From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:19:39 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:19:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "SpaceX - Fall Down, Get Back Up - Unless Congress Keeps Them Down" Message-ID: "I've been doing a few interviews since the loss of the SpaceX Dragon on its way to the Space Station. Each one very quickly questions the viability of what they call commercial space in light of the failure. I tell them space is hard, this is what happens early in a program with new technology. It is better now than later in terms of that first and all important cautionary failure any such quest needs. And then I tell them more damage was done to the commercial space flight industry by Congress gutting the budget for humans to ISS flights than by this disaster. While this was bad, what they did on the Hill is far more insidious and damaging to the nation. After all, the gang at SpaceX can find and fix their malfunction issue using logic and technology. In the end the system will be better, the team, now scarred once will be wiser, and the rockets will fly again." http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rick-tumlinson/spacex-fall-down-get-back_b_7692328.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:25:59 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:25:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Humorous video podcast about Zoltan Istvan & transhumanism Message-ID: "The future of superhuman technology" on the Good Mythical Morning program... I was mildly amused by them.... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1PF99LtBLQ John ; ) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:28:45 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:28:45 -0700 Subject: [ExI] 'Swedish Scientists Build Artificial Neurons Able to Communicate With Organic Neurons" Message-ID: *"Scientists at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have built a fully functional neuron by using organic bioelectronics. This artificial neuron contain no "living" parts, but is capable of mimicking the function of a human nerve cell and communicate in the same way as our own neurons do."* https://hacked.com/swedish-scientists-build-artificial-neurons-able-communicate-organic-neurons/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:31:06 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:31:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "MIT Invented a Way to Automatically Fix Software Bugs With Borrowed Code" Message-ID: "A new system from MIT?s CSAIL, or Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, does something incredible to fix buggy software: It borrows healthy code from other applications?and then fixes the bug without ever accessing the original source code." "Think of it as an organ transplant. Except in this case, the sick patient is a buggy software app. And the ?donor organ? is a piece of code from another application, even if it?s written in a whole different language. That?s a crude and imperfect metaphor, but it helps explain CodePhage , a system that was presented by MIT researchers at the Association for Computing Machinery?s Programming Language Design and Implementation conference this month, as MIT News explains today ." http://gizmodo.com/mit-invented-a-way-to-fix-software-bugs-autonomously-wi-1714669000?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:35:51 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:35:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Chemists characterize 3-D macroporous hydrogels" Message-ID: "Carnegie Mellon University chemists have developed two novel methods to characterize 3-dimensional macroporous hydrogels?materials that hold great promise for developing "smart" responsive materials that can be used for catalysts, chemical detectors, tissue engineering scaffolds and absorbents for carbon capture." http://phys.org/news/2015-06-chemists-characterize-d-macroporous-hydrogels.html -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:38:08 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:38:08 +0200 Subject: [ExI] "MIT Invented a Way to Automatically Fix Software Bugs With Borrowed Code" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Here is my article on CodePhage: https://hacked.com/mits-codephage-fixes-software-bugs-biologically-inspired-gene-swapping/ On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 9:31 AM, John Grigg wrote: > "A new system from MIT?s CSAIL, or Computer Science and Artificial > Intelligence Laboratory, does something incredible to fix buggy software: It > borrows healthy code from other applications?and then fixes the bug without > ever accessing the original source code." > > "Think of it as an organ transplant. Except in this case, the sick patient > is a buggy software app. And the ?donor organ? is a piece of code from > another application, even if it?s written in a whole different language. > That?s a crude and imperfect metaphor, but it helps explain CodePhage, a > system that was presented by MIT researchers at the Association for > Computing Machinery?s Programming Language Design and Implementation > conference this month, as MIT News explains today." > > > > http://gizmodo.com/mit-invented-a-way-to-fix-software-bugs-autonomously-wi-1714669000?utm_campaign=socialflow_gizmodo_facebook&utm_source=gizmodo_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:39:46 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:39:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Nanogenerator Produces Energy From Tires Rolling on Pavement" Message-ID: "Researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in collaboration with a scientist in China, have developed a nanogenerator that can harvest energy from a tire rolling against the pavement ." http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/transportation/advanced-cars/nanogenerator-produces-energy-from-tires-rolling-on-pavement -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:45:31 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:45:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Neuroscientist Michele Ross Describes Her First Experience with DMT" Message-ID: "Maybe the benefit of beauty is that it inspires us to care about the world. It certainly impacted neuroscientist Michele Ross?s life that way, when she tried DMT, the potent psychedelic, in an effort to release her childhood trauma. Her story?s more compelling, in some ways, because she?s more disposed than most to wrap her mystical experience in words, in chemistry and graphs ? and yet the real embodied source of every spiritual experience that?s ever happened is within us all, irrespective of our job descriptions. In her own words, here?s how awe, no matter how it?s triggered, leads to moral action. At first, her DMT experience was merely pretty: ?Most beautiful sunset ever!?but then things started *changing*.? ?Time and space was bending. I was falling into a black hole?and then I felt like I was floating in a white, sparkly type world?it felt like I was with deceased, amazing, really important people?who wanted me to be safe. It felt like I was sitting at The Last Supper and it was completely normal.? We have to accommodate the experience of the sacred in society; it is *from* this experience that all our best impulses flow, self-evident that everything?s deserving of the Universal Love. Even as a hyper-intellectual, the explanations only carried Dr. Ross so far. The passion in her voice and eyes as she recounts her moral evolution as a doctor is an echo of the heavy-beauty-true-surrender to the darkbright Source she exudes: ?The old me would have never been able to rationalize that. I felt that power and love and compassion and felt like I needed?to bring it back into the world with me. My focus is now on healing people, helping people?it really wasn?t about that before.? http://inspireamaze.com/neuroscientist-michele-ross-describes-her-first-experience-with-dmt/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 07:51:06 2015 From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 00:51:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "Minecraft has a new feature that teaches kids how to use bitcoin" Message-ID: I find it fascinating that Minecraft has adapted Bitcoin for young players, to teach them about crypto-currencies... "A multi-player server on the wildly popular video game Minecraft has introduced bitcoin to its world as a way of teaching children about digital currency. While in-game currencies exist in several different minecraft worlds, using bitcoin means that players can take their money out of the game and use it in the real world too. The server, PlayMC, features an in-game currency called 'bits' which the company has set at 100,000,000th of a bitcoin (commonly known as a 'satoshi'). The unit was chosen for its ease-of-use, as it represents a whole unit and allows players to be rewarded seemingly on a larger scale. With additional opportunities for players to spend their bits on classes, items and other additional content within the game, PlayMC says it provides a "safe gaming environment for kids to enjoy and have the opportunity to earn their own money." http://www.businessinsider.com/minecraft-server-designed-for-children-to-earn-bitcoin-on-2015-6 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 16:00:43 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 09:00:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] "SpaceX - Fall Down, Get Back Up - Unless Congress Keeps Them Down" In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <17D33F9B-B986-4553-BC2F-3D401851F728@gmail.com> A little skepticism in the LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-spacex-crossroads-20150701-story.html Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 18:35:05 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 13:35:05 -0500 Subject: [ExI] supplements Message-ID: The best supplement most of us have never heard of? This is likely not the place to recommend supplements to the group, but this drug is natural, has been used for hundreds of years (by the Chinese) and is just amazing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberine http://examine.com/supplements/Berberine/ I have several of the things that it seems to help and will take it and let you know. Bill W -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clementlawyer at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 20:19:14 2015 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 13:19:14 -0700 Subject: [ExI] supplements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: William Flynn Wallace wrote: > The best supplement most of us have never heard of? > > This is likely not the place to recommend supplements to the group, but > this drug is natural, has been used for hundreds of years (by the Chinese) > and is just amazing: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberine > > http://examine.com/supplements/Berberine/ > > I have several of the things that it seems to help and will take it and > let you know. Bill W > > Bill, I take Berberine and Green Coffee Bean Extract, both of which do as good a job at Metformin IMHO. Cheers, James -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 22:41:56 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 17:41:56 -0500 Subject: [ExI] supplements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks James. I am assuming you are taking both for sugar level control. Will look into green coffee bean extract. bill w On Wed, Jul 1, 2015 at 3:19 PM, James Clement wrote: > William Flynn Wallace wrote: > >> The best supplement most of us have never heard of? >> >> This is likely not the place to recommend supplements to the group, but >> this drug is natural, has been used for hundreds of years (by the Chinese) >> and is just amazing: >> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berberine >> >> http://examine.com/supplements/Berberine/ >> >> I have several of the things that it seems to help and will take it and >> let you know. Bill W >> >> > Bill, I take Berberine and Green Coffee Bean Extract, both of which do as > good a job at Metformin IMHO. Cheers, James > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 22:56:21 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 15:56:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] supplements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jul 1, 2015 11:36 AM, "William Flynn Wallace" wrote: > The best supplement most of us have never heard of? There's a reason we haven't, and it probably is not mere lack of advertising. > This is likely not the place to recommend supplements to the group, If you're going to recommend things that can easily have quantifiable evidence if they work (such as drugs), please show said quantifiable evidence. > but this drug is natural, Snake venom is natural too. > has been used for hundreds of years (by the Chinese) So has gunpowder. Or for hundreds-of-years-old drugs, tobacco and alcohol. > and is just amazing Drug highs often seem amazing, from the perspective of those taking the drug. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 1 23:29:37 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 18:29:37 -0500 Subject: [ExI] supplements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: If you're going to recommend things that can easily have quantifiable evidence if they work (such as drugs), please show said quantifiable evidence. Drug highs often seem amazing, from the perspective of those taking the > drug. > ?Did you even look up the links I gave you? There is plenty of evidence. > I think the main reason we have not heard of it is that it was not > developed by a drug company and so there are no big profits in it. > ?bill w? > ? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From clementlawyer at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 01:04:29 2015 From: clementlawyer at gmail.com (James Clement) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 18:04:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] supplements In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > If you're going to recommend things that can easily have quantifiable > evidence if they work (such as drugs), please show said quantifiable > evidence. > Sorry, most people I know just look things up on PubMed for themselves. There are numerous studies on both referenced nutraceuticals there: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=green+coffee+bean+extract http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=berberine *Green Coffee Bean Extracts:* contain chlorogenic acids (CGAs). If you subscribe to www.consumerlabs.com (which I do) you can see the independent laboratory results of their tests on the amount of CGAs in various brands. Contribution of chlorogenic acids to the inhibition of human hepatic glucose-6-phosphatase activity in vitro by Svetol, a standardized decaffeinated green coffee extract. Henry-Vitrac C 1, Ibarra A , Roller M , M?rillon JM , Vitrac X . Author information Abstract Glucose-6-phosphatase (Glc-6-Pase) is a multicomponent system that exists primarily in the liver and catalyzes the terminal step in gluconeogenesis and glycogenolysis. Several studies have attempted to identify synthetic or natural compounds that inhibit this enzyme complex for therapeutic use in regulating blood glucose and type 2 diabetes. For this paper an in vitro structure-activity relationship study of several natural chlorogenic acids was conducted, and the active components of the natural decaffeinated green coffee extract Svetol were identified. Glucose-6-phosphate (Glc-6-P) hydrolysis was measured in the presence of Svetol or chlorogenic acids in intact human liver microsomes. Svetol significantly inhibited Glc-6-P hydrolysis in intact human liver microsomes in a competitive manner, and it was determined that chlorogenic acids (caffeoylquinic acids and dicaffeoylquinic acids) were the chief compounds mediating this activity. In addition, the structure-activity analysis showed that variation in the position of the caffeoyl residue is an important determinant of inhibition of Glc-6-P hydrolysis. This inhibition by Svetol contributes to its antidiabetic, glucose-lowering effects by reducing hepatic glucose production. *Berberine:* Application of berberine on treating type 2 diabetes mellitus. Pang B 1, Zhao LH 2, Zhou Q 3, Zhao TY 1, Wang H 1, Gu CJ 1, Tong XL 1. Author information Abstract Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) performs a good clinical practice and is showing a bright future in the treatment of diabetes mellitus (DM). TCM treatment has certain advantages of less toxicity and/or side effects, and herbs could provide multiple therapeutic effects. Berberine (BBR) is a classical natural medicine. In this review, we summarize the application of BBR in the treatment of DM from two aspects. First, modern pharmacological effects of BBR on glucose metabolism are summarized, such as improving insulin resistance, promoting insulin secretion, inhibiting gluconeogenesis in liver, stimulating glycolysis in peripheral tissue cells, modulating gut microbiota, reducing intestinal absorption of glucose, and regulating lipid metabolism. BBR is used to treat diabetic nephropathy (DPN), diabetic neuropathy (DN), and diabetic cardiomyopathy due to its antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities. Second, the clinical application of BBR is reviewed, such as listing some clinical trials on the effectiveness and safety of BBR, explaining applicable stage and syndrome, the reasonable dose and dose formulation, and the toxicity and/or side effects. This review provides scientific evidence about BBR, as well as introducing some traditional Chinese medical theory and clinical experience, in order to guide clinician to use BBR more suitably and reasonably. Effects of berberine on amelioration of hyperglycemia and oxidative stress in high glucose and high fat diet-induced diabetic hamsters in vivo. Liu C 1, Wang Z 2, Song Y 3, Wu D 1, Zheng X 1, Li P 1, Jin J 2, Xu N 2, Li L 1. Author information Abstract This study investigated the effects of berberine on amelioration of hyperglycemia and hyperlipidemia and the mechanism involved in high glucose and high fat diet-induced diabetic hamsters. Golden hamsters fed with high glucose and high fat diet were medicated with metformin, simvastatin, and low or high dose of berberine (50 and 100 mg?kg(-1)) for 6 weeks. The results showed that the body weights were significantly lower in berberine-treated groups than control group. Histological analyses revealed that the treatment of berberine inhibited hepatic fat accumulation. Berberine significantly reduced plasma total cholesterol, triglyceride, free fatty acid, low density lipoprotein cholesterol, malondialdehyde, thiobarbituric acid-reactive substance, and 8-isoprostane level but significantly increased plasma superoxide dismutase activity. Glucose and insulin levels were significantly reduced in metformin and berberine-treated groups. Glucose tolerance tests documented that berberine-treated mice were more glucose tolerant. Berberine treatment increased expression of skeletal muscle glucose transporter 4 mRNA and significantly decreased liver low density lipoprotein receptor mRNA expression. The study suggested that berberine was effective in lowering blood glucose and lipids levels, reducing the body weight, and alleviating the oxidative stress in diabetic hamsters, which might be beneficial in reducing the cardiovascular risk factors in diabetes. I've been looking at various ways to get my pre-breakfast blood sugar levels between 70 and 85 mg/dL. Since I generally follow a ketogenic vegetarian diet, it generally stays in line with these numbers on a regular basis. However, if I happen to be somewhere that I can't control my diet (out to dinner or just want some add'l carbs) then either or both of these take care of the problem very nicely. I measure my blood sugar from one to ten times daily and have been doing so for over a year. If anyone wants more info, I suggest they PM me and I'll respond as best I can. Cheers, James -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 05:52:07 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 1 Jul 2015 22:52:07 -0700 Subject: [ExI] what is this? Message-ID: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> Please, can anyone here give me any insight regarding what the heck this is? http://panterraweb.com/ What language is it in, what is the subject matter, that kind of thing, perhaps any information at all about where it came from? Is there a way to translate a page like this? Sorta looks Russian or Greek or something, but I am trying to figure out where it came from and what it is. Thanks! spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 06:12:15 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 08:12:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> References: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> Message-ID: The site title means "When you do not know "how?" or something like that in Bulgarian. Just paste the text into Google Translate for a poor but understandable auto translation. On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 7:52 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > Please, can anyone here give me any insight regarding what the heck this is? > > > > http://panterraweb.com/ > > > > What language is it in, what is the subject matter, that kind of thing, > perhaps any information at all about where it came from? Is there a way to > translate a page like this? Sorta looks Russian or Greek or something, but > I am trying to figure out where it came from and what it is. > > > > Thanks! > > > > 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 Thu Jul 2 09:37:28 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 10:37:28 +0100 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> References: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> Message-ID: On 2 July 2015 at 06:52, spike wrote: > Please, can anyone here give me any insight regarding what the heck this is? > http://panterraweb.com/ > > What language is it in, what is the subject matter, that kind of thing, > perhaps any information at all about where it came from? Is there a way to > translate a page like this? Sorta looks Russian or Greek or something, but > I am trying to figure out where it came from and what it is. > It is a Bulgarian general interest 'How to' website. Quote: On holiday in Sofia. A few valuable tips for a pleasant holiday in the capital How to deal with streptococcal infections? How to find a hobby? Organizing and conducting birthday How to organize your wedding party? (part two) ---------------------- A web page translator is better than pasting text in as it keeps the format and photos. If you use the Google Chrome browser, that has a web page translation option. If Chrome is not your normal browser, open up both browsers and copy the web page link into Chrome. The MS Bing translator is also reasonable for web page translation. Go to and paste in text or the website address. BillK From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 14:11:40 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 07:11:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: References: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> Message-ID: <00a701d0b4d1$07306100$15912300$@att.net> On 2 July 2015 at 06:52, spike wrote: > Please, can anyone here give me any insight regarding what the heck this is? > http://panterraweb.com/ >...It is a Bulgarian general interest 'How to' website. >...BillK _______________________________________________ Thanks BillK. I have no idea how I ended up with a Bulgarian How-To site. spike From pharos at gmail.com Thu Jul 2 14:59:09 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 15:59:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: <00a701d0b4d1$07306100$15912300$@att.net> References: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> <00a701d0b4d1$07306100$15912300$@att.net> Message-ID: On 2 July 2015 at 15:11, spike wrote: > Thanks BillK. I have no idea how I ended up with a Bulgarian How-To site. > I think I do. :) No - not that reason! ;) panterraweb.com used to be the website for Damien Broderick. The Bulgarian site was first registered in November 2011. So probably Damien let his website registration lapse and someone else liked the name. There are other more devious possibilities, but that's the simplest. BillK From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 2 15:23:50 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 08:23:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: References: <000601d0b48b$3e4dbc00$bae93400$@att.net> <00a701d0b4d1$07306100$15912300$@att.net> Message-ID: <00bb01d0b4db$1b673310$52359930$@att.net> On 2 July 2015 at 15:11, spike wrote: >>... Thanks BillK. I have no idea how I ended up with a Bulgarian How-To site. >...I think I do. :) >...No - not that reason! ;) No it wasn't that. This particular How-To site has nothing about how to do that. >...panterraweb.com used to be the website for Damien Broderick... Oh ja, I used to go over there occasionally. I got a note from Damien about a few months ago; he was with Barbara in Texas. All was well with him. >...The Bulgarian site was first registered in November 2011. So probably Damien let his website registration lapse and someone else liked the name. >...There are other more devious possibilities, but that's the simplest...BillK _______________________________________________ NO! There are no other possibilities! NONE! No way Jose, not. Never did that, didn't even google on it. BillK's Damien Broderick theory is ALL THERE IS to see here, move along. spike From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 01:41:22 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 18:41:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome Message-ID: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> Suppose a guy is married three times and has at least a couple (but as many as four) girlfriends on the side, and it becomes apparent that he is the father of at least 25 children, 19 of whom were borne by women who were his wife at the time of the birth. A century passes. Thousands of people are his direct descendants, out of which dozens get DNA tested. Those descendants do genealogy and find each other by various means, FTDNA, AncestryDNA, 23andMe, such as that. They form a rollicking continuous online family reunion. In theory, with sufficient persistence and determination, those descendants could compare their genomes, look at the shared segments in FTDNA, and gradually reconstruct the entire genome of the long-perished prolific ancestor. Is there a flaw in my reasoning anywhere? spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 02:13:46 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 19:13:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:41 PM, spike wrote: > > Suppose a guy is married three times and has at least a couple (but as > many as four) girlfriends on the side, and it becomes apparent that he is > the father of at least 25 children, 19 of whom were borne by women who were > his wife at the time of the birth. A century passes. Thousands of people > are his direct descendants, out of which dozens get DNA tested. Those > descendants do genealogy and find each other by various means, FTDNA, > AncestryDNA, 23andMe, such as that. They form a rollicking continuous > online family reunion. > > > > In theory, with sufficient persistence and determination, those > descendants could compare their genomes, look at the shared segments in > FTDNA, and gradually reconstruct the entire genome of the long-perished > prolific ancestor. > > > > Is there a flaw in my reasoning anywhere? > What happens if any of the guy's genes did not make it into anyone still alive at the time of comparison? (Most simply, one gene happening in all 25 cases to not make it into the fertilizing sperm.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 02:56:42 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 19:56:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <01b801d0b53b$e6ee76f0$b4cb64d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:14 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:41 PM, spike wrote: >>?Suppose a guy is married three times and has at least a couple (but as many as four) girlfriends on the side, and it becomes apparent that he is the father of at least 25 children?In theory, with sufficient persistence and determination, those descendants could ?reconstruct the entire genome of the long-perished prolific ancestor. >?What happens if any of the guy's genes did not make it into anyone still alive at the time of comparison? (Most simply, one gene happening in all 25 cases to not make it into the fertilizing sperm.) I don?t know Adrian. Do we have any hipsters in that area? Are there any computer sims we might reference? I should know this, but I don?t. Oh the shame, the ignominy is nearly more than I can bear. In this particular case, we think at least 20 of the offspring have living descendants, and of those, at least 16 offspring have descendants who have done a DNA test. We have a buttload of data on this guy at least one famous descendant (Chuck Yeager) and possibly a second ( John Forbes Nash (may he rest in peaceful equilibrium (haven?t been able to confirm it.))) spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tara at taramayastales.com Fri Jul 3 03:04:40 2015 From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 20:04:40 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> Message-ID: A century ago, it was quite possible for a guy to have fathered 25 children with just 2 sequential wives and no mistresses. Not sure if that?s at all relevant. Tara Maya Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon | Goodreads > On Jul 2, 2015, at 7:13 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:41 PM, spike > wrote: > > Suppose a guy is married three times and has at least a couple (but as many as four) girlfriends on the side, and it becomes apparent that he is the father of at least 25 children, 19 of whom were borne by women who were his wife at the time of the birth. A century passes. Thousands of people are his direct descendants, out of which dozens get DNA tested. Those descendants do genealogy and find each other by various means, FTDNA, AncestryDNA, 23andMe, such as that. They form a rollicking continuous online family reunion. > > > In theory, with sufficient persistence and determination, those descendants could compare their genomes, look at the shared segments in FTDNA, and gradually reconstruct the entire genome of the long-perished prolific ancestor. > > > Is there a flaw in my reasoning anywhere? > > > What happens if any of the guy's genes did not make it into anyone still alive at the time of comparison? (Most simply, one gene happening in all 25 cases to not make it into the fertilizing sperm.) > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 03:46:01 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 20:46:01 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> Message-ID: <020501d0b542$caefb340$60cf19c0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Tara Maya Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 8:05 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome >?A century ago, it was quite possible for a guy to have fathered 25 children with just 2 sequential wives and no mistresses. Not sure if that?s at all relevant. Tara Maya Ja. Leading theory is that there were nine by the first wife (I am descended from the 6th of 9) six by the second wife, four by the third, then (we think) two by each of two mistresses and two others by two others, for a total of 25 offspring by seven women, over a period of 45 years. It seems so unfair, life is so cruel. One guy had so much of whatever it is, the women would scarcely let him get out of bed. He wasn?t rich or famous, just extremely popular. His own great great grandson inherited so little of that whatever that is, it just don?t seem right. Ain?t fittin, it ain?t fittin. Tragic. So another thing: if we compare the oldest of his offspring to his youngest, and find any common segments the descendants of the oldest to the descendants of the youngest, we might be able to determine how often haplogroup mutations occur, ja? We have a known DNA sample from the grandson of the oldest of the 25. We have the genealogy but not a DNA sample from the youngest. I am trying to decide if it is worth 100 bucks to me to try to get a sample from the grandchildren of the youngest, on the outside chance they would share sufficient segments with the grandson of the eldest. I need a genetic hipster to guide me before I start dealing out Benjies on such a whimsical notion. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 04:15:51 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 21:15:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: <01b801d0b53b$e6ee76f0$b4cb64d0$@att.net> References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> <01b801d0b53b$e6ee76f0$b4cb64d0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 7:56 PM, spike wrote: > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes > *Sent:* Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:14 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome > > > > >?What happens if any of the guy's genes did not make it into anyone > still alive at the time of comparison? (Most simply, one gene happening in > all 25 cases to not make it into the fertilizing sperm.) > > > > I don?t know Adrian. Do we have any hipsters in that area? > > > > Are there any computer sims we might reference? I should know this, but I > don?t. Oh the shame, the ignominy is nearly more than I can bear. > Simple math, actually. The probability of a given gene of a father getting into a specific sperm of that father is roughly 50%. (Genes come in pairs; sperm contain one from each of these pairs.) There are 25 specific sperm that lead to those 25 specific children. So the odds are about 1/2^25 for any given gene. (1 - 1/2^25)^x, where x is the number of genes in the human genome (last estimate I heard was around 20,000), is the odds that each one of the genes made it into at least one direct descendant. (Assuming 20K genes, I calculate that's between 99.9% and 99.99% likely.) However, that is simply the odds for the 25 children. Similar math, combined with a family tree showing how many generations from common ancestor to all living (and identified) descendants, can factor in the possibility that at least one gene was bred out in the intervening generations. (This ignores the chance of mutation, though it's few enough generations that this likely won't significantly affect the results.) And even if you collectively do have all of them, how do you know for sure which ones were his? One that all of you share could have been shared by his wives and mistresses (perhaps he favored a certain quality of hair or fingers) but not by him. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Fri Jul 3 04:59:46 2015 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Thu, 2 Jul 2015 21:59:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: <01b801d0b53b$e6ee76f0$b4cb64d0$@att.net> References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> <01b801d0b53b$e6ee76f0$b4cb64d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <20150703045946.GL26812@nosyntax.net> spike [2015-07-02 20:11]: > ? > > ? > > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On > Behalf Of Adrian Tymes > Sent: Thursday, July 02, 2015 7:14 PM > To: ExI chat list > Subject: Re: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome > > ? > > On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:41 PM, spike <[1]spike66 at att.net> wrote: > > ? > > >>?Suppose a guy is married three times and has at least a couple (but as > many as four) girlfriends on the side, and it becomes apparent that he is > the father of at least 25 children?In theory, with sufficient persistence > and determination, those descendants could ?reconstruct the entire genome > of the long-perished prolific ancestor. > > > Adrian wrote: > >?What happens if any of the guy's genes did not make it into anyone still > alive at the time of comparison?? (Most simply, one gene happening in all > 25 cases to not make it into the fertilizing sperm.) > > > I don?t know Adrian.? Do we have any hipsters in that area? > > ? > > Are there any computer sims we might reference?? I should know this, but I > don?t.? Oh the shame, the ignominy is nearly more than I can bear. About half the genes won't make it into the first successful sperm. About 1/4 won't make it into either the first or the second, and so forth. With N matings, the expected fraction that don't make it is: (1/2)^N Using R, if we assume 20,000 genes, then the expected number that do not appear in the offspring is: > for (i in 5:25){print(c(i, 20000*0.5^i), digits=2, quote=FALSE)} [1] 5 625 [1] 6 312 [1] 7 156 [1] 8 78 [1] 9 39 [1] 10 20 [1] 11 9.8 [1] 12 4.9 [1] 13 2.4 [1] 14 1.2 [1] 15 0.61 [1] 16 0.31 [1] 17 0.15 [1] 18 0.076 [1] 19 0.038 [1] 20 0.019 [1] 21 0.0095 [1] 22 0.0048 [1] 23 0.0024 [1] 24 0.0012 [1] 25 0.0006 If I didn't blunder(*), 15 offspring are enough to make the odds favor no gene left behind. A related question: how many generations does it require for someone selected at random to have as many genes in common as a known ancestor? IOW, how many generations are required to make genealogy pointless? (*) I live on supplementary O2 24/7 now, and likely blunder more often than I used to. -- "Experience teaches us no less clearly than reason, that men believe themselves free, simply because they are conscious of their actions, and unconscious of the causes whereby those actions are determined." --B de Spinoza From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 08:04:36 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 01:04:36 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: <20150703045946.GL26812@nosyntax.net> References: <010201d0b531$616bbce0$244336a0$@att.net> <01b801d0b53b$e6ee76f0$b4cb64d0$@att.net> <20150703045946.GL26812@nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <004b01d0b566$eaa1ac60$bfe50520$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of rex ... > On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 6:41 PM, spike <[1]spike66 at att.net> wrote: > > > > >>?Suppose a guy is married three times and has at least a couple (but as > many as four) girlfriends on the side, and it becomes apparent that he is > the father of at least 25 children?In theory, with sufficient persistence > and determination, those descendants could ?reconstruct the entire genome > of the long-perished prolific ancestor... >...About half the genes won't make it into the first successful sperm. About 1/4 won't make it into either the first or the second, and so forth. ... Ja. The prolific guy was 4 generations back, so I carry about 1/16 of his genes, tragically none of the sexy ones. We have about 30 of his descendants who have done DNA testing, several of whom are his great grandchildren, so they would be carrying about 1/8 of his genes. >...A related question: how many generations does it require for someone selected at random to have as many genes in common as a known ancestor? IOW, how many generations are required to make genealogy pointless? About 8. Any two white* Americans are on the average about 7th cousins, so that means they share common ancestors somewhere about 8 generations back on average. If you have a cousin on any of the DNA sites and you discover a pair of commons that far back, keep looking, for there are probably other shared ancestors somewhere. * The reason I specified white Americans is that the whole DNA game generally hasn't really caught on much in racial minorities as far as I can tell. Evidence: I can take a black cousin who can find no known white ancestors anywhere, and go into their cousin list where people have the option of putting in their photos. Those cousins tend to have plenty of white cousins, completely unexplained. Jumping to the raped slave notion doesn't get us there: three of my black cousins' ancestors came to America after the war. The best I can do is theorize that their white cousins are far fewer but far more likely to do DNA testing. Same story with Chinese, dot Indians, feather Indians, Hispanics, Asians: their white cousins are more heavily represented by a factor of anywhere in the 3 to 8 range. Even after we theorize and compensate for some hypothetical but plausible economic factor, the asymmetry is still there and still strong. I am baffled trying to explain why. Open to suggestion. spike From anders at aleph.se Fri Jul 3 08:52:27 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 10:52:27 +0200 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: <00bb01d0b4db$1b673310$52359930$@att.net> Message-ID: <1394335095-19408@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: spike Oh ja, I used to go over there occasionally. ?I got a note from Damien about a few months ago; he was with Barbara in Texas. ?All was well with him. Yup. I made a picture for a book cover for him last week. >...There are other more devious possibilities, but that's the simplest...BillK _______________________________________________ NO! ?There are no other possibilities! ?NONE! ?No way Jose, not. ?Never did that, didn't even google on it. ?BillK's Damien Broderick theory is ALL THERE IS to see here, move along. No new-found? interest in heavy metal music? Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jul 3 08:45:38 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 10:45:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: <20150703045946.GL26812@nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <1392397349-18637@secure.ericade.net> I agree with the previous posters. 25 kids is more than enough to make most of the genome likely to be preserved in the next generation. ...but then there is the second generation. If every generation has 25 kids, fine. (The family reunion may require a major convention city, though). We can work backward: between you and your ancestor there are N generations. Each generation implies 50% chance of a change in gene. So for a given gene there is just 2^-N chance that it is the same. If there are D descendants, the chance that at least one has the original gene is 1-(1-2^-N)^D. If there are K genes, then the chance that there is at least one copy of each gene among the descendants is? (1-(1-2^-N)^D)^K (phew). Now, that probability declines fast as K increases but is counteracted by D. If you plot the probability as a function of D you will see a sigmoid curve. If you have N=4 and just look for one gene, you need 11 decendants to have 50+% chance of getting it, and 72 to get 99% certainty. For 10 genes, you need 42 descendants for 50% chance and 107 for 99%.? For 1000 genes you need 178 descendants for 99%. For 20,000 genes you need 224 descendants. Wow, that was way smaller than I thought! (of course, I could have messed up the math) However, as N increases the population needed grows fast (it is after all in the innermost parenthesis). For N=5 you need 457 descendants, N=6 920, N=7 1849, N=8 3705... the number of descendants you need doubles per generation back to the ancestor. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 12:15:21 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 13:15:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= Message-ID: Elon Musk funds Oxford research into machine intelligence Matt Pickles 1 Jul 2015 The Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University are to receive a ?1m grant for policy and technical research into the development of machine intelligence. This grant will allow Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, part of the Oxford Martin School and Faculty of Philosophy at the University, to become the world?s largest research institute working on technical and policy responses to the long-term prospect of smarter-than-human artificial intelligence. This growth follows the Institute Director Professor Nick Bostrom's bestselling book ?Superintelligence?, which was endorsed by both Elon Musk and Bill Gates. Professor Bostrom said: 'There has much talk recently about the future of AI. Elon - characteristically - decided to actually do something about it. ----------------- BillK From aleksei at iki.fi Fri Jul 3 13:46:10 2015 From: aleksei at iki.fi (Aleksei Riikonen) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 16:46:10 +0300 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 3:15 PM, BillK wrote: > > Professor Bostrom said: 'There has much talk recently about the future > of AI. Elon - characteristically - decided to actually do something > about it. Indeed. This $1.5M for Bostrom is just part of the $7M that Musk dished out just now. Here's a complete list of the recipients of these grants (there's also more where it came from, this is the kick-off money being distributed this year): http://futureoflife.org/misc/2015awardees -- Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei From giulio at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 14:15:46 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 16:15:46 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: They should have sent a couple of hundred bucks my way, and I would have advised them to leave the rest of the money in the bank. Superintelligent AIs will do what they want to do. That's the definition of intelligence, super or not. Trying to program or enforce behaviors or values in a super-smart AI is like telling your smart and rebellious kids to stay home and study instead of going out and have fun. Same thing, and same result. On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 3:46 PM, Aleksei Riikonen wrote: > On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 3:15 PM, BillK wrote: >> >> Professor Bostrom said: 'There has much talk recently about the future >> of AI. Elon - characteristically - decided to actually do something >> about it. > > Indeed. This $1.5M for Bostrom is just part of the $7M that Musk > dished out just now. > > Here's a complete list of the recipients of these grants (there's also > more where it came from, this is the kick-off money being distributed > this year): > > http://futureoflife.org/misc/2015awardees > > -- > Aleksei Riikonen - http://www.iki.fi/aleksei > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike66 at att.net Fri Jul 3 14:59:55 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 07:59:55 -0700 Subject: [ExI] what is this? In-Reply-To: <1394335095-19408@secure.ericade.net> References: <00bb01d0b4db$1b673310$52359930$@att.net> <1394335095-19408@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: <00ab01d0b5a0$efa531c0$ceef9540$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg >...There are other more devious possibilities, but that's the simplest...BillK _______________________________________________ NO! There are no other possibilities! NONE! No way Jose, not. Never did that, didn't even google on it. BillK's Damien Broderick theory is ALL THERE IS to see here, move along. >?No new-found interest in heavy metal music? Anders Sandberg? Um? SURE that?s it, heavy metal. Took it up recently with a passion. Nothing to do with any Bulgarian blue samovars. I know nothing about those. The young people are doing them these days, but not I. It was just something I saw on Darknet and didn?t even read the article, or not much of it. So no. Metal. Found a really good album, by Pat Boone, called In a Metal Mood, featuring his cover of Alice Cooper?s No More Mr. Nice Guy and other rock favorites: http://www.last.fm/music/Pat+Boone/In+a+Metal+Mood spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 16:32:15 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 09:32:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences Message-ID: Looks like I'll be speaking at the Space 2.0 conference in September: http://www.infocastinc.com/events/space/ I don't suppose any of you will be there? Or NewSpace later this month, or SmallSat in August. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jul 3 16:57:31 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 18:57:31 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1422567923-10797@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: Giulio Prisco They should have sent a couple of hundred bucks my way, and I would have advised them to leave the rest of the money in the bank. Superintelligent AIs will do what they want to do. That's the definition of intelligence, super or not. Trying to program or enforce behaviors or values in a super-smart AI is like telling your smart and rebellious kids to stay home and study instead of going out and have fun. Same thing, and same result. But the current approach to AI safety is like never talking with the kids about morals, emotions or societal conventions, nor giving them feedback on what they do except instrumental success ("Great work in forcing open the gun cabinet!") What we aim at doing is rather like figuring out what kind of upbringing is less likely to produce school shootings, sociopathy or unhappy career choices. Also, there are the lesser AIs to be concerned about. You want to make sure they can interpret our intentions, laws or norms in ways that actually works. Superintelligent entities may be smart enough to be safe even when merely "smart" agents are very unsafe (but see the whole analysis of why emergent AI values are not guaranteed to stay close to ours or anything sane; Inceptionist pictures are a pretty good example of what happens when we let AI preferences run free http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1445360/psychedelic-images-generated-by-googles-neural-network.jpg ) Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From kanzure at gmail.com Fri Jul 3 17:01:25 2015 From: kanzure at gmail.com (Bryan Bishop) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 12:01:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <1422567923-10797@secure.ericade.net> References: <1422567923-10797@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 11:57 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > Also, there are the lesser AIs to be concerned about. Yep, even profoundly retarded simulations (or emulations) require some speculation regarding how our interaction could proceed with them. Although I can't blame anyone for having an interest only in the profoundly intelligent.... - Bryan http://heybryan.org/ 1 512 203 0507 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From frankmac at ripco.com Fri Jul 3 17:49:24 2015 From: frankmac at ripco.com (frank mcelligott) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 10:49:24 -0700 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome Message-ID: <351C4947A12C43D0BEDB41ACBF73DFD3@grandviewpatPC> I recall a case in Baltimore Maryland, where a Doctor in a fertility clinic substituted his sperm, instead of using donated male sperm. He did this deed to over 200 woman's eggs which went to term and gave birth to healthy babies. I did not follow the court case, but I know they were seeking the clinics records to warn those who shared these same genes. Real life is not a whim, it has already happened Spike. A robot just killed a worker in a VW plant. Picked him up and crushed him against a wall, Does this event, a black swan, make rule I obsolete, "do no harm to humans". And second whom do we take to trial, the robot or his maker. Lastly the founder of Apple who still lives, has mused that as soon as Robots develop A/I the human race will become the robot's pets. Given this list idea that we will be all killed, I think I like the idea, as if the robots treat me like I treat my cat, that is so much better that termination. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From bbenzai at yahoo.com Fri Jul 3 18:42:10 2015 From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben) Date: Fri, 03 Jul 2015 19:42:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] digital resurrection of a genome In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <5596D782.1030706@yahoo.com> Spike wrote: > Leading theory is that there were nine by the first wife (I am descended from the 6th of 9) So, we call you Six of Nine, now? Ben From giulio at gmail.com Sat Jul 4 05:15:43 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2015 07:15:43 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <1422567923-10797@secure.ericade.net> References: <1422567923-10797@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: Anders says:"But the current approach to AI safety is like never talking with the kids about morals, emotions or societal conventions, nor giving them feedback on what they do except instrumental success ("Great work in forcing open the gun cabinet!") What we aim at doing is rather like figuring out what kind of upbringing is less likely to produce school shootings, sociopathy or unhappy career choices." Figuring out the best kinds of upbringing is an experimental science, you need to study what actually happened in the lives of many persons and try to correlate that with their upbringing (and you know that the results of these studies can be quite counter-intuitive). We have no data points for AIs. Also, I have a hunch that if you examine one of these studies you find that the deviations from any correlation are bigger for smart and emotionally strong people, because they are better able to shed their conditioning one way or another. For superAIs, remember that using the analogy in Nick's book we are talking of _really_ smarter entities, not in the sense that Einstein is smarter than the village idiot, but in the sense that humans are smarter then beetles. Beetles couldn't control humans for long - they couldn't lock me in a room, because they aren't smart enough to have locks and keys. Etc. Don't get me wrong, I am super happy that the FHI got the funding because you and Nick are my friends and I am sure the FHI will do something good with the money, but I still think that hoping to influence, control, condition, program superAIs is a contradiction in terms. G. On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 6:57 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Fr?n: Giulio Prisco > > They should have sent a couple of hundred bucks my way, and I would > have advised them to leave the rest of the money in the bank. > Superintelligent AIs will do what they want to do. That's the > definition of intelligence, super or not. Trying to program or enforce > behaviors or values in a super-smart AI is like telling your smart and > rebellious kids to stay home and study instead of going out and have > fun. Same thing, and same result. > > > But the current approach to AI safety is like never talking with the kids > about morals, emotions or societal conventions, nor giving them feedback on > what they do except instrumental success ("Great work in forcing open the > gun cabinet!") What we aim at doing is rather like figuring out what kind of > upbringing is less likely to produce school shootings, sociopathy or unhappy > career choices. > > Also, there are the lesser AIs to be concerned about. You want to make sure > they can interpret our intentions, laws or norms in ways that actually > works. Superintelligent entities may be smart enough to be safe even when > merely "smart" agents are very unsafe (but see the whole analysis of why > emergent AI values are not guaranteed to stay close to ours or anything > sane; Inceptionist pictures are a pretty good example of what happens when > we let AI preferences run free > http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1445360/psychedelic-images-generated-by-googles-neural-network.jpg > ) > > > Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford > University > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From anders at aleph.se Sat Jul 4 08:28:19 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2015 10:28:19 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1477244706-9984@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: Giulio Prisco For superAIs, remember that using the analogy in Nick's book we are talking of _really_ smarter entities, not in the sense that Einstein is smarter than the village idiot, but in the sense that humans are smarter then beetles. Beetles couldn't control humans for long - they couldn't lock me in a room, because they aren't smart enough to have locks and keys. Etc. Don't get me wrong, I am super happy that the FHI got the funding because you and Nick are my friends and I am sure the FHI will do something good with the money, but I still think that hoping to influence, control, condition, program superAIs is a ?contradiction in terms. We both agree that superintelligent systems are fundamentally uncontrollable once they are up and running. But that does not mean one cannot start them in different states *before* they become powerful, and some of these states are much safer than others. It is just that right now we do not have a good theory of how to tell (that is part of the whole research program). However, we do have models of super-AI that we know are deeply unsafe and actually likely to misbehave despite being arbitrarily smart (my standard example is the AIXI-driven paperclip maximizer - it is well defined enough that you can prove stuff about it). If one thinks there is nothing one can plan for when making smarter AIs, then it just becomes a gamble with existential risk. Sensible people would likely want to avoid AI then, while people with overconfident metaethical views? would push forward (I have met a few). If one thinks AI development is going to be slow enough or have economies of scale that produces a broad swell rather than a spike, fine, different AI systems can act as checks and balances on each other and there is a good chance humanity is integrated in the cooperative framework... but how do we know that scenario is the one that will play out? It is a good idea to understand AI dynamics as well as we can before we bet *everything* on our understanding. There is an interesting interplay between views of knowability and controllability of the future here. A lot of traditional AI people think the future is knowable and controllable, and hence safe ("Look, I am simply not going to make my robot want to harm people, right?"). That is often an overconfident position when talking about things further down the road. Then there are those who think the future isn't knowable but controllable ("If the AI misbehaves we will just pull the plug"). That seems historically to have often been a bad assumption (let's just stop emitting CO2, right?). Thinking the future isn't controllable or knowable is just a fatalistic "whatever will be, will be" - it doesn't motivate anybody to anything. The uncontrollable but knowable corner is even worse: this is where people think they know what will happen but there is no way of avoiding it. As I see it, moving things towards controllability is generally a good thing: it cannot always be done, but it is good to know what can be done. We can also push towards knowing more, which hopefully both allows better aiming of whatever control there is, and to counteract overconfidence about the field. G. On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 6:57 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Fr?n: Giulio Prisco > > They should have sent a couple of hundred bucks my way, and I would > have advised them to leave the rest of the money in the bank. > Superintelligent AIs will do what they want to do. That's the > definition of intelligence, super or not. Trying to program or enforce > behaviors or values in a super-smart AI is like telling your smart and > rebellious kids to stay home and study instead of going out and have > fun. Same thing, and same result. > > > But the current approach to AI safety is like never talking with the kids > about morals, emotions or societal conventions, nor giving them feedback on > what they do except instrumental success ("Great work in forcing open the > gun cabinet!") What we aim at doing is rather like figuring out what kind of > upbringing is less likely to produce school shootings, sociopathy or unhappy > career choices. > > Also, there are the lesser AIs to be concerned about. You want to make sure > they can interpret our intentions, laws or norms in ways that actually > works. Superintelligent entities may be smart enough to be safe even when > merely "smart" agents are very unsafe (but see the whole analysis of why > emergent AI values are not guaranteed to stay close to ours or anything > sane; Inceptionist pictures are a pretty good example of what happens when > we let AI preferences run free > http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1445360/psychedelic-images-generated-by-googles-neural-network.jpg > ) > > > 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 Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jul 5 06:03:53 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 4 Jul 2015 23:03:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] drone in the fireworks show Message-ID: <016101d0b6e8$61e26800$25a73800$@att.net> Cool! Some yahoo was flying his or her drone thru the fireworks show this evening. It was right down in the action for at least part of the show, yet went away unharmed. Here's an example of someone who did this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a9KZ3jgbbmI Clearly if you did this for long, something would hit your drone. But space is big. It would be cool to see how long you could fly before a bit of flaming debris ended your fun. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 14:38:05 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 16:38:05 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <1477244706-9984@secure.ericade.net> References: <1477244706-9984@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: Anders, the paperclip maximizer is a good example indeed. For all we know, it could reason that humans are the only users of paperclips in the known universe, so that humans give a cosmic meaning to paper clip production, so that humans must be revered and protected... My point is that we don't know - just like Columbus didn't know what he would find at the end of his journey. On Sat, Jul 4, 2015 at 10:28 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Fr?n: Giulio Prisco > > For superAIs, remember that using the analogy in Nick's book we are > talking of _really_ smarter entities, not in the sense that Einstein > is smarter than the village idiot, but in the sense that humans are > smarter then beetles. Beetles couldn't control humans for long - they > couldn't lock me in a room, because they aren't smart enough to have > locks and keys. Etc. > > > Don't get me wrong, I am super happy that the FHI got the funding > because you and Nick are my friends and I am sure the FHI will do > something good with the money, but I still think that hoping to > influence, control, condition, program superAIs is a contradiction in > terms. > > > We both agree that superintelligent systems are fundamentally uncontrollable > once they are up and running. But that does not mean one cannot start them > in different states *before* they become powerful, and some of these states > are much safer than others. It is just that right now we do not have a good > theory of how to tell (that is part of the whole research program). However, > we do have models of super-AI that we know are deeply unsafe and actually > likely to misbehave despite being arbitrarily smart (my standard example is > the AIXI-driven paperclip maximizer - it is well defined enough that you can > prove stuff about it). > > If one thinks there is nothing one can plan for when making smarter AIs, > then it just becomes a gamble with existential risk. Sensible people would > likely want to avoid AI then, while people with overconfident metaethical > views would push forward (I have met a few). If one thinks AI development > is going to be slow enough or have economies of scale that produces a broad > swell rather than a spike, fine, different AI systems can act as checks and > balances on each other and there is a good chance humanity is integrated in > the cooperative framework... but how do we know that scenario is the one > that will play out? It is a good idea to understand AI dynamics as well as > we can before we bet *everything* on our understanding. > > There is an interesting interplay between views of knowability and > controllability of the future here. A lot of traditional AI people think the > future is knowable and controllable, and hence safe ("Look, I am simply not > going to make my robot want to harm people, right?"). That is often an > overconfident position when talking about things further down the road. Then > there are those who think the future isn't knowable but controllable ("If > the AI misbehaves we will just pull the plug"). That seems historically to > have often been a bad assumption (let's just stop emitting CO2, right?). > Thinking the future isn't controllable or knowable is just a fatalistic > "whatever will be, will be" - it doesn't motivate anybody to anything. The > uncontrollable but knowable corner is even worse: this is where people think > they know what will happen but there is no way of avoiding it. As I see it, > moving things towards controllability is generally a good thing: it cannot > always be done, but it is good to know what can be done. We can also push > towards knowing more, which hopefully both allows better aiming of whatever > control there is, and to counteract overconfidence about the field. > > > > > G. > > > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 6:57 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: >> Fr?n: Giulio Prisco >> >> They should have sent a couple of hundred bucks my way, and I would >> have advised them to leave the rest of the money in the bank. >> Superintelligent AIs will do what they want to do. That's the >> definition of intelligence, super or not. Trying to program or enforce >> behaviors or values in a super-smart AI is like telling your smart and >> rebellious kids to stay home and study instead of going out and have >> fun. Same thing, and same result. >> >> >> But the current approach to AI safety is like never talking with the kids >> about morals, emotions or societal conventions, nor giving them feedback >> on >> what they do except instrumental success ("Great work in forcing open the >> gun cabinet!") What we aim at doing is rather like figuring out what kind >> of >> upbringing is less likely to produce school shootings, sociopathy or >> unhappy >> career choices. >> >> Also, there are the lesser AIs to be concerned about. You want to make >> sure >> they can interpret our intentions, laws or norms in ways that actually >> works. Superintelligent entities may be smart enough to be safe even when >> merely "smart" agents are very unsafe (but see the whole analysis of why >> emergent AI values are not guaranteed to stay close to ours or anything >> sane; Inceptionist pictures are a pretty good example of what happens when >> we let AI preferences run free >> >> http://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1445360/psychedelic-images-generated-by-googles-neural-network.jpg >> ) >> >> >> 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 > > > > > > Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford > University > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From andrew at jarbox.org Fri Jul 3 19:23:38 2015 From: andrew at jarbox.org (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Fri, 3 Jul 2015 12:23:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> > On Jul 3, 2015, at 5:15 AM, BillK wrote: > > Elon Musk funds Oxford research into machine intelligence The list of what was funded is interesting: http://futureoflife.org/misc/2015awardees Reading over the abstracts, it appears the selection bias in who submitted proposals creates a disconnect between assumptions about the state-of-the-art and actual state-of-the-art. In at least a few cases, the researchers are insufficiently familiar with the domain they are nominally researching as evidenced in the abstract. The following are two examples of what I mean. I do not mean to single anyone out in particular, nor do I care per se, these just happen to be areas I know (too) well. Katja Grace (related to this work: http://aiimpacts.org/tepsbrainestimate/ ) This project relates to estimating AI transition timelines based on improvements in computer science and hardware to ?aid in evaluating the probability of discontinuities in AI progress?. It mentions using traversed edges per second (TEPS), a supercomputing benchmark, that actually is a good proxy for AI-like computational capability. The TEPS benchmark is *evidence* of a severe discontinuity but ironically that is not recognized. Nothing in literature will allow you to replicate the published TEPS performance. The algorithm family used, developed in 2008, is several orders of magnitude beyond the published state-of-the-art and only a few people know how it works. There was an independently developed algorithm family in 2009 that is two orders of magnitude more efficient than the mystery algorithm used in TEPS benchmarks, so a discontinuity beyond *that* too, but there is virtually no evidence that it exists unless you know what you are looking at because they are not marketing supercomputers. Core computer science is advancing rapidly but little of it is occurring in academia or is being published. There have been many large discontinuities in computer science over the last several years evidenced by their effects that have largely gone unnoticed because it was not formally published. A model of AI transition timelines that is oblivious to the current rate of change in non-published computer science as evidenced by effects is going to generate a misleading model. Owain Evans ?Our project seeks to develop algorithms that learn human preferences from data despite humans not being homo-economicus and despite the influence of non-rational impulses. We will test our algorithms on real-world data and compare their inferences to people?s own judgments about their preferences." This has been done at spectacular scales for a couple years now. No assumptions about individual human decision processes are made at all, each person is the sum of their observed behaviors learned over long periods of time in various contexts. Contextual values and preferences are derived from that, both individually and in aggregate. Doing these types of studies in a way that produces robust and valid results is beyond non-trivial and highly unlikely to be achieved by someone who is not already an expert at real-world behavioral induction, which unfortunately is the case here. Some of the funded projects seem quite reasonable but the list reflects either an overly limited selection to choose from ? fishing in the wrong pond ? or a naivete on the part of the selectors as to the state of some of these areas. The absence of people doing relevant advanced computer science R&D in the list is going to produce some giant blind spots in the aggregate output. -jar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 17:24:05 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 10:24:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > Looks like I'll be speaking at the Space 2.0 conference in September: > http://www.infocastinc.com/events/space/ > > I don't suppose any of you will be there? Or NewSpace later this month, > or SmallSat in August. > Anybody? Spike, you're still working for Lockheed, yes? Will they let you go to one of these? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 17:41:46 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 10:41:46 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> References: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 12:23 PM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote: > Some of the funded projects seem quite reasonable but the list reflects > either an overly limited selection to choose from ? fishing in the wrong > pond ? or a naivete on the part of the selectors as to the state of some of > these areas. The absence of people doing relevant advanced computer science > R&D in the list is going to produce some giant blind spots in the aggregate > output. > This is a basic problem with advanced science funding: lack of awareness of all of the truly game-changing possibilities. That can be viewed as a marketing problem: those pursuing these most extreme but potentially effective technologies haven't gotten the word out much, so when funding is available, the funding sources never hear of them. This is the theory behind SBIRs' open solicitations: by advertising that there is funding looking to solve a specific problem and waiting a few months, it is hoped that such edge cases may have a good chance of applying to the programs, and thereby coming to the funders' attention. (In practice there are problems with this, not the least of which being when these SBIRs are smokescreens for predetermined awards, wasting everyone else's time, usually to the collective tune of man-years down the drain. But the theory, at least, is sound.) It might behoove private money like this to adopt this practice, to avoid this problem, rather than conducting the entire search through private I-know-someone-who networks. (Cranks, fraudsters, and the deluded are more of a problem, but most of these are easily screened out - and feedback to the screened out, which the incorrectly screened out can respond to, can reduce the number of incorrect screenings, as well as shift some of the screened out onto valid research paths.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jul 5 17:57:08 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 10:57:08 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <009f01d0b74c$06898e20$139caa60$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Sunday, July 05, 2015 10:24 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Space conferences >?On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 9:32 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: Looks like I'll be speaking at the Space 2.0 conference in September: http://www.infocastinc.com/events/space/ >?I don't suppose any of you will be there? Or NewSpace later this month, or SmallSat in August. >?Anybody? Spike, you're still working for Lockheed, yes? Will they let you go to one of these? Hi Adrian, I am not working at LMCO to any extent (I am still call-inable, but the kinds of controls-based technical solutions I have to offer are solved now.) My travel and lodging cost would be extremely low? {8^] ? but as far as I know the conference isn?t offering any low-cost sessions, so I didn?t register. I am cheering wildly for anyone who is working in small sats. If anyone manages to create a cheaper ride to space, particularly in the small payload, high risk tolerance range, we create entire new markets. Musk?s latest failure was major doh-facepalm, but on we go. That one was way cool for control freaks because of the cool controls challenge of landing a rocket on its feet. Keith?s notion of Skylon is also on the radar screen, so I am cheering for the Brits too. Haven?t heard anything recently from them. One thing that has become ever more apparent to me: the big tech need coming in the foreseeable is a massive increase in bandwidth to mobile devices. Regardless of what happens in space, if we figure out how to use satellites to carry way more signal than we can currently, that tech will fly. More bandwidth is the growing immediate dire need, looooots more. We need to figure out how to get constellations of satellites working together to carry more signal everywhere, kind of an advanced version of Iridium, with more satellites and more bandwidth. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 5 18:33:21 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 19:33:21 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences In-Reply-To: <009f01d0b74c$06898e20$139caa60$@att.net> References: <009f01d0b74c$06898e20$139caa60$@att.net> Message-ID: On 5 July 2015 at 18:57, spike wrote: > I am cheering wildly for anyone who is working in small sats. If anyone > manages to create a cheaper ride to space, particularly in the small > payload, high risk tolerance range, we create entire new markets. Musk?s > latest failure was major doh-facepalm, but on we go. That one was way cool > for control freaks because of the cool controls challenge of landing a > rocket on its feet. Keith?s notion of Skylon is also on the radar screen, > so I am cheering for the Brits too. Haven?t heard anything recently from > them. > Found it! I thought I remembered a recent news item. Quote: Monday 15 June 2015 Reaction Engines Ltd. have begun their latest round of rocket engine testing in Westcott, UK. The SABRE engine requires a novel design of the rocket engine?s thrust chamber and nozzle to allow operation in both air-breathing and rocket modes, as well as a smooth transition between the two. The Advanced Nozzle project is demonstrating the feasibility of this concept and represents a significant technology development effort towards the SABRE demonstrator engine. ------------- BillK From andrew at jarbox.org Sun Jul 5 18:49:16 2015 From: andrew at jarbox.org (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 11:49:16 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: References: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> Message-ID: > On Jul 5, 2015, at 10:41 AM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > > On Fri, Jul 3, 2015 at 12:23 PM, J. Andrew Rogers > wrote: > Some of the funded projects seem quite reasonable but the list reflects either an overly limited selection to choose from ? fishing in the wrong pond ? or a naivete on the part of the selectors as to the state of some of these areas. The absence of people doing relevant advanced computer science R&D in the list is going to produce some giant blind spots in the aggregate output. > > This is a basic problem with advanced science funding: lack of awareness of all of the truly game-changing possibilities. That can be viewed as a marketing problem: those pursuing these most extreme but potentially effective technologies haven't gotten the word out much, so when funding is available, the funding sources never hear of them. A major flaw is the ?if you build it, they will come? attitude of most funding organizations. To the extent people doing advanced research are their customers, they are putting relatively little effort on customer acquisition. You have a few outliers like the US intelligence community that systematically search for people doing unusual computer science instead of waiting for it to walk in the door. This gives these organizations an unusually good grasp of the state of what is possible and might be possible, and who is doing credible work in the area. I have never come across private funding organization that put this kind of effort into finding people worth funding. In my experience, AI is more insular than the computer science research community at large, which magnifies the problem for that particular domain. > This is the theory behind SBIRs' open solicitations: by advertising that there is funding looking to solve a specific problem and waiting a few months, it is hoped that such edge cases may have a good chance of applying to the programs, and thereby coming to the funders' attention. Yeah, in practice most people doing serious research avoid SBIRs altogether. Too much paperwork and process to justify the investment. Within the scope of the US government, this is where the intelligence agencies have a real advantage since they have multiple vehicles for writing million dollar checks without the application process or paperwork for things they think are important. -jar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Jul 5 19:20:25 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 21:20:25 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> Message-ID: <1604081068-18997@secure.ericade.net> The abstracts posted on that page are not the full technical abstracts, but seem to be short versions of them. There is *a lot* of more detail in the actual project proposals as far as I know.? From: J. Andrew Rogers ? Core computer science is advancing rapidly but little of it is occurring in academia or is being published. There have been many large discontinuities in computer science over the last several years evidenced by their effects that have largely gone unnoticed because it was not formally published.? Would you be so kind to mention some of these? Owain Evans ?Our project seeks to develop algorithms that learn human preferences from data despite humans not being homo-economicus and despite the influence of non-rational impulses. We will test our algorithms on real-world data and compare their inferences to people?s own judgments about their preferences." This has been done at spectacular scales for a couple years now. No assumptions about individual human decision processes are made at all, each person is the sum of their observed behaviors learned over long periods of time in various contexts. Contextual values and preferences are derived from that, both individually and in aggregate. Any particular references for this? Full disclosure: Owain is actually my flatmate *and* colleague, and we have been discussed this project at some length. What he is actually planning to do with the Stanford team seems to be rather different from current recommender and preference inference systems (yes, there has been a fair bit of literature and tech review involved in writing the grant). While there are certainly behavioural economics models out there, I have not seen any generative modelling. Doing these types of studies in a way that produces robust and valid results is beyond non-trivial and highly unlikely to be achieved by someone who is not already an expert at real-world behavioral induction, which unfortunately is the case here.? Hmm, just checking: are you an expert on judging the expertise of the different teams? How well do you know their expertise areas? The sentence ?The absence of people doing relevant advanced computer science R&D in the list is going to produce some giant blind spots in the aggregate output. seems to suggest that you do not know the CVs of the teams very well. It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of funded projects are duds. Most science is. But the aim is a bit subtle: to actually kickstart the field of beneficial AI, and that involves meshing several disciplines and luring in more standard research too - there is a fair bit or related stuff in other research programsthat is not visible from the list. In the end, the real success will be if it triggers long-term research collaborations that can actually solve the bigger problems. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jul 5 19:10:54 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2015 12:10:54 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences In-Reply-To: References: <009f01d0b74c$06898e20$139caa60$@att.net> Message-ID: <013701d0b756$546f5fc0$fd4e1f40$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK ... Found it! I thought I remembered a recent news item. Quote: Monday 15 June 2015 Reaction Engines Ltd. have begun their latest round of rocket engine testing in Westcott, UK. >...The SABRE engine requires a novel design of the rocket engine?s thrust chamber and nozzle to allow operation in both air-breathing and rocket modes, as well as a smooth transition between the two. The Advanced Nozzle project is demonstrating the feasibility of this concept and represents a significant technology development effort towards the SABRE demonstrator engine. >...BillK _______________________________________________ Hi BillK, thanks, but that still doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. This notion was really hot stuff in the 80s and 90s, and we knew that to make a single stage to orbit notion fly, we needed to be air-breathing until way up in the thin air, and needed to really be hauling by the time we run out of air. To do that, we know our combustion chamber is downwind of some astonishing and mighty shock waves, which means the flow is hot and chaotic. To make the cycle work requires some kind of intercooler to get cold laminar flow to the engine. Then we have a chance of making the whole air-breathing to rocket hybrid scheme work. The article says they are testing, and we have heard rumors that the Brits have made an intercooler. We yanks are cheering for you guys bigtime. If you succeed, it is a new day in space, me lad. We space guys over here will practice our British accents (and take up those odd British spellings and bring out our Beatles records too) just to sound smart, for you Brits will have succeeded where we (the Yanks, the Chinese and the commies) have failed. If it works, then a hearty jolly good show, chaps! spike From anders at aleph.se Sun Jul 5 22:11:26 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 00:11:26 +0200 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <1614271995-27328@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: Giulio Prisco Anders, the paperclip maximizer is a good example indeed. For all we know, it could reason that humans are the only users of paperclips in the known universe, so that humans give a cosmic meaning to paper clip production, so that humans must be revered and protected... My point is that we don't know - just like Columbus didn't know what he would find at the end of his journey. But that is not my example. That would be a paperclip-meaning maximizer or something. I was talking about something that evaluates value as being proportional to the number of paperclips (defined according to some internal paperclip model). Humans using paperclips is negative by that standard (they occasionally break them, and by not being paperclips they represent untapped resources for more paperclips). It is this kind of slip of meaning that makes a lot of verbal AI arguments mistaken. Think of this as software code maximizing something, not as a human-like mind that cares and reveres. Yes, the *right* utility function might indeed producing caring behavior and maybe also revering mental states. But *most* utility functions that maximize the number of paperclips do not. Indeed, trying to write a caring utility function is way harder than a mere maximizer, so unless the programmer was strongly motivated to try from the start the most likely outcome is one of the other utility functions. Writing your ethical system as computer executable code (or code that reliably learns it) is a nontrivial challenge. Writing an explicit ethical system that doesn't have crazy side effects that render it contradictory to your intentions is even harder. Saying it is OK that we don't know what will happen is a bit like pouring out chemicals at random from your lab into the water supply: maybe they will make a cure for cancer. But very probably it is not a wise move. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From andrew at jarbox.org Mon Jul 6 18:44:13 2015 From: andrew at jarbox.org (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 11:44:13 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <1604081068-18997@secure.ericade.net> References: <1604081068-18997@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: > On Jul 5, 2015, at 12:20 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > From: J. Andrew Rogers > > Core computer science is advancing rapidly but little of it is occurring in academia or is being published. There have been many large discontinuities in computer science over the last several years evidenced by their effects that have largely gone unnoticed because it was not formally published. > > Would you be so kind to mention some of these? Hi Anders, Here are three examples that I have experience with: - Parallel graph traversal not based on sparse, synchronous models. The best algorithms are dense, asynchronous models using topological techniques. Local traversals can run free but still produce the same global result as if you globally synchronized traversal depth. This is the organizational basis of some new ultra-fast index-less database kernels that should become common over the next few years. - Software that can teach itself to design novel, state-of-the-art algorithms. For example, the world?s best hash function engineer is a piece of software I designed in 2012 (see URL below). Its internal model of how to design hash functions was constructed by iterative and extraordinarily expensive high-order algorithmic induction. People are using this technique to construct algorithm designers for other hard problems in commercial software. http://www.jandrewrogers.com/2015/05/27/metrohash/ - Representation of the physical world on computers i.e. dynamic indexing of shapes and paths at scale. Until 2007, we had no idea how to do this (see URL below). Few people know how SpaceCurve?s implementation works but it is multiple orders of magnitude beyond the scalability and performance of any other software for what it does. Popular for continuous analysis of population behavior because nothing else can. http://www.jandrewrogers.com/2015/03/02/geospatial-databases-are-hard/ The first and last examples both fall into the class of algorithm problems that do not have tractable solutions in graph-like software representations. In recent years, a scalable computing model was discovered that solves this class of problems. (In this model, your primitives are hyper-rectangles embedded in an even higher dimensionality surface; algorithms are executed on and between surfaces via logical quasi-homomorphisms. Extremely efficient and parallelizable.) Really interesting software is being designed this way by a handful of people at a handful of companies, the qualitative improvements currently being used primarily to arbitrage existing markets. Of specific relevance to AI, the core algebra inherently has strongly compressive characteristics that makes it ideal for induction, clustering, etc while being largely insensitive to dimensionality. I do not know if anyone is trying to solve for this specifically at the moment but a good implementation should put current ?deep learning? stacks to shame across every metric that matters. > Any particular references for this? > > Full disclosure: Owain is actually my flatmate *and* colleague, and we have been discussed this project at some length. What he is actually planning to do with the Stanford team seems to be rather different from current recommender and preference inference systems (yes, there has been a fair bit of literature and tech review involved in writing the grant). While there are certainly behavioural economics models out there, I have not seen any generative modelling. Commercially people are already fusing real-time mobile and other telemetry, social media, remote sensing, environmental, etc data ? basically everything that can be measured about an entity and its environment ? into a single spatiotemporal model logged over several years, limited only by storage budget. The first attempt at population-scale behavioral and preference reconstruction solely from this data was by a friend in 2012. The capability has progressed considerably since then. It is both pretty amazing and disconcerting. An important outcome has been the realization that the models inductively constructed from population-scale all-source data do not match results from virtually all studies on behavior and preferences with small populations, narrow data sources, short time windows, or aware participants. There are significant technology, data access, and regulatory hurdles to generating good models of humanity, hence my ?non-trivial? comment. Full disclosure: I designed the largest such extant systems. The biggest single systems today cover ~5% of the human population and could scale to all of it. It mostly blows peoples? minds that it is even possible. I believe there is a Wall Street Journal article on the technology slated to be published this summer. > Doing these types of studies in a way that produces robust and valid results is beyond non-trivial and highly unlikely to be achieved by someone who is not already an expert at real-world behavioral induction, which unfortunately is the case here. > > Hmm, just checking: are you an expert on judging the expertise of the different teams? How well do you know their expertise areas? I was careful to only comment on areas where I have deep domain expertise. I do not know the expertise of the teams per se but the community of people doing the current state-of-the-art in areas I am familiar with is not large. If I do not know the people then I am often familiar with the work occurring at their affiliated organization. One of the reasons I bothered to read the list was to see if there was intersection with people I know working on technology that I suspect will be relevant (there weren?t). > The sentence > > The absence of people doing relevant advanced computer science R&D in the list is going to produce some giant blind spots in the aggregate output. > > seems to suggest that you do not know the CVs of the teams very well. I know the CVs of some of the people, others not so much. My comment was more about what was apparently missing from the set of CVs. > It wouldn't surprise me if the majority of funded projects are duds. Most science is. But the aim is a bit subtle: to actually kickstart the field of beneficial AI, and that involves meshing several disciplines and luring in more standard research too - there is a fair bit or related stuff in other research programs that is not visible from the list. In the end, the real success will be if it triggers long-term research collaborations that can actually solve the bigger problems. Sure, I was in no way trying to impugn the effort, it obviously has merits. I was making the observation that based on what I know about some of those domains, the process of acquiring the necessary expertise needs some work. Anecdotally, I never even heard of this particular RFP until I saw the results of it. -jar -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Mon Jul 6 23:53:18 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2015 16:53:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: References: <1604081068-18997@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: On Jul 6, 2015 3:22 PM, "J. Andrew Rogers" wrote: > Anecdotally, I never even heard of this particular RFP until I saw the results of it. Was there an RFP? It looked like maybe there wasn't, that they were selecting from projects they and their network had heard of. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 07:56:31 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 08:56:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: References: <1604081068-18997@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: On 7 July 2015 at 00:53, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jul 6, 2015 3:22 PM, "J. Andrew Rogers" wrote: >> Anecdotally, I never even heard of this particular RFP until I saw the >> results of it. > > Was there an RFP? It looked like maybe there wasn't, that they were > selecting from projects they and their network had heard of. > They call it an RFP on their website. Not sure how widely publicised it was though. I don't think I had heard much about the Future of Life Institute before the grants news. They have an RSS feed for their news. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 10:42:42 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 11:42:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] =?utf-8?q?Future_of_Humanity_Institute_at_Oxford_University?= =?utf-8?q?_=C2=A31_million_grant_for_AI?= In-Reply-To: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> References: <6CD9B337-C3A5-41D5-B0A3-9700F4C5030F@jarbox.org> Message-ID: On 3 July 2015 at 20:23, J. Andrew Rogers wrote: > Reading over the abstracts, it appears the selection bias in who submitted > proposals creates a disconnect between assumptions about the > state-of-the-art and actual state-of-the-art. In at least a few cases, the > researchers are insufficiently familiar with the domain they are nominally > researching as evidenced in the abstract. > > > Some of the funded projects seem quite reasonable but the list reflects > either an overly limited selection to choose from ? fishing in the wrong > pond ? or a naivete on the part of the selectors as to the state of some of > these areas. The absence of people doing relevant advanced computer science > R&D in the list is going to produce some giant blind spots in the aggregate > output. > Just a small comment - The grants are not aimed directly at the latest state-of-the-art AI research. The grants were for the goal of keeping AI development "robust and beneficial." Business Insider has some comments: Quote: A group of scientists just got awarded $7 million to find ways to ensure artificial intelligence doesn't turn out evil. The Boston-based Future of Life Institute (FLI), a nonprofit dedicated to mitigating existential risks to humanity, announced last week that 37 teams were being funded with the goal of keeping AI "robust and beneficial." Most of that funding was donated by Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur behind SpaceX and Tesla Motors. The remainder came from the nonprofit Open Philanthropy Project. Musk is one of a growing cadre of technology leaders and scientists, including Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates, who believe that artificial intelligence poses an existential threat to humanity. In January, the Future of Life Institute released an open letter ? signed by Musk, Hawking and dozens of big names in AI ? calling for research on ways to keep AI beneficial and avoid potential "pitfalls." At the time, Musk pledged to give $10 million in support of the research. ********** The teams getting funded were selected from nearly 300 applicants to pursue projects in fields ranging from computer science to law to economics. ********** --------------- BillK From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk Tue Jul 7 15:48:04 2015 From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 15:48:04 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [ExI] PNAS paper on aging in the young Message-ID: <947156608.801416.1436284084626.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Quantification of biological aging in young adults?is the paper. I followed the link from the BBC website story?Ageing rates vary widely, says study - BBC News?.? ?I have a horrible feeling Yahoo is going to shred this email horribly, so if the links come out as gibberish, go to the BBC news website, look under the health tab for today's story called "Ageing rates vary widely" and follow the link from there. It seems it's not just neurological health that could benefit from early intervention (as Mike Darwin has been saying for years), this study indicates you can track widely variable rates in decline of multiple body systems in the 30s. Time I paid more attention to my diet. Tom | ? | | ? | | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | | Quantification of biological aging in young adultsAuthor contributions: D.W.B., A.C., R.P., and T.E.M. designed research; | | | | View on www.pnas.org | Preview by Yahoo | | | | ? | | ? | | ? | | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | | Ageing rates vary widely, says study - BBC NewsA study of people born in the same year has uncovered a huge difference in the speed at which their bodies age. | | | | View on www.bbc.co.uk | Preview by Yahoo | | | | ? | ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 7 16:34:42 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2015 17:34:42 +0100 Subject: [ExI] PNAS paper on aging in the young In-Reply-To: <947156608.801416.1436284084626.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> References: <947156608.801416.1436284084626.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: On 7 July 2015 at 16:48, Tom Nowell wrote: > Quantification of biological aging in young adults is the paper. > > >I followed the link from the BBC website story > Ageing rates vary widely, says study - BBC News > > I have a horrible feeling Yahoo is going to shred this email horribly, so > if the links come out as gibberish, go to the BBC news website, look under > the health tab for today's story called "Ageing rates vary widely" and > follow the link from there. > > It seems it's not just neurological health that could benefit from early > intervention (as Mike Darwin has been saying for years), this study > indicates you can track widely variable rates in decline of multiple body > systems in the 30s. Time I paid more attention to my diet. > Many Exi list members use gmail to read the list and unfortunately gmail puts all Exi posts from Yahoo mail senders into the Spam folder. (gmail seems to have a grudge against Yahoo mail). I have reformatted and reposted your post. :) BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Thu Jul 9 16:34:00 2015 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2015 12:34:00 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to the end of Moore's Law? Message-ID: This was in today's New York Times: ====== IBM Discloses Working Version of a Much Higher-Capacity Chip By JOHN MARKOFF JULY 9, 2015 IBM said on Thursday that it had made working versions of ultradense computer chips, with roughly four times the capacity of today?s most powerful chips. The announcement, made on behalf of an international consortium led by IBM, the giant computer company, is part of an effort to manufacture the most advanced computer chips in New York?s Hudson Valley, where IBM is investing $3 billion in a private-public partnership with New York State, GlobalFoundries, Samsung and equipment vendors. The development lifts a bit of the cloud that has fallen over the semiconductor industry, which has struggled to maintain its legendary pace of doubling transistor density every two years. Intel, which for decades has been the industry leader, has faced technical challenges in recent years. Moreover, technologists have begun to question whether the longstanding pace of chip improvement, known as Moore?s Law, would continue past the current 14-nanometer generation of chips. Each generation of chip technology is defined by the minimum size of fundamental components that switch current at nanosecond intervals. Today the industry is making the commercial transition from what the industry generally describes as 14-nanometer manufacturing to 10-nanometer manufacturing. Each generation brings roughly a 50 percent reduction in the area required by a given amount of circuitry. IBM?s new chips, though still in a research phase, suggest that semiconductor technology will continue to shrink at least through 2018. The company said on Thursday that it had working samples of chips with seven-nanometer transistors. It made the research advance by using silicon-germanium instead of pure silicon in key regions of the molecular-size switches. The new material makes possible faster transistor switching and lower power requirements. The tiny size of these transistors suggests that further advances will require new materials and new manufacturing techniques. As points of comparison to the size of the seven-nanometer transistors, a strand of DNA is about 2.5 nanometers in diameter and a red blood cell is roughly 7,500 nanometers in diameter. IBM said that would make it possible to build microprocessors with more than 20 billion transistors. ?I?m not surprised, because this is exactly what the road map predicted, but this is fantastic,? said Subhashish Mitra, director of the Robust Systems Group in the Electrical Engineering Department at Stanford University. Even though IBM has shed much of its computer and semiconductor manufacturing capacity, the announcement indicates that the company remains interested in supporting the nation?s high technology manufacturing base. ?This puts IBM in the position of being a gentleman gambler as opposed to being a horse owner,? said Richard Doherty, president of Envisioneering, a Seaford, N.Y., consulting firm, referring to the fact that IBM?s chip manufacturing facility was acquired by GlobalFoundries effective last week. They still want to be in the race,? he added. IBM now licenses the technology it is developing to a number of manufacturers and GlobalFoundries, owned by the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, to make chips for companies including Broadcom, Qualcomm and Advanced Micro Devices. The semiconductor industry must now decide if IBM?s bet on silicon-germanium is the best way forward. It must also grapple with the shift to using extreme ultraviolet, or EUV, light to etch patterns on chips at a resolution that approaches the diameter of individual atoms. In the past, Intel said it could see its way toward seven-nanometer manufacturing. But it has not said when that generation of chip making might arrive. IBM also declined to speculate on when it might begin commercial manufacturing of this technology generation. This year, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company said that it planned to begin pilot product of seven-nanometer chips in 2017. Unlike IBM, however, it has not demonstrated working chips to meet that goal. It is uncertain whether the longer exposure times required by the new generation of EUV photolithographic stepper machines would make high-speed manufacturing operations impossible. Even the slightest vibration can undermine the precision of the optics necessary to etch lines of molecular thicknesses, and the semiconductor industry has been forced to build specialized stabilized buildings to try to isolate equipment from vibration. An IBM official said that the consortium now sees a way to use EUV light in commercial manufacturing operations. ?EUV is another game changer,? said Mukesh Khare, vice president for semiconductor research at IBM. To date, he noted, the demonstration has taken place in a research lab, not in a manufacturing plant. Ultimately the goal is to create circuits that have been reduced in area by another 50 percent over the industry?s 10-nanometer technology generation scheduled to be introduced next year. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jul 10 09:20:10 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 11:20:10 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Hail the borg rats (and monkeys!) Message-ID: <2000874042-23514@secure.ericade.net> Very impressive, although I suspect there is an element of scientific showmanship involved. http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150706/srep11869/full/srep11869.html http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150622/srep10767/full/srep10767.html Maybe brains are easier to borganize than we thought. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Fri Jul 10 09:26:06 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 11:26:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Whatever happened to the end of Moore's Law? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <2001157090-14642@secure.ericade.net> It is a neat thought that you can put two, but not three, DNA strands on top of an interconnect on these chips without one falling off.? As Drexler says, "why do they call it microelectronics? It is nanoelectronics!" Of course, the devil might hide in the economics of making them. EUV fabs are expensive. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Fri Jul 10 09:53:45 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2015 11:53:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Hail the borg rats (and monkeys!) In-Reply-To: <2000874042-23514@secure.ericade.net> References: <2000874042-23514@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: Re "I suspect there is an element of scientific showmanship involved" - And there is nothing wrong with that. They say loud, simple and clear why their work is important and where it could lead, instead of hiding behind specialist jargon and obscure details in the hope that nobody will understand what they mean and criticize them for being too bold. My simple summary: https://hacked.com/brainets-researchers-establish-brain-brain-networks-monkeys-rats/ On Fri, Jul 10, 2015 at 11:20 AM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > Very impressive, although I suspect there is an element of scientific > showmanship involved. > > http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150706/srep11869/full/srep11869.html > http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150622/srep10767/full/srep10767.html > > Maybe brains are easier to borganize than we thought. > > > Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford > University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 08:07:59 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 09:07:59 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. Message-ID: Science is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw Mindless use of statistical testing erodes confidence in research by Tom Siegfried July 2, 2015 and July 10, 2015 Quotes: Too many individual papers in peer-reviewed journals are no more reliable than public opinion polls before British elections. More emphatically, an analysis of 100 results published in psychology journals shows that most of them evaporated when the same study was conducted again, as a news report in the journal Nature recently recounted. Numerous experts have identified statistical testing of null hypotheses ? the staple of scientific methodology ? as a prime culprit in rendering many research findings irreproducible and, perhaps more often than not, erroneous. Many factors contribute to this abysmal situation. In the life sciences, for instance, problems with biological agents and reference materials are a major source of irreproducible results, a new report in PLOS Biology shows. But troubles with ?data analysis and reporting? are also cited. As statistician Victoria Stodden recently documented, a variety of statistical issues lead to irreproducibility. And many of those issues center on null hypothesis testing. Rather than furthering scientific knowledge, null hypothesis testing virtually guarantees frequent faulty conclusions. A null hypothesis assumes that a factor being tested produces no effect (or an effect no different from some other factor). If experimental data are sufficiently unlikely (given the no-effect assumption), scientists reject the null hypothesis and infer that there is an effect. They call such a result ?statistically significant.? Statistical significance has nothing to do with actual significance, though. A statistically significant effect can be trivially small. Or even completely illusory. ---------- I've got a feeling that this is especially relevant to ESP research, where much of the claimed effect might probably be just statistical creations. BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 13:23:38 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 08:23:38 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 3:07 AM, BillK wrote: > Science is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw > Mindless use of statistical testing erodes confidence in research > > ?And what would mindful statistics be like? And what would you do in place of using the null hypothesis? bill w? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 11 15:27:38 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 08:27:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <016201d0bbee$223cb9c0$66b62d40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... >...Statistical significance has nothing to do with actual significance, though. A statistically significant effect can be trivially small. Or even completely illusory. ---------- >...I've got a feeling that this is especially relevant to ESP research, where much of the claimed effect might probably be just statistical creations. BillK _______________________________________________ BillK, in the engineering world, there is an appalling lack of understanding on what the threshold of statistical significance means and what it doesn't mean. Looking back on my own formal education in the topic, they didn't really explain sufficiently the meaning of statistical significance. There is far too much mindless plugging into a formula without sufficient understanding of what the formula is saying (if anything.) If someone wants a good scientific study, here it is: create a number of datasets on some known (to the experimenter) function. Then go to some highly respected science-geek university such as Stanford where they are supposed to know better, go into the graduate engineering statistics class and have the students look at the data and draw conclusions from it and comment. Allow them to propose measurements if they wish, then interpret that data. Let them work together in groups if they want, or work as individuals. Deal out a couple K of Monopoly money, and allow them to propose tests, so you simulate the real world where you can do expensive additional tests. Even with sharp students at their prime, I fear we would be appalled at how many draw the wrong conclusions. I can imagine we would see some magic "95%" criterion show up in plenty of the reports, and whenever used, it would be misleading or incorrectly applied. We might see it is better to know nothing about statistics than to know just enough to use statistics to support a wrong conclusion. spike From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 11 16:16:42 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 09:16:42 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <016201d0bbee$223cb9c0$66b62d40$@att.net> References: <016201d0bbee$223cb9c0$66b62d40$@att.net> Message-ID: <003201d0bbf4$fc0673c0$f4135b40$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of spike Subject: Re: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. >... On Behalf Of BillK ... >>...Statistical significance has nothing to do with actual significance, though. A statistically significant effect can be trivially small. Or even completely illusory. ---------- >>...I've got a feeling that this is especially relevant to ESP research, where much of the claimed effect might probably be just statistical creations. BillK _______________________________________________ >...BillK...Even with sharp students at their prime, I fear we would be appalled at how many draw the wrong conclusions...spike _______________________________________________ BillK's comment has me thinking about a topic we discussed here a few years ago. A proposal was made at an education conference (don't know when or where, would like to know) where the presenter proposed a revamping of standard engineering education. Currently the standard curriculum requires four quarters of calculus, then differential equations, and a couple (sometimes three (and five electives will get you a second major in math)) quarters of more advanced math electives such as multivariate calculus of variation, complex variables, matrix algebra, all that kind of cool stuff. In all that, there is only one quarter of statistics required for most engineering bachelor's degrees, with a second quarter usually offered as an elective. Someone at an engineering education conference proposed replacing the calculus series with a statistics series: make it one quarter of calculus where you get right to the point, explain what the integral and the differential functions do and forget teaching the mainstream students all those now nearly useless integration techniques. Show them how to use Wolfram's magic trick on the computer, how to do implicit integration and hit the high points, how to set up a spreadsheet or Matlab routine to do numerical integration, then don't worry about all those integration techniques which are never used in the real world but eat up a lot of classroom time. Then use those three (or four in some cases) quarters to teach the right ways to use statistics. I was horrified when I first heard it. Engineering students have been required to master calculus since about a week after Newton and Leibniz discovered it. The methods as taught haven't changed much at all in the last couple hundred years. This would be a major change. But the idea started growing on me immediately. As I heard it, the engineering education conference at which it was proposed reacted similarly, with plenty of the attendees thinking it is a grand idea. I think I have joined that camp: reduce the calculus, pound on the statistics. The USA and Britain educate a big fraction of the world's engineers and scientists, so we really need to get this right. Explain to the students the right way to use the concept of a null hypothesis. Don't worry about it if they can't integrate or differentiate, but don't give away any science or engineering degrees to anyone who doesn't understand the concept of statistical significance. Anyone here up to speed on that proposal? spike From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 17:35:32 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:35:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <003201d0bbf4$fc0673c0$f4135b40$@att.net> References: <016201d0bbee$223cb9c0$66b62d40$@att.net> <003201d0bbf4$fc0673c0$f4135b40$@att.net> Message-ID: Statistical significance has nothing to do with actual significance, though. A statistically significant effect can be trivially small. Or even completely illusory. Yes, especially if you run the N up way high, but an effect that has real world significance will have statistical significance as well. bill w On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 11:16 AM, spike wrote: > > >... On Behalf Of spike > Subject: Re: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. > > >... On Behalf Of BillK > ... > > >>...Statistical significance has nothing to do with actual significance, > though. A statistically significant effect can be trivially small. Or even > completely illusory. > > ---------- > >>...I've got a feeling that this is especially relevant to ESP research, > where much of the claimed effect might probably be just statistical > creations. BillK > _______________________________________________ > > >...BillK...Even with sharp students at their prime, I fear we would be > appalled at how many draw the wrong conclusions...spike > _______________________________________________ > > BillK's comment has me thinking about a topic we discussed here a few years > ago. A proposal was made at an education conference (don't know when or > where, would like to know) where the presenter proposed a revamping of > standard engineering education. Currently the standard curriculum requires > four quarters of calculus, then differential equations, and a couple > (sometimes three (and five electives will get you a second major in math)) > quarters of more advanced math electives such as multivariate calculus of > variation, complex variables, matrix algebra, all that kind of cool stuff. > In all that, there is only one quarter of statistics required for most > engineering bachelor's degrees, with a second quarter usually offered as an > elective. > > Someone at an engineering education conference proposed replacing the > calculus series with a statistics series: make it one quarter of calculus > where you get right to the point, explain what the integral and the > differential functions do and forget teaching the mainstream students all > those now nearly useless integration techniques. Show them how to use > Wolfram's magic trick on the computer, how to do implicit integration and > hit the high points, how to set up a spreadsheet or Matlab routine to do > numerical integration, then don't worry about all those integration > techniques which are never used in the real world but eat up a lot of > classroom time. Then use those three (or four in some cases) quarters to > teach the right ways to use statistics. > > I was horrified when I first heard it. Engineering students have been > required to master calculus since about a week after Newton and Leibniz > discovered it. The methods as taught haven't changed much at all in the > last couple hundred years. This would be a major change. > > But the idea started growing on me immediately. As I heard it, the > engineering education conference at which it was proposed reacted > similarly, > with plenty of the attendees thinking it is a grand idea. I think I have > joined that camp: reduce the calculus, pound on the statistics. The USA > and > Britain educate a big fraction of the world's engineers and scientists, so > we really need to get this right. Explain to the students the right way to > use the concept of a null hypothesis. Don't worry about it if they can't > integrate or differentiate, but don't give away any science or engineering > degrees to anyone who doesn't understand the concept of statistical > significance. > > Anyone here up to speed on that proposal? > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Jul 11 18:13:13 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 20:13:13 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: BillK ? Science is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw Mindless use of statistical testing erodes confidence in research I am reading Alex Reinharts "Statistics done wrong: the woefully complete guide" ( http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/ ) and enjoying it. The central problem is that we aim for certainty about uncertain things, and then make models of them that we become overconfident about - after all, the numbers coming out of the model are very precise. Shame about the model being wrong, though, and this error being hidden behind a lot of math. But if science has it rough, at least it is rather numerically literate and knows it has a problem. After three years of talking to insurance I realize that a lot of important business is made on far dodgier assumptions. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 18:44:10 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 19:44:10 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences In-Reply-To: <013701d0b756$546f5fc0$fd4e1f40$@att.net> References: <009f01d0b74c$06898e20$139caa60$@att.net> <013701d0b756$546f5fc0$fd4e1f40$@att.net> Message-ID: On 5 July 2015 at 20:10, spike wrote: > Hi BillK, thanks, but that still doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know. > This notion was really hot stuff in the 80s and 90s, and we knew that to make > a single stage to orbit notion fly, we needed to be air-breathing until way up in > the thin air, and needed to really be hauling by the time we run out of air. > To do that, we know our combustion chamber is downwind of some astonishing > and mighty shock waves, which means the flow is hot and chaotic. > To make the cycle work requires some kind of intercooler to get cold laminar flow > to the engine. > Then we have a chance of making the whole air-breathing to rocket hybrid scheme work. > Skylon has just revealed their intercooler. Quote: The system chills incoming air from more than 1,000C to minus 150C in less than 1/100th of a second before passing the pre-cooled air through a turbo-compressor and into the rocket combustion chamber, where it is burned with sub-cooled liquid hydrogen. But until now the means by which the system does this without clogging up the pre-cooler with ice has remained a closely guarded company secret. Reaction Engines uses methanol as an antifreeze. The methanol is used with the objective of minimizing the amount that is needed. They use chemical process industry tricks. * inject the methanol at one of the coldest points * get the mix of water and methanol to flow forward in the matrix ? against the direction of the airflow * use multiple injection and extraction points in the matrix * Eventually you end up with a situation where you have extracted all the water vapor as liquid from the airflow and that leaves you essentially with dry air below 215 Kelvin. The partial pressure of the water vapor at this point is so low that you can allow it to pass through the heat exchanger and it does not freeze --------------------------- Cool! :) BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 19:19:41 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:19:41 -0500 Subject: [ExI] moral book review Message-ID: To those of us concerned with morals, and that should be all of us: Joshua Green (cognitive neuroscientist) of Harvard: Moral Tribes. A worthy companion to Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow, and Haidt's The Righteous Mind. Bill W -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From brent.allsop at canonizer.com Sat Jul 11 20:47:29 2015 From: brent.allsop at canonizer.com (Brent Allsop) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 14:47:29 -0600 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <003201d0bbf4$fc0673c0$f4135b40$@att.net> References: <016201d0bbee$223cb9c0$66b62d40$@att.net> <003201d0bbf4$fc0673c0$f4135b40$@att.net> Message-ID: <55A180E1.6080404@canonizer.com> And don't forget Clifford Algebra. How many people have even heard of that? You need that if you want to understand how brain representation can harmonize in neurons. https://slehar.wordpress.com/2014/03/18/clifford-algebra-a-visual-introduction/ Bad statistics aren't the only problem. Any and all of science reporting, especially by religious organizations/people and the like. Everything on the web is just more noisy bleating of the heard, often leading us way astray. Minority experts can easily see through bad scientific reporting, and the bleating herd. The only possible solution is to have a system that can build and measure expert consensus, so the herd can see through it, with the experts - everyone knowing the real reasons, using good statistics or whatever, why. That which you can measure, will improve. This is what is required to amplify the wisdom of the crowd, knowing when bad hypothesis and beliefs have been falsified. And the best way to know this, and what "scientific evidence" is most responsible, is to measure how many experts jump camps, because of it. There are "hard decisions", the minority experts know we have to make, to get to the singularity in tact, as soon as possible. We need to find some way so the entire heard can hear the noise above the bleating noise of the herd, and change directions faster, in a way that measures how many people are on board... Brent Allsop On 7/11/2015 10:16 AM, spike wrote: >> ... On Behalf Of spike > Subject: Re: [ExI] [Bulk] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. > >> ... On Behalf Of BillK > ... > >>> ...Statistical significance has nothing to do with actual significance, > though. A statistically significant effect can be trivially small. Or even > completely illusory. > > ---------- >>> ...I've got a feeling that this is especially relevant to ESP research, > where much of the claimed effect might probably be just statistical > creations. BillK > _______________________________________________ > >> ...BillK...Even with sharp students at their prime, I fear we would be > appalled at how many draw the wrong conclusions...spike > _______________________________________________ > > BillK's comment has me thinking about a topic we discussed here a few years > ago. A proposal was made at an education conference (don't know when or > where, would like to know) where the presenter proposed a revamping of > standard engineering education. Currently the standard curriculum requires > four quarters of calculus, then differential equations, and a couple > (sometimes three (and five electives will get you a second major in math)) > quarters of more advanced math electives such as multivariate calculus of > variation, complex variables, matrix algebra, all that kind of cool stuff. > In all that, there is only one quarter of statistics required for most > engineering bachelor's degrees, with a second quarter usually offered as an > elective. > > Someone at an engineering education conference proposed replacing the > calculus series with a statistics series: make it one quarter of calculus > where you get right to the point, explain what the integral and the > differential functions do and forget teaching the mainstream students all > those now nearly useless integration techniques. Show them how to use > Wolfram's magic trick on the computer, how to do implicit integration and > hit the high points, how to set up a spreadsheet or Matlab routine to do > numerical integration, then don't worry about all those integration > techniques which are never used in the real world but eat up a lot of > classroom time. Then use those three (or four in some cases) quarters to > teach the right ways to use statistics. > > I was horrified when I first heard it. Engineering students have been > required to master calculus since about a week after Newton and Leibniz > discovered it. The methods as taught haven't changed much at all in the > last couple hundred years. This would be a major change. > > But the idea started growing on me immediately. As I heard it, the > engineering education conference at which it was proposed reacted similarly, > with plenty of the attendees thinking it is a grand idea. I think I have > joined that camp: reduce the calculus, pound on the statistics. The USA and > Britain educate a big fraction of the world's engineers and scientists, so > we really need to get this right. Explain to the students the right way to > use the concept of a null hypothesis. Don't worry about it if they can't > integrate or differentiate, but don't give away any science or engineering > degrees to anyone who doesn't understand the concept of statistical > significance. > > Anyone here up to speed on that proposal? > > spike > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike66 at att.net Sat Jul 11 22:51:30 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:51:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> References: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2015 11:13 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. Fr?n: BillK Science is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw Mindless use of statistical testing erodes confidence in research >?I am reading Alex Reinharts "Statistics done wrong: the woefully complete guide" ( http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/ ) and enjoying it. ?But if science has it rough, at least it is rather numerically literate and knows it has a problem. After three years of talking to insurance I realize that a lot of important business is made on far dodgier assumptions. Anders Sandberg, Ja. I see this primarily as a failure in the way statistics courses are taught. The textbooks may contain good explanations for the various calculations, but if the instructor has ten weeks to cover the topic, the little bit of time is spent teaching the students how to calculate the parameters. OK then, exam time, the students grind away, calculate means, standard deviation, variance, do a chi square test, Kruskal Wallis, factoral ANOVA, identify a few distributions, they run all the tests and get the numbers, hooray they pass. But they don?t really understand what the numbers are saying. They know how to get the numbers, but one quarter or one semester just isn?t enough time to really help students understand what they calculated. Before the course, the students looked at the data and took their best guess. After the course, they look at the data, calculate some numbers, draw the wrong conclusion, walk away 95% confident they are correct. Then they go get jobs. I can think of a better way. Instead of the usual approach, if the engineering students took two quarters of calculus (where you use Wolfram?s magic act rather than learn twenty different ways to integrate the kinds of functions you never seen to get in real life) and take three quarters of statistics, where the students use Wolfram again (rather than spending the time on how to calculate all those parameters) then spend their time figuring out how to interpret what the computer gave them. I did some searching and found this whole discussion on reducing calculus education veered off in the wrong direction by about a radian. A faction took off with the idea of calculus reduction, but presented a weird justification: women and minority students are less likely to pass the calculus series (sheesh) and of course you can?t go on in the sciences without it, so that means fewer women and minorities in the sciences, all because of calculus. My notion is the reason for calculus reduction would be to make room for more statistics study. Perhaps the minority argument derailed the notion of statistical education or sent it down the wrong road, damn. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From mike at 7f.com Sat Jul 11 20:32:21 2015 From: mike at 7f.com (Michael Roberts) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 13:32:21 -0700 Subject: [ExI] details on reaction engines cooler Message-ID: http://aviationweek.com/space/reaction-engines-reveals-secret-sabre-frost-control-technology M -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Sat Jul 11 23:51:34 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 18:51:34 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> References: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> Message-ID: Spike: But they don?t really understand what the numbers are saying. They know how to get the numbers, but one quarter or one semester just isn?t enough time to really help students understand what they calculated. When I taught statistics (to psychology students) I found this to be right on the mark. I had them make guesses after looking at small amounts of raw data before the calculation, then look back at the estimate afterwards. What this does is make them realize what does and what doesn't make sense (exp. if they calculated incorrectly). Number are docile. They cannot say that you are putting them into the wrong equations, that the assumptions of the statistical tests you are using are not met, that (to reiterate someone else's point) while one point different on a ten point attitude scale between two groups might yield statistically significant results it just don't make a hill of beans in reality. My colleagues across the way in math taught students how to calculate, how to derive the formulas, but they had no more clue than their students as to what kinds of data to use - or not - how to gather the numbers. They had no background in research design. Their students may have learned some math but they did not learn how to use and abuse statistics. In courses I took in statistics there was virtually no consideration of beta errors - only alpha. And of course there is an inverse correlation between the two. I estimate that even when you include our very best psychology journals, and only peer-reviewed ones, that about 75% of the studies printed are worthless - unrepeatable, used improper statistics, design, subject assignment, error control and so on. It's a very old story - no one is interested in doing a simple repeat of an experiment, even when they get astonishing results. I got some of those while doing my Master's work, and my professor made me do the study ten times before he was convinced that it was reliable (not necessarily valid, just reliable). No, people want to start throwing new variables into the mix before they understand the ones they started with. I'd better quit. Bill W On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 5:51 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *Anders Sandberg > *Sent:* Saturday, July 11, 2015 11:13 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. > > > > *Fr?n: *BillK > > > > Science is heroic, with a tragic (statistical) flaw > Mindless use of statistical testing erodes confidence in research > > > >?I am reading Alex Reinharts "Statistics done wrong: the woefully > complete guide" ( http://www.statisticsdonewrong.com/ ) and enjoying it. ?But > if science has it rough, at least it is rather numerically literate and > knows it has a problem. After three years of talking to insurance I realize > that a lot of important business is made on far dodgier assumptions. Anders > Sandberg, > > > > > > Ja. I see this primarily as a failure in the way statistics courses are > taught. The textbooks may contain good explanations for the various > calculations, but if the instructor has ten weeks to cover the topic, the > little bit of time is spent teaching the students how to calculate the > parameters. OK then, exam time, the students grind away, calculate means, > standard deviation, variance, do a chi square test, Kruskal Wallis, > factoral ANOVA, identify a few distributions, they run all the tests and > get the numbers, hooray they pass. But they don?t really understand what > the numbers are saying. They know how to get the numbers, but one quarter > or one semester just isn?t enough time to really help students understand > what they calculated. > > > > Before the course, the students looked at the data and took their best > guess. After the course, they look at the data, calculate some numbers, > draw the wrong conclusion, walk away 95% confident they are correct. Then > they go get jobs. > > > > I can think of a better way. Instead of the usual approach, if the > engineering students took two quarters of calculus (where you use Wolfram?s > magic act rather than learn twenty different ways to integrate the kinds of > functions you never seen to get in real life) and take three quarters of > statistics, where the students use Wolfram again (rather than spending the > time on how to calculate all those parameters) then spend their time > figuring out how to interpret what the computer gave them. > > > > I did some searching and found this whole discussion on reducing calculus > education veered off in the wrong direction by about a radian. A faction > took off with the idea of calculus reduction, but presented a weird > justification: women and minority students are less likely to pass the > calculus series (sheesh) and of course you can?t go on in the sciences > without it, so that means fewer women and minorities in the sciences, all > because of calculus. My notion is the reason for calculus reduction would > be to make room for more statistics study. Perhaps the minority argument > derailed the notion of statistical education or sent it down the wrong > road, damn. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 00:07:44 2015 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 17:07:44 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 11, 2015 at 5:00 AM, BillK wrote: snip > I've got a feeling that this is especially relevant to ESP research, > where much of the claimed effect might probably be just statistical > creations. An alternated hypothesis is that we really do live in a simulation and the sysops enjoy screwing around with our simulated environment. There are a lot of events that point that way. Just in the way of things to force us to get off the (simulated)planet, there is Comet Shoemaker?Levy 9, the Chelyabinsk meteor and that same day, the roughly 30-metre 367943 Duende. The question is never "are you paranoid" but "are you paranoid _enough_." :-) Keith From hkeithhenson at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 00:10:30 2015 From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 17:10:30 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Sea level rise Message-ID: Much in the news last couple of days. My response in part. With current technology governments can do little to cut CO2 releases or halt the sea level rise. Why? A serious reduction of CO2 would cause a serious rise in the cost of energy. Higher energy cost will cause the economy to crash, (remember 1974?) the government would fall and be replaced with a new one that repudiated the previous policies and the country returns to burning coal and oil. Governments understand they can't do much. It's why Obama booted the unsolvable problem to the states. A possible way out is new technology, an energy source cheaper than coal. (cue usual power sat rap here) Keith From rex at nosyntax.net Sun Jul 12 00:02:58 2015 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 17:02:58 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: References: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> Message-ID: <20150712000258.GQ31245@nosyntax.net> William Flynn Wallace [2015-07-11 16:53]: > I estimate that even when you include our very best psychology journals, > and only peer-reviewed ones, that about 75% of the studies printed are > worthless - unrepeatable, used improper statistics, design, subject > assignment, error control and so on.? It's a very old story - no one is > interested in doing a simple repeat of an experiment, even when they get > astonishing results.? I got some of those while doing my Master's work, > and my professor made me do the study ten times before he was convinced > that it was reliable (not necessarily valid, just reliable). > > I can think of a better way.? Instead of the usual approach, if the > engineering students took two quarters of calculus (where you use > Wolfram?s magic act rather than learn twenty different ways to integrate > the kinds of functions you never seen to get in real life) and take > three quarters of statistics, where the students use Wolfram again > (rather than spending the time on how to calculate all those parameters) > then spend their time figuring out how to interpret what the computer > gave them. See tagline. > I did some searching and found this whole discussion on reducing > calculus education veered off in the wrong direction by about a radian.? > A faction took off with the idea of calculus reduction, but presented a > weird justification: women and minority students are less likely to pass > the calculus series (sheesh) and of course you can?t go on in the > sciences without it, so that means fewer women and minorities in the > sciences, all because of calculus.? My notion is the reason for calculus > reduction would be to make room for more statistics study.? Perhaps the > minority argument derailed the notion of statistical education or sent > it down the wrong road, damn. In the paleolithic era I taught math at SDSU. Later, I realized statistical inference, not calculus, was the future. It's happening, albeit slowly in human terms. -rex -- From spike66 at att.net Sun Jul 12 01:25:26 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2015 18:25:26 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <20150712000258.GQ31245@nosyntax.net> References: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> <20150712000258.GQ31245@nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <000001d0bc41$a32ce930$e986bb90$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of rex ... >>... I did some searching and found this whole discussion on reducing > calculus education veered off in the wrong direction by about a radian... >...In the paleolithic era I taught math at SDSU. Later, I realized statistical inference, not calculus, was the future. It's happening, albeit slowly in human terms. -rex -- _______________________________________________ Rex COOL! You never told us you are a former math professor. Our friend Rex is far too modest. In this crowd, that profession is about as high-status as it gets. I think you were right all along. Sir, approximately when did you reach that conclusion? spike From anders at aleph.se Sun Jul 12 10:01:06 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:01:06 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <2176000507-5839@secure.ericade.net> Eyeballing data is a good method, although there are many hidden gotchas. I am somewhat surprised how rarely people just look at the raw data and plot it: a smart colleague of mine struggled mightily doing something useful with a dataset, until I just plotted it and immediately saw that it contained -999 entries to mark missing data. No wonder his statistical method was useless when that was treated as real data (that should be positive). William is totally right about the docility of numbers. It is when they form a crowd of points they start finding a voice. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sun Jul 12 10:13:53 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:13:53 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> Message-ID: <2176576806-6592@secure.ericade.net> I also think statistics ought to be taught more, and presumably that will reduce the amount of calculus. But they are very different beasts: statistics is about reasoning about data from the world, while calculus is about constructing models about the world. One is descriptive, the other creative. They support each other: modelling without real world inspiration or feedback is sterile and potentially dishonest, just reasoning about what the world throws at us without trying to construct theories about it is inefficient and lacks power.? One can compare with the decline of geometry. Once that was at the core of higher maths teaching, since it showed how to do stringent and formal proofs. But most everyday math doesn't need that, so I think it was the right choice to reduce the Euclid usage. Unfortunately it made everybody think math is just numbers, rather than quantities. And people today are IMHO worse at stringent reasoning than in the Euclidean past. In the end the problem is that there is too much to know for a short education. Once can teach a core that is likely to help everybody, but anybody who is aiming at certain jobs or problems need way more. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 10:32:35 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2015 11:32:35 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <2176576806-6592@secure.ericade.net> References: <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> <2176576806-6592@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: On 12 July 2015 at 11:13, Anders Sandberg wrote: > I also think statistics ought to be taught more, and presumably that will > reduce the amount of calculus. > > > In the end the problem is that there is too much to know for a short > education. Once can teach a core that is likely to help everybody, but > anybody who is aiming at certain jobs or problems need way more. > Yea, that occurred to me also. When you can do a degree in statistics as the main subject, there is no room for engineering, etc. One solution is for every research team to include a stats degree person. Or at least have access to a stats PhD to analyse their data. (They might have to try several people though, to finally get the results the want!). ;) BillK From foozler83 at gmail.com Sun Jul 12 14:17:55 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2015 09:17:55 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: References: <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> <2176576806-6592@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: (They might have to try several people though, to finally get the results the want!). ;) Ain't that the damned truth. Whoever invented the term 'massaging the data', making it happy so it will give you what you want, was a genius. I know a number of psychologists who won't let anyone touch the data unless they are Asian! bill w On Sun, Jul 12, 2015 at 5:32 AM, BillK wrote: > On 12 July 2015 at 11:13, Anders Sandberg wrote: > > I also think statistics ought to be taught more, and presumably that will > > reduce the amount of calculus. > > > > > > > In the end the problem is that there is too much to know for a short > > education. Once can teach a core that is likely to help everybody, but > > anybody who is aiming at certain jobs or problems need way more. > > > > > Yea, that occurred to me also. When you can do a degree in statistics > as the main subject, there is no room for engineering, etc. > > One solution is for every research team to include a stats degree person. > Or at least have access to a stats PhD to analyse their data. > (They might have to try several people though, to finally get the > results the want!). ;) > > BillK > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jul 14 10:35:24 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 12:35:24 +0200 Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike) In-Reply-To: <058701d09f14$67b34ab0$3719e010$@att.net> Message-ID: <2350218463-5568@secure.ericade.net> Just an update: I saw a poster here at the IJCNN conference that is relevant: Effective Insect Recognition Using a Stacked Autoencoder with Maximum Correntropy Criterion Yu Qi, Goktug Cinar, Vinicius Souza, Gustavo Batista, Yueming Wang and Jose Principe http://www.cnel.ufl.edu/files/1425197934.pdf Basically, they look at input data detected using a laser (but one of the told me he thought a microphone would work). Then they train an autoencoder (a feedforward network mapping a N neuron input via a smaller bottleneck layer to an identical N neuron output) on the basic sound patterns. The bottleneck layer represents the data more efficiently, and once it has been trained those values are used as inputs to another network that is trained to classify the sounds as insects. According to the poster the correntropy method for training is slightly better than standard methods of training. This might be a decent bee detector. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Tue Jul 14 13:38:33 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 06:38:33 -0700 Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike) In-Reply-To: <2350218463-5568@secure.ericade.net> References: <058701d09f14$67b34ab0$3719e010$@att.net> <2350218463-5568@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: <019c01d0be3a$62913b10$27b3b130$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg ? http://www.cnel.ufl.edu/files/1425197934.pdf ? and once it has been trained those values are used as inputs to another network that is trained to classify the sounds as insects. ?This might be a decent bee detector. Anders Sandberg, Ja, there are perhaps a dozen ways to make this happen. I have been trying to compare habits of my two main pollinators out back: honeybees and bumblebees. Everything else combined would be down in the buzzing noise. Those two bugs definitely make sounds that differ from each other. Microphones are cheap and I know how to do realtime FFTs on them, so it should be easy to recognize pollinators from their sound. My intuition tells me that problem is easy enough that someone has already done it better than I can do now. I just need to find that person or product. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Tue Jul 14 18:30:38 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 20:30:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike) In-Reply-To: <019c01d0be3a$62913b10$27b3b130$@att.net> Message-ID: <2379520468-22054@secure.ericade.net> Here is the poster, by the way: https://flic.kr/p/w1otEv I think FFT is tricky, since many insects pass by the sensor rather quickly - you may want to use wavelets at least. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 14 20:55:31 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2015 21:55:31 +0100 Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike) In-Reply-To: <019c01d0be3a$62913b10$27b3b130$@att.net> References: <058701d09f14$67b34ab0$3719e010$@att.net> <2350218463-5568@secure.ericade.net> <019c01d0be3a$62913b10$27b3b130$@att.net> Message-ID: On 14 July 2015 at 14:38, spike wrote: > Ja, there are perhaps a dozen ways to make this happen. I have been trying > to compare habits of my two main pollinators out back: honeybees and > bumblebees. Everything else combined would be down in the buzzing noise. > Those two bugs definitely make sounds that differ from each other. > Microphones are cheap and I know how to do realtime FFTs on them, so it > should be easy to recognize pollinators from their sound. My intuition > tells me that problem is easy enough that someone has already done it better > than I can do now. I just need to find that person or product. > There is a group here that glued RFID chips on 1,000 bees and tracked them! Now that takes patience. Quote: Tagged bees causing a buzz in disease research Using the RFID tags in combination with observations at the hives and artificial flowers, the researchers were able to see how hard the bees worked and what kind of material they gathered. ------ BillK From johnkclark at gmail.com Wed Jul 15 16:19:27 2015 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 12:19:27 -0400 Subject: [ExI] One minute time machine Message-ID: http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2015/07/08/the-most-adorable-and-awesome-sci-fi-love-story-ever-the-one-minute-time-machine-video/ John K Clark -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 15 18:16:49 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 11:16:49 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] One minute time machine In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <018e01d0bf2a$71277f90$53767eb0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of John Clark Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2015 9:19 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [Bulk] [ExI] One minute time machine http://www.geeksaresexy.net/2015/07/08/the-most-adorable-and-awesome-sci-fi-love-story-ever-the-one-minute-time-machine-video/ John K Clark Excellent! This gets to the point of Bill Murray?s Groundhog Day and adds a cool interesting twist. The five to ten minute YouTube movie is a format with a future. John you like to archive predictions. Keep this one. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Thu Jul 16 04:25:10 2015 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2015 21:25:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <000001d0bc41$a32ce930$e986bb90$@att.net> References: <2119080305-19085@secure.ericade.net> <014701d0bc2c$23836160$6a8a2420$@att.net> <20150712000258.GQ31245@nosyntax.net> <000001d0bc41$a32ce930$e986bb90$@att.net> Message-ID: <20150716042510.GD8752@nosyntax.net> spike [2015-07-11 18:41]: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of rex > ... > > > >>... I did some searching and found this whole discussion on reducing > > calculus education veered off in the wrong direction by about a radian... > > >...In the paleolithic era I taught math at SDSU. Later, I realized statistical inference, not calculus, was the future. It's happening, albeit slowly in human terms. > _______________________________________________ > > > Rex COOL! You never told us you are a former math professor. Our friend Rex is far too modest. In this crowd, that profession is about as high-status as it gets. LIS, it was the paleolithic era (late '60s early '70s) and I didn't have the Union Card so I wasn't tenure track. I drifted off into what is now called the quant world of stochastic PDEs and such. I still try to work in the area, but I'm mostly an old dog lying on the porch watching the pups romp and wishing that I could still do that. So, don't expect much. :( I put my "lab notebook" on Mediawiki and eventually made it public, so anyone can see the math stuff I've played with over the last few years. www.nosyntax.net/cfwiki/ Most of it is quite incomplete, but a few pages have some R code that some might find useful or interesting. For example, does knowing the suit of an ace change the probability a hand contains two aces? http://www.nosyntax.net/cfwiki/index.php/Two_aces Believers in martingale betting might learn something from this page: http://www.nosyntax.net/cfwiki/index.php/Martingale_betting > I think you were right all along. Sir, approximately when did you reach that conclusion? I don't know. I ranted about the waste of time inculcating integration tricks when I was teaching, but my drift into recognizing the relative importance of statistical inference came later. Now, I use R for almost everything. http://cran.r-project.org/ My tagline was stripped by a bug I've never been able to locate. Let's see if it escapes this time... "Torture numbers and they'll confess anything." -rex -- From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 15:36:05 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 08:36:05 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right Message-ID: <40CAB475-110D-4E37-A29A-4F0C269BB262@gmail.com> http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-teaching-science-wrong-and-how-to-make-it-right-1.17963 Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 16 16:23:31 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 09:23:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right In-Reply-To: <40CAB475-110D-4E37-A29A-4F0C269BB262@gmail.com> References: <40CAB475-110D-4E37-A29A-4F0C269BB262@gmail.com> Message-ID: <009c01d0bfe3$c51455b0$4f3d0110$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of Dan Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-teaching-science-wrong-and-how-to-make-it-right-1.17963 >?Regards, Dan Thanks Dan, excellent article. It has been clear to me for a long time that education is severely under-adapting to the technologies now available. A good example is found in my son?s elementary school. Education Inc. seems to be stumped by the opportunities presented to capable and driven students to study forward at their own pace, to go as far as they want to go. Schools have been limited so long by availability of materials and teachers who have mastered only through elementary algebra, they don?t know what to do. When they get a 4th grader who gets on Khan Academy and blasts through all of it in two years, then launches right on into high school level math, they are completely flummoxed. We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and traditional segments of modern society with the education institution being the most progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the opposite. Details available on request. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 17:00:01 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 12:00:01 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right In-Reply-To: <009c01d0bfe3$c51455b0$4f3d0110$@att.net> References: <40CAB475-110D-4E37-A29A-4F0C269BB262@gmail.com> <009c01d0bfe3$c51455b0$4f3d0110$@att.net> Message-ID: We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and traditional segments of modern society with the education institution being the most progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the opposite. Spike, education is very progressive, if you define that as getting into new things. Trouble is, the quality of the research they do is poor to very poor. I have been to educational research conferences to see some of my students present papers (as it is the easiest venue - harder at psychology conferences), and the level is just shocking (not the students, the professors/researchers). The questions after a paper presentation are almost always laudatory and hardly even critical. Of course I had to try to nail some of them on poor research and never got a good response. Mostly they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. So a lot of bad theory gets into classroom teaching when in fact they were better off doing what they were doing. They just love new theories and don't seem to care much about the backbones of it. I'd like to see some of what you found. bill w On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:23 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Dan > *Subject:* [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it > right > > > > > http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-teaching-science-wrong-and-how-to-make-it-right-1.17963 > > >?Regards, Dan > > > > Thanks Dan, excellent article. It has been clear to me for a long time > that education is severely under-adapting to the technologies now > available. A good example is found in my son?s elementary school. > Education Inc. seems to be stumped by the opportunities presented to > capable and driven students to study forward at their own pace, to go as > far as they want to go. Schools have been limited so long by availability > of materials and teachers who have mastered only through elementary > algebra, they don?t know what to do. When they get a 4th grader who gets > on Khan Academy and blasts through all of it in two years, then launches > right on into high school level math, they are completely flummoxed. > > > > We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and traditional > segments of modern society with the education institution being the most > progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the opposite. > > > > Details available on request. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Thu Jul 16 19:06:15 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 21:06:15 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Why so much published 'science' is wrong. In-Reply-To: <20150716042510.GD8752@nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <2554200095-18328@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: rex : >? I ranted about the waste of time inculcating integration tricks when I was teaching, but my drift into recognizing the relative importance of statistical inference came later. I have just finished reading Paul J. Nahin's "Inside Interesting Integrals", which is a romp through evaluating definite integrals. I think as a form of mental puzzle or skilled artform it is great. But it is relatively rare that a complex analytic answer illuminates anything: figuring out the proportionality of the answer to the parameters of the problem is often *far* more important than knowing the exact form, and these days numerical evaluation can handle nearly anything (Nahin "tests" his answers by using Matlab quadrature, which usually gives really good results even for pretty tough functions - the cases where it fails are noteworthy). Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 16 20:20:29 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:20:29 -0700 Subject: [ExI] education reform, was: RE: Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right Message-ID: <007301d0c004$dfc55c80$9f501580$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2015 10:00 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right >>?We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and traditional segments of modern society with the education institution being the most progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the opposite. Details available on request?spike >?Spike, education is very progressive, if you define that as getting into new things? BillW OK cool let us look at that very critically important observation please. Let us define new as new techniques and technologies to perform the task at hand. Consider what happens if you are the CEO of a company, and you fail to embrace or choose to not risk a new and promising technology. Likely outcome: your company?s performance declines and your competitors eat your lunch. The board fires you. What happens if you are a curriculum director at the school board, and something new and promising comes about, but you choose to eschew it. Consequences: almost nothing. Example: Common Core education. It is a bit different, has been a buggy roll-out, mostly unpopular, but those who look into it see what they had in mind and sympathize at least with the goals. The schools which have embraced it saw mixed reviews, the ones which eschewed it, mixed. Consequences of either course: very little and declining. Reason: we seem to be on a course to eliminate standardized testing in schools. That way, there will be exactly no consequences, negative or positive, for how schools run. What happens if you are a military leader and you eschew some new technology? Your enemies get that technology, you get killed, along with all those whose lives depend on your judgment. So review that spectrum. CEO is conservative: company gradually declines. School board is conservative: almost nothing happens, and we are driving toward exactly no negative consequences. Military leader is overly conservative: death to her, defeat of her country. Result: military organizations are super-progressive, corporations are moderate and school boards are conservative. I have two good examples. In the military, it is very common to see a system developed but is obsolete by the time it makes it to the production phase. If you really dig into it, you find that most defense systems are obsolete by the time they finish the development phase, what we call CDR or critical design review. They build one prototype, never put it in the field. We have cases like the most recent fighter planes, the F22 and F35. Both are super-maneuverable, fast, stealthy, all the stuff the war fighters always wanted. But we just don?t need them anymore. They are crazy expensive. So I predict the US will buy only what it contracted to buy and no more, other countries will buy a few and the whole notion of fighter planes with humans aboard will fade away. Education: I am seeing how much difficulty the public schools are having in embracing the concept of advanced online learning tools. A perfect example of this is Khan Academy: terrific resource, so well done, open ended, lots of material, measures and stores student metrics indefinitely, and it?s free. The public schools don?t really know what to do with it. Fun examples available on request. spike Trouble is, the quality of the research they do is poor to very poor. I have been to educational research conferences to see some of my students present papers (as it is the easiest venue - harder at psychology conferences), and the level is just shocking (not the students, the professors/researchers). The questions after a paper presentation are almost always laudatory and hardly even critical. Of course I had to try to nail some of them on poor research and never got a good response. Mostly they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. So a lot of bad theory gets into classroom teaching when in fact they were better off doing what they were doing. They just love new theories and don't seem to care much about the backbones of it. I'd like to see some of what you found. bill w On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:23 AM, spike wrote: >? On Behalf Of Dan Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-teaching-science-wrong-and-how-to-make-it-right-1.17963 >?Regards, Dan Thanks Dan, excellent article. It has been clear to me for a long time that education is severely under-adapting to the technologies now available. A good example is found in my son?s elementary school. Education Inc. seems to be stumped by the opportunities presented to capable and driven students to study forward at their own pace, to go as far as they want to go. Schools have been limited so long by availability of materials and teachers who have mastered only through elementary algebra, they don?t know what to do. When they get a 4th grader who gets on Khan Academy and blasts through all of it in two years, then launches right on into high school level math, they are completely flummoxed. We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and traditional segments of modern society with the education institution being the most progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the opposite. Details available on request. spike _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 21:13:04 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 14:13:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Space conferences In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jul 3, 2015 9:32 AM, "Adrian Tymes" wrote: > > Looks like I'll be speaking at the Space 2.0 conference in September: http://www.infocastinc.com/events/space/ > > I don't suppose any of you will be there? Or NewSpace later this month, or SmallSat in August. Keith, you wanted to be here at NewSpace. You want to talk to Jim Keravala of Shackleton Energy ASAP, about solar satellites. Maybe see if you can talk him into a job at Shackleton. At the very least, ask him for a copy of the solar power satellite presentation he gave today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Thu Jul 16 23:42:51 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 16:42:51 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right In-Reply-To: References: <40CAB475-110D-4E37-A29A-4F0C269BB262@gmail.com> <009c01d0bfe3$c51455b0$4f3d0110$@att.net> Message-ID: <3D58202D-9EA4-43BB-86A9-E6B9553FCF13@gmail.com> > On Jul 16, 2015, at 10:00 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Spike, education is very progressive, if you define that as getting into new things. Trouble is, the quality of the research they do is poor to very poor. I have been to educational research conferences to see some of my students present papers (as it is the easiest venue - harder at psychology conferences), and the level is just shocking (not the students, the professors/researchers). The questions after a paper presentation are almost always laudatory and hardly even critical. Of course I had to try to nail some of them on poor research and never got a good response. Mostly they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. > > So a lot of bad theory gets into classroom teaching when in fact they were better off doing what they were doing. They just love new theories and don't seem to care much about the backbones of it. > > I'd like to see some of what you found. > I won't speak to Spike's claim about the military, but it seems like you're focusing on content -- what's taught -- rather than pedagogical method -- how it's taught. The article offered that the latter needs to change and that certain methods are much better at getting students to understand the content. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 00:08:43 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 19:08:43 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right In-Reply-To: <3D58202D-9EA4-43BB-86A9-E6B9553FCF13@gmail.com> References: <40CAB475-110D-4E37-A29A-4F0C269BB262@gmail.com> <009c01d0bfe3$c51455b0$4f3d0110$@att.net> <3D58202D-9EA4-43BB-86A9-E6B9553FCF13@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 6:42 PM, Dan wrote: > On Jul 16, 2015, at 10:00 AM, William Flynn Wallace > wrote: > > Spike, education is very progressive, if you define that as getting into > new things. Trouble is, the quality of the research they do is poor to > very poor. I have been to educational research conferences to see some of > my students present papers (as it is the easiest venue - harder at > psychology conferences), and the level is just shocking (not the students, > the professors/researchers). The questions after a paper presentation are > almost always laudatory and hardly even critical. Of course I had to try > to nail some of them on poor research and never got a good response. > Mostly they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. > > So a lot of bad theory gets into classroom teaching when in fact they were > better off doing what they were doing. They just love new theories and > don't seem to care much about the backbones of it. > > I'd like to see some of what you found. > > > I won't speak to Spike's claim about the military, but it seems like > you're focusing on content -- what's taught -- rather than pedagogical > method -- how it's taught. The article offered that the latter needs to > change and that certain methods are much better at getting students to > understand the content. > > Regards, > > Dan > ?Actually the bad theories I mentioned are about how to teach, not what? ?. I think K-12 teacher have little input into content.That is decided at the state level. They went through a period where they thought that different students needed different methods: more visually oriented students need the visual, and so forth. Turns out it really did not matter.? Why did they not find this out before they instituted it in the classrooms? Poor research. As I have said, probably more than once, educators love theories. Vast amounts of supporting data? Not so much. bill w Sample my Kindle books via: > http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 00:09:25 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2015 19:09:25 -0500 Subject: [ExI] education reform, was: RE: Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it right In-Reply-To: <007301d0c004$dfc55c80$9f501580$@att.net> References: <007301d0c004$dfc55c80$9f501580$@att.net> Message-ID: Education: I am seeing how much difficulty the public schools are having in embracing the concept of advanced online learning tools. A perfect example of this is Khan Academy: terrific resource, so well done, open ended, lots of material, measures and stores student metrics indefinitely, and it?s free. The public schools don?t really know what to do with it. Fun examples available on request. SPIKE I am reminded of the time my dept. chairman asked me if I wanted to buy a complete set of videos on statistics. I told him that I could see the value of that if I were ill and missed a lot of classes, but otherwise, I'd like to teach the course myself. I suspect every teacher wants little or no help from outside. And then there is the problem of the slow and fast students. If the system cannot afford to divide them into different classes, then they will suffer neglect. With so much online I think it is inevitable that those resources will be incorporated into classroom teaching. I would have loved to have a way to have Ss who wanted to know more have links to web sites that will satisfy their curiosity. And those to whom the content in class is something they already know, well, just let them study something else. Less testing? Not around here. More, if anything. Repub legislature hates tenure and would love to have reasons to dismiss teachers and superintendents. Already under way. bill w On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 3:20 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > *Sent:* Thursday, July 16, 2015 10:00 AM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make > it right > > > > >>?We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and > traditional segments of modern society with the education institution being > the most progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the > opposite. Details available on request?spike > > > > >?Spike, education is very progressive, if you define that as getting > into new things? BillW > > > > OK cool let us look at that very critically important observation please. > > Let us define new as new techniques and technologies to perform the task > at hand. Consider what happens if you are the CEO of a company, and you > fail to embrace or choose to not risk a new and promising technology. > Likely outcome: your company?s performance declines and your competitors > eat your lunch. The board fires you. > > What happens if you are a curriculum director at the school board, and > something new and promising comes about, but you choose to eschew it. > Consequences: almost nothing. Example: Common Core education. It is a bit > different, has been a buggy roll-out, mostly unpopular, but those who look > into it see what they had in mind and sympathize at least with the goals. > The schools which have embraced it saw mixed reviews, the ones which > eschewed it, mixed. Consequences of either course: very little and > declining. Reason: we seem to be on a course to eliminate standardized > testing in schools. That way, there will be exactly no consequences, > negative or positive, for how schools run. > > What happens if you are a military leader and you eschew some new > technology? Your enemies get that technology, you get killed, along with > all those whose lives depend on your judgment. > > So review that spectrum. CEO is conservative: company gradually > declines. School board is conservative: almost nothing happens, and we are > driving toward exactly no negative consequences. Military leader is overly > conservative: death to her, defeat of her country. Result: military > organizations are super-progressive, corporations are moderate and school > boards are conservative. > > I have two good examples. In the military, it is very common to see a > system developed but is obsolete by the time it makes it to the production > phase. If you really dig into it, you find that most defense systems are > obsolete by the time they finish the development phase, what we call CDR or > critical design review. They build one prototype, never put it in the > field. We have cases like the most recent fighter planes, the F22 and > F35. Both are super-maneuverable, fast, stealthy, all the stuff the war > fighters always wanted. But we just don?t need them anymore. They are > crazy expensive. So I predict the US will buy only what it contracted to > buy and no more, other countries will buy a few and the whole notion of > fighter planes with humans aboard will fade away. > > Education: I am seeing how much difficulty the public schools are having > in embracing the concept of advanced online learning tools. A perfect > example of this is Khan Academy: terrific resource, so well done, open > ended, lots of material, measures and stores student metrics indefinitely, > and it?s free. The public schools don?t really know what to do with it. > Fun examples available on request. > > spike > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > Trouble is, the quality of the research they do is poor to very poor. I > have been to educational research conferences to see some of my students > present papers (as it is the easiest venue - harder at psychology > conferences), and the level is just shocking (not the students, the > professors/researchers). The questions after a paper presentation are > almost always laudatory and hardly even critical. Of course I had to try > to nail some of them on poor research and never got a good response. > Mostly they didn't seem to know what I was talking about. > > > > So a lot of bad theory gets into classroom teaching when in fact they were > better off doing what they were doing. They just love new theories and > don't seem to care much about the backbones of it. > > > > I'd like to see some of what you found. > > > > bill w > > > > On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 11:23 AM, spike wrote: > > > > > > *>?* *On Behalf Of *Dan > *Subject:* [ExI] Why we are teaching science wrong, and how to make it > right > > > > > http://www.nature.com/news/why-we-are-teaching-science-wrong-and-how-to-make-it-right-1.17963 > > >?Regards, Dan > > > > Thanks Dan, excellent article. It has been clear to me for a long time > that education is severely under-adapting to the technologies now > available. A good example is found in my son?s elementary school. > Education Inc. seems to be stumped by the opportunities presented to > capable and driven students to study forward at their own pace, to go as > far as they want to go. Schools have been limited so long by availability > of materials and teachers who have mastered only through elementary > algebra, they don?t know what to do. When they get a 4th grader who gets > on Khan Academy and blasts through all of it in two years, then launches > right on into high school level math, they are completely flummoxed. > > > > We think of the military as perhaps the most conservative and traditional > segments of modern society with the education institution being the most > progressive. I am seeing clear evidence that it is exactly the opposite. > > > > Details available on request. > > > > spike > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 17 16:17:21 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2015 11:17:21 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Fwd: magnus effect In-Reply-To: <001f01d0c0ab$af1c1c20$0d545460$@att.net> References: <000601d0c097$4771f630$d655e290$@att.net> <001801d0c09a$e296e1e0$a7c4a5a0$@att.net> <001f01d0c0ab$af1c1c20$0d545460$@att.net> Message-ID: ?Pretty cool - bill w? http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/basketball-magnus-effect_55a86f93e4b0896514d0f4c6 ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 10:39:45 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 11:39:45 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? Message-ID: Are blogs and mail lists becoming a niche interest for oldtimers? This is a long article by a blogger who was jailed in Iran in 2008, mostly for things he blogged about, and released in 2014. It is the old story that gradual change is imperceptible, but he saw six years change all at once. Quotes: Six years was a long time to be in jail, but it?s an entire era online. Writing on the internet itself had not changed, but reading?? or, at least, getting things read???had altered dramatically. The Stream now dominates the way people receive information on the web. Fewer users are directly checking dedicated webpages, instead getting fed by a never-ending flow of information that?s picked for them by complex ?and secretive???algorithms. The Stream means you don?t need to open so many websites any more. You don?t need numerous tabs. You don?t even need a web browser. You open Twitter or Facebook on your smartphone and dive deep in. The mountain has come to you. Algorithms have picked everything for you. According to what you or your friends have read or seen before, they predict what you might like to see. It feels great not to waste time in finding interesting things on so many websites. Maybe it?s that text itself is disappearing. After all, the first visitors to the web spent their time online reading web magazines. Then came blogs, then Facebook, then Twitter. Now it?s Facebook videos and Instagram and SnapChat that most people spend their time on. There?s less and less text to read on social networks, and more and more video to watch, more and more images to look at. Are we witnessing a decline of reading on the web in favor of watching and listening? The web was not envisioned as a form of television when it was invented. But, like it or not, it is rapidly resembling TV: linear, passive, programmed and inward-looking. When I log on to Facebook, my personal television starts. All I need to do is to scroll: New profile pictures by friends, short bits of opinion on current affairs, links to new stories with short captions, advertising, and of course self-playing videos. I occasionally click on like or share button, read peoples? comments or leave one, or open an article. But I remain inside Facebook, and it continues to broadcast what I might like. This is not the web I knew when I went to jail. This is not the future of the web. This future is television. ---------------------------- It seems to me as well that the new Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. generation are very different to the old fogies of the internet. Everybody now walks around staring at their smartphone. The latest Dilbert makes the same point. BillK From mrjones2020 at gmail.com Sat Jul 18 10:55:22 2015 From: mrjones2020 at gmail.com (J.R. Jones) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 10:55:22 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Sat, Jul 18, 2015, 06:41 BillK wrote: Are blogs and mail lists becoming a niche interest for oldtimers? This is a long article by a blogger who was jailed in Iran in 2008, mostly for things he blogged about, and released in 2014. It is the old story that gradual change is imperceptible, but he saw six years change all at once. Quotes: Six years was a long time to be in jail, but it?s an entire era online. Writing on the internet itself had not changed, but reading ? or, at least, getting things read ? had altered dramatically. The Stream now dominates the way people receive information on the web. Fewer users are directly checking dedicated webpages, instead getting fed by a never-ending flow of information that?s picked for them by complex ?and secretive ? algorithms. The Stream means you don?t need to open so many websites any more. You don?t need numerous tabs. You don?t even need a web browser. You open Twitter or Facebook on your smartphone and dive deep in. The mountain has come to you. Algorithms have picked everything for you. According to what you or your friends have read or seen before, they predict what you might like to see. It feels great not to waste time in finding interesting things on so many websites. Maybe it?s that text itself is disappearing. After all, the first visitors to the web spent their time online reading web magazines. Then came blogs, then Facebook, then Twitter. Now it?s Facebook videos and Instagram and SnapChat that most people spend their time on. There?s less and less text to read on social networks, and more and more video to watch, more and more images to look at. Are we witnessing a decline of reading on the web in favor of watching and listening? The web was not envisioned as a form of television when it was invented. But, like it or not, it is rapidly resembling TV: linear, passive, programmed and inward-looking. When I log on to Facebook, my personal television starts. All I need to do is to scroll: New profile pictures by friends, short bits of opinion on current affairs, links to new stories with short captions, advertising, and of course self-playing videos. I occasionally click on like or share button, read peoples? comments or leave one, or open an article. But I remain inside Facebook, and it continues to broadcast what I might like. This is not the web I knew when I went to jail. This is not the future of the web. This future is television. ---------------------------- It seems to me as well that the new Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. generation are very different to the old fogies of the internet. Everybody now walks around staring at their smartphone. The latest Dilbert makes the same point. He'd have gotten it, had she texted him. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Sat Jul 18 12:41:45 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2015 14:41:45 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <2703775851-16116@secure.ericade.net> In a sense the old internet has always been dying: we have changed the way we interact with it for 40 years. How many of the younger members of the list remember the excitement of manual FTP ("Wow, I am inside a computer in *Australia*!") or Gopher? How many truly miss those things? Mailing lists are in many ways a somewhat obsolete and old-fashioned technology, but they are also robust and have affordances that are hard to beat. Same things for blogs. My prediction is that many of these protocols will remain essentially forever, even if the bulk exchange in society happens through the latest stream through somebody's cloud.? But the concern in the essay is of course that it matters where a society does its mainstream discourse. If it happens in a forum that can easily be censored or biased, it becomes very different from if it is a hard-to-censor diverse environment. And if important digital identities are tied to your participation, then people become extra loath to speak up (if Google decided to delete my googlemail account for some arbitrary crime against usage policies, I would lose access to my calendar and numerous important services). The problem here is not technology, but simply that most people do not care deeply about these things (as well as privacy, accountability and other important but abstract things).? Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 06:13:38 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 08:13:38 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? In-Reply-To: <2703775851-16116@secure.ericade.net> References: <2703775851-16116@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: I am very nostalgic of the Internet of old. As Anders says, my first experiences with FTP in the 80s, Usenet, Gopher, the first great websites in the 90s, and this very mailing list, were AHA moments nothing short of a revelation. I wish I could have all that back. But then I remember that the Internet population numbered a few thousands in 1985 and billions today. Surely the unexpected and unpleasant (for us) evolution of the Internet is the price that had to be paid for massive popularity. In a real ecosystem, there will be predators and viruses. Facebook became so popular by giving billions of users exactly what they want to see online. Too bad that isn't the same that we would like to see. But "we" are still here - only we aren't a majority and don't matter much. However, if we write intelligent things, perhaps somebody will pick them up and offer them to the wider world. Taking an obscure and over-intellectualized essay and converting it to a Facebook trend is an art form for which there are no known recipes, but some people excel at it. A related problem is that today's Internet is dominated by a few big players. We have a technical solution - it's called BitTorrent. Now they have an awesome Project Maelstrom to remake the Web with distributed, decentralized BitTorrent tech, but the project is advancing very slowly, probably because there aren't evident financial incentives. When it comes to the type of content that most people like to see online, I am afraid there isn't much that we can do. On Sat, Jul 18, 2015 at 2:41 PM, Anders Sandberg wrote: > In a sense the old internet has always been dying: we have changed the way > we interact with it for 40 years. How many of the younger members of the > list remember the excitement of manual FTP ("Wow, I am inside a computer in > *Australia*!") or Gopher? How many truly miss those things? > > Mailing lists are in many ways a somewhat obsolete and old-fashioned > technology, but they are also robust and have affordances that are hard to > beat. Same things for blogs. My prediction is that many of these protocols > will remain essentially forever, even if the bulk exchange in society > happens through the latest stream through somebody's cloud. > > But the concern in the essay is of course that it matters where a society > does its mainstream discourse. If it happens in a forum that can easily be > censored or biased, it becomes very different from if it is a hard-to-censor > diverse environment. And if important digital identities are tied to your > participation, then people become extra loath to speak up (if Google decided > to delete my googlemail account for some arbitrary crime against usage > policies, I would lose access to my calendar and numerous important > services). The problem here is not technology, but simply that most people > do not care deeply about these things (as well as privacy, accountability > and other important but abstract things). > > > Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford > University > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From danust2012 at gmail.com Sun Jul 19 15:43:35 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 08:43:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Supersized comet? Message-ID: <2C34EB94-197E-4D7D-96FB-13C88DCF5856@gmail.com> http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-just-found-something-big-205800491.html Not terribly surprising to find Pluto has a tail. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Sun Jul 19 16:16:04 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2015 09:16:04 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Supersized comet? In-Reply-To: <2C34EB94-197E-4D7D-96FB-13C88DCF5856@gmail.com> References: <2C34EB94-197E-4D7D-96FB-13C88DCF5856@gmail.com> Message-ID: <00c401d0c23e$3a645840$af2d08c0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Dan Sent: Sunday, July 19, 2015 8:44 AM To: ExI chat list Subject: [ExI] Supersized comet? >?http://finance.yahoo.com/news/nasa-just-found-something-big-205800491.html >?Not terribly surprising to find Pluto has a tail. >?Regards, Dan Ja, every planet with an atmosphere has a tail. The calculation to show how often an atom or molecule in the upper atmosphere gains escape velocity is not a difficult one. The earth is constantly bleeding off hydrogen, with a few helium atoms making a break for it occasionally. No worries however; we are not really running out of either, since nature has provided a radioactive source for both, and we get plenty of both in the solar wind. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 09:14:07 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 10:14:07 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? In-Reply-To: <2703775851-16116@secure.ericade.net> References: <2703775851-16116@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: On 18 July 2015 at 13:41, Anders Sandberg wrote: > But the concern in the essay is of course that it matters where a society > does its mainstream discourse. If it happens in a forum that can easily be > censored or biased, it becomes very different from if it is a hard-to-censor > diverse environment. And if important digital identities are tied to your > participation, then people become extra loath to speak up (if Google decided > to delete my googlemail account for some arbitrary crime against usage > policies, I would lose access to my calendar and numerous important > services). The problem here is not technology, but simply that most people > do not care deeply about these things (as well as privacy, accountability > and other important but abstract things). > One point that resonated with me was his comparison of the new internet to advert-swamped television. Smartphones and tablets are designed for passive consumers. Tap, swipe, read 140 characters, watch video clip, tap, Like, tap, Share, tap, LOL, tap,........... The new web is for gossip, celeb trivia, pop music, video clips and adverts. Perhaps it will all change again in a few years time. But the concern is that a generation that has grown up in this stream of trivia has had their mindset permanently changed. Seeking novelty has replaced thinking. BillK From msd001 at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 12:27:36 2015 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 08:27:36 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? In-Reply-To: References: <2703775851-16116@secure.ericade.net> Message-ID: On Jul 20, 2015 5:15 AM, "BillK" wrote: > One point that resonated with me was his comparison of the new > internet to advert-swamped television. > Smartphones and tablets are designed for passive consumers. > Tap, swipe, read 140 characters, watch video clip, tap, Like, tap, > Share, tap, LOL, tap,........... > The new web is for gossip, celeb trivia, pop music, video clips and adverts. > > Perhaps it will all change again in a few years time. But the concern > is that a generation that has grown up in this stream of trivia has > had their mindset permanently changed. Seeking novelty has replaced > thinking. Thinking has always been expensive, we're wired to minimize that expenditure. That's human, not "kids today" Lamenting the loss of usenet or bbs or whatever reads to me like lamenting the loss of newspaper and how the good old days had 3 channels of TV and everyone shared a cultural norm because of it. Is evolution just something to talk about in historical terms or is a phenomenon of the present? More change happens Now than has ever happened before. If we don't like the immediate-satisfaction culture shouldn't we be trying to produce something more engaging? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Mon Jul 20 18:39:39 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 11:39:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Monday, July 20, 2015 5:27 AM Mike Dougherty wrote: > Thinking has always been expensive, we're wired to minimize > that expenditure. That's human, not "kids today" I agree. It's usually only a minority that does thinking and explores at any time. Of course, for many, thinking is cool, so there are imitators. I don't mean people who actually do much thinking, but folks who mimic those who do. > Lamenting the loss of usenet or bbs or whatever reads to me like > lamenting the loss of newspaper and how the good old days had 3 > channels of TV and everyone shared a cultural norm because of it. Indeed. Every age seems to have folks decrying innovations that have made life easier. One can imagine someone back in ancient times worrying about the wheel or pack animals make life too easy. If only they left detailed records. :) > Is evolution just something to talk about in historical terms > or is a phenomenon of the present? More change happens Now > than has ever happened before. In terms of technology and cultural evolution, yes. I do think some of this is having an impact on humans and other species, though I'm not in the doom and gloom camp that think somehow before the latest set of changes everything was peachy and our time represents a fall from that former idyllic age. Nor do I believe that "apr?s nous, le d?luge." > If we don't like the immediate-satisfaction culture shouldn't > we be trying to produce something more engaging? I think there are signs of stuff like that too. Yes, many people online are looking for immediate and what many judge to be shallow entertainment. But this is more about what many folks wanted before they were online. It wasn't like they were composing symphonies and pushing back the frontiers of knowledge before they discovered social media. :) Regards, Dan http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 00:21:31 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 19:21:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] kim stanley robinson Message-ID: Short review of 'Aurora'. Plenty of hard science for the physics people and some for the biologists - too much for me, so I speed-read a lot of the book, which is narrated by the starship's AI, which is a way was the best part of the book. Solid B+ for me - probably A- for many of you. bill w -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From sjv2006 at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 00:51:35 2015 From: sjv2006 at gmail.com (Stephen Van Sickle) Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2015 17:51:35 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Musk announces cause of Spacex explosion Message-ID: http://www.geekwire.com/2015/spacexs-elon-musk-traces-falcon-9-rocket-failure-to-busted-strut/ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From giulio at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 05:17:50 2015 From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco) Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2015 07:17:50 +0200 Subject: [ExI] kim stanley robinson In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My review: Yes, Mr. Robinson, We Can Go To The Stars https://hacked.com/yes-mr-robinson-can-go-stars/ On Tue, Jul 21, 2015 at 2:21 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Short review of 'Aurora'. > > Plenty of hard science for the physics people and some for the biologists - > too much for me, so I speed-read a lot of the book, which is narrated by the > starship's AI, which is a way was the best part of the book. > > Solid B+ for me - probably A- for many of you. > > bill w > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > From pharos at gmail.com Tue Jul 21 08:33:09 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2015 09:33:09 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Musk announces cause of Spacex explosion In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On 21 July 2015 at 01:51, Stephen Van Sickle wrote: > http://www.geekwire.com/2015/spacexs-elon-musk-traces-falcon-9-rocket-failure-to-busted-strut/ > Failure modes and built-in redundancy are interesting. In the olden times, if failure of a cable or strut was critical, then you just built two in. So that if one failed, the other took over the load and the structure didn't collapse. e.g. bridges and skyscrapers. Modern design techniques can research expected loads and make one strut strong enough so that it is expected to never fail and therefore the backup is no longer required. In rockets especially, saving weight is critical. But this leads to problems of catastrophic failure if an unexpected load occurs, or as in the Spacex case, some struts have undetected manufacturing defects. This may be an unnoticed existential risk. Building more efficient systems closer to expected design limits could mean that unexpected circumstances cause a catastrophic failure rather than a soft failure. The human body has many soft failure modes. Bits can stop working or degrade performance and the human still keeps going. (Called ageing). :) But this is an expensive way to build things. You don't get soft failure modes built-in to lowest quote manufacturers. BillK From ryacko at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 01:19:10 2015 From: ryacko at gmail.com (Ryan Carboni) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2015 18:19:10 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Is the old internet dying? Message-ID: I got my first computer after the Dot-com bubble. I still remember when Firefox supported Gopher. I think the intent of Gopher hasn't been maintained. File systems are now graphical, but gopher is still html-esque. The modern combination of embedded objects that are automatically opened makes things horrendously insecure. On the other hand, how can you stay in business without including advertisements? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From johnkclark at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 02:13:47 2015 From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark) Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2015 22:13:47 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Weyl Fermions Message-ID: I have a hunch ?that in the near future ? we'll be hearing a lot more about Weyl Fermions and their use in electronics and possibly Quantum Computers ?.? ? Because these quasiparticles are? massless they can move electrical charge around much more quickly than electrons and because they ?don't? bounce off imperfections and move backwards as electrons do but instead use quantum tunneling to move right through them ?they? produce no heat. Three different solutions to Dirac's equation for 1/2 spin particles have been found: 1) Dirac Fermions: These are what people usually mean when they talk about Fermions, particles like electrons protons and neutrons. 2) Majorana Fermions: They would be their own antiparticle and would be great for quantum computing. There is some indications these quasiparticles exist but nothing definite yet. 3) Weyl Fermions: Thanks to the July 16 2015 issue of the journal Science we ?now ? know that these quasiparticles do exist. In June of this year writing in the journal Nature Communications Princeton professor M. Zahid Hasan predicted from pure theory that Weyl Fermions should exist in tantalum arsenide crystals. In the July 16 issue of ? Science 2 different teams reported that they had indeed seen Weyl Fermions in crystals of tantalum arsenide. Shortly after that Weyl Fermions were also found in niobium and perhaps more importantly silicon-based crystals. I smell a Nobel Prize. Hasan said: ?Weyl fermions could be used to solve the traffic jams that you get with electrons in electronics?they can move in a much more efficient, ordered way than electrons. They could lead to a new type of electronics we call ?Weyltronics.? Weyl fermions could exist in certain crystals known as ?Weyl semimetals,? which can essentially split electrons inside into pairs of Weyl fermions that move in opposite directions. The fact that Weyl fermions are less prone to interacting with their surroundings could lead to new ways of encoding quantum information. It?s like they have their own GPS and steer themselves without scattering. They will move and move only in one direction since they are either right-handed or left-handed and never come to an end because they just tunnel through. These are faster ? ? ?than? electrons ?and? behave like unidirectional light beams and can be used for new types of quantum computing ?.? The physics of the Weyl fermion are so strange, there could be many things that arise from this particle that we're just not capable of imagining now. Weyl quasiparticles ? could become a motherboard for future electronic devices ? ? because they combine high mobility with topological protection ?. [against quantum decoherence]" ? John K Clark -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Mon Jul 27 06:29:25 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 07:29:25 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Maybe we can increase lifespan by altering our RNA? Message-ID: Researchers at the Center for Plant Aging Research with support from the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in Korea have made a breakthrough in decoding the ageing process and how to dramatically slow it down. Quote: Our bodies are programmed to grow rapidly when we are young, mature into adults, and then at a certain age the regeneration and repair of our cells, tissue and organs grinds to a halt. All the mechanisms are not yet completely mapped out, but the IBS team has made several significant steps toward understanding how the lifespan of a cell is regulated. The team believes that HEL-1 may act as a transcription regulator, which control how cells convert DNA to RNA since other RNA helicases do the same thing now. According to the team, ?In contrast to the expectation that RNA helicases have general housekeeping roles in RNA metabolism, our findings reveal that the RNA helicase HEL-1 has specific roles in a specific longevity pathway.? Even if immortality isn?t an immediate result of this work, there are other possible applications. Something called DDX39 (the mammalian version of the roundworm?s HEL-1) is found in increased levels in the frontal cortex of patients with Alzheimer?s disease. The ability to regulate DDX39 and other RNA helicases may give us an insight into finding the ability to control Alzheimer?s disease, among other brain disorders. Using the technique of altering RNA helicases to extend life in humans looks promising as human and roundworm both have HEL-1 and IIS which can be manipulated in similar ways. It isn?t clear if the same mechanism is responsible for cellular aging regulation in humans, but evidence suggests that it might be. This research hasn?t given humanity a cure to any diseases or made any claims of human life extension but it is an important first step in more fully understanding the lifecycle and function of cells. ----------------- This research is also mentioned on Next Big Future. BillK From rhanson at gmu.edu Mon Jul 27 11:06:36 2015 From: rhanson at gmu.edu (Robin D Hanson) Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2015 11:06:36 +0000 Subject: [ExI] Weyl Fermions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: That does indeed sound very promising. Of course there also seem to be a lot of practical obstacles. So this may take many decades to become practical on any substantial scale. On Jul 26, 2015, at 10:13 PM, John Clark > wrote: I have a hunch ?that in the near future ? we'll be hearing a lot more about Weyl Fermions and their use in electronics and possibly Quantum Computers ?.? ? Because these quasiparticles are? massless they can move electrical charge around much more quickly than electrons and because they ?don't? bounce off imperfections and move backwards as electrons do but instead use quantum tunneling to move right through them ?they? produce no heat. Three different solutions to Dirac's equation for 1/2 spin particles have been found: 1) Dirac Fermions: These are what people usually mean when they talk about Fermions, particles like electrons protons and neutrons. 2) Majorana Fermions: They would be their own antiparticle and would be great for quantum computing. There is some indications these quasiparticles exist but nothing definite yet. 3) Weyl Fermions: Thanks to the July 16 2015 issue of the journal Science we ?now ? know that these quasiparticles do exist. In June of this year writing in the journal Nature Communications Princeton professor M. Zahid Hasan predicted from pure theory that Weyl Fermions should exist in tantalum arsenide crystals. In the July 16 issue of ? Science 2 different teams reported that they had indeed seen Weyl Fermions in crystals of tantalum arsenide. Shortly after that Weyl Fermions were also found in niobium and perhaps more importantly silicon-based crystals. I smell a Nobel Prize. Hasan said: ?Weyl fermions could be used to solve the traffic jams that you get with electrons in electronics?they can move in a much more efficient, ordered way than electrons. They could lead to a new type of electronics we call ?Weyltronics.? Weyl fermions could exist in certain crystals known as ?Weyl semimetals,? which can essentially split electrons inside into pairs of Weyl fermions that move in opposite directions. The fact that Weyl fermions are less prone to interacting with their surroundings could lead to new ways of encoding quantum information. It?s like they have their own GPS and steer themselves without scattering. They will move and move only in one direction since they are either right-handed or left-handed and never come to an end because they just tunnel through. These are faster ? ? ?than? electrons ?and? behave like unidirectional light beams and can be used for new types of quantum computing ?.? The physics of the Weyl fermion are so strange, there could be many things that arise from this particle that we're just not capable of imagining now. Weyl quasiparticles ? could become a motherboard for future electronic devices ? ? because they combine high mobility with topological protection ?. [against quantum decoherence]" ? John K Clark -- _______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list 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 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 09:33:55 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 10:33:55 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions Message-ID: This is one for Anders! :) Quotes: Researchers are trying to program self-driving cars to make split-second decisions that raise real ethical questions. By Will Knight on July 29, 2015 At a recent industry event, Gerdes gave an example of one such scenario: a child suddenly dashing into the road, forcing the self-driving car to choose between hitting the child or swerving into an oncoming van. ?As we see this with human eyes, one of these obstacles has a lot more value than the other,? Gerdes said. ?What is the car?s responsibility?? Gerdes pointed out that it might even be ethically preferable to put the passengers of the self-driving car at risk. ?If that would avoid the child, if it would save the child?s life, could we injure the occupant of the vehicle? These are very tough decisions that those that design control algorithms for automated vehicles face every day,? he said. Walker-Smith adds that, given the number of fatal traffic accidents that involve human error today, it could be considered unethical to introduce self-driving technology too slowly. ?The biggest ethical question is how quickly we move. We have a technology that potentially could save a lot of people, but is going to be imperfect and is going to kill.? End quotes ------------- I think they might also need an ethics options setup screen for the driver. The ethics of the manufacturer might not agree with the ethics of the driver. Should we make a national set of car driving ethics compulsory? Will different cars have different ethics? This could generate some interesting features to attract sales. There is also a chance that hackers will be able to change the ethics section of the car computer. All the way from 'Protect me at all costs' to weaponize it into 'Kill as many as possible'. BillK From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 10:37:39 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 11:37:39 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Brain Implants Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete Message-ID: This transhumanist article has caused much controversy about governments controlling people by implants. How Brain Implants (and Other Technology) Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete Written by Zoltan Istvan July 21, 2015 Zoltan Istvan is a futurist, author of The Transhumanist Wager, and founder of and presidential candidate for the Transhumanist Party. He writes an occasional column for Motherboard in which he ruminates on the future beyond natural human ability. Quotes: It?s likely we will have cranial implants in two decades time that will be able to send signals to our brains that manipulate our behaviours. Those implants will be able to control out-of-control tempers and violent actions?and maybe even unsavoury thoughts. This type of tech raises the obvious question: Instead of killing someone who has committed a terrible crime, should we instead alter their brain and the way it functions to make them a better person? ---- Some people may complain that implants are too invasive and extreme. But similar outcomes?especially in altering criminal?s minds to better fit society?s goals?may be accomplished by genetic engineering, nanotechnology, or even super drugs. In fact, many criminals are already given powerful drugs, which make them quite different that they might be without them. After all, some people?including myself?believe much violent crime is a version of mental disease. ---- Regardless, in the future, it?s going to be hard to do anything wrong anyway without being caught. Satellites, street cameras, drones, and the public with their smartphone cameras (and in 20 years time their bionic eyes) will capture everything. Simply put, physical crimes will be much harder to commit. And if people knew they were going to be caught, crime would drop noticeably. ------------------ End Quotes What is upsetting people is 'mission creep'. You start by putting implants in murderers only, then violent criminals, then terrorists, then ---- why not just put implants in everybody? The TSA, NSA, etc are already checking and monitoring everyone as possible suspects. BillK From hibbert at mydruthers.com Wed Jul 29 15:12:43 2015 From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 08:12:43 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> > Researchers are trying to program self-driving cars to make > split-second decisions that raise real ethical questions. This seems like a red herring to me. The ethical questions that philosophers (and members of this list) like to debate are all borderline questions, with strong proponents on many sides. If there isn't a single obvious answer to educated discussants sitting quietly in their armchairs, then why is it crucial that automated driving software be able to make split-second distinctions without warning or any background on the potential gains and losses? The real issue that needs to be resolved before deciding that it's okay to put AIs in charge of high-speed vehicles is whether they're better at humans at preventing accidents in the incidents that happen every day in every city. And if they're just barely better at that, then any difference of opinion on the subtle ethical trade-offs where just avoiding the accident isn't an option will be very much in the noise. Chris -- Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. -- Scott Alexander Chris Hibbert hibbert at mydruthers.com http://mydruthers.com From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 15:49:47 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 10:49:47 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. -- Scott Alexander I'd say this is sheer dumb luck. How can one be rational when the 'facts' are false, or the data aren't complete, or are ambiguous or even completely biased by doctoring? bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 10:12 AM, Chris Hibbert wrote: > Researchers are trying to program self-driving cars to make >> split-second decisions that raise real ethical questions. >> > > This seems like a red herring to me. The ethical questions that > philosophers (and members of this list) like to debate are all borderline > questions, with strong proponents on many sides. If there isn't a single > obvious answer to educated discussants sitting quietly in their armchairs, > then why is it crucial that automated driving software be able to make > split-second distinctions without warning or any background on the > potential gains and losses? > > The real issue that needs to be resolved before deciding that it's okay to > put AIs in charge of high-speed vehicles is whether they're better at > humans at preventing accidents in the incidents that happen every day in > every city. And if they're just barely better at that, then any difference > of opinion on the subtle ethical trade-offs where just avoiding the > accident isn't an option will be very much in the noise. > > Chris > -- > Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, > confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. > -- Scott Alexander > > Chris Hibbert > hibbert at mydruthers.com > http://mydruthers.com > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 29 16:55:31 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 09:55:31 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK >...Walker-Smith adds that, given the number of fatal traffic accidents that involve human error today, it could be considered unethical to introduce self-driving technology too slowly. ?The biggest ethical question is how quickly we move. We have a technology that potentially could save a lot of people, but is going to be imperfect and is going to kill.? End quotes ------------- >>... There is also a chance that hackers will be able to change the ethics section of the car computer. All the way from 'Protect me at all costs' to weaponize it into 'Kill as many as possible'. BillK _______________________________________________ Ja to all. Regarding the swerve question, I can imagine a solution where the self-drivers just drive slower and react more quickly. Then rather than swerve, they swerve only over to the centerline, and brake hard. I can imagine if the self-drivers stay under the posted speed limits, they would be way safer than any human-operated vehicle, which routinely drives faster than that, particularly in residential areas. Riding in one will require patience. Related to BillK's weaponized car scenario, a yahoo could rig one filled with fertilizer and Diesel oil, set it to drive over to the ex's house, blast him and his girlfriend into the next county. If done with sufficient stealthiness, there would be no way to know who dunnit, or no way to prove it even if everyone suspected the ex. Agree with the article, introducing the technology too slowly poses ethical problems of its own for we know there are people with drivers licenses who shouldn't have them. If you talk to any grave-shift cop, they will tell you a big part of their job is sweeping up body parts of yahoos who stayed at the bar until it closed at 0200, then attempted to drive home. In some areas, the 0200 cleanup is worse than rush hour for accident rates. Ethical dilemmas posed by children darting out doesn't apply at 0200. But current technology is a waaaay better driver than some stupid drunk, and is better than plenty of elderly license holders. spike From connor_flexman at brown.edu Wed Jul 29 18:32:29 2015 From: connor_flexman at brown.edu (Flexman, Connor) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:32:29 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 11:49 AM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, > confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. > -- Scott Alexander > > I'd say this is sheer dumb luck. How can one be rational when the 'facts' > are false, or the data aren't complete, or are ambiguous or even completely > biased by doctoring? > > bill w > You can read the answer at http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/27/why-i-am-not-rene-descartes/. The point isn't that you literally arrive to a correct conclusion based on actually doctored data. The point is that you take a bunch of conflicting nutrition studies, some of which may be doctored, some of which have crappy technique, some of which are noise, and pull out of that data the best thing you can: a conclusion that may be relatively weak and have large confidence intervals, but is nonetheless not what many people get out of it, which is "X is clearly correct, the other studies are bunk, I am done with this topic". Darwin being rational enough to piece together natural selection from extremely limited evidence is also an example Alexander uses. Connor -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:00:06 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:00:06 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> References: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> Message-ID: I vote for: the car won't start if you have an illegal alcohol content. (Would have saved me a night in jail and a lot of money back in my stupid(er?) days). bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 11:55 AM, spike wrote: > > > -----Original Message----- > From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On > Behalf Of BillK > > >...Walker-Smith adds that, given the number of fatal traffic accidents > that involve human error today, it could be considered unethical to > introduce self-driving technology too slowly. ?The biggest ethical question > is how quickly we move. We have a technology that potentially could save a > lot of people, but is going to be imperfect and is going to kill.? > End quotes ------------- > > >>... There is also a chance that hackers will be able to change the > ethics section of the car computer. All the way from 'Protect me at all > costs' to weaponize it into 'Kill as many as possible'. BillK > > _______________________________________________ > > Ja to all. Regarding the swerve question, I can imagine a solution where > the self-drivers just drive slower and react more quickly. Then rather > than swerve, they swerve only over to the centerline, and brake hard. I > can imagine if the self-drivers stay under the posted speed limits, they > would be way safer than any human-operated vehicle, which routinely drives > faster than that, particularly in residential areas. Riding in one will > require patience. > > Related to BillK's weaponized car scenario, a yahoo could rig one filled > with fertilizer and Diesel oil, set it to drive over to the ex's house, > blast him and his girlfriend into the next county. If done with sufficient > stealthiness, there would be no way to know who dunnit, or no way to prove > it even if everyone suspected the ex. > > Agree with the article, introducing the technology too slowly poses > ethical problems of its own for we know there are people with drivers > licenses who shouldn't have them. If you talk to any grave-shift cop, they > will tell you a big part of their job is sweeping up body parts of yahoos > who stayed at the bar until it closed at 0200, then attempted to drive > home. In some areas, the 0200 cleanup is worse than rush hour for accident > rates. Ethical dilemmas posed by children darting out doesn't apply at > 0200. But current technology is a waaaay better driver than some stupid > drunk, and is better than plenty of elderly license holders. > > spike > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:10:31 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:10:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: see below On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 1:32 PM, Flexman, Connor wrote: > On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 11:49 AM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > >> Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, >> confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. >> -- Scott Alexander >> >> I'd say this is sheer dumb luck. How can one be rational when the >> 'facts' are false, or the data aren't complete, or are ambiguous or even >> completely biased by doctoring? >> >> bill w >> > > You can read the answer at > http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/27/why-i-am-not-rene-descartes/. The > point isn't that you literally arrive to a correct conclusion based on > actually doctored data. The point is that you take a bunch of conflicting > nutrition studies, some of which may be doctored, some of which have crappy > technique, some of which are noise, and pull out of that data the best > thing you can: a conclusion that may be relatively weak and have large > confidence intervals, but is nonetheless not what many people get out of > it, which is "X is clearly correct, the other studies are bunk, I am done > with this topic". Darwin being rational enough to piece together natural > selection from extremely limited evidence is also an example Alexander uses. > Connor > ?Thanks! IF you have those kinds of studies, the only conclusion you > can reach is that studies need to be done with better technique, or > whatever they are weak in. You may at best have a hypothesis to test, but > conclusions? No way. > ?Apparently the evidence Darwin had was good evidence, if limited. And a great intuitive mind. Notice, though, that he did not publish for years and year and years and more and more evidence. ? > bill w? > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From pharos at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:46:46 2015 From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 20:46:46 +0100 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: On 29 July 2015 at 16:12, Chris Hibbert wrote: > The real issue that needs to be resolved before deciding that it's okay to > put AIs in charge of high-speed vehicles is whether they're better at humans > at preventing accidents in the incidents that happen every day in every > city. And if they're just barely better at that, then any difference of > opinion on the subtle ethical trade-offs where just avoiding the accident > isn't an option will be very much in the noise. > > As with most issues that involve ethics, I doubt that it's as simple as just counting accidents. :) Many small accidents might be preferable to few serious accidents. *Who* or *what* gets hurt and by how much, involves human value judgements. Rationality is not much help in cases like that. Especially as many (most?) human value judgements are driven by emotions. It won't help to say that X is the rational decision if the enraged mob then beats you to death. BillK From atymes at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 19:52:53 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:52:53 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Brain Implants Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Jul 29, 2015 3:40 AM, "BillK" wrote: > What is upsetting people is 'mission creep'. You start by putting > implants in murderers only, then violent criminals, then terrorists, > then ---- why not just put implants in everybody? The TSA, NSA, etc > are already checking and monitoring everyone as possible suspects. Agreed. There might be more support if those deciding who to implant would themselves accept implants aimed at reducing their willingness to abuse...but of course this would be unacceptable to them. (Except maybe for the few who genuinely are motivated by pure public interest.) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From anders at aleph.se Wed Jul 29 19:45:34 2015 From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 21:45:34 +0200 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3679791716-1572@secure.ericade.net> Fr?n: BillK This is one for Anders! ?:) Yup, I advocated making cars moral proxies of their drivers in a talk two years back: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bP3Vbjh-6L0 In practice this is likely to be resolved by some committee deciding on an official good enough solution, and of course by engineers actually making the cars safe enough: ethics only happens in the weird borderland beyond safety or if there are unintended consequences. Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 29 19:48:50 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 12:48:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> Message-ID: <022201d0ca37$99b125c0$cd137140$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 12:00 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions >>?introducing the technology too slowly poses ethical problems of its own for we know there are people with drivers licenses who shouldn't have them?spike >?I vote for: the car won't start if you have an illegal alcohol content. (Would have saved me a night in jail and a lot of money back in my stupid(er?) days). bill w Alternative, the car will start and will take the passenger home upon positive identification, but will ignore all inputs to controls from inert drunk. Or insist that the drunk get in the back seat. If there are two drunks appropriately oriented, good chance they would welcome that anyway. On the other hand, that poses new ethical dilemmas. The drunkard is spam in a can once that trip home starts. It is unclear to me what happens if the drunk decides to not go home, for any number of perfectly legitimate reasons (robocar arrives at home and drunkard and sees mother-in-law?s car in the driveway, or passenger has a medical emergency just as she passes the hospital, watching helplessly as it recedes in the mirror, etc.) I don?t think we can arrange for a car to work against the passenger?s wishes, even if the car knows the carbon unit is impaired. Tough problem. I think we need to offer the option to drinkers and dopers to have their car take them to the stable without further instructions. Horses used to do that in the old days. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rex at nosyntax.net Wed Jul 29 20:12:38 2015 From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:12:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <022201d0ca37$99b125c0$cd137140$@att.net> References: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> <022201d0ca37$99b125c0$cd137140$@att.net> Message-ID: <20150729201238.GB22838@nosyntax.net> spike [2015-07-29 13:03]: > Tough problem.? I think we need to offer the option to drinkers and dopers > to have their car take them to the stable without further instructions.? > Horses used to do that in the old days. I'm so old I owned a horse that would "do the right thing" on its own under certain circumstances. Never tested being drunk, though. -rex -- When you are over the hill, you pick up speed... From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:33:32 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 15:33:32 -0500 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <022201d0ca37$99b125c0$cd137140$@att.net> References: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> <022201d0ca37$99b125c0$cd137140$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 2:48 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 29, 2015 12:00 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions > > > > >>?introducing the technology too slowly poses ethical problems of its > own for we know there are people with drivers licenses who shouldn't have > them?spike > > > > > > >?I vote for: the car won't start if you have an illegal alcohol > content. (Would have saved me a night in jail and a lot of money back in > my stupid(er?) days). bill w > > > > > > > > Alternative, the car will start and will take the passenger home upon > positive identification, but will ignore all inputs to controls from inert > drunk. Or insist that the drunk get in the back seat. If there are two > drunks appropriately oriented, good chance they would welcome that anyway. > > > > On the other hand, that poses new ethical dilemmas. The drunkard is spam > in a can once that trip home starts. It is unclear to me what happens if > the drunk decides to not go home, for any number of perfectly legitimate > reasons (robocar arrives at home and drunkard and sees mother-in-law?s car > in the driveway, or passenger has a medical emergency just as she passes > the hospital, watching helplessly as it recedes in the mirror, etc.) I > don?t think we can arrange for a car to work against the passenger?s > wishes, even if the car knows the carbon unit is impaired. > > > > Tough problem. I think we need to offer the option to drinkers and dopers > to have their car take them to the stable without further instructions. > Horses used to do that in the old days. > > > > spike > ?Or you could program the car with several options, such as hotel, mistresses' house? ?, friend's. For med emergency you just tell the car to park and call 911. ?bill k - I'm so old I owned a horse that would "do the right thing" on its own under certain circumstances. Never tested being drunk, though. You or the horse? bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:39:28 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 15:39:28 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Brain Implants Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 2:52 PM, Adrian Tymes wrote: > On Jul 29, 2015 3:40 AM, "BillK" wrote: > > What is upsetting people is 'mission creep'. You start by putting > > implants in murderers only, then violent criminals, then terrorists, > > then ---- why not just put implants in everybody? The TSA, NSA, etc > > are already checking and monitoring everyone as possible suspects. > > Agreed. There might be more support if those deciding who to implant > would themselves accept implants aimed at reducing their willingness to > abuse...but of course this would be unacceptable to them. (Except maybe > for the few who genuinely are motivated by pure public interest.) > ?You can control any sort of behavior you want to if everyone is implanted. But then you have a police state - too powerful, and antithetical to every libertarian, left or right. We are already pretty close to what R Heinlein said to leave: a country that demands that everyone carry an ID? ?. We could move much closer to that if we abolished cash, which is kind of happening now and has been for some time. bill w > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 29 20:31:27 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:31:27 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Re: Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: <029601d0ca3d$8d47e7a0$a7d7b6e0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of BillK ... >...As with most issues that involve ethics, I doubt that it's as simple as just counting accidents. :) Many small accidents might be preferable to few serious accidents. >...It won't help to say that X is the rational decision if the enraged mob then beats you to death. BillK _______________________________________________ Consider another weirdness. A long time ago, the Luddites broke electric street lamps because they were putting lamplighters out of business. What use could they possibly be if they were so far down on the jobs food chain they were lighting street lamps for pennies? Now consider the modern counterpart, taxi drivers: pretty much the bottom of the food chain career-wise. The robo-cars and robo-trucks definitely are a big threat to professional drivers, and they, like the lamplighters of old, may find alternative employment scarce. I can easily envision people intentionally crashing or interfering in some way with robo-cars. Good example, a prole sees one coming with no one at the wheel, she knows she can walk out in front of it and not face significant risk. She can wait right up to the last second to walk out, give the passenger a rough ride. Taxi drivers might do stuff like this for fun. spike From msd001 at gmail.com Wed Jul 29 20:47:56 2015 From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 16:47:56 -0400 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Re: Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <029601d0ca3d$8d47e7a0$a7d7b6e0$@att.net> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <029601d0ca3d$8d47e7a0$a7d7b6e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 4:31 PM, spike wrote: > I can easily envision people intentionally crashing or interfering in some > way with robo-cars. Good example, a prole sees one coming with no one at > the wheel, she knows she can walk out in front of it and not face > significant risk. She can wait right up to the last second to walk out, > give the passenger a rough ride. Taxi drivers might do stuff like this for > fun. Taxi drivers do stuff like that for work too. From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 29 20:47:52 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:47:52 -0700 Subject: [ExI] [Bulk] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <20150729201238.GB22838@nosyntax.net> References: <00d801d0ca1f$6365b070$2a311150$@att.net> <022201d0ca37$99b125c0$cd137140$@att.net> <20150729201238.GB22838@nosyntax.net> Message-ID: <02d301d0ca3f$d828fe60$887afb20$@att.net> -----Original Message----- From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of rex spike [2015-07-29 13:03]: ...? >>... Horses used to do that in the old days. >...I'm so old I owned a horse that would "do the right thing" on its own under certain circumstances. Never tested being drunk, though. -rex -- _______________________________________________ You had a horse? HAH! You young fellers lived in luxury! I remember when they were just talking about domesticating horses. Rex this is really cool man. The changes you have seen in your lifetime, oh my. spike From spike66 at att.net Wed Jul 29 20:52:22 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 13:52:22 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Brain Implants Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <02d401d0ca40$7a209de0$6e61d9a0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace >?We are already pretty close to what R Heinlein said to leave: a country that demands that everyone carry an ID?... bill w _______________________________________________ We are already there. My son?s toy Nintendo DS can recognize faces and identify people after having seen them. Biometric technology is sufficiently advanced, anyone with a face is already carrying an ID. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hibbert at mydruthers.com Wed Jul 29 21:44:39 2015 From: hibbert at mydruthers.com (Chris Hibbert) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:44:39 -0700 Subject: [ExI] maliciously doctored facts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <55B94947.2020107@mydruthers.com> On 7/29/15 2:05 PM, Bill commented on my .sig: > Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, > confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. > -- Scott Alexander > > I'd say this is sheer dumb luck. How can one be rational when the 'facts' > are false, or the data aren't complete, or are ambiguous or even completely > biased by doctoring? > > bill w The point of rationality is wading through a sea of purported facts, observations, opinions and advice, and picking out the strain of most-likely-to-be-true. The maliciously doctored facts aren't your only sources. At least they shouldn't be. Chris -- It is easy to turn an aquarium into fish soup, but not so easy to turn fish soup back into an aquarium. -- Lech Walesa on reverting to a market economy. Chris Hibbert hibbert at mydruthers.com http://mydruthers.com From andrew at jarbox.org Wed Jul 29 21:17:38 2015 From: andrew at jarbox.org (J. Andrew Rogers) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 14:17:38 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Brain Implants Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <6B726B64-425D-4966-AB26-7BD943E516A2@jarbox.org> > On Jul 29, 2015, at 3:37 AM, BillK wrote: > > What is upsetting people is 'mission creep'. You start by putting > implants in murderers only, then violent criminals, then terrorists, > then ---- why not just put implants in everybody? The TSA, NSA, etc > are already checking and monitoring everyone as possible suspects. This is why overt implants would not be used for this, except perhaps to make an explicit point, nor are they necessary to achieve approximately the same effect with the ubiquitous instrumentation of our environment. An implant draws unnecessary attention to a mechanism that people will attempt to subvert. It is a rather blunt form of behavioral modification. With the digitization of the physical world, it is becoming much easier to continuously ?nudge? individual behavior below the threshold where an individual can perceive the nature of the manipulation. I have to imagine that most implementors would greatly prefer more ambient, invisible mechanisms for a wide variety of reasons. I suspect many likely technological dystopias will not be perceived as such from the inside, almost definitionally. From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 00:45:10 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 19:45:10 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Brain Implants Could Make the Death Penalty Obsolete In-Reply-To: <6B726B64-425D-4966-AB26-7BD943E516A2@jarbox.org> References: <6B726B64-425D-4966-AB26-7BD943E516A2@jarbox.org> Message-ID: from Rogers - With the digitization of the physical world, it is becoming much easier to continuously ?nudge? individual behavior below the threshold where an individual can perceive the nature of the manipulation. I have to imagine that most implementors would greatly prefer more ambient, invisible mechanisms for a wide variety of reasons. from bill w If you put a picture of a person in the coffee room, or even just a pair of eyes, a significantly greater amount of money will be put in the coffee jar. And not one person will admit (because they do not know) that they were manipulated. We can be manipulated in so many different ways by my fellow social psychologists, that it is incredible. By far, most Ss in such experiments deny vigorously that they have been manipulated, because no one wants to admit that. We like to think that we are the captains of our ship when in fact we are manipulated not only by other people and things in our environment, but by our own unconscious mind. Then later we rationalize and come up with reasons why we did what we did. Some evolutionary psychologists think that the conscious mind developed just to lie, cover up, make excuses for, etc. our behavior, which is in fact under the control of the environment and the unconscious. And we really and truly honestly believe ourselves - and others, because they are saying the same things that we are. We are a mess. Massive shared delusions. bill w On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 4:17 PM, J. Andrew Rogers wrote: > > > On Jul 29, 2015, at 3:37 AM, BillK wrote: > > > > What is upsetting people is 'mission creep'. You start by putting > > implants in murderers only, then violent criminals, then terrorists, > > then ---- why not just put implants in everybody? The TSA, NSA, etc > > are already checking and monitoring everyone as possible suspects. > > > This is why overt implants would not be used for this, except perhaps to > make an explicit point, nor are they necessary to achieve approximately the > same effect with the ubiquitous instrumentation of our environment. An > implant draws unnecessary attention to a mechanism that people will attempt > to subvert. It is a rather blunt form of behavioral modification. > > With the digitization of the physical world, it is becoming much easier to > continuously ?nudge? individual behavior below the threshold where an > individual can perceive the nature of the manipulation. I have to imagine > that most implementors would greatly prefer more ambient, invisible > mechanisms for a wide variety of reasons. > > I suspect many likely technological dystopias will not be perceived as > such from the inside, almost definitionally. > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From tara at taramayastales.com Wed Jul 29 16:00:15 2015 From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 09:00:15 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: My prediction is that the biggest danger of self-driving cars will be if they are susceptible to being hacked by malicious humans. Harm will be done on purpose, by trolls or terrorists, far exceeding what will happen by unavoidable accidents. Tara Maya Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Amazon | Goodreads > On Jul 29, 2015, at 8:12 AM, Chris Hibbert wrote: > >> Researchers are trying to program self-driving cars to make >> split-second decisions that raise real ethical questions. > > This seems like a red herring to me. The ethical questions that philosophers (and members of this list) like to debate are all borderline questions, with strong proponents on many sides. If there isn't a single obvious answer to educated discussants sitting quietly in their armchairs, then why is it crucial that automated driving software be able to make split-second distinctions without warning or any background on the potential gains and losses? > > The real issue that needs to be resolved before deciding that it's okay to put AIs in charge of high-speed vehicles is whether they're better at humans at preventing accidents in the incidents that happen every day in every city. And if they're just barely better at that, then any difference of opinion on the subtle ethical trade-offs where just avoiding the accident isn't an option will be very much in the noise. > > Chris > -- > Rationality is about drawing correct inferences from limited, > confusing, contradictory, or maliciously doctored facts. > -- Scott Alexander > > Chris Hibbert > hibbert at mydruthers.com > http://mydruthers.com > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 30 04:25:50 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 21:25:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: <003901d0ca7f$d3ee6de0$7bcb49a0$@att.net> >... On Behalf Of Tara Maya Subject: Re: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions >...My prediction is that the biggest danger of self-driving cars will be if they are susceptible to being hacked by malicious humans. Harm will be done on purpose, by trolls or terrorists, far exceeding what will happen by unavoidable accidents. ...Tara Maya I can imagine a system where the control algorithms are entirely contained as firmware, on an EM shielded device with no I/O, , in which a module must be physically removed and replaced to update firmware, in which the car must identify and match the firmware module before it would do anything. It could still be hacked, but it would need to be done at the factory to the firmware module, so the company would likely have a good shot at controlling that. Alternative: the car biggies would just supply the car with a slot to plug in a control module but not the module. The controls would all be fitted with actuators, so that if a suitable control module is plugged in, the car will go on its own. But the car company would not take responsibility for the firmware. spike From atymes at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 06:10:25 2015 From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes) Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2015 23:10:25 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Tara Maya wrote: > My prediction is that the biggest danger of self-driving cars will be if > they are susceptible to being hacked by malicious humans. Harm will be done > on purpose, by trolls or terrorists, far exceeding what will happen by > unavoidable accidents. > I suspect this will far more likely be correct if there are government-mandated ways for "authorized law enforcement officials" to remotely control said cars. While this would be done with good intentions, recent history demonstrates that the majority of controllers in practice would be... * at first, law enforcement officials without legally valid authorization (blank, unsigned, or non-existent warrants), * eventually, not-actually-LEOs (such as NSA agents, or DEA/ATF/etc. agents whose department was never authorized but who talked their way into getting the codes), * and finally, outright criminals (any non-government person doing the exact same thing with the exact same - zero - level of legal authorization, the only differences being that the Department of Justice is actually willing to prosecute them, and that it will likely take longer for them to obtain the codes). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 30 17:14:18 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 10:14:18 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> Message-ID: <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes Sent: Wednesday, July 29, 2015 11:10 PM To: ExI chat list Subject: Re: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Tara Maya wrote: >>?My prediction is that the biggest danger of self-driving cars will be if they are susceptible to being hacked by malicious humans. Harm will be done on purpose, by trolls or terrorists, far exceeding what will happen by unavoidable accidents. >?I suspect this will far more likely be correct if there are government-mandated ways for "authorized law enforcement officials" to remotely control said cars. While this would be done with good intentions, recent history demonstrates that the majority of controllers in practice would be... >?* at first, law enforcement officials without legally valid authorization (blank, unsigned, or non-existent warrants), * ? Excellent points. Law enforcement will want some way to stop a robo-car externally, but consumers might want a robo-car which will go where instructed even with an inert passenger. Law enforcement is now empowered (in many jurisdictions) to seize cash if they find you with a pile of it, and their drug-sniffing dogs are really looking for cash (because the cops don?t really get to keep the dope they seize but they get to keep the cash.) If they see someone dozing behind the wheel or humping in the back seat or whatever, they are going to want to pull over that robo-car and look for cash, to fund some cool new cruisers and automatic weapons and things that cops like to play with. There are some perfectly legitimate reasons to pull over robo-cars: an oil spill on the road for instance, or an Amber Alert, but if cops have that, it gives them the means to do wrong (and a few of them will.) It also empowers the full-time bad guys. Oy. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 18:52:50 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 13:52:50 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> Message-ID: We have to add to 'nothing is idiot proof', 'nothing is genius proof'. Although.... Maybe airplanes have a different kind of hardware and software, but no one has remotely controlled one yet, right? I have to bet they've tried. bill w On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 12:14 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *Adrian Tymes > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 29, 2015 11:10 PM > *To:* ExI chat list > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions > > > > On Wed, Jul 29, 2015 at 9:00 AM, Tara Maya > wrote: > > >>?My prediction is that the biggest danger of self-driving cars will be > if they are susceptible to being hacked by malicious humans. Harm will be > done on purpose, by trolls or terrorists, far exceeding what will happen by > unavoidable accidents. > > > > >?I suspect this will far more likely be correct if there are > government-mandated ways for "authorized law enforcement officials" to > remotely control said cars. While this would be done with good intentions, > recent history demonstrates that the majority of controllers in practice > would be... > > >?* at first, law enforcement officials without legally valid > authorization (blank, unsigned, or non-existent warrants), * ? > > > > Excellent points. Law enforcement will want some way to stop a robo-car > externally, but consumers might want a robo-car which will go where > instructed even with an inert passenger. Law enforcement is now empowered > (in many jurisdictions) to seize cash if they find you with a pile of it, > and their drug-sniffing dogs are really looking for cash (because the cops > don?t really get to keep the dope they seize but they get to keep the cash.) > > > > If they see someone dozing behind the wheel or humping in the back seat or > whatever, they are going to want to pull over that robo-car and look for > cash, to fund some cool new cruisers and automatic weapons and things that > cops like to play with. > > > > There are some perfectly legitimate reasons to pull over robo-cars: an oil > spill on the road for instance, or an Amber Alert, but if cops have that, > it gives them the means to do wrong (and a few of them will.) It also > empowers the full-time bad guys. > > > > Oy. > > > > spike > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 30 19:33:59 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 12:33:59 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> Message-ID: <020101d0cafe$b1b7a190$1526e4b0$@att.net> >? On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions >?We have to add to 'nothing is idiot proof', 'nothing is genius proof'. Although.... >?Maybe airplanes have a different kind of hardware and software, but no one has remotely controlled one yet, right? On the contrary, sir. >?I have to bet they've tried. bill w Roger that. Lockheed build a passenger aircraft which was pre-programmed. It was demonstrated by having the aircraft take off from Burbank and fly to New York without a human hand ever touching the controls. That demonstration was in 1965. The capability was never used. Modern fighter planes have a technology called ACFIT, an acronym for Anti-Controlled Flight Into Terrain. If the pilot aims the aircraft at the ground and goes full throttle, the plane decides when is the last second and takes action (it pulls up, without commands from the pilot.) The whole program had mixed reviews. The pilots didn?t like the notion of asking the computer to do something and having the computer fly the plane. They thought it was less being in command and more being in suggest of the aircraft. Others pointed out that if the pilot passes out or is too seriously injured to fly, that ACFIT could save their lives. The Navy realized that if the pilot was slain in an air battle, at least they get their expensive plane back. If your question was more towards: has anyone tried to hack and take over control of an aircraft, the Iranians are claiming that?s how they captured one of our drones. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Thu Jul 30 22:02:04 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 17:02:04 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <020101d0cafe$b1b7a190$1526e4b0$@att.net> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> <020101d0cafe$b1b7a190$1526e4b0$@att.net> Message-ID: > ?? > If your question was more towards: has anyone tried to hack and take over > control of an aircraft, the Iranians are claiming that?s how they captured > one of our drones. > > > > spike > > ?So then, is it just a matter of time before someone hacks into a commercial jet and crashes it? Or if the software is so strong, then why couldn't it be put in the cars?? ?bill w? _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From spike66 at att.net Thu Jul 30 22:51:06 2015 From: spike66 at att.net (spike) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 15:51:06 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> <020101d0cafe$b1b7a190$1526e4b0$@att.net> Message-ID: <011f01d0cb1a$3a9c62a0$afd527e0$@att.net> From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace Subject: Re: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions ?? >>?If your question was more towards: has anyone tried to hack and take over control of an aircraft, the Iranians are claiming that?s how they captured one of our drones. spike ?>?So then, is it just a matter of time before someone hacks into a commercial jet and crashes it? Or if the software is so strong, then why couldn't it be put in the cars?? ?bill w? _______________________________________________ It can be put in cars. As to your questions, the Iranians are claiming they spoofed a control signal and took over the drone. Drones need to have antennas and access to control systems, since no one is on board. The situation that is coming ever more clear is that robo-cars need to be controllable somehow from the outside. Scenario: prole is having a possible heart attack, can?t afford an ambulance ride, gets in car and tells it to go to the hospital, but on the way, gets worse and decides perhaps she can afford an ambulance ride (have you seen those modern ones? Heart attack victims are better off in a modern ambulance than they were in the hospital twenty years ago.) OK so she can?t really drive but the ambulance can pull up along side. I suppose a skilled ambulance driver would pull up to the left and forward of the robo-car and force it to the shoulder. The cops are going to want a pull-over button so they can sniff the car for cash, but we might suppose they too could force it over. If the cops have a pull-over button, the bad guys can get to it. spike -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 00:39:15 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2015 19:39:15 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <011f01d0cb1a$3a9c62a0$afd527e0$@att.net> References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> <020101d0cafe$b1b7a190$1526e4b0$@att.net> <011f01d0cb1a$3a9c62a0$afd527e0$@att.net> Message-ID: If the cops have a pull-over button, the bad guys can get to it. spike This might start a whole new discussion - hope so. The quality of our police is too low. And has been for some time, maybe forever. I am not judging them on the basis of the events in the last few years. In addition to the quality, I question the quasi-military training they are given. It makes them lack empathy with the public, like the students in the famous Zimbardo study (students acting as prisoners and prison guards - if you don't know this one, please Google it - frightening). Of course you are right about bad guys getting remote controls for cars. If that happens, every car will be loaded with guns, right? Then road rage will be turned into road murders. Why can't everything in a car be hardwired? No wifi no hacks, except, perhaps, your internet radio. bill w On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 5:51 PM, spike wrote: > > > > > *From:* extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] *On > Behalf Of *William Flynn Wallace > *Subject:* Re: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions > > > > > > ?? > > >>?If your question was more towards: has anyone tried to hack and take > over control of an aircraft, the Iranians are claiming that?s how they > captured one of our drones. > > > > spike > > > > ?>?So then, is it just a matter of time before someone hacks into a > commercial jet and crashes it? Or if the software is so strong, then why > couldn't it be put in the cars?? > > > > ?bill w? > > > > _______________________________________________ > > It can be put in cars. > > As to your questions, the Iranians are claiming they spoofed a control > signal and took over the drone. Drones need to have antennas and access to > control systems, since no one is on board. > > The situation that is coming ever more clear is that robo-cars need to be > controllable somehow from the outside. Scenario: prole is having a > possible heart attack, can?t afford an ambulance ride, gets in car and > tells it to go to the hospital, but on the way, gets worse and decides > perhaps she can afford an ambulance ride (have you seen those modern ones? > Heart attack victims are better off in a modern ambulance than they were in > the hospital twenty years ago.) OK so she can?t really drive but the > ambulance can pull up along side. I suppose a skilled ambulance driver > would pull up to the left and forward of the robo-car and force it to the > shoulder. > > The cops are going to want a pull-over button so they can sniff the car > for cash, but we might suppose they too could force it over. > > If the cops have a pull-over button, the bad guys can get to it. > > spike > > > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 04:51:28 2015 From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2015 00:51:28 -0400 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: <55B8ED6B.5080804@mydruthers.com> <00fc01d0caeb$2eaba2f0$8c02e8d0$@att.net> <020101d0cafe$b1b7a190$1526e4b0$@att.net> <011f01d0cb1a$3a9c62a0$afd527e0$@att.net> Message-ID: On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 8:39 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > If the cops have a pull-over button, the bad guys can get to it. > > spike > > This might start a whole new discussion - hope so. The quality of our > police is too low. > ### I disagree. The quality of US police is surprisingly good, considering the insane laws they are charged with upholding, and considering the existing incentives to behave badly. They are encouraged to lie routinely in court, there is no effective supervision of prosecutors, they are allowed to take your money, they are crucified in public if they shoot in self defense against blacks, and yet usually they don't do much mischief. I doubt any one of you ever lived in a depraved police state. If you ever go native in Pakistan or Russia, you may find a whole new meaning of low quality. Sure, US cops can't compare to the Japanese or Finnish ones but I don't believe there is a huge problem with cops - yet there is a fairly significant one with our laws. Rafa? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 18:58:50 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2015 11:58:50 -0700 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <2E9CC96F-BCDF-4034-AC7D-8FEE53ACB4DF@gmail.com> > On Thursday, July 30, 2015 9:51 PM Rafal Smigrodzki wrote: > On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 8:39 PM, William Flynn Wallace wrote: > >>> If the cops have a pull-over button, the bad guys can get to it. >> spike >> This might start a whole new discussion - hope so. The quality of our >> police is too low. > > ### I disagree. > The quality of US police is surprisingly good, considering the insane > laws they are charged with upholding, and considering the existing > incentives to behave badly. They are encouraged to lie routinely in > court, there is no effective supervision of prosecutors, they are > allowed to take your money, they are crucified in public if they > shoot in self defense against blacks, and yet usually they don't > do much mischief. I doubt any one of you ever lived in a depraved > police state. If you ever go native in Pakistan or Russia, you may > find a whole new meaning of low quality. Sure, US cops can't compare > to the Japanese or Finnish ones but I don't believe there is a huge > problem with cops - yet there is a fairly significant one with our laws. This seems akin to saying, "He's not so bad because he only beats his wife once a month, unlike that guy who beats his wife every day." And I think that police and government aren't far worse in the US -- aside from wondering how much worse something must be before it's okay to complain -- is more a testament to American culture than to the restraint of either the police or the rest of the government. (And with them enforcing all sorts of victimless crime laws -- which are the mainstay of police work, no?* -- it seems like they are doing pretty bad things to society.) What's sad too is that most of these problems -- police brutality and murder of civilians in police custody -- have a long history in the US but only in the last couple of years have become mainstream issues. Even now, when the police do beat or kill someone in their custody, too many people have the knee-jerk, "the victim had it coming to them" or "the victim has a criminal record" and such. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ * Hassling pot smokers, sex workers, and someone selling cigarettes on the street seems to be pretty bad. I don't think one has to make the comparison with shakedowns in other nations to see this as something to worry about and to stop, and something the police do not get a free pass on. From foozler83 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 19:14:31 2015 From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2015 14:14:31 -0500 Subject: [ExI] Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: <2E9CC96F-BCDF-4034-AC7D-8FEE53ACB4DF@gmail.com> References: <2E9CC96F-BCDF-4034-AC7D-8FEE53ACB4DF@gmail.com> Message-ID: On Fri, Jul 31, 2015 at 1:58 PM, Dan wrote: > > On Thursday, July 30, 2015 9:51 PM Rafal Smigrodzki < > rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> wrote: > > On Thu, Jul 30, 2015 at 8:39 PM, William Flynn Wallace < > foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote: > > > >>> If the cops have a pull-over button, the bad guys can get to it. > > >> spike > > >> This might start a whole new discussion - hope so. The quality of our > >> police is too low. > > > > ### I disagree. > > > The quality of US police is surprisingly good, considering the insane > > laws they are charged with upholding, and considering the existing > > incentives to behave badly. They are encouraged to lie routinely in > > court, there is no effective supervision of prosecutors, they are > > allowed to take your money, they are crucified in public if they > > shoot in self defense against blacks, and yet usually they don't > > do much mischief. I doubt any one of you ever lived in a depraved > > police state. If you ever go native in Pakistan or Russia, you may > > find a whole new meaning of low quality. Sure, US cops can't compare > > to the Japanese or Finnish ones but I don't believe there is a huge > > problem with cops - yet there is a fairly significant one with our laws. > > This seems akin to saying, "He's not so bad because he only beats his wife > once a month, unlike that guy who beats his wife every day." > > And I think that police and government aren't far worse in the US -- aside > from wondering how much worse something must be before it's okay to > complain -- is more a testament to American culture than to the restraint > of either the police or the rest of the government. (And with them > enforcing all sorts of victimless crime laws -- which are the mainstay of > police work, no?* -- it seems like they are doing pretty bad things to > society.) > > What's sad too is that most of these problems -- police brutality and > murder of civilians in police custody -- have a long history in the US but > only in the last couple of years have become mainstream issues. Even now, > when the police do beat or kill someone in their custody, too many people > have the knee-jerk, "the victim had it coming to them" or "the victim has a > criminal record" and such. > > Regards, > > Dan > ?Some police have quotas and this is a very bad thing. I was stopped in the middle of nowhere, not one car in sight, for running a stop sign. At maybe 1 mph, as I had shifted into 1st. They don't seem to understand the spirit of the law, just the technical part. If I do not endanger myself or others, then I am square with the spirit. Some are just nitpickers who will stop people for the slightest thing - like compulsives. Some like to show their power and superiority. Few like to act like the service people they are, though most in my experience are polite and not gruff. And many seem just scared. It is not unusual at all to read about mental patients in Mississippi, with no weapons, being killed by cops because they won't 'behave'. Mace, pepper spray, just throw a net over them. Gun happy here in the Deep South, I am afraid. bill w? > Sample my Kindle books via: > http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/ > > * Hassling pot smokers, sex workers, and someone selling cigarettes on the > street seems to be pretty bad. I don't think one has to make the comparison > with shakedowns in other nations to see this as something to worry about > and to stop, and something the police do not get a free pass on. > > _______________________________________________ > extropy-chat mailing list > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From danust2012 at gmail.com Fri Jul 31 21:21:20 2015 From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan) Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2015 14:21:20 -0700 Subject: [ExI] The Spirit of the Law?/was Re: Self-Driving Cars Must Make Ethical Decisions In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: > On Friday, July 31, 2015 12:14 PM William Flynn Wallace wrote: > > ?Some police have quotas and this is a very bad thing. I was stopped in > the middle of nowhere, not one car in sight, for running a stop sign. > At maybe 1 mph, as I had shifted into 1st. They don't seem to understand > the spirit of the law, just the technical part. If I do not endanger > myself or others, then I am square with the spirit. You're interpreting the spirit of the state's laws here as about keeping you from endangering yourself and others. Even that would be problematic -- as what counts as endangerment and how is this decided in a reasonable manner? But what if we were to take a less charitable interpretation: those particular laws, in fact many if not most government laws, are not there for some sort of public safety concern. What if they're there for revenue enhancement or something else? To stick to this particular case, it would be quite simple to have a law that stated you can't go through a stop sign or red light or whatever when there are other people around -- others who might be harmed by this action. (Of course, I can hear the argument: people would get used to deciding on their own, and then they would do so in cases when they thought they could get away with it. But that's exactly the situation we have now: people do decide on their own when to break a particular law, and they often get away with it. They especially get away with it if there's no victim harmed and no agent of the state around to penalize them. To be sure, there are cases where stop signs and traffic lights have been removed and the result seems to have been more cautious driving. That shouldn't be counterintuitive -- any more than we don't see people crashing into each other with shopping carts all that often.) > Some are just nitpickers who will stop people for the slightest thing - > like compulsives. Some like to show their power and superiority. Few > like to act like the service people they are, though most in my > experience are polite and not gruff. You might consider the kind of person the job attracts and what kind of mentality it creates or perpetuates via the perverse incentives involved. One of the very strong perverse incentives is that the police (and agents of the state, in general) are usually given a free pass or the thumb is on the balance for them in any conflict with civilians. Just think of what would happen to you if you shot a cop and offered that it was in self-defense, that they were threatening your life, etc. You might possibly get off with that -- if you have a great lawyer and get lucky with the right jury. But for a police officer shooting you and offering up the same defense, the likelihood is the grand jury will let them off, the prosecutor will likely be on their side, and the police union will stonewall any investigation. Add to this, anything you've even done wrong in your entire life will be dredged up to smear you -- making it seem like you were a ne'er do well that society is better off having dead. > And many seem just scared. It is not unusual at all to read about mental > patients in Mississippi, with no weapons, being killed by cops because > they won't 'behave'. Mace, pepper spray, just throw a net over them. > Gun happy here in the Deep South, I am afraid. I don't think that explains it, though I do think there's elite paranoia -- where the ruling class is paranoid about the rest of society. (Jesse Walker goes over some of this in his recent book _The United States of Paranoia_. I recommend the book, though it's light on theory.) Police may be afraid, but they have far less reason to be so since they have the upper hand in almost any conflict. You simply don't see the same level of violence being visited upon them. And the overall level of violence in society has been on the decline -- even in the Deep South. This is a long term trend. Again, I chalk this up to incentives. The police can simply get away with overusing/abusing violent methods or even escalating situations up to violent confrontations because the overall costs of their mistakes are lower for them. They're far less likely to be jailed or fined when they do so. That's not the same for civilians -- either in confrontation with each other or with the police or the state. Regards, Dan Sample my Kindle books via: http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/