of power in our society (Federal employees,
> elite university faculty and administrators, mainstream journalists, public
> intellectuals) are culturally leftist. And yes, those who have power are
> different from us - they got where they are because of being obsessed with
> power and status, and skilled at gaining power. Since non-leftists (whom
> leftists sloppily classify as "right") have much less power than cultural
> leftists, yes, this implies they are different - either less interested or
> less skilled at obtaining power.
>
> Rafal
>
>
> The non left in DC who rise to power are quite skilled and interested in
> obtaining power. Having lived in Washington DC most of my life and knowing
> many of people from the left and the right in positions of power, I can say
> your description is not consistent with my observations. The non-left are
> consistently more obsessed with gaining power and control and better at
> maintaining it through manipulating fear and diverting attention from their
> drive for power at any cost. Some would describe their tactics as ruthless
> and unethical. The right would respond by suggesting such forms of
> deception are necessary to win this existential battle. The leftists are
> pulled in as a last ditch effort to check this power-grab since it becomes
> apparent to them that the right will not cease until they have total world
> domination and propagation of their values at any cost. It's not a live and
> let live philosophy. Again, I'm not interpreting from a distance, this was
> my experience exposed to personal friends and friends of my family when I
> was growing up who are/were power players in DC (senators, lobbyists,
> cabinet dept leadership and employees, wealthy $ contributors from special
> interests) of both right and left ideologies. FWIW. My perspective is
> unique as I have been privileged to be exposed to such people especially as
> a child in private settings where they were not inclined to be guarded and
> would speak candidly. I don't expect this to change your perspective, but
> it is worth noting this reality I have observed to those who might
> entertain your suggestions.
>

### Most power in the US is in the hands of cultural leftists. I have no
doubts that many successful non-leftists are as nasty as politically
successful leftists but there is just so few of them. Remember, elected
officials are a fraction of 1% of political power wielders, and 90% of that
unelected majority are culturally leftist.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 08:39:19 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 04:39:19 -0400
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgksvnZDUeQcrp4+yCgtey4L=tdNnfPhJRe1QXA_AqumA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:


> Libertarians of the list....according to the 'political compass'....I'm
> one of you!
>

### Libertarians do not write paeans to socialism.

Rafal
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From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 16:06:17 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 09:06:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhPEsi0tN2mCpPF_y98jNY4fk-hahVeCqEVJ-+qYzOHig@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <16E01195-4DC0-4B83-B8A1-D24C57C81AB4@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFhPEsi0tN2mCpPF_y98jNY4fk-hahVeCqEVJ-+qYzOHig@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQgVkdxSYN=Bnuj1tvbmqap=H=9+durFhZdvjUpdtmQpQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
>
>> Um, 'law produced privately'? What kind of law is it if it is private to
>> you? You wouldn't happen to want to actually ENFORCE those laws on others
>> against their wills, would you? I guess then it would be your private force
>> vs the private force of those you declare 'law breakers'. Sounds like the
>> law of the jungle, might makes right etc.
>>
>
> ### Read up on private law, come back when you have something relevant to
> say.
>

No, he's right.  Enforcement is a fundamental weakness of relying only on
private law.  There exist those who refuse to agree to any laws, and there
have since law first existed.  The only way they are kept from taking what
they please without recompense is by enforcing laws upon them without their
consent.  There is no reason to believe that, in a society where all laws
are produced privately, these people would agree to any laws.

It does not matter if agreeing would in fact be in their interests.
Whether due to flawed perceptions or (more often) inability to reason, they
sincerely believe they should not have to obey any laws or anything
amounting to a law, or respect the rights and property of anyone else.

As Omar points out, it is a problem when lawless types acquire lots of
force.  The most effective solution found to date has been to attempt to
enforce a violence monopoly, by a body that is at least somewhat
responsible to the public at large, specifically one which believes that
furthering their interests and prosperity is the best means to further its
own.
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From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Sun Jun 15 18:54:20 2014
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:54:20 +0100
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <mailman.67.1402805689.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.67.1402805689.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <539DEBDC.4060405@yahoo.com>

William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:

 > "As to the meaning life (as in Anders pdf) as defined for the entire 
race, I
 > offer only this:  we should ..."

It's a funny thing, but as soon as somebody starts suggesting what 'we 
should', I think "hang on a minute, that's not up to you!".

The whole concept of a single individual pronouncing on what an entire 
species 'should' seems a bit, well, pointless to me.
If *I'm* not going to take any notice (which I'm not, I have my own 
Meaning Of Life, thanks), you can guarantee that about 7 billion other 
people aren't, either.  No offence, Bill, I just think that all we can 
do is decide what each one of us, individually, 'should'.

Ben Zaiboc


From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Sun Jun 15 19:04:01 2014
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:04:01 +0100
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <mailman.67.1402805689.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.67.1402805689.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <539DEE21.5070102@yahoo.com>

Samantha wrote:

 >I worry a bit about the scene in the Matrix when Agent Smith says that
 >the first matrix was a paradise of everything humans had said they
 >wanted from a utopia.  Humans suicided by the hundreds of millions.

I wouldn't worry about that, Samantha.  First, it's just a story. 
Second, we all seem to suffer from the idea that once you decide 
something, it has to be fixed.  That's not true.  A real utopia would 
give you the ability to /change your mind/.  To try different things 
out, so that you don't have to guess right the first time.


Ben Zaiboc


From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun 15 19:18:48 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:18:48 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQgVkdxSYN=Bnuj1tvbmqap=H=9+durFhZdvjUpdtmQpQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2699543628-15353@secure.ericade.net>

Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> , 15/6/2014 6:11 PM:
On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
 On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
 Um, 'law produced privately'? What kind of law is it if it is private to you? You wouldn't happen to want to actually ENFORCE those laws on others against their wills, would you? I guess then it would be your private force vs the private force of those you declare 'law breakers'. Sounds like the law of the jungle, might makes right etc. 
### Read up on private law, come back when you have something relevant to say.
No, he's right.? Enforcement is a fundamental weakness of relying only on private law.? There exist those who refuse to agree to any laws, and there have since law first existed.? The only way they are kept from taking what they please without recompense is by enforcing laws upon them without their consent.? There is no reason to believe that, in a society where all laws are produced privately, these people would agree to any laws.
Yup. Nozick called them the "John Wayne" types in Anarchy, State and Utopia. In the final step in his derivation of a minarchist state he argued that the violence monopoly/state would be justified in involuntarily protect their rights (and hence also limiting their freedom). I have never been convinced about the morality of this step in his derivation.?
In polycentric private legal systems it might be easier to handle them: they are not protected, and if they misbehave they will be attacked by the various security firms (and law companies, if they are separate). This makes it pretty irrational to try it. I had some analysis in my rpg writeup of an anarchocapitalist legal system: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf - see the "Above the law" section. Basically, it drains resources from you at a very high rate, so unless you have more resources than the entire rest of the society you will soon be in trouble.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun 15 19:45:24 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:45:24 +0200
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <539DEBDC.4060405@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2700673528-25367@secure.ericade.net>

Ben <bbenzai at yahoo.com> , 15/6/2014 9:12 PM:
William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: 
 
 > "As to the meaning life (as in Anders pdf) as defined for the entire  
race, I offer only this: ?we should ..." 
 
It's a funny thing, but as soon as somebody starts suggesting what 'we  
should', I think "hang on a minute, that's not up to you!". 
 
The whole concept of a single individual pronouncing on what an entire  
species 'should' seems a bit, well, pointless to me. 

Not necessarily (but let's agree that most actual attempts are faulty).?
I can pronounce what all of humanity (and all aliens!) should believe about some mathematics based on a proof of a theorem: this is uncontroversial, even if most minds will never understand the proof. 2+2=4 for everybody, even if they disagree.?
In the same way, *if there are true and universal moral statements* I could state one of them, and it would really mean you and everybody else morally should follow it. One of the peculiarities of ethics is that if such statements exist, if you are a moral agent and understand one of them you should now also want to obey it (and you should also want to find out as many such statements as possible since you want to be moral). So in this scheme, if I actually had that statement I could say "we should..." and it would indeed pronounce what all members of the species ought to do. Of course, there is plenty of philosophical disagreement about whether such things exist. Also, unlike the mathematical case it might be necessary that the pronouncement contains the "proof" that makes you understand why doing X is good: it is not enough to just have the conclusion (at least according to Kant, I think).?
In practice, using limited real-world brains rather than abstract moral agents, even if the above (meta)ethical theory is right the limitations of understanding and implementation require a process with a great deal more robustness than just telling people. This is where things like collective understanding, empirical support, trial and error, and live and let live principles are necessary for moral progress. Even if one truly should X, just believing it because somebody said it is not justified enough.?

(Last week I discovered that going meta about metaethics just gives you metaethics: it is its own meta-level theory, handling its own metal-level questions. But there is metametaphysics! Whether metametaphysics is its own meta-level theory I do not know...)

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Sun Jun 15 19:49:14 2014
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:49:14 +0100
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <mailman.67.1402805689.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.67.1402805689.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <539DF8BA.2060901@yahoo.com>

Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:

 > On Sun, May 25, 2014 at 9:32 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

 >
 >>  If chemo-preservation worked that would be great; far cheaper than
 >> cryonics.
 >

 >No, not "far cheaper". Only modestly cheaper than neurocryopreservation.
 >This error comes up again and again. The assumption seems to be that a
 >brain will somehow, magically, get chemically fixed in good time before
 >critical cellular damage has occurred without any costs being incurred.
 >

The same arguments apply to both methods here, so the initial stage of 
getting cryopreserved/chemically preserved in good time can be 
discounted when comparing methods.

The thing that concerns me more than anything is not cost per se, but 
long-term viability.  Cryonics is dependent on a continuous 
low-temperature state being guaranteed.  There are technical as well as 
political and social issues to be considered.  Even a temporary glitch 
in maintaining a low temperature would be disastrous to a cryopreserved 
brain, so it seems a fragile option.  On the other hand, a 
chemically-preserved brain could lie in someone's attic collecting dust 
for decades (or centuries), with no need for any care or attention.  It 
could be completely forgotten, regimes and laws could change, 
technological capabilities, power outages, social attitudes could all go 
all over the place, and the real difference is that the cryopreserved 
brain would need to be constantly kept at liquid nitrogen temperatures, 
but the chemopreserved one would simply have to avoid being deliberately 
destroyed.  Although cost does come into it.  Suppose a cryopreservation 
facility simply ran out of money, or had their assets confiscated, and 
was unable to continue to operate?  There's also the issue of which 
nations cryonics facilities are available in, and what kind of regimes 
are likely to be in existence there in the future.

I'm aware that chemopreservation is at a less advanced stage than 
cryopreservation, but I know which I'd prefer, if it came to the 
crunch.  Cryonics is always likely to be centralised, available at very 
few places, and so choice will be limited.  If chemopreservation becomes 
viable, it could be done anywhere that a team could be present, and once 
the procedure is finished, you could be an ornament on a mantelpiece 
anywhere in the world.  OK, maybe a slightly macabre ornament!  But your 
chemopreserved brain wouldn't have to look like a brain.  It could be 
embedded in a more aesthetically pleasing object.

Obviously, anyone who entertains ideas of being revived into a 
biological body without any intervening uploading stage has no choice 
here, but I'm not one of them.

I think that developing chemopreservation methods would be a very useful 
thing, and would offer another option for people to whom 
cryopreservation is not feasible or desirable.

Ben Zaiboc


From rahmans at me.com  Sun Jun 15 20:34:36 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:34:36 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1402833601.17891.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1402833601.17891.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <5F1103E2-671E-4DF1-A3DB-20BCEE31ED91@me.com>


> Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 03:53:10 -0400
> From: Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAAc1gFhPEsi0tN2mCpPF_y98jNY4fk-hahVeCqEVJ-+qYzOHig at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>> Um, 'law produced privately'? What kind of law is it if it is private to
>> you? You wouldn't happen to want to actually ENFORCE those laws on others
>> against their wills, would you? I guess then it would be your private force
>> vs the private force of those you declare 'law breakers'. Sounds like the
>> law of the jungle, might makes right etc.
>> 
> 
> ### Read up on private law, come back when you have something relevant to
> say.
> 

Actually I HAVE said something; that private law sounds like it would represent those who wrote it and only those who adopted it. It is by its nature exclusionary thus rendering those who do not adopt it (or are even unaware of it) beneath/outside the law. I have also said that these laws will have to be enforced at some point which leads to a 'might makes right' sort of situation.

Your response seems to be that I should look around for arguments to support your case. Why don't you explain for yourself how 'private law' doesn't instantly devolve into some sort of fascism?

> --------------
> 
> 
>> 
>> Again though, circular reasoning. This is the 'goto' of discussion by the
>> way. Here is how it works:
>> 
>> 10 government is what corrupts law
>> 20 monopoly of force is a crappy way of doing computation
>> 30 crappy computation corrupts everything it touches
>> 40 goto 10
>> 
>> You see? Your conclusion is not significantly different from your premiss.
>> (We will leave aside how flawed your premiss is for now.) (We will also do
>> our best to gloss over the fact that statements 20 and 30 are either also
>> premisses or non sequiturs.)
>> 
> 
> ### Your difficulty in reading prose probably explains a lot. You seem to
> miss the cues that differentiate a thesis, an exposition and a restatement.
> An argument is frequently presented in this order.
> 
> Rafal

You describe a sort of essay format. Your original two sentence post functions even less well as a typically '5 paragraph' essay as it served as a supposedly logical argument. Your sarcasm is substandard as well.

Regards,

Omar Rahman

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From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 22:01:41 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 15:01:41 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <2699543628-15353@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CALAdGNQgVkdxSYN=Bnuj1tvbmqap=H=9+durFhZdvjUpdtmQpQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <2699543628-15353@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNRfvTGhnzcK=0QzVAY543SRSwHbr95RgpwkMTdsf5iA2Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 12:18 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> In polycentric private legal systems it might be easier to handle them:
> they are not protected, and if they misbehave they will be attacked by the
> various security firms (and law companies, if they are separate).
>

I disagree that it would be easier - but only due to evidence from
analogous actors in the current system.

Take international maritime law, that requires all ships to be flagged to
some country.  Armed flagged ships are encouraged to sink or seize
unflagged ships just for being unflagged.  While there are notable
instances and hot spots where unflagged ships operate (for instance
Somali's pirates - but note that even they claim to be Somali military,
despite the fact that the central government has no control over them), in
most of the world unflagged ships have been completely eradicated.
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun 15 22:29:19 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 00:29:19 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>

More thinking about the adversarial case:
The adversaries A and B want to calculate something, and their utilities UA and UB are monotonic functions of the amount of resources they get. (If we want to complicate things we may consider situations where utilities depend on what the other guy gets, but let's keep things simple). Each starts with an amount of resources RA and RB.?
The value of resources can change. Consider the Landauer model: temperature declines as exp(-Ht), which means that the value of a Joule increases as exp(Ht)! At least until we hit the horizon radiation temperature and it stays constant. If A has discount rate a, the value of a Joule t units into the future is exp((H-a)t). So if discounting is faster than the universe cools, A will want to burn resources *now*. If a is slower than H, then A will want to save until the horizon temperature era: using resources today is wasteful.?
If A and B can change their rate of subjective time, then discount factors presumably change in the same way (in fact, the clockspeed is likely proportional to resource usage and vice versa). If A is naturally short-term, it might still want to slow down its clockspeed for a few trillion years and then start gorging in the dark era since it will - subjectively - just get a lot more resources in the short term. So everybody will want to go to the far era... unless their utility levels off very fast (a being that only wants to calculate the googoolth prime does not benefit from resources beyond what is needed for this). So A and B are a bit concerned about those finitist beings who would want resources early and then stop - and the other guy! Just because both A and B want to use the resources later doesn't mean they will not try to grab them early.
There is an interesting physics of grabbing (kleptophysics?), I suspect. Can resources be stolen with an expected profit, or will it be zero or negative sum? Scorched earth situations makes grabbing negative-sum. Moving mass around incurs a rocket-equation cost of m(exp(v/k) -1) kg (where m is the grabbed 'payload', v the velocity and k isp - let's not do the relativistic case, it is even worse!). So the value today of stealing mass m to A will be proportional to UA(m)*exp((H-a)(d/v)) where d is the distance to move it. The cost to B if A steals the mass now is UB(m(exp(v/k)-1)). Suppose these U are just linear and identical. Then the loss to B is much larger than the gain to A. If A is short-term, then it will also want to use a big v, making things even more wasteful. Long-term civilizations are content to let the loot drift to their treasure pile over cosmological times, although presumably it might now be vulnerable (if not to stealing back, then at least to 'if I can't have this star, nobody will!' BOOM!) So it seems that unless UB is pretty convex, it might be rational for B to do scorched earth against A. The situation for energy might be tricky; Eric Drexler has mentioned some clever long-term storage ideas that might remove the exponential nastiness of the rocket equation and would hence move things closer to a zero-sum situation. More research is needed.
So if A and B do not care about each other other as potential threats to their resources, then it looks rational to try to negotiate an equilibrium. I guess this is totally standard economic game theory I cannot do at 23:21 in the evening. I suspect the end of the story is that they make a binding deal, leave each other alone or merge their resources and utilities, and live happily ever after.?
Also, accelerating expansion of the universe means that after a certain time their domains will be losing causal contact: they do not have to deal with each other eternally.
Basically, I think this points towards external rational adversaries being relatively manageable. Singleton civilizations also prevent internal adversaries. The problem is the case where irrational adversaries are around (burning cosmic commons, the google-prime calculator), the case of utility functions that depend on each other (zorgons love to simulate humans in agony; our utility is decreased by theirs), and non-singleton civilizations where internal adversaries evolve. Have I missed anything?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jun 15 22:47:30 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 17:47:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFgksvnZDUeQcrp4+yCgtey4L=tdNnfPhJRe1QXA_AqumA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFgksvnZDUeQcrp4+yCgtey4L=tdNnfPhJRe1QXA_AqumA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYsVVRC7R2qajEY9c0auz_LZUOYqNNKRJXf1zMbzuyRcA@mail.gmail.com>

Oh yes we do, if they are of the social service kind, not the central
planning kind.  You don't seem to understand liberalism.

bill wallace


On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 3:39 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 2:32 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
>
>
>> Libertarians of the list....according to the 'political compass'....I'm
>> one of you!
>>
>
> ### Libertarians do not write paeans to socialism.
>
> Rafal
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Mon Jun 16 01:38:20 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 18:38:20 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
 <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <1402882700.11628.YahooMailNeo@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

I see strong underpinnings of popular cosmology among the assumptions
being used.? 

Both Dark Matter and Dark Energy are required in the orthodox
model of cosmology.? The problem is there is no General Relativity
plus Dark Matter model which satisfies the basic statistical mechanical
observations of spiral galaxies.?Given that several competing models
produce?statistically valid?results while GR + DM does not indicates
there is no valid basis for assuming the general validity of either GR
or DM as currently being used in cosmology.? Hence any thermodynamic
results from those theories are also suspect since they rely upon an
observationally invalid foundation.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.2934.pdf?+ several follow on papers.
The follow on papers also describe several modified GR theories
not requiring DM?providing statistically valid results GR + DM 
cannot.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.7525.pdf?- the current state of things.

*****

Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>,15 June?2014 5:29 PM:

"Basically, I think this points towards external rational adversaries being relatively manageable."

The separation issue depends upon cosmological models without a valid foundation.

"Singleton civilizations also prevent internal adversaries."

I do not?see an?argument in support of this statement.? All present known life began
as a singleton event yet immediately spawned countless adversarial relationships. No
example in nature or human civilization would seem to support this.

"The problem is the case where irrational adversaries are around (burning cosmic commons, the google-prime calculator),"

"Irrational adversaries" assumes a common knowledge of what are irrational
courses of action. I see no methodology where that assumption could be made.

"the case of utility functions that depend on each other (zorgons love to simulate humans in agony; our utility is decreased by theirs),"

A great many adversarial events in human history revolve around this issue.

"and non-singleton civilizations where internal adversaries evolve."

The safer assumption is that all civilizations deal with the issue of internal adversaries.?

I guess the question is?can a?singleton civilization come into existence at all
and if it does can it be a long term stable entity?? I believe the answer to the
first is situational dependent [requiring near ideal circumstances].? The 
answer?to the second is no - castles and cannonballs.? One can imagine
unsupported cosmological models improving both situations but the number
of possible wrong cosmologies is arbitrarily infinite.

Dennis
 

________________________________
 From: Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
  


More thinking about the adversarial case:

The adversaries A and B want to calculate something, and their utilities UA and UB are monotonic functions of the amount of resources they get. (If we want to complicate things we may consider situations where utilities depend on what the other guy gets, but let's keep things simple). Each starts with an amount of resources RA and RB.?

The value of resources can change. Consider the Landauer model: temperature declines as exp(-Ht), which means that the value of a Joule increases as exp(Ht)! At least until we hit the horizon radiation temperature and it stays constant. If A has discount rate a, the value of a Joule t units into the future is exp((H-a)t). So if discounting is faster than the universe cools, A will want to burn resources *now*. If a is slower than H, then A will want to save until the horizon temperature era: using resources today is wasteful.?

If A and B can change their rate of subjective time, then discount factors presumably change in the same way (in fact, the clockspeed is likely proportional to resource usage and vice versa). If A is naturally short-term, it might still want to slow down its clockspeed for a few trillion years and then start gorging in the dark era since it will - subjectively - just get a lot more resources in the short term. So everybody will want to go to the far era... unless their utility levels off very fast (a being that only wants to calculate the googoolth prime does not benefit from resources beyond what is needed for this). So A and B are a bit concerned about those finitist beings who would want resources early and then stop - and the other guy! Just because both A and B want to use the resources later doesn't mean they will not try to grab them early.

There is an interesting physics of grabbing (kleptophysics?), I suspect. Can resources be stolen with an expected profit, or will it be zero or negative sum? Scorched earth situations makes grabbing negative-sum. Moving mass around incurs a rocket-equation cost of m(exp(v/k) -1) kg (where m is the grabbed 'payload', v the velocity and k isp - let's not do the relativistic case, it is even worse!). So the value today of stealing mass m to A will be proportional to UA(m)*exp((H-a)(d/v)) where d is the distance to move it. The cost to B if A steals the mass now is UB(m(exp(v/k)-1)). Suppose these U are just linear and identical. Then the loss to B is much larger than the gain to A. If A is short-term, then it will also want to use a big v, making things even more wasteful. Long-term civilizations are content to let the loot drift to their treasure pile over cosmological times, although presumably it might now be vulnerable (if not to stealing back, then at
 least to 'if I can't have this star, nobody will!' BOOM!) So it seems that unless UB is pretty convex, it might be rational for B to do scorched earth against A. The situation for energy might be tricky; Eric Drexler has mentioned some clever long-term storage ideas that might remove the exponential nastiness of the rocket equation and would hence move things closer to a zero-sum situation. More research is needed.

So if A and B do not care about each other other as potential threats to their resources, then it looks rational to try to negotiate an equilibrium. I guess this is totally standard economic game theory I cannot do at 23:21 in the evening. I suspect the end of the story is that they make a binding deal, leave each other alone or merge their resources and utilities, and live happily ever after.?

Also, accelerating expansion of the universe means that after a certain time their domains will be losing causal contact: they do not have to deal with each other eternally.

Basically, I think this points towards external rational adversaries being relatively manageable. Singleton civilizations also prevent internal adversaries. The problem is the case where irrational adversaries are around (burning cosmic commons, the google-prime calculator), the case of utility functions that depend on each other (zorgons love to simulate humans in agony; our utility is decreased by theirs), and non-singleton civilizations where internal adversaries evolve. Have I missed anything?


Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Jun 16 01:59:38 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:59:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <2700673528-25367@secure.ericade.net>
References: <539DEBDC.4060405@yahoo.com> <2700673528-25367@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbK6nBdc0g-srgTwjz+mKJiVkgqcxM3d2iySY2kHj8o=bA@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 15, 2014 3:46 PM, "Anders Sandberg" <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
> (Last week I discovered that going meta about metaethics just gives you
metaethics: it is its own meta-level theory, handling its own metal-level
questions. But there is metametaphysics! Whether metametaphysics is its own
meta-level theory I do not know...)

Sounds like various alephs: we can work with these symbols according to
rules governing their proper use, but really knowing/understanding their
nuance escapes most.
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Mon Jun 16 01:53:18 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 18:53:18 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1402882700.11628.YahooMailNeo@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
 <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>
 <1402882700.11628.YahooMailNeo@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1402883598.29604.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

From:

http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf
?The
search for static security - in the law and elsewhere - is misguided. The fact
is security can only be achieved through constant change, adapting old ideas
that have outlived their usefulness to current facts.? William Osler

An excellent example of the castles versus cannonballs scenario.

Dennis May

 

________________________________
 From: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 8:38 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
  


I see strong underpinnings of popular cosmology among the assumptions
being used.? 

Both Dark Matter and Dark Energy are required in the orthodox
model of cosmology.? The problem is there is no General Relativity
plus Dark Matter model which satisfies the basic statistical mechanical
observations of spiral galaxies.?Given that several competing models
produce?statistically valid?results while GR + DM does not indicates
there is no valid basis for assuming the general validity of either GR
or DM as currently being used in cosmology.? Hence any thermodynamic
results from those theories are also suspect since they rely upon an
observationally invalid foundation.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1107.2934.pdf?+ several follow on papers.
The follow on papers also describe several modified GR theories
not requiring DM?providing statistically valid results GR + DM 
cannot.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1404.7525.pdf?- the current state of things.

*****

Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>,15 June?2014 5:29 PM:

"Basically, I think this points towards external rational adversaries being relatively manageable."

The separation issue depends upon cosmological models without a valid foundation.

"Singleton civilizations also prevent internal adversaries."

I do not?see an?argument in support of this statement.? All present known life began
as a singleton event yet immediately spawned countless adversarial relationships. No
example in nature or human civilization would seem to support this.

"The problem is the case where irrational adversaries are around (burning cosmic commons, the google-prime calculator),"

"Irrational adversaries" assumes a common knowledge of what are irrational
courses of action. I see no methodology where that assumption could be made.

"the case of utility functions that depend on each other (zorgons love to simulate humans in agony; our utility is decreased by theirs),"

A great many adversarial events in human history revolve around this issue.

"and non-singleton civilizations where internal adversaries evolve."

The safer assumption is that all civilizations deal with the issue of internal adversaries.?

I guess the question is?can a?singleton civilization come into existence at all
and if it does can it be a long term stable entity?? I believe the answer to the
first is situational dependent [requiring near ideal circumstances].? The 
answer?to the second is no - castles and cannonballs.? One can imagine
unsupported cosmological models improving both situations but the number
of possible wrong cosmologies is arbitrarily infinite.

Dennis
 

________________________________
 From: Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 5:29 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
  


More thinking about the adversarial case:

The adversaries A and B want to calculate something, and their utilities UA and UB are monotonic functions of the amount of resources they get. (If we want to complicate things we may consider situations where utilities depend on what the other guy gets, but let's keep things simple). Each starts with an amount of resources RA and RB.?

The value of resources can change. Consider the Landauer model: temperature declines as exp(-Ht), which means that the value of a Joule increases as exp(Ht)! At least until we hit the horizon radiation temperature and it stays constant. If A has discount rate a, the value of a Joule t units into the future is exp((H-a)t). So if discounting is faster than the universe cools, A will want to burn resources *now*. If a is slower than H, then A will want to save until the horizon temperature era: using resources today is wasteful.?

If A and B can change their rate of subjective time, then discount factors presumably change in the same way (in fact, the clockspeed is likely proportional to resource usage and vice versa). If A is naturally short-term, it might still want to slow down its clockspeed for a few trillion years and then start gorging in the dark era since it will - subjectively - just get a lot more resources in the short term. So everybody will want to go to the far era... unless their utility levels off very fast (a being that only wants to calculate the googoolth prime does not benefit from resources beyond what is needed for this). So A and B are a bit concerned about those finitist beings who would want resources early and then stop - and the other guy! Just because both A and B want to use the resources later doesn't mean they will not try to grab them early.

There is an interesting physics of grabbing (kleptophysics?), I suspect. Can resources be stolen with an expected profit, or will it be zero or negative sum? Scorched earth situations makes grabbing negative-sum. Moving mass around incurs a rocket-equation cost of m(exp(v/k) -1) kg (where m is the grabbed 'payload', v the velocity and k isp - let's not do the relativistic case, it is even worse!). So the value today of stealing mass m to A will be proportional to UA(m)*exp((H-a)(d/v)) where d is the distance to move it. The cost to B if A steals the mass now is UB(m(exp(v/k)-1)). Suppose these U are just linear and identical. Then the loss to B is much larger than the gain to A. If A is short-term, then it will also want to use a big v, making things even more wasteful. Long-term civilizations are content to let the loot drift to their treasure pile over cosmological times, although presumably it might now be vulnerable (if not to stealing back, then at
 least to 'if I can't have this star, nobody will!' BOOM!) So it seems that unless UB is pretty convex, it might be rational for B to do scorched earth against A. The situation for energy might be tricky; Eric Drexler has mentioned some clever long-term storage ideas that might remove the exponential nastiness of the rocket equation and would hence move things closer to a zero-sum situation. More research is needed.

So if A and B do not care about each other other as potential threats to their resources, then it looks rational to try to negotiate an equilibrium. I guess this is totally standard economic game theory I cannot do at 23:21 in the evening. I suspect the end of the story is that they make a binding deal, leave each other alone or merge their resources and utilities, and live happily ever after.?

Also, accelerating expansion of the universe means that after a certain time their domains will be losing causal contact: they do not have to deal with each other eternally.

Basically, I think this points towards external rational adversaries being relatively manageable. Singleton civilizations also prevent internal adversaries. The problem is the case where irrational adversaries are around (burning cosmic commons, the google-prime calculator), the case of utility functions that depend on each other (zorgons love to simulate humans in agony; our utility is decreased by theirs), and non-singleton civilizations where internal adversaries evolve. Have I missed anything?


Anders Sandberg,
Future of Humanity Institute
Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Mon Jun 16 02:18:49 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:18:49 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <2699543628-15353@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CALAdGNQgVkdxSYN=Bnuj1tvbmqap=H=9+durFhZdvjUpdtmQpQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <2699543628-15353@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <1402885129.85196.YahooMailNeo@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>,June 15, 2014 2:18 PM:
"I
had some analysis in my rpg writeup of an anarchocapitalist legal system: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf - see the "Above the law" section. Basically, it drains resources
from you at a very high rate, so unless you have more resources than the entire
rest of the society you will soon be in trouble."
From
the link:

??Some people worry about the strength of
Medusan Shield: what if they decided to take over? This is pretty unlikely
since that takeover would be extremely expensive ? there are far too many
gun-nut libertarians and other security corps around ? and most likely result
in the loss of what makes Extropia worth anything. It is a cluster of free
trade and free thinking, and without that it is just a big settlement with no
particular resources."

*****
Over many years of reading about the stability of minarchy versus anarcho-capitalism [market capitalism] my primary conclusion is that both require a high degree of cultural sophistication and unanimity in order to remain stable in a finite largely closed system such as the Earth.? Cultural sophistication and unanimity cannot be maintained through coercion in a free thinking free society.? So it would seem that present conditions are not conducive to either form.? I believe there are possible long term stable models in an open system such as space but that would first require the industrialization of space.

Dennis May

 

________________________________
 From: Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Sunday, June 15, 2014 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
  


Adrian Tymes<atymes at gmail.com> , 15/6/2014 6:11 PM:

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 12:53 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>On Sat, Jun 14, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:
>>
>>Um, 'law produced privately'? What kind of law is it if it is private to you? You wouldn't happen to want to actually ENFORCE those laws on others against their wills, would you? I guess then it would be your private force vs the private force of those you declare 'law breakers'. Sounds like the law of the jungle, might makes right etc. 
>>
>>
>>### Read up on private law, come back when you have something relevant to say.
>
>
>No, he's right.? Enforcement is a fundamental weakness of relying only on private law.? There exist those who refuse to agree to any laws, and there have since law first existed.? The only way they are kept from taking what they please without recompense is by enforcing laws upon them without their consent.? There is no reason to believe that, in a society where all laws are produced privately, these people would agree to any laws.

Yup. Nozick called them the "John Wayne" types in Anarchy, State and Utopia. In the final step in his derivation of a minarchist state he argued that the violence monopoly/state would be justified in involuntarily protect their rights (and hence also limiting their freedom). I have never been convinced about the morality of this step in his derivation.?

In polycentric private legal systems it might be easier to handle them: they are not protected, and if they misbehave they will be attacked by the various security firms (and law companies, if they are separate). This makes it pretty irrational to try it. I had some analysis in my rpg writeup of an anarchocapitalist legal system: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf - see the "Above the law" section. Basically, it drains resources from you at a very high rate, so unless you have more resources than the entire rest of the society you will soon be in trouble.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

_______________________________________________
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http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
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From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Jun 16 03:24:48 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:24:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1402883598.29604.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
 <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>
 <1402882700.11628.YahooMailNeo@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <1402883598.29604.YahooMailNeo@web160701.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQbMwNcOd9rVUxge280Jjir+c=7Nt8Of66yEPQvNpJvLg@mail.gmail.com>

>
> http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf
>

Being a little familiar with Eclipse Phase, I can see a few basic, simple
attacks on this.  (Everyone unfamiliar, sorry, but this is going to get
into jargon.)

1) Branch a fork, put it in a morph, and obfuscate where it came from -
including randomizing parameters on the forked ego so it can't be traced to
you.  Make sure to use good anonymizing systems - the type that it takes
far more resources than most companies on this colony would deem it worth
to crack, at least on a case-by-case basis.  Also make sure the one thing
that isn't randomized, is its desire to walk up and suicide-bomb your
target (or do whatever nefarious thing that doesn't directly result in you
gaining something, but does destroy the morph beyond traceability).  The
morph has neither lawcorp nor insurance, and acts as its own security
company.  Of course, the morph has no legal rights and can be shot by
anyone at any time - but until this happens a few times, no security
company will anticipate it being worth the price of ammo.  Once it does
happen (and the anticipated value of stopping anonymous morphs temporarily
goes up), cool off that approach (or just alter the specifics) until
companies stop being on the lookout for this.

2) Be your own security company and insurance.  If anyone tries to levy a
large fine against you, simply refuse to pay.  As you do not subscribe to
any other security company, other companies would have to collect against
you - and you can set your own maximum acceptable expense as high as you
can afford.  They'll have to run you broke before they can collect.
(People sometimes try this IRL, albeit in court instead of in property
damage.  It sometimes works.)  Almost all security companies would rather
recompense their own clients: it'll ultimately cost less.  This would
appear to be perfectly valid under most lawcorps offered, as it results in
negotiated settlements, even if it always winds up being someone else's
money you're spending on those settlements.

Granted, your Rep score goes through the gutter...unless you sell a series
of visiting suckers on this being how to roll during their brief stays, now
if they'll just do a favor for you since you did them a favor by telling
them this and maybe helping them set it up.  Also granted, lawcorps might
start refusing to deal with self-insurers - until the next wave of
self-insuring security companies representing people doing no harm forces
them to reconsider or lose market share.

3) Be a security company-lawcorp hybrid.  Every so often, kidnap and
brainwash one of your clients.  There's no law on your books saying you
can, but there are laws allowing you to do all the actions leading up to
this and shut down all monitoring that might prove you're doing this.  Your
brainwashed clients give you positive reviews and Rep.
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Mon Jun 16 03:13:42 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 20:13:42 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
References: <1402772181.35750.YahooMailNeo@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <1402888422.79055.YahooMailNeo@web160705.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50947659/huntersinthedark.pdf
Some questions and observations:
The question of
spatial segregation seems to rely upon neglecting 
possible
aspects of the effectiveness of common tactics such as 
dispersion
and stealth over vast periods of time.

The
?open? nature of space means that there is no finite known
number
of potential sources for the probes or any certainty about
the
overlapping nature of how far probes of any particular origin
have
spread. Any particular model may make assumptions but
there
are an open number of possible models describing density,
reproductive
rates, dispersion, stealth and probe purposes/tactics,
and
evolving probes ? changing tactics. It would be like traveling 
to
an unknown continent with millions of species of animals and 
plants
and having to discover by trial and error which may be 
harmful
or poisonous and having no knowledge of their range,
habitat,
or reproductive rates. Some species travel thousands of
miles
at times and some occasionally travel well outside of their
normal
territories.

The
open nature of probes leaves open the possibility that encounter
with
ANY probe could lead to catastrophic civilization ending 
results.? The real question is not about the probes but
what civilizations
must
to in order to reduce the impact of their potential.

The
analysis of the Fermi paradox in this case should be more 
concerned
about what the response of civilizations would be
to
the open ended nature of such threats.

In
the article the conclusion is:

??since we still exist, we
conclude that deadly probes are not
the
main cause of the Fermi paradox.?The
real question should be what are the necessary and sufficient strategic doctrines of civilizations enjoying long term survival. I believe that answer
is the main cause of the Fermi paradox.
That answer is a response to the energetics of WoMD available in space no matter who or what wields them.
Dennis
May
 

________________________________
 From: Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>
To: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>; ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2014 5:14 PM
Subject: Re: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
  


Dennis May<dennislmay at yahoo.com> , 14/6/2014 9:13 PM:

Questions
concerning the Fermi Paradox should include the variable of
>adversaries
at every juncture since all of biology is known to deal with 
>the
issue continually from the earliest systems forward.

This is a problematic approach. Yes, freely evolving systems of replicators generically get parasitism. But in the Fermi context free evolution is just one option: a civilization that has developed into a singleton might coordinate future behaviour to preclude parasitism or adversarial behaviour, or it might decide on "intelligent design" of its future development. If it is also alone within the reachable volume its dynamics will be entirely adversary-free. Maybe this is not the most likely case, but it it has to be analysed - and understanding it is pretty essential for being able to ground the adversarial cases.?

When Joanna Bryson gave a talk here ( it can be viewed at?https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtxoNap_UBc ) she also used a biological/evolutionary argument for why we do not need to worry about the AI part of the intelligence explosion; as I argued during the Q&A, there might be a problem in relying too much on biological insights when speaking about complex agent systems. Economics, another discipline of complex systems, gives very different intuitions.?

Then again, I do think running game theory for Fermi is a good idea. I had a poster about it last summer: ?https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50947659/huntersinthedark.pdf In this case I think I showed that some berserker scenarios are unstable. (And thanks to Robin for posing the issue like this - we ought to write the paper soon :-) )



Once super-intelligences are in competition
>I
would expect things to get very complicated concerning the continued
>advantage
of ?size? versus many other variables becoming enabled.
We know that game theory between agents modelling each other can easily become NP-complete (or co-NP):
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370206000397?np=y
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0004370297000301?np=y
And these are bounded agents; superintelligences will create an even more complex situation.

Of course, as seen in this little essay,
http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2009/10/how_to_survive_among_unfriendly_superintelligences.html
non-superintelligences can thrive under some circumstances simply because they go under the radar. A bit like how many insects do not use adaptive immune systems, or certain military devices are not armoured - it is not worth increasing resilience of individuals when you can get resilience by having many instances.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 16 04:46:18 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:46:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] reasoning in beasts
Message-ID: <04c701cf891d$ea295d30$be7c1790$@att.net>

A few weeks ago someone posted a comment regarding reasoning in dogs; mighta
been BillW.  I have received a new insight please.

 

This weekend I attended the college graduation of my niece.  In the same
town lives her great grandparents, both aged 90 yrs.  They have been married
nearly 72 years.  We ended up spending most of the day with them.  Great
grandma is a volunteer docent at a local history museum, and took us there
for a tour.  Even at that age, she still gave a terrific lecture.  Her mind
is sharper than most people 15 years her junior.

 

One of the most interesting things that came out is from a display regarding
mule teams running harvesters and combines.  I asked why they always used
mules.  She offered this explanation.  

 

Horses are strong, smart beasts.  An example of their intelligence is
supplied by her grandfather, who was a doctor around the turn of the
century.  He could sit up late with a patient, then in the middle of the
night, he could get in his buggy and start the horse, then gently lay down
the reins.  Even in the middle of a moonless night, the horse would walk
right on home, several miles, from anywhere.  The exhausted doctor could
doze the whole way back; the horse knew the way home, even if he had never
been to that place before.  

 

Asses are stupid; generally they were not in charge of pulling a buggy, for
they couldn't find the way home even in the daylight.  Horses are smart and
strong, but they are generally unsuitable for pulling plows and combines
because they have horse sense.  After they pull the plow or combine across
the field, they are difficult to turn around.  That act makes no sense to
them; they just came from that direction.  They don't want to go back the
way they came.  The second time they are turned around, the horse concludes
that its human is crazy; they are being asked to do something which makes no
sense.  This is the origin of the term "horse sense."

 

Asses don't have horse sense; they don't reason, they can be turned about
arbitrarily many times.

 

According to my niece's 90 yr old great grandma, who was a firsthand witness
and tells the truth, mules are the choice for work beasts: they have most of
the horse's strength and most of the asses stupid; ideal combination.  

 

BillW, I see no clear explaination besides the notion that the horse is
using his version of reason but the ass is not.

 

spike

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From max at maxmore.com  Mon Jun 16 05:01:31 2014
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 22:01:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhSb0E2qSS_krKK99pCLTAiJ1v2o=MZ4tGi1XfJxJWOeg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <04ae01cf782f$abd988b0$038c9a10$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiwiskfRHr3wO3z=+wG=Bdu0xjADjc+X0yDAFLhoxJs3A@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAJX-7wWdfwu1ZvQR2enYHYPBp2PCoM0Z4y57SWK_PYYL=Ta1LQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 1:10 AM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> ### I agree that chemical preservation is not really that much cheaper
> than cryonics but it does have one attractive feature: Storage does not
> depend on the existence of a cryonics organization, which itself requires a
> well-functioning economy. Well-fixed brains could be forgotten, buried, and
> re-discovered by 34th century archeologists, and still give you a ticket
> into the future. The hope of cryonics could be dashed by 2 months of
> economic turmoil, just enough to evaporate the nitrogen. This is a big
> difference in resilience to Black Swan events.
>
>
True to a point. Still, even chemically-preserved brains would need some
kind of protection. Even if they don't need active maintenance, I wouldn't
feel happy knowing that my brain was completely unprotected for decades.
Nor would I be especially optimistic that someone would upload and revive
me in the absence of the organizational, legal, and financial structures
built into cryonics organizations.

It would take much more than two months of economic turmoil to endanger
Alcor's patients. First of all, that is not enough to "evaporate the liquid
nitrogen". We have run a test and found that a Bigfoot dewar (empty of
patients, obviously) did not run dry for something like five months.
Because the aluminum pods that house patients are conductive, so long as
there are even a few inches of LN2 at the bottom, the temperature even near
the top is within something like 30 degC of LN2 temperature -- plenty cold
enough. The boil-off rates vary, but I think the minimum would be 3 or 4
months.

That doesn't count contributions from the bulk tank, which we would use to
refill the dewars.

Considering that there are at least 7 liquid nitrogen vendors in the
Scottsdale/Phoenix area, it would take far more than "economic turmoil" to
terminate all deliveries of LN2. It would take at least WWIII. In the
meantime, we already know that we could go out and acquire a small liquid
nitrogen plant and make our own. (We have a powerful backup generator,
which I had installed this year, that could power it.) That would cost
about twice as much, which is why we haven't already bought one.

Other cryonics organizations probably would not be as resilient, since they
lack Alcor's resources. (And no other organization has a dedicated Patient
Care Trust Fund whose finances are governed separately and cannot be raided
for non-patient care purposes.)


>
> Ideally, if our stupid laws against assisted suicide could be changed,
> fixation would be done electively on anesthetized patients, under ideal
> conditions to assure prompt fixation, followed by monomer perfusion, water
> replacement and polymerization (I know that these challenges have not yet
> been adequately addressed). Well, one can dream.
>

Removal of the stupid laws (which also violate the right of self-ownership)
were removed, cryonauts would also benefit enormously -- especially those
with degenerative brain conditions.

It saddens me that some transhumanists are avoiding making cryopreservation
arrangements on the basis that cryonics is imperfect, whereas as an
imaginary and completely unproven (and certainly unavailable)
chemopreservation method might have some advantages.

--Max


>
> Rafal
>
> _______________________________________________
> 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
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From rahmans at me.com  Mon Jun 16 07:35:09 2014
From: rahmans at me.com (Omar Rahman)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:35:09 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <mailman.74.1402894923.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.74.1402894923.21142.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <8A5586B7-DB97-4F15-A3DB-6CE4700E7B99@me.com>


> Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 19:18:49 -0700 (PDT)
> From: Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com>
> To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
> Subject: Re: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
> Message-ID:
> 	<1402885129.85196.YahooMailNeo at web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
> 
> Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se>,June 15, 2014 2:18 PM:
> "I
> had some analysis in my rpg writeup of an anarchocapitalist legal system: http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/Law%20and%20Order.pdf - see the "Above the law" section. Basically, it drains resources
> from you at a very high rate, so unless you have more resources than the entire
> rest of the society you will soon be in trouble."
> From
> the link:
> 
> ??Some people worry about the strength of
> Medusan Shield: what if they decided to take over? This is pretty unlikely
> since that takeover would be extremely expensive ? there are far too many
> gun-nut libertarians and other security corps around ? and most likely result
> in the loss of what makes Extropia worth anything. It is a cluster of free
> trade and free thinking, and without that it is just a big settlement with no
> particular resources."
> 
> *****
> Over many years of reading about the stability of minarchy versus anarcho-capitalism [market capitalism] my primary conclusion is that both require a high degree of cultural sophistication and unanimity in order to remain stable in a finite largely closed system such as the Earth.?

I agree that a high degree of cultural sophistication is required and I think that 'multiculturalism' as is attempted in Canada is preferable to the 'melting pot' as is practiced in the US for precisely the reason you mention below. Unanimity, I think, is best maintained through the enfranchisement of the population in the political process, culture, and the economy. 

> Cultural sophistication and unanimity cannot be maintained through coercion in a free thinking free society.?

Resorting to coercion is basically the abandonment of sophistication and the acknowledgement that unanimity cannot be maintained. Cultural sophistication and unanimity are in some senses opposites. Obviously you have to have a certain amount of unity/fellow feeling or it would be pointless to describe something as one culture, but if it requires unanimity there is no room for sophistication. This is a very tricky line to draw and is best drawn by artists. Art in all its forms from painting to cooking is this social glue and I think its importance is underestimated in some (many?) countries.

> So it would seem that present conditions are not conducive to either form.? I believe there are possible long term stable models in an open system such as space but that would first require the industrialization of space.
> 
> Dennis May

I would hope that we sort things out before we become multi-planetary as there is more potential growth in space than down here and I wouldn't want some powerful culture to come back and kick us in the teeth just because we didn't share some basic cultural understandings.

Best regards,

Omar Rahman
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From pharos at gmail.com  Mon Jun 16 08:35:53 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 09:35:53 +0100
Subject: [ExI] reasoning in beasts
In-Reply-To: <04c701cf891d$ea295d30$be7c1790$@att.net>
References: <04c701cf891d$ea295d30$be7c1790$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armh7T-9Z_iTNSvF7hmATM9c4x9D9EOxHLx6zxus=bKoY9Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 5:46 AM, spike wrote:
> One of the most interesting things that came out is from a display regarding
> mule teams running harvesters and combines.  I asked why they always used
> mules.  She offered this explanation.
<snip>
> According to my niece's 90 yr old great grandma, who was a firsthand witness
> and tells the truth, mules are the choice for work beasts: they have most of
> the horse's strength and most of the asses stupid; ideal combination.
>
> BillW, I see no clear explaination besides the notion that the horse is
> using his version of reason but the ass is not.
>


You've got it the wrong way round, spike!

Mules are more intelligent than horses.
Try getting a 20 horse team to turn a waggon around and chaos ensues.
But mules can be trained and called to by name so that those near the
waggon pull in the opposite direction to get round the corner.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule>
Quote:
The mule possesses the even temper, patience, endurance and
sure-footedness of the donkey, and the vigor, strength and courage of
the horse. Operators of working animals generally find mules
preferable to horses: mules show more patience under the pressure of
heavy weights, and their skin is harder and less sensitive than that
of horses, rendering them more capable of resisting sun and rain.
Their hooves are harder than horses', and they show a natural
resistance to disease and insects. Many North American farmers with
clay soil found mules superior as plow animals.

Mules exhibit a higher cognitive intelligence than their parent
species. This is believed to be the result of hybrid vigor, similar to
how mules acquire greater height and endurance than either parent.
-------------------------

Horses are faster, but more delicate than mules.
That's why the Amish generally use mules for ploughing, but horses for
pulling buggies on the road.


BillK


From rhanson at gmu.edu  Sun Jun 15 21:37:04 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Sun, 15 Jun 2014 21:37:04 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2522847051-14563@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2522847051-14563@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <EBD818BF-8352-4EDA-B3EB-F805A5FC2191@gmu.edu>

I finally had a chance to look over these papers, and I'm not convinced they are modeling the interesting case. With reversible computers there is of course a lot of thermal noise, but the system is designed to robustly accommodate noise in the flexible state (eg local charge) of the system, though not of course in the structure (eg conductor vs insulator) that channels those flexible states. In real computers the main noise other than thermal noise in the flexible state is due to cosmic rays. But that noise is very highly correlated spatially, which makes it much easier to deal with; just redundantly do big computation chunks in spatially separated places and vote on the answer.

I wonder if there is a way to make something like a computer gate that can switch to energy collector mode when a cosmic ray comes through. Then the noise might perhaps more than pay for itself.

On Jun 13, 2014, at 2:13 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
Continuing my thinking about extreme future computation:

http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9611028 "Limitations of noisy reversible computation" shows that noise is pretty bad for reversible computations: the total size of circuits need to grow exponentially with their depth in order to produce reliable computation (in normal circuits the growth is just polynomial). This is also true for quantum computations. Both kinds of circuits can simulate general classical or quantum circuits, but the cost is exponential. Of course, the glass-is-half-full view is that one can build working reliable systems out of noisy components (a la http://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9906129 ) if the noise is below a certain level: you just need to pay a price for it. Very much like error-correcting codes in classical channels. But this shows that intricate messages require exponentially long codes, so to say.

So if extreme future life runs on largely reversible computers (classical or quantum) it needs to perform a Bennet-style undoing of intermediate results (http://www.math.ucsd.edu/~sbuss/CourseWeb/Math268_2013W/Bennett_Reversibiity.pdf) relatively often not just because error correction is expensive (if N bits are involved in the error syndrome then they all need to be reset at a cost) but because the retrace corresponds to a long circuit depth and the total circuit size hence goes up exponentially. So the amount of hardware grows with retrace length R as exp(R), and presumably the number of bit errors that need to be fixed also grows proportional to it - eventually it is better to just wipe the memory state completely rather than try to erase syndromes and retrace.

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 16 13:40:59 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 06:40:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] reasoning in beasts
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armh7T-9Z_iTNSvF7hmATM9c4x9D9EOxHLx6zxus=bKoY9Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <04c701cf891d$ea295d30$be7c1790$@att.net>
 <CAL_armh7T-9Z_iTNSvF7hmATM9c4x9D9EOxHLx6zxus=bKoY9Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <008701cf8968$9c656ad0$d5304070$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
>>
>>... According to my niece's 90 yr old great grandma, who was a firsthand 
> witness and tells the truth, mules are the choice for work beasts: 
> they have most of the horse's strength and most of the asses stupid; ideal
combination.


>...You've got it the wrong way round, spike!

>...Mules are more intelligent than horses.
Try getting a 20 horse team to turn a waggon around and chaos ensues.
But mules can be trained and called to by name so that those near the waggon
pull in the opposite direction to get round the corner...
BillK
_______________________________________________

Excellent thanks BillK.  As I heard the explanation yesterday, I realized
there is an alternate way to interpret the observation that horses are
difficult to turn but mules will pull back and forth all day.  If we could
hear a horse and a mule discussing the act of plowing a field, the horse
might say "You silly ass!  Why would we turn around?  We just came from that
direction!"  The mule might say "No, you dumb horse's ass!  Of course we
just came from that direction, but notice we are one row over from last
time.  We will go back and forth across this field until we cover all of
it."

The notion of going back and forth is a more complicated task than going in
a straight line.

So I agree: for that task, the mule is smarter.  The horse has that
take-us-on-home-Charlie talent which is impressive.  This observation in
itself is educational in trying to understand how beasts think.  We see
differences in the way two closely related species reason.  Even within
species such as dogs, we see some which make excellent guard dogs without
any training: they just seem to know what they are supposed to do, while
other species completely fail to grasp the notion of bad guys.  Irish
setters are everyone's friend.  We see dogs which can catch a Frisbee out of
the air, completely without training: they just know how to do it.  Other
breeds wouldn't fetch a stick for T-bone.  I don't know why that is.

Lesson: the brain of the ass, donkey and horse are similar, but behaviors
vary widely.  Likewise with dog behaviors: similar brains, large variation
in abilities and instinct.  In all these cases, I see evidence of some form
of reasoning.  It is an example of human reasoning to recognize the parallel
process in non-human beasts.

spike



From ben at goertzel.org  Mon Jun 16 16:19:36 2014
From: ben at goertzel.org (Ben Goertzel)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:19:36 +0800
Subject: [ExI] The Bullshit at the Heart of Humanity
Message-ID: <CACYTDBefgsuADYJUeEBZqBoQH9xB1RJUJqnsoofZmcvP7r37Ow@mail.gmail.com>

My new blog post ...

The Bullshit at the Heart of Humanity -- my new blog post,

http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.hk/2014/06/the-bullshit-at-heart-of-humanity.html

... of course as proto-transhumans we are nearly beyond all this
legacy human crap .... but ... well .. not quite ;p ;)

-- Ben


-- 
Ben Goertzel, PhD
http://goertzel.org

"In an insane world, the sane man must appear to be insane". -- Capt.
James T. Kirk

"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery / None but ourselves can free
our minds" -- Robert Nesta Marley


From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun 16 20:56:26 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 22:56:26 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <EBD818BF-8352-4EDA-B3EB-F805A5FC2191@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2791498473-21105@secure.ericade.net>

Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 16/6/2014 11:18 AM:
  I finally had a chance to look over these papers, and I'm not convinced they are modeling the interesting case. With reversible computers there is of course a lot of thermal noise, but the system is designed to robustly accommodate noise in the flexible state  (eg local charge) of the system, though not of course in the structure (eg conductor vs insulator) that channels those flexible states. In real computers the main noise other than thermal noise in the flexible state is due to cosmic rays. But that noise is  very highly correlated spatially, which makes it much easier to deal with; just redundantly do big computation chunks in spatially separated places and vote on the answer.?
I think the flexible states are more easily disrupted than the structure states (since they are flexible): whatever the cause of errors are - thermal motion, cosmic rays, occasional tunneling - it ought to mess up the flexible parts of the system far more often than the structure. Hmm, this might go for reservoirs of negentropy too: a bit error in a negentropy reservoir is a slight depletion. It would be nice to have a proper theory of the expected resiliency of systems like this so we could make quantitative predictions.?
Redundant computing with votes still has to be reversible. A voting gate selecting the majority of A, B and C will be dissipative unless it outputs the majority vote plus two bits of information that allows reconstructing ABC. And while the non-faulty chunks can then be rewound and re-used, there has to be error correction for all the bits in the noise-affected one. So while the error rate has gone down from p to p^2, if a single module error occurs there will still be the same number of bits to clean as in the single-module case. So the overall amount of bits that need to be cleaned per unit of time goes from Np to 3p((1-p)^2 + p(1-p) + p^2)N=3p(1-p+p^2)N - the far lower error rate comes at a price of extra error correction. (if I calculated things right).?

 
  I wonder if there is a way to make something like a computer gate that can switch to energy collector mode when a cosmic ray comes through. Then the noise might perhaps more than pay for itself.?
But how do you know that the ray will be arriving??
I have a suspicion that one can make a Maxwell's daemon argument that noise is useless to power computation. However, real radiation might be different since it is not at maximum entropy.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun 16 22:06:56 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:06:56 +0200
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <CAJX-7wWdfwu1ZvQR2enYHYPBp2PCoM0Z4y57SWK_PYYL=Ta1LQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2795194286-26504@secure.ericade.net>

Max More <max at maxmore.com> , 16/6/2014 7:06 AM:

It would take much more than two months of economic turmoil to endanger Alcor's patients. First of all, that is not enough to "evaporate the liquid nitrogen". We have run a test and found that a Bigfoot dewar (empty of patients, obviously) did not run dry for something like five months. Because the aluminum pods that house patients are conductive, so long as there are even a few inches of LN2 at the bottom, the temperature even near the top is within something like 30 degC of LN2 temperature -- plenty cold enough. The boil-off rates vary, but I think the minimum would be 3 or 4 months.
 
That doesn't count contributions from the bulk tank, which we would use to refill the dewars. 

Considering that there are at least 7 liquid nitrogen vendors in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area, it would take far more than "economic turmoil" to terminate all deliveries of LN2. It would take at least WWIII. In the meantime, we already know that we could go out and acquire a small liquid nitrogen plant and make our own. (We have a powerful backup generator, which I had installed this year, that could power it.) That would cost about twice as much, which is why we haven't already bought one. 
There is something interesting here to consider: what is the duration distribution of industrial outages and economic turmoil? I would love to see some proper data about outages of industrial chemicals and their time distribution.?
I have data about blackouts, and they are typically power-law distributed. I would a priori expect industrial and supply chain outages to also be power-law distributed: industrial and economical systems can also have cascading failures when loaded heavily, and optimization processes may drive towards power-law behavior.http://www.ece.cmu.edu/cascadingfailures/Criticality-nedicPSCC05.pdf
Now, this means that the probability of a failure lasting longer than X has probability X^-a, where a is some positive constant. So if there is a one-day outage, expect one-month outages with a factor 30^-a less probability and one year outages with 365^-a factor probability. If we guess a between 1 and 2, then month outages have 3-0.1% the chance of the one day outage and year outages 0.2-0.0007% of the chance. Now, throwing in a 1% chance per year of a day disruption (which seems reasonable based on 20th history, containing WW II, the Cuban missile crisis and 911) that gives over a century 63% of some disruption, 0.3-0.1% chance of month disruption and 0.2-0.0007% one year disruption (things get linear when dealing with low probabilities).?
Overall I think Max is right: LN2 outages long enough to mess up Alcor are WWIII class... which of course still doesn't make them unlikely enough for our liking (just look at our office guesses?https://flic.kr/p/nYWTJV for catastrophic events - these are somewhat above my 1% per year number).


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From dennislmay at yahoo.com  Mon Jun 16 21:56:59 2014
From: dennislmay at yahoo.com (Dennis May)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 14:56:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Quantum Error Correction
Message-ID: <1402955819.14149.YahooMailNeo@web160702.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

Quantum computation: Fragile yet error-free
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/06/140612142219.htm
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2014/06/11/science.1253742

"This 7-ion system applied for encoding one logical quantum bit can be used as a building block for much larger quantum systems," says theoretical physicist M?ller. "The bigger the lattice, the more robust it becomes. The result might be a quantum computer that could perform any number of operations without being impeded by errors."

*****
The additional ions useful in error correction would also have to be entangled across all other ions in all the other qubits so the number of entangled ions would need to increase significantly.? The record number of entangled?ions to date would allow for 2 error free qubits in this scenario.

Dennis May
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun 16 22:22:08 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:22:08 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1402882700.11628.YahooMailNeo@web160703.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2797595093-20409@secure.ericade.net>

Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com> , 16/6/2014 3:57 AM:
Both Dark Matter and Dark Energy are required in the orthodoxmodel of cosmology.? The problem is there is no General Relativityplus Dark Matter model which satisfies the basic statistical mechanicalobservations of spiral galaxies.?Given that several competing modelsproduce?statistically valid?results while GR + DM does not indicatesthere is no valid basis for assuming the general validity of either GRor DM as currently being used in cosmology.? Hence any thermodynamicresults from those theories are also suspect since they rely upon anobservationally invalid foundation.
Sorry, but this doesn't work as an argument. The Landauer issue is a local thermodynamics issue; the only cosmological aspects that really matter to my models are whether there is an eventual finite horizon temperature and how much acceleration the expansion has. If one argues that any discrepancies in observations invalidates predictions or analysis, then clearly we cannot say anything about fluid dynamics (we have no good turbulence theory that fits data) nor about climate (lots of mildly contradictory parametrisations). That stuff will have to be updated as cosmology is refined is fine.?

"Singleton civilizations also prevent internal adversaries."
I  do not?see an?argument in support of this statement.? All present known life beganas a singleton event yet immediately spawned countless adversarial relationships. Noexample in nature or human civilization would seem to support this.
I used the word singleton in the technical sense?http://www.fhi.ox.ac.uk/singleton.pdf - indeed, no singleton has so far come into being, but that does not mean such systems cannot exist or will not be achieved.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun 16 22:34:20 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 00:34:20 +0200
Subject: [ExI] The meaning of life revisited
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbK6nBdc0g-srgTwjz+mKJiVkgqcxM3d2iySY2kHj8o=bA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2798056062-24556@secure.ericade.net>

Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> , 16/6/2014 4:03 AM:


On Jun 15, 2014 3:46 PM, "Anders Sandberg" <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
 >
 > (Last week I discovered that going meta about metaethics just gives you metaethics: it is its own meta-level theory, handling its own metal-level questions. But there is metametaphysics! Whether metametaphysics is its own meta-level theory I do not know...) 

Sounds like various alephs: we can work with these symbols according to rules governing their proper use, but really knowing/understanding their nuance escapes most. 
Yes, but some mathematicians are entirely at home with them. I share an office with one: he relaxes by talking about ordinal numbers (?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordinal_number ). There is an identification between *some* of the ordinals and alephs, but there are also large countable ordinals that are very, very, very^very large (?https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_countable_ordinal ). One of the interesting and mindbending aspects of some of these entities is that they are so large that standard logics cannot handle them. In fact, some of them are large enough that they cannot be described in any useful sense: they are neither even nor odd, or have any other definable properties.?
Some branches of math are *weird*. But it is fun to know about this when dealing with a religious person going on about how infinite God is. There are always a bigger and stranger infinity out there. ("We in the church of transfinite recursion believe God is as great as the?Feferman?Sch?tte ordinal!" "Yeah, but that is still *countable*.")

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 00:16:33 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 19:16:33 -0500
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>

A virus of entirely human origin has wiped the planet of all people.
Shortly after aliens visit (irony, eh?).  They study us and our buildings,
literature - everything - over many years.

What will they say is the most important, the best thing we produced while
we existed?  That is, they will attempt to attach a meaning to our
collective lives.  Assume that they learn our languages, math, music,
history, philosophy etc. and are somewhat like us.

So, what would you say in answer to that question?   wfw
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 00:24:46 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 17:24:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01f401cf89c2$8bad12b0$a3073810$@att.net>

 

 

>? Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life

 

A virus of entirely human origin has wiped the planet of all people.  Shortly after aliens visit (irony, eh?).  They study us and our buildings, literature - everything - over many years?What will they say is the most important, the best thing we produced while we existed?   Wfw

 

Microprocessors.  That whole concept is just so damn cool, I would be very proud of us if an alien came along and saw that.  I would be more proud had we not slain ourselves with a homemade virus of course.

 

spike

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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 03:15:52 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 20:15:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>

Pew survey finds sharp erosion of center as partisan animosity has
?gotten more personal?

snip

"Viewed broadly, the results of the Pew survey suggest that the two
political parties are increasingly becoming two entirely different
nations ? and warring nations at that. Politics has become personal,
and vice versa. Common ground in either of those spheres looks like a
quaint relic of the past."

I don't know if the the majority of readers on this list are from the USA.

But what this shows is consistent with a population under stress.
It's nothing as bad as the stress that tore Syria into waring camps,
but it's the typical memetic response to a society getting ready to
engage in fratricide.

In the stone age virtually every time populations were stressed it was
the result of overpopulation.  Getting worked up and killing the
neighbors always solved the problem.  We are, for better or worse
(mostly worse) wired up by evolution to have this response to economic
stress.  If the economy gets better, then we could back down from the
extremes like the IRA did in Northern Ireland.  Or we could eventually
reach the situation that led to vast bloodletting such as happened in
Cambodia or Rwanda.

Keith

PS.  The economic improvement would need to reach the bulk of the
population.  More money to the upper 1% will not help.



From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 04:04:22 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:04:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2623168165-16445@secure.ericade.net>
 <2709514967-25367@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgWWd-wg4abaY4XzJP3t3TZp3Gu6mzn6BgTw6Y0PY0q_w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 3:29 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
>
> Basically, I think this points towards external rational adversaries being
> relatively manageable. Singleton civilizations also prevent internal
> adversaries. The problem is the case where irrational adversaries are
> around (burning cosmic commons, the google-prime calculator), the case of
> utility functions that depend on each other (zorgons love to simulate
> humans in agony; our utility is decreased by theirs), and non-singleton
> civilizations where internal adversaries evolve. Have I missed anything?
>

### Long term storage of mass is tricky - you want to avoid formation of
stars and black holes, so you can't make it too dense but you don't want
the expansion to rip stuff away, so you have to make it dense enough - and
of course, higher density means shorter communication lines for your
computations. But this matter soup might be an ideal broth for space grey
goo. An external or internal adversary with high time preference might be
hard to resist. Grey goo's rationality is starkly at odds with maximizing
computational capacity of the lightcone.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 04:39:58 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:39:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <CAJX-7wWdfwu1ZvQR2enYHYPBp2PCoM0Z4y57SWK_PYYL=Ta1LQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <04ae01cf782f$abd988b0$038c9a10$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiwiskfRHr3wO3z=+wG=Bdu0xjADjc+X0yDAFLhoxJs3A@mail.gmail.com>
 <04f801cf7836$e05cf7f0$a116e7d0$@att.net>
 <CAJX-7wXsheJaWh_r1Q0dwC2CR8u0tmrkij_QG2wa9hf9EoWfvg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhSb0E2qSS_krKK99pCLTAiJ1v2o=MZ4tGi1XfJxJWOeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wWdfwu1ZvQR2enYHYPBp2PCoM0Z4y57SWK_PYYL=Ta1LQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjweMJVyr+NQfQL1LEpm73OhHhSS3yeUMuMGyMNBD6AvA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 10:01 PM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:.
>
>
> Considering that there are at least 7 liquid nitrogen vendors in the
> Scottsdale/Phoenix area, it would take far more than "economic turmoil" to
> terminate all deliveries of LN2. It would take at least WWIII. In the
> meantime, we already know that we could go out and acquire a small liquid
> nitrogen plant and make our own. (We have a powerful backup generator,
> which I had installed this year, that could power it.) That would cost
> about twice as much, which is why we haven't already bought one.
>

### The Black Swan problem is a correlated failure of multiple structures.
The sub-prime meltdown is a prime example - the Black-Scholes model gave
reassurance but it didn't consider correlated movements of multiple assets.
If the dollar stops being the reserve currency, there might be a
significant increase in interest rates, and this could simultaneously shut
down all LN2 vendors, gas stations, and groceries, for many months. Maybe
the ravenous crowds would not break the dewars to get at the protein
there... but they could do it just because breaking and burning is what
crowds do.

Plastic-hard brains at RT could enjoy security by obscurity, dispersed in
many basements. Cryonics means centralized storage, a fat target for
fanatics, and vandals.

Well, I am signed up at Alcor, and I urge all rational people to do the
same. Chemopreservation is not a mature technology yet, it doesn't offer
the same quality as cryonics. You could notice your lymph nodes swelling
with metastases any day, so it's best to sign up before you become
uninsurable. Waiting for chemopreservation to be perfected is a gamble that
many could lose. Still, a nagging anxiety remains whenever I think about
the dewars.

Rafal
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 04:37:52 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:37:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <004b01cf89e5$e7590240$b60b06c0$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Keith Henson
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey

>...Pew survey finds sharp erosion of center as partisan animosity has ?gotten more personal?

...

>..."Viewed broadly, the results of the Pew survey suggest that the two political parties are increasingly becoming two entirely different nations ? ...


Well, perhaps three.  The TEA party is alive and well.
...

>...But what this shows is consistent with a population under stress...

Ja, but the US population isn't under all that much stress.  We are still well-fed, we still have our silly game shows, all the usual stuff.  

Regarding the current deep divide in the USA, I have some reasonable forecasts, mostly optimistic.  It will blow over, after the symbolic revolution this fall in the form of midterm elections.  The party currently out of power will pick up a pile of seats, but I don't think things will change all that much, even if the senate changes hands.

>...It's nothing as bad as the stress that tore Syria into waring camps, but it's the typical memetic response to a society getting ready to engage in fratricide...

I hold a more optimistic view Keith.  

All the sideshows will settle out, and it will come down to this burning IRS scandal.  Hours ago, the IRS announced that its director's computer crashed, and so (oh darn) they "lost" about two years of her emails and the dog ate her homework.  There is no way to recover those emails, you understand, even though tape backups of every server are stored all over the place, but that crashed computer lost critical emails after the IRS claims to have spent 10 million dollars trying to recover this director's email.

That the mighty IRS would even attempt such a flimsy excuse is plenty of indication to me of guilt, plenty.  They are hiding something really big here, and are resorting to utterly desperate measures to cover their asses.  But there are enough Americans with enough access to information technology to know that a crashed computer doesn't cause email to be lost.  We know that the NSA can recover all of it, and that even this measure is unnecessary: the IRS has all of it somewhere, and is desperately struggling to cover it.  But they cannot.  It will all come out this summer and fall, then we have our little symbolic revenge, but the other party has already demonstrated they do the same kinds of stuff.  Then, on we go, right up until the real trouble starts: not enough cheap energy.

spike






From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 04:51:24 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:51:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFiBNhd3T0L2wXp3eGDm_hLrvHnfNb5R8Dpt4PZ4Pss0ZQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 8:15 PM, Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> PS.  The economic improvement would need to reach the bulk of the
> population.  More money to the upper 1% will not help.


### That didn't seem to be the case in historical bloodlettings. Usually,
revolutions happen when there is a fracture within the elite. The masses
matter only as cannon fodder. The French revolution didn't happen during
multiple famines until a bourgeoisie arose to challenge the aristocracy.
The Taiping rebellion started because there were too many unemployed
bureaucrats, not because the peasants wanted freedom. As the technology of
mass slaughter becomes ever less manpower-intensive, it will be trivially
easy to control the masses.

Rafal
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 04:49:46 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 16 Jun 2014 21:49:46 -0700
Subject: [ExI] chemo-preservation and fund raising
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFjweMJVyr+NQfQL1LEpm73OhHhSS3yeUMuMGyMNBD6AvA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <04ae01cf782f$abd988b0$038c9a10$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiwiskfRHr3wO3z=+wG=Bdu0xjADjc+X0yDAFLhoxJs3A@mail.gmail.com>
 <04f801cf7836$e05cf7f0$a116e7d0$@att.net>
 <CAJX-7wXsheJaWh_r1Q0dwC2CR8u0tmrkij_QG2wa9hf9EoWfvg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhSb0E2qSS_krKK99pCLTAiJ1v2o=MZ4tGi1XfJxJWOeg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wWdfwu1ZvQR2enYHYPBp2PCoM0Z4y57SWK_PYYL=Ta1LQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFjweMJVyr+NQfQL1LEpm73OhHhSS3yeUMuMGyMNBD6AvA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <009401cf89e7$90e8cba0$b2ba62e0$@att.net>

 

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 10:01 PM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:. 


>?Considering that there are at least 7 liquid nitrogen vendors in the Scottsdale/Phoenix area, it would take far more than "economic turmoil" to terminate all deliveries of LN2. It would take at least WWIII. In the meantime, we already know that we could go out and acquire a small liquid nitrogen plant and make our own. (We have a powerful backup generator, which I had installed this year, that could power it.) That would cost about twice as much, which is why we haven't already bought one. ?

 

 

This comment has me wondering about the cheapest home-based liquid air making setup we could build.  It wouldn?t be for cryonics, but rather for experimentation and freezing skin problems, that sorta thing.  I don?t need much.  I can imagine taking an ordinary compressor, filling a detachable tank to about 200 psi, immerse the whole tank in a trash can filled with icy brine, which will take us down to about -20C, then get on down to liquid air temperature with decompression.

 

Hey cool I remember how to do the entropy calculations to figure out if that scheme would work to make a little bit of liquid air.

 

spike

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 05:28:44 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 01:28:44 -0400
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLvU3j+PWjQBryu4K6GpAEi+9BHQnUSgWrjqwnR1qCM3w@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 16, 2014 8:17 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> A virus of entirely human origin has wiped the planet of all people.
Shortly after aliens visit (irony, eh?).  They study us and our buildings,
literature - everything - over many years.
>
> What will they say is the most important, the best thing we produced
while we existed?  That is, they will attempt to attach a meaning to our
collective lives.  Assume that they learn our languages, math, music,
history, philosophy etc. and are somewhat like us.
>
The virus that killed us?  Even with a spectacularly negative result it
would be an unparalleled achievement.
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 17 08:31:23 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:31:23 +0200
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2832951119-544@secure.ericade.net>

William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> , 17/6/2014 2:22 AM:
A virus of entirely human origin has wiped the planet of all people.? Shortly after aliens visit (irony, eh?).? They study us and our buildings, literature - everything - over many years.
 
What will they say is the most important, the best thing we produced while we existed?? That is, they will attempt to attach a meaning to our collective lives.? Assume that they learn our languages, math, music, history, philosophy etc. and are somewhat like us.? 
 
So, what would you say in answer to that question??? wfw
The "somewhat like us" part is key - sapient space corals might have meaning in their distributed fractal minds, but it will be hard to say how it meshes with our kind of meaning.?
But even looking at different *humans* it is clear that they would place meaning in very different things - just consider how present people might respond to the best things the Romans did: architecture, orgies, the poetry of Vergilius, Christianity or conquering Britain? While a Roman might point at some historical memorial about his gens while thinking the buildings we appreciate would need a new coat of colour, that the orgies were mis-remembered (no, a vomitorium is not what you think!), that the poetry just raises boring school memories, eastern cults are a dupondius a dozen, and who ever cared about those rainy outposts in the far north anyway?
OK, that said, I think the aliens would try to figure out *what this species would have wanted to be remembered for* (see it as the temporal golden rule: treat the past as you want the future to treat you). From their perspective they will note that while most civilizations profess veneration for big abstract achievements - their national epic, their theologies, their art and sciences - most humans who ever lived were not part of a big civilization but were hunter-gatherers. In such societies people typically care about being part of a family and remembered by their family in the future. Most afterlife mythologies care deeply about descendants continuing to venerate their ancestors. Even within civilizations the average person cares more for family than the big building that will outlast her. The final clincher is the recording on the Voyager probe (once they read about it they sent a FTL skiff to fetch it). The recording is all about "remember us!", very much the direct attempt of the species to make its own best epitaph. And it is on top of a singular technological achievement of the last civilization.
So the aliens will store the Voyager II probe and the recording.

(The space corals on the other hand decided a broken pencil tip, a parking ticket and Western Australia were the greatest achievements and promptly depart with them to the Lesser Magellanic Cloud. But as we all know, they are rabid collectors.)
Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 08:45:56 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 09:45:56 +0100
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbLvU3j+PWjQBryu4K6GpAEi+9BHQnUSgWrjqwnR1qCM3w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbLvU3j+PWjQBryu4K6GpAEi+9BHQnUSgWrjqwnR1qCM3w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armj0GpQ0SKrLJU71gqCpBb6eeZGhnZSkOV+qDw3UdfGfVw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 6:28 AM, Mike Dougherty wrote:
> The virus that killed us?  Even with a spectacularly negative result it
> would be an unparalleled achievement.
>

Yes, surely there would be thousands upon thousands of people staring
at screens, wondering why it has gone quiet outside? And why isn't the
pizza shop answering the phone?

BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 17 08:49:33 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 10:49:33 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFgWWd-wg4abaY4XzJP3t3TZp3Gu6mzn6BgTw6Y0PY0q_w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <2834624744-6251@secure.ericade.net>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 17/6/2014 6:08 AM:

### Long term storage of mass is tricky - you want to avoid formation of stars and black holes, so you can't make it too dense but you don't want the expansion to rip stuff away, so you have to make it dense enough - and of course, higher density means shorter communication lines for your computations.
This is another part where this project touches on Fermi. If storage is invisible it could go on all around us, while if something radical has to be made the lack of it is evidence for either lack of aliens or that my theory is wrong.?
My argument I made at a conference in Milan a few years back (with a precursor to the current model) is that what matters is likely just mass-energy, not so much chemical composition. Stars do not lose much mass into energy (less than 1%), so it might be practical to just let them sit there. Interstellar gas and black holes can be gathered up and energy extracted later on; same thing for dark matter halos. So this would mean that the intelligent beings will just let things settle. Maybe create a bit of galactic flow against the Hubble flow in order to make hyperclusters (the Great Attractor, anyone?)
Over the past year I have become a bit doubtful. Most baryonic matter is intergalactic gas that just gets blown away (just watch the hot gas eruptions at 3.6 billion year in?http://www.illustris-project.org/ !) Galaxies leak through "chimneys". Still, dark matter seems to form rather tame halos given current models of its structure (since the WIMPs do not interact much with themselves), so if what matters is just total burnable mass (and dark matter dumped into a black hole is just as good as baryonic matter) maybe this is another reason to leave the baryons alone. Robin's negentropy arguments also suggest that harvesting negentropy now during the stelliferous era might be worthwhile, but I would like to do some calculations for it.?

If *I* were in charge... I would likely Dyson the stars, steer galaxies into a hierarchy of superclusters and hyperclusters (still not finished at calculating the max size; some tricky issues with orbits in the Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetime) and condense out the now cool gas. Avoiding collapse is mainly a matter of having enough angular momentum to make the assemblage just below the breaking apart limit.
> But this matter soup might be an ideal broth for space grey goo. An external or internal adversary with high time preference might be hard to resist. Grey goo's rationality is starkly at odds with maximizing computational capacity of the lightcone.
Maybe we are the space grey goo. In fact, in my original scenario I suggested that the Old Ones don't care what we do as long as we do not mess up the long-term mass-energy.
Seriously, I suspect that if you set up long-term storage you will add an immune system. Emplace monitors in ever solar system, build a response if something unacceptable happens (and this system can have as much error checks and cryptographic validation as you care, no chance for that mutating).?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 17 09:30:22 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:30:22 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <1402885129.85196.YahooMailNeo@web160706.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2837523428-8863@secure.ericade.net>

Dennis May <dennislmay at yahoo.com> , 16/6/2014 4:35 AM:

Over many years of reading about the stability of minarchy versus anarcho-capitalism [market capitalism] my primary conclusion is that both require a high degree of cultural sophistication and unanimity in order to remain stable in a finite largely closed system such as the Earth.? Cultural sophistication and unanimity cannot be maintained through coercion in a free thinking free society.? So it would seem that present conditions are not conducive to either form.? I believe there are possible long term stable models in an open system such as space but that would first require the industrialization of space.

In general, we do not have good tools for analysing robustness of political philosophy. The closest is economic arguments or game theory, but in practice the open-endedness of human behavior makes most theories fail when exposed to reality. At the same time we have empirical evidence about robustness of all kinds. One interesting observation is that many social systems on the face of it sounds utterly unstable, but actually do work - partially because they have correction subsystems, partially because human adaptation makes many societies "sticky" and more robust than on paper.?
Space does have interesting political connotations. As Iain M. Banks pointed out in "Some notes on the Culture", once you have enough space industrialisation enforcing a central power becomes hard - it is possible to move away and set up shop elsewhere, and attacks removes value. Disagreement may just lead to splitting of habitats. That doesn't necessarily lead to niceness (which Banks assumed): habitats might be internally far more bigoted and closed than Earth societies, maintaining their cohesion through underhanded means. And one could maintain an "empire" by threatening everybody. Still, the decentralization tendency would likely lead to a lot of divergence and diversity. So I think Nozick wins in space, even if he doesn't win on Earth.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Tue Jun 17 11:26:17 2014
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 05:26:17 -0600
Subject: [ExI] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think about my
	Dead Mom?
Message-ID: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>



My Mom just died,  So I apologize if I shouldn't be trying to 
communicate my current feelings in this way to all I love and trust so 
fully.

I'm a Transhumanist, so it feels to me like we've now decided to rot my 
Mom in hell.  I'm having troubles sleeping now at 3:00 AM, thinking of 
how my Mom is, right now, rotting in that mortuary cooler, beginning 
what feels to me like will be more than a thousand years of lonely hell 
for the living.

I'm trying not to hate my sister.  It is currently my feeling that My 
Dad and my two Brothers might have been OK with preserving her, and not 
throwing her away for more than a thousand years.  Me, alone (terribly 
disappointing my wife), funding her $80K preservation at Alcor, if it 
wasn't for my youngest sister.  All I can think about is them now being 
able to sleep, naively thinking my Mom is now in a happy place, 
separated from us, the living.  Her now being with dead people, Santa 
Clause, the tooth fairy, Jesus and God.  After all, my Mom was 
hallucinating very terribly, right before she died, and it was almost as 
if she was talking with Dead people, in between the time when she was 
complaining of being upside down.  For some reason, though, My sister 
didn't think she seemed comforted.  At least one time, my sister said my 
Mom referred to it as being a nightmare.  But we just ignore all that 
part of it, because we like our happy thoughts, and my sister just 
loaded her up with more Morphine (now wondering if she did the right 
thing) trying to make it stop, so she could be "comforted".  Yea, if you 
feel happy, or don't know what you're missing, everything is OK,  and 
your not in a worse hell, right?

Anyway, I've already blown up more than a few times, before my Mom died, 
storming out of the room, slamming the door, weeping and swearing about 
throwing Mom away and rotting Her in hell for more than a thousand 
years, after having conversations about this with my family.

My family is now planning the funeral.  I feel like, because of my 
current instabilities (I don't know what I'll do at the funeral, knowing 
my mom will be rotting right there, us getting ready to throw her away - 
at least they've decided to close the casket, I hope that will help), 
they've censored me, the first born son, from speaking at my Mom's 
funeral, hoping it will be good enough to let me give the dedicatory 
prayer to God over the grave.  I try over and over again to tell them 
I'm a staunch Atheist, but they keep asking me to pray, so I try as hard 
as I can to pray, whenever they ask, in an attempt to make them happy.  
So I'm wondering what you think my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister, and 
the many, many, other temple worker friends of my Mom will think about 
IF I prayed something like the following over the grave:


"Heavenly Father,

We come before thee, this day, to dedicate this grave, for the purpose 
of preserving my Mom's Body.   It is my feeling that nobody will ever 
give up till that glorious day of resurrection, when her body, all of 
Her memories, and all that Mom is, is finally reunited with this body we 
now lay in this grave.

For those of us that currently feel like throwing her away and rotting 
her in hell like this, is a grave sin of omision, if we are mistaken in 
our thinking, please guide and inspire those that know better, so they 
may be able to find the words to successfully communicate to those of us 
who are still mistaken, so that we may find some kind of comfort in this 
what now feels like a grave sin of omission worse than when ignorant 
slave owners murdered slaves.

And for those that think God will do everything to resurrect us, while 
we do nothing, if they are sinning, help those that have the moral 
capability to realize this, to be able to find the words, to better 
communicate, so this kind of grave sinning of omission may cease, 
sooner.  For it is our prayer that more people will soon be better 
preserved, so that more people may be able to be resurrected during the 
morning of the first resurrection, rather than rotting in the hell, in 
graves like this one, possibly for more than 1000 lonely years, if not 
forever.

We so dedicate this grave, for the preservation of what is left of Mom's 
body,

in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."


And if I shouldn't say something like that, what should I say?  Is there 
any way I can help make everyone else feel happy thoughts, despite what 
I'll be feeling?  I'm trying to make what they want my top priority, but 
it is sometimes very hard, and I don't know if I can manage it, yet 
again, at least this time.

I must just be the lonely crazy Son, right?



































From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 12:46:11 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:46:11 -0400
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2834624744-6251@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAAc1gFgWWd-wg4abaY4XzJP3t3TZp3Gu6mzn6BgTw6Y0PY0q_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <2834624744-6251@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLUQkpknV+Ywdr0mW38FGV8FpstVOscfPzvSMi42pWVog@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 4:49 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> Seriously, I suspect that if you set up long-term storage you will add an
> immune system. Emplace monitors in ever solar system, build a response if
> something unacceptable happens (and this system can have as much error
> checks and cryptographic validation as you care, no chance for that
> mutating).

I like this 'immune system' analogy.  There was once a time that smart
doctors would have extinguished gut flora; now we're learning there
are important things happening there.  Perhaps younger intelligences
can be cultivated like hedges and ivy after older intelligences have
built the arbor and trellis in the garden.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 13:39:52 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:39:52 -0500
Subject: [ExI] reasoning in beasts
In-Reply-To: <008701cf8968$9c656ad0$d5304070$@att.net>
References: <04c701cf891d$ea295d30$be7c1790$@att.net>
 <CAL_armh7T-9Z_iTNSvF7hmATM9c4x9D9EOxHLx6zxus=bKoY9Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <008701cf8968$9c656ad0$d5304070$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbr21y5-Ls5aEvTuHbtsMkY+x7U8jGDM9wiJYMWPZivtQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 8:40 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
> Lesson: the brain of the ass, donkey and horse are similar, but behaviors
> vary widely.  Likewise with dog behaviors: similar brains, large variation
> in abilities and instinct.  In all these cases, I see evidence of some form
> of reasoning.  It is an example of human reasoning to recognize the
> parallel
> process in non-human beasts.
>
> spike
>

?Not me, Spike, but here is one more reason mules are smarter:  they refuse
to work themselves to death.  Horses will run or work until they drop
dead.  Mules won't.  That's the origination of the expression about mules
being mulish - stubborn.  If they are too tired they just stand there even
if you beat them.  I've seen it.  bill w?


>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From rhanson at gmu.edu  Tue Jun 17 13:48:26 2014
From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 13:48:26 +0000
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <2791498473-21105@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2791498473-21105@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <1F5F7268-46FA-4249-BE2B-844DB8788AEB@gmu.edu>

On Jun 16, 2014, at 4:56 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se<mailto:anders at aleph.se>> wrote:
Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu<mailto:rhanson at gmu.edu>> , 16/6/2014 11:18 AM:
I finally had a chance to look over these papers, and I'm not convinced they are modeling the interesting case. With reversible computers there is of course a lot of thermal noise, but the system is designed to robustly accommodate noise in the flexible state (eg local charge) of the system, though not of course in the structure (eg conductor vs insulator) that channels those flexible states. In real computers the main noise other than thermal noise in the flexible state is due to cosmic rays. But that noise is very highly correlated spatially, which makes it much easier to deal with; just redundantly do big computation chunks in spatially separated places and vote on the answer.

I think the flexible states are more easily disrupted than the structure states (since they are flexible): whatever the cause of errors are - thermal motion, cosmic rays, occasional tunneling - it ought to mess up the flexible parts of the system far more often than the structure. Hmm, this might go for reservoirs of negentropy too: a bit error in a negentropy reservoir is a slight depletion. It would be nice to have a proper theory of the expected resiliency of systems like this so we could make quantitative predictions.

Redundant computing with votes still has to be reversible. A voting gate selecting the majority of A, B and C will be dissipative unless it outputs the majority vote plus two bits of information that allows reconstructing ABC. And while the non-faulty chunks can then be rewound and re-used, there has to be error correction for all the bits in the noise-affected one. So while the error rate has gone down from p to p^2, if a single module error occurs there will still be the same number of bits to clean as in the single-module case. So the overall amount of bits that need to be cleaned per unit of time goes from Np to 3p((1-p)^2 + p(1-p) + p^2)N=3p(1-p+p^2)N - the far lower error rate comes at a price of extra error correction. (if I calculated things right).

Yes when there are errors you must pay the entropy cost to erase those error bits. But that is still a lot better than the exponential circuit size scaling you talked about before if all the errors are uncorrelated.

I wonder if there is a way to make something like a computer gate that can switch to energy collector mode when a cosmic ray comes through. Then the noise might perhaps more than pay for itself.

But how do you know that the ray will be arriving?

I have a suspicion that one can make a Maxwell's daemon argument that noise is useless to power computation. However, real radiation might be different since it is not at maximum entropy.

Yes the bit flips caused by a cosmic ray would not be useful. I was imagining a system that usually switched between two low energy states during ordinary reversible computation, but that was pushed up to high energy states when a cosmic ray came through. The existence of many local high energy states would trigger the use of a different set of circuits to extract useful negentropy from those states. In this way the device might actually gain negentropy when cosmic rays came through.

Robin Hanson  http://hanson.gmu.edu
Res. Assoc., Future of Humanity Inst., Oxford Univ.
Assoc. Professor, George Mason University
Chief Scientist, Consensus Point
MSN 1D3, Carow Hall, Fairfax VA 22030
703-993-2326 FAX: 703-993-2323



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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 15:50:26 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 08:50:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think about
	my Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
References: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <026f01cf8a43$dc837b80$958a7280$@att.net>

>...And if I shouldn't say something like that, what should I say?  Is there
any way I can help make everyone else feel happy thoughts, despite what I'll
be feeling?  I'm trying to make what they want my top priority, but it is
sometimes very hard, and I don't know if I can manage it, yet again, at
least this time.  ...I must just be the lonely crazy Son, right?...Brent


Brent, many of us are atheists and have faced the challenge of being asked
to recite prayers.  There are no good answers for dealing with that.  In
these times of intense grief such as now, your many friends and admirers
wish you and your family the very best.  We wish for you strength and
courage as you face the challenges of dealing with the sorrow of losing your
beloved mother.  If atheists had prayers, this would be ours.

spike  
































_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From giulio at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 15:42:54 2014
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 17:42:54 +0200
Subject: [ExI] [mta] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think
 about my Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
References: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJyewkGRXVx-+2TLAzptFm5f91Sh1NLiyJ_MS7MuZCEaWWg@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Brent,

I am so very sorry for your loss.

My Mom left me in 2001. I went to see her in the last few days when
she was already mostly unconscious. I brought only one book to read:
Frank Tipler's Physics of Immortality. The book gave me as much
comfort as one can have in such moments.

I hope that future generations of evolved humans, Heavenly persons
with God-like powers achieved by means of science, will choose to
resurrect my Mom, and me, and all our loved ones who passed away, for
us to be together again.

Does it matter if that will happen in thousands of years, or more? I
don't think so - for us, subjectively, not a moment will pass. I hope
I will close my eyes one last time, and then open my eyes again, and
see my Mom.

Let our deep convictions comfort you.

Your friend,
Giulio



On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 1:26 PM, Brent Allsop
<brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
>
>
> My Mom just died,  So I apologize if I shouldn't be trying to communicate my
> current feelings in this way to all I love and trust so fully.
>
> I'm a Transhumanist, so it feels to me like we've now decided to rot my Mom
> in hell.  I'm having troubles sleeping now at 3:00 AM, thinking of how my
> Mom is, right now, rotting in that mortuary cooler, beginning what feels to
> me like will be more than a thousand years of lonely hell for the living.
>
> I'm trying not to hate my sister.  It is currently my feeling that My Dad
> and my two Brothers might have been OK with preserving her, and not throwing
> her away for more than a thousand years.  Me, alone (terribly disappointing
> my wife), funding her $80K preservation at Alcor, if it wasn't for my
> youngest sister.  All I can think about is them now being able to sleep,
> naively thinking my Mom is now in a happy place, separated from us, the
> living.  Her now being with dead people, Santa Clause, the tooth fairy,
> Jesus and God.  After all, my Mom was hallucinating very terribly, right
> before she died, and it was almost as if she was talking with Dead people,
> in between the time when she was complaining of being upside down.  For some
> reason, though, My sister didn't think she seemed comforted.  At least one
> time, my sister said my Mom referred to it as being a nightmare.  But we
> just ignore all that part of it, because we like our happy thoughts, and my
> sister just loaded her up with more Morphine (now wondering if she did the
> right thing) trying to make it stop, so she could be "comforted".  Yea, if
> you feel happy, or don't know what you're missing, everything is OK,  and
> your not in a worse hell, right?
>
> Anyway, I've already blown up more than a few times, before my Mom died,
> storming out of the room, slamming the door, weeping and swearing about
> throwing Mom away and rotting Her in hell for more than a thousand years,
> after having conversations about this with my family.
>
> My family is now planning the funeral.  I feel like, because of my current
> instabilities (I don't know what I'll do at the funeral, knowing my mom will
> be rotting right there, us getting ready to throw her away - at least
> they've decided to close the casket, I hope that will help), they've
> censored me, the first born son, from speaking at my Mom's funeral, hoping
> it will be good enough to let me give the dedicatory prayer to God over the
> grave.  I try over and over again to tell them I'm a staunch Atheist, but
> they keep asking me to pray, so I try as hard as I can to pray, whenever
> they ask, in an attempt to make them happy.  So I'm wondering what you think
> my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister, and the many, many, other temple worker
> friends of my Mom will think about IF I prayed something like the following
> over the grave:
>
>
> "Heavenly Father,
>
> We come before thee, this day, to dedicate this grave, for the purpose of
> preserving my Mom's Body.   It is my feeling that nobody will ever give up
> till that glorious day of resurrection, when her body, all of Her memories,
> and all that Mom is, is finally reunited with this body we now lay in this
> grave.
>
> For those of us that currently feel like throwing her away and rotting her
> in hell like this, is a grave sin of omision, if we are mistaken in our
> thinking, please guide and inspire those that know better, so they may be
> able to find the words to successfully communicate to those of us who are
> still mistaken, so that we may find some kind of comfort in this what now
> feels like a grave sin of omission worse than when ignorant slave owners
> murdered slaves.
>
> And for those that think God will do everything to resurrect us, while we do
> nothing, if they are sinning, help those that have the moral capability to
> realize this, to be able to find the words, to better communicate, so this
> kind of grave sinning of omission may cease, sooner.  For it is our prayer
> that more people will soon be better preserved, so that more people may be
> able to be resurrected during the morning of the first resurrection, rather
> than rotting in the hell, in graves like this one, possibly for more than
> 1000 lonely years, if not forever.
>
> We so dedicate this grave, for the preservation of what is left of Mom's
> body,
>
> in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
>
>
> And if I shouldn't say something like that, what should I say?  Is there any
> way I can help make everyone else feel happy thoughts, despite what I'll be
> feeling?  I'm trying to make what they want my top priority, but it is
> sometimes very hard, and I don't know if I can manage it, yet again, at
> least this time.
>
> I must just be the lonely crazy Son, right?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> To learn more about the Mormon Transhumanist Association, visit
> http://transfigurism.org
> --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "Mormon Transhumanist Association" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
> email to transfigurism+unsubscribe at googlegroups.com.
> To post to this group, send email to transfigurism at googlegroups.com.
> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/transfigurism.
> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 16:23:47 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:23:47 -0500
Subject: [ExI] [mta] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think
 about my Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJyewkGRXVx-+2TLAzptFm5f91Sh1NLiyJ_MS7MuZCEaWWg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
 <CAKTCJyewkGRXVx-+2TLAzptFm5f91Sh1NLiyJ_MS7MuZCEaWWg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa3uj0J27-KXNV=nwp1Q5sU2CVa65uKG-EbRCKVo4mC+A@mail.gmail.com>

 <brent.allsop at canonizer.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> > My Mom just died,  So I apologize if I shouldn't be trying to
> communicate my
> > current feelings in this way to all I love and trust so fully.
>

?In such an important situation, which you will never forget, I think you
could consider that the prayer is not what you want to say.  So --  say
what you want to and don't let anyone stop you.  She's your Mom and that
gives you the right.  Others are trying to control you.  bill w
?


> >org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> <http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 16:34:32 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 09:34:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
In-Reply-To: <004b01cf89e5$e7590240$b60b06c0$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01cf89e5$e7590240$b60b06c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <030301cf8a4a$0548e4f0$0fdaaed0$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of spike

>...I hold a more optimistic view Keith.  

>...All the sideshows will settle out, and it will come down to this burning IRS scandal.  Hours ago, the IRS announced that its director's computer crashed, and so (oh darn) they "lost" about two years of her emails and the dog ate her homework.  There is no way to recover those emails, you understand, even though tape backups of every server are stored all over the place, but that crashed computer lost critical emails after the IRS claims to have spent 10 million dollars trying to recover this director's email...spike


I am astonished, appalled, that the IRS would even attempt such a crazy testimony, and I struggle to interpret their motives.  They know we don't believe their absurd story, and they know there are powerful senators eager to exploit and politicize this apparent cover-up.  So what is it about?  My best guess is that they have been breathing their own fumes so long, they have come to fully believe they are above the law, that the constitution doesn't apply to them, that law doesn't reach their lofty height, that the 16th amendment really does give them unlimited power to do whatever they want to whomever they want, that the director of the IRS really is the most powerful seat in US government because it has exactly zero checks and balances on its power.  Note what has happened so far:

-  The IRS director or some other still-unknown government official apparently ordered increased scrutiny of one party

-  She was caught

-  She refused to testify, claiming 5th amendment rights against being compelled to incriminate herself

-  While claiming the fifth, she testified she had done nothing illegal (lying before congress is illegal)

-  She was found in contempt of congress

-  Nothing happened.  (Why should she care about congress' stupid proletariat opinion?  She is still getting her retirement checks.  Congress is for the little people.)

-  The evidence is missing under mysterious circumstances

-  An laughable excuse is offered, without regard to the obvious absurdity

So what happens now?  Speculations please?  Suppose I will get an IRS audit just for writing these observations?  If so, are we not already living in an Orwellian IRS-led totalitarian nightmare? 

Quoted:

Section ? 3309 states that records ?pertaining to claims and demands by or against the Government of the United States or to accounts in which the Government of the United States is concerned, either as debtor or creditor, may not be disposed of by the head of an agency under authorization granted under this chapter, until the claims, demands, and accounts have been settled and adjusted in the General Accounting Office, except upon the written approval of the Comptroller General of the United States.?

?These environments were required by federal regulations to be redundant and recoverable,? the former IRS IT worker says. ?The recoverability requirements were put into place for exactly the reasons we see today.? Disposal of records outside the statutory standards requires permission in writing.

He says that the IRS uses Microsoft Outlook/Exchange systems, which are backed up using Symantec NetBackup.

End quote.  http://pjmedia.com/tatler/2014/06/16/exclusive-former-irs-information-tech-worker-doubts-agencys-claim-to-have-lost-lerners-emails/

spike


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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 17:11:51 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 18:11:51 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
In-Reply-To: <030301cf8a4a$0548e4f0$0fdaaed0$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01cf89e5$e7590240$b60b06c0$@att.net>
 <030301cf8a4a$0548e4f0$0fdaaed0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiTowQwnSojKxUULomiFbVC9c0Lcrbgy5YwVpojAQAfZg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:34 PM, spike wrote:
>>...All the sideshows will settle out, and it will come down to this burning IRS
>> scandal.  Hours ago, the IRS announced that its director's computer crashed,
>> and so (oh darn) they "lost" about two years of her emails and the dog ate her
>> homework.  There is no way to recover those emails, you understand, even
>> though tape backups of every server are stored all over the place, but that
>> crashed computer lost critical emails after the IRS claims to have spent 10
>> million dollars trying to recover this director's email...spike
>

Looks like a spreading epidemic of crashed computers and lost backups.

<http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/380576/irs-has-lost-more-e-mails-eliana-johnson>
Quote:
It's not just Lois Lerner's e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says
it can't produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the
targeting of conservative groups, according to two Republicans
investigating the scandal.

The IRS told Ways and Means chairman Dave Camp and subcommittee
chairman Charles Boustany that computer crashes resulted in additional
lost e-mails, including from Nikole Flax, the chief of staff to former
IRS commissioner Steven Miller, who was fired in the wake of the
targeting scandal.
-------------------------------


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 18:11:10 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:11:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] modern engines of creation
Message-ID: <035b01cf8a57$8544f330$8fced990$@att.net>

It has been 28 years since K. Eric Drexler and Christiine Petersen rocked
our world with Engines of Creation.  Now here's many of those ideas with the
addition of crazy cool graphics:

 

http://www.youtube.com/embed/FiZqn6fV-4Y

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun 17 18:24:03 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 11:24:03 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armiTowQwnSojKxUULomiFbVC9c0Lcrbgy5YwVpojAQAfZg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01cf89e5$e7590240$b60b06c0$@att.net>
 <030301cf8a4a$0548e4f0$0fdaaed0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiTowQwnSojKxUULomiFbVC9c0Lcrbgy5YwVpojAQAfZg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <036001cf8a59$51fcfb10$f5f6f130$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] Pew survey

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:34 PM, spike wrote:
>>...All the sideshows will settle out, and it will come down to this 
>>burning IRS  scandal.  Hours ago, the IRS announced that its 
>>director's computer crashed,  and so (oh darn) they "lost" about two 
>>years of her emails and the dog ate her  homework...

>...Looks like a spreading epidemic of crashed computers and lost backups.

<http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/380576/irs-has-lost-more-e-mails-elian
a-johnson>

Quote:
>...It's not just Lois Lerner's e-mails. The Internal Revenue Service says
it can't produce e-mails from six more employees involved in the targeting
of conservative groups...BillK
_______________________________________________

BillK, your being from Jolly Olde, and a subject of Her Majesty, you are
able to speak freely here without the threat of an IRS audit.  Please sir,
what do you think of all this?  Any of you others, especially those who live
in or have lived in nations where the government has dictatorial power, what
do you think of all this please?

spike



From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun 17 19:07:29 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:07:29 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
In-Reply-To: <036001cf8a59$51fcfb10$f5f6f130$@att.net>
References: <CAPiwVB72pFLyUzuiFGY_G97ZCTbVQpU=8-OUPm+xXQ4t1CX1dQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <004b01cf89e5$e7590240$b60b06c0$@att.net>
 <030301cf8a4a$0548e4f0$0fdaaed0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armiTowQwnSojKxUULomiFbVC9c0Lcrbgy5YwVpojAQAfZg@mail.gmail.com>
 <036001cf8a59$51fcfb10$f5f6f130$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgsU_g95X3_hf5JYNcX1r_+A6v8j4_hHJWa35SXFADpZA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 7:24 PM, spike wrote:
> BillK, your being from Jolly Olde, and a subject of Her Majesty, you are
> able to speak freely here without the threat of an IRS audit.  Please sir,
> what do you think of all this?  Any of you others, especially those who live
> in or have lived in nations where the government has dictatorial power, what
> do you think of all this please?
>
>

(We also have to be careful not to upset the UK Inland Revenue)!  :)

I think that one of the fundamental principles of civilisation is
equality of all under the law. That seems to be collapsing rapidly in
the West. The law is becoming a weapon to support those in power and
victimise the rest of the population. The police and courts also
become weapons to support the powerful. If a senior judge offends
them, they appoint a more cooperative one.

When the law of the land is corrupted in this fashion, a time of great
trouble looms ahead.

BillK


From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Tue Jun 17 19:02:18 2014
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:02:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <8FFC189B-624D-4DB5-8EC5-95E1D2B3125A@taramayastales.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402142401.26278.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <BE9429A6-78C6-408C-AD49-87495827AACB@me.com>
 <CAL_armhHh35UqFE29mkx1wE=vVxFgSS4nRB-BOOKzOnA2ObzzQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <8FFC189B-624D-4DB5-8EC5-95E1D2B3125A@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <3BEE6180-5619-41AD-823D-946696F17D4C@yahoo.com>

Dennis May wrote:

"The Constitution is a document of negative liberties - meaning the federal government can do this finite list of enumerated things and nothing more.  The majority of US federal government spending is now outside of the Constitution hence we are in a post-Constitutional period.  This issue is already covered in the Constitution but ignored and worked around with every branch of the federal government involved in bypassing the Constitution."

Not the actual US Constitution. It gives broad and sweeping powers to the central government, and the enumerated powers were to be interpreted (by the text of the document and by the federalists' stated intentions; their big concerns were foreign domination and internal faction and not limiting government) far more broadly than many libertarian sympathizers today believe. This is one reason why the anti-federalists at that time argued so strongly against it.

Also, separation of powers is cute, but it only works, or so thought Montesquieu and the anti-federalists who relies on him, when the separation matches something deeper and more permanent than a constitutional mandate. In England, a key example of working separation of powers for Montesquieu, separation worked, they argued because the monarchy, the aristocracy, and the commons were truly separate and rival classes. No such deep antagonisms existed in the US, so separation of powers would have to be based on something other than class rivalry. The anti-federalists argued in favor of a less centralized government (much less centralized than the actual US Constitution) as a check and balance on central power -- against a separation of powers within the central power. They mostly feared what has come to pass: a very powerful central government that is extremely active in economic and private life of its subjects.

Regards,

Dan
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From dan_ust at yahoo.com  Tue Jun 17 19:49:32 2014
From: dan_ust at yahoo.com (Dan Ust)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 12:49:32 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Free societies in space/was Re:  Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <2837523428-8863@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2837523428-8863@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <2B600C1B-B27A-4208-AAC0-3B71E8CC3227@yahoo.com>


> On Jun 17, 2014, at 2:30 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
> 
> In general, we do not have good tools for analysing robustness of political philosophy. The closest is economic arguments or game theory, but in practice the open-endedness of human behavior makes most theories fail when exposed to reality. At the same time we have empirical evidence about robustness of all kinds. One interesting observation is that many social systems on the face of it sounds utterly unstable, but actually do work - partially because they have correction subsystems, partially because human adaptation makes many societies "sticky" and more robust than on paper. 
> 
> Space does have interesting political connotations. As Iain M. Banks pointed out in "Some notes on the Culture", once you have enough space industrialisation enforcing a central power becomes hard - it is possible to move away and set up shop elsewhere, and attacks removes value. Disagreement may just lead to splitting of habitats. That doesn't necessarily lead to niceness (which Banks assumed): habitats might be internally far more bigoted and closed than Earth societies, maintaining their cohesion through underhanded means. And one could maintain an "empire" by threatening everybody. Still, the decentralization tendency would likely lead to a lot of divergence and diversity. So I think Nozick wins in space, even if he doesn't win on Earth. 

I also wrote on this topic a few years ago:

http://mysite.verizon.net/vzezsi8g/SpaceFreedom.html

Not all that deep. One might have "airlock despotism" off world, but I think the kind of permanent edge society space settlement seems very likely to create -- regardless if all the nice details are worked on how to split a settlement (why does this have to be worked out at all? Local despotisms would likely create informal migration flows away from them; the easier this is, the harder it is for any local despotism to grow or survive).

Also, Nozick was more talking about how a minarchy might _without violating rights_ enforce its monopoly on legitimate coercion. I think his argument is flimsy: it presumes that the minarchy-in-the-making has a special privilege on determining what's valid justice procedures and already has a sort of monopoly on this. Why wouldn't rival agents be able to arrive at correct (or better or as good) justice procedures? Why wouldn't they have as much right as a government on the make to correct (or stop) wrong justice procedures -- even when they were being applied by the government on the make? But these arguments against Nozick aside, I believe he meant something other than some one or group taking and keeping power; he meant a specific path that would be acceptable at each stage from a justice (by his view of justice) perspective.

Regards,

Dan
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 17 21:08:11 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:08:11 +0200
Subject: [ExI] for the fermi paradox fans
In-Reply-To: <1F5F7268-46FA-4249-BE2B-844DB8788AEB@gmu.edu>
Message-ID: <2879082213-28132@secure.ericade.net>

Robin D Hanson <rhanson at gmu.edu> , 17/6/2014 5:26 PM:
  On Jun 16, 2014, at 4:56 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
    Redundant computing with votes still has to be reversible. A voting gate selecting the majority of A, B and C will be dissipative unless it outputs the majority vote plus two bits of information that allows reconstructing ABC. And while the non-faulty  chunks can then be rewound and re-used, there has to be error correction for all the bits in the noise-affected one. So while the error rate has gone down from p to p^2, if a single module error occurs there will still be the same number of bits to clean as  in the single-module case. So the overall amount of bits that need to be cleaned per unit of time goes from Np to 3p((1-p)^2 + p(1-p) + p^2)N=3p(1-p+p^2)N - the far lower error rate comes at a price of extra error correction. (if I calculated things right).? 
  Yes when there are errors you must pay the entropy cost to erase those error bits. But that is still a lot better than the exponential circuit size scaling you talked about before if all the errors are uncorrelated.?
Is it? The original paper had a system of N gates of depth D expand to N'=N exp(D) in order to get reliable computation. In this case I get 3N+1 gates (plus some gates for doing the error correction) and need to re-run the system on average 1/(1-p^2) times: the effective depth has increased. In fact, I am somewhat concerned with the error correcting gates: a failure there would cause an even more massive failure. The original schemes were better, I think, at keeping errors contained.?
Incidentally, von Neumann was of course there first in 1956:http://www.archtypic.com/wiki/images/a/af/Von_Neumann_Probabilistic_Logics_and_the_Synthesis_of_Reliable_Organisms_from_Unreliable_Components.pdf

 Yes the bit flips caused by a cosmic ray would not be useful. I was imagining a system that usually switched between two low energy states during ordinary reversible computation, but that was pushed up to high energy states when a cosmic ray came through. The  existence of many local high energy states would trigger the use of a different set of circuits to extract useful negentropy from those states. In this way the device might actually gain negentropy when cosmic rays came through.?

A bit like laser design. You want a set of high energy states that a ray excites, and then a decay channel that releases useful work and tells the system the bit needs to be reset.


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Tue Jun 17 21:05:53 2014
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 17:05:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think about
 my Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
References: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <6c7d13b2dbbb1a54e1bbaa6eeff17bf2.squirrel@www.main.nc.us>


Dear Brent,

Much sympathy on your loss. You are entering a hard time
here, and we who have walked the road before you will
offer help if we can.

At the graveside, perhaps you can go in another direction
and express gratitude for the many days and years of joy
and love and caring that went on between your mom and her
family.

The fact that she is out of life's physical pain and
suffering now seems a point you could include.  Nobody
wants to see a loved one suffer.

Stating that you wish/hope for reunion with lost loved
ones is perfectly fine, everyone hopes/wishes for that.
Even non-believers. :)

I would not address your disappointment and anger in the
way things have been handled, as it is likely to go *way
bad* at a very inappropriate time and place.

If I were placed in such a predicament I'd write out
something - not very long, not very complex - and say it
over out loud in front of a mirror some dozen times in
order to tweak it into something satisfactory that does
not lie about your beliefs nor insult the beliefs of the
others.

Bring your note to the service so you have that support.

Regards,
MB


From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun 17 21:46:51 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 23:46:51 +0200
Subject: [ExI] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think about
	my	Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <2880684451-7089@secure.ericade.net>

I feel for you, Brent.

Maybe it is my conciliatory nature, but I think the best way to handle the mess is by showing dignity. Funerals, as they say, are for the living: they are both a chance to say goodbye, support each other, and to say truths. The most powerful truths are delivered not through oratory, but by behaving. So take the gist of your proposed prayer and polish it. Make it dignified, showing that a bereaved atheist can pray in a more heartfelt way than many a wordy believer.


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 03:02:59 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 20:02:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pew survey
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB6HoTcYUUtMQcN+C5RngozbTf9LR-iwAqB_mwCfxSRYmA@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 1:31 AM,   "spike" <spike66 at att.net>> wrote:

[Keith]

>>...But what this shows is consistent with a population under stress...
>
> Ja, but the US population isn't under all that much stress.  We are still well-fed, we still have our silly game shows, all the usual stuff.

Spike, I don't think you are justified in dismissing the stress the US
population is under.  As Robert Cialdini pointed out in his book
_Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion_ it's what people have gotten
used to that sets how much a drop in income and prospects of income
sets off their unease with their future.  The subjective prospects of
the average person is the US have certainly taken a major hit in the
last few decades.

> Regarding the current deep divide in the USA, I have some reasonable forecasts, mostly optimistic.  It will blow over, after the symbolic revolution this fall in the form of midterm elections.  The party currently out of power will pick up a pile of seats, but I don't think things will change all that much, even if the senate changes hands.

This is much longer term.  Real wage increases stalled in the 70s.

>>...It's nothing as bad as the stress that tore Syria into waring camps, but it's the typical memetic response to a society getting ready to engage in fratricide...
>
> I hold a more optimistic view Keith.
>
> All the sideshows will settle out, and it will come down to this burning IRS scandal.

Noise.  This isn't a significant issue.

snip

> Then, on we go, right up until the real trouble starts: not enough cheap energy.

We are already there.

http://theenergycollective.com/gail-tverberg/266116/oil-prices-lead-hard-financial-limits

Keith



From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 07:58:12 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 00:58:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYsVVRC7R2qajEY9c0auz_LZUOYqNNKRJXf1zMbzuyRcA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFgksvnZDUeQcrp4+yCgtey4L=tdNnfPhJRe1QXA_AqumA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYsVVRC7R2qajEY9c0auz_LZUOYqNNKRJXf1zMbzuyRcA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFi6YN+_ObfN=RgeWALazTft0e4Z_EAopaW7_MgQuw=PPQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 3:47 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>   You don't seem to understand liberalism.
>

### Hey, didn't we just talk about "leftism", not "liberalism"?

I understand "liberalism" very well, including the meandering of its
meaning throughout the history of memetic warfare between various
intellectual subspecies of humans.

In the end, liberalism as it was understood when the term was coined, is
about humility, not "social services" or even good intentions. It'a pity
that humility seems to have gone out of fashion a long time ago.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 08:22:31 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 01:22:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] The Bullshit at the Heart of Humanity
In-Reply-To: <CACYTDBefgsuADYJUeEBZqBoQH9xB1RJUJqnsoofZmcvP7r37Ow@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CACYTDBefgsuADYJUeEBZqBoQH9xB1RJUJqnsoofZmcvP7r37Ow@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgMt6apv_hQV=YNA=E+=AKj2eaAZ-OYSZcGtcV-2vt3dg@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 16, 2014 at 12:19 PM, Ben Goertzel <ben at goertzel.org> wrote:

> My new blog post ...
>
> The Bullshit at the Heart of Humanity -- my new blog post,
>
>
> http://multiverseaccordingtoben.blogspot.hk/2014/06/the-bullshit-at-heart-of-humanity.html
>
> ### Ben, I am very impressed with your post. You provide an advanced
description of some of the notions about self that have been developing in
my mind as well.

I would be a bit more optimistic about overcoming self-delusion though -
instead of years of meditation, all we need is to admit to ourselves that
we are bad people. As I wrote here on ExI earlier this year, on the path to
enlightenment you must go through the darkness inside you, and come to
terms with it. It isn't that difficult!

I also share your opinion about the likely ultimate wellspring of
motivation in self-modifying minds - curiosity, an interest in modeling the
world in your mind. I think that a mind that whose defining and enduring
characteristic is curiosity will adapt better to challenges than minds
driven by other concepts. Future evolution will tell if I am right, and I
am very curious to find out.

Rafal
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From anders at aleph.se  Wed Jun 18 11:37:29 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 13:37:29 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Free societies in space
In-Reply-To: <2B600C1B-B27A-4208-AAC0-3B71E8CC3227@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <2930771292-7261@secure.ericade.net>

Dan Ust <dan_ust at yahoo.com> , 17/6/2014 10:07 PM:

Not all that deep. One might have "airlock despotism" off world, but I think the kind of permanent edge society space settlement seems very likely to create -- regardless if all the nice details are worked on how to split a settlement (why does this have to be worked out at all? Local despotisms would likely create informal migration flows away from them; the easier this is, the harder it is for any local despotism to grow or survive).
A lot depends on the chunkiness of the technology. Imagine ISS-style, O'Neill style or Culture style technology scenarios.?
The ISS-like space settlements are small, very fragile and require everybody to do their duty, otherwise they fall apart. I imagine that humans would behave like in small tribes: fairly egalitarian, but you better conform - there is no alternative. Splitting is a very serious matter unless it can be managed in a stepwise, safe fashion (imagine a habitat-splitting ritual, with the priesthood - whether santeria priests or technocrats - blessing each step and ensuring they are done properly and with no social disruption).
The O'Neill habitats have large group dynamics: here one could have the gamut from surveillance autocracies to representative democracy to corporate states. Society is run by a layer of formal rules and institutions, and people add an informal layer. At the same time the population size is not going to be enormous: there is a real chance that culture becomes fairly homogeneous if there are no major migration flows. Making a new habitat is a significant investment of the productivity of a habitat, so it is not going to be a common occurrence. If some subset wants to leave, it has to be a fairly long-running political and economical process; if the powers that be disagree it looks unlikely this is going to happen. (Of course, they might move into one of the ISS tincans?)
The Culture style technology is fundamentally autarchic. If a person or group wants to build something, they can easily do it without having to request much from others. The social control on the personal level may discourage some behaviour, but if somebody wants to split they can. The exception is that the Powers That Be may have orders of magnitude more power - in this series of scenarios the leadership or pooled societal resources grows as we move from ISS to O'Neill to Culture. So if the Powers actually think this is a bad idea, they might apply significant (on an individual scale) resources to stop it. Whether they can succeed depends a lot on other tech assumptions.
So these scenarios might be an intuition pump: as we get better tech for living in space we should expect larger, less fragile communities. Splitting becomes easier. The forces preventing splitting all depend on what kind of society is running: small societies have scarcity reasons to resist it, larger ones are essentially just bounded by considerations of ideology and security.?
I don't think splitting is a primary driver of niceness of governments until you get far into the Culture end of this chain. Before that you have migration (Ob. ref. to "Exit, Voice, Loyalty" - migration may actually worsen some bad habitats).?

Also, Nozick was more talking about how a minarchy might _without violating rights_ enforce its monopoly on legitimate coercion. I think his argument is flimsy: it presumes that the minarchy-in-the-making has a special privilege on determining what's valid justice procedures and already has a sort of monopoly on this. Why wouldn't rival agents be able to arrive at correct (or better or as good) justice procedures? Why wouldn't they have as much right as a government on the make to correct (or stop) wrong justice procedures -- even when they were being applied by the government on the make? But these arguments against Nozick aside, I believe he meant something other than some one or group taking and keeping power; he meant a specific path that would be acceptable at each stage from a justice (by his view of justice) perspective.
Yes, it is a very typical philosophical argument. He never claimed this was what had ever happened, nor that it would ever happen in reality, nor that this would be perfect and stable: the point was to show that given certain ethical considerations one could get to a particular kind of government without violating rights.?
Constructing stable, good governance systems is a messy problem. Nozick is very much like the physicist showing a solution exists on the blackboard ("First, assume a spherical government on a frictionless plane...") while in reality we are in engineering (political scientists like white-shirt design engineers, political practitioners down in the grease-pit with helmets and duct tape...)


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 15:29:03 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 10:29:03 -0500
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFi6YN+_ObfN=RgeWALazTft0e4Z_EAopaW7_MgQuw=PPQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFgksvnZDUeQcrp4+yCgtey4L=tdNnfPhJRe1QXA_AqumA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYsVVRC7R2qajEY9c0auz_LZUOYqNNKRJXf1zMbzuyRcA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFi6YN+_ObfN=RgeWALazTft0e4Z_EAopaW7_MgQuw=PPQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaoa5p5igDnokzqJT-qc539ZACscAOiw16akq+jZHQiVw@mail.gmail.com>

:

>   You don't seem to understand liberalism.
>>
>
> ### Hey, didn't we just talk about "leftism", not "liberalism"?
>
> I understand "liberalism" very well, including the meandering of its
> meaning throughout the history of memetic warfare between various
> intellectual subspecies of humans.
>
> In the end, liberalism as it was understood when the term was coined, is
> about humility, not "social services" or even good intentions. It'a pity
> that humility seems to have gone out of fashion a long time ago.
>
> Rafal
>  ?I can't find humility anywhere in liberalism:  civil rights, equality,
> free elections and so on, but not humility.  Ben
>
Franklin said that he could not attain that questionable virtue and neither
can I, though I am not arrogant either.  What is the use of being humble
and diffident?  I believe what has been proved and what agrees with my
moral code, and if new data come in I change my opinion.  I'd call it
assertive.  I'd never act as if I were right and everyone else was wrong.
(Occasionally I may think so privately!) Of course, what I know, or think I
know is such a tiny part of all knowledge that I am humble in some way
about that.

And I do think good intentions go along with wanting freedoms for all
peoples.  I object to the term 'bleeding heart' for people who care.  That
sort of comment usually comes from Social Darwinists.  Yes, there can be
too much of it, of anything.

bill w

?


> ?
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 16:43:21 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 11:43:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFgmR7b1bSvX-rRuQ_KotBsFb7S9CZ2dbnL_Ky1_WPyCFw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>
 <6BA0834B-F107-48EF-B4F8-53A92CB6CE05@gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFgmR7b1bSvX-rRuQ_KotBsFb7S9CZ2dbnL_Ky1_WPyCFw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZa9xssEkmQqF7xrKoTNxJoyZM-Lh=wh2VN=9W8YFqdsA@mail.gmail.com>

?
### Most power in the US is in the hands of cultural leftists. I have no
doubts that many successful non-leftists are as nasty as politically
successful leftists but there is just so few of them. Remember, elected
officials are a fraction of 1% of political power wielders, and 90% of that
unelected majority are culturally leftist.

Rafal

I'd like to know where you get your data.  In the USA South there's hardly
a liberal in any office at all and the great majority of the people are
conservative.  Just Google Red State and Blue states and see where the
liberals are.  So please let me know where I can substantiate your claim.

bill w
?
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 17:13:57 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 12:13:57 -0500
Subject: [ExI] thought experiment and meaning of life
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armj0GpQ0SKrLJU71gqCpBb6eeZGhnZSkOV+qDw3UdfGfVw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbYN1Q3nMS+7hyF9vGKCnEhEdQTOzH5HEQJLT79qPqzXg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbLvU3j+PWjQBryu4K6GpAEi+9BHQnUSgWrjqwnR1qCM3w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armj0GpQ0SKrLJU71gqCpBb6eeZGhnZSkOV+qDw3UdfGfVw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEY11sKuEsZhDqowjJuZQY6+taxAeNFuuh78OZQKpVmCHQ@mail.gmail.com>

?Well, I guess this did not arouse your interest.  So here is what I think,
given that, like my book, the future turns out much more utopian than
dystopian:

We will improve ourselves tremendously through gengineering:  cognitive
improvements, immune system improvements, emotional improvements and so on.

Thus I think that we ourselves will be our finest product, thanks to
technology.?


?bill w?
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 18 17:15:30 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 18 Jun 2014 12:15:30 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Why socialism and environmentalism (and a lot more) will
	be impossible
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhMRJVddSsu3C98TnWpObtHktgwyp9YUahEbh_a2oOeWw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1401278401.22517.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <D37E11F1-BDFE-45C5-B5D1-B44D1EEFC2CC@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFhMRJVddSsu3C98TnWpObtHktgwyp9YUahEbh_a2oOeWw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbn_a=vTEJ57=qOnXAOp072AFEyCayGqUsDqneaz0vXxw@mail.gmail.com>

 How about socialism? Unless there is only one entity, yourself, that you
>> are aware of there will always be some sort of society. Socialism can't go
>> away.
>>
>
> ### If you play with meaning of words you can reach arbitrary conclusions.
>
> Rafal
>  ?The meaning of all words is arbitrary.  It seems that no one on this
> list likes the word 'socialism', or just thinks that Hayek's second type,
> social services, is not real socialism.  After National Socialism, I can't
> blame anyone for that.  Communism the same.  Collectivism seems to suit
> Russian farms.  But we have to have a word for pooling money and having
> police and helping the sick without summoning up total failures and
> horrific force with the word.
>

?I have no suggestions.  bill w?


> ?
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From mike at alcor.org  Tue Jun 17 21:59:46 2014
From: mike at alcor.org (Mike Perry)
Date: Tue, 17 Jun 2014 14:59:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: [ExI] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think about
 my Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
References: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <8bf70859-4978-4280-97c6-c41e428db433@googlegroups.com>

I am very sorry and sad for your loss too, Brent. I lost both my parents to 
burial too, my mother in 1988, my father in 2001. Neither would choose 
cryonics no matter what arguments I tried to make for it. I share your 
hopes and those of Giulio and Jason and others that all will be restored in 
the end, but I also agree with you that cryopreservation is a better 
approach to the problem of clinical death than alternatives that involve 
the physical destruction of the remains. I agree with Jason that your 
proposed prayer is too bitter and should be toned down but you could 
express your basic point of view in a gentler way and maybe emphasize your 
hopes for eventual resurrection which the others will share even if they 
imagine a different pathway than you do. I think there is more to hope for 
in this regard (scientific resurrection) than Tipler's ideas and wish I had 
more time to devote to developing some ideas of mine on an alternative 
approach--but that will happen in due course. Anyway, I might tentatively 
revise your prayer as follows. (I realize you are more or less required to 
use forms of address such as "Heavenly Father" and "In the Name of Jesus 
Christ" which as an atheist you might rather avoid so have retained 
these.)--Mike Perry.

"Heavenly Father,

We come before thee, this day, to dedicate this grave, for the purpose 
of receiving my Mother's material remains. It is my feeling that nobody 
will ever 
give up till that glorious day of resurrection, when her body, all of 
Her memories, and all that she is, is finally reunited with this body we 
now lay in this resting place.

We recognize differences of opinion, even great differences, on the proper
course to follow in this, but are united in believing that resurrection 
ought to
happen and in our hopes that it will happen. It is our prayer that better 
understanding of these matters will soon occur and work to the benefit of 
all humanity.

We so dedicate this resting place, for the hope of the future resurrection
of our loved one, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."


On Tuesday, June 17, 2014 4:26:26 AM UTC-7, Brent.Allsop wrote:
>
>
>
> My Mom just died,  So I apologize if I shouldn't be trying to 
> communicate my current feelings in this way to all I love and trust so 
> fully. 
>
> I'm a Transhumanist, so it feels to me like we've now decided to rot my 
> Mom in hell.  I'm having troubles sleeping now at 3:00 AM, thinking of 
> how my Mom is, right now, rotting in that mortuary cooler, beginning 
> what feels to me like will be more than a thousand years of lonely hell 
> for the living. 
>
> I'm trying not to hate my sister.  It is currently my feeling that My 
> Dad and my two Brothers might have been OK with preserving her, and not 
> throwing her away for more than a thousand years.  Me, alone (terribly 
> disappointing my wife), funding her $80K preservation at Alcor, if it 
> wasn't for my youngest sister.  All I can think about is them now being 
> able to sleep, naively thinking my Mom is now in a happy place, 
> separated from us, the living.  Her now being with dead people, Santa 
> Clause, the tooth fairy, Jesus and God.  After all, my Mom was 
> hallucinating very terribly, right before she died, and it was almost as 
> if she was talking with Dead people, in between the time when she was 
> complaining of being upside down.  For some reason, though, My sister 
> didn't think she seemed comforted.  At least one time, my sister said my 
> Mom referred to it as being a nightmare.  But we just ignore all that 
> part of it, because we like our happy thoughts, and my sister just 
> loaded her up with more Morphine (now wondering if she did the right 
> thing) trying to make it stop, so she could be "comforted".  Yea, if you 
> feel happy, or don't know what you're missing, everything is OK,  and 
> your not in a worse hell, right? 
>
> Anyway, I've already blown up more than a few times, before my Mom died, 
> storming out of the room, slamming the door, weeping and swearing about 
> throwing Mom away and rotting Her in hell for more than a thousand 
> years, after having conversations about this with my family. 
>
> My family is now planning the funeral.  I feel like, because of my 
> current instabilities (I don't know what I'll do at the funeral, knowing 
> my mom will be rotting right there, us getting ready to throw her away - 
> at least they've decided to close the casket, I hope that will help), 
> they've censored me, the first born son, from speaking at my Mom's 
> funeral, hoping it will be good enough to let me give the dedicatory 
> prayer to God over the grave.  I try over and over again to tell them 
> I'm a staunch Atheist, but they keep asking me to pray, so I try as hard 
> as I can to pray, whenever they ask, in an attempt to make them happy.   
> So I'm wondering what you think my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister, and 
> the many, many, other temple worker friends of my Mom will think about 
> IF I prayed something like the following over the grave: 
>
>
> "Heavenly Father, 
>
> We come before thee, this day, to dedicate this grave, for the purpose 
> of preserving my Mom's Body.   It is my feeling that nobody will ever 
> give up till that glorious day of resurrection, when her body, all of 
> Her memories, and all that Mom is, is finally reunited with this body we 
> now lay in this grave. 
>
> For those of us that currently feel like throwing her away and rotting 
> her in hell like this, is a grave sin of omision, if we are mistaken in 
> our thinking, please guide and inspire those that know better, so they 
> may be able to find the words to successfully communicate to those of us 
> who are still mistaken, so that we may find some kind of comfort in this 
> what now feels like a grave sin of omission worse than when ignorant 
> slave owners murdered slaves. 
>
> And for those that think God will do everything to resurrect us, while 
> we do nothing, if they are sinning, help those that have the moral 
> capability to realize this, to be able to find the words, to better 
> communicate, so this kind of grave sinning of omission may cease, 
> sooner.  For it is our prayer that more people will soon be better 
> preserved, so that more people may be able to be resurrected during the 
> morning of the first resurrection, rather than rotting in the hell, in 
> graves like this one, possibly for more than 1000 lonely years, if not 
> forever. 
>
> We so dedicate this grave, for the preservation of what is left of Mom's 
> body, 
>
> in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." 
>
>
> And if I shouldn't say something like that, what should I say?  Is there 
> any way I can help make everyone else feel happy thoughts, despite what 
> I'll be feeling?  I'm trying to make what they want my top priority, but 
> it is sometimes very hard, and I don't know if I can manage it, yet 
> again, at least this time. 
>
> I must just be the lonely crazy Son, right? 
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Thu Jun 19 14:45:04 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 07:45:04 -0700
Subject: [ExI] pointer
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5H47i3G-wXYYjY5GoGyNPjntKe5+8JL00sc1V8YkSjoA@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/14/upshot/the-lack-of-major-wars-may-be-hurting-economic-growth.html?smid=tw-nytimes&_r=1

You might be amused.


From jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi  Thu Jun 19 18:02:15 2014
From: jukka.liukkonen at iki.fi (Jukka Liukkonen)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 21:02:15 +0300
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAPpVbvTnnYLQxemwd08JAyT1To_tBZnoovAb27DN3xPPedY7JQ@mail.gmail.com>

2014-06-14 9:30 GMT+03:00 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:

> ### Over 90% of the wielders of power in our society (Federal employees,
> elite university faculty and administrators, mainstream journalists, public
> intellectuals) are culturally leftist. And yes, those who have power are
> different from us - they got where they are because of being obsessed with
> power and status, and skilled at gaining power. Since non-leftists (whom
> leftists sloppily classify as "right") have much less power than cultural
> leftists, yes, this implies they are different - either less interested or
> less skilled at obtaining power.
>

Many intellectuals are for sure, but I'm not so sure about journalists and
politicians. And definitely not about corporate leaders. And even if they
associated themselves that way, it doesn't show in actual policies and
politics.

Of course this depends by country. Which country are you talking about?
(US?)  And how does this 90%'s ideology show in your opinion? If you can
give few practical examples..

Jukka
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun 19 18:13:08 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 19:13:08 +0100
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAPpVbvTnnYLQxemwd08JAyT1To_tBZnoovAb27DN3xPPedY7JQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAPpVbvTnnYLQxemwd08JAyT1To_tBZnoovAb27DN3xPPedY7JQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armi9RJpb=Y_QBOeO_HzpVadswfAuFONtHEpxOCGYZw29Xw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 19, 2014 at 7:02 PM, Jukka Liukkonen wrote:
> Many intellectuals are for sure, but I'm not so sure about journalists and
> politicians. And definitely not about corporate leaders. And even if they
> associated themselves that way, it doesn't show in actual policies and
> politics.
>
> Of course this depends by country. Which country are you talking about?
> (US?)  And how does this 90%'s ideology show in your opinion? If you can
> give few practical examples..
>

US terminology is different to European. You need to translate -

US 'leftists' = European rightwing

US 'rightists' = European bat-shit crazy neocon warmongers.

BillK


From kellycoinguy at gmail.com  Thu Jun 19 21:57:06 2014
From: kellycoinguy at gmail.com (Kelly Anderson)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 15:57:06 -0600
Subject: [ExI] What will my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister Think about
 my Dead Mom?
In-Reply-To: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
References: <53A025D9.9010600@canonizer.com>
Message-ID: <CAPy8RwbttoJfUBQ-rS2J28otgCgdEywYH9knHAamBdL4ng3esg@mail.gmail.com>

I'm so sorry that your mother passed away Brent.

A burial-funeral is probably not the best place for an
atheist/transhumanist to give a prayer. I would just be a pall bearer and
leave it at that. Saying a prayer like that might be the first step to
getting excommunicated, and that doesn't seem to be what you would want.

Hugs. If you need to reach out, please feel free. This must be hell. I
don't understand how your one sister got her way and nobody else did, but
family dynamics are complicated for sure.

-Kelly



On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 5:26 AM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:

>
>
> My Mom just died,  So I apologize if I shouldn't be trying to communicate
> my current feelings in this way to all I love and trust so fully.
>
> I'm a Transhumanist, so it feels to me like we've now decided to rot my
> Mom in hell.  I'm having troubles sleeping now at 3:00 AM, thinking of how
> my Mom is, right now, rotting in that mortuary cooler, beginning what feels
> to me like will be more than a thousand years of lonely hell for the living.
>
> I'm trying not to hate my sister.  It is currently my feeling that My Dad
> and my two Brothers might have been OK with preserving her, and not
> throwing her away for more than a thousand years.  Me, alone (terribly
> disappointing my wife), funding her $80K preservation at Alcor, if it
> wasn't for my youngest sister.  All I can think about is them now being
> able to sleep, naively thinking my Mom is now in a happy place, separated
> from us, the living.  Her now being with dead people, Santa Clause, the
> tooth fairy, Jesus and God.  After all, my Mom was hallucinating very
> terribly, right before she died, and it was almost as if she was talking
> with Dead people, in between the time when she was complaining of being
> upside down.  For some reason, though, My sister didn't think she seemed
> comforted.  At least one time, my sister said my Mom referred to it as
> being a nightmare.  But we just ignore all that part of it, because we like
> our happy thoughts, and my sister just loaded her up with more Morphine
> (now wondering if she did the right thing) trying to make it stop, so she
> could be "comforted".  Yea, if you feel happy, or don't know what you're
> missing, everything is OK,  and your not in a worse hell, right?
>
> Anyway, I've already blown up more than a few times, before my Mom died,
> storming out of the room, slamming the door, weeping and swearing about
> throwing Mom away and rotting Her in hell for more than a thousand years,
> after having conversations about this with my family.
>
> My family is now planning the funeral.  I feel like, because of my current
> instabilities (I don't know what I'll do at the funeral, knowing my mom
> will be rotting right there, us getting ready to throw her away - at least
> they've decided to close the casket, I hope that will help), they've
> censored me, the first born son, from speaking at my Mom's funeral, hoping
> it will be good enough to let me give the dedicatory prayer to God over the
> grave.  I try over and over again to tell them I'm a staunch Atheist, but
> they keep asking me to pray, so I try as hard as I can to pray, whenever
> they ask, in an attempt to make them happy.  So I'm wondering what you
> think my Mormon Seminary Teacher Sister, and the many, many, other temple
> worker friends of my Mom will think about IF I prayed something like the
> following over the grave:
>
>
> "Heavenly Father,
>
> We come before thee, this day, to dedicate this grave, for the purpose of
> preserving my Mom's Body.   It is my feeling that nobody will ever give up
> till that glorious day of resurrection, when her body, all of Her memories,
> and all that Mom is, is finally reunited with this body we now lay in this
> grave.
>
> For those of us that currently feel like throwing her away and rotting her
> in hell like this, is a grave sin of omision, if we are mistaken in our
> thinking, please guide and inspire those that know better, so they may be
> able to find the words to successfully communicate to those of us who are
> still mistaken, so that we may find some kind of comfort in this what now
> feels like a grave sin of omission worse than when ignorant slave owners
> murdered slaves.
>
> And for those that think God will do everything to resurrect us, while we
> do nothing, if they are sinning, help those that have the moral capability
> to realize this, to be able to find the words, to better communicate, so
> this kind of grave sinning of omission may cease, sooner.  For it is our
> prayer that more people will soon be better preserved, so that more people
> may be able to be resurrected during the morning of the first resurrection,
> rather than rotting in the hell, in graves like this one, possibly for more
> than 1000 lonely years, if not forever.
>
> We so dedicate this grave, for the preservation of what is left of Mom's
> body,
>
> in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
>
>
> And if I shouldn't say something like that, what should I say?  Is there
> any way I can help make everyone else feel happy thoughts, despite what
> I'll be feeling?  I'm trying to make what they want my top priority, but it
> is sometimes very hard, and I don't know if I can manage it, yet again, at
> least this time.
>
> I must just be the lonely crazy Son, right?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 20 05:36:17 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 22:36:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZa9xssEkmQqF7xrKoTNxJoyZM-Lh=wh2VN=9W8YFqdsA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEYqW4hg=LEUcsFhmDisL9NvrxJTW-Y7OPYV2jzPD=aVKw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFh7LL33CtA-0s-m1KXeS9hK2QLVEFO2V5-NNe4rZFLrGg@mail.gmail.com>
 <6BA0834B-F107-48EF-B4F8-53A92CB6CE05@gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFgmR7b1bSvX-rRuQ_KotBsFb7S9CZ2dbnL_Ky1_WPyCFw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEZa9xssEkmQqF7xrKoTNxJoyZM-Lh=wh2VN=9W8YFqdsA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjLkMU_3A0hjAAAvk-ZA5m2UhJf0g3_i5szPkUvKyUcjQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 9:43 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> ?
> ### Most power in the US is in the hands of cultural leftists. I have no
> doubts that many successful non-leftists are as nasty as politically
> successful leftists but there is just so few of them. Remember, elected
> officials are a fraction of 1% of political power wielders, and 90% of that
> unelected majority are culturally leftist.
>
> Rafal
>
> I'd like to know where you get your data.  In the USA South there's hardly
> a liberal in any office at all and the great majority of the people are
> conservative.  Just Google Red State and Blue states and see where the
> liberals are.  So please let me know where I can substantiate your claim.
>

### Here is some data on political support by various government and
federal employees:

-Of the top twenty political contributors between 1989 and 2012 twelve are
unions; they give less than 5% to Republicans; only six of those top twenty
are corporations who gave about 40% to democrats (Goldman Sachs gave 56% of
its cash to democrats).
-The NEA (?teachers? union) gave $43,613,263: 71% went to democrats, 5% to
Republicans.
-The AFT (?teachers? union) gave $34,698,466: 86% went to democrats, 0% to
Republicans.
-The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)
gave $61,610,080: 73% went to democrats, 0% to Republicans.

here is some information on the propaganda complex (aka education):

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2010/09/politically-active-professors-dont/

I also read about percentage of Democratic donors in Dept of Justice, and
some other federal agencies, hovering around 90% but I don't feel like
spending the time to find it the article again.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 20 06:19:12 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 23:19:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] extropy-chat Digest, Vol 129, Issue 19
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaoa5p5igDnokzqJT-qc539ZACscAOiw16akq+jZHQiVw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1402747201.27582.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1FF26ABD-D9C0-42DC-81A0-694F6BD9856D@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFgksvnZDUeQcrp4+yCgtey4L=tdNnfPhJRe1QXA_AqumA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYsVVRC7R2qajEY9c0auz_LZUOYqNNKRJXf1zMbzuyRcA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFi6YN+_ObfN=RgeWALazTft0e4Z_EAopaW7_MgQuw=PPQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEaoa5p5igDnokzqJT-qc539ZACscAOiw16akq+jZHQiVw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFisk6JxVanh_xNi-s10FXZg-=pVm9uJ8YoJqg2QtrGEyw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 8:29 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
> :
>
>>   You don't seem to understand liberalism.
>>>
>>
>> ### Hey, didn't we just talk about "leftism", not "liberalism"?
>>
>> I understand "liberalism" very well, including the meandering of its
>> meaning throughout the history of memetic warfare between various
>> intellectual subspecies of humans.
>>
>> In the end, liberalism as it was understood when the term was coined, is
>> about humility, not "social services" or even good intentions. It'a pity
>> that humility seems to have gone out of fashion a long time ago.
>>
>> Rafal
>>  ?I can't find humility anywhere in liberalism:  civil rights, equality,
>> free elections and so on, but not humility.
>>
>
### Your understanding of today's leftism is very telling: You explicitly
disavow humility as a political virtue. Earlier you mentioned loot ("social
services"), and yes, loot is one of the quintessential issues of leftism.
You mention "equality" - forced equality of outcomes is part and parcel of
leftism, since bringing others down is a power trip like no other. Now you
mention, of all things, "free elections" as a defining feature of leftism!
Do you realize how it sounds? It's silly - most leftists were and are
against free elections, they always have them rigged if they can, from
Albania, to the Soviet Union, to the United States 2012 presidential
elections. And yet you underhandedly imply that non-leftists are against
democracy, which is a way of putting others beyond the pale ("othering" - a
key social control strategy).

But, talking about humility - back in the day when liberalism meant the
opposite of what it means today, liberals stood for the idea that good
people should humbly accept our differences. That it is wrong to force
obedience, to dictate faith, control trade, to use power - so they opposed
kings and tyrants, separated church and state, opposed royal monopolies and
guilds. A liberal humbly eschews the use of power over others, a liberal
lives and lets live, even very different lives. But that was a long time
ago. Now we have SWAT teams going after unpasteurized cheese makers.

Are you sure you want put yourself on that team?

Rafal

BTW, I am against elections, free or otherwise but that's a different story.
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 20 06:22:01 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 23:22:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Why socialism and environmentalism (and a lot more) will
	be impossible
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbn_a=vTEJ57=qOnXAOp072AFEyCayGqUsDqneaz0vXxw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1401278401.22517.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <D37E11F1-BDFE-45C5-B5D1-B44D1EEFC2CC@me.com>
 <CAAc1gFhMRJVddSsu3C98TnWpObtHktgwyp9YUahEbh_a2oOeWw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEbn_a=vTEJ57=qOnXAOp072AFEyCayGqUsDqneaz0vXxw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFh3cO4t_zqnHsYf+EOwuMKih3KQKA3Xw_xf4jy8GoWYkA@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 10:15 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> wrote:

I wrote


> ### If you play with meaning of words you can reach arbitrary conclusions.
>>
>
Bill wrote

 ?The meaning of all words is arbitrary.
>>
>
LOL.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 20 06:28:13 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 23:28:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Free societies in space
In-Reply-To: <2930771292-7261@secure.ericade.net>
References: <2B600C1B-B27A-4208-AAC0-3B71E8CC3227@yahoo.com>
 <2930771292-7261@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgufRAvBK6i-VPTK_dNqbyUNw8y2rh7S0oz07a17xpB5Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 18, 2014 at 4:37 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
>
> Constructing stable, good governance systems is a messy problem. Nozick is
> very much like the physicist showing a solution exists on the blackboard
> ("First, assume a spherical government on a frictionless plane...") while
> in reality we are in engineering (political scientists like white-shirt
> design engineers, political practitioners down in the grease-pit with
> helmets and duct tape...)
>

### And dirty hands. Very dirty hands :)

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 20 06:58:12 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2014 23:58:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Free societies in space/was Re: Be nice to leftists
In-Reply-To: <2B600C1B-B27A-4208-AAC0-3B71E8CC3227@yahoo.com>
References: <2837523428-8863@secure.ericade.net>
 <2B600C1B-B27A-4208-AAC0-3B71E8CC3227@yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFi3M-+ESJ25KHwnggygdatCXFnB51DTQL-_pJnnaJcuSQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 17, 2014 at 12:49 PM, Dan Ust <dan_ust at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>
> Space does have interesting political connotations. As Iain M. Banks
> pointed out in "Some notes on the Culture", once you have enough space
> industrialisation enforcing a central power becomes hard - it is possible
> to move away and set up shop elsewhere, and attacks removes value.
>
> ### The easy exit situation exists transiently during expansions in new
territory but in certain environmental and technological contexts it is a
stable equilibrium. If there is an influence preventing full occupation of
possible niches (e.g. high levels of parasitism, predation or small group
violence that keep population below a certain density), then easy exit is
stable.

This has evolutionary implications for modern humans: Easy exit was
transiently the norm during many population expansions - but "transient"
means here thousands of years, enough to leave a behavioral imprint on
forager populations (low tolerance for dissent - groups either split or
explode in violence). Predation and disease kept population levels low in
Africa and Australia even longer, again leaving behavioral imprints
(extreme levels of violence if living in high density settlements). The
transition to settled high-density farming ended the exit option, and over
the last 9 thousand years it lead to a reshaping of behavior in farmer
populations (docility, ability to accept hierarchy).

It's interesting to speculate which equilibrium would prevail in the Solar
system, and for how long. With nanotechnology and personality cloning all
available matter might be claimed within a relatively short time, ending
easy exit, and the farmer mentality might reassert itself quickly.

Rafal
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun 21 00:55:10 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 17:55:10 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
Message-ID: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>

Do pardon the questionable link between ants and anything having to do with
transhumanism, thanks.  

 

Today I saw something so cool I can't understand it.  I longed to have
Anders present to explain it, the man who so generously gave me a treasured
bug book.

 

I was in the saddest place on earth, and after a couple hours I just needed
a break, so I went out walking about the grounds and noticed a huge ant war
going on, so I decided to watch, pick a team, cheer them on, that sorta
thing.  As I did so, an idea occurred to me.  Ants are related to bees, and
I know that when bees are swarming, they will not sting.  You can scoop them
with your bare hands, they won't sting; I never did get a sting fooling with
swarming bees.  The war these gals were doing reminds one a bit of swarming
bees, so I wondered what would happen if I tried to handle them.

 

I figured it was worth the risk of a few ant bites or stings or both (they
are two different things with ants, for they have both a mechanical bite
with their powerful mandibles and a sting on their abdomen tip analogous to
a bee sting.)  So I held my hand in the midst of the ant war and hoped for
the best.  Not one ant took the least bit of interest in stinging or biting
me.  So I scooped up a wad of them.  Some of them wandered about on my hands
and up my arm, but they were more interested in finding an opposing ant to
fight than to bite me.

 

I know for sure ants will sting and bite if you mess with their nest, so I
went over to one of the holes and put my finger right in the stream going
out.  They went around it.  So I figured I now at least had the scent of the
bad guys on my finger, so I went over to the good guy's nest, and offered
them a bite.  But no takers.  I fooled with those ants for several minutes
longer than is proper for a grown man to mess with a bunch of damn bugs, but
never did I get a single bite or sting.  So I went and got my son, and
demonstrated the experiment again, and again no bites, no stings.

 

Conclusion: warring ants don't bite humans.  Only each other.

 

In these photos you can see pairs of ants going at each other, and singleton
ants looking for an enemy:

 



 

You can scoop them right up, no bites, no stings:

 



 

Happy solstice!

 

spike

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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Sat Jun 21 02:51:01 2014
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 19:51:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy2OGh041qZ2nF-2Qb2-8nvjgAZFi9G800eJ0grEqEKc0g@mail.gmail.com>

Spike, did you feel like a god as you experimented with the warring ants?
And did you ever think about trying to bring peace to their lives?  Create
a barrier between them?  Or deploy pheromones?  Oh,and how about a flood!
lol


John


On Fri, Jun 20, 2014 at 5:55 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Do pardon the questionable link between ants and anything having to do
> with transhumanism, thanks.
>
>
>
> Today I saw something so cool I can?t understand it.  I longed to have
> Anders present to explain it, the man who so generously gave me a treasured
> bug book.
>
>
>
> I was in the saddest place on earth, and after a couple hours I just
> needed a break, so I went out walking about the grounds and noticed a huge
> ant war going on, so I decided to watch, pick a team, cheer them on, that
> sorta thing.  As I did so, an idea occurred to me.  Ants are related to
> bees, and I know that when bees are swarming, they will not sting.  You can
> scoop them with your bare hands, they won?t sting; I never did get a sting
> fooling with swarming bees.  The war these gals were doing reminds one a
> bit of swarming bees, so I wondered what would happen if I tried to handle
> them.
>
>
>
> I figured it was worth the risk of a few ant bites or stings or both (they
> are two different things with ants, for they have both a mechanical bite
> with their powerful mandibles and a sting on their abdomen tip analogous to
> a bee sting.)  So I held my hand in the midst of the ant war and hoped for
> the best.  Not one ant took the least bit of interest in stinging or biting
> me.  So I scooped up a wad of them.  Some of them wandered about on my
> hands and up my arm, but they were more interested in finding an opposing
> ant to fight than to bite me.
>
>
>
> I know for sure ants will sting and bite if you mess with their nest, so I
> went over to one of the holes and put my finger right in the stream going
> out.  They went around it.  So I figured I now at least had the scent of
> the bad guys on my finger, so I went over to the good guy?s nest, and
> offered them a bite.  But no takers.  I fooled with those ants for several
> minutes longer than is proper for a grown man to mess with a bunch of damn
> bugs, but never did I get a single bite or sting.  So I went and got my
> son, and demonstrated the experiment again, and again no bites, no stings.
>
>
>
> Conclusion: warring ants don?t bite humans.  Only each other.
>
>
>
> In these photos you can see pairs of ants going at each other, and
> singleton ants looking for an enemy:
>
>
>
>
>
> You can scoop them right up, no bites, no stings:
>
>
>
>
>
> Happy solstice!
>
>
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From mbb386 at main.nc.us  Sat Jun 21 02:44:42 2014
From: mbb386 at main.nc.us (MB)
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 22:44:42 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ants again
Message-ID: <8127018585e4c4382a4a99d5d617f1c3.squirrel@www.main.nc.us>

That is very cool, spike, but boy do they ever bite each
other!  I watched an ant war here a couple years ago. A
nest of little blackish ants and a nest of big reddish
ants.

Now I know the big red ants will bite and sting, they've
gotten me before.  But the little black ants were winning
all over the place.  The big red ants hadn't a chance
against them. I don't quite understand how that happened,
but the little ones would mob the big ones and the big
ones would just curl up and - I guess they died, I'm not
absolutely sure, they might have recovered and gone home,
but I never saw that.

Now here is a question for you: is visiting the saddest
place on earth any good for the person being visited? We
found that at some point it was more detrimental -
upsetting and confusing. The visitee was still aware
enough to know she ought to know but didn't, if you get my
meaning, and it made her frightened.  So the visits had to
stop, because they were not helpful to anyone.

And that makes the visitors feel guilty as all getout. But
what to do?

Warm regards,
MB

> Do pardon the questionable link between ants and anything
> having to do with
> transhumanism, thanks.
>
>
>
> Today I saw something so cool I can't understand it.  I
> longed to have
> Anders present to explain it, the man who so generously
> gave me a treasured
> bug book.
>
>
>
> I was in the saddest place on earth, and after a couple
> hours I just needed
> a break, so I went out walking about the grounds and
> noticed a huge ant war
> going on, so I decided to watch, pick a team, cheer them
> on, that sorta
> thing.  As I did so, an idea occurred to me.  Ants are
> related to bees, and
> I know that when bees are swarming, they will not sting.
> You can scoop them
> with your bare hands, they won't sting; I never did get a
> sting fooling with
> swarming bees.  The war these gals were doing reminds one
> a bit of swarming
> bees, so I wondered what would happen if I tried to handle
> them.
>
>
>
> I figured it was worth the risk of a few ant bites or
> stings or both (they
> are two different things with ants, for they have both a
> mechanical bite
> with their powerful mandibles and a sting on their abdomen
> tip analogous to
> a bee sting.)  So I held my hand in the midst of the ant
> war and hoped for
> the best.  Not one ant took the least bit of interest in
> stinging or biting
> me.  So I scooped up a wad of them.  Some of them wandered
> about on my hands
> and up my arm, but they were more interested in finding an
> opposing ant to
> fight than to bite me.
>
>
>
> I know for sure ants will sting and bite if you mess with
> their nest, so I
> went over to one of the holes and put my finger right in
> the stream going
> out.  They went around it.  So I figured I now at least
> had the scent of the
> bad guys on my finger, so I went over to the good guy's
> nest, and offered
> them a bite.  But no takers.  I fooled with those ants for
> several minutes
> longer than is proper for a grown man to mess with a bunch
> of damn bugs, but
> never did I get a single bite or sting.  So I went and got
> my son, and
> demonstrated the experiment again, and again no bites, no
> stings.
>
>
>
> Conclusion: warring ants don't bite humans.  Only each
> other.
>
>
>
> In these photos you can see pairs of ants going at each
> other, and singleton
> ants looking for an enemy:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> You can scoop them right up, no bites, no stings:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Happy solstice!
>
>
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>



From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun 21 07:46:18 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 08:46:18 +0100
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiowD4p5UO4WsSf0u+=2bE2q2JyXtwViLbGGW+KWM2MbQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 1:55 AM, spike  wrote:
> I figured it was worth the risk of a few ant bites or stings or both
(they are two different things
> with ants, for they have both a mechanical bite with their powerful
mandibles and a sting on
> their abdomen tip analogous to a bee sting.)  So I held my hand in the
midst of the ant war
> and hoped for the best.  Not one ant took the least bit of interest in
stinging or biting me.
> So I scooped up a wad of them.  Some of them wandered about on my hands
and up my arm,
> but they were more interested in finding an opposing ant to fight than to
bite me.
>
> I know for sure ants will sting and bite if you mess with their nest, so
I went over to one of the
> holes and put my finger right in the stream going out.  They went around
it.  So I figured I now
> at least had the scent of the bad guys on my finger, so I went over to
the good guy's nest, and
> offered them a bite.  But no takers.  I fooled with those ants for
several minutes longer than is
> proper for a grown man to mess with a bunch of damn bugs, but never did I
get a single bite or
> sting.  So I went and got my son, and demonstrated the experiment again,
and again no bites,
> no stings.
>
> Conclusion: warring ants don't bite humans.  Only each other.
>


It depends on the species of ant. Some small black ants are too small to
bite or sting humans. Like the sugar ants that are common in homes. But
don't try interfering with fire ants!

BillK
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From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com  Sat Jun 21 15:49:57 2014
From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 08:49:57 -0700
Subject: [ExI] SETI needs new approach (was for the fermi paradox fans)
Message-ID: <1403365797.51620.YahooMailNeo@web160505.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

On Wed, Jun 4, 2014 at 5:33 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Where the hell is everybody?

Somewhere in?the direction of the constellation of Sagitarius would be my bet. I think it is very premature to conclude that we are alone in the universe let alone the Milky Way, just because no radio astronomers are willing to stake their professional reputations on?announcing that?intelligent life has been found elsewhere.

Take the 1977 Wow! signal from the Big Ear at Ohio State.
?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wow!_signal
?
Nobody has ever been able to offer a credible explanation of how one of the most sophisticated radio telescopes of its time recieved a 72 second signal at 1.42 GHz from the direction of?Sagitarius. It?is unlikely to have been a natural phenomenon because it was less than 10 KHz in bandwidth?and most natural phenomena are broad spectrum signals. It is unlikely to be a manmade signal because 1.42 GHz is a reserved frequency for radio astronomy and its use in transmitters is forbidden. Sure it cannot be ruled out that the government might have had?some secret 1.42 GHz transmitter for some inscrutable?reason but then one is left with an interesting trilemma:

1. There is some very rare astronomical phenomenon that has only been observed once that?sends out extremely powerful pulses of narrow band radiowaves centered on the emission line of hydrogen.

2.?Some secret conspiracy in?the government used a powerful transmitter tuned to a?forbidden frequency for some unknown purpose and it happened to get reflected off of some space debris and was then?detected by Jerry Ehman.

3.?We?have, in that instance,?detected?a radio communication by an intelligent extraterrestrial species but chose to ignore it because it only lasted a short time and was not repeated.???

SETI is tasked with the herculean?job of finding a?needle in a haystack with the added burden of not being able call a needle a needle unless they find it twice.

Looking at it from the POV of an extraterrestrial species, what possible motive would there be for them to spam the universe with costly gigawatts of?energy over and over again when they don't have any reason to?suspect anybody might be listening??Or perhaps out of fear that?a predator?might be listening?

When we (presumably an intelligent species) sent out the Arecibo message, we only did it *once*. Why would they do any differently? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message
?
Of course as of 2013, you got these guys offering to send your tweets to Gliese 526 for 25 cents each:
http://thelonesignal.tumblr.com/
?
Still it stands to reason that the most likely signals SETI would detect would be one off signals.
?
Either a hail mary into the void or eavesdropped communications not intended for us. The idea of an?ET civilization setting?up a beacon seems a little strange from a Darwininian perspective unless it were like the glowing lure of an angler fish. Yet apparently that is what SETI is hoping to detect according to this?fairly recent paper by Harp et. al.:?

http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/1211/1211.6470.pdf
?
The most interesting thing I read in the paper was the following excerpt:
?
"Interesting signals without persistence are observed thousands of times each day at the SETI Institute. Figure 4 for example shows a result obtained in a narrowband SETI search near the PiHI frequency (the number ? times the HI observing line of 1420.4 MHz). This (extremely powerful) ~10 second pulse of narrowband radiation appeared in one 50 second observation
period but was never re-observed. This pulse has interesting features: It is observed at a magic frequency in the direction of a nearby and potentially habitable star. Yet we cannot be sure this signal was created intentionally or unintentionally by some transmitter on Earth. Hence after multiple observations over 2 weeks and no re-detection, we gave up (although this direction is added to a catalogue of directions to re-observe as time permits."
?
"Thousands" of?non-repeated signals per day? What if just 1% of them were genuine? And if the false positive rate is *that* high, then put a freakin radio telescope on the far side of the moon. No "side lobes" from terrestrial communications then.?You could have a com satellite in lunar L4 or L5 to function as a relay station.?

Just my two cents on the fermi paradox.

Stuart LaForge
?
"We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring." - Carl Sagan?????????????



From atymes at gmail.com  Sat Jun 21 16:43:28 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 09:43:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] SETI needs new approach (was for the fermi paradox fans)
In-Reply-To: <1403365797.51620.YahooMailNeo@web160505.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1403365797.51620.YahooMailNeo@web160505.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS6BNNrz8EZ-oJd0tXXCWzgdV5ofqy9RGMoaVpns0vtQA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 8:49 AM, The Avantguardian

> 1. There is some very rare astronomical phenomenon that has only been
> observed once that sends out extremely powerful pulses of narrow band
> radiowaves centered on the emission line of hydrogen.
>
> 2. Some secret conspiracy in the government used a powerful transmitter
> tuned to a forbidden frequency for some unknown purpose and it happened to
> get reflected off of some space debris and was then detected by Jerry Ehman.
>
> 3. We have, in that instance, detected a radio communication by an
> intelligent extraterrestrial species but chose to ignore it because it only
> lasted a short time and was not repeated.
>

Of those I'd favor #1 - we haven't spent all *that* much time,
cosmologically speaking, studying the heavens beyond the visible light
spectrum.

But there are at least two variants of #2 that seem more likely.  Either
some signal was accidentally transmitted on that frequency (and whoever did
it isn't stepping forward because illegal or illegal) and bounced off, or
one was transmitted on a nearby frequency and got frequency shifted in the
process of bouncing off.


> When we (presumably an intelligent species) sent out the Arecibo message,
> we only did it *once*. Why would they do any differently?
>

Because they wanted there to be no mistake on the receiving end?  Or they
wanted to avoid the chance that the listener happened not to be listening
at that moment?


> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message
>
> Of course as of 2013, you got these guys offering to send your tweets to
> Gliese 526 for 25 cents each:
> http://thelonesignal.tumblr.com/
>

Exactly.  Arecibo is not the most reliable indicator of a civilization like
ours.  It's going to take repeated signals.


> Either a hail mary into the void or eavesdropped communications not
> intended for us. The idea of an ET civilization setting up a beacon seems a
> little strange from a Darwininian perspective unless it were like the
> glowing lure of an angler fish.


And yet, in the one example we definitely know of, "a beacon" is exactly
what was set up.  Maybe civilizations that incautiously broadcast do not,
in fact, inevitably attract interstellar marauders?  (Who would
want...what, from a nascent civilization?  Certainly not raw materials that
can be gained in larger quantities from unresisting unpopulated star
systems.  And just as simply as one could suppose they want to destroy
potential competitors, one could suppose they want potential augmentations
to their society to grow until they can usefully contribute: "Oh, hey,
these guys can colonize our otherwise-useless oxygen-polluted water worlds,
once they learn how to stop ripping up their own planet.")

"Thousands" of non-repeated signals per day? What if just 1% of them were
> genuine?


This is astronomical stuff we're talking about.  1%, no matter how nice a
round number it sounds like, is pretty much not happening.  More realistic
fractions are very small fractions of a percent, if not actually 0.


> then put a freakin radio telescope on the far side of the moon. No "side
> lobes" from terrestrial communications then. You could have a com satellite
> in lunar L4 or L5 to function as a relay station.
>

Indeed.  Until we can get such instrumentation, I'm reluctant to pay much
attention to most chain-of-logic-from-minimal-observations, such as the
whole "dark matter" thing (a hypothesis to explain calculated differences
in measurement, when measurement error - including systematically
overlooking certain types of objects - could readily explain).
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun 21 21:22:19 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 14:22:19 -0700
Subject: [ExI] saddest place on earth
Message-ID: <04db01cf8d96$e318d520$a94a7f60$@att.net>

 

 

Now here is a question for you: is visiting the saddest

place on earth any good for the person being visited? . MB

 

 

The best answer I have heard to that question was uttered by my father in
law.  A patient said to him "John I don't understand why you spend every day
in this place.  She doesn't even know who you are."  He said "I still know
who she is."

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun 21 22:03:25 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 15:03:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
Message-ID: <051001cf8d9c$a1c54b70$e54fe250$@att.net>

>.Spike, did you feel like a god as you experimented with the warring ants?

And did you ever think about trying to bring peace to their lives?  Create

a barrier between them?  Or deploy pheromones?  Oh,and how about a flood!

Lol  John

 

I can imagine bringing peace to ours.  Observation: if you put your finger
near an ant nest (that species) the ants will bite and sting.  I
demonstrated to my own satisfaction that when these ants are engaged in a
war, they do not sting.  Theory: if we can induce an ant war, they will
fight each other and not bite us.  Reasoning: ants communicate through some
unknown chemical means.  That particular chemical, which tells the warriors
"Get em girls!" is extant during an ant war.  I put my finger several feet
away from the battleground and the ants went right around it to get to the
battle.  I never did get a bite or a sting.  The warring ants are somehow
analogous to swarming bees.

 

So, to answer your question John, no I don't want to bring peace to their
lives.  I want to bring war to their lives, and peace to ours.

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun 21 22:09:51 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 15:09:51 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
Message-ID: <051501cf8d9d$86776ff0$93664fd0$@att.net>

 

It depends on the species of ant. Some small black ants are too small to

bite or sting humans. Like the sugar ants that are common in homes. But

don't try interfering with fire ants!  BillK

 

Thanks BillK.  This particular species has a bite, but not a particularly
sincere one, nothing like a fire ant, which has both a bite and a bad sting.
I don't think these guys have a sting.  I may be wrong, but my previous
experimentation with them got me a few half-hearted bites and no stings, or
if they have stings, their venom is incompetent.

 

Fire ants will participate in wars.  My notion is to see if this can be
replicated with fire ants.  I am from the south, so I know fire ants, and I
do this experiment with some trepidation.  Those guys are appropriately
named: their stings burn like fire.  I might try to find a fire-ant war and
reproduce the experiment.

 

spike

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun 21 22:41:47 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 23:41:47 +0100
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <051501cf8d9d$86776ff0$93664fd0$@att.net>
References: <051501cf8d9d$86776ff0$93664fd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhnX+7B18bXE9W18rfUPYxPBAyy5kkX-a2nXoRB7yy7qA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 11:09 PM, spike wrote:
> Thanks BillK.  This particular species has a bite, but not a particularly
> sincere one, nothing like a fire ant, which has both a bite and a bad
> sting.  I don't think these guys have a sting.  I may be wrong, but
> my previous experimentation with them got me a few half-hearted
> bites and no stings, or if they have stings, their venom is incompetent.
>


Another thought occurred to me. It might be unwise to get your young
son handling ants. Your skin is probably much tougher than his young
skin.

>
> Fire ants will participate in wars.  My notion is to see if this can be
> replicated with fire ants.  I am from the south, so I know fire ants,
> and I do this experiment with some trepidation.  Those guys are
> appropriately named: their stings burn like fire.  I might try to find
> a fire-ant war and reproduce the experiment.
>

Oh no!  Some experiments should be left to someone else!  :)


BillK


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun 21 22:42:59 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:42:59 -0500
Subject: [ExI] just a test
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZGF+2R9weXaTWKZLH1bnaP_sLK+JkCYkcN4PJ7D5h61Q@mail.gmail.com>

test
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 21 22:19:51 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 00:19:51 +0200
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>

Awesome! I must admit I did not know this - hymenoptera is not my main field of study.
It could be that ants work like state machines. In the normal state they forage, defend the nest, and bite hands that handle them. In the ant war state it is all about identifying enemy ants, ignoring other stimuli. I wonder how they come down from it?

Being a good god for warring ants makes one appreciate that the theodicy problem isn't easy for gods to handle. Of course, maybe God is now posting pictures of the Middle East to a hyperdimensional forum where vast entities are using it to discuss the weird behavior of 3D creatures and whether this tells them anything about how the existence of metadivinities?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 22 04:00:52 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 21:00:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhnX+7B18bXE9W18rfUPYxPBAyy5kkX-a2nXoRB7yy7qA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <051501cf8d9d$86776ff0$93664fd0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armhnX+7B18bXE9W18rfUPYxPBAyy5kkX-a2nXoRB7yy7qA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <060c01cf8dce$9013f480$b03bdd80$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK



>...Another thought occurred to me. It might be unwise to get your young son
handling ants. Your skin is probably much tougher than his young skin....

Ja good point.  I noticed he doesn't like to handle bugs with his bare
hands.  He's weird that way.  My bride says he isn't so weird, lots of
people don't like to handle bugs.  She's weird that way.

spike 




From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 22 05:07:07 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2014 22:07:07 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
 <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <061f01cf8dd7$d12fa780$738ef680$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Sent: Saturday, June 21, 2014 3:20 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] ants again

 

>?Awesome! I must admit I did not know this - hymenoptera is not my main field of study.

It could be that ants work like state machines. In the normal state they forage, defend the nest, and bite hands that handle them. In the ant war state it is all about identifying enemy ants, ignoring other stimuli. I wonder how they come down from it?

 

Very interesting question.  I had a replay today: spent the afternoon at the saddest place, took a break, found another ant war in progress not very far from where yesterday?s battle took place.  This time I managed to get several instances where ants continued their mortal combat on the surface of my hand.  The singleton ants were again looking around for another ant to fight rather than a me to bite.  I came to a conclusion similar to Anders? observation: perhaps ants have some kind of simple switch with no reasoning process to speak of.  They are in war mode, something scoops them up, they have no means of changing modes from ?fight another ant? to ?hey, a hand, let?s bite it.?

 

I can think of a whole bunch of cool experiments to determine how they transition back to defend the nest mode.  Or if some transition back while others are still fighting.  Or if a queen just randomly decides OK, enough battle, then she sends out some kind of pheromone that commands them back to their posts.

 

That whole ant war business is a hell of an interesting phenomenon if you think about it.  Humans wage war, chimps have what Ann Druyan has described as more of a rumble or gang fight, seldom resulting in serious injury but definitely groups working in teams.  Ants definitely fight to the death.  Then they come back and clean up all the corpses.  Most puzzling.  Do they eat them?  Why do they take them away?  Does each side take away only their own?  Why?  Does any other species engage in war?

 

spike

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a good god for warring ants makes one appreciate that the theodicy problem isn't easy for gods to handle. Of course, maybe God is now posting pictures of the Middle East to a hyperdimensional forum where vast entities are using it to discuss the weird behavior of 3D creatures and whether this tells them anything about how the existence of metadivinities?



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sun Jun 22 06:09:59 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 02:09:59 -0400
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
 <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFi2oB4HKR6ie1_A+2a1WHypiRL9FJz_838pu3gBUc+eGA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 6:19 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> Awesome! I must admit I did not know this - hymenoptera is not my main
> field of study.
>
> It could be that ants work like state machines. In the normal state they
> forage, defend the nest, and bite hands that handle them. In the ant war
> state it is all about identifying enemy ants, ignoring other stimuli. I
> wonder how they come down from it?
>
> Being a good god for warring ants makes one appreciate that the theodicy
> problem isn't easy for gods to handle. Of course, maybe God is now posting
> pictures of the Middle East to a hyperdimensional forum where vast entities
> are using it to discuss the weird behavior of 3D creatures and whether this
> tells them anything about how the existence of metadivinities?
>

### Let's just hope he is not in need of more data, and getting ready to
use the liquid aluminum method:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJ2jMZ-gaI&feature=kp

Rafal
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From rex at nosyntax.net  Sun Jun 22 08:00:16 2014
From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 01:00:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <061f01cf8dd7$d12fa780$738ef680$@att.net>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
 <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
 <061f01cf8dd7$d12fa780$738ef680$@att.net>
Message-ID: <20140622080016.GL30377@nosyntax.net>

spike <spike66 at att.net> [2014-06-21 22:09]:
>
>   That whole ant war business is a hell of an interesting phenomenon if you
>   think about it.  Humans wage war, chimps have what Ann Druyan has
>   described as more of a rumble or gang fight, seldom resulting in serious
>   injury but definitely groups working in teams.

What? Chimps engage in wars and frequently systematically kill "enemies."

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210004598

Lethal intergroup aggression leads to territorial expansion in wild chimpanzees

John C. Mitani, David P. Watts, Sylvia J. Amsler

Summary

Chimpanzees make lethal coalitionary attacks on members of other
groups [1]. This behavior generates considerable attention because it
resembles lethal intergroup raiding in humans [2]. Similarities are
nevertheless difficult to evaluate because the function of lethal
intergroup aggression by chimpanzees remains unclear. One prominent
hypothesis suggests that chimpanzees attack neighbors to expand their
territories and to gain access to more food [2]. Two cases apparently
support this hypothesis, but neither furnishes definitive
evidence. Chimpanzees in the Kasekela community at Gombe National Park
took over the territory of the neighboring Kahama community after a
series of lethal attacks [3]. Understanding these events is
complicated because the Kahama community had recently formed by
fissioning from the Kasekela group and members of both communities had
been provisioned with food. In a second example from the Mahale
Mountains, the M group chimpanzees acquired part of the territory of
the adjacent K group after all of the adult males in the latter
disappeared [4]. Although fatal attacks were suspected from
observations of intergroup aggression, they were not witnessed, and as
a consequence, this case also fails to furnish conclusive
evidence. Here we present data collected over 10 years from an
unusually large chimpanzee community at Ngogo, Kibale National Park,
Uganda. During this time, we observed the Ngogo chimpanzees kill or
fatally wound 18 individuals from other groups; we inferred three
additional cases of lethal intergroup aggression based on
circumstantial evidence (see Supplemental Information). Most victims
were caught in the same region and likely belonged to the same
neighboring group. A causal link between lethal intergroup aggression
and territorial expansion can be made now that the Ngogo chimpanzees
use the area once occupied by some of their victims.

-rex
-- 
Q:  Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:  To prevent the sensible ones from going home.



From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 22 14:29:55 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 07:29:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFi2oB4HKR6ie1_A+2a1WHypiRL9FJz_838pu3gBUc+eGA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
 <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAAc1gFi2oB4HKR6ie1_A+2a1WHypiRL9FJz_838pu3gBUc+eGA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <06f701cf8e26$70e6a960$52b3fc20$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Rafal Smigrodzki
?

 

### Let's just hope he is not in need of more data, and getting ready to use the liquid aluminum method:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJ2jMZ-gaI <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IGJ2jMZ-gaI&feature=kp> &feature=kp 

 

Rafal

 

 

Extremely cool, thanks.  Aluminum is good for electroplating.  A good-sized plating bath could be used to flash chromium, gold or silver onto the surface.  Silver might not be any good: it tarnishes readily when in contact with aluminum.  But the sculpture could get a nickel-copper flash, and a gold layer over that, which would make a really cool corrosion-free surface.  Might add a couple hundred bucks to the cost of manufacturing.

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 22 14:38:54 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 07:38:54 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <20140622080016.GL30377@nosyntax.net>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
 <3229168496-14574@secure.ericade.net>
 <061f01cf8dd7$d12fa780$738ef680$@att.net>
 <20140622080016.GL30377@nosyntax.net>
Message-ID: <06fc01cf8e27$b1c35130$1549f390$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of rex


spike <spike66 at att.net> [2014-06-21 22:09]:
>
>>   That whole ant war business is a hell of an interesting phenomenon if
you
>   think about it.  Humans wage war, chimps have what Ann Druyan has
>   described as more of a rumble or gang fight, seldom resulting in serious
>   injury but definitely groups working in teams.

>...What? Chimps engage in wars and frequently systematically kill
"enemies."

>...http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210004598

>...-rex

Ja, Ann likes bonobos.  Those are a much more peaceful brand of chimps.

It would be cool to investigate whether the chimp warfare severity is
related in any way to the abundance of food and territory.  Reduction of
chimp colonies by poaching or wildlife management might increase the
available territory and food resources available to the colonies and reduce
their  inter-colony battles.

spike


--
Q:  Why do mountain climbers rope themselves together?
A:  To prevent the sensible ones from going home.

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat



From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com  Sun Jun 22 14:42:24 2014
From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 07:42:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] SETI needs new approach (was for the fermi paradox fans)
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNS6BNNrz8EZ-oJd0tXXCWzgdV5ofqy9RGMoaVpns0vtQA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1403365797.51620.YahooMailNeo@web160505.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <CALAdGNS6BNNrz8EZ-oJd0tXXCWzgdV5ofqy9RGMoaVpns0vtQA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <1403448144.27784.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

On Saturday, June 21, 2014 9:47 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:


>
>
>On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 8:49 AM, The Avantguardian
>
>1. There is some very rare astronomical phenomenon that has only been observed once that?sends out extremely powerful pulses of narrow band radiowaves centered on the emission line of hydrogen.
>>
>>2.?Some secret conspiracy in?the government used a powerful transmitter tuned to a?forbidden frequency for some unknown purpose and it happened to get reflected off of some space debris and was then?detected by Jerry Ehman.
>>
>>3.?We?have, in that instance,?detected?a radio communication by an intelligent extraterrestrial species but chose to ignore it because it only lasted a short time and was not repeated.???
>>
>
>
>Of those I'd favor #1 - we haven't spent all *that* much time, cosmologically speaking, studying the heavens beyond the visible light spectrum.

True. But how much *time* do we have compared to our potential competitors/collaborators in other star systems? 
?
>But there are at least two variants of #2 that seem more likely.? Either some signal was accidentally transmitted on that frequency (and whoever did it isn't stepping forward because illegal or illegal) and bounced off, or one was transmitted on a nearby frequency and got frequency shifted in the process of bouncing off.

So choose. Which is more unbelievable? Extraterrestrials or a conspiracy theory? The laws of physics gave rise to life here. What is so special about *here*?
?
>When we (presumably an intelligent species) sent out the Arecibo message, we only did it *once*. Why would they do any differently?
>>
>
>
>Because they wanted there to be no mistake on the receiving end?? Or they wanted to avoid the chance that the listener happened not to be listening at that moment?

You are assuming that *we* are supposed to be the recieving end. That seems an unlikely assumption. The majority of tweets do not go to Lone Signal.
?
>
>
>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arecibo_message
>>?
>>Of course as of 2013, you got these guys offering to send your tweets to Gliese 526 for 25 cents each:
>>http://thelonesignal.tumblr.com/
>>
>
>
>Exactly.? Arecibo is not the most reliable indicator of a civilization like ours.? It's going to >take repeated signals.

Repeated signals are hard to reliably incorporate when everything in the universe from?electrons up to galaxies spin. Thought experiment: how often is Greenwich, England at its closest possible distance from Olympus Mons on Mars? Now imagine that instead of Mars its some exoplanet in a star system many light years away. And now imagine they are not *trying* to communicate with Earth. Then you will understand the true challenge facing SETI.
?
>?
>
>Either a hail mary into the void or eavesdropped communications not intended for us. The idea of an?ET civilization setting?up a beacon seems a little strange from a Darwininian perspective unless it were like the glowing lure of an angler fish. 
>
>
>And yet, in the one example we definitely know of, "a beacon" is exactly what was set up.? Maybe civilizations that incautiously broadcast do not, in fact, inevitably attract interstellar marauders?? (Who would want...what, from a nascent civilization?? Certainly not raw materials that can be gained in larger quantities from unresisting unpopulated star systems.? And just as simply as one could suppose they want to destroy potential competitors, one could suppose they want potential augmentationns to their society to grow until they can usefully contribute: "Oh, hey, these guys can colonize our otherwise-useless oxygen-polluted water worlds, once they learn how to stop ripping up their own planet.")

This would be a believable argument had Colombus,?Cortez, and Balboa not happened. I would like to think that lording it over lesser beings was purely a primate fetish. That is?if chickens did not do it too with their "pecking order" and those damnable queen ants with their aristrocratic airs. Why go through all the work of mining and refining gold when you can just take the finished product from the Incas? Why were Greek slaves the most expensive to the ancient Romans??Why eat vegetables when with suitable energy expenditure you could manufacture your own glucose from photosynthesis? Damn those Vegans for exploiting the most productive, innocent, and helpless of life-forms. (I?refer to?those guys who exclusively eat?plants, not our future overlords from the constellation Vega whom I would not dare impugn in any way.) ;)?
?
>
>"Thousands" of?non-repeated signals per day? What if just 1% of them were genuine?
>
>
>This is astronomical stuff we're talking about.? 1%, no matter how nice a round number it sounds like, is pretty much not happening.? More realistic fractions are very small fractions of a percent, if not actually 0.

I am willing concede that that the fraction of the signals SETI has recieved is from intelligent ETs?*could* be?zero if you are willing to concede it *could* be grester than zero. I just don't appreciate that a lack of evidence is being paraded as a logical paradox. If you are unwilling to to fund the experiment, then you deserve to be ignorant.

>
>> then put a freakin radio telescope on the far side of the moon. No "side lobes" from terrestrial communications then.?You could have a com satellite in lunar L4 or L5 to function as a relay station.
>>
>
>
>Indeed.? Until we can get such instrumentation, I'm reluctant to pay much attention to most chain-of-logic-from-minimal-observations, such as the whole "dark matter" thing (a hypothesis to explain calculated differences in measurement, when measurement error - including systematically overlooking certain types of objects - could readily explain).

Leaving "dark mater" aside for now, maybe we could sell SETI on the darkside of the moon to the government?as a national security priority. I mean even the writers of Independance Day figured out that an alien invasion would probably try to sneak up on us by staying behind the moon. After all that is what Sun Tzu would do. :)
?
?
Stuart LaForge
?
"We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring." - Carl Sagan 



From avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com  Sun Jun 22 14:52:12 2014
From: avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com (The Avantguardian)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 07:52:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] SETI needs new approach (was for the fermi paradox fans)
In-Reply-To: <1403448144.27784.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1403365797.51620.YahooMailNeo@web160505.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <CALAdGNS6BNNrz8EZ-oJd0tXXCWzgdV5ofqy9RGMoaVpns0vtQA@mail.gmail.com>
 <1403448144.27784.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <1403448732.42411.YahooMailNeo@web160506.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>

?
>> On Sat, Jun 21, 2014 at 8:49 AM, The Avantguardian
>> 

>(I?refer 
> to?those guys who exclusively eat?plants, not our future overlords from the 
> constellation Vega whom I would not dare impugn in any way.) ;)?

Umm. By constellation, I meant star. Please don't disintegrate me, o' mighty Vegans.
?
?Stuart LaForge
??
"We speak for Earth. Our obligation to survive is owed not just to?
ourselves but also to that Cosmos, ancient and vast, from which we spring."?
- Carl Sagan



From tara at taramayastales.com  Sun Jun 22 16:32:28 2014
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2014 09:32:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] ants again
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy2OGh041qZ2nF-2Qb2-8nvjgAZFi9G800eJ0grEqEKc0g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <021501cf8ceb$749c0960$5dd41c20$@att.net>
 <CAGSKFy2OGh041qZ2nF-2Qb2-8nvjgAZFi9G800eJ0grEqEKc0g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <911E1AB5-394F-42BC-B306-47707D7AC261@taramayastales.com>


On Jun 20, 2014, at 7:51 PM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Spike, did you feel like a god as you experimented with the warring ants?  And did you ever think about trying to bring peace to their lives?


Ant civilization?  100 million years of colonialism, warfare and slavery!

;)

Cool experiment, Spike. I find ants endlessly fascinating as well. 

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads




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From cghales at unimelb.edu.au  Wed Jun 25 05:43:12 2014
From: cghales at unimelb.edu.au (Colin Geoffrey Hales)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 05:43:12 +0000
Subject: [ExI] New consciousness paper
Message-ID: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE897@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>

Dear Folk,
I thought you might be interested in the following paper, which is essentially my PhD outcome packaged into a journal paper (49 pages!), contextualised with respect to consciousness, and now finally published in a special journal issue on the 'Hard problem of Consciousness'. Online-ready only at this point. Came out yesterday.
Hales, Colin G. 2014: 'The origins of the brain's endogenous electromagnetic field and its relationship to provision of consciousness'. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, Vol 13 Issue 2, pp. 1-49.
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}<http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24%7bresultBean.queryID%7d>
ABSTRACT
As a potential source of consciousness, the brain's endogenous electromagnetic (EM) field has much to commend it. Difficulties connecting EM phenomena and consciousness have been exacerbated by the lack of a specific conclusive biophysically realistic mechanism originating the EM field, its form and dynamics. This work explores a potential mechanism: the spatial and temporal coherent action of transmembrane ion channel currents which simultaneously produce electric and magnetic fields that dominate all other field sources. Ion channels, as tiny current filaments, express, at a distance, the electric and magnetic fields akin to those of a short (transmembrane) copper wire. Following assembly of appropriate formalisms from EM field theory, the paper computationally explores the scalar electric potential produced by the current filaments responsible for an action potential (AP) in a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neuron. It reveals that AP signaling can impress a highly structured, focused and directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam" that "illuminates" neighbors at mm scales. Ion channel currents thereby provide a possible explanation for both EEG/MEG origins and recently confirmed functional EM coupling effects. Finally, a physically plausible EM field decomposition is posited. It reveals objective and subjective perspectives intrinsic to the membrane-centric field dynamics. Perceptual "fields" can be seen to operate as the collective action of virtual EM-boson composites (called qualeons) visible only by "being" the fields, yet objectively appear as the familiar EM field activity. This explains the problematic evidence presentation and offers a physically plausible route to a solution to the "hard problem".
For those impoverished and for those without institutional access I do have the preprint. Just email me.
cheers
Colin Hales, PhD
Researcher
NeuroEngineering Laboratory, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering
University of Melbourne, Australia

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From cghales at unimelb.edu.au  Wed Jun 25 05:28:42 2014
From: cghales at unimelb.edu.au (Colin Geoffrey Hales)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 05:28:42 +0000
Subject: [ExI] New consciousness paper
Message-ID: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE80E@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>

Dear Folk,
I thought you might be interested in the following paper, which is essentially my PhD outcome packaged into a journal paper (49 pages!), contextualised with respect to consciousness, and now finally published in a special journal issue on the ?Hard problem of Consciousness?. Online-ready only at this point. Came out yesterday. There are 14 supplementary videos.
Hales, Colin G. 2014: 'The origins of the brain?s endogenous electromagnetic field and its relationship to provision of consciousness'. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, Vol 13 Issue 2, pp. 1-49.
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}<http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24%7bresultBean.queryID%7d>
ABSTRACT
As a potential source of consciousness, the brain's endogenous electromagnetic (EM) field has much to commend it. Difficulties connecting EM phenomena and consciousness have been exacerbated by the lack of a specific conclusive biophysically realistic mechanism originating the EM field, its form and dynamics. This work explores a potential mechanism: the spatial and temporal coherent action of transmembrane ion channel currents which simultaneously produce electric and magnetic fields that dominate all other field sources. Ion channels, as tiny current filaments, express, at a distance, the electric and magnetic fields akin to those of a short (transmembrane) copper wire. Following assembly of appropriate formalisms from EM field theory, the paper computationally explores the scalar electric potential produced by the current filaments responsible for an action potential (AP) in a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neuron. It reveals that AP signaling can impress a highly structured, focused and directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam" that "illuminates" neighbors at mm scales. Ion channel currents thereby provide a possible explanation for both EEG/MEG origins and recently confirmed functional EM coupling effects. Finally, a physically plausible EM field decomposition is posited. It reveals objective and subjective perspectives intrinsic to the membrane-centric field dynamics. Perceptual "fields" can be seen to operate as the collective action of virtual EM-boson composites (called qualeons) visible only by "being" the fields, yet objectively appear as the familiar EM field activity. This explains the problematic evidence presentation and offers a physically plausible route to a solution to the "hard problem".
For those impoverished and for those without institutional access I do have the preprint. Just email me.
Traction. Finally. ?
Cheers
Colin Hales

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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 25 15:20:52 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 08:20:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] FW: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia,
	and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?
In-Reply-To: <CAHUTwkPwF_anFMFrrzQ5TFD1-Pa8G3+P4e5pRKmJFogoZ8NUww@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1403557819.13421.YahooMailNeo@web163204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
 <CAHUTwkPwF_anFMFrrzQ5TFD1-Pa8G3+P4e5pRKmJFogoZ8NUww@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <04fd01cf9089$0e2fd9d0$2a8f8d70$@att.net>

 

Jeff Davis posted this commentary to the TT list.  I don?t think he would mind if I post it here.  It?s a topic I have been thinking about a lot: if one is getting Alzheimers or other related progressive dementia, as far as I know there are no proactive measures to go into cryonic suspension while you still have something in there worth freezing.  If you end up in a memory care facility, the quality of life in there for one?s remaining time in this mortal coil isn?t worth a warm bucket of spit, and costs a fortune.  Go see it for yourself por favor.  I think we should have the option, when faced with that dreadful fate, to just go ahead and take the nitrogen bath.  If you disagree, do state your case.

 

These are Jeff Davis? thoughts:

 

 

From: tt-bounces at postbiota.org [mailto:tt-bounces at postbiota.org] On Behalf Of Jeff Davis jrd1415 at gmail.com [New_Cryonet]
Re: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia, and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?

 






Zoltan has managed to get Huffpost to publish an essay introducing to public awareness what I consider the single most important cryonics-related issue since Robert Ettinger's launch of the cryonics venture half a century ago.

The dementia plague -- http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/429494/the-dementia-plague/ -- descending upon the US as the vast demographic of the "Boomers" goes anything but gently into that "dark night", confronts American society with an impending horror rivaled only by such historic catastrophes as the black plague or the Nazi holocaust.

Since Technology Review's publication of The Dementia Plague a year and a half ago I have been concerned that the financial advantages of "saving" dementia victims by pre-mortem cryonic suspension would create a pro-cryonics movement, but one based on greed rather than patient welfare.

>From the cryonicist's viewpoint, saving the Boomers from the horror of a slow death-by-dementia would be a humanitarian accomplishment of unrivaled proportions.  And as it would point the way to the mainstream acceptance of cryonics and a long-awaited massive increase in cryonics research, it would be a cryonicist's dream come true.  However, since the vast majority of  humanity are not cryonicists, and at the conscious level consider cryonics a scam or a fool's errand, and at the unconscious level consider it secular apostasy and a violation of the natural order, I fear the backlash. 

 Promoting "cryothanasia"  -- to use Zoltan's term -- behind an unconvincing rationale of compassion, where the real motivation seems entirely economic is to invite the persuasive, even if not factual, accusation that you are liquidating/murdering the dementia-condemned to save a few bucks.

If cryonics is destined for mainstream acceptance -- every hospital routinely equipped to perform suspensions, which are routinely available as a patient option, and routinely covered by medical insurance -- then a serious effort must be made to persuade the general populace that cryonics is a rational attempt to save lives with a substantial, if unproven, likelihood of success.

A small note.  Human beliefs are deeply imbedded.  Zoltan has coined the term "cryothanasia".   Granted, it's clever, but it is clearly derived from euthanasia which means mercy killing.  It means death.  So cryothanasia immediately conveys the notion of euthanasia by cryonics, ie death by cryonics.  

Please.  This is counter productive.  Cryonics is about life, more life, saving lives.  So I would recommend disposing of the self-defeating and contradictory term ****thanasia with all speed. Nevertheless, thank you Zoltan for bringing this crucial discussion into the mainstream on Huff Post.

PS Could someone cut and paste this into the Huff Post comments section.  Facebook membership is required to comment on Huff Post, and I don't do Facebook.

Best, Jeff Davis

              "Everything's hard till you know how to do it."

                                                   Ray Charles

 

 

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Mark Plus mark.plus at rocketmail.com [New_Cryonet] <New_Cryonet at yahoogroups.com> wrote:

 

 

Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia, and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate? <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zoltan-istvan/should-cryonics-cryocide-_b_5518684.html> 

	
	
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The medical field of preserving the dead for possible future life is quickly improving every year....

	


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Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia, and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?


Posted: 06/23/2014 3:38 pm

 

An elderly man named Bill sits in a lonely Nevada nursing home, staring out the window. The sun is fading from the sky, and night will soon cover the surrounding windswept desert. Bill has late-onset Alzheimer's disease, and the plethora of medications he's on is losing the war to keep his mind intact. Soon, he will lose control of many of his cognitive functions, will forget many of his memories, and will no longer recognize friends and family.

Approximately 40 million people around the world have some form of  <http://www.alz.org/what-is-dementia.asp> dementia, according to a  <http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2012/dementia_20120411/en/> World Health Organization report. About 70 percent of those suffer from Alzheimer's. With average lifespans increasing due to rapidly improving longevity science, what are people with these maladies to do? Do those with severe cases want to be kept alive for years or even decades in a debilitated mental state just because modern medicine can do it?

In parts of Europe and a few states in America where  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_suicide> assisted suicide--sometimes referred to as euthanasia or physician aid in dying--is allowed, some mental illness sufferers decide to end their lives while they're still cognitively sound and can recognize their memories and personality. However, most people around the world with dementia are forced to watch their minds deteriorate. Families and caretakers of dementia patients are often dramatically affected too. Watching a loved one slowly loose their cognitive functions and memories is one of the most challenging and painful predicaments anyone can ever go through. Exorbitant finances further complicate the matter because it's expensive to provide proper care for the mentally ill.

In the 21st Century--the age of  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism> transhumanism and brilliant scientific achievement--the question should be asked: Are there other ways to approach this sensitive issue?

The transhumanist field of  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryonics> cryonics--using ultra-cold temperatures to preserve a dead body in hopes of future revival--has come a long way since the first person was frozen in 1967. Various organizations and companies around the world have since preserved a few hundred people. Over a thousand people are signed up to be frozen in the future, and many millions of people are aware of the procedure.

Some may say cryonics is crackpot science. However, those accusations are unfounded. Already, human beings can be revived and go on to live normal lives after being frozen in water for over an hour. Additionally,  <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/28/suspended-animation-body-cooling-trial_n_5044837.html> suspended animation is now occurring in a university hospital in Pittsburgh, where a saline-cooling solution has recently been approved by the FDA to preserve the clinically dead for hours before resuscitating them. In a decade's time, this procedure may be used to keep people suspended for a week or a month before waking them. Clearly, the medical field of preserving the dead for possible future life is quickly improving every year.

The trick with cryonics is preserving someone immediately after they've died. Otherwise, critical organs, especially the brain and its billions of neurons, have a far higher chance of being damaged in the freezing. However, it's almost impossible to cryonically freeze someone right after death. Circumstances usually get in the way of an ideal suspension. Bodies must first be brought to a cryonics facility. Most municipalities require technicians, doctors, and a funeral director to legally sign off on a body before it can be cryonically preserved. All this takes time, and minutes are precious once the last heartbeat and breath of air have been made by a cryonics candidate.

Recently, some transhumanists have advocated for cryothanasia, where a patient undergoes physician or self-administered euthanasia with the intent of being cryonically suspended during the death process or immediately afterward. This creates the optimum environment since all persons involved are on hand and ready to do their part so that an ideal freeze can occur.

Cryothanasia could be utilized for a number of people and situations: the atheist Alzheimer's sufferer who doesn't believe in an afterlife and wants science to give him another chance in the future; the suicidal schizophrenic who doesn't want to exist in the current world, but isn't ready to give up altogether on existence; the terminally ill transhumanist cancer patient who doesn't want to lose half their body weight and undergo painful chemotherapy before being cryonically frozen; or the extreme special needs or disabled person who wants to come back in an age where their disabilities can be fixed. 

There might even be spiritual, religious, or philosophical reasons for pursuing an impermanent death, as in my novel The Transhumanist Wager, where protagonist Jethro Knights undergoes cryothanasia in search of a lost loved one.

There are many sound reasons why someone might choose cryothanasia. Whoever the person and whatever the reason, there is a belief that life can be better for them in some future time. Some experts believe we will begin reanimating cryonically frozen patients in 25 to 50 years. Technologies via bioengineering, nanomedicine, and  <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mind_uploading> mind uploadingwill likely lead the way. Hundreds of millions of dollars are being spent on developing these technologies that will also create breakthroughs for the field of cryonics and other areas of suspended animation.

Another advantage about cryonics and cryothanasia is their affordability. It costs about $1,000 to painlessly euthanize oneself and an average of $80,000 to cryonically freeze one's body. It costs many times more than that to keep someone alive who is suffering from a serious mental disorder and needs constant 24-hour a day care over many years.

Despite some of the positive possibilities, cryothanasia is virtually unknown to people and is often technically illegal in many places around the world. Of course, much discussion would have to take place in private, public, and political circles in order to determine if cryothanasia has a valid place in society. Nevertheless, cryothanasia represents an original way for dementia sufferers and others to consider now that they are living far longer than ever before.

 

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__._,_.___

  _____  

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From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jun 25 16:22:25 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 17:22:25 +0100
Subject: [ExI] FW: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia,
 and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?
In-Reply-To: <04fd01cf9089$0e2fd9d0$2a8f8d70$@att.net>
References: <1403557819.13421.YahooMailNeo@web163204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
 <CAHUTwkPwF_anFMFrrzQ5TFD1-Pa8G3+P4e5pRKmJFogoZ8NUww@mail.gmail.com>
 <04fd01cf9089$0e2fd9d0$2a8f8d70$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhsh1V6Eizdq9_E8SK_2vCi6rKf5YvGesSSj5uedUb6Sw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 4:20 PM, spike wrote:
> Jeff Davis posted this commentary to the TT list.  I don't think he
> would mind if I post it here.  It's a topic I have been thinking about a lot:
> if one is getting Alzheimers or other related progressive dementia,
> as far as I know there are no proactive measures to go into cryonic
> suspension while you still have something in there worth freezing.
>  If you end up in a memory care facility, the quality of life in there
> for one's remaining time in this mortal coil isn't worth a warm bucket
> of spit, and costs a fortune.  Go see it for yourself por favor.  I think
> we should have the option, when faced with that dreadful fate, to
> just go ahead and take the nitrogen bath.
> If you disagree, do state your case.
>


Several thoughts -

>From an outsiders (and government) POV, cryonics does equal death, so
the same laws would apply to cryonics and to euthanasia. i.e. citizens
won't legally be allowed an early death by any method unless they are
in a state where euthanasia is allowed. (Though it does happen
unofficially).

If euthanasia is allowed, then I don't see any reason for the
authorities to object to a cryonics team standing by and taking over
after death is declared.

While a care home is expensive, so is cryonics at that late stage,
where it has to be paid in a lump sum. So as a precaution, healthy old
people might consider a life insurance policy.

Until recently, people only moved into a care home when they became
too ill to be cared for at home. This meant that, on average, they
only lived for a period of months or a few years, so the annual care
home fees did not usually mount up too high. Though dementia patients
who are otherwise healthy might live longer and care would therefore
cost more.


BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 25 16:31:43 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:31:43 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
Message-ID: <056501cf9092$f3b7fce0$db27f6a0$@att.net>

 


The classic lunch counter, 1960s


http://i.imgur.com/LTkpwBG.jpg

 

 

Somewhere in America I can imagine some sharp business mind has either
attempted to preserve something like a lunch counter or reproduce it.  It
makes a lot more sense to me than a rectangular room with individual tables.
The staff can access everyone very conveniently.

 

Hey cool: the lunch counter theme will be a perfect way to introduce robotic
waiters.  The robots will be physically separated from the customers, which
solves a lot of problems in itself.  With a usual layout of a restaurant,
you know the yahoos would be putting their foot in the way trying to trip
the robot, then sue the place.  Lunch counter, no problem.  The whole notion
of retro mixed with future, sort of a Happy Days meets the Jetsons theme
would be really cool.  We could simplify some of the robot control problems:
we could have a circular track in which the waiter-bot doesn't actually walk
(that's an expensive control problem in itself) but rather it is supported
from below on a rigid shaft.  You could arrange for feet to appear to walk
(or even run) without having to actually balance in bipedal fashion.

 

Oh this just sounds like money struggling to be made.

 

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 25 16:43:56 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 09:43:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] FW: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia,
	and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhsh1V6Eizdq9_E8SK_2vCi6rKf5YvGesSSj5uedUb6Sw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <1403557819.13421.YahooMailNeo@web163204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
 <CAHUTwkPwF_anFMFrrzQ5TFD1-Pa8G3+P4e5pRKmJFogoZ8NUww@mail.gmail.com>
 <04fd01cf9089$0e2fd9d0$2a8f8d70$@att.net>
 <CAL_armhsh1V6Eizdq9_E8SK_2vCi6rKf5YvGesSSj5uedUb6Sw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <058001cf9094$a8ae0490$fa0a0db0$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of BillK
Subject: Re: [ExI] FW: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia, and
Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 4:20 PM, spike wrote:
>> ...  If you end up in a memory care facility, the quality of life in
there 
> for one's remaining time in this mortal coil isn't worth a warm bucket 
> of spit, and costs a fortune.  Go see it for yourself por favor.  I 
> think we should have the option, when faced with that dreadful fate, 
> to just go ahead and take the nitrogen bath.
> If you disagree, do state your case...



>...From an outsiders (and government) POV, cryonics does equal death, so
the same laws would apply to cryonics and to euthanasia. i.e. citizens won't
legally be allowed an early death by any method unless they are in a state
where euthanasia is allowed. (Though it does happen unofficially)...If
euthanasia is allowed, then I don't see any reason for the authorities to
object to a cryonics team standing by and taking over after death is
declared...

Ja.  The problem, or rather one problem I can see immediately, is that there
are no clear legal guidelines I can see for when a patient is forced to go
into a nursing home.  We already have that problem with AD.  Note this case
with the team owner Donald Sterling who made comments privately in his own
home which were recorded and used to deprive him of his team.  He was
declared senile by two doctors, which justifies his being forced to sell his
team.  If cryonics is an option for those facing nursing home, one could
speed up their own possibly-considerable inheritance by having a coupla
doctors declare the old man senile, then encouraging him to opt for cryonics
before his brain contents were lost.

>...While a care home is expensive, so is cryonics at that late stage...
BillK

Cryonics will cost about the same as five months of institutional care and
even less home care.  We need robots for this kind of work.

Oy vey, what a problem.

spike



From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 25 17:00:45 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 10:00:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <056501cf9092$f3b7fce0$db27f6a0$@att.net>
References: <056501cf9092$f3b7fce0$db27f6a0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <058701cf9097$01d4d2e0$057e78a0$@att.net>

 

 

>. On Behalf Of spike
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters

 


The classic lunch counter, 1960s


>.Somewhere in America I can imagine some sharp business mind has either
attempted to preserve something like a lunch counter or reproduce it.  It
makes a lot more sense to me than a rectangular room with individual tables.
The staff can access everyone very conveniently.  Hey cool: the lunch
counter theme will be a perfect way to introduce robotic waiters.Oh this
just sounds like money struggling to be made.spike

 

 

 

Cool, it just occurred to me that Seattle Washington is all set to become
the humanoid robotics capital of the USA.  Reasoning: they are going thru
conniptions to raise the minimum wage from 9 bucks an hour to 15.  It isn't
entirely clear to me that replacing a 9 dollar/hr worker with a robot would
cover the capital cost of robots, but replacing a 15 dollar/hr worker almost
surely would.  You get a long lunch counter and assume these robots can work
really quickly, faster than a typical  human worker, and the whole plan
pencils outwardly.  Once Seattle demonstrates that this can work, it will
spread like crazy.  The robots will be cleaner, faster and cheaper than
their carbon rivals.

 

spike

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From pharos at gmail.com  Wed Jun 25 17:19:11 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 18:19:11 +0100
Subject: [ExI] FW: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia,
 and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?
In-Reply-To: <058001cf9094$a8ae0490$fa0a0db0$@att.net>
References: <1403557819.13421.YahooMailNeo@web163204.mail.gq1.yahoo.com>
 <CAHUTwkPwF_anFMFrrzQ5TFD1-Pa8G3+P4e5pRKmJFogoZ8NUww@mail.gmail.com>
 <04fd01cf9089$0e2fd9d0$2a8f8d70$@att.net>
 <CAL_armhsh1V6Eizdq9_E8SK_2vCi6rKf5YvGesSSj5uedUb6Sw@mail.gmail.com>
 <058001cf9094$a8ae0490$fa0a0db0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armh0OO82Cce9P-MJg6XEkLHGimdQ_q_CBNAT6q3oTfTaoQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 5:43 PM, spike wrote:
> Cryonics will cost about the same as five months of institutional care and
> even less home care.  We need robots for this kind of work.
>
>

In the UK, medical and hospital costs are paid by the National Health
Services. But there is a big dispute going on over care home and
nursing fees, which many (most?) people have to pay themselves. Many
do this by selling their home to fund care costs. There is legislation
going through parliament to try to cover care home costs (up to a
limit) in future to avoid forcing people to sell their homes to pay
for care.

But US care seems to be much more expensive than in the UK.
Quote:
On average you can expect to pay around ?28,500 a year in residential
care costs, rising to over ?37,500 a year if nursing care is
necessary.
(Dementia would require nursing care).

BillK



From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Wed Jun 25 17:43:43 2014
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 11:43:43 -0600
Subject: [ExI] New consciousness paper
In-Reply-To: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE80E@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>
References: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE80E@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>
Message-ID: <CAK7-onsHjc9HH6iiFC-3p2Dm+q1Si5X2JxwEHwyozyCbT5EPkA@mail.gmail.com>

Hi Colin,

So is the paper available for free, someplace?

I'm very interested in the "hard problem of consciousness" but am having
troubles understanding how any of this has anything to do with that "Hard
Problem".

It's probably because I don't understand a bunch of it.  For example, what
is a "provision of consciousness"?

Isn't the 'hard problem' all about knowing what other minds are
qualitatively like?  (as in is my redness the same as yours?)

Brent






On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales <
cghales at unimelb.edu.au> wrote:

>   Dear Folk,
>
> I thought you might be interested in the following paper, which is
> essentially my PhD outcome packaged into a journal paper (49 pages!),
> contextualised with respect to consciousness, and now finally published in
> a special journal issue on the ?Hard problem of Consciousness?.
> Online-ready only at this point. Came out yesterday. There are 14
> supplementary videos.
>
> Hales, Colin G. 2014: 'The origins of the brain?s endogenous
> electromagnetic field and its relationship to provision of consciousness'. *Journal
> of Integrative Neuroscience*, Vol 13 Issue 2, pp. 1-49.
>
>
> http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}
> <http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24%7bresultBean.queryID%7d>
>
> *ABSTRACT*
>
> As a potential source of consciousness, the brain's endogenous
> electromagnetic (EM) field has much to commend it. Difficulties connecting
> EM phenomena and consciousness have been exacerbated by the lack of a
> specific conclusive biophysically realistic mechanism originating the EM
> field, its form and dynamics. This work explores a potential mechanism: the
> spatial and temporal coherent action of transmembrane ion channel currents
> which simultaneously produce electric and magnetic fields that dominate all
> other field sources. Ion channels, as tiny current filaments, express, at a
> distance, the electric and magnetic fields akin to those of a short
> (transmembrane) copper wire. Following assembly of appropriate formalisms
> from EM field theory, the paper computationally explores the scalar
> electric potential produced by the current filaments responsible for an
> action potential (AP) in a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neuron. It
> reveals that AP signaling can impress a highly structured, focused and
> directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam" that "illuminates" neighbors at mm
> scales. Ion channel currents thereby provide a possible explanation for
> both EEG/MEG origins and recently confirmed functional EM coupling effects.
> Finally, a physically plausible EM field decomposition is posited. It
> reveals objective and subjective perspectives intrinsic to the
> membrane-centric field dynamics. Perceptual "fields" can be seen to operate
> as the collective action of virtual EM-boson composites (called qualeons)
> visible only by "being" the fields, yet objectively appear as the familiar
> EM field activity. This explains the problematic evidence presentation and
> offers a physically plausible route to a solution to the "hard problem".
>
> For those impoverished and for those without institutional access I do
> have the preprint. Just email me.
>
> Traction. Finally. J
>
> Cheers
>
> Colin Hales
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 25 18:12:12 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 13:12:12 -0500
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <058701cf9097$01d4d2e0$057e78a0$@att.net>
References: <056501cf9092$f3b7fce0$db27f6a0$@att.net>
 <058701cf9097$01d4d2e0$057e78a0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>

>
>
>
>
> Cool, it just occurred to me that Seattle Washington is all set to become
> the humanoid robotics capital of the USA.  Reasoning: they The robots will
> be cleaner, faster and cheaper than their carbon rivals.
>
>
>
> spike
> ?They'll have to be pretty fancy for me to want to flirt with them.
>

?But seriously, I think many people will be turned off after the initial
excitement, at the idea of replacing people?.  Some oldies go out to eat
just to talk to people at counters, etc.  So maybe if they pass the Turing
test.....

bill w?
>
> ___________________________________
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 25 18:17:38 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 13:17:38 -0500
Subject: [ExI] New consciousness paper
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onsHjc9HH6iiFC-3p2Dm+q1Si5X2JxwEHwyozyCbT5EPkA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE80E@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>
 <CAK7-onsHjc9HH6iiFC-3p2Dm+q1Si5X2JxwEHwyozyCbT5EPkA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYZJ7=4ceut7GUiE9fGqFVBd18Vv-2TxQf4_w_iyH6TXw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Brent Allsop <brent.allsop at canonizer.com>
wrote:

>
>
> Hi Colin,
>
>
> Isn't the 'hard problem' all about knowing what other minds are
> qualitatively like?  (as in is my redness the same as yours?)
>
> Brent
>
> ?Yes, do the research, but I have to doubt that even if you can locate
consciousness in brain areas, just what kind of explanation of it does that
provide?  It certainly won't answer Brent's problem above.  Maybe not ever,
as they will find that not all brains do identical things under identical
conditions, if they haven't already (likely).?


?bill w?


>
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales <
> cghales at unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
>
>>   Dear Folk,
>>
>> I thought you might be interested in the following paper, which is
>> essentially my PhD outcome packaged into a journal paper (49 pages!),
>> contextualised with respect to consciousness, and now finally published in
>> a special journal issue on the ?Hard problem of Consciousness?.
>> Online-ready only at this point. Came out yesterday. There are 14
>> supplementary videos.
>>
>> Hales, Colin G. 2014: 'The origins of the brain?s endogenous
>> electromagnetic field and its relationship to provision of consciousness'. *Journal
>> of Integrative Neuroscience*, Vol 13 Issue 2, pp. 1-49.
>>
>>
>> http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}
>> <http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24%7bresultBean.queryID%7d>
>>
>> *ABSTRACT*
>>
>> As a potential source of consciousness, the brain's endogenous
>> electromagnetic (EM) field has much to commend it. Difficulties connecting
>> EM phenomena and consciousness have been exacerbated by the lack of a
>> specific conclusive biophysically realistic mechanism originating the EM
>> field, its form and dynamics. This work explores a potential mechanism: the
>> spatial and temporal coherent action of transmembrane ion channel currents
>> which simultaneously produce electric and magnetic fields that dominate all
>> other field sources. Ion channels, as tiny current filaments, express, at a
>> distance, the electric and magnetic fields akin to those of a short
>> (transmembrane) copper wire. Following assembly of appropriate formalisms
>> from EM field theory, the paper computationally explores the scalar
>> electric potential produced by the current filaments responsible for an
>> action potential (AP) in a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neuron. It
>> reveals that AP signaling can impress a highly structured, focused and
>> directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam" that "illuminates" neighbors at mm
>> scales. Ion channel currents thereby provide a possible explanation for
>> both EEG/MEG origins and recently confirmed functional EM coupling effects.
>> Finally, a physically plausible EM field decomposition is posited. It
>> reveals objective and subjective perspectives intrinsic to the
>> membrane-centric field dynamics. Perceptual "fields" can be seen to operate
>> as the collective action of virtual EM-boson composites (called qualeons)
>> visible only by "being" the fields, yet objectively appear as the familiar
>> EM field activity. This explains the problematic evidence presentation and
>> offers a physically plausible route to a solution to the "hard problem".
>>
>> For those impoverished and for those without institutional access I do
>> have the preprint. Just email me.
>>
>> Traction. Finally. J
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Colin Hales
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> 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
>
>
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From anders at aleph.se  Wed Jun 25 19:27:49 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:27:49 +0200
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>

William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> , 25/6/2014 8:16 PM: ?But seriously, I think many people will be turned off after the initial excitement, at the idea of replacing people?.? Some oldies go out to eat just to talk to people at counters, etc.? So maybe if they pass the Turing test.....
Yo Sushi's (and similar chains) conveyor belts are clearly working, without even robots. Although there there is (1) a constantly updating temptation, and (2) you can signal a waiter for extra orders not on the belt.?
How much social interaction is worth varies from eatery to eatery; some make a big deal out of it, others try to win by price or good food.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Wed Jun 25 20:21:46 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 22:21:46 +0200
Subject: [ExI] FW: [tt] [New_Cryonet] Should Cryonics, Cryothanasia,
 and Transhumanism Be Part of the Euthanasia Debate?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhsh1V6Eizdq9_E8SK_2vCi6rKf5YvGesSSj5uedUb6Sw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3567748211-12811@secure.ericade.net>

BillK <pharos at gmail.com> , 25/6/2014 6:27 PM:

>From an outsiders (and government) POV, cryonics does equal death, so 
the same laws would apply to cryonics and to euthanasia. i.e. citizens 
won't legally be allowed an early death by any method unless they are 
in a state where euthanasia is allowed. (Though it does happen 
unofficially). 
 
If euthanasia is allowed, then I don't see any reason for the 
authorities to object to a cryonics team standing by and taking over 
after death is declared. 
The problem is getting euthanasia allowed. Cryonics is not a relevant factor in getting societies to decide this, since it is a minor fringe activity. The main factor getting euthanasia accepted is the spread of modern values, where individual autonomy and welfare trumps various do-no-harm principles. So if you want cryothanasia approved, you likely need to work more on the "right to die" side of things than the "cryonics is sensible" side of things.
I might write a paper soonish with a colleague on the ethics of cryo-euthanasia; our basic claim is that many of the standard anti-euthanasia arguments break when applied to cryonics (e.g. the claim that life is a gift that is not ours to throw away becomes an argument for cryonics). At best, this will likely convince some readers of bioethics journals that many anti-euthanasia arguments are no good - in this case cryonics might act as an intuition pump for those who think it is equivalent to euthanasia for why the anti-arguments are inconsistent (finding arguments that bit an anti-euthanasia cryonicist might be trickier for us).?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Jun 25 20:57:37 2014
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 16:57:37 -0400
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <056501cf9092$f3b7fce0$db27f6a0$@att.net>
 <058701cf9097$01d4d2e0$057e78a0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbJBGpQY5Vjvu4d-FT8MsGazcAX_y-KmYiLQTRgAygYMuw@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 2:12 PM, William Flynn Wallace
<foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> But seriously, I think many people will be turned off after the initial
> excitement, at the idea of replacing people.  Some oldies go out to eat just
> to talk to people at counters, etc.  So maybe if they pass the Turing
> test.....

But let's not require the patrons speak to _each other_

Have you seen how people go out to eat now-a-days?  Most of the time
they have their eyes pointed at their phones (for lack of a better
term for their infotainment device)


From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 25 20:46:50 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 13:46:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] robotic lunch counters

 

William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> , 25/6/2014 8:16 PM:

?>>?But seriously, I think many people will be turned off after the initial excitement, at the idea of replacing people?.  Some oldies go out to eat just to talk to people at counters, etc.  So maybe if they pass the Turing test.....  BillW

 

Ja.  Of course there will be their counterparts, those who are turned on by the idea of replacing people.  I like it, for it forces us to confront a growing problem rather than keep hitting the snooze button: in modern society we find more and more people who have no use and no place in the working world.  What do we do?  The American political scene is dominated by two major parties whose positions on that problem differ.  One party is doing nothing while the other party is doing all the wrong things.  Take your pick.  

 

My notion is that as minimum wage goes up, we increase the viability of robot restaurant staff, robot janitorial services, robot lawn services, robots generally filling those kinds of jobs subject to minimum wage, which forces us as a society to face this growing problem now, rather than one of the two traditional reactions: doing nothing or doing the wrong things.

 

>?Yo Sushi's (and similar chains) conveyor belts are clearly working, without even robots. Although there there is (1) a constantly updating temptation, and (2) you can signal a waiter for extra orders not on the belt. ?

 

Ja, Anders that local sushi boat place you and I went to is essentially that: a floating circular conveyor.  This would be a more sophisticated version of that, where the customer would make voice-command orders, and the possibly-mechanized cooks would prepare the plates, then the robots would fetch the plates.  A 50s era lunch counter theme would be great fun, along with a sign: 

 

Please do not tip the wait-bots (we never leave here.)

 

Or perhaps: If you wish to tip the wait-bots, please leave nuts, bolts and screws.

 

{8^D

 

That sorta thing.  How many fun signs can you imagine?  This is creative marketing, something at which the ExI crowd excels.

 

>?How much social interaction is worth varies from eatery to eatery; some make a big deal out of it, others try to win by price or good food. ..Anders Sandberg?

 

Ja, and with the robo-waiters and cooks, we bring in an entirely new aspect: sterility of the food.  If the food is being prepared entirely by robots, the kitchen can be kept at refrigerator temperatures, which would discourage most beasts.  Then if you could have a closing time of perhaps half an hour in the middle of the night, you could flood the kitchen with pure nitrogen to slay any extant insects or other vermin, then follow that with pure oxygen to slay the anaerobics.  The kitchen would be always completely dark to deal with any phototrophic organisms.  We could flush the whole area once a day with steamy hot water, or for that matter, just steam, with enough force to dislodge any stray food debris.  If you wanted, you could even irradiate the food as it comes into the kitchen area in the form of raw produce, all the better to slay any pathogen.

 

We would then have the cleanest possible kitchen, entirely free of human-borne pathogens.  Kewallll?

 

spike  

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From atymes at gmail.com  Wed Jun 25 21:56:58 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:56:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
 <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQ64990tox+4Tr8uiKTMo3LhJbi9e7S+jFc4JfAS0FbXw@mail.gmail.com>

Spike, if you haven't already, google "Momentum Machines".  They are but
one of the companies trying to implement this sort of thing.  If you can
introduce them to funding or other resources, so much the better.
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From spike66 at att.net  Wed Jun 25 22:13:05 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 15:13:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQ64990tox+4Tr8uiKTMo3LhJbi9e7S+jFc4JfAS0FbXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
 <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQ64990tox+4Tr8uiKTMo3LhJbi9e7S+jFc4JfAS0FbXw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <06f601cf90c2$a3f17800$ebd46800$@att.net>

 

>? On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2014 2:57 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] robotic lunch counters

 

>?Spike, if you haven't already, google "Momentum Machines".  They are but one of the companies trying to implement this sort of thing.  If you can introduce them to funding or other resources, so much the better?

Ja thanks, I know of them.  My notion is to combine the 50s lunch counter notion with robo-waiters, together with Momentum?s food prep-bot.  From a marketing standpoint, it makes a cool fun mixed-metaphor eating establishment, which I hope causes patrons to think hard as they munch their burgers: what happens when all service-level jobs are done by robots?  Don?t brush aside the question or spew the usual talking points, think my extropian future-minded friends.  Gaze into the near-term future.

You guys know me by now: I am the local hard-core capitalist cheerleader.  I can see that there is good justification for taking starvation off the table as a consequence of being unable to find employment.  Plenty of us here can see that.  How?  

Perhaps the patrons of robo-caf? will realize where we are in history: feedback and control theory is getting sophisticated enough to obviate plenty of humans in plenty of jobs.  If human employees are no longer needed, they don?t just go away.  There is no away.  Here is away.  We, as a society, as communists, socialists, democrats, republicans, libertarians, tea party, liberal, conservative hard core minarcho-capitalists, engineering geeks, artists and anyone else I missed, need to collectively recognize where we are, and stop fooling ourselves.  The future doesn?t need everyone here, and the future?s need for some of us is only declining, with no end in sight.  Eschewing robo-caf?s will not make the problem go away; embracing them will not make it go away either.

What do we do now?

spike

 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 01:15:05 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 18:15:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <06f601cf90c2$a3f17800$ebd46800$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
 <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQ64990tox+4Tr8uiKTMo3LhJbi9e7S+jFc4JfAS0FbXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <06f601cf90c2$a3f17800$ebd46800$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSautoBLgC94VC8jXGRsKyhtpkrsNadtXvgNR8XoF_FyQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 25, 2014 3:28 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> What do we do now?

Research the business concept, write a plan where the numbers make sense,
find someone willing and able to fund it, and start a restaurant (or
whatever you wish to call it) using this tech.
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 02:04:53 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:04:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSautoBLgC94VC8jXGRsKyhtpkrsNadtXvgNR8XoF_FyQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net> <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQ64990tox+4Tr8uiKTMo3LhJbi9e7S+jFc4JfAS0FbXw@mail.gmail.com>
 <06f601cf90c2$a3f17800$ebd46800$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNSautoBLgC94VC8jXGRsKyhtpkrsNadtXvgNR8XoF_FyQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZKZ=_uJWuVVESHu8FNFGJdPXsdz3nqnkZkRBRrw-BgAw@mail.gmail.com>

ail.com <atymes at gmail.com>> wrote:

> On Jun 25, 2014 3:28 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> > What do we do now?
> ?Popularize youth in asia.
>

?bill w?


> ?
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 03:55:33 2014
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 20:55:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] "Immigrants from the Future"
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy3qgzTXLQ5WAbk9dVWEs9R2eqYU83Qij+uN=JsRqKqJ6A@mail.gmail.com>

The Economist magazine did a special report about the present and future of
robotics.  I am old enough to remember when robotics was largely the domain
of science fiction, than popular science magazines, and now, The Economist!


http://www.economist.com/news/special-report/21599522-robots-offer-unique-insight-what-people-want-technology-makes-their?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/co/mortonpost


John
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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 04:01:13 2014
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 21:01:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] "Minimalism," a documentary...
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy2s9jVcSaUwFOfdnuBSoXzaSV6vsHhOrh6NXkwZZCFeOg@mail.gmail.com>

*"Minimalism <http://minimalismfilm.com>* is an upcoming documentary
<http://youtu.be/WJWVADbD3yY> by New York City filmmaker Matt D?Avella
<https://twitter.com/mattdavella> that explores the lives of individuals
who are attempting to lead richer lives by abandoning things and focusing
on what?s important. The film, due out n 2015, focuses on a wide variety of
individuals from artists to businesspeople."

John
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From brent.allsop at canonizer.com  Thu Jun 26 04:52:14 2014
From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop)
Date: Wed, 25 Jun 2014 22:52:14 -0600
Subject: [ExI] New consciousness paper
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYZJ7=4ceut7GUiE9fGqFVBd18Vv-2TxQf4_w_iyH6TXw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE80E@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>
 <CAK7-onsHjc9HH6iiFC-3p2Dm+q1Si5X2JxwEHwyozyCbT5EPkA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAO+xQEYZJ7=4ceut7GUiE9fGqFVBd18Vv-2TxQf4_w_iyH6TXw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <53ABA6FE.2010003@canonizer.com>

On 6/25/2014 12:17 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote:
>
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 12:43 PM, Brent Allsop 
> <brent.allsop at canonizer.com <mailto:brent.allsop at canonizer.com>> wrote:
>
>
>
>     Hi Colin,
>
>
>     Isn't the 'hard problem' all about knowing what other minds are
>     qualitatively like?  (as in is my redness the same as yours?)
>
>     Brent
>
> Yes, do the research,

I hear you saying there are more than 20 thousand peer reviewed 
publications, and that I should attempt to read them all.  Might I ask 
how many you've read, and how many do you fully understand?  If I asked 
you what are the best (i.e. most well accepted by the expert theories in 
that 20 thousands works, might there be an easy to read, concise, state 
of the theory, summary, somewhere.  That's our goal with the 
Consciousness Survey Project. (see Canonizer.com)  So far, evidence for 
how much expert consensus there is for the leading theories is quite 
educational.  I've been working on interviewing experts for 6 years now, 
and integrating all their diverse theories into the survey, with the 
goal of fully understanding all their theories, and demonstrably 
knowing, concisely and quantitatively, and in real time, what the best, 
and most rapidly emerging consensus new theories are and which are old 
and now falsified for most.  So far we've integrated camps from Steven 
Lehar, David Chalmers, Daniel Dennet, John Smythies, Stuart Hameroff, 
and about 50 others.  It'd be great to get your theories integrated into 
the survey, even if you think this kind of stuff is not approachable via 
science.

> but I have to doubt that even if you can locate consciousness in brain 
> areas, just what kind of explanation of it does that provide?

We're working on theoretical work, at Canoniizer.com, that predicts 
scientists are about to do things like experimentally prove if there is, 
or isn't things like "inverted qualia" and how they will do this.  In 
other words, could my redness experience be more like your grenness, and 
visa versa, and how would scientifically know?  And more important than 
that, I'm a normal "tri chromat", and I desperately know what the 4 
color tetrachloride experience, which I've never experienced before in 
my life, is like, and to be able to experience all possible qualia in 
the entire universe.  Oh, yea, and I want to solve the "problem of other 
minds" experimentally, so that everyone we agree that consciousness has, 
indeed, been fully explained.

> It certainly won't answer Brent's problem above. Maybe not ever.

I hear you so saying that these type of things are not approachable via 
science or that you have no hope for such?    The survey project is 
proving there is more consensus that consciousness is approachable via 
science than any other doctrine.  Also, I hear you saying that your 
paper has nothing to do with this kind of so call 'hard problem'.  It 
looks to me like your entire paper is just about stuff David Chalmers 
would say are 'easy problems'.  The closest thing to a 'hard problem' 
has to do with the problem I am talking about above.  And even that is 
predicted to be not that 'hard'.  So I don't understand why you are 
saying your paper is about the "hard problem".   If it isn't the 'hard 
problem' I'm talking about above, what kind of 'hard problem' are you 
talking about in your paper?

> , as they will find that not all brains do identical things under 
> identical conditions, if they haven't already (likely).
>

This is a common mistaken objection people have towards stuff like this 
being approachable via science.  We are working on a paper that shows 
how this kind of faithless thinking is mistaken.  We are predicting that 
there are 'elemental' qualia that have causal properties, making them 
discoverable and 'effable' via scientific experimental demonstration.):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y1iReFjNmMsqtWp4itNxlDDmpqE8jK2_apW827kQumU/edit?usp=sharing

I'd be interested to know your thoughts.  Specifically, if the 
scientific experiments, like effing the ineffable, are achieved by 
scientists as the paper is predicting they are about to do, would 
something like a new qualia that you've never experienced before being 
'effed' to you, falsify your faithless beliefs that this kind of stuff 
is not approachable via science?

Oh, and you didn't answer my question about if there is a free copy of 
your paper?  But, I must admit, I'm more interested in true hard 
problems.  I find it very hard to get motivated enough to have any 
interest in easy problems.

Brent Allsop

> bill w
>
>
>
>
>
>
>     On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales
>     <cghales at unimelb.edu.au <mailto:cghales at unimelb.edu.au>> wrote:
>
>         Dear Folk,
>
>         I thought you might be interested in the following paper,
>         which is essentially my PhD outcome packaged into a journal
>         paper (49 pages!), contextualised with respect to
>         consciousness, and now finally published in a special journal
>         issue on the 'Hard problem of Consciousness'. Online-ready
>         only at this point. Came out yesterday. There are 14
>         supplementary videos.
>
>         Hales, Colin G. 2014: 'The origins of the brain's endogenous
>         electromagnetic field and its relationship to provision of
>         consciousness'. /Journal of Integrative Neuroscience/, Vol 13
>         Issue 2, pp. 1-49.
>
>         http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}
>         <http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24%7bresultBean.queryID%7d>
>
>         *ABSTRACT*
>
>         As a potential source of consciousness, the brain's endogenous
>         electromagnetic (EM) field has much to commend it.
>         Difficulties connecting EM phenomena and consciousness have
>         been exacerbated by the lack of a specific conclusive
>         biophysically realistic mechanism originating the EM field,
>         its form and dynamics. This work explores a potential
>         mechanism: the spatial and temporal coherent action of
>         transmembrane ion channel currents which simultaneously
>         produce electric and magnetic fields that dominate all other
>         field sources. Ion channels, as tiny current filaments,
>         express, at a distance, the electric and magnetic fields akin
>         to those of a short (transmembrane) copper wire. Following
>         assembly of appropriate formalisms from EM field theory, the
>         paper computationally explores the scalar electric potential
>         produced by the current filaments responsible for an action
>         potential (AP) in a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal
>         neuron. It reveals that AP signaling can impress a highly
>         structured, focused and directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam"
>         that "illuminates" neighbors at mm scales. Ion channel
>         currents thereby provide a possible explanation for both
>         EEG/MEG origins and recently confirmed functional EM coupling
>         effects. Finally, a physically plausible EM field
>         decomposition is posited. It reveals objective and subjective
>         perspectives intrinsic to the membrane-centric field dynamics.
>         Perceptual "fields" can be seen to operate as the collective
>         action of virtual EM-boson composites (called qualeons)
>         visible only by "being" the fields, yet objectively appear as
>         the familiar EM field activity. This explains the problematic
>         evidence presentation and offers a physically plausible route
>         to a solution to the "hard problem".
>
>         For those impoverished and for those without institutional
>         access I do have the preprint. Just email me.
>
>         Traction. Finally. J
>
>         Cheers
>
>         Colin Hales
>
>
>         _______________________________________________
>         extropy-chat mailing list
>         extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>         <mailto: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 <mailto: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

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From cghales at unimelb.edu.au  Thu Jun 26 05:06:15 2014
From: cghales at unimelb.edu.au (Colin Geoffrey Hales)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 05:06:15 +0000
Subject: [ExI] New consciousness paper
In-Reply-To: <CAK7-onsHjc9HH6iiFC-3p2Dm+q1Si5X2JxwEHwyozyCbT5EPkA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FE80E@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>
 <CAK7-onsHjc9HH6iiFC-3p2Dm+q1Si5X2JxwEHwyozyCbT5EPkA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <F25250CDF5580041A650C69C1BF52E1D582FEE67@000S-EX-MBX-QS3.unimelb.edu.au>

Hi Brent,
Send me a private email and I?ll give you a preprint.

The hard problem of consciousness is an explanation of mind; That is, why it is that the collection of material inside our skulls has a ?first person, experienced? perspective.

There are a huge pile of claims to have provided some kind of scientific account. Over time, however, empirical work is slowly drawing us towards the EM field. My paper paved that road a little further into plausibility. The background is all in the paper.

The difference this time is that I?ve located a perfect physically plausible place for the brain to deliver a first person perspective, physically.

It?s possible that I might have actually done something useful. Who knew?!

Happy to provide preprint to anyone that asks (and supplementary videos if asked).

Cheers
Colin Hales



From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Brent Allsop
Sent: Thursday, 26 June 2014 3:44 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] New consciousness paper


Hi Colin,
So is the paper available for free, someplace?
I'm very interested in the "hard problem of consciousness" but am having troubles understanding how any of this has anything to do with that "Hard Problem".
It's probably because I don't understand a bunch of it.  For example, what is a "provision of consciousness"?
Isn't the 'hard problem' all about knowing what other minds are qualitatively like?  (as in is my redness the same as yours?)

Brent



On Tue, Jun 24, 2014 at 11:28 PM, Colin Geoffrey Hales <cghales at unimelb.edu.au<mailto:cghales at unimelb.edu.au>> wrote:
Dear Folk,
I thought you might be interested in the following paper, which is essentially my PhD outcome packaged into a journal paper (49 pages!), contextualised with respect to consciousness, and now finally published in a special journal issue on the ?Hard problem of Consciousness?. Online-ready only at this point. Came out yesterday. There are 14 supplementary videos.
Hales, Colin G. 2014: 'The origins of the brain?s endogenous electromagnetic field and its relationship to provision of consciousness'. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, Vol 13 Issue 2, pp. 1-49.
http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24{resultBean.queryID}<http://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219635214400056?queryID=%24%7bresultBean.queryID%7d>
ABSTRACT
As a potential source of consciousness, the brain's endogenous electromagnetic (EM) field has much to commend it. Difficulties connecting EM phenomena and consciousness have been exacerbated by the lack of a specific conclusive biophysically realistic mechanism originating the EM field, its form and dynamics. This work explores a potential mechanism: the spatial and temporal coherent action of transmembrane ion channel currents which simultaneously produce electric and magnetic fields that dominate all other field sources. Ion channels, as tiny current filaments, express, at a distance, the electric and magnetic fields akin to those of a short (transmembrane) copper wire. Following assembly of appropriate formalisms from EM field theory, the paper computationally explores the scalar electric potential produced by the current filaments responsible for an action potential (AP) in a realistic hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neuron. It reveals that AP signaling can impress a highly structured, focused and directed "sweeping-lighthouse beam" that "illuminates" neighbors at mm scales. Ion channel currents thereby provide a possible explanation for both EEG/MEG origins and recently confirmed functional EM coupling effects. Finally, a physically plausible EM field decomposition is posited. It reveals objective and subjective perspectives intrinsic to the membrane-centric field dynamics. Perceptual "fields" can be seen to operate as the collective action of virtual EM-boson composites (called qualeons) visible only by "being" the fields, yet objectively appear as the familiar EM field activity. This explains the problematic evidence presentation and offers a physically plausible route to a solution to the "hard problem".
For those impoverished and for those without institutional access I do have the preprint. Just email me.
Traction. Finally. ?
Cheers
Colin Hales


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org<mailto:extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 07:38:05 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 00:38:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] SETI needs new approach (was for the fermi paradox fans)
In-Reply-To: <1403448144.27784.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
References: <1403365797.51620.YahooMailNeo@web160505.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
 <CALAdGNS6BNNrz8EZ-oJd0tXXCWzgdV5ofqy9RGMoaVpns0vtQA@mail.gmail.com>
 <1403448144.27784.YahooMailNeo@web160501.mail.bf1.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQ2Z62RizQZoE89Er0aGLRkJbdrueYPrDuJJgrGM7Zp6A@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 22, 2014 at 7:42 AM, The Avantguardian <
avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> True. But how much *time* do we have compared to our potential
> competitors/collaborators in other star systems?
>

There is slightly more evidence for "billions of years" than for "until
tomorrow" - to wit: no obvious immediate threats in our lightcone.
Anything beyond that is unjustifiable speculation.


> >But there are at least two variants of #2 that seem more likely.  Either
> some signal was accidentally transmitted on that frequency (and whoever did
> it isn't stepping forward because illegal or illegal) and bounced off, or
> one was transmitted on a nearby frequency and got frequency shifted in the
> process of bouncing off.
>
> So choose. Which is more unbelievable? Extraterrestrials or a conspiracy
> theory?


I have no reason to choose.  Both of them are less believable than mundane
explanations, such as the one I just gave.


> The laws of physics gave rise to life here. What is so special about
> *here*?
>

Coincidence and chance is one possibility.  As unlikely as it sounds, it
does completely explain what we observe, without any even-less-likely
additions.


>   >When we (presumably an intelligent species) sent out the Arecibo
> message, we only did it *once*. Why would they do any differently?
> >>
> >
> >Because they wanted there to be no mistake on the receiving end?  Or they
> wanted to avoid the chance that the listener happened not to be listening
> at that moment?
>
> You are assuming that *we* are supposed to be the recieving end. That
> seems an unlikely assumption. The majority of tweets do not go to Lone
> Signal.
>

You asked about an extraterrestrial equivalent to the Arecibo message.  By
definition in that case, we would be supposed to be on the receiving end.


> Repeated signals are hard to reliably incorporate when everything in the
> universe from electrons up to galaxies spin.


That a thing is hard to acquire does not change whether it would be the
necessary proof.

Thought experiment: how often is Greenwich, England at its closest possible
> distance from Olympus Mons on Mars? Now imagine that instead of Mars its
> some exoplanet in a star system many light years away.


The daily, or even yearly, variance in the distance from Greenwich to Mars,
as a fraction of the total distance, is far smaller than the daily and
yearly variances from Greenwich to any exoplanet, as a fraction of that
total distance.


> those damnable queen ants with their aristrocratic airs.


Ant "queens" are more like "breeding slaves": kept alive and nurtured so
they can produce more ants, but only so long as they keep popping out
larvae, and forbidden from leaving.  While I grant that there are humans
who enjoy aspects of that as a fetish, the package as a whole for the
slave's entire life from first pregnancy to death is far from mainstream
practice.

Why go through all the work of mining and refining gold when you can just
> take the finished product from the Incas?


If you can travel the stars, you can get gold - or just about any other raw
resource - in great quantities from places without life that will sabotage
your efforts to take it.  Unless they're within several light years of us,
these rocks would be much closer to them, too.


> I am willing concede that that the fraction of the signals SETI has
> recieved is from intelligent ETs *could* be zero if you are willing to
> concede it *could* be grester than zero. I just don't appreciate that a
> lack of evidence is being paraded as a logical paradox. If you are
> unwilling to to fund the experiment, then you deserve to be ignorant.
>

I don't have to claim that the odds are literally zero.  I just have to
note that the probability of there being one, in the fraction of signal
space they have yet to explore using the limited methods they propose,
times the potential benefit if they find something, is estimated at less
than the amount they are requesting.

Yes, the potential benefit is quite, quite large.  The odds are quite,
quite small - again, *using the methods they currently propose*.  My
"contribution", by spending the money instead on my rocket launch startup
CubeCab, is focusing on making LEO and beyond more practical for humanity
to access, so that among many other things, SETI can easily access and
propose to use substantially less limited methods, drastically increasing
their odds of finding something if it is out there...and resulting in all
kinds of other benefits even if SETI still finds nothing.

It is akin to the problem of hunger in Africa.  You can feed 1,000 people
for a year - or with that same money, you can fund changing their
conditions so that they can keep what crops they grow, allowing them to
keep themselves out of hunger for much longer.  You don't have enough money
to do both at once.
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 08:18:04 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 04:18:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <06f601cf90c2$a3f17800$ebd46800$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
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Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhQNBK5VicyU-nf_gCMV0JS=SytQeFwSa2dXE5djiEgPg@mail.gmail.com>

On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 6:13 PM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:


> The future doesn?t need everyone here, and the future?s need for some of
> us is only declining, with no end in sight.  Eschewing robo-caf?s will not
> make the problem go away; embracing them will not make it go away either.
>
> What do we do now?
>

### Let me give you a Marxist answer: Everything depends on who and how
controls the means of production (that's the usual commie word for capital).

In our society capital is controlled by a relatively large group of
citizens, using the social conventions of firms, stocks, private ownership,
state ownership, and other social technologies where these social
conventions rely on widespread acquiescence achieved through habit,
self-sustaining social pressure, and calculation of self-interest. The
system is ultimately backstopped by machine guns and nuclear weapons but,
as the salient point here, it depends on widespread human attitudes because
many humans can sabotage it or use it to their benefit. Both are important
- ability to break stuff means partial control, ability to benefit provides
incentives to be involved. It is a stalemate of mutually assured
impoverishment, a moderately efficient Nash equilibrium.

The new development is that human skills are no longer needed. The question
is whether human attitudes will remain important as well.

Let's for the sake of argument think about mining investment in Freedonia.
Today the international investor knows that the locals could decide to take
his mine away, increase taxes, loot, nationalize (I am using multiple
synonyms), and both the political elite and the unwashed masses are a
danger to the owner of capital which is why the owner has to pay off the
elites to keep the masses at bay. Things do not run smoothly - there are
always some rebels running around, coups happen and new leeches have to
paid from scratch, and small time thieves exact their toll as well. All of
them can break your shit, so their attitudes matter. Furthermore, many of
them can directly benefit from breaking or taking your stuff, so they are
incentivized to get involved.

Now, let's say that a fully automated mine is built. Big progress - most
activity is underground, there are automated trucks laden with refined
metal driving out but otherwise humans see nothing stealable, not even
office supplies. Control over capital no longer has intermediaries - there
are no engineers, managers, janitors. The capitalist is the one who has
legitimized root access to the control software. Attitudes of human workers
don't matter, since there are no human workers. Ned and his friends can't
break your looms anymore.

Maybe you can pay the elites to let you use your robots for defense against
thieves, for now using only non-lethal devices,  The masses can no longer
directly pressure you. Their attitude towards you no longer matters. The
robots cannot be diverted to other uses, like stolen cars or guns, since
they are programmed to self-destruct if stolen. There is less incentive to
steal.

Let's go a step further. The elites still get paid and they use some of the
loot to buy a robotic army, to deal with the rebels. Whoever has a robotic
army, wins. The attitudes of others don't matter. They don't have to paid
off. Whoever has root access to the army control software is the sovereign.

Of course, Freedonians didn't write the software. Somebody somewhere in the
cloud has root access. If the Freedonian elites try to take your mine, you
pay for their army to refuse orders. You may consider keeping the elites as
an ornament but their attitudes don't matter. Root access is the key.

Rinse and repeat - Freedonia, Nigeria, Turkey, China, USA - their time of
decisions and change will come. There will be variations but all will face
the question of how to control potentially sentient capital when humans do
not matter.

To summarize: The shape of the future will depend on the information
technologies used to control access to capital. Labor will be irrelevant,
economically and politically. Will technology would be compatible with wide
access to capital, and using what criteria, what feedback loops? Or will
technology favor increasingly centralized control of capital?

Maybe multiple independent makers and owners of robots could achieve a
stable stalemate of mutually assured destruction. But maybe technology
wants something else.

No doubt there will be some path dependency - societies with strong
traditions of participatory politics may be able to retain distributed
control of capital, through stock markets where each share gives partial
root access to a company's financial structure, or through widespread
private ownership of robots. Maybe future Solarians will use brain implants
to maintain cryptographic control over the laboring multitudes of asimos
(at least until Blissenobiarella intervenes).

Others may use more stupid methods like sovereign investment funds
spreading robot-made largesse to the human drones, and a state-owned robot
army programmed to obey duly elected commanders.

Yet other societies may end up with a very narrow elite, possibly a single
supreme and direct controller of all capital. And of course, even before
the dust settles, new disruptions in the form of self-owning non-human AI
as well as uploaded and modified post-humans will introduce yet another
layer of unpredictability.

The only thing I am certain of is that these will be interesting times.

Rafal
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From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jun 26 14:39:37 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 16:39:37 +0200
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhQNBK5VicyU-nf_gCMV0JS=SytQeFwSa2dXE5djiEgPg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3632490548-32486@secure.ericade.net>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 26/6/2014 10:22 AM:

### Let me give you a Marxist answer: Everything depends on who and how controls the means of production (that's the usual commie word for capital).
Note that the Freedonia example assumes nobody else builds robots. If the local elites or rabble have means of production and/or enforcement the scenarios get equalized.
Another issue is what the robots can produce. In the example it was mining something and defence. If that is all, then there will still be large groups of artisans and other professionals that need to be kept happy to produce the stuff the owner wants. If robots can do that, then we are already roaring into the AGI situation where things will change anyway dramatically.?
Still, I think the basic argument is relevant: if capital can replace labour, the economy becomes very different. What society one runs on top of it may be very variable.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jun 26 15:03:52 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 08:03:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <3632490548-32486@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAAc1gFhQNBK5VicyU-nf_gCMV0JS=SytQeFwSa2dXE5djiEgPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3632490548-32486@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <019c01cf914f$d8965b10$89c31130$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg
Subject: Re: [ExI] robotic lunch counters

 

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> , 26/6/2014 10:22 AM:

 

### Let me give you a Marxist answer: Everything depends on who and how controls the means of production (that's the usual commie word for capital).

 

 

>?Still, I think the basic argument is relevant: if capital can replace labour, the economy becomes very different. What society one runs on top of it may be very variable. ?Anders Sandberg?

 

 

Ja to both.  

 

But where I was going was a subject I have been pondering a lot recently: taking hunger off the table as a consequence of finding no profitable employment.  This is me talking, the local hardcore minarcho-capitalist.  I can see the value in distributing actual food, rather than the way this is being done today in USA: distributing debit cards, the modern descendant of what we used to call food stamps.  The problem with that approach is that these debit cards can (and are) traded for cash, which is then used for dope and such, while the children are still hungry.

 

In a crisis in the 1930s, the USA did distribute actual food to impoverished citizens.  In those days they had apparently not enough servers, which in itself seems paradoxical with all those unemployed people standing around in the soup lines.  The gangster Al Capone started this one:

 

http://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h1660.html

 

Now if you had massively parallel robo-servers, we could distribute food to the needy without requiring them to stand in line.  To the argument that this would drive fast food establishments out of business, well, sure.  But those are sundowning anyway because of rising minimum wage everywhere.  Low cost food could be produced and distributed by machine, vegetarian entirely, delivered in edible packaging or packaging that birds would devour, paperless or wrapped in rice paper for instance.  Face recognition software could be used to prevent one person gathering up a lot of the free food to go feed to hogs and such.  I can imagine we could feed masses of unemployed proles at very low cost using a complete protein subsistence meal made of a mixture of beans and rice wrapped in a wheat flour tortilla-like device, wrapped in rice paper, all done by indestructible machine.

 

My notion is that such an arrangement would take starvation off the table while not destroying the work ethic of the population.  Hardcore capitalists don?t want people to go hungry.

 

spike

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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 15:37:48 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 11:37:48 -0400
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <019c01cf914f$d8965b10$89c31130$@att.net>
References: <CAAc1gFhQNBK5VicyU-nf_gCMV0JS=SytQeFwSa2dXE5djiEgPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3632490548-32486@secure.ericade.net>
 <019c01cf914f$d8965b10$89c31130$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjZ0a+Rfz9GacXiScGCxUosnkAiBV3jTQO8x+_1efFH-Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 11:03 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:


>  I can imagine we could feed masses of unemployed proles at very low cost
> using a complete protein subsistence meal
>

### Soylent!

As long as the proles have a vote, they'll get more though. Nancy Kress
wrote some nice books about "Beggars and Choosers", where the cognitive
elite (Choosers) owns and runs automated manufacturing and distributes
largesse to unproductive proles (Beggars) who in return vote to keep their
alms-givers in power.

Rafal
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 15:45:46 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 11:45:46 -0400
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <3632490548-32486@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAAc1gFhQNBK5VicyU-nf_gCMV0JS=SytQeFwSa2dXE5djiEgPg@mail.gmail.com>
 <3632490548-32486@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgraMQ=UuA5grc5w5X96dtDHm--hW0n7MLaC8O0Nd_3VQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 10:39 AM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

Another issue is what the robots can produce. In the example it was mining
> something and defence. If that is all, then there will still be large
> groups of artisans and other professionals that need to be kept happy to
> produce the stuff the owner wants. If robots can do that, then we are
> already roaring into the AGI situation where things will change anyway
> dramatically.
>

### Yes, that's my impression, too - the jobless humans with still-human
elites will be a very temporary situation, to be followed by various
singularity scenarios.

Rafal
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From atymes at gmail.com  Thu Jun 26 17:30:17 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 10:30:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhQNBK5VicyU-nf_gCMV0JS=SytQeFwSa2dXE5djiEgPg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNTE9EDjq5P23uqrMWptpMb3YKsqaU9nsLyUth=_tp1YCA@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 26, 2014 1:19 AM, "Rafal Smigrodzki" <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
wrote:
> The robots cannot be diverted to other uses, like stolen cars or guns,
since they are programmed to self-destruct if stolen. There is less
incentive to steal.

And if the self-destructs are disabled, or the point is just wrecking your
mine (impoverishing you) instead of taking the robots?

> Let's go a step further. The elites still get paid and they use some of
the loot to buy a robotic army, to deal with the rebels. Whoever has a
robotic army, wins.

Even today, DIY robots of military value are available to the masses.

> Of course, Freedonians didn't write the software. Somebody somewhere in
the cloud has root access.

There do exist honest programmers who do not leave such back doors.  OTOH,
there also exist those who specialize in gaining root access to what they
are not supposed to have root access to.

> Maybe multiple independent makers and owners of robots could achieve a
stable stalemate of mutually assured destruction. But maybe technology
wants something else.

Technology never "wants" anything.  It is ever but a tool.  A stalemate
seems likely.

Besides, programming is not that hard a skill to pick up.  Even now, some -
not as many as could be, but some - out of work mid-career janitors and
servers are retraining.  Even in Freedonia.
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 27 03:49:12 2014
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2014 23:49:12 -0400
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNTE9EDjq5P23uqrMWptpMb3YKsqaU9nsLyUth=_tp1YCA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
 <068501cf90b6$975bfef0$c613fcd0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQ64990tox+4Tr8uiKTMo3LhJbi9e7S+jFc4JfAS0FbXw@mail.gmail.com>
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Message-ID: <CAAc1gFi6L28Mq_htcSCuE=p6J_rN2BR=us0Ph+vTC8eToNt1uw@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 1:30 PM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Jun 26, 2014 1:19 AM, "Rafal Smigrodzki" <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > The robots cannot be diverted to other uses, like stolen cars or guns,
> since they are programmed to self-destruct if stolen. There is less
> incentive to steal.
>
> And if the self-destructs are disabled, or the point is just wrecking your
> mine (impoverishing you) instead of taking the robots?
>
### The point discussed here is protection against dumb people. They won't
be able to disable the self-destructs, and of course, before the software
considers self-destruction, the previously mentioned defensive robots would
have to be defeated, again, not easy for dumb, disorganized people.

Dealing with smart opponents is of course much more difficult but then
smart people are a minority, and may be co-opted.

---------------------

> > Let's go a step further. The elites still get paid and they use some of
> the loot to buy a robotic army, to deal with the rebels. Whoever has a
> robotic army, wins.
>
> Even today, DIY robots of military value are available to the masses.
>
### Will they DIY enough robots to overcome my robots? Remember, they have
no jobs to pay for the 3D printer feed.

----------------

> > Of course, Freedonians didn't write the software. Somebody somewhere in
> the cloud has root access.
>
> There do exist honest programmers who do not leave such back doors.  OTOH,
> there also exist those who specialize in gaining root access to what they
> are not supposed to have root access to.
>
### Indeed, the existence of smart opponents makes for multiple equilibria
and unpredictable outcomes.

-----------------

> > Maybe multiple independent makers and owners of robots could achieve a
> stable stalemate of mutually assured destruction. But maybe technology
> wants something else.
>
> Technology never "wants" anything.  It is ever but a tool.
>
### Here I strongly disagree. Technology is applied physics. It is
discovered, not just made. Our desires interact with it but don't fully
control it. Even simple tools don't always do what you want, and the whole
space of technological possibilities constrains the shape of possible
societies.The existence of a certain technological possibility has an
impact on the society no matter whether the majority wants it or not.

If there is an easy and non-preventable method to make planetary
destruction weapons in your basement, waiting to be soon discovered, then
planets with even exceedingly small number of insane evil people would have
a very short expected lifetime. In that universe, technology does not want
people to be around.
------------------

>   A stalemate seems likely.
>
### Yes, I think it is likely but not guaranteed. We still have too little
data to make justified predictions.

 -----------------

> Besides, programming is not that hard a skill to pick up.  Even now, some
> - not as many as could be, but some - out of work mid-career janitors and
> servers are retraining.  Even in Freedonia.
>
### Only in "Superman III".

Rafal
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From atymes at gmail.com  Fri Jun 27 07:04:25 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 00:04:25 -0700
Subject: [ExI] robotic lunch counters
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFi6L28Mq_htcSCuE=p6J_rN2BR=us0Ph+vTC8eToNt1uw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEZa_sizi0-gSaac-X8d3WFSUEE8aJAKnXHnrUWU=Kzi-g@mail.gmail.com>
 <3565019168-6007@secure.ericade.net>
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Message-ID: <CALAdGNTkWoS_S1Mth23YNgghv55nSxDrGBzUa=J5LGHsn90VaA@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 8:49 PM, Rafal Smigrodzki <
rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote:

> ### The point discussed here is protection against dumb people. They won't
> be able to disable the self-destructs, and of course, before the software
> considers self-destruction, the previously mentioned defensive robots would
> have to be defeated, again, not easy for dumb, disorganized people.
>

It is uneconomic to deploy defensive robots everywhere.  If people trick
you into thinking that you have to, they can defeat you just by causing you
to overspend on defense while they spend instead on advancement.  That's
basically how the USA beat the USSR - at least, that was the final capstone.

If you don't fall for that, then by definition you've left weaknesses in
your defenses.  Enough that even low-skilled labor (and don't confuse that
for disorganized: labor unions are all about organizing these sorts of
folks, and have long experience battling against folks who wish to rule by
owning the capital) could slip through and trigger the self-destructs.


> Dealing with smart opponents is of course much more difficult but then
> smart people are a minority, and may be co-opted.
>

Not if they come to believe that their odds are better opposing you.  Like,
say, if you would relegate them to a low-to-middle management position for
life, never giving them a chance to rise, and they're smart enough to see
through your promises to the contrary.


> ### Will they DIY enough robots to overcome my robots? Remember, they have
> no jobs to pay for the 3D printer feed.
>

So they steal it.  Or find other means than 3D printing to make something
good enough (or better: 3D printing is a generalized production technique,
and can be outperformed in certain cases by older techniques, particularly
in mass manufacturing of regular components - such as lots of the same
weapon), and steal what they need for that.


> > Technology never "wants" anything.  It is ever but a tool.
> ### Here I strongly disagree. Technology is applied physics. It is
> discovered, not just made. Our desires interact with it but don't fully
> control it. Even simple tools don't always do what you want, and the whole
> space of technological possibilities constrains the shape of possible
> societies.The existence of a certain technological possibility has an
> impact on the society no matter whether the majority wants it or not.
>

Only insofar as they are used to a certain end.


> If there is an easy and non-preventable method to make planetary
> destruction weapons in your basement, waiting to be soon discovered, then
> planets with even exceedingly small number of insane evil people would have
> a very short expected lifetime. In that universe, technology does not want
> people to be around.
>

Anything with enough energy to destroy a planet is by definition not
typical-basement-grade.  But also note: despite the theoretical possibility
of a humanity-eradicating plague that could have been unleashed over the
past few decades - or, heck, global thermonuclear war and the ensuing
nuclear winter - humanity is still around.  Those with the smarts to use
advanced weaponry have a very high correlation with those with the smarts
not to actually use it in real situations, no matter what their bosses may
demand.

The British protected their nuclear weapons with bicycle locks through at
least the late 1990s - and they were never stolen nor improperly used in
all that time:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2007/11_november/15/newsnight.shtml

> Besides, programming is not that hard a skill to pick up.  Even now, some
> - not as many as could be, but some - out of work mid-career janitors and
> servers are retraining.  Even in Freedonia.
> ### Only in "Superman III".
>

And IRL.  I happen to teach programming, from time to time.  It has never
been my experience that the basics are extremely hard for properly
motivated people to learn.  Granted, I have selected my students - those
known to me quite well, and who I believe recognize they have a need to
learn or that they would strongly benefit from learning - but "need to
learn in order to defeat the invading robot army" would certainly meet the
required level of motivation.
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Fri Jun 27 18:40:11 2014
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 14:40:11 -0400
Subject: [ExI] "Minimalism," a documentary...
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy2s9jVcSaUwFOfdnuBSoXzaSV6vsHhOrh6NXkwZZCFeOg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2s9jVcSaUwFOfdnuBSoXzaSV6vsHhOrh6NXkwZZCFeOg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv1u=MdSusYXzP3kd_dHCxkJOoJPg82Jc_=4EWvxxQNDOg@mail.gmail.com>

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:01 AM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com>
wrote:

*> "Minimalism <http://minimalismfilm.com>* is an upcoming documentary
> <http://youtu.be/WJWVADbD3yY> by New York City filmmaker Matt D?Avella
> <https://twitter.com/mattdavella> that explores the lives of individuals
> who are attempting to lead richer lives by abandoning things and focusing
> on what?s important. The film, due out n 2015, focuses on a wide variety of
> individuals from artists to businesspeople."
>

Why is "Minimalism" such a big word?

 John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jun 27 19:38:52 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 12:38:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] "Minimalism," a documentary...
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv1u=MdSusYXzP3kd_dHCxkJOoJPg82Jc_=4EWvxxQNDOg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAGSKFy2s9jVcSaUwFOfdnuBSoXzaSV6vsHhOrh6NXkwZZCFeOg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv1u=MdSusYXzP3kd_dHCxkJOoJPg82Jc_=4EWvxxQNDOg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <012f01cf923f$6df85560$49e90020$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: Re: [ExI] "Minimalism," a documentary...

 

On Thu, Jun 26, 2014 at 12:01 AM, John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> wrote:

 

 <http://minimalismfilm.com> > "Minimalism is an upcoming documentary <http://youtu.be/WJWVADbD3yY>  ? The film, due out n 2015, focuses on a wide variety of individuals from artists to businesspeople."

 

>?Why is "Minimalism" such a big word?  John K Clark

 

 

Ja!  When we need new words, we should check which ones are still available and use them.  Instead of minimalism, I propose mism.  

 

spike


 

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jun 27 20:12:17 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 21:12:17 +0100
Subject: [ExI] SETI signals
Message-ID: <CAL_armh8fP1xAO-6673R0EvT5w1A0ui=ukwKb1h5D-PhbPan5g@mail.gmail.com>

New Scientist comments on a paper about detecting alien civilizations:

<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25807-pollution-on-other-worlds-may-show-advanced-alien-life.html>

Quote:
Henry Lin at Harvard University thinks we could find more advanced
civilisations if we look instead for industrial pollution. His team
calculates that James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) should be able to
spot two kinds of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), complex carbon-based
gases used in solvents and aerosols.

JWST would only be able to filter out signs of CFCs from highly
polluted atmospheres, the team found, but still within levels that
humans could tolerate. In addition, the telescope could in principle
detect the remnants of civilisations that annihilated themselves,
since some CFC molecules survive for up to 100,000 years and could
outlast their sources, says Loeb.
---------------

Quite a thought that aliens may detect CFCs on earth long after humans
have died out.


BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun 27 20:17:54 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 22:17:54 +0200
Subject: [ExI] "Minimalism," a documentary...
In-Reply-To: <012f01cf923f$6df85560$49e90020$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3740409099-3316@secure.ericade.net>

My new favourite word is "Dord". Short and sweet.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dord
Although there is something with long words... I just bought "Schottenfreude: German Words for the Human Condition" by Ben Schott. It is full of made-up but quite adequate German words for our emotions. I will certainly go on an?Erkenntnisspaziergang tomorrow. Given the considerations in http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2014/06/myoetaehaepeae_and_surprise_shadows.html and http://io9.com/can-you-feel-something-if-you-dont-have-a-word-for-it-1596854838it might a very good idea to make your language able to add new subtle concepts on the fly.
I have never been good at minimalism. I admire it (oh, Malevich's black square!) but I cannot actually do it.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Fri Jun 27 23:58:21 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 16:58:21 -0700
Subject: [ExI] FW: [tt] NYT: U.S. Prepares for Sale of Bitcoins Seized in
	Silk Road Raid
In-Reply-To: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1406272144000.19332@panix3.panix.com>
References: <Pine.NEB.4.64.1406272144000.19332@panix3.panix.com>
Message-ID: <01c401cf9263$ad73d1a0$085b74e0$@att.net>

I am posting this forward from Transhumanist Tech.  Interesting:

>... On Behalf Of Frank Forman
Subject: [tt] NYT: U.S. Prepares for Sale of Bitcoins Seized in Silk Road
Raid

U.S. Prepares for Sale of Bitcoins Seized in Silk Road Raid

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/26/u-s-prepares-for-sale-of-bitcoins-sei
zed-in-silk-road-raid/?_php=true&_type=blogs&ref=business&_r=0


By RACHEL ABRAMS and SYDNEY EMBER

On its face, it looked like a typical
government raid: Federal agents shut down an online drug marketplace,
seizing millions of dollars of ill-gotten gains in the process.

But there was just one problem. The money was in Bitcoin. And since last
fall, the government has been trying to figure out how it can sell it for
the maximum amount.

The federal government is responsible for selling property taken from
criminals, including cars, yachts and fine jewelry. But Bitcoin, a
computer-driven virtual currency that exists entirely online, is neither
fish nor fowl.

If the government dumped all the coins on the open exchanges where Bitcoins
are bought and sold, it could significantly depress their price.

So instead, with help from the F.B.I. and federal prosecutors in Manhattan,
the United States Marshals Service has arranged an online auction for nearly
30,000 of the Bitcoins it seized from the now-defunct market Silk Road,
which federal prosecutors shut in October and have accused of aiding the
sale of cocaine, ecstasy and other illegal goods and services.

"Selling Bitcoin with its somewhat liquid market is not the same as
auctioning off a 1998 Chevy with a couple of bullet holes in the driver's
door," Steven Englander, a research analyst with Citigroup, wrote in a note
on Wednesday.

Experts are divided on whether an auction of that many Bitcoins, which
represent a substantial percentage of the average daily trading volume, will
push the price down anyway.

Furthermore, the auction's setup has been an opaque and, at times, slapdash
process. A list of potential bidders was accidentally released on June 18 in
an email from the agency, which had said that it would not release any
information about the bidders or winning bids.

"The U.S. marshal specifically has never had to auction off this type of
asset," said Gil Luria, an analyst with Wedbush Securities who has studied
Bitcoin. "They're figuring it out for the first time, and maybe that's why
the process hasn't been completely transparent."

The government has provided some details about the process. Bidders will
have a 12-hour window on Friday to submit one sealed bid for the coins,
which have been broken up into lots of 3,000. The winners will be notified
on Monday. Only about 20 percent of the Bitcoins that were seized from Silk
Road will be auctioned, providing a test run if the government decides to
sell the rest.

The authorities are also concerned with Bitcoin's potential to be used for
illegal activity, and the agency screened potential bidders.

Bidders had to prove their identities and that they had at least
$200,000 in cash. They also had to certify that they were not affiliated
with Silk Road or its founder, Ross Ulbricht.

But for bidders, the auction process was less transparent. Questions about
the auction from would-be bidders were answered only in writing by a general
email inbox. And apparent typographical errors in the initial instructions
posted on the Marshals Service's website made it unclear when the
registration deadlines were. Some bidders also said other aspects of the
process had been vague.

Drew Wade, a spokesman for the Marshals Service, said: "There are necessary
privacy and security measures that the Marshals Service has to take." He
continued: "In particular, cases involving complex assets."

The problems, particularly the accidental release of names, could affect how
much money the government raises from what it hoped would be an efficient
auction.

In the days after the leak, people on the recipient list exchanged emails
with one another, turning what should have been an anonymous communication
into an open forum. "The leak has definitely changed the dynamics," said
Charles Allen, the chief executive of the Bitcoin Shop, whose name was on
the list.

The mistake also spurred unease among recipients of the message, he added.

"People have been very concerned about their privacy," Mr. Allen said. The
leaked list included prominent names in the Bitcoin world like the payment
processor Coinbase and the entrepreneur Barry Silbert, which could scare off
smaller bidders from participating, some experts said. On the flip side, it
could also entice other wealthy investors who do not want to sit on the
sidelines.

"Either this was a very clever piece of disinformation or a very careless
error by the government. It's a little hard to know which from a distance,"
David L. Yermack, a professor at New York University's Stern School of
Business, said of the leak. "You want to create the illusion that there's
immense demand for this if you're the government because you want people to
bid as much as they're willing to."

The Marshals Service made it clear publicly that the leak was unintentional.

Bitcoin, created by an anonymous computer programmer, or group of
programmers, at the height of the financial crisis, appealed to an
anti-establishment following that liked the idea of avoiding the banking
system and government regulation.

Users can either buy Bitcoins from one another or "unlock" them by solving
complicated mathematical algorithms. Since Bitcoin first appeared online in
2009, the price has fluctuated wildly, from a few pennies to over a thousand
dollars at its peak. The original programmers intended to create a finite
number of Bitcoins, which could make acquiring large quantities difficult.

Over the years, however, Bitcoin has reached a broader audience thanks to
the public backing of technologists, venture capitalists financing Bitcoin
enterprises and retailers accepting payment in Bitcoin.

It is that audience the Marshals Service hopes to tap in its auction.
Because of some of the missteps and the unprecedented nature of the auction,
estimating how much the government will raise is difficult. The Marshals
Service often conducts sealed-bid sales, but auction experts say that can
discourage bidders from participating.

Some bidders said their strategy relied more on game theory than financial
analysis. But game theory, in which players size up one another knowing that
their opponents are doing the same, is much harder when the game is kept a
secret.

Because participants in the auction will not know the size of the bidding
pool, they are likely to bid cautiously, said Lawrence M.
Ausubel, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland and an
auction theory expert.

Bidders may be willing to pay a premium to acquire a big lot of Bitcoins.

Mr. Silbert, the entrepreneur who runs a Bitcoin investment fund through his
firm SecondMarket, said his bid would be determined by the bids from his
clients, who were participating as part of a consortium.

"We have no discretion," Mr. Silbert said. "We are bidding based on where
all the bids come in into our syndicate."

Because of Bitcoin's volatility and lack of historical data, it is difficult
to compare the auction of Bitcoin to the auction of Treasury bonds, or other
financial instruments that trade openly. At the same time, Bitcoin's
price--it currently trades around $600-- will anchor Friday's bids to some
degree.

"If it's a Picasso, or if it's an oil field where basically you don't know
what the correct price is, you might say that the Picasso is anywhere from a
million to 10 million," Mr. Englander said in an interview. "It's not like a
Treasury bond, where you could get the price to four decimal places."
_______________________________________________
tt mailing list
tt at postbiota.org
http://postbiota.org/mailman/listinfo/tt



From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 17:07:48 2014
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 10:07:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Bonobos was Ants again
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB71FHMrVw6f=v4pTJz8Uvk8CLWeuCuPNLjd3jbXow2Cww@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 5:00 AM,  "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

(rex
>>...What? Chimps engage in wars and frequently systematically kill
> "enemies."
>
>>...http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960982210004598
>
>>...-rex
>
> Ja, Ann likes bonobos.  Those are a much more peaceful brand of chimps.

Bonobos are a major mystery.  Chimp numbers are ultimately limited by
a feedback mechanism, i.e., they kill each other at a rate that
depends on the density of chimps.

> It would be cool to investigate whether the chimp warfare severity is
> related in any way to the abundance of food and territory.  Reduction of
> chimp colonies by poaching or wildlife management might increase the
> available territory and food resources available to the colonies and reduce
> their  inter-colony battles.

This is obviously true.  However, human encroachment into the areas
they are occupying is more likely to increase their density and
warfare.

Keith


From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 29 17:10:22 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 10:10:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
Message-ID: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>

 

Question please for our local computer gurus.  The IRS is claiming that a
bunch of evidence was accidentally lost because a hard disk crashed on the
computer of the IRS director and six others within the IRS closely
associated with the investigation.  Today the IRS' attorney made this
comment:

 

"Lerner walked into her office one day and her computer screen was blue. Her
hard drive had crashed."

 

Questions please computer hipsters: 

 

- Does a crashed hard drive cause a blue screen?  

- Is there anything else that can cause a blue screen?

- What does a BIOS failure do?  Blue screen?

- Does a failed memory module on the motherboard cause a blue screen?

- Assuming a disk failure, if action is taken immediately, is any of the
data on the disk recoverable?

- Can a failed drive have any other consequences, such as a black screen
with large white text?  I see that sometimes.

- A blue screen has no info on it, ja?  So how would the user know it was a
disk crash?

- Are there other ways to retrieve email if a disk crashes?

 

It would be interesting to me if this whole thing could be cracked open by
the IRS' computer failure reports.  We just look at that report plus the
reports of the six other critical disks and see if their users reported blue
screens on the same day.  If so, it suggests a targeted virus of some sort
(ja?)  If they all simultaneously suffered some mysterious mechanical
failure that day (such as from impact with the floor or a 12 pound sledge
hammer) we are on to something else, but the point of this post is that
Americans should not brush off that question.  Reason: DiskGate has pointed
out the IRS has no constitutional limits on its authority to destroy you for
whatever reason it wants.  The 4th amendment does not apply to their
prosecution of you, but they can claim the 5th and walk away.  You can't.
They can demand any record they want of you from years past, but they are
not held accountable for losing their own recent records.  They can just
claim the critical disks all crashed, not a smidgen of corruption can be
proved, they should be given more money to buy better disks.

 

So does a crashed disk cause a BSOD?

 

spike

 

 

 

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From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 17:36:28 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 18:36:28 +0100
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 6:10 PM, spike wrote:
> Question please for our local computer gurus.  The IRS is claiming that a
> bunch of evidence was accidentally lost because a hard disk crashed on the
> computer of the IRS director and six others within the IRS closely
> associated with the investigation.  Today the IRS' attorney made this
> comment:
>
> "Lerner walked into her office one day and her computer screen was blue. Her
> hard drive had crashed."
>

That is a lawyer talking. You need to ask the tech support guy what
really happened.

There are many many reasons for a BSOD. A disk crash is probably way
down the list. You certainly wouldn't immediately assume a disk crash.
A BSOD usually fills the screen with error messages and memory dumps
to help tech support.

And obviously if you suspect the disk drive, you test it in another computer.

BillK


From atymes at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 18:54:29 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 11:54:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 10:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> That is a lawyer talking. You need to ask the tech support guy what
> really happened.
>

And the tech support guy's probably been ordered to stay silent and go on
vacation for a while, somewhere really hard to subpoena him.

But yes, the stated troubles are less than fully credible.
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun 29 19:21:20 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:21:20 +0200
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3909067404-28187@secure.ericade.net>

spike <spike66 at att.net> , 29/6/2014 7:28 PM:





?Lerner walked into her office one day and her computer screen was blue. Her hard drive had crashed.?

?

Questions please computer hipsters: 

?

- Does a crashed hard drive cause a blue screen??
Bill's point is relevant. A lot of people are just as bad at explaining what happened to their computers as they are at explaining their medical problems:http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/06/14/readers_corner_register/So the blue screen might have meant a computer not working rather than a system crash. Or a blue wallpaper on a non-working computer. Or that he had heard somebody saying the computer was dead, and assumed that all dead computers have blue screens.?
The technical issue is messy, "BSoDs can be caused by poorly written device drivers or malfunctioning hardware, such as faulty memory, power supply issues, overheating of components, or hardware running beyond its specification limits." - I can imagine some badly written software causing a crash if the disk is not where it is expected to be. But generally, I would not expect a BSoD for a disk crash, just a lot of dialogues offering reformatting.?





It would be interesting to me if this whole thing could be cracked open by the IRS? computer failure reports.? We just look at that report plus the reports of the six other critical disks and see if their users reported blue screens on the same day.? If so, it suggests a targeted virus of some sort (ja?)? If they all simultaneously suffered some mysterious mechanical failure that day (such as from impact with the floor or a 12 pound sledge hammer) we are on to something else, but the point of this post is that Americans should not brush off that question.?
Yup. By now even foreign media are starting to perk up their ears. The Economist had an article about DiskGate. So it will be interesting to see how accountable they will be held.
The more I learn about the 5th, the crazier it seems to be:?http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=2545 (the core anti-self-incrimination ideas in Anglo-Saxon law are a treasure, however).
It is worth recognizing that it is very tough to pursue this kind of case even in fairly nice administrations. The "Tsunami tapes" were a long running thriller in Swedish politics a few years ago, as a commission tried to determine who knew what when during the confusion after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami. The cabinet office first claimed they had the relevant files, then that they had been deleted, then somebody found tape backups, which immediately led to people invoking national security issues - all very obvious CYA tactics. In the end, after much wrangling, politics and conspiracy theory, the commission's conclusion were that the cabinet did have a lousy emergency organisation - the thing people had been trying to cover up and hence had generated all the drama - but that the tapes were not even needed to demonstrate that. It wouldn't surprise me that the real chain of events in IRS was something like this.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 29 19:13:20 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 12:13:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2014 11:54 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 10:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

That is a lawyer talking. You need to ask the tech support guy what
really happened.

 

>?And the tech support guy's probably been ordered to stay silent and go on vacation for a while, somewhere really hard to subpoena him?

Ja.  And if so, the IRS demonstrates once again that it is a naked singularity of political power.  They have unlimited authority to prosecute Americans with no real accountability for that power.  With the 16th amendment, the USA became a potential dictatorship.  We had always imagined the dictator to ascend thru the office of the president, when all along it was the head of the IRS who had that power.  It took nearly a century for the US to notice it was a dictatorship.

>?But yes, the stated troubles are less than fully credible?

 

Ja, but what difference does it make?  (?he asked, borrowing a phrase from a leading US politician?)

 

We have already caught IRS officials offering highly dubious excuses and pleading the fifth amendment, we have a sitting US president still calling the whole thing a phony scandal, we have a known-corrupt attorney general who is taking no interest in the case.

 

If the IRS can commit blatant spoliation of evidence with no serious consequences, what difference, at this point, what difference does it make?

 

spike

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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun 29 19:36:09 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:36:09 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Uploading ethics
Message-ID: <3910511221-23571@secure.ericade.net>

By the way, my uploading ethics paper is now officially out and open access:
Anders Sandberg. Ethics of brain emulations. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. Volume 26, Issue 3, 2014 Special Issue: Risks of General Artificial Intelligencehttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0952813X.2014.895113?queryID=%24%7BresultBean.queryID%7D#.U6vkP_ldWa8
Not that radical by our standards, but a start. And way more detail than the nearest competitor ;-) ?(a closely related chapter will show up in Damien Broderick and Mark Walker's book) The rest of the articles are also interesting, but not all are open access.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 19:57:22 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 14:57:22 -0500
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYW30dypj256jRcTUoQDwN--WNc8WNYjRM6=Qug+3DkoQ@mail.gmail.com>

?

If the IRS can commit blatant spoliation of evidence with no serious
consequences, what difference, at this point, what difference does it make?



spike


?Well, you seem to assume that they are guilty.  What if we had a federal
agency that did nothing but record everything government did?  Backup
everything, in other words, and off site - in the cloud, say.  Take the
users ability to erase anything away.  It would sure cut down on porn site
viewing and video game playing!  Maybe the VA could get something done for
a change.   bill w
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 20:21:42 2014
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 21:21:42 +0100
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgfrYNhJaTBQanQNEeVZosPR7KR0r=NcqHh9pMh-jPVDw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 8:13 PM, spike  wrote:
> We have already caught IRS officials offering highly dubious excuses and
> pleading the fifth amendment, we have a sitting US president still calling
> the whole thing a phony scandal, we have a known-corrupt attorney general
> who is taking no interest in the case.
>
> If the IRS can commit blatant spoliation of evidence with no serious
> consequences, what difference, at this point, what difference does it make?
>

I doubt if they have spoiled ALL the evidence. I think they are just
lying and delaying until it blows over and another scandal takes over
the headlines.

It is really silly to think that a crashed hard drive destroys all
your emails. Data on pcs should be backed up, especially if your job
depends on it. Big business uses mail servers, usually Microsoft
Exchange. These mail servers run on RAID disk systems, so that a
single server drive failure can be recovered. They also go to tape
backup for ever. Some companies even run duplicate mail servers, so
that if one server goes down, the company doesn't lose email
capability.

Do you really think that the IRS wouldn't be able to find email
documentation from years ago if they needed it to support a court case
they were engaged in?

No IT techie believes a word of it.

BillK


From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 29 20:14:24 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 13:14:24 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
Message-ID: <01ba01cf93d6$b96b11c0$2c413540$@att.net>

 

 

 

If I mysteriously disappear or suffer a puzzling and tragic freak IRS audit, you know what happened to me.

 

Spike quoted:

 

?Lerner walked into her office one day and her computer screen was blue. Her hard drive had crashed.?  Atty. Taylor

 

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 10:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>?That is a lawyer talking. You need to ask the tech support guy what really happened?  BillK

 

Former Director Lerner?s attorney has now apparently contradicted himself with today?s statement, differing from the previous comment in a subtle but perhaps important way:

 

"She walked into the office one day and her screen went blue," said Taylor. "She asked for help in restoring it and the IT people came and attempted to restore it."

 

There is a difference here: in one case she walked in and the screen was already blue, having crashed while she was out, and she presumed a hard disk failure took all the critical evidence on it.  In the second comment, it sounds like she walked in and then the screen went blue, at which time she immediately called for help from the IT people.  If I understand disk crashes, if the read head conks, a sector is destroyed but most of data is still there and is recoverable.  Since the IRS is required by law to archive everything, then the IT people would be tasked with recovering all the data that is retrievable on the disk, which should be most of it.

 

But something occurred to me.  If the IRS director called the IT people, she obeyed the letter of the law.  If the IT person immediately degaussed the disk then attempted to recover the entire erased disk, it isn?t entirely clear to me that the IT person has violated the letter of the law.  It may not actually say it is illegal to destroy the information on the disk before attempting to recover it.  The requirement against spoliation of evidence would not necessarily apply to the IT person.  They would be required to recover all retrievable data, but I don?t know that the law would forbid that IT person from erasing everything, then attempting to recover the nothing that is on that disk.  

 

If Director Lerner gave spoken orders only with no trace of record to the IT person to make sure nothing is recoverable on that disk before attempting to recover the data, then the IT person followed the orders to attempt to recover the data.  Same with the other six disks which crashed about that time.

 

If arbitrary power exists in one bureaucracy, why not the others?  Why shouldn?t the EPA, NSA or any other bureaucracy also get to have arbitrary unaccountable power?  Where does the law say anywhere the other envious and power-hungry bureaucracies can?t come after anyone they want for any reason, without bothering to have congress pass laws or consult the constitution?

 

Director Lerner cannot be called to testify: she is protected by the fifth amendment which allows a defendant to refuse to testify against herself.  She has been held in contempt of congress but what difference at this point does that make?  (Hint: none.)  If all the evidence has been destroyed, even if intentionally in a most transparent manner, the IRS director walks, and it is an example of unaccountable and arbitrary power.  This is the exact phenomenon that the US constitution was carefully designed to eliminate.  The US constitution was functionally repealed on 3 February 1913, and we are living in a dictatorship, allowed to continue our free existence only at the regal whim of whoever runs the IRS.

 

spike  

 






From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of spike
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2014 12:13 PM
To: 'ExI chat list'
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

 

 

From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Sunday, June 29, 2014 11:54 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

On Sun, Jun 29, 2014 at 10:36 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

That is a lawyer talking. You need to ask the tech support guy what
really happened.

 

>?And the tech support guy's probably been ordered to stay silent and go on vacation for a while, somewhere really hard to subpoena him?

Ja.  And if so, the IRS demonstrates once again that it is a naked singularity of political power.  They have unlimited authority to prosecute Americans with no real accountability for that power.  With the 16th amendment, the USA became a potential dictatorship.  We had always imagined the dictator to ascend thru the office of the president, when all along it was the head of the IRS who had that power.  It took nearly a century for the US to notice it was a dictatorship.

>?But yes, the stated troubles are less than fully credible?

 

Ja, but what difference does it make?  (?he asked, borrowing a phrase from a leading US politician?)

 

We have already caught IRS officials offering highly dubious excuses and pleading the fifth amendment, we have a sitting US president still calling the whole thing a phony scandal, we have a known-corrupt attorney general who is taking no interest in the case.

 

If the IRS can commit blatant spoliation of evidence with no serious consequences, what difference, at this point, what difference does it make?

 

spike

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From hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu  Sun Jun 29 18:52:04 2014
From: hrivera at alumni.virginia.edu (Henry Rivera)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 14:52:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <FD84CF65-BD14-45E7-8FBD-275C6BE681D0@alumni.virginia.edu>


> On Jun 29, 2014, at 1:10 PM, Spike wrote:
>  
> Questions please computer hipsters:
>  
> - Does a crashed hard drive cause a blue screen? 
> - Is there anything else that can cause a blue screen?
> - What does a BIOS failure do?  Blue screen?
> - Does a failed memory module on the motherboard cause a blue screen?
> - Assuming a disk failure, if action is taken immediately, is any of the data on the disk recoverable?

I'm a federal employee. I'm pretty sure we all are on the same enterprise contract, but I can't say for sure it's the same at IRS. So for me we use Outlook connected to Exchange. So the emails are on the Exchange server, not local. I can log on Remotely to my work account from a variety of devices and open Outlook and see my emails. Copies may be stored locally but they are definitely on Exchange. A BSOD could represent a local hd failure among other things, but the emails aren't lost. The Exchange server is backed up, probably to tape. So if Exchange loses data, there should be a recent back up. 
-Henry
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 29 20:21:45 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 13:21:45 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYW30dypj256jRcTUoQDwN--WNc8WNYjRM6=Qug+3DkoQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEYW30dypj256jRcTUoQDwN--WNc8WNYjRM6=Qug+3DkoQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <01bf01cf93d7$bff63870$3fe2a950$@att.net>

 

?. On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

?>>?If the IRS can commit blatant spoliation of evidence with no serious consequences, what difference, at this point, what difference does it make?

 spike

?>?Well, you seem to assume that they are guilty?  BillW

BillW, the IRS director in question has been held in contempt of congress and has refused to testify based on her fifth amendment rights:

US constitution, amendment 5:  No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime?nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law..

OK then.  The IRS director was not under criminal indictment, but chose to walk away from the congressional inquiry by claiming the 5th amendment rights against self-incrimination in regard to a presumably capital or otherwise infamous crime.

Pardon me please, what capital or infamous crime?

Your turn BillW.

spike

 

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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 29 20:44:59 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 13:44:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgfrYNhJaTBQanQNEeVZosPR7KR0r=NcqHh9pMh-jPVDw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
 <CAL_armgfrYNhJaTBQanQNEeVZosPR7KR0r=NcqHh9pMh-jPVDw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <020c01cf93da$fee6dcd0$fcb49670$@att.net>



-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org
[mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
...

>...Do you really think that the IRS wouldn't be able to find email
documentation from years ago if they needed it to support a court case they
were engaged in?...No IT techie believes a word of it...BillK
_______________________________________________

Ja.  They can offer a perfectly transparent dog-ate-my-homework absurd lame
excuse, but the point is there are no serious legal consequences.  If they
destroy the records and take the fifth, the worst that can happen is they
are held in contempt of congress.  So how is that a punishment for a retired
bureaucrat?  That's actually a reward in a sense.  Reasoning: she still gets
her generous pension, and the citation of contempt increases the value of
her memoirs.  She can make a pile of money writing about how the IRS pulled
off the whole caper, print it in hardcopy and sell a jillion of them.  That
contempt of congress citation carries no prison term, no fines, nothing.
Our Attorney General was held in contempt of congress.  Nothing happened.
It's a joke.

spike



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jun 29 21:24:37 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 16:24:37 -0500
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <020c01cf93da$fee6dcd0$fcb49670$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
 <CAL_armj+fWwGdg_zsJ9vA1Ds7WH82+WTv2O6yfYK1qamwMNEhw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQJ=N_wd_PGXH1yYFgH=HO+OJR5Y5cR=Tk3-oWBZMVVbg@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01cf93ce$314400c0$93cc0240$@att.net>
 <CAL_armgfrYNhJaTBQanQNEeVZosPR7KR0r=NcqHh9pMh-jPVDw@mail.gmail.com>
 <020c01cf93da$fee6dcd0$fcb49670$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEajHp9AWD4-VBDzwqJq5s3PcVuHCwOVCpaj7x4MY62UPA@mail.gmail.com>

?The IRS director was not under criminal indictment, but chose to walk away
from the congressional inquiry by claiming the 5th amendment rights against
self-incrimination in regard to a presumably capital or otherwise infamous
crime.

Pardon me please, what capital or infamous crime?

Your turn BillW.

spike
?
?I am assuming nothing.  You are. I think that where there is smoke there
is smoke.   Probably guilty?  Yeah.  Likely the IRS director was told what
to do, eh??
?  Why does everything have to turn into a political farce?  (answer:
because they want everything to reflect badly on Obama, whom they hate with
a purple passion and will continue to look for their very own
Watergate)  bill w?
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From frankmac at ripco.com  Sun Jun 29 23:22:49 2014
From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank mcelligott)
Date: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 16:22:49 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash
Message-ID: <5A74C30BE819493B8F4EAB1B8ED950B5@grandviewpatPC>

As the FBI knows that the data really never gets lost when you write over it, it is just layered and you can recover  it almost three layers deep, it's still there  although your computer does not recognize it except for the top layer.  To rid that data you almost have to pour acid on it and  then hit it with a hammer.

The blue screen  which is normally  from a hacker who has gotten control of your operating system, it's their way of  letting you know that that he/she can do whatever he/she wants with your files. Just re load the operating system and all will be well.  If you completely restore the computer and your files are wipe out, see that paragraph above. Data can still be recovered.

If they want to find those emails, they can find them. They are lying, do you remember  "weapons of Mass destruction" about the hard drive crashes losing all that data is in the same vein with those weapons.

If the NAS can monitor the World's Internet traffic and telephone conversations, do you really think that they lost those emails.

Get real!  the kid's in the bedroom, who are are c-punks are still laughing at that explanation
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From anders at aleph.se  Mon Jun 30 11:56:12 2014
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 13:56:12 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Uploading ethics
In-Reply-To: <3910511221-23571@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <3969969080-5009@secure.ericade.net>

Erratum: Mark Walker graciously pointed out that it is Russel Blackford who is editing the book, not him.?
Just goes to show that too many projects at once divides one's IQ.

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University


Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> , 29/6/2014 9:39 PM:
By the way, my uploading ethics paper is now officially out and open access:
Anders Sandberg. Ethics of brain emulations. Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. Volume 26, Issue 3, 2014 Special Issue: Risks of General Artificial Intelligencehttp://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0952813X.2014.895113?queryID=%24%7BresultBean.queryID%7D#.U6vkP_ldWa8
Not that radical by our standards, but a start. And way more detail than the nearest competitor ;-) ?(a closely related chapter will show up in Damien Broderick and Mark Walker's book) The rest of the articles are also interesting, but not all are open access.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University

_______________________________________________ 
extropy-chat mailing list 
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org 
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat 
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From painlord2k at libero.it  Mon Jun 30 13:44:30 2014
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:44:30 +0200
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <53B169BE.207@libero.it>

Il 29/06/2014 19:10, spike ha scritto:
> Question please for our local computer gurus.  The IRS is claiming that
> a bunch of evidence was accidentally lost because a hard disk crashed on
> the computer of the IRS director and six others within the IRS closely
> associated with the investigation.

Take their claims at face value and act as stupid:

Make laws forcing federal and state employees to keep all the mail they 
receive and send. Make a felony, for these people and their IT guys, to 
not be able to show up these mails (certified original by an external 
authority).

These laws should be made both a the fed level (if and when Republicans 
take control) and at the state level.

I don't know the intricacies of the US laws, but I suppose a state 
legislative could make law binding federal employees working or dealing 
with people inside their borders to some standards.

Mirco


From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 30 16:27:35 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 09:27:35 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
Message-ID: <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

Il 29/06/2014 19:10, spike ha scritto:
>>... Question please for our local computer gurus.  The IRS is claiming 
> that a bunch of evidence was accidentally lost because a hard disk 
> crashed on the computer of the IRS director and six others within the 
> IRS closely associated with the investigation.

>...Make laws forcing federal and state employees to keep all the mail they
receive and send...

They already have that and always have.  Since the early days of email,
federal government business is required to have hardcopy printed on paper
and archived.  This requirement has been universally ignored (imagine that.)


>...Make a felony, for these people and their IT guys, to not be able to
show up these mails (certified original by an external authority)... Mirco

Failure to archive is already illegal, but the person with the authority to
pardon anyone for any reason has already declared the IRS innocent.  The
following is an interview with Bill O'Reilly from February of this year:

OBAMA: Bill, when you look at the stuff, there have been multiple hearings
on it. What happened here was that you've got a 501(c)4 law people think is
confusing. The folks did not know how to implement because it basically says
--

O'REILLY: So you're saying there was no corruption there at all.

OBAMA: That's not what I'm saying. 

O'REILLY: I want to know what you're saying. You're the leader of the
country. 

OBAMA: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: You're saying no corruption, none?

OBAMA: There was some bone-headed decisions.

O'REILLY: Bone-headed decisions. But no mass corruption?

OBAMA: Not even mass corruption. Not even a smidgeon of corruption...

It sounds to me like the second answer contradicts the fifth answer above,
but either way, if he has already decided there is not a smidgen of
corruption and he has the authority to declare the whole investigation a
phony scandal and pardon anyone convicted completely without consequences
(Mr. Obama has no elections to come and despises his party successor) then
the way this all plays out is easy enough to foresee.

It feels to me that the USA is treading the same path of Germany in the
1930s.  Both countries elected to its highest office a guy with little
legislative or executive experience, a murky past, with a lot of charisma,
memoirs published while they were yet young (both leaders ascended in their
40s) promises of hope and change, both abused power and frantically grabbed
for more power at every opportunity.  

I am optimistic that the US will not follow Germany's example because of the
internet.  The masses are better informed now than were the Germans: it is
harder for government to completely control information now.  It is possible
a nation was saved by the internet.  Perhaps sunlight really is the best
disinfectant.

spike



From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Jun 30 16:48:30 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 09:48:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 30, 2014 9:42 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> It feels to me that the USA is treading the same path of Germany in the
> 1930s.  Both countries elected to its highest office a guy with little
> legislative or executive experience, a murky past, with a lot of charisma,
> memoirs published while they were yet young (both leaders ascended in
their
> 40s) promises of hope and change, both abused power and frantically
grabbed
> for more power at every opportunity.

But the Bush stepped down at the end of his second term.

Oh, you meant Obama?  We'll see at the end of 2016, but all indications are
that he will too.

Also: Godwin's Law.  Whatever you were trying to prove, you just failed.
This is precisely the sort of situation that law covers.
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From painlord2k at libero.it  Mon Jun 30 17:40:18 2014
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 19:40:18 +0200
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <53B1A102.10106@libero.it>

Il 30/06/2014 18:27, spike ha scritto:
>> ... On Behalf Of Mirco Romanato
> Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

> They already have that and always have.  Since the early days of email,
> federal government business is required to have hardcopy printed on paper
> and archived.  This requirement has been universally ignored (imagine that.)






>> ...Make a felony, for these people and their IT guys, to not be able to
> show up these mails (certified original by an external authority)... Mirco

> Failure to archive is already illegal, but the person with the authority to
> pardon anyone for any reason has already declared the IRS innocent.  The
> following is an interview with Bill O'Reilly from February of this year:


> It sounds to me like the second answer contradicts the fifth answer above,
> but either way, if he has already decided there is not a smidgen of
> corruption and he has the authority to declare the whole investigation a
> phony scandal and pardon anyone convicted completely without consequences
> (Mr. Obama has no elections to come and despises his party successor) then
> the way this all plays out is easy enough to foresee.

He had the authority to sign a pardon, make him do it.

Talk is cheap, actually signing it is not (apart for the last day of the 
presidency).


> It feels to me that the USA is treading the same path of Germany in the
> 1930s.  Both countries elected to its highest office a guy with little
> legislative or executive experience, a murky past, with a lot of charisma,
> memoirs published while they were yet young (both leaders ascended in their
> 40s) promises of hope and change, both abused power and frantically grabbed
> for more power at every opportunity.

> I am optimistic that the US will not follow Germany's example because of the
> internet.  The masses are better informed now than were the Germans: it is
> harder for government to completely control information now.  It is possible
> a nation was saved by the internet.  Perhaps sunlight really is the best
> disinfectant.


In Italy we had what we cal "The White Semester" (the last six months of 
Presidency) where the President of the Republic can not use his power to 
disband the legislative and call for new elections.

Maybe you should think about a "White Semester" for the POTUS, where he 
can not sign any pardon, waiver, etc.
Make it start before the elections (so any pardon at Midnight would 
become political matter).

Another suggestion would be to allow private prosecutors to bring anyone 
in front of a judge. Who lose, pay the bill.
So, if you have an Holder, holding, you could have an Issa, financed by 
the public, trampling Holder.


Mirco







From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 30 18:26:26 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 11:26:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
"spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
>> It feels to me that the USA is treading the same path of Germany in the 1930s?

>?But the Bush stepped down at the end of his second term.

>?Oh, you meant Obama?  We'll see at the end of 2016, but all indications are that he will too?

I don?t doubt he will vacate the office in 2016, that?s not the question.  It is all the powers he has amassed for the executive branch that worry me.  Remember the other major party has abused power as well: Nixon did this kind of thing 40 yrs ago.

>?Also: Godwin's Law.  Whatever you were trying to prove, you just failed.  This is precisely the sort of situation that law covers.

Indeed not sir.  Godwin?s law is not applicable when one is making comparisons to actual political leaders.  Where Godwin?s law applies is in the absurd expansion of Hitler parallels.  

If we are disallowed from comparing any nation?s top executive to Hitler, then we learned exactly nothing from the bitter lessons of that dictator?s rise to power.

spike 

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From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Jun 30 19:27:50 2014
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 12:27:50 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 30, 2014 11:40 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Indeed not sir.  Godwin?s law is not applicable when one is making
comparisons to actual political leaders.  Where Godwin?s law applies is in
the absurd expansion of Hitler parallels.

Obama is not calling for genocide, or a bunch of other things Hitler did,
most notably making efforts to stay in office longer than the law allowed
when he entered.

> If we are disallowed from comparing any nation?s top executive to Hitler,
then we learned exactly nothing from the bitter lessons of that dictator?s
rise to power.

And that's the break: Hitler rose to power with the intention of staying.
If Obama is not staying in office past 2016, then why would he be doing
things to expand government power if his own rule were the objective?  What
you argue for is not the case.
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 30 21:35:56 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 14:35:56 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

?

>>? If we are disallowed from comparing any nation?s top executive to Hitler, then we learned exactly nothing from the bitter lessons of that dictator?s rise to power.

>?And that's the break: Hitler rose to power with the intention of staying.  If Obama is not staying in office past 2016, then why would he be doing things to expand government power if his own rule were the objective?  What you argue for is not the case?

 

Oh I see.  I never thought Obama or Bush intended to try to hold onto office past their second term.  I don?t believe that would be possible in the USA.  The presidency only has power thru the constitution.  If the president violates that, then that president has no legal authority.

Here?s where I would go with the comparisons: both Bush and Obama expanded executive branch powers.  This makes me nervous since the 16 amendment is written in such a way as to be very open-ended.  The constitution was carefully designed with checks and balances on government power in place, but the IRS is an example of a bureaucracy not bound by the rules and regulations which apply to criminal cases.  For instance, if you are arrested, you are presumed innocent.  The IRS does not presume you innocent.  If they come after you, it is your job to prove your innocence, rather than their job to prove your guilt.  They get to decide if your evidence is sufficient to prove your innocence.  They are both the prosecutor and the judge.  Good luck.  

Next, consider the EPA, the CIA, the NSA, and fill in the blank with as much alphabet soup as you want.  The NSA doesn?t bother with all those messy constitutional restrictions on their power.  (Hi NSA guy reading our email!)  These bureaucracies form a shadow government which has a lot more power in some important ways than the actual government, and it all answers to the executive branch.  This represents an extra-constitutional expansion of the powers of the executive branch.  I don?t feel comfortable with any expansion of the powers of the executive branch, which is what Hitler was all about: he wanted to make all the calls himself without bothering with a legislature.  We can?t Godwin?s Law our way out of it: Hitler did that.  Bush and Obama both did likewise; expanded executive branch powers.  Nixon tried to, but failed.  

If the IRS can effectively silence its own political opponents, do we still have freedom of speech?  You recognize that the Tea party imbroglio is all about the IRS silencing its own political opponents, ja?  We get tangled up in the question of whether the White House ordered any of this, but I don?t.  It?s unlikely they will ever be able to prove that, if they can just claim the hard disks crashed and the president can pre-emptively declare them innocent.  The IRS has political views of its own, and it doesn?t exactly collapse to left and right: they hate the Tea Party, regardless of which side of the political spectrum that party inhabits.  So the IRS took action to destroy the Tea Party.  There is nothing preventing this in the constitution.  Does not that cause you to worry?  Why?

spike

 

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun 30 22:13:45 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 17:13:45 -0500
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZX=w8+BC2YkZrmj+OEx3Oq0PenmXHhKok7YbCFEVS_TA@mail.gmail.com>

?they hate the Tea Party, regardless of which side of the political
spectrum that party inhabits.  So the IRS took action to destroy the Tea
Party.?


?Where are you getting this information?  I have seen nothing to indicate
that they selectively audited tea party groups.  It would not surprise me,
though. Nobody is not playing dirty politics.

You gotta admit that Obama must be really frustrated.  The number of
appointments that the Repubs have not acted on is unprecedentedly large,
and some have sat for over two years.  No good reason for that - just spite
and smallness, meanness, not worthy of elected officials at any level.
The Supreme Court gave him his comeuppance on recess appointments.  ?
?Who can give the Repubs their comeuppance on blocking government
appointments??
?  It is a very old tradition that the president gets to select his
cabinet, judges, and more, and only if there is very serious reasons to
stop them should they be stopped.?


?bill w?
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 30 22:06:52 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:06:52 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <007501cf94af$99ea98f0$cdbfcad0$@att.net>

 

 

>? Here?s where I would go with the comparisons: both Bush and Obama expanded executive branch powers?

 

This for example: 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/30/politics/obama-immigration/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

 

Presidents don?t make laws; congress does.  Threatening to act alone isn?t the way to get things done in congress.  If the president wants a particular legislation, he must be ready to offer something in return to his political adversaries.  What is he offering on immigration reform?

 

This threatening executive action doesn?t motivate congress, it only encourages a showdown in the form of a constitutional crisis.  This I see as a puzzling strategy in light of Mr. Obama?s extremely low approval rating and recent setbacks in the supreme court.

 

spike

 

 

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun 30 22:39:28 2014
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 17:39:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <007501cf94af$99ea98f0$cdbfcad0$@att.net>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>
 <007501cf94af$99ea98f0$cdbfcad0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZv2H6EtJnO5Mv_s95qC=J1pEg+tKfGR4JV+PNQ7L2mPA@mail.gmail.com>

>
> This threatening executive action doesn?t motivate congress, it only
> encourages a showdown in the form of a constitutional crisis.  This I see
> as a puzzling strategy in light of Mr. Obama?s extremely low approval
> rating and recent setbacks in the supreme court.
>
>
>
> spike
>
>
> ?I think most liberals have been somewhat disappointed with Obama - me
> too.  But what can one do when the opposition cannot support anything
> because of retaliation by ultraconservative supporters?  When compromise
> is a bad word?  When the word 'hate' is an everyday occurrence?  He should
> have taken some lessons from Clinton - Bill, that is.  He showed you can
> work with a Congress that impeached you!
>
>
?bill w  (I did not see the evidence I asked for, and why are you still
writing in blue?)?


>    ?
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun 30 22:50:07 2014
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 30 Jun 2014 15:50:07 -0700
Subject: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEZv2H6EtJnO5Mv_s95qC=J1pEg+tKfGR4JV+PNQ7L2mPA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010301cf93bd$03a17a50$0ae46ef0$@att.net> <53B169BE.207@libero.it>
 <010101cf9480$34414050$9cc3c0f0$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQyMYOp3Wx=t954Wnp76SHn-9J8oUmdstueZ3ZqqaVn_w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013901cf9490$ce8c0cc0$6ba42640$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQqT=MVyW09HXp68PfWvqh_V+HdbA3ON81xuBmuCeYm_Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <003b01cf94ab$4757d250$d60776f0$@att.net>
 <007501cf94af$99ea98f0$cdbfcad0$@att.net>
 <CAO+xQEZv2H6EtJnO5Mv_s95qC=J1pEg+tKfGR4JV+PNQ7L2mPA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00c601cf94b5$a4b1f070$ee15d150$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Subject: Re: [ExI] blue screen = hard disk crash?

 

?>?bill w  (I did not see the evidence I asked for?

 

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/irs-apologizes-targeting-conservative-groups

 

>? and why are you still writing in blue?)

 

Note the subject line.

 

{8^D

 

spike

? 

 

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