From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  1 13:35:32 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 08:35:32 -0500
Subject: [ExI] old software fun
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaNcu1j9oKgRVT5dKgHyiimfZv=x74z25We3Dw1kZCe+w@mail.gmail.com>

I bought a PC Junior around the early 80s.  It came with a plug-in called
Managing Your Money, by Andrew Tobias.

It had a program that calculated how much life insurance you needed, so I
started filling it out.  After filling out things like smoking and
drinking, I filled in age (around 40 then, but clearly missed a keystroke).

  Immediately I got a popup that said:

You are four years old and you smoke?  Are you crazy?  (verbatim).

It is still the funniest error message I've ever seen.

Bill W
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  1 16:52:13 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 09:52:13 -0700
Subject: [ExI] free speech: how times have changed
Message-ID: <075a01d09c8b$50bac8f0$f2305ad0$@att.net>

 

Our legal system is long accustomed to dealing with published liable and
threats if they were written in a newspaper or published in some
ink-on-paper form.  The system doesn't quite know what to do with internet
or email posts.  We have seen crazy extremes, where prosecutions went
forward for a perceived internet threat which wasn't intended as a threat at
all and was posted to a private internet group.  Now we see what looks like
a specific intentional threat, posted on a wide-open forum (Facebook) and
the Supreme Court doesn't really explain to lower courts how to deal with
it:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/01/supreme-court-throws-out-convicti
on-for-facebook-threats/

 

>From the article:

 

The Supreme Court on Monday threw out the conviction of a Pennsylvania man
convicted of making threats on Facebook, but dodged the free speech issues
that had made the case intriguing to First Amendment advocates. 

.

One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand
ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in
blood and dying from all the little cuts." 

After his wife obtained the protective order, Elonis wrote: "Is it thick
enough to stop a bullet?" 

Sheesh.

 

spike

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From msd001 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  1 17:25:26 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 13:25:26 -0400
Subject: [ExI] old software fun
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEaNcu1j9oKgRVT5dKgHyiimfZv=x74z25We3Dw1kZCe+w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaNcu1j9oKgRVT5dKgHyiimfZv=x74z25We3Dw1kZCe+w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbLunRzgvJR2YBT2ibsNUfE+WW9F187=JrkoEuByESCLpA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 9:35 AM, William Flynn Wallace
<foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I bought a PC Junior around the early 80s.  It came with a plug-in called
> Managing Your Money, by Andrew Tobias.
>
> It had a program that calculated how much life insurance you needed, so I
> started filling it out.  After filling out things like smoking and drinking,
> I filled in age (around 40 then, but clearly missed a keystroke).
>
>   Immediately I got a popup that said:
>
> You are four years old and you smoke?  Are you crazy?  (verbatim).
>
> It is still the funniest error message I've ever seen.

I ran an emulator for a TI99/4a so I could re-live the game "Tunnels
of Doom" it was originally a cartridge but the game saves were stored
on cassette.  Both the saving and the loading screens had the very
specific text "Please wait 200 seconds ... " I found that specificity
to be the oddest part of revisiting that game 30 years later.  It was
a fixed amount of data and cassettes ran tape at a fixed speed.  200
seconds was absolutely the amount of time it would take.  (the
emulator actually forces you to wait 200 seconds too)  The variability
of today's hardware makes any realistic estimation of wait times
practically impossible or more difficult than lazy programmers care to
consider.


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  1 18:12:56 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 13:12:56 -0500
Subject: [ExI] free speech: how times have changed
In-Reply-To: <075a01d09c8b$50bac8f0$f2305ad0$@att.net>
References: <075a01d09c8b$50bac8f0$f2305ad0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa+c=-Z9UuLnj33mJYdgYO=uL6uD0PRCBbDEmVDhvokNA@mail.gmail.com>

<http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/06/01/supreme-court-throws-out-conviction-for-facebook-threats/>

>
>
> The Supreme Court on Monday threw out the conviction of a Pennsylvania man
> convicted of making threats on Facebook, but dodged the free speech issues
> that had made the case intriguing to First Amendment advocates.
>
> ?
>
> One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand
> ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked
> in blood and dying from all the little cuts."
>
> After his wife obtained the protective order, Elonis wrote: "Is it thick
> enough to stop a bullet?"
>
> Sheesh.
>
>
>
> spike
>
> ?I have to wonder what he was convicted of.  This clearly qualifies as
assault - a tort. It creates the expectation of ensuing battery. Assault
without battery may not be dealt with much anymore, but it goes back
hundreds of years in case law.  bill w?


> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  2 04:40:22 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 21:40:22 -0700
Subject: [ExI] scale of the universe
Message-ID: <005301d09cee$3db07b70$b9117250$@att.net>


Cool!  I have seen this kind of thing before, but this one is particularly
well done:

http://www.htwins.net/scale2/

spike






From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  2 05:07:26 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 1 Jun 2015 22:07:26 -0700
Subject: [ExI] old software fun
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbLunRzgvJR2YBT2ibsNUfE+WW9F187=JrkoEuByESCLpA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEaNcu1j9oKgRVT5dKgHyiimfZv=x74z25We3Dw1kZCe+w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbLunRzgvJR2YBT2ibsNUfE+WW9F187=JrkoEuByESCLpA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <005401d09cf2$05c37a60$114a6f20$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: Re: [ExI] old software fun

On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 9:35 AM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:
>
>> I bought a PC Junior around the early 80s.  It came with a plug-in 
> called Managing Your Money, by Andrew Tobias...
> You are four years old and you smoke?  Are you crazy?  (verbatim).


>...I ran an emulator for a TI99/4a so I could re-live the game "Tunnels of
Doom" it was originally a cartridge but the game saves were stored on
cassette...  Mike
_______________________________________________

Since you guys are telling old timer stories, do indulge me.

In college the Apple 2 just came out.  A game called Apple Panic was the hot
setup.  I went looking around and found you can still play Apple Panic
emulators online.

Several years later I had a job working as an instrumentation guy.  We had a
data logger which dated from about the early to mid 1980s, still in use in
the early 90s, even though we were starting to phase out the old units.  The
data loggers held 64k data points on each channel, and the device had 12
channels sharing a power source.  The whole thing together weighed about 30
pounds.  You had to do your own signal conditioning, so you would set up
your thermocouple for instance, arrange some op-amps to get voltages 0 to 5
volts, then the 12-channel would log the data according to your
specification.

The unit cost about $25k back in the mid 80s, which would get you a really
nice high-end car with all the trimmings, one of them furrin rigs even.
$25k was a fully decked out Lincoln or Corvette.  Even then, channels
sometimes failed, so we would often duplicate the critical channels.  But if
you have fooled with K type thermocouples, you know those bastids can be
flakey, so if one failed, it wasn't always clear which one was the liar, so
you really needed a third channel.  So a quarter of your $25k instrument was
occupied just getting one critical data channel.

Fast forward 30 years.  Now we have these 15 dollar temperature data
loggers.  I bought one, but haven't used it yet.

It has me thinking.  Back in the day, I thought how cool it would be to have
a data logger at home, all the fun things I could measure and log.  Now I
can have a handful of them.  So now my challenge is to get one which logs
the old fashioned 0 to 5 volts, then I can set up my instrumentation to log
whatever I want.

I already have an application in mind: get a microphone, set up some op
amps, filter it to center around 240 Hz or a bit higher.  A bee's wings
sound to me like about third octave B.  (Hey, is that how bees got their
name?  When they buzz around, it sounds like third B?)  Then we could rig it
to trigger a data point whenever the microphone reached a threshold
equivalent to a hovering bee 10 cm away.  Then if we could get those cheap
enough, we could create a standard instrument for 20 bucks or so which would
count bees.  That would be way easier and cheaper than anything else I have
thought of.  Other bugs are different pitches, so we could band-pass filter
the signal from about 230 to about 250 Hz.

Alternative: just take data points every second with the microphone in the
local bee playground, log the intensity of third B.

Next I need to find a good cheap 0 to 5 volt data logger that plugs into a
USB port.

I can think of a buttload of cool applications around the home.

My friends, we are at the party.

spike



From msd001 at gmail.com  Tue Jun  2 13:48:07 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 09:48:07 -0400
Subject: [ExI] old software fun
In-Reply-To: <005401d09cf2$05c37a60$114a6f20$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEaNcu1j9oKgRVT5dKgHyiimfZv=x74z25We3Dw1kZCe+w@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAOJFdbLunRzgvJR2YBT2ibsNUfE+WW9F187=JrkoEuByESCLpA@mail.gmail.com>
 <005401d09cf2$05c37a60$114a6f20$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbK-yj87xdfaxnt6d18vFWxyPgz6H3TC=Qvx7ypEjjCYsg@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 1:23 AM spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> It has me thinking.  Back in the day, I thought how cool it would be to
> have
> a data logger at home, all the fun things I could measure and log.  Now I
> can have a handful of them.  So now my challenge is to get one which logs
> the old fashioned 0 to 5 volts, then I can set up my instrumentation to log
> whatever I want.
>
> I already have an application in mind: get a microphone, set up some op
> amps, filter it to center around 240 Hz or a bit higher.  A bee's wings
> sound to me like about third octave B.  (Hey, is that how bees got their
> name?  When they buzz around, it sounds like third B?)  Then we could rig
> it
> to trigger a data point whenever the microphone reached a threshold
> equivalent to a hovering bee 10 cm away.  Then if we could get those cheap
> enough, we could create a standard instrument for 20 bucks or so which
> would
> count bees.  That would be way easier and cheaper than anything else I have
> thought of.  Other bugs are different pitches, so we could band-pass filter
> the signal from about 230 to about 250 Hz.
>
> Alternative: just take data points every second with the microphone in the
> local bee playground, log the intensity of third B.
>
> Next I need to find a good cheap 0 to 5 volt data logger that plugs into a
> USB port.
>
> I can think of a buttload of cool applications around the home.
>
>
I wonder if video would be more useful data.  We're not very good at
processing sound (in general) compared with video.  No doubt you could
train an expert system ("deep learning" or whatever we call this flavor of
AI these days) how to detect bees from a video stream.  Instead of guessing
at the number of bees from a phased array of microphones for distances of
sound sources and cumulative intensity, it could count.  We might be able
to mine these streams for other insight we might not have otherwise had a
preconceived test.  ex:  it might be interesting to see what other insects
are detected when bees are either plentiful or scarce.  (or for a better
example, imagine something else we didn't think of then also remove it from
the set of all possible things that might be relevant but unknown.)

To further nerdify this setup we have to include some way to gamify the
data with crowdsource interaction.  I imagine some sort of "bee keeping"
analogy where the gamer is tasked with tracking/tagging the activity of
visible bees across the spectrum of howevermany camera feeds we have per
location.  Leaderboard plus achievement/badges should be enough competition
to keep eyes-on for at least a while.  There might exist opportunities to
monetize by selling virtual billboard space in a foraging field overlay:
advertisers pay a fixed price to get on the board, then pay additional for
each bee that cross their adspace with the premise that our beekeepers are
actively tracking the bees through those overlays.  "hive mind" + "mind
share" = "hive mind share"    I guess the next step would be AR/VR so
everyone can experience full immersion into both the bee problem and bee
solution.

ok, so there's some ideas... feel free to implement.  :p
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  2 14:32:18 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 07:32:18 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was:  RE:  old software fun
Message-ID: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of Mike Dougherty
Subject: Re: [ExI] old software fun

 

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 1:23 AM spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

It has me thinking.  Back in the day, I thought how cool it would be to have
a data logger at home, all the fun things I could measure and log.  Now I
can have a handful of them.  So now my challenge is to get one which logs
the old fashioned 0 to 5 volts, then I can set up my instrumentation to log
whatever I want?I can think of a buttload of cool applications around the home.  spike

 

>?I wonder if video would be more useful data.

Ja, but far more complicated.  What I am looking for is a cheap instrument with a price target of 50 bucks.  That price point a magic number: proles will buy them for kids as birthday gifts and science projects and such.  We need something that is a stand-alone unit with a microphone where you turn it on and leave it for a few days, then fetch it, plug it into your USB port, download the data.

>?  We're not very good at processing sound (in general) compared with video?

Ja it would be a compromise.  I know how to band-pass sound pressure level.  That is cheap and easy to do with a single-chip, one of the standard mass produced ones with a few op-amps and diodes.  I like your idea of using a broader spectrum in order to detect and count secondary pollinators such as bumblebees, Carpenter bees, scoliid wasps, tabanids and nemestrinid flies and other such beasts.  

I may have jumped to the microphone possibility only because I already know how to do it.  Honeybees and Carpenters are loud buzzy things.  If you get in the middle of a big blossomy bush this time of year when the bees are really going at it, the cumulative buzz is remarkably loud, and oh what a relaxing beautiful sound it is, reminding a prole of his misspent youth so tragically many years ago.  Go ahead, try it.  Bees will not sting you if they are out gathering pollen, not even if you intentionally mess with them.  They only sting for homeland defense, never while foraging. 

 

>? No doubt you could train an expert system ("deep learning" or whatever we call this flavor of AI these days) how to detect bees from a video stream?

This sounds really cool Mike, but way beyond my modest skills.  What I have in mind is something a sharp high school kid could accomplish as a science fair project.

?

>?To further nerdify this setup we have to include some way to gamify the data with crowdsource interaction?

You said it right.  We had that previous internet group, but the data was in a form mostly useless, all verbiage, very little hard comparable data.  Even if we somehow find that archive (Queen Bee never came back) it would be an enormous task to read thru all the commentary and try to extract anything useful.  We need crowdsourced standardized instrumentation, from which we can extract files filled with numbers.  Then we get a second army of geeks to do data processing and interpretations.  We compare datasets to see if this year?s California bee death rate is related to the drought and people turning off their home irrigation systems, leading to fewer pollen-bearing plants and starvation (my best guess.) 

>?  I imagine some sort of "bee keeping" analogy where the gamer is tasked with tracking/tagging the activity of visible bees across the spectrum of howevermany camera feeds we have per location?

We have phones with two very good cameras in them which we throw in the trash every couple years.  I kept my old phone this time and took it apart.  I am astonished at how sophisticated those have become.  Seems like we should be able to somehow make bee-observing stations from those phone cams.

>?  Leaderboard plus achievement/badges should be enough competition to keep eyes-on for at least a while?

That worked great for Khan Academy.

>?  There might exist opportunities to monetize by selling virtual billboard space in a foraging field overlay:  advertisers pay a fixed price to get on the board, then pay additional for each bee that cross their adspace with the premise that our beekeepers are actively tracking the bees through those overlays?

Ja, excellent.  Maybe get people to pledge a penny a bee for an hour or something like they do to raise money for the local high school band march-athons, then use the pool to set up more of these cell-phone cameras.  

Come to think of it, the used cell phones already have microphones and processors in them, so we could theoretically load a Fourier-transform program, have it take a picture whenever it hears something that sounds like a pollinator, rig it with an external power source so it can stay on for days.  We could manufacture the power sources, something as simple as a cradle with four D-cells, make a buttload of money, collect bee data at the same time, oh excellent. 

>?ok, so there's some ideas... feel free to implement.  :p

Cool, now a downer: if we post these ideas in this forum, are we defeating ourselves?  I assume they can?t be patented once they are in the public domain, so then people who would create something like this for profit won?t bother?  Do we have intellectual property hipsters here?  IP Brians, do you know?  Anyone else?

 

spike

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From atymes at gmail.com  Tue Jun  2 15:48:27 2015
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 08:48:27 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 7:32 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> Cool, now a downer: if we post these ideas in this forum, are we defeating
> ourselves?  I assume they can?t be patented once they are in the public
> domain, so then people who would create something like this for profit
> won?t bother?  Do we have intellectual property hipsters here?  IP Brians,
> do you know?  Anyone else?
>

Contrary to what it is currently in vogue for software VCs to believe, an
idea does not have to be patented to make revenue-generating software on
it.  Frankly, the old line about "1% inspiration 99% perspiration" applies
for any significantly complex commercial software.  Revenue is realized
after hard work is put in to make a good app, because customers care about
whether your app fills their need best, not about its patents (except in
cases so rare they can be ignored).

Further, for a (niche and benefits-strongly-from-common-data-standards)
market such as this, once someone is serving it well, there is little to be
gained by making a competing app.  Patents are useful for making it
uneconomical for others to compete with you (because you'll sue them - so,
"patents with capable lawyers behind them" is more accurate), but here that
seems to already be the case.
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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  2 16:07:16 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 09:07:16 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <015b01d09d4e$336ac6b0$9a405410$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Tuesday, June 02, 2015 8:48 AM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun

 

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 7:32 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>>?Cool, now a downer: if we post these ideas in this forum, are we defeating ourselves?  I assume they can?t be patented once they are in the public domain, so then people who would create something like this for profit won?t bother?  Do we have intellectual property hipsters here?  IP Brians, do you know?  Anyone else?

 

>?Contrary to what it is currently in vogue for software VCs to believe, an idea does not have to be patented to make revenue-generating software on it.  Frankly, the old line about "1% inspiration 99% perspiration" applies for any significantly complex commercial software? Adrian

 

 

Cool thanks.  So now I am imagining a base which contains four D cells, where the retired cell phone stands up and is plugged into a cradle, with power conditioning the ~6 volts down to 5V and current limited  (about 10 mA should be plenty (since it only needs to operate the cameras for a week or two (not charge the phone (without LCD display (and a low-demand processing task.)))))  A plastic cover keeps the phone from weather damage and helps keep it clean in a polliny bee-ey environment.  The phone already has memory in it, so the hardware end if the bee station could be as simple as ten bucks worth of plastic: a cover and a device to hold 4 D cells.

 

That part is easy, now comes the 99% perspiration part.  I know how to filter sound pressure levels by frequency bands and turn that into a voltage (we might even be able to use the cell phone?s internal software which controls simplex transmission (it detects the amount of signal coming into the microphone and compares with the signal received, then transmits if you are talking and receives if the SPL is below the threshold.)  I might even be able to do that where we use the retired cell phone as the data logger.  But I am waaaay not hip on how to do image recognition with a cell phone camera.  It would be crazy cool if we could figure out a way to do it, but I am not there yet, and don?t expect to arrive there in the next few weeks, oy vey.

 

spike

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From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  2 16:52:35 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 09:52:35 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <015b01d09d4e$336ac6b0$9a405410$@att.net>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <015b01d09d4e$336ac6b0$9a405410$@att.net>
Message-ID: <01a801d09d54$8836c990$98a45cb0$@att.net>

 

 

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



 

>?I am waaaay not hip on how to do image recognition with a cell phone camera.  It would be crazy cool if we could figure out a way to do it, but I am not there yet, and don?t expect to arrive there in the next few weeks, oy vey.  spike

 

 

 

Back when we still had the online bee group a few years ago, it occurred to me even then that what we were doing was better than nothing, but not a lot better.  We had no numbers and no standardized measurements, just all talk.  If we had some way to create a standard meter-stick, then we could create plots, such as bee count on 1 May of each year, then plot of bee count on the vertical and year on the horizontal, then extrapolate forward, like this:

 



 

 

Then the farmer could create a plot of crop production as a function of bee count, which would enable her to estimate what it is worth to get some hives and populate them, or what happens if she does nothing, etc.

 

There is a reason why I am kinda obsessing about all this, not just because I love bees (I do, but that?s not it.)  I remember working the bees as a teenager back in the 70s (yes, dammit the NINETEEN 70s (I wasn?t even born yet in the 1870s.))  I remember how the bees would swarm all to hell.  Our bee truck was yellow, but sometimes they would swarm all over the side of it until it was uniformly brown.  It was still the right shape, so we knew there was a truck in that pile of bugs somewhere, but you really needed to look just to find the door handles, and even then, when we went to lunch at Taco Bell, they wouldn?t let us go in the drive-thru, made us park over across US1 in an empty lot and brought us our food, because there were so many bees still hanging around, they didn?t want them scaring away customers.

 

A couple years ago I went  and visited a local apiary and was struck by how sluggish and sparse were the bees.  It was nothing like the wild bug-fest I recall from my cheerfully misspent youth, just nothing like it.  The contrast was striking; it was the public library compared to a Brazilian street festival.  This just has to be a bad thing.  It would be nice to have some actual numbers rather than my descriptions.  We have numbers for honey production, and numbers of active hives, but we do not have good numbers on the activity per hive.  The numbers talk.  They would tell a tale if we had them right now.

 

spike

 

 

 

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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Tue Jun  2 16:33:13 2015
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 12:33:13 -0400
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.g
 mail.com>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201506021718.t52HIqT6013035@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Detecting and measuring bees would work well with

http://www.thelocal.no/20150522/oslo-builds-bumblebee-highway
Oslo builds world's first bumblebee highway

They're mapping where bee food is but they should have an easy way to 
quantify how much the bees use the sites, and when is enough.

An ideal design reduces the selling price per unit down to the range 
of a dime to five dollars.


-- David.



From spike66 at att.net  Tue Jun  2 17:38:59 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 10:38:59 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <201506021718.t52HIqT6013035@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <201506021718.t52HIqT6013035@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <01e101d09d5b$041d53c0$0c57fb40$@att.net>

>... On Behalf Of David Lubkin
Subject: Re: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun

>..Detecting and measuring bees would work well with

http://www.thelocal.no/20150522/oslo-builds-bumblebee-highway

>...Oslo builds world's first bumblebee highway...-- David.

_______________________________________________

Cool thanks David.  

This gave me an idea.  Never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste: we
have this severe California drought.  The governor is urging us to let our
lawns die this year (some are doing it (I am.))  We could urge proles to get
rid of the stupid useless grass, replace it with something that feeds bees.
Replace even a tenth of the lawns with bee-friendly flowers, think of all
the benefits: less water usage, more color, more variety, more bugs and
bees, a better migratory path for those passing thru, less noise from
mowers, lots of benefits.

For anyone still buying honey, whoa!  Have you seen the prices lately,
woooohaaaah!  Don't buy that stuff, don't eat it.  The beekeepers don't need
your patronage at all; farmers are paying them to park their bees in their
crops.  Eat jelly instead por favor; that can't be good to take the honey
away from the bees, and never mind how filthy is the extraction process.  If
you saw it first hand, you wouldn't touch the stuff.  Solution: don't touch
the stuff.  Don't make me put you on moderation for eating honey.  And plant
some bee-friendly stuff in your yard if you have one.  They love
honeysuckle, zinnia, asters, clover, marigolds, bee balm, coriander, fennel
and such as that, lavender is a great choice, get a good mixture of early
bloomers and late; all those will grow with very little attention or
irrigation.  

Everyone here who has a yard, I want to hear that place buzzing, but not
with mowers.

spike



From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Tue Jun  2 18:16:23 2015
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 02 Jun 2015 14:16:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <01e101d09d5b$041d53c0$0c57fb40$@att.net>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <201506021718.t52HIqT6013035@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
 <01e101d09d5b$041d53c0$0c57fb40$@att.net>
Message-ID: <201506021816.t52IGhE8007224@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Spike wrote:

>This gave me an idea.  Never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste: we
>have this severe California drought.  The governor is urging us to let our
>lawns die this year (some are doing it (I am.))  We could urge proles to get
>rid of the stupid useless grass, replace it with something that feeds bees.
>Replace even a tenth of the lawns with bee-friendly flowers, think of all
>the benefits: less water usage, more color, more variety, more bugs and
>bees, a better migratory path for those passing thru, less noise from
>mowers, lots of benefits.

Too bad the domain buzzfeed.com is already taken....


-- David.



From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun  2 18:25:10 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 19:25:10 +0100
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <01e101d09d5b$041d53c0$0c57fb40$@att.net>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNS+c=Dbu7+1sT_ywdht6vCszXif3oca557nvO-aCFg=mw@mail.gmail.com>
 <201506021718.t52HIqT6013035@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
 <01e101d09d5b$041d53c0$0c57fb40$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armiJp5UNMK8jS+WTFFAp2kyT1e+Uf0ggcgsV1XCB4wb=eA@mail.gmail.com>

On 2 June 2015 at 18:38, spike  wrote:
> This gave me an idea.  Never let a perfectly good crisis go to waste: we
> have this severe California drought.  The governor is urging us to let our
> lawns die this year (some are doing it (I am.))  We could urge proles to get
> rid of the stupid useless grass, replace it with something that feeds bees.
> Replace even a tenth of the lawns with bee-friendly flowers, think of all
> the benefits: less water usage, more color, more variety, more bugs and
> bees, a better migratory path for those passing thru, less noise from
> mowers, lots of benefits.
>

I'm sure I read somewhere that some Californians were painting their
dustbowl yard green. :)
Now if you can spray it with green stuff that attracts / feeds bees ..........

BillK


From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun  2 23:33:41 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 01:33:41 +0200
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was:  RE:  old software fun
In-Reply-To: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
Message-ID: <3063075942-32354@secure.ericade.net>

Acoustic identification of insects seems to be a hard problem (although entomologists are maybe not the best engineers), and most success has been with laser measurements:
http://www.popsci.com/blog-network/our-modern-plagues/identifying-insects-music-their-wings
https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/entomologists-have-never-been-able-to-identify-flying-insects-automatically-until-now-ee4d93067443
http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1055&context=abe_eng_pubs


But I assume you are not trying to identify unknown insects but count bees, so it might be a far easier *detection* problem.?


A quick google found this, which might be inspirational:
http://www.beehacker.com/wp/?page_id=103
http://www.beehacker.com/wp/?page_id=189
http://www.beesource.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-265140.html


(I am the quintessential scholar, immediately looking for what others have written rather than thinking for myself)

The American lawn has a curious history, I got "The Lawn: A History of an American Obsession" by Virginia Scott Jenkins - very fun. Replacing it with xericulture and flowering plants is a good idea.?


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Jun  3 02:31:49 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Tue, 2 Jun 2015 22:31:49 -0400
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <3063075942-32354@secure.ericade.net>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <3063075942-32354@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKmm5cyzd8cajE=NaaFgf2OVYmFz0WykxUn5=ZwHMrPBA@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/visual-recognition.html

https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs/getting-started

https://aws.amazon.com/machine-learning/

I'm not suggesting any of these are ready solutions,  but the race to zero
puts very sophisticated tools in your hands for only the cost of overcoming
their learning curve.

Instead of tuning your hardware to the exact pitch of bee-wing flapping
with requisite parametric for temperature and humidity and distances from
the hive and ... and ...  you could have identified sufficient training
data via an enthusiastic afternoon of manual images then let deep learning
and big data do the rest.  You guys talk about how you figured this out 15
years ago;  it's not the future anymore.  We have this stuff just lying
around waiting for clever folks to do something interesting with it. .. or
are you emulating the Old Ones waiting for it to be even easier as we get
closer to the end of time?  ;)
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From msd001 at gmail.com  Wed Jun  3 13:41:04 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Wed, 3 Jun 2015 09:41:04 -0400
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun
In-Reply-To: <CAOJFdbKmm5cyzd8cajE=NaaFgf2OVYmFz0WykxUn5=ZwHMrPBA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <010501d09d40$ef940f30$cebc2d90$@att.net>
 <3063075942-32354@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAOJFdbKmm5cyzd8cajE=NaaFgf2OVYmFz0WykxUn5=ZwHMrPBA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdb++8_g65j+4MpQEwaCFL4skwqSsNV1j3Ng_ZA5NoZLXpQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 10:31 PM, Mike Dougherty <msd001 at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://www.ibm.com/smarterplanet/us/en/ibmwatson/developercloud/visual-recognition.html
>
> https://cloud.google.com/prediction/docs/getting-started
>
> https://aws.amazon.com/machine-learning/
>
> I'm not suggesting any of these are ready solutions,  but the race to zero
> puts very sophisticated tools in your hands for only the cost of overcoming
> their learning curve.
>
> Instead of tuning your hardware to the exact pitch of bee-wing flapping with
> requisite parametric for temperature and humidity and distances from the
> hive and ... and ...  you could have identified sufficient training data via
> an enthusiastic afternoon of manual images then let deep learning and big
> data do the rest.  You guys talk about how you figured this out 15 years
> ago;  it's not the future anymore.  We have this stuff just lying around
> waiting for clever folks to do something interesting with it. .. or are you
> emulating the Old Ones waiting for it to be even easier as we get closer to
> the end of time?  ;)

I was inspired by Spike's style of call-to-action by some part
inviting and some part cajoling, but I don't think I make that work.
:)

A few minutes after sending that email though, this popped up in my
Facebook feed:

http://product.serialmetrics.com/orion/
"Machine Learning problems that used to require a team of 5 Data
Scientists, 3 months of development, and over a $100,000 in labor
costs can now be solved in 5 minutes by a non-technical person."

Synchronicity can be so entertaining.


From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun  4 14:01:02 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 15:01:02 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Will California become like "Dune"?
Message-ID: <CAL_armgc-jsM7om0GfvvATwmT3HCsz9=fgULrzxUQ0z9KLxz8g@mail.gmail.com>

Nautilus has an article about how California is gradually turning to
water saving systems.

<http://nautil.us/issue/25/water/to-save-california-read-dune>

Quotes:
To Save California, Read ?Dune?.
Survival on a fictional desert planet has a lesson for the
drought-stricken state.
By Andrew Leonard  June 4, 2015

To survive their permanent desert climate, the indigenous Fremen of
Dune employ every possible technology. They build ?windtraps? and ?dew
collectors? to grab the slightest precipitation out of the air. They
construct vast underground cisterns and canals to store and transport
their painstakingly gathered water.
-----------
Someday, sooner than we?d like, it?s not inconceivable that residents
of California will be shopping on Amazon for the latest in stillsuit
tech. Dune is set thousands of years in the future, but in California
in 2015, the future is now. Four years of drought have pummeled
reservoirs and forced mandatory 25 percent water rationing cuts. The
calendar year of 2014 was the driest (and hottest) since records
started being kept in the 1800s. At the end of May, the Sierra Nevada
snowpack?a crucial source of California?s water?hit its lowest point
on record: zero. Climate models suggest an era of mega-droughts could
be nigh.
---------
So it shouldn?t be a surprise that two innovative thinkers devising
means to address drought in California should be talking about Dune.
As I visited with Yolles and Fernandez to learn about their work
confronting drought, I realized the missions of both men embodied a
deeper ecological message in Dune. The novel?s ecologist Kynes is
famous for teaching that ?the highest function of ecology is
understanding consequences.? The implicit lesson for society, as it
marshals technology to address a waterless world, is that
technological fixes work only in the context of an environmentally and
socially connected vision. It?s the vision that guided Herbert in
creating Dune, and it owes as much to our ancient past as it is a
speculation on the future.
---------

BillK



From sondre-list at bjellas.com  Thu Jun  4 10:30:55 2015
From: sondre-list at bjellas.com (=?UTF-8?Q?Sondre_Bjell=C3=A5s?=)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 12:30:55 +0200
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv11Yv7eUqna7QsMukJJD8qET5SvXoE31z=Doj29uFH7zw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv11Yv7eUqna7QsMukJJD8qET5SvXoE31z=Doj29uFH7zw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CABncCQfgXA7eH0iT80sGgJX-GyZ_a+Kr8qU=supYsNADhKfGbQ@mail.gmail.com>

I do have a friend (who used to work with Ben Goertzel back in 1997), who
tries to use this as an proof of psi:
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3343.html

Seemingly intelligent people often can't grasp the basics of quantum
mechanics and they go to Deepak Chapkra (and the likes) to learn how QM
effects occurs in the mind and conciousness.


- Sondre

On Mon, Dec 31, 2012 at 4:38 PM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
> One year ago I sent the following post to the list, I did not change one
> word. One year from now I intend to send this same message yet again.
> ================
>
> Happy New Year all.
>
> I predict that a paper reporting positive psi results will NOT appear in
> Nature or Science in the next year. This may seem an outrageous
> prediction, after all psi is hardly a rare phenomena, millions of
> people with no training have managed to observe it, or claim they have.
> And I am sure the good people at Nature and Science would want to
> say something about this very important and obvious part of our natural
> world if they could, but I predict they will be unable to find anything
> interesting to say about it.
>
> You might think my prediction is crazy, like saying a waitress with an
> eight's grade education in Duluth Minnesota can regularly observe the
> Higgs boson with no difficulty but the highly trained Physicists at CERN
> in Switzerland cannot. Nevertheless I am confident my prediction is true
> because my ghostly spirit guide Mohammad Duntoldme spoke to me
> about it in a dream.
>
> PS: I am also confident I can make this very same prediction one year from
> today.
>
>     John K Clark
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 
Sondre Bjell?s
http://www.sondreb.com/
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From avant at sollegro.com  Thu Jun  4 08:17:40 2015
From: avant at sollegro.com (Stuart LaForge)
Date: Thu, 04 Jun 2015 01:17:40 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike)
Message-ID: <yqkan19hj752tcun3vc7343t.1433402909248@email.android.com>

In regard to your question about IP law, in the US (EU et al may differ), you have one year from the time you first publicly demonstrate, describe, or disclose your invention to file your regular patent application and still retain your intellectual property rights.

Although it won't extend the time you have to file your full application, it might be beneficial to send in a provisional patent application asap. The provisional application need not follow any formal structure. A printout of the email and a crude drawing would suffice.

Doing so would allow you to legally claim your device as patent-pending and give you the right to go after infringers during this first year.


Stuart LaForge



Sent from my phone.



From steinberg.will at gmail.com  Thu Jun  4 21:17:19 2015
From: steinberg.will at gmail.com (Will Steinberg)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 17:17:19 -0400
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CABncCQfgXA7eH0iT80sGgJX-GyZ_a+Kr8qU=supYsNADhKfGbQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv11Yv7eUqna7QsMukJJD8qET5SvXoE31z=Doj29uFH7zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABncCQfgXA7eH0iT80sGgJX-GyZ_a+Kr8qU=supYsNADhKfGbQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKrqSyEo0oBy2EsTKxY-dW4hoZRxu=JmN8Gj8QSQjX_rjsN8Ag@mail.gmail.com>

Ya really necroed this thread!  Coulda chosen the 2015 one lol
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun  4 21:58:54 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 22:58:54 +0100
Subject: [ExI] A paranormal prediction for the next year
In-Reply-To: <CAKrqSyEo0oBy2EsTKxY-dW4hoZRxu=JmN8Gj8QSQjX_rjsN8Ag@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv11Yv7eUqna7QsMukJJD8qET5SvXoE31z=Doj29uFH7zw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CABncCQfgXA7eH0iT80sGgJX-GyZ_a+Kr8qU=supYsNADhKfGbQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAKrqSyEo0oBy2EsTKxY-dW4hoZRxu=JmN8Gj8QSQjX_rjsN8Ag@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armjqLByN=RJusgVPj7d5Sats5vVPORCvp-3N1-3QMK-gsQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 4 June 2015 at 22:17, Will Steinberg wrote:
> Ya really necroed this thread!  Coulda chosen the 2015 one lol
>

It's tricky when you're a time-traveller, trying to jump into right era.

Small jumps are easy, but if he came from a distant time.........


BillK  :)


From spike66 at att.net  Thu Jun  4 22:18:36 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 15:18:36 -0700
Subject: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike)
In-Reply-To: <yqkan19hj752tcun3vc7343t.1433402909248@email.android.com>
References: <yqkan19hj752tcun3vc7343t.1433402909248@email.android.com>
Message-ID: <058701d09f14$67b34ab0$3719e010$@att.net>


>... On Behalf Of Stuart LaForge
Subject: Re: [ExI] i'll bee seeing you... was: RE: old software fun (spike)

>...In regard to your question about IP law, in the US (EU et al may
differ), you have one year from the time you first publicly demonstrate...
Doing so would allow you to legally claim your device as patent-pending and
give you the right to go after infringers during this first year...Stuart
LaForge

_______________________________________________

Cool thanks Avant.

I don't want to claim the IP myself, rather just keep some other yahoo from
patenting it out of the reach of the public domain.  From what Anders
posted, I don't think there is anything I suggested that others haven't
already been working on for some time, so no worries.

This year is a puzzle: I see plenty of bees but also plenty of dead or dying
ones, so I suppose that makes sense: last year there were very few bees, so
plenty of nectar and pollen to go around, then this year heavy birth rate,
not enough food, lots of visible dying.  Perhaps next year will be light
again.

I have an idea: I am on good terms with the mayor.  He has sent out mailing
from the city urging proles to cut down on water.  Perhaps I can write
something for him to include, a suggestion to replace grass with
drought-tolerant bee friendlies.  Our mayor is a well-liked guy, people
might listen to him.

spike





From foozler83 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  5 00:20:08 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Thu, 4 Jun 2015 19:20:08 -0500
Subject: [ExI] re psi`
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEboCLy+XAtdxYAOCOeGUWOXbT1uhRvYK+XNUO37Mkp3Sg@mail.gmail.com>

I looked into this a few decades ago and found little to interest me.
Journals don't publish negative results.  Experts debunk everything ever
found.

But you know what?  Doubt gets planted in people's minds by something like
this:

In the psych class I took long ago we did the Rhine card thing and no one
scored much above chance except this one guy was doing around 80%.  He came
back the next day and did it again.  Then he went to chance and stayed
there.  Did he have it and lost it?  Did he just not know how to use it
properly?

I am the world's biggest skeptic and I think they will never find anything
like what they are looking for.

But here is another point:  why did it take so long for people to discover
and use the scientific method?  I think it is because it is not a natural
thing for the human mind to do.  The mind is far more likely to use
superstition and stories people tell than to use the scientific method.
"You saw what?  A chariot in the air carrying a guy to Heaven?  Cool!
Let's write it up.  What more proof do we need?"

I am weak in history but think that most civilizations were authoritarian
in nature, and so people didn't read, weren't encouraged to think, but to
believe what the kings and priests said.

When rebellions happened the same form of government, more or less, was
used except with new people.

When our revolution occurred, more people wanted to stay with a king even
when we got separated from England - Tories to the last gasp.

"Just tell me what to do and what to think and that will take my mind of
these stupid complex questions.  It makes my head hurt."  It's so easy that
way.

I don't know if that fully explains why it took science so long to develop,
but it's my best shot.

Bill W
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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Fri Jun  5 14:52:05 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Fri, 5 Jun 2015 07:52:05 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pluto's moons move in synchrony
Message-ID: <89638F72-1367-4391-B42C-42A51B48190B@gmail.com>

http://www.nature.com/news/pluto-s-moons-move-in-synchrony-1.17681

Regards,

Dan
 Sample my Kindle books via:
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 16:14:13 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 12:14:13 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>

ISIS recently banned pigeon breeding because when the birds fly overhead
they expose their genitals and that is a sin against Islam. Violators will
be publicly flogged.

http://rt.com/news/264673-isis-breeding-birds-islam/

 John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun  6 16:22:48 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 09:22:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>

 

 

>? On Behalf Of John Clark
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam

 

>?ISIS recently banned pigeon breeding because when the birds fly overhead they expose their genitals and that is a sin against Islam. Violators will be publicly flogged.

 

>?http://rt.com/news/264673-isis-breeding-birds-islam/

 

>? John K Clark

 

 

If only they had more jobs, this would all go away.  More jobs will fix this.  More jobs will fix everything.

 

spike  

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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 16:41:18 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 11:41:18 -0500
Subject: [ExI] short history of privacy and equal rights
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEYr=n=1Lk18Dk8a=mLO4zBcwp00_JZhrkPDbNGHdR1j5A@mail.gmail.com>

For all esp. Anders:

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/to-have-and-to-hold

What is esp. interesting is the views of Victorian America regarding
women.  Sounds more like Islam than anything else.

bill w
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 16:43:21 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 11:43:21 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEZv_TfMCNAxn2k2_r9xVhHKjvcJWq_zBvSLeVaXaAWxFg@mail.gmail.com>

>
>
> >?ISIS recently banned pigeon breeding because when the birds fly
> overhead they expose their genitals and that is a sin against Islam.
> Violators will be publicly flogged.
>
>
>
> >?
> ?This reminds me of the guy on Johnny Carson who did a spoof campaign for
> putting bras on cows, horses and pigs.
>
>
?bill w?


> ?
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From atymes at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 16:51:58 2015
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 09:51:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 9:22 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> *>?* *On Behalf Of *John Clark
> *Subject:* [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
>
>
>
> >?ISIS recently banned pigeon breeding because when the birds fly
> overhead they expose their genitals and that is a sin against Islam.
> Violators will be publicly flogged.
>
>
>
> >?http://rt.com/news/264673-isis-breeding-birds-islam/
>
>
>
> >? John K Clark
>
>
>
>
>
> If only they had more jobs, this would all go away.  More jobs will fix
> this.  More jobs will fix everything.
>
>
>
> spike
>

Oh, but they have plenty of jobs.  They'll employ all the soldiers who
volunteer, and then some.

More seriously, is it now time to acknowledge that the Islamic State is not
Islamic?  Actions like this demonstrate why no one takes their claims to
religious mandate seriously.
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun  6 16:58:55 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 09:58:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <00f801d0a07a$151a3e00$3f4eba00$@att.net>

 

 

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



 If only they had more jobs, this would all go away.  More jobs will fix this.  More jobs will fix everything.

spike  

>?More seriously, is it now time to acknowledge that the Islamic State is not Islamic?  

 

 

 

Can we fix the problem by calling it NISIS?

 

spike

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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 17:31:40 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 18:31:40 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armidB=peYnb6iPK8H7it4pzS=pG1iEoWC7EW9tsz_xyLYg@mail.gmail.com>

On 6 June 2015 at 17:14, John Clark wrote:
> ISIS recently banned pigeon breeding because when the birds fly overhead
> they expose their genitals and that is a sin against Islam. Violators will
> be publicly flogged.
>


This is typical UK Daily Mail rubbish. Any grains of truth in a Daily
Mail article will have been twisted almost beyond recognition to aid
their propaganda against anyone or any organisation that they hate.
(And they have a long list of things they hate).

Does anyone really think they can see a pigeon's genitals when they
fly overhead?
(Just ask any pigeon breeder).

If the ISIS ban on pigeon breeding actually exists, then it is only as
part of their desire to control every aspect of their followers lives.
Like banning music, western clothes, etc. etc.
Quote:
Pigeon breeding is a popular hobby in the region, but it is said to be
frowned upon by extremist Islamist fighters because they believe it is
a distraction from worshipping Allah.
--------------


BillK


From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 17:40:38 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 13:40:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv05-hZJb3Hnn5nkJWLCbVEFux7iV1Xg_OmPC7_50rdgSQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015  Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:

> is it now time to acknowledge that the Islamic State is not Islamic?
>

I don't see why, was the murderous outrage over a cartoon that Islam
provoked in the general population significantly less imbecilic?

 > Actions like this demonstrate why no one takes their claims to religious
> mandate seriously.
>

I don't see how that follows either. Armies of believers have disemboweled
each other over questions like "was Jesus born of a virgin mother?". Was
that significantly less imbecilic?

  John K Clark
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From spike66 at att.net  Sat Jun  6 18:07:58 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 11:07:58 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <013e01d0a083$bad36340$307a29c0$@att.net>

 

 

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



>?More seriously, is it now time to acknowledge that the Islamic State is not Islamic? 

 

Does ISIS acknowledge that?  What do they claim is the word represented by that first I in ISIS?

 

I find it so odd that any domestic act of terrorism in the USA by non-ISIS types is called Christian terrorism (example Timothy McVeigh) even if the act had nothing to do with religion and the perpetrator never claimed any religious affiliation.

 

On the other hand, when an act of terrorism is committed specifically in the name of a religion, with that religion?s name emblazoned on the organization with the perpetrator akbarring the name of the deity being honored by the horrific act, the religion is exonerated or responibility.

 

Most ironic.

 

spike

 

 

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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Jun  6 19:17:40 2015
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 15:17:40 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <013e01d0a083$bad36340$307a29c0$@att.net>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013e01d0a083$bad36340$307a29c0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <201506062020.t56KK2Zu017905@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Adrian wrote:

>More seriously, is it now time to acknowledge that the Islamic State 
>is not Islamic?

Who are you to say that it isn't? Who is anyone?

No one gets to speak for all Christians, all Jews, all Buddhists, all 
atheists, or all Muslims. Even where there is a titular head, such as 
the Pope or the Dalai Lama, that's most often just for a 
denomination. Not the religion as a whole. And plenty of people think 
themselves good Catholics and act in contravention of official Church 
doctrine or the word of the Pope.

Is it not the fallacy of No True Scotsman to say that the Islamic 
State is not Islamic?

My approach is to assume that a self-definition I'm presented with is 
true, excluding absurdities. If you tell me you're Islamic or a 
musician, I'll adopt a working assumption that you are. If you tell 
me you're Thomas Edison or a jelly bean, I'll assume you aren't.


-- David.



From atymes at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 20:29:30 2015
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 13:29:30 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <201506062020.t56KK2Zu017905@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013e01d0a083$bad36340$307a29c0$@att.net>
 <201506062020.t56KK2Zu017905@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNSjdZhbkncka7dQ8OHNZmwoms1F6OK=DvnV5eyuqE18Mg@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com>
wrote:

> Is it not the fallacy of No True Scotsman to say that the Islamic State is
> not Islamic?
>

Not so much.  There is a property of being Islamic, that ISIS uses to claim
moral superiority.  A broad self-applied definition of said term would have
no basis for said moral superiority; rather, it is whether it acts in ways
in accordance with what most other recognized Muslims define as being
Islamic.


> My approach is to assume that a self-definition I'm presented with is
> true, excluding absurdities. If you tell me you're Islamic or a musician,
> I'll adopt a working assumption that you are. If you tell me you're Thomas
> Edison or a jelly bean, I'll assume you aren't.
>

That's the thing.  Has ISIS gotten to the point of such an absurdity now?
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 20:45:02 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 15:45:02 -0500
Subject: [ExI] book
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEbwadCkXPQxv3DwwEcNv0wht5Uk41pbgqkmjVLAqcOMuQ@mail.gmail.com>

Just finished Superimposition, a scifi techothriller featuring quantum
theory and a mystery.  Excellent.

Author:  David Walton

bill w
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From veronese at uab.edu  Sat Jun  6 20:47:10 2015
From: veronese at uab.edu (Keith Veronese)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 15:47:10 -0500
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEbwadCkXPQxv3DwwEcNv0wht5Uk41pbgqkmjVLAqcOMuQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbwadCkXPQxv3DwwEcNv0wht5Uk41pbgqkmjVLAqcOMuQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CA+yghmudxTXWsS+-sUjYmvHeQHtUZP2EQbznOO+qRUk4qDLKaQ@mail.gmail.com>

I read it too. Pretty good - one hell of a ride plus it gets the science
right. - Keith V

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:45 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Just finished Superimposition, a scifi techothriller featuring quantum
> theory and a mystery.  Excellent.
>
> Author:  David Walton
>
> bill w
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 20:51:28 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 15:51:28 -0500
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <CA+yghmudxTXWsS+-sUjYmvHeQHtUZP2EQbznOO+qRUk4qDLKaQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEbwadCkXPQxv3DwwEcNv0wht5Uk41pbgqkmjVLAqcOMuQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <CA+yghmudxTXWsS+-sUjYmvHeQHtUZP2EQbznOO+qRUk4qDLKaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa4dgL-=KTuYjf08ofviZHWKZgeDAWPD853QXcyNoc7cA@mail.gmail.com>

I don't know why we don't share much info about books, esp. scifi, which
must have many fans in this group, but I am going to start when I have read
one pretty special.

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:47 PM, Keith Veronese <veronese at uab.edu> wrote:

> I read it too. Pretty good - one hell of a ride plus it gets the science
> right. - Keith V
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:45 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com
> > wrote:
>
>> Just finished Superimposition, a scifi techothriller featuring quantum
>> theory and a mystery.  Excellent.
>>
>> Author:  David Walton
>>
>> bill w
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun  6 20:58:25 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:58:25 +0200
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa4dgL-=KTuYjf08ofviZHWKZgeDAWPD853QXcyNoc7cA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3400032585-8136@secure.ericade.net>

I am rather fond of Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief trilogy. A fun posthuman solar system with loads of big ideas. He knows his quantum computing too.

Of course, occasional list member Charles Stross is another favourite. I remember being in the email thread here on this list that became the inspiration of "Accelerando"'s first chapter ("Lobsters"). 



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun  6 20:54:12 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 22:54:12 +0200
Subject: [ExI] short history of privacy and equal rights
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEYr=n=1Lk18Dk8a=mLO4zBcwp00_JZhrkPDbNGHdR1j5A@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3398234102-20972@secure.ericade.net>

Fr?n:   William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com> 
 > For all esp. Anders:
>? http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/25/to-have-and-to-hold

As usual for the New Yorker, a very readable article. I think it makes an interesting point about privacy being weaker than equality as a foundation for rights. 

Of course, a lot of this is constitutionalism: fun if you are into that, but not applicable outside the US legal framework. But philosophically equality has *way* firmer footing than privacy. Even those ethicists who think privacy is important regard it as a derived right from more core stuff like autonomy and freedom of thought. Meanwhile equality is based on fairly deep metaethical or formal ethical principles: ethical judgements should be universalizable (they make similar judgements about similar cases), they should be consistent, and people are by default morally the same (the last one is the tricky one, but most moral systems contain it as a kind of inherent assumption). Equality in regards to some property P just states that P does not imply any change in moral status: if it is OK for some people to do X and people are equal in regard to X-activities, then it is OK for me to do it too. Privacy on the other hand is directly tied to a particular sociocultural context. 

Which may be why the *legal* arguments based on equality are doing fine - we are learning a lot of equal properties and this leaves past equality argument *stronger* - while privacy becomes time-bound and the laws based on the then-current version can't stay synched with society. Universality for the win?

Transhumanist question: so, what forms of equality do we think about that are not currently recognized? I think species- and substrate-independence is one: it does not matter what you are made from, evolved from, or built by, as long as you are a thinking moral agent. Another one might be equality between cryonically suspended people and other inert-but-alive people. And among my consequentialist crowd, just as people remote in space have the same moral value as people close in space, people remote in time also have the same value as people close in time. 


(Incidentally, justice Blackmun's name popped up in a fun legal essay my husband read to me last week: "Justice Blackmun's blood oath" http://www.greenbag.org/v18n2/v18n2_articles_goelzhauser.pdf 
Yep. We read academic papers to each other during cozy evenings; I read back parts of the astrophysics paper https://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/669/2/1279 )



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

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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Sat Jun  6 21:23:40 2015
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Sat, 06 Jun 2015 17:23:40 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSjdZhbkncka7dQ8OHNZmwoms1F6OK=DvnV5eyuqE18Mg@mail.g
 mail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013e01d0a083$bad36340$307a29c0$@att.net>
 <201506062020.t56KK2Zu017905@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
 <CALAdGNSjdZhbkncka7dQ8OHNZmwoms1F6OK=DvnV5eyuqE18Mg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201506062124.t56LO6Pq021740@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Adrian wrote:

>Not so much.  There is a property of being Islamic, that ISIS uses 
>to claim moral superiority.  A broad self-applied definition of said 
>term would have no basis for said moral superiority; rather, it is 
>whether it acts in ways in accordance with what most other 
>recognized Muslims define as being Islamic.

Mormons say they're Christian. Many Christians don't think they are. 
Many Christians think Catholics aren't. It's irrelevant. If Sunni and 
Shia think that Mahdavia, Ahmadiyya, or Sufism are not legitimately 
Islamic, that bears no weight on whether they are or not.

>My approach is to assume that a self-definition I'm presented with 
>is true, excluding absurdities. If you tell me you're Islamic or a 
>musician, I'll adopt a working assumption that you are. If you tell 
>me you're Thomas Edison or a jelly bean, I'll assume you aren't.
>
>That's the thing.  Has ISIS gotten to the point of such an absurdity now?

No.

But I'm fine with referring to them as the "so-called" or 
"self-described" Islamic State. Which acknowledges that not 
everyone's comfortable with that description while remaining neutral 
on whether it's accurate.


-- David.



From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 22:11:01 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 17:11:01 -0500
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <3400032585-8136@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAO+xQEa4dgL-=KTuYjf08ofviZHWKZgeDAWPD853QXcyNoc7cA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3400032585-8136@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEa5ktVx-W79DfWaAYNCQiUF7us5-pqyOMGY8iAL1Q4bAA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> I am rather fond of Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief trilogy. A fun
> posthuman solar system with loads of big ideas. He knows his quantum
> computing too.
>
> Of course, occasional list member Charles Stross is another favourite. I
> remember being in the email thread here on this list that became the
> inspiration of "Accelerando"'s first chapter ("Lobsters").
>
>
>
> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford
> University
>

?Thanks Anders.  Just ordered the trilogy ($18 from Abebooks) and
coincidentally finished the Stross a few days ago.  Would love to hear your
thoughts if any on the NYker article.  bill w?


>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 22:49:38 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 18:49:38 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armidB=peYnb6iPK8H7it4pzS=pG1iEoWC7EW9tsz_xyLYg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armidB=peYnb6iPK8H7it4pzS=pG1iEoWC7EW9tsz_xyLYg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv0dXpu4jPHYT1MZzpiTsc1KP-s316gkV0gDSQo-1_B6Bw@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 , BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Does anyone really think they can see a pigeon's genitals when they
>
fly overhead?
>

No of course not, but you're talking about logic and logic has nothing to
do with religion. About a decade ago the Taliban banned kite flying, I
don't recall why but it wouldn't surprise me if it was because it exposed
the kite's genitals when it flew. Nothing, absolutely nothing, is too
stupid for religion.


> > If the ISIS ban on pigeon breeding actually exists, then it is only as
> part of their desire to control every aspect of their followers lives.
>

This is the official statement I'll let it speak for itself:

?All those who keep pigeons above the roofs of their houses must stop doing
this entirely within a week of the date of the issuing of this statement.
Whosoever violates it will be subject to consequences of reprimand
including a financial fine, imprisonment and flogging. The ban is intended
to put a stop to the greater criminal act of harming one's Muslim and
Muslim women neighbors, revealing the pigeon's genitals and wasting time,?

 John K Clark
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 23:07:32 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 00:07:32 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv0dXpu4jPHYT1MZzpiTsc1KP-s316gkV0gDSQo-1_B6Bw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armidB=peYnb6iPK8H7it4pzS=pG1iEoWC7EW9tsz_xyLYg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv0dXpu4jPHYT1MZzpiTsc1KP-s316gkV0gDSQo-1_B6Bw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armisiM4BZP9SADQo3hh47TLKWptm+Zn67hgxywOQ8BrxDA@mail.gmail.com>

On 6 June 2015 at 23:49, John Clark wrote:
> This is the official statement I'll let it speak for itself:
>
> ?All those who keep pigeons above the roofs of their houses must stop doing
> this entirely within a week of the date of the issuing of this statement.
> Whosoever violates it will be subject to consequences of reprimand including
> a financial fine, imprisonment and flogging. The ban is intended to put a
> stop to the greater criminal act of harming one's Muslim and Muslim women
> neighbors, revealing the pigeon's genitals and wasting time,?
>

That is not any ISIS official statement.
The Daily Mail either made it up or wildly rewrote the original.
All the searches lead back to the Daily Wail.

See the Reddit discussion here:
<https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/387pog/isis_bans_pigeon_breeding_because_seeing_birds/>

Just because you read it on the internet or in a newsrag doesn't make
it true.  :)

BillK



From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 23:15:31 2015
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 16:15:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEa5ktVx-W79DfWaAYNCQiUF7us5-pqyOMGY8iAL1Q4bAA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEa4dgL-=KTuYjf08ofviZHWKZgeDAWPD853QXcyNoc7cA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3400032585-8136@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAO+xQEa5ktVx-W79DfWaAYNCQiUF7us5-pqyOMGY8iAL1Q4bAA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy1Y0Gwt=tT2C5ZeDh93b-kyvxRTYeLEpO7DF_7Va28WRA@mail.gmail.com>

Anders, have you written several sf novels?  Or am I imagining things?


John

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:11 PM, William Flynn Wallace <foozler83 at gmail.com>
wrote:

>
>
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 3:58 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:
>
>> I am rather fond of Hannu Rajaniemi's Quantum Thief trilogy. A fun
>> posthuman solar system with loads of big ideas. He knows his quantum
>> computing too.
>>
>> Of course, occasional list member Charles Stross is another favourite. I
>> remember being in the email thread here on this list that became the
>> inspiration of "Accelerando"'s first chapter ("Lobsters").
>>
>>
>>
>> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of
>> Oxford University
>>
>
> ?Thanks Anders.  Just ordered the trilogy ($18 from Abebooks) and
> coincidentally finished the Stross a few days ago.  Would love to hear your
> thoughts if any on the NYker article.  bill w?
>
>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jun  6 23:22:55 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 6 Jun 2015 19:22:55 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armisiM4BZP9SADQo3hh47TLKWptm+Zn67hgxywOQ8BrxDA@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armidB=peYnb6iPK8H7it4pzS=pG1iEoWC7EW9tsz_xyLYg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv0dXpu4jPHYT1MZzpiTsc1KP-s316gkV0gDSQo-1_B6Bw@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAL_armisiM4BZP9SADQo3hh47TLKWptm+Zn67hgxywOQ8BrxDA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3GQrM_jK6pmds6vhBrEwvjAk1Yw8mCydPcD6ktsqhzCQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 7:07 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>See the Reddit discussion here:
> <
> https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/387pog/isis_bans_pigeon_breeding_because_seeing_birds/
> >
>  Just because you read it on the internet or in a newsrag doesn't make
> it true.


Does that include stuff on Reddit?

  John K Clark
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun  7 10:18:44 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 12:18:44 +0200
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <CAGSKFy1Y0Gwt=tT2C5ZeDh93b-kyvxRTYeLEpO7DF_7Va28WRA@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3448104267-29407@secure.ericade.net>


From:   John Grigg <possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com> 


 

Anders, have you written several sf novels?? Or am I imagining things?


Nope. I have one published short story (in the Orion's Arm anthology), but I have never written a novel. I think I am better with roleplaying scenarios.?


Stross, Rajaniemi and Watts are cool because they write the kind of novels I would want to write, if I had literary talent.?




Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun  7 10:23:07 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 12:23:07 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv3GQrM_jK6pmds6vhBrEwvjAk1Yw8mCydPcD6ktsqhzCQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3448287255-29416@secure.ericade.net>


From:   John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> 

 



On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 7:07 PM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>See the Reddit discussion here:
 <https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/387pog/isis_bans_pigeon_breeding_because_seeing_birds/>
?Just because you read it on the internet or in a newsrag doesn't make
 it true.?


Does that include stuff on Reddit? ?

Yes. And Extropy email threads.


It is worth noticing that a surprising number of entities - like the Iranian and North Korean governments, and a FIFA executive - mistake Onion satire articles as real. Fact checking is a dead art (anybody up for a bit of necromancy?)




Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sun Jun  7 13:50:53 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 08:50:53 -0500
Subject: [ExI] book
In-Reply-To: <3448104267-29407@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAGSKFy1Y0Gwt=tT2C5ZeDh93b-kyvxRTYeLEpO7DF_7Va28WRA@mail.gmail.com>
 <3448104267-29407@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEaph0wOu5nmyh+-PczEEN3VbwU6Dq84_U2RzVuH-+XdDg@mail.gmail.com>

>
>
>
>
> Stross, Rajaniemi and Watts are cool because they write the kind of novels
> I would want to write, if I had literary talent.
>
>
> Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford
> University
>

?Thanks for sharing.  Watts looks good.  I just finished Neal Stephenson's
Seveneves and skipped maybe a third to half the book because of technical
detail, such as orbital mechanics.  Still, I recommend it.  Anders, I don't
think we could ever agree on consequentialism as a determiner of moral
correctness.  No room for 'in good faith' and 'good intentions and
'unexpected consequences'.  Just too unforgiving.  bill w ?


>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From painlord2k at libero.it  Sun Jun  7 14:00:12 2015
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 16:00:12 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Asteroid value ranking
In-Reply-To: <70192205-9F54-4398-A094-2BDCAF200A50@gmail.com>
References: <8544D8E5-80AB-4F9D-AEAC-DCFE0545CF89@gmail.com>
 <5D7DC516-7133-45B5-9D9D-97518D3AB9E5@gmail.com>
 <CAPy8RwZ4MUgqBAiC3n5tKGnuCGwAb2bKtqNhM17NbQapSpVsjw@mail.gmail.com>
 <70192205-9F54-4398-A094-2BDCAF200A50@gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55744E6C.6080404@libero.it>

Il 07/05/2015 05:59, Dan ha scritto:
> On May 6, 2015, at 9:06 AM, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com
> <mailto:kellycoinguy at gmail.com>> wrote:

> Hence my parenthetic comment. Yes, more gold will almost certainly find
> more uses, but my guess is even with those, the price will still
> plummet. One can make a similar observation about computers. Early uses
> were constrained by high price and limited availability. But as the
> supply increased (or one could talk about the supply of computing
> power), even with this increased usage this didn't lead to computers
> staying at the same price.
> 
> By the way, gold is already (and has been) used as more than a store of
> value -- and I don't just mean to make baubles. It's already used in
> electronics, medicine, dentistry, and certain other applications. 

Simple economics show us something is used the same or more if the price
go down.
When the price go under the marginal utility of using it for some other
use, someone will start using it.

-- 
Mirco Romanato


From painlord2k at libero.it  Sun Jun  7 14:45:22 2015
From: painlord2k at libero.it (Mirco Romanato)
Date: Sun, 07 Jun 2015 16:45:22 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Pigeons offend Islam
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNSjdZhbkncka7dQ8OHNZmwoms1F6OK=DvnV5eyuqE18Mg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAJPayv2kP6fc5_itjaStMJLDbF+UAOgc3DhdZybrT508aS4yEA@mail.gmail.com>
 <00c801d0a075$096fe410$1c4fac30$@att.net>
 <CALAdGNQQ_KPCfc2vwayE=MeYQsPX9hbWc9JWatp_VG8_+tZK0w@mail.gmail.com>
 <013e01d0a083$bad36340$307a29c0$@att.net>
 <201506062020.t56KK2Zu017905@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
 <CALAdGNSjdZhbkncka7dQ8OHNZmwoms1F6OK=DvnV5eyuqE18Mg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <55745902.2080605@libero.it>

Il 06/06/2015 22:29, Adrian Tymes ha scritto:
> On Sat, Jun 6, 2015 at 12:17 PM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com
> <mailto:lubkin at unreasonable.com>> wrote:

> Not so much.  There is a property of being Islamic, that ISIS uses to
> claim moral superiority.  A broad self-applied definition of said term
> would have no basis for said moral superiority; rather, it is whether it
> acts in ways in accordance with what most other recognized Muslims
> define as being Islamic.

>     My approach is to assume that a self-definition I'm presented with
>     is true, excluding absurdities. If you tell me you're Islamic or a
>     musician, I'll adopt a working assumption that you are. If you tell
>     me you're Thomas Edison or a jelly bean, I'll assume you aren't.

> That's the thing.  Has ISIS gotten to the point of such an absurdity now?

Maybe, just maybe, someone have contemplated the possibility of Islam
being what ISIS say it is and are the other so called Muslims the ones
not taking Islam seriously?

Because, if you read all the ruling of Islamic law doctors (aka Mullah)
in the present and in the past, you see there is madnedd all over the place.
Does someone dared to read Ayatollah Khomeini book of Islamic Rulings?

Remember Islam is a bunch of legal ruling from the start and a few
exhortations. It has all the madness of all government legal codes
interpreted literally by humans lawyers.

http://islammonitor.org/uploads/docs/greenbook.pdf

"A child who has not reached puberty is impure if his parents and
grandparents are not Muslims, but if he has one Muslim in his
ancestry he is pure."

Any man or woman who denies the existence of Allah, or believes in
His partners [the Christian Trinity], or else does not believe in His
Prophet Muhammad, is impure (in the same way as are excrement,
urine, dog, and wine). He is so even if he doubts any one of these
principles

A Muslim who insults one of the Twelve Imams or declares himself
their enemy is impure.

The pus of a healing wound is pure, provided one can be sure it is
not mixed with blood.

One must avoid giving the Qur?an to an infidel; it is even
recommended that it be forcibly taken away from him if he already
has it in his hands.

If a woman sees blood flowing from her vagina for more than three
days and less than ten days, and is not sure whether this is
menstrual blood or blood from an abscess, she must attempt to
introduce a piece of cotton into her vagina and then withdraw it. If
the blood runs out on the left side, it is menstrual blood; if on the
right side, it is from the abscess.





From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun  7 15:01:43 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sun, 7 Jun 2015 08:01:43 -0700
Subject: [ExI] darpa robot olympics
Message-ID: <000901d0a132$e00009c0$a0001d40$@att.net>

 

Anyone else following the DARPA robot Olympics this weekend?

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgt6FPWU2Lc

 

The droids need to drive a vehicle a short distance, open a door, open a
valve, pick up a hand tool and cut a hole in a wall.  The great grandfathers
of C3PO have not been all that impressive to watch.  We will not be seeing
robot pole vaulting anytime soon.  

 

However, I was at the first DARPA challenge for self driving cars.  It
didn't take long to go from that dismal failure to the Google cars.

 

Fun fails:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A_QPGcjrh0

 

spike

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  8 13:28:23 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 06:28:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] New evidence emerges on the origins of life
Message-ID: <118CDC29-56B8-4C9D-BB28-A38A5BAC1651@gmail.com>

http://phys.org/news/2015-06-evidence-emerges-life.html

Regards,

Dan
 Sample my Kindle books via:
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From foozler83 at gmail.com  Mon Jun  8 21:05:04 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 16:05:04 -0500
Subject: [ExI] TECH ANSWER
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>

Q - does the printer print in black and white?

A - no - it prints only black - the white is in the paper
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  8 21:26:12 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 14:26:12 -0700
Subject: [ExI] TECH ANSWER
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <022d01d0a231$bf56fa30$3e04ee90$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of William Flynn Wallace
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 2:05 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: [ExI] TECH ANSWER

 

Q - does the printer print in black and white?

A - no - it prints only black - the white is in the paper

 

 

Oh, now ya done it.  The yahoos will immediately start thinking of ways to create white ink to use with black paper.

 

Or how about this: recall how when you were a kid you did secret codes by writing with lemon juice.  The paper looks blank, but then you run a hair dryer over it or put in the oven and the message appears.  That was a long time ago, and no one really knows how to use a pen to write by hand anymore, most of us don?t.  But we can type like a bat outta hell.  So we get an empty ink cartridge, fill it with lemon juice, see if we can print out typed invisible messages.  Cool!

 

spike

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From atymes at gmail.com  Mon Jun  8 21:42:55 2015
From: atymes at gmail.com (Adrian Tymes)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 14:42:55 -0700
Subject: [ExI] TECH ANSWER
In-Reply-To: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CALAdGNQnrfC_kjcDgJe_ajy2ujGP4Z6a0NT71P=N8Pe0cM-TSw@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 8, 2015 2:06 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Q - does the printer print in black and white?
>
> A - no - it prints only black - the white is in the paper

Unless it's electronic ink, which prints pixels that can later be black or
white.

Or it is a 3D printer with no paper substrate, in which case the white must
be in what it prints.
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From spike66 at att.net  Mon Jun  8 21:53:37 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 14:53:37 -0700
Subject: [ExI] TECH ANSWER
In-Reply-To: <CALAdGNQnrfC_kjcDgJe_ajy2ujGP4Z6a0NT71P=N8Pe0cM-TSw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQnrfC_kjcDgJe_ajy2ujGP4Z6a0NT71P=N8Pe0cM-TSw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <02a901d0a235$94cb4420$be61cc60$@att.net>

 

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 2:43 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] TECH ANSWER

 

On Jun 8, 2015 2:06 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Q - does the printer print in black and white?
>
> A - no - it prints only black - the white is in the paper

Unless it's electronic ink, which prints pixels that can later be black or white.

Or it is a 3D printer with no paper substrate, in which case the white must be in what it prints.

 

 

Ja.  It also depends on how you define white.  Some substances are reflective in some frequency bands and absorptive in others.  So ink can be simultaneously white and black, depending on you how you look at it.

 

spike

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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Tue Jun  9 00:39:15 2015
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 17:39:15 -0700
Subject: [ExI] New podcast with Henson in it
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB7YKZqDsV+uWGwWJQTA_DsNAKpdMjOx+4POnJDbCn8HMw@mail.gmail.com>

http://www.longecity.org/media/LongeCityPodcast_Henson2015_A01.mp3

Came out fairly well.

Keith


From amara at kurzweilai.net  Mon Jun  8 22:21:57 2015
From: amara at kurzweilai.net (Amara D. Angelica)
Date: Mon, 08 Jun 2015 18:21:57 -0400
Subject: [ExI] TECH ANSWER
In-Reply-To: <02a901d0a235$94cb4420$be61cc60$@att.net>
References: <CAO+xQEagbaGSS58s8-ifa8=c+QMzcYQrDmzErTOOM+NKByENYg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CALAdGNQnrfC_kjcDgJe_ajy2ujGP4Z6a0NT71P=N8Pe0cM-TSw@mail.gmail.com>
 <02a901d0a235$94cb4420$be61cc60$@att.net>
Message-ID: <D19B8CC2.57195%amara@kurzweilai.net>

Neither. It prints ink with specific light-absorption and reflection
qualities. The color is generated in the visual cortex and is partially the
function of the type and intensity of ambient light and surrounding objects.

From:  spike <spike66 at att.net>
Reply-To:  ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Date:  Monday, June 8, 2015 at 5:53 PM
To:  'ExI chat list' <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject:  Re: [ExI] TECH ANSWER

 
 
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf
Of Adrian Tymes
Sent: Monday, June 08, 2015 2:43 PM
To: ExI chat list
Subject: Re: [ExI] TECH ANSWER
 
On Jun 8, 2015 2:06 PM, "William Flynn Wallace" <foozler83 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Q - does the printer print in black and white?
>
> A - no - it prints only black - the white is in the paper

Unless it's electronic ink, which prints pixels that can later be black or
white.

Or it is a 3D printer with no paper substrate, in which case the white must
be in what it prints.

 

 

Ja.  It also depends on how you define white.  Some substances are
reflective in some frequency bands and absorptive in others.  So ink can be
simultaneously white and black, depending on you how you look at it.

 

spike
_______________________________________________ extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat

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From possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com  Tue Jun  9 05:50:33 2015
From: possiblepaths2050 at gmail.com (John Grigg)
Date: Mon, 8 Jun 2015 22:50:33 -0700
Subject: [ExI] darpa robot olympics
In-Reply-To: <000901d0a132$e00009c0$a0001d40$@att.net>
References: <000901d0a132$e00009c0$a0001d40$@att.net>
Message-ID: <CAGSKFy2oxD_HYKARMY52_xOTEWTX4m-Xph8CS6wur822kDAvMw@mail.gmail.com>

I bet we will not be laughing at the 2025 Darpa robot olympics....  At
least for these tasks....


John

On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 8:01 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

>
>
> Anyone else following the DARPA robot Olympics this weekend?
>
>
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgt6FPWU2Lc
>
>
>
> The droids need to drive a vehicle a short distance, open a door, open a
> valve, pick up a hand tool and cut a hole in a wall.  The great
> grandfathers of C3PO have not been all that impressive to watch.  We will
> not be seeing robot pole vaulting anytime soon.
>
>
>
> However, I was at the first DARPA challenge for self driving cars.  It
> didn?t take long to go from that dismal failure to the Google cars.
>
>
>
> Fun fails:
>
>
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7A_QPGcjrh0
>
>
>
> spike
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk  Tue Jun  9 21:23:23 2015
From: nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk (Tom Nowell)
Date: Tue, 9 Jun 2015 21:23:23 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1433764802.22454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1433764802.22454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>

The story last Tuesday is atMemories can survive cryogenic preservation, study shows

| ? |
| ? |  | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? |
| Memories can survive cryogenic preservation, study showsResearchers for Alcor Life Extension Foundation (pictured) in Scottsdale in Arizona say their work provides hope for those hoping their bodies can be revived by med... |
|  |
| View on www.dailymail.co.uk | Preview by Yahoo |
|  |
| ? |


and it doesn't seem to misquote the researchers. Admittedly at the bottom of the article there is a box entitled "The weird world of cryonics" highlighting cryonics ongoing battle to be taken seriously.
As an aside,for those unfamiliar with the Daily Mail website, yes the sidebar to the right is filled with nothing but stories about celebrities' appearance - it didn't gain the nickname "The sidebar of shame" for nothing.
Tom
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From anders at aleph.se  Tue Jun  9 22:32:41 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 00:32:41 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <3665052434-11957@secure.ericade.net>

Fr?n:   Tom Nowell <nebathenemi at yahoo.co.uk> :


 


and it doesn't seem to misquote the researchers. 
Wow. Congratulations Natasha! Getting mentioned in the DM is not an achievement, but not getting misquoted is!

(Had  a journalist from the Guardian all morning taking shots of me posing in  front of whiteboards - the academic kind of vogue: "Now hold the eraser  and look like you want to erase that equation!")


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Wed Jun 10 00:56:05 2015
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 09 Jun 2015 20:56:05 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yaho o.com>
References: <mailman.1.1433764802.22454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
Message-ID: <201506100125.t5A1PhA0027110@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

Natasha's work made it to Drudge Report on June 2. Which most 
journalists read, although they don't admit to it. I captured an 
image at the time and uploaded it to

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206153613932153&l=7d5e9d2d83

A Facebook account isn't needed to see the image. It linked to the 
Daily Mail piece at

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3107805/Could-brains-stay-forever-young-Memories-survive-cryogenic-preservation-study-shows.html


-- David.



From giulio at gmail.com  Wed Jun 10 05:41:09 2015
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 07:41:09 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <201506100125.t5A1PhA0027110@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
References: <mailman.1.1433764802.22454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
 <201506100125.t5A1PhA0027110@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJydYfdikL4vkD6cW0Cn6JGPmvumW1fbe_=ZBb6vPfxvg0Q@mail.gmail.com>

Congratulations to Natasha!

Anders, don't underestimate the Daily Mail, it's what the people out there read.

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 2:56 AM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com> wrote:
> Natasha's work made it to Drudge Report on June 2. Which most journalists
> read, although they don't admit to it. I captured an image at the time and
> uploaded it to
>
> https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206153613932153&l=7d5e9d2d83
>
> A Facebook account isn't needed to see the image. It linked to the Daily
> Mail piece at
>
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3107805/Could-brains-stay-forever-young-Memories-survive-cryogenic-preservation-study-shows.html
>
>
> -- David.
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


From max at maxmore.com  Wed Jun 10 07:44:56 2015
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 01:44:56 -0600
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJydYfdikL4vkD6cW0Cn6JGPmvumW1fbe_=ZBb6vPfxvg0Q@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1433764802.22454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
 <201506100125.t5A1PhA0027110@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
 <CAKTCJydYfdikL4vkD6cW0Cn6JGPmvumW1fbe_=ZBb6vPfxvg0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJX-7wUmnCo5euTHuoT8r=qt_aPohMkF0FGnrsPdXCmJfvCywQ@mail.gmail.com>

What's pleasing about the media attention to the research led by Natasha is
that neither she nor Alcor have even sent out a press release yet.

You can find information about the paper here:

http://alcor.org/AboutAlcor/researchcenter.html

This research -- and a great deal more promising research updates relevant
to human cryopreservation -- will be the major theme of the Alcor-2015
conference in October:

http://alcor.org/AboutAlcor/conference.html



On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 11:41 PM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:

> Congratulations to Natasha!
>
> Anders, don't underestimate the Daily Mail, it's what the people out there
> read.
>
> On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 2:56 AM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com>
> wrote:
> > Natasha's work made it to Drudge Report on June 2. Which most journalists
> > read, although they don't admit to it. I captured an image at the time
> and
> > uploaded it to
> >
> > https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206153613932153&l=7d5e9d2d83
> >
> > A Facebook account isn't needed to see the image. It linked to the Daily
> > Mail piece at
> >
> >
> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3107805/Could-brains-stay-forever-young-Memories-survive-cryogenic-preservation-study-shows.html
> >
> >
> > -- David.
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > extropy-chat mailing list
> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 

Max More, PhD
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader
President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
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From giulio at gmail.com  Wed Jun 10 08:03:11 2015
From: giulio at gmail.com (Giulio Prisco)
Date: Wed, 10 Jun 2015 10:03:11 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <CAJX-7wUmnCo5euTHuoT8r=qt_aPohMkF0FGnrsPdXCmJfvCywQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <mailman.1.1433764802.22454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
 <1606974307.13352901.1433885003846.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com>
 <201506100125.t5A1PhA0027110@andromeda.ziaspace.com>
 <CAKTCJydYfdikL4vkD6cW0Cn6JGPmvumW1fbe_=ZBb6vPfxvg0Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJX-7wUmnCo5euTHuoT8r=qt_aPohMkF0FGnrsPdXCmJfvCywQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAKTCJydNw1nXT8iYToR8dEouj7ywc-MrFV3Ucx4hJzMOFU9bEQ@mail.gmail.com>

For us here, it's self-evident that memories survive successfully reversed
cryopreservation. But I guess it's far from self-evident to most of the
people out there, especially to the Daily Mail regulars.

On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 9:44 AM, Max More <max at maxmore.com> wrote:

> What's pleasing about the media attention to the research led by Natasha
> is that neither she nor Alcor have even sent out a press release yet.
>
> You can find information about the paper here:
>
> http://alcor.org/AboutAlcor/researchcenter.html
>
> This research -- and a great deal more promising research updates relevant
> to human cryopreservation -- will be the major theme of the Alcor-2015
> conference in October:
>
> http://alcor.org/AboutAlcor/conference.html
>
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2015 at 11:41 PM, Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Congratulations to Natasha!
>>
>> Anders, don't underestimate the Daily Mail, it's what the people out
>> there read.
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 10, 2015 at 2:56 AM, David Lubkin <lubkin at unreasonable.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Natasha's work made it to Drudge Report on June 2. Which most
>> journalists
>> > read, although they don't admit to it. I captured an image at the time
>> and
>> > uploaded it to
>> >
>> > https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10206153613932153&l=7d5e9d2d83
>> >
>> > A Facebook account isn't needed to see the image. It linked to the Daily
>> > Mail piece at
>> >
>> >
>> http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-3107805/Could-brains-stay-forever-young-Memories-survive-cryogenic-preservation-study-shows.html
>> >
>> >
>> > -- David.
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > extropy-chat mailing list
>> > extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> > http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>>
>
>
> --
>
> Max More, PhD
> Strategic Philosopher
> Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
>
> http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader
> President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From pharos at gmail.com  Thu Jun 11 10:11:17 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 11:11:17 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Translating language idioms is dificult
Message-ID: <CAL_armhy0Fqm37ydhZCP18TN8wuwEhaHV641gfc5Z5xdfbz95w@mail.gmail.com>

Much excitement was generated in the news, TV and web by the recent
pigeon genitalia drama.
It now appears that an Arabic idiom in a document was translated as
?revealing the genitals?. No reference was made as to whose genitals
were revealed. It seems that the Daily Mail writers seized the
opportunity to have fun and mock the Muslim document.
In Arabic, the idiom is used to mean misbehaviour or dishonourable conduct.

Snopes has a full explanation.
<http://m.snopes.com/2015/06/10/isis-bans-pigeon-genitals/>

This is similar to UK people describing something as "the bees knees"
or "the dogs bollocks".
No reference is intended to insect leg hinge joints or male dog genitalia.

<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bee%27s+Knees>
<http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the%20dogs%20bollocks>

An American might use the phrase "behind the eight ball" and get
confused looks from non-Americans.

Language translation really needs to avoid idioms to be understood.
Using basic English with a limited vocabulary makes life easier. (Like
Voice of America's Special English).



BillK



From msd001 at gmail.com  Thu Jun 11 11:06:25 2015
From: msd001 at gmail.com (Mike Dougherty)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 07:06:25 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Translating language idioms is dificult
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhy0Fqm37ydhZCP18TN8wuwEhaHV641gfc5Z5xdfbz95w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhy0Fqm37ydhZCP18TN8wuwEhaHV641gfc5Z5xdfbz95w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAOJFdbKevaW_cLs6P8hH7Q2mO6VYm_f06D2FvL4PV1uYcH-WBg@mail.gmail.com>

On Jun 11, 2015 6:12 AM, "BillK" <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Language translation really needs to avoid idioms to be understood.
> Using basic English with a limited vocabulary makes life easier. (Like
> Voice of America's Special English).

To prevent the algorithmic requirement for lowest common denominator form
of newspeak, can we demand language translation be smarter?
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From tara at taramayastales.com  Thu Jun 11 13:38:01 2015
From: tara at taramayastales.com (Tara Maya)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 06:38:01 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Translating language idioms is dificult
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhy0Fqm37ydhZCP18TN8wuwEhaHV641gfc5Z5xdfbz95w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhy0Fqm37ydhZCP18TN8wuwEhaHV641gfc5Z5xdfbz95w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <DED8BCAB-4BE8-4BB7-BF1B-B52F6B184D21@taramayastales.com>

But sadly, the part about ?We will punish you for having a harmless hobby? ? which, after all is the real scandal ? is NOT an error in translation.

Tara Maya
Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Amazon  |  Goodreads



> On Jun 11, 2015, at 3:11 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Much excitement was generated in the news, TV and web by the recent
> pigeon genitalia drama.
> It now appears that an Arabic idiom in a document was translated as
> ?revealing the genitals?. No reference was made as to whose genitals
> were revealed. It seems that the Daily Mail writers seized the
> opportunity to have fun and mock the Muslim document.
> In Arabic, the idiom is used to mean misbehaviour or dishonourable conduct.
> 
> Snopes has a full explanation.
> <http://m.snopes.com/2015/06/10/isis-bans-pigeon-genitals/>
> 
> This is similar to UK people describing something as "the bees knees"
> or "the dogs bollocks".
> No reference is intended to insect leg hinge joints or male dog genitalia.
> 
> <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Bee%27s+Knees>
> <http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=the%20dogs%20bollocks>
> 
> An American might use the phrase "behind the eight ball" and get
> confused looks from non-Americans.
> 
> Language translation really needs to avoid idioms to be understood.
> Using basic English with a limited vocabulary makes life easier. (Like
> Voice of America's Special English).
> 
> 
> 
> BillK
> 
> _______________________________________________
> 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 Jun 11 14:14:47 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Thu, 11 Jun 2015 15:14:47 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Translating language idioms is dificult
In-Reply-To: <DED8BCAB-4BE8-4BB7-BF1B-B52F6B184D21@taramayastales.com>
References: <CAL_armhy0Fqm37ydhZCP18TN8wuwEhaHV641gfc5Z5xdfbz95w@mail.gmail.com>
 <DED8BCAB-4BE8-4BB7-BF1B-B52F6B184D21@taramayastales.com>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhO7=vdXddFtkf+jKzE+rL5eE=epVHvFzj-mjwXLKT80w@mail.gmail.com>

On 11 June 2015 at 14:38, Tara Maya wrote:
> But sadly, the part about ?We will punish you for having a harmless hobby?
> ? which, after all is the real scandal ? is NOT an error in translation.
>

But they see themselves as a nation at war, on a crusade to defend
their faith against almost overwhelming odds. Hobbies don't help the
war effort and distract from more useful activities.

Bad things are done during wartime. Even in the western nations.  (irony!).

BillK



From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun 12 20:42:16 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 22:42:16 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <CAKTCJydYfdikL4vkD6cW0Cn6JGPmvumW1fbe_=ZBb6vPfxvg0Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3917430966-10890@secure.ericade.net>

Fr?n:   Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> 

Anders, don't underestimate the Daily Mail, it's what the people out there read. 
That is my worry.

Apropos magazines people ought to read, here is from this week's Nature:
http://www.nature.com/news/the-pentagon-s-gamble-on-brain-implants-bionic-limbs-and-combat-exoskeletons-1.17726

"When Geoffrey Ling talks about the future of technology, his ideas go  flying around the room like a whirlwind. Ling eagerly describes a world  in which people live far beyond their natural lifespans, minds can be  downloaded into external 'hard drives' for enhancement by artificial  intelligence and robots and aircraft are controlled by human thought. 
?It's  abso-posi-frickin-lutely going to happen,? he declares. ?The next 20  years are going to make our heads spin, because we've already crossed  over into that realm.? 
Ling should know: he is doing as much  as anyone to make these visions real. A neurologist by training, he is  also a US Army colonel and director of the first biology funding office  to operate within the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA),  the Pentagon's avant-garde research arm. The Biological Technologies  Office (BTO), which opened in April 2014, aims to support extremely  ambitious ? some say fantastical ? technologies ranging from powered  exoskeletons for soldiers to brain implants that can control mental  disorders."We'll see how much of it actually works out (the article is somewhat sceptical of the DARPA approach), but it is nice to see colonels saying stuff like that. 


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From max at maxmore.com  Fri Jun 12 22:50:31 2015
From: max at maxmore.com (Max More)
Date: Fri, 12 Jun 2015 15:50:31 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <3917430966-10890@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAKTCJydYfdikL4vkD6cW0Cn6JGPmvumW1fbe_=ZBb6vPfxvg0Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <3917430966-10890@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAJX-7wXD1eSaosV9EkSCTiWfNex=zxmwssiTTiUm_dgZCgfr5Q@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:

> *Fr?n: * Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com>
>
> Anders, don't underestimate the Daily Mail, it's what the people out there
> read.
>
>
> That is my worry.
>

?Anders, I'm not clear about what you're saying. I assume you're worrying
that the *Daily Mail* is considered a major, reliable, primary source of
data for millions of people. That, indeed, is a cause for worry. But you
might also be saying that you're worried that people might read the *Daily
Mail's* positive coverage of Natasha et. al.'s c. elegans research and
believe it, which I would find puzzling. Or is there a nuance I'm missing?

--Max?




-- 

Max More, PhD
Strategic Philosopher
Co-editor, *The Transhumanist Reader*
http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1372225570&sr=1-1&keywords=the+transhumanist+reader
President & CEO, Alcor Life Extension Foundation
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From anders at aleph.se  Sat Jun 13 11:41:27 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 13:41:27 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <CAJX-7wXD1eSaosV9EkSCTiWfNex=zxmwssiTTiUm_dgZCgfr5Q@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <3971222559-603@secure.ericade.net>


From:   Max More <max at maxmore.com> 


 

On Fri, Jun 12, 2015 at 1:42 PM, Anders Sandberg <anders at aleph.se> wrote:



Fr?n:   Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> 

Anders, don't underestimate the Daily Mail, it's what the people out there read. 
That is my worry.




?Anders, I'm not clear about what you're saying. I assume you're worrying that the Daily Mail is considered a major, reliable, primary source of data for millions of people. That, indeed, is a cause for worry. But you might also be saying that you're worried that people might read the Daily Mail's positive coverage of Natasha et. al.'s c. elegans research and believe it, which I would find puzzling. Or is there a nuance I'm missing?


You know me: I worry that some people think the Daily Mail is an unbiased news source.?




Still, there is an interesting issue in the second possibility. When would we want breakthroughs in transhumanist technologies not to be widely mentioned? The standard case is when there will be a predictable moral outrage from some parties that may cause reaction. Sometimes flying under the radar is a good thing, as a technology becomes more refined and accepted by default. We have similar issues with talk about risks such as AI risk: some public recognition that there is a problem is OK, but most of the importance lies in having the AI community recognize this properly and be motivated to figure out proper solutions - we in the AI risk community are really balancing on a knife edge between being too quiet or accidentally risking triggering stupid overreactions (both from publics that may think AI must be stopped, and from AI people who think AI safety talk is stupid and must be stopped).?

However, adding credibility to a technology in small increments is rarely a bad thing.?

Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From pharos at gmail.com  Sat Jun 13 13:10:35 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Sat, 13 Jun 2015 14:10:35 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Natasha got quoted in the daily mall
In-Reply-To: <3971222559-603@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAJX-7wXD1eSaosV9EkSCTiWfNex=zxmwssiTTiUm_dgZCgfr5Q@mail.gmail.com>
 <3971222559-603@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armhVPzcyzoWhHb_0pV=R--YbsshvWrL8qHYre42q=5LPCQ@mail.gmail.com>

On 13 June 2015 at 12:41, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> You know me: I worry that some people think the Daily Mail is an unbiased
> news source.
>

There are some fun criticisms of the DM around.  :)

<http://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2014/oct/07/addictive-carcinogenic-daily-mail-spoof>
RationalWiki <http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Daily_Mail>


> Still, there is an interesting issue in the second possibility. When would
> we want breakthroughs in transhumanist technologies not to be widely
> mentioned? The standard case is when there will be a predictable moral
> outrage from some parties that may cause reaction. Sometimes flying under
> the radar is a good thing, as a technology becomes more refined and accepted
> by default. We have similar issues with talk about risks such as AI risk:
> some public recognition that there is a problem is OK, but most of the
> importance lies in having the AI community recognize this properly and be
> motivated to figure out proper solutions - we in the AI risk community are
> really balancing on a knife edge between being too quiet or accidentally
> risking triggering stupid overreactions (both from publics that may think AI
> must be stopped, and from AI people who think AI safety talk is stupid and
> must be stopped).
>
> However, adding credibility to a technology in small increments is rarely a
> bad thing.
>


Certainly all publicity is not good publicity.

If something appears in pseudoscience magazines or conspiracy theory
blogs, then it will get associated with such and only be supported by
'fringe' groups. Psi is a good example. Few mainstream scientists
would risk their career by working on psi.

The DM includes 'science' articles to give their paper a veneer of
respectability. Many of their 'science' articles are of dubious
quality. One example is their running campaign to show that everything
either causes or cures cancer (sometimes both).  :)

Once science becomes politicised then it becomes a right / left
battleground with biased arguments all around. See climate change,
etc.

BillK


From moulton at moulton.com  Sun Jun 14 17:37:47 2015
From: moulton at moulton.com (F. C. Moulton)
Date: Sun, 14 Jun 2015 10:37:47 -0700
Subject: [ExI] New podcast with Henson in it
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7YKZqDsV+uWGwWJQTA_DsNAKpdMjOx+4POnJDbCn8HMw@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7YKZqDsV+uWGwWJQTA_DsNAKpdMjOx+4POnJDbCn8HMw@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <557DBBEB.8050904@moulton.com>


I finally found time to listen. Covered a lot of ground in a relatively 
short podcast.

Fred

On 06/08/2015 05:39 PM, Keith Henson wrote:
> http://www.longecity.org/media/LongeCityPodcast_Henson2015_A01.mp3
>
> Came out fairly well.
>
> Keith
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>

-- 
F. C. Moulton
moulton at moulton.com


From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Jun 15 15:23:02 2015
From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc)
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 08:23:02 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry
Message-ID: <001201d0a77f$2c0f9bd0$842ed370$@natasha.cc>

Hello!

 

Does anyone know about the advances in biotechnology in Russia today and its
future?  Are the regulations still more flexible than in the US and
elsewhere?

 

Any knowledge you can impart is appreciated!

 

Thank you,

 

Natasha

 

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From ilia.stambler at gmail.com  Mon Jun 15 16:01:14 2015
From: ilia.stambler at gmail.com (Ilia Stambler)
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 19:01:14 +0300
Subject: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry
In-Reply-To: <001201d0a77f$2c0f9bd0$842ed370$@natasha.cc>
References: <001201d0a77f$2c0f9bd0$842ed370$@natasha.cc>
Message-ID: <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>

As far as it appears, the state of biotechnology and medical technology in
Russia is terrible (I include some references in Russian, as they were
easier to find). Some examples:



Most foreign biomedical technology was banned for import into Russia (by
the Russians themselves), and now new Russian analogs are being developed
(understandably of inferior quality) and tested on the Russian population.



http://daily.rbc.ru/investigation/economics/23/06/2014/54af1a389a794744819c108d



The use of any embryonic stem cells was banned by the government



http://izvestia.ru/news/546449



The law was passed to ban the use of any form of GMO in agriculture.



http://geektimes.ru/post/249666/



The ?Dynasty Foundation? that supported a lot of Russian science,
especially biomedical science, was recently branded as ?Foreign Agent?



http://www.newsru.com/russia/15jun2015/dynasty.html


Many hospitals and medical research institutes (including gerontological
research institutes) have been closed:


http://www.aif.ru/society/healthcare/1402197



There were some reports about some interesting biotechnological
developments in Russia, such as tissue 3D printing, and some other great
science done by heroic Russian scientists against all odds? Yet, overall it
does not seem to be a very favorable place for development?



On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 6:23 PM, <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:

> Hello!
>
>
>
> Does anyone know about the advances in biotechnology in Russia today and
> its future?  Are the regulations still more flexible than in the US and
> elsewhere?
>
>
>
> Any knowledge you can impart is appreciated!
>
>
>
> Thank you,
>
>
>
> Natasha
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>


-- 

Ilia Stambler, PhD


Outreach Coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease - ISOAD
http://isoad.org

Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / International Longevity Alliance
(Israel) - ILA http://www.bioaging.org.il

Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org

Author. Longevity History. *A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth
Century* http://longevityhistory.com



Email: ilia.stambler at gmail.com

Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578

Rishon Lezion. Israel
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From natasha at natasha.cc  Mon Jun 15 16:09:11 2015
From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc)
Date: Mon, 15 Jun 2015 09:09:11 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry
In-Reply-To: <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001201d0a77f$2c0f9bd0$842ed370$@natasha.cc>
 <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <003801d0a785$9e6d3330$db479990$@natasha.cc>

Hi Ilia,

 

Thank you for responding. This is precisely what I wanted to hear because in gathering data this morning, it makes Russia look like it is on par with some of the world?s leading countries. For example, In 2014, Moscow held the International Conference on ?Biotechnolgy and Quality of Life?, in 2015 ?Biotechnology: State of the Art and Prospect of  Development? and in 2016, ?Biotechnology in the economic development regions?. In 2015, Germany and Russia organized the 3rd Russian-German Forum on BioTech2015 on microbiology, gene engineering, biomedicine, and environmental biotechnology.  But the world leading countries are not Russia or the US. They are Malasia, India, Canada, Italy and Brazil.  According to one report, Russia ranks 18 out 50 of the most innovative countries in the world. In 2015, the top countries in Europe are the UK, Norway, Sweden, Germany and Czech Republic.

 

Thank you,

 

Natasha

___________________________________________

Natasha Vita-More, PhD

Professor, University of Advancing Technology

     Program Lead, Graduate Studies

Chair, Humanity+

Fellow, Institute of Ethics and Emerging Technology

Author,  <http://www.amazon.com/Transhumanist-Reader-Contemporary-Technology-Philosophy/dp/1118334310/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1433267085&sr=8-1&keywords=transhumanist+reader> The Transhumanist Reader

 

cover email

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Ilia Stambler
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 9:01 AM
To: ExI chat list
Cc: humanityplusboard at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry

 

As far as it appears, the state of biotechnology and medical technology in Russia is terrible (I include some references in Russian, as they were easier to find). Some examples:

 

Most foreign biomedical technology was banned for import into Russia (by the Russians themselves), and now new Russian analogs are being developed (understandably of inferior quality) and tested on the Russian population.

 

http://daily.rbc.ru/investigation/economics/23/06/2014/54af1a389a794744819c108d

 

The use of any embryonic stem cells was banned by the government

 

http://izvestia.ru/news/546449

 

The law was passed to ban the use of any form of GMO in agriculture.

 

http://geektimes.ru/post/249666/

 

The ?Dynasty Foundation? that supported a lot of Russian science, especially biomedical science, was recently branded as ?Foreign Agent?

 

http://www.newsru.com/russia/15jun2015/dynasty.html

 

Many hospitals and medical research institutes (including gerontological research institutes) have been closed:

 

http://www.aif.ru/society/healthcare/1402197

 

There were some reports about some interesting biotechnological developments in Russia, such as tissue 3D printing, and some other great science done by heroic Russian scientists against all odds? Yet, overall it does not seem to be a very favorable place for development?

 

 

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 6:23 PM, <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:

Hello!

 

Does anyone know about the advances in biotechnology in Russia today and its future?  Are the regulations still more flexible than in the US and elsewhere?

 

Any knowledge you can impart is appreciated!

 

Thank you,

 

Natasha

 


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat





 

-- 

Ilia Stambler, PhD

 

Outreach Coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease - ISOAD http://isoad.org <http://isoad.org/> 

Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / International Longevity Alliance (Israel) - ILA http://www.bioaging.org.il <http://www.bioaging.org.il/> 

Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org <http://www.longevityforall.org/> 

Author. Longevity History. A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century  <http://longevityhistory.com/> http://longevityhistory.com

 

Email:  <mailto:ilia.stambler at gmail.com> ilia.stambler at gmail.com

Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578

Rishon Lezion. Israel

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From pharos at gmail.com  Tue Jun 16 11:13:33 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 12:13:33 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
Message-ID: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>

Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
George Dvorsky   6/12/15

<http://io9.com/are-limited-lifespans-an-evolutionary-adaptation-1710634703>

Quotes:
By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a
research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex
Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss
Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that
evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are
scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The
simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals ? humans
included ? are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual
wear-and-tear. It?s a surprising result, one that gives added credence
to the burgeoning paradigm known as ?programmed aging.?

Without genetically programmed aging, he argues, animals wouldn?t be
able to leave sufficient resources for their offspring. And this holds
true for all animals, whether they be rabbits, dolphins, or humans.

Fascinatingly, group selection ? the idea that natural selection acts
at the group level ? was never a consideration in the model. Yet the
simulations consistently showed that a built-in life expectancy
emerged among the simulated organisms to preserve the integrity of
their species over time. This is surprising because a pro-group result
was produced via an individualized selectional process.

?Beyond a certain point of living longer, you over-exploit local
resources and leave reduced resources for your offspring that inhabit
the same area,? Bar-Yam said. ?And because of that, it turns out that
it?s better to have a specific lifespan than a lifespan of arbitrary
length. So, when it comes to the evolution of lifespans, the longest
possible lifespans are not selected for.?
------------

This new theory is still controversial and the article continues to
discuss the alternatives.
Aubrey de Grey also comments.

But I like it. Resource driven ageing via evolution just seems 'right'.

BillK



From natasha at natasha.cc  Tue Jun 16 20:50:17 2015
From: natasha at natasha.cc (natasha at natasha.cc)
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 13:50:17 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry
In-Reply-To: <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001201d0a77f$2c0f9bd0$842ed370$@natasha.cc>
 <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <007a01d0a876$0d595530$280bff90$@natasha.cc>

I was able to pick up a few ideas from your email, and thank you very much. But the articles are in Russian and I could not find a translation.

 

Best,

Natasha

 

From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Ilia Stambler
Sent: Monday, June 15, 2015 9:01 AM
To: ExI chat list
Cc: humanityplusboard at googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry

 

As far as it appears, the state of biotechnology and medical technology in Russia is terrible (I include some references in Russian, as they were easier to find). Some examples:

 

Most foreign biomedical technology was banned for import into Russia (by the Russians themselves), and now new Russian analogs are being developed (understandably of inferior quality) and tested on the Russian population.

 

http://daily.rbc.ru/investigation/economics/23/06/2014/54af1a389a794744819c108d

 

The use of any embryonic stem cells was banned by the government

 

http://izvestia.ru/news/546449

 

The law was passed to ban the use of any form of GMO in agriculture.

 

http://geektimes.ru/post/249666/

 

The ?Dynasty Foundation? that supported a lot of Russian science, especially biomedical science, was recently branded as ?Foreign Agent?

 

http://www.newsru.com/russia/15jun2015/dynasty.html

 

Many hospitals and medical research institutes (including gerontological research institutes) have been closed:

 

http://www.aif.ru/society/healthcare/1402197

 

There were some reports about some interesting biotechnological developments in Russia, such as tissue 3D printing, and some other great science done by heroic Russian scientists against all odds? Yet, overall it does not seem to be a very favorable place for development?

 

 

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015 at 6:23 PM, <natasha at natasha.cc> wrote:

Hello!

 

Does anyone know about the advances in biotechnology in Russia today and its future?  Are the regulations still more flexible than in the US and elsewhere?

 

Any knowledge you can impart is appreciated!

 

Thank you,

 

Natasha

 


_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat





 

-- 

Ilia Stambler, PhD

 

Outreach Coordinator. International Society on Aging and Disease - ISOAD http://isoad.org <http://isoad.org/> 

Chair. Israeli Longevity Alliance / International Longevity Alliance (Israel) - ILA http://www.bioaging.org.il <http://www.bioaging.org.il/> 

Coordinator. Longevity for All http://www.longevityforall.org <http://www.longevityforall.org/> 

Author. Longevity History. A History of Life-Extensionism in the Twentieth Century  <http://longevityhistory.com/> http://longevityhistory.com

 

Email:  <mailto:ilia.stambler at gmail.com> ilia.stambler at gmail.com

Tel: 972-3-961-4296 / 0522-283-578

Rishon Lezion. Israel

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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Wed Jun 17 00:21:44 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Tue, 16 Jun 2015 20:21:44 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry
In-Reply-To: <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <001201d0a77f$2c0f9bd0$842ed370$@natasha.cc>
 <CAJbwcBh1c9wvK_Pjonwn6QxZqXXNcVzOsg95K53LHxWUjnpXUQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv3EaJe8uDsrNYQ0if0F9ONT=wsWoCG0vek3v7YG+C_zyA@mail.gmail.com>

On Mon, Jun 15, 2015  Ilia Stambler <ilia.stambler at gmail.com> wrote:

> As far as it appears, the state of biotechnology and medical technology
> in Russia is terrible
>

Trofim Lysenko said that Mendelian genetics did not conform with Marxist
dogma and so caused geneticists in the USSR to be executed or forced into
exile, and that set back Russian biological science by about 50 years.

  John K Clark


>
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From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jun 18 14:18:00 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 16:18:00 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Regulators asked to consider ageing a treatable condition
Message-ID: <117789640-11511@secure.ericade.net>

Here is an interesting article in Nature. What appeals to me is not so much the science, but that they aim to get regulatory approval for seeing ageing as a potentially treatable condition. (See
http://www.healthspancampaign.org/2015/04/28/dr-nir-barzilai-on-the-tame-study/ for more details of the study). 

http://www.nature.com/news/anti-ageing-pill-pushed-as-bona-fide-drug-1.17769

Doctors and  scientists want drug regulators and research funding agencies to  consider medicines that delay ageing-related disease as legitimate  drugs. Such treatments have a physiological basis, researchers say, and  could extend a person?s healthy years by slowing down the processes that  underlie common diseases of ageing???making them worthy of government  approval. On 24?June, researchers will meet with regulators from the US  Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to make the case for a clinical trial  designed to show the validity of the approach. 
Current  treatments for diseases related to ageing ?just exchange one disease  for another?, says physician Nir Barzilai of the Albert Einstein College  of Medicine in New York. That is because people treated for one  age-related disease often go on to die from another relatively soon  thereafter. ?What we want to show is that if we delay ageing, that?s the  best way to delay disease.? 
Barzilai  and other researchers plan to test that notion in a clinical trial  called Targeting Aging with Metformin, or TAME. They will give the drug  metformin to thousands of?people who already have one or two of three  conditions???cancer, heart disease or cognitive impairment???or are at  risk of them. People with type 2 diabetes cannot be enrolled because  metformin is already used to treat that disease. The participants will  then be monitored to see whether the medication forestalls the illnesses  they do not already have, as well as diabetes and death. 
On  24 June, researchers will try to convince FDA officials that if the  trial succeeds, they will have proved that a drug can delay ageing. That  would set a precedent that ageing is a disorder that can be treated  with medicines, and perhaps spur progress and funding for ageing  research. 
During a meeting on 27 May at the US  National Institute on Aging (NIA) in Bethesda, Maryland, Robert Temple,  deputy director for clinical science at the FDA?s Center for Drug  Evaluation and Research, indicated that the agency is open to the idea. 
Barzilai and his colleagues eschew claims  of a quest for immortality, because they think that such assertions have  led to a perception that the field is frivolous and irresponsible. ?The  perception is that we are all looking for a fountain of youth,? says  Stephanie Lederman, executive director of the American Federation for  Aging Research in New York. ?We want to avoid that; what we?re trying to  do is increase health span, not look for eternal life.? 
Ageing research has hit bumps in the past decade, as companies marketing drugs touted to prolong life have gone bust (see Nature 464, 480?481; 2010).  But organizers of the TAME trial think that the field is now in a  better position because animal studies have shown that some drugs and  lifestyle practices can extend life by targeting physiological pathways1. 
For  instance, the NIA-sponsored Interventions Testing Program, in which  investigators at three sites are systematically trialling candidate  age-delay treatments, has shown that a handful of interventions  convincingly and reproducibly prolong the lives of various strains of  mice. Those include cutting down on calorie intake and taking a drug  called rapamycin that is used to prevent rejection of transplanted  organs. 
And researchers from the Novartis  Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, reported  in December that elderly people develop a stronger immune response to  an influenza vaccination if they also take a rapamycin-like drug2.  Rapamycin, which acts on a biological pathway involved in cell growth,  is now seen as one of the most promising drugs for delaying ageing, but  given over long periods of time it also suppresses the immune system. Safety first 
The  TAME test is for metformin, which suppresses glucose production by the  liver and increases sensitivity to insulin. The drug has been used for  more than 60 years and is safe and prolongs healthy life and lifespan in  worms3 and in some mouse strains1. Data also suggest that it could delay heart disease, cancer, cognitive decline and death in people with diabetes4.  Plans call for the trial to enrol 3,000?people aged 70?80?years at  roughly 15?centres around the United States. The trial will take 5?7  years and cost US$50?million, Barzilai estimates, although it does not  yet have funding. 
Matt Kaeberlein at the  University of Washington, Seattle, who is running a trial of rapamycin  in elderly dogs, says that the concept behind Barzilai?s trial is sound.  Even though other drugs might be more effective at delaying ageing in  animal studies, he says, the many years of experience with metformin in  people, combined with data suggesting that it impacts the ageing process  in people, make it a good candidate for a first clinical trial in the  field. 
?It?s a smart way to engage the FDA in a  discussion about recognizing ageing as an indication that is  appropriate for clinical trials,? Kaeberlein says. 
Nature
522,
265?266
(18 June 2015)
doi:10.1038/522265a



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jun 18 14:24:36 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 16:24:36 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <118068103-9056@secure.ericade.net>

I'm not convinced, I see far too much random sloppiness (a sign of lack of evolutionary pressure) underlying ageing rather than timer processes (where evolution would optimize a particular lifespan).

Still, given the evolutionary heuristic (http://www.nickbostrom.com/evolution.pdf), if their theory was true then we should be really happy as transhumanists! Because then we would be in a fairly clear-cut case of evolution having different goals than us, and enhancements of ageing would be less likely to have nasty side effects. If ageing is just the result of evolution not caring, then there may also not be any inherently bad side effects of fixing it, but we have far less reason to think there are simple underlying causes we can fix.

So I doubt their theory, but I would be happy to be disproven. 

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



 Fr?n:   BillK <pharos at gmail.com> 
 Till:   Extropy Chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> 
 Skickat:    2015-06-16 13:13 
 ?mne:   [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation? 

Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
George Dvorsky ? 6/12/15

<http://io9.com/are-limited-lifespans-an-evolutionary-adaptation-1710634703>

Quotes:
By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a
research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex
Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss
Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that
evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are
scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The
simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals ? humans
included ? are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual
wear-and-tear. It?s a surprising result, one that gives added credence
to the burgeoning paradigm known as ?programmed aging.?

Without genetically programmed aging, he argues, animals wouldn?t be
able to leave sufficient resources for their offspring. And this holds
true for all animals, whether they be rabbits, dolphins, or humans.

Fascinatingly, group selection ? the idea that natural selection acts
at the group level ? was never a consideration in the model. Yet the
simulations consistently showed that a built-in life expectancy
emerged among the simulated organisms to preserve the integrity of
their species over time. This is surprising because a pro-group result
was produced via an individualized selectional process.

?Beyond a certain point of living longer, you over-exploit local
resources and leave reduced resources for your offspring that inhabit
the same area,? Bar-Yam said. ?And because of that, it turns out that
it?s better to have a specific lifespan than a lifespan of arbitrary
length. So, when it comes to the evolution of lifespans, the longest
possible lifespans are not selected for.?
------------

This new theory is still controversial and the article continues to
discuss the alternatives.
Aubrey de Grey also comments.

But I like it. Resource driven ageing via evolution just seems 'right'.

BillK

_______________________________________________
extropy-chat mailing list
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat


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From anders at aleph.se  Thu Jun 18 14:28:53 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 16:28:53 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Question: Russia and Biotech Industry
In-Reply-To: <003801d0a785$9e6d3330$db479990$@natasha.cc>
Message-ID: <118517054-29175@secure.ericade.net>

Nature published some indices this week, 
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v522/n7556_supp/full/522S18a.html
and it is striking how Russia is a powerhouse in physical science but very weak in biology, Earth science and environmental science (by the standards of Eastern Europe). 



Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Thu Jun 18 23:42:23 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 19:42:23 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 7:13 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
> George Dvorsky   6/12/15
>
> <
> http://io9.com/are-limited-lifespans-an-evolutionary-adaptation-1710634703
> >
>
> Quotes:
> By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a
> research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex
> Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss
> Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that
> evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are
> scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The
> simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals ? humans
> included ? are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual
> wear-and-tear. It?s a surprising result, one that gives added credence
> to the burgeoning paradigm known as ?programmed aging.?
>
> Without genetically programmed aging, he argues, animals wouldn?t be
> able to leave sufficient resources for their offspring. And this holds
> true for all animals, whether they be rabbits, dolphins, or humans.
>
> Fascinatingly, group selection ? the idea that natural selection acts
> at the group level ? was never a consideration in the model. Yet the
> simulations consistently showed that a built-in life expectancy
> emerged among the simulated organisms to preserve the integrity of
> their species over time. This is surprising because a pro-group result
> was produced via an individualized selectional process.
>
> ?Beyond a certain point of living longer, you over-exploit local
> resources and leave reduced resources for your offspring that inhabit
> the same area,? Bar-Yam said. ?And because of that, it turns out that
> it?s better to have a specific lifespan than a lifespan of arbitrary
> length. So, when it comes to the evolution of lifespans, the longest
> possible lifespans are not selected for.?
> ------------
>
> This new theory is still controversial and the article continues to
> discuss the alternatives.
> Aubrey de Grey also comments.
>
> But I like it. Resource driven ageing via evolution just seems 'right'.
>

### Sounds like complete nonsense. You can produce arbitrary results in
complex models by fiddling with your parameters, so this modeling effort is
not evidence of anything.

There are a few known examples of predetermined lifespans (e.g. mayflies,
bamboo) but these are not related to aging, and are not applicable to
humans. Humans only infrequently age under natural conditions, the vast
majority die long before aging sets in, so any evolved mechanism actively
killing old humans as an adaptation would very quickly be removed by random
genetic drift (just like skin pigment disappears in cave-dwelling animals -
it's not an active adaptation but rather lack of selective pressure needed
to maintain the genes for pigmentation).

In modeling, GIGO reigns supreme.

Rafa?
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From pharos at gmail.com  Fri Jun 19 09:05:43 2015
From: pharos at gmail.com (BillK)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 10:05:43 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <118068103-9056@secure.ericade.net>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <118068103-9056@secure.ericade.net>
Message-ID: <CAL_armgOpHkuUSvipWRDaHH30tGR47c9G97YmLX+fsooOaAV3w@mail.gmail.com>

On 18 June 2015 at 15:24, Anders Sandberg  wrote:
> I'm not convinced, I see far too much random sloppiness (a sign of lack of
> evolutionary pressure) underlying ageing rather than timer processes (where
> evolution would optimize a particular lifespan).
>
> Still, given the evolutionary heuristic
> (http://www.nickbostrom.com/evolution.pdf), if their theory was true then we
> should be really happy as transhumanists! Because then we would be in a
> fairly clear-cut case of evolution having different goals than us, and
> enhancements of ageing would be less likely to have nasty side effects. If
> ageing is just the result of evolution not caring, then there may also not
> be any inherently bad side effects of fixing it, but we have far less reason
> to think there are simple underlying causes we can fix.
>
> So I doubt their theory, but I would be happy to be disproven.
>

Yes, it is controversial. All they have is very neat computer
simulations matching ageing to resources.

But as the article points out, there are problems with the two other
theories of why humans age.
The ?mutation accumulation? theory, where the repair mechanism wears
out and the ?antagonistic pleiotropy? theory, where traits that are
beneficial in early life are detrimental in later life.

The simulation shows "evolution favors shorter lifespans in
environments where resources are scarce and when pressures to
procreate are particularly intense". That might well not be the
complete answer. But traits that benefit species survival rather than
individuals seem likely.

Assuming a species had a very long lifespan, then what might the results be?
Reproduction beyond the capacity of the environment to support them is
obvious, (boom and bust) so that would be a limiting factor. Long-life
species would grow to match their environment and become slow
reproducers, so they would have less evolution. A change in the
environment would wipe them out.

In the continually changing early world environment, there would be no
evolutionary benefit to very long lifespan. Now that we are finding
genes that appear to affect ageing, we may soon be able to switch
these genes off and extend lifespan.


BillK



From anders at aleph.se  Fri Jun 19 13:36:24 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:36:24 +0200
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgOpHkuUSvipWRDaHH30tGR47c9G97YmLX+fsooOaAV3w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <201795022-7522@secure.ericade.net>



 Fr?n:   BillK <pharos at gmail.com> 
? 
Yes, it is controversial. All they have is very neat computer
simulations matching ageing to resources.

But as the article points out, there are problems with the two other
theories of why humans age.
The ?mutation accumulation? theory, where the repair mechanism wears
out and the ?antagonistic pleiotropy? theory, where traits that are
beneficial in early life are detrimental in later life.

Yes, but neither are the leading theory of ageing! The disposable soma theory seems to be the mainstream one. It encompasses limited mutation correction and antagonistic pleiotropy, but goes beyond them. 


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

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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Fri Jun 19 14:42:09 2015
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 07:42:09 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation? (BillK)
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB7nPb-20A0RC5AiDi6poQQXTbcG8haLp65N_d93vGkUaQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:00 AM,   BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

snip

> The simulation shows "evolution favors shorter lifespans in
> environments where resources are scarce and when pressures to
> procreate are particularly intense".

That's not surprising, but what is known with small stature races
(pigmies) is that the growth process is chopped off by early sexual
maturity.  Apparently the environment they are in kills them at a rate
that requires early reproduction.

> That might well not be the
> complete answer. But traits that benefit species survival rather than
> individuals seem likely.

This has been logically dismissed by Dawkins and company back in the
70s.  Genes induce individuals to things that result in the survival
and propagation of genes.  End of story.  Our social nature seems to
lead us to account for the world in terms of "traits that benefit
species survival" but this completely fails to pass a logical
examination.  "Hamilton's rule" does not change this.

> Assuming a species had a very long lifespan, then what might the results be?
> Reproduction beyond the capacity of the environment to support them is
> obvious, (boom and bust) so that would be a limiting factor. Long-life
> species would grow to match their environment and become slow
> reproducers, so they would have less evolution. A change in the
> environment would wipe them out.

"Reproduction beyond the capacity" is just a feature of living things,
rabbits, elephants and humans alike.  If they did not have excess
reproductive capacity, they would not recover from an environmental
glitch.

> In the continually changing early world environment, there would be no
> evolutionary benefit to very long lifespan.

That's not the case for humans, and it seems possible that relatively
rare events where the very old knew what could be eaten in a famine
drove humans living into an advance age where their knowledge was
critical to the survival of their close relatives.  Another factor is
grandmothers directly contributing to raising children.

> Now that we are finding
> genes that appear to affect ageing, we may soon be able to switch
> these genes off and extend lifespan.

That may be true regardless of the origin.

Keith


From rex at nosyntax.net  Fri Jun 19 15:26:48 2015
From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 08:26:48 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation? (BillK)
In-Reply-To: <CAPiwVB7nPb-20A0RC5AiDi6poQQXTbcG8haLp65N_d93vGkUaQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAPiwVB7nPb-20A0RC5AiDi6poQQXTbcG8haLp65N_d93vGkUaQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20150619152648.GR12068@nosyntax.net>

Keith Henson <hkeithhenson at gmail.com> [2015-06-19 07:43]:
> On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:00 AM,   BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> snip
> 
> > The simulation shows "evolution favors shorter lifespans in
> > environments where resources are scarce and when pressures to
> > procreate are particularly intense".
> 
> That's not surprising, but what is known with small stature races
> (pigmies) is that the growth process is chopped off by early sexual
> maturity.  Apparently the environment they are in kills them at a rate
> that requires early reproduction.

Well, short stature apparently has a selective advantage there, but
that doesn't imply they would disappear if the gene(s) for short
stature disappeared. Remember, genes are advantageous, or not, in
the context of other genes.

> > That might well not be the
> > complete answer. But traits that benefit species survival rather than
> > individuals seem likely.
> 
> This has been logically dismissed by Dawkins and company back in the
> 70s.  Genes induce individuals to things that result in the survival
> and propagation of genes.  End of story.

I wish. The group selectionist camp isn't going to quit beating their
war drums anytime soon, and even E.O. Wilson recently converted to
belief in group selection.

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/the-group-selection-dustup-continues-e-o-wilson-calls-richard-dawkins-a-journalist/

> Our social nature seems to
> lead us to account for the world in terms of "traits that benefit
> species survival" but this completely fails to pass a logical
> examination.  "Hamilton's rule" does not change this.

No, it doesn't "completely fail," and that's the problem. There are
restrictive conditions under which group selection can theoretically
arise. These conditions are rigorous enough that demonstrating real
examples of group selection has been elusive, but their theoretical
possibility leads its advocates on the holy quest (sadly, more and
more "science" is taking on the trappings of religion).

-rex
--


From rex at nosyntax.net  Fri Jun 19 16:58:11 2015
From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 09:58:11 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20150619165811.GS12068@nosyntax.net>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> [2015-06-18 16:43]:
>    On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 7:13 AM, BillK <[1]pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>      Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
>      George Dvorsky? ?6/12/15
> 
      http://io9.com/are-limited-lifespans-an-evolutionary-adaptation-1710634703
> 
>      Quotes:
>      By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a
>      research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex
>      Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss
>      Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that
>      evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are
>      scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The
>      simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals ? humans
>      included ? are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual
>      wear-and-tear. It?s a surprising result, one that gives added credence
>      to the burgeoning paradigm known as ?programmed aging.?

>      ------------
> 
>      This new theory is still controversial and the article continues to
>      discuss the alternatives.
>      Aubrey de Grey also comments.
> 
>      But I like it. Resource driven ageing via evolution just seems 'right'.
> 
>    ### Sounds like complete nonsense. You can produce arbitrary results in
>    complex models by fiddling with your parameters, so this modeling effort
>    is not evidence of anything.

Impossible to tell without actual code. The main paper is paywalled,
and probably doesn't have code anyway.

>    There are a few known examples of predetermined lifespans (e.g. mayflies,
>    bamboo) but these are not related to aging, and are not applicable to
>    humans. Humans only infrequently age under natural conditions, the vast
>    majority die long before aging sets in, so any evolved mechanism actively
>    killing old humans as an adaptation would very quickly be removed by
>    random genetic drift (just like skin pigment disappears in cave-dwelling
>    animals - it's not an active adaptation but rather lack of selective
>    pressure needed to maintain the genes for pigmentation).

Whoa! What definition of aging are you using? In the serious human
models I've seen, humans age markedly, and this fact is reflected in
the human life table. John Graunt's table is the oldest I've
seen. Some birds, notably seabirds, were long thought not to age
because they had an apparently constant rate of death, but recent
careful work shows that they do eventually start to age.

Graunt's table is below.

"76, we, having seven Decads between six and 76, we sought six
mean proportional numbers between 64, the remainer, living at six
years, and the one, which survives 76, and finde, that the numbers
following are practically near enough to the truth; for men do not
die in exact Proportions, nor in Fractions: from when arises this
Table following.
 Viz. of 100 there
                              The fourth            6
dies
within the first six
                      36      The next              4
years
The next ten years,
                              The next              3
or
Decad                 24      The next              2

The second Decad       15       The next               1
The third Decad        09
  10. From whence it follows, that of the said 100 conceived there
remains alive at six years end 64.
  At Sixteen years
                       40       At Fifty six           6
end
At Twenty six          25       At Sixty six           3
At Tirty six           16       At Seventy six         1
At Fourty six          10       At Eight               0
  11. It follows also, that of all, which have been conceived, there
are now alive 40 per Cent. above sixteen years old, 25 above twenty
six years old, & sic deinceps, as in the above Table: there are
therefore of Aged between 16, and 56, the number of 40, less by six,
viz. 34; of between 26, and 66, the number of 25 less by three, viz.
22: sic deniceps.
Wherefore, supposing there be 199112 Males, and the number
between 16, and 56, being 34. It follows, there are 34 per Cent. of
all those Males fighting Men in London, that is 67694, viz. near
70000: the truth whereof I leave to examination, only the 1/5. of
67694, viz. 13539. is to be added for Westminster, Step{62}
ney, Lambeth, and the other distant Parishes, making in all 81233
fighting Men.
  12. The next enquiry shall be, In how long time the City of
London shall, by the ordinary proportion of Breeding, and Dying,
double its breeding People. I answer in about seven years, and
(Plagues considered) eight. Wherefore since there be 24000 pair of
Breeders, that is 1/8. of the whole, it follows, that in eight times
eight years the whole People of the City shall double without the
access of Foreigners: the which contradicts not our Accompt of its
growing from two to five in 56 years with such accesses.
  13. According to the this proportion, one couple viz. Adam and
Eve, doubling themselves every 64 years of the 5610 years, which is
the age of the World according to the Scriptures, shall produce far
more People, than are now in it. Wherefore the World is not above
100 thousand years, old as some vainly Imagine, nor above what the
Scripture makes it.

-rex
--


From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 19 18:28:05 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:28:05 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armgOpHkuUSvipWRDaHH30tGR47c9G97YmLX+fsooOaAV3w@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <118068103-9056@secure.ericade.net>
 <CAL_armgOpHkuUSvipWRDaHH30tGR47c9G97YmLX+fsooOaAV3w@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFjh_ee5=AhuPaJK0cp8Mx0kj+FYEv0PYUFtk9Ni3vsnYw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 5:05 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> The ?mutation accumulation? theory, where the repair mechanism wears
> out and the ?antagonistic pleiotropy? theory, where traits that are
> beneficial in early life are detrimental in later life.
>

### I don't know about any specific problems with these theories,
especially the mutation accumulation one. Do you?
 ----------

>
> The simulation shows "evolution favors shorter lifespans in
> environments where resources are scarce and when pressures to
> procreate are particularly intense". That might well not be the
> complete answer. But traits that benefit species survival rather than
> individuals seem likely.
>

### What evolves is not "genes for shorter lifespan" but rather "absence of
genes for long lifespan" - this is an important mechanistic distinction
which those population-level simulations completely miss.
----------

>
> Assuming a species had a very long lifespan, then what might the results
> be?
> Reproduction beyond the capacity of the environment to support them is
> obvious, (boom and bust) so that would be a limiting factor. Long-life
> species would grow to match their environment and become slow
> reproducers, so they would have less evolution. A change in the
> environment would wipe them out.
>

### That's why long-lived species do not usually evolve in environments
with frequent environmental change, unless they are highly adaptable. The
arrow of causation goes from the environment, which co-defines the range of
the possible, to phenotypes, which fill in the space of possibilities. You
can't start your analysis at "Assuming very long lifespan ...", you need to
start at "Assuming the conditions allow long survival..."


>
> In the continually changing early world environment, there would be no
> evolutionary benefit to very long lifespan.


### And generally no benefit from having evolved genes actively limiting
lifespan - the changes in environment would wipe out individuals long
before they had the opportunity to use such genes.

The alleles that shorten human lifespan (and obviously there are many) are
all side-effects of evolution under conditions where long survival is
uncommon, not evolved adaptations against long survival.

Rafa?
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Fri Jun 19 18:42:53 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:42:53 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <20150619165811.GS12068@nosyntax.net>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20150619165811.GS12068@nosyntax.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFiRqpqPzhvoO-HkAHso9kDvD=9SMgVcu1yvOb+CLgx_DQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 12:58 PM, rex <rex at nosyntax.net> wrote:
>
> >
> >    ### Sounds like complete nonsense. You can produce arbitrary results
> in
> >    complex models by fiddling with your parameters, so this modeling
> effort
> >    is not evidence of anything.
>
> Impossible to tell without actual code. The main paper is paywalled,
> and probably doesn't have code anyway.
>

### Well, they produced results flying in the face of reality, so it's a
good guess they screwed up.

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


>
> >    There are a few known examples of predetermined lifespans (e.g.
> mayflies,
> >    bamboo) but these are not related to aging, and are not applicable to
> >    humans. Humans only infrequently age under natural conditions, the
> vast
> >    majority die long before aging sets in, so any evolved mechanism
> actively
> >    killing old humans as an adaptation would very quickly be removed by
> >    random genetic drift (just like skin pigment disappears in
> cave-dwelling
> >    animals - it's not an active adaptation but rather lack of selective
> >    pressure needed to maintain the genes for pigmentation).
>
> Whoa! What definition of aging are you using? In the serious human
> models I've seen, humans age markedly, and this fact is reflected in
> the human life table. John Graunt's table is the oldest I've
> seen. Some birds, notably seabirds, were long thought not to age
> because they had an apparently constant rate of death, but recent
> careful work shows that they do eventually start to age.


### Sorry for the simplification - of course, humans do age from the moment
of conception but what I meant is that under natural conditions we hardly
ever age enough to be killed by aging. Humans are killed by predation (both
micro- and macro-predation, including intraspecies predation) and by
accidents of the environment, most notably famine.

And yes, eventually every creature would age enough to die from it, given
protection from predators and accidents, simply because it's impossible to
resist the second law forever.

Rafal
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From rex at nosyntax.net  Fri Jun 19 22:45:20 2015
From: rex at nosyntax.net (rex)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:45:20 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAAc1gFiRqpqPzhvoO-HkAHso9kDvD=9SMgVcu1yvOb+CLgx_DQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20150619165811.GS12068@nosyntax.net>
 <CAAc1gFiRqpqPzhvoO-HkAHso9kDvD=9SMgVcu1yvOb+CLgx_DQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <20150619224520.GU12068@nosyntax.net>

Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> [2015-06-19 11:43]:
>    On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 12:58 PM, rex <[1]rex at nosyntax.net> wrote:
> 
>      Impossible to tell without actual code. The main paper is paywalled,
>      and probably doesn't have code anyway.
> 
>    ### Well, they produced results flying in the face of reality, so it's a
>    good guess they screwed up.

How can you be sure without the numerical details? Trying to verbally
model complex systems that have multiple positive and negative
feedback loops and phase delays is futile, IMO. My bet/WAG is that a
suitable quantitative sim will show what the paper claims is
theoretically possible. If so, then it becomes a search for real
examples which -- like group selection -- are few and far between.

> 
>      Whoa! What definition of aging are you using? In the serious human
>      models I've seen, humans age markedly, and this fact is reflected in
>      the human life table. John Graunt's table is the oldest I've
>      seen. Some birds, notably seabirds, were long thought not to age
>      because they had an apparently constant rate of death, but recent
>      careful work shows that they do eventually start to age.
> 
>    ### Sorry for the simplification - of course, humans do age from the
>    moment of conception but what I meant is that under natural conditions we
>    hardly ever age enough to be killed by aging. Humans are killed by
>    predation (both micro- and macro-predation, including intraspecies
>    predation) and by accidents of the environment, most notably famine.
>    And yes, eventually every creature would age enough to die from it, given
>    protection from predators and accidents, simply because it's impossible to
>    resist the second law forever.


But what's aging "enough"? Reaction times slow, digestion efficiency decreases,
muscles weaken, etc. One day something dire happens that would have been a near
miss yesterday.

Bottom line, my bet is that a good quantitative sim will show aging is
an important factor for some values of the parameters. We can't know
without the code.

-rex
--


From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Fri Jun 19 22:47:12 2015
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 23:47:12 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.1.1434715202.5622.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.1.1434715202.5622.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <55849BF0.5060706@yahoo.com>


BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, it is controversial. All they have is very neat computer
> simulations matching ageing to resources.
>
> But as the article points out, there are problems with the two other
> theories of why humans age.
> The ?mutation accumulation? theory, where the repair mechanism wears
> out and the ?antagonistic pleiotropy? theory, where traits that are
> beneficial in early life are detrimental in later life.
>

There are more than just three theories, but personally, I'm pretty 
convinced that ageing is best viewed as simply entropy.  Even if repair 
mechanisms work perfectly, there will be things that can't be repaired, 
and an accumulation of damage will eventually take its toll.  The only 
real long-term solution is complete replacement with new parts.

Ben Zaiboc


From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jun 20 09:24:10 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 05:24:10 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <20150619224520.GU12068@nosyntax.net>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20150619165811.GS12068@nosyntax.net>
 <CAAc1gFiRqpqPzhvoO-HkAHso9kDvD=9SMgVcu1yvOb+CLgx_DQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20150619224520.GU12068@nosyntax.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFgt181haX3PWbZb0r=r2tPTLt4t84OfPpSB=HKKvOiv+A@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:45 PM, rex <rex at nosyntax.net> wrote:

> Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com> [2015-06-19 11:43]:
> >    On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 12:58 PM, rex <[1]rex at nosyntax.net> wrote:
> >
> >      Impossible to tell without actual code. The main paper is paywalled,
> >      and probably doesn't have code anyway.
> >
> >    ### Well, they produced results flying in the face of reality, so
> it's a
> >    good guess they screwed up.
>
> How can you be sure without the numerical details? Trying to verbally
> model complex systems that have multiple positive and negative
> feedback loops and phase delays is futile, IMO. My bet/WAG is that a
> suitable quantitative sim will show what the paper claims is
> theoretically possible. If so, then it becomes a search for real
> examples which -- like group selection -- are few and far between.
>

### Now, you make an important point - the article itself may be formally
correct but the implications for actual biological systems, and especially
for humans, may be minuscule or absent. When I say they screwed up (which
is an educated guess on my part, not certainty), I mean they failed to
model human evolution, although they may have been quite successful at
modeling the evolution of pixels on a screen.


>
> >    And yes, eventually every creature would age enough to die from it,
> given
> >    protection from predators and accidents, simply because it's
> impossible to
> >    resist the second law forever.
>
>
> But what's aging "enough"? Reaction times slow, digestion efficiency
> decreases,
> muscles weaken, etc. One day something dire happens that would have been a
> near
> miss yesterday.
>

### An un-aged human usually does not die from internal problems, but
almost exclusively (under natural conditions) from external stressors. The
aged have a multitude of internal processes, not obviously related to any
external influences, that kill them. A deadly cancer may happen at any age
but the older you are the more likely it is.

Rafa?
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From rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com  Sat Jun 20 10:15:28 2015
From: rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com (Rafal Smigrodzki)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 06:15:28 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <20150619224520.GU12068@nosyntax.net>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAAc1gFhXkxPmz0YS1YZTCOMCotCd7dV+EX2+eKoaaTSkhSx35g@mail.gmail.com>
 <20150619165811.GS12068@nosyntax.net>
 <CAAc1gFiRqpqPzhvoO-HkAHso9kDvD=9SMgVcu1yvOb+CLgx_DQ@mail.gmail.com>
 <20150619224520.GU12068@nosyntax.net>
Message-ID: <CAAc1gFhxvuEM=Zc8irXbCHJ8q43BtNe5UnuYFsfjHNgbxs+uiw@mail.gmail.com>

On Fri, Jun 19, 2015 at 6:45 PM, rex <rex at nosyntax.net> wrote:

>
> How can you be sure without the numerical details? Trying to verbally
> model complex systems that have multiple positive and negative
> feedback loops and phase delays is futile, IMO. My bet/WAG is that a
> suitable quantitative sim will show what the paper claims is
> theoretically possible. If so, then it becomes a search for real
> examples which -- like group selection -- are few and far between.


### Here is another reason I am skeptical about the article:

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/the-math-that-shows-humans-could-live-ten-times-longer

Really, looks like to author might have been looking for a reason to
bolster hope for human life extension. What kind of assumptions did they
make?

Here is the pdf:

http://www.necsi.edu/research/evoeco/programmed.pdf

The model itself is very simple but the authors claim that it is robust to
a number of variations (see page 4), of which I would feel the most
important one is the ability of the organisms to adjust consumption and
procreation rather than mortality. I find this very surprising - an
organism that adjusts procreation rather than mortality should get all the
benefits of mortality (i.e. increased resource availability) without the
individual penalties. They do mention that the model breaks with long-range
mixing of population but humans under normal conditions did not have
long-range mixing, so this is not an argument against application to humans.

Again, my biggest doubt about the applicability of this model to human
aging is that humans do not die of aging under natural conditions, so aging
could not have been strongly selected for or against.

Rafa?
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From johnkclark at gmail.com  Sat Jun 20 16:25:11 2015
From: johnkclark at gmail.com (John Clark)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 12:25:11 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAJPayv2g2MP+TPypiuVyuFXertOoasot0QMH+0E4LiD2sEVsBQ@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015  BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Assuming a species had a very long lifespan, then what might the results
> be?


A mutation would happen to a gene in one individual that caused it to
devote more of its bodies finite resources to reproduction and away from
long term maintenance; the result would be a individual that had a shorter
lifetime but had more children, and so the mutated gene for this would soon
spread through the population. However if the lifetime was too short the
individual would die before it could care for its young children and so
would have no grandchildren. Evolution must find a good compromise between
maintenance and reproduction that passes the most genes into the next
generations.

  John K Clark







Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
> George Dvorsky   6/12/15
>
> <
> http://io9.com/are-limited-lifespans-an-evolutionary-adaptation-1710634703
> >
>
> Quotes:
> By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a
> research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex
> Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss
> Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that
> evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are
> scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The
> simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals ? humans
> included ? are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual
> wear-and-tear. It?s a surprising result, one that gives added credence
> to the burgeoning paradigm known as ?programmed aging.?
>
> Without genetically programmed aging, he argues, animals wouldn?t be
> able to leave sufficient resources for their offspring. And this holds
> true for all animals, whether they be rabbits, dolphins, or humans.
>
> Fascinatingly, group selection ? the idea that natural selection acts
> at the group level ? was never a consideration in the model. Yet the
> simulations consistently showed that a built-in life expectancy
> emerged among the simulated organisms to preserve the integrity of
> their species over time. This is surprising because a pro-group result
> was produced via an individualized selectional process.
>
> ?Beyond a certain point of living longer, you over-exploit local
> resources and leave reduced resources for your offspring that inhabit
> the same area,? Bar-Yam said. ?And because of that, it turns out that
> it?s better to have a specific lifespan than a lifespan of arbitrary
> length. So, when it comes to the evolution of lifespans, the longest
> possible lifespans are not selected for.?
> ------------
>
> This new theory is still controversial and the article continues to
> discuss the alternatives.
> Aubrey de Grey also comments.
>
> But I like it. Resource driven ageing via evolution just seems 'right'.
>
> BillK
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
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From hkeithhenson at gmail.com  Sat Jun 20 17:34:42 2015
From: hkeithhenson at gmail.com (Keith Henson)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 10:34:42 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
Message-ID: <CAPiwVB5Ngtd7b9vvT6mW8J0+shVeN8merynCOT6KNrfjSQugPA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 5:00 AM,  rex <rex at nosyntax.net> wrote:

(Keith)

>> That's not surprising, but what is known with small stature races
>> (pigmies) is that the growth process is chopped off by early sexual
>> maturity.  Apparently the environment they are in kills them at a rate
>> that requires early reproduction.
>
> Well, short stature apparently has a selective advantage there,

I don't think so.  Short stature seems to be a side effect of
selection for early sexual maturity.

snip

>> > But traits that benefit species survival rather than
>> > individuals seem likely.
>>
>> This has been logically dismissed by Dawkins and company back in the
>> 70s.  Genes induce individuals to things that result in the survival
>> and propagation of genes.  End of story.
>
> I wish. The group selectionist camp isn't going to quit beating their
> war drums anytime soon, and even E.O. Wilson recently converted to
> belief in group selection.
>
> https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2014/11/07/the-group-selection-dustup-continues-e-o-wilson-calls-richard-dawkins-a-journalist/
>
>> Our social nature seems to
>> lead us to account for the world in terms of "traits that benefit
>> species survival" but this completely fails to pass a logical
>> examination.  "Hamilton's rule" does not change this.
>
> No, it doesn't "completely fail," and that's the problem. There are
> restrictive conditions under which group selection can theoretically
> arise. These conditions are rigorous enough that demonstrating real
> examples of group selection has been elusive,

That's close enough to "completely fail" for me.

> but their theoretical
> possibility leads its advocates on the holy quest (sadly, more and
> more "science" is taking on the trappings of religion).

True.  And some of the battles such as over the effects of CO2 are
completely stupid from my point of view.  Running out of cheap energy
will kill far more people and much sooner than any changes in the
climate.  Of course actually solving for cheap energy is only part of
the problem.  You have to cope with people who are convinced it is the
moral duty of people to die back to pre industrial numbers.

Keith


From foozler83 at gmail.com  Sat Jun 20 18:11:17 2015
From: foozler83 at gmail.com (William Flynn Wallace)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 13:11:17 -0500
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <CAJPayv2g2MP+TPypiuVyuFXertOoasot0QMH+0E4LiD2sEVsBQ@mail.gmail.com>
References: <CAL_armhZVEwxoJ60=+Go=yhYW+xX7n8gccwaD_SWvqc7b1dcrg@mail.gmail.com>
 <CAJPayv2g2MP+TPypiuVyuFXertOoasot0QMH+0E4LiD2sEVsBQ@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <CAO+xQEav4FmfewP0BQu5586L+UXA6AA5+O6FAp+rJN6zio6MdA@mail.gmail.com>

On Sat, Jun 20, 2015 at 11:25 AM, John Clark <johnkclark at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jun 16, 2015  BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Assuming a species had a very long lifespan, then what might the results
>> be?
>
>
> A mutation would happen to a gene in one individual that caused it to
> devote more of its bodies finite resources to reproduction and away from
> long term maintenance; the result would be a individual that had a shorter
> lifetime but had more children, and so the mutated gene for this would soon
> spread through the population. However if the lifetime was too short the
> individual would die before it could care for its young children and so
> would have no grandchildren. Evolution must find a good compromise between
> maintenance and reproduction that passes the most genes into the next
> generations.
>
>   John K Clark
>
> ?One result may be more deformed babies, resulting from deformed sperm, a
problem after a man's late 30s.

bill w?


>
>
>
>
>
>
> Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
>> George Dvorsky   6/12/15
>>
>> <
>> http://io9.com/are-limited-lifespans-an-evolutionary-adaptation-1710634703
>> >
>>
>> Quotes:
>> By running variations of their model hundreds of thousands of times, a
>> research team led by Yaneer Bar-Yam from the New England Complex
>> Systems Institute (NECSI), in collaboration with the Harvard Wyss
>> Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, observed that
>> evolution favors shorter lifespans in environments where resources are
>> scarce and when pressures to procreate are particularly intense. The
>> simulations appeared to show that lifespans of animals ? humans
>> included ? are genetically conditioned, and not the result of gradual
>> wear-and-tear. It?s a surprising result, one that gives added credence
>> to the burgeoning paradigm known as ?programmed aging.?
>>
>> Without genetically programmed aging, he argues, animals wouldn?t be
>> able to leave sufficient resources for their offspring. And this holds
>> true for all animals, whether they be rabbits, dolphins, or humans.
>>
>> Fascinatingly, group selection ? the idea that natural selection acts
>> at the group level ? was never a consideration in the model. Yet the
>> simulations consistently showed that a built-in life expectancy
>> emerged among the simulated organisms to preserve the integrity of
>> their species over time. This is surprising because a pro-group result
>> was produced via an individualized selectional process.
>>
>> ?Beyond a certain point of living longer, you over-exploit local
>> resources and leave reduced resources for your offspring that inhabit
>> the same area,? Bar-Yam said. ?And because of that, it turns out that
>> it?s better to have a specific lifespan than a lifespan of arbitrary
>> length. So, when it comes to the evolution of lifespans, the longest
>> possible lifespans are not selected for.?
>> ------------
>>
>> This new theory is still controversial and the article continues to
>> discuss the alternatives.
>> Aubrey de Grey also comments.
>>
>> But I like it. Resource driven ageing via evolution just seems 'right'.
>>
>> BillK
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> extropy-chat mailing list
>> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
>> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> extropy-chat mailing list
> extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org
> http://lists.extropy.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/extropy-chat
>
>
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From spike66 at att.net  Sun Jun 21 04:36:28 2015
From: spike66 at att.net (spike)
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 21:36:28 -0700
Subject: [ExI] new horizons
Message-ID: <005801d0abdb$d9fdc9a0$8df95ce0$@att.net>

 

Reading about the New Horizons flyby of Pluto coming up in about 4 weeks, I
was reminded of when NH was launched over nine years ago, the kinds of
things I was thinking about, our discussions of it here on ExI-chat.  My
bride was 3 months pregnant then, and we were hoping it would go full term
(success!)  I recall at the time how my life would be nine and half years
into the future, what would be going on, etc.  It was worth the wait.

 

Happy solstice everyone!

 

spike

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From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sun Jun 21 13:55:23 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2015 06:55:23 -0700
Subject: [ExI] new horizons
In-Reply-To: <005801d0abdb$d9fdc9a0$8df95ce0$@att.net>
References: <005801d0abdb$d9fdc9a0$8df95ce0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <08E543A5-6518-4139-96D0-CAE1A2D7C9B8@gmail.com>

On Jun 20, 2015, at 9:36 PM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Reading about the New Horizons flyby of Pluto coming up in about 4 weeks, I was reminded of when NH was launched over nine years ago, the kinds of things I was thinking about, our discussions of it here on ExI-chat.  My bride was 3 months pregnant then, and we were hoping it would go full term (success!)  I recall at the time how my life would be nine and half years into the future, what would be going on, etc.  It was worth the wait.
>  
> Happy solstice everyone!

I recall someone saying the mission would be a total waste because the Singularity would happen before the probe reached Pluto. I guess there's still a chance they might be right. ;)

Regards,

Dan
 Sample my Kindle books via:
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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From bbenzai at yahoo.com  Sun Jun 21 14:18:50 2015
From: bbenzai at yahoo.com (Ben)
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2015 15:18:50 +0100
Subject: [ExI] Are Limited Lifespans An Evolutionary Adaptation?
In-Reply-To: <mailman.3.1434888003.17454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
References: <mailman.3.1434888003.17454.extropy-chat@lists.extropy.org>
Message-ID: <5586C7CA.5070304@yahoo.com>

All this talk about evolution and lifespan highlights a simple fact:  
Evolution can only take us so far.  And it has (and look at the mess 
it's made on the way!).

If we want longer lives (not just a few extra years, but significantly 
longer lives), we'll have to use engineering and deliberate design.  
Tinkering with drugs and genes in our existing bodies is not going to 
cut it.  That approach is like changing the additives in your petrol in 
the hope that it will reverse the corrosion of your spark plugs.  We 
need a re-design.

Ben Zaiboc


From anders at aleph.se  Sun Jun 21 22:10:36 2015
From: anders at aleph.se (Anders Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 00:10:36 +0200
Subject: [ExI] new horizons
In-Reply-To: <005801d0abdb$d9fdc9a0$8df95ce0$@att.net>
Message-ID: <405397515-22461@secure.ericade.net>

Fr?n:   spike <spike66 at att.net> 



 

?
Reading about the New Horizons flyby of Pluto coming up in about 4 weeks, I was reminded of when NH was launched over nine years ago, the kinds of things I was thinking about, our discussions of it here on ExI-chat.? My bride was 3 months pregnant then, and we were hoping it would go full term (success!)? I recall at the time how my life would be nine and half years into the future, what would be going on, etc.? It was worth the wait.
I had just moved to from Sweden Oxford for a new job at the brand new Future of Humanity Institute, still unsure of whether I would thrive out there in the big world. 













?Happy solstice everyone!





Happy solstice!

>From my Stockholm vantage point at midnight the sky is nicely twilight blue. The new moon near the horizon points due north. 


Anders Sandberg, Future of Humanity Institute Philosophy Faculty of Oxford University
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From lubkin at unreasonable.com  Tue Jun 23 17:29:44 2015
From: lubkin at unreasonable.com (David Lubkin)
Date: Tue, 23 Jun 2015 13:29:44 -0400
Subject: [ExI] Probiotics
Message-ID: <201506231729.t5NHTqo3014383@andromeda.ziaspace.com>

What's the best current advice on what are the best foods, beverages, 
supplements. or pharmaceuticals to consume daily (a) to restore a 
healthy intestinal microbiome given symptoms A or diagnosis B, (b) 
before, during, or after a course of antibiotics, and (c) to maintain 
a healthy ecology? What's your source?

There are so many competing products and claims. And it's not clear 
there's good evidence yet in support of any recommendation over another.

ISTM there are several categories of dietary, medical, or behavioral inputs:

1. Narrow-spectrum antibiotic inputs that are more lethal to harmful 
bacteria than to beneficial;

2. Inputs that mitigate or restore from the harm that the harmful 
bacteria are doing, including coping with their die-off;

3. Beneficial bacteria;

4. Inputs that are more helpful to beneficial bacteria than to harmful; and

5. Inputs that accelerate or buffer the body's adaptation to changes 
in gut bacteria.


-- David.



From danust2012 at gmail.com  Sun Jun 28 09:17:29 2015
From: danust2012 at gmail.com (Dan)
Date: Sun, 28 Jun 2015 02:17:29 -0700
Subject: [ExI] Leviathan to Singularity?
Message-ID: <49D1ADCA-0337-4923-8ECB-ABF530F67576@gmail.com>

http://reason.com/archives/2015/06/27/blood-and-leviathan

Regards,

Dan
 Sample my Kindle books via:
http://www.amazon.com/Dan-Ust/e/B00J6HPX8M/
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